Is $250 a day a good goal?

In my last post, I stated that my goal is $250 a day, from affiliate marketing, by the beginning of the Fall 2016 semester.

So… is this a good, or even reasonable, goal?

Short answer: I have no idea.

I suspect that it is not a reasonable goal. I suspect that if I asked around, or read my comments, or read a bunch of “How to succeed in affiliate marketing” posts, I would learn that this is a ridiculous goal.

I suspect, but I don’t really know. And I don’t really want to know. I have found in life that it is easier to accomplish things if you don’t really know how hard they are. You can do impossible things if you don’t know that they are impossible.

So, while I have a vague feeling that $250 a day is a bit high for an initial goal, and that three-ish months is a bit short for an initial deadline, I’m sticking with it.

Should my goal be lower?

In Tim Ferriss’s recent interview with Chase Jarvis, they both talked about setting goals low, so that you “feel like you are winning.” Similarly, Scott Adams has talked about not really having goals at all, but focusing on systems. Among other reasons, he says that when you don’t hit your goals (or, on the way to hitting them) you feel like a loser for not achieving them.

I respect all three of these people and their opinions, but I think that right now I need the goal, and I need it to be high.

First of all, if I get to $100/day (less than half!) of my goal, I will still feel like a winner. It will make a HUGE difference in my day to day life, and — when combined with my current writing gig — will be enough to pay my bills. Beyond that, I know that if I have anything like a reasonable amount of income from affiliate marketing, it isn’t insanely difficult to A/B test and Pareto Principle my way to more — I just need something, some result to start optimizing.

Another reason I am setting my goal high is actually because of Scott Adams. I have decided to adopt his affirmation technique, and — for whatever reason — $250/day is what popped into my head when I was thinking about what my affirmation should be. (I’ll share a bit more about my specific affirmation, and some of my in-progress experience with it, in another post.)

How to get there?

My next post will be an exploration of how I plan to get to $250/day from affiliate marketing. I really ma still working through what I think is a good pace to start and good direction to head. If you have good ideas or advice on the subject, please share them in the comments so that I can incorporate them into my planning.