Adopt a Bird Brain Mentality For Success [Productivity Hack]

byacebh

162 followers

Updated 6 years ago

As they say, affiliate marketing can be pretty overwhelming. Learning Wordpress & figuring out what plugins to use. SEO. Marketing. Optimizing Conversions. Analytics. Writing Skills. The list goes on and on. While you don't have to know EVERYTHING right away, you do have to find a way to stay focused and productive as much as possible to actually make any progress.

Adopting A "Bird Brain"

I hesitate to say we need to "adopt a bird brain", but it's kind of what NEEDS to happen when you start on this journey of affiliate marketing. We think we're smarter than a bird, but actually the birds have us beat (at least for the first leg of this journey).

Allow me to explain..

A bird has an natural instinct to help its species to survive. Part of that is building a nest and laying eggs. It's pre-programmed by nature for this activity and it's incredibly efficient at it.

• A bird doesn't doubt it can build a nest.
• A bird doesn't look at all the work it has to do and become overwhelmed.
• A bird doesn't stop what it's doing until the job is done.

Piece-by-piece a bird starts carrying twigs, grass, straw, mud or even random garbage it finds into a pile. It doesn't look like much, but the bird doesn't care one bit.

Eventually, there's enough material that the bird can weave some if it into something that begins resembling a nest.

All the while, the bird's not thinking "THIS IS TAKING FOREVER!!" or dreading the work yet to be done. It just keeps taking action. One piece at a time gathered. Then one piece at a time weaved into the nest.

With this consistent and never-stopping action, the nest is fully built. Mission accomplished.

Humans Aren't Birds, And It's A Darn Shame

One of the major differences between human beings and animals is we have a thinking brain. With a thinking brain comes emotions. Unfortunately, emotions can hinder taking action.

This is where it's a darn shame we can't flip a switch for a bit to put ourselves in "bird mode" and be free to just do our activities without even thinking. It would probably benefit some of us at times, to just switch off emotions completely and get something done.

Instead, we have to LEARN how to find a way to be less emotional about some activities and "just get something done".

Let me tell ya, it ain't easy being human!

We've were programmed from childhood by parents, by teachers, by life experience. And we continued programming ourselves as time went on in everything we've learned and experienced in life, everything we've told ourselves we can or can't do, all the relationships we've had, the successes and failures, the choices we've made.

And guess what? Some of that programming probably needs to change.

If you want to be successful in affliate marketing, or really with any skill that takes a while to develop, you've got to be able to tap into your inner "bird brain" and find a way to switch off some of the emotions or habits that aren't serving you well. And just TAKE ACTION.

Taking Action

Over and over again, you'll see people talking about taking action as a way to avoid feeling overwhelmed or to get "unstuck". Even dealing with other emotions in life that don't feel good.

Just do SOMETHING. Make some kind of forward progress. And you'll feel better.

Any ACTION is still progress.

Here's the thing. Taking action doesn't have to mean writing some massive blog post. Or figuring out everything there is to know about SEO in a day or a week even. You just have to take another step forward. It could be an inch, it could be a centimeter. It's still progress.

Remember the bird gathering twigs? It's not worrying about all of the "next pieces" it has to gather for the nest. Its only concern is to gather one more piece. One more, that's all. Then when it's brought it back to the nest, it'll worry about the next piece.

Success, Beyond Affiliate Marketing

This isn't just about affiliate marketing. It holds true to success in anything in life.

Want to exercise more consistently? Decide that ANY exercise is better than NO EXERCISE. You can pretty much guarantee that exercising for 15 minutes consistently multiple days a week is far better than inconsistently finding days to workout for 1-2 hours. Even going for a walk around the block one time is better than doing nothing at all.

Or how about cleaning off a messy desk? Forget that there's 100s of items on it. Just put away one item. Focus on one item. Then when that's put away, focus on another item. You can come back to it tomorrow and guess what? Progress was still made even if you only put away a single item.

Set The Bar At "Make Positive Progress"

We often set the bar too high for ourselves. Thinking we need to make MASSIVE progress every day, or "feeling" down when we don't see much progress.

There's that "thinking brain" again! Where's that "bird mode" switch when you need it??

Seriously. Who's judging any one of us? I've fallen into this trap enough times and I still struggle with it. I keep trying to direct my thoughts toward forward progress, any progress, but it's too easy to look at what success others have achieved and feel you'll never be there

We don't have to make HUGE progress each day. Just some more progress in a positive direction. Find that NEXT thing you can do. That's it. Just that next thing, and then like the bird, go gather that twig and bring it back to the nest. Only then worry about the next twig you need to gather. Before long, you'll have built your nest.

Do you have tips or techniques you've used to stay productive with your time or make forward progress each day? I'd love to hear about them!