CREATION VS CONSUMPTION

Photographed by Jacqueline Pilar | Written by Celine Wallace | Model Stephanie Peterson with Wilhelmina | Hair by Colleen Konowitz | Makeup by Heather Roach

Are you currently spending 80% of your time in creation mode, or are you deep in consumption mode? You know, things, like buying a bunch of coaching courses, or scrolling through Instagram, perhaps even spending hour upon hour watching things and learning on YouTube…without implementing them?

It isn’t fun to recognize this, but the first step to making a change, as we all know, is identifying the problem. Hell, right now, I have eight different tabs open in my browser. Are they all for creation? Sadly, no. So, we're all guilty in our own way, but we can help each other to bring more balance between creating and consuming.

In our modern society, everything is online and accessible 24/7. With everyone always 'on,' it can be hard to catch a break, and it's effortless to get sucked into the vortex of constantly consuming media. It's not by chance that we are glued to our screens, and often, even checking them on the toilet. If that doesn't scream addiction, what does? We have to remind ourselves that we are using phones, created by engineers who also develop gaming and gambling apps, designed with the intention of getting us addicted to our devices. So, with this knowledge, let's become more conscious of how we're utilizing our screen time.

Nobody should be able to break your flow during your day, whether that be during professional or personal time. Your phone dinging with notifications is an unwelcome distraction from whatever you're doing, so start implementing the changes to the right, and watch your life change. If you're still not sold, let me remind you of this: your brain only has so much space for undertaking cognitive tasks each day, so by eliminating distractions, you're setting yourself up for success. Your mind cannot tell the difference between a cognitive job like commenting on Instagram posts or sitting down to write an email for work. Often you'll feel exhausted and you haven’t even begun working—that’s because your brain registers online consumption as work; you're draining the fuel tank before you can get started.

With the checklist to the right to help implement mindfulness around consumerism, let's now look at how you are actively using your time. Are you creating? No, watching cat videos on YouTube isn't creation…unless you created the video and just finished uploading it. My point is, it's important to periodically stop throughout your day and assess what you're spending your time doing and what you want to create. Then, re-align your actions with creating things that take you closer to rewarding long-term goals.

Creation of any kind has the potential to lead to freedom within our lives because the more we create, the more opportunity we have to leverage what we've created. So, this year I challenge you to only pick up your phone to create something—a text, an email, a post—then put it away. You can even challenge your friends and family to join in and hold each other accountable. It's something we all struggle with, so let's make it fun and tackle healthy digital consumption together.