I don’t fully agree that if you can turn your hobby into a business it would be the ideal career.

Think of something you really love doing. I mean be realistic about it. Don’t think of stupid things like, ‘lying on a beach all day long’ or ‘watching TV while sitting on a massive sofa.’ Let’s just imagine that your hobby is drawing. Now imagine if this favourite hobby suddenly had strict deadlines.

Would it still be fun?

• What if you had to document how long each drawing took?
• What if you had to manage your hobby by setting aside specific time slots?
• What if someone kept on contacting you asking whether you have finished or how far you have got with it?
• What if even when you have finished you were asked to make changes to it?
• What if someone else was so dissatisfied with your drawing that you had to start it all over again?
• What if you were questioned why you did your drawing a certain way?

Would it honestly still be fun?

It had better be.

If you are thinking of turning your favourite hobby or passion into a business it had better still be fun even after everything mentioned above because that is just part of what your hobby will involve.

I’m still in search of my true passion

The thought of having limits and deadlines set by my own clients makes me feel terribly out of control not because I hate deadlines but because creativity for me involves freedom of movement. I still love digital design but it’s almost as though I want it to be all on my terms. I wander if that’s just being too greedy?

I’ve got to love it.

If there is any part of my passion that I do not enjoy I know I’ll be doing it half hearted and then it’s just not worth it. I want my passion to be so strong that I love the deadlines. I want to enjoy the fact that people watch over me waiting and anticipating the outcome. I want people to question me about my passion because I want to be able to love it so much that I look forward to the challenge of answering them to help them. In other words I’ve got to love it to such an extent that everything that surrounds it does not put me off my desire to want to stick to it. Understand what I’m getting at?

I’m looking for inspiration

I would love to hear your story. Have you turned your hobby or passion into a business? If so has it been a good or bad experience? Or do you simply enjoy your hobby without the thought of turning it into a business?

I meant that literally. My daughter noticed it first and pointed to it. There really is fish in my local book store. I went into Waterstones bookshop and right at the back of the shop there is a fish tank and it is on display as if it’s relevant to the bookshop.

It’s got nothing to do with the bookshop and has no relevance to any of the books there either. Pointless right? Well at first glance that’s what I thought.

What’s the point of that?

Perfect positioning. Children run to the fish tank and just stand there staring and pointing at the different coloured fish. The fish tank is positioned amongst all of the childrens books. Although it seems pointless at first I was surprised to see the amount of toddlers hanging around the childrens books and it soon because pretty obvious why there are fish in a book shop.

It keeps children glued to that particular area of the shop. They have the option of wandering around anywhere within the shop but they choose ot stay put in one place. Not only does this make it convenient for the parents but actually keeps them there for a little longer than usual. The children are attracted by the fish while the parents relax on conveniently placed comfortable seats.

The annoying salesman in disguise

It reminds me of the annoying salesman who doesn’t let you get away untill you either buy something or tell him to get lost except in this case the plan seems to be to make the children not let their parents get away. Can’t tell your kids to get lost hey? I saw a mother trying to distract her daughter away from the fish tank by showing her a childrens book and promising her to buy it. Mmmmm sounds like a very clever plan to me Waterstones.

The moral?

I wander how many parents buy a book just to keep their kid happy after they’ve just upset them by pulling them away from the fish tank? The moral is not, ‘Put fish in your shop’. The moral is, ‘Offer something attractive to look at for free that attracts people and allow them to make their own decision to buy.’

In the case of Waterstones the idea works pretty well even if my interptretation might actually be wrong but I’m not too sure whether parents really understand why they bought the book and if they do, whether they appreciate the fish in a bookshop!!

I watched a documentary yesterday on BBC 2 called ‘The culture show’ in which Tom Dyckhoff talks to artist and designer Ron Arod. Ron creates unique sculptures, furniture and design pieces one of which he named the bookworm shelf which is bookshelf in the shape of a worm cleverly designed to hold books.

Clearly it is his passion for design that is the driving force keeping him motivated more so than commercial success.  It is this passion that has resulted in thousands being sold across the country but it seems as though he had not set out to make money out of it. Why? Because when he was asked about how he felt about the commercial success of the bookworm bookshelf he answered, “The pleasure is bigger when it is less likely.” Was he talking about the pleasure of success when you’re least expecting it?

That one thing in the documentary made me start thinking whether it is this type of passion that I really need to make a success of any project. Maybe I should not be too concerned about the commercial part of it and just concentrate on getting it right?

What do you think about this?

Recently I’ve been reading quite a bit about blogging by visiting others blogs, reading ‘traditional’ books and watching related videos on youtube and other video sharing sites. I had a solid burst of six full days of reading and learning and doing things only related to blogging and am always amazed at how much can be learned in such a short space of time with focus.

Letting it slip

After my outburst of learning I stopped for about two days just to relax my mind a little but the problem was that I immediately felt as though I was letting myself slip away from blogging. It feels to me as though the time it takes to forget anything I have learned is so much shorter compared to the time it takes to learn and absorb information.

Regularly surrounding myself with the right information

I had written an article called symmetrical sense that I first wrote as part of my university dissertation and when I added it to my blog I started to doubt whether it was relevant atall to my blogging journey. In the article I discuss how exposure to natural symmetrical shapes and patterns govern our sense and perception of beauty.  I am now beginning to think that maybe it is the same for my efforts in blogging too. The moment I stop surrounding myself or mentally switch off from anything that is blog related I feel that I get completely out of touch. If you read the article I mentioned you’ll get a better sense of what I mean.

This is probably the way I need to keep on top of things. Has this ever happened to you where you think you’ve learned something but then everything is forgotton in such a short space of time?

I have just been going through my blog trying to find a certain article I wrote and it took me absolutely ages. Considering I have only been blogging for just over a month now I was expecting to have been able to find it considering I have a low number of posts so far.

Anyway I had a rough idea what I had written about so I clicked on the categories and still couldn’t find it. So there is something I need to start working on straight away. May be a search field would be good too but not sure how important that is at this stage?

A few of the categories are ok but if I cannot find my own post I dread to think how my readers will make sense of anything on my blog. I’m glad that happened because it’s a problem that I may not have noticed or even thought of looking into. I wander how many visitors have been and gone already.

I thought I’d document this incase you need to check over your blog and organise it better if you have not done it already. Is your blog easy to navigate? Is it categorised accurately?