If you had asked me a year ago what my niche was, I probably would’ve stared at you like you had just asked me to explain quantum physics.
I didn’t have one.
Hell, half the time I didn’t even know what I was building.
I just knew I wanted something of my own.
I wanted to create. I wanted another source of income. I wanted more freedom. And somewhere underneath all of it, I wanted to build a life that felt more like mine.
The problem?
I had absolutely no idea what that was supposed to look like.
So I did what apparently made perfect sense to my ADHD brain:
I tried damn near everything.
Apparently, My Strategy Was to Try Everything
And when I say everything, I mean I have been around the side-hustle block a few times.
I tried Pinterest. Affiliate marketing. Redbubble. Digital products. YouTube. I researched blogging more times than I can count. I created things, abandoned things, came back to things, and followed more than a few ideas down a rabbit hole at 11:00 at night.
Then there were books.
Somehow, one random idea turned into me learning how to self-publish on Amazon KDP. Then one book became another. I started creating little worlds and characters. I made mistakes. I fixed them. I learned about margins, bleed, covers, keywords, formatting, and approximately 700 other things I did not know I was signing up for. 😂
And every time I found something new, I thought:
Maybe THIS is it.
Maybe this is my thing.
But eventually, I would get interested in something else, or another idea would show up, and I’d start wondering if I was doing exactly what all the advice online tells you not to do.
Was I just all over the damn place?
I Thought I Kept Starting Over
I used to look at all of those things and see a bunch of unfinished paths.
Another idea I tried.
Another thing I got excited about.
Another thing that didn’t turn into the thing.
And if you have ADHD, you probably know exactly how easy it is to look at that pile and decide it means you can’t stick with anything.
For a long time, that’s pretty much how I saw it too.
But then I started doing something I apparently can’t help myself from doing.
I analyzed it. 😂
Instead of looking at each thing separately, I started looking for the pattern.
Why did I want to start a blog?
Why was I interested in affiliate marketing?
Why did I create digital products?
Why did I start making books?
Why did I keep coming back to YouTube, Pinterest, creative projects, and different ways of making money online?
And that’s when something finally clicked.
They weren’t separate dreams.
They were different attempts at the same dream.
I wanted to create things.
I wanted to share things I loved.
I wanted to make money from something I built myself.
I wanted more freedom.
And maybe more than anything, I wanted to know that the life I imagined in my head didn’t have to stay there forever.
The Path Wasn’t Straight. The Dream Was.
For years, I thought not having one clear direction meant I was doing something wrong.
I kept hearing the same advice everywhere:
Pick a niche.
Choose one thing.
Stay consistent.
Don’t confuse your audience.
Meanwhile, my brain was over here with approximately 47 tabs open and a new business idea before dinner. 😂
But maybe finding your direction doesn’t always happen by sitting down one day and magically choosing the perfect niche.
Maybe sometimes you have to live your way into it.
Maybe you try things.
You get excited about something and learn everything you can about it.
You realize something isn’t for you.
You discover something else that is.
You fail at things. You finish things. You come back to things you thought you’d left behind.
And little by little, you collect evidence about yourself.
That’s what I had been doing all along.
Pinterest wasn’t pointless because it didn’t become my business.
The YouTube channel wasn’t pointless because I didn’t turn into some massive YouTuber.
The digital products weren’t pointless.
The abandoned ideas weren’t pointless.
None of it was wasted.
I was learning what I liked, what I didn’t like, what I was good at, what kept pulling me back, and what kind of life I was actually trying to build.
I thought I kept starting over.
I was actually collecting pieces.
And eventually, those pieces finally had a name:
The After-Hours Dreamer. 🌙
Maybe You’re Not as Lost as You Think
If you’re sitting there with a dozen interests, half-finished ideas, and absolutely no clue how any of them fit together, maybe you don’t need another person telling you to just “pick a niche.”
Maybe you need to look backward before you decide where you’re going next.
Look at the things you’ve tried.
What did you love about them?
What did you hate?
What came naturally to you?
What did you keep coming back to, even after you swore you were done with it?
And most importantly:
What were you really trying to create for yourself underneath all of those ideas?
Because the answer might not be one perfect business idea.
It might be a pattern.
I spent years thinking I needed to find my thing.
Turns out, I had been leaving myself clues the entire time.
I’m still figuring out where The After-Hours Dreamer will take me. I don’t have some perfectly mapped-out five-year plan, and I’m definitely not writing this from the other side pretending I’ve figured it all out.
I’m building it right now.
After work.
One finished thing at a time.
And maybe that’s the point.
You don’t have to see the whole path to recognize the dream that’s been following you through all of it.
The path wasn’t straight.
The dream was. 🌙
The After-Hours Dreamer🌙 