"I don't want to create content, ew"
Why did we ruin this beautiful thing?
The one truly great thing I’ve done for the past 3 years is not try to make money from my content.
If you were to search for “how creating content can help you in your life?”, here is what the top search results look like,
We’ve taken this beatiful gift that we can give ourselves & commercialised it to such an extent that I dont know anymore how to encourage someone to start creating online without them assuming that I’m also telling them to start a business.
‘Creating online’ & ‘Making money online’ don’t have to go hand in hand.
Yes, I have made money online but an extremely insignificant part of it has been through my content.
Yet I have continued to create for the past 3 years & foresee myself doing it for the rest of my life.
I don’t have a follower count post which I will launch my first digital product.
I don’t have a funnel through which my online audience can reach out to me for my services.
I don’t have a DM strategy.
What I have is clarity of thought.
Self awareness.
Confidence in decisons I make.
Validation about things I falsely believe that only I am going through.
Satisfaction in knowing that the expriences I wished I hadn’t gone through can now help someone else avoid the same.
People who understand me deeply.
The feeling that I am leaving a part of myself behind forever when I’m not here anymore.
Where’s the blog post about all of this?
And this is what I’m referring to when my face lights up as I hear someone telling me about a journey they’re going on & I tell them ‘you should write about this online’.
And they still reply with ‘eww’
We’re at a point where if we see someone who’s been creating for a bit of time, we go try to find out how they plan on making money from it.
WHERE IS THE ART
The thing is, even if you’re not creating online to make money, you could still end up making money. Making money is not a bad thing. But there’s a difference in those 2 journeys.
One of them doesnt involve personal evolution. Which is just as important as financial.
Which is why I believe that within the online circles I enjoy being in, people are more likely to say ‘writing online’ than ‘creating content’
‘Creating content’ seems to signify a means to an end.
‘Writing online’ is the end. For a lot of us.
Writing online doesn’t help me be self-employed. Writing online is the reason I am self-employed.
To be able to spend an unjustifiable amount of time writing. To write about whatever I want & not worry about my boss potentially finding it. To talk about how much money I make because I’m not scared about a company policy. To be able to pursue different types of work strucures so that I can write about it. To change my work entirely so that I can write about that too.
Creating online for the primary intention of making money is some other weird ‘default’ path that’s been built. Another job-like activity that people have created for themselves because everyone else is also doing so.
Ugh, so much of this resonated! I really enjoy writing and I in no way reject any abundance that is destined to come my way, but that's about as much of a plan as I have. I'm happy with that, but it seems to confuse people. Many are supportive but some don't like the idea that you can create online and not have a defined end goal. I loved what you said at the end too about the freedom that's unlocked when you don't have a boss to answer to about your writing.
It’s really taken a lot for me to reel back the “content creator” side of me and actually embrace being an artist, or my writing being about creative fulfillment.
I think the root of it is a desperation to leverage any asset to escape what people feel is a terrible system they can’t get ahead in. That desperation leads to pressure, and not everyone is cut out for the pressure of their own business.