10 Things I Quit to Make Content Creation Feel Fun & Easy Again as a Solopreneur

From ditching the “perfect” reel trends to setting solid boundaries around my time (and sanity), I’m giving you a behind-the-scenes peek at the real shifts I made in my business to escape the content chaos and finally create in a way that feels aligned.

If you’re constantly second-guessing yourself, stuck in comparison loops, or just tired of feeling like you’re not doing enough—this is your permission slip to quit what’s not serving you.

For all these episode notes, click here!

✨ Things I cover inside the episode:

• Why I stopped chasing "perfect" B-roll reels (and what I do instead)
• How hiring a community manager helped me reclaim my time (and joy)
• The boundaries I’ve set around my DMs, comments, and off-hours
• Why copying someone else's content strategy won’t actually work for you
• A major mindset shift around consistency, breaks, and visibility
• My honest feelings about Instagram—and what platforms I’m eyeing next
• The real reason your content might feel heavy (hint: it’s not a strategy problem)

Have an idea for what I should call this podcast community? Drop it in the comments or DM me @thecreativebodega!

Resources & Links Mentioned in this episode:
🎧 Listen to The Dirt on Flowers podcast
🎧 Listen to Ash McDonald’s podcast 

Connect with me:
🫶🏼 Follow me on Instagram for daily insights
🫶🏼 Join my 321 Create Newsletter for weekly content tips
🫶🏼 Check out The Content Coven Membership

Be sure to hit "Subscribe" or "Follow" so you never miss an episode!

Transcript

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A lot of us, I think, make content a lot harder than it needs to be, and we're putting very unnecessary pressure on ourselves to achieve something that's not even achievable, right? Perfection. Who, who's to decide? What is the perfect content schedule? Who's to decide what the perfect looking feed is? Who's to decide? How many times is the ideal amount to post? Like who's in charge of these things? I. I, I don't know, you tell me. Welcome to the Creative Bodega, a podcast about content marketing, Instagram growth, and personal branding for female service-based solopreneurs who wanna grow their business without letting it take over their lives. I'm your host, EM Commerce, and each week I'll share actionable tips, expert advice, and unfiltered truths to help you create engaging content, connect authentically with your audience, and turn followers into loyal customers. All without the burnout. If you're ready to simplify your content creation, navigate the ever changing trends and build a business that works for you while staying sane in this crazy season of life, then you're in the right place. What up m here from the Creative Bodega. So excited to chat with you today about the 10 things. I quit to make content creation feel. Fun and easy Again, I wanna say that I listened to another podcast, well, I, that's kind of a lie. I was on a podcast as a guest. It's called The Dirt on Flowers, and it's run by these two amazing women and I love them and they call their listeners Dirt Bags, which like. I think it's hilarious. Like I crack up every time I think about it and I would really like to be able to call my listeners something. I think there's something really cool about that and it feels like very insidery to be called something and I'm not one to be like my content queens, like dirt bags is hilarious. Again, they're all flower growers, so it's like super appropriate. So if you have an idea for me. I don't know why I just thought of this before getting started, but if you think of something that we can call this community of listeners, that would be so fun. Definitely could be a play on maybe the content coven. My membership could be my content witches. I. But that's kind of cheese too. I don't know. Anyways, I digress. I'm sharing 10 things I quit doing so that I could create content more easily, more joyfully, and in a way that actually supports my business and doesn't drain me. So I wanna be like very relatable today. Very real talky, very judgment free. And I'm hoping this episode's gonna feel really empowering. Because if there's anything I've noticed with all the female entrepreneurs I work with, it's like we all feel like we have to follow all these rules. If we don't do this, we won't be successful. If we don't follow this advice, we're never gonna make it like. Here's the thing, every single creator has their own unique experiences that led them to the point where they are, and you're never gonna be able to follow their footsteps. Exactly. Sure you can take bits and pieces, but if you don't really own it and make it something that feels. Good and fun and light for you. It's gonna be a slog. And I don't know, I feel like in the end you're sort of like a little doomed if you, if you follow that rat race. So everything I say, I tell everybody, take with a grain of salt. Take what feels good, forget what doesn't. And you know. Stop following or listening to people who don't make you feel good enough or like you're not doing enough. We're already so hard on ourselves. We don't need anyone else telling us that we're not doing enough or not good enough, right? So I'll never forget when I was thinking about starting a podcast, I reached out to my community, of course, via stories of course, and I said, can you share some podcasts that you listen to and love? I'm just doing some research and somebody shared with me a podcast by a woman named. Ash, McDonald's and Ashley is a therapist and a business mentor, and they were like, the reason I love it is because she is like on a walk when she's talking on this podcast. And I was like, wait, what? Because I hadn't even started podcasting yet. And I was like, oh my God, I need like a studio and I need the perfect microphone and I need silence and I need and like. Here's this person saying, my favorite podcast is from someone who literally is out for a walk, and you can hear cars honking and you can hear dogs barking, and you can hear kids crying. I'm like, I was like, really? So of course I had to go and listen. I. And I ended up binging the, you know what, out of her podcast, like just drinking the Kool-Aid, like just re-listening to episodes. And so much of what she said was like, resonating with me so much. And so here was this woman who not only. Was recording a podcast in a way that no podcast coach would ever recommend you do. Right. Being out and walking and having all that noise. And number two, at the time, she had completely gotten off of Instagram, like she had stopped posting completely. It said on her Instagram she was taking like a two month break. But at that point, I think when I found her, it had been like three and a half months and she still hadn't come back. And I was like, wow, someone can do that. Like you can just. How are you so brave? That was very brave to me for someone to just be like, I'm stopping. Like I don't care and I need to like get my life together and then maybe I'll come back, but maybe I'll come back in two months and maybe it'll be more. And I don't know. I just felt like she was super brave and I felt like, like I needed someone like her to kinda help me figure out some of the limiting beliefs that I was having or the pressure, like relieve some of the pressure that I was constantly putting on myself to show up. Show up, show up no matter what. So she kind of gave me that permission to take that imperfect action. You know, that it was probably good enough that I'm just sitting at my desk in my house with a decent microphone in front of me and maybe I didn't need, you know, everything to be absolutely perfect and maybe there's no such thing as perfect. Right? Bye. Anyways, so I know that content creation can feel really heavy, really heavy at times for a lot of us. And if you're a solopreneur trying to do it all, like you've absolutely had those moments where you're like, W, why does this feel like such a grind? Or shouldn't this be easier by now? Or should I keep going? Should I keep posting? What's the point? Right. I've heard it from my students. I've heard it from my followers. There's even times when I have felt this deeply myself, right? And the truth is, a lot of us, I think make content a lot harder than it needs to be, and we're putting very unnecessary pressure on ourselves to achieve something that's not even achievable, right? Perfection. Who, who's to decide? What is the perfect content schedule? Who's to decide what the perfect looking feed is? Who's to decide? How many times is the ideal amount to post? Like who's in charge of these things? I. I, I don't know. You tell me if you know. I mean, of course the first person that comes to mind is Adam, er, like the CEO of Instagram. He, I feel like he does sort of hold the strings and we're the puppets, but that's another story for another day. But we've built schedules, we've built strategies, we have expectations around what we think we're supposed to be doing. You know, daily posts jumping on trending reels, nonstop engagement within the first hour after you post on the perfect Canva graphics. But none of that's gonna matter if it's burning you out.'cause if it's burning you out, it's absolutely not sustainable. And if it's not sustainable, you're gonna quit at some point. Right. So what changed for me was this, I started giving myself permission to. Quit the things that weren't working for me, even things that I used to or even still do teach, right? Even things I thought I had to do to be successful or to be doing it all the right quote unquote way. And no, this doesn't mean that I've. Really ever given up. I've never disappeared off of anywhere that I've committed to posting or showing up without explaining or saying something. It just means that I finally gave myself permission to show up in a way that felt like really true to me at my pace, using my strategy and like my rules, right? And today I wanna help you do the same. I wanna share 10 things that I stopped doing that might make you say. Okay. If she can do it, I can do it. And that's kind of how I felt with Ash McDonald's podcast. I'm like, listen, if she can do it, she doesn't have a podcast editor. She's out on a walk doing this podcast. I don't have to be perfect. I just, I didn't care that I heard honking and kids crying in the background. It made it very real and relatable. I was listening to her and her message. I didn't care about the background noise. If you're sharing something worthwhile that comes from a really pure, beautiful place that makes you light up when you talk about it with the goal of helping someone achieve something. It's gonna land. You know what I mean? Whether the graphic's not perfect or the audio wasn't perfect, or you got noise in the background. So if you're feeling stuck or frustrated, or just kind of over it when it comes to content, this is your sign that maybe it's time to release some of the pressure you're not behind, you're not doing it wrong. You're just maybe caring too much that was never yours to begin with. So that's why today. Talking about these 10 things. I quit to make content creation feel fun and easy for me again.'cause I knew that if I didn't. I was on a a downward spiral and it wasn't going to help me achieve my goals, that's for sure. These are real shifts I made. They did not happen overnight. They did not happen all at once, but over time as I paid attention to what felt aligned and what didn't, these kind of came to me naturally and I just really listened to myself. Some of them might surprise you. Some of you you might already know'cause whatever. I probably shared it in my stories or in my newsletter. Some of it you might be feeling in your gut right now, and hopefully a few of them are gonna give you the permission that maybe you didn't even know you needed. Right? So let's dive in 10 things. I quit to make content creation feel fun and easy again. I quit trying to make reels that don't feel aligned. So if you haven't noticed for the past, I don't know, year more two years, the trending type of reel is that B roll style and B roll is just like video of you doing stuff with text over top or talking over top like a voiceover. And it's very like story driven and very kind of ethereal and like I've tried it and it. It's really hard for me. It's really, really hard for me. It doesn't come naturally to me, and I forget to take B-roll and I don't want to stop what I'm doing with my family and be like, oh, hold the phone. Let me set up my camera so we can all walk towards it on our walk. Like, no, I wanna be in the moment with my kids on a walk and I don't wanna set up my dumb phone to take a video of it. Or when I'm working and I'm grinding, you know, like at my desk doing things like I don't wanna stop what I'm doing and set up my phone And yes. Yes, yes, I know. I could just, you know, carve out 10 minutes a week and do them strategically, and, but it, again, that's not coming easily and that feels hard for me too. There's something about it that just doesn't feel right. It doesn't, it just doesn't land with me and I'm not gonna force myself to do it. I've tried. They've done fine, but it's too big of a lift for me. So I mean for me, like creating educational reels, like, Hey imm, here's how to do this. Watch this, save this. You're gonna love this. That feels really good to me. I can do that all day long. I could do one every day if I wanted to, but this like, let me, you know, string together these B-roll footage and talk over top of it and have a big life lesson. It doesn't feel aligned with me. I'm more like, oh, let's get to the point. So I'm not gonna make myself do it. I'm not gonna do it. I'm not gonna make reels that don't feel aligned. If it feels forced, I think your audience can feel it. And if it's out of alignment, I don't think the algorithm's gonna favor it either. So that's number one. And if somebody has some like hot tip for me on how to make those easier, go, please share it. I'm really hoping they just go away. I'm hoping that the trend stops, like I'm, I'm just like done with it. Number two, I quit engagement. That drains me, so you may or may not know this, but I have an Instagram community manager, I'm gonna call her. Her name's Nicole. She's wonderful and she is responsible for responding to all the comments that are left on my posts. I found that when my account. Got really big and I was having a lot of comments on my post, which is amazing, by the way. Great problem to have. It really drained me to sit there and reply to everybody, and it didn't feel like the best use of my time. Uh, it was, it's weird. It was, it was confusing.'cause I, I think it's so important to reply to people. If someone takes the time to respond to something on my post, like I wanna respond to them, but I would rather have been creating, right? Like, I would've rather put my energy into that. Creating a podcast, creating a blog post, creating a piece of content for Instagram, right? So I quit engagement that drained me. I didn't stop responding to people, but I hired someone who really adopted my tone of voice, knew how to respond in a way that was, you know, aligned with me. And she even helps go through my dms, because again, that can be quite overwhelming if you're getting 50 plus DMS a day, which is. Definitely what I get. Probably more she flags the ones that she feels really need my tone of voice or that she knows is an old student of mine, or I would wanna respond, whatever. But the rest, if it's easy, just you're welcome. Oh, thank you for letting me know. Like she's in there helping me out with that, and that has helped. Like really sustain my energy when it comes to social media because again, I think it's important. I think it's really important to engage, but I don't have the time or energy to do it. So I hired someone to help me with that and that's brought me a lot of peace of mind.'cause the end of the day would've come and I'd be like, oh my God, I haven't responded to anybody. This is gonna take forever. And it's not that anymore at the end of the day. I know she's been going through it three times throughout the day and I'll have certain dms to flag that I need to go in and respond to, and I really look forward to responding to those dms. I definitely enjoy dms more than I do, like replying to comments, but, um, they both are time. It's time. So number three, I quit answering in depth questions via DM from people who aren't past students of mine, who I know all my past students. I literally know every single one of their names. I'm not even kidding. Or in my community. So if you're not in my community and you're DMing me like a question, can you look at, can you look at my bio? Can you look at my content pillars? I have found a really nice way to say no. I, I, I cannot, like my dms are not my coaching zone of genius, right? If somebody wants personalized help from me, I feel that I've earned the right to say you've gotta. Pay for that. Like I have people who are paying for that. I have 274 members in my community right now. They pay me every month. I'm absolutely answering anything they post in that community. But for me to go and dive into your pillars or your bio or whatever, like when I know nothing about you or your business, it's not really fair to you and it's really not fair to me or my time. So I've had to again, come up with a very nice way to say. I, I'm sure you understand this, I'm stretched very thin. I get a lot of dms every day, and I wish I could, but I can't stop to answer everyone. But if you do want consistent feedback or answers like Please join my community, that's where you can get it. And I think it's more than worth it. So boundaries really are, is me trying to be a professional. I'm not trying to be rude and trust me, I always feel a little guilty saying no, but. I have to if I'm able to sustain like the energy that I bring to my work. Number four, I quit copying what works for someone else. Oh my gosh, I guarantee so many of you fall trapped to this. Like you follow a couple people who do something similar to what you do and you go and stalk their account and like they had a reel that did really well or a post, and you're like, oh, I should try that. Right? But just because it worked for her doesn't mean it's gonna work for me. So I really need to trust my voice, my tone, my posting strategy. You don't need to borrow somebody else's blueprint. You can honestly build your own right, and you know, if that's hard for you, like maybe you stop following those people. If it gets in your head, and I'm not saying you can't be inspired by, but I actually prefer to follow people that are not in my niche for ideas like this, because I don't know, it's just more fresh, right? In fact. This content idea for this podcast, these 10 things I quit doing. It's actually from a YouTube video from somebody who's like a YouTube expert, and I loved the headline and it got me to watch the video and I was like, you know what? That could be good for a podcast episode. So here we are, number five. I quit the before and after school. Content chaos. So I work, I tell everyone I work from the hours of between nine and three when my kids are home before school or when they get home from school. You'll not find me working. You'll not find me at my desk. My laptop stays up in my office. I am not on my phone trying to respond to people. I don't even look at my phone to be super honest. And the same goes with bedtime. Morning when I wake up, I do not sleep with my phone in my room. Therefore, I'm not doom scrolling. I'm not trying to reply to people at night when I'm in bed. I'm not waking up and hopping right on my phone and getting anxious about, you know, whatever. And it is. Changed my life. It's changed my life. So if you are even on the cusp of thinking, maybe I could try to sleep with my phone, not in my room, like I just can't, I cannot recommend it enough. Or even just having boundaries around when you're replying to people, I tell people, you're not gonna get the best version of me if I'm replying when my kids are home. And you know, I think about them being on their phones one day and I'll be really upset if they're not paying attention to me when I'm talking to them'cause they're on their phones and I don't want to set that precedence myself. So. Yeah, I avoid. The before and after school content replying or or post replying. And same with bedtime and morning time. Number six, I quit. This actually goes along with that. I quit the, I have to respond right away. Mindset, like I'm a little bit of a spazz. I don't like notifications to be there, so if I see a notification like it needs to go away. I need to deal with it. So what that means is I don't get notifications from Instagram when I have a dm. I don't get notifications when people comment on my posts. Those are all turned off. I strategically check my dms three times a day. I. The dms will be there. I don't have an automatic message saying, thank you for your thing, and I'll be with you as soon as I can. I actually hate those. I hate when I get those from people and I'm almost like, you don't have to do that. Like you're a working person. You don't have to tell us how much time is gonna take you to get back to us. Like you're, I, I don't know. You're living your life. Like you don't really owe anyone that, so I don't know. I don't like those. Types of automatic responders. I don't expect people to reply to me immediately, and I don't think you should expect it from other people. So I don't owe anyone instant access to my time or energy, and neither do you. Being responsive is great, but being reactive is not for me, so I'm very strategic with that. Number seven. I really quit focusing on vanity metrics. Like I just have stopped obsessing and trying to like figure out why I'm not getting likes, why I am not getting views, why I am not getting saved in shares. What did I do wrong? That's where my mind goes. I. What did I do wrong? Why did I post this a year and a half ago and it crushed it, and now it's just bombing? Who knows? I will probably never know the answer. The stupid algorithm changes every minute. I don't know, like I I, I've really just started trying to focus on creating content that feels really fun, really fun for me, really lights me up. Really true to who I am and the problem I'm trying to solve for someone. Even if it doesn't crush it on Instagram, if it brought me joy and I know it helped, maybe one person, like it just is what it is right now. It's just so hard out there. You know, metrics really don't measure impact. I want to repeat that. Metrics don't measure impact. The connection does, and I feel that connection every day with you guys in my dms and replying to my emails and all of that and that. Brings me a lot of joy. Um, number eight, I quit feeling like everything I've built is gonna fall apart if I take a break. So whether that's taking a break off Instagram for a day and not posting, which I just started doing a couple weeks ago, which is very hard for me, or taking two weeks off, which I did last August and I haven't done that since. But I would really love to do that again this summer. I made the mistake. Early on the first three years of my business by working through vacations, I would still post, I would still email, I would still show up, and sure you could be like, oh, but you batch, and like it's just coming out. But there were still always problems, right? I set up the many chat wrong or people were reading for replies or like it just. It still had me tethered to my phone on vacation when that's not what I wanted to be doing. And I was really frustrated with myself when my whole family's on the dock enjoying the lake, and I'm like up in the house.'cause I messed up something with a key word in many chat and I'm like, are you kidding me? I don't wanna be up here doing this. Why did I even post? Just take the time off. Nothing's gonna fall apart. Right. And here's the thing, when I've taken this time. I come back so much more alive and creative, right? So breaks are not laziness. They're maintenance. You should build them in. So now I've made a commitment to myself to take a week off every quarter, and it just is what it is. I'll let people know, I'm taking a week, I'll see you in a week. Here's what I'm up to. Or maybe I don't even have to tell them what I'm up to. I don't know. Maybe I'm up to nothing but. That's what's gonna feel good for me. Number nine, I quit the all or nothing posting pressure. So that kind of goes back to another one, but I, I'm not feeling the need to show up every single day to be consistent. I am consistently committed, even when I'm not constantly showing up online. I realize that my content, I. Doesn't have to be visible and brand new every single day. It doesn't have to feel like a full-time job. And I want it to feel fun again. So I really need to let go of that pressure. Like I have to show up six days a week or everything's gonna fall apart.'cause it's not, that's the truth of it. And you know when something does really well or goes kind of viral, like, I should let that go. I should, I should not show up the next day. I should just let that kind of ride that wave for a bit and then show up again. Or I even considered going down to like a three to four day posting schedule versus six. Like I see a lot of creators who are as big as me or bigger, like only doing that much. And that kind of feels glorious to me. You know, when I was a smaller account and really trying to make a name for myself and really try to grow my following, like five, six posts made sense for me. I'm not sure if that's what I have to be doing anymore. And so that's something I might investigate this summer, to be honest. Showing up a little less and maybe putting a little more time into what I am creating. Last but not least, and I've never admitted this out loud, and this may be very shocking to you, is. I've really quit the mentality that Instagram is the only place I need to be to grow my business. I feel sad saying that I wish I could have a talk with the CEO of Instagram. I wish I could tell him how disheartening it is as a creator who has poured so much time and energy into their platform. To feel like I am getting, there's just the shit end of the stick as far as reach and visibility. I feel like I am punished for having so many followers. I'm not gonna lie, there are days when I wish I could go back to 10,000 followers. I'd probably do it in a heartbeat. I'm not gonna lie. I have 121,000 followers all organically, which is great. I didn't pay for any of them. I didn't do any ads, but I. Just feel, I don't even wanna reach new people. I shouldn't even say reach. I just wanna reach my own followers. And I feel like it's gotten harder and harder and harder and harder. Every single algorithm change that is made. And if I'm not out there doing those artsy reels with all this B roll and like voiceover, like I'm not gonna get any like visibility. I don't know. I don't know. So I've really started thinking a lot about. Getting on other platforms. I don't know what that means. I don't know where my gut's kind of telling me YouTube, I'm loving the podcast. Like maybe I do take my podcast to video and I do one really great video a week and it's on YouTube, but I've definitely started diversifying by adding on the podcast. You know, I love my email newsletter. That's something I'm definitely willing to expand upon. Maybe it's everyone's talking about LinkedIn. Maybe it's Pinterest. I'm not sure, but I've definitely started opening my eyes and started talking to people about other platforms because Instagram is not quite the all in one toolbox that I think it used to be. I. It's a tool, but it's not the whole toolbox. I will tell you that you should never build your business on borrowed land. And luckily, you know, while it is my main platform, I haven't, I have 17,000 email subscribers, thank God, on my newsletter, and I can get in touch with them at the drop of a hat and let them know what I'm up to or what new things going on. So. It's sad for me to admit that, and I don't, you know, because a lot of my business has been like Instagram. Instagram, like everybody should have Instagram. It's the best. Like I love it. I haven't needed anything else. Well, my tune is changing and I just wanna be honest about that. So. If your content feels heavy right now, it's not'cause you're not good at it. It's not'cause you need better hooks or you know, need to jump on trendier reels or the perfect 30 day calendar. It might just mean that you're carrying too much that wasn't meant for you. Your strategy might feel off. You might be carrying expectations that aren't yours. Or the hustle's just really not aligned with the season that you're in in life. So here is your gentle permission slip. You don't have to do it all. You don't have to do it perfectly, and you definitely don't have to keep doing things that suck the joy out of content creation for you. So I loved you to take a 32nd audit of your process right now. What's something you could quit? What's one thing you could quit that would make you feel lighter? And feel like you're having more fun or make it just feel a little bit more you. And I want you to DM me and tell me what that is. I really do. I'm gonna share these. I want you to tell me, maybe it's quitting, the pressure of posting every day. Maybe it's quitting reels for a week. Maybe it's quitting, having 18 tabs open in Canva and never posting anything. Whatever it is, I want you to let it go. Give yourself the space to create from a place of clarity, not chaos. Okay? You've got this, I've got this. I hope you've enjoyed this real talk. Let me know what you think and I'll see you next week. Thanks so much for hanging out with me on the Creative Bodega Podcast. If you love this episode, please be sure to share it with a fellow solopreneur. Who could use a little content creation inspiration. And hey, don't forget to check out the show notes for any resources I mentioned on the episode to help you create content that feels easy and actually gets you results. If you want even more Canva and content tips, head over to my website, the creative bodega.com, or find me on Instagram under the same name. Until next time, keep creating, keep showing up, and most importantly, try and have a little fun with your content. I'll see you on the next episode.