we need to learn how to address our fear, minimize its hold over us, and use it to our benefit.
Instead of letting fear dictate the actions we take (or don’t take), we need to adjust our approach to dealing with it. When it came to building my own business, I’ve felt every single one of the fears I just mentioned. But this time, I decided I had spent too much of my life allowing my fears to keep me stuck or make me give up. I was done with looking back in regret at what I wish I could have done but didn’t. I decided to approach fear differently and instead leverage it to help me succeed.
So how do you leverage fear to your benefit? Here’s what has worked for me in the past and continues to work for me to this day.
Start by accepting that fear does not go away on its own, so you have to confront it head-on. Instead of letting it keep you uncertain and stuck, look at your fears as an opportunity to learn and grow. Whenever I feel fear, I challenge myself to identify what exactly I’m afraid of. I then ask myself what worst-case scenario or outcome could arise from the source of my fear. Once I’m clear on this, I determine the best-case scenario and outcome, because thinking about it this way is super-motivating. Then, I lay out specific actions that I can take to help me counter my fear.
It could be working to improve a certain skill to help me overcome a business challenge I’m facing. It could be asking for help or leaning on my support system of business mentors and fellow entrepreneurs (we’ll get into how you can establish a support system for yourself later on). It could be dusting off my “why” and reminding myself why I want to succeed. It could be imagining what my success could look like after I achieve a certain goal. Or it could be as simple as stepping away to take a mental break and coming back to things later on with a clear head and rested body.
These are all things that you can do as well to power through your fears. Instead of letting your fears set you back, you can leverage them to propel you forward by being objective about the root cause and creating a plan to take action, no matter how small your first step may be.
Fear is an indicator that you are outside of your comfort zone—but outside your comfort zone is where the magic happens. This is where you turn your “one-day” dreams and goals into a successful reality. As you make progress with your side hustle or business, you’ll face fears about different things and in different ways, but the key is to remain objective and take action to counter your fears.
You’ll come away each time feeling more confident in yourself and clearer about what you need to do to succeed in business.
Take Action
Let’s challenge your fears! Take some time to do the following action steps to turn your fears into opportunities:
1 Identify your fears. Write down every fear that has discouraged you or has been an excuse as to why you have not taken the next step to build your side hustle.
2 Determine the worst-case scenarios. For each fear, write down the absolute worst-case scenario of what could happen and what it could look like. You get less sleep, your life gets busier, you cut back on your expenses in certain areas to invest in your business…you may find that it’s actually not that bad. Or maybe you’re envisioning a worse, big-picture scenario: no one wants to buy your product, or you invest a lot of money in your business only for it to fail. (Don’t worry: there are ways to counter all your fears, big or small!)
3 Imagine the best-case scenarios. Now, lay out what it would look like to succeed in detail. You make your first sale, you have a return customer, you get an amazing press feature, your business becomes profitable, and earns you more income than your full-time job! By focusing on best-case scenarios, you can motivate yourself!
4 Lay out specific action steps you can take to counter your fears. Next, write down specific action steps you can take (no matter how small) and timelines to complete them that will help you counter your fears. For instance, if you’re worried about life getting too busy and frantic, create a schedule with designated times to take a break. If you’re worried about money, start by investing small amounts in your business until you’ve proven it can make a profit, while saving money from your day job. If you fear that your idea will flop, spend time researching your target market to validate that there’s a need for it. Set success-oriented goals like implementing what you learn in this book, identifying a business mentor, etc.
GET PREPARED TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS
Now that you have a plan to tackle your fears, it’s time to get your head in the game and prepare yourself to build not just any side hustle, but a successful side hustle. And it starts by establishing the right mindset.
From setting financial goals, to budgeting, to paying off debt, to saving and investing, to, you guessed it, actually starting the side hustle, having the right mindset is foundational and critical to your success at each stage.
Having the right mindset gets you ready for the journey ahead, and nurturing your mindset along the way keeps you motivated and focused. This in turn increases your chances of success. But why is mindset so important when you are starting or growing a side hustle? After all, isn’t a side hustle something you just do on the side?
Well, it depends on how you choose to view your side hustle. Yes, by definition a side hustle is something you do on the side, before or after your primary job. It’s a side activity in your spare time that can bring in some extra income (the money potential is what distinguishes it from a hobby). Simple, right? However, depending on what you do and how you do it, your side hustle can open the doors to so much more.
Let me elaborate further: a side hustle can be game-changing for your life and your ability to achieve your goals, especially in today’s world, thanks to the accessibility of the internet. Don’t let the traditional idea of a side hustle make you think otherwise. Side hustles today aren’t just about the random garage sale every other month. They can be real, impactful, and high-income-generating businesses.
Specifically, in this book, I’m going to be using “side hustle” and “business” somewhat interchangeably. While you could call driving for Uber or doing deliveries for Amazon a side hustle or side gig, those are still ultimately jobs you’re doing for someone else. I want to talk about businesses you’re creating for yourself, with your own ideas, and on your own terms.
A side hustle gives you the opportunity to increase your income and create multiple streams of income. Having multiple income sources is especially important as a woman, and even more so for women of color. You’ve heard about the impact of the gender wage gap, where women earn 20 percent less on average than their white male counterparts. However, for women of color, the wage gap is even more extreme. Black women earn 62 cents for every dollar earned by their white male counterparts, Latina women earn 54 cents, and Native American women earn 57 cents.2 This gender wage gap in turn impacts our ability to save and invest money for our future selves and to support our families.
Asking for what you are worth, negotiating, and actively calling out inequalities—especially as it relates to pay due to gender and race—are ways you can take action to counter this on an institutional level. But while we work toward long-term change, having a side hustle can position you to get ahead of this in a major way. Your side hustle can accelerate your journey to becoming debt-free, meeting your savings and investing goals, supporting your family, and building generational wealth.
As I write this book amid a global pandemic, with so much economic uncertainty and millions of people out of jobs or worried about job security, a side hustle can become the backup you need to weather the
