Want to Get Paid for Your Passion? Do This First… http://ift.tt/1P46YQZ @jeffgoins #blogging

Every week, someone emails me asking how they can become a full-time writer, start an online business, or work for themselves in some capacity. It is the dream that defines the 21st Century.

We are living in an age when more people have the ability to work from home, pursue location-independent careers, and build a business around their own passions and skills instead of just doing what they need to do to get by.

But the truth is this isn’t easy stuff. I thought about doing what I’m now doing for years. And I failed for a long time. What finally changed for me was I got serious about the direction in which I was headed and started making significant changes.

In this post, I just want to share with you the three things (because I like the number three) that I did differently in 2012, which was really the year that changed my life. But before I share that, here’s a little back story…

The first thing you have to do: write every day

In 2011, I got serious about blogging. I had actually launched a version of Goinswriter.com in 2010 as a way to pick up some freelance writing, but it wasn’t anything special.

Like a lot of people, I wrote in fits and starts, thinking I was better than I was, and got mad when nobody noticed. I was tired of that, and resolved to do something different.

What I decided to do was write and publish a new article on my blog every single day for an entire year. In retrospect, that sounds kind of crazy, but for me it didn’t seem that way. I just knew that real writers wrote every day, and I wasn’t doing that.

The best accountability I knew of was to have a daily deadline. So if I wasn’t doing my work, it would be immediately evident. If I missed a day, I would know it. I would feel that pain of regret and want to get back to it as quickly as possible.

This is an important lesson in habit formation: make your habit so small and so easily repeatable that if you miss it, you immediately know. If you have to wait six months for the feedback that how you’re practicing is the wrong way, then you’re doing it wrong.

So I started writing on my blog just about every day. I didn’t do it for the fame or publicity. I did, at least at first, for me. For the practice. And it worked. Over time, I got better, and by the end of the year, my friend Mike told me, “You’ve found your voice.”

That was 2011, the year I wrote a lot, built a successful blog, and got a book contract. But it was also the year that I didn’t make any money writing.

How to make a living writing

Not too long ago, I sat down with the leadership team at Fizzle, and asked them a series of questions about what it takes to do your own thing. To pursue your dream, make a living doing what you love, and have the freedom that we all dream of.

In that interview, which you can listen to on my podcast, we covered a few things that are definitely worth paying attention to. But my takeaways were basically this: if you want to run your own business and work for yourself, you need three things.

Thing 1: Something other people need (a set of skills or some kind of special knowledge)

You need to do something that other people can’t do or don’t know how to do, something that other people value. This is the must-have thing (sorry, I don’t have a better word for it) to start a business.

You don’t have to start a business, but if you want to make money doing something, you need more than passion. You need legitimate demand for that passion. And you need to be good at it.

Thing 2: An attractive way to package that thing (a product)

Having a skill or special knowledge in something is not enough to be able to charge for what you do or what you know. You have to package it in something that is easy to access and understand. This is called a product. The product is the way people interact with your offering. It may be a course or a book or a speech you deliver. It could be made out of wood or metal, or it could be an online community.

How it’s packaged is not what matters. What matters is that it IS packaged and in a way that people can grab it, get a hold of it, and use it. Until you have this, you don’t have anything. Nothing worth monetizing, anyway.

Thing 3: A way to get people interested in that thing (a platform)

Your thing needs to be visible. It needs to be in front of people. You can buy a bunch of advertising or get a bunch of celebrities to talk about, but those are often expensive strategies. The best thing to do is build a platform, which is really just a way to get your message out there.

For writers, that’s often a blog or a website with an email address. The tools are less important than the fact that you have a way to communicate with people who want what you have to offer. If you serve them over time and earn their trust, they’ll want to repay you with both attention and actual money.

Get started and be ready for change

So that’s what I know. It’s not a ton. Certainly not enough for you to found a billion-dollar startup. But it just might be enough to get started, which is really all you need.

I think so many people obsess over the wrong parts of this stuff. They focus too hard or too long on the idea. The truth is the idea will change once it interacts with people. Your passions will change, too. The market will change as well. Everything changes in time.

What you need to get is to get your thing out there, do it smartly, and do it in a way that people will understand it.

And I think the best place to figure out all that is to check out what my friends are doing at Fizzle. They’ll help you figure out what your “thing” is, how to connect it with the right audience, and get them to pay you for it. I love these people, endorse what they do and how they do it, and they can help you a lot more with this stuff than I can.

So if you want to learn business from the people that I learn it from, check out Fizzle.

They’re currently doing a special offer, which they extended just for my people through today, where if you sign up for the year, you get five months free. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.

Check it out here.

Do you want to get paid for your passion? What is your special skill or knowledge? Are you stuck on Thing 1, 2, or 3? Share in the comments.