Five Side Hustles for Therapists and How to get Started Today
A big question that seems to come up often for therapists is, “what else can I do as a therapist aside from therapy?” Here is my response, SO MUCH! When you are experiencing major fatigue in your career it's hard to think about what else can be done. I'm here to explain what you can do, and how you can get started! And the best part of this post is... I will not be including anything about coaching.
Why add additional revenue streams?
Diversifying income allows you to fatten your wallets without losing a source of income. This also allows you to reduce areas that are causing you stress once revenue starts flowing in. More than half of self-made millionaires have several streams of income. This includes, investments, earned income, rental income, capital gains, profits, and interest. Many therapist have some of these checked off but can always expand to more.
The delightful clinician brand focuses on income gained through earned income and profits, however, other additional revenue should be considered as well for a well rounded portfolio.
How do Additional Side Hustles Help With Burnout?
Part of the reason why therapist stay in positions they are unhappy with is because it is their primary source of income. Typically, this is the only way they know how to bring in that income despite knowledge and skills that can be applied to other places. Often times this same knowledge and skills and amplify a therapist’s financial wellbeing. Having additional side hustles may take up some time initially, but when profitable, it came help you with the following:
Reducing your caseload
Having additional funds to go around
Increased self-esteem and self-worth
Reignites passion and motivation in the field.
Five side hustles you can start today
Whenever therapists ask this question, they often get back one particular hustle first, coaching. This is because coaches appears to be relatively adjacent to the field. It makes complete sense, but can take some work to start up and get comfortable with. This list is going to focus on hustles outside of coaching. These can also be great combinations or packages to add to your coaching packages.
Write a Book or a Journal
Therapists gain a lot of knowledge during the course of becoming a therapist and actually practicing. If you have a niche subject that you have a particular expertise in, book writing can be very beneficial to your practice and lucrative.
Many clinicians don’t know, you don’t have to have a publisher to write and put out a book. You can actually self-publish through Amazon Kindle Direct Publish. This is the same with journal writing as well. If you have a certain technique or have developed a particular expertise in a subject booking is for you.
Create a Mini Course
Digital products is a growing field and there are SO MANY subjects that courses can cover. If you have a particular intervention for certain outcomes you can create a mini-course for your audience. Mini-courses are shorter courses that include three to five sections that help someone achieve a particular outcome by the end of the course. Many people use them as a way to funnel into a bigger project.
Mini-courses would be great introductions to a subject or a good way to teach maintenance items. Example, a mini-course that teaches 4 grounding skills, or a mini-course that teaches you how to write an authentic dating profile. This could be great for those who want to learn more about your style and how you operate as a clinician.
It’s also a good way to utilize clinical skills and knowledge, that isn’t always covered by insurance. Sometimes people enter therapy for life maintenance and discovery that does always equate to a diagnosis.
Create a Card Deck
This is one of my favorite forms of side hustles. Creating a card deck can be rather easy. When I did this years ago, I utilized Moo print to create a square card deck that was handheld. My deck was about affirmations. You can cater this specifically towards your audience. Many people are into items that are quick and private.
Examples for a card deck can be, conversation cards, gratitude cards, coping skill cards, or even card games.
Create a intervention kit
Do you talk about and utilize specific interventions (that you’ve created) with your clients often? If you do, you can create a physical product based off your intervention. Imagine if you were someone who taught about utilizing gratitude. You could create gratitude kits for your buyers to utilize to build their own gratitude practice/ kit. For art therapists you could create therapy art kits. Even self-care kits can be a great product.
To create a kit, I would focus on small items that can be easily shipped and purchased. You want things that can be easily utilized by buyers as well.
Create Interventions for Other Therapists
Have you heard of "teacherpayteachers" its a market place where teachers sell their lesson plans to other teachers. Imagine if therapists started selling their unique interventions to others therapists. IF you provide psychoeducation around CBT that helps clients implement and practice it, you can create worksheet and lessons for this. If your note taking process is concise and replicable, then, sell the format! One teacher who goes by Millennialindebt on instagram paid off over 100k in student loans in 5 years, with the assistance of selling her lesson plans.
Where to Get started in Finding Revenue Streams
So, you’re interested in creating your own side hustle but you’re not sure how to get started. The first thing you want to do, is make sure that the hustle you’ve chosen is right for you. Many times therapists get stuck in the idea of “I can do it so should.” Does this hustle work for the time, funds, and effort you want to put. The great thing about these hustles is that they truly do not take a lot of overhead. On your end however, you will have to think about marketing, funnels, and the platforms you’ll add these products to.
I’ve made it easier for you to figure out which revenue stream is right for you. Click this link to take the quiz. Afterwards you will be signed up for my email newsletter which I talk about how to successfully diversify your income streams as a clinician and so much more!
Your Side Hustle Doesn’t Have to be Coaching
Your side hustle doesn’t have to be coaching at all! There are so many thing you can do and I am here to help you! Be sure to sign up for my email newsletter. If you’re ready to work together, check out my work with me page to see the various ways we can get started!
