I’ve been running a YouTube channel as a business for about seven years, but for the past three years, I have not been prioritizing my channel. I suffered from some significant burnout which led me to lose confidence in the work I was producing, and ultimately lose the “muscle memory” I had developed for working hard on that kind of knowledge work.
I’ve since learned that I believe I was focusing on the wrong metrics and that led to me burning out and losing a bit of the passion I once had for this channel.
I was so worried about criticism and bad comments. It was a way of imposture syndrome validated by random internet strangers who would make comments that made me question if I was any good at what I did. It was all a weird game because, in my heart of hearts, I know that it was just a YouTube video. It shouldn’t be that complicated.
Having bad comments means people have decided to watch your videos. Therefore having a couple of bad comments is a good problem to have. Views that nobody watches don’t get hate–they don’t get anything!
The new metric I am concentrating on is the number of hours I am focused and deeply working on new videos. It’s the only important metric at this moment for my channel.
The more time I invest in deeply working on new videos, the more videos I will create and the better they will be. Therefore these videos will gain more views. More views from people who love what you make and come back for more is the number that matters.
The bad comments can just be used as some valuable insight on things I can correct, but they no longer will be a way of causing doubt to creep into my head. Unsatisfied customers are inevitable, but companies don’t shutter because a few folks complain. These viewers aren’t even paying, so there will be some haters and critics, but I will press on and continue adding viewers despite the clamor.