I am sure that most readers have heard the old saying – “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched.”  It truly is a bad habit to get into, without a doubt.

I thought of this saying just this morning when I was reviewing my earnings from some advertising that I had placed on one of my websites.  I have been using this advertiser on a number of my sites for several years now, and the income that they produce for me is very good.  I would say that they are probably my best advertiser on any of my sites, without a doubt.

Over the past two months or so, my earnings from this advertiser have really increased greatly, and very quickly.  You see, I get paid based on results.  The better the ad performs for the advertiser, the more they pay me.  If the ad is on my site, but the advertiser makes little or no money, well, like them, I make very little myself.  So, over the past couple of months I have been very happy with the performance, and with my earnings in particular.

Oops, these aren't chickens, but it's not good to count any birds before they hatch!

However, in the past few days, I have seen a downturn in earnings.  Today, my earnings sprang back to previous levels, though, so everything is good.  But, results of the past few days left me feeling somewhat bad, because earnings that I had started counting on just were not there.

Ah, those are chickens. Some have hatched, some have not!

That’s the bad news… I had been counting my chickens already, and they had yet to hatch!

The fact is, when we start seeing results to our hard work, it is not time to rest and watch as everything starts to pay off.  When the results start to come in, it is a good sign for us, the things we are doing are right!  However, now that the work we did has been shown to be producing the results we expected, it is time to redouble our efforts and make sure that things continue going down the right path.  If we start to rest, we will forget things.  We will become weary of hard work, and we won’t follow through.  Seeing the results that we want is a good sign that we are doing the right thing.  It should also be a sign to us that we need to keep working if we want the results to continue paying off for us.

Counting your chickens before they hatch is an old saying that might not hold much meaning for us when we think about it.  However, as with many such “old sayings” there is some truth there, and we should be sure to follow that truth.

Good luck to you with all of your projects, and keep your nose to the grindstone if you want your work to continue paying your dividends!