We’re under more pressures to “keep up” than ever before, so Tasha Osborne created The Edited with the goal of creating a fun, relaxed, happy environment to help encourage others to love themselves first. Share what you feel comfortable sharing, stop feeling like your life is a competition, and remember to love yourself first.
The Start
Believe it or not, I’ve always wanted to work for myself. I remember going to the dog groomers with my mom when I was pretty young and being absolutely blown away that people would actually pay this woman real money to make their dogs beautiful from her basement. So, as I grew up, entrepreneurship was always on the back of my mind, but I had absolutely zero idea as to what I wanted to do.
I graduated from college with a business diploma in 2013, took a year off to work, and then decided to start my degree in business marketing in 2014. This means that by the time I was finished the first year (out of four) of my degree, all of the friends I graduated from high school with were starting their glamorous careers (or, so it seemed). And yet here I was...in a classroom, completely lost with what I wanted to do, yet still trying to make it seem like I was keeping up.
It was during this time of self-doubt that I was brought right back to something my dad used to tell me growing up (which was a long time before social media, might I add), and that was that everybody only shows you want they want you to see. He basically would tell me that it isn’t until you spend a lot of time with them that you truly see who they really are and what’s really going on.
I always say that this isn’t necessarily a bad thing - you should never feel pressured to share any elements of your life that you don’t feel comfortable with. But, with that said, the mission behind The Edited is to love your true, authentic self first. You know, that “not-edited” one, hidden behind all the filters.
During the fourth and final year of my degree, I worked my butt off to design a clothing company filled with cozy apparel and a self-love message, and officially launched The Edited just two weeks after finishing the final exam of my degree.
From Big Picture to the Everyday
Trying to decide what to do every day to benefit both the future and the present can be extremely difficult. It is so easy to feel pulled from one task to another in attempt to just try everything at once in hopes that something will pay off.
I keep a list of my longer-term goals (one year, two years, five years) - I find it extremely helpful to have an idea as to what I’m working towards. Then, every week I set a mantra for what I want my week to be, set three big work goals and three big personal goals I want to accomplish that week, and then divide it up into daily tasks. Am I perfect at this? Absolutely not. Sometimes I accomplish way more than on my list, sometimes I accomplish way less. At the end of the day, I try my best to trust both the process and myself - I’m smart, I’ll figure things out, so I shouldn’t stress too much. I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
Social Media Perspective
I used to always fall victim to the com- parison game without even realizing it. I would be upset if my life wasn’t following the same timeline or storyline as others, I would get discouraged for not being where I thought I should be, and I would totally base my interests off of what other people were doing. It was such a destructive mindset and made me extremely bitter and jealous without even realizing it. It truly forced me to step back, love myself first, and stop worrying about the online world because it’s not real.
“I had to come to the realization that the rest of the world could wait a couple of minutes.”
Interaction Today
Basically, the entire way I interact with social media is completely different now (and might be a little strange for some people).
Firstly, I bought a cheap alarm clock (yup, they apparently still make those) and completely removed my phone from my bedroom at night. I used to always lay in bed creeping through Instagram before falling asleep, and then checked it again the second I woke up. I had to come to the realization that the rest of the world could wait a couple of minutes, and understand that I deserve a moment or two for myself in the morning. Not going to lie, this was a huge adjustment - I basically had to reprogram how to wake up in the morning without a bright screen in my face immediately, but eventually, I got there.
Next, I unfollowed a TON of accounts. This may seem so obvious, but I had to consciously evaluate if the accounts I was following were actually serving my life in a positive way or not. If they motivated me positively, added value to my life, made me smile, or made me overall happy, then I kept following them - if their content made me feel any sort of negative way repeatedly, I unfollowed. It may seem a little mean to unfollow certain people, but the way I see it is that it’s much worse to feel down every time you see their content or think negative thoughts about them every time you see their content (you can also just hide their posts if that makes things any easier for you).
Finally, I turned notifications off on every platform, and then eventually ended up deleting all of the social media apps (excluding Instagram), and my email app off my phone. For work purposes, I still have everything on an iPad (Instagram doesn’t work so well on there, which is the only reason it’s still on my phone) with a data connection, so I’m not completely in the dark. But now I’m extremely intentional when I decide to go on social media.
I completely realize that this isn’t exactly practical for everyone, so I suppose I’d just say to try to go on social media intentionally - do it for you because you WANT to, not just out of habit.
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This story was first published in Issue 10: Perspective.