Create vs. Consume

What do you create?

We all consume many things – the news, social media posts, streaming shows, movies, podcasts, books, articles, emails, food, drinks, learning courses, material items like clothing, etc. 

What I’ve learned through my life coach school is the importance of CREATING from what we consume. And to balance, as much as possible, what we consume with what we create in our lives.

For example, when I listen to (consume) podcasts, sometimes I get great ideas for content that I want to write about. Or I hear a great life hack that I implement into my life. Or I hear about a concept or idea I want to talk about with a friend. 

We can count these as creating! Literally, creating new content when I write about an idea. But also, implementing the life hack into my life is creating, and talking to a friend about an interesting concept is creating – I’m doing something new with the information I consume. 

It’s similar when we watch a show or movie and want to talk about it with someone – we’re creating a conversation and processing ideas we’ve consumed. Or when we read a book to join a book club and dive deeper into the ideas with others. Or when a social issue we see on the news or on social media moves us to take action. 

All of this can be considered creating and we can do this with almost any type of media we consume. And some people may be moved to create actual art when they consume media – but we don’t have to be artists to create something to share with others, though we do see a lot of wonderful art on social media and elsewhere by people who’ve created it!

This isn’t to say that with EVERYthing we consume, we need to create something as well. But we can start to become aware of how we’re consuming and whether or not we’re creating – or wanting to create – from what we consume.

We can become imbalanced in consuming if all we’re doing is collecting data points and not necessarily doing anything with them. We can also overwhelm and exhaust ourselves with information this way – along with consuming other THINGS as well. What happens when we over-consume food, alcohol, or material items? We may unintentionally create unhealthy bodies and environments for ourselves.

Part of self-care is intentionally creating healthy environments for ourselves. We want to be mindful about what we put into these environments and about what we consume. If we don’t like the way we feel after reading, watching, listening to, eating/drinking, or buying something, we can just notice that. 

If it’s something we have a direct choice to NOT read, watch, listen to, eat/drink, or buy, we can inquire with ourselves about whether we want to do that again or keep doing it. We can start to be more aware and intentional about what we’re consuming and whether or not we’re creating what we want in our lives. 

Your turn: What do you value consuming? Why do you value it? What do you want to create more of in your life? What can you create for yourself through some of the things you consume? 

If the ideas I share resonate with you but you’re not sure how to implement them to change your life, book an exploratory session with me to see what’s possible!

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Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help you create the results you want in your life? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

It’s not “over there”

It’s right here.

When we set goals for ourselves, it’s easy to start thinking that when we finally achieve those goals, our lives will be better. 

Our lives will be different, not necessarily better. We may not have some of the problems we had before achieving our goal. But then we may have new problems after achieving our goal. 

Life will still be 50/50, positive/negative.

But it’s tempting to think that “there” is better than where we are right now. We might start thinking:

“Once I get that promotion, I’ll be satisfied.”

“When I find my perfect partner, I’ll feel worthy.”

“Once I’ve lost the extra weight, I’ll love myself more.”

“When I buy a house, I’ll feel complete.”

“Once we have kids, our marriage will be more fulfilling.”

We can get focused on the “there” and forget about being here in the present moment. And when we place a lot of weight on getting “there,” we may be disappointed once we are “there” and we still don’t feel satisfied, worthy, loving, or complete. 

This is not to say that our goals aren’t important or that we shouldn’t have a vision of what we want for ourselves. But when we place so much responsibility on the future for the way we want to feel, we forget that we’re responsible for the way we’re feeling right now. 

“Being aware of the present moment simply means you never believe the illusion that the future is going to be better than what is going on right now.” – Mateo Tabatabai, The Mind-Made Prison

We can feel satisfied, worthy, loving, and complete right now by what we’re thinking about our life circumstances and ourselves. Our thoughts generate our feelings. We can fuel ourselves with the feelings we want to feel, take aligned actions, and create the future we want from here. 

Being “here” and creating our future from “here” is just as valuable and important as being “there” can be.

“Plan, dream, and organize all you want, just don’t start believing that what you have planned for the future is going to be any better than your current moment. You are going to be in the present moment your entire life. If you are focusing on how good the future is going to be, you are just running on the hamster wheel hoping to get somewhere. Life is right now in this glorious moment right in front of you. I believe that if you’re not allowing yourself to be happy right now, nothing external in the future is going to change that permanently.” – Mateo Tabatabai, The Mind-Made Prison

Your turn: What feelings do you think achieving your goals will generate for you? Do you believe you have the capacity to feel those feelings right now? What would happen if you didn’t need to wait for future circumstances to provide the feelings you want and that you can feel that way now? What would it look like for you to move towards your goals feeling now the way you think achieving those goals would feel? 

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.

I wish I learned this in school

Who’s responsible?

We’ve all likely heard the saying that “You’re responsible for your own happiness.” It likely makes sense on an intellectual level, but how many of us actually embrace this?

If we’re responsible for our own happiness, that means we take responsibility for how we’re feeling–with any emotion. 

We learn the opposite from adults and sometimes even in school. We hear adults say, “You hurt Jimmy’s feelings. Say sorry!” or “Did she hurt your feelings by doing that?” And we’d likely think that “Yes, she hurt my feelings by doing that.”

Eleanor Roosevelt is quoted as saying, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” 

What’s really going on is that we’re making what someone else says or does mean something about ourselves. We’re basically agreeing with what they said or did, which is the only way something can hurt us–if we let it. If we think it’s somehow true about us or if we somehow deserve it. 

Again, intellectually, this may make some sense. Living it and practicing it can be harder though, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that we cause other people’s feelings and that other people cause ours. 

But we know from the Model that our thoughts create our feelings. Always. It’s not the external circumstance that creates our feelings, even though it’s so easy to think that the circumstance is causing us to feel something. It’s what we’re thinking about the circumstance that creates our feelings. Our thinking creates our feelings. 

So in that sense, we can see how we are responsible for what we feel. Once we really become aware that this is how it works, we can be intentional about how we want to feel. Which means being intentional about how we are thinking.

I think some of us have a misconception that someone else is supposed to help our lives be great. When we abdicate ourselves from taking this responsibility, who do we think it belongs to? 

I used to want someone to come save me from my life when I was feeling dissatisfied, like things were missing from my life. 

You know what was missing from my life? ME. I wanted someone else to take the responsibility that is mine, to help my life become better than it was. To create more income for me, to find opportunities for me, to find a partner for me, to find a place for me to live, to help me eat healthy meals, to take care of me. How could someone else do this if I wasn’t willing to do it for myself? 

No one is going to do it for us. No one is going to live our lives for us. That’s our responsibility. We get to take care of ourselves and our lives. Intentionally. 

We have everything we need within us to take responsibility.

And that is great news. Because then we realize we can have the exact life we want when we take responsibility for creating it and caring for ourselves along the way. Intentionally.  

Your turn: What have you been giving responsibility to someone or something else to fulfill for you? Are you willing to take responsibility for this? How might your life be different if you started taking even more responsibility for what you want? How might your life be different if you practiced intentional self-care?

Dive Deeper: Do you feel any resistance to the idea of taking responsibility in this way? If yes, why? What if those thoughts are just limiting beliefs about what’s possible for you?

Want to learn more about the Model and how your thoughts create your feelings? Sign-up for an exploratory session here.

Subscribe if you want to receive this content directly in your inbox.

Work with me: Want to see how self-care is transformative and can help create a more meaningful life in which you start committing to yourself and show up the way you want? I can show you how. I offer first-time seekers a complimentary 45-minute exploratory session. Sign up here.

What’s on your mind? It can be powerful to learn from each other and our common struggles when it comes to our practice of self-care–or just being a human being. If you have something you’re struggling with and would like some perspective, share it here. Your issue may be chosen and addressed in the next post–it’ll be totally anonymous.