6 Things To Try If You No Longer Enjoy Doing Your Podcast.
If not, burnout is coming.
Doing a podcast should be inspiring and fulfilling, even if you cover the hard topics.
I’m not saying smile and laugh when talking about, say, mental health, but you should be getting some type of satisfaction from putting together your podcast. You should be feeling a sense of accomplishment, or a sense that you’re doing something good for your community or the world. Many do a podcast because it feels like a labor of love.
If this isn’t how you’re feeling, you might want to step back and reassess why you’re doing your show.
It’s not a good idea to do a podcast simply because “everyone else is doing one.” The same goes for “your company needs one.” This can lead to burnout fairly quickly.
Sometimes it will become obvious you should stop.
You become aware it’s not fun anymore. You’re struggling for topics, you’re struggling to book guests, or you don’t look forward to recording day. You start to realize you’re looking at your watch too much while recording an episode.
I’m not saying you’re going to enjoy every aspect of putting together your podcast. Some things are tedious. The thought of editing your episodes might be making you feel the same as when your mom told you to do the dishes or mow the lawn.
There’s a few things you can do if things start to drag.
You can hire a service like Podetize that can handle all the technical parts of your show, leaving you to concentrate on the ‘fun parts,” like preparing and recording.
You might think about taking a hiatus. Think of your podcast like a TV series. Do a string of episodes, then take a break. Just don’t forget to tell your audience you’re doing this at the end of each ‘season,’ or they’ll think you’re done for good and it will be difficult to get them back. No, they won’t keep checking to see if you’ve returned.
Maybe you can cut back on the number of episodes you do. Instead of three a week, do two. If you do two a week, then do one. Some shows post every two weeks, and even once a month! There’s a caveat here; a trap to avoid. You may miss an episode, but you then tell yourself this is just part of slowing down. And then you miss another one.
This happens to a lot of people. You find yourself unable or unwilling to continue. If you’re promising you’ll get back to it someday, I promise you won’t. Again, not a problem. You don’t have to do or continue a podcast if you don’t want to.
You can stop “feeding the beast.” It’s much more important to take care of your mental health. If you try podcasting and discover it’s not for you, it’s not for you, and so what?
A lot of angst can be avoided by spending more time at the beginning deciding on a topic. Try making a list of possible show ideas on the subject you’re passionate about. If your list grows to 30, 40, or 50 ideas or more, you probably have a good niche for a show. I didn’t start writing these articles until I was sure I had more than 50 ideas. I’m not going to use them all, and neither will you for your episodes, but at least knowing you have a lot of ideas to start will get you headed in the right direction.
Sometimes you make the list and you realize your podcast is going to be different than you first thought, because the ideas started taking you in a different direction. Not a bad thing.
Avoid trying to force yourself to do the original topic. Forcing anything is a big road to burnout.
Again, you should enjoy doing the show. It should fulfill you or inspire you. An audience hearing your passion is what leads to engagement, which will lead you to want to continue, and consistency attracts followers.
Stop doing a show because you feel you have to.
