In the pursuit of side hustle
Realizing the importance of balancing personal and career growth.
After coming back home from work, I had always wondered- How can I utilize my free time? Should I invest some time in writing articles? Should I start working on a side project — my design podcast, maybe? Or Should I just relax because I had already worked enough in the office? But somehow, this thought was very unsettlingly for me because of the mindset that I can’t relax. I have just started my career.
The last 4 years of college were pretty straightforward in the sense that I knew exactly what I would be doing after my classes. It was clear that I wanted to pursue design as my career option. It was then, either getting an internship to brush up my skills or getting freelance work to build up my portfolio and in the end, It was getting a job. On the sides, I used to work on publishing dribbble shots and medium articles. But this year felt different. It broke my momentum and I started finding job life to be very monotonous as compared to college life which was very dynamic.
The new job life also raised multiple questions — How to measure growth in a company? Am I learning something new? Should I invest some time outside the office to brush up my skills? What to invest in? How much to invest in?
The simplest answer that came to my mind was doing a side project to break the monotonicity and work on something exciting. Side projects would give me a sense of accomplishment and I would utilize my free time better.
Another problem was finding what side project to choose? To find that answer, I tried to find patterns in what other people were doing in their free time with the help of a google form. I managed to get 26 responses. Although I got fewer responses, they were an eye-opener for me.
PS: On the side note, I have also realized that google form was not a good option to get these types of answers. Always better to converse in person where intentions are well communicated.
#1. Ask why, before what
While I was obsessing a lot about side projects, I failed to ask myself whether I really wanted to do it and was it just the same as following the herd? 65% of the people who were already doing side projects responded saying that it helped them to earn money and build a personal brand while 25% of them didn’t feel the need to do side projects and in that case, it was perfectly fine to chill. It is not necessary to have a defined goal every time and that time it’s better to take a break.
#2. Burnout- It’s your choice
Self-development comes at a cost and that is your choice. I really liked how one responder stated,
“If you want something, put in the inputs to achieve it. If there’s nothing in particular that you want right now, chill out it’s totally fine. But don’t pretend/be forced to pretend like it matters what others are doing. I appreciate that you feel something is missing in your life and you want to fix it. But look internally not externally.
-While designing products we take feedback from people because we’re designing for them
-When building your life, nobody’s feedback matters. You’re building your lifestyle for you, not for anyone else. Your goals are nobody’s but your own”
It took a hard time for me to digest this but this made sense eventually. As long as my personal goals were getting fulfilled, I need not worry about burning out to do more. I don’t have to pretend/force to do hustling because everyone is doing it.
#3. Don’t confuse career growth with personal development
I had made a big mistake in my life by confusing career growth with personal development. While career growth requires putting in efforts to grow professionally, Personal development requires putting in efforts to grow as a person and these don’t have to be collinear, always. In the responses too, I was surprised to see that it was very difficult to find a pattern between people utilizing their free time. People were doing a wide variety of things, be it, swimming, dancing, writing, reading, etc.
Over the 4 years, I never put in efforts in my personal development. I thought that I would be wasting the time in which I can invest in my career growth. You can’t imagine the places where I have felt complete noob because I have never done things like bowling, badminton or swimming. I always wanted to do these but never invested time in them.
Last year, I spent time doing all such activities — cooking, bowling, swimming, snorkeling, ice-skating, etc. and you can’t imagine how much fun those were for me. This year too I would like to invest more time in such activities.
Some interesting insights
- 50% of people are writing an article once a week while 46% choose to chill at home every day.
- Most of the time of the weekend is reserved for movies (27%), hanging out with friends (38%) or just chilling at home (50%).
- Blogging (35%), Youtube videos (18%) and Building an app (30%) are most popular among side hustlers while other things like a podcast, comics, organizing events have an equal share of 6% each.
- People are serious about workout these days. We should be. 😝
- HTML (100%), CSS (95.5%), Javascript (59.1%) remain as most learned coding languages.
- Photography (42.9%), Sketching (33.3%) and playing music instrument (38.1%) is the most popular hobby among designers.
PS: The stats are not mutually exclusive.
Personal development is of utmost importance as career growth and doing side projects is one and the not-the only way for it. Some people like to attend meetups, do podcasts, blog while some people don’t socialize at all. This doesn’t make any section of people better. It’s an individual choice and how do we want to manage our time for it. While weekdays can be reserved for focussing on the personal development post office. Longer/More intensive tasks required for career development (e.g., blogging to build a personal brand) can be tackled on weekends
From now onwards, I need to start setting up small goals for my career growth and as long as they are in check, I can focus on personal development or just chill without worrying about anything, spend some more time with family and hangout with friends to break monotonicity in life.
I want to thank people who took the time in answering the google form. This exercise helped me to find answers about personal development but I still have many unanswered questions about career growth. I want to talk to designers about it and I will compile them in my next article.
