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You won’t find an article about success in the creator economy without hearing it.
“Consistency.”
And for good reason.
Consistency is ultimately one of the most important factors — if not the most important — when it comes to earning income with your creative pursuits. Publishing sporadically just isn’t going to do it. It won’t get the attention of algorithms. And it won’t get the attention of humans.
So consistency is important. Without a doubt.
And you’re consistent for what feels like a long time. You’ve been posting short content daily, longer content weekly, and engaging non-stop on various platforms — but still not growing an audience as quickly as you hoped, or earning any sort of reliable income — as the Passive Income Gods promised you would be by now.
You have two simple options:
This is your digital fork in the road. If you’re tempted to choose Option #1 — please keep reading. Because consistency has gotten you this far, you need something more.
Here’s a quick definition:
“Resilience is an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change.”
About a year ago, when I was a few editions into publishing my newsletter, I created this graphic:
I knew I wasn’t the best writer.
My newsletter wasn’t going to be “the best” newsletter. I wouldn’t win the game of “the best”.
While you should aim to be the best, it’s not a likelihood you will be.
I knew my newsletter wasn’t going to grow as quickly as I wanted it to — or as quickly as my “competitors” newsletters seemed to be.
BUT — I knew that if I kept publishing weekly (consistency), and kept publishing despite struggles, challenges, and slow growth (resilience) — I’d find some version of success.
It sounds too simple, but my secret weapon for resilience is: a long-term mindset.
Here’s what I mean.
I didn’t start my newsletter with a boom-or-bust mindset. I wasn’t planning on any get-rich-quick outcome.
Instead, I was inspired by Danny Miranda.
He started his podcast in the fall of 2020. He set the goal of producing & publishing 100 episodes of his podcast before giving up. (He’s now at episode #234 and has recently hit 10,000 downloads per month.)
So I made the same simple promise to myself: 100 editions of the Growth Currency newsletter before I quit.
That’s just shy of publishing a weekly newsletter for 2 years straight. And here I am, 71 weeks in. So far, it’s worked.
I’ve:
And I chalk this all up to having this longer term mindset of publishing 100 episodes.
But…“Have a long-term mindset” is not very tactical advice, is it?
Here are a few ways to become more resilient with a long-term mindset.
Let’s quickly recap: you’ve been consistent. But struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Your resilience is fading. You need to focus on the long-term.
Resilience is much easier achieved when there’s a bigger purpose than yourself.
Aligning your content with a greater purpose removes the “you” and makes your efforts more altruistic. Success for you is success for others.
For example, “My mission is to help 1,000 newsletter publishers earn an income from their newsletters.”
This long-term thinking helps push through the challenges that seem overwhelming when we’re “in the weeds”.
What’s your mission?
We want results now. We want successs now. We want 10,000 followers yesterday.
But that all comes with patience. Short-term thinking (impatience) leads to panic — which leads to busy work — which doesn’t move the needle.
Toni Bernhard writes being patient is treating yourself with compassion.
So be compassionate to yourself. And while you’re at it, remind yourself you’re in a marathon, not a 100m sprint.
Toni shares 3 steps to turning impatience into patience (read the whole piece here):
That last step is key. And to do so, you need to be mindful of controlling what you can control — and letting go what you cannot.
This might sound odd.
Write a letter to yourself in the future. At the point in the future that you would like to be at, where you have achieved your version of success.
Whether it’s 6 months, a year or beyond into the future — writing this letter can be wildly helpful.
As you write, you put yourself in the mindset of the person who’s achieved this success your present self is struggling with. It’s a time machine, of sorts.
Write about…
That last step is important. You’re working backward from a place of success and mapping out the steps you took to get there. This may not always be clear, but simply thinking about it and writing it down what comes to mind will be worth your time.
If cocaine is “a helluva drug”, accountability is a helluva vitamin.
Being accountable to yourself often isn’t enough. So in the face of fading resilience and temptation to quit, an accountability partner can be the thing you need to keep you going.
A good accountability partner will keep you accountable (whatever that means). But a great accountability partner will make you read that letter you just wrote to yourself — while keeping you positive and in the right mindset when you most need it.
So where do you find one of these miraculous helpers?
You could Google it, but you might end up paying some expensive accountability coach.
Instead, think of people in your immediate circle you trust.
Reach out to them. Explain your needs and how often you’d hope to be able to do a check-in. And read them your letter, if you’re feeling up to it.
This might be too extreme for some, but that outside accountability is your failsafe against yourself.
Your successful future self will thank you.
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