There is no secret recipe for success. However, every distinguished entrepreneur will tell you that ample dedication, hard work, and self-confidence are some of the things that contributed to his or her success. We’ve all read articles on how bad habits like poor focus and lousy time management can hold you back from achieving your end goals, but not many of us pay much heed to the good habits one needs to cultivate in order to be successful. Here’s a list of a few habits that entrepreneurs need to practise if they want to ensure profitability:

Ideate your way forward

If entrepreneurs want to accumulate wealth and maintain a healthy cash-flow at all times, they need to plan their strategy every quarterly or six-monthly. As a popular saying goes, ‘If you fail to plan, you’re planning to fail.’ Those who want to make their company a success always have a set procedure in place. They keep their eyes on the ultimate goal and do everything in their power to stay on track to achieve that goal.  A strategy is like a road map that helps you understand what steps come next. When you have a plan in place, you stay accountable to your goals. For example, if you’re a fashion company that aims for a five million turnover in the coming year, your pre-established plan will act as your guiding star to help you fulfil that number.

Learn from your failings instead of sulking

Every entrepreneur is bound to have pitfalls along the way. However, how they deal with setbacks defines what kind of an entrepreneur they truly are. It is easy to indulge in the blame game or wallow in self-pity when your project doesn’t take off as you anticipated. Pulling yourself up and learning from your mistakes is difficult, but it is the right thing to do. Don’t give up on your company and vision because of an obstacle you face. Obstacles don’t sink companies, a business man’s loss of hope does.

Stay creative to be on top of your game

Entrepreneurs are idea generators. It is not necessary that every idea they come up with will be a good one, but they need to keep coming up with new ideas to better their chances of hitting the jackpot. For example, your company has produced a product that is a hit with the consumers. However, you shouldn’t sit at ease just because you have one popular product that flies off the shelves. Instead, you should continue brainstorming new ideas and take risks as only then will you keep your target audience coming back for more. No matter how successful your previous project was, lifelong entrepreneurs should keep dreaming about the next big idea.

In addition to the above, being passionate about what you do and never making excuses will get you closer to realising your dream. As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is walking from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.”

This article was originally written by Munira Rangwala and appeared here.