COVID has decimated academic hiring and everybody, including the tenured, need to start prioritizing a side hustle asap. The trouble is, academics don’t go into academia to be do quick pivots and improvisational career thinking–academia is a linear path that is predicated on predictability. So it’s hard. First thing: know that you are ok, even in the face of the overwhelming message of the academy that: “you are not ok without us.” Centering yourself, remembering all the things you actually do know and can do, and extracting yourself from academic shame cycles, will allow you to take the critical first steps in imagining an income stream (and it doesn’t have to be a weighty “career” just yet!) outside the academy.