Trying to stay motivated...

[Goodcat]

You're looking for motivation? It's all about that split second decision when you make up your mind whether you should get started with building something, or plant your lazy ass on the couch. That single split second when you wake up.

Your lazy brain tells you, "uuuuggggggghhh I'm sooooo lazy dude, and your lazy ass agrees with me, totally, so it's 2 against 1, let's play videogames for an hour and then maybeeeeee we'll think about the other thing". It's no surprise that your lazy brain is arguing in such a sophisticated manner because, naturally, vegging out on the couch is the definition of lazy, which your lazy brain connects with quite well.

Lazy and lazy go well together. Actually sitting down and building something is the opposite of lazy. Your brain has been trained throughout many many videogame sessions to take up this attitude.

The thing is, once you've sat down and gotten started, it will only take your brain 5 minutes to overcome that laziness because deep down, all those lazy little cells of yours like being challenged. Especially if their bros in the other half of your brain get all excited over something like a conversion or two or three. If you can get three of those, maybe you can get 300? Just imagine how much excitement that will entail in your formerly lazy brain. And what about 3000? 300,000? Wow. There's a taste of success, baby.

But here's the thing: you, you're not even getting to that point. You will never get to that point. You will never in your life get to the point where your whole brain and body jump up and say "YES! I DID IT!". Why not?

Because you can't even manage to take control over that tiny little single split second in which your lazy-ass mind makes itself up for you.

Seize the second and you seize the day.

Shit just got real. Not enough quoting of this post in this thread.

I can easily recognize the split second theory. For me, I need to get up early (like 7 AM), because if I don't start early, chances are I won't start at all. I feel, that if I don't get to it within the first 2 hours, I tend to think 'what's the point', which is abviously a shitty attitude. Nevertheless, if I just get to it, I can be at it all day, non-stop.

 

[DKPMO]

Watch this video and try what this guy tells you to do - focusing on the task at hand. It works.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpS_cJP5nzs]YouTube - Irresistable Instant Motivation[/ame]

 

[James_Clarke]

If being on the cusp of breaking even and moving onto profitability doesn't motivate you nothing we will be able to say will either. There's no shame if you don't enjoy AM and want to do something else, you tried it you learned, you moved on. There's no barriers to entry and if you decide to pick it up again in 6 months or a year it's not like you lose all the experience you built up.

You're looking for motivation? It's all about that split second decision when you make up your mind whether you should get started with building something, or plant your lazy ass on the couch. That single split second when you wake up.

Your lazy brain tells you, "uuuuggggggghhh I'm sooooo lazy dude, and your lazy ass agrees with me, totally, so it's 2 against 1, let's play videogames for an hour and then maybeeeeee we'll think about the other thing". It's no surprise that your lazy brain is arguing in such a sophisticated manner because, naturally, vegging out on the couch is the definition of lazy, which your lazy brain connects with quite well.

Lazy and lazy go well together. Actually sitting down and building something is the opposite of lazy. Your brain has been trained throughout many many videogame sessions to take up this attitude.

The thing is, once you've sat down and gotten started, it will only take your brain 5 minutes to overcome that laziness because deep down, all those lazy little cells of yours like being challenged. Especially if their bros in the other half of your brain get all excited over something like a conversion or two or three. If you can get three of those, maybe you can get 300? Just imagine how much excitement that will entail in your formerly lazy brain. And what about 3000? 300,000? Wow. There's a taste of success, baby.

But here's the thing: you, you're not even getting to that point. You will never get to that point. You will never in your life get to the point where your whole brain and body jump up and say "YES! I DID IT!". Why not?

Because you can't even manage to take control over that tiny little single split second in which your lazy-ass mind makes itself up for you.

Seize the second and you seize the day.

REAL TALK THOUGH. IF THIS DOESN'T MOTIVATE YOU - YOU ARE FUCKING GAY. IT'S A PROVEN FACT WHEN YOU MAKE MONEY YOU GAIN CONFIDENCE AND WHEN YOU GAIN CONFIDENCE WOMEN NOTICE AND WHEN WOMEN NOTICE YOU GET PUSSY. KNOW WHERE TO DRAW YOUR BOUNDARIES THOUGH OR THEY WILL DISREGARD YOU AFTER THEY HAVE MILKED YOU.

THIS ^ :love-smiley-087:

 

[zimok]

I haven't posted in a while, but here goes...

Simple concepts, steadily applied, will yield big results.

1. We are creatures of habit. Some people have it really bad, and yet they are able to enthusiastically go about every day doing some type of good and brightening the world for those around them. There's absolutely no reason you cannot form a habit around a set of productive tasks which are relatively effortless compared to the kid going in to clean the sewer in India.

2. We won't do it if we don't love it. You're going from idea to idea and then stop. Did you ask yourself what prompts you to take up these ideas and develop them? I'll bet a gin & juice it's not love, you saw opportunity but ignored what you want. We must first learn what we love and then think real hard about what opportunities exist within this limit.

The amazing thing with the internet is you can create an environment to cater the most inane and miscellaneous hobby you have. We're not as unique as we'd like to believe, think of the thousands of underdeveloped keywords and opportunities that you could begin working on today.

3. We become what we think about.
I spent a large chunk of my life playing EverQuest, at some point I seemed to be familiar with every zone, every item, every regular player, the market, the bosses, quests etc.. Yes, for that moment in my life I was EverQuest, my reality almost ceased to exist. I'd be sitting in school and drawing EQ items and quests I was going to do that night. My point is that if you choose to spend your time on games, you are feeding you brain junk.

Make it a point to pick up a few well reviewed books on copy writing, advertising, respected guru books... watch entrepreneur videos, market research etc.. An entrepreneur never stops - he's always contained within a sphere of thought that's related to enhancing his performance, he's always doing things that increase his chance of prospering greater. This might sound like a life change, well that's exactly what it is - resistance will only decrease proportional to how much your productivity increases.


4. To get anywhere, we need to know where we're going.
Sounds simple right? Well in my experiences and of all the people I've asked no one except the few respected WF members were able to give me a clear and concise idea of where they are heading.

Meditate, smoke a joint, sit by the shore and shout to the open sea- do whatever you have to do to find out exactly where you want to be in the years to come. If you don't make your goals, make it a point to consider how useless you've been, take in how it makes you feel and never forget how you failed to meet your own expectations. Be hard on yourself, the nice teacher never gets the attention of the class, nor does the fat kid get any slimmer by taking it easy on his diet. Don't be so hard on yourself that you can't appreciate what you've accomplished.

5. Our mind and body will only exist for a brief lapse in time, the supercomputer you have sole proprietorship over will only manifest itself once and then cease, it has never existed before and will never exist again. Compare yourself only to the minority you want to emulate, ignore all the idiots, haters, degenerates, useless fucks and useless information that plague our brains day after day. The system is self-perpetuating because you choose to be a part of it, your mind already knows what great things you can achieve if you only let it do the work it needs to do.

Basically: Love -> Opportunity -> Productivity -> Preconceived Result.

I also really liked this "Seize the second and you seize the day.", thanks Bobsoap.

 

[davidb]

Ive always been the type of guy that once I start seeing a little success in something I just kind of lose interest

Maybe you have a FEAR of SUCCESS? Seriously - look it up!

 

[somebody]

Seize the second and you seize the day.

This sums it up pretty well.

 

[Nostalgae]

Once you have to do "real life" stuff like pay rent, feed yourself, etc. you will find those things pretty motivating. Seriously, the point of working is to make money. Do you want to make money? That's your motivation. Why are you fucking around thinking about it beyond that?

 

[Uptime]

You've got it too easy.

Time management
Take a hammer to the video games and console.

Work Ethic
Take every cent you have except for 30 days of bare minimum living expenses and put it into an Adwords account or such.

Results
You either make money or your on the street . . . . motivation.

Gentlemen,

I am Really looking for some solid advice here. Started doing some AM about 3 months ago, and for the first two months was working/studying/doing everything like 12 hours a day... also losing lots of money on really dumb ideas, but still constantly learning from every mistake. Ive finally been having some success, and basically made back all the money I lost and some, but now I can barely force myself to work for more than an hour. I am still always reading and learning, I am just too lazy to start some more campaigns and start monetizing my old campaigns that are dieing out. I used to wake up at 10 am every day and work on this stuff non-stop(whenever I didnt have school or work) Now when I have the day off I sleep in until 3pm, and than play video games for a few hours til my girl comes over and probably get about 2 hours of real PPC/SEO work/week.

Just wondering how you guys stay motivated. Ive always been the type of guy that once I start seeing a little success in something I just kind of lose interest.... :-(

 

[guerilla]

I get out of bed each day excited to get to work. Sometimes at night, I can't sleep, I am so excited about something and want to keep working.

If you don't respect it and earn it every day, you will lose it. There are no guarantees in life.

 

[cardine]

Write down what you'd like your wikipedia article to say 20 years from now and any time you deviate from what it takes to get you to the various benchmarks--1 year, 5 years, 10, 20, etc--ask yourself why. I'm in the process of doing exactly that, and it's really clarifying some things.

This. Before I even started affiliate marketing (I think I was ~14 at the time) I knew what I wanted my life to look like and I wrote down a list of goals and timetables that I would reach them by. They were all (and still are) incredibly ambitious, but with AM I'm currently set to easily pass the first goal on schedule with when I said I would.


I've never had any issues with motivation, and I pity anybody who does.

 

[greyhat]

I was gonna ask the same thing but then i thought - i am the one that wants to do this, so i am the only one that is gonna make it happen. I am a sucker for just spending my day looking at soft porn and reading blogs but as people have said, once you get in to it the time flies and before you know it you've made real progress. If i was in to profit (which im not) with my AM i would be bouncing off the walls and working 23.5 hours a day! Until then, just keep telling yourself that you are not wasting your time and it is all gonna pay off. Nobody said it was easy!

 

[leelemons]

Kinda odd that you lose interest after you start profiting, I always lose interest before, or once i start losing money...and then once I lose money i'm scared to start up a new campaign to lose more...not have a big budget (basically no budget) is really tough to start out with for me.

Actually it is kind of easy for some people to become lazy once they've optimized their campaigns and start banking.

I mean when you wake up in the morning, check your stats, and see you've already made $x,xxx in profit, you may just want to relax instead of working harder.

 

[Danc1122]

Watch this video and try what this guy tells you to do - focusing on the task at hand. It works.

YouTube - Irresistable Instant Motivation

By far one of the nerdiest dudes I've ever seen, but it definitely makes sense.

 

[blank_czech]

A lot of the top people have addictive personalities and will work at something obsessively till it's done. That's why you keep hearing of people pulling million hour days, and then before they started AM, they were addicted to something else (games, drugs, w/e).

Just sayin'

For everyone else out there, we just do it out of habit. A little bit at a time, just cause.

 

[bcc423]

Two things.

1) Break down all your projects into tasks, and then keep breaking down all tasks into smaller subtasks. You should be able to visualize yourself finishing each such subtask in one "sitting". (When I say visualize, I don't mean the affirmation shit.) You simply need to keep breaking tasks down into subtasks until the thing (that needs to be done) you are starring at can be completed right away.

The appearance of a task having no end in sight is the #1 reason for feeling of anxious and overwhelmed before you even get started. That pushes your brain into thinking up shit to delay having to start.

Once you remove that feeling -- by making the "first task" much smaller -- you are good to go.

2) The second is fear. Fear of failure or fear of success. Whatever it is, you need to visualize, explore, and illustrate every negative outcome that's possible. (Or at least the ones that are more likely and the ones that scare you the most.)

Again, visualizing here is not about affirmation stuff. It's simply about clarifying to yourself what it is that you are afraid of.

Are you afraid of losing your last $200 on this project? Then think about what will happen if you do. Think about it as if it's already happened.

Almost everything (except for death, a terminal disease, and lifetime imprisonment, etc.) looks much scarier when it's blurry in your mind. Once you clarify the details to yourself, you'll realize that even if you fail in that particular way, it's not really a big deal.

Remove all your doubts about the upcoming project by taking them head on.

Are you going to get kicked out of your piece of shit apartment because you are playing using your rent money? OK, what will happen then? Who are you going to call and ask for help? What will you tell them? Where are you going to move all your shit? Are you going to throw most of it away? Try to sell it on craigslist? How embarrassing would it be for you when your friends find out that you are broke? What will the conversation be like?

Think this through. It won't be pleasant, but you'll see such outcome it's not as scary as simply keeping a blurred vision of a possible negative outcome. Once you work it all out in your head, the fear goes away.

Now, the important thing is not to dwell on negative stuff, but to analyze it.
You are not wishing for bad stuff to happen -- you are simply being mentally prepared for it. There is a big difference.

Once you do those two things, you should be able to deal both with fear and with laziness.

If you are too lazy and/or too scared (for the same basic reasons) to actually pick up pen and paper and to break down a project, then write a plan for writing a plan.

When breaking tasks down and/or planning, keep in mind that you are not actually doing that stuff yet, you are just planning it. That should keep the pressure away.

 

[rgordon83]

its the video games. G2 b honest with myself. I play way too much

Video games can be a huge distraction. When i hired my first employee last September we had a big project in the works, but it was the slow season for the main niche we were in, so we played COD4 on computer against each other all day for like 2 months. Then one day i remembered i was paying this guy $50k a year and i put the kibosh on the video games for a while and we were much more productive.

Not to say you can't have a little fun, but if it's that big of a distraction, you GOTTA get rid of whatever system you have if you can't control yourself...

 

[juntao65]

Video games can be a huge distraction. When i hired my first employee last September we had a big project in the works, but it was the slow season for the main niche we were in, so we played COD4 on computer against each other all day for like 2 months. Then one day i remembered i was paying this guy $50k a year and i put the kibosh on the video games for a while and we were much more productive.

Not to say you can't have a little fun, but if it's that big of a distraction, you GOTTA get rid of whatever system you have if you can't control yourself...

50K /yr to play games and the opportunity to replicate your campaigns? Badass Job

 

[justin.helloall]

Ima put this in the words of a shoe company of all things -_-

Just Do It

 

[rgordon83]

50K /yr to play games and the opportunity to replicate your campaigns? Badass Job

He doesn't replicate my campaigns, he manages accounts for a project i have selling leads to people. But yeah, he has it good

 

[ayzo]

"You want to know why I'm on top of the game? It's because everybody else is too busy pushing themselves lower. They're too lazy, too weak, and too ignorant to realize the massive opportunity that's in front of them for the taking. Every sucker out there with a 9 - 5 would kill for the information we know and the skills we have just so that they could make a fraction of what we're able to make. Hell, ten years from now when the people who had the balls to make moves are sitting on their fortunes every single one of these pussies will be kicking themselves for being in the right place, at the right time, but not doing a damn thing to take advantage of it. The ones who will piss and moan then, are the ones who are pissing and moaning now."