FIND YOUR WHY: A Guide for New Content Creators 

I-Can-Do-That-Itis

Finding your why can be a roundabout journey. Most of us start with a major case of the “I-can-do-that-itis.” You watch a YouTube video tutorial. The speaker shows you how to quickly and easily fix a leaky faucet and think, “I can do that.” YouTube tutorials are just step-by-step instructions, right? What’s so hard about that?

Or you pick up a bestselling cookbook. Inside, you find that instead of the secrets to the universe, it’s full of simple, straightforward recipes. Again, you think, “I can do that.”

Content creation can seem easy, and when it’s done well, it actually seems effortless. It’s true that you don’t need to graduate from a fancy university to be able to teach someone something. But there is a certain amount of talent and skill involved.

A Simple Truth

Here’s a simple truth: Content creation isn’t brain surgery, but it isn’t super easy either. There’s a lot of competition, a lot of related skills you have to master. You’ll be doing marketing, photography, videography, graphic design, editing, and more. You’ll find yourself doing all sorts of things that are unrelated to your topic. And you’ll be doing bookkeeping, cataloging photos, managing multiple social media accounts, designing sales funnels, and ugh, the list goes on.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that while it isn’t super easy, it is doable. With some conviction, focus, and a little bit of luck, you can be a successful, respected, well-paid content creator.

First, we have to find out why you want to be a content creator. The real reason. The deep-down-inside-you reason that’s going to keep you going when it gets tough or boring or when you get tired.

Some Common Answers

Some of the most common answers we hear when we ask people why they want to be a content creator include “I like writing,” and “I think I would be good at it.” That’s way too superficial to be useful for this exercise. Liking and being good at writing are givens. We want to find your why, your individual reason, one that’s unique to you and not a generic one that’s true for most people.

When we dig a little deeper, we start to hear things like, “I want to be my own boss,” and “I think I have something important to say.” Okay, but those are still pretty much true for everyone across the board. Keep going.

After six or seven superficial, pretty much true for everyone reasons, we start to hear some deeper truths.

“I want to make a better life for my family,” and “I want to be financially secure.” Both of those are still true for almost everyone, but here we’re finally getting to something that will motivate you. What are you willing to trade for a better life for your family? What are you willing to give in exchange for being financially secure? Are you willing to stay up late nights after your kids go to sleep to work three hours writing blog posts? Are you willing to stumble through all the steps necessary to tape and edit a YouTube video and publish it yourself?

Yes? Good.

How to Find Your Why

Here’s the next thing you need to figure out: What exactly does a better life mean to you? How exactly will your life be different if you’re financially secure?

Think about the concrete changes you’ll make in your day-to-day existence. Maybe building a better life and being financially secure means you’ll have a house in a nice neighborhood where your kids can safely play in the backyard. Maybe it means you’ll pay your bills on time and in full. Or it means you’ll take regular vacations, help put your little sister through college, pay off your parents’ house, donate to your favorite charity … you get the idea.

When you’ve found your why, it’s easy to move through the tough challenges you’ll face as a beginning content creator. Are you willing to slog through hours of tedious photo editing in order to be able to pay your bills on time and in full? Can you spend hours creating social media for your podcast if it means you get to go on a fabulous vacation next month?

Once you have your payoff in sight, the hard work you’ll have to do seems worth it.

Your Assignment: Find Your Why

So, here’s your assignment: Find your why. Make a list of ten reasons why you want to be a content creator. We’ll even spot you a couple – to be rich and famous (or some variation thereof), because you want to be your own boss and set your own hours. Besides those, why do you want to be a content creator?

Pick one or two reasons that you think are the most important and ask yourself, “What exactly does that mean?”

An Example: How I Found My Why

I’ll walk you through my own process. My first answer was, “I want to be my own boss.” That’s a good reason. I kept going. What would that mean?

“If I’m my own boss, I won’t have to walk around on eggshells waiting to get yelled at all the time.”

Okay, now what exactly does that mean? “If I don’t have to walk around on eggshells waiting to get yelled at all the time, I can stop trading my dignity in for a paycheck.” I kept going.

What exactly would that mean? “If I can stop trading my dignity in for a paycheck, I can regain my self-worth. And remember that I’m a competent, capable person with real skills and talents.”

I kept going. “If I can remember that I’m a competent, capable person with real skills and talents, I can have my success depend solely on me and my efforts instead of some corporate boss’s fickle whims.”

So am I willing to work hard if it means my success depends solely on me and my efforts?”

For me, that was an easy yes. That was my why.

Your Turn: Find Your Why

Now it’s your turn. Go through the exercise. Make a list of your reasons to be a content creator and keep asking yourself, what would that mean? What would that look like? What am I willing to give up in order to make that come true? When you get to “I’m willing to do this for that,” that, whatever that is, is your why.

Check out our previous post, What’s Your Best Platform: A Guide for New Content Creators.