You might think the title of this report sounds ridiculous. Who could be addicted to something they don’t want? If you’d asked me if it was possible a couple of years ago, I would have thought you were insane.
Until one day I realized I was addicted to a certain type of failure myself.
Failure and success mean different things to different people. We all have this “scale of success” we measure ourselves on. For me, for example, I have a scale that goes from not being able to pay bills to having enough to meet all my needs
– and on to the level of flourishing where I can afford to do everything my family desires.
It’s not all about money, of course. You might feel like a failure as a spouse, as a parent, as a person who should be taking care of their health. And all that ties in perfectly with being a work-at-home entrepreneur.
I’ve pinpointed six areas where failure looms over us like a hungry vulture – and I want you to see if any of these six elements resonated with you, and learn how to fix it.
Everyone has a different way of repairing damage. For me, in particular, it’s not with a softened approach – it’s with a swift kick in the rear, because once I realize I’m wrong, I can’t wait to fix it so I can be right.
So what does an addiction to failure mean, actually? It means that failure is your safety net. Sounds weird, right? But hear me out…
When you have already labeled yourself as a failure, you’ve instantly lowered your expectations – and those of everyone else, including your audience. You’ve set the bar so low that whenever you do make even a teeny bit of progress, you and everyone else can celebrate that achievement.
But it’s nowhere near what you want to be accomplishing. And if you fail repeatedly, then guess what? Your label of failure was RIGHT! It feels good to be right.
Fear
Almost everyone has some sort of addiction to fear. There’s something they don’t feel comfortable doing. It might be blogging under their real name, using their real picture in their avatar, putting themselves on video, or even authoring a book
– because, “Who am I to try to teach people anything?”
Being the opposite of afraid – confident – is a scary thing for most people to consider. If you’re confident, it means you’re taking risks. Those risks have different kinds of value attached to them.
Putting yourself out there might put your ego at risk and your feelings might get hurt. If someone makes fun of your looks, you’ll feel ashamed and embarrassed. Hey – I was once ridiculed in a black hat forum where they put my picture up and called it cakeup (instead of makeup), put me side-by-side with a wildebeest and said I looked just like that, and put me beside a train wreck and said we were twins.
It stung, I’m not going to lie – but I got over it in about 30 minutes because I got angry instead. The people making fun of others were scammers and thieves. I quit caring what those low lives thought.
So being afraid of having people make fun of you is more comfortable than taking the risk of ridicule. Another risk you might be afraid of is losing money. You’re afraid that everyone out there is a scammer.
There’s probably no one truthful. You’re afraid of risking what little money you have on a bad decision. And guess what? Just like the black hatters who make fun of peoples’ looks, there are indeed people who will pick your pocket if you let them.
The key is to be confident enough in your abilities to buy from trustworthy individuals. We’ll talk more about betrayal a little later, but you can’t be an entrepreneur and be afraid of spending money. It comes with the territory.
How about the fear of being seen as an amateur among some stiff competition? Yep. There are tons of people more savvy than you – and I – but so what? There are people who have done this longer, who learn things faster – but that doesn’t mean that out of the global population, there’s not an audience who would prefer learning from you.
There are tons of people who teach marketing online – many who make 7 figures
– and many of those I don’t care to learn from – and it might be for a reason that’s sensible, like they use unethical marketing tactics, or it might be something superficial that repels me, like they use audio and I hear them slurping their coffee and it drives me nuts!
You can’t be afraid that anyone is going to point and laugh at you because you haven’t given anyone the chance yet. And 9 times out of 10, if you don’t click with them. They’ll simply click out.
There’s no convention gathering where 10,000 people are meeting up to talk about how unfit you are as a leader in your niche. Sorry, but that’s your over inflated ego and your bloated level of fear talking.
So with fear, it’s an addiction because it keeps you in your comfort zone. I read a really good blurb from the book, The Power of Self Coaching by Joseph J. Luciani.
It said:
“Tell yourself, ‘I’m only allowed to be upset over facts.’ It’s your choice: you can blindly accept insecurity’s powerful hold (reacting to fiction) or learn to go forward (reacting to facts).”
He goes on to say that living in fear, based on your whole “what if” way of thinking seems like it’s protective and necessary to you. But what you’re really doing is hurting yourself, your future, and even those who you could be helping right now in your niche.
Overwhelm
Addiction to the feeling of overwhelm is a strange, but true scenario. Have you ever had a friend or family member who, every time you talked to them, had some “everything’s going wrong” sob story?
They’re addicted to overwhelm.
They complain about their schedule, their workload, the house not being clean, the traffic, their weight, the news – whatever is negative in the world, they’re honed in on it like a laser and allowing their anxiety to build over it.
And guess what?
This could be you and you don’t even recognize it. If you find yourself sighing a lot, getting frustrated and slamming your laptop shut, and giving up with a few choice four letter words, you might be addicted to overwhelm.
It takes a lot more control and power to calm yourself when things go wrong – and work through them – than it does to fly off the handle or throw your arms up in the air and quit suddenly.
Doing that is easy – you saved yourself from all the hard work. You labeled something as too hard, too much, too whatever – and you’ve given yourself a reprieve.
In fact, no one wants to see you overwhelmed. It makes other people panic to some degree when you’re all worked up. Your family will feel it, your friends will feel it, and because they don’t want to deal with it, they’ll tell you to “just quit, then!”
That’s because your mood and attitude is negatively affecting their lives. So don’t be fooled into thinking that just because others backed you up in your quest to quit, it’s a good idea.
It’s not. They’re just in self preservation mode, making sure their day isn’t ruined. As a grown man or woman who is striving to be an entrepreneur, you have to start learning to act like an adult in a position of authority.
It’s not always easy, trust me.
I’ve thrown quite a few hissy fits over the years, but it’s those moments when I kind of turn a mirror on myself and see how ridiculous I’m acting – that other people are doing just fine with whatever it is overwhelming me – that I instantly stop my tantrum and dig my heels in to succeed.
Don’t allow yourself to act this way out of habit, either. You can change bad habits. You can learn new habits. You just have to make a firm decision that you’re committed to ending bad behavior.
When you stop allowing yourself to feel overwhelmed, when you learn to calm down and think objectively – you realize that nothing can stand in the way of your success.
Not even you.
Lack of Knowledge
Addiction to your lack of knowledge is a huge, comfy old crutch. I mean, this is a big one in our world, too – because you’re talking about running an entire operation that includes branding, product idea generation and creation, marketing, technical skills and a ton more – with just a one man band.
It’s hard.
So what’s a great excuse to stay stagnant? “I dunno.”
That yucky phrase that keeps blame off of you because how can you possibly blog when you don’t know how to blog? How can you reach out to a joint venture partner – when you don’t even know what to say or who to contact?
This is one thing that rarely affects me – simply because I can’t stand not to know things I need to know. And there’s a big difference between that and not knowing something I don’t WANT to know, like how to run a solo ad campaign for instance.
If I don’t care about something, and don’t need it to succeed, it’s okay to shrug it off and say, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.”
But you wouldn’t believe the volume of people who email me daily saying, “I don’t know how to…”
Google is your friend. Forums are your friend.
Want to know how I learned 99.999999% of the stuff I learned about marketing online?
I Googled and I asked people.
If you want to know how to install a WordPress blog, you type in, “how to install a WordPress blog.” DANG! Look that those search skills.
You’d think more people would adopt that habit, but no – they’re comfortable saying, “I don’t know.” Because if they did know, it’d mean they then had to take action and would have no excuse not to succeed.
There’s even a site called Let Me Google That For You, which is kind of snarky and a way to tell people, “Google IT!” Check it out here: http://lmgtfy.com/ – you’ll type in the question and then it returns a link for you to copy and give the person who acts like he or she doesn’t know how to find the information on Google themselves.
It’s a ridiculous addiction to failure and the EASIEST one for you to fix.
How about forums? I’ve been in marketing for a LONG time – and I have no anxiety about going back to a marketing forum and typing in a stupid question that 90% of the others will know.
Why?
Because I’m willing to learn. I’m proud of myself for that. And I really don’t care if anyone thinks, “Pfft! She doesn’t know that?” Well I’m asking now, so answer me. And they do – people love sharing information they know with others.
Another thing – before you email anyone saying you don’t know something (and before you ask in a forum), Google it. At least TRY on your own! Otherwise, you’re not fit for the entrepreneurial life because you have to be a self reliant individual for this job.
Finances
Addiction to a focus on finances can keep you in failure mode. Let me say right now, that success is hard under too much pressure. So if your electricity is about to be turned off, or you can’t pay your mortgage – get offline and go get a job right now. Maybe even a second job.
You need to take the financial pressure off of you in order to have a clear head and not make bad decisions. That would be buying a get rich quick product – or one that has you ripping off others or gaming the system just to make money fast.
It’s not worth it. It doesn’t last. It ruins your reputation.
That said, some people are so focused on any amount of money they might risk, that they risk none. They won’t invest in any tools they need – outsourcing, email autoresponder, a blog, hosting – nothing.
They’re hanging on to every dollar because they’re so scared to invest. They’re what iffing about their impending failure, so obviously, any amount spent seems like a waste of money.
You have to start being sensible about this. If it’s a necessity to further the growth of your business, then save up for it and invest in it. Even if you were buying a franchise of a popular fast food restaurant, there would be initial investments to be made.
Starting your own company is NOT for people who are addicted to financial worries. That’s the excuse they give themselves as to why they haven’t succeeded yet.
Someday, they’ll get a website and hosting set up – but they can’t afford it right now. I’m willing to bet there are ways they can cut down to afford a domain. A GoDaddy domain is $1.99 is you simply search for the month, year and words GoDaddy coupon dot com.
And hosting? Well even if you can only pay monthly, that’s about $10 a month max. So starting a business online would be $11.99. Where can you cut $11.99 out of your budget?
People who don’t want to invest in their business don’t believe in themselves – and that’s why expert after expert who has come and succeeded before you will say that mindset is paramount to your success.
Time
Addiction to poor time management. This is a biggie. I’ve always been a nose-to- grindstone kinda girl, but I have my moments when I turn into a bona fide flitter. I flit around from Facebook to Amazon Prime to my email inbox and anywhere else I can waste time.
It’s not often, though – and the best solution for those who fail because they’re addicted to poor time management have to learn how to pinpoint what’s causing them to not want to work.
It’s usually fear or some sort of hatred for the work involved. Mindset gets you past fear, and outsourcing helps you hand over work you dread to someone else.
I have people telling me they can’t work because their kids are in the room, they can’t work because their spouses interrupt them or they can’t work because they get distracted.
Excuses.
Every single one.
You can work. You just have to learn how to work with noise when your kids are playing. I’ve raised 3 kids – and they all make noise. I learned to let it be white noise in the background. You develop a sense of when to tune in and when to let it blend in.
There are sites that can literally help you learn to work with white noise, and they’re free. Some sound like a coffee shop of people talking. Start out low and then learn to work with higher sounds.
You can work even if spouses or friends interrupt. You have to set boundaries. Would a boss at a corporation allow anyone and everyone to walk in and out of his or her office – including family? No.
Set your boundaries like an adult and stick to them. Say, “Only interrupt me if it’s VERY important. Otherwise, I’ll be done at 4 PM and will answer any questions then.”
You can work even if you’re the type who gets distracted. You have to want it bad enough. When I KNOW I have a project that has to be done, I kick my own butt and close every other tab until I make progress.
If it’s really bad, like a task I hate, then I divvy it up into increments. I say, “Okay I’ll finish one page, then let myself check Facebook. I get in, and get out and back to work.”
Successful people don’t make excuses. They make money.
Betrayal
Addiction to betrayal happens when you, as someone who is trying to make a living online, take big risks – and a big risk can be anything you don’t shrug your shoulders at. It might be $10, if you consider that something you’d be mad about losing.
You fork over a credit card and max it out to the tune of $5,000 or $10,000 for coaching. You want that thrill of making money fast – and you’re scared it won’t pan out, because that’s a lot of money to put in.
But you do it anyway.
You’re not one who wants to take the slow and steady path to success. You’d rather have that rollercoaster feeling – the thrill of getting courted by a smart marketer who makes you feel so good about yourself and your potential, the rush of clicking the Buy Now button and making it official, the hard work you put in at first, the stomach-churning moment when you get suspicious and are able to cry foul.
Sometimes it’s a small amount. But it adds up. I hear from lots of people who say they’ve been ripped off dozens and dozens of times! Everyone’s a scammer!
Only…that’s not true at all.
The fact is, and this is going to sting a little, you’re a bad buyer.
You’ve made poor purchasing decisions because you haven’t done your homework on the person selling it. Or you haven’t implemented it fully (be honest with yourself).
I’m not a bad buyer.
I am stingy with my hard earned cash, so #1 – I don’t fork over any money I can’t afford to lose.
Second, I investigate who I’m buying from before I buy. IF I make the decision to buy from someone with the reputation of a snake, I know going in, I might as well flush the money down the drain because I’m taking a big risk.
Third, I always implement what I buy. Always. I’m not going to buy something, not use it, and then cry like an amateur because nothing ever works for me. No sir – if I fail, I want it ALL on my shoulders.
That’s just the way I am.
It’s who you need to be when it comes to getting rid of your addiction to failure through betrayal falsehoods.
In fact, I can’t think of a product I bought that didn’t have at least ONE tiny iota of a nugget that I learned. Even if I hated the product as a whole, most of it didn’t work – I was able to take one small thing away from it and apply it (or a FrankenTiff’d version of it) to my future business.
Breaking Your Addiction to Failure
Just like a “drug addiction” can be an addiction to many different types of drugs – heroine, cocaine, meth – whatever – a failure addiction can be an addiction to many different things, too.
After pinpointing where you tend to use something as a crutch – do you have any idea how you’ll change it?
If you’re clueless, you might have to ask some people close to you if they hear you whining about your efforts. If so, what do you whine about? Look back over your emails, your social media posts and see what you complain about (or even joke about).
If you still can’t find the reason, track yourself for a good week or two. If you still aren’t seeing it after all that, then you’re either lying to yourself, your scared to hear the truth, or this isn’t the right business for you.
Analyze where your day goes. Are you watching TV? Overeating? On Facebook? Sleeping? Snap back into reality and get what you need to get done
– done!
Stop insulating yourself from success. Stop being afraid of what could happen. Facts only – from now on. If you tried and failed, try again. Learn the difference between a legitimate concern and something you’re using to get out of taking risks and putting yourself out there.
Learn the difference between facts and feelings. Understand that in order to really thrive as an online entrepreneur, you might have to not be in control 24/7. Sometimes you’ll have to see what happens.
You have a choice…
In whether or not you give in to fear…
In whether or not you invest in your efforts…
In whether or not you mess around and waste time…
In whether or not you refuse to focus and work calmly…
In whether or not you educate yourself about what you need to know… In whether or not you blame everyone else but yourself…
Do you always want to live life in your career as a victim? Because if you feel more comfortable not being in a leadership position, then working in the corporate world is a perfect fit!
But if you want the power of building a strong business that serves an audience and rewards you monetarily, then you have to accept responsibility from this moment forward.
No more excuses.
No more letting feelings run your life.
Lots of action and mental fortitude – that is the combination that differentiates between those who cry victim and never succeed, versus those who make it seem effortless with their success.
Which will it be for you?
P.S. Every successful market I know has fear, worries about finances to some degree, hates certain things about working – but they do it anyway. Not one person snaps their fingers and sees six or seven figures.
They work.
Author Tiffany Lambert
