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This Is How to Prepare Yourself Mentally to Earn Money Online

by | Sep 8, 2020 | Money

The journey to charging money for something is a deeply psychological one.

Business is nothing more than charging money. It sounds easy on the surface. It’s not. You have to prepare your mind to cope with what will follow once you decide to charge money for your time, skills, or a product/service you’ve created.

Anybody can do it, but first you need to get your mind in order. Otherwise, you’ll quit far too soon, blame/complain to everybody, scream into the echo chamber of a Facebook Group, and give up. You’re better than that.

Why *not* you?

This is the seed to the thinking you need. The question “Why not you?” is a powerful one.

I went through my life thinking online business was for the smart folk who got their space on the internet early or studied IT and could build an app. It was only until I met people who were normal and had done it that the question “Why not you?” changed my future.

Once you understand that anyone with an internet connection can make money online, your thinking will never be the same.

Suddenly you’ll see the endless opportunities sitting in your internet browser waiting for you to find them.

Your state of mind will sway

Some days you’ll think everything you touch will turn to dollars that end up in your Stripe account. Other days you’ll feel like you want to crawl away and hide because an angry customer sent you an email and accused you of ripping them off.

The nature of charging money means it will be a bumpy ride. In the beginning you’ll make almost nothing and think you’re a failure. Then when you make a lot of money you will stress about losing everything or coping a lawsuit that drags you through the mud mentally.

There are no easy days when it comes to making money online. You prepare your mind, though, when you drop your expectations and just allow the chips to fall as they do. You can’t control how much money you make online but you can control how you think about the abundance or scarcity of dollars entering your bank account.

Your self-worth isn’t determined by how much money you make this month.

You have to remember you’re doing something most people are not prepared to do. Most people would never dare to earn money online. They’re too scared or not open to the idea of it like you are.

The very fact you’re even giving it a go puts you ahead of so many other people who assume the internet is noisy and take a seat in the troll box on Twitter and hurl nasty comments at innocent bystanders.

You can do anything you put your mind to, including earning a few bucks online if you choose to.

You will need a tiny bit of courage

Charging money takes courage. It’s the silent thought that says “I am enough and I have something valuable to offer people.”

I certainly didn’t start out having courage. I was deeply afraid. I had failed at charging money before and had emotional scars to prove it. To top it off, I suffered severe mental illness for many years that went undiagnosed.

My thoughts were a hot mess. You could feel the warmth if you stood close enough from the fire raging inside my head. Eventually, I healed myself from mental illness. Bit by bit I worked out that when you implement a little ounce of courage in your life everything changes. You can be anything you want. But you don’t start out as some courageous hero.

You start with small steps. First you face a tiny fear, then a slightly bigger one, and then a fear that’s held you back for years. As you progress through the different stages of fear using courage, your entire life changes without you realizing it.

Once you have practiced courage it’s easier to apply it to making money online. And it bleeds into other areas of your life.

Prepare your brain for hard work compounded by effort

People hate hearing hard work. The thing is there is so much free stuff people can get on the internet, so you actually have to put in a little effort to beat all the free options. I write as an example.

People can read about the topics I write about like Self Improvement, Entrepreneurship and Life Lessons for free on any number of WordPress blogs. This means to rise above the cesspool of free content you’ve got to go the extra mile. You do that with effort and hard work. Let’s map it out in real terms using my journey.

Hard work equals:

  • Writing all day Thursday and Saturday
  • Choosing images on Sunday morning
  • Editing articles on Monday morning
  • Writing social media posts during my downtime to put on LinkedIn
  • Reading other people’s stories every single day
  • Spending the time before I start my 9–5 job creating online courses.
  • Using the festive season to write an eBook
  • Taking calls from clients during the day

I see effort as the amplifier to these activities that equate to hard work. Effort is how much energy I put into it. Effort is how much I care. And I care a lot.

I don’t just piss into the wind and hope for the best. I work hard and take the time to reflect, measure, talk to other people in my field, and question the BS lies I tell myself on a regular basis.

The schedule I follow can be brutal. You have to prepare your brain for that level of hard work and effort. I didn’t start out as some passive income internet warrior. I worked my way up to it.

You can start by making the thing you’re going to do online a habit. You can commit to an hour a week. As you discover your process and enjoy helping people and earning a living from it you can amplify how much work you decide to put in.

The more effort you put in the greater the reward. But the reward is often fulfillment and not necessarily piles of money like most people think.

Bring those close to you on the journey

Don’t shut out those close to you from this change in your psychology. Bring them on the journey. Let them know what’s involved. Get them used to this new way of thinking you’ve decided to utilize.

Your relationships will change when you earn money online. Your idea of what is possible and impossible will change. If you don’t explain these changes then your loved ones will think you’ve gone crazy and distance themselves from you. Or they will try and sabotage what you’re doing.

You can’t do anything spectacular on your own. You always need other people, especially those close to you, for support.

Prepare your mind for the guilt

One of the downsides I suffer from is guilt. I feel guilty when I don’t feel like doing my thing online or responding to messages from readers.

I feel guilty if I have a down day or a down month. That’s why I’ve had to find ways to be kinder to myself.

I’ve had to learn not to feel guilty for taking time off.

Your business gets better when you take time off. Why? Your thinking evolves. The lessons you’ve learned sink in. When I took time off last year to go to Vietnam I felt guilty.

One trick that helped me was to prepare like an award-winning chef about to cook a famous meal. I wrote lots of content before my holiday. I scheduled things to happen while I was away. I gave control of my tiny online empire to people I trusted.

Only when my mind could finally relax, did I realize how much I needed that holiday. To just sit in the pool without internet or a laptop was freeing. The guilt still crept back in here and there. I just had to learn to tame the monster and put it to sleep.

You will need to prepare yourself for the rejection

Whenever you try to make a dent in the world there will be people ready to reject you for reasons not even they can explain.

I get rejected all the time from major publications. I have famous writers reject me. I have readers reject my ideas and techniques. I have social media reject me. I have haters reject me so they can find meaning in their life from the hate. The way you overcome rejection in this online world is to forgive yourself and to forgive those who reject you.

Rejection is an automated part of the making money online process. Naturally, people will just hate that you’re making money and that’s fine. You do you, and let them play their part.

You can’t impress everybody with your ideas for charging money, and you’re not supposed to.

Expect rejection and keep moving forward.

You will have to quiet your ego

When you do have some level of success with making money online your ego will take over. When you get rejected or get upset at your day job you’ll be tempted to flex your money-making muscle. “I don’t need you anyway,” you’ll say to yourself. Don’t do it. Don’t get cocky.

As fast as you can make a million dollars online you can lose the lot too.

You can lose your mind when you make money online. You can think you’re unstoppable and start behaving badly. You can start beef with other entrepreneurs like the old days of rap music where everybody dissed each other. Stay focused.

Don’t let success go to your head. I did and it nearly ruined me. I got a shiny new BMW and started abusing random charities and poor people. I thought money was a measure of your contribution to society. Then I met volunteers at a local homeless shelter and realized I was playing life really small.

If you become an asshole in the process of making money then you’ll learn to hate yourself and you won’t know why.

Treat people well before you make money online, and afterwards.

Final Thought

Making money online can knock the crap out of you. What keeps you moving forward is preparing your mind mentally for what’s to follow. Making money online is easy to do once you find your own path. But staying the journey and not destroying everything you’ve built is the hard part.

Master your psychology and you’ll master the art of online business.

So if I can do it then why not you?

You can make money online when you take time to prepare yourself mentally and balance the health of your mind with the health of your business.

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