There’s a lot of noise out there.

A lot of different people telling us a lot of different “best” ways to grow an audience, build a business, achieve the freedom and success we want in our lives.

I know I’m not alone in feeling overwhelmed by it all. Not the only one with an ever-expanding list of books to read, podcasts to listen to, strategies to learn and implement.

And yet, despite the already existing overwhelm, I often can’t resist the compulsion to continue to add more onto the stack. To read that next book, binge that new podcast, buy that next course, all the while convincing myself that the solution to my information overload is more information.

At times, I feel like a kind of cartoon waiter, swerving through a restaurant, desperately trying to maintain my center of gravity beneath a teetering stack of dishes, each with a half-finished meal dripping off the edge and onto my head.

Of course, deep down I know that the solution isn’t more information.

I know that more important than dropping everything to desperately pursue the latest marketing trend promising overnight success cough Clubhouse cough is to find just one strategy with a process I know I can sustain over the long run.

The problem is that taking the long view, focusing on the boring tasks that slowly compound into success over time, is kind of like showing up to a party, making your way to the table heaped with all manner of chips, dips, fried appetizers and desserts, and choosing instead to eat only from the one lonely veggie platter, that’s been shoved to the back corner of the table.

When it comes to food, we know that our cravings, while sure to give us a quick hit of dopamine, are not a viable form of long-term nourishment.

So why do we have such a hard time choosing real nourishment over cravings when it comes to our work?

What Does Nourishment Even Look Like?

When it comes to our food intake, we all have an innate sense of what nourishing food looks like.

We know that downing an entire pizza and bottle of coke every night is not a sustainable long term diet and that more vegetables are never a bad idea if we’re looking to lead a healthy life.

When it comes to creating, marketing and making a living off of our work, however, the lines are blurry.

Every strategy has die-hard advocates who believe that theirs is, if not the only, at least the best path to success.

Every expert has dozens if not hundreds of testimonials from people (many who seem to be a lot like you…) whose lives and businesses were changed by their course, coaching, or philosophy.

Every piece of content feels urgent, that if we choose not to consume it, we might just miss out on that one golden tidbit that would change everything for us overnight.

There’s no governing body issuing guidelines on the optimal content diet for achieving long term health. As such, we’re left to decipher the nourishment from the junk food for ourselves.

This can feel like a daunting prospect, rife with the potential for wrong decisions that could stunt our growth and ruin our careers.

But much like our food cravings can be recalibrated by a sugar or junk food detox, allowing our body’s natural, more balanced desires to shine through, so too can our content cravings.

Cleanse Your Pallete, Then Listen

When I’m feeling most overwhelmed with information and content, I’ll often resort to a strict content diet. No business books, podcasts, blogs, courses, or content of any other kind that is likely to add to the existing overwhelm.

With a clean palette and space for my own thoughts to make their way to the surface, I often find that I already know the people, ideas, and content (or lack thereof) that will provide me the sustenance I need to get me through the next leg of my journey.

Only in retrospect do I see that in my haste to chase each and every short-term, surface-level craving, I’ve been ignoring and suppressing these deeper yearnings for real nourishment.

Given a chance to pause, recalibrate, and get clear on the nourishment that’s actually needed to get me where I want to go, I almost always find that the cravings for short term tactics, strategies, and hacks disappear entirely.

For me, what feels nourishing can take many forms. Last year, I spent a month binging through dozens of episodes of Smart Agency Masterclass, a decidedly tactic-heavy podcast. At the time, I’d never thought to look up an agency-specific business podcast, and I took a lot away from the show before the overwhelm started to creep back in.

A couple of years ago I spent six months where I stopped consuming content almost entirely, embarking on a self-imposed fallow period to let my own creativity regenerate after a severe case of content overwhelm and burnout.

Lately, what’s feeling nourishing is a complete exodus from the world of business and marketing, but a steady stream of content from other broader topics. In particular, I’ve been drinking from the hose content related to philosophy, spirituality, poetry, adventure, storytelling and the natural world.

I don’t know what type of work will emerge from these influences, but it feels exciting, energizing, and inspiring, not emotions I currently associate with any type of marketing or business content, which instead feel forced and draining.

Don’t Let Others Dictate Your Consumption

Too often, we end up basing our own content consumption–and thus the ideas and ingredients that will define our work–on what everyone else around us is consuming.

We worry that by not keeping up with the latest trends, strategies, apps, hacks, and social platforms we’re willfully allowing ourselves to fall behind the pack.

The real shame is that when we follow the same content as everyone else, we end up producing the same work as everyone else.

Brands and creators that stand out from the pack do so because they have a wildly different set of influences from the pack.

The good news is that if you can quiet the cravings, you’ll find that you already know the real nourishment you need to carry you forward, and create the kind of work only you can create.

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Where are you finding creative nourishment right now? Shoot me a Tweet at @iamjeremyenns and let me know!

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