Sidehustle

I started earning money online around 8 years ago. Back then I dipped my toe into everything and did various stuff. When I look back, I feel like everything was so mucher easier compared to now. It feels like everybody tries to make a dime online these days. Anyways, I ended up doing social media marketing on instagram which was a huge success for me. (Made 5-digits at the age of 20). After that I started doing e-commerce, onlineshops and dropshipping. I did also try youtube multiple times, which has never been the biggest success for me. (To be honest, it was always a dream of mine to run a successful youtube channel. I would put in all the effort, but I never came up with a creative idea, nor do I have any special qualifications) After those years where I almost hustled fulltime on the side, I had to focus a little bit more on university. Because of the pandemic in 2020 I finally started to look deeper into investing and I learned a lot in a few months. I totally love investing, but it's more of a "passive" thing. Because I want to grow my portfolio even more and I don't think that investing a part of the income is enough for me, I tried finding a new sidehustle since some time..

One of my biggest flaws in this "earning money online" journey (and personally) is, that I thought it would be possible to earn a passive income with sportsbetting. Even when I started at the age of 18, my goal was not to gamble, but to earn some money in a "professional" way and over the years I thought this would be possible. To be fair, I had some successful months, but in the end, greed burned away all the profits. Sportsbetting was my "hope" of making some money in the spare time when I had no other projects. It was always there, only some minutes away to make some $$$ and I had the knowledge. The bad part: it IS gambling. Nothing more and nothing less. Even if you do it professionally. In all honesty I still hope that I never started with it. Over those 8 years, I basically financed my "hope and vision to earn money in the long rum with sportsbetting" aka. ADDICTION, with all the money I earned in my sidehustles. Over those 8 years, I lost around 30.000€ with sportsbetting. And you know whats the worst part? I STILL think, that it's possible to earn some money if you do it right and I still come back to it, not neccessarily because I'm addicted, but more because there's the POTENTIAL and HOPE to earn money "INSTANTLY". (because it seems so easy)

I wanted to quit so many times. But it wasn't possible. It wasn't possible because I had no other choice, no alternative. When I have alot of freetime (because of the pandemic), I don't want to "waste" it by just watching series, playing videogames or whatsoever. What did I do in the past? It started betting and tried to earn some money "without" wasting my time, doing useless stuff. In the end, I lost money most of the time.
I want to quit betting for now and forever. Starting investing was the first really big step, because I'm not able to burn all my money. It's safe in the portfolio.

To be able to quit, I know that I need a new sidehustle, something that would keep me busy. Something I could spend some time and work on, whenever I have freetime and I want to make the best out of it.