4 habits that will make you more effective

You might have heard the saying “habits become second nature”. As cliché as this may sound, it is in fact quite true. Habits lay the ground to what we make of our lives – good or bad. They determine our actions; they lead to results, and ultimately they make us a success or a failure. In other words, habits determine our outcomes.

This is as true when it comes to your personal life, as it is in your professional life. If you choose to exercise for 45 minutes after work every day you will be fit. If you choose to drink beer with your friends instead, chances are you won’t.

Habits are indeed very powerful. They are those patterns of behaviour and actions that we take without even thinking about it because we either feel it is right or we are simply used to doing it. Imagine the following situation – a successful professional who earns well by applying his specialised knowledge in a certain field; and somebody working at a shop counter. The two might have very similar personality traits, both might be smart, both may have a high potential. Yet one is considered a success and the other mediocre. The one main difference between the two? One chose to spend two hours a day in front of the TV while the other chose to spend two hours a day reading and educating himself in something far more useful. In other words – the habits.

The difference between success and failure lies in your habits. That being said, it is helpful to reflect on what you do every now and then and adjust your habits to make the best of your time and effort.  If you can control your actions, you can control your life and ultimately your success.

Here are a few habits that I find useful for every entrepreneur and business owner. Habits that will make you much more effective in your work and consequently will help you achieve much more, much faster.

Ask for business

A lot of people do all sorts of marketing – they blog, they are active on LinkedIn, they do Facebook and Twitter, they attend various events and try to expand their network. And all that in the hope that business will come out of it. But ‘hope’ is a dangerous word. It means that something may or may not happen. While these are all great tools in your marketing toolbox, they could never be that effective if you shy away from offering your services. Talk to people, ask questions, get them to explain what it is they struggle with; and if you genuinely think you can help them – offer your help. There’s nothing wrong with that, in fact quite the opposite -you are trying to help. Now, I know you might think that you’re not “a sales person”, I’ll let you into a secret – we all are sales people every minute of every day, we just don’t realise it. The sooner you accept the idea that selling is part of the business, the sooner you will start pushing yourself to do more of it. And the more you do, the more comfortable you will feel with it, the better the results.

Proactively seek to learn new things

In the past when everything was stable and once you knew a profession you knew it for life. Today however everything is in a constant change. And it changes rapidly. You need to keep up with the changes that are happening, full stop. Regardless of what business you are in – whether you are a caterer, an accountant or a web designer, if you want to be competitive, you need to stay on top of the new trends, innovations, technologies, etc. So many business owners get carried away with their daily routines and urgent tasks that they neglect the need to do a course, exchange experience tips with another professional or simply read an interesting article. It could be a social media course or a sales workshop or really just a random article you read. Often times, it is these places where you find inspiration for new services, new products and generally for tremendous business improvements. There’s nothing more dangerous for business than the status quo. It applies to both managing your own business and also to what you offer to your clients. There’s a saying that’s used in ‘management speak’ – “if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’re going to get what you’ve always got”. So what are you doing differently this month that you weren’t doing before? What new ways of getting business have you learned?

Focus on solutions, not problems

When business goes well, we tend to give ourselves the credit for the results. All the work we’ve put into it, all the strategies we’ve come up with and implemented, all the money we’ve invested. When things go wrong, however, we often look for something or someone to blame. Maybe it is the Government or competition or the economy that is bad…  If you’re on the side saying “well my sales would be up if the Government did this” or “my sales are down because nobody is buying” – then you’re on what I call the ‘effect’ side of things. However, if you look at it from the point of “well I got that amount of sales this month, what can I do next month to double that figure” – now you’re on the ’cause’ side. You see, when you’re on the cause side of things – you create your own economy, you have more power, you take responsibility for your own future, you stand out from the crowd and become a maverick, and you achieve a huge amount more. Sure there are factors that affect our success sometimes, but if we complain about them and focus on them, what do we achieve? Rather than wasting energy complaining, focus your energy on what you can do to achieve what you want. No excuses, take action.

Don’t procrastinate. Just do it. Do it now.      

Even when you are doing your dream job and you are your own boss, there are always parts of the job that you just hate doing. It might be making cold calls, dealing with a problem, dealing with a certain client, making presentations or doing a boring report at the end of the month. Sometimes it is because we dread what we need to do, other times because it is boring and we have a million other errands to run. Regardless, these are tasks that need to be done whether we like it or not. And the quicker we get over it and do it, the better. Otherwise, you might not give a 100% of yourself doing your other more important tasks or tasks that you enjoy, simply because it bothers you knowing that there’s something hanging over your head. The longer you push it off, the more sense of urgency it gives you and distracts you. One of the main differences between successful and unsuccessful people lies in the will and habit to do things they don’t like doing. They just deal with them and that’s it.  Just do it now! Keep repeating this short phrase to yourself over and over again. Repeat this simple phrase for 30 days and it will become a habit. Once your subconscious has this as a habit, your procrastinations will be no more.

Habits are such an integral part of our lives that more often than not we don’t even realise what big a role in our lives they play. Whether in terms of patters of thinking or approaching a situation or repetitive actions that we take – we all have certain habits whether we realise it or not. Habits are essential, they are the tools, subconscious or not, that we use in achieving what we achieve. Thus being successful is really only a matter of establishing the right habits. If you choose to take certain actions on a regular basis that you know will help your business, you are inevitably going to do better.

Share this blog with your colleagues and friends to give them the inspiration to change some of the habits that are holding them back.