Emily Butler-Meadows – Mindfully Trading

My Journey As A Beginner Trader

Emily Butler-Meadows — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 09:29:59 +0000

Two years ago I knew nothing about the stock market. I had heard of trading mainly from my brother who is a Forex trader, but I had never delved into the subject. I guess that deep down I knew that there was money to be made in the world of trading, but I didn’t realise that it was within my grasp. Like many people, I presumed that to be a trader meant that you had to already be rich, or live a privileged life of private school and rich parents. How very wrong I was…

In this article, I share with you an insight into my personal journey as a beginner trader.

My Journey As A Beginner Trader

In The Beginning

My journey began in June 2018…

I was desperately searching for a way to create financial wealth without spending my entire life working for it. At the time, I was working self-employed as a freelance web designer. I had been experimenting with different blogs and YouTube channels in an effort to creating passive income online and I felt like I was going around in circles.

Then I had a call from my father in law who was excited about this new trading course that he had enrolled onto, with Warrior Trading. He knew that I was trying to create an income from home using my digital skills, and advised that I look into trading.

Following our conversation, I checked out different YouTube videos, but I kept returning to the videos created by Warrior Trading. A few days later, I joined a free webinar with Warrior Trading which lasted around 3 hours. I was hooked! The webinar shared the potential income that trading can provide and what the lifestyle was like.

I knew at the time that trading was certainly complex and would consist of a lot of study, but I love to learn!

Naturally, the webinar ended by promoting Warrior Trading’s signature course, the Pro subscription. This gives access to the online course, mentor sessions, chat room, simulator and lots of extra features. As a bonus, the course was temporarily at a discounted price for members of the webinar.

However, even at the discounted price of $3500, I didn’t have that kind of money for an academic course. At the time, I was barely making a part-time wage with my freelance work, and mainly depending on my husband who was working full time as a Joiner.

Warrior Trading Pro Course

The events that followed that week were synchronistic…

I had a call from my father who informed me that I was to receive some money left from my grandparent’s estate who had passed earlier that year. Although I thought that I should be sensible and save the money for something more substantial like a house deposit, I knew straight away that this was an opportunity.

As I was weighing up my thoughts on what was the best course of action to take, I realised something. Although I had successfully passed both school and college, I never progressed to university. At the time I couldn’t justify gathering 3 years worth of debt when I had no idea what I would study.

Furthermore, I calculated that as an average, current university tuition fees are around £6000 per year, which for a usual 3-year degree would cost £18,000 in total. The course by Warrior Trading is just a fraction of this cost, and in contrast, the rewards available long term would by far outweigh the job prospects of most university degrees.

Therefore I decided that I would enrol onto the Warrior Trading Pro class.

I made a pact to myself that if I was to spend my grandparent’s hard-earned money that they had left to me, I would stick with it. Furthermore, I would not give up, even if I wanted to because I knew that once I mastered the art of trading, that the earning potential was incredible.

Since then I have not looked back.

My Trading Goal

Although a lot of people take up trading to become incredibly rich, this was not originally my intention. I am not saying that I don’t want to be rich, should it happen I would welcome it. In contrast, my goal was simply to make enough money to live a comfortable life, without spending all of the hours of the day to make it.

I found that the biggest attraction of trading was the ability to make thousands of dollars in minutes. The strategy that I learnt trading small capital stocks, means that I allocate from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm ( 9:00 am to 11:00 am EST) for trading.

In other words, this equates to around 10 hours of trading per week. This is a fraction of an ordinary working week where previously when I was employed, I was expected to work for 40 hours per week.

However, although the time spent trading is a quarter of a typical full-time job, the earning potential is incredibly greater. Generally, as a beginner trader starting with a small account and using small position sizes, the earning potential as an average still matches what I made working 40 hours per week.

The amazing trick of trading is that as your account size grows, so does the ability to take larger position sizes for trades. As a result, this produces a larger profit, even though the execution of trading is exactly the same.

Over time, this snowball effect can take you from an average wage to making $100K per year, to $500k per year+.

Focusing On The Present Moment

As a beginner trader, I am currently at stage 4 of survival.

My efforts are focused not on winning, but on cutting my losers and gaining valuable screen time experience. Another crucial factor for successful trading is psychological awareness. Consequently, you can learn all of the technical sides of trading, but to be a consistently profitable trader means having exceptional emotional awareness. With this in mind, I utilise the skill of mindfulness and mindful meditation alongside my trading.

Mindfulness is a valuable skill to develop emotional awareness, personal discipline, focus and patience. Which are all necessary skills for trading, especially for a beginner trader.

Join Me On My Journey As A Beginner Trader

Now you know my background and where I am currently in my trading journey. I do not by any means consider myself a master at trading. Consequently, I believe that there is always something to learn and always a way to improve existing skills and/ or knowledge.

However, I aim to share what I have learnt trading and what I continue to learn with you on this blog.

If you are interested in sharing this digital trading journey with me, follow my blog for updates on new articles and YouTube videos. Furthermore, if you sign up using the link below, I am currently giving away a free pdf guide sharing mindfulness techniques.

Meanwhile, if you enjoyed reading this article, please let me know in the comments below, and if you have any questions or trading topics that you would like me to cover, also let me know!

Until next time!

Emily

6 Stages To Make Money Day Trading

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 19 Sep 2019 09:57:14 +0000

Do you want to find out what is involved and discover the process to be able to make money day trading? Day trading is a HUGE topic with a lot of information and confusing language. More often than not, people will have a go at trading before ever really learning anything about it, which results in massive losses.

This can create the thought that trading is risky and costly. Of course, there is a risk involved with day trading. Which is why it is crucial to understand that there is a process to follow, to be able to make money day trading. After all, if you do not have a solid education, proven experience and a personal set of rules to follow, consequently you are not a day trader you are a gambler.

In this article, I share with you an outline of the topics and steps involved to be able to make money day trading. Rather than explain each step in greater detail, which would require additional blog posts. This article focuses on the steps involved in the journey to make money day trading.

If you want to make money day trading for a living, this article is your road map, your plan of action and your guide on what you need to learn!

6 Stages To Make Money Day Trading

Please note: This article contains affiliate links.

Before we explore each stage of the trading journey, it is important to understand one thing.

How do you make money day trading?

As a simple answer, the key to making money from day trading is to be a consistently profitable trader.

Whereby the goal is not to always win and never lose, but to be consistently profitable. Losing trades are okay as long as they do not consistently outweigh the winning trades over a duration of time.

The trick, as Mark Douglas would say, is to think in terms of probabilities and with a ‘series of trades’ perspective. Success from day trading comes from the long term, not from each individual day.

For instance, day trading is risky and mostly unpredictable in the same way as coin flip betting. However, from a combination of study, experience, dedication and discipline, you are in effect weighting the coin of probability to your advantage.

Stage 1: Learning Phase

The learning phase is broken into two sections. To be a consistent winner and make money day trading, you need to have 50% of…

100% Technical Understanding

This involves an in-depth period of studying and learning all about the technical side of trading.

Here are some examples of trading topics that you need to be fluent in.

Charting software

As a day trader, an understanding of stock charts is essential. There are different companies available that offer charting software. Some are more expensive than others and the features you require can depend on your personal trading strategy.

I currently use Trading View for my charts as they are both affordable and offer everything that I need for day trading. Such as; live market data, access to stocks and a variety of customisable tools aka technical indicators for analysing charts.

Generally your charting software will give options for different time periods for your charts.

E.g. 1 minute, 5 minutes and daily charts. Which are suited for most intra-day traders. In contrast, swing traders usually use a larger time frame chart.

E.g. 30 minute, 4 hour and daily chart or even the 1 hour, daily and weekly chart.

Alongside your charting software and how to set up charts for analysis, a day trader must have an understanding of candlesticks and what they represent.

Technical indicators

There are many different technical indicators available to use for analysing charts. Although your choice of indicator can depend on your trading strategy, generally you need to have an understanding of the common technical indicators and how to use them to assist with analysing charts.

Common technical indicators: Moving Averages (simple and exponential), Volume Weighted Average Price (VWAP), Volume Bars and the Relative Strength Index (RSI).

Chart patterns

Chart patterns are essential for day traders as they can help to determine key areas for either entering into a trade, or exiting a trade.

Common chart patterns: Bull Flags, Bear Flags, Flat Tops, 1234 (ABCD) and the Cup and Handle pattern.

Technical analysis

In addition to the above mentioned points regarding charts. Another key component of technical analysis is the ability to recognise key levels of resistance, support and pivot points on a chart.

Usually this involves analysing different time frames for that chart, and more often than not, the daily chart presents the most accurate levels for this.

Risk management

Alongside the technical understanding required for analysing charts, it is essential for a successful day trader to have a solid understanding of risk management.

Contrary to what people may think, to make money trading is not about having lots of winning trades, it is about reducing the amount of losers.

Capital preservation is key for anyone wanting to make a living or a career out of day trading. I would highly recommend that you carry out plenty of study and research into risk management.

Broker software

As technology has developed enabling day traders to carry out trades from their computers rather than in the pits of the stock exchange, having a reliable broker software is important to make money day trading.

There are many broker platforms available, depending on your budget, location and requirement for features. I presently use the broker Trade Zero, as they allows me to trade from my current location in the UK. Alongside this, they are reliable, affordable and provide the features that I require for my day trading strategy.

Common features required from a broker: Order entry window, level 1, level 2, hotkeys and time and sales.

Finding stocks to trade

Stock selection forms a large part of your trading strategy. Whether you are trading large-cap stocks, small-cap stocks, for longer hold time periods (swing) or fast-paced scalp trading, knowing what types of stocks to trade is essential for success.

There are different platforms available to help you to locate stocks within your strategy.

Finviz offer both free and paid subscriptions. Their software includes stock scanners where you can filter for specific stock criteria.

E.g. price, gap, volume, sector etc.

Alongside scanners, Finviz also offer a news platform and extra features.

Another stock scanning software to consider is Trade Ideas. Slightly more expensive but more sophisticated and intelligent, Trade Ideas is my favourite platform to use for finding stocks to trade.

In addition to stock scanning software, finding relevant news for stocks also forms a large part of a trading strategy. Generally, depending on the type of news, certain stocks combined with breaking news can be ideal for potential trades.

E.g. if you are scalp trading with your trades lasting between 10 seconds and a couple of minutes, then a stock with breaking news which is moving rapidly is an ideal stock for a potential trade entry.

Benzinger is a really useful website which offers fundamental information for stocks, along with a news feed.

Focusing on your strategy

Mastering all of the above points is critical to be a successful day trader. In addition, a strategy involves taking all of the above and combining it together to form your personal trader tool belt of knowledge.

E.g. finding a suitable stock, discovering news, analysing charts, highlighting areas of support/resistance, recognising any chart patterns, planning risk and planning your trade.

Common trader strategies:

– Momentum trading (trend trading) which involves discerning the trend (long or short), highlighting a low-risk entry point and taking a position following the general trend.

– Reversals aka contrarian trading. Whereby a stock that has trended in one direction and, over time, becomes weaker from losing volume can be ready to reverse. Generally, when confirmation of a reversal is shown, a trade can be taken in the reversed direction.

Trade management

Finally, the remaining part of 100% technical understanding comes from managing trades effectively.

This involves the ability to create a trade plan, knowing when to take an entry, where to place a stop order and at which point to get out of the trade. Another factor to take into consideration is the size of your position, which when trading stocks, means the number of shares that you purchase.

100% Emotional Discipline

The second part to the learning phase involves learning the personal psychology and emotional discipline required, to make money day trading.

Trading is difficult and in contrast to what you might think, it is not because of the complex language and strategies that you need to learn. On the other hand, it is because of the level of emotional discipline and psychological awareness that is required to be able to make good decisions and more importantly, to stick with them.

From trading, you can experience a heightened sense of emotional reactivity. This is where your emotions can override your logical mind and the ability to execute decisions.

As a result, this can be very dangerous as emotional trading is generally a road to disaster.

Common emotions experienced in market psychology:

Fear of missing out (FOMO)

This usually presents itself when you see a stock which made a great move and you didn’t trade it. Instead, you missed the move.

FOMO can override our decision making and affect the ability to judge a setup, which results in chasing the market. As a result this generally leads to losing trades. FOMO can also be caused from comparison with others

Fear of losing money

Which leads to taking no trades or, on the other hand, completely over-trading. Whereby both of these side effects are not constructive to becoming a successful day trader.

The fear of losing money affects the decision-making process and is usually caused by a lack of experience and/or taking too greater a position.

Fear of failure

Affects the ability to think positively for the trading career and is usually caused by short term loss. This type of emotional response can come from mistrusting your trading strategy and/ or doubting your ability to execute it.

These are just a few examples of how our emotions can have an impact whilst trading. Emotional trading can lead to bad habits, consistent red days and even account failure.

Consequently, to make money day trading takes 100% emotional discipline.

How can we manage our emotions?

Instead of trying to manage our emotions or even remove them, an effective way of overcoming the obstacle of emotional trading is from building our awareness to recognise our emotions.

A useful way to develop this is through the regular practice of mindfulness, especially before any trading activity.

Remember that discipline is a practice. The key is to trade the market, not your emotions.

Stage 2: Practice In A Simulated Environment

This stage involves applying all you have learnt in order to test and implement a strategy, in a safe environment with ‘fake money’.

The duration of trading in a simulator is dependent on personal circumstances and can be anywhere from 1 month – 1 year +. Many brokers offer a simulator as part of their package. It is best to check with them to ensure that the simulator provides everything you require to trade, including live market data.

Previously when I was practicing in a simulator, I used the simulator offered by Warrior Trading, which is also where I carried out my trading education.

Screen time experience is essential. As experience will ultimately prove whether or not you can be consistently green. Furthermore, your experience and consistency trading in a simulator will lead you onto stage 3 of your trading journey.

Stage 3: Transition To Live Trading

Transitioning from trading in a simulator to trading in a live account can be daunting for some as it is quite a personal experience. To assist with the transition, you could mix it up.

E.g. 2 days trading live and 3 days trading paper.

Trading live is where you really begin to learn to deal with emotions. Which over a period of time will bring self-confidence.

Remember that developing personal psychology for trading is also a skill, which is better developed in a live environment. As you need the reality of making or losing money, to really recognise and develop your emotional awareness.

Furthermore, it helps to focus on taking the best trades possible, along with focusing your attention on trade management rather than your profit & loss (p&l).

Stage 4: Survive Until You Thrive

Once you have transferred from a simulator to a live trading environment, your focus at this point in your trading journey should be survival.

It can seem natural to want to focus on making lots of money. However, this can lead to overtrading or trading from an emotional place, which can quickly lead to a fast depleting account.

In contrast, the focus should be on not losing, instead of winning. In addition, aiming for a-quality trades from the strategy that you practised in the simulator will increase your chances of winning green trades.

Cutting losers quickly is essential, along with remembering that patience is key. Instead of trying to make the most money each day, follow your personal rules and guidelines.

The goal is to survive until you gain enough experience, confidence and consistency to scale up where you can really begin to thrive.

Stage 5: Gradually Increase Profits

As confidence and consistency grow, you can gradually scale up your share size to effectively scale up the size of your winners.

E.g. from 200 shares to 500, 1000, 2000 etc.

Scaling up can be done over a period of time such as after a month of consistent profits from the previous position size.

Always allow for the ebb and flow of the market, so as to avoid scaling up at a low point and consequently, taking bigger losers.

Slowly but surely this will result in building the account size, which will, in turn, give more buying power for taking greater position sizes, resulting in greater wins.

After all of the learning and hard work, this is where the snowball effect can really come in to play. The key is to prove the strategy first, the money is made in the learning, the patience and the discipline. Then it’s just a matter of scaling up but still trading in the same way.

Stage 6: Long Term Capital Growth

Over a period of time from making consistent profits, and as your account size grows, position sizes can be increased to allow for greater gains.

However, remember to refine your strategy and to continuously readjust to surrounding conditions.

It is important to know when the time is right to push and trade aggressively, or when to be conservative, taking fewer trades and smaller position sizes.

The Snowball Effect

Below is a chart demonstrating the snowball effect that occurs as position sizes are gradually increased.

6 Stages To Make Money Day Trading

I hope that this article has served as a guide for your own trading journey and that you have learnt the steps involved to make money day trading. Which stage are you currently at with your trading journey? What do you want to learn more about? Let me know in the comments below!

Here is a list of the resources mentioned in this article;

Trading View (charting software)
Trade Zero (broker platform)
Trade Ideas (stock scanning)
Benzinger (news platform)
FinViz (stock scanning)
Warrior Trading ( trading education provider)

Meanwhile, I am currently giving away a free Forex Trading Plan! You can grab this from the form below;

Looking for some further reading? You may like;

– WHAT IS DAY TRADING?

– WHY PASSIVE INCOME WILL MAKE YOU QUESTION EVERYTHING

Until next time!

Emily x

8 Morning Habits To Increase Productivity

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 16:01:46 +0000

Is there a way to increase productivity, and to achieve more in a day? Yes of course!

How we start our day and spend our mornings can determine how much we achieve throughout the day. If you constantly feel like you’re getting nowhere and that you struggle to achieve your goals, read on because this article will help you!

We will explore 8 morning habits to increase productivity. Whereby these habits will promote greater levels of focus and greater levels of productivity, helping you to achieve your daily goals with ease!

8 Morning Habits To Increase Productivity

1. Get up early

The time that we refer to as early can depend on personal preference.

Personally I think that any time before 7:30 am is early. However, for the purpose of this article, getting up early is referred to as 6:00 am, ideally 5:00 am. Although this may seem early, the extra time that you gain in the morning is crucial to help increase productivity!

As well as the extra time you that gain in the morning, another advantage of being an early bird is experiencing the sense of calm silence that mornings offer. Consequently, if you have a busy household, you can really enjoy some time to yourself by getting up before everybody else.

This early morning silence is a perfect time for some reflection or mindfulness.

Another point to remember is to maintain balance.

If you go to bed late at night and expect yourself to wake up early each morning, then after a period of time you will most likely experience the effects of lack of sleep. In other words, balance your days with an early bed time, which will provide you with enough sleep to cater for early mornings.

2. Clean environment

A clean environment is extremely important to help increase productivity because an external environment really reflects your inner state of being.

You can choose to start your day off with success by creating a clean environment which will help to promote focus throughout your day.

I am not suggesting starting your day with a deep household clean (unless your house really needs it!), however, spending 10 minutes to carry out those household maintenance tasks can help to gear your day towards productivity. These tasks can be as simple as making your bed, clearing out any dishes from the previous night or carrying out your clothes washing.

Use this small window of time in the morning to consciously carry out quick tasks which will clear your environment. Furthermore, they will help to clear your mental being from physical household distractions and promote focus which will increase productivity.

3. Get moving

It is important for your mental and physical well being to take some time in the morning to get moving. This doesn’t have to be a dedicated formal exercise session lasting for 1 hour unless you want it to be. However, a simple 5-10 minute session of movement will suffice to reap the rewards.

You can energise your being with movements such as; jogging, aerobic exercise or a fast walk. On the other hand, you may prefer some gentle movement in the morning. For instance; yoga, qi gong or tai chi.

Remember that the goal here is not only to limber your body up after many hours of lying asleep. But also to get your blood moving to all areas of your body including your brain. As your brain is the powerhouse centre of your body, and the aim with these morning habits is to increase productivity.

As a result, by carrying out some movement this will pump blood and precious oxygen to your brain. Which will facilitate mental alertness and focus for your day.

4. Hydrate

Leading on from our previous point regarding the brain, hydration is super important in the morning.

As our brains consist of 80% water, drinking plenty of water is crucial for maintaining mental alertness, focus and ultimately for increasing productivity.

Usually, in the morning our brains have lost a lot of water from the night’s sleep and in most cases, it is why people can find it hard to wake up. However, this can make people crave caffeine. Whereas if you drink plenty of water early in the morning, this will truly assist in waking you up.

Water will help to re-hydrate your brain and prepare you for your day with a heightened sense of mental clarity and focus.

5. Mindfulness

Quite often mindfulness can be misunderstood.

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is simply taking the time to be mindful. Mindful of our being, our bodies and any feelings or emotions that may be present within us, as well as being mindful of our current environment.

One of the most important factors with mindfulness, is to be mindfully present in the moment. Furthermore, if you experience any thoughts (which normally arise), mindfully acknowledge those thoughts without giving them your attention and allow them to drift by, returning to your mindfulness practice.

Integrating a period of mindfulness in the morning is a wonderful habit to help increase productivity for many reasons.

For instance;

– Mindfulness brings a state of awareness to your being. Generally, with regular practice, this mental state of awareness will stay with you throughout your day, assisting you in completing tasks efficiently.

– Carrying out a mindful practice gives you a space of silence. As you return to your daily tasks after a mindfulness practice, usually you have a greater sense of mental clarity and focus. Personally, when I have carried out a session of mindfulness, I feel like it has removed mental clutter and suddenly, I can focus on what is important for my day.

– In addition to the first benefit of mindfulness, the state of awareness mindfulness facilitates not only benefits the mental being but also the emotional. Most people have heard of Intelligence Quotient (IQ) which refers to human intelligence. However, there is also the aspect of Emotional Intelligence (EQ). A person’s level of EQ can affect their ability to maintain healthy relationships or even cope with high pressure or stress.

E.g. a person with a low level of EQ may react negatively to situations, struggle to handle pressure or create disharmonious relationships. Mindfulness is a skill which can help to develop EQ with consistent practice, which as a result will help to increase productivity

How to start with mindfulness?

If you are new to mindfulness, to begin with, aim for a shorter session such as 5 minutes. Over time you can gradually increase your mindfulness practice. Starting out it can be tricky to enter into a deeper state of mindfulness because the brain commonly referred to as the ‘monkey mind’ just doesn’t stop thinking…

Concentrating on the breath can help to give your mind a focus. Specifically, carrying out some simple deep breathing exercises can be a great way to focus your mindfulness session. In addition you also get the added benefit of increasing your oxygen intake, which will assist your brain functionality as mentioned previously in this article.

Affirmations & Visualisations

Following a mindfulness session, carrying out affirmations can be a wonderful addition to your practice.

Affirmations are powerful statements that you repeat, which help you to facilitate and manifest something that you desire. I don’t mean any physical thing such as “I want to win the lottery”, although I am not discouraging you from trying!

However, affirmations are a useful tool to use, which can help to promote certain qualities within yourself or even attract a situation.

They follow the law of attraction, whereby you affirm that you are something, and as a result, you attract that something to you. In contrast to our previous example of winning the lottery. With affirmations, instead of focusing on how you become something, focus on what you become.

E.g. I am wealthy.

Furthermore, it is also important to keep your affirmations possitive.

E.g. Instead of repeating “ I am not ill anymore“, repeat and affirm “I am healthy“, or “I am in perfect health“.

If you are interested in learning more about affirmations and visualisations, let me know in the comments at the end of this article!

6. Journaling

Each morning, accompanied by a warm green tea, I take a small space of time for journaling and mental reflection.

Firstly I think of three things, people or situations in my life that I am truly grateful for, and simply note or give attention to these. Offering gratitude is a special experience. How can we really invite new experiences and achieve our goals, if we are not grateful for what we have already accomplished or achieved?

There are so many gifts to be grateful for, whether it is for a supporting family, good health or even waking up to a world that sustains us with oxygen.

Following a period of gratitude, my attention shifts to setting my goals for the day, AKA creating a to-do list.

Creating daily goals is so important for creating a sense of focus with your day. Likewise you can take it one step further by setting a time or deadline that you want to achieve your goals by. If you want to ensure the completion of your goals, it can help to think SMART when setting them.

Specific – a specific well-defined goal to achieve, don’t be vague about it!

Measurable – Set yourself criteria, or checkpoints that enable you to measure your progress towards accomplishing your goal.

Achievable– Set yourself an achievable and attainable goal, don’t make it impossible to achieve!

Realistic– Make sure that you don’t give yourself added pressure by setting unrealistic or irrelevant goals!

Timely (time-bound) – Set yourself a clearly defined timeline for your goal, including a start date and a target.

Finally, before we move on from journaling and goal setting, it is interesting to reflect that you can use this period of time to foster a new habit.

What is a habit?

A habit is an activity that you have repeated consistently over a period of time. As a result, it has become easier and familiar to carry out that activity.

As we all know, there are good habits such as exercise, and also bad habits such as smoking. Therefore as you set daily goals, if you have a burning desire to learn something new such as the guitar. Then set yourself a realistic amount of time each day in your schedule to foster this activity and before you know it, it will become a habit!

7. Avoid Distractions

Avoiding distraction both in the morning and throughout your day is vitally important to increase productivity and achieve your daily goals.

Before we explore this in further detail, firstly think of your average day. How often throughout your day do you carry out any of the following?

Check your emails unnecessarily, which takes you away from the current activity you are working on.
Visit Facebook or another social media network without a purpose.
Look at the daily news.
Switch on the television, radio or another form of media.
Call a friend or family member for a casual chat.

I am not saying that you shouldn’t do any of these activities at all. However, if you avoid unnecessary distractions throughout your day such as those listed above, you are more likely to achieve your goals.

It is a case of adopting a working mindset and leaving recreational activities or anything not related to your goals to your private time.

8. Nutritious Breakfast

Last but not least, ensuring that you have a nutritious breakfast each morning can greatly increase productivity.

Why would a nutritious breakfast help with productivity?

Firstly, consuming a healthy nutritious breakfast, will sustain you throughout your morning and remove any temptations or need for snacking which can cause distractions from your current tasks.

In addition, you can include ingredients in your breakfast which promote healthy brain function and give you slow-release energy. For instance oatmeal with fresh blueberries and chia seeds, or a fresh fruit smoothie with seeds and nut butter.

If you would like some ideas and recipes for a great tasty nutritious breakfast, then definitely check out Pick Up Limes. They have a huge collection of amazing recipes that are achievable without taking all of your time!

Habits to increase productivity

I hope that you enjoyed reading about these 8 morning habits.

In contrast, if some of these are not for you, that’s totally fine. Try out some or all of the morning habits and see how you feel. Remember to first make your habits and then your habits will make you!

Let me know which one of these morning habits you are most excited about in the comments below! Likewise, if you are interested in learning more about a topic presented in this article, let me know!

Meanwhile, I have a great giveaway available which will help you to foster daily mindfulness, increase your mental clarity, improve your focus and increase productivity.

Sound good?

Sign up below to receive your free mindfulness guide! >>

Looking for further reading? Check out these great articles below;

– 8 WONDERFUL WAYS TO AVOID WORK BURNOUT

-REPROGRAM YOUR BRAIN WITH VISUALISATION TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

Until next time!

Emily

WordPress .org Vs WordPress .com

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 05 Sep 2019 15:13:18 +0000

It can be confusing choosing your software platform when starting out with your first blog or website. Especially when the most popular blogging platform has two names!? However, it is critically important to understand that WordPress.com and wordpress.org are two very different platforms. In this blog post, we will explore the difference between WordPress .org vs WordPress .com and which platform is best for you!

WordPress .org Vs WordPress .com

Please note: This post contains affiliate links, whereby I receive a small commission from any purchases that you make from the external links.

WordPress .org

Firstly, WordPress .org AKA the REAL WordPress is an open-source 100% free software.

With WordPress .org YOU host your own blog or website. This means that to able to use a WordPress .org platform for your blog or website, you would need to purchase your website hosting, along with your domain name.

What is website hosting?

Think of your website hosting like your own little piece of the internet, a space of digital real estate where you can plant your website for people to discover. Website hosting sounds more complicated then it is. Although there are many companies with expensive website hosting, there are also very affordable options for your website hosting.

Some companies provide website hosting on a monthly basis, whereas you also have the option to pay for 1 year, 2 years or even more for your hosting package. Generally, the longer that you pay, the cheaper that it becomes overall.

Most website hosting companies include the ability to install WordPress .org onto your website for no extra cost. In addition, when choosing your website hosting company, it is also important to check whether they include an SSL certificate with your hosting.

What is an SSL certificate?

This used to be an optional feature for websites to have, however, if you want your website to appear high in search engine results pages such as Google, then having an SSL certificate is now mandatory for your website. An SSL Certificate is basically a piece of code on your web server that provides security.

What is a domain name?

A domain name, also known as a web URL, is a unique address used to visit and view a website. This is entered into the URL bar at the top of your web page.

There are many different extensions available when choosing your domain name, such as .com, .org, .net etc. As a general rule of thumb, try to stick with a .com domain name, as this is the most universal name for websites!

E.g. mywebsite.com

Where can I find affordable web hosting?

There are many options for web hosting, and these can depend on your requirements.

More often than not, for an average blog or website, you should be okay with the cheaper packages. These include a shared server, a certain amount of space on your server and extra features such as an SSL certificate. However, you can always pay a little more to upgrade your hosting in time, as your website grows larger.

I have tried a variety of different web hosting companies and I have found that having quick customer support is a very important factor. This is why I recommend the web hosting company Hostgator.

I switched to Hostgator and I have never looked back!

They provide an affordable service with fast customer support, along with everything that I require for my web hosting including a free installation of WordPress .org. Furthermore, they also supply a FREE SSL Certificate with their web hosting!

The company that I was previously with was charging me an additional £50 per year for the SSL Certificate so this was certainly a bonus.

Hostgator currently offer a great web hosting package for beginners or smaller blogs/ websites. This is the Hatchling Plan, which includes hosting for 1 website, free WordPress .org installation and a free SSL Certificate, currently from $2.75 per month.

Click here for more information on the Hatchling Plan!

60% Web Hosting Coupon With Hostgator

I currently have an awesome deal with Hostgator that I am excited to share with you!

If you use the coupon code; 60HGSDN in your basket, when you place an order from their website, you can claim 60% off your order!

Simply visit Hostgator, choose your web hosting plan, add your coupon code at the check out for a 60% discount and you can get started installing WordPress .org!

WordPress .org Pros & Cons

Pros

Free software.
Easy to use.
You own your website and the data. The site cannot be turned off, you have full control.
You can monetise your site by running your own ads and you keep all the revenue.
Can utilise powerful tools such as google analytics for tracking.
You can create an online store to sell digital or physical products and manage shipping from your site.
Ability to create membership sites e.g. to build an online community or sell a course.
You have access to backend code and databases.
Ability to upload your own themes (a great advantage!)
You can upload your own plugins.
Can use your own custom domain name for your website URL.
Usually unlimited hosting storage.
Access to all SEO features.

Cons

Cost of website hosting which is usually, $3-$10 per month depending on the package. Remember to use my coupon code 60HGSDN for 60% off web hosting with Hostgator.
You are responsible for updates & backups, important for avoiding being hacked!

Wow, as you can see there are a lot of benefits of using the WordPress .org platform.

To conclude, WordPress .org is a professional platform and essential if you want to take yourself and your website/blog seriously. The initial outgoings for your web hosting and a domain name is a small price to pay for such a great platform!

WordPress .com

In contrast to what a lot of people think, WordPress .com is a web hosting service created by Matt Mullenweg, a co-founder of WordPress. Not to be confused with the WordPress .org software.

WordPress .com takes care of the hosting for you. Whereby you don’t have to download or pay for anything, however the features with WordPress .com are basic as you would expect with a free service. Free plans are a subdomain of WordPress .com.

E.g. mywebsite.wordpress.com

The WordPress .com hosting service has 5 plans:

Free – Very limited.
Personal 6GB space– $36 per year
Premium 13Gb space– $99 per year
Business unlimited– $299 per year

Pros

WordPress .com is free with up to 3GB of space. Which is great for hobby bloggers.
A quick setup.
WordPress .com takes care of updates so you don’t have to worry about it.

Cons

Limited features.
WordPress .com places ads on all free sites. Therefore your users will see ads on your site, and you don’t receive any money from these ads. Furthermore, to avoid ads, you need to upgrade to a paid plan.
You are not allowed to sell ads on your website. The only option is to apply for a program called WordAds, an advertising program where you share the revenue with WordPress .com.
You have no unique domain name.
There are no plugins available.
There is no access to code or databases.
Very limited theme options.
You are restricted to their stats, with no access to google analytics.
The risk that your site can be deleted at any time and you have no control.
Your site displays a “powered by wordpress.com” link. You can only remove it by upgrading to the business plan.
No e-commerce features.

As you can see, there are many disadvantages to the free WordPress .com software.

The Difference Between WordPress .org Vs WordPress .com

In conclusion, WordPress .com is suitable for a hobby website or a personal blogger.

If you want something more professional, or you are a blogger that wants to make money from your blog. Then you will need a self-hosted website where you can install and use the WordPress .org software. Check out Hostgator to get started with affordable web hosting.

Although WordPress .com offer advanced features through their business plan ($299 per year), you can still gain much more for less money with a self-hosted WordPress .org website. Which is usually around $150 per year.

You can always start a blog with WordPress .com and if you want to move to a professional self-hosted WordPress .org site in the future, you can simply export your existing blog posts, and upload them to your new website.

A good way of understanding the difference between WordPress .com and WordPress .org is by thinking of them as a house…

WordPress .com is like renting a house, you don’t have control and you have limited power.

Whereas with WordPress .org, it is like owning your house. You have access to everything, full control and no one can tell you to leave.

What Is Day Trading?

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 09:36:04 +0000

Fifteen months ago, I knew nothing of the stock market and day trading. I presumed it was a rich man’s game and quite honestly I wasn’t even too interested. However that all changed when personal success stories crept into my YouTube feed of people who were making hundreds, even thousands in just one day from day trading. Consequently, this caught my attention and I asked myself, “What is Day Trading?”

Since then,

I have studied the heck out of the stock market.

Realised the obscene amount of money that you can make in a matter of minutes,

and now I’m completely hooked!

In this post, I will share with you an outline of what day trading actually is.

If you are a complete beginner and you want to learn about trading, keep on reading ( and maybe grab a coffee!)…

What Is Day Trading?

Please note that this post contains affiliate links.

What is day trading?

Firstly let us look at what trading is.

Trading is a term used to describe the purchase and sale of goods. There are different timescales with trading.

These are:

Day trading, as you can imagine, is the purchase and sale of goods usually within the timescale of one day.
Swing trading uses a larger time frame than day trading. With swing trading, the goods are usually held for a longer period such as overnight, over a period of days, or sometimes even weeks.
The next step from swing trading would be medium-term investments. Whereby the goods are held longer than the time period associated with swing trading. Generally, these are held for a period of months.

Different types of trading

We have explored the timescales, now let us look at the different types of trading.

The stuff that gets sold and bought!

Day Trading is the buying and selling of stocks (company shares) on the same day, most often the transaction is carried out online.

So what does this mean?

Generally, the trick with trading is the ability to predict the movement of a stock (whether the price is going up or down). To do this, traders use what is known as technical analysis to analyse company charts and plan entries/ exits for trades.

There are many factors involved in a day trading strategy but the general concept is that you buy a stock and sell it at a higher price, making a profit from the difference. This is also known as going long.

E.g. You buy 100 shares of a company stock priced at $5.00, the stock rise to $5.50 and you sell the stock, making a profit of $50.

There are different types of stock available for day trading which can depend on your personal preferences and budget.

Day Trading Small Capital Stocks (Small Caps)

Small Caps are small growing companies, which tend to be cheaper to day trade, as their stock prices are usually between $1-$10 per share. They also move differently and require a different strategy to large caps.

Day Trading Large Capital Stocks (Large Caps)

Large Caps are more established companies with larger capital (larger financial wealth).

You have probably heard of many large capital companies, e.g. Apple, Netflix, Facebook etc. There are many different large caps and their prices vary. Generally, stock prices range from $20 + depending on the company.

At the time of writing this article, a large-cap company such as Facebook is currently trading at $184.00 per share.

Below you can see a 5-minute chart for Facebook. This charting software is provided by Trading View, who offer both free and paid subscriptions. Check out Trading View here!

Consequently here lies a large difference between the small caps and large caps for day trading…

In order to buy 100 shares of a small caps company stock trading at $5, you would require an account balance of at least $500. Which basically means that you need to have enough money in your account, to buy the amount of stock that you want.

On the other hand, to purchase 100 shares of a large-cap company, such as Facebook trading at $184.00 per share, you would require an account balance of $18,400.

Although it is possible for a beginner trader to day trade some of the more affordable large-cap companies, small-cap companies provide a more accessible option for beginner traders.

Penny Stock Trading

As with day trading, penny stock trading involves the buying and selling of low price stocks on the same day. Again, they are often online and profit can be made from the short term price fluctuations.

The difference with penny stock trading is that the penny stocks are usually between $0.01 – $1 per share. According to the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), penny stocks are considered to be any stock trading below $5 per share.

Although they can be another affordable option for beginner traders, they also bring with them new areas of risk because logically if the stock prices are that cheap, it is usually because the companies are weak.

Forex Trading (Currencies)

Forex trading includes the trading of currencies. This type of trading can be carried out in a day (day trading), or held for a longer time period (swing trading). Forex trading includes all aspects of buying, selling and exchanging currencies at current or determined prices.

Futures Trading

Futures Trading is the trading of a contract which details the buying/ selling of an asset.

A futures contract is an agreement between the buyer and the seller of the contract. Whereby some asset, commodity or currency will be bought and sold for a specific price, on a specific day in the future (including a contract expiration date) and you would make the difference.

Commodities are physical goods including; corn, crude oil, gold, cotton, coffee, wheat etc.

Cryptocurrency Trading

A cryptocurrency is a form of digital currency that can be sent from one person to another anywhere around the world. There are different types of cryptocurrencies that can be traded including one of the most well-known Bitcoin.

Below is a daily chart for Bitcoin against the US Dollar. Each candlestick on the chart below represents a day. As you can see from the chart, there is an uptrend over time.

This chart shows just how much Bitcoin can move.

The lower red dotted line indicates the price of $5091.10, which was the price of Bitcoin in April 2019.

In late June, the price went to a high of $13,761.70, as shown by the upper red dotted line. This is a massive gain in a matter of a couple of months.

However, the risk is also just as huge, as the price is now currently at $9441.10 in late August 2019.

This demonstrates the potential gain and risk involved with trading. I imagine that people gained a lot from this move, but some also lost a lot as well.

Options Trading

Options trading is very similar to futures trading. With options trading, you are buying/ selling contracts which give the holder the right to buy or sell a stock at a specific price by a specific date.

However with options, as the name suggests it gives the buyer/ seller the right but not the obligation to buy or sell an asset at a specific price at any time during the life of the options contract.

Options trading can be an affordable way to trade large-cap companies.

E.g. Instead of buying 100 shares of Amazon, (currently trading at $1780.12). With options, you buy a ‘call option‘, which is a contract giving you the right to buy 100 shares of Amazon at a specific price (strike price) by a specific date (expiration date).

The cost of buying the call option is generally much cheaper than buying the actual stock of Amazon. As a result, options can be an affordable trading option for beginners, but they have their own areas of risk involved. Therefore, I would certainly recommend plenty of study, research and consideration before taking any trades.

What Is Day Trading – In Conclusion

I hope that this article gives you a good outline of day trading, the different types of trading and periods of time associated with trading. As you can see, with trading, there are many different options and routes available to take. These mainly depend on your budget and personal preference.

There are also different markets available to day trade. Personally, I day trade stocks on the American stock market as I find that there are more companies available and it historically it is a strong resilient market. However, you can also trade stocks with the London Stock Exchange, Australian Securities Exchange etc.

If you enjoyed learning more about day trading, I would certainly recommend further reading. Explore the different types of day trading and in particular the one that most appeals to you. As day trading is a complex topic to learn, it is best to choose one area to focus on until you master it!

Don’t forget that you can create a free account with Trading View who are a charting software platform. They also have additional features such as building a watch list along with extra features which are paid.

Click here to explore trading charts!

I day trade small caps companies in the American stock market. Mainly because as a beginner I didn’t have much capital to use for trading. However the more I learnt about the strategy used for day trading small caps, the more I enjoyed it. They tend to move quickly, providing fast-paced trading opportunities known as scalping and are a great potential for gains.

Which type of trading most appeals to you? Let me know in the comments below!

You may also enjoy reading this article about Passive Income Streams!

Until next time!

Emily x

How To Schedule Facebook Posts For Free Using Buffer

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 22 Aug 2019 09:44:10 +0000

Creating Facebook posts can be very time consuming, especially if you do not follow a set plan. Before you know it, you have spent a large portion of your day posting on Facebook and scrolling through its addictive feed!

A lot of people make the mistake in thinking that in order to be successful on Facebook, you have to be on there all the time. This is not true at all, the only result that this gives is using up your precious time.

In this post, I am going to take you on a step by step tutorial on how to schedule Facebook posts for free using Buffer.

How To Schedule Facebook Posts For Free Using Buffer

Before we dive into the tutorial lets just explore a little bit about the software we are going to use; Buffer.

There are different online software available which allow you to plan and schedule your social media content, similar to a digital calendar. They are brilliant for many reasons but one of my favourites is that you don’t even need to go to your social media website to post your content. The software does it for you! This removes the distraction of seeing all of those eye-catching posts that people share, that take up your precious time.

Although you can use Buffer for a range of different social media networks, in this article we are going to focus on how to schedule Facebook posts for free.

Schedule Facebook posts for free with Buffer

If you haven’t done so already, now is the time to head over to Buffer and create your free account!

You will need to sign up to the free 7-day trial, however, once your trial has finished, instead of continuing with the paid plan, you can downgrade to the free plan.

The free plan allows us to 3 social accounts and 10 scheduled posts. If you need more account access than the free plan offers, the pro plan allows up to 8 social accounts and 100 scheduled posts from $15 per month.

Once you have done that, come back and follow the rest of this tutorial so that we can get your first post scheduled.

Scheduling your Facebook posts: 3 Benefits

1. Consistency

When you are scheduling your Facebook posts, you are essentially planning ahead. One of the main benefits of this is maintaining your consistency and quality of posts.

E.g. Every Monday, if you consistently schedule your Facebook posts for each day of the week, as a result, this will build consistency for your account. You can carry on with your day to day life for the week and if you get busy, there are no concerns as you have already planned and scheduled your content for your Facebook account.

Another bonus of scheduling your Facebook posts is that because you have planned your content in advance, this allows you to create high-quality content. In contrast to posting each day with no plan, where you post anything because you want to get it done as quick as possible.

2. Increase productivity

Scheduling your Facebook posts allows you to become more efficient. You can block off a certain amount of time on one day each week, whereby you schedule your content. This allows you to plan your time more efficiently and increase productivity.

With different paid Buffer plans, you can schedule more posts. As a result, you can use one day per fortnight, or even one day per month, to plan and schedule your content for the following fortnight/ month.

3. Reach a wider audience

As you are planning your content in advance, as part of this process, you can edit your posting schedule. This means that you can target certain times of the day for sharing your content.

E.g. If you know that a large part of your audience is based in another country. You can edit your posting schedule to target the times of day appropriate for your audience. Which means that you don’t have to remember at certain times of the day to post manually, or even post in the middle of the night. Plan, schedule and forget about it!

Schedule Facebook posts with Buffer – A quick 6-step tour

1. Buffer Dashboard

Once you have created your account, when you log in you should arrive in your dashboard.

Here you can see the different social accounts that you have set up on the left-hand side. This is also the main page where you can write and schedule your posts. At the very top, the Reply and Analyze links are reserved for paid subscriptions. However, you have everything that you need right here to schedule a post.

The Queue link allows you to see what is already scheduled. As you can see above, there is nothing in the queue at the moment but we will change that soon.

There is also a link for analytics and settings which we will explore later in this post.

2. Connecting your Facebook page

From your dashboard, when you click ‘Manage Social Accounts’ you arrive at this page.

As you can see, I have already linked my different accounts to my Facebook page. To add a new account, simply click ‘Add a New Social Account’. This will take you to a Facebook login page, and also a confirmation page, where you click to allow Buffer to access your Facebook page.

Following this, you will be redirected to Buffer where you can start scheduling posts.

On this page, you can also reconnect to social accounts, if you lose a connection. On the other hand, you can also remove a social account if it is no longer required.

3. Want more social accounts or features?

As I have mentioned above, Buffer also offer paid plans which include additional social accounts and the ability the schedule more posts along with additional features.

This may not be required for what you need but you can find out more information about the paid plan from this link!

4. Facebook posts analytics

As you schedule Facebook posts, over time you can view what content you have posted in the analytics section.

This is very useful because you can quickly forget what content you have created when you are posting regularly, even in the space of a week. This page allows you to see what you have already posted so that you can avoid duplicate content.

In the paid plan, you can also view extra stats for each post. Including; comments, likes, shares, clicks and reach.

5. Buffer settings

In your settings tab, there are two options, general settings and your posting schedule.

In your general settings, you can choose whether or not you would like your links to be long or shortened. Indeed shortening your links make a better more concise post, without having long spammy looking links.

You also have the option to link up to Google Analytics if you want further technical insights on analytics. As well as the option to shuffle your queue.

6. Buffer Posting Schedule

This is a very important step for scheduling Facebook posts.

This step is essential as it allows you to customise the days and times that your scheduled posts are actually posted.

At the top, you can choose your timezone. In addition, you can either edit the preset days/ times shown, or you can add a new posting time.

This very versatile interface gifts you with a lot of customisation, where you can choose to have posts scheduled for certain days and times each week. You can even select multiple times in one day.

Remember that there have been studies and research carried out to determine the optimum posting times for Facebook. Click here to read more about the best times to post on social media.

If you would like some more information on the best times for social media, check out the free workbook below, which also includes a content planner and content calendar to equip you with everything you need for social media domination!

Schedule Facebook posts in 3 easy steps

1. Go to your Buffer dashboard and select your social account

2. Create your content

You have a variety of options on what content to create. You can write out some text, add images or videos and also add links to other articles etc.

If you add videos through Buffer, they will appear on your feed as though you have uploaded them directly to Facebook, which is very good for reach and engagement.

TIP: Organisation can really help when creating content to share. I have a folder of relevant images/ videos for sharing, for each social account. I also have a folder within the original folder called ‘posted’. Allowing me to clearly see what content has been shared and what hasn’t, which saves a lot of time!

3. Schedule your post

Once you have uploaded your image and added some written content, you can ‘Add to Queue’. Make sure that you have the correct social account highlighted above before you click to schedule your post.

Once you have scheduled, you can see your content from your dashboard, in your queue ready and waiting for the correct day and time to post automatically to Facebook.

Now you can simply repeat this process to fill your queue for the week, fortnight or event month in advance!

BONUS: How often to post on Facebook

With all the great features of the posting schedule, this can make you wonder “How often should I post on Facebook?”…

It can depend on your requirements, your audience preferences and your ability to create new content. Some accounts are satisfied with 3 posts per week, others 5 and others require a post per day.

The main reason to post regularly is to increase engagement on your account through traffic, shares and reach. Logically, the more often that you post, the more engagement you are going to receive on your page. Furthermore the more growth you will see on your page.

CoSchedule created an article where they collated research, studies and data from 14 different sources to conclude the optimum post frequency for Facebook.

And the verdict…

It is advised to post to Facebook once per day. Any more than twice per day can look spammy and have negative effects.

Furthermore, between 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm is advised to be the best time to post to Facebook.

You can monitor your posting strategy through your Facebook analytics. From your Facebook business page, click on insights and posts. From here you can gain an insight into the engagement for each post. In addition, you can determine whether your engagement increase or decreases from how often you post.

Ready to schedule Facebook posts for free?

I hope that you found this article useful and that it helps you to plan your content, continually increase your Facebook page engagement whilst saving you time!

You may enjoy these articles if you are looking for further reading…

21 Engaging Facebook Post Ideas

Everything You Need To Know About Email Marketing

Meanwhile, be sure to sign up to our newsletter below to receive a free PDF social media workbook. Including post ideas and a free content calendar!

Until next time!

Emily x

25 Best Motivational Quotes To Inspire You To Win

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 15 Aug 2019 07:58:35 +0000

In this article, we will explore a variety of the best motivational quotes. Which are chosen specifically to help inspire you on your journey to success.

Self-motivation is a powerful skill. If you are able to consistently use self-motivation on a daily basis, you can achieve many tasks. In addition, you can empower yourself to come up with creative ideas. You can fully utilise your imagination, harness your self-confidence and most importantly enjoy the ride!

I don’t know about you, but when I have been trying to achieve a goal such as learning a new skill, which inevitably takes time to develop. I seem to constantly shift my mindset between, “Ah what is the point, this is too hard”, with, ” Yes! Another day closer to my goal, I will succeed at this”.

I find that it can take energy to keep your sense of self-motivation alive. For those of you who can struggle some days and need some extra inspiration, these 25 best motivational quotes are for you.

Whether you have an idea that you want to achieve. Perhaps you have recently taken the first step. Or maybe you have been walking the path to success for years. Regardless of your progress so far on your journey for success, here are 25 best motivational quotes which will inspire you to win!

25 best motivational quotes to inspire you to win

Motivation In the beginning

“Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot. Make it hot by striking”

– Vince Lombardi

“Don’t give up! The beginning is always the hardest!”

– Unknown

“Don’t let small minds tell you that your dreams are too big”

– Unknown

“Don’t call it a dream call it a plan”

-Unknown

Motivational quotes for mindset

“Once you become fearless, life becomes limitless.”

– Unknown

“If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place”

– Lao Tzu

“It’s not that I’m smarter than everyone. It’s just that I stick with problems longer”

– Albert Einstein

Motivational quotes about life

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself”

– George Bernard Shaw

“Experience is one thing you cannot get for nothing”

– Oscar Wilde

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

– Leo Tolstoy

Motivational quotes for success

“You cannot afford to live in potential for the rest of your life; at some point, you have to unleash the potential and make your move.”

– Eric Thomas

“Feed your brain. Your financial future depends on it.”

– Unknown

“You only fail when you stop trying.”

– Unknown

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”

– Jim Rohn

“Ambition is the path to success, persistence is the vehicle that you arrive in”

– Bill Bradley

Famous inspirational quotes

“What you get by achieving your goals is not as important as what you become by achieving your goals”

– Will Smith

“In 1995 I had $7 in my pocket and I knew two things: I’m broke as hell and one day I won’t be. You can achieve anything.”

– Dwayne Johnson

“Do what you have to do until you can do what you want to do.”

– Oprah Winfrey

“Nothing is impossible. The word itself says I’m possible!”

– Audrey Hepburn

Self-motivation quotes

“The regret of not having tried my hardest to make my dreams come true. Overcomes the fear of not being able to achieve them”.

– Roberto Barbaro

“We only live once, so I want to think big”

– Masagoshi Son

Business motivational quotes

“If you don’t find a way to make money while you sleep, you will work until you die.”

– Warren Buffet

“A wealthy person is simply someone who has learned how to make money when they’re not working.”

– Robert Kiyosaki

“Ideas don’t make you rich. The correct execution of ideas does”

– Felix Dennis

“The big picture doesn’t just come from a distance. It also comes from time”

– Simon Sinek

I hope that you found some inspiration from these encouraging quotes. Which one was your favourite? Let me know in the comments below! I particularly enjoyed the quote by Dwayne Johnson, sharing that we all start somewhere and that you don’t know what is around the corner!

You may also enjoy these 99 Inspirational quotes for entrepreneurs!

Looking for some more inspiration for success? Check out this article for passive income ideas and examples

Reprogram Your Brain With Visualisation To Achieve Your Goals

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 28 Feb 2019 08:46:21 +0000

What are your goals? What do you want to be better at? What do you want to achieve in life? I know that they may seem like random questions. You just want to know how to reprogram your brain with visualisation to achieve your goals, but that will come soon. Right now, before you can learn and incorporate any new habits for success, the first thing you need to know, is what you want.

Before you continue reading this post or watching the video below, just try a super quick exercise;

Simply stop what you are doing, sit back and take a breath.

Think about what you want in life right now…

Do you want a loving partner that you connect with, do you want to achieve success in your career, acquire financial freedom…

If you want more than one thing, for the moment, just think and focus on one…

Do you have your desire in your mind?

Brilliant… Read on, because this video is going to help you to manifest and make your desire, your goal become a reality! If you give it a chance 🙂

Reprogram Your Brain With Visualisation To Achieve Your Goals

In this video, Mel Robbins explains through science and research why you must become a master at visualisation.

What Is Visualisation?

Visualisation is an extraordinarily powerful skill, also known as the law of attraction or manifesting. Our brains have a unique system called the ‘Reticular Activating System‘. It consists of a network of neurons which act as a filter system.

The filter system allows certain information into your brain and locks out other information. The filter is programmed by you and from other people in your life or from your past.

E.g. If you constantly feel like your unlovable, the Reticular Activating filter system is going to point out evidence to confirm that negative belief that you have.

This means that out of all of the information that we take in from our daily lives, your brain will focus on processing input confirming those beliefs. Why? because you programmed it to.

Confirmation Bias

‘Confirmation bias‘ is where you love to read things that you agree with and this is because it confirms your filter.

We have this filter because if your brain let in everything, it would be incredibly overwhelmed. Imagine taking in every little bit of detail from a Facebook home page, or you go to a shopping centre and your brain takes in every detail. Your brain would meltdown because there is simply too much to take in.

The system protects your brain by filtering in information and only letting in information that you agree with.

How Does Visualisation Work?

You can reprogram your filter using visualisation, to filter into your brain what you want to manifest.

From doing this, your brain will take in information based on what you want from your visualisation. E.g. opportunity, evidence etc.

You can carry out a simple short visualisation exercise to manifest and achieve your goals.

Firstly, take the goals that you wrote down at the beginning of this post.

If your goal is to improve yourself, visualise what your life looks like and how you’re going to feel about yourself when your self worth has improved.

Two Easy Steps For Visualisation

1- Close your eyes. In your mind have a specific picture of what it looks like in your life when you are achieving your goals. E.g. when your self worth has improved, see yourself speaking up at work, leaving bad relationships, see yourself going to the gym etc.

2- When you visualise the image of that, consciously think of the positive emotions that you will feel. E.g. proud, happy, greatful that you made this change in your life.

What Happens From Visualisation

By visualising, you are training your brain to have a totally different filter.

Your brain does not know the difference between real memories of what actually happened to you, and what you imagine is happening to you.

Your brain will experience you visualising. E.g. going to the gym. It then encodes it as a real memory. This changes the filter system. Research shows that the more you visualise things, the greater your confidence is going to be.

Studies have proved that simply visualising yourself doing things consistently. E.g. 30 seconds every day, that you actually develop the skill.

Therefore visualisation actually helps you to improve your skills, just as if you were actually doing them!

Visualisation Helps You To Build Skills

You start to believe what you think because you are reprogramming your brain. You are changing the network of neurons that act as a filter in your brain.

The more that you believe, the more skills you build, and the more you are going to achieve.

Reprogram Your Brain With Visualisation To Achieve Your Goals

30 Day Visualisation Exercise

Every day for the next 30 days, take 30 seconds each day to close your eyes and visualise what it looks like in your life when you achieve your goals this year. How does it feel?

If you would like some help to keep up with your daily visualising, you can download this free template below, including a checklist, prompts and tips!

I hope you enjoyed this article, and that you are already coming up with ideas of the goals and life that you want to create! Share your experience in the comments below. 🙂

Can a Social Content Manager Help Your Business To Grow?

Emily Butler-Meadows — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 13:18:30 +0000

Social content Manager…really? The development of many social networks over the past few years such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, have added another facet to the realm of online marketing for businesses.

Social networks are an amazing way to help share your business/ brand with your online audience. Ultimately, they help you to grow your business through awareness. However, keeping your business page active and updated on social networks takes time, consistency and dedication, this is where a social content manager comes in!

Can a Social Content Manager Really Help Your Business To Grow?

Hiring a social content manager can help to save you time and energy, whilst keeping your online business social engagement up to date. For instance, by simply sharing 3 posts per week on social networks such as Facebook, will help to keep your business page fresh, new, informative and active.

Furthermore, posting new relevant content will help you to share your brand with either existing or potential customers which will help to build engagement and awareness of your brand.

5 Reasons to Hire a Social Content Manager;

1 – To save you time.

2 – To keep your online business social presence active and consistent

3 – To share your business brand with your online audience

4 – To attract potential new customers

5 – To share news about your business; current offers, new products etc.

Current Users Per Social Media Platform

Some very interesting stats on how many people are using which platforms;

Facebook: 1.59 billion
YouTube- 1 billion
Linkedin- 414 million
Instagram 400 million
Twitter – 320 million
Pinterest – 100 million

Interested in Hiring a Social Content Manager but still not sure?

I am currently offering a temporary 20% discount on social media management services for the first month.

Consequently, if you are not sure whether this is right for you and your business, why not take advantage of this great offer and trial your first month with our basic package. Contact me for more information!

Useful Tools for Social Media Content Management

Buffer– Free and paid social scheduler
Hootsuite– Free and paid social scheduler
Canva – Free and paid social graphics creation tool
Emojis – Lots of emojis!

Thank you

Emily x

How To Use Pinterest To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

Emily Butler-Meadows — Mon, 02 Jul 2018 07:30:49 +0000

Getting people to your blog and growing your website traffic can sometimes be a little confusing and tricky. Although there is a secret method whereby you can gain traffic to your blog from the beginning! For this method, we will learn how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog. In this article, we will explore Pinterest and how this is an especially useful tool to get more traffic to new websites and blogs.

How To Use Pinterest To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

Usually, when we think of increasing website and blog, we think of SEO principles. This is important if you want your site to appear in search results on search engines such as Google. However, using SEO to grow and gain more traffic to your website is a long process and can take up to a year before you start seeing results. I like to think about SEO in terms of investing your money. It is required for the long-term gain, but what can we do in the meantime?

There are many bloggers and website owners who are seeing BIG results in terms of website traffic growth from using Pinterest! There can be a misunderstanding that Pinterest is another social media network, however, it is actually classed as a search engine, only it displays images for its searches.

So how does Pinterest drive traffic to your blog?

Usually, people using Pinterest will “pin”, or rather save images that they like to specific boards that they have created on their account. These pins (images) will usually be an image that somebody else has uploaded. Here lies the beauty of Pinterest…

If you upload your own image and add your image description, you can also add a link for your image. Meaning that when people click on your image, they will follow the link to whichever link you gave the image. This is super potential for exposure to your website or blog. The other wonderful technique of Pinterest is that once you have uploaded your own image, linking to your website, other people can save this image to their own boards. Which will then distribute your image and increase the reach amongst pinners, giving you more potential website traffic.

How Do I Get Started With Pinterest?

There are a few steps and techniques that you can carry out, to optimise your account so that you may appear in more searches for specific terms related to your website/ blog niche. I am going to use the example that I want to optimise by Pinterest account to gain more website traffic to my travel blog…

1.Complete Account Details

This covers the basics, but nonetheless important, steps of creating your account. Including;

Entering in a keyword rich name. Rather than giving your Pinterest account your own name for e.g. Kate Smith. Use relevant keywords in your name, to help your account appear in relevant searches. E.g. Backpack travelling Tips by Kate
Complete your bio. You don’t have that many characters that you can use for your bio but you can still add a short and relevant description of what people can expect to find in your Pinterest boards. You can use a website like charactercountonline, to help manage your word count. Don’t forget to add a link to your website or blog at the end of your description. A tool like Bitly can be great for shortening your website address, saving on those important characters!
Include a real profile picture. There can be a tendency to want to avoid sharing your personal picture on accounts. However by including a real photo of yourself will help to build trust and therefore help you to gain more followers. It also makes your account look a lot less spammy!
Finally, make sure that you choose to have a business account in your settings. This gives you the ability to link your account to your website or blog. Not only that, by choosing a business account, you open the ability to access Pinterest analytics which is an exceptionally useful tool for monitoring popular pins and ultimately growing your account.

2.Create Keyword-Rich Boards

I would recommend having at least 10 boards if you have a new Pinterest account. A board is where you will save images to and so they can be themed on a specific subject. For e.g. backpacking tips, travel budget tips, easy travel recipes, where to stay in Europe etc.

Another great tip for your boards is to create a custom image to upload, which you can then use for your board covers. For e.g. use the same colour background, the same font for the board title etc. This simply means that when Pinterest users visit your account, they will see a consistent selection of boards which look tidy and attractive. Also being able to see the titles clearly will help them to find what they are looking for.

If you are not sure and need some inspiration for this, carry out a Pinterest search for some leaders in your niche, for e.g. travel authors, famous bloggers etc. Have a look at their account and see whether they have custom made matching board covers.

3. Find Leaders In Your Niche

Finding leaders in your niche on Pinterest will really help to promote your account for many reasons. Firstly, you can carry out some research and see how they have optimised their account, what style pins they are saving and what boards they are using etc. This information will help to inspire you and give you ideas for your own account.

More importantly, by finding leaders in your niche, you can click to view their followers and then follow their followers. This is a great way to promote your account because if people are following the leaders in your niche, then most likely they will be interested in what you share. Therefore you have a greater chance of them following you back, and checking out your pins, leading them back to your website.

This can be a useful way for you to grow website traffic. If you can follow between 5-10 people a day, this will help to grow your account.

4. Find Niche Related Group Boards

Group boards are the next level for growing website traffic through Pinterest. A group board is what it sounds like, a board where you can have multiple contributors to the board, people who are able to pin their images to the board, and of course followers of the board.

There are many group boards available for many topics and you will have to explore as to whether some boards accept applications for new contributors. The way they work is that usually, one person has started a board that gains in popularity, people apply by sending a message, to see if they can be added as contributors, so that they can pin to that board. Some group boards have up to 1000 contributors and may not accept applications. However there are still plenty of boards that are accepting applications to join as a contributor, you need to do your research.

A group board is valuable because whatever you pin to that board has the potential to reach all the followers of that board, and some boards have thousands of followers! Thats alot of potential people who will follow your image link back to your website or blog, and alot of potential website traffic!!

Useful Links-

5.Create Pin Images and Pin Away

Finally, the more images that you create and upload to Pinterest, the more pathways you are creating for people to follow back to your website, so get creating images and get pinning!

Not sure what images to create? You can simply create an image with a title over the top for many topics e.g. a blog post title, a product that you have on your website, a quote… get creative and if you are stuck for ideas, check out what the leaders in your niche are doing! I am not encouraging copying but look for some inspiration and make it your own. Dont forget to pin to group boards!

Click here to check out Canva – a free image creation software

Don’t forget to keep an eye on your Google Analytics before you begin trying out these techniques! By looking at your acquisition in Google Analytics, you can observe how much traffic you gain from what sources, and watch your website traffic from Pinterest grow, as you implement these techniques!

Too busy to create a Pinterest account? Contact me to find out more about Pinterest account creation by clicking here!

I hope that this post, “how to use Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog”, has been a useful introduction for you. Let me know any comments below!

Thank you! 🙂

Emily x

Emily Butler-Meadows – Mindfully Trading

My Journey As A Beginner Trader

My Journey As A Beginner Trader

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6 Stages To Make Money Day Trading

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8 Morning Habits To Increase Productivity

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Affirmations & Visualisations

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WordPress .org Vs WordPress .com

WordPress .org Vs WordPress .com

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Further reading

What Is Day Trading?

What Is Day Trading?

Different types of trading

Day Trading Small Capital Stocks (Small Caps)

Day Trading Large Capital Stocks (Large Caps)

Penny Stock Trading

Forex Trading (Currencies)

Futures Trading