Resistance
Whenever you feel you cannot write more, resistance is there.
Whenever you feel your website sucks, resistance is right at your doorstep.
Whenever you feel you are crap at writing, get writers block, lose interest in your favourite hobby (niche?) and feel that you have wasted money on WA premium membership, because you didn't get any money with your sites, resistance is gone into you.
Resistance we come across all at some point or another.
If you didn't yet:
Bravo..
or should I say.. WATCH OUT! For it will hit you sometime...
Resistance Experience
I was at such a point not so long ago. I had a niche in the stress relieve sector. I saw no point in writing anymore. Couldn't find the energy to write. I was looking through Jaaxy Alphabet pages, in search for more content to write about. It wouldn't matter.
I just lost all confidence in the subject and niche.
The next moment I dropped the site entirely and started researching niches and possibilities and stuff on the WA platform.
The next moment an email came in from Amazon. They had rejected my application as I had not had any sales in the first 180 days. My attempt to 'falsify' a sale also had failed anyhow.
I was pretty much on the ground. I started regretting spending money that I got for Christmas and birthday on my premium membership and thought I had yet again wasted money.. yet again started a project I didn't finish.
This is the main problem with resistance.. and I have seen resistance a lot.
You start something - resistance hits you - you stop. Rinse and repeat.
What is Resistance
Resistance is an instinctual survival mechanism. Resistance goes into alarm mode any and every time you do something that raises anxiety. Nature has designed us to do stuff a certain way to survive, thrive and reproduce.
Resistance will move in every single time you start to really change. It is a universal problem - you are not alone!
If you think that this resistance is a form of weakness, you are wrong - it is actually a sign of strength.
It's extremely old. Stone age or older. A body guard thing inside us that pulls us back and away from what it perceives as danger.
If there was one thing Stone Age people didn't like, it was venturing into the unknown. Everything nearby, food, water, family and no danger around. Safety. The ones that sat down in safety became old enough to pass resistance onto their children and so forth. The ones that liked adventure did perhaps not raise many children.
The only goal of resistance is for you to stay in safety. Doing anything else but getting food or running away from a lion or tiger is a foolish waste of energy.
So doing exercises, following through a diet plan, keeping up with your yearly goals and writing stuff for your site is extremely hard. Resistance will fight you.
Let's continue my story
In my desperate ways of finding what I could do (oh and let's not forget that I lost my job in the meantime), I started looking up my old domains that I had registered long ago (years ago!, also resistance stopped projects). Found a couple and just started making sites for them and moved them over to WA.
Most of them might be too hard to start in though. Yes, they are hobbies, but they might not be the right type of niche to make money in. Hard to find enough content that scores well on jaaxy. etc.
Study
So when I finished that, I started watching video's of Jay and my WA-recruiter Nathaniell in search for a new niche. I than registered a couple of domains on the WA platform. They are still there and hanging around without function or site.
To reclaim my feeling for things I continued my courses of Kyle and completed the whole bunch of them.
New Site: Cat Habits
And I moved one more site to here of a domain I had on my registrar laying around and about. This last one is in the Cat's niche. We got lots of cats at home. Like seven. Four are ours, three are of the animal protection. My wife suggested me to go for that one. So I did. We do actually together.
This last one is driving me currently to do stuff. Hopefully I can monetize it someday. Currently we just write articles every day. That makes for 7 articles a week. Yes, they are quality articles of between 500-2000 words per article. Usually around a 1000. I have nearly no visitors still, but this started the 17th of April, so I won't complain yet.
I have not yet re-applied for amazon or CJ, for I want to have content and visitors to show before applying.
Conclusion
Yes, resistance is going to bite you in the ass if it hasn't already. Resistance is in our nature. All you need to know is how to continue.
The WA community is a great support in that, as is the learning platform!
If you feel some form of resistance, feel free to leave me a PM. Or just scream it out in any form of WA place: question, blog or chat.
Have fun working on your site!
Steven
p.s.: perhaps you recognized some of the stuff around resistance. I have books and follow one person that inspires me to do stuff I love in life and that is from Barbara Sher. This is not to commercialize anything, but for you to check out if you are interested. You can find her on YouTube and there are many books out there. I got a few of them and used one of them in this post to explain resistance.
Other interesting reads:
Battling Resistance Part One
Battling Resistance Part Two
Battling Resistance Part Three
Battling Resistance Part Four
Recent Comments
12
Lately, I've been setting aside an hour a day just to sit in front of my computer to work on my websites. I'm not too concerned with how much i get done as I am in sitting there an hour a day so I develop a habit after 30-60 days.
I've found that this has been working for me I'm makiing quite a bit of progress. Sometimes, I think to myself "WTF am i doing?" or that I'm not sure what to write about. Then I usually start looking at my website and past articles I've written and come with ideas. As I work i remember the ideas I had on previous days.
Hi Thomas Paul,
That is an excellent method of regaining your motivation and ideas for content writing.
The other thing you can do when you are re-reading your content is to look for possible internal linkings. Hmm.. here I mentioned something about X... let's write an article on that and then link from this page towards it.
Works very well. Thanks for your comment!
Steven
Yep, I've definitely been looking for keywords I can write articles around and link to. I've been keeping my ideas in an un-published blog post, I just have to remember to hit save and not "Publish" like I did yesterday, lol.
My other site is about feral cats. I haven't been doing much with that one lately. I may not keep it much longer because I will be moving in a few months...so I'm trying to get the cats caught and removed.
Thanks for your comment!
You have to find the niche you can write about easiest. Stuff that you know a lot about. If you can write content without research for the first 10 articles that come to mind, than you are on the right track.
Can you figure easily another 100 article topics, than you really got the right direction.
If you happen to be occupied daily with your niche in your personal life than even better.
I hope you bring the feral cats to a place or a person that can take care of them for you. They deserve a good home.
A local cat protection society can perhaps help you with catching them. We use a special designed cat trap that closes behind them when they have entered them and went for their treat (tuna fish).
Steven
Thanks Susan!
You too of course!
Helping each other is what will help out the most.
Just knowing the theory is just one thing, another is to get the motivation from others.. and when you got back on track, you got to pay it forward.. help others fight that same annoying resistance.
Thanks for your comment!
Steven
Resistance, procrastination, writer's block whatever it is it stifles productivity. Excellent post, Steven.
Thanks! And yes, there are many names for the same thing. But at least there is a reason for it. It's really really old and it lays in our genes/instinct.
And the great thing is there is ways to fight it and actually achieve what you are longing for! Do what you love! Live the life you love!
Steven
See more comments
You have to ignite yourself through it!!
Resistance disguises itself in all sorts of things. If you know how to identify resistance you will be able to fight it better.
Also, if you tackle resistance in small steps instead, there is a better chance of overcoming resistance. You cannot be too ambitious when resistance arrives on the horizon.
Next step is when you cannot beat resistance straight away, to join resistance. You are not failing, you are not a failure, but you made a choice to not do the thing you were going to do. You are in control and that will help your confidence.