So not only do I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year, I want everybody to understand the one big thing you can never overlook when you have a blog like this one: back-ups.
See, last week – on Christmas day to be exact – my website, for no apparent reason, was reverting back to an earlier version of itself. It essentially had erased every and all comments, and really got me into a “non-Christmas goodwill to all” kind of a mood – and to top it all off, my wife & I were going to a Christmas party and let’s be honest, I wasn’t really in the mood to go to.
So, I closed down shop, went to the party – had a fantastic time by the way – got up the next morning, looked at the issue and told myself: “what can I learn from this?” or better yet, “how can this be a new opportunity for me to better understand the importance of site back-ups and how to do it so as to avoid this type of situation in the future?”.
Go forward to Sunday afternoon and my site was back up and running, had all the updates I wanted to do but more importantly, I was now making sure that my site was saved with a daily backup seven times a week.
In all honesty, I had never given much attention to site backups until now. One big question that was going through my mind during that fateful day was: “what would have I done if this was one year down the road with several dozen entries and as many if not more comments?”
One thing though, I’d like to apologize to those who’s comments weren’t saved but more importantly, a big thank you to those who went back to my blog and put a 2nd comment on it; it was much appreciated!
Posts Of Everyday Life 
Speaking of blog entries, every course I looked into relative to blogging, there was one recurring question mentioned by many: “What do I write about?” When you start writing, you either don’t know what you want to write about or you have no idea of where your thought process can lead you to.
The one phrase that does come back to me very often is: “don’t overthink it”. You’d be surprised at how many people are looking forward to reading your blog – whatever the subject – just so long as you’re being honest, upfront and don’t mind sometimes looking foolish (like, let’s say not being able to have a site back-up done properly) LOL!
Life is demanding enough as it is, if you can’t laugh at yourself, then you need to take the time and reevaluate what’s important because let’s face it: if you can’t take the time to laugh at yourself, someone else will definitely do it so why not get ahead of it all and just laugh!
New Years Resolutions
So we’ve started a new year, many of you may have written down resolutions, for me, nope. I believe resolutions are just there to be broken; you’re better off buying a lotto ticket; your odds of winning versus keeping a resolution are probably better!
Remember when you told yourself that you would start the new year by going to the gym more often and get into shape? How did that pan out? Hopefully, you kept THAT promise!
In my case, a few years back, 5 to be precise, it was my wife who started going to a private gym with a trainer and since then, we’ve been consistently going three times a week, working out for 45 intense minutes every time we go.
This past year wasn’t all for naught. Yes, there were surely many downs but there were quite a few ups. In my case, being able to join Affiliate System, a program offered by Dean Holland of Internet Profits (which we’ll cover later on in another blog don’t worry), made me resolute in the decisions I took relative to my work habits. 2024 WAS going to be a very good year, personally and professionally! Period. And yes; I’ve written down all my objectives for the year.
Being Consistent
Which brings me to another point: the difference between reaching our goals and subsequently, our success, will start by one very importhing thing: being consistent in our actions.
Remember when writing down what you were going to do during the day was the best way to either finish the previous one or start of it?
That’s exactly what I do. I write down the three things I want to accomplish during the day and if I’m able to accomplish two of those; I’m in heaven!
You might be tempted to tell me “Marc, I can get a whole bunch of stuff done during the day…not only three things”… really? You think so?
Don’t forget; your day will be filled with distractions; coffee breaks, telephone calls, etc… many of which you can control by either not answering or letting those around you know that you aren’t available during specific periods of time during the day but many of those distractions are “old habits” that are really hard to stop; you know, like the one checking your phone every minute because you want to see who wrote something on Facebook or a comment on your blog…
One last thing: if you get three things done during the day… based on a 5 day work week….
That’s 15 things done for the week….60 things done for the month…720 things done for the year…
Imagine if we were to talk same time next year and you could say that you had accomplished 720 things for the year?!?
Like what you’re reading or have questions? Don’t be shy, write it up in the comments section for me to reply and more importantly, don’t forget to subscribe!