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Sure, starting a side hustle can obviously equate to more discretionary income if you choose the right idea and invest enough time and effort to generate a profit from your project.
It’s actually relatively straightforward if you allow it to be. Find a niche topic that gets you excited, connect with your target audience, start helping them solve meaningful problems you’re uniquely qualified to assist with, deliver results, and bring on a handful of paid customers.
But beyond just the financial gain you stand to make from building a profitable side hustle, there are also a wide range of unexpected benefits I’ve seen over the years with both my own projects and through my interviews with top entrepreneurs on The Side Hustle Project.
Here are the four unexpected benefits you can expect to get out of starting a side hustle today.
1. Opportunities Will Come To You
The more you make and share with the world, the more opportunities you create for yourself. Regardless of your goals, having a side hustle is all but guaranteed to create unpredictable, exciting opportunities that come in unimaginable ways.
You’ll meet new people that you otherwise wouldn’t have met, relationships that can last a lifetime. Companies that like what you’re doing with your side hustle, and can see a clear demonstration of a valuable skill or ability, will reach out and want to hire you.
You can use your side hustle to pitch the current company you work for, on a change of title or role. It can help you leverage a raise if you’re able to demonstrate a clear connection to how your side hustle can enhance your work at the company.
2. You’ll Mitigate the Risks of Being an Entrepreneur
I don’t know about you, but I hate taking risks. That’s a difficult conundrum for an entrepreneur, especially if you’re still learning whether or not the entrepreneurial lifestyle is for you. There are up’s and down’s. High’s and low’s.
Here’s the reality though, most of us can’t just quit our jobs today, to pursue an idea. Blowing through your savings isn’t an attractive prospect, so you want as close to a sure thing as you can possibly get before you axe your full-time income. By working on your idea as a side hustle for a few months or a year to gain some traction, you’ll give yourself the opportunity to boost your income to a level that’s equivalent to what your day job is paying you.
Then, once your side hustle is consistently bringing in enough money to justify making the leap, you’ll be much more confident in it’s future.
3. Multiple Sources of Income Gives You Options
A side hustle gives you more flexibility to create the lifestyle you want. To go on more vacations with your family each year. To take your parents to visit Paris. To randomly treat your significant other to a fancy dinner on a whim, without having to worry about money.
To know in the back of your mind that if things really go sideways, and you lose your job or have large unexpected medical expenses, you won’t need to go into debt.
Starting a side hustle is also a great way to test into seeing if you’ll like a new line of work. If you’re ready to make a career change, having a side hustle that helps you build relevant skills is crucial. And if it’s paying some of your bills, it can buy you precious time to take classes, gain experience, search for the right job opportunities, and transition gracefully into a new field.
4. Finding Purpose and Meaning
If you choose your side hustle wisely, and pursue a genuine interest rather than just a pure market opportunity, you can derive a lot of purpose from it.
Even after landing my dream job, I still didn’t like the idea of working so hard, 5 days out of my week, to build someone else’s dream—it was a draining experience despite loving the people I worked with. So, I started freelancing on the side of my job, taking on a handful of writing projects I was personally interested in.
Because I had my full-time gig keeping the bills paid, I could afford to charge what I wanted and create a plan for how I’d get enough clients to make the leap to self-employment. Eventually, I built a diverse portfolio that’s brought me more projects, and I’ve been able to grow my consulting practice into my main focus. Now, I’m in control of deciding when I want to work, where I do it, and who I want to work with.
For me, it doesn’t get more meaningful than that.
But the one undeniable truth about starting a side hustle today, is that you’re taking conscious control of your own future. That is the best decision you can ever make.
Source: Forbes
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