on this day 3 years ago I quit my job to do YouTube fulltime at the time I only had 889 subscribers and today I made the decision to quit my job to do YouTube and content creation full time and I still can't believe that I did it because I think if I was in that situation now I just wouldn't have the guts to do it in this video I'm going to tell you about all the major updates in the past year so what's happened in the last 12 months I'll talk to you about my channel growth the lessons that I've learned and challenges that I've faced the amount of money that I've earned and how I've made it and also talk about my future plans and like with all of my update videos I've got my notes to help keep me on track I've also added all of the previous update videos in the description box I watched them all this morning and it feels a bit weird because I'm watching those videos and some of them don't feel like me it's a bit odd some of them are so confident and maybe I've lost a bit of that confidence I don't know let's delve into that throughout the video this past year has been filled with the biggest amount of lessons it's had the biggest changes and I feel as though I've made the biggest personal growth as well I hit 100,000 subscribers I made one of the the toughest videos I ever made and in the process of making another tough one I moved into an office it didn't work I moved into another office it didn't work and then proceeded to have a meltdown which then led me to find a solution something that I'm really excited to tell you about and I'm extremely happy to have found a new way to make money that's separate from ad revenue and sponsorship but before we delve into all of that in detail then I'd like to talk about my channel growth on this day last year I had 79,90 subscribers and then today I have almost 143,000 subscribers and that's way more progress than I thought I'd make which is one of the reasons that I enjoy making these videos because it gives me an opportunity to zoom out and look at the bigger picture otherwise I'm just chugging along each day and not really realizing what I've achieved the videos that have helped me continue with my channel growth my Atlantic video and 7-Day fast video they still continue to do well which is incredible and over the last 12 months I haven't really made any or many viral Style videos and it's kind of been an intention but also maybe I'm using that as an excuse I made my Andrew huberman video and that did really well actually I'm really pleased for three reasons I'm pleased first of all I'd wanted to do it for ages and I did learn a lot from doing it I was curious and so to fulfilled that Curiosity feels good it also feels good that I made $10,000 it also feels good that I gained 10,000 subscribers my splits video that I think I made 2 and a/2 years ago out of nowhere so Random that's just taken off and I haven't changed the title I haven't changed the thund now which it's just it's on its way to a million and it kind of just fascinates me how certain things work sometimes they'll just sit chugging along for weeks months years and suddenly just blow up many people seem to have enjoyed my high protein and weight training video which I never intended to make they were never on my ideas list but it was just a series of events that led me to make those videos and I'll explain more about that in a minute first what I want to do is delve into what's happened in the last 12 months into detail and on the 4th of September last year this happened this represents two and a half years of hard work and it also represents you guys who are committed to living a healthy and cheerful life watching my videos interested in the same thing as me and hitting the Subscribe button so it's almost like a little reward for all of us so thank you so much for allowing me to have this moment honestly I didn't think that I would feel so excited and I can't stop looking at it you know what that is so Mega it's easy for me to forget that feeling the award sits just on my shelf just there it just becomes normal that I've got over 100,000 subscribers and I don't mean that in a bigheaded way or like an ungrateful way it just becomes yeah that's what I've got so to reflect back on that it feels really really good one major achievement for me in the last 12 months can't believe I did it was completing my Desert Island video I've got quite a story about this I'd wanted to make a video like that for ages I'd seen other people do it and I wanted to do it myself I came back from that trip with 500 megabytes of footage 1,980 video clips from seven different cameras with all of that footage I had no idea how to put it together so I successfully procrastinated making that for 17 months then I went to the Netherlands I took magic mushrooms had a Eureka moment came back and within two weeks of that Eureka experience started working on that project the desert island video I think I spent about £5,000 on on that video and I thought that I would get a return on my investment the video took about 100 hours to edit it yeah I'm confident to say that it nearly broke me it felt as though it did at the time and in total with the amount of planning and the actual challenge itself and I took a cameraman there was probably 600 man hours to make that video video so 600 man hours and £5,000 investment and that video has made me £322 it's just like are you being serious oh my goodness I'm actually jumping ahead to one of the lessons I should wait until the lesson section that was a lesson in itself that just be careful what I'm want want to make videos about and be careful with how much money I spend but also it's fine I'm pleased I did it it was an amazing experience another big project that I've got on the go and it's probably just as hard it's complex but in a different way is my sillus ibing video that's me going to the Netherlands taking magic mushrooms I'm making a video about it that video again has nearly broken me in fact when I say nearly broke me what I mean by that is it was only a couple of weeks ago that I had what I call a meltdown by meltdown I mean that I feel as though my world is falling apart around me my motivation is low my mood is low energy it's all zero it's the kind of day where I just spend all day in bed and then my mom has to come up and kind of make me some food that sounds pathetic but that's the reality oh I'm a bit embarrassed that I just said that anyway that silus iban video is going to be ready in about two to three weeks I can see the end of the project my goodness it feels good to nearly be at the end one of the biggest things that's happened in the last 12 months just going to take a moment just to appreciate appreciate what's happened as many of you know I lived with my mom for 3 and 1 half years while I got this YouTube channel set up I actually went to visit her for a month during the third lockdown and then I never moved out then I started making YouTube videos in the kitchen and we came to an agreement that I could live with her whilst I got the channel set up I worked from the spare bedroom as the years went on I knew that I needed to move out but I'm also not very good at Living by myself I'd moved out once before as some of you know i' moved out before and um after two weeks I got really ill and I had to move back in with my mom don't I don't know why I laugh and I smile it's just kind of funny there came a point where I started to outgrow living and working from my spare room so I needed to I knew that I needed to come up with a solution but I just didn't know how both how would I afford to move out because I still wasn't earning enough to do that and also how was I going to live by myself without being paralyzed with the loneliness on one of my afternoon walks one day I was wandering around the village and then an idea just hit me it was actually a result of my psilocybin psychedelic experience and this idea has ended up kind of being quite lifechanging so I rushed home that day I sent the idea or the business pitch off to the relevant person and then a few weeks later it was accepted and the idea was I tell you all of this because it's one of the one of the ways that I make money and kind of the different avenues that I have to explore in order to make you YouTube my job so my idea I only sent it to one company fivo Barefoot and I sent it to them because I like working with them I like their values and we share a similar Mission my idea was to work with them on an annual partnership and by that it means that I'd have their logo in the back of all of my videos and then I would also do a short 10 second mention in all of my videos as well and I hadn't seen or I still have haven't seen anyone that does something like this so I'm not sure if it's a thing and so the money that I get from this annual partnership from Vivo Barefoot it allowed me to find a solution of moving my work outside of my mom's house and so it gave me enough money to start renting an office so I found this office about 3 minutes drive away from my house and it was going to be amazing had the office decorated I moved all of my stuff in life was going to be great and then within it was a week within one week the Builder's yard out the front it was so noisy be beep ble reversing beep beep ble reversing it drove me mad went home and cried every day so then I found another office I moved into that within two weeks everything was going to be amazing and then I came to the realization that working in a public office just wouldn't work for my work CU I need it to be quiet and it also wouldn't work for me because with so much noise in a public office I just couldn't concentrate it was during the exercise that the but by this time with the second office I'd signed a 12mon forre so I knew that I would have to stick it out but the good thing is is that being here it gets me so motivated and so fired up to get enough monthly income to rent my own house it's big enough for me to live and work so then a house opposite my mom came up for rent and the minute that I walked in and looked at it I knew that it was perfect for me but I also had another 10 months to pay on the office so was I going to move into the house or was I going to stay in the office weighing it up weighing it up it turns out that I moved into the house and it turns out I'm actually still also paying for the office so now I'm renting an office that I don't use and I'm renting a house oh dear So within three months I moved my stuff three times which took a lot of physical mental and emotional energy but the good news is is I'm now living in this house something that I've wanted for a really really long time my goal is to get my own house it's something that I've dreamed of for so long I really really want my own house my own house just keeps me going so I'd like to take this opportunity to thank viop for for accepting my idea and supporting my mission of living a healthy and cheerful life and the great thing now is that I don't get as lonely because I'm living in a village that I love and I'm familiar with and also my mom is just over the road and that's a great opportunity to send out a massive thank you to Mama T for letting me live with her for three and a half years because I can can be a nent and also she's just a huge supporter of my work and supports everything I do and I know there's some of you that are Keen to see my new house it's pretty cool it's full of Health gadgets and gizmos so it's actually going to be my next next video that I make I'm going to do a house tour video you're so clever by the way this house is actually going up for sale next year and I really don't want to move out so if you've got any ideas on how to save 46,00 in 12 months please let me know I'll talk to you about sponsorship for a moment because I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and he asked me if there's a lot of sponsorship opportunity at the minute he heard that the landscape was pretty dry I think I work well I know I work very differently to a lot of other creators I do a lot of Outreach for my sponsorships whereby I get in contact with companies that I know like and trust and ask them to sponsor my videos usually it works the other way usually companies contact creators and ask them to sponsor videos and that's all right but it doesn't really work for me for example if a supplement company contact me and say we want to sponsor your videos well I've never used that supplement and I don't know if it's good I haven't got experience using it so generally what I like to do is buy a product or service use it for a number of months if I like it then I reach out to the company introduce myself usually the company says yes as well and the reason I tell you that is because I like to work with companies on a long-term basis rather than just flitting and changing and promoting different products all the time I like to just stick with the ones that I know so you might have noticed that I've started working with Lumin I've continued working with Vivo Barefoot I work with Flexi spot who Supply office furniture and also continue working with skillshare because I continue to do their courses I definitely could earn a lot more money doing sponsorships if I accepted some of the stuff that came into my inbox I would be a lot wealthier but it just the value system of it all just doesn't really work for me and also I don't have a manager or an agent or anything like that I think once a channel gets to a certain size similar to mine it's quite common for people to have a manager but I just manage everything myself just because I find it quite easy in fact I find it really easy I think it would be much more complicated to have someone else involved ah this is really exciting this is almost as exciting as me living in this house I've learned a new way to to make money that's through the sales of digital products and I'd always heard about digital products over the years but I just couldn't be bothered to learn how to do it and the idea just made me feel confused but I've got a friend he's called Stefan and I met him when I did the mat Della YouTube course a few years ago and he mentioned to me that he sold digital products and that he made some money and he said that I should give it a go so one day I thought you know what I'm just going to give this a try I'm going to keep it really simple and I tried it with my Andrew huberman routine I knew that there would be some people that would want to try the routine so I just made a really basic template and I think I'm selling it for about $3.99 like not loads but given that video was a success and also a lot of people are interested in the routine I have sold a lot of those digal templates and I'll explain how much I've made from it later on in the video I still can't believe that selling a digital product for a cheap price could make so much money my mind is blown and I don't think that I would be living in this house and be able to afford living here if it wasn't for digital products I looked back at the last 12 months and I realized that I haven't made what I'd originally planned plan to make if you watch my 2-year update video I talk about a therapy series inner self series all of that but the reason that I never got around to making those videos was because I did my blood test I thought when I booked that I would have my blood test it would just be one video and then it would I would move on but that having that blood test changed the trajectory of not only my YouTube channel but also changed the trajectory of my life I know that sounds pretty deep but I never realized that getting the results and the action plan from th that blood test would have such a huge impact and so therefore I spent the last 12 months digging into food weight training supplements and I've been documenting that Journey which is why I think I probably haven't made as many videos as I'd like and as many videos you as you'd like because I'm in the process of making a 12 Monon update video for that blood test and it's taken a long time before I move on to my lessons and challenges a quick note to say I can still do the splits I can still juggle and do the Rubik's Cube I can now fully touch type I try to get 10,000 steps a day and morning light in my eyes Andrew huberman style but I do not drink salt water first thing in the morning morning I'm still weight training and eating high protein meal plan and I never did learn to unicycle oh my God I wouldn't have done any of that if it hadn't have been for the videos because the videos keep me accountable and give me purpose to do these things so I'm incredi happy and grateful to have my job and very happy to previous LT that I made the decision that day to quit my job to do YouTube fulltime so let's talk about the lessons I've learned and the challenges that I faced even to this day I'm still amazed with how long videos take to make I said it at 3 months 6 months 1 year 2 years I'm saying it now I'll probably still be saying it in 10 years time and that's probably one of the biggest challenges because I've got so many ideas in my head and so many videos that I want to make it gets frustrating for me to not be able to make them quick enough and yes I could be part of the grind culture and work all of the hours pull all nighters and just work myself into the ground but then I'm not living by the values of living a healthy and cheerful life I was explaining this to a friend the other day and he was was surprised but none of this comes natural to me making videos I'm met with a resistance every time for example filming this video all morning I felt a resistance to turn the camera on it's only once I start talking that I feel okay starting a script resistance put an edit into a timeline oh the resistance it's just feels like a constant battle but I know that the resistance will always be there and that it's an obstacle that I need to come overcome every day I also get incredibly nervous when turning the camera on I thought that would pass turns out that it hasn't passed I'm also Naturally by default incredibly lazy and I'm very easily distracted but Mak videos gives me a sense of purpose and it gives me a focus so I'll be curious about something and I probably wouldn't do it if it wasn't for making a video another challenge that I faced particularly in the last year and I don't know why I've got it now and I haven't had it in the past few years is I have been burnt out a couple of times in the past year and I think that's happened because it's been an accumulation of three years of hard work with not really any breaks or holidays and I'll be really open and honest in this part of the video so I'm a solo Creator out of choice well not necessarily I haven't got enough money to pay someone else but I'm a solo Creator and that comes with a lot of job titles takes a lot of energy to make a video in my personal life I'm also single not by choice but also to a certain degree by choice and I find being a solo Creator and a single woman I find that a real big challenge especially now I'm living in my own house something that I love but now I've got more financial responsibility I've also got a lot of time by myself because I'm not living with my mom that feeling can be quite crushing sometimes I actually a few weeks ago got to the point where I really struggled and it's made me realize I need to come up with a solution because feeling like that isn't healthy and it certainly isn't making me cheerful so I think over the next year I need to find a solution to get rid of this solo create a single woman Vibe oh I don't even know why I'm telling you that but that's a challenge despite the challenge of being a solo Creator which at times can be so tough I would much prefer to be doing that and moving forward working towards my goals and aspirations rather than just plotting along in life wishing for things to be different because for all those years before quitting my job to do YouTube full time I felt sad and frustrated wanting to do this so even though now I can still feel s and frustrated it's a different kind and at least I'm pursuing my goals and Ambitions and I'm not going to then be old lady LT regretting that I'd never given it a go this all sounds a bit deep let's try and lighten it up a bit some questions came up from the community about how I balance my work life with my personal life and I work from 9:00 a.m. till about 4:30 p.m. I don't tend to work at the weekend ends and I start each day with my chill morning routine and then I go to the gym and after work I end the day with an afternoon walk around the village and then some stretch and some chill time but when I have got a big work project on like the desert island video or the sill sing video I will just plug in and I will just work you know 14 days straight day after day which isn't healthy but it's the only way I know how to tackle a big project like that I've continued doing online classes over the past 12 months just to keep me refreshed it's not so much about learning how to edit videos but I enjoy watching other creators and their processes because sometimes I can get creative blocks and feel stuck and then I'll watch another Creator and they might give a slightly different workflow or the thing that I find most helpful for me is seeing other creators come up against their creative blocks or their technical issues or their struggles and it makes me realize that all of the obstacles that I have they have too so then it just makes it feel more normal and so for my online courses I've continued to use skillshare which I've been using since 2022 so this video is sponsored by skillshare and even even if it wasn't sponsored I'd still mention it anyway because it's the platform that I keep coming back to to keep doing YouTube classes because I've been having these mini meltdowns and creative blocks I recently did the learning path which is called grow your YouTube channel and it's 10 hours of content by six established creators and it's fascinating learning about six different processes and six different styles but the one thing that shines through is that each of them follow their inner intuition and what feels right for them and so if you're wanting to learn something new to keep the old Noggin ticking over then skillshare is the largest online learning community with thousands of classes ranging from photography to music illustration to productivity I've added a link to skillshare in the description where you can get one month for free and that link is valid for the first 500 people one question from the community that really got me thinking is if I was to start YouTube again what would I do differently it would be keep things simple and don't don't over complicate it I think recently I've just over complicated things a little bit too much and it's got me confused and for those wanting tips about starting a YouTube channel if you want to do it you just need to get on with it it can be a bit of a rocky rad C but the only way you will ever learn is by doing it another good question I got from the community was when did I know it was going to work out and I knew straight away as soon as I quit my job to do YouTube fulltime I knew it was going to work out and when I got my second paycheck from YouTube then it confirmed that and how often do you consider giving it up never even when I'm at my lowest I never consider giving it up I wouldn't have any other job I feel like I've already talked about some of the challenges I faced already but looking back at the previous year I can't help but think I wish that I'd have made more videos and there's times where my brain literally runs out of energy which is kind of frustrating because all I want to do is make videos and when I look at other creators and see how many videos they're making I think why can't I do that but I'm me with my ideas and my energy and my life and they're them and it can be a bit of a challenge sometimes to not get sucked into the sensationalism and the money of YouTube that is a spiral of just wanting more and more and more but I think I'm quite good at stepping away from that which is why which is why I make videos about a daylight lamp and sourkraut and my friend who has turned into a bit of a mentor he can see potential in me and that I can get a lot more views and a lot more money and we laugh about my sourkraut video because it is almost like a way of me sticking to my values and staying humble because pickled cabbage was never going to make me tens of thousands of pounds but I wanted to make a video about pickled cabbage but it's that fine balance of business business and personal it's hard to explain I'm pleased I made the S crra video and now for the bit you all been waiting for is how much money I've made in the last year so I've got four ways that I make money from YouTube I've got ad Revenue sponsorship digital products and Affiliates and AD revenue is I get a tiny amount of money for the ads placed at the start in the middle and at the end of YouTube videos sponsorships is when a brand pays me to be in their video digital products I will explain I'll explain that an affiliate links is for example if I provide a link to a product and someone buys that then I get a small perent of that sale in ad Revenue over the last 12 months I've made 33,976 in sponsorships 8,045 digital products are you ready for this 18,1 133 are you being serious I didn't even know what digital products were 12 months ago and affiliate links this has been a good increase 6,677 so in the last year I've earned 66,800 pounds the YouTube earnings does tend to go up and down and just bear in mind that I've got to pay tax on that 66,000 and I'm also paying for an office I don't use I'm not great at stuff like this but I've made a chart comparing my earnings from year 1 to year 2 to year three in each of the categories what you can see here is that my ad revenue is increasing which is great and just remembering that in year two I was away for several months so the desert island video took many weeks to plan and then I went away and filmed that and then I also went and did the TV show which took several months of preparation so that's why year 2 which is in green is a much lower figure and the two things that stand out here is that the affiliate links you can see that there's been a big increase in year three almost 10 times as much as year two and I'd seen people talk about using affiliate links and getting income in the past and I always wondered how I would get it to work for me and it's not something that I push because that's not really a technique that I like but when I talk about products in my videos and I add a link in the description when people click it I get a small percent and it's great to see that that's starting to work for me after 3 years of just putting links in the video description and then one huge difference is digital templates in year one and year two didn't exist I started doing them in year three and it's generated all this income and it's only when I look at the chart like this that I realize there's been such a big increase because again it's very easy to get used to a sum of money coming in each month and a climatized to that so it's great to see that the channel is making improvements so what's my future plans and what I'm I going to make videos about and what are my goals with this channel so I've been doing this doing this for 3 years and I think I'm at the stage where I really need to up my game work smarter not necessarily harder there's some series of videos that I've wanted to make for years which I mentioned in my 2-year update video that I never got around to making I've got my therapy Series where I do things like acupuncture Active Release Technique EMDR that kind of thing I've got my my International therapy series which is tie massage Indian head massage Scandinavian saers I have started my inner self series with my Desert Island video silos cybin and then I'm also planning to go to Peru to try iosca I won't leave that video as long as I've left the other videos and then continue doing experiments like knees over Toes that kind of stuff and then there is a series that I've dreamt about for for years and it's really the ultimate goal the reason that I'm making all of these videos is to give me the experience to do my ultimate goal and I'm not really in a position to share what that is but I would like to start exploring that this year so let's see if I can do it before my 4-year update video now I have my own house that it means I can make videos that I have thought about for ages with a bit more ease so at this point I want to ask you what videos would you like me to make are there any topics that you want me to explore any ideas that are at the top of your list please let me know in the comments an enormous thank you to everybody that has followed along and supported me on my YouTube Journey so far and I feel as though it's not just a YouTube Journey it's a personal Journey as well because You' followed some of the struggles and the challenges that I face not only through doing this as a job but also in my personal life and I often get compliments about you guys people will say of how lovely you are for writing such kind comments and often the comments will be quite long as well so spending the time to write it all and share your experience is not only appreciated By Me but by many other people as well so thank you so much I'm proud of Laura from 3 years ago for making that decision and I'm so pleased that I've got three years of experience under my belt because the prospect of starting brand new at this stage is actually quite terrifying but I will say if you have got a dream to do it then you absolutely must go for it everybody has got something of value to share in the world and so I truly believe that everybody could have a successful YouTube channel because we've all got our own interests and our own Niche I'll be doing my next update in April 2025 when I've been doing this for 4 years and I have set myself two goals by that time so let's see if I can do it and I'll share what they are this time next year