Is Fear Stealing Your Side Hustle Time?
In this post I wanted to talk about fear and to help you consider whether it’s fear that’s stopping you from making time for your side hustle rather than the hours and minutes you have available to you each week.
Let’s look first at what fear is and where it comes from. Fear is a useful and necessary feeling. It has enabled us as human beings to survive. That’s because when the world was a dangerous place it helped us to avoid dying. When we shared our homes with wild creatures such as wolves and lions we would run in the opposite direction if we saw one. Fear is a basic instinct which has served us well, but in this modern world, it can be out of date.
Certainly if you live in the western hemisphere life is safe. Your daily existence is not under threat from either animals or warfare. You can go about your life without worrying that any minute now you might encounter a life-threatening situation.
The trouble is that our brains now fear other things, particularly when it comes to being accepted by our friends, family and acquaintences. We all want to be liked, we all want to look competent. We fear being seen as lacking skills or of being stupid. And those fears often hold us back from achieving our goals.
In fact, we rarely actually feel fear because we avoid putting ourselves into situations that make us feel afraid. In essence, we are not avoiding the task itself, but we are avoiding the fear that we think doing the task will make us feel.
Ever heard of the book ‘Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway’? This is a classic self-help book written by Susan Jeffers. The core message of the book is that fear is a natural part of growth, and we shouldn’t wait for it to disappear before taking action. By shifting our mindset from "I can’t" to "I’ll handle it," we empower ourselves to take control, make decisions, and build courage through action. In other words, the more you do things that you’re fearful of the more you realise that they aren’t as bad as you thought.
At this point you might be asking yourself what all this has to do with finding time for your side hustle. Here’s the question you need to ask yourself - Are you telling yourself that you don’t have time whereas really you fear doing the things you need to do to make progress with your side hustle?
It could be…
Fear of doing something new
Fear of stepping outside your comfort zone
Fear of what other people might think of you
Fear of looking stupid
Fear of being seen as a failure
Fear of making the wrong decisions in your side hustle
The truth is that if you expose yourself to the thing you’re worried about you come to realise that it isn’t that scary after all. What’s the worst thing that could happen if you go live on Facebook? You’re not going to die. It is not life or death. Examine your fear and ask yourself - is this really logical?
You should realise that the fear of an event can be worse than the experience of the event itself. Think of going for a vaccination. You can spend days, maybe hours, worrying, working yourself up and yet when you actually go it isn’t that bad. Even if it was unpleasant it’s all over quickly and you start to question what you were worried about in the first place. You invested all of that time and emotion into worrying about something which only lasted a few seconds.
If you want to succeed in your side hustle you need to learn how to live with fear and learn that it is no big deal. As Susan Jeffers advises, having a positive mindset is essential if you want to ‘feel the fear and do it anyway’. I know that you really want to achieve the result for your side hustle that is on the other side of fear and with a few words of encouragement to yourself you can do the hard things.
So your homework for this week is to make a list of all the tasks that you are avoiding in your side hustle - those ones you tell yourself that you haven’t got time for. Then ask yourself, is that really the case or are you avoiding them because you’re scared of how it will feel doing them or of what might happen if it doesn’t go well. Be honest with yourself. Whilst there may be some big tasks you haven’t got time for at the moment I’m sure there’s going to be lots of things you’re just not doing because of how they make you feel. Try doing just one. What’s the worst that could happen?