Internet Marketer Michael Rasmussen has some holiday advice for me.
It’s not the many advice that we getting right now.
Therefore, I feel that it’s good that I share it with you…

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“I’m sure you’ve seen the typical advice that seems to crush your email inbox every year at about this time.

That advice usually starts with something like, “You need to buy this to succeed….”

Well, no.

I’m not saying you should ignore every great deal you come across this holiday season, but I am saying you should use your head.

And I strongly recommend keeping your wallet in your pocket for a little while.

Instead, give yourself a gift most people who are trying to make an income online never do.

The gift you should give yourself this holiday season is the gift of honesty.

This might make you uncomfortable, but it’s well worth feeling that way for a just a little while.
The results can be phenomenal.

When I say honesty, I mean you need to be honest with yourself about your Internet business.

It’s easy to fool ourselves.
I’ve done it, and I’m sure you have too.
It’s part of being human.

But if you ever want to succeed, you need to tell yourself the whole truth and nothing but the truth, in three areas…

First, review your business in the year that’s coming to a close.

Ask yourself how you did, whether you accomplished your goals or not and where you fell short.

Most people reach the end of each year and find themselves completely confused about why they’re where they are.
It’s almost like they weren’t paying attention for the past twelve months!

The easier explanation is that they’ve simply been busy, usually too busy to assess much of anything.

I can remember years ago being so distracted by the end of the year that I had no idea why I was doing what I was doing.
It was like I was running on autopilot.

That’s a common reality for Internet marketers.
It seems like there’s always a launch of this or that “vital” product, and time is always short.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from mentors in my business is that you just can’t succeed if you’re constantly busy.
You must take some time to work ON your business instead of working IN it all the time.

Take advantage of the traditional retail “lull” time between Christmas and New Years to take a serious look at what happened in the past year.

Second, assess WHY you got the results you did.

This is a little harder than simply reviewing what happened, but it’s even more important.

Ask yourself WHY you didn’t accomplish the things you failed to accomplish, and ask yourself why the stuff that succeeded actually worked.
It’s important to do both.

The first part helps you see what you still need to learn.
The second one helps you see what you already DID learn…
because it worked!

Let’s start with the things that didn’t work out like you had hoped they would.

This isn’t about judging yourself too harshly or tearing yourself down.
I’m not suggesting that you get extremely negative about yourself here.

What I’m saying is, pull no punches.

You have just reviewed the results for the year.
Now that you know the unvarnished truth about how things turned out, try to figure out why things went like they did.

You’ll probably find one of three causes:

1) You made a mistake of some kind.
Hey, we all do it.
Figure out what mistake you made, and what you should learn from it.

2) You didn’t follow through.
This is an easy trap to fall into.
You might see that you started the year with the idea that you were going to do a certain project…
and by the middle of the year, you had forgotten about it and dropped it.

3) Something stood in your way.
This could be an external factor, like a family crisis, or an internal one, like…
(this is where you’ll need some more honesty, in a very deep way).

If you started out with a good plan, but it seemed like you hit a brick wall for no good reason, it’s time to look inside yourself.

Maybe you feared failure.
That’s common, and it can be a killer.

Maybe you thought you actually didn’t deserve to succeed.
That’s also common, and it holds a lot of people back because they unconsciously sabotage their own
success (yes, it happens).

You need to dig into yourself and resist the urge to blame every failure or shortcoming on something else. Sometimes it’s YOU.

But what about the stuff that went well?
That’s the fun part, because it’s where you get to distill the lessons that helped you achieve REAL success during the year.

Analyze what worked and try to determine why it did.

Maybe you took a different approach than you had before, and it worked like a charm.

Maybe you got some help you didn’t get before, and it gave you extra boost you needed.

Maybe you learned a new skill that you didn’t have before, and it gave you a new advantage.

Once you have an idea about why the success happened (and guessing is fine, by the way), try to determine what lessons you can extract from it and apply to future projects.

Third, you need to be honest enough with yourself to realize that you might have some blind spots.

Recruit a trusted friend to help you see those!

Tell him or her that you want some help figuring out why the things that succeeded worked, and why the things that didn’t, didn’t.

Ask for real constructive feedback, even if it’s embarrassing or hurts a little.

Remember, your future success is riding on your ability to be honest with yourself, so be willing to take a risk when it comes to self-assessment.

And don’t think this is only an annual thing.
You can do this kind of self-assessment multiple times during the year, ideally after every project wraps
up.
That can keep you locked onto your success targets.

Just last year I found myself feeling like I was drowning.
I was crushingly busy.
It felt like I couldn’t breathe.

Because I’ve spent years doing this, and I’ve regularly been honest with myself annually about my business, I recognized the danger signs.

At that point, I took a step back so I could see what was going on and why.

What I saw was that I had slipped into the “busyness” trap again in a serious way.
I was so distracted by short-term commitments that I had lost sight of my plans for building my business for the long term.

So I was brutally honest with myself, and then I was honest with my partners.
I told them I was scaling back to get center myself and get back on the right road.

I got LOTS of email from folks telling me how inspirational that was…
because they were making the same mistake.

Like I said, this kind of honesty isn’t something most people ever engage in.
I think it’s why lots of people never succeed at all, or don’t succeed to the level they could.

If you’re honest with yourself, you’ll boost your chances.

So take some time before this year ends to be honest with yourself.
And next time I’ll tell you what steps to take to make next year a blowout success for you.”
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Happy New Year and to your success!

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