Five Habit Hacks of Successful People

The culture around goals and habits is backwards. It’s a real challenge for most people to start drinking more water or getting a fitness routine in place, why do we think we can triple our income or scale our business in three months?

From my 13 years running Bloom Business Development, here are a few words of wisdom from my business coaching vault that will actually support you to reach those big goals in a way you feel good about.

Habit Hack #5 ~ Thinking too big

Of course the end goal is to do incredible things, but as the saying goes, every marathon starts with the first step. Just like the front door may feel like the heaviest weight at the gym, your aspirations for your business can feel too big to be actionable.
A habit needs a few elements, you can read more about that on my other blog here. Certainly, keeping it easy to do is at the top of the list.

Rather than committing to reading a business book every month, start smaller. Commit to placing a book in a place where you will actually pick it up and have time to read. If you’re really keen to create space for reading, reducing screen time has a way of increasing meaningful connection. Storing the remote control for your tv in a drawer is an easy and effective first step. If you’re A Type and really want to go for it, you can position your furniture so it fosters conversation instead, resulting in that meaningful connection you are seeking.

You want to anchor tiny new habits to an existing habit too. For example, you could commit to reading during lunchtime and pick up your book and read one page during lunch. Or maybe you want to watch a Ted Talk over lunch so your new habit is to open the Ted app after you sit down for a meal.

Actionable steps will take you where you need to go, not big salacious goals that feel like Mount Everest.

Habit Hack #4 ~ Habits are all about doing

What you do today becomes what you do everyday. If you’re constantly stressed, distracted and worrying, this too will form a pattern of behaviour and ultimately become part of your personality.

When thinking about entrepreneurship and how to scale your business and run a business that doesn’t run you, what kind of leader, practitioner, boss, listener, mentor, parent, friend and partner do you want to be?

Habit Hack #3 ~ Thinking your goals are everything

In moments of stress, doubt or tension, check-in with yourself and ask, “What would a confident business leader do?”
Instead of constantly working on your finite goals, checking in with that new identity that you are carving away at will uplift you and allow you to ride that wave to your North Star.So often, clients create even more incredible business models, opportunities and collaborations by checking in with their intuitive wisdom and staying true to their North Star and being flexible.Personally, in the years after motherhood when I was coming back from putting everyone else’s needs first, I would ask myself, “What would a man do?” It was a powerful centering question that allowed me to say no without explaining, delegate with ease and realize how much I was doing that I wasn’t giving myself credit for.

Habit Hack #2 ~ Constantly moving onto the next

Working with so many business owners, I see how we climb a huge mountain, and rather than celebrating the monumental strides we just took, we are already casting our gaze on the next summit.
Of course, this is powerful and important, yet research is showing that just like mindset and gratitude hardwire change, celebration is going to be the next big thing in optimizing habits and behaviour.If this makes you uncomfortable or feels silly, I hear you. Yet, the power of taking a moment to celebrate cannot be ignored. Whether you give yourself a silent “atta girl” or your do your own creative version of a touchdown dance, when you start implementing change, celebrate your win in the moment to hardwire the behaviour into your brain so it can lay down new neural pathways and create a winning habit.

Habits need to first form before they can be optimized. Focus on creating.

Habit Hack #1 ~ Delegate for the win

If you want to stay small in your business, keep doing everything yourself. When you invest in professionals, as your clients do in you, you are freeing up time to work on your business.
Great places to start are cleaners, bookkeepers, admin support, social media assistance and for the parents, increasing your kids chores and being okay when things are done imperfectly.The time you spend on these tasks is then re-directed into business development, revenue producing tasks and streamlining your operations to be truly profitable. And by truly profitable, I mean in the bank and in your tank.Your brain is operating at its most optimized state for the first three hours you are up in the morning, and that is a great time for CEO Time. Block it off on your calendar and decide in advance what you will do during that time.This idea that hard work + suffering = success is just plain WRONG. It is detrimental to your health as a person and for your business that you’ve worked and sacrificed so much for.

Having an expert by your side to collaborate on your business development and help you avoid the pitfalls above is essential. Check out my Private Coaching for Entrepreneurs by clicking here.

Onwards & upwards,

Your Coach,