use your content consumption to build the life you want

how the power of consumption can make us more motivated, inspired, and grateful

Listen to the 24-minute podcast version of this essay with accompanying commentary below the paywall. xo

A Monumental Portrait of a Monkey | “Stipple Master”

I have to start this all off by admitting that I’m a huge hypocrite. I usually flood my brain with reality dating show drama and interviews from contestants and the latest seasons of Love Island from across the globe in a nearly never-ending rotation. I’ve gotten more into politics and culture, and consume a lot of that content, but otherwise my FYP is new cozy games or hot takes or something else relatively useless besides recipes I save and never make.

But something I remember now and again, that can almost always get me out of rut and closer towards where I actually want to go, is that changing my content consumption changes the way I think, and changing the way I think changes my behavior.

I think it’s a pretty commonplace take that the constant deluge of content, particularly short-form, is brain-melting and anxiety-inducing. But I also don’t think it’s purely “entertainment” we can log off from — at least not for me. I realized a few years ago how it fundamentally alters my interests, what I perceive as fulfilling or acceptable, and bends my desires.

For instance…there’s a YouTuber I’ve followed for maybe 15 years, who makes lovely videos about her life that I plug back into time and again for a comfort watch. She’s engaged, has young daughters, surrounded by her family, and spends most of her time (that she shares online, anyway) serving those relationships. A few years ago I was watching her a lot, and became overwhelmed with the desire to live a similar life as soon as I could — kids, birthday parties, a big garden and lots of time with family. But as Sam and I got serious about deciding whether or not we wanted kids, I realized how strongly her content was influencing me. I knew I wanted real clarity on such a big decision, and a huge part of my stance at the time was informed by this dreamy life I was watching on the internet. So I took a step back from her content, and quite quickly my desire for that sort of life (at that particular time anyway) really cooled down. I remembered that I was enjoying the intensity of my career and the freedom of my youth, and while I might get there someday, her videos were making me yearn for something I wasn’t actually interested in quite yet. If I really wanted to know what I truly wanted, I had to find separation from that sort of influence — and even went so far as to influence myself in the other direction, consuming more videos from women without kids, who lived very different types of lives, and found myself suddenly more interested in what they were doing. You get the point — without me realizing the connection for a hot minute, what felt like innate desire was being heavily modified by the content I was watching. I guess that’s why they’re called influencers, eh?

The answers I was seeking for my life came in the quiet, naturally, and as time went on and I entered a new phase of life, turns out there was a lot about that first YouTuber’s life I did genuinely want — but this time, it came from me. And now as I build towards a life that happens to more resemble hers, it’s lovely and a lot of fun to watch her content again. It inspires me to see my own life in a more beautiful way, and sparks new ideas for how to go about things.

And that’s essentially what I’m building to here…the content we consume has power.

Content that reflects the beauty of what I already have, or am building towards, gives me incredible gratitude and reinforces my goals; but the stuff that reflects what I might feel I lack, or a life I’m not living, makes me restless and anxious and uncertain.

I’m in a bit of a homemaking phase of life at the moment, where Sam is working and I spend most of my days — outside of writing and acting — cooking, cleaning, caring for our pets, and keeping the household running. This is something I genuinely enjoy being responsible for, but is a serious adjustment from past phases of my life, and can feel overwhelming and hard to wrangle at times. There’s so much freedom! And while it’s a gift, I feel scrambled in the head over how much there is I could theoretically be doing, and so much I want to do, that I’m prone to serious analysis paralysis.

So I started watching some homemaker lady on YouTube this morning, who has a zillion children and homesteads, talk through her home routine…and it was like magic. Suddenly I’m doing the deep cleaning I’ve been avoiding for weeks, and it actually feels easy. My brain started populating naturally with what I’d like to get done, and how, and when. While our lives are different, she does a lot of things that are also on my to-do list, and she also does a lot of things I aspire to do more of (find a bit more organization, do more baking). It took one morning of watching a few of her videos in the background to find reinvigorated purpose and ease in my day-to-day. The lesson came back to me once again how powerful this influence can be, particularly when it comes to paving new pathways in life or reaching new goals. Surrounding yourself with examples of people doing what you are doing, especially if you’re new at it, whatever that may be, is motivating — and of course, this advice is probably even more effective in-person, but as many of us know that’s easier said than done. And if you’re someone who’s going to be tuning into content anyway, why not prime your brain to see what you’re already working towards as something a bit more romantic, positive, inspiring?

Something about seeing someone else, especially through the rosy-colored glasses of online content, living a life sort of like mine floods me with gratitude. It helps me see it all as beautiful, and possible, and worth it. And as long as it’s not bending your desires outside of what is innately true to you, being exposed to other people’s lives helps us realize what is possible in our own.

xoxo

If you enjoyed this post and want to support SIDEBAR, give this post a like and a re-stack and share it with someone who might enjoy it. I so appreciate it. <3

And if you’re not subscribed, you can subscribe for free for more content like this, or upgrade to a paid subscription for access to my weekly round-ups, exclusive posts, and an accompanying podcast to go along with this and other essays. THANK YOU! xo