Written by: Jay Staniforth, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
"How much do you want to be successful?" This question is at the forefront of every entrepreneur's mind. The best way to create success is by making it a habit. A person can't make one decision or perform one action that will allow them to achieve their goals, but they can make small changes in their lifestyle each day that will result in huge gains over time. This article breaks down how you can leverage the power of 1% and create unreasonable results in your life and your business, if you commit today.
The Habit of Success
A habit is a behaviour performed without thinking, and unless we choose our habits, they will be chosen for us. Don’t believe me? We’ve been forming habits our entire life; from morning routines like brushing teeth and getting dressed to more complex tasks such as driving to work or pulling out a phone whilst waiting at a bus stop. But what I'm referring to specifically here are success habits. Success habits are the things that we do every day with discipline, repetition, and consistency, so as to build productive behaviours into our life in order to achieve our goals.
I’ve seen unbelievable change in my own life, in the lives of my clients and of those around me, and there was no magic pill, no silver bullet, and definitely no magic string of words that made people fall at my knees. It was a direct result of micro-changes and micro-commitments that compounded over time. Some of them are so small that if I wasn’t looking for them, I may have missed them completely; and then we wonder why so many gurus and influencers struggle to put into words what they did to get to where they are now - they honestly just don’t know!
So if it means in order to avoid forming negative habits we must be intentional with the habits that we form, how do we go about building these into our lives, and how do we know if they are the correct habits?
Unfortunately, without guidance - we don’t! At least not until we begin to get the results that we expected (or fail to get the results as the case may be).
However, over the last 3 years I’ve been recording my journey and the habits I have formed with the aim of proving that any entrepreneur, with the right habits, can achieve true greatness in their business, their health, and their relationships. Having tracked this, I have identified there are 5 key areas of habit formation needed to instill consistent growth and progression into the life of any entrepreneur and I will share those in this article.
You can only make progress working with the truth
Before sharing the 5 key areas of habit formation, there are two principles that must first be addressed, as without them, no habit will help anyone to succeed.
The first principle is ‘true progress can only be made when working with the truth’.
It's a hard truth that we all have to accept: we can't make progress working with lies. If we're not honest with ourselves about where we are, how far along in our journey we are, and what the next step should be, it will be impossible for anyone to grow as an entrepreneur or coach.
I’ve never heard it put better than by Garret J White where he said that “when we tell the truth, it becomes a part of our past, but when we lie, we have to carry that forward with us into our future.”
So we have to get real with ourselves. One of my values is ‘ruthless honesty’, as this is the only way to make real progress. If we spend time pretending we are something we’re not, or faking it that we are somewhere we’re not, we only harm ourselves and we only slow our own progression.
Once we are honest with ourselves, we have a true starting point of where we are, what the goal is, and what needs to be achieved to get there.
This is the point in which overwhelm, self-doubt, procrastination, self-sabotage and even imposter syndrome can begin to seep its way into our lives and all over our plans and our goals; and there are various ways to deal with this, but the most powerful and impactful way that I have found is with my second principle, ‘the power of one percent”.
How to create unreasonable results by leveraging the power of 1%
It's the little things that make all the difference. Whether you're an entrepreneur or a coach, it can be tempting to think of our success as some kind of isolated event. We may attribute our successes to luck, timing, or other outside forces. But what if we focused on making just one small change? What would happen if we made ourselves do just 1% more than we did the day before? It turns out that this simple idea is absurdly powerful and has wielded incredible results for hundreds of people over the last few years - not only with making insane financial gains and improvements in health, but also overcoming limiting beliefs, procrastination, self-doubt, and even imposter syndrome.
In my business, Expert Unleashed, we lean heavily on this principle, not only because of its unreasonable ability to produce insane results, but because of its simplicity. When entrepreneurs and coaches come to me for help with improving an area of their life or business using our habits system, they’re already overwhelmed and on the verge of giving up. They’ve already tried the fancy marketing strategies and cleverly worded self-help articles littering the internet from productivity gurus; but an overwhelmed person cannot and will not effectively implement anything with any level of consistency - because they are already overwhelmed, and adding more to their list of stuff to do is counter-intuitive, and as such, fails to deliver results.
The most effective way to successfully implement the ‘power of one percent’ principle is to strip back the layers of obscurity from the daily actions currently being taken - this alone is often enough to release the intensity of overwhelm and bring a level of clarity as to why results are not being experienced at present.
Once operating from a clean slate, the 5 key areas of habit formation can be introduced.
How to use habits to take control and create impact
Up until this point, I have only ever shared these 5 key areas of habit formation with my own personal network, but having seen the incredible, life-changing results that they have delivered, I know their impact spans much further than my field of expertise, and as such, should be shared further afield.
So, as a reader of this article, we are in a unique position to be able to share the learnings I am about to disclose with others who might be struggling to build momentum in their business or achieve the health targets they keep falling short of, or even reignite the love and passion in a dwindling marriage… and with that, below are the 5 key areas of habit formation.
The first area of habit formation is the Morning Ritual
The way in which our mind is first engaged in the early hours of our waking day will often determine the theme for the remainder of it. That’s to say, if we wake up late, feeling tired, groggy, rushed, panicked and agitated, we can expect to encounter more situations that support those feelings.
Adjusting the ritual in which we follow at a habitual level each morning will change our day, our week, and our lives.
For many, getting present with oneself and focusing on gratitude, goals and exercise acts as a springboard for an energetic and intentional day. For me personally, I practice my own ritual that goes by the acronym, the ‘GAME OF ONE’. This is a written exercise I follow that mentally prepares me for the day and sets my mind up to subconsciously look for the opportunities that will take me closer to my goals.
The second area of habit formation are Revenue-Generating Habits (RGH)
In business, one of the biggest and most common reasons people fail to make sales and achieve their revenue goals is not that they are not skilled enough, nor that their offering is not good enough, but that they do not ask for the sale.
When we focus on building specific actions into our daily plan that have the potential to generate a hot lead or a prospect client, we drastically increase our chances of making more sales, having greater impact, as well as achieving our revenue goals.
For many coaches and online entrepreneurs operating on their own, it’s my experience that literally days and even weeks can go by without them making a single offer or asking for a sale.
I schedule 60 minutes per day to working on my RGHs, which has almost doubled my income over the last 2 years of doing so.
The third area of habit formation are Needle-Moving Habits (NMH)
Second only to not asking for the sale, the third area of habit formation solves the issue of not having anyone to sell to.
Without a consistently growing and engaged audience, we run the risk of suffering stagnating sales. The key point to note here is that we do not need a huge audience to make sales, we simply want fresh connections to enter our world on an ongoing basis.
To achieve this, NMHs are daily actions that focus on building an audience by delivering value both outside and inside of our direct network.
The fourth area of habit formation are Non-Negotiable Habits (NNH)
The simplest way to explain NNHs is perhaps by example. I personally trade and invest in stocks and crypto, with the majority of this activity taking place ‘during the working day’. I’ve made significant returns in these areas having worked with two incredible coaches and, as such, see them as being important to my lifestyle.
Although they are not directly related to my work, they are linked to my core goal, so I prioritise 30 minutes per day to analysing markets and placing trades.
For someone else, their NNH might be a walk with their dog at 3 pm to create mental calmness, or for someone else, it might be to weigh themselves at the gym at 11 am and get a full-body scan to track their health goals and continue to improve their energy levels throughout the day, or even to have a break from work at 3:30 pm to spend 45 minutes debriefing their child’s day at school to ensure they have a strong family connection.
Non-Negotiable Habits are flexible in this respect, but they have to be tied to something that is important to our lives or support a specific goal that we have.
The fifth and final area of habit formation is the Close of Play Ritual (COPR)
There is a common assumption that we all have the ability to switch off from work at the end of the day. And while this might be true for some, it is an incredibly difficult task for many others.
Most of us have experienced this at one time or another, if not consistently each day; but we do need time to switch off - not only for our mental health but also to allow us to maintain connection with our family and to 'enjoy' the journey.
Sometimes, shutting off can lead to feeling unproductive and guilty about not working harder, and this is where the COPR comes into play.
The COPR works on the premise that we should be creating huge impact in our business every single day by implementing the previous four habits, and if we get anything extra done - that’s a bonus!
To provide an example, my COPR focuses around tracking numbers, clearing out any missed emails or messages, creating an outcome list for the next day, and finishing off my planned water intake for the time period.
By creating a habitual process that we go through at the end of each day to physically signify another one percent progress and the successful close of another day, we mentally frame the ‘stopping of working’ as a positive action.
Prepare to welcome failure and setbacks
With any new process we introduce into our business or our lives, we have to expect there to be a learning curve; instant success is rarely the outcome. Over the years, I have come to realise that failure is part of the journey and often my biggest failures have become part of my biggest teachings.
If we can learn to embrace failure, and seek the positive that we can extract from each event, not only will we progress faster, but we will enhance the level at which we understand ourselves, the journey, and the world around us.
This habits framework, combined with the principles of truth and the 1%, provides a simple and structured map for those seeking to achieve a goal but lacking the tools to get there.
Jay Staniforth, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Jay Staniforth is a leader in high-performance habit formation and marketing strategy. After struggling with social anxiety in his teens, Jay dedicated 5 years of his life to studying Psychology and further understanding his struggle with focusing and taking action in public situations. He created strategies to strengthen his ability to hyperfocus on tasks whilst building the confidence to share his knowledge to benefit others. He has since dedicated his working life to helping entrepreneurs in the coaching and training niche to grow their business by removing overwhelm and gaining clear direction through coaching sessions which focus on habit formation, goal setting, and system creation. He founded Expert Unleashed in 2018 with his partner Naomi Hyett who wanted to create a support system for entrepreneurs looking to succeed in a business that positively impacted the lives of others.
Together they have helped over 100 coaches and trainers globally to remove overwhelm and progress their business using an auto-organic marketing system that works every time! Jay's mission: to inspire and empower the next generation of thought leaders to unleash their inner expert and create a movement that positively impacts the world.
