Sometimes You Just Have To Grind

Today is Monday. On Mondays I send out an email to my email list. On Mondays I get all my drafts in queue ready to publish throughout the week. I've got a vet appointment for the dogs in an hour. Then I still have to cook. I have a meeting tonight as well.

Despite working from home, it's a busy day.

On top of all that, I try to stay true to a publishing schedule here inside Wealthy Affiliate, publishing 2-3 times per month. My last publish date was back in August. I should get something out today.

Sometimes, when there's work to be done, you just have to grind.

"Inspiration Is For Amateurs"

I think a lot of people have the impression that you have to be smart or skilled to make money, but in my experience, that's not really the case. Just showing up and getting the work done has been a mantra for many of the things I've accomplished in my life so far, and the same is true for building successful affiliate blogs.

One of my favorite ways to visualize this is that scene from one of the Kill Bill movies where Uma Thurman is learning the 3-inch punch. Her Sensei makes her punch the wood over and over and over again until her knuckles are sore and bleeding.

She repeats this process over and over again, without knowing what the end goal is. She is just supposed to trust the process. It seems like a waste of time to her, but what she doesn't realize is that the skill will come in handy later.

Later in the movie she gets buried alive in a coffin and the only way to get out is to punch her way through the wood. She only has enough room to perform this special punch she learned, and of course her knuckles are calloused and as hard as steel now.

It turns out, all that useless, aimless, practicing she did before was useful after all.

Getting Better Isn't Sexy

Sometimes, when it comes to the day to day grind of running a business, it can feel like you're just punching a piece of wood with no aim at all.

• Did I pick a good keyword?
• Am I writing this article right?
• Is my niche too competitive?
• Should I really be spending my time on this?
• What am I doing wrong?
• Why isn't my site ranking yet?

Fear, doubt, and frustration can keep in. It happens to all of us, even myself!

I keep thinking back to Uma Thurman punching that piece of wood, and I just keep grinding. Some days it does suck to be honest, but I'd rather be complaining at home with a up of coffee playign some vaporwave tunes than sitting in an office somewhere or digging a ditch.

It's Similar To Learning A New Language

When you learn a new language, the transformation of your understanding is amazing. On day one, it can seem like all the words run together. It's literally a foreign langauge to you. Nothing makes sense.

Then you can catch one word out of 20. Then you catch a few. Then you get the gist of a conversation. Then you can respond in single words. Then you can do some basic back and forth. Then you can talk to locals. Then you can improvise and understand context without knowing every single word in the conversation. Then you can understand more subtle differences between synonyms. And so on.

The transformation of understanding a language doesn't happen overnight, and you need to spend a lot of time listening to something you definitely do not understand to reach that point of catching your first word in a conversation.

The Path Has Been Blazed. Keep Following

The Wealthy Affiliate training has been proven over and over again during the past 15 years.

Some days, you may feel like what you're working on is useless, or that you're doing things wrong.

My advice is to keep moving forward. Keep grinding. This isn't some crazy new business model or invention where you aren't sure if it's going to work or not. It works. Affiliate marketing works. Buliding blogs works. Wealthy Affiliate works.