I can’t believe so much has happened this year that required me to step away from everything, and just let the grace of God take over.

You know what? The crazy part is that I had been intentionally building my business so that I would be ok if life got hectic again (after my 2016 experience) and this is the first time that I was really able to test it all out! I’m happy to report that all is well, and to also share my findings! (Just know that it definitely includes me screaming I told you so, from the top of the mountains!)

So… You’re probably wondering what the heck I’m talking about! (I’ll get to my findings in a few, but I just have to rant about the power and impairment of Social Media! The thing that we’ve all somehow forgotten is to be used as a tool!

You see, we literally live, eat, sleep, and breathe the internet

(especially if you own an online business as I do).

Social Media is such a huge part of what we’re involved in every single day! I was personally disgusted last year when I realized that I unintentionally spent 4 hours a day on SM. The crazy part is that my mind and body felt it, as these are always my telltale signs of what’s really going on in with me, and then I downloaded the moment app (this was before Apple decided to grace us with the screen time feature) to actually let me know how much time I was spending on my phone!

LISTENNN!!

It was such a disgrace! One that I’ve since forgiven myself for (the overindulgence of it all). You see it’s really helped to understand where I was going wrong because I’ve also created way more lines of intention in my life as well. No more of the dreaded “scroll” for me!

When I saw the numbers, I just knew that I could not be alone! I felt like there had to be other people that were getting sucked into “the scroll” as well! So, I created a poll on social media, and sure enough!! HA! I was not at all alone at all.

This encouraged me to set out to explore my own habits on an even deeper level! What I found was really more of a dependency on my phone itself. I’m not too sure when this developed, but I knew that I didn’t want to be a part of this technological neediness anymore!

I would literally find myself sitting at my desk working, and my phone would be beside me like a little pet releasing radiations of comfort as I worked along. Every so often, I’d pick it up and scroll through Facebook, Instagram, watch a YouTube video or two and then get back to work. By that time, my focus would have to be reignited all over again. Depending on what I saw during my scroll, I’d be either drained or feeling completely insecure because I wasn’t on a yacht sipping margaritas somewhere with a million dollars just chilling out in my bank account like the people online. Something had to shift, and I was totally ready!

I stepped away from social media.

This helped me to decide to step away from social media for a bit! It helped me to observe what I craved more of now that I had an additional four hours in my day. At that time, I also came across Cal Newport’s book on Amazon! It’s called Digital Minimalism. Perfect I thought, just what I needed! The book was soooo good! Definitely, a good read if you need to understand even more how Social Media has grown to be much more of a distraction than you could ever imagine! I was able to curl up, unbothered, and really indulge. An hour of reading felt so good to my mind! Much better than an hour of scrolling! What had I been doing? And how long had I been doing it? I really don’t know when this all happened…

In my first few days without Social Media, I simply logged out of the apps. But then I realized that I was able to log in with just the tap of my screen if I felt like it. I wasn’t even required to re-enter my passwords. So guess what, I mindlessly signed in, and when I stepped into familiar but forbidden territory… I’d immediately log back out.

Hmmm… I thought. I need to completely remove the apps from my phone entirely… And I did!

Now, as I mentioned before, if you work for yourself in the online space it may be harder than you think to do this. But because I was focused on reclaiming my time and even more simply put.. my mind. I knew I had to find ways to work, without the indulgence and distraction of SM.

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I went back to my roots and really sat down to understand what was working for me and why it was working so well!

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Here’s exactly what I needed (or actually had to have).

1. More time for intentional work (not busy work and picking up my phone every 5 mins).

2. Time to create content that my audience really needed (We all have notes and ideas laying around, but no solid plan or execution for them all).

3. More content that kept my audience (my tribe and brands as well) engaged and excited to work with me, even when I was away!

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Result?? I had time for myself…

You see the awesome thing is that although I took a Social Media Sabbatical, the videos that I had created online over the years kept my business going with ease! I was able to take some time off to heal with one of my closest family members at a hospital all the way in Mexico, jet to Social Media Marketing World 2019 for almost a week soon after, and then take time to settle while celebrating 33 years of bliss on this earth. I didn’t miss a step while doing all of that with growing my business even though I wasn’t on social. As a matter of fact, I got so much clarity as to what I want to continue doing in business and life and what I simply didn’t want to do anymore.

I got more clarity into what I wanted to do with my business.

Plus, I was also able to sign on new clients to work within the coming months, secure two new speaking opportunities, creating amazing offline relationships that are sure to blossom into future business connections and grow my tribe as well! I was even able to book a few sponsored projects because of some videos that I had created years ago in my beauty blogger days. The craziest part is that I know that when I create intentional video content, it’s a bit like a secretary working hard behind the scenes to book you! People automatically know they want to work with you because they can feel your vibe through the screen! Another expert can already tell that you are an expert in your own industry and so many other things of the sort.

This showed me that I just had to do more of what I know works! I sat down and diligently came up with a slew of upcoming videos, but I was also able to create a solid process for creating and batching content on a schedule! If you want to understand Video Content on a deeper level of how it can work for your business with a solid strategy, you want to head over to THIS POST.

I also came up with a formula that I know is going to be a complete game changer!

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 Research, Regroup, Recalculate, Inject Myself (Whom I had lost), Execute, Repeat!

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I’m sure you’re like XayLi What the hell is this and how can I indulge! Well, I’ve added an awesome guide down below that I created based on the way that I think about content and helping my clients and students through video content! Be sure to grab yours and start working towards understanding your content and getting clarity so that you can starte creating or create even more!

See you soon!

Xo,

X