How To Find Your Specific Calling In Web-Based Business

The debates around calling, passion, and profit are very controversial. Some emphasize passion, while others state that passion alone leads to poverty. In this post I want to present three simple, yet important concepts that will help you find your specific calling in web based business, despite the debate.

There are myriads of opportunities on the web today. Anyone with just a laptop can start a business and profit from it.

The problem is that it's full of other people with the exact same intentions. It's a vast and competitive market. 

In this extensive marketplace of web-based business, how do you find your own specific calling? Is it passion? Is it skill? How can you assure success?

Well, I believe there are three components to finding your vocational calling in life, three components that when combined, will bring you the greatest success in carving out your own path.

The key is that ALL THREE of these components be in place. You cannot have only one or two of these, you must have all three. 

The three components are: Passion, Skill, and Demand

Let's look at these:

Passion

Passion can bring you success as well as poverty. It's not enough by itself. 

Steve Jobs was passionate about making great things. He was also passionate about great vegan dishes. The former passion brought him success, not the latter.  

But……finding work you are passionate about greatly increases the quality of day to day life and I believe it is a worthy, long-term pursuit.

Start by making a list of web-based things you are passionate about. Perhaps it's web development, digital marketing, content strategy, design, applications, or interfaces. 

Do you like building websites? Do you like writing copy that sells? Do you love learning new Python libraries? Do you get excited clicking on that photoshop icon or when you have to debug some code? 

Step 1: Make a list of all web-based activities that you are passionate about.

Skill

Now….second,

What are you good at? What do you find yourself often helping others with? What comes easy to you that others often struggle with?

For me, I was always the one fixing people's computers. Since my high school days it came easy to me, and it continued into the corporate world. Thus it followed that when I fell in love coding and web development, that it appeared to be an overall skill I possessed…..computers and computer-related tasks.  

Many people have natural abilities or abilities that surfaced from the result of the environment they were raised in. Some people are skilled with their hands, some with their brains, and others have a knack for design or leadership.

Step 2: Take the list of passions that you created and rate the ones you are skilled at from the greatest to the least.

Demand

Now take the list of your most skillful passions and rate them according to their demand in today's market whether locally or globally.

This is the most important step. Why?

Because if you have PASSION and SKILL with no DEMAND, you only have a HOBBY.

If you have PASSION and DEMAND with no SKILL, you will do poor work.

And if you have SKILL and DEMAND and no PASSION, your quality of life is consistently suboptimal as you reluctantly trot off to work every day.

If you have PASSION, the SKILL to back it up, AND the DEMAND…..you can find your specific calling. 

Step 3: Take your list of passions, ranked by skill level, and determine which one has the greatest market demand. Run with it.

An Example

Let's see this in action with a fictional character: Mary.

Passion – Mary is a web designer and is passionate about building WordPress themes. She hasn't launched a store yet, but she is planning to create two new themes to put in a new theme shop. 

She also loves to help people boost their social media presence on Facebook and Instagram. She loves putting together strategic projects to boost more social engagement. 

Finally, Mary is also a wonderful artist and has accumulated some great paintings which she has hung around her house.

Skill – Related to the above, Mary is very good with WordPress and with web design in general. She has always been skilled at computers. She also has a Facebook page with over 10,000 likes that just "happened" naturally for her. She is also a good artist. 

Demand – Looking at her options, and weighing the demand, Mary determines that the web is saturated with theme shops. It's a tough market and one she will struggle to stand out in. In addition, with the rise of page builders and theme builders, she doesn't see the long term benefit in pursuing this. Going this route, she has the PASSION and the SKILL, but the DEMAND is low.

Looking at her painting skills, she could pursue graphic design or web design, but Mary has never worked with Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop and the learning curve would be great for her to pursue this. Mary has the PASSION, but there is no SKILL to back it up.

Finally, Mary has had a number of friends and small businesses continually asking her to help boost their social media presence. Mary has a PASSION for it, she has the SKILL for it, and the DEMAND is right. 

It makes sense then, that at this point in her life her calling is Social Media Marketing/Digital Strategy and a calling she should immediately pursue. 

She is good at it. She is passionate about it. And there is a demand for it. 

Exceptions

Now I mentioned above that this is a controversial topic. I think it is controversial because people blur short-term and long-term goals. 

The pursuit to find your specific calling is a long term goal. A short term goal may be just to make money and get the bills paid. This is fine, do what it takes.

In addition, some people may be happy doing a job they are skilled at, a job that is in demand, but one they are not overly passionate about. I mean, look at all the small-town plumbers who retire millionaires. They couldn't have been passionate about installing toilets, but they lived a fruitful and happy life and this works for many. 

But I guarantee they didn't HATE plumbing. If so, could you image waking up every single day for 40 years to something you hate? Sure the money is good but 40 years is a long time. And a long time allows for more opportunity for refinement.

So for most circumstances, I think it is a worthy pursuit to try and align these three concepts…to find that sweet spot where there is passion, skill, and demand. 

Conclusion

So take action. Make a list of your passions. Determine which are your greatest skills. Then let the market demand guide you and help you find your specific calling in web based business. 

What is your take on passion, skill, and demand? Is one greater than the other? Do you think the three I mentioned are a good balance?