Why I Hit the Delete Buttons
And the confirmation ones, too!
It’s that time of year again where we all stuff our faces with dessert, pass out on the couch after turkey and vow to burn it all off after the New Year.
Ah yes, the New Year’s Resolutions.
But if you’re like over 80% of the population, you give up on them by the time the clock strikes midnight on January 31st. One month and that’s it.
I do this too, but I treat my New Year’s Resolutions like a marathon. I start out hot in the begin. Strong, willing, determined. I’m at the gym at 6:30am, I’m off the coffee and I’m eating healthy.
And then the clock strikes midnight on January 31st and I hit the middle of my marathon (1/12 of the way in, you know how it is) and my pace slows way down. I still go to the gym, it’s just at 11am on the occasional Saturday.
But then, much like the tail end of a marathon, I suddenly get a second wind. It happens about this time of year (it happened to me today) when I suddenly snap into it and say “I’m accomplishing this.”
For me, that task is reading 52 books in 52 weeks. I started out so determined and read so fast and now I’ve read 2 books since August. For those of us who can do fast math, that is not on track at all.
I’m not a person who has much willpower, and I recognize this and try to combat it how I can. So today when my second wind hit, I did something that I’ve previously attempted and failed at.
I deleted Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat off my phone. This time though, I took it a step further. I deactivated all my accounts, too.
Merry Christmas to me!
I even took it another step further and blocked People, E! News and US Weekly all from my laptop.
I’m done bragging about myself now.
In all seriousness, I just realized that these apps were sucking the life out of me and keeping me from reaching my goals. It’s a lot easier to hit “i” into the search bar and have Instagram automatically pop up than to get my book out of my backpack and read a chapter.
And it’s a lot easier to go on usmagazine.com and read some fake celebrity news than to invest in reading something that will further my potential.
It never seems like a big deal in the moment.
But before you know it, you’re down a rabbit hole stalking Bachelor couples. Just me? Even just the five minutes now and then adds up and decreases your productivity from whatever you were working on.
I’d much rather open Medium and read something insightful about the world, or something that adds value to my daily life. I don’t need to look at another picture of a cool apartment on Instagram (as much as I want to).
Deleting my social media is hard as hell. Despite the benefits I know I’ll personally receive, the effects on my career are something that weigh on me. Having a strong Instagram or Twitter presence could really further my career, especially in the field in which I work and hope to thrive.
I think that knowing yourself is more important than others knowing a make-believe social media version of you.
Hopefully my impact on other social avenues, like this one, can stand alone for themselves. I shouldn’t need a couple thousand followers on Instagram to compete in the game.
So I did it. I hit those delete buttons (the app, and the account ones).
And the confirmation buttons, too.
No turning back this time, Miller. Now back to my 37th book…
Make it this far? If you did, answer this question in the comments:
As a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Feel free to follow me on Twitter or Instagram for more: @hayleymm14 and @hayley_miller14
