CT burnout is real. Here’s the reset that brought me clarity.
When was the last time you went a full day without checking your notifications?
The moment I ignored them during my recent holiday, I finally felt free.
No need to worry about what airdrops to claim or how my posts are performing.
I’ve been on CT (almost) every day for years, but that’s when I realised that it’s quietly destroying my mental health.
Here were the key lessons I learnt while stepping away:
Twitter is full of distractions
The ‘always on’ mentality has burnt me out countless times.
During this holiday, I still did some transactions as needed, but I decided not to check my Twitter notifications at all.
And this turned out to be the right move:
I was away from the toxicity and negativity in this space for a few days.
Being constantly on the timeline is mentally draining, and I found myself becoming more cynical in life.
We’re told to be terminally online to grow our accounts, but that’s not sustainable:
Scrolling through the timeline gives us tons of dopamine hits and makes us addicted.
I’ve been distracted when looking at my notifications, especially when some posts on the timeline catch my eye.
During other trips, I was affected by comments on my posts that ruined my mood for the entire day.
And it prevented me from enjoying the trip fully.
So taking this break was refreshing for me.
My tweets were scheduled for the week, so there was no need to check anything on Twitter.
I completely stayed away from my notifications, even at times when I could (like resting in the hotel).
Taking this detox is a good reset, and I feel more refreshed to start writing again.
I can’t control the number of views I get
My profile was on auto-pilot with all my scheduled posts, and I didn’t need to worry about how well each of them was performing.
There’s no need to care about my impressions or engagement because I wasn’t busy looking at my profile at all.
This taught me to stop worrying about the things that I can’t control, as it’s just a waste of time and effort.
The algo works in mysterious ways, but my only job is to create high quality content for my specific audience.
If they find it valuable, it will do well and build their trust in me.
And sometimes, posts with lower views give a higher ROI on trust that’s built.
Vanity metrics are just one indicator of success, and I’m looking for quality attention instead.
Money buys freedom
2 incidents during the trip gave me a wake-up call for why I’m doing airdrops:
A family member was hospitalised when I was away
A loved one had a sprained ankle during the trip
It puts a lot into perspective:
What am I actually doing with my time on Twitter?
Money is great as a PnL screenshot, but there’s no point in flexing that to impress people who don’t care about you.
We’re all here to make money, but my purpose is to buy freedom and time.
Time is the only asset that can’t be earned back, and everything we do needs to optimise for it.
And sometimes, that means spending quality time with my loved ones.
This doesn’t give the highest ROI on time when it comes to numbers or returns, but money is meant to give me the freedom of spending this time without worrying about paying the bills.
I don’t want to spend my life regretting that I didn’t spend enough time with the people I care about, just because I had to push one more transaction for an airdrop.
Freedom is not lying on the beach every day and waiting for time to pass.
Freedom is being able to do whatever I want at any point without having to worry about my financial positioning.
Building a portfolio of assets that I lean on (including this Twitter account) helps me achieve this freedom.
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Practice gratitude
Things will always go wrong and never go according to plan.
We can complain about how life is unfair, or we can take something away from the experience.
There’s always something to learn, no matter how bad it is.
This tweet by @thedulab changed my perspective too:
Be non-reactive when things don’t go our way.
Pivot to the next best option and move on.
This was something I’ve been practicing for airdrops, and I’m taking the next step by applying it to my whole life.
I’m more anxiously attached and become stressed when there’s no plan.
But even when the entire ankle sprain incident was ‘bad’, a lot of good came out of it.
I met nice people who were reassuring and helped without asking for anything in return.
Maybe I was too immersed in this space of negativity that made me see the worst in people.
But this taught me to be grateful for the little things:
The ankle sprain could have been much worse
When I was drained of $13k, I could have lost more
I lost all the offline work I did on Notion when writing more long-forms, but it was just 2 hours of work.
Having this mindset makes it easier to practice gratitude too:
There will be other opportunities
While being away during this period, this was what I missed out on:
YZY launching on Meteora’s DLMM
@footballdotfun blowing up (when I saw the project before, but didn’t interact)
Plasma’s XPL farming on Binance
I could complain and be disappointed at missing these opportunities, but that’s only if I have the scarcity mindset.
Yes, airdrops are not the same as in 2023.
Yes, there won’t be another airdrop like Hyperliquid.
But, so what?
There are an abundance of opportunities that are out there.
Even if we miss one life-changing NFT mint, others will come.
Many are too focused on the 4-year cycles and want to extract as much as possible before the bull run ends.
But crypto is here to stay, and so am I.
I plan to continue building out my reputation as social signals are the new alpha:
They are one of the 2 ways that projects will see us as high-value individuals and reward us accordingly.
Take short regular breaks
This reset has been great, and I plan on taking more breaks in the future.
There’s enough toxicity on the timeline, and I’m starting to limit the amount I’m exposed to it.
Twitter is still a great tool for growing a social presence, but consuming it 24/7 destroys our mental health.
So choose to disconnect every once in a while, and come back stronger.