How to maintain motivation as a blogger or online marketer. There are bad days and some worse so how do you keep the creative juices flowing.
Where do we hide when things are slow
The trap here is to switch activities to something more interesting. You may go gaming or concentrating on Facebook for all the important news. Catch up on some YouTube training or look at buying a great product just seen in your emails.
We all do it, attention deficit is far easier than concentration and when you have no one to pull you back it is easy to get lost in the great vortex of the internet.
It is all about distraction and luring you into a new honeypot and the answer is like giving up a habit, Just don't do it.
Activity switching is counter productive.
The Dopamine effect
What the heck am I talking about now with medical terms like Dopamine when all I want to do is create. This is a feel good chemical that invades our body and holds us to pleasant activities that do not require a lot of thought.
Playing games and shooting things is a real buzz for many and the distraction creates a feel good energy so that it is hard to give up.
Not unlike drugs, cigarettes and alcohol where they provide a short term high.
It took me about three years to give up cigarettes, I tried hypnotherapy, acupuncture and even cold turkey to quit the habit because I new it was bad for me however it kept drawing me back. Now forty odd years later I think I can say all temptation has gone.
We all have our weaknesses however the greater the control you have the more work you will get done.
Working online is a form of art
I still seek online pursuits
I don't play Video games because I am really bad at them and they do waste a whole lot of productive time however I have my ways.
Nearly everyday I will look at a new and exciting product and wonder how it can help my real work as a blogger. It is called training and can be easily justified because it might just help my cause.
As a member of Wealthy Affiliate where we have a large support forum that needs a lot of attention. This is nearly as bad as gaming as you follow the lives of others and see the wins and losses they occur and input your own ideas.
We are ranked on the site by contribution so it is necessary to maintain a dialogue and retain a position in the top 100 or so. This indicates you have some idea about the whole deal and then you get asked questions that must be answered.
The feel good effect takes you away from the main game.
When a plan is much more
When you are active in any online activity you need a cause that will set up a direction and a time line to complete your targets along the way. This plan is fundamental to you achieving any sort of success.
I know that a blogger needs to write about 400 posts before Google will consider them as any type of expert, this is the time you start to get traction.
Four hundred blogs roll of the tongue easily so does the six hundred thousand words that you need to write. The average adult novel is around ninety thousand words so in a quick estimate that is six and a half books of information.
The horrible thought is that if you don't write them you will not get to the finish line and this is just a statement of fact.
A goal, a timeline and a roadmap of much smaller achievement bridges to help the dopamine effect keep you away from nasty habits.
Understanding your commitment
When you go to school you spend your six hours a day thinking about everything but school work. You then go to college for five years to learn how to study before finding a job and earning how to work.
If you could do it all again and not waste time being a student could you achieve greater results in half the time, you sure could with concentrated effort.
Working online has the same sort of commitment so the greater the concentration the better the results will be. It is not rocket science, you need a level of skill and that comes from perseverance to a task.
It takes a medical Surgeon about seven years before they can cut people up. In that time they learn and train and see what others are doing so they don't mess up.
How to maintain motivation as a blogger or online marketer and find the golden pot.
14 days to instant wealth
It maybe seven or twenty days but it is made to sound all so easy. If you think you can learn all about internet marketing in seven days you are mistaken. That mistake makes a lot of people wealthy, they are the ones selling the course that has taken many months to create.
Understanding what you want to achieve and a reasonable assessment about the possibility of achievement provides a Blue print
We all have bad days
It is a truth that a majority of people give up before they get a result. That figure is quoted at over 80% of those that waste all the effort and walk away.
A small number will achieve greatness and go on earning a lot of money and the few others may struggle along doing ok.
Therefore giving up is not an alternative unless you want to join the looser club with the highest membership.
Accept that there will be hard days and weeks and that we all have them. Go back to your plan and timeline and get excited about achieving a top ten position. Then put your head back down and get into it.
A written and realistic plan is your consistent aid to success.
You can't run a marathon by giving in at the ten Km mark so the option is to not give in and go the distance by counting the mile posts as small achievements.
Your motivation is your responsibility.
You have the plan and the guide the rest is up to you.
The you part of this is important unless you get outside help to write your stuff.
I tried this and it took me longer to check and change than writing a new article would have.
Knowing where you want to end up is the incentive you need and you can but keep plodding along looking for mini milestones that you can celebrate.
If they tell you internet services are easy they are selling you something, it is a job, in fact it can be a well paid job but it takes learning and effort to win the battle.
Don't get me wrong, I love the internet and I blog, have webpages, affiliate market, email and training but it takes time.
A friend of mine said recently “Don't do things on the net that you know, do the things you love then you won't get bored.”
How to maintain motivation as a blogger or online marketer by Peter Hanley
