How to become successful by changing your habits?

I am writing this new article from my personal experience wherein a close friend (I shall not disclose the name due to privacy issues) was made redundant from his company, having worked for over 10 years in the company. The situation and circumstances initially made him so nervous that he went into his dormant circle & isolation, never willing to come out & meet friends nor go out actively searching for a job. Basically, he had accepted his failure as his destiny.

This raised a question into my mind, do your habits and actions actually define your personality which in turn decides whether you are a fighter or loser, who is willing to give into the circumstances without even putting a tough fight.

 Thankfully a couple of my friends were able to convince this friend of mine & we stood by him in his hour of crisis & today he is happy having started his own venture and has now got a couple of job offers as well.

So how did my friend manage to bring change…

The answer sounds simple but requires consistent coding of mind by changing our habits, by focusing on our key strengths, by building resilience to failure or any negativity.

Mahatma Gandhi once quoted:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, 
Your thoughts become your words, 
Your words become your actions, 
Your actions become your habits, 
Your habits become your values, 
Your values become your destiny.” 

How many of us are living our lives like any robot i.e. we get up early to get out of bed to work, our morning routine, we dress, walk, exercise, interact with others and come back to home feeling tired, deprived of sleep and again we repeat the same cycle till LIFE throws a challenge at us & we are caught unaware as to how to tackle it.

THESE ARE NOTHING BUT HABITS & THESE HABITS GOT YOU TO WHERE YOU ARE TODAY…...

 How to change Habits to become successful?

1)  Have high positive energy & Build enthusiasm.

2)  Determination: Always remember, where there is a WILL, there is a WAY. Be determined to write your own destiny, always give your best shot to all your tasks and projects.

3)  Have Patience & persistence to bounce back:

“Darkest nights produce the brightest stars”, You need to have the ability to bounce back after facing failures or down times. Become resilient, don’t take NO for an answer.

4)  Learn to delegate tasks and free yourself from mundane day to day tasks. Focus your energies on tasks related to your goals, Use Pareto principle, and focus on 20% tasks and activities which would enable you to achieve 80% of your goals.

5)  Want to change yourself – change your circle of people with whom you hang-out the most. It is said that a person’s character is an average sum of 5 people with whom he hangs out the most. Change your circle and change yourself. Hang out with people whom you aspire to become, hang out with people who guide you and are more knowledgeable than yourself. Find yourself a mentor from your industry and keep learning like a good student.

"Guru Drona in Hindu mythological scripture Mahabharata helped Arjuna to discover is the key strength in archery."

6)  Identify your unique key strength: Become “unique” in your field of work, which would become your passion. Just focus on your unique strength & become master of that speciality. Go deep into your speciality and you shall become “Thought leader” of your field. Become disruptor in your category and create your own niche.

I shall include one case study of a successful coffee shop who despite cutting throat competition in coffee shop market, was able to carve a niche for themselves by using disruptive marketing strategies.

Case study: Brand - Prufrock café

Disruptive tool: Disloyalty card – Disruptor in café space.

As a start-up they wanted to do things differently, they wanted to create awareness about their coffee shop which promised to offer its customers a unique speciality is artisan handmade coffee, freshly brewed from hand-picked selected coffee beans from various parts of the world.

Being too tight on marketing budgets, they launched Disloyalty card in the market at the time when all brands worldwide are talking about loyalty cards/systems and retaining their customers. The very thought of DISLOYALTY card was disruptive in nature.

They distributed these cards to their catchment areas and asking their customer to drink coffee in selected competitive stores like Starbucks, etc and they were to complete 5 visits to different coffee shops. Post completing 5 trips to competitive coffee shops, the customer could come and visit Prufrock café and get their first coffee free of cost.

Benefits: Prufrock café wanted to attract only true coffee connoisseurs hence people who came to their shop with DISLOYALTY card were true coffee lovers who could identify the difference in café’s blends and its handcrafted coffees. They appreciated the quality of the blend that Prufrock café had promised as their Brand Promise.

Media mileage: Café got attention from all the local media publications and influencers wanting to know about their DISLOYALTY card and its purpose, resulting in free publicity for the café.

A perfect example wherein Entrepreneurs of Prufrock café not only overcame the challenge of generating publicity and increasing footfalls but also gave an excellent experience to coffee connoisseurs. They converted their roadblock to their advantage.

Hope my article would help upcoming entrepreneur by providing them with key insights and required inspiration.I  can be reached at riteshmohan@yahoo.com in case any of my friends, followers would like to seek any help from me. I would be keen to share my industry experience and wisdom with them.

About the author:

Ritesh Mohan is a passionate retail professional with over 19 years in the retail sector, handling some of the biggest brands in beauty, fashion and fragrances retail & FMCG sector. He has been instrumental in the growth of some of the regional brands as well in Middle East region. He specializes in Retail management, Product development, Brand management, Retail Operations, Sales Management, Business Management & Empowering business owners with his wisdom & experience of around two decades in the industry.