You miss one blog. Or a couple of social posts. Or that thing you promised yourself you were definitely going to do every week.
And suddenly your brain has gone from ‘I missed a week’ to ‘Well, that’s it then. I’m clearly incapable of being consistent.’
But after talking to my friend and counsellor Sarah Dosanjh about our own recent wobbles with consistency, I’m starting to think we might be looking at it all wrong...
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You’d think that after creating 260 podcast episodes, I’d have this consistency thing sorted, wouldn’t you?
You’d also think that my friend Sarah Dosanjh, aka The Binge Eating Therapist, who has been creating YouTube videos for roughly as long as I’ve been podcasting, would have it sorted too. (If you haven't met Sarah before, she's an experienced psychotherapist, author and trainer, as well as a prolific content creator, who knows a fair bit about both running a business and putting useful information out into the world.)
And actually, we sort of have.
Except recently, we’ve both missed some of our usual publishing dates.
So when we realised this, we started talking about how it had made us feel. And because Sarah and I can rarely have a conversation without it turning into something we want to explore further, I invited her onto the podcast so we could talk about it properly.
Because consistency sounds as though it should be quite simple, doesn’t it? Decide you’re going to write a blog every month, record a podcast every week, post on LinkedIn twice a week or whatever it is you’ve chosen to do, and then... do it.
Easy.
Until you’re busy. Or tired. Or in a heatwave. Or your dog is poorly. Or you have no idea what to write about. Or you simply don’t feel like it!
And that’s when consistency starts to get a little more interesting.
What’s really motivating you to create content?
Something Sarah said quite early in our conversation really struck me. We can have this idea that eventually we'll somehow arrive with our marketing. We'll do enough, get enough clients, become successful enough and then, presumably, put our feet up and admire our handiwork.
Except it doesn't really work like that.
As Sarah said:
‘If we’re not in a place where we can be motivated by the process, we’re going to have a really hard time sticking at it.’
And I think that's such an important point.
Sarah started her YouTube channel when she was writing her book. She didn’t set herself a target of thousands of subscribers or decide she was going to become A YouTuber and do it forever. She decided she would make one video every week for a year and then see how she felt.
I love that approach because she wasn’t committing herself to spending the rest of her natural life making a YouTube video every Thursday. She was experimenting.
And I think we can forget that we’re allowed to do that with marketing.
Try something. Give it a proper go. Learn how to do it and notice how you feel about it. You might discover you love writing. You might find that once you get over the horror of seeing your own face on screen, you actually really enjoy making videos. You might start a podcast and still be doing it 260 episodes later.
Or you might discover that you hate making Reels with every fibre of your being.
In which case, perhaps don't build your entire marketing strategy around making Reels.
What if you actually enjoyed creating your content?
This was something Sarah talked about a lot, and I really liked the way she described creating content as a form of self-expression.
Because there’s a big difference between sitting down thinking, ‘Oh God, I need to get a blog out because I need more clients’ and having something you genuinely want to say.
Sarah talked about a friend who had become completely fed up with Instagram because she felt under constant pressure to create. After taking a break, she started a new account where she talked about something she was genuinely interested in and connected with. The whole thing felt different.
As Sarah put it:
‘When we talk about something we’re interested in or we care about, something gets communicated in that.’
And no, that doesn't mean you have to start sharing the intimate details of your life with the internet.
We talked about this too, because I know it's something counsellors can be particularly uncomfortable with. Sarah made the point that being authentic doesn't necessarily mean being personal. You could be a psychodynamic counsellor who absolutely lights up when talking about attachment, for example. That's the bit of you people can connect with.
It’s your interest. Your way of explaining it. Your thoughts about it.
You don't have to tell them what you had for breakfast.
Creating content isn’t just about getting more clients
This is where our conversation went in a direction I found really interesting, because we started listing all the things we’ve got from creating content over the years.
Obviously, there’s the business reason. I want people to find me, get to know me and think, ‘Yep, I like how Jane thinks. She might be the person I want to work with.’ And if you’re a counsellor, you want the right people to find your website, read or listen to something you’ve created and start to get a feeling for whether you might be right for them.
But that's only one part of it.
Sarah said something I hadn't really thought about before: she believes creating her videos could almost be considered CPD because of how much she has developed through making them.
'Every time I take a therapeutic idea, think about it, break it down and work out how to explain it to somebody else, I'm learning too.'
Then there’s the creative side of it. I love thinking of stories, making connections and finding different ways to explain things. I like taking something that sounds very therapy-y and turning it into something that makes somebody think, ‘Oh! Is THAT why I do that?’
And Sarah made another really useful point here. You don't have to come up with something earth-shatteringly original every time.
Sometimes people need to hear the same thing more than once. They might have heard something six months ago and then hear you explain it today, in your way, at exactly the point when they're ready to take it in.
Then there’s SEO. Every useful blog you add to your website gives Google a little more information about what you do and who you work with. Not the sexiest reason to sit down and write something, admittedly, but a useful one.
And over time, you build this enormous library of your work. Sarah has years of videos sitting on YouTube. I have hundreds of podcast episodes and blogs. People can find something we created years ago and it can still help them today.
As Sarah said, when somebody finds you and sees that body of work:
‘I think it gives you a certain amount of credibility... I’d get a sense of them through that.’
And THAT is incredibly important when someone is deciding whether you might be the counsellor they want to contact.
And what happens when you stop?
This was the bit of our conversation that I really wanted to get into because, when I missed a podcast recently, I felt guilty.
Which is a little ridiculous when you consider I’ve been creating content to support counsellors with their private practice marketing for years, and there were already more than 260 podcast episodes sitting there for people to listen to.
But consistency had become something I was proud of. I’ve never really thought of myself as a particularly consistent person, so there was something about being able to say, ‘Look! I’ve kept doing this!’ that meant quite a lot to me.
So when I missed one, my brain didn’t just go, ‘Never mind, Jane, you’ve got quite a lot going on at the moment.’
Oh no.
It went straight to, ‘IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END?’
And this is where Sarah and I discovered that although we'd both had similar feelings, they weren't quite the same.
Sarah didn't feel guilty.
Her first thought was:
‘Is the algorithm going to punish me for this?’
Sarah talked about having an old belief that she was an inconsistent person, and when she recently missed two weeks of making videos, she found herself wondering whether she'd be able to get going again.
‘What if I can never do this again?’
YES!
That was it.
One missed blog becomes ‘I’m rubbish at consistency.’ A couple of weeks away from social media becomes ‘I’ve completely disappeared and everyone has forgotten I exist.’ Something that is actually just a small break suddenly becomes evidence that we’ve failed.
But what about everything you did before the break?
It hasn’t disappeared.
And that was one of the things this conversation reminded me of. Consistency doesn’t have to mean never missing a week. It can mean finding something you enjoy enough, believe in enough and get enough from that you want to come back to it.
That feels very different.
Sarah and I talked about all sorts in this episode: finding a type of marketing you actually enjoy, creativity, authenticity, whether counsellors need to share personal information to be themselves in their marketing, building a body of work, SEO, routines, guilt, algorithms and why knowing your reasons for creating content can make it so much easier to keep going.
We also discovered that Thursday mornings are apparently a ‘no Jane’ zone for Sarah because that’s when she creates her YouTube videos.
Rude.
And there’s a story involving Sarah writing her dissertation in a Wetherspoons with £1.49 unlimited coffee, which frankly is worth listening for on its own.
So if you’ve ever beaten yourself up because you haven’t been as consistent with your marketing as you think you should be, come and listen to our conversation.
Because perhaps you don’t need to get better at forcing yourself to keep going.
Perhaps you need a few more reasons to want to.
About Sarah Dosanjh
Sarah Dosanjh is a psychotherapist and author of the bestselling book I Can’t Stop Eating, which is now also available on Audible.
After her own recovery from binge eating disorder she has gone on to specialise in helping others do the same.
And she's a busy women! She has recently trained to be an ADHD coach, and will receive her accreditation soon. She's appeared on various media outlets such as BBC Breakfast, Sky’s Roundtable and BBC Radio One, as well as amassing over 3 million views on YouTube.
AND she has an online course starting soon:
Wired to Binge? A 6-week ADHD & Binge Eating Recovery Course 9th September – 14th October 2026
This is a six-week live online programme exploring the connection between ADHD and out-of-control eating.
Connect with Sarah:
YouTube
Instagram
Facebook
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