Getting Re-Motivated / Learning to Work Again (18)
Over the last month or so, I've had to learn to work again. Not in a day job sense, but in the confines of my own house, scratching around for motivation.
A few days on autopilot doing nothing can turn in to a few weeks of wanking when you could have been banking. It's natural to experience dips in productivity. Nobody can work 100% flat out indefinitely. There are going to be days where you sack off, and sometimes even entire weeks.
However, if you inherit bad habits and sustain them for too long, you will eventually run head first in to a phenomenon that I have seen hit many successful affiliates around the 2-3 year mark (now including myself).
That phenomenon is a combination of laziness, mental fatigue and taking the good times for granted. It is where we essentially forget how to work like we did at our 'peak'. An affiliate can go from zero to rich hero in the space of 12 months, but doing so requires a lot of start-up energy. It's that thrill of the chase that gets most of us out of bed. The simple fact is that once you have success, it becomes much harder to sustain the energy.
Sometimes, we have to learn to work again. It's not always down to laziness. In my case, a series of shake-ups in my personal life was all it took to deflect focus and motivation from my campaigns.
1. Winning back the first hour of the day
If you've fallen out of the loop and can't seem to focus, don't try reprogramming your entire day. Focus on having a productive first hour. Just sixty minutes of hard work can produce a massive return on your productivity throughout the rest of the day.
The worst thing you can possibly do upon waking up is roll to your side, pick up your phone, and check Gmail or Facebook. Especially while your habits are weak and fragile. If I open up Facebook, it's normally a dominoes catastrophe. Before I know it, I've checked 7 other sites. Win back your first hour and you will go a long way to winning back the rest of the day.
2. Winning back the last hour of the day
Almost as important as the first hour of the day is your last. Are you preparing your to-do lists for the day ahead or are you letting it drift through a compilation of Netflix favourites?
When you're trying to rediscover a commitment to work, it's a good idea to keep a journal and document how you're feeling about the process. Just 5 minutes of scribbling your thoughts at the end of the day - particularly praise for what you've done well - can refuel your self-esteem and motivation for tomorrow's first hour.
I also make a conscious effort to ensure that my workspace is returned to looking like a workspace by the end of the night. You don't want to walk in to a carnival of distractions and half eaten Jalfrezis at 8am.
3. Physical indicators of work/life separation.
This is going to sound retarded but I recently gave up my cheesy wotsit stained slacking pants in favour of a smart shirt and smart trousers. Home comfort is awesome, don't get me wrong. But I think what you wear (and your general appearance) has close ties to your self-esteem. Some people can slump in to their home offices looking like bums and put in an awesome shift. Shit, I could that too when I was focused. But in an effort to 'learn to work' again, dressing smart is a useful trigger that reminds me that even though I'm in my own home, I'm in work mode.
If an important meeting popped up in 5 minutes, I'd feel ready for it.
If you are the type of guy who is highly-reactive to his surroundings and easily knocked 'out of the zone', you can support yourself by catering to those small triggers.
Another smart move, if you have the luxury, is to set aside physical areas in your home that are only to be used for certain tasks. I have ripped out the distractions from my office and custom tuned my Mac to block out all time-wasting vacuums. If I want to access Facebook or Twitter, I can do it. But I have to go downstairs and use my laptop.
Similarly, if I'm preparing my to-do lists, I have a separate area which is just a chair and a small desk with a notepad. It's damn near impossible to stray off-task when you reduce your ties to Man & Paper.
4. Reconstruction of motives
So much gets written about motivation but it's a simple equation.
When your motivations aren't motivating you, you have a problem. It's usually explained as:
a) You've misunderstood your motives.
or
b) Fear of success/failure has crippled your ability to respond to them (See here: http://finchsells.com/2012/12/11/the...iate-business/)
This might only become apparent to you once a personal trauma strikes, or a long period of depression subsides. But generally speaking, if you're not getting out of bed, or not putting in the hours, it's because you haven't found a good enough reason where you had one before.
How do you expect it to change if you don't find better reasons? Better inspiration to do what you do other than topping yesterday's stats?
The productivity industry is a colossal beast worth millions and millions. But it often misses the most important part of the jigsaw. Motivating yourself to be productive when you don't unconsciously believe in what you're striving for is nearly always destined to fail, or to cause massive loss of hairline.
I think for most people, the motives of getting in to affiliate marketing (self-sufficiency, money, $$$) are different to the motives you'll have a few years down the line (pride in your work, stability, peace of mind). But if your work day stays exactly the same - churning out campaigns you couldn't give a monkey's arse about - you will eventually run out of steam because the conflict will grow within.
Anybody suffering from this? I'm convinced it's a pretty common problem. How do you deal with 'remotivation' and breaking bad habits?
Yeah this is really nice post man, thanks very much for your insights. I too found myself in this position a little while ago, I became very lazy and before I knew it time had passed and the bad habits had kicked in making it very hard to get back to where I was before because I had no flow and no motivation to make more money. And one hour becomes one day becomes one week becomes on month, time stops for no man and in hindsight you want nothing more then that time back when you get back into the work flow and making money. The time is now, so just do it 
The first hour is such a good tip, as I find that if I don't use the first hour, my day is as good as dead. I created a ritual for when I'm home on Monday to Friday, basically I wake up take a quick 15-20 minute walk around the block to get some blood flowing, make a litre of green tea, shower get dressed and then into the office for work. I skip the whole Facebook shit till I've atleast tasked up my Asana (asana.com) and have a good flow of work for the day.
I took note of your post on your blog about clustered tasks (here) a super sick post! It's nice to see you're a strong dude man and getting on with your life, will you be making it out to Amsterdam? I'm with the crew right now we'd love it if you could make it broheim!
I actually feel better after a day of work, then I do on a day of watching TV or bludging. Breaking the bad habits, I just bought a calendar and didn't 'break the chain'. Every day I worked a solid work day, I marked with a red X, after 30 days of no chain breaking it was easy and it just made me feel good. My love for AM is back stronger then ever, so its happy days.
Since this is a pretty unique time in your life, take advantage of it bro. Do the things you always wanted to do, but you may have felt held back from. Pack your bags, take ya laptop and explore some of the world, by the time you're back I bet you will be feeling motivated to get back into a working schedule and ready to crush life again
!
Great post, great insights and a problem I'm facing lately too...
Personally I am / was in quite a difficult situation during the last 3 months. Lemme divide it in two problems that I personally faced:
First of all, I had a lot of trouble and problems going on with the local version of the FTC in Germany. Talking about stuff others might have experienced as well, seized bank accounts, blocked CCs, penalties I had to pay and all the shit you don't wanna think about until it comes back on you. Now this hasn't been the first time I had to deal with such issues, but the real problem was a totally different story: it happened right at a point where I felt like getting back into work and being very motivated. Right at that time, with close to everything being seized that you can pay with (bank accounts, CCs, vendors like paypal etc.), I had pretty much no possibility to continue and stick to my motivation I had.
Luckily a friend of mine helped me out with some cash during that period so I avoided the hammer of getting a loan / placing a mortgage / home loan and finally everything's back to normal since around a week or two - I had to pay a pretty decent 5 digits penalty but finally have full access to bank accounts, CCs etc. etc...
Now seems like I'm ready to be back on track right? In fact it does, in fact I am, but then another problem kicks in:
During that period described above, I pretty much lost all my motivation to start new campaigns / projects / websites. The main 'luxury issue' I have right now is that I'm earning pretty good from a load of sites that are ranking solid in the SERPs, are generating enough income that I can easily keep a relaxed and (for me) worry free lifestyle. Most of those commissions are lifetime revenue share deals based on a pretty big sample size of referred visitors over the past 2 years and remain pretty much solid for months (years) already.
With that situation the actual problem I'm experiencing is getting back motivated again. I worked my ass off during the last years and right now am facing sort of dilemma that I just feel too lazy without having the pressure of having to pay back loans / credits and having to work my ass off to get into the green.
I know this point might sound like a complete idiot to some of you, but I'm pretty much confident that a lot of guys have faced the same issue. You have campaigns / sources of passive income running, you do not worry too much about your monthly income and feel in a dick mode where it's hard to get motivated again.
In order to get back on track somehow, I pretty much did a list of points I want to achieve within the next 2-3 years. There are a lot of unnecessary wishes on it, like buying some fancy watch or car - for sure no priority. On the other, I can find a lot of points that are pretty much important to me - stuff like building an offline business within the next 2-3 years completely unrelated to AM, start a savings account for for kids ( don't have any yet but certainly planning to do so ), invest / refurbish in my flat.
After finishing that list, I pretty much feel like I'm starting at a similar point I did years ago. Realizing there's a lot of stuff you want to achieve, no matter it's a fancy new car or investing in non-digital assets or just having amount X in savings, it's EXTREMELY important to have a goal and something you want to achieve. Smashing out campaigns or creating websites just for the sake of money isn't going to keep you motivated, at least it wasn't for me. Beside the fact I wouldn't recommend anybody just to keep your money on a bank account, do something with it and build longterm assets. There's nothing like the feeling after having reached X amount of cash in savings and finally fulfilling a dream you always wanted to reach - no matter it's buying a watch, buying a car, doing a trip with your GF/wife or finally doing the first steps to your own home or flat.
As for now, I'm preparing a separated workspace similar to how Finch described it. Your workspace has to look like a workspace and shouldn't distract you. We're working, not entertaining or fighting for the highest post count on a forum. Getting a structured work routine by using planning tools or just a piece of paper and a pen personally helped me to at least get a feet back into the motivation mode. How do I know I'm getting back on the right track? I don't know for sure, but it's just a feeling I have. Having a positive feeling although a new campaign you're testing completely tanked for example is a step in the right direction. It's not about the campaign tanking, but it's about knowing that I put a lot of work for the day in it translating landers, fighting with my limited css/html skills and really managing to avoid getting distracted and checking every damn website on the earth before actually finishing the work on my to do list. It may sound strange, but I'm pretty much optimistic that after the Amsterdam meet up I should find my path back to being fully motivated again. It's just great to join a meetup / conference with like minded people and just hang out with tons of people doing the same work as you do, at least it helped me getting back focused everytime I attended a meetup / conference in past.
Feel free to post any kind of feedback you might have to this post. I'm open for it, no matter you point at me for being a dick and idiot or explain your (similar) situation. Keep in mind it's just a very honest post and I thought twice before hitting the submit button. Emotions / feelings / work ethics are pretty much strange, you never know how they gonna hit you, but in the end, it's everybody's job to make the best of it. I can't blame anybody for the situation I described above than me. Being too lazy and losing focus over the last couple of months brought me into the 'dilemma' described, so finally I gotta get my ass up again to look at this point in a couple of months hopefully with a smile on my face!
Power thread, this shit should be stickied. I have been battling my own demons lately, and am back into the correct mindset. A few points that stuck out to me were planning ahead, and keeping fresh goals in mind. I started writing these out last week, it definitely helps.
Thanks for the great posts guys, it's nice to know I'm not all alone in terms of this.
Riding the waves and learning to ride them is part of the game. You will never be up all the times but I found that every time I come back up I leap higher.
This is a great tool from Mark Joyner http://www.simpleology.com/ Solves many issues described here... They have free accs.
Give me 5! I'm experiencing this in the current month - April.
Did some nice profit in the first quarter of the year and I started to slack beginning of the month. Part of the reason is because another FB account of mine got banned. SO I GAVE MYSELF AN EXCUSE "Alright time to take a break". Affiliate marketers like us tend to lose our motivation pretty fast when we have some peak moments in the business. It's the same for insurance agents out there.
I remember a friend of mine, who is in the Insurance field, told me that "When you make some nice money, you have to spend them or else you will become too comfortable and end up start to slack". She told me that is how the head of insurance preach them in the office. Well, I disagreed with that statement initially but now I do see the reason behind this statement. People will just get too comfortable when the money comes in too easily.
Getting back to work and finding back the motivation is a skill that all affiliate marketers should possess in my opinion. Martin, 5 and I am getting back to work now. 
May is gonna be another good month! Let's do it!
Check out THIS guy. I'm sure he's motivated enough. Basically he do the same thing like us, on a different level.
Originally Posted by Finch
Great post and great idea "first hour of the day".
Originally Posted by r4raaj
(How is it that I haven't chanced upon it in all my years on STM? We have too much gold here - some of it's just buried deep.)
This post has even more relevance today, since everyone has a smartphone and a gazillion apps installed on it, all sending notifications and clamoring for our attention.
I wrote a post on a similar topic that you may also want to check out: https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...t-of-every-day
Amy
Originally Posted by vortex
Looks like it was posted even before I joined STM. Finch posted a ton of useful stuff while he was still active in AM, would love to know what keeps him busy these days.Some solid tips in there, every so often I get in the same phase where I'm having problems to concentrate on the work, sot he next time it strikes me I might try some of these tips.
Originally Posted by vortex
Thanks a Ton for sharing the link (https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...t-of-every-day) on similar topic. What a great post. I am surprised to know that almost everyone distracts with almost the same reasons
. I can 100% relate myself with that post. I was writing an article with questions only and wanted to share on STM. But when I have seen your post then I have realized you have already covered everything with all possible questions and answers and even more and more in the post My most important take away from that post are
a. Meditation
b. Fill the void with useful information
c. Do not put your cell phone in your room while sleeping
Regards,
Rajiv
After reading this post, I thought of visiting his website. And there you go, he posted an update on what he is working on these days. Always fun to read Finch's posts.
https://finchsells.com/
Originally Posted by wes888
For those that want a TL
R of Finch's latest blog post - here's what he's been up to lately:
-No more "crashing and burning from one affiliate offer to the next."
-"My job these days revolves around publishing and monetisation.
Building websites, flipping websites and investing in predictable income streams."
It's really nice to see an update on how and what he's been doing. Haven't heard anything from/about him since we chatted over loud music in the afterparty of the first-ever AWA in 2015. Such an incredibly humble guy, and somewhat shy/introverted. I love his writing style - and looking forward to seeing him share more about "building websites, flipping websites and investing in predictable income streams".
Amy
I just came across his update this morning. After reading through the article I got that itch again and decided to renew. After all whats one more business expense right? Kind of crazy to look back over the last 5+ years and see how so much has changed. The days of burn and churn ended for me a while back as well.
Originally Posted by waltermitty
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