One of the creators I coach said something this week that I keep thinking about.

She got 6 million views this month.

(My numbers aren’t even that good omg.)

And she told me she felt like a fraud…like a beginner who just got lucky.

Honestly, I feel that way sometimes too…even after getting millions of views across different niches and accounts.

“Oh it was just luck and timing,” I’d tell myself to invalidate my win.

You might think the point of this email is to convince you to build confidence and celebrate your wins…but today I have a different message for you.

You’re looking at the wrong numbers

I spend a lot of time looking at post analytics.

Retention graphs, skip rates, follower counts from individual reels - I spend hours per week poring over these numbers with the creators I coach.

I kept noticing 1 thing…

The creators who are the most stressed are almost always stressed about the wrong thing.

One creator this week wanted to know if 1,400 views on a new video concept was a failure.

Another was scared to repost a successful video (1m+ views) because someone might notice and call her out on it.

All of them are talented. All of them are putting in hours of work.

But each one of these creators is waiting for a number (view count) to tell them they're allowed to feel good about it.

What to look at instead

I have a friend who posts every day.

114 followers, less than 300 views per video.

But one of those viewers hired him as a coach and paid him $1,500.

Even this creator was still talking to me about his view counts.

I had to point out that the views didn't matter for him to “succeed”…

And I think a lot of us are doing this - we're optimizing for a metric that doesn't actually connect to the outcome we want.

When views are down?

We feel ashamed, guilty, and worthless.

Even me - I look at my views compared to my follower count and think I’m a failure.

Then I get discouraged and don’t want to post anymore…

But I have to remind myself that views are not the goal.

What I care about is impact - will someone find my content helpful?

Will someone take action to improve their life because of me?

Sometimes that happens at 300 views. Sometimes it doesn't happen at 9 million.

Every post is a win

When you're focused on impact over views, the number of posts you make becomes the new success metric.

Every post is also data.

Every post makes you slightly more comfortable on camera, slightly more specific in your hook, slightly faster in your edit - especially if you review your analytics every week like I do with my creators.

The video that flopped with 200 views last week isn't evidence that you're bad at this.

It's one more data point in a very long experiment.

The creators I've seen grow the fastest aren't the ones with the most natural talent.

They're the ones who kept going long enough to have enough data to actually learn from.

I have to remind myself that I posted daily for months before going viral…so I should keep going, keep gathering more data instead of giving up and feeling like a failure.

How I balance views anxiety in my life

I don't have a perfect system for this either.

What I've been doing lately is scheduling my notifs - I only see social media notifs at 12pm and 7pm, nothing in between.

It doesn't fix the anxiety completely.

But it makes it harder to spiral at lunch.

If you're a creator who's been checking your phone every 45 minutes waiting for a video to pop off - maybe try that for a week and see what happens.

Because protecting your energy will allow you to create from a place of excitement, not anxiety.

And if you're a creator who struggles with consistency and systems (esp with ADHD cuz the motivation comes in bursts),

I'd love to hear more about that!

Hit reply and let me know what you’re struggling with and what your goals are, and I’ll see how I can help 🫶 

Til next week,

Jennifer

P.S. more in depth breakdowns about my learnings from coaching creators to 100m+ views last quarter will be on my YouTube - subscribe here.