A habit is doing one thing once. Over and over again.

 Remember asking how I made writing my habit?   You asked so you might be able to copy me and hopefully make writing your habit too.

Well the answer is very simple. But it takes commitment. I knew had to write if I wanted to write a blog. so I just told myself….

“Self, the first thing you will do tomorrow is write.”

 I woke up and I wrote.  

Just one small part, of a small idea, for an article, that’s what I wrote.  A very small part, something that I felt could be done easily and quickly.  Just one paragraph, or two.  Just word put to an idea.

Even though I was trying to teach myself to write articles for a blog, blogs weren’t my concern. Writing was.  All that mattered was keeping the promise to the person that the promise mattered to the most, me!  Write!  Keep it simple, as simple as possible.

One day it dawned on me, maybe about a month later, I don’t really remember how long it took, but I remember the one day.

I was outside watering the plants, like I usually do every other day, the plants really needed the water, when I started getting this really strong urge to write.

“Water the plants or write?  Water the plants or write”, I kept thinking over and over.  I really felt like I needed to write what I was thinking.

“Dam, I had become a crack head for writing!  Without even trying!”

The promise was a challenge, to myself.  And I managed to keep this promise.

Meet the challenge, make a new challenge.  Make the challenge make an even bolder challenge.  Write clearer, be more engaging, captivate the readers, entertain them with stories that they will remember. That’s one heck of a huge challenge for someone who really didn’t enjoy writing not too long ago.

And this is one way that I tricked my minds into being the Blog Writer I wanted to be!

P.S. there are so many other challenges coming my way. I can feel it. I can see it!  A lot more is coming!

Some rights reserved by Rameshng

   AT the most inconvenient time those great ideas comes, crossing a busy intersection, parking the car, chasing a run-away dog. This is why I carry a little note pad with me, whereever I go.

Sure I get teased, insistently, at times even abusively. But hey, it’s my blog, and I am running it. I’m the one with lofty goals, not them. So I do what I got to do.

If they knew, oh boy, I would be taking so much more teasing.  More times than I like to admit I can’t make a lick of sense from my own notes!   I can’t figure out why I was so inspired or even what inspired the note.  I know it was some sort of great idea, for what would be a great article.  I know it was like a lightning bolt hitting me top center of my head, I remember that. Otherwise I wouldn’t have made the note in the first place.

But good golly,  if my cryptic notes were the password to open the safe at Fort Knots no one would ever get in.  Not even the workers.

What do you do with your brilliant ideas for your blog articles?  I know you and others know exactly what I go through, I know that for a fact.   What I don’t know is how you deal with it.  Or if you have your own solutions.

Next time brilliance strikes, and before you put your head on your pillow, re-read your notes.  Add in a little more detail, some emotions, add in how you see this brilliant idea ending in your brilliant article.  Try it, this works.

It’s “Practical Solutions For Practical Problems”. 

                As soon as she turns her back the kitchen draws are opened, a few inches, again.  She closes the draws and as soon as she turns her back draws are opened again. So she closes the draws.

The kitchen draws, the display cabinet draws, draws in the bathroom, the bedroom, draw is always partially opened, just a few inches, no matter how many times she closes it.  Why are draws are always open!

She had enough, the other morning, when every single draw, the night stands, dressers, and closet draws were all opened.  Slamming, kick the draws shut, she had had enough!

She started screaming, “Why can’t you close the draws!”

“Sorry honey” startled awake, was all her husband said.

Just like all the little differences in a marriage, Internet Marketing, whether you like all the different little aspects of it or not, you have to take care of it, you have to worked on it.  You can’t ignore it or it will eat you alive.  That is just the way it is.

Now what?   Is every single module introducing you to completely foreign concept?  Is everything that being talked about above and beyond your understanding?

It sounds like English, but makes as much sense as Greek.  Hey, I know that feeling very well.  It’s still a very vividly memory of my earlier days.  Oh, all that pain and trials I went through still makes my cringe.

You don’t know squat!  Neither did I.   Too dam too shy to ask. Not even knowing what I don’t know. No one to talk to and not knowing where to find help.

Was I the dumbest persons to even dare of joining The Challenge.  Ed Dale, dam him, made it all sound so easy.  There I was, left out in the cold, not even able to do one thing right!

I was sure I was the dumbest person around!  I was as lost as my pig out of his pen!

The only thing I going for me was that I wasn’t giving up.  I knew that no matter how long it took, even if it took years, I was not going to give up!

So let me ask you, how determined are you to learn all this?  How much pain and trials willing you endure to complete The Challenge?   How badly do you want to make money online?   Can you make your first dollar online?  Exactly how determined ARE you?

Luckily, you have “The Challenge Community Team Blog” to see you through.  You don’t have to do this the hard way.  You don’t have to try to learn this all on your own.  And you definitely don’t have to be stupid like I was and struggle all by yourself.

What’s your most pressing Question?  I encourage you to ask questions. Any question, all of your questions. Ask!   You now have “People”, your own entourage backing you up!  So let’s make your first dollar.

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Watch out folks, here come the FNK ( f__king  New guy)!  And he doesn’t know what he is doing!  You are fore-warned!

Yes, it’s me. I am the newest member to “The Challenge Team Blog”. I am feeling gung ho!  My mission is to learn how to write a lot. Prolific! And this is going to be my platform.

Who am I?  I am you!  Four years down the road. I am you, finally grasping the concept of Internet Marketing. Imagine yourself finally feeling comfortable with most of the working intricacies of blogging, promoting, and finally understanding how to drive targeted traffic to a blog. Or at least thinking you do. That is me!

My motto is “You can’t fail if you refuse to give up!”  Time doesn’t matter, it could take years, just keep pushing yourself.

This is my first foray into team blogging.  Not that it wasn’t attempted before.  But those were short lived, mainly from the lack of leadership. Yes, I do take full responsibility for its failures.

This time I vow it will be different this time!  I know what it feels like to be in the leadership role and I know what it feels like to be let down by those who made a commitment to write regularly.

I refuse to let the leadership down!  I don’t care how badly I do, I don’t care if you boo me!  I am going to keep writing until they force me off this blog or pat me on the back!                     That’s right folks!  I am the FNG, with an agenda!  So watch out!

P.S.   They gave me permission to be myself. Not that I think they really knew what they were allowing me to do!

If you haven’t tried it- this is the perfect time! Click the image below  to get started and join us . We’ll share our experiences and we encourage you to share yours too or ask a question and together we can find the solution.

Join The Challenge- It's FREE

My advice is to watch the trainings, examine the tools and if you’re new, you may want to follow each step as we go along, or if you are established then only use that which applies to your business. For me, I do get some traffic to my site, but not enough sales, so I will be looking to improve that.

Last year, the folks at The Challenge started an Affiliate Program or Partner Network as they call it. You can join directly by filling in the form at the end of this post. Cool, eh? there’s also a page in the menu where you can join the 30dc Inc Partner Network or login if you already have joined. No more need to send people to their site.

The Challenge
Take the Challenge and learn how to make your first $1 online.

Or join the 30dcInc Partner network

The rest of Module 3 is using Posterous and ways to develop backlinks and generate traffic.

Day 4 : setting up Posterous.
The way Ed Dale shows how sign up w/ Posterous is not what I have found on the site. Maybe they changed it? There is a big box on the right- which has the option of skipping the 3 fields to fill in and sending an email as Ed has done.

Posterous is a free service that allows you to post by email or by web. It also has an autoposter that will post your content to multiple places – similar to how TubeMogul posts videos to multiple video sites.

I clicked on the autopost and cannot get the “Add Services” button to show, I tried FF, IE, and Chrome browsers, so I guess it’s not a browser issue. Oh well.

Day 5: WordPress.com, Tumblr, and Typad Identi.ca
Day 5 is setting up WordPress.com, Tumblr, and Identi.ca blogs and adding them to Posterous. Guru Bob show us how. Unfortunately I can’t add it, since I do not have the add services button. Guru Bob decided to use Identi.ca instead of TypePad, because TypePad is now a paid service w a very limited free trial.

Day 6: Blogger, LiveJournal, and Xanga
You got it! How to signup and add these to your Posterous account. Feel Free to add others that are on the services list.

Day7: Putting It All Together
Now that we have setup our Posterous Network, we can make 1 post and that content will automatically be added to all those services that we added, which can be a REAL time-saver.

Ed announces that this lays the foundation for modules 4 & 5.
Today, Ed goes into detail on how to post to Posterous, how to draft an article in an email, drawing in elements like a block quote, add anchor text, YouTube video and link to the original source article. He then shows the end result, how Posterous updates all those services that you added, with the article you emailed.

and now ………..DrumRoll Please  \/ .\/.\/. \/. \/. \/ .
How often should you post?? Well, for your blog, Ed suggests once a week is good and whenever the mood strikes you for your Posterous Network, maybe whenever you find something cool like a video, or breaking news in your micro-niche, etc.

So this year I decided to try and salvage a project I started before I knew better–meaning that I did not have all my research done correctly and so failed dismally last year.

However, since I created a product around the niche already, I thought it would be best to try and resurrect it instead of abandon it.

It has been an uphill climb!

I know the learning process is made up of failures along the way of figuring out what might work–and also that eight out of ten attempts fail–and I really believe this is worth it.

For sure I will know shortly!

Although I have not been posting here lately, I have been busy progressing with The Challenge and am not behind but right there with everyone.

It did take me longer than most to drill down the right keyword phrase and now I just need to make sure that my category words are good too.

In the meantime, everything else is on target.

However, another hurdle proved to be that I tried to import my old keyword blog over to my new one–with dismal results.

In fact, complete failure!

Is the Universe trying to tell me something or is it simply a WP 3.0 issue?

Anyway, I should be able to report some good results soon.

I heard via Twitter that one of The Challenge peeps already made over $300 on his or her project!

Hoping to find out how and what in the forums.

In the meantime, I will just keep on working away…and I hope you are too.

Photo Credit: Steffe

Michelle gives some great pointers on starting and optimizing your lens. She did leave out a couple things

• Squidoo only includes G Rated lens in it’s directory. So unless you are targeting a more adult only choose the G Rating.
• Remember deep linking. You can choose different posts or pages to link to when linking back to your site.
• Read the TOS, make sure you know what’s allowed and what isn’t. Many of the YouTube videos may be a year or more old and Squidoo may have changed their TOS since then.

One thing you may want to consider when creating your lens, is that you can sell them. Tiffany Dow gives some strategies for lenses that sell in the following videos.

** Please note- the link she gives for the keyword tool just redirects to her blog, so it is no longer available for download.

I wonder if selling the site along with it’s Squidoo lens would be better than selling each separately? People- esp with those w/ no experience would love to have a whole “Done for you” package.

Lynn shows us from taking a real life example and gives us some pointers on effective use of internal linking and a few strategies on how to get inbound links as well