⧸⧸169： How to Take A Social Media Break without Watching Your Business Crumble

You. Welcome to the Seek First CEO podcast, a community for high achieving kingdom women committed to seeking God first and keeping God first in all we do. If you believe you're called to impact the world through your gifts, then you're in the right place. Hi friend. I'm Heather teacher, turn speaker and your host of the Seek First CEO podcast. I'm passionate about helping ambitious, servant hearted women find their worth in whose they are, not what they do. As a certified Master Neuroscience life coach, I help you connect the dots between biblical principles and brain science so you can take your thoughts captive and be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I don't do surface, so we go deep here and we talk about the stuff underneath the surface because I want to help you get to the source of your heartset and mindset roadblocks so you can have breakthrough by aligning your heart and mind with biblical truth.

If your heart's desire is to grow in your relationship with Jesus while fearlessly fulfilling your purpose and calling, then let's open up the Word together and see what the Holy Spirit has to say about living your life in flow with Him. Are you ready? Then get excited for today's episode. Have you felt like you needed a break from social media? If you have built a business of any kind and you're listening to this episode, there is a really good chance that you have felt a desperate need for a break. I work with women just like you. I am just like you. And I have found myself in places over the last nine years of being an entrepreneur desperately needing a break. So much so, in fact, the break that God asked me to take, that I felt like I could not take, turned into an annual taking the month of December off of social media. And if you've followed me for a while, you know that I call it my month of Jomo.

It's the opposite of FOMO, which is the joy of missing out the holidays. There seems to be a lot of pressure and it's busy in general. And so with having no pressure of posting my entire life online and sharing all the things, it has allowed me to enjoy my family and the holidays a little bit more. So if you want to listen to those episodes, you can certainly tune into those. I post them the last few years around the month of December. Just type in Jomo and you will find it. So with that being said, I have had some clients come across that and or they find out that I have taken social media breaks and dun dun dun. My business did not crumble.

In fact, I always see an increase in my business when I do it. And I just recently walked a one on one client through how to take a break, and I thought it was good enough that I needed to go ahead and share it with you guys. And so if that's you and maybe you're not in this season right now and things are going really well for you, great. Maybe you want to go listen to another podcast episode of mine. But if you are feeling like this is right where you are, then this episode is for you. So first and foremost, can you take a social media break? I'm going to answer a lot of questions that I have gotten over the years from women. Just like you desperate for a break, but feeling like they don't know if they can. They don't know if that's smart.

They don't know how, and they don't know really what, like, all these who, what, when, where, why kind of questions. And so we're going to walk through each of those, and I just pray that the Lord gives you exactly what you need, because it sounds like if this is for you, you have been asking for permission to take a break. And I want you to know that you have that permission today. And today I want to give you some tips to do it the right way. So number one, can you take a social media break? Yes and yes, why not? Social media is simply a tool. And for those of you like me who have built your entire business on social media, that feels really scary, right? It's like your friends and your family, if you're like Jesus and you're not welcome in your hometown, that's how I feel all the time. I'm like, I'm not welcome in my hometown. And that's not to say I do have friends in my hometown.

However, my business is not where it is because of the people in my neighborhood. It is not where it is because of my family. It is not where it is because of my friends from high school or college or whatever, love them. And God has done amazing things through social media for me. And so social media seems to be like the lifeline. It's the lifeline to the provision. It's the lifeline to the clients. It's the lifeline to helping people and getting away from it feels really scary because it doesn't make sense.

And so, yes, you can take a break. And I do think there are things that you can do to do it smart. Another question that I get from people is, well, do I need to tell everybody? And I'm going to answer that question that is for you to decide you to pray about. I typically let people know, I am I'm leaving, see ya. Because I typically have programs going on or communities online where I'm pouring into. And so there are people that not to sound like, OOH, people are needing me and expecting me, but there are places that I continue to show up regularly that I feel like, hey, I'm going to be gone for a minute and don't worry about me. There's nothing wrong. I'm simply taking a break.

I'm getting rejuvenated and restored. So I think my first question to you would be if I was coaching you would be, why do you want to take a break? It is really important for you to get really clear on that question. Why do you want to take a break? And we'll go deeper into that later. But it's really good for you to identify why. Is it because somebody said something online to you that hurt your feelings and that stirred up some things? Well, okay. That's something that we can address. Is it because you feel exhausted and your creativity is no longer there and you don't know what to post? Okay, great. Now we have something to work with.

You need to identify what you actually are running away from. What are you actually needing a break from? Why do you want to pause, take a break. You've got to know that first. And I encourage you to get really honest with yourself about why. Why do you need a break? Because there is an underlying reason that if that's never addressed, then the issue of wanting a break, once that thing stirs again or comes to the surface or happens again, it's going to continue. There will be a pattern. There will be a cycle. So number one, identify why you want a break.

Number two is you get to ask yourself, well, how long? And that's what a lot of people ask, well, how long? How long can I take a break? I just had a client. She decided to take a week off. She felt like that was a good time for her and her family and the season they were in. And then her time was up, and she's like, I don't think I'm ready. So I'm like, well, great. What do you want to do? And so we talked through that, and she came to me and said, I know I don't need your permission, but I kind of need your permission. And if that's what you're feeling today, then you don't need my permission. You don't need your friend's permission.

You simply need to ask the Lord. Lord, is this a good thing for me to do? And if so, can you walk me through it? So the next step is to determine how long. Set a goal. So I share before some of my testimony of taking a break. The very first break that I took was I thought was punishment. I thought that the Lord was punishing me, and it was like, you have to take a break. And now it's like, oh, I get to take a break. I want to take a break.

I am choosing to take a break, but I've also set up boundaries in my life that I don't really need a break from social media anymore, because I get a break every week. I don't feel like it's pressuring me or that it has me chained to it and that I have to do it because it's my lifeline to my provision. God is the lifeline to your provision, not your social media. Social media is simply a tool, just like your business is simply a tool. God is the provision. And do I believe that we have to show up to work? Yes. And sometimes the work will be slow down. Sometimes the work will be take a break.

Sometimes the work will be for me it was the Lord was asked, asking me to get off social media and all I heard was the word rest. And I had to sit in that and dig in. What do you mean by that? And it turned, you know, it started with one day and I thought I was so amazing because I took a day off and I started implementing Sabbaths and I was like, I'm so holy only for the Lord to be like, that's not it. That's not the only kind of rest I want you to do. And so one day turned into a weekend, turned into a week, turned into almost two months off of social media. And logically that doesn't make sense. But at the time I had a network marketing business. My team continued to grow, my revenue continued to increase, I didn't lose anything.

And I got back some of my sanity. Which goes back to the question why do you need a break? What boundaries have you not set that allowed it to become what it became and it simply has always only meant to be a tool. So after you determine how long it is, I want to give you permission that that can change. Just like my client, she started off with a week and realized she needed two weeks. And then two weeks came up and she messaged me and we were talking through what does that look like as she comes back and how can she come back so that she doesn't ever feel this way again. We'll talk about that at the end. And then the question is you get to side, well, when am I going to do it? So we just had lent and I know a lot of people try to do it around then, but can I encourage you set the date and simply do it and trust that God's going to meet you in it? And so set the date right. A goal without a plan is just a dream.

And so if you have the goal of taking a break, great, pick a date, choose it and then commit to going offline from then some boundaries about going offline. What I would encourage you to do, delete the apps from your phone. It is so tempting. In fact, your body is wired. There are so many studies about Dopamine and how our bodies just naturally hit buttons. Have you ever you know how like when you drive to a place and you've been there so many times, you don't really need to look where you're going. You kind of just I don't know. Personally, I've ended up places.

I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't even remember turning left or right. I just kind of ended up here. Well, on your phone, your brain does the same thing. You kind of just end up clicking buttons over and over. And there is a lot of science behind that. There are reasons why apps have created those, the noises that they create and the different things that it does because it literally sends a message to your brain as if there's dopamine being released because it loves the interaction. It's like you're winning a game. It's like if you have, I don't know, my kids, we try to set really good boundaries with our phone and I definitely give my kids my phone sometimes with that I recognize some of the games that they play.

I'm like, oh my gosh. That is just playing into their brains and it is getting them obsessed and literally addicted to this app or addicted to phones. And the tech companies are well aware what they are doing. There's a really good documentary on that. I watched it a couple of years ago and it's scary and very eye opening. So while you're taking your break, delete the apps from your phone and know that you can do this. You're not going to miss out on anything God has for you. If he is in fact leading you to take a break, you can trust in Him that he is not punishing you, that he is pruning you and he is positioning you and preparing you and he is giving you something that's been missing or taking away something that shouldn't be there, right? He is doing something so that when you come back, you can then overflow into the people you were called to serve.

And then another question is what are you going to do while you're on your break? So if nothing changes, nothing changes. And I believe that there's so many layers to taking this break and why you actually want to do it and for how long you're going to do it and what is the main purpose of this? That if you just do it, it's pointless, right? It's like buying the workout program but never actually doing it. And so yes, you made an investment and you thought it was going to change. But if nothing changes, nothing changes if you don't actually do something while you're on this break. And really I would encourage you carve out some time to sit with the Lord, but also get really honest with yourself about what is this? If this is just a tool, then why has this become such a burden for me or an obsession? Or why has this become an addiction? So you get to decide before you do it what you are actually going to accomplish. And what are you going to do different while you are away? And then this is the big question I get from people is how? Okay, Heather, I know that God's calling me to take a break. I desperately need this. I am going to sit with the Lord all the things, but how do I do this without watching my business crumble? This feels really scary.

Well, number one, pray and ask the Lord. God, remind me every day and help me to remind myself that you are my provider and that you're calling me to do this and that you are not going to punish me for taking a break. This is, in fact, part of the plan and this is a good thing. And I can trust you that you are Jehovah gyra. So how do you actually take the break? Well, there's not really one right answer, and that would take a lot of me asking you questions around. How is your business set up? For me, everything is online. I didn't even really start building an email list until a few years ago, and I didn't really have another way to communicate with my clients. I do now, but I didn't before, and I've taken breaks without communicating with anybody.

And so there's not really one right answer. There's a lot of little nuances of how is your business set up? Do you have an email list? Do you have a podcast? Do you have an admin or a VA that works your Facebook group or that you could delegate some things to while you're away? This goes back to, do you need to tell everybody or do you keep it secret? Well, that's up to you. Personally, I usually tell people and I take a break every week. I don't post every day. I don't show up in my stories on Instagram every day. I used to build everything on Facebook. I have shifted a lot toward Instagram the last year, and so things look really different. And so you get to decide what that looks like, knowing and trusting that if God's calling you to take a break, then he is going to bless you because of your obedience, not because of your hustle and your creative post and your awesome reel that went viral.

That's not how God works. Can he use those things to increase your business? Absolutely. But you're not going to miss out on anything of God's blessings if you are in fact obeying and following his plan. So here are some tips around how to not watch your business crumble while you're taking this break, while you are exhaling and receiving something from the Lord while you're away. Number one, email your people. You can still connect with your people. Maybe you even take them on the journey via your email list. I don't know.

Usually for me, I just want to tap out in every area and I trust that that's what God's going to do. But you could email communication, you could have other forms of communication, like a podcast you can prepare post in advance. Maybe you don't even tell your audience that you're taking a break and you have it as if your business is just running smoothly. You could have a team like I mentioned, a VA or a social media manager. Maybe you simply are not showing up, but they are for you. Again, there's no one right answer and there's no really right or even really a wrong. It's what is going to make sense for you. Now, if you're taking off a week, it's going to look a little different than taking off of a month, right? It's all going to be customized to you.

And I'm trusting and I hope that you are hearing my voice saying that you can trust that God, if he's calling you to this break, he is absolutely going to bless you in some way. You're not going to miss out on anything. You don't need to have FOMO the fear of missing out on clients or revenue or news or whatever it is. I cannot tell you. Every January when I come back I was like, man, that was so good. And I'm usually at a point where I'm ready to come back and I'm excited and there have been sometimes where I'm not ready to come back and I really have to ask myself why. Back to the question, why do you want to take a break? Well, the question would be, why don't you want to come back? Because there is gold in those answers that you get to get really honest and do the hard and holy work to decide and discover what is it that's really going on here. Because it's not Instagram, it's not TikTok, it's not Facebook, it's not whatever other platform.

It's something going on internally in your head and in your heart and maybe God's trying to show you something. So that is my tips on the how typically I let people know. And then I do my thing on the back end, and I spend extra time with the Lord and I get rejuvenated and renewed and restored so that when I come back, the goal is that my face is glowing. Like Moses and that I am really serving from a place of overflow and that I am not stressed out trying to create content, but I am serving from a place of I am so filled up that I have so much to give you. Here's what I have for you. Which leads me to the last part of this, going back to the why are you doing this, why do you want to break? There is so much goodness in that answer that you could find so much revelation and really help and healing so that when you come back you don't find yourself stuck in the same place. So my client who recently just took a break, she is blown away that her business is growing, and it's growing in a way that she just couldn't even have imagined. And rest is not in activity.

I need to say that in this episode, rest does not necessarily mean you take a nap and you don't do anything. And for those of you who need to be reminded, rest is not a four letter word that represents laziness. One of the things that she said to me was, heather, I was always taught and raised that you have to work hard to get what you want and to make money. And I do believe you have to work hard. I think even beyond that, the Bible says that we work with excellence and we do everything as if we're doing it for the Lord, the little things and the big things. But I think our definition of hard often is different. And so your definition of hard might be doing more, and if you're in network marketing, maybe it's inviting more people or going to another training or et cetera, et cetera, whatever. My definition of hard is actually hard and holy.

I think the things that are holding most of us back from everything is not the strategy of a business and to do more and to necessarily even refine. And yes, all of that is good as a business owner, but nine out of ten times what I find is that it's the inner work. That's the hard and holy work that we get to do with the Lord and a coach or a therapist or a counselor and talk through what is actually going on underneath the surface. You not wanting to be on social media. There's something going on underneath the surface. And so getting really curious around that, like I said, is it overwhelmed? Is your creativity gone? Are you realizing this is all about performance and you're exhausted because it just feels like you're working and you're never getting the results that you want? Your work should have some pleasure to it. In fact, I believe I am sitting in my dream job right now serving people in the way that I am. I tell my husband all the time, I would do this for free.

Now, that does not mean that I love social media and I love showing up all the time and I love doing reels and all. And sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. When I start to get overwhelmed, I get curious around why I'm feeling overwhelmed and what is it. And I can tell you one of my most recent overwhelms with social media was down to the root of I felt like I didn't know what I was saying and wasn't really clear as to how I can help people. And when you don't have clarity around your message, well, goodness gracious, that's hard, because you feel like you're just talking to talk, and that doesn't make sense. You want to drive. You want to have really your content. You want it to have a particular meaning, and you want it to really help your people in a way beyond just inspiration, right? Sometimes, yeah, we inspire, but we want to help people change and do things for the better.

And maybe that's liking your post and following, maybe that's hiring you for one on one. Maybe that's taking action in their own personal life and giving them a really good thought provoking question. Sometimes we don't really get to see the fruit of it, but when we feel like we're not really having a meaning to what we're saying, that can be really discouraging. And so that was one of my recent AHAs. And I thought, man, I get to get really clear on how do I help people so that I can confidently, boldly show up so that I know that my content has a meaning. Hard and holy work is so necessary. And that is the work that I believe you get to do when you take a break. And you're not going to be able to do that unless you get really honest around.

What is it that you're running away from? What is it that you need a break from? Why do you really want to exhale? And then this leads me to my last tip. If you're going to do all of this great before you come back from a break, be sure to set healthy boundaries so that when you come back, you don't find yourself in the same place. And I don't know what that looks like for you. Again, boundaries. They are bumper guards. They're safety nets. They are for your sanity, for your health, for time management. They're for a bunch of things.

Boundaries are necessary. And when we don't have them in any area of our life, whether that's our time, our food intake, our people pleasing, or whatever, our volunteer work, I mean, fill in the blanks. Things get really messy and we begin to feel pulled in too many directions. Overwhelmed, not enough for us. The oxygen mask isn't on ourselves. And then that's not serving anyone. You, your family, your clients, your potential future clients. God doesn't need more from you.

He wants you. And while you take this break, you can sit with Him and say, okay, what are some healthy boundaries that I want to set up so that I can use this for what it is simply a tool and a platform for me to share the gifts and the talents and the resources that I have to help people. And so I'm imagining that's going to look like time. Perhaps you have a time period that you set your phone to airplane mode and that you don't do anything. Maybe you have a rule where you stick your phone in a box in your kitchen or in another room in your house so that once 06:00 hits or 05:00 hits, it is you and family time. I don't know about you. But for me, I like to set my phone on airplane mode before I go to bed. I set my alarm and then when I wake up, I do not turn my phone off of airplane mode until I'm done with my quiet time and my workout.

That is the goal. And can I tell you, every time I put it on without put it on off of airplane mode without being done with those things, those things are always delayed and often don't get done. And until that, I was disappointed enough times in the morning at myself and mad at myself. I didn't actually stick to the boundary. Boundaries are good things. So what do boundaries in your home look like? Do you need to turn off the alerts on all of your apps? I have had that for years. I don't have notifications. When I have a Facebook message or when I have something new going on in something, I immediately turn off all the alerts.

I don't want to know because I will immediately be drawn to look at it and then I will be distracted. Maybe you need to give yourself some time that you actually do get to get on the platform that you like and a time limit with that. One rule that I have is do not take the phone in the bed. I know that if I take my phone in my bed, I will end up at one in the morning reading an article about why you shouldn't have your phone in your bed. It's like I found myself here again and now I didn't get enough sleep. So now my morning routine is messed up because my night routine got messed up. And I know some of the ways that I am thrown off. And so you will get to get curious around what are the boundaries that you want to put in place.

And I encourage you, don't put 100 boundaries in place over all at once. Put a couple so that you can continue to refine the process and get to a place where I am now that I don't desperately need a break from social media. And I also am very aware that if I desperately need a break from social media, then I'm actually really in need of something else. Maybe the social media I'm watching is very depressing and I need to unfollow some people. Maybe I'm starting to get into a comparison and I'm looking at somebody else who's a coach or a speaker or an author and I am starting to allow comparison to be the thief of my joy. And so I unfollow even good people. It's okay. You can set boundaries.

It doesn't mean you're a bad person or they're a bad person. You are protecting your peace. And that, my friends, is priceless. So if social media is costing you your piece, then I want you to know it costs way too much. It's way too much of. You. So number one, if you're needing a break, go ahead and take it. Number two, while you're on this break, be really honest and get curious with yourself, a coach, God, all the above.

And why do you really need this and what's the underlying issue going on here? Because if nothing changes, then nothing changes. And we don't want to just take a break for a week, hyperventilate thinking our business is going to crumble only to come back and find ourselves in three months or six months from now wanting to do the same thing. And while you're on your break and you're getting revelation and you're getting understanding of what the underlying issue really is, and you take care of those things, the actual hard and holy work, taking a break is not hard. It's actually the work that you do while you're taking a break that's hard, because it is a refining process in that set boundaries so that when you come back, you aren't desperate for a break. I hope that blesses you. If I can help you set some boundaries, send me a DM, we can set up a coaching call. I would love to help you get to the root of why you need a break or what is it that I can help you with, so that you simply use these platforms as tools to share your gifts with the world, because there are people waiting for what you have to offer. And if you're doing it from a place of a half filled cup, you're never going to give people the fullness of everything that God has intended you to share with the world.

Father, we thank you for boundaries. God, I thank you for wisdom. I thank you for your Holy Spirit letting us know that something is off and that this was not the way that you intended it. And so, Lord, we thank you that we have social media as a tool. I can only imagine Jesus thinking, man, if I had social media back then, the gospel could have spread much quicker. And Lord, we thank you for an opportunity to use our businesses as ministries, to use our business as a light to shine, jesus, everywhere we go. So, Lord, I pray for the woman who is weary and defeated and depleted of energy, God, that you give her permission today to take the break. And while she's on the break, she does the hard and holy works and sets boundaries so that she comes back ready to overflow with all that you have given her.

God, we thank you for Your love, we thank you for your patience and we thank you for Your goodness. We do all of this for your glory and honor in Jesus name, amen.