Update On My Journey

I hit 10,000 subscribers on YouTube! 🥳

10,000 subscribers has always been a major milestone for me on my YouTube journey. Many YouTubers have mentioned that 10k was when they began to truly see themselves as YouTubers.

I definitely resonate.

YouTube has gone from what felt like a pipe dream to a reality in a fairly short period of time, from monetizing in November to reaching 10k in April.

10,000 subscribers is also when sponsors start taking an interest, which can turn YouTube from a side hustle to a full time career.

But rather than getting too far ahead of myself (despite receiving 3 sponsor offers this week!), I thought it would be a good time to reflect on this milestone and why it feels so surreal.

As I’ve talked about, the hedonic treadmill catches us all, so I’m doing my best to gratefully experience the moment before getting swept into the next one.

Note: I wrote this a few weeks ago and wanted to share this important milestone with you, even though I have an entirely new range of feelings about YouTube as I approach 17,000 subscribers. I'll share more on that phase soon. For now, let's consider the importance of Recalibrating after milestones ✨

Recalibrating Recap

Welcome to Recalibrating! My name is Callum (@_wanderloots)

Join me as I learn to better life in every way possible, reflecting and recalibrating along the way to keep from getting too lost.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me ✨

Over the last few entries, I’ve touched on my journey as a YouTuber, going from 500 subscribers in September to monetizing my channel in November. On this journey, I’ve explored concepts like the hedonic treadmill and algorithmic anxiety to better understand how the attention economy can provide lessons on life.

This week, I am going to continue reflecting on this journey as I reach the major milestone of 10,000 subscribers, and the importance of having a recalibration system to realign the self when chaos rises.

Lets dive into the paradox of success ✨

The Paradox of Success (Achieving Goals)

This stage (post 10k subscribers) paradoxically felt like it would never happen, and that it was inevitable.

This juxtaposition has left me feeling like life is a bit surreal. It’s very strange when you work so hard towards something, and then it ends up happening faster than you ever expected. A mix of disbelieving surety.

I spent the last few weeks trying to wrap my head around what this means for my future as a YouTuber, and how this changes my next steps moving forward.

All of a sudden, I felt myself getting pulled into the algorithmic performance of the videos that had blown up. What I felt I should do and what I actually wanted to started to diverge.

I began feeling pulled in too many directions at once, a familiar feeling I wrote about after monetizing, trying to maintain my authenticity despite becoming more reliant on an algorithm.

I began thinking more about revenue, sponsorship, my members, my subscribers. I began thinking of what it would mean to get to 100,000 subscribers. What I would need to do to get to the next major milestone and that silver play button.

In line with the hedonic treadmill, I found myself looking far into the future, rather than appreciating the present.

So, I took a break for a week to step back from YouTube and focus on some other projects. I let myself explore more naturally what I actually wanted to do now that it felt as though YouTube was scaling like I had dreamed.

The flywheel had been spun, freeing up my energy to focus elsewhere. But then, ironically, focussing elsewhere made me feel as though I wasn’t driving YouTube enough.

A paradox. No wonder I felt as though my self was being pulled in too many directions. I was in a loop.

Stepping Back To Find Perspective

I spent some time focussing on building out an app, something I’ve been thinking about for a while. I began learning how to code using AI, a.k.a. vibe coding.

The more I explored artificial intelligence, the more I realized that I needed to learn how to leverage code generation to customize what I actually wanted to build.

Having just published several videos on artificial intelligence on YouTube, the natural next step for me was to build my own system.

But, only having a few thousand YouTube subscribers, making a couple hundred dollars a month, I did not feel as though I could spend the energy overcoming the steep learning curve that is AI building. I literally could not afford it.

All of that changed when I had two videos on NotebookLM blow up on YouTube. I got 7000 subscribers in two weeks. For the third month in a row, my revenue doubled (in large part due to paying members, thank you 🫡).

I could take a breath for the first time in what felt like forever, but was actually only a few intense months of building.

I used that breath to shift my perspective, to focus on projects that I had really wanted to get to, but felt I couldn’t justify. Building an app for Farcaster, converting my digital garden into a mini app, and learning how to set up coding systems.

I went heads down for several days spending 10+ hours a day, coding and learning how it all works. It was incredibly refreshing and also humbling to be reminded how little I know.

It was also incredibly encouraging to see how far I could come in such a short time.

Both perspectives were welcome, helping me step away from YouTube and relieve some blocks on my brain.

Then, after my intense week of code exploration, I let myself completely relax on the weekend.

Resting And Reflecting

I spent the weekend reading, researching whatever captured my interest, and only when I felt like it, allowed myself to think about the next steps for my channel.

I took some time to think about my goals, my vision, and how I felt about it all. Rather than trying to force the chaos into clarity, I allowed the chaos to just settle naturally on its own a bit. A natural equilibrium to let the pressure balance.

I realized that I was becoming too close to YouTube and the revenue, to thinking about making videos for potential sponsors, to do things for others rather than myself.

My channel has been doing so well because I allowed myself to explore my vision. To make longform videos that others might say are too long or too detailed. To go against what is becoming the norm of shortened attention spans and making videos that truly deep dive into topics I think deserve it the depth.

Somewhat ironically, the success that had come from doing what I felt intuitively was the right path forward had caused me to think more about what that meant for others than for myself.

This is not the way.

This weekend of rest and reflection helped me realize why I was feeling so torn and burnt out. I was allowing myself to be pulled by too many potential futures, rather than allow myself to go with the flow. The flow that had been performing so well for me up until this point.

I needed to take some time to recalibrate. To look at where I had come from and where I was now, and use that to chart a course in the future.

To realign my compass on my path to self-actualization.

Recalibrating (Taking A Compass Reading)

Thinking back to entry number four, beginning with breath, and number five: building habits from the ground up, I began waking up earlier to do yoga first thing in the morning. Next, I read a chapter of the creative act** and then journalled about what it meant for me in my life.

Spending time to assess who I was, and how I fit into the present moment was incredibly grounding, especially after working to stabilize my nervous system with yoga.

I was ready to recalibrate.

After talking with my fiancé, Taylor (Oh yeah, I got engaged a few months ago. I don’t know if I mentioned that 🎉), She helped me realize I should make a new channel trailer.

My current one was made almost two years ago, shortly after I quit my job. The perspective was one of new freedom, of awareness of burnout and working to overcome it. It did not reflect the confidence and surety I felt now, especially after reaching this milestone of 10,000 subscribers.

We did an exercise of finding some of the most inspirational Youtubers to see what they did. Not to copy, but to seek inspiration.

I realize that most of what other people do is not what I hope to do; which was actually encouraging because I feel as though I’m trying to take a slightly different path.

This exercise was a perfect way to recalibrate, to assess what I had actually done and try to factor it as impactfully as possible. To get at the core of why I’m doing this in the first place so that I could calibrate my Compass to continue in that direction.

Then, we took some time to go through my overwhelming list of ideas on what to do next. Identifying all of the different directions I was being pulled in, to see if we could call them and align them in a particular direction that felt right.

It worked!

Self-Actualizing

I feel as though I have identified the core values of my channel, a reflection of myself. The key elements of why I’m doing this and what I hope to gain. A map towards 100,000 subscribers.

But, there I go again. Looking too far into the future.

I’ve changed my perspective from trying to hit a number, to trying to make more videos more sustainably. To help me work through my backlog of ideas so I feel less torn in different directions, while building out my channel to what I know and dream it can be.

I hope to hit a monthly revenue that will allow me to pay off my bills and satisfy level two of Maslow’s hierarchy. The current major block I have to self actualizing more regularly.

I think it’s important to note the periods when I feel most lost. Because when I look back to reflect on them, I can remind myself on how I recalibrated. What worked and what didn’t to get me back on course to being the best version of myself.

The Importance Of Designing A Recalibration System

I wanted to share this journey in case it helps anyone else when they find themselves in a situation where they “should” feel one way, but feel differently in reality.

In both good and bad situations, describing how I should feel can split myself away from how I actually feel. It can make it more difficult to identify the natural path forward.

I find that this usually comes as a result of thinking about others rather than myself. I’m trying to please others rather than do what feels natural to me.

I was getting hundreds of comments on my videos with various forms of feedback, ideas, criticisms, and compliments. I began to confuse what it was I wanted to do with what I should do.

I felt pulled in to too many directions at once. There was no clarity, only chaos.

But, by applying the method I had learned when I first quit my job because of burnout, how to recalibrate myself, I was able to snap out of it within a week, find clarity, and take that next step forward.

I don’t think it matters what the process is, your system for finding yourself when you begin to feel lost. But I do think it matters that you have one in the first place.

Having an algorithm of self, something you can use to recalibrate and save weeks of anxiety, burnout, or depression. Generally just feeling lost, which is never fun.

Something that grounds you, that makes you feel the most like you.

What’s Next?

Having some clarity, calming the chaos, I now feel as though I can look forward. I needed to take time to not look anywhere, but to just be.

I recognize now, or recognize again, that periods of flow must always come with an ebb. It’s okay to use my other passions of learning and building as a shift in perspective, while YouTube continues to operate in the background.

If I associate my passions with revenue too closely, my vision gets distorted, and it becomes hard to see what to do next.

But, by taking time to do things I’m excited about, it helps me get fresh eyes on my existing projects, the important ones for making a living - without the pressure I had allowed to build.

I needed to let that pressure out in other expressions so that I could approach YouTube from a place of passion again, rather than algorithmic anxiety.

I’m incredibly excited to continue building, to continue sharing my vision with you all as I work to make this my full-time career.

Next week

As I mentioned at the start, I've now hit 17,000 subscribers (wild 10,000 was just 1 month ago!). This trajectory has caused me to reflect more deeply on what I'm building and how I can continue to retain the authenticity of my self as I move forward.

Now that I've taken some time to reflect for myself, I'll work on an update that shares more of what I've been up to these last few months.

I'm working on getting back into my writing cadence, so I'll be sharing some more thoughts soon.

Stay tuned ✨

P.S.

If you're interested in supporting me or getting access to my Obsidian Templates, please consider joining my YouTube membership OR my Hypersub membership. I'm working on consolidating my communities and will have more details for you soon.