Social media is increasingly becoming a major part of our daily life. Whether you use it for your business or only for personal use, it can take up a lot of your time. Our relationship with social media can be rather complicated; we love it and we hate it. It is like that toxic boyfriend that you can’t seem to let go sometimes. It makes you feel down but still, you keep going back for more. You can easily become addicted and that’s exactly how the social apps are designed: to make us spend more and more time on them.

Sometimes it feels like we lose control over how much time we spend on these apps. Every minute that we have nothing to do we seem to be drawn onto Facebook to see what our friends are doing. You can easily spend hours scrolling through Instagram, without even knowing that you are doing it.

The problem is that you’re spending your precious time looking at other peoples lives instead of enjoying yourself, being in the moment and living your own best life. You don’t want to waste your life staring at other people while you forget to live your own.

The other thing that happens is that we get a twisted perspective of reality. When you spend too much time on Instagram you start to believe that everyone is fit, healthy, happy, in the best relationship ever, popular and perfect looking. It seems no one has to deal with insecurities, bad days or sadness. We forget that they are all real people behind a screen, staging photos while sucking in their bellies and putting on their best smile. They are real people with their own struggles and ups and downs, and carefully pick which side of their life you get to see. And unfortunately, most of them choose to only share a twisted version of the reality full of Photoshopped pictures, filters and #soblessed.

If you look at this too much you start to believe something might be wrong with you and you need to be perfect looking, ‘instafamous’ and travelling the world in order to be happy. The comparison trap is always around the corner on social media whether this is about looking at other women or your business competitors.

Now, I’ve had a very complicated relationship with social media too. When I started my business I wanted to have nothing to do with social media and in particular Instagram was a no-go for me. I felt as a mindfulness and self-love coach I didn’t want to contribute to faking the perfect life. Especially since my core value is being authentic, transparent and down to earth. Everyone was telling me I would not get my message out and I had to accept that Instagram was part of the deal. Uninspired and with resistance I posted photos of the sunset in Bali with a #sunsetsession next to it. It made me cringe! If you are wondering what my Insta looks like, take a look here @nadjavanosch_

I’ve been doing that for a while until I started writing down my little brain waves and one day I was so uninspired about what to post that I decided to post my authentic thoughts on Instagram. Since then, it has been my writing outlet and I grew into loving it. I came to realize that social media is just a channel and it is up to you how you use it.

I developed my own way of being mindful around social media and letting it work for me, instead of against me. Here are five ways of how you can manage your social media behaviour more mindful.

Detox your timeline on social media

We are inclined to want to look at people that have what we don’t. We follow fit girls and influencers that show us the perfect life. Somehow we think that if we look at these images often, they will inspire us to go to the gym, look better or create a better life. It actually does the complete opposite. It makes you fall into the comparison trap which is for sure the shortest way to feeling horrible about yourself. You will mainly get inspired to eat another chocolate bar out of feeling so sorry for yourself.

Be mindful of who you follow. Look at every account and check if this account gives you energy or drains your energy.

Unfollow everyone who is:

  • Making you feel insecure
  • Making you feel like you’re not good enough
  • Very negative
  • Draining your energy

Be ruthless in your detox. This is about your energy and happiness level and it’s up to you to protect that. Sometimes things can be as simple as clicking an unfollow button.

Follow people that inspire you

Once you got rid of the people that drain your energy online, start following people that inspire you. Find people that write about what you’re interested in and provide you with valuable information. People that actually inspire you and are authentic. People that make you feel like you are worthy and you can have whatever they are having too!

Make sure whenever you open your accounts you’re flooded with positive vibes and love. Social media will suddenly have a positive effect on your life.

Hide the apps out of sight

Because being drawn to social media can be such a mindless thing to do and be addictive, its important to break that habit. Whenever you have the apps ready and sight, it is very easy to get sucked into them.

When I’m working on my laptop I make sure I don’t have any social media open on my laptop. Also, I hide all the apps on my phone in my last tabs. This makes sure I need to make a conscious decision to go to the app.

I prefer to not even have the apps on my phone at all, unless it’s really necessary.

Batch your posts

If you are managing Instagram for your business you have to post quite regularly. I know many business owners that feel the pressure to be present on social media constantly.

I personally love to use tools to batch my posts. I use either Planoly or Onlypult. This means once a week I spend two to three hours selecting photos and writing captions. The rest of the week I only have to check out the comments and personal messages that are coming in.

I look at Instagram for 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the afternoon to make sure I don’t miss anything important. I made this a rule, so it doesn’t overtake my day and my time.

Be mindful of your motivation

Social media can really damage your mental health as soon as you start to become attached to the number of likes and followers you get. We tend to view social interaction as validation and measure our worth by the number of followers or likes on a photo. This is where social media will add even more to your anxiety (https://ringandfitness.com/meds/cheap-xanax/) and become a toxic platform.

Before anything, ask yourself the following:

  • Why you are active on social media and why you are posting?
  • Do you want to build your business and use social media to help you?
  • Do you want to use social media to connect with others?
  • Do you want to stay in touch with your friends online?
  • Do you enjoy the artistic side of creating content and/or writing captions?
  • Do you love to share your adventures through these channels?
  • Do you want to use social media to spread your message?

AWESOME! These are great reasons to be on social media and using it in a healthy way.

However… Do you use social media for the following reasons:

  • Do you post to feel validated?
  • Do you want attention from others online?
  • Do you want Insta-fame?
  • Do you want to compete with someone?
  • Do you want others to see you as perfect so you feel better about yourself?

You aren’t serving yourself or others for that matter. You’re only contributing to the illusion of your ego and making others feel les worthy in the process. Your sense of worth will become dependent on likes, followers and comments which is a very dependent and artificial sense of worthiness. The problem with seeking validation outside of yourself is that it will never be enough to satisfy the ego’s craving.

I always check in with myself before I post anything. I ask myself why I want to share this image and caption and check in if this serves the greater good, or if I just want to satisfy my ego. When this doesn’t serve the greater good I don’t post. Or when I feel it will help other people it gets the green light. 

 

Ps. If you want to learn more about living your life mindfully and loving yourself more, sign up for my free mini mindfulness course and receive more valuable information in your inbox today.