Been shopping for a car lately? Did you buy one? If so, how do you know you got the best model and the best deal?

Shopping has become increasingly complex. With the advent of online opportunities, that complexity has multiplied many times over.

And if you are looking to start an affiliate marketing online business, the decisions can be overwhelming. You are being told that you should concentrate on eBay, no – Adsense, no – starting an affiliate program, no – …

According to Barry Schwarz in “The Paradox of Choice, Why More Is Less” we are shopping more and enjoying it less.

So, what are you to do about it? Mr. Schwarz gives us 5 rules to live by.

1) “We would be better off if we embraced certain voluntary constraints on our freedom of choice, instead of rebelling against them.”

Here is the deal. You could spend 12 hours a day trying to figure out which of the many possibilities being thrown at you is the best. But, if all you are doing is analysis, you have no production. So, no online affiliate marketing.

After all, the trail to profiting online is learn, produce, analyze, automate and repeat. If you are analyzing but not going on to the next step, you will never earn a dime.

2) “We would be better off seeking what was ‘good enough’ instead of seeking the best …”Take your time choosing the route you are going to use to market online. But don’t take too much time. Then take your time choosing what tools you need to start producing the websites, audios, videos and other products that you will be using in your online affiliate marketing. But, don’t take too much time. Settle for ‘good enough’ and go with it. You can tweak it later.

3) ” We would be better off if we lowered our expectations about the results of decisions.”
Don’t be discouraged if your initial efforts do not produce the next Microsoft. Not only is it important to have reasonable expectations, but you need to be encouraged that you have made progress.

You may remember that Thomas Edison tried thousands of possible combinations of design, filament and gas to design a light bulb. He was interviewed at one point and asked if he was discouraged because he was failing. His reply was that he was not failing, he had discovered over a thousand ways not to make a light bulb.

If all you do is discover a thousand ways not to make money with online affiliate marketing, you could write a best seller documenting that.

4) “We would be better off if the decisions we made were nonreversible.”

Now that rule is a hard one to swallow. If we choose to make money on eBay and fail in the first month or two, it sure would be easy to try our hand at AdSense next. But, this is crucial. You need to trust your early research and impressions.

When you chose your course, you did so with intelligence based on good research. Don’t throw that all away to start over on another course. If you do, you will be starting all over, learning how not to make money on the web in another area!

5) “We would be better off if we paid less attention to what others around us were doing.”

It is important to keep an eye on what is going on in your field of online endeavor. But, it should be done out of the corner of your eye.

This goes back to rule number one. If all you are doing is keeping track of the trends in your area and are not producing on your own, you will know a lot about how to make money, but you won’t be making any.

If you will take these five rules to heart, you will be better off – not only with your success, but you will be able to sleep better at night.