Free Yourself: Clean Up Your Socials

Your social media accounts can become an accumulation of a lot of things you don’t need and want in your life anymore. That’s why it is important to understand the importance of declustering regularly. To do so you need to take responsibility to subtract and not just add. This will free you from anything that does not serve your online persona.

Transcript

You have two different personas.

Your analog or real persona and your digital persona.

When you're in balance,

Both of these personas will be extremely similar.

In an imbalanced state of mind,

Your digital persona and analog persona are very different.

An imbalanced mind creates a fake digital persona.

To avoid this happening,

You need to clean up your socials and bring maturity and truthfulness to both personas as much as possible.

So,

Today we're looking at your digital personas and the importance of decluttering them.

Our goal is to become aware of what parts of your social media presence serve you and what parts don't serve you.

Your raised awareness will bring ease when deleting things from your online persona.

Our goal is to free yourself from unnecessary pressure and expectations that you might subconsciously build by being untruthful in your social media.

Mokokomo Mokononana said,

People who smile while they are alone used to be called insane until we invented smartphones and social media.

Plenty of reasons to become more aware of your profiles.

First of all,

What actually is your digital persona?

Your digital persona is basically your entire online presence and how it represents you.

Your digital persona is mainly made up of social media profiles like Facebook,

Instagram,

Twitter,

LinkedIn and so on.

Furthermore,

It can consist of articles,

Blogs and websites.

It is also made up of all your messenger apps and groups.

Your digital persona is basically anything online that can be accessed by other people and companies.

Now,

Let's become conscious that we live in a time where you have two first impressions of anyone you ever meet.

Your first analog impression and your first digital impression of a persona.

Either one can come first.

What matters is that both have to be somewhat aligned.

As first impressions are often the most fragile ones,

You want to be very aware of the first digital impression people have of you.

You don't want to miss out on beautiful friendships or partnerships because you have some weird stuff online.

Make sure both first impressions,

Analog and digital,

Serve you.

Now,

To what extent is it true that you are what you share?

I like this quote,

But I think a better way to say it would be you have to live up to what you share.

Or you're treated in the real world as if your digital persona was really you.

This is important to understand because very often we portray ourselves as a version that is not really authentic.

And here starts the difficulty.

Now,

Of course,

You cannot be 100% authentic and neither should you be.

Nobody is perfect or pure.

But it might serve you to become more aware of what and how much of it you share on social media.

There is power in authenticity and transparency.

But there are certain topics and images from your life that you don't need to discuss with everyone and anyone.

Furthermore,

Sensitive topics or photos are not supposed to be on your mind all day,

Every day.

These topics need specific times and specific environments to be brought up.

When you share sensitive topics or photos,

Be aware that they pop back into your life.

They are now constantly part of your life.

And this constant open wound or extreme or overly sexual version of you might not serve you.

So let's get back to aligning your digital persona to your analog persona.

As mentioned before,

It is healthy to be selective with what you share when it comes to sensitive material.

But I also recommend you don't abuse being selective to create an idealized version of yourself.

Even if your digital persona is rather superficial,

Make sure that it is a somewhat accurate representation of your character.

I recommend this because consciously or subconsciously you will want to live up to the characteristics of your digital persona.

For example,

If you portray a super outgoing,

Always happy social person,

But in reality you are a rather shy introvert,

Then you might struggle to truly connect with people.

When people meet you,

They will expect you to behave just like your online persona.

And when you don't,

They will think that you don't like them.

They will be offended and think that they are not good enough for you.

And they will avoid you in the future.

Now just as big a problem is to portray only an idealized version of your body.

Most of us go through phases where we have a few kilos more or less.

That is healthy and perfectly fine.

It is fine to be a little skinnier and it is fine to be a little heavier at times.

This is part of the cycle of nature.

Now if you were to portray only your skinniest version online,

You would automatically try to hide your body the rest of the time.

And you might also build shame.

Be conscious of how your digital persona influences your physical self-image.

The next reason to clean up your socials is that you are growing older and you are becoming more mature.

Make sure your digital persona is also changing and maturing.

In real life you constantly change your furniture,

Your housing,

You change your surroundings,

Partners,

Friends.

You constantly change yourself and your life.

And just as much as you change and develop,

Your digital persona needs to develop as well.

Because if you don't,

Then your analog and digital persona will drift apart.

And you might start having an unhealthy relationship with your digital persona.

Or worse,

Develop a personality disorder.

Now another reason why you should be on top of your digital persona is that depending on your field of work,

Your name will be researched.

Companies spend a lot of resources researching digital personas.

It is usually the easiest way to find out personality traits or faults a person does not share at first sight.

So make sure you don't miss out on potential career advancements because you are tagged in some unflattering photo or you still have a dodgy comment online from when you were 19.

Next,

Let's look at social behavior in regards to digital and analog personas drifting apart.

There are a few problems that can arise when you start liking your digital persona more than your real self.

The biggest danger is that you avoid analog contact as such.

That you isolate yourself.

When your digital persona is different from you and you prefer your online persona,

Then it can happen that you avoid socializing.

Isolating yourself is a recipe for psychological imbalance.

So be conscious of your social life and its value.

Next,

Let us talk about how you can avoid negative influences on your life because of your digital personas.

First of all,

Become completely aware of the extent of your digital persona.

You can start by using a search engine like Ecosia or Google.

Search your own name and see what comes up.

Also,

Go through your social media and see if there is anything you should adjust or get rid of.

Make conscious choices as to what still serves you and what doesn't.

The next step towards balance is making your digital communication as conscious and as authentic as your analog communication.

Most of us are a lot less aware and empathetic and a lot more careless and confronting when communicating online.

This communication could be anything from writing messages all the way to commenting on social media posts.

Online communication is very tricky because you don't see the immediate reaction from others.

So make sure your online communication is as conscious as your analog.

The next tip I have is to delete online friends that you actually don't want to be connected with anymore.

You have some friends who you are supposed to be connected with forever and others only for a certain period of time.

Even if you delete friends,

You can still come back to them in a few years if you want.

Just make sure your list of connections serves you right now.

The last thing I want to mention is your privacy settings.

This is important because you benefit from being in control of what energies and reactions you invite into your life.

Spend some time regularly to be conscious of your settings.

This will not only make sure that only specific people can access your content,

It will also give you a feeling of control.

Now we have arrived at the practical part of today.

I would like to invite you now to make two lists.

One list is a description of your analog persona or your real self.

The other person to describe is your digital persona.

How would you describe these two people?

Take into account how you present yourself to others and how you communicate to others.

Pause the course now and come back to it when you have created your two lists.

Now I would like to invite you to analyze the similarities and differences between your two personas.

And I would also like to invite you to write down any ideas on how you can make your two personas as similar as possible.

Furthermore,

What effect would your adjustments have on you and others?

Again,

Pause the course now and write down your observations.

So over the next few days or during this week,

I would like to invite you to become more aware of the influence of your digital persona.

Become aware of how you and others communicate and present themselves.

How do people sound and feel when you look at your screen?

And how do they sound and feel when you stand in front of them?