The measure of a successful business or entrepreneur is not what you are able to accomplish on the days when you are rolling, but rather how you can stretch out your effort and results on the days when you don’t feel your best.
First, let me be clear – I am a huge advocate of leveraging those times when you are killing it…take full advantage of your energy, creativity, karma and whatever else may be working in your favor.
But seriously, we all know days like that are special and the other 300 days of the year we have to find a way to push through.
In fact, perhaps 25%-50% of your time you really don’t feel like making progress at ALL!
You may not want to hear this – but that 25-50% is the difference maker between “playing”, “trying” and “dreaming” and living, dominating and excelling.
What are you shooting for , average or Excellence?
What kind of results do you want, normal or Extraordinary?
By using these techniques you can begin to OWN that 25%-50% of the time that gets you down, stops you in your tracks and keeps your business tied to the dock allowing you to really capture momentum, energy and productivity that will lead to the massive results your online business needs to give you what you want.
1. Improve Your Productive Days
Here are 4 ways that you can take the # of days where you just don’t feel up to (emotionally or physically) having a massive output day and knock them at least in half so you are ON at least 2X more than you are today:
- Take care of your health…all of your emotional and physical energy is dependent on your health. That means cleansing your system. It means getting your digestion in order. This means looking at food as fuel rather than food as satisfaction or escape. It means you limit intake of alcohol, do away with tobacco, drink more water, dramatically reduce sugar and exercise daily.
- Have a big mission or passion driving you so that no matter what is happening today or yesterday in your life you can brush it off and continue toward your mission. Read this blog post on how to master the Bounce Back – an incredible skill to have at your disposal.
- Always choose action over inaction. On the days when you feel like packing it in and just wasting the day, force yourself to DO something. It could be starting with a blog post, a video script, placing an ad, checking your analytics, doing a JV deal – anything to get the ball rolling. The longer you let inaction fester, the worse you will feel
- Have a plan – when you don’t feel up to tackling your business, have a plan in your back pocket of motivational material, people who inspire you, a go-to Plan B to help you out of your funk. These days do and will happen, so plan for them in advance.
2. Visualize – Change The Picture And Narrative In Your Head
On those days when you just don’t feel up to giving 100% you will notice that there is a negative narrative and likely some negative visuals going through your mind that are holding you back.
Through visualization you can re-program those visuals and narrative to instead fire you up.
See yourself having achieved your goal, feel the emotional state of what that is like. Tell yourself over and over again that you are there…you are simply carrying out the process that will naturally result in your achieving your desired outcome
3. Change Your Beliefs Around Progress
Many people operate under the belief that it’s ok to take a day off here or there, to only be productive for a few hours each day and to let things slide when you need to rest.
The reality is that we need to push HARDEST when we feel like doing it the least.
That is a fundamental belief of every top business person I have ever met or worked with…and let me tell you, this was a major paradigm shift for me as I have grown my businesses (and indeed grown in life in general)
4. Make It A New Habit
Just as people get into the habit of taking days off, finding ways to distract themselves (Television, video games, news or political watching, etc…) you want your new habit to become stepping up when you feel like it the least.
Any new habit only comes about with dedication, persistence and repetition – so vow to not just press forward once the next time you feel like throwing in the towel, commit to it for the next month and soon you will find that you have created a new habit that will work very much in your favor.
Don’t worry about setbacks, bounce back immediately and start again – it’s rare we get anything 100% right on the first try – so don’t let a setback be your excuse to quit trying.
I’m not saying that you need to work 24-hours a day, 7-days a week – that is more an issue of time management (which really is priority management if you want to tell the truth).
What I am saying is that you MUST learn to work through those times and days in your life when you just don’t feel up to taking action – it is within this hidden valley that you will discover the real power of leverage and progress.
