Motivation -
How do you stay motivated to enable you to survive the months and months of extremely long days and nights glued to your monitor?

Is it the lure of having a successful web business someday?

The idea of eventually being able to quit that job that you hate?

Believe me you will hit low points, you will get frustrated, and probably even utter the words "at this rate I'm never going to make it".

So how do you stay motivated? The above questions can help, but I think the absolute most important motivator is to pick a topic that you love. When you are working on a subject that you totally enjoy the low points will be far less frequent, and have far less impact on you.

Your mind will be in the places it is supposed to be instead of constantly watching the bottom line. If you are trying to create a successful business with something you have absolutely no interest in...you are setting yourself up for failure before you even get started.

Think about this idea for a moment. Let it sink in as to what I'm telling you here. What is your favorite pass-time? What is your hobby?

Do you get burnt out when you are spending time on your hobbies?

Does an auto enthusiast watch the clock at a Saturday afternoon drag race?

Does a knick-knack fanatic get bored at the world's largest flea market?

Do sports fans wish football season was much shorter?

If you develop your business around a topic that you love, that you enjoy spending time on, that you can't wait to get home and fire up the computer to work on...

motivation becomes a non-issue.

Besides...isn't enjoying what you do one of the key factors to success? I hate to be the one to break it to you, but true happiness isn't all about money.

Persistence -
You have to stick with it. You can't quit. Don't lose faith.

There will be bad times, but you have to keep going. You won't make as much money as you wanted to one month. You won't get quite as many subscribers or visitors out of that advertising campaign. The 'killer ad' that you just knew was going to pull like crazy...won't.

These setbacks are a fact of life. Accept them and deal with them accordingly. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

If you keep the right attitude during the bad times, the good times will be that much sweeter.

Luck -
Yep, its going to take a little luck as well. But if you follow the above guidelines, you can make your own good luck.

Luck is being in the right place at the right time. Luck is making the right decision at that crucial moment. Luck is buying low and selling high. Luck is realizing that you made a mistake and correcting it right before everything crashes.

The more knowledgeable you are about your subject matter, the more time you spend educating yourself about it, the more you work at becoming an expert in your field, the more luck you will have!

When you know the ins-and-outs of your industry, you WILL be in the right place at the right time. You WILL know when to buy and when to sell. You WILL know what decisions to make, and when to make them.

Correcting a mistake? This is nothing more than testing an idea and dumping the ones that didn't work.

Don't sit back and leave it to fate...make your own good luck!

So, whenever I'm asked how can you become successful on the Net, I tell them to work hard, pick a subject that they totally enjoy, learn everything they can about that subject, stay strong during the bad times, and stick with it!