When I was planning what I wanted to do, I initially focused only on the final results, rather than the process.
And that’s exactly how I ended up miserable.
A problem of alignment
When I first decided to make money online, I thought anything in digital marketing would do the trick. So I was willing to try pretty much anything.
Whether it was SEO, paid ads, or social media marketing, I believed it didn’t really matter.
But of course, it does matter.
No matter what you choose to do with your life, there will always be a difficult part of the journey when you’re learning, experimenting, and failing.
Even if you love what you do, that phase will still be a challenge.
While you undergo this apprenticeship phase in your attempt to achieve mastery, it can feel dreadful, or it can feel meaningful.
The determining factor is whether it truly aligns with what you want to do and who you are.
And for me, doing paid ads was far from aligned with what I actually wanted.
That’s why, when I tried to make money as a “digital marketer,” it didn’t work out. I couldn’t sign any clients.
I lacked skill, consistency, and vision, and it wasn’t clear to me how I could gain them when I had no real desire to learn.
Only when I discovered writing did things take a turn.
Work that feels like play
Writing is a useful skill for anyone.
It allows you to bring clarity to the chaos inside your head. So even if you never make money from it directly, it’s still a worthwhile skill to master.
I’ve been writing daily for the last five years, and it’s helped every single area of my life improve.
Seeing more clearly allows you to identify roadblocks and articulate a path forward.
Let’s take a problem most, if not all, people face at some point: fighting with a partner.
Most fights, especially with your partner, are often rooted in miscommunication. If they can’t understand you, how could you possibly reach any kind of agreement?
Well, learning to express your thoughts clearly helps quite a lot in those kinds of situations.
Improving my writing felt like growing as a human being. That’s why I could only see it as a play.
But you’ll hear similar things from anyone talking about their craft.
Chess grandmasters see life on the chessboard. A musician hears the voice of existence. Painters see through the magic that unveils reality.
For me, writing is my instrument. For you, who knows? That’s a question only you can answer.
It’s worth going down this rabbit hole because it’s the only way to find what gives you a competitive edge.
You cannot beat those who never get bored
One thing about passion is that it allows you to remain endlessly curious about your craft.
I’ve been learning more or less about psychology for a decade, and writing seriously for the last five years, and my lack of knowledge still humbles me.
There’s so much we don’t understand about the brain, communication, and consciousness that you could spend your entire life just asking questions.
And the more you understand, the more you realize how little you know.
When you approach learning a skill with this mindset, it becomes more like a video game or a spiritual quest.
It stops being “a thing you struggle with” and starts becoming an expression of your being.
That’s why passionate people make such annoying competitors.
I realized this when I tried to learn programming. I got into a gifted BootCamp for aspiring programmers and got a reality check quickly.
While trying to complete the tasks and keep up with the program, I just couldn’t focus.
I had a constant urge to talk with people, analyze ideas, and spend as much time as I could away from C tutorials (a programming language).
So, of course, when we had our first tests to determine who would stay in the academy, I failed.
I had no real interest in learning programming at that time in my life. I wanted to understand something else entirely. I just joined because I thought it would help me make money easily.
My fascination was the human psyche.
And once I started pursuing that, and combined it with other real interests like writing, my life began to fall into place.
It took a few years, but I ended up writing educational psychology articles and getting paid well for it.
It’s incredible how far you can get by simply listening to what sounds like cliché advice:
“Follow your heart.”
But in my opinion, it’s the best thing you can do.
You don’t have to be reckless about it. You can plan it out, strategize, and take deliberate action.
Life is complicated.
We all have responsibilities and challenges. Simply dropping everything to pursue a wild idea may be impossible. But that shouldn’t stop you from forging a path forward with whatever time and resources you do have.
There’s nothing more beautiful than seeing someone smile from ear to ear because that wild idea they had… worked.