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I posted on Instagram Stories for the first time in 2 months and realized… maybe it’s time I told you what happened.
I hadn’t set out to do a social media detox… but I was becoming more aware of how much time I spent watching videos or scrolling in the in-between moments of my day.
Or how I was scrolling AND watching netflix simultaneously at night (like when did it happen that we can’t just watch TV anymore? Just me? 🫣)
Anyhoo, one afternoon I really needed to focus, so I deleted Insta, Threads and Facebook (I dont tiktok🫣).
I cracked open Digital Minimalism the next morning and immediately felt like I was being lovingly roasted.
Here’s 5 golden nugs that hit hardest:
- Attention is your most valuable resource — use it intentionally.
- Tech should support deeply held values, not distract from them.
- Solitude is necessary for creativity and clarity (translation, when you’re always on your phone, you’re never alone… which is why you never feel caught up or like you have a freaking minute to THINK).
- Convenience often comes at the cost of depth and meaning.
- Social media is not real connection, conversation is.
Through all of it, I found myself sitting with a question I often ask my kids:
Does this help or hurt?
And my answers were uncomfortable to sit with.
Was social media helping me? Well, I do feel great talking with people in my DMs and that’s how I frequently close sales, so, yes…? It’s also nice to be tagged. And I like knowing what’s resonating / trending right now… and the recipes and dance videos are so entertaining. Oh and Shawna The Mom, I love her 🤣
Was social media hurting me? I mean, it’s not like it stabbed me in the kidney or told me I had a camel toe in my new romper. But do I feel good after scrolling? Do I feel left out sometimes or not cool enough… like everyone has a talent I don’t? Do I find myself opening the app before I even realized what I was doing? Do I constantly wonder if people watch my stories or comment on my posts? (Or wait, I rarely actually posted because I had severe creative constipation😅).
There were more questions than answers.
And what all this told me was I didn’t actually know what social media was adding to my life and therefore, this was an UNINTENTIONAL tool.
I never consciously CHOSE to have social media in my life, it just slowly infiltrated my day until it became an ingrained habit like bruising my teeth.
So that afternoon in April, I deleted the apps.
For an afternoon… a weekend… a week.
Which turned into 2 weeks then 2 months.
Here’s what I did during that time:
When I posted 👆on Monday, I hadn’t planned on it and thought I’d delete the app that night… but the replies flooded in.
A lot of “Welcome back” and “I’ve missed seeing your face” and “Yay! Will you start doing your daily ramble again??”
I also got quite a few “I should totally do this.”
And those sparks of conversation have been really nice.
But I’d be lying if I said that I was excited to be back 🫣.
Because I don’t actually have a plan (yet) to turn social into an intentional tool without falling back into bad habits.
I mean, 48 hours in and I’ve already backslided (backslid?) into scrolling.
I dunno… maybe I’m a compulsive weirdo with no self control.
Or maybe I’m actually quite normal? 🤷🏻♀️
Either way, I felt compelled to share this with you (even if it's quite embarassing).
Because one of the biggest things this “break” has taught me is:
I need to spend less time listening to the thoughts, opinions and show & tell moments of people on the internet.
Because the more time I spend listening to them, the less time I spend listening to the people I care about the most.
My family.
My friends.
My clients.
Myself.
Look, I’m a speaking coach. I love talking about talking.
But it’s LISTENING that makes you a better talker human.
It is how you develop trust, empathy, understanding.
It’s how you develop incredibly deep relationships in business AND in life.
I'm all about deepth. And feeling quite allergic to shallow smalltalk and quick sound bites that sound like a script written by chatgpt (which honestly, is a lot of the internet these days🫣)
So the question I'm currently sitting with is WHO do I want to be in conversation with?
Spoiler: you're one of them.
And what does that look like moving forward to me with social?
I’m not going to pretend to have the answers as I’m pretty much walking through the fog with a flashlight here.
But I do know this:
If you’re always soaking up what other people are saying, don’t be surprised when your message feels watered down.
I didn’t realize that I was feeling quite sloggy.
This break gave me space to hear myself again.
And turns out, my thoughts are actually pretty damn good. I should listen to them more!
You should too! As in listen to your own thoughts. Not mine. 😅
But maybe you want to listen to mine too.. in that case check out last week’s pod episode 242: Why I’m Ditching the Perfect Plan to pull up a chair to my brain.
I also share my latest hack for adding stories to your storybank and an epic metaphor I borrowed from Essentialism about a bike with wings that won 50K Euros 😳
👆 Pinky promise there’s a point and it has to do with your business.
Hope this one landed just when you needed it🤞,
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Heather Sager | Speaker. Mentor. Educator.
Helping business owners speak, teach, and lead—better.
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