Breaking Up With Tiktok

AMY: Welcome to the Peaceful Entrepreneur podcast, where together we are finding peace in the process of everyday business ownership by improving one step at a time, how we think and what we do. I'm your host, Amy Stout.

I was on TikTok nearly every day for three years. Can you believe that? Like that's crazy to think about. And I really was just on it for fun.

Like I was purely a consumer, was not on there with the intention of posting and getting any sort of following. So for me, TikTok was really just like a little happy escape from the world.

Like it entertained me and it helps me forget about things and things that were stressing me out and it made me laugh. It taught me things.

I mean, I've learned a lot of things from TikTok and I'm sure if you've been on TikTok, you relate to that. Uh, learned a lot of things I never knew before.

And I cannot go without saying that I got my business idea from TikTok. So like good comes of it. Absolutely. Like that is where the entire idea for Abide started.

So I cannot completely drag it and say it's the most horrible thing. However, it can also definitely have some negative effects. But before I get there, I want to paint you a picture of how my TikTok addiction began.

Okay. It's March of 2020. Everybody knows what was going on. I had just gotten married. Luke and I were like six months into marriage. We were living in a mother-in-law suite. That was like a completely separately built little bungalow of sorts. And our landlords rented it to us. It was 450 square feet. It had a wall down the middle on one side of the wall was the kitchen and living room on the other side of the wall was a bedroom, a bathroom, and a closet. And that's quite literally it. Like that's all we had.

And that is where we lived for the entire first 10 months of COVID. And I always say our saving grace was that we lived in a beautiful neighborhood. And so we took walks every day and we got to see all these cool houses. And just we do have some sweet memories from that time.

But I remember when COVID started, I was in a contracted sign language interpreting job that just like immediately ended. Like because I wasn't an employee, I didn't really have any protection. So my job just basically stopped and Luke was working retail. So he was in and out of working based on like whenever the store decided to close, but moral of the story, neither of us were working very much.

And I just remember quite a few weeks where I would like sleep till 10 a.m. Get up, make some coffee, make some breakfast, sit on TikTok for who knows how long. Maybe watch an episode of The Bachelor that night, sit on TikTok some more, go on a walk, and like that was my life. Like maybe bake some cookies, maybe journal a little bit. I think I started a bullet journal, but it's like that's all there was to do.

So I started out my time on TikTok in a time that really it was easy to get addicted, you know, and just be on it for hours and hours on end. And so that's kind of how things started. And I honestly, over the last three years, never felt a pull or a conviction to get rid of it.

I always just felt like, no, this is my little escape. It's harmless. You know, I just go on it at the end of the day. Like I had boundaries, like I definitely noticed if I started my day on TikTok, my productivity was shot.

So I would save it and watch it at night and wind down. And I just really didn't think that it was a problem. So that's why I actually decided to give up TikTok really on a whim.

I have three friends and we were in a group chat and they were talking about what they were going to give up for Lent. And one of them said TikTok. And I was like, you know, I had just kind of gotten onto a roll of reading.

And I had started to feel the pull to what I'm calling heal my attention span, because I just felt the effects of all the short form videos I was watching and how my brain was constantly craving more and more stimulation. And I knew that that wasn't good.

So I was like, you know what, this will be good. I'll get rid of TikTok, I'll stop watching Reels and I will work on healing my attention span during Lent. So I gave it up. I still have it on my phone, but I honestly did not have any trouble with not going on TikTok wheels genuinely.

I think my brain was craving to slow down and have a longer attention span and not be so genuinely like addicted and just hooked on getting the dopamine rush, getting the stimulation every five seconds.

So within a couple days of going off of it I was like I don't think I'm gonna get this back. And obviously that was not at all my intention going into it, but I just saw such immense results and changes right away that I pretty quickly had a feeling that I was just gonna keep it deleted and just stay off completely.

I obviously noticed right away that I was reading a lot more because that was what I chose to replace my downtime with was reading. So I think I've read like 13 books so far this year and it's April 6th. And I really started to love it. I told my friend even like I used to only enjoy reading if I enjoyed the book.

And now I'm to the point where I enjoy reading for the sake of reading for the activity of it. And I'll go on a little rabbit trail here to say that having a Kindle has actually been a really big part of that. And I don't know what it is, but someone's got to relate to this because that same friend related to me when I said this.

But there's just something that is in my mental, like that's a block in my head, um, sometimes about picking up a physical book and reading it. I don't know why. Like it's the silliest little mental block, but I have it. But picking up a Kindle is so different. And I don't know why, but it just makes it more easy and desirable to read.

My Kindle is also back lit so I can read in the dark. I got a little handle for the back of it. So it's easy to just carry around wherever and hold at whatever like position I'm laying or sitting at.

And a life hack for you, if I have not convinced you to give a Kindle yet, this might. There's an app called Libby and you can hook up your library card to it and you can get free library books and just send them over to your Kindle.

So I do not spend any money beyond just the initial purchase of my Kindle and I constantly am reading books and I always have a book on hand. So would highly recommend, and I can leave some Kindle links below if you're intrigued, and I'll leave the Libby link too. So, rabbit trail done.

I've had a lot more time on my hands to read. And in addition to reading the other things I do in my downtime, other than like spending time with friends, is I'll watch TV shows and I'll watch YouTube videos, which are both long form.

And the key here is I'm not simultaneously scrolling on reels on my phone, which is what I'm sure a bunch of people do. And let me make this caveat. I was going to say this later on, but let me just go ahead and say it now.

I am in no way trying to make you feel guilty or like be like holier than thou when I'm saying all these things. I know that it can come across that way, but genuinely I'm just kind of sharing what my experience has been. If TikTok is a good escape for you, do it. I mean, it was for me for three years. And so I'm just sharing where I'm at now, but like, if you're not where I'm at, that is okay.

Okay, anyways, I'm limiting myself to basically long form content in the form of a TV show, a movie, a book, or a YouTube video. And that is how I spend my downtime. And let me tell you, I have just noticed such a gigantic difference in my brain space.

And in just breaking the neural pathways that I had of constantly clicking on a social media app, constantly scrolling, constantly searching for new stimulation, from cutting all of it out, I've broken the neural pathway, so I don't crave it nearly as much anymore. I do occasionally, but it's not to the same strength that it was.

And because I'm no longer addicted to that stimulation, Now my brain feels so much clearer and there's so much room for other stuff. Like I would find myself struggling to motivate myself to do tasks around the house 'cause all I wanted to do was sit and watch TikTok.

Now I don't struggle as much to like get up off the couch and do something. I feel like almost I've like reclaimed my time in a way that my brain isn't constantly pulling to escape. I'm just able to be present in my life and conscious about how I'm spending every single minute of my time. And just that alone brings me so much peace.

Just being present gives me peace. Not having the pulls and the thoughts and the different things happening in my brain all the time that were happening before I got rid of it. You know, my brain just feels so much clearer and I can focus on the things that I need to focus on now. and that has brought me so much peace.

And I think it's funny because I mean, people have talked about TikTok being banned on and off for forever, but I feel like it's experiencing another bigger wave now of potentially being banned. But obviously I didn't even know about that when I quit, but now I don't have to worry about it, so that's nice.

But anyways, let me just talk for a minute about the impact that quitting TikTok has on my business because I have really only talked about it on a personal level up until now. I had this whole plan that I was gonna post coffee making tutorials on TikTok with voiceovers and encouraging words from this podcast as a way to market it. And I still think that's a good idea, but whenever I went to do it, I just felt so overwhelmed.

And I think a couple of the reasons are, one, I, like I said, I've never been a TikTok poster really. And so it's a new platform for me, which is a learning curve in itself. Right. And then I also am the one who's doing all of my Instagram posting and all, you know, I'm doing quite a few other marketing tactics already.

And whenever I went to post on TikTok, I just got so overwhelmed that I decided to just not even take that step yet, honestly. Maybe it's something I do in the future, like I said, 'cause I do think it's a good idea, but this is probably the biggest takeaway that I would want to encourage you with today, is just you don't have to be on every platform.

If it feels overwhelming, if starting, if you go to post somewhere and it feels overwhelming, take a step back and ask yourself why. Is it because it's a new platform and there's a learning curve? Is it because you feel pressured to make more content that you don't necessarily have the time or the creative energy to do, or is it something mental with like comparison? Like work through that with yourself.

But my encouragement to you is to build your online presence at a pace that is doable for you and in an intentional strategy for your business. So don't just hop on every platform to be on every platform. Like think about specifically the purposes of those platforms, how they work and how they can serve your business.

And once you break that down for each platform, then you can kind of easily prioritize, okay, this one's going to be the most useful and then this and then that and then this. And I would encourage you like just build one at a time, like do one really well, get really good at it. Once that's in a good groove, add on another.

And two, with the comparison thing, you are gonna see people all the time online who are on all these platforms and you're gonna wanna compare yourself to them and you're gonna feel inferior and you're gonna feel like, oh my gosh, they're so successful, like I have to do this if I wanna be successful.

And the thing that you don't see, the two things that you don't see are the years that they have put into their business, building it up, take a step back. You're not as far along as they are in time, your business is not as old as theirs. You haven't had as much time to build it up to, they have more than likely a really solid team behind them that are doing these posts.

So when you see an influencer posting on Tik TOK, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, lemonade, like it's probably not just them. Just remember that. And so if you are a one woman or one man show, don't put all that pressure on yourself, okay? I'm obviously preaching to myself here, but don't put all that pressure on yourself. Build it again, like I said, build it at a pace that's doable for you in the right strategy for your business. It's okay to be limited, you're a human, okay?

So really with all this, again, I don't want to come across it all that I think I am better than you because I got rid of TikTok. Okay? That is not the point and that is not the truth. What I want to do with this episode is to urge you to just evaluate how you're spending your work time and your downtime.

Is what you're doing in your downtime serving you?

Is it replenishing your energy?

Is there something that you need to test out either adding or taking away?

Like I said, I did not go in with the intention of getting rid of TikTok for forever. I just went in for the mindset of doing it for Lent, which is 40 days. But then I changed my mind going in, you know, after I got into it. So do you need to do like a tester with something to see if it's really serving you or not?

Something very interesting that my coach just told me is that for every two hours of super brain on intensive work that we do, we need an hour to recover. So are you giving yourself time to recover?

First of all, and when you are recovering, are you doing the right things? Are you doing things that actually allow you to mentally recover. And I challenge you to flip your perspective of controlling your stress levels by allowing more space to recover from those stressful things. 'Cause my first instinct if something is stressful is like, oh, I need to get rid of it.

Maybe you don't, maybe it's a good thing that's just gonna be hard. And you just need to give yourself adequate amount of time to recover after it. I brainstorm some ways that I feel like are healthy and productive ways to recover from work and intense mental application.

And so I wanted to run through some of those just to give you some ideas.

First one is walking outside in nature. I mean, any exercise or workout is incredible. So that's one too. But if you can get out, get in nature, you know, don't listen to anything. like listen to the birds think, you know, just look at your surroundings. I think that's a great way to decompress and give your brain space to breathe and process.

Reading obviously is great, whether that's fiction or nonfiction, something self help, just maybe depending on how your brain works, like mine works like this, that I need to have a fiction book just as a, let's not think about anything super serious for a while. You know, that, that's important for me.

Another one is, I'm calling it creativity for creativity's sake, because a lot of us are creative entrepreneurs and we're applying our creativity to our work a lot. But what are some things that you can do to express yourself that don't have anything to do with your work?

Can you listen to music? Can you play music? Can you write music? Can you do art?

You know, I, for a while I was on a kick of doing paint by numbers, adult paint by numbers. They were so fun and it was a great way to just de-stress and think about something else and express myself in a different way.

Obviously another big one for recovering is spending time with loved ones, either sharing an experience together or conversation. Of course eating, nourishing food is an important and vital way to recover and the more nourishing your food is the better your brain is going to perform when you're doing your work.

Another one is getting away, you know, getting out of your normal day-to-day context and just escaping will help your brain as well to escape and process and look at things in a different way.

And then the last thing is having a new experience. If you can't get away, what can you do in your town that you've never done before or a new shared experience with someone? You know, how can you make a new memory and get out of, you know, kind of same concept of get out of your day to day rhythms.

So that's what I have for you today. My story of how I got on TikTok, how I got off TikTok, how it affected me and what I learned and how I would encourage you from what I've learned. So I hope you've gotten something out of today's podcast. I would love to hear what stuck out to you and what new thoughts that you might have learned today.

If you enjoy this episode, if it was helpful, it would mean so much if you would just scroll down in the podcast app that you're listening in and give me a five-star rating and write me a little review, even if it's just a sentence, it would mean so much and it does help this podcast reach other people, which is what we wanna do, is just help every entrepreneur that we can find have more peace in their day-to-day life and business.

So thanks again for being here and we will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. We look forward to connecting with you more, whether that's on Instagram, TikTok, or our email list. We'd love to hear what you thought of today's episode and if you have any additional tips to add.

We will see you next week with more tips and tools to becoming a peaceful entrepreneur. Bye for now.