Social Break Series Day Fifteen

​Skipping day eight’s social break journal worked so well for me that I just went on and skipped days 11-15! And now, keeping track of what day of my social break it is has become more challenging than staying off social media! I wouldn’t have anticipated that at the beginning of this experiment.

At any rate, here are a few additional day fifteen thoughts. 

I am learning: 

Staying away from social media is easier than I originally anticipated but I’m now noticing that it is becoming a slight inconvenience for me to keep in the loop regarding IRL community meet ups. So many of my friends and colleagues use social platforms for event coordination and communication that I don’t know that staying off social media 100% will ever be a reality for me. I am still really enjoying my time away so when I do come back it’ll be in a significantly decreased capacity. 

I am also learning that I much prefer IRL connections vs connecting in virtual reality. The internet sure is an amazing tool that allows us to connect with people we may have never met otherwise but I personally prefer to meet and build relationships with people face to face and supplement those relationships with social instead of the other way around. I intend to take this learning and preferences into my business in more intentional ways going forward. 

I am excited about: 

The increased mental space and clarity I am experiencing. So far, one of the biggest benefits of my break has been what I call decreased noise. Imagine you’re in a house and you have a  TV blasting the news upstairs, you have another TV playing a drama downstairs, you have two competing radios; one set to an AM baseball game and one set to FM top forty hits. The UPS driver is ringing your doorbell and the Chihuahua is going nuts. Any minute the landscapers will start their mowing and weed whacking....

For me, my social break has been like I hit the master mute button. I can hear myself think again. And I like it. 

Am I feeling anxious?

I haven’t experienced much anxiety throughout this experiment so far. I mean, I feel a bit of pressure and obligation to go into the groups I admin and approve the people that are waiting to get in but I’m getting over it. They can wait. It’s not life or death. And when I do go back in, I’ve already decided to change the group settings and either make it public or auto approve all requests. Problem solved! 

I do wonder if I will fall back into the habit of mindlessly scrolling social once I do rejoin and I guess that remains to be seen. I certainly hope that isn’t the case but I suppose it’s like anything else we have a tendency to overindulge in. Stay tuned. 

What rewards am I looking forward to? 

I sincerely believe, or strongly hope at the very least, that there will be a profound breakthrough for me as a result of this experiment. As you may or may not have noticed, it seems like I’m looking for something. I speculate that I’m looking for a way to make my life more meaningful, more productive, more profitable, more peaceful. And if I can achieve any of the above, I’ll be pleased. Those are the rewards I’m looking forward to. 

What are my next steps? 

This experiment has touched on the challenge of productivity. Within that realm, I am beginning to experiment with how productive I am naturally vs how the “experts” say I should get things done. 

Have you ever heard of the Kolbe A assessment? Long story short (and a huge oversimplification), it measures your natural productivity based on the strengths of your top competencies. We know that everyone has a different way of getting things done. We also know that people not only do things differently but also in a different order and in a different rhythm. The Kolbe A assessment begins to give insight into how you do things more efficiently than the rest of the population. 

Shameless Plug: If you’d like to take the Kolbe and discuss your results, hit me up for a coaching session! 

At any rate, I’ve been experiencing some resistance in certain areas of my life and frankly it has just been way too exhausting to try and police my behaviors (like waking every day at 5:30am) so I’ve given myself permission to do things as they come naturally instead of as the experts suggest. I wonder, what will my body do left to it’s own devices? Will it turn into an unhealthy, overweight, drunken heathen? Or might I find a life and work rhythm that’s in a sweet spot? 

What about you? Are you experiencing any life or work resistance? What can you experiment with to find even greater freedom?