Category: Direction Matters

It’s common for people in today’s world to have a side hustle—something they’re building, creating, or doing after their 9-5 regular job because they love it or to earn some extra income.

And with the internet and social media… there’s essential zero barrier for entry. All you need is an idea and a willingness to follow and act on your curiosities.

One thing to keep in mind, especially if you’re side-hustling for extra income, is to make sure the person you’re serving—above all others—is yourself.

People who side hustle via trends, get rich quick schemes, or domains they’re not really interested in… are the ones who not only flop… but waste a bunch of their time in the process… time they could’ve spend doing things that actually served them.

What I’m talking about is the artist/painter who paints because they love it… because it relaxes their mind and soul… because it’s an expression of who they are and adds to the legacy of their life… who THEN decides to share their creations with others and turn it into a side hustle. As opposed to the person who never like art who saw somebody else killing it online and decided to copy them.

Or the writer, like me, who writes daily because it’s one of the best things I ever started doing for my mental health… who THEN decides to create guides, posters, and coaching. As opposed to the person who never really liked to write… who saw that you can make a bunch of money ghost writing and took a class or two about it online.

If you’d do it for free… it’s a good sign you’re in alignment.

…And it’s also a good sign you can start side-hustling with it.

The relationship you have today will not be the relationship you have tomorrow.

Not with your spouse, your girlfriend/boyfriend, your parents, your siblings, or yourself.

Relationships change as quickly as your social media feed.

And like your social media feed… what direction your feed goes depends entirely on how you interact with your feed today.

…Not in how you intend to interact with your feed or how you plan to, hope to, or want to interact with your feed… but in how you actually interact with it.

Invest in better content, connect with better people, better utilize block/mute/unfollow… grow. Do the opposite… regress.

Invest in better experiences with people, take more initiative in surrounding yourself with better influences, better enforce your boundaries and prioritize your mental health… grow. Do the opposite… regress.

Nothing ever stays the same. Remember this as you’re deciding how you want to actually act today.

Looking back, it’s easy to trace the trunk up the branches and through the endless splits to find how you got to where you are today.

Looking forward, it’s hard to know which split will take you precisely to where you want to end up tomorrow.

One thing is for sure though… knowing where you want to end up—as precisely as possible—is an excellent place to start.

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P.s. Here’s the picture that inspired this post.

You probably won’t ever realize how many opportunities there are in the world, until you define what type of opportunities you most want to realize.

To define is to put on your radar. And to recalibrate your radar is to get alerted to what you didn’t see before.

To define is to give shape to. And to shape the world is to more easily identify what shapes fit into your mold.

To define is to manifest. And not in any kind of passive way. In the way that alerts you to when the shape that fits your mold comes onto your radar so that you can channel the courage required to act in proportion to what each opportunity requires.

…Did you catch that?

You have to know exactly what you want (and not what the world wants for you)… so you can actually see all that’s there… so you can finally act with initiative and courage and with a deliberateness that was never there before.

Until then… you can keep on daydreaming and sleepwalking.

I started 2024 with a brainstormed list of five things I wanted to start prioritizing and said, “Pick one thing to focus 100% of your energy on. None of it ever works out to be as easy as it seems in your mind. Try to do too much and you’ll fail at it all. Get an A+ in one and you’ll be well on your way to properly conquering them all.”

So, naturally, I picked three things and made them my 2024 goals.

And, lo and behold, I didn’t accomplish any of them.

Who would’ve thought that picking one goal and focusing 100% of my energy on it would’ve been a better strategy?

…This is what I mean when I say I write these blogs for me more than any one else. 🤦🏻‍♂️

Anyways… what’s interesting is that in the second half of the year, I felt a noticeable pull towards creating a poster store and expanding the MoveMe Quotes shop into something more intriguing—which was one of my brainstormed ideas at the outset.

And what’s crazy is I can remember having this same pull towards building a poster store when I was picking from that original brainstormed list! …But, instead of listen, I told myself that new 30-day guides and video courses would be a more powerful value add to my audience and ignored it.

And lo and behold… here I am.

…Concluding 2024 with none of the three original goals accomplished and a poster store and expanded MMQ shop created.

A reminder to you (but, mostly me)… to listen more closely to the whispers of your inner guidance.

Fighting and suppressing its insight only ever delays the inevitable.