How to Take Control of Social Media with Bre Burke
- Oct 4, 2024
- 17 min read
TL;DR
How can I break the cycle of digital overload and find fulfillment again in my business?
You can reduce digital overload by understanding how screen habits form neural pathways, deleting non-essential apps, setting time limits, and creating phone-free zones. When you replace scrolling with offline activities that bring genuine joy, you rebuild your attention and start feeling more connected to yourself and the people around you.
That shift helps you use technology as a tool instead of letting it drain your mental health and energy.
Bre Burke and Reconnecting in a Filtered World
The Hidden Impact of Screens
Screens and technology have changed how we live, work, and connect, but many people do not notice the shift until burnout, anxiety, or stress builds up. This is especially true for entrepreneurs who are constantly online.
The problem is not just time spent on devices—it is what those devices replace. In-person connection is essential for human happiness, yet screens often become a substitute for real interaction. That substitution creates a cycle that feels hard to break.
How Screen Habits Form
Screen use becomes a habit because our brains build neural pathways through repetition. The more we scroll, the stronger those pathways become. Our subconscious mind prefers the path of least resistance, which makes it easier to return to old habits than to start new ones.
Breaking the cycle requires conscious awareness and consistent effort. You cannot just rely on motivation. You need structure and boundaries that support healthier choices.
Practical Strategies for Digital Detox
Both experts offer simple, actionable steps to reduce screen time and interrupt the habit loop:
Delete non-essential apps like Facebook, Pinterest, or LinkedIn from your phone. You can still access them on a computer when needed.
Set time limits using your phone's built-in settings to cap daily app use and receive reminders.
Create phone-free zones, such as keeping your phone out of the bedroom or placing it far from your bed at night.
Unfollow content that triggers comparison or negative emotions. Curate a feed that inspires you instead.
Schedule regular breaks, like unplugging on weekends, to reconnect with yourself and the world offline.
These steps reduce temptation and make it easier to choose healthier habits.
Finding Fulfillment Beyond the Screen
Real fulfillment comes from offline activities that bring joy, not content created for social media. Engaging in hobbies like pottery, rollerblading, or team sports not only gives you a break from screens but also improves physical and mental well-being.
When you ask whether you are doing something for the camera or for genuine happiness, it becomes clearer where your focus should be. Prioritizing activities that light you up helps you build a more balanced life.
The Power of Choice
Technology can be a powerful tool for growing your business, or it can work against you. The difference comes from the choices you make about how you use it.
You have control over your experience with these platforms. Intentional boundaries and better habits give you back your time, attention, and mental health.
Break the Cycle Together
Digital distractions are part of modern life, but they do not need to dominate your days. When you become aware of your habits and choose healthier alternatives, you can interrupt the cycle of digital overload.
Bre Burke's insights show that true fulfillment often lies beyond the screen. Taking intentional steps today helps you reconnect with yourself and build a more balanced, meaningful life.
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Transcript for Episode 360. Take Control: Redefining Your Relationship with Social Media with Bre Burke
Amy [00:00:02]:
How are you feeling? No, seriously, like, when's the last time you checked in with yourself? There's something happening right now in our world, such a major shift and it's happening behind the scenes that I think a lot of us aren't really even consciously aware of it yet. And it's really impacting us in so many ways. Not just professionally, not just in our businesses, but in our lives as well. Today's guest, Breanne Burke, is a mindset and confidence coach who teaches women how to become unstuck and gain unshakable confidence to take action towards the fulfilling life they desire. And the conversation we are going to have today is needed. It is so needed. This conversation was actually sparked by a post that I saw that Brianne posted. And I was like, you know what? We need this.
Amy [00:00:58]:
We need this so much. And what that post that I'm referring to talked about was just how we're living in such a filtered world. We are living our lives through a screen. We're living our lives for these devices and missing this amazing world around us, and it's impacting us in a lot of ways. So with all that being said, Brianne, I am so excited to have you here as a guest today. Welcome into the podcast.
Breanne Burke [00:01:30]:
What a beautiful intro, Amy. Thank you so much. I'm very, very excited to be here. And as we, and before we hit record, as I said, I'm very happy to have this conversation because I feel like there is such a need for it.
Amy [00:01:43]:
So, yeah, and it's something that I've noticed has been going on subconsciously. Like, we're not taking the time to really check in with ourselves, but a lot of us. And I'm hearing a lot of this from clients, from fellow entrepreneurs that they're just burnt out, just feeling conscious, like continuously anxious and worried and stressed. How do you think our relationship with our phones, with our devices, with these screens, how is that impacting how we're feeling in our day to day lives?
Breanne Burke [00:02:18]:
I think it has a massive impact on how we're feeling. We can kind of break this down through different perspectives, because in one way, it's really beautiful that we have access to the resources that we do. We have platforms that are free, that are social media, and it allows people of any age, of any demographic, to launch a business, share their voice, connect with people all over the world. So in one component, that is fantastic. But what is happening is people are replacing their in person connection, their in person sense of community, which is like a vital core contributor to a human being's happiness and fulfillment with connection online. Because we know what it's like. If you're having a bit of an off day, Amy, and you're just like, a little bit in your fields, you're feeling sluggish. You're not feeling motivated, right? You're like, oh, I feel stuck.
Breanne Burke [00:03:14]:
And you feel naturally a little bit disconnected from your people. You don't particularly, like, feel like talking to anyone. You kind of want to isolate yourself. You don't want to go to the social gathering or the party. And then you get on your phone, and then what do you feel? You feel a little bit more connected to people? Cause it's like, oh, I saw what's going on in her day. Like, I'm like, and it's an addiction, and it's a habit. And people don't understand that everything we do is habitual. It's literally a neural pathway.
Breanne Burke [00:03:45]:
If those of you that aren't familiar, I'm not sure if you've spoken about this already on your podcast, but a neural pathway, you can look at it as though it's like a link chain that's in your subconscious mind. The more you feed it, the stronger it becomes. And what that is, is that holds, like, a thought in a belief system. So the more you fuel that, like, oh, this makes me feel a certain way. I should do more of that. And we know under NLP neuro linguistic programming that our subconscious mind takes the path of least resistance. So if you're telling it like, oh, okay, you're saying out loud, I'm gonna get up tomorrow and go to the gym at 07:00 a.m. and then you continue not to do it.
Breanne Burke [00:04:25]:
And then you continue to just get up, get up, maybe at 07:00 a.m. but you're checking your phone, and that's what you do. Your subconscious mind, you don't understand, is going to push you more in that direction, although it's actually not serving your best self. So everything is habitual. Everything is like an addiction. And unfortunately, we have gone down a direction that people are so in it that they don't know how to break the habit, and they don't realize the influence that it's actually having on them. Their mind, their subconscious mind, and their nervous system, as you spoke to, because everybody's feeling so anxious all the time.
Amy [00:05:04]:
Yeah, and that's a harsh reality because it is subconscious. And like you said, it's a habit. It's a habit loop that we keep feeding over and over and over. And the neuroscience behind it is fascinating. Like, I could literally nerd out on that all day. It is just fascinating to me to see how our brains work and when we take the time to really take that step back. And this is something that it requires practice to break these habit loops. I think it's very easy to be like, oh, yeah, I'm going to do this.
Amy [00:05:37]:
And like you said, you know, we're just feeding into those patterns over and over when we're not keeping those promises and commitments that we're making to ourself. And I know, for me, I've actually started unplugging from social media on the weekends, and I tell clients to do this all the time. I'm like, okay, let's start out with identifying. How are we spending your time? How much time are you actually on your phone? What are we doing to move the needle forward? And what I found is it was hard at first to break that habit of on the weekends, just picking up my phone and starting to scroll Instagram. Like, what am I doing? So you're so right that subconscious awareness is huge. Bringing the subconscious up to conscious awareness. So how does someone go about doing that? What advice can you give us to? First of all, identify? Oh, wait, this might be a problem. This might be something I'm doing, and I don't even know that I'm doing it, but now I do.
Breanne Burke [00:06:34]:
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. A. I love that you're unplugging on the weekend. So to go kind of right off the bat of that, I actually released a podcast episode in at the ending of June, and it's titled something along the lines, like, disconnect in order to, like, reconnect with yourself or in order to connect with. Yeah, connect with yourself. And what I did in that podcast was not only share this perspective, but shared actual, tangible tips that I'm doing to make changes within this habit. So doing the studying and the research and the learning that I know.
Breanne Burke [00:07:09]:
I know that everything is habitual, and it takes actual work. And oftentimes the first, like, five days is difficult. In forming a new habit. Usually takes approximately three days. At three weeks. Not three days, people. Three weeks.
Amy [00:07:23]:
That'd be awesome if it was just three days.
Breanne Burke [00:07:24]:
Yeah, I was like.
Amy [00:07:25]:
I was like, no, we need places.
Breanne Burke [00:07:27]:
Yeah, we need to correct that.
Amy [00:07:28]:
Three.
Breanne Burke [00:07:29]:
It's about three weeks. So at first is, I think, having the awareness around it, because, Amy, what it is is people now, I think, are much more self aware, maybe, than what they have been. We do actually check in a lot with how we feel. If anything, I find it's people are learning very much from the extreme, right? They learn from extremes. Like, even you give in the example of physical fitness, like dieting, we go extreme. It's. That's how we learn, however, that has kept people in, like, people very pigeonholed. So when they start to dive into self development, for example, and these, this, I can use this example from clients that I've worked with.
Breanne Burke [00:08:09]:
Self awareness is so important when navigating your own life, in the life of your own human experience. But we start to attach and identify with, like, certain feelings, not realizing that it's actually a lot of your habits that are contributing to how you feel. So, going back to your phone, right? So what I would say is, from a tangible perspective, take a look at, like, what apps you have on your phone. I know for myself, I had Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook messenger, Pinterest. I was like, what are things that I could actually delete? I will not delete my account. If I really want to look at them, I will go on my computer example. Like, Facebook and Pinterest could go, LinkedIn could go. If I want to look anything up, I can look it up on my computer.
Breanne Burke [00:08:57]:
It will require more of a manual ask from me. Therefore, it's not as accessible. So it's also all about accessibility, right? Like putting it out of sight, out of mind type thing. So whether that be like moving your phone, not having your phone in your bed while you're sleeping, right? Putting it maybe out of the room, if that feels a bit much, you use it for your alarm, like, put it near the end of your nightstand, flipped over, something like that. Also, within these apps, pretty much all of them have the settings to not only put a time limit when you're actually scrolling, like, hey, bri, it's been ten minutes. Get off your phone. But also you can implement, like, a duration allocated to each day. So, like, max 45 minutes on this app per day.
Breanne Burke [00:09:47]:
Doing those little boundary things will help you, will help you, because it can feel like a struggle. And something that I've been, like, preaching forever and is talked about a lot is also stop following anything that does not make you feel good. And although we want to get ourselves into a place where we're not really comparing, we don't feel triggered or jealous when we see other people being successful, right? There's, like, an envious feeling in jealousy right now at, like, a pivotal peak of seeing other people's success. Because everything is so instant, everything is constantly happening at a rapid speed that the expectations have been implemented, that if that's not happening for us, we are behind, which is actually not the way it works. Right. So there's, like, a lot of pieces that I threw at you. I want to, like, continue with your questions, but I hope those are, like, some tangible pieces that people can actually implement in real time.
Amy [00:10:49]:
Yes. Those are such great words of advice. And rewind this episode. Go back and relisten to some of those simple strategies. I know they seem simple, but that is what is the key to sustainability, those simple changes. You can do that. You can take any of those apps off your phone. I did the same thing.
Amy [00:11:10]:
I do not have Pinterest on my phone. I do not have Facebook on my phone. I've regained control. And we have the power to do that. We can control our experience with these platforms because they can be used as such a beautiful tool to grow our businesses, or we can be using them as weapons against ourselves. Like you said, when we're constantly being triggered by feelings of jealousy, by feelings of envy, when our expectations are so altered, we're living in such a culture where everything has become on demand. I still remember the first time my kids learned that when we were watching, like, America's funniest home videos or something that was on, like, live tv, and they're like, well, go, I want you to, like, flip back a little bit. I'm like, I can't.
Amy [00:11:59]:
This is, like, happening live. You know, it's crazy to see the impact on, you know, our children and them and their brains and really adjusting those expectations. You know, it's. It's crazy. We forget because we're comparing ourselves. We're taking things out of context and comparing our chapter one with someone else's chapter 20, and we're forgetting that we all started at ground zero. And that's a lot of what's going on with the income based marketing that's happening in the online space right now. You know, we're thinking, oh, my gosh, if I'm not making six figures, there is something wrong with my business.
Amy [00:12:39]:
And it's like, well, first of all, do you even want that? Second of all, what's the ad spend behind these businesses? What are they paying out to their team? I want to know, what is your profit margin? Like, what are you actually bringing home? Because we're comparing ourselves with something that has been taken out of context. And you're absolutely right. We need to quiet the noise a little bit. I always go back to the fact that I get the best ideas when I'm in the shower and one day it hit me, it's because there's no other noise, there's no other distractions. I can actually hear myself think in the shower, which is. It's weird at first, right? We're always used to consuming. Half the time when you're scrolling on your phone, you also have the tv on. There's also something else.
Amy [00:13:28]:
You know, maybe there's music playing. Like, there's so much noise out there. Are there any other steps that you've taken to really, like, intentionally quiet the noise? Do you take time out, like social media breaks? Or how do you navigate balancing running a business that's primarily online and still trying to live a life that's not attached to your phone 24/7 yeah.
Breanne Burke [00:13:54]:
I'm so happy you brought this up because you're so right. That is so evident in so many people's lives. So I, as I pointed out at the beginning of this conversation, in one way it's so beautiful that we have access to these resources because there's never been a time like the present in regards to people being able and capable of starting their own business at any age. Right. Like, they're. The entrepreneurial spirit is at an all time high right now, which we love. But with that being said, then the whole world goes through Covid. Right.
Breanne Burke [00:14:26]:
And I think a lot of the narrative that was being pushed during that time was either you're going to come out a millionaire from this or you're going to come out like ten steps behind. So a lot of people started to put themselves out there. A lot of people started new things. The hustle, the grind. And you know what? The hustle and grind era gets a lot of hate. And like anything, I think there's a time and a place for that, depending on where you're at. And it's okay to be in your hustle era. Like, that energy is so contagious and infectious, and it's just like, it really is an exciting time if you're able to get there.
Breanne Burke [00:15:01]:
However, coming out of COVID what has happened? What has happened is people got a taste of that. People are running their businesses and things online and wanting to run their business, wanting to their content to go viral. So our intentions behind a. What we're doing are questionable because specifically, as women, as women, if you are catching yourself, attaching your self worth to your achievements in your business, your virality, your vanity metrics online, I promise you your life will be on a rollercoaster ride. Because you are saying that you're not worthy unless you achieve those certain things. And that starts from the foundation of why you're doing something in the first, like, first place. Like what you said, Amy, like, you're talking about making six figures. And I loved how you questioned, but do you actually want that? Is that the life you want? Or is that the narrative that's been pushed on you? Because it's like, if you want to be successful, you need to be doing all of the things because that's what we constantly are seeing online.
Breanne Burke [00:16:09]:
So that has really led me to this year where my life, I feel like personally, we're always in changing seasons, right? But I really feel, I'm 32. My life has kind of drastically changed this past year. My lifestyle, my priorities, what I'm doing, what I want to do with my business, what I'm very aware of, what I'm capable of and what I can do. But I'm like, what do I want to do? What feels most incongruent, like, congruent with how I want to feel and how I want to spend my time, money and energy. And I was really vocal about this. I'm like, I'm going to take this summer to be very laxed on social, like, as I said, deleted the apps of have the boundaries. I'm also, I don't go on social media on the weekend, and I'm not going to put the pressure on myself to sell anything. I'm going to do what lights me up because I started to feel this, this alignment with showing up so much online while I know what it's doing to people.
Breanne Burke [00:17:12]:
I did a vote on my social media about a month and a half ago. Like, on my stories, I did a variety of polls and I was asking people, do you want to spend less time on social media? And everyone's like, yes. Do you find social media is affecting your mental health? Every single person put, yes. And do you want to scroll yes, scroll less? Yes. Like, all of this, I'm like, this is insane. This is like, I'm a life coach and a confidence coach specifically for women. And this is what my audience is saying. Like, I need to lead to by example, but it's a learning curve because I'm like, a lot of my business is online, so I also have to figure out a happy medium of how I can teach and lead while kind of holding the duality of, again, leading by example.
Breanne Burke [00:18:03]:
So that has left me kind of to this point of giving myself the summer, which I've never done since starting my business. A number of years ago of just, like, having fun. So I've started. I've taken up pottery, Amy. I've gotten back into rollerblading. I started beach volleyball last night. Like, I'm doing adult activities that I haven't done in years at all. And I'm just prioritizing having fun and being in person and only working on things that light me up, not feeling like I need to do a million things.
Breanne Burke [00:18:35]:
Because at the end of the day, we are the greatest generation of, like, perceived happiness. You know, this was said, I heard this by Gary V. Perceived happiness, meaning, are you wanting to be perceived as happy more than you actually want to be happy? And I think that is very true for a lot of people. People do it for the gram. That's what they. A lot of things that they do. It's for the gram. But you're not happy.
Breanne Burke [00:19:02]:
You're not fulfilled. You're not happy in your relationships. There's a reason, people. There is a reason. And it's a habits that you're continuing to embed in your subconscious mind and your nervous system every single day.
Amy [00:19:15]:
Oh, so good. You're right. It is self imposed. And we have a choice. We can continue to go down these rabbit holes of scrolling, or we can bring this. This very important topic into our conscious awareness. We can ask ourselves, how am I really using social media? I mean, it's heartbreaking to hear those things, but I feel like so many of us have been there. We feel like we have to do it for the gram.
Amy [00:19:40]:
But the reality is, at the end of the day, you have the choice. You can make the choice to make a change. It is not easy. Like you said, we have to put in the work any habit in order to break that habit, to create a new habit. It takes practice, but keep practicing. Take the information that Bri gave you today. Move those apps. Make them less accessible.
Amy [00:20:07]:
You get to choose your experience with this. You have the choice. And it is such a beautiful thing because I've been doing the same. I've been leaning into having fun. I've been leaning into doing things that light me up. I'm leaning into doing things my way that no one else is doing them. And it feels so, so good. And I think that other people see that, too.
Amy [00:20:28]:
They see your energy, you know, through your content that you do produce. So now it's, I don't feel like I have to. It's. I feel like I get to. I get to create, I get to inspire. I get to educate. And that fulfills me. And when I feel fulfilled, then I can pour even more into others.
Amy [00:20:48]:
So if you're listening to this today, it all comes down to choice. And exactly as Bri said, you know, our worth is not tied to our achievements. She has a phenomenal free resource, a masterclass for women who want to find true validation and self worth from within called date yourself. Definitely check out the show notes for the link to that. We will also link up her podcast as well with the episode that she talked about and referenced earlier in this episode of the podcast. So make sure you go back, listen to that. Follow her on social media, get into her world because friend, this will change your life. Again.
Amy [00:21:33]:
Thank you so much for being here for listening. Bri. Thank you so much for pouring into listen our listeners today. And until next time, cheers to making the money you want so you can create the impact you desire to.
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