Why Am I Not Successful And How To Change That Around.

byJohnVale

146 followers

3 years ago

Hello when and wherever you are.

Today I want to talk about some reasons why I, myself, am not currently successful and then some ways to change those reasons into actionable steps.

Why Am I Not Successful?

If you listen to certain Youtube channels and podcasts, you will hear them talk about the fact that having the 'right mindset' is what you need to be successful. You need a growth mindset if you want to scale your business. etc. etc. Really? Is that all you need?

I doubt it

I have a mind, it's set on making my future life as pleasant and worry-free as possible; but I'm still struggling so mindset, for me, it is not.

What about a Positive Mental Attitude? This is more likely, I mean, I'm not a cheer-leading, you go get 'em type of guy - it's just not my nature. I'm a 'steps' kind of guy. Someone who wants to hit every tread on the staircase foot by foot, step-by-step. This is my main reason for joining WA, it has a step-by-step way to achieve success. But is that it?

I don't think so.

So, what is holding me back? Well, I found this list of 6 reasons why that kind of resonated with me and I'd like to list them below:

Reasons For Not Being Successful

1. Having a LACK OF FOCUS: This is definitely one of my unsuccessful traits. I can start on a blog and create all the pages, categories, images, and headers and then I'll see something else another shiny, glittery object and say to myself "This is what I need to do"and I start again, then jump again - I don't have that focus I need to see a project through to the end. This is definitely something I need to change:
   
2. Having a LACK OF DIRECT MEASURABLE ACTION: On previous websites I have written, I have been guilty of just writing content for the sake of writing content. I just wanted to populate the space, fill the whiteness. I never took the time and effort to say to myself "What do I need the visitors to do with this post?" I had no target in mind, nothing measurable, so I never knew what worked and what didn't. Again, another change that needs to be done
   
3. Having a LACK OF DECISION-MAKING: Yup, again, this is definitely me. I am scared to make a decision about the direction, niche, topic I'm working on. What if it doesn't work, goes wrong, fails, stirs up controversy? What if this, what if that. If I can't make a decision then I have no right to call myself a businessman, I may as well go back to my cubicle, fill in the checkboxes and mark time till I get that retirement clock. Get a *?@#! grip, man!
4. Having a LACK OF CONSISTENCY: These reasons just compound on each other; yes, I am inconsistent due to reasons 1 through to 3
5. Having a LACK OF WILLINGNESS TO FAIL: I'm certainly no Edison and his famous 10,000 failures (I think it was 10,000, it was certainly large) and yes, I am scared to fail; but that's business, not everything we do is a success straight off the bat. Babe Ruth didn't hit a home run on every strike! Become willing and use it as a springboard to a win.
6. Having a LACK OF CONCENTRATION: Oh yes, this is another biggie. We live in an era of tik-tok videos, youtube shorts and push notifications. We want instant gratification, we want precooked food delivered to our door ready to just eat. We no longer need to concentrate, do we? Yes, of course we do, if we can't concentrate on something for 1, 2 even 3 hours, we're just not spending enough time to get it to work successfully. Another check mark for this; in fact the whole list needs a big ol' checkmark:

So, I've discovered where my shortfalls lie, now how do I change those around and ensure, as much as I possibly can, that my blog will be as a successful as possible? Are there steps I can take, in my plodding way, that lead me to where I need to be?

Yes, I think there are and here's my list of them:

How To Become Successful

First of all let me disclaim the above heading. I offer no guarantee or implication of success if you follow the steps below. I don't know you, your niche or your work ethic. Nothing in life is guaranteed except death. Taxes can be worked around if you have the right accountant :)

So, having disclaimed that; here are 6 steps to take to improve your chances, lets say:

Step 1: Choose a niche you like.

Now, I don't think you need to be passionate about your niche choice but you do need to have an interest in and a willingness to find out more about it. Remember, this could well be your money-maker for the next few years; so it's worth being present in a niche you enjoy.

Step 2: Are enough people interested in your choice of niche

If your choice of niche has a magazine that is dedicated to it, or there are independent, boutique shops in locations around your niche topic or there are youtube channels dedicated to it that have in excess of 100,000 subscribers; then there is enough people interested in your niche for you to go ahead. If there isn't at least one of the above criteria in place then there are other options we can look at but I'll be looking at that in my follow-up post.

Step 3: Is it an 'evergreen' topic

An evergreen topic is one that has a consistent interest and search volume over time. The Atkins Diet was a popular regime a while back but it's now faded away but the topic of 'how to lose weight' will always be in demand as people will want to look their best. So, will your choice of niche be valid next year, next decade, next century?

Step 4: Is it a topic or a product?

If your niche choice is all about baseball bats then you've kinda stuck yourself with doing reviews of the different baseball bats available; if, however, you change your angle to 'how to handle a curveball' or 'how to improve your home run rate' then you can open yourself up to a lot more topics to post about and not 'just' reviews.

Step 5: Assessing your competition

Discovering your competition can be difficult, Yes, you can do a few searches and say you have 20 blogs on this topic in the search engine results but there are 1,000s of search terms out there that these big sites/blogs don't touch, or haven't found yet. However, there are a few niches that we, as brand new bloggers, could do with staying away from, simply because of the sites alrady out there and they are:

• Fitness, nutrition and health-based sites. Unless you have a lot of time and/or a lot of money; you will find it extremely difficult to rank your posts on the 1st page for any of these niches.
• Recipes. Recipes are now almost a commodity on Google and the big sites such as Allrecipes and Good Food are present in even the most niche of recipes.
• Personal finance. Another huge topic but again with huge companies with very, very deep pockets and lots of cubicle-dwellers working the niche; we will just never get traction here.
• Self-help/motivation sites - the problem with these sites is that are very subjective and extremely popular. One man's gander may not be another man's goose because it all depends. Most people do not operate the same way, think the same way or respond i the same way.

Step 6: Monetization

We are here because we want to make money for ourselves, our family and our futures so having a niche that is monetizable is paramount to our success. Now most niches will be able to support ads as a form of monetization but it's a good idea to have at least 2 methods of monetization so that all of our eggs aren't in 1 basket.

Other forms of monetization are affiliate products (as we are taught here in WA) and information products such as guides, how tos, printables etc.

Conclusion

So, I've laid out 6 reasons why I am currently not a success and 6 steps that I can take to ensure that my future is as successful as possible. But do they work? Well, in Part 2 of this post, I'll be running an idea through the 6 success steps to see if it is a niche with any kind of validity. I'll put a link to it here once it has been published.

Thanks for reading