Mid-Month Update: Social Media Hiatus

It’s been 16 days away from social media.

And, I’ll be honest, it still feels… weird. 

 

There have been TONS of benefits, which I’ll talk about in just a second. But, one of the major drawbacks is a lost sense of connection. I DO love sharing my life on social media. I DO love giving y’all glimpses into my day and approach and life. 

However, my ability to cope with stress has – to be totally honest – skyrocketed since I left all the little photo and video apps behind. 

I used to find myself scrolling as soon as I woke up in the morning. Before a conscious thought had crossed my mind, Instagram was open and I was clicking through stories. When I parked the car after a workout, I would instinctively check my notifications before I went inside. My favorite thing to do when I quit work for the day was curl up on the couch under a blanket and do a little scroll. 

And, at the same time, seemingly unrelated… I was battling workout resistance on the daily. I would set an alarm to take a lunch break and end up scarfing something down and then clicking through stories. I would make grand plans for the weekend that included making bread or connecting with friends, and the weekend would slip away without those things happening. On the days where stress creeped in, I would lay awake at night, promising myself that at the next 5-minute interval, I would shut off my phone and finally go to sleep. 

I’m beginning to think those behavior patterns aren’t so unrelated to social media, after all. 

Here’s some data from the first 15 days of this experiment:

• I’ve eaten at least 6 servings of plants ever day, with most days being closer to 8. 
• I’ve gone for a walk with my dog every single day. 
• I’ve made it to the gym 12 times. 
• I’ve done a thought download or some sort of mindset work every day. 
• I’ve meditated 13 times. 
• I’ve made bread, scheduled Zoom catch up dates with friends, posted WAY more in our Circle community for Change Academy, played board games, and read 3 books. 

Anecdotally, I feel more energized and present in my life than I have in months. 

Now, the researcher in me does have to make the caveat that I’ve switched up FOUR different components of my routine to increase resilience & coping – so not all of these benefits might be directly because of the social media hiatus. 

AND, to my total shock, my business has not, in fact, crashed.

We’ve had our highest Change Academy enrollment thus far this year (our workshop is about STRESS this month, which I think has something to do with it). We had more than 50 people commit to 12-months of Academy PRO. On Monday, we’ll open The Vault using ONLY email marketing – which will be a big moment for me to learn to TRUST emails and not feel like I have to constantly blast every deal or promotion on social media. 

So, what’s next?

Well, 14 more days of social media hiatus. After that, I’m not sure. I definitely DO want to go back to social media – I’m not giving up Instagram anytime soon. But I do think I want to explore a significant reduction in the AMOUNT of content I put on Instagram specifically, and instead devote that energy and information into other areas. 

YouTube, for example, is searchable – and the educational content I put on there has a shelf life that is WAY beyond what exists on IG. 

Our Change Academy community is another place I want to pour time and effort into – I just feel like we can have WAY more nuanced & in-depth discussions inside of that space on change topics, because we’re all operating from a much more similar level of knowledge. I will always provide free content on other platforms, but I want to be MORE invested in sharing the really good stuff with people who have actually invested in me. 

PS: I just posted an open Q & A in our Circle Community, so if you’re an academy member and you have questions about stress, what you learned in the workshop, or anything in this post, comment there. :]

I might also play around with blogging. I LOVE to write, and often I feel like the tiny IG caption limits just aren’t enough for me. 

The point here is that I want to give myself the ability to share, educate, and connect with people — but I want to do it in spaces where there’s a concrete “on” and “off”, and my brain isn’t constantly responding to the gamified notifications that are literally designed to keep me hooked. 

I want to spend more time living my life — being present, and intentional, and alive — instead of watching someone else live theirs. 

I do plan to have my team post this on social media, because I think a little mid-month update will be fun.

And PS: We’ve (apparently) received several concerned messages about me. As you can hopefully tell – I’m alive, I’m actually thriving. Nothing “happened” to catalyze this social media hiatus – it was more like the volume of stress in my life was slowly turning up, and I wanted to get ahead of it before it got me.

If you want to learn more about the stress I was experiencing and the coping methods I’m focused on this month, I covered all of that in the Change Academy workshop, so feel free to join us there to get the real  science & strategy behind stress. 

That’s all for now – we’ll chat in April. Thanks for reading!