What holds people back online?

Lots of factors holds people back such as: IQ, Entreprneurial Mindset, Knowledge, Implementation, Thinking, and one important one - Luck.

But in general, I like to say: People don't fail online, they only quit too early before seeing encouraging results.

Same concept on why only a few people are able to stay committed to body building or just being healthy in general.

Humans know what to do but they just don't do it.

What holds me back and has always held me back is the indecision of what to actually do and the fortitude to follow through with something in the hope that it will succeed. Information OVERLOAD.

I think lack of focus is definitely one of the things that get in the way of success in general, not just online.

It is something that I struggle with myself from time to time, so I speak from experience.

It is important to have a plan. Write your plan down and include milestones along the way.

Execute a plan until you reach the goal then set a new goal.

Of course, you also have to realize when a plan has flaws and needs to be tweaked or even scrapped.

Just make sure you give your plan a chance to succeed before you give up on it.

A lot of us are introverts. That probably sums it up right there. Maybe I'm on to something?????????

What holds me back is the fact that I am a perfectionist and I'm very analytical minded. As a perfectionist it takes me a long time to research topics, and write my articles. I think I over analyze things - I think too much.

Also, even though I have gone through a few courses on how to make money online, they ALWAYS leave me with tons of questions. They ALWAYS leave stuff out. And I ALWAYS end up at forums like this asking tons of questions.

Lack of skills and direction.

Lack of interest.
Laziness.
And above all: DISTRACTIONS. (ie- the black hole that is social media)

It's just like everything else. People get bored and move onto something new.

If there's anything I've learned in the last 2 years; it's to stick to something and make it a mindless routine. (Rewarding yourself after a task always help solidify the "routine" or habit.)

This is infinitely times harder with online business and ventures. My biggest tip is to log out of your Facebook and other social media accounts when you're not using them.
Once you go to the site and realize you have to log back in; your common sense kicks in and forces you to get back to work.

Try it. You'll be shocked with the amount of stuff you can get done.

When I first started out it was:

- Money
- Fear of the unknown
- Getting out of comfort zone
- Fear of wasting time

These are all natural and good things though...And can work as driving factors to produce better results!

It could be almost anything and different for each person, of course; lack of focus, lack of a plan, impatience, lack of support, fear, etc.

But I think it really comes down to motivation. If someone is absolutely motivated, whether by a personal drive, a challenge, bankruptcy or starvation, if they have enough motivation to get it done, they just will. Some just 'try' to make it online, but they have offline alternatives if online doesn't pan out within a certain time frame.

Laziness and fear of failure.

What holds me back online? Good question.

Probably wasting time on forums.

Oh ...

wait ...

This is about knowledge, motivation and mindset instead of the capital (money). These factors determines people succeed online businesses or not.

TRYING HARD. IF YOU TRY HARD AND CAN OVERCOME YOUR FAILURE YOU CAN BE WINNER. WE SHOULD ALWAYS LEARN MORE FORM OUR FAILURE. AND THE MORE YOU TRY THE MORE EXPERIENCE YOU GAIN .

I think all of the replies here make a lot of sense, but the #1 is pure laziness - else why would the majority of offers make "easy" their primary selling point?

People want easy money - that's why they gamble, that's why they pay more for "done-for-you" products/services, that's why they buy into anything that claims to require almost zero work for maximum gain.

Most people who seek to make money online are lazy; those of us who are not lazy are largely the ones who actually make money online.

Laziness - I'm pretty sure that a large percentage of new people who say they want to work online actually mean that they'd like to quit their job, sleep in late, click a few buttons for an hour and then go to the beach for the day. It's not that they want to work online. It's they don't want to work at all but still get $$

Wanting / expecting to be spoon fed - By this I mean they don't do any real research on their own. At every single step of the way, they ask questions on forums and expect everyone to do everything for them. Every answer they get reply with "So how do I do that?" - then they get an answer of several steps to take and again they ask "So how do I do that..?" ad infinitum. At that point, usually 1 of 2 things happen. They get frustrated and rage quit or they get scammed into spending $$ on useless info products. Either way they're destined for failure. The people who succeed are those who take the inititiative and do their own research and only ask very specific questions about a very specific problem. They then take action and learn on the job.

Impatience is another big one. Internet users are used to instant gratification. They want to watch a movie? - they can immediately watch one if they want. They're looking for information about something? The can google it in seconds. They want the latest Madonna album? They can download it very quickly if they want. So when they decide they want to make money on the interweb, they expect the same instant results. They don't understand why that doesn't happen and get frustrated.

I do YouTube professionally ( 50k sub channel and millions of views) and I see this all the time on YouTube. People start a channel and expect to get thousands of views and subs as soon as they upload their first video. That's when they find out that growing a YouTube is a lot of work and not as glamorous as they thought. They get mad and turn to sub4sub or bots to get more views and subs and then they get their account banned or give up anyway because a botted channel has absolutely zero positive effect. I can't speak for websites, but my experience on YouTube is that only about 2% of new channels succeed because people give up. A YouTube channel takes over a year (often more) of hard work before you start seeing good results and people are just too impatient for that.

To not get and actually started and get their feet wet.

They see that they have to invest money. (They don't want to do that)
They see that it takes hard work (They run away from that too. Maybe they want something for nothing)
They just don't believe in themselves.
They want to get started but people tell them that they shouldn't.

And most of the time their "mentor" who will show them how to really make great money online, is just like them. They have no clue what they are doing but want to make a quick buck. It's like the blind leading the blind.

Another chime in for *Fear*
Lot's of reasons why too. People may fear that the time they spend doing IM projects simply won't pay off and they quit too early. I think it really gets people with families, mortgages, etc..

Getting started is boring, it is, theres lots of reading, trial and error, failures, frustrations, then list goes on. Thats my answers, people get bored of not seeing their efforts turn into results. For example someone could of spent 100 hours trying to get a website and see £0 but if they got a job at £10 per hour, they would see £1000.

Great question!

I see this all the time too and I know what the reason is - it's their mental state. I used to think mindset was a bunch of hooey kumbaya stuff.

But that was because MY mindset was already that of a go getter - a non-quitter.

It wasn't until I started helping others learn IM that I realized there is a ton of self doubt holding people back. And that manifests itself in the forms of:

- Not wanting to try multi media because you're self conscious about your looks

- Not wanting to get into a niche because you don't feel like you can compete with the competition already there.

- Not feeling "expert enough" to have anything valuable to say.

- Not tackling new strategies because you get frustrated easily, label yourself an idiot and quit.

...tons of mental deficiencies like this hold one person back, while the other goes after it rabidly. I don't care if someone compares me to a Wildebeest in the looks department. I don't believe in any such thing called competition. I don't feel like you have to be at the height of expertise to lead those beneath you in skill. And I cuss and have hissy fits when I'm implementing something new and hard - but the difference is - I do it ANYWAY.

Tiff

Having a keen sense of commitment and discipline. They want to fast too soon.

It is a marathon and not sprint.

But the instant gratification crowd wants it 'Yesterday'



- Robert Andrew

fear of risk and unknown expectation......dreaming instead of working.

I would say time, money, & motivation. I would say time because working online is just like working at a real job but you may spend way more time than working and still never know when you are getting paid. Money because of the startup amount for hosting and an autoresponder and additional advertising fees. Motivation because when most people don't see results after a week they may say "This doesn't work and never will." I think the people that are actually successful are the ones that stick with it until they are. The great part about being online is that after you get through the 1st 6 months establishing you site with continued updates and great content you should be able to make even more sales over time. I think what keeps me going is a website that I saw that was 5 years old and is now making over $20K a month

There are a lot of factors that hold people back. The most common is the lack of motivation.

Of course when people first get into online marketing or any business venture in general, they are all motivation but not everybody will have the same level of motivation over time. A lot of people quit once they experience failure. A lot of people take things for granted and when they lose it they give up. And there are those who are simply not born to be entrepreneurs.

people not taking massive action... and not showing enough skin

For 7 Years of doing business online and offline...

I believe this is the one important factor that's holding back success:

LACK OF CONFIDENCE

People who dont succeed think that they are finished with their work.

Fear of failure held me back for a long time, never thinking what I did was good enough.
I have trashed so many plans down to that I couldn't count them all. :-)

Imposter syndrome is a huge one if you're actually trying to add value/help people.

The important thing to remember is that just because you may not be among the experts in your field (who have years of experience), you can still help a TON of beginners, which should be your target audience.

The BIGGEST thing I see holding people back is that they quit too soon, or quit too EARLY more like it.

Seriously folks, most likely you're NOT going to make money with your first website or email marketing campaign - but if you stick with it and preferably get a mentor - you'll have a much better chance of succeeding.

Not being cliche at all, you're going to fail at first - but you're going to learn from that, and grow, and fix previous mistakes and get better with everything you do!

Did you know that Thomas Edison failed THOUSANDS of times while trying to create the lightbulb?

It's true - and I LOVE this quote by him:

"I have not failed. I've just found 10000 ways that won't work." - Thomas A. Edison

So get back on that horse bucko, there's success waiting for you! :-)

Jeff

I think the main thing that holds people back online is their own mind set. They just don't approach it in a serious enough manner.

It's a business. Treat it as such

I think one thing people hold back from things is that they always think they are a "newbie". Unless you haven't yet spent maybe an hour reading or learning about something, or know zilch about it, you shouldn't consider yourself new to anything. That makes them think that they need to read up every damn book or material on the planet before they try to do something (or, they'll fail).

Everyone has a talent, they just need to evaluate themselves first, and then see where they fit and what works best for them.

I think procrastination and fear of failure.

Most people focus on learning Modes of Communication, instead of how to actually communicate.

Example: More people attempt to learn how to build a website, rather than learning how to write great content that their readers want to read. Building a site is a Mode of Communication between You and your visitors. The content on the site is how you communicate, and poor communication leads to failed businesses.

I think it is just a matter of thinking more than actually doing. This is something that I see a lot of people struggling with and I do suffer from it sometimes. It is easy to tell yourself that you will start an online company, but then your mind begins to realize that to actually make this happen you are going to have to work and that is when your mind begins to panic. All the while you have been thinking that this would be easy when in reality it is not.

One thing that I have learned ever since I started to learn about online marketing is that nothing you do online will come easy. You will have to work hard to see success.

Another thing that I think that a lot people struggle with is a lack of "Focus". If you could really sit down and apply yourself for long enough on whatever the project is that you are working on, you will be able to make money online. If you keep jumping from thing to the next you will never ever see anything that you start come to be the best that it could be.

Making posts like this one.

I think a lot of people get hung up on finding quick fixes that never end up turning out well.

In reality, they should be following a long term, sustainable path that yields results further down the line.

But, of course, that's never the go-to option. The shiny object is the quick fix.

Other than that, I think it's a lack of confidence. Too many pessimistic thoughts holding them back.

I am new here. But would like to share my two cents.

I think the biggest thing that leads to failure are those "entertainment" based distractions. It's easy to get excited about an idea. Put some effort into it for a little while. Then go no where.

For me. When I started to do things like "Keep the TV" offer and do less social events. I started to focus more on business goals. This helps with keeping me focus.

Try shutting off the TV and doing less of the social aspect of life.
Use that time to focus on business ventures instead.

You will be surprise how much you can accomplish.

Mark

Being too lazy and procrastinating

Procrastination and too much distraction!

Procrastination is the key here and has sibling symptons that compound the rate at which people stall on achieving success.

These include: anxiety, guilt, shame, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of the outcome and self doubt.

All these feelings impede success and are often rooted in the way one experienced life in their most
formative years. This means it is their identity.

If their parents abused them (physically or verbally), they were bullied at school by peers or teachers or had some other sort of violation inflicted on them this:

- can create a need to be in fight or flight mode (becomes their automatic response to all their life's situations)
- it will create a helpless victim of circumstance identity and the most MINDBLOWING finding is:
- an actual chemical/emotional addiction to these states to the point that they sabotage their own success to get that payoff.

This is often due to unawareness about their situation, action, etc.... therefore the best solution is to find the cause of the effect. The WHY? behind their state of being and beliefs. They must become objective, solution orientated and self discoverers.

They then gain responsibility, empowerment and consciousness over their choices which ultimately means they now know they are choosing to fail or succeed.

90% of people procrastinate, 20% of those are chronic procrastinators, it's not just online entrepreneurs, it's everywhere which leaves the conclusion that our society as a whole is majorly in a state of survival mode..

This is why if parents were violators, there is no blame, they were more than likely violated the same way growing up, learning that the world had to be dealt with in this way (again, verbal, physical, mental)...

The negativity/fear in the news is no help and the fact there have been two world wars and all sorts of attrocities in the last 100 years alone has made it easy for a fear based state of being to be common place.

The latter is no excuse however, we are human beings with infinite potential. Once that is understood there is no stopping someone achieving what they want.