A woman describes how chasing influencer aesthetics and external validation—lipstick, curls, brand deals—became her entire identity. When the praise stopped, she felt empty and realized she'd abandoned inner growth for red-carpet events and money. She warns that without intention, fame pulls you away from work that actually matters.
What makes it fun? What makes it not fun? Yeah. And what keeps it fun? So what makes it not fun is when it starts to become your identity. OK. That's what happened to me. Lipstick and curls became my identity. Mm-hmm. I was so focused on making everything look aesthetically pleasing for a brand deal, for the aesthetics, for the, like, look and feel of, like, me being an influencer, that I was neglecting my own growth as a person. And any time I wasn't getting flown out somewhere, I wasn't at some red carpet event, when I wasn't being praised for just, you know, my hair or whatever, I would have these moments where I would sit with myself and be like, uh, I feel terrible. Like, what am I doing? Like, what am I actually doing? I would have like these little moments where everything would like pause for a second and I'd be like, what am I doing? Like, what is this? Like, why? And then I would get another email, another brand deal, something, and I would get swooped back into it. And it was like, in those small moments, I felt like God was trying to show me, like, yeah, like, you're not on your path. Like, you're actually, like, so enamored by all the shiny lights and bright things that, like, you're actually not in purpose anymore. If you're not, like, intentional about keeping it aligned, you will succumb to the temptation of chasing after that check instead of doing the things that you feel led to do.
