Dr. Feelgood or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Publishing Board Games

Right now… Today, and every day as the release of Terra Prime and Homesteaders draws closer, is the happiest day of my life. This is of course a generalization, because if I pinpointed happiest days they would include my wedding day, and the birth of my two children. Generally, right now is as happy as I have ever been in my life. Being an optimistic person and usually pleased with life, I am sure many people would find me to be disgustingly happy. The purpose of this post is not for me to boast about my happiness.

I want to discuss the advantages of following your passions. Here is a short list of advantages:

Fun
Liberating
Fulfilling
Challenging
Rewarding
Fun
Fun
Fun

Getting Bogged Down

Over the course of life, many people (myself included) accumulate a series of responsibilities. These responsibilities bring about sacrifices of a personal nature for many of us. As we sacrifice the things that bring us pleasure and joy, resentment of our responsibilities can start to creep in. I have never been to the point of resenting my wife or my children. Every time that I discovered myself along the path toward resentment of them, I took the time to readjust myself, discuss it with my wife, and realize that they are the people who bring me the greatest joy and pleasure.

I have resented material objects that represent responsibilities, obligations, or mis-allocated resources. Many people call this buyer’s remorse. The largest of obligations can bind you and limit your freedoms. Mortgage payments on a large or expensive home require you to have sufficient income going forward. Unfortunately, many people have been finding out just how far they over extended themselves on homes.

Following Your Passion – How To Rise Above

Despite anything that may be going on in your life, following your passion will bring increased joy and happiness. I suggest that you do not do anything drastic to follow your passion. Transform some of your free time into passion following time. Do not quit your current employment. Do not jeopardize your current situation. What you need to do is set aside 1 or 2 hours a day to work on following your passion. Here are the steps you need to take:

Quantify Your Passion – You probably know exactly what you are passionate about. For me it is a small niche of games manufactured for the hobby market. Games for gamers as I like to put it. Regardless of what you are passionate about, there is a sufficient number of people online that share your passion to support a livable income.
Believe In Yourself – In following your passion, you MUST believe that you have something unique and desirable to bring to the table. Just through our voice, style, and personality everybody brings something unique. What you need to do is believe in the value of what you can bring.
Learn, Learn, Learn – To be able to act appropriately, you must learn about your topic. Always continue learning and educating yourself. A word of caution, many people get stuck at this stage and fail to act.
Failing To Plan = Planning to Fail – You do not need to have a detailed plan which maps out everything you will do and when you will do it. You do however need a general plan or framework for the long term coupled with a short-term action plan (of a couple of months). Without a plan, you will wander from subject to subject, passion to passion, and a lack of focus will increase the chance of failing.
ACT! And ACT NOW! – Learn enough to be able to speak intelligently about your passion, then act. I flatter myself, but I believe that there are people reading this blog and anticipating Terra Prime and Homesteaders which are desirous to do similar things or like my ideas. A little self-flattery is good within reason. I have thought of and executed my best ideas since making the initial decision to act. Without the initial decision to act, I would still be learning about manufacturing, copyrights, shipping, distribution, marketing, etc, etc.
READY, FIRE, AIM! – This should fall under the heading of ACT NOW! This is the most important thing to do though. Most of my best ideas have come since I made the initial decision to act.
Optimize – Do not expect that you will have everything optimized to the maximum when you initially start. Since beginning, I have made mistakes and found additional places to add optimizations. Just continue to improve and rework your plan.

Following Your Passion Can Bring Much Joy

The joy is immense. I hope and believe that through publishing board games and appropriate marketing efforts I will be able to earn sufficient income to support my family. Until I am completely confident in that income source and have sufficient savings I will continue in my employment. Also, continuing in my employment will allow the game-related income to grow faster since I can afford to reinvest 100% of profits back into the company.

The most important step to take is ACTING! The fastest and lowest-risk way to act is by starting with a blog.

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