I Think We Need A New Word for “Side Hustle”
I saw a tweet the other day that went viral. It said:
“I don’t want a side hustle. I want to live my one precious life.”
I read it and had a mixture of thoughts. I mean, my first thought was “fair enough!” Tweets can catch you off guard because they’re the opposite of an actual conversation, coming at you as a static statement that feels blunt, and carved into stone. I guess I felt somewhat disappointed that the phrase ‘side hustle’ is now synonymous with burnout; stripped of any nuance — moulded and vilified through clickbait; a ‘trendy’ one-stop-shop buzzword running away with itself.
When we say “side hustle" we are often conflating many different things: a side business, a passion project, an entrepreneurial experiment, a quick buck scheme, a hobby, a creative outlet. But the phrase has now got The Ick. And I get it.
When people first asked me to write about side-hustles a few years ago (when my book The Multi-Hyphen Method came out), I would always change the wording — to side project, passion project, or a side thing. My “bit on the side.” My thing I loved doing for me. It was less about the hustle, more about creative nourishment.
Yes, some people’s side hustles are a straight up h.u.s.t.l.e, like Emily Weiss who told me on Ctrl Alt Delete that she would wake up at 4am and work on her side hustle until 8am before going to her full-time job each morning (this side hustle then turned into the billion dollar company Glossier). The dedication is admirable. But that sort of intensity is not for everyone, nor should it be. I think it’s the word ‘hustle’ that turns people off and quite understandably— it makes it sound forced, pressurised, stressful. 4am is not a time I am personally awake (unless I’m getting on an EasyJet flight to a hot beach somewhere pre-Covid) but the way others do their side-thing is none of my business. I have often stayed up late on Saturday nights writing my blog instead of going to a party I didn’t want to go to. The point is, you ultimately get to choose how you spend the cracks and crevices of your own time.
It’s OK to be an early bird, or a night owl, to have a side project, or not — to hopefully work in the best way possible for you. Maybe we need some level of maturity to these conversations, realising we are all different without certain behaviours being immediately labelled ‘good’ or ‘bad’.
You will already know, if you’ve followed my work for a while, that all this *points around* started as a series of side projects. Side projects that ultimately allowed me to quit a job I hated. I know it doesn’t always work out that way. But my story is far from unique. Side projects can start off as being just for fun, but sometimes the growth of a tiny seed can allow you the freedom to side-step a job, manoeuvre over time, pivot, transition, strategize. It’s far more realistic than the unrelatable advice ‘just quit your job babe!’
Back to that tweet though. It’s a shame that ‘side hustles’ have become something people feel so much animosity about. When something becomes popular, the think-pieces multiply. People start taking it personally. The context is stripped away.
Personally, I believe it’s a good time to have a side project. Just for yourself. Whether it’s painting the garden shed, or making Christmas decorations or starting a blog or learning to knit. There are so many ways now to get ideas off the ground. Quite simply for the sheer joy and fulfilment of it. Therapists often prescribe hobbies, holidays, art.
We are living in the Information Age. If our soul shrinks at work, you get to store up all that unused creativity and use it on something else. Their loss. No one is stopping us from starting a side project with a stolen 30 minutes. If we want to. As Brene Brown once said: "Unused creativity is not benign. It metastasises. It turns into grief, rage, judgment, sorrow, shame."
It’s not about monetising every area of your life — it’s about asking yourself: what would I do even if I knew no one else was looking? What would I do anyway, even if it didn’t turn into anything much — that would give me pleasure just by doing it?
Last year, my little secret side project was writing OLIVE. For pleasure, on the side of my paid work. It helped my mental health, gave me a reason to go on more solo staycations, or block out ‘me-time’. It felt pleasurable to be working on a project that no one asked for.
If you have a side project you are yearning to do — then as Elizabeth Gilbert says: why not carve out some time in your calendar, just as you’d carve some time for a secret love affair. Just for you and it.
Either way. Let’s live our one precious life. Whatever that means for you.
