Speaker 1: Something is never going to work for everyone, and we
Speaker 1: always have to keep that in mind whenever we're listening
Speaker 1: to an author, or science or anything. 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. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Dr Michelle Seeger, motivation
Speaker 1: scientist and author. Michelle is the director of the Sport
Speaker 1: Health and Activity Research and Policy Center at the University
Speaker 1: of Michigan. She's also the chair of the u S
Speaker 1: National Physical Activity Plans Communications Committee. Her book is called
Speaker 1: No Sweat, How the Simple Science of Motivation can bring
Speaker 1: you a lifetime of fitness. The book was chosen as
Speaker 1: the two thousand fifteen number one book and diet and
Speaker 1: Exercise by USA Best Book Awards. When released, it achieved
Speaker 1: the number one selling exercise and fitness book on Amazon.
Speaker 1: Here's the interview. Hi, Michelle, Welcome to the show. Hi,
Speaker 1: it's great to be here. I'm happy to have you on.
Speaker 1: Your book is called No Sweat, How the Simple Science
Speaker 1: of Motivation can bring You a Lifetime of Fitness. And
Speaker 1: I came across it because somebody said to me, you
Speaker 1: ought to check out this book because a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that you talk about on the show and
Speaker 1: in your coaching, this woman wrote a book about And uh,
Speaker 1: they were right. I mean there were there were countless
Speaker 1: things in the book that I went, oh, yeah, that's
Speaker 1: you know, that's a common theme on this show. So
Speaker 1: I'm excited to get further into some of those things. Thanks.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm really excited to hear your questions and where
Speaker 1: you're coming from on this too. Excellent. So we'll start, though,
Speaker 1: like we always do, with the parable. And in the Parable,
Speaker 1: there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he
Speaker 1: says in life, there are two wolves inside of us
Speaker 1: 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: thinks about it for a second and looks up at
Speaker 1: his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins?
Speaker 1: And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd
Speaker 1: like to start off by asking you what that parable
Speaker 1: means to you in your life and in the work
Speaker 1: that you do. Sure well, it's it's such a great parable.
Speaker 1: And the funny thing is is that before you contacted me,
Speaker 1: I believe I had just reread that in a Pemishodrin book,
Speaker 1: if I'm remembering correctly. So I had to chuckle um
Speaker 1: when I heard that. You know, wow, You know, I
Speaker 1: think in life it's it reflects the challenges, right, and
Speaker 1: and what do we fuel when we're going through challenges?
Speaker 1: And what what lives? But you know, the interesting thing,
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how to respond to that, um
Speaker 1: from the perspective of no sweat and and I recognize
Speaker 1: it in a way, the whole shift that the book
Speaker 1: is asking people to do relates to that in a
Speaker 1: in a different way. So um, typically people start to
Speaker 1: exercise or take care of themselves more generally out of
Speaker 1: a medical model. We we feed our beliefs and our
Speaker 1: approaches from the place of clinical abstract. I want to
Speaker 1: avoid a disease, I want to change numbers on a scale,
Speaker 1: and that's what we feed in our approach. And and
Speaker 1: it's the feedback we get or in fact don't get,
Speaker 1: because the outcomes we're looking for are actually fire in
Speaker 1: the future, so we may never get them, but we
Speaker 1: certainly won't get them in the type of time frame
Speaker 1: that our brain needs to to be reinforced. In contrast,
Speaker 1: the approach that I'm asking readers to take in No
Speaker 1: Sweat Is is consider a different why or reason for
Speaker 1: starting to be physically active or for starting to get
Speaker 1: more sleep. I mean, my book is specifically about changing
Speaker 1: exercise from mature into a gift, but it really says
Speaker 1: if you reframe your reason for being active, and you
Speaker 1: do it differently, so in essence, you're feeding a different why,
Speaker 1: and you're receiving different feedback. Because when you move, for example,
Speaker 1: to increase your energy or to boost your mood, You're
Speaker 1: gonna get feedback immediately immediately that you're what you're what
Speaker 1: you're giving to physical activity and why you're doing it
Speaker 1: is giving it back to you. So that was kind
Speaker 1: of my big picture takeaway as it relates to my work,
Speaker 1: is that in a way, a shift in what you're
Speaker 1: asking from physical activity in a way is feeding it.
Speaker 1: It's feeding the results you get and how you experience
Speaker 1: it and whether you want to keep doing it or
Speaker 1: not right exactly, I mean, the book really is, you know,
Speaker 1: there is that fundamental shift there of trying to understand
Speaker 1: why you do something. And I often say on the
Speaker 1: show that I do exercise as basically a mental health routine.
Speaker 1: At this point, it's like I do it because it
Speaker 1: makes me feel better, like immediately that day, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, And so the motivation for me is, you know,
Speaker 1: is to do it. Very similar to what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: My why became something that was a lot more connected
Speaker 1: to me right now and not as vague as something
Speaker 1: like being healthy in the future or losing weight right while.
Speaker 1: You know, most people don't exercise for the reason you
Speaker 1: just said, and the biggest reason they don't is because
Speaker 1: our society simply hasn't taught us that that's an actually
Speaker 1: wonderful reason to be physically active. So it's no one's
Speaker 1: fault that they're not using physical activity as this vehicle
Speaker 1: for energy and happiness and all these things that we
Speaker 1: really that impact our daily life in significant ways. It's
Speaker 1: just that we haven't learned to do it for those reasons.
Speaker 1: And the secondary reason, which follows from the why, which
Speaker 1: I explain in the book, is that we typically choose
Speaker 1: physical activities in order to achieve the why or reason
Speaker 1: we're exercising for. So if we're exercising to feel better
Speaker 1: to boost our mood, it's logical, although people may not
Speaker 1: know this, that you would pick physical activities that are
Speaker 1: pleasurable to you, that feel good to you, if not
Speaker 1: are at least tolerable. But when you exercise for better
Speaker 1: health or quote or to lose weight, the physical activities
Speaker 1: you choose tend to be intense and and and maybe
Speaker 1: make your heart rate um go higher and cost sweat.
Speaker 1: Even though this might not be a way that people
Speaker 1: like exercising and and and the problem is is that
Speaker 1: when people exercise in ways that tend to not feel
Speaker 1: good to them, they don't stick with it for the
Speaker 1: most part, So why we do it and how we
Speaker 1: do it is actually crucial to whether we're going to
Speaker 1: stick with it, and that's why we have to be
Speaker 1: talking about this. Yeah, exactly. And the question I had though,
Speaker 1: because in your book you you say that having more
Speaker 1: than one primary why for doing a behavior is thought
Speaker 1: to dilute our motivation. So, for example, I was saying
Speaker 1: that the primary reason I exercise is because I know
Speaker 1: that it helps my emotional and my mental health. I
Speaker 1: feel better when I do it, and I don't feel
Speaker 1: good when I don't do it. At the same time,
Speaker 1: the fact that there's a vanity aspect to it and
Speaker 1: there's a you know, long term health aspect to it
Speaker 1: appeal to me also. But help me understand this dilution
Speaker 1: of our motivation a little bit more, you know, it's
Speaker 1: so counterintuitive, and I think we actually need a lot
Speaker 1: more research until we have kind of conclusive evidence. But
Speaker 1: the research suggests that if you have you know what
Speaker 1: I call the right why, which is a reason for exercising,
Speaker 1: that you determined that it's something you deeply want, not
Speaker 1: because you think you should do it, or or a
Speaker 1: doctor employers telling you do. One would think that, Okay,
Speaker 1: I have that reason I want to feel better, but
Speaker 1: I'm also you know, going to try to avoid cardiovascular
Speaker 1: disease and and maybe I'll try to live to I'm
Speaker 1: eighty five years old. Research suggests that coupling a an
Speaker 1: intrinsic internal internal motivation with these you know, maybe distant
Speaker 1: or extrinsic motivations potentially SAPs their power. So you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's thought to dilute the power of the positive
Speaker 1: emotion when you bring in these kind of logical, uh
Speaker 1: cognitive reasons for change. And you know, something that I've
Speaker 1: been toying with my mind. I haven't studied this yet,
Speaker 1: but you know, I've been wondering if we could couple,
Speaker 1: for example, the motive for exercising I want to feel
Speaker 1: better with the motive of spending time with other people,
Speaker 1: so another positive, intrinsically driven motivation, if that potentially wouldn't
Speaker 1: dilute the goal. But the reality is is that we
Speaker 1: don't know from the research because it hasn't been done.
Speaker 1: So I think we need a lot more on this topic,
Speaker 1: right because what I realize is that my primary y
Speaker 1: is pretty strong and it's pretty clear Um, and maybe
Speaker 1: it's not that I'm doing it for those other reasons,
Speaker 1: but it's hard for me not to appreciate that they're happening. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: Like I can't put it out of my mind, like well,
Speaker 1: you know, no, it's you know what I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like there's there But I get I get what you're
Speaker 1: saying about. How you know, the primary Y is the
Speaker 1: thing that that drives us. So let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that. So you're talking about intrinsic versus
Speaker 1: extrinsic goals, Why don't you first tell me kind of
Speaker 1: what those are, and then let's talk about what some
Speaker 1: examples of good wise are and some examples of wise
Speaker 1: that are maybe not as useful. And for everybody listening
Speaker 1: when we say why, we mean w h y not
Speaker 1: the everybody probably figure that out, but just in case, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that no, that's that's good. And I also want to
Speaker 1: it sounds weird. It reads well, but it sounds weird. Yes, No,
Speaker 1: you're right. Um, although I have to I have to say,
Speaker 1: I've been hearing a lot of people. It's getting into
Speaker 1: the vernacular. People are talking about your wise, so it's
Speaker 1: really interesting. Um, I want to start by saying why
Speaker 1: is people's reasons for change, And there's no you know,
Speaker 1: inherently horrible why. It's whether it works for each individual.
Speaker 1: So if when we're when I'm going to say there
Speaker 1: might be some wise that are optimal and some that
Speaker 1: are not, it's not that they're going to be non
Speaker 1: for everyone, because you know, Baskina Rabbits has thirty one flavors.
Speaker 1: Because we all like different things, and different things resonate
Speaker 1: with us and work for us. So nothing is always
Speaker 1: gonna work or something is is never going to work
Speaker 1: for everyone, and we always have to keep that in
Speaker 1: mind whenever we're listening to an author or science or anything.
Speaker 1: So experiences own experience, and and so having said that,
Speaker 1: internal reasons are sometimes what are called intrinsic goals are
Speaker 1: the things that we do because they're going to feed
Speaker 1: us immediately. You know, if if we're talking about exercising,
Speaker 1: being intrinsically motivated would mean that we're exercising for the
Speaker 1: inherent pleasure or satisfaction it gives us. An intrinsic goal
Speaker 1: would be a reason or a goal or why that
Speaker 1: we that relates to how we feel or doing good
Speaker 1: in the world. Things that we deeply, deeply want on
Speaker 1: a personal level. In contrast, you know, being extrinsically motivated
Speaker 1: to exercise would be you're motivated to exercise because you know,
Speaker 1: you think you should look like the magazine cover or
Speaker 1: you wish you looked like you did um thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Although I have to say that's kind of a complicated one. Um,
Speaker 1: your doctor tells you you need to, you know, do
Speaker 1: this for your blood pressure or to win in a competition. Um,
Speaker 1: although you know, to some extent the wise, there are differences,
Speaker 1: but we can categorize them as intrinsic versus enric or
Speaker 1: maybe even more importantly, helpful versus unhelpful. The thing about
Speaker 1: exercises we've basically in society, and this is this is
Speaker 1: across the country, we've been socialized, in other word for
Speaker 1: socialized is educated to be physically active and exercise from
Speaker 1: a really a singular perspective that we've learned from science
Speaker 1: and also marketers who have been trying to sell fitness
Speaker 1: products and services to get us to buy them. So
Speaker 1: when you ask people in general, why do you exercise?
Speaker 1: And this is people who do and don't exercise, the
Speaker 1: majority of people say they do it to improve their
Speaker 1: health or to control their weight in some way. So,
Speaker 1: you know, we did a stud and we found seventy
Speaker 1: people gave either weight or health related reasons, and that's
Speaker 1: very common to see in the literature. But what I
Speaker 1: think is fascinating on this topic is that people give
Speaker 1: those reasons because those are the reasons for exercising that
Speaker 1: they've been taught to have. So it's not necessarily that
Speaker 1: those are actually the most motivational reasons. There's certainly logical reasons, right,
Speaker 1: people do want to control their way and they want
Speaker 1: to be healthy. But the research and decision making would
Speaker 1: suggest that if our reasons for exercising are to achieve
Speaker 1: something in the future, whether it's weight loss or avoiding
Speaker 1: a disease, that we will not more. You know, in general,
Speaker 1: people will be less motivated by those reasons or wise
Speaker 1: then if they're motivated to improve how they feel immediately,
Speaker 1: so that it's a big difference. And again, people haven't
Speaker 1: been socialized to think about physically activity as a way
Speaker 1: to spend time with friends and family and as a
Speaker 1: way to boost their mood. In fact, in a recent
Speaker 1: study I was part of, we discovered that a lot
Speaker 1: of that I think it was only clinicians actually recommended
Speaker 1: that people exercised for mood issues, and so that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: Research is very clear that physical activity reduces anxiety and
Speaker 1: depression and boost mood and energy levels. So we're simply
Speaker 1: not being told that this is a great way to
Speaker 1: feel better. And so that's why it's so important for
Speaker 1: you to be talking about it and why you do
Speaker 1: it and how it infects you as well as other people,
Speaker 1: because we have to basically resocialize society about the value
Speaker 1: of physical activity for our sense of selves and for
Speaker 1: our greater life context. Part of what we're saying is
Speaker 1: that when we think we should do something, it becomes
Speaker 1: a chore, yes, and we resist chores to some degree. However,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, when we want to do something,
Speaker 1: then it's not a chore. And so if the goal
Speaker 1: for exercise is you know, ideally the best would be
Speaker 1: that you really enjoy doing it. But if you're a
Speaker 1: step away from that, then the next best would be
Speaker 1: the benefits that you feel from it are very very immediate. Yes,
Speaker 1: And you know, one of the things I've asked my
Speaker 1: clients to do is to think back, what did you
Speaker 1: enjoy doing when you were a kid. When a kid,
Speaker 1: when you're a kid, moving was not a chore. It
Speaker 1: was this way of being in playing right, And once
Speaker 1: people ask themselves that question, it opens up. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I used to love writing my book. I used to
Speaker 1: love taking walks and parks. You know that changes everything. Right,
Speaker 1: you say in the book, and I'll quote you here,
Speaker 1: you say, there's only one basic instruction. Take any and
Speaker 1: every opportunity to move in any way possible, at whatever
Speaker 1: speed you like, for any amount of time. Do what
Speaker 1: makes you feel good. Stop doing what makes you feel bad. Yes,
Speaker 1: everything counts. Everything counts is a radical, simple but timely
Speaker 1: idea because, uh a, we know that the typical recommendations
Speaker 1: to exercise, you know, the standard recommendations to exercise for
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time and a certain intensity have
Speaker 1: not successfully gotten most people to fall in love with
Speaker 1: movement or to do it consistently. That's kind of the
Speaker 1: first evidence that that's not going to really help most
Speaker 1: people stain of physically active life. The second level is
Speaker 1: that research in a completely different area is showing that
Speaker 1: sitting a lot is actually really bad for our health.
Speaker 1: So we now have permission, and there's research to show
Speaker 1: that you know, anything is better than nothing, and that's
Speaker 1: kind of the bottom line. Any movement is better than
Speaker 1: no movement, and and if that's true, then we can
Speaker 1: stand up joyfully take a few steps because that's all
Speaker 1: the time we have, and pat ourselves in the back
Speaker 1: and say, I just chose to move. I noticed a
Speaker 1: bursting energy which research was suggests would actually happen on
Speaker 1: you know, with very small amounts of movement. And I'm
Speaker 1: taking better care of myself. And I ask people to
Speaker 1: consider the idea. We didn't go to school to learn
Speaker 1: how to sustain a physically active life, so now is
Speaker 1: the time to start and guess what we have the
Speaker 1: pleasure of being in kindergarten, which is fingerpainting. We want
Speaker 1: to start small and experiment with new activities and durations
Speaker 1: and places because we have our whole lives to be
Speaker 1: physically active. So let's let's invest in learning how to
Speaker 1: integrate it into our life in ways that we can sustain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're saying that anything is better than nothing. The phrase
Speaker 1: that I use a lot with coaching clients and on
Speaker 1: the show is that a little bit of something is
Speaker 1: better than a lot of nothing. Um, which is that
Speaker 1: basic idea, like, you know, it's so easy for us
Speaker 1: to go, well, if I can't get to the gym
Speaker 1: to do thirty five minutes of running, I don't do anything.
Speaker 1: And I'm always like anything is better in that case,
Speaker 1: go walk for five minutes. You can't make it to
Speaker 1: the whole class that you want to go to, go
Speaker 1: for half of it, any little bit. And I really
Speaker 1: like what you're saying is that everything counts kind of
Speaker 1: across the day. And this is a practical illustration because
Speaker 1: I work a lot with people on how do you
Speaker 1: how do you make these changes and sustain them? And
Speaker 1: so exercise for me is one where I travel a lot,
Speaker 1: and so you know, traveling a lot rains chaos on
Speaker 1: you know, an exercise schedule. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that I figured out is that one of the places
Speaker 1: that I go very often it's I do some e
Speaker 1: commerce consulting and it's a very large distribution center. And
Speaker 1: what I found is if I just structure my day
Speaker 1: in a certain way, I can get ten to twelve
Speaker 1: thousand steps in a day by adding them up all day.
Speaker 1: And so for me, that's a way of getting my
Speaker 1: exercise in even if time doesn't seem to permit. And
Speaker 1: that's the sort of flexibility I think that you're talking
Speaker 1: about that allows us to integrate into our lives, because
Speaker 1: that's really the key is how do we do the
Speaker 1: one month, two months, one year, three years? How do
Speaker 1: we keep doing these things? Yes? And you you know,
Speaker 1: you're really your point is so important because what I
Speaker 1: found over the years is that the thing that keeps
Speaker 1: people starting and stopping instead of sustaining is that they
Speaker 1: have gold standards. It's about a bull's eye, and on
Speaker 1: any given day, when you can't meet the bull's eye,
Speaker 1: you feel like a failure and eventually you stop. But
Speaker 1: you know, that model, that bullseye model of physical activity
Speaker 1: is based on a medical dose. And the reality is
Speaker 1: is that human beings are lives are so complicated. You know,
Speaker 1: curveballs come multiple times on most days, and so unless
Speaker 1: we have the luxury or the type of mindset that
Speaker 1: thrives with rigidity, you know, where you do everything at
Speaker 1: the same point. I don't mean rigidity in any kind
Speaker 1: of negative way. It's just you do you do what
Speaker 1: you planned every time, and there's no deviation, which a
Speaker 1: lot of people literally their lives don't permit that to happen.
Speaker 1: You have to be flexible in life. And so once
Speaker 1: we we recognize that flexibility is actually a strategy for
Speaker 1: success instead of a reaction to failure again, and it
Speaker 1: changes our our mindset about what's possible. It gives us
Speaker 1: permission to get creative with those challenges. Those are barriers
Speaker 1: that are falling down in front of you and stopping
Speaker 1: you in your tracks. The opportunities to dance and and
Speaker 1: be creative with solutions and you know, uh, research suggestion
Speaker 1: this is I usually talk about this as with regarding
Speaker 1: our reasons for doing something, but research shows that the
Speaker 1: frame we use on any you know, on a topic
Speaker 1: determines how we feel about it. So if we can
Speaker 1: turn it into a game things not going our way,
Speaker 1: then we're gonna are are We're gonna broaden our thinking
Speaker 1: uh and and be able to be more creative. And
Speaker 1: there again there's science and theories to support that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and it's an absolute given, Like you said that
Speaker 1: for most of our lives, we're gonna make a plan,
Speaker 1: and that plan is going to hold up for about
Speaker 1: two hours and then you know, we need to be
Speaker 1: able to adjust. And it's that for me it's a
Speaker 1: combination of flexibility and a little bit of rigidity. The
Speaker 1: rigidity is like I want to get this in somehow,
Speaker 1: like it's important, I want to do it. The flexibility
Speaker 1: is when where how you know you say in the
Speaker 1: book keep the end in mind, and um, I know
Speaker 1: you're talking a little bit more long term, but for me,
Speaker 1: you know, it's that just being flexible. And that's one
Speaker 1: of the big things that I work and I think
Speaker 1: you do to work with so many people on is
Speaker 1: developing and learning that flexibility because none of us have
Speaker 1: been taught it, you know, and so many of us
Speaker 1: have the you know, I call it the effort syndrome
Speaker 1: right where it's like I try and it doesn't go perfectly,
Speaker 1: and so I give up and then and you refer
Speaker 1: to this as the vicious cycle of failure. Yes, so, uh,
Speaker 1: this cycle you know, I talked about in the in
Speaker 1: the book and it's it's actually in a free chapter
Speaker 1: on my website if people are interested. Um, it's called
Speaker 1: the vicious cycle of failure, and it starts with the
Speaker 1: wrong why. Research shows that are reasons for initiating any
Speaker 1: behavior have incredible downstream results on the quality of motivation.
Speaker 1: We have and whether we stick with the behavior or not.
Speaker 1: And so that's what the vicious cycle of failure is.
Speaker 1: And so logically, if you want to get into the
Speaker 1: successful cycle of motivation, what where do you start? You
Speaker 1: start with your why. You change it away from clinical,
Speaker 1: abstract reasons that might make you feel bad about yourself,
Speaker 1: even if that's how you've been taught to think about it.
Speaker 1: Two reasons for change that are about you. What do
Speaker 1: you care about? What do you want to feel in
Speaker 1: your day? And once you reframe your reasons, it changes
Speaker 1: the downstream effects and motivation. Instead of low quality, unstable motivation,
Speaker 1: you get high quality, stable motivation. And that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's the ingredient for sustainability as well. Going back to
Speaker 1: what you just said about flexibility as well as being
Speaker 1: able to improvise in life, like we have to improvise
Speaker 1: with everything. Our kids get sick, a work deadline all
Speaker 1: of a a sudden comes up. We have to improvise in
Speaker 1: all areas of our life pretty much. So even though
Speaker 1: we do have a goal, we do want to be
Speaker 1: physically active, if we're not able to improvise with our
Speaker 1: goals in any area, we won't be able to stick
Speaker 1: with them. What you're saying, though, is really really important
Speaker 1: because I think that all these things that you're talking about,
Speaker 1: I know, work with things besides fitness. These principles are
Speaker 1: very sound, kind of across the board. You're very focused
Speaker 1: on and your researches in fitness, but these sort of
Speaker 1: things really they apply to behavior change in general. I'm
Speaker 1: sure when people are hearing us talk about this, this,
Speaker 1: these ideas they're common sense, they're shaking their heads. The
Speaker 1: nice thing is that even though they are common sense,
Speaker 1: there's their backed by fundamental science, and that gives these
Speaker 1: ideas even more credibility. We talked about the vicious cycle
Speaker 1: of failure, which is we start, we stop, we feel
Speaker 1: bad about it, We start, we stop, we feel bad
Speaker 1: about it, on and off for you know, years, and
Speaker 1: that whole process sort of damages our our opinion of
Speaker 1: ourselves as able to even do it. I think it
Speaker 1: the more we do that, the you know, the harder
Speaker 1: it becomes, because we don't even take ourselves seriously sometimes
Speaker 1: that you know, like here we go again. Um, but
Speaker 1: let's talk about the sustainable cycle of self care. What
Speaker 1: is that? Yes? So that gets us into the third cycle,
Speaker 1: which is the cycle of sustainability. And this side goal
Speaker 1: takes us past physical activity to really our own self
Speaker 1: care and to the recognition and consideration of do we
Speaker 1: feel even comfortable prioritizing our own self care, our our
Speaker 1: own our own selves. And you know what I discovered.
Speaker 1: The reason I got into this work was because we
Speaker 1: were doing um research with cancer survivors and you know,
Speaker 1: people ended the study, they complied, we saw the effects
Speaker 1: we were, we hypothesized, But when the study was over
Speaker 1: three months later, we were shocked to discover that despite
Speaker 1: talking about how great exercise was for their health, participants
Speaker 1: had stopped exercising because they had more important things to
Speaker 1: do than their own self care. And think about this.
Speaker 1: They committed to exercise for our study, but these cancer
Speaker 1: survivors when our study ended, they did not feel comfortable
Speaker 1: committing to their own self care. And that people who
Speaker 1: had faced a life threatening illness didn't feel comfortable prioritizing
Speaker 1: their own self care suggested that in society we have
Speaker 1: a real problem. So this third cycle is about this issue,
Speaker 1: it says my work. So my work over the last
Speaker 1: two decades suggests that we can create a positive feeling
Speaker 1: about exercise or another self care behavior, we can make
Speaker 1: it feel like a gift, and actually converting exercise from
Speaker 1: ature into a gift is incredibly easy to do if
Speaker 1: you follow the steps in the book. The challenging part
Speaker 1: is then to go on to say and I am
Speaker 1: going to prioritize time for that gift. So, for another
Speaker 1: example is going to the movies. I Michelle Seeger love
Speaker 1: going to the movies, but it's not a priority for me,
Speaker 1: so I almost never go. So we want something to
Speaker 1: be a gift, something we want to do, but whether
Speaker 1: we make it a priority and self management self management
Speaker 1: in our lives is really a completely different and actually
Speaker 1: more difficult questions. So the third cycle, the sustainable cycle
Speaker 1: of self care, asks people to step way back away
Speaker 1: from physical activity and to think about who they are
Speaker 1: and the roles they care about. So the why goes
Speaker 1: from a reason to who I am as a parent, partner, professional, volunteer, seeker.
Speaker 1: And when my self care behavior, whatever it is, whether
Speaker 1: it's getting more sleep or changing my DIY, terry habits,
Speaker 1: or exercising, when my self care behavior aims to fuel
Speaker 1: who I am, it turns it from simply being something
Speaker 1: I'd like to do a gift something that helps me
Speaker 1: feel good to something that I actually need to perform
Speaker 1: in these roles that I care most about, So it
Speaker 1: becomes essential fuel. And when a behavior becomes essential fuel,
Speaker 1: we stick with it because we know that when we
Speaker 1: don't fuel our helves, we actually perform worse, and everything
Speaker 1: we care about and everyone we love um and so
Speaker 1: it turns the behavior into something profound and deeply meaningful.
Speaker 1: Then we can legitimately prioritize the behavior once we recognize
Speaker 1: those connections. So, in essence, what we're talking about here
Speaker 1: is taking a behavior like let's just take exercise, and
Speaker 1: recognizing that it contributes to our mental health, and then
Speaker 1: recognizing the important role that our mental health plays in
Speaker 1: who we are, who we want to be as a parent,
Speaker 1: what kind of parent we want to be, what kind
Speaker 1: of husband we want to be, how effective we want
Speaker 1: to be at work. It's it's tying that to that
Speaker 1: next level of meaning, yes, almost the most profound level
Speaker 1: of meaning. How do we contribute to others and the
Speaker 1: things we want to achieve? But I would dare say
Speaker 1: it goes beyond our success in our roles to actually
Speaker 1: how much we enjoy doing them. I mean, think about it,
Speaker 1: if you are are low energy, or you're in a
Speaker 1: bad mood when you're talking to a child who might
Speaker 1: be frustrating or not, or you're just cooking dinner or
Speaker 1: you're at work. When we do things with energy and
Speaker 1: in a better mood, we enjoy things more. So it
Speaker 1: actually doesn't just lend itself to contributing more to the
Speaker 1: world into being more successful, but actually to being happier
Speaker 1: because we're enjoying everything we do that much more, right right. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think for people that have a hard time saying
Speaker 1: I'm important, that recognition that as an interim step that
Speaker 1: doing this makes me better with my kids is a
Speaker 1: really powerful one because then it's you can step away
Speaker 1: at least I think from the being selfish and recognizing like, no,
Speaker 1: this is really important, it's it's actually you know, it's
Speaker 1: a gift and help to them also absolutely, and you know,
Speaker 1: if you listen to an interview by with Adam Grant
Speaker 1: and Christa Tippett on on being she asks him about
Speaker 1: this issue about being a giver and he discusses the
Speaker 1: nuances actually that the most successful givers are actually people
Speaker 1: who make sure to get their own needs taken care
Speaker 1: of first, so it's wonderful to be a giver, but
Speaker 1: if we don't fuel ourselves, then we really do have
Speaker 1: that much less to give and to contribute. So it's
Speaker 1: actually not counterintuitive and and hopefully will help people who
Speaker 1: are challenged in this area know that it's not just
Speaker 1: a gift you're giving to yourself, but you actually are
Speaker 1: giving it to everyone else as well. So we're running
Speaker 1: near to the end of time. But I've got a
Speaker 1: couple of quick things that I would like to touch on. UM,
Speaker 1: integrate one new behavior at a time. UM. This is
Speaker 1: sort of an equivalent to us saying, you know, we
Speaker 1: say start small and connect the dots, but let's let's
Speaker 1: talk about you know, why is integrating one new behavior
Speaker 1: UM a really useful way to approach these things? Well,
Speaker 1: if if we begin with the end in mind, and
Speaker 1: that one of the six big ideas in the in
Speaker 1: the book towards the end of the book, if we
Speaker 1: begin with end in mind, which is sustainability or forever
Speaker 1: consistency is another way of thinking about it, then we
Speaker 1: have to actually learn the ins and outs of sticking
Speaker 1: with and being consistent with that behavior through the ebbs
Speaker 1: and flows of life and seasons of life, sickness semesters,
Speaker 1: in school, work deadlines, et cetera. We actually it takes
Speaker 1: our cognitive energy and time um to to do it,
Speaker 1: to see what gets in the way, to pay enough
Speaker 1: attention to what gets in our way. So the next
Speaker 1: time we are so we can make a mental note
Speaker 1: and say, oh gee, this is what happened. Next time
Speaker 1: I get to this point, I'm going to do B
Speaker 1: instead of A. Human beings have a limited cognitive capacity.
Speaker 1: So how on earth can we learn to change to
Speaker 1: more than one complicated behavior at a time when we
Speaker 1: are working and taking care of our families and potentially
Speaker 1: aging parents and trying to do a B and C.
Speaker 1: So we simply don't most of us. There are some
Speaker 1: talented people who probably you know, have a lot of
Speaker 1: more cognitive resources than most of us. We simply don't
Speaker 1: have the energy and attention to dedicate to learning how
Speaker 1: to sustain more than one complicated behavior at a time. Right,
Speaker 1: And I think it's a lot easier when you're trying
Speaker 1: to do a lot of things to start falling apart
Speaker 1: in a couple of them and give up on the
Speaker 1: whole endeavor. So the last thing I want to talk
Speaker 1: about and I had. It was a really interesting concept
Speaker 1: in the book that I looked at, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was interesting the way yours and your husbands were different.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about what the self care hierarchy is,
Speaker 1: because I think that was an idea I had never
Speaker 1: seen before and I thought was really interesting. Sure, the
Speaker 1: self care hierarchy, you know, came out of my work
Speaker 1: with people. And I'll give you an example. A woman
Speaker 1: contacted me. This was many years ago, and she said
Speaker 1: to me, Michelle, I would like to start x A sizing,
Speaker 1: and so part of my client intake is to ask
Speaker 1: some questions that help me assess what's going on with people.
Speaker 1: And after the assessment, I said to this woman, I said, wow,
Speaker 1: you're getting four and a half hours of sleep every night.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not really sure physical activity is the
Speaker 1: is the behavior, the foundational self care behavior that's most
Speaker 1: appropriate to work on, because you told me you're sleep
Speaker 1: deprived and you feel terrible and you overeat because of it.
Speaker 1: So through those you know, through that assessment, we figured
Speaker 1: out that sleep was truly on the foundation of her
Speaker 1: self care pyramid. She wanted to be physically active, but
Speaker 1: if she didn't start getting more sleep that was going
Speaker 1: to undermine her physical activity goal too. So the self
Speaker 1: care hierarchy is the idea that we all have some
Speaker 1: fundamental self care behavior that if we don't get it,
Speaker 1: we are not going to have a good day. And
Speaker 1: many people may not be aware about what that is.
Speaker 1: And I think for many people it is sleep and
Speaker 1: they just don't know it. Um. But for other people
Speaker 1: like my husband, and he's very clear that it's not sleep,
Speaker 1: that it's physical activity because he knows he feels terrible
Speaker 1: if he doesn't exercise, but he he doesn't feel nearly
Speaker 1: as bad even if he doesn't get, you know, very
Speaker 1: much sleep. So it's incumbent upon people and potentially the
Speaker 1: coaches they work with, like you, to identify what is
Speaker 1: that behavior that I'm not getting that if I got
Speaker 1: it it would truly radicalize my day for the better exactly.
Speaker 1: I think that's such a great, great thing to learn
Speaker 1: and understand about ourselves. So, Michelle, thank you so much
Speaker 1: for taking the time to come on. We will have
Speaker 1: links to your website, links to your book um, as
Speaker 1: well as a download of a couple of quotes from
Speaker 1: your book that I really loved. At one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash Michelle and that way people can find
Speaker 1: you and get to your website. I highly recommend the
Speaker 1: whole book. I I thought it was I thought it
Speaker 1: was wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It was just
Speaker 1: a pleasure to speak with you today. Okay, take care
Speaker 1: you too. Okay. Bite. You can learn more about Michelle
Speaker 1: Seeger and this podcast at one you Feed, dot net
Speaker 1: slash Michelle