Why You Should Cultivate the Discipline of Working on Your Side Hustle
One thing that people often say to me is that I am very disciplined; usually in the context of diet and exercise rather than finding time for my side hustle, but nevertheless that’s how many friends regard me, as a disciplined individual. What I find interesting is the way that they say this makes it sound as though it’s a characteristic that I was born with, such as my height or the colour of my eyes; an advantage that I have been blessed with from birth. But the truth is that discipline is a skill, one that can be cultivated and become part of your personality. You just need to take the time to learn and develop that skill.
Maybe it’s easier to think that it’s an innate quality as that perspective gives people an excuse about why they’re not disciplined. Why they can’t stick to their exercise routine or regularly find the time to work on their side hustle. The answer, as with many things, is that it requires hard work and practice, something open to everyone.
The Definition of Discipline
When you hear the word discipline you probably think of rules and punishment. If you were naughty when you were a kid your parents disciplined you. Whilst it can mean that another definition is ‘training that makes you more able to control your behaviour’. In other words, you learn techniques which help you behave in the way that you want to e.g. getting out of bed at 6am to work on your side hustle four mornings a week.
Why Discipline is Important
When you are disciplined you don’t have to rely on motivation. Being motivated to work on your side hustle is great, but unfortunately that won’t always be the case. Your level of motivation will fluctuate from day to day and week to week, depending on many factors, a lot of which will be outside of your control. Having discipline means that no matter what else is going on in your life you will make the time to work on your side hustle. Obviously there are some caveats to this, such as major life events like illness or the death of a loved one. But 99% of the time you’ll follow through on the behaviour that you want and which moves you towards your side hustle goals. You will be in control and not affected by the fact that you had a bad day at work or that someone’s cat has left you a little gift on your lawn for the second time this week.
Linked to motivation, or a lack of it, is that you may struggle with procrastination. This is a topic which I cover in one of the lessons about how to stop working overtime and in another about planning and structuring the work in your side hustle. The good news is that discipline can help you tackle procrastination as it discourages you from waiting for ‘the right moment’ to work on your side hustle and instead suggests you take small, consistent steps. Working on your side hustle is no longer about having to ‘feel like it’. You learn to do it no matter whether you want to or not. Just think about other areas of your life, particularly when it comes to your kids or going to work. I am sure there are many many things you don’t want to do, such as leaving the house every day at 8am to drive to work or getting up at 3am because your baby is crying, but you do them anyway.
Setting yourself small daily actions and following through on them can help you build confidence. Whilst each small task may feel somewhat insignificant, when you get to the end of the week or the end of the month you’ll be amazed at how much you’ve achieved and this will really boost your confidence. You’ll realise that you can do this. You can actually do the work necessary to build a profitable and successful side hustle. Next month you’ll probably set yourself bigger goals when you know it’s possible to achieve them because you’re actually following through on your plans.
Finally, discipline can reduce stress and overwhelm. Building discipline is all about embedding small actions into your life and those small actions are part of a bigger task that you’re trying to achieve. The big task may feel overwhelming when you think about it, such as writing a 1000 word blog post, but just 100 words a day over ten days will probably seem fairly easy. And when the post is due to be published you won’t have to rush at the last minute because you’ll have been working on it for the past couple of weeks.
So there we go, lots of great reasons to cultivate discipline. Spend some time this week thinking about how you could become more disciplined when it comes to finding the time to work on your side hustle. And for more free help with finding time for your side hustle get your copy of my guide ‘Five Simple Steps to Making Time for a Side Hustle’.