When I first thought about using my own content to learn Final Cut Pro and video making, I was unsure what I would video.

I live in Beijing, for f*ck sake, but I was telling myself there was nothing to share. I thought maybe I could shoot some video of the local area and use that and then perhaps post it onto YouTube to give me a further reason to learn this sh*t.

There was a lot of self-doubt in all of that. I would tell myself that it’s probably been done before, who would want to see it and what if I get myself into trouble doing it. It is China; after all, there is maybe some rules that I might break – yeah, paranoia was also evident. 

I was driving myself backwards. Like a dog at the doors of a haunted house… yeah, what was scaring me?

This is the thing with trying something new. You spend a lot of energy trying to talk yourself out of it to save yourself from the unknown.

I wanted to learn video making using Final Cut Pro and an online course (Linked-in), but I couldn’t get into it much. I found the video content that they provided boring, monotonous and lacking in ownership.

I stalled the learning process because of this lack of personal ownership of the content. I was fighting the lack of engagement on two fronts, the lack of confidence in what to shoot and a lack of enjoyment of the provided content.

I was struggling to learn and mainly because I was not enjoying it because of the above reasons.

This is where my morning journal came into play. I was sitting one morning, tired after staying up late to learn, and I began asking myself questions in the journal.

I asked, why am I not enjoying this?

What could I do differently to help my enjoyment of it?

What goal can I set myself?

What habit can I put in place that can help me achieve this?

If I agree on some actions, how long will I persevere?

I answered all of the above with some good reflections and made some straightforward actions and habits.

Why no enjoyment? I am not invested in the content, so I should shoot my own video to then follow along with the lessons with my own stuff.

What habit could I implement? I want to shoot more video, so I will create the practice to walk carrying my phone instead of keeping it in my pocket.

What goal will I set myself? Make one video a week of four minutes or above and post it onto YouTube.

One of the actions was to list out ten ideas for content. I wrote out then thoughts on what to film, and that was that. I got to work recording stuff and then editing this into short YouTube videos. It has been fun to learn. I am engaged and learning at a different level now because I made it more personal.

I reviewed my list of content ideas today and realised I could add to it more now that I have gained some experience.

So I took the time to brain dump out more ideas.

The list is long now… I don’t have the time to make half the ideas I came up with, but that’s cool. I am doing this for no one else but myself. I am selfish that way, sometimes!

What I have learned through this process is video shooting and editing and also, and this is essential learning, the importance of having an abundance (growth) mindset.

I was closing myself down initially, but once I reset my thinking, I got into it all on a different level.

I grew my opportunity and concepts, and now I have an abundance of ideas that knows no endpoint.