A Sustainable Substack
How to be successful and not kill yourself in the process
Most of my work is devoted to leveraging assets and growing fast, so I’m so excited to welcome Satya Robyn today who focuses on slow growth success. I’ve learned so much from their publication.
If you’re new here, I wrote a free 50,000-word guide about building a world-class substack from scratch and growing it into a success.
I recommend reading When to burn it all down and how to rise from the ashes, How to survive as a writer in a capitalist dystopia, and Is it even possible to be a writer AND happy at the same time? to help round out this article.
If you are not a paid member, you can read everything with a 7-day free trial, or give us a one-time tip.
I made $50,000 more last year than any other year in my whole career, and I nearly had a nervous breakdown.
I met
several months ago and fell in love with their writing immediately. They were the first writer I came across in the slow-growth movement. As you can probably guess, I’m more from the Ricky Bobby school of business growth.
After enough years of that, it almost killed me. Literally. While I won’t say that I am a slow-growth convert, I definitely do way fewer things now with more leverage than I ever have before. Satya’s work has helped me a lot and I am so happy to welcome them today. If you want to learn how to define success that works for you without flaming out in a ball of fire, then I highly recommend their work. Here is one of my favorite recent posts they wrote.
Is it possible to grow a thriving and successful Substack whilst staying true to your values, feeling good about yourself and your writing, and not burning out?
I’ve been carrying this question with me all year. I started my Substack in January with 600 subscribers from an old mailing list, and recently I received a ‘Bestseller’ badge because I have hundreds of paid subscribers. I love writing here on Substack, and I love my readers. I am getting paid for my writing (not a huge amount, but not nothing!) and next year I am hoping to double this.
So far so good - what’s the problem? The problem is that my Substack is called Going Gently, and I write about how we can ease up from working ourselves into exhaustion. A few times this year I have teetered into feeling overwhelmed by my Substack commitments. I would rather not tip myself into burnout through writing about living more gently! Is it possible to write a bestselling Substack in a gentle and sustainable way?
My answer so far is: yes. In this piece and the others that follow I will share my learning with you. If you stir my suggestions in with Russell’s excellent and comprehensive advice on growth and the wisdom of the other writers he’ll feature here at The Author Stack, you’ll end up with the perfect do-it-yourself grow-your-own-Substack recipe!
What leads to overwhelm?
If I think back to my times of Substack overwhelm, there are a few themes that stand out. I often felt overwhelmed when I bit off more than I could chew, setting writing schedules for myself that were doable but only just. I felt bad when I compared myself too much to other writers, especially successful ones. I felt discouraged when I had hopes for particular pieces (i.e. that they would be the most popular thing ever, or that they would bring in hordes of new paid subscribers) and things didn’t turn out that way. I also sometimes questioned whether my writing was worth paying for, and worried about whether I was annoying my readers by pestering them with invitations to subscribe.
Before we move on to my suggestions, I’m going to invite you to get curious about what pushes you out of balance here on Substack. This will tune you into what your particular needs are right now, and what you might be able to do to help. In what ways are you overdoing it? What feels uncomfortable about your Substack work? How sustainable is your writing practice? How are you feeling about the work you do to promote your writing? Maybe write a few notes before you continue, and if any ideas occur to you as you read, jot them down too. Let’s go!
⭐ What is sustainable for you right now?
This is the most important question for me, with extra emphasis on the last few words. It can be helpful to look at what other people are offering, but they be in very different circumstances to you - they may have Substack as their full-time job, they may not have caring responsibilities, they may be quicker writers than you, they may be happy to work 13 hour days and weekends…
How would YOU like your writing to fit into your life in the long term? You might be willing to put in extra work at the beginning or for short periods of time, but what feels doable on an ordinary week, when the fridge breaks and you don’t feel that great and your father-in-law comes for a surprise visit?
Start with what feels very doable, take a little bit away (because life always gets in the way, especially of writing), and you have your schedule!
⭐ How can you encourage yourself?
Writing is a difficult enough thing to engage with, even without the added pressure of growing your subscriber list or selling your writing. Also, writers can be delicate creatures 😉 Our sensitivity and empathy help us to do a great job of writing, but those qualities can also make it difficult to withstand the bruises and rejections that are an integral part of putting our writing out into the world.
A good antidote to this is to get better at encouraging ourselves.
Do you save the positive feedback you receive to look back at when you need to?
Do you take into account all the difficulties involved in writing in a sustained way, and praise yourself for what you manage to do?
Do you appreciate how hard all the different parts of you are working, including the ones that give you a break by getting you to scroll on Notes?
Do you treasure the importance of speaking your truth, regardless of how your writing is received or what the numbers say?
⭐ How can you keep the focus on yourself?
Do you ever find yourself feeling jealous of other writers or judging yourself unfavorably in comparison to them? Me too! This is perfectly natural, and, it can distract us from focussing on our own work. It can also make us feel really bad. Try to notice when you fall into this trap and slowly back away… You might also want to read this piece I wrote about envy.
⭐ How can you remind yourself that you’re not alone?
It helps to remember that we’re not the only ones feeling a particular way. Are there any writers that help you to feel understood? Read them! Is there anyone you could talk to about your Substack struggles? Talk to them! Write in your journal, connect with nature, or do whatever helps you to feel plugged into something bigger.
⭐ How can you continue to make adjustments over time?
We Buddhists talk about impermanence all the time - everything changes, and that includes us and the world around us. A schedule that was working just fine for us last month may need tweaking because our energy levels have just inexplicably dropped or because we’ve needed to take on extra shifts at our day job. Maybe we get an extra burst of inspiration, and we want to put off doing our taxes so we can spend all day writing. Maybe we decide that something we “should” do just doesn’t work for us, and so we stop doing it. Rather than seeing yourself as having ‘failed’ if you change your mind, see it as an important and crucial part of evolving.
Maybe that’s enough to be getting on with. You might want to pause and revisit your own particular issues with sustainable writing.
Does anything from my list above give you a new approach?
Are there a few things you’d like to implement to help keep you in balance or bring you back into balance?
I’d love it if you could share these actions (even just one) in the comments. Do feel free to ask me any questions, and do share any advice you have from your own experience of sustainable writing.
I will continue to learn about writing sustainably, just as I’m still learning to live more gently. I think that we’re all works in progress. And, these days I recognize when I’m out of balance much more quickly, and I know what to do about it. Wherever you are on your Substack journey, let’s support each other along the way. Let’s also remember that being a writer and having readers is a great privilege. The more we can enjoy it, the happier we will all be!
Go gently,
Satya <3
Satya Robyn (she/her) writes Going Gently for folks who sometimes push too hard and who want to ease up and enjoy everything more. She is also a psychotherapist using Internal Family Systems, and she runs the Bright Earth Buddhist temple alongside her spouse Kaspa (they/them). Her current eco-activism project is at Daily Earth Prayer. She is totally under the thumb of her two little dogs Aiko and Ralph, and she enjoys good vegan chocolate, meditating outside and reading trashy detective novels.
If you enjoyed that one, I can’t recommend Going Gently enough. Here’s another one I really enjoyed.
If you liked that article, consider becoming a paid member to help support future articles like this one.
If you’re new here, I wrote a free 50,000-word guide about building a world-class substack from scratch and growing it into a success.
I recommend reading When to burn it all down and how to rise from the ashes, How to survive as a writer in a capitalist dystopia, and Is it even possible to be a writer AND happy at the same time? to help round out this article.
If you are not a paid member, you can read everything with a 7-day free trial, or give us a one-time tip.
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Such a good post. So many writers struggle with how to grow their Substack... without losing their mind.
I've shared the link to this post in the Substack reddit. I think it will resonate with a lot of writers there.
As someone with chronic health issues and up and down energy, I don't have any choice but to go gently. My health has to be my priority as I don't know how I will feel one day to the next. Substack is the one place I feel I can grow sustainably while being authentic. 😁