Entrepreneurs face an array of challenges on the road to success, and it’s your habits that could be the basis of your success or even your downfall.
Using tried and tested strategies to overcome these challenges is vital in the pursuit of success.
These 6 personal and business habits can help you become more successful:
1. Quit the wrong things now
“If you never quit anything, you’re going to have less time for the things that really matter,” said Eric Barker, creator of the blog, “Barking Up the Wrong Tree”.
This simply means that in order for entrepreneurs to win and become successful, they should know what and when to quit especially if decisions and current outcomes are not going well.
Numerous studies conducted on this topic have shown that some of the world’s most successful people such as fashion designer, Vera Wang, and Alibaba founder, Jack Ma achieved success after abandoning unattainable goals and focusing on new ones.
2. Raise psychological necessity
Entrepreneurship often comes with a psychological price. Entrepreneurs are likely to experience stress, shame and social isolation when met with the challenges of launching and sustaining a business, achieving goals and targets and maintaining success while trying to balance this with their personal lives.
A business will not be successful overnight and so, it requires more grit, (watch the TED Talk on Grit by Angela Duckworth) discipline, and confidence on part of the entrepreneur to reach their goals.
Determination and perseverance are psychological drivers of goal attainment. These traits help entrepreneurs take risks and surpass the challenges and obstacles that they face Necessity is the emotional drive that makes success a must instead of a preference.
3. Demand detail excellence
An entrepreneur should never settle for less than excellent.
Excellence is a consistently high standard of performance your team may not always be able to attain. However, if they don’t, their effort is still excellent.
Excellence means that employees or team members won’t rush a project or turn in something half done. It’s the clear expectation that they’ll be held accountable if they do.
4. Focus on systemising, then perfecting
In order for entrepreneurs to attain their goals and become successful, they need to constantly upgrade and optimise their systems and processes because when entrepreneurs focus on systemising, they work smarter instead of harder.
Some benefits of systemising the business processes include allowing the business owner to focus more on big projects while leading effectively through delegation, ensuring consistent product and customer experiences, creating an optimal work environment and reducing work-related stress.
5. Master key skills
It is commonly known that becoming a master or expert requires 10,000 hours of work or effort in a chosen field. However, you can still achieve mastery by focusing on a handful of key skills.
The top 4 skills and characteristics that can help an entrepreneur be successful:
- Personal Characteristics – The values and beliefs that an entrepreneur has will give them the right mindset to achieve success. Some related traits are optimism, initiative, desire to lead, resilience and persistence.
- Interpersonal Skills – As an entrepreneur, the ability to work effectively with others is pivotal. Thus, having interpersonal skills enables entrepreneurs to build strong relationships with their teams as well as their customers.
- Critical and Creative Thinking Skills – In order for entrepreneurs to provide excellent ideas and be able to solve problems, they need to master the three elements of creative thinking, critical thinking and recognising opportunities.
- Practical Entrepreneurial Skills and Knowledge – For entrepreneurs to be effective and efficient, they need to set smart goals have effective plan management and organisational skills, and have the ability to come up with the best solutions to every issue encountered by the business.
6. Master cash flow
In business, “Cash flow is king”.
Profit is great but it can’t be taken to the shops to make a purchase — You need cash for that.
A successful entrepreneur knows how to manage the cash inflows and outflows as this is the lifeblood of their business.
Achieving both personal and professional success takes years of developing the necessary skills and habits. It also comes with the realisation that changing your habits can change your life. It’s not as easy as it may seem but changing habits is possible.
