The Side Hustle Mindset: How To Think Like a Freelancer

As with all things in life, the key to a good side hustle is often just the mindset you bring to the table. Open almost any self-help book and you’ll see a lot of talk about the power of positive thinking and the importance of believing in your goals. That being said, although these books are making an excellent point, it can sometimes ring a little hollow. After all, there’s more to success than just believing it’ll happen, isn’t there?

Positive thinking can get you a long way, but in this article we’d like to dig into some of the less well-known (but no less important) ways in which your mindset can impact your success. We’ll be exploring how successful freelancers make their money and how you can learn to emulate them.

Understand Your Motivations

The biggest challenge many people face with any self-starter project is motivation. They love the idea of the project but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of getting things done, all that passion seems to disappear and suddenly everything seems so much more difficult.

In fact, most of the time, the difference between a good side hustle and a failed one is simply the willingness to stick with it and keep trying new things. The important question then, is where do people find that willingness? How do they motivate themselves to put those long hours in and build their own success?

Unfortunately, there’s no simple one-size-fits-all answer to this problem but that’s not to say it’s unsolvable. Quite the opposite, in fact. Your motivational problems are very solvable so long as you understand yourself.

Motivating yourself is about understanding what it was that drove you towards that project in the first place and what it is that’s really standing between you and your success.

For example, some people worry about failure and they find that fear of failure can be paralysing. That’s no easy problem to work through but it’s not so bad when you recognise it for what it is. Once you internalise the knowledge that the biggest barrier between you and your success is fear, then that barrier becomes far easier to overcome. After all, the only sure way to fail is not to try.

Of course, that’s just one example. For some people, a lack of motivation can be because their goal isn’t really aligned with what they want. Once again, the only way to solve that problem is for a person to dig into what it is that they really want and why their current goal just isn’t getting them there.

Put simply, if you want to motivate yourself then you have to understand what you really want. As the Ancient Greeks put it: know thyself.

Work Smart Not Hard

Motivation is all well and good, but it won’t solve all your problems on its own and if there’s one thing that all good side hustles have in common, it’s a healthy dose of pragmatism and practicality.

It might sound a little glib but the mantra of “work smart not hard” is at the core of all solo success. When you set out on your own to become a freelancer, you won’t have the same resources as a company. By definition you’ll be one person and, while you might be able to take on a little more of the load, there’s only so much time you can spend overworking yourself before it catches up to you.

The best way to solve this problem is through good forward planning. Instead of leaping straight in, you should do as much research as you can and always look for ways that you can minimise work on your end. Instead of trying to compete with the big companies, find ways to play to your strengths as a freelancer and avoid getting caught up in unsustainable habits.

Embrace The Online Wild West

Working for large companies/businesses comes with a lot of security but it also comes with a lot of tradeoffs. The biggest tradeoff you make as an employee is that you’re often limited in how free you are to do your job. Ultimately, you’re almost always answerable to someone else and you have to work within a system that you have very little control over.

As a freelancer, the opposite is true. You’re the only one who gets to call the shots. On the one hand this is empowering because it means you get to make the decisions you’ve always wanted to. On the other hand it also comes with a lot more responsibility and, to many, this can feel daunting.

The freelancers with good side hustles are the ones who learn to embrace the freedom and to experiment in ways they couldn’t have done within the system of a company. Whether you’re an accountant, an artist, or even a Mentor, the best way to market yourself and present to clients is by letting your unique style and personality shine through.

At Career Navig8r, we’re proud to say that we work with Mentors, empowering them with the freedom to set their own rates and their own hours. If you’re ready to share all the best of what you do, then sign up today with Career Navig8r!