Man, thinking back to November 2015 still gives me a weird feeling in my gut. Before that, I was just kind of drifting, you know? Waking up, doing the grind, going home, repeating it all. It wasn’t bad, not terrible, but it wasn’t anything exciting either. I felt like I was just going through the motions, clocking in and out, not really building anything for myself. My passion for what I was doing? Gone. Vanished. Like a puff of smoke. I knew I needed a change, but man, I had no clue what that change even looked like. Just this nagging feeling that something bigger was out there, something I was actually meant to do, but it was all hazy, a complete fog.
The Shift in November 2015
Then November 2015 hit. I remember it clear as day. I was just scrolling through some old forums, not even looking for anything specific, just wasting time after a particularly blah day at work. And I stumbled onto this thread, a really old one, about folks who completely switched careers later in life and found their real calling. Something about that just clicked. It wasn’t one single thing they said, but the whole vibe of it. People talking about taking risks, learning new stuff from scratch, and actually loving what they did. That night, I couldn’t sleep. My brain was just buzzing with ideas, with possibilities I hadn’t even dared to think about before.
I started digging deeper. Not into my old field, but into anything that vaguely interested me. Anything that felt a little bit like “play” instead of “work.” I spent every evening after work, and all my weekends, just reading, watching videos, messing around with different software. I tried a bit of graphic design, dabbled in some simple coding stuff, even looked into wood carving for a hot minute. It was all over the place, I tell ya, but each little experiment was like peeling back a layer. Each failed attempt, each thing that didn’t stick, helped me narrow it down. It was messy, but it felt like I was finally figuring out what I actually enjoyed doing, what made my brain light up.
Finding My True Drive
What really got me, what really felt like “my destiny revealed,” was when I started messing with writing online. Not just casual comments, but actual structured thoughts, sharing bits and pieces of my own journey, my thoughts on things. I started a simple blog, no fancy stuff, just a free platform. I’d write about anything that was on my mind – a frustrating experience, a new tool I tried, a book I read. And people actually started reading it. Not thousands, but a few, and they’d leave comments, ask questions. That connection, that feeling of putting something out there and having it resonate with someone else, man, that was it. That was the ‘love’ I’d been missing. It wasn’t about the money or status; it was about the pure joy of creating and connecting.
So, I really leaned into it. My “practice record” started with:
- Daily writing habit: I made myself write at least 500 words every single day, no matter what. Even if it was garbage, I wrote it. Just to get the muscles moving.
- Reading everything: I devoured blogs, articles, books about writing, online communities, how people built their online presence. Absorbing everything I could.
- Experimenting with formats: Tried short posts, long essays, lists, personal stories, how-to guides. Just to see what felt right and what people responded to.
- Engaging with readers: Responding to every comment, trying to build a real community, even if it was small.
- Learning basic website stuff: Figured out how to make my simple blog look a little less plain, how to tag posts, basic SEO – all self-taught through trial and error.
There were days I wanted to give up, believe me. Days when I felt like I was just shouting into the void, or that my writing was just plain awful. But that feeling from November 2015, that sense of finally hitting on something that made me feel alive, it kept pulling me forward. The “love” for this process, for sharing and connecting, was stronger than the self-doubt. It was a grind, for sure, putting in hours after my day job, sacrificing weekends and evenings, but it never felt like work anymore. It felt like I was building something, brick by brick, that was truly mine. And looking back, that initial spark in November 2015 really was the start of everything. It felt like my path just opened up right then and there.
