Have you conquered inertia in your life?
The previous post provided reasons why inertia and procrastination are different.
We underestimate the power of inertia, I came across another brilliant example of inertia preventing people from taking action this week. It’s just the latest in a long list of examples of people getting excited about an opportunity to make progress towards their goals and then letting inertia stop them. In this case, an opportunity that would not require any cash. It was not a get rich quick scheme, not any of the “business opportunities” we see promoted all the time.
Of course it did not have any guarantees and it required some hard work in the form of thinking and writing.
A fellow internet marketer and blogger publishes Painkickers, (affiliate link) a blog about pain relief. He promotes RTPR, a product that relieves pain. His blog has a mix of testimonials, advice, tips to get relief from various types of pain and articles of general interest.
As a tactic to get more content for his blog and to increase the numbers of visitors, he has offered to publish guest posts by bloggers looking to gain publicity for themselves and to get exposure for their own blogs.
There are no strings attached, guest authors can include a short bio with a link back to their own site.
The blog is not a top-level blog in terms of visitors, but its Alexa rating is improving rapidly with several hundred daily visitors, which means it is doing way better than the vast majority of blogs.
When the publisher put the word out about the guest blogging opportunity, a number of bloggers assured him that they would be submitting posts. That was 5 weeks ago, I have submitted a post each week, two other bloggers have each submitted one post. The rest of those that promised to contribute have yet to perform.
I have already had visitors follow the link in my bio at the end of each post back to this blog, an immediate benefit.
Why then the initial excitement and subsequent apathy?
Work. It takes an effort to create good content, a couple of hours of mental effort, the post needs to be good, it needs editing. There is no promise of an immediate benefit in the form of a sale or cash.
Many of the publishers of currently popular or “authority” blogs became well-known by having guest posts published on other successful blogs, building a reputation and using that to increase visitors to their own blogs. Guest posting is a proven method to become a successful blogger and it is a privilege to be offered the opportunity, even if the target blog does not yet have a huge following.
Creating content as a guest author for Painkickers gives me 5 benefits:
- Publicity – exposure to a wider audience.
- More visitors to my own blog.
- More back links to my blog.
- Practice at writing about unfamiliar subjects.
- Discipline to create an extra post each week.
- Practice at creating guest posts.
That to me is a win-win situation and one that I am grateful to grab with both hands.
Here is another example, a different symptom of inertia overcoming momentum.
A few months ago, two of us formed a small group of bloggers for mutual support, each time we published a blog post, we put the link in a Skype group. We visited each other’s blogs and shared the posts in social media if we were satisfied that they were good enough for our followers.
That started off well, most of the group published a post, circulated the link and visited the other members’ blogs the first week, a few less did the same the following week and after 4 weeks, it was down to two regulars and two intermittent lurkers. After 6 weeks there were just the two of us and the project withered and died.
What was missing? Commitment and Determination.
In both cases, effort was required, regrettably inertia trumps effort unless there is determination and commitment.
The only way to overcome inertia is to have a goal, a 100% commitment to it and a watertight, fireproof and unshakeable determination to achieve it.
Wishy washy promises are not good enough.
A conscious decision not to do something is perfectly understandable, if any of those in the two examples had declined to get involved right at the start, for whatever reason, at least they would have been decisive. That is different from just doing nothing. We are faced with opportunities all the time, some we decide for, some against, that is normal.
The tragedy is when we let indecision lead to inertia and lack of action.
Do you grab opportunities, or do you let inertia prevent you from taking action to achieve your goals?
Wishing you success.
p.s. There are contact details on the Painkickers blog if you would like to submit a guest post.
Image courtesy of Simon Howden / FreeDigitalPhotos.net