Why I’m taking a Social Media Break

Social media is great for so many things. I love the connections that it makes and the community. I also really enjoy sharing in others success and commiserating with my fellow runners when you just have a bad run. It makes me feel less alone, but I feel like a lot of these reasons is why it also makes it necessary to take a break. I found myself being less connected to the world surrounding me and more connected to the small virtual world that is social media.

I would waste hours of my day just scrolling. Sure, sometimes it was productive to either help promote my little business here on the blog or connect with my friends who are all across the country, but a lot of the times it was just wasteful minutes. Maybe (actually yes, definitely) comparing myself and my situation to others. It wasn’t productive- more just self-destructive. I didn’t feel ‘connected’ to others and it felt like a struggle to come up with something creative to post about. I wanted to still be a part of the organizations I’m with because they are the BEST, but with that comes needing to post ‘x’ amount on social media and that is where I struggled. Every post I did felt like pulling teeth and very ingenue.

I’ve struggled so much this past year with running. I miss racing. I miss training. I struggle with wanting to train, but also knowing that there might not be any races on the calendar again for 2021 and that just sucks (just being completely honest here 😂). I also really don’t like to push my body so much when I’m not training for a race because I want to run for a really long time. And yes, I know that all of these things are very shallow and totally the least of anyone’s problems, but this is what brought me to taking a break from social media. I wanted clarity to re-assess what I wanted in the next year.

And so, I still am not sure what my particular goals are for next year, but I’m feeling more free since breaking free of social media over Thanksgiving. I think I might hire a running coach because I’ve been feeling so much faster recently and would love to have just some day-to-day training goals (even if there may not be a race on the calendar in the near future). There will eventually be a sense of normalcy-this, I’m sure of (even if it might be our ‘new normal’).
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-Have you ever taken a social media cleanse? How’d it feel?

-What are your goals for the upcoming year?