Today we’re talking about money, and how your mindset around it can affect the how fast – or slow – your side hustle grows!
It’s a little bit nerve-wracking for me to spend big chunks of money my business.
I’ve got this thing about money… I want to hold onto it and see those numbers sit steadily in my bank account.
It makes me feel secure.
We didn’t have financial stability growing up. My parents were teenagers when they had my older sister.
We moved around quite a bit for my dad’s job and by the time we settled in Ohio when I was about 8 years old, both my parents worked to pay the mortgage and feed and clothe me and my sisters.
There was rarely enough money to last the month, and I remember lots of stress over how we were going to pay all the bills.
Money ultimately broke apart our family.
So it’s no surprise to me that I have some issues related to money, and why I have the tendency to invest TIME before I’ll invest MONEY in my business.
Why I’ll find all the best free tools and cobble them together to make something that meets my needs instead of pulling out my debit card. While I’ll spend hours trying to get some el cheapo plugin to work instead of paying for the one that will take 10 minutes to set up.
And when you’re side hustling, you need all the time you can get! It just doesn’t make sense to spend time on things that aren’t going to grow your business.
Every time I make a big purchase or think about making a big purchase, I start to get really scared. What if I can’t afford to pay that person? What if I can’t pay myself, and then I can’t pay my own bills?
You know what that translates to? “What if I fail? What if my family falls apart?”
That’s FEAR rearing its ugly head. If I just spend my TIME, then if it all goes to shit, I can tell myself I didn’t lose anything. I didn’t lose money, so I didn’t fail.
Ask my friends and family and they’ll tell you that by spending time instead of money, I’ve lost a lot – all the times I said I was too busy to hang out because I was spending time on my business so I wouldn’t have to spend money.
All the times I wasn’t paying attention to my husband because I was researching the crap out of how not to spend money on something.
And I’m not the only one with a job in this household. I act like it’s all on my shoulders when it’s not. I’m fortunate to have a husband who is also bringing home a paycheck.
It’s funny how we lie to ourselves.
After unpacking all my dysfunction around money, I asked myself, “Am I teaching people how to build their own WordPress site as cheaply as possible because of my own hangups about money? Am I projecting my fears onto others?”
I used to believe the answer was no. I told myself that when you are just starting your business, it’s important to not only invest your money in the right places, it’s also important to learn how the technology that will be running your business works so that you don’t get screwed over.
I believe that to be true, sure, but I’ve also seen the benefit of investing in tools to help me get where I want to be faster.
But the way I talked about the 5 Day Challenge, the way I sold my paid products, told an entirely different story. Deep in my mind, I cringed because I knew when I was just stating that I wouldn’t have had the right mindset to invest. I still have a hard time with it, even though my threshold is in the high hundreds for feeling uncomfortable rather than just a few dollars.
Even as I record this pep talk, I feel my chest getting a little tight because I haven’t met my income goal for this month.
I just have to to keep telling myself – there’s more where that came from. You know how to make money. You know you won’t spend more than you have. You won’t have to go back to a corporate job that you hate. You’re not going to ruin your family financially.
So take a moment to think about how you feel about money. Do you feel anxious when you think about it? Or are you calm and confident? Do you want to avoid the subject totally? Pay attention to these feelings. Notice them. And feel free to share over in the Pep Talks for Side Hustlers Facebook group and let’s work through it together!
Today’s pep talk is brought to you by Bluehost. Go to www.shannonmattern.com/bluehost and get 36 months of web hosting for just $2.95 a month. That’s less than one trip to Starbucks a month – and if you’re anything like me, you’re at Starbucks more than that!
Then you can sign up for my Free 5 Day Website Challenge at www.shannonmattern.com/5day and I’ll show you step by step how to get started building your new website for your side hustle.
