Wouldn’t we all want to reach all our goals quickly, easily, and almost effortlessly?

There is a trick. It is not my secret. The most successful people use this methodology and in fact, I was already practicing it before I stumbled upon it in a book.

If you are an entrepreneur you know that you have to up your game, change bad habits, and cram in as many good habits as you can. In fact, one of the most important things you need to do as a startup entrepreneur is to learn how to build good habits and incorporate these good habits on a continuous basis in your life and business.

This is a first must for you and your startup to success. We are creatures of habit and as startup founders, we need to make sure we are able to continuously adopt good or better habits. In this blog, I share with you my secret. It only takes two minutes and two minutes per day is all you need. It sounds too good to be true but you will see why it is possible and that’s all that it takes = 2 minutes.

But before I do, let me tell you a story. A few months ago I attended a meeting where everyone had two minutes to talk about what they had set out to change or do that week and how it had gone. One particular person got my attention. Her objective was to reduce her weight and therefore she started by telling us how she prepared everything, buying new walking shoes, the right clothes, a hat and so on. On the first day, she set out on a 2-hour walk in the countryside, up and down several hills. She came back with muscle pain, blisters, and a hurt burn, after which she decided she was too overweight and she couldn’t do it, so she better try weight loss a different method. She gave up on the full project.

After my daughter was born, my activities outside the house were reduced. Almost all. I stopped rollerblading on weekends and running during the week and even the occasional horse riding weekend was all but gone.

In three years, I put on a whopping 7 kilos. (For me that’s a lot of weight). At one point I decided that’s it, I need to start again. I have always enjoyed running and I love it, but I knew there is no way I can run uphill like I used to.

Here is the secret. Just like the other person who wanted to lose weight, I had the same objective. With the knowledge that I have gained this over time and must lose it over time and that I should not even attempt to do a 5km run on the first day.

I therefore set out on the first day choosing a track of just 4.5 km. I ran for maybe 2 minutes and I walked for possibly 4 to 5 minutes. I ran another 2 minutes, and I walked for another 4 or 5 minutes. I repeated this routine until the end. The following day. I ran more or less the same, except each day I added a few more seconds to the 2 minutes. I listened to my body and I only pushed a few seconds extra beyond the pain. Within three weeks, I was running the full distance in one go, and within a month, I changed my route to a 7km run and then more.

NOTE: the 21-day habit-making is false and a myth (Read the original book where it comes from Psychocybernetics). Habit building is not formed in 21 days. It takes sometimes longer. I managed to run the full track in approximately 21 days, but this is not how I build the habit. I started creating the habit but making it simple and easy. This is the key. This is the first secret and only secret.

No matter what you want to do, be it meditating, building a new website and business, reading more books, learning how to paint, etc, etc. Start with 2-minute easy actions. Find a way of starting and dedicating 2 minutes (2 or more minutes) but doable time.

Let’s say you want to read more books. If you can assign yourself to read just 2 pages per day or night time, then you will certainly be able to achieve 2 pages. If you read 2 pages, soon you will find you want to read more and you end up reading 10, 20, and 50 pages. The secret is to make the starting point easy with the reward of feeling good for having accomplished your goal.

This methodology is explained in more depth in “Atomic Habits” by James Clear, which I encourage you to read, however, if you don’t have the time and you rather get started on that long-neglected task, now you know, all it takes is scheduling it into 2-minute or achievable and rewardable chunks.