Archive for the ‘Success Mindset’ Category

Your past has a huge impact on your future. There aren’t too many of us who can say we had the perfect childhood, perfect friends and live the perfect life. Sometimes we can’t forget the traumas we’ve been subject to and are stuck in the past, fearful of venturing into new places that may contain the answers for success that we’ve been searching for.
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Doors that open to new opportunities for success and happiness often slam shut if you’re hesitant about walking through the door to see what it holds for you. If you’ve ever had a door slam in your face, you know that it stuns and paralyzes you for a moment until you realize what’s happened. When doors to opportunities slam shut, you might react the same way.
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What expectations do you have for yourself?

Do you expect, wish, or hope for your success?

I expect it.

I know I’m capable of doing it, so there’s no wishing or hoping or daydreaming or envy that someone else has it better than I do at the moment.

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I always preach about being bold enough and not intimidated enough to become an Internet marketer. Well I just realized I’ve been a big, fat hypocrite. I practiced what I preached when it came to making the leap from ghostwriter to marketer – and that alone is hard for many to accomplish.

But after talking with my friend and mentor Craig Desorcy today, I realized I’ve been hiding behind my computer screen taking the easy (and less profitable) approach for far too long now.

You see, I like easy. Writing and publishing an eBook is easy. There’s no discomfort involved. Participating in telephone interviews or attending seminars is not comfortable to me. I’m a bona fide hermit

But in order to take it to the next level, I’m gonna have to get out of my comfort zone. There are things I want to teach you that will require more in-depth support. That makes me uncomfortable. I know how many emails I get right now with static topics like Squidoo, or writing an eBook – what’s gonna happen when I delve into more complex product topics?

I pride myself on being accessible. I’m the girl who always emails you back same day (or damn near close to it). But once I do this – once I buckle up and go pedal to the metal, I’m going to need to build a bigger team. A support desk. Someone to handle download glitches for instance.

I flat out told Craig I was scared. Putting yourself out there and climbing a higher rung on the career ladder when you’re deathly afraid of heights may not be the smartest thing to do, but it’s what you HAVE to do if you want to see the spectacular view.

And that’s where I’m at right now. I see the brass ring dangling in the air and I’m about to leap for it. I may stumble along the way, but hopefully I won’t suffer any permanent injuries to my ego (lol). We all have to get out of our comfort zone if we want to truly succeed at the level we’re capable of.

I am forcing myself to go there – into the unknown for me. I’ll either be really happy with the results or I’ll get frustrated, but you never know until you try and I’m not gonna sit here on the sidelines anymore knowing what I should be doing, but being too afraid to take action.

Watch out world, here I come!
Tiff

So I’m smack dab in the middle of a massive project – not to mention the other smaller plates I have spinning in the air, when someone emails me asking if I want to partner up and relaunch one of my sites. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for awhile now (more videos, member area, etc.), but haven’t done. This would allow me to have someone else do much of the part I was missing.

I agree to move forward into the discovery phase to see what we plan to do and domains are being bought left and right (by the other person). Graphics start popping up for me to see (and they weren’t the caliber I was used to).

Suddenly I wake up at 3 AM one night hearing screeching brakes (in my head). What was I doing?????

I know how to achieve these tasks myself. I know how to do a membership area using amember. I know how to do videos, albeit maybe not as fancy as others. I was about to shut down my domain that I’d worked hard to elevate for a couple of years and brand and start from scratch!? Plus lose 50% of my business because I couldn’t make time to take care of what needed to be done.

I emailed saying I wanted to go slower and think this through. You HAVE to listen to your gut and not rush things just because they sound good or in this case, easier. I didn’t know this person at all, and he’s probably a really nice guy. And I was about to fork over my business that had increased my salary by $20k or more each more per year due to time management issues and the fact that sales have slowed down.

I know WHY they’ve slowed – my offering lacks video tutorials, which my competitors have. But my product is the best (IMO) and kept up to date. All I have to do is carve out time to make it all inclusive. And I will.

Listen to your gut. Don’t rush or try taking the easy way out.
Tiff

Groan! I screwed up big time. I bought a product and was so excited about what it was about that I started working immediately – after only reading through the introductory PDF and watching the first video (out of many).

So where did this enthusiasm land me?

In the land of wasted time. I realized when I finally sat down to watch more that I didn’t know what I was doing – I hadn’t bothered to learn the step by step – just the overall broad idea – and everything I did was wrong.

Many people suffer from a lack of action taking. Not me! I’m in all directions, doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. That’s just as bad, trust me. I still got nowhere.

Lesson to learn:

When you buy a product, take time to thoroughly go through it. Don’t be a smarty pants like me and think you’ll know what you’re doing – you bought it for a reason! Someone else was doing something better than you do it. Learn from them.

Tiff

Very few people aren’t plagued by procrastination. They’re the few blessed people who don’t let time drag on until it’s too late to get back. Not me. I’m a procrastinator and I’m not proud of it.

Do you ever intend to complete a task but it gets put off until tomorrow and then tomorrow turns into a week later? I hate it when that happens. Procrastination can disguise itself as rationalization.

You can rationalize that there were reasons why you couldn’t complete a task, like you didn’t have the time, the money, or the knowledge. The kids were sick, the dog ran off, or your hard drive had a melt down.

It’s okay if this is an occasional occurrence, but don’t let it become a habit. You don’t want procrastination to become a permanent fixture in your life. You know you’re a procrastinator if you would rather check email every five minutes than get to work, if you’d rather see what Perez Hilton is saying than work on your article marketing, or if you’d prefer to play Tetris online than update your sale copy.

If you have to, give yourself a cookie once you complete a task. Doesn’t have to be a cookie – it can be a reward of a non-food nature, but you get the point. Bribe yourself – it may help you get over the bad habit that procrastination brings on.

If you procrastinate because you lack direction in your online business, then get organized first and create a to-do list that reads from most important to least important.

If you procrastinate because something seems overwhelming, then turn it into bite-sized pieces. For example, I’m working on a mammoth 300-page book right now. I created my Table of Contents, but now I’m working on each chapter as if it’s an individual eBook. Makes it easier that way.

Are you afraid of failure? Most people say no, but I know that’s not true. If you try an online business and fail, it’s going to be hurtful. You may have to crawl back to a corporate gig and tell your spouse or in-laws that you couldn’t succeed. Yikes!

Still, it’s no reason to procrastinate because if you do, you’ll SURELY fail.

Tiff

P.S. I myself love to check in at PerezHilton.com throughout the day – but I make myself take a 15-minute break for it so I don’t find myself giggling too long at all of his white-marker scribbles.

I get so many emails from people.

Some need help building lenses on Squidoo. Others want to know how to make their own eBook. Some just want guidance on how to “be an Internet marketer.”

And sometimes people share so much in their emails. Their struggles, their hopes, their dreams. I take time to read the emails. I reply to them myself.

And I get choked up. I understand the worry about money, the self doubt and fear that threatens to cripple you, and the worthlessness you sometimes feel while you’re still trying to make it online.

Please know that if you’re sititng there in your home staring at the computer screen reading all these tales of untold wealth, that everyone had times of struggle before they made it. You’re not alone. But don’t let the anxiety poison your passion and enthusiasm and DREAMS to make this real.

Remember, 8 years ago I was sitting here holding an infant in my arms who had RSV (a respiratory illness) and I was wondering how we would pay the bills because I was NOT going back to work. I was going to be a work at home mom.

Now I’m watching my healthy, happy kids play in the backyard and we’re planning what to do on our vacation this summer, not how we’re going to juggle bill collectors.

Dream it.

Then do it.

I’m here for you if you need to vent.

Tiff

Richard Taverner once described conscience as, “a thousand witnesses.”

This is what it feels like each time I create a product. Every time I build a lens. Each time someone emails me and I have the option to ignore and delete or respond with care.

You ought to have this same feeling throughout your Internet marketing pursuits. Every step you take in your business should be done with consideration for your reputation.

Thinking about throwing together a half-assed eBook just to rake in some quick WSO money? Think again. Pretend you have an audience of 1,000 prospects standing behind you watching you work and then you’ll have second thoughts about how much TLC you give your product creation.

I hear from so many people on my list who are shocked that I responded, since so many people don’t take the time to care. I don’t see what’s so hard about it. These people have taken the time to sign up to your list to hear what you have to say, so you are obligated to hear them out when they need you to.

From today on out, let your conscience be your guide and you’ll build a better business for it!
Tiff

So this week I went to go see a dietician. Ever since I had 3 kids – well, my butt’s grown as large as my daily task list and it isn’t pretty. One thing she said to me when we were getting to the root of my eating habit mayhem was that I have to “legalize” food.

Of course, it all makes sense diet-wise. But then I started taking her concept and applying it to my business. For a long time, I’ve had certain things off-limits in my mind. Sometimes it’s things I feel are too technical – stuff I don’t want to mess with.

Other times I think, “I can’t do that – I’ll leave it to the big boys.” But that’s a really defeatist attitude in the IM industry. I’m restricting myself by roping off certain success avenues I could travel down if I only steered myself in that direction.

For instance, I’ve been invited to countless seminars to be a speaker all over the world – Singapore, Australia, the U.S., etc. But I always say, “No,” without hesitation. I felt like I wasn’t big enough (figuratively, not literally) to be on a stage with people I considered big name IM gurus.

I won’t admit to you how long it took me to say Okay to a telephone interview. Now, I do them without any sense of hesitation. I feel confident and I don’t even have “cheat sheet” notes with me when I do them as a safety net.

I had deemed 2008 the Year of Tiffany when 2007 was coming to a close, and I vow to make that happen. But it means I have to step out of my comfort zone. Kind of like I’m doing with food.

Letting myself think a piece of cake is okay is awkward and I fall back into bad habits of sticking it into my “bad food” column. But if I’m ever going to conquer my habits, I have to work on changing the way I think.

Same thing with my business. I have to start thinking I’m good enough and smart enough to share stages, join big launches, and go head to head with major product players if I want to reach the level of success I’ve set for myself this year.

Do you do the same thing? What holds you back professionally?

Let me know your thoughts here.

Have a great day!
Tiff