Social Break Series : Day One

​7:56am I just made my announcement on my personal Facebook page, my business Facebook page and my Instagram account letting folks know I’m intending to take a break from social media for about 30+ days in order to find out if my quality of life will be improved. 

At the moment, I’m feeling excited for this challenge and motivated. I hypothesize that I will experience increased peace, increased productivity, and increased awareness. I also hypothesize that I’ll experience a handful of frustrating moments as I work to reprogram a habit. I’m not sure what that will all look like exactly but I’m going to try and document it so that I can recognize patterns and potentially use the learning to help someone else like myself. 

With that said, I find it ironic that as soon as I posted my announcement, my knee jerk reaction was to go back to each of my social channels and find out what other people thought. I guess I want to know if others approve. 

Hmmm, I wouldn’t define myself as a ‘people pleaser’ but this suggests I may have more attachment to what others think than I realize. And I know from a C-IQ perspective that people are always looking for their “tribe” and we have a human drive to feel “included”. Is it possible that I’m searching for others that are “like me” so that I can rest easier? It sounds logical to me! And yet, I desire an even deeper connection with my tribe and hypothesize that “likes” are not substantial enough to form a satisfying connection. And so, the experiment continues on!

I am feeling anxious about whether or not I should delete Facebook and Instagram apps from my iPhone and iPad. For now, they’ll stay because *think* I’m strong enough not to check them. Stay tuned to find out if they make the cut!

To be fair, I have decided to let myself check Facebook once a day for 5 minutes, if necessary. I have 2 reasons for this. One, my husband and I are in the midst of launching our fishing operation and I’m working on a variety of marketing campaigns. I’ve given myself permission to promote those, if/when necessary. 

The second reason is because I administer and coordinate a ladies social and networking group that meets in real life but our announcements are hosted in a Facebook group. We have 2-3 events scheduled over the next 30+ days. I’ve given myself permission to coordinate those logistics and announcements if/when necessary. 

My third and weakest reason for allowing a 5 min daily check is because I’m not sure I can do this cold turkey and I want some type of security blanket. I rationalize that I’ve spent a lot of time reinforcing that others can contact me via social media — what if a business lead or an important relationship falls through the cracks because I was doing some bizarre experiment? I recognize it’s unlikely but it makes me feel more comfortable moving forward with the experiment at all, so for now, I’ll allow it. 

My next steps are to move on with my work day as best as I can and document what I’m learning and noticing. I intend to use this journal, for lack of a better word, as a replacement for those times that I would’ve been checking social media. It’ll be interesting to observe how many times over the first 72 hours I “check in”... 

Here we go!

12:52pm Decided to take lunch outside since it’s 66F and sunny and I think I’m suffering from a slight vitamin D deficiency. I immediately felt the urge to take a photo to brag about my alfresco lunch on social and remembered the break. I looked down at my pasty white legs and unpolished toes and realized that photo would not make anyone jealous anyway. Added “pedicure” to the TO DO list. 

2:58pm I have a mastermind webinar starting in 2 minutes and the urge to check Facebook is strong. It seems like it is something to “pass the time” when there isn’t enough time to do anything else significant. It dawns on me that I could sit silently. Or breathe. Odd. 

4:58pm Wrapping up the day with a soak in the bathtub and the urge to mindlessly scroll social is STRONG. I mean, what is one meant to do in the bathtub anyway?! I ask myself, does Pinterest count? It is more like a magazine after all.

In other amusing news, I got sunburnt at lunch. Vitamin D levels back to normal. Pedicure has moved up the priority list. 

Today’s productivity:: 

• Created, wrote, and deployed a 5 part welcome email autoresponder for the fishing operation
• Attended a 90 min business mastermind
• Worked on the lesson plans for my upcoming live small group coaching workshop 
• Replied to a few emails
• Committed to a social break and documented my experience 

So, whaddya think? Want to join me and my social break experiment? Add your thoughts and comments below!