When I first started my channel, I was obsessed with growing and getting monetized as fast as possible. I saw an opportunity to grow quickly by targeting the AI trend, and it worked - my AI videos got tons of views and I gained tens of thousands of subscribers. However, the major downside was that I didn't even enjoy creating that type of content in the first place.

While the short-term success was great, it wasn't sustainable. After a full year of creating AI content, I burned out because I was so unhappy with the content I was producing. It just didn't excite or fulfill me.

The lesson here is that it's so much better to focus on creating content that actually excites and fulfills you, even if that results in your channel growing slower initially. Chasing trends and the short-term wins they provide can only get you so far. In the long run, you need to be creating content that you're passionate about, not just what you think will go viral.

Most small YouTubers obsess over virality, and I wasn't any different. When I first started my channel, I targeted the AI trend because I saw the potential to go viral. And that's exactly what happened - my first AI video got half a million views, and my fifth video on AI got 2 million views.

However, going viral was a double-edged sword. While those videos brought me a ton of success, they also got me locked into the AI niche super early on. Once I went viral for that specific niche, there was no going back. I had 30,000 people subscribe because of one video on AI, and those people now expected AI content. If I tried to post anything outside of the AI niche, those videos would just flop.

This is all to say that going viral can be great, but only if the video that goes viral aligns with the long-term vision you have for your channel. If it doesn't, you're at risk of attracting the wrong audience and getting locked into a niche that you don't want to be in in the long term.

Around 12 months after posting primarily AI content, the trend started to die down and the videos I posted on AI were performing worse and worse. The data from YouTube was telling me that the trend was past its expiration date. However, I clung on to the trend and kept making AI videos for months afterward. I was afraid that if I changed direction and started making non-AI related content, I would disappoint my audience, become irrelevant, or lose the income I was making on YouTube.

Being stubborn didn't get me anywhere, as my AI videos never started to perform any better. At a certain point, I realized I was just wasting my time by banging my head against a brick wall. Finally, after months of posting videos on AI that weren't doing well, I decided to quit that channel and pivot to something entirely new.

The truth is, there's absolutely no point wasting time on a path that isn't getting you where you want to go. If something isn't working for you, the longer you spend on that path, the longer it will take for you to reach your final destination. You need to recognize when it's time to let that thing go and pivot to something new, and the sooner you do it, the better.

Relying solely on YouTube AdSense and sponsorships to pay your bills is incredibly risky. If anything happens, like a personal life emergency or a change in the YouTube algorithm that tanks your reach, you would be completely screwed because you have no control over your income.

To ensure long-term financial stability that doesn't depend on views and consistent content uploads, you need to diversify your income sources as a content creator. This could include:

• Selling your own products or services
• Implementing affiliate marketing
• Building a paid community
• Exploring other revenue streams beyond just AdSense

By diversifying your income, you'll have more control over your financial future and won't be as dependent on the YouTube hamster wheel. This will give you the freedom to step away when needed without jeopardizing your ability to pay the bills.

I was always destined to fail by creating content around AI and it's because when it comes down to it I am not good at or interested in AI or just techy stuff in general. Anytime I tried to create content on AI, I was so resistant to doing it - I felt unmotivated, sluggish, uncreative, and I just didn't like it. Researching videos was incredibly boring to me, and even filming them felt like nails on a chalkboard.

When it comes to building a YouTube channel where your content is actually good and you enjoy making it, you have to focus on your strengths. It's when you focus on your strengths that you become your best, most productive, most creative self and put yourself in a position to create content that is actually worth watching.

For over 6 months, I went about building my YouTube channel completely alone. I didn't make an effort to befriend other creators on the platform because I was awkward and introverted, and I simply didn't think it was that important. I had this idea of the lone artist in my head, where you know an artist isolates themselves in their room for years and years until they make it.

But then around the 6-month mark, I got a DM from another YouTuber asking me if I wanted to join a group of a couple of other creators on YouTube so we could give each other feedback on our latest videos and help each other improve and grow faster. Of course, I said yes, and saying yes and joining this group literally changed everything.

Having this group was insanely valuable. On top of being able to get feedback on my videos, which helped me improve them exponentially, I also just learned more about YouTube and the platform every time we met up, which helped me become a better YouTuber. And then, on top of that, anytime I found myself in the dumps, let's say because a video underperformed or flopped or whatever, this group would be able to give me a ton of support and encouragement to help me get back on my feet and help me start creating a new video way faster than if I was just trying to lift myself up by myself.

Yeah, it's this group that made me realize that the idea of the lone artist is a myth. Having a network of other people who do what you do helps you learn and grow so, so much faster than if you tried to go at it alone.

When it comes to YouTube, many people think there's only one path to success - get lots of views on your videos, build a channel with tons of subscribers, and then take on sponsorships for every single video. However, after quitting my initial channel, I started to see creators on YouTube go about succeeding in a completely different way.

These creators didn't focus on chasing vanity metrics. Instead, they would post super niche videos to attract a very specific type of person that had a specific problem that they could help with their product or service. They treated YouTube more like a business and focused on using it as a marketing vehicle, where their videos would drive traffic to their website that either sold a product or sold their service.

I saw YouTubers with only 10,000 subscribers or even 1,000 subscribers or less succeed with this exact method. They would be making $10K or $20K per month, which is way more than I was making as a YouTuber with 80,000 subscribers.

This showed me that there are multiple paths to success on YouTube, and that chasing vanity metrics may not be the best path to try and replicate to see success on the platform. The key is to focus on creating content that serves a specific audience, rather than just trying to grow your channel as big as possible.

Something that I really struggled with, especially at the peak of my channel, was having a video underperform. Whenever I had a video that would get a low amount of views, it would seriously mess with my head. I would feel completely depressed for days, if not a full week or longer. During these periods, it was very hard to get any work done, be productive, work on my next video, or even just do normal daily tasks.

It always took me so long to recover from videos underperforming because I would just brew in those negative feelings and I wouldn't take action to help myself get out of that headspace. But since then, I've learned that it is so important that when something bad happens, you have to intentionally feed your mind positive things.

Whether that's reading positive books like a self-help book, listening to positive messages like a positive podcast, or just reading positive quotes, this basically ensures that whenever something happens that puts you in a negative headspace, your brain is supplied with tons and tons of positive material that you can focus on. This will encourage you and help you bounce back.

When it comes to growing a YouTube channel, there are tons of highs and there are tons of lows. During those lows, positivity is your greatest ally, so you have to constantly be supplying your brain with positive things.

When it comes to YouTube, many people think there's only one path to success - get lots of views on your videos, build a channel with tons of subscribers, and then take on sponsorships. However, this often leads to chasing trends and creating content that doesn't truly excite you.

I learned the hard way that it's so much better to focus on creating content that actually fulfills and excites you, even if that results in your channel growing slower initially. Chasing trends and the short-term wins they provide can only get you so far.

I saw creators succeed by treating YouTube more like a business, using it as a marketing vehicle to drive traffic to their products or services. These creators were making far more than I was as a YouTuber with a much larger subscriber count, simply because they were focused on serving a specific audience rather than chasing vanity metrics.

The truth is, AdSense revenue is just a small piece of the total income you can make as a YouTuber. There are so many other monetization opportunities, from sponsorships to affiliate marketing to selling your own products or services. Choosing a niche based solely on AdSense potential is a recipe for burnout and failure.

Instead, it's crucial to pick a niche that you are genuinely interested in and want to be in for the long term. That way, you'll be motivated to keep creating and won't end up resenting the content you're producing. Passion and authenticity will always win out over chasing trends and profits in the long run.

When my YouTube channel grew from 500 subscribers to over 50,000 in just a couple of months, I quickly realized that I wasn't ready for that level of growth. As a newbie YouTuber, I was still figuring out the basics like lighting, audio, and the types of videos I enjoyed creating.

Having my channel thrust into the spotlight before I was truly ready was incredibly stressful. It was like being a comedian who had only performed in front of 10-15 people, and then suddenly being asked to perform in front of 50,000 people. The pressure was debilitating.

In hindsight, it would have been much better for me to focus on slow, intentional growth. That would have given me the time and space to improve my skills and increase my confidence as a YouTuber, before having to manage a large audience.

By the time I did gain a large following, I would have been prepared and ready to provide a high-quality experience for my viewers. Instead, I was still figuring things out, which led to inconsistent content and unnecessary stress.

The lesson here is that when you're just starting out, it's better to prioritize growth at a pace you can handle, rather than chasing rapid subscriber counts. Slow, intentional growth allows you to learn and improve, so that you're ready to serve a large audience when the time comes.

I didn't start thinking about email marketing until I had 50,000 subscribers and that is honestly so tragic because if I had started thinking about email and collecting emails from the very start by the time I started to take it seriously I could have had tens of thousands of subscribers which could have helped me open up new revenue streams either by taking on email sponsors, driving traffic to my affiliate links, or just driving traffic to my own products/services.

The thing is, even if you aren't sending emails or you aren't ready to start sending emails, you should be collecting people's emails from your very first video. Beyond the financial upside of just having an email list, email just provides a safety net for you as a YouTuber. So if anything ever happens, whether that's YouTube going poof or you getting banned or demonetized or whatever, you will still have your audience just through email and you will have a direct line of communication with them so you can actually tell them what's up if something ever happens.

Even when my channel was growing fast, faster than I had ever expected, I still found myself constantly comparing myself to other YouTubers. If their most recent video was doing better than my most recent video, I compared myself to them. If their lighting looked better, I compared my lighting to theirs. If their thumbnails or editing was better, I compared my thumbnails and editing to theirs. It was a never-ending cycle. No matter how well I was doing, I always found a way to make myself feel behind by looking at someone else's journey, and it completely sucked. It made the journey of building a YouTube channel, which should be fun, feel miserable.

If there's one thing I learned from that, it's that if you constantly compare yourself to others, you are never going to feel satisfied, no matter how far you've come. You have to stop obsessing over other people's journeys and their progress, and just focus on yourself, your own growth, your own path, and your own progress.

When my channel started to grow quickly, I became very self-conscious about my video quality. I had tens of thousands of people watching me, but I still had shitty mic quality and video quality that made me super nervous to upload anything. I didn't want to put out a bad video that would be watched by thousands upon thousands of people, and so I would overthink literally every single part of the videos I was creating. This resulted in me only uploading like a video once or twice a month.

The problem with that was I simply just wasn't getting enough reps in. I wasn't improving fast because I just wasn't creating enough to learn from my mistakes. What I've learned since then is the only way to improve as a YouTuber super fast is to make a lot of content, fail often, and just learn as you go. Perfectionism only slows you down. So if you want to grow and improve, you have to be willing to put in a ton of reps and just fail forward.

For the longest time I was scared to ask the viewers who watched my viewers to do anything whether that was subscribing to my channel or liking the video or signing up to my newsletter. I didn't want to come across as too pushy or too desperate and so I just wouldn't include a call to action at all. But not telling your viewers what to do is just like pouring water into a bucket filled with holes - your traffic is wasted and your entire channel suffers.

The truth is, people who aren't told what to do, do nothing. So if you want to increase your conversions and get more subscribers or get more likes on your videos or get more newsletter subscribers or whatever else, you have to tell people what to do. People need to be led, so don't be scared to just include a call to action in your YouTube videos every single one, asking for what you want.

When I started my channel, I would set goals like "hit 1,000 subs in 60 days" or "get monetized in two months." The problem with these types of goals is that they aren't actually goals - they're just wishes. You can't control whether someone subscribes to your channel or not.

What you can control, however, are outcome-oriented goals. These are goals where you can directly control the outcome. For example, setting goals like "post a video a week" or "improve one thing in every video." The goals you set matter and will change how fast you actually progress toward building your channel and growing as a YouTuber.

Wishes that you have no control over won't help you achieve the results you want. Instead, focus on setting outcome-oriented goals that you can directly influence. This will help you make real progress on your YouTube journey.

Though my channel grew very quickly, my views were all over the place. Some videos would get hundreds of thousands of views, some videos would get tens of thousands, and some videos would just get thousands. Because I didn't have a ton of videos that reflected consistent views, when I would get sponsorship inquiries from companies, they saw those inconsistent views on my channel and would reach out to sponsor my videos, but only if I accepted a view guarantee deal.

This meant I would have to get, let's say, 75,000 views in order for them to pay me the amount we had agreed upon. And if I didn't get 75,000 views, then I would not get paid, but they would still get the exposure. It was essentially a safety net for them and just a crazy crappy deal for me.

I took on a ton of these deals, both because I was desperate for the money and also because I sucked at negotiating. Let me tell you, it sucked. These view guarantee deals caused me to stress over a video's performance way more than it should, and just put a ton of stress and pressure on my shoulders. There was literally no feeling worse in the world than taking on a sponsor with a view guarantee and then not hitting the views that we agreed upon. It was so, so awful.

Looking back on it now, I can very confidently say they are not worth it. It's not worth the stress, it's not worth the pressure, and honestly, it's just so much better to wait until your channel is getting consistent views to take on sponsorships in the first place. Basically, you want your channel to be in the position where you can tell a company that view guarantee deals are off the table - take it or leave it, because they just aren't worth it.

Did you know that when you make internet money, you actually owe some of that to the government? Yes, when you are self-employed, you still have to pay your taxes. This apparently didn't cross my mind when I first got monetized on YouTube. As I started making money from AdSense and sponsorships, I wasn't thinking about taxes and I wasn't setting money away for it. So when tax season rolled around, like a year later, I was absolutely in shock to learn that I owed the government thousands upon thousands of dollars.

As a good rule of thumb, you should be setting between 30 to 50% of what you earn into a tax savings account as soon as you get monetized on YouTube. This will ensure you are prepared when tax season comes around, and you don't end up in a stressful situation like I did.

When I started making money from YouTube through AdSense and sponsorships, I didn't think about reinvesting that money back into my growth. Instead, I spent it on things that didn't actually help my channel or me as a creator. It's only when I quit my channel that I finally decided to invest in a mentor for online business, and it was quite literally life-changing.

Having a mentor to teach me valuable skills made the learning curve so much shorter. It saved me from making so many mistakes and helped me get results way faster. If you start making money from YouTube, I strongly recommend reinvesting that money, not into equipment or other expenses, but into mentors who can teach you and help you level up as a creator or as a business owner. This will allow you to make more money down the line, rather than just spending it on things that don't contribute to your growth.

When you put yourself out there on the internet and start gaining traction, hate comments are inevitable. Having random people on the internet trash talk you can be a shock. It's tempting to spend time thinking about what they said or crafting a response. However, this only takes away time and energy that could be better spent interacting with your positive audience or creating more content.

Instead of paying attention to haters, save yourself some peace of mind. As soon as you read a hate comment, just delete it. Don't start typing a response, don't think about it - simply delete it. Alternatively, you can leave a passive-aggressive thumbs up emoji as a response, just for a bit of humor.

The key is to not let hate comments consume your time and energy. Focus on your positive audience and continue creating content. Engaging with haters will only distract you from your goals.

When I started to see success on YouTube, I became super obsessed with keeping that momentum going. I would work 10 to 12 hour days just working on my channel - researching, scripting, editing, filming, or just doing busy work. Anything that made it feel like I was making progress.

In the process, I started to neglect other areas of my life because I became so consumed with my work. The ironic part is, I became a YouTuber in the first place because I wanted more freedom - I wanted freedom to work less and work on my own terms. But somewhere along the way, I ended up just doing the complete opposite and living to work instead of working to live.

As creatives, it is so easy to get caught up in our work and what we're building. But we have to remember that we do work to live, and I think for the majority of us, we started building a channel because we wanted more freedom and more time. So we have to remember to set boundaries around how much we work.

If you don't intentionally protect your time, you will find yourself wasting months and months or years to your work, and looking back and just wondering where all the time went. So just remember, set boundaries and work to live.