Side hustles are all the rage. Did you know you can make money in your underwear, scrolling left and right, doing mediocre standup comedy, selling plans, etc. ? If you treat side hustles as your full-time job, without extraordinary results to show for them, they’re probably wasting your time. Quitting, or quiet-quitting your job before you have a strong plan in place may actually hinder your longer-term ability to make money.
Here’s why. Probably the most important element to your success is your reputation. If people know and respect you, and understand you’re not just trying to make a quick buck off of them, you’re able to advance a lot farther down. Having a strong record is essential to doing this though. If you’re going through strings of nonsense as you don’t have anything to show for your efforts, you’re increasingly going to be looked at as if you’re incompetent. This might fly in your early 20s, but the further along in your career you go, the more essential it is to be on the ball.
One way this manifests is your co-workers trusting you to do big things. Having a strong reference when you or your colleague move on can help get you hired a lot faster, and hired into roles of greater significance. As a younger person, both you and your colleagues are going to be flying up the corporate ladder. Being the sort of person people can rely on to work with will help speed you to the top.
The other element is that people talk. Burning bridges will soon leave you stranded, whereas cultivating relationships provides you the opportunities to step into new lands.
This does not mean you shouldn’t do side hustles, it just means that you should understand that these are fundamentally topics that remain on the side of your primary role. In fact, sometimes the side hustles you do can turn into valuable skills for your main source of income. I write and consult for data projects on-the-side, and as long as my job is being done well, people have little reason to complain. After all, your augmented skills become more valuable to everyone, especially yourself.
It’s good to know how to write, to present data, and more. You should aim to maintain and continue to increase your skills whether it’s through trainings, certifications, general interest reading, or whatever else suits your fancy.
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