There’s one more option for those of you who might not have an obvious topic in mind yet… And that’s to learn something new.
So you have no area of expertise and no hobby or skill. That’s fine, most people don’t!
But you must have things that you find interesting. You must have ways you’d like to improve and things you’d like to learn – and this is why you can create an exciting blog around the idea that you’re learning the new subject and sharing what you’re learning at the time.
Wish you were a hacker? Then why not learn hacking and write about your experiences as you learn?
Wish you could speak another language? Why not share your progress and provide tips to that end for your audience along the way?
Why Listen to a Learner?
Now you might be wondering why someone would want to read advice from you if you’re not an ‘expert’ of any kind in your given subject. What could you possibly have to offer?
This is a short sighted view though: actually, writing as a learner has the advantage of ensuring that you don’t scare your audience away with jargon. Often learners make the best teachers because they find it that much easier to put themselves in the shoes of the people they’re trying to teach. What’s more, this gives your content an interesting narrative as you can discuss your learning journey along the way. This gives your content a bit more of a personal touch and can be fun for your readers.
There’s another advantage to writing as a learner too – and that’s that you will have an easier time.
The problem with teaching as an expert is that a lot of other experts are going to be watching you and waiting for you to fail. If you’re a fitness writer and you suggest a move that might open up the rotator cuff just a little too much, you can bet that the more knowledgeable portion of the fitness community will come down on you like a ton of bricks. If you’re writing about the brain and you get your ‘white matter’ and ‘grey matter’ mixed up, then you can end up the laughing stock of Reddit.
If you write as a learner though, then you are admitting that you’re not an expert on the subject, that you are likely to make mistakes and that you’re still learning on the job. As a result people will be more patient with you and more sympathetic and you will have more license to write freely without fear of criticism.
An example of a highly successful blog in this nature is ‘The Personal MBA’.
This blog was the pet project of Josh Kaufman who started it in order to take notes on his progress learning about business. He wanted to undertake an MBA but didn’t have the time or the money to do so. Thus, he set about to see if he could learn all the principles taught on such a course and kept his blog as a kind of repository for all that information for his own reference.
In doing so, he created a fantastic resource for entrepreneurs and would-be business men and women. The result was a highly popular site and eventually a book deal. Ironically, this became his business!
This story might inspire you to approach a topic as a newby and especially if you can give it a unique angle as Josh did. At the same time, it also shows us another advantage of picking something you want to learn – if you want to learn a topic and if you find the resources to help you aren’t out there… well then there’s a very good chance that other people will feel the same! Build a blog for yourself and you’ll be building it for other people too.
This is what some people refer to as ‘scratching your own itch’.
Personal Growth
Of course all this doesn’t only apply to learning an actual topic. You can also take the ‘new to the field’ approach to other types of activity or more general ‘growth’.
Fitness blogs are often popular for example when you start off with the aim of losing ‘X’ amount of weight. Someone who is overweight themselves would likely find it reassuring to read of your exploits, rather than hear advice from someone who has abs on their abs!
Likewise, you can run blogs on general personal growth. Why not talk about how you’ve set out to become a better person? Or more confident? This is essentially what ‘Art of Manliness’ or ‘Nerd Fitness’ is – with an extra personal bent.
