Don't Make Affiliate Marketing Your Full-time Work; Treat It as a Hobby

byJohnGreg08

916 followers

5 years ago

Hi Friends,

Okay, so let us be honest, we are here at Wealthy Affiliate because we want to get out of our 9 to 5 job. Just observe the forum and you will find couple of post from our WA family sharing their desire to quit their job so they can focus building their site.

I am one of those people and my desire to quit my job to focus on my site is too great that I decided to do a bit of experiment!

I filed an unpaid leave of absence for a month!

I really have this dilemma whether to quit my job or not. I don't love my job and I simply don't grow anymore in my company, however I have no idea where will I get my income if I quit now. My other option is to politely ask my boss to let go of me (this is a possible option for me since my company is restructuring) so I can get an employment insurance (E.I.), but it would not be enough to cover my monthly expense.

In the end, I decided to file an unpaid leave of absence. The purpose is to have a trial run whether my plan of building my website instead of working for someone else would work or not.

I love the idea that blogging is just a hobby

I have a weird hobby. My hobby is learning new things. I love listening to books ( I can't read books; takes so much time and I can't do something else while reading). I also love watching educational podcasts, etc.

What makes my hobby very appealing to me?

Don't get me wrong. I am not a nerd. I hate studying and I don't like an instructor giving me things to do and setting up deadlines for me. I want freedom!

But didn't I just said I love learning new things?

There is a difference when it is your job to learn versus when your hobby is to learn.

I love my hobby because it helps me to unwind after a stressful day. It gives me a sense of accomplishment when I do it and when I get better at it every time. Most of all, I can do it whenever I want and how often I want.

What I learned from my experiment?

As mentioned, I am on leave of absence for the purpose of building my blog. I made a schedule of what to do and when it should be done. Here are my personal feedback on my experiment.

1. Scheduling is important to keep me proactive, but I went a bit hard on myself. Blogging becomes really stressful because the schedules and deadlines I made overwhelmed me. Moving forward, I will ensure that there is a breathing room in my S.M.A.R.T. goals.
   
2. Blogging only takes two to three hours a day. I just need to quit binge watching Netflix, endlessly scrolling Facebook and aimlessly playing video games. Doing so will give me an additional two to three hours a day that I can use to create contents. No need to quit for now.
3. Unfortunately, I realize that I am no genius and I can only think much in one day. Forcing myself to constantly come up with new content just decreases the quality of my blogs.
4. Distractions are for real. I assume that quitting my work would give me more time to work on my blog. But this is far from reality! Netflix, responsibilities, bed, etc suddenly appeared again and each are buying for my attention. My fix is to go to a library or coffee shop to help me focus on what needs to be done.

Conclusion

I want to treat affiliate marketing as a hobby. I want to do it because I love it. I love it because I have the freedom to improve and become accomplished on it on my own pace. There would be times when I am in the mood to write lots of contents if so, then I have the freedom to write a lot. If I am not in the mood or my schedule is busy then I will have not to worry a thing.

I'm not gonna lie, there are also things that are good about my leave of absence, and I will share that next time.

What about you? Have you done something crazy for your blog? I would happy to read your story.!