12 Proven Success Habits For Every Entrepreneur

Success is not just about strategy but, in reality, your habits are more important

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Running a business can be tough but many entrepreneurs make things tougher for themselves by adopting poor practices and poor habits which only result in mediocre business performance, at best.

This can be a major factor in the high failure rate experienced.

But eliminate poor practices and poor habits and replace these with good practices and good habits and the fortunes can be changed dramatically.

Adopting the best and the strongest habits is a powerful way to progress.

In this article, I list twelve highly effective habits that every entrepreneur should adopt. This is not a random list but arguably the ten most effective habits for success.

Each one has been proven to work, time and time again, and most, if not all, are used by the most successful 1% of entrepreneurs globally.

By using these same habits for yourself, you should be able to massively improve your own performance and productivity but that of your business too and certainly move yourself out of mediocrity

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1. Start Early

If you are serious about moving out of mediocrity and making success yours, one of the strongest and most proven way is to start early. This is the best way to channel your focus on the day ahead and to get some meaningful work done before the distractions of the day start.

The most successful in business are known to rise before 5am and to be working by 6am.

For many of us, the brain works best first thing in the day, and the top 1% have learned that then is the best time to achieve their goals.

If this seems early to you, try easing into this habit by setting your alarm clock 15 minutes earlier each subsequent week for two months until you are starting two hours earlier than originally. 

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2.  Set, Plan & Achieve Goals

It is proven beyond any doubt that those who set and achieve good goals generally outperform those who do not. These should be short-term as well as long-term goals.

Such goals should stretch you while still being achievable and having something to work towards should give you drive, direction and purpose.

Once a good goal is set, it is imperative that a detailed written action plan is created, broken down into small achievable steps with timelines.

Again, it is proven that those who have a written plan for their goals massively out-perform those who just merely hold a goal in their head and loosely work on it.  

The real benefit is when you acquire the habit of working on your written planned goals consistently every day, ensuring that you make good daily progress.

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3.  Manage Your Time, Use Lists & Be Organised

Your time is your most precious resource, not money. You can make up lost money, but you cannot make up lost time.

So, it is important to use your time wisely and to not waste it; you should always try to get a good return on every hour spent working.

A powerful habit is to plan and organise your day well in a ‘daily planner’, maybe splitting it into one-hour slots, into which you should place the tasks of the day. By achieving this powerful habit, you should be able to manage your time well and to be well organised in your work and in your life.

As part of this habit, it is a beneficial habit to list tasks for yourself personally and for your business into four groups, depending on how urgent and how important these are:

• Group 1 – Urgent & Important

• Group 2 – Not Urgent But Important

• Group 3 – Urgent But Not Important

• Group 4 – Not Urgent & Not Important

For each group, it is a good practice to make a list of the tasks that need to be performed and achieved. Then, as part of being organised you should try to incorporate these tasks into your daily planner.

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4.  Eat The Frog

‘Eating The Frog’ was a concept originally suggested by Mark Twain and it can work impressively well.

Basically, it involves working on the most important or the biggest tasks first in your daily planner. This can be particularly effective, if this is performed early at the start of the day, when you could be at your best.

I also find this is useful for tackling some of the tasks that you least enjoy performing but are still important.   

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5.  Use The Pareto Principle

‘The Pareto Principle’ is a powerful tool for attaining huge progress. It simply means that 80% of most achievements come from just 20% of the efforts. And, so is also known as the 80/20 rule.

In other words, prioritising your most important tasks and goals, will create the greatest progress with less important tasks probably achieving much less.

The 80/20 rule can be applied to almost anything including, importantly your sales. Put simply for many businesses, 80% of your sales could come from 20% of your customers, meaning you should prioritise this group.

Prioritising your most important tasks is a good habit to adopt, if you wish to progress rapidly.  

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6.  Be Results Obsessed

The best in business are great achievers because they are constantly tracking their progress and the results that they achieve.

The most important metrics for your goals and your plans should be monitored and reviewed frequently. If the results and outcomes are short of expectation, these should be observed quickly, and changes should be made promptly.

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7.  Focus On Positivity

Being Positive and remaining positive in business is crucial if you are to make good progress.

But it is easy to focus on the negatives that can come from worrying about your business performance such as sales and the financials.

Negativity can lead to more negativity.

When things get tough, it is important to think positively and to focus on how things could be improved.

One good way to view negative events is to think that such situations can be a great learning curve. You should also think that success never goes in a straight line, and that it is normal to experience bumps along the road.

By achieving well-planned written down goals and by prioritising the most important tasks, it should be possible to focus on the positive and to maintain your positivity throughout all times.

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8.  Be Inspired, Motivated & Optimistic

It is always important to think that the most successful in business have experienced failures and setbacks. But importantly, you should also think that they kept motivated and optimistic by continually thinking about their goals at how far you have come and what you have achieved.

You should do the same.

One good habit for nurturing positivity is to feed the mind with positivity by spending an hour a day being inspired by those who have gone before you through reading their books, their online writings or TED Talks.

You should think that if they can do it, so can you!  

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9.  Copy & Emulate The Most Successful

Being inspired by a successful role model and copying or emulating their ways and methods is a good way to progress.

So many start out in business trying to ‘reinvent the wheel’ by attempting to work everything out for themselves. This can work but it can also be costly in terms of time, energy and money and can often lead to failure.

As mentioned earlier, if something works for them, it could work for you too.

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10.  Give Value & Feel Meaningful

Many start a business to make money or to ‘become a millionaire’.

Reality shows this seldom works.

The best way to become wealthy through running your own business is to adopt a strong principle of giving ‘value’ or being ‘meaningful’ to your customers.

Some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs are those who have improved people’s lives the most, through their businesses. Ironically, those with a strong purpose of giving ‘value’ almost always create greater personal wealth than those who originally set out to be ‘a millionaire’.

Do you provide great ‘value’ and improve the lives of your customers?

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11.  Focus On Your Health & Wellbeing

You are the engine of your business and if you faulter, your business could faulter too. So, it is paramount that you focus on your health and wellbeing.

Entrepreneurs are often guilty of neglecting their health and wellbeing by working long hours and not taking breaks.

By adopting these habits, you should be able to achieve much more in less time. This should allow time to take breaks away from the business.

As part of your ‘daily planner’, you should include an hour’s break each day to recharge the batteries and to pace yourself.

You could even try a four-day week.

In addition, you should focus on some or all of these:

• Eating well

• Exercising well

• Getting plenty of sleep

• Taking holidays

• Getting out into nature

• Having family time

The very best in business always focus on their health and they know how important this is to drive their success. Furthermore, they know it is important to be healthy enough to enjoy their success, too.

12.  Be Disciplined

It is often said that strong discipline is the bridge between the right goals and the right actions.

Many entrepreneurs, especially inexperienced ones can be guilty of poor discipline. This can manifest itself in procrastinating and putting off or being unwilling to sacrifice parts of their lives for their businesses.

A good habit is to be strict with yourself and to always do what you need to do, when you need to do it; putting off or delaying will just delay progress and possibly frustrate you.

If you are to lift yourself out mediocrity, you will need strong discipline to adopt and to practice your good habits and to eliminate your bad or poor habits.

But also importantly, you will need strong discipline to take action on the plans for your goals each day, tirelessly.

Only be through the right actions, will you progress.

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How Many Of These Do You Use Already?

Do you use any of these already?

Good if you do.

If you don’t or if don’t use them all, you should acquire all twelve habits and acquire strong versions of these habits.

If you work hard at these in a disciplined way, you will greatly enhance your success prospects.

Best of luck.

Please Contact Me,  If You Have Any Comments Or Questions About This Blog Article. I Would Be Pleased To Help You

Robert Viney Is An Award-Winning Business Coach

Top 20 Entrepreneur Coach 2022, Awarded By The Coach Foundation

23 Best Business Coaching Services 2022, Awarded By HubSpot

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