Speaker 1: Pushkin Hey, Slight Change Listeners. We're back with a new
Speaker 1: episode of A Slight Change of Plans next week, but
Speaker 1: today I wanted to share a conversation I had on
Speaker 1: the show how Too from Slate. Each week, on How To,
Speaker 1: co host Amanda Ripley and Carvel Wallace tackle listener's toughest
Speaker 1: questions with the help of experts. I was a guest
Speaker 1: on the recent episode called hat A Stick to Your
Speaker 1: New Year's Resolutions. We talked to Emily, a former college
Speaker 1: athlete and new mom who's been struggling with unhealthy eating
Speaker 1: and lack of exercise. We explored why so many of
Speaker 1: us tend to fall off the wagon when reaching our goals,
Speaker 1: and I share science based strategies with her for staying
Speaker 1: on track. You can find how To wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts. I hope you find this episode helpful as
Speaker 1: you try to keep your resolutions this year. Join me
Speaker 1: next week when I talked to science journalists Flora Williams
Speaker 1: about the unraveling of her twenty five year marriage and
Speaker 1: what we can learn from the science of heartbreak. Okay,
Speaker 1: now onto my conversation with Emily. If you picture like
Speaker 1: whenever you were like a little kid, and you're like,
Speaker 1: whenever I grow up, I'm going to eat whatever I want.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm doing right now. I'm living out every
Speaker 1: kid's fantasy and I'm just eating whatever I want all
Speaker 1: the time. You're to live in the dream. Dream There.
Speaker 1: Welcome to how To. I'm Amanda Ripley. We're now about
Speaker 1: two weeks into twenty twenty three, which means those resolutions
Speaker 1: that you made on January first might be slipping out
Speaker 1: of your grasp. If so, that just means you are
Speaker 1: extremely normal. People don't achieve their New Year's resolutions, which
Speaker 1: probably means we're doing it wrong. So today we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about what it would look like if we
Speaker 1: tried to build healthier habits based on what works for
Speaker 1: actual humans according to decades of research. Starting with our listener,
Speaker 1: whom we're calling Emily. I've had this issue for a
Speaker 1: while now, but I guess it's just really starting to
Speaker 1: like hit me in the face that I really it's
Speaker 1: something that I need to fix. I love sugar and carbs,
Speaker 1: and I think that makes up maybe eighty to ninety
Speaker 1: percent of my diet, and I'll just snack all day
Speaker 1: every day and I think like whenever I was in college,
Speaker 1: I was a student athlete, and so I was like
Speaker 1: constantly hungry. So I was constantly eating, and it never
Speaker 1: mattered because I was just working it all off. But
Speaker 1: I was like still trying to eat more or less. Right,
Speaker 1: But then whenever I graduated and was no longer student athlete,
Speaker 1: I think my diet slowly shifted from like average to
Speaker 1: like really really really bad. As a college volleyball player,
Speaker 1: Emily used to spend six to seven hours at the
Speaker 1: gym every day. She stayed active coaching after that, but now,
Speaker 1: for the first time in her life, she's on the
Speaker 1: sidelines and her day to day looks really different. Emily
Speaker 1: works at a bank. She recently got married. She now
Speaker 1: has a thirteen year old step son and a new baby.
Speaker 1: Whenever I got pregnant, if I wasn't actively eating, then
Speaker 1: I felt like nauseous, and so I just all day
Speaker 1: every day it would just like snack constantly, and then
Speaker 1: I just never quit that habit. And also, like my
Speaker 1: youngest son, he'll try to eat whatever I'm eating, and
Speaker 1: so if I'm sitting there eating a cookie and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to feed him like organic sweet potatoes and he
Speaker 1: was like, I actually, no, I'll talk of what you're having.
Speaker 1: So you had a huge amount of life transition in
Speaker 1: the last couple of years, and also this huge part
Speaker 1: of your identity in life of sports has diminished. Are
Speaker 1: you able to work out with everything you have going
Speaker 1: on now? Or where is exercise and all of this.
Speaker 1: Actually this past week I had a really stressful day
Speaker 1: and it was like eleven o'clock a knife, and I
Speaker 1: was like in my head and I was like, I
Speaker 1: can't go to bed like this, and so I told
Speaker 1: my husband, I'm going to go for a run. So
Speaker 1: I went to the gym, got on the treadmill, and
Speaker 1: I realized that I can't. I'm so out of shape
Speaker 1: and I could not, like I could not even run
Speaker 1: a mile. How did that feel? It was pretty devastating
Speaker 1: because my whole life that had been my coping mechanism.
Speaker 1: If I was like stressed or anything, I could just
Speaker 1: go for a run and feel better. And then for
Speaker 1: a vast majority of my life that's been my identity.
Speaker 1: Like I was, I've been an athlete my whole life,
Speaker 1: and then now I can't even run a mile. Emily
Speaker 1: clearly has the muscle memory to dig deep and be
Speaker 1: disciplined and do hard things, but when it comes to
Speaker 1: her eating habits, she feels like she keeps coming up short.
Speaker 1: For instance, a while back, she tried the Whole thirty diet,
Speaker 1: which requires thirty days of eating whole, unprocessed foods with
Speaker 1: no sugar, grains or dairy. I completed the whole thirty,
Speaker 1: So I went the whole thirty days without like all
Speaker 1: those things. But then two weeks later and I was
Speaker 1: like right back into what I was doing. And I've tried, like, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll just have a cheat day, and so I'll
Speaker 1: like eat good all week and then on Saturday spurge.
Speaker 1: And then it ended up becoming Saturday and Sunday and
Speaker 1: then Friday, Saturday and Sunday, to the point where like
Speaker 1: Tuesday was my only day that I ate good and
Speaker 1: every other day was my cheat day. And yeah, it's
Speaker 1: sort of good. It's gonna be annoying because I'm like
Speaker 1: questioning the whole premise, But are we sure that this
Speaker 1: is bad? I get what you're saying about being a
Speaker 1: role model. I get what you're saying that you just
Speaker 1: kind of feel out of control and that's not a
Speaker 1: good feeling. Have you talked to a doctor about this?
Speaker 1: I mean, are you sure that this is something you
Speaker 1: should be worrying about at all? I'm pretty sure if
Speaker 1: I could show you, like what I eat in a week,
Speaker 1: you'd be like, where's the vegetables, where's the Like it's
Speaker 1: almost entirely I'm not exaggerating, it's almost entirely sugar in carbs.
Speaker 1: And I do feel that like tired all the time,
Speaker 1: like a little like afternoon pitfall. And at first I
Speaker 1: was like, Oh, it's just because I'm not sleeping because
Speaker 1: of my son. But now my son's been sleeping through
Speaker 1: the night for six months now, and so it's not
Speaker 1: really the excuse I can use anymore. Okay, So it
Speaker 1: sounds like you want to change your routines, your habits
Speaker 1: and just feel more in control of what your daily
Speaker 1: routine is. Is that right? Yeah, that's exactly right. So
Speaker 1: on today's show, we're going to work on building enduring
Speaker 1: habits with someone who knows a lot about change. My
Speaker 1: name is Maya Shunker, and I'm a cognitive scientist by training,
Speaker 1: which means that I study the science of human behavior,
Speaker 1: and I'm also host to the podcast a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans which marry science and storytelling to help us
Speaker 1: get a better understanding of how it is that we
Speaker 1: respond to change. Maya will give us a blueprint for
Speaker 1: how Emily and all of us can adapt to new
Speaker 1: life phases and get into healthier routines that lasts long
Speaker 1: after the new year. Stay with us, Maya, I wonder
Speaker 1: what you're thinking hearing Emily's story so far. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking so much, Emily. And one is that your story
Speaker 1: is so relatable. So one thing you mentioned was around
Speaker 1: you giving yourself a cheat day and then you wake
Speaker 1: up the next day and you're like, oh, I guess
Speaker 1: you know Sunday is going to be a cheat day
Speaker 1: two and then suddenly find yourself spending six days of
Speaker 1: the week in cheat day mode. Right. And one thing
Speaker 1: we know from research is that it's actually very helpful
Speaker 1: at the outset to build in what's called emergency reserves.
Speaker 1: Let's say you're deciding, Okay, I'm committing to exercising three
Speaker 1: days a week for the next month. By building in
Speaker 1: the slack at the beginning of the goal setting process,
Speaker 1: when you miss a day here and there, which will
Speaker 1: inevitably be the case, because that's just how life works, right,
Speaker 1: You'll still feel that it's possible to achieve your longer
Speaker 1: term goal, and so that mindset will prevent you from
Speaker 1: falling off the wagon entirely, which is what I hear
Speaker 1: is happening to you. Yeah, because like you said, when
Speaker 1: you fail, then you're like, well, I'm a failure, might
Speaker 1: as well just like give up. But it's okay if
Speaker 1: you have a few days off and like you're still
Speaker 1: on track. Yeah, it's still possible for you to achieve
Speaker 1: your goal, right. I mean, in many ways, this insight
Speaker 1: solves for the fact that we are human beings and
Speaker 1: so naturally we're going to be fallible and we are
Speaker 1: you not going to be perfect every single day. And
Speaker 1: so I really love this way of thinking because it
Speaker 1: builds a compassionate model of human behavior into the goal
Speaker 1: setting process and then ends up setting us up for success.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because I have heard Maya, is this
Speaker 1: true that self control self discipline is like muscle and
Speaker 1: you kind of use it all day long and then
Speaker 1: at some point you kind of run out. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's disproven. Since I'm actually glad to hear this because
Speaker 1: I always feel like, uh see, I'm out of self control.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's so interesting because I think this
Speaker 1: speaks to the fact that, you know, when we get
Speaker 1: that surge of motivation in us to try to accomplish
Speaker 1: a goal, we are embodying our most aspirational selves. Our
Speaker 1: ambitions exceed what's actually reasonable and practical. And so another
Speaker 1: piece of advice that I'd give you, Emily is try
Speaker 1: and set goals when you're in a similar psychological and
Speaker 1: physiological state as the one you'll be in when you're
Speaker 1: actually striving for that goal. So, for example, if it's
Speaker 1: four PM on a Sunday, okay, and you know you're
Speaker 1: feeling good, you're feeling optimistic, you're feeling motivated, don't then
Speaker 1: set a goal that you plan to go to the
Speaker 1: gym every night that we get eleven pm. Because what
Speaker 1: you have to do when it comes to goal setting
Speaker 1: is really bridge any empathy gaps that exist between your
Speaker 1: current self and your future self. That is really smart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel like I could swing so far back and
Speaker 1: forth between like my aspirations and reality. Whenever I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this, and like make my whole
Speaker 1: plan and everything maybe I'll be like, oh, I want
Speaker 1: to wait until two o'clock on Monday, after your long
Speaker 1: meeting to decide what that goal would actually look like.
Speaker 1: And you know, you're a mom of a one year old,
Speaker 1: a stepmom to a thirteen year old. The feeling that
Speaker 1: you have after that two pm meeting is probably much
Speaker 1: more representative of your normal state, right which is you're
Speaker 1: tired and stressed and overworked, and there's a million things
Speaker 1: racing through your mind and you're just trying to you know,
Speaker 1: survive through the end of the day and help your
Speaker 1: family survive. And so you want to choose these moments
Speaker 1: that you feel are slightly more reflective of how you
Speaker 1: are on average, rather than find these really pristine moments
Speaker 1: of clarity and inspiration and aspiration to set those goals. Okay,
Speaker 1: we already have a few rules right up front. One
Speaker 1: is to build slack into your goals. Take the fantasy
Speaker 1: and dial it down one notch at least aim for real,
Speaker 1: not perfect. Another rule, set those goals when you're in
Speaker 1: your right mind, like after a meeting, when you want
Speaker 1: to take a nap, not when you're flying high after
Speaker 1: your first cup of coffee on a weekend. It's probably
Speaker 1: also a good time to mention that anytime we're talking
Speaker 1: about food or exercise, the advice can't be one size
Speaker 1: fits all. There are people for whom these kinds of
Speaker 1: resolutions can be damaging and even lead to a disordered
Speaker 1: relationship to food. So before you set your goals, it
Speaker 1: might be helpful to interrogate why you want to make
Speaker 1: a certain change one of the things, in addition to,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of daily routines and practices and setting goals.
Speaker 1: It sounds like one of the things that Emily is
Speaker 1: dealing with is a shift in identity, and that reminds
Speaker 1: me a lot of your show. In your own story,
Speaker 1: can you speak a little bit to how you know
Speaker 1: you go from being the sort of hard charging athlete
Speaker 1: to a mom who's working full time. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a very different set of constraints and obligations. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I do have a personal story that mirrors this, Emily.
Speaker 1: So when I was a kid, I was a concert
Speaker 1: violinist and I was absolutely aspiring to go to become
Speaker 1: a professional, and then a hand injury derailed my career
Speaker 1: when I was fifteen, and so I went from being
Speaker 1: on this speed train where I was practicing hours a day,
Speaker 1: spending all day Saturday at the Juilliard School of Music
Speaker 1: in New York, and so it was really the entirety
Speaker 1: of my life, and I fully identified as a violinist.
Speaker 1: And it was pretty heartbreaking to lose the instrument because
Speaker 1: I felt like I was not only grieving the loss
Speaker 1: of the instrument in many ways, I was grieving the
Speaker 1: loss of myself because it was such a key part
Speaker 1: of my identity. And I hear that reflected in your
Speaker 1: story with volleyball, right, This was such a foundational part
Speaker 1: of who you are. And so in your case, I
Speaker 1: think it's good to remind yourself that even though you
Speaker 1: are no longer this star athlete, a d one athlete,
Speaker 1: you clearly had some passion and ability to navigate the
Speaker 1: harder parts of exercise and willpower and self control, and
Speaker 1: you cultivated many relevant skills in the process. And so
Speaker 1: remember that you still have these parts of your personality
Speaker 1: and that they are accessible to you. I think for
Speaker 1: me with the violin, it was actually just loving human
Speaker 1: connection and really enjoying forging an emotional connection with the
Speaker 1: audience and my fellow musicians. And I wonder if there
Speaker 1: are parts of your identity as an athlete that you
Speaker 1: can still identify with. Does that resonate with you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So much. And like when you said like not associating
Speaker 1: yourself with the things that you do like volleyball player, violinist,
Speaker 1: and like associating with the underlying things that really hit hard.
Speaker 1: And I like one thing I loved about being an
Speaker 1: athlete was like the like camaraderie, like being on a
Speaker 1: team with like a common goal. And another part was
Speaker 1: just like being able to like conquer something like practices
Speaker 1: were long, like games were hard, but like I was
Speaker 1: always the one like running back and forth in between
Speaker 1: the sets and saying like all right, you got this,
Speaker 1: get up, let's go, we can do that. Like that
Speaker 1: was just kind of like my role. Like I was
Speaker 1: team captain. I was in everyone's face, like I'm the
Speaker 1: one that you look to when we're down by three
Speaker 1: and we have like bad rotation coming up. Like I
Speaker 1: felt like I was the person that you look to
Speaker 1: to get the job done. I don't really feel a
Speaker 1: lot like that in my current life. What I'm hearing
Speaker 1: from you, Emily is that you should probably be the
Speaker 1: one that creates a like mommy workout group, your neighborhood. Yea,
Speaker 1: so are there other people that you can bring into
Speaker 1: your circle and you can be the lead of the group,
Speaker 1: motivating them and cheering them on. And I mean the
Speaker 1: bigger point, and I think this is such an important one,
Speaker 1: is that you've looked back at your career as a
Speaker 1: volleyball player and you've identified the core traits that kept
Speaker 1: you motivated and kept you happy and kept you fulfilled.
Speaker 1: Here's our next rule. As you go through different seasons
Speaker 1: of life, try to remember what motivated you in your
Speaker 1: past life and see if you can align your goals
Speaker 1: with those values. The camaraderie is something that I also
Speaker 1: really enjoy. And when I identified that, I realized there
Speaker 1: were certain jobs that weren't a good fit for me.
Speaker 1: For example, I used to be in research and I
Speaker 1: kind of decided, oh, being alone in a laboratory setting
Speaker 1: is probably not my cup of tea. And then I
Speaker 1: found other areas that still intersected with my love of
Speaker 1: cognitive science and my love of the human mind, but
Speaker 1: that we're far more social in nature. And so it's
Speaker 1: really like you said about channeling your understanding of your
Speaker 1: own passions and your skill sets. And what excites you
Speaker 1: into the goal pursuit process. Yeah. I love hearing Emily.
Speaker 1: I love hearing you describe what it was like for
Speaker 1: you to be on that team, And it sounds like
Speaker 1: it was about much more than how many calories you
Speaker 1: were able to burn and what you were able to eat. Right.
Speaker 1: It sounds like you're the perfect person to work out
Speaker 1: with or do any hard thing with, and so finding
Speaker 1: that new context might not be easy. It's probably going
Speaker 1: to take trial and error. And I'm guessing, Maya, did
Speaker 1: you go through a period of trial and error yourself
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how do I recreate that human connection,
Speaker 1: that magic that I could create with the violin? How
Speaker 1: many tries and errors did it take? So many? I mean,
Speaker 1: it was such a nonlinear path, and I spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time exploring myself and trying to reclaim identities
Speaker 1: and trying to understand what current identities mean. I mean,
Speaker 1: we explore this so much on my podcast. A slight
Speaker 1: change of plans, but I think Emily, what you're also experiencing,
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing from you, is that you now have
Speaker 1: this label mother, right, and you're making sense of what
Speaker 1: that label is and It's an identity that a lot
Speaker 1: of people struggle with and they lose themselves in. And
Speaker 1: I think you have to be also really compassionate with
Speaker 1: yourself right now as you're going through this kind of transition,
Speaker 1: and not expect to find all the solutions overnight, but
Speaker 1: to really to be patient and to view this more
Speaker 1: as a year of experimentation. Let's say, yeah, I really
Speaker 1: love that, because once I have an idea in mind,
Speaker 1: I want to get it done, check it off, and
Speaker 1: move on to the next item on the list. But
Speaker 1: like to keep that mindset of giving myself grace and
Speaker 1: like being patient and be like, oh no, I don't
Speaker 1: have to have everything figured out. Yeah, And it seems
Speaker 1: I mean, given that you were I can't even believe
Speaker 1: this working out six to seven hours a day. It
Speaker 1: seems like you're a zero to sixty kind of gal, right,
Speaker 1: And so I think reward yourself for incremental progress. Going
Speaker 1: up a few flights of stairs multiple times in a row.
Speaker 1: That counts to extending your walk by ten minutes, that
Speaker 1: counts too. You don't want to have a purity complex
Speaker 1: around your goals where you have an all or nothing mindset, right,
Speaker 1: It's really important for you to reward yourself for eating
Speaker 1: the small steps snowpun that you're taking to be more
Speaker 1: committed to exercise and healthy eating. That's our next insight.
Speaker 1: Incremental change is the only kind that's likely to stick,
Speaker 1: So don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Speaker 1: We're going to take a quick break, and when we
Speaker 1: come back, Maya will explain how simply framing your resolutions
Speaker 1: differently can dramatically increase the odds of success. Don't go anywhere.
Speaker 1: We're back with Emily, a busy mom who squeezed us
Speaker 1: in between work meetings and her baby's nap, and Maya Schunker,
Speaker 1: a cognitive scientists and host of the podcast A Slight
Speaker 1: Change of Plans. I also wanted to give you advice
Speaker 1: on the way that you frame your goals, because there
Speaker 1: are different ways of framing goals, and research shows that
Speaker 1: the way we frame our goals can have very different
Speaker 1: impacts on our motivational states. So there is what we
Speaker 1: call an approach framing. So this would take the form
Speaker 1: of I want to eat healthier foods, so you're actively
Speaker 1: approaching the good thing. And then there's the avoidant framing,
Speaker 1: I want to avoid unhealthy foods. I would play around
Speaker 1: with these different framings and see what works best for
Speaker 1: you in different contexts. But there is some research showing
Speaker 1: that when we frame our goals as approach oriented, right,
Speaker 1: I want to eat healthier foods that can be much
Speaker 1: more motivating for people and can promote endurance, and when
Speaker 1: we are good at it, it's met with pride, whereas
Speaker 1: avoid goals can sometimes just breed feelings of relief like
Speaker 1: oh good, I didn't screw up right, I wasn't terrible today.
Speaker 1: And so I'm curious to know, first of all, which
Speaker 1: type of framing do you tend to use already, and
Speaker 1: if is there a switch that you might be able
Speaker 1: to make and to at least test it out. My
Speaker 1: jaw is dropped when you said that, because it just
Speaker 1: like hit me like a ton of bricks. I've always
Speaker 1: framed everything like I'm not going to eat sugar, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to eat like kids, Like oh, I actually
Speaker 1: have to like flip the switch, like oh no, you
Speaker 1: actually have to actively do something to achieve this goal,
Speaker 1: not just avoid something I think will be very beneficial. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm no expert on this, but I'm guessing when
Speaker 1: you were in a tournament as an athlete, you weren't
Speaker 1: like most of all, we want to not lose, right,
Speaker 1: you want to avoid losing at all costs, like you
Speaker 1: are much more probably I'm guessing about winning. Is that right? Yes? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: Like we had this whole like mindset thing and it's
Speaker 1: like you don't want to think about like, oh, don't
Speaker 1: mess up, like you want to think, oh, do good.
Speaker 1: And so bringing that concept into the real world is
Speaker 1: pretty profound. Yeah, there's a lot of psychology and sports
Speaker 1: right that if you can transfer it, which I'm not
Speaker 1: sure how easy that is to do, but that would
Speaker 1: be really valuable here. Perhaps maya is that that is
Speaker 1: there any research on can you transfer the thinking us
Speaker 1: in one arena of your life, one context to another
Speaker 1: like that? Oh? Absolutely, And especially when it comes to
Speaker 1: the science of motivation. So I'll give you one example.
Speaker 1: This is called the middle problem. It was discovered by
Speaker 1: one of my friends, Isle at Fishbox. She's a professor
Speaker 1: at the University of Chicago. And basically, when we are
Speaker 1: trying to reach our goals, we tend to experience higher
Speaker 1: levels of motivation at the beginning of the goal and
Speaker 1: then at the end of the goal. So there's a
Speaker 1: drop in motivation in the middle. This is called the
Speaker 1: middle problem. And so what we should do is we
Speaker 1: should try to keep our middles as short as possible.
Speaker 1: So when she sets a year long goal, she's setting
Speaker 1: herself up for, you know, a multi month middle period, right,
Speaker 1: four months in the middle. And since we know that
Speaker 1: motivation wage in the middle, it might be smarter for
Speaker 1: Emily to set a weekly goal, right, and that way,
Speaker 1: the middle is only a day or two, and so
Speaker 1: she will see that decrease in motivation extend over a
Speaker 1: much shorter period of time and then can kind of
Speaker 1: reclaim that boost and motivation that happens as we're inching
Speaker 1: towards reaching the goal for the week. So here's our
Speaker 1: next couple of rules. Shorten the time span of your
Speaker 1: goal to avoid that motivation dip in the middle. Try
Speaker 1: a sprint, not a marathon. In other words, and go
Speaker 1: towards something not away. And whatever you do, remember you
Speaker 1: can't replace something with nothing. When they did research on
Speaker 1: trying to motivate people to quit smoking, part of the
Speaker 1: addiction to smoking was in the form of getting used
Speaker 1: to taking that break after lunch and going outside and
Speaker 1: socializing with colleagues or whatever the pattern of behavior was,
Speaker 1: and so they found that substituting that behavior with something
Speaker 1: else is much more effective than simply telling them to
Speaker 1: abstain from behavior. And I think, Emily, this goes back
Speaker 1: to something we talked about earlier. But you know, the
Speaker 1: desire to reward yourself after a tough day is not
Speaker 1: going anywhere right, and so you just want to try
Speaker 1: to find alternative things that you can do to reward yourself.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's texting with a friend who you've been out
Speaker 1: of touch with. Maybe it's just looking at pictures of
Speaker 1: your kids on your phone. Now that they're asleep you
Speaker 1: can enjoy their more angelic faces on your phone. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's having a moment of just deep breathing in which
Speaker 1: you just try to find some calm internally. And so
Speaker 1: as a homework assignment for you, I would take out
Speaker 1: a sheet of paper and try to find five things
Speaker 1: that make you feel joy right that aren't associated with eating,
Speaker 1: and see if you can start subbing in some of
Speaker 1: those activities for what we'll call like the jellybean behavior instead.
Speaker 1: I love that, Emily, does anything immediately come to mind
Speaker 1: that brings you joy? That's easy to do in five
Speaker 1: minutes pretty much everything she said. I don't know if
Speaker 1: she's got cameras in my house or not, but like,
Speaker 1: I have a friend that I'm super close with, but
Speaker 1: she lives in Ohio, so she's so far away, and like,
Speaker 1: any time I talk to her, it always it's really great,
Speaker 1: and so texting her would be good. And actually, just
Speaker 1: last night, I was flipping through photos of my kids
Speaker 1: on my phone and that was exactly what I was doing,
Speaker 1: and that made me happy too. Yeah, and they can
Speaker 1: be those activities can be so nourishing and when you
Speaker 1: internalize them as oh, I'm treating myself to this therapeutic
Speaker 1: moment right right right. And I think in our culture
Speaker 1: at large, right definitely, sweet food is considered a reward,
Speaker 1: a way to kind of make ourselves feel good, a
Speaker 1: way to celebrate, a way to mourn. It's all the things.
Speaker 1: It's vehicle for many things. I wonder, may have you
Speaker 1: had any experience with this as far as you know,
Speaker 1: trying to exercise more or eat differently or is that
Speaker 1: not one of your one of your struggles? No, it
Speaker 1: definitely is. Again, I think Emily and I are like
Speaker 1: lost sisters, and I'm glad this podcast is bringing us together, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And let me tell you some of the strategies that
Speaker 1: I have used, and then Emily, you can decide whether
Speaker 1: you think some of these are things that you can
Speaker 1: adapt to your own life, right, because it's all about
Speaker 1: experimentation and playing with options and figuring out what works
Speaker 1: for you. So the first is, and I know you
Speaker 1: guys have had Katie Milkman on the show, but she
Speaker 1: talks about temptation bundling, and this is one of my favorites.
Speaker 1: So it basically just says you should pair a unpleasant activity,
Speaker 1: so let's say exercising or eating a kale salad in
Speaker 1: your case, with an immediately rewarding, intrinsically rewarding activity. So
Speaker 1: for me, when it comes to exercise, I actually save
Speaker 1: my favorite music and podcasts for exercise time. You can
Speaker 1: look forward to the aspect of now this paired bundle
Speaker 1: is really exciting to you, and that you don't allow
Speaker 1: yourself the treat of in other contexts. Yeah, that sounds
Speaker 1: like it makes a lot of sense. Besides temptation bundling,
Speaker 1: there's one more proven trick we can try, and it's
Speaker 1: actually why so many of us gravitate towards January first.
Speaker 1: To begin with, we're better at sticking with our goals
Speaker 1: when they are accompanied by any kind of fresh start,
Speaker 1: So it might be a birthday, moving to a new home,
Speaker 1: getting married, even honestly, the first day of spring works,
Speaker 1: the first day of the week works. But it's basically
Speaker 1: an opportunity for us to depart from old ways of
Speaker 1: being right baked in patterns of behavior that we used
Speaker 1: to have. I wonder why then New Year's resolutions so
Speaker 1: often fail, given I mean, you'd think that would be
Speaker 1: a good fresh start, right new year or knew me
Speaker 1: all of that. Yeah, Well, I think one challenge there
Speaker 1: is that people are setting a goal for the entire year,
Speaker 1: and we talked about how hard it is for us
Speaker 1: to sustain that kind of motivation over the course of
Speaker 1: such a long period of time. I think if their
Speaker 1: New Year's goal was okay, for the next five days,
Speaker 1: I'm going to try to go to the gym, and
Speaker 1: then they build on that. And you also want a
Speaker 1: feedback cycle, right, So, Emily, as I mentioned, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of these behavioral insights, they are contact specific.
Speaker 1: They depend so much on your personality type. What's worked
Speaker 1: what hasn't and so you really want to put on
Speaker 1: your scientists cap and test things out. And so you
Speaker 1: want to be in a situation where if that first
Speaker 1: week in which you're experimenting with a goal didn't work
Speaker 1: very well, you can pivot and you don't feel like
Speaker 1: you're failing, and you don't feel like you're giving up
Speaker 1: on the longer term goal. You are just changing your
Speaker 1: approach to actually getting there. And so you want to
Speaker 1: create a system where there is that plasticity, that malluability
Speaker 1: that allows you to change your strategy is needed. This
Speaker 1: is a really smart insight. Try to think of yourself
Speaker 1: as a habit scientist, not a judge. You're testing, gathering
Speaker 1: data and trying new things all the time. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think that sounds really good. And just thinking about what
Speaker 1: you said, my resolution is going to be to set
Speaker 1: a goal every Monday. So like every Monday at two
Speaker 1: o'clock when I'm tired and hungry, I'm going to set
Speaker 1: a goal for the week and then reset it on
Speaker 1: the next Monday and be like and then I'll be
Speaker 1: able to say, Okay, how did last week go? How
Speaker 1: can I prove this week? And go from there. One
Speaker 1: thing I always notice is when people write to us
Speaker 1: and we go back to their original email, there's a
Speaker 1: lot in the words that can be helpful. And I
Speaker 1: noticed in your original email to us, Emily, you set
Speaker 1: things like I am lacking in discipline or routine or control,
Speaker 1: and then you ended it by saying, I don't know
Speaker 1: why I keep failing to control myself. So there's a
Speaker 1: lot of judgment here, right, am I right? That hit
Speaker 1: pretty hard? Yeah, I just I don't know, Like, I'm
Speaker 1: just surrounded by influences and people who can set a
Speaker 1: goal and maintain it and are disciplined and are structured,
Speaker 1: and like that's something that like I see them achieve
Speaker 1: and then are praised for. And then I turn around
Speaker 1: and look at myself and I think, like, if everyone
Speaker 1: else can do it, why can't you? And so yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think You're not alone here. So I don't
Speaker 1: mean to be making you feel bad about feeling bad
Speaker 1: about feeling bad, right, but I just want to note
Speaker 1: it and ask Maya, I'm assuming there's a pattern that
Speaker 1: we know about in the human brain, right, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: I first want to clarify, Emily, you just use the
Speaker 1: language why can I do this thing? That everyone else
Speaker 1: can do. Yeah, I don't know who everyone else is
Speaker 1: in your world, but they're not the same everyone else
Speaker 1: that's in my world or that I study or that
Speaker 1: I read research papers about. So I think one is
Speaker 1: like broadening your understanding of just how normal this is
Speaker 1: for for any given human to experience. And I think
Speaker 1: what really resonates with me? And again this is where
Speaker 1: I see such similarities in our personalities, but just a
Speaker 1: desperate need for control. And I feel really frustrated. It's
Speaker 1: like I feel frustrated that I didn't reach my goal,
Speaker 1: and I feel a meta level of frustration that I
Speaker 1: didn't have the control that I thought I had to
Speaker 1: achieve the goal. And so it's just like levels of
Speaker 1: frustration building on frustration, right, And one thing that's good
Speaker 1: to acknowledge from the research literature is that we really
Speaker 1: do love being in the driver's seat. We love having
Speaker 1: control over situations. In fact, there's a phenomenon known as
Speaker 1: the illusion of control, where we regularly overstate the role
Speaker 1: we played in driving certain outcomes. All right, So this
Speaker 1: is really baked into the human psyche. And so I
Speaker 1: think the thing that you can do is try to
Speaker 1: figure out how you can build agency and control into
Speaker 1: the goal setting process so that you feel that you're
Speaker 1: in charge. But it's also okay for you again to
Speaker 1: have built in some of that slack and to have
Speaker 1: not met the goals all the time. So there's research
Speaker 1: showing that when we set our own goals were better
Speaker 1: at achieving them. The other thing that I would encourage
Speaker 1: people who are going through, who are writing up their
Speaker 1: New Year's resolutions to do is, as part of that exercise,
Speaker 1: take stock of all the stuff that's going great that
Speaker 1: you're really happy you don't have to change. Because we're
Speaker 1: always focused on, you know, the negative parts of ourselves
Speaker 1: that we wish that we could improve, and I think
Speaker 1: it's a very healthy exercise to remember how much stuff
Speaker 1: is running in the background seamlessly, is actually going quite
Speaker 1: well for ourselves. And that form of gratitude I think
Speaker 1: can actually embolden us in trying to reach, you know,
Speaker 1: the very narrow set of goals that we specify for ourselves.
Speaker 1: I like that, and I like thinking specifically about the
Speaker 1: question what's going well, what went well today, you know,
Speaker 1: as opposed to like a gratitude journal, which I've never,
Speaker 1: never has felt totally natural Emily, what went well today?
Speaker 1: I think this morning actually I had oatmeal for breakfast
Speaker 1: and so that went well. That was a good start.
Speaker 1: I did get a good walk in during lunch, and
Speaker 1: so it's sunny outside and warm outside, so I was
Speaker 1: able to get some just general outside playtime today, So
Speaker 1: that was really good. Yeah, there's a lot going good today. Awesome. Well,
Speaker 1: has this been helpful overall, Emily? Yes, Like whenever I
Speaker 1: was coming into this, I was like kind of unsure
Speaker 1: because like I've been an athlete for so long, and
Speaker 1: like I know how to cycles, I know how to
Speaker 1: like discipline myself, and I was like, what really knew
Speaker 1: am I going to learn here? But like there has
Speaker 1: been so much that I've didn't think about before, and
Speaker 1: so that's I just can't thank you enough, Maya for
Speaker 1: taking the time to help me. And I think you
Speaker 1: can hear my son now, but he thinks you too.
Speaker 1: It was so nice to meet you and wishing you
Speaker 1: the best of luck. Thank you to Emily for reaching
Speaker 1: out to us, and to Maya for all of her
Speaker 1: great advice. Make sure to look for her excellent show.
Speaker 1: Slight Change of Plans will include a link to her
Speaker 1: podcast in the show notes, as well as a couple
Speaker 1: of other episodes we've done in the past about healthy eating,
Speaker 1: because let's face it, this is a big and complicated
Speaker 1: problem and one episode may not be enough. And by
Speaker 1: the way, we got a really nice note from Emily
Speaker 1: after our conversation. She says she's been able to cut
Speaker 1: down on snacking at work so far, and she's working
Speaker 1: on setting short term sprint goals for the new year.
Speaker 1: What about you? What are the rest of you working
Speaker 1: on in twenty twenty three? What resolution can we help
Speaker 1: you keep? Send us a note at how to at
Speaker 1: slate dot com or leave us a voicemail at six
Speaker 1: four six four nine five four zero zero one, and
Speaker 1: we'd love to have you on the show. If you
Speaker 1: like what you heard today, you know what to do.
Speaker 1: Give us a rating and a review, and tell a
Speaker 1: friend that helps us help more people. How To's executive
Speaker 1: producer is Derek John Rosemary Belson, and Kevin Bendis produced
Speaker 1: this episode. Merritt Jacob is our senior technical director, and
Speaker 1: Charles Duhigg created the show. I'm Amanda Ripley. Thanks for listening.