Not Every Hobby Has to Become a 'Hustle'

I love a side hustle.

My hobbiesblogging, podcasting, making comedy videos, even tweetinghave all become my job.

I even contributed to a book calledThe Hustle Economy: Transforming Your Creativity Into a Career.

So believe me when I tell you: Your hobby is also allowed to be completely useless.

For some hobbies, this is obvious.

He never had to turn them into a hustle.

But other hobbies might feel like they have toleadto something.

If you cook well, and cook enough, someone will eventually suggest you do it for money.

If you make any sort of craft, someone will push you to sell it on Etsy.

If you write anything mildly funny or affecting, youll betoldto write a book.

When you turn your hobby into a hustle, your whole outlook changes.

All the existing stakes are raised, and one big new one piled on top: money.

Each project has to prioritize profit, which necessarily means de-prioritizing everything else, however slightly.

There are bigger consequences to your commitments, customers to satisfy, regulations to obey, taxes to pay.

You have to keep track of things, manage emails, follow up with clients.

You might have to schmooze, advertise, travel.

Now, no matter how great you are, if you end up losing money, youve failed.

And the harder you hustle, the more prominent your failure will be.

Sometimes thats worth it.

Sometimes it can even make you rich.

It can rescue you from a dead-end career or a directionless life.

And I wholly encourage that.

Just dont let anyone convince you that its the superior choice.

The people who make money with their hobbies are not better people than you.

Somewhere in there I realised I just couldnt hack it as a professional writer.

I tried to write to a Nichols deadline once and I almost drank myself to death, literally.

So they gave up.

Not on writing, but on hustling.

I threw in the towel, not on my aspirations but on my schedule.

I thought, fuck this, I need to have a life and so I did.

I worked and I lived, I travelled, writing when I felt like it.

But this isnt a trick to actually boost your career.