Whether by choice or beyond your control, your podcast might have to go on a hiatus—and it could so long that the podcast seems dead! How do you come back from that and get back into your rhythm? It will take some work, but here are my recommendations (and what I'm practicing myself, too!).
1. Review your podcasting goals (your “why”)
Why do you really do your podcast? What P.R.O.F.I.T. (popularity, relationships, opportunities, fun, income, or tangibles) are you after for yourself? What about for your audience?
As you resurrect your podcast, you might need to consider adjusting your purpose and goals for your podcast. It's okay to go from business to fun, or fun to business! But what's most important is that you know why you're podcasting so that you can set appropriate goals, and then take the right steps toward those goals.
2. Treat your podcast return like a launch
Think about everything you had and did when you first started your podcast.
No matter how much you've lost due to your hiatus, you probably still have much more than when you first launched. You have more skills, more knowledge, more relationships, more tools (and probably higher quality, too), more resources, and yes, you even have more audience (you had zero when you first started)! Some people will keep your RSS feed for years, holding onto hope that you'll someday return. That's what I did with the Ask a Ninja video podcast (more about that later)!
Imagine if you had all the resources you have now but years ago! So you can treat your return almost like a launch with the same kind of enthusiasm, “media” blitz, promotion, sharing, asking friends and what audience you have to help, and more. But this time, you have a whole lot more of everything than you had before!
3. Use a podcast trailer to promote the return
If it fits into your timing—and maybe don't delay your return just for this—try to publish a “trailer” to promote the return of your podcast. Make it 1–3 minutes long, like a trailer, and make sure you actually set it as a “trailer” episode type in your podcast publishing tool. As a trailer, either don't use an episode number, or set its episode number to be the same as your next episode will be so that some apps can treat it as a trailer for that upcoming episode. And soon after you get into publishing again, you can remove the trailer from your podcast feed.
Instead of making the trailer about the past by apologizing for being gone or talking about what's happened during that time, focus on the present and—more importantly—the future. Why are you excited to resurrect the podcast? What are you eager to share in upcoming episodes? What might you be doing differently that your audience will appreciate?
You could even take this opportunity to adapt this trailer into your regular whole-show trailer that can be featured in podcast apps!
4. Lower your expectations
This one is a reality check; you'll need to lower your expectations.
Lower your expectations of your podcast's influence.
Lower your expectations of your audience's response.
And even lower your expectations of yourself.
Yes, you have a lot more knowledge and experience than before, but that doesn't mean you can just jump right back in and have all the same popularity, influence, audience, and even strengths and abilities as you did before. But you haven't lost everything!
Although Ask a Ninja did not return as a video podcast (so I can finally delete that RSS feed from my podcast app!), it did return!
Am I angry with Ask a Ninja for being gone for so long? No. Do I need to know what happened for all those years or why he wasn't doing the show? No. Am I just happy he's back? ABSOLUTELY! And do I mind that it's on YouTube instead of being a video podcast? No, not really, because I'm just happy it's back and I can look forward to being killed by him soon!
Speaking of ninjas, I train in karate, and I've taken two big breaks from karate, some of them lasting many, many years. After I returned from the first break, I had all the head knowledge of techniques, but not as much muscle memory and certainly not the same physical fitness. Because of that, I injured myself and had to take a break again. The second time I returned to karate, I took it much slower, pacing myself, understanding that my mind knew things my body couldn't do anymore—at least not yet without working back into it. And there was also a lot of stuff I forgot and it was really easy for me to mentally beat myself up for not remembering those things.
But with patience and intentional practice, recognize and accepting lower expectations of myself at that time, I did relearn things, and they started coming back to me. And then I was able to learn new things. And then I was ready to test for my second-degree black belt. But something happened at the test that I thought could happen, but I didn't actually expect.
And I'll tell you the rest of that story further down! (How's that for a tease?)
Apply these same principles to your podcast. Be honest with yourself that you might not be able to do as much as before, or maybe not even do it as good as before. But don't beat yourself up for that! You can work yourself back into the “rhythm” with intentional investment. It might be rough at first, but if you keep pushing yourself further and don't give up, you'll probably be back to your previous momentum and ready to grow again!
5. Don't apologize or explain in your regular episodes
I often encourage you to think how you can make your podcast and community timeless. Although it won't apply to all podcasts the same way, it's still a good practice to consider what will matter to your audience (new or returning) a year from now.
Consider podcast seasons for example. If the only reason you want to use seasons is so you can take a break every now and then, then you don't actually need seasons! Those season numbers won't mean anything to your audience, and a year from now, someone new playing your podcast won't care that you took a break a year ago.
And along with this, similar to the trailer but especially for your returning episodes, focus more on the present and future and less—or maybe even not at all—on the past. You don't have to apologize, you don't have to explain yourself or make excuses. Just prove yourself by making great content from then on!
If you really feel your audience wants or needs to know about the gap, save it for the end of the episode, or maybe even a detached temporary episode!
6. Make and follow a plan to keep going
Lastly, consider Sir Isaac Newton's first law of motion (or “the law of inertia”) that says an object at rest remains at rest, and an object in motion remains in motion. But what changes the state from one to the other is a force. For a aircraft to fly, it needs thrust. What causes a ball to eventually fall to the ground no matter how hard you throw it is gravity. And what causes even the best podcasters to retire (like Marc Maron) or podfade is when the energy they're putting into the podcast is not stronger than the forces against the podcast.
Before you bring your podcast back to life, you and your podcast were at rest. Now, you're trying to get it in motion, so it's going to take a force of energy from you to get it back in motion. And since there are a barrage of other forces that could slow its motion, you have to keep putting energy into it—more energy than the forces opposing it.
Let's go back to my karate example. I had to create a schedule to practice the karate I was relearning and especially new things I was trying to learn. I had to be disciplined to stick to that schedule. And that meant I had to fight against a lot of forces that would have kept me “at rest.” And in the beginning, it was hard! I suddenly felt my actual age. I could see how much less flexible I was. And my handy Apple Watch (which I didn't have years ago) could tell me how hard my heart was working and how long it took to recover (thanks for rubbing it in, Apple Watch!). But the more I kept pushing through, the easier it became. The shame and self-doubt I felt about my abilities began to be replaced with confidence and instinct. The “I should know this!” screaming in my head was replaced with “I know this now!” And then that was getting replaced with, “How can I make this better than ever before?”
So what happened at my black belt test? Patience, grasshopper!
If you're in that place of trying to restart a podcast you've let go dormant, you'll need more than just motivation. You need to put that motivation into a plan, and grow the discipline to stick with it!
With every podcast I've ever hosted, I saw the most growth, the most efficiency, and the easiest momentum when I scheduled my work and honored those appointments with my podcast. So actually put it on your calendar! Block out the time so you can focus and know that's the only thing you should be doing at that time instead of getting distracted. And saying “yes” again to your podcast will probably mean saying “no” to other things. That could be simple distractions like wasting less time scrolling social media. Or it could mean setting aside another hobby so you can refocus on this one. Or, maybe it's even time to delegate some of the tasks to smart tools or people (I can recommend a great podcast-production company if you're interested!). Just don't compromise your commitments to your faith, family, and work!
And after you get going strong again, it will take much stronger forces to knock you off your path!
And by the time I stood in front of a board of higher-ranking black belts, I knew I was ready. I had invested all the energy I could. I had practiced hard. I had sacrificed less important things. And I was ready to be tested. And even without knowing the results of the physically draining hours-long test, and with a rapidly beating heart and panting breath as I was told to step out of the room while my superiors discussed my performance, I was proud of giving it my best, and actually felt a whole lot more confident after the test than before that I might actually have done well enough to earn my promotion.
But I didn't get my second degree black belt.
Instead, they said my demonstrations of technique, power, application, and knowledge were above my level. And so they unanimously agreed to promote me not to second degree, but straight to third degree!
Deep down, I knew that could be possible, but I didn't dream of it. I only focused on doing the best I could with the work in front of me.
That's what it will take for you to bring your own podcast back to life—whether it's been on hiatus or you're just struggling to keep it going.
And that is also why I decided to review my own podcasting goals, push through my barriers, change my expectations, and shift my focuses so that I can come back to you!
As The Audacity to Podcast is celebrating its 15th anniversary (June 17), I'm not looking back, but looking forward to the years to come of continuing to give you the guts and teach you the tools to start and grow your own podcast for passion and PROFIT!
Supercharge your podcast engagement and grow your podcast!
Do you ever feel like your podcast is stuck? Like you're pouring your heart into your podcast but it seems like no one is listening?
Try Podgagement to help you supercharge your podcast endgagement!
Get speakable pages to simplify engaging with your audience, accept voicemail feedback (with automatic transcripts), see and share your ratings and reviews from nearly 200 places, follow your podcast rankings across nearly 34,000 global charts, discover networking opportunities, and more!
Ask your questions or share your feedback
- Comment on the show notes
- Leave a voicemail at (903) 231-2221
- Email feedback@TheAudacitytoPodcast.com (audio files welcome)
Follow The Audacity to Podcast
- Apple Podcasts, Spotify, other Android apps, or in your favorite podcast app.
- Subscribe on YouTube for Podcasting Videos by The Audacity to Podcast
- Follow @theDanielJLewis on X-Twitter
Disclosure
This post may contain links to products or services with which I have an affiliate relationship. I may receive compensation from your actions through such links. However, I don't let that corrupt my perspective and I don't recommend only affiliates.
Related Content
