[00:00:00]
with these five habits,
I've been able to significantly change my life
without much effort. Now, I don't know if you're like me, but I've struggled with building new habits or you know, you see. all these videos on YouTube and they tell you all the things that you should be doing as a creator, as a business owner, as a human being, and it can be overwhelming because it's, we overcomplicate things.
It's really tough to see something and then say, you know what? How can I apply this to work for me? Right. A lot of times it's like you just have to wake up at. Two o'clock in the morning before anyone's ever up to do your workouts and whatnot. And if you're not a morning person, you are already thinking, Hey, that's impossible.
How is that relevant to me?
But what if I could tell you there were five habits that I would call easy, that [00:01:00] helped me change my life better in a significant way each time I implemented these?
That's what we're gonna talk about today. Hi, I am Shawn Buttner, the host of Creators at Crush Podcast, and your certified High Performance coach that's jump into it.
when I think about. Things that have really changed my life for the better and that were really
high impact, low efforts.
the first one that I think of it is writing,
And how this has shown up to help me in my life is there was times in my life where I did not like the life I was living.
And part of it was, you know, in my very first job I was. Sleep deprived, high stress on call all the time, and I couldn't help but just focus on how much I didn't like what was going on in my life. And that added to the stress and what got me out of it [00:02:00] was doing some, research online. I came up on some journaling exercises.
about reframing, right? And so I would wake up and just think, I hate my job. I hate my job, I hate my job. I drive into, get in the car and commute and be like, I hate my job. I hate my job, I hate my job. I'd open the front door of where I worked. I just think, I don't want to be here. I hate my job.
I'm so exhausted. And this was what was running in my head the whole time. And so what I started to do is I would wake up. Get a journal and, and anytime I caught myself in that loop and to just start the day correctly, I would start the day with this and then add it in as that. Those I hate my job.
Thoughts would come up is I would just write 10 times. I don't love my job yet and know always seems really silly and maybe kind of stupid, [00:03:00] but. What it did for me is it helped counteract that I don't, or I hate my job with a little bit more, um, something a little bit more optimistic and a little bit more, um, malleable, right?
If I don't love my job left, I'm training my brain to look for what do I love about my current situation.
And if I don't, if I can find the things that I do love about my job or that I like about my job, maybe I can start to focus on pushing my career into those activities more and stop stressing out about how everything sucks. And like this, like I said, this is such a silly, simple, stupid idea, but it shifted everything for me, right?
Just being able to do that and then catching myself in, in that loop, like breaking it and replacing it with something a little bit la or more [00:04:00] neutral, uh, emotionally allowed me to start figuring out my way through that. And that's from writing, right? So like a journaling practice, A very practical.
Journaling practice. So my question for you is, what does that journaling practice look like for you? Do you need an intervention like that in your life as a creator or a business owner or human being? or do you need something a little bit more proactive and like the, the advanced level of this that came later in my career when I did love my job is, you know, where, what am I excited about in my life?
Or what am I looking forward to? In my job this week and building some more positive, expectation in your week. So it took me from, okay, so the struggling with this mindset, um, I hate my job and I don't love my job, left right. It took me from stress and anxiety. To [00:05:00] neutral and thinking about later on, like, Hey, what am I looking forward to?
My job took me from neutral to excited and feeling joy about the things that I was doing each week and building some, some energy behind it. That's the power of a writing cabinet in two different contexts, right? So I hope, uh, you, get what I'm saying and I don't want to beat that dead horse too much, but.
a clarity habit about writing, about what's going on in your life can be very transformational, very low lift each time. Either it was the reframing in that first part of the story or the excitement. plotting in the second half literally took me two minutes each time to shift my mind. That's the power of physically writing things out, so that's why I think developing a writing habit.
That's very simple and very easy to use. Uh, can be highly effective. That's number one.
The second habit [00:06:00] that really shifted me in my, um, life was having or thinking about some energy habits, right? So early for a good chunk of my career as a software engineer, I had what I called frantic mornings, right?
I'd get up, I'd rush into the shower while the coffee was percolating, jump out of the shower, get dressed. Sometimes even before I got dressed, I'd get to the coffee, fill up my big travel mug and run out the door, be out the door in 15 minutes, and then into the commute into the day, just hit the ground running and into action.
And what I found out is like I was starting to get. I feel just a constant level of stress. And so the times in my career when I needed to like, think about stuff, I, I was like, I, I gotta be doing something, right? I had trained and been pushing so hard to just do, do, do, do, do that. I never stopped [00:07:00] to slow down, right?
And so I started to experiment with, well, what if I just made that first hour of my day? No obligations, low stress and instead of waking up, jump in the shower, drink as much coffee as possible, maybe fit in some breakfast, and be on my commute in 15 minutes. If I took that hour or two, wake up kind of like a normal person, maybe do that writing exercise that I shared earlier.
Uh, maybe read a book, maybe just do some light exercise. But the whole goal is instead of, I would plan for the hour before going to and commuting to just be not scheduled like nothing planned to time, right? It's just time to actually wake up and let your body kinda do it by itself. And what I found is like those days.
When [00:08:00] I would do the slow mornings, tended to be extra productive, tended to be extra happy. You know, I, I liked what I was doing more during the day and it saved me from making mistakes. So I've incorporated this, you know, slow morning. Habit exercise every morning, since like, was it 2017 when I first started doing this?
And it, it really has changed my level of anxiety throughout the day, right? So don't start out with anxiety and, and the frantic energy. Start with a slow start, get warmed up to the day. bonus points if you can do it without getting digital. And I'm really terrible at that. So it's not that. I'm an expert at this, but it's an aspiration.
what I definitely don't do is get into emails or communication technology right off the bat if I can help it. [00:09:00] And I'm more successful with that than watching YouTube videos or, or whatnot first thing when I get up, which is terrible. but. The more you can stay out of digitalness, I think there's a huge just psychological gain for yourself too.
Uh, nothing like a news story to get you all riled up before you even start the workday, and then you have to undo that. that's what I like to do on, on, slow mornings, wake up, do some writing, do some movement, take a shower, maybe get some coffee. Do some thinking and try to stay out of digital stuff.
So that's habit two.
So habit three is I'm call this like a courage habit, because for me I am a card holding introvert. So it's a lot to get on camera to do these types of like public speaking type things. And. [00:10:00] I do it because I want to help people. I wanna help creators and business owners thrive.
And so that mission overcomes the hesitation to, get on camera and speak and, kind of put myself out there. so that makes it. An interesting type of tension with running a podcast every week or doing a YouTube video once a week. 'cause that's like a schedule thing that I'm not naturally like pumped to do.
but it's necessary for how I want to help people. so how do, what habit did I, what's the habit behind here? Right? I call it an exposure habit. You know, a lot of other people. We will call it in personal development, we'll call it, but just show up consistently. I had to, over the course of starting my YouTube channel and starting my podcast force myself to release once a week [00:11:00] no matter what.
And for the YouTube channel, it's not been consistent hardly at all for the podcast. It's been. Entirely consistent. What I found out is the days that I think that I'm off or that the episode isn't the best, it turns out that either people really like that, maybe 'cause they like, it seems just more human or nobody notices it all.
Like the episode I did two and a half years ago where I'm like, I don't know what to talk about. I'm just gonna get and rant and post it, and that'll be great. Nobody comes back and is like, Hey Sean, remember that time you ranted two and a half years ago? Nobody really cares. Right? it's maybe not the best to help people, and serve my purpose.
And that's a whole other discussion we're could have on a different video, but didn't kill me. It didn't hurt me in any foreseeable thing, and it wasn't a consistent thing where I [00:12:00] was at a loss for words. Anytime I, I noticed that it make changes, but, I. The exposure of, like, the show must go on, we're, I'm on a production schedule, one podcast a week, one YouTube video a week.
has helped me get a lot more comfortable in front of the camera and has helped me figure out how to make it better. So I think that habit of, of constantly exposing yourself. To keep consistent or to do the thing that you don't want to do, but it's on your calendar and you know you gotta do it.
Every week is super great.
fourth habit, I call it the productivity habit. I am constantly thinking about what is the smallest viable action I need to take. To get momentum on something. Right. And so I mentioned I was a introvert. I've been working with a podcast coach early half of this year. Part of his suggestion was to do social [00:13:00] media outreach, which really was tough to do it in a consistent way that was constantly, honoring people and not being super spammy.
'cause I could not look myself in the mirror if that was me. I. It took a lot of energy and so I've broken it down to where I just try to do one comment a day on people that I follow, right? So there's tons and tons of folks who are, you help creators out or in the personal development space that I think are doing a great job out there.
And if I watch one of their videos, I try, I just do one comment and I aim to do that at least once a day. oftentimes I've found out now that I've have this minimum or smallest viable action that I tend to comment a lot more on social media than I ever have in my life, or at least in the last 10 years, because [00:14:00] I'm constantly looking to, add something to the conversation to people that I admire and want to network with and build relationships.
So that's been super powerful. Other things that fall under the smallest viable action is like health wise, I've been doing 10 minutes of yoga every day right when I wake up. So kind of going back to the earlier energy habit of having that slow morning. also, I try to do one 20 minute walk a day to get outside, to get some sun, to get the body moving.
And if I can do those two each day. Uh, oftentimes the walk will turn into a longer walk. My yoga usually, usually just 10 minutes, but I do feel more energetic throughout the day and it helps me, show up for these videos a bit more and the with calmer energy. So it's really great. and then the fifth habit that's really changed my life.
All [00:15:00] right, so, and that small, so that smallest viable habit thing before we move on. This helped me, you know, consistently move my body and produce more and get healthier. Right? So no longer and I locked in a basement somewhere doing code for 12 hours a day or getting habits really good, right?
So fifth habit, influence habit.
I call it the no lurker rule. So I've part of building influence, is you can either change. Tell people or, um, change how people think or you get people to like you. Right? And the best way to get people to like you in this digital world and social media is to engage with content. And so it is mostly a lurker on social media and online.
it was not my habit to watch something and then leave a comment, like maybe do a thumbs up, but trying to be a little bit more engaged with, Hey, I really love. [00:16:00] What you, you were sharing today, you really got me thinking about how I do this in my life. And so I'm gonna try this and I'll let you know how it goes.
You know, just simple social stuff. but people like that, right? And so it's slowly building influence. It's like led to a couple of podcast guests. It's led to a couple of, really cool. Interactions that have made social media fun. if you can't tell, I've kind of had a negative idea of social media for a while.
so it's kinda, again, helping expose me or get consistent with that part of my business. So I hope you guys liked these five habits and how they might change your life. So as I was talking about these like. What's a writing habit that can help you shift your mindset or get more excited for the [00:17:00] week and get more clear about what's going on in your life, like a writing habit.
How would that fit into your life? if you, you really think, like, what would be one question you could ask yourself every day that might help you advance in whatever you're trying to get after, right? Second thing, energy habits, right? What would be your version of a slow morning, right? And map it out like if you had to plant out the first hour.
And either you could, if you're super crazy in Type A, maybe plan out every 15 minutes of the first hour you're up, maybe you do, you're a little bit more lax and you just have like, I need, love to accomplish this small checklist of things. how would that look for you and how do you think that might change how you feel during the day?
And this is a really important question 'cause you'll say it won't change it, or maybe it'll be a little bit different. And you do it and compare with what actually came up. And I [00:18:00] think you'll be really surprised at how the slow morning of getting up a little bit earlier or making that first hour just super protected and slow will change the rest of your outputs and how you approach the rest of the day.
What are some things that you need to be consistently doing each week, and how would you handle, making sure that that happened? what are you exposing yourself to that makes you a little bit uncomfortable that you're adding to your week each week? and then, productivity habit.
What's the smallest viable action to help you in your business? Or in your health or in your relationships, uh, what would you need to do minimum each week to push that just a little bit further ahead. it's really amazing how that can, you know, really turn into a huge difference and to solidify this, right?
If you [00:19:00] aren't doing any pushups, or you just did one pushup a day for the whole year, you'd have zero pushups versus 365, right? You'd have 365 more pushups. Now, if you just did one pushup. Each day, which would make you stronger, you'd be better off than not doing anything at all.
So it's the power of the smallest viable action. And then what are you doing to engage with people that you admire or people you wanna work with or collaborate with, or just want to add to the conversation, right? Uh, and so again, for me, it's the no lurker rule, but what would that look like for you in your business or in your life?
With that said, this concludes our episode of Creators That Crush. I hope you liked this episode. Please like us on Apple Podcasts. Leave a comment there if that's where you're listening, and we'll see you guys next time.
Take care.
Hey, it's Sean, and if you're not [00:20:00] happy with your level of progress or your habits, you might wanna work with a coach. Luckily for you, I'm a certified high performance coach, and I specialize in helping creators and business owners like you get results quicker and change habits, you know, sometimes. We all need more support.
There's only so much we can do ourselves, and sometimes you just need someone to bounce ideas off of or to hold you more accountable or to give you a different perspective or to just sit with you as you figure things out, which is why I'd love to invite you to a free 30 minute strategy session with me where we deep dive into.
One of your aspirations or top struggles and provides you a custom plan for you to get results, to get progress, to get momentum around it. If that sounds cool to you, just go to sean button.com and click on the button for the three free 30 minute call. You'll answer like four questions, and [00:21:00] then you schedule your time and away we go.
Then we focus on your biggest aspiration or struggle, and at the end of the call. You know exactly what you need to do to make progress. It's super great. I love helping people in this way. So take me up on this invitation. Go to shop under.com. schedule your time and I hope to talk to you soon. Back to the episode.
I.
