When podcasting came along in 2004, and social media was still in its infancy, my motivation to share was strong. For several years, I was creating and posting new content at a furious rate.
However, in the past couple of years, the motivation I once felt has been on a sharp decline. I’ve been wondering, did something happen to cause me to stop caring? Was I running out of energy? What was the deal?
Lately, I’ve been toying with the theory that people have a fixed amount of sharing capacity, and once that is used up, the motivation drops off. To back this idea up, there have been plenty of people that had a large online presence that at some point simply seemed to run out of gas and ended up dropping off. This pattern seems to be common, whether it is with a large percentage of podcasters, or just people posting stuff on platforms such as Twitter or Facebook.
With me, motivation is everything. I find that if I am motivated to learn something and/or do something, I can bore right through to the center of whatever it is and make it happen. However, if I’m not motivated, I might as well forget it. I cannot force myself to do something that I lack natural interest in or motivation for.
So, this is the best answer I’ve come up with so far. I am currently tapped out when it comes to the motivation to create and share content online.
Will this lack of motivation to share continue? Would it return if I found myself in a different personal situation, such as when I retire? These are questions I currently have no answers for.