What a Week Off From Instagram Taught Me

If your first thought when reading today’s blog post title had something to do with being a first world problem, I completely agree with you. But first, let me provide some background.

If you follow along on my Instagram, you may have known that my Instagram account was one of the account’s that faced Instagram’s latest technical malfunction where they completely block you from doing any action at all on your account (except for posting Instagram stories or watching other people’s stories) for 7 days. This essentially means you can’t use your account for a week because nothing works. If one of you out there reading this faced the same issue, I’m so sorry it happened to you too! This past week has been a whirlwind of emotions…. all from a social media app! As I read this and replay the last week I had in my head, it’s just so silly!

But in those 7 days, I honestly feel like I’ve learned so much about myself just by not using Instagram every day. And that really made me stop and think for a second. “How have I let this app control so much of my life?” While using Instagram is a big part of my blog and has been for the last 3 years, I never truly realized how much it had taken over my life.

Of course, any Instagram user who went through this probably went through the same emotions I had at first. When it first happened and I realized what had happened with my account, I was sad and angry. For about 2-3 days after I couldn’t stop thinking about it and how much I was missing out (some serious FOMO was going on). I was really just angry in this phase. Angry at Instagram and angry that no matter what I did or tried to do to fix it, they couldn’t do anything, I was just going to have to wait it out. After 3 days I was just sad. I felt like a lot of my blog was just gone, when it really wasn’t. This right there taught me everything I needed to know. And since then I have been thinking so much about my future.

It’s helped me remember that we don’t own these apps that let us show our work and to not stress over things we can’t control, but rather to focus on what we can control. It’s helped me remember to focus my blogging energy on my actual blog and why I started blogging in the first place, and not relying so much on Instagram or other social media apps. I decided to take the week off from blogging and social media as, after everything I had gone through within the first couple days of the IG block, I just felt like a break was much needed. Time to reset and clear my head a little and remember why I started blogging in the first place. And I’d say because of that, that is the one thing I am thankful for from this crappy Instagram experience. This definitely, definitely did not harm my passion for creating content through my blog, I love it so much. However, it’s really made me think about my future and career goals I have for myself.

I’d say one of my biggest goals I had for my blog over the next 10 years was to go full-time with it. However, after this scary incident, I honestly don’t really think I even want that anymore. It’s way too scary to wake up one day and everything could be gone without your control. While I will obviously continue to blog and create content (and continue to use Instagram) because of my strong passion for it and love for how fun it is and how I can express myself through it, I’ve spent this last week thinking a lot about my career goals for the next 10 years outside of my blog.

It’s helped me remember my dream that I have had ever since I was a kid, and to continue to work hard at my job and my blog every day to help me achieve my dream.

I am so excited for what’s to come over the next few years and can’t wait to share my story with you all along the way. Thanks so much for being here and following along!

Today’s outfit details are linked below as well: