Archive for taking action
Preparing To Fail the 2010 Challenge
Posted by: | CommentsIn Day 4 of “Ed Dales The Challenge” Ed talks about setting expectations and making a commitment to completing the challenge. But saying you’re committed and actually making a commitment are 2 very different things. When my internet marketing coaching clients tell me they’ve made a commitment to something I ask them how they know that for certain. For example, if they haven’t blocked out time on their calendar, it usually shows me that the commitment has not been fully made. You never really know you are committed to something unless you take action that demonstrates that and continue taking action. A good first step, after allocating time on your calendar is to complete the “preparing to fail” exercise.
This exercise starts from the premise that most of the time we know in advance what is likely to trip us up and prevent us from being successful. We make our excuses and prepare our stories, in advance, even if only at the back of our minds.
Getting those excuses out of your head and onto paper gives you the opportunity to confront them and decide whether or not, this time, you’d like to do things differently.
In the case of the 2010 Challenge ask yourself:
If I fail to complete the 2010 Challenge what will be the reason?
What else?
What else?
Keep asking yourself “What Else”? until you have come up with all the possibilities you can think of.
Here are some 7 common excuses that people use when starting something new:
- I don’t have the money – Ed has pretty much ruined this one since the Challenge is free.
- I don’t have the time – Again, the fact that it’s only 30 minutes a day makes this one hard to sustain.
- I don’t know enough – Well, that’s the point of the Challenge – to teach you how.
- Other people will stop me.
- I don’t have enough energy, don’t feel well, feel too stressed.
- I’m not clever enough.
- I don’t want it enough.
If you’ve been reading my blog I bet you can guess what my personal favourite is. Yep. That’s right. ”It’s too boring”, closely followed by number 7. But knowing that in advance meant I was forearmed and when I truly made the commitment to growing an internet marketing business (remember I’ve been playing around in this arena for years) I followed a strategy that would minimise their effect on me. Namely, joining Ed’s mentoring program and taking on a personal coach, paid for upfront.
As far as the 2010 Challenge is concerned you probably don’t need anything quite so dramatic but you DO need to do something to demonstrate to yourself that you are truly committed to this.
You could try the above exercise, join a team as recommended in the forum and make yourself accountable, make a public announcement by leaving a comment here, or whatever works for you. Doesn’t matter what it is but just saying you’re committed is not enough. You need to demonstrate that commitment.
Take action now and, if you start to falter, feel free to skype me on challenge.100 and I will help in whatever way I can.
Ed Dale’s The Challenge – Day 4
Posted by: | CommentsDay 4 of the pre-Challenge is all about setting expectations.
As we know, the focus of The Challenge is on building the foundations of a successful internet business and making your first dollar. In any business the people who are successful are those who do what is necessary on a daily basis.
In the 2010 Challenge that means “Testing a niche and looking for that right combination of factors that tell you to move forward. Testing your actions from each of the modules and measuring your results. . .
The most crucial thing to get from the entire Challenge is to just stick to it. To put in those thirty minutes a day, for those seven days, for those seven modules. Turn up and be prepared to work, spend that thirty minutes a day, take the action required each day. That momentum adds up to taking you a step closer each time to being successful online.”
Ed is convinced that, more than for any previous Challenge – effort will be rewarded.
And, having grappled with the “whole turning up and getting the work done” thing I can confirm that eventually, if you just keep at it, the right work habit will begin to form. My early days of applying critical focus time were tough and, if I hadn’t signed up for the mentoring, I wouldn’t have stuck at it. But now I get the work done much faster and with less moaning and I am transforming myself into a person who can run a successful business.
One thing I find very useful when I start a new venture is to complete a “preparing to fail” exercise which works on the assumption that most of the time we know, in advance, what’s likely to prevent us from being successful. Read my next post “Preparing to Fail the 2010 Challenge” for more details.
Jonathan Fields’s Turning Fear Into Fuel Speech
Posted by: | Comments“I cannot resign myself to the notion of living the rest of my life in a vacuum of regret.
I cannot resign myself to the notion that I will have spent time on this earth with never having done anything to actually come alive, out of fear.
And I cannot fathom that in some way, in my action or inaction, I may have taught my daughter . . . to do the same.”
- Jonathan Fields
5 CFT Challenge – Blocks 3 and 4
Posted by: | CommentsMy report on critical focus time – Blocks 3 and 4 of Ed Dale’s 5 CFT Challenge . . .
1. Edit article written previously for spinning and add to Article Marketing Automation (AMA)
Oops! Forgot to finish this when tackling the CFT 2 session. Got distracted by the blasted plug-ins. Took a full session to finish the writing. I know, I know. Not fast enough.
I need to work on drastically lowering my standards for writing these initial pieces and for the level of spinning since the spinning and submission to AMA took another full CFT.
2. Set up Google Reader to monitor niche
Didn’t do this as I’m not familiar with it and didn’t want to spend the time at this point. There’s plenty of information about my market available to keep me busy writing for a while.
3. Draft an article to spin and submit to AMA next week
Hmmm. Not sure how I managed it but I’ve already done this. The only explanation is I’ve been so distracted by my general life and internet marketing overwhelm and the steep learning curve of my outsourcing project that I didn’t notice I’d completed something. I’m not complaining though because I’m now all set to move onto CFT block 5 and I can mark on my calendar to spin and submit this article to AMA in a week’s time.
Running Total so far – 7 CFT blocks.
Enjoyment rating – good. I’ve done more than I thought I had. Yippee!
5 CFT Challenge – Critical Focus Time Session 2
Posted by: | CommentsHere’s how I got on with CFT session 2 of Ed Dale’s 5 CFT Challenge:
1.Write draft article suitable for spinning for article directories
Started this while I was waiting for the blog, plug-ins and theme to load.
2. Create blog
The blog is uploaded. As are plug-ins and a theme.
I don’t like the theme I’ve chosen but I’m going to stick with it as I hear Ed Dale’s voice ringing in my ears “don’t be fussy – you don’t have the time”.
I didn’t have time to change plug-in settings or set up categories. In fact it took another CFT block to get this done and then some!
3. Set up and Add Google Analytics
4. Edit earlier draft post and upload to blog
5. Do basic bookmarking of post for indexing purposes
Done. All together this took another 3 blocks of CFT.
So, the running total so far is 5 CT blocks.
Enjoyment rating – medium. Bit frustrated with myself for taking so long over plug-in settings but need to remember this is a learning process!
Onwards and upwards 
5 CFT Challenge – Critical Focus Time Block 1
Posted by: | CommentsHere are the components of Critical Focus Time Block 1 of Ed Dales’s 5 CFT Challenge, and my experience of actually doing it.
1. Pick Market
2 Find a keyword that works
3. Pick some category keywords
I did these 3 fairly easily within the 45 mins, since I’d already done some Market Samauri research for other projects that I hadn’t used.
I found Ed Dale’s words REALLY helped keep me on track, e.g.
“When you’re not sure just run with it”.
“You’re just following a process. Don’t go overboard thinking about this stuff”.
“The action point is really, really simple:
- Think up a fresh topic
- Don’t get your knickers in a twist
- Just pick something and
- GET THE SITE UP!
GO AND MAKE MISTAKES AND GET IT OUT OF YOUR SYSTEM
4. Register a Domain Name
This is where it all began to unravel. As my thirteen old son would say . . . “Fail”!
I ran out of time for this and ended up playing around with options whilst watching TV. It was midnight before I knew it and I still hadn’t found a good enough domain.
Moral of the story – don’t attempt this without the clock ticking in the background. It’s just too easy to allow time to expand.
I ended up shifting this task into CFT 2 and ended up going for a domain that I found whilst I was trawling in front of the TV, so all that extra time wasn’t completely wasted after all. Not necessary though. The domain doesn’t meet the visitor numbers criteria but I didn’t want to spend any more time on it. But I’m not happy about it.
5. Write classic beginner draft for first blog post
Again, I found it very hard to follow instructions here, to just whack out some content. In the end I spent what remained of this CFT block, after registering the domain, completing this task.
So the running total so far is 2 CFT blocks. And my enjoyment rating is high.
Be The Change You Want To See
Posted by: | CommentsIt’s 8.30 a.m. and I’m already in my favourite cafe ready to go. I’m amazed at how busy it is. I’m often still in my dressing gown at this time of the day!
I’m here so bright and early because I wanted to write a blog post after my coaching session yesterday and recognised that I was unlikely to do it at home or in the co-working space I use. It feels a bit of a challenge and, as I mentioned in my creating a my productive environment post, my best strategy for overcoming my resistance is to take myself off to a caff and work there.
I had a great session with my coach yesterday afternoon. We explored the conflict between my desire to build an internet marketing business and my lack of drive to do so. It feels like I am constantly having to haul myself back onto the path. Constantly fighting resistance and constantly turning it into more of a drama than it really is. But, that’s OK. I’m new at this.
And when I say “this”, I don’t mean internet marketing. I’ve been playing around with that for years. By “this” I mean being truly committed to making a go of it. To really treating it like a business and connecting with it, rather than speaking the words and not acting on them. And when I say “acting on them” I don’t mean simply taking action but taking the right action. Taking the action that someone who was truly committed to building an internet marketing business would take.
The main takeaway from the session was what I’ve advocated on this blog, a number of times, namely, to connect what you are doing with why you are doing it. I keep forgetting to do this. Talk about “you teach best what you most need to learn”!
But there’s a bit of a twist for me. As you know by now, it’s not just about the money. It would be great to be in a financial position whereby my partner could give up his job, but that’s not enough to keep me at it.
I also want to coach and am not clear how that would actually look.
Because I want a successful internet marketing business whilst also wanting to coach, the purposes behind my sites have got a bit blurred. It’s a bit of a struggle to try and get traffic to this site using SEO because internet marketing is a saturated market, filled with experts. So, I need to return to where I started and treat Internet Marketing Coaching Year, primarily as a place where a story is told.
Then, my other sites, become “grist for the mill” for that story.
So what exactly is that story?
It is the story of someone who has been involved in internet marketing for 7 or 8 years without ever making a full-time living from it who is turning it around, not with strategies and tactics, but by transforming herself.
And that is the nub of my coaching. If you are currently unsuccessful at internet marketing, and you’ve been at it for a while, no amount of “better” strategies and tactics will change that. YOU have to change. You have to be the change you want to see.
At the start of each day, rather than asking yourself “What am I going to do today?” ask yourself “Who am I going to be today?” and then act accordingly.
