I will say the most relevant thing first, the best advice is the one that works for you, period. I will take this even further and say the best advice is that you figured out on your own and then went ahead to make it work for you.
If success was ‘N step linear formula’ all the problems of the world would get solved in a jiffy. A lot of advice would go something like this- Follow step A, then do B and C should be the result. And yet in the real world that is hardly the case.
Chances are that the end of the free advice posts there would be a link to a paid course which would give you all the deep knowledge required for your success! And yet hardly any of the successful people ever admit to taking a course in order to become successful!
People who care for me know that I write a blog, which is moderately successful. They also know that I have quit my job recently. They sometimes forward me links to articles that give advice on how to write well. I recently read an article which collected advice from many great travel writes. It was refreshing to read because a lot of it was contradictory! And that is the key. What worked for someone and got them a lot of success, the opposite worked for someone else and got them a lot of success too!
Most of the advice fall into ‘one size fit all’ category. I am sure the people giving out the advice are sincere and yet they are a product of their unique environments too! What worked for them may not work for me! That brings me to the travel advice articles! While I read a large number of them, in just one I found someone saying their advice was age specific, targeted at 20 somethings. And then the points made some sense. The free bit was, as is the norm, followed by the opportunity to buy the paid course.
I am also a member of many Facebook travel groups. And sometimes I get scared. We so firmly believe in the correctness of our own ideas that we refuse to acknowledge the possibility that for someone else the opposite might be true! And travel is said to broaden our horizons and leave us more open to other people’s ideas! I will stick out my neck and say I have met all kind of travelers- generous, stupid, mean, dishonest, kind, caring, delightful, arrogant, idiots, fun and the list goes on. The same is true for people from any other walk of life.
I will of course keep reading advices, they are fun to read. In fact I have pick up a new hobby too, now that I have quit my job! I am browsing travel coupons and deals as the cash flow has reduced after quitting! Now did anyone mention that as a side effect of quitting their jobs this bluntly? I took my kids to Disneyland last year when I was working, there is no chance in hell I can do the same this year! Or wait the year is not over yet!
In the end I would say read as much as you want about best practices, but figure out for yourself what it is that works for you. And build up on it. But that would require some genuine reflection. And we are just too busy running the race! I would say stop running after ‘advice’ and start investing in what works for you! No one else can figure it out for you!
Sound advice in this post on best advice!
Rajeev 😀 thank you for the kind words!
Agree with you 🙂
Same advice may not work for all.
Thank you so much Anita.
So agree with you…a choice that ‘you’ make it work for you is the best.
Thank you Bushra for the thumbs up!
I agree with you so much here. I am not sure why in India these days associating a woman with her working status has become a fad. I am also sailing in the same boat as you and believe me even today people define me as a woman who quit her job because she has become a mother where the fact is I would have quit one day irrespective of my motherly status. Here’s my post on this 🙂 Diary of a woman who quit her job
Lets rock without a job. Cheers 😀
Thank you for sharing your post Roohi. As you say in your post, I also did not quit because of Chhavi as we adopted her about 6 years back. I quit as you say because I felt like quitting. I may go back to work again some day. And I am working quite hard to make my blog more successful! I perfectly understand where you are coming from.
I totally agree with you . Mridula ji , I know some people who are just new in blogging but tells us about “how to write blog ” how to be success in blogging as they are writting his first post.
Yogi 😀 I do go for a rant sometimes!
After reading my share of advises, I couldn’t agree with you more. What worked for someone might not work for me and I guess its the same a lot of other aspects in addition to travel-blogging or blogging. And yes, we need to keep reading because from every single ‘advice’ that we come across, we get to see things from different perspectives which I think helps us in one way or the other.
Cheers for this wonderful post.
Rajiv
Thank you so much Rajiv. 😀 It can get confusing if we do not remember the basics!
My god – your post really resonated with me. I have been getting so much unasked-for advice from people who know half of what I know, just because I listen politely – I was getting quite annoyed. Advice is freely given in India because it is free. In through one ear and out through the other is what I say. Many things can only be learned through experience.