Why Every Creator Should Consider a Periodic Detox from Publishing Content
It’s like a nourishing deep sleep for creativity
It’s hard to disagree that consistency plays a huge part in overall success in life. And it’s even more important in publishing content as nearly every platform’s algorithms openly love and reward consistency.
In this way, the most common advice many successful creators give to others is: “Keep showing up, publish even when you don’t feel like it.”
And in most cases, for most people, especially beginners, it’s indeed good advice. It’s just as Seth Godin once said: “Writers write. Runners run. Establish your identity by doing your work.”
Many wannabe creators fantasize about creating something but never make any actual moves and live in their heads. But being, e.g., a writer means writing — working every day, just as it is with any other job.
This is why it’s good to keep hitting publish in the beginning — to test if we really want to do this in life and if that’s our identity.
But this advice doesn’t apply so great to well-established creators — their process can be entirely different, while they also constantly see these empty cliches about the need for consistency at all costs.
Many Creators Completely Miss the Point
I observe many writers and content creators on social media who keep publishing the same, clearly not-working content, for years without much or even any reflection only because they heard that algorithm will eventually reward their consistency.
What’s worse, many of them are nothing more than copycats, spending their precious time rewriting others' well-performing content or any nonsense AI generated for them. Or they blindly follow various trends just to gain some reach. And they lose themselves in the process.
I get that we live in a brutal result-driven capitalistic world that pushes creators to occasionally join some garbage trends to get some attention and stay afloat. But when you create and publish just to stay consistent and blindly follow every new trend, you may have a problem.
Of course, some creators are professional copycats who make a good living following the trends. One week, they dress like a Wednesday and imitate their famous dance on every video platform. And another week, they become serious AI specialists and create all about ChatGPT.
Yet I believe most creators aren’t like that but started creating to express themselves, explore their curiosity, share their passion, or convey various ideas. But then they lost themselves in this silly race of content creation and FOMO on this “next big opportunity” to go viral or whatever.
Comparison, Anxiety and Need of Belonging
Of course, a break from publishing content is also a great way to reduce overall stress and anxiety, as creators are constantly judged by others and compare themselves to other creators.
Also, humans have a great need for acceptance and belonging, so the more time we spend creating on a given platform, we start to recognize various patterns of how to behave — what is acceptable and what isn’t. And it might be everything from a certain taste of humor to politics.
People love to live in the bubbles that strengthen their beliefs and don’t like outsiders. And so they engage with content they like and ignore everything else with the great help of algorithms that filter content for them.
And in this way, by constant publishing, we can enter a loop we might not even recognize until we stop hitting publish. For example, we might end up in some weird niche as creators just because the algorithm sorted us in a given way and we need to create specific content to perform well.
However, when we stop publishing for a while, we can quickly realize how often we bite our tongue or ignore certain topics just to keep on delivering a given content to a particular audience and serve their interest.
Stop Publishing but Keep On Creating
I just finished another one-month detox from publishing articles and social media activity.
People who are familiar with my creative journey understand that it’s my cycle of work — I show up, convey some ideas, and then disappear to come back with new ideas. Whereas others might think I just gave up creating every time I suddenly disappeared.
But in fact, I have never done an actual detox from creating new content — I’m adding new ideas and drafts nearly all the time, having over a few hundred, even 1000-word long drafts of articles with various ideas.
There is something beautiful about creating just for the sake of creating without the urgent need to publish. When we stop hitting publish but keep on creating new content, we might realize:
In what rush do we often hit publish, and how much room do we have to improve our content if we just “sleep on it” yet another day
How much does our core content bend under various trends or even how much have we lost this core to follow trends for benefits
How much does our content bend under the opinion of others and the general fear of judgment — how do we adapt our content for others
In this way, such detox can improve our content and remind us why we even started creating whatever we’re creating. Also, with this strategy, whenever we decide to come back to regular publishing, we’ll have tons of potential content, which will help us to remain consistent in publishing.
The Takeaway
Publishing new content is necessary to grow as a creator, and it’s especially important for beginners who need to face themselves, find their voice, and establish their identity as creators.
But after a while, and later every now and then, it’s healthy to stop publishing and devote time to reflect on our creative journey.
Otherwise, we might enter the trap of following silly trends, copying others, or creating garbage content just to protect our streak of consistency, which is a perfect path to burnout and misery.
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Thanks for reading and see you somewhere on the Internet!