How to Be Creative

The Benefits of Consistency

• Kat O'Leary • Season 2 • Episode 2

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In this episode, I talk about how developing consistent, daily habits has changed my life for the better. I cover:

  • 6 tangible benefits I've seen from developing a habit practice
  • The habits I do every day, + 2 habits I aspire to do daily
  • The tools and resources I use to stay consistent and accountable

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Speaker 1:

Welcome to another episode of How to Be Creative. This is your host, Kat O'Leary, and today I'm gonna be talking about the benefits of consistency. I wanna start by saying that consistency in my habits and daily practices was really something that I was only , um, truly able to master , uh, beginning last year, so early 2023. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about what the benefits of developing daily habits and rituals has been for me. Um, and then I'll, I'll get a little bit more specific around what I do every day and the tools and resources that help me , um, keep up with my daily goals. Okay, so starting with the benefits of consistency , um, the first one is really improved self-esteem. So I'd say this was kind of a surprise to me , um, but also probably the one that has , um, been the most beneficial to me. So , um, when I say that my self-esteem has improved since I began doing these , um, daily habits , um, I think the best way to think about this and, and the way that I've talked about it in the past is , um, have you ever noticed how you really like people who do the things they say they're going to do? Um, so it turns out that that actually also works when the person in question is you. Um, so for me at least showing up and doing the same things every day, you know, regardless of what's going on externally in my life , um, has really enabled me to see myself as dependable and trustworthy. Um, and I'd go a step farther and say it's probably also been helpful in terms of kind of self-compassion and self-forgiveness around things that I've done in the past. Um, so yeah, I , I do feel like I just like myself a lot better , um, now that I kind of show up for myself on a regular basis in a , in a way that I really wasn't able to in the past. Next , um, is faster recovery from mistakes. So I used to be a person who would dwell on even, you know, the tiniest mistakes , um, kind of obsess over them , um, long beyond, you know, when the mistake actually occurred. Um, but I feel like being a disciplined person actually allows me to view errors through a slightly different lens. So, you know, I'm able to sit to kind of take a step back and say, well, you know, who cares that I did x you know, tiny thing , um, because I've meditated every day this year, for example. Um , so really what consistency does is, is it gives you a foundation of evidence that you're a competent person. Um, and I find that for me at least, that kind of cushions the blow when I do make a mistake. And of course, we're all human, we're all going to make mistakes. Um, I dunno about you, but I tend to be very forgiving with others , um, when they make a mistake. But definitely , um, you know, struggle with , uh, being a little bit more forgiving toward myself. Um, and I do find that , um, having this kind of habit practice on a daily basis , um, has made me get better at recovering from mistakes. Next step is incremental progress. Um, so, you know, showing up and doing something every day means you pretty much guarantee that you're going to get better at it. It could be learning a new language , um, developing physical strength by maybe working out every day , or honing a craft , um, like knitting writing, et cetera . Um, I think it's really easy to give up on something , um, especially when you're not experiencing tangible results early on. But once you stick with something a little bit longer , um, you know that it'll eventually pay off. I mean, there's just no way that you're gonna sit down and do something day in and day out , um, for an extended period of time and not find that your , you know, your skills are, are getting better, Giving you the space to set big goals. Um, so one thing I found with developing consistent habits is that it has ultimately created more space in my life. Um, which is maybe surprising because , um, you'd think, you know, you need to carve out the time somewhere , um, to do whatever it is that you're trying to do on a regular basis. Um, but it feels to me almost like maybe I'm a little bit better equipped to focus my time. And I'll talk a little bit about the specific , um, habits that I've developed. One of which you're not gonna be surprised to hear is meditation. Um, so I think that one's an an obvious one where, you know, meditation is , um, kind of a , a mind practice where you do develop greater focus. Um, but overall, I, I do find that , um, kind of having this system of , of habits that I do consistently , um, really does kind of create space in my life overall, even if there is, you know , yet another list of things to dedicate time to each day. Um, and also just kind of building the muscle of doing small things repeatedly , um, does make it a little bit easier to create a plan for reaching big goals , um, especially those that re require sustained commitment, like some of the goals that we were talking about earlier , um, where, you know, you're not gonna see progress right away, but over time you really will see , um, gains Removal of decision paralysis is the next one. So really, when you do something every day , you do that thing every day for the first few days that you're developing a habit. Um, you're gonna need to make a fresh decision to recommit each day, but after a while, you're gonna find yourself simply doing it. Um, so for example, once you become a person who works out every morning, there's no reason or really no room to re-litigate that decision when your alarm goes off , um, it just kind of becomes rote. And over time, that obviously makes it a lot easier to stick with habits. And then finally, ultimately, creating these habits and, you know, becoming consistent in them really pays dividends elsewhere in your life. So for me , um, I've found that since I became a little bit more habit driven , I'm a lot more methodical in how I approach other tasks and projects. So I'll think about not only, you know, what will need to happen today to reach a particular goal , um, but also how I can build on that tomorrow, the next day, et cetera . Um, you know, in , in order to , um, get to where I wanna be, you know, 6, 9, 12 months out, I definitely feel like I'm more focused. Um, and ultimately I feel like I have more control over my life. So I do think, you know, and I'm someone who I , I'm definitely a morning person. I try to get , um, my habits out of the way in the morning wherever possible. Um, I think there's something for me that really works well in terms of having something that I can control first thing in the morning, you know, before I start my workday. Um, and, you know, which can often go sideways depending on a number of variables. Um, but being able to start my day with a list of a handful of things that I do consistently each morning , um, it really does kind of orient my brain around the idea that I have options , um, in my life. So that's something that I, I really appreciate about this habit practice. Okay, so now I'm going to transition into talking a little bit about the specifics. So what do I do on a daily basis? Um, so the first thing, as I mentioned earlier, I have a meditation practice. I will say I have a very casual meditation practice. Um, I pretty much max out at 10 minutes of meditation per day. I know that, you know, some , uh, people will advise you that you should do 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes in the evening, at least. I'm not quite there yet. Um, don't know if I'll get there. Um, generally I'd say on most days I will do a three to five minute meditation practice. Um, I use the app Headspace to track my medi meditation , um, which I really enjoy. They have a pretty large library of different meditations for different purposes or , or different things that you're struggling with in your life. Um, and I've been using it for a few years. It was actually , um, a benefit that was paid for by my old employer. Um, and now I, you know, I , I like it enough that I , I pay for it myself now that I, I no longer work there. Um, so yeah, meditation I think is great. Um, I will say I am a big proponent of the Lazy Girl morning routine. So the ideal version of meditating for me , um, in general is a reclining meditation. I just prefer that to seated. Um, but , um, one thing about that that's really great is that , um, I can often knock out my meditation practice before I even get out of bed in the morning. And I fully support you doing the same. The second habit that I do each day is studying French on Duolingo. Um, I, according to my Duolingo app , um, I think I'm a little bit over 400 days, fully admit, there are some streak freezes that have been thrown in there. Um, but as of January 1st of this year, and it's now March 9th when I'm recording this , um, I have consistently practiced French on Duolingo every day , um, which is, we're on , um, the 69th day of the year it looks like. Uh , nice. So , um, yeah, and I, I, one of the things I mentioned as a , uh, benefit of consistency is that incremental progress. And I definitely think that learning a new language , um, or, you know, trying to hone a language , um, your skills around a language that you already know a bit , um, this is a key example of a habit where you're really gonna see that muscle build over time. My third daily habit is writing in my journal. Um , and I'm gonna do an episode on this , um, a little bit more in depth . But the big thing I do each day is I write a series of affirmations in my journal. Um, and I won't, I won't dig in too much on that, but that's always where I start. So I start with a set of affirmations. I write the same ones every day. Um, over time, I may find that some of them, you know , um, either, you know, they've run their course and I , I no longer need to kind of , um, repeatedly write that particular affirmation each day or maybe , um, something else becomes more relevant. Um, but in general, I write the same affirmations every single morning while I'm drinking my coffee. Um, and I usually do it while listening to Enya , which I really recommend , um, or Noko Flow , in particular, great affirmation writing song. Um, but yeah, and I find that that helps me kind of get into the right headspace for the day. Um, it's something that I was resistant to doing for a while , um, but I really do find that it , it benefits me , um, and Jamie Rin , um, whose work I just recommend overall , um, to anyone listening to this who maybe is interested in becoming a little bit more consistent. Recently did a short , um, one-off class. Um, it's recorded, so you should still be able to access it. Um, called Magical Thinking Ritual, I think it was , um, where she talked about her, her affirmation writing practice, how she goes about selecting the affirmations that makes sense for where she is. Um, I was already doing my affirmation practice before I took this hour long course. Um, however, I found that it was really, really helpful to me in not only kind of , um, expanding the affirmations that I was writing each day, but also really grounding them in, you know, understanding the gap between where I wanna be in the nearish future and where I am now, and the types of mindset shifts that I'm trying to actively make on a daily basis in order to get myself there. Um, the next thing is my skincare routine. So I do have kind of a long involved skincare routine. Maybe this is not your thing, if it's not your thing, that's actually fine. Um, part of the point that I, I hope I'm getting across is that what really matters is finding habits that work for you. And I don't think at the end of the day, it really matters what they are as long as they're, you know, generally good for you. Um, I wouldn't recommend, you know, doing Coke every day or something like that as one of the habits you're trying to develop. Um, but yeah, as long as there are , you know, positive changes in your life , um, really this , you know, it's up to you. What , um, what habits , uh, help you kind of unlock the benefits that I mentioned earlier. Um , so yeah, so skincare , um, I try to do like a full 10 step Korean skincare process every morning. There are some , uh, tools involved as well. I've got a red light tool and , um, a, I also have a new face. Um , and I do find that I see a difference in my skin when I do that versus when I don't. Um, but yeah, overall I also just kind of find it relaxing. Um, and I have a personal rule that I'm only allowed to watch TikTok while I'm doing my skincare routine. So that's kind of a nice thing to do , um, toward the beginning of the day as well. Um, this year I have actually been taking a break from alcohol. So one of my habits that's currently on my habit app, which I'll talk about in a bit, is no alcohol. And so, as I mentioned, we're on day 69 of the year as I'm recording this. So I have 60, 69 days where I have not had any alcohol. Um , so the reason behind this, and I guess it , I don't know why it , it matters, but , um, I ended up kind of accidentally , um, taking a break from alcohol for most of the winter last year. And what I discovered was that I completely skipped over the seasonal affective disorder that I've had since I was pretty much a teenager , um, even though I didn't drink as a teenager. So , um, but I, I think, you know, I hadn't done any work on myself in therapy either. Um, so yeah, so , um, after experiencing that and just enjoying winter, and particularly the month of February, a lot more than I usually do, I realized that this is probably something I should make an annual thing. Um, and as of right now, I'm not really sure when I am going to start drinking alcohol again. Um, 'cause I am really enjoying not , um, but for the time being, that is one of my daily habits. And then another thing on my list is do something creative. So this doesn't have to be a big thing. It can be something very small, often it is something very small. So for me , um, you know, creating an Instagram post , um, especially if it's a reel or, or something that, you know, involves a longer caption where I actually have to think and , and do some writing, that definitely counts. Um, you know, if I work on a craft project, so I've got , um, I've got beads to make friendship bracelets. Sometimes I'll make a friendship bracelet or I'll make a lanyard or something like that. I just want to make sure that I'm carving out space every day , um, to use kind of the creative part of my brain. I also find that when it's something tangible like a bracelet , um, or I'm starting to try to get into , um, needle felting. Um, so I bought a kit for that. But when it's something like that where there's a tangible result at the end, I , I just find this sense of satisfaction there that I don't always get with the type of work that I do in my day-to-Day Life. So I'm a social media strategist by day , um, and, you know , uh, building a PowerPoint deck or , um, writing social posts isn't always quite as satisfying as, you know , physically doing something with your hands. So I try to do something creative. If I can do something tangible, that's even better. Um , and then a couple of that I try to do every day, but they are not necessarily must-dos. So the previous , um, habits that I mentioned, I do those every single day. And I, I kind of re hit the reset button on January 1st. So every single day since January 1st, I've done those, those things I've already mentioned. Um, and then the other two that I aspire to. Um, but I'm not going to beat myself up over it if I don't meet this goal every day . Um, it's exercise and close all three rings on my Apple Watch exercise is the easier of those. So I'm just glancing at my habit app, and I'm seeing that as of today, I have exercised 10 days in a row. Um, the standard I use for that is 45 minutes because that is what I have set as the exercise goal on my Apple Watch. Um, and then closing all three rings, let's be real. Um, meeting the calorie goal is actually the struggle here. So most days I do stand for whatever number of hours. I think it's six that I have mine set out , which I believe is the default. Um, but, you know, even when I'm exercising, it's, it can be hard for me to , to meet that calorie goal. And , and it's again, not something I'm gonna beat myself up over. So those are the habits that I do every day. One thing that I didn't mention is , um, I've been doing the New York Times crossword consistently for almost three years now. And I guess in some ways maybe that's kind of an anchoring habit, or I believe in the Power of Habit by Charles Duhig. Um, he calls it , uh, Keystone Habits. Um, so there were definitely things I was doing every day before I started this kind of formal practice where I intentionally , um, do habits each day. Um , another one is flossing. I have flossed almost every single day since January 1st, 2020. Um, and , um, life hack, if you want to become a daily flosser, if you're not quite there yet, my recommendation is to keep your floss in the shower. Um, especially if, like me, you're someone who loves standing under a hot shower, it gives you an excuse to stay in for a couple more minutes. And , um, I now kind of have it in my head as like , um, some kind of cue where, like, if I'm standing in a , in the shower, I kind of know, oh, there's some piece of my shower activity that I haven't done yet, and then I remember to floss and the, the floss is right there. So sidebar there, but , um, recommended. So just a few things that I use in the way of tools and resources , um, to kind of stay on top of my habits . So I'd say the biggest one is my habit tracking app, which is called Way of Life. Um, and I'm gonna drop these all into the show notes , um, on your podcast app. Um, but , um, way of life, I love it. Um, it's very simple. You know, it's kind of green, green if you did it red, if you didn't do it. Um, it gives you the ability to create chains. So if you do the same habit three days in a row or longer, it , um, it tracks it as a chain. It will also show you. So let's say I had , uh, meditated 50 days in a row at some point last year, and then I broke that , um, that streak, and then I, you know, never picked it back up, but now I wanna pick it back up. But I'm trying to beat my , um, streak from last time, but I don't remember what it is. The app actually keeps track of that. So once you hit the three day mark on your new streak, it will show side by side , you know, three next to 50. And so you'll know, okay, 50 is what I'm trying to beat from last time. Um, and yeah, I've been using this for , um, I don't know, probably over five years now. Um, I , with, with , um, you know , not, not that I've been doing it every single day, four or five years straight, but I do find it's really easy to keep up with. It kind of manages everything for me in one place. Um, and they send a , a helpful reminder , um, once a day, or probably you could set it up a little bit differently, but I, I just get one at 8:00 PM each day to let me know that I need to update my journal of habits for that day. So , um, couple of other apps that I've mentioned in this episode , um, probably both are pretty familiar to you, but just to mention them again, Headspace is the app that I use for meditation. I've used a few different meditation apps in the past. I'd say this is what , this one is my favorite. Um, the disappointing thing is it used to have a free version, and I don't believe that is available at all anymore. So it , it is a paid app and there are definitely a ton of resources available online for free. Um, I'd imagine, you know, you could probably also stream meditations on Spotify or, you know, you can just sit in silence. You don't actually need to have , uh, someone else's voice in your head in order to meditation. That's meditate. That's one great thing about meditation. It is truly free. And then Duolingo is, as I mentioned, the way that I prefer to use to learn language on a daily basis. Um, at this point, I am gearing up to start taking French lessons in about four weeks , um, which I've done in the past, but, you know, I've been on hiatus for, from them for the past few years. So , um, excited to ramp back up in, you know, in a classroom setting on my French. But Duolingo has been really great in terms of helping me make gains , um, in the interim. Um, and then one other thing I wanted to mention , um, which is the source of much of my inspiration around becoming consistent in my habits, which for a very long time seemed like something that doesn't, just wasn't kind of , um, it wasn't really second nature to me. It was something I really had to work at. So I, I wanna emphasize that anyway, like this did not come naturally to me. I , um, I'm not a particularly disciplined person , um, innately. Um, it's something where I've definitely had to develop this habit muscle , um, for pretty much every habit that I've mentioned , um, in this episode so far. But one of the things that was really helpful to me and made me slightly shift my thinking around habits and start to believe that maybe I could be consistent in mine , um, was that I took Jamie Verin self-guided course live with intention a few years ago. And I definitely recommend checking that out. I believe she just did a refresh of it. Um, you can probably find it@jamieverin.com. I'll drop the link into the show notes as well. Um , but Jamie , uh, she's a writer. She , um, she has a really fantastic book called, called Radically Content that I recommended to a bunch of my friends , um, as well as a novel called Main Character Energy that just came out last year. Um, and Jamie, I think is , uh, she's one of my favorite Instagram follows because she just really models in real time what it takes to reach large , um, you know, like your, your big life goals. Um, and so having followed her work for several years, I've actually been able to witness how the things that she does that seem very tiny on a regular daily basis have ultimately allowed her to have this career that she's dreamed of. And so it's been really inspiring, but at the same time it's been , um, really kind of grounding for me, I think in a way , um, because you don't often get to see that process , uh, uh, at such a granular level. So I , I feel like a lot of the time we end up seeing what appear to be overnight success stories , um, which there , there's no such thing, first of all. And yet I think our society is, you know, happy to present things as though that were the case. Um, so yeah, so definitely recommend Jamie as an inspiring follow. I would also check out her courses. Um, they've been really helpful to me. Um, but yeah, I think that's kind of everything that I wanted to get through around developing consistency , um, around habits. Um, but if you have any questions as always, you can shoot me an email at kat kt at how to be creative.org. Um, and I'm hoping that this will help some of you , uh, start your own habit practices.