Hi Kate,
Thanks for reading and being honest with me. I’m honored that you would ask me for advice and I’ll do my best to help you create a framework that can help both me and you.
To be completely honest, I’ve been having trouble for the past few weeks with my writing as well. I don’t know if I’m burnt out or being lazy (most likely the latter), but I had decided to take some time off and reflect rather than try to grab at anything and write without actually thinking about what I want to share. Just wanted you to know that you inspired me to write and share my thoughts again with your kind words. :)
First, let’s start with a few questions that you can ask yourself. Try to be as honest as you can:
- How long you have been working on building your blog/youtube channel/creative endeavors? How much time did you give yourself to work on your craft, get better at writing, planning, editing, filming, storytelling? A month? 2 months? 3 months?
- What were your expectations when you started on this journey? Was your time table realistic? Were you expecting to explode onto the scene and reach/inspire/motivate thousands of people with your work? Were you expecting your videos to go viral and gain fame quickly and easily?
- What is your goal for this channel? Is it all about the views? Is it about the subscriber count? You say you love to produce and create videos. Is it truly because you love to create something that you think is valuable, beautiful, creative — a part of you that you want to share to the world? Or is it to feel good about yourself by having something to put on your life’s resume? Something you can tell your friends about, to show them how successful and creative you are? Something you can feel prideful about?
- What motivates you? Money? Status? Fame? Influence? Will you still create when no ones watching? Will you still create when no one cares? Will you put in the work and show up everyday even if everyone doubts you? Will you keep creating even when everyone rejects you?
- What will happen when you reach 100 subs? Why do you want to have 100 subs so badly? Why do you want to have 1000 subs? 10,000? What does it all mean? Wouldn’t it be much better if you had 10 loyal fans rather than 100 people who linger to see if there’s anything interesting and never care about you ever again? Creating your “tribe” or “community”, even if it is small, who love your work, interact with and support you is more important than having a bunch of random people who stop caring about you the moment you stop giving them what they care about.
Motivation is fickle. You don’t need more motivation. You need discipline. You need faith. That your hard work will be noticed. That your craft will be found by the people who truly care. That everything will work out in the end. And even if it doesn’t, who cares? You’ll know that you’ve done the best you can and you laid everything out on the table. No regrets.
Along the way, you’ll meet people you never expected to befriend, and opportunities that you never expected to encounter. “Success is a journey, not a destination”. You’ll realize that if your goal is to reach 1000 subscribers, your life won’t be different at all. Even if you reach a million subscribers, I bet you won’t feel the “euphoria” that you imagine you’d feel.
People are often more happy when thinking about something they want vs. when they actually get it. Try to remember the last item you ordered online. You looked at the tracking number online and waited for that item for so long. You craved the moment you opened that box and saw the item waiting for you, and you imagined how happy you’d be. Even the moments before you open the package, you’re excited to finally grasp it in your hands and call it yours. Then, as you take it out of the box and spend some time with it, your happiness peaks and its only downhill from there. Your life has not changed, even though you were so convinced that it would be.
You’ll realize that creating and producing was what made it all worth it, instead of seeing the number tick from 999 to 1000.
Adopt the mindset of IDGAFITDWOIJSUEDNMW — I Don’t Give A Fuck If This Doesn’t Work Out I’ll Just Show Up Every Day No Matter What. People won’t care about your work until you give them a reason to care. Cal Newport’s book title sums it up: “So Good They Can’t Ignore You”. Give yourself time to get better and try things out. This is your experimental phase. No one is watching, and no one is judging. Perfect, so you can screw up, fall on your face, make cringe inducing videos and copy other people’s ideas without an audience to disappoint.
If you think about it, the more you create now, the better you’ll be compared to the person who decides to start a year from now. You’ll know the nuances of your craft, you’ll be more comfortable with editing tools, you’ll have way more content and awareness. People will find you along the way, and some will choose to stick around and come along for the ride. Make sure you pay attention to them and keep them close.
If you’re going to compare, compare yourself to the person you were yesterday. If you’re 1% better than who you were yesterday, congratulations! Now aim to be 1% better than yourself today. Imagine if you tried to surpass yourself every single day. Now imagine 365 days later. You won’t even recognize yourself and certainly not the post you wrote on this day.
Don’t be discouraged. You are more courageous than most people in life. Many people don’t have the heart to face rejection and listen to their inner voice, the voice that pushes them to create, to bring your thoughts to life.
Keep going and keep doing what you love, everyday. If you’re chasing the subscriber count, the money, the fame or the glamorous life, your creative aspect will suffer. You won’t create what is true to you and what is important to you. You’ll simply chase after trends and fads, and you will soon start to treat your passion as a job, as a chore. You’ll pander to the crowd, and they’ll soon realize you are not being true to yourself and leave you.
So the message is basically: Don’t pay attention to the subscriber count — it means nothing. Show up and create something everyday. Challenge yourself and improve little by little. Give yourself time and don’t beat yourself up because you haven’t achieved something you “expected” to achieve by a certain time. If no one is watching your stuff, could it be the technical aspects? Learn how to create better thumbnails, better titles, better call to actions, better content… Have you tried ALL these things and find that you still fall short?
I would find that very hard to believe. :)
Good luck Kate! I will not wish you luck, but only suffering and hardships. Because you will grow and become stronger from those experiences, and because it will be the test to see if you are worthy of praise and adoration.
