Instant Online Success Is Rare
Many new webmasters start a forum, blog, or another website hoping to achieve instant fame, success, and fortune. Whether they're attempting to earn money or just bring in new community members or subscribers, some web administrators make the mistake of thinking they will be successful quickly. That is not the case, at least not for most websites. Instant online success isn't a total myth because hundreds, if not thousands, of websites have gone viral within days of opening. However, this should not be expected by everyone. Having your site go viral on Reddit or Facebook, or achieving other forms of instant success online is extremely rare. Keep reading to learn how you can adjust your expectations, follow reasonable guidelines for long-term success, and ultimately be a better webmaster.
The Long Game
Part of being a long-term thinker means focusing on something we call "the long game". In other words, it means striving to achieve goals over a set period of time without being distracted by instant gratification. The effort you put in can have a direct effect on the significant value you bring to your projects, online websites, and life. When you are able to dedicate yourself to a cause for a long period of time, you can truly see better results. There are so many examples of this positive type of thinking. Unfortunately, a lot of people never actually realize the rewards of long-term planning and playing the long game. This is because they give up too early or shift their focus and energy from something that isn't bringing them instant success to instead follow a trend or easier concept. When Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook from the dorm rooms of Harvard, he could have achieved instant success by allowing anyone in the world to sign up on the social network. However, he and his team knew that the servers the website was hosted on could only handle so much web traffic. Instead of letting anyone access Facebook, they rolled out invites on a per-school basis, and only colleges at first. This is a great example of playing the long game. It's not that Mark and his fellow classmates wanted to grow Facebook slowly... they just knew that if they "skipped ahead" and tried to gain instant success overnight on a country-wide or global scale that their site would crash, be inaccessible for everyone, and likely be forgotten due to unreliable server hosting. This long-term thinking proved so successful, with Facebook now achieving incredible server up time for billions of users across the globe.
Don't Quit Too Early
Playing the long game and focusing on goals that bring you sustainable profits, happiness, and success can be difficult. This is especially true if you are not seeing any results. Many people do the right thing by focusing on what they can achieve on the internet over the course of 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, etc. However, a lot of these efforts go unappreciated because the creators of these online websites, YouTube channels, forums, blogs, and other projects give up too early. It's sad too see so many people give up, and it happens frequently too.
Knowing When To Give Up
The flip side of giving up too early is never quitting or sticking with something for too long. One of the best ways successful people continue to grow and achieve their goals is knowing when it's time to stop. Certain ideas simply do not come to fruition, and staying with these plans can be awful for your personal life, career, online success, and more. There is a happy medium between giving up too early and quitting at the right time. It's not an exact science, although it is often still very easy to understand when someone else should stop pursuing their dreams because of how much energy, time, and even money they are pouring into their ideas. The main problem is that it can be extremely difficult to self reflect and criticize your own efforts in the same way. Succeeding online is partially about sticking with great ideas with a long-term mindset, not quitting when it's hard, but choosing to stop "beating a dead horse" or in other words, failing. Knowing the right time to leave an idea behind is a fantastic way to save money, time, and energy, and we can see this all throughout the world. For example, knowing when to sell a stock or other asset can be very profitable, while holding on to that stock can lose you a lot of money. Try to apply this to your life in the same way.
