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