It’s easy for most of us to get psychologically dependent on the companies, institutions and clients that pay our bills. But today, the economy changes very fast, and these relationships can end in an instant.
Thriving in the current economy requires diversification. The biggest career and financial mistake any of us can make is to depend too heavily on any one source of income.
There’s nothing wrong with being committed to your current employer or client list. But if you set aside just one or two hours a week this year to looking for ways to expand your income stream beyond your current sources, you’ll be able to create much better economic security in a very insecure environment.
How do you do this? In interviewing hundreds of successful professionals and entrepreneurs every year, I’ve noticed some common best practices.
If you’re in a traditional job, devote an hour or two each week to attending networking events, taking a class that sharpens your skills, keeping your LinkedIn profile up to date, reconnecting with past colleagues over coffee or even researching businesses you can pursue if your job doesn’t work out for some reason. “Homeschool” yourself in an area of work that you’d like to know more about, using free or low-cost online resources, such as Coursera. You don’t have to do the same thing every week, but make sure that you block out time on your calendar, so cultivating your career doesn’t get forgotten with your next deadline.
Do you run a business? Many of these activities will help you, too. You might also spend some time looking into expanding your business into one new geographic market, investigating one new way to sell your products or services or finding out how to market to one new set of customers–perhaps those in a different industry or demographic than your existing base. The Economy of You, a book by Kimberly Palmer, offers some good ideas for starting a side business, such as tapping online marketplaces to sell your skills and ideas.
The point is to make incremental, ongoing efforts to increase opportunities for yourself, so you never have to scale an overwhelming mountain of tasks like this if something changes in your career or business. Should a relationship with your employer or a client come to an end, you’ll just have to amplify what you’re already doing. And chances are, opportunities will come to you.
There’s one more thing you can do to put yourself in charge of your career in 2014. It is to save more money. It is hard to avoid consumerism in our culture. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Household Debt and Credit Report, released in the third quarter of 2013, showed that household debt is creeping up. It rose by $127 billion since the second quarter–the biggest jump since the first quarter of 2008. The recent rise was due to increases in mortgage balances, auto debt, student loan debt and credit card debt.
Break with the trend. Increase the amount of savings you deduct from your pay automatically and deposit in a savings account starting January 1. Make a commitment to avoid one situation where you have tended to blow your budget in the past.
Spending less will give you freedom–freedom to say no to toxic work environments, bad clients and projects you would rather not take on. At the same time, it will give you the liberty to say yes to new opportunities that require you to invest in yourself and make it possible for you to scale back a little on work if that’s a priority for you now. These are freedoms that many Americans don’t have at the moment, but with some small, steady efforts, they are well within reach.
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