When you are working toward changing bad habits into more positive ones, set small goals and reward yourself for accomplishing them.
If you are trying to establish a new habit, one approach is to add the practice to a behavior that you already do each day. For example, write in your journal after you eat lunch each day. When you are online, send five messages of gratitude to others before you start your workday online.
You may be limiting yourself. By ignoring the limitations and pushing past fear, you can create newer, healthier habits that break you free of your comfort zone.
To make a change in the present, you have to move away from the past. Thoughts of the past might run through your mind when trying to sleep. Your personal growth could stall or hinder if you are continually re-living the past. Clearing the closet of skeletons can help you banish your negative thoughts and bad habits by allowing you to focus on who you are now and who you want to be in the future.
Do you know that states of mind are contagious? Any negative person in your life significantly affects you. When trying to change your habits, surround yourself with those who are of a positive mindset or successful in some area of life. Surrounding yourself with positivity can propel you to accomplishing your goals and banishing bad habits.
Willpower is a dominant force when trying to establish new habits. Use your powerful imagination to distract yourself when willpower is low. Distraction is a powerful technique when reshaping behavior.
Remember that you will fail occasionally, and failing teaches you another step to success.
Do you have a plan for how to deal with failures when they arise?
How does failure teach you resilience?
How do mistakes help you try again and to experience success?
Mistakes mean you are human and learning to get back up and try again. Missteps are essential components of a successful life.
When you are trying to rid yourself of a bad habit, get rid of triggers.
Whether you are changing your diet or trying to watch less TV, eliminating the triggers that encourage you to engage in these behaviors is essential. Don’t have unhealthy food in your house. Hide your remote control. Do whatever you need to eliminate the habit from your life.
A giveaway event startles some newcomers to online marketing. First, they don’t like the idea of giving away anything and not being compensated for it. That’s just a part of developing loyalty and good branding so you have to think of it like you’re walking through Sam’s Club for groceries and someone hands you a bite-sized taste. You appreciate that, right? The second that worries them is the thought of sharing their up and coming list with others. If you join a giveaway event with 5 other marketers, it’s not just you sending your list to them – it’s them sending their list to you, so you have the potential to increase your list five-fold! You have to eliminate your stingy mindset and think in terms of providing your list with a value opportunity. You’re going to share your audience. You probably already do that anyway if you’re an affiliate marketer (or plan to be). It’s no different.
Research Other Thought Leaders in Your Night
So once you decide you want to host a giveaway event with other marketers, yo have to find who you want to line up with. If you don’t already have a group of people in mind, you have to start finding them. Spy on other marketers who are on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. Look for the people your followers follow and see if you see any candidates. See who is talking about the same topics and who are the leaders who have people sharing their content. Look on Amazon to see which Kindle self published authors are on there using Kindle to attract a new audience. Look inside their book to see if you like what and how they teach and look for ways to contact them. SEO (search engine optimization) rank is another way to find thought leaders in your niche. If you are a leader, chances are you have stability in the search engines, and people are sharing your links and helping fortify your position, so reach out to those people who have earned that ranking. You want to see what the size of their following is. Ideally, you’ll be hooking up with other marketers at or above your level of list strength so that you pull in more people to your own list. Sign up to list to see what they offer and how they operate. You want people similar to what you do. You definitely don’t want to align yourself with any scammers or unethical individuals. Reach out for JV giveaway partners on threads in marketing forums. The Warrior Forum, for example, has a JV section where you could post your opportunity, but make sure you filter the people instead of allowing it to be a free for all. If your audience exists, and you already have a list going to some extent, then ask them who they align you with. You’ll usually have people responding to tell you that they know of 1-2 other people similar to you who they respect. Contact each person you vet for viability and then ask if they’d be interested in forming a joint giveaway with you. Gauge general interest at first or, go ahead to the next step and create your guidelines and email your prospects the guidelines along with your initial request.
Create Guidelines for the Giveaway
After you contact the others (or even before), create a list of guidelines for the participants. There are several things you can include, or leave out what doesn’t matter. Size (like number of pages) might be a consideration for you. For instance, it might be a 50+ page eBook or 5 page short report. Maybe it’s an article pack or even five hours of video or audio tutorials. Maybe you’ll want to put a dollar limit on it and make it value based. For example, “Must be something you normally sell for at least $27.” You’ll want to put the value on the offers to show the visitors everything they’re getting free. Topics might be a consideration, too. You’ll already be honing in on people who are in the same niche, but you might want to go one step further. For example, let’s say you are in the diet niche. Your giveaway event might be built around one topic, like nutrition. So everyone has to submit a product for the event about nutrition. They can’t focus on diet drugs or exercise. Themes are similar to this concept, and you might want to create a theme for your giveaway event. Using the diet niche as an example again, you might use something like this: • 7 Ways to Kickstart Your Diet • Eliminating the Quitter Mindset • 14-Days to a Trimmer Waist So everyone who submits for a certain theme must produce something that helps back up that concept. You also want to detail the time until the event for your prospective participants. They need time to create something unique for the giveaway. The less time you give them to prepare, the fewer people who will join in and the worse the quality will be. So plan well in advance of your event. Figure out how people will get each offer. Will they go to a squeeze page and opt in to the person’s list to receive their download? Or will you not make opt ins a requirement, but instead add promotions to the download area or zip files? You might also want to set guidelines on whether the submission has to be something 100% brand new or if it can be older products that they already have on the market.
Set Up the Page for the Giveaway Event
Like sales copy, the giveaway event should have copy that promotes the offer. You want to inform, educate and excite your audience about what they’re about to receive. You’ll want to include some simple instructions for what they need to do to get their free downloads. The more complex you make it, the worse off your event will be. Terms and rights will need to be included in some instances. For example, if you’re hosting a private label rights giveaway event. Each marketer might have different terms, so those should be listed with each offer. Start with a catchy headline and maybe a subheadline before launching into a bit of storyline for the sale. Beside each offer name, include a picture of the marketer, tell what their offer is, give the specifications or details of their offer, and provide the link to where they grab it. The promotion should have some sort of time scarcity. You don’t want to leave it wide open forever. If you have plenty of advanced notice and build a lot of buzz, then you should be fine doing a 24 hour to 7 day giveaway event, max. Create graphics for the sale just as if you were launching an info product. That means a minisite feel, ecovers for the offers if applicable, and even promo banners for the event. You might want to create a set of swipe files for the event too. This makes it easy for the participants to either use it as is or as springboard content that they can tweak and blast out to their list.
Promote the Event
You can’t just make the event go live and expect people to find it via the search engines. Your page would need time to get indexed and ranked for domination. So you need to manually promote it. Building a buzz should take place shortly before the event and every day thereafter by every member who is onboard for the special giveaway event, not just by one person. Come up with a daily promo idea such as asking people (your list, your social networking followers), “Who’s your favorite?” Discuss the various participants and get their feedback on which offer blew them away. Share that feedback with your audience online and bill that favorite as a “can’t miss” free download to drive more traffic to the giveaway. Discuss specific offers in more depth like a review – or offer a tutorial for them. So for instance, if you were in a PLR giveaway event, and there was one pack for a 35-page eBook, you might do a lesson on how to repurpose that person’s giveaway freebie. You’re showing your people (your blog readers, etc.) how to get more mileage out of this event, and that will hook the people who heard about the offer but passed over it because they were unsure how to put it to good use. Social networking sites will need to have a buzz about your event. Whip up posts for Twitter, Google Plus, and Facebook (as well as Pinterest). Make sure you provide a call to action that says they should visit the event and share the post with others! Host a webinar with the participants of the giveaway. Invite everyone’s list to the event and then have each person do a short presentation. If you want to up the ante a bit, do a Q&A afterwards. Have everyone in the event blog about it. Each person should email their list a link to their blog to read about the event and get more details, in addition to linking directly to the event itself.
Choosing a Cross Promo Instead of a Giveaway Event
Picking one marketer to cross promo with is another option. You don’t have to have a big group of individuals initially. Sometimes it’s hard when you’re relatively unknown with a small list (or no list at all) to get people to agree to be part of your event. So if this happens, just try getting one person to agree to an event. If you have a list yourself, and are trying to grow it, choose someone with a list approximately the same size as yours. If you have no list, then choose someone with a bigger list and make an unbelievable free offer just for their list. Why would anyone want to come onboard for this type of exchange? Because your offer is going to be so awesome, they’ll be providing something great for their list. What you’ll have to do is explain this to the potential joint venture partner and go above and beyond in what you create for their list. In fact, try to tailor it to their subscribers’ needs. The JV partner will probably also want to know what kind of marketer you are. If they’re established, then they probably get requests all the time for promotions and other deals. They’re looking for someone ethical. Why is this important? Because they’re about to put their own reputation on the line and recommend that their subscribers sign up with you. If they send them to the jaws of a scammer, they’ll be the one blamed. So somehow, prove to the prospective JV partner that you’re on the up and up and that it’s safe to engage in a cross promotion with you. You can do a free event, or if the prospective partner won’t go for that, see if he or she will possibly entertain the thought of letting you give their list a different kind of perk – a discount on a paid product. Coupons are also special and show a list that you’re working on their behalf to get them good deals. Make it a special offer so that it’s not just the same discount everyone else online gets. Giveaway and cross-promo events can be a great list building activity. It forces you to give it your all and showcase the best that you have to offer to the paying public and they’ll be more loyal from that point on.
“Teenagers are known for their angst and moodiness. You really can’t blame them with all that’s going on in their lives from physical changes and peer pressure to academic expectations and the formation of relationships.” Tyler Jacobison (Twitter | Linkedin
Feeling moody and grouchy once in a while is normal. Trouble begins when these feelings become more intense, persisting for weeks, months or even longer. Teen depression is an uncomfortable reality in our society and it’s up to parents to support and help their affected teens.
Situational vs. Clinical Depression
You can help your child by first identifying the difference between situational and clinical depression, their causes and treatment methods.
Situational depression(also known as adjustment disorder) occurs in the aftermath of monumental or traumatic changes in an individual’s life. In teens, situational depression can be triggered by parents’ divorce, a breakup from a romantic relationship, death of a loved one, academic struggles or even moving to a new area. Keep in mind that situational depression is temporary and things should go back to normal once the stressors are removed or your teen learns to cope with them.
In the meantime though, their symptoms are very real and are similar to those of chronic depression. They include:
Persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety, worthlessness or hopelessness.
Changes in sleeping patterns –either difficulties in falling asleep or oversleeping.
Changes in eating patterns, loss of appetite and weight changes.
Loss of interest in hobbies, studies and life in general.
Persistent lethargy and fatigue.
Difficulties concentrating, making decisions or remembering tasks.
Self-harming or suicide attempts.
Clinical depression, on the other hand, is more severe and is thought to be caused by a complex mix of brain chemical imbalances, genetic factors and social situations. It causes major long-term depressive symptoms that are pervasive enough to interfere with your teen’s daily life.
Different Treatment Approaches
The treatment your teen requires depends on the type of depression they have.
Managing Situational Depression
● Urge your teen to continue pursuing their hobbies and other leisure activities. ● Also, encourage them to eat a nutritionally well-balanced diet and get regular exercise to stimulate the production of dopamine to boost their mood. ● Joining a support group or talking out the situation with close friends and relatives can also help. ● If all else fails, seek the help of a trained psychotherapist. Managing Clinical Depression ● Psychotherapy is a crucial part of helping your teen deal with clinical depression. Get feedback on their progress to ensure that the therapist you engage is the right fit. ● Appropriate medication in tandem with therapy will provide the best outcome for your teen. The medication might be for short or long-term use depending on the diagnosis. ● Hospitalization in a psychiatric facility might also be necessary especially if your teen is self-harming, suicidal or showing signs of delusion or psychosis.
With proper coaching, parents can learn responsive parenting skills that will help them discern behavioral issues that may predispose their teens to depression as well as learn how to assist their children to get over rough patches in their lives.
GUEST AUTHOR: Tyler Jacobson is a proud father, husband, writer and outreach specialist with experience helping parents and organizations that help troubled teen boys. Tyler has focused on helping through honest advice and humor on: modern day parenting, struggles in school, the impact of social media, addiction, mental disorders, and issues facing teenagers now. Follow Tyler on: Twitter | LinkedIn
When coaching whole parent, child or family member, the best coaching model is the wholistic viewpoint: involving the physical, mental, emotional, intuitive, spiritual, and social intelligences affecting each person.
It can be of no benefit to simply examine one or two of these intelligences. This would not give you a holistically complete and thorough view of the child and parent. Coaching whole parents and whole children is more beneficial when you look beyond the surface level of behavior and symptoms. What is truly influencing or causing the reaction or behavior?
Temperaments?
Emotional frustration?
Lack of Understanding?
Need or more information?
Need for more experience?
For example, if a child gets an ear ache or undefined tummy ache, do you check in with the doctor? Are medications enough? Not likely. It would be in everyone’s best interest to look at what is going on with that child from a whole perspective. Determine what is going emotionally, mentally and/or socially. A child may also be having trouble with a peer at daycare or in school or maybe even with the teacher. Emotional and social problems can show up as physical symptoms.
ACPI Coach and parent Kristy Dixon explains why:
“In coaching whole parent and whole-child, the parent is guided to self-discovery of their internal and external influences. They envision their parenting goal and feeling baby steps of success along the way. When looking at the whole child, the parent is better able to help rather than punish that child. For example ,if a child is having a fit. the parents would allow that child time to release their anger, frustration, disappointment, whatever it may be that needs to be released rather than labeling that child as ADHD, Oppositional Defiant, challenging, or out of control. If looking at the whole child one may find that the true culprit of this fit may be the result of the child “using up all of his good” (self-control and restraint) at school, or again of too much sugar in the diet or reaction to a food allergy, or of not feeling heard by his or her parents. Children struggle to learn how to express their feelings and needs appropriately. It is our job to investigate the mystery of what is causing this type of behavior. Then help the child express in a more effective and safer way. However, we cannot do that if we do not thoroughly look at all influencing factors in the child’s life.”
