Diary of an Online Business

Recently, I read something that made me think about the challenge of winning or in other words, achieving success:
“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run but only one gets the prize”
1 Corinthians 9:24
I really related to this quote and the fact that I just did not want to be involved in running the race, I actually wanted to get the prize when it comes to being successful with my online business. I started to think about what winners actually do to win and soon realized that all of these things were applicable to success with my online business.
If I want to be successful with my online business, then I need to follow all of the steps below:
1. Train hard. For more information on this go to Entry 2. February 18th 2009 “The Key To Unlocking The Secrets To Success” We must put the effort in. Practice, practice and then practice some more to perfect the skills. I just learnt recently, that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to be truly good at something.
2. Take time to understand and respect your competition. You are not an island. You are actually competing against others for the coverted prize. Study and learn from your opposition. Learn to do things different and better.
3. Never give up. Winston Churchill said it beautifully: “We will never, never, never…………..give up”. The major point is that he said “never” for 30 mins. I think he made his point.
4. Practice discipline and routine. First decide what routine you will need to achieve your dreams. Then of course repeat it – over and over again. It only takes 28 days to establish (or break) a habit, so why not establish great habits that will lead you to exactly where you want to go
5. Focus, Focus, Focus. It is so easy to be distracted by 1000’s of other things in your life. By all means, enjoy life to the best of your ability but discipline yourself that at certain times you will be totally focused on the tasks required to win the prize you are chasing. Without focus you will just spend alot of time getting nowhere in particular.
6. Sacrifice. Oops! Not really a well loved term today. We need to sacrifice now so we can enjoy the fruits of the prize later. The athelete who gets up to train at 4 and 5am would probably much rather have a couple of hours extra sleep but when the stand on the podium to win their prize all the sacrifice is forgotten in the joy of the win. We need to sacrifice of our time, energy and resources.
7. Prioritize. Does anyone else have trouble with this? Sometimes we try so hard to prioritize what we believe to be important but still get it wrong. 5 years, 10, 20 years of hard work goes by and we still are not where we want to be. Stephen Covey tells us we spend 80% of our time working on things that are really only 20% important to us. Get hold of a journal and spend some time deciding on what is important to you and then start to prioritize. You will be amazed at what you can accomplish in a much shorter period of time.
8. Dream. “Without a vision, the people will perish”. Dreams keep us alive. They get us up in the morning with with renewed vitality and motivation to tackle the day with purpose. My husband and I have a dream book. In it we write the things that we want to achieve. Some are small and personal such as dancing lessons, others are large and longterm such as a successful online business to create passive income. Write everything you have dreamed of – no judgements. It will surprise you what is really in your heart
9. Never lose sight of the goal. This can be difficult when you are seeing few results. Keep coming back to your dream book. Remember why you embarked on this journey.
10. Build a good support team around you. The athelete has the coach and the physio to name just a few. You will need a mentor or coach. Hopefully, I can be part of that journey for you as we learn together. I would also like to recommend the people we use Andrew and Daryl Grant. Just go to the banner ad on the front page of my blog. I’ll be talking more later about this topic.
11. Understand your personal roadblocks, obstacles and weaknesses. They say that 90% of the battle is in the mind. This is the purpose of this blog and I will be writing much more on this topic.
12. Educate yourself about the process, skills and techniques that you will need to acquire to be successful at the internet business you have chosen. This is your fasttrack to success and as already mentioned in Point Number 1 see my Entry 2 post.
13. Remember to take care of your main tool – yourself. No one else is going to do this and if you burn out or go off the rails then your dreams of winning the prize will never be realized.

Let me know if you have any other points that would help other people in this area of running the race to win the prize. In particular, I would love to hear what roadblocks you have to achieving your dreams?

Until next time
Julie

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I know that this is a topic covered by many entrepreneurs much more experienced than me. What do you think the biggest enemy to your business is? Cash flow? Staff problems? Venture capital? No plan or goal? No effective systems? Of course they are all important but for me there is a much more sinister threat that is not often discussed in all those hugely successful businesss books. Of course by now you are asking What? What is it?
For me it is – discouragement!
You know, that feeling when nothing seems to go right. When no matter what you do and how hard you work it is just not happening. You pour everything you have into this great new idea – your time, love, money, energy, passion. You give up all the things you love to focus on making your dreams come true. Isn’t that what all the good books say?
That you have to stay focused. Block out everything else in your life and give everything you have to your dream. This is how the winners do it. If you don’t believe me read Napoleon Hill’s very famous book “Think and Grow Rich” (actually it is really worth buying a copy as you get lots of freebies such as courses, downloadable products and other books)

You know what? I believe them but it just doesn’t stop that terrible churning eating away at your stomach until you start to think – why am I doing this? It is just too hard.

Every so often I have days like this. Do you? If so, what keeps you going? We all realize that of course, if we do not keep going, then our dreams will not come to fruition. There is this wonderful experiment that was performed a number of years ago with preschool children. The children were taken into a room and told by the person looking after them that they had to leave the room. They put a marshmallow in front of the child and told them that if they could wait until they came back and not eat the marshmallow in front of them that they would receive two marshmallows when they came back. The worker then left the room and watched them through a window. Some children put the marshmallow straight in their mouths, others just licked them and put them back and others simply did not touch the marshmallow and promptly received another when the worker came back. This longditudinal study followed these children up later in life and found that the children who were able to delay gratification had achieved more success in their lives than the ones who could not delay gratification.
The immediate is not always easy and there is always something more inticing to do with our time than work. But history does show that the more we can delay gratification the greater our chance of success.
So what are some ways that I use to deal with discouragement( and thereby keep pushing ahead with my online business)?
1. Make sure you have good support networks. Sometimes you will really need to download a hard day with a very sympathetic ear
2. Give yourself some time out to enjoy your favourite activities
3. Try to mix with like minded people
4. Have a mentor or at least a mentoring program
5. Everyday come back to your commitment. What is it that you are trying to achieve and do you still want it just as much as you did originally?
6. You must have a strong belief that you can do this
7. An attitude that every problem has an answer – just make sure you look in the smartest places for an answer
8. One that I try and apply everyday is an attitude of gratitude regardless of the circumstances. There is always something to be grateful for

Please let me know how you cope with discouragement as I could really use all the help I can get and I’m sure that others can also

Until next time
Julie

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