How to Level Up This Year

It's a new year and maybe you're hoping for a new version of you (or at least a better version of you). It's something a lot of us want this time of year. You might be thinking about goals or how to improve certain areas.

There's a really easy and simple way for you to 'level up' and that is to learn something new. Learn how to do something that the current version of you doesn't know how to do. Now you might think that sounds complicated or it's going to be hard or it's going to take forever. But there's a way to do this using something you already know about but I suspect you're probably underutilizing. And that is YouTube. I want you to consider how many things you could learn just by using YouTube and a commitment to acknowledge what you don't currently know.

Lately, I've been practicing this. I wanted to improve my website and my blog and the ability I had to make videos at higher quality. So I decided to relaunch my website using a new domain and a new hosting provider that I'd never done before (see: It Only Took Me 17 Years to Pull This Off). I didn't know how to do it so I decided to watch YouTube videos of people who have previously done this and figured out how they did it. I would watch a few videos then I would build some things on the site. Then I'd get stuck and go watch some more videos. I kept doing it and rebuilt my entire website, primarily learning how to do it on YouTube

Then I realized I've got a really nice 4k camera to record that can do incredible things. But the menus and options overwhelmed me. I realized as I was watching videos on how to use this camera that I've only been recording my videos at 720p (this is not HD quality). I had no idea of that until watching people on YouTube explain the camera settings and highlighting things about the camera I had no idea about.

Then it came to video editing. Previously, I would just start and stop and assume that's good. But I knew I wanted to learn how to do this much better. So I went to iMovie and started learning how to edit videos as I watched YouTube videos of how others use iMovie. I'm literally developing a skill set where I previously was completely reliant on others to help me.

Now the point in all of this is you have to be willing to be uncomfortable and acknowledge what you currently don't know. You will likely waste some time and make some mistakes in figuring things out, but you can figure new things out. I would love for us to not only do this ourselves but to be an encouragement to one another. That we would encourage those around us to be better as well.

I read a quote recently on Twitter that I think puts all of this into a great perspective. Dante Stewart said, "Be kind to people starting new things. You don’t know how much courage and vulnerability it took to get them there." I would love to extend kindness to you and encourage you to go and figure out what this might be for you.

What is one skill you don't currently have that would help you grow?

Now, get on YouTube and start searching for how to do it! Level up!