I'm heading into the new year with 30,000 subscribers 🎉 From the outside, it may seem like a vanity metric But for me, it represents much, much more You see, this isn't my first YouTube channel - it's my second The first time around was back in 2021. Within 5 months, I had my first viral video. My channel started to grow, quite fast But despite the numerical success, I was struggling I'll spare you the nitty gritty details (I have a YouTube video detailing the whole thing), but I ended up being trapped in a niche I not only didn't love, but didn't even like I felt no connection to my viewers. I felt trapped by them. Trapped by my content And I burned out HARD I finally decided to abandon my channel in early 2022. I had 23K subscribers at the time And I spent the rest of 2022 recovering from my burnout and figuring out how everything went so south so fast Through the process, I realized something: Creating content I wasn't passionate about had turned into its own kind of torture. But at my core, I LOVED making videos. I truly LOVED YouTube So in 2023, I decided to do it again I'd start from scratch, with a brand new channel with zero subscribers But this time, I would do everything in my power to do it right So on April 14, 2023, I launched my new channel And for me, 2023 was a year of rebuilding It wasn't glamorous work There was so much frustration, feeling like I was in a constant state of catch up - getting monetized again, getting views again, hitting the same milestones I had hit two years ago On the inside, everything felt entirely different I loved my channel. I loved my new style. And I absolutely adored my new viewers, and felt a level of connection and camaraderie I never thought possible (you guys are truly the best) But on the outside, I felt like all I was doing was grinding to reach the "success" I had already reached two years ago 2023 was a year of rebuilding. It was hard, but it was absolutely necessary It built up a rock-solid foundation to take into 2024 Because next year is going to be different There won't be any more retracing old steps - next year will be full of "new's": new wins, new failures, new opportunities, and new milestones And hitting 30K is the first of those new milestones :) I've never been here before. It's completely new territory. And it seems only fitting to hit this new milestone on one of the last couple days of 2023 We're taking this energy with us into 2024 It's going to be a killer year And I can't wait to see what's in store ❤️