If not now, when?

so I recently came across this video titled if not now when and I thought what a beautiful title what a beautiful question to be constantly asking ourselves as creators beginning on our journey or wanting to do something new if not now when and I wanted to talk about this today because I know a lot of people have different reasons as to why they haven't started or why they've stopped and haven't continued and this might be due to motivation to having a bit of impostor syndrome kind of scared of putting yourself out there online you don't

like the sound of your own voice or you just think you're not good enough to create content um on the thing that you want to create content on um and yeah I just want to speak about those things cuz we've all been through them as creators I've been through them and I wanted to just share my own story and some advice on how I think I've overcome some of these things to bring me to a point today where I'm fairly comfortable and confident continuing to show up on camera talking about different things and things that

I've never even spoken about before and you know I feel good about myself and I absolutely love it and so when you put yourself online maybe for the first time or you introduce yourself into a new Niche I think there's this sort of like um vulnerability that we all have you know putting yourself out into the world for people to essentially judge you judge your content judge how good or bad it is and maybe leave a comment maybe not leave a comment and just that thought of people thinking we're is I think what prevents people

from even just posting and starting like we go through this period of trying to strategize and overthink like what the plan is all the way over there and it then prevents us from just making the video like now because we're waiting for everything to be in lined and in place and it just goes back to the title like if not now when because you know what you're going to suck when you first start making videos they are going to be terrible right and you kind of need to just get over that um and it's not

easy it's it is really not easy to get over that kind of like mindset of like I really suck at this and I'm having to show the whole world that I suck at it like that doesn't fill me with Joy inside but nobody really cares it's all in your own head like I just said nobody actually really cares how bad you are they might do in a split second and then they move on to somebody else and actually it doesn't really matter if the videos you're posting aren't that good because it's about you it's about

you it's not about anybody body else and this is what you need to just keep reminding yourself of I've talked about this in other videos you are doing it for you you're being selfish you're doing it because you want to take yourself on a journey to somewhere in the future where you want to be and I actually think deep down those people that do judge and the ones that do at you they leave the comments the ones that actually care that you're bad are actually just a little bit jealous that you're putting yourself online you

know in a vulnerable state vulnerable position you know and you're actually doing that and they're not and I love to remind myself this all the time when people comment on things that I've done or mistakes that I've made and I think what are you doing what are you doing with your life and yourself to make you feel so good about leaving a nasty negative comment on my video of me trying to better my s do you know what you can just off because I really don't care about you and if you were someone of significance

and you were important and you were doing well you wouldn't be wasting your time worrying about what I'm doing and you know what I actually had this thought the other day about like personal branding personal branding is um you know a big thing at the moment and I was like what makes a strong personal brand and I come up with this I actually think what makes part of what makes a really strong personal brand is showing people people online that you don't give a about being yourself it's not just about being yourself cuz that's what

people say just being yourself be yourself it's about showing people that you don't give a about being yourself being slightly weird being slightly eccentric being slightly quirky like just letting yourself go because this is the problem a lot of creaters have in the beginning you know being your true self on camera is hard but I have actually only recently got to this point I've been experimenting with tons of different content you know I've tried to put myself out there tried to expose myself a little bit and it's only recently that I've actually thought you know

what it let me just let the whole world know who I am and what I am and what I stand for you know I know I've got good morals good values you know and maybe I'm not perfect maybe I say some things every so often that are questionable yeah but so what you know I am comfortable with who I am and what I'm about and I believe in what I say otherwise I wouldn't say it and I'm happy to keep showing up on camera and doing the thing and I'm not worried what people think about

me obviously within reason you know I want people to actually resonate with my message I want you to like my content yeah but fundamentally I don't care whether you think I'm whether you think I'm bad whether you just don't even want to listen to me that's fine there's a gazillion other YouTubers you can go listen to and I think that's the sort of mentality you need to have when you're starting right and and this won't just happen overnight it's something you build on and you build on and you build on but I can tell you

when you get to the point where like you feel like you can just post anything online and not even care it is liberating it is the most liberating feeling in the world because I also know going back to that point earlier about kind of the people who are jealous looking at you I know people are looking at me thinking wow I wish I could do that like wow that must feel amazing to have the confidence to be able to just show up online as your true self and just think you world I am me and

I am proud and I want you to have that mindset I want you to think that and again it's not going to be easy but this is what we need to work towards because that's when you'll begin to create content where you're really speaking from the heart and people can see it you can see it when I speak right the the reason I think people are kind of resonating with my voice and my message is because I speak with passion and I speak just from within me like I believe all of this I truly do

I'm not here scripting some message trying to hook you in and make you watch all of the video I don't give a about that all I care is about you listening to maybe some of my messages and taking something away and thinking oh then changed my mindset there slightly I'm now going to think slightly differently and that's going to help me progress forward to making more videos and making more videos and getting better and getting the results I want and so before I continue to ramble because I get carried away a little bit here are

some sort of actional points I think that I've implemented when I began in order to kind of feel more confident on camera feel more confident speaking just get used to just like actually showing up and and not feeling too shitty about myself in terms of being judged so firstly I've kind of mentioned it in the video it's finding something you're passionate about you know when people say like what KNE should I create content on just pick something you're interested in or pick something you're passionate about because it's likely that you know a fair amount there

above the average person and you can just speak without really having to think about it you know and that if that just means just turning on the camera and just talking through some things that you find interesting and have an underlying message maybe you like I do where kind of I want to help Inspire but also give some actionable advice just do that and by doing that you kind of have this already existing confidence because you're not talking about this thing that you kind of don't really want to create but it's train in and you

know that's what you think you should create just think what do I care about what do I want to teach people or educate people or make videos on and just make them and when you're planning these videos and when you're going through the motion of like you can script yeah there's nothing against scripting but when you're planning these videos I would recommend just constantly speaking out loud constantly practicing in the mirror constantly just rehearsing the thoughts in your head out loud I do this all the time I have done this for years where I will

just sit there and I'll just go into dialogue with myself I think you know back when I was younger I used to think that people would think it was weird that I just constantly talked to myself you know but we all kind of talk to oursel to some degree I talk to myself a lot I am honestly dialoguing my head all day long it's a blessing and a curse I'll go and throw into the mirror and I'll perform what I going to perform on YouTube and this has just helped me kind of get used to

speaking and develop my ability to speak in different tones and chasing and this like this hasn't just happened overnight for me you know after repeatedly watching myself on video over and over and over again I've got used to my own voice which is another thing soon as you it's funny everybody watches thems on camera for the first time and absolutely hates their voice I used to hate my voice of course but I can't even I can't remember when I got to the point where I didn't no longer hate my voice but you will get there

if you hate your voice now there will be a point in the future where you don't hate your voice and you become accepting of it and that's when you can really think how can I leverage my voice how can I utilize what my voice sounds like to kind of figure out you know how to um uh shoot messages across to people that doesn't really make sense but you know what I mean I've I've found over time I've I've become better at figuring out what the best way is for me to speak in order to resonate

with people the most if that makes sense and this is just something that's just subconsciously happened over over time by just constantly watching myself back and back and back and going oh I should have said that differently or should have said that in a lighter way or I should have added more emphasis on that and then over time I've just got better at it and this doesn't have to just be done through videos you could actually just use a uh voice recorder I do this a lot when I'm going through that dialogue in my head

like I'm having this really good thoughts and I'm not storing these anyway I try my best to write stuff down but sometimes I'm just sat on the sofa I'm not at like a place where I can write I just open up a voice note on my phone there's some ones that you I use one called super whisper where it transcribes it I'll just start just speaking my thoughts there and then I'll go back and look at them and go oh that's actually quite good could I write that into a post could I create that into

a YouTube video I really liked that like idea that I had there it was really interesting to me in that moment hence why I was talking to myself for 5 minutes maybe I could do this in a video um and you do that and do that again you'll get better at speaking better at listening to your own voice better at just kind of coming up with more ideas that you're actually passionate about and interested in um which you can project to the world through videos um and you'll be okay with that and then so my

last kind of leaving advice is to just commit to the cause you are here for a reason you've decided to create content you know for whatever reason that is you know make sure that reason is deep and it's strong and it's within you and you can pull from it um and just keep going keep going and don't look back don't stop you're going to have hurdles you're going to have big eyes hurdles you're going to fail you're going to feel embarrassed you're going to make mistakes you're going to question whether or not it's the right

Niche for you and you're going to Pivot to different niches and you're going to try and forward think the plan in two or three years time so you create this perfect content strategy and you're not even going to do it and it's not going to work and then you're going to Pivot somewhere else and you're going to constantly try other things um but if you keep going and you keep going and you keep going you will make it and I say this a lot because I genuinely believe it the only thing that's stopping you from

making it is you stopping creating content that's it if you continue to create content one day the Stars will align you know not really but you know you'll find the right Niche you'll find the right format you'll find Your Right audience that resonate with you and things will start to take off and that wave will form and you can ride that wave for as long as possible and then another one will form and another one will form and another one form and then you'll get to where you want