The Importance of Practicing Your Craft

In this episode, I talk about mastering your craft but never with the goal of perfecting it, just making time for it and letting it shape you to be the person you’re meant to become. Learn how practicing your craft can help you tame your ego, make you more humble, let you do your best work and create real impact in the world.

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Show notes:

Finding meaning thanks to your craft
What I look for in a platform to share my content
How your craft makes you humble
Removing the barriers so it can be just you and your craft
The power of free content
Timing in craftsmanship

Mentioned:

Transcript

What inspired this episode is the fact that I was at a cute cafe on a canal in my city earlier today, it was 29 degrees, I was sending the weekly newsletter, I had just published a new interview with a successful blogger, and later that day a copy of my new book arrived in the mail so I could check out how it looks before launching it next week.

I’ve been having many days like that lately, mostly because of the good weather and the creative energy I’ve been filled with.

And all problems and hardships of life aside, life can be good when you do what you love, truly care about it, have your own little world online, and get to practice your craft.

I suggest that even if nothing else in your life seems to be going the way you want it to, you focus on your craft. It can take you places (physically, but also spiritually and emotionally).

Finding meaning thanks to your craft

I can’t exactly describe to you the kind of peace and satisfaction you feel when you’re making time for your craft and having a regular practice, ideally daily. It’s something that has to be experienced.

It gives you meaning. It gives you a reason to keep going. You know it matters, and that’s enough to get you to wake up with purpose.

If you’ve found a way to share your craft with the world and even help others with that, you did a good job. Then it can become your legacy, your career, your business, your gift to the world.

Another big benefit of practicing your craft is that it guides you back to yourself, it lets you be your most authentic self and embrace that.

I’ve had the chance to observe many creators in different industries in the last 10 years, and there are real ones and there are fake ones.

I can’t spend much time on the platform of a fake one, one that’s just making money, pretending to be something they are not, trying to convince people to buy, imitating other business owners, or anything like that.

That’s one of the many reasons why I couldn’t continue being on Instagram anymore. I saw too much of that there and it affected me. I also couldn’t practice my craft freely there.

A platform that’s for me is one that provides creative freedom, allows me to have control over it and reach the right people, inspires me to do my best work, and which isn’t focused on the money but on the impact.

That’s always been my blog. Then it also became my newsletter, the podcast, now the books again, and so on.

It was never a social media channel, actually. But I know that can work for some, of course.

How your craft makes you humble

And speaking of practicing you craft, one of the most important things it gives me is humility.

When I’ve been blindsided by potential big numbers in business, when I’ve distracted myself from what I’m meant to be doing, when I lost sight of my purpose, one thing I always came back to is writing, creating, and covering the topics most dear to my heart.

In that practice, I felt humble again because my craft is bigger than me. And I believe that to tame your ego in life, you gotta dedicate your time to something bigger than you.

That can be your religion, your family, spirituality, or a combination of these. But it can also be your craft.

In the moments when I’ve felt a lot of lack in my life, when I’ve been so focused on what I don’t have that I stopped enjoying life, I came back to my craft and it made me feel abundant again. It reminded me that even if this is all that I get to achieve, I still have plenty and it’s perfect this way.

From that mindset, I get to create my best work and I get to become empowered again, which are the 2 things I need to also grow my business and live my best life.

So tell me, when was the last time you practiced your craft? How can you turn it into a weekly or daily activity?

If you want some guidance around defining what you’re meant to be doing, you can check out my book called Finding The 1 Thing You Were Born to Do: From Recognizing to Monetizing Your Passion.

It will teach you how to live a happier life by finding your true calling among so many other interests and daily activities; finding meaning in your days by doing work you love; monetizing your passion and having the ultimate freedom and independence by making money thanks to what you enjoy the most.

I’ve been analyzing the passion phenomenon for so many years, have been doing what I love for a living for nearly a decade, and have seen the effect this has had on so many other people I admire, that I just had to create this book to help you experience the same.

There’s just you and your craft.

If you’ve just discovered your craft, though, but are so focused on the idea of making it profitable, you might wanna try another approach. Don’t put pressure on your craft, don’t try to decide where it will take. Instead, let it take you where you’re meant to arrive thanks to it.

How you’ll make your money online might be far from what you’re imagining now. And your first 10 business ideas might be a big failure. But as long as you keep doing what you love and keep trying new things, it will work, you just don’t know how or when yet.

Also, don’t believe in the starting artist myth. Don’t worry about the competitive field you’re entering, your lack of experience or initial capital, how young or old you are. That has nothing to do with whether or not you can do what you love and monetize it one day.

Most of the barriers on the way are what we ourselves create. When you remove them, what’s left is you and your craft, and there’s nothing stopping you from practicing it.

Find time in your early mornings, late evenings, in the weekend, in the moments when nothing else is happening in your life and you get to be by yourself. And most importantly, when inspiration hits, do whatever you can to immediately pour that energy into your craft because it can create magic.

The power of your free content

And don’t forget to share what you create for free with people, to give them a chance to experience it, to hear their feedback, to provide value before you ever ask for anything in return.

I did that through the free content on my platforms.

And here’s an example of the business owner I interviewed today. That’s Adam Connell, one of the top 50 marketers in the world and founder of Blogging Wizard. Check out his answer to my very first question about starting his first business and how it went.

Don’t keep your content to yourself. If you create a paid product and no one buys, repurpose that content. Do something else with it. Give more people a chance to experience it.

That’s one of the main reasons why I’m now turning some modules of my courses into standalone books. Because they can create massive impact and a book is easier to access and more affordable. So while course sales might not happen as much as I want, my books get attention soon after I release them and with little to no marketing.

Don’t give up on your craft and sharing your message if one specific way of presenting it doesn’t work. Try something else. And try again until you see results.

Timing in craftsmanship

One other aspect of this that I wanna mention is timing. Here’s an example.

I recently began the process of updating my signature blogging course Blog to Biz System. It’s a huge program, so that will take months.

But here’s what I did so far:

outlined the new curriculum (many decisions had to be made in terms of what lessons to add or remove, what to replace, group differently, turn into a different format, etc. – all with the goal of making the program more doable, and making it easier for the student to actually go through all the content and take action on it);
picked the new branding;
created new lecture slides and turned them into templates that I can use for all modules and not think about design anymore, which saves me time;
updated most of the guides, workbooks and planners in the course;
prepared the content for the first few modules and am ready to start recording videos.

That update has been on my mind for years as the quality of the videos inside the course isn’t good, there might be outdated information here and there, the branding isn’t great either, and there’s actually more content than necessary. Now it will be more action-oriented and easier for the student to get results.

And now the time has come for me to tackle this big project. I have the creative space for it, and most importantly – I feel like doing it.

Any other moment before that would mean I would have pushed myself, and that is then reflected in the course content and students get to feel that energy from me, which isn’t what I want.

So the right timing in creative work is key, I think.