Money. It’s something that we think about. Some of us think about it too often, but we all think about it one way or the other. Many people aspire to earn full-time incomes and have financial independence.
Sure enough, not everyone earns a full-time income. And not all of the people who make a full-time income do so with a smile. Making a full-time income by doing what you love to do involves putting in the work. However, there are common pitfalls that prevent most people from making enough money. Here are the big five:
#1: They Only Want The Money For The Sake Of Having It
Don’t think about having money for the sake of having money. Instead, think of what the money you are after would give you. Think about the financial independence, the ability to buy more things, and the ability to use your money to make the world a better place.
Most people don’t establish a strong WHY for making the money. Making money for the sake of making it isn’t good enough. Financial independence is a start, but you can dig deeper. What would financial independence allow you to do that you can’t do now?
The deeper you go, the more fuel you will add to the fire. Soon enough, you will approach your work with more motivation than before.
#2: Money Is At The Forefront Of Everything
The moment you put money at the forefront of everything else is the moment you don’t get as much of it. Some people in the desperate scramble to make revenue may create subpar products and charge high prices for them. They want the money immediately, so quantity and high prices seem like the logical option—at least on the surface.
Providing value is more important than having a quantity of products. Building the relationship between you and your customers in which you focus on helping the customer is more valuable than building the relationship just for the sake of making money.
If you only engage with your audience to get their dollar bills, then they will catch on. If you engage with your audience because you actually care for them, then the people in your audience will be more likely to buy your products.
#3: Doubt
It is too common for people who aren’t making money to doubt themselves. They blame their lack of expertise and/or certain circumstances that prevent them from making money. Blaming in this regard results in you staying in the pit of despair for a longer period of time.
Doubting yourself will hinder your progress and keep you in that pit longer. The only way to get out of that pit is by climbing out of it. Just ask The Dark Knight.
#4: They Aren’t Putting In The Right Work
Whether willing or unwilling, the people who don’t make enough money often are not putting in enough productive work. We are good at putting in work, but productive work is a different story.
Most people like to believe that all work is productive. However, that is not the case. Certain work that you do is just busy work that takes time out of your day. As my social media audience grew larger, continuing the growth became busy work. My social media audience was growing but my income was not changing.
As a result, I focused all of my attention on Twitter and eventually outsourced most of the activity on all of my social networks.
Now I focus more of my time on creating and marketing my training courses.
In our constantly busy lives, we put in a lot of work. Creating the distinction between busy work and productive work allows you to identify where you need to spend your time.
Spending time on one activity means sacrificing some of the time you could have spent on another activity. This is the economic concept of an opportunity cost. You could be losing out on the opportunity of a lifetime because you are not utilizing your time wisely.
Sometimes, we know what we must do to move forward, but we don’t find the time to make it happen in our schedules. Don’t be that person.
#5: Exploration Without Commitment
If your strategy is to pursue shiny object after shiny object, then prepare for disappointment. Many people fall prey to shiny object syndrome in which they do a lot of exploration but don’t commit to anything.
It’s like shopping at Macy’s for two hours without buying any clothing. It’s like spending two hours looking for the best trails in your area but then not running on any of those trails. Basically, it’s a waste of time.
You need to do some exploration to find the right opportunity for you. However, you must also drop the anchor when you find an opportunity that appeals to you.
You don’t have to drop the anchor many times, but you have to drop it eventually. I don’t drop the anchor often. The first time I truly dropped the anchor was when I decided to focus most of my time on Twitter. Over 250,000 followers later, I am happy that I temporarily ditched all of my other social media accounts.
In Conclusion
For better or for worse, we think about money. If we could earn a dollar every time we thought of money, some of us would be millionaires just for that.
We want money, but in order to get what we are looking for, our thinking pattern must change. Instead of making money just for the sake of making money, go deep and ask yourself what the money would do for you.
As you go deep and motivate yourself to make more money, remind yourself that money is a good servant but a bad master. Don’t let the thought of making money become the forefront of everything that you will do. Your work will be less enjoyable and you will think more about what you don’t have than what you actually have. When we focus on what we do not have, we get discouraged.
Making money does require putting in the work, but it also requires approaching money-making with a different perspective from the traditional one.
Which of these reasons resonates with you the most? Did I miss any reasons why people don’t make enough money? Have any tips to share? Sound off in the comments section below.
Success! You will receive your free eBook shortly.