I’m kicking off the new year by highlighting a few ways that you can invest your time, money, and energy into yourself as a content creator in 2024.
Investing in yourself doesn’t always have to involve spending a lot money or enrolling in expensive coaching programs or courses. There are a lot of ways you can support yourself as a content creator that don’t cost a ton of money and that show you’re serious about your own growth and expanding your impact.
I also provide an update on the Mindful Content Creator Podcast and Substack in this episode, and I would love to hear your feedback.
How will you invest in yourself as a creator this year? And what changes are you making to better support yourself as a creator? Let me know in the comments below. Enjoy the episode!
Below is a transcript of the episode, plus the self-inquiry prompts, for your reference—please excuse grammatical errors!
Hello, creators! Welcome back to the Mindful Content Creator podcast. This is our first episode of 2024, episode 21. I hope you all had a lovely holiday season. I know it's been a bit of a break for me since I had a new episode released, so I hope you haven't forgotten about me or missed me for too long, but I am excited to jump back in and share new ways that we can succeed as mindful content creators.
In the spirit of kicking off a new year, I wanted to share six ways you can invest in yourself as a content creator in 2024.
I have wanted to do an episode on how to invest in yourself as a content creator for a while now, but it feels like with the new year that this is the right time to sit down and reflect and think about these things, and plan out how we want to invest not just our money, but our time and our energy as well. That is just as important. If you have a small budget, not a problem, you can still invest in yourself with time and energy.
And I know that sometimes the idea of investing in yourself can sound a little bit cheesy, a little bit like it comes from the coaching world, which it kind of does. But I do like the concept of thinking about what you're really spending your time and energy and money on and being really thoughtful and mindful about that.
You don't have to spend a ton of money and go on retreats and have a fancy coach and all these things to be considered someone that's investing in themself. Again, I really want to focus on what are you doing to support yourself, to encourage yourself to thrive as a mindful content creator. And there are a lot of ways that you can do that that don't have to cost a lot of money.
So here are six ways to invest in yourself this year:
Number one, you can invest in new tools or resources. So this could be new equipment that you've really been needing to get that you've put off for a while. Maybe it's a new camera, a microphone, a computer, anything like that.
And then also investing in the software that you need. Maybe you need to get a paid subscription to something like Canva in order to make more sophisticated graphics for your posts, or maybe you want to get a software that will help you schedule your content and organize your content.
Whatever it is, these things can be things that you've been putting off for a while thinking that maybe you had to wait until you got to a certain level to earn them or get them. This is me encouraging you to go ahead and do it now. This is something that I've been guilty of in the past where I said, Okay, well, I'll just wait until, you know, I have a bigger following or have things figured out before I go buy this or that or purchase this software.
But at a certain point, just jumping in and getting these can be a game changer. It can totally smooth out your process, make things easier for you, and you feel more inspired because of that—it all kind of has a domino effect. Of course, I also understand having a small budget. I've been working with a small budget for a long time. So I often will do something like, okay, I need this new microphone, but I'm gonna get maybe not the fanciest level, maybe a couple tiers down, but one that's still good. Or I'll shop on some place like eBay and look for a used or open box item, something that's not quite as expensive. Sometimes I'll ask for it as a gift for a birthday or something like that, so that it feels a little less of a burden or a little bit less of a stressor to think, oh, now I'm going to come up with the money to get this fancy equipment and what if, you know, it doesn't work out. If you ask for it as a gift, that kind of helps. Or you ask people to contribute money to helping you purchase that down the line. I've also done that with computers where I asked my family to give me Apple gift cards for like two years or something like that for all of my gifts. And then I was able to purchase a laptop.
So there's ways to kind of play with this, and kind of find a, not a shortcut, but an easier way to get something that you know you need and at least will hold you over until you can get that fancier, bigger item.
Number two, find supportive groups or a community of other creators for you to join. And this doesn't have to be a paid program that you enter, you could also just find other creators organically, maybe form your own group and talk to them. But I find that either way, having other people who are kind of trying to do something similar will make you feel a little less alone because a lot of times in this journey, it's, you know, it's just us sitting in front of a computer or writing in a notebook or filming a video. And there aren't a lot of other people to talk to and shoot ideas off of. And granted, we all work differently. I know some people prefer to work alone and don't really want a lot of input. Others like to be very collaborative.
If you're someone who does enjoy being around others, I highly encourage you to find, you know, maybe a creative group or something like that. I joined a creative group once that was really helpful for me. Even spiritual groups. like joining a group of ten or so other people for a moon circle every month. These things can just make you feel more like you're part of a community, and it can help you feel more inspired to call in your own community.
Number three, invest in education. So this could be classes, courses, books that you can read on certain topics, or even certifications. And again, I'm not talking about buying some super fancy expensive course that someone's pushing on you. I, again, don't think that those things are always necessary. But think of a skill that you really want to learn, something that you really want to build upon, and focus in on where you can get that assistance, where you can get that support.
A certification that I've been working on is actually my Oracle Card Reader Certification, which might on the surface seem like it's not at all related to my content creation process, but I like to work very intuitively, and the cards for me are a great way to, you know, do self study, to tap into my intuition, connect with my higher self. And so for me, that has been really important to kind of learn as much as I can about how to work with the cards and how to use them not as a tool for divination necessarily, but as a tool to really study and know myself deeper.
And of course, I love to work with Oracle and Tarot cards as well with my content, using that even as a source of inspiration. So it's not directly related to what I'm doing, but it is adding something to it. So think of those things, what would really help you grow and expand on an intellectual level, and that could, you know, have a filter or trickle down effect to your content.
Number four, invest time and energy in doing something just for you. This is really important. We think about what again impacts our content directly, but there's a lot of things that impact us as people, as creators, and that will help us move forward in all aspects of our lives. Think about how you might want to incorporate more practices into your life that fuel you. So maybe it's meditation or daily writing or journaling. Maybe it's a regular yoga or fitness practice. Carving out that time to really just do something that's for you can have a big impact on everything else you do.
Number five, spend time reflecting and clearing out what no longer serves you. I think this is something that we kind of forget about or overlook. We sort of do it at the end of the year, right before we set our resolutions and think about what we want the year ahead to look like. But I think this is something we should do on a regular basis. Just kind of assess where we've been, where we are, and is this aligned with where we want to go? Especially as content creators, because it can be so easy to get caught up in the trends and what people outside of you are telling you to do in order to grow your following, but you need to check in with yourself and see, is this actually the path I want to go down? Because a lot of times if you veer off what works for you, what feels good for you, it just leads to burnout as a content creator.
I've seen it happen so, so many times. Someone can start out absolutely loving what they're doing and creating, but because they start adding in all this extra stuff to grow their following or to increase their revenue, and it starts to become more like—well, I mean, in many cases, it is a business—but just like more like a business business. You start to lose that initial passion for why you were doing what you were doing. And then that burnout happens. And then I see people just completely fall off and say, Oh, well, this must not be the path for me. I'm going to go try something different and abandon this. And that to me is always such a shame.
I think that a lot of times there are things that we really love and enjoy, but we kind of… We get in our own way, we get in our heads, and we turn it into something that is less enjoyable, that becomes, again, like a business transaction.
So taking this regular time to do some self-study, some reflection, can help you stay on a path where you're still passionate and in love with what you're doing and what you're creating. Whatever is standing in your way of still continuing to feel that passion, if you want to continue still feeling that passion, clear that out. Do what you need to do to make more room for what you enjoy and what lights you up.
And number six, mentorship. I'm not talking here about necessarily getting a big, fancy, expensive coaching program. Again, I've said it several times in this list. I think a lot of people sell things that way of, oh, if you really want to get ahead, then you need to invest in yourself by getting this coach and, you know, learning from someone who came before you. And absolutely, I encourage you to find a mentor, someone that has gone this path before you that you can ask questions, that you can talk to, And have it be someone whose input you truly trust and value.
Guidance doesn't have to come in some super fancy, expensive package. You can, you know, have one session or one meeting with someone to just ask some questions or get a sense of how they got where they got. You can even read books or articles from people who talk about how they got to where they are now.
The important thing to me to remember when I reach out for feedback or mentorship is to be wary of anyone that tries to get you to follow their exact formula because if there's anything that I've learned, it's that we all are going to have our own unique path and our own unique way to get to where we want to go. You know, what worked for someone else is not always going to translate perfectly to every single person. So a good coach or mentor can recognize that and kind of help you find your own path and get there on your own rather than giving you. here's my 10 step formula, and if you don't follow this then good luck!
So, seek mentors that really see you, see who you are, see where you're headed. They know that you're a unique individual, and that they can, you know, provide you some support and guidance or even just encouragement.
Those are six ways that you can invest in yourself as a mindful content creator in 2024. I'm even going to be doing some of these myself this year, as I mentioned, finishing off my certification for oracle card reading. I also did get a new microphone for Christmas, an elevated next level, next step microphone that I'm excited to set up and really set up my space fresh and clear and new. And that's another thing that you can even do, is just resetting where you work and really setting up your space. I kind of put that under that tools and resources category, kind of investing in whatever you need to, to set the right environment for you.
And I certainly plan to spend more time taking care of myself, doing things that are just for me, and also spending that time reflecting to make sure that I'm still on the path that I want to be on.
Regardless of how you invest in yourself this year, whether it's with any of these that I listed, or with some other ways, really just try and get yourself into a place where you can be open to receive, to receive ideas, community members, connections, collaborations, etc. Invest in whatever will help you get to that point because that's what will really help you flourish.
And before I close out today's episode, I want to talk a little bit about some changes I've been thinking of making to the podcast and to the Substack subscription that corresponds to this. If you aren't part of it, you can find it at themindfulcontentcreator.substack. com. But I've been taking some time over these last few weeks to evaluate where I'm at, and I'm happy with how much the subscription on Substack has grown, but I've also been looking at the trends, so to speak, within my own data. So I like to look at the data, but not take it too too seriously, but at least use it as a loose or rough guide point.
And something I've been doing over on Substack is sending out weekly mindful content prompts. Something I've noticed with these, and I haven't gotten a ton of feedback—though, it's funny, today I actually did, as of the day that I'm recording this. I finally did have someone email me, and if you're listening, thank you for, for doing that. Uh, someone did email me and say that they really liked these prompts, which I really appreciate, and it's lovely to hear. But I have noticed that the open rates are pretty low on those content prompts, and when people do unsubscribe from the list, it's usually after I send a content prompt. So that has had me thinking that perhaps they aren't resonating as much as I wanted them to, maybe they're not the right type of thing, you know, that people are looking for. Maybe, you know, you don't really have time to do a weekly content prompt.
I've been considering maybe being a bit more intentional with these, and doing something that would maybe help you get a little more organized as a content creator. So what I would love to do or to try out is to actually make one episode of the podcast per month that would air at the end of the month and that would prep you for the month ahead with some possible themes and ideas for content. I would actually pick one main theme for the month for the content prompts, and let everything fall under that, so that you could continue to expand upon that theme each week. One thing I'm debating is whether or not I will just send out all of these prompts at once at the top of the month, so that you have it along with the episode, or continue sending one a week, just with all of them falling under one theme.
I would absolutely love to hear your feedback if you're open to sharing it. Are you using the weekly content prompts? Do you like receiving them every week? Or would you prefer to do something where you get a theme for the month, and you get it kind of all in one email, and you can work through it at your own pace and not have an email for me in your inbox every week? I don't want to over, uh, communicate if it's not necessary.
Certainly let me know your thoughts. If you have been enjoying the prompts, I would love to know. It really would help me decide what to do going forward, and it will help me kind of decide what direction I should move in with the prompts.
And so that brings me to the podcast. As I mentioned, I do want to do one a month that's kind of focused on the themes ahead for the following month to help you plan your content. So in that I'll talk about, you know, what's coming up in, say, the month of February. So, of course, we've got Valentine's Day and things like that, but I don't want to do just the surface level typical stuff that everyone will be doing. I certainly want to encourage you to look at it from a different angle and to take things, you know, in a more creative direction that's unique to you. So I'll also encourage you at the same time to consider what comes up for you in your own personal life, your own personal themes for each month. But I'll also talk about, you know, what's happening in the moon cycle, the new and the full moon, what astrological season we're in.
I'd also love to pull cards for each month to kind of give you a sense of where to focus as a content creator, kind of a message for you as a creator. And again, if that's not your thing, you're not into Oracle and Tarot—again, I'm not really using it as specifically a divination tool. It's not about predicting the future or telling you what your month ahead is going to be like. It's more about giving you the opportunity to ask yourself some questions, to do a little bit of self-study, self-inquiry. I think it's just a really helpful tool to, to help ourselves dive deeper.
So that's what I'm thinking for one of the podcasts, and then the other podcast would ideally be an interview with another content creator. and that way we can really see another perspective. We can talk to people who are really doing this work every day, and how they stay motivated, how they stay inspired, and how they envision the future of content creation.
That would be taking things down to just two podcasts per month, or two podcast episodes. Before, I was trying to do one every week, but I realized that perhaps I was churning out at a faster rate than I really could keep up with, especially because I do have another podcast and another Substack, as I mentioned in the last episode of 2023. I also have the Soul Journaling Sessions, and so keeping up with both can be a lot. But I very much want to keep both, and I want to keep them separate, So, in order for me to sustainably do that and still get the ideas behind both out there, I'm gonna take them down to just two episodes per month.
I hope that this will get everything into a better flow for me as a content creator and then for me connecting with you as a listener. I really would love to get more interactive with all of you to hear more about what you're doing and what you need. So please let me know any thoughts on this. Please let me know what you're thinking about for this year. What are you, you know, kind of mulling over and trying to work out on your end? And also, how do you plan to invest in yourself as a content creator in 2024?
I really would love to hear, if you want to jump on over to Substack to the post for this episode. You can let me know in the comments there. When I send out the email with the episode through Substack, you can also just hit reply and send me an email. I do get those emails. So please feel free to share however you would like, whether it's with the full community or to me directly.
Thank you all again so much for listening, for being here, for being part of this community. If you're new here, welcome. I'm so happy that you've joined. I hope that this is what you were looking for.
And again, if you have feedback, please let me know. I would love to hear it.
Until next time, happy creating!
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