To Enjoy the Journey, Start a Journey You Can Actually Enjoy
3 Key questions you need to ask yourself when starting a creative side hustle
“Enjoy the journey” has recently become a popular response to the mainstream hustle culture. This renewed phrase promises to boost productivity by enjoying your journey instead of grinding the work and sucking the suffering.
The promise is straightforward: whether it’s your corporate work, creative side hustle, or gym goals, try to make your work as enjoyable as possible to be consistent and achieve more.
Ali Abdaal’s recent best-seller book, Feel Good Productivity (Amazon), elaborates on that notion. It suggests ideas and methods to make your work more fun, such as treating work like a game, measuring progress rather than outcomes, and finding what matters to you.
I genuinely find his approach handy, as does the underlying “enjoy the journey” mantra. This creating vibe intuitively led my creator journey from the start, years before the release of his excellent book.
Since I figured out my thing and immersed myself in the creative flow, my creative work has become more productive, and so has the quality of my outcomes.
The only problem is that it took me way too long to figure out my thing online. So, here is my lesson: Begin your journey with more focus.
Whether you feel overwhelmed to start creating, got stuck and lost motivation in the middle, or have already tried a few side hustles without seeing progress, I’ve got you covered.
I address the key questions about content creation you must ask yourself so you won’t chase your tale and can find your delightful, long-lasting creative path:
1. Educational content or entertainment?
Do you prefer to teach others stuff or tell them jokes? Do you enjoy diving deep into a topic and clearing it for yourself and others, or do you like to enjoy the moment and have fun?
I mean, you probably enjoy both, but connect with yourself and journal about past experiences to figure out — which work experience is rooted in your core system.
Here is another prompt. Do you like to share your opinions spontaneously or to be organized and constructive with your thoughts?
These examples can help you tune your creative energy when choosing a niche, platform, and style. As you experiment with creating content and self-reflect on the experience, pay attention to what feels more natural to you.
One of my primary work energies is teaching. I like to explain ideas and share my opinions and values with others.
I enjoy breaking the ideas into parts and seeing the lesson I had to share get clearer. That’s why I feel most valuable writing how-to guides in my blog and tutorials on YouTube, where I teach with accessories like a whiteboard.
Speaking of blogging and YouTube, this leads to another critical aspect you must figure out with yourself as you experiment with creating content.
2. Written content or video content?
How do you articulate yourself better — through speaking or written words?
From my experience with both content productions, I can tell that almost everyone can do both successfully. But you should still favor one type of content when starting your journey.
A handy way to do that is journaling about past work experiences and the feedback you got from others.
If professors and teachers back in the college told you your essays were great, maybe you should consider writing. Of course, essays differ from blog posts or brief social media posts, yet the principles are similar. It is all about communicating your ideas clearly through written words. It’s different than spoken words.
Some are better at writing, while others prefer showing what they say live with expressions and emotions through a video. If you aren’t sure, try both and see what feels more natural.
Be aware to give each content type enough chance, as evaluating your level and enjoyment from them may take some time.
Video and writing are both essential skills for a creative side hustle. Whether you become a YouTuber or blogger, copywriting skills are necessary — either way, you need to write captivating and relevant titles to get views.
At the same time, if you become a blogger, you might want to embed videos on your blog, as this will boost your blog’s ranking on Google.
3. Long-form or short-form?
The third key question is whether you are a diver or a doer.
Tune your creative energy to pick the right platform for you. Are you a deep-dive who goes above and beyond on every project?
Or do you like to get things done as quickly as possible? If you are the former, platforms like YouTube and blogging are for you, and if you are the latter, maybe TikTok and Twitter can better serve you.
What do I refer to by saying long-form content?
Long-form content is the king of in-depth exploration. It dives deep, offering comprehensive guides, insightful analyses, and rich storytelling. Think blog posts that crack 3,000 words, detailed eBook guides, or entire books. While each project demands more time and effort, it rewards you with SEO magic, improved brand authority and positions you as an expert in your field.
Conversely, short-form content refers to quick hits — bursts of information or entertainment in bite-sized pieces. Tweets, snappy, straightforward posts, TikTok videos, YouTube shorts, Instagram stories, and reels fall under this category.
Short-form content captures attention quickly, sparks curiosity, and drives traffic to your longer pieces.
Of course, you’ll most likely experiment with long-form and short-form content. But as you do so, pay attention to what is easier for you, what you enjoy more, and what feedback your audience gets for each type of content.
Actionable Takeaway
The key takeaway is to zoom out. Maybe you watched a YouTube guru who encouraged you to create long-form videos, but then you got stuck, unmotivated, and did not know why. Or maybe you signed up for a free writing course to learn how to write on social media because everyone told you this is the way to achieve financial freedom.
But to really leverage content creation in your favor, you must zoom out and truly understand where your energy fits in. The three critical questions outlined in this article can help you figure that out.
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying you should not experiment with different kinds of content initially. However, knowing your primary creative energy as you go is essential.
As you start your journey, remember the three key aspects of content creation and self-reflect about your experiences in conjunction with past work experiences and feedback from others. This can shorten your experimentation phase and put you on track sooner.
The sooner you dial in your creative energy, the more enjoyable and productive your journey will be.
I know that most creators maintain several social accounts and a website. That is important to maximize our brand reach. Nonetheless, choosing which platforms you put most of your efforts on would be best initially.
That’ll ensure momentum as a creator so you can reach monetization thresholds sooner, such as those of the YouTube partner program and the minimum traffic load required by lucrative affiliate programs.
A bonus tip on spreading to more platforms
Lastly, it’s also about finding the balance between each content medium when you spread yourself on various platforms later in the game.
Today, my content combo includes my self-discovery blog, my niche site of retro keyboards, and Medium.com, where I update about my creator journey. I’m a deep dive, so my blog and YouTube channel are obvious choices for my creative energy.
I hope you are now more aware of the critical decisions you must make and the creative energies you need to figure out at the beginning of your journey or if you are stuck without motivation in the middle of your journey.
Nothing is guaranteed in content creation. You have to be diligent and consistent and constantly improve various skills. Yet, if you dial in your primary creator energy, you maximize your potential to succeed.
You might be interested in this story, too:
Disclaimer: The information in this article is for educational purposes only and doesn’t substitute professional advice. Results may vary. The link to Ali’s book is an affiliate link. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases at no additional cost to you.
