Regardless of whether you are happy with your job or not, a side income will dramatically alter your trajectory.
Back in March 2015, I made a wishlist of everything I wanted across all categories.
This was not only stuff I wanted to buy but also personal development goals as well.
One of those items was particularly interesting – 4 Bedrooms, 2.5 baths, 2400 Sq ft.
Coming up next month, I will finally move into a house that matches that description pretty accurately.
If you want to improve your life, I have a few tips for you. Don’t worry if some of these sound impossible. I heard this stuff for years, even decades before I could make anything of the advice.
Table of Contents
Write Down Your Goals
Write down your goals and your desires. Remind yourself why you are working so hard.
Things written down become reality.
Improve Your Outlook of Work
It was a little after 10 AM Thursday morning. We were back at work after having Wednesday off for a holiday. I was excited to go back to work for once. In fact, every week should have Wednesday off.
One of my co-workers barged into my office to look for a documentation binder that was on my bookshelf and said with tired breath, “Can we go home? I can’t handle 2 Mondays in the same week.”
Wow. Having 2 Mondays isn’t something that even crossed my mind.
If you dread your job, it’s time to look for something new. Don’t immediately quit, though. Find a replacement job and look for opportunities on the side.
The Year of Growth
Adopt a growth mindset and make a plan for growth in every major area – fitness, money, and relationships.
The way we think about our own intellect and abilities affects what we achieve and the motivation to do so. A growth mindset is a belief that intelligence and ability can improve over time with effort. In contrast, a fixed mindset is the belief that intelligence and talent are static traits one is born with.
Setbacks are seen as temporary and a necessary part of the learning process with a growth mindset. Growth mindset believers embrace lifelong learning, effort, challenges, and feedback. Fixed mindset believers avoid challenging situations, ignore feedback, and give up easily.
Dr. Carol Dweck, a Psychologist from Stanford University, identified the growth mindset and showed that effort, persistence, resilience, and strategies are more beneficial to praise than talent and natural abilities.
In the growth mindset, failure can be a painful experience. But it doesn’t define you. It’s a problem to be faced, dealt with, and learned from.
Dr. Carol Dweck
The benefits of a growth mindset include better academic performance, reduced burnout, and fewer psychological and behavioral problems. Neuroscience shows that a person’s mindset and thinking patterns can change, and the brain is constantly evolving and changing. The brain of a growth mindset is more active in areas associated with learning and error correction.
Ways to develop a growth mindset include understanding the scientific evidence that the brain is capable of growth and improvement, challenging negative self-talk, rewarding work ethic over results, seeking feedback, stepping out of our comfort zone, and accepting failure as a part of the learning process.
To read more about Dr. Dweck’s studies on human motivation and the impact of our beliefs on success, check out the post Carol Dweck: A Summary of Growth and Fixed Mindsets or pick up her book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success from Amazon.
Is this the year of growth for you? Or is this something you tell yourself every December before the new year starts?
Don’t Quit
Decide what your dream is. Is your dream to have an online business, even on the side?
Make a decision based on a sound idea and make a plan to make it work.
Marshall Goldsmith once said the effectiveness of execution = quality of the idea x commitment to make it work.
There is nothing a burning desire won’t consume to make a bigger fire (I wish I knew who to give credit for this).
Don’t Study Too Much About Productivity
If you’ve been on the Internet, you’ve seen tips on productivity. The funny thing is that if you focus too much on finding the perfect productivity tactic, you’re effectively procrastinating.
Do you need to have a miracle morning? It works great, but it’s also ok not to be a morning person.
Don’t think too much about planning and batching too many tasks together to maximize your time. Are you really surprised you didn’t finish the weekend list you made Friday afternoon? Do the work in smaller increments and give yourself breaks.
Don’t Put It Off
Here are 3 of my favorite things Ramit Sethi has said in the past about getting started:
- People like to argue minor points because it absolves them of the responsibility for doing anything.
- We love to debate minutiae. Let the fools debate the details.
- Getting started is more important than getting it right.
Not an Expert? Become One
Have a nice balance of gathering knowledge and taking action. Raw talent and experience won’t cut it.
Be strategic about your goals and get experience “on the job.”
When You Fail, Keep Going
If at first you don’t succeed, quit the original approach and try again differently.
In order to be successful, you have to learn from your failures. Even though you didn’t get what you wanted, you still got a result. Figure out what went wrong, educate yourself, make adjustments, and keep on moving.
Conclusion
Don’t skip over these tips because “you already know them.” If you’re struggling and you’re not where you want to be, you need these tips more than you can possibly know.
More money may solve your current problems, but it won’t solve all problems. Learn to roll with the punches so you can adapt to your hardships.
Stay strong and press on.
Now go get it done.