Recently an interviewer was asking someone, “How do I know, what it is I should be doing?” The interviewee answered succinctly, “Two things: it’s fulling and it’s fruitful.”
This question was posed in the context of “How do I know what I should be doing with my life?” Some people don’t know the answer to that question or how to even approach it. Some folks will find the answer in multiple ways. Searching for that one thing that they “should be doing with their life.”
Well, as Bloggers approaching a new blog and hoping to make money blogging, the same two “things” apply when selecting a blog topic: “Is it fulfilling and is it fruitful?” Now, that’s easy to say but much harder to answer. However, there are some guidelines you can follow to start heading down the path.
Is it fulfilling?
This means you want to do something, you like to do “that something” that makes you lose time and makes you feel energized. You actually wake up on time or early because “that something” is so motivating you lose track of all time. In fact, you don’t even watch the time. The next thing you know, it’s two o’clock in the morning and you’re still not tired from doing “that something”.
Is it fruitful?
Does “that something” provide the where-with-all for you to make a living? There are many things we’d love to do and that wakes us up early and fall asleep late, like TV, playing video games, or hanging out. And, maybe you can find your niche in one of those things in life that will provide a living.
Maybe you want to save the world or at least the neighborhood. Can you really do that and make a living at it. Is it something that is fulfilling and fruitful for you and any loved ones who might be dependent on you?
I want to be a Jazz Musician
The Jazz pianist Bill Evans was being interviewed by his brother Harry Evans and in a statement about Jazz he reveals the following (paraphrased):
“It’s obvious now that Jazz is the central, most important thing in my life, yet, I never knew that.”
“You ask a kid what they want to do when they grow up and I would have said anything and I don’t think many children do know.”
“I’ve always excepted the fact that Guy Lombardo was a millionaire, it never bothered me as long as there was a little niche I could find for what I wanted to do.”
“It’s a funny thing about Jazz, it’s a creative thing you can turn on by throwing a switch after disciplining yourself to this particular thing for years. You go up on the band stand and go, ugh, I can’t play anymore, but BANG the switch is thrown and that creative process does work because it’s been disciplined to work.”
No matter what you think you love to do, there will be times where you’ll feel the “ugh”. But that process that you’ve “accidentally” created over time by doing something you love will be turned on because it’s been disciplined to do so, whether you know it or not.
Recently while combing through some blogs I was reading an article by Daniel Scocco over at Daily Blog Tips. A reader was asking, “What’s Your Secret Weapon for Success?“ Daniel answered, “hard work and persistence.”
In another article over at Darren Rowse’s Problogger blog there was a guest article titled From Blog to Small Business: Tips for Taking Your Blog to a Whole New Level where the author steps through what made her business successful.
Those are some of the guides you can use to measure what you’re wired to do and what it is you want to blog about or pursue on the web.
Bill Evans two-minute interview with his brother is on Bill’s Paris Concert, Edition Two album.
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