Are You Suffering from Sweepstakes Burn Out?

If you have been entering giveaways for any length of time you know about sweepstakes burn out.  This is when you have been entering and you start to feel like it is a job and not a hobby! Often times this burn out occurs when you haven’t won anything or you haven’t won anything for a while.

Once you get started expect to wait six months for a win.

This hobby is definitely about persistence and also the law of averages.  Ever since I started I have read that you need to wait six months before you start winning consistently.  It is the absolute truth.  Now this doesn’t mean you will not win for six months it just means winning prizes will not come every week or twice a month until you have been entering this long.  It is all about how much you enter!  Once you get through the first six months you should expect to win at least twice a month or more!

Keep track of your wins

Document all your wins.  When you have won a prize, you will receive a notification either in the mail or online. Keep these notices.  You can use a typical three-ring binder and Sheet Protectors to put your win notifications in.  This is great to keep around because you can look at it and remember that you have won prizes and you will win again!  You may even want to take pictures of prizes and/or keep a journal about these prizes. If you scrapbook, you can make a page for each one of your prizes. You can even make a digital scrapbook of your prize winnings!  This really stirs up the desire again to enter more sweepstakes. 

Change your strategy.

Maybe you exclusively enter mail-in sweepstakes or only blog contests.  Try something new.  Enter an essay or recipe contest.  This could get the creative juices flowing and the excitement will come back.  Either way, change  your entry method or enter more!  I know you are probably thinking, “Enter more, that is the last thing I want to do”!  It is true, I said enter more.  As I said earlier, this is a numbers game!  The more entries you have in the giveaway world the more prizes you will win!

Attend an event.

Attend a sweepstakes club meeting or visit a forum.  The National Sweepstakes Convention is happening right now.  I can guarantee that if you were there you would want to run home and enter giveaways like crazy.  There is a feeling of excitement and realization when you are at these meetings.  When you hear someone talk about how they won the car or $10,000,  you look at them and realize if they can do it so can you!  At my club meeting in June one of the members shared one of her recent wins.  She won a 10-day Mediterranean cruise!  She and her husband will be traveling to three continents.  They will be visiting Egypt, Italy, Israel and a couple places I have never heard of!  I am so excited for her but not only that I was excited to come home and enter more so I could win something like that!

Create a vision/dream board.

Think about what you really want to win.  Do you want to win a big HGTV?  How about an adventure in Africa?  Maybe you just want a few gas cards to pay for gas on your vacation.  Whatever your heart desires, write it down.  Then take all of your old magazines, find pictures of what you want to win and cut them out.  Once you have done that, get yourself a piece of scrapbook paper, cardstock or if you have a lot of dreams a big poster board.  At this point strategically place all the pictures on the board.  Once you decide how you want them placed, glue them on.  Each day spend a little bit of time thinking about what it would be like to win this or obtain it in some way.  After doing this a few days, you will be wanting to enter giveaways more often!

These are just a few ways that you can overcome your sweepstakes burn out. How have you dealt with this pesky problem? Share your thoughts with us!

photo credit: Maxpax

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