How to Grow When You Already Have an Audience (But You Still Feel Stuck)
Maybe you’ve had success on social media. You’ve built something real, something you’re proud of. But lately, you can’t shake the feeling that something’s off. You’re still creating, still showing up, still growing in small ways, yet it doesn’t feel the same. The spark that used to light you up isn’t as bright. You start to wonder: Am I creating the wrong things? Did I lose my touch? Why does it all feel harder now?
That feeling doesn’t mean you’re doing anything wrong. It usually means you’re evolving. Now, you’re being asked to stretch, to outgrow the old formulas, and to create from a deeper place. Here are some action steps you can take to move forward with clarity and confidence.
1. Reflect on What’s Actually Been Working
When you hit a plateau, it’s natural to focus on what’s not working. But before you change everything, pause and look at what has.
For me, that thing was my voiceover videos. These short, 60-second stories paired with cinematic clips told emotional stories about change, beauty, and reflection, and they completely transformed my career. For years, I thought repeating that exact formula was the key to my continued growth online.
But over time, I realized it wasn’t the format that connected with people; it was the feeling underneath it. What people responded to was the emotion — the tenderness, the introspection, the beauty that reminded them of something true in their own lives. Once I understood that, I stopped trying to replicate the format and began focusing on recreating the feeling in new ways.
2. Focus on Emotion, Not Format
When you understand the emotional core of your work, you realize it can take on many different forms. The same feeling can live inside a photo carousel with text and music, a direct-to-camera story, or a written reflection like this one.
The question becomes less about what kind of content to make and more about how you want people to feel when they experience it. That shift from strategy to sentiment changes everything. It opens the door to experimentation, and with it, longevity.
3. When Your Style Becomes a Trap
It takes years to find your creative style, but once you do, it can start to confine you. For a long time, I believed my only path to growth was through deep, emotional storytelling because that was what my audience expected from me. But staying in that lane too long started to feel limiting.
I realized I couldn’t always create from that place of emotional depth, and when I tried to, my work began to feel forced. My audience could feel that too. So I started to experiment. I shared my outfits of the day, made more casual talking-to-camera videos, and filmed small, ordinary moments without needing to attach a grand lesson to them.
At first, it felt clumsy and uncomfortable. I’d been creating content for nearly a decade, and suddenly I was a beginner again. But that’s what growth looks like: it’s a willingness to be awkward, to try something new, and to create with a spirit of curiosity rather than trying to control the outcome.
Note: Experimenting doesn’t mean abandoning what’s working. It simply means expanding what you think is possible for yourself. Keep using the strategies that brought you here, but allow yourself to explore new dimensions of your creative process. The work that feels the most alive to you will feel alive to your audience too.
4. Redefine What Growth Means
At some point, you have to set a new goal for your work, one that aligns with who you are now. For a long time, my goals were about numbers: followers, revenue, visibility. But as I’ve grown, my goals have become more creative.
Now, I’m focused on becoming a master of my craft, continuing to refine what’s already working, and exploring new ways to talk about my book and business without compromising my values. I want to market creatively, build trust naturally, and preserve the fun in the process.
When I focus too much on metrics, I lose sight of why I started creating in the first place. But when I focus on the process — on making something beautiful, meaningful, or simply enjoyable — the joy returns, and that joy is what ultimately makes real, sustainable growth possible.
5. Let Growth Be Expansion, Not Pressure
If you already have an audience but still feel like something’s missing, maybe the answer isn’t to do more but to do differently. Growth doesn’t always mean scaling; sometimes it means deepening. It’s about allowing your work to evolve alongside you, to shift and take new shapes as you do.
Keep what’s working. Add what’s new. Follow what feels interesting, even if it’s uncomfortable at first. And most importantly, don’t lose sight of why you began — because it brought you joy, because it helped you make sense of your life, because it allowed you to connect with others.
That’s the kind of growth that lasts.
Want to keep growing online?
If you’re in a season of creative evolution and want support finding your next direction, I built Personal Brand Accelerator for moments exactly like this. Inside PBA, we help creators and entrepreneurs refine their voice, tell better stories, and design a brand that evolves with them—not against them.
You’ll find live workshops, feedback on your content, and a community of people who truly get what it means to grow online with heart and intention.
Join PBA today and start creating from a place that feels alive again. You can begin with a free trial, no strings attached.
