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First Of All, Uncertainty In Your Side Hustle Is NORMAL
Let’s face it, new things can be scary–uncertainty in your side hustle is completely normal.
And making the decision to create a passive income-earning side hustle that allows you to have income and the freedom to live life on your terms opens you up to a lot of unknown, a lot of uncertainty.
But that’s also where all the fun is.
Overcoming uncertainty in your side hustle is critical when it comes to finding success in it. If you can’t handle uncertainty, can’t handle not knowing the outcome before you start a project, then it’s probably a good idea to stick with something you do know, even if that means staying at your current income level.
That’s the hard truth, right there, but it is true.
If you’re serious about tackling the unknown and building a side hustle that allows you to live life on your terms, then here are five tips on how to handle that uncertainty.
Because when you move beyond the unknown, you can do some pretty amazing things with your business.
Uncertainty In Your Side Hustle: Release The How
You are never going to know exactly HOW to go from where you are now to where you want to be.
And that’s okay.
But as long as you know where you are now, why you’re doing what you’re doing (especially who you are providing value to), and where you want to be, you’ll get there.
Focusing on the how doesn’t allow you to be creative, and you have to be creative. Your first idea might not work. Your second idea may not work. As long as you focus on the endgame and ultimately getting to said endgame, you will be most likely to actually get there.
Allow yourself some creativity when it comes to thinking about what you need to do right now to get to where you want to be. Break it down into easier-to-accomplish pieces. Take it one step at a time, one day at a time, and one week at a time.
Uncertainty In Your Side Hustle: Follow Your Instincts
The voice screaming in the back of your mind, nagging you to do that thing you’ve been putting off?
That’s the voice you need to listen to.
It can be something simple, or it can be something complicated.
But your instincts know what is right for you, what the things are that will allow you to be successful are, and you need to listen to that voice.
Do you have a voice in your head telling you to make a TON of Pinterest graphics for your blog posts?
Has it been nagging you about making pins for days or weeks?
Listen to it.
Because that voice in your head is the voice that knows that being active on Pinterest, and have a lot of pins leading toward your blog posts is the best way to grow your traffic.
And promoting your blog posts is always going to be more important than creating blog posts. Remember the 80/20 rule and apply it to content creation. You want to be sure you are spending 80 percent of your time promoting your content, and only 20 percent of your time creating it.
Promoting your content is the best way to get word out there that you have value to provide, and your instincts are aware of it.
Uncertainty In Your Side Hustle: You MUST Take Action
Step number one to overcoming uncertainty is always going to be to take action.
Any action.
Any at all.
Most of the time, you’re going to feel uncertain because you haven’t taken action, because there’s always that worry of what if you’re doing doesn’t work.
But you’ll never know until you take that action, and you can’t wait for it to be perfect.
Messy action is always going to be better than no action at all. Don’t let fear, or even an idea of perfection stop you from getting what you want.
Remember, threes no such thing as perfection. None. Perfection doesn’t exist. What you should be striving for instead is for improvement. You want to improve, every single day, to get just one percent better, because all of those daily one percents are going to grow exponentially, until the person you are a year from now is wildly different from the person you are today.
Want to lean more about why perfection isn’t real and you’re striving just to get better, one day at a time? Check out Episode 40 of 10 Minutes Before Dinner.
Uncertainty In Your Side Hustle: Don’t Get Overloaded
Information overload is real, and it’s important that you don’t fall into that cycle.
On the one hand, the Internet is a great, vast and amazing resource. It allows you to do things like create businesses that are totally online, that you can run from comfort of your home, behind a computer while wearing your bathrobe.
But the other thing about the internet is that if you google a question, you can find five different answers, and they all conflict.
Why?
Because different people have had different results to whatever you are searching for. They know what works with them, and are willing to share it. That’s good, because it means you have the opportunity to learn from them, but you have to be careful not to spend too much time of your life learning.
All learning and no action means that you are stuck right where you are.
Pick one route and stick with it. Try to limit the amount of information you take in, especially if that information is action or strategy based. Your brain can only handle so much strategy before, well, it implodes. That’s what burnout is.
On the other hand, you can take in all the mindset-based info that you want, but action based, be careful.
Uncertainty In Your Side Hustle: Lean On Your Mentors
First of all, it’s so important that when you choose a mentor, you choose someone who has done what you are trying to do.
There is no point in having a mentor who hasn’t done what you want to do, because their advice, as well-intentioned as it may be, isn’t backed up by experience. The experience aspect is critical.
And when you have that mentor, talk to them. Ask them for advice.
They’re here for you to help guide you through the unknown.
They’ve been where you are, and they can help guide you through it.
Having a mentor or a coach is only going to accelerate your progress, because they’re going to give you the insights and shortcut you need, so you don’t make the same mistakes they did when they built their businesses.
And mentors can come in many forms. They can be coaches that you hire (like me—have you booked your free Side Hustle Clarity call yet?), or they can be your own online accountability group, or it could be a group of fellow side hustlers and entrepreneurs you meet with on a local basis.
But you want to know the best option?
All of the above.
How do you handle uncertainty in your business? Leave a comment below and let me know.
Ready To Start Your Own Side Hustle?
Have a lot to talk about, but don’t have the website to guide your readers to? Now is the perfect time to get started.
Now is the perfect time to take my free email course, where I teach you how to plan a year’s worth of blog content in just one day. This training takes away all the mystery behind figuring out what you’re going to write from week to week and helps you plan the ultimate in blogging content that your audience will absolutely love.
Don’t forget to get hosting (plus a free domain) for as little as $3.95/month through Siteground. You can read why I choose Siteground to host my websites in my post, 6 Reasons I Host My Side Hustle On Siteground (And You Should Too).
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