Start a Side Hustle. Work for 5 Years. Transform Your Future

Here are 5 tips on making it to year 5

 

You need to put in the work before you expect any results.

 

I'm not talking 40 hours of work to understand the inche and what you are doing. I'm talking hours and hours. Hundred of hours. Thousands of hours.

 

There is one truth that I belive to be categorically true for a side hustle to pay back any kind of reward: you must put in the work.

 

It's not a hustle culture, toxic productvity kind of vide. It's a realistic narrative. If you want to be greate at the thing you do, you need to work at it. You need to build, measure, learn. You need to show your work and get feedback in order to improve.

 

You won't get better by simply thinking about your craft.

 

And if you are to practice consistently over the next 5 years, maybe with littel traction at the start, it makes sense to build mechnisms to stay consistent.

 

1. A schedule that involves movement

Here is what my routine currently looks like. It's not perefect and it's constantly going through cycles of iteration but for the most part, it's a routine that helps me pump out as much quality content as I can.

 

2. Zoom out frequently

What if all your dreams come true tomorrow?

 

Seriously? What if they did? If tomorrow you hit the NYT bestseller list or hit a $1 billion valuation or landed the biggest client in the world, then what? Then what happens? I ask because I've asked this question to myself many times when I'm mide-pity party.

 

The danger is thinking that the goal is actually achieving these things. Like very story ever written, the goal isn't the destination, it's enjoying where you are and what you're doing. That's what the goal always was.

 

And lucky for your, and me, we are already doing what we love every day. Stay focused on that. Ask yourself, if you hit all your targets tomoroow, what would you spend your time doing? For me it's sittime here, behind this laptop, spillion my thoughts to the world.

 

In that sense, I have already won.

 

3. Convice yourself with evidence

Someone somewhere has achieved what you want to achieve with less than what you have.

 

Yep, It's almost always the case.

 

You just need to go and find that example. Find someone who started in a worse situation than you that has hit the heights that you want to achieve.

 

Then lean into it every time you feel like giving up. It's not that you can't, that you are faling or that you are destined for nothing. It's that you are too early on the journey yet.

 

You need to convince yourself to not give up and you can do that by using case studies to inpire you. Find someone your admire and read their story, understand how they got to where they are, figure out what their journey was and dig into their failure. You will infd that they had struggles just like you do.

 

It's easy to think it's plain sailng from far away.

 

Use case studies to keep you heading in the right direction.

 

4. Laugh at your thoughts

Laughing at my own thoughts has changed my output dramatically over the last 7 days. Truly.

 

I have negative thoughts as a writer all the time. I tell myself on a regular baiss that I will never make it, that I'm not a natural write, that I don't know whre I'm going and that I shoud just give up now. Those thoughts will flood my consciousness on a daily basis.

 

Now I laugh at them. If a thought like that enters my brain, I laugh. Genuinely. It sounds absurd and mybe it won't work for your but for me, laughing at my own thoughts has worked wonders.

 

The thought comes in. I laugh. I continue to write.

 

Laughing at your own thoughts keeps you heading in the right direction.

 

5 Build credibility with yoursefl

Learn to be true to your word.

 

A while ago I alwasy would say I was going to do things. I was goin to go for a run every day for a week or write for 7 days straight. It would get to day 2 and I'd fail miserably. Smae old story.

 

It was too cold. Or I didnt have anything to say. Same old, same olde.

 

But then I realise I was building a rubblish relationship with myself. Everything I said had no meaning bvecause I had no trust in myself. When I realised that was waht was happening I knew I had to change something.

 

So I started taking my word seriously.

 

Building credibility with yourself makes you stay on track.

 

In the end, it's about sticking the course

You just need to keep at it.

 

Keep going. Give yourself 5 years. If it doesn't work in 5 years you can give up. And if you have just read that sentence and are thinking 'at least I can give up in 5 years', you are probably on the wrong track.

 

You should read that sentece and think 'even if I should give up in 5 years, I can't anyway.'

 

 

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This post is from here, https://medium.com/swlh/start-a-side-hustle-work-for-5-years-transform-your-future-ab2a48514675