How to form good habits
Entrepreneurs are busy people with less time and a lot of responsibilities. With the busy schedules and tight deadlines, the unstoppable email flow and long meetings, it seems impossible to create a routine which you can follow in order to pay the right amount of attention to the most important parts of your startup without the feeling that you are missing something major.
“We become what we repeatedly do.” Sean Covey
Habits are routines that tend to occur unintentionally, but there is always a way to push yourself into creating a useful for your personal and professional life habit. The practice shows that people more often tend to create unhealthy, unproductive habits which accidently become a part of their lifestyles. It seems very easy to create a bad habit, but when it comes to creating the valuable habits, which can actually improve our lives it takes more effort and time than imaginable. Why is that? One of the top reasons is the fact that positive habits require more effort because they are intended to take us out of our comfort zones.
Building a habit is something important for entrepreneurs. In order to improve their personal and business lives, entrepreneurs must know what deserves their attention and work on establishing this activity as a repetitive routine with the potential to become a habit, with other words effortless.
One of the most productive and positive habits are related with our health. The habits of eating healthy and regular exercising are something that every person must work on. But entrepreneurs can focus on their startup performance as well. By creating a habit to wake up earlier, to work smarter, to improve your ability to focus, to manage your time more effectively you can actually help your startup venture. So now you may wonder how you manage to create a habit. It requires effort, but will definitely pay off.
The good news is that you can get rid of the bad habits by replacing them with good ones. It is all about the power of your will and the intention to create something useful for yourself and for your business.
Start slow. Do not push and force yourself to your habit. If you want to achieve better results you need to be persistent in your actions. Repetition is what makes a habit, so start with setting small everyday goals and increase the amount of work per day, not all in once.
Create daily goals. Divide your final, complete image of your habit into small steps that you need to take and work on improving these steps every day. To do something with ease and without any additional effort you must become the master of this activity. There is no better way to mastering something than dividing it into steps and follow them one after another plus adding an additional step for every next day.
Repeat until it is very easy. Habits require repetition so your brain can become comfortable with these new changes of your lifestyle. Repeat, repeat, repeat, even if it gets boring. Repetition is the mother of learning.
Be persistent. Habits are created by repetition but most importantly by uninterrupted repetition. Make sure that you have a plan for action and you follow this plan. As we said, take small steps but make sure these steps are taken every day.
Make a lifestyle change. Start forming your habits from your mind. Take the decision that you will work on forming a positive habit and that this habit will become part of your life as a routine not as something that you are forced to do. Accept your habit as a part of your life and as something very usual that you do and you will soon be able to harvest the fruits from your efforts.