Can "Pushovers" Make It Online?

Hi Marie,

I have some tips for you that may help. The best way is if I pluck some of your sentences and answer them below.
Try to become more of a critical thinker. Question everything - particularly age-old sayings and cliches. To help with this, read Paul Myers newsletter and his posts. Not much gets past that guy.

Take note of that feeling. It didn't arrive in your consciousness by accident. It's a signal from 'somewhere' - your intuition, perhaps?

Yes. Many times. I was very naive for many years. I'm much happier now that I have worked on it, and also a much happier, more useful person.

Spending time evaluating that one may help you a lot. Times have changed since you were raised, yes? So a re-evaluation of those things is justified and wise.

Also, remember that when we are raised, we are taught things suitable to protect us and to set general guidelines to help us to turn out to be decent human being and not get hurt.

In my opinion, it is required that we adjust those teachings so that they apply to the adult world. Children stick their tongues and fingers into things to find out what they are. So we teach accordingly.

Then we progress beyond that stage, and those teachings are completely null and void (we investigate things more wisely) and we must learn how to take calculated risks, while using our wisdom to protect ourselves from different threats.

As children we play tig - no-one gets hurt. As adults we must progress to chess (or similar). This involves planning a few moves ahead and introducing 'cunning' into our game plan. Different game. New skills required. Old rules, thrown out. (I'm not trying to condescend here - I know you're not thinking like a child! But there's a subtle point I'm trying to make - I hope it comes across).

That's the beauty of it. You don't have to change your personality. You have to 'bring to life' some aspects of yourself that have lain dormant. For example, even the meekest of people will find (if they look hard enough) that there are certain things that 'set them off' and make them act like a ferocious warrior.

It wouldn't hurt to spend some time identifying those moments in your life. Observing and admiring your performance at the time. () Analysing what set you off, and how you can relate those triggers to the situations where you now seek to access them.

In short, I would do this -

Seek out some physical books that you can read that deal with this specific issue (there are loads of them) and find some that appear to suit your particular personality/issues. Read them. Allow yourself some time (as productive work time) to sit and think about these things and to learn new insights.

Don't put it off - treat it as priority time for progressing your career - in other words, give this process the value it deserves (it could make you millions - you could be solving the biggest time-killer and effort wasting aspects of your work).

Hopefully, you will find that as you progress down this road of learning, you will become much more aware of whole host of new things. You will then find it much easier to pick up the right information. In fact, you will probably find yourself led to the right people, places and information and wonder just how you miraculously arrived there.

All you have to do is make a commitment to improve in this area. Then take some action. And the more you apply energy to it, it will gain momentum and you won't have to push so hard.

It should also turn out to be a very educational and pleasurable experience.

Yes, I have gone down this road myself for similar reasons. I have found that it reinforces in the mind an acceptance and understanding that we are always learning, but more importantly, it becomes a mission. Rather than just always learning, I am constantly studying at my own university of life, progressing as a person, becoming a much better person, and becoming more effective and more able to adivse and assist my friends, family and colleagues - and THAT is what you were trying to do in the first place.

But the key was that you were allowing others to take too much for themselves, thus rendering you ineffective, and denying you from giving as much as possible to as many as possible.

There is nothing wrong with being strong. In fact, there is everything right with it. To become stronger, a great step forwards is to first become wiser. Particularly about ourselves, and how we react when the world calls upon us. Controlled and applied selfishness is a great, noble and useful skill. Not least because there are many out there who focus solely on draining others in order to allow themselves to be lazy.

Help those people by helping yourself.

It's also important to consider if you have people who are relying on you (family and children.) Whenever you wobble, you can ask yourself if you are fulfilling your duty to them by a) protecting them b) setting a fine example for them to follow.

It's one thing to be a strong, robust person who takes no bull. It's another thing entirely to be someone who is gentle, kind and easy-going by nature, but who has also taken it upon themselves to become a fierce warrior in the right circumstances. That's really impressive!

Pushovers possibly can make it online, but why do it the hard way? There are many out there looking for pushovers to take advantage of.

a) create a mask to shield your true nature.

b) learn to present both aspects at once (kind AND strong) in order to send the advantage-takers elsewhere to search for an easier victim

c) continually work on and learn about the weaker side that is letting you down, learn to develop it into something that you can be proud of, and practice 'flicking the switch' so that in the right circumstances, you can act swiftly, with precision and focus, and in the opposite circumstances, you can give all of your help and assistance to the people that 1) deserve it 2) will give something back.

Marie,

You don't need to ever lose that 'giving spirit' but perhaps consider reframing it more around a business (online or offline) persona that is also aligned with your personal values.

For example:

1- Do you have a simple business plan which defines further what "mom on a mission" means to YOU and, indirectly, to your family? (back of an envelope would do for starters).

2- Helping others online with your time and services and money is a fine thing to do but in the context of your business (particularly with contributing to your family finances as described in your About Me page), what max % of your time and gross revenue do you allocate for this on a monthly regular basis?

For example, if you budgeted that < 5% or 10% (you decide) of gross online revenues could be used to help other online friends/partners then there's a bean counting line in the sand you can feel comfortable with. The more you make, the more you can (choose to) help...

Seasons greetings and best wishes for the new year of the Ox now approaching. (And the Ox is indeed no pushover... )