A side hustle is something you do in addition to your primary employment, be it to earn some more money, explore new skills, or just in pursuit of a passion. It gives you the satisfaction of buffering your finances while fueling and satiating the passion to step into unchartered territories, allaying your fears and insecurities, and channeling your inherent skills.
The ‘wired’ world is powerful. It sucks everyone in, and the speed is scary to say the least. The constant hum of work, and deadlines, and milestones, and benchmarks, overwhelms the best of us.
A lot of women have started to make room for themselves by assigning small pockets of time for something that lets them step away from the mad rush, and do what makes the heart happy, and the soul satisfied. It helps them redefine freedom, work harder at creating flexible work schedules, and leaves them feeling a lot empowered.
Why Side Hustles Are on the Rise Among Women
Here are some reasons why side hustles are becoming common for the new-age women:
1. Cultural shift toward financial independence
Away from the rigors of a routine job, is the joy of doing something that lets you make time for what helps you go back to it, time after time, with renewed vigour.
Gone are the days of one pursuit that defines your world. There has been a huge cultural shift where people have started to look for, and appreciate niche ideas that also bring good returns on investment.
The fun fact that you could start small, and build as you go, makes the idea of a side hustle even more tempting. This whole new way of looking at alternative ways to make money not being seen and comprehended as a ‘lack of’ or out of ‘a need of’ is a welcome change.
2. Uncertainty in traditional job security
One has to consider that all traditional jobs come loaded with insecurities of being laid- off, or getting boring, and tedious, or asking you to make some hard choices, and messing with your head.
There is always a meter you’ll be gauged by, and the constant need to ‘make it’ better on an appraisal is exhausting. This is the reason why many have started to look at having parallel (read side hustles). So, when the going gets tough there is something backing you up while letting you stay in a sane place.
3. Increased access to remote work and digital tools
In these times of remote working in an increasingly digitized world, side-hustles are gaining force. With physical attendance out of the way on most work days, good time-management is enabling passionate entrepreneurs to start with actualizing all the ideas they have incubated over years, for lack of time.
Smart planning and smart working allows the pursuit of passion along with what needs to be done to fuel the passion.
Key Benefits of Starting a Side Hustle
And here are some benefits women can see when they start pursuing their passion:
1. Financial Growth
A little tweaking of the finances never really hurt anyone. Even if it’s a variable component, it comes with its fair share of happy surprises. It helps you plan things you have been meaning to do for a while.
The extra cash flow greases the cogs of life, and makes everyday living a more pleasurable experience. The supplemental income could well be the start of a long-term saving deposit for later years and plans.
The additional income leverages all your plans and dreams. The sense of control when you have the ability and freedom to use some of your money for buffering a savings account, making sound investments, or giving wings to the dream initiative you’ve planned for long is a different level of accomplishment.
2. Skill Development
One of the easiest ways to feel uplifted is to dabble in things outside of work that need you to tap into some different skill sets. The experience is both exhilarating and empowering, all at the same time. The challenge of getting better keeps the adrenaline flowing, and over time makes you a more content, and confident individual.
A side hustle managed well can set you up for good business in future. When you stay consistent with what you do and share it with others through word of mouth, or tools like social media, you build yourself an audience that engages with your product/ content.
Over time, you create your own space for business, and get to meet mentors, and other like- minded people who hustle just a little more, apart from the routine 9-5.
3. Creative Expression
With some bit of research, you could think of starting something hitherto unexplored. The novelty will get you the traffic needed, and the money will follow. At the start, it will be just that little money that you get to tuck in. When the business grows, the nitty-gritty of managing funds, savings, etc. will follow. Plan ahead, and keep the scale you have in mind, think of putting a team together, and divide work.
Life is made interesting when you have parallel pursuits. It makes for a wholesome personality that takes its chances, and grows more confident with each passing day. When you choose a side hustle, you dig out dormant skill sets to make your plans fall in place. A side hustle is a way to discover yourself, or rather discover more about yourself.
4. Increased Confidence and Autonomy
When you are your own boss, it boosts confidence as you get into the practice of trusting your instincts, doing your groundwork, and standing your ground. The autonomy it affords you is unmatched. It makes you into an individual who takes complete ownership of what needs to be done, and the consequences thereof. The experience makes you humbler, and more resilient as time progresses.
With each passing day, you get better at running your business. You get in place practices that keep you sharp, and updated on the newest trends in the market. Slowly, you may find yourself growing with a community that thinks like you, supports your vision, offers counsel, and encourages when you take a hit.
5. Pathway to Entrepreneurship
Give yourself time before you decide to scale up your business, and the side hustle turns into the main hustle. Plan your strategy, consult with experts in the field, check your finances, plan for exigencies when the going gets tough. The blueprints, and the spreadsheets are non- negotiables.
Take your time mulling over them. ‘Haste makes waste’.
First things first, and building systems that make your enterprise run without hiccups, is important. Think of building it with a team that can be assigned different roles. Fix days for an all- hands meet- up, in person or virtually, discuss, brainstorm, check progress, and deal with hurdles along the way. Stay steady, and take it one day at a time.
Examples of Side Hustles Women Are Starting
Here are some side hustles women are pursuing:
1. Freelancing (writing, graphic design, consulting)
Become a writer, proof- reader, artist, designer- graphics/ clothes/ websites, and the like, counsellor, tutor, consultant, speech or personality mentor, and the list can go on and on. The choices are endless, and it has become a lot easier to launch yourself into a side venture.
2. Online stores (Etsy, Shopify)
You could think of sourcing, and curating, and setting up an online store. It will require some bit of market study to get the pulse of what people want. Some more work will have to go into finding the best places to source your merchandise from, and to price them competitively.
3. Virtual assistant services
This one is trending as more and more people seek administrative, technical, or creative assistance from remotely placed workers. The idea is to free up clients’ time by handling all the basic administrative tasks, and taking up other specialized ones like bookkeeping, and social media management.
Tips to Start Your Side Hustle Smartly
If you’re looking at starting a side hustle, here are some tips to follow:
1. Start small and validate your idea
Build your audience. Float your idea, and see the kind of traffic it draws. Seek opinions through polls, connect with other businesses on similar lines. Do a good recce, and study what’s worked or not for those in the fray before you.
2. Use free/ low-cost tools to launch
Give yourself a soft launch by experimenting with free/ low- cost tools to begin with. As the business begins to grow, you can think of more evolved systems to use which may come at an additional price. Start small so that the learnings are graded, and the setbacks not severe.
3. Create a time management plan to avoid burnout
A side hustle should not be the reason to have a burnout. Set down clear timelines for what you want to achieve. Allocate fixed hours in a day to your hustle, and then detach. Value deadlines, and order completion or whatever it is that applies to your service/ product. Stay on time, respect schedules, and avoid anxiety-prone days.
Conclusion
A side hustle is a tool for making you feel so much more in control. You take the decisions to drive it – it’s your baby.
You invest time and effort to get it on its feet. It’s your vision that you painstakingly tend to, and grow. Then, comes the money, and the rest of the rewards.
So, don’t just follow a trend. Choose your hustle wisely so that it never fails to excite you. You should feel drawn to it, and the more you engage from a place of happy, and content, the more your business will flourish.
Don’t chase after others, and grow at your own pace, a little everyday. That’s what side hustles are meant to do – build, slow and easy.
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