The power of being wrong
I spent the best part of last year learning about affiliate marketing by reading, and working through two different online courses.
I also learnt by taking action, and making a big mistake. Then taking more action and making a smaller mistake. Then taking more action and getting some success.
I probably had to do it that way.
The power of being wrong
Adults feel embarrassed when they make mistakes. It's as if we are supposed to know everything already, and we get to hear about our mistakes from people who don't take massive action themselves.
But kids of a certain age don't seem to mind making mistakes. They learn and progress rapidly. Until they get to that self conscious age when they start to feel a bit embarrassed and ashamed of 'getting it wrong'.
So to really progress we need to let go of the fear of being 'wrong'. Its OK to be wrong when we can accept an error so that we can do it better next time.
That’s not the same as saying it's good to be wrong, so go ahead and do something you know is dumb. That's just dumb.
If your heart is in the right place, if your intention is clear, if your long term goal is deeply valued by you, then your mistakes along the way will simply be 'great feedback'. This is how we learn.
The key to making it right
This is key though. What are your intentions? Sometimes deep down we can intend to fail, because we have unhelpful belief systems that need to be challenged. But first they need to be seen.
Sometimes as children we can make something mean more than it should. We can get confused about why something has happened and weave an imaginative answer to one of life's riddles, or give meaning to a random accident. These sometimes develop into unhelpful belief systems.
One of the most common unhelpful belief systems is, "I must not be wrong, or be seen to be wrong", "I have to be good enough" or even "I have to be the best". If we can't be wrong or if we can't make a mistake, then we also can't ask for help, try something new, or tolerate risk.
With that in our minds, how do we improve or develop, or even take action in the first place?
How taking action has helped me
I wrote this section first under the heading of "How being wrong has helped me", listing my mistakes and what I'd learnt. Then I realised that was just a waste of time and focussing on entirely the wrong thing!
So instead I will list my success thus far because the focus of this post is the power of being wrong, and what it enables us to achieve. Namely taking ACTION. So here is the result of my action.
I am each month listing my progress for the sake of new people here. When I started here the most helpful thing was seeing the honest recording of other people's journeys. That gave me an indication of what was involved and what action I needed to take and how the results could pan out.
I will slot in a disclaimer here and say that everyone's journey is different, but by sharing our journeys we can educate each other and ourselves as to how this kind of online business goes.
Content:
- 38 Blog posts so far (just under a quarter of them have an affiliate link in them)
- 6 videos
Affiliate income:
- Amazon now at £6.14, image below - if anyone has any observations here, does it look healthy and normal for this stage?
- Have now got affiliate accounts with Foyles and one product through PayKickstart
Traffic:
Still have not delved into all the information I can get out of Google Analytics, as I want to concentrate of building content primarily for a while. Bing services are not available today for some reason so I have to leave them out.
So in the spirit of taking action and being open to feedback on what I could be doing better - I am very happy with where I am and how its going, but would anyone like to offer me some feedback on progress thus far?
Where do I need to improve? (Appart from keeping up the content on all channels).
The power of being wrong is in being open to feedback!
Thank you for your time.
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