Stop doing what you hate
Yesterday I hosted our monthly Review & Planning Party for my members in The Lab. One of the questions we always answer is “how do you want to feel next month?”
One member shared “calm, connected and CONTENT” and when my brain registered the word “content” it immediately jumped to content — as in social media content. Ugh.
And I realised I never noticed that it’s the same word. 😳
So of course, I looked it up immediately… and lo and behold (I’ve always wanted to say lo and behold 😂) they have the same root 🪴:
“held or contained within limits” hence “having the desire limited to present enjoyments”
Interesting…
As Carrie Bradshaw would say, I couldn’t help but wonder: “do I feel content about the way we create (and consume) content?” 🤔
A bit random, I know, but I’ve been thinking about content a lot lately — and I had a mini-epiphany last week:
At the beginning of 2022, I declared my overall business theme for myself as “Marketing”. But it’s the end of April and I’ve not “done” a lot of “marketing”.
Why am I procrastinating? 🤷♀️
Then I remembered… I don’t actually like marketing. Sure, it’s a necessary part of running a business but it doesn’t excite me.
Working with my members, running retreats, and workshops, those things excite me. 🤩
So of course I won’t be excited about my big goal for the year, duh!
And I realised my theme was never actually about “Marketing” at all! What I want to do is create good, no GREAT, content.
I love “creating content” in the widest sense. I like writing, creating GIFs (and selecting the perfect Schitt’s Creek GIF!) and playing around with videos. And I am soooo excited about my upcoming podcast.🎙
It’s only when it gets framed as “marketing” or “creating consistent content that converts” (🙄 ugh) that I lose interest. And honestly, who wouldn’t?
So I re-wrote my theme for the year and now it’s: “Have fun creating GREAT content & explore what that looks like for me”.
A simple reframe and I’m really excited again! 🥳
Reframing can be so so helpful, I see it with my members all the time. Even tweaking one word can make all the difference, think “I need to exercise” vs “I want to exercise”. See?
Is there something you want to do but you’ve been procrastinating?
Could a simple reframe help you? Let me know!
p.s. Do you want to read more stories like this? As part of my “content experiment” I thought I’d publish some of my musings that I usually share in my weekly DNG newsletter with you here. (Sign up if you want all the jobs from our community in your inbox!)
