How Your Side Hustle Could Save Your Career From a Slow Death

Meet Cassie. She's been flitting around from job to job since graduating from College, searching for the ‘dream job' that she was promised once she finished her education.

Only, it hasn't come to fruition. Cassie's frustrated as hell. She keeps waiting for a promotion or an opportunity to present itself that will allow her to move forward in her career, so that she can move out of home, buy a house and live the life she was told she wanted…

Unfortunately, Cassie isn't alone. CareerBuilder conducted a survey in 2015 that showed that 16 percent of employees aged between 25-34 still live with their parents and a further 26 percent were unable to save any significant amount of money.

How on earth are you meant to do what you love if your career is stalling?

Side Hustle to the rescue!

It's now easier than ever to start a side hustle, thanks to the internet, awesome sites like Upwork, Etsy and Uber. You have a choice of business models, side hustle ideas and skills that allow you to literally do ANYTHING that can be monetised.

What you may not realise though, is that a side hustle can also help you achieve your career goals and aspirations.

Here's how a side hustle can save your career (and your sanity) from a fate worse than death…

#1: Increases your bank balance

While this doesn't necessarily save your career, it certainly saves your sanity! By starting a part-time side hustle, you can increase your bank balance, relieving the pressure on you to find the ‘perfect' job, while allowing you to live a life you want to live while you figure out what it is you actually want to do.

By not having to worry about how you're going to pay the bills or when you can afford to move out of your parents place, you make way for opportunities to present themselves and you can view things with a new perspective.

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Not sure what skill or idea you have to start a side hustle with? Take the free Side Hustle 7-day Challenge here.

#2: Provides real-world experiences

When you graduated college and started working, you were fresh-faced and starry-eyed… a few years down the track, you're more than a little jaded and you feel stagnant and over the office grind.

By starting a side hustle, you get immediate access to a different skill-set — you can try many different business models and skills, all while gaining experience that is valuable to potential companies you're interested in working with.

Make your side hustle profitable and successful, and you've got a lot that you can add to your resume that will open doors to other career opportunities that were otherwise closed to you.

Think travel opportunities, joining new startup's and freelancing.

#3: Provides funding for your own business

I've always said that your first side hustle (or any that follow) doesn't need to be the one that you stick with for life. The beauty of any side hustle is that it allows you to test the waters and pivot quickly when you see an opportunity.

The other thing a side hustle does is allows you to build up funds and start your own business, whatever that might choose to be.

It also provides you with foresight and understanding about how a successful business works. You're not going in blind and you're not risking your retirement savings — both pluses in anyone's book!

#4: It opens your eyes to opportunities

Once you get a taste of the entrepreneurial world, it can be hard to close your eyes to the opportunities that surround you. There is opportunity everywhere, and once you open your mind to the possibilities, it's almost impossible to look back.

If you're feeling like your current job is just stagnant or you're not sure where you want to take your career, starting a side hustle is the perfect way to discover opportunities and what it is you can actually do with your life.

Once you start one side hustle, you'll start more, it's just the way things go. You'll quickly learn that you can do ANYTHING and that you're only limited by your imagination and beliefs.

I was speaking to a friend recently who mentioned that up until two years ago, she couldn't create a website or design a logo, now, since she started her side hustle, she has learned to do both, and these are now skills she charges for.

Had she stayed in her ‘day job' she would never have learned that she was creative, nor would she have been given the opportunity to explore and discover exactly what she's good at and what she doesn't really like to do. And with the stuff she doesn't like to do, she simply discards those businesses, or she outsources the details to someone who is good at it.

Opportunities people, that's what it's all about!

If you’re ready to start a side hustle but don’t know where to begin, grab the Side Hustle 7-Day Challenge: How to Identify a Profitable Side Hustle, and kick-start your side hustle business today!