Find Your Niche

Large Alice in Wonderland Key Necklace by absolutemarket

Take the test below to see if this will help you find your niche?

Ask yourself a few questions:

What can I do for hours and be happy doing it?

What were you great at when you were young?

What are you great at that others find hard?

What have your friends asked you for advice about?

What would you do even if you didn’t get paid for it?

By answering these questions you may find your Niche.

Let’s take the first question?

“What can you do for hours and be happy doing it?”

Let’s say your answer is working with your hands, that’s fine! Now ask yourself what do I like making using my hands.

Let’s say you like making hats with your hands, now break this down again and ask what type of hats?

Now you got the type of hats.

What’s the hat made of?

Let’s try the second question now?

“What were you great at when you were young?”

This may be hard to think of because some may say: “I was not great at anything...”

If you think more you will see you were great at a lot of things, so make a list.

See if any on the list tie into your answer to the first question?

Let’s try the next question now? 

“What are you great at that others find hard?”

Again some people will say I am not great at anything. You are wrong again.

If you look once more, you will see there is a lot of things that come easy to you that other may or do find hard to do.

Again make a list and see if any on the list tie in with the answers to the first and second questions.

Let’s try the next question now?

“What have your friends asked you for advice about?”

This also looks hard to answer at first but as you think about it a few areas will become clear. Again make a list.

Now see if any on the list tie in with the answers to the first questions.

Let’s try the last question now?

“What would you do even if you didn’t get paid for it?”

This is really asking you what you love doing.

This should be easy answer as most people only have a few.

Again make a list and see if any tie in with the answers from before.

By now you should have picture of what you are great at, what you like making and what others know you are great at doing.

Now all you have to do is put your angle on that product and make it your own and this will be your niche.

by William Doherty

Etsy shop: http://www.etsy.com/shop/absolutemarket

Wish List

'Flow' card by Mindful Productivity on Etsy

As some of you know, I am involved in politics, and with the General Election in the UK on 7 May, fairly busy. Yesterday, the Labour Party released a document on improving access for young people to the creative education they need and succeed. It also talked about the creative industries, and how important they are for the country.

“If you believe in social justice, if you believe in a more equal society, then access to the arts and culture is not an optional extra, it is essential - not simply because of the worlds it opens up, but because of the wider impact it has." *

It made me think about how I did not enjoy any arts and craft education in school, because the teachers mainly focused on the ones who they saw as very talented and gifted, and the rest fell by the wayside, left to muddle around unappreciated. The pure enjoyment of art, creativity and craft –if you weren’t on genius level – was not seen as important. It was always about this grand outcome, this exceptional piece – and exceptional is often in the eye of the beholder, here the teacher – never about 'worlds opening up' or the moment of ‘flow’ ie when you forget everything and are just involved in creating something, and sort of...well, float on a cloud of bliss!

I find that when running a creative business, it’s a bit like that, too. You try to produce, and anything handcrafted takes time, so you focus on getting things done, and the lovely feeling of flow falls by the wayside. I knit on the hoof, during meetings, watching TV, and while my computer is uploading something, but only when I am not at home, for instance, when travelling by train and in no rush to do anything else but knit and look out of the window and drink coffee, do I get my flow back.

So it is hard to just live in your happy craft flow when you are running a business and trying to make a living. You may feel like you are battling against the world or closed doors, rather than worlds opening up.

Coming back to the political, I wonder what you – the reader – would love to see done by a government – any government – to improve our playing field as a creative (often one person-) business? What would be the one - or more – thing/s, that you want a government done for small independent creative businesses? The thing that open doors?

Then maybe, we would get our flow back more often...

Tell us your wish list in the comments!

Purls

* http://press.labour.org.uk/post/111879508104/miliband-labour-will-move-arts-to-the-heart-of