Find Your Niche!

Why Can’t my Niche be Happiness?

                The first advice any professional, successful blogger will tell you is to pick a niche. A topic on which your blog will be based. The more specialized, the smaller the audience. Too many topics and too many people could be turned off.

                Well, turns out, there is not one aspect of my life that I wish to solely focus on. I’m a multi-niched personality apparently (so not a word, but I’m sticking to it). And yes, I realize that that simple fact may, and probably will, turn off many readers. But for the few that stick around – what fun!

                The prospect of finding at least one other person who finds more than one facet in my blog that appeals to them, is so much more special to me.

There are a ton of people interested in homesteading, baking, gardening, crafting, and self-sufficiency individually. Some of those people are even interested in more than one of those topics. An even smaller group may be interested in all of those topics. Even if you are not, what’s to stop you from reading only the posts on that specific topic?

                More importantly, what is stopping you from perusing a topic you didn’t know might interest you?

                No matter how hard I tried, various topics leaked into blog posts while I was planning this site. A lot of frustration ensued. I let go of the limitations of a niche and began to write until my little heart’s content. Until my fingers became cramped pretzels.

The product was a slew of posts about all the things that made me happy. Things based on being a homeschooling, homesteading, crafting, adventuring, food-loving mom.

                That is the main point of this site. My happiness – not to be too self-centered. I have spent a good majority of my life in the negative. When it comes to other people, I am completely a ‘silver-lining’ type of person. I would become your personal coach in defeating the rain-cloud shadows that occasionally followed you. The loudest person in your personal bleachers complete with face paint and foam finger.

                But, when it comes to my life, my inner voice is absolutely team defeat. There is no silver lining. I should just get used to disappointment and move on to the next anti-climactic moment in my life. It was exhausting.

                One day, I decided to actively choose positivity.

For a good amount of time, that was also exhausting. I just had to keep in mind that I was retraining my brain. Rewiring connections that had cemented themselves decades ago. It wasn’t going to be easy.

                I did notice, there was an immediate response. I was happier. Not that I was unhappy – per se. I had resigned myself to my mood. Conceded. As soon as I began to implement a touch more positivity and smiles into my thoughts, speech, and actions, I found my happiness level rise.

                My mind felt better where I didn’t even know it felt off. I say ‘my mind felt better,’ comparing it to a body. It’s like if you change your diet and your body automatically begins to feel better when you didn’t even know it felt bad to begin with.  I had lived in the same mental space for so long, I was so conditioned to mentally feeling a certain way, it became the norm. I didn’t know any different until I changed the norm. The ‘norm’ became the ‘sickness.’

I use quotes there, not to be ironic, but because it was how I saw it. If I was truly experiencing mental sickness, that is objective and somewhat personal.

When I thought to start a blog, there was not one topic that I could focus on to satisfy my blogging needs. So, I chose all of them! Topics that, you guessed it, made me happy. Topics that I enjoy learning about, practicing, and sharing my knowledge.

                There is also one other reason this blog will be multifaceted – I’m good at several things, but not great at any one thing. This is a chance for me and you to learn together!

                Life requires balance. So must this blog. In order to maintain my balance, I can’t favor one topic over another.   Though it may seem that way when one category may be overflowing with posts and another has tumbleweeds bouncing around. Different seasons bring different opportunities.          

That is the short and sweet of it. I am either going to have a successful blog or I just signed my internet death. Either way, as long as I am enjoying creating this, I will continue to do what makes me happy. A little well-placed selfishness.