Use These 3 Secrets to Start Your Side-Hustle Today

The side-hustle. You’ve read about it on your favorite blog. You’ve heard Chelsea and her guest hosts talk about it on #MillennialTalk. Now you’re wondering: “ is a side-hustle for me?” The answer is YES. According to this survey by Bentley University, 67 percent of millennials have career plans which involve starting their own business. Now let’s talk about how you can get started.

You’ll be able to use the following three secrets to get started on your side-hustle as soon as you finish reading this article. The first secret is self-assessment.

Know Thyself: Choosing Your Side-Hustle

Know Thyself. It’s a maxim which dates back to ancient Greece. The concept held such reverence in ancient Greek culture that it was inscribed on the temple of Apollo at Delphi. Fast forward a few millennia and this advice still rings true for millennials looking to take the entrepreneurial leap.

But how do you really get to know yourself? Often times, what we think we know about ourselves is based on the feedback we receive from others. To pick the right side-hustle you need to get past this “surface self” and get to know your true self. This is where Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers come in.. Take ten minutes to take their personality test and you’ll get a report that includes careers you’d be good at.

I first learned about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in an intro to comm theory class my freshman year of college. No personality test is perfect, but their test is based on the works of Carl Jung, one of the greatest Psychologists to ever live. If you take the test as instructed, then you will get an accurate analysis of your strengths. Analyze these strengths to get some concrete ideas for your side-hustle.

The Perfect-You Profile: A Creative Visualization Exercise

If the Myers-Briggs test shows you who you are, the perfect-you profile shows you who you strive to be. Take a few moments to picture a version of yourself where you have already achieved your wildest dreams. Take out a pen and some paper and answer the following questions. Cut your mind’s tether to reality and let your right-brain do the thinking.

1. What is my career?
2. What are my hobbies?
3. What have I achieved?
4. Where do I live?
5. Where have I traveled?
6. What social causes do I donate my time or money to?
7. What do my friends do?

These are just some sample questions. Feel free to run with this and ask yourself whatever pops into your head. The more detailed you make your perfect-you profile, the easier you make the next steps of developing your side-hustle.

Go Down the Research Rabbit Hole

The Internet is Wonderland and Google is your rabbit hole. Once you’ve decided on your side-hustle, the next step is research.

The key to the research phase is learning to love the act of research. If you’ve ever read the Harry Potter series, Hermione is a perfect example of the mentality you need when researching your side-hustle. All the answers you need are written in a book or blog. All you have to do is read enough to find it.

Think of entrepreneurship like cooking. There are chefs whose strengths are creating new dishes, and then great cooks who follow the recipes of these chefs, but add a couple of tweaks to make the dish their own. Likewise, you can have a thriving side-hustle by studying and tweaking someone else’s recipe.

I use Google Drive for all of my research. When I started my side-hustle I made a spreadsheet of successful bloggers and made notes of what they were doing. The best part is that doing Social Media research for Millennials doesn’t mean finding extra time because Millennials essentially live on social media. All it means is giving your aimless social media time a purpose.

Make a Mind Map of Your Personal Brand

You were probably introduced to the basic concept of mind-mapping when you were in middle school, although they didn’t call it mind-mapping then. Mind maps are simply an organizational tool for brainstorming, and they get their name because a finished mind-map looks like a network of neurons.

Here’s how they work. First you choose your main topic and put it in the center circle. Lets use “Fruits” as an example. Next, you create branches for everything that comes to mind when you think of fruits. You’d have apples, blueberries, oranges, etc. Then, each one of these can spawn their own branches. For apples you could have apple juice, apple pie, and apple cider. Then each one of these can spawn branches for ingredients.

There are dozens of free mind-mapping software options that you can find with a simple Google search. I prefer LucidChart because it has a Google Drive app.

I used a mind map to come up with the unique value proposition for my personal brand. I started with my name in the middle, and then let my brain come up with everything I consider a strength. I expanded from there and when i could see everything mapped out, I realized that writing was going to be my side-hustle.

Do you have a side-hustle? Let’s connect on Twitter and trade tips and stories- connecting with the entrepreneurial minds of our generation is always inspiring!