13 Astonishing Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Are you an entrepreneur or a wantrepreneur? Successful entrepreneurs have developed habits to help them achieve success over and over again. The habits entrepreneurs have require patience, consistency and determination. These 16 astonishing habits of a successful entrepreneur will help prepare you to achieve the success you deserve.

13 Astonishing Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

1. They Have Hobbies – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Learning new languages, starting an online business, taking online courses for entrepreneurs or pursuing activities to make money online. Successful entrepreneurs all have hobbies. They have interests that help them grow and keep them happy. Hobbies are a great way to find similar interests which can be helpful in networking situations. 

Don’t know which hobby to pursue?

• Check out Groupon. Sign up and attend random classes, activities and courses for fun to see if you have an interest in it.
• Ask around. What are the hobbies of the people in your circle? What are the hobbies of people you want to connect with? Try out those hobbies to find out if you have an interest in those areas.
• Want to mimic billionaires? According to Business Insider, billionaires’ hobbies include: philanthropy, cultural events, fitness, travel, skiing, fashion, politics and more.

Many entrepreneurs turn their hobby into a business, so this might be the only thing holding you back.

2. Entrepreneurs Ignore the Haters – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

All entrepreneurs have experienced haters. Parents, friends and coworkers probably told them their idea was stupid or that they wouldn’t succeed as an entrepreneur. But they just didn’t listen. To be a successful entrepreneur, you need to get into the habit of trusting your intuition. Do what’s best for you. Live life your own way.

Tips for ignoring haters:

• Parents telling you to quit entrepreneurship and get a real job? Move out. Crash at a friends house. Spend all your time at a local library and pretend you’re at work.
• Someone told you that you won’t succeed? Tell them to write that down on a piece of paper. That way when you do succeed, you have proof that you owe them nothing.
• It’s mostly in your head. The biggest hater is always going to be you. Become your own fan instead. Don’t add a roadblock against yourself.

3. Entrepreneurs Know How to Stay Motivated – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

We all experience ruts, obstacles and moments of failure. But do you know how to keep yourself motivated through the lows of your career? If so, you’re demonstrating a positive habit many successful entrepreneurs have. If you start to lose motivation, it’s not game over. You can still take action to boost your motivation.

Want to improve this entrepreneur habit?

• Listen to ‘motivational speeches’ playlists on Spotify.
• Write down 20 reasons why you started a business and look at it every time you lose motivation. Answer this question: why?
• Read a biography about someone who’s overcome adversity.
• Start with one small step. What little task can you work on right now to help you achieve your big goal?

4. Entrepreneurs Manage their Time Well – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are obsessed with time management. He’s the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and needs to ensure a balanced amount of time devoted to both businesses. According to Business Insider, his entire day is blocked into five minute slots. You know how everyone has the same 24 hours? It’s this level of detail that an entrepreneur takes to ensure that it’s managed well.

Need to make better use of your time?

• Use apps like Freedom to block social media sites and other distracting websites during your work day.
• Follow the 80-20 rule. What 20% of your tasks lead to 80% of your income? Focus on those 20% of tasks and reduce time spent on other tasks.
• Delegate tasks. What do you do better than anyone else? Stick to that and outsource the rest.
• Say no. There aren’t enough hours in the day to execute on every idea that pops up in your head. Stick to the ideas that’ll drive the most results. It’s okay to say no to friends, family and your team sometimes.

5. Entrepreneurs Exercise – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Mark Zuckerberg did a Year of Running. Arianna Huffington practices yoga. Richard Branson plays tennis, goes biking, runs and kite surfs. To stay in top form, top entrepreneurs exercise to help them live healthy and balanced lifestyles. Many successful entrepreneurs say they wake up early to exercise at the start of their day.

Want to make exercise part of your daily habits?

• Find the time that works best for you. Maybe you’re more of an evening gym goer than a morning one. Pick a time that you can commit to every day.
• Can’t go to the gym? Sign up for Beachbody on Demand or buy a fitness DVD from Amazon, you’ll be able to find workouts at your fitness level that you can do in the comfort of your own home.
• Need that extra push? A trick that works for me is to create or update a really killer playlist every week so I get excited to listen to it. The rule is that I can only listen to it while exercising. It makes the workout more fun.

6. Entrepreneurs are Team Players – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Entrepreneurs are leaders, it’s true. But they’re also team players. They know how to get their team to work to their advantages. They’re not afraid to share their workload. They don’t obsess with their own accomplishments as they focus on the bigger picture.

Need to be a better team player?

• Delegate. You can’t do every task on your own. It’d make you inefficient. Share your responsibilities with the team so that more of your team can grow. And so that you can focus on what matters. If you don’t have a team, hire freelancers to help.
• If someone is trying to move their career in a certain direction, help them get there. If not, you risk losing them forever.
• Get everyone involved. Don’t be the person who wants all the recognition. Roping in other team members can help you achieve a bigger goal.

7. They Find ‘Me Time’ – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

‘Me time’ isn’t reserved for introverts. It’s a time for you to reflect on your actions, your values, turn off your brain or spend time doing what you love. Me time could be the time you spend coming up with ideas in the shower. Or the time you spend on you morning run. It could be that moment in the day where you write in your journal or read a business book.

How do I get into the habit of making time for myself?

• Find the time that works for you. After the kids have gone to bed or before the family wakes up.
• Pursue an interest that excites you so much that you’ll do whatever it takes to do it.
• Lunch breaks are a perfect time for your ‘me time.’ You’re away from your family and you’re legally permitted to duck out and take a break.

8. They’re Healthy – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

You can’t have a brilliant mind without a brilliant diet. That mac and cheese diet is going to do nothing for you over the long-term. Vegetables, protein, and healthy fats should be part of your balanced diet. And water.

Tips for living a healthy lifestyle:

• Your diet is important but it’s not the only thing. You also need to balance out physical exercise like cardio and mental exercise like meditation. Try writing in a journal for mental clarity each day.
• Have one cheat day each week. One day where you eat anything you want. The rest of the week focus on clean eating habits. It’ll help you become more mindful of the foods you eat. However, it doesn’t deprive you of your favorite foods.
• Avoid sugar. If you read ingredients you’ll find that sugar is in almost everything. But it can result in a sugar crash. Take the time to read the ingredients for your food. Your food can help fuel your success.
• The most successful entrepreneurs actually do sleep. So be sure to get your eight hours every night so that you can have a productive day, every day.

9. They Wake Up Early – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

According to Business Insider, Richard Branson wakes up at 5:45 am, Indra Nooyi wakes up at 4:00 am, Tim Cook wakes up at 4:30 am, and Howard Schultz wakes up at 4:30 am. Most are in the office by 7 am. They all have productive morning routines.

Tips for getting into the habit of waking up early:

• Go to bed early. No, midnight is not early. Aim for 9 or 10 pm.
• On a piece of paper, write down why you need to wake up early. Don’t put a logical reason like ‘to do task A.’ Write down a meaningful reason, your why, like ‘to help more people solve problem A.’ Place the paper on your nightstand. When your alarm goes off in the morning and you’re tempted to press snooze, read the paper first. The world needs you. So get your ass out of bed.
• Don’t put your phone near your bed. Put it on the other side of the room. That way, you can’t check your messages or shut off your alarm by rolling over. You’re going to need to get out of bed to shut your alarm off so make sure it’s super annoying.

10. They Ask Questions – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Curiosity may have killed the cat but it’s the habit that made the entrepreneur a success. “I wonder what will happen if…’ is the thought that results in experiencing new adventures and ideas. Innovation is born out of an entrepreneur’s curiosity.

How to make curiosity a regular habit:

• Try new things. Trying new foods or experiences can often lead to epiphanies you wouldn’t have come up with. You never know when something you decided to try inspires an idea. The more you try the more experiences you can pull from. You never know when something you try becomes the inspiration for your next marketing campaign.
• Read. A lot. Information is essential for your growth and success as an entrepreneur. But instead of reading your endless feed of social posts, stick to books or reputable blogs. And try reading about topics you genuinely know nothing about. It’ll help you make connections you never realized were there before.
• Test everything. No, you don’t always need to be logical. Did you know women are the main consumers of cars? I didn’t either. That’s why car commercials often mention safety features because that’s what the average female consumer looks for in her family car.

11. They Know Why They Started – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

What impact do you want to have in the world? Why do you want to start a business? Why do you want to make $1,000,000? What’s your motivating force? Who is pushing you to greatness? Who do you want to be successful for? The bigger your why the harder you’ll work to achieve it. Your why is what’ll get you out of bed in the morning and what’ll get you through adversity. Write it down, memorize it, spell it out backwards if you have to.

How to maximize your why:

• Set goals. Not New Years’ Resolutions. But daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, quarterly goals. It’s too easy to lose focus of your goals if you only do it once a year. Write those goals down. What do you want to achieve and what exact date do you want to achieve it. Check your progress on those goals each day.
• Be grateful. You have this big goal that you want to achieve. You’re going to need to get some help from others to achieve it. Maybe they’re the customers buying your product or the employees you hire to help you hit your targets. They’re making your goal possible. Let them know how grateful you are to them. Handwrite them cards on their birthday thanking them for their help in achieving the ‘why.’ Send them emails telling them how much you love having them on your team. Let them know you’re nothing without them because they’re a huge part of your success.

12. They Minimize their Decisions – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Mark Zuckerberg wears the same outfit every day. Why? To reduce the number of decisions he makes each day. Making decisions can be exhausting, even if we don’t consciously feel it. The average adult makes about 35,000 decisions a day. Like the decision you made to read this article out of all the articles on our blog (thanks by the way!)

Tips for reducing your decisions:

• Delegate. Surround yourself with smarter people who can make decisions on your behalf. Your team can help make sound decisions so you can focus on making the right ones.
• Simply your decisions. Start with food. You make several decisions trying to decide what to eat each day. You can reduce these decisions by making the same meal for the same day of the week like Taco Bowl Tuesdays, Tuna Sandwich Thursdays.
• Don’t make decisions when you don’t have to. The average person takes sides, but the entrepreneur hangs out in the middle away from all the drama.

13. Entrepreneurs Take Action – Habits of a Successful Entrepreneur

Goodbye daydreams, hello real life. That idea of starting a business went from hanging out in your head to becoming an actual store. The goal you set for yourself two months ago has started seeing some solid results. If you want to win the game, you’ve gotta play it. Ideas mean nothing to an entrepreneur. It’s all about execution.

Tips for Taking Action:

• Stop with the excuses and get shit done.

8 Successful Entrepreneurs Share Their Best Habits

Sumit, the founder of Trump Excel, has been running his brand successfully for four years. His best habit involves creating a daily list.

He says, “One habit that has really worked for me is creating a list of 3 things that I need to get done the next day. I do this little activity at the end of every day. The reason it works so well is that I know exactly what I need to work on the next day. So I go in with a full focus on getting those 3 things done. I only target 3 as it is more realistic and achievable.

I use a simple Google Sheets on my phone to write these tasks and it hardly takes 5-10 minutes every day. The impact of this has been huge. It has helped me plan and execute a lot better.”

Jaya Jaya Myra, an internationally known published author, speaker and expert in natural health and lifestyle has been running a successful empire for nine years. Her debut book Vibrational Healing: Attain Balance & Wholeness. Understand Your Energetic Type has been published in nine different languages and is sold globally.

She shares, “One lesser known but absolutely game changing success tip I have is to wake before sunrise every day. Being awake and able to greet the sun psychologically puts you in an entirely different positive space for the day, where you are more prepared, more alert and better able to feel you can handle anything thrown your way. The sun contains a tremendous amount of positive energy. When you greet it head on, start your day at or before sunrise, you’ll find yourself more confident, more charismatic and even more calm.

In order to do this, I make sure my sleep patterns are regular and consistent, which makes it easy to get up at the same time each day. I also have a mindfulness and meditation practice I do daily, which keeps the positive momentum going.”

Peter Terani, founder of Terani Couture is the designer of couture gowns worn by Vanna White and Miss USA. He shares, “As an entrepreneur, I establish a “review, refresh, reload” process to take stock of what strategies and initiatives worked and what didn’t (both short-term and long-term). Instead of plowing through one strategy right into another, I take time with my team to evaluate what was effective in our strategy and where we have room to adjust. Instead of ignoring failure, we sit down with it and evaluate how to move forward, and it’s made all the difference in our success.”

Josh Knauer has sold two of his startups to publicly traded companies. Most recently he sold his company Rhiza to Nielsen. He emphasizes the importance of personal downtime as his daily habit.

He shares, “The one habit that has been a game-changer throughout my career, even during the busiest/most stressful times, has been to make sure that I have personal downtime every single day. One example of this for me is that I carve out time every day to go for long walks, 4-5 miles per day, that help clear my head, gain focus and improve my physical health. While at home, I walk several miles with my dogs through the large park behind my house. I also volunteer at a local animal shelter and walk rescued dogs in need of a break from their kennels and socialization with people. When I’m traveling for work (which I used to do about 30-40% of the time), I will make sure my hotel is located in a place where I can go on long walks and even better, find a local, state or federal park to go walking in while I’m there. Having this as a regular practice has helped me navigate stressful business situations by giving me time to think, improved my physical health and generally made me a happier more relaxed person.”

Stephanie Pope and her husband are the founders of online store Hope and Harmony Farms. You might recognize her from her spot on The Cooking Channel with G. Garvin. She shares, “Running a peanut farm (farming knows not what a vacation is!) and thriving e-commerce business doesn’t leave room for wasted time. Which is why I time block and use the Pomodoro Method to track time blocks of work, followed by a short break to refresh. Pomodoro’s Method is based on 25-minute sprints of focused, head-down work, followed by a 5-minute break (times can be adjusted to suit your schedule). By breaking my day into blocks dedicated to different projects and working in concentrated sprints, I find that I’m both more productive and creative in my work without burnout.”

Rich Palmer a four-time entrepreneur and current founder of Gravyty shares “One habit I can recommend is to “ride a flat rollercoaster.” Everyone says that startups are like a rollercoaster – there are high highs and low lows, and you are along for the ride. Smart entrepreneurs reject this notion because it means they are not in control of the one thing they have complete control over – their emotions, and make it a habit of being mindful and stoic. They maintain perspective when things get bad and do not let themselves get dragged down. When times are good, they don’t revel in this, they continue moving forward. Riding a flat rollercoaster means evaluating every situation to go as fast as possible in the right direction, without letting up/downs affect you.”

Teana McDonald owner of 3E Connections shares, “Every Sunday morning (before the household wakes up) I sit and plan the week ahead in my planner. I sit an map out my entire schedule, meetings projects, and expectations. This allows me to sleep better on Sunday night and go into Monday mentally prepared and not stressed and overwhelmed. It has made me stronger mentally and allows me to think with a clearer mind because my week has been planned and I know what to to expect. It’s a time management tactic that works for me and allows me to maximize my time on tasks and items that generate revenue. I use something called the Law of Attraction Planner. It’s more than a calendar, it allows you to set goals and measure them effectively.”

Joshua Lombardo-Bottema CEO of GoWrench Auto “The one habit I have found has really improved my business is gratitude. I practice gratitude in a variety of ways – I start off each morning thinking of all of the things I am thankful for, this helps me to get in the right mindset to really attack the day. I also practice gratitude often with my staff. I let them know they are appreciated and that they are doing a great job – this helps hem to stay motivated and continue delivering their best. Gratitude has changed the culture of the company and the mindset of all those in it.”

Lori Cheek, founder and CEO of Cheekd shares, “As soon as I wake up, I start the coffee maker then I roll out my yoga mat and do 30 pushups, 100 sit-ups and 3 rounds of one minute planks followed by a quick stretch. It takes less than 20 minutes and not only does it get my heart pumping and immediately wake me up, it gives me a calm start to the day! Then I grab my coffee, crack open my laptop and begin the entrepreneurial grind already 200 calories lighter!

Then…. when I get into the office, I organize my workspace. Having a clean workspace helps me focus and feel structured. After I organize everything, I settle in with a cup of coffee and try to relax for 15 minutes before diving into the grind. Then, I prioritize my day’s to-do list and map out the rest of my day!”

Fred Schebesta, CEO and co-founder of finder.com is a published author, career mentor and a keynote speaker. His business operates in 10 countries around the world.

He shares, “My daily habit is to make one improvement every single day. Every morning when I wake up I decide what that will be and how I’m going to implement it. The improvement might be in regards to my business, my health and wellness or my relationship with my daughters but everyday I’m striving to be a little better than the day prior.

Thinking what I am going to improve may not take longer than 10 minutes, but the implementation timing can vary. If it’s a bigger goal, I will chunk it down into small bits that can be executed each day.

Doing this religiously every single day for at least the last 10 years has seen me expand my business, grow my wealth, improve my relationships and have a huge impact on my overall personal development.”

Conclusion

I genuinely hope that while you were reading this, you thought to yourself, ‘I do all of these habits, I’m on track to being a successful entrepreneur.’ And even though you started reading this, I hope you didn’t finish reading this article. I hope no one reads this concluding paragraph. I hope you stopped halfway through and thought to yourself, ‘why am I wasting time reading this amazingly written article by the brilliant Nicole Martins Ferreira, when I can be building my business right now?’ Action. That’s what the world wants you to do. If you got this far, you might as well share this article on social media, tag me, and then get back to work. If you do tag me though, I’m going to ask you for progress updates the next day to make sure you don’t go back to being a daydreamer. You’ve been warned!

How many of these entrepreneur habits do you have? Which ones do you need to work on?

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