Social media never ends.
Of late I’ve become really interested in Felix Kjellberg’s work (a.k.a PewDiePie), arguably the biggest YouTube creator of all time who recently just surpassed the 80 million subscriber mark.
His content is diverse to say the least, but I particularly enjoy moments when he reveals how intelligent and astute he really is.
At end of 2018 he made a video about all the books he’d read that year and in which he explained the reason behind his newfound love of reading, explaining that it was that a conscious decision that he wanted simply to ‘finish something’.
In the video he asserts the fact that social media never ends. You can scroll and scroll, but however much time you spend on it you’re never going to the reach the end. Arguably in today’s society we’ve become obsessed with instant gratification and thus anything that takes sustained effort and dedication over a long period of time has become unattractive.
My first blog, published nearly a year ago now, was entitled “Sometimes the hardest thing to do is start” but my intuition says that it’s also true that often finishing a project and following through on an idea or a commitment but can be equally, if not more difficult.
I’ve spoken before about how I believe being true to your word is perhaps the most valuable asset in business and chatting with a fellow filmmaker this past week, we talked about how on several occasions we’ve committed our time to help people on their personal projects, only for the person we were making the film for to lose interest half way through and drop out.
My intuition says that everything in life is a value exchange and so often filmmakers are willing to commit their time and effort for free on a project in the return that they can use this project to leverage future work. But when you are unable to complete this work, it essentially renders your effort wasted time, for all involved.
So where does this leave you and your content production?
Quite simply, my advice is that if you are willing to commit to an idea, make sure that you follow through on it.
Recently I’ve been thinking about how it’s all so easy to commit to something in the future when you’re excited about it right now, but when the time actually comes, you often really wish you hadn’t agreed to it. Ask yourself, am I really going to be willing to do all the work it takes to make this project happen?
My experience says that our minds have an incredible innate ability to filter out the bad and challenging moments when remembering our past endeavours or imagining what future ones will be like.
In his 2018 “book review” video (which is here if you’re interested… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNar3Dh9zDk&t=198s
Felix Kjellberg’s 2018 summation of all the books he read. (It’s 72 not 721, he acknowledges this in the video).
… Felix talks about how he started reading the first book on his list and realised very early on he wasn’t enjoying it. But he stayed true to his word and finished reading it, even though it wasn’t a completely pleasurable experience. He then went on that year to read 71 more books and what’s more, thought much more about the kind of book genres that he would enjoy reading more.
And to me that represents the perfect mindset for a content creator. Commit yourself to a project in order to better yourself, even if mid-way you decide you’re not enjoying it or it’s not turning out as you had hoped, just finish it. Then stop and reflect and what type of project you think would best suit your goals and ambitions next. Start again and repeat.
I’m not a big one for new year’s resolutions, but I wrote down a few sentences that I wanted to live by in 2019, and one of the key ones (inspired by Alex Ersnt) was the phrase “make something or read something”.
Whether your project is to read a book, make film or a completely different project, my advice to you is just ‘finish something’.
And I wish you every success.
Jack
About Jack
I help people, brands and business communicate more effectively with their customers through visual, audio and written content.
I do this through Southpaw Sport, the sports content marketing company I’m currently building as well as on a freelance basis working for agencies and production companies.
Visit www.jacktompkins.co
You can follow Sixty Second me on YouTube where we share news, reviews and tutorials for digital filmmakers, all in sixty seconds…
YouTube — www.youtube.com/sixtysecondfilmschool
And my social media for behind the scenes look at what I’m up to
Instagram — @jackwrtompkins
Twitter — @jackwrtompkins