Article - Why Don't People Finish?

This was a previous 'thought' in one of my Step 12 posts, but I feel the need to expand on this. Mr Goldsmith created a nice little frenzy with his report. People still find it every day and get on the bandwagon. They start blogs, much like this one, and excitedly climb the first few steps. The excitement build when they quickly blow through the first 4 or 5 steps. "This is easy" they think. True enough at the beginning levels. Something starts to happen around step 10 or 11, however. Simply finding a penny on the street no longer moves them significantly towards their goal. The goal at step 10 is to turn $5 into $10. Seemingly an easy enough task. But while finding a penny at step 1 moves you instantly to step 2. you would need to find some 500 pennies to move you from step 10 to 11. 500 times the effort. So that particular way of adding to the pot is no longer efficient. From there, it is up to the doubler to discover or create a new way to double their cash. From here, its sign up to read emails, or pay to click on ads or something of that nature. While this may get you to the next step or so, it quickly runs out of efficiency. Most people give up around this point. Is it any harder to turn $20 into $40 than it is to turn a nickel into a dime? Sure it is. But then again it isn't. The complexity comes not from doubling the money, but from the effort and energy involved in doing it.

People do not mind doing something if it means not changing routine or putting any serious effort into it. It takes brain power and some time to turn $20 into $40. When it comes to putting effort into the project, people begin to question the effort/payoff ratio. If I spend 20 hours turning $20 into $40, I made a dollar an hour. Given they had to take time out of their normal routine and spend 20 of their precious freetime hours doing something that only returned a dollar per hour, most people say 'screw it' and drop the project.

Keep in mind as you work on your project, that what seems inefficient now is still helping you. The middle steps deal with a small amount of money, and its hard to find good real investments that will help you. You are also already past the step where you can panhandle a significant amount of a step too. Stick with it and you will find money all over.