I just finished up my 2021 Reflections thread on Twitter and started working on my 2022 Goals thread. It quickly became apparent that limited characters weren’t going to work for everything I want to share, so here we are! I’m going to treat this as a bit of a channel update post.
We did a LOT of stuff in 2021. You can see a bunch of it in the Twitter thread. The majority of it was on Twitch but there was a lot of extra stuff too. Something I should mention about this though is that I have been doing this pretty much full time for the entire year. It is not my full time job, but I have sort of been treating it that way just because that is what made me happy. Obviously, this isn’t totally sustainable so it makes the future a little unclear. But I will share my current thoughts and plans as best as I can.
I don’t earn much from Twitch, but I do earn enough that it is significant in my life. Between my low hour job and Twitch I just about manage to pay my bills. I don’t have any disposable income, which isn’t an easy way to live but I would take that over doing a job I hate 1 million times over. I do have savings but they are limited, so I am at a point where I am giving myself the rest of the year to see if I can make this sustainable. This is one reason that I don’t buy new games, everything that I buy comes straight out of the money that is supposed to be sustaining me for the next year, and I would really like to be doing this as long as possible.
Earning money doing this thing that I love never sat right with me. I couldn’t understand how I deserved it. People continued to be generous and helped me to understand that they like to support me because of the entertainment I have provided. Mid-year I was earning enough that I managed to come off my benefits (which is something I am entirely grateful for in itself). When that happened I started to slowly try to change my mindset, treating streaming as a job as well as a hobby. I still can’t say that I am fully understanding of the financial support people give me but I do trust that they wouldn’t do it for no reason, and although I do not feel as though I deserve more, I started to feel a little confidence in pursuing growth.
Don’t get me wrong, I do not want to be a huge streamer. My only goal is to be able to continue doing this as a job beyond the year with the understanding that not many people get to do this as a job. I am keeping my future work options on my mind the entire time. It feels kind of unbelievable that I had found the confidence to even try to pursue this. Whether I can grow a little or not, anything that I do contributes to putting me out there and finding new opportunities in the future, so that is win-win really.
Before New Year my head was buzzing with ideas. I was thinking of using sound bits so that at least people get more out of their cheers. I was thinking of using cam more because I know some people like that and we could do some fun stuff with channel points. I even got a ring light for Christmas for it. I was thinking that I should stop feeling so self conscious about putting myself out there. Try advertising myself a bit more, try tiktok etc.
Unfortunately, over the New Year I have lost almost all of that confidence that I had gained. I have literally been thinking about throwing it all away and quitting completely so I’ve been giving myself some time. But I had already set some plans in place, I know that deep down it is what I want, so I am going to try my best to continue working towards it, despite the intrusive thoughts.
So basically, what I am trying to say is that I am going to try to keep putting my all into this, it may not be forever but I am going to try my best to see if I could make it that way. There is going to be a separate post of practical 2022 goals, but writing this felt really important to me. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows where I stand with where I am now and any changes I make going forward. I want to make sure everyone knows that any support, whether financial, making a recommendation or even watching my streams is extremely appreciated by me.
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