can you ACTUALLY change your life in 6 months? (an experiment) - ep 9

5 months ago, I started a challenge to change my life in as many ways as possible in 6 months. And honestly, so far, it's felt like just a whole lot of work. But now, we've gotten to the point where we are finally seeing some real results.

I feel like with a lot of big life change goals, results come so slowly and in such little increments that you don't really see them over time. And then 5 months later, you look back and you're like, "Wo, my life is entirely different. " And because of that, for a lot of these episodes, I've been trying to inject new things and find things to make the episodes exciting.

And it seems like that was a mistake. A lot of you guys said you didn't like that. So, I feel like I was definitely leaning into the experiment part of this more because at the end of the day, it is an experiment.

Also, because I thought watching me do the same routines for 6 months every single day would get extraordinarily boring. And honestly, it was getting kind of boring for me to make. thought based on the heaps and heaps of comments I've been getting on my last few videos saying that I seem like I've made no progress at all.

I think maybe that was the wrong approach in some ways. So, for this episode, we're going to focus on progress and I'm going to show you guys all the things I've been up to behind the scenes that I haven't necessarily shown on camera. It'll give you kind of an idea where we stand and then next episode will be our final episode.

We'll be done with the 6 months, which is crazy. Let's get into all the progress I've made, what I've been up to, and let's get started. First thing that I want to talk about is my physical health.

One of the most asked questions I've been getting recently is, am I still doing 75 hard? And the answer to that is no. I talked about it, I think, maybe not the last episode, but episode before, but I switched to Operation 66.

A lot of people said 75 hard is more for men and it's hard to maintain those habits after the challenge is over, whereas operation 66 is better for long-term habits. And so I feel like enough people recommended it where I was like, "Yeah, sounds fair. " And so I decided to switch to Operation 66.

And we are currently on day 40 out of 66. So I think we might end like a few days after the challenge ends, but I'm not fully sure. I feel like the only thing I've really been struggling with with Operation 66 is the social media aspect of it.

I genuinely feel like up until now I've had an addiction to my phone and I think that doing YouTube and doing social media has made it worse because I feel like I'm scrolling and getting inspiration for videos and for ideas. And a lot of the times I do get a lot of inspiration from that. But then it just turns into scrolling and then I just scroll for way too long.

And I've mentioned this in a few videos before, but recently, and this video might be out by the time that this one comes out, but I've been trying out a dopamine detox for the last week, and it's been doing a lot of good for my brain. It's also been doing some bad, but I think in the social media realm of things, it's definitely been helping to cut my screen time down. I don't know if that video will be out before this or if it'll be out after this, but whenever it comes out, you should watch it if you also struggle with being too attached to your cell phone like I do.

Anyway, moving on to our biggest goal, which is weight loss. I feel like this is a case of it's better to show and not tell. So, let me show you.

I don't know about you, but I'm more of a visual learner. And so, I thought we would go through clothes that either didn't fit me or fit me very tightly before this challenge and see how they fit me now. So, at the beginning of this challenge or right before, I took a bunch of videos of myself in different outfits so that when I was feeling like I wasn't losing any weight or feeling discouraged, I could compare how I looked in the outfits then to how I look now.

First thing we're going to talk about is these jeans that I'm wearing. So, these jeans are from a trip I took to Korea, and they were the largest size that they had available, which to be fair, Korean sizing, if you know, runs very, very, very small. So, even now, I'm pretty sure I'd be considered plus-siz in Korea.

Anyway, so these pants are an extra large and when I got them, they barely fit. Like, I had to squeeze into them, but I really liked them and I really wanted to get some clothes while I was there and this was the only store that had something that could even remotely fit me. Like I said before, when I originally got these jeans, I had to squeeze into them.

Like, I could barely get the zipper up. And now there's I could fit Let me not put my hand there. I can fit both of my hands in the side of this.

I feel like that counts for something. That counts for something. I don't know.

I think this was the first piece where I started to notice I'm definitely getting smaller because I started to have to wear belts with these pants and that was not the case before. So, this is now the gap in these pants that used to fit me extraordinarily tight. Next outfit.

Okay, so let's do some comparisons. This is what this outfit looked like on me before. And this I think I have it unzipped is how it fits now.

As you could tell before, this area was really tight with this jacket. And now it's like it's definitely form fitting, but I'm not squished in it. I remember when I would wear this to the gym, I would feel like it was tight everywhere and it would make me so uncomfortable, but I didn't have any other jackets to wear to the gym.

But now it's super comfortable. Like I have like room in the arms. I have a little bit of room like here.

Like it's definitely still form fitting, but it fits. Like I'm not squeezing myself into it. Also, I did have a lot of clothes that were too small for me.

I think it was maybe to make myself feel better. I think I was so insecure about my weight that the idea of a size being higher than I wanted it to be in my head stressed me out a lot. And I don't think your weight should necessarily tie into your confidence.

I just think for me, I've thought about my weight for so long since I was a kid that I just have heard too many comments about my weight from like family members and just like random people. I think because of like all these external factors, my weight has been so tied to my confidence. And I don't think that should be the case.

But at the same time, I am excited to be losing weight because it is a goal I've been trying to achieve for a really long time. But I don't want to put out the message that you need to be skinny or you need to be a certain body type to be confident because that is not true. The only thing you should be is healthy and happy.

And you can be healthy and happy at a lot of different weights and a lot of different body types. So, you don't need to have any specific one. I do want to clarify that because I know weight loss content can sometimes feel like a lot of very mean messaging of you would be skinny if you weren't doing this like you're big backed or whatever.

And that is not me. That is not this channel. And I do not want to promote that.

I'm just sharing my own I'm just sharing my own goal of weight loss and my progress towards that goal. But I don't want to put off a weird vibe, a weird message. Cool.

Cool. Let's try on the next outfit. Before this challenge, I used to wear a size 31 in pants.

These that can now fit are a size 27. I went to an event and they were giving out these jeans and the biggest size they had was 27 and I was like, I guess I'll take it. It's not going to be able to fit, but like sure, I'll take it.

And then I got home and I went to try it on and then it fit. Isn't that crazy? Is that crazy?

I don't know how much of like my size I shared before because it was something I was really insecure about. I think you can also see it slightly in my face a little bit. My face looked a lot more bloated before.

I don't have like a skinny face. I'm not like a skinny girl, but there's a big difference in how I started versus what my face is looking like now. So, unfortunately, a lot of the clothes that I had to compare, I left in Los Angeles.

And I know that the clothes I did try on, it's kind of hard to see a difference because my proportions are kind of similar. I'm just a little smaller. So, I decided to measure myself.

I'm not going to go into all of the measurements because that's for the final episode, but we've lost two inches off of the waist. That feels like progress to me. I don't know.

Okay, on to the next thing. Good morning and welcome to my little kitchen. I thought it'd be a good idea to show you guys what I eat in a day specifically for weight loss because I've lost quite a bit of weight so far and I definitely think food is the biggest impact on that.

So, let's get started with breakfast. So, I think I've mentioned this before. I've definitely mentioned this before.

I am a person who can eat the exact same meal over and over and over and over again until I get tired of it, which can take months, which is really great for weight loss meals because once I find something that works, I can just eat that for eternity until I get to my goal weight. And that's essentially what I've been doing. One thing to note, I do track my calories.

I'm not really going to tell you the calories of each meal or what my calorie deficit is for the day because I know for some people that can be triggering and I don't want to make anybody uncomfortable, but I think it is important to mention that is something I'm doing. Anyway, so the first meal that we're going to be making today is the same breakfast I have pretty much every day is a spinach, salmon, and cheese omelette. So, I kind of alternate what I put in this every day, depending just on what groceries I have, but it's usually around the same things.

I always put spinach in there. I'll usually add mushrooms, but I'm out of mushrooms. And then recently, I've started to put these smoked salmon slices.

I'll put avocado and dairyfree cheese because your girl is lactose intolerant severely. And then I'll add some sauce on top. Like a few videos ago, somebody saw me put this on an omelette and they thought I was putting peanut butter on my omelette and I was not doing that.

But it's disgusting. It's Chipotle veganise. This is so good.

I always struggle with this. Okay. Three, two, three.

Welcome back to my kitchen again. And it is time for dinner. The thing that is on the menu for dinner tonight is tomato egg stir fry.

I think I've mentioned this in a different video, but I don't know if I'm making it the traditional way. I don't know if I'm making it the right way. I'm just making it the way that I'm used to eating it.

So, let's get cooking. Here it is. Hopefully, it tastes good.

But this is pretty much the last thing I have in a day. Sometimes I'll have a little dessert if I'm feeling it. Thank you for tuning in to what I eat a day.

So, our next section is overall intelligence. So, for this section, one of the main things I've been doing is reading a ton. I've been talking about this in a bunch of other videos, so I'm not going to go too into detail, but I've been reading so many books.

I have reallen in love with the library, and I have not been this obsessed with the library since I was 13. So, I think we're doing really good on that front. And while I'm commuting, if I'm not reading, I'm doing brain games or some other form of working up here.

I tried my very best not to use social media while I'm commuting because I feel like there's so many better things I could be doing with that time, but I know one of the main goals we had for this section was learning a new language. So, because my day-to-day has been so busy and there's just been so much going on, for most of the challenge, I've been learning Spanish very casually, which is fine because overall intelligence is one of our smaller goals. But recently, I've been trying to ramp things up a little bit.

So, I've been taking Spanish classes every week using the sponsor of this week's video, LingoD. LingoD is a language learning platform where you can take classes with real instructors at any time of day that works for you, even if that's like 2:00 in the morning. There's also a maximum of five students per class, so you always get the personalized attention that you need.

They have classes in French, German, Italian, Spanish, English, and business English. As I mentioned before, I've been taking Spanish classes with them once a week. And the fact that they have classes at any time is extraordinarily helpful for me.

Whenever I want to book a class, I can just open up LingoD, go to the scheduling tab, and then from there, I can filter by the day of the week, the time, and the type of class. Once I find the class that I want to take, I can preview the material, look over the vocabulary, and even get a lesson summary. Lingod understands that really learning a language takes consistency, which is why they recommend doing the LingoD sprint, which is designed to build a daily learning habit and increase your confidence in just 60 days.

And if you've ever tried to learn a language before, you'll know that's really quick. And if you complete it successfully, you'll get a reward, which can be half of your money back or credits for more classes. You can choose between two different intensities, the sprint challenge or the super sprint challenge.

With the sprint challenge, you'll take 30 lessons in 60 days, and the reward will be either half of your money back or 30 free credits for lessons. If you do the super sprint, you'll take 60 lessons in 60 days, with the reward being half of your money back or 60 credits to use for future classes. Over 50,000 people have already done the sprint challenge and taken their language learning to the next level.

This is a perfect challenge for you if you're somebody who's motivated by a challenge, wants to make language learning a daily habit, or if you're just looking to make fast progress in the language that you're learning. The last day to sign up for the sprint challenge is May 5th, so it's coming up. You can sign up today using the link in the description and get up to 20% off of your sign up fee, plus an extra $25 off if you use my code Ki Ibola at checkout.

And thank you again to LingoD for sponsoring this section of the video. Now, back to the challenge. So, I talked a little bit about questions that you guys have been asking me.

And one of the biggest questions I've gotten from a lot of you guys is how the am I financing my life? Where is the money coming from? How did I move to New York?

How am I paying for things if I don't have a job? What's going on in the finances department? Originally, I was kind of iffy about sharing a lot of information on it.

Then I realized we're kind of in this together. You guys know my goals. You know where I'm trying to get to, and a lot of you guys are also trying to do the same thing.

And so, it makes more sense for me to be honest and open about financially what's going on. I also think I don't know, there's like a weird stigma around keeping your finances secret. And I've recently realized that that's a load of And so why not?

I mean, I guess if you're like, "Oh, I don't like how much money you make or I don't like how little money you make. " And you unsubscribe, but you know, I I don't really know what to do there. I couldn't really stop that.

But anyway, yapping. We all know I don't work a 9 to5 anymore. I quit my job to move to New York.

I tried looking for a part-time job while I was here. Let's take the word tried very lightly. I applied to like two or three.

I didn't really put a crazy amount of effort into looking for a job, but when I get back to LA, I definitely will be taking a part-time job. First things first, a lot of people have speculated that my parents are funding my lifestyle and I'm only able to do this because of my parents. That is not true in the sense of how you guys think it's true, but it's true in other ways.

We'll talk about it. Let's talk about what my family helps with so we're kind of on the same page. I'm currently staying with a family member so I don't have to pay rent.

The only reason I'm sharing this is because by the time this video goes up, I will have moved. Just so you know, don't come looking for me. I will no longer be here.

So, that is like honestly one of the main reasons I moved to New York. If I had had to pay rent here, I would not be here. I would have kept my job and stayed in LA.

And so, I recognize that that's a huge huge huge privilege. And I'm very, very, very lucky that I have family that lives in New York who is willing to let me stay with them. I do not take that for granted.

Don't worry. Once again, that's a huge thing, but that is the only thing that I do get help with. So, that is the main reason I was able to move to New York.

If I'm being completely honest with you, I wouldn't have been able to afford it otherwise. That being said, let's talk about my streams of income. All of my income right now comes from YouTube.

Everything. All of it. If you've ever been monetized on YouTube or if you've ever heard other YouTubers talk about it, YouTube is the money is fickle.

It comes, it goes, it does well, it doesn't do well. I was really lucky that my first video did so so well on YouTube. I was monetized within I think 2 weeks of my channel being up, which is insane.

Absolutely crazy. Thank you guys for watching. I really appreciate it.

So, I was monetized really quickly. So, at the time I still had my job, but YouTube doesn't pay like as soon as you get monetized, if that makes sense. You get paid out every month.

And so, when you first get monetized, you have to wait 2 months to pay out because they don't pay you the same month. They pay you for the month before. Right?

So, the first month that I was on YouTube, purely from AdSense, I made $1,600. First month. Insane.

I have not made anywhere near that much since. And that is also because I started around November, December. And Christmas is a really big time for advertisers and AdSense on YouTube.

Companies will pay a lot more for AdSense than they do usually any other time. And apparently, didn't know this until it happened, January is known for a big drop off in how much money you make. So, from AdSense, I make somewhere around $1,000 a month.

And if you multiply that over 6 months, that's $6,000. Our goal was $100,000. And also, $1,000 a month is not enough to live off of, especially in New York.

Obviously, rent being taken out of the equation helps a lot, but keep in mind taxes also have to be taken out of the equation. So, if we're being honest, it wasn't it was I was struggling a little bit, especially because you don't get paid out until the end of each month. I moved out here the first week of January.

I didn't get any money until the last week of January. I was like backed up on so many things that it was it was a struggle a little bit, but luckily I had some savings from when I did have my job because I knew I was going to be coming out here and that helped quite a bit. I would have been absolutely broke otherwise.

So AdSense is good, but it doesn't pay enough to live off of on its own. And so that's where brand deals come in. And I cannot contractually share the amount that I make from brand deals, unfortunately.

But I can give a ballpark. I'm going to give a really wide ballpark. Really wide.

Just because I don't want to I don't want to get myself in any kind of weird trouble, any kind of iffiness. But I can make anywhere from, let's say, like $3 to $7,000 a month on brand deals. And so that is where the majority of my money comes from.

If we're being completely honest, I do a brand deal almost every video. I don't do brand deals on products that I don't believe in or I haven't tried or I haven't used. And like I do take a lot more brand deals now, especially because I'm about to move.

So, we're penny pinching. We're saving every penny. We're trying to do what we can.

Once again, wide range. I can't really get any more specific without putting myself in a weird spot. But that kind of gives you an idea of how much I make per month on YouTube.

And keep in mind, I don't I'm not monetized on any other platforms. So, I'm not monetized on Tik Tok. I'm not monetized on Instagram, on Snapchat, any of the other platforms.

I purely make all of my money on YouTube. I think I got really, really, really lucky and people just really liked the first video that I put out and so I'm hoping that people will continue to watch my videos after the series is over and I can keep doing this because I really, really enjoy it. I'm not making an insane amount of money where I would be at the $100,000 mark at the end of these six months.

I just don't think that's going to happen. But I think I've made more money than I expected to make. My third stream of income is Etsy and digital products that I've been putting out.

I put out one digital product on Etsy. It's a notion template that basically shows exactly how I make my YouTube videos, how I plan everything, how I plan out my brand deals, how I organize everything. Very organized person.

I have a very intense notion. And if you're interested, it's always linked in the description. But that is my other source of income.

And I don't know how much I made from that. Let me check. Okay, let's see how much I've made in total from that.

I've made $270. That is just from people buying my template and using my template. Final stream of income.

This is the smallest one. I did a focus group while I was here. I've applied for a few other ones, but I've only gotten one so far, and I got $200 for that.

So, total, it's hard with like a range. I don't think we're anywhere near 100,000. We might not even be near 50,000.

That is including the money I made from my job when I was still working it because I was working that job the first two months of this challenge. And I think last I heard or last I heard it's me. I think last we talked about it.

I was around 20K. Also, we'll talk about all the final numbers and everything during the final episode. For those of you who were curious about my financial situation, about where my money's coming from, about how much money I'm making off of YouTube.

There it is all laid out. I hope that was helpful if you're trying to start YouTube or if you were just like, "This girl is clearly funded by her parents. " I hope that that was helpful and somewhat realistic.

I know not many people have family they can stay with that would let them stay with them for free. Keep in mind though, I am moving back to LA in May and so 90% of the money that I make is being put into savings so that I have enough money to move when the time comes. Moving so expensive deposit, first month's rent, furniture, utilities, all these starting fees, application fee, it's so expensive.

I'm really penny pinching right now and I feel like the videos aren't as interesting because I'm not doing a whole lot because a lot of things cost money. Anyway, on to the next section. Next section is image.

The thing with this section is I definitely feel like I've progressed. I am a lot more comfortable in outfits that I would not be caught dead in before. Literally before I would wear the same uniform, all black, every single day to the point where I was told by my father to stop buying black clothes.

It was literally a uniform. And not to say I don't wear a lot of black now. I definitely still do wear a ton of black.

I think that black is still the color that looks best on me. As you can see, we're finding new colors. We're trying.

We're trying. We're expanding. But I feel like we've hit a plateau where I've expanded as much as I can within my own closet.

And I feel like I'm trying out combinations, but I just don't have a ton of ideas for stuff without buying new clothes. So, for this episode, I thought we would change that a little bit. We would try some things out.

We're going to try out some more outfits. Now, I am a bit limited in the outfits I can try because I can only really work with what's in my closet. And what's in my closet is already limited to whatever I brought to New York.

Plus, I'm not really rolling in dough. As we talked about earlier, I'm saving up for moving. So, I'm not in the place right now where I can go and just buy a whole new wardrobe.

I've definitely done some thrifting while I've been here, and I want to do a little bit more thrifting before I leave. But, I want you guys to still see a bit of progress in that area without me spending a ton of money trying to show you. So, we're going to do a broke girl's favorite activity, window shopping.

How is this going to show us any progress, you ask? Because I can't just spend a bunch of money to buy a bunch of clothes to show you guys what outfits I would put together. I thought instead we could just go shopping together and I could show you guys what I would buy and the kind of outfit combinations I want to be wearing if I was not limited in funds.

All right, today is window shopping day. I'm going to go to a bunch of stores and try on a bunch of clothes and put together outfits that I would wear if I had all the money in the world. This is like a budget friendly way of figuring out what your style is without spending a ton of money to clear out your closet.

Maybe it's something you want to try on your own. So, let's go to Soho. We're going to meet up with my friend and let's shop.

I love shopping. It's one of my favorite activities, so I have no problem with this. Now, I'm just waiting for my friend to show up.

I don't know where he is. I was really hoping that since it was raining today, so it would be less busy, but it's not. There's still so many people.

I was literally calling you. There was a family of like seven people all all the way and I was just like, "Oh, I mean, everybody's nice and beautiful and I don't say anything mean about anybody. " Our goal, we need to do two two to three outfits per location.

So, we have like 15 minutes per place. First stop, can you even see that? Heat.

Hey, heat. Hey, heat. We just finished at Aritzia.

I couldn't talk unfortunately because they were blasting copyrighted music. Store number two. There's music playing.

Next section is social life. So social life is interesting because I've been making friends in a lot of different ways. I had friends from college who already lived in New York which made it so much easier.

So much easier. So, I have my main group of friends who were already here and then I've met friends through them. Those are the first friends I kind of made and that was very nice of them to introduce me to their friend, especially because I haven't really talked about this much, but my boyfriend is still in LA and so I'm I'm lonely.

I'm lonely out here. I'm really lonely out here. And I've also had some questions about long distance and stuff like that and how we've handled that.

I'm thinking I might just do a Q&A kind of video so you guys can just ask me whatever you want to ask me and then I can just answer it there because I get a lot of questions from you guys. So, I've made friends through friends, which is usually the easiest way to make friends just in general. But outside of that, the whole point of me coming out here and like trying to improve my social life is improving my social skills.

And that means going out of my comfort zone, talking to people I wouldn't usually talk to, trying to be more out there. My manager told me that from these videos it seems like I'm an introvert, but I really am extraordinarily extroverted. I think I've over the years become less extroverted just because my self-confidence is really tanked.

But I am really extroverted. So, it's not the hardest thing in the world for me to like convince myself to go talk to someone, but it's not easy. So, I've made friends at YouTube events.

I will find anyone who looks near my age and I'll talk their ear off until they decide they want to be friends with me. I've met a few people through there that are really, really sweet. I also sometimes will just be places and have a fun interaction with someone and be like, "Oh my gosh, we should get coffee.

" And I've tried to make myself less uncomfortable doing that. In the age of social media, it feels kind of weird, especially once you've graduated college, to have one interaction with someone and be like, "We should be friends. " But I feel like when we were in like elementary school, middle school, that's how you made your friends.

Some people are obviously going to be like, "Um, sure. " and then never respond to your messages and like those people. Who cares?

But a lot of people are a lot more lonely than we think they are. And a lot of people are a lot more willing to try new friendships than we think they are. I think so many people, especially like younger people, want to make more friends and want to have that social interaction, but aren't going to go out and do it themselves and aren't going to come up to you.

I'm challenging myself to do this and I'll challenge you to do it also. If you're in a cafe, you meet someone your age, you have a fun interaction, ask them for their Instagram, ask them to go get coffee, ask them to hang out. If they don't respond to your messages, or if they're like, "Ew, no, you didn't lose anything.

You've lost nothing except for a potential shitty friend. " And so, don't be scared. I'm trying not to be scared.

I know it's easier said than done. We as a society and also just my our generation just needs to get better at being social and being comfortable with that. Anyway, I'm lecturing.

I'm lecture. I tend to do that. I'm sorry.

But that's how I've been making friends. I am planning on doing some fun videos when I get back to LA of like trying out all of those apps that try to help you make friends and just trying out all the different ways to make friends as an adult. So, if that's something you're interested in, comment down below.

Cool. On to the next section. Thank you guys so so so much.

If you've made it to the end of this video, don't forget to like and subscribe if you enjoy me, my personality, and my style of content. And I will see you guys next week for another video. And then in 2 weeks for the final episode of this challenge.

Isn't that insane? I can't even process any of that at all. I really hope that this cleared up a lot of the questions you guys had, all the concerns you guys had for this challenge in general.

I love you guys so so so so so much. Thank you so much for just giving me this opportunity and giving me a platform to be able to do stuff that I'm passionate about. If you made it to the end of this video, comment what your favorite thing about the challenge was.

And if you did the challenge yourself, let me know how is that going for you. Where are you at? Like, how far have you gone?

I want to hear from you guys. I've seen a lot of you guys' videos recreating the challenge. And so, I want to hear how's it going.

I will see you guys next time. Bye.