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After nine whole months of consistently posting on YouTube, I FINALLY reached 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours! This has been one of my biggest goals for the year because I’ve been taking YouTube much more seriously, publishing videos every single week, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, and learning which videos people actually want to watch.
If you go back to my five-month YouTube update, I shared what things looked like behind the scenes at that point. Growth was slow, and honestly, there wasn’t much to show for even after five months of consistent posting.
But I kept going!
On September 9th, I officially reached the YouTube monetization requirements and applied for the YouTube Partner Program. I genuinely thought that was basically it. Apply, get approved, turn on monetization, and finally start making money from all the videos I’d been creating for the past nine months.
Well… not exactly.
I’m recording this almost two weeks later, and I’m STILL not monetized.
But here’s the crazy part: when I applied on September 9th, I’d just crossed 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. Now, I’m already at around 1,800 subscribers and over 7,000 watch hours.
So, while I’ve been waiting for approval, I’ve gained almost another 1,000 subscribers and nearly doubled my watch hours!
I think this is SUCH a good example of how exponential growth can happen on YouTube. I wanted to share a real-time update about what’s happening, what I’ve learned from the monetization process, what I would do differently, and hopefully give you some encouragement if you’re currently posting on YouTube and wondering whether all of this work is ever going to pay off.
Because for a long time, my channel felt like it was growing SO slowly. And then suddenly, it wasn’t.
My First Nine Months of Consistently Posting on YouTube
I’ve been a content creator for years. I’ve built an audience on Instagram, grown my blog and podcast, and created my online business. But YouTube was something I never fully committed to. I would post here and there, but I wasn’t treating it as a major platform.
About nine months ago, I decided I really wanted to change that. I started consistently publishing videos and learning YouTube as its own platform because YouTube is SO different from Instagram.
With Instagram, you can post something and within the first few hours, you have a pretty good idea of how it’s performing. YouTube is different because a video can sit there for weeks or months and then suddenly start getting views.
That was a huge mindset shift for me.
There were definitely times during these nine months when I would look at my subscriber count or watch hours and think, how is this taking SO long?
You put hours into filming, editing (or paying an editor), creating the thumbnail, figuring out your title, writing your description, uploading everything, and then maybe you get a few hundred views.
And you’re like… cool. 😂
Meanwhile, you’re looking at that 4,000 watch-hour requirement thinking, HOW am I ever going to get there?
But I kept posting.
And I think that’s probably the biggest lesson from this entire experience. You don’t necessarily see the payoff from every single video immediately. You’re building a library of content, and every new video is another opportunity for somebody to discover you.
The video you upload today doesn’t disappear tomorrow. It can continue getting discovered weeks, months, or potentially years later. That’s one of the things I’m really starting to appreciate about YouTube.
How My Brazil Travel Content Helped My Channel Grow
For me, my Brazil travel content started performing really well, and once I noticed that, I started leaning into it.
Instead of randomly posting whatever I felt like posting, I began paying much more attention to what my audience was actually responding to.
What questions are people searching for? Which videos are bringing new viewers to my channel? Which videos are people actually watching? And how can I create another video that naturally makes sense for that same person?
That’s when I really started seeing momentum.
One video brings somebody to your channel, then they watch another one, and maybe another one. Suddenly, one viewer isn’t just giving you five minutes of watch time. Maybe they’re giving you 30 minutes or an hour because they’re going through multiple videos.
Maybe they subscribe, and when your next video gets published, instead of completely starting from zero, you already have more people there waiting to watch it.
That’s where you start seeing everything compound.
It took me nine months to reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. Then, in less than two weeks, I went from around 1,000 subscribers to 1,800 and from 4,000 watch hours to more than 7,000.
That is WILD to me.
And I really want to share this because if you’re at 200 subscribers right now, or 500 subscribers, or you have 1,500 watch hours and you’re thinking, “This is going to take me FOREVER,” don’t automatically take your current growth rate and project it forward.
It might take you six months to get your first 500 subscribers, and then one or two videos can completely change the trajectory of your channel.
Growth doesn’t always happen in a perfectly straight line.
Reaching 1,000 Subscribers and 4,000 Watch Hours: My Original Goal
My original goal was actually to be monetized by the end of this year.
I knew the watch-hour threshold was changing to 8,000 hours, so I really wanted to qualify before then. Earlier this year, December felt like a reasonable goal because I was still pretty far away. I wasn’t expecting to hit the requirements in September!
So when I finally crossed 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, I was SO excited.
I applied on September 9th and thought, okay, I’ve done it. Now I just wait for YouTube to approve my channel.
But what I’ve learned through this process is that reaching the monetization threshold is really only one piece of the puzzle. The other piece is actually getting accepted, and I don’t think I really budgeted for that.
In my head, I’d attached “hitting the requirements” and “being monetized” together as if they were basically the same milestone.
And they’re not necessarily the same day.
So if you’re setting your own YouTube monetization goal, that’s something I would keep in mind. If you want to be monetized by the end of the year, don’t necessarily make your goal to hit the requirements on December 31st.
Give yourself some breathing room for the application and approval process, too.
Why I’m Still Waiting for YouTube AdSense Approval
My situation is also a little more complicated because I already had an AdSense account.
Years ago, I monetized my blog through Google AdSense. That account was an individual account, and eventually, I moved my blog over to Mediavine, so I wasn’t really using AdSense for the blog anymore.
Fast-forward to now, when I’m applying for YouTube monetization and dealing with AdSense again. This is where things started getting confusing.
I had my old account, my new application, and started wondering whether the old AdSense account was creating a duplicate-account issue or somehow holding up the approval process.
So I’ve been trying to troubleshoot it from a few different angles.
I ended up closing the old individual AdSense account because my blog is already on Mediavine, and I don’t need that account anymore. I’ve also been trying to contact product support to figure out if someone can actually look at my application and tell me what’s going on.
And this has probably been the most frustrating part.
Once you’ve hit the requirements, there’s not necessarily this giant button that says, “HELLO GOOGLE, PLEASE TELL ME WHY THIS ISN’T WORKING.”
I know some creators have access to chat support directly within YouTube Studio, but I don’t have that option.
So I’m trying the support avenues available to me, and my next course of action is to get in contact with team members who can hopefully look into what’s happening on the back end.
And I will absolutely keep you updated on what happens because I feel like we see SO much content about how to reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours, but we don’t necessarily see as much about what happens after you hit those numbers.
Especially when things DON’T immediately go according to plan.
I don’t want to just come back once everything is resolved and say, “Yay, I’m monetized!”
I want to document this part, too, because this is part of the process.
What It’s Like Watching My YouTube Views Grow Without Monetization
There’s also been this weird psychological thing happening where I’m continuing to post videos that are getting views, but I’m not monetized yet.
So every time I see my watch hours going up, part of me is thrilled, and another part of me is like… THOSE COULD HAVE BEEN MONETIZED VIEWS. 😂
I’m sitting here at over 7,000 watch hours thinking, I qualified at 4,000!
But at the same time, I’m trying really hard not to let that discourage me from posting because stopping would make absolutely no sense.
The entire reason I’m in this position now is because I kept posting when I wasn’t making money from YouTube. For nine months, I was creating videos without YouTube ad revenue.
So why would I suddenly stop now when the channel is growing faster than it ever has?
That’s something I’ve had to remind myself of.
The goal isn’t just to get monetized. The goal is to build a channel. Monetization is one milestone within that.
If my audience is growing, people are finding my content, people are subscribing, and they’re watching multiple videos, that’s ultimately much more important than whatever I might have made from a couple of weeks of AdSense.
At least that’s what I’m telling myself while I very impatiently wait for everything to get approved. 😂
My Email Got Hacked and My Facebook Account Was Compromised
And because apparently waiting for YouTube monetization wasn’t enough excitement for one month, around the SAME TIME all of this was happening, my email got hacked.
Then my Facebook account was compromised and closed.
So I’m over here celebrating finally reaching the YouTube Partner Program requirements while simultaneously trying to recover my Facebook presence, my Wanderlover Facebook page, and my ad account.
I’m STILL working on getting my Facebook page and ad account back.
This month has basically been me opening my laptop every morning and wondering which tech platform we’re fighting with today. 😂
It’s been frustrating because these are platforms I’ve spent YEARS building on.
And as a creator and online business owner, situations like this really remind you how much of your business exists on platforms you don’t actually control.
You can build the audience, create the content, and spend years showing up, and then something happens with an account and suddenly you’re trying to navigate support systems and figure out how to get access back.
It’s also been a very good reminder of why I talk so much about having your own business infrastructure outside of social media.
Your website, your email list, your offers, your customers. Things that don’t just disappear because one social media account has an issue.
A Little Reminder to Be Patient While Building Your Business
Through all of this, I’m trying to focus on the fact that there can’t be a rainbow without any rain.
And apparently, the universe has decided I need to work on patience this month.
Yesterday, I got a fortune cookie. I opened it, and it said:
“Good things come to those who wait.”
And I was like… wow. So wise.
My husband looks at me and goes, “When I tell you that, you get even MORE impatient. But when a cookie tells you, you’re like, ‘Ooooh, so wise.'”
And honestly, he’s completely right. 😂
Apparently, Ragz just needs to start putting his advice inside fortune cookies, and I’ll listen to everything he says.
4 Lessons From My First Nine Months on YouTube
If you’re currently growing your own YouTube channel and monetization feels impossibly far away, there are a few things I would take away from my first nine months.
1. Consistency Is About Learning, Not Just Posting
The first lesson is obviously consistency.
And I know everyone says that, but I don’t think consistency means posting random videos every week just so you can say you posted.
It’s about consistently learning from what you’re publishing.
Every video should give you information:
- Did people click?
- Did they stay?
- Did the topic bring new people to your channel?
- Did those people watch another video?
Use that information to guide your next video.
You’re not just showing up every week. You’re getting better at understanding your audience and creating content they actually want to watch.
2. When Something Works, PAY ATTENTION
You don’t need to reinvent your entire channel every week.
If people clearly want a certain type of content from you, give them more of it.
That’s something I think has made a huge difference for me with my Brazil content.
One video performing well isn’t just exciting because that video got views. It’s also giving you a clue about what your audience wants next.
Pay attention to those signals and think about how you can create more content that serves the same audience.
3. Don’t Assume Your Growth Will Always Happen at Today’s Rate
This has probably been the biggest lesson for me.
If I’d taken my growth rate from the beginning of this journey and projected it forward, I would have assumed it was going to take me forever to get here.
Instead, it took nine months to get the first 1,000 subscribers and then less than two weeks to add almost another 1,000.
That’s why you have to give your content enough time to compound.
Your growth today isn’t necessarily an indication of what your growth will look like six months from now.
Keep creating, keep learning, and give your videos time to find their audience.
4. Give Yourself Extra Time for YouTube Monetization Approval
If monetization is your goal, give yourself extra time for the actual approval process.
Hitting the numbers is one milestone. Getting approved is another milestone.
And sometimes there’s apparently an annoying little AdSense adventure between the two. 😂
Don’t leave your application until the very last minute if you have a specific monetization deadline in mind. Build some extra time into your goal so you’re not expecting everything to happen immediately after reaching the requirements.
My YouTube Channel Update: 1,800 Subscribers and Still Waiting!
So that’s where I’m at right now.
Nine months of consistent posting, 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours reached on September 9th, and now I’m already at around 1,800 subscribers and more than 7,000 watch hours.
I’m still waiting for monetization approval. I’m still trying to sort everything out with AdSense. I’m still trying to recover my Facebook page and ad account.
And I’m still posting.
Even though this isn’t exactly how I imagined hitting this milestone, seeing how quickly the channel is growing now makes those months when I felt like absolutely NOTHING was happening feel very different in hindsight.
Maybe this is just the rain part, and hopefully the rainbow part is coming next.
And according to my extremely reputable fortune cookie source, good things come to those who wait.
So… we wait. 😂
But we keep posting while we wait.
Where Are You at With Your YouTube Channel?
If you’re building your own YouTube channel, I’d love to know where you’re at in the process!
How many subscribers do you have? How many watch hours? Are you still trying to qualify for monetization? Have you already applied and are waiting for approval like me? Or are you already monetized?
Let me know in the comments!
I would genuinely love to know because I think it helps so much to see that everyone is at a different stage of this process, and we can all support each other along the way.
I’ll definitely keep you posted on what happens with my application, and hopefully my next update is me telling you that WE’RE FINALLY MONETIZED.
I’ll see you in the next one!
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