As I began my freelance writing career in 2017, a common theme I read and learned from others was to focus on your niche. I did that for awhile and it worked but I found myself wanting to write about other content occasionally. My personal blog and freelance niche had similar topics (personal finance), which led to me approaching burn out, and be unmotivated to write…at the expense of my blog. knew I needed to expand, and write about other topics.

I’m a huge fan of personal development as well as golf so I figured, why not try to write about other topics I am
passionate about? While I still focused on my main writing of personal finance, I figured I would use these topics as my side hustle of freelance writing.

With zero writing experience in either subject, I created a few sample pieces, and added them to my personal freelance site. From there, I started cold pitching sites and, to my surprise, got some real traction! Within a few weeks, my “side hustle” topics of freelance writing income surpassed my original niche income.

The personal development client ended up being a huge site with nearly a million monthly readers and I have contributed consistently over the past seven months. My experiment also worked with the golf side of things. I worked as a ghostwriter for a golf site, created more samples, and applied for a job to write an ebook. Thanks to my personal golf knowledge and writing experience, I landed the job, and published an ebook on Amazon (for which I received author credit). From there, I leveraged the book to land another client where I am now a consultant, and frequent contributor to their site.

I would encourage everyone to expand topics as it can be incredibly fulfilling, and can reinvigorate your writing career. There is almost no downside other than the time it takes to create test pieces, and doing so can bring nearly unlimited potential. Last year, I never would have guessed I could be paid to write about my passions, golf and personal development.

Get started by asking yourself these two questions:

“What am I passionate about in life that isn’t my current niche?”

“What am I really curious about that I would love to learn more about?”

It’s never a bad idea to follow something you are passionate about, or are curious to learn.

Michael Leonard is a freelance writer and blogger at inspireyoursuccess.com. Last year, he left the corporate world to pursue his passion for writing and professional golf. Since then, he has published several books, including Advice For My Younger Self, to teach others the habits needed to create a successful future.