There are real reasons you haven’t started yet, and real ways to overcome those reasons.
You’ve wanted to start an online project for a long time—a blog, a YouTube channel, or a podcast. Somehow, you haven’t started yet. Why not? What’s holding you back?
Most reasons holding people back fall into three categories: lack of clarity, fear of failure, and fear of judgment.
Today, we’ll examine the most common reasons people don’t launch their projects and some simple, realistic ways to overcome those obstacles.
Reason Number 1: I’m Not Ready
When will you be ready? Is there something you have to do to get prepared?
Make a list of the skills you think you need to acquire or improve before you start.
Certain conditions need to be in place before you start. Make a list of those.
The truth is that you just need some basic skills to start a project.
Look at the specific skills or conditions you need before starting. Are they realistic? Or are they aspirational?
Realistically, you’ll need to know something about food. You’ll need to learn how to use a computer or smartphone. You’ll also need to have some basic reading and writing skills.
Knowing how to code and being an excellent graphic designer are aspirational. Those sorts of skills are not required to start a project.
You can learn all of the required skills online, usually for free.
If you need some skills, find some free resources to learn them. Set aside some time to study. Make a timeline with goals for each week and a learning timeline no longer than six weeks. Be sure to include a launch date!
We think it’s very rare that you need to learn the basic skills you’ll need to start. Most of the time, you already have the skills to launch your project.
You can learn all the aspirational skills as you go along, after you launch your project.
If you can’t learn the required technical skills, hire someone to perform those skills for you.
Solution: Determine if your expectations are realistic. Make a plan to learn the basic skills you need quickly using free, online resources. A goal is to have a firm launch date.
Solution: Learn the aspirational skills you need after you launch.
Solution: Hire someone to perform the tasks you can’t learn.
Reason Number 2. I’m not as Good as (fill in the blank).
Chances are, there’s a blogger or celebrity chef that you admire. Maybe you aspire to be like them.
It’s very dangerous to compare yourself to them. They’re already successful, and you haven’t started.
It’s rather like comparing a six-month-old baby to a young adult. Who’s better at walking and talking or reading and writing?
The fair comparison is to compare a six-month-old baby to another baby the same age. Or one young adult to another. Will the baby never learn to walk, talk, read, or write? Of course it will. In time, it will learn all those skills.
The same is true for you. You’ll learn many skills as you go along, but at the beginning of your blog, you’ll have a smaller skillset. A smaller but entirely appropriate skill set for your level.
Solution: Compare yourself to other beginners; aspire to become like the person you admire later.
Solution: Change your mindset about your skill level to launch a project.
Reason Number 3. It’s Not the Right Time
There’s a saying, “The best time to launch a blog is yesterday.”
That’s because whatever project you launch will take some time to gain traction. So, the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see some success.
If you start now, in a year, you’ll have a year’s worth of growth, progress, and experience behind you. You’ll be a year closer to success.
If you don’t start at all, you’ll have nothing in a year. No growth. No progress. And no experience. And you’ll be no closer to success than you are now.
During the recent COVID pandemic, thousands launched blogs, YouTube channels, and podcasts. A large percentage of people were unemployed, and so potential audiences had no disposable income. That would seem to be a bad time to launch a project.
It was a great time. The new creators had no day jobs to distract them so that they could devote themselves to their projects.
Audiences also had large amounts of free time and were spending it online, eager to learn new things and find new sources of entertainment.
If online projects can flourish during a pandemic, think about what they’ll do during regular times.
Solution: Understand that the sooner you start, the sooner you’ll see success.
Reason Number 4. I Don’t Know Where to Start
Here’s the secret: Start at the beginning. Establish your platform, create content, and market your content. Create more content, and market that.
Search online for “How to launch a blog” and you’ll find
thousands of step-by-step guides. Review a few. You’ll notice they have several steps in common. Pick one that seems to make sense to you. And START!
Solution: Find a free online launch guide for your project type. Follow the directions and START!
Read our blog post Month One of a project, which details a to-do list for beginning content creators.
Reason Number 5. I’m Afraid I’ll Fail
If you launch your project, you might fail. You also might succeed.
If you never launch your project, you’re guaranteed to fail. You’re guaranteed not to succeed.
So the only way you might succeed is if you try.
What’s the worst thing that might happen if you fail?
You’ll lose the money you invested in the project. (We’re generally talking about less than $200 to launch a project and cover costs for the first year.) Losing money is never fun, but losing this amount of money won’t bankrupt you. You won’t end up homeless.
Some other things that won’t happen: You won’t be sent to prison. You won’t be put to death. You won’t be publicly shamed in the town square. No, you won’t be forced to carry a sign that says, “I failed at content creation.” And you won’t be banned from ever trying a project again.
If you fail, you can try again. Determine what went wrong with your blog, correct any mistakes, and try again.
Many people don’t succeed with their first blog. But they learn from the experience, and when they try again, they succeed.
By the way, the most common reason projects fail is that the creator loses interest and stops creating content.
Solution: Recognize that while it’s true that if you don’t try, you won’t fail, it’s equally true that if you don’t try, you won’t succeed. Give yourself a chance to succeed.
Solution: Develop a realistic list of the worst things that can happen if your project fails. (Notice that none of them involve prison, homelessness, or death.) Brainstorm some methods of coping with those circumstances if they do occur.
Solution: Change your mindset about what failing means to you. (Failure means your blog didn’t work; failure doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you.)
Solution: Resolve to try again if you fail. Evaluate your project, determine what went wrong, and don’t make those same mistakes next time.
Reason Number 6. I Don’t Have the Technical Skills
These days, being a blogger doesn’t require advanced technical skills. It’s extremely easy to launch a simple website on a variety of platforms.
Yes, you can opt for complicated technical setups if you want to. But easy
alternatives are also available. Explore website options and determine the one that’s best for you, given your current level of technical skills.
You can hire someone to handle the technical aspects, but there are easy, non-technical options, no matter your chosen platform.
Solution: Change your mindset about the technical skills necessary to launch a website. Get information about the actual skills you need.
Solution: Choose a non-technical option for your website.
Solution: Hire someone to handle the technical aspects of your project.
Reason Number 7. I’m Afraid I’ll Lose the Stability of a Regular Job
A day job, one where you get paid regularly and maybe get benefits, has distinct advantages. Most creators have a regular job when they launch their project. You don’t have to quit your job to start your blog.
There may come a time when your income from your blog replaces the income from your day job. If that happens, you can decide if you want to quit your day job. Until that happens, you can keep both your day job and your blog. Heck, even after that happens, you can keep both your day job and your blog.
Solution: Resolve to keep your day job and your project going at least until the income from your project equals the revenue from your day job.
8. I Don’t Have Any Free Time
Create some free time. Take a good look at your schedule and see where you can carve out 30 minutes daily to devote to your project.
Yes, if you spend eight hours a day on your blog, you’ll grow faster, but if you can spend just half an hour at a time, a few times a week, you’ll be able to grow.
There are lots of tasks you can complete in 30 minutes. And tasks that take longer can be broken up into short segments.
Working in small segments of time, you’ll accomplish less, but you will achieve something. Not starting at all guarantees that you won’t accomplish anything.
Solution: Find short time segments, say 30 minutes, and devote that to your project. Accept that your growth might be slower than if you had large chunks of time to work on your blog, but acknowledge that you are accomplishing something.
Reason Number 9. I Don’t Know What I Want to Do
This is the hardest obstacle for most people to overcome. With all of the topics, approaches, audiences, and platforms you can choose for your project, the list of what’s possible can seem endless.
With so many options, narrowing your choice to one topic, approach, audience, and platform can be extremely difficult.
The answer starts with you. What do you want to do? Not what would you like to do, but what would you LOVE to do? What topic would keep your attention for the next five years? What job would you happily do for free?
Still have multiple topics in contention? Okay, then the question becomes, what would you like to do first?
There’s no rule saying you can’t start a cooking blog focusing on Mexican food this month and start a YouTube channel in six months. You can develop several projects over time. The trick is to start.
Start with the topic that you’re most excited about, the one that you know the most about, or the one that would be easiest for you to launch. Just START!
Solution: Decide what platform, topic, and approach you would LOVE to do.
Solution: Decide which platform, topic, and approach that you would love to do that would be best to do first.
Reason Number 10. I Don’t Have the Money/Resources to Start
You can start any simple website for less than $75. You need very little equipment, and most services and products that you need offer free forever versions or 30-day free trials.
Don’t have any cash? Cut out a small expense and save up. Try not buying coffee every morning and spending that money on your project.
Think the price of a cup of coffee won’t buy you much? Say your coffee costs $3 every morning. That’s $15 a week. Save for four weeks and you’ll have $60.
Less than $50 buys you one year of blog hosting from BlueHost. Less than $10 buys you a month of dedicated email from Google Workspace.
All you need to start a YouTube channel is a smartphone and some effort. $40 buys you a good-quality lavalier microphone or light ring.
A medium-quality microphone costs around $50, and a month’s podcasting hosting costs less than $15.
Solution: Cut a personal expense and save up the money. Use those funds for your project.
Solution: Use free-forever or 30-day free trials for products and services.
Reason Number 11. I Don’t Have My Family’s Support
Having family support is nice, but not necessary. And there’s a difference between “My family doesn’t support my wanting to do a project” and “My family opposes my doing a project.”
If your family doesn’t support your desire to have a project, ask for their support. Make it clear to them that their support is essential to you, and give them a few examples of how they can show their support. If they choose not to support you, accept their decision and continue with your website.
If they oppose your project, ask them to clarify their opposition. Do they object to you taking time or money away from the family to spend on your website?
Use your own time and money for your project while you continue to meet your family obligations.
That might mean getting up early or staying up late to write a blog post or tape a cooking video. Use your lunch hour at work to do some research or watch some videos to improve your skills.
Many times, family members will echo one of the reasons on this list – “I’m afraid you’ll fail,” or “I don’t think you have the skills to succeed.”
Use the rationale listed in this guide to overcome their objections.
It’s important not to let other people’s fears or misconceptions stop you from moving forward.
Solution: Ask your family for support. If they decline, accept their decision and move on.
Solution: Ask your family to clarify their objections. Work to find realistic solutions to overcome their opposition, including using the rationales in this guide to change their mindsets.
Solution: Use your own time and money for your project while you continue to meet your family obligations.
Reason Number 12. I Don’t Know Enough to Teach Others
We hear lots of reasons as to why people don’t launch their projects.
“I don’t know anything” is one of the most frequent. In almost every case,
it isn’t true.
If you inventory all the cooking skills you’ve developed over the years, you’ll probably see that you know quite a bit that you can teach other people about.
Many enthusiastic home cooks have launched successful projects.
Even if your skills are limited, many blogs are hosted by people learning something and taking their audience along as they learn.
For example, a novice home cook tries many beginner recipes and shares her results, what works, and what doesn’t.
With “Learn with Me” projects, content creators don’t need to be experts on any topic. They just need to know more than their audience and be curious to learn more.
Solution: Change your mindset about the value of the things you do know.
Solution: Learn something and share your learning experience.
Reason Number 13. Blogging is Dead
There are currently almost 600 million blogs in the world.
Some 7.5 million blog posts go live every day.
The demographics for online learning are growing every day.
American-based creators on YouTube, for example, were once predominantly white, adult males between the ages of 25 and 45. That’s changing to include more minorities, more women, and more people over 60 and under the age of 20. And the YouTube audience is expanding in the same way.
The same is true for blogs and podcasts. Creator and audience demographics are expanding.
None of those platforms is dead. None of them is dying.
In general, headlines like “Is Blogging Dead?” are simply fear-based clickbait.
The truth is that each of those platforms is poised for explosive growth as internet access increases around the world. Countries like the US have a high rate of access. Other countries are increasing their access, bringing more and more people online.
The need for information and entertainment never ends, and these platforms answer those needs efficiently. Readers, viewers, and listeners access these platforms, for the most part, for free. Why would audiences move away from these platforms?
Until new platforms come into being that provide information or entertainment even more efficiently, also for free, blogs, YouTube, and podcasts are safe.
Solution: Reframe your mindset about the reality of these platforms. They are growing exponentially each day. The need for information and entertainment continues and will only grow as access to the internet increases around the world.
Reason Number 14. The Market is Full/There’s No Room for Another project
The numbers in reason 13 above would seem to support the idea that the
market is, in fact, whole. It isn’t. It isn’t even close to full.
The potential audience for projects is growing every day. The population of the world is growing every day. And more people have access to the internet every day. More people and more access mean a bigger audience.
An excellent combination of education and entertainment, projects are here to stay. Besides, there’s always an audience for a project that offers value.
Think about grocery stores. There are low-priced grocery stores, mid-range stores, high-priced stores, stores that offer natural, organic food, generic labels at a deep discount, and stores that offer exclusive products.
There can be too many grocery stores in any one neighborhood. But with a website, your “neighborhood” is the whole world!
People have a favorite grocery store, one where they shop regularly. They might drive past another grocery store to get to their favorite. But something about their favorite keeps them coming back.
Maybe it’s the prices, maybe it’s the selection of products. It might be the size, the cleanliness, or the friendly staff.
Like grocery stores, websites, and blogs have different approaches, different price points, and different styles. Each project is aimed at a different audience.
There may be hundreds of blogs that focus on your particular topic, but only one has you. Audiences connect to the creator behind the website. You’re unique, and what you’ll offer will be unique, too, if you infuse your blog with your approach, your style, and your personality.
Solution: Reframe your mindset about the potential audience for your project (it’s worldwide!).
Solution: Offer real value with your blog, and you’ll attract an audience.
Solution: Infuse your blog with your unique personality and style. Like you, your project will be unique in the world.
Reason Number 15. My Friends/Family/Co-workers Will Laugh at Me
The truth is that unless you tell them, your friends, family, and co-workers will likely never notice that you started a project. Most people are very busy with their own lives.
It’s a vast world online. The chances that someone in your life accidentally stumbles across your blog are slim.
The people in your life will have one of three reactions: they’ll be supportive, they’ll be indifferent, or they’ll be negative. Some of the negative people might ridicule you.
So, you’re not starting your project because a tiny number of people might laugh at you. You’re letting a possibility stop you. Does that make sense?
There are lots of things we can guarantee will happen once you start your project – you’ll have to work hard, you’ll have to plan, you’ll have to earn an audience and sponsors, and you’ll have to market your content. All of that is hard to do.
If those guaranteed complex tasks aren’t holding you back, why is the possibility of an adverse reaction from some people preventing you from launching your project?
Solution: Change your mindset about the number of people you know who
might accidentally find your project and have a sufficiently negative
reaction to go to the trouble of ridiculing you.
Solution: Change your mindset about the importance of people’s opinions of you. Someone who ridicules you isn’t worth being called a friend. Accept that there are negative, even dreadful, people in the world. Resolve not to let what they might think about you limit your actions.
Solution: Prepare some responses to any negative commentary you might get so that you’re not caught by surprise. Example: Someone says, “You’re going to fail.” You respond, “Not trying is a guaranteed way to fail. I’m going to try to give myself the chance to succeed.”
Reason Number 16. I’m an Introvert and Am Afraid of Social Contact
The beauty of websites and blogs is that you control exactly how much interaction you have with your audience.
You can make videos without ever showing your face or using your voice. You can avoid in-person transactions with your audience (no live workshops, for example).
And you don’t have to use your image or name for your brand marketing. Instead of Cooking the Best Italian Recipes with Annie, name your project The Best of Italian Recipes. Use an image of chef’s knives as your logo or favicon instead of your headshot.
Instead of using a “Posted by Annie Reynolds” byline, try “Posted by The Best of Italian Recipes.”
Lots of content creators do make videos of themselves talking directly to the camera. But lots don’t.
For example, if your audience needs one-on-one communication, such as answering emails, you can hire a virtual assistant.
Solution: Create content and marketing materials that don’t use your face, voice, or name.
Solution: Hire a virtual assistant for any one-on-one communication your audience needs.
Reason Number 17. I Have to Do (fill in the blank) Before I Start a Blog
Saying, “I have to do X before I can start a blog,” is an especially effective form of procrastination. In almost all situations, you can do X no matter what the situation with your project is.
You can do X first. You can start a blog first. Or you do them both at the same time. Heck, you can do neither one and go on to something else.
Ask yourself, “Why can’t I do X?” Is there a real obstacle to getting that done? Is it linked to your blog?
If you decide that you really, really must do X before you start a project, then do it and move forward.
If you decide the two tasks aren’t linked, move forward with your blog.
The truth is that the only thing you have to do before you start a project is to decide to do it.
Solution: Change your mindset about the two tasks you’ve linked. If they’re connected, complete X and move forward with your project. If they’re not related, move forward with your project.
Next Steps: Figure out What’s Holding You Back and Overcome It
If you want to start an online project, you can. Yes, there are obstacles to starting, things like a lack of equipment and time. But the real problem for most people is fear.
Fear is a feeling. You can overcome it. Use the techniques outlined in this post to remove that fear and get started.
See our post HOW TO DEAL WITH NEGATIVE FEEDBACK for more information on handling negativity.