Discouragement is natural--all of us can succumb to it as often as we let it. But winners refuse to let discouragement call the shots. They push past it, move ahead with determination, and keep pushing toward the goal. Admit it---some of us need more of a "fighting spirit." The enemy is discouragement, and as we constantly fight against it we'll keep ourselves--not discouragement--in the driver's seat. That's where we always belong, right?

Long ago I found the secret of writing about something I don't initially know a whole lot about. I read, read, read information about the topic until I'm somewhat saturated with it. Then from the overflow of my brain the words will then come much more easily when I sit down to write out the topic.When you're "full" of your topic, it will be much, much easier to talk or write about it. It's a simple concept but extremely effective.

I'm still a full-time public school teacher (I've been off a few weeks following heart surgery), and one of the pieces of advice I often give less-than-motivated students is "Fight the urge to do nothing!" If left to our natural inclinations, many people will simply sit back and do---you guessed it--nothing! We have to do serious battle against that urge and proactively get with the program and make ourselves be productive every day. It's not always easy, but the rewards are great.

Distractions, distractions, distractions! The very fact that our WA work is done on the Internet primarily leads to a multitude of potential distractions. How often do you "take a break" from your WA work to surf the Internet? I regret to admit that I do it a LOT! Let's face it---there's no way to deal effectively with such distractions without a healthy dose of self-discipline.Decide you're doing to sit down and work only on our website, training, feedback, etc. for a certain amount of time. I

Wow---it really pays to persevere in this business! I've been at this for a little over two months now, and there have been times, I'll have to admit, when I got somewhat discouraged over some things I couldn't figure out. But never fear---I posted my questions, and each time one or more people came to my rescue to help me out. My biggest challenges have revolved around parts of Word Press that I had trouble learning to work, but without exception I got the help I needed from other WA members.