24. Mindset Shifts: Embracing Instagram and Growing Your Influence

Hey doc, I just want to talk about a revelation that I just had. So I'm very big into mindset work.  It may seem very woo woo,  which is a term that I didn't even know existed until I started. coaching just like mindset work. I also didn't know about any of this stuff. but it is important and it has really changed how I view things, how I live my life, and definitely how I'm able to help my clients. 

, The things you say about yourself matter. When you say things like, I am bad at math, which is obviously an example from a child. I have a four year old that I'm teaching math. So that was the first one that came to my mind. But if you say, , I am bad at math,  whether or not you're actually bad at math, it becomes a reality.

You behave in such a way that that becomes true, and it's the same for anything else that you say about yourself in that first person. Those I am statements, it then becomes your reality. So I always tell my clients to be very careful about what you are saying about yourself, what you are saying to yourself, and really focus on saying and believing the positive things.

And saying them out loud to yourself in mirrors and you will be surprised at how difficult that is. There's like this shame almost, like I don't want anybody to hear me and you know, what if I sound silly and actually articulating the words, saying it to yourself in the mirror can be so uncomfortable  and, as women physicians.

Nobody wants to feel silly, right? We're used to feeling smart, in control, in charge.  When you feel silly, like in residency, you get embarrassed.  If you don't know something, somebody could die. Like, this is not something that we handle well.  So, it can be a challenge for some people to speak to themselves in this way.

But it is really important, and I truly believe that.  So you may be wondering what the hell I'm talking about. Well, I'm talking about my social media.  You may or may not know.  I used to do general OBGYN  education, like patient education on TikTok.

I started in November of 2022 and Within a couple months, grew my account to like  17k followers on TikTok, 15 on Facebook, and like about 600 on YouTube. I had a cotton featured in like a care. com article.  You know, it was, it was a good channel and I really enjoyed doing it and I really enjoyed creating on TikTok. 

Which a lot of people don't like, don't understand, but it was a, it's a good platform for a lot of good reasons. It's a terrible platform for a lot of reasons, but in terms of from the creator side, it is a very easy app to use and I got used to it. I was on it for months.  I never liked Instagram. I felt like it was very superficial, very fake.

And I stayed off of it, especially long before I started doing any of this stuff,  I actually came off of Instagram for a while because it just made me feel bad about myself and I needed to protect my mental health.

So going on Instagram and seeing images and all that of  people not doing anything to me, but I just didn't like how I felt when I would scroll there. So I stopped going on there. I didn't realize that I was still holding on to this, I hate Instagram and how much it was affecting me now. So I stopped creating for Dr.

Toya OBGYN, which was my OBGYN patient education platform.  to really just focus  my messaging on everything to do with Dr. Toya coaching. I have way too many things going on to split my focus and it was also quite confusing. people didn't know what platform to follow, to tag, all this stuff.  And I really only had the capacity to do one thing and Dr.

Toya coaching is the thing. So I wanted to focus.  So I was like, okay, I'm just going to leave that alone and start over from scratch. But I know most of my physician moms are not really on TikTok, they're on Instagram and they're on Facebook.  So in order to spread this message,  self care, self love, take care of yourself as well as you take care of your children and your patients. I needed to create on Instagram and Facebook, but there was a lot of resistance  and I didn't realize that I had been telling myself I cannot grow a following on Instagram. Like I don't have the personality for it, you know, I'm not going to show up on Instagram full Face of makeup.

I don't have these cute trendy posts and all that. All my videos on TikTok were just me talking. Some of them were trendy, but it was literally me talking. No music, no nothing. I was like, that's not, that's not Instagram material.  And I actually had a coach, one of my coaches be like, yeah, you can just, you can do that on Instagram and still be fine.

But I was adamant, like, I cannot grow an Instagram following. I didn't say that to myself, but it is what I believe. And It has proven to be very problematic  because I have all these ideas, all these things that I want to say, and  I can say it to you now, but when it comes time to just pick up my phone and record real quick, like I used to do with TikTok, it's just like, Oh,  I can't, I don't know.

And then I ended up not doing it at all. And funny thing about social media accounts, if you don't really create for it, it tends not to grow. So it's like this self fulfilling prophecy  that I have decided that I don't have the right personality, the right content for this platform. And as such, it will never grow.  And then I don't create as much.

And then it doesn't grow. So I'm going to make a concerted effort to change that and to change my mindset around Instagram.  And I am making a promise. It is Monday, July 8th when I am recording this. And it just came to me and I said, okay, let me  record a podcast episode about it. Maybe I should have recorded an Instagram video about it.

Who knows? But yeah, I am going to, do an experiment. But if I change my mindset by first changing the thoughts I have surrounding Instagram, the things I say about Instagram, which is really the first step, so even though I may not necessarily believe what I'm saying, if I say it over and over, I'll believe it.

I'll give some instructions to my subconscious and I'll start to believe it. So first step is stop saying that I hate Instagram. Stop saying that,  you know, my content isn't the right fit and all that stuff. Then I'll start believing it and then my account will start to grow. So we'll see. And I hope you follow along for this process and help a sister out. Go and follow me on Instagram. If you are not following already, share my profile with another physician mom. It doesn't only have to rely on my mindset.  You can help grow my Instagram channel too, but , it's all part of it, right? Like I  put it out there that I am now going to embrace the platform. I put out the positivity about it and then what I want is attracted to me. So you going and following and sharing isn't cheating.  , that's how it works,  and this is,  getting,  we're deep in the woo woo right now, right?

 What you focus on is what you will attract. What you say and what you believe will come to fruition because what you say will be so.  So we shall see.  If I can keep it up, keep my positive words and thoughts and watch this channel grow so I can spread all of my positive messages to you and to other physician moms. To share my stories and the stories of my colleagues so that all moms out there can feel  a lot more seen and a little less alone. So I will see you on the next episode of Stethoscopes and Strollers.