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FocusIt’s a bit late in the day to wish you a  Merry Christmas, but I’ll do it all the same. I’d have liked to have done that before Christmas, but things got a bit hectic and the time just got away from me (sound familiar? All too painfully familiar for me!). I have to admit, that seems to happen to me all too often, i.e. I get to the end of the day and wonder where the day went and why I didn’t get as much done as I’d hoped. At least, Christmas being the time of year it is with a Christmas tree to buy, the house to decorate, presents to buy, celebrations to plan, etc., I’ve got something vaguely resembling an excuse!

 

As for the rest of the year, I could say it’s hard to put my finger on why the time got away from me, but I’d be lying. I know EXACTLY why it happened, and it’s something that I swore I wouldn’t let happen to me again, because it happened to me before when I tried to make a go of internet marketing. Yes, I’ve been down this route before, sad to say. So, what is it? What is it that’s causing me to just let time slip away from me? All will be revealed shortly, but first a bit of background.

Getting My Feet Wet, or The Lure Of Instant Online Riches!

I initially discovered internet marketing by mistake, really. I was busy setting up my first e-commerce site, a solar energy site, because, even though I knew nothing about solar energy, I was very interested in it and its long-term benefits for the environment. I can’t remember exactly what I was looking for, but I entered a search term in Google and was scrolling through the results when something (probably something along the lines of “Become an instant millionaire with 2 clicks of your mouse!” or something equally spammy!) caught my eye and I decided to investigate.

 

Needless to say, it was some type of internet marketing product, and, if memory serves me correctly (and it probably doesn’t!) I think it was Tellman Knudson’s “List Building Club”. Now, at the time, I had no idea what list building was nor why anybody would even want to do it, whatever it was! But, this fellow Tellman told me this was THE way to make EASY (there’s another of those oh-so-seductive words we see so often online) money – and a LOT of it. He offered a trial period, and then it was so much per month.

 

So, I decided, what the heck. I’m building my main site (solar – if you’d care to take a look at it, it’s here), which I knew would take some time before I’d see some money coming in from it, so why not have a go at making some money another way in the meantime? So, here I am, signing up for something I know nothing about, and getting hit with terms I’ve never heard of (squeeze page? What the heck’s that?!!???!) and trying to make easy money.

Baffled!

Well, I couldn’t make head nor tails of this list building thing, but I was intrigued by the idea of making money online “in my sleep”. So, off I go to the next thing I found, and I can’t even remember what that was, but the dreaded “shiny object syndrome” had set in, even though I didn’t realise it and didn’t even know what that was at the time.

 

To cut a short story even shorter, I spent a fair bit of money, made zero and felt like I was going nowhere, so I decided to cut my losses and put my efforts into writing online via jobs at oDesk, Elance, etc. That was OK, but a lot of effort for not much reward.

 

So, after doing that for a while, I decided to give internet marketing another go, and fast forward to today. I again fell into the ”shiny object syndrome”, but this time on the Warrior Forum, gobbling up products at ridiculously low prices compared to what I’d been paying before. But, it still boiled down to the same thing – jumping from one project to another and ending up spinning my wheels.

And The Problem Is…..

What it boils down to is FOCUS. That’s the piece of the puzzle that’s missing for me at the moment, and which I’m bound and determined to rectify in this brand new upcoming year. You see, that’s the great thing about a New Year – it gives us a chance to wipe the slate clean and start all over again.

 

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve done some stuff I’m quite proud of and made some tremendous strides in my IM career (take this blog, for instance; I didn’t really have one before this year). But, at the end of the day, I’m nowhere near where I wanted to be when 2012 started, and that despite joining several high-end coaching programs. And I’m not saying it’s a problem with any of the coaching programs – they’re great in and of themselves. It’s just that I have to look in the mirror and hold my hand up and admit that I haven’t taken the action I could and should have to get to where I want to be. One little side note – I think one of the coaching programs ended up being a bit over my head, so I think I was out of my depth with that one and probably should have waited til I’d made more progress before joining it. But, I’ve learned a lot and met some great people along the way, so it’s not been a waste by any means.

New Year’s Resolution

My New  then, at least as far as my business goes, is to FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS! I’m going to set my goals, focus on them and – here’s the really key phrase – TAKE MASSIVE ACTION!! I’m going to come back here and keep myself accountable to anybody who decides to keep up with my blog.

 

I’m going to set myself various challenges throughout the year, starting in January. I’ll come back and report what they are as a I go along and give you the opportunity to watch me as I take on these various challenges and see how I do.

 

You may be suffering from a similar lack of focus yourself. If so, I completely sympathise. But, like me, you too can do something about it, so focus on one thing at a time until that is complete before moving onto the next one. Set goals and WRITE THEM DOWN, and this time next year we should all be feeling a lot happier about where we are.

 

Please leave a comment if you feel the urge and I’ll be sure to respond. And please hit one of the “share” buttons and share this with friends and colleagues if you think it’s something they could benefit from or just enjoy reading. It may well give them hope, you never know!

 

Have a safe, prosperous and Happy New Year, and let’s make 2013 really count!

 

Thanks for reading and speak to you soon,

Ray “Call Me Mr. Focus”

 

Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Filed under: Internet Marketing • Mindset

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