I know how you feel. Trust me, I've been there. I've tried many different things, but none of them seemed to be as easy / profitable as they seem at first. After realizing that, I'd feel disappointed and think there's something wrong with the method or my execution of it.

Most people will quit the method at this point and start reading forums, buying products to find something else to do. You don't even have to feel disappointed. You may be doing this one method but then you see a post about something else that sounds even better than what you're doing right now. After a while of doing this new method, it's not as interesting and new as it was and you will find a new one that sounds even more interesting and do it instead.

Damn me if this isn't because of the way we live these days. Everywhere we look we're bombarded with advertisment of shiny new things that tell us we MUST have it. It becomes second nature to constantly get and use new things. Now I may be over generalizing things, but you get the point.
It gets even worse in IM since everything here is literally at your fingertips.

This + human nature = the fact that most people enter this IM world with the wrong attitude. And this wrong attitude is really dangerous. If you don't break out of it, you will most likely stay on the wrong end of the foodchain. A vicous circle of constantly spending money and wasting time, thinking that this new method is surely your way to riches.

However, it's not all so dark. The first step of solving your problem is realising you have a problem.

Wrong Attitude Trying to find the easy way outBeing lazyNot having enough patienceThinking about money all the timeSpending too much moneyBeing spoonfed and copying methodsJumping from one thing to anotherDo you recognize yourself in any of that? If you do then by the end of this post you will hopefully realize that you have a problem and start fixing it.

Loads of people think that IM is a way out of their boring 9-5 job or a way to be financially free. While this can definitely be the case, it's not an easy way by any means. Without hard work you will achieve nothing except more and more frustration. And to be able to do this hard work, you need the right attitude.

The Right Attitude Be persistantDon't be lazyFocus on solving problems and helping peopleMake your own methodsIt's sooo simple, this is all you need! Sure a great idea once in a while doesn't hurt, but these 4 points are the core.
Keeping those 4 points in mind, find something that you're passionate about and build a method around it.

The Right Method

Do you like sports? You could start an authority site on anything sports related. It can be about sport news, football / basketball tricks, betting tips, scores and statistics, anything.
Maybe you like cooking? Well you could share your recipes or do "How To" videos.
Do you like graffics / drawing? Record tutorial videos on photoshop / drawing. As with everything, start a blog!
Maybe you like gaming? Make your own youtube channel where you stream, do walkthroughs for different games or cast multiplayer games. Also you guessed it...make a blog.
You just like being in front of a camera and talk a lot? Start vloging about your day to day happenings.
You spend a lot of time on twitter / facebook? Start some kind of group / authorithy account.

99% of things you like can be monetized these days. And you're trying out random methods anyway, so why not do something you're familiar with?

Now that you figured out what you want to be doing, build a method from it. Write it on paper! Try to incorporate best parts of all the other methods that you've tried / read about. Compile a list of all the possible traffic sources and monetization methods and see which of them fit your method. Write it all down however you see fit. Having your plans written in front of you will make your idea seem more real in your head. Even if you don't have ANY experience you can create a solid method. Write the base yourself (what excactly you're doing) and then read other tutorials and take the best parts to fill in the details of your own.

Working around something that you like will help you a lot. It is A LOT EASIER to stick to a method that involves those things. Down the road, you will be able to say that you earn for a living by doing what you love. Most people can't say that.

Try To Help People a.k.a. Don't Focus On Making Money

You might be thinking: "But I'm doing this to make money, how can I NOT focus on that?"
While it might not make sense at first, this is actually quite simple.

It's all about building trust.

By focusing on helping people rather than helping yourself, your content will be more genuine and you will establish trust with your audience. People will want to share it with their friends and talk about it. Then you talk with them. Replay to their comments, answer their questions and keep the conversation going. Try out different products in your niche and weed out the bad ones. Then and only then you RECOMMEND them a product you liked rather than blatantly pushing it in their face. Offer your own opinion that isn't based on commission %.

Also make sure to spot out poor quality products and review them so your audience knows not to buy it. They will know you don't recommend just any product which in turn builds more trust and increases your sales when you do recommend something.

Finding Problems To Solve

Now you have a written method, you need to understand your audience. Put yourself in the shoes of someone would be interested in your content.

Could you generally tell what kind of a person it would be? Would it be someone young or old? Men / women or doesn't really matter? What else could that person be interested in? What kind of questions does this person have? There's no point in writing about football on a site about babies, right? You don't have to guess their shoe size, but you need AT LEAST a general idea on who your audience is. The more you can define them, the better.

So now you know who you are targeting. next step is to conduct some research and find out what troubles them. Write down those questions. And when you have many, you have that more $$$ to earn. But you don't think about those things, right?

And speaking about money...

Don't spend money unless you need to

There are million problems you can and will face while doing IM. You can't solve the bunch by throwing money at them. Sure there are some problems that you can't fix by yourself. And these exact problems are the ones you should solve this way. But if you spend money on those that can be done by yourself with little research, you won't have enough for those that can't be solved so easily. Even better, if you learn to do things yourself, you will be able to solve the problem again if it comes up.

Now I don't mean going to the junkyard and scraping electronic parts to build yourself a server so you don't have to pay for hosting. Just try to do everything yourself and if you see it will take waaay too much of your time, then and only then should you spend money on it.

This is how you should build a long-term income online. Reading random methods and copying them to the letter is not.

I hope at least a part of this will stick in your head and that I didn't write all of this for nothing. It all may sound a bit general but this should be the foundation for everything you do in IM.