The late Stephen Covey taught us the ‘7 Habits,’ but new habits are hard to master. Here are 3 tips to make the process much easier.
As the late Stephen Covey taught in his runaway bestseller, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, cultivating good habits is essential to an entrepreneur’s success. New habits are hard to master, but learning how we turn intention into reality can make the process much easier.
“The biggest problem is that we rely too much on willpower alone,” says Heidi Grant Halvorson, psychologist and author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2010). “Wanting something isn’t enough.”
Willpower is like a pool that drains during the day, then replenishes overnight. Each time you make a decision, manage stress, or do any task that is not immediately rewarding, you drain a bit of your willpower. With fewer resources at your disposal, you are more likely to give up quickly. To successfully adopt new habits to grow your business, you need to bypass willpower. Here’s how:
1. Make a specific action plan. Good habits require planning, so we need to break them down into actionable steps. For example, if you want to prioritise your time (Covey’s Habit 3), then you might make a list of your top five goals, tack them above your desk, and check to ensure that each task you take on falls into one of those categories. “Planning in a very deliberate way takes a lot of the burden off willpower,” says Halvorson. “That’s the secret to success.”
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