Finding Myself

After quite a mental breakdown the last few weeks, I feel clear for once. Honestly, as well as last year went, I don’t know that I was ever really clear on what I was trying to accomplish. Everything started with my YouTube channel in college, and I had a dream of having a successful, widely followed channel. Over the years as I’ve kept that dream alive and worked towards it, as I’ve grown and matured, as my mind has changed, I think I’m back to where I was in the beginning in terms of what I want. Last year, I tried everything all at once, so it’s no wonder that nothing really grew. The amount of time and work it takes to make any one of the 5 things I was attempting last year is a full-time job, so imagine trying to tackle 5 full time jobs at once. You’re probably thinking it isn’t possible, and that’s because it isn’t. I slacked in so many areas.

The last several weeks, I’ve invested a lot of time and money into much needed social media education and analysis. There are so many small things I haven’t been doing that matter, and had I taken the proper time to do this research before, I probably would’ve grown a lot faster. My other issue is that I lack patience. I can sit here and beat myself up about what I didn’t like about last year, but the fact is that I worked so hard last year and accomplished a lot. It was only one year. I don’t recall ever reading about anyone ultra-successful who pulled it off in a single year. It’s not enough anymore to hope for a single video to go viral and have that pave the entire path to your success. That’s too common now. A single viral video will obviously help you gain a larger audience, but it’s a very temporary spotlight. People will forget. What needs to be worked on is a long-term identity and brand that people remember because it’s in front of their faces every day and because they love it.

So, after trying the farmers markets, the dessert mixes, the cake orders, and social media, I’m back at what started all of this, and that is my videos and pictures. For a while, as I tried to grow my identity with food online, I felt like I was no longer allowed to post anything personal. The truth is that back when my page was a mix of my own photos plus my food content, it was doing significantly better. I think I got sick of people not liking my food content as much as they liked the other stuff, so I stopped doing the other stuff. I only wanted to be known for one thing, so that’s all I did. I boxed myself in and told myself that’s all I would do until I gained a following just focused on food. Well, a year later, it’s going well, but of course there are things I wish were better. This goes back to the impatience though. I can’t realistically expect to gain a huge audience in one year. I can certainly start to grow one, but upon reading other food bloggers or any bloggers’ info, it took them years to build their audience. So, I think as I poured all my time into this quality food content last year, I was disappointed that it wasn’t growing quickly, because I’ve been doing social media for years and felt like I’ve been doing this as long as the others. If I didn’t establish a niche and really target that in the previous years, which I didn’t, then why would me suddenly switching everything make a difference? Spoiler alert: it didn’t make a difference. I was impatient and indecisive. Two things that you just have to figure out how to overcome in this business. Things take time.

Because I spent so much of last year only focusing on what I wished to happen instead of what was happening in my present, I started autopiloting. Nothing felt like reality. It felt like I was just mentally coasting and hoping for the best. I told myself I was doing everything possible, but I wasn’t. I was doing bits and pieces of different things, thinking that each thing would just grow on its own after I established it. That’s why this year I stopped doing everything except content and cakes: the two things I love and am best at. Focusing on just these two things and establishing one end goal will make my progress not only quicker, but way more effective. I would like to keep growing my channel, while incorporating some personal content in. People like it. I think it not only boosts my page’s visibility overall since it has more traffic, but it puts an identity to these food videos I love producing. It ties it all together. So, this year, I will not box myself in. I will post what feels like me. I’m taking everything I’ve learned about the business, about myself, and about food, over the last 7 years of this journey, and am applying it all. No more autopiloting. No more bits and pieces. 

It's going to be a daily mental battle for me until I figure out how to get past this mindset. I’ll be honest with what crosses my mind almost every day. I’ll scroll social media, see these food bloggers or other creators getting crazy views and interactions on their content, and I immediately get discouraged because my content looks just as good, I’m doing exactly what they are in terms of captions, hashtags, time of day posting, and so forth, but my content just repeatedly feels like flops. Here’s what’s different. Those people either did exactly this for a long time, not just a year, and grew over time, and over time, the growth was quicker and quicker because the momentum picks up after enough time. Some of them also didn’t have the financial struggles, so they had the money to invest in the research, software, and even teams of people to make an ultra-successful channel happen even faster. The fact of the matter is that while they all have their own circumstances, I know one thing: I make damn good content. I do truly believe in myself and what I’m capable of. I simply haven’t been doing it to this extent for long enough. I am now giving 110% percent to ensure that what I produce is of the best quality and reflects me. I’m putting in the research, the planning, the captions, the hashtags, the calendar, and time of day to post, everything. I’m literally doing everything now. I wasn’t doing everything before. I wasn’t doing everything before, because I was trying to do too many other things at once, and I burnt myself out. It’s only been a year since I’ve tackled this as a full-time gig. That’s nothing. This year is a beautiful blank canvas because I know that I am only focusing on my content now, and now that I’ve done my research, made the necessary investments, and figured out a plan, we go right back to what I said before: patience. My lack of patience has really been a weakness of mine for pretty much my whole life, but this is one instance where I have no choice. This will not happen in a year. It may not happen in two years. If I continue with this amount of effort and knowledge though, it will happen. I can’t wake up every day and wonder when, I just have to trust that someday it will. I want it badly enough to do anything for it.

So, will I look at that other successful page and get discouraged that mine isn’t there yet (keyword “yet”)? Maybe, but I will do my best to stop that. I will train my mind to not think like that, because it will only delay my own process. Comparing yourself to others is a very dangerous thing to do. It can totally offset your whole journey. That can’t happen. I’ve given up everything for this, and I’m not even worried. I know deep down that it’s going to work, I just had to find my footing. This really all boils down to one simple concept: believing in yourself. If you truly believe that you can make your big picture a reality, then take that and run with it. Make it happen.