In this post, I am going to talk about how your own emotions and instincts sabotage your success. The mindsets that you have and the way you perceive things affects the choices and decisions that you make. This phenomenon applies to everyone and even highly successful people will find that at times, we get in our own way.
Freelancing on Elance
One of my most recent projects was bidding on Elance to get projects as I wanted to see if it was a viable channel to get leads for my new web design business. There are many people making a decent full time living on Elance and my theory is that if you get started in the right way, then you can effectively get good paying jobs despite competition from low priced offshore and domestic workers.
One of the things that I hesitated for a full week on was spending money to get “connects”, i.e., the currency on Elance to bid on jobs. You get 15 connects for free, but for $20, you can get 40 more. Despite having income from other businesses online, it took a whole week before I finally put down the $20 to bid on more jobs.
That tiny investment ended up getting me 5 jobs worth over $1,000. On Elance, in addition to your membership, they give you an option to purchase more connects. So given my past experience, what do you think I did?
I waited again…
And it isn’t that I didn’t intend to spend the money. I noticed that interestingly enough, like other people, I have a natural aversion to spending money on that type of thing. It’s an instinct or habit that results from societal beliefs about money.
Throughout our lives, we are taught that money is valuable and we feel that it is scarce in quantity. This belief is reinforced constantly by the behavior of people around us, so we become hesitant to spend money on our businesses.
The point I’m trying to make is that sometimes, in fact most of the time, we don’t make rational decisions. Even people that think they are logical people often react out of emotion. Our habits and emotional minds affect us on all aspects of life, including health, business, and relationships. What fears are slowing you down from progress in your business and life?
So what do you do about all this?
The first thing to do is just be aware of when your emotional mind is holding you back. Before you are aware, you cannot take action to correct the things you are doing wrong.
Secondly, figure out where you are getting stuck. A lot of times it will either be when it comes to spending money or doing something that you don’t enjoy doing, like marketing and sales for most people.
Finally, acknowledge that you need to take the next step, rationalize it if necessary, and then just do it. Once I commit the funds to marketing, I know I have to use it up and it is a much smoother ride from then on.
What are some of the things you get stuck on? And what pushed you to finally get started? What things are you still stuck on?
About Brian Liang