Neverson: Please be advised that all the tool here will come directly from me and me alone. I did not conduct any research. So it will simply be based off my own personal experiences, values, and beliefs. So do not take it as facts. I repeat, do not take it as facts. Thank you.

Okay, so today’s date is October 13, 2025. And to start off with project updates, I am happy to announce that I’ve completed animating the glitch suggestion titles for episode one of the gravitational ideas series water will while I would like to finalize the project and move on I still need to review and run everything through a quality assurance process once everything is completed then I’ll close this project and move on to the next major project now moving on to journal updates I’m happy to see some improvement in the quality and flow of the script I don’t necessarily have any objectives I’m just focusing at uh making minimal improvements per episode.

And with regards to future topics, after the next episode, I’ll be focusing on other topics other than suggestions and recommendation. This is not the end of it. I’m just expanding my list of topics for future episodes. So stay tuned for that. Uh for today’s for the for today’s episode or more specifically the topic of today’s episode, I would call it managing early success or slash uh a snapshot of success. And the reason I say that is cuz I want to I want to start off with a hypothetical scenario where you uh earn or stumble upon success very early in your journey. And I also want to dive deep into what it means and possible ways to manage it. And before we go any deeper, I want to state my bias upon success and what it means to me. Uh to most people success is about achieving a desired goal but for me it’s about progress something like uh the sense of movement towards something meaningful. It’s almost like a checkpoint along the journey.

But what happens when you reach your goal very early in your journey? We don’t usually plan for what comes after success. We tend to figure out along the the journey. And if you achieve your goal very early then it can feel like the end of the journey when it’s just really started. Now going back to the hypothetical scenario, imagine you just started posting your art online and after posting a few projects, it suddenly finds a large audience and then it goes viral. This sudden burst of success can be exciting like a dream come true. Unfortunately, this also comes with a hidden challenge, something like an invisible trap that forms around you before you even realize it. Now, as you continue to post your art to your growing audience, you start notice which projects perform the best and you begin to wonder if your next project should look or feel similar to the one that went viral. Maybe you tweak a few things here and there to keep the momentum going.

Without realizing it, your focus gradually shifts to the point where you’re no longer creating purely out of curiosity or passion, but you’re creating to meet the expectations of your initial success or go above it. That’s the invisible trap. Like any addiction, you start chasing that same rush you felt the first time. And when It doesn’t perform as well. It doesn’t just dis disappoint you. It bothers you to the core. And at this point, success dictates what you make, how you make it, and when you release it. Your creative freedom slowly fades behind the pressure to meet expectations. While this scenario is entirely negative, I can say that a majority of artists experience some version of this at some point. Now, to be clear, success is not the enemy. It is how we respond to it that matters. Early success tends to give artists the momentum, the exposure, and a validation, but it also challenges their ability to stay true to themselves.

While some artists can learn to adapt through early success, most struggle since they feel divided between what they want to create and what they think they should create, it is a fine balance and the more visible you become, the harder it gets to maintain. Now, I believe it’s important to pause from time to time and ask yourself about the initial spark like Why did I start creating? Reconnecting with your initial motivation is often what keeps you grounded when success starts pulling you in different directions. So for beginners who are still figuring out their unique voice and um vision, be careful not to lock you into a version of yourself that isn’t fully formed yet. Let your imaginations run wild. Experiment, make mistakes, and most importantly, learn from them. Your growth and evolution only slows or stagnates when the time for travel on errors is significantly reduced. Now to conclude this episode, success should serve as a stepping stone, not a stopping point.

Always remember to keep evolving, stay curious, and never let one moment define your entire journey. So I think that’s it for me. So until next time, take care.