My Favorite Instagram Follows

Instagram can be tough, and it gets a bad rap. But, I think it’s all about who you follow. In life, it’s important to be aware of who we surround ourselves with, so why would it be any different in an online environment? Here are some guidelines on how I curate my feed and some of my favorite Instagram follows.

If you’re not sure where to start, here’s a few tips on curating your feed:

• Follow people who inspire you. This could be others in your same industry or in a totally different realm. I follow quite a few fellow designers, so the challenge here is not to pull too much inspiration. In this digital age where very little is original anymore, it’s easy to pull too much inspiration. If your work begins to look like someone else’s, it’s time to reevaluate who you’re following.
• Follow people who challenge you. This can be anything from a coach or educator to a psychologist account (see my suggestions below).
• Follow people who don’t look like you. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to just be surrounded by people with my exact life experience. That’s no way to live life or grow as a human.
• Follow people / accounts who entertain! Have some fun on the platform. This can be a meme account, Enneagram account, etc.
• If they spark jealousy, unfollow. Even if that includes me. But, don’t stop there. Do the deep inner work of getting to the root of that issue. Life is all about growing and evolving, so don’t let the warning sign of jealously go to waste. Then, if you want, you can always follow again after you’ve worked on those things in yourself.

Here are some of my favorite follows on Instagram:

• The Holistic Psychologist — One of my goals is to be able to go to therapy. In the meantime, this account is super helpful. It sounds odd to follow a psychology account on Instagram, but it’s so, so helpful.
• The Birds Papaya — Sarah is one of my new favorite accounts. I’ve shared before how I’ve come a long, long way in loving my body the way it is. It’s inspiring to see someone else so bold and vocal in the way they love themselves.
• Mattie Tiegreen — I’m not even sure how to describe Mattie’s account. It’s full of the real life stuff you don’t often see talked about on Instagram. Definitely worth a follow.
• Uncolonial History — I don’t know about you, but this is the history I wasn’t taught in schools. This account is all about challenging our whitewashed understanding of history.
• CAC Radical Grace — This is a faith based organization / account ‘seeking to nurture compassionate action through contemplative practice and teaching’. It’s beautiful and hopeful and inspirational. So good.
• Austin Channing Brown — She’s a writer, speaker, and author educating on anti-racism and social justice. Accounts like this constantly challenge me to learn more, do better, and actively pursue anti-racism.
• Liz and Mollie — This is a fun account! Liz and Mollie illustrate graphics about the workplace. They’re witty and insightful.
• NYT Gender — Wonderful account highlighting powerful women! It’s so inspirational to me to see women shaping our world.

Yikes, so that was definitely more recommendations than I intended to make, but believe it or not I did cull the list down! Now I want to hear from you — what are some of your favorite Instagram accounts?