Avoid Burnout On Your Side Hustle
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Has your hobby started feeling more like a job and less like the fun hobby you anticipated? We are here to talk about that today—how to find a hobby and not experience total burnout. Hobbies should be fun! This is my hobby. I want you to find a hobby that you too will love and want to wake up every day doing it and potentially can make money from. I believe any hobby can be turned into a profitable endeavor!
My journey to finding a hobby I didn’t burnout on.
I've had a lot of wanna be businesses starting from when I was in college. A girlfriend and I started a shop called Bows & Whistles because back in the day when I was in college, hair bows were all the rage in SoCal. We would make and sell these on Etsy. We would get orders all across the country and it was really cool. We made a couple thousand dollars making hair bows.
But at the end of the day, once we graduated college, the business crumbled because who's passionate about hair bows? Not me. Maybe if I were Jojo Siwa. Bows are her passion and it works. But hand making thousands hundreds of thousands of bows was not very fun and it wasn't sustainable. So that fizzled out.
My next business was called Fieldnotes from Catie and that was my lifestyle blog. I was super into following Cup of Jo, a mommy blogger. She's amazing I love following her life and her story and that is something I wanted to emulate, but more of my life. Obviously I'm not married, I don't have cute kids, but I thought okay, lifestyle. I liked crafting so I would make little crafty things and write DIY posts and put them on my blog.
As a side business of that I also started Fieldnotes from Catie Etsy shop. I would sell jewelry branch tree holders, which were super cute, whale pillows, and cloud pillows. I also really liked vlogging at the time and I would make little vlogs about day in the life or a little fieldtrips around LA. Fieldnotes, fieldtrip—it was this whole little vibe/aesthetic. I’d write my random musings.
That was really fun, but also I wasn't extremely extremely passionate about it I would say. I didn't feel I had enough going on in my life. It was always a constant game of what I do, what do I do, what do I do? Where can we go? Where can I get content? I look back on those memories and at that blog fondly, but again I wasn't super stoked on it.
I was doing it because I liked what Cup of Jo did, so I would copy it. And copying somebody is great for inspiration, but it's not sustainable if you're not coming up with your own unique content and own ideas. So again, that fizzled out.
Finally my last “business” was a podcast called Swipe Right, that I started with a couple of girlfriends in LA. We were all single at the time and it was the boom (I mean it's still booming), but at the dawn of modern dating. Aziz Ansari's book, Modern Romance, had come out. We read it as a book club together and then it inspired me to start a podcast. I got all my girlfriends, there were 4 of us, who were single to start a podcast.
It was fun to talk about dating in LA as young millennial women. We ended up having a pretty solid listenership—a couple hundred. That isn't crazy, but it was a pretty consistent following after a while. We would talk about catfishing and hatfishing, when bald guys hide their baldness with hats, and all these trendy dating terms of the time, ghosting, etc.
As people moved away and got boyfriends, things fizzled out until there was nothing. I'm still really passionate about talking about dating and love and being really open about that, but it wasn't really sustainable. In the end it was me and I didn't want to keep having to do it on my own.
Then finally in 2019, I started trying to be more sustainable. That is how I fell into personal finance and this is what has stuck. To this day, I am still talking about money. I'm still obsessed with getting people to talk openly and be more comfortable talking about money and turning people onto the idea of financial independence and retiring early.
This is truly what has stuck. I look back and I've been doing this for almost two years now. I've never ever, ever been so consistent with anything. So here are some of the key things that have led to me being able to be so consistent and find success making money in this hobby which I love.
1. Treat it like a hobby you wouldn’t make money from
I truly treat this as a hobby. I never had any intention of making any money from this at all. It wasn't like when I started my Etsy shop with the intention of making a couple thousand selling hair bows or hundreds selling jewelry holders. No. This has always been a hobby to share my own journey, my learnings, and talk about money with other people who like talking about money too.
I make a small amount of money from Millennial Money Honey now, but it was never my goal. I think it’s important to go in with that approach. What do you like to talk about? What do you find yourself bringing up in conversations with your friends naturally, whether it’s your love life, talking about turtles, fish, anything! If nobody paid you to do it, what would you do or what would you talk about? It's okay to draw inspiration from other people, but at the end of the day you have to think this is what I enjoy doing and nobody's paying me to do it. That's where you need to start!
2. Don’t spend (a lot of) money until you know you’ll stick with it
I tried out a lot of things and a lot of things that didn't stick, not until Millennial Money Honey. However, I didn't spend that much money to test them out. Starting a podcast cost me nothing. We used our iPhone to record voice memos, I would edit it in Garageband, and then I would host it on Spotify. Spotify was free until we did it consistently enough, then we paid for Spotify Premium. It wasn't until we after we had pushed it out consistently, then it was worth our money to invest some money it. That bill was split across four people, so still relatively low.
For my bow shop, bow material is really cheap. Ribbon and clips are inexpensive and then listing fees on Etsy were a couple cents. (Get 40 Etsy listings free if you want to start your own shop!) Then my lifestyle blog I hosted on Blogspot, which is free. It wasn't any skin off my back to try these out!
Now that I found Millennial Money Honey, I've been really consistent so I've invested $200 dollars into my Squarespace site. It’s still a relatively low investment. I didn’t have a blog for the longest time because I was scared I wouldn’t keep this up. Now that I have been consistent, I'm willing to spend more money now.
3. Start small (like micro!!!) and Don’t Over commit
The platform I started on was Instagram because that was what was popular at the time. It's really quick, although maybe Twitter is even quicker since it’s text only, but I'm such a visual person.
I started talking about money with my 900 friends who followed me at the time. I didn’t go in with the intention of I'm going to be a creator. It was extremely organic for me and that has been the staple of my growth. I've never done any paid ads, although maybe it would help and maybe I could be getting more followers if I paid. To me, those are vanity metrics and not necessarily something that you should find validation from.
Instagram is where I started and what's nice about Instagram is it's a micro blog. I didn't have a blog for the longest time in tandem with my Instagram. I only had my Instagram where I was talking about 401ks one little post at a time. I told myself to do 3 posts a week, but don't overthink it. Full send! I would take a picture, type the caption, and send it. I try not to plan things out too far in advance because otherwise it feels like work. The key to finding a hobby that you stick with is not thinking you have to do it, instead find something where you have the mentality of being inspired to share. It shouldn’t be too, too time consuming.
So I started with Instagram, but I think TikTok is another really cool platform. I’d consider starting there these days if you like the creativity of Instagram. It allows a lot of creativity, is micro content (<60 seconds), but more video focused. I started one recently, but I don't spend too much time on it. Things that happen to be on my mind that day or YouTube videos I’m launching will inspire the micro-content of TikTok. I think that's really key—not stretching yourself to do big things or having grandiose ideas that you aren't able to accomplish. It's about staying itty bitty. It should be an enjoyable moment of your day!
I think the key is not long form blogging; it’s about micro-blogging. I've moved into YouTube now because I know I love creating content and putting together videos. I think there is an element that's missing from the YouTube space of personal finance and lifestyle. I'm still trying to figure out my voice and style without it being too overwhelming. I set myself up with a high goal of putting out a YouTube video a week. Sometimes I think, I don't know if I should do YT because I get more stressed. When things stress me out, I'm very protective of myself and my time. I don't want to ever have to look at this it's a job and I have to do it. There will be moments when I think, would I really rather be doing this? If I stop enjoying it I cut that out.
4. Find a community to engage with and support you
Something that was key for me starting Instagram, is the naturally built-in community. If you're starting a blog or a podcast, I think it's a bit harder to network naturally. It's hard for your blog to be suddenly discoverable even if you're promoting pins on Pinterest and have good SEO. It's missing a social component in the way that TikTok, Twitter, Instagram have built in.
It's a lot easier to connect with people through those platforms. If you’re a jewelry maker, you can connect with other cool jewelry designers and you already have that built-in network, or at least an easily findable network. If you start only a blog, you have to drive traffic to it somehow. Focusing on the social media part was really key for me to being successful.
It’s not even about the likes and followers, but the people you talk to regularly who you end up becoming Instagram friends with. Those are the people that really keep you going when you're feeling low. They’ll check in on you like, “Oh I saw you did X, Y, Z! That's so cool, I love that piece of information that you shared.” Building in a social network truly keeps you going.
Podcasts are also hard to network unless you're self-promoting through other social media platforms or inviting guests on your blog who in turn are promoting you. It all goes back to social networking. It’s so key to find a community that enjoys and supports you and really keeps you going on your journey.
5. Be EXTREMELY efficient with your time and content
I take pride in my laziness/efficiency. If you didn't check out my post from last week about my passive-ish income streams, go check it out. Something that I do with my content, which is really key, is reusing the same stuff across multiple platforms.
For example I take my YouTube video, I film it and this is what you watch. Then once it’s uploaded to YouTube I take a transcript of the video and create a blog post using the exact words that I'm speaking in the video. My YouTube video created this blog post you’re reading! The thumbnail that I use for my YouTube video I add to the bottom of this blog post and pin it to Pinterest.
Since I'm already talking about the subject, which today it’s how to not burn out on your hobby and find one you're passionate about and can stick with, I have the content to make a short form piece or maybe even a few. I'll probably go film a TikTok/Reel after this and distill it down to the highlights. I'm able to use the same content and cross-promote on both platforms. The Reel can then be shared to my Instagram Stories. Finally, I will create an in-feed Instagram post that goes along with this and summarizes the video with an image and caption.
I' hit people with the same messaging over and over and over again. Even though it may be excessive to post that much on one topic, I’m doing it in a way that's visually different for each post. I'm able to reach people however they prefer to consume content. I'm also really hitting home the message. I think you can listen to something once, but it's not until you absorb the message over and over again that you’re actually hearing what I have to say.
Being smarter about working is how I am able to not burn out. If I spent 20 hours on each new piece and wasn't utilizing the content across everything then I’d burn out. I try to maximize all of my time and effort and that is really key.
In conclusion
Test things out, try it. You never know what you're going to like.
Be sure it's a low-cost investment at first until you’re positive you're going to be consistent with it.
Utilize all of your content across every platform. Be super duper efficient otherwise you will burn out if it takes too much time.
Building a community is a huge priority and something you should really focus on—finding cool people who inspire you and motivate you to do better and show up. Eventually you'll want to hang out with these people IRL.
Start really small and then scale, scale, scale. I don't think I would have been able to keep up with a YouTube channel if I started this first. It's a lot more work, but I love it and so here I am!
Don’t do it for the money. Money is a side effect of doing what you love.
If you have any tips for not burning out and finding a passion in your hobby, be sure to leave a comment below! If you want to get more videos/podcasts like this, be sure to like the video up top and subscribe to my channel using the button below. Hit the notification bell so you get notified when the next video drops. Let's retire early together!
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