As an artist or creative, are you having trouble finding your niche?
If so, then you, you are not alone. I have read a lot in the blog-o-sphere about finding your niche ever since I started blogging, and the same is true of my art.
This mythical place called, ‘Niche’, in the creative and business landscape where you reside; iIt’s your focus, your topic.
However, for two years, my efforts to try to find my niche have resulted in minimal success. It’s not that I haven’t tried. It’s just that so many things fascinate me, so much, I want to say, that finding a pigeonhole for myself is difficult. But it’s more than trying and failing. I have noticed a rebellious streak that resists the drive to be defined.
I feel now that ‘niching down’ is perhaps the legacy of an economic system that’s unravelling. When the economics of society meant job specialisation which you held for life. Having a particular vocation is a desire for the old days when you knew your place in the order of things.
Today is very different. Job security is at its lowest, and individuals may have more than one income stream or job over their lifetime. People are more complicated than a niche suggests.
What’s different now is the pressure to conform no longer comes from society but other creatives. From bloggers and entrepreneurs who keep regurgitating that same line. ‘You have to find your niche.’
It’s ironic that there’s all this talk about non-conformity, individuality, and authenticity from the business world and blogging. Yet the advice, the pressure is still to simplify yourself to the point where you can be squeezed into becoming a ‘proper’ creative. It’s not to say that advice is worthless or that all advice is equal. But when I see the umpteenth post on ‘finding your niche’ I become jaded to the whole idea.
It may be that for some individuals, finding a narrow place in this world is unsuitable, even an aversion. I have often felt that we need big-picture thinkers just as much as we need specialists.
All this brings me to the idea of the polymath, ‘renaissance individuals’ with interests covering many topics. I don’t know if I am such an individual, but after two years of trying to find a niche and only partial success, I wonder. I’m pleased to have come across Emily Wapnick and her idea of a multipotentialite.
Sometimes, people resist strict definitions because we are complex individuals. It’s not easy or possible to narrow the focus of our working lives for some of us. A solution, multiple niches, a multi-nicher? Let me check a thesaurus. A poly-vocationer?!!!
So what’s is my niche?
Life.
That’s my niche. The wonder, majesty, uncertainty and fear. It’s the best I can do for now.
I see the appeal of a niche; once inside the box, it makes you feel safer, focused and less uncertain. But I am tired of trying to find my niche and failing and attempting to squeeze myself into a mould that feels too small to accept me. We seem to think the business world is like a jigsaw. All you have to do is find out which piece you are so you can fit in.
I started blogging to get out of the box. I wanted to express myself and live a more authentic life. The job I am in doesn’t let me do that. To be told, I have to find my niche, which seems like swapping one prison for another. Following rules in a profession where you’re meant to find your path seems paradoxical.
I’m done with niche, at least for now. I’ll say what I came here to say and hope someone takes notice.
What are your thoughts on finding a niche? How successful have you been? Let me know your experiences in the comments below.
Image Credit: alphaspirit / 123RF Stock Photo
Hi Richard,
Great post – All my life I have flipped from interest to interest, job to job. Once I feel I’ve learned all there is to learn or have learned all I want to learn from the experience I get so bored I have to move on. But that old fashioned saying has always followed me around, guilt-tripping me, ‘Jack of all trades and Master of none’.
My interests may last for years or just for a day, or I may put them down for decades and then take them up again. I may get seriously into a business opportunity, become all consumed and learn everything about it, then just quit when I realize it would be boring to continue any longer because, after all, there really is no point, no ‘real’ point – I know I should, but I don’t really somehow consider making money a ‘real’ point.
There is just so much to know and I am ravenous to learn about it all. My curiosity spans every subject and many skills. I just love how one subject leads to another and another and another!
It’s not that I don’t have any natural abilities or ‘God’ given talents, it’s just that they don’t really fit in with today’s capitalist society. For instance; I have natural abilities in the healing arts working with plants and herbs, in soothing animals and divination, the sacred and spiritual, art, poetry and dance – absolutely perfect for a Priestess in some ancient Druidic land but definitely not sort after down the Job Center today!
I loved this line you wrote…
“So what is my niche? – LIFE”
I’m so with you on this one Kira. To many interests, to many passion to be described by a job description. I despair ever making form anything i put my mind to because I never stick at it long enough to get good enough to charge for my services. Like this blogging thing. It was supposed to be me telling people how I reduced my social anxiety, and some life lesson, but now I have learned enough I have moved onto my art.
The advice from Emily Wapnick might help, but it doesn’t change the world economy which focuses on specialists.
I am a kind of blogger without a niche as well. My ‘speciality’ is the practical application of philosophy, as dictated by interesting (and usually philosophical) quotes I find on Twitter. It began as an exercise in making myself write, and has been a lot of fun. But making a niche out of it, much less a profitable one, has yet to happen.
Same here Ken, I doubt I will make any money with my writing because it is too general. I too like philosophy, science, nutrition, psychology and more. Just too much for anyone to delve deep enough to get subscribers. My only thought now is to just write and worry about focus later.