Hands up if you’ve got more than one self-study programme sitting uncompleted in your inbox?
Hands up if you’ve bought one and never even started it, let alone finished it?
Me too!
I posted about this on social media recently and so many people raised their hands.
There are always things that we think are a good idea at the time. We buy them, full of good intentions, but then for whatever reason we never actually get around to doing it.
And it’s so easily done, isn’t it?! When you’re sitting there in the evening, watching TV and scrolling through your phone, and this thing that pops up that looks like an amazing offer. Especially if it’s one of those £37 or £49 type things, it’s so easy to hit the button. With PayPal and Google Wallet and your phone storing your card details, you don’t even have to get off the sofa to find your wallet.
Of course, the problem is that they often end up just sitting in your inbox and you don’t actually do anything with them.
If you went back through and added up all the things that you’ve bought and haven’t started or finished over the years, you may well find that it runs into £100s or £1000s.
So why don’t people do it? I mean you’ve paid for it… why not just do the work?
I guess it’s the same reason for most people. We’re busy. We forget it’s there. Maybe we’ve not really appreciated the value we’re going to get. Maybe we know it’s important (hence buying it in that moment) but with everything else we have going on, it doesn’t feel important enough to give it the time it needs.
And so, we do nothing.
Really, it’s all to do with internal motivation. Imagine you’re looking at this 6-part course you bought for £399. It’s sitting in your inbox right now. It’s going to train you to do something that is going to make a massive difference to your business (maybe marketing or Facebook Ads or something). It’s quite easy, in terms of doing the content. It’s all pre-recorded so you can do it whenever you want…
…but you just haven’t done it. Why?
Because for whatever reason, that is not your priority right now, and it’s exactly the same when it comes to money:
“Don’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.”
This isn’t my quote (it’s attributed to the American author James W. Frick), but it’s absolutely true. It’s about where and what you are prioritising and there’s a really simple way that we can test this.
Imagine you’re looking at something in your inbox and you think to yourself, “I really should get that done”. But then ask yourself: if somebody said they’d give you £50,000 to complete it by lunchtime tomorrow, would you get on and do the work?
If the answer is yes, it tells you that actually you have a motivation issue. And it’s to do with priorities in your life. Because the dangling carrot of £50,000 is enough to overcome that feeling of “I can’t really be bothered to do this”.
Of course, in reality, it’s highly unlikely someone’s going to offer you £50k to complete that online course that’s sitting in your inbox. So how can you make sure that you DO take action on these things you’ve spent your hard-earned money on?
The first thing is to look at them again and see if they are still relevant to what you want to do. Will they actually give you what you need? Are they something that is still a priority for your business or not? If not, it might be you want to move them into ‘come back to later’ folder or simply accept that it’s not going to happen and delete them, to clear them out of your mental should-do list once and for all.
If they are things that you need or want to do, then it’s time to physically carve out the time in your diary to do them… and of course, this is where the difficulty lies.
Like most of my clients, I’m sure your calendar is filled with client work and appointments and Zoom calls and all of the stuff that goes into the day-to-day running of a business.
There’s no time to be the visionary; the CEO; the person who is truly in control of the business.
Which is why we buy these online courses, because this is what we think they will help us do. They’re usually marketed very well – making promises to help to make your business better; more profitable; more efficient. Either that or they’re to do with our own personal development, about leadership and success.
They’re not things that we can give to other people to do, because it’s work that needs to be done by us, as the business owner. But despite it being important for us to do – and us really WANTING to do it! – carving out the time in the diary can be really, really hard.
This is what makes my signature programme, the Asset Accelerator™, totally different and literally the opposite of repeatedly buying stuff that simply doesn’t work for you!
How?
Because we start by creating that deep internal motivation. We spend some focused time getting clearer than ever before, on what you really really want – creating that metaphorical £50,000 carrot dangling before you, inspiring you and motivating you to WANT to take action.
Then we block out that time for you upfront, before your diary fills up, for you to take action on mastering your finances, growing your wealth and making your dreams your reality. Because when you have those appointments booked into your calendar in advance, you’re subconsciously much more likely to keep them, than consciously trying to make the time yourself with no accountability at all.
This is honestly big part of why my Asset Accelerator™ clients see such incredible results – because when you make an appointment with someone else, whose time you value as much as your own, you show up for it. You don’t want to let them down. You make a commitment to be there and walking away feels much more difficult, than simply keeping your word to yourself (and then breaking it, yet again!).
And you don’t even need to carve out a huge amount of time either, when you have the support to make sure it’s actually well spent. You’ll be amazed how much progress you make, simply joining the monthly Asset Growth and Implementation Sessions on Zoom!
And of course, we kick off with a 1:1 planning session on Zoom first, to get crystal clear on your financial plan of action and your exact next steps – with quarterly 1:1 calls together too, to support you with everything you need along the way.
Is the investment more than another quickie self-study course? Yes. Of course. But if that means that you’re going to take action and get the result you want, it’s a million times better value than a stack of low price offers or freebies that just sit in your inbox, offering you no value at all, and taking up headspace that you really should get round to sorting that thing out.
If you’re intrigued to find out more, here’s the link again with all the Asset Accelerator™ details for you – or here’s when you can message me to chat it through!
Until next time,
Claire
