Overcoming Feelings of Burnout as a Content Creator
Expectations for content creators today are higher than ever.
As our industry grows and gains more legitimacy, people start expecting top performance across the board.
We are expected to show up consistently on multiple platforms, engage with our audiences and even be a role model to them.
As our industry gains legitimacy and more is expected of us, the possibility of experiencing burnout as a creative increases as well.
Overcoming Feelings of Burnout as a Content Creator
Today, I want to talk about recognizing and moving past burnout while also sharing some strategies to help you find a sustainable way to continue to show up on your social media platforms.
I started creating content in 2012 and while I always treated it somewhat like a business, it really was my creative outlet for about nine years.
I quit my nine to five job in April of 2021 to pursue content creation as my sole career and I've experienced feelings of burnout in both roles—whether it was just when I was creating content a couple of hours a week and now as a full-time creator.
Back then, burnout would arise if I took on too much content creation work in addition to my day job. Now, it can come from the pressure I feel to always be on and always be working since an entrepreneur’s work is never finished.
I think you can experience creator burnout, whether you are monetizing your content or not, but there is added pressure when content creation acts as an income source.
I do have some tips for you about how to balance and establish systems that can help you move past a period of burnout, but first let’s talk about how to acknowledge when you’re burnt out.
1. Acknowledge Burnout is Happening
Maybe you took on one too many brand deals and you’re struggling to meet deadlines in addition to your regular content schedule.
Or maybe you're at capacity with your nine to five job and show up as consistently as you wish you could when it comes to posting on social media.
Acknowledging burnout can feel disappointing, like maybe you “should” be able to juggle all of this even though there simply aren’t enough hours in the day.
But you’re going to let yourself down and your audience down more by creating sub-par content than you will if you wait until you have more time available to create things you’re proud of.
If you start telling yourself that what you’re doing is not good enough, you’ll start to believe it. Rather than suppressing feelings of disappointment, address them head on.
It may sound silly but try saying “I’m feeling overwhelmed” or “I’m experiencing burnout” out loud, even if it’s just to yourself.
The moment of acknowledgement is important because once you name the emotion, you can identify it much faster in the future and expedite the process of getting over it.
2. Take a Break
If you see this phrase and your first reaction is to push back on me and tell me you can’t take a break, it’s not the right time, and any other excuse you can think of—let me be the first to tell you that I have been there.
I have been the person who has tried to push through feeling overwhelmed and the person who wouldn’t ask for help when I needed it and spoiler alert: it didn’t serve me well.
If you're feeling this way, you must take a break. Even if it means stepping away for as little as 24 hours where you don’t log onto Instagram and you don’t check your email.
Content creation is not life or death. Even your most urgent emails can wait 24 hours if it’s a question of your mental health.
If you find yourself needing to take a break during a time when you were supposed to have sponsored posts, go live, communicate to your brand partners as soon as you possibly can give them a heads up and ask for an extension.
It might not feel great to do in the moment, but it'll be better than publishing subpar content, publishing content and forgetting to engage or screenshot your post, and stressing when you’re not in the right headspace to do your best work.
Pro Tip: I would say that unless you're planning to take a break of a month or longer don't worry about notifying your audience.
Whenever I see a creator post an Instagram story that says “sorry, I was MIA!” I always think, “oh…you were? I literally didn't notice but NOW I know that you didn't post for two weeks.”
You shouldn't have to apologize for taking breaks and we need to start normalizing them as an industry if we want to make this a sustainable long-term career for everybody involved.
You shouldn’t have to apologize for wanting a break
3. Establish Systems + Get Assistance
When you're nearing the end of your break, and you feel like you're ready to return to content creation, the next thing that I would recommend doing is establishing systems that make content creation, a seamless, easy process for you.
So in order to evaluate your systems and see if they are the best that they can be, I have a few questions that I recommend you ask yourself, I would ask yourself.
Is my current posting schedule realistic?
Is there one platform or type of content in particular that is causing stress?
And is there something I can do to change or modify that
Do I have a good workflow setup to maximize the times that I am awake, productive and excited to create content?
Do I have the room and financial capabilities to outsource things in my life that are taking up too much time?
For that one, I want to point out these could be work related things or things in your day-to-day life you might want help with.
Some things in your work life that you might consider outsourcing:
a virtual assistant to help you clean out your inbox
a video editor to save you the time that you would have spent editing YouTube videos
Some things in your day-to-day life that you can outsource are things that get you time back
ordering your groceries rather than taking a trip to the grocery store
hiring a housekeeper or maid to come in and clean your apartment on weeks when you simply don't feel like you have the time to do it
In my experience, while outsourcing comes at a monetary cost, sometimes just getting that one hour back in your day can make all the difference.
The good news about outsourcing is that pretty much all of these things are totally experimental.
For example, you can hire a video editor for a test assignment and see if you like their editing style.
You can order groceries from Amazon Fresh and if you don't like the experience, you can find something else that works.
You don’t have to commit to something if it’s not working for you, so test and try out some of these outsourcing methods to find what works best.
4. Plan For the Future
Once you've done a little audit of the systems that you have in place, the next step I recommend taking is making a plan for the future.
If you're not a big planner, I'll try to simplify this as much as I can and encourage you to just at the top of a new week or month or a year whatever time of year you happen to be watching this video, identify what are the top three things that need to happen this week in order to move my business forward.
This system of prioritizing the big three tasks is something I do pretty much every day in my business.
If you'd like access to the exact goal setting templates that I use, you can access those in my Patreon membership.
Once you know what your goals are and what your capacity is, you can work backwards and plan in advance the content that you want to create for any given period of time.
If you are a full-time content creator, I highly recommend going into your calendar right after you watch this video and making note of any holidays or days that you know you're going to take off.
Another thing that I'd like to start implementing in my business is giving myself one mandatory day off each quarter as content creators.
Often we are sharing our life nonstop, which means even if we’re traveling, it’s not necessarily a vacation (I say as I write this on a flight to Chicago to hang out with Caitlin for a week where we’ll do a mix of hanging and working.)
That’s why deciding early on to schedule intentional time off and actually commit to it is so important. Because if you don't, who will?
Bonus: Celebrate Your Accomplishments
I feel like in the really rapid landscape of social media today, we don't give ourselves enough time to celebrate the things that we are doing every single day.
So look back at what you've done in your creator business in the last month and pick out one thing to smile about and say “I DID THAT!”
It could be a small milestone, like adding 5 new subscribers to your email list or it could be a huge milestone like hitting 100,000 YouTube subscribers.
By choosing to focus on milestones and good things happening, that will just snowball into more good affirmations and good things coming along to you later that will help you get through your period of burnout and to the other side.
The success of your business is directly correlated to how you feel whether you like it or not, so in order to get set up for success in business and in life it’s really important to follow these steps if you’re feeling burned out.
We can all experience feelings of burnout from time to time but if you follow these four steps, you’ll be on a great path to finding your rhythm again as a creator and feeling confident moving forward.
Ready to start passive income streams to help free up more of your time and make money while you sleep? I’m hosting a series of free webinars this month to help with just that. Sign up here!
yours,
Austen