How I Decided to Quit Instagram as a Tool to Share My Artwork
I still remember the early days of Instagram. I jumped on the platform in 2014, back then it felt easy enough to take photos of my art and participate in fun art challenges. I had no intentions of growing an audience or building a personal brand. I just wanted to share my art with the world, be in community with other artists, and be inspired every time I logged on.
It has been several years since these early, innocent, and carefree days on this social media app. What once felt so simple and fun quickly started to lose its spark year after year. A simple photo began to turn into worrying about a perfectly curated feed, hours and hours agonizing over what to share, and hoping my work would be seen by new people.
Secretly, I wanted to go viral with my artwork, find fame, and get thousands of clients flocking my way seeking to work with me. I told myself this would be the path to my creative business success. I just needed to get serious and find a strategy to hack the algorithm. At the same time, I kept hearing contradictory messages from all kinds of influencers online. Some said to keep posting daily and several times a day. While others suggested dropping any kind of structure like a content calendar or schedule and posting whenever we wanted. The more I researched, the more confused and exhausted I felt.
The more I researched, the more confused and exhausted I felt.
I tried all kinds of different approaches but nothing felt sustainable or gave me the kinds of results I was looking for. The overwhelm quickly turned into hopelessness and depression. I began to compare myself with my peers almost daily. I started to hate making art and kept questioning my self worth. Instagram started to consume most of my thoughts, my energy, and daily life. Interestingly enough throughout this whole time, my biggest fear was letting it all go. How could I? I had spent so much time building up my humble follower count, a semi-decent signature visual style, and had met several amazing people on the app. It felt impossible to let it all go and surrender.
This is when I realized it was time to take a step back and access the way I was spending my time. I had to pause to observe what had transpired throughout all those years and how I had ended up feeling so hopeless and disconnected from my bigger purpose in life. It was time to accept that I was doing the same old things out of habit and expecting different results. It was time to quit.
As I reflect now, I can see several reasons why quitting never felt like a real possibility for me. I believed that:
Instagram would be my only ticket to creative success
I wasn’t allowed to quit
I wasn’t talented, business savvy, creative enough
However, the reality is that I grew out of my initial intention for using this platform many years ago. I hadn’t yet learned that building a business went beyond having a pretty Instagram feed and having millions of followers. I had also stopped following my heart’s calling, respecting my natural rhythms, and being in alignment with my authentic self. I had been operating from a place of scarcity, competition, and low self-worth. No wonder I felt so awful.
I had been operating from a place of scarcity, competition, and low self-worth. No wonder I felt so awful.
The good news is that since quitting Instagram, as a place to share my artwork, I find myself feeling much happier. I no longer feel the pressure to create work out of fear of losing the interest of my followers. I’ve also replaced overwhelm and hopelessness with a revitalized, nourishing, and intimate creative practice. And, yes, I’m also still very open to the idea of sharing my work with others online but I no longer feel a rush to figure it all out. I’m happy exploring my creative voice freely and getting to know myself all over again. Perhaps quitting isn’t so bad after all, perhaps all I needed was a chance to start all over again.
Renata is a creativity coach guiding women of color creatives to breakthrough creative block with therapeutic art making. She’s currently offering a free copy of her therapeutic art making workbook when you sign up for her email list. Sign up here to get your free copy.
