I was reflecting on the reality of the creative process recently, and it boils down to a specific cycle.
I’ve noticed that almost everyone who tries to build something follows the same path.
It’s three stages.
Stage 1: The Hype
Every creator eventually hits a wall.
Where you’re posting and posting and posting. And it feels like you’re doing everything right, but the results aren’t there.
Everything difficult is the same. At some point, everyone goes through this journey in some area of their life.
At first, it’s pure excitement.
The emotion is high. The motivation is high. You talk yourself up. You're going to be the best of the best.
Then you start putting in the work. You start posting. You start editing. And you quickly realise ‘my first five posts got no views’.
Stage 2: The Bottom
This is hard.
But that's not even the bottom.
The bottom is when you've been posting consistently for three months and your next post still only gets two likes (and one of them is from your mum).
Most people quit at this point.
And you know what? That's fair enough.
It's not for everybody. Maybe for some people… they should do something else.
Stage 3: The Climb
But the people who decide to stick around and try to figure it out — eventually, they start figuring it out.
They get into a positive feedback loop:
This post got a lot of engagement. Let's do that again. This post got a lot of reach. Let's do that again.
That’s how the journey starts to trend up. Slowly.
But even though it is slow, if you are in this stage, and you stick with it…
Next thing you know, three months of you consistently posting could by, just like that.
Because it’s become your habit and routine.
You wouldn’t even have to think about what to post anymore.
That's the ‘top’ of the journey.
It’s like this with anything hard in life. And anything worth going after is probably going to be hard.
It’s easy to get lost when you’re in the middle of it, but perspective changes everything.
Your job?
Figure out where you are in the journey so you can figure out what you're going to do about it.
I’d love to hear which stage feels most like your current reality.
Hit reply and let me know.
—Kien
