Dear reader,
So a few days ago, we crossed 1,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel. If you are one of those 1,000+ people, thank you so much!
While that happened, I was also thinking a lot about where I want my YouTube channel to go. A timely realization was that I had been doing this “thinking” for many years. I’ve had this habit of starting something, doing it rigorously for a while, and then moving on to the next thing without ever completing the first.
It wasn’t always this way. For example, when I started my first venture, which was my blog High Approach, I wrote articles and blogs for many years consistently. There was no problem. This new tendency started especially when I started trying to do something big. That was the problem, trying to do something big. Because of that desire for greatness, I started hopping from one could-be-great idea to the next. I did all of them for a while but didn’t stick with them long enough to see any meaningful results.
This negative inflection point started not when I was thinking about other possible opportunities but when I stopped taking action. For example, when starting my YouTube channel, I first made some videos about tech tips and programming. Then I decided I wanted to change course and do something else. So I stopped making videos altogether, and after going AWOL for many months, I started making videos about self-improvement. Then the pattern repeated. I stopped making videos for a while, and then went back to completing my CS50 programming series.
The problem was not that I shifted directions, but the gap in between. Here’s what I’m getting at:
“You can’t steer a stationary ship.”
For a daily-life reference, let’s think about a car. Let’s say that you were going at a speed of 30 km or about 18 miles/hour. Imagine, then, if you were to steer your steering wheel slightly towards the left. What would happen then? Well, of course, your car would start going in the left direction, and your consistent speed would enhance that steer and make the turn more effective.
On the other hand, imagine that you were in a parking lot, your car is not moving, and then you try to steer your steering wheel. What would happen then? Well, nothing at all. Your wheels would turn slightly but nothing would happen because you’re not moving.
So to take this back to the example from my YouTube channel, when I would stop making videos altogether, what I was doing is I was putting a brake on my moving car. Because of this, I was losing momentum altogether. If I had just continued making videos, even if the types of videos were different, maybe results could’ve been better.
This is relevant in many aspects of our lives. Moving fast and breaking things, then fixing them and moving again is a lot more effective than stalling. This might be a long shot but I think many people quit doing something not because they find it really difficult, but because they feel stuck. It’s when they feel they are not making any progress or when they feel that nothing is happening.
A counter to this inevitable occurrence could be to just build a bias for action, to take action, to do something, and to keep trying to learn and get better at it.
At this point in my YouTube career (and in life in general), I don’t want to slow down. I have a rough idea of where I want to be and how I might get there. I cannot possibly know if my rough idea will work; there are chances that it does, but there also are chances that it doesn’t. I’m fine with either. At this point, I simply want to and I will keep showing up and taking action. I’ll figure out the rest of the things along the way.
If there’s one thing you take away from this, remember that “You can’t steer a stationary ship.”
I’ll see you next week.
Take care!
Warmly,
Suraj
