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Side hustles are the new black.

According to a Bankrate survey 37% of Americans have a side hustle of some sort. Upwork has over 16 million freelancers across the globe and over 2 million drive for Uber. In Australia Airtasker has over 1.8 million users – not bad for a country of only 25 million.

While many use their side hustle as a second or third job to make ends meet, most doctors aren’t relying on their side gig to keeps the lights on.

Our side hustles allow us to pursue a passion, learn new skills or build additional income pipelines. A recent survey on the future of healthcare showed that 7 in 10 physicians would not recommend healthcare as a profession.

Though many doctors would like a potential exit from their day job, the reality is that a side gig is likely to pay significantly less per hour than working in clinical medicine. So before you cut down your hours and start hustling, here are a few questions to ask yourself.

 

1. How Am I Performing at My Day Job?

For most of us, our clinical practice is our primary source of income and something we need to ensure remains a high priority. There are few things more stressful than facing a malpractice or negligence case.

There’s a saying “how we do anything is how we do everything”. Our side hustle should complement our current work not jeopardise it.

Compartmentalising our focus is important. I personally subscribe to the rule- patient time is patient time. They’re paying me for my knowledge, skill and ATTENTION.

If you aren’t performing at the highest standard in your day job, my suggestion is make that your first hustle.

 

2. Am I Creating a Money  Maker or Passion Project?

The difference between a side hustle and a hobby is that your side hustle should make you money.

It’s nice to know what you hope to achieve from the beginning.

In order to make make money you will be required to sell or promote a product or service. You need to be comfortable with that and invest time to learn how to do it profitably.  You will need to join the dots from work to money.

If you simply want to blog about your day and share pictures from your life then that’s cool too. Conversely you might be championing a cause – maybe you’re passionate about vaccination, supporting first time parents, or preventing physician burnout. There’s no pressure to make money but you need to accept it will cost you both time and money.

If you haven’t already, it’s worth checking out Simon Sinek’s video called Start with Why.

 

3. What Am I Really Interested In?

There’s an old saying “do what you are passionate about and the money will follow.”  I believe this is only a partial truth for two reasons.

Firstly, we get paid for solving problems. If we aren’t solving a problem, we’re not likely to get paid. We’re fortunate that as doctors, society values healthcare and our personal sacrifices. But beware- Doctor Google and Artificial Intelligence is changing this really quickly. What problem will your side hustle solve?

Secondly, you can make great money doing something you LIKE, not LOVE.

We need to at least LIKE our side hustle. It’s whats going to keep us going through those hard times. Launching a side hustle is fun- logos, domain names, setting up websites- but then we need the fuel to keep us pushing forward when we face those speed bumps. These obstacles include negative Google reviews, family and colleagues telling us we’re wasting our time and the biggest of all- when our side hustle, the thing that’s meant to make us money, ends up actually costing us money. 

Do you like your side hustle enough to keep you going for at least a year?

Take a look at my post on Ikigai to learn how to differentiate between you profession, passion, mission and vocation.

 

4. How Much Time Do I Have To Commit On A Regular Basis?

Most of us are juggling a number of commitments- clinical work, teaching, research, family and our own recreation.

So where amongst all this can we carve out time to pursue our side hustle?

I personally block off one full day a week of non-clinical work. This allows me to focus on my hustles, education, skill development and relationship building. I can work from my home office or the local cafe for some caffeine fuelled inspiration.

Depending on your side hustle, your time requirement might be quite low. If you’re significantly time limited don’t let that stop you- there’s a whole host of outsourcing services that will allow you to buy your time back and keep your hustling dreams alive.

How much time do you have to commit regularly to your side hustle?

Success is often about showing up consistently and that takes time.

 

5. What Experience and Skills Do I Have?

We all have a unique life experience, story and skillsets. These are often the “special sauce” we can pour onto our side hustles. Your insights may have come from a job you had in high school, a society role at University or College or a volunteering position.

It’s worth taking the time to create a time line of your work experience and then add in the skills that you learnt in each role. The results might just surprise you.

Once you’ve identified the skills you do have, think about the skills you need to acquire to make your side hustle successful. These days you’ll probably need some understanding of social media marketing, website design, personal branding, story telling and of course your legal and financial requirements- topics we never learnt in Medschool!

The good news is that you can pick up many of these skills quickly on platforms like Udemy and Skillshare.

Whats your unique experience and skill set? What skills do you need to develop?

TO GET 2 FREE MONTHS OF UNLIMITED SKILLSHARE CLASSES CLICK HERE.

 

6. What Is The TAM?

Those of you who watch shows like Shark Tank will be aware of the term Total Addressable Market. It’s the total market demand for a product or service calculated in annual revenue. Here’s an article from Toptal that explains it deeper.

This is an extremely hard number to quantify for most side hustles and many side hustles make great money by servicing a micro-niche. Will your hustle me insdustry specific, local or global?

We can validate interest in our product or service using Google Trends or by analysing the conversations taking place on Facebook and Twitter. If we can find a relevant Facebook group or Reddit community with thousands of members actively engaging in conversation about our product or service, we know there’s an immediate captive audience.

 

7. When Am I Going To Start?

Nothing happens until something happens. It’s all fair and good to talk about our side hustle and do endless research but at some point we need to actually pull the trigger.

Setting a start date and writing it down is important. This sets up a commitment in our mind which is made even more powerful if we make ourselves accountable to someone else.

How much study would you have done in Medschool if there wasn’t an exam date?

If you’re a procrastinator, learn how to identify your demons.

Identify your goals, create a task list and get started!

 

I hope these 7 simple questions will set your side hustle on the right path.

Got something to add or some love to give? Write a comment below.