Being able to brand yourself on the internet is the secret to your success. It takes time to build a successful website, so consistent effort and persistence are import elements to your success.
Table of Content
- Do you have a life plan?
Do you have a life plan?
Whether you believe in fate or want to control your destiny, the secret to success in life is perseverance.
Some people believe fate controls their lives.
There is no need to plan what they want to accomplish because everything that will ever happen to them was written in a book somewhere the moment they were conceived.
That is all right. People have a right to have their own beliefs. Certainly what you do today will influence what happens tomorrow.
I believe I control my destiny.
That is why I need to plan my life. WHAT I DO TODAY WILL DETERMINE WHAT I ACCOMPLISH TOMORROW.
As Captain of my ship on the River of Life I need to know where I am going and what I want to achieve.
- Know your Values. Values are important because they guide your life.
- Have a vision Visualize what you want your life to be like in a year, 5 years.
- Know your calling: what do you want to accomplish in your lifetime.
- Create a strategy to achieve you what you want to accomplish
- Create a plan to accomplish your Strategy
- Work you plan with perseverance.
- Evaluate your plan quarterly. Make sure you are on the right course.
Your life plan will be a living document. Have a vision of where you want to be and what you want to accomplish in the next year, the next five years and, if you’re young, the next 20 years. Understand your plan will grow and change as you gain life experience.
As you accomplish your goals you will set new ones.
Review you goals frequently. Know what you want to accomplish this year, this quarter and this week. Know what you must accomplish to achieve you your dreams.
My Planning Process
I work in quarterly cycles. I develop projects I can achieve in 12 weeks. The 13th week I plan for the next quarter. I review my project proposals and develop new proposals. Then I prioritize each proposal and pick the ones I will work on during the next 3 months. This way I can see completion of projects that are important to accomplishing my mission.
I have made it a habit to spend at least the first hour of my day working on my one most important project. The rest of the day I yield to the chaos of every day life. Consistent effort is more important than the binge project. An hour a day will get a project done.
Binge effort, under a deadline, will usually result in an inferior result or a project that gets abandoned to procrastination. When you are working under a deadline as I am on this 72 hour challenge you must be satisfied with “good enough.”
Project Development
This is the processes of breaking down mission goals into steps that can be accomplished in 12 weeks. If I have a project I want to do that cannot be finished in 12 weeks, I need to drop nice to have things from the project until the project will fit into the 12-week time frame.
Working in quarters cycles is particularly important when working from home because it enables your boss and you team the opportunity to correct problems and see progress.
When we talk about success of a project, it is important to define what success will be for each specific project. Project goals must be measurable and have set milestones. When a project is defined in terms of goals and deadlines, the team and the boss will know how the project is progressing.
Defining Success
It is a little different when we try to evaluate our personal success. Everyone look at success differently. For some it is having material things. For others success is a spiritual thing. Surveys of rich people show they are no happier as a group than anyone else. We have all heard the saying, “Money doesn’t bring happiness.” But, It sure can make it possible to live your dreams.
I suggest that happiness is not a destination but a journey. Your can be happy for moment. Your just got a new car. Or you can be happy in your journey through life. Knowing you are on course to achieve the important goals in your life means you know what you want to accomplish in your life. People who know their purpose live a longer, happier more productive life. (The Blue Zones by Dan Buettner)
Get in touch with your gut feelings. The catch word of the day is “Mindfulness.” It means you know what you feel about what you are doing. Our feelings and what we value in life guide our life journey.
It is our mission that makes life worth living
The self-improvement niche is filled with advice to find your calling and work in a narrow, focused niche. it is good advice, but it can also leave you stuck in a rut.
Don’t let your focus on your mission stifle your curiosity. Read and study broadly.
Your will find you have many interests. Follow yours. Let your quarterly projects rule. It is OK to explore new interests but make sure to finish your current project before pursuing a new line of interest.
Success Success is a journy, when you know you are on track to achieve those things in life that are important to you. The key to success is working on the right thing at the right time and finish what you start.
It is OK to fail. Just do it early. If your interest in a subject is satisfied and doesn’t seem to be leading anywhere, it is OK to move on to something new.
Your have to block out time every day to work on the most important thing in your life. How much time you can spend working on that important things in your life depends on how many urgent things impact your life.
If you are not achieving your important goals fast enough, you are going to have to learn to say “NO.” Don’t let the urgent things imposed on you by others prevent you from working on your important goals.
Your must be sure you are working on the most important thing in your life at this particular moment. What is important changes frequently. That is why we have to frequently ask ourselves, “Is this the best thing I can be doing right now.”
The Problem
Part of the problem is deciding what is the most important thing we need to work on. The important things in our lives are a shifting target. We have responsibilities to our family, to our work and to our church to name a few.
The other part of the problem is how we work.
I’ve been reading a lot about productivity lately. Some say you can overcome procrastination by being sure you know what is important in your life and working on the “one important thing” consistently every day. Most recommend you plan to spend 15-30 minutes every day working on your one most important thing. By working on your most important goal a little bit every day you may make sure the important things do not get neglected. The problem is 30 minutes a day may not meet your deadline. The 30 minute a day technique works when you have important goals that tend to get pushed into the background and forgotten. Studies have shown that authors who work on their project with consistent and perseverance everyday get more done than authors who wait till they have time to work on their project.
Productivity Productive authors know how long it will take for them to write 5000 words. They set a deadline and know they have to plan to write for a specific amount of time every day.
I find I work best in 60-90 minute increments. When I get into the flow of writing, I don’t want to stop. However, I start getting groggy after an hour and a half or so. Then I have to get up and walk around, work in the yard, ride my bike or even take a nap. Then I can pick up where I left off and spend another 90 minutes working on my important thing.
Psychologists call this sprint work. They say research has found that most people have cycles where they have high energy for 90 minutes followed by 20 minutes to recuperating.
My daughter is an author and a website developer. When she gets started, she may work all night with barely a break. I think Psychologists may call that being obsessive, but the point is pay attention to what works for you and take advantage of your bodies ups and down. Everyone is different. Your need to get in touch with your feelings to know you are working on the right thing and at the right time
When you are totally immersed in what you are doing you are “in the flow.” Your do not want to break the flow of creative energy
When you understand you body rhythms make a habit of doing you creative work when you are at your peak energy.
Our attitude
Most people live re-actively. They are satisfied with their life. If they are creative at all they settle for a hobby they work at their spare time.
If you want to make a difference, understand you values. Get in touch with how you feel about what you are doing. Is self-doubt holding you back? Your values and feeling should guide you dreams. Think about what important thing you want to accomplish. Visualize what you want your life to be like in 5 or 10 year.
Most people look at their goals and how unattainable they seem and get discouraged. They are living in the GAP between where they are and where they want to be.
It is better to live in the now. Look at where you were 5 years ago and compare that to where you are now and you will see positive progress and real accomplishment.
I want to be a successful internet marketer. I have yet to make a profit.
If I look forward to the day my business is creating $50K per month passive income my goal seems unattainable. However, five years ago, I new nothing about building a website.
Today I can build many websites and I know how to promote them. I have the confidence to build websites for others and I know more about promoting products on line that most people. I have put together the pieces and expect to be producing $2K/mo profit by the end of the year.
It is kind of a cup half full, cup half empty kind of thing. If you have the negative point of view you will never try. If you are positive the sky is the limited.
The key to success is perseverance. The key to success Success is a journy, when you know what is important in your life and working on the right thing at the right time. People with a written plan accomplish far more than those who leave their ideas floating around in their head.
When you review your day how do you feel about what you accomplished?
I have always kept notes on what I did that day. Partly, it was because my boss wanted me to document what happened for legal purposes.
I was introduced to bullet journalling a couple of years ago. It is a process of making quick notes about what you are doing throughout the day. Bullet Journaling helps me remember what I am doing, because if I wait till evening, I’m left wondering where my day has gone. Journaling helps me plan my work and track my progress.
The following is the daily outline I use when reviewing my daily:
My Daily Review
Do this in the quiet time when you first wake up. Write down any random thoughts. Practice Mindfulness. Take the quiet time immediately on waking up to write down any ideas or thoughts that come to you. (Your are tapping your subconscious)
Subconscious thought come to you quickly and fade away quickly. Catch them while you can.
Routine list the tasks you do things routinely out of habit. Create a list of the routine stuff you do every day. I realized spent more than eight hours a day doing urgent stuff.
These are urgent tasks usually imposed on you by others. They do not contribute to accomplishing your one most important project. Record time spent on each task. Then minimize time spent on urgent tasks by saying NO when asked to do something.
Before you say “yes,” realize you will have to give up something. If the thing you will not be able to do is more important than what you are being asked to do, you have to say NO.
The following is a template I use to review my day. Edit is and adapt it for your use.*
Plan your day
Do it first thing in the morning if you didn’t do it the night before.
What is the one important thing I will work on today?
What are the urgent things I must do?
Do in the evening or at the end of work
- How do I feel about what happened today and why do I feel that way?
- What can I do to simplify the work flow? Can technology help?
- Can I delegate any of the work to someone else?
- What do I plan to accomplish tomorrow? Mind dump ask questions related to important things you are trying to accomplish.
- What did I learn today?
- What did you do today?
Do this just before going to bed. (Your are asking your subconscious to work on these questions while you sleep)
• Mindfulness: Record your thoughts and feelings. What problems and question remain unanswered.
The tools I use
I try to digitize everything I do. I am frankly a productivity freak. I want to stay on track and have a record everyone can read including my self. I work from home and bring able to collaborate with my time is a fundamental requirement in everything I do.
Managing Research
Evernote is an extension of my brain. Everything I want to remember and or share goes in Evernote.
My Word Processor
I’ve tried many. I was raised on Word Perfect. All my lawyer clients used it. It is still around but was long ago swamped by Microsoft Office.
Personally, I like iA. It is a lightweight word processor with a minimalist attitude. It is a mark down editor. I like being able to format my document without having to use my mouse. It exports documents in several formats including Microsoft.docs and HTML. It gives me perfectly formatted HTML document that I can insert in a WP post with no editing.
My Journal
I said, I’ve recently taken up bullet journalling in a much more formal way.
My primary tool is Pen and Paper. I supplement P&P with Day One and Week Plan. Day One is great in the way it uses tags to help you find stuff. It is perfect for quick notes and Bullet Journaling.
My Project and Daily Planning
Week Plan serves my planning needs. It serves my long term planning as well as my short term needs.
My Email
I really like Spike. It organizers my email by people in my contact list vs other emails and it displays all related email in the thread like a chat. It has reduced my daily time to process emails from 2 hours to 30 minutes.
My email list.
I finally settled on aWeber to manage my bulk mail. I’ve tried several opt-in lists including MailChimp and Constant Contact. The only real difference I have found is the quality of their email marketing training.
Pick one and stick with it. Also, if you are still experimenting set up a page that will make global changes so you only have to make email address changes in one place.
Jay Neil, the Wealth Affiliate virtual trainer is devoting the month of September 2020, to email marketing and told us how to do it in his Friday September 11, 2020 training.
Conclusion
I want to control my destiny. That requires planning, consistent effort and perseverance.
Know what you want to accomplish in your life. Read a lot and always be curious. Don’t get locked in to one passion so tightly you stifle you curiosity. Leave room for personal grown.
Work on one project at a time. Finish the project before considering something new
Make sure you are always making the best use of your time and alway try to enjoy what you are doing.
This post is the result of a Wealthy Affiliate University assignment to create a 1000 word using the word perseverance in the post. The post must also include and internal link, and external link, and an H2 tag.
The inspiration for this assignment was a Film Festival contest to produce a 5-minute video featuring toilet paper within 72 hours. This video was a winner, enjoy.
How did I do? A good post should contain at least one of these elements:
- Entertaining
- Interesting
- Educational
Please leave your comments. Let me know what you liked best, what you disagree with, what was confusing.
What has been your experience with procrastination?
Aloha,
Bill is an internet marketer. He wants to help you use the internet to achieve your dreams. He blogs about your personal, financial, and environmental resilience.
