Choosing Something You Can’t Stop 

Discovering something you know you cannot stop, that can be useful for an audience who will care, is better than slogging your heart out to find your place in the market.

Being curious, creative and motivated is how you find long-term success in what you do. This is about building your message and audience alongside your business.

People can start to see that what you share is right for them, so they start to tell others. This gives energy and momentum to you and your audience. 

Mitch Joel was a guest on a You Are The Media Online show and I asked him what advice he would give to someone who wanted to start finding their content momentum? 

His reply was nothing to do with choosing a platform, promoting what you do, finding your niche or being vocal in your industry, it was a lot simpler than that.

Mitch said, “Decide on what you think you can’t stop doing. Choose a medium on which you know you would not stop.”

Mitch’s response hit home to me as for the past nine years, I haven’t stopped with YATM. The thing that keeps me going is how can people build their own space (that isn’t always reliant on social media) and narrative where others want to join in. What this means is that over the years my ideas evolve so they become relevant and in tune with the wider YATM audience.

STARTING POINT – what is it that you can’t stop, or even become fixated by?

WHY DO IT – so it doesn’t feel like work (you have to have an interest)

WITH A GOAL – to understand and blaze a trail for something you are interested in

When you look at it this way, the safest thing is to do nothing and be sporadic. The riskiest thing to do is to play it safe. 

It starts by being proactive, not being cautious.

Being reactive means you are more inclined to gripe about something personal to you, but not necessarily relevant to others. It could be the way others do business in your sector, it could be the way people behave, it could be personal or business success you want to share.

The reward you find is from curiosity with a theme that can attract others.

Choosing something you can’t stop is in a different place from relying on demographics and personas to decide what makes you marketable and attractive to others. When you do this, this is where problems arise, namely running out of ideas, fitting in and failing to stand out in your marketplace.

If you have a topic you become dedicated to and preoccupied by, what happens is that you start to paint a vision for something better. The end result is that the audience will come to you. Never attack people, never point the blame at someone, and be vocal where being inquisitive leads the way. 

Being able to ask questions is important, it’s how you look to solve and help others figure it out too. It’s similar to lighting a match. The whole point of the match is to ignite something and the fire to keep burning. What you can’t do is just hold the match, look at it and only get frustrated. That’s what many people do where they focus on their own annoyances and self-promotion and nothing spreads ie. other people willing to tell others.

Let’s look at what you can do to start to embrace something you can’t stop.

When you know what you stand for, it represents who you are and that becomes easier to express, over time. This is who you are and what you do. You start with a big idea and then over time, it needs to be developed. The values of people who are a part of YATM represent independence, creativity, identity, visibility, experimentation, openness, support and cooperation.

If you focus on a wide space, you become difficult to define and people struggle to recognise what you stand for. When YATM started, the topic was marketing, today YATM is creation and audience growth. You have to be in pursuit of being an investigator and accept that a problem may never be solved. 

With your curiosity, you start to build ideas that connect from your own observations. What starts to happen is that you’re not just sharing information from your industry, but a viewpoint from your own experiences and education. What happens is that you start to connect the dots for you and your audience. 

As your audience builds, the one constant should be you, 12 months ago. What you share should also assist and be valuable to the person you once were. What you discover can also be a guide to the younger version of yourself where the guiding light today is leading a path. The knowledge you acquire is unique to you, it deserves to be shared.

This is what makes your whole approach feel fresh. Engagement matters, but it is also important to be engaging. In an article on, ‘how to make your work not feel like work, ‘ if your work is long-winded, lacks emotion, it sounds complicated, then you will forever sit in the middle. Alternatively, people like things they don’t get somewhere else and if it is filled with energy that becomes the impetus to stand out. What happens is that you start to build better relationships.

Choosing what you can’t stop, means you are constantly coming back to something you believe in. The result is that this huge piece of concrete you are continually chipping away at is you! It involves frequency and continual improvement, over time.

If you can keep going, what starts to happen is that you attract a group of people who care. This means that the impact starts to be made on a wider scale and moves beyond you.

This is where real results can be achieved where the work you have done, starts to pay off, and where you become recognised as the right choice for others, which isn’t determined by an algorithm. This becomes extremely empowering. 

The opportunity is to continually move forward, earn attention and trust, and to spark the ongoing conversation.

Embracing what you can’t stop is about going on the attack for a problem you want to solve. 

This feels so much more rewarding and impactful than thinking you have to find your niche. When you try to find your niche, your work is more likely to just fit in. 

When you can be continually motivated, you realise that your work improves and becomes more distinct over time. This is because you are concentrated on a specific space to improve your craft, rather than throwing your net out wide. 

It means you can build a business that has focus, has the opportunity to grow and people to make an easier association that you are the right person for them. When you do this, the whole journey becomes enjoyable.