If you’re in business, you may have heard the advice that you should cultivate “multiple streams of income.” Of course your business has a primary stream. Let’s say you sell a specific product. Additional streams of income might be related products, “spin-off” products, or even an unrelated business.
In addition to simply giving you more money, multiple streams of income provide you with resilience as the economy goes up and down. In my book business, I have seminars and advertising revenues in addition to the books. So, when book sales are down, seminars might be up. And when a seminar is canceled, the web orders keep flowing in.
Let’s look at rewards other than money.
After all, your life is filled with all kinds of ups and downs. When your work is not rewarding, or your family life is not rewarding, you still deserve a boost!
Ideally, when your work is challenging, you’ll get good news from the home front.
Or church.
Or the community.
Or a note from a friend to boost your spirits.
Maybe you’ll reach a goal in your workout routine.
Or find a card someone gave you a few years ago.
There are two components to creating Multiple Streams of Reward.
First, you need to cultivate the various roles you play in your life. You need to participate in your church, in your community (online or offline), and in your family.
It sounds obvious, but too many people only do one or two things. It is very common for people to only work or only go to school. But if you do that, you can’t expect an unexpected phone call. You won’t be asked to sit on a committee or join a group.
We all play several roles in our lives. And, to be honest, they’re not all “up” at the same time very often. Each is rewarding at times and challenging at other times. And that’s fine and normal.
But what gets us through the hard times?
The answer is fairly clear: The rewards from all the other areas of our lives help us get through the challenges.
So the first component is to actively participate in the various roles you play.
The second piece of this puzzle is to tune into the rewards streaming into your life. Recognize positive things when they happen — even if you’re in a bad mood. Just because someone’s mad at you over here doesn’t mean you should ignore a kind word over there.
Tune in. Be open to the little rewards wherever you find them.
This includes all the little successes (like finishing a project) as well as simply being aware of what’s going on in all the roles you play.
It helps a lot if you use a “positive filter” for the messages and events in your life. Make it your habit to try to put a positive spin on everything.
Give it a try. What have you got to lose?
🙂
