This article is one in the multi-part series entitled The Entrepreneurial Mindset.
Although finding your niche seems like a topic that would be more suited for a category such as strategizing, the reason it is placed with other articles devoted to the entrepreneurial mindset is simple. Finding your niche can help you train your brain to go for exactly what it is that you want in your professional career. Let’s think about that for a moment.
What is it that you want to achieve in your work life? Not in general, but in specifics. To answer this question requires that you think about what type of work you love to do and are good at. It means finding the exact areas that you excel at and don’t mind putting a lot of time and effort into.
In the simplest of terms, finding your niche makes it possible for you to work on things that you enjoy most. When that happens, everything you do becomes more pleasurable and even the most mundane tasks aren’t quite so dreadful. You know that they get you one step closer to your goal, so you do them with less resistance and hesitation.
Developing and defining your niche also means greater job satisfaction levels through an enhanced feeling of purpose and fulfillment. It allows you to become more contented and gratified to greater depths of your soul. You feel as if what you do really matters; like you are making a difference to the world around you.
A Niche-Defining Exercise for You
If you would like to experience this level of satisfaction and enjoyment in your own career and have not yet defined your niche, there is an exercise you can do to help you do just that. It is an exercise I got from Living Your YOUlogy, a book written by a successful motivational speaker by the name of Red Katz designed to help you live a more powerful and enriching life.
In his book, Red talks about removing money from the equation and figuring out what you would do if he handed you enough cash to make you set for life. So, think of a figure that you would need to feel comfortable for the next 20, 30, 40 years or more and imagine that I just give that money to you free and clear. What is it that you would do now?
Would you make your own woodworking items or crafts and sell them at local markets? Or maybe you would want to help teach children in third world countries how to grow their own crops? What about treating seniors diagnosed with dementia? What exactly is it that you would do if you didn’t have to worry about paying your bills, putting food on the table, sending your kids or grandkids to college, or any other money-based concern that is on your mind today?
By identifying the one thing that would make you feel complete, you will be in a better position to tie that into your niche in a way that will bring about the highest levels of happiness for you. For example, if you would make woodworking items to sell as at local markets and you own your own lumber company, why not find some way to combine the two. Maybe you could start to sell woodworking tools, or perhaps you could open your parking lot to local vendors on Sundays when you’re normally closed.
Completing this exercise helps you realize exactly what it is you crave out of life and what will make you feel as if all of the hard work and effort is worth it. Still hesitant?
Getting Over Your Objections
Now, whenever the idea of niching is mentioned, inevitably objections arise. Probably the biggest one is the concern over limiting income potential by reducing the pool of prospective buyers.
However, as I explain in my article titled Developing Your Niche: Why You Should and How to Do It, by narrowing your field you are able to charge more for your services. Your expertise in your specialty field establishes you as an expert, making you more desirable to the people most likely to want and pay more for your services.
So, if you haven’t already, take the time right now to think about your niche because when you get your mind on the right path, your life will soon follow. Yes, it really is that powerful.
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