Want to Become a Full-Time Blogger Easier? Then Appreciate Your Day Job!
You don’t like your day job. Every day, you have to find an excuse to go to your job and it shows in the quality of your work: You are procrastinating on your tasks and your productivity is very low.
At the same time, you have a dream to become a full-time blogger. Now that’s a completely different story than your day job, since you’re actually very excited and passionate about the blogging dream.
It’s easy to see the reasons why you are so excited: If you become a very successful blogger, you can earn much more than in your day job – just by doing what you are passionate about.
Sadly, it’s these two different worlds that are colliding and you find it more and more difficult to do your work at your day job.
In fact, you have decided that in just a matter of days, you’ll be resigning from your job so that you can focus solely on blogging – no matter if you aren’t making any money out of it yet.
Hating your day job is too easy
The reasons related to your day job frustrations are numerous.
Maybe you just took the job, because you wanted or needed the money. Or, maybe the job was fun in the beginning, but later on your interests changed and your motivation faded away. Still, you stayed on the job.
Whatever the reason is, the conclusion is the same: You are not giving 100% to the job, which is exactly what your employee expects from you.
Hating your day job becomes even easier, if there are other like-minded people in the workplace. It’s easy to gather around the coffee machine and start complaining about how bad things are and why your job sucks big time.
To make things even more difficult, having a dream (being a full-time blogger) and doing the boring work are two extremes you have to deal with.
And when you know that you have something very compelling on the horizon, it’s almost like pouring gasoline into the fire when it comes to your day job: You dislike it even more.
The dream that you bought
Yes, your dream about blogging full-time.
That dream was sold to you by successful bloggers and entrepreneurs. And all of a sudden you realized that there was another, more compelling way to earn a living by doing something that you loved.
Then you fell in love with the dream, I don’t blame you: You could be doing what you are passionate about, get a good paycheck out of it and work much less than in your day job. Now, who wouldn’t like to have a life like that?
However, as soon as the dream hit you, you realized that you had a problem: Your day job. You also figured that the only way to get rid of your job was to resign from it.
But before you make any quick decisions, hold on for a second because I have another strategy for you. Promise to at least consider it and then if it’s not a good fit, do whatever you wish.
Switch your attitude and make things easier for yourself
OK, let me list some things that you may (or may not) have heard of and then I’ll ask a question.
The list goes like this:
- Blue Host (website hosting)
- Fiverr/Elance (outsourcing)
- Coaching
- AdRoll (remarketing service)
- Visual Website Optimizer (landing page split testing)
- Aweber (e-mail list management)
- Education (physical books/Amazon Kindle books/e-books, MP3s, videos)
- Nozbe (task management software)
- HootSuite (social media management suite)
- Miscellaneous software
Now the question goes: What do these ten things have in common?
I’ll admit that the question is difficult to answer, so I’ll help you out: They are the things that I spend my money on every month. And the money to pay these things comes from (drumroll) …. my day job!
You see, without my day job, it wouldn’t be possible to have these things, thus I am able to build my online business quicker on the side.
There are necessities in what I do and it wouldn’t make sense to cut off the feeding arm (my day job). Otherwise things would get very challenging and slow down too much.
That’s what I want you to do as well: switch your mindset from hating your day job to feeling grateful about it!
Even if the job isn’t your dream one, learn to appreciate how it enables you to do things outside the working hours – like paying your blogging bills.
When I realized this myself (thanks to my wife who reminded me), my view towards my day job changed completely.
Sure, I’m not in a dream job, but at least I can appreciate it much more than before. And when I appreciate it, going to work isn’t such a drag anymore.
Be a better worker, make the transition smoother
It’s important to understand, that the more you enjoy your day job, the easier it is to make the transition from it to your blogging career. And when you follow the next steps, that transition is much easier than it would be with a negative attitude.
1. Stop hating – start appreciating. Remember the good things in your job and what it can provide for you, for instance the money or that you might have nice colleagues that you wouldn’t have otherwise met.
Appreciation comes from small things. You feel much happier and content when you appreciate something – like your current day job.
2. Remember your responsibility. It took me a while to accept the responsibility part, but eventually I got it: I was the one who signed my job contract – and no one else!
Therefore, I understood that I was responsible for my actions and if I started to blame the work, then I was the one who should look in the mirror.
3. Don’t pour it on your boss. It’s very easy to yell at your boss and tell him that your job sucks. Once again, remember your responsibilities and why you are in your job in the first place.
Besides, since you are building your blog/online business on the side, there is always the possibility that your boss could be your potential client in the future.
That’s why it’s important to settle things down, avoid burning your bridges and see that it’s not necessarily your boss’s fault that your job sucks.
4. Take advantage of your job – ethically. Especially if you work in an office, you can ethically take advantage of your working premises. For instance, I have been recording videos for my blog in the meeting rooms, because it would have been difficult to do so at home.
In general, meeting rooms are great places to focus on your writing as well – outside the office hours of course. Since I’m most likely guaranteed to get 100% focus when working there, I tend to take advantage of those premises if possible.
5. Things are only temporary. It’s only temporary to have these two common worlds in your life at the same time: Your day job and working towards your lucrative blogging career.
If you continue to work on your blog on a daily basis, then at some point you can resign from your day job and devote yourself full time to blogging.
And as the days are passing by, the shorter the amount of time you have to stay at your day job before becoming a full-time blogger.
6. Give 100%. Although this may sound a bit difficult to do, give it a try anyway: Do your work as well as you can.
For instance, I’m studying for a demanding work-related certificate right now and I have decided to pass the exam – no matter what!
At the same time, decide to do something similar in your work: Find new ways to do your work, help others, go the extra mile with your customers and give constructive feedback to your employees if needed.
This way, people are happy to work with you and you can feel proud of yourself too.
Conclusion
It’s easy to hate your day job and forget your responsibility at the same time.
Even though your job is not a dream one, it’s still paying your blogging bills and that’s something that you shouldn’t forget.
At the same time, working on your day job becomes more pleasant, when you give it the appreciation it deserves.
Over to you: How do you deal with a day job that you find boring?
Image © Kirill Kedrinski – Fotolia.com
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