Full Transparency: Why I'm turning off Public Monthly Earnings (Patreon)

EDIT: Fuck me lmao, all that switching the setting did was put a little box around the number I wanted to go away and label it Private. I have been thoroughly stymied in my attempt at helping my own mental health: https://i.imgur.com/ICAPyYm.png 

Hey everyone! For those who actually care about this, all I ask is that you read all the way through before passing judgment! For those who don't care, here's a quick TLDR.

TL;DR: I am turning off Public Monthly Earnings because they have not been accurate for a year and are affecting my mental health.

Alright, so admittedly, I never thought I would do this. Way back when I first started my Patreon, I took it as a point of pride that I showed how much I was making each month when some other creators I considered my contemparies/rivals were hiding their monthly earnings. It was fun building that number up with you guys, and passing through all the goals that I made for the Patreon in under two years still fills me with pride and joy to this day.

Unfortunately, the Public Monthly Earnings Number has become something of a lead weight pulling me down at this point. This is, primarily, because it has NOT been accurate for all of 2021. The reason why is Annual Pledges.

When I enabled Annual Pledges in January of 2021, you guys responded in a big way, showing me that you all respected my commitment to this Patreon and trusted that I wasn't going to go anywhere for at least the next year. I really appreciate all of my patrons, both monthly and Annual, but it was nice to see how many of you threw in your support for a yearly subscription, even if for some it was just to save some money ;)

That said, an unexpected consequence of this was the complete disconnect from my actual Private Monthly Earnings, and the number that showed up when people looked at my Public numbers to see how much I was supposedly making. Put simply, the Public Monthly Earnings number has not been accurate at all in 2021, because it does not properly track new Annual Pledges and how that money is affecting my month-to-month earnings. 

The Public Facing number might vacillate between 5-5.6k every month, but in reality I've been making hundreds more than that. In fact, in the interest of full transparency, I've broken into 6k the past three months straight. No clue if that's going to continue with December or into 2022, but that's just to give you an idea of how inaccurate the number has become. You all see it say I'm earning 5.5k a month, but in reality, I've been earning over 6k.

So then, why do I want to turn it off you might ask? Well, just because it's not a legitimate number doesn't mean it doesn't get into my head. I'm a very numbers-oriented individual by nature, and when the numbers go up, I'm happier. When they go down or slow down, it eats at me and I start wondering what I could do differently to make them go up again.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing. A lot of the renovations, additions, and evolutions my Patreon has gone through over the years have come about from my drive to see the numbers go up. I added the Prompt Poll way back in the day, and more recently I've added Patreon Exclusives, first one set of four and then another, all for the sake of drawing more patrons to my Patreon.

But when one of the numbers driving me forward is fully inaccurate and seeing it go down and up is directly impacting my mental health despite all rational thought saying it shouldn't matter and I should just ignore it... it's time for a change.

So I've decided to 'hide' the Public Monthly Earnings. After I post this up, I'm going to go and turn the setting from Public to Private. From now on, only the number of patrons I have will be public information. 

I hope I've made my reasons for doing so clear. I'm not trying to keep anything from you guys, and I've never wanted to. But in this case, the information was wrong all year long anyways, and it will never be 'right' because Annual Pledges will always make it inaccurate. So for my own sake, I'm going to do away with it.