What To Do When Nothing Else Works
It's time to embrace a paradigm shift.
Written by
.I’ve been making and publishing YouTube videos for three years now.
What I learned through this process has had a profound impact on my life philosophy and my approach to creativity.
It’s formed the basis of my newsletter The 2Hour Creator Stack, a project I started because I felt a deep need to counteract what has become seen as obvious common sense when in actual fact nothing could be further from the truth.
Everything changed for me the moment I stopped listening to so-called common advice and started doing what felt right.
Social platforms are different but the underlying dynamics remain the same.
I spent the first 2 years of my creator journey on YouTube desperately trying to grow.
I focused relentlessly on pattern recognition. I would scroll the YouTube homepage for hours trying to recognize patterns in titles and thumbnails and what made people click.
I watched every YouTube growth video I could find.
I studied psychology and read copywriting books, obsessed over other creators in my niche, researched keywords, and tried to tap into the cultural Zeitgeist but nothing worked—nothing.
No matter what I did my growth was painfully slow.
The only consistent thing about those two years was my failure.
Failure to get views.
Failure to get subscribers.
Failure to get comments.
I thought about giving up multiple times.
Slowly my appetite and passion for creating started to dwindle.
I stopped watching other creators in my niche and lost interest in thumbnail tutorials and viral hook masterclasses. I stopped checking my stats.
I started to tell myself stories…
“It doesn’t matter if no one is watching”
“I don’t care about growth”
“I’m doing this for me”
I slowly started to detach myself from how my videos performed.
I stopped stressing about my target audience and started creating for myself.
I was exhausted.
Exhausted from overthinking.
Exhausted from obsessing over attention hacks.
I didn’t think I could do it anymore.
Except I still had a passion for creating. I wanted to make something. For the sake of making it—not the views, subscribers, or 10 seconds of fame.
Through This Experience The World I Thought I Knew Began To Collapse Around Me.
It was like I’d opened the door to another world.
I had a complete and utter paradigm shift.
I felt happier. Lighter. Optimistic. I caught myself smiling for no apparent reason. I felt like I had discovered a secret that no one else was willing to share.
When I left the obsessive strategy behind and gave myself full creative control my channel started to take off.
I had a video get close to half a million views.
For YouTube, there are two vital metrics that everyone obsesses over, click-through rate and retention rate.
Because of this, the dominant advice is that you have to capture people's attention in the first 10 seconds of the video otherwise they will get bored, click off and your video will die.
This might be true for some people. But remember the internet is vast.
On any social platform, different groups of people behave very differently even if there are overall trending patterns.
Once I stopped worrying about the metrics and just started creating what I felt like, as you might expect, my retention rate dropped.
But contrary to what every growth expert was teaching, this didn’t kill my videos.
In fact, they started to get more views and bring in more subscribers.
However, this wasn’t the actual paradigm shift.
The thing that struck me was something that I had completely overlooked.
By forgetting about hooks my intros became much slower. (I often make them intentionally slow)
You might ask, why would I do that?
Doesn’t that mean I’m setting myself up for failure?
No.
The real paradigm shift I had was that there were people out there just like me.
People who have long attention spans.
People who are looking for depth.
People who were yearning for deeper human connection without crazy effects and clickbait video titles.
By stripping the common strategy away I started to attract my ideal audience.
The comments became deeper and more meaningful.
The response was kinder and more appreciative.
I lost many of the internet trolls that I had picked up previously.
Some people even wrote mini-essays thanking me for my work. It was crazy!
It made me realize that we might have this all wrong…
Instead of looking for viral hacks seek human connection.
Instead of trying to reverse engineer success try baring your soul.
Instead of obsessing over engagement obsess over what lights you up inside.
The first thing to do when nothing else is working—is to ask yourself why?
Step 1: Why Do You Feel It’s Not Working? What Is Your Goal?
Whether something is working or not is 100% subjective.
Two people can achieve the same outcome, one will see it as a failure, and the other as a massive success.
Ask yourself why you feel it's not working.
What metrics are you measuring yourself against?
What does success mean to you?
You might think this is obvious but many of us haven’t thought deeply enough about this to set up realistic expectations.
Even after years of self-reflection I still catch myself falling into these old mental traps that no longer serve me.
We all have competing goals.
The conscious ones we set for ourselves and the unconscious ones that society, culture, and our parents have imprinted into us.
Conscious goal: I want to become a writer.
Unconscious goal: I want to receive recognition and praise for my words.
Conscious goal: I want to start a side hustle.
Unconscious goal: I don’t want to sell because it makes me cringe.
Conscious goal: I want to become a published author.
Unconscious goal: No one can ever know I write because I’m afraid of what others may think.
This is self-sabotage in full swing.
If we’re trying to become a writer in order to gain some sort of validation or recognition then we need to be honest with ourselves.
Those two things require a set of completely different behaviors and habits.
Gaining recognition requires marketing, networking, and self-promotion.
Becoming a good writer means working tirelessly on the craft.
It means soliciting critical feedback.
It means begging people to rip it to shreds.
If your actual goal is validation, recognition, and praise all your actions may steer you away from receiving critical feedback.
It means you may not improve as a writer which ultimately impacts validation and recognition.
Without this level of clarity, you risk being forever stuck in an unyielding cycle of repetition never achieving the growth you seek.
Step 2: Take A Step Back.
I had my epiphany after 2+ years of concerted effort with the wrong mindset.
A key skill I developed was the ability to oscillate between action and intentional inaction.
There are times for intense implementation. Time for deep focus on specific tasks. And then there are times for ‘doing nothing.’ For resting, contemplating, planning, and just thinking.
When nothing appears to be working there’s a temptation to double down and do more of it.
If you crank out more posts, write more emails, film more videos, create more products… Then everything will work.
However, if something is not working I encourage a different option… To stop doing it and start doing something else.
The first course of action is taking a step back…
This provides you the time and (much needed) perspective to work out the next move.
That would be contemplating and figuring out the first point.
What is your actual goal?
Why did you start writing in the first place?
Why is it not resonating?
What (if any) changes are required?
Then…
Step 3: Question Everything.
I only started to see my definition of success when I started to question things.
Almost everyone I came across on YouTube was dishing out the same advice.
Almost everyone I come across on Substack is dishing out the same advice.
It was the same on X/twitter when I was still active there.
The guru’s focus is on tactics.
They don’t talk about the underlying fundamentals because that’s not sexy and it’s difficult to package that into a quick win, like:
Write one newsletter per week
Write 2-3 notes per day
Comment on 10 posts per day
Send 3 DM’s per day.
This is very generic advice and if you’ve been around a while you have no doubt seen this posted a lot.
They are superficial tactics. It doesn’t get to the root of why nothing is working.
It is not the volume, but rather the actual content of those actions that will make an exponential difference.
What are you writing about?
How are you writing?
Who are you messaging and why?
Why are you writing in the first place?
If you feel like you’ve tried everything, start here.
Taking a step back, breaking out of your echo chamber, meeting new people, reading books from a different era are all things that can spark new ideas which makes you realize that there are still many different things left to try.
Success Requires Intentionality.
It’s not about luck or waiting for a viral moment—it’s about connecting with your true internal motivations and being honest with yourself.
If you want to be adored by thousands of people then go for it. There’s nothing wrong with that. Don’t let shame hold you back.
If you want money then do everything you can to make it. It’s just a tool, it is neither good nor bad.
If you want to become the best writer of the 21st century then make that your goal.
The important thing is that you are clear on what success means to you.
If you’re struggling remember:
You’re not alone, and you’re not failing. This is all part of the learning process.
Every creator faces this uphill climb.
Start by understanding why you feel stuck, gain clarity in your writing, and embrace the broader skill set required for growth.
Thank you for reading. If you found this helpful please consider subscribing to The 2hour Creator Stack and sharing this with others. I would be forever grateful.
Enjoy the rest of your day.
Benjamin
 | A guest post by
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Benjamin, your article brilliantly illustrates a paradox that many professionals and entrepreneurs face: the pursuit of "best practices" can sometimes be the very thing holding us back from creating lasting success.
Just as you found your breakthrough by abandoning conventional YouTube wisdom, many of the most innovative and fulfilling businesses were built by people who dared to question industry standards. Think of companies like Patagonia, which succeeded by prioritizing environmental responsibility when that was considered bad business, or Buffer, which built customer trust through radical transparency.
The key insight here isn't just about being contrarian - it's about finding the courage to align your work with your authentic values and strengths, even when that means swimming against the current. Whether you're building a business, advancing in your career, or creating content, sustainable success often comes not from following someone else's playbook, but from having the clarity to recognize your unique contribution and the confidence to deliver it in your own way.
Perhaps the most valuable metric isn't market share, growth rate, or engagement - but rather the degree to which your work energizes rather than depletes you. When you find that sweet spot, you often discover there's a whole audience, market, or career path waiting for exactly what you naturally do best.
Real. 💥 As a first timer on substack inundated with BS about how to hack and grow. This resonates. Thank you 🙏