It’s 8:30 pm. and you’re going through your well-intentioned mental check list. Kids in bed – check! Perry Marshall’s Definitive Guide to Google AdWords handy with highlighter ready to go – check! Time to set up some smokin’ hot AdWords campaigns and start watching the money roll in! After you login to your AdWords account you do what every good Internet marketer does and start looking up a few killer long tail keywords to clobber everybody else and rule on Google. But then slowly it starts to happen and you don’t even realize it…

One of the keyword results jogs your memory about a podcast you wanted to get uploaded. So you quickly toggle over to Traffic Geyser thinking how smart you are to start the upload so it can be cookin’ in the background while you get your ad campaign set up. Once you go to browse for your file on your local hard drive you see the video you did yesterday that just needs the final titles of your URL edited in and then it’s ready to be uploaded too so you quickly open your movie maker software to make that quick change. You’re patting yourself on the back thinking, “Dang! I’m so efficient to be able to upload both of these files at once!”

As you edit your MySpace URL inside your movie you’re reminded of a quick tweak you wanted to do on your MySpace profile so you pop over to make the change. Only Internet Explorer 7 locks up on you…again. You spend the next 2 hours troubleshooting your computer reading Microsoft Technet articles, running Spyware checks, and reinstalling Java. Before you know it it’s midnight and you STILL don’t have that ad campaign done!!!!

Sound familiar?

It can be so frustrating and overwhelming trying to master Internet marketing. Trying to figure out the process often feels like trying to understand a complicated and esoteric Zen koan. . It seems like you take one step forward; two steps back. There are a few very important lessons to be learned here, though. The first one being, at least you are taking steps! “As A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”- Lao Tzu


However, not all action is equal. One of the most important things to master in this business is your mind. According to the great Buddhist teachers, “monkey mind” is the endless chattering in your head as you jump in your mind from thought to thought. Eventually, you start to feel like your thoughts are spinning in circles and you're left totally confused - much like an evening of unfocussed Internet marketing!

Master your mind and it will become your ally. Master a focused marketing game plan, and it, too, will become your ally. Set big goals initially and break them down into smaller daily goals. Write them out and be realistic. It’s much better to have fewer goals that actually get done than to have so many that they just add to the discursive thoughts and overwhelming feelings. For example, a big goal would be generating 200 leads per week. Break it down into daily action such as on Monday write 3 articles and publish them; on Tuesday, make 3 videos and upload them; on Wednesday, place 5 classified ads; on Thursday, post at 5 different forums; Friday create 5 new ad campaigns. Track it all and adjust it until you start bringing in the numbers you want and build up your activity.

Most importantly, be mindful of the task at hand. When you are writing ad copy, write ad copy. When you are editing videos, edit videos. When you feel the urge to switch tasks, acknowledge it, but then go back to the task at end. Stay focused and start marking things off your written list. Before you know it, you will really start getting things accomplished that build a foundation you will benefit from for a long time.

And as far as that ad campaign goes, my colleague Perry Marshall has written a very helpful e-course called "5 days to success with Google AdWords" and there's no charge for it.