Open any personal development book and the subject “habits for success” appears time and time again.

This makes me wonder, “What role do habits take in helping successful entrepreneurs, and do they really matter?”

Well, as entrepreneur Jonathan Fields puts it: “For the creator whose very existence depends on the ability to spend vast amounts of time living and operating in the ethereal sea of uncertainty and anxiety that is creation, rituals in every part of life serve as a source of psychic bedrock.”

He suggests, “They provide just enough of a foundation to allow you to free up that part of your brain that needs permission to run unencumbered in the quest to create the greatest possible something from nothing.”

Say what?

Basically, in layman’s terms, rituals (a.k.a. habits) give you the space to rock out amazing stuff as a creator (i.e., an entrepreneur).

If you have the basic priorities in your day, week or month met through the use of habits, your brain can chuck the to-do list and get on with creating golden nuggets of brilliance that fuel your business and, by default, your success.

Finding Your Genius Zone

Creating habits in your day can be as simple as:

• batch processing tasks on set days of the week

• checking email at certain times

• creating space for self care and exercise

• setting up a routine for chores, paying bills, expenses and administrative tasks

The success part comes when you are free to crack on with tasks that are aligned with what psychologist and author Gay Hendricks calls your “zone of genius.”

When you know, for example, that you write your blog content on Monday mornings, deal with finances on Friday’s and check email once a day (at exactly 2 pm or whenever suits you best), you are free to let your brilliance shine.

Habits and rituals are important because they create space for your innate brilliance – or, to put it another way, to strut your very best stuff.

Meanwhile, creating habits for the stuff you don’t like to do (e.g., accounting and admin tasks, the very first things that I outsourced asap!), is equally as important.

Habits and the Snowball Effect

I am a Miracle Morning convert (hat tip to author and speaker Hal Elrod), and really value an hour in the morning before the kids get up to meditate, read some useful material, focus on my vision board, write in my journal and crack out some yoga poses.

Starting my day in this way really helps to get my mindset in the right zone to be focused, productive, and move towards the things that I need to

Another ritual I keep is what I like to call my brilliance ignition, a process that is literally a business playground day where I take off for the day with my business, get super creative and allow my brain to run wild.

Habits and rituals can anchor your day, your week, your month—and your life. By setting the compass for how we want to live each day of our lives and run our businesses as entrepreneurs, we set the GPS for attainable goals, and break them down into do-able chunks.

Habits have a snowball effect; they build and build until one snowflake becomes an enormous, unmissable snowball.

Habits make space for success. At their core, they are just choices, made over and over again with an ever increasing impact. Now, that can’t be bad.

This article has been edited and condensed.

Jo Gifford, the Dexterous Diva, mentors solopreneurs to work in smarter, more creative ways and to get their message out to the world. Her Brilliance Ignition Process encourages solopreneur to incorporate creative thinking and content creation into their business DNA, and her easy to follow style and message has grown a loyal tribe of clients and followers. Connect with @dexdiva on Twitter.

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