What to Do When You Don’t Feel Like Podcasting

We unpack the messy middle of podcasting where the launch high fades, numbers plateau, and routine replaces adrenaline. We share practical ways to shift from inspiration to discipline, simplify the workflow, and measure progress beyond downloads while staying true to your why.

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If you have questions about editing your episodes, reach out to the Podcaster Success team by email support@buzzsprout.com. 

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Transcript

Welcome To Podcasting Q&A

Cara Pacetti 0:00

Welcome to Podcasting Q&A, brought to you by the people at Buzzsprout. I'm your host, Cara Pacetti, and I'm bringing you the best tips and strategies to keep you podcasting with confidence. Today's question is one that I believe every podcaster has wrestled with at least one time during their podcasting journey. The question says: I was really excited to launch my podcast at first, but now I feel stuck and unsure. Is this normal or a sign I should quit? Obviously, this is not a telling sign that you should quit. If every podcaster experiences it and every podcaster quit when they felt it, we would have no podcast. So, first and foremost, no, I do not think that this is a sign of quitting, but I want to really dive deep into this question and what we can do to push past this. And to help me answer this, I have brought on Priscilla. Priscilla is not only the head of the podcaster success team here at Buzz Sprout, but she also hosts her own podcast called Happy to Help. So she is able to relate to this question on both of those fronts. Priscilla, thank you so much for joining me.

Priscilla Brooke 1:05

Yeah, I love this question and I'm really excited to talk about it.

Cara Pacetti 1:09

I'm excited to talk about it too. So when you're first launching a podcast, there's something that I've heard out there called the "launch high". Did you experience this?

Priscilla Brooke 1:18

Yeah, it's the excitement when you're leading up to launch date, right? And you're excited to put out that first episode and to start promoting your show. I mean, that is really exciting and fun.

Cara Pacetti 1:28

It is. It's like your brand new creation. Maybe it's your first time creating something from scratch. You're picking the name, designing the artwork. There's momentum, adrenaline, and honestly, the possibilities are endless. It is very exciting, but with that comes a shift. And once all that excitement wears off, the next thing that comes is routine, effort, and unfortunately, a little bit of doubt that can really cause you to feel stuck.

Priscilla Brooke 1:54

Yeah. I mean, it's not unique to podcasting, right? It's a universal feeling that all of us have experienced in our lives. Maybe you haven't launched your podcast yet, and maybe you haven't felt this in the realm of podcasting. But think about like we're in March right now. So we're a couple months into the year. And so maybe you had a New Year's resolution to go to the gym or then you get all excited about this new routine you're gonna build. And then a couple weeks into it, it starts getting harder to do. It's interfering with your life and your routine, and you're not seeing results the way you want to. And then you start to fall off of that. I think it's like a very common thing that a lot of people feel. It's this idea that the excitement falls off, and then what are you left with? And how do you keep going to accomplish the goal you've put out?

When Numbers Plateau

Cara Pacetti 2:35

Totally relatable. And exactly. I think we've all experienced it. In addition to the excitement falling off, I want to practically speak about podcasting and kind of the process of podcasting and where is it that a lot of podcasters are feeling stuck? And so some of those might be your downloads. We're looking at our downloads, we've launched our podcast, and maybe they were increasing because you were excited to promote. But then as you're releasing episodes, maybe the numbers aren't dipping, but all of a sudden you see that they're kind of staying the same.

Priscilla Brooke 3:07

And then you find you hit a plateau and then you go, okay, well, now I'm not as motivated because the numbers aren't going up. And so I don't feel successful. And that's when you have to look back and go, Well, how am I measuring success? Because there's so many ways to measure the success of your podcast, to give yourself the motivation when you don't have it that aren't related to numbers. That can be really hard once you get past that first phase of excitement and growth and you hit that plateau. How do you keep going from there? Absolutely.

Cara Pacetti 3:35

And that's kind of a results-driven phase of Stuck. But what about even just the process of actually doing the podcast, the logistics of it?

Priscilla Brooke 3:44

Yeah. It's easy to think about things in the future when it's in the hypothetical and go, oh, I'm really excited to have all these guests on and I'm really excited. Or if you have a solo podcast, I'm really excited to have a solo podcast. I could talk about this forever. And then you get into it and you're 15 episodes in and you're like, well, I actually can't talk about this forever. I feel like now I'm repeating myself so much and where's the value coming in? And so sometimes it is that the content is where you feel stuck and burnt out and not motivated to keep going.

Industry Pressure And Comparison

Cara Pacetti 4:13

Absolutely. And we're gonna touch on some solutions to that in a moment. But before we do, I want to mention one more factor that could affect the way you're feeling in your podcasting journey and could cause you to feel stuck. And that is the comparison and maybe the pressure from what's happening within the podcasting industry. I know right now, video podcasting is really popular. And I think new podcasters who are just mastering the art of nailing their audio-only podcasts are feeling the pressure to now take on this new skill of becoming a video producer, which is a whole different skill set. And that in and of itself could make you go, is this even worth it? And we said in the beginning, this phase is actually very normal. So I want to define it. When you're feeling stuck, what this phase actually means is that you're just moving from inspiration to discipline. And that shift, like anything worth pursuing, can feel incredibly difficult. And maybe not even difficult is the word, but just different. It's just a different feeling.

Priscilla Brooke 5:12

Yeah, I think that's the key to all of this, right? Is if you want to do something really well, you cannot rely only on inspiration to get there. There's going to be a time where you have to choose to keep going and you have to be disciplined in getting things done in order to get to the goal that you want to have. So if you want to have a successful podcast that is making an impact, the only way you're going to get there is if you push through these moments of doubt and you rely on the discipline of it, that's when you're going to push through that.

Moving From Inspiration To Discipline

Cara Pacetti 5:44

Absolutely. And what's cool is the way you handle this is going to be that evidence that you can look back and go, oh, I've felt this before. It's time to change. Let's try some other things. So we do have some practical steps that I do want to share on what you can do to really get through this successfully and allow you to keep podcasting. First and foremost, and if you've been listening to podcasting QA for a little while, you have heard me talk about this before. I recommend starting with your why. Why did you start this podcast? So much of your success and your endurance to keep going hinges on the why you started in the first place. And if your why is a creative outlet and you are doing this simply because you enjoy it, that's a good enough reason to keep going. So, what are some things that we can change about our process to keep us in that enjoyment? First, look at the way you're editing your episodes. Are you spending way too much time editing your episodes? Are you nitpicking it and cutting every little breath and it's taking you hours? 1000% that could be a reason why you're feeling stuck and maybe why you're not enjoying podcasting. And so another way of making this whole process more enjoyable would be to switch up or simplify your processes.

Switch Up Your Publishing Cadence

Priscilla Brooke 6:54

I think about this a lot when I'm working with new podcasters who are trying to plan out their strategy for releasing new episodes and they go, I want to do this weekly. I've never done any of this before, but a weekly cadence feels right and feels doable. I always am like, hey, you don't know how much work this is. You don't know how much time this is gonna take. So don't bite off so much more than you can chew. And that comes into play here. If you've started and you've done weekly episodes, or maybe you've done bi-weekly, or whatever it is, it's not something that's sustainable. And right now you're feeling that burnout and you're feeling that lack of motivation. A way to continue podcasting without just burning out completely is to step back from the cadence that you originally set and find a cadence that works better and is a little more comfortable. I um think about with Happy to Help. I started by doing episodes every other week and it was a lot of work. And when we started the second season, I was encouraged to step back to once a month. And at first I was a little bit hesitant to do that. But once I actually moved to that once a month cadence, I started enjoying the episodes more. And it really made a huge difference in my enjoyment of the experience to pull back my episodes. And what I didn't see was a huge dip in downloads. What I didn't see was anything negative from listeners. So, you know, that's just one way you can make a small change that allows you the freedom to keep things calm and to enjoy the process.

Alternate Ways Of Measuring Progress

Cara Pacetti 8:22

I love that example. And I love that you pointed out you didn't see a drastic drop in listenership. Your listeners are so loyal to you, they want to hear you, and they're gonna love hearing your enjoyment through your episode. Priscilla, you touched on this, but looking at progress differently, that is a way to navigate this phase as well. Instead of asking yourself, why are my stats not growing? Why am I not getting more subscribers? Why am I not getting more listener interaction? Shift that question a little bit and ask yourself, am I better than I was when I started? Am I much more comfortable on the microphone when I'm talking to a guest? Are my episodes more clear? Have I put practices in place where my full process is smooth? And before there were a lot of hiccups and a lot of missteps, and now it's like a well-oiled machine. Look back at those and let that be the definition of your success instead of choosing to only focus on those metrics that are provided, say, inside of your account or with the directories.

Priscilla Brooke 9:24

It can be motivation too. If you look back and go, man, I really have grown a lot in the last six months of doing this podcast. That can be motivating to say, what could I do in the next six months? Kind of on that same line, I'd also say, like, use AI. Find out what are the things in your process that you dread doing and find a way to bring AI in to help make that easier. Maybe AI can't do it for you, but it can probably make some things easier. And so that's another way to help with the motivation. Remove some of the things that are really not fun.

Adjust Cadence Without Losing Listeners

Cara Pacetti 9:57

Absolutely. So after hearing this episode, if it all still feels overwhelming, I want you to know if you need to take a break, that is totally okay. But what I do recommend is not just silently fading and disappearing from your listeners. Let your listeners know. Record an episode, let them know, hey, I'm gonna take a break from this for a while. And then from there, you can choose to re-release episodes if you want, or you can just stop the podcast altogether. Take a mental break for as long as you need.

Priscilla Brooke 10:27

Yes, absolutely, 100%. Taking a break is a totally valid way to get through a phase of feeling unmotivated. I will say, if you choose to take a break, put an end cap on it. Don't just say, I'm leaving, I'll be back when I feel ready to come back, because you might not feel it. And so if you say, I'm gonna give myself a month off, and I'm not gonna worry about the pressure of releasing new episodes, but during that break, I'm gonna research. I'm gonna look for more people that could come on the podcast. You can be intentional with that break and be intentional about when you're coming back and hold yourself to that. And that way you're not feeling this open-ended, well, I'll start back up whenever I feel ready to start back up. Because you might not get to that feeling. And so if you say I'm taking a specific set break, then you have the freedom to really feel that and then come back when you have said you're gonna come back.

Cara Pacetti 11:17

Such great advice. And because we're kind of talking about how this may have started with feelings, but to keep it going is not the feelings, but actually the choice. You making that point about, you know, sticking to it even if you don't feel like it. That's yeah, solid advice. Love that. And if you're feeling stuck and you're looking for some encouragement, please feel free to reach out to us on the Podcaster Success team. You can reach us by emailing support at buzzsprout.com. We'd love to listen to your episodes, check out your podcast, and offer some perspective on your situation and of course offer some encouragement. Priscilla, thank you so much for joining me today. Your insight has been so helpful. And I know our listeners are really going to take away a lot from that. If there's a question you'd like answered on a future podcasting QA episode, just click the send us a text link in the show notes to let us know. And we can feature that question on a future episode. Be sure to join us every Monday to kickstart your week. Thank you so much for listening. And as always, keep podcasting.