Have you ever wanted to start a YouTube channel, or if you've already started one, have you wanted to post more consistently on it, but found yourself when the time came coming up with excuses as to why you can't do it, something stopped you and you're not sure what it was or why that happened. Well, as someone who's been on YouTube myself for over eight years now, I can say that.
I've had a lot of successes out of my channel from posting consistently, building up my brand, building a business, and it's been awesome. However, at the start of this year, I reached a point of complete exhaustion. I was making a massive mistake, even as an experienced creator. That was sabotaging me with every new video I made.
And this exact mistake is the same one I see time and time again with brand new creators just about to start a channel, but they never actually follow through beyond their first one or two videos. So in episode two of Full Time YouTuber, we're going to dive into what this How to overcome it, and how to build the momentum you need to grow a channel that turns into something substantial, without you unintentionally self sabotaging your own YouTube journey.
Hey, my name is Ben Claremont, and I help Entrepreneurial video creators turn their YouTube channels into a profitable business. And I'm so excited to talk about this topic in this episode because this is something that is so important and one of the toughest lessons I've learned over the years that I want to help you learn from day one so you don't have to go through.
Endless self sabotage over your YouTube journey. So let's start at the start of the journey of creating a YouTube channel. Chances are one day you got an idea that you wanted to start a channel. You had an idea for videos you'd make, you'd chosen your niche. You'd figured out already in your head how you were going to film it and edit it.
And already the momentum had started in your head. And then when you got to the next phase of execution of this idea, suddenly that video idea you had wasn't as good as you first imagined. Maybe you did a test video shot and you didn't like the lighting or the camera was just too blurry and you realized you need to by a better camera.
And when you started filming, your mind suddenly went blank and you had no idea what to say. And you were sure that you didn't sound good on camera. So you just stopped yourself from your tracks and didn't continue. I say this because I've been in this exact position, not only at the start of my YouTube journey, but even to this day, I have these moments of self doubt.
And I'm here to tell you. that the reason you're thinking all of these things in the early stages of your channel is that deep down you are very likely a perfectionist. Subconsciously, you compare yourself to other YouTubers you've seen on YouTube who are making their videos professionally with cinematic cameras, professional three point lighting, studio sound recordings, and a whole team to help them with their Filming and editing and research of the video concept.
And deep down, you feel that if your video doesn't live up to that extremely high standard, that it's not good enough. And I personally realized that this was my inner monologue, and that I was a perfectionist very late into my YouTube journey. Like I said, it was at the start of this year. When I was making a video about 360 cameras, I do this annual video, which is called, which 360 camera should you buy in insert year.
And each year I would try to make the video better than last year's. I'd either put more research into it. I'd add more cameras to compare. I'd compare these cameras on more aspects. Like I'd go into depth on every last. Part of the design of like 12 different cameras. I'd talk about the image quality and video quality in excruciating detail, as well as the workflows from each, which were so different.
It's not even funny. And to be able to create this grand vision of this comparison that comes across. Well, and treating each camera with as much seriousness as I possibly can, while also creating a professional cinematic and fun video experience led me to feeling absolute burnout. Even on my very first video of the year, I would often release this.
I spent around three weeks creating this video, and while the end result was great, and this type of video always performs well on my channel, I had the realization afterwards that I really did not enjoy the process. It had become too robotic, and the standards I set for myself were just too high. And after making and posting this video and feeling completely burnt out, I thought back to my very first YouTube video that I ever made, and it really was so much simpler than that.
It was literally just me talking to camera while I did make a whole bunch of mistakes, no question, with that video. The actual production of it was so much simpler. I think the entire process took me two days in total to make that first video. And then over the next eight years it slowly turned into a three week per video process where I was being a perfectionist with every single aspect of my video.
From the video idea, to the planning of the video, to the filming and my delivery on camera, to the b roll I'd include, and the editing process. I'd spend a long time and make sure every last shot looked perfect, and while the end result was definitely good, the reward this particular video has brought me to this date doesn't really justify me completely burning myself out from trying to fulfill these unrealistically high perfectionist standards.
In fact, it burnt me out so much that, for me, that was the point of no return. Where I realized this workflow just isn't working anymore. I can't do this another day. I'm not enjoying it. It's too high of a bar for me to scale my channel to the level I want to scale it to. And if I want to continue at all as a YouTuber, I need to simplify the absolute life out of this process of creating videos.
Or I'm just going to be burnt out video after video. And that's not a good feeling when you feel like you're making videos just because people want them, but not because you actually want to make them. That's the point you don't want to get to as a YouTuber. And I'm telling you as someone who is far into the journey that.
You want to avoid this from day one because this is also the exact same thing that's stopping you from posting your first video or building any kind of momentum with your videos. Where the time you invest and the standards you have for your business aren't worth the result you get after posting that video.
I think, on a deep level, Perfectionism actually shows up in, like, many different areas of our life. I know I certainly am. I can get OCD about things, like, with running my business. I feel like I need to do absolutely everything because if someone else does something and it's not perfect and something gets screwed up, then I should have just done it myself.
So let's not even delegate because I want to do it myself and I want to do it perfectly. Or even around the house. Sometimes I feel like my wife can be a little bit on the messy side and I want a perfectly tidy and clean house. And I'm totally a perfectionist there. I'm always cleaning up, tidying up, even when the house is like 98 percent clean or tidy.
I've had this habit of having these perfect standards of always having everything in line and in order. And deep down, I'm sure there's some deep seated psychological issues there that I need to work on. But, it's just interesting, the psychology of perfectionism and how it shows up in different aspects of your life.
And as someone who is now becoming much more self aware to it. I want to warn you about this because this will sabotage your progress on YouTube, regardless of the stage you're at. So the less perfect you can be, I know that's a tough pill to swallow, but the less perfect you can be, the more work you're going to put out, and as a result, the faster you're going to get to that one thing.
That really hits the spot and explodes your channel, but you're not going to get there until you post enough quantity to then get that feedback from your audience that that's what they want. So I want to dive into how perfectionism sabotages us as YouTubers and how we can fix it. There are different stages of the YouTube video creation process that perfectionism rears its ugly head and I'm here to cut off the head for you and show you How you can simplify things without letting that perfectionism mindset take over.
So the first one would be video ideas. Often you can feel like you don't have a winning idea, even if you do have a list of ideas that you might have written down, none of them really jump out at you as your def Definitive video that's going to totally change everything and get millions of views and just change your life.
And often that leads to you not taking action and making that video. I think a much better way to approaching choosing a video idea is looking at your list of ideas. And asking yourself, which is the best one? That's probably going to lead to an answer. You know deep down which one is the best one. Even though these ideas aren't quote unquote perfect, you can probably identify one of the ideas that stands out as the one you're most passionate about making.
Or the one you really want to make. It's It's going to be one to two days max, and you're gonna get this video made because there's two options here at this point. If you're being a perfectionist, option one is to is that you make this video in two days and at the end of the week you've got a video on your channel that will either take off and be super successful or it won't be.
That's option one. And then option two is you don't post a video at all because you are sitting at your desk twiddling your thumbs. Trying to find the perfect video idea and failing and you've got absolutely nothing to show for it. So those are the two options. Which one are you going to choose? Well, to me, the more logical one is the first one.
Because really, the more work you put out there overall, the more data you have. to collect and see trends on what type of content your audience wants and therefore what type of content might be suitable to make with future videos. It's kind of like market research and the more bait you put out there, the more you know how many fish and what types of fish respond to that bait.
So that would be my approach with video ideas, which is the best one, whichever it is. Give it two days and give it a chance to thrive. If it doesn't, so be it. You can move on to the next video idea that might be better next week. The next way perfectionism sabotages us is with our on camera delivery. I don't know about you, but A lot of times over my YouTube journey, I've completely frozen on camera.
This is harder to do if you're using a teleprompter, but I like to speak organically to camera just off of bullet points. And when you haven't made a lot of YouTube videos, you tend to freeze up. Because you think that the next sentence you need to say needs to be perfect, and you go too much into your own head.
Thinking about what you're going to say in advance, before the words leave your mouth, you're thinking, is that perfect or could I word it better? And that stops the flow of words from coming out of your mouth to begin with, and you freeze up because you're too busy auditing yourself before you've even said a word.
Or another one that happens to me is I will say a sentence and then as I'm speaking the next sentence, I'll be auditing the previous sentence and thinking, was that what I meant to say? Could I have made that more impactful or been more specific or just said it differently? And that completely takes you out of the moment.
And. I find when I've had my best deliveries with my YouTube content, it's been when I've been totally present in the moment and I'm not thinking anything beyond the general concept I'm trying to communicate and that's it. And just letting my passion pour out of my mouth. That sounded wrong, but I'm going to continue anyway.
Letting my passion pour out. And that's what people really respond to, when you're super present in the moment, you're not overthinking things, and you're not trying to be perfect. Because, I've got news for you. People that read from a teleprompter, while their words might be perfect and eloquent, and they have a flow and a rhythm to the way they're speaking, it doesn't come across anywhere near as authentic.
Speaking from the heart without a teleprompter. So even if you were to speak without a teleprompter and you spoke completely imperfect sentences, you would still be communicating much more authentically than people reading from teleprompters that often look like newsreaders. I can often spot this a mile away when someone's reading from a teleprompter in a YouTube video and I just feel instantly disconnected from them.
Because it feels like they're not being present in the moment with what they're saying. And really their priority is just reading words off of the screen. Instead of being real and authentic and imperfect like every other human is. Some examples of relatable imperfect behavior could be sometimes you say um, or change what you're saying mid sentence, or you look down or to the side.
These little moments of imperfection that you would think wouldn't look good on camera, actually And I'm going to be talking about how to make your video work so well. Because what they do is they humanize you. They turn you into a real life human being, because it's very likely that the person watching that video on the other end is just like that.
They're not a professional video presenter that can speak every word perfectly and eloquently, and maintain laser eye contact with the camera. In fact, I'd even say we've got this Deep seated fascination with voyeurism and watching people in their vulnerable states, like when they don't know what to say on camera or they need to take a moment to collect their thoughts.
This is really satisfying to watch and it's really so far the opposite of what perfectionism is when it comes to on camera delivery. I'll also add a caveat to that, and that is that. It is a more advanced thing to be able to speak completely off the cuff on a video, especially with minimal notes. I couldn't do it at first, but after a few years, I learned how to talk more confidently on camera and eventually this became really easy for me.
However, at the start I couldn't. I experimented with using a teleprompter. I probably used one for a couple of my videos and that did help me build the confidence of talking on camera at first. So if you are a complete beginner, don't throw yourself in the deep end and Expect to completely make up the world's most amazing video off the top of your head.
Even if you're adopting this imperfectionist mindset, you've also just got to be aware of the level you're at in terms of presenting on camera. The next way perfectionism sabotages us in our YouTube video creation process is in the actual production of the video. What does this mean? It's in the filming, it's in the editing, the lighting, sound, the graphics you use, the b roll.
There's so many aspects of creating a quote unquote perfect video that can completely sabotage you. And by sabotage, I mean way over complicating the technical production process. Which leads to time getting completely blown out. And this will drag out what should be a one or two day process into weeks or even months for a single video.
This starts with gear. Often beginners want to buy a professional camera and professional sound setup and editing software before they ever make a single video. Which is really totally unnecessary to making a video. Even I, to this day, day. Still use basic equipment sometimes. I'll use my phone for filming a lot of the time, but I do remember when I first got started, I was working as a videographer and I felt like I had to make a professional cinematic production from my videos like I was doing to my clients with my YouTube videos.
I had to use the perfect lens with the perfect Aperture had to have perfect three point lighting, the perfect video composition, and it has to be 4K because if it's not 4K, then it won't look professional. And in hindsight, that was total BS. I think I just made that up in my head as a really high barrier that I thought I was going to attain for my entire YouTube journey in order for me to make the perfect videos that build the perfect channel.
And again, this is something that. I've actually scaled back over my YouTube journey. I started with like a professional 10, 000 cinema camera when I first started. And right now, eight years later, I'm actually using just a basic Sony mirrorless camera. It's not an entry level one and it's not like a 10, 000 camera.
It's somewhere in between. I use one single lens. One single microphone. I do use a couple of lights, but I've got them permanently set up. So literally all I have to do is just flick them on, turn the camera on and press record and I've started filming. And for me, that's actually a really simple setup, even compared to when I first started and I was trying to way overdo it with my production.
So I'd really recommend asking yourself, like, how professional do these videos need to be? And would your audience forgive you if your videos were more on the basic side, if they still had high value information in them? My guess is the answer is yes, for most YouTubers. Audiences are quite forgiving if the value's there.
Unless your channel is about technical photography and video skills, that's where the proof is in the pudding, and you need to go a little bit further to create higher production value. But otherwise, really, a phone is okay to film a video on, as long as your audio is okay. You don't necessarily need professional microphones, but if you film at home, Just make sure you're filming in a quiet room.
If you still messed up your audio, you'll just want to make sure you put some kind of filter on it that makes it sound clearer with less echo and background noise, which are common in many video editors these days. There are also websites that can do this in one click. And that's it. You want to scale back your equipment as much as you can because the less moving parts there is that you need to account for before you press the record button of your video, the more unlikely you are to make a video because in the back of your mind, you'll just think that it's way too complicated.
So I'm just going to put it off until tomorrow. Then we have the. Editing of videos and this is the one that can become really time consuming. I think my longest edit for a single video was around three months. That is a really long time and I wouldn't recommend anyone ever do that. But just like with filming you want to Think about your editing process in a similar way.
How can I simplify this? So it's not taking me weeks and weeks per video to edit. Ideally you want your editing time to be no more than a day or two. If you want this to be sustainable and post hundreds of videos over the years, you can't be spending too much time on editing while you obviously do want a professional looking edit.
You don't want to overinvest your time, especially when you are producing more videos, you're experimenting a bit to see what resonates and videos have a chance of completely bombing. And if you spend weeks editing a single video and then that video gets complete crickets, You've just wasted weeks of your time for no reason.
And this was one of the reasons I switched from Adobe Premiere Pro to using CapCut. I know you probably think of CapCut as a beginner editor, but for me, it still allows me to achieve a very similar result with my YouTube videos than what I was getting on Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve. But the beauty of it is the workflow is really short.
There aren't too many videos that I can't edit in CapCut in a single day and still produce professional edits, professional titles, professional B roll and graphics. It really is a very simple solution. While it doesn't have the super advanced stuff that Premiere Pro, After Effects and DaVinci Resolve have.
It has enough for me to make professional videos for my channel, and it allows me to really cut that editing time down significantly. And time really is money. Even if you do have to pay a little bit for an edit target, I think CapCut's like 10 a month. If you're able to halve your editing time with every single video you make, Would that not be worth 10 a month?
For me, no question, absolutely it is. Then other ways you might want to think about perfectionism when it comes to editing is like, do I need all this b roll in my videos? Sometimes you see super cinematic, highly produced videos on YouTube that are just not really necessary when what really resonates with people is you connecting with them and giving them value of some kind.
High production value doesn't give as much value as The information you convey in your video, and if you can convey good information that gives value in your videos, then there's no need to add a lot of B roll and fancy graphics, effects, titles, even adding a lot of music and sound effects can take a significant amount of time.
And it's a slippery slope. Once you start using a lot of graphics or a lot of sound effects in your videos, once You feel like you have to do it over and over and over to maintain that really high standard that is eventually one day going to be unsustainable and burn you out. And that's not even what your viewers came back for from video to video.
They're there for the value and information you're conveying and that is like 90 percent of the reason they're following you. Now, I know what I'm about to say may seem counterproductive, but it's a really important thing to understand, especially if you're at the beginning of your YouTube journey, and that is you need to prioritize quantity over quality.
That should be your number one focus. How can I make as many videos as possible? Let's say in the first month of my YouTube channel. If you can make 10 videos in a month, and that is a really high number, by the way, you've just put 10 different pieces of bait in the water for the fish to come grab.
Whereas if you made 10 perfect videos as your first 10 videos, and you're taking weeks and weeks per video, It's gonna take you 10 months to put that bait out to get that exact same response. So I'd really suggest focusing on quantity over quality at the beginning of your YouTube journey for this reason.
Of course your videos need to have a bare minimum standard, and again, the audio needs to be good, or people won't want to watch if the audio is too distorted. And of course your videos need to convey some kind of value in them, but this really should be your main focus as a small channel. Put as much quantity out there as possible, And then over time you can increase your quality.
Absolutely. And so you should, but just don't let it get to unrealistically high standards where you're constantly thinking like a perfectionist and spending way too much time per video on videos that have the chance of completely bombing. Even as a YouTuber, myself, who is nearly at 200, 000 subscribers, I still to this day have videos that completely bomb.
And this is not relevant at all to the amount of time I spend on them, but rather it's really to do with the concept of the video and the value in it, and whether that is something that appeals to a big audience or not. So maybe think about making your videos a bit higher quality later in your journey, but for now Focus on quantity.
Stop being a perfectionist and thinking every last thing needs to be perfect in order for you to take action. This is self sabotaging behavior that leads to procrastination, and as a result, you may be missing out on your dream life. Your dream career and helping thousands and thousands of people solve that unique problem that you're looking to help them with.
You've got to give yourself the best chance possible of success, and that comes from dropping the perfectionism. I'm still working on this myself, by the way. I can't say that I've completely dropped it, but I've definitely lowered my standard. I'd say over the last, like, five years, my standard has been 10 out of 10.
But recently I've dropped it to like, I'm going to say an 8, where I'm doing 80 percent of the things that make the difference and leaving that last 20 percent unfinished, like extra b roll that could be added, more graphics, music, sound effects, and so on, that take all the time and have no reward associated with them.
I also feel like I have to add in this final point as a complete counterpoint to this podcast. Well, at least the part about video ideas needing to be perfect. And it's a quote from Mr. Beast, who has the number one YouTube channel on the entire platform. So he clearly knows exactly what he's talking about.
His approach is that ideas are absolutely everything. And if you don't find that He has a killer idea up front, you shouldn't even bother making the video, even if it's an 8 out of 10 idea, he only prioritizes the 10 out of 10 ideas that have the highest virality chance, and he will hyper focus on those and not make any smaller videos that have a chance of getting crickets.
So he's basically putting all the eggs in the ideas basket. And I do see a lot of merit to this because a good idea is all it takes to get your first video that hits a million views. And it might be better to focus on that one killer idea that does that. than 10 subpar ideas that might reach 5, 000 people, 50, 000 people, but nowhere beyond that.
And it's definitely a valid point and something worth considering. If you look at MrBeast's channel, so many of his videos are click worthy. You feel like, oh, I want to find out what's going to happen in this video. They're very high stakes, they're very funny, experimental, and they invoke a strong sense of curiosity from you.
So, I totally resonate with his message that you should really put ideas over everything, but as a new creator, I'd warn you against doing this because it feeds into that perfectionism mindset where in the back of your mind, you're going to use that as an excuse not to make a video because you haven't found that 10 out of 10 video idea.
And as a result, you may not ever make a single video until you have that. Quote unquote epiphany, which may never, ever come, whereas your time is better spent. In the meantime, practicing the process of making a video and getting momentum and understanding the whole workflow and giving yourself the confidence and good feelings that come from consistently posting videos to your channel.
So that's it for episode two of The Creator's Journey. I hope you got some inspiration from it, from my perfectionism journey, that unfortunately I went on and I didn't realize until eight years in that I was being a complete perfectionist with absolutely every aspect of my YouTube video production, and it was sabotaging me and burning me out.
I said no more at the start of this year. And since then, my videos have been so much simpler. And as a result, I think I've posted twice the amount of videos that I posted last year. So it's something I can absolutely advocate for. If you can relate to what I talked about in this episode, and you want to work with me one on one to overcome any challenges in your YouTube video production workflow.
Whether it's video ideas, technical production, or something else, I'm now offering one on one coaching. If you head to my website, benclaremont. com, which I'll link in the show notes, I've now opened up a few slots per week where I help new YouTube creators grow their channel as well as experienced creators overcome their biggest hurdles In growing and monetizing their channels.
So if you are looking to become a YouTuber and start a profitable business out of your channel, feel free to follow the link below. And I'd love to talk to you on a coaching call and help you achieve your goals. That's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. I wish you all the success in the world and happy creating.
