Bored With the Same Old Content

One of the hardest things being a content creator is constantly having to make new content. Especially if you've been doing this for a few years, you start to run out of ideas, you start to run out of concepts. So I did that already. Now what do I do? What's the next thing? And then eventually get to the point where making the content isn't really as fun as it used to be because you're having to produce new content, you're having to research content where in the beginning you had this, this flood of ideas because you were, everything was new, you were just getting started, right? So you could just add new stuff to your channel no matter what. But after a few years or even after a year or two, you're like, okay, well, I've done all like the really good stuff. Now what do I do? And that can be very, very hard as a content creator. And I've gone through those periods of burnout where I feel like, you know, I'm not in the mood to make content. And sometimes I will give myself a break. For example, over the summers, I do like to kind of back off on the content, particularly the month of August, which tends to be the slowest month of the year for me, not only in the online business, but, but also in my brick and mortar. So it's a slower month. So I myself like to take a little time off just to recharge because I think sometimes content creators don't give themselves that break. If I'm feeling tired, I will take a day off, right? And it may take two days off if I need it. But where we get into a bad habit is when we start taking weeks off or we start taking months off and we're not producing content because that's not a good thing. So what do we do to get ourselves motivated? And I've talked to lots of clients, and I've done this with myself personally too, is to start making content just for making content. Stop making content, worrying about how many views it's going to get, how many people are going to see it, how many sales you're going to make from that video, the thumbnail, the click through, rate the title, just make content because it's enjoyable to make. Make content that you don't mind talking about. Make it something, you know, related to your channel, but maybe a little bit on the side. Maybe it's some philosophical reason. So for example, on my guitar channel, I've been getting a little bit more into the mental side of learning to play guitar. So not just, you know, techniques, scales, how to change chords. You know, what does it take to be successful, not just in guitar, but in life? You know, because that's something that, you know, a lot of my guitar students have told me over the years. They're like, Lauren, you don't just teach guitar, you teach humanity. And I thought that was, that was such a cool thing to that one of my students had told me and I said, you know what, I need to bring more of that into my teaching. Because I'm not just a guitar teacher. I love teaching the songs and, and you know, yes, there, there gets to be a point where sometimes I do recreate old videos, especially if I'm not feeling too creative. I'll go into my back catalog and I'll be like, I haven't made that video in two or three years. Let's remake that video. Get that one out there again. It's valuable content. Can I add something to it? Can I put a different spin spin on it? But you know, usually Most videos on YouTube have a 90 day shelf life. They'll do really well the first 90 days, then they plateau and the views kind of fizzle out and either the video is going to take off a little bit later. You know, we kind of have these ebb and flows. But for video, usually the first 90 days are the big days for a video. And if something takes off, so you have a video that's doing millions of views and I have a few videos that have done that. You, you know, over time that does start to slowly decline. So some of these older videos can be reprieved, especially if they're videos that did well in the past. Well, if they did well in the past, they'll probably do well again. So it takes some of the creative process and always being like, okay, I gotta make something new, I gotta make something new. You don't always have to make something new. You can go to your back catalog and say, okay, what's done well? And especially if you just started YouTube, say you're only two or three years into YouTube. A lot of those videos you did in year one probably didn't get a lot of views. And if there were ones that performed better, remake those. Because chances are those videos are going to take off with a lot more subscribers. You know, I had videos that I did in the beginning that, that didn't do well at all. And I was like, I think one of, you know, I did some Elvis songs and probably some Eagle songs. And I was like, I'm going to redo these songs because I made Them with. When I first started YouTube and you know, maybe I had a few hundred subscribers. Now I have, you know, I think I got like 450,000 subscribers at this point. And you know, some of the subscribers probably haven't seen those videos. So every once in a while we do reprieve old videos. I do want to keep making new content as well, but at some point you can start working in old content again. But if you're feeling like you're just getting bored with either recreating content or researching content or trying to find the right thumbnail, the right title, I highly encourage you just to make content for the sake of enjoying to make content. Because I know, I would say about three or four years in I got really burnt out because, you know, I was working with a YouTube coach and they're like, alright, thumbnails, titles, keywords, like we gotta get all these things, you know, we gotta get all these things molded and working correctly. And I'd rather you, you know, if you don't have a good thumbnail for, for your video, I'd rather you not make the thumbnail or not make the video at all or don't release the thumbnail. And I think that's, that's kind of bull crap. I've done a lot of work on YouTube over the years. I've used AB testing software with thumbnails. I've done the fancy thumbnails and I've done the stupid thumbnails as well. I've done, you know, things that you're never supposed to do and they worked. And I've done the A B testing of these old thumbnails and I try to create something new that's a little bit more spicy, spicy and exciting. And lo and behold, the crappy old thumbnail outperforms the cliche good thumbnail. So it just goes to show you, every, every audience is different, every channel is different, every niche is different. And just because something works on one channel or just because something is trending right now doesn't mean it's necessarily going to work for your channel. Which is why we should always be testing things. But if you're getting stuck on like I need the perfect thumbnail, just release the video. If the thumbnail is holding up, just make a thumbnail. You can always make it better, you can always switch it out. Okay, and you might want to try that after 90 days switching out a thumbnail on a video, especially if it's not performing as well or the click through rates not as good. You can always make a Better thumbnail. But if you're always constantly trying to, like, hit that next thing, it makes the content less fun because now we're becoming too analytical. And I love numbers. I'm a totally an analytical person. But even for me, if you get so bogged down in the numbers, you don't want to create the content, it doesn't make it fun. And I think you need to reintroduce the fun into what you're doing. You also need to reintroduce your. Why. Why are you doing this? You know, are you doing this because you just want to make a lot of money? And I've made a lot ofMONEY on YouTube. And I can tell you, while money is a great motivating factor in business, you're in business because you want to make money. But. But I can tell you, you can make a lot of money. And if there's no passion or purpose behind what you're doing, you will get bored. You will not want to do it. You're just. The drive's not going to be there. So really focus on why you're doing it and the people you're helping. Because if you can do that and you can focus on that, it doesn't become about the money so much. Yes, again, like I said, we want to be making money. You're in business, and, you know, I'd rather do something I love and make money than do something in love and not make money. So money is kind of the reward for doing what you love. But if what you love all of a sudden is becoming a chore, it's because you're not really passionate about the content you're making. So find content that you will be passionate about making a new spin on something. Just like me with a guitar channel, you introducing more of these. These mental things about guitar and, you know, why people quit, you know, practice tips, you know, you know, little things like that that are related to your channel but give you a different spin on things. Because I was. I was starting to get really, really bored of, like, songs, exercises. Songs, exercise. I'm like, I need to do something different that's fun for me. And even recently, I, you know, my audience is an older audience, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, you know, and, you know, I do a lot of older music, you know, from the 60s and 70s and every once in a while, more recently, because I've been kind of getting into one of those grinds, and I'm like, I want to do some songs that inspire me, songs that I like. So I've been doing a lot more songs from the 90s, which doesn't always overlap with my demographic of the people, you know, who are in their 60s and 70s. Maybe some of the people in the 50s will get it, but it's starting to attract some people, you know, who are my age, 40s, 50s, who are interested in. In something different. Plus, it's fun for me because those are songs I grew up with. They have some different guitar and strumming. So it's making it a little bit more exciting for me to throw in some of these songs from the 90s and be like, oh. And tell a story about it. Be like, oh, I remember performing this song with my band live, or I remember doing this. So it makes it a little bit more interesting and exciting for you. And if you're someone who feels completely overwhelmed with all the work you're doing on your channel, it might be time to outsource. I highly recommend that you go click on that video over there where you learn how to stop doing everything yourself, because it can be absolutely exhausting and give you some tips and techniques of what you can do to stop doing everything yourself and start getting some help.