I’ve been trying to prioritize what my actual goals are and what things I need to do in order to accomplish them. Do I really want to do exclusively information marketing and selling my writing products on the internet for a living? Is there something else that I want to do that will give me satisfaction?

Currently I’m an accountant. It bores me to tears at some points. It’s hard to motivate myself to do the work at all, even though I know I’m very good at it. But I feel like my brain and creativity are being wasted on this stuff. It’s so simple that I could have done this straight out of high school. Back then I wanted to write and make art work for a living. Sometimes I think that idea was what I should have followed all my life. Now, of course, I can write a lot about business and personal development. Maybe I should try to work hard in the personal development and life coaching field. Or business coaching. These seem like good areas to get into, especially if one is good at them. But will these really give me satisfaction?

I also want to make some very fancy items with my metalsmithing skills. I spent years as a silversmith and have some high level skills in this area that are just not being used at present. I, however, am not a production kind of craftsman. I only want to do high-end, custom work. Call me fussy, but I don’t feel that anything else is worth my time. Simple as that.

And then there’s the fitness and martial arts. I’ve been doing fighting and fitness for over 28 years. That’s most of my life! I have been teaching it for 15 years. People seek me out for advice in this area (at least my friends and acquaintances do – my family doesn’t take me seriously in anything I do, including the accounting, art, whatever… Okay that’s not quite true. They seem to come to me for personal advice – like life coaching, almost. I guess I’m empathetic that way and have enough of my own game together that they respect that.). What if I started writing some of my advice in a blog for this? Maybe do some eBooks on this and get them out there? What if I did fitness plans? Diet plans? Or maybe do some marketing to get me some seminars in martial arts and/or fitness? Sure, I don’t have a degree in this, but I do have an education degree, I have done a lot of research, reading, teaching, practice, and actual hands-on consulting in this in the past already. I suppose that does make me an expert, despite the lack of a university degree in it. I’m more expert than some people who already do it! So that’s another option.

And there really is the accounting and finance end of things. I’m good at it. Maybe it’s just my job that is boring. There are aspects I don’t mind, such as when I’m working on plans and scenarios for new business projects, doing projections, and dealing with people in this manner, especially if I am teaching them new things or helping them to progress in their goals. Hmmm… That’s something to think about, too.

There are too many options for me. Part of the problem with being a really smart person is that you can become an expert in many different niches. This is often because you are smart enough that you need an intellectual challenge and get bored by things failry easily. Then you tend to run all over the place trying to do some of each, and really getting nowhere in any of them. Or at least not as far as you could if you pursued one. So, what I’ve realised I have to do is to really push the internet marketing thing with a variety of projects, focusing on one product or area at a time. The first one is my budgeting niche. Get that going to the point where it is starting to bring something in. I have a product. I will get the initial site up this coming week, come hell or high water. Then I will develop my budgeting eBook. I’ll put that up for sale for a small price. That will probably take another month or so to finish. So, I’ll do some affiliate products in that area on the site (good stuff only – I don’t want any junk on my sites!). Then I’ll start promoting my own eBook. Then I can start refining my budget worksheet and build it into a stand alone program for personal home budgeting. I don’t know how long that will take, but hopefully not too long.

Once these are going, then I will have the time to work on other projects in the same kind of marketing. But then I will switch my focus to my personal fitness and health niche. This is a big area to sell in. Therefore, I need some good products and great advice. I’ll get that, of course, since I’ve already been doing it for so many years.

But what about my other things? I can’t do any metalsmithing until I can afford to set up a work shop, so that is completely out of the question at the moment. There are other priorities, and I have to get the cash flow for that. I’m think that is about two years away (more like two-and-a-half). And the accounting?

Well, I currently do that full time for a living, holding down a reasonable job. Obviously I’m going to be doing that for at least the next year (or so it seems). But this relates to my early information products in budgeting. These are good products! I know this, because I’m good at what I do and people pay me good money for the stuff I develop already! I’m sure I can come up with more products as time allows. I already have a couple of ideas that I think will sell. Am I sure they’ll sell? No. Nothing is 100% certain in life, except death and taxes. And I have no plans on getting into developing tax software (although I do prepare taxes for people and small companies in Alberta). I can keep doing this and maybe build on it a bit to have my own practice, if I want. Is it a good idea? I don’t know. After all, there is a lot at stake then, and I would need to do the marketing to get the clients for the business. What would the average client be worth? How many hours would it take? What could I outsource to employees or contractors? These are all things I’d have to look into. And do I really ant to do it? Maybe I could build something that I wouldn’t really have to do any of the work, and could outsource at least 80% of it, and still make a reasonable profit. That would be good! But this is not my primary goal in business.

Yes, I’ve realized that I want to pursue certain niches. The personal coaching is very interesting, too. This is something that I am always doing in one sense or another, whether it’s for my martial arts students, my family, friends, or colleagues and acquaintances. I could build a series of products on that, and even offer personal coaching sessions and seminars. That would be fun! And it is something that I definitely can do. I might want to refine it a bit more, perhaps focusing on a particular niche within the area. Business? Relationships? Personal growth? And would I want to tie it into my fitness niche or not? These are all questions I’ll have to answer in the months ahead. And I haven’t even touched on the Russian Bride site I started. I haven’t done much of anything with that. Sure, it’s interesting, but I need to take a better focus in how to develop that site. I don’t like how it currently looks, and I’m not great at building web sites. Blogs are easy. But this article and affiliate site isn’t the greatest. I need to “jazz it up” a bit. Better graphics and layout, I think. So that’s another thing I have to work on. I think if I did one article per week on that site and had the right layout it could be a reasonable money earner for me, even if it was just through a few affiliates and advertising. The niche is huge! And I could add a few things in there that would draw people from other areas of personal relationships and dating. Or I could use it to send them to one of my other sites that focused on personal development… hmmm… Now I’m getting some ideas rolling.

So here’s the layout over the next couple of months:

  1. Get the budget site going
  2. Develop the personal home budget and finance eBook and get it for sale, too
  3. Start developing a computer program for personal home budgeting
  4. Get that completed and for sale
  5. Spend some time getting the Russian Bride site improved.
  6. Start developing my fitness and martial arts niches
  7. Get a few affiliate and personal products on fitness going
  8. Once these are profitable, start developing a personal development niche
    1. This has to be decided what smaller area of the niche I will focus on most
    2. Maybe link it into my fitness area and other areas (finance, dating)
  9. Start developing new products for each niche
  10. Start working on seminars and coaching programs for fitness, finance, and personal development niches.
  11. When I am able to make enough from all of these areas, then I can start building something for my own outside interests, including art and metalsmithing.

Overall timeline to have all of this is 2-½ years. And I will keep adding information products, coaching and seminars throughout this time! The next 12 months are completely information marketing through the internet.

Wow! Writing this really helped me to clarify my goals, even though I already knew them. Now I need to make the step-by-step plan on how I’m going to do this. I have a great system for time management, too! I wonder if anybody would be interested in that for an inexpensive product. Care to let me know?

And if I can help you to clarify your goals, the way you want to head in your life and how to get there, please let me know! Personal coaching is something that I really am great at! And that I am trained in, and have a formal education for, as well as a lot of experience! I really should have just done that straight out of school instead of going into finance…. Ah, the fears of youth (and not succeeding)…

To contact me about your personal coaching plan, email johanus@12monthstofreedom.com