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Webmaster Failure: One Webmaster's
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I remember reading a book on Judo a long time ago. It advised that to be
a good martial arts practitioner one must learn how to fall. It made a
lot of sense since if a person is trying to learn Judo and doesn't learn
to minimize one's fall, great injury is probably bound to happen. As a
small online entrepreneur, I wasn't aware at the time that this same wise
advice can also apply to running your own online business. In order to
be a good businessperson, you have to learn how to fail.
Failure is endemic in everything we do. The world is uncertain and many
of the best laid plans don't always bear fruit. At best, many of them do
not bear the kind of fruit we expected. People should expect
disappointments and obstacles since they are part of life. However,
expecting obstacles and being ready to learn from them are very
different from expecting to fail and giving up. The ability to fail "the
right way" goes a long way in helping us avoid the number one enemy of
success in the real world--quitting. Quitting is the sure fire way to
lose at anything. You have effectively stopped the clock. Game over. By
learning to fail "the right way" we try to plant the seeds of success
borne by learning from our failures.
I don't claim to be a super success in what I do but I have learned a
couple of things along the way. Hopefully, you'll find them useful.
Please feel more than free to add to this thread. The best way to
illustrate failing "the right way" is to analyze ways to fail "the wrong
way."
Wrong Way Number One: Take things personally
Many things happen to webmasters that are out of their control. Servers
crash. Traffic fails to appear. Old ways of making income/generating
traffic change. Content delivery/quality gets botched up. Subcontractors
flake out. The list is endless. One of the worst things a webmaster can
do is to take things personally and say to themselves "Maybe I'm just
not cut out for this." Another variant is "Maybe I'm too dumb" or "I
don't have 'touch' for this." Or "I don't have the connections." Or "I
started too late in the game." By focusing on the "I" in these silent
statements and assessments of what has gone wrong, webmasters let their
disapointments OWN them. Your disappointment does not OWN you--you are
more than just a website that was laid out or promoted wrong. You are
more than an income statement. However, by saying the negative
statements above, you make your identity indistinguishable from your
failure.
A better way to state failure is to take ownership and control of them.
"I designed my site wrong." Or "I chose to pursue my niche the wrong
way." Notice the difference? The "I" in these statements are in control.
If you decided to do something, then you can decide to do something else
or finetune that action. The "I" in this situation is in a position of
control. This is similar in operation to the old saying that "losers"
ask 'what happened?' and "winners" MAKE it happen. Your perception of
whether you are in control goes a long way in determining your success.
Wrong Way Number Two: Blame someone else
Failure and disappointment are everywhere. That's the way it has been,
the way it is, and the way it will continue to be. Many of the
successful people in this world didn't hit it big with their first try.
Many of the most successful businesspeople in the world only became a
success with their second, third, even thirtieth venture. However, they
still became successful because they realized that ultimately--THEY were
in control of their own success. Many people choose to fail because they
blame other people for their failures. This may take the form of hosting
deals gone bad or designs that failed to produce the desired effect. The
problem with blaming others for failures that beset us is that it takes
US out of the equation. By being out of the picture, it absolves us of
having to take action. This is a huge problem because it breeds personal
complacency and just gives us an excuse.
Don't get me wrong--there are many instances when, rightly, others are
to blame. However, when we are feeling so cheated and so defeated by
others' mess ups, it is really only up to us to get up and try again.
Partners will steal. People will lie. Government agencies will make
adverse rules. That's just part of life. However, by giving up and just
sulking and pointing the finger at the responsible party does not
absolve you of taking action to correct your personal situation.
Wrong Way Number Three: Habit vs. Evolution
There's a reason people laughed at Columbus because he thought the world
was round. Or at Copernicus because he argued that the Earth revolved
around the Sun. People have a mental habit of how the world and the
things in it should be and how they should operate. We all have mental
habits. However, by failing to break past these mental barriers, we are
only limiting ourselves to what is possible with what we currently have.
If conditions change (and they always do), we are left only with our
assumptions and disappointment. Break your habits. Question why you do
the things you do. Question whether you are settling for the results you
get. Obviously, someone out there is generating more results than you.
Learn from them. Challenge your personal limits and attitude to
accommodate what they do.
There are two types of people. On the one hand, there are people that
naturally gravitate towards a higher level because they are curious. On
the other, there are people that go to the next level, because they are
FORCED to. There's no right answer here--you are either one type, the
other, or a mix of both. However, it's up to you to realize what
motivates you and to break your mental habits so you can evolve to the
next level of your personal journey to greater success.
© 2004 WebmasterLabor,
http://www.WebmasterLabor.com
This article is FREE! Open license--Feel Free to copy and distribute.
Just make sure to copy in original and unedited form. |
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