Latest / The You Project / #2025 Delaying Gratification - Dr. Jodi Richardson
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: I'll get a your bloody champs. It's the project that's you.
- 0:03Speaker 1: Oh god, it's four minutes past midday, it's Tuesday. I'm
- 0:06Speaker 1: sounding very much like a radio presenter right now, sitting
- 0:09Speaker 1: on sixteen degrees in Hampton, heading for a top of
- 0:11Speaker 1: twenty two joining me today in the studio, and by
- 0:13Speaker 1: that I mean the virtual studio.
- 0:15Speaker 2: Tiffany and Cook, Hi Cook, Craig, Anthony Harper reporting it for.
- 0:19Speaker 1: Judy sir ah, who's Judy? Oh see what I did there?
- 0:23Speaker 1: Doctor Jody Richardson is also in the studio, the virtual studio.
- 0:28Speaker 2: Hi Joe, Hi Harps, Hi tiv hi Ah.
- 0:32Speaker 1: I'll tell you what. The old radio days, I don't
- 0:34Speaker 1: really miss them, but sometimes it's a bit of fun
- 0:36Speaker 1: just to morph back into that bloody you know a
- 0:39Speaker 1: little bit of FM magic, isn't it. You're still doing
- 0:42Speaker 1: your weaving. Your not allowed to say magic because that's
- 0:45Speaker 1: inconsistent with Christianity, But are you still weaving your skills
- 0:50Speaker 1: over there at Light FM?
- 0:52Speaker 2: I am. We just had the Relate mental health events,
- 0:56Speaker 2: so two events, one in Mount Evelyn on Monday night
- 1:00Speaker 2: and one in West Meadows on Tuesday night. So yeah,
- 1:03Speaker 2: and the weekly podcast is keep on, keeping on. I
- 1:08Speaker 2: love working with the crew at Positive Media.
- 1:10Speaker 1: Yeah, they are very good, very good, and they do.
- 1:13Speaker 1: They do push a lot of great stuff out into
- 1:15Speaker 1: the world. And if ever we needed good stuff, positive stuff,
- 1:18Speaker 1: positive mental health and emotional health being shoved down our
- 1:24Speaker 1: faces better than something negative. Now is the time. How
- 1:28Speaker 1: is well, Hello anxiety. How's your little potty? Well, not little?
- 1:31Speaker 1: How's your big potty going?
- 1:33Speaker 2: Oh so good. We've had a change of potty artwork,
- 1:37Speaker 2: which is really lovely. So I actually designed the artwork
- 1:43Speaker 2: for the podcast myself, and that is evident when you
- 1:48Speaker 2: have a look at it, like, I'm reasonably happy with it.
- 1:50Speaker 2: But do you know, I was so anxious about starting.
- 1:54Speaker 2: There were so many the irony bread I know exactly exactly.
- 2:01Speaker 2: There were so many things that could have stopped me
- 2:03Speaker 2: from moving forward. And I thought, if I go down
- 2:06Speaker 2: the rabbit hole of getting artwork done, I think I
- 2:10Speaker 2: could probably push this thing out for another couple of months,
- 2:12Speaker 2: which was where my head was at. So I just thought,
- 2:15Speaker 2: you know, I'm just going to do it myself and
- 2:17Speaker 2: get on with it. But yeah, I've actually just had
- 2:19Speaker 2: a professional podcast cast artwork design, so that'll come through
- 2:23Speaker 2: in the feed soon, which is nice.
- 2:25Speaker 1: So you're not changing in the name of the show,
- 2:28Speaker 1: you're just changing the artwork.
- 2:30Speaker 2: No, they actually properly designed the logo using the same
- 2:34Speaker 2: fonts and the same kind of look and feel. But
- 2:36Speaker 2: the artwork, you know, the little tile, that little thumbnail
- 2:39Speaker 2: that goes with makes the podcast recognizable. It's completely changing
- 2:45Speaker 2: so that it's time and it looks beautiful. So podcast
- 2:49Speaker 2: is going well. Had some really really good interviews, and
- 2:54Speaker 2: just the feedback that I'm getting from people about the
- 2:56Speaker 2: way it's really supporting them is really beautiful. So thanks
- 2:58Speaker 2: for asking.
- 3:00Speaker 1: Well it is a good little show or a good
- 3:02Speaker 1: big show. It's called well, hello anxiety, everybody, So just
- 3:05Speaker 1: wright down a few things here as you chat that
- 3:08Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about today. It's so
- 3:11Speaker 1: funny when you talk about getting anxious about like the
- 3:14Speaker 1: queen of anxiety, getting anxious, which we know you've spoken
- 3:17Speaker 1: about many times. Understanding anxiety doesn't mean that you've dispensed
- 3:21Speaker 1: with anxiety, just like me talking about being a high
- 3:25Speaker 1: performer doesn't necessarily mean I'm a high performer at any
- 3:28Speaker 1: fucking stage. But it's so true though. I think that's
- 3:31Speaker 1: what makes hopefully us. Hopefully I'll let the audience be
- 3:35Speaker 1: a judge, but hopefully us. Three relatable is that we're
- 3:39Speaker 1: all still works in progress and we're okay with that.
- 3:41Speaker 1: But at the same time, I can be a bit
- 3:44Speaker 1: broken and a little bit amazing, and I can still
- 3:46Speaker 1: encourage and support people while not waiting for all of
- 3:50Speaker 1: my shit to be sorted necessarily. You know, we're not
- 3:54Speaker 1: aiming for perfection, as they say, just a bit of
- 3:57Speaker 1: growth and improvement, Jody.
- 4:00Speaker 2: And perfection doesn't exist really, and if you aim for
- 4:03Speaker 2: that and wait for that, which a lot of people do,
- 4:06Speaker 2: and I understand anxieties often at the heart of that,
- 4:09Speaker 2: then you actually don't ever get anywhere. We just need
- 4:13Speaker 2: to be consistent. And I honestly think like I relate
- 4:16Speaker 2: mostly to people when they show a few kinks in
- 4:19Speaker 2: their armor and they're honest and open. And I actually
- 4:23Speaker 2: shared something on Instagram last week because I won't do
- 4:28Speaker 2: the gymnastics required to show you, but I'm in a
- 4:30Speaker 2: moon boot at the moment, and it's been really getting
- 4:34Speaker 2: me down. Like I'm actually really good now because I've
- 4:38Speaker 2: worked out that I can go back to CrossFit and
- 4:40Speaker 2: just do everything seated, not everything, but I can do
- 4:43Speaker 2: a whole lot of stuff, and I shared I actually
- 4:46Speaker 2: just recorded a video. I was waiting to pick up
- 4:48Speaker 2: the kids, and I just kind of shared that, you know,
- 4:51Speaker 2: like you might see me traveling around the country, you know,
- 4:55Speaker 2: speaking and doing work that I love. But you know,
- 5:00Speaker 2: it doesn't mean necessarily mean like we're just that reminder
- 5:03Speaker 2: that when we're just because you see stuff on socials
- 5:06Speaker 2: doesn't mean people aren't going through stuff. And I always
- 5:08Speaker 2: like to kind of share a little bit, not from
- 5:10Speaker 2: a real place of I don't like to share when
- 5:15Speaker 2: things are super raw and it could be really like
- 5:18Speaker 2: you know, unprocessed, and but yeah, just to say, hey,
- 5:22Speaker 2: I'm having a bit of a hard time. It's frustrating,
- 5:25Speaker 2: it's limiting, it's affecting my mood. I can't do the
- 5:29Speaker 2: things I want to do, but putting into practice the
- 5:32Speaker 2: things that I teach so often. And then that afternoon,
- 5:36Speaker 2: I just saw it stuff I'm going to go to
- 5:38Speaker 2: CrossFit and I'm just going to see my mates and
- 5:40Speaker 2: I'm going to do what I can. And it turned
- 5:44Speaker 2: everything around. So I think, like I just think about
- 5:49Speaker 2: if we can just be consistent and just keep working
- 5:51Speaker 2: and persist towards our goals, you know, aside from injury
- 5:56Speaker 2: and exercise and not talking about that so much. But
- 5:59Speaker 2: there's no such thing as perfection. We all struggle. We
- 6:02Speaker 2: just don't always see that people are struggling underneath, you know,
- 6:05Speaker 2: everything else.
- 6:07Speaker 1: It's hard when you're emotional, which we all are, especially
- 6:12Speaker 1: when it's about ourselves. It's all well and good to go, well,
- 6:15Speaker 1: just do this or we'll just you know. It's like
- 6:17Speaker 1: I put a post up the other day about how
- 6:19Speaker 1: unhelpful it is to tell a worried person not to worry,
- 6:23Speaker 1: you know, like telling an insomniac just to go to sleep,
- 6:26Speaker 1: you know, and it all like while the intentions are good,
- 6:30Speaker 1: you know, like to put your arm around someone and say,
- 6:32Speaker 1: don't worry about it. It's a nice intention and the
- 6:36Speaker 1: empathy is there, but it actually doesn't help anyone. It
- 6:39Speaker 1: might make them feel temporarily or momentarily kind of cared for,
- 6:43Speaker 1: but it still doesn't solve anything. And I think that,
- 6:47Speaker 1: you know, when you're in that funk where you're like,
- 6:49Speaker 1: I'm in a moonboot. This is not this is not
- 6:52Speaker 1: what I want to be happening. It's not where I
- 6:54Speaker 1: want to be. This stops me from doing these things
- 6:57Speaker 1: that make me feel good or it limits me, or like,
- 7:00Speaker 1: in the middle of that kind of potential emotional and
- 7:03Speaker 1: psychological spiral of whatever right for me, a couple of
- 7:09Speaker 1: things happen really matter for me. Two is context. So
- 7:14Speaker 1: I've over said this, but it's never not going to
- 7:16Speaker 1: be true. When I do something to my back or
- 7:18Speaker 1: I'm in a bit of pain or I'm having a
- 7:20Speaker 1: shit time, I just think of Johnny, who I train,
- 7:23Speaker 1: Who's by the way, Johnny's in hospital. Everyone we love
- 7:26Speaker 1: john john just had a skin graft yesterday and just
- 7:30Speaker 1: he has ongoing, ongoing challenges and pains but never complains.
- 7:35Speaker 1: I'm going to go see him later today. So I
- 7:38Speaker 1: think of him, and I think, well, yeah, my problems
- 7:40Speaker 1: are one. And then also I think about in the
- 7:45Speaker 1: middle of my emotion and how I'm feeling, I think,
- 7:48Speaker 1: what's the best question that I can ask me? What's
- 7:52Speaker 1: the best question that I can ask me in the
- 7:56Speaker 1: light of what's going on in me emotionally, this is
- 7:59Speaker 1: how I feel. So I think, tell me what you
- 8:02Speaker 1: think about this. But I think, yeah, fully feel what
- 8:04Speaker 1: you feel. We're not saying don't feel what you feel.
- 8:07Speaker 1: We're not saying deny the feelings. We're not saying snap
- 8:10Speaker 1: out of it. We're not saying harden up, We're not
- 8:12Speaker 1: saying any of that. We're going I feel shit also,
- 8:15Speaker 1: And in other news, what can I do though, Oh,
- 8:20Speaker 1: I can go see my mates at CrossFit, and I
- 8:23Speaker 1: can probably figure out a few things to do for
- 8:26Speaker 1: my upper body or my core or my one good leg,
- 8:29Speaker 1: or at the very least I can have a meaningful
- 8:32Speaker 1: coral conversation, or I can laugh or you know. So
- 8:35Speaker 1: all of a sudden, we're not denying the feeling, but
- 8:39Speaker 1: we're now focusing on something positive from a cognitive or
- 8:44Speaker 1: a psychological perspective that we can do to move forward.
- 8:49Speaker 2: You must have watched that post that I recorded, because
- 8:54Speaker 2: I did.
- 8:55Speaker 1: I Yes, I did. I totally ripped it off, and
- 8:57Speaker 1: I'm just going to say that was all out of
- 8:59Speaker 1: my head.
- 9:00Speaker 2: No, no, no, just because one of the things that
- 9:03Speaker 2: I did say. And Carlie Taylor, who's been a guest
- 9:05Speaker 2: for you and a guess for me, she has studied
- 9:09Speaker 2: Japanese psychology and one of the things, one of the
- 9:12Speaker 2: philosophies or one of the learning's teachings is arugamama, which
- 9:17Speaker 2: is and I'm going to I'm going to like misquote this,
- 9:21Speaker 2: but paraphrasing, it's kind of with things as they are,
- 9:24Speaker 2: what can I do? So accepting the circumstances for what
- 9:27Speaker 2: they are? How can I move forward? What can I control?
- 9:32Speaker 2: And that was something that that I shared. But you know,
- 9:37Speaker 2: context is it's so it's so good because I sit
- 9:39Speaker 2: here thinking, oh, I did have a bit of a
- 9:42Speaker 2: like a bit of a down week and it was
- 9:46Speaker 2: you know, pain and not being able to do the
- 9:48Speaker 2: things you want to do and all that kind of stuff.
- 9:50Speaker 2: But context what you just said, it's so true, Like
- 9:52Speaker 2: we don't want to discount our experience of things because
- 9:56Speaker 2: it is still you know, maybe a challenge for us.
- 9:58Speaker 2: But when you stop and think, think, if it's temporary,
- 10:02Speaker 2: I've got the resources to be how to get the
- 10:04Speaker 2: help I need. So I'm really privileged like that I
- 10:06Speaker 2: know where to go, I know who to see, and yeah,
- 10:11Speaker 2: and I because I needed to be basically off my
- 10:15Speaker 2: feet and hadn't been, i'd been into state working and
- 10:17Speaker 2: traveling and presenting, I'd kind of made things worse. And
- 10:22Speaker 2: so yeah, yeah, so I think throws. I just remember
- 10:28Speaker 2: my psychologists used to just say to me that life
- 10:32Speaker 2: throws all sorts of challenges at us and that is
- 10:37Speaker 2: just part of being human. Like you can't avoid it,
- 10:41Speaker 2: but if you can have some helpful ways of thinking
- 10:46Speaker 2: about it, reframing it, and taking control of what you
- 10:51Speaker 2: can do despite what you can't, I think that's really powerful.
- 10:56Speaker 1: I think, firstly, agree with all of that. I think
- 10:59Speaker 1: the thing with anxiety and mental health in issue and
- 11:02Speaker 1: sadness and depression and overthinking and all of these kind
- 11:05Speaker 1: of intersecting psychological and emotional first cousins, right, that all
- 11:11Speaker 1: kind of live in the same cognitive zip code trying
- 11:15Speaker 1: to figure out you know, it's different for different people,
- 11:19Speaker 1: Like for me, movement is a really big part of
- 11:24Speaker 1: mental health and whether I don't know if it's correlation
- 11:29Speaker 1: or causation, but definitely since I started walking rock bottom
- 11:32Speaker 1: ten thousand steps a day, you know, a year ago.
- 11:36Speaker 1: Now it's over a year ago, like that's there's definitely
- 11:39Speaker 1: since that time, my mental health is consistently better. And
- 11:43Speaker 1: by mental health I just mean I'm just consistently happier now.
- 11:46Speaker 1: I don't know if that's caused that or it's just
- 11:49Speaker 1: correlated in some way, because there have been some other
- 11:53Speaker 1: benefits too, But I also know that not just emotionally
- 11:56Speaker 1: but cognitively, my brain seems to work better. But I
- 12:00Speaker 1: know that what will be optimal for me won't be
- 12:03Speaker 1: optimal for TIF or you necessarily. And so this still
- 12:06Speaker 1: comes down to this self awareness piece around trying to
- 12:11Speaker 1: figure out not what works for everyone, but what works
- 12:15Speaker 1: for me. And there are certain broad principles I guess
- 12:18Speaker 1: where in general terms, a good diet doesn't hurt, and
- 12:22Speaker 1: sleep doesn't hurt, and movement doesn't hurt. But then when
- 12:25Speaker 1: we get into the micro in the middle of the macro,
- 12:28Speaker 1: trying to figure out how your brain and your emotional
- 12:31Speaker 1: system and your body best responds. So yeah, I think
- 12:36Speaker 1: there's that little bit of kind of self awareness and
- 12:41Speaker 1: even self experimenting in there. I think I'll shut up
- 12:44Speaker 1: after this. I think, like, when I'm feeling a bit shitty,
- 12:49Speaker 1: I think, what's the best investment of my emotions now, Like,
- 12:52Speaker 1: in other words, what should right now? What should have
- 12:56Speaker 1: my emotional energy and my attention or what could have it?
- 13:00Speaker 1: You know? And it might be that I go and write,
- 13:02Speaker 1: I go, I'm going to create a new whiteboard for Instagram,
- 13:05Speaker 1: and then I just step out of my emotional state
- 13:08Speaker 1: in or I try to step into my creative space
- 13:11Speaker 1: because when I'm creating, I'm having fun. And even though
- 13:15Speaker 1: I'm a scientist and a researcher, I am probably naturally
- 13:19Speaker 1: more of a creative than a scientist. I can do science,
- 13:24Speaker 1: and science is cool, but I love the freedom of creativity,
- 13:28Speaker 1: not the confinement of science. Yes, right, and I can
- 13:33Speaker 1: straddle both, as can anyone who wants to. But yeah,
- 13:36Speaker 1: and I think it's like some of the things that
- 13:39Speaker 1: for me are like very emotionally psychologically liberating, like riding
- 13:43Speaker 1: a motorbike, which for other people would instill fucking terror
- 13:47Speaker 1: and anxiety. That's isn't it funny? The exact same stimulus
- 13:51Speaker 1: being on a motorbike can literally change the biochemistry of
- 13:56Speaker 1: your body really positively or negatively depend on your experience
- 14:01Speaker 1: or your interpretation of that thing.
- 14:04Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so true. And just one of the things
- 14:08Speaker 2: that you said, I think is really I mean, so
- 14:10Speaker 2: much is really interesting, But just that awareness that when
- 14:16Speaker 2: you are not feeling good, that you can take a
- 14:20Speaker 2: moment and kind of step outside of what your experience
- 14:25Speaker 2: is in that moment and then have that space to think,
- 14:28Speaker 2: how could I best move forward? What could I do
- 14:31Speaker 2: considering how I'm feeling and where I'm at. And I
- 14:33Speaker 2: think that that is not easy for everyone that because
- 14:38Speaker 2: you know how you can just get so swept away
- 14:40Speaker 2: with how you feel and so overcome and overwhelmed that
- 14:46Speaker 2: that is like, yeah, I just wanted to note that
- 14:49Speaker 2: just the ability to kind of do that, and sometimes
- 14:51Speaker 2: that means just slowing down, because sometimes when we're not
- 14:53Speaker 2: feeling good, we just keep on keeping on, but when
- 14:56Speaker 2: there's just a moment to go, this is what I'm experiencing,
- 15:00Speaker 2: what would help? And it's not like you say, it's
- 15:03Speaker 2: not about necessarily feeling better. But this idea that I
- 15:08Speaker 2: posted something on LinkedIn a couple of weeks ago about
- 15:12Speaker 2: I might not feel like doing something, but it doesn't
- 15:14Speaker 2: mean I shouldn't do it. And it's something I'm teaching
- 15:18Speaker 2: the kids as well at seventeen and fifteen, that you know,
- 15:22Speaker 2: like you get asked to do an extra shift, you
- 15:24Speaker 2: might not feel like doing it, but should that be
- 15:26Speaker 2: the thing that dictates your answer to the question from
- 15:29Speaker 2: your boss? And sometimes yes and sometimes no, depending of course,
- 15:33Speaker 2: there's no flat rule. But I think this idea that
- 15:37Speaker 2: we can take our difficult emotions and still do important things.
- 15:42Speaker 2: Is so crucial because you know how we were saying earlier,
- 15:46Speaker 2: and you were saying that you can wait till you
- 15:48Speaker 2: get all your ducks in a row. But if any
- 15:52Speaker 2: of us wait till that happens, we'll be waiting the
- 15:54Speaker 2: rest of our lives, and then there'll be a lot
- 15:55Speaker 2: of regret that all the things we didn't do because
- 15:58Speaker 2: we kind of waited too long for things to be okay.
- 16:00Speaker 1: Hate, Yeah, I think we repeatedly see like a similar
- 16:08Speaker 1: thing play out, and that is when you know, it's
- 16:12Speaker 1: like you said, the thing that we need to do
- 16:14Speaker 1: is or the thing that we should do is not
- 16:16Speaker 1: always the thing we want to do.
- 16:17Speaker 2: Right.
- 16:17Speaker 1: So the dichotomy is that virtually everyone who listens to
- 16:22Speaker 1: this show wants to learn and grow and evolve and
- 16:26Speaker 1: improve and be a better version of themselves whatever that means. Right,
- 16:30Speaker 1: we want to be better. We want to know better health,
- 16:33Speaker 1: the better mindset, more calm. That is, we want to
- 16:36Speaker 1: change positively in some way. That's probably a pretty universal
- 16:41Speaker 1: state of mind for our listeners, or hope for our listeners.
- 16:45Speaker 1: At the same time, most of us don't like discomfort. Also,
- 16:51Speaker 1: change is uncomfortable, So the dichotomy is we want to
- 16:55Speaker 1: be comfortable, but also we want to change. And so
- 16:58Speaker 1: the challenge is what is the uncomfortable thing that I
- 17:02Speaker 1: don't really want to do but my goal requires me
- 17:06Speaker 1: to do? Like what is the what is my standard?
- 17:10Speaker 1: What are my values? What is my potential? What do
- 17:13Speaker 1: I want my life to look like in one year?
- 17:16Speaker 1: My relationships, business, career, mental state, physiology? Right, my one
- 17:21Speaker 1: year version of me and my life, and what's required
- 17:24Speaker 1: of me today day one of that year. If we're
- 17:27Speaker 1: working from as we're recording October twenty one, twenty twenty
- 17:31Speaker 1: five to October twenty one, twenty twenty six, So this
- 17:34Speaker 1: is my day one. What are the things that I
- 17:36Speaker 1: can do on day one to make day three hundred
- 17:39Speaker 1: and sixty five where I want to be Like that
- 17:42Speaker 1: projection or that theory in my head, how do I
- 17:45Speaker 1: turn that into reality? And a lot of that is
- 17:48Speaker 1: really going to be well, Craig, you need to do
- 17:49Speaker 1: probably quite a few things that you don't really want
- 17:52Speaker 1: to do or enjoy, and that might not be comfortable,
- 17:56Speaker 1: and there might be a fair bit of unknown and
- 17:58Speaker 1: uncertain and unfamiliar. So all the best, right, and this
- 18:03Speaker 1: is the well I mean, this is the never ending
- 18:05Speaker 1: kind of conundrum really with self help, personal development, behavioral
- 18:09Speaker 1: psychology is that growth is just fucking hard and uncomfortable,
- 18:14Speaker 1: and many people are perpetually looking for growth without the discomfort. Well,
- 18:18Speaker 1: good luck. It's like getting strong without doing strength training.
- 18:23Speaker 1: Fucking good luck, Brian.
- 18:25Speaker 2: That's it. That's so true. And muscle is one of
- 18:27Speaker 2: those things you can't pay for it, you can't outsource it,
- 18:31Speaker 2: You got to work hard for it. Yeah, it's and
- 18:35Speaker 2: I think it's so it's very easy to put it off.
- 18:38Speaker 2: I'm a personal Like my example this week was I
- 18:41Speaker 2: really I've kind of overhauled my nutrition and feeling so
- 18:45Speaker 2: much better for it, and I more or less kind
- 18:47Speaker 2: of wound back a lot of the sugar I used
- 18:49Speaker 2: to have, Like I just used to be just craving
- 18:52Speaker 2: sugar a lot. Anyway, we had friends over on Saturday night.
- 18:59Speaker 2: Friday night. Friday night, we just Peter brought home some
- 19:03Speaker 2: of my favorite ice cream, so we shared a little
- 19:06Speaker 2: thing of ice cream, and then I'm like, oh, that's
- 19:08Speaker 2: kind of it. I've sort of splurged. Saturday night, friends
- 19:11Speaker 2: came over, and Saturday night ended up being a bit
- 19:14Speaker 2: of a splurge, and then we didn't eat the apple
- 19:16Speaker 2: pies that I'd purchased for Saturday nights desert. So Sunday night,
- 19:21Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, I'll just have an apple pie. And
- 19:25Speaker 2: then I realized it's that easy. It's that easy just
- 19:28Speaker 2: to say tomorrow. And now it's not like I'm starting
- 19:31Speaker 2: a diet or anything, but I just to be true
- 19:33Speaker 2: to myself and what I know works for me and
- 19:35Speaker 2: my body and my mental health. I don't want to
- 19:37Speaker 2: eat as much sugar, but it was just so easy
- 19:40Speaker 2: to just go yes to the next temptation. And I
- 19:44Speaker 2: think with that three hundred and sixty five days, like
- 19:46Speaker 2: if literally you're just saying twenty first to the twenty
- 19:49Speaker 2: first in one year's time, we do need to We
- 19:53Speaker 2: can't keep putting things off. Yet it's very easy to
- 19:57Speaker 2: just say I'll do it next week or tomorrow. But
- 20:02Speaker 2: the beauty of starting is that sooner you start, the
- 20:05Speaker 2: easier it gets. But you only learn that through experience.
- 20:09Speaker 2: You have to begin, and you're the only one who
- 20:11Speaker 2: can do it one.
- 20:13Speaker 1: Hundred percent like once you My analogy is if you've
- 20:17Speaker 1: ever tried to push a car in a driveway or
- 20:21Speaker 1: a car park, when it's you know, it's not in gear,
- 20:25Speaker 1: obviously it's in neutral, but it's stopped. It's really fucking
- 20:29Speaker 1: hard to get it moving. But once the car is moving,
- 20:34Speaker 1: like once it's moving at three or four or five
- 20:36Speaker 1: kilometers an hour, then it takes so much less effort
- 20:39Speaker 1: to keep the same weight moving because now you've got momentum.
- 20:44Speaker 1: And it's that initial kind of resistance, mental, emotional, physical,
- 20:49Speaker 1: whatever resistance, that kind of I think it keeps people trapped.
- 20:56Speaker 1: I think that that lack of willingness to just look
- 21:00Speaker 1: this is going to suck. But I'm okay with it,
- 21:03Speaker 1: you know. And for me as someone who has many
- 21:07Speaker 1: of these conversations with a lot of people, and you know,
- 21:09Speaker 1: I find it what's the word I was gonna say, sad? Sad,
- 21:12Speaker 1: it's not the right I don't know what the right
- 21:13Speaker 1: word is. Not even frustrating, But like I see it
- 21:17Speaker 1: with people who I know have got at least as
- 21:20Speaker 1: much talent or more than me, at least as much intelligence,
- 21:24Speaker 1: intellect resources as me, if not more, but constantly just
- 21:31Speaker 1: not fucking doing what they could do for a range
- 21:35Speaker 1: of reasons that are not really real but rather psychological constructs,
- 21:41Speaker 1: you know, it's like, and it's not about self loathing.
- 21:43Speaker 1: It's about self awareness, because everyone's going to wake up
- 21:48Speaker 1: at some stage. If not everyone, most people are going
- 21:50Speaker 1: to wake up at some stage and go, fuck, this
- 21:52Speaker 1: wasn't my plan. You know how many people have a
- 21:54Speaker 1: health scare and then go, oh shit, I better do something. Well, okay, good,
- 22:00Speaker 1: but maybe you could have done that five years ago
- 22:02Speaker 1: before we got to this point. Or and again, this
- 22:06Speaker 1: is about for me. This is about being proactive, not reactive,
- 22:09Speaker 1: going well, you've got one body, let's not fuck it. Ahah.
- 22:12Speaker 1: Let's not wait for the diabetes, Let's not wait for
- 22:15Speaker 1: the heart disease. Let's not wait for all of the
- 22:17Speaker 1: associated conditions that come with maybe not looking after yourself.
- 22:22Speaker 1: It's not about appearance. It's not about vanity. We don't
- 22:25Speaker 1: care about the numbers. It's not about what you look like.
- 22:29Speaker 1: You know. This is not a shallow thing. This is
- 22:31Speaker 1: about you living long and strong and well. You know, so,
- 22:34Speaker 1: what the fuck do you want to live long and
- 22:36Speaker 1: strong and well? I do cool? What are you doing
- 22:39Speaker 1: to make that a reality? Nothing? Okay? Right? And this
- 22:43Speaker 1: is the uncomfortable conversation. It's like, oh, you're harsh, No,
- 22:48Speaker 1: I'm fucking honest, but we'd rather call me harsh because then, oh,
- 22:53Speaker 1: he's just harsh. You don't want to call him honest
- 22:56Speaker 1: because if he's just being honest, then I need to
- 22:58Speaker 1: deal with it. So what I'm going to do. So
- 23:00Speaker 1: I'm going to call Craig harsh and blunt and brutal
- 23:02Speaker 1: because that makes me feel better because then I don't
- 23:05Speaker 1: need to do anything because Craig's the problem, not my
- 23:07Speaker 1: inability to fucking take action, you know. And it's like
- 23:11Speaker 1: what needs to happen for you to just fucking look
- 23:15Speaker 1: after yourself? You know. For me, that's that's what I
- 23:19Speaker 1: care about people, And I care about them actually not
- 23:23Speaker 1: wasting the next ten years of their life bullshitting themselves
- 23:26Speaker 1: and not not using what they've got to work with.
- 23:30Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I know it comes from a place
- 23:33Speaker 2: of love. And you know, well, there are people who
- 23:36Speaker 2: you know, have have you know, barriers in their life
- 23:41Speaker 2: that you know, the fundamentals like supporting their you know,
- 23:48Speaker 2: psychological safety and putting food on the table and all
- 23:51Speaker 2: those sorts of things that you know, those kinds of stresses.
- 23:53Speaker 2: But for the for the vast majority of people, there's
- 23:59Speaker 2: I think if we're all honest with ourselves. There are
- 24:02Speaker 2: things that we could do that would make a really
- 24:04Speaker 2: significant difference to our mental health, our well being, our longevity.
- 24:08Speaker 2: And I'll often say, if I'm speaking to a group,
- 24:11Speaker 2: that put your hand up, if you can think of
- 24:13Speaker 2: one thing that would make a really meaningful difference to
- 24:17Speaker 2: your well being right now, But you're not doing it,
- 24:20Speaker 2: and everyone's hands goes up, and those that don't put
- 24:23Speaker 2: their head up are probably not being honest with themselves.
- 24:27Speaker 2: But it you know, I think about people I know
- 24:31Speaker 2: who've had heart attacks, for example, like you know, I'm
- 24:34Speaker 2: in my fifties now you're in your sixties. Sixties, yes, yes, yes, yes,
- 24:40Speaker 2: and so you know now kind of demographic. You can
- 24:43Speaker 2: start to see some health some choices catching up with people.
- 24:47Speaker 2: And often when the heart attack comes or the significant
- 24:50Speaker 2: health event comes, then that's the impetus for significant change,
- 24:56Speaker 2: because all of a sudden, the life's on the line.
- 25:00Speaker 2: Some do, some don't, Some fall back into old habits.
- 25:03Speaker 2: But I sort of think, well, if you can do it,
- 25:06Speaker 2: then you can do it now. But to have the
- 25:10Speaker 2: control and not be forced out of action for weeks
- 25:13Speaker 2: with heart surgery or being laid up in hospital. You know,
- 25:17Speaker 2: like I think the idea of thinking about if something
- 25:21Speaker 2: terrible happened, if I got a diagnosis, what would I
- 25:23Speaker 2: do Differently, we don't have to wait for that.
- 25:27Speaker 1: Course like heart disease and diabetes don't give a fuck
- 25:31Speaker 1: about your emotional state. It's like, ah, I'm not ready
- 25:34Speaker 1: for diabetes. Will you fucking got it? Well, had a
- 25:37Speaker 1: heart attack. I'm not ready to deal with a heart attack.
- 25:40Speaker 1: I'll deal with it on Monday. No, it's today. Do
- 25:43Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I mean, the bottom line is, yes,
- 25:45Speaker 1: I'm all for protecting people and being aware and being
- 25:49Speaker 1: you know, empathetic and understanding. But also life doesn't give
- 25:52Speaker 1: a fuck about any of that. Like life is unfair,
- 25:56Speaker 1: Life is messy. Bad things happen to good people. This
- 25:58Speaker 1: is why five year old kids get cancer. That five
- 26:01Speaker 1: year old kid that gets diagnosed today, and there's probably
- 26:04Speaker 1: a lot of them sadly that happens. That's horrible, that's unfair,
- 26:08Speaker 1: that's fucking I don't even get that. If there's he
- 26:12Speaker 1: and I'll have a conversation one day about that. I'm
- 26:14Speaker 1: not sure. But the truth is, the uncomfortable truth is
- 26:18Speaker 1: that happens. So you know, we need to go, Oh,
- 26:22Speaker 1: life is a bitch. You know, horrible shit happens. And
- 26:26Speaker 1: I have one life and I have one body, and
- 26:29Speaker 1: every day from now is one less day that I
- 26:31Speaker 1: have to use what I've got and figure out what
- 26:35Speaker 1: the fuck I'm about my life is about. And yes,
- 26:39Speaker 1: we need to be empathetic and aware. It's like I
- 26:41Speaker 1: care about people who have got body image issues and
- 26:45Speaker 1: body dysmorphia and all of those things because I've had
- 26:48Speaker 1: all of that. But at the same time, I want
- 26:53Speaker 1: you to be physically healthy. I don't want you to
- 26:55Speaker 1: be physically healthy because I don't like the way you
- 26:58Speaker 1: look or I don't like I want you to be
- 27:00Speaker 1: physically healthy because that's going to help you have a
- 27:03Speaker 1: good and a long life. You know, let's not wait
- 27:07Speaker 1: another five years until you get over this issue or
- 27:09Speaker 1: that issue before we stop eating KFC every fucking day,
- 27:14Speaker 1: so you could stop that today. You don't need psychological
- 27:18Speaker 1: safety to not eat fucking KFC. We can do both.
- 27:22Speaker 1: We can try to page your mental health and we
- 27:25Speaker 1: can be loving and compassionate. Also, we can make radical changes.
- 27:30Speaker 1: It doesn't need to be one or the other. But
- 27:33Speaker 1: we live in this paradigm where everyone's like, Oh, we
- 27:36Speaker 1: need to do this and then we'll do that. You know,
- 27:39Speaker 1: think about all the people in the world right now
- 27:42Speaker 1: who live in abject poverty and I mean real poverty,
- 27:45Speaker 1: and people who live in war zones, and people who
- 27:47Speaker 1: live under constant threat of death and bombing and all
- 27:50Speaker 1: of that. They're just doing what they have to do. Like,
- 27:54Speaker 1: they don't get up each day and go wars not fair.
- 27:57Speaker 1: They go fuck oar's here, what do I have to
- 28:00Speaker 1: do today to survive? Now, I know that's melodramatic, but
- 28:03Speaker 1: it's also the real fucking existence for millions of people
- 28:08Speaker 1: in the world who don't have the luxury that we
- 28:11Speaker 1: have to just wait forever to take action. Yeah, if
- 28:15Speaker 1: you're in the middle of the war, you dealing with
- 28:18Speaker 1: the war every fucking morning. Yes, you don't have that.
- 28:22Speaker 1: You can't go fuck the war. I'm not doing it.
- 28:24Speaker 1: I'm going to start the war on Monday. And I
- 28:26Speaker 1: just think that there's so much of this where mental
- 28:31Speaker 1: toughness and resilience can coexist with compassion and self care.
- 28:36Speaker 1: It can. They don't need to be separate things.
- 28:40Speaker 2: And with AI, with chat GPT, it's I mean, it's
- 28:44Speaker 2: easy enough just to do it in our heads. But
- 28:46Speaker 2: you can use a tool if you want to to
- 28:49Speaker 2: start making small incremental changes. I think if people make
- 28:53Speaker 2: significant changes. It's really hard for anybody to turn a ship.
- 28:58Speaker 2: I mean we can't. You can't turn a ship around
- 29:00Speaker 2: on a dime. It takes time. And so even if
- 29:03Speaker 2: it's just a swapout, it's just like, you know, instead
- 29:06Speaker 2: of whatever you might normally have with you know, a
- 29:10Speaker 2: biscuit with your tea and coffee, just have an extra
- 29:12Speaker 2: piece of fruit in the day, or just start the
- 29:14Speaker 2: day with a glass of water. And I always say,
- 29:17Speaker 2: if the first step feels unattainable, just break it down
- 29:21Speaker 2: a little bit further. It's like you say, just getting
- 29:23Speaker 2: that momentum, getting that momentum going. And we're certainly not
- 29:27Speaker 2: at a loss for information and of what to do,
- 29:31Speaker 2: but yeah, it's just putting it off until a significant
- 29:37Speaker 2: life event or until it's too late, you know, until
- 29:40Speaker 2: it's too late, when all of a sudden you haven't
- 29:42Speaker 2: done any strength training, Like as a midlife woman, I
- 29:45Speaker 2: like to think midlife, I like to think I'd be
- 29:46Speaker 2: like tw one hundred and two spounds better than middle age,
- 29:49Speaker 2: don't you reckon?
- 29:51Speaker 1: Definitely definitely let's go mid life mid life you bloody
- 29:55Speaker 1: mid life woman. You.
- 29:57Speaker 2: But just like strength training, if you're not strength training
- 30:02Speaker 2: you're a midlife woman, you might end up paying for
- 30:05Speaker 2: it with your bone density, with your metabolism, with your mood,
- 30:08Speaker 2: with your sleep. Like just that loss of muscle is
- 30:12Speaker 2: so significant and so impactful. And my kids the other day,
- 30:18Speaker 2: we saw a woman with osteoporosis, like a lady who
- 30:23Speaker 2: was really bent over, and my daughter just sort of
- 30:29Speaker 2: notice and sort of said, I wonder what that lady's
- 30:33Speaker 2: you know, like, you know, I wonder what's going on
- 30:34Speaker 2: there kind of thing. And I explained to her why
- 30:37Speaker 2: that happens. And you know, we talk about kelcium and
- 30:41Speaker 2: she's at the gym strength training. She's fifteen. But I
- 30:44Speaker 2: just think, you know, getting out of this pattern of
- 30:47Speaker 2: especially in tiff Gosh, you know, you're all over it.
- 30:50Speaker 2: Like so many women my age will just go for
- 30:52Speaker 2: their walk and they run because it's about how do
- 30:55Speaker 2: I fit in my clothes? And I had the pleasure
- 30:59Speaker 2: of interviewing do to Stacy Simms, and she said they
- 31:02Speaker 2: end up skinny, fat, skinny in a size whatever. They
- 31:05Speaker 2: feel comfortable in their clothes. But the fat distribution around organs,
- 31:10Speaker 2: the subcutaneous fat, the just all the health implications that
- 31:13Speaker 2: comes with that. But on the outside, you look at
- 31:17Speaker 2: the person and they've got you know, I'm using air
- 31:20Speaker 2: quotes a good figure. So yeah, it's just I don't know.
- 31:27Speaker 2: I'm like you heart so I just get so passionate
- 31:29Speaker 2: about it because I just know that starting is so hard.
- 31:35Speaker 2: But once you get going, you fall into a groove,
- 31:39Speaker 2: it just gets easier.
- 31:42Speaker 1: I'm going to throw out a question, my question, is
- 31:48Speaker 1: it so hard or is that just our story? It's
- 31:51Speaker 1: like somebody has to do something today, they have no option.
- 31:56Speaker 1: They start because there's no option. The problem is we go,
- 32:01Speaker 1: I have an option. I don't have to start today.
- 32:05Speaker 1: I think practically, you're right, it is hard, and experientially
- 32:10Speaker 1: it's hard. But when you think about, okay, what makes
- 32:14Speaker 1: it hard? Well, you know for me to go and
- 32:17Speaker 1: let's say i'm you know that whatever, somebody who typically
- 32:21Speaker 1: walks two thousand steps a day, and they decide, well,
- 32:23Speaker 1: I'm going to from today, I'm going to do four,
- 32:25Speaker 1: I'm going to double it, and you might conceptually go, wow,
- 32:28Speaker 1: walking twice as far as I normally do from now
- 32:31Speaker 1: on that's hard. And then you go, no, cancer is hard. Yeah,
- 32:36Speaker 1: oh oh, cancers hard, walk in two thousand steps if
- 32:39Speaker 1: you can walk, of course, not hard. Diabetes, you know
- 32:43Speaker 1: hard like family tragedy hard. Ah, because we tell ourselves
- 32:48Speaker 1: a story and you go, oh, two thousand steps, that's
- 32:51Speaker 1: so hard. And then I go, oh, let me take
- 32:53Speaker 1: you to Cabrini Hospital in malven Let me introduce you
- 32:56Speaker 1: to John who's got a spinal cord injury, brain injury,
- 33:00Speaker 1: all these other things, and he just had a skin
- 33:03Speaker 1: a skin graphic. Da da da da, And then tell
- 33:05Speaker 1: me about how hard your two thousand steps are. Now,
- 33:08Speaker 1: I'm not trying to demean anyone, right, What I'm trying
- 33:11Speaker 1: to do is go, oh, yeah, that's right. It depends
- 33:14Speaker 1: which fucking lens I look through. If I look through that,
- 33:18Speaker 1: this is hard lens, it's hard.
- 33:20Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 33:21Speaker 1: If I go what about this? What about this? For
- 33:23Speaker 1: a reframe? How exciting is it that I get to
- 33:27Speaker 1: walk two thousand How amazing is it that I can
- 33:30Speaker 1: walk two thousand steps? More, isn't it amazing that I
- 33:34Speaker 1: have a body that can do that? How grateful am I?
- 33:38Speaker 1: Now it becomes an experience of gratitude and an experience
- 33:43Speaker 1: of something positive rather than ah thing, I have to
- 33:46Speaker 1: do a hard thing, right, you know, it's like you
- 33:50Speaker 1: know this better than me. If you call something hard
- 33:56Speaker 1: and you believe it's hard, that becomes your experience because
- 34:00Speaker 1: you create your if you think something's you know, down
- 34:04Speaker 1: to a really obvious example, if I say fuck and
- 34:07Speaker 1: someone thinks the word fuck is offensive, well, they literally
- 34:11Speaker 1: just got offended. I'm not saying they should or shouldn't.
- 34:14Speaker 1: I'm talking it's not even about swearing. It's about psychology.
- 34:18Speaker 1: It's about stimulus and response. You know. And then even
- 34:21Speaker 1: though I just said fuck twice, most of our listeners
- 34:25Speaker 1: are not offended. Then you go, oh, what is that about. Well,
- 34:29Speaker 1: it's not about the stimulus, it's about the response. Well
- 34:32Speaker 1: who's that up to? It's up to the individual, because
- 34:35Speaker 1: the individual gets to decide what things mean in their
- 34:39Speaker 1: own life. Right. If your story is this is hard,
- 34:43Speaker 1: this is hard, well guess what, you're having a whole
- 34:45Speaker 1: lot of hard in your life. If you're like, wow,
- 34:47Speaker 1: I can walk, I can walk. What a gift? How
- 34:51Speaker 1: greatful am I? How fucking amazing? Because you know what,
- 34:53Speaker 1: a lot of people can't walk a lot of people
- 34:55Speaker 1: can't get out of a chair. A lot of people
- 34:57Speaker 1: don't live in a beautiful city. Like all of a sudden,
- 35:00Speaker 1: we're reframing, and we're not pretending that it's not hard
- 35:04Speaker 1: at times. We're not trying to discount anyone's real feelings
- 35:09Speaker 1: or emotions, but we're also saying, is there a way
- 35:13Speaker 1: that I can reframe things so that rather than being
- 35:16Speaker 1: managed by my mind, I can perhaps manage my mind.
- 35:21Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, one of the things that I've talked about before.
- 35:25Speaker 2: I'm not sure if we've talked about it, but my
- 35:28Speaker 2: training and acceptance and commitment therapy is coming to mind now,
- 35:34Speaker 2: where we talk about values aligned goals, so setting something
- 35:40Speaker 2: that's important, you know, like striving for something that might
- 35:43Speaker 2: be really important to us, and knowing that despite the
- 35:47Speaker 2: circumstances that we're in, we can take steps towards that
- 35:50Speaker 2: each and every day. Like you might think being a
- 35:52Speaker 2: good parent means having a table tennis table in a
- 35:56Speaker 2: suming pool for your kids and taking them on a
- 35:59Speaker 2: couple of on holidays a year, Well, that might be
- 36:02Speaker 2: out of reach, but if your value is being a
- 36:05Speaker 2: good parent, you can be a good parent each and
- 36:07Speaker 2: every day by giving your kids time and attention and
- 36:10Speaker 2: listening and playing games and doing other things. And so
- 36:15Speaker 2: I think sometimes we think about the big stuff and
- 36:18Speaker 2: forget that the day to day kind of efforts that
- 36:21Speaker 2: we make can really align with what actually matters. But
- 36:26Speaker 2: also this idea that we're in a world of instant
- 36:31Speaker 2: gratification and everything at our fingertips, and you know, I
- 36:35Speaker 2: find myself sometimes kind of twiddling my thumbs with my
- 36:38Speaker 2: maintenet's a little bit slow, and then I have to
- 36:40Speaker 2: think about dial up and how lucky we are to
- 36:44Speaker 2: have access to what we've got. But I think when
- 36:47Speaker 2: you are making change, like for example, cutting back on
- 36:50Speaker 2: fast food or starting to walk those extra couple of
- 36:53Speaker 2: thousand steps a day, the immediate benefit isn't evident. You
- 37:01Speaker 2: might feel a little bit better, sleep better. There's a
- 37:03Speaker 2: few little things that you can be curious about notice changes,
- 37:06Speaker 2: but it's again it's looking at the long term cumulative
- 37:10Speaker 2: effect of those And for anyone who really needs that
- 37:14Speaker 2: little dopamine kind of tick the box I'm kind of
- 37:18Speaker 2: getting somewhere. Just a brilliant thing to do is just
- 37:21Speaker 2: to mark an X in a calendar each day that
- 37:23Speaker 2: you do the thing you said you do, and all
- 37:26Speaker 2: of a sudden, you've got three or four in a row,
- 37:28Speaker 2: and you're building a streak. But I do think that
- 37:32Speaker 2: one of the things that we're not used to is
- 37:36Speaker 2: resisting urges and temptations and having the skills to be
- 37:40Speaker 2: able to notice what's happening in our head and in
- 37:43Speaker 2: our body when we have an urge to do something
- 37:46Speaker 2: or to say no to doing something we said we do,
- 37:50Speaker 2: and how to move through that moment. Like you said earlier,
- 37:53Speaker 2: about that moment when you're able to recognize not feeling good.
- 37:57Speaker 2: Things aren't great, But in this moment, what can I
- 38:01Speaker 2: do with what I've got? You And you'll go and
- 38:03Speaker 2: you you know, create a whiteboard or do something creative perhaps,
- 38:06Speaker 2: But in that moment that you've said to yourself, well,
- 38:10Speaker 2: I am going to do my walk every day, but
- 38:12Speaker 2: you've had a big day. You sit on the couch,
- 38:14Speaker 2: you get the remote. You know, obviously, all of a
- 38:17Speaker 2: sudden you're into YouTube or Netflix or whatever, and you're like,
- 38:21Speaker 2: I don't want to, I don't feel like it. It's
- 38:24Speaker 2: having the psychological skills in that moment to first of all,
- 38:30Speaker 2: notice that your actions are being influenced by what you're thinking,
- 38:35Speaker 2: and then have the skills to be able to reframe
- 38:39Speaker 2: it so that you can get your bum off the
- 38:41Speaker 2: couch and get out for your walk and then come
- 38:42Speaker 2: back and sit and watch your Netflix or whatever you
- 38:44Speaker 2: want to do. And I think that that is you know,
- 38:47Speaker 2: we're obviously, you know, three quarts of the way into
- 38:50Speaker 2: our chat today, but I think that little moment, that
- 38:54Speaker 2: little you know, that little that little space, that little gap,
- 38:58Speaker 2: like you know, mind the gap in London. I just
- 39:03Speaker 2: recently in my head, I'm like, we've got to find
- 39:04Speaker 2: the gap, Like just it's just being a bit more mindful.
- 39:10Speaker 2: And I think for all of us, if we can
- 39:12Speaker 2: practice a bit more mindfulness and being a bit more
- 39:16Speaker 2: putting our head where our hands are, then we can
- 39:18Speaker 2: capture that moment and do something different with it. But
- 39:23Speaker 2: you know, if you're in a habit, a pattern of
- 39:25Speaker 2: doing something, awareness of that pattern, and what are you
- 39:28Speaker 2: going to do when your mind says I don't want
- 39:31Speaker 2: to how are you going to approach that? I think
- 39:34Speaker 2: they're really really powerful skills.
- 39:38Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you raise a lot of good points there.
- 39:41Speaker 1: One I want to circle back to, which is essentially
- 39:44Speaker 1: delaying gratification. You know, that's that's a biggie, you know,
- 39:49Speaker 1: because we are. We are the instant gratification generation. It's like,
- 39:54Speaker 1: we're the instant gratification culture. If you want to know,
- 39:58Speaker 1: if you want to sell something, if you can make
- 40:00Speaker 1: it a form of instant gratification where somebody gets a
- 40:03Speaker 1: great reward without the work, then you'll be able to
- 40:08Speaker 1: sell it, especially if it's got anything to do with
- 40:10Speaker 1: appearance or weight or weight loss or muscle gain or yeah,
- 40:15Speaker 1: and that's it is that whole kind of for me,
- 40:20Speaker 1: for me personally. This is not my recommendation for the world,
- 40:23Speaker 1: but for me personally managing me, and I'm a fucking
- 40:27Speaker 1: handful because my mind is extremely busy trying to and
- 40:36Speaker 1: also the x only kid who needed attention or the
- 40:39Speaker 1: only child I should say who needed attention, and blah
- 40:42Speaker 1: blah blah blah, all those things like trying to separate
- 40:45Speaker 1: between you know, what I'm doing because it's the thing
- 40:49Speaker 1: that I think I really should be doing, and I'm
- 40:53Speaker 1: doing it when no one's looking, when there's no accolade,
- 40:57Speaker 1: there's no approval, there's no instant gratification, no quick fix.
- 41:01Speaker 1: It doesn't even fucking feel good. But I'm doing it
- 41:05Speaker 1: because I know that I know it's the right thing
- 41:09Speaker 1: for me. Not necessarily it's the global right thing, but
- 41:11Speaker 1: it's the right thing for me.
- 41:13Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 41:13Speaker 1: And you know, we were chatting about my research my
- 41:16Speaker 1: PhD before we came on here, and yeah, I mean
- 41:19Speaker 1: there have been one thousand times probably more where I've
- 41:21Speaker 1: thought why am I doing this? Like this is I
- 41:23Speaker 1: don't need this? Why am I doing this? I'm lucky?
- 41:25Speaker 1: You know, there are so many as you go, well,
- 41:28Speaker 1: you chose that, and you can stop at any time.
- 41:31Speaker 1: But if you stop, then take ownership and don't pretend
- 41:34Speaker 1: you're not the problem, because if you stop, you're the
- 41:37Speaker 1: fucking problem. And if you get through then that's also
- 41:41Speaker 1: on you. Well done. But it's like this. There's a
- 41:44Speaker 1: guy called Jocko Willing who kind of polarizes people. He's
- 41:47Speaker 1: an ex marine and he's written a book called Extreme Ownership,
- 41:51Speaker 1: and you know, this is one of the ideas. It's like, well,
- 41:54Speaker 1: if you create good outcomes, well done. If you create
- 41:57Speaker 1: bad outcomes, own them. You know, you don't have to
- 41:59Speaker 1: hate you, you don't have to I was thinking before,
- 42:02Speaker 1: and I'll shut up after this, but I was thinking
- 42:04Speaker 1: before how much information just gets pumped out and people
- 42:09Speaker 1: basically on the Internet and you know, reels and all
- 42:13Speaker 1: the various platforms and all the various mediums that get
- 42:16Speaker 1: used on those platforms where everyone's shouting a message and
- 42:20Speaker 1: everyone thinks whatever it is they're saying that they're right.
- 42:25Speaker 1: And I just think, how often do people think with
- 42:27Speaker 1: whatever it is that they think or believe or that
- 42:29Speaker 1: they preach. I wonder if they think, oh, am I wrong?
- 42:36Speaker 1: Like could I be wrong? I think about that. I
- 42:38Speaker 1: think about that a lot, and I think I've been
- 42:42Speaker 1: wrong a lot, you know, So, which is why when
- 42:45Speaker 1: I say something, I don't go this is what people
- 42:47Speaker 1: should do. I go, this is what worked for me. Yeah,
- 42:51Speaker 1: this is what I think. This is my story, this
- 42:53Speaker 1: is my experience, rather than putting out some global mandate
- 42:58Speaker 1: everyone who deals with anxiety should do this. No, no,
- 43:03Speaker 1: I don't think so. But when I'm anxious and I
- 43:06Speaker 1: do this, this helps me. It may or may not
- 43:09Speaker 1: help you. You know, for me, success E calls ABC,
- 43:13Speaker 1: but for you success might be d E F. But
- 43:18Speaker 1: I just think that that being grounded, where you're okay
- 43:22Speaker 1: to get shit wrong, you're okay to be scared, you're
- 43:25Speaker 1: okay to be embarrassed, and you're just going to keep
- 43:28Speaker 1: grinding and when you fuck up, you'll go I fucked up.
- 43:31Speaker 1: And when you did great, you go, hey, I did great.
- 43:34Speaker 1: And there's no ego in either, there's no self hate
- 43:36Speaker 1: in either.
- 43:37Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think I think that just
- 43:43Speaker 2: some humility and just and inherent in that word is
- 43:47Speaker 2: just being human. None of us get it right all
- 43:49Speaker 2: the time. Nobody does. But like you say, you know,
- 43:54Speaker 2: and I think, I think what part of the problem
- 43:57Speaker 2: is that there's so there's so much in There's so
- 44:01Speaker 2: much that people can and a lot of it's conflicting,
- 44:05Speaker 2: you know, and it depends on your belief systems and
- 44:08Speaker 2: depends on your you know, kind of like what kind
- 44:11Speaker 2: of floats your boat as to who you're going to
- 44:13Speaker 2: listen to. But sometimes it can it can feel like
- 44:17Speaker 2: it's overwhelming and I don't know, I don't know where
- 44:19Speaker 2: to start, I don't know who to believe. It's it's
- 44:21Speaker 2: all a bit much. One thing that I found really
- 44:27Speaker 2: helpful for me was that just a little in terms
- 44:32Speaker 2: of making change is using the word I don't instead
- 44:35Speaker 2: of I can't. And when I because I used to
- 44:43Speaker 2: love Bailey's I know you're not a drinker, and I'm
- 44:45Speaker 2: no longer a drinker. I've been about two years alcohol free.
- 44:48Speaker 2: But when I was a drinker, my kind of kryptonite
- 44:52Speaker 2: was Bailey's. And I sort of said to myself, I'm
- 44:58Speaker 2: contradicting myself because for a period time it did work.
- 45:00Speaker 2: But I was just like, instead of saying I don't
- 45:04Speaker 2: want to drink Baileyes, because once I start it's hard
- 45:06Speaker 2: to kind of, you know, stop, like a jocotma, I
- 45:09Speaker 2: would say to myself, I don't, I actually don't drink Bailey's.
- 45:12Speaker 2: That was kind of like the reframe that I used
- 45:15Speaker 2: for myself, and for months that actually really helped me
- 45:19Speaker 2: to make really good decisions, until it didn't. But sometimes
- 45:24Speaker 2: it's worth trying these things on and seeing like if
- 45:28Speaker 2: you consider, say I don't eat after seven o'clock, or
- 45:31Speaker 2: I don't have dessert every night, or I instead of
- 45:34Speaker 2: like I'm choosing not to, it's just reframing kind of
- 45:37Speaker 2: almost your identity around it. And ultimately it worked for
- 45:41Speaker 2: a while, so it's worth trying. But also that didn't
- 45:46Speaker 2: last forever for me, and ultimately I just decided I'm
- 45:49Speaker 2: just actually going to just I just don't drink now.
- 45:52Speaker 2: And actually that's stuck.
- 45:55Speaker 1: It takes because I mean, your subconscious programming isn't really
- 46:00Speaker 1: tuned into your conscious decision making, or it's like yeah,
- 46:04Speaker 1: in your conscious mind, you're like, oh, I do this,
- 46:07Speaker 1: and I don't do that. In your subconscious mind's like no,
- 46:09Speaker 1: you don't. You fucking drink. You're just diluting yourself and
- 46:13Speaker 1: dreaming and again, yeah, this is just a story you're
- 46:15Speaker 1: telling yourself. And that's why you know, over time we're
- 46:20Speaker 1: trying to I mean, it starts with a conscious decision
- 46:23Speaker 1: and you know, the prefrontal cortex and you know, being
- 46:27Speaker 1: strategic and all of those things, but ultimately we need
- 46:29Speaker 1: to hardwire that shit into our subconscious so that it
- 46:33Speaker 1: becomes our new normal. So once it becomes hardwired, once
- 46:38Speaker 1: it's basically an expression of who we are. But this
- 46:41Speaker 1: is just me. I don't need to get motivated to
- 46:44Speaker 1: go to the gym. I don't need discipline, self control,
- 46:46Speaker 1: or willpower. I don't need any of that because it's
- 46:50Speaker 1: just in my DNA. I don't need to try. I
- 46:53Speaker 1: don't need nobody needs to compliment me for being fucking
- 46:57Speaker 1: disciplined or anything, because I'm actually because there are other
- 47:01Speaker 1: things that I probably should do that I avoid because
- 47:04Speaker 1: I'm not disciplined or no, not that, but because that's
- 47:07Speaker 1: not part of my normal operating system.
- 47:09Speaker 2: Right.
- 47:10Speaker 1: So it's that, you know, just trying to figure out
- 47:13Speaker 1: over time, what is the thing that is a needs
- 47:18Speaker 1: to become just hardwired into who I am and how
- 47:21Speaker 1: I am, not a thing that I do because I'm
- 47:25Speaker 1: in the zone or I'm disciplined, or I'm doing a
- 47:28Speaker 1: program or i'm you know, And I mean, that's not
- 47:32Speaker 1: a three month process. That's sometimes that's a three year process,
- 47:36Speaker 1: especially when you've been doing something for thirty years a
- 47:40Speaker 1: certain way and now you can't undo that or you
- 47:43Speaker 1: can't write new code by Wednesday, you know. So it's
- 47:46Speaker 1: a journey. It's a psychological, emotional, behavioral, and physiological journey.
- 47:52Speaker 1: And when you tell people, I get asked often in
- 47:55Speaker 1: talks how long does it take to break a habit?
- 47:59Speaker 1: And I go, well, there's no answer to that, and
- 48:01Speaker 1: it's it's I wouldn't say this to them, but it's
- 48:03Speaker 1: a really ignorant question because it's assuming there's a number,
- 48:06Speaker 1: which is completely unscientific. Are we talking about giving up
- 48:10Speaker 1: sugar or heroin? We you know, are we talking about
- 48:15Speaker 1: I've been having sugar in my coffee for six months,
- 48:17Speaker 1: or have been you know, addicted to drugs for twenty
- 48:21Speaker 1: five years, and my life is you know, not in
- 48:24Speaker 1: a great way, and I'm not in a great way.
- 48:25Speaker 1: And this is a very very very complicated issue. Well
- 48:29Speaker 1: it's different, and you know, and nothing but love and
- 48:32Speaker 1: empathy for people with addictive challenges, right, but it's well this,
- 48:37Speaker 1: you know, you're not gonna you're not going to fix
- 48:41Speaker 1: that quickly. You know that that doesn't get fixed quickly. Also,
- 48:46Speaker 1: and in other news, that's fine, that's fine, you don't
- 48:50Speaker 1: have to you know, you can change your behavior straight away.
- 48:54Speaker 1: You can change your decision making straight away, you can
- 48:58Speaker 1: change your lifestyle trade away, straight up way, but you
- 49:01Speaker 1: can't change your default setting straight away. Can't rewire your
- 49:06Speaker 1: brain straight away. No, this is a journey. So be
- 49:11Speaker 1: patient or you're going to be disappointed.
- 49:14Speaker 2: I share occasionally the idea of kind of rewiring. If
- 49:19Speaker 2: you think of like a field of like neck high
- 49:21Speaker 2: grass that's really thick and lush and you're walking through
- 49:25Speaker 2: it for the first time. It is so hard to do.
- 49:29Speaker 2: There's a lot of resistance. It's difficult. But the more
- 49:31Speaker 2: you walk that path. The more you lay down that grass,
- 49:34Speaker 2: the easier that path can, you know, take you from
- 49:38Speaker 2: A to B. And that's kind of what can happen
- 49:41Speaker 2: in our brain, building those new connections and creating those
- 49:44Speaker 2: new patterns. But something you said before too is that
- 49:50Speaker 2: we do have a choice, and we can make a
- 49:54Speaker 2: different choice. And I think when we remind ourselves that
- 49:56Speaker 2: we have a choice, that can often be quite liberating
- 50:01Speaker 2: because we can choose to stay. You know, you can
- 50:04Speaker 2: choose to have I'm just trying to think of an example.
- 50:11Speaker 2: I can't think of an example at the moment. KFC
- 50:13Speaker 2: keeps coming to mind, which I hate. But you know,
- 50:17Speaker 2: like you, when you do have a choice, I think
- 50:19Speaker 2: it shows you that you've you can do something different
- 50:23Speaker 2: and that ultimately we are the ones that are responsible.
- 50:30Speaker 2: But yeah, I don't know, I've lost my train of thought. Actually,
- 50:33Speaker 2: perhaps I'm not sure where I'm going with that, but
- 50:35Speaker 2: I just know in personally in my own life, like
- 50:38Speaker 2: when I was teaching and I needed to move out
- 50:41Speaker 2: of teaching, but I chose to stay because I wasn't
- 50:46Speaker 2: sure where I was going. But I was finding it
- 50:48Speaker 2: really hard because my mental health hadn't been good. I
- 50:51Speaker 2: just remember my psychologist saying to me, you've got a
- 50:54Speaker 2: choice here. You could go and get a job at Woolly's.
- 50:57Speaker 2: You could go and work in a cafe. You know
- 50:59Speaker 2: that back back in the day, there was no shortage
- 51:02Speaker 2: of work. So we said, if you're staying in teaching,
- 51:06Speaker 2: you're choosing to am I right in that, And I'm like, yeah,
- 51:08Speaker 2: I absolutely am. So. I just felt so liberated by
- 51:12Speaker 2: just this recognition that I have autonomy here. I can
- 51:16Speaker 2: make a choice. I don't have to do the things
- 51:19Speaker 2: that I'm doing. It's what I'm choosing to do. And
- 51:22Speaker 2: I think when it comes to behavior change, I think
- 51:25Speaker 2: just recognizing that we have a choice about what we do,
- 51:28Speaker 2: and that every day we don't do something that's a
- 51:30Speaker 2: choice too.
- 51:31Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent, and that's yeah, let's not beat
- 51:35Speaker 1: ourselves up over that. Let's just acknowledge that. I mean,
- 51:38Speaker 1: there have been times in my life where there were
- 51:41Speaker 1: things that I really needed to do and for a
- 51:43Speaker 1: range of reasons that we don't have time to explore,
- 51:47Speaker 1: I didn't do them, and you know, and then I
- 51:50Speaker 1: got to a point where I was ready and I
- 51:52Speaker 1: did it for me. I try very hard to once
- 51:56Speaker 1: I go. I'm doing it. I need to make sure
- 51:58Speaker 1: that I'm really really ready because I don't want to
- 52:00Speaker 1: do it and then stop. Yeah, you know, Hey, Tiffany
- 52:04Speaker 1: and Cook's got to go. I've got to go, You've
- 52:06Speaker 1: got to go. Well. Hello Anxiety is the name of
- 52:10Speaker 1: Jody's podcast. Dr Jody's podcast where Else. Yes, let's pump
- 52:15Speaker 1: that if we could tell people what you're holding. Because
- 52:18Speaker 1: I'm the world's worst friend, I haven't promoted that yet.
- 52:20Speaker 1: I promise you I will do it on my socials
- 52:22Speaker 1: this week. Tell people about what you're holding.
- 52:26Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, My Anxiety Toolkit a seventy card deck
- 52:29Speaker 2: that is designed to support parents and educators with supporting
- 52:32Speaker 2: anxious kids and teens. So available on my website, Dr
- 52:36Speaker 2: Jodiichison dot com.
- 52:38Speaker 1: Perfect And there's a few books on there that bloody
- 52:40Speaker 1: sell like hotcakes too. So if you be very good,
- 52:43Speaker 1: she might sign one for you and write a little message.
- 52:45Speaker 1: Would you do that? Would you write a little hello?
- 52:48Speaker 2: Oh yeah, if somebody would like for me to dedicate
- 52:51Speaker 2: it to someone in particular, then yeah, I sign every
- 52:53Speaker 2: book I sell. Yeah, definitely, very good.
- 52:55Speaker 1: Well, say goodbye a fair but Dr Joe thanks. Dr Tiff, Thanks, audience,
- 53:00Speaker 1: thanks thanks guys Mite, thank you.