I wanted to excel, like my friends, but I decided I would not be able to hit the ball, or climb up the wall bars, or jump over hurdles. So I'd cajole my mum into writing me a note to excuse me from doing it. And I was well pleased at the time about not having to face the challenge.

Thinking back to those days, I remember looking at my friends, those who did take up the challenge, with envy at what they managed to achieve? And if I had really persevered, I could probably have won prizes - especially as I had legs the length of beanpoles.

Sadly the majority of us give up before we have even begun.So it is with affiliate marketing.The commissions look tasty. It sounds easy - just join some programs and sit back and wait. People will be queuing up to join.

You check your Clickbank account every other day and all the columns register zero. So you think - this isn't going to work for me, I'm no good at it. Other people know something I don't. I can't do it! The problem is that people don't see the overall picture.

They fail because they can not face the boring and time consuming tasks, that everyone who has ever succeeded in anything has to do initially. It they do not achieve affiliate success immediately, they start to doubt themselves, and decide that whatever they do they will never be successful.

They can not make that leap of faith.Faith in what they are doing. It is a pity that people with great promise give up at the first hurdle. One mistake is that they try to teach themselves, they have no one to bounce ideas off of, or to tell them how to market their affiliate programs for ultimate success.

They get themselves a free affiliate/associate website, they then put in a few ads on free classified sites, and soon become disillusioned after failing to make any sales.

Some will decide that it's the product that is wrong, so they sign up for ten or twenty more free associate sites,but they then find that their problems are magnified ten or twenty times, since they now have to promote all of these different sites individually.

They put ten or twenty ads in the same free classified sites, but still end up with no sales. By this stage most people are ready to quit. The enlightened few don't give up. They look around for a 'teacher', or 'mentor'.

They look at the people who have become successful, and are making money, and they decide to learn from them. They buy into some informative training programs.

You need to buy two or three books written by experienced marketers. Really study what they have to say and begin to put it into practice.

For example, contrary to what the companies themselves say,you will not make much money by directly promoting just one free affiliate site. Sign up for one or two affiliate programs and use the information gleaned from your marketing books to build your successful business.

Then go on to promote these programs. As you get more experienced you can add more affiliate programs.You will get setbacks. That is par for the course. Problems are the food of success.

Each problem or setback that you encounter pushes you a bit closer towards achieving your goal! If you believe in your own abilities you will succeed.