Enjoy The Process

Cliche advice that rings true every time…

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a blog post, and there’s quite a few reasons for that, which I’ll get to in a bit. This post isn’t going to be about the latest comic book story, or what’s going on in the gaming world. This post is going to be more of a tip, or a suggestion if you will, for anyone and everyone whether you’re a content creator or not.

As the title states, this is about enjoying the process of whatever you’re doing and simply enjoying the growth. YOUR growth specifically. I have a YouTube channel called Chipz-N-Stix. It’s also my name. It’s MY growth in video format discussing things I love and for the world to see.

In the beginning I thought I was onto something that maybe would change my life for the better(mainly being materialistic). Yes, most people who get on YouTube have hopes and dreams of making it big and living their most comfortable life. Anyone who says otherwise is most likely lying to you. Here’s the nitty gritty of it: if most people were given the opportunity to turn their most beloved hobby into a profession, they would take it and run with it.

But there’s another side to this coin that I don’t see being talked about as often – the side that brings fulfillment and purpose. The side that enriches one’s life in a plethora of ways, of which the masses seem to ignore. I’m going to speak on my experiences and mine alone. Hopefully to paint a bigger picture that would make things easier to understand – for both creators and non creators alike. I feel this is something everyone can benefit from.

Not long after I started my YouTube journey I began to question what I was doing. What should I be doing with this? How can I stand out from other more well established channels? I quickly transitioned from talking about anything gaming related to focusing more on tips, tricks, and reviews for video games. I was also trying to keep up with this website which I started to neglect the more I began to focus on the channel.

A few videos in and with not so many views I began to ask myself “what’s the point?”. I had felt I was doing great work and it wasn’t being appreciated in the way that I had hoped. This was the wrong mindset to have right from the very beginning. The need for likes and views overcame my joy for video games. Everyone wants the success of channels such as Pewdie Pie and others like him. The problem with that new found obsession is that it eats away at your passion.

I would have conversations with a great friend of mine named Avidan Smith more times than I can count in a single week about YouTube and life in general. Whenever we talked about YouTube we always discussed the direction of our channels, how to make them better, and plan out certain steps to take in order to accomplish what we wanted. There was a lot of encouragement on both ends, and the same cliche advice that anyone gives: everything comes in due time.

Even though I didn’t want to hear it I could already see that it was affecting my process for creation. I had to step back and take a break from it for a while to realize how bad this was – and as soon as I did that and started talking to the people that supported me (supporters of the channel, personal friends, other creators) I immediately went into a more comfortable state of just being me and started talking to them about everything gaming. It felt natural – and that’s when it hit me. I need to not care about the numbers. As a creator you should pay attention to them, but to a certain extent. Don’t let the numbers be your end all.
Not caring about the numbers have enabled me to do a myriad of things:

• Built strong relationships and greatly improved my networking
• Felt more freedom in my process
• Became more creative
• Started to grow my Twitter page
• Started to grow my YouTube channel

You have to enjoy the process and trust in your own growth. You have to want to grow as a person in order to see any kind of happiness and success come your way, and be genuine about it. People can tell when you’re fraudulent – and trust me when I say that it never works out for anyone! For those of you that are fellow creators of any kind, another key piece of advice is to experiment with different things. Experimentation can often lead to discovering things you never knew you liked, and can benefit you in more ways than one. A prime example is me and this website. I never thought about writing down my ideas on different topics and sharing it with the world, and it’s not until I had to do this for school one year that I found out I actually like to write.

I was never into photography until I started doing YouTube. I always wanted the best looking footage just to share with people and make their viewing experience as pleasurable as possible. Doing YouTube led me to use my instagram page to promote my channel. From there I started looking at different pictures of a lot of things. Toy photography, urban photography, pretty much anything you can think of. An ex-girlfriend of mine and some friends in the Netherlands are actually really good at it. They gave me a few pointers on how to use my phone to do take good quality pictures and post online. I tried it and I really liked it…like a lot. I liked it so much I seriously considered taking classes for it at school.

My mom always tells me “everything happens for a reason, both good and bad”. So if something doesn’t happen right away for you it’s because it’s just simply not your time to have it. Maybe something 100x better will come your way – and when it does you’ll appreciate it more. For those of you that aren’t content creators, the same rule applies to you. Not everything that you deserve will come your way when you want it to. Keep your head up. Keep working your ass off. Enjoy the growth. Enjoy the process.