I’ve been struggling with some personal issues that when boiled down to the bottom line could be explained as a struggle between integrity and making a living. I’ve had a very successful business life. The problem is that I made money for other people. Silly, I know. Ridiculous really. I traded my time, intellect and labor for a set amount of money. No matter how much money I generated, I continued to make the same amount of money.

A number of things have happened recently that have made me very aware of just how deeply I want to free myself from my dependence on the business world to make a living. So that got me to researching and thinking of how I can go about doing that.

The answer was right in front of me as I researched. I already have an established blog and there are ways to make money on the internet. I enjoy surfing the net and spend most of my ’spare’ time doing just that. What if I could start bringing in some income through the internet?

The problem is, I’ve heard of people doing that and I’ve heard a lot of reasons NOT to do that. So I thought I would examine some of those reasons/excuses for this weeks Thursday Thirteen. As I figure it all out, I’ll keep you posted

1. I’m not a computer geek. Well, you might be more of one than you think. You already figured out how to make a blog and in doing that you’ve learned CSS and HTML. You’ve learned how to make a blog and webpage templates. You’ve learned more than you realize. If you decide you want to learn, you can learn. You don’t have to know how to make a computer from scratch or to write a computer program from scratch to learn how to use programs and software that will help you generate an income.
2. I don’t know where to start. Who does? This is just an excuse. You didn’t know how to do the job you do now until you started doing it. There is nothing you have learned in life that you knew how to do before you learned it. Start by looking around and figuring out what other people do. Then take it from there.
3. It will devalue the cause I’m supporting on my site. Oh really? I’ve been around the business world enough to know that the people others listen to are the ones with the best record of success. You can be a brilliant writer who articulates great insights into curing all the ills of the world. If no one comes to your blog it will only serve to get it off your own chest. The tree falling in the woods only makes a sound if someone is there to hear it. If you really value your own work than get the word out there. This is an excuse someone uses when they are really afraid to make themselves vulnerable to the reactions others may have to their work.
4. Other people don’t like ads on blogs. Other people aren’t supporting your family.
5. I don’t have enough time. People have time for what they want to have time for. If you spend an hour watching TV at night you are choosing to do that rather than to spend that hour exercising or working on generating more income on the internet. It is a choice. If you don’t have time to work on generating your own income that simply means that it is not a high enough priority for you. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a choice you make. Would you rather watch American Idol tonight or tweak your template to incorporate a program that has the potential of generating a couple hundred dollars for your family this month? It’s about choices.
6. My spouse gets aggravated when I spend too much time on the computer. You are on here anyway, so make some money at it. Once the income starts showing up in your bank account I’m willing to bet your spouse will get over it.
7. I don’t have the money. You may not have the money to start depending on your internet income right now. So you work towards that goal. You start increments until you build your internet empire (smile) to the point that you can kiss your boss goodbye! Just like with most other things, it’s the choices we make. Working on developing an income base on the internet doesn’t have a start-up cost, but doing it full time will take some time. All you have to do is start, set your goals and work towards them.
8. That’s not why I started blogging. That’s all the better. If you started your blog just to make money, most people will see that and won’t be particularly interested in what you have to say. Unless, of course, you are successful at it, then people will flock to you. It’s good to be passionate about what you are blogging about. That’s what makes your site work. Making a living through something you are passionate about is even better.
9. I only get a couple hundred dollars a month on my adsense ads. DIVERSIFY. There are literally hundreds of programs that you can use to generate income. Wade out into the vast world of the World Wide Web and find them. You can have income coming in from multiple sources. A hundred here and a hundred there starts adding up. There are literally millions of dollars out there for the making. It might as well be you making it.
10. What if I fail after announcing to the world that I’m giving it a shot? You haven’t lost anything. Fear of failure is really fear of success. We are generally afraid that if we are successful more will be expected of us and our excuses are no longer believable. But if you want to succeed badly enough you will. It’s really okay to be successful. That doesn’t make you a bad person. Get out there and try.
11. I don’t get enough traffic on my blog to make any difference. In that case, which is the case for most of us bloggers, part of your success plan is to drive more traffic to your blog. There are multiple ways to increase your traffic and linkage. That in turn increases your ranking with the various ranking systems (technorati, google, alexa, etc.)
12. I don’t have a website or blog. Having a base of operation is a definite plus, of course, but it’s not the only way. There are many income generating avenues that don’t require a website as a base. Many publications pay for writers to submit articles, for instance. Get out into the WWW and explore the possibilities. You will be surprised.
13. Why should I listen to BSC? Don’t! Find out for yourself. I’m just learning myself. I’ve blogged for a year and made chicken feed on this blog. But then, I haven’t really tried before. If I can make money for other people, I can make money for myself. I will continue to post on my progress and if I can do it anyone can. So we’ll see how I do. I’ll let you know.

Random Yak has 13 postal service slogans