Hello everybody, this is the first post on the blog, and I wanted to start with the best habit I learned this year, 2025, and the reason I decided to create this blog. The habit of 1. producing more than what you consume. I want you to set a habit of making what you consume every day.
What if you say, «I only watch funny videos on TikTok, how am I supposed to make content?»
If you only consume funny videos on TikTok, then you know what a funny video looks like. You know what is funny to most people, and you know what isn’t funny to most people. Let’s say, in a different scenario, that the videos you like are the kind of humor that not everyone understands; then you already belong to a very specific community. You know its references, its timing, its tone. That gives you an advantage, since you are the consumer: You already know what the selected community likes. So, if you think, «Oh, I only watch funny videos on TikTok; I cannot make anything with that,» yes, you can.
If you think that the content you are thinking of producing does not have to do with productivity, tips, cooking, or something of that sort, which we catalog as «useful» or «valuable», you can still benefit financially. It will be, because you, as an audience, know the product. Let’s say you want to do edits about famous people, and you do not consume those videos, then you probably don’t know what a good edit looks like, lets say you want to do book reviews but you do not watch those videos on a daily basis, then you’ll need to learn what a good book review shows, what questions it answers, what language or words to use, producing that which you alredy consume saves you time, and, it can lead you to a path you probably didn’t expected. What you consume can give you a lot of power. It can give you the power of producing, even if you think it’s useless; trust me, you know more than you think.
You are not “just consuming.” You’re entering the mind of the consumer. And you can multiply that. Let’s think about makeup brands. Whenever they want to expand to younger audiences or approach different communities, they have to study them, think like them, become them, become the consumer.
2. Consumption is hidden training
- If you consume something deeply, you develop taste
- Taste = knowing what works, what doesn’t, what feels right
- That taste is enough to start producing (even if you think it is not)
This is actually how some creators start; most people do not begin with talent. They begin with pattern recognition.
Take my word: Even if you think it’s useless, being the consumer can give you financial benefits.
If you consume TikToks, then make TikToks; if you consume YouTube content, make your own YouTube content. Producing can lead to many experiences and unimaginable paths we never knew we could experience. I’ll give you an example: the author of the book Atomic Habits, James Clear, is a good example of how producing can take you to places you never imagined. He didn’t start as an expert or with a big plan. In 2012, he simply began publishing articles on his blog twice a week, sharing his personal experiments with habits.
Within a few months, that habit led to his first 1,000 email subscribers. A year later, he had more than 30,000. By 2015, his audience had grown to 200,000 people, and he signed a book deal with Penguin Random House. As his writing reached more people, he began receiving invitations to speak at companies and institutions about productivity and behavior change. What started as a simple blog eventually turned into a career.
What’s interesting is that he said he felt like an imposter when he started, and that he never considered himself a master of the topic, more like someone experimenting alongside his readers. The results, in his own words, were far beyond anything he expected.
He didn’t know where it would lead. He just kept producing.
3. Jump right to it, even if you don’t know how to
I want you guys to do whatever you want, even if you don’t know how. Let’s say I don’t have a problem with doing a YouTube video, uploading a TikTok, all of that. What I’m going to do is post. I don’t care if I don’t know anything about editing; I’m going to learn later. I’ll just start posting and creating the content that I want, and worry about perfectionism later.
Because we have this myth where we think that we should only do things we’re experts at, or things in which we know we’re not going to fail at, or things we know we won’t be embarrassed by. But that’s completely wrong.
Don’t get me wrong, you may have natural talent for certain things, but in many others in life, you don’t. There are hundreds and thousands of things to learn and try. For example, you could be reading a magazine about sports and suddenly realize there’s a sport you didn’t even know existed, and it uses objects that you’ve never heard of. You realize that in this lifetime, even a hundred years won’t be enough for you to even try everything there is in the world. So, with that being said, you cannot expect to be naturally talented at first in everything you want to produce or try.
Start doing things you are not good at, or that you’re not perfect at, do not live your life doing things in which you are sure that, in the eyes of others, you will not be as embarrassed. Because that’s what’s going to give you growth. And if somebody judges you, the truth is that then they haven’t really lived.
Being a beginner isn’t something to avoid. Being a beginner is the beginning of a new life, in a new skill. Because how many times have we tried something “random” and ended up discovering joy, purpose, even passion in things we didn’t even know we were looking for?
4. Key change:
I remember watching a TikTok: the first clip said, “I just wanted to lose weight,» and it showed a little red-faced, overweight girl, confused, tired, and trying to fix her boxing gloves while fighting. In the second part of the video, she says, “I didn’t think I was going to find my destiny,” and the clip shows her in a professional match. She’s a professional boxer now. In the first video, she looks confused. She’s putting on her boxing gloves like she’s not sure what she’s doing. And look at her now.
5. Mnemonic:
I would like to use an example from the show Gossip Girl. If you haven’t seen the show or do not like it, Chuck Bass is a womanizer and overall a reckless, aimless, spoiled brat, who likes women a little bit too much. He drinks and parties A LOT. He met Blair Waldorf, a character who fell in love with him. As they spend more time together, they plan a trip to Tuscany.
His dad is explaining how he is proud of him for changing. Chuck says that he is planning to hold on to his youth for as long as possible and continues to say that the best thing about Blair is that she knows he’ll never change, his dad proceeds to point out that he is taking her to Europe and how having a real girlfriend, would force him to change and he would come back a new man, this leaves Chuck reflecting on how he didnt realized that he was changing. Later, an assistant comes into the apartment, and he receives a text from Blair saying she longs to see him. He starts flirting with the assistant. The scene shows us how the path he was slowly taking was leading him to a transformation, a beneficial one. Even though the scene shows us that he refused to grow, we get the idea.
So go ahead and try new things. Let me tell you this: if you have the capacity and the audacity to do it, then do it. Do it without waiting for perfection. Do it without needing to feel “ready.” What people call a beginner’s disadvantage is actually a human’s freedom.
And if you don’t feel ready to show your face, or use your voice, or make videos yet, that’s okay too. There are other ways to start, and I’ll show you those.
But whatever you do, jump right ahead, even if you don’t know how, just as Chuck Bass, you’ll be surprised by where it takes you.
6. What if I am scared of making videos showing my face or voice?
I Im not going to try to convince you that you shouldn’t care what other people think and that you should do whatever you want, because I get it. I am young (I’m nineteen) and I know that sometimes, when you are thirteen and want to be a YouTuber, it can be embarrassing. When you are an adult, it can be uncomfortable, and when you’re an elder, it seems funny. Basically, any time of life is awkward when you are a beginner. Especially if you think you don’t have such an interesting life to have the right to create, I’ll give a quick example: let’s say I consume a lot of day-in-the-life at college vlogs, right? I might think that only if I got into an Ivy League school, my YouTube videos are going to be worth it, or whatever my content is, or that which I consume and want to produce more of, is boring and has a nonexistent audience. First: That’s statistically wrong. We are 8 billion people on the planet, and there has to be someone who likes and consumes whatever it is you have to offer. Second: if James Clear had waited until he was a millionaire to prove to his audience that what he had to say was worth it. One: We probably wouldn’t know who James Clear is because his path would have depended on validation from others. Two: that just proves my point, in which you should just start doing whatever it is you want to do without having a superficial backup or something that can prove you are «worth it enought to start», because just like him, your path can be taken to an unknown, wonderful destination.
Let’s say you want to do a day in the life vlog on YouTube because that’s the type of videos you like to watch, a review on a book you wanna make, a community you want to create, a political podcast you want to start, or any type of content, idea or product that you consume and that you should start producing. If you are not that bold, you can look for alternatives.
Just as James Clear suggests, start experimenting, and just like me, I’ve decided to create this blog to share my ideas. Probably not ready to promote it on my own social media, but I am starting, experimenting, and producing more than I consume.
Homework:
Finally, a phrase that I’ve retrieved from therapy: «knowledge gives us the beginning, but practice gives us a lifetime.»
a) As homework, I would encourage you to create a small post, article, 30-second video, a collage, a phrase, a poem, a craft, a meal, or an exercise, and publish it from your personal account or an anonymous one.
Create that which you consume.
And last but not least:
b) Repeat this week to yourself: «It’s my destiny to succeed in that which I create». Thank me later.
c) Next time you’re watching what you usually consume and think about producing, ask yourself, what makes this successful, money-making, or entertaining? Think as both a consumer and a producer.
Inspiration for the post:
2.https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits
-Valeria Salazar Pinto
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