Flip the Script: Spend Your Time Creating Rather Than Consuming
“Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote a fiction book!?!”
I can’t remember if I picked his book up to see what it was about. I just remember walking out almost immediately after, completely abandoning my effort to find a new book.
I’m obsessed with books.
I love consuming what other people create. I love being left in a state of awe when someone creates something that has an emotional or cognitive impact on me.
For years I’ve opened book after book—fiction or non-fiction—and littered them with dog-eared pages to help me come back to key ideas, bracketed or underlined sentences and sections that provide nuggets of wisdom, and left notes upon notes in the margins expanding on ideas that I’ve read about.
When it comes to books—when it comes to reading—I crave that searching process for mind-expanding ideas.
I crave the search for ways of doing or thinking about life that may unlock me from challenges that I’ve experienced or am experiencing.
I crave the learning.
I crave the improving.
And, for the longest time, I’ve had a mindset that one day, simply by consumption, I’ll find the magic pill within a book that will shoot me out of a cannon into a world of fulfillment, success, and happiness.
But, consumption is easy.
And easy rarely, if ever, leads to change.
And that’s why I walked out when I saw Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s book.
I’ve always thought that I could do more with my life. For the longest time, I’ve wanted to be a writer. And while I’ve dabbled over the years with writing—actually creating—I’ve spent the majority of my time reading.
“You need more knowledge, Reed. You still need to consume more so that you understand the craft.”
Consume I did.
Year after year after year.
And that nagging belief that I could do more with my life only got stronger year over year.
“You can’t just read and watch. You have to do. Knowledge isn’t power. Applied knowledge is power. It’s the doing that gets you closer and closer to your goals.”
— James Lawrence (aka The Iron Cowboy)
While I’m a huge advocate for learning and improving, I’m starting to discover that if I spend too much time in the learning and improving realm, I only hold myself back. And, ironically, I end up inhibiting my learning and improving because I never take the time to solidify my own thinking. I never apply the knowledge.
Maybe in the long run, too much consumption—too much learning and improving—is what makes for a hard life.
Because I’m not actually doing anything.
I’m just sitting and thinking about what I can do rather than actually doing.
And while that’s easy in the short-term, it adds up to hard because you’re left with that nagging feeling that you can do more with your life.
I guess I had enough when I walked out of the bookstore. I remember thinking, “If Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can write a book, I can certainly write a book.”
Buying another new book wasn’t going to get me writing. The only way to do it — to write a book — was to actually write.
So, lately, I’ve had an incredible drive to flip the script. Rather than focus so much on consuming, I’ve been creating.
And creation is hard.
At first.
But, by focusing more on creating, I’m finding that the process gets easier. As a professor in graduate school used to tell me, “the hardest part is getting over inertia.”
And I think this sentiment is true with almost anything.
When I stop cooking for periods of time, that first meal is always the hardest to make.
When I stop reading for periods of time, that first chapter of a new book is always the hardest to read.
When I stop exercising for a few days, that first workout after a break is always the hardest to get in.
The same has been true with writing. When I first started writing, I had the hardest time coming up with things to write about, finding time to write, and even getting words on paper.
But, as I’ve pushed and pushed and pushed the creation process — and limited my consumption — I’m finding that ideas are popping up more and more frequently. I’m developing a system to quickly capture ideas so that I don’t lose them. And when it’s time to sit down to write, I’m finding that I can slip into the creation process with greater ease.
Constant consumption has a wild way of making me think and think and think.
Constant consumption also has a wild way of making me hope and hope and hope.
And all the thinking and all the hoping made for a hard life because I kept thinking—and hoping—that I could do more with my life.
Taking a little action day after day after day — creating — was hard initially, but it’s made for an easier life because I’m doing something that I’ve always wanted to do — something that I’ve always know that I could be doing.
I’m finding more fulfillment.
I feel more successful.
And I’m a heck of a lot happier.
So, if there is something that you’ve always wanted to do, maybe you just need to do it.
Whatever consumption looks like for you, consider limiting the consumption.
Then, just start creating that plan that you’ve been thinking about for so long.
You may just get shot out of a cannon into a world of fulfillment, success, and happiness.
Or, you could take the easy route and just keep consuming — just keep thinking about it.
Be careful, though. Easy may just lead to hard.