Reflecting on Documenting myself and the future of content creating

”Where your fear is, there is your task.”

 Carl Jung

I made myself a promise. In 2024, I wanted to document more of myself and my work, my successes, failures, what I’m learning, and make content that I wish existed for me when I was starting out in this profession of landscape design. But also to become a better designer and storyteller. So, I’ve had this goal to start a YouTube channel for about 8 years. I never took action mainly due to fear. In December 2023 , I stumbled upon this challenge on YouTube.

It was a 30-day talking-to-the-camera challenge. The challenge was simple: Film yourself talking to the camera, post it daily on YouTube, and show up every day for 30 days. By facing my fear, I took on this challenge. I didn’t let fear or overthinking stop me. I knew this is something I've always wanted to do, and this challenge was the push I needed.

So, every day for the month of January, I filmed myself talking to a camera and posted it. Through consistency, I got better. My overall confidence improved, I wasn’t as scared to hit record and talk to a camera, I got better at video editing. But the one main benefit was being able to rewatch the videos of myself. I would notice these nervous cues in the way I spoke and tried to fill quiet moments of thoughts with ‘hmm’ and ‘um’ and touched my glasses. But after every video, I was more conscious in the way I spoke and by making these slight changes, each video got better.

I’m just proud I finally started.

Also, I made a couple of internet friends along the way, who were also taking on the challenge and had similar goals to start a YouTube channel, and it took them years as well to start. After the 30 days, I took a break to reflect on the future of my content for my practice and I just don’t want to waste time creating content that doesn’t resonate or provide value. Now that I feel more confident in front of the camera, I want to be more intentional with the content I create.

This blog article by Neil Patel put it best titled: 'You’re Wasting Your Time Creating Social Media Content.'

In the article, he outlines these 7 tips:

Tip #1: Post something new and fresh that people haven’t seen.

Tip #2: Don’t be afraid to have your own opinion… it makes your content stand out.

Tip #3: Provide value, from education to stats and data, and make sure people walk away with something.

Tip #4: Only leverage trends when it is related to your industry.

Tip #5: Collaborate with other people within your space (it will amplify your reach even if they don’t have tons of followers).

Tip #6: Share stuff from your personal experiences; it’s hard for other people to replicate that.

Tip #7: Post the type of content each network wants, which you can see in the chart below.

Bonus tip: Go live!

So the last couple of weeks during my break, I dedicated to writing, journaling, idea generation, and making sure I follow the tips listed above for creating future content. I still plan to post blog+vlog content to add more of a personal behind-the-scenes look covering my design practice. But, I’m excited to go back to creating work I’ll be proud to share and create.

Also, this is my first blog post! Haha, another milestone. It’ll be fun to look back at this and see how much I’ve grown as a person, designer, writer, and content creator."