I’m An Affiliate So I Can Be Free

I haven’t posted on here since November 9, 2009, but a lot has happened in my life since then. Before I get onto that though, I want to tell you a little bit about the direction of this blog.

Some of you might have noticed that the catch line of Successful Affiliate is now “Personal Development for Affiliates.” The core focus of this blog will be about life as an affiliate. I think there are plenty of other blogs around that cover topics like affiliate news, gambling SEO and other work related topics. Me personally though, I prefer to write about personal development stuff and life as an affiliate so that’s what most of my posts will be about.

There are a couple of things that I don’t like about writing on this blog even though most of the time I enjoy it. The first one being that bloggers stick to one topic during a post. I don’t function like that all the time so you can expect that I will be talking about multiple topics in the same post.

The second part is I’m not happy with the standard of the posts I make all the time. Sometimes they are rushed, have several typos and generally have been thrown up. I want to make this a resource where fellow affiliates can count on reading top quality material every time they come here.

How My Life is Changing

Towards the end of November I stayed for about 10 days with my girlfriend in Sydney. We were looking for a place to live together and I was seriously contemplating getting into real estate. By the end of the trip (after playing several rounds of golf) I decided that I didn’t want to go down that path. I have lived with my last two girlfriends, it wasn’t a happy environment and both relationships didn’t end well. I know I shouldn’t be letting that cloud my judgement, but I didn’t want the pressure of another relationship being so serious so early on.

At the end of November I flew to the Gold Coast where my grandfather lives. During this time I was reading “4 Hour Work Week” by Timothy Ferriss. While floating in the ocean at the beach it suddenly dawned on me what I really want to do in life. Travel.

That night I went on the Internet and saw there was a special on to Thailand. I was initially going to go to Canada, but made the decision to start off with cheap living while I can increase my income to enjoy more expensive countries later on.

It’s kind of weird because when I went to Cronulla beach when I was in Sydney my girlfriend persuaded me to go to a tarot card reader. I don’t believe in that kind of stuff but she was spot on with a few things. She even said that she sees me travelling to South East Asia. Also, that a bearded man will be the guy that helps me change industries and I will make a packet load of money. Interesting.

Christmas I spent with family, and I had a fun NYE with my girlfriend and cousin. Not much happened during this time besides the normal get togethers and nights out drinking.

At the end of December I finally took the plunge and bought a Macbook. I needed a laptop to go travelling with and I already have an iPhone that I’m happy with and made the switch to Apple. So far I’m ecstatic with it, except I think the battery on both the iPhone and Macbook blows. I also got a sick backpack that’s hybrid because it doubles as a suitcase and a new Canon digital camera. So I’m almost set. I just have to get my visa sorted and that is just some paperwork and only takes a week.

This past Friday though was a much different kind of experience. I broke up with my girlfriend of 6 months because I couldn’t see any way it was going to work. We get along great mostly, but there just wasn’t a “workable” solution. I’m all about experiencing life, hence why I’m travelling. I don’t think that I can do the things that I want while being in that situation. It was hard to do, but I think it had to happen at this stage in my life.

I’m 23 and have been going from relationship to relationship since I was 16. I’m not sure if I subconsciously seek out girlfriends or what I do. Perhaps it is because I don’t like superficial experiences in life and need that connectedness with someone. Once I’m travelling and have a better lifestyle than I do now, my outlook might take a different course of action.

So How Hard Have You Been Working Hazo?

Not very. Without making too many excuses I’ve had to take this time to really understand why I am an online affiliate. It is because of the freedom, the passive income and the ability to pick up and go wherever I want. So why am I sitting at home all day? My point exactly. I can be doing this work from anywhere in the world. I’m only 23 so now is a perfect time to go.

My income has been steady and January seems to have picked up nicely for me thus far. I have 7 weeks exactly before I leave so the whip is out. I will probably start doing extra work on top to raise extra cash. I can see myself making a few minisites before I leave to get a bit of a buffer in my bank account.

Before I leave I want to show the readers one of the best blog posts I have ever written. It was almost as if this girl was talking directly to me. I have never been touched like that from a blog post before. She calls me a flake, who knew? I hate flakes so maybe I hate myself. She made me understand that there are other people like me and there is a reason why I don’t do work all the time. It isn’t because I am lazy, it’s because I need that intrinsic motivation to get there. Now that I have sorted out the end result, I’ll be firing on eight cylinders. Before I just sat here and thought, why am I doing this? Here is the post she made about being a flake.

I’ve been eating pretty healthily of late and just started going to the gym. It’s making me feel a lot better about myself and the lifestyle I have is getting better. Spending some time on the golf course and at the beach helped me out a lot.

Hope everyone had an exciting festive period. Make 2010 better than any other.