Blogging for Money – Do You Fear Success?

As a writer and blogger I often find inspiration in some unusual places. It is almost 1:30am as I write this and I was just inspired to write this post after watching the movie, “Dune”. The first make of that movie just went off and I have turned to the computer to get some posts written.

I heard a phrase on the movie which has inspired me to ask my readers the question, “Do you fear becoming a successful blogger”? The phrase which brought this on is in the scene where Paul is being tested by the box early in the movie. While he suffers through the test he says the phrase, “Fear is the mind killer”. That phrase struck home with me in ways I didn’t expect tonight.

Fear is a very interesting emotion. It comes in many forms and can hide inside us directing our actions without us even knowing. Everyone is aware of the fear emotion in some form. Usually it comes in the form of being afraid of something. For example, the fear of spiders, the fear of snakes, the fear of speaking to a large crowd, or fear of ladders. While there are rational fears in the world, such as fear of snakes (if you have ever been bitten you would know what I mean), there are also irrational fears like the fear of speaking to a large crowd. Speaking to a large crowd while it is scary offers us no real danger. We fear it because we don’t want to look bad in front of them, just that thought alone can send some people into a panic attack.

What about fear of change? Fear of success? While some people won’t believe it, there are people in this world afraid to succeed. Afraid of success, you say? Yes… These people try all their lives to succeed in careers, money, and life, but in the end they never escape the life they were born. They grew up poor and died poor, but why? They got an education, a PhD in fact. They have worked for some of the best companies on the planet making a million a year. So how did they die poor?

The answer comes down to fear. Even though they had the world laid at their feet, they grew up poor and couldn’t handle success because something in the back of their mind told them they can’t be a success. Therefore their mind, subconsciously, forced them back to the life they grew up. They are now poor with a PhD wondering what happened, looking to blame family, friends, luck, some god, or anything but the right thing for their fall from success.

That is where another line from the “Dune” movie comes to shine a light of hope on the situation. “The first step in avoiding the trap, is knowing of its existence”, as said by Mintat Howat as he tells Paul before the scene goes on. So now you know of the “Fear of success” trap, how do we avoid it? You have to change your thinking, your mind set on how you look at success and your life.

First Step: What is the first step? Family, friends, co-workers and others will be saying, “Blogging is just another get rich scam”, “You aren’t smart enough to make money online”, or “You aren’t a writer, you hated English in school, plus you failed it”. Do those statements sound familiar or something like them? I’m sure they do, that is the same fear of success coming out of them. They are so buried in their own fear they have already given up before they even got started. Don’t listen to them, you know it is their fear talking and might even be some jealousy. Success can and will bring jealous from those around you, not that they really mean it, but they can’t get past their own fear to succeed.

Second Step: So you got past family, friends and co-workers. You know not to listen to them or believe what they say about your goals. What is the next step? YOU! The statements from the First Step has been beating, pounded, and yelled at you all of your life. You have to change your mind set to become a success, you have to look at success in a new light. Right now you see it as a brass ring always out of reach, but that really isn’t the case.

To be a success at something you first have to define what “success” is to you. There are many kinds of success: going to college, being self employed, becoming good at a sport, writing a book…  You first have to define what “Success” means to you. For most bloggers, success usually means making a living by blogging. So self-employement is the goal.

Your “Fear of Success” will throw many things at you when you are trying to becoming self employed. Doubt will come into your mind many times, such as: This is too hard, too complicated, I’m working hard but not making any money yet, this is taking too long, it isn’t working, I want a social life more than this…. You have probably already said a lot of this. Once frustration sets in statements like this will come out. It will be easy to give up, that is where you have to put your foot down.

You will also have “things” come up all the time to take you away from working on your blog. Kids, spouse, work, friends, food, shower, and even that overrated sleep. “Oh, this is a good movie”, you will say when you know it is time to go write a post. “I forgot the time”, you will say to yourself as you go to bed after playing a video game for 14 hours instead of writing a post. “Fear of Success” has many tricks to use against you, it is in your head and knows you very well.

What can you use against your fear to succeed anyway? You have many tools which you can pull out to kill off that fear.

Desire: your desire to succeed is strong enough to overcome any doubt, any excuse, any lie you want to tell yourself.

Intelligence: you already know there is a trap keeping you from success. Take a step back sometimes and look at your goals and where you have falling into the trap, then get back on track to your desire.

Knowledge: Ok, so you don’t know that much about writing, blogging and you failed English in school. Even as adults we never stop learning. Nothing can stop you from learning what you need to know to succeed. The answers are out there, go find them. Learning is a life long process. Do you really think bloggers knew how to succeed or even blog when they first started?

Goals: Set goals, short term and long term goals. Write them down and put them on the wall behind your computer. Look at them every day and decide which short term goal you are going to tackle first to reach your long term goal.

Realistic: Look at things in the real world. Yes, I know you have fantasies about how you want it to be in real life. Still you have to stay grounded. This success will be hard work for little to no money in the beginning. You may not even reach your major goal a year down the road. Creating a website or blog then making the big time will take time on average. Making enough money to be self employed might take a couple of years or more. Know what to expect and don’t expect to get rich over night.

I would love to hear what other think on this subject. I know I didn’t cover everything.

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