Now that I’m running my own business alongside my other job, it was only a matter of time before I was asked if it was my ‘side hustle’. And I wasn’t surprised that I rejected the term and went looking for an alternative.
It isn’t an aversion to the concept in totality; it just doesn’t feel right for what I’m creating in this season of my life. I completely get why, in difficult financial times, looking for additional income streams makes sense, and I love a creative outlet.
I, like many neurosparkly individuals, have a hobby graveyard. Cycles of a few months of intense creative productivity that led to creating so much of a product that people say, “That could be your side hustle.”
I have painted canvases, made floral hair accessories, clay jewellery, beaded jewellery, written a novel, and probably more that I have forgotten.
However, once I consider a production line of orders and external demands on what I have to make, the creative drive evaporates, and that project is buried.
Then there is the ‘hustle’. Decades of chronic fatigue mean that while my brain often functions on the fast setting, my body demands that we go slow. I can have enormous enthusiasm for an idea without having unlimited capacity to turn that enthusiasm into output.
So what is different about what I’m doing now, and why is it working?
Everything about this new endeavour is driven by sustainability, for myself and for other practitioners. Instead of adding on top of, I deliberately dropped capacity in one area to free up space for this to grow.
And that is exactly what supervision is: a place to come and stop, to breathe, to reflect and to grow. A pit stop on the hustle race track. Especially in an environment where social service practitioners and leaders are being asked to do more with less. Without a stop, we risk an explosion.
A dramatic metaphor, but given the rates of burnout among those in helping professions and my own experiences, it feels valid.
Less hustle, more intentional slowing down.
Less hustle, more rhythm.
Less squeezing more out of myself, more building something that fits.
I’m drawn to the term ‘gentle enterprise’ as it recognises the speed I’m moving at and gives the endeavour scope to grow and evolve.
