It’s okay to take a break, social media influencers can go on vacation too

As a social media influencer, the work day never really ends. Growing your presence, consistently creating content, and fostering your online relationships takes time. Most often, more time than you can anticipate. With constantly changing goals and focuses on different platforms, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and never walk away from your smart phone in fear of missing an important opportunity for engagement and growth. It’s summer and that means my daughter is ready for some fun. I am extremely appreciative for all the work opportunities that have given me the ability to work from home. During the school year, while I was teaching Pre-K, I worked extremely odd and long hours attempting to maintain my position as an influencer, campain leader, and teacher all while making sure I was completely available for my daughter outside of daytime school hours. Now in the summer I’ve been keeping those odd work hours because I want to have most of my work day done before my daughter is awake and ready for summer activities. My usual work hours in my home office are 3:00 – 8:00 am then I try to schedule in some time for a summer activity before returning to my office with my daughter nearby playing, crafting, or reading. My schedule has worked well until I tried to plan an actual summer vacation. I had to stop to remind myself it’s okay to take a break…a real break not just a couple of hours without activity on my social media pages. We left on a summer vacation without me scheduling blog posts or social media activity. While I had a few necessary things to complete while we were away, I spent each day on vacation truly enjoying my family. 

Our week in California was planned around my attendance at the one day Type-A Parent conference at Disneyland. While I was there working, it was fun to see friends and learn at the conference knowing my husband and daughter were having a fun day in Disneyland. Following the conference we extended our stay in Anaheim for a few fun family days.

We drove to Dana Point for a whale watching tour with Dana Wharf Sportfishing & Whale Watching. During our last visit to the Dana Point Festival of Whales, we spent some time with a Dana Wharf boat captain learning tips for whale watching with children. We enjoyed going back and had so much fun spending the day on the water while learning about marine animals. My daughter was amazed seeing many different animals including blue whales, common and bottlenose dolphins, a hammerhead shark, and sea lions.

We left the Anaheim area and spent a couple of days in San Diego. One of our summer vacation days was spent at Aquatica by SeaWorld San Diego. Our fun day at the waterpark was full of water slides, the wave pool, and learning about flamingos.

Our final vacation day was spent at SeaWorld San Diego. Our day included many different animal interactions, shows, excellent food, dancing, and fireworks.

Each night during our summer family vacation I thought about setting an alarm early to wake up and post on my blog. Early in our week away I took a step back and reminded myself how important it was to truly enjoy a vacation with my family. If I was working anywhere other than from my home, my time away with my family would be just that. Working at a corporate job, before getting laid off on maternity leave with my daughter, I completely remember how it felt returning to an excessive amount of work after a week of vacation. Now working from home as an influencer, I’ve lost that. I don’t know how to completely turn off for a family vacation. 

It’s okay to take a break…I did.

Remind yourself social media influencers don’t have to work through family vacations. 

You might not have seen any new content here this week but my daughter won’t forget the great family memories we created during our summer vacation.

When’s the last time you took a family vacation and didn’t bring work with you?