25 things I wish someone told me sooner

Real growth starts with honest reflection.

Here are 25 lessons I learned the hard way in 2025.

I grouped them into 5 sections: Focus, Mindset, Consistency, Authenticity, and Resources.

One more thing. This is a long post, so feel free to jump around as only certain lessons may apply to you.

But hopefully they all do :).

Splitting your attention can kill momentum.

Everyone tells you to diversify your streams of income and get multiple sources of income, but the reality is that when you have a side hustle, the goal is to make that side hustle the main hustle.

In order to do that, you need to focus on one side hustle.

Water it. Grow it. Nurture it. Take care of it. And develop it.

The only way you can do that is by giving all your attention, time, and energy to that one side hustle and finding ways to grow it into the main hustle.

Brand deals, side ideas, "quick wins" - each new opportunity mean you're spending less time doing something else.

More money does equate to more problems, but also I like to think of more money distracting you from your true mission and your true goal.

As a creator this year, I've earned so much extra money through brand deals and partnerships; however, it strayed my focus from other things.

Maybe I could have used that time to create more content for my audience to increase my following, or maybe I could have created more content supporting or promoting individual products and services that I'm selling for myself.

Again, it's really important to focus and prioritize.

What if you had your own garden?

The more plants, vegetables, and all those things you have, the harder it becomes to focus on growing all of them compared to just having one or two flowers or vegetables that you really try and dedicate and grow to.

The weeks I felt fried were the weeks I didn't know why I was working.

I'm not gonna lie to you, I had burnout so much throughout the year, and burnout is real. People low-key crash out, they go crazy, and it's because of their work.

But recently I've been listening to a lot of episodes from the Founders podcast and I learned that founders and entrepreneurs are so great because they have consistency, dedication, all while in pursuit of a goal.

They have clear priorities.

If I had clear priorities and a real “why” behind why I'm making content, why I'm doing certain things, then I'll have all the motivation, energy, desire, and just the need to execute on that vision.

I often get paralyzed because I think I need to be doing more.

In reality, I need to be doing less.

And when I do less, I need to have better quality of the things I create.

You need to understand what works well for your business or service and then just focus on doing that. Instead of focusing on a hundred things, you got to dial it back and focus on 10 things and whatever those 10 things are have guardrails in place.

For example, let's say when it comes to video creation, the most important part is the hook and title. So have a process or a system or even a checklist on how do you create great titles?

And that right there, having a better constraint on your titles will drastically increase the watchability, the virality, and really just the performance of your videos.

Again, less ideas and better constraints.

That means saying “no” to a lot of things that feel fun so I can say “yes” to things that matter.

Less consuming, more creating.

Just focus on creating something great.

A lot of money decisions are emotional.

We think we need things. In reality, we just want them.

Whether it's pressure to go out with friends, feeling we need something to look nice, or thinking we need new gear to create better content, the truth is we don't need that much.

We have everything we need.

We just want a lot of things.

And once you handle your emotions, and you regulate your emotions, and you become disciplined, you'll start to see your money reflect that discipline.

A lot of times during my journey throughout the year, I lost motivation, my ego was hurt due to some stupid comments that a viewer might make on a video, or I would question my future if something didn't perform well.

Again, that is all noise, those are all distractions trying to pull me back to stop doing what I'm supposed to be doing.

Not every video is going to perform well, not every client will love your work, and that's okay. You can't focus on being 100% all the time or achieving 100% all the time.

You need to learn how to regulate those emotions and those feelings because the highs are highs, but also the lows are lows.

I like to think of this journey as peaks and valleys. There will be peaks on your way to success, but there will also be valleys. During those times when you hit those valleys and you're at your lowest of low, you gotta just keep going and keep trudging along.

Success without grounding isn't success — it's exhaustion with better optics.

Although I believe in myself to a 1000%, some things are out of my control and I need to rely on faith, luck, and other external factors.

Relying on faith is a key way for me to ground myself, to level myself, to be fortunate, to be grateful.

Clarity beats motivation every time.

This one's simple: You over plan. You over strategize. And you become paralyzed, not knowing the next thing to do.

The hardest lesson I had to learn this year was just focus on putting one foot in front of the other.

I got caught up in the planning stages and wanting to document everything, writing everything down, and strategizing, but none of that stuff matters if you don't execute on it.

So instead of spending time with complex strategies and books, I just focus on what's the next step I have to make to achieve X, Y, and Z.

Over time, as I become more experienced and nuanced, I can develop a strategy and focus on the downstream steps and all those things. But right now, I'm not there in my life, and that's okay.

Let me just focus on gaining momentum, gaining progress, and learning along this journey.

The creators I admire? I reverse-engineer everything they do.

If you're going to steal, you better steal like an artist.

I see what's performing well (whether it's a business idea, a video content, a strategy, etc.) and try to learn from that.

Copy what's working out there, add your own flare or style, remix it, and then watch the results.

Viral weeks felt amazing. Quiet, boring weeks brought in the money.

Stop obsessing or trying to be perfect.

Stop overthinking on the right thing to do.

Instead, just be consistent.

One of the things I realized, whether it's creating content, finding new business opportunities, or even just something as simple as reading, it didn't matter how much I did in a day, in a week, or in a month.

To me, the most important thing was just being consistent every single time.

Because again, I'm not going to be 100% every single day, and you're not going to be 100% every single day. But if you focus on showing up consistently every day, it'll mean the world.

2025 wasn't the breakout year. It was the foundation year.

No matter how well or how shitty this year went for you, just know that it was your foundational year.

This was the year for you to learn, understand, trial and error, all those things.

2026 is all about taking those lessons and the things you learned and now being consistent on doing the right things.

You can't predict the next home run video - you just have to keep swinging.

I took over 100+ swings at this social media content creation thing, and the one thing I learned is that only 10% of those videos went viral, brought traction, and brought in customers.

That's okay.

You have to think of every video as a lottery ticket.

You have unlimited entries and unlimited tries, and they all cost zero dollars.

And the more and more you produce, the more and more you learn, the more and more you become better.

Even though 10% of my content drove the results, that 10% is worthwhile. That extra money I get from brand partnerships or the people I get signing up to my budgeting app is worthwhile because those are the two main things allowing me to achieve financial stability in the coming years.

I didn't "learn" certain things — I experienced them twice.

You can make the same mistake multiple times, and you will learn the same lessons over and over until you change your behavior and your actions.

When you learn a lesson, whether it's a failure or a success, learn why it happened.

Understand the context behind it, because then your behavior will change.

Eventually you will know not to do certain things, or you'll know to start doing more of certain things.

When you're an early adopter or you're onto something new, a lot of people won't understand you.

You'll be looked at as confusing, and they just won't get it.

And that's okay.

They're not supposed to.

And if you're late to something, you miss out on all the potential rewards, the gains.

You miss that first time mover's advantage, and now you're kind of in the back end or the back waste. And that's the last thing you want to do.

So if you have a strong inclination, feeling, whatever it is, focus on being early.

The most honest videos outperformed the most polished ones.

I spend a lot of time trying to make the best video and I'll plan and do shoots and do all these things.

To be honest with you - the ones that performed well were the videos that I kind of did last minute, off the cuff.

In those videos - I was being authentic and true to my audience.

No one can mimic you, and only you can be you, so just focus on being you and you'll have the ultimate competitive advantage.

My most engaged users taught me more than analytics ever could.

Would you rather have a 1,000 fans that always support you or a 100,000 fans that barely support you?

The answer should be obvious; 1,000 fans.

If you have a thousand fans that love you dearly and rock with you, and would do whatever, you can sell them a $10/month service or product, and you can make $10,000/month which equates to $120,000/year in revenue.

I don't know how many people there are in the world, but I know there's billions upon billions, and you only need a tiny fraction of a thousand to live a sustainable life.

One of the easiest ways to find that small obsessed community is by starting a newsletter or even a YouTube channel.

Go find your 1,000 die hard fans!

Some things needed trust first.

In the social media age that we all live in today, it seems like everyone wants to make money off of everything.

I get it, you're broke.

We're all broke.

But at the same time, I realize the importance of just creating something to create.

Again, some of my best content was when I was being authentic to myself, and more importantly, it was when I removed the guard of "Hey, let me try to sell you my budgeting app" or "Let me try to sell this brand or partnership or whatever it is."

To be honest, I think the best thing you can do is just make art.

People love art.

They love a feeling, they love an emotion.

If you can make art instead of trying to push value or sales down someone's throat, not only will it be better because now you're gaining authentic fans and people who love you for you, but it's just also refreshing knowing that the whole feed isn't someone trying to sell you something or just some AI gimmick.

Focus on creating art; not everything needs to be monetized immediately.

Everyone wants to budget differently because they prioritize different things.

Focus on what you want.

Stop focusing on how everyone else manages their money and focus on how you manage your money and what works for you.

Again, I've learned so many ways to managing money - budgeting, saving, spending, to investing, all those things.

And I have come to the conclusion that I do not care about most of those methods.

Instead I need to focus on what works for me, my lifestyle, my goals, and my vision.

FYI - that is the exact reason why I created munyun!

Especially people who aren't building anything.

I don't care what anyone else says.

Focus on what you've got going on, and that's it.

Everyone's gonna have an opinion, POV, or idea, but at the end of the day, that worked for them.

You're trying to do something new, you're trying to be different, you're trying to become different, and you're trying to do what works for you.

Only explain yourself to yourself, and just believe in yourself.

Subtle difference. Massive clarity.

We already have freedom.

What we all really want is control over our time.

We have the limited 24 hours a day, and how we use that time is not to the best of our ability.

Some of us have to have constraints whether it's a job, taking care of our children, or whatever it is.

You want to control that time.

The easy way for you to control that time is by focusing on realizing that to get more time, you're going to need money.

And then you can use that money to buy back time and focus on what you want to focus on.

DIY saved money early. Later, it slowed everything down.

When I first started out with my business and just in life in general, I wanted to learn everything on my own and do everything on my own because I wanted to understand how things work.

The last thing I want to do is spend my own money to pay someone.

However, as I became more busy and I started earning more money, I needed to find ways to make that money make more money, which means I had to figure out how to best use my time.

And maybe my time wasn't being best used doing thumbnails or writing scripts or editing videos.

So throughout the year, I started to hire people.

One of the things I realized is that yes, it sucks to pay people because it's coming out of your own profit. But at the same time, it freed up much more time. And I had more time to think, to strategize, and overall plan out what I want to do with my content.

As you get more money, leverage that money to buy back your time because your time is your most valuable resource.

Your time is what allows you to think clearly, to take a step back and understand how can you make bigger when it comes to your business.

Fluctuating creator income forced me to respect cash flow.

The life of any creator is that you get these brand deals and sponsorships, but they don't pay out until 30 days (or even longer) after you publish.

These brand deals don't come often, especially when you have a small following.

Some months you get paid a lot, some months you might go two or three months with no pay. You gotta learn how to manage your money.

When you're doing this freelance or you're trying to grow your side hustle into a business, you need to figure out how to get stable cash coming in.

Cash flow is king.

On your path to success, while you're growing, there's gonna become a time where you need to give up certain things.

And this is needed so you can free up time for you to think, for you to breathe, and just for you to look at the bigger picture.

When it comes to delegating tasks to people, make sure you have a process in place, a process that you use to ensure you have the correct constraints and guardrails for them to achieve the same success that you have achieved.

At the beginning, that delegation will feel slow, but once they learn and the process is flowing, it's really freeing because now you have free time to focus on other initiatives that are more important and more valuable to you.

At some point, you had to decide without perfect numbers and sit with those uncertain decisions.

In 2025 I had to figure it out as I went.

A lot of times with brand deals, I didn't know when I was going to get my next pay.

Or I didn't know how much certain things would cost me when I was doing my budgeting app.

I couldn't figure all those things out.

All I could do is put rough numbers on pen to paper and figure it out along the way.

There's only so much you can know when starting a side hustle, developing an app or starting a new business venture.

You won't have all the perfect numbers to enter in a spreadsheet or in ChatGPT and get a final result or answer.

Instead, you have to try along the way and learn.

If you made it this far, I hope 2026 is good to you.

Luv,

Luv