Burnout is a very real problem that affects millions of people all around the globe. This is especially true for entrepreneurs who are trying to build a business on the side while still working a day job.
Not only do they need to meet deadlines at work, but they also need to burn the candle at both ends when they get home, just so that their business can progress. Over and above that, they have family commitments, chores, bills, and a multitude of other life demands to handle.
The common signs of burnout are:
And so on. There’s nothing to be ashamed of here. Sometimes life can deal you a tough hand. The good news is that there are ways to cope with burnout.
This is the first and most important step. Put it ALL down on paper so that you don’t have a thousand and one things floating around your head and sapping your energy.
The list of tasks you have should bring about clarity. Now you’ll need to sort them out into 3 categories: Urgent, Important, Others
Now focus on the important stuff while checking off one task from the ‘Others’ list daily. The items in the ‘Others’ category could be household chores, catching up with a friend, etc.
There’s no right or wrong answer here because different people do it differently. Some people meditate, some do yoga and some hit the punching bag.
What matters here is that the activity needs to give you some release from your pent up frustration.
If riding a roller coaster or swimming at the beach does that for you, then that’s what you need to do. Don’t struggle with yoga just because the books tell you to do that.
Achieving work-life balance is a juggling act… and just like any good juggling act, there is a pattern involved. Your schedule is a pattern or a routine.
When you have a routine, you’ll have less decision fatigue. It’s easier to follow structure and contrary to popular belief, structure gives you more freedom than trying to wing your day haphazardly.
The best way to beat burnout is to take an active interest in changing things up. Since what you’ve done so far has only caused you burnout, it’s time for new measures. (Apply the 3 steps above.)
It’s very easy to sink into a state of depression where you want to do nothing and nothing interests you. When you stay in this stage for too long, you’ll be in a state of inertia and it’ll require Herculean effort on your part to get back on track.
The key to breaking inertia will be to start engaging in new activities/routine slowly. Initially, it’s best to get started with slow, progressive steps.
By applying the 4 tips above, you’ll be able to cope with burnout and reclaim your life. It’s never going to get easier. You’ll just need to get stronger and smarter.
Once you understand this, you’ll accept the challenges of the journey and do what it takes to reach your destination.
Nobody reaches breaking point overnight unless it involves the death of someone close to them. For most other situations where you’re stressed out because of work or a cumulation of multiple issues – it always takes time to reach your breaking point.
Stress builds up. The key to prevent this from happening is to be proactive at mitigating it. Here’s what you need to do.
You must assess the situation. In most cases, it’s usually less dire than it appears to be. We often tend to amplify worst case scenarios in our imagination and act as if these situations have come to pass.
Make a list of exactly what is stressing you out. Is it the bills? Or your weight? Work commitments? The car? The spouse? The kids?
Once you list all the triggers for your stress, now you have it all on paper to refer to. It’s important to get out of your own head.
Look at the list you have. Which are the problems that’s within your control. If it’s the bills, then you need to pay them off. As difficult as this may be depending on your financial situation, there are still solutions to this problem.
Focus on the problems that you can solve and mentally detach from those that are out of your control. Worry doesn’t take away tomorrow’s problems, it takes away today’s peace.
Once you know what you can control, then you need to make a plan to do something about it. If it’s the bills, then call up your debtors and structure a payment plan that’s within your ability. At least you’re making an effort and that does buy goodwill with those you owe.
If it’s your health, then make a diet plan and change your diet gradually. Move more and exercise daily. It’s all within your reach. You don’t need to do a lot at once. A little daily will add up to massive changes over time.
Just get started chipping away at your problems and you’ll feel better because you know these problems are going to be resolved.
Always get the urgent tasks done first. You don’t want them bouncing around in your thoughts constantly. Get them out of the way no matter how difficult or uncomfortable they may seem.
You can then move on to the important tasks.
To reduce, you must be clear about what’s bothering you. This is delineation. Write it down and assess the situation thoroughly.
Do what you can and delegate what you can’t. If the chores are too overwhelming, get your spouse or kids involved and share the chores out. Everybody does their share and you’ll not be biting off more than you can chew.
Discard what you’re worrying about but have no control over. If you’re religious, spend time in prayer and let God move in his mysterious ways.
If you’re not religious, focus on what you can do and let what’s beyond your sphere of control sort themselves out, while you hope for the best.
Achieving personal satisfaction in your life is not about avoiding stress completely. The kite rises against the wind. So, for you to progress and achieve satisfaction in your life you have to encounter stress. However, you do not need to be buried in it.
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Managing burnout and stress requires self discipline and if you want to know more about harnessing the power of self discipline, check out the featured resource below for a free detailed report; download, read it and take action 🙂
Selling products online can seem like a formidable challenge, and it often seems like creating the product is the easiest task. It’s the sales pages, funnels, linking them all together and making sure everything functions smoothly that’s the most intimidating and difficult part of the process.
The good news is that it doesn’t have to be a painstaking grind. There are a plethora of page builders and funnel builders on the market to help you out.
Anyone who has been trying online marketing for more than two seconds would have heard of brands like ClickFunnels, OptimizePress, Leadpages and so on.
You’re spoiled for choice and this too becomes a challenge. You’re spoiled for choice. Which do you choose?
In this article, you’ll discover why Convertri is probably the best option for beginners who are new to online marketing and wish to profit from product creation.
Unlike many of the bigger brands such as ClickFunnels, Convertri has been flying under the radar for a couple of years now and is used by many experienced marketers. It’s gaining popularity and will soon rival the rest of the big guys.
Now let’s see why Convertri is ideal for beginners…
One of the strongest points of Convertri is that it’s easy to use. The interface is almost intuitive. Most beginners hate going through the learning curve. Since Convertri uses a ‘drag and drop’ editor, it’s perfect for beginners.
Seniors who are trying to make money online will find it very easy to use. Unlike HTML, there is no complicated code to deal with and pages can be replicated easily with the cloning feature in the software.
No fiddling with CSS code or any such hassle. There’s even an editor to get your mobile responsive version to look perfect. The mobile version does not affect how your page looks like on a computer. They’re separate from each other and that gives you maximum flexibility and creative license.
Since Convertri hosts the sales pages, download pages, etc. for you, there’s really no need for you to build your own website yet. Just create a few products, put them out into the market place and make sales.
Money loves speed, and speed comes from convenient processes – and that’s exactly what Convertri is all about. Speed and convenience which makes marketers’ lives much easier.
Tests have shown that pages built on Convertri load faster than pages built on other more popular platforms. People have the attention span of a housefly these days.
Most newbie marketers neither have the technical know-how to fiddle around with caching plugins and coding nor the time to spend two months trying to speed up their load times by half a microsecond.
Using Convertri makes things a breeze while the pages are blazing fast. It doesn’t get better than that.
‘Split testing’ is another term that strikes fear into the hearts of most newbies and even intermediate marketers.
Convertri makes it all much easier and even provides you the conversion stats so that you know which pages are working better with just one glance.
The page importer feature in Convertri will allow you to replicate any page on the internet. See a page you like? Go ahead and import it. Now all you need to do is make the necessary modifications to make the page unique and attractive.
Another feature that marketers seem to love about Convertri is the ‘undo button’. Apparently, ClickFunnels does not have that feature and it’s something that is sorely needed… and beginner marketers who constantly need to make changes and improve will find that the Convertri undo button becomes their new best friend.
Last but not least, Convertri is much more affordable than ClickFunnels. Currently, at half the price, it’s a much better deal and provides most of the same features that you’ll need to create high-converting sales pages, etc.
While plugins like OptimizePress are one-time payments, they tend to be clunkier and the pages load slower. They also have a yearly support fee that you’ll need to fork out money for if you need support.
Leadpages costs slightly less, but the pages don’t load quite as fast as Convertri. The editor is also not as easy to use as Convertri’s drag and drop page builder.
Do check it out and leverage this powerful platform to launch your own successful online business.
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Of course, creating a great page is only part of the puzzle. If you want to have great results you need to be able to write highly converting copy which is difficult for many people as there are so many mistakes that can have a dramatic effect on conversions.
To help you avoid these mistakes, take a look at the featured resource below where you can download a copy of a free report, Copywriting Blunders, so you will be forewarned. Download, read it and take action 😊
You always want to strive to do the best work that you can. No matter what it is that you’re doing, do it to the best of your ability. These are good concepts to live by, but often times they can be misinterpreted.
Phrases like “to the best of your ability” and “the best work that you can” don’t mean that what you’re doing has to be perfect, but rather as good as you can get it. If you’re allowing perfectionism to pull you off track, it can seriously halt your progress and have some rather adverse effects on you.
The greatest masterpieces in the world have their flaws, and there is not one thing that is perfect. By striving for something unattainable, you could work for years to try to get something exactly right, and still be unsatisfied with it.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t put any effort into it, but give it your best shot without going overboard. If it takes a few days, that’s fine, but once it starts to get into a few months of work with no progress, you’re going overboard.
While there is the danger of you wasting too much time chasing after perfection, there’s also the negative mental aspects. If you’re consistently dissatisfied with your work, you’re going to end up feeling pretty bad about yourself.
You might think you’re bad at your job or that you’re not putting in enough work, and it’ll only be detrimental to you. Instead of second guessing yourself and wasting time, produce something that’s satisfactory to your standards and be proud of that alone.
There’s no reason that you should overexert yourself just because you think something’s good, but it could be a tiny bit better. At some point, even if you were to reach a point very close to perfection, it would come with what’s known as diminishing returns.
If it takes you five hours to produce something that your client is happy with, but it takes you years to produce something that’s slightly better, but close to perfect, then the difference is negligible. You will have spent far more time doing it, making that work not worth doing in the first place.
It’s true that some distractions can be beneficial to your creativity. Getting immersed in something that’s related to your creative work or doing something that lets your mind wander can help you be more creative and can often result in some better ideas.
This isn’t always the case, though, and you need to be able to distinguish the difference between distractions that are actually benefiting you and distractions that are holding you back from working as you need to.
For example, if you’re writing a science fiction novel, and you’re running out of ideas, it could be beneficial to watch some science fiction shows with the pretence that you’re trying to come up with new ideas.
It can help inspire you and show you things that you hadn’t thought of before. In this case, the distraction is beneficial. It helps you gather new ideas and gives you a bit of inspiration that you can channel into your work.
Distractions that have nothing to do with what you’re doing are often not that helpful, but that’s not always the case. If you were trying to come up with a new logo for a company and you were sitting outside letting your mind wander, that might not have anything to do with the logo directly, but it can still be a good way to open up your mind to new possibilities.
In this case, even though it’s not related to your work, it can still be pretty useful. One method of determining whether or not a distraction is beneficial to you is to keep a sort of distraction journal.
Log the amount of time you spent with each distraction and make note of how many quality ideas actually came out of that time you spent. If you spent 3 hours watching a show and only came up with one decent idea, it’s probably not that worth it and is just eating up your time.
If one hour spent outside produced three or four decent ideas, however, that’s a different story. At that point, that could be a worthwhile distraction that’s actually helping benefit you relative to the amount of time you spent on it.
Creativity is something to be admired and cherished, because it can be so incredibly helpful for you. It can give you new ways to do things, new ideas for projects, and bring a lot of light into your life.
However, there is such a thing as being too creative. You need to find a balance between creativity and actual implementation in order for those dreams and ideas to come to life.
You can spend your time 24/7 daydreaming, and during that time you will no doubt come up with some great fascinating ideas. The problem is, it’s almost irrelevant how good an idea is if it’s not put into action.
If you have an idea that would work well, but you don’t implement it, then you’re just wasting your creativity. You should use focus and hard work in conjunction with creativity so that you can actually benefit from your creative work.
Implementing your creativity is tedious work, and it often requires a lot of focus and dedicated effort. If you’re more creatively inclined, this will be more of a hassle for you, but it will be well worth it if you’re coming up with quality ideas.
You might be concerned that stopping your creativity to work for extended periods of time will hinder your creativity, but that’s not exactly true.
First, it means that your creative dreams won’t just go on to die out, but rather they’ll actually come to fruition and mean something rather than just staying an idea forever.
Additionally, you may be surprised to find that you can actually become more creative after a break. If you’re constantly using creativity, you may become burned out after a little while.
Taking a bit of a break to work normally can reinvigorate you when you get back to it, making you even more creative than you were before. It’s important to balance hard, boring work and creativity as much as possible.
Strictly doing either one will lead to some negative consequences. All work makes you less creative and you’ll start to get repetitive, while all creativity doesn’t really give you much to work with if you’re not putting things into action.
As you can appreciate, a lot of this is dependent on the way you think and if you want to know more about developing a good mindset for success, please click on the featured resource below for a free Strong Mindset report; download, read it and take action 😊
As the article title suggests, you’re about to get a crash course in surveying your audience.
The more you know about your audience, the more benefits you can provide for them in the form of…
And so on.
And the more benefits you provide for your audience, the more profits you generate for yourself. Win-win!
So, with that in mind, here’s a crash course in developing and distributing surveys that benefit both you and your audience. There are five basic steps involved…
Step 1: Determine What You Want to Know
Step 2: Define Who Should Take the Survey
Step 3: Develop Your Questions
Step 4: Distribute the Survey
Step 5: Decode the Results
Let’s take a closer look at each step…
Your first step is to determine what are the most important things you want to learn about as a result of this survey. For example:
TIP: While you may want to know a LOT of information, it’s a good idea to focus in on a few high-impact questions, as shorter surveys tend to generate more responses.
Now that you know what type of information you’re seeking, the next step is to determine WHO should take your online survey. Namely:
It’s important that you define this, as getting your survey into the right hands will help you get the most accurate information.
TIP: Who you want to take the survey should be directly related to what you want to learn from the survey.
For example, if you want to know how to improve a product to increase customer satisfaction, then your survey would need to be completed by someone who has purchased the product.
Now it’s time to develop your survey. It may be short, medium or long – but keep in mind, shorter surveys (even as short as one question) will get a higher response rate.
The big key here is to make sure you’re doing two things:
Next…
Your next step is to choose a surveying tool and then distribute the survey to your audience.
When it’s time to distribute your online survey, be sure to get it in front of a targeted audience.
For example, if you’re surveying customers ONLY, then send the survey to all the customers on your list (and exclude anyone who hasn’t purchased anything from you). This is a good tactic to find ways to boost customer satisfaction.
Or if you’re surveying prospects in your niche, you might use paid advertising to get your survey in front of a highly targeted market (both in terms of specific demographics as well as topics that interest them).
And finally…
What you need to know here is that you’re looking for patterns.
While an individual’s answer may give you an interesting insight that you hadn’t thought about before – and perhaps it is something you’ll explore further at some point – ultimately, you’re looking for patterns that are shared across multiple people in your market.
Now you can take this information and apply it throughout your business. For example:
Let’s work through an example…
If you know your dog-training audience’s big problem is that their houses are beginning to stink because their puppies are having so many accidents, then your products and content can do two things:
You’d then use your sales copy or other content to specifically address the pain point.
E.G., “There are few things worse for a pet owner than being embarrassed to invite someone into your house because your puppy has been having so many accidents. Yes, you know your house possesses the faint smell of old urine stains – but it seems like no matter what you do, you just can’t get your puppy housetrained. You’re frustrated – maybe even feeling like you’re at the end of your rope. But I’ve got good news…”
And now a few parting thoughts…
And there you have it – you just discovered a simple five-step system for using surveys to create more benefits for your audience and more profits for your business.
Your assignment is to take what you’ve just learned to start planning an effective and useful online survey campaign.
This is a really beneficial (for your audience) and profitable (for your business) strategy, yet one that many business owners overlook. Don’t make the costly mistake of guessing what your audience wants (and hoping you’re right) when you can know for certain.
Surveys are a great way to get to know your audience, get busy creating the exact products they want and need, and get busy reaping mutual benefits for you and the people you serve.
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Someone once said that death and taxes are the only two unavoidable things in life. They got it wrong – they forgot to add change. The third one is unavoidable. Nothing in life stays the same because change is an inevitable part of any natural cycle.
We’re often taken unawares by change and shocked when it happens. We’re afraid of it and resist it vehemently because we fear the unknown.
How It Holds You Back
A good example to illustrate this type of fear is technology. It’s become an integral part of our lives and most people are comfortable using it. In fact, some people are unable to function without it.
However, there are others who resist it. They insist on using traditional tools like notebooks and ledgers, paper invoices and manual accounting. They know the bare basics of computers and cell phones but just aren’t interested in upping their tech skills.
People who don’t like technology are in fact resisting change, in this case, our increasing dependence on technology. They regard this change as a total upheaval of the familiar lifestyle that they’re comfortable with.
Change can often be good and even life-changing if you’re able to look beyond your fear of it. High achievers and great people embrace change and see it as a challenge. For them, change is an opportunity to grow and achieve bigger successes. That’s what makes great people great!
The fear of change is linked to fear of the unknown and the unknown signifies risk. Risk, as we discussed earlier, links to survival. Therefore, the fear of change is sometimes very strong, especially in times of political or economic turmoil.
Here are a couple of quick action steps you can take to stop fear of change from holding you back.
Engaging in experiences that are new to you helps you become more accepting of change. It trains your mind to process that the unknown isn’t always bad. In fact, it can be amazingly fun and stimulating. You also have full control over what you choose to try.
This conditions your mind to be more comfortable with change. The key is to engage in new and different experiences like traveling abroad, which allows you to experience different cultures and engage with different people.
Trying new cuisine, learning a new language, or taking a class also helps ease your fear of change. The point is that what you choose to try should be something completely new to you, so, get creative! Make the rounds of your local ethnic restaurants, take a martial arts class, or sign up for singing lessons. As long as it’s something totally new, it’ll work.
Next, up the level of trying new things by doing what makes you uncomfortable. Public speaking is a great example of this. For most people, giving a presentation or speaking in front of an audience is as uncomfortable as it can get! That’s the whole point of this exercise.
Another example is having a conversation with a particularly obnoxious person such as a chronic complainer or cynical hatemonger – and staying calm and collected. Attending a church service if you’re non-religious can be very uncomfortable as well.
Trying things that scare you also falls into this category. A wild roller-coaster ride or bungee jumping, deep-sea diving… we all have certain things we’ve never considered doing because they frighten us. Even trying them once will go a long way towards breaking your fear of change.
Overcoming your fears can be very liberating but is often difficult, and one of the most difficult of these is the dreaded fear of rejection, because nobody wants to be rejected and laughed at do they?
This fear is related to emotional pain and trauma. For some of us, it has its roots in childhood, where we experienced some form of abuse or bullying. These types of experiences and the negative emotions associated with them are often repressed. They continue to fester inside, causing fear of rejection or ridicule.
How it holds you back
One of the most dangerous consequences of this fear is that we can become obsessed with seeking approval. As a result, we may stifle our individuality and personal opinions to ‘conform’ or ‘fit in’. This could be very detrimental to personal growth and creativity.
Even worse, the desire to avoid ridicule or rejection can drive us to compromise our values and beliefs. In other words, we sell ourselves out. What’s more, we know it and feel terrible about it. This can lead to self-hate, one of the most toxic emotions of all.
Here are a couple of quick action steps you can take to stop fear of rejection from holding you back. Overcoming this fear will be a major step forward in your life.
These are family members, friends and colleagues who totally love and accept you as you are. They see all your brilliant qualities and are generous with encouragement and support.
Surround yourself with as many of these people as you can. They’ll give you the confidence and self-worth to deal with criticism and rejection and accept that you just can’t please everyone.
Find a cause that you’re passionate about such as the environmental crisis, world hunger or animal rights. Educate yourself on the topic and join an advocacy group.
Speak about your cause to others and try to enlist their efforts. This applies to your political, religious, and moral convictions as well.
You don’t necessarily need to advertise them to all and sundry but don’t be afraid to speak up and defend them with courage and conviction.
And remember, nobody can make you feel rejected without your permission; you can reframe these occasions and nip the feeling of rejection in the bud.
Let’s look at one more fear that may be holding you back from living the life you want.
The fear of responsibility is directly related to the fear of failure and the fear of risk. Some people also fear responsibility because they don’t like to be held accountable for their actions. They prefer to blame others rather than honestly confront themselves.
How it holds you back
This fear can hold you back professionally because you gain a reputation as someone who shuns responsibility and therefore, has no commitment or dedication to their career.
In your personal life, the fear of responsibility can be extremely detrimental to relationships. You may delay important decisions like marriage or starting a family. You may experience a painful breakup or lose potential partners because you’re seen as someone who shuns commitment.
Here are a couple of quick action steps you can take to stop fear of rejection from holding you back.
Train yourself to become more responsible by honestly identifying your flaws and reflecting on them. You may tend to interrupt others in conversation or not listen actively. You may tend to gossip. You could be holding yourself back by seeing yourself as the perpetual victim.
We all have personal flaws that we can work on to improve. Whatever your own may be, make the intention to fix them and become a better person. In the process, you’ll realize that taking responsibility feels great!
People who fear responsibility often find it hard to apologize for their mistakes. Commit to apologizing when you make a mistake or feel that you’ve offended someone.
Any simple apology will do. For example, “I’m sorry if that sounded rude, I didn’t mean it to be” or “I’m sorry for not responding to your email promptly but I was having a hectic day.”
There’ll be opportunities every day to make an apology so take advantage of them as often as you can.
Don’t worry, it gets easier over time. And again, you’ll feel great about having the integrity and honesty to admit you were wrong.
Never commit to something unless you can keep your commitment. This is an integral part of learning to take responsibility.
Failing to follow through with promises is the quickest way to lose respect or even important people in your life.
Don’t take the easy way out by blaming others, even if they are wrong. Stay alert to this negative reaction because quite simply, it’s not going to fix anything.
When something goes wrong, ditch the blame game and look for ways to set things right. If you feel that someone needs to be made aware of a mistake, you can explain to them later what they did wrong and how they can avoid it the next time around.
If you are being treated unfairly or victimized in some way, only you can change that. Own up to the fact that you can take control of your life and change any negative situation.
As you can appreciate, changing the way you think can have a huge impact on your life, and if you want to know more about developing an inspirational mindset for success, please click on the featured resource below for a free Strong Mindset report; download, read it and take action 😊
