Motivating myself to keep pushing forward.
With our lives being completely changed by the global pandemic, it is perfectly fine to feel unmotivated and not really in the mood to do anything.
I’ve seen it happen a lot lately with some friends who are streaming, myself included, and I start wondering how I can motivate them while being drained and tired myself.
A lot of the people who read my articles want to be streamers, successful streamers, YouTubers, or something close to that. Creating content constantly is really rather difficult, demotivating, and frustrating for anyone who does it, especially if they have been doing it for years and aren’t reaching the same level of success that they see apparent newcomers are achieving.
I think we sometimes forget that everyone starts at the bottom and that they have to work their way up, build a platform and work on shaping it. We have all said the following lines before “I’ve tried and I’ve been doing it for so long, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong at this point” and we sometimes forget that we are not the only ones struggling with this. Sometimes the person we confide in is dealing with the exact same issues but because they are more focused and positive about it we feel like they don’t really understand or can’t help.
For me, it’s important to remember that there is always going to be someone younger and better than you who will grow faster than you could possibly hope to achieve. And that has to be the motivation that keeps you going. If you see someone growing faster than you and you don’t know why then you have to double down on your efforts to try to keep ahead. But also remember that it’s a marathon and not a sprint, you should only be racing against yourself and not the people around you. Everyone is running their own race, in their own way and nobody is perfect. Content creation is a very stressful industry to be in even now starting because everyone is trying it, so try to focus on yourself and your own growth rather than that of other people.
Yes, you might find that a lot of newcomers are growing on the success of others, but that really should not mean you are failing because you have put in your own hard work and efforts to make it to your goals as a creator.
For me personally, I am currently enjoying my Vtubing chapter, and being my own little anime character is the best thing I could have asked for. My own frustration begins when it comes to my writing since everyone is telling me to move into the Esport scene and I really don’t want to. I’ve said this a few times to friends and people on stream but I do really believe there is more to video games than “competitive” gaming. Yes… sure, writing about Esports, if I’m lucky enough, will pay the bills someday but it’s not where my heart lies.
My goal is to bring emotional stories to readers, share experiences, and show off my reactions to news and new games. Because when it comes to video games for me I still recall the first time I beat a difficult boss or the feeling of completing a great story, and it’s these experiences that I will carry with me for the rest of my life that I want to share with others.
It’s things like these that get me very excited and at the same time can get me very down, however, I have some people that keep me motivated even if they are the guilty party that sometimes forget to keep thinking positive themselves. So it’s an endless cycle of each of us trying to keep the positivity going.
The best advice I’ve learned so far from everyone is that if I want this bad enough I have to be willing to work and fight for it. Yes, it can take years because if I want to make a career out of this I need to treat it as a full-time job. Since real jobs are hard work I have to understand that not every day is going to be easy. You need to have a passion for it to stick with it through the really tough times.
But you haven’t come to read this article to read about my problems, so here are the rules I will be pushing myself with this year. And it’s going to be the same advice I give to friends too!
1. Focus on the main goal
At this point, you really should just have one goal and that is to make a success but in my case, I want to help others. I want to help the South African gaming community especially our female gamers have a voice within the scene.
2. Understanding
Knowing why you are doing what you set out to do is also a good motivation for you to achieve your goals. If you don’t know why you are doing what you are currently doing then you are not going to know what you need to do in order to grow.
3. Failure
Unfortunately, something you need to accept and understand that it is going to happen, however, what you do with the results is what’s going to set you up for success in the future. Everything I’ve learned so far has been done by doing it wrong the first time. Failing a few times shows you how not to do something, which means you know how to do it properly the next time!
4. Surround yourself with good people
Yes, we all have good people we call friends but sometimes we need some people in our lives that are not going to sugar coat things for us and help us push forward. Find people who will listen to you whine but also tell you to get over it and rethink your structure. These friends are priceless.
5. Just get up and do it
Stop delaying or looking for excuses on why you can’t do it. The only person holding yourself back is really just you. 95% of the time all your obstacles can be worked around but if you are constantly going to look at the problem and not the solution then you will constantly remain stuck where you are.
So these are the things I will print and paste on my fridge, they are my steps to help me grow and I really do hope I can see progress. However, if I don’t, I will just have to think about my strategy on how I will make this work for me and for the people I give advice to!
Lots of Love
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