Overcoming Long Slumps; Lost my Drive

S

supplyshock

New member
May 10, 2011
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I'm wondering if anyone's been in a similar situation. I've been doing affiliate marketing for about 4 years now and have been successful by my standards and running a good amount of volume in other sources. However, these last couple of months have been really lame for me and basically breaking even. The shitty part is that I am fully aware that I can do much better and be successful again, but I just.. can't.

Seems like I've lost my drive. I spend most of my day sleeping until I awake naturally, taking the dog for a walk, watching the news, playing some video games, into the rest of the day. Sure, I do a little bit of work, maybe a solid hour or so, but the rest is wasted browsing reddit, playing games, or Skype chat.

I think it finally happened when I got my last AdWords account banned, looking for proxies and dealing with the drudgery of finding a new address for my credit card, when I decided I'd just take a whole month off and recharge. Went on a vacation, and when I got back, I just said fuck it and haven't done shit since.

I think back to 2008-09 and remember me working until 2 in the morning with no breaks and not minding it because I still had my drive. Now, trying to work on campaigns for more than 30 minutes sets my head on fire and I can hardly focus to see things through anymore. Ironically, I was probably a better marketer back then than I am now.

Now I am looking for ways to get back on track. I don't think I am depressed or that it's health related. I work out heavily 2 days of the week and jog for at least 30 mins every day, and eat a very healthy diet. I only drink once or twice a week with my buddies. I don't know what could be causing it. Tried adderall & piracetam, works for maybe a week at most but I'm back to where I started and if not worse off after not having the meds.

Any advice appreciated.
 


Nobody over here can help you out better than you can help yourself. You know how you're wired. You know what will get your fuel going.

Some people get a charge when people doubt them, they have a chip on their shoulder.

My best buddy never seems to get off his ass until his rent is due.

Some simply have a passion for what they do because it's not work.

When I was younger Id punish myself by sleeping on the floor until something got done.



Go to the bathroom and slap yourself in the face as hard as you can. Trust me, it works.
 
craigmc said:
Take a JOB for a week or so and I promise you it will recharge your drive.
Click to expand...

That's interesting because I feel that might be one of the causes. Through IM I've realized that I don't really have to work... for years.. if I wanted to. No debt, bills to pay beside rent and food and some entertainment - no desire to get that anymore.

loyolabenson said:
Nobody over here can help you out better than you can help yourself. You know how you're wired. You know what will get your fuel going.

Some people get a charge when people doubt them, they have a chip on their shoulder.

My best buddy never seems to get off his ass until his rent is due.

Some simply have a passion for what they do because it's not work.

When I was younger Id punish myself by sleeping on the floor until something got done.



Go to the bathroom and slap yourself in the face as hard as you can. Trust me, it works.
Click to expand...

Gonna try both of those methods, let's hope I have some willpower.
 
I've been going through something similar for the past few months. Just got back into grind mode for last 2 weeks.

Things that helped:
-Block reddit on your router. Reddit alone was eating so much time compared to other distractions. If you have internet on your phone, browse reddit through there. The small screen will hopefully prevent you from wasting TOO much time.
-Play video games first thing in morning. Cap it at like 2 missions or <2hrs. It kinda helps me wake up for the day since playing games is more active than sitting and passively reading reddit/WF threads.
-this ties into last one, since you got your "dicking around" out of the way in the morning, sleep immediately once your daily tasks are done. My work day usually ends at 10-11pm, but I'd be up till 3-4am cause I'd tell myself "let's dick around on reddit for a bit before I sleep." Now I got video games in the morning to look forward to.

This worked for me, might for you since the distractions are so similar. But you know yourself better than any of us.
 
Your situation sounds almost exactly like mine. I think everyone goes through it at one point or another. One of the problems I go through is finding the motivation to work on something because there isn't instant gratification. When I create a campaign I have to submit it and wait a couple hours to a couple days for it to be approved and to start seeing the results for my work. It kills my motivation to wait that long especially if your results come back negative and you have to wait all over again when you submit something new. It's one of the reasons I miss using adwords. When you submit a campaign it's live within minutes. Anywhere else you have to wait for someone to look at it. And if your working on something on the weekend your shit outta luck until monday rolls around. Even though we work from home and we can work when ever we want, we are still constrained to everyone elses work schedules and it fucking sucks.
 
Totally feel ya, man.
If you can afford it, reward yourself.
I bought myself a car, and love working on it.

I'm now incredible re-motivated to make money, so I can take a small cut of the profits towards building up my car.
Maybe try investing some $ in one of your interests/hobbies?
 
Just go buy something ridiculously expensive on credit and wait for the bill to come in. I guarantee after you see a credit card statement that says "51,624.44" you'll get your ass back to work.
 
well - you might as well go pick out a nice cardboard box and a nice place on the streets because that is where you're going to be unless you get your head out of your ass.

if that doesn't motivate you - nothing will.
 
You're too comfortable. Just know that if you don't turn it around the comfort will soon be gone and it's back to wage slavery for you.
 
I was gonna say you need to do backups. But then I realized you were talking about a different kind of drive.

This is completely random, but try this. Sorry for being assumptive, just generalizing here, nothing personal:

1) Stop jerking off completely for at least a week. This builds up testosterone, which creates drive.
2) Go to the gym 3 times a week.
3) Eat clean.
4) Fix your sleep schedule. Best sleeping schedule is 10pm-5am. 10pm-midnight - every hour of sleep equals 2. Between 6-8 best time for creative energy. Try it, before saying you cannot do it. This is totally based on anecdotal evidence, I have no proof of this, but I tried it myself and it is true for me. I've talked to others, and they have confirmed similar observations.
 
moltar said:
I was gonna say you need to do backups. But then I realized you were talking about a different kind of drive.

This is completely random, but try this. Sorry for being assumptive, just generalizing here, nothing personal:

1) Stop jerking off completely for at least a week. This builds up testosterone, which creates drive.
2) Go to the gym 3 times a week.
3) Eat clean.
4) Fix your sleep schedule. Best sleeping schedule is 10pm-5am. 10pm-midnight - every hour of sleep equals 2. Between 6-8 best time for creative energy. Try it, before saying you cannot do it. This is totally based on anecdotal evidence, I have no proof of this, but I tried it myself and it is true for me. I've talked to others, and they have confirmed similar observations.
Click to expand...

for a week? are you crazy
 
Have you tried not to be a big whiny baby ?

Maybe that will fix the problem.

Arrrhhh, trolling in the evening, Life is GoooooddA.
 
Be careful, It's a slippery slope. I can talk from experience.

I started affiliated marketing back in 2007. I was in my first year of university and on the side I was messing around with a few random offers. About one month into it after failing with all the dumb shit you read about I found a fantasy baseball offer that paid $2.50 per sign up. I just made a quick campaign on FB and was banking like $300 profit a day instantly. This Money gave me confidence to start testing more competitive niches and eventually I was doing pretty damn well for myself.

Despite my success everything else was starting to crumble around me, I stopped going to school, my parents were having trouble, and I was slowly losing motivation to work. If I logged in and saw that I made less money then the day before I would feel like shit. Instead of dealing with all my shit like a normal person I just started ignoring everything by playing games. Eventually by 2009 I wasn't even checking my emails. I ignored all my friends, my family, my own health, and just lived for the next 3 years doing shit all. Getting my shit together now... Finishing School, Getting back into affiliate marketing, Apologizing/reconnecting with friends and family, ect... Would of been much easier if I didn't fuck up so bad though!
 
You mentioned working out and eating good. Are you able to pack on some lean mass?

How old are you? Maybe you should get your t-levels checked.

Do steroids to get your drive back!

Do mdma to re-ignite your appreciation of life!
 
I'm kind of in your boat as well. I had a really good run for a few years (both my design business and my own websites/campaigns/etc). I made a lot of money. Things have slowed down considerably in all avenues. Recently, I had to look back on what went wrong over the past few years.

I made 2 major mistakes, and let me share them with you now:

1. This was the first time I had money in my entire life. So I went a little crazy.
2. I was delusional thinking the money would never run out.

Trust me - the. money. will. run. out.

Take it from me. Don't get lazy. Keep yourself busy. Even though times are tough and it's ramen noodles for dinner, I am busy promoting my design services, getting new projects off the ground, and even have a few sites in development.

The thought of having to go back to a shit existence of a 9-5 is what drives me these days.
 
I know exactly what U mean, I almost halved my income from same time last year in december compared to this year... took me good 2 months to get back in the swing of things and earning a decent ammount again.

I mainly do SEO and as you know, with SEO you get rich or die trying... because it can take so damn long to see solid and sustainable results, then google will unleash another update and you might just have to start all over again, thats just part of IM'ers life.

Now with PPC, I am just starting out with some facebook ads and soon to try some media buys, but so far I downed about 700$ on facebook ads and prob made back about $200, to be fair, I was not tracking my links with either prosper or cpvlabs, which was retarded of me but thats a mistake of the past.

What you need to do is, take a few days off maybe, spend more time focusing on your health and eating better, take vitamins and supplements, and soon you will find that you will have more energy and motivation then there is time in a day.

Thats just my thoughts and experiences, just dont give up thats the key, especially if you was already there not that long ago, just re evaluate all your shit, look back and figure out what made you your most money and best ROI and focus on that till you get off the ground again.
 
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