What a great daydream this is: You make a ton of money online and then go tell your boss to ‘have a nice day.’ This is the scenario you see in sales letters all the time. “Buy this product, put it to work and next week you can kiss your job goodbye, forever.”
Real life doesn’t always work like a sales letter. In fact, life continually gets in the way. You make some extra money but then it dries up. Or you have an emergency and the extra money bails you out of that crisis but you’re no further ahead.
Or – and this is the most common of all – you have the best of intentions but you never quite get around to making that fortune online. And so you are still at your job. Even though a year ago/two years ago/five years ago/ you swore you would be retired by now.
Whoops.
How do you eat an apple? Unless you’re a horse, you eat it one bite at a time. In my early years I found that building your online income and telling your boss to shove it works the same way – you go through the process of replacing your income one step at a time.
It’s a funny thing: You can make $5,000 a month online fairly easily, but only when you KNOW you can do it. Until you KNOW it, it seems just out of reach. And as long as the goal seems out of reach, your subconscious will sabotage you every step of the way to see to it that it never happens. If you can’t conceive it, there is no way you’re going to achieve it, no matter how hard you try.
It’s like getting a job. You can’t get the job without experience, but you can’t get experience without a job. Same way with making money online.
But right now, this instant, I’ll bet you know that you can make enough to cover just one of your bills, right?
So pick a monthly bill of yours, any bill. Now get enough income coming in each month to completely cover that bill. Maybe it’s your $100 water bill. Great. All you need to make is a consistent $100 a month, and it’s taken care of.
Don’t spend this new income on anything but paying that bill. Any money you make above what it takes to pay the bill is either reinvested into your business, or…
… you pick another bill and start covering that each month, too. And you just keep adding another bill and another bill into the mix until they are ALL covered, including your mortgage or rent, including your food, including everything.
But notice how you did it – not all at once, but simply one bill at a time. Your mind can wrap itself around this concept of taking it one step at a time. Your subconscious will stop fighting you and you’ll be surprised how easy the process becomes. It’s all about small steps that prove you can do it, that prove you can move on to the next level, and the next.
Once you’ve got all of your bills covered and then some, you can quit your day job with confidence, because now you KNOW you can make money online. There is no question. You’ve already proven you’ve got the confidence and the skills.
The magic is this: Instead of sitting down at your computer and thinking, “Okay, I’ve got to make enough money to cover all my expenses this month,” you simply tell yourself you’re going to make enough to cover one little bill.
You’re no longer trying to create an entire business, you’re simply taking the first steps. You’re enjoying numerous successes along the way that fuel you to keep going.
Get that first bill paid and you’ll be on your way to achieving total financial freedom, one step at a time.
Blogging is a proven way to stay in contact with customers, get new buyers, get traffic and backlinks and especially boost your own credibility rating. But all of that blogging takes time. Here are 7 tips to make your content creation, and blogging go a lot faster.
1. Keep a list of your brilliant ideas. Okay, so they won’t all be brilliant but some will be. And if you don’t write them down you’ll lose them. Each time you get a new idea for a blog post, write it down. This simple act frees your mind to give you even more ideas and to improve the ideas you’ve already had.
2. When you’ve got a good idea, start making a list of what you’d like to add to it. For example, your idea might be “10 Ways to Inject $10,000 into Your Business.” As you think of each method, write it down.
3. Do your research. While you might know some of the points you want to make, you can deepen and enrich your post by also gathering information from outside sources.
4. Eliminate the least. In our example of “10 Ways to Inject $10,000,” you might actually come up with 15 ideas or more. Discard the less appealing points so you can focus on only the strongest ones. At this time you might also find that your post will be better served by focusing on just 7 methods rather than 10. This is editing before you write and can save you a tremendous amount of time. Imagine if you wrote your post with your initial 15 ideas and later decided to use just 7 – you would have written twice as much as needed.
5. Create an outline. This step alone can cut your writing time in half.
6. Prepare your work area. Before you begin writing, eliminate all distractions. Close email and social networks and turn off your phone. Set a timer and try to beat it. And then write. Don’t edit. Don’t worry about spelling, grammar, etc. Just write.
7. Edit tomorrow. As good as your editing today might be, tomorrow it will be even better as you read your post with fresh eyes.
In addition to saving time, you’ll also notice that the faster you write blog posts, the less you mind writing them. Pretty soon your post-a-week schedule might even turn into 3 or 4 new posts each week. And the more you blog, the more attention you can command!
By now you know that social media is great for building your lists and promoting your products. A recent study discovered that sales people who use social media for their jobs outperform their non-social media peers by 73%. But have you thought of using social media for these purposes?
Fundraising. Let’s say you’re using Kickstarter to raise funds for your new project. Problem is, no one knows you, no one trusts you, and no one is telling anyone else about you.
Solution? Get busy on social media prior to your launch. Establish a strong social presence and build your credibility. Once you’ve got a strong following who believe in what you’re doing, that’s the time to start your fundraising campaign.
Referrals. Sure, you’re already hoping your content gets shared on social media, but that’s not enough.
Be sure to always give great value and service to ensure your customers have plenty of positive things to say about you. Then run contests, offer prizes and discounts to encourage your customers to share their positive experiences with their networks.
Status. You can look like a big dog and boost your own credibility by sharing content from the big names in your industry. It doesn’t even matter if these influencers are aware of you – simply by associating your name with their name by quoting them will make you look like an influencer yourself and boost your own credibility.
Ice-breaking. Let’s say you want to make contact with an industry leader. Problem is, so do thousands of others. What can you do? Try following this leader on social media and look for points of common interest.
Maybe she has a dog – what kind is it? Is she passionate about that breed? If so, that’s something you might put in the subject line: “Phyllis, did you see a Yorkie won best of show at Westminster?” This is a much better icebreaker than, “Hey, I’m just one more guy who wants to JV with you.”
Kevin Bacon. It’s said that you can link any Hollywood actor to Kevin Bacon within 6 degrees. So what about the guy you’re trying to get a meeting with? If you can use social media to find common connections and get an introduction from someone he trusts, you’ll have one foot in the door.
Super Hero. You see a tweet from someone complaining about your competitor’s service. Or someone else is talking about a problem your business can solve. Why not don the cape and jump in to save their day? If you do it in the spirit of helping rather than selling, you’ll almost certainly gain a new customer.
Storytelling. Telling your brand’s story is a great way to captivate potential customers. But knowing how to tell the story can be challenging. So why not practice on social media? Give out pieces of the story, or many small stories, to build your brand image. Monitor the likes and shares to see which stories win the most social love, and work these into your marketing.
Help. Do you have a pressing problem? Reach out and ask your social network for help. One couple lost their wedding venue and $7,000 deposit six weeks before their wedding. Thanks to reaching out for help on social media, they received everything from jewelry to a wedding cake to a new event planner.
Anticipation. Build anticipation for your next content – whether it’s a blog post or a book – by posting about your progress in play-by-play fashion. This keeps you in touch with your community, gives insight into your work and provides an eager audience when your content is finished.
Accountability. If you have trouble completing your to-do list, consider posting what you’re going to accomplish in the morning, and then reporting back in the evening whether you accomplished it and how it all turned out. There’s nothing like knowing your entire social network is paying attention to whether or not you do what you say you will do to keep you on track.
Currency. Marc Jacobs opened a pop-up store for the New York fashion week where the only currency that could be used were posts to Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. That’s right – they didn’t accept money, only social media posts, using the hashtag #MJDaisyChain. This is a great way to gather some social media momentum, new clients and terrific testimonials.
Pay it Forward. Find something nice to say about someone on social media every day, or offer to help someone, or maybe even send out a call to help anyone who asks. Not only will you build positive brownie karma points – you’ll also attract attention from potential customers and best of all, you’ll feel great about yourself and your business.
These are just 12 examples of thinking beyond the social media box. If you keep an eye out for how others are using social media, you’re bound to find even more business-building ideas.
At the risk of stating the ridiculously obvious, Internet Marketing is changing. Just because you’re making money today won’t guarantee you’ll still be making money tomorrow. There are the obvious examples: Possum, Penguin, Fred and what not. But then there’s new regulations, new technologies, changing interests and priorities of consumers, more competition (sometimes bad, sometimes good) and so forth.
Without a doubt, the money is still there to be made – but you might have to get creative and expand your horizons to find it. And when you do find it, don’t rest on our laurels. Don’t think you can set a funnel up and just ignore it and it will continue to deliver forever. You might wake up in a month or two and be shocked to find your account balance hovering near zero if you do.
That’s why you’ve got to always be on the lookout for great ideas, and even mediocre ideas that are profitable. Make it a daily practice to write down at least 3 or 4 new ideas for making money and growing your business.
What happens if you don’t walk for a week? Your legs atrophy. And your brain works the same way. Either work your brain relentlessly and it will get stronger, or don’t use it and it’ll harden into something useless.
The economy has been having it’s own set of challenges for years and while it’s better now for many people, there are still millions of people who are out of work or not making the money they used to make. So what are they doing? Many are turning to Internet Marketing. You might think this is bad because of increased competition, and it can be. But if you make a list of ideas on how you can capitalize on this, what will you discover?
First, these people will need training on how to do online marketing. That covers an entire realm of possibilities, including step-by-step courses and coaching.
Next, these folks will need help. They’re not going to be experts at everything from building websites to creating products to getting backlinks to designing product covers. So if you’re willing to perform services, there’s money to be made.
Remember the TV detective Columbo? He would be asking the suspect questions, always very polite, very nice, acting like he needed help in figuring out what happened. Only he was smart – he was playing the suspect right until the end. My favorite part is when he would be leaving the room, and the suspect would be breathing a sigh of relief. ‘Whew! Dodged that bullet’ the suspect is thinking. But then Columbo pauses at the door, or even walks out the door and then comes back in, and he puts his hand to his head like he just remembered something, and he says, “Oh, you know, I almost forgot, one more thing…” And then he’d nail the suspect with the real question, the one the suspect just didn’t have a good answer for.
This should be you. You’re a detective, always on the lookout for that “one more thing” that will make your campaign more profitable, that will increase your subscriber rate, that will double your conversions and so forth. Always be searching for the questions your prospects ask that lead to a breakthrough product. Always be asking, asking, asking “What do people want? What problem is keeping them up at night? What would they pay to fix, improve or eliminate?”
Get in the mindset of a detective and you’ll view the world differently. You’ll see things you missed a hundred times before. People will start to think you’re psychic or something. You’re not. You’re just asking questions and paying very close attention to the answers. And you’re using your brain – something a lot of people are too lazy to do.
Bottom line: Things are changing and they’re going to change a whole lot more. Fall asleep at the wheel and your business will crash. Rely on what worked before and you will go broke. Continue to provide the same old products and the same old solutions and you’ll find yourself standing still in the middle of a very fast race.
Be a detective like Columbo and you’ll always get your paydays.
Have you ever noticed how many IM products are sold under the premise of revealing THE BIG SECRET? Newsflash – and please try not to hate me for telling you this, but…
…There aren’t any real secrets.
There’s simply stuff you know and stuff you don’t know yet.
And that’s about it.
If there is a secret, it’s as plain as day and hidden right underneath your nose.
In fact, you’ve seen it a hundred times or more.
Maybe even a thousand times.
It’s the “secret” to BIG BIG BIG money.
But like I said, it’s not a secret.
Can you guess what it is?
Build a tribe.
That’s it.
Build a following, a tribe of people who like you and trust you.
Contact them in social media, on your blog and through your list.
Be their advocate. Their champion. And also their guy or gal next door.
Find out what they want. Be one of them. Like them and love them. And sometimes send them dynamite offers that make you big bucks.
Next, create your own products. Your own brand. Your own everything.
Build your empire.
Have a fleet of products and a name people know and love.
But start it all by deciding exactly who your tribe is, and then focus focus focus on finding and growing your tribe.
Don’t get distracted. Don’t get distracted. Don’t get distracted.
Focus on building your tribe and being their “go-to” person with all the great info and insight, the guy next door who is just like them.
This is the “secret” to becoming a smashing success online.
I hope you’re not disappointed. Really, you should be ecstatic.
You know it’s smart marketing to place a signature file in your emails, in forum posts (where allowed), and at the end of guest blog posts and so forth. But what is your sig file saying about you? That you’re boring? That you and your business look like every one of your competitor’s businesses? Or does it stand out and grab attention? If getting more clicks and visitors to your offer is what you want, you must have a compelling signature…
Here’s an example of boring:
“For The World’s Best e-Course on Driving Traffic to Your Website, Go to: sameoldsameold.com/wake-me-when-its-over
Sure, you’ll get a trickle of traffic. Maybe.
Instead, let’s apply some imagination and make a signature file that creates burning curiosity.
If your website is about weight loss, you might use:
“Click here to see a picture of my wife’s abs”
“Click here to see a photo of my ex when he saw me in my new bikini”
Notice in these examples we say to “click here to see a photo.” This phrase works really well at attracting clicks.
If your website is about building muscle, you might use:
“Click here to see me try to bench press my girlfriend”
“Click here to see me try to bounce a brick off my abs”
“Click here to see my wife try to beat a loud-mouth male body-builder in a push-up contest”
Notice all of these use the word “try.” That’s because we’re building suspense – Did I manage to bench press my girlfriend, or not? The reader has to click to find out.
Maybe your website is on dog training:
“Click here to see my dog chasing the mailman”
“Click here to see my dog greeting guests with a cold beer and a bag of chips”
“Click here to see my dog herding chickens into the living room”
Notice all of the verbs in these examples end in ing, as though the action is happening now, not in the past.
Using these techniques you should get far more people clicking the link in your signature line. Your job is to fulfill your promise on the landing page, thereby building rapport and credibility. Once this is accomplished, you then entice them further into subscribing to your list to get your outstanding freebie.
These are all super quick and fairly easy. In fact, there’s not a tactic here that will take more than an hour, and some can be done in just a few minutes. Some can get you traffic pretty quickly and others take time. My suggestion: Do one a day every day until you’ve done all the ones that interest you. Some you will continue to do daily, such as using Twitter, but of course you can also use automation to lighten the workload a bit…
Do product reviews. For driving traffic? You bet. Product reviews are easy to get ranked, especially if you do them in video. Here’s the trick: Don’t make it like every other product review out there. Instead, be real. Use your personality. Have fun with it. And ask the reader/viewer to subscribe to get more product reviews.
One more thing: TELL THE TRUTH about what you think of the product. I once landed on a product review that said, quite frankly, the product wasn’t worth the money. I didn’t buy that product, but I subscribed to the author’s list and have since purchased several hundred dollars of products from him because he earned my trust.
Create a keyword list. Then use it to write your articles and blog posts. It’s fine to write about whatever you want, but it’s even better to write about what people are actually searching for. By using a keyword list, you not only get new ideas, you are also better tuned into the market and what might get your articles ranked on Google. Once you write a new article, promote it on social media.
Find questions on forums and answer them in articles. If someone is asking something on a forum, there’s a good chance others are asking the same question. Go ahead and write an article, post it, then post your article link on the forum “for more information” after your answer.
Blogger.com is a high authority site, owned by Google (hint, hint). When you join, find the “about me” section and add your website URL along with your keywords in the anchor text which will contribute to better SEO for your primary website. Do the same with other popular sites online that allow you to create your profile and backlink to your website.
Register with forums in your niche. Fill out the details on your profile, including your name and website. If the forum allows it, add your website or blog to your signature. Make several useful posts in each forum. What you’re shooting for here is quality backlinks, but if you find you enjoy posting to forums, keep at it. Your posts can drive traffic back to your site for years to come.
Join Twitter. Use Twitter. Seriously. Make several tweets, find people to follow in your niche, and each time you write an article, tweet about it. It’s amazing to me how many marketers still aren’t fully utilizing Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Set up an account at HubPages.com. This is another high-authority site that can help with your rankings. Plus the content you post here can also rank high for your keywords. Remember to update your account with new content from time to time. And be sure to include a bio of what you do along with your URL.
All of these are pretty simple and can help to drive traffic to your website. So next time you’ve got a few extra minutes, pick one and get busy. It will be time well invested.
You’ve written a truly terrific blog post. In fact, you’ve written dozens of them – yet your traffic still looks more like a ghost town than the bustling metropolis you were hoping for. Here are 15 ways to drive traffic to your blog posts without monetary cost.
1. Add social sharing buttons to your posts. The easier it is for your readers to share your posts, the more likely they will do so.
2. ASK your readers to share your content. At the end of your post, you might write something simple like, “If you found this helpful, please share.”
3. Build up your own contacts. Make list building a priority so you can capture as many visitors as possible. Encourage people to join your list, follow you on social media, etc. Use bribes and offer great info to get them on board, then take good care of them to ensure they stay with you. When you write a new post, ask them to not only read it, but share it liberally with their own networks.
4. Email your list each time you post great content. This one seems too obvious, but it’s surprising how many bloggers don’t do it. Make sure your email is optimized for all sizes of screens. And rethink the timing of your email. It used to be that first thing in the morning was best, but now that people are deluged with marketing emails, later in the day when they’re not so rushed might be better.
5. Build up your V.I.P. Contact list. Make friends with those in your niche. Promote their blog posts and their work. Build relationships. When you write posts, they’ll want to reciprocate and promote you as well.
6. Link to websites, blogs and authors who have large social media followings. In your blog post, find ways to mention these folks in a positive way. Maybe you reference one of their posts, or a technique they’re using. When your blog post goes live, send them a message letting them know you mentioned them. Often they will tell their followers and you could get a nice flood of traffic along with a new contact.
7. Do a case study on someone successful. This could be one of those bloggers in your niche with a large following. Analyze what makes them so successful, do an interview with them, get quotes from their followers, etc. Again, you’ll get a big surge of traffic when they promote your post to their followers, plus you’ll have a new friend.
8. Target a specific blogger. In this case, you’re choosing a topic that you know is near and dear to a particular blogger. Perhaps the easiest way to do this is to look at their recent posts, find one that was emotionally driven, and write your own post about the topic. You might point out in your post how this blogger was right about the topic, but use a slightly different angle on the story. You’re not copying what they did, you’re taking it up a notch or moving it in a different direction.
9. Get influential opinions. When you’re writing a post, email a pertinent question to several influential people and ask their opinion. Everyone loves to give an opinion, and unlike a full-fledged interview, it only takes a couple of minutes to answer. Then quote these people in your post and let them know when you post it. Odds are they’ll share it with others. Added bonus: Placing movers and shakers in your posts also increases the chances of your post being shared by readers.
10. Use quotes from personalities in your niche. This one is really easy to do and it doesn’t even have to affect the flow of your post. Simply find appropriate quotes from leaders and shakers in your niche and insert them between sections of your post where appropriate. It’s a great way to visually break up the copy and you can link the quotes back to the original author. Be sure to let the authors know you quoted them.
11. Write lists. You might list the “10 most influential people in your niche,” for example, and link to all ten influencers. Posts like these tend to get shared a great deal.
12. Use infographics in your posts. Yes, it takes extra effort and / or money to generate an infographic, but the results can be powerful. People love infographics and are more likely to share them with others. And if you’re on Pinterest, you’ve already seen how viral infographics can be.
13. Go negative. Write a blogpost on the things you’re doing or have done wrong, or the mistakes people are making. Fear of loss is greater than desire for gain. People are more likely to read and share “10 things you’re doing wrong” than “10 things you’re doing right.” Just don’t go too negative or you’ll turn people off.
14. Be contrarian. If everyone else thinks one way, make an argument the other way. Be polite, be nice, but clearly state your case, your evidence, and why you think the way you do. If it’s a topic people care about, your post is very likely to go viral. Be ready for a major traffic surge as well as many heated comments on both sides of the issue.
15. Present one post in several different ways via social media. Let’s say you have a post on how to raise pigs. Different sections of the post might include: Choosing the piglets (or birthing the piglets, if you own the sow), feeding them when they’re young, housing, feeding when they’re older, exercise, training, things to watch out for, health issues, etc. Each of these topics can be individually highlighted in social media, so that you have several different ways to promote your post instead of just one.
If you spend as much time promoting your post as you took writing it, you should see a dramatic upturn in your traffic. One good rule is to do 5 things every day that promotes a post on your blog. Make this a habit and traffic will never again be an issue for you.
Staying focused is quickly becoming one of the greatest challenges online marketers face today. For example, you sit down to write an article and end up surfing the net for the rest of the morning… Or you’ve got an information product that you need to finish, but you check your email which leads to a news site, a sports site, a few entertainment sites, some social media sites and before you know it, it’s already 3 hours later and you’ve accomplished nothing except making yourself feel guilty. Does this sound familiar?
According to Dr. B. J. Fogg, Director of Stanford Persuasive Lab, “There’s just one way to radically change your behavior, and that’s to radically change your environment.”
Students who transfer to a new university are much more likely to change their habits than students who remain at the same university. This is true for workers as well. People who change jobs or change job locations are much more likely to also change their habits.
It makes sense. Let’s say that at your previous job you were in the habit of going to a fast food restaurant with your coworkers for lunch. At your new job, your coworkers eat lunch at a healthy restaurant and invite you along. Soon you are eating healthy lunches every day, even on those days when you don’t go to that restaurant, because you’re now in the habit of eating healthful lunches. Enough time goes by, and fast food can even become repulsive to you.
So what happened? Your environment changed and so did the triggers. This made it easy to effect a change.
People who have trouble falling asleep are told to only use their bed for sleeping and for nothing else. If they lay down but they can’t fall asleep, they’re supposed to get up and go to another room. After treating their bed as only a sleep location (and not a reading location, a daydreaming location, etc.) for several weeks, they are generally able to fall asleep within minutes of their head hitting the pillow.
The bed is now a trigger for just one thing – sleeping.
This is why having one location to just work and another location to play is important. If you are mixing your ‘play’ time with your work time in the same home office, you’re asking to get constantly distracted.
If you use a laptop or a tablet for work, this is easily remedied. Simply designate one place in your home where you will do nothing but work – no exceptions.
If you work on a desktop computer, you might consider getting a laptop or tablet for your Internet ‘play’ time.
Another technique is to designate certain times of the day when you are working, no exceptions. This will get you in the habit of always doing work during those times, and it will make it much more difficult to get distracted. Your work times then become routine, eliminating the need to decide each time if you’re going to work. And when you automatically go to work instead of ‘deciding’ to go to work, you eliminate the possibility that you will decide NOT to work.
A third technique is to use triggers. For example, if you always start work right after finishing breakfast, it will become a habit to eat and go to work. You don’t have to think about it, you just do it.
In one study, knowing exactly when and where participants were going to exercise caused them to follow through a whopping 91% of the time. Those who simply exercised when they felt motivated to do so exercised 35% of the time.
Bottom line: If you’re having trouble staying focused, designate an area where you will do nothing but work, combine it with a strict schedule, and you should experience a dramatic increase in your productivity.
When you get more done with less distractions, you’ll not only accomplish your goals faster – researchers tell us you’ll also enjoy increased self-esteem, greater happiness and larger overall satisfaction with your life.
Personal question: Is it possible that you already know everything you need to know to be successful online – but something other than knowledge is holding you back?
If it’s as simple as the mechanics of online marketing – setting up websites and so forth – you can always hire someone to do that part for you.
But if it’s a lack of confidence, or fear of failing that’s holding you back – then it’s up to you to squash that particular bug, or at least quarantine it to the furthest corner of your house.
And if the thought of failing is enough to keep you from starting your online empire, then welcome to the club. Fear of failure is one of the biggest stumbling blocks to success. Fear of failing is so oppressive and destructive, it can cause you to willingly set aside your dreams – forever.
I, for one, found it very difficult initially, to come online to share my thoughts with the world (STRANGERS!). But here I am today, doing it anyway… and loving it more and more as I go along.
So why do we fear failure so much? It goes back to life experiences that inadvertently taught us it’s better not to risk, than to risk and lose. When you fail at something, it’s natural to worry what other people will think about you and if they will lose interest in you. You worry about how smart and capable you are, and whether you can effectively pursue future endeavors. In fact, when you fear failure you’re actually worried about an entire host of possible outcomes, most of which will never come to pass no matter how many times you fail.
But the mind isn’t rational, and simply talking yourself out of being afraid doesn’t work any better than trying to manifest an iron will.
The secret to overcoming fear of failure? There are several, but I’ll give you one here that you can use right away.
Experiments in the 1970’s showed that there are two distinct groups of children when it comes to learning new skills. There are the “ego oriented” children whose main concern is to not lose face in front of their friends. Some of these children fear failure so much they invent ways to get out of the activity, do the activity in such a way that they cannot fail, or make it impossible to succeed so that failing doesn’t hold a stigma.
The second group of children is what they term “mastery oriented.” These kids don’t care as much about losing face as they do about acquiring a new skill. In fact, they realize that initially failing is simply a part of the process of learning and take it in stride. These kids are happier and succeed much faster than those who fear failing.
Thus, if you can change your focus to acquiring a new skill and deciding that no matter what happens along the way, you’re going to enjoy the process – you are on the way to overcoming your fear of failure.
Gradually Overcoming Your Fear of Failure
You might start small with something that doesn’t hold a great deal of significance, such as learning a new game. Let’s say you’re going to take up billiards for the first time in your life. Your focus would be on learning how to hold and shoot the cue, the angles to use, the rules of the game and so forth. When you miss a shot or scratch, it’s no big deal because you know that’s part of the process and you’re just learning.
You might be astonished at the difference it makes. You’ll be happier, you’ll have less stress, and you’ll learn your new skill much faster.
From here you might stretch yourself further by doing things that scare you. For example, if you’re a shy person you might ask 15 strangers a simple question (“Do you have the time?”) in the space of 30 minutes. Note how you feel after the exercise. Odds are you’ll not only have conquered a fear of talking to strangers, you’ll also get a boost of confidence, which leads us to our next point…
Are You Lacking in Confidence?
You’ve got a great idea for a new business, but frankly you just don’t have the guts to go for it. Or maybe you do decide to go ahead with your idea, but then someone says it’ll never work and you chuck the whole thing. Why? Low self confidence. This goes hand in hand with the fear of failure.
So why doesn’t someone have enough confidence in themselves? Usually it’s because they judge themselves unworthy, or they see major disconnects between what they think they’re capable of and what they’re actually doing.
Growing Unshakable Self-Confidence, Step by Step
The good news is, self confidence can be raised with every new challenge met, no matter how small. Remember the exercise to talk to 15 strangers? I can almost guarantee your self-confidence to talk with strangers will be significantly raised after you do this.
In fact, if you will make it a habit to do one thing every single day that is out of your current comfort zone, you will find that your confidence improves immensely within just a few short weeks.
Make yourself a list of all things you’d like to do that you’re not doing. Maybe you’ve wanted to join a group, take up a new hobby, try a different sport or go to a fancy nightclub. Maybe you want to get better at talking with the opposite sex, or at making friends, or get better at making online contacts. Maybe you’ve wished you could get 5 minutes with the big guns in your niche, or regularly post to forums and blogs.
Whatever it is that you’ve been wanting to do but haven’t, put it on the list. Even small stuff like taking a walk around your neighborhood and ringing doorbells of neighbors you haven’t yet met can go on the list, as well as chatting up that stud or beautiful woman who works in the supermarket. Write down everything you can think of that you’ve been holding back on. Add in skydiving if you’re inspired to do that kind of thing, and keep adding to this list daily as you think of new things.
Now that you’ve got your list, pick one thing and do it right now. That’s right – do it now, or at least before you go to bed tonight.
Notice a difference in how you feel about yourself? You should.
When we don’t do the things we wish we would do – for whatever reason – we lose self-esteem. But when we finally do those things, not only do we become more self-confident, we also find we’re happier, more fulfilled and more ready to take on even bigger challenges.
You’ll notice that most of the examples I’ve given haven’t been IM related. That’s because raising your confidence in any one area can help you in all other areas as well. When you have success learning tennis, you can use that boost in confidence to tackle website building or product creation. And when you overcome your fear of talking to strangers, it gets easier to network on Facebook with people you don’t know.
One last thing – it’s far better to take multiple baby steps than try to overcome the world in a day. Making slow, steady progress anchors your triumphs and makes it that much easier to achieve a little bit more tomorrow.
