Destroying The Road Blocks To Success

by Robb Sutton

Do you ever wake up and feel like there was a party you weren’t invited to? Like there is some kind of roadblock in your way or a secret key you forgot to pick up? You are taking in all of the advice, doing all of the work, planning your future but it is all not coming as fast as you would like. Why is it coming for others faster than it is coming for me? They are doing the same things I am…what gives?!

There is some point in time when EVERYONE feels like this as they grow their blogs, their businesses and their personal lives. It is a natural part of progression and if forces you to take a deep look inside yourself and your actions to evaluate where you are and where you are headed. Why is it that some people seem to just ooze success while others (who seem to be doing everything correctly) are like a duck on water. Everything looks calm on the outside but their legs are moving like crazy just to get a little forward motion.

The Problem With Too Much Advice

One of the major road blocks to success is too much advice. I know…funny thing to hear on a blog where I give advice but stick with me for a second it will all make sense.

When beginning bloggers and entrepreneurs hit the ground running looking to make a life for themselves instead of being reliant on others, they take in as much information as humanly possible. This learning stage we all go through is part of the process of wrapping your mind around the industry and where you have to head to get things rolling. This learning process is vital, but also self defeating in some ways.

There is such thing as too much advice.

At some point in time in every successful blogger or entrepreneurs career, they came up with an original thought. The ebook, course, product, style, etc. was different than anything else the market had seen up until that point, or it was so much better than the competition that it left no other alternative (this can be content driven as well). This original thought was unique to their business and brought it over the hump and off the plateau of small growth into successful, large growth.

You are not going to find your unique idea in an ebook or ecourse, you are going to have to apply the knowledge you have learned to provide your market with something unique and useful to separate yourself out from everyone else who is absorbing advice! What are you doing to do that is different and new? That is the question you need to ask yourself once the learning process is complete.

Outside of the original idea, many people get stuck in the learning process. They spend most of their time reading and learning instead of trying and doing. This sponge absorption trap will constrict you from trying new things and actually getting out there, so take a look at how you spend your time closely. You might be constricting yourself from the beginning by not allowing yourself enough time to actually try techniques instead of reading about them.

As you start to grow your blogs and businesses, start asking yourself…

  • What am I doing that is unique?
  • How am I spending my time?
  • What can I do today to separate myself from the pack?

When you start to answer those types of questions, you are tearing down the road blocks to drive down the road to success.

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11 comments

DJ Wetzel March 23, 2010 - 7:28 am

Great post Robb! I always got frustrated by the people in high school and even college who criticized the knowledge they were being taught because they didn’t understand how it applied to them. I don’t like useless knowledge as much as the next guy but I have learned that it is not as much about the knowledge itself as it is about taking that knowledge and leveraging it to further your goals, whatever they may be. I am at this exact point you describe in your post. A complete information overload. It is hard to stay focused and strive to meet my goals when I have so much to learn. But it is all about taking the knowledge I learn and leveraging it to meet my pre-defined goals. Thanks as always!

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Robb Sutton March 24, 2010 - 7:14 am

It is all about the application and many times we don’t realize it until we have to apply it!!

I got frustrated with those same people in school…couldn’t see past first base.

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Srinivas Rao March 23, 2010 - 9:42 am

Hey Robb,

This is pretty funny advice coming from a guy who has a blog about blogging, but I think you are spot on :). One of the major problems with the way people approach many of the blogging courses and e-books is literal interpretations of the advice. They don’t take what they read and adapt it to their own strengths. I was part of Yaro’s Blog Mastermind program and one of his lessons was about doing interviews and podcasts. I took that and turned that into a site that stands on its own. But, if I hadn’t been willing to take a concept, make it my own and experiment with it, that’s when I got some real traction out of it.

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Robb Sutton March 24, 2010 - 7:16 am

Ironic isn’t it?!

You have to take everything you read and adapt it like you just alluded to. Nothing works verbatim but you can get a tighter grasp on the situation and shorten the learning curve dramatically by listening and learning.

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Aaron Mielke March 23, 2010 - 10:53 am

Great advice Robb.

I’ve had to shrink the number of bloggers that I follow. All of the advice was too loud, too overwhelming.

You can get way too wrapped up in reading, learning, and researching that you forget to APPLY what you are learning.

Nice post, and very relevant to my current “blogging career”. Thanks for the reminder.

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Robb Sutton March 24, 2010 - 7:17 am

You ran into the same situation that many bloggers run into…information overload. There is a ton of great information out there…the trick is finding the ones you relate with. I still do the same thing.

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Jack | Online Marketing March 23, 2010 - 11:35 am

Differentiating yourself from the pack is important..and what’s the best way to do this?

Write about yourself!

No one will have the same exact experiences, success, and failures that you went through and how you overcame.

People want to hear your story.

I wrote a post on how my 3 month old blog got listed as Technorati’s top 100 small business blogs. It was an achievement and my own experience that made that post unique to me.

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Robb Sutton March 24, 2010 - 7:17 am

Personal experiences are key in my opinion. No one wants to read a text book…they want feeling and emotion to hit the page. Great point.

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zazo March 24, 2010 - 6:41 am

Nice post as usual Robb.
I know how much I blocked my own road to the desired destination of my blogging career by just asking others. All I got is confusion and discouraging thoughts. I will not blame others for advising me, It was me who asked them every time because I could never answer my own questions out of low self confidence. Things are getting settled now, because I stopped asking others and believing on myself more 🙂

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Robb Sutton March 24, 2010 - 7:18 am

Great Zazo! Keep that rolling.

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zazo March 26, 2010 - 9:00 am

Thanks Robb, Its all because of some sound bloggers like you who inspired me and helped me to get back that lost self confidence.

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