Dreaming of earning money online? You’re not alone! The internet promises so much, from working in your pajamas to achieving financial freedom. But for many, that dream remains just that – a dream. It feels like hitting a wall, right? You try, you push, but the money just doesn’t seem to come. Why is it so hard? Well, it’s often not about a lack of effort, but a lack of information. Think of it like a puzzle. You have some pieces, but you’re missing the crucial ones that connect everything.
Let’s look into the vital information many people are missing that stops them from truly succeeding online:
1. Lack of Focused on a Specific Activity
When I was at my early stage of making money online. I had a friend who was also on the same agenda with me. We were both on the journey of becoming successful online. But there was a problem. He was very unstable. Today, he’d says, there’s an online business called “ABC” and then he joins. Tomorrow, he’d says, there’s a new online business that’s called “XYZ” which is better than the previous, and he joins. Within a month, he has registered in about 6 promising online businesses without achieveing anything from any of them.
On the other hand, I was focused and persisted in one thing. As time goes by, I became more professional in my skill and was able to make some bulk money online. Although, I’m thankful that my friend did find a great path for himself “Offline”. The truth is, online success requires persistence in a particular activity. Without a definite goal, you can never be consistent nor productive.
Let’s imagine it this way, a man is desperate to change his financial status and decides to become a doctor, while he’s learning, someone whispers to his ears. “Bro! there’s so much money in tech”. He abandons his health course after 3 months and starts learning tech. While he’s learning tech, he hears 3 people arguing about how much youtube pays content creators. 5 months from his tech course, he abandons it again and jumps on screen like “Hey guys, welcome to my youtube channel“. Sadly, even in the youtube channel, he will have nothing to offer because he literally learned nothing during the period of switching between courses. He didn’t build up a skill. He didn’t set a goal. So, what are thoughts towards such movement?
Let’s imagine the same person, but this time, he decides to persist in his course of becoming a doctor and learns it properly for 3 years. Now he has a skill and a good reputation. If he decides to start a youtube channel after that, he would gain traction because he has acquired significant information about how to help a lot of people manage a good and healthy lifestyle. In no-time, he will begin making a lot of money from that youtube channel, which is just one of many ways.
What’s the point I’m getting at? The point is that when you are specific and focused on a single goal, you stands a better chance of earning money online (or offline) for a longer time. This is possible because the skill is now embedded in you which is what elevates your value.
2. Chasing “Get Rich Quick” Schemes (Be Realistic!)
Do you know you can earn online without necessarily having a skill? Yes! I’ll give you an example. Let’s assume you can do absolutely nothing! You can’t sing, you don’t have anything to teach, you can’t make people laugh etc. You’re only know how to look 👀 and admire 🥰 those who can. Well, all hope is not lost, platforms like amazon affiliates or similar can pay you a decent amount of money just for sharing links. So, Once people click the link and purchases a product, you get paid. Hurray!!!
But as we all know, amazon is a trustworthy company. Unfortunately, many companies launch each day pretending to offer out-of-the box benefit. These companies promises to make you millions of money by doing simple tasks such as sharing links. Doesn’t this seem similar to what you would do as an amazon affiliation? That’s the catch! Fake companies try to present themselve doing what real companies do, but with a “Too Good To Be True” initiative. At the end, it’s a waste of time and effort backed by zero income. Think about it, you can get rich from making youtube videos, but even youtube requires a minimum of 4,000 watch hours, which is not as easy to get as it may seem.
Earning serious money online is like building any successful business or career. It takes real time, consistent hard work, learning new things, and often, starting small. It’s not a magic trick; it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
3. Embracing Skills that No One Needs? (Value is Key!)
In the olden days, around 9000 BC, cows, goats, or chickens were literal signs of wealth. You could pay dowries, taxes, or debts with them. But not these days! Now imagine you have 1 Bitcoin resting in your wallet and then decide to trade it off for something valuable. In front of you are bidders, ready to bargain your bitcoin at a reasonable cost. Then one of them raises his hand to say “I will give away 400 cows for 1 Bitcoin“. The next person stands with confidence to counter the other and says “I have 250 sheeps, 50 monkeys, 99 pigs and 500 ostrichs to give you for 1 Bitcoin“. Would you gladly accept the offer? Certainly not!
What runs to your mind could be, where would you keep all this animals? Feeding them to stay alive, cleaning their poop, building them shelter; all of that will cost you more than the bitcoin you are trading. So you really need is cash, you need something that can help you buy private jets, build houses and live freely. For surely, we know that your personal doctor will certainly not accept a cow as payment for giving you a healthy treatment.
What am I getting at? Using animals as payment for means of wealth is outdated. The same way, skills can also get outdated or irrelevant. If you train yourself to revolve around skill that is not needed, then you’ll certainly have a very hard time making money – even offline. Most real online income comes from having a skill that people are willing to pay for. This could be writing, designing, coding, marketing, video editing, managing social media, or even teaching. If you don’t have a valuable skill, or if your skill is outdated, it becomes tough to make money.
A question for you: What are you good at? What problems can you solve for others? If you don’t know, it’s time to learn a skill that’s in demand online!
4. Not Showing Off Your Skills (Get Noticed!)
Reason with me:
You’re such a beautiful lady. You’ve made up yourself the best way you can. You look very astonishing. However, you decide to stay 24 hours, 7 days a week inside your room. Congratulation, you’re now officially engaged with your mirror and we hope you have the best reflection wedding.
Reason with me again:
You’re a strong, innovative and intelligent young man who invented a device that can change the world forever. Then, you decide to stuck it in your wordrobe. Congratulation, you’ve found yourself a great customer that will pay you underwears as a token for your outstanding invention.
You see, the world cannot know what you have to offer if you don’t expose it. The truth is, money are made by people and money only comes from people. You receive money because someone actually sent it to you. If no one has any reason to send you money, then they won’t. Therefore, simply having a skill isn’t enough; you need to show it off to potential clients or customers. This means creating a professional online presence: a simple website, a strong portfolio, or well-managed social media profiles that highlight what you can do. The maximizes your chances of earning online.
Imagine: If you’re an amazing baker but no one knows you exist, how will you sell cakes? Your online presence is your storefront!
5. Not Mastering Time Management (The Self-Discipline Challenge!)
This is where a lot of people fail. If you were working in an office and you are required to be in office everyday by 8am, you’d get up in the morning and rush down to the office. It becomes your daily obligation. Why? because you’re being monitored. If your boss doesn’t see you, he questions you and you probably will feel treatened that you might loss your job. However, when it comes to the online niche, there’s a shift. You might say, I’ll spend 3 hours to complete this task but at the end, you realize that in 3 hours, you’ve only done 10% of the task. Why? Because you probably spent 2.5 hours being distracted with post on instagram, tiktok and facebook.
A lot of people often underestimate the discipline needed to work from home. Online work demands incredible self-discipline and time management. There’s no boss looking over your shoulder. You need to set your own goals, manage distractions, and stay consistent, especially when balancing it with other life responsibilities. Learn the habit of seeing your online business or money making activities as thought they were a boss in charge of you that will fire you if you don’t do what is necessary. The truth is, people who make it big online most likely don’t sleep frequently at night. Passion and ambition keeps them awake, dedication keeps them going and consistency keeps them flourishing.
6. No Idea on How Online Money Actually Works (The Mechanisms!)
Have you every searched for the term “How to make money online?“. You’ll find tons of website that are offering countless ways to make money. But most times, the list can be somewhat frustrating or insignificant. For example:
- Sell your old cloths on ebay
- Search the web to earn
- Watch videos and get paid…
It’s true that you can earn from most of these but not so much. Some of these online business models can pay as low as $0.01 (depending on your country) which is not worthwhile if you have to keep repeating same action (like watching videos or taking surveys) all by yourself. For you to make real money, you have to understand certain things including – but not limited to – active and passive income, cash flow quadrant, Income Streams vs. Income Systems, Leverage etc and then know how to apply them in the online ecosystem to make money online.
There are many ways to monetize online (ads, selling products, affiliate marketing, services, subscriptions), and each has its own rules and requirements. Understanding these rules – like how many subscribers you need for YouTube ads, or how to get paid internationally – is crucial. You know what they say:
If you don’t know the rules, you’ll keep playing the game — and still lose.
Money has its own system, its own flow, and its own logic. If you only chase it without understanding how it moves, who it serves, and what it responds to… you’ll work hard and the result might still be bad.
Do your homework: Research the specific platform or method you want to use and ensure you know their rules?
7. Finding Authentic but Partial Information (Sorting Fact from Fiction!)
Do not blindly practialize everything you see about making money online. You might be getting a true information but not a full information. For example, You watch a free YouTube tutorial or read a blog post that explains how to make money online posting with ChatGPT because it will make your blogging faster. That’s true! However, that’s not the full information as they did not give you complete details on the dangers of blogging with ChatGPT which includes lower ranking and bad SEO optimization. Hence, you might have so much content and not get noticed on search engine because search engines now prioritize human contents and are able to detect contents written by AI.
So you keep wondering, “Why do I have a 100 blog post and yet, a decreasing traffic?”. Well, one major factor that google considers paramount is the emphasis on E-E-A-T which AI lacks. That being said, the internet is full of “gurus” offering quick fixes. It’s hard to find honest, comprehensive, and actionable advice that genuinely helps you, not just the person selling the information. You need a trusted source that provides a clear roadmap.
Understanding these missing pieces isn’t just about gaining knowledge; it’s about changing your approach. It’s about building a solid foundation, learning the right skills, and having the persistence to see it through. Which of these pieces do you feel is the biggest challenge for you right now? Share your thoughts!
