Most side hustles don’t fail because people quit. They actually fail much earlier than that. And the reason why this side hustles fail has very little to do with motivation, discipline, or effort. It actually has to do with something that you don’t even realize. Every year people get started with thinking of a side hustle to kick off, especially when you realize that your salary is not increasing and maybe even getting a job is much harder than you can imagine, and so you’re like, I will go start this side hustle, and usually when it comes with starting anything new it comes with excitement because there is a whole new world that you’re hopeful for, and so that excitement kind of allows you to be able to breathe in, kind of allows you to start imagining, and I would tell you that I’ve been through this fate.

My First Side Hustle

I remember very well when I was starting my very first side hustle. I was so excited. I’d imagined the house that I was going to buy. I’d imagine the car I was going to drive, how I was going to be able to travel the world with this side hustle once it lands.

Most especially because the side hustle that I was trying to start at the time I’d seen another business raking in thousands and millions of dollars and I was like, once I hit it I’m even going to quit this job because I ain’t going to need you anymore, and so that excitement actually helped me to go grinding every day.

I was working on that business, registered the business and did everything that I needed to launch that business, and I did with all the excitement I was already counting all the money that was going to be raking in, and when I started to hear crickets, I was like, what’s going on now.

Even before the crickets, another realization that came up is the fact that after a while the excitement started to drop because I had to compete with my reality, and the reality was the fact that I had a job, I had a family and I had a busy schedule.

Reality Competes With Motivation

For example, there was a time when during my very first business, I received a phone call from a client and I was at work and I saw my phone ringing and I could not pick up because it wasn’t during my break. And at the end of the day, I listened to the voice notes and it was a very angry customer who had booked a ride and the driver did not show up. But I could not even deal with that situation because I was at work. And these are some of the things that we don’t even realize when we kick off our side hustle business. We don’t realize that motivation can only take us this far. And the reality of life, the reality of the job that we have will start to compete with the side hustle.

And when we’re not prepared for that, then we start losing the motivation. We start losing the energy. And before we know it, that side hustle starts to dwindle and fail without us even realizing it. And one day, we just wake up and we’re like, where did this side hustle go? But because we built it on the wrong foundation is why it didn’t even work out. And that’s why usually within the first 90 days if a business is not going to survive, you’re already going to start to see the cracks.

Financial Freedom

So it’s not all about you getting motivated because many times we get motivated because of the revenue that we think we can make. We are hopeful because we think that we found something that can replace the 9-to-5 job that we have and we think we found the path to financial freedom.

And while that could be the case, having a wrong assumption actually makes everything bad. So it’s important that we realize that we need to know what it is and what it means to start a side hustle, especially when you still have your 9-to-5 job because it’s completely different because remember that you still have this 9-to-5 job that you have to attend to and it always takes priority more than half of the time.

And if you’re not careful and if you’re not mentally prepared, then you’re going to start the side hustle that barely started. So it’s important that we realize that having motivation alone is not going to drive us the long haul when we start a side hustle.

The Second Realization: Effort Alone Is Not Enough

The second realization that we need to face is effort alone is also not enough. Because usually what happens is after motivation dwindles, we start thinking that maybe we didn’t do enough. So we need to put in more hours. We start depriving ourselves. We’re like we need to put in more time, we need to just do more. And then the more we do, the more we don’t see any change. And it’s already because you built it on a wrong foundation. You built it on a wrong assumption. Your assumptions were wrong. You probably didn’t even go through the test of understanding your side hustle to know whether your current situation would work with the side hustle that you’re trying to launch and build.

And so effort sometimes is not enough. So you just don’t need motivation and you just don’t need effort because effort can only take you so far and effort actually works on the right foundation when you have the right assumptions and you’re working on that assumption because real life would always show up. Work would always get demanding. Family could also get demanding. So if you have the wrong mindset and the wrong concept when it comes to how a side business grows and how you make income, all of that is going to frustrate that side hustle and before you know it, you are going to quit.

Side Hustles Don’t Only Work In Calm Situations

Also, another reality you have to face is this. Side hustles don’t only work in calm situations. And that’s one mistake that a lot of us make. We build our side hustles assuming that everything is going to be calm and that’s a wrong assumption. Life is in waves and your side hustle would also be in waves.

Sometimes things might be going great at work and you’re going to have to deal with your side hustle and other times things might not be so great at work or even at home and you’re still going to have to deal with that side hustle because it’s the same way that whether life is great at home, you still have to go to work as long as you’re not like sick where you can’t actually even move.

You notice that regardless of what’s going through in your life, you still have to work because you need that income to survive. That’s the right mindset that you also need to have when it comes to your side hustle. Come rain, come shine. I’m going to have to put in the work to this side hustle even when motivation fades. And that way you give it a balance and a fair chance to survive.

Giving Your Side Hustle a Fair Chance

And often times because we’re not even aware, we don’t give our side hustle a fair chance to play. We prioritize work in every other thing above the side hustle because we treat it as something on the side. And as long as you keep treating as something on the side, it’s never going to grow enough to compete financially with the main thing.

And if you cannot compete financially with the main thing, then it can never give you the money that the main thing is giving to you because you’re not watching it. You’re not giving it the right energy. You’re not giving it the right mindset. So you’re not giving it the right effort. And that’s why sometimes even if it feels like you’re still doing something or you’re doing the right thing to make it grow, it’s important. We don’t make the mistakes that I have made in my past life.

Don’t Blame Yourself

And if you’ve already started your side hustle and you’re in a phase where you feel like quitting because you no longer have energy, motivation is no longer there, you feel like your efforts are not being rewarded. I want you to check yourself and check whether you have the right mindset regarding your side hustle because without the right mindset your side hustle cannot grow. Your side hustle cannot survive.

And as long as you have that 9-to-five job, you would always take priority and eventually you will quit and face your 9-to-5 life. But you will be frustrated after a while because you’re still stuck with the same salary. Life is getting expensive and you’re unable to find the next thing to add to your income, which puts you back in that cycle of frustration.

One thing I don’t want you to do is this. I don’t want you to start blaming yourself. Because usually when motivation fades and you’re putting all of the effort and you can’t really see results, we start blaming ourselves, thinking that maybe we’re not cut out for this, we’re not good enough, and that’s why things are not working out. Many times when the side hustles fail, they have very little to do with you being not good enough. Rather, it’s the fact that you didn’t have the right mindset. You had the wrong assumptions and so you acted on those wrong assumptions and that’s why you got the results that you got. And so having the right mindset, having the right assumptions can always fix the problem.

Having the Right Mindset

Sometimes when you realize what the problem is, it might actually even be the fact that you are in the wrong side hustle, which might mean that I need to do things differently and start all over again. Or it could mean that I need to just correct where I’m at and then keep going. It could mean different things. But it’s very important that we have the right mindset towards our side hustle. We need to realize that it will not always be rosy. We need to realize that our side hustle is not going to immediately start bringing in the income that your 9-to-five job is giving to you. You need to realize that within six months, I’m not going to buy a travel ticket with my side hustle business.

Mind set importance

We need to have the right mindset and the right reality regarding that side hustle. Your side hustle might just be able to pay your electricity bill. It might just be able to gas up your car when you start off. And having that reality is crucial because it helps you move in the right direction and it pushes you to go in the right direction because then you have the right foundation. Because when I had this mindset, when I started all over again, I could tell how to then grade my side hustles. And that’s why today I have multiple businesses and I didn’t quit on one. Instead, I added more to it. That’s the right way to grow.

And I was really factual with my reality. I knew the fact that this is how much I can give to this side hustle. This is what is going to suffer in order for this side hustle to grow. And all of this reality, many times, we don’t go with them when we’re starting out. And that’s why the side hustle fails. So you just being motivated, you being hyped up, and you trying to put in all of the effort is not sufficient. And even being disciplined will not get you out of the hole if you’re already digging in the wrong hole. You need much more than that. And you need to realize that there is a pathway. There’s a way income grows in the business world. And you need to understand that in order for your side hustle to survive.