60: 5 Money Lessons From Deleting Instagram
I’m kicking off season 3 of the Mind Money Balance podcast by applying some lessons I learned from a month off of Instagram. I’m also excited to share that season three of the podcast will be more solo shows and have about one longer guest interview a month. This season, I’ll be interviewing a student loan expert, enneagram and money specialist, and business astrologist!
5 Money Lessons From Deleting Instagram
Hit “pause” on thinking about money. Are you constantly checking in on your money or thinking about money? What might happen if you created a system that included hitting “pause?” When I used to work with anxiety clients, we’d schedule “worry time.” This worry time is a time where a client could compartmentalize their worries and spend dedicated time thinking about the things that plague them. Ask yourself, “How would I show up in the world if I weren’t thinking about money all the time?”
Money beliefs aren’t created equally. What money beliefs have you internalized that you haven’t examined lately? How are those beliefs helping or hurting you? When was the last time you examined beliefs? For example, maybe you believe you have to do all of your grocery shopping to stay “on budget.” But maybe having a shopping help you out 2-3 times a month would actually free up a few additional hours in your day so you could unplug and enjoy the weekend. Another example is for my therapist friends who are keeping their private practices “on the side” of a full-time hospital job. Perhaps they believe that the hospital job is the secure financial route, but they haven’t examined what might happen if they went full time in their private practice.
Reconnect with your values. Check-in on if you are spending, saving, and investing in alignment with your values. I encourage you to not only check in on where your money is going but also where your time and energy are going. Take this as an invitation to reconnect with your values and shift your time, energy, and money accordingly.
Assess shiny object syndrome. Curate where you are getting your money knowledge and information from. Dial down the noise of what to do with your money from influencers and gurus who make you feel bad about where you are at financially. Be gentle and generous with yourself with where you are on your money journey.
Know your money habits. What are you doing habitually with your money that might not be the best thing for you? Removing a “bad” habit isn’t enough; to make a behavior habit stick you also have to replace that “bad” habit with a new one. Instead of constantly checking in on your retirement account, see if you can check in on the account once or twice a month and replace the checking habit with something non-money related. Maybe check in on your friends, grab a glass of water, literally anything to help create a new habit that works for you.
SEO and Website Help for Therapists
I mentioned two people and resources that I credit with helping me ensure that I can time off of social media and have a sustainable online business. Monica of Hold Space Creative and Kristie of TherapieSEO. I used Monica’s beautifully designed Squarespace template as the foundation of my hardworking website. I’m such a firm believer in Hold Space Creative in helping to bridge the gap between therapy seekers and therapists that she’s my guest expert in my group coaching program for private practice therapists. Plus, all participants will get one of her pre-designed website templates as a way to start customizing their sites right away. TherapieSEO offers several SEO solutions for therapists, and Kristie helped me find relevant keywords that potential therapy and coaching clients were searching for. The combination of making my site SEO optimized, and having it look great when people found it, made my time off of Instagram doable as a small business owner.
Work with Me in a Power Session
A power session is a 75-minute appointment where I dive deep into a couple of questions with someone. Most of these have been with private practice or service-based small business owners. These sessions allow us to dive right into a question (or three) and help give you steps and strategies to make changes in your business! Book yours here!
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Hello, hello. It's me Lindsay Bryan-Podvin, here with the Mind Money Balance Podcast for season three , and I am really, really excited to be coming back to talk to y'all about how to get your mind and money in balance, knowing that it's different for each and every one of us. As I kick off season three, there are some fun things coming down the pike. I never know what that saying is. So to kind of get y'all ready for what's coming, I wanna share with you a little kind of shake up of the way things have been if you were here for season two. I highly, highly focused my stuff on therapists and their relationship with money based off of feedback I got from season one of my pod.
Well as it will become clear for you as we dig into today's topic, which is five lessons I learned from a month off of Instagram and how those lessons can be applied to your money. I was hitting burnout pretty hard come March/April of 2021, which makes perfect sense because we were are still in a pandemic.
I'm an Asian American woman. There were a lot of things and continue to be a lot of things that really plagued folks of color in this country. And we had a rise of, of an increase in hate crimes against people of Asian descent here in the US and I was really doing something that I do a lot, which jumping into work as a distraction, I am really, really fortunate to love my work, and at the same time, I can definitely use it as a coping mechanism when things are going haywire and other aspects of my life. And so I was definitely doing that, throwing myself into my work, which I'm sure some of you can probably relate to.
But what was happening was that it was no longer giving me the type of positive reinforcement that it used to, and specifically I was seeing that in in Instagram and what was happening over there on my account at Mind Money Balance is that I was no longer just using it for kind of work and connectivity.
I was really using it as my news source, right? So I was using it as my MSNBC, as my CNN, as My New York Times, as my Washington Post, and as you can probably imagine, that wasn't super great for my mental health. I was feeling this anxiety to share a lot of my thoughts and my feelings about what was going on in the state of our world.
And while I still believe in social justice and in sharing our news and our perspectives with others, I think it is of a benefit for most of us. I also was just getting like highly, highly burnt out. So I knew that I had to hit pause and I also know myself that I, if I had any access to opening the app either on my phone or on my laptop, that I was gonna do it.
So I had to kind of prep for being off of Instagram because as a business owner who uses Instagram as a part of the way that folks, you know, working with me, whether that's in something like a coaching program, a power session, a therapy session. I knew I had to give folks a heads up that I was going to be hitting pause, so I let everybody know through my email list and on Instagram that I would be hitting pause, and then I went ahead and hit pause in a big way, which meant for me deleting the app from my phone and then also blocking.
Instagram, on my Google Chrome, there's a Google Chrome extension that allows you to block websites. So I added it to my blocked websites, and of course I could go in and unblock it, but it was just that extra layer that I needed to hit pause and, and when I hit headed into this break, I didn't know how long I'd be taking a break.
I imagined it'd be somewhere in like the three to six week range, but I wasn't putting a, a hard time limit on it. I was really doing something which was like checking in with my, my inner wisdom to know when it was time to come back and it ended up being, like exactly a month basically that I was off the app between the start of May and the start of June.
So what I learned from a month off of Instagram I will share with you in just a moment, but I also want to share with you what you can expect from season three of the podcast. As a part of my time away, I did some, I don't even wanna call it soul searching because my intuition knew what I needed, but I just needed that time to kind of reconnect with myself and, and what I knew for the here and now is that I love the podcast.
I find it really helpful and having guests on every single week, while it is certainly exciting and fun, and I love having those conversations and bringing those conversations to you, as you can probably imagine, it's tricky to coordinate. Schedules and interview times and to get you know, all of those things lined up.
And so this go around for season three. I'm going to be bringing you more solo shows, but I'll still be bringing on guest experts. So for season three of the Mind Money Balance Podcast, what you can expect is shorter snappier solo shows, and then one longer. Expert interview about a month. You know, I'm not holding myself to any sort of strict rules around it.
It's just like a general kind of balance for me. And what I'm excited to share is that I've got some really, really fun, exciting conversations coming to you on those guest expert days. I have somebody coming in to talk to us all about student loans. I've got a student loan expert coming on. I have an enneagram and a money person coming to chat with us about the Enneagram and money I have my friend Leslie Tagoda lined up to talk to us about astrology and money, and I've got a couple other things that I don't wanna quite share yet, but they are going to be good and fun and juicy. So with that, let me bring you into the five things I learned in my month off of Instagram.
Number one was just time off of thinking about work. As I mentioned at the top of this episode, I used Instagram for my work. And when you have your work life, not separated, but integrated the way that I do, I would use Instagram for both fun and work, and as I mentioned for news. And what that meant for me was that on the weekends when a lot of people joy scrolling cuz I know we all do a, a fun amount. A fun amount, a good amount of doom scrolling. We also do fun scrolling, right? We wanna see what's going on with our friends, with our families, with the people that we like to follow. But because I was doing that fun and doom scrolling on the weekends and it was my work account, I was also thinking about work 24/7, right?
I just didn't realize the Instagram part of my brain was on at all times. Because what would happen is like on a Sunday evening, if I was just like scrolling to kind of catch up with friends and family, I'd also, you know, consume work related stuff, which meant that I was thinking about work all the time.
And as I mentioned, I like work. I'm really one of those people who's super fortunate to love my job, but it doesn't mean that I have to be thinking about it all the time. So hitting pause on Instagram gave me time off of thinking about work and how I think you can take this tip or lesson and implement it with your money is to ask yourself, how often am I thinking about money? Am I thinking about money 24/7/365? And if so, is that causing me anxieties? That causing me stress? Is there a way that I can hit pause on thinking about my money? You know, I, I recently asked one of my clients. You know, how would you show up in your world if you weren't thinking about money all the time?
And I think that my pause from Instagram helped to reiterate the importance of hitting pause. On looking at our money, thinking about money, and it's not doing this in a way that's irresponsible, but if you trend towards having anxiety or perfectionism when it comes to your money, hitting pause on looking at your accounts for a couple of days is not gonna make or break things and it's gonna give your brain a body that break that it needs to not think about.
Lesson number two that I learned in my time off of Instagram was my income was not as reliant on Instagram as I had once thought. So here here's kind of where it gets a little muddy. So I ask new clients whether they're a therapy clients, whether they're coaching clients, how'd you find me? Whether they're speaking engagement clients, right?
And a lot of people say, oh, I found you on Instagram, which I think is probably true, but there's like a grain of, of like, that might not have been the very first place they found me. They might have found me through a website or heard me on a podcast and then kind of used my Instagram to vet me or to kind of see like, is this, is this person really who she claims to be?
And after a month away, I had no hit to my income. In fact, my income went up as did my website traffic and my email newsletter traffic. They all went up and I continued to get aligned clients in my therapy and coaching practice. So I have to give a huge shout out to two people, Monica, of Hold Space Creative.
I used her Andrea template to do a pre-designed website on Squarespace, which I think helps to really work hard on my behalf. And then shout out number two is to Kristie of TherapieSEO. We work together back at the start of 2021 to help me level up my SEO game, and I had quite a few blog posts that I'd optimized using her help.
That really took off. And were continuing to drive new people my way. So what I learned was, yes, Instagram is helpful for sure, and it isn't the end all be all to having an online business. I tend to be a little bit leery of people who make these claims that like you need to be on social to grow your business, or going live on Instagram every day is the only way to grow your business.
Or you have to have a TikTok or you have to have a Facebook group in order to have an online business. I tend to be a little leery of those folks anyway, but after taking a month off of Instagram, it really solidified to me that having a hardworking website, is the keystone of not burning out and having a profitable and sustainable online business.
And yes, social media can be helpful, but you're building your business on, on borrowed intellectual property or on borrowed algorithms, right? You're building it on somebody else's stuff. Whereas with your website and with your email list, you have full ownership of those things. So what does this have to do with your.
Take a look at the way you're expending your energy and the way that money is coming in and see how true it is that you have to be doing those things in order to have your spending plan in order meaning, maybe you think I have to do all of my grocery shopping by myself or you know, I'm gonna be like blowing all this money.
I can't use something like Instacart or one of those other like shopping apps to do it for me cuz they're gonna spend money that, that, you know, I know I could save if I did it myself. It's like, well maybe, but also maybe using an app like Instacart might actually give you back time and maybe that time and that energy could best be used in other places.
Another way to take this lesson is maybe you are a full-time hospital therapist and you have your private practice on the side, and maybe you have this idea that keeping your private practice on the side is the smart thing to do because you're bringing in more money from your full-time hospital position.
But if you actually crunch the numbers, maybe going full-time in your private practice would be more financially successful than having this full-time job where you're working for somebody else. So, so the lesson here is, Take a look at these things you are taking at face value is fact and examine them with like a little more of a critical lens.
Like take a step back and instead of being so subjective about how it feels, take a look at how it actually is playing out and see if you can start to shift around those narratives that you believed about money that were. Okay. Take away number three or lesson number three. I learned from a month off of Instagram was I missed people.
While I love Instagram, like the reason I originally loved Instagram is the same reason that it was hard for me to be away. Yes, I'm an introvert, but that also means that I really value genuine connections. And I know it sounds bizarre, but I have genuine connections with people through Instagram. Right? My theory on this is that I connect with people on Instagram based on values and interests instead of proximity the way that we.
"IRL" right? So I, once I like got back on Instagram, one of the first things I did was set up an intentional networking event because I wanted to reconnect with the people that I had missed and invite them to kind of invite other people into that intentional networking event so that we could reconnect.
I think that there are pros and cons of social media, and I think that the lesson here is, is take a look at where you are spending your, your time and energy and money, and is it in alignment with your values. I talk about values based spending all the time. But to me this was like a value that was missing in my life.
I missed those genuine connections that I'd cultivated and that I'd crafted. And being away from the platform made me realize like how important those things were to me. So when it comes to your money, take a look at like, are you spending and saving and investing in alignment with your values? And if not, take this as an invitation to, to reconnect with those values and maybe shift those things around.
lesson number four, I learned from my time away from Instagram was no surprise, was Shiny Object Syndrome as a therapist on Instagram. I also really love finding inspiration from other people who are social justice minded therapists. But then at the same time, I was also taking like these subconscious notes on, on posts and videos and reels that I found like super exciting.
So along with the inspiration was this like nagging feeling that I wasn't doing enough, I wasn't doing content creation. I wasn't advocating enough for marginalized groups. I wasn't connecting enough with people. And this constant subconscious comparison was exhausting. And it was really something I didn't realize I was doing until I hit delete.
So moving forward, I'm making a little promise to myself, and by putting it out here, I'm also having some external accountability. That instead of comparing myself to others, I really want to check in with myself as I create advocate and connect with other people. And how you can take the less shiny object syndrome and apply it to your relationship with money is to kind of curate where you're getting your knowledge and information.
If you are following people who are like real estate flippers in the personal finance space, but you're not at a point in your life right now to flip real estate, then maybe don't consume as much of their content. It's not to say you can't consume their content or that someday you won't flip real estate, but maybe, you know, change your email subscription settings from daily or weekly to maybe monthly.
So maybe you get that person who you find really inspirational Who does real estate? Maybe you just get their content once a month instead of every day or every week. Same goes with like debt paydown. Maybe you're at a good place for paying down your debt. And you see some people who are like really just barreling into it.
And maybe it's one of those things where it's like exciting, but also maybe you're judging yourself for not doing enough. So just, just check in with yourself. Again, this is kind of similar to that third takeaway about your values, but also. Don't hold yourself to other people's standards. What we see online is like a sliver and a curated and thoughtful sliver of what's actually going on in somebody else's life.
So just be gentle with yourself and generous with yourself when you find that that shiny object syndrome kind of hitting. And the fifth lesson I learned from a month off of Instagram was just how freaking habitual checking Instagram was for me, it was one of those things that like I knew, but I didn't really know until I deleted it.
Like I literally had to retrain my right thumb to go somewhere else on my phone because it was so like, just so habitual. I mean that, that's why I said it as as. And what I had to kind of do is retrain myself with like, what do I do with this habit of checking? What can I replace with it? We know when it comes to behavior change that simply removing an old habit isn't enough. We often have to replace it with something else. So I had to start replacing it with something else. So when I had that itch to check my phone and then Instagram was no longer there, I got to replace it with other things, like maybe just taking my dog on a little loop around the block, you know or what else did I replace it with?
Or I'd replace it with like meditation. You know, very, very terrible at meditation. It might just mean sitting there and thinking all the things, but it was, it was something intentional that I was doing instead of just immediately going to my phone. And the other perk was that as I deleted Instagram, it was also right around the time when a lot of my family and friends were hitting that post two week vaccination mark.
So it also meant that like I could actually literally put my phone down and be around people, in person in a way that was safe. Not just me and them, but safe for our community, right? It was like, ugh. It was so, so wonderful. And so what I would say for you if you're applying this lesson to your money is what are you doing habitually with your money that you might not even have considered?
Might be not the best thing. And I'm not talking about like, oh, the morning latte run. I'm talking about maybe your habitually checking in on your retirement account. Maybe you're habitually checking in your Venmo account, like, again, kind of like tip number one, how, how intentional is it and how much of it is a habit?
So just being, you know, a little bit more mindful about that. So truthfully to kind of summarize this back to the podcast, back to the Instagram episode. What's next for me is, honestly, I don't really know what's next for me in Instagram. I am back on the app. I've kind of played around with this idea of like just keeping a business there.
But the reality is I do have a lot of good connections that I've cultivated there. I don't have a personal Instagram account, so it is my, my friends and family account too. I've thought about deleting the app on the weekends. I've thought about being strict with myself of just checking it 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening.
And truthfully, none of those have really felt right to me. I've kept an app timer on, so it kicks me off after a certain amount of time on the app that feels right to me. And it's just about really checking in with myself and what feels best overall. I'm so glad I took the month away. Whether you're a therapist who's on Instagram and you feel like you're relying on it for your income, I encourage you if it feels aligned, of course it doesn't feel aligned to everybody.
Just take like a mini challenge of like 3, 5, 7 days off and see what happens. If you are not a small business owner, but you're finding yourself on Instagram all the time, I challenge you to like delete the app for a little bit and just see, see what comes up for you. These are lessons. You know, some of them, I subconsciously had an idea, I would learn them, but then some of them were like big surprises to me.
So that's kind of where I'm at there. So, to wrap this one up, I wanna say thank you for, for allowing me to hit pause on Instagram on this podcast. You might be watching this on YouTube because I've also made the decision. Look, if I'm gonna sit here and record these podcasts, I might as well get them out there as videos.
So, hi to my friends watching this on YouTube. You can now catch me on YouTube again at YouTube.com/LindsayBryanPodvin. I'm so excited to be back here on YouTube and on the podcast, and I wanna thank RJ, who is my podcast editor for being so generous with like, just understanding that I needed a break and being like, "Cool. You know what, girl, when you're ready to come back, just ping me and, and I'll get the editing down for you." In addition to thanking RJ for being so generous of like letting me have my time away, it is June of 2021.
At the time of this podcast and YouTube recording, I offer these things called power sessions. They are 75 minute deep dives. Mostly they've been used for other private practice therapists who have questions for me, like, "Hey, I don't know where to put my marketing," or "I wanna raise my fees, but I feel like a greedy capitalist for doing it," or "Linds, my, my private practice is full. I wanna add some coaching on the side. Can you gimme some tips or ideas based on my business?" These power coaching sessions are deep dives where we jump right in and get into the strategy and get into you answering your questions. These are really my answer to, I wanna pick your brain. They are going to be going up in price in July of 2021. So if you were listening to this, watching this in real time, book your power session with me now in June, before they go up, they're going up by quite a bit.
They're going up by 20% because to be honest with you, I hadn't touched them in a really long time and I deliver a ton of value with them, and it was time for me to practice what I preach. Increase my fee. So if you wanna get in on those at the current rate, definitely head to MindMoneyBalance.com/PowerSession. They will of course be linked in the show notes and if you're watching this on YouTube in the description box. And with that, I'm back, screenshot this, tag it out on Instagram. I'd love to see who is listening to my podcast, who's watching me on YouTube, and it just feels really good to be back. And I wanna thank you, the listeners and audience for being generous with me as well as I took this time off.
So with that, I will see you next week.