Thinking Successful WomanThere are some sad facts about this article you’ve just started to read, sad for me as the author and sad because it reflects something unfortunate about our current society.

Today we just don’t have enough time to learn new things. Worse still, most people don’t have the motivation to improve themselves and their lives, and instead choose to use what spare time they have to seek instant gratification, short-lived pleasures from entertainment, food and other leisure activities.

It’s a universal law that what comes quickly and easily is not satisfying for a long period of time and often can have a lasting negative impact. Junk food is tasty while you eat it, but it’s not doing much good for your body. Eating raw veggies is not always the tasty option, but doing it for long enough and you start to feel good.

In the Internet marketing space the same rule holds true. The techniques that are easy to do, for example using automation software to scrape RSS content for use on “spam” blogs, is never going to make you money long term. Yet if you focus on producing quality original content on your blog, and do it long enough, you can establish an asset that delivers income for years.

There’s nothing wrong with having fun, enjoying your spare time and occasionally indulging in instant gratification behaviors, but if you want to experience long term satisfaction in your life, you need to invest in yourself and become a better person. You need to become more than most people ever aspire to in their lives.

Most People Will Not Read The Next Paragraph

I said this article is sad for me as the author because the majority of people who were exposed to this text never read this far. Even if the title was compelling enough to convince them to read the first paragraph, they likely only made it as far as one or two paragraphs, began scanning the document from there, or browsed away.

As a blogger you learn to live with short attention spans and as an Internet marketer you learn that you can do very well if you have the attention of a small group of people who love your work. This is a powerful awareness, once you accept it and learn how best to leverage the situation.

Sadly, the knowledge I just shared with you, which I gained through experience and study, and teach to others through this blog each and every week, is insight most people will never become aware of, let alone go on to benefit from by starting their own blog or Internet business.

Pay Attention And Learn A Fundamental Truth

Inside the words you are about to read is an amazingly powerful lesson, something so profound, that if you read the article from top to bottom, truly absorb the message within and then apply it to your life, you will experience a dramatic shift in how you think and the results you achieve.

Put simply – you will start to realize your dreams – but it will take work to begin with, and therein lies the message I want to share with you now.

We’re quick to point out inequalities in life, and there are many that are certainly just plain unfair and unjust, the wheel of fortune dealing you a bad hand in the game of life. Something as simple as what country you are born into determines much about how your life progresses, as does your physical appearance, what natural talents you are gifted (or not) and who your parents are.

There’s not much you can do about things you can’t change and it’s fruitless to let them control your life in a negative way. Advice that’s served me well in situations of inequality that’s completely out of your control, and as far as I know this is the best attitude to have in all situations, is –

“Do the best with what you have been given”

Unfortunately many people would rather not strive to achieve their best and settle for average or worse, even when they have been given natural gifts.

Rather than focus on what’s not in our control, let’s look at inequalities that are within our control to change. The media loves to report statistics such as 20% of the people control 80% of the worlds wealth. We all know that only a small amount of people are considered rich and the majority of people, most people reading this article right now, are not happy with how much money they make and would like to change things.

Of course intention and action are too very different beasts. It’s easy to want change, but it’s confronting to actually take enough steps for long enough to make change happen. I would argue there is a great divide of wealth not because of inequalities that can’t be controlled (such as being born into a rich family or being exceptionally gifted in business), but because only a minority of people carry through long enough to become better than average at something and have the guts to take actions that are considered risky by “normal standards”.

What is normal behavior is defined by the majority, so if not making much money and choosing to continue to perpetrate the same activities that do not lead to making much money, is considered normal, then to do anything else is unusual. Rich people do unusual things and that’s why they are rich. There’s no secret there, just an attitude shift followed by congruent change of activities that lead to the desired “unusual” outcomes.

I’m not talking about super-wealth here. Just enough money to significantly change your life for the better. The kind of money where you own your house, you can afford to travel, healthcare is not an issue, you can buy organic food, drive a modern car, not worry about paying your bills and afford to take time off from work whenever you want to. Sadly, that’s definitely not the “average” circumstance for most people.

You Already Know This

What I’ve just written might seem abstract to you, so let me illustrate with a few experiences I’ve been noting recently as I work to improve many aspects of my life. This is going to make complete sense to you because you already know it, so don’t worry if you’re a bit confused now.

Every single information product I study that features advice from successful people state the same truth:

In order to succeed you need to force yourself to do certain things that lead to the desired outcome and cease doing other things that hinder the production of the desired outcome. You then need to make the positive behavior patterns a habit, so it feels wrong if you DON’T do them.

At all points along the learning curve, you always face the same sticking point, either a bad behavior that needs to be eliminated, or a good behavior that needs to be repeated (usually both).

If it’s your health you want to improve, then eating good food and avoiding bad food is critical. If you want to lose weight or gain muscle, you need to exercise and spend less time being inactive. Stop sitting on the couch watching TV and start lifting weights. Exchange one behavior that doesn’t help for one that does.

Choose The Burger

If you’re looking to meet a new girlfriend or boyfriend, then you need to stop staying at home, or sitting at the table wishing you were talking to a certain person, and instead get up and go talk to them. You have to meet new people to give yourself the chance to find a partner.

Last year I was studying a home study program about having success with eBay, presented by Andrew Lock. Part of his basic premise was that most people never make good money with eBay because they never implement the few steps necessary to beat the competition, things like using images and video, and learning how to use the right keywords in auction titles. Even after being taught these techniques, still the majority don’t bother using the knowledge they have gained and thus continue to earn mediocre results.

Just this last week I’ve been finishing up studying John Reese’s Traffic Secrets 2.0 course. John shows all kinds of simple techniques with a huge range of websites that most people never do. If you do them, and make them a habit, then you get lots of traffic. Yet most people never own a website that attracts 1000 visitors a day.

Can you see the pattern here?

The answer is everywhere. The techniques to learn how to do almost anything are available to you and you can, simply by doing something smart and doing it often, enjoy above average results. Thankfully, when you start to get above average results you start to enjoy compounding too, so your rewards are magnified exponentially the longer you do something smart.

Put another way, if you keep doing what rich people teach, then you yourself will become rich.

Study People Who Have What You Want

From an intellectual perspective, for you to discover the smart way to do things, you need to find people who have the result you want and study their work. The information is available and you can learn the techniques because there’s money to be made teaching people things. Lots of money. Obviously I’m proof of this, as are every other online information publisher, university institution and teaching college, there is incentive to share what you know.

However that’s only half of the equation, and the easier half at that. Understanding something intellectually is relatively easy provided you put in at least enough effort to read the book, watch the video, listen to the audio, or like you are doing now – read the blog post (most people never get this far). It’s what you do after gaining the insight that matters most.

Unfortunately, whether it’s because of laziness, or fear, or lack of self esteem – definitely something to do with belief systems and not reality – most people are incapable of follow-through. It’s just too hard.

Once you break passed the “too hard” barrier and stop listening to all the people around you who choose mediocrity as their life condition, then you can succeed. Fill your life with successful, positive people who encourage unusual behavior, find mentors who have done what you want to do, study, and then form habits doing what most people never bother to do, and you will enjoy the fruits of life.

A Simple Start

You Can Be A HeroSince much of this article is about personal motivation, it can be overwhelming at first to know what to do next.

I have a simple first step for you, something you can do once and repeat as often as you like for infinite rewards.

Starting now, I want you to find one behavior that hinders your progress towards what you want and swap it for something that moves you towards a desired outcome.

You can pick any aspect of your life – health, money, relationships, spirituality, education – and apply this change. Stop doing something that doesn’t help you and instead do something that does. I don’t need to give you examples – you already know your bad behaviors and what you should be doing instead. Use this blog post as impetus to make the change and as a reward for reading to the end.

Time is a resource we all have an equal amount of, yet a special few people do so much more with the same resource. You can be one of the elite, the unusual, the above average, if you decide to make use of your time in a productive manner rather than being just like everyone else.

Good luck!

Yaro
Living Productive