I think we’ve all heard stories of people who have gotten themselves stuck in a sort of “self-help loop” - this is when people continually procrastinate by watching motivational videos, lectures, reading motivational books, etc.
Watching and consuming motivational material isn’t wrong and it won’t keep you from attaining your goals. It may very well help you attain your goals even faster.
But like many other things in life, a balance must be struck. A balance between research and action.
If you continue to plow your mind into the depths of knowledge of the universe, that’s a great thing. I fully believe in reading, watching and listening everything interesting that you possible can. But again, if you just sit around and consume this material and never output anything, then you won’t achieve your goals in the real world.
Those of us who are curious about the world will go far above those who aren’t. Those of us who are both curious about the world and take action on all of the amazing knowledge to be gained are the most powerful of all. These are the people who make huge impact in society.
These are the people who get motivated and research some idea or dream and then they set their goals and then they line up and take the shot. They put in the work. They get their hands dirty and they grind and put the knowledge they’ve gained and continue to gain into action towards achieving their goals.
Defining Output:
I think a definition of output is hard to place precisely. It’s anything that allows you to express creativity, thoughtfulness and knowledge.
It could be writing, painting on a canvas, architecture, vlogging, instagram photos… The list goes on.
It’s anything that leverages the knowledge and creativity of your inputs and then outputs it as some sort of manifestation in the world.
The easiest way to increase the amount of creativity that you output (in my opinion) is to keep a daily journal of your thoughts, feelings, learnings, etc.
When you read an interesting quote, write it in your journal. If you’ve got the time, maybe also include a few sentences about why that quote is meaningful to you.
This is how I got started with journaling. It wasn’t some super complex system. It was a virtual note program where I just created a new note for each date. Every day I would just start by writing amazing quotes I came by.
Then I started to add more outputs from my inputs: things like vocabulary that I liked, interesting excerpts from books, podcasts, audio books, etc.
It slowly evolved into my notebook now which is where I still take daily notes on all my inputs and creative outputs. My notebook is like an entire short story each day. It’s a story of my thoughts as that day progressed. What was I thinking about? What ideas were percolating in my mind? Why those ideas were relevant for that day, etc.
Outputs will help you strengthen your inputs and outputs will give you an outlet into the real world. To impact other peoples’ lives and make a difference!
What’s your preferred output medium? Audio, video, writing…?