By J.D. Eddy, Editorial Editor
I’ve been talking about consistently finding things that can improve your mental health. This does not just pertain to whom you surround yourself with. It also pertains to the kind of habits you have online. Social media tends to warp the perceptions that we have of ourselves, but the main thing is learning that if you are happy with how you look or how you act, that’s all that matters.
Social media played a key role in how I viewed myself for a long time, but I never needed the validation from anyone other than myself. That is the best way to be. Once you are comfortable with the way you look and act, and once you do not care about how others want you to be, you begin to notice positive differences in your mental health. You will have an aura of confidence about yourself in academics, sports, physical lifestyle and in your social life.
We can take some practical steps to help alleviate insecurities about ourselves. when I began to base my standards off what social media considered “right,” I deleted the apps for a while. When I was in high school, there was a five-month period when I deleted: Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook and Vine (yes, I’m that old). It took me that long to realize that I was comfortable enough with myself to re-download these apps, knowing that I did not need anyone else’s opinions of me to know that I loved myself. During this time, I experienced positive mental growth, happiness and physical well-being. I became more physically healthy than I had been before.
Up to that point, I was reliant on what others thought about me in order to further myself. I would not do certain things if I wasn’t receiving any validation from it. Not a very healthy way to live, if I say so myself. Being that way has changed my life drastically today. The main difference would have to be intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
Intrinsic motivators are internal, your main drive for doing what you do and how you do it. You do not rely on the words of others around you for that push, the reason that you fulfill what you want to do.
These are things that are needed, but extrinsic is the one that most individuals today rely on, needing environmental factors to influence how you want to act or feel. This can influence whether you make decisions that are important to your life. These sort of motivators may influence your performance in sports, academics, relationships and family life. They did for me, but the thing is that I have a healthy balance of both. I do not mind if someone is telling me to do something or motivating me to do it. But I don’t need this external motivation to push myself to do things in sports. Academics is different. I need this little “push” in order to show me that I can do whatever assignments I am doing at the time.
These are all just pointers about things that may help. They can put the sort of things in your head that allow you to know what is going on with your motivations. None of this is to push something on you that I think you should do, but I hope they help you.
As always, if you want to voice your opinion in the paper, write a letter to Northwestern News. I would love to hear your opinions on some of these topics.