It Wasn't the Comparison or the FOMO - it Was the Absence From My Life
Some new things I’m learning about my relationship to social media
Over a year ago I started whining about how badly I wanted to remove myself from social media. I said a lot of things like, “If it wasn’t for my job, I wouldn’t be here.” And as I look back now when I’m two months in from deleting social media, I realize that was an excuse to stay there. I wanted to leave, but I also couldn’t fathom leaving. Like the addictive relationship that it is, I felt stuck between what I knew was good for me, and actually making the moves I knew I needed to make.
A year ago (nearly exactly) is when my professional life made a huge pivot, one that I didn’t expect. And when I think back on that time now, and the clients that have come to me, not one of them is because of my social media presence. It’s all been through one incredible woman after another sharing my name. And so the idea that I had to be on social media for my job was proven yet again to be an excuse to stay in something that I knew wasn’t good for me.
Oftentimes when you hear about the bad parts of social media, it’s the comparison or the FOMO that people are feeling that make it hard to be there. And absolutely, five to ten years ago that was me, too. I was new in my entrepreneurial track and I compared myself to business owners who were light years ahead of me. I watched them launch new products to huge success. I saw them hiring team members to help them run their businesses. I watched their follower count tick up and up and up and I felt bad about myself.
But now, that wasn’t my problem anymore. I’ve mostly been able to remove the comparison from my life (getting older definitely helps with that), and FOMO has never really been a problem for me (as an introvert, please count me OUT).
Though, a funny side note on FOMO - I’ve been lucky enough to work with Shannon Watts for about a year now, in various capacities, and when she put together that MASSIVELY successful White Women call last week, I was on vacation and wasn’t able to help work on it. Talk about FOMO - I’m still bummed that I missed out on helping, other than a very, very small part! But what a joy to see her and a colleague of mine, Lisa, (among the many others) pull that incredible event together!
Instead, I was realizing that my struggle with social media was more about the engagement THERE and my absence from HERE, from my life. Like many people, I’d use social media to “numb out” - the endless scroll of stories (it’s always stories, not grid, for me) was a way to pass the time, especially on the days where things felt hard or I was overwhelmed. My phone was always right there, waiting for me to pick up and begin scrolling before I even knew what I was doing. And though there are a lot of embarrassing reasons I left social media, that feeling of being disassociated from my life was a really scary red flag for me.
Why am I pulling away from my own life, a life that genuinely makes me so happy, to watch stories of people I don’t know? And why am I choosing that over engaging with my own real life family and friends? I’d never want them to think that whatever was happening inside my phone was more important than what they were saying to me. But oftentimes, that’s what it was feeling like - that I was choosing to watch stories at warp speed rather than having a deeper conversation.
I genuinely don’t know what my life post-summer will look like when it comes to social media. There are certainly things I’m missing by not being there, but I’ve also gained plenty by not engaging. And I don’t know if there’s a happy balance I can find between being there but not letting it overtake my life again. Have I learned enough about what I like and don’t like to make a return that feels appropriate? Or within a month, will I be back to that feeling of wanting to leave, of needing to make change?
I’m glad I still have another month to figure it out.
I’ve been finding myself doing the same thing, where I scroll forever to numb out and escape my own life. Major kudos to you for not only recognizing that, but doing something about it. You’re making me want to get the guts to try it 🫶
I discovered the same thing in my business. Social media wasn’t bringing me customers very often but working with other people in various ways has. And that’s pretty cool.