Starting something and then not doing any more with it – because you’ve got tied down or distracted by other things – seems to me that’s a typical newbie phenomenon in internet marketing in the UK, as it is worldwide.

And that’s exactly what I initially allowed to happen with the original version of this blog. Oops…

But I decided to change that!

So what is the purpose of this blog?

Well, I envisaged it as a platform for my thoughts on the mindset and mechanics of internet marketing, or information marketing as a whole, to be more precise.

In particular, although not only, from a UK perspective. And in particular with other UK Internet marketing newbies in mind who have been struggling like myself to get this thing going and keep it going.

They say (who are “they”, actually?) the best way to learn something is to teach it.

It has also been said that if you know a little more than someone else about a subject, to them that makes you an expert.

So my aim is largely to teach those who know a little bit less than me about various aspects of information marketing, mainly, but not only, on the Internet.

And to “facilitate” (I like that word, among other things it means “to make easier”) learning from other experts who know a lot more than I do.

I propose to do that by synthesising, sorting and sharing some of the knowledge, tools and experiences that have been part of my own online marketing journey, including pointing you to much better teachers for various specialised aspects.

One of the biggest problems (some like to say “challenges”) of internet marketing in the UK or anywhere else for that matter – as I am sure you are all too aware – presents itself to us as the Yin and Yang, so to speak, of overwhelm and focus.

There is so much information, we are for ever consuming. And when we are consuming information, we are not “doing stuff”, to paraphrase Jay Abraham as quoted by Jason Moffatt.

“Action” is the key word you hear everyone saying, and hardly anyone doing. And if you look around, you will notice that it is the ones actually “doing stuff”, taking action, who are (eventually) getting somewhere.

But not just any action. Consistent action. Action that keeps going, action targeted in the same direction.

And there’s that other hurdle already that stops us in our tracks from even getting started. Which direction?

Hello overload!

We’re back to square one.

Because all that choice makes it so hard to come to a decision which path to take. There are so many, and they all look so good!

So now we are narrowing it down a bit, what’s holding us back. We need to make a choice before we can move forward, and that means choosing what we are NOT going to take forward right now.

Tony Robbins says the decisions we make determine the quality of our lives.

So how do you make good decisions?

Decisions seem so final, and that sometimes puts us off making them. But you might have noticed I just used the word “choices”, a distinction I got from Eben Pagan.

A de-cision, to decide, involves cutting things out, or to put it more brutally, “killing off” alternatives (like homicide, genocide etc.).

A choice, on the other hand, is a more positive and much less final approach that leaves us the option of returning to something later when it might fit better.

Okay, that still leaves us with the issue of what to base our choices on.

Which leads me nicely onto that hot potato of goals and goal setting.

In other words, if you don’t know where you want to get to, how are you ever going to take that first step?

Or to put it another way, if you’re not sure you’re on the right path (again, because you don’t know where you are trying to get to, or why) how on earth will you be motivated to keep moving once you have finally made a start?

I have been confronted with this issue again and again because I have been all over the place (literally) in my life.

It has been really hard for me to figure out what I really want, and again and again I have tried to do everything at once and ended up getting nowhere, or at least not very far down any one particular route.

Does that sound familiar to you?

And the range of choices just keeps getting bigger and bigger, doesn’t it?

I was in network marketing for a while (I still use the products, but the business led me to the internet and information marketing, where I saw a much more attractive way of getting the leverage that network marketing had offered me).

And in that arena it was emphasised again and again that 98 per cent of success was your WHY, and only 2 per cent depended on the HOW.

In other words, it all comes down to your goals. And as one extremely successful marketer with my chosen company back then succinctly put it at the time:

Decision – Focus – Action!

I suspect I didn’t do too well in network marketing – although I worked with a great, extremely ethical company that really does have life-changing products and business opportunities, and I saw people developing successful businesses – because I didn’t really know why I was doing it.

Except to get leverage, and to get me out of a horrible situation I had gotten myself into (but that’s another story!).

But that was all too vague, and at the same time I had other things I “really” wanted to be doing. Or at least I thought so at the time.

Back then I was living in Germany, where I had gone in 1980 to study, from New Zealand, where my British parents had emigrated only months before I was born.

And I wanted to move with my young family to South West Scotland. I had “discovered” it while hunting my Grierson ancestors, who had lived there for centuries from at least 1400 onwards. I had found it really reminded me of rural, pastoral New Zealand, i.e. the environment I grew up in.

And you know what? That’s one goal I eventually realised.

Why?

Because I finally knew where I wanted to go, at least with regard to location. And I worked at it and worked at it until I made it a reality. Even though the naysayers said it would never happen.

Unfortunately I wasn’t as clear about my other goals, and continued to try pursuing several directions at once. Once again, I ended up “spreading myself too thinly”.

I was seeing the internet marketing, like the network marketing, as a vehicle for doing “something” in and for my new, “old” home, by providing me with the financial independence to “do anything I want”. How’s that for vague?

But instead of getting down and making the marketing a success, so I could then profit from it, on the one hand I was “reaching forward” and half focusing on things I wanted to do for the region – but without the means to achieve much.

On the other hand, I clung onto the area of expertise I had previously spent years developing a presence in, but for which the passion had long since died – promoting New Zealand and Australia in the German-speaking markets.

Because I felt I “should”, having invested so much of who I am, or was, into that whole constellation, I was clinging onto it, until I finally realised I was letting it stop me from moving forward.

Is there anything like that holding you back?

Your past life, “pre-Internet”, that is such a part of who you are you keep hanging on to it, even though you know it’s really no longer you?

Don’t you think it’s a shame to let what you used to want get in the way of achieving what you want for yourself and your family now?

I know I do.

Sorry, couldn’t help that little Monty Python reference ;-).

But seriously, I came to the conclusion that it’s time to throw that ballast overboard.

Actually, I pictured to myself a little boat on a river, full of rocks, tied to the shore with a rope – and I took an axe and CHOPPED right through that rope with a single blow and watched as the boat drifted down the river and went crashing over a waterfall and smashed to pieces!

In reality it’s been a bit harder to do that, as I’ve been earning a small part of my income through it, and in the “new economy”, as marketing superstar Dan Kennedy puts it, letting even a small income source go, that covers a couple of bills, is not as easy as it seems when it comes to the crunch – when you haven’t replaced it yet and your other “time-for-money” revenues have dropped.

[Update: I finally did cut that boatload of ballast loose, after talking about it at a UK IM meetup, and you can’t imagine how good it felt!]

But then, that is even more incentive to focus on what we know can produce leveraged, passive income if we just do it properly – information marketing, online and offline.

And there’s that F-word again – Focus.

Which brings me back to goals again.

Because without goals, without knowing why you are doing it, where you want to go and what exactly you “aim” to achieve (you can’t aim if you don’t know what you’re “targeting”!) – you’ll never get clear on what you should do next, and what you should do after that.

And that is why my gift to you today, which you probably saw when you first reached this page*, is a hands-on guide and practical workbook “aimed” at helping you define and achieve your goals.

“Achieve Your Goals” and the accompanying 14 worksheets is a down-to-earth tool created by one of the most down-to-earth internet marketers in the world today, Paul Myers.

Paul tells it like it is, and at the end of the workbook you’ll find a link to sign up to his excellent newsletter, which I cannot recommend highly enough.

I found Paul through “Mr Product Launch Formula” Jeff Walker, and I later learnt from Robert Puddy here in the UK that Paul Myers was instrumental in helping him remove the blocks that held him back from achieving the success he achieves – worldwide – today with Login Frequency Marketing (LFM), Instant Squeeze Page Generator, Advertising Know How and Hits Connect.

So please, if you haven’t already done so, grab your copy of “Achieve Your Goals” by Paul Myers with my compliments.

Listen to what he is saying and see how he helps you find more clarity as you work your way through the goal setting guide – assuming you do actually work through it, it’s not long.

I’m sure you’ll find it puts a whole new perspective on your approach to internet marketing in the UK (or anywhere else for that matter!).*

* N.B. “Achieve Your Goals” was something I gave away on the original version of this blog. If you would like to get a copy, please leave a comment below to that effect and I will contact you via the email address associated with your comment. Sound fair?