Psychiatrist and YouTuber Dr. Tracey Marks Shares her BEST Strategies for Your Mental Health on YouTube: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 344
“There will be people who will have to say something negative, so just expect it, and welcome it.”
Be sure to check out my Free 2022 YouTube Goals Workbook! Inside you’ll find you’ll find an exercise that I do with my clients and in my Bootcamp that will help you stick with and achieve your goals on YouTube. The journaling and reflection exercises in the workbook have three different components that we’re going to focus on: money, lifestyle, and mindset, and will help align your life goals with your YouTube goals to help create the 2022 that YOU want.
Dr. Tracey Marks is a general and forensic psychiatrist of over 20 years whose mission is to increase mental health awareness and understanding by educating people on psychiatric disorders, mental well-being, and self-improvement. She believes that insight creates change, both on a micro-level (personal growth) and a macro-level (reduction in fear and social judgment). Dr. Marks produces educational videos on her YouTube channel, DrTraceyMarks.
Dr. Tracey Marks posted her first YouTube video around 2010, and had many “false starts” in the 8 years that followed. It wasn’t until 2018 where she started posting consistently, and has stayed consistent, posting one video a week, ever since. So why all the false starts? What scared her off? Haters, trolls, and negative comments. When it comes to YouTube, YOU are the product, and that can easily affect someone’s mental health. When your videos don’t do well, is it because people don’t like you? It’s easy to get caught up in negative comments, analytics, and comparison, but it doesn’t have to be that way.
Preserving Your Mental Health
So how do you preserve your mental health these days as a content creator? Take it from a psychiatrist: start with your why. The content you’re creating should have a bigger purpose than simply just making you famous or getting tons of views. If those are the things that drive you, then you won’t last long. Having a reason for creating content is what will keep you consistent and carry you through the ups and downs, and ebbs and flows of YouTube. For Dr. Marks, her “why” is creating a library of educational information that people can use that’s evergreen and not trending. And while there’s nothing wrong with creating trending content, it’s just not for her, and it doesn’t align with her mission.
Sometimes it’s easy for us to get caught up in the grind and the constant churning out of content, but it’s also important to have a work-life balance, and to take care of yourself. Learn how to disconnect and focus on what you can control, and try not to worry so much about the things you can’t control. It’s almost cliche, but it’s true. Accept that you can’t control some things, including the YouTube algorithm. It’s not you, it’s just the way it is.
Comparison is the Thief of Joy
This is something that almost everyone struggles with. It’s one thing to look at what people are doing and what’s trending so you can see what people are interested in, and there’s some utility in that, but it can be very destructive to your own path. It can be discouraging to see someone doing something similar to what you do, or something within your niche, and getting more views for it. You can’t control the algorithm, and trying to control it will deplete your creativity and enthusiasm. When you try to be like someone else and adopt their style because you want to grow like that, your heart isn’t totally in it because it’s not truly you, and that comes across to viewers. Chasing numbers is demoralizing and leads to burnout.
“There’s still a machine behind this that you can’t control.”
Dealing with Negativity
Admittedly, Dr. Marks’ skin has thickened over the years. She used to lash back out at her haters, but she eventually realized that she needed to be the bigger person and not react. Now she responds respectfully.
The bottom line is that there will always be people who want to knock you down, or at least feel like they are, in order to feel a win for themselves. Some people are just built to feel a loss when you experience a win. Some people can’t be happy for you when something good happens to you… they feel like they have lost something. There’s a scarcity mindset of goodness in the world. If other people have good things, that means they have less, so they feel like they need to even the score by hurtling insults and meanness in your direction. Just recognize that no matter what you do, or where you go, there will always be people like this and nothing you do will change them. Just move on and understand that you can’t make everyone happy, and that’s ok!
Final Thoughts
Dr. Marks’ biggest piece of advice is to listen to your audience! Once you start getting a cadre of people following you and giving you feedback in your comment section, be sure to build a community through interacting with them. Read and respond to your comments! Don’t ignore the people who took the time to say something to you. The more you interact with your audience, the more they will keep coming back to interact with you. It’s also a great way to get ideas of what to create, and what people like or don’t like (constructively, not the mean stuff). And of course, when the going gets tough, always revert back to your why. Stay focused on your mission and what you’re trying to do! For Dr. Marks, even if a video doesn’t perform as well as she’d hoped, all it takes is for her to see a few comments from people say how much they enjoyed the video or learned something from it that makes it all worthwhile!
Dr. Marks has been able to grow her YouTube channel successfully while still maintaining a solo private practice AND she wrote a book! By sticking to her mission, staying consistent (hasn’t missed a week in over 4 years!), growing thick skin, and building and interacting with her community, she’s not only grown her successful channel, but she’s really realized the power of YouTube and all the opportunities that have come her way as a result of it. Her ability to break down complex topics so that it’s easily understandable and palatable for a large audience has resonated with so many. And as far as her journey, Dr. Marks said she wouldn’t have changed a single thing about it.
“The content you’re creating should have a bigger purpose than making you famous or getting tons of views… if those are the things that drive you, then you won’t last long.”
Mentioned in the Episode:
Pre-Order Dr. Marks’ new book!
Skin Picking and Hair Pulling Explained. What are Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors?
Why People with ADHD Procrastinate
Why Am I So Anxious? Here’s the Answer
10 Things NOT to Say to Your LGBTQ Child
Connect with Dr. Tracey Marks
Resources
Add your name to the Zero to Influence YouTube Bootcamp waitlist so you are notified when space becomes available!
Watch my replay of my FREE Zero to 100k Subscribers Masterclass
FREE GUIDES:
Creating Content During Crisis: How to Create Impactful Content During COVID-19 Pandemic
Getting Started on YouTube: YouTube Niche Workbook
How to get onto PR lists and receive a TON of free product even if you have a small following: PR List
YOUTUBE OPTIMIZATION PLUG-IN I RECOMMEND
TubeBuddy [Use the code ErikasBuddy to get 20% off]
MY FAVORITE BUSINESS TOOLS
Course Creation: Looking to create a course? Kajabi is the BEST platform hands down. I use this for my course after extensive research on all the other platforms.
Live Calls and Interviews: I use Ecamm for my podcast interviews, both audio and for YouTube that you see here on YouTube. It makes it super easy to share my screen and create the split-screen with my guest. I’m not super techie and this software is really easy to use!
Webinars and Live calls: I use Zoom.us for my group coaching calls in my private membership group for female YouTube creators. It’s also the software I use to record my Road to 100k YouTube Subscribers Masterclass!
THE BEST YOUTUBE/PODCASTING EQUIPMENT
After interviewing HUNDREDS of successful YouTube creators, these are the pieces of equipment that hands down get mentioned time and time again. You can’t go wrong with anything on this list!
- 4k Camera: Great for starting out and vlogging
- Lens: This lens is recommended highly by many of my podcast guests, it gives the blurry “YouTuber” background look.
- Audio: If you want to upgrade your set-up, audio should be one of the first investments (after a good camera). This microphone is unanimously the favorite amongst my podcast guests.
- Podcast/Voiceover Microphone: If you are looking for a great microphone for a podcast or video voiceover, this is it! This is the one that you see in all of my videos and the one I’ve recorded my podcast on for years.
- Webcam: For my interviews, that you see in my videos, this is the webcam that I use. Super inexpensive and easy to set up!
- Inexpensive Lighting Kit: Need to pick up some lights but don’t want to spend a ton? This is a great set that will get you started and help improve the look of your videos.
- Ring light: Looking for that beauty look? Invest in a ring light! This is an inexpensive light that does that trick!
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