You can start your *thing* on the side and create it to fit your current lifestyle and schedule — and, ideal lifestyle and schedule — no matter what your situation is today.

And by, “no matter what your situation is,” I mean you could have a job or not have a job, have a life or need to get a life (been there — worth getting), rich or poor or WHATEVER. You can have a fun thing, on the side.

And, by “thing” I mean something you do, in the world, to make money, that is not the primary way you either make money, or spend your time.

The actually doing of it is really, really fun — especially when your thing on the side morphs into that thing you do, in the world.

Here’s how you can start your thing on the side, today.

Step 1: So, what IS my thing, even?

The first step in starting your thing on the side is knowing what that thing might be.

Ask yourself, if money were not an issue, what would I do all day? And not just:

I’d pass the time by eating peanut butter and staying in bed, all day.

But something that makes you go, “Oooooo, yes!”

Or, even, “Hell yes!”

Would you…

• talk to my friends and interesting people?
• decorate my place?
• travel?
• shop?
• help people find work they love?
• write my blog?
• surf the web?
• explore foods and restaurants?
• learn how foods fuel me and create health?
• listen to music?
• read magazines?

Just jot down some things you love to do with your time and would do even if you didn’t need to earn a living.

Now… how could these things that you love be ALL. ONE. THING?!?!

I’m talking about combining the stuff you love to do together, so that it all adds up to YOU… that’s your thing.

Here are some ideas to help you on your way.

Case study #1: Let’s say you love exploring the internets, and also love interiors and decorating them.

Your thing on the side could be a website and blog devoted to the latest trends and ideas for interior design. You get online, check out Apartment Therapy and other design blogs on a regular basis.

You can be the cumulative source for interior design for people that think like you (on a budget? prefer eclectic finds? like to keep things simple, but not boring?).

Case study #2: You would spend your time traveling and meeting interesting people.

You can combine these two interests by learning loads about a city you’ve never even been to, and highlighting some of the people who make that place so special.

Featuring Belfast, Ireland and the pubs of the city would be fascinating, and you could Skype some of the most interesting pub owners and post the interviews as you profile the city on a website or newsletter. You could take a weekend trip to Asheville, NC and post pictures of the cool people that you happened to run into.

Case study #3: You like helping people find a job or life they love, and yoga.

You could create a lifestyle yoga class where participants do a combination of yoga-ish body work and self-exploration to identify the job they’d love.

You could help them find the criteria for a job that makes them thrive and gives them time for self-care and self-work by connecting various principles of yoga (goundedness, foundation, expansion) to how those principles could show up for them in their career…

What kind of work makes them feel flexible (a variety of tasks? autonomy? flexible schedule)? What kind of work facilitates them in touch with themselves (creative? detail oriented? working with people?)?

Stay loose, and explore how these two, seemingly disparate things could be one, really awesome and unique thing. Once you have a vague idea of what thing you’d like to do, you can start thinking about how it could look…

If you can’t come up with anything, that is totally okay — you can still work on the next step, and that can help teach you what your thing might be.

Step 2: What does this look like in the world, in a way that suits me and works with my current life demands?

Here’s where you look at your natural preferences for work and life.  Think about how, in a perfect world, you’d like to live:

• love staying in my routine?
• love traveling constantly?
• like to keep interactions over email? (like, ewwww, people)
• need to have time with your family?
• important to have big, hairy challenges in your life?

Think about what kind of lifestyle you like to lead, and what you want to have time for. Just brainstorm, there is nothing that is impossible, at this point.

If coming up with what your ideal structure for this thing is (through identifying how you like to live life) is feeling difficult, which is completely normal, start by thinking: what do I definitely dislike doing, state what you definitely don’t want and then flip it to the positive.

Examples:

• I really hate being told what to do [becomes] I like working autonomously, maybe even for myself.
• I loathe the idea of parsing through a long, detailed document [becomes] I like working on the bigger picture, maybe with strategy and generating ideas rather than the detailed work of planning and execution.

Here are some moooooore case studies to show you what I’m talking about.

Case study #1: If you love keeping a routine…

Your thing is something that you can slip into your life on a regular basis.

• You could have a class or weekly meeting around your thing that happens at the same time, each week.
• You could have a blog that you post to 3 mornings, each week, before work.
• You could conduct interviews, the first Saturday of each month.
• You could take pictures on the way to work, and find the beautiful in the ordinary.

Case study #2: If you like always having a challenge…

You may want to create a business that is more goal-orientated, with shorter projects that start and have an ending point.

• creating classes that start and end, like workshops, instead of ongoing groups that continue indefinitely like online forums or weekly classes.
• posting to a blog, which you write and then hit publish — and then, you’re done — instead of sending out weekly mailings or e-zines.
• working with people towards a specific goal, instead of ongoing support.

Case Study #3: If you want to travel constantly…

You can either build your thing around travel, or a build a thing that permits you to travel.

• Create a business that is location independent — meaning, you conduct your thing virtually, over the internet and the phone, so you can be traveling anywhere.
• Create your thing around travel doing stuff for locals at different destinations (clean-up projects, small music festivals) that would take you there.
• Or, create your thing around travel and everyone else travels to the destination, too (yoga or writing retreats, food tour in Italy, wine tour in Napa, organic farming education in Oregon)

Write down some of your lifestyle preferences, and the things you hate about your lifestyle now (and then, flip them) to begin finding what the structure of your thing might look like.

THE POINT: I’m not positive that this step is crystal clear, so I’ll tell you the point of finding your preferences — your idea for your thing might not work. But! Another formulation will.

For example, read the above case studies.  For another example, just read this: If you hate manual labor and working nights, don’t become a restaurant chef… but if you love food and eating, which is why you thought you could  moonlight as a restaurant chef, why not start a food blog? Or, a food porn blog? Or, a food cart on the weekends?

Step 3: So, how to I actually start, like, doing my thing?

The best way to start doing your thing is by ripping other people off… or, more politely put, talk to people who’ve done something similar, find out what steps they took, and you do those steps, too.

There is someone out there that is doing something remotely like what your thing might be.

Let’s say you like reading magazines and playing with your dog. You want to create a dog-azine that is much better than Dog Fancy (no offense… I find it kind of weird) and you want to start building your readers online…

I just now googled that, and I got a website that is a cool magazine on dog stuff. Email that person! There could be juicy advices about getting started and what works/doesn’t work for topics and tactics.

Google whatever you feel like is your random idea, and just see what comes up, and email people. It’s surprising how much people love to help out other people interested in something they are passionate about.

You are always no more than two people away from an expert in that thing you love to do. Ask your friends if they know any travel writers, or if they are friends with any young-ish people who own a cool, successful local restaurant.  Take that person to lunch (or drinks or to the driving range… anything to pick their brain, hear why they are successful and like what they do).

Step 4: Do your thing for free and get feedback.

You have some next steps, so it’s time to test it out.

Email a group of your friends that you think might be interested, say you’re playing with the idea of starting a thing, and that you want to test it out on them. They get something for free, and you get to see what works, and what doesn’t.

And, then, ask them if they would pay you to do this (and, how much).

Get as much feedback as possible. This is a harder one to do case studies on, because your thing, your people and your structure could be a LOT of different combinations of stuff, but I’ll give you one example, for starters.

Let’s say you want to do the yoga-find the right job thing. You email people in your yoga class and people you know that don’t like their jobs, and half of them are interested.

You create a class and find a space (community centers, your living room) to meet in. You do your thing (keep it under an hour, people get bored) and then give them little sheets with THREE questions (more than that and you don’t get good feedback) that they fill out ANONYMOUSLY.

Ask them any 3 questions that feel best to you, like:

• what did you like most and why?
• what did you like least and why?
• do you wish that there were party favors/notebooks/workbooks — something tangible to follow along with?
• would you pay for this — and how much?

Tailor the questions to your thing.  Any feedback you get is hugely helpful.

NOW — here’s the good part — these people can forever be part of your referral network.

Email them a thank you, announce that you’re doing a thing, again, and they can come free, AND if they refer someone, they make half of the dough.

So, free help and they make money: they will definitely refer people to you (unless the trial went super badly, which is not criminal and okay to have happen… you will learn more from that, anyway).

You have a template and some trial and error, some feedback and a group of people who will help you. AMAZING.

BONUS Step 5: Reflection: did you even LIKE doing your thing?

Sometimes, we try stuff that we think we will like, and… we don’t. It happens. Be clear about what you liked, and what you really didn’t enjoy doing, whether or not it worked very well (I liked putting cheese in my shoes, but the running-with-eyes-closed exercise was a total bust… literally).

This can be the hardest part. Rarely, if ever, will I try something for the first time and like it, through and through. That’s because the idea and the doing are two different, though related, animals.

Being willing to let go and reformulate can be tough, but really only the first time you reformulate.  Naomi used to just write copy… look at her now. She reformulated and made bank, has fun and loves what she does.

But, these 5 steps are how I figured out what I do now.

And, it worked for me. It’s definitely worth a shot for you, too. Once you start playing with having a thing, it’s exciting and scary and you’ll really never let it go.

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