9 ways you’re being your own worst enemy

Today's topic is a little bit of tough love, and I'm really calling out in this blog. A lot of the excuses and the ways that we get in our own way, the ways that we end up being our own worst enemy, and stopping ourselves from taking that action that we know we should be taking. And in this case, that action is launching a digital product.

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9 excuses we make to stop us from launching our digital product

 

I'm most definitely not saying these things from my soapbox. I also have come up against these excuses and told them to myself in the past. So I'm not criticizing you for having them. It's totally normal. Our brains do love to get in the way because they love to keep us safe. So what I'm really trying to do here, instead of criticizing you, I'm just trying to draw attention to how you're being your own worst enemy sometimes, because it definitely took other people calling these things out for me before I noticed them and to take the action to work through them.

 

1. I need a bigger audience before I launch

The first way that you're being your own worst enemy, you are telling yourself that you need more visibility, more followers, more subscribers, more engagement, and then you'll be ready to launch. But then when you start to get that visibility, when you start to get a few more followers and put yourself out there, that's when you start to freak out and feel like, but no, I don't want that visibility because then that means I have to be in spotlight. So see the contradiction here? We want that visibility, but we also don't want to be in spotlight. One of the two, you either don't have any visibility or you have to be brave and step into the spotlight and allow yourself to have that visibility.

 

2. Overwhelming yourself with all the things you want to launch at the same time

The second way you're being your own worst enemy is wanting to launch an entire library of products, but then overwhelm yourself because you have so many you want to create and actually end up all of these half created products, but nothing got finished. So my biggest tip to you, don't focus on launching the whole library. Focus on one product at a time. The library can come later. Just focus on that first product and get that first product finished, then focus on the next one. Don't focus on all of the products you're going create at a time, just one. Just one, guys. Otherwise, you will overwhelm yourselves.

 

3. I need it to be perfect before I launch it

The third way you're being your own worst enemy, you are waiting for it to be perfect. You're waiting for your product to be perfect, your launch to be perfect. But the problem is, nothing is ever going to be perfect enough for you. I say this as a recovering perfectionist, it's never going to feel perfect. You just need to get it done, get it out there, and then you can go back and tidy up the details later.

 

4. Launching my product is just not a priority right now

You tell yourself that launching a digital product is not a priority right now. But the problem is that as long as you are busy and yourself with client work, and I say busy, as in, client work is taking up the bulk of your day, then you are never going to really find that time to create a digital product until you make it a priority. And creating and launching a digital product is what's going to allow you to scale back on the client work and be less busy on the client work while still earning the same income. So it's a little bit of a chicken and egg situation. It's not going to be a priority or you're going to have the time to make it a priority until you find the time to make it a priority. And you're not going to be able to find the time to make it a priority until you actually step back from the client work and create the digital product, if that makes sense.

 

5. Scared that your launch will fail and nobody will buy

I am worried that it will flop and nobody will buy it. So instead, what we do is we just sit on it. We keep planning it. We keep it preparing for the worst-case scenario. We never launch it, and that way nobody buys it. Or even worse, we don't tell anyone that we're launching it. We just put it on the website because we're afraid that if we do a big launch and nobody buys, we'll embarrass ourselves in front of everyone. And by just quietly putting it on the website, nobody knows about it, and then that way we make sure that nobody's going to buy it.

 

6. It's just too much work/time/investment right now

Number six, it's too much work. I don't have the time to do it. It's going to require way too much time investment.  And instead, what we do is we just spend the same time scrolling through Instagram, scrolling through Facebook groups, watching TikTok, on Clubhouse. I mean, that one's been a massive time drain for a lot of people recently. And we don't sit and think, “Well, I've got to get my return on investment for spending hours of scrolling through Instagram,” so why are we approaching creating a digital product and launching a digital product with the same mindset? Why are we thinking, “Well, am I going to get the return on investment of my time creating a digital product?” And we're not thinking, “Am I going to get return on investment on my time that I'm spending on Clubhouse.” There's something to think about.

 

7. I don't know where to start

I don't know where to begin. Okay, and then we just end up sitting there. We don't actually take any action, we just don't begin because we don't know where to begin. Here's the thing, guys. You're always going to feel like… When you're doing something new, it's always going to feel like that next step or that next path, the pathway is a little bit unclear. And the only way that the pathway will start to reveal itself is once you start taking action, and it can be any action. We worry so much that it's going to be the right action, but honestly, any action is better than no action at all. And as you start taking action, you'll find it easier to keep taking action. Starting is honestly the hardest part. So even if you don't know where to begin, just begin somewhere.

 

8. Which of my content should be paid or free?

I don't know the difference between my paid content and my free content. And okay, this one I hear quite a lot. And then what happens is, a lot of the time people just make all of their content free. So they don't know the difference between what should sell as part of their product and what should be their different content, so it's just easier to make all of their content free. And the problem is nobody values what you're giving them for free. Yes, you can give people things for free and feel like you're helping them. But if people aren't paying for something, they are much less likely to take action and implement what you're telling them. So you're helping them by charging for your paid product.

 

9. I don't understand the tech to create and launch my digital product

The last excuse that I hear all the time is, “I'm not techy enough to create and launch a digital product.” And, yes, okay. There is a minor amount of tech involved, but honestly, I believe that if you're techy enough to run a Zoom call, you're techy enough to create and launch a digital product. And what typically happens is instead of people learning how to do it the easy way, they will just sit there and keep telling themselves that they don't know enough about tech and keep telling themselves they can't do it. And you know what? If you keep telling yourself you can't do something, guess what, you can't do it. It's only once you start believing that, “Hey, maybe I can figure this out,” and spoiler alert, you can figure pretty much anything out. It's only once you start to believe that you can figure it out, that you will be able to figure it out.

 

And we're pretty lucky these days. There's platforms like Kajabi, which I am a partner with, and I wholly, wholly recommend to anyone creating a digital product. You can grab their free trial stephtaylor/kajabi. They are an all in one platform. You can build your website on there. You can host your courses and memberships, any of your digital products, you can collect payments, literally everything that you would need. You can send emails from there. Everything that you would need in running an online business, they have put it in one place. So it's not even like you need to piece together all the different bits of tech, it's just that one simple platform.

 

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