If you’re a reader of this blog, you know that my favorite topic is generating Passive Income sources online. This year, my goal is to help you get there even faster. It’s my New Year’s Resolution and I want it to be yours too. But first, let’s take a step back and talk about some principles before we dig into the money stuff…

Why Most New Year’s Resolutions Fail

Most years, I find myself making a long and sordid list of all my hefty goals for the year ahead. It always seems like a good idea, but then a few months into the year I begin to realize that most of those goals don’t really matter to me and I end up focusing in on only one or two.

According to one statistic, something like 60-70% of New Year’s Resolutions get dropped in the first WEEK of January. Does that surprise you? Doesn’t surprise me one bit. Most people usually do bite off more than they can chew only to give up quicker than they ever imagined.

Still, it’s pretty strange that everyone gets so excited about the New Year and their personal goals and resolutions… only to drop them less than 7 days later. Seems pretty odd to me.

After a lot of thinking lately, I’ve decided that it always comes down to one problem — lack of focus.

Now, I realize there are lots of other words for “focus.” We could call it “desire” or even “intention.” Whatever it is, it boils down to one simple thing, most people don’t actually KNOW what their resolution is in the first place. This is why they give it up — they never knew what it was to begin with.

How to Focus on Your New Year’s Resolution

The best way to focus on your resolution is to get ultra-clear about what it is. And the only way to do that is to find the “center” of your life that needs most attention and the greatest amount of growth. In my humble opinion, I think building sources of Passive Income is far and away the best place to focus your energy for the year ahead because it is the one goal that will have the most dynamic influence on all of your other goals.

Let me explain.

Let’s say as you’re reading this that you’re probably also thinking about all of the other things you want to improve in your life. Maybe you want to eat a vegetarian diet, lose 50 pounds, get that six pack abs, or be a better wife/husband/boyfriend/girlfriend. Typically this is how we operate. We want more money, better relationships, sexier bodies, and happier lives. Right? Right!

Now, here’s my argument…

The best way to go about all this is to focus your energy on ONE goal that will have the most dramatic affect on your entire life. Again, my humble opinion is super clear on this one — building more passive income is the best way to creating a better life. Why? It’s simple. What we all need to be happier, healthier, wealthier, and sexier is TIME.

Think about it. The reason your relationship isn’t where you want it to be is because you don’t have the TIME to invest more into it and to get more out of it. The reason you never lose weight is because you don’t have the TIME to prepare healthy foods, count your calories, and stay focused on your exercise plan. And the reason you feel depressed is because you don’t have the TIME to expand your social life, volunteer, and find meaningful things to do with your life.

My 2011 Challenge to You And Your Promise to Me

So this year, I want to help YOU get super-focused on the one New Year’s Resolution that really matters — Creating Passive Income Online. I want to do this for two selfish reasons… 1) I really enjoy teaching people and sharing my greatest passion; and 2) I know that if I help you then ultimately it’s going to help me get even farther along with my goal to DOUBLE my income this year.

In order to do this, though, I need you to make me two very important promises: 1) that this will be your #1 goal for 2011 and 2) that you will put as much energy, time, and effort as you can (outside of your normal life) to make this happen!

How to Get Started

There are two things you’ll need to do officially to join me in the 2011 Passive Income Plan. 1) Make sure you’re signed up to my www.JasonClegg.com email newsletter and 2) make sure that you’re signed up as a member at www.ArticleMarketingSEO.com

When you sign up for #1, you’ll get my free ebook which covers the essentials of starting an online business. And when you sign up for #2, you’ll get free access to my fundamental lessons on Article Marketing to help you learn the best and cheapest traffic-generation strategy that exists online today.

Both of these memberships are free, so there’s no official cost to you. Of course, as we move through the year I will recommend certain products and services that are going to make your Passive Income Goal Quest that much easier.

My method is simple — I want to share with you the techniques I’ve been using over the past 6 years to generate Passive Income Online. My goal is to help you get to the level you desire by the end of the year. Yes, this is going to require discipline, work, and focus from you. But if you’re willing to team up with me, I’ll do my very best to help you every step of the way.

This plan is for ANYONE and EVERYONE who is interested, regardless of your experience, background, and know-how. I look forward to working with beginners, veterans, and everyone in-between.

Here’s to our success in 2011!

No related posts.

I’m a perfectionist at heart. It’s true. And while it can sometimes be one of my greatest assets, it’s long been a major deterrent to progress in business growth. Someone once said, “If you want to speed up the rate of success, speed up your rate of failure.” Nothing could be more spot-on than that. The secret to success really is failure. And the reason is simple: unless you fail (and I mean REALLY fail) you never get out there and learn those critical lessons you can ONLY learn on the field of battle.

Why Deadlines Work
Deadlines force failure because they make it absolutely necessary for you to fail. If you have a deadline in place and you keep it, you’re much more likely to actually achieve a goal and to take your idea or project from idea to fruition. In the realm of ideas, things work much differently than in reality. This is the whole point of entrepreneurship — moving from ideas to reality.

But let’s be honest — reality is a scary place. There are risks, uncertainties, problems, unexpected crises. Anything can happen at anytime and bad things *will* happen.

For me, learning how important it is to speed up implementation has helped me get better at welcoming failure as a means to move faster towards success. This concept “Speed of Implementation” just means moving towards goals faster by getting things done sooner. At the end of the day if it’s not you, it’s going to be your competitor.

Let’s dig into a real example….

Accountability is an Asset
At the beginning of this month, I launched my very first membership website. This was a goal I’d had for several years now and a big milestone. Now I realize how huge of an accomplishment it was to go from zero to full-speed on a project that was once just an idea floating in my mind. A mere possiblity transformed into a fruitful reality. Awesome!

But I owe much of my success to one important thing — deadlines. But why are deadlines so damn important? What do deadlines do for you? And what is it that makes them work so well?

To be fair, the real credit here doesn’t go to deadlines but to acccountability. Deadlines just make accountability possible. The trick is to put the two together for the greatest results. Lack of accountability prevents most people from ever reaching their goals. Without accountability, deadlines are pointles. Without someone or something to hold you accountable for what you say you’re going to do, you probably won’t do it.

So how can you get accountability? There are two essential ingredients for making this happen…

1. You need to commit to yourself.

2. You need other people to enforce your commitment.

Most people make the grave mistake of just working with #1. Sure, making promises to yourself is an important part of the process but you just can’t do it alone. Even if you are literally doing all of the work yourself, it’s critical to enlist the help of others to take on the huge psychological task of staying focused and moving towards a goal.

Say Hello to My Little Friend
If you’re an entrepreneur, you know how important your mind is to your success. You need your mind for new ideas, innovating thinking, creative problem solving, and everything that goes into the process of building and running a successful business.

But you also need your mind to stay focused in setting and achieving big goals. You have to know “the magic of thinking big.” And you have to have the mental power to press on when things seem too big and some goals seem like just far too much work for the risk.

This is a job you should not do alone.

That’s why the single best thing you could ever do for yourself is find other people with similar goals and ambitions to start taking on that job together. And that, dear readers, is the role of the Mastermind Group.

You’re probably saying one of 3 things to yourself right now…

1. What the $@!@# is a Mastermind Group?

2. Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard this routine before.

3. It’s true. It works for me too.

If you answered like #1 above, then go out and read Napoleon Hill’s “Think and Grow Rich” and report back to me when finished.

–If you answered like #2 above, then go out and start a group already!

–If you answered like #3 above, cheers to you!

I’m fairly new to masterminds, but I’ve known about them for a looooong time. Frankly, if I’d started one earlier, I’d already be much farther along in my business.

Fail Faster to Succeed Sooner
The only way you’re going to make progress is by getting out of your comfort zone and welcoming mistakes. Two steps forward and one step back. If you spend too much your time thinking, analyzing, assessing and too little time taking action, you’re never going to move forward.

It can be difficult to figure this out on your own because all too often we fail to see our own shortcomings. Other people are much better at showing us the way and encouraging us to strike out in a positive direction. I know it sounds contradictory to open yourself up to failure when what you want is the exact opposite. But getting more comfortable with failure is the best way to make progress.

If you do anything after reading this, do this: Find 3 or 4 like-minded people and form a group. Get together at least 1x per week and take turns sharing your current business goals and your most pressing problems. I guarantee you that this one change can help you speed up your rate of implementation and increase your rate of success!

What’s Your Greatest Obstacle to Getting Things Done?
And one more thing…

I’m curious to learn about what prevents you from “Speed of Implementation” right now. Share your greatest obstacle in the comment box below.

No related posts.

At the end of the conference, Eben arranged all of us into small groups of about 6 people each. Each group was somewhat organized around industry or business niche. But the most important goal was to help us create our very own mastermind team to create some accountability after leaving the conference.

My group already held our very first mastermind phone call the first day after the conference. Fortunately, I had the opportunity to be first in the “hot seat” and present my greatest challenge and my greatest opportunity to the group. After presenting my current business scenario to the group, each of my group members made a 5 minute maximum reply with their best insights and advice. 30 minutes later I had some of the best ideas to solve my greatest challenge and to leverage my greatest opportunity that I could ever have imagined!

Amateurs See Many Options, Professionals Recognize Few

As I continue to grow my business, it has become increasingly necessary to get super focused on what I’m trying to achieve and to pick only the most promising projects and follow them to completion. As you can imagine, it doesn’t always go this way…

First, I’ve found that as my success grows, the number of opportunities available to me increases. Every time I turn around, there’s a new idea or a potential source of new revenue I could be chasing. It’s not the worst of problems to have but it can and does make it very challenging to keep singularity of focus when working on projects.

During the mastermind session, one of my cohorts made an excellent point with a simple but powerful quote…

“To amateurs there are many options, to professionals there are few.”

Suddenly I realized that I had failed to apply all of my existing success knowledge to my growing list of projects. Just because an opportunity presents itself does NOT mean it’s viable or even worth my time. For that matter, just because an option is viable doesn’t mean it’s the right or the best option for me…

The Project Matrix – Project Management for Entrepreneurs

Another suggestion from the group was to get my potential projects under control by creating a system to rate, analyze, and evaluate potential new business ideas. It’s amazing how powerful an idea becomes when it’s actually worked for other people. I’ve tried to create project evaluation or management systems in the past but nothing ever did the job. But now I had a clear system.

Before the mastermind group, I used the popular “Things” to-do time management GTD software for organizing my projects. But for some strange reason, it never occurred to me that some of my projects might not even be worth my time. I know that sounds bizarre, but when you’re coming up with ideas left-and-right you’re generally most concerned with putting them into action and getting them sorted out — the “how” somehow overshadows the “why.”

Here’s how I created a project matrix based on a spreadsheet sample sent to me by a group member…

1. Open up a new spreadsheet using Excel or Google Docs or any similar program.
2. List all of your considered projects in one column.
3. List the estimated financial cost of each project in the next column.
4. List the estimated Time cost (hours) of each project in the next column.
5. List the projected financial Return in the next column. (Note: You can use monthly or annual returns, just be consistent with all projects.)
6. Create a Return/Cost formula in the next column to calculate how many dollars you will get back for every dollar you invest.
7. Create a Return/Time formula in the next column to calculate how many dollars you will get back for every hour you invest.

And voila!

When you finish the project matrix, I think you may be very surprised. I certainly was. But be sure to spend time tweaking and playing with the numbers. Really think about how much time a project will cost. Really consider how much of a financial return you expect to get back — and be realistic!

The more honest and realistic you are with the spreadsheet, the more accurate and revealing the final picture will be.

Crack That Whip – Zeroing in On Projects

Once you’ve completed the project matrix, you’ll begin to see where you should really be investing your time. You’ll also see about how much time each project should take so you can make some educated guesses about what you could realistically complete this month, next month and so on.

Remember: the goal here is to line things up so you can take action! Don’t fall into the “paralysis by analysis” trap where you end up overanalyzing everything. Let the project matrix inspire you to unleash your energy in the right direction.

And most important of all, make this system work for you!

Download the Project Matrix

I want to share the project matrix with you, so I am making the download freely available here. The file includes some generic samples so please be sure to make changes based on your unique projects.

Click Here to Download the Projects Matrix

Let me know what you think…

No related posts.

The only problem with January is it can become more like an endless cycle than a legitimate chance to start over and get some renewal. It that my “New Year’s Resolutions” for example are pretty much the same things year after year: get healthier, be happier, and make more money. No problems there.

But this is a bit annoying. Every year I’m rehashing the same goals. The good news is that I’m super clear about the things I value as the years go by. These things don’t change too much. The bad news is that I must be doing something wrong. Why else would I be drawing out this same exact list every time the calendar flips over?

Values are the Foundations of Goals

Obviously, I value health, happiness, and wealth. Every year, I’m concentrating on these parts of my life and finding things I don’t like and beginning the year with some goals of improving them. So what’s wrong with that? I thought you’d never ask…

The big problem here is specificity. Healthy, happy, wealthy. That sounds great and all, but how exactly does one define healthy? What does it mean to be happy? And wealthy? My ideas about all three of these things are changing all the time.

It’s a great idea to build resolutions around values — you pretty much have to do it that way if you hope to have any success at all. It’s not a great idea, though, simply to list your values as goals. Values aren’t goals. Values provide the foundation to build goals. Goals are something altogether different.

What the $#@#! is a Goal?

A goal is something you seek out that, generally speaking, has a very tangible thing going on. Usually, a goal has a “Point A to Point B” nature to it. You start somewhere without this thing you’re after and then eventually — after some effort and pushing — you end up with the thing in your possession (or something damn close to it).

For example, let’s start with something one might value and build a specific goal out of it. Let’s say I value travel. I really do, so this is a perfect example. If I want to create a goal out of traveling, then I’ll need to set an objective that I can start moving towards. Maybe my goal will be to take a trip around-the-world from Los Angeles, California across the continents and back again in the span of one year. Now we’re talkin’ goals folks!

We can break this goal down even more so we can see exactly what needs to happen in order to bring the goal to life, or to manifest it into reality. Money, time, logistics — all of these elements will need to be addressed for this to work out. If the trip will take one year, then you’ll need some way to get away from work or to manage your work remotely. If you’re going to hop from one country to the next until you make your way from one end of the globe to another, you’re going to need to plan flights, hotels, and all the other arrangements that go into good trip planning. And, of course, you’re going to need a wad of cash to make it all happen.

Things seem to get more complicated at this stage of goal-setting and goal-planning, but actually the point is to make things easier. Before, the goal was just a fantasy in your mind. But once you start unpacking it, you begin to see what’s really required. This is the essential part of reaching your goals: understanding exactly what needs to happen for the dream to transpire.

Setting Goals for 2010

All right, back to my confused list of values. So I know that every year I come back to health, happiness, and wealth again and again. This year, for 2010, I’m going to come at this in a new way. I’m going to get incredibly specific about my goal setting. With my three value areas in mind, I am approaching 2010 with very detailed goals that will fulfill my desire for greater sense of health and fitness, overall happiness, and more financial security.

Goal #1: Financial Breakthrough
Target: $1 Million in Total Business Revenue
Deadline: December 31, 2010
My first goal is primarily financial in nature, but also has a lot to do with my overall happiness. Anytime somebody tells me money can’t make you happy, I cringe. I know money itself doesn’t create happiness, but I also know that it can and does go a long way towards empowering me and positioning me to have a more enjoyable, fulfilling, and thus happier lifestyle.

2009 was the best year for my entrepreneurship projects so far. Total sales revenue far exceeded my expectations for the year, especially after bringing on board a salesperson to help with the daily customer service workload, phone calls, and order processing.

2010 is going to be even better! I have numerous new product launches we’re going to take underway, and I’m tremendously excited about each and every one of them. Plus, I have some great new ideas for marketing and promotions to help reach out more to my existing client base, attract new customers, and improve education around our products and services.

As I continue offering more streamlined Internet Marketing services, I have found it increasingly important to educate clientele. Unfortunately, lots of web marketing firms are just in it for the quick buck and will often sell products and services that don’t really benefit clients. My goal for 2010 is to increase the overall size of our marketing clientele and business-base by adding more services — each of which will add tremendous amounts of value at an affordable price to the client’s online marketing efforts.

My objective is to increase the size of my business to reach the $1 million mark by the end of the year. I am quite confident that I can achieve this goal, but I realize it’s going to take some solid effort and some major action.

Goal #2: Physical Fitness & Mental Clarity
Target: Learn to Surf and Paddle Board
Deadline: December 31, 2010 (results much sooner, of course)
Now that I’m living on the beach in Malibu, it’s time to start attacking one of my long desired personal goals — learning to surf. I’m going to start by learning to paddle board. It’s winter now, and this will be a great way to improve my balance, get comfortable on the water, and get used to manipulating a board on the ocean.

I’ve attempted surfing a few times at a very young age but never with much success. From what I can tell, this is a sport that’s going to require lots of effort and discipline if I expect to excel. But I think it will contribute to my overall health and happiness by providing a nice outlet from work and life. Plus, I’m a huge fan of the marine life, so it will be great to spend more time closer to nature.

2010 – The Year for Business and Lifestyle Design

I hope you’ll take the time now to plan out some similar goals for yourself in the coming year. I’ve chosen two goals here simply because I want to really focus on my values while also staying true to the two things I like writing about and talking about on this website — success in entrepreneurship and personal lifestyle design.

Being successful in business isn’t just about making money and owning assets – it’s also about creating exactly the kind of life you want to have. But creating takes time and effort. It also requires planning. Setting goals for the coming year is the perfect way to start planting your seeds now so you can make the most of the year ahead!

No related posts.