Hey, guys! In 2022, I’m still reflecting on what went down in 2021, as many of you might be too. What an amazing year 2021 was for me! I can honestly say it was one of the best years ever to happen to me and I hope you can say the same! 

The above being said for me, the beginning of 2021 did not start off most optimally. As a creator, I really want to be open about this to my audience. Now, after making content on YouTube for an entire summer and currently into the first winter, I feel that I am a place where I can connect to you guys more and share these experiences. I can promise, they are all part of the process of becoming who you want to be.

Coming into 2021, my mental health was not in the place where I wanted it to be after the winter months spent in Sweden. A combination of issues with my health, friends and life was really just bearing me down. In my room, I was spending a lot of my time contemplating what I wanted to do with my life and how to make things better.  After spending all this time by myself, I realised something needed to change. I needed to get off the hamster wheel of life-bearing me down and take the leap doing something I really wanted to do. I NEEDED to follow my passions!

I have always been interested in photography and videography and I felt like it was only a matter of time before I started a YouTube Channel, as I had wanted to do this for MANY years. So, what was stopping me? The mind is truly amazing, but it can sometimes be your own worst enemy. Taking that initial step to start-up can be the hardest because you can be concerned about what everyone will think about you. Let me tell you this…Seeking the approval of others can hold you back from following the path of success. Conflict of listening to thoughts and following your dreams may ruin anybody eventually.

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”

Mark Twain

 I took the plunge. I started to go after what I wanted and made a YouTube channel. Consistently working, recording content, editing, and uploading, you can see my progress from the beginning to where I am now. When I watch my first video, I cringe to myself a little bit! Despite being sociable, I was so afraid to talk to the camera. Then after a couple months, I learned to actually find times where I fell in love with it.

It was consistency that helped me to continuously develop. As I did, I became more confident in knowing what I needed to think about to succeed. What could I do to make people engage with my content? Vlogging is pretty popular, becoming a focused opportunity because two passions of mine are photography and travel. When I travelled to Cyprus for the Summer, the opportunities to make these videos happened; this turned my life around completely.

In the beginning, I went back to that place of fear: What would people think? I was super nervous to tell anybody what I was doing with my YouTube channel in Cyprus when I was surrounded by many new faces. Thankfully, I met such fantastic people that supported me the whole way through. I could not be more grateful. Having people around you who support you and are positive about what you are doing helped solidify it all.  ‘Okay, this is actually something I am pretty good at, and I love doing it’. I continued to create whilst being in one of the best destinations I have visited, making so many memories along the way. Living in such a wonderful place where I worked while travelling made me develop into the person I am now. I am super grateful for this. 

From then, my confidence in creating content just increased massively. Here I am after building this platform up, speaking to you through my own website in addition to my channel. As well as sharing blog content, I can share so much more of my Photography Portfolio with the world after building it up for months.

Starting a YouTube and making a website was part of my goals for 2021. Using these platforms, I have achieved a lot of my creative goals for 2021. For example, I made my first 50 Euros through photography and videography. For me, this felt amazing! Achieving this showed that by following my favourite hobby, I could actually take my camera with me and have the chance to make an income from my passion. 

Goal Setting in 2022 

The original list I made for my goals for 2021 was crazy, humungous and I was super happy that I got to tick off a lot of the goals I had planned to do. One tip that really helped me was you should break down goals into different pathways. I had three specific paths that I could choose to follow this year relating to an area of career interest in my life. I set an action plan for each of these paths, focusing on what I would need to do to achieve this. Outside of YouTube, I reached some other goals. For example, investment in stocks. However, others I did not achieve could be implemented into this year. For example, reading for 30 minutes per day. 

Even if you aim to achieve the 50% of goals, that’s 50% worth of effort and progress made. With this mindset, I guarantee that over time you will have reached some great milestones!  In just under a year, I am almost at 200 subscribers on YouTube. Visualise a room with two-hundred people listening to and valuing what you are saying, and you could realise just how significant each milestone is. I am going into 2022 with this mindset to celebrate the milestones, the small achievements that make you realise all the effort and work is actually worth it. You can learn about the other milestones I achieved on my video Here. In this video, I talk about the steps I took to achieve my goals and turn my life around, through following my passions whilst travelling. Here’s my advice for you: remember, whatever you aim to do, consistency is the key. Keep posting, keep creating and keep celebrating those small milestones.

“Consistency is not perfection. It’s simply refusing to give up”

– Sean Cannell

Plans for 2022 

2021 completely turned my life around through setting goals and following my passions. Nobody knows how exactly 2022 will end up. But I do know I will continue to create awesome videos wherever I am in the world, whether at home in Sweden, in the UK, here in Thailand or elsewhere. In 2022 I really want to enhance my videography skills, building on everything I learnt in 2021.  I am super passionate about this. I hope to build up my clientele, gain some photography work and continue to develop my YouTube channel, where you can follow my whole journey. I have plans to produce content that I really hope will help communicate and connect with you as an audience and build up this community together over the coming year.

With that being said, let me know about your 2021! What did you improve or not improve? What are you excited about for 2022 and the future? Tell me below in the comments; I am super excited to answer all of your questions! Thank you so much for taking the time to read this blog and for watching my videos over on YouTube. If you haven’t checked them out yet, you can find all my Travel, Filmmaking & Lifestyle content on: https://www.youtube.com/c/KevinHilding