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Aspirational consumption · also called the wanting economy

why do I watch videos about the change instead of making it

Aspirational consumption is watching, reading, or buying material about a change you want to make, in place of making it, because the consumption itself delivers a small, real hit of the same satisfaction the change would. It is a profitable trade for whoever is selling the material: a customer who feels they are already improving has less urgency to ever finish, so the product is quietly built to keep you wanting rather than to let you arrive.

You are not behind because you do not know enough. You are behind because knowing became the thing you did instead.

What to do about it

Before you consume one more piece of advice on the subject, do ten unguided minutes of the thing itself.

How people say it

Nobody looks this up by its clinical name. These are the ways it actually gets said.

  • why do I watch videos about the change instead of making it
  • I feel productive after research but nothing actually changes
  • I know more about this topic than people who are already doing it
  • buying the course felt like progress and then it was not
  • I consume content about my goals instead of working on them
  • the feeling of learning about it is not the same as doing it
  • I am addicted to preparing and allergic to starting

Written by Brian Spiker, who has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — the receipts. More terms in the encyclopedia.

About the author

Brian Spiker has run Spiker Carpet and Tile Care since 2013 — a real service business with real customers, real Google reviews, and 13 years of work most self-help authors will never do.

He writes the way operators talk: brutal, funny, and built from work that actually has to get done. Verify everything at spikercarpetandtilecare.com.