Are Your Habits the Barrier to Your Online Business Success?

The evolution of technology, particularly in the Internet realm has made it easier than ever before for virtually anybody to go online and use their creativity or enterprising skills to make a comfortable living or even create an Internet empire.

When you consider that the physical overheads of creating an online business are virtually negligible, you can start multiple businesses online for a minuscule outlay of money (all you really need are an Internet connection and a computer to get you started).

Compare this with setting up an offline business which can run up into hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars of start-up capital just to get off the ground, and you can see why there are more people than ever before trying their luck on the fertile grounds of the world-wide-web.

But look more closely and you’ll see that the majority of these budding online entrepreneurs rarely make it to the big time; heck, they barely make a few dollars a month and in most cases nothing at all. What’s more, an estimated 70% of online start-ups don’t even last 120 days.

Why would this be so, even when it has never been easier to get an answer or solution simply by doing some research online or getting some help by outsourcing?

You’ll find that if you dig deeper, that a lot of the people that fail to reach their potential on the Internet have bad habits which sabotage their efforts at getting their business or blog off the ground. In actuality, these same bad habits are most probably responsible for the failure or supposed “bad luck” in other areas of their life too. The point I want to make is that your habits truly are that important that they are instrumental to your success.

What is a habit anyway? The Cambridge dictionary defines it as:

“something which you do often and regularly, sometimes without knowing that you are doing it”.

In other words, habits are so firmly entrenched in your subconscious that they are almost like an autopilot for your actions. They were formed by repetition of a particular thought or action. Some psychologists believe that to weed out “bad” habits and replace them with “good” habits takes about a month of repetitively enforcing the good habit and consciously avoiding the bad.

The good news is that it is quite easy to cultivate new good habits and do away with your bad habits. The first place to start is with your thoughts. If you constantly think that something is just “too hard” or that you “aren’t smart enough” to do a certain thing, then these thoughts eventually transform into actions or in-actions. So before you do anything, get into the habit of monitoring your thoughts from time to time and see if you can catch yourself thinking “I can’t”  or “I’ve missed the boat” or “this thing is too hard”. Sometimes this alone can greatly reduce the thoughts of inadequacy or negativity because you are actually becoming aware of them.

Another crucial step in forming new good habits is to simply get into the daily practice of “doing” what needs to be done for your Internet business or blog. For instance make it a requirement (just like having lunch or dinner or showering daily), that you will spend 30 minutes or an hour every day on a task related to your business or writing a new article for your blog. Start at first by challenging yourself that you will not skip a day for the next 2 weeks. Then extend this to a month and so on. This will quickly become a habit and you’ll find that it will be a natural part of your day.

Here are some more suggestions of good habits to get you started:

• Consistency: The majority of us have to work a full-time job to pay the bills, hence our online business work has to be done on the side or during our spare time. A lot of people complain that they simply do not have any spare time, but I’m a firm believer that if you really wanted to, you can make time. For example, wake up an hour earlier every day or spend at least an hour when you come home from work on your Internet business or project. Or, instead of watching your favorite sitcom, substitute this with work on your Internet business instead. It’s a small sacrifice to make for a potentially huge gain. Do this consistently every day (even for half an hour) and you will make incredible headway in getting your online business off the ground. I frequently like to remind myself of an old Chinese saying which goes something like: “A thousand mile journey begins with a single step”
• Perseverance or Persistence: Given that the overhead is relatively low for starting an online business, you can actually afford to fail multiple times without “going under” financially. The few who actually make the big time on the Internet have a strong persevering quality which eventually enables them to discover what works and learn from what doesn’t work. Quite often many of those who are doing very well online actually failed many times before they succeeded.
• Habitual Curiosity: Have you ever noticed that some people always want to know how something works or the answer to a question? Before they ask an expert they do extensive research on their own and quite often find the answer or solution to their problem by their own efforts. Well it might not surprise you to know that people with this type of quality or habit are often the ones that succeed in the online world.
  There are so many resources available to you for learning a new skill online that all it takes is some curiosity and willingness on your part.
  For example you could subscribe to some video tutorials to learn how to implement some JQuery on your website or maybe search through forums to find an answer to a question. Your options are endless.

Just remember that repetition is the key to cultivating your good habits.  So in ending I pose the following question to you: do you have any habits which are holding you back from your success in the World-Wide-Web?