Derek Hughes is a fitter content creator than I am.
He's gone way beyond merely “being consistent” with his content publishing, and had this to say about consistency:
If your strategy to make money online is ‘be consistent’.
You don’t have a strategy.
You have a treadmill.~Derek Hughes
I admit this stung a little because, yeah, that's kind of what I'm relying on right now to build things.
After nursing my ego for longer than I care to admit, I realized that a content treadmill is exactly what I need for my online endeavors right now.
Don't knock the treadmill, man!
I'm at the treadmill stage right now, mostly. For me this means setting consistency goals for myself and documenting them in a weekly newsletter that anyone can subscribe to for free. (Link at the bottom of the article)
I'm pretty sure that if I were strategizing at this point I wouldn't be producing a whole lot of content. Being wired the way I'm wired, I'd live in the planning stage for a long time and not produce a dang thing.
So at this stage in my creator journey, I'm embracing my content treadmill, because it's heading me in the right direction.
Here's why.
1. Producing content regularly is a must-do anyway
A health and fitness analogy screams here.
There's likely no better or easier way to start on a path to better health than walking. And a good tool to do that every day is a treadmill.
And even at better fitness levels than couch potato, walking or some kind of movement will play into an overall health plan.
Similarly, content creation will play into an overall business strategy when that comes together.
Also, probably most importantly, content creation never really goes away. It may take different forms, and go to a higher level, but the work of putting that content together will stay. It may be more infrequent, like monthly call-ins for paying clients as opposed to daily Instagram reels for the masses. But it will still be there.
So being on a content treadmill doesn't bother me, since I know I'll be needing to produce content at some level anyway for as long as I create online.
2. Producing content regularly indicates a bias toward action.
I've been creating stuff online for approaching 20 years now.
One of my biggest momentum-killers in the past has been lack of consistency. I've seen a depressing number of my efforts dwindle to a trickle simply because I just stopped.
There were many reasons why I stopped, but the biggest one was making a habit out of putting off what I knew I needed to do.
In this context, I really key in on keeping up a pace I can sustain that's slightly uncomfortable. This gets me enough out of my head so that I'm shipping work, and not abandoning those people who would follow me.
3. Producing content regularly begets efficiency.
Take my YouTube channel for instance, now 85 videos strong.
Parts of producing videos have an element of muscle memory now:
- I know where to go on my phone to start recording video.
- I know what to check before I do a screencast with Camtasia.
- I know where to find media clips I use when editing the videos.
- I know how to place annotations in the video so that they match my audio track.
- I know the process for checking the required boxes so that YouTube will show my video.
These efficiencies only started to happen when I started doing videos regularly, several times a week. Before there was a lot of re-learning what I had figured out at one point.
4. Producing content every day helps me sleep better at night.
With as much uncertainty there is in the world right now, it helps to have something that I'm controlling the destiny of.
Everyday that I produce something and ship it I can rest a little bit easier knowing that I've worked on myself and for myself rather than for somebody else.
A word of encouragement
Don't be discouraged if “all you have going for you” is that you post something regularly for your audience.
It's not healthy to compare your Chapter 1 to someone else's Chapter 17.
But like with everything worthwhile, the next level takes different strategy than what got you to where you are based on consistency.
Keep posting. And keep strategizing.
Check out these related articles!
Thanks for reading!
Hi, I'm John and I encourage people to work for themselves, and on themselves, every day to sleep better at night.
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(Header Photo by Ryan De Hamer on Unsplash)