Hi friends,
It's been a couple of weeks since I last wrote to you.
I hope you're enjoying the month of December. There’s a snowfall as I’m writing this newsletter, and even though I dislike the winter in Canada, I can’t help but appreciate its beauty.
Anyway, I've been so busy working on myself and re-strategizing my online presence that I decided to take a break from writing here. But I'm happy to share that I *finally* got my first 1K subs on YouTube (yay!), and I've been less obsessed about it.
The less I obsess over YouTube, the better I do in it. Of course, this isn't a coincidence.
As I've talked about before, there's this principle called "the Backward's Law" coined by Alan Watts, where he proposes that "the more we pursue something, the more we achieve the opposite of what we truly want and the more disappointed we'll be. Or simply put, the harder we try, the harder we'll succeed."
Imagine having a "clingy" boyfriend. You know, when someone is clingy, the less attractive they become. But on the other hand, seeing people with DGAF energy makes us want to be friends with them even more. Their confidence is SO attractive.
I feel like it's the same with YouTube. I was feeling like a "clingy girlfriend" that the universe found repelling.
Instead, I decided to flip the narrative and believe that "I have enough self-respect and self-love" that I don't need this platform. It can't be something you pretend to feel, though; it has to feel real.
I decided that the platform must prove that it’s worthy of my time and energy. And with this simple mindset shift, I took my "power" back.
Instead of thinking that YouTube is this *huge* thing that will potentially change my entire life, I now see it as a tool for my creative self-expression. I learned to believe that my creative self-expression, and not the platform itself, will help me succeed.
This way, I'm selfishly creating videos that make me happy, and I trust that the right people will find my videos helpful.
This is quite hard to practice, especially if it's been ingrained in my brain that "you need to put X amount of hours on YouTube to be successful," so in the next month, that's what I'll be honing in as a creator.
If you also feel like you've been trying hard and not getting the results you want, I'd encourage you to ask yourself the following:
Am I acting out of fear or out of excitement? In the last year or so, most videos I've created came from the energy of having fear, people-pleasing, and algorithm-pleasing. I was trying too hard to please people I didn't even know. As a result, my whole presence on YouTube felt so doubtful. But now, even though I still have doubts, I'm creating videos out of excitement. I'm choosing topics that excite me. And I'm slowly attracting the right people. Learning to act out of excitement is difficult but crucial to your success.
What do I think I will FEEL after getting what I want? You probably have some belief that getting what you want will *finally* make you happy, fulfilled, or whatever. I used to think, "If I get 100K subs, I'll finally feel secure and free." But if I look at my life right now, I can already have these feelings. I have enough in my bank account, and I choose when to work and what to work on. In a sense, I'm already free and secure. I just need to be more aware of it. Whatever feeling you're craving (because that's REALLY all we want from the things we want), know that you can feel it right now.
Who is that person who already has what I want? The version of you who is already successful believes and acts differently than you. Your job is to figure out how to think and act like them. If they already make six figures, figure out what they're thinking within yourself. Think, how do they act in their day-to-day life? Do they walk confidently? Do they talk confidently? How do they spend their money? What do they prioritize in their life? This is where you embody your ideal self until you become your ideal self.
Once you know why you act the way you do, it's so much easier to figure out what you need to do to succeed in life.
You'll also realize that you won't have to "try" so hard because it all comes down to how you see yourself. If you see yourself as someone who believes in her/himself, you trust that you can make it work no matter what you do.
At least that's what I learned.
Anyway, I hope this helps you in some way. And please share this newsletter with someone if they need it.
I appreciate you,
J ❤️
And btw, if you need some help in your journey, here are 3 ways I can help you:
Everytime you write something, I can almost totally resonate with it!
I have the same feeling and experience, even very recently.
I've been trying too hard to write online and figure out what I should write (and on which newsletter).
It overwhelmes me and sometimes I envy those who only have a few interests/obsessions/passions.
The same with launching my YouTube channel. I know that it's what I truly want to do because I enjoy making videos more than anything, I always suffer from procrastination but when I'm editing a video, I can focus & enjoy the flow state for hours.
So anyways, Jerine, thanks a lot for sharing your experience and please keep it coming because it gives us (at least me) a lot of energy to know there's someone out there dealing with similar issues.