Find someone to inspire you

Comparison online can be quite demoralizing, but it can also be a great place to find your mentors.

With Instagram accounts and other creators online, you can often find a tribe of people with similar tastes without even trying. By the time you have clicked on a few accounts that have insterested you, watched a reel or tiktok for a short time or followed certain youtubers the imperfect but still pretty savvy algorithm finds you a load of people to follow or see in discovery or FYP (for you page) and before you know it you are embroiled in a community you didn’t know that you needed to find.

I have seen this in action because I have a personal account as well as my account attached to this blog. The MumWriteNow instagram links me up to lovely bookstagram accounts, gothic images, nature imagery and other people interested in folklore. It’s a serene and beautiful place though I admit I only play at photography, looking for bright spots that inspire me, as I have shared before. Meanwhile my personal account is a messy place full of Real Housewives content. There is nothing wrong with either, we are all multitudes, but it is interesting how in modern life you can curate yourself into certain communities.

In discovering these different areas, I have also noticed there are some accounts who are inspiring for me. Whether it is interiors and décor on my own account or book ideas or information about folklore, it is apsirational and inspiring if you are careful to follow those that give you what you are asking for. As long as we remember that this is a higlight reel, I find this open access to other creative people as well as other people with the same interests as me can act almost like a mentor even if you do not know that person.

There is a certain value in understanding what you admire in another person. They could tell you what you want to be doing, Though I do not pretend to have some of the time and patience of bookstagram accounts who feature décor and books placed beautifully, but I love it. I find the reverence for books, the atmosphere it creates is alluring. For me, taking time to appreciate the beauty in the art is important.

In the Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron shares that “Jealousy is a Map”. And I think that these things we are attracted to act in a similar way. Often what attracts us are things we have within ourselves and they can guide us to find more of that in our life. My experience of the Artist’s Way programme was that jealousy was pushing me to explore more in different types of writing, reminding me of my interest in drama as well as novels. I went away and wrote the first scenes of a play that has been whirling around my mind for a while.

In reviewing what inspires me in these accounts, I thought of a real life mentor that I met in my younger years. She was always so careful in the way she would lay out even the simplest thing like a snack, using beautiful crockery. She would have flowers arranged on a tray, her house had an artistic flare that stretched into the garden. When I browse through these curated images now online, it reminds me of that same attention for detail. I was told that she worked really hard at making everything so lovely and you could tell. I know just how much time to it takes to make things clean and tidy, let alone allow your artistic side spill into your everyday living. I can admire this aethetic lifestyle even more as an adult.

When we find these people, a community who cares more about aesthetics and beauty they can be so aspirational but we can also allow them to direct us to what is truly important to us. Making more of an effort, having attention to detail is hard but the rewards reach so much wider than we realise. Sadly the woman who inspired me passed away, but the strong and lasting impression she has left on me will stay with me always.