I always thought that someday I would write an article like this one because others were writing them back in the day. I wanted to learn from them, emulate their process, and be like them. For some reason, I was so desperate to earn $10K because it meant reaching that ‘five-figure’ mark. The trophy everyone would boast about.
Now that I finally got here, I want to share what I learnt after I achieved this fancy number.
Feel free to steal my process. After all, I’ve learnt from so many others and stolen bits and pieces of their process to create mine. Don’t reinvent the wheel and make everything harder for yourself.
1/ It feels like nothing
Success isn’t about how much money you make, it’s about the difference you make in people’s lives. — Michelle Obama
The first thing I did was message one of my mentors that I felt nothing. I don’t feel rich. I don’t want to tick stuff off my wishlist and buy it all because I’ve made the money.
Here’s how the conversation went:
I honestly didn’t feel like I’d ‘made it’ or something, which is what I imagined it to be after achieving this number.
I just carried on with my day.
Reminds me of the time I was so desperate to reach 100k followers on LinkedIn and when I did, I was in Japan with my husband. We were walking in a park with the cold breeze touching our faces when I told him this, and though he was all excited and congratulated me, I just carried walking because I felt nothing. I continued noticing how differently they shape plants and bushes in the garden.
2/ It takes a long time
I can milk some views today by writing articles like this one, but do you know how long it has taken me to reach here?
42 months.
That’s how long the goal has been there for.
I know when you read such stuff and watch YouTube videos it all looks easy. I mean, the task that made me this money (will tell you about it soon) wasn’t exactly difficult, it took under 5 hours of work to make this money. And will take me another 20 hours to continue working after it for this specific task. That’s still under a week’s worth of hours in a corporate job.
It just takes bloody long to get here. Honestly, I don’t mind that at all because the process has been super fun for me maybe that’s why the money didn’t make me feel like I’ve done something extraordinary.
Next time you read about money that makes you feel crappy, know that you’re only seeing the tip of the iceberg. Learn from it and take action today, because months and years later the results will compound.
Don’t wait. The time will never be just right. — Napoleon Hill
3/ It isn’t always a result of hard work
Have I worked hard so far on my journey? Yes.
Was this $10k a result of burning the midnight oil? Nope.
I’ll tell you soon about the ‘how’ aspect behind this money, but please know that it isn’t always a result of hard work. I worked under 45 hours last entire month, whereas I used to work that much in a week during my corporate job.
A sponsored LinkedIn post where a brand pays me $1500 takes 20 minutes to draft. It isn’t exactly money made by working hard, but reaping the results of having worked hard to build an audience.
4/ The goalpost only gets further from here
I know you’ll tease me about this, but my goal is to make $50k a month. This has been my goal for the past two years even though I hadn’t made even 20% of that income until now.
As you grow, the goalpost only gets further and further away.
This isn’t because I want that much money or have loans to pay off, it’s because I’m ambitious and want my work to reach more people. The best thing about running a business on the internet is how little you need to scale it (just your laptop and an internet connection).
Finally
Here’s how I did it. I don’t want to be one of those people who tell you all about it but don’t tell you ‘how’ they exactly did it. That just feels unreliable.
(In case you want a detailed breakdown, refer to this issue of Side Hustle Saturdays)
I launched a group coaching program called Side Hustle Pro, where I help people scale this side hustle to $10K in 12 weeks. I sent a few emails about this to my list. 4 people joined in and paid in full (priced at $2500) and one person joined via weekly payments. This is how I made the money that I did.
Apart from this, I also made a few hundred from other sources such as affiliates and writing online.
My final advice to you are the values I’ve followed all along:
- make money a consequence of excellent work, not a goal.
- have fun in the process. It also gets easier that way.
- keep experimenting with new stuff.
Please have fun, I can’t emphasise enough on it. Imagine how my journey would’ve been if I obsessed about the money for 42 months. I would’ve been miserable and that is the reality of many, which is why they give up soon.
All the best!
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” — Lao Tzul
