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When diving into the world of online marketing, especially for the first time, it’s natural to be excited at the prospect that this may be the ticket to a better life. An escape hatch to lead you out of your current state of self-imposed slavery.

I remember when I first dove into internet business, I wanted to hit that magic number of 10K a month on the very first month that I launched my business. Any why not? After all, the possibilities are endless, right?

There was just one minor catch. I had the drive, an idea, a plan, and some technical know-how, but I was missing one key ingredient. This was an ingredient which can’t be bought. Not really. That ingredient was ‘experience’.

In 2005, I was quite the green-horn, and I poked around blindly just like the rest of us. I chased all the opportunities which offered short-cuts. Sometimes I would get lucky and find info that was actually practical, and based on someone else’s real life experience, saving me some pitfalls along the way.

But when it all came down to it, I had to learn most of it by just doing. In the beginning, I crammed as much as I could into my projects to keep moving forward. At other times, I would just lose steam and felt that I was going nowhere, but I managed to press on.

As I analyzed things along the way, I realized that if I kept a steady forward motion everyday, no matter how small, it had a cumulative effect on my business. If I was stuck in some area, I would move in some other way while figuring my way out of it.

For example, I couldn’t get the hang of Adwords for a while back then. Despite getting pounded, I still kept moving in other areas. Baby steps every day.

Today, I was watching one of my favorite shows, The Universe. Yeah, I like all that geeky cool stuff. There was a segment about ion propulsion, and how this type of engine generates just about enough thrust to lift a piece of paper. Yet, in outer space where there is no friction, this constant stream of ions keeps the spacecraft accelerating faster and faster with time.

In time it achieves a mind boggling velocity. I couldn’t help thinking how this same philosophy applies to internet business. Applying a steady stream of forward motion every day in your business leads to the same effect.

Always keeping your focus forward in your business is just like that steady ion stream which gets you to the other side of the solar system in the most efficient manner.

The ion propulsion method is designed for the long term. Is your business? It’s good to be excited about the short term, but always remember that the longer you’re in the game, the more velocity you can build. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t feel that you’re moving quickly enough.

Slow and steady will compound its way up to ‘holy terminal velocity batman!’ Stick to this mindset, and you can’t lose.