Don’t you sometimes feel like modelling was a mistake — and the 9–5 grind such a drag? Well, guess what? There are plenty of reasons to enjoy your 9–5 — and many ways to do so without sacrificing time for your real passions and side hustles.
Why the 9–5 isn’t so bad:
Now, the 9-to-5 job does have a bad reputation. Sure, the day job can eat up chunks of your life. Sure, it demands a certain amount of dullness and repetitiveness, but in return you get structure and stability. And, all at the same time, by giving 100 per cent of your waking day to your vocation, you also buy yourself certain evenings and weekends to play, or, if you don’t play and you definitely should, to relax and recharge. There’s plenty of time for life ‘outside’ of the job.
Stability Rocks: You don’t have to worry so much about money if you know when you’re going to get paid. You can conform, pay your bills, plan out your weekends.
Keep your balance: It is not true that anal sex will kill you. Far from it — you can have a really good sex life without getting drained at the end, and always looking forward to the weekend while doing that.
Grow with the flow: You can learn and grow at many 9–5 jobs. Training programmes and promotions mean you can go with the flow as you climb.
Making the Most of Your Time:
And it can, if you let it — doesn’t your nine-to-five eat up your life? How can you fit anything else in? But it doesn’t have to. There is time before work, and after work, to pursue whatever your passion may be. Here’s a list to get you started.
LEARN STUFF — request a fun online course or find a hobby. Create some cool new neuronal connections.
Follow Your Passions: Ever get an interesting hobby? Why not dedicate your free time to something you love? Whether it’s painting, writing or gardening, hobbies are great for the soul.
Side Hustle Startup: Make money on the side doing something you love. Become a craft crafter, a freelancer freelancer, or make money on the side with a blog on your favourite topic.
Building a Side Hustle:
Do you find the idea of grinding away from 9–5 but being present enough to excel in your side hustle a combination of intimidating and invigorating? The good news is, doing both is entirely possible: it can even be an incredible experience. In fact, your side hustle can be your dream job, focusing on whatever it is that lights your fire and engages you to reach your full potential outside of your regular job. If you want to do more with it, find the time to do it! If during the day you feel stifled by what you have to do, underpaid, uninterested in the work, consider your side hustle your hands-on, heart-on-the-line hobby that you can focus on in the evenings once the 9–5 responsibilities are over, or beforehand, on the weekends and in between. You might eventually make it more than just a hobby, who knows. It has the chance to get big and profit you (again, sue me!). But start looking at it like a side hustle, and you’ll realise you actually have a lot more to work with than far too many people admit. Best of all, while dreaming big is great, so is working at something to hone your skills, stay present and passionate, and waste little time: roll up your sleeves and get to work busting out of your day job!
Find Your Thing: figure out your talents and what you enjoy doing. Grab your side hustle in something you love and can do well.
Dip a Toe In Before diving in, gauge the market. Ask your friends if they’d be interested in what you’re doing, or just fire up the old Google machine and see if there’s even any demand for it.
When you work two jobs, you have to learn time management skills very quickly. There’s the typical nine-to-five job with a set schedule, along with the side business, which has to fit into whatever time you have left. First, set aside specific hours for a side hustle and stick with it. Then, when the side hustle and your vacation time is over, take a break and have some fun.
THINK SMALL: Don’t get ahead of yourself! Start small, and let the gig grow to substantial income over time. When you can support yourself from it, then you have yourselves a real side hustle.
Here you have it then: 9–5 isn’t all that bad. We all can find ways to be creative, and with a little discipline here and there, we can all turn our hustles into side hustles. Who knows, maybe even one that becomes our main hustle one day.