What “happens” when I have gone MIA?

Like most content creators, if I don’t post to my platforms for an extended period of time, I get a lot of messages and questions from members of my community asking “what happened?” or “where have you gone?” 

The answer: Nothing happened and I haven’t gone anywhere. 

If something ever happened that prevented me from fulfilling tasks and obligations to my customers and community, trust me, you’d hear about it!

If you have a productivity question or need help with something related to my content or products and send me an email, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can to help! 

But there is a general expectation that has formed for online creators that sets a standard that a creator will continue to create unless they explain otherwise. I know not every person holds creators to this standard, and I don’t think we even do it knowingly much of the time, but when I started blogging and creating videos for youtube over 10 years ago, I didn’t agree to a lifetime of consistent content creation. I started doing it for the love of creating and out of a desire to help share my knowledge and skills with whoever was interested in learning from them.

One of the amazing things about online content is that it doesn’t usually disappear, and as I have focused a majority of my effort in the past 10 years to creating content that is “evergreen”, I now have a library of nearly 1,000 blog posts and almost 500 videos- I just had to look it up and I’m now astounded at myself for those numbers! So, you have access to nearly 1,500 pieces of unique content from me to enjoy representing a decade of work. It’s so much content that I’ve reached a point in the momentum of my creation process that I don’t always feel the need to create on schedule, and over the last few years, I have seen a trend with other independent content creators towards a similar attitude. Many big bloggers have shifted from frequent blog posts to focusing on longer form writing like books. Popular YouTubers have started focusing on creating video series where they can focus on quality over quantity with their work. Podcasters too, seem to be focused more and more on creating a structure of “seasons” for their episodes, instead of tying themselves to a weekly creation schedule. Of course, this observation doesn’t apply to all creators, however, it is also obvious that those creators who have been consistent for an extended period of time also tend to have a team around them geared towards the ongoing creation of content. I think these trends are meaningful, especially when we consider that most online content is free and therefore creators who have stuck to it for years ultimately have organized their efforts into some form of business. But not all creators have followed the same business model, because not all of us have the same goals.

Now, in terms of social media like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc, content is significantly more disposable and because of that it’s become so much harder for smaller brands to “keep up” in terms of relevancy on those platforms. In fact, the competition has become so fierce that these platforms have, in many ways, become “pay to play”.  Now, personally, I’m not mad about it! It is what it is and this is the evolution and development of social media. At the end of the day, I look at the situation like this: I can focus more of my effort on social media content or make the investment in ads to those platforms to remain relevant or I can see social media for what it is, an optional way for me to connect with my audience. Again, when I look at my goals for my business, the choice I make is to treat social media like an optional platform and share when I feel like I have something valuable to say. I would much rather put effort into content with a longer lifespan, like my products, classes, videos, etc then expend more resources to a stagnant platform.

So, I don’t post regularly to my social media anymore, I honestly haven’t for several years now and although there are times when I can harness my social media for specific business goals, guess what? Not being highly active on social media hasn’t hurt my business. Some might find that surprising, but I think that speaks to the efficacy of how I’ve intentionally structured my business. 

Now, let me get back to the main point of this post because it’s absolutely not intended to be a commentary on online business, but I did feel like some of you might benefit from learning more of my perspective on the business side of things. 

The point that I want to get across with this post is that I am dedicated to serving my customers and community to the best of my ability while remaining in line with my personal and business goals. Creating valuable and thoughtful content regularly is absolutely still my goal, however, I’ve relinquished the expectation that regular content means that I will post every single day or even every single week. And I really do believe this is actually a good thing, not just for me, but also for my community. I see the mission of my content and business as helping women create and live the life of their choosing, and I support those efforts by teaching about the science of productivity, planning and success. In my heart of hearts, I know that although my content and products support those ends, engaging in social media too much and consuming too much digital content ultimately takes focus away from engaging in real life effort and action to create the life of your dreams. There is a fine line between using digital content to educate and empower yourself, and using it as a crutch to procrastinate while feeling like you are engaging in personal development. The productivity science is clear on this and I’ve said it before, writing out a to do list gives you the feeling of organization and accomplishment even if you never take action on a task. Similarly, consuming educational or instructional content makes you feel like you are improving your life even if you never take action on the information. 

I realize this situation doesn’t apply to everyone in my community, but I would truly like to encourage you to use my content and products as they have been intended- to enlighten and inspire you to take action and implement what you have learned in your life. If you take action and things aren’t working as expected, you can always reach out to me or come back to my content and find a new tool or strategy to try. I want to encourage and empower you to spend more time executing and less time educating. Spend more time in real life and less time online because real life is where you will see and feel the manifestation of results.

I want you to know that I do truly appreciate that so many of you reach out with curiosity and concern when you don’t see me posting. It does make me feel appreciated and loved. Sometimes, it can feel overwhelming that there are so many of you who reach out that I feel paralyzed or that my actions are under a microscope. That is why I wanted to take the time to respond to those inquiries in this way because although I am aware of how I have been shifting, I don’t always see that I should be communicating that information to you. Personally, I do feel like there is a fine line I need to walk as a creator between keeping my community informed and oversharing. Believe it or not, it does still feel strange to me that so many people want to know what’s going on with me and my business, but at the same time I am very cognizant of how dangerous oversharing can be online to a creators personal safety and/or mental stability. 

So, I hope you can understand and appreciate my point of view with this post and that in the future it explains why I might seem absent, even though I’m exactly where I have always been on the other side of your computer screen, just a message away.

xoxo,