A Forgotten Aspect of Being a Webmaster
Posted On: 2007-01-18
Almost everyone who comes into this industry arrives with the notion that things will be easy. It will be easy to get traffic, it will be easy to produce sites that make money and so it will be easy to make money and it will be very easy to live a much better lifestyle than you have lived before you became an adult webmaster. But of course, everything in this industry is far from easy.
You quickly find that it's not easy to get traffic, it's not easy to build sites that will make sales and it's not easy to make money. However, with a little experience, a little coaching and a little support those things will become easier but there's one thing that won't become easier. In fact it will quite possibly become harder the longer you stay in this industry.
One of the reasons you came into this industry was to improve your lifestyle and that is something that does seem to improve because, if you're doing this full-time, you will be your own boss. Of course, the longer you work here the more you begin to realize that perhaps your lifestyle wasn't changed all that greatly when you became your own boss because now you work longer and harder than you ever did before.
And there is another aspect of your lifestyle that will be affected by working in this industry and that aspect is your interpersonal relationship with your significant other. Even if you don't have a boyfriend, girlfriend or partner right now there will come a time when you will and then the interpersonal relationship problem will raise its ugly head.
Let me say right now that even when both you and your significant other work in this industry there can be problems. Steve and I have worked together closely since 1998 and we have shared a common goal through all that time yet sometimes the amount of time and effort that we have needed to put in have caused minor problems.
We've been lucky, our problems have been very minor, but others who have worked together have not been so lucky. Even when you have a common goal and are working towards it you cannot expect to be completely in step all the time. There will be times when one wants a break and the other may not, or one has some needs that the other is simply not meeting because of what you are doing together.
Those are the times when disagreements will break out and those disagreements can so quickly turn into major issues that can destroy your project and destroy your relationship. If it can be that bad for couples who have the same goals think how much worse it can be when only one of you is working in the industry and the person is not.
When only one person in the relationship sees the need to work long long hours day after day and the other person can't understand why their partner needs to work that hard, problem can arise very quickly. Those problems can quickly escalate until the relationship is destroyed.
Perhaps even worse, they can linger and smolder, they can fester like a sore when neither party wants to address the problems directly. When that happens your ability to continue to work to the limit that you need to work to can be severely reduced.
Imagine how hard it would be to work if your partner was interrupting you continually or nagging you to take them out, do work around the home, look after the kids, take a vacation or any one of the thousand other reasons that can pop up in a situation like this.
Those relationship problems can, and will, arise and if you are not ready for them they can cripple your business and destroy you financially if you're single and do even more damage if you're in a relationship.
So be prepared, don't let your new online business consume every waking hour of every single day. Be prepared to take time out for your partner and kids or your girlfriend. And I don't just mean a few minutes here and there; set aside real time to spend with the people who are important in your life.
Sure, you will wish you were back doing what you might think of as more important work but if you're in a relationship that is going to be important to you as well so spend time keeping the relationship happening.
If you're not in a relationship then don't rush into one with the first guy or girl you seem to relate to. Be prepared to play it a little cool and try to objectively see whether or not that person could handle all the hard work and long hours that you would have to put into your business.
I know one guy at the moment who is trying to make a relationship work where he spends almost every waking hour on his business and she likes to spend time outdoors enjoying life. It's just not working for either of them and sooner or later one of them is going to have to make the hard decisions to either accept the other person and all that acceptance entails ... or move on.
Few people even think about interpersonal relationships when they are moving into this business, there are too many other more exciting things to think about. Sadly though it can be an interpersonal relationship that can decide whether or not you will succeed here.
Relationships are powerful things; they can help you achieve your dreams or they can turn them to dust. It all depends on how you approach them.