How to Use Kaizen to Make Small Improvements in Your Creative Business
The Kaizen philosophy of taking small steps to create change and improvements is an effective tool for small creative business owners.
Before becoming a kaizen muse creativity coach, I’d looked into coaching for a while but didn’t identify with the goal/strategy/massive action rhetoric. I hear the same story from the creatives I speak to.
Jill Badonsky’s kaizen-muse creativity coaching is created as an creative alternative to traditional life- and business coaching.
Kaizen is an alternative strategy for change and improvements. The Kaizen way, is based on taking tiny small steps, and asking small questions.
The Japanese word Kaizen means good change or change for the better.
Zen - good - and kai - change.
“As your small steps continue and your cortex starts working, the brain begins to create new nerve pathways and building new habits.”
How to use kaizen to make small improvements in your creative business
In my e-book “Build a Better Creative Process Using Kaizen” I have divided business into sections of the website, marketing, getting started, and building your personal process.
I find it less overwhelming what I divide jobs into sections, as opposed to one big job.
Below are 3 sections, each with 2 small questions to ask yourself in a gentle spirit.
Making improvements to your website
Making small changes regularly to your website can make a huge difference. Maybe you don’t need a complete make-over or rebrand but simply just a few improvements and tweaks here and there. You can try these small kaizen questions:
Ask yourself in a gentle and kind spirit:
"what is one thing I can improve my Home page on my website/my about page, (or something else you feel could do with an update)How does looking at my fonts make me feel? (or images, colors, etc)
Using kaizen to make marketing more enjoyable
We need a more joyful way to think about marketing, don’t we? I’m still learning to change the image in my head of hard, sleazy sales tactics when I think of marketing. Kaizen invites to change that approach.
How about this for a new approach to sharing your work:
What would it look like if I enjoyed sharing my work?
What is one small way I can help someone today?
Elevating your process in small steps:
I don’t believe in hustling, or working yourself to point of stress and exhaustion. Self-love and compassion are values and effective tools I use in my own business and help my clients implement in their business.
What is one thing I can do to look after myself today?
What is one way I can make it easier for my customer to do business with me?
Why kaizen work for improving processes.
Your brain reacts with resistance to change. Especially big changes. But taking super tiny steps bypasses your amygdala - the fear part - and you get access to your creative brain. It’s so clever.
With all the different hats you wear in your business, it can be overwhelming work.
But with the kaizen approach, you’re invited to take a step back and take a look at what’s important. Then see where you can make a small change, a small improvement.
There are always improvements, new products, marketing updates to be made in a business and the reason why so many of us don’t get them done is that it’s too much. It’s too overwhelming having to make big changes all the time. And it’s exhausting.
Motivation and self-discipline will only get you so far. And it’s usually not far enough.
Working with your biology - not fighting it
Focusing on taking a really small step works because it tells your fight/flight/freeze response in your brain that there’s nothing to fear. Resistance fades away. It becomes less of a push uphill where you have to rely on discipline to get the job done, and more a pull towards it. Because hey, it’s one a tiny, quick thing you have to do. No biggie.
When you reduce your world to one small task right now, things look up. When you try to do anything creative, you're in for an emotional ride.
2 things make creating difficult:
waiting until you feel like it
Too high expectations
If you wake up what feels like climbing a mountain every day, of course, you’re not going to feel like it. That’s not being lazy, unmotivated, scattered, or whatever other negative stories you can come up with. That’s just common sense to your brain.
