The Social Media Worthiness TRAP: How Many Followers Until You feel Worthy?

Social media is kind of like a dirty high. We think that once we get a certain number of followers, then we can finally feel 100% whole and complete. Now let's ask the question, how many followers does it take till I can finally feel worthy? When we look on social media, it's quite easy to see that we believe the more followers we get, the more people that pay attention to our stuff, the more fulfilled and satisfied we may feel. However, many times what that causes is people to do whatever they can in order to get approval and validation, and that has a dark negative side effect. And in this video, I'm gonna show you exactly what that is, how many followers it really takes for you to feel worthy, and how you can bypass it so that you don't experience that. I believe this could be one of the most powerful videos you watch on social media, and it's something that can change your life. Welcome back to another video. My name's Aaron, and I help people expand their consciousness. Now in this video, I'm going to be sharing with you understanding the comparison trap on social media. I know I'm not saying any of this to brag or anything, but just so you know, I know what I'm talking about. I've been on YouTube for about 3 years now. I have one of those play button things over there. I have a camera set up in my house. I have cameras set up on different parts of my house because I do a lot of filming and I've been doing this for a while. So first off, just know that I've been doing this. I'm talking from experience when I share the stories from my own life on this. And also it's just something to understand that what I'm saying I think can save you a lot of time. My social media journey started back in 2017. I was making videos once a week on YouTube and I just didn't feel like I was really where I really wanted to be. I was working a 9 to 5 job selling women's shoes. And I decided in a moment that I wanted to be a full-time YouTuber and I wasn't going to sit with the old reality of going to a job I didn't like anymore. So I said, no matter what, every day for the next year, no, or pretty much going forward, I'm gonna make a video a day until I'm a full-time YouTuber. So I told myself that and what I did is I ended up going for it. So I worked that 9 to 5 job. I'd get up in the morning, I'd go to it. When I got off, I would film a video, schedule a video to go out the next day, edit it, everything. And then there it would go. So I was very busy doing that. And over the course of a couple months, my channel went from 3,500 subscribers. About a month into it, 3 weeks into it, I had a video that went viral. That was this video right here. That video got like 200,000, 300,000 views within the first couple weeks. And that took my channel from about 3,000 subscribers all the way up to over 20-something thousand subscribers. So that started to gain momentum for me. And that's when it started to happen to where I started to feel the validation of growing on social media or YouTube. What happened is a few months after that, I started to grow, started to gain momentum, and I learned that I could do a couple different things, start coaching people so that I could go full-time on YouTube. So that's exactly what I began to do. In August of 2017, after about 5 or 6 months of making daily videos, I was able to quit my job working at Barney's New York in women's shoes, and I went full-time on YouTube. Now, I remember, that in my mind I had it and I thought that once I hit 100,000 subscribers on YouTube, I would then finally feel worthy. It was just this idea in my head. It was my first ever goal on YouTube numbers-wise. And I remember thinking that and then going to bed one night, I was at about 90-something thousand subs. I went to Sedona about a month earlier and made a video on 5 ways, 5 things you must give up to raise your vibration instantly. I'll go and link that right here as well so you can see that thumbnail. And that video ended up going viral as well. So that took my channel up to about 96,000, 97,000 subscribers. And I went to bed one night and I woke up the next morning and I was at over 100,000 subscribers. I thought it was going to take a couple of weeks longer than it did, but I had that other video, that Raise Your Vibration video, go viral. And when it did, it took me from 3,000 or 4,000 subscribers pretty much overnight. And I woke up at 100,000 subs. And I remember thinking to myself, yes, I finally hit it. And that feeling lasted about the time, until about the time I went to the gym that day. Literally, I was at the gym on the bike doing a warmup for a workout and like appreciating, grateful that it was at a, that it hit 100,000. There was a goal I wanted to hit and it would finally happen. And what happened after that was a little bit disappointing. I realized that even though I had gone from, you know, 0 or 3,000 subs to 100,000 subs, and even though I was doing what I love making videos, part of me still felt like it wasn't all it was hyped up to be. Part of me still felt like there was something missing and I was like, this feels just like it did at 90,000 or 80,000 or 70,000. There was no different in feeling. From going from 0 to 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. And shortly what I noticed after that is after hitting 100,000 on YouTube, I thought about it, I appreciated it for about an hour or two, went to the treadmill, noticed that my life, or that elliptical, the bike thing, and realized that this really doesn't feel any different whatsoever. And in that moment, what the mind do is the mind looked for a higher number. The mind then said, well, what about 200,000? $200,000 is not just like this one-time thing. $200,000 shows that you can really replicate this over and over again and think about that. Maybe then you'd have people coming up to you in public and stuff like that. That's where the ego goes with this. And let me tell you, once again, that was what I just kept making videos. Now let me also say this. I'm making videos because I love making videos and because I want to help people become more aware of who they are. If you haven't subscribed to the channel yet, You could see I have over 1,000 videos showing people how to raise their vibration, how to more consciously create what you want in your life, goals, many different things, stuff that I talk about. I love talking about it. However, there is a dark side to social media to where then once you get tapped into it, it's almost like it's self-perpetual. You feel like you always have to keep up. You feel like you need to always have a video better than the day before. And in my own life, I've noticed this as well, because the more that I try to always get ahead and have a video that's like completely different than the other videos, a lot of times the more I end up resisting the natural process. There was a show, there's a show called Black Mirror. And in this show, there's different episodes that have like different themes. And I've watched a couple of them. They're actually very interesting episodes. Kind of like some of them are futuristic, and it's on Netflix. And there was this one episode that was on this girl that was going to kind of like a social media contest in a way. She's in a society where everyone has this phone that they rate each other at. So every time you have an interaction with someone, you rate them 0 to 5 stars. And then you have a mass rating of how people see you. And this rating is kind of like a credit score. This rating's kind of like for you to get into certain groups for you to do certain things, have certain privileges, and the higher your rating, meaning the more people like you, the more that then you feel, the more literally, the more worthy you are and the more privileges and freedom that you have. Now in this, you see people that are literally being really fake and nice to each other just so that they can get more likes on their profile or more likes on their rating. And at a certain point you see her, she's desperate to get more because she wants to move into this new place, the actress, she wants to move into the new, this new nice apartment building. So she's being really nice to people and one of, there's like a counselor that helps you kind of like a credit score counselor helps you with getting your merit system up and told her, hey, you're being too desperate. You're being too desperate and you're trying to, people can feel that off you. They can feel it off you, then they're gonna rate you low. And even though that was like, you know, that's a whole show in and of itself, but the message and the metaphor behind it is powerful. If we try and are needy for other people's approval, that causes resistance. Many times they won't give it, but also that approval can only come from within. Now on this journey, what I've realized is no matter how many social media followers you have, Your mind will always look for more. The mind wants more. The mind wants more validation. The mind wants more people. It thinks that once I eventually get there, then I can feel happy. And that's exactly what I've found the trap is of this whole entire process. There's also a comparison trap. When I first started on YouTube, I was one of only a couple people making content on some of the topics that I talk about. There weren't that many. Now there's a lot more. However, there also has come up certain things that has kind of brought it out because sometimes, sometimes people will in a way, like when you're on social media and you have certain ideas that you share. Now of course there's no really original ideas. However, I feel, and I've noticed that some people, they just, they, they will take the ideas that you put out. And when that happens, it can be very triggering to the ego, very triggering. It's like, well, I came up with this unique idea, this unique title, this unique thumbnail combination, and now you got like 5 other people jumping on it and using it. And in a way, that was something that I had to deal with as well because there are people that would kind of see what my videos did well and then replicate them. And me making the daily videos was kind of like being a guinea pig for people to kind of like figure out what works. Now, social media will bring up a whole bunch of stuff within you. And then what I would do is I'd compare myself to those people that did that. And in a way feel like I had to always keep up and always stay one step ahead in order for me to always kind of remain in the level that I'm at on social media, on YouTube, on Instagram, whatever it is. However, the thing that I've realized is that the, power, the feeling of worthiness and validation, it really only comes from within. And once I realized this, once I let it go, once I catch myself— and it's a process, I continue to catch myself trying to go for some type of number and realizing, why am I really doing what I'm doing? I'm doing it because this is who I am. This is what I love doing because I want to help people, because of the connection that I'm able to make with other people. That's why I share a lot of my journey, even though it sounds vulnerable at times, sharing some things that maybe you guys haven't seen behind the surface. But what happens is the more you are able to tap into your own sense of worthiness and own sense of validation and really being yourself too. The videos I have that do the best are normally the videos that I'm just being myself. And I had to learn that the hard way because it becomes very easy to chase views, especially when you start comparing yourself to other people, other people that may be kind of in a way, you know, using similar ideas that you use. So it's like, you always have to feel like you get a step ahead. And there's this comparison trap to where it just keeps perpetuating itself. And then I found myself even recently, I'm like, oh, I need to take things to the next level. And knowing that it's not a technique, it's not a certain keyword or a topic for me to take things to the next level. I just have to be myself more. And as cheesy as it sounds, the more I'm myself, the better I feel. And then the better I feel, the better content I make. That's what I've realized for this process. Now, when it comes to worthiness though, understand this, the more rules we have as to what it takes for us to be worthy, the least likely we are to say it. Now think about this anyways, we have us right here with a neck. And what happens is, is we have us and then we give ourselves these rules. These rules that say, I will feel worthy, feel worthy when, and these rules that we have that we say after that all have to be checkmarked in order to happen, must happen in order for us to actually feel that worthiness on the inside. Now, the irony is that worthiness already exists. All we have to do is give ourselves permission now to feel worthy. That's the thing. These rules that we have on outside, I will feel worthy when I have 1 million followers, when I have a certain amount of money in the bank, when I have everyone like me, when all of these things happen, then I will feel worthy. But here's the thing, many times we get caught up in our own sense of worthiness and these rules don't even make sense. For example, I have a goal of reaching a lot of people and helping them transform their life. Through the videos I make. So that's one goal. And I have another goal of it, it's subconsciously of everyone liking me. Well, what are the chances that everyone's going to approve of me and give me validation if I'm also having a goal of reaching a lot of people? Thing is, is the more people you reach, the more likely there's gonna be people that don't approve of you, that don't like you. So I had to become aware of this in my own life and I had to change the way that I internally gave myself permission to feel love and worthiness. And think of this as well, worthiness, worthy, worth, worth, value. So here's the thing. We normally have a belief system that says, once I get a certain number of social media followers, then I'll feel worthy. Once I have a certain amount of money, then I'll feel worthy. Meaning, once I have a certain number of social media followers, then I'll feel valuable. I'll know that I'm of value. Once I have a certain amount of money, then I'll know that I have value in the world. When instead, if we were to change around the way that we saw this idea of worthiness and knew that I have worthy and value for simply being me because I'm unique, I have something unique to share. And when we have that frame, we then feel valuable now and we're more creative to come up with cool ideas creativity-wise, we're more likely to show up authenticity just in the world expressing ourselves in a cool way. So the key to this whole entire video is knowing that the more rules we have about worthiness, which means how much value do we feel, the number of rules that we have, the more rules we have, the harder it is to feel, for us to feel worthy. If we realize that worthy is an inside job, we can feel worthy by noticing and appreciating the value we have for being us, the more we will eventually feel that. That approval and satisfaction. We can only give it from within. Even think about it. When we say, when these things happen, then I will feel happy. When this thing on the outside happens, of me having a lot of followers and having a lot of money and everyone liking me happens, then I'll feel happy. All we're doing is we're waiting and prolonging the happiness that already exists in our own mind. If I were to tell you, hey, you didn't know this, you don't know this, but when you went to bed last night, You have a social media post that went viral. Now you have 2 million followers and you have all these people that like you and all this crazy stuff. And then all of a sudden you feel this rush of adrenaline and you're in a rush of love and all of this satisfaction. But I'll tell you what, that would go away very fast. But this is the thing, those emotions already exist inside of you. It's just that you've then hit a rule inside of you that says, once I have this, then I'll feel happy. So realize that all of this exists within. Worthiness is an inside job. No amount of social media followers will you hit and then finally feel worthy unless you feel worthy for being you, worthy already. Even now I'm at, I don't know what, I was 800-some thousand on YouTube and the mind is like, what about a million? And I know, I know this deep down that once I hit, once it hits a million subscribers, guess what? It's gonna feel the exact same as it does now. But dang it, does the ego love to go for it. That's the way it works. The key here is all awareness, becoming aware of that. So if you haven't yet, You can subscribe to my channel. I share 5 to 7 times a week. I make YouTube videos showing people how to become more aware of themselves and all this stuff that you'll see. You'll see more videos in the, uh, that I have similar to this as well. Other than that, as always, peace, much love, and namaste.