The first is they either jump from guide to guide taking in the knowledge but not doing anything about it, and never moving forward. This was me several years ago, until I realized I actually had all this knowledge and knew in depth and often more about a subject than the actual author. It was time to start asking questions. Turns out I had all the knowledge already, but just didn’t know it. Are you in the same position? Is it time to stop reading and start acting on the knowledge that you’ve gained?
Second is the broken the vase syndrome related to being pro-active or reactive. Imagine you wake up in the morning and decide you’re going to clean the house up that day. You jump out of bed, jump in the shower have breakfast, and wash the dishes afterwards, the clean the surfaces. You’ve improved the kitchen already by cleaning the surfaces and doing the dishes right? Not so, you’ve just been reactive, and carried out required maintenance and things are now back to how they were when you first woke up. No progress, just reactive maintenance.
So you head out to the hall ready to do some dusting, and on the way out you break a vase, so out comes the Hoover, and you Hoover up all the bits and take the broken bits outside, and make everything nice and clean again. After putting your stuff away, you realize you cut your leg on a sharp plant outside. No matter, you head upstairs, give it a clean and place a plaster on it, then head back downstairs. What have you achieved so far? Nothing at all. This is reactive maintenance also, because there’s no progress, you’re literally just maintaining. It’s important to distinguish between proactive and reactive, because quite often you can come home after a hard days work and you might be so tired and feel like you got a lot done and moved forward, when actually all you did was pull out a bit of maintenance.
It’s the same with business. If you sit down at your computer and do your maintenance, answer some mails, change the color of your site, talk to a few people about what’s been going on, have a look at a few products, there’s nothing here to move you forward. Create those products, develop those products, enhance those ideas, write those sales letters, contact those JV’s, gain knowledge and understanding and get real tired doing it and I guarantee you’ll be moving forward at such a fast pace no one will know how you’re doing it. Whilst they’re tired and say things like “Wow I’m real tired and I still haven’t got much done” now you know why, and how to avoid it. Of course maintenance is a big part of every day life and needs to be done, but learn to differentiate between the two, learn to spot them and recognize them and you’ll immediately see a difference in your speed and efficiency. Give it a go, and you won’t be disappointed.
This brings me on to the final type of person that doesn’t succeed. The maintainer. The prettying up the website twelve times a year, the adding bundles and bundles of stuff to a membership site and their current market instead of creating new products and breaking into new markets and creating multiple specialized income streams. Think about that next time you go to redesign something. Are you redesigning because your tracking tells you that your redesign will make more sales, pull more leads or more resources? Or are you doing it because it doesn’t quite look as nice as you’d like. Don’t get stuck in the circle of ever improving without moving on, because you might just find yourself in the same place in a year’s time, just with a slightly prettier website. Not proactive, productive or profitable at all. I know many people who have fallen into this trap, and in fact some people still in that trap and aren’t looking like they’ll be getting out of it very soon. Avoid it at all costs and you’ll do fine, move forward, move forward quickly, and gain valuable knowledge and first hand experience along the way, something no one can put a price on because It’s just that valuable.
These aspects are more important than most will ever discover for themselves, and if you remember back to the top ten reasons for success section, the above was put in there too, simply because I can’t help but push this and push this because it really is the difference between getting somewhere and not getting anywhere at all. There’s no in between. This should be your top priority, more important than that product creation, more important than making any sales, more important than resource building or any marketing method anyone can ever teach you.
Next up, lets look at your frame of mind. I honestly believe through personal experience that being in the right frame of mind to get your business moving onwards and upwards quickly is again, more important than any marketing tactic that you can learn.
The best way without a doubt is to end your day with 15 minutes of quiet thought. It’s like keeping a journal, and helps you not only prepare for the day ahead, but sort out any problems you may have stumbled upon without the need to get stressed about it. In addition, it’ll give you a clear picture of exactly where to go next. Practice this often and within a few days, you’ll start to see some positive and quite strange results.
Always look forward, and take that time out to look inwards from that window (That’s you looking at yourself from outside a window to gain a better perspective on what’s going on in your business) It’s real important for your development and the development of your business. If you haven’t experienced this yet, it’s all about evaluating your situation and your business with an open mind. Like dreaming, sleeping, it assists the organization of your thoughts. You’ll begin to see problems and present solutions to them before they even happen. Hindsight is a very powerful thing, and taking this important time out on a daily basis allows you to prepare for future situations that may arise, which is partially hindsight, but more crystal clear, focused and pure thinking at it’s best. I haven’t met anyone that’s not capable of this yet, so if you’re unsure, give it a shot and watch what begins to happen six or seven sessions, and I assure you, you won’t be disappointed.
As important as the above is the way in which you end your day when you’re working. Remember to disconnect, and I don’t mean just from the Internet, I mean totally. This method of pulling off the relaxing and reflection, looking from the outside in then after you’re done, whether it’s ten minutes, or thirty minutes later, you turn your computer off for the night. You leave your place of work, turn it off, and forget about everything. Keeping your distance from your work isn’t something that’s easy to do, especially if you have your computer in your bedroom. Even working at home and walking past it ten times a day is enough to spark thoughts, which will take your mind off your daily life and some of your important daily tasks, and sometimes even disrupt sleep. This is definitely something we want to avoid.
Let me ask you this, have you ever been called by your husband or wife, or family member for something? Anything at all, either, dinner is ready! Or ok, I’m ready to go out now, are we going? Or even more likely, I’m off to bed now, are you coming too? And your reply comes something like this. ‘Hold on! I’ll be there in a moment, I just need to do this first’.
Another example of this type of mindset going full steam ahead is coupled with the above examples, you have to keep getting out of bed at night, or keep walking out the door ready to go, starting the car and going back to the computer because you forgot to do something, or you have to do something before you go. Classic one that.
This is why it’s important to do both of these exercises. Observe your self, and your business, relax, look from the outside in, then when you’re done, cut it off. Disconnect, turn your computer off safe in knowledge you haven’t forgotten anything, you don’t need to worry about anything and you don’t need to wake up in the middle of the night and spend hours doing something that you planned to only take a few minutes. Trust me on this one, I’m not giving you instructions on how to run your life, far from it, but be careful not to get too involved all of the time or that freedom and easy life progress you’ve made so far might just evaporate. There’s speed, efficiency and determination, but then there’s another level of speed efficiency and determination. Just because you’re not working on your business longer than your body or mind can comfortably handle, doesn’t mean that you’re slacking. Next up comes a little something I’ve been a fan of since without noticing it, I managed to develop random back pains, wrist pains and aching, and short sightedness in my left eye and gain some four stone in weight (which is all gone now finally).
Stay healthy. Above all, above everything taught in this guide stay healthy. Take note of the keeping healthy section of the course. Get a good chair, look after your back. Get some of those wrist supports one size bigger than you need, type correctly, look after your wrists, and look after your eyes and belly. Take regular breaks and pull regular exercise, even if it means you go out and buy some weights and run a little everyday.
Again, I’m not trying to tell you how to live your life by any means, but it’s important to me that if you’re going to be a success in the future, you come to me and say ‘Your report spurred me into action and I’m now pulling in every month what I earned in my last job every year’ and not ‘Your report spurred me into action and I’m now pulling in every month what I earned in my last job every year, but I gained a hundred pounds, developed carpal tunnel syndrome, my back hurts and I can’t see much anymore’. No way, not on my watch. Health is always number one. It’s no good being successful if you’re too sick to enjoy it.