It’s become far too common for people to trust and rely on one job. There’s a lot of anxiety that comes from losing that one income source that you had and you can feel like you’re swimming upstream. I was recently laid off from a job that I put a ton of effort into.
Not only that but a lot of my friends who are high performers that other companies have experienced a similar situation.
They dedicate years of unwavering faith and dedication towards the position only to be let go due to “budget cuts“. It’s become more important than ever to create something for yourself to hedge any potential downturns you might experience in your working life.
Start Having Multiple irons in the fire
While people do not like the idea of having multiple irons in the fire or things going at one time, I strongly disagree with the fact that you should have one or two things going at one given point in relation to income. Let’s think about how if you have only one income source in that goes away you’ve lost 100% of any money coming in. Likewise if you have multiple built out income streams, losing one won’t be a huge blow to your standard of living. Not only that but if it’s your business or some thing that you have created and have full control over, that gives you that much more power and authority.
Productive Vs Busy
That being said, you should not create multiple income streams and forget a crucial fact around being productive not busy. Let’s fast forward three years from now if all you do is stay busy, you might see some progress financially but more than likely you’re spending 60 hours a week on the wrong things. Let’s shift that focus to only doing the things that are going to move you forward the fastest and fast forward three years, you will have more in common than you know what to do with.
There is power in focused effort on the right things. If you complement an income stream with a adjacent opportunity, you’re putting yourself in a really good spot financially where they might be able to build on each other. An example may be flipping furniture on Facebook. You can become skilled at flipping pieces of furniture, repairing furniture for others, and consulting others on how to flip their own pieces of furniture. There’s not a lot of mental been with that separates all of these different income streams, but very quickly you can multiply the amount of income you get just by becoming really good at flipping furniture yourself.
Knowing your Number
It’s great that you’re going to be making a lot of money, but the most important thing is knowing the exact number you need to achieve so you can cover all of your standard expenses.
Some people have some crazy number in mind as to what they need to earn to get ahead financially, the reality is tracking your expenses through a free resource like mint.com shows you a very good estimate of how much you spend monthly.
Now if you can simply hit double that number, you should be in a good spot. The main point should be that you should not go above your means and should spend money conservatively so that you do not have to need such a high level of income for your basic necessities.
Be modest in your spending and only buy things that bring you joy or are an absolute need to you surviving. Outside of that give yourself a realistic budget of what you spend on average in that specific category every single month.
Side Hustle Vs Business
There is a very distinct difference between having a side hustle and having a business. These are both a mentality where one can lead to a small income that might pay for groceries where the other can pay for a lifestyle. Having a side hustle means in your head it will never be something that outpaces your full-time income. Whereas having a business is some thing that should far exceed any income you could ever make at your job. Get serious about building one or multiple businesses because that shift in a mentality will drive the way you make your decisions differently.
Follow your Mission
Now that we’ve laid out the groundwork of all these different points, the biggest thing is following a mission that enlightened you and fires you up. Fast forward three years from now it’s unlikely that you will be excited to keep building this business if it was never some thing that you were that interested in to begin with. Likewise if you are to build a business that you feel would provide a helpful service to the community and in some cases the world, it’s a worthwhile pursuit for you to start.
Feel free to disagree in the comments below. Would love to hear your thoughts.