Is your phone adding any value?
Hi guys! Welcome to episode 168 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast. Don’t forget to subscribe and tell your friends to listen!!!
Can we have a quick honest talk about our phone addictions? I think most of us struggle with this in one way or another. And I’m not judging, this is something I work on every single day. I’m getting better but it’s not but
It breaks my heart to be in a restaurant or an airport or wherever and see a parent sitting staring at their phone and notice how their kids are vying for their attention. Look at this mommy. Head down, mumbling mm hmmm. Yeah. Good. Or to be at dinner and notice how many of us are just on our phone instead of connecting with the people right in front of us, the ones that chose to take time out of their day to be with us.
What are we doing? When did it become ok to be so distracted? When did it become socially acceptable to just simply go heads down on our phone and ignore all that is good around us? It makes me sad to see I get it because it’s more comfortable to stare at the phone then to just sit and take in the surroundings where you may have to make eye contact with a stranger or god forbid we make a new friend!
This present moment matters. This person that came to dinner with you matters. And it’s hard because we have trained our brains to be addicted to activity. To drama. One of the hardest things I’ve done is break the habit of wanting to just scroll to see what’s the latest drama.
Is our life that mundane? I’d like to think not but something is missing if our favorite time of day is when we get to veg in front of the tv or zone out into social media whichever that is.
Is this the new acceptable drug of choice? Our brain gets juiced off the drama so we just keep going back for more because that dopamine hit feels so good. But what about the feeling of being present with someone you find interesting? What about being present with that little boy or girl that only wants your attention? I don’t have kids but my Yorkie is kind of like one in a way.
She doesn’t like it when I’m on my phone. She wants full attention. Every morning we walk in our cove so she can do her business. I never have my phone but a few weeks ago something had grabbed my attention so I had my phone and was reading it when she just stopped dead in her tracks and looked up at me. Won’t walk. I laughed and said oh my goodness you’re not going to walk if I’m on my phone. As soon as I put my phone away she took off Just like normal and we had a great walk. And that’s a fur baby. She’s not even human! Imagine how a human feels when you do that? It doesn’t feel good to be with someone that is constantly distracted. What is on that phone that’s so much more interesting than me? How do we compete with the constant dopamine hit of that’s what someone’s addicted to?
Well I have a question for you? Is studying that phone constantly making you better?
Is scrolling on your phone going to make you money? Is it going to make your relationships better? Is scrolling on your phone going to make you more fit? What the heck is it adding to your life?
Brooke Castillo calls it buffering. It’s a form of acceptable buffering.
I think a lot of times we use it as a crutch. We are in a situation where we feel bored or awkward or unsure of what to do next or how to do something next and reaching for your phone to get that dopamine hit is a sure thing. It’s comfort in a time when maybe you should just be ok with discomfort. Why are you reaching for your phone? Stop and think about it. What feeling just came up where it made you reach for your phone. Being aware of that feeling or thought will help you overcome the addiction of mindlessly grabbing and scrolling.
So since I’ve been working on this I’ve been really noticing what makes me want to grab my phone. For me, sometimes it’s someone asking me if I heard the latest news and I haven’t because I try not to look at it Or this last week I was working on a business plan and my brain gave me a thought that was like “now how are you gonna do all that?” Which stressed me out for a second, which caused me to reach for the phone for the comfort of taking my mind off the uncomfortable thought.
So I’m going to play both scenarios out with you guys. I have a thought about figuring out how to market to reach more people through my podcast. That makes me uncomfortable so I reach for my phone and scroll mindlessly to take my mind off of it..an hour later I’m on a clothing site buying a shirt that popped up on an ad while I was aimlessly scrolling. Nothing accomplished towards what I was working on. Momentum completely lost.
Orrrrr I have the uncomfortable thought, my mind wants to do anything but be uncomfortable but I push through and instead of mindlessly scrolling I find several articles on best practices for increasing your podcast listeners and I follow through on several of the ideas. An hour later I’ve reached out to different podcasts to market myself and to run ads on their podcasts. Momentum definitely headed in the right direction.
My challenge to you this week: the next time you have the urge to reach for your phone to mindlessly scroll, mentally note what caused you to want to grab it, then pause and see if the urge to grab it fades. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t but Eckart Tole says just doing that one little exercise raises your consciousness. You’re making yourself better, one little step at a time. That’s what the wildly successful lifestyle podcast is all about. I love you guys. Talk to you in a few days!
