Category: LifeCategory: Life

On today’s Break Up 💔 With Social Media call (upcoming schedule here), we got on the topic of energy. A guest mentioned that they felt inspired from the call, and they were going to spend 30 minutes afterwards working on their creative project.

Getting on a good Zoom call can give you energy.
Then working on your thing can give you energy.
Now you’ve got two jolts of energy to get you into the afternoon.

It’d be a lot easier to scroll, click, consume, of course. But choosing to spend energy, to take a chance on a Zoom call, or to make the choice to work on a thing for “just” 30 minutes, it’s all a chance. A risk.

As Seth Godin says, “this might not work.” While true, I think we know what we’re gonna get if we spend that time on social media.

If you’re going to leave social media, you need somewhere to go. Somewhere to put your attention.

Like leaving the house – where are you going? Leaving a bad relationship or workplace – you need to physically and mentally go somewhere else.

So leaving social media isn’t just about newsletters and websites and screen time, because honestly we’re taking multiple hours per day and putting them somewhere else. Where do we move that attention?

For me, that’s been walking. I’ve started a movement practice, as Cody Cook-Parrot speaks of in their book The Practice of Attention (affiliate link).

Take a moment now to consider what forms of movement feel accessible, enjoyable, and grounding for you. Maybe it’s dancing alone in your kitchen, stretching when you rise in the morning, biking along a trail or to work, tending your garden.

I can just slip out the door for 20 minutes, see a neighbor, pet a dog, see a cat, listen to the crows – things that much more enjoyable than the firehose of “content” I get from scrolling.

Just as we don’t stare at social media for three straight hours, I also don’t walk for three straight hours a day. But a mile here, an hour walk there, and by the end of the day I’ve covered 10 miles. This is something (at the time of writing this) I’ve done for 63 days in row (and covered 720 miles).

So maybe try spending 10 minutes writing lyrics, or painting, or writing, or humming a melody into your voice notes – what could add up to hours per day that would “feel accessible, enjoyable, and grounding for you?”

Where could you put your attention? What could your “720 miles” look like for your creative journey?

Do you want to cut three hours of screen time from your day? Walk / run 10+ miles per day! This evening I will have done this for 60 days, coming in at just over 675 miles (1086 km), about 11.25 miles per day.

No, I don’t do it all at one time, I chip away at it with multiple walks per day, like Tara Dower who set the Appalachian Trail southbound FKT (Fastest Known Time) in 40 days and 18 hours, or Alex McCormack, riding 3,826.47 km (2377.65 mi) over seven days.

Okay, I’m not just like them, of course! But my walking practice (something I picked up from Cody Cook-Parrott’s “The Practice of Attention” (affiliate link) is something I can do everyday, as a nice little challenge to myself.

What’s something you could do for three hours everyday?

I left NYC on July 31, 2010 on my single speed bike with my laptop and a few belongings in my messenger bag. On that day I rode from Brooklyn, up to the George Washington Bridge, then down to Rutherford, NJ, some 27 miles or so.

There was a time of planning, researching, and asking questions, but then my lease was ending and I had a job I could do remotely, so I just got rid of all my stuff and hit the road. I did this for about two years before heading home when my mom got sick.

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Simon Lahaie posted this recently, reflecting on one of my Substack Live streams:

“You can’t create being drained” a sentence from a recent Live Seth Werkheiser. What a relief it was for me to acknowledge this.

I’M DRAINED. And I’m still blaming myself for not feeling the energy to create. Ha!

How do you manage to keep enough liquid inside your tank?

Putting my reply here because I don’t want it to just live on Substack, but rather it can live here, too, for everyone to find:

SETH: “For me – OTHER PEOPLE. I can’t help but be stoked from doing calls with people. Setting up time for a weekly Zoom. Texting some folks. I feed off their creative energy and zest, and maybe it’s not ALLL DAY, but it’s enough to get some jolts of good stuff out there (or at least planning good stuff for sometime down the line).”

SIMON: “I’m curious, do you have a specific strategy to manage Drainage generated by the day job (or any recurring situation where we have limited control over)?”

SETH: “Just gotta do SOMETHING that lights you up that’s related to the thing you wanna do.

Scrolling YouTube shorts for 20 minutes while eating cake is nice and all, but then I have to go back to the thing I don’t like.

Whereas 20 minutes replying to emails related to the work I love doing… or writing a quick bit to a newsletter… making a video… updating something on my website… ANYTHING related to the thing I WANT to be doing. Just do that.

Because doing the THING I LOVE all the time would be awesome.. but the next best thing is doing it for 10 minute… 20…. or just 1 minute.”

If we want until we can do “the thing we love” full time, we’ll be waiting a long time. Just like, you can just start. Just take one step, set a timer for five minutes, and just what you can. Give yourself a glimpse of what it could look like, so you can recognize how you want to feel.