You’re not a brand. You don’t have to be consistent for the algorithm. You’re allowed to be in progress.

REFLECTION

WHAT THIS MEANS

Posting constantly trains you to be consistent, recognisable and on-message, which is useful for selling something and poor for being seventeen. People your age change their minds, their taste and their opinions, and a feed makes that look like a failure of identity rather than the ordinary business of growing up. You are not obliged to be a coherent product.

Let yourself contradict last year in public. Drop the thing you were known for if you are done with it, and take up the odd new interest instead.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

Where do you force yourself to stay consistent for other people?

MORE IN MINDSET & IDENTITY

Free, with nothing to buy inside it.