I recently took a 6-month break from social media, and it was awesome! This is not something you have to do, but I really wanted to share my story, as I believe a lot of people will benefit from doing the same experiment.
Why Did I Take a Break from Social Media?
Before deciding to take a break from social media, I was trying to “do it all”. And by “do it all”, I mean writing and posting blog posts on my website, posting on quite a few social media platforms, doing our podcast, keeping my house in order, doing my work work for my day job, spending time with friends and family, spending time with my husband, and trying to transform my body at the same time.
Something had to go.
When social media platforms started censoring people, shadow banning accounts, and basically taking away free speech, my decision became simple. I was going to take a break from social media. Mostly because I was annoyed, but also because:
- I needed to reflect on which social media platforms I really wanted to be on and if I wanted to dedicate so much of my time to it.
- I needed to become clear about what messages I wanted to put out in the world, even if it meant getting penalised on certain platforms.
- I needed to focus my time on what matters to me most, which is writing.
How Did I Benefit from My Social Media Break?
By quitting social media for a while, I managed to find a lot more time to write blog posts. I’ve been consistently posting every weekday for 6 months and I think my experiment really helped. I managed to reorganise my entire house and feel a little more put together overall.
I also dedicated this time to my body transformation journey, and managed to complete the 75 HARD™ challenge, lose 4 kg (8.8 lbs), read four non-fiction books, and make exercising twice a day a habit.
What was great about not looking at what other people were posting for such a long time was that I felt less pressure to create content that was similar to what other people were posting and just created content (in the form of blog posts) that I wanted to make and that I felt the world could benefit from. I stopped comparing myself to others online the way I used to.
Quitting social media has helped me carve my own path, and even though I have recently rejoined the social media world, I’m doing it with extreme clarity. I’m bringing all the lessons I’ve learned in the past 6 months with me.
I think more clarity alone is enough reason for anyone to do an experiment and take a break from social media.
Will I Take Another Break from Social Media?
I’ll probably take another break from social media in the future, but it will definitely be a shorter one. For now, I’m excited to create and explore a little.
Should You Take a Break from Social Media?
I think anyone who has been on social media for a while can benefit from hitting the pause button and just taking a break. See what life is like without it.
If your main reason for needing to be on social media is your business, you can work around it. With the social media scheduling platforms that are available, you could go off social media for weeks while still posting. How cool is that?
