Do you suffer from the Groundhog Day Effect? Are you Stuck in bad internet marketing habits?

In September Nightingale Conant are releasing an audio program of my book, The Magic of Groundhog Day. When I spent 8 hours in their Chicago studio last month recording the program, I realized how relevant the movie is to improving our effectiveness in business, and especially internet marketing.

So over the next 8 weeks I am going to return regularly to the movie and my book to illustrate valuable lessons I have learned about sales, marketing and entrepreneurship. Today, I want to write about “The Groundhog Day Effect” that I think is at the heart of many business problems.

All of us are living in our own version of Groundhog Day to some extent. I call this the Groundhog Day Effect, a phenomenon that affects individuals, groups, organizations, and human civilization itself.  For many, this is the daily grind of endlessly repetitive tasks, mind-numbing encounters with the same people, and meaningless activities and conversations. This effect keeps us feeling stuck and powerless to change.

If you are a business owner or executive, it is essential to recognize and understand how your repetitive patterns of thought and action produce those negative feelings,and this will help you understand why change is so difficult.

Sometimes the Groundhog Day Effect is more subtle and is like a powerful addiction that  seems stimulating and rewarding.  In the world of internet marketing, this often means an addiction to new ideas, new tools and new strategies.  Almost every internet marketer I know, and I would include myself here, is addicted to innovation.

We love to learn about the latest strategy, to watch a video of a technique that built a list of 10,000 new subscribers in 3 hours or the big new concept in Twitter. We love to acquire more and more knowledge, and become addicted to new ideas. Of course, learning is important but the ultimate learning in business comes not from the new hot product but from implementing and testing the product you have already invested in. You learn most by doing the implementation, by taking action

If you keep on buying products and not using them you are no different to the overweight consumers who own ten fitness machines they bought from infomercials, and that lie hidden in the basement unopened and unused.

It has taken me many years to recognize the deeper patterns of the Groundhog Day Effect. I realized that I was caught in short-term repetitions such as addiction to new ideas and a compulsion to respond to emails and promotional videos immediately. I was also caught in much deeper longer-term patterns such as the constant search for a new project to make me happy.

The transformational power of Groundhog Day lies in the fact that Phil Connors is literally trapped in space and time, and is forced to become self-aware of his beliefs and behavior. Since nothing changes in the outer world, he can see his inner patterns more clearly. Our challenge is to recognize these patterns in a world where there might be a lot of outer change, yet our inner lives remain much the same.

Nowhere is this more important than in the crazy world of internet marketing. Everything in the outer world is changing at a phenomenal rate, but it is in our inner world where we need to remain calm, focused, tough and self-disciplined. Choose one or two strategies and become expert at implemnting them before you even think about subscribing to that exciting new webinar!

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