What to Post After You’ve Found Your Purpose (But Still Feel Stuck)
Last week on the blog, I talked about why you don’t need to ‘niche down’ in order to grow on social media. I shared how I grew my audience not by sticking to one topic, but by rooting everything I post in a deeper purpose. A niche can feel like a box, but a purpose gives you room to move. It gives you direction without limiting your expression. It’s what keeps all your content pointing toward a common goal, even when it looks different on the surface.
But here’s the surprising part.
Finding your purpose doesn’t always make posting easier — at least not right away. Sometimes, it makes it harder. Because now, there’s this pressure to make everything mean something. To have every post perfectly reflect the mission you’ve named. And in trying to serve that purpose… you start to erase yourself in the process.That’s the real danger, and what we want to avoid at all costs.
I was recently on a call with a group of students inside my program, Personal Brand Accelerator, and one student said something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. She told us she had months of content she hadn’t shared: clips from a bachelorette weekend, little moments with her friends — because none of it felt like it “fit” with what she was trying to build as a yoga teacher. She felt it wasn’t intentional enough because it didn’t speak to her deeper mission.
And I told her, I’ve been there.
On a recent trip to Cabo, I found myself having the same internal debate, wondering:
Should I post this?
Does this “count” towards my purpose?
What does a pool day or a makeup video have to do with my work as a writer?
As a business owner?
But what we arrived at on that call was something I keep coming back to:
People might follow you because they’re inspired by your purpose — especially if it’s clear, compelling, and easy to understand. But most of the time, that’s not what pulls them in. They follow you because they feel something when they watch your content. Because they’re curious, intrigued, or moved by a moment you shared.
Purpose helps people stay.
But it’s your humanity that makes them stop scrolling in the first place.
If you get too focused on proving your purpose, you stop allowing yourself to create anything that doesn’t overtly serve it. And what once felt like clarity… starts to feel like constriction.
So what should you post once you’ve found your purpose — but still feel stuck?
Let’s break it down.
TL;DR: What to Post After You’ve Found Your Purpose (But Still Feel Stuck)
Finding your purpose can add pressure. Suddenly every post feels like it has to “mean something.”
If you’re not careful, that clarity turns into self-censorship. You start erasing the parts of you that don’t feel “on brand.”
Your pillar content (1–2x per week) should reflect your core message, values, or offer. That’s where your purpose lives loudest.
Everything else? That’s where your humanity comes through, and where real connection happens.
Your audience doesn’t need you to be consistent in tone; they need you to be consistent in truth.
The real magic is when your everyday moments naturally reflect your purpose — not because you planned it, but because it’s already in you.
You are the niche. Your life is the strategy.
Don’t force cohesion. Just keep telling the truth, and trust that the story will hold.
What Is Pillar Content — and Why You Only Need One or Two Per Week
When people talk about purpose-driven content, they usually picture the big stuff. The well-thought-out newsletter, the beautifully edited video essay, the story post that makes people cry, or click. These are what I call pillar pieces of content. Usually these pieces take longer to make, and they often reflect your core message, deeper mission, or something you want to be known for.
Think:
A Substack essay
A voiceover Reel or TikTok with a personal story
A long-form LinkedIn post or carousel that unpacks a big idea
Pillar pieces of content are important, even essential. And ideally, you’re putting out one or two of them each week.
But here’s where a lot of people get stuck: they assume that every post needs to hit that same caliber. That every moment of visibility has to prove your value. That you can’t post something casual or light unless it ties back to a bigger message.
That’s just not true.
In fact, the trick is to let your pillar content be where your purpose lives loudest, and then use everything else to support, reflect, or simply humanize that message.
And this is where we can actually learn something from influencers:
Most of us aren’t running our content like a perfectly mapped-out editorial calendar. We’re using our life as the source material. We’re sharing what’s real, what’s happening, what moved us that day.
So yes, have a couple of pillar pieces go out each week — but then look around your life, pull from your camera roll, notice the small moments and let them fill in the rest. You don’t need to be profound every day. You just need to be present.
No, You Won’t Confuse People by Sharing More Than One Thing
Another fear that comes up a lot: “If I post something that’s not tied to my purpose, I’ll confuse people.” But here’s the thing, confusion isn’t always a bad thing. Sometimes, it’s exactly what keeps people watching. Letting your audience wonder more about you, keeping them on their toes, isn't a bad strategy. It’s magnetism. It’s curiosity. It’s what keeps people watching your content.
And here’s the truth: if you’re consistently posting your pillar content – the stuff that clearly communicates your values, your mission, or your offer – you have nothing to worry about. You’ve already made it easy for people to understand what you do. And once that’s in place, you have room to ‘play.’
If you're a realtor, post your makeup routine.
If you're a strategist, share your outfits.
If you're a coach, show us your Sunday dinner or the weird corner of your notes app.
These posts don’t water down your brand, they deepen it. They give people more reasons to connect with you. In other words, if there’s something you genuinely enjoy, something you’d post even if no one saw it, throw it in the mix. This is not a permanent shift, nor is it a new niche. It’s an experiment. And the more freedom you give yourself to explore, to play, the more magnetic your content becomes.
Examples of Pillar Content
My Substack newsletter, shared every Thursday
Voiceover Reels paired with my writing
This blog post!
Examples of Human-Centered Content (Stuff I Post Just for Fun!)
Letting TikTok vote on my wedding guest dress
Voiceovers from our home renovation while reflecting on the past
Dinner with Trevor, filmed on a springtime afternoon
When You Are the Niche, You Don’t Have to Go Searching For It
Here’s the paradox: When you give yourself permission to create what’s actually emerging — the unfiltered, unstrategized, “this doesn’t really make sense but I want to post it anyway” kind of content — the pressure lifts. The fear starts to subside. You stop second-guessing every post. And then something wild happens: Your content still reflects your purpose. Not because you forced it to, but because it’s already in you.
When you’re someone who’s connected to something real, something that matters to you, your life naturally starts to mirror that. So even when you're posting something playful or seemingly random, the deeper themes still shine through.
I see this in my own content all the time.
A video about getting dressed becomes a reflection on what I’m getting dressed for, and how that ties back to my work as a personal brand coach.
A quiet moment with my husband holds the weight of everything it took to get here — from moving across the country to settling in Boston — which ties back into the story I tell in my memoir, Lonely Girl.
A walk with my dog, Laurence, turned into a video about the purpose behind PBA Summer School, and what inspired me to create a space for people to commit to one project for the season.
None of that content was planned. I didn’t start filming with the intention of tying those posts back into my work. I was just being honest. And when I was honest, my purpose showed up anyway — waiting for me in the moments I almost didn’t share.
You are the through line. A through line is what connects your story from one scene to the next. It’s the underlying message a body of work is trying to convey, even if it’s never said outright. It’s not always loud. It usually doesn’t announce itself. But it’s there, quietly stitching the pieces together. Every great body of work has one. And when you let yourself create honestly, yours will reveal itself, too.
That’s what authenticity really is.
It’s not about forcing cohesion or chasing perfect consistency, but telling the truth in each moment and trusting that something deeper will hold it all together. You don’t have to know exactly what you’re building in order to start. You just have to be willing to be seen, as you are, while it unfolds.
Say what you mean. Post what you’re drawn to. Let the real you come through, even when it’s messy or misaligned or not what you originally planned. And the more you trust yourself, the better your content performs. Not because you hacked the algorithm, but because you finally stopped trying to be perfect, and started being real.
If you’re ready to stop overthinking every post and start building a brand that reflects all of you — your purpose, your creativity, your real life — that’s exactly what we do inside Personal Brand Accelerator. It’s not always about getting louder. It’s about getting clearer. And building something honest, consistent, and undeniably you.
