A YouTube creator argues that New Year's resolutions fail, so focus on habits instead: publish one video weekly, treat early videos as learning, and measure success by views and watch time, not subscribers. Most views come from non-subscribers anyway.
80%
60–80%
~3.5 million
Record and publish one video per week every week of 2025.
Here's the thing about New Year's resolutions. They always fail because people approach them wrong and try to do too much with them. As a result, 80% of resolutions that are started on January 1st have failed by January 19th. In this video, I'm going to give you three practical ways to approach your YouTube resolutions so that you actually stick to them and can start a successful channel in 2025. The problem with how most people set New Year's resolutions is their outcome based in ways that cannot be controlled. In YouTube terms, this looks like setting a goal. Such as my goal is to have, I don't know, 5,000 subscribers by December 31, 2025. The problem with that is, is that you can't control how people behave and whether they actually hit the subscribe button or not. And I would argue subscribers are not a worthwhile metric to pursue anyway. But I'll talk more about that later in the video. A better resolution would be to create a sustainable habit that is input based. That is something that you can control. So what do I mean when I say outcome based versus input based? Here is an outcome based goal related to money. I want to be a millionaire by 2026. And here is an input based behavior. I will invest 10% of my income every month until I reach a million dollars. You see the difference? And for YouTube, the outcome based goal would be setting a specific number of subscribers or views. So the better input based goal is something like I will record and publish one video per week every week of 2025. So as you sit down to think through what will make 2025 an awesome year for you and your YouTube journey, I want you to think in terms of inputs, not outcomes. And in order to make your inputs sustainable, there is an important mindset shift that you need to make. And that brings me to the second point which is that you need to give yourself permission to be a beginner. 80% of the students that I work with in one on one tutoring calls are 60 to 70 years old and they've had successful careers as CEOs, doctors, lawyers. They are at the top of their fields and they want to get started with making videos. Since you're watching me right now, chances are that's you. One of the hardest things for people like you who have achieved mastery in other fields and is to start over. It's hard to be a beginner, especially if you haven't done it in a while. You are going to make mistakes, you are going to fail, and for a while you are not going to like the quality of your work, which is why you have to give yourself permission to be a beginner. Treat each video you make as a learning opportunity. That said, you don't have to go this alone. For example, you can book time with me to learn how to use Descript or get started on YouTube, if that's of interest. See the link in the description to learn more about that. But do recognize that your first videos are the worst ones you'll ever make. But the only way to make good videos is to first make bad videos. Think of it like learning to ride a bike. Your first rides are wobbly, probably involve a few falls, and are maybe even a little embarrassing. But the only only way to get to the point where you're gliding smoothly down the road is to push through that beginning phase and keep pedaling. Eventually, you'll get to the point where you don't even think about the mechanics of riding and moving your feet and pumping the pedals, and you're freed up to get a bit more, shall we say, creative. Now, I told you earlier that subscribers are the wrong metric to base your success off of. It's wrong for two reasons, an external reason and an internal reason. What do I mean by that? Well, first of all, it's outdated advice to just get lots of subscribers. YouTube has changed. Subscribers are not what they used to be. YouTube used to fill your feed with the latest videos from the channels that you're subscribed to. Now it looks much more at what you are interested in based on other videos you've seen, whether you're subscribed to them or not, and populates your feed with relevant videos based on the individual merits of those individual videos. As a creator, this means your videos are not getting seen by your subscribers as much as you might think they are. I've worked with a lot of YouTube channels, and I can tell you that most channels across niches and different sizes get 60 to 80% of their views on average from people who are not even subscribed to them. Let me show you a couple examples. This guy is. His name's Kevin Stratvert, who, by the way, I think is Great, has almost 3.5 million subs, but struggles to get even 10,000 views per video. His most recent videos only have, like this one here, 10,000 views, so his subscribers are not that valuable. And this guy, on the other hand, has only 100,000 subscribers, but is getting over a million views on some videos. So if impact is your goal, which it should be, it's much more important to look at views and watch time rather than subscribers. Subscribers are a vanity metric. But secondly, I said there is an internal mindset reason why subscribers don't matter. Focusing on subscribers is like measuring the quality of your life by your net worth. And I don't need to tell you that money beyond the point of sustaining your lifestyle does not equal happiness. So I ask you, what do you really want to achieve by starting a YouTube channel? Get clear on that first. And if you want help answering that question and developing a YouTube strategy, I work one on one with people to help you get started on YouTube. But also I made this video over here where I share three things I learned from growing and monetizing three YouTube channels in one year.
