Are You Stuck in Consumption Versus Creation?

Welcome to Dawn of a New Era with myself, Dawn McGruer, the business growth coach, helping CEOs to scale and grow. In this week's episode, we're talking about, are you stuck in consumption opposed to creation? This episode marks a huge milestone because it is our 100th episode. I wanted to celebrate by choosing this topic because I really honestly feel that there is a balance to be had.

When I look at how people hit procrastination, where they're stalling in achieving professional or life goals, it's often because we are not taking what we are consuming and giving it an outlet. When we consume content, it's amazing. It gives us inspiration. It provides a forum of relaxation.

It helps us grow our minds and feeds our need for learning. And this is epic because we start to feel dopamine levels rising, and we feel like we are generating huge amounts of ideas, and our creativity is in flow. This is only good if we are actually turning some of these ideas into implementation and action. Because on the other side of things, if we are consuming too much and not creating, we actually hit a point of procrastination and sometimes peer pressure.

Because we've all had a situation where we've been online, we're scrolling through social media, and we're seeing other people on their journey, and we start to experience FOMO, fear of missing out. Because what happens is, is we start to feel like they're further on in their journey, they're doing bigger and better things than we are. And this starts to reduce our feeling of motivation because we think we can't catch up. We start to have the inner voice of saying, Well, I can't do this.

I can never create the success that they've had. What happens here is if we hit a balance of creating and consuming, we experience a different element of flow. Often when you are consuming too much content, you will experience a numbness. And what happens is we stall.

We are overwhelmed by the amount of content and ideas that our minds are generating. The more we feed our minds, the faster they work, and we need some form of outlet. And there needs to be a balance of taking information in and then pushing information out. And you often find that people who teach, if they're consuming, their outlet is speaking.

They get into their flow, their zone of genius, because they're taking the knowledge and they feel like they're utilising it. It has a vent, an outlet. Again, people who are creating content like podcasts, masterclasses, training, you will find that they are in a nice equilibrium. They have a balance because whatever is going on, it's sparked an idea.

The conversation comes out either verbally or through the creation of a product or a course or an asset. You may be or know someone who is a course junkie, and this is something where we all love the idea of being in the zone where we are learning new tips, tools, techniques, trends, insights. We are feeding our knowledge. We are becoming a better person.

It's all about professional and personal development. But too much is actually going to have an adverse effect because, as I say, the overwhelm comes in. So one of the things that I would really encourage you to do is start to digitally detox and walk away from technology. Try and have a boundary of what you're going to consume and when you're going to do it, and be more deliberate and specific about the consumption of the type of content, even aligning it to a goal or a challenge and having some form of accountability with that goal.

Because when we hit the balance and we are learning something for a specific need. And a specific reason that is going to help us create the next level, you start to see the changes. Our motivations go up, our mindsets are increased. Everything feels like there is a natural next step.

We're taking the information, and what we might be doing is creating something after each batch of content. So let's say you are listening to a podcast. Rather than just consuming or maybe writing vast amount of notes, take one thing from a podcast or a training or an audio or a guide or some form of content, even a social media post, and then try and implement or create an action or an outlet at that time. So we want this ebb and flow to hit, and we want to feel like we are reducing the distractions, but we're becoming laser focused on the specificness of what we're doing.

If you learn something and you can relate it to whatever your personal or professional goal is, then all the better, because consistency is key. If we have specific goals and we are doing bite-size chunks in terms of implementing our actions, we're making small steady steps that build big momentum and have big results. So try and think about why you might not be creating and you may be stuck in consumption, because a big reason around this can be fear. Sometimes we have such an amount of inspiration from maybe a training course or the next piece of content.

But what happens in our minds is we come up with all the reasons not to do something, not to implement. Let's say you have an amazing idea to create a course and you want to do it, but inside you have this imposter syndrome. Will anybody want it? Why should I create it?

Why should they listen to me? And one of the things I want to encourage you to do is if you have fear around creating content or posting on social media because you might be judged, take these bite-sized actions and start to gradually get that visibility. Start to push things out and see how it feels, and really step into that feeling. And once you've maybe done that social post or created that one module, the great thing is you will read back or see the engagement or the comments, etc.

, on that post, or you will get into that flow of feeling that when you're creating that module, you are in your zone of genius, and that is true flow, when you feel absolutely excited because this is what you love doing. Creating something and then getting it out. Even having feedback at each stage is a great way of doing this, having people test your content, tell you what they think. This will all help move forward, and we have to be open to the fact that there's always room for improvement, but let's not strive for perfection.

The great thing is, is that if you take action, you do something, then something might happen. There might be a result. If you do nothing, you will stay stagnant. Another tip that I want to share with you is I work in 90-minute blocks.

It's taken me a while to work up to that, to get into flow, but it means that I'm super focused on the task in hand. I take some time to plan it. I take some time to debrief from it. Within that one hour time, I'm working on one thing, one specific action, and I am I am absolutely in that moment.

From a mindset and motivation point of view, I get really good results because I am in productivity. You could try the Pomodoro technique, which is working in 25-minute intervals with five-minute breaks. Now, you can work that up, and you can take longer breaks, and you can go a little bit longer and see how that fits with you. But coming back to the consumption versus creation, I want you to do one thing from this podcast.

I want you to come up with an idea of what your balance will look like. So, thinking about every time that you consume something, how can you create something? What is the outlet? And this will really help you get into these small steady steps, these small actions that will help you get to the bigger goal.

What I do is I get a sheet of paper and I write down a goal. So at the moment, I'm creating an app. I am so excited about the launch, but it feels like a big project. It felt overwhelming.

So what I had to do is break down everything I was going to do, and every time I consume something, I go and actually start creating one element of my app content. That means that I am getting nearer the goal, but I'm not in this feeling where it feels like a huge, huge project, because the feeling, honestly, once I've consumed something and then I go and create one module, it means that I'm ticking it off. I feel really excited. I feel motivated.

And I know that every time I consume and create, it's taking me one step nearer this goal of launching my app. Okay? So think about what your big goal is, and then break it down into daily actions and start thinking, okay, I'm going to go and consume whatever your favorite thing is. It could be directly related to whatever you're creating, or it could be completely off track.

It could be—

Go and do a 10-minute relaxation or meditation, and then you go and spend 10 minutes in your creation. And the creation could be anything. It could be just spending 10 minutes on creating your course, your podcast, your social media post, whatever it is. It could be 10 minutes of your exercise, whatever habit or health or wellbeing aspect you want to focus on.

It doesn't have to be directly related to business. It can be any area of your life. So try and get this balance. Get the piece of paper.

Think about the bigger goal. Work it back and think about every time you consume, what can you put in effort to create? And notice the difference, not just on a monthly basis, but you will see daily differences in the way that you show up, that you feel, that your mindset, your motivation. If you're doing this in business, you will see huge changes in the speed and productivity that you go through.

And we know that if you are aligning this to a goal, that means whatever your goal is, personal or professional life, it means that we're going to be rapidly moving towards that goal with a feeling that we are actually achieving what we want, rather than just feeling that it's unattainable, it's too distant, or it's too big. And this will really help take you from an overwhelm into a focused, clear thinking, creative, and huge clarity around what it is that you want and what makes you happy. So really feel into this project and come and join me. Tell me how you get on with this on social media.

You can find me on all the normal channels. And if you enjoyed this, please come and celebrate our 100th episode and just give us a rate and review on the podcast. So I hope you enjoyed this. Take care, and I'll see you on the next one.

Thank you for listening to Dawn of a New Era podcast. And for your free checklist to find out how to boost your business for growth, profit, and success, and join our community, go to dawnmcgruer.com.