From Motivated To Inspired: Why You Need Something A Little Extra If You Want Big Success Online

You hear over and over again how important it is to take action as an entrepreneur.

What rarely gets enough attention is the concept of sustained action, or specifically how important your MINDSET is when it comes to sustaining action long term.

Consistency and persistence are qualities most people are not born with. You have to develop these traits, especially if you want to master a skill that gives you a sustained advantage.

We are all emotional creatures and that, unfortunately, means we experience just as many downs as we do ups. In fact, we might experience more downs than ups, depending on our circumstances and genetic makeup.

If you study positive psychology from researchers like Martin Seligman through his Learned Optimism and Authentic Happiness books, you will come across the potentially bad news that not everyone is wired to be positive by nature.

You will fall somewhere on a scale, with extremely positive at one end, and extremely negative on the other. This is simply a matter of the genetic lottery, just like your tendency to be more extroverted or introverted. How you choose to react of course is up to you, and based heavily on your mindset.

Positivity leads to a happier, longer and more successful life, based on characteristics we value like wealth, relationships and health. Dr. Seligman conducted peer-reviewed research to back these assumptions up. Again and again studies concluded that optimists win, sometimes in very surprising ways.

Emotional Peaks And Valleys

We all know what it is like to feel a burst of motivation and then take that energy and translate it into work.

The problem that arises is we don’t always feel motivated. Motivation ebbs and flows, often decreasing when we don’t feel happy, or when we face setbacks. Our physiological state also impacts our motivation, as does our results.

If I’m well fed and I have slept enough hours, my physiological state is good. If I can see the fruit of my labor, like money coming in, or traffic to my blog or newsletter increasing, or people telling me they benefited from my work, I’m well primed to do more good work.

If traffic decreases or people ask for refunds, or I didn’t sleep enough or I’m out of balance with exercise and social activities, or I receive negative feedback, my emotional state depresses.

Some of these things you can control, some you can’t. Some you can work to improve as well.

You can also work on your emotional response to negative conditions using reframing (NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming) and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). This has been a critically helpful for me in both work and my personal life. You can read more about how I have worked on reframing in this article – The Key To Happiness.

Short Vs Long Term Action

One of the most important keys to success in life and business is to learn how to turn short term action into sustained long term repeated actions.

We all know that to achieve big outcomes you need to drill things down into the steps necessary to get there. When you know your big picture and you have a roadmap, the formula to reach your destination is just one step per day.

How do you eat an elephant, one bite at a time!

I’ve always found this an awkward saying. Who wants to eat an elephant and what does the elephant think about this!

Regardless of silly sayings, the principle is sound. You have a big-picture goal and lots of little achievements are necessary to get there.

Sustained action executing the right techniques, which follow the right strategy, leads to achieving your vision. It’s all about climbing a success ladder.

People who spend even just a little bit of time researching how to build an online business will quickly become exposed to all the different things you can do to get a result, in fact you will end up overwhelmed, with far too much information.

If you are diligent in your research and focused enough to pick one strategy and follow it, the only remaining roadblock is you. Your ability to execute day in and day out is what matters more than anything else.

Most people fail because of lack of execution, not lack of knowledge of what needs to be executed.

If you look at what