Each year we make new resolutions about how we want to spend our time and what results we want to manifest from our efforts, but all too often we end up losing focus or getting distracted, and our goals never seem to happen. This year is going to be different, though, because I’m taking the top entrepreneur resolutions that I see come up time after time and am going to show you how to do it.
This is totally your year, right? This is the year you’re going to get that side hustle running to the point where you can give the finger to your day job and your weird boss and finally set out on your own.
But how are you going to do it?
Let’s keep it real here: running your own business (especially when it’s full time) is a hard gig. You’ll begin to realize the niceties that come along with being an employee instead of the boss. Things like: being able to “turn off” at 5pm, being able to take time off without contingency plans, having a guaranteed amount of income on a regular schedule.
Those things are scary to give up, believe me! But the pay off of being in complete control of your own career is such a huge accomplishment! To me, it’s well worth the trade-offs.
So now that we had a quick little reality moment, let’s get down to brass tacks:
How to Devote More Time to Your Side Hustle This Year While Working Full-Time
1. Set a plan with goals
The easiest way to motivate yourself into working on a business when you’re totally beat from your day job is to visualize a set, specific goal that you want to work towards. Is it using your side income to pay off credit card debt? How much would you need to earn to do that? Maybe it’s making so much that you can stop working for other people. Do you know how much money you’d need to account for your monthly bills including insurance, emergencies, gas, etc? Decide to set a specific goal (monetary or not) and begin working backward from there so that you can see how much time you should be committing every week to make it happen.
2. Over-budget your time
Unfortunately, nothing happens as quickly as we expect when it comes to goal setting and business. So when making a plan with a timeline be sure to give yourself a little buffer space. Maybe an extra 15 minutes a day which would give you over an hour extra a week to account for the weird things that come up.
3. Keep a why close by
I don’t know what the “official” reason is for people to put pictures of their family or pets on their desks at work. But I always suspected it was because it was an unwritten expectation from office mates and/or it was to give you something to focus on so that you didn’t end up punching that dude across the hall. The same idea works here, too. Utilizing some token that reminds you what you’re doing it all for can be the thing that keeps you going late at night. Mine is a vision board I made with cut-outs of destinations I want to visit. A ginormous walk-in closet, and a few motivating quotes. I hung it on the inside of my office door so that I can look at it and be reminded that I don’t get to have anything on that vision board unless I work for it.
4. Commit to it publicly
You’re going to need someone to keep you accountable to your goals. Especially, if you’re taking time away from other things to focus on your business. Find an accountabilibuddy, join a mastermind group of new entrepreneurs, or hire a business coach to help keep you accountable. I’ve been doing this for my 36 Day Ultimatum and I gotta tell you, having to go on Instagram and prove I went to the gym every day has definitely helped get me out of bed!
5. Keep track of your progress
You won’t realize how far you’ve come in your goals unless you keep track of it. It’s so hard to remember where you started and the progress you’ve made while you’re still in the trenches. Set up some sort of way to record the little steps you’ve made along the way (I use my Book of Awesome for this). So that you can reflect and realize you’re much closer to your goal than you were a week, month, or even a day ago.
Want more help? Check out my book Day 1: A Practical Guide to Launching Your New Business!
