How Pursuing A Passion Helped Me Get Out Of My Comfort Zone(Slowly)

With the advent of social media, gadgets that enable us to create, and different platforms to express ourselves, all contributed to the rising number of  "influencers" and what I'd rather be called as, "Content Creators".

It all started with my photography hobby. I got interested in Photography after having attended a workshop about basic photography and how fascinated I was with capturing moments. More on that later. But to be completely honest, I feel in love with the craft(even though I was not that good with it yet).

Content Creation

If you don't know what a content creation is..Content creation is the contribution of information to any media and most especially to digital media for an end-user/audience in specific contexts. It can be on any platform like blogs, social media(FB, IG, Snapchat, Twitter, etc), professional portfolio sites like behance, etc.

As far as I know, the content produced serves a purpose, to provide value in any way to the target audience. Which I strive to do with my blogs, videos, etc.

Content Creators are the people who work hard to make quality content for their audiences and happen to build trust and have influence over them as well.

How It All Started

It wasn't my plan to become a content creator, let alone be a youtuber as well.
In the past, I've made some blogs especially when I got very interested in photography.
Here's my first ever blog: pinography.wordpress.com (Cringfest, sorry haha noob lang po)

I've shared what I learned from a 2-day basic photography workshop I've attended back then and I wanted to also have an outlet of what I imagined as a photo-diary of sorts that's why I started blogging.
It really helped me creatively and practice writing articles. I'm no journalist or a writer, but I love sharing what I know and passionate about.

I didn't know about content creators/influencers back then. I just genuinely want to share whatever it is that I know hoping to help someone who reads my blogs.

Due to a series of unfortunate events, I stopped. Camera got broken, got busy with studies and all other bullshit reasons I told myself to stop it. It left a void in my heart and I've been wanting to have the same feeling I had when I was writing and practicing my photography skills. I've lost all motivation to start again after this to be honest.

I wish I've continued doing it back then. My life would've been different probably.

Graduation came, started working for an IT Company and that void kept bugging me. There's just something inside me that want to still learn how to shoot and how to write. I figured, since I'm earning now, I can actually fund this hobby.

Fast forward to 2017, I decided to buy my first ever mirrorless camera, a Fujifilm XA3. I fell inlove with its design and of course the image quality it produces at that price point. During the decision making process, I also got interested in doing video, then I saw people vlogging on Youtube. I've watched alot of Casey Neistat, Wil Dasovich, Daniel Marsh, and thought to myself, maybe I can do that as well. Hence, taking the XA3 since it has a flip screen. LOL

But I am an introvert by nature and I actually don't like being in front of the camera. Now, I can do it, but with effort to actually be in front of the camera, I still get shy, don't judge haha.

Finding My Tribe

During my time at college, I became a member of almost every legitimate forum I can find where programmers and IT people gather and discuss IT related stuff that can help me with college. It was my strategy to being ahead of most of my classmates and also a great resource for solutions to problems that I faced with my subjects. (I ask them for suggestions for my code, or if ever I encounter an error which I cannot resolve, not spoon feeding stuff)

I found tribes of IT people willing to lend a hand and show me the ropes even as a student, which eventually led to me and my team in Thesis to be awarded the Best Thesis Award without spending any money for consultants and other resources. 

Anyway, I also thought that there must be people in forums or Facebook groups that can help me learn more about becoming a Youtuber and maybe gain some friends as well. I believe that spending time with people with the same passion and goals can ultimately boost your morale and motivation to continue doing what you love. 

I discovered a group called Youtube Vloggers PH, a group of almost just 300+ members when I joined, and there, people are discussing about best practices, sharing tips, doing channel reviews so we can improve, etc. They are also, back then, the only group I've seen that are against SUB4SUB, a strategy where you subscribe to each other to "support" each other, but is actually against the TOR of Youtube. 

I've made friends with alot of those people and when an opportunity came up to attend an event(Toycon Philippines) and have a group meetup, I actually almost didn't go because my friend bailed on me the last minute, but I decided to finally go, because, I might never meet these people again anyway so I went(being the introvert that I am haha). 

Oh and we went on-stage since the Youtube Vloggers PH founders and members are actually invited to talk about Vlogging and Youtube :) 

And boy, have I never been so wrong. The people I met there have been a driving force for me to continue what I'm doing and to always strive for improvement. This is where the Vlog Rangers and Vulb Productions were born. 

I also met an amazing mentor who's considered to be one of the pioneers of blogging in the Philippines, sir Azrael Coladilla, the man behind the blog Azrael's Merryland. Currently, I'm one of his blog writers even though I have this own blog. Most of the opportunities and events that I cover is through him and I'm always thankful for his trust on me to cover them for his blog and what an honor it is to be mentored by him. Shoutout to our team mate, Aaron Nomo a.k.a NumuTV, as he is also part of what we call #TeamMerryland :D

He's been teaching me alot about event and media coverages, how to write properly and even approaches to content. I've just recently started writing again for my own blog this 2019 and I must say, I've never thought that I'll be writing again and I never thought that I get to experience firsthand being a blogger.

Getting Out Of My Comfort Zone

It has been one heck of a ride since I've started doing content on social media and blogs. It helped me slowly improve my skills on photography, videography, writing, and social skills as well. The more I do it, the more I realize that I've grown a lot and that I'm now more open to getting out of my comfort zone to see where it takes me and I'm more excited now to share my experiences to my readers/viewers/followers. 

I can feel that the void is slowly getting filled and that the passion is burning once again and now I have ambitious goals that I want to hit, but taking the time to enjoy the journey as it goes along. 

Now what I'm trying to do is keep learning the craft, keep improving and being consistent. 

I want to be able to have a regular upload schedule but with my work, I don't think it's possible unless I shoot a bunch of stuff and release it on a weekly basis, but even with that, I may not be able to edit everything at once. 

Oh well, I have to figure it out and take my time to polish every aspect.

FINAL THOUGHTS

You don't have to be a content creator to finally get out of your comfort zone. This is just how I got out of mine, but there are definitely other ways to do it. I guess what I want to say is that, find the thing that interests you most or passionate about and maybe use that as a starting point of getting out of the comfort zone. 

Find what makes you happy. :)

You will not only enjoy the thing you're passionate about, you also get to surround yourself with people who enjoy it as well. 

Thank you so much for reading this random story of mine that I just decided to write about..
I just feel like there are others that feel like "stuck" in life or something similar and well hopefully this story of mine also connects with others and encourage them to take the step to live more. 

Have you ever stepped out of your comfort zone? How did you feel after? What made you decide to do the jump? Would love to hear your stories.. :)