Turning your side hustle into a full-time job is possible and can be incredibly rewarding. However, it will take a lot of dedication and it may require you to increase your skills and training. You may also have to improve your work habits.
1. Figure Out Your “Why”
Why do you need a side hustle?
If you’re already employed, why do you need a side hustle? For many of us, this is pretty simple. Maybe you are considering a side hustle because you’re tired of running out of money each month. Maybe you want to start a side hustle to help get on top of debt. Maybe you are frustrated because you can’t seem to save any money.
Figure out what you want to do with that extra money. Make it visible. If you have a bank overdraft notification, put it above where you work on your side hustle. If you fix bicycles, put it in your garage. If you’re a freelance content creator, hang it beside your computer.
Your “why” is incredibly important. If you want to leave your full-time job because you really don’t like it, you’ll lose energy and give up. Building up a side hustle that can replace full-time income may take time.
Why do you want to turn your side hustle into full-time work?
Now that you’ve figured out what you’re working towards instead of running away from, it’s time to list the perks. If you made enough to live on from your side hustle and had schedule flexibility, what would you do with your time?
Maybe you’d be able to work a remote side hustle and never miss a field trip with your children. Perhaps your side hustle will allow you to work outside and get loads of exercise and fresh air. It could be that your side hustle will allow you to let your creative side shine.
Make these goals and targets visible. If you’re committed to starting a gift basket business so you can foster homeless dogs, put pictures of dogs in your gift basket workspace. When you’re tired or stressed or just burned your fingers with the hot glue gun, you can regain your focus.
2. Build Up Savings
One of the great things about being able to live on the career you built from your side hustle is that you have flexibility. If you want to skip a work day or two so you can put in a garden or teach your toddler to swim, you can!
However, you no longer have PTO. No work, no money. You will need savings to boost your confidence and help you avoid stressing out over any financial fragility you may be facing.
A simple first step in turning your side hustle into your full-time career is to set up a bank account that is easy to load and hard to empty. Consider setting up a high interest savings account with an online bank. Load all your side hustle income into it and ignore the money. As you build skills in your side hustle and boost your income, these savings will stack up faster and faster, getting you closer to your goal.
3. Focus on Work Habits
One of the hardest things about a side hustle is that nobody cares if you’re late. There’s not a supervisor or boss checking the clock when you get back from lunch. As noted above, if you don’t work, there’s no money.
Whether you’re a content creator like Vivian Tu or a financial blogger, you need to show up for yourself. Nobody is going to push you into it. Tie this necessary focus to your goals.
If what you truly, truly want to do is travel the country in an RV and work remotely as a blogger on minimalism, start your blog in your current space. Put a photo of your favorite RV on the bulletin board behind your monitor. Get up an hour early or stay up an hour after your children go to bed and write, every day.
If you publish a video or blog article on Mondays and Thursdays, don’t let anything stop you. When storms go through and the power is out, you may have to take your family to a hotel. Once they’re settled, head to the business center and meet your personal deadline. Be ruthless with yourself about hitting your production goals. The money will come.
4. Watch Out for Expense Creep
One of the biggest challenges of working full time and building a side hustle that you can eventually turn into your full time gig is that you’re going to be tired. Getting your side hustle rolling can be exhausting. For a while, you may be putting in a lot of time and making no additional money.
Now is the time to create and stick to a budget. You may have to consolidate some tasks. Too often, people get overwhelmed by the schedule requirements of their side hustle and burn any funds they make on food delivery, take-out and other conveniences. Do your level best to avoid this.
Routing your side hustle income into a separate bank account will help. If it’s really hard to get to your money, you won’t be able to easily spend it. You can also avoid expense creep by consolidating activities.
While you’re still commuting to your full-time job, pick up groceries after work on Thursday so you have the whole weekend errand-free. When you do laundry, sort and fold your clothing into outfits and stack or hang them in order to avoid morning decision fatigue. If you get out the cutting board to prepare one meal, chop up enough veggies to start soup in the crockpot for dinner tomorrow night. Batch cook on the weekends so you know what your family will eat every night of the week.
Your side hustle will feed your soul, but first it’s going to use up a lot of your time and energy. If you can keep pushing through, your efforts will be rewarded!
Turning your side hustle into a full-time job is possible and can be incredibly rewarding. However, it will take a lot of dedication and it may require you to increase your skills and training. You may also have to improve your work habits.
1. Figure Out Your “Why”
Why do you need a side hustle?
If you’re already employed, why do you need a side hustle? For many of us, this is pretty simple. Maybe you are considering a side hustle because you’re tired of running out of money each month. Maybe you want to start a side hustle to help get on top of debt. Maybe you are frustrated because you can’t seem to save any money.
Figure out what you want to do with that extra money. Make it visible. If you have a bank overdraft notification, put it above where you work on your side hustle. If you fix bicycles, put it in your garage. If you’re a freelance content creator, hang it beside your computer.
Your “why” is incredibly important. If you want to leave your full-time job because you really don’t like it, you’ll lose energy and give up. Building up a side hustle that can replace full-time income may take time.
Why do you want to turn your side hustle into full-time work?
Now that you’ve figured out what you’re working towards instead of running away from, it’s time to list the perks. If you made enough to live on from your side hustle and had schedule flexibility, what would you do with your time?
Maybe you’d be able to work a remote side hustle and never miss a field trip with your children. Perhaps your side hustle will allow you to work outside and get loads of exercise and fresh air. It could be that your side hustle will allow you to let your creative side shine.
Make these goals and targets visible. If you’re committed to starting a gift basket business so you can foster homeless dogs, put pictures of dogs in your gift basket workspace. When you’re tired or stressed or just burned your fingers with the hot glue gun, you can regain your focus.
2. Build Up Savings
One of the great things about being able to live on the career you built from your side hustle is that you have flexibility. If you want to skip a work day or two so you can put in a garden or teach your toddler to swim, you can!
However, you no longer have PTO. No work, no money. You will need savings to boost your confidence and help you avoid stressing out over any financial fragility you may be facing.
A simple first step in turning your side hustle into your full-time career is to set up a bank account that is easy to load and hard to empty. Consider setting up a high interest savings account with an online bank. Load all your side hustle income into it and ignore the money. As you build skills in your side hustle and boost your income, these savings will stack up faster and faster, getting you closer to your goal.
3. Focus on Work Habits
One of the hardest things about a side hustle is that nobody cares if you’re late. There’s not a supervisor or boss checking the clock when you get back from lunch. As noted above, if you don’t work, there’s no money.
Whether you’re a content creator like Vivian Tu or a financial blogger, you need to show up for yourself. Nobody is going to push you into it. Tie this necessary focus to your goals.
If what you truly, truly want to do is travel the country in an RV and work remotely as a blogger on minimalism, start your blog in your current space. Put a photo of your favorite RV on the bulletin board behind your monitor. Get up an hour early or stay up an hour after your children go to bed and write, every day.
If you publish a video or blog article on Mondays and Thursdays, don’t let anything stop you. When storms go through and the power is out, you may have to take your family to a hotel. Once they’re settled, head to the business center and meet your personal deadline. Be ruthless with yourself about hitting your production goals. The money will come.
4. Watch Out for Expense Creep
One of the biggest challenges of working full time and building a side hustle that you can eventually turn into your full time gig is that you’re going to be tired. Getting your side hustle rolling can be exhausting. For a while, you may be putting in a lot of time and making no additional money.
Now is the time to create and stick to a budget. You may have to consolidate some tasks. Too often, people get overwhelmed by the schedule requirements of their side hustle and burn any funds they make on food delivery, take-out and other conveniences. Do your level best to avoid this.
Routing your side hustle income into a separate bank account will help. If it’s really hard to get to your money, you won’t be able to easily spend it. You can also avoid expense creep by consolidating activities.
While you’re still commuting to your full-time job, pick up groceries after work on Thursday so you have the whole weekend errand-free. When you do laundry, sort and fold your clothing into outfits and stack or hang them in order to avoid morning decision fatigue. If you get out the cutting board to prepare one meal, chop up enough veggies to start soup in the crockpot for dinner tomorrow night. Batch cook on the weekends so you know what your family will eat every night of the week.
Your side hustle will feed your soul, but first it’s going to use up a lot of your time and energy. If you can keep pushing through, your efforts will be rewarded!
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