How many times do you think Thomas Edison failed in his attempt to bring light into our lives by inventing the lightbulb? Likely, he failed more times than we can count. Imagine how he felt when he worked so hard (during daylight hours or by candlelight) to find something that worked, came so close each time – and then failed with each attempt.
Then, finally it happened. One path Edison took led to the invention of the lightbulb and all other attempts were forgotten. We’ve been bathed in iridescence ever since. Edison and other successful entrepreneurs have all suffered from self doubt but trudged on through the lack of confidence to make their dream a reality.
Think about the times in the past (even as a child) that you’ve persevered through disabling doubts that you could do something, only to find out that it wasn’t within your grasp even though you gave it your all.
Either you shrugged and went on to something else or withered away in self-pity that prevented you from possible future successes. Virtually every successful person in the world has failed many times before.
Rather than wasting time stewing over each failure and making yourself miserable, make a firm decision to move on – and then do it. Begin on the new project immediately by setting short and long-term goals and really dig deep into how you’re going to ensure it’s a big success.
Each success will spur you on to the next project – and the next, until you have some firm accomplishments under your belt. Next time a failure happens, you can focus on the successes you’ve had to break the cycle of self-doubt and begin again.
Before you begin a project or new venture, think about all of the possible scenarios that can happen. Make sure you include the worst-case scenarios along with the rewards that will happen when you succeed.
After you face your fears of “what if,” you can use those fears as challenges. Looking at fears as challenges rather than obstacles can only help boost your self-confidence and help you begin to see success in your future rather than failure.
Most of us don’t think of failures as opportunities – but successful entrepreneurs know the secret to turning the knowledge learned in a failure into opportunities for growth and success.
Kids learn about winners and losers at an early age and may be taunted when playing sports or about the dismal results of a test. Some take the “loser” label and define their future self worth with it and are reluctant to take risks, while others become more determined to show everyone that they can win.
We hate the way failure makes us feel, but when we realize it’s not the end of the road and we have time to come back as a success, failure can actually be a learning experience.
What you learn from failure is invaluable to your future success. A close analysis of what went wrong with the failed idea or venture can help you make sense of the situation and learn lessons that will make you a true winner.
Every failure can be turned into a unique opportunity to grow and learn – and every success might be detrimental to future successes. It’s a contradiction that’s difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced both the opportunities in failure and the dangers in success.
Being honest with yourself is the first step in turning failures into opportunities and learning experiences. Blaming failure on others or making excuses can only serve to dig you further into a state of denial.
When that happens, you don’t learn anything. If you don’t use your failures to find flaws in your thinking or how you managed a product or venture you’re likely doomed to failure.
Learning from past mistakes is a trait that every successful person on this planet has profited from. Remember, that every failure you experience shows that you tried. If you never fail at anything, chances are you’re not trying hard enough to succeed.
While none of us seek to fail, the process of life and how it works condemns us to some failures along the way. Your success will come when you seek to learn how you failed and figure out what you’re going to do next time to ensure success.
Some of us tend to doubt ourselves right out of future success with “what if” predictions we make. It could be named the “what if” syndrome. It’s when you’re mired in self doubt so much that you begin to imagine and predict obstacles and outcomes that aren’t even there.
The “what if” syndrome is especially prevalent after you’ve hatched up a brilliant idea for an online project that’s going to make you lots of money and help your fellow entrepreneurs.
You’re sure everyone will love it and want it. Then, self-doubt sets in and you begin to think of all of the reasons why it won’t succeed. You walk on the shadowy side of your ability to make things happen and talk yourself down or out of even trying.
You were so excited about the idea at first and it fired up your creativity to a point where you could hardly wait to begin. That lull – somewhere between the excitement of the idea and taking action to make it happen – is where self doubt takes root.
You may begin to think of past failures and how they made you feel or become highly sensitive to the fact that you’ve never endeavored something like this before. If you keep thinking about past failures or what “might” happen, you may come to a point in the project where a big wall is placed in your path.
Or – you can take another route – one that doesn’t ensure success, but that at least gives you a chance. Rather than giving in to self doubt, trust yourself and try it again. You’ve likely practiced this scenario many times before in your life.
Some attempts may have failed, but you’ve probably succeeded many more times. Bring a new attitude into the mix and think positively rather than giving in to the hauntings of past failures. Also, bring in positive people to surround you who encourage, rather than discourage you.
Don’t compare yourself to others whose successes may be greater or more profitable than yours. You may even learn from their stories of success. They’re bound to have had failures along the way – and overcame them rather than feeling defeated.
When you find yourself become mired in self doubt about your future success, mute the negative voices by focusing on the positive and living in the present moment rather than projecting yourself into a future of unknowns.
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and being able to reframe failure is a small part of that. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 🙂
If you have been marketing online for any length of time, you will know the importance of building your own email list.
You own your list, whereas you don’t own the social media platforms you may use to build an audience, and it can be taken away from you, and where would that leave your online business?
This article will cover 10 of the things that you can implement to grow your business with an active email list, and are a key to effective email marketing.
OK, let’s dive in…
It goes without saying that first impressions matter, and this is triple important for emails. Quick question: What would you do if you subscribed to a company’s email newsletter only to find out that their emails are kind of boring? Simple fonts, no backgrounds, no signatures, and so on.
What will happen is that you will ignore them, and eventually they’ll automatically end up in your spam folder. This is exactly what would happen to your emails if you don’t pay special attention to your email’s presentation.
Of course, you need to be careful and limit personalization to the subject line and the first line of the message, or your email may seem forced or fake. Also, don’t overshoot its design, just use something related to what you do as a business or professional.
Your mailing list will go as far as the means you use to market will take it. This means that you can’t just use a corner of your website to show a sign up form and call it a day. What you really want is to get traffic, and put your mailing list out there.
You can do that by having a blog dedicated to content outside your website, with carefully structured information that can be used to get traffic from wherever you can and then insert a landing page with a call to action to join your mailing list.
Lead magnets are teasers or incentives that you offer in a call to action to motivate your prospects to join your mailing list. The trick behind a lead magnet is giving away something that can only be obtained by joining your mailing list.
For example, giving away a free eBook, tips, or pieces of content that is not going to be published on the website and is exclusive, can be wonderful lead magnets.
Even if your prospects only sign up for the promise of a one-time free piece of content, they will be on your mailing list. From then on, it’s up to you to keep them engaged.
If a personalization is the appetizer, then quality content is the full meal. You already sent emails, but what you really want is for your customer to read them and make use of its contents.
Creating quality content for your emails guarantees that your customers will be waiting for the upcoming email. Build up anticipation by creating special content from time to time, hosting contests, sending gifts to random customers, anything to keep them on edge!
Guest posting is a great way to make your prospects and repeated customers perceive you as a reliable source of information. By allowing guest posting and announcing it on your newsletter, you can have people wanting to read something from a different perspective.
It will also generate traffic by means of word of mouth. If somebody on your mailing list sees a guest post from somebody that knows someone is going to enjoy, they will forward that email to that person, so you’ll probably add someone to your mailing list!
While it is true that you can use some free services to manage your mailing list, it is also true that their usefulness will get limited as your mailing list grows. Not only will you be limited to a low number of subscribers, but your options to refine your list will be limited, as well.
That’s why we recommend using paid services to manage your mailing lists and to assist you in expanding it. In any case, you have to remember that the costs of email marketing are the lowest among marketing methods, and it also offers the biggest return of investment!
There’s a simple yet all too often overlooked rule for email marketing, and it is simply about not offering something for your customer to buy during their first week on your mailing list. Instead, give them something like a gift card, or a free eBook.
By giving them something that they don’t have to pay for, you are in fact building up loyalty. This way, you’re teaching customers that you trust them by giving them a gift, and at the same time you’ll be teaching them to trust you back.
You can use multiple ways to study your customer base and prospects. You can do it by using metrics, by visiting the kind of websites they visit, or by the kind of products and services that they buy, but you have to do it.
This will be helpful, because if you know your customers, you don’t have to offer them everything you sell. You only have to target them and give them what you know they want. Email each of your customer segments with what they’re looking for, and they’ll stick with you.
You need to have a follow up email ready to be sent once somebody signs up for your mailing list. It is as simple as sending out an email welcoming a new subscriber and taking them to a start page with instructions and information about what he or she can do now that they’re signed in!
You need to run a periodic maintenance check on your mailing list to know where your resources are going. It is just not worth it to have users getting your emails in their spam folders, or have dead addresses on your list. Make sure you do this clean up from time to time.
If you want to know more about nurturing you list, check out the featured resource below for a free Simple List Building report; download, read it and take action 😊
We’ve all heard the quotes when it comes to procrastination. ‘Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today’ or ‘Action today can prevent a crisis tomorrow’… and so on.
Yet, millions of people procrastinate daily. So why do we not do what we know we need to do?
The answer is simple. When you view a task as unpleasant and tiring, your mind immediately starts cooking up excuses to prevent you from being in discomfort. This is your self-preservation instinct at its finest.
Your mind is trying to protect you. While this is good when it comes to dangerous situations, for the most part it’s unnecessary and actually holding you back.
Knowing how to act is crucial to avoid procrastination. If you keep procrastinating, your work will pile up and your schedule will become a mess.
You won’t reach your goals or meet your deadlines. It’s impossible to have work-life balance when you’re always playing catch-up. So, here’s what you need to do to stop procrastinating…
Make a list of ALL the things you need to get done. List them in 3 categories:
Get the urgent matters out of the way ASAP, then focus on the important tasks and finally clear the other tasks as and when you can.
Many times, you may feel like you’re not in the mood for an activity. This could be exercise or writing or cleaning your house, etc. Whatever the activity is, your mind is already making excuses for you to avoid doing it.
You’re thinking of skipping the workout. Or maybe you’d rather organize the folders in your laptop than write that blog post you need to.
Clean the house? Pfft! You can always do that next month.
So how do you beat this problem?
Simple. Just give yourself 2 minutes to do the task. Tell yourself that you’ll just exercise for 2 minutes or clean the room for 2 minutes. It doesn’t matter what the task is. Just aim for 2 minutes.
You’ll often find that once you get started, you’ll usually go on for 30 minutes to an hour or longer.
It’s always the initial step of getting started that’s the most difficult. 2 minutes tricks your mental resistance because writing or exercising for 2 minutes is not as intimidating as doing it for 30 minutes or an hour.
Employ this technique whenever you catch yourself about to procrastinate.
Parkinson’s law states that, “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.”
What that means is that if you give yourself 3 days to complete a job, you’ll take 3 days. However, if you gave yourself 8 hours to do it, you’ll rush and get the job done.
So, giving yourself shorter deadlines will help to motivate you by lighting a fire under your butt to get you moving. You can’t procrastinate when you have a deadline that’s approaching really fast. You’ll get the job done quicker than you thought possible.
One of the cruel twists of life is that very often, you get motivation only after you’ve completed the work. If you wait to be motivated to do a task, you’ll be waiting a long time.
However, if you just go ahead and do it, you’ll gain some self-satisfaction and feel productive. Now you’ll have the motivation to quickly complete the next task and so on.
Start doing first, and the motivation will come later – and you’ll not even think of procrastinating once you’re on a roll.
Avoid procrastination at all costs and know that it doesn’t change anything other than cause your responsibilities to pile up. Life begins outside the discomfort zone. Challenge yourself to get started today and right now.
And now you have mastered procrastination, let’s look at how you can use automation to make even more use of the time you have.
One of the best ways to increase your productivity and free up more time for leisure will be to automate your recurring tasks or outsource them. This could be done in a variety of ways.
One fantastic strategy to stop wasting time at the bank will be to have your bill deductions automated. You could plan things out in such a way that money from your account is automatically deducted towards your outstanding bills.
Online banking is all the rage these days and yet thousands of people queue up at the tellers just because they’re not ‘tech savvy’ and don’t wish to learn something new.
If you’re working from home or you’re a busy entrepreneur, it’s these automated tasks that will save you precious hours and also prevent any hassles in your workday.
Instead of washing dishes by hand, you could use a dishwasher. Instead of drying the laundry on a line, you could use a dryer. There are many machines that will help to simplify your chores.
You could also create a roster for your kids where each one gets a specific chore to complete daily. It could be doing the dishes or vacuuming the house or one of the many daily chores that threaten to suck up your time.
They’ll do it in a fraction of the time for a small fee. The amount you pay for the service will be worth every cent because your time is worth much more.
If you’re an online entrepreneur, there are tons of email management software and other tools that simplify your job. You can queue emails for an entire week that are set to be sent at a specific time and day.
The same applies to other activities such as scheduled blog posts, social media posts, etc. Automation is a time saver that you absolutely must use if you wish to be effective.
Which brings us to the next point…
Batching your tasks is without a doubt one of the best productivity hacks ever. So what is batching?
For example, if you’re planning to write 10 articles, batching will mean doing the research for all 10 articles at once. Then you’ll outline them all.
This principle applies across the board. Write all your emails at once. Schedule them at one go and so on.
Instead of doing each task from beginning to end and then repeating the process over and over, batching will save you countless hours in the long run.
Use the methods above to manage your time effectively. Time management is life management. The better you are at it, the more time you’ll have for yourself and the activities you really want to do.
And remember, one way to beat procrastination is to stay focused and many people struggle with this. If you want to learn more about staying focused, check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
Affiliate marketing as an online business opportunity is very attractive as it is low cost and low risk, but as an affiliate you’re always going to have a lot of competition.
Not only are you competing with others who are selling similar products, but there may be dozens, hundreds or even thousands of serious affiliates who are selling the EXACT same product as you are.
How do you beat your competition?
You’re probably wondering what the simplest and most effective way of creating a bonus for your offer or service that you are promoting.
It can be overwhelming and quite frustrating as you want to give your audience and potential buyers a valid incentive to purchase from you or through your affiliate links.
Here are a couple of simple ideas for adding value to any affiliate offer.
If you are not sure where to start then the most effective and simplest way would be to create a free report or detailed guide.
You can make it as simple or as detailed as you like but it must provide value. Another point to take into consideration is that the guide must have a unique flow that coincides and complements the original training or tutorials.
In other words, it must be structured in a way that acts as a reference that works in tandem alongside the original content as a supplementary alternative.
You can add images and additional text to help further expand on the training while providing more insights to allow users to better understand the topic and complete tasks etc.
To give an example of this, if you are a personal trainer and your clients need help with losing weight and correcting their dietary habits, you will create a detailed guide and structure it in a way that follows a simple step-by-step process.
To elaborate on this example to keep it as simple as possible you will focus the guide on 3 key areas which your clients must follow to help them get the required results.
You will start off with an estimated time period in which they must adhere to all the rules and complete the tasks as required for them to start seeing progress.
The next step will be to create a detailed day to day meal plan that covers the types of food they should eat at each meal. Making sure to provide information based on the number of calories, protein, and macronutrients they need to consume or restrict to allow them to work within any boundaries or limitations they may have.
The final step will be to incorporate a structured exercise plan that will provide information on the best warm-up routines and exercises to implement to increase stamina, build muscle or lose weight.
You can cater the information based on the client’s proprietary needs so they can follow the plan in a simplified manner.
One of the most important aspects of providing a free report or guide to your followers is to not call it an eBook or pdf.
For example:
You don’t want to use this phrase – You can download a free pdf or eBook using the link below.
So, in your audience’s eyes, it is seen as less valuable, and they may be less likely to use it.
Instead, what you should do is give the eBook a different name such as:
This small change will greatly help enhance the perceived value of your bonus.
It’s a great way to get people interested in your brand, and an even better way to introduce yourself as an expert.
It will also give you an extended reach as an authority figure on the subject or topic.
You’ll not only get instant credibility for yourself and your brand but also have a chance to reveal how the training is helping others deal with their specific problems or challenges.
Now that you have those small changes in place, you can now provide a simple CTA or Call to Action to encourage your followers to provide their email address in exchange for the free report.
OK, here’s another way to add value to your affiliate offers.
Sharing a detailed checklist is another great way to add value to an offer, service, or promotion.
People love incentives and checklists are a great way to increase a viewer’s interest in a product.
It can help users to follow along with the content of the training etc in a step-by-step order as it also helps to keep them accountable as they progress.
It also helps to solidify more trust in your product so they can get more value.
They can just check off the tasks they have completed along the way allowing them to move on and focus on the next stage of whatever process they are involved in.
This can be useful not only for solo content creators but also for groups and teams that need to work closely together on specific tasks to complete projects etc.
For a lot of teams, sharing and checking off checklists helps everyone stay on track with projects. For instance, maybe you have a big project to take on, but you don’t know who is responsible for what steps in the process.
You can create a detailed checklist of events that can be designated to each team member so that everyone involved knows exactly where to focus their time and energy on.
This will help to avoid confusion while allowing the entire process to have a better flow and be more streamlined.
There are plenty of ways you can create a detailed checklist!
You can use various design programs to build the files and convert them to pdf or different reading formats that can be made viewable online or made printable so that you can access a physical copy if needed.
Everything involved with these interactive checklists is hosted online so you can view them through your internet browser window, but they can also be made printable if required.
There are so many benefits to creating detailed checklists as you can cater them to whatever area, interest, or niche where you have an established audience of loyal followers or as an incentive to entice new followers to join your group, offer or service.
You can create anything from holiday travel and packing checklists to remind people of all the specifics they need to take with them and be aware of when travelling abroad.
Even step-by-step health guides, cooking and diet plans to exercise plans etc, even how to set up an online business where they can check off each section to let them know which stage they are currently on their journey.
Checklists are a great way to summarize the content in a training course or program into individual tasks while also helping to increase engagement with the user.
You can sell checklists as an additional way to earn an extra income source, or you can give them away for free as an added bonus for an offer or product you plan to promote, you have the freedom to use or implement them how you wish.
If you like the 2 simple ways to add value to your affiliate offers in this article, you will surely like an extended and detailed report containing another 8 ways to boost your affiliate earnings.
So, check out the featured resource below for the free Simple Affiliate Strategies detailed report; download, read it and take action 😊
Saying that times are challenging these days would be a gross understatement.
With the Covid pandemic, political polarization, lockdowns, vaccine mandates, people losing their jobs daily and untruthful media juggernauts dividing the people over issues – let’s just say, times are stressful.
The good news is that you can remedy this problem and maintain your sanity in a world that seems to be growing increasingly insane by the day.
Here’s how you do it…
The first step to healing yourself will be to find out what’s getting you down.
Are you unhappy at work? Is it the news? Or is it the constant vitriolic debates on social media that’s aggravating you?
What’s important is to know what’s eating you.
Even overthinking can be a problem – and the first step is knowing what’s causing you distress.
As simple as this sounds, people are not rational and fail to do it. Millions get stressed out watching the news which is always polarizing and stirring up fear. It would only make sense to stop watching this drivel.
But people don’t.
Like a deer caught in the headlights, they keep consuming the news content put out by the networks who have hidden agendas of their own. As a result, they get more stressed out. It’s a vicious cycle that never ends.
Eliminate ALL triggers that are causing you mental and emotional anguish.
A 3-to-5-day digital detox will do wonders for your mind and soul. When you don’t watch TV or use your phone, you’ll immediately be reducing the amount of stimuli your brain receives and processes. As a result, you’ll calm down.
Recently, Facebook (Instagram and WhatsApp too) was down for a day. Millions of people reported feeling better for that day when they couldn’t access their social media.
They got a brief respite from all the stimuli. Instead of understanding how beneficial this was to their mind and soul, the masses mindlessly got back on social media the very next day when the platforms resumed operations and started discussing why the ‘blackout’ happened.
Like Max Lucado said, “A man who wants to lead an orchestra must turn his back on the crowd.”
Turn your back on the social media crowd and your life will become a symphony. Or at the very least, it won’t become a stressful cacophony of social media talking points.
While your morning coffee is fine, you’ll want to avoid energy drinks and other stimulants to keep you going through the day. Caffeine dependency is a very real problem.
It causes anxiety and when you’re not loaded up with caffeine, you feel lost. Over and above that, any alertness you get from caffeine is temporary… but it generally leaves you feeling worse after the effects wear off.
Since the half-life of caffeine is about 5 hours, many people still have caffeine in their system when its bedtime. As a result, they can’t sleep well and wake up groggy and stressed out. Avoid caffeine after 1 PM.
We all know what we need to do here. Eat clean and in moderation – and exercise 4 to 5 times a week. It’s so simple in concept but so difficult in practice.
A good diet and regular physical activity are 2 of the best forms of self-care any individual can undertake.
Want to feel better mentally and emotionally?
Then look after your body well.
However bad things may be, fear helps no one. Like author, Robin Sharma says, “Being scared is part of being alive. Accept it. Walk through it.”
Don’t let fear control your life. Tell yourself that you’re resilient and will get through anything. You’ve come this far, haven’t you?
Well, you have what it takes to go all the way. Focus on your goals and where you want to go – not fear.
Massages, yoga, aromatherapy, walks in the park, watching a comedy, going to the zoo or an amusement park, etc. are all forms of stress relief.
What matters here is that you do what works for you. Break the monotony in your life. Do something fun. Very often, people get trapped in a mundane cycle of work and mind-numbing entertainment such as reality TV.
What you really need is a change in your daily life. Something that takes you out of your normal routine and helps you break through the grey fog of inertia and unhappiness.
Doing something that’s fun and not what you normally do will be akin to letting rays of sunlight break through the dark clouds in your life. You’ll get a ‘breather’ and be able to shift your mental state. This is priceless.
The author, Robert Ingersoll, once wrote, “We rise by lifting others.”
An excellent quote with an eternal truth – when you help someone else, you will feel better.
You’ll feel like you’re making a difference in the world, and your actions just might make someone else believe in the goodness of people. This belief is in short supply these days.
Buying a homeless person a meal will not only help them but will make you feel much better than donating your money to a faceless organization.
Sometimes, you’ll even find good conversation among people who have fallen through the cracks of the system. That said, you’ll want to be cautious in your approach too.
Your mental health and emotional health are intertwined. How you process information is just as important as how you emotionally react to it. It’s imperative that you be aware of this.
Feed your mind positive information. Where your attention goes, your energy goes.
If your attention goes on social media and reading hateful comments, you’ll be stressed out and become spiteful too. Your mind and thoughts be clogged up with drama, debate, and disinformation.
If you spend your time reading good books and helping yourself to progress in life, you’ll feel a sense of achievement because your life feels more purposeful. That’s how you look after your mental and emotional wellbeing.
“You can’t have a positive life and a negative mind.” – Joyce Meyer
Whatever you want in life will require discipline to achieve and maintaining a healthy mental and emotional balance is a small part of that. And if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self-discipline, then check out the featured resource below for a free report; download, read it and take action 🙂
