Social media is all consuming, I don't envy teenagers today who have grown up in a world where the amount of likes on an Instagram photo dictates your mood for the rest of the evening, when life is a constant competition over who has more followers and who looks better with the cat filter on snapchat. I love my job, I really do, working for yourself is so liberating and full of a lot of perks but the pressure to constantly be active on social media is hard, it's a swamp and if you don't move fast you can so easily be bogged down.
The past month I chose to take a huge step back from all things social, whilst I've still been there I've not really been active or present - just lurking in the background and checking in with the ones I enjoy regularly. Before now the thought of missing out on the daily Instagram squares or not seeing those all important tweets would have given me a serious case of fomo, even to the point of heading on holiday a real big thought in my mind would be about wifi. It's ridiculous. Life doesn't end when an app wont refresh, it goes on, in fact, life is what's passing you by whilst you're busy scrolling through strangers lives on social media. I got so much done during my month break that I think I'm going to make it a seasonal thing, don't get me wrong I'm not saying I'll be deactivating every second month but I'm certainly a lot more willing to put down my phone and pick up a book in the evening before bed now than I was before.
Life is busy, and it's important that you prioritise what makes you happy. I was spending an hour plus in the evening simply editing, scheduling and then being 'active' on Instagram every single day. At least a whole hour of my time dedicated to what? To who? Sure my brand gets something from it in the long run but my lifestyle was suffering. I'd stay up till 2-3 doing work, chores or simply trying to grab some form of me time and losing so much more by sacrificing sleep. All I needed to really sacrifice was attempting to please strangers on the internet. I quickly realised that it didn't matter if a photo garnered a thousand likes, it wasn't going to please my soul the same way a solid nine hour sleep did.
Consistency isn't key, if I had a pound for every time I heard an 'influencer' tell you consistency is the key to success. It's the height of bullshit, why does Jan who posts seventy times a day have fifteen followers, when Zoella who posts once a month has millions - consistency isn't important if people like your content. It doesn't matter how many times, at which point of the day or how long you're gone for, people will look for you if they want to see you. Don't be pressured into feeling like you've always got to be logged on as if it's some recipe to success, there's no good being consistent online if your home life is suffering. You dictate peoples expectations and you set your own bar, don't make it too high for yourself.
You aren't missing out, probably one of my biggest yet lowkey niggles was that I'd miss something big or when I picked my phone back up I'd be out of tune with the social world. I couldn't have been more wrong, if there was some huge scandal I didn't really want to know and anything else I could be missing out on could be caught up once I reopened things. Fomo is definitely a fear but it's something that doesn't ever take hold, you don't actually miss out and in reality you're enriching your own life so much more in the process. I haven't used as many face masks, read so many books, slept so early or baked and crafted as much ever before, than I have in this last month and it's been truly fantastic.
I guess life is similar to a patch of grass, and it really only flourishes where you water. If you're pouring all your energy into one thing, the rest of your patch is going to wither, reining it back and learning to give a part of yourself each day to different aspects of your life, makes for a much greener turf.
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