I Quit Social Media Two Months Ago... here's how it's going

TRANSCRIPT:

I started running an online business in January, 2018. And for pretty much that entire time I was using some social media platform, whether it was Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, something like that. But two months ago, I made the decision to get rid of all my social media apps, aside from YouTube.

And just see what things would be like without them. So in this video, I'm gonna share five positive changes that have happened since deleting my social media accounts.

So the first one is that I read four books from the same author. I think it was mostly in June and it was an author named Sonya Lalli, same name as me.

And she's an Indian American author who writes romantic comedy. So I read all of her books. They're all. Um, they all feature like what it's like to grow up in the United States as in, well, no, not in the United States. She's a Canadian author. I think so. Basically she talks about what it's like to grow up as, um, someone that has parents from India that have traveled to this new country and navigating two cultures and the books are really fun because for the past several years of having a business, I always felt like if I'm gonna read, it has to be something that makes me think it has to be something that grows my business. It has to be something that helps me make more money or become a better person.

And I was so focused on self development and growing my business that I didn't think of. "What if I just read something for fun?" And so that's why I ended up reading these romantic comedies and I absolutely love them. Um, I haven't read any fiction books over the last few weeks just because I read all of her books and need to find another author that I really like.

Um, but that is a positive thing that happened since deleting my accounts. I.

The second thing is that I have more clarity on my own goals because I felt like it was getting to a point where I was using Instagram a lot. And I was checking it every day. I was looking at what people that I admire were doing from day to day or, you know, what they were showing on social media about their day, you know, those highlights that they were showing.

And I kind of like. Based on what they were teaching based on what their goals were. I feel like I was losing sight of like what I really wanted from my life and my business. So by stepping back from Instagram, in particular, Instagram and Facebook in particular, I felt like I had more clarity on like, Hey, how do I wanna run my business?

And how do I want this to fit into my life? Because I've been following a lot of people that are saying like, here's how you can. Make six figures. Here's how you can make seven figures in your business. And when I step back and I deleted everything and I tuned into my own voice, I realized that that's not as important to me.

I, I mean, making a million dollars in my business is not very important to me. If I can make multiple six figures and actually pay myself around 50% of that, that would be really cool. Um, But it's not, I'm not going to sacrifice my health or my happiness or anything in order to reach that goal. So I'm all about slow growth and that is a good, a long term goal would be to hit like 250 to 500,000 per year in annual revenue.

But it's really important. It's more important to me that I am enjoying my life. I'm prioritizing my health. Um, and I'm not getting too caught up in the numbers. So that is part of what gave me some clarity. Around my business. Another thing that I've been doing is I've been exercising. So I was, I have kind of made exercise like a priority over the past several years.

Like I try to walk on a daily basis, usually like a few times a day, depending on the weather and my energy levels. Um, but I've also started incorporating like this like interval jogging routine, which my physical therapist helped me come up with where I. Walk for like three minutes. And then I jog for a minute and I, and I, uh, transitioned between those two things and that's really helped me to get my heart like pumping and, um, get more in like an active zone because I know that, um, It's recommended to get like 150 moderate minutes of exercise per week or something like that.

So I'm kind of before it was just like, Ooh, I'm just gonna get a walk as much as I can. But now I'm like, how could I increase the intensity of my exercise to keep myself in good health? So that's been more of a goal, whereas before I spent so much focus on like social media and like what other people were doing and what I was showing about my life that I just didn't really make time for like these important goals.

Okay. Another thing that I've been doing is I have been taking better care of my body or trying to at least, um, meal planning has always been something that has been challenging for us. Like anything that it's like, you're planning and executing far in advance.

Same thing. I, I feel the same way about batch creating YouTube videos. So in the same sense, like batch creating food, um, feels kind of weird to me. Like it's not really, I kind of like, feel like it's hard to plan meals in advance when I don't know like what I'm gonna want to eat that particular day, or like when you create a big amount of food and then you're eating it throughout the week.

And it's just like, sometimes I prefer to just cook something fresh. And eat it that same day. Like it doesn't for me, it doesn't have that same appeal after it's been the fridge for several days. Um, So basically meal planning has been something that we've been doing. I joined this 90 day program. That's focused on weight loss and, you know, taking care of better care of yourself, eating whole foods, eating a, you know, a cleaner diet and things like that.

So we've been meal planning and I've also been trying out intermittent fasting. Um, I think more specifically time restricted fasting. So I try to finish eating by like 7:30, 8:00 PM at night. And then I'll start again. Around like 10:00 AM in the morning. So maybe you're hearing that and you're like, oh, I do that every day.

Cool. Um, I mean, we all have some sort of fast from the time we stop eating at night to, you know, when we're sleeping, we're, we're not consuming any food. Um, but I'm kind of like extending out that period a little bit longer, um, to see what benefits can have on my body.

And then the final positive change that has happened as a result. Getting off social media is that I've been working less. I think that there was a lot of pressure because I was, you know, like on a daily basis I was checking Instagram and like, there would be like specific people whose stories I would watch. And then it always kind, I kind of had this mindset of like, oh, I need to work more.

I need to make more money. Um, . And when I got away from all of that, when I stepped back from all of that and I focused more on myself and you know, my life and my goals, I, I realized that I don't really wanna work that much. um, I kind of feel like I maybe got into the wrong crowd, which sounds kind of strange, but like, I feel like I got into the wrong business community and the people I was surrounding myself with were kind of like hustling hard and that's not, doesn't really work with my health.

It doesn't work with my family. Doesn't work with my lifestyle, my priorities. So it's been really nice just to step back and be like, Hey, maybe I don't want to take on a ton of clients, maybe I, you know, Just want to generate passive income through my YouTube channel and have that be enough without having to just keep trying to reach for a bigger and bigger goal, make more and more money.

So I've been working less, I've been enjoying the summer, just more relaxed. And one thing I wanna add is that, um, when I initially deleted my Facebook and Instagram in May , it was really hard. The first 30 days were really hard, particularly because I knew that both Instagram and Facebook have this like 30 day period before they permanently delete your accounts.

And I was. unsure if I would make it through that complete 30 days without reactivating my accounts and being like, okay, I just need to check it. Um, but once I got past the 30 days, once I knew that the accounts were completely deleted, I felt a lot of peace and relief. Um, because I know that like, even. I don't feel like anything has to be this lifelong, permanent decision, even if I decide later, okay.

I feel like I'm ready to get back on Facebook. I feel like, you know, there's some perks to being on Instagram. I think I'm ready to go back. Um, I'm not against that. I'm not opposed to that. Um, but just right now, it's not good for my mental health and for myself. But, um, if I were to go back later, I feel good knowing that those old accounts are not there anymore.

And then I could start fresh from scratch. So those are some positive changes that have happened in my life since leading social media accounts. And my business continues to make money, thanks to my YouTube channel. So if you want to start your own YouTube channel, let me know in the comments below what your channel would be about.