How To Get Over The Squidhump

Probably in the excitement of your early Squid-days, you passionately wrote lenses left and right about all your favorite subjects with no real thought for the future. You selflessly nurtured them into deep, meaningful masterpieces, and you committed yourself to building the relationship. Trouble is, the passion has dimmed and you're having to dig a little deeper for your lenses. Maybe you have baby lenses clamoring for attention, or even a sick one that needs doctoring. The demands of the outside world close in, and it's just too much pressure. You can't remember when you ever felt as happy as your profile photo looks. Can't those lenses work a little harder and contribute a little? This isn't what you expected, and you think maybe you should just quit and walk away. But wait! Don't give up. Maybe some counseling would help give you a better perspective.

Just make yourself comfortable and let's get started. I understand you're having some difficulties in your relationship. You feel that you're doing all the work, and your lenses aren't doing their part. Perhaps we should look at your expectations. Now, what is it you want from your Squidoo lenses? Do you want to earn an income? Do you want to express yourself creatively? Do you want to inform and entertain? Maybe you want a combination of all three. The first step is to get clear on what you want.

You should know it is difficult to make a living by writing Squidoo lenses alone. Most of the high earners have branched out with affiliate marketing, blogging, and article writing. That's fine -- no judgments -- as long as your lenses agree to it. But if you try to make them do something they can't do, you'll both just end up hurt and frustrated.

I suggest you don't compare yourself with other Squidooers. If you are always reading about other lensmasters' success when your affiliate sales total about 17 cents, you'll only be frustrated. If you read about other lensmasters' lack of success, it will just make the situation seem hopeless. And obsessing over lensrank only wastes your energy and causes you to feel discouraged. Just determine to work on your own lenses and find the place where you can be happy together.

I'm glad to see you back. Last time we discussed which direction you want to take with your lenses. Now that you know which route you're taking, you'll need to have a goal. How can your lenses help you if you don't even know where you're going? Do you want more traffic to your lenses? Do you want to earn a certain amount of money? Do you want to increase your web presence?

"We're happiest when we're creating what we truly want in life, and going out to get it -- authentically, compassionately, and consciously."

Now, make sure what you are targeting is a true goal and not just a task. A goal should excite you. Tasks are the little steps you complete on your way to the goal. Here's how you can tell the difference: when you complete a task, you feel relief, but when you complete a goal, you feel joy.

An effective goal is SMART:

• Specific - your goal must be explicit and precise
• Measurable - your goal must be measurable
• Attainable - a goal needs to stretch you, but not be impossible
• Relevant - a goal should be relevant to who you are and what you want to be
• Time Based - a goal is not a process; it must have a date by which it will be accomplished

Next session, I want you to bring in a list of goals you have for yourself and your lenses.

Good, I see you have your list of goals. These are fine -- specific, measurable, attainable, time frame -- all good. We'll look at the relevance factor in another session. Now we'll address your ability to focus. I know you have all kinds of things competing for your attention. Your established lenses, the job, the house, the baby lenses...they're all important, but they don't hold the same priorities in relation to your goals.

You must establish boundaries and learn to focus your energies on accomplishing the tasks that will help you reach your goals. Don't get distracted by the shiny things on the internet. And don't give in to driven behaviors -- they are just avoidance tactics.

"Many of us are caught up in a cycle of driven behavior [which has] no connection at all to our purpose, direction, aim, or dreams..."

Driven behavior is characterized by:

• repetition: you repeat thought or behavior even if it causes needless effort; you feel uncomfortable, frustrated, resigned to the "rut"
• limited satisfaction: you feel a joyless compulsion to fill your waking hours with unnecessary to-do tasks
• perfectionism: keeps your energy tied up in unfinished projects

"Perfectionism is...most often an excuse
for not producing the result."

I suggest you write down a schedule that will help you keep on track. Set a certain amount of time each day for responding to comments, visiting and rating other lenses, or participating in forums. Yes, definitely use a timer, and when time's up, move on to the next task. Set a chunk of time for researching a new lens, a chunk of time for writing an article, a chunk of time for submitting to directories and search engines, and so on. Maybe you could concentrate on different categories of your lenses on each day of the week, going through them to check your links, polish things up a bit, and research new keywords.

I know, you like to be spontaneous. But life can't always be fun and games. If you're committed to reaching your goals, it's going to take some work. You need to respect the effort of your lenses by putting forth effort of your own.

You've come a long way. You've determined your purpose, you've set concrete goals, and you've made an effort to stay focused while you're working. Now comes the hard part. I can see that integrity is important to you. You may experience some conflict if what you're trying to do online is at odds with your inner being -- your purpose in life.

"When we don't succeed, it is sometimes because our goals are not connected to our life's intentions, our standards of integrity, or our deep desire to contribute."

A life intention is what you feel you are meant to do on this earth. It is the identity of your true nature. When you understand these traits in yourself, you tend to notice areas where you're not acting on them with integrity. Those areas leak energy and make it harder to reach your goals. You may not be very effective if you're building a sales lens but don't believe in what you're trying to sell. This is the relevance factor of goal-setting. You may want to go back over your goals and make sure they align with your life intention.

Now we'll look at basic assumptions. A basic assumption is a fundamental decision about life, yourself, and others made when you were very young. It is self-limiting and affects how you see life. It is what makes you think things can never be different from the way they are.

"Our basic assumption is invisible to us. We don't think it, we be it. You see your basic assumption as the truth in your life, and it seems to transcend any possibility of choice."

If you grew up with a bias against materialism, and you believe that people shouldn't spend their hard-earned money on unnecessary things, you may have an inner block toward selling altogether. Yet, you are trying to earn an income by selling things to people. The level of conflict in this instance can be intense, and you must resolve it if your goals include making a living online.

When your basic assumptions get in your way, you need to decide if they are still serving you. If you decide to discard them, you may become confused because a new way of thinking isn't apparent yet. It's uncomfortable when circumstances are unclear, and Monkey Mind panics. It tries to maintain the status quo by discouraging you. "I can't; Something's wrong with me; Life's too hard." I'm sure you've heard that before.

But there doesn't have to be a conflict. You don't have to feel that selling people things and helping people by providing information are opposite and exclusive. People are already looking for something to buy; you can help them out by offering information about the product. Focus on the topic you're passionate about, and your personal insights will help them even more.

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"It's not what you know, but how you hold what you know that makes the difference between success and frustration. If what you know is 'written in stone forever,' all of your energy in life will be aimed to prove you're right."

You've made great progress in your counseling. You've addressed purpose, goals, and focus, and you've made headway in the hardest part of all -- reconciling conflict. I think you're ready to discontinue your counseling. Your hard work proves that you're determined to do what it takes to make this work. Just don't expect your lenses to do what you're not willing to do yourself, and I'm sure you will have a long, happy relationship at Squidoo.


And now that you and your lenses are getting along so well, I strongly recommend you take the next step and join One Week Marketing. It's a highly effective step-by-step program to success in online marketing. You won't regret it.