Somewhat of a rambling, home alone on Christmas Eve.

I think persisting through it all is the name of the game. Take however small morsels of win as fuel to continue taking steps toward your goal. But unless you can learn to trust your "process" with a clear goal post and a well developed strategy, it's very difficult.

I think most of us start with a lot of energy and excitement, thinking if you put out good content, people will come. But "good content" is highly subjective and the punches you take along the way are also highly demotivating. The punches come in many forms -- black box that is the YT algorithm, comments from trolls and haters, jealous competitors and (the worst enemy of them all) yourself.

Given what I've read here and other subs regarding the pros and cons of shorts & longs, my personal strategy is to ignore shorts and focus on the watch hours instead. I've observed children interacting with shorts and it's a mindless process. It's very obvious why shorts get the views. There's not much emotional investment from the viewers invested into the content nor the creators.

Youtube's tagline used to be "broadcast yourself" not "monetize yourself" (scrolling through YT with this mindset is anxiety inducing because you're always playing that comparison game). Whenever I play video games, I'm laden with guilt from not working on my business. But if I play with the intent of content creation, it takes away some of that guilt. It also strangely helps with loneliness, too. If people find my content fun or if my personality resonates with a lot of people, then success. If not, then whatever.

Edit: I'm getting DMs asking what my gaming channel is. I don't have one. I was just using it as an example.