140. The Cheat Sheet to Habits That Last with Dr. Bree Hurn
In this practical and heart-centred conversation, Carla and Dr. Bree Hurn dive into sustainable habit formation, soulful productivity, and mindset mastery. Dr. Bree, an educator, keynote speaker, and host of The Habit Nerd Podcast, shares her journey from classroom leader to mindset mentor—teaching you how to do less and achieve more, align life with purpose, and break free from burnout.
What You’ll Learn:
The insider ‘cheat sheet’ for building habits that stick
Strategies for sustainable productivity without sacrificing you
Overcoming burnout, guilt, and overwhelm through mindset work
Self-trust, self-compassion, and balancing career, motherhood, and ambition
Real-world wisdom blended with evidence-based habit science
Perfect for busy women, entrepreneurs, parents, and humans looking for alignment and energy—not just productivity.
Connect with Dr Bree Hurn:
Connect on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/habitnerd/
Habit Nerd Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/habit-nerd/id1782711149
Free productivity audit: linktr.ee/drbreehurn
WORK WITH CARLA:
The Magazine - MMH Collective
The Money Quiz
CONNECT
Instagram @moneymindsethub
YouTube @moneymindsethub
Website www.moneymindsethub.com
Watch the full episode below:
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Hello and welcome back to the Money Mindset Hub podcast. I'm your host Carla Townsend, a money mindset and success coach who helps purpose-driven women in business, dissolve their money blocks so they can create a life and business they never wanna escape. And today I have the incredible doctor Bree Hurn, who is a multi-passionate entrepreneur, top rated.
Podcast host of the Habit Nerd Podcast, a mom of two from Melbourne, Australia with over 25 years experience in education. So Bree has done it all. She's been a classroom teacher, a school leader, literacy expert, university lecturer, researcher, writer, keynote, speaker, and coach. So she brings so much credibility and heart to the work that she does.
She has a doctor of education, she's accredited. Coach by the International Coaching Federation, she interviews global experts on habits, productivity, and mindset. And of course, maybe the most toughest gig of all is being the CEO of her household. Now, through coaching and keynote speaking, BRI blends real world experience with research to be able to teach you how to do less and achieve more, whether that be at work and at home, smart, sustainable habits for energy, time, and productivity.
What actually matters when it comes to children's learning and how busy parents can help them thrive, and also the mindset shifts that are required to move beyond burnout, guilt, and resentment. Welcome, very thank you Carla. Thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm excited about our conversation. I cannot wait now for everyone listening who may not know yet, but I was recently on Bree's podcast called The Habit Nerd, so I will link that in the show notes and the replay of the episode will also be dropped on this podcast in the coming weeks as well.
But first off, I want to start with what was that point that led you to your purpose, doing what you're doing now rather than staying in the teaching and education area? Yeah, thanks Carla. It was a few things. I think when we make a decision, it's the result of, I like to say a few whispers before that voice becomes a little bit louder before that voice becomes a bit of a shout put another way.
It could be just kind of tiny pebbles being thrown your way, and then they become rocks and then they become bolters. So basically it's a long-winded story and I'll try and keep it short for the sake of the listeners, I. Always had a desire to teach, to educate. Um, but I knew it wasn't going to be just in the school setting.
So I deliberately, when I finished secondary school, did a double degree. I did a Bachelor of education, but I also did a Bachelor of Arts in journalism and professional Writing. So I did go into school teaching and I did go into leadership. And then I did do a PhD in education and I still work actually part-time as a lecturer at the University of Melbourne.
So I'm still very passionate about knowledge and academia, but there was just always a calling for something more and not that teaching was not enough. And in fact. I did a post about this on my social media yesterday. I think school teachers are amazing, absolutely amazing. For me, I thought I just wanted to teach in different ways and I wanted to impact people in different ways.
So all of this is to say that during COVID I was at home, like everybody teaching my university students online. I was. I, I was obviously doing home learning with my own two daughters at the time who were quite young and need a lot of support. I was also undergoing a full-time PhD, so I was teaching my students during the day monitoring my two girls, 5:00 PM would come and I would log onto my own university classes, and then I was writing around the clock, and so it got to the end of that period, and I graduated with my PhD.
And I survived and I thought, what was it that helped me survive? And I've always had an interest in, I don't really like the term self-help, more self-op optimization, which I know a lot of your listeners will certainly identify with Carla. So I was really interested from an academic point of view and from a research base.
What is it that makes some people successful in what they do? And some people kind of fall off the cliff and not reach their goals. And it wasn't that I thought, oh gee, look how amazing I am. I could teach other people. It wasn't that at all. It was what were the sorts of things that I was putting into place that were getting me to the end of the day, being able to cross things off the to-do list.
Even when I was under a huge amount of pressure. And the other interesting part of my story is that I actually have a history of chronic fatigue syndrome. And so for me, I am not this energizer bunny that can work for 16 hour days. I'm very at risk of a nervous system burnout. And so this is always at front of mind.
So I had to be even more intentional and even more mindful about where I was investing my time and my energy so that I could. B, the most Bree version of breathe. And that meant being present with my kids. It meant leaning into my work, it meant leaning into my study because that was important for me. So all of this is to say that habits were absolutely crucial and the systems that help me maintain those habits for happiness, for health, for performance, were something that I needed to be.
Absolutely mindful, intentional, and keep them at the front of my cognitive attention at all times. So after all of that, I've only started this podcast six months ago, but I'm just really fascinated around habit formation. I'm interested in why people have the habits that they do, which habits last, which habits don't last for certain people, what the barriers are.
And I interview experts every second week around this topic of habit formation. Mm God, you are just speaking my language. I know for the woman listening right now, she's thinking, how did you do it all? How did you do your PhD when you've got children and you're also lecturer? How did you manage to do that all and then still be able to follow your passions and your purpose?
Mm-hmm. And you had. Chronic fatigue. Right? Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's not something that ever goes away. No. So for you especially, it's so important to optimize your energy and your time and really prioritize what is actually important and what is not. Let's say right now, the woman listening, she's feeling very overwhelmed.
Mm. She's feeling like she can't be that present with her children. She has this purpose. She's trying to fulfill, she's trying to do all the things, but she just feels so overwhelmed. Where does she even begin when it comes to knowing what habits should she implement? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So where does she begin?
This is a question that comes up over and over, and it's certainly something that when I go and speak with corporate organizations or when I'm co coaching women individually or in a group setting. Even though everybody works in different capacities and everybody's job takes in different places, some people have children, some people don't.
As women, we are all multi-passionate in different ways and we are juggling a lot of balls. And by our nature it is a very feminine thing to self optimize and just think that we are never doing enough and we're never good enough. So, alright, so let's think about this. First of all, I think. The most important thing is to think about the way you speak to yourself.
Needs to be the way that you would speak to. Your younger sister, your friend who's struggling, so they're sitting at your kitchen table and they're saying things like, I'm just terrible at everything. I can't keep my head above water. I feel a huge amount of guilt that I'm not giving my kids the time that I should.
I'm not putting the time into my work that I should. What would you say to that person? I bet, I bet that talk you would give your younger sister or your friend who's sitting with a cup of tea at your kitchen table would be vastly different to the way that you're speaking to yourself. So the first thing is a little bit of self-compassion, a little bit of kindness.
We are doing in any given day the best that we possibly can with the resources that we have. Nobody, particularly mothers, gets out of bed and says, how many of my kids' lives can I ruin today? We are genuinely doing the best that we can. So the first thing is a little bit of self-compassion. Mm-hmm. The second thing I would say is that there are kind of three core pillars, and I feel like this is a, this is a welcome message for people.
We really like patterns and we like. Things put into clear boxes. So this is the work of Near El. He's an American academic. He's the author of a recent book called Indestructible. He basically says that there are three pillars that we need to pay attention to ourself, our work and our relationships. Now work can be paid work, or it can be, you know, volunteer work, or it could be any sort of contribution that doesn't fit within our relationships or ourself.
Now I find that a calming thing to think, because when I look at my calendar, for me, this is on a Sunday afternoon. It's a ritual that I have about 5:00 PM I. Pour myself a cup of tea often in this cold Melbourne winter. My husband's lit the fire and I've got my laptop on the couch. And so it's kind of a, I try and make it a pleasurable experience as much as I can rather than a, you know, another admin task.
And I literally have three colors. I have yellow for myself. I have pink for my family, and I have blue for work. And then. Once the non-negotiables are put in there, so as in the meetings that I've been invited to that I need to attend or things for work that are immovable, my kids, you know, sports trainings and, you know, pick up and drop off.
When I'm able to do that, once they're all in there, then I'm able to map where is the time for myself and for me. That time for myself is as simple as a 6:00 AM gym class, three days a week. And it is maybe a dinner with my friends, and maybe that's enough for that week. Another week I might be able to fit more in.
But I'm fairly happy with that. The relationships, which is my children are in there, that needs to be put in there as well. And sometimes that's as simple as. Blocking out a Thursday afternoon where we don't have any activities. After dinner, we're gonna watch a movie together and I'll tell my girls, it's your turn to pick the movie.
I'll make sure we've got popcorn. Those sorts of connective experiences, even if it's only once a week. Hold huge weight. If you are completely present with them and they know that you're bringing your full self to that scenario, you are not really needing to do anything else. It's after dinner. It's the best use of your time as you conceptualize it because it makes you feel like the best version of yourself.
So put that in there. So I suppose what I think is a good starting point is to think of those three pillars in your own life. Self work relationships. Then think about with limited time, what would be the the best use? And when I say best, that's not to put pressure on when I say best, what is making you feel most like yourself?
Meaning what is your most aligned, most intentional version of yourself in that time? And then when you are doing your work, and this is a lot of the coaching I do with companies, are you bringing your most. Highest capacity, energy to the tasks that require that of you, where you can bring your magic. So as an example, if you are driving to work and the first thing you do when you get there is open your email or you open your work messaging, that is consuming, not creating.
And if you need to create something by 12 o'clock. That is not a good use of your time because then it's everybody else's to-do list and everybody else's problems, and then whether or not you action the things that are in the email, they're still in your consciousness, so that therefore is not the best use of your time at 9:00 AM on a Tuesday.
That would be the best use of your time at 4:00 PM on a Tuesday or 11:30 AM on a Tuesday. Once you've done two hours of maker creator. Work because that's where your energy's optimum for that. I suppose just to circle back to the first question was where does someone start? I would start with self-compassion.
Then I would start with a bit of a reflection on what sort of person do I wanna be this week, and just keep a container of a week and then think about those three pillars, and if three is too much. Maybe just start with one. Maybe just start with self and understanding that when you are well and you have had enough water, you've had enough sleep, you've done some movement, you've nourished your body, then everything else will naturally improve anyway.
So maybe start there if three is too many and then the second week maybe you can embed some habits around the way you work. And then maybe the week after, you can embed some habits around your relationships. It's, it's a, it's a really smart thing to say, Carla, we, we all know this stuff. It's the systems that we don't have in place to automate this stuff.
That is often the barrier for us being able to maintain the habits that make us feel like our most aligned version of ourselves. Mm. I love that you started that with self is where you should really start. I've heard something similar. He's called the high performance father. He said family, self and service, which are pretty much the same.
So that's something that both my husband and I think of family, self, and service. So let's go into another avenue then. What does behavioral science say a fundamental to then making the habits? Stick. So we've done that. We understand ourself, our work, our relationships. We've pinned that all in. We have color coded because we love color coding and time blocking over here.
But then what do we actually do to make sure that they stick? And how long does it really take to form a habit? Because I've heard so many different types of advice and research, but in your professional opinion. What makes it stick and how long does it take? Mm. Okay, so the research says it depends. So there's a reason.
This is, you know, if you go into readings, bookshop, you know, self-op optimization, self-development habits is a huge area of interest for people because there's no silver bullet and nobody has actually cracked this code. The reason it depends is because context really matters. So I'm always really interested as an academic, what does the research show, but then what does the context.
Say here, and how do we map the two together? So there's no point saying, this is what the research says. If my practicality, my family situation, the way I show up in the world, someone like me who's got, you know, some, maybe some health challenges, that's all great. But that might be great for a middle aged white man who's got his own PA and doesn't have a family, you know?
So I think it depends. It's really important here. I mean, there are people like Professor Wendy Wood would say 33 days, I've had 66 days. There are some people who would say seven days is enough. So see here, there is no magic number. The more important thing is the second part of your question, and these are the fundamentals around habit formation.
Now. Think of a habit as something that is settled. It is something that you no longer need to deliberately think about to do. So habits are basically, we become what we do, and this is a little bit uncomfortable for some people because who they say they are and what their behavior is. Often there's a dissonance there.
Obviously there's an incongruence between, I say I'm this sort of person, and yet. I say I'm a present parent, and yet my screen time, my social media time at the end of the week is astronomical. So often it's about understanding that habits are the things that we do without having to think about doing the things that we do.
Cleaning your teeth is a habit. You don't think about cleaning your teeth, you get out of bed. It's probably after using the bathroom, one of the first things that you do. The reason it's easy for you is because, A, you've had the repetition there, you've done it your whole life. B, the cue is very clear. I get out of bed and I brush my teeth environmentally.
You've got the supports there. Your toothbrush and your toothpaste are right in front of your sink. It's easy to do, and the motivation to do it is something we don't even need to think about. Oral hygiene is important to us. We want to have clean teeth. We want to look after our oral health. We want to have fresh breath.
We wanna get rid of that overnight fairy teeth feeling. So these are not things that we need to bring to our consciousness because they're already embedded. That's because you are the sort of person who values having clean teeth. So how can you be the sort of person who values the other things that you do?
It may be more helpful to think about yourself, and this is for all of the listeners for a habit that they haven't been able to keep stuck and embedded and part of integrated as part of their identity. And generally, once we think about a habit, we haven't been able to keep consistent. There are one of four reasons that we haven't been able to do it.
That was one of my next questions. What are the biggest barriers for people trying to form a habit? Yeah, so the first thing to remember is we need to be able to finish the sentence. I'm the kind of person who, and then that way a habit is important enough to you because it's embedded in part of your identity.
But once you've finish that sentence, I'm the kind of person who. Then you can think about embedding a new habit. Say a popular one for me, for a lot of the listeners will be getting off our phones, so our mobile phones are. Huge helps and affordances in our life, and obviously they are a trap because they have got so much of our admin on them.
They've got our internet banking, they've got our kids' school apps. They've got everything we need to anywhere you go. Now there's an app that you need to be able to book an appointment through or whatever. So the reasons that we pick them up often are out of our control. Sometimes though, we need to get honest about, we're picking them up because.
We're writing a report at work and it started to get really hard, or there is something that we're struggling with and we just kind of need the dopamine heat of looking at something pretty on Instagram. All of us, myself included, would like to be on our phone less. So if that is my habit that I don't wanna be on my phone as much as I am, I need to think about what are the four barriers that might be standing in my way to embedding that habit.
The first one is motivational. I will be less likely to stop using my phone if my friend says, Bree, you're on your phone a lot. That isn't motivational enough for me as it is. If my child said, mom, can you get off your phone and play with me, or Mom, I just told you a story and you weren't listening because you were on your phone.
That hurts my heart. I feel sick about that. That is a motivational barrier there that if, if you don't care enough about it, you will not embed that new habit. Same can be said for a health habit. Losing weight is a good example. If your doctor has said to you, you need to drop a couple of kilos, or if you have a partner who says you've put on a bit of weight, is that motivation from you or is that a motivation from somebody else?
It's going to be far more effective if you say. Look, I'm just really not feeling my best self. My jeans aren't fitting. I'm not showing up the way I want to because I'm carrying a little bit of extra weight. See how that motivation is very different? So motivation is the first thing. So the listeners need to think about.
If they wanted to start running in January and they 15th of January came around and their running habit that stopped, it's probably because they were motivated by something other than themselves or something other than something that was important enough. It's because they saw it on Instagram, it's because they think they should have done it.
New year, new me, whatever it is. So motivational is the first one. Mm-hmm. The second barrier is environmental. So a lot of us. Have the bad thing too close to us, so we have our mobile phone with us in our hand or in next to our computer while we're working all day. An environmental barrier. Therefore, if we were to hack that, it's as simple as putting your phone away.
It's putting it in the drawer. There's a Silicon Valley experiment, which is really fascinating, where they put elastic bands around people's mobile phones, and even just the act of picking it up and feeling the elastic band and therefore the elastic band. You couldn't use face ID and you couldn't do the natural swipe up was enough to stop them.
Picking up mindlessly their mobile phone and distracting themselves from their work. So an environmental barrier is don't have the biscuits at the front of the cupboard where you see them. If you want some chocolate, make it difficult to get to. Don't buy it at all, first of all. But if you do buy it, have it so that you need to get on a stool and it's behind some containers in the cupboard, for example.
So the second barrier is environmental. Are you making it too easy for yourself or are you making it. Hard. So that's out of your vision. So environmental is another really simple barrier that holds us back, but also a very simple solve that we can kind of put some strategies in place. The third one is social and interaction.
We are social beings. We are highly influenced by our environment and by the people who are around us. There are studies around. Um, if you live in a street where everybody has pride in their garden, you will be more likely to have a consistent habit where you are mowing your lawn and you are, you're trimming your hedges, et cetera, than if you live in a, a street where that isn't necessarily the norm We are, whether we like it or not, governed and informed by the people that are around us.
So therefore. If you are at a dinner with your friends and everybody picks up their phone, you are more likely to pick up your phone if you're at a dinner with your friends. And it may even be that you say everyone phones away or phones in the middle, you are going to be more likely to do that. So that's that whole, we are the sum of the five people that we spend the most time with.
Our social habits have a lot to do with the people that we are around and therefore. To embed a new habit, make a deliberate effort to be around, to hang out with the people where that habit is their normal behavior. So that's why group fitness is really popular, for example. It's certainly something that I need as an individual.
Because I need the accountability of people saying, oh gee, Bree booked into the gym and she hasn't turned up. I need that lovely conversation with the people that I connect with there. Like it or not, I need to have somebody on the bike next to me working hard so that I will also naturally, competitively try and keep up with that person whether I can be that or not.
So the third one is. Social, and if you want to quit smoking, you shouldn't be around smokers. If you want to improve the way you eat, then if your husband's sitting on the couch eating chocolate and you are really trying not to, that's tricky for you. So there's a social barrier there. And the last one is cognitive.
And this is the hardest one that people try hard to understand because it's basically the knowledge stuff. Sometimes getting on your mobile phone at the end of a busy day is simply because your brain is exhausted, and it's simply because we are overworked and overwhelmed, and so it is just too hard not to.
The easier thing is to pick up your phone, so. The other thing around a cognitive barrier is if there's too many steps, if it's too hard, if you don't have enough information to be able to embed the habit, you're not going to do it. So this is where if you want to start, um, a habit of exercise, you would not think, okay, I need to have new running gear.
I need to map out the route, I need to put it in my ette. That's all too much. The cognitive barrier there of just going, oh, who cares? Don't worry about it. That's just too much for me to think about. I'll get back on my phone or I'll go back to my email or whatever it is. The cognitive barrier there is, there's too many steps, so a little hack for that would be just put your runners at the front door, because once your runners at the front door and you do that first.
5% of that habit that you want to embed. Then the rest will, you know, they say once you start walking on the way, the way becomes clear. So there are four barriers. So cognitive, environmental, motivational, and social. So it is helpful to think about if you haven't been successful, which of those is the hurdle?
If you have, if you do want to be successful, how can you hack your environment? How can you hack your social interaction or how can you. Think about what actually motivates you and why that is important, and check that it is actually inherently important enough. And then what thinking needs to be done so that you can release those cognitive thinking based barriers so that it's really simple for you to enact.
I love that whole breakdown there because so many things are coming to mind, but it's so clear, isn't it? There's gotta be a reason and it's gotta be your reason rather than someone else's, because otherwise you won't end up quitting. That makes so much sense. Environmental, I suppose a lot of these made me think, well, you've gotta think of your future self.
You've gotta also habit stack. I love habit stacking. So a habit that you are already unconsciously competent in it. Then you add another thing to that. And then again, you won't even realize because once something falls off the bandwagon and you forget about it for a couple of days, it can easily roll into weeks.
Absolutely. Yeah. And uh, I also wanted to mention then, so if someone is finding that they are struggling to get a habit or maybe they just continue falling into self-sabotaging behaviors. Do you feel like sometimes it's because they're actually avoiding something, like the reason that they continue to pick up their phone, like you said, it's getting a bit too hard.
I'm overwhelmed. There's too many steps, so I'll just pick up the phone because it's easier to numb out basically than actually do the thing. Do you find then sometimes people are just actually avoiding that habit? They're avoiding doing that thing because there's a reason that if they avoid it, they're going to get some sort of.
Secondary benefit of it. Totally. Yeah. That's, so that's really insightful, Carla. The first step is, say, a bad habit is picking up your phone when you should be working. It's introspection about why am I finding this hard? Like so a little bit of self-kindness about, okay, I'm noticing that I'm picking up my phone when I should be working on this hard report, or I'm in an email that.
Yeah, that kind of upset me that person's tone upset me or that there's a series of questions in here that is going to roll on to, you know, a lot of work for me. And a lot of that work is cognitively demanding. It's gonna be time intensive. And honestly, I've got some real kind of apprehension about whether I am up to doing this task.
And therefore who will I let down or who will, you know, will I be found out as an imposter in, in, in whatever it is that I need to do? So you're exactly right. It is so clever to say, what am I avoiding here and why am I avoiding it? And it's all well and good to put your phone away, but the first step is a little bit of self-compassion around.
Oh, okay. I, I have a habit or I have a tendency to pick up my phone or go and get a snack or whatever the avoidant behavior is because there is something that hidden under a rock there. We are avoiding. And I think that can be said for so many things. I think, you know, perfectionism would be a good example.
You know, I just, I don't have all the information. Perfectionism is procrastination with a, with cuter outfit basically. But we're procrastinating because we don't feel that we have the skills or we don't have the capacity to be able to undertake the task of what it is. And that's actually really interesting that you say Carla.
Being frightened of the success that something would bring, and I think that's a really uncomfortable place to sit. I, you know, as a working mom, this is something that I grapple with and I'm grateful for the self-awareness around it. I think sometimes I keep a cap on what I say yes to because I'm frightened deep down of that taking me away.
From my kids more often than I would like to or traveling too often, and therefore the guilt that that would bring. And so I wonder if I actually self-sabotage there with opportunities because I'm frightened of what the yes would mean. And that is important introspection for me to do. I love that you brought that up because I think that so many people and myself included, definitely relate to that.
And I think that that is just, you know, for a lot of us it's just because that's the role. We are a mom first, and everything else comes second to that. Mm-hmm. And I do believe that you can do it all and have it all and be it all, all at once, but. Every time you say yes, you say no to something else, and we all fall into that.
I feel like that as well. Sometimes I feel like there's times where I've really had to pull back a bit because I. I suppose it just depends on your values and what's what you're really working towards at that time. I remember someone saying it kind of like you're juggling all these different balls, and these balls are crystals, right?
So all your values and your priorities, but sometimes you have to let one ball drop a little bit while you're working on another ball because it's near impossible to keep them all equal. And I find that especially as being a mom, sometimes you are motivated and you are driven and your purpose is so important to you.
However, at the same time, like you said, if you say yes to too many things, it's gonna draw you away from your children and then it could affect your relationships, or you're gonna feel that guilt or that resentment or whatever might come up. And I feel like a lot of us do hold ourselves back in getting to that next level because we are afraid of.
Can we actually hold that all? What will our children think? Because as we know, depending on their age, they may not fully understand or be able to comprehend what's really going on. They may just think Moms thinks that's more important than me. Mm. It's not the case. They're probably the reason that you're actually got that drive.
But I love that you brought that up. And there was another thing that popped up as well when you were talking about motivational. I think everyone listening too needs to think about. The fact that it's actually okay to say that you don't want to make a habit stick, it's actually okay to be like, you know what?
That's actually just not that important to me. I do value this stuff, but you know what? Maybe I don't value this activity and the benefit that that's going to give me, and that's okay. It's the feeling like, you should do this. You should do that. When whenever you feel like you should. Again, the motivation is external.
It's not coming from you. It's actually okay to be like, you know what? That's good for you. Love that for you, not for me. That's fine. I actually think that's so powerful, Carla, and that's a really big piece in, I like to go a week at a time and I like to keep sort of a five or a seven day container around things.
We are absolutely able to audit our lives in any given moment. There's this saying that we're under no obligation to be the person that we were five minutes ago. In this current minute. So it, it's a really good reflection. There's a sort of masculine way to look at that, that if it was important enough, you'd make the time.
You know, like you say, that's important, but yet your action shows otherwise just get on with it, basically. But I prefer the way you framed that, that the feedback that you are able to gain if there is a habit that you are struggling to embed. It's probably because your value system says that you should be spending that time doing something else.
And the other thing I think I would really like to say here is. For me, with routine and structure comes freedom. And this is a controversial idea, so some people are, you know, really anti time blocking and, and calendar management. I am pro because it takes away that decision fatigue. The cognitive barrier is not there.
The white space in my calendar gives me anxiety because I could be doing any one of those balls that I'm juggling and then I think I do the one that I shouldn't be doing, and then I feel guilty about that. I'm much more comfortable thinking about the three colors that I put in my calendar and then being all in, so as I said before, sitting under a blanket with my girls watching a movie and the way we connect there is if I'm all in on that activity, that is far better than picking them up from school and dropping them off five days a week.
As much as that time is lovely as well. It is probably a better use of my time that they get somebody else to drop them or that they go to before school care for 15 minutes or whatever, so that I can get some work done so that when I am all in and my calendar says I'm all in, that's what I'm doing and we need to be kinder on ourselves.
Very few children grow up and say, my parents were never around. We have a very kind of unkind version of what our children are gonna say about us in 20 years. They will say things about us that we were never around if we were around five days a week or if we were around one day a week. It's not in our capacity to hold that at the moment.
That's why I think that five day container is really valuable, and I also think in terms of being able to make those shifts in your own self. Look back on a Friday, and if you are tired, but you're tired for the right reasons, then that's something to be really proud of. If you are burnt out and you're feeling a sense of guilt, that's feedback for yourself.
So you've used the ball theory, I've also heard that as the burner. So think of four burners on a gas cooktop, for example. You can't really have them all high at once. So which one was higher than it needed to be and which one was off? And so next week, can I balance that or integrate that with a little bit more intentionality and a little bit more purpose?
The other thing is tomorrow's a new day. We've always got the gift of resetting, and there will be some days or some weeks where things get really tricky, but that's our responsibility and our gift to reset on the weekend, to apologize to the people that we need to apologize to, to own that, to show some vulnerability, authenticity.
And say, I'm gonna try something different next week. It is so true. It the fact that you can just go, you know what? Maybe I didn't nail it this week. Maybe there are certain things that I didn't quite do. Mm-hmm. But we can always reset and try again, because that's all you can do at the end of the day is just continue to try and be better.
And I feel like every single one of us. Does know, you know, if there's things that we are working towards, what is required of us, that version that is required of us and what she needs to do in order to bring it to fruition. So just break it down and make it simple. And again, like you said, Bri, look at the reasons.
Is it motivational? Do you really want it or not? What are the environmental things that you can put into place or maybe remove to make it easy socially? And Interactionally, how do you make that easier? How do you just get around the people and be in the right community, have the right conversations, maybe leave certain conversations for the certain people that are going to get it, support you, and then cognitively as well, really ask yourself and check in with what am I doing?
What is the reason I'm avoiding this? What is it? Because there might actually be a full belief system under there that's really stopping you from implementing these habits that you know are actually gonna help you fulfill your purpose or get to your goals that it is you're trying to, but like you said, give yourself some compassion as well.
So I wanna shift gears just a little bit because we could talk about this all day, every day, but I also just wanna go into that belief system that we sort of touched on there a little bit. But I wanna obviously talk about. The money side of it. For you personally, because I love to ask everyone about this, but before you, what is a belief about money that you once held that you've now had to debunk?
Mm, yeah. This is, this is a bit of a money story. One, a little bit of an origin story. One is that to have a lot of money is to be greedy, is to be not of service, is to be. Selfish is to be unkind. The character traits that I probably had linked to people who had monetary wealth, I needed to break that down.
So if I think about, you know, media representation of people who have got a lot of money, you know, Scrooge, McDuck, that kind of greed, that sort of more is never enough. Maybe even some of the messaging from my upbringing around the money story. People who have a lot of money are not good people are not kind people are not relatable people.
I've really had to shift that to be able to move my own ceiling withholding onto a certain level of abundance because. Now the evidence that I'm slowly starting to see, and I have to be really honest, this is a work in progress. Sometimes I catch myself when I see somebody driving a really beautiful car, and I hear my parents maybe in my mind with a little bit of a, oh, who do they think they are sort of mentality.
So I've had to shift that. And as I say, it's something I work on constantly to. The service that I can do when I have abundance, the generosity that I can show, and the feeling that it gives me when I'm able to serve people with a level of money makes me feel better, more like Bree than it does to say, who does that person think they are?
So that self feedback that I have about the way I'm thinking and catching myself in that self-talk is. Something that if I've, you know, taken my friends out for a meal and I've covered it, or if I've bought my girls something that they really wanted and I've seen how happy it's made them, or if I've been able to give my VA a pay rise or some extra money and I see how much that's affected him, or if I'm able to, you know, just show generosity through resources like money, I feel so good and it's.
Creating a new pattern for me that people with money, with abundance are good and they can do more good because of it. Yeah, absolutely. But isn't it so interesting, and I think so many of us have that underlying story. We have very similar beliefs, very similar money stories from a young age, and maybe it was just around the generation, mm-hmm.
Of our parents and our grandparents too. I think a lot has to do with that. A lot of it is generational, but it's a constant work in progress and I do believe that. I feel like when it comes to any belief too, it is something that you don't ever fully get rid of and nor do you have to. Because for you, even though this is a work in progress, and I believe it always will be, it's your mindset essentially, but it hasn't stopped you from going for what it is that you want.
You're just a bit more aware of it. And maybe for you as well, you've probably noticed in those moments where you haven't done the thing, you maybe have fallen off a habit. It's well, why? Oh, okay. Because actually if I don't do that. Then I won't become really successful, and then my parents won't think that I'm greedy or unselfish.
A lot of it ties into who you think you'll become or who people will think you will become, and feeling unloved, because obviously that is a necessary thing that everybody feels we need to feel love, we need to feel a part of the community, and we don't wanna be isolated. And if you are that rich, greedy person, then you'll be treated differently.
Yeah. So it's interesting that one comes up quite often. Mm. Yeah. And how then has working on your relationship, money relationship with money then helped your business and you'd be able to put yourself out there more? Yeah. You said it before when you were talking about social and interaction, and I'm glad you said it because I should have.
Sometimes it's about the people you surround yourself with and the people you deliberately don't surround yourself with or the people who you do surround yourself with because they're your family and friends. But the messaging that they carry doesn't necessarily have to be your messaging. So I'll give you an example as somebody who works in an employed job as an academic part of the week, and then I have my own business.
There are colleagues that I work with who are uncomfortable charging for consultative work that we do. There are colleagues that I work closely with that I align socially very closely with, that I like as people who will do something for free. When I will charge for it. So there is a very kind of clear delineation here.
Maybe it's generational. A lot of these people are a little bit older than me. They are part of a community, a background where they'll do a favor for someone. But I can see that that favor. Is devaluing the work that they're doing in the eyes of the person who is receiving that. So I understand that when I pay for a service.
I'm expecting quality for that, and therefore when I receive the quality, I am very clear on that transaction being I will give you my money and you will give me this excellent service, and I will be different after I have engaged in this because of that. So I am able to now see sales as service, whereas I'm alongside colleagues who see service as needs to be free.
So I suppose. The thing that I need to pay attention to is just because somebody's my friend doesn't mean that I have to agree with everything that they do and say just because I love my parents deeply and they might be a little bit uncomfortable if they saw what I invoice people. They would say, my goodness, that's too much money.
People can't afford that. They can afford that because they are paying that and they are not questioning that, and they are happy to do that. And then just to go back to my previous answer, when I am seeing my business account growing, I am able to do more with that money and I am able to say yes to more opportunities, or I'm able to say no to opportunities that don't align because.
I have got the financial buffer there, which means that I can say no and I can spend more time with my girls and my husband. So I suppose all of that is a kind of complicated way of saying we have got. The chance at any given time to tune in and tune out to the messaging that's around us. And as much as we love our family and our friends for what they've enriched our lives with, we don't have to agree with every single thing that they say because a lot of those stories are their stories and they're not our stories.
And if I'm making somebody uncomfortable with how I'm showing up what I'm charging, you know how I'm putting my services out there at the end of the day, that's more about them. Than it is about me. And so again, that's a work in progress. I'm not saying that from a place of arrogance that is something that I'm constantly working on, but being able to say, oh, I actually think that's making you uncomfortable, and I'm all right with it.
So I think that's, yeah. I think for me it's about messages that we consume, what we let in and what we say, thanks, but that's not for me. Mm. And also, there's a gift in that for them. And whether they choose to see it or not is totally up to them. But the gift is that it's triggering them. So it's triggering a shadow part in them that they don't believe that they can have.
They don't believe that they can do their own self-worth. There's a story there as well for them, and you making them feel uncomfortable is nothing on you. It's just their perception. And again, you can't change someone's perception. You cannot change someone else's belief. Again, that's gotta be, they've gotta have their own reasons as to why they wanna change that.
Mm. So last couple of questions, but if you could give one piece of advice to your younger self about money and success, what would it be? Yeah, this one's more pragmatic. Don't think that financial literacy is out of the realm of possibility for you as a young woman. So I think. And I hate this as an educator.
I hate that I had this belief as a young person that money was just too hard and that it was something that accountants dealt with. Maybe, if I'm really honest with myself, it was more of a male domain. I was very lucky in terms of the amount of interest and knowledge I have around finance now. Simply because I wanted it for myself.
I dove into podcasts and did reading, and I'm interested in investing, and I'm interested in financial gain and financial literacy. Really, I guess I wish I started younger, like a lot of women of my age group had we started investing in our twenties, we would be further along now. We didn't have the knowledge, so I would like to say to my younger self.
Finance isn't maths. Finance is not hard. Like money is something that everybody has access to. And I guess I want having two girls. I want them to be financially literate, younger and I want them to be not frightened of it. I want 'em to bring numbers out into the light and understand that we need to ask for help and we need to ask for help.
And that's what financial planners are there for. That's what accountants are there for. When it is beyond our understanding, our level of understanding, but don't be frightened of it. Understand that you can do things with money and that the younger you do it, the greater the benefit will be at the other end.
Oh a hundred percent. And also you are going through so much work around your own money mindset and your own internal belief systems as well. Again, for everyone listening, it's an opportunity for you to be able to be that inner a voice for your children. Mm-hmm. To change their relationship with money and success.
And their self-belief now while they're young, so they don't have to go through all the deconditioning that we've had to go through and then recondition ourselves and change our beliefs and do all of that. And like you said, if we had have known younger, I'm the same. I wish I had have known more about investing younger when I first got a job when I was 15.
I wish I had have known about investing then. I always knew to save. So thank you to my parents. I always saved money. I've always had money. I'm good at managing money. But again, it was the self-worth piece around money and having more than enough. And also there's difference between saving money and growing money isn't there?
And I think, I think our parents, and it might be a generational thing. Really, you know, it was a safety thing to have a good savings balance there. And I would of course, and I hope I teach my kids that, that, you know, the fire extinguisher fund needs to be there. My goodness. If something happens, you need to be able to grab that money that's safe in that moment to be able to deal with that problem.
And we've all had the experience, I certainly have of that sick feeling. When you get that unexpected huge bill and you think, I'm not gonna be able to quite cover this. But there's a big difference. Like I just tuned out to any conversations around superannuation when I was younger. You know, they would talk about at work things like salary packaging or salary sacrificing.
I don't know. I just tuned out. It just felt like this is too hard. I wish I had, you know, and now I've got a friend, actually, her mom was a single mom. And I said to her a, you know, a few years ago I said, oh, I've started, you know, um, salary sacrificing some super. And she said, yeah, I've done that since I was 21.
My mom set that up for me, you know, and I just thought, what a gift that from 18 or 21, when you are first working, that you put, you know, if your employee puts. A employer puts in 9%, you put in that extra 3%. If I looked at her balance now compared to mine, her starting that at 21, like what a gift. So that just goes back to that idea that I don't know that our parents, certainly, my parents didn't have a knowledge base and they didn't talk to me about growing wealth.
And also, yeah, if I had have not been frightened of it and if I had have maybe listened to those conversations when I was a bit younger, I might be in a different spot, but grateful that I am in the spot that I am now and I'm not 60 or 70 having these conversations with you. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, the thing is you only know what you know.
That's right. And. And when you learn, then that's the point that you can do better. And obviously we, again, we can be that gift to our children to now teach them what we wish we had of known when we were younger or set them up for success. So, last question. What is a book that has deeply impacted your life?
Oh, goodness. But like, but Carla, I am like, I'm a language and literacy lecturer. Like this is, there would be, there would be thousands, there would be literally thousands. You know what? I'm going to give you a very woowoo book. Mm. Which is love that a little bit off brand for me, but we have many parts and we are nothing, if not contradictions, are we?
Yeah. I think one of the books that's kind of changed. Things for me. Well, the first one probably when I was unwell was Louise Hayes, you can Heal Your Life. And it was just kind of that idea that there is a mind body connection and that we can, you know, use tools like meditation, mindfulness, you know, nons, sleep, deep rest practices to check in when there is a dysregulation in our physical self and, and do some work to kind of shift that.
So that would be, that would be one sort of more. Woowoo example, and the other one is Gabby Bernstein's. The universe has your back. And this is just this idea that like anything you can look at this idea of, you know, manifestation as. Scientific and neuroscience backed or not? It actually doesn't matter which lens you're looking at it through.
It's just this idea that if we have a positive regard for our future, if we expect things to work out and if we expect that we are being supported and take our hands off the wheel a little bit and surrender things generally do work out in our favor generally. Along with that is that hardship often creates a story.
We can't see it in the moment, but it is that uncomfortable growth piece that we needed to go through to be able to. Come at the other side, a bigger and better version of ourselves, and it's only the kind of retrospective that we can look back and say, I can see that why that needed to happen. So yeah, I guess the universe has our back.
You can look at that as the universe out there, or you can look at that, what your brain is filtering in and filtering out. But it is understanding that there's kind of a bigger picture at play here, and in some ways that for kind of a type a eldest daughter, someone who's got some controlling tendencies, is quite a helpful way to take the pressure off myself and understand that I am being guided and that things will be okay.
Do you know what? I love that book. And also I'm the eldest daughter type. Bit of control freak. I could kind of tell, probably feel like, oh, you were speaking to me. Um, and also we're both accumulators too. Mm-hmm. Oh, as well. Interesting. We're both accumulators, so we're very similar. I really enjoyed that quiz actually.
That was really interesting. Yeah, it is very interesting. So again, if you wanna check out the money archetype quiz, it's in the show notes, but. I just wanted to say thank you so much, Bree, for coming on. It has been a beautiful conversation. I knew it would be, I could continue talking about this for days because habits and productivity and all of those different methods are something that I'm constantly researching, learning, trying to be better at, trying to implement.
And I just also want to say thank you and acknowledge you for the work that you're doing and you're putting out into the world. And I love that you've finally got your podcast out there. And it's only been six months, but this is just the beginning and I know that it's going to reach thousands across, across the globe because it's just.
Incredible. And everyone needs this. Everyone needs what you're doing. So I'm glad that that, that nudge, that little pebble became the rock and you just went and did it. But yeah, I just wanna say thank you for everything you're doing. Oh, thank you, Carla. I've loved this conversation. I've loved all of the work that, that you are doing in the world as well.
And I agree. I could, I could speak about this and I could speak about money mindset all day with you as well. I think the reason, habits and habit formation is so popular is because. To to be kind to ourselves is that we actually really wanna do good in the world. And so I never want the message to be, oh my God, like this is something else I have to do.
I'm not good enough. I need to put these habits in place. I really want people to use it as an opportunity to look inward. And to think, do shifts need to be made, as you said before, if they do, it's because you want to feel more in alignment with your values and more intentional with your time or with your relationships, or with the way that you care for yourself.
And I hope people see that as fun. I hope people see that as a fun experimentation about. What works for them. And as I said before, context is really important here. So it's been a huge gift to spend some time with you, Carla, and to be able to speak to your audience as well. So a big thank you to you.
Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode. I really hope that you enjoyed it. And be sure to subscribe so that you don't miss any of the incredible future episodes and guests that we have coming up for you. And if you haven't already subscribed to our email list, be sure to do so because we help you with all things money and mindset.
Personal development and entrepreneurship. The world needs more kind-hearted, women like you with deep pockets. I'll catch you in the next episode.