I want to live a genuine life, make genuine deep connections, achieve goals I have set myself like writing and running and travelling. To do all of these things takes time in your day, around work, around family, around friends. I need to be pretty savvy with my precious time if I am ever going to achieve it. I need to keep time spent with loved ones sacred. I need to timetable my life carefully if I am going to succeed as a lecturer, a coach, a girlfriend, a writer, an active bod.

I am self-sabotaging all of this.

I am really ashamed to be writing this and putting it out there. This Christmas holidays I got pretty upset with my Dad on Christmas day because he spent the day with his face in his phone compiling playlists. We didn’t spend time with the Rapidough or Monopoly or Scrabble we pulled out, we spent time separately together. But actually, if I’m honest, I was actually angry at myself, not him. Because he was reflecting right back at me how I must be when friends come to stay or I’m sat on the couch with a loved one. This is nothing new to me, I wrote about it in goals for last year. I’ve known it’s a problem of mine for a whole year, but I have refused to do anything about it. I have refused to face up to it, I have justified it with excuses. ‘Oh I just flick on it when i’m bored, it’s because I’m lonely and I get to see what the outside world is up to.’ Except, I’ve let it take over me. I absent-mindedly flick through it umpteen times a day, I get lost in it, clicking links to articles I never knew I was interested in. I have used up valuable time on the commute to training mindlessly looking at status updates. I have sat mesmerised by food on instagram, making myself feel hungry.

I could be using my commute to coaching to write, to read to improve myself and my writing skills. I could be fully engaged in the conversation that I am in with the person in front of me. I could leave the house and have a cup of coffee with someone, go to a pub quiz. Be social not lonely. I could be getting a quality night sleep instead of reading articles in the dead of night when I wake at 2am.

I wanted to get a good idea of my addiction so I downloaded an app called Sense. I have used social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter as per normal. The stats are horrifying, but they are the cold hard truth. My maximum amount of time has been 203 minutes total per day. I can average out about 90 minutes per day on Facebook, 20-30 minutes on Instagram. I am genuinely devastated, because this is all valuable time that I could be putting to far better use. Training, Writing, Planning, Doing, Being.

My life is flawed, imperfect, busy, heartbreakingly sad and wonderfully enriching all at the same time. I know it, we all know it. But there I am looking at people’s beautifully curated yoga poses (yep-you’re bendy, I’m not, I still love yoga and I don’t need to be you and your bendiness- and yeah I am kinda jealous you’re on a gorgeous beach somewhere tropical and I’m here in soggy, wintery London) and training sessions and motivating quotes. There I am engaging in that. Have I ever posted here I am sad, unmotivated, still in my PJ’s, can’t be bothered to face the world. Nope. Because none of us want to see that. I need to engage in that more. The realness of actual life, the people who are genuinely interested in me and want to spend time with me. The people who want to run with me, laugh at my rubbishness at pub quizzes.

I have deleted Facebook from my phone to enable myself to choose when I want to log on and engage. There is nothing wrong with the digital world. I just need to be more present in my world if I want to achieve my goals and be present in the lives of the people I love and have time to train. I will still post pics of me running with my running dog, because he is amazing and an amazing advocate for adopting not shopping for your dog. I will still post ridiculous posts about my stupidity or the hilarious moments in my life. I just want more of my real life back in my own control.

Do you self-sabotage? If you do, how? What are you going to do about it? If you want something, what are you going to sacrifice to get it?