Hello everyone, I'm excited to share this post hoping to encourage you to do whatever is best for you. Probably you are feeling the same way about this topic, if so feel free to send me a message sharing your feeling, thoughts and experiences.
If you have been following me on Instagram for a while, you know I have been consistently posting every day, from stories and daily posts like meal ideas or new recipes. I love sharing content with you and as you may already know, especially if you run a blog too, you have to fight the algorithm and keep up!
Yes, it can be stressful and frustrating sometimes... but I have to tell you that the community and the feedback is priceless. This is important to realize, I'm consistent because I love sharing my random thoughts, favorite products or whatever I do in my day. This is my community and I love sharing..
For the last week for some reason, maybe in the process of keeping up with the algorithm, I couldn't do any sort of engagement. No posting pictures, no comments and no likes. My first reaction was "UGHH, WHY!" and the thought of my numbers going down was stressing me out, all the effort I had worked on was going tovanish . I was anxious.
Social media was making me anxious, and I was allowing it.
As usual, I tend to over-stress about things I don't have control of and after meditating my reaction I decided to take a deserved break. This Break made me realize a few things;
I was giving a lot of my time to reply to comments and keep up with the algorithm.
Replying to comments and engaging with your community is important to grow, and I was always worrying about replying to comments (I still do. Personally it is the nicest thing to do since people are taking time of their day to comment on my content). Theidea of letting comments without reply stressed me out, specially the idea of letting a lot of them slip away.
I was stressing about it ALL THE TIME.
I was always rushing through things to make time to engage (YES, crazy!) Still for the reason of being rude. Road trips, traffic specially. I'm a master at loading my days with things to do, 24 hours weren't enough to do all the things; school, gym, create content, social life, social media.
I can do a lot of things with my time when I take a little break from that platform.
To my surprise, that time off was filled with more creative content and I managed to do things I was postponing like learning about SEO, new content for the blog, a saw my friends A LOT MORE, I went to more places, played more with Franky, took even more time shopping for groceries, and made more recipes.
My energy was being drained.
As I mentioned before, I went out more, that is something hing I didn't do that much before because I was constantly tired andmentally exhausted. These weeks off I had more physical and mental energy to play with Franky, to make solo dance parties in my room and have longer conversations with my family and friends. I wasn't tired nor in the mood for Netflix.
Sharing content is my passion.
Oh, this is a HUGE realization, probably already obvious but I wasn't aware on how strong this was. I absolutely love creating and sharing content with my community and the feeling of not being able to post content really made me feel sad.
Community is first.
As a type A person, and being raised as someone who does settle, but works hard and is always working be a better version of myself. Instagram numbers; likes, followers, comments were a synonym of success for me, or at least a way to know that my effort was paying off. But guess what? This is about your community, about what you want to share with them, to relate with them, about the value you share. Not numbers, numbers don't necessarily measure the impact you are having with your community.
Time is precious, use it wisely. I encourage you to do things in favor of your own health, do the things you love, and not to let numbers or social media algorithms keep you from enjoying life.
Now what's next for me after this realization?
- I will won't let numbers stress me out.
- I need to reduce my time in social media because it's so important for me to make more time for things I also love besides sharing creative content. There's plenty of time, 24 hours are enough.
If you struggled with a similar situation hit me up with a message! I'm here to support.
Sending you all the love, Maria
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