Aaaargh! I feel like I'm going crazy!

As someone who has a chronic motivation problem, I know how you feel

What I think helps is to start a workout routine, if you don't already have one. Or switch to a new one. For me, getting hyped up from working out really helps me to get motivated. Of course, I don't always keep the workout routine, but it does help while I am on it

I really agree about IM being mostly a mental game. What gave me strength to follow through was a lot of reading and realizing that IM is not just a job.

It's a business and you have to treat it like that. Forget that you're home. Would you be treating a business like this?

I also learned a lot from Jimmy Brown. He talked about how much he ideally wanted to earn in a year and then he calculated how much he would be earning per hour. Let's say you calculate that a hour is about $108 worth to you, would you be letting it slip away like this?

The reason why you started out in IM is because you wanted to have more life. Maybe you just wanted to spend more time with your love ones, or just wanna earn several more bucks per month to buy gifts for your wife etc.

Too me, it seems that your "WHY" is not strong enough - maybe you should consider Donald Trump famous quote: "THINK BIG". You need to really think big here! Because everytime when you have a strong enough "WHY" the "HOW to-do-it" will eventually come.

Think it this way: If you were to complete a 24km marathon tomorrow I will give you USD$5,000,000 in straight cash guaranteed .. Now, would you run to complete this race even though you hate running so much? - Sorry, just an example!!!

Instead of just thinking of having more time with your loved ones - think BIG like:

1) I would never want to spend another hour working in a job that doesn't bring me anywhere.

2) I want to spend the entire whole day with my family, kids, friends etc etc. and spending the remaining time to do things which I truly enjoy doing.

3) I never want to work so hard just to pay so much in taxes, it's time for me to create and build my wealth online and earn the lowest taxed income ever: passive income.

Instead of just thinking of buying your wife a small gift, THINK BIG again:

1) I want to buy a dream-home for both of us to live in.

2) I want to make my wife proud and happy by always being there for her, especially during times when she need me the most - COMPLETE FREEDOM

3) I want to bring my family to a very memorable, luxurious and super amazing holiday

Above mention are just examples.. You'll have to do some soul-searching and ask yourself a very important + critical question: Why do you want to build an online business - Is it merely to earn $20 per month?

Now, I'll leave you to change that answer.

Happy New Year 2012 btw - I hope you do add in "Retire young and retire rich" in your new year resolution..

**Life is NEVER about working hard in a job simply for the money**

May God be with you always,
Jeremiah

P.S. Life is about LOVING, sharing, giving

Procrastination, motivation, etc., it all persists due to not having that fire under you behind. Think about what it will be like when you are 90 years old....you're going to wish you had these moments back.

An exercise that helps me through this is to get a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle.

On one side I write down all the pleasure I get from not following through.

On the other side I write down all the pain that will be caused from not following through.

When I look at the two the pain that will come from not following through is so great that I regain my motivation and get right back on track.

Good idea, killerstar. Another thing you can do is treat it like a game. Set a goal, such as: you will spend 1 hr backlinking and improving your site today. Do that before you do something else you really want to do for fun, and let the fun thing be your 'reward' for doing your work. You will feel rewarded anyway, just for doing the work. I too am a master procrastinator but feel so much better when I decide ahead of time that I will do x,y and z and then actually do them -- even if it's just spending ten mins on a project.

Write down what you are doing everyday. Put the date and what you did specifically. Keep this log running for your site.

Now write down must be done, in the long term. Refer to your long term goals, then make another list of shorter term things you can do right now.

Its funny, once you start seeing your log stack up and start striking down some of those long term goals, it will motivate you to keep going!

Great responses everyone. This is why I love being a warrior.
I would love to be able to afford outsourcing the backlinking bit. Not quite there yet.

The concept of outsourcing a tedious task is a good one.
This will give you more time to be more productive in areas
that you have less of a problem in tackling. But don't put
all your IM eggs in one website basket. It's best to diversify
into multiple streams of income and to replicate those that
prove successful.

It''ll always feel so bad starting off. But once you start making money, well, it snowballs.

agree... do the tasks that excite you and outsource the rest. fiver is a good site for the mundane mind-numbing stuff you don't like to do. And yeah, write down your weekly goal on sunday. Then split all those up for each day of the week.

Then work 50 min..take 10 min break....then 50 min...repeat. On the 10 min break stay away from computer.

IM is daunting not like in the old days when it was only a matter of getting your meta tags and keywords right. Oh...those where the days. Anyway, for me...I just take tons of breaks. I keep an idea journal so I never lose sight of how much work I really have and seeing the new ideas on paper, keeps me highly motivated. I can just see it come to life when I read it and it gets me so excited!

I don't blame you for not being motivated to do manual backlinking. Just doing it manually over and over again would test most warriors. If it's backlinking you want to do, I'd see if you could outsource some of it and you won't feel like it's such a uphill struggle. But maybe backlinking isn't for you right now? Maybe you should start with something else that you'll enjoy whether that be cpa, facebook etc. Master one of them, make some money and then use that money to outsource and buy back linking tools. Best of luck.

The concept of outsourcing a tedious task is a good one.
This will give you more time to be more productive in areas
that you have less of a problem in tackling. But don't put
all your IM eggs in one website basket. It's best to diversify
into multiple streams of income and to replicate those that
prove successful.

I feel your pain Dan. I really do.

I would definitly consider outsourcing for back linking. It really is one of the most tedious tasks in IM and pretty much anyone can do it.

Or I would look at ways of creating back links which are more creative such as video marketing or article syndication which will also drive traffic to your site.

Don't let distractions waste your time I beg you...I'd love to get back the year in IM I wasted shiny object-chasing. Focus is your friend