If you want to make money online you may need to STOP doing this one thing.

While I was procrastinating on some client work (contrary to popular belief I do procrastinate lol), I came across this video on Kate Northrup’s website where she interviews James Wedmore about practical manifesting.

The entire premise of the video was how to combine left brain and right brain functions in order to run a successful business that actually makes money. As one of the quotes on the site said, you need magic, but you also need metrics.

In other words, it’s a video after my own heart because I preach this stuff all the time. And the reason I preach it is because it’s taken me so damn long to finally get it.

It took me years to understand that if I wanted to make money online, that I would need to combine my right brain (creativity, intuition, etc.) with my left brain (numbers, metrics, etc.).

On the one hand, it’s easy to go overboard with the left brain.

It’s so easy to get caught up in how much money we’re making, how that money needs to come in, by when and what it all needs to look like.

It’s easy to think we need to put in 14 hour days in order to make more money. Just recently there was a huge expose about the less-than-desirable company culture at Amazon which prompted several CEOs to say “Well, that’s what you need to do in order to run a business. Hard work and long hours.”

It’s easy to get caught up on the numbers. For example, instead of being grateful for the sales we made we instead get hung up on the sales we didn’t make.

It’s easy to think we have to suffer, push, fight and struggle for what we want.

This, naturally, leads to burnout and unfulfillment. I actually had a conversation with a colleague a few weeks ago where he told me “Take it easy and enjoy the ride when you can. There’s no need to work yourself to the bone just to make some money and it’s a lesson we all learn the hard way.”

On the other hand, it’s also easy to go overboard in the opposite direction.

The Secret ruined the concept of the Law of Attraction for everyone. Suddenly you had people thinking they could win the lottery or get a Lamborghini just because they wished for it.

You have lots of gurus out there telling you to manifest and visualize your desires, which has then led to people thinking all they have to do is send an email to their list and thousands of dollars will come pouring in because they meditated in front of their altar that day.

It’s easy to not work or take any action because you think the Universe will take care of everything for you. Truth be told, it’s lazy and it’s a cop-out in an effort to avoid actual work. I know because I’ve been there. And that’s why the Law of Attraction doesn’t work when approached from this perspective.

The truth is you need a mix of both in order to succeed and make money online.

You need faith and you need to take action.

You need to rest and you need to hustle.

You’ll need to make money and you need to spend some of it.

You need to be detached from numbers and you need to measure them.

You need to give and you need to receive.

Here’s a real-life example of what I mean.

I spent much of 2014 and the first half of 2015 obsessed over some arbitrary income goal I’d convinced myself I needed to hit. In retrospect, it was completely unrealistic for this stage of my business but I continued to push.

I needed it to look a certain way.

I’d needed it to come in by a deadline I set.

I needed to spend a boatload of money to make it happen.

Naturally, the money wasn’t coming in. I was going after some unrealistic number and was trying to control every little thing – because that’s what we’re taught to do.

Earlier in 2015, I’d spent so much money that I basically broke even the first half of the fiscal year. When I realized I still wasn’t seeing the return I wanted, I surrendered.

I gave up on thinking I knew how the money should show up. Literally just accepted the situation and stopped trying to control everything.

I even gave up on pushing a particular source of income and simplified a lot of things – including my goals.

Well, guess what happened….

Within a few weeks, money started coming in from places I never even would have imagined. Opportunities I was too blind to see presented themselves in my inbox.

I actually became more clear about what I needed to do in order to reach my financial goals.

For the first time in my adult life, I actually had more clarity about potential places to call home (and how much it would cost).

The fog I’d been experiencing for 18 months was lifted and new sources of revenue presented themselves to me from ideas I would have never come up with on my own.

Now, I still had to work – hard. But it wasn’t from a place of control and manipulation. It was from a place of guided and simplified action.

And so learn from my mistakes…

If you’re in a position where you don’t see the money you want coming into your life, pause for a second and see if you’re too busy focusing on how you think it should show up.

This is such a sneaky ego trick that sometimes it’s hard to catch. Remember it took me 18 months!

If you find yourself trying to control the situation take a step back and surrender it. It’s not entirely your job to figure out how. Your job is to make sure you’re paying attention when the how shows up.