Episode Notes Hi there. Ducky Obrien chilling like a cookie in a tin. Today we go over the two most important questions in life: 1. Fire? 2. Something about DMT Show Notes Link: https://duckyobrien.com/2020/03/27/this-week-in-content-creation-how-to-avoid-burning-out/ Show Video Link: https://youtu.be/AYNhkuCcYkM Show Notes Short: To avoid burning out, fight negative thoughts by comparing yourself with yourself only. Stop comparing yourself against other people! Also keep in mind growth and improvement come with time. Secondly, keep doing what you're doing but always be willing to try out new things, to always keep you learning and changing. Finally, don't be always chasing that view and sub count and focus instead on making content that would make you happy. Show Notes Long: These past two weeks have been rough, as I am sure almost everyone else out there is having a rough time as well. Despite current circumstances, I’ve been churning out content nonstop, spending around seventeen straight hours a day. Some days, I even managed to work thirty hours at a time. And I’ve taken no breaks, no vacations, just the grind and the grind on my mind twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. But I’m slowly starting to burn out. Sometimes negative thoughts haunt me at the back of my mind, making me doubt why I’m putting in all this work. Maybe this is all for naught, maybe my time is better spent elsewhere. Maybe it’s time to get a more stable job. Why bother, I won’t make a difference anyways. I get no views, I see no growth, maybe I’m just a failure. Sometimes the repetition of what I’m doing gets to me. Making the same videos on the same topics and games. Spending so much time editing podcasts and videos everyday for an audience that doesn’t seem to care or notice the amount of effort put in. The sameness of it all, day after day, leaves me wanting something new. And then there’s always the fear of trying something new because that means you lose your primary audience group. The fear of losing relevancy, the fear of losing those view counts. Every small content creator knows that if you change the game or topic or tone of your content, you lose a large number of views, primarily because people want to see the same type of content from you. Even most of the largest content creators are subject to this. Maybe you guys can relate to what I’m going through, maybe you can’t. Either way, I’ll record my thoughts and experiences here in how I’m doing my best to overcome these obstacles in my journey as a content creator, in the hopes that it may be of some use to someone out there. First of all, in dealing negative thoughts, there’s really no easy way out. It’ll always be a fight. They will always come back to haunt you throughout your life. The key here, is to be able to live with them without it affecting your outlook on life. Start by focusing on the facts. Stop comparing yourself to other people and start comparing yourself, to well, yourself. Here’s what I mean by this. The data does not lie. It can be incorrectly interpreted and that will be a topic for another day. As long as you see growth, no matter how small, that is always a positive thing. That means you are doing better! You are getting better at making whatever content it is you set your sights on, whether it be music, videos, art, etc. Look at what you made, see if you improved from where you started. Use the facts, look at the data available, compare yourself to yourself. Be honest. Be patient. Growth and improvement does not happen immediately, it always takes time. There are no shortcuts. Always try to improve on one small skill at a time. You have an abundance of high quality resources on almost every topic available on the internet nowadays and most of it is available for free! Always be learning, always be improving, failing is part of the process. Don’t ignore the things you are doing well in either! Everyone has something they alone can do, some unique quality that can’t be replicated exactly. The reality is that no one is great at doing something when they first start out. Sure, there may be a handful of people in the entire world that are natural geniuses, but 99.99% of the world is in the same boat as you. It takes time, it takes practice, it takes effort to learn and refine skills, and it takes blood, sweat, and tears to create something beautiful. If the negative thoughts come, let them and face them head on. See if they are true. Use the data, not your emotions. Sometimes they are. It’s true, I’m not the best at making content. I’m very limited in the skillset I have now. My podcasts aren’t the best, my videos aren’t either, and so are my articles on my blog. But that’s ok. I can improve. With each piece of content I make, I can see myself improving a little bit at a time. And with time, you gain something important, perseverance. The ability to withstand and survive, and even thrive ...
