Content consumption is a highly effective tool for a content creator.

Content consumption is the fuel to your fire. It’s the wood that you need for new ideas, new points of view, new angles. It’s creativity fuel. But often content consumption gets a bad wrap. It gets put into this bucket that is labelled ‘bad news’.

Instead, we’re told to focus on creating, building, making. We are told to steer clear of the endless scroll of doom and concentrate on ourselves. But there is a fine line here and it’s not one or the other. You don’t need to avoid Instagram and LinkedIn like your coworker's bad breath.

There’s another way.

It’s not been going so well lately (I’ll admit it)

Lately, I’ve been on the boohoo hype. I’ve been subscribing to the ‘the world is going to end’ culture and that there’s no point in doing anything, ever. I don’t know whether it’s the dark mornings or the nights drawing in (it was pitch black at 5:20 pm yesterday) that has made me feel this way but something has.

I was never like this before. Rewind a few short months ago and would bounce out of bed ready to write. I would fall asleep thinking about what might resonate to the people I write to. I would be driving on the motorway and ideas would hit me so hard I’d shout at Siri to open notes at get them jotted down. My to-do lists would be endless. Article idea after article idea. The words would flow like hot coffee. It was all going amazingly. Until it all just fell off a cliff.

Lately, I’ve been rubbish. In a nutshell, it’s been this:

• Sleeping in instead of getting up to write (hitting the snooze button five times).

• Skipping idea-dumping sessions for sessions on the sofa mindlessly watching Netflix (with no recollection of what I was watching).

• Eating beige food and feeling sorry for myself (constantly feeling groggy).

• Choosing PJs over real clothes wherever possible (and cosiness can go too far).

• Getting home, falling onto the sofa, and drifting off in minutes instead of forcing myself to go upstairs to write (you can nap too much).

• Picking the easy headline over the one that takes some work (I’m not proud).

In a nutshell, it’s been a month (or three) of bad behaviour. Tut, tut, tut. The winter is rough on your writing flow.

Writing is a rollercoaster of emotions

I’ve been writing online for the last year and a half. Honestly, writing got me through the pandemic. In truth, writing gets me through most things I just don’t seem to realise it till after. Anyway, lately, motivation has been dipping. That’s a lie. Lately, motivation has been nonexistent.

I’ve found myself snoozing the alarm button (a record high of 6 times this morning).
I’ve found myself having strict conversations with myself only to do a full 180 the next day.
I’ve found myself curling up on the sofa to watch an episode of Sherlock Holmes (or several).
I’ve found myself missing writing but refusing to write all at the same time.

Instead of doing anything productive, I’ve been falling into TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter holes over and over. Over the last seven days, I’ve lost countless hours to endless scrolling. I’m not entirely sure when it went wrong but it’s been going wrong for a while now.

But then something weird happened.

You can consume content to your advantage

Mid-writing I hit a block (yes, another one). It had been happening a lot recently. I’d start to write and then boom, I lose my train of thought and convince myself I need another cup of coffee (although I’ve decided several times over that I don’t actually like coffee). Added to that, coffee makes me twitchy. Needless to say, I’ll continue to drink it.

After mindlessly making another cup of coffee and letting it go cold, I’ll convince myself of something else.

• I need to go put the washing in.

• I need to go take a shower and get ready.

• I probably should check my accounts to make sure I have enough money in them.

It’s all distractions. It’s like my brain is playing tricks on me; trying to see what it takes for me to bite and change direction. Can you play mind tricks on yourself? Even though I’ve had numerous conversations with myself about the fact that LinkedIn isn’t great for me. Anyway, here I was, again, mindlessly scrolling.

Content consumption kicks me out of my funk

But then I saw something. Something that would change the course of my day. One short, sweet, post that made me take my cursor up to that top corner and click the little ‘x’ and get back to doing what I should be doing.

Writing.

I saw a post from a creator that went like this:

“I made a post yesterday showing myself from 2017 with seemingly endless hair at a desk working.

“I was making $1,000 — $2,000 per month back then. I had like $50,000 in student loans to pay off. No savings. I was financially screwed.

“But with time, and the help of so many people who bought my courses, I was able to build a business that helped me pay off all my debt and actually save + invest close to 6 figures.

“I’m lucky. I really am. If you told me four years ago I’d be on the brink of buying 13 acres of property in Montana with my parents, I would’ve told you that you’re crazy.”

That creator, Tom Kuegler, happens to be a writer.

Use content to fuel your fire

Call it timing. Call it luck. Call it whatever. There couldn’t have been a better time for me to read that post. I was in the middle of a funk ready to give up on the day. Ready to say to myself:

“What’s the point, it’s not working.”

But that post turned the day around, it was then I learnt the power of consuming the right content. Most people say that consuming content on social media is bad. The story is always the same. We shouldn’t aspire to be like the people we see on social media, it’s the warped reality that they show. It’s only the good days. It’s only a filtered look at the life they want you to think they have.

And I agree. However, content consumption can be used as a stimulus to get your brain moving. Content consumption can be highly effective if you use it in the right way. If you can utilise social media to kick you into gear when you’re feeling low, content consumption can be a power play. How might you be asking? Well, there are a few ways.

1. Screen your content — As you go through your newsfeeds pull out the stuff you like, the stuff that brings you up. Hone in on that. Get rid of anything else.

2. Tap into your emotions — Why are you feeling unmotivated? If it’s because you feel like what you are doing is impossible, that you are banging your head against a brick wall then you need to find content that relates to that. Find someone that is doing a similar thing to you, who has succeeded. Use them as proof that it can be done.

Takeaway

Content consumption isn’t bad. In fact, you can consume content and feel good about yourself. You can use content consumption as fuel to your fire. You can use it as motivation to kick-start your day. You just need to monitor who you follow and how you consume.

Get it right and it can be the life hack you were waiting for.

Check out Eve’s book, ‘Ultra Self-Awareness: How to work out who you are in a chaotic world’, which is out now.

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