I Quit Social Media For 3 Months- Here’s How It Went
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Social Media has drained my life.
Hours spent every day staring at a screen and scrolling took me away from the bigger parts of life.
It wasn’t until I did a screen time calculator that I found I was on track to spend 14 years of my life staring at this screen that I knew something needed to change.
The Start Of A New Life
Once I realized my relationship with my phone was toxic, I did everything that I could to get off of it.
I deleted social media, deleted any games off of my phone that were addicting, and disabled almost all notifications from coming up on my phone.
I felt so free that day.
It was almost as if the biggest weight that was on my chest, weighing my every second of life down, was finally lifted giving me room to breathe.
This feeling didn’t last long, as I was already reaching for these newly deleted apps the next day.
Not receiving the reward for doing so only made me crave it more and more.
This craving became worse and worse over the next two weeks, and I consider it one of the hardest cravings I’ve ever had to overcome.
Once those two weeks were over, it was as if something inside me clicked.
Like my body said to myself, “Well clearly we aren’t going to get our reward through the phone anymore, how else can we get this reward?”
Once this mindset kicked in, I finally started living life again.
Clearer Thoughts
I noticed my thoughts have calmed down and become more organized.
Spending all that time distracting myself and not giving myself the time to think was like trying to stuff your carry-on with way too much stuff, leaving it ready to burst open and explode the second you do.
My mind had this feeling seemingly all the time since I would consistently stuff it down with music, podcasts, or television.
After two weeks of letting my mind breathe, it came back down to normal levels and the thoughts in my head became my friend more than my enemy.
No longer was I switching topics or being reminded of something I forgot to do every five seconds, but instead, I was greeted with gratitude and presence throughout the day, almost like I was in a meditative state.
My Social Life Improved
Since my thoughts were a lot better, I also noticed I became infinitely better socially.
Now that I stopped spending all day texting multiple people, I had a lot more time to actually spend with people in person.
I invited my close friends out for coffee and beach days and asked them politely if we could put our phones away and spend quality time together.
They were hesitant at first but agreed, and we had the best times together.
Not only were we doing an amazing activity that bonded us more, but we were able to have deeper conversations and discussions on what was going on with our lives.
No more of that:
“How are you doing?” “Good, how are you?” Crap.
We were past that, instead exploring our goals for the future, how we want to spend our time in life, and maybe even sneak in conversations on if aliens were real or not. (They for sure are by the way.)
My Purpose Was Clear
With my thoughts and social life aligned, my purpose in this world for how I want to contribute became clearer as well.
For years I spent wasting my time on “How to get rich!” tactics.
Drop shipping, reselling shoes, and even a copy-and-paste fitness business took up all my time.
Did I ever want to do any of this?
Nope!
I just wanted to help others and get rich in the process.
Yet the questions of, “What is a genuine problem in the world that I could fix?” or “What am I personally good at and love?” never came to mind, and if they did, they were quickly shut down by the distractions of the phone which told me that I needed to anything else from what I loved to get rich.
It wasn’t immediately that I found what I loved, but after putting in the time and energy into looking at what I was good at and what I wasn’t good at, I brought up the idea of writing.
I loved writing for journals and social media posts while I was on it, yet it was something I never pursued.
However, with no more distractions from my phone yelling at me to go the other way or causing me to not take action, I had the courage and time to start my blog, and even begin writing a book.
I set daily goals to write a blog post and five hundred words, and while it was tough at first, I stayed consistent and fell in love with it.
For the first time in my life, I was doing a form of “work” that I loved, and I couldn’t be more thankful.
My life became realigned once I left my phone in the past and started actually living it, and the only regret in my life is that I didn’t start it sooner.
Almost everyone I see in life is consumed by this technology, and they have no idea what they really want in life.
People work jobs they hate, hang out with people they don’t like, and all their free time where exploration and new parts of life could be found being spent staring at a screen.
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