Speaker 1: You know. Motivation and willpower obviously are important in getting started.
Speaker 1: One has to be aware of a goal and be
Speaker 1: committed to it. But once you reach that point, willpower
Speaker 1: is seriously overrated. Welcome to the one you feed throughout time.
Speaker 1: Great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Our
Speaker 1: guest this week is Dr John Norcross, who is an
Speaker 1: internationally recognized expert on behavior change. He is Distinguished Professor
Speaker 1: of Psychology at the University of Scranton and a Board
Speaker 1: certified psychologist. He is author of the acclaim self help
Speaker 1: book Change Oology, and has authored over four publications and
Speaker 1: has co written and edited twenty two books, principally in
Speaker 1: the areas of psychotherapy, clinical psychology, professional training, and self change.
Speaker 1: I was particularly interested to talk to him because he
Speaker 1: is one of the researchers who has been involved in
Speaker 1: how to change our behavior for a long time him
Speaker 1: and is really regarded as a true expert in this field.
Speaker 1: So here is our interview with Dr John Norcross. Hi, John,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric, my pleasure to
Speaker 1: join you. I am really excited to have you on.
Speaker 1: We're going to discuss your book, which is called Changeology,
Speaker 1: Five Steps to Realize in your Goals and Resolutions, and
Speaker 1: it's really good and it's right in the sweet spot
Speaker 1: of what we talk about on this show and a
Speaker 1: lot of the work that I do with my coaching clients.
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, let's start, like we
Speaker 1: always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking
Speaker 1: with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good one, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear, and
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandfather and says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says the when you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. That parable means many
Speaker 1: things to me, but three or four immediately jump out. First,
Speaker 1: that humans are invariably composed of this multitude of conflicting parts,
Speaker 1: good and bad, love and hate, extrovert and introvert. In psychology,
Speaker 1: it could be it in super ego or top dog
Speaker 1: and underdog, and other classic polarities. Second, the parable means
Speaker 1: that we sew what we reap, be careful which parts
Speaker 1: of us we nourish and promote. That's the self or
Speaker 1: wolf that will eventually predominate. Third, I also like the
Speaker 1: parable because it demonstrates that it is largely within our
Speaker 1: powers to determine which self or wolf, if you will,
Speaker 1: we become. And finally, as a relatively new grandparent, I
Speaker 1: adore the transfer wisdom across the generation grandparents to grandchild.
Speaker 1: Now that's a wolf we should all feed. Amen to
Speaker 1: that and congratulations. Thank you. All right, so let's jump
Speaker 1: into your book, and I want to start with a
Speaker 1: really important point, and I'm just gonna read something you wrote.
Speaker 1: You say, one of the colossal mistakes people make when
Speaker 1: trying to change is overestimating the value of motivation while
Speaker 1: underestimating learnable skills. And what I love about that is
Speaker 1: that people tend to think that they're just not able
Speaker 1: to change, or there are a certain type of person,
Speaker 1: or I think one of the things I've really learned
Speaker 1: is that yes, change is possible if you know how
Speaker 1: to do it. So talk a little bit about that
Speaker 1: for me, please, I would love to. I like to
Speaker 1: scream it from the rooftops. The science of behavior change
Speaker 1: and we can harness the power of that in order
Speaker 1: to help people change both minor habits and major life transformations.
Speaker 1: You know, motivation and willpower obviously are important in getting started.
Speaker 1: One has to be aware of a goal and be
Speaker 1: committed to it. But once you reach that point, willpower
Speaker 1: is seriously overrated. And in fact, in one of our studies,
Speaker 1: people who almost exclusively use willpower failed at twice the
Speaker 1: rate of everyone else. Because it's exactly at that point
Speaker 1: that you need skills, do this, do that, watch that,
Speaker 1: make sure you do this, rather than the rah rah ra.
Speaker 1: So we call this the willpower myth. People believe the
Speaker 1: willpower is the end all and beat all, and in fact,
Speaker 1: as you know and virtually all coaches and psychotherapists know,
Speaker 1: willpower is necessary early on but actually hurts later in
Speaker 1: the change process. Yeah, exactly, And I think that's so important.
Speaker 1: And again I think the message there, I think is
Speaker 1: critical is you can learn and how to make changes.
Speaker 1: Have you've failed in the past at changing things, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you're going to fail again if you
Speaker 1: have different skills. That's exactly the case. And that's the
Speaker 1: secret of our forty years of research into how people
Speaker 1: do change by themselves. It's the stage matching, doing the
Speaker 1: right thing at the right time. Yes, and so let's
Speaker 1: go into that. You have been part of some of
Speaker 1: the seminal research on how we change behavior and something
Speaker 1: that I have done a lot of study on myself.
Speaker 1: And you guys identified five distinct stages of behavior change,
Speaker 1: and your book you modify them a little bit. So
Speaker 1: I want to stick with your book and have you
Speaker 1: tell us what are the five steps in your book?
Speaker 1: Of change. The first stage is the psych stage that's
Speaker 1: getting motivated, aroused, eager. The second stage is then the
Speaker 1: prep short for preparation, taking those little baby steps and
Speaker 1: moving forward. Third is the perspire stage, in which you
Speaker 1: jump into action, modifying your behavior and the environment to
Speaker 1: pursue the goal. But we know it doesn't stop there.
Speaker 1: The fourth stage is persevere that you keep going, and
Speaker 1: fifth and last is the maintenance or what we prefer
Speaker 1: to call the persist stage. So it's psych, prep, perspire, persevere,
Speaker 1: and persist. So when people asked me how to change,
Speaker 1: I say, well, I know you're eager to hear the
Speaker 1: how to do it. But the key to successful behavior
Speaker 1: change is when you do what m right. And you
Speaker 1: call that step matching, where the activities that you do
Speaker 1: match the stage that you're in, and that you also
Speaker 1: refer to step mismatching, where you're doing activities or things
Speaker 1: that don't align where with the stage that you're in,
Speaker 1: and that when you're matched, you're doing well, and when
Speaker 1: you're not, you're failing or you're more likely to fail.
Speaker 1: And and you've already introduced one of those the excessive
Speaker 1: use of willpower and arousing emotions once you get into
Speaker 1: the action or perspire stage that actually sends you backwards,
Speaker 1: your sabotaging yourself. Once you're in that action or perspire stage,
Speaker 1: one needs to go to the skills now. Conversely, when
Speaker 1: you begin, it's too early for the skills because you're
Speaker 1: not there yet. You do need to track your progress,
Speaker 1: to commit, to raise your awareness, to arouse your emotions,
Speaker 1: to get to the starting line, so to speak. So
Speaker 1: it really is doing the right thing at the right time.
Speaker 1: Where once you get into perspire, persevere and persist in
Speaker 1: what way does willpower or sort of reflecting on your
Speaker 1: commitment or your why right? How does that get us
Speaker 1: into trouble? Well, if it's the occasional reminder, it proves helpful.
Speaker 1: But instead of using skill pills, people just try to
Speaker 1: raw raw rab themselves. To take a recent example, a
Speaker 1: patient return to me who had largely conquered his addiction
Speaker 1: for fifteen years, and as he began experiencing cravings again
Speaker 1: after the loss of his long term spouse, he just
Speaker 1: tried to keep saying I can do it, I can
Speaker 1: do it, like the little engine. I had to patiently
Speaker 1: remind him it was the skills that were necessary he
Speaker 1: needed to reward himself. He needed to catch his thinking
Speaker 1: that he's been abstinent for fifteen years. He needed to
Speaker 1: learn how to deal with the cravings, not as a slogan,
Speaker 1: but as a series of skills. He needed to rearrange
Speaker 1: his environment. He needed to reach out to his support system.
Speaker 1: They are all skills, as you said, Eric, that any
Speaker 1: of us can learn. So it's do this, do that
Speaker 1: when you're in the perspire, not I can do it.
Speaker 1: I can do it. I can do it. Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 1: And so I think one of the things that's important
Speaker 1: here is most of us when we think of change,
Speaker 1: we think of the perspire stage, right, which is, if
Speaker 1: I want to start an exercise routine, I just start
Speaker 1: running tomorrow. Right. That's where our our mindset is. We
Speaker 1: don't think about the two stages before or the stages after,
Speaker 1: about how you keep going. And I mentioned the coaching
Speaker 1: work that I do, and I used to work with
Speaker 1: people much more short term, but I realized over time
Speaker 1: that we would be in the perspire stage, stop working together,
Speaker 1: and they would not have the skills to keep it going.
Speaker 1: What you call persevere and persist. That's exactly the case,
Speaker 1: particularly Americans conflate the entirety of the change process with
Speaker 1: beginning at that perspire or action stage. But as most
Speaker 1: of us know, you have to get up and ready
Speaker 1: for action, and that means identifying goals, tracking your progress,
Speaker 1: taking the baby steps, committing I might add, Eric, And
Speaker 1: since you have lots of experience traveling that in other
Speaker 1: parts of the world, particularly Europe, there is far better
Speaker 1: respect for the early steps or stages that prepare you
Speaker 1: and get you motivated. We Americans seem to think change
Speaker 1: means your behavior tomorrow right right exactly. And so one
Speaker 1: of the things that's really interesting about your research is
Speaker 1: that the idea of going through these steps in order
Speaker 1: is so important. You say, each step that you take
Speaker 1: nearly doubles the probability of your long term success. So
Speaker 1: I think what you're saying is people who do psych
Speaker 1: and get through that into prep they've doubled their chance.
Speaker 1: And each time you successfully complete a step, you're doing
Speaker 1: the same thing exactly. So, and that's what makes it
Speaker 1: such a powerful key to guiding successful behavior change. And
Speaker 1: we also find that in all kinds of studies. As
Speaker 1: you know, Eric, there's been well over a thousand studies
Speaker 1: using this stages of change model and everything imaginable, from
Speaker 1: addictions to depression, to spousal abuse to eating disorders and
Speaker 1: the like. Each step one masters you move up the
Speaker 1: probability of success. And if you think about it, it
Speaker 1: makes perfect sense. If you were to say bacon apple pie, well,
Speaker 1: you couldn't just sit there at the stove and say, well,
Speaker 1: now I'm going to bake. You know, you would have
Speaker 1: to buy the ingredients, you would have to carve out
Speaker 1: some time, you'd have to turn on the oven, you
Speaker 1: have to make the pie. In virtually all complex human activities,
Speaker 1: there's a sequence, a matter of stages to get there successfully. Right.
Speaker 1: So the other thing that you talk about that is
Speaker 1: important is you talk about preparing to follow the program
Speaker 1: for nine days. You say, research indicates that people who
Speaker 1: maintain a goal for a week gradually slipped back. But
Speaker 1: research shows that almost all the people who maintain a
Speaker 1: new behavior for three months make the change permanent. They're shure,
Speaker 1: we're shorter, and my publisher wish it were shorter, because
Speaker 1: then we could make outrageous claims the five day five
Speaker 1: steps in five days, right, Well, why not exactly think
Speaker 1: your brain in hours? But both brain and behavioral research
Speaker 1: can vincingly demonstrate it really is about ninety days to
Speaker 1: traverse all these stages and to get to the place
Speaker 1: that it becomes an ingrained, permanent lifestyle rather than a
Speaker 1: temporary run. As we frequently say, behavior change is not
Speaker 1: the hundred yard dash. It is indeed a marathon. You
Speaker 1: need to concretely build in the new behavior, resist temptations,
Speaker 1: and then maintain it over time. And I'm sorry, folks,
Speaker 1: it really is ninety days, yep, But I mean that's
Speaker 1: pretty good news. Ninety days is three months. I mean
Speaker 1: that is not it's not the twenty one days a
Speaker 1: lot of us keep hearing, you know about habit change,
Speaker 1: But it's also not forever. And there are very clear
Speaker 1: things that you do in each of these stages, and
Speaker 1: there's very clear things that you do as we get
Speaker 1: into persevere or persist or maintenance that make it more
Speaker 1: likely we're going to get there. But before we do that,
Speaker 1: I want to talk about the contemplation stay age or
Speaker 1: the psych stage, because you talk a lot about people
Speaker 1: who get stuck there, that this is a place we
Speaker 1: often get stuck. Indeed, we call chronic contemplation. You're aware
Speaker 1: of what you want to achieve and where you want
Speaker 1: to arrive, but you're simply not ready yet. And to
Speaker 1: the extent that we're all anxious about behavior changed, we
Speaker 1: all struggle. The more difficult it is to get out
Speaker 1: of the contemplation stage and into preparation and action. In fact,
Speaker 1: that's where most people get stuck. And it may be because,
Speaker 1: as you mentioned earlier, they have failed before, they have
Speaker 1: lacked the experience and skills to know what to do
Speaker 1: at the right time. As a result, they may be demoralized,
Speaker 1: They may be feeding themselves self defeating thoughts like it
Speaker 1: will never happen, or they may have unrealistic expectations about
Speaker 1: the ease. You know, our research shows virtually all big
Speaker 1: behavioral changes it is going to take a couple of
Speaker 1: times in order to make it. So if you try
Speaker 1: to change a behavior reach your goal and you don't
Speaker 1: succeed the first time, that pretty much beings your human
Speaker 1: rather than you can't change right right, And I was
Speaker 1: going to come to this at a later point in
Speaker 1: the conversation, but it's so important we might as well
Speaker 1: hit it because we're kind of there right now, which
Speaker 1: is it is a process of you say, slipping learning
Speaker 1: from the mistake and trying again. Right, we are inevitably
Speaker 1: not going to be perfect at what we do. There
Speaker 1: are going to be slips, and knowing that that's the
Speaker 1: case is so important. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: find is so important is if you know that, then
Speaker 1: you can just learn from it, like you say, without
Speaker 1: all the emotional baggage that comes. Because what ends up
Speaker 1: happening for a lot of us is we slip and
Speaker 1: then we start telling ourselves how we can't do it,
Speaker 1: and all this baggage and emotional stuff come is up
Speaker 1: that really blocks the learning process of learning. Okay, well
Speaker 1: what happened there, all right, let me tweak this, let
Speaker 1: me do this a little bit differently, exactly so, And
Speaker 1: that's part of those unrealistic expectations. The single slip suddenly
Speaker 1: transforms into the permanent fall. Demoralization and resignation results just
Speaker 1: as you said, and people don't try it again. By contrast,
Speaker 1: once people realize slip is a natural occurrence and it
Speaker 1: need not derail your entire process, people keep going on
Speaker 1: without that guilt and embarrassment. And in fact, in one
Speaker 1: of our New Year's resolution studies, the people who were
Speaker 1: eventually successful in their resolutions told us that their first
Speaker 1: slip actually strengthened their resolution. In fact, it was over
Speaker 1: three quarters of them, and they said that woke me up.
Speaker 1: It made me recommit redo the skills. And this is,
Speaker 1: just as I said earlier, a natural part of learning.
Speaker 1: And by the way, Eric, we would never ever think
Speaker 1: a single slip would be a fall in any other activity.
Speaker 1: Imagine trying to play the piano and failing once or
Speaker 1: twice on a particular piece and giving up, Or how
Speaker 1: about math problems or hitting a tennis back end. If
Speaker 1: we all gave up after a single slip, no one
Speaker 1: would be growing and developing at all. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to behavior change, we had these outrageous expectations of ourselves. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally agree. The other thing that you mentioned is
Speaker 1: that the number of slips does not predict whether or
Speaker 1: not you will eventually reach your goal. And I think
Speaker 1: that's so important because it does take time. I often
Speaker 1: talk to people I'm a recovering alcoholic and heroin addict,
Speaker 1: and so that spaces, you know, a place I've been
Speaker 1: in for for a long time, and I often think about,
Speaker 1: you know, recovery for most people that I see is
Speaker 1: sort of what we're describing here. It's like I come in,
Speaker 1: I start doing something that can quite work. So I
Speaker 1: come back, I start doing a few things, I get
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit more time, and then it didn't work.
Speaker 1: And it's this process of just sort of learning what
Speaker 1: works for me. Like you said, my experiences people who
Speaker 1: have slipped a bunch or relapsed a bunch of it's
Speaker 1: not an indicator that they can't do it. It's not
Speaker 1: an indicator of long term sobriety not being possible. It's
Speaker 1: a learning process exactly so. And it's also trial and
Speaker 1: error learning about what to do when right, that is,
Speaker 1: and that's the key to that stage matching. So many
Speaker 1: people creatively adapt change techniques every week. I'm impressed by
Speaker 1: my patients and my students, but unfortunately they don't understand
Speaker 1: the big picture, the forest from the tree, so to speak.
Speaker 1: So they come up with brilliant ways of motivating themselves
Speaker 1: and getting emotional. They don't realize they're doing it at
Speaker 1: the wrong time. So my professional coaching is just to
Speaker 1: have them do the right thing at the right time,
Speaker 1: and that's when the magic occurs. Yep, exactly. And so
Speaker 1: I want to talk about another idea here, which is
Speaker 1: really around, you know, sort of looking at our motivation,
Speaker 1: are our goals, and you talk about using two energy sources.
Speaker 1: When we're looking at you talk about being pushed and pulled,
Speaker 1: and so it's really on one hand, we're looking at
Speaker 1: the negative consequences of of what has happened to us.
Speaker 1: Some people focus exclusively on that, and then you also
Speaker 1: talk about the positive consequences are positive things that might happen,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people really focus on that, but
Speaker 1: you really encourage people to use both of those things,
Speaker 1: and you call them energy sources, and obviously using two
Speaker 1: is better than one. That's exactly right. We sometimes refer
Speaker 1: to this as Dr Doolittle's two headed push pull lama,
Speaker 1: because we know two heads or two energy sources are
Speaker 1: better than one. So on the one hand, or the
Speaker 1: one head, if you'll pardon a pun, pushed away from
Speaker 1: the problem because you can't stand it any longer, so
Speaker 1: you are pushed by your disgust. On the other hand
Speaker 1: or head, you're pulled toward change in the new behavior.
Speaker 1: So it is a push pull. And our research indicates
Speaker 1: that using both sources of energy are better than either alone.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure You've seen this many times in your
Speaker 1: own practice. Eric. We see people sort of like Calvinists,
Speaker 1: who say, I'm just going to be disgusted by how
Speaker 1: I've already acted and that will get me there. I
Speaker 1: also see some other people, say, let's call him the
Speaker 1: California surfers, who say, nah, man, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into that negative head trip. I'm just gonna like
Speaker 1: see the world is full of fluffy clouds, and I'm
Speaker 1: moving towards my ideal dream. You know, I'm gonna have
Speaker 1: a dream board, I'm gonna have slogans. And I say, well,
Speaker 1: why would we not use both potential sources. Let's be
Speaker 1: pushed and repulsed by what we don't like while we're
Speaker 1: simultaneously drawn to that better ideal future. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that said so well. And I was being interviewed on
Speaker 1: a podcast several days ago, and people were asking me
Speaker 1: about the concept of a bottom. How important is hitting
Speaker 1: a bottom right? And I said, well, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things I could say about that, but
Speaker 1: what I would say is that that's not sufficient. Right.
Speaker 1: What worked for me was when a series of negative
Speaker 1: consequences came together with hope of a different future, and
Speaker 1: then the right support. When those three things sort of
Speaker 1: came together, and that was the sort of fertile ground
Speaker 1: that my sobriety or change came out of. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of really what we're talking about here. It's
Speaker 1: the negative consequences, but it's also the hope. It's the
Speaker 1: vision of what might be. And in my experience, if
Speaker 1: those both aren't there in some measure, the change isn't
Speaker 1: in a last yes, So the delicate balance is how
Speaker 1: to get both of them. So we suggest that every
Speaker 1: time you reflect on your problem or your goal, develop
Speaker 1: that habit of considering both the nasty present and the
Speaker 1: wonderful future. After you change, you can train yourself to
Speaker 1: reflect on both and to be propelled by both, and
Speaker 1: obviously that doubles the energy and noticeably increases the success. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I am right on there with you. So I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the importance of a change team or
Speaker 1: a support team, or having people in your corner, you know,
Speaker 1: talk about how important this is. Well, it's incredibly important,
Speaker 1: particularly in the long run. So here's the fascinating thing
Speaker 1: about this social support. Sometimes we call them the delta team,
Speaker 1: delta meaning change or your change team. So support is
Speaker 1: not particularly helpful in the short run. It appears that
Speaker 1: virtually all of us can get started without social support,
Speaker 1: and even in the presence of some negative or nagging
Speaker 1: people in our lives. But our research and that of
Speaker 1: other shows very quickly, usually within two weeks to a month.
Speaker 1: The absence of the helping relationships predicts who will fail.
Speaker 1: So you might get started and go it alone, but
Speaker 1: no man is an island a month into their change attempt.
Speaker 1: That's when you need people to guide you, to support you,
Speaker 1: to remind you of your successes, perhaps to do some
Speaker 1: of the change with you. They're a wonderful asset, and
Speaker 1: even though they may not be particularly helpful early on,
Speaker 1: we like everyone to have created their go team early
Speaker 1: in the change process to see them through the later stages.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things that's recommended to do in
Speaker 1: the prep phase. Well, it starts in the prep stage,
Speaker 1: so they're with you through the perspire, the persistent, the persevere.
Speaker 1: Each stage requires something a little different from your helping team.
Speaker 1: As you can imagine. Early on, it's more motivation and
Speaker 1: goal setting. Once you get started, they can share some
Speaker 1: of their experiences, their techniques, remind you that you're doing well,
Speaker 1: and then once you're in that persevere they're going to
Speaker 1: remind you how well you've done. They may be the
Speaker 1: people you contact if when you're experiencing cravings or when
Speaker 1: you're tempted to give it all up, So their task
Speaker 1: will also evolve across the steps or stages. Makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1: So one of the strategies that is used in the
Speaker 1: action phase or the perspired phase is countering, and I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk a little bit more about countering. Countering
Speaker 1: is essentially right putting in a positive behavior in place
Speaker 1: of the negative behavior. But you talk about some different
Speaker 1: countering methods, and I think it's really useful to think
Speaker 1: through what some of these are. So can we talk
Speaker 1: through some of the most common countering methods? You bet? So?
Speaker 1: Countering short for the long jargon of counter conditioning, is
Speaker 1: doing the healthy opposite. And for virtually every problem in goal,
Speaker 1: there is a healthy opposite. So let's say one is
Speaker 1: battling anxiety. What's the healthy opposite of that, Well, it's relaxation.
Speaker 1: But it's not enough just simply to know the opposite.
Speaker 1: You have to develop and practice the skills. Otherwise. The
Speaker 1: Sigmund Freud once observed it's like showing a starving person
Speaker 1: a menu and not giving them any food. So for
Speaker 1: the anxious person, we would teach relaxation, biofeedback, mindfulness. If
Speaker 1: physical activity also helps soothe your anxiety, then it might
Speaker 1: be an exercise program. If you're battling depression, the two
Speaker 1: major components of that are social withdrawal and low mood.
Speaker 1: So for the social withdrawal, there would behavioral activation, getting
Speaker 1: out there, pushing yourself to be regularly involved with other
Speaker 1: people and pleasurable activities. To capture your mood, it would
Speaker 1: be doing some a we call cognitive restructuring. For people
Speaker 1: who are avoiding things in their life, then the healthy
Speaker 1: opposite or countering technique would be exposing themselves intentionally to
Speaker 1: them slowly and perhaps in the imagination first, and perhaps
Speaker 1: with a member of your change or helping team. So
Speaker 1: for every problem there's a healthy opposite, you need to
Speaker 1: not only identify it, but then to practice those particular skills.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about a simple one. I know that
Speaker 1: a lot of people that listen to the show, we've
Speaker 1: gotten a lot of response in the past when we
Speaker 1: talk about eating, emotional eating, or you know, people who
Speaker 1: have sort of identified like, all right, I'm eating and
Speaker 1: it's more than just being hungry. What is one of
Speaker 1: the counters you would have people use in a point
Speaker 1: where they're dealing with that, so for that to take
Speaker 1: their goal. We would identify U two sources of problematic behavior.
Speaker 1: The first is obviously the overeating itself, and the second
Speaker 1: is the residual emotional hunger. What you're trying to address
Speaker 1: with the hunger for the eating itself. The healthy opposite
Speaker 1: of overeating is obviously not eating as much. So that
Speaker 1: could be having healthier snacks, portion control, going to the refrigerator,
Speaker 1: opening it but refusing to take anything out. It might
Speaker 1: be physical activity. I've discovered it's very difficult to eat
Speaker 1: when I'm on the treadmill or swimming, particularly swimming. Have
Speaker 1: a funny picture of me doing the side stroke with
Speaker 1: chocolate cake. It's very hard to eat while exercising. So
Speaker 1: there's lots of those concrete techniques that are the healthy
Speaker 1: opposite of overeating. A little more complex is what's the
Speaker 1: healthy opposite of the emotional hunger one would have to
Speaker 1: discover is that lower self esteem, boredom, loneliness. Once you
Speaker 1: understand of what psychological need that is, then you practice
Speaker 1: the healthy opposite of that. Yeah, I think that's so
Speaker 1: so spot on. Um, you know, my girlfriend has made
Speaker 1: a lot of progress over the last six or seven
Speaker 1: years with this, and she said something that all just
Speaker 1: continues to ring out for me related to this, and
Speaker 1: she said, you know, when I thought that all I
Speaker 1: wanted was a cupcake, the only solution was a cupcake.
Speaker 1: But when I realized that there was something else going
Speaker 1: on emotionally, like let's just say loneliness. Well, there's lots
Speaker 1: of ways to solve loneliness, you know, And I think
Speaker 1: that's kind of what you're getting at here exactly. So
Speaker 1: in Janine Ross's book title, it's feeding the hungry heart,
Speaker 1: find what emotionally the food is doing for you, and
Speaker 1: then directly do the healthy opposite to satisfy that underlying need. Yep.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different you call them catalysts,
Speaker 1: and again you match the catalyst to the stage. But
Speaker 1: a catalyst that kind of spans multiple stages. One of
Speaker 1: the ones that does is tracking your progress. So tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about what you mean by tracking
Speaker 1: your progress. I think it's kind of obvious, but I'd
Speaker 1: like you to flesh it out a little bit, and
Speaker 1: then why is that so important? Sure thing? Well? Psychologists
Speaker 1: call this self monitoring, or, as the fame consultant Peter
Speaker 1: Drucker likes to say, in the management context, what's measured improves.
Speaker 1: The simple fact of measuring a behavior focuses our concentration
Speaker 1: on it, and as a result, we tend to put
Speaker 1: more time and thought into it and thus eventually change it.
Speaker 1: So at the very beginning, we like to collect what's
Speaker 1: called baseline data, how often are you engaging in the
Speaker 1: problem behavior or alternatively the goal creator, And by doing
Speaker 1: so you redirect your energy to it. And then as
Speaker 1: you move through the steps or stages of change, you
Speaker 1: begin to notice what causes or precipitates the problem. What
Speaker 1: are the feelings, the time of day, or the people
Speaker 1: that lead you to overeat, be more anxious, overspend under
Speaker 1: exercise that helps you tailor your treatment plans, so to speak. Later,
Speaker 1: as the behavior starts improving markedly, tracking progress immediately reinforces
Speaker 1: you about how well you're doing. Well, Look at this,
Speaker 1: I'm losing weight, I'm smoking fewer cigarettes, I'm doing less
Speaker 1: emotional overeating. My physical exercise is zooming and if you
Speaker 1: continue to track it once into the later steps or stages,
Speaker 1: you'll begin to notice, just being human, that we tend
Speaker 1: to slide bit so our activity level decreases, the sense
Speaker 1: of urgency decreases, and we may even experience a slip
Speaker 1: or as we psychologists called elapse. And by tracking your behavior,
Speaker 1: you're going to catch that as well. So what measures
Speaker 1: improves friends throughout the stages of change, track the progress.
Speaker 1: And there's lots of research that demonstrates this eric including
Speaker 1: one of my favorite examples the Weight Registry. Of people
Speaker 1: who have kept off at least fifty pounds for five
Speaker 1: or more years, their number one recommendation to anyone changing
Speaker 1: behavior is to self monitor or track your progress. In
Speaker 1: this case, track what you're eating and what your exercise
Speaker 1: habits are exactly. So yep, it's so important, it's so
Speaker 1: so useful. It's one of the things that I've just
Speaker 1: done for years now. You could ask me, like, did
Speaker 1: you meditate on December in you know, two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 1: I could say, well, it's gonna take me a few minutes,
Speaker 1: but I can answer that question, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: one of the things that I track. I have a friend,
Speaker 1: prominent psychologist Jerry Corey, has given me permission to tell
Speaker 1: this story. He records how much he exercises each week.
Speaker 1: He has it down on an excelf spreadsheet, and whenever
Speaker 1: I speak to him or we exchange emails, he'll tell
Speaker 1: me exactly how many hours he worked, never more than
Speaker 1: thirty five or forty hours a week, and exactly how
Speaker 1: many hours he exercised in the past week. It's what
Speaker 1: keeps him going, It motivates him, keeps him right on track. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan. The other thing that I have
Speaker 1: started doing really over the last year that I found
Speaker 1: to be interesting is mood tracking. Oh yes, right, Like
Speaker 1: I've got a little app that comes up on my
Speaker 1: phone and three or four times a day it just
Speaker 1: pops up and says, how are you feeling? And I
Speaker 1: go in and rate it one to ten, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I deal with the shi And also, and one of
Speaker 1: the things that happens to me with depression when I
Speaker 1: have a little bout of it is it says, you're
Speaker 1: always this way, and I love being able to go no, no,
Speaker 1: let's let's take a look like, let's let's look at
Speaker 1: the data and no, No, clearly I'm not that way.
Speaker 1: Or it also helps me sort of see like how
Speaker 1: am I doing? And since how I'm doing is such
Speaker 1: a subjective thing in one moment, it's really helpful to
Speaker 1: see the bigger picture of it. That's been another tracking
Speaker 1: that I've started doing that I found to be very helpful.
Speaker 1: And the same thing with urges to use an addictive
Speaker 1: or consumptive substance. People say, I deal with it all
Speaker 1: the time, Doc, you don't know how bad it is.
Speaker 1: It's ten out of ten when I have them track it.
Speaker 1: That's almost never the case. There are people and time
Speaker 1: and situations in which they experience virtually no urges to
Speaker 1: use that substance, right exactly. And I think that's so useful,
Speaker 1: And I really like this. You kind of went through
Speaker 1: it pretty quickly there. But talking about really understanding what
Speaker 1: your triggers and consequences are. We encourage self changers and
Speaker 1: my psychotherapy patients to become behavioral detectives. What is triggering this?
Speaker 1: By the way, here's where the twelve step groups are
Speaker 1: incredibly effective. They think about people, places, and things. So
Speaker 1: who are the people around that lead to the problem
Speaker 1: or the urge? Where are the places. What are the things,
Speaker 1: and we include under things certainly the feelings and thoughts.
Speaker 1: Behavior always occurs within this context. There's antecedents or triggers before,
Speaker 1: then the behavior, then the consequences triggering that anticedent behavior
Speaker 1: consequence almost always yields a rich array of solutions to
Speaker 1: the problem. Right, yep, yep. I love that time of
Speaker 1: day triggers behavior consequences and keeping track of that is
Speaker 1: so so important. So one of the things that you
Speaker 1: shared with me when we've talked is some of the
Speaker 1: things in the book that most resonate with people are
Speaker 1: that are most important to them, and one of them
Speaker 1: is dealing with urges or craving. So let's spend a
Speaker 1: minute and talk about that. There are proven ways to
Speaker 1: resist the urge Eric that most people just haven't thought of.
Speaker 1: And in fairness, most lay persons have never received formal
Speaker 1: training on changing their behavior, so I'm always encouraging colleagues
Speaker 1: to please teach, not judge. Most of our clients have
Speaker 1: not been exposed to this. So here's some quick, proven
Speaker 1: ways to resist that urge. First, take a breather, a
Speaker 1: few deep breaths and haling, and next, having slowing down
Speaker 1: your physical cravings and your runaway thinking. Secondly, knock it off.
Speaker 1: Challenge your thinking when you wind. For example, I need it,
Speaker 1: you know. Just dispute that nonsense and say you're not
Speaker 1: a five year old without free will. Next, say yes,
Speaker 1: I can remind yourself in no uncertain terms you have
Speaker 1: resisted successfully many times before. Next walk away. Research shows
Speaker 1: a brisk walk and removing yourself from the tempting situation
Speaker 1: certainly reduces urges. We've already talked about doing the healthy
Speaker 1: opposite countering, talk yourself down, asking that change team to
Speaker 1: talk you down. Distraction works for lots of people. Immediately,
Speaker 1: reward yourself rewards work when you're confronted with the craving.
Speaker 1: Reward yourself for keeping on on track. And finally we
Speaker 1: discuss this briefly, Eric, search yourself. You have to understand
Speaker 1: the emotional reasons for the old behavior in the first place,
Speaker 1: So remind yourself for the reason for your goal, remembering
Speaker 1: to use both sides are both energy source is that
Speaker 1: two headed push pull of motivation, push away from the
Speaker 1: disgusting behavior and pull away towards the brighter future. There's
Speaker 1: lots of ways, lots of in the moment methods for
Speaker 1: battling minor urges and lifelong temptations. That's great. Those are
Speaker 1: so many really good skills there. Well, John, this has
Speaker 1: been wonderful. I thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1: You and I are going to talk a little longer
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about two things. One of them
Speaker 1: is the very popular slip busters from the book, and
Speaker 1: then I also want to ask you a little bit
Speaker 1: about twelve step programs. Why do you think they work
Speaker 1: and in what cases do you think they work? Because
Speaker 1: I'm really fascinated by that in the context of your research.
Speaker 1: But again, John, thanks so much. We'll have links to
Speaker 1: the book and everything else in the show notes. But
Speaker 1: it's been a pleasure talking with you. It's been my pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much. By m If what you just heard
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