Sean O’Malley wants to rid himself of all distractions in his quest to regain UFC gold.

O’Malley (18-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) lost his bantamweight title to Merab Dvalishvili last September at UFC 306. He underwent surgery to repair a torn labrum in his hip after the fight and is targeting a return in the first quarter of 2025.

Before his next fight, O’Malley plans to log out of all social media and have his team members manage it for him.

“I said I was going to start in 2025, but it’s been about two or three days, and I’m already feeling more disconnected from the internet world,” O’Malley said on his Twitter account. “TimboSugaShow” podcast. “I was working out and checking my Snapchat, posting Snapchat, checking Instagram. Even just three days or whatever, I already feel like – the original reason, and I don’t know how to express it yet, but I feel like my higher self is trying to tell me something . I’m trying to learn something, but I’m too distracted and disconnected from reality to understand what I’m trying to teach myself from my higher self.

“And I feel like the only way to do that is to just disconnect from distractions.” Social media is the biggest distraction for me right now. I’ve already started reading more, writing more, it’s just going to force me to keep doing stuff like that, and that’s where I feel like I’m going to be able to learn this lesson of everything ‘they’re trying to teach me. I feel like it’s already been good. 2025 promises to be exciting. I’m not going to be on social media, I said, until my next fight is over, but ideally I can keep it up. I don’t want to do podcasts, I don’t want to do interviews.

As he watches Dvalishvili defend his title against compatriot Umar Nurmagomedov in the co-main event of UFC 311 on Jan. 18, O’Malley knows he has work to do to conquer this stylistic matchup.

“I feel like I need to take it to the next level – especially to beat Umar, to beat Merab, to beat the next guy,” O’Malley said. “To beat these best players in the world, you just have to do everything right, and I feel like that’s the case. I’m doing my rehab, I’m doing my physiotherapy, I’m doing everything right. It’s another step, just a small step forward.