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My foray into YouTube has been enough to tell me that, well, YouTube is a lot of work. The people who are successful at YouTube are either extremely lucky, or extremely adept at hard work. It’s honestly something to be admired.

My problem, as with a lot of things, is that I take things slightly too lightly. I understand things will be tough, or that there will be tough things, but I sort of nonchalantly go about things without thinking too much into it. Then when things get too tough, as they inevitably do, I’m pretty good at just giving up, or just doing the bare minimum to get by.

“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.

- James Clear

What James Clear’s Atomic Habits teaches us is that, having goals is all fine and dandy, but the real answer lies in having systems. Systems where goals are the byproduct.

I’m not too worried that my foray into YouTube hasn’t gone as well as I would have liked. For one thing, you can probably tell, but I had no idea how to edit videos before I began. Now I can confidently say that I could make an at least somewhat good video.

I also very much enjoy the process of making videos. Although it is a lot of work, it is fun figuring out what I want to say, and how to portray that on screen.

What I am worried about, however, is that I’m failing in one of my goals. That of showing just how amazing the Tohoku Region is. I feel the need to do a better job at consistently pumping out quality videos that make people want to come and not just visit this area, but stay here for a while.

Now armed with the knowledge that it is systems not goals I should be worried about, I’m going to take a completely different tack. I’m going to have systems in place so that when things get tough, I have a fallback plan.

One step at a time though.