Motivation to Start Your Day

Hi Everyone,

I was listening to sports talk on my way back into my office after playing a game of squash and one of the marathon runners was saying that his coach told him:

"Whenever you feel too tired to go out and train, just get off the couch and run the first 500 meters, then if you're still too tired, go back home and rest"

I have heard that kind of advice before, but I really needed to hear it again right then as I thought about my squash game and how I've been struggling to make myself get back on my treadmill lately - as my game needs more fitness!

Then I thought about my affilobuds here and how I'm always trying to motivate people to get things done and stick to their plan and I thought to myself,... man... this marathon training example is a really good analogy!

Half the battle with doing anything on a regular basis to achieve a goal is to get your butt off the couch and spend 5 minutes working your plan, whether that be building your next affiliate site, or training to run a marathon.

I'll repeat that, half the battle is getting off the couch. If you can make a start at whatever you're doing, whether that be training for a marathon or working on your affiliate site, you'll probably find if you can do it for 5 minutes, the rest of the hour, and beyond, will not be all that difficult to keep going.

That's not all the good advice that got shared on that radio interview...

Next the conversation turned to cancer, the marathon runner said he was motivated to keep going with his running because his father died of cancer at the age of 53 and he wanted to keep healthy to live a long life.

He said "It's funny how, if someone was to put a gun to your head, and say you have 10 seconds to tell me why I shouldn't shoot you... you'd say something like: 'I'll give you my house, my car, my bank account, whatever you want'

Yet people don't seem to be able to keep motivated to make sure they don't die younger than they should through mistreatment of their body."

Wow, I thought, that's a really good point. It's so easy to continue living life as though there are no consequences, but there are. I could live 10 years longer, or even more, if I take care of myself now. That's 10 more years with my son and future children ... possibly even longer.

... I have that chance right now.

Ok I should mention before I carry on this post that cancer is not necessarily self inflicted, that's not the point in what I'm sharing about the marathon runner's story, but poor health, or difficult situations that people find themselves in are often self inflicted.

Here's another example from my own life... I'm not the grade I wished I was in Squash right now, that is self inflicted, I'm working my butt off right now, I have a coach, I train hard and I will get there ... but I do believe it is noone else's fault but mine for not being there right now. So I sure as heck am going to make sure I will be where I want to be within the next 2 years and possibly sooner.

Ok, how does this apply to making money online then?

The point is make the most of your life, make a commitment to your physical health, and your financial, relationship and mental health. Set a sustainable plan for yourself and stick to it, for good.

By sustainable I mean, if you think 5 hours a day is not sustainable in affiliate marketing, or 1 hour a day at the gym isn't sustainable as a fitness goal, then look at what you definitely can do. e.g. 30 mins a day on an exercise bike, or 1 hour a day at affiliate marketing (not counting reading emails or posting on forums, I mean taking action).

I hope you found this blog post inspiring, this really has been a bit of a brain dump and the english might not be my finest, but the sentiment is there. I'm interested in your comments!

All the best,

Mark Ling

p.s. You may also wish to check out Aletta's blog post from yesterday, she raises some interesting points in her final rant for a while :) Note: I don't agree with the headline as such, I think it should have read something like "Why it's not wise to assume all your visitors are operating at full capacity" or something like that, but anyway, the actual article itself had a lot of good points.