Tomato Plants & Side Hustles
The Great Tension of Side Hustles
June has not gone as I planned.
It’s rough when things don’t go as planned. Especially, when you know they are good things and they can be helpful to your business and work.
But, sometimes, life changes things up. Sometimes, our physical and mental health can let us down.
And then, we are stuck. Or we are forced to slow down. And when that happens, it is easy to get down on ourselves, to feel like a failure, or even want to throw our hands up and quit altogether.
I had three main goals for June:
Publish my next book in my mini book series.
Publish my first piece of fiction.
Move the essential products to my Stan Store.
I shared these over on Substack Notes at the beginning of the month. I also started a little writing challenge on Medium.
So far, I haven’t accomplished the first two on my list. And I have gotten part way on the third one, which it should be completed this month, but it has taken much longer than I thought.
But, because this month has been difficult with work, travel, and getting closer to my son being born, I have had other things to take care of and writing and online business have fallen to the wayside.
And at first, that was hard for me…
But, I have learned something through this and wanted to share it with you this morning.
Side Hustling is a Series of Growth and Pruning
Last year, I learned a valuable lesson about growing tomato plants. Throughout the summer, you want to prune off the leaves and branches of the tomato plant that aren’t growing the produce.
You do this so the plant can create the best tomato it possibly can. Otherwise, it will send its nutrients out to the parts of the plant that aren’t producing any tomatoes. And the tomatoes won’t be very good.
A side hustle is like a tomato plant.
You can give it all the time, sunshine, and water you want. But, sometimes, you need to cut back the branches that aren’t producing very much fruit. Especially as things heat up.
May was a really good month for me. Things were going well, I had lots of time and energy, and I was able to grow some things with my writing business that I hadn’t been able to do.
But, June got hot with the things of life. And now, I am having to prune back the things that aren’t producing fruit so that the other aspects of my business can give really good fruit.
This is a valuable lesson for three reasons:
Your sanity. When life heats up and you try to act like it hasn’t, you run the risk of burnout. Which leads to a drop in everything you do and possibly quitting (my tomato plants three years ago when no pruning was happening).
Your products get bland. Have you ever eaten a bad tomato? It’s probably because the tomato plant was stretching out its resources. Same goes for a bad book or product. If you are stretching yourself too thin, then your content suffers.
All leaves and no fruit. Your blogging, social media, and email list are like leaves sometimes. We put a ton of effort into those things (posting everyday or more often then we can sustain), and we lose sight of the produce (books, digital products, etc). Our business becomes all leaves.
How to Prune Your Side Hustle Business
Now, I’m not saying you need to cut everything out to prune it. But, you might cut back a little bit in some areas and let other areas continue to grow. Here’s how you might do that:
Cut off some leaves. Maybe you don’t need to publish an article on Medium or Substack everyday. You could continue to post on Social Media or Notes, but why not repurpose the same post for each platform.
Cut back the tomatoes. Sometimes, tomatoes aren’t growing well or don’t look right. It’s okay to cut those off. Same goes with a product or service. If it’s not great, stop sharing it or turn it into things that grow your other products or services.
Water the right plants. Last year, we had some plants that for some reason weren’t growing any tomatoes. In this situation, I stopped watering them and focused on the others. Same goes for your business, sometimes some aspects aren’t doing anything. You don’t need to dig it up, but you can stop putting time into it.
When we learn to prune our side hustle business the right way, we can learn how to make the fruit of our labors so much better and serve our audiences much better.
Final Thoughts
If you feel like your side hustle is getting squeezed out by the other aspects of life, maybe it is time to start pruning.
Look for the ways to prune toward creating better books or products.
Don’t be afraid to let some sit idle for a while.
Allow yourself to breathe and your business to grow again.
My name is J.R. Heimbigner and I am a #1 Bestselling Author on Amazon with 20 self-published books. Learn more about The Minimalist Author HQ!
Also, this post may contain sales or affiliate links, so I might get a little kickback if you purchase anything. Thank you in advance!
Congrats on the imminent birth of the baby! Kids make other priorities fall in line.