Are Challenges A Waste of Your Time?

Are Challenges A Waste of Your Time?

Well what do you think?  There are no hard and fast rules abut challenges.  Anyone can start one but only a small percentage of people finish them.  Why is that?  It’s a bit like New Year resolutions we all start off with good intentions.  Over the years we realised that they didn’t really work because we never followed through with them.  Just stop for a moment and think of where you would be now if you had actually kept up all those New Year Resolutions.

Where would you be now if YOU had completed this blogging challenge?  Would you be in a better place or not?  Well I can only tell you from my own experience, but the chances are some of these things would have happened to you too!

• I have now got 30 new blogs for a website that had only a few so now I am able to send people to it in the knowledge that they will find some information there that may well help them in their online journey
• I am getting more traffic to my website because I have been posting consistently
• I am able to go to Google Analytics and analyse what is working and what is not instead of seeing the message “not enough data for this report”
• I am overcoming my lack of consistency which was holding me back tremendously in my business and in my life
• I have a better idea of which type of content my audience is interested in and what problems they need to solve
• It has increased my self worth – I now know that I can actually complete tasks without making excuses or  procrastinating
• The practice involved is increasing my blogging and writing skills
• It has given me the confidence to continue the challenge for another 36 days when according to the latest scientific information it will become a habit imbedded in my subconscious and manifested in my business

If you think that some of these outcomes might be useful for you and you are regretting that you did not take up the 30 day challenge – it’s not too late! – there is no time limit on getting started.   You could even use it as a way to build up your content in preparation for Black Friday or any other important time in your marketing calender e.g. a product launch

Are Challenges Worthwhile?

Challenges allow you to get a glimpse into what you are really capable of doing on a consistent basis – 

every single day! – every single day! – every single day.!

Well OK – none of us are perfect – not even our mentors – maybe not every single day but as close to that as possible.  As a rule of thumb it is best not to miss more that one day in a row otherwise  it is harder to get back on the bandwagon.  Challenges can be your passport to get going – jump of the struggle bus and join the winners – whatever winning means to you.

The Advantages You Can Gain From Challenges

There are massive advantages that you can gain from challenges apart from competence and gaining awesome new effective habits.  Every marketer who is worth his salt knows that thoughts become things and things that get written down get measured and once they are measured we begin to delve deeper into the topic and eventually master it.  That’s when the magic happens and it can all start with a challenge.

So don’t underestimate challenges.  Sometimes they can get us started on a path and other times they can keep us going on a journey that we have already started.  They give us a goal, a target to aim for and the ability to gain accountability for our own actions.

Another opportunity offered by challenges is that you get to direct your audience or viewers to wherever you choose – to your product, an affiliate product your video or one that you think will be useful to them, another one of your blogs, a booking form for a consultation, a freebie, a guide – the list is endless.   You can decide whether to nurture them with useful information or let them get to know you on social media (building relationships).  You can get them to join your mailing list or turn them from  a visitor into a lead and a lead into a sale.  Yes, all this and more with the CTAs that you include daily.

When One Challenge Leads to Another

Another thing that happened to me during my last few of challenges was that one challenge led to more of them.  I was in the process of transitioning to a plant based diet when I noticed that one of the groups that I am a member of had started a health based 90 day challenge.  So I joined it and set a goal of releasing 28 lbs.  I didn’t reach my target weight but I did release 21 lbs and have already got rid of another 2 lbs.  This was enough to convince me that challenges do work.  So when my son decided to create a 30 day blogging challenge I had no hesitation in joining it  Previously he had done a 30 day video challenge which brought him a lot of business.  I had also started it but only got as far as video 4.  Now that I have completed this blogging challenge I will also be finishing the video challenge by the end of this month.

   Shout Out To:

My mentors who actually created the challenges.  Probably the first challenge I ever did was a 30 day video challenge and that taught me that I could actually create 7- 10 videos in a day.  I had gotten behind in my challenge and I did not want to miss the deadline so I made a massive effort to complete the remaining videos within a couple of days.  This showed me just what I was capable of and also made creating just one video – which I used to look upon as quite a task – as super easy.

Now that I have seen with my own eyes the results that can be achieved with challenges I will always be a challenger.

Where Do We Go From Here?

It might seem pretty obvious where we go to from here – on to the next challenge of course!  But there is a lot more to it than that.  My challenge motivated  me to appreciate the power of blogs again.  At one stage about 10 years ago I had created over 300 blogs.  I had been encouraged to do so by one of my first mentors who was a great trainer.  I picked up some great concepts and blogging strategies from him but there were also massive gaps in my knowledge at that time.  So my blogs did not have the desired effect of helping me to make sales.

I blamed blogging for my lack of results and decided blogging was more or less a waste of time.  How wrong could I be.  I did not realise that it was my ignorance and incompetence that was the problem.  After all there were plenty of marketers who did have successful blogs.  If I had stopped and thought about that, then I might have made an effort to fill the gaps in my knowledge and improve my blogging skills instead of giving up on them.  From now on I will be blogging on regardless!!

Since the challenge has rekindled my interest in blogging I came upon a very useful blogging planner which was lying in the back of a cupboard.  It is much more interesting and effective now that I am in the process of blogging daily.

I also came upon a blogging training within an affiliate training platform that I am a member of and it is also now making a lot more sense to me as I am blogging along with it and I can now put it to good use too.

I will be tweaking and testing and improving my old blogs as well as creating better blogs than I have in the past.  Just got a message the other day that the first blog in my 30 day challenge has been ranked in Google already.  That can’t be bad!

I will be repurposing my blogs by using them to create videos and video chips to use on social media platforms

I will be syndicating them and adding them to my groups and creating rss feeds to schedule out.

I will be revisiting my keywords and titles and tags and updating my CTAs.  I will be adding opt-in forms and popups and creating vlogs.  I will keep on going until I feel worthy of the title blogger and then I will add that title to my social media bios.

Maybe when I have done those things I will feel ready to share my blogging knowledge with others and help them to fall in love with blogging and challenges.  When I have done all that then I will teach them to dream because that  is my great gift for which I am very grateful.

My goodness what amazing things can start with a challenge – so what are you waiting for?  Get started today!