Latest / The You Project / #1750 Delaying Gratification - Harps

Transcript

#1750 Delaying Gratification - Harps · The You Project

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Good a Groovers. I'm going to talk about this idea
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of delaying gratification. What does that mean? Thanks for asking.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: That means when I'm in that moment of I just
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: want to do that thing, to scratch that itch, to
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: boost that little dopamine kind of spike in my brain,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: to make me feel instantly and momentarily better. When I
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: have that feeling, I don't do it. I turn my back. Metaphorically,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: I say no, I still feel the same. I still
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: feel compelled to have that bit of food, to drink
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that thing, to smoke that thing, to use that drug,
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: to gamble on that horse, to do that thing that
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: compels me, or that I feel compelled to do. But
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: I don't do it, And you go, well, why does
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it matter? Well? It matters because if we are always
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: acting on our impulses, if we are always submitting to
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: giving into that instant gratification compulsion, Honestly, life doesn't generally
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: end up well. Life doesn't go great for us if
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: we are always being held hostage by our impulses and urges. Now,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: that doesn't mean we're never going to give into an
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: impulse or urge. There's never going to be a bit
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: of instant gratification or a bit of bloody cheesecake or
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: a bit of bloody glass of coke, or I don't know,
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I know what you think is but it's hard. It's hard.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: But I believe that experientially. I believe this through my
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: own kind of journey and also working with others, observing others.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I believe that our ability to be able to delay gratification,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: in other words, say no to that thing that's not
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: going to do us any good over the long term,
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: but it's going to make us feel bloody amazing in
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: the moment. Being able to say no to that, and
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: really say no to that, and keep saying no to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that is where we start to overcome those destructive and
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: compulsive and toxic habits, and where we start to build
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: self awareness, and where we start to self regulate, where
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: we start to create a new operating system where we're
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: not constantly at the whim of our impulses. Years ago,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: I had a guy come to see me, and this
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: is when I owned I owned Jim's. And we sat
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: down and this guy had come from far and he
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: had lots of weight to lose. He was very out
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: of shape. We spent an hour and a half together,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: and in the hour and a half we sat and
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: we talked, and we spoke about his background and his
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: motives and his reasons and what he wanted to do
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: be create, change all that stuff. Spoke about how he
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: ate typically, spoke about his relationship with food, which was
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: his biggest challenge. Spoke about, you know, his current status
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: of health and weight and size and all of those things.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: Did a basic assessment, put him through a workout, set
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: a program for him, and an hour and a half later,
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: after some pretty what I thought was some pretty deep
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: connection and honesty and a few tears and a bit
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: of a man hug at the end, and a bit
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: of a come on, tiger, you can do it, I
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: sent him on his way. And I won't say where
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: he lived in case someone figs out who it is.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: He won't, but he lived in the country. He'd come
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: a long way to see me, and he was going
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: to see me once a month and come down. And
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I was going to do the same thing. I was
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: going to you know, basic assessment, chat, new program, a
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: bit of a kick in the bum, bit of man love,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: you know, all that stuff, and we would see how
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: he went. But I was kind of his coach, I guess,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: and if he needed to talk to me, he could
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: ring me. Blah blah blah. This was the plan. This
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was the plan. So anyway, I sent him on his way,
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: and about I don't know, ten minutes fifteen minutes later,
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: I decided I was going to head up the road.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Just right right, one hundred meters from where my gym
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: was was another road that kind of led to a
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of shops and restaurants and cafes and stuff. Anyway,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: I headed up that road on my motorbike, So on
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: a motorbike, not in a car, got a helmet on,
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: so no one knows who it is. So I'm riding
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: and I pull up at a set of traffic lights,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: actually a pedestrian crossing, and just in front of me,
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: to the right, just in front of the pedestrian crossing,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: kind of thirty meters away from me, is a bakery.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: And you know what I'm going to say. Sitting out
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: in the front of the bakery, his old mate, who
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: had just swore twenty minutes earlier, this was the beginning
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: of the rest of his life, and he was going
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to turn everything round. And we had a food plan
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: and the biggest challenge was food and self control. And
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: he was like, I'm in the zone. I'm never gone back.
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: It's bloody amazing, and I'm so excited. Thank you, And
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: like I said, tears and a bit of snart and
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: a hug. And I was literally sitting there and I
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: looked over and here's this is this bloke sitting at
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: a I remember, a round table, like one of those
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: round cheap tables outside the bakery. I think he had
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: a chocolate big m As I looked at him, he
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: was eating either a pie or a pasty, and he
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: had a bunch of other things there. He had a
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: bit of a banquet. Now this is twenty minutes, fifteen
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: minutes after he left me, and it just amazed me
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: that within twenty minutes that need for instant gratification, that
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: despite you know, I was reasonably good at my job
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: in those days. You know, I don't know if I
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: was the best, but I was pretty good. I was
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: pretty good, pretty good trainer, pretty good coach, pretty good
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: at helping people like tap into that stuff. Anyway, it
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: just it kind of underlined for me how bloody powerful
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: those urges and those compulsions It's all about dopamine, by
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the way, Like that's that's the thing we want. That's
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: it's the pleasure neuro transmitter that bloody lights our brain
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: up and makes us feel fucking amazing. And whether or
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: not that dopamine responses from booze or from cocaine, or
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: from chocolate or from sitting at a round table outside
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a cafe stuffing pies and things in your face. Now,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I'm not being nasty to him, it's just literally what happened,
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, and so much so powerful is this that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: like advertisers and marketing people they they do. You know,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: here's an interesting thing I just thought of this. Did
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: you know that quite a few big advertising and marketing
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: firms now have neuroscientists working with them, not just marketing
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: and branding people, but neuroscientists on the team who understand
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: brain chemistry and the way that people's brain chemistry works
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: around advertising, especially things like advertising food and booze and
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: anything that can be somewhat addictive. And the reason that
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: they have these people, and you can't blame them because
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: their job is not to take care of the nation's health.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Their job is to sell shit. The reason that they
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: have these people is because they know how to manipulate
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: an audience or a reader, or a viewer or a listener,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: because they know how people respond. They know how addiction,
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: be it a kind of addiction to chocolate or just
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: some kind of weakness that people have, they know how
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: to use that. They know how to manipulate that, they
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: know how to they know how to tap in, tap
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: into that that dopamine drive, that drive for dopamine. Yeah.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So your challenge, my challenge, this has been big for
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: me over the years, is in that moment, in that
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: moment when you fit, when you know you don't need
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: By the way, you never need a bag of chips.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying never eat one, but you don't need
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: the bag of chips. You don't need the glass of coke,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: you don't need the cake. If you want to have
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: some now and then consciously and you just do it,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: that's cool. But if you are one of those people,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: I would say half the people that listen to me
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: still wants to be fiddle or leaner or lighter or
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: healthier or better performing, or you know, put simply in
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: a better place with their body. And if you're one
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: of those people, and if you're also one of the
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: people who really struggles at times with food and self
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: control and self regulation. Here's a really simple question to
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: ask yourself before you shove something in your god, and
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: that is do I want this or do I need it?
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: The chances are you don't need it, you simply want it. Now,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: some people are maybe going, you're so fucking boring. How
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: boring is life with that? Well? Is it? I think
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: we tell ourselves stories about eating junk so that we
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: can rationalize the eating of junk. I'm not saying never
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: have a better junk food, never have pizza. Knock yourselves out,
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: do what you want. But what I am saying is,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: if you have had a history, or you have a
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: history with a body dysmorphia or not loving how you
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: look or feel or function, or struggling a food or
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: having a like me, a complicated relationship with food, then
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: being able to delay that gratification, put it off for
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: a while, maybe a long while, or it could be
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: something else. It could be spending, it could be but
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it's the challenge is to be in the grip of
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: that impulse and to not do it. And if you
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: can ride that wave and you can come out the
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: other side. You're a chance. All right, let's go to
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: break because it's what we do and I'll be back
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: in a minute. Alrighty groovers. So when it comes to
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: delaying gratification, your question desure is what is your achilles heel?
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: What's the thing that you struggle most with? And see
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: if you can apply some of this thinking to that.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Just catch yourself, just be aware, just be conscious. Do
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: I need to do this this, have this, whatever it is,
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: spend this or do I just want to That's like
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: a self awareness question. That's like a consciousness question. That's
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: like a opening up your mind in the moment question
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: and stepping out of that kind of that that groundhog
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: danis that unconscious kind of behavior. See you next time.