Wednesday, March 7, 2007

I was so frustrated - Day Ten

Today started off relatively well. We had our usual morning conference call and I set about my most vital task of the day: writing a solo ad to bring in more apprentices.

At least that's what I thought my task was. I spent 1.5 hours planning each step of the task (and learning all about our new toy: Central Desktop. It's a virtual office space where teams share their files, their tasks, etc. It's fun! So I taught myself a few new things on it during my planning portion of the day).

For three hours after my planning, I worked on the ad. I grabbed a swipe file about apprenticeshop programs for copywriters (didn't find much of anything good). I wrote, rewrote, read outloud, reread and recorded myself reading the ad. I was all set..a bit tired but it was at least to the point we could begin the real revisions.

When we got on the conference call at 6pm and we discovered I had spent an entire day working on the wrong project. We needed a solo ad for our Information Marketing Bootcamp (ZeroToProfitASAP.com). So I had in effect wasted an entire afternoon. And I worked hard I will tell you. I made it much harder than it really was.

I was so upset with myself..I was angry, frustrated and disappointed. Mark heard it in my voice. He said our minds will play tricks on us to keep us where we are and to make us continue doing things the way we've always done them (the hard way). And I've always beaten myself up over mistakes. I don't do that to anyone else..just myself. I'm sure most people are like me in that respect.

So do you know what he made me do? I had to go look in the mirror and laugh at myself..laugh til I cried.

I did it. I laughed and laughed and laughed...for almost 10 minutes. It felt good. I felt good. In fact, I felt 1,000 times better than I had just moments before!

It lifted the weight right off of my shoulders and I cried tears of joy..not frustration or anger.

I then wrote the correct solo ad in an hour. And I think it turned out pretty good! I'm sure we'll tear it apart and rebuild it but that's ok. I'm proud of what I did!

The moral of the story: laugh it off, whatever it is. If your life didn't end it's not that bad.

In addition to the solo ad, I uploaded Google AdSense to my blog (as you can probably see!) . I spent an hour uploading it to my blog. Ok in reality it will take you 10 minutes. When you know what you're doing. I didn't. I asked someone to help me. He didn't know either. Instead of fumbling around for an hour, I should've googled my problem and got the instructions. Eventually I got those instructions so now you can see those lovely ads!

I also uploaded two more documents to Desktop Central that need approval and I did my blog entry for the day (obviously) as well as my handwriting.

And now I've got a few little tasks to finish up. Time to get to bed so I can run in the morning.

Til tomorrow...

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