Side Hustle to Real Job With Confidence
Gina Blitstein combines her insight as a fellow small business owner with her strong communication skills, exploring topics that enhance your business efforts. That first-hand knowledge, matched with an insatiable curiosity to know more about just about anything, makes her a well-rounded writer with a sincere desire to engage and inform.
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Side Hustle to Real Job With ConfidenceYou’ve turned your true talent and passion into a side gig to help pay the bills - which was a great call! You make extra money doing something that feels effortless, that brings you joy and that, indeed, brings in good money. Talk about a success story! You even secretly (or maybe not so secretly) dream of transitioning out of your day job and making your side hustle your main source of income. As you go about your double business life, you feel like a success because it sure feels good bringing in that extra cash doing what you love. Then it happens: the day you’ve been dreaming of arrives and you realize that your side hustle is bringing in more than your day job. Time to step into the dream, right? Curing the competence and confidence conundrum Several factors often conspire to keep you from fully stepping into the light of your successful transition at this point. Imposter syndrome Many entrepreneurs, especially women, are hit with a crisis of confidence: Imposter syndrome comes calling, "What if they figure out I don’t really know what I’m doing?" "What if I’m just on a ‘winning streak’ and business won’t always be this robust?" There are a couple of reasons self-doubt hits women especially hard:
When a side hustle/passion project represented "gravy" instead of the whole meal, it was enjoyable and free from expectations; the pressure to slay was low. Once the pressure to earn consistently becomes real, your confidence tanks, and you feel the heat is on you to succeed or fail. The way through the imposter syndrome is to stare it square in the face and challenge the assumptions it makes about your competence. Collect evidence to the contrary because it certainly abounds. Make yourself a list of satisfied customers and the referrals they sent you; maintain a folder of testimonials and thank-yous - and refer to them when doubt is louder than confidence. Remember - your feelings are not necessarily facts; when insecurity creeps in, consider whether you’re reacting to a feeling of being underqualified - or whether you actually are. Overcoming the fear of finances Another hurdle is feeling insecure with money - which makes sense on some level because it is quite literally the measure of a business’ success. Such fear, though, is fueled more by vague dread than by facts - so look those straight on too. Get down to brass tacks about your money by asking and answering these questions:
Confronting those financial fears will calm you down and help you feel more in control of your revenue. When you feel less intimidated over finances, it’s easier to see what success looks like. Begin to sock away some extra money to cover the leaner times that may come, and before long you’ll stop worrying that you’re teetering on the brink of ruin when revenue falters. Once the money fears lose their grip, there’s one more thing left to do: decide who you are in this new chapter - and say it out loud. Stepping into your professional persona Former side hustlers sometimes fail to fully step into their new professional identity. Claim your business as your real job - you don’t do it on the side anymore. You are a full-time professional, so proclaim it! You’re a business owner - claim it fully for yourself and your professional confidence will soar. The side hustle to a "real" job scenario is so gratifying - so make every effort to step up with grace and an appropriate amount of confidence in what you’ve built for yourself from your talent, ability and passion. How’s your side hustle doing? Will you be ready to transition it to a full-time gig any time soon? Read other Gina articles |