It’s easier than we think to get sidetracked and lose the flow of running our businesses…
It’s those moments when you sit in front of the computer, doing some work (so you think), and realizing that you’re probably just wasting your time writing yet another piece of content (or promoting something, or emailing people, etc.) and that there are a thousand other activities that can bring you more results and more satisfaction at the same time.
So you start searching for new opportunities, reading blogs, tuning into forums, checking out new product reviews, getting into this new thing, and so on.
This makes you feel good for a while, but then after, say, a month or two the situation repeats itself and makes you question your online business greatness pursuit. In the end, the question likely to appear in your mind, provided you’re familiar with various online memes, is “have I forgotten how to online business?”
No, you haven’t. Someone else is to blame… Here are the two main villains sitting quietly in our minds and selling crack to our online business cells:
Killing the two main villains
Busy is the guy that keeps you going just for the heck of it. He is the one telling you to just do your job and shut the f*** up about all your insecurities. He wants you to stay busy every day.
Chasing is the other guy that takes over when you’re really in need of some new stuff to refresh your day and introduce some variety into your business efforts. He wants you to go after every new opportunity that crosses your path.
Together, these guys will make you chase every new opportunity, stay busy when implementing it, then switch to something entirely different after a while and repeat the cycle.
The result? You achieve nothing except losing a lot of time.
Here’s how to GTA5 their asses:
Don’t stay busy, stay productive with ongoing planning
I mean, you’re working 8+ hours a day, so you have to be achieving something, right? Well, not necessarily, and this is exactly the problem with being busy. It gets you nowhere except keeping you occupied.
Not that I’m an expert on this, but for me, the solution is ongoing planning.
Planning, in its default form, is seen as this something that gets done once, and then the plan needs to be executed throughout the days/weeks/years. But this doesn’t always work. Or should I say never works because our plans need to be updated regularly so they can remain relevant.
My solution is ongoing planning. It’s the practice of making a cup of tea and taking 1 hour on Sunday to:
- reflect the things I did during the week,
- the things I’m planning to do the coming week,
- and whether they play well with the grand picture of things I’m chasing with my business.
It’s really remarkable how much a mere hour on Sunday can do for the clarity of your actions and reassuring you that you’re indeed going the right way.
Don’t mistake knowledge for wisdom
But the thing is that we should never mistake knowledge for wisdom. In other words, just because someone says that what they offer is the best thing friggin’ ever, doesn’t mean that it’s the case.
A simple guideline is to question everything and disregard all authority figures.
Let me say this again. If someone is an authority, this doesn’t mean that they are right. This only means that the spotlight is on them to be right, and it’s up to you to develop your own opinion whether they are or not.
…Hitler was an authority in the 1930s in Germany. Was he right?
Anyway, I digress. Going back to the story; the opportunity chaser in you is all about believing everything that someone says because it’s just comfortable to believe in a magic new solution. It isn’t a good long time approach though.
Every opportunity needs to be questioned. Wise men take knowledge given to them by other people and build their own opinions on it. They don’t adapt someone else’s words as their own.
For instance, here’s an example of how a $300k ponzi scheme played out just recently on the BlackHatWorld. A prime example of how a large crowd of people believed in the promises of other people just because they used the right words at the right time.
Be consistent and test
Just because something doesn’t work right now, doesn’t mean that you need to replace it with a new solution. You should always start by testing different variants and tweaking your techniques until successful. Staying consistent and going forward has always been the best path.
The things to do next
Don’t chase
Next, take two post-it notes and place them on your computer screen. The first one saying: Don’t be busy. The second one: Don’t chase.
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“Damn It, I Forgot How to Online Business!” | newInternetOrder.com