Being a Creator is Exhausting Work

“Love what you do and do what you love” is the common phrase that people say when referring to ways to be happy. The way that I have found myself the happiest in an exhausting world of creating content is with a job and a side hustle.

During my sophomore year of college, I would make $36 five days a week doing 630AM dog walks before I had class.

Being cautious with your time

The grind was real as I had other side hustles I pursued, but this was fun easy money. Having limited money forced me to get creative in the ways I would stream an income.

After 7 months of active duty military, I have been able to see how a consistent job coupled with various side hustles and hobbies has made me happy.

I have spent my free-time much more carefully ever since I committed myself to create more blogs. By more blogs, I mean going from writing 2 or 3 every week to a new piece of content every single day.

Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but the creative juices are definitely being tested!

You think about your audience the most. The type of content they’d love to read the most. Because of my audience, I happily start writing a draft at the same time every day.

On my blog, I want to be as transparent as possible because as with any new endeavor, I am constantly learning something new.

I have been learning how to structure a blog post for the best outcomes through Medium articles and YouTube videos I’ve watched.

Some key tips I have taken

• Use high-quality images
• Write in the active voice
• Tell more stories
• Engage with the community
• Read a lot
• Trust the process

In my journey, I have found that I’m getting exhausted. However, I have the motivation to continue to write. I believe I can help someone going through the same struggles I am every day.

The satisfaction I get from seeing an increase in reading ratio percentage means that I am gradually improving which is absolutely motivational.

To new writers

I encourage you not to look too deeply at the stats because they can affect you negatively. You may focus on the numbers like I do first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. This obsessive behavior won’t allow you to write for the right reasons. Instead, you may write in hopes for something to go viral.

The day I hit 1.8k reads on my stock market blog, I felt reborn and relevant in the writing world. In the days ensuing that milestone, I was humbled and brought back down to Earth.

It isn’t wrong to celebrate the highs, but it’s equally as important not to get too wrapped up in the lows.

The YouTube videos I consumed told me to be proud of myself, but not to get discouraged on days when only 30 people would read my articles. Just be patient and show up every day as any great competitor would.

An increase in followers has given me a sense of community that I want to cherish and grow strong in the future. On the same token, I want my readers to trust the words that I lay before them.

For that reason, I will never try to give any advice I haven’t learned from experience because where is the credibility there?

A key nugget of advice I received on a Medium post was that it’s more important to have 1,000 engaged followers rather than 10,000 who aren’t as committed.

Along with me getting my followers to learn about me, I want to know about them as well.

Picking a niche

I want to help my audience to the best of my ability and if you comment on what you’d want to see more of, I would gladly steer towards that direction!

Gary Vaynerchuk tells viewers that all the things you do or talk about are your niche, so don’t get too caught up sticking to one niche. That focus may not make you the happiest creator, but will definitely make you helpful.

Gary does so much stuff in his life to where garage sale and working with top CEOs in America may not have a direct correlation, but they are two parts of his brand.

This gives me no guilt in not sticking to a niche as an early creator, but it does allow me to develop a “top 3” of topics that I can commit more time to.

Being overseas with mediocre or sub-par internet puts my YouTube channel on hold, but has sparked a new, more sustainable passion in blogging.

Anyone can do it

You can do whatever you want! Wanna write? Then write a blog. Always wanted to start a YouTube channel? Go for it! Do you enjoy talking? Start a podcast.

There are more ways than ever to make your voice heard with the internet and there are so many mediums where you don’t have to get exhausted putting all of your eggs into just one basket. The key takeaway is to do everything in a balance to where creating does not damage parts of your personal life or kill your confidence.

“Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun.” Remember that :)