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By Will Deane Founder of Unstoppable
Whether you know it or not, your habits control you.
Habit is what gets you out of bed in the morning. Habit is how you brush your teeth. Habit is how you plan your day, how you do your job, and how you run your life.
So if you want to massively improve your life and get more successful, habit is the best place to start. In the words of Will Durant:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Thankfully, you can steal habits from some of the most effective, successful people in the world.
Good habits are worth their weight in gold, but they’re available to you for free. All you have to do is learn them and implement them in your life.
So where do you start? Take it from 5 of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world.
Schedule Your Day like Elon Musk
Elon Musk founded Tesla, PayPal, and SpaceX, which makes him a history-shifting entrepreneur on land, online, and in space.
How does he manage to split his time between some of the fastest-growing companies in the world?
Scheduling. Very precise scheduling.
Musk schedules out his entire day in 5 minute blocks. For him, that’s the best way to squeeze the most out of every day.
With that in mind, it might be a good idea to ask if that upcoming meeting really needs to be an hour long.
Reframe Your Expectations like Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel is a legend in Silicon Valley.
Another cofounder of PayPal, Thiel is a serial entrepreneur and venture capitalist worth about $2.7 billion.
According to him, one of the biggest obstacles most people encounter is something they create for themselves: their own expectations and assumptions.
Particularly those that relate to time.
If you want to grow, take a cue from Thiel and ask yourself:
“Why can’t I achieve my 10-year plan in 6 months?”
Chances are, your 10-year plan doesn’t have to take 10 years. And if you can complete it in 6 months, or a year, or even 2 years, you can move on to the next 10-year plan.
Exercise Like Richard Branson
Sir Richard Branson has started so many businesses in so many industries that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of them all.
Suffice it to say that his accomplishments grew so large, the Queen of England saw fit to make him a knight.
Branson says one of the biggest secrets to his insane productivity is exercise.
No matter where he is in the world, he wakes up at 5 AM every day to get some exercise: go for a run, a bike ride, or out kitesurfing. Starting his day with exercise puts him in a clear state of mind for making great decisions on his businesses.
You don’t necessarily have to wake up at 5am every day – although there’s plenty to be said for that – but maintaining a strict, consistent exercise schedule is guaranteed to improve your body, your mind, and your life.
Read Like Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett is worth about $80 billion. With a B.
Need we say more?
And, more than anything else, reading is the skill he cites as the source of his wildly successful investment career. In his own words:
“I just sit in my office and read all day.”
Buffett estimates he spends 80% of his time reading, and when he was a young investor starting his career, he’d read 600 to 1,000 pages every day.
Time to dust off that old bookshelf.
Keep Going Like Thomas Edison
Thomas Edison is one of the most prolific inventors and entrepreneurs in US history, holding over 1,000 patents and famously perfecting the recipe for the incandescent light bulb.
By now, the fact that he tried 10,000 different formulas before he got the right one is legend. And you’ve probably already heard his take on the process:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
This quote is almost a platitude at this point – which is unfortunate, because if you really think about it, it’s astounding.
When’s the last time you tried something 10,000 times without giving up? How about 1,000 times? Or even just 100 times?
Steve Jobs believes that “about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
Edison proves his point perfectly.
Start With Habit to Create Lasting Change
If you want to improve yourself, change your life, and get on a path to success, don’t focus only on trying to find the next big business idea.
Focus on changing your habits.
Get those right, and nothing in the world is beyond your reach.
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Will Deane is the CEO of Unstoppable.co and a lifelong entrepreneur, with several successful startups under his belt. Starting from the early age of 15 he has been building companies. He is a lover of all things marketing, consumer trends, branding and team building.
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