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online-business-im-not-readyAs a coach, I tend to push people into taking action so that they can succeed. Recently a friend (not a client) said to me, “I’m not ready.”

It’s hard for me to understand that sentiment, so I started to think about it — especially since I know others who say the same thing.

Coaches talk about the big WHY, which is usually something like having more time with your family, being able to travel, having enough money to give to others, and so on.

But some people don’t have a driving WHY. More specifically, they don’t NEED the money from their online business to survive. They may be retired and have a pension. Or they have a spouse that supports them.

This allows their fears to come to the fore. When you NEED the money, you blow past your fears and forge forward — because you have to.

Symptoms of “I’m not ready”

Here are some of the symptoms of the “I’m not ready” attitude:

  • Taking courses all of the time but never putting them into action
  • Joining online groups and spending most of your time on the group’s programs
  • Taking a very long time to create a product — like weeks, months or even years!
  • Working on your website for weeks — and then rebranding
  • Not doing anything to grow your list and not sending out emails to the list you have (see an earlier post, “Don’t ignore your list“)
  • Being a perfectionist so that nothing gets done
  • Spending lots of time on projects that won’t make you any money

In general, you may be experiencing a lot of fear and doubt. If that’s you, see my blog post, “Fear and doubt–the 2 killers of success.”

What to do?

If you don’t really care about success and just want a comfortable experience of learning for years, well, it’s fun to learn. I dare say that successful Internet marketers wouldn’t be half as successful if the people who bought their courses actually acted on them.

If you have the money to continue to spend on courses and software and coaching and you don’t really need to succeed with your business, then that’s fine.online-business-im-not-ready-2

It’s not that I don’t recommend learning. My motto here at Change the World Marketing is learn-act-succeed. But you need to move onto action.

The hard truth

The hard truth is that you can’t fully succeed by first learning a lot and then moving on to action. You need to learn and act, learn and act, learn and act.

Why?

Action cements what you’ve learned. Action also teaches you lessons that you can’t learn in a course or even from a coach.

Yes, you’ll make mistakes. They are inevitable. But you still have to move forward.

Excuses are just excuses

Besides “I’m not ready,” I hear other excuses for not taking action:

  • I need to wait until my product is finished before I send out emails.
  • I need to finish my website before I create my product. That’s true, but you can create a good enough website in a weekend to start your business. It’s possible to create a website in less than 1 hour. You can watch me do it in 1-Hour Website.
  • I need to find an editor, copywriter, designer. That’s all good, but if you need money now, just get it out there and plan to get help next time.
  • I need to build my list before I send out offers — actually, you need to nurture your list from the start with a combination of content and offers. If you wait, you’ll lose your list. I’ve seen that happen many times.

Of course, there are many other excuses, but that’s what they are — excuses.

Pretend that you need the money to live on

If you really want your business to be a success, think that you need the money, now — to pay the rent/mortgage, to buy food, to cover your Internet bill.

It’s nice to have the luxury of not succeeding. I envy that. But I also see that I’ve been able to make a living online because I had to. That pressure moves me forward.

What do you think? Am I being too harsh? Leave a comment!

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