Mental Toughness to the Rescue

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One of the stiffer tests affiliate marketing newbies face is the fear of the unknown. That negative mental loop that keeps on repeating your unfitness to dabble in affiliate marketing in your ears is distracting, to say the least. Some newbies are able to holler back at it and carry on, others become weakened and fall off the cliff right from the get-go.

What you need is mental toughness.

What is Mental Toughness?

Mental toughness involves training and preparing yourself to be mentally ready for whatever challenges come your way. It allows you to push beyond your failures and self-imposed limitations by remaining positive and competitive in the face of daunting odds. When you are mentally ready for a challenge, you are not taken by surprise when it shows up. Rather, you embrace it and devise ways to overcome it.


When you are mentally tough, you do not mind repeating an assignment over and over again until you get it right. The repetition gives you mastery over the problem. You know it’s not a quick fix. You lay aside all the fake internet guru talk about money on auto-pilot in affiliate marketing. You are aware that any good thing takes time to materialize and so you are patient enough to wait and put in the work that will bring it about. That makes you invested in it for the long haul instead of giving up

How do you become mentally tough?

Some studies have established the fact that there is a genetic connection to mental toughness. It runs in people’s DNA. If your parents exhibit such a quality of toughness, there’s a good chance you will equally be mentally tough, but that aside mental toughness can be taught.

The Navy Seal has come up with a way to teach and develop mental toughness skills. One of their core lessons is to do the things you fear. When you do the things you are afraid of, you lose the fear. It’s like a child learning to walk. When he is able to summon the courage and take that first, faltering step, he loses the fear of walking. When he falls down, he gets up and takes another step because he is no longer afraid of learning to walk.


The same applies to you in your online marketing journey. You are bound to hit a snag in the road. You don’t just sit down wallowing in self-pity. Like the child who has learned how to stand up and take a few faltering steps, you reach out to the community for help.

Another Navy Seal mental toughness lesson that resonates with me is "Be the Pig, not the Chicken" It deals with the level of commitment to a project or cause. In the eggs with bacon dish, the pig is all in. He is so involved that he gave up his life for the project. Are you like the pig or the chicken in this affiliate marketing thing? You can’t afford to be half in and half out. You can’t be one foot in and one foot out. You can’t sit on the fence in this; you can’t straddle it. You just got to be all in!

To provide the bacon, the pig had to lose its belly and parts of its back. The chicken merely provides eggs that come naturally to it. The pig is the mentally tough of the two because he had to sacrifice his life for the dish. That's the extent of his contribution.

Why do we need Mental Toughness?

In this day and age when Mental health disease has reached epidemic proportions, mentally tough people show better stress management and are less prone to mental health issues because they always go looking for the silver lining in tough situations

When the pessimist says, "The cup is only half empty". The mentally tough says, " But it is half full."

Mentally tough people are not fazed by setbacks, complications, unintended side effects, and complete failures. They are able to mitigate the damage, learn the lessons that will help them in the future, and move on. As a result, they do not rush things to completion before their time and see everything as a work in progress.

A mentally tough person feels good about himself and refuses to be overwhelmed by emotions of fear, anger, jealousy, guilt, and anxiety.

They feel comfortable in their own skin and with other people. They are able to have lasting and satisfying personal relationships. They become team players ready to collaborate with other team members working on a project

Being mentally tough can spell the difference between success and failure in affiliate marketing.

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Recent Comments

14

Dadaz,
This is an excellent article with many points that I find relevant and helpful. I love the advice about doing things we fear to get over that trepidation of not knowing the outcome. I do try to face fear head-on but am not always successful. I guess I am a work in progress! Thanks for sharing.

Erlene

You are so kind, Erlene! Take consolation in the fact that we are all a work in progress. You are not alone, my friend.

We can be hard on ourselves, but I am trying to be kind to myself as I learn. Thanks for a great article.
Erlene

You are welcome, Erlene.

A great read Dada!

Being mentally tough and having the ability to get through any negative situations we are presented with will not only help us in our online businesses but in all aspects of life!

Have a great week my friend!

Thank you so much for your kind words. Mental toughness is applicable in any sphere of human endeavor.

It is indeed my friend!

You are welcome

I've heard that Pig and Chicken analogy before, Dada.

True - the pig is full committed. But the chicken could be fully committed too and can give a lot more than eggs (leg, thigh, breast, nuggets, chicken soup, etc) but chooses to be content in only providing a couple of eggs. Just enough to get by.

Appreciate the motivating post
Isaiah 😊

You are so right, Isaiah. In collaborations and partnerships, you find colleagues who are ready to give their all and others who merely participate in the project.

Nicely written and so true. My Dad use to say he was tough #skinned, same thing, he was not fazed by anything.
I guess I inherited it, lol.
Or maybe I just don’t give a “ rats”
Stephen

Steph, you have your Dad's DNA and as a result, you are tough-skinned too!
Thanks for your kind comment.

Dada, well said...

We all fight with the negative side of the brain and for many that side is just too powerful.

Mind you, affiliate marketing whilst still a very popular business model is getting more and more difficult to succeed in.

Cheers
Mick

Thank you, Mick, for stopping by and leaving a comment. Heavy lifters have made the affiliate marketing field uneven and a little difficult to penetrate.

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