Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve certainly heard stories of people who achieved financial freedom, worked remotely, traveled the world, and made a lot of money. Ironically, they put in fewer hours per week than someone who has a 9–5 job.
Those stories are, for the most part, REAL, and there are indeed a lot of people who managed to get there. Nevertheless, the majority of people, including those who tried, never succeeded. Why?
Since quitting my job more than a decade ago, I have managed to make money online via a variety of strategies, so I know what I’m talking about. I’ll explain next why it is not always simple and why most people fail at it.
The paradox of choice & uncertainty
If you do a quick search online, you will see loads of methods to make money on the internet. You’ll easily find articles listing 30, 50, or even 100 different ways to do it.
You’ll never know what will work for you when you first start. You’ll need to try out different things to see what will work for you depending on your skills, personality, and moral code.
Writing can earn you money, but are you a good enough writer? Streaming can earn you money, but are you that super cool dude who is very comfortable in front of the camera? You’ll never know till you try it out, and till you find something that suits your skill set and personality, your first attempts will most likely fail.
A lot of people cannot operate without guidelines and clear procedures. They find it difficult to navigate a sea of ideas and explore it on their own.
Tedious learning phase
When you are a beginner, you want to minimize costs as much as possible, which means you avoid hiring. Consequently, building something from scratch will require you to learn all the skills involved. Let’s say you want to make a YouTube video; depending on what you’re creating, you might need to learn design, storytelling, voiceover, and video editing just to publish your first video.
Many people are deterred by that; they lack the mental resilience to go through all of that.
A lot of effort upfront
Let me put it this way: whoever promises you abundant, quick, easy money on the internet is an absolute scam! It doesn’t work that way.
If you wanna make money on the internet, you will need to put in weeks and months of work, including grueling tasks like cold emailing or messaging, in order to gain some traction at the beginning. You also have to make certain investments upfront, like domain names, hosting, ads, etc.
All of these efforts come with absolutely no guarantees for results, and this is something most people simply cannot handle.
A long-term game
Generally speaking, you will need time to start to make significant money (4 figures and more per month). You will need to build a portfolio, an audience, and wait for things to come together.
It requires showing up every day and a great deal of discipline that most people do not have.
Critical decision-making
I said earlier you will have to navigate a sea of ideas. Well, this presents another challenge: when to decide to give up on a project that is clearly not working and move on to the next idea!
Believe me, it’s not easy. Even though you may feel that it’s time to move on, you can be tempted to keep pushing a little bit more because you might be on the verge of making it work.
I personally find it one of the most challenging parts. When to say, “We tried this idea long enough; let’s move to the next one.”
Comprehensive financial management
It’s no secret that a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck with no substantial savings, living beyond their means, defaulting on credit cards, and taking out loans (car, mortgage, etc.), and consequently they cannot afford to lose their jobs.
The truth is, most people have submitted themselves to the system and given up a good part of their freedom, making it impossible for them to make bold, life-changing decisions.
If you consider everything I’ve said so far, you’ll realize that to make consistent income online, you may need to quit your job to devote up to a year to working online (which may be impossible if your finances do not allow it) or start a side hustle after your regular job, which would leave you without a life for a few months (with eventual severe consequences on your relationships).
It’s a big sacrifice!
In summary, to make money online you must:
- Experiment with different things till you find something that clicks.
- Pick up new skills fast.
- Work long enough and make investments upfront, with the risk of not making any income.
- Be patient and believe enough in yourself.
- Make wise decisions on when to drop something that’s visibly not working.
- Be in a financial position that allows you to temporarily quit your job or be willing to compromise on your life quality to side hustle after your regular job.
As you can already see, making money online requires certain qualities and conditions that most people do not fulfill.
Making money online via freelancing is undoubtedly easier than building passive income, but it’s unscalable by nature and comes with the perk of trading time for money, which I personally no longer like.
Those who are living the dream deserve it for the most part. Success doesn’t happen overnight.
– Ys Heartruth –
