Monetize Your Life
“Procrastination is the fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now. Because success is heavy, carries a responsibility with it, it is much easier to procrastinate and live on the ‘someday I’ll’ philosophy.”
Denis Waitley quotes (American motivational Speaker and Author of self-help books
As old as I am this success thing still confounds me. As hard and as long as I work toward my goals it often feels like I”m using large amounts of my time fighting with myself. There’s just no way to win. Now this is not going to be a scholarly discussion of fear of success. I’m no psychologist I can’t diagnose a phobia and I’m definitely not a wiki.
All I want to do today is discuss what I know, the frustration caused by the symptoms of fear of success and how to combat it before failure moves into your spare room and starts bonding with your kids. The definition and psychology of the fear of success is pretty simple its fear of change dressed up like an elephant and standing in your living room. No one mentions it but we all know it’s there as we choose over and over to be mediocre.
Supping on the Bananas of disappointment
When we talk about fear of success, the change we fear just happens to be positive. We hairless apes are very clever but we long for routine. Change in any shape size or flavor scares the crap out of us. Until we find the motivation to change, the motivation to succeed we will continue on our negative path supping on bananas of disappointment feasting on meal worms of failure until we finally hit rock bottom or worse still, never hit rock bottom and live our neat lives of quiet desperation living in constant fear of success.
So how do we escape the clutches of this self inflicted mediocrity? Let’s not try let’s do!
Feel the Fear of success, and connect with your Passion
- Start right now and admit your fear of success and the changes it will bring
- You’re afraid of that promotion, afraid of losing that extra weight just plain afraid
- Take a bit of time to understand why you’re afraid of success. The most common fear is that after you solve your biggest problems you cease to have excuses without excuses what ever would you complain about.
- Connect with your passion when mediocrity comes calling in your life never focus on what you don’t want focus on what you do want let that connection with your passion become the rope that binds you to it and keeps the fear at bay
- Visualize success and all the benefits that come with it often
- There is abundance in life open your eyes, focus on your goals and on all the success you see in the world, look at all the ways you are already successful. No one needs to lose for you to win there are infinite opportunities for everyone.
- Failure isn’t the worst thing on earth
Forget thinking, do!
- Stop over-thinking, success is good, they say that our ability to reason sets us apart from animals well sometimes we just need to put our brains in neutral and focus on doing.
- Once you start doing you start learning and that learning is invaluable it also takes your mind off of all those imagined problems success will apparently bring.
- Success is good go read the definition in the dictionary you fool
- When you start doing you start learning to flow, to tune out the world stop thinking and take pleasure in the doing. Allowing you to auto-pilot your way to success. Remember what it feels like when you are in flow and are able to produce at a high level for long periods. being able to call on this flow state is the key to lasting change.
Talk your way to success
- When you’re not doing talk. Talk about what you’ve done talk about what you are still going to do keep the dialog going. Everything is created twice. Talking about what is going on in your head breathes life into your dreams and makes them real to you and your network. Talking makes you accountable for your actions to others and yourself
- Plan big go ahead and plan every part of your success, every step you plan to take, every meeting every document, hell plan your outfit when you make it. The best way to combat change is to anticipate it. Plan for success and you’ll find your fear will become trivial.
Start Small but start!
- Start small see this guest post based on Leo Babauta’s excellent The power of less for tips on how to approach your goals effectively
- The only failure is failing to try start as small as you feel comfortable with but start now.
As the world barrels along the enemy of great truly is good. We are all of us settling for good when great is within our reach. We need to remember that success lies on the other side of failure if we turn tail and run whenever we fail we’ll never make it. Fear can be the fuel for your success or for the flames of your failure. Only you can decide if good is good enough though.
Technorati Tags: Fear,Procrastination,People,failure,phobia,frustration,definition,disappointment,motivation,Feel,Passion,Connect,life,Visualize,abundance,goals,symptoms
Windows Live Tags: Fear,Procrastination,People,failure,phobia,frustration,definition,disappointment,motivation,Feel,Passion,Connect,life,Visualize,abundance,goals,symptoms
WordPress Tags: Fear,Procrastination,People,failure,phobia,frustration,definition,disappointment,motivation,Feel,Passion,Connect,life,Visualize,abundance,goals,symptoms
A while back I discussed the Price of Perfection, as it related to my writing goals. Writing that post reminded me once more to find ways each day to reconnect with my passion for writing and for life if I want to achieve my goals. I have never been one to spend my time obsessing about my goals but it is important to internalize goals if we are to have any chance of achieving them.
You’re probably motivated by fear of failure
Without clearly defined goals I can guarantee you one thing. You are just as likely to achieve what you value as goals as you are to achieve what you don’t. That’s a 50% chance of failure right off the bat. Now I see you looking at me with pleading eyes, “please Michael can’t the glass be half full” I hear you cry. Ok for you I’m going to make the glass half full … Except now that I think about it, one of those thick books on my bookshelf is on NLP. Would you believe me if i told you that 9 out 10 people reading this post are motivated by what they don’t want not by what they do want and value. We are very literally running on auto-pilot away from our goals. The problem is all our goals and everything we value is on the far side of that mountain of fear and self loathing not in the other direction.
Your fear is your fuel
I see I’ve got you thinking now. To those shaking their fist at me, no I’m not a quack, in fact stay behind after class I have a note for your mother. The proof, as one of my best friend reminds me so often, is in the pudding. The majority of people on the planet today are living lives that are less than or equal to mediocre. Your life probably has a fair sprinkling of mediocre in it too. When you are not connected to your goals you are probably connected to your fears. Your fears are feeding your mediocrity, keeping your goals at arms length.
Passion is about values not value
It’s not about your bank balance, car or your salary. Mediocre is about how well you are living. How closely your life, goals and your values are aligned. How proud are you when you speak about who you are, not about what you have? Any Yahoo with enough money can buy a shiny BMW. Only you can live a life that allows you to sleep soundly at night with a faint smile. Only you can figure out how to fall asleep secure in the knowledge that today you exercised your purpose achieved your goals on this planet and added value to the world.
These are some of the best ways I’ve found to integrate my goals with my life:
Spend at least 5 minutes a day dreaming
This tip is the most fun on the list, for each goal you are working toward spend part of your 5 minutes visualizing what achieving that goal will look like, smell, like, feel, sound like and what it will taste like. The more senses you call upon the better. Visualizing helps to make this possible future and achieved goals more real. Only when your dreams and goals exist in your minds eye completed and achieved will your body start taking the many steps toward them.
Leave yourself visual reminders of your goals
Put up post it notes with your goals on them. Write your goals in the margins or inside covers of your notebooks. Send yourself future dated e-mail reminding yourself to focus on your goals. Get software get posters get crayons if you want just get creative with remembering your goals. The only way these reminders of your goals will work is if they can knock you out of our stupor during your normal work day.
Tell your friends
Speak about your passions and goals often. Tell your friends tell strangers tell your cat. The more you involve other people the more committed you force yourself to be to your goals. All the poor people you tell will become walking breathing reminders of your commitment to your goals and the fact that your name is on the line. Always remember though your goals are for you. So use the livestock around your cubicles and the love of your friends and family to your advantage for a change.
Research success
Spend your free time reading about people who exhibit the values you wish to have. Find people who have succeed in areas you desire success. The exercise will teach you how how it’s done also you’ll learn from the mistakes from others. The most powerful lesson I take from research is that it is possible. How empowering is that statement? It is possible! As soon as you allow that thought into your life a lot of excuses disappear like manure in the sun.
The only way to achieve your dreams is to live your goals. Use these techniques and any others you come across to incorporate your goals in your living.
See also: How to use Evernote and GTD for setting and achieving goals and objectives
If you like this post feel free to follow me via RSS or on Twitter:
Technorati Tags: Reconnect,Passion,Achieve,Perfection,life,failure,Michael,fears,money,knowledge,purpose,goal, notes,commitment,lesson,Twitter,Email,Goals,notebooks,posters,passions,techniques,reminders
Windows Live Tags: Reconnect,Passion,Achieve,Perfection,life,failure,Michael,fears,money,knowledge,purpose,goal, notes,commitment,lesson,Twitter,Email,Goals,notebooks,posters,passions,techniques,reminders
WordPress Tags: Reconnect,Passion,Achieve,Perfection,life,failure,Michael,fears,money,knowledge,purpose,goal, notes,commitment,lesson,Twitter,Email,Goals,notebooks,posters,passions,techniques,reminders
Ok so let’s blow off some steam. I have recently become genuinely annoyed with the state of the blogosphere. The more time I spend as a blogger and blog reader the more it seems that bloggers (especially newer bloggers) are caving under the pressure to produce content to please Google and their fascist bots. Now I’ve only got a few posts up and I spend some time on SEO writing on all my posts just like everyone else but it’s not an obsession. If my content is good and I keep at my strategy for getting my blog out there, good SEO writing or not, people will show up and they’ll bring friends. I’m pretty sure I believe this.
Keywords and SEO Picking the meat from the bones
Carcass
What’s the point of driving throngs of visitors to your site with great SEO writing strategies only for the crowds of people to arrive have a look round and realize, that after they’ve picked the meat from the carcass of your keyword riddled body they still feel distinctly unsatisfied.This is self defeating. You’re wasting your time and you’re wasting mine! Me and my SEO illiterate, keyword abhorring friends will leave your site never to return ever again.
I believe and use the idea of SEO writing religiously
First and foremost for me SEO writing means my writing
S hould
E ngage/Entertain/Educate/Excite
O ther (people)
Pick your own ‘E’ word or any other letter I’m just illustrating a point here. The important bit here is other people. If you write content that entertains yourself, congratulations! You no longer need a television. The important thing is does, it entertain others. Is it useful to other human beings. If it’s not, you’re going to find it tough to go from a great SEO, high traffic, high bounce rate blog to a positively viral blog. Where readers arrive and for better or worse you’re stuck with them till a really offensive post you do part.
SEO and SEO writing
SEO writing is the problem, not SEO in and of itself. SEO writing is the practice of dumping in a ton of keywords then trying to hang some content on to them after. Real SEO writing that drives conversion is a by-product of good focused content. See the difference? You need to write your post then go back with your SEO glasses and give it polish. SEO writing for the sake of SEO writing is self defeating drivel. Unless you’re a poet write clearly and plainly. Fitting the word artichoke into a sentence because it Google friendly is just dumb, artichoke. When writing a post do your homework, find a topic people have an interest in, answer questions people are asking pimp your post. If it’s good meagre SEO will be enough. If it’s bad supercharging it’s SEO will only give you a much larger group of people reading a bad post and being less likely to return.
Writing for people is transcendental
I enjoy writing for other people, nothing excites me as much as when I receive a reaction from a reader, when I’ve made a connection and somehow my words have stripped away the many thousands of miles between me and my reader. When my words have made irrelevant the differences in culture religion and beliefs and my ideas are laid bare. Keyword abuse in SEO writing strategies tend to strip away the value in all internet writing. Keywords drive hits and become a “SEO iron curtain” behind which good sense appears to have gone to sleep. These bots don’t care about my ideas which i quite frankly find condescending and and arrogant. I mean sure i can’t read millions of lines of text a day, but I can write mean things about bots, take that bot bastards! I refuse to spin any yarns for your pleasure.
Bots are a fickle bunch
Impressing bots is a tough job. They’re a fickle bunch and as dense as your keywords may be i can make mine denser, really I can, don’t tempt me. The problem is, there is a point where traditional SEO writing just becomes comical. The bots giggle with glee as they promote these semi nonsensical posts to the top of heap for their relevance, knowing that over the long run they’ll be overhauled by the articles actually written for people. These articles gain authority. These articles are passed around, bookmarked and linked to. Ultimately great keyword use will only get you so far. If you want traffic build a rapport with your readers not a paint by numbers SEO writing strategy.
Quality of traffic counts
Write about what you’re passionate about. Write to be understood by people. You may find less traffic but higher quality of traffic. Most every type of monetization works better when you have authority. When the reader is invested in your site and in awe of your knowledge they are more inclined to trust any offers you have on your site. When a reader lands at your site and feels that they’ve been duped with insincere SEO writing, fancy keywords and meta tags they’re more likely to think I’m not buying anything this sleazy ad serving, spammer is selling thank you very much.
How to write Content that engages other people
- Solve a problem for your readers
- Turn a common problem on it’s head and give a different take on an old chestnut
- Get annoyed about things that annoy your readers, like dodgy SEO writing (oh how I hate you)
- Be a little controversial, play devils advocate now and then
- Use comments from your readers as content for future posts (the comments will come in time)
- If it sounds right but isn’t bot friendly go with what sounds right
- Read your writing out loud no one likes a smarty pants make sure your language is natural
Bots never get picked first for dodge ball
Traditional SEO writing is a reality of the modern internet however with the advent of web 2.0 we are no longer completely at the mercy of the machinations of the search engines. As a result I suggest spending time building your networks and writing content that is useful to people. Bots don’t have friends and don’t click on ads. I kinda feel sorry for them sometimes.
What is Refocus:
Refocus is a great productivity tool which I think will prove quite useful as a goal tracking tool, keeping my motivation levels up during the course of my busy professional and social life. The Refocus goal tracking tool is aimed at tracking the actions that you’ve taken during the week across your personal, social and professional goals. This is an excellent paper based goal tracking tool that can easily be organized into your daily life.
As with all goal tracking tools the biggest barrier is finding a way to integrate the tool with your busy work and social life. As life becomes more and more demanding it is critical that your tools fit your life. Goals need to be internalized and integrated easily.
Warning:
This is a paper based goal tracking tool. I don’t know if I’m the only one, but for me Goals, goal tracking and prioritising for my life and work have never left the realm of the paper and pen. There is something truly rewarding in the hard slog of writing and re-writing, scribbling notes in the margin and doodling while the creative juices flow as you pen your goals and goal tracking strategy. When it comes to Goal setting and goal tracking I like to have the flexibility to engage my whole mind and nothing does that for me better than some low-tech pen and paper based tools.
Download the WhiteHateBlackbox Refocus tool
- Life Hacker also recommends the Day Grid Balancer goal tracking tool and organizer for your paper based goal tracking.
If you’re not as technophobic as I am when it comes to your Goal capture, Goal tracking and review then perhaps try some of these online Goal tracking Tools:
- Joes Goals an online goal tracking tool with a very simple interface allowing quick updates on the go
- 43 Things is a social bookmarking type site where you can track and share your goals with anyone interested
- LifeTango is similar to 43 things a is social bookmarking and goal tracking site allowing you to be part of a community of likeminded goalers
- Getgoaling is a really slick goal tracking tool that lets you put together a detailed goal tracking schedule which you can update as you progress.
- StiKk is a goal tracking tool that lets you set up contracts where you can outline objectives timelines rewards etc.
- For niche goals try FitDay a tool for helping you with your fitness goals
- Wesabe is a goal tracking tool for your financial goals
Evernote is primarily a note taking tool but could very easily be adapted to keep track of your goals and someday/maybe type lists. Evernote Review, How I use Evernote
Also see: How to use Evernote and GTD for setting and achieving goals and objectives
The WhiteHatBlackbox site seems to be down for the foreseeable future so in the interim visit -> DiyPlanner Refocus tool for more information on the tool.
Do You Want To Take Your Evernote Experience To The Next Level?
Unleash Evernote's Real Power in just 24 hours and take charge of Your time, with Evernote Essentials!
Click Here To Get Evernote Essentials Now!Translator
Sign Up to the Monetize Newsletter and receive your FREE
Gift
- @sabelbellabel Yg ganti pass twitter in--___-- tlg balikin ((˘̩̩̩^˘̩̩̩ƪ)
- @CecilDangerous ya suruh foolow twitter ku twit nya birahma rezha sama nadia yaaa :) RT @Leutenant_Bambi: Promote gmn dan siapa ? RT @CecilDangerous
- @iKitCloudKicker I hate when ppl say this is just twitter
- @semideusadajee_ RT @caralhovcs: AI VC FICA A SEMANA TODA ESPERANDO O FIM DE SEMANA CHEGAR, E QUANDO CHEGA VC PASSA O FIM DE SEMANA TODO NO TWITTER MOSCANDO
- @Erickamaaridsha RT @ericamaudyna: RT @KisahNyataAing: Tiap malem tuh males buka twitter,nyesek liat TL kalian berdua bikin envy☹ #KNA"
Writing content? Add value to your reader add value to your community
I’m not in the business of writing about writing content but I came across a very interesting article written by one of my many many blog readers this evening, If you want more traffic for your blog, you have to give more traffic. This was really enjoyable post which reminded me again, as I slog away behind my laptop that I’m not in this on my own, every time I hit a key I’m paying my dues in one of the toughest and fastest growing communities on earth. Neat hey?
So what are you on about?
My blogging started with me skulking around blogs I enjoyed, like The Simple Dollar, Problogger, Zen habits and Lifehacker. Looking back at these blogs now I realize how much the “voice” of each blogger when writing content contributed to the type of community that turned up day after day to interact with the content. Over and above this these guys were and are authorities in their niche. It helps I suppose that these are all professional bloggers, able to spend their time “researching.” With an advantage like this how screwed are the rest of us writing content? What chance do we have against full time web trawlers in their niche? Surprisingly we have an excellent chance they’re just giving all their knowledge away. They’re happy to add to the value of your blog.
Don’t leave anything on the table
A-list bloggers have figured out the trick to this blogging game there’s one rule. Yes only one, no neat bulleted list or catchy system for success just one rule. Add value. Add value to your reader. Add value to your community. A-list bloggers leave nothing on the table. They’ll tell you everything they know if you’ll listen.
Spend time finding questions
This might seem dumb, what value are questions? Now imagine writing a post where more than 50% of your readers sign up to your RSS feed or E-mail updates. Sound impossible? Not really, if you know what questions your readers are asking to end up on your site then you’re well on your way. Answers are easy to find. No matter how knowledgeable you may be, until your content asks and answers specific and relevant questions you’re going to struggle to become an authority as your readers trawl through your unrelated content (or more likely give up and look elsewhere)
Get by with a little help from your friends
Now to neatly come back full circle to that post that started it all. Blogging is about synergy not SEO or advertising. Blogging is a dialogue. Build a following, send them to sources of information that will be useful to them, add value and they’ll be your friends forever. Build a relationship with bloggers in your niche and you’ll save yourself a heap of pain trying to reinvent the wheel.
The key to all of this though is sincerity. Just like in real life, people can only be manipulated so much. If you want true synergy you need to give without motive. Give because you can. You’ll get screwed over now and then. Even if you make one great blogging acquaintance out of every 100 interactions you make, you’re probably doing something right.