A lot of my mistakes while working online have been good lessons. They have helped me progress in some way with my writing or website creation. But, there have been a few regrets along the way.
The other day I wrote about my biggest regret since I started working online as a website creator. Basically, I wish I would have kept a website that was doing well and figured out how to make it awesome. Instead, I sold it.
My second biggest regret also has to do with website creation, but not in the same way.
I Didn’t Want To Work For Other People
When I started working online, my biggest intention was to work for myself. I didn’t want to answer to other people or depend on other people for my success.
Unfortunately, I built a few websites with a lot of content but didn’t fully understand how I was going to make money with them yet, so after months of not making any money, I eventually started to ghostwrite for other website creators. I was creating content for their websites along with my own.
At one point, I got a client who wanted me to work for him full time. He paid a lot of money. I still don’t understand how I nabbed him and why he paid so much money, but I was making over $200 per day from him and working 5 days a week.
Obviously, I devoted my time and energy to him. I was able to pay off the bills, go on some vacations, get some much-needed work done to our house, and save some money.
I Spent Two Years Working For Him
I spent two years working for him. I was so involved in creating content for him that I put my websites on the backburner. I barely worked on them because I barely had the energy to work on them!
I knew that eventually my client was going to go away and I would be left with nothing to show for it. But, I couldn’t find the energy to build up my own stuff, so I just kept going on the way I was going.
Then, one day, it happened. He stopped wanting articles written for him. And, I was left with no income besides a few clients that wanted a few articles here and there and a few passive affiliate commissions here and there.
Despair Dragged Me Down For A Long Time
The shock of not having the work and income I had grown used to make me sad. Really sad. Depressed.
I wish I could say that I used all the energy I had used to write my client’s articles to create content for my own websites. But, the truth is that all the energy that had gone into writing for my client was suddenly being redirected into sadness.
I spent months beating myself up for not building something for myself while I wrote for him.
I focused on the fact that I had built up the content for a whole website for my client and it was doing well – thriving even. Whileย I, on the other hand, had some pitiful websites from years ago that had hardly been worked on.
Eventually, I Got Around To Creating Again
I spent a long time beating myself up. That kept me from working towards the vision of working for myself, which is what I had originally set out for myself.
But, I’ve never had the gusto to work hard on my online business until I took Lifebook and redefined who I was, what I wanted, and what my life vision looked like. Since then, I’ve been developing a business plan and working towards it.
I Regret Not Building Up My Online Business While Writing For My Client
I was making good money writing for that client, so I don’t regret writing for him. But, I wish I would have used my weekends to write for myself.
I wish I had worked on building up an online business for myself while I wrote for him so that when he no longer needed me (and I always knew that day would come), I would have some sort of business to keep an income coming in and my morality high.
The lesson I learned is that it’s important to have a few sources of income coming in. If one source of income ends, then at least you aren’t totally screwed.
