Hack Your Habits To Be A Better Entrepreneur

Human beings are fundamentally risk-averse to ensure the survival of the species. This is best summed up as “better be safe than sorry.” However, entrepreneurs are known as risk-takers, and millennials are the least entrepreneurial generation in recent history. How can you push yourself to risk more for the potential of a greater reward? You need to hack your least helpful entrepreneur habits and force that resistance to change to work for you, instead of against you.

Hack Your Habits

In the book “The Power of Habit” by Charles Duhigg, the author explains how the “habit loop” works in your brain: a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue and the reward become hardwired in your brain after enough repetitions.

Rewire the Routine

The best way to hack a habit is to reform an existing habit by changing the routine. The best example of this is how Proctor & Gamble got Febreze into our lives by reframing it as the reward of our cleaning routine instead of making us form new habits. Positioning Febreze as a bad smell remover doesn’t work because people with the bad smell don’t need the “reward”… they are already fine with the bad smell (they can’t smell it anymore). Instead, P&G repositioned Febreze as the REWARD for people who do clean regularly: a smell that tells you that you’ve done a great job. In the summer that P&G launched the new direction of advertising, sales doubled and only kept going from there.

Start Small But Keep Going

Start small. Maybe you want to add “Create a new list for getting things done” to your morning routine. Let’s say you add it right after breakfast. You can use a habit-tracker app to record your successes and failures. Your cue is waking up, and your reward is a properly calm morning so you can start your day happy and productive.

Keeping Adding Small Hacks

Once you’ve repeated it for a month, you have gained mastery of that habit, so try something else. Identify the habit’s three components: cue, routine, and reward, and work on changing the routine or reward so it works for you, instead of against you. Shift the time that you used to give to TV, YouTube, and social media into something more productive, such as working on some of those items sitting in your “Someday/Maybe” list, and you will begin noticing advances in your personal growth.

I noticed a huge shift in my personal health when I started using my Apple Watch. I started competing against myself and I’ve hit my weight loss goal!

You control your habits, don’t let them control you. Stay happy and healthy my friends; I’d love to hear from you and know what hacks you use to be productive.