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It all started with a seemingly simple decision in early December: to move inland, tucked between the mountains of Los Angeles.
While I’ve moved many times, little did I understand the challenges of finding the exact perfect spot in the highly competitive LA real estate market. Every ounce of my “spare” time was consumed with the search.
Social media (beyond pre-scheduled posts) kept slipping down my priority list to the last thing I did before shutting off the light.
And then once we found our new nest, packing and move planning took over my life. Social media got pushed to the absolute bottom and my unintended “cleanse” began.
At the beginning, I felt vaguely anxious as I wondered what effect this absence—even though over the holidays—might have on my business.
As the week wore on, I was too busy assembling boxes, making room plans and Goodwill runs to think much about it, other than monitoring my email to make sure I wasn’t missing anything obvious.
When I was too physically exhausted to simply drift off to sleep, I surfed Facebook to see what my far-flung family and friends were up to. Selfishly, I wanted to see some tree pictures and snow and sweet kids on Christmas morning instead of our mound of boxes. I commented on a number of images, but other than a “Merry Christmas” and a “we’re in” post, I was quiet as a church mouse.
And then a funny thing happened after a full seven days of this.
I felt an overwhelming sense of peace, of security, of gratitude.
Even though all our worldly possessions were still crammed in boxes and I got lost driving in our new parking garage (think rat in a maze).
I felt profoundly grateful for the gift of being able to stay connected to the people I love, even as the rest of my life was in feverish motion.
In thinking more about it, I realized that that silence allowed me to really listen to the conversations I most wanted to hear. It gave me the space to be “in the moment” of a transition, while still witnessing life unfolding in beautiful, funny and even tragic ways around me.
Gratitude. For a 7-day, unintentional social media cleanse.
Because in addition to that peace and gratitude, I also welcomed a new client, my social media audience grew and engagement was up.
Seriously?
So what to do with this new wisdom…
On this end, I’m going to change-up my strategy to focus more on the small engagements in social media with my tribe. It’s simply lovely to feel connected with kindred spirits while doing the work that makes your heart sing.
Luckily, you don’t have to uproot your life to do a 7-day intentional social media cleanse.
The question is this: will a short cleanse help you to reboot how you use social media in your business and your life?