I’ve had a love-hate relationship with social media for a while… actually, it’s more of a hate-hate relationship.

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A few years ago, I started phasing out my use of social media on my personal accounts – especially Instagram. This improved my mental health tremendously, and I’m seriously never going back to using it the way I did before!

But then, when I started a business, it seemed like I had to be spending at least some time on social media platforms. You may have heard me say this before, but websites are not “build it and they will come” situations. It takes strategy and effort to build up your website traffic, and social media can be an effective tool for doing it!

Even when I’m just using social media for my business, though, I still get sucked into the comparison vortex sometimes! I’ll hop over to Pinterest to do some keyword research and BAM – I start to see content from people with businesses like mine who seem to be crushing it waaaay harder than I am.

When you’re in a good headspace, you’re accomplishing your goals, and things are going right for you, other people’s content may not bother you as much. It might actually be motivating.

But when your business feels a little shaky, especially in early days or slow seasons, it’s easy to become derailed and discouraged when another person’s success is being shoved in your face.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize: comparison is like poison for your mind and your business.

Ideally, the best way to deal with it is to change your mindset – to realize that everyone is on their own journey, and someone else’s success doesn’t diminish any of your opportunities to be successful.

The way social media is designed, though, doesn’t always leave that option available to us. So, there’s no shame in doing what’s best for your mental health as a business owner!

Here’s how I’ve created some distance between myself and social media while building my business:

• Choose just ONE social media platform to focus on. For me, that’s Pinterest. 💚
• Use a scheduling tool like Tailwind to schedule my posts, so I don’t even have to open the Instagram or Pinterest apps!
• Limit the number of people/businesses I follow in my industry. I love them, but I can’t let myself get distracted by what they’ve got goin’ on.

If social media has been more of an obstacle than a tool for you, I hope this helps! Remember to keep your eyes on your own paper, and just keep getting after it.

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What’s been growing on at Seedling:

🪴 This month on the blog, we’ve been focusing on all things copywriting! If you need a little push to improve your brand messaging, check it out!

🪴 The Website Copywriting Workbook is launching on August 8th! Sign up for the waitlist to get notified when it goes live (and to get an exclusive discount!).

🪴 We’re updating our communication frequency – you can expect to receive emails from me every other week from now on (plus a little more during launches!).
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