Millions and millions of people all over the world are trying to make money online.

Most of them fail miserably – even though they keep on working at it.

That brings me to the question:

Are you really moving closer to your internet marketing goals?

There are so many self-proclaimed gurus out there at present that it’s not even funny any more. Every tom, Dick and Harry is telling you to “take inspired action”, or to “take massive action”.

Fair enough, you do need to take action. If you don’t, nothing will happen – definitely. But if my toddler had to decide he was going to build a swimming pool, and start digging…

How far do you think he’d get?

The bottom line is this:

If you work without a “do-able” plan, without any structure to what you want to achieve, you may very well never achieve it.

Yes, you may put in a good number of hours every week (or even every day). Yes, you may “take massive action” – and still be one of those unfortunate people who never get anywhere in their online marketing efforts.

So – what does it take to make steady progress towards your goals?

Note – this goes for any goal, and not just your blogging or internet marketing goals.

1. Know your limitations and challenges. If you work all day at a job that is physically or emotionally draining, and you have to come home and take care of the kids, don’t kid yourself and plan to spend 6 hours per day online. It isn’t physically possible.

Calculate how much time you can free up, and how much of that you can work without burning yourself out. Your body – and mind – can only take so much, and making money online – especially if you take the blogging route – can take some time to get up to speed.

2. Consider potential challenges – and how you plan to deal with them. How will you deal with it if your friends ask you to join them for a night out? Or when your neighbor simply dumps their kid on your sofa so they can have a night out?

3. Know what you need to achieve – but first break it down into segments, and then break it down into baby steps. Instead of saying “I want 1,000 followers on twitter by the end of the month”, rather have a set number of people that you intend to follow every day.

4. Create a clear set of goals for every day, every week, and every month. Don’t focus your goals around results (as in traffic or sales, or even followers), but rather focus on the actual actions taken. If you take the right actions, and you take them consistently, success becomes virtually inevitable.

Don’t make your daily to-do list to long. Ideally it should only have 3 to 5 items on it. If you only have a few straightforward tasks to take care of for the day, there is much less chance of you getting distracted.

Set your mind on completing your daily goal tasks first – and anything else has to wait.

For instance:

For a specific day, you may have the daily goal to:

1. Write 500 words towards your next blog post.

2. Follow 100 people on Twitter.

3. Find one more affiliate product that offers promotional emails, and add those emails to your autoresponder series.

You would also like to engage with your connections on Facebook and Twitter, and check out a new video from a guru in your inbox – but you only do that if you have time left.

The ideal mindset is this:

Anything not included in the daily “to do” list, is deemed a distraction. The internet is full of distractions, and it’s easy to waste loads of time.

You can actually do quite a lot of stuff that is part of your online marketing efforts – and still not be any closer to your blogging goals. You can spend countless hours improving social profiles, spending time on Youtube and forums or social media. Fair enough, if social media is part of your strategy, then work on it – but set it up as part of your daily task list, and only spend a set amount of time on it (or keep it for last).

Always remember that, as long as you work for a boss, your (own) TIME is your most valuable asset. Use it wisely.

Lastly…

If you find yourself doing a lot, but not getting any closer to your goals, you may want to invest in yourself – and use a more advanced version of this method to ensure you stay on track with whatever goals you have set for yourself.