4 Types of Head Trash that Cripple Your Ability to Make Money Today

“What the hell!?!” you yell at your computer.

It only takes a glance to see your bank account is in worse shape this month than it was last month.

You were supposed to be making really good money by now, not scratching to make a living. Not after all the work you’ve put in.

And yet every day is a struggle.

How do I make money today?

What if things never take off? What if you just don’t have what it takes? What if your family dismisses you and lumps you in with your crazy Uncle Bob? He still talks about making his millions in business even as he moonlights as a Wal-Mart greeter.

You do not want to be like Uncle Bob. “Please,” you pray fervently. “Don’t let me be him…”

And yet you’re certainly heading in that direction.

So what’s the problem?

Taking out the trash…

More often than not the problem is the junk you hold in your mind that cripples your ability to make money today.

If you’re not making the money you want, see if you’re dealing with any of the garbage below and then discover how to take that trash out of your head.

1) Perfect trash

“I’ve got a million dollar idea!” I practically giggle with glee to myself. “This is amazing! I’m going to be rich! I’ve got to plan out what I’ll say in my interview with Forbes when they publish my story…”

I’ve spent more time admiring my perfect ideas, living in my perfect world, and talking to throngs of perfect admirers about my perfect life than I care to admit.

We want things to be perfect.

In our heads, we can achieve perfection in our business and our lives. Every idea works perfectly and yields perfect results. We’ve got our beach house, our sports car, or our long vacations with our family at our beach house we drove to in our sports car. This perfect world of ours is stress-free and worry-free. We get what we want when we want it.

It’s so wonderful, in fact, that many of us spend a lot of time there. We can see it so clearly in our minds, that our brains don’t know the difference between our vivid imaginations and reality.

Ordinarily this imagination of ours is a liability because when we wake up and our daydreams are replaced by reality, our brains naturally experience a feeling of loss. We want to return to our perfect life in our heads instead of work on the imperfect one we’re living now.

But if you find yourself giving success speeches about achievements you have not yet earned, or living in that house you cannot yet afford, there is one way to use this to your advantage…

Use that amazing imagination of yours not to escape, but to solve the problems in front of you. You’ve got the power to create entire realities in your mind, so use it to see yourself making that important call or implementing that marketing strategy. Imagine yourself doing it, and then repeat.

If you’ve already envisioned yourself taking this important action many times, your brain won’t know the difference between that and reality. Doing it in real life will be a piece of cake. As far as your mind is concerned, you’re an old pro.

This is how you use the power of your brain to make more money today and create a reality for yourself that you will want to wake up to.

2) Comparison junk

“Why is this taking so long?” I ask nobody in particular, looking at my business and it’s marked lack of success. “I should be farther than this by now. Look at Danny Iny – he’s still in his 20’s and he’s a marketing god. What’s my @!#?@! problem?”

Comparing myself to others who are younger, richer, or more famous than I am is my favorite way to ruin my day. You can see me in action here (the video on that link will make you laugh… or possibly cry, depending on your business experience).

Have you been there?

We focus in on one aspect of our life we don’t like and make unfavorable comparisons.

Like a couple of toddlers arguing over the same toy in a room full of things to play with, suddenly we’ve forgotten all the good things we have around us by focusing on that one thing the other kid has. This often leads to being jealous of others, withholding gratitude and praise for the good things we find, and buying things we can’t afford to make up for it.

Likewise, we might compare ourselves to people who haven’t achieved what we have. This may lead to feelings or superiority, cause us to base our self worth on the opinions of others, or stop us from achieving all we could have achieved if we weren’t comparing ourselves to others.

Whether we’re comparing ourselves to the people on “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” or “Hoarders”, either way the results set us back. To truly excel, the only way to make comparisons is to leave others out of the equation and compete with ourselves. That means doing something every day that moves us beyond where we were the day before.

What are the most critically important items can you complete today that will move you ahead of where you were yesterday?

Each morning pick 1-3 key tasks that, if completed, you could call the day a success. Then focus on those important items first before you do anything else. Leave your daily to-do’s for after you’re done with the critical items.

Complete the most important things first each day, the rate at which you progress will skyrocket, and the money will quickly follow.

3) Emotional garbage

“I hate my job.” I’d say to myself, feeling like I was wasting my time each day working for somebody else. “I hate being poor. I hate not being there for my family. I hate not being able to do what I want to do.”

• Some of us use hate to fuel our progress. We hate our jobs, our bosses, our parents, our situation in life…
• Some of us use blame to discharge our pain. We blame the economy, other businesses, greedy wealthy people, lazy poor people, dumb politicians, stupid customers…
• Some of us use fear to keep ourselves in safe territory. We fear making mistakes that others will see, rejection, difficulty, pain, failure…
• We also often fear success, or more specifically the side effects of success, which can bring more mistakes, rejection, and difficulty into our lives…

Most often we use a combination of all these things. For a long time I thought focusing my negative emotions to burn a hole through my bosses head was a good way to drive myself to make more money.

But focusing on negative emotions has only one outcome–we spend so much time hating, blaming, or fearing things that we don’t have energy left over at the end of the day to work on changing our circumstances.

Emotions, especially negative ones, burn a lot of energy that we could otherwise put towards our success. What we need to understand is that these difficult times in our lives are some of the best times we’ll have. Speak to any successful person about their life history, and each one of them will tell you their most difficult times were where they learned and grew the most. They’re actually grateful for the difficult times that pushed them and stretched them. Those times were necessary to achieve what was yet to come.

In fact, that is the key to dampening negative emotions. Look at your difficulties with gratitude and be thankful for them as if you’ve already pushed through them. If you view obstacles as if you already overcame them and now you’re looking for the important lessons they hold, your fears and the inclination to blame or hate will disappear.

This turns negative times into positive energy to put towards making the money you’re looking for.

4) Procrastination rubbish

“It’s 5:30pm already?” I check the other clock in my office to get a second opinion. “The day is over and I have accomplished NOTHING!”

I have spent entire days being distracted with everything except the things I know I need to do. And if the rest of the week was a wash, I’ll take Friday completely off and say “Heck with it. I’ll start again next week!”

We each have our preferred ways to distract ourselves. We surf the internet, daydream for a while, watch stupid videos…anything but the things we know we need to be doing. And a lot of times our procrastination efforts are “good things”. We clean our work space, read something educational, eat something, or message an old friend.

We may also make excuses or rationalize not doing things, enter “analysis paralysis”, or feel we need to gather more information before we can act. Sometimes we sit around analyzing why we don’t take action: “Why is it that I don’t want to do this thing?” I’ll ponder to myself for 20 minutes while I continue to not do that thing.

Whatever it is we do to procrastinate, the result is the same–the more we put things off, the more inclined we are to put things off.

Here’s how to take this trash out of your head…

Have you ever wasted your time away, and then panicked at the end?

You suddenly start ripping through your to-do list at lightning speed and then you hate to quit because you’re on a roll? Ever done that?

That’s actually the key to beating procrastination.

The key to beating procrastination is “action”. Action begets more action, and suddenly we’re rocking and rolling. Make a to-do list of important items and start at the top. Start your work time with this simple action. It will set you up for an extremely effective day.

Likewise, every time that little voice in your head says “I’m wasting my time. I should be doing something productive right now”, that’s your cue to open your to do list and get working on the top item.

A little action snowballs into massive action. And we all know that if you want massive income, you need to take massive action.

The battle for your life begins in your head

You only have one thought in your head at a time, and that’s the thought that counts. Make sure it’s a good one.

Because every time you interrupt a negative thought process with something productive, you rewire your brain for success.

It’s completely up to you.

If you’ve got trash in your head, you’ll never fully win the struggle for success. Take out the trash, and victory is inevitable!