Don’t Let Impatience Drag You Down

I should probably follow my own advice more often.

Here’s the deal: I’m a very impatient person. It’s been a problem of mine my entire life. It affects both my personal and professional life. I have a hard time at keeping it going if I don’t see immediate results. I’ve come a long way, but I still have a tendency of giving up on things if I don’t see immediate resluts. It’s even harder to fight this when there’s been a few times when my expectations have been met. Unconsciously it makes my brain think something like “See! It can happen! You don’t have to waste your time on things that don’t work right away!” I’m convinced it’s not the right approach. And I’m doing my best to overcome it.

But I won’t waste your time on my own personality issues. The reason I mentioned this is that me giving up on things it’s not the only result of my impatience. Before I give up I waste a lot of time on checking my results rather than working at the issue.

Take this blog for example. Many of you might be asking yourselves how can such a new blog (I started it in December ‘06, which is actually the reason it seems as if I lack a personal style - I’m still working on getting the right combination) have a PR4 (the toolbar sometimes shows 2, but when checking other resources it’s a general PR4). The reason for this is that the domain name is about 3 years old. The same for the actual site itself. I made it a blog back in December. However, my point is that due to my impatience towards results I’ve never really worked continuously on it. It’s been on and off. It even changed it’s theme a couple of times. As for the PR, I managed to build a few incoming links (through link exchanges, article submissions) which together with its age (which as far as I know counts towards a PR) brings my blog where it is. However, this time I made a promise to myself that I’ll keep on going no matter what (wish me good luck).

It could have been great from the very beginning. However, instead of spending time on building content and incoming links, I dedicated myself too much to useless tasks. Such as: checking my traffic stats every half hour; checking my AdSense and other affiliate accounts a couple of times a day; when initiating an e-mail discussion with another webmaster/blogger, checking my inbox a few good times a day to see if I’ve gotten a reply and many others.

As a matter of fact, every now and then I still act like that (stupid - you can say it ). I can even tell when some of my fellow regular visitors checked my site and as a result I rush to my WordPress admin to check for any possible comments. Let’s hear it again: stupid!

As I mentioned before, I’ve come a long way, but I’m still fighting it. I urge those of you who are only trying the waters at working at home: don’t do the same mistakes. It takes time! Instead of wasting that precious time on checking your stats (traffic, affiliate etc) or any other useless tasks spend it on building content and getting that traffic. You’ll thank me in the long run (I hope ).

One of the things that’s helping me right now is that I don’t think of this blog as a money making machine (couldn’t find better words). Instead I’m looking at it as my small internet corner where I write down my own thoughts, experiences, opinions etc. about the work at home world. If anybody finds it, very well. If not, well… Don’t make me think about it . I may not be always right. Nobody is. I may make mistakes. Please don’t hesitate to inform me of them. I will either correct myself or answer you with more reasons for my position.

Just had to get this off my mind. Seeing it written over here will, hopefully, help me (and why not you as well) in the battle against impatience.

Let’s wish each other good luck!

Posted in Learn from Others, Motivational, Piece of Advice |