I want to lay a very important piece of groundwork and that is to find your "just right" gradient and put it on a screen saver, so it’s in your face ever day.

Let me explain:  The first secret of getting things humming is called "decreasing the gradient."

Let me explain:   In behavioral psychology, there is a thing called your gradient. That is the degree of difficulty of what you’re trying to accomplish. The very first thing you should do if it seems like you’re making no progress is to decrease your gradient. That means you don’t tackle such a steep slope all at once. That means dividing your objective or goal into smaller chunks and giving yourself kudos when each one is accomplished.

If you are beginning your online endeavors with very little experience in business, marketing, computers or networking, you’ve got to be a lot more patient with your progress than a person does who comes into the arena bringing a lot of experience.

You’ve got to walk before you run. And you’ve got to run before you fly. Marketing "gurus" are flyers. They fly. But realize that most have prior business experience, knowledge and so forth.

For example, one of my friends came into this industry and succeeded very quickly. But he had also ran his own business before, had attended numerous business seminars, and had developed potent networking skills.

The point is, tackle a LEARNING CURVE that is appropriate to where you are. It’s hard when you have the pressure of bills, or a spouse or family member who doesn’t fully support your endeavors…it’s hard to find your "just right" gradient. When you feel stuck or stymied, it’s a sign that you need to decrease your gradient or chunk down what you’re doing.

Let’s say you’re writing an ebook. Intstead of making your goal to get the whole thing written, work JUST on the table of contents or the first chapter. Put your focus on that.

If you feel OVERWHELMED, it’s a sign you’re focusing on too big a picture. Set your sights on a smaller, more easily accomplished objective.

For example, when I created my new Marketing Dashboard, I divided the objective into 6 major actions and 6 steps for each action. How do you know if you have selected the gradient that is "just right" for you?

1. Do you feel excited and challenged?

If you don’t feel excited and you don’t feel challenged, then your goal or your gradient is actually TOO SMALL! You need excitement and emotion to movitate you to take action and get things done.

2. Do you feel frustrated, overwhelmed or lost?

If so, your big picture needs to be chunked down into manageable steps.

Once you break your goal down into steps that are challenging but not overwhelming, you write these out and put them on a SCREEN SAVER that will be in front of your face on your computer all the time. Every time you take a break and come back to your computer, there your goals will be in front of your face.

If you’d like help in chunking your online selling goal down into a manageable, step-by-step system, check out my new Design Dashboard at: http://www.designdashboard.com