Stop Worrying. Reduce Anxiety. Start a Side Hustle Alongside Your Business
It will change your life
Do you worry about your business? Do you spend too much time concerned about where the next project will come from or how you will pay your bills next month?
Let me let you in on a little secret….
I do too!
As a freelance voice artist, I am constantly concerned about threats from AI, the economy, and displeasing the voice-over gods!
So, I have set up a side hustle which I am aiming to bring in $500-$1000 per month. My side hustle is writing here on Medium!
I am still relatively early on in my journey but let me inspire you to set up a side hustle alongside your business by telling you what drives me forward and the huge benefits I think it can have to you!
What Keeps Driving Me Forward?
Here are my earnings so far:
I have earned a little bit and I have to say that is more than I expected. However, those 4 articles took, on average, 2 hours each to write plus research and promotion. With all of that work, the earnings per hour don't even bear thinking about!
But you know what? That doesn’t matter to me at the moment. I knew it was going to be tough to begin with.
So, if it’s not money that’s driving me forward, what does?
- Anything could happen tomorrow
I think this is the biggest one. The fear that; tomorrow my business and life could look totally different and it could come out of the blue.
We might have this recession/depression that every snotty-nosed, “Chicken Little” economist keeps banging on about and business might dry up, maybe I lose my voice and am unable to continue as a voice artist, or maybe I get sued out of nowhere for some unearthly sum!
The point is that I have no idea what tomorrow might bring and that is scary. But fear is what drives me to focus on taking action to cover myself just in case things take a turn for the worse.
- Fears of AI
Yes, that ever-present and growing threat to so many freelancers and solopreneurs.
At the moment I am OK. AI can’t create a voice-over that can inject the emotion and depth needed in a lot of voice-over work. However, some of the smaller jobs have been swallowed up and voice cloning is a real threat to me. It can copy my tone and style scarily well!
Luckily, I narrate a lot of audiobooks and this is a more complicated field because of the variety of tones and styles that are needed, character voices to create and the resistance by the general public and companies to listening to AI narrate their books.
But……it will happen and it could happen quicker than anybody thought possible.
So, that is why my side hustle is in a completely different field to my business. Should AI suddenly make voice-over work obsolete, I will have a fallback plan!
- Learn new skills and develop myself
The first two have been fear and worry-based so let’s look at the positives!
Writing is a completely different skill set from voice-over. That means; I have to learn and develop new skills in order to be successful.
Learning and developing is hugely motivating in and of itself, but also, as I am going through this process, I have started seeing new opportunities and my mind has become more focused on positive action, both in terms of my side hustle and my actual business.
If Medium becomes successful, I can also turn my articles into YouTube videos and podcasts, I can look at other ways of making money from writing, I can build up affiliate commissions, or start selling products that will benefit my audience. The future possibilities are endless!
What are the benefits to you?
- Having a fallback plan
Having something that can support you and pay your bills if times become tough with your business has got to be one of the biggest benefits there is to having a side hustle alongside your business.
Yes, it is going to take time, perseverance, and resilience to build it up but, if you can stay the course, then the reduction in stress and anxiety you feel with make all the hard work worthwhile!
For an in-depth look at staying the course with your side hustle, check out this article:
- Increased freedom
Having extra income coming in each month is always nice!
But also consider the extra freedom that will bring you. Suddenly you have extra money alongside your business to pay some of your bills, pay down some debt, or take a trip!
Because you also have the money coming in you would normally have from your business, you can do all of the above without worrying about dipping into the monthly budget!
- A brand new skill-set
Learning and developing yourself is one of those things that will always be beneficial to you.
An extra skill set opens up new possibilities. Because of the obvious fact that you can now do something different to earn money? Yes absolutely! But also because the very act of learning something new allows you to see opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise have seen.
Your job is to seize those opportunities by the throat and start taking action! Use the old “throw everything against the wall and see what sticks” method.
So there you have it. How setting up a side hustle alongside your business can reduce the stress and worry that comes with being an entrepreneur.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this article. If you got value from it please leave me a clap and let me know what resonated with you in the comments because I’d really love to hear from you!
Each article takes a lot of coffee to write so if you can buy me a coffee I’d greatly appreciate it!
☕ https://ko-fi.com/christianneale
To really get that side hustle rolling let me help you with how to never procrastinate again!
Speak soon,
Christian