Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going

It was five thirty in the morning and I was rudely awakened by the sound of my alarm clock. I knew I had to go the gym, but I was tempted to lie down for a little longer. There were days when I greeted the morning alarm by hitting the snooze button until I eventually postponed the gym but thankfully, I had changed this habit two years back and now, instead of hitting snooze, I start the day by counting down five..four…three..two..one. In fact, I jump off from the bed to go to gym now before I have the time to change my mind.

Being an entrepreneur is pretty much like that. It’s always about learning new things, adapting to new changes and getting used to new habits. And so while I was driving to the gym, I thought of writing my long awaited blog post by adding some of the useful habits I learned over a few year in the hope that it might help some people out there.

 

Habit 1 : Five second rule

This is a simple rule which prevents you from acting on detrimental urges. This rule simply distracts you from your anxieties and redirects your attention to what you should be doing, instead of submitting to instantly gratifying urges. By continually doing this, you can break the negative cycle and create new and better habits. Personally for me, even in terms of dealing with workplace conflicts, irresponsible workforce etc, this rule helps and gives me time to think and react positively to control the environment.

 

Habit 2 : Writing everything you want to do

If you want to reach any goal, write it down as this makes it easier to achieve the goal easily. It’s important that all the goals are very precise. Rather than saying I want money, you should say I want exactly this particular amount to start a business.

Being so specific might sound extreme, but if you want to achieve your goals, you need to know what exactly you want. When I look at my goals for the year 2017, I was very precise about my travel to countries. I had written that I want to travel to four countries and even made a point to mention the countries as well and did the same by visiting India, Vietnam, Cambodia and Singapore. Before 2017, I didn’t get enough chances to travel with my new ventures, but with the new team set up, I wanted to begin my travel diary which I actually did. This will help you to recognize opportunities that will help you to reach your goals.

 

Habit 3 : Give and take

I have met so many people in my life, and we all know people who seem to care only about themselves in business as they completely disregarding the needs of others. They are the takers and they are self-centered by focusing only on what benefits they can get from others. Givers, on the other hand, are driven by the desire to help others and create success in the group.

When I started my own venture, of course the mind always thinks about the business, how to get more clients, how to achieve more sales revenue, how to take clients from competitors and so on and franky, the entire thought circles around focusing on ourselves. By being the part of a global community called BNI (Business Network International), which is based on the philosophy of givers gain, the concept is that when you give business, more business comes around. I started helping others in business without expecting a return. This habit now launched me into opening up the venture in Cambodia and Vietnam by exploring new business opportunities and creating new contacts ad network.

Habit 4 – Not worrying too much about what others think

No matter what path you follow in life and no matter what business you do, there will always be some people who try to make your life more complicated. Or to put it simply, there’s always a jerk in every group.

So how do we deal with this uncomfortable truth? Well, there’s only one thing you can do: accept that jerks will be jerks and deal with them.

When you start worrying about what others think, you are simply losing your real potential. In business or in normal life, there are so many factors that influences a forward move. When you are doing the right things in life, not worrying about what others think is a better way to perform. When our brain starts thinking about others – which is often not something positive – it takes subjective assumption about their thoughts and starts worrying about it. Avoiding this unwanted strain can make your life easy and allow you to move forward towards your goals.

 

Habit 5 – Being radically candid with the staff and coworkers

Being radically candor develops strong and beneficial relationship with your staff members. Running a small organization with a small team requires lots of personal attention towards employees. Knowing them personally well is crucial for any small business success. It is very important to establish personal relationship that proves that you genuinely care. This means opening up, sharing and talking about more than just business. With this, you can always challenge their talent by giving them more responsibility to take risk.

 

Habit 6- Controlled breathing to overcome fear

As entrepreneurs and business owners, we always get a chance to present ourselves in front of a group of decision makers or in front of a larger audience and take tough decisions which creates a fear. But the techniques I follow to overcome my fear whenever I feel something challenging me is that I always take a deep breath which eases out the fear. This is a great technique to overcome anxiety and fear.

 

Habit 7 – At any cost do not point people’s mistakes

Pointing out people mistakes doesn’t encourage them to change their behavior, and it certainly doesn’t help them to learn anything. This is because most people are not primarily driven by reason but rather by emotion.

The person to whom you point out the mistake won’t really listen to what you’re saying because they will feel attacked and their natural reaction will be to immediately defend their own position by fighting back. This will also make others like you less in the long run. Benjamin Franklin claimed that the secret of his success was to “speak ill of no man.”

Pointing out someone’s mistake is easy, but it takes character to be understanding and to forgive others for their mistakes and shortcomings.

 

Habit 8- Show your appreciation frequently

 How can you get someone to do you a favor? You must ensure that they want to do it. And how is that possible? You must motivate the other person with a simple reward: your sincere appreciation.

One of the strongest drivers of human behavior is the desire to be appreciated by others. We all like being complimented and hearing we’re doing a good job.

 

Habit 9 – Forget about arguments

Never tell others they are wrong – whenever you tell they are wrong that will naturally offend them and by telling this, you are basically saying “I’m smarter than you:. Their feelings will be hurt, and they will want to retaliate.

To get the other person to reevaluate their view, it’s much more effective to be humble and open-minded.for example I always use the words “Correct me if I’m wrong”, or “I thought differently but I might be wrong”, etc.

That’s end of part one and all these points I have mentioned are necessarily not the perfect techniques, but during my day to day life, these techniques have helped me to overcome lots of issues and to handle people effectively. Until I finish writing part 2, good bye for now.

“Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going”