The Three Keys to Nailing Consistent Behaviours By David Watts

Maintaining your motivation is one the biggest struggles you will face as a salon owner, you generally know what you want to achieve yet struggle to execute consistently. How you show up for yourself is how you will show up for your team and one of the secrets to showing up is consistent behaviour.

When you decide to implement something new in your business, it is fresh and exciting, something you know is going make a difference, unfortunately the shine wears off, and this new action often gets neglected. Being consistent with your actions is not as straight forward as it seems, we are programmed to follow past decisions and behaviours.

Let’s put this in perspective, it is a bit like people setting new year’s resolutions to go to the gym four times per week. You may have seen it yourself, in January (the honeymoon phase) the gym is chockers day in and out, but then the gym traffic starts to slow as people return to their previous learned behaviours.

Finding motivation from thin air is almost impossible, it is like searching for a needle in a haystack. There are three keys to unlocking your potential when it comes to nailing consistent behaviours.

One - Find Your Purpose

You need to know WHY you do what you do every single day. Why you are in business, why you are in the industry, why you turn up every single day. Without understanding this you could be walking through life on autopilot, with a blind fold on, simply going through the motions to get to the end of the day.

Doing things that are heart driven, things that have an impact on your life or those around you will always be easier to maintain, they will generally keep you excited and motivated. I can comfortably say to you that as a business owner it is critical you uncover what your purpose is, this will help you maintain direction.

My business journey changed the day I sat an uncovered my true purpose, it cleared the brain fog I was experiencing and enabled me to start having an impact again. It allowed me to serve with purpose and more importantly to be happy with the actions I was taking and truly understand the activities I needed to complete. Your purpose needs to be authentic, it’s not about your goals or your services, it must be something that inspires you. When you are in alignment with your why it is easier to attract what you desire but to also stay motivated to complete the tasks you need to keep doing.

Two - Share the Love

When you share something with others, you are more likely to stay constant in your behaviours. It creates a particular type of social pressure that will see you more likely to follow through. While being inconsistent creates an amount of guilt for yourself, when you share with others you up the ante and are more likely to follow through.

You have access to a network of people who can support you, although who you share with is important, it should be someone you look up to or respect. If you don’t care about the opinion of the person, then you are less likely to show a willingness to commit.

Being successful requires a certain level of commitment from you, having someone in your corner is essential to you maintaining your motivation. They can’t give you the drive nor do the work for you, but they can provide you some social pressure or at your request provide some external accountability.

Introducing new actions into your routine and being consistent is hard, you could not only share with someone but engage them to be an accountability partner for you. This is where the working with a mentor or coach can be beneficial as they can help hold you accountable but also provide much needed clarity from outside the square.

Once you are sharing with someone, they are not only there to hold you accountable but to talk with you about any progress you have made too. In my work with salon owners, I find that people forget about celebrating the small wins they achieve along the way. Celebrating the wins is an incredible way of reigniting your motivation and keeping you on track.

Three – Discipline Baby!

Self-discipline frequently gets a bad rap because it is often shoved down your throat as something you must have mastered to be successful in business. Realistically selfdiscipline is something that you will continue to learn as you continue your business journey.

Your ability to be disciplined relies on staying true to your core values, your convictions, your work ethic but more importantly on the structures you put in place for success. Personally, it’s my brain that lets me down, I am clear on what I need to do but without structure it would never happen or at least never happen on time.

Putting structures in place is a winning move, particularly when it comes to managing your time. One of the advantages in this industry is you are used to operating from your column, doing a particular task at a set time. Where so many salon owners fall down is not scheduling their other work in a diary too.

Your diary needs to be detailed; you cannot block out time for admin and leave it to hope that you will achieve the work that needs to be done. You need to break down it down to specific tasks and allocate time to those activities. Start by making a list of all the tasks you complete and get them into your diary.

Having discipline does not mean you become a robot, sometimes things will get in the way, but your ability to stick to your boundaries and practice self-control will serve you well.

Repetition is the greatest form of mastery and instituting a new way of thinking won’t always go according to plan, the key is to keep moving forward. When you bugger it up, recognise what caused it and move on. It’s easy to get frustrated but this will not help build you improve self-discipline

Use these three steps to give yourself the best chance to make your behaviour consistent. Trust in yourself and the power you have to achieve what you sent your mind to; believe in what you do so deeply that you commit to your own success with an unwavering focus on your purpose.

Motivation is an evolving phenomenon, and your sources will alter as your circumstances do.

David. XoX

A salon owner and support coach on Team Chrissy – The ZING Project. David has a diverse background in sales, marketing and operations and is passionate about improving the professionalism of the industry. Contact David via email davidsc@zingcoach.com.au or DM on Instagram @davidwatts_zing