Ever wondered how small habits can make a big difference in your creative business? Join me, as I share insights from my journey and explain how understanding and forming effective habits can transform your life and work. This episode will help up with the strategies needed to turn your creative passions into profitable ventures. I go into the science behind habits, exploring the habit loop of cue, routine, and reward, and how stacking new habits onto existing ones can reinforce them. I'll be sharing  practical tips to help you establish and maintain beneficial habits and help you free up head space for other tasks.
Consistency is key to personal development, and habit tracking is your secret weapon.
To support you on this journey, download the habit tracker below and start building better habits today.

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➡ HABIT TRACKER

Transcript:

Sarah: 0:01

Hello, in today's episode, I'm talking all about habits and how we go about creating habits and how we make habits stick and how we can use them for business and for our personal lives. So sit back and enjoy. Hello and welcome to the Thriving Maker podcast. This is a podcast to support makers, crafters and artists to start and grow their creative passions into thriving, profitable businesses. I'm Sarah Kavanagh, your host, and I'm passionate about all things creative and how to turn your unique talents into a thriving business giving you the lifestyle that you want. I started my own handmade fine jewellery business over 15 years ago and now also help other artisans and makers build their own creative businesses through marketing and branding and techniques and strategies I've studied, learned and put into practice along my journey. Today, I want to help you to establish and grow your own design-led business so that it can help support the lifestyle that you want. Think of this as your go-to resource and check in for all things strategy and marketing for your business, along with stories and anecdotes from my life as a creative entrepreneur. Thank you for tuning in and welcome to the Thriving Maker podcast. So I thought I would talk a little bit about habits and how they can be so useful as you're growing your business and to be able to do things subconsciously so they're not taking up so much space in your brains having to think about them. You just get them done and you can move on to something else very quickly. So, as small business owners, as creatives, as crafters and makers, we inevitably have never-ending to-do lists and countless tasks all vying for some of our attention. And with so much going on, it's very easy to get overwhelmed and scattered and to be unsure of what to focus our efforts on and what to do next and where to place our energy. And one of the solutions that we can adopt is to create habits and to reclaim some control over our headspace, over our time and productivity. And it's these habits that we create to repeat regular tasks that are going to help us do that. So, before we dive into what these habits might be, if we explore a little bit of the science behind habits and why they're so powerful, so at their core, habits are automatic behaviours that we perform subconsciously, without any effort. They form. We form habits through repetition and reinforcement and they gradually become ingrained into our daily routine.

Sarah: 3:09

I'm actually trying to start a new habit of exercise. Um, I probably try and start this new habit every year, maybe a couple of times a year. It never really sticks. So not all habits stick and we're not all going to be suddenly the most efficient people in the world. However, if you can start with small habits, I may be taking on something too big. Going for a run twice a week, it may be too too much. That seems very little now I say it out loud, but you have to start small to for a habit to become ingrained. So this could be something like brushing your teeth in the morning, so another habit. And maybe checking your phone before you go to bed is possibly a bad habit. So habits can happen, even when we don't want them to, and they can shape our behaviour and they navigate some of the complexities of daily life for us.

Sarah: 4:08

So how do we create a habit, a good habit, and how can we maintain it effectively? So if we look at habit loop, it's a pattern in our brain which consists of three components. So what starts? The ritual, the cue that starts it, the routine and the repetition and the frequency of the habit that we're trying to establish and the reward and the benefit that we get from this habit. And these are the underlying elements of a habit. So if we take the habit of brushing our teeth in the morning, the cue for this is that we get up and we've just had breakfast. If you brush your teeth after breakfast, the routine is easy. It's every morning at the same time, in the same place, in front of the bathroom sink. The reward that we get from this is we start the day with a fresh mouth and that makes us feel good. So by identifying the triggers that prompt our behaviours and putting and implementing a consistent routine and rewarding ourselves with our efforts, we can start to establish new habits and make them stick for longer.

Sarah: 5:16

Another useful trick in creating habits is to stack them on top of established habits. So once you've identified a habit that you already or a ritual that you already do, you can put a habit that you're trying to develop on top of it or at the end of it, so that it's a continuation of something that you already do. So you may decide that you want to do a five minute meditation or stretches straight after you have done your teeth in the morning To get the day, get ready for the day and clear your mind and body of any morning anxieties or tensions, so you might want to tack this onto the end of brushing your teeth. So, as soon as you brush your teeth, you then do some stretches and your reward for this is that you start the day feeling refreshed and with a clear and calm frame of mind for the day ahead. So that's the idea of stacking habits, putting them next to other habits.

Sarah: 6:23

So for my run habit that I'm trying to create, I'm after, so twice a week, and I think this is probably where it's going. Wrong is, habits are maybe better when you do them every day rather than trying to spread them out too far. Is I tack it on to the end? After the? After my youngest has been dropped off at school, I come back, I go for a run. It's a very short run, doesn't take much time, um, and we'll see how that goes. However, it's that doing it at the same time on the same days in the same routine, that will mean that the habit will start to stick.

Sarah: 7:04

If you can do something for about 30 days in a row, it's really good. We all hear about um 30 day streak of designs or a 30 day streak of fitness or a 30 day streak of writing your thoughts down. So journaling is another really good habit to start to create. You could end the day 10 minutes writing how your day's been, what you've achieved, what your reflections are on the day, just before you go to bed, maybe after you've done your teeth in the evening, and it's a way to reflect. But you'll also clear your head of any ideas that you've had lingering from the day. So you'll get a better sleep and those ideas that are still going, you'll know, are noted down and you can pick them up again the next day.

Sarah: 7:54

So, if we look at the times, the days when you might want to put a habit in, a good way to look at this is to think about two or three habits that you would like to create and see where you can fit them in in the day. If one's a morning habit, one's an afternoon ritual or an evening habit, where was it going to fit into your day? So a morning ritual might be starting your day off, something that's going to start your day off well and energize you. So it might be going for a walk, it might be meditation, it might be having a healthy breakfast or spending 10 minutes just to get clarity on the day ahead and that's something that will be beneficial for you going forward for the rest of the day and that you can easily fit in as part of your morning ritual, morning routines. So, if we look at habits, what are some habits that you might want to create as a solo entrepreneur, as a creative business owner, handmade business owner? What habits are going to be beneficial to you and to your business? So one of them would be a morning ritual. So it's the way you start each morning that will give you focus and clarity for the rest of the day, and you might want to add something in some form of exercise, whether this is a walk, meditation, a healthy breakfast. Just carve out 15, 10, 15 minutes for some self-care or reflection so that you start the day with clarity and focus and feel energised for the day ahead.

Sarah: 9:38

Another really useful habit to develop is to develop the habit of time blocking, so working on particular tasks for a certain amount of time. And if you allocate, if you can allocate blocks of time to different tasks and activities, you can make sure that your time is being used effectively and efficiently and you minimize distractions. Now it may be that you want to say okay, on Wednesdays, I'm going to be working on designs and developing new ideas and you allocate a non-negotiable chunk of time, so an hour or two hours. So you may be something as simple as saying, on a Wednesdays, I'm going to work on designs and developing new ideas, I'm not going to look at anything else, that's my Wednesdays. So that's obviously a big chunk of time, but it just means that you're focused and you have direction for that day. You might want to have shorter bursts of blocks short. You might want to have smaller blocks that you use for other tasks, maybe tasks that you find difficult to do or that you get really distracted and sucked into, such as social media. If you set a time block and set a timer for 30 minutes, then you allow yourself to do the social media posting or reviewing, but no more than that, and you have a timer that goes off and then you move to something else. You can also develop a habit of setting goals and, whether this is a weekly, look at your weekly schedule and get into the habit of doing this on a Sunday evening so that you're first thing Monday morning, so you start the week knowing exactly what you're going to do. Look at setting goals for your business and for yourself, your personal growth as well and get into this habit of doing this every week so that you have again have clarity on what you're wanting to achieve in the week, you know how your time is going to be spent and that you're moving forward with your business. And so this goal setting and we will talk more about goal setting in another episode but this is another habit that is a really useful habit to develop when you're growing your business.

Sarah: 12:05

Another important habit to develop is one for self-care and a habit that's going to look after you. Now, this could be purely something for bettering your mental or physical health. Clearly something for bettering your mental or physical health. It might be something like just getting enough sleep every night, going to bed at a certain time, reading something every day. It could be exercise, going for a run. I'm, as I've said a couple of times, trying to do. This May not be working. It could be some form of exercise. It could be taking time out to connect with other people, and this is self-care. This is a routine that's important for you to develop so that you're also looking after yourself, and it will benefit both you and your business in the long run.

Sarah: 12:54

So cultivating habits. It's not only essential for success in your business, but it's also liberating for your mind and for your time. It allows you to do something knowing that you're not having to think about it. It frees up brain space for spontaneous and creative and free thinking processes. When you're doing an activity that becomes a habit, that's a habit and you're not thinking so much about it. It lets you, it gives space in your brain to think about other things and to have other thoughts going on. So try and commit to creating habits that support your goals and empower your growth and pave the way for success as a thriving business owner and a joyful business owner as well, and with dedication and consistency and the willingness to embrace change, the possibilities are limitless.

Sarah: 13:53

Really, if I can, if I can, if I can stick to my creating my habit of going for a run a couple of times a week, then I know I will feel good about this because I've achieved something that I've set out to achieve. It will also give me that little bit of buzz and adrenaline rush that is so important to have and it gives you a bit of spark for the day. Some of you out there probably go running every day and you're thinking this is ridiculous, that you can't do a run twice a week. But I always find excuses, and you will probably find excuses when you start to take on the habits that you want to develop, but they are so important, whether it's for self-care or in your business. Have a think about what will a habit that will be good for your business, a habit that will be good for yourself and a habit that's good for your relationships, whether that's your family or friends. And these are three areas that you can really start to think about developing a habit for and will be beneficial for you in the future.

Sarah: 15:00

So right now, I want you to think of three areas in your life that you might have goals for. You might have already set goals for three things in your life, for example, a goal for your business, a goal for your health and a goal for your personal growth. And now come up with a simple habit that you can create to help you achieve each of your goals. It might be, as I said, it might be just reading for 30 minutes before you go to bed, or spending an hour after lunch to develop your business skills. Whatever it is, try and develop that habit now You'll see, in the show notes you'll see a link to a habit tracker that I put together for you.

Sarah: 15:43

That will help you develop your keep on track of your habits and see how you're going. As I said, if you can start to think of one of your habits that you want to develop and tack it on to something that you already do, it will make it so much easier to stay consistent at and then, before you know it, you'll be doing both together and you're ready to think about it and your brain will be freed up. You're benefiting from the habit you've created, new habit you've created and your brain will be freed up to work on other areas that you want to. So go ahead and go to to the show notes and download the habit tracker and I will speak to you very soon. Bye for now, thank you.