“Most of the time, the one thing that stops us dead in our tracks from achieving our goals is the fear of doing it wrong, of making a mistake.”
If you haven’t watched last week’s video yet, start there to learn the five steps to turn your side hustle into a full-time, thriving business. Today, I’m going to walk you through how to get started with your side hustle with confidence, and how to shift potential mistakes that can come your way.
Stepping into your confidence has more to do with your mindset than it does with any sort of transactional strategy you think may be missing from your to-do list. Most of the time, the one thing that stops us dead in our tracks from achieving our goals is the fear of doing it wrong, of making a mistake. However, one of the key differences between successful entrepreneurs and those who stay stuck and stagnant their whole life is they don’t realize the one thing that successful entrepreneurs learned very early on: that the magic is in the mistakes. Because if you make a mistake, that means that you actually took action on something, which allows you to learn what to do next in order to pivot and try again.
Here are three steps that you can do today to start taking action with confidence.
Step 1: Start before you feel ready.
If you’re working on something important, then you’ll probably never really feel ready. A side effect of doing challenging work is that you’re pulled by excitement and pushed by confusion at the same time. You’re bound to feel uncertain, unprepared and unqualified. This is something that all of us face. These feelings are so universal. But let me assure you of this: What you have right now is enough. You can plan, delay and revise all you want, but who you are, what you have, and what you know now is enough to start.
We all start in the same place, you have to remember that. No money, no resources, no contacts, no experience. The difference is that some people, the ones who truly create the life and business they love, choose to start anyway. Starting before you feel ready helps build confidence. It allows you to test things out, ask questions, see where your strengths and challenges are.
If you need clarity on starting before you feel ready, answer this simple question: A year from now, will you wish you would have started today? If the answer is yes, then you’re ready.
Step 2: Pick one thing to focus on and invest like crazy.
What this means is picking one key step, method or actionable item that you can start chipping away on today and truly go all in. Meaning, give yourself time to work on it and value that time. If you need support or coaching or education, make it a priority to invest in that.
You don’t have to do all the things at once, but whatever you do decide to do, don’t dabble in it. Don’t just give it a day or a week or even a month. Really invest the time and attention that it needs here. If you don’t know what that should be, then these questions will help. Ask yourself…
- What will get me to my end goal fastest that I can actually start working toward today?
- What is something that I could do today that aligns with my end goal that I can actually get paid to do?
- What questions about my goal can I start asking to gain the clarity that I need?
Step 3: Schedule it in.
If you want to see something succeed, you have to make it a priority. Schedule it in your calendar. Make it a non-negotiable, just like you would a doctor’s appointment or picking up your kids from school.
Make sure to do this more than once. Don’t just make it a priority once and then quit. I see this so much when people are trying to grow their side hustle. A person will schedule two hours to pitch their idea, never hear back from anyone, so they think that they’re not good at it and they never schedule time to pitch again. Or there’s an author who’s looking for representation, so they schedule some time to send an email to some agents; they don’t get a reply, so they think that they aren’t cut out to write a book and they never make time for it again. Or there’s a blogger who takes a few days to try to grow engagement on social media; they don’t see an immediate change, so they think that their work is terrible and they give up.
Successful entrepreneurs understand the power of consistency. The more you schedule in what’s important to you, the more confident you become in your work, and the more people become familiar with the work, the more feedback you’ll start to receive.
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Then make sure to come back next week for our next video in this series, where Julie will share exactly how to niche down your purpose and turn your passions into profit.
