How To Protect Your Mental Health As a Content Creator

Let’s be honest, content creation can be mentally exhausting, whether you’re creating content for your own business. Managing social media for someone else or building your brand as an influencer full-time. There’s this constant pressure to be on, to perform, to grow, to beat the algorithm, and when your hard work gets crickets or worse, you get hit with harsh criticism from strangers on the internet.

It’s enough to make anyone question if it’s worth it. In this episode, I’m going to walk you through how to manage your mental health as a content creator. Even when you are not getting the results you want, you are stuck in the comparison trap and it feels like you’re on a constant hamster wheel trying to keep up.

You’ll learn how to stay emotionally resilient when content doesn’t perform the way you hoped. Shift your mindset around results and criticism so you don’t always take things so personally. Create healthy boundaries around your time, energy, and your content consumption so you can stay grounded and intentional in your content creation journey.

Making this a long-term game rather than something you’re just doing until you ultimately burn out.

Welcome to Calmly Coping. I’m Tati Garcia, a licensed therapist and speaker specializing in helping high achievers stop overthinking and finally feel calm and confident. If that resonates, then hit subscribe. Let’s dive into the episode. I wanna start with a little personal experience. For years, I created content and heard nothing, crickets.

I had a blog for years. I was putting out stuff on Instagram. I was starting my podcast and YouTube, and it felt like I wasn’t hearing anything. And not hearing anything can sometimes mess with your head. It felt embarrassing putting myself out there and seeing barely any likes, if any, barely any comments, sharing episodes, writing posts, creating content that I thought was valuable, but barely getting any engagement.

I definitely know how that feels. And if you’re in that place, know that you’re not alone. I also spent over three years posting podcast episodes every single week before I even got the opportunity to get monetized. And let me just tell you that the ad income I get alone is definitely not enough to sustain any lifestyle.

However, I am grateful for what I am getting and all the work that I’ve put in to reach this point. However, I don’t consider myself a full-time content creator. I consider that my content is the avenue to help people to know more about my business and. My business, my services and products are where I make my income.

Ultimately. There were so many moments where I was wondering, what am I doing? This is going nowhere. However, there was always this voice within me that knew that I just needed to keep being persistent and keep pushing forward, which is what has gotten me to where I am now. I’ve also had times where I’ve gotten negative feedback, especially in YouTube comments.

And as much as I wanted to shrug it off, it still stung when I would hear things like that, especially when I would get comments that were totally inaccurate from somebody who clearly hadn’t watched what I put out there and just jumped to a conclusion or made an assumption. And ultimately, when you put a lot of time and energy into something, it’s hard not to take it personally when somebody has negative feedback.

However, it is possible to work on building the muscle so that those negative things you hear don’t affect you, or maybe you’re not affected by them because you’re not consistently seeing them. One thing that I did personally was to turn off the email notifications that would come in every time I got a YouTube comment, so that I wouldn’t constantly be notified of it every time.

But I intentionally set aside time once a week where I go in and review my YouTube comments. To protect my time and energy. That’s just one small tip. I’ll be sharing many more in this episode for how you can protect your mental health as a content creator. Let’s look at some statistics. So according to a recent study, 52% of creators report experiencing burnout from their work, and 37% have considered leaving the industry altogether.

Another report found that a striking 79% of creators have experienced some form of burnout. Ultimately, being a content creator can result in leading to burnout for many, and that’s just one of the possible mental health consequences. Here’s what I’ve learned, and I want you to hold onto this. If you’re in this space, it is possible to take care of your mental health by being intentional as a content creator.

It starts with awareness and it continues with small, consistent mindset shifts and boundaries that protect your energy and your mental health. So let’s get into them. My first tip is to start with your end goal in mind. Creating content is great, but why are you actually doing this? I’m sure it’s not to just endlessly put stuff out into the void, is it to make money for your business to get leads, to spread a message or a mission that you care about?

To build your email list to land sponsorships, and ultimately become a full-time content creator. Identify and focus on that goal rather than the vanity metrics that many of us can focus on. I’m talking about things like likes, comments, shares. Those things can be very valuable and can help you to reach your goals as they increase.

But ultimately those numbers are not the end all be all, and they’re certainly not reflective of your worth or the quality of your work. When your goal is clear, you’re less likely to get thrown off when your numbers fluctuate. And I do want to clarify. I know that. Me. Vanity metrics are important for things like advertising and sponsorships.

If you’re somebody who’s a full-time content creator or for getting more eyes on things, however, when you are consistently focused on those numbers, then it. Puts you in the rollercoaster that I’m gonna talk about in a little bit. And there are ways to tune into the data and use that to make informed decisions without being stuck in the fluctuations that inherently come with creating content.

So a journal prompt that can help you reflect on this is to ask, what is your goal? My next tip is to remember that this is a long game. Sure. There’s some people who go viral overnight. But is that virality after years of them putting in tons of work, even if it’s not, that’s something that’s incredibly rare and you don’t know someone’s backstory and what they’ve done before.

They’ve gotten to the point where you’re now aware of them. So it’s important to focus on. The effort that you’re putting in rather than the metrics on the other side, consistency over time is what compounds and leads to progress. It’s not always something that’s flashy and is gonna get you on the daytime news shows, but it’s something that is powerful and when you can focus on the effort you’re putting in.

Knowing that this is something that is a long game, then that can help you to persist. Now let’s talk about getting out of that rollercoaster that I hinted at before. So it is super easy to get caught up in the rollercoaster of this post performed well, this one didn’t, the algorithm changed. Now what am I supposed to do?

And on and on and on. And then suddenly your mood is dependent upon your analytics. You can get out of that loop by building emotional resiliency. This can look like calming and grounding yourself regularly, learning how to identify and manage difficult emotions. Some ways you can do this are through meditation, journaling, identifying ways that you can cope with challenging emotions, labeling your emotions.

And working through them, processing. What’s affecting you? Becoming more aware of this and knowing that ups and downs are normal when it comes to metrics and content creation, and it’s something that’s expected. It doesn’t mean that you’re failing. I know it can be tempting to, because I post on YouTube and that’s somewhere where they have very clear metrics as opposed to with the podcast platform I use.

They give you the stats, but on YouTube it’s like the most recent video you put up. It says one of 10 or five of 10 or eight of 10. It’s easy to get discouraged when the video goes out and it’s like, alright, this is 10 of 10. As far as views, it’s you’re worst performing recent video, and that doesn’t mean that you’re not still getting something from it.

Maybe you learned something. Maybe the people who are viewing the video are the people who truly are interested in what you have to say and want to work with you or are moving forward in the process of getting to know you. There are many positive things that can still happen, even when the numbers aren’t where you might want them to be.

And in addition to this, it can help to approach your content like a scientist and look at the data objectively. Use this as information to learn from what can you learn for next time? What might you tweak? It’s important to not live or die by one post, but to look at the overall trends of things, and rather than thinking from week to week, being caught in this.

Up and down of all of the numbers, looking at the bigger picture of what you see happening. If you’re ready to learn the emotional intelligence skills to get you out of the rollercoaster of having your mood dependent on your circumstances, you can enroll in my course, harness Your Emotions. You can learn more by going to calmlycoping.com/emotions.

This is a six module course that will walk you step by step through learning the emotional intelligence. Skills that we all should have learned when we were younger, but most likely didn’t. Check out the link at the description to learn more. My next tip is to break the hamster wheel of content creation.

All of the platforms want you to create as much as possible because that is how they make money off of your free content through advertising. And it’s easy to fall into the trap of create more, post more, and be everywhere. Instead, I encourage you to focus on quality over quantity and to be realistic with your expectations.

How much content can you reasonably commit to without feeling exhausted, burnt out, or resentful? This may take some time for you to explore what rhythm works best for you and one powerful strategy that can help with this. Is batching content. This is something that I really enjoy doing so you can get into that flow state and avoid the mental fatigue of constant task switching.

So for example, maybe you want to batch all of your writing or outlining for the week or month in one focused sprint. Then batch your recording or filming, and then finally batch your editing and then your scheduling, doing it at a pace that works best for you without. Constantly switching to making one post, then drafting one post, then creating it, then recording it, then you know, whatever the process is.

This really minimizes the cognitive load because you’re not switching your brain from task to task and being pulled by different demands all of the time. This actually helps you to get more done in less time. My next tip is to know your why, and this is different than your goal. This is the deeper why of why you are personally doing this.

So what is the mission, the message, and the meaning behind what you’re doing? And remind yourself of this. Why during moments of difficulty, when you’re feeling discouraged, when nothing is landing the way you want it to, or when you’re doubting yourself, having this inner compass will keep you grounded when everything else feels uncertain.

It will help you to connect with what is actually keeping you going internally. And also it can help. As like a bonus onto this tip to remember the positive feedback that you’ve received. I used to, in the beginning, and I still do it sometimes, take screenshots of positive comments that I would get, and I think at one point I even printed out a whole sheet of like positive feedback.

To help me in moments of self-doubt. Like, okay, there are people that are benefiting from what I’m putting out there. And sometimes it’s easy to forget it or to have it be lost to all of the things you’re creating and putting out there. But if you can have those positive reminders somewhere during moments of difficulty that can help you to persist and knowing that.

Someone somewhere is benefiting or enjoying what you’re putting out there. My next tip is to ignore unhelpful criticism. People on the internet can be jerks. Period. And more often than not their words and what they put out there, say more about them than they do about you. Just think about something who is out there posting negative and mean things to people.

Is this something that you would personally do? Maybe you would, I don’t know. I know that I definitely wouldn’t, I wouldn’t even waste my time putting negative feedback out there because number one, I don’t wanna hurt anybody. And number two, it’s just not worth my time. This is entirely different from constructive criticism, which is something that can help you to improve.

So how do you tell the difference? Constructive criticism offers suggestions. It is often specific and it comes from someone who cares or they have context. They’ve seen your entire video or post, and they maybe know you and they have something helpful to share, whereas unhelpful criticism is often vague.

Mean-spirited just for the sake of being mean. Maybe it’s something that’s personal towards you or it’s just plain irrelevant. So let that noise pass by and don’t internalize what doesn’t serve you. Remind yourself that it is not personal. It is about them, and sometimes people who are suffering themselves can feel better from making other people suffer or at least trying to, and.

Something that I like to think is that I like to remain above that. I don’t wanna go down to their level and engage in their negative feedback and just let it be. If it’s something that really negatively contributes to a. My community, then sometimes I will ignore the comment, uh, on YouTube. I believe you can hide that person from the channel if it’s something that I believe really detracts from other viewers’ experience.

Most of the time though, I’ll just. Let it be. My next tip is to refuse to compare yourself to others. And I know it is easier said than done, but it’s important to remind yourself that you are incomparable, you are unique, and you can only be you. Ultimately comparing yourself to others is inaccurate. You are never seeing the whole picture.

I mean, how many documentaries have come out about influencers and the difference between what we’re seeing on the outside versus what their experience is really like on the inside, you’re only seeing the curated external snapshot of someone else’s success. You don’t know their background, their team, their budget, their timeline, their support system, or their internal experience.

You’re just seeing the highlight reel, and here’s something that’s important to remember. You’re not behind, you’re on your own timeline, and that’s perfectly okay. If you’re somebody who really struggles with comparisonitis, then. I would suggest identifying what are your triggers for negatively comparing yourself.

For me, that tended to be when I would go on Instagram and I would see other business owners doing all of these things in their business and think, wow, I’m not doing enough, or I need to be doing that, and then I would put pressure on myself to be doing more. So as a result, I changed my behavior. It started with limiting my time on Instagram, unfollowing certain accounts, and ultimately has led to where I have zero Instagram on my phone at all.

I never see a newsfeed, and I just avoid that completely, and that’s what’s worked for me. So you don’t necessarily need to set strict boundaries like that, but I’m gonna talk about boundaries. A little bit when it comes to being aware of those to protect your time and energy and mental health. I touched on this one before, but I wanna go into it in more detail.

This tip is to use data to make informed decisions. So this brings to mind a personal shift that I made in my content for my mental health. So I recently stopped spreading myself thin across social media channels and have switched to exclusively focusing on my long form content. So this is my podcast, which I put out on podcast.

Platforms as well as on YouTube specifically. This is what’s gotten me results when I looked at the data. This is what has gotten me income clients leads. Anything that is evergreen and searchable is what has worked for me. So I just mentioned YouTube and the podcast, also my blog and Pinterest, as opposed to content that disappears in two seconds, like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

I’m sure I could make those platforms work for me. They have in the past when I was more invested in Instagram and putting way more time and energy. But in my personal experience, the ROI just hasn’t been worth it. Like the return on investment, looking at not just what I’m getting at it, but what I’m putting into it.

And just to note, this is my personal experience. The key is to look at your data in your specific case and do what works best for you. What is working for me may be different than what works for you. It could depend on your niche, it could depend on your audience, and it could depend on so many factors.

So what can help is to work backwards from your goals. So look over a longer timeframe, one month, one year, and figure out what is working and what isn’t. And like I mentioned before, factoring in your time and potential money spent as well. If you’re spending money on ads or on outsourcing help, my next tip is to detach from the outcome and reconnect with the process.

So this may seem disconnected from my previous point where I’m talking about the outcomes and looking at the data. But I’m talking about those vanity metrics, and when everything is measured in views, likes, comments, it’s easy to pre forget that the process is an important piece of the puzzle. Creating is inherently vulnerable.

It takes courage to show up and put yourself out there, and even if no one sees it today. The act of creating something is still important, it’s still valuable. So focusing on the process of creating helps to ensure that the journey is still enjoyable for you and you’re not feeling frustrated and burnt out at the end of it.

So one helpful prompt to reflect on this is to ask yourself what part of the creation process feels most fulfilling to you, even without external results? And can you connect with this more? So my next tip is to be mindful of your content consumption. I suggest balancing creation with consumption. This does not have to be exact 50 50, of course.

This is just keeping this concept in mind, and I know this is easier said than done, especially in a world where content consumption is as easy as tapping the metal rectangle that lives in your vicinity 24 7, I would imagine. But when you are a creator. The main part of the word is to create. It’s easy to justify content consumption through the guise of research, but social media and algorithmic content are so addictive that the boundaries between research, entertainment, and doom scrolling can get really blurry.

And if you’re somebody who is negatively affected by this content, because let’s face it, we can’t control the content that comes up in our feed. You don’t know if something’s gonna come up that maybe it’s like a car crash, like you want to look away, but you can’t, and it’s negatively affecting your mindset and your mood.

As a result, our minds need space and boredom to create. To process things unconsciously, to feel that creative spark, which of course isn’t always there, and that’s perfectly okay too. There’s no need to wait for the creative spark to come up in order to create, because that’s not realistic. And sometimes that spark comes after you start doing something or not at all.

So create some boundaries around your content consumption to support your creation rather than your incessant consumption. So some ideas to do this could be scheduling no scroll hours. Let’s say before bed or when you first wake up in the morning. I personally keep my phone. Out of reach, so it is across the room where I have to get up and out of bed in order to use it.

You can batch your content research and set timers for this so that you’re being intentional and you can keep your phone out of reach when you’re in creation mode or whatever device you’re using to consume content. So a reflective prompt for you could be what? Boundaries around content consumption would help you feel more creative and grounded.

So if you’re in the thick of it right now, maybe you’re burnt out, frustrated, questioning if it’s even worth it. I just want to remind you, you are not alone. You are doing important work and it is possible to protect your mental health. While creating content, as long as you’re intentional about how you approach it, I would suggest gradually implementing what resonates one step at a time.

If this episode resonated with you, then please share it with another content creator who might need to hear this. If you found value, I would love if you left a review or rating on your favorite podcast platform, or leave me a comment if you’re watching on YouTube, letting me know which tip resonated with you the most.

While you wait for next week’s episode, I have other episodes about calming your mind, improving your work life balance, and feeling more confident from within. So be sure to check out these episodes here. Thank you so much for tuning in today, and until next time, be calm.