Success – How Long Does It Take To Achieve?
How Long Does It Take To Achieve Success?
This is a very common question. Especially for those people who have either just started their online business. Or, maybe they have had an online business for a while and are still struggling to achieve the success that they desire.
A big problem comes in when people start comparing themselves to others. This is very easy to do because if you are on social media at all there are tons of images posted of people who say that they are successful.
Just because it is posted online does not mean that it is true.
Success Online Is Fast - 2 Parts
Part One: You Can Achieve Success Quickly
Malcolm Gladwell in his book called "The Outliers" stated that it take 10,000 hours of practice to become good at that activity. So...apply this to your online business. If you work your business for 40hours/week. It will take you at least five years to master the skills needed for your business.
In reality most people do not work their online business 40hours/week. The most common method is to build your online business on the side. This means that maybe you are putting in 10-hours per week. At this rate it would take you 20 years to achieve success. Do you love what you are doing enough to keep going for 20 years?
Ok, lets double down and you are really motivated. You put in 20-hours a week. You are putting in lots of time on the weekend and getting up early to get a couple of hours in before you start your day job. If you follow the formula you are looking at 10 years of effort.
This is one reason why it is so important to pick a topic/niche that you love.
What You Don't See
When you see those posts on social media showing someones' success, what you don't see and what they don't tell you is how many years it took for that success to happen.
Before I got into affiliate marketing I was really into network marketing. One of the things that I noticed is all of the people at the top earning the big bucks would all talk about how great the program was and how easy it was to earn. I can't tell you how many times I heard: All you need to do is...
What they don't tell you is all of the companies they were in that they were not successful. They were learning the skill that transfered over to the current company. When I took a moment and really looked at the experience of those at the the top...they all had 5 -10 years experience with other companies. For many of them they were an "overnight success" in the current company but their journey was 10 years long with other companies.
So when you do see those posts...take a moment to realize that that person has probably been learning the skills for a long time.
The people that experience quick success usually have experience in marketing, SEO, sales or other jobs where the skills can transfer over easily.
I guess my point of this: don't get discouraged if you do not see success in your business right away.
If you continue to take action towards your goals you will succeed.
Og Mandino says:
...the only difference between those who have failed and those that have succeeded lies in the difference of their habits. Good habits are the key to all success. Bad habits are the unlocked door to failure.
I came across a book that has really helped me out. Click the image to check it out.
Part Two: You Can Achieve Success With 20 Min/Day
I don't know about you...but I have never been able to do the tasks in 20min/day. In fact most times it takes more than 1 hour/day. Most of the training programs I have taken never really talk about how long each task takes.
If I create a YouTube video then there is the research, there is the outline or presentation creation, there may be a lot of takes depending on how tongue-tied I get, there is editing the video, uploading the video. For me uploading to YouTube takes a long time. I have resorted to uploading my videos at night while I am sleeping so it doesn't bog down my computer while I am trying to get things done.
So just for one video I may be looking at 4-6 hours.
What has really helped me is to break down the tasks and spread them out during the week. This way I do not get overwhelmed. I have created a schedule that I follow.