A little bit of confidence can go a long way

A bit more than two years ago, I got a message in my inbox on YouTube from Zoomin.tv games. At the time, I had no idea who they were, or what that message entailed. After a bit of research, I realized they were actually a partnership network for YouTube from the Netherlands. Now, with that knowledge in hand I initially thought they had made a mistake. Why was this group waaaay out in the Netherlands coming to me, asking if I wanted to join them? Naturally I thought it was a hoax right off the bat, but after reading their message I thought "Wow, maybe someone does think I can do things right!"
During college I really didn't have time to work on my channel, so I sparsely added videos every now and then to it, but I wasn't really focused on it. When I got out of college I was rather dejected about life in general so I figured I'd go back to it. I missed the feeling of community that I had gotten to experience at the end of high school/beginning of college through YouTube, and I figured I might as well try and get that back. Then out of the clear blue sky I got that message. Zoomin.tv Games seeks out smaller channels to partner with, but the people they seek out they see as having potential. I think I've written about this before, but when a partnership network seeks you out of absolutely nowhere, it's an incredible feeling. "This person, whom I've never met or interacted with before, they think I can be someone!" That's exactly the kind of thing I was looking for. 
I realized at that moment that I had been far too lazy with my channel over the years, and it was time to step it up! From then on, I decided I would go back and fix all the things that I had messed up, especially my metadata. I never really saw a reason for tags and the like, especially at the beginning, so I spent a bit of time every other day since then just going back and fixing up my tags and categories on all of my old videos. After 2+ years, I finally succeeded, and I can tell that it is actually helping me. I've also gone to great lengths to get data and statistics from my channel over the past two years as well. With that task done, it's finally time for me to look towards the future, as opposed to continuing to dwell on the past. Though, that isn't to say there's still a couple things here and there I've still got to go back and fix up, but like everything else, in due time!
Before I finished fixing the metadata on all my old videos I actually got a message from Fullscreen, and even though I told myself that I was going to look for a partnership when I was done with all my metadata, I figured "What the hell, I might as well try it out!" Astonishingly, I got in! It wasn't just Zoomin.tv that thought I had potential, now there was another network that thought I had potential! That little bit of confidence was exactly what I needed to continue doing what I was doing.
For the first time though, when I saw the end of my metadata additions drawing close, I finally thought "Wow! I can actually do this! I'm gonna keep going!" If you've ever met me in person, you'd probably know that I basically have self-esteem in the negative quadrant, so being able to think that at all is pretty much a crowning achievement for me. Sure, I've had plenty of help figuring out that I'm a pretty cool dudefrom my friends over the years, but now I actually am starting to believe it. With that surge of confidence, I'm ready to move on and do my absolute best to succeed in this environment. With an audience like you guys, and all my friends around, I know, for probably the first time ever, that I can do this.