Adopting a 10,000 ft viewpoint
How to avoid getting stuck in the weeds of content creation.
Gary Bloomer | SHAKING THE TREE # 202
Ever found yourself mired in trivia, wasting time fretting about minutiae?
I have.
Many content creators can relate.
Perhaps you’re one of them?
If you’ve ever been overly obsessed with subscriber counts, post likes, comments, and shares—if you’ve gone back again and again to tweak a headlines, edit a piece of text or a video, or if you’ve ever been prone to panic when an article flops because you’re comparing your beginning with someone else’s midpoint—YOU ARE NOT ALONE!
Many of us are so close to our work that we miss what is perhaps the most important truth about content creation: real success isn’t about our individual posts—it’s about our trajectory.
Trajectory refers to your state of mind as to where you are NOW compared to where you will be six months, or a year, or (and better yet), where you will be TWO YEARS or even FIVE YEARS from now.
To truly see things at this scale you need to pull all the way back from the small stuff you’re currently facing. You need to widen your perspective and view things in terms of years rather than hours or days.
Why?
Because when we look at things close to us we lose sight of the fact that at this level we are all ants walking across a sprawling city sidewalk.
At this scale every:
crack in the concrete is an uncrossable canyon.
pebble is a huge boulder to climb over or navigate around.
puddle is Lake Superior.
Do you see how massive these small hurdles become when all we do is look at them from an ant’s perspective? And yet, an ant can lift what, five times its body weight?
The ant has no idea that just a few feet above it, that a totally different landscape is visible—the workarounds, the obstacles, the destination—they’re all that much smaller when viewed from a different vantage point.
At some point, most creators are or have been that ant. I know I’ve been guilty of this sort of thinking. And after a while, it gets … OLD.
When we’re hyper focused on the next post, the next algorithm tweak, the next dopamine hit of engagement we forget to stop in order to ask ourselves:
Where is this actually going?
What does success look like to me in six months, or in two years?
What am I really building here?
The solution is to get to 10,000 feet
From an altitude of 10,000 feet, everything changes.
Failure shrinks. A bad week, a flopped post, a quiet month—none of it matters in the long arc because in reality, it’s a small setback, something we’ll overcome, or work around, or that’ll be forgotten within a few days.
Patterns emerge. You begin seeing what’s working, what’s not working, what your followers and subscribers react to, and where the real opportunities for growth and expansion really lie.
The destination clarifies. By going higher and by widening our horizons we see farther and we become less apt to chase shiny objects and passing trends and we start building something enduring.
What you see from up there
Your "bad" content is meaningless
From ground level, a dud feels like disaster. But from 10,000 feet? It’s a blip. A single dud note in a shimmering symphony.
Consistency compounds
Most creators quit before the compounding effect of their efforts begins to register. From 10,000 feet you get a much better idea of how 200 posts over two years can create an enduring asset that 20 posts never could.
The competition thins out
Fortunately for you, and regardless of how many people start out, within a few months as many as 90% of your competing creators will either have quit or they’ll be slowing down and posting less and less material. The space isn’t crowded at the top—it’s empty.
Success is a state of mind
By constantly chasing vanity metrics (likes, shares, comments, etc.) you’ll never "arrive." Meanwhile, from way up high, you’ll be better equipped to see where you’ve come from, to see where you’re going, and to pick a direction that works for you. From up here, you won’t see obstacles (or, if you do, you’ll see ways around them), so you’ll see more of the path.
How to stay at 10,000 feet
Review your efforts quarterly rather than daily. Stop checking your stats every hour. Zoom out. Look around rather than down.
Focus on your trajectory rather than your speed
Are you improving? Learning? Building momentum? That’s what matters.
Play the infinite game
Finite players focus on wins. Infinite players focus on staying in the game.
You’re here to create for years, not just days.
The invitation
Pull back.
Breathe.
Look around you at your work from 10,000 feet—where the fear of failure fades, the distractions vanish, and the path ahead becomes clearer.
The creators who thrive aren’t the ones sweating every post.
They’re the ones who see the horizon.
As always, thanks for reading.
—Gary
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P.S. Next time on Shaking the Tree … It’s never been easier to create content
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Originally from the U.K., Gary Bloomer is a writer, branding advocate, marketing specialist, and an award-winning graphic designer.
His design work has been included in Creative Review (one of the UK’s largest design magazines). Since 2009, he has answered over 5,000 marketing and business questions in the Know-How Exchange of MarketingProfs.com, placing him among the top 3% of contributors. He lives in Wilmington, Delaware, USA.
Thank you for the reminder to pull back, Gary. It is where I am most comfortable but too easily slip into the weeds and agonize about things that are simply not important. Great post!