How to find your perfect fit creative side hustle

Caitlin: Being a health professional means spending years and years at uni. Right? after completing those years of a highly, highly structured program, we go into a job where there's also high, high structure.

There's guidelines, protocols, responsibility, everything is mapped out. Even there's rules about how we interact with people. But for some of us, at a point, there's a quiet thought that creeps in. which might be, I wanna do something else. And maybe right after that there's an equally, big thought, which is, what would I even do?

And that's exactly what I wanna talk to you about today. How to figure out what to do, if you're thinking about starting a nonclinical creative business. this episode's for healthcare professionals who maybe have, thinking about scaling down their clinical work, but they're a little bit stuck about what to do next.

Hello, hello. Welcome to the place for offbeat health professionals who have bravely swapped their healthcare hats for nonclinical creative caps. I'm Caitlin, a psychologist, turn copywriter, and this is healers with hustles.

Hi healers. So if you are in a structured, I should say quote unquote, proper job right now, and maybe you've had even faintest whisper that you wanna try something different, but every time your brain entertains the idea, your brain maybe shut it down. I feel it can be quite normal. Because it kind of makes sense that it's so totally outside of the realms of what you're trained in or even what the, what the culture or the zeitgeist of where you work is particularly of being really out of line for everything that we've trained for.

And so that's why before I even think about like how to decide what. To do that's outside of clinical work. We probably need to name maybe one of the biggest blocks that people have and that is one of identity.

So we've all been, shaped by like a system that really teaches us how to think and how to exist, and maybe even like

Part of our identity is our title, right? What we call ourselves. Because everybody knows what a psychologist is, A dietician is what a, a physiotherapist is. And once we step outside of that, it's like, oh my gosh, how, what do I say? How do I introduce myself? Or what do I, what do I call myself? Or

for me, it was like. I'm gonna introduce myself by something that I don't need to study like a copywriter. You don't need to do a degree or anything like that. And so that was that. That was a safety in calling myself a psychologist. I'm still a psychologist, but there's a safety in defaulting to that.

And second to that,

people often think you don't necessarily need to be burnt out to wanna do something that's nonclinical work. Like I think there's often a, a stereotype of people being super burnt out and so they need something else that's not clinical work But I don't know if that's necessarily true.

I think for a lot of people it is. They are super burnt out, but for some it's just like a lack of something. Like something's missing. They don't have a sense of joy. Maybe some of the symptoms are similar to burnout, but it's not really burnout.

It's that you're maybe so depleted from doing something that you enjoy that it feels like burnout. And I think maybe that was a little bit in there for me particularly. I remember this one stage when I was doing like just full-time psychology work, and I felt so burnt out. Like emotionally exhausted.

Like cynical, like I. All the tick boxes for burnout. Then I went on a massive holiday. I think I had a month off or something like that, and it was amazing and I felt like myself. But then as soon as I stepped back into my clinical work, everything came back. And so that made me really think, well, I dunno if it is burnout.

I think there's something more to the story. And that's when I really allowed myself to explore this copywriting, this copywriting thing. And then now I find that copywriting gives me something. So I don't have that. Those burnout symptoms, that feeling like there's something missing because, but copywriting helps me creatively.

It fills my cup that way.

And so I think that's also why it's really important when we start thinking about this, We really need to be gentle with ourselves because there's a lot going on here. It's like quite a complex thing. It's not an easy like, oh, just do it this or just do that, or stop doing this or don't do that.

There's a lot to it and so that's why I really need to have self-compassion for ourselves, be gentle with ourselves.

Maybe just starting, starting off with noticing, that's always a good place to start is with awareness. But alas

if you're at the stage where you're thinking, yes, I definitely wanna do something, but I don't exactly know what, I have a sneaky suspicion there is something, but maybe you don't, you haven't. Felt safe or allowed to listen to what that something is. Maybe there's been like a little niggling thought or a, a feeling or something that you're drawn to or something that you daydream about because our fantasies tell us so much about our desires.

Our daydreams tell us so much about what we wanna do. So I, I think if you are even remotely curious in my podcast, even there's something there. Maybe it's not totally clear yet what that is that you want to do, and that's okay as well. It might take time, but I thought I'd give you a few questions about, to reflect on, about, maybe that might help you start thinking about what potentially your nonclinical creative business could be.

And these are all based on, ikigai,

So it's like a Japanese concept that is about like your reason of being. It's about finding something that really brings you joy and purpose and meaning, and it basically, what your iki guy is at the intersection of. What you love, like what really lights you up and you find joy, it what you're, you're good at.

You're naturally good at what people need. So like, what the world needs. And then also, of course, capitalist society, what you can be paid for. but it's important, right? Like if you wanna have a business, if you wanna make money, it's an important part of that, diagram.

Some questions about. what do you love? What do you find yourself losing time over? So getting into a sense of flow.

What would you do just for the joy of it and what do you find a sense of fulfillment.

And these things might be not necessarily hard skills, so like, writing or.

what are you good at? So what do you instinctively understand or find really easy that others might. Really struggle with

what skills do you have? And they might be soft skills or they might be hard skills. So soft skills are more things like, people skills or.

explaining things in plain English or managing groups or navigating conflict or something like that. whereas a hard skill is maybe writing or something that you need, something that's teachable, that can be really easy to demonstrate.

So you could just brainstorm a list of things and maybe even, things really seem relevant. just really, I was gonna say freestyle, but that's not the right word. But just Yeah, go for it. Write down random things. 'cause sometimes do have an association with something that you write down, and that's pretty cool.

A apology.

And then of course, like what do people need or want? So maybe like what do people often complain about or get overwhelmed about the way you could help What else is out there in the world? what are other people doing in terms of is there a need for what you're doing?

Maybe even thinking about like what kind of help or insight do you wish someone had offered or been able to offer you five years ago? So that points to a need that someone has, right? And then of course, what you can be paid for. So is there a demand for what you, what you could offer? And that might be one that you can leave for a little while until you've really allowed yourself to, think about those other components.

Because maybe if you have the pressure of something you can be paid for, it might, it might block you. If you feel that, that's too much pressure at the moment. And of course you don't have to have answers to all these now you don't have to pick something either.

But it might be like an idea about thinking about what potentially you are good at, what the world needs, and what you really, really love. Maybe even just thinking about that might kickstart something I think that's worth a paying attention to. Right. And of course like when you are, when you do have an idea there and you don't have to all of a sudden have like a five year business plan and like hire, hire someone to help you out, you can take little baby steps to work out if it's something you actually wanna do.

So for instance, you can just start off doing something just for fun and don't tie, like I said before, don't tie any of many money to it. It might just be, for instance, like, like many years ago I started making baby. play mats for my friends who had kids or family friends who had kids. And that was like so much fun and people loved them.

And it was like people were telling me I should have started a business 'cause it was so good and blah, blah blah. And it was something that I found really easy, but I enjoyed it. And so I guess I had a lot of ikigai components, but it just wasn't something that, I quite liked it, but I didn't like it enough.

Right. But it was a good idea for me to test it out. Because then I, that gave me a lot of information about like, I enjoy doing it, but then like the pressure of getting paid for it and like having a whole business, that would would've just taken away the enjoyment out of it. And then, yeah, it wouldn't have been great.

So you can always just start off with a creative project and then maybe you can even, I. Do something that's really low commitment, like selling something on Etsy where you don't have to really pay. I think they just take a percentage. If you do sell something, selling things on, not Gumtree, but what's it called?

Gum Road. You can sell products on there and you only get charged if you sell something. So like thinking about ways that you can do it, that's quite a low cost for you.

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Caitlin: But then also think about how you could productize your own knowledge. And of course, yes, there's no such thing as passive income, but thinking of ways that you could, yeah, I don't know. It doesn't have to be a course, but it might be making a PDF or resources or things like that. So taking what you already know and then making that a digital product.

then of course, like if there is something, yes, I really, really, really wanna do this. and I'm just itching to. Get out there, I would recommend getting supports like a, a trusted business coach or someone, a mentor or something like that to really help you, with the logistics of things because it's really scary doing something.

So that's so totally outside the box. It's amazing. It's so incredible. It's, uh, so, rewarding, but it's also scary. And I definitely recommend having support as you build your creative dreams. So that's why I wanna say like, you don't need to have like a big plan or anything like that.

I've never done up a business plan. I've just kind of just been winging it as I go, but that's also very true to my personality. So I think whatever you do needs to be true to you and how you do it, like there's no right or wrong way to do anything in business, and that's why I think it's really important to have the support that you need.

but if you have any questions about any of this or you wanna run anything by me, please. My dms are always open, but otherwise, I thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.

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