Learning to be a Content Creator

The season of my life right now: learning video editing softwares, graphic design apps, website builders, cameras, technology, and so on. All that it takes to go full content creator mode. People on social media make it look simple like anyone can do it and that all you need is your phone, or some very low budget items to start. But honestly, that doesn’t seem to be the path to long-term success, from what I can tell thus far. 

Right now, my goal is to get 1% better every day at something having to do with my YouTube channel or Midwestern Yogi brand. Recently, I started using Premiere Rush instead of iMovie to edit my YouTube videos. I’m coming to the realization that neither have the full capabilities I need to level up further, which will require a video editor purchase in the near future. This involves either a hefty monthly subscription or a few hundred dollar purchase upfront. 

I also just purchased a new recording gear setup - the Osmo Pocket 3 Creator Combo kit - for nearly $1,000. I’m excited to try out this gimbal camera that will track me during my yoga classes and level up my production for both video and audio (which has been a real struggle with the $20 clip-on BT mic I got off Amazon). 

All this gear and it’s only just the beginning. I’ve only been posting on YouTube for about 12 weeks now and every day I learn something new about content creation. However, the YouTube game is much slower. 

The start to end process of making and publishing a good video takes true effort. Editing videos takes a grand amount of time, but so does scripting them - which I haven’t really done at all at this point, but it’s something I want to get better at moving forward. In terms of yoga classes, it requires me to get inspiration from my practice and/or other classes that I take either in person or from YouTube. I could dedicate a full week’s time to scripting a really well put together yoga class, but then, I wouldn't be able to release consistently every Saturday. With a full-time day job, some days it feels even more like a far away dream that a near future reality. 

Actually, the hardest part about learning to be a content creator isn’t even learning how to use all the right equipment I need to bring my vision to life, in fact, it’s been learning who I am; What am I about? What’s my vibe? How do I present myself online in a way that feels authentic and gets my real message across? What is my real message? What do I care about? What are my interests? How do I help people? How do I combine my interests with helping others? Do I have what it takes? Why am I different from anyone else trying to do the same thing? Do I have anything special to offer/teach? Am I crazy for thinking this is something I can achieve? Is all this time and energy put into creating this worth it? 

I wish I had more time. 

Then maybe it would seem less daunting to pursue my dreams while also pursuing the lifestyle I want. Right now it feels like I’m hounding away at building my dream career, but my lifestyle of practicing a ton of yoga is getting lost in the shuffle; the core of my business somehow ranking in last place when put up against full-time day job and full-time content creator role. 

It kills me a bit that I seem to be missing the time to live my yogi lifestyle because I’m in hot pursuit of trying to make it my full-time lifestyle. 

Sacrifice. Sacrifice. Sacrifice. 

I hope it pays off. I hope everything I’m doing right now is contributing to me having more time in the future to be able to spend a random Wednesday tucked away in a library somewhere in the philosophy section with a book in hand, criss cross applesauced up with a hot coffee next to me. Or taking a yoga class at a hot yoga studio midday, then casually grabbing a smoothie after at a coffee shop and sitting there for a few hours to write all my thoughts down that were inspired by the flow. Or maybe having the time to go for a morning surf, without being in a rush, and replenishing myself with a protein-rich breakfast after, meditating in the sun before returning to my abode to record a YouTube video about a topic that interests me. 

Of course these sound great in theory, but right now, I’m working to apply the science. My hypothesis is that I should have more time to do the things I want if I create a business around things I love doing so that it feels less like ‘work’ and more like play. 

I do think life is supposed to be fun.  

But maybe not all of it. Right now the season is about sharpening my blade. I can’t efficiently create content to the point where I’m super confident about what I’m putting out. I haven’t yet figured out how to write with ultra clarity. I haven’t yet figured out what I’m ‘selling’. I haven’t yet nailed down my ‘dream audience’ or even really figured out what my I’m trying to do here with all of this, except inspire people to practice yoga, because what does that even mean? That can look so different for so many people, but I guess that’s where you just have to keep going because your method may be extremely useful to some and fall mute to others. If you never put anything out there though, then you’ll never know of the impact you could’ve had. And for sure if there’s any impact I want to have on people, it’s that I want to inspire them to practice yoga and travel. Right now, the travel part is not so avid, but I think if it were, then I wouldn’t be able to be so bored to the point where the most exciting thing I can do is sit on my computer and create. 

So here we are: Creating. Daily. 

Randomly enough, the beauty of creation opens your mind up just by you walking through open doors to create things. Upon creation of the photo for this week’s journal posting, I was scrolling through Canva to find a template I liked. The first page of it was the template I used for the main photo of the blog post “The Creative Process” one. And I honestly loved the message so much, I only changed a couple words. But there was a second page attached to it that I didn’t realize was a continued part of it. Here it is below. I thought it went perfectly with what I had just wrote my entire entry about. I didn’t change a word because it’s honestly pure magic: