Eight Reasons We Fail at Content Creation and How to Succeed

Successful people all have the same mindset- rarely do they give up.

Everyone has at least one big failure in their lives they look back on and wish they could do differently. However, all wildly successful people have many failures behind them that they count as life lessons because those failures are part of what got them to where they are today.

Some people come into the world with grit, and some learn how to add it to their repertoire of personal skills. They don’t allow failure to define them; they keep at it despite setbacks.

Here are some things they know:

1. Nothing worth having comes easy.

We give up too soon. Most of us give up on a dream or project we’re passionate about right before success is about to blossom.

As anyone successful can tell you, struggle and perseverance are part of the journey to success. Rarely does one try something new and have it work out right away without putting in the necessary iterations. It is not 10,000 hours as suggested in Malcom Gladwell’s bestseller Outliers: The Story of Success. It’s 10,000 iterations. 1000 for some. More for others, depending on your starting point and how quickly you learn.

As the cliche goes, nothing worth having comes easy.

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat. Every person is guilty of this at one time or another. — Napoleon Hill

I’ve nearly given up writing for money more than a dozen times. Once, I felt incredibly down after I had written every day for 90 days straight with little success. With more than 100 posts behind me that barely registered any attention, I was about to give up right before my first viral post took off and made me 5K. The next viral post came faster, and so on.

Often success comes just one step beyond the point at which defeat has overtaken us.

For those that stick with something, success comes.

2. Mastering anything requires feedback.

One of the reasons I’ve found success on specific writing platforms was that I jumped right in and learned through doing — the action of writing a ton of content. I didn’t just read about finding success from writing. I didn’t just take a course on how to write better.

I implemented what I was learning along the way into my writing process. Had I not shared my work publicly, I would not have gotten the feedback needed to hone my voice and writing habit.

There’s a feedback loop that must be in place to find success in anything:

try something -> get feedback and results -> learn from feedback and results -> try something new.

To become better in your domain — area of expertise (whether that is through teaching courses, content creation, or making videos) you should accept feedback whether you believe it’s relevant or not.

You ultimately get to decide whether it is relevant but don’t waste your time arguing against it. Be good instead of right. If something you’ve tried isn’t working, accept feedback and try something else. Pivot. Changing strategies sometimes makes the difference between success and never finding it. If you don’t pivot, you will be stuck in the same place a year from now, not seeing any vertical growth.

You want to be a copywriter, blogger, or freelance writer, but your writing isn’t read. It isn’t resonating. If that is so, it’s time to take a hard look at your writing and get feedback from a mentor, an editor, a successful writer, or an instructor through a class.

You’ll only know when you need help by receiving feedback or none at all. No feedback also tells you something.

The feedback will change your writing. Guaranteed.

My best writing comes from working consistently with an editor who is better than me at editing my work.

Seek expert counsel before giving up.

3. Success means controlling time.

I feel bad for people who don’t remember or never knew the world before the smartphone invaded everyone’s pocket and time. When we had regular phones attached to the wall with a cord in our kitchens, our minds were focused on one thing at a time. This gives more peace of mind.

Instead, wake, check Facebook, what’s trending on Twitter, oh my god, Dogecoin went up to new highs, post on Twitter about how I quadrupled my money in one day, check email, what is that new notification, check Facebook, tweet out my content.

UGH.

Somedays, I want to throw my phone out of a fast-moving car.

Instead, I plug my phone into a charging station in the kitchen while I focus on deep work. I don’t get back to friends for hours, and they wonder if something serious has happened to me.

I went to a conference several years ago, and the speaker was Tom Bilyeu, he is co-founder of billion-dollar brand Quest Nutrition. His attitude about his phone made an impact on me. He doesn’t look at his phone all morning on most days. He schedules in time to get back to people via email and text only in the afternoon and not until he’s finished his morning routine, including exercise, writing, meditating, and reading.

AAHHHH control.

Just because people have 24-hour access to your phone doesn’t mean you have to respond to messages right away. Pretend you are a professor and set office hours. Your office hours are when you respond to texts and emails. Since I no longer look at my phone first thing in the morning and only respond to messages during designated hours, my life has changed 100 percent for the better.

It is hard to get used to this, but once you do, you never what to go back to that crazy, fractured existence where your phone rules your life .

Notifications are meaningless fluff. Most news is sensationalized infotainment. Texts can wait.

Control your phone use, and you control your life.

4. Have-an-excuse-for-everything people, they are not.

We all know these people. They make plans again and again and never follow through. When these have-an-excuse-for-everything peeps tell you of their plans, they sound like they really believe them. History and experience with this person tells you their plans won’t come to fruition.

I’m going to start a book club. I’m going to hike the Grand Canyon in 2024 and camp at the bottom of the canyon. I’m going to run a marathon. I’m going to start exercising and lose half my body weight.

No, they won’t. Or they wouldn’t be sitting here telling me about it. They’d be out running, hiking, reading, whatevs.

They claim grand future plans but have no system to implement the plan and no follow-through. Their words are hollow and meaningless.

You know it, but they don’t seem to.

I rarely hear about plans or accomplishments of the most successful people I know from their mouths but from others. They rarely talk about themselves because they are quietly doing the thing in their field that makes them a success.

Often, successful people have so much humility, not much free time, and are so humble that when they go out for downtime with people they like, they’re usually more interested in what other people are doing. While they are quietly working on their success behind the scenes.

5. Take responsibility — it’s freedom.

To change things we don’t like about our lives, we need power over these things. The first step to gaining power over situations — relationships, finances, family relations — in our lives that aren’t working is taking responsibility for them.

Maybe you’re in debt.

Well, the first thing you have to do is admit that you were the one who charged stuff you didn’t need.

If you skirt responsibility, your negative situation won’t change because you’ll be too busy making excuses. As soon as you take responsibility for the position you find yourself in, the sooner you can change it. If you continue to delude yourself into thinking it wasn’t your doing, the more resistance you put up, the more the situation will persist. Accept it.

I’m in debt. I charged stuff I couldn’t afford.

Maybe you had an emergency like the hot water heater broke, and you didn’t have cash in your bank account to cover it, and you had to charge it or go without hot water. Yeah, sure, it isn’t fair, but fair doesn’t matter, and it won’t help your finances.

Don’t focus on whether it’s fair or not. Focus on changing the situation.

What will help is being honest about the situation, to spend your brainpower coming up with a plan to get out of debt.

6. There is no try, only do. Use power language.

Which one of the following sentences uses power language?

I’m trying to get in shape for a marathon in six months. Or, I’m getting in shape for a marathon in six months by running every day.

I believe the person who uses the second sentence. The word “trying” is not used by people who do.

Here is another one:

I’m trying to be a writer. Or, I’m writing every day for an hour at noon.

You get the idea. Be Yoda. There is no try, only do. I say this to my daughter all the time, it drives her nuts. I think that’s what his advice is, I’ve only seen the first three original Star Wars, and that was a while ago.

7. The very first step is to see it.

I wish people understood better the power of positive visualization.

There are studies on this. Visualization is not some woo-woo trick we only practice in Los Angeles, CA. It works. It works because the thought of something you want to achieve is the first kernel of change.

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe it can achieve. — Napoleon Hill

A mind is a powerful tool. Humans don’t use brainpower to its capacity.

Success comes to those who become success-conscious. Part of that consciousness is seeing it in your mind first and believing it possible. Thought becomes an action that starts with desire. If the desire to achieve isn’t there, you will not succeed because you won’t be motivated to take action. If you want something, it will be easy to imagine it.

Athletes who held inaccurate positive beliefs about their own abilities outperformed athletes with accurate or negative thoughts about their own skills.

Visualization is the practice of repeatedly imagining what you want to achieve to create it and attract it. It’s the method used by 23-time gold medalist Michael Phelps, phenom Katie Ledecky, and business titans like Oprah Winfrey and Sarah Blakely.

8. Motion is required but action gets results.

Sometimes motion or preparation to do the thing you want is required, but if you get stuck in preparation mode and never take the leap of actually taking action, no change will occur.

If you want to create content, you have to actually write content. All the courses in the world won’t make you successful. Writing will. Establishing a writing habit will make you a better writer and will get your iterations in.

Be in action more than in motion.

• Motion is when you outline five article ideas, action is when you write the articles and share them.
• Motion is when you come up with an exercise routine, action is when you workout to that routine.
• Motion is when you sign up for a course like “How to Write Killer Content,” action is when you write and share killer content.

Don’t allow being in motion to fool you into thinking you are taking action. Action builds audiences and 15-million-dollar online empires. Motion keeps you consuming other’s content.

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Jessica is a writer, an online entrepreneur, and a recovering type-A personality. She lives in Los Angeles with her extrovert daughter, two dogs, and two cats.