Speaker 1: You can use positive fantasies to kind of explore in
Speaker 1: your mind the possibilities of the future. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Yeah, thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest today is Gabrielle Ettingen, a professor of psychology
Speaker 1: at New York University and the University of Hamburg. Gabrielle's
Speaker 1: research focuses on how we think about the future and
Speaker 1: how this impacts our cognition, emotion, and behavior. Much of
Speaker 1: Gabrielle's research has been implemented into her Fantastic website whoop
Speaker 1: my life dot org. Gabrielle's first book, Rethinking Positive Thinking,
Speaker 1: was published in two thousand fourteen. Here's the interview. Hi Gabrielle,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. I
Speaker 1: know you're in Germany, so it's pretty late there, so
Speaker 1: I appreciate you staying up late for us. Well, my pleasure.
Speaker 1: So our podcast is called The One You Feed, and
Speaker 1: it's based on the parable of two Wolves, where there's
Speaker 1: a grand father who is talking with his grandson and
Speaker 1: he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of
Speaker 1: us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and
Speaker 1: the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like
Speaker 1: greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and
Speaker 1: he thinks about it for a second, and he he
Speaker 1: looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one 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, you know, my work
Speaker 1: is the work of a scientist, and UM, what does
Speaker 1: the scientist do? UM? He hopes to discover and he
Speaker 1: hopes to learn UM, and he hopes to get involved
Speaker 1: in what what's actually happening and UM. You know, the
Speaker 1: good side is that UM you get a lot of
Speaker 1: meaning out of discovering things you didn't know before. And
Speaker 1: you get a lot of meaning out of UM then
Speaker 1: taking these discoveries and UM telling other people and UM
Speaker 1: letting other people share. So I always had a lot
Speaker 1: of fun of just sort of learning more from UM,
Speaker 1: from the data and UM from all the surprises you
Speaker 1: get when you're a scientist and UM. And lately I
Speaker 1: had a lot of UM joy UM sharing these discoveries
Speaker 1: and seeing how people benefit from it. And that's the
Speaker 1: reason why I wrote the book. UM you're thinking positive
Speaker 1: thinking because UM, you know there's a message in there
Speaker 1: where I think people can benefit from and where I
Speaker 1: benefited a lot of from and UM people around me,
Speaker 1: and I saw my participants in the experiments benefiting from
Speaker 1: So that's that's UM. You know this the kind of
Speaker 1: meaningful and trusting and pleasurable side UM or the wolf
Speaker 1: who is kind of UM, you know, trying to make
Speaker 1: men excellent. Well, your book is called Rethinking, Positive Thinking,
Speaker 1: Inside the New Science and Motivation, and I think I
Speaker 1: first came across your work certainly before I saw the book,
Speaker 1: and I think it was perhaps Oliver Berkman was one
Speaker 1: of our very first guests, and I think he referenced
Speaker 1: your research. I think he did either in his book
Speaker 1: or in an article he wrote. So um, he was
Speaker 1: our second guest. So I had I had heard of
Speaker 1: you in your research a while ago, and when I
Speaker 1: saw that your book was out, I definitely wanted to
Speaker 1: have have a chance to talk with you. And so
Speaker 1: you mentioned in your intro there that one of the
Speaker 1: things you like about your work is is finding surprises.
Speaker 1: And I think that your research early on lead you
Speaker 1: into a surprise. I think you were in the book
Speaker 1: you say that you were very interested in the way
Speaker 1: people think and they're dreaming, and you thought that that
Speaker 1: sort of thing led to positive end results for them,
Speaker 1: and then when you started to do the research, you
Speaker 1: kind of came to a different conclusion. Can you share
Speaker 1: a little bit about what that research involved in what
Speaker 1: it led you to? Sure? Um, No, I was interested
Speaker 1: in in hope very early on. I was interested in hope.
Speaker 1: And I defined hope differently from UM what people in
Speaker 1: psychology defined hope. I defined hope UM kind of according
Speaker 1: to UM Black, sort of saying, you know, you have
Speaker 1: these kind of positive spirits and and the dreams despite
Speaker 1: that the odds are really bad and UM and UM.
Speaker 1: At that time this was the end of eight Days.
Speaker 1: In the beginning of the nineties, hope and optimism was
Speaker 1: actually UM kind of blurred and was kind of sort
Speaker 1: of defined as thing. And I thought, this, this is
Speaker 1: different and UM. In psychology, optimism was mostly defined as
Speaker 1: the likelihoods of whether there's certain events and behaviors happen
Speaker 1: in the future or not. So these were judgments people
Speaker 1: had about the likelihood that certain things will happen in
Speaker 1: the future. UM. But I thought there might be another
Speaker 1: way of thinking about the future, which is daydreaming and
Speaker 1: kind of just sort of imagining um the events and
Speaker 1: the behaviors of the future. And so I just differentiated
Speaker 1: these two ways of thinking about the future. And at
Speaker 1: the beginning, I thought, you know, we know that optimism
Speaker 1: in terms of expectations, UM, since these expectations are based
Speaker 1: on past performance, that they predict high effort and success.
Speaker 1: So I thought, probably these positive day dreams will predict
Speaker 1: effort and success as well. But then UM I did
Speaker 1: a study and what came out was that the more
Speaker 1: positively the participants, which were overweight women who were enrolled
Speaker 1: in a weight production program, the more positively they fantasized
Speaker 1: and day dreamt about the success in the weight loss program,
Speaker 1: the few pounds they lost so um part of the
Speaker 1: thinking suddenly led to low effort and low success. UM.
Speaker 1: So they lost few pounds three months and one year
Speaker 1: and even two years later, And so I thought I
Speaker 1: might have made a mistake here. Positive dreaming has kind
Speaker 1: of um problematic consequences. But then we did more and
Speaker 1: more and more um um studies and we found the
Speaker 1: same pattern over and over again. So, for example, the
Speaker 1: more positively UM university graduates fantasized about an easy transition
Speaker 1: into work life, UM, the fewer dollars they earned two
Speaker 1: years later and the fewer job offers to God. Or
Speaker 1: the more positively students fantasized about getting involved with the
Speaker 1: person of the opposite sex they were kind of um,
Speaker 1: kind of in love with, they had a crush on,
Speaker 1: the lower the likelihood that they actually got together with
Speaker 1: that person and so on. Also in the healthy area,
Speaker 1: the more positively hip replacement surgery patients fantasized about UM
Speaker 1: an easier recovery UM, the less well they did as
Speaker 1: judged by the physical therapists UM three weeks later. So
Speaker 1: it seems that these positive dreams and fantasies are pleasant
Speaker 1: at the moment, but over time they actually hurt the
Speaker 1: effort and they hurt the success to actually realize these
Speaker 1: positive fantasies. So they have good if you want for
Speaker 1: the pleasure, and they're relaxing. So we know, for example,
Speaker 1: that we induce these positive fantasies and daydreams and people relax,
Speaker 1: so the blood pressure goes down as compared to, for example,
Speaker 1: factual thoughts or questioning fantasies or negative fantasies or nothing. UM.
Speaker 1: So these positive fantasies relax you the pleasant at the moment,
Speaker 1: but in the long run, UM, they impede you from
Speaker 1: actually achieving these fantasies in real life. Your statement is
Speaker 1: pretty clear in the book that you you said, my
Speaker 1: research is confirmed that merely dreaming about the future makes
Speaker 1: people less likely to realize their dreams and wishes. That's
Speaker 1: that's exactly right. So UM, you know, I can use
Speaker 1: these positive fantasies to explore all the possibilities of the
Speaker 1: future or to just have pleasure when when I'm sitting
Speaker 1: at the beach and there's nothing to do. Actually, but
Speaker 1: when it really comes to realizing and kind of attaining
Speaker 1: these wishes, then I better watch out, and I watch
Speaker 1: out that I also consider the obstacles in me that
Speaker 1: impede me for actually realizing these positive dreams and fantasies.
Speaker 1: And that's what we learned from our participants. Because those
Speaker 1: who merely dreamt about the future, they actually were less
Speaker 1: likely to reach them. But those who are also considered
Speaker 1: the obstacles, the hindrance system temptations on the way to
Speaker 1: reaching these wishes, they did much better. So actually, what
Speaker 1: we what we did is then we build a theory
Speaker 1: on on what we learned from our participants in the
Speaker 1: early studies. I want to just spend another brief minute
Speaker 1: on this UM fantasizing, and I think you you do
Speaker 1: talk about in certain cases fantasizing is UM. It's useful
Speaker 1: for certain needs, it's useful for certain things, but it's
Speaker 1: not useful with anything that requires significant effort, energy, or commitment.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the good uses of of
Speaker 1: these positive fantasies. Well, you can use these positive fantasies
Speaker 1: to kind of explore in your mind the possibilities of
Speaker 1: the future. So, for example, UM, you have the fantasy
Speaker 1: of becoming a doctor or becoming a lawyer or something,
Speaker 1: so you can explore in your mind all the different
Speaker 1: tasks and all the different situations of doctor or lawyer
Speaker 1: uh may may encounter. So let's say you have, UM,
Speaker 1: throughout your generations, your family, UM, you know, they produced doctors.
Speaker 1: You're from a family who's just traditionally a medical family,
Speaker 1: so it's clear you should go and become a doctor
Speaker 1: as well. So you imagine what it would be like
Speaker 1: to be to become a doctor as a young person,
Speaker 1: and then um, you think about how wonderful it would
Speaker 1: be to you know, sit on the bed and sort
Speaker 1: of help the people to recover and um, to do
Speaker 1: the surgery or what have you. Just sort of how
Speaker 1: exciting it would be to help people, and um, to
Speaker 1: be proficient in in your job, or you might think
Speaker 1: about it's not is to have you know, to be
Speaker 1: an accomplished tructor, but actually I don't really like hospitals
Speaker 1: and the smells. I don't like it at all, and um,
Speaker 1: you know I don't want to sit there in the
Speaker 1: nights all along with all these patients. And so you
Speaker 1: can explore these possibilities and suddenly you feel maybe that's
Speaker 1: not for me, that's not something where I belong on
Speaker 1: which belongs to me. So you you explore in your
Speaker 1: mind and you can explore the possibilities of the future
Speaker 1: and then see what belongs to you and what the
Speaker 1: way your wishes really are. So that's one way you
Speaker 1: can use these positive fantasies. Another way is if you
Speaker 1: you know, if you need to wait, and um, you
Speaker 1: are in a bad mood. So just you know, positively
Speaker 1: fantasize about something easy going and you might get a
Speaker 1: better mode. But I don't expect that you then actually
Speaker 1: realize these positive fantasies. And then certainly positive fantasies are
Speaker 1: helpful if there is no way you can act. So
Speaker 1: if you have no possibilities to act your you're in
Speaker 1: a situation where you cannot actually achieve these vershes nor
Speaker 1: can you disengage from these wishes. So then positive fantasies
Speaker 1: are helpful too. But if you have the possibility to
Speaker 1: actually achieve them. And if you are in a situation
Speaker 1: where you can act, then the sheer positive fantasizing impedes
Speaker 1: you from acting because you fain already being there. You think,
Speaker 1: you're ups, I'm already there. You mentally enjoy the positive
Speaker 1: future and forget that it's not there yet and that
Speaker 1: you need to overcome these obstacles and temptations and the
Speaker 1: relinquishment to actually go all the way. And so you
Speaker 1: go in your book from this sort of initially thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe these dreams or fantasies, uh are are you know?
Speaker 1: The conventional wisdom is that these are helpful to get
Speaker 1: into your goals. And then you realize, well, maybe that's
Speaker 1: not the case. And uh, but you didn't really stop there.
Speaker 1: You kind of you you went on to the next stage,
Speaker 1: which is where you sort of came up with something
Speaker 1: that you call mental contrasting, which is where you still
Speaker 1: use the desire or the fantasy, but then you also
Speaker 1: use this technique called mental contrasting as a way to
Speaker 1: push you forward towards those goals. Can you describe what
Speaker 1: mental contrasting is? Yeah, exactly, Um, this is what we
Speaker 1: learned from our participants. So mental contrasting is first designing
Speaker 1: in your mind the positive future. So you do you
Speaker 1: look at a wish which is actually very dear to you.
Speaker 1: So you you do find a wish which is actually
Speaker 1: something that is important to you, not just anything, but
Speaker 1: something where you feel, this is really my wish. And
Speaker 1: what you do then is you imagine the wish coming
Speaker 1: true and you imagine the best outcome. You define the
Speaker 1: best outcome, and then you imagine the best outcome, and
Speaker 1: after you mentally experienced the best outcome, which is actually
Speaker 1: what we just talked about, the positive fantasies. Once you
Speaker 1: imagine that and you mentally experience the positive future, then
Speaker 1: you switch gears and then you say, mm hmm, what
Speaker 1: holds me back from achieving the switch and experiencing that outcome?
Speaker 1: What is it in me that stops me from going
Speaker 1: that way and from trying to achieve the wish and
Speaker 1: experiencing that outcome. What is my personal my inner obstacle?
Speaker 1: And and that's what metal contrasting is. So you design
Speaker 1: the future something which you really want, and then you
Speaker 1: switch gears and say, what is the resistance? What is
Speaker 1: the obstacle in me that stands in the way. And
Speaker 1: once you do that, you define the obstacle, and you
Speaker 1: identify the obstacle, and then you imagine the obstacle, and
Speaker 1: once you do that, you understand whether you can overcome
Speaker 1: the obstacle and actually achieve you wish or whether the
Speaker 1: obstacle is so formidable. Did you say no, I don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. I don't want to actually put
Speaker 1: all it put all the effort in there. Um Either
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that, so it's not worth
Speaker 1: actually going all the way. But then you know that
Speaker 1: your energy and your resources are better for something else,
Speaker 1: or you can also adjust you wish. So what mental
Speaker 1: contrasting really is the contrasting of the positive future with
Speaker 1: the obstacles in me that stands in the way. And
Speaker 1: once you do that, it's creating very clear whether and
Speaker 1: you can overcome the obstacular achieve the wish, and then
Speaker 1: you will really commit and go there and and do
Speaker 1: the planning and all the relinquishment to actually achieve the wish.
Speaker 1: And if the obstacle is too big, um, either you
Speaker 1: don't want to because something else is more important, or
Speaker 1: you cannot, then you say, okay, so get it. This
Speaker 1: was too big of a fantasy. Let's go and postpone
Speaker 1: or delegate do it another time, or just lets go
Speaker 1: from the fantasies. But then you can let go from
Speaker 1: the fantasies with a good conscience and you can actually
Speaker 1: invest in something else. So it's a way to kind
Speaker 1: of clean up. It's you can clean up your desk
Speaker 1: with it, but you can also clean up your life
Speaker 1: by prioritizing, um, what is really belonging to you and
Speaker 1: what you can do, and um, what is not so
Speaker 1: important to you, and to actually and not do. And
Speaker 1: this is really where I think what you're talking about
Speaker 1: takes that deviation from from the positive thinking, because the
Speaker 1: positive thinking idea is I think you're, you know, everything's
Speaker 1: kind of aligned on this, all right, let me think
Speaker 1: about what I want and let me fantasize about what
Speaker 1: I want. But the positive thinking thing is really about
Speaker 1: not imagining that anything could stand in your way and
Speaker 1: very much being like, well, I can have anything or
Speaker 1: I can do anything. And what I really like about
Speaker 1: the approach that you're bringing here is too is that
Speaker 1: you are, um, you're being realistic about what's happened. And
Speaker 1: I think that's what I really like and you talk
Speaker 1: about that. What's so helpful about this is that you
Speaker 1: are bringing together both the wish then the reality in
Speaker 1: this mental contrasting, and the studies that you did showed
Speaker 1: that this was a much more that people were much
Speaker 1: more effective in reaching their goals when they when they
Speaker 1: brought those two things together, the dream and the fantasy
Speaker 1: and then the reality or the obstacles that needed to
Speaker 1: be overcome. That's right. I mean, you can say why
Speaker 1: are we motivated? After mental contrasting? Now you can say
Speaker 1: what is motivation? Motivation is energy and you get the
Speaker 1: energies for mental contrasting because you see, there is resistance,
Speaker 1: so you need to have some energy to get over
Speaker 1: the resistance. Energy and direction. So the positive fantasies bring
Speaker 1: the direction and the resistance the obstacles that are in
Speaker 1: the way of reaching the positive fantasies they give the energy.
Speaker 1: So that is what motivation really is all about. You
Speaker 1: get the energy to go in a certain direction, namely
Speaker 1: to achieve your your wish. And that's the reason why
Speaker 1: mental contrasting is really helpful in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: sort of going loving it, doing it, and really sort
Speaker 1: of reaching it. Then and then leaving it um so
Speaker 1: that you get your energy free and you get freed
Speaker 1: of all these kind of lingering goals which which are
Speaker 1: on your mind and you never succeed to actually reach them,
Speaker 1: but you don't actually leave them either. So it's this
Speaker 1: kind of feeling of being overwhelmed and being kind of burned,
Speaker 1: and this kind of kind of feeling of upcoming burnout.
Speaker 1: So you can you can actually help these feelings go
Speaker 1: away by using mental contrasting on a daily basis. And
Speaker 1: what we did then is just sort of complement the
Speaker 1: mental contrasting exercise with adding a plan which is in
Speaker 1: the scientific literature called implementation intention, which has been discovered
Speaker 1: by Peter Goal Routes. And what that does is then
Speaker 1: once are identified, imagine the obstacle and I know now
Speaker 1: what to do in order to overcome the obstacle, I
Speaker 1: can actually add a plan which makes it even more
Speaker 1: effective to overcome that obstacle, in the form if the
Speaker 1: obstacle occurs, then I will perform the behavior to overcome
Speaker 1: the obstacle. So for example, if I'm let's say I
Speaker 1: have to wish UM to do really well at a
Speaker 1: talk or something, and UM, and then the best outcome
Speaker 1: would be I would be so relieved and kind of
Speaker 1: more efficacious, and um, then I imagine how wonderful it
Speaker 1: would be, how relieved I would feel if I had
Speaker 1: succeeded at that talk. Let's say my obstacle which I identify.
Speaker 1: If I'm kind of honest to me and with a
Speaker 1: little bit of humor, I could say, Okay, I'm really anxious.
Speaker 1: I'm really anxious sort of you know, giving this talk
Speaker 1: in front of that audience. And then I could say okay,
Speaker 1: and imagine the anxiety, and then what what could I
Speaker 1: do to overcome that anxiety? Well, I could tell myself, well,
Speaker 1: this is really something which I did quite a few times.
Speaker 1: I succeeded to speak in front of our audience, so
Speaker 1: there's really no reason to be anxious. And then you
Speaker 1: can put a plan behind it, and you could say, now,
Speaker 1: if the feeling of anxiety creeps up, then I will
Speaker 1: tell myself, come on, you did in the past really well,
Speaker 1: so this will work again. So so it is um
Speaker 1: a way of of complimenting the mental contrasting with adding
Speaker 1: on a plan. And that is what we define as whoop,
Speaker 1: and it's just an acronym for this fourth step process,
Speaker 1: it's wish outcome, and then you need to imagine the
Speaker 1: outcome and then you identify the obstacle in you get
Speaker 1: rid of all the excuses as you say, now what
Speaker 1: is it in me that stands in the way, and
Speaker 1: you imagine that personal obstacle in you? And then you say, okay,
Speaker 1: if obstacles occurs, then I will perform the behavior to
Speaker 1: overcome that obstacle. And um, you know, I give a
Speaker 1: lot of kind of little exercises and also all the
Speaker 1: scientific literature of how mental contrasting and implementation intentions or
Speaker 1: WHOOP works, how it actually achieves the behavior change in
Speaker 1: the book. Um, but but these little exercises helped you
Speaker 1: to understand how you can put your own wishes and
Speaker 1: your all outcomes and your all obstacles and your own
Speaker 1: plan into these four steps structure. So because what what
Speaker 1: really does? It gives the structure, but it doesn't give
Speaker 1: the content. The content needs to be filled in by
Speaker 1: the person. So it kind of liberates the person to
Speaker 1: sort of um be their own kind of coach and
Speaker 1: the train and their own therapists. Because what what what
Speaker 1: really does? It allows you to change your behavior? Um,
Speaker 1: but the content needs to be filled in by you
Speaker 1: with your own wishes belonging to world right. So you
Speaker 1: so let's let's go back just a little bit there.
Speaker 1: So we talked about the mental obstacles, and then you
Speaker 1: added something to it that you picked up from another
Speaker 1: researcher and was really this what you just describe as
Speaker 1: the implementation intention, which is really, like you said, it's
Speaker 1: the it's the plan of if. Then so you're thinking
Speaker 1: about your obstacles, and if one of the obstacles is
Speaker 1: that every time I come home from work, I'm suddenly
Speaker 1: very hungry, and that's when I'm likely to overeat. So
Speaker 1: if I come home from work and I feel really hungry,
Speaker 1: then I will do why thing. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that I thought was interested in the book you
Speaker 1: talked about that maybe you could share a little bit
Speaker 1: about this was that you talk about the difference between
Speaker 1: the conscious and the unconscious mind and that something about
Speaker 1: this implementation intention helps to reach the unconscious part of
Speaker 1: ourselves that often gets in our way. Can you talk
Speaker 1: about how that what the mechanism is there sure and
Speaker 1: the the the whoop exercise, whether it's the whish outcome
Speaker 1: obstacle or whether it's the the p the plan um,
Speaker 1: the whole exercise works via the nonconscious. So what we
Speaker 1: know is that when we do whoop whish outcome obstacle,
Speaker 1: even without the plan what what the What happens is
Speaker 1: that this kind of conscious imagery exercise produces changes in
Speaker 1: the cognition which are outside of our awareness, and it
Speaker 1: produces changes in motivation which are outside of our aware.
Speaker 1: And so for example, um, when we do where we
Speaker 1: take a wish which is feasible, then we do the
Speaker 1: woo exercise. What happens is then that the future and
Speaker 1: the reality are connected. So the future and the obstacle
Speaker 1: are now connected, so that I cannot dream anymore without
Speaker 1: that the obstacles immediately appears in the mind. And not
Speaker 1: only that the future and the reality or the future
Speaker 1: and the obstacles are connected. Now also the obstacle and
Speaker 1: the instrumental means to overcome the obstacles are connected. And
Speaker 1: in addition, the reality the obstacle is now a real obstacle,
Speaker 1: so it's not For example, a fun party is now
Speaker 1: no fun party anymore when it is kind of complimented
Speaker 1: to the wish of doing well on an exam. Let's
Speaker 1: say on Tuesday. Now the party is not a fun
Speaker 1: thing anymore, but it's an obstacute to doing well on
Speaker 1: the exam on Tuesday. So there are a lot of
Speaker 1: non conscious changes which then predict the behavior change. So
Speaker 1: these non conscious changes they mediate the effects of that
Speaker 1: conscious imagery exercise, which is what onto behavior change. So
Speaker 1: these the imagery exercise works via the nonconscious onto behavior change.
Speaker 1: And that's also true for implementation attention. So if I say,
Speaker 1: if obstacles, then I will, the connection between the obstacle
Speaker 1: of the reality and the instrumental means to overcome the
Speaker 1: obstacle is even more strengthened than when I do only
Speaker 1: wo So UM. This this plan is particularly important then
Speaker 1: when the when the obstacle is very hard to overcome. Um,
Speaker 1: and and then and the nice thing. It is not
Speaker 1: only that cognition outside of awareness is changed as a
Speaker 1: result of the imagery exercise of who it's also the motivation.
Speaker 1: So for example, my blood pressure goes up if I
Speaker 1: do whoop, and then the blood pressure changes they predict
Speaker 1: actually the behavior changes later on. UM. So it seems
Speaker 1: that um it's a kind of practically exercise because they
Speaker 1: do the conscious imagery exercise that sort of puts into
Speaker 1: gears all these non conscious, outside of awareness processes, and
Speaker 1: they then change my behavior. So when you do oh
Speaker 1: open the morning, for example, and you you you go
Speaker 1: through the day and you think about tons of other things,
Speaker 1: and then in the evening you think, I had a
Speaker 1: pretty good UM encounter today with my colleague and actually
Speaker 1: I started my paper and I had a really good
Speaker 1: dinner with my son or something. And then you think
Speaker 1: back and I said, wasn't that what I worked this morning?
Speaker 1: Wasn't that what my wish was for the day, That
Speaker 1: I have a kind of easy encounter with my colleague,
Speaker 1: that I sort of you know, start my paper, and
Speaker 1: that I have a nice family dinner. And um. So
Speaker 1: you you the consequences of the whoop are such that
Speaker 1: you don't even need to think about it. But later
Speaker 1: on you think that the kind of you know, the
Speaker 1: body did it for you, and that's fun because you feel, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you did this exercise, and then if you
Speaker 1: did it without that you were aware of what you did.
Speaker 1: So whoop is UM wish outcome obstacle plan? Can you
Speaker 1: walk us through maybe can we use UM try and
Speaker 1: do an example of of how this would work, So
Speaker 1: maybe you could walk me through one of my own. Oh,
Speaker 1: absolutely all right. So let's pretend that I want to, uh,
Speaker 1: I want to learn to play the guitar solo to
Speaker 1: Sultans of Swing by Dire Straits. That's my wish. So
Speaker 1: how would we what? What is the what? Because you
Speaker 1: talk about mental imagery, which is something that I'm not typically,
Speaker 1: something that I don't understand real well. So can you
Speaker 1: talk about where we would start with this? Say, if
Speaker 1: this was a a dream, it's a small one, but
Speaker 1: a dream that I had. Um, so that's a dream.
Speaker 1: So that's your wish. Is that a wish which is
Speaker 1: actually dear to you? It's a real wish? Yeah, it is,
Speaker 1: And it has real obstacles in my case, which is
Speaker 1: that I can't play guitar very well. And Mark Nfler
Speaker 1: can play guitar better than most people on the planet.
Speaker 1: So there's a there's some real obstacles there too. But yes,
Speaker 1: it is a wish. Well, is it isn't a wish
Speaker 1: which is very dear to you? And is it a
Speaker 1: wish which is feasible too? I think it's feasible, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of dear to me. Yeah, okay, great, So
Speaker 1: what would be the best outcome if you fulfilled yourself
Speaker 1: that wish? I would finally stop feeling like Chris is
Speaker 1: always a better guitar player than me. Now, um, I
Speaker 1: think it would be a real sense of um, you know,
Speaker 1: personal satisfaction to play something that I didn't think necessarily
Speaker 1: I ever would, or something that I thought was one
Speaker 1: of the most impressive pieces of music. Okay, so can
Speaker 1: you summarize for me this two to three words? What
Speaker 1: would be the best outcome? I think feeling m proud
Speaker 1: and accomplished? Very good? Okay, great, Now if we did
Speaker 1: a real whoop, Now, I would ask you to probably
Speaker 1: close your eyes and um, I would tell you, okay,
Speaker 1: I gui just through that. Then I would ask you
Speaker 1: to imagine this feeling of accomplishment and you would really
Speaker 1: need to imagine that how that feels. And you would
Speaker 1: probably close your eyes and just sort of go like
Speaker 1: we talked about the positive fantasies and danger, and you
Speaker 1: would just sort of go on and just experience that
Speaker 1: in your mind. Do that for a second, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, And now I would I would ask you
Speaker 1: to wake up and open your eyes and and I
Speaker 1: would ask you, actually, what hold you back from doing that?
Speaker 1: What is it in you that stands in the way
Speaker 1: of fulfilling that question, experiencing that accomplishment? What is it
Speaker 1: in you that stops you from doing that, spending the
Speaker 1: concentrated amount of time, to do it on a consistent basis,
Speaker 1: and to stick with it when it feels hard? Okay?
Speaker 1: Can you summarize that for me in two to three words?
Speaker 1: Giving up in the face of frustration and lack of progress?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. So what is it frustration or is it
Speaker 1: the getting up? What is it two words to three words?
Speaker 1: What is it in you that stands in the way?
Speaker 1: What is your obstacle? If you dig it a little deeper,
Speaker 1: what what is it in you? Lack of persistence? Mm hmm,
Speaker 1: it's lack of persistence. But why do you like the persistence? Now?
Speaker 1: This is getting a whole lot deeper than I anticipated.
Speaker 1: All right, um, sure you don't want to do this, Chris, Um?
Speaker 1: What is it in me? Boy? I don't know how
Speaker 1: to answer that. I think that if I think about
Speaker 1: this in the context of playing the guitar in the past,
Speaker 1: I tend to come across something that is challenging and
Speaker 1: when I can't do it after a couple easy tries,
Speaker 1: I just sort of move on to something else. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I don't know what is that in me? You're
Speaker 1: the You're the author and the researcher. I'm not the
Speaker 1: author and researcher now, and that's really important. In I
Speaker 1: can't tell you you need to find yourself, but you
Speaker 1: kind of already sort of said it, But I can't
Speaker 1: tell you from the outside. I can't tell you, um,
Speaker 1: because you need to find that you know best, and
Speaker 1: that's the idea of what you need to find your
Speaker 1: own obstacle. And you can dig deeper and say, now,
Speaker 1: what is it in me? And once you find that obstacle,
Speaker 1: you really relieve. So try try once more and say,
Speaker 1: what is it in me that holds me back? And
Speaker 1: if you dig a little bit bit, what is it
Speaker 1: in you that holds you back from doing that and
Speaker 1: from feeling that accomplishment? What is it? Really? Well, I
Speaker 1: think it's kind of what I've identified, a tendency to
Speaker 1: give up and a lack of focus. So maybe it's
Speaker 1: some of it seems like maybe not keeping the goal
Speaker 1: clearly enough in mind. Okay, So it's a lack of focus?
Speaker 1: Why why do you it's like this giving up? So
Speaker 1: so now you could say, now why do I have
Speaker 1: this lack of focus? Then, and you can you can
Speaker 1: explore that for yourself, or you can stop short here
Speaker 1: and say, okay, it's a lack of focus, and then
Speaker 1: you can do say how the new imagine that lack
Speaker 1: of focus? Let's say that would be your obstacle. But
Speaker 1: certainly when you when you're then outside of that podcast,
Speaker 1: you can sort of um dig deeper on your on
Speaker 1: your own and say why is it that I have
Speaker 1: this lack of focus? But let's say we stop short
Speaker 1: here and say, you know, I have this lack of focus,
Speaker 1: and then you imagine how it feels to have this
Speaker 1: lack of focus, and you close your eyes again, and
Speaker 1: you can sort of really sort of um, yeah, just
Speaker 1: imagine to have this lack of focus. How how that feels,
Speaker 1: this lack of focus. So I would say, close your
Speaker 1: eyes and imagine that like a focus again. Okay, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: and then I would say I wake you up and
Speaker 1: let's go on, and I would ask you what can
Speaker 1: you do to overcome that lack of focus? What would
Speaker 1: be an effective behavior you can perform or an effective
Speaker 1: thought you could think in order to overcome that lack
Speaker 1: of focus? What could you do? I think I could
Speaker 1: commit to working on working on it a certain amount
Speaker 1: of time every day, regardless of how I'm progressing. Perfect, Okay,
Speaker 1: And now you can do this extent statement. So when
Speaker 1: will be this lack of focus? When will that come again?
Speaker 1: And where will it appear again? Oh? I think it
Speaker 1: comes first thing in the morning when I wake up
Speaker 1: every day. Now, um, in the context of your yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it will come when. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: it will be there. I think there'll be to two places.
Speaker 1: One will be making the time to force myself to
Speaker 1: sit down and do it, and then the second will
Speaker 1: be to um when I get stuck to not move
Speaker 1: on to something different or start. You know. The tendency
Speaker 1: for me when I'm doing something like that is I
Speaker 1: can't figure out this one small passage, so instead I
Speaker 1: just start, you know, playing some other thing that I
Speaker 1: know how to play. That's easier. Right, So when will
Speaker 1: that happen? Tomorrow? Yes? When tomorrow night? Okay? Where in
Speaker 1: my office at my house? Perfect? Okay. So now you
Speaker 1: can have an instant statement. You say, if obstacle tomorrow
Speaker 1: night in my office in my house, then I will,
Speaker 1: and now you put your behavior in which you said,
Speaker 1: so make that if then statement, if, and now repeat
Speaker 1: to yourself your obstacle when it occurs and where it occurs.
Speaker 1: So if tomorrow night, in my office learning to play
Speaker 1: the solo, I get stuck and can't figure a part out,
Speaker 1: I will slow down and continue to play that same
Speaker 1: part over and over again for ten minutes, regardless of
Speaker 1: whether I feel like I'm making progress very nice exactly.
Speaker 1: I mean, what you could have done is just sort
Speaker 1: of put in the obstacle of the lack of focus
Speaker 1: once more. But but it's fine like that, And now
Speaker 1: you would if we did that in reality, this will
Speaker 1: Now I would ask you, okay, repeat the if thense statement.
Speaker 1: Let's say again if and now imagine the obstacle, and
Speaker 1: you would imagine exactly what you just said in its
Speaker 1: time and in this place. Then I will, and now
Speaker 1: you imagine the behavior. So I would just go through
Speaker 1: that if then statement, but do it sort of imagine
Speaker 1: it and seeing it in my head, me encountering the
Speaker 1: obstacle and then um doing the behavior that is the
Speaker 1: then part of it, and that's really it. And then
Speaker 1: what's the P part. So I've done the wish out
Speaker 1: that was the P. That is the plane, all right,
Speaker 1: and that was the par. So now you have we
Speaker 1: went through a whoop and now you can actually say, Okay,
Speaker 1: now I know how to do work, and I do
Speaker 1: work kind of every day, and you can do wook
Speaker 1: for you know, a kind of big life wish, or
Speaker 1: you can do wook for whish for the next four weeks,
Speaker 1: or you can do whoop for um next week or
Speaker 1: for the next day, or let's say, for a meeting
Speaker 1: or for you know, being interviewed for a podcasts or whatever.
Speaker 1: You could say, now, what is my wish for the
Speaker 1: next twenty four hours, what is my wish for tonight?
Speaker 1: What is my wish for that meeting? And then you
Speaker 1: go through this fourth step process just like we went
Speaker 1: through that, and actually we didn't. We did apps where
Speaker 1: you can one for for the kids and one for
Speaker 1: our dolls um. And these apps are really nice because
Speaker 1: they force you to go through that. They give you
Speaker 1: all the instructions for the first step process, but they
Speaker 1: forced you to actually forwardlate you wish, your outcome, your
Speaker 1: obstacle on your plan in a few words, so you
Speaker 1: can't wheel it out. Um. And so these are apps
Speaker 1: for your your phone for example, Yeah, dude, you can
Speaker 1: download the one that I phone out and will definitely
Speaker 1: put links to those in the show notes that will
Speaker 1: be found. It's it's on the website which is called
Speaker 1: what My Life dot org. So it's w O O
Speaker 1: P my life dot org. I think that pretty much
Speaker 1: covers what I wanted to talk through, and I think
Speaker 1: we are a little bit over time. That was that
Speaker 1: was good though, I think for for everybody except me
Speaker 1: who had to do that on air. But thank you
Speaker 1: very much for going through with it. I think it's
Speaker 1: a big service because it's it needs a lot of
Speaker 1: courage to go through that, um this process um kind
Speaker 1: of on air um. But but it needs a little
Speaker 1: bit of courage even if you do it for you
Speaker 1: so because you need to have a little bit of
Speaker 1: you to sort of accept you know, you're obstacle. No,
Speaker 1: no lack of humor here, um, but no. I think
Speaker 1: that I just was really impressed as I as I
Speaker 1: went through the book and I and I read that
Speaker 1: and came up with that because I think that there
Speaker 1: is what I really got from it. And this exercise
Speaker 1: was was helpful, But how frequently I am extremely non
Speaker 1: specific in every one of those steps. You know, what
Speaker 1: the real wish is, what the outcome would be like,
Speaker 1: what the obstacles are, and what the plan are. It's
Speaker 1: it's all sort of half formed in my mind a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. And so what I really liked
Speaker 1: was this was a methodology to walk through that, and
Speaker 1: I liked the part about taking the time to to
Speaker 1: stop and and really visualize what it would look like,
Speaker 1: what it would feel like, etcetera. So I'm I'm excited
Speaker 1: to uh to give this stuff a try. Great, we'll
Speaker 1: have fun, um playing your piece. I'll play it on
Speaker 1: air for you here or someday. Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: staying up late. I know it's you know, got to
Speaker 1: be nearly one in the morning or after they're so
Speaker 1: thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us,
Speaker 1: and um, we'll be in touch again. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for having me. All right, take care of and
Speaker 1: have a good TV YouTube. Okay. Thanks. You can learn
Speaker 1: more about Gabrielle Engen and this podcast at one new
Speaker 1: feed dot net, slash g o