Speaker 1: Hello everyone, it's Eric here with the mini episode. I
Speaker 1: did one of these before. I'm calling them Essential concept
Speaker 1: mini episodes, and I'm here to do another one. And
Speaker 1: what I want to talk about for this one is
Speaker 1: the idea of how do we actually make a change
Speaker 1: to our behavior? And through the coaching work I've done
Speaker 1: with people and talking to lots of people, I really
Speaker 1: think there are two key aspects of this and if
Speaker 1: you can get them both right, you can change behavior.
Speaker 1: And so I want to talk through what each of
Speaker 1: those are and some of the key concepts in there,
Speaker 1: and the way I think of them is one is
Speaker 1: sort of tactical. It's all the things in your life
Speaker 1: that you need to arrange. It's the basic blocking and tackling.
Speaker 1: You gotta get that right. And then the second part
Speaker 1: is more the emotional piece of it. What are the
Speaker 1: emotional blocks and the emotional levers you can poll that
Speaker 1: help you to make a change. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: use an example from one of my coaching clients right now,
Speaker 1: by the name of Sam, and what Sam wanted to
Speaker 1: work on, among other things, but one of the big
Speaker 1: ones was staying on top of the family finances. It
Speaker 1: was making sure that the budget was there, it was kept,
Speaker 1: bills were paid on time. They had a few more
Speaker 1: complicated things that needed to be done, and it really
Speaker 1: needed some attention on a regular basis, and Sam simply
Speaker 1: wasn't giving it the attention right And so let me
Speaker 1: sort of illustrate how these two aspects of behavior change
Speaker 1: play into this. And the first one, as I said,
Speaker 1: is tactical. I call this the blocking and tackling of
Speaker 1: behavior change. It's really about planning, and we talked about
Speaker 1: this a lot on the show. Knowing when and where
Speaker 1: you're going to do something increases the likelihood that you're
Speaker 1: going to do it by about five times. So coming
Speaker 1: up with a really specific schedule, when are you going
Speaker 1: to do this, where are you going to do it,
Speaker 1: anticipating what might get in the way. Very basic stuff,
Speaker 1: but absolutely critical to making behavior change, and so we've
Speaker 1: got to get that piece of it done. We also
Speaker 1: talk a lot about small steps, not taking on too much.
Speaker 1: A lot of people when they start trying to make
Speaker 1: a change, they try and do everything all at once.
Speaker 1: So another tactical part of behavior change is making sure
Speaker 1: that the size of what we take on we're actually
Speaker 1: capable of doing. We want to succeed, it's really important
Speaker 1: to build momentum and motivation, and we do that by
Speaker 1: being successful at what we do. So taking small steps
Speaker 1: is another really important part of the tactical aspects of
Speaker 1: behavior change. Designing your environment so that it's set up
Speaker 1: right is another piece. The obvious example of this is
Speaker 1: if you want to eat better, don't have junk food
Speaker 1: in the house right. We also hear about if you
Speaker 1: want to get to the gym, change in your gym
Speaker 1: clothes before you go to bed, or lay them right
Speaker 1: next to the bed. There's lots of little environmental tweaks
Speaker 1: that we can do that really make it far more
Speaker 1: likely we're going to succeed in whatever it is we're
Speaker 1: trying to do. And then another big part of tactical
Speaker 1: is dealing with the distractions. What are the distractions? Are
Speaker 1: the things that get in your way, both ones that
Speaker 1: come from the outside world and ones that sort of
Speaker 1: come from within you. And what are the strategies that
Speaker 1: we can do to sort of minimize those distractions and
Speaker 1: plan and prepare for them. So the tactical aspects are
Speaker 1: really really important. I often say that ambiguity is the
Speaker 1: mother of procrastination. But ambiguity is really our enemy in
Speaker 1: any type of change we're trying to make in life.
Speaker 1: The more specific we can be in all of those
Speaker 1: areas I just listed, in our planning, in our environment
Speaker 1: and how we handle our distractions, the more specific we
Speaker 1: can get, the better our chances are of succeeding in
Speaker 1: making a change. And so we've got to get this
Speaker 1: tactical piece done. And it's a critical and important piece,
Speaker 1: but it's not the only piece. And so I see
Speaker 1: a lot of work done on the tactical piece. We
Speaker 1: can do a lot of reading about that, and that's important.
Speaker 1: But then comes the second piece, and this is really
Speaker 1: around emotions. As time goes on, I've gotten to see
Speaker 1: how critical this is the emotional piece more and more.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot of science these days, and there's
Speaker 1: a lot of great thinkers out there who are really
Speaker 1: talking again about the tactical parts of behavior change, but
Speaker 1: they're not talking as much about the emotional parts. And
Speaker 1: I think that's partially because for a long long time,
Speaker 1: when we thought about changing behavior, we thought all about motivation.
Speaker 1: And I motivated, and I motivated and I motivated right,
Speaker 1: And and this has been a swing back to the
Speaker 1: other side, where it says, look, there's really a lot
Speaker 1: of strategies, there's a lot of science, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of tactical things we can do to get better. And
Speaker 1: so that's been a useful correction. But I think to
Speaker 1: leave emotion out misses a big piece of that. And
Speaker 1: the two main elements emotionally that I think are worth
Speaker 1: talking about are how we handle difficult emotions, so emotional regulation,
Speaker 1: and then the second piece is motivation. Although motivation is
Speaker 1: not sufficient to cause behavior change, it is important and
Speaker 1: it's important to keep it in mind and to use
Speaker 1: it as a tool. So let's talk about emotional regulation.
Speaker 1: What does emotional regulation mean? Well, to me, what it
Speaker 1: means is that we are able to recognize our emotions,
Speaker 1: we're able to allow them to be there, we're able
Speaker 1: to deal with them in a skillful way, and then
Speaker 1: we're able to act in a way that lines up
Speaker 1: with our values. So that's emotional regulation, and it's that
Speaker 1: last step that often gets us in trouble. This is
Speaker 1: what we often refer to when we say we let
Speaker 1: our moods decide what we do. So whether it's something
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to do or something that I want
Speaker 1: to do. We get to the point where we have
Speaker 1: a choice, and life is a series of choice points.
Speaker 1: We get to that choice point and then we don't
Speaker 1: take behavior that we wanted to take, and that is
Speaker 1: almost always a emotional decision. And that's partially why getting
Speaker 1: the tactical figured out is so right, because once we
Speaker 1: have the tactical figured out, we know what we're supposed
Speaker 1: to do when, and now we can see are we
Speaker 1: doing it. So if we go back to Sam and
Speaker 1: his thing that around finances, what we did was we
Speaker 1: decided when and where he was going to work on
Speaker 1: the finances. All Right, I'm gonna do it on Tuesday
Speaker 1: and Thursday nights at seven pm. I'm going to do
Speaker 1: it in the office. We talked about minimizing distractions, we
Speaker 1: talked about all this stuff. So now we've got a
Speaker 1: framework in place that works for him, and now we
Speaker 1: see on Tuesdays at seven thirty pm, does he sit
Speaker 1: down and do it? And the answer turns out to
Speaker 1: be some of the time. So the tactical solved some
Speaker 1: of the problems. We saw improvement, but we didn't see
Speaker 1: constant and consistent success. So we had to kind of
Speaker 1: go well, what's going on here, and so we really
Speaker 1: started to look at ammotional regulation, and again I sort
Speaker 1: of described what emotional regulation is. When I'm working with
Speaker 1: somebody on emotional regulation. What we're looking at is really
Speaker 1: a multi step process. You know, first we're recognizing, wow, okay,
Speaker 1: emotion is driving what's going on here, so we've got
Speaker 1: to recognize that. The second step is we go in
Speaker 1: and we investigate the emotion and what's happening, and we
Speaker 1: work to sort of soothe ourselves or to sort of
Speaker 1: orient ourselves. A lot of this is making what's sort
Speaker 1: of happened in an unconscious level more conscious, so we
Speaker 1: do that. The next step is that we then also
Speaker 1: look at what are the thought patterns that are going on.
Speaker 1: So this is sort of cognitive behavioral therapy, but but
Speaker 1: applied in this way. So I'm kind of trying to
Speaker 1: address both the emotional and and cognitive aspects of this
Speaker 1: right because a lot of times are underlying beliefs are
Speaker 1: what's driving the emotion. So let's go back to Sam
Speaker 1: for a minute. What's going on with Sam is that
Speaker 1: when he thinks of doing finances, all sorts of negative
Speaker 1: emotions come up. Fear, he doesn't think he's good at it.
Speaker 1: It's been a source of a lot of problem before
Speaker 1: in his life. And so what happens is when he
Speaker 1: thinks of finances automatically, boom, there's all this negative emotion.
Speaker 1: And so again, if emotional regulation is recognizing that the
Speaker 1: emotion is there, allowing it to be there, working with
Speaker 1: it skillfully, and then behaving according to his values, then
Speaker 1: what happens is when that negative emotion comes up, he
Speaker 1: recognizes that's what's happening, He stays there with the emotion,
Speaker 1: he explores the underlying thought processes or even the subconscious
Speaker 1: beliefs that might be driving it, and then he does
Speaker 1: the finances right. And so it's a multi step process.
Speaker 1: But what we can do is we can really start
Speaker 1: to zoom into these choice points. When we decide or
Speaker 1: don't decide to do something, we can zoom into the
Speaker 1: choice point and really explore what is what is our
Speaker 1: emotional and mental state at that point. And we use
Speaker 1: things like cognitive journaling and the Rain method and lots
Speaker 1: of other ways to sort of really dive into these
Speaker 1: choice points. So emotional regulation is critically important. When we
Speaker 1: had Tim Pitchelon, who is one of the world's leading
Speaker 1: experts on procrastination. He said, you know, procrastination is largely
Speaker 1: a failure of emotional regulation, and that's a really true
Speaker 1: thing to say. So is emotional eating, so is addiction,
Speaker 1: so is overspending. Right, lots of these things, they are
Speaker 1: a failure of emotional regulation. We get to the choice
Speaker 1: point and our emotions overwhelm us and they drive our behavior.
Speaker 1: And emotions are important, they have a lot to tell us,
Speaker 1: but we don't want them to be in the driver's
Speaker 1: seat of our behavior. So emotional regulation is really important
Speaker 1: and it's something we do a lot of work on.
Speaker 1: And then the last aspect is motivation. And motivation is
Speaker 1: relatively simple. Again, it's gotten kind of a bad rap
Speaker 1: in the you know, habit or behavior change world over
Speaker 1: the last few years, where we've talked a lot more
Speaker 1: about other things. But motivation is important. Why are you
Speaker 1: doing this right? What is the why and what is
Speaker 1: the reason? And the more that we can drill into that,
Speaker 1: the more we can get to the emotion that's underneath
Speaker 1: the motivation, the better off we are, right, And so
Speaker 1: it's really important when you're thinking about why do I
Speaker 1: want to do something? You'll get an answer, Ask yourself
Speaker 1: why that matters? You'll get another, ask yourself why that matters.
Speaker 1: You want to keep driving down until you get to
Speaker 1: the really emotional heart of this, because motivation is important.
Speaker 1: We want to know why we're doing something, and we
Speaker 1: want to be able to remember that. We want to
Speaker 1: be able to bring that back to consciousness at times
Speaker 1: when whatever we're trying to do is difficult. So getting
Speaker 1: really clear on why you're doing something, the deeper why,
Speaker 1: and then either writing it down or having it accessible,
Speaker 1: but being able to bring that to mind when you
Speaker 1: need to is another really helpful part of the emotional
Speaker 1: aspect of behavior change. So that's a kind of a
Speaker 1: quick run through of the two aspects of behavior change.
Speaker 1: And I see a lot of people working on one
Speaker 1: aspect or the other. It's really important to bring the
Speaker 1: two together. You do the tactical, you get all that
Speaker 1: in place, then you can start really working on the
Speaker 1: emotional piece. And when you have both those things happening,
Speaker 1: you're really a lot more capable of making changes in
Speaker 1: your life. So I hope that is helpful to you.
Speaker 1: If you're interested in working with me one on one
Speaker 1: to do some of this work, you can go to
Speaker 1: Eric Zimmer dot coach slash application. You can fill out
Speaker 1: an application there and we will talk for about thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: I am not a high pressure sales guy, and I
Speaker 1: always try and make sure that, regardless of whether we
Speaker 1: work together, that I deliver something of value to you
Speaker 1: at the end of that call. So that's Eric Zimmer
Speaker 1: dot coach slash application. But either way, I'm hoping you
Speaker 1: can take the concepts in this, whether you decide to
Speaker 1: work with me, or you can take some of these
Speaker 1: concepts and apply them in your own life and have
Speaker 1: some more success. So thank you so much for listening
Speaker 1: to this, to all our episodes. I'm really glad that
Speaker 1: you are here with us on this and if there's
Speaker 1: anything I can do for you, let me know. Take care. Bye,