In today’s episode, I’m going to share with you the seven surprising habits that support my business growth. And I’m not going to be focusing on the “business as usual” things you would probably expect. I’m going to talk about seven things that might just surprise you.
Here for the links referenced in the show notes?
Episode 192: Taking time off from (and for) your business: tashcorbin.com/192
Fast-Track Your Start-Up free training: tashcorbin.com/fasttrack
Let’s peel back the curtain and jump straight into it!
I want to talk about these seven habits through the lens of why they support my business growth and also encourage you to think about what habits you need to put in place to ensure you are supporting your business growth as well.
1. Eating completely gluten-free.
This is something I have tried and failed to do (and been on and off the wagon about) for many, many years now. I know that gluten is not good for my body. I know it’s not good for my system.
I have had many a naturopath and doctor tell me I should not be eating gluten, and yet delicious gluten just kept creeping back into my eating. But I have now been completely gluten free (aside from a couple of accidents) for at least four months now, and it has made a significant difference to how I feel.
A big thing for me is brain fog. But the biggest impact that gluten has on me is the physical discomfort – it really messes with my digestive system. I get really bloated, have no appetite, and I lose my sense of hunger for weeks after consuming gluten.
Then I end up with no desire to eat food, and just snack on low nutrition things, which creates a huge cycle for me. But this decision is very specific to me. Going gluten-free is not what I’m talking about today.
I just want you to think about: What is one thing your body needs from you?
Whatever that is, it should be a consistent habit. Can you make it a priority? For me, I can directly link my consumption of gluten with dips in my income in my business, dips in my productivity, dips in my effectiveness, and dips in my energy.
Some of the big gaps where I didn’t release podcast episodes for extended periods of time happened because I was feeling so lethargic with so much brain fog. There were times I would turn on my recording system to record a podcast episode, and after an hour, I still hadn’t formed three coherent sentences.
I know this was happening because of what I was putting into my body. So I just use gluten as one sexy example.
But for you it could be needing to hydrate more effectively. Maybe you’re not eating enough vegetables, maybe you need a greater variety of colors of the rainbow in your diet. Maybe you need to stay away from gluten or sugar or dairy or whatever it might be for you.
Whatever that thing is for you, it means that your body is not optimised in terms of its performance. For me, it’s particularly what I’m putting into my mouth.
My habit of eating gluten-free actually impacts my business growth. I can see direct links between how I feel and how I show up in my business with what I’m putting in my mouth.
2. Taking a slow meandering walk every morning.
This is another of my surprising habits that directly impacts my business growth. I go on a morning walk with my beautiful dog Munchkin. And I’m not a power walker. I wake up so slowly. I have fresh lemon and warm water in the mornings, and then I put my shoes on and I wander out the door with Munchkin. And we go for a slow meandering walk.
Some days I listen to podcasts. Some days I listen to walking meditations. Some days I listen to an audible book. Some days I don’t listen to anything. But that habit is very good for my business in a number of ways.
When I feel like I’m needing some inspiration to listen to other people, it’s great to create that space and consistent habit of listening to something every day. Particularly when I want to get through a great audio book, if I’m out walking for at least an hour each morning, I usually listen to books on one and a half times, and can get through plenty of chapters in that time. So it’s a really great way to get through my audio books quickly.
That morning walk is also a really beautiful boundary in my business, to be able to create that space – to not roll out of bed and start talking to clients straightaway. This means that when I do talk to clients, I’m switched on and I’ve got lots of oxygen in my system. I have already had that beautiful morning walk and had a chance to get my head together. I’ve set myself up for the day really beautifully. By the time I have my first client call, I’ve got myself together.
Part of the reason why this morning walk is so important to me is that it’s part of my vision of what I want my life to look like when I’m a multi-millionaire. It’s a part of that vision I can do today. Every time I get up in the morning and go for my beautiful meandering, slow walk, I am living like “millionaire Tash” today. And that’s a really powerful thing to do.
So have a look at what you think your life will look like when your business hits its mark, wherever you want to get to, and pick something you can start doing now. If it’s walking, then walk; if it’s having someone come in and clean your house once a week – do that. If it’s something that’s free – start now. If it’s something that’s paid, and you need to get to a certain income level to do it, set yourself the goal of getting to that income level and get there as quickly as possible.
The reason I brought this habit up is because it has so many different layers in how it supports my business. It’s about setting my day up correctly, it’s about having those boundaries. So I’m not having to roll out of bed straight into client time and feel rushed. I feel so spacious every morning.
It’s also about what it’s doing for my body. Of course, I get all my steps done in the morning, so I don’t have to worry about getting my steps in at any other point in the day. I do more vigorous activity in the afternoons, which I don’t do every day, but I do my meandering walk every morning. It also contributes in terms of listening to things and getting that inspiration and those ideas – it just contributes in so many different ways that I love.
3. Colouring in.
One of the things I love to do at the end of every day is track my income. And I love doing it because it’s the perfect window into what’s going on with my mindset. It helps me get clear on how much money is coming in for my business, and allows me to show insane gratitude for that money.
It’s the very last thing I do each day when I’m working in my business.
To give you an insight, I am recording these podcast episodes, and when I have finished this podcast episode, that’s me done for today. So whenever I close the lid of my laptop for the day, I pull out my income tracking, check out how much money have I brought in today, and do this beautiful coloring in.
That colouring in is not only great for my money mindset, for paying attention to my cash flow and looking at my income stuff, but it’s great for my gratitude.
That becomes my gratitude practice for the day – done. And it’s this beautiful transition between working in my business and tuning out for the day.
Sometimes it takes me two minutes, sometimes it takes me a little bit longer, but when I do that coloring in, I am signaling to both sides of my brain: “Okay, the day is done, it’s time to shut down.”
Another little habit I do is whilst I’m colouring in, if things pop to mind that I need to remember to do tomorrow, I just quickly stop and write those down in tomorrow’s planner page, so when I step out of my office to have dinner or take Munchkin for another walk, or go to the gym, or whatever it is, I am switched off from my business.
That is a boundary that means I’m way more present with my partner, I’m way more present with my friends, I’m way more present with my Munchkin. I’m way more present to my exercise that I’m doing and moving my body.
Sometimes I’ll get a massage or get someone to come to my house and give me a massage in the afternoon, and I’m way more present and can totally relax into it. My mind isn’t racing with things I haven’t done today, or things I have to remember for tomorrow, or haven’t quite shifted gears from business mode to outside mode.
Coloring in is one juicy little habit does so much for my business growth. I know that when I turn up the next day in my business, I’m going to show up way more effectively if I’ve actually switched off in between.
It can be so tempting to just say I’m an entrepreneur and I never stop thinking about my business. But by consistently saying that to yourself, you are keeping that true.
If you are hearing how I talk about switching off in the evenings and think maybe you’d like to try a little bit of that, just experiment with it. That little transition from “working” into “not working” now is hyper, hyper powerful.
4. Getting my hair done.
At the moment, it’s every three weeks, but I will move that down to every two weeks and then eventually every week.
It’s moved to every three weeks because the hairdresser closest to me actually has closed down. So it went from five minutes to get to the hairdresser, to now about 45 minutes to get to the hairdresser. But I go and get my hair done.
I had it done today (can you tell?) – it’s so shiny! I usually get them to do a little soft curl or something every three weeks, and I don’t get it cut every time – I get it cut every second time. And I don’t get coloured every time, I just get a shampoo treatment and blow dry or curl, and then the next one I’ll get the cut and colour and then blow dry as well.
So that is something I always book for a morning. And then that same day I will schedule time to do some videos and Facebook Lives, and focus and all sorts of things because my hair is feeling great.
Having that consistent habit in my business and in my life actually means my business is growing because I’m consistently creating content. I do more Facebook Lives on that day, I pre-record little videos for different launches. I can batch up a bunch of stuff, because I’ve got my hair done, I’m feeling really amazing. And I mean, who doesn’t feel amazing after getting a scalp massage or sitting in a massage chair? They make me a little cup of tea and I have a great chat about random things that are happening in town. It is so nurturing and so lovely to be looked after. It just puts me in a really great frame of mind.
Sometimes while I’m getting my hair done, I’ll be jotting down little ideas about the things I want to record, so I’m really using that time effectively. Sometimes I just sit and read magazines about what Meghan Markle is up to or whatever, but most of the time, I’m thinking about things in my business and just jotting things down. Especially when there is wait time like waiting for the colour to set in or waiting for the treatment, whatever it might be.
I will use that time to just jot down ideas for videos, so that when I do finally sit down later to do the videos, not only do I have my content plan for all my podcast episodes, but I often have all these extra little ideas. And I can just go and do them straightaway and it’s super fun. I love to get my hair done. If you can get it done weekly, I recommend getting it done weekly.
5. Have a Toy Box.
My toy box is where I put all of the fun project ideas, new product ideas, and things. It’s an Evernote notebook called “Tash’s Toy Box.”
Whenever I think of something new, like doing a retreat, and the ideas flow (“we’ll do this and we’ll do that” or “we should do this thing at conference,” or “maybe I could add this thing to the academy” or “maybe I could make this entire new course”…) Those things go into the Toy Box.
When I go back to Australia, I’m going to do some partnered speaking gigs, so I will reach out to three or four members of the lady posse, whom I know are all in one particular local area. And we’ll put on a half day mini conference together. So I’ve had this amazing idea, and I really want to do it, and I was working up that idea from the toy box, because that was already in the toy box from several years ago.
I set a timer on my phone for five minutes, I go straight into the toy box, I create a new note for it in the toy box, and I spend five minutes playing with that idea. And then I close the lid of the toy box and I go back to what I was doing.
This is really powerful for my business because I know that in order for me to really hit my goals, get that growth, get that scaling happening, I need to stop playing with shiny objects.
I know that I can come up with lots of really cool ideas. But that’s not actually where I need to be focusing my energy and attention in my business. I’ve got a plan, particularly for the next one year, and I need to stay focused on that specific plan to make sure I’m nailing that before I start playing with any other new shiny things.
The toy box habit allows me to keep generating all these creative ideas and play with that creativity, but in a way where it doesn’t derail and sabotage my business.
Every second Friday afternoon, I have Toy Box time scheduled into my calendar.
As long as I’ve got all my jobs done for the week, and I’m really feeling it, I want to play in the toy box. I will allow myself a couple of hours to pull something out of the toy box and play with it. I might design things or put more detail into it, or maybe chat to a few people and ask some questions. Then when toy box time is over, I put it back in the toy box, and I move on.
I keep pulling things out and playing with them and then I put them back until they are ready. Then there’s space in my business for those things to come to life.
Now the beautiful thing about the toy box habit is that I don’t ever shut down new ideas. When new ideas come, I reward them and encourage them and celebrate them, because what we focus on and show gratitude for is what we create more of, and generating ideas is one of my zone of genius things.
It’s also a value proposition for my clients and for people who are following me, because there’s always new core strategies coming out. But that doesn’t mean I need to stop what I’m doing in my business right now and derail everything to focus on that new thing.
It’s a really beautiful strategy and a great habit that does support my business growth.
I love Elizabeth Gilbert’s take on this, and she talks about it in her book “Big Magic.” She says that if an idea comes knocking at your door enough and you don’t pick it up and run with it, it will go and knock on someone else’s door.
Something I have recognised with the plethora of ideas in my toy box is that it can also be really fun for me to hand those ideas on to someone else. As a result, a lot of my VIP clients have products, services, courses, memberships, that were actually born in my toy box.
The ideas may have come in originally for my business, but after evaluating on a scale of 1 to 10 how important it was to my model, how likely I would be to actually implement it, and whether it was really aligned with my core business, I sometimes concluded it wasn’t a fit. Then I asked myself, well, whose business is it aligned with? Sometimes I know exactly who to give it to straightaway and I go talk to them about it straightaway.
A lot of the time, it will come up in a VIP session with a client. The client will be talking about wanting to do a membership thing and I already have a really amazing idea in my Toy Box. So we pull it out and play with it, and as a result there have been masterminds and group events and conferences and new courses and new memberships all born out of my toy box.
It’s exciting to know that this thing is going to exist, and I can help that person bring it out into the world. And I don’t have to be responsible for the ongoing management of that thing. Ideation is one of my favourite things to do. And I get to do it really beautifully because I have this amazing toy box. So my toy box habit of allowing myself to play with new ideas but then putting them back in the toy box has allowed my business to grow in so many different ways.
6. Taking time out.
I understand that when you’re in the thick of things, and you’re going for a goal and you’re in the middle of a launch, taking time out is not necessarily aligned to what you believe is actually going to grow your business.
But as a reformed workaholic/perfectionist, I can tell you that the more time I take away from my business, the more effective I am in my business, and the better my business runs, and the more I keep those boundaries about who does what in my business rather than taking on jobs I’ve delegated to someone else.
The more I take time off from my business, the better my business works and the faster it grows.
I talked about this in a previous podcast episode (tashcorbin.com/192) about how taking time out in your business isn’t always just an all or nothing concept.
You can take time out in your business by making sure you finish at four o’clock every single day. That is taking time out and actually shutting down. Or you can have a three day weekend once a month.
You can also take time out of a certain part of your business. Maybe you don’t do client facing time on Mondays and Fridays, only on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Maybe you don’t do any group stuff except for on Wednesdays, right?
So if you can you keep those boundaries around things, it helps you to create this sense of spaciousness and this capacity for lots of time off, not just a four-week chunk once a year, but actually spaciousness throughout your time in your business.
Taking time away supports me my mental well-being and my health well-being. It supports my creativity, my idea generation, my enthusiasm and motivation for my business. It supports me having a great relationship and not feeling like my business is costing me my relationship or my friendships or my social life.
All of those things add up to a more effective and a more successful business. So taking time away, habitually, is actually responsible for a lot of my business growth.
7. Decluttering.
I love decluttering in lots of different ways. We do this in my Fast Money Challenge. In the Fast Money Challenge, I talk about the different layers of decluttering that you can do for your business. I declutter whenever I’m going for a goal as part of my manifesting process.
And whether it’s my monthly income goal, or a 10-day short term income goal, or a longer-term goal, I will declutter as part of that process of manifesting the money.
There are different layers of decluttering that I do. The first phase of deep decluttering is physical decluttering, like getting in the habit of tidying your desk. Keep your workspace nice and organised and declutter your purse, handbag, or laptop bag.
This helps to keep things feeling spacious physically. Physical spaciousness and decluttering is the first stage because physical clutter is the fastest way to slow down the energy of a space. (Hashtag let’s watch some hoarders and see just how true that is!!)
Then I do a digital declutter. I recently decluttered my calendar. I had lots of random blocks in my calendar for random things. I had blocked out Mondays for this and Wednesdays for that, and every Friday afternoon for toybox time and all those sorts of things, but there were just so many of them.
So I went in and decluttered all of the things out of my calendar that were recurring appointments or random appointments that didn’t need to be there. I just left the bare minimum appointments. Then I went into my Acuity and changed my hours of work, so I didn’t need to keep blocking out all that time. I put in three time blocks for the three most important things and they are recurring weekly time books, and it was so good.
My calendar is now spacious again, and that spaciousness creates so much excitement for me. It energises me. It means there’s room for more in my calendar because I’ve decluttered the unnecessary stuff.
In a digital declutter, I also tidy up my downloads folder if it has got a few too many things in it, or my documents, or the desktop, or the inbox – all of those spaces where you might just have clutter accumulating digitally.
I have a folder called “business development” and a folder called “personal development,” and if I go to webinars, or sign up for freebies, I will save a lot of those things in there. So every month I declutter it, because if I haven’t watched something within a month, the chances of me watching it are pretty low!
Just declutter it. It creates so much spaciousness, releases that heaviness of feeling there are still more things to watch or do. I figure if I really need to learn that thing, I have this amazing magical tool called Google, right?
I also do energetic decluttering. You could call this mindset, energetic, or emotional decluttering. I might write down a list of all of the worries I have, and then I’ll tap on them. I’ll do some journaling, and clear out the mental clutter that’s going on. Sometimes I find even doing my end of day ritual that I may still be carrying mental clutter, like to do lists or shopping lists. So I consistently put those things down somewhere.
In our phones, both Davey and I have a family management app. It has shopping lists, to do lists, a shared calendar and a shared diary like a gratitude journal, and a shared message board. It’s a really cool app. I love it. And in that app, I have the shopping lists and stuff.
So when I’m thinking, “I have to remember to buy that,” I’ll get it out of the brain and put it in the app. Because if it’s in the app, both Davey and I can see it, and we might be able to take care of some things for each other. And not only that, when I go to the shops, I will actually remember to open the app and find it. It’s just getting into the habit of using the systems that you already have to declutter your mind.
If you have a bunch of grievances you’re holding onto in your brain and are wanting to remember to be cranky at that person, write it down, forgive it, tap it away and just let it go. All of that emotional clutter is slowing down your business growth.
On that note of decluttering and keeping your business growth going quicker, I want to share with you a free resource called Fast Track Your Startup.
It’s not just for startups, but does focus mostly on those early stages of business. In that training, I take you through the things that you don’t need to focus on and the things that you do need to focus on in order to get that income going up quickly in your business.
It helps you to declutter all the things you don’t necessarily need to be doing. And it also helps you to focus on and prioritise those things that are going to bring the income quickly.
Before we close up on today’s episode, I’d love to know which of my seven surprising habits surprised you the most? And what habit are you going to implement into your business to fast track your business growth?
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.
