I want to make money online. I love the idea that you don’t have to do anything to make money. Who spotted the deliberate over-simplification? Yes, you have to put the work in, maintain things, watch out for trends, check your statistics and all that, but it sure beats minimum wage. I think of all the time I’ve spent learning how to make websites instead of, I don’t know, going outside and getting a sun tan — well now it’s time for those lessons to make me money.

Naturally, I have been thinking and reading about this, and I’ve learnt something. The biggest roadblock to making money online is in your mind. Maybe we could call it the learning curve. If you google around for making money online, you’re sure to come up with a bunch of sites that promise thousands of pounds for doing nothing. Make £££s from home! Or some other horrible contortion of typography.

These are aimed at people who think that making money is magic. They will find that they make £2 a day, maybe. But there is no magic. It’s simple. Here’s the deal: learn how to do it. Then do it. It’s a simple learning of a skill.

I think of all the things I got my head around at school that I thought were impenetrable, but that now seem easy. Ionic bonding. Simultaneous equations. Trigonometry. OK, so I lied about simultaneous equations. I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I came across it today, but the point is at one stage I got it. It just took a little effort.

This is where most people go wrong. They think it takes a lot of effort, and will forever. Working for a living takes a lot of effort. I work in a cafe, and while I love it, I have realised something. The cafe won’t run itself. I clean a table, and someone comes and sits on it! I can’t just set it up and leave it — I have to keep cleaning, keep making coffee.

This takes energy, and it would be better to direct that energy into something that maintains itself, because energy is costly! So I’m directing energy into learning how to make money online. It’s a strange new world, but it’s exciting. A little effort now means a system, some time in the future, that generates money for me.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!