121: Clean Slate featuring Lisa Jacobs

See the show notes for this Episode here.

This transcript has been automatically generated.

Bonnie Christine [00:00:00]:
Hi, everyone. We're back with Lisa Jacobs to check-in with you on your 2024 goals. I'm Bonnie Christine, and this is where all things creativity, design, business, and marketing unite. I'm a mama living in a tiny town tucked right inside the Smoky Mountains running a multi seven figure business doing the most creative and impactful work of my life. But when I first set out to become an entrepreneur, I was struggling to make ends meet and wrestling with how to accomplish my biggest dream of becoming a fabric designer. Fast forward to today, I'm not only licensing my artwork all over the world, but also teaching others how to design their creative life and experience the same success. I'm here to help you spend your life doing something that lights you up. I'll help you build a creative business that also creates an impact, changes people's lives, gives you all of the freedom you want, and is wildly profitable.

Bonnie Christine [00:01:08]:
Welcome to The Professional Creative Podcast. It's about the 3rd or 4th week into January. How's it going?

Lisa Jacobs [00:01:20]:
It's such a great time to check-in. You know, I am a New Year fanatic. I just love the season for all of the rituals and all of the clean slate that it provides. And I think it it provides a fascinating look at our own behavior, just human behavior, because it's a great time to check-in with yourself. Are you on track for what you set out to do this year? Are you exactly where you thought you would be, or have you veered course yet because it's bound to happen?

Bonnie Christine [00:01:55]:
I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Just kidding.

Lisa Jacobs [00:02:01]:
I was just like, okay. Let's start over.

Bonnie Christine [00:02:06]:
We, we beer track we veer tracks. I always come in Stu, like, a little hot into January. Like, very confident in all of my goals and visions because I Stu just love this time of year. You know, I get to wipe the calendar clean. I get to reenvision, and you do it like no one else. And so I wanted to have you on today to talk about this kind of clean slate energy and what happens in January and what happens if we, misstep in January as well.

Lisa Jacobs [00:02:36]:
Yes. I love it. I've got chills. It's just my favorite topic. And new year, we're we're talking a little bit about new year, but as you know, that has passed. What we're really what we're really going to be talking about today is the phenomenon behind New Year, why it creates that energy, why we get so excited about it. And New Year is one of many examples of what you might where you might reset in your year or where you might be able to start over. We do it throughout the year.

Lisa Jacobs [00:03:07]:
We it's just not as noticeable as it is January 1st. And the reason that it happens is because we're all abiding by the same date. We're all extremely excited. The energy gets extremely frenetic, meaning it's hyperactive, it's unruly, it's wild. We are almost vibrating with possibility and ambition and it's fueled by the unlimited potential that we see in the clean slate of a fresh calendar. It's our chance to start over. In some cases, we feel like it's our chance to reinvent ourselves. And while there's a lot of good intention behind it, the energy that comes with the new year has a short lifespan and it quickly feels more agitating than motivating.

Lisa Jacobs [00:03:57]:
It can start to feel almost like a burden if you start to feel it in the 3rd, 4th week into February. And there's a reason that many efforts fail by January 15th. You can just think of your gym. If you're a gym go goer, what it looks like on January third compared to what it looks like on February 3rd, there is a lot of fall off. They call them the the noobs. They're coming in and they have ambitious goals, but their habits aren't yet aligned to them and it's just likely we are likely to forget or give up on our goals by January 15th. Most people, that's what happens. And I often tell my own story about a downfall that I had on January 23rd after setting the very best intentions and not for lack of effort.

Lisa Jacobs [00:04:48]:
I absolutely 100 percent abandoned all my best behaviors and came crashing down January 23rd. This is just 3 weeks after I'd set the very best intentions for myself. And that happens more than we know. Because what's worse, if you're not actively and consciously working on the changes you wish to create and habits that you're trying to form, you'll quickly fall back into your old routine. We're very much creatures of habit. We very much repeat the same cycles or the same patterns over and over again. So it's easy to set out it's easy to forget what you set out to accomplish. It actually takes an extreme amount of vigilance.

Bonnie Christine [00:05:40]:
Yes. It takes vigilance and and this consistency. I I'm reading a book right now that talks about habit formation. Right? But, like, we always think about new habits as consistently doing something good, good behavior, But really, this book highlights how your bad behavior is are the easiest habits to create as well. And I'm great at consistency with my bad habits, my bad behavior that becomes new habits. You know, it's it's difficult and it create it it requires so much vigilance.

Lisa Jacobs [00:06:16]:
I have actually I don't like admitting this. I have actually sat down in a new year and written out an entire set of goals, complete in details, worked back from work backward from the goal, did all the things, had the milestones set up, and then came back to my same, materials 2 weeks later and did it all again without remembering that I had it already on paper. It those type of things really always fascinate me that I could have forgotten. And and I repeated myself so good. I was on the same track, but accurate? Yeah. Yes. It was it was almost word for word verbatim. I knew what I wanted, but I just didn't have that plan, and it wasn't concrete yet.

Lisa Jacobs [00:07:08]:
And so, you know, there's also been years, and and we spoke about this, is that it doesn't have to be January 1st where you have all the plans set up. You always need a runway and more runway than you think to make a really concise plan and know that that now is actionable, of research, insight, reflection, and those type of things. And so there's been years where I've come in and spent the entire month of January still harvesting from the last year to make sure I did it right. And it's worth that extra time of thinking to make sure you're right on track. You don't wanna miss the mark when you really start to put action and effort into what your intentions are.

Bonnie Christine [00:07:56]:
That's right. Have you ever wondered how some artists turn their passion into a profitable career? Well, the secret's out. In fact, my incredibly in-depth and entirely free workshop is coming up. It's called the Art of Business 7 Secrets to Success in Surface Pattern Design, and I would love to have you join us. Here's what you need to know. You can start at any experience level, so beginner, intermediate, or advanced. You can start at any life Stu, if you're a teen, a young professional, a mom, or an empty nester. And you can also start with any goal in mind.

Bonnie Christine [00:08:39]:
So if you want to reconnect with your creativity, start with a hobby, build out a side hustle, or transition into an entire career, this workshop is for you. You're gonna learn the opportunities available to you in the world of surface design, the 1st steps you need to take in order to get started, the 5 different types of surface designers so you can choose which one is right for you, how to create a personalized road map to reach all of your goals in surface design, and ways to create multiple streams of revenue and start making income from your artwork. Now throughout the workshop, I'll be sharing my top seven secrets for you to find success in surface pattern design. This workshop is truly transformational. We hear every year that through the free workshop, people have completely transitioned and transformed their lives. So come join us. All of the sessions are self paced, so you can go through it on your own time, but I am also including live q and a sessions with Amy, and I would love to see you there and get to know you. You can head on over to bonnie christine.comforward/workshop to sign up.

Bonnie Christine [00:09:54]:
Again, that's bonnie christine.comforward/workshop, and I'll meet you there. I wanna talk about permission to make sure that you're taking that time and utilizing that frenetic energy for when you are ready. So probably my biggest kind of fallacy that I've done is that it was January 1st and so I was starting no matter what. And a week in or 4 or 5 days in, I actually realized that I wasn't ready to start. I hadn't had time to do the preparation. Probably the easiest example of this is when you are changing the way that you eat And you're like, well, you hadn't you hadn't stocked your fridge correctly. Right? And so there's just like, you didn't set yourself up for success. And so I'm doing that right now.

Bonnie Christine [00:10:45]:
I came into the New Year with many, many goals, and I really looked at them in reference to when I could start them because I couldn't start all of them on January 1st, even though I really wanted to and I tried my best. I started the ones that I knew I was ready to start, and there were a couple specifically based around, structuring my day that I knew I Stu, I didn't have all the knowledge yet, but I'm not going to let not starting on January 1st

Lisa Jacobs [00:11:16]:
be

Bonnie Christine [00:11:17]:
an excuse to just say, oh, never mind. So kind of moving that deadline, moving that first Stu, no, it's still a new year and I'm gonna set kind of this new day for me to get started on that because just because we're talking to everyone who who maybe already slipped up on some of their goals. Just because you didn't get a perfect record, doesn't mean it's all for naught.

Lisa Jacobs [00:11:42]:
I absolutely love. You just gave us the best analogy too because the the idea of I'm going to be on a clean diet, but there are no materials in my refrigerator to support that intention does not make an excuse for me not to actually follow through that on that intention and do it tomorrow, start it tomorrow. And not getting off the not getting off the starting line as soon as the gun goes off is no excuse not to finish the race. That's absolutely excellent. I'd like to add my pattern that I know to be true. And your yours your example of eating right and stocking with the right supplies, I I'll typically tell myself at the start of the year, this is the year that I am going to set the pace for a marathon, not a sprint. This is the year I'm gonna nail my productivity Amy productivity with my rest cycles and I'm gonna just feel like the pendulum is not gonna swing to the extreme of burnout and then swing again back to, like, turn, turn, turn, get it done. And so that is my pattern.

Lisa Jacobs [00:12:53]:
I will set that Immersion, and then the cycle that I know high pressure cooker do, make, sell, do, create, create, create, push, push, push will come back. It will overwhelm me, and then I'll end up, before I know it, with a Stu timeline, an overbook calendar, all of these internal expectations that I have on myself. And then that the next state the next cycle of the pattern is financial panic because I'm not doing enough suddenly, and then I'll repeat. So it'll be like financial panic. Okay. Stu make so and it's just that's kind of a vicious cycle. Anybody who's run their own business knows that cycle. And so even if I set it January 1st that this year is going to be different, yes, by January 23rd, at the latest, I have probably broken that habit or or, worked against that intention a little bit.

Bonnie Christine [00:13:53]:
I think it's great to just be clear that that happens to everyone. And so today, we're talking about what do you do when you fall off track?

Lisa Jacobs [00:14:04]:
Yes. And it's such great news because the new year is not our only saving grace. It's the one we know. It's the one we all agreed to for the most part, but New Year's is known as a temporal landmark. And I learned this from my research in reading the book, When by Daniel Pink. He taught the concept of temporal landmarks. And what a temporal landmark means is that it helps us forget the past and we put ourselves with the new me does things like this. And so we set ourselves up with all these behaviors, these new habits we're trying to form, and we forgive ourselves the mistakes that we've made in the past.

Lisa Jacobs [00:14:46]:
We forgive that past self, and we're all about this new self. And so that's called a temporal landmark. And, I quote from the book, New Year's Day has long held a special power over our behavior. We turn the page on the calendar, glimpse all those beautiful empty squares, Oh, they're so beautiful Stu, and open a new account book on our lives. But we typically do that unwittingly blind to the psychological mechanisms we're relying Bonnie. Constructing our own temporal landmarks, especially those that are personally meaningful gives us more opportunities to recover from rough beginnings and start again, and I end that quote there. So in other words, it's never too late to make the most of a new year. You can use temporal landmarks throughout the year to your advantage.

Lisa Jacobs [00:15:36]:
So there's 2 types of temporal landmarks. And, again, this is anytime we reset the pace. So what you're thinking about here is Mondays can be temporal landmarks. The day after a vacation is often, you know, I'm gonna start that diet again the day I get home. That's often a temporal landmark. And then some for some people, your birthday or other special events throughout the year will reset a portion of your year. You'll feel the opportunity to start again. So there's 2 types.

Lisa Jacobs [00:16:03]:
1 is social and that's something that we share amongst ourselves as a society. So Mondays, 1st of the month's national holidays, those are all considered social temporal landmarks. 2nd type is personal. These are birthdays, anniversaries, job changes. The new me at this job is going to be this career professional or whatever whatever you what what have you. But both of these types of temporal landmarks serve Stu purposes. They're gonna help you create a new mental account, a clean slate, a fresh period that resets the old you and sets yourself up for the new you. And then the second thing that that really serves to do is it slows you down.

Lisa Jacobs [00:16:47]:
It helps you see the forest for the trees. So this is your chance to reflect of your last time you set goals, are you on track? If not, why not? And helps you then equip yourself with some safety with the toolbox that will help you further progress in this set of goals with your next temporal landmark. So it allows us to see the bigger picture. It gives us the 30,000 foot view, and we start to pay attention to the day to day where typically that day to day inertia can take over and when it does, it throws us greatly off course. So overall, a temporal landmark can be a reset, it's a biological hack, it's a reset in your own human nature and it's good to know because you don't just want 1 new year planning session, you want 8 sessions like this or 18 sessions like this and you want to schedule them into your annual plans on purpose.

Bonnie Christine [00:17:51]:
Yeah. Because what I know is that I love that frenetic energy building. It feels good. What I don't love is the pressure cooker, almost the anxiety of we gotta start now and we gotta nail it. That really does a disservice. It sidetracks really the focus of the new habit creation or the new goal progression. And so giving yourself permission to move that temporal landmark if you need to because it's just, like you said, it's just a psychological mechanism, and we can create those ourselves as well.

Lisa Jacobs [00:18:25]:
Yes. And so if we keep with the idea of you're setting the pace for a marathon, not a sprint, it's almost like new year energy. We can't help it. We hit that marathon at a sprint, which is not good for endurance. It's not good for the long game. It's likely gonna get us in trouble. We it's it's more dangerous than just starting out slow and easy, but who starts out slow and easy at the start of an exciting new year? So that makes for February to be a great reset period. Schedule 1 in at your own convenience or whatever makes sense for you.

Lisa Jacobs [00:19:00]:
But question the pace. Does it feel good? Are you feeling empowered? Are you feeling like it's taking everything out of you? Did you push too hard? Just adjust. We're all doing it together, so just go ahead and make those micro adjustments and make it feel better and tweak it and make it feel good for you. That's what's most important. It's the progress. It's not the it wait. I don't I feel like I'm gonna contradict myself. But it's the progress and the pace that combined will create a success that's not only the win, but also deeply fulfilling, deeply meaningful because you'll take the time to make sure you not only get it done, but you enjoy getting it done.

Lisa Jacobs [00:19:44]:
The journey is as important as the destination.

Bonnie Christine [00:19:47]:
Lisa, this is exactly what we needed. Thank you so much for just bringing this conversation to light. It's the perfect time. I know I needed it, and I hope you did too. My friends, create the beauty that you wanna see come alive in the world. And remember, there's room
for you.