Boost your resilience by finding a side-hustle

Resilience is the capacity to be robust under conditions of hardship, change, and unpredictability.

It is the end product of a series of multifaceted strategies that help protect you against the #burnout, #stress, and debilitation that often accompany shocks like layoffs, economic downturns, and unplanned life changes.

One essential strategy is to create variability in your income. In other words, don't rely on just one source of income.

The rationale of this strategy is that a key characteristic of resilience is autonomy - the freedom to influence one's own destiny, and as such having access to money has a major impact to do this as it gives you more choices.

So, this is what to do:

1. Take out a piece of paper and write down the following question: What other potentially income-generating side hustles, activities, and pursuits could I pursue given my current competence, expertise, and skills?
   

2. Create what is called a "creative diamond" brainstorming list where you first practice divergent thinking and come up with a plethora of ideas, then apply convergent thinking where you start to make choices and widdle that list down to those that will work and those that won't.

Remember, taking steps to ensure that you have some sort of income variability is like fortifying yourself against an impending storm by reducing your vulnerabilities to unexpected shocks and life events.