After noticing some concerning patterns, I recently quit social media for a month. Although the decision was personal, there are professional impacts I can't ignore. Today I’m sharing the changes I’ve experienced, what I’m still figuring out, and what’s next.

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What happens when your personal and professional aspirations

appear to be at odds with one another? I've been

thinking about this a lot after taking a month off social

media and noticing the impacts on me as a person, but also

me as an entrepreneur, because they're not the same.

And today I wanted to talk about what changed and what I

noticed, but also what this means for me as and what I'm planning to

do next. Now, when

let's start with what first changed. And I shared recently on an

episode that I called Five Red Flags meant something had to change.

I noticed a connection between my social media use

and also concerning patterns. Like I

was feeling irrationally impatient. I felt really restless.

I also had kind of just really low mood dips after I was using these

platforms. So as a reset, I stepped away from Instagram,

LinkedIn and threads for YouTube, which

I personally I classify it differently from the others,

but I did still shift how I used it. So aside from making and

posting this podcast, I chose to only open it when

I knew exactly what video I wanted to watch or was planning to

watch and just limited overall time. So instead of just saying

I feel like doing something open and scan, it was very, very

intentional. Now the results after a month were

a definite improvement. I am noticeably

calmer. I am more patient than I was before.

I also, I just feel a more steady contentment

compared to in the winter when I really noticed this happening.

I have also been reading a lot more nonfiction, which is a

shift, and to me that's actually a good sign. I used to read

a lot of nonfiction, but the past couple of years, I mean, they've been hard

years, but I could barely finish a nonfiction book and

I just leaned almost entirely on novels instead.

Now another observation is that when somebody says to

me, oh, did you see this? You know, controversy, debate

or disagreement online or people are all talking about this,

I notice that I feel a wave of relief that

I just didn't see it or didn't get pulled into it because it just

doesn't seem like the kind of energy I want. Now personally,

I am feeling much better off of the

platforms, even in spite of. You know, I do miss seeing some

posts from family members who are active on there and some friends who are.

But professionally, I know that it is

a drawback to stop sharing content. There's

I care about my work and the message that I'm sharing. And

I genuinely believe there are people who have never heard of me, never come

across me before, that would benefit from the perspective I'm

sharing and helping them understand why they are struggling to

follow through on things that matter. Now, one

of the core ideas from my framework is that momentum

happens when you have a sustainable system

and you take consistent and aligned action.

Now, when you are out of alignment, things start to

fall apart. And alignment is the combination

of your mindset, what you think and what you

believe, but also your mode, how you are

wired and ultimately how you like to work

professionally. I want to reach more people, which

means right now I have a choice to make.

So how do I balance my professional goals

in a way that feel aligned? How do I protect

my well being, the human behind the business?

I mean, these are important questions and if I'm being honest,

I do not have all of the answers yet.

But there is one decision that I have made

and feel confident about, and that is that I don't want

to have a business that depends on social media.

I am comfortable with running a business that is more based

on relationships, outreach, referrals.

Now, it still takes a lot of effort and hard work, but

with this case and that setup, I wouldn't be worrying about, say,

missing a mortgage payment because the algorithm changed and

suddenly no one's seeing anything. Or I won't panic about not being able

to post for a while when life becomes unpredictable and I

am needed elsewhere and can't be posting regularly.

So by making this deliberate choice, it

means that if I post content on social

platforms, it's because I choose to

and not because I have to. And to me,

this matters because it shifts how I

think about sharing content. It shifts. It also goes from being an

I have to to more of an I want to or

I get to. And one is an obligation

where the other kind of feels more like freedom to me.

Ultimately, it's a mindset shift. And that's

possible because I'm making this choice, this

intentional choice not to rely on social

media and connect that to how my business is doing.

So it's a mindset shift that I believe

supports being in alignment. And I can

feel that it's aligned because I actually

notice a shift when I say it. When I speak about the decision,

I notice it inside of me. I feel calmer. My.

My shoulders kind of drop. And it's an actual physical

shift that I can feel now. What's next?

So, as I said, I still do not have all the

answers. I still have more questions. And I'm actually, I'm spending a

lot of time just thinking about my, I guess,

perspective and opinion on social media platforms. And I.

If you're familiar with me. You know, I think a lot about attention and how

we spend our time. So I do have concerns over the platforms.

But an experiment that I am going

to try over the coming weeks is actually something that was

suggested to me by a trusted friend. So this is

someone who has a real mind for social media, also has a very different

perspective and mindset around social media than I do. And

also she knows that I love a good experiment and

proposed an idea that we work together on short

term on my short form content. Now, we haven't started

yet, but some of the seeds of the idea that she's planted

really excite me and not just because it's

collaborative and I love to work with other people. Being a

solo business owner means that I'm often just isolated

and working on my own. But I also love that it's a true

experiment. We're going in with a really open mind and

just seeing what happens. You know, it's not something that I'm making a

commitment forever and it's just, it's a test and it

is a way to test the balance between my

personal goals and well being, but also my

professional goals. And ultimately we can see is

this a viable option that helps me to reach

more people with my message, but do it in a way

that is sustainable, consistent and

aligned.