Fly on the E-Commerce Cyberwall

Surviving the Long Haul
A funny thing happens when working on your business gets repetitive. I'm going through it right now as I do a massive redoing of a client's site.

I took on the assignment freely and willingly. I looked forward to seeing a large increase in my client's sales as I improve his conversion rate. And although the assignment is still in its early stages, I'm pleased with the direction it's going.

The funny thing that happens, though, is that somewhere along the way, what I WANTED to do becomes something I feel OBLIGATED to do. It starts to feel like an external force is compelling me against my will to do the work.

And there's nothing more energy sapping than to feel like you're doing something you don't want to do.

Like I said before, I eagerly took on this challenge. So why does it now feel like a burden?

The reason it is does is because of loss of perspective. The opportunity to make a big difference in my client's conversion rate excited me. But the path to that destination requires that I fix a lot of little details along the way.

It's easy to get so caught up in the details that I can lose sight of the goal. So how do I get past that unfortunate mind shift?

I stop looking at those details as mind-deadening tasks imposed some external force. I look at them instead as means to an exciting end that I have chosen. I check off each task I do and pat myself on the back each time I get one more step closer to my goal.

All of us face the same problem in our business at one time or another. The path to business success takes us through a lot of details that we'd much rather not do.

But the more you keep those details in perspective, as steps that bring you to the goal YOU have chosen, the more you'll keep your energy level up and the less you'll fall victim to procrastination.
Jeff