Is Avoiding Pain Costing You Success Online?
Internet marketing success is usually a result of learning and applying new skills. After all, our schools do not teach online marketing strategies like keyword research, how to use pay-per-click advertising, and how to set up an autoresponder.
Learning new skills is an uncomfortable situation for many people. When faced with discomfort or pain, a natural reaction is avoidance.
Avoiding pain can be good, such as keeping your hand out of a fire, and it can be bad, as in the case where you are unwilling to experience short term pain for long term gain.
Regarding avoidance of pain, read this amazing story below:
What Avoiding Pain Cost the Emperor Moth
A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth. He took it home so that he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon.
On the day, a small opening appeared. He sat and watched the moth for several hours, just watching as the moth struggled to force its body through that little hole.
Then it seemed to stop making progress. It appeared to have gotten as far as it could. It just seemed stuck.
Then the man, in his kindness, decided to help the moth. So he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The moth then emerged easily, but it had a swollen body and small shrivelled wings.
The man continued to watch. He expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and open out to be able to support the body. Neither happened! The little moth spent the rest of its life crawlingaround with a swollen body and shrivelled wings. It never was able to fly.
What the man, in his kindness and haste, didn't understand was this: in order for the moth to fly, it needed to experience the restricting cocoon and the painful struggle as it emerged through the tiny opening.
This was a necessary part of a process to force fluid from the body and into the wings so that the moth would be ready for flight once it achieved freedom from the cocoon.
Freedom and flight would only come after allowing painful struggle. By depriving the moth of struggle, the man deprived the moth of health.
The moral of the story: avoiding pain and discomfort in the short term can sometimes lead to problems in the long term. And sometimes you have to struggle is necessary to move forward.
Apply this to internet marketing by getting out of your comfort zone and trying to learn new skills and do something different.
Yes, it may be painful and involve sacrifices (like giving up watching a TV show), but it may be well worth the effort.
Remember: if it feels uncomfortable, it may be just the thing you need to be doing to create new success online.
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October 29th, 2009 at 9:58 pm
I used to be an Internet marketing Trainer for a couple of small companies and I found the same thing. People had the hardest time stepping out of their comfort zone and struggling to learn new things.
JIm Clary´s last blog ..Internet Marketing And The Role Of Email Marketing