It is amazing the shifts that can happen in a short time in a person’s way of thinking and mindset.
A few weeks ago I was in a FUNK. I was so funked out that I had zero motivation to do just about anything. And by not doing anything related to internet marketing or the like it made me feel worse – so I had a lovely vicious cycle going on.
Then after a week or two of the big time funk, I started to feel less miserable. But I also started back to actually doing stuff with regards to my sites. Which helped me to feel a little less miserable too.
Now I feel I’m back at a warp-speed mode of wanting to get things done. Since I tend to have times of feeling like it’s pulling teeth to do anything, when I’m feeling amped up to take action I try to take advantage of that.
Part of what has helped me is by getting help. I recently really got into reading posts and threads over at the Warrior Forum.
Thanks in part to information I received there and a course I bought I have a whole new mindset.
And I realized that it takes a couple of things to make things happen.
Actually some of this thinking was gelled a bit by a friend of mine’s post on her blog about planning. Check it out here: http://www.operationzerodebt.com/zero-debt-june-26-2010.html
First you need to have a plan. The thing with internet marketing is that you can go off on so many tangents. There are so many ways to do things and avenues to take that it is extremely easy to never really get anything done. So make a plan and then FOCUS on that.
But as a caveat – while you should have a plan to help with focus and not going off in a bunch of different directions you do need to have some flexibility with the plan. Unless you are a psychic, stuff is going to come up that you didn’t foresee and adjustments will need to be made. More on that in another post.
The other thing is after you have a plan is to IMPLEMENT it. Having the best plan in the world does you not a lick of good if you don’t actually put it into place.
When making a plan you have to take into account your personality and just how you tend to behave in certain situations. Humans do have a tendency to want to do things the easy way and if left to our own devices we will put off things or opt to do things that are more fun.
Most of us who get into internet marketing do so because we want the financial freedom we believe it can bring and the freedom from a job.
Well, it stands to reason if we want freedom from a job it’s because we have one (or had one and don’t want to go back). But since most of us have been trained to have a job as a way to make money and support ourselves, we should USE that mindset to get our Internet Marketing businesses up and growing.
So my current plan is to treat my internet marketing business as a job, in a way. What I mean is that I am going to structure my days as I would if I were at a job. Only I’ll give myself some more perks, of course. :-)
I work a part time job now, 3 days a week. So most weeks I have four days off in a row (including Saturday and Sunday). My idea is to use those days as my internet marketing job days. So on Thursdays I will get going and work for several hours in a row – BUT I will give myself breaks. Say for every 45 minutes I work, take a 15 minute break. Use that time to check emails or even just read a book (I love to read so reading during work is a treat to me). Then have a longer break to really relax.
I am very much a night person and I tend to really be more revved up later at night to do my online stuff. So for me it may be better to initially do a few hours mid-day, take a nice long break for several hours to work out, run errands, watch a movie or tv, read, whatever and then go back to it for several more hours.
I really think that a lot of people don’t achieve what they want with internet marketing because they have no structure. If you want to use the pretend it’s a job approach you may even want to take it a step further and send yourself emails, pretending it’s from a boss, giving you tasks you need to complete. Some people need that discipline. I mean think about – most of the time you do things at work only because you feel you have to or there will be consequences you won’t like if you don’t do them. If you have a hard time getting yourself in gear and getting things done with your IM efforts, then setting up the feeling of consequences may help you.
Of course, the bonus is that your work can pay off for a lot longer and be of benefit only to you rather than your “boss”. You are only doing yourself a favor by getting the things you need to do – no matter how you get yourself to do them.
Maybe even reminding yourself that the most work is in the beginning and that if you are doing things right and setting things up a certain way, you can make money consistently on “auto pilot”. The whole auto pilot thing is a big draw but you have to set it up first. Basically now is the time to just knuckle down and get things done so later you can do a whole lot less but still be making money.
I also find it helps to WRITE out a plan to implement. Get specific on what steps and tasks need to be done and when (this could also be what you email to yourself from the pretend “boss”).
Then finally it’s about actually implementing what you’ve planned out.
I’m finding it easier to implement and take action and WANT to do it when I have something that I feel has me right on track and lays out what I need to do. There are so many great tools and courses and whatnot out there – you just have to find the one that resonates with you (or put together your own) and get to it. But that’s the thing – spend some time looking for what you need and then DO IT. Once you find something you want to run with don’t then start looking for something better. Yes, there may be something better or that you like more – but give the one you picked a chance first. See it through so you can evaluate if it is working. Most likely if you really completed it you will see positive results. And since you actually did something to completion now you know what tweaks to make and you have the experience and can probably do it again FASTER. And it will feel easier.
Also another key element to implementation is to set a deadline for yourself. For example, I’m using a guide for trying a whole new to me system. I have set a deadline and I hand wrote it out on a piece of paper and have it hanging right above my monitor so I can’t miss it. Since I have the next five full days off (including today and this week it’s an extra day due to the 4th of July holiday) my deadline is to have completed all steps in this method/course of action by the end of the night on July 5th. I’m telling you it’s helping me to actually get in gear.
Now what about when you have things you want to do and try that aren’t with your main plan?
Well, like I mentioned, I’ve gotten really involved at the Warrior Forum. There are so many great ideas and tips and tricks posted there that it is way easy to get off track and keep reading and never doing. What I’ve done is to copy and paste stuff that really lights me up and are things I want to try and put them in one big Word document. I do this also because I learned the hard way that trying to go back and find stuff there is a pain in the butt. So when you see something you want to try copy and paste it to refer to later – and this goes with anything – not just that forum. Plus by doing this you may see that a few things you thought sounded cool can be combined or you can put your own spin on it (take a piece of this idea, a bit of that one and viola! – you made up your own cool thing to try out and test.)
And what I’ve done is built in time to work on some of these things. I’ve made them a part of my plan, so to speak.
Let’s see if I can explain that better. I’m using an approach that I really resonate with. That is my main plan – to do all the steps in that approach/method by July 5th. However, I read about stuff that sounds so cool in the Warrior Forum that have nothing to do with the the main approach. However, they are quick and easy things that can be done on the side. So while I focus the most on the main approach, I have set aside time to try these other little things out. I figure by doing this I am going to get the main approach all done (well, by done I mean get the first “round” done – it is one that can be done over and over per keyword or website which I plan to do) within my deadline but I still get to satisfy my “oohhhh, fun new thing” side by testing and playing with other things.
But I will only do one new thing at a time. So if I want to do new shiny cool thing A I will do that one day and then do new shiny cool thing B the next day. Since most of these things can be done quickly (all done in an hour or so) I don’t feel like I’m getting off track with the main approach.
What is really finally sinking in with me is that you just have to get some focus, find a solid approach to take and follow it all the way through. Doing a bunch of things at once is not working – because the focus isn’t there and the effort tends to be half-assed because it’s just too overwhelming to try a multitude of different, non-related things at once.
Also I think if you are struggling to get into gear it can make you feel a whole lot better once you make a plan and you commit to it. What’s cool is that your plan can be for a short period of time. Just commit to see something through for an entire week – or however long it takes you to actually complete it. If you still want to try something new – come up with a plan for that and commit to completing that one. By breaking it down that way, even though you feel like you’re doing less by doing it one at a time, you will end up getting so much more done and done right.
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