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Why It Gets Harder Before It Gets Better - The Emotional Cycle of Change · Do Hard Things™ with Siegfried Tiegs

• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: You ever start something and you're like full of excitement at the day one, at the beginning, at the start?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then at some point, all the excitement goes away and it gets super hard, maybe even to a point where you want to quit.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why does it seem to get hard before it gets better?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the topic of today's podcast.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to share with you the emotional cycle of change and the valley where most people quit and give you some tactics to help you push through that.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the deal.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this transcends all life arenas, whether it be your health, your wealth, your relationships.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't really matter what it is, but you start something and you are full of excitement.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: And just think whatever that is in your life.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a new workout routine.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a new business strategy.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's investing in, you know, trying to turn the ship around in a relationship.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's trying to break a habit.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that day one, you're like, you're super excited, you're fired up, you wrote it down, you told everyone, you burned the ships, you are just really, really excited about it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you're even thinking, like, you know, why didn't I even think about this years ago?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And then at some point, as you start the the walk, the journey of doing the thing, eventually the newness and the excitement wears off, and it begins to get a little difficult, maybe a little uncomfortable.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: You're not quite seeing the results yet, but you're seeing the soreness, you're seeing the actual time and resources it's taking to press on.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're doing the marketing, but the the the phone isn't, no one's calling you yet.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like I said, this transcends all life arenas.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then eventually there comes a point of oh my gosh, is this even worth it?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why is this so difficult?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this so hard?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then we call this the valley of despair.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you're actually at the bottom of this valley and you're just trying to discern, you got one of two choices.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I continue to press on, one foot in front of the other, slog it out, or you know what?
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna quit and I'm gonna start over.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you press on, you might start seeing the results, and and then you start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, you see the goal line, and that's where you get really excited, and you can press on through the goal.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: What happens to many people is they quit in the valley of despair, and then they start over.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: They they pick something else, and the cycle starts over.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: They get excited about that thing, and then they begin to do the work and they realize it's hard, and then they get to the bottom, then they quit.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: And that can be a cycle.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really important to understand that this is a cycle, this is common, this is there's actual science behind this, there's some psychology behind this.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, I'll link the blog I wrote that has the actual emotional cycle of change graphic in the in the show notes so you can see it.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it looks like a bell curve.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: There's an X and Y axis on one side, you've got emotion.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: So on the left side, like from bottom to top, there's like low emotion at the bottom, high emotion at the top.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And then on the bottom, going from left to right, you've got time.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: And as you begin, you're gonna have high levels of optimism and you're gonna be super excited at the beginning.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: But as time goes on, basically you get a little bit more pessimistic until you get to the bottom of the valley and it actually looks like a valley, until you get to that decision point of whether to press on or start over.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: But if you just continue to press on, the curve starts to go back up to optimism as you start to be see the light at the end of the tunnel.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you get to stage four, uh there's there's five stages to this.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Five the fifth stage is the finish line.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Once you start to see the results and you can see the finish line, then you're more apt to push through.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we're talking about.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to share with you a real life example of what happened to me this year.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So in uh in January, Joe and I, we signed up for the Missouri River 340.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's the the 340-mile race from Kansas City to St.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Louis, longest nonstop paddle race in the world.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you have 85 hours to get from Kansas City to St.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Charles, which is just outside St.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Louis by way of the Missouri River.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Joe and I signed up as a tandem team.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was January.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, new year, new me.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's crush the year, let's do something epic.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've done it, this would be my third time.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I was excited about going back.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: This was his first time, something that he thought he wanted to do.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we were both like on a high.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Started thinking about the finish line.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're like high five in party, you know, let's go, right?
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, so in the very beginning, high levels of optimism and excitement.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Now, eventually, as the months went, we had to really start taking uh training serious.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, stage two kicked in.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is when nothing had really gone wrong yet.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It it just felt like we were, we still had a ways to go.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Training was really starting to pick up.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we were really focused on strength and conditioning and then getting the boat out.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some challenges, you know, when you're training on a two-person team, you know, there you gotta line up your calendars because he's got a life, I've got a life, we've got to train together.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then you don't, your your weekends start to get eaten up because you have to do some long training runs.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're training for 340 miles.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is an ultra-endurance event, so you've got to put some hours in.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: And there's some training races involved.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not just like putting your running shoes on and leaving the house and going for a run.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we got to load up the boat, we got to drive to the lake, we got to download the boat, you got all the gear and all the equipment, and and just it, it just, it just is a time-consuming endeavor.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And each one of us, you know, we had to say no to things, no to things in our personal life.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, we we had to make it a priority.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: We had we had to decline barbecues and maybe events that were more fun because when you're committed to an ultra-endurance event, you got to put the time in, or you're not gonna make it.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we were solidly in stage two when we ran our first training race.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was the Perchy Creek Gust bus uh gut buster.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: This was a canoe kayak race.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's pretty short, it's only 10 miles.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: We were in the Winona Sundowner, so it's like an old, older canoe that I had raced before.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we got humbled.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We finished at the back of the pack.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: The only boat that we beat was a canoe that we saw that they were obviously faster than us, but they had dumped it twice.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so when you've dumped the boat and have to get back in, you're gonna slow down.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was the only boat that we beat that morning.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I was, I was uh in my in my head a little bit, I was like, oh man, this is not going to.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted to perform better.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, we really got to pick up training.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't long after that, where maybe a couple weeks later, after some more training, we did some more training runs, we're working on cadence and technique and all of those things.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: We decided to do our first run on the Missouri River.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the day that we went out, it was Joe's first time on the Missouri.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: The water was a little higher that day.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: We had planned for four hours.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: The the stretch that we picked was throwing up a pretty big headwind that we hadn't really counted on.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And my boat was known for stability.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: That's the whole reason you own a, you know, when own a sundowner.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I just simply couldn't control the boat very well.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: We got a rudder on it, but between the water being high and then the wind, just could not control it.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, about halfway through our run, we knew that we should have got off the river.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: We tried to get off the river, and I don't know what happened.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: We hit a log or something had happened, and we found ourselves in the water.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the first time that I had dumped in the Missouri River, and it was nearly a search and rescue situation.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: We were we, we, we, bottom line is we were able to get to the bank and we survived.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was furious as I was watching.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: We had to let the canoe go.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so here I am.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm watching my boat that I've had some history with that I love, that's not it, it's not cheap to replace, along with my favorite pair of sunglasses and a new Bose speaker.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm watching these things along with my pride and my ego like float down the river.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: But thankfully, we were alive.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: We hugged it out, you know, grateful that we were alive.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: We did our walk of shame down the Katy Trail with our paddles covered in mud.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw Lacey, and uh, we were just happy to be alive, but at the same time felt absolutely defeated.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted nothing to do with the race anymore.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Just, I was just so I was all in my emotions about it.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I just felt like I was done.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like we only had a few months left.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was gonna be a lot of effort.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: I I was just like, I can't believe it.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Just I can't believe that happened, if I'm honest, maybe kind of in shock.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: That night, we were firmly in the valley of despair.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was it would it would boil down to it's one of two decisions.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: We just say, screw it, we're done with the season, we're done with the race, or we double down.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: We double down and we continue to move forward.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And look, I've taught this curve for years.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: I knew exactly, you know, where we're at.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: I was in the bottom of the diagram that I taught, that I teach all the time.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Completely soaked, no boat, embarrassed, ready to walk away from everything, walk away from something I told everyone I was doing.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And but I I just I went to sleep that night and I woke up the next morning and I just kept seeing myself at the finish line.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, this cannot be how we finish.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I felt pretty doggone defeated.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: How are we gonna find a boat so quick?
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, it was just, it was just, it was rock bottom.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we decided, I called Joe that morning.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey man, where are you at?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: Like, are you at rock bottom?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to quit?
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Are we gonna press on?
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he was of the same opinion.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: We both saw ourselves at the finish line.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like this was not going to define our season.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so being at the bottom of the Valley of Despair, we had that choice.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Go find something else, start something new, go back to stage one, or press on to four.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so, one foot in front of the other, we started the search to find a boat.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: And that was not easy.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy to find a boat for the Missouri River.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: We only had like a couple months before the race, too.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I had found another canoe, uh, you know, trying to find, have you ever dealt with like Facebook Marketplace?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I found a boat that we really liked, but just trying to coordinate, it was up in Iowa, and I'm trying to coordinate with someone, and they're not timely in their communication, just like a lot of Facebook and Craigslist ads, like it's kind of painful.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought we found a boat, really excited about the boat, just could not get the transaction, could not get the guy to communicate in time, getting kind of defeated once again.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you gotta be kidding me, like there's so much resistance here.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people are already buying boats for this race.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: So there's not a lot available at this time of year because we're in like middle of peak season for you know canoe kayak racing.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: There was one, like I found some like Canada, East Coast, but I wasn't going to drive all the way across the country.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: I just didn't have the time to get away to do that.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Luckily, we saw an ad on on the MR340 page, and it was priced to sell this 21-foot current design Libra.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was a kayak, so it was different than a canoe.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it was almost like a completely different boat, completely different paddle style, but it was priced to sell, had all the uh gear and equipment, and was a really good deal.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it, I called the guy, I'm like, hey, I'm interested.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: The guy had like three people call right away, but we were the first in line, and he said he was gonna hold it, and and it was in Kansas City, so it's about two hours away.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I got a hold of Joe.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, found a boat, I think.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go check it out.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: We saw it and it was awesome, perfect.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it was the it was the right boat.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: We had to learn to paddle it, we had to change our stroke, and I don't know what was really cool about it was it kind of gave us like, hey, we're back in this thing.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we were like starting to maybe see stage four, like we were out of the valley of despair, and we're like, hey, there's some light at the end of the tunnel.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we were firmly in stage four when we actually went to the freedom race.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_00: The freedom race is a 100K run.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the last long run before the MR340.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a it is just a really good training run right before the race.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we we actually were in the top 25.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: We finished in the top 25, which was complete opposite of how we finished at the gut buster.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: The boat felt really steady.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: We we really liked it.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like a we keep calling it a Cadillac.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, we we crossed the line together and we we finished.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: And that was when we knew that that we're gonna be okay.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: We like that we were firm, like we could see the light at the end of the tunnel.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like the boat checked out, it felt really good.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like, we're back in this thing, baby.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: And then that led us to stage five, which actually towing the line at the MR340 and finishing, and we finished in 53 hours, fifth place in the tandem division, 20th overall, which was actually remarkable given that we had to change the boat, Joe's first time, the conditions at this race.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was one of the hottest, it had it had heat, headwind, and it was like one of the lowest as far as water level, so slow water, really, really difficult conditions, and we finished really strong.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: And the one thing that I remember at the finish line, I was excited to see my friends and my family, and just the sense of accomplishment.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I think for me, what what I envisioned most was sensing myself floating in the Missouri River, letting go of my canoe, feeling absolutely frickin' defeated.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: That that was that is what I remember and being able to come back and overcome, that is the greatest feeling from this particular race, which is why I have so much reverence for it.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't just finish, we crushed it.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and and personally, from an emotional perspective, probably one of my favorites.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: I've done a lot of racing and a lot of events, but this one meant a lot because of that, because I knew that I was in the middle of the Valley of Despair and uh and I pressed on.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it's just an example of my life, but I'm sure that you can look back in your life and you have plenty of examples where you pressed on, or maybe you even started over.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I've certainly have examples where I have had to start over where I didn't finish and I started over.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: And but but the cycle of change is it's real and it happens to everyone.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the bullshit belief that makes people quit?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, for many people, when it comes to this, it's like this just simply isn't working.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: If this were the right path, why does it feel so hard?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Why doesn't this feel inspiring anymore?
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've all been sold a version of this.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Find your passion, you'll never work a day in your life.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: If it's if it's meant for you, it'll come easy.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know, I think that's there's some truth to that, but there's also some bullshit to that.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so I teach a lot about flow state.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like flow feels easy, and I think it can also fool people.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: And because I think just think that the the just think of the last time that you were truly locked in on something where you were like in this flow state where where time didn't matter, three hours went by, you never checked the clock, everything was just clicking, it felt effortless.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Well, people will say that's easy.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it felt easy, but I don't want you to discount the hard work that you're putting into it.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: What what what flow removes is not the work.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're doing hard work.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's removing the sense of friction because it it it the the flow lives right at the edge of what you can do.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: If it's too easy, you'll feel bored.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: If it's too far past your skill, you're rattled.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it it basically flow doesn't show up because you found something easy, it shows up when you are inspired.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And inspired means to be in spirit, lined up with your purpose, doing hard work that you've gotten really freaking good at.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I know a lot of people a lot of people believe like inspiration is something that it's like people don't really know where inspiration comes from.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's like something that that has to like hit you like a lightning bolt.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: People treat it like it shows up on its own, and when it's not, they they sit around hoping it comes back.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to think about that in spirit, in spirit, inspired.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you can generate that inspired feeling if you are aware of it, if you are connected to your purpose and you know the steps it takes to to kind of kindle that fire again.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and feeling worse about something like when you're in that value of what it doesn't it doesn't mean that it's not working.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: When you're doing something really hard, that that tension, that friction that you're feeling can be an indicator that you're exactly where you need to be.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: The friction you feel is you moving outside of your comfort zone.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: The expansion of the comfort zone because you got to push through fear and you got to push through learning, which is hard, into that place of growth.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So when you feel the edge of that, that's just an indicator that that you're pushing beyond your comfort zone.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't necessarily mean that you need to quit because it's hard.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so just having awareness to that can enable you to push through when you want to quit.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the emotional cycle of change, the graphic is it I call that a map.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I think we need to have maps to look at.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So anytime that you're pursuing something, I would encourage you to look at the map.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I would just recommend that you let you grab a hold of this, go to the blog, it's in the show notes, take a screenshot of it, put it in your in notes somewhere, because anytime you're facing resistance, this is what's happening every single time.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Don Kelly, Daryl Connor mapped this out in the 1970s.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's called the emotional cycle of change.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: Five stages.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: I teach this all the time, I reference it all the time.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And just to recap, stage one, high level of excitement.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is called uninformed optimism.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_00: You sign up, you see the whole thing in your head, it's gonna be epic, right?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because you're naive, it's because you just don't know what you don't know yet.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's exciting to be at that stage.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Stage two, now you're starting to feel the cost.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is called informed pessimism.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that you started isn't abstract anymore.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's confidence might start to leak out a little bit.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're not quite quitting yet, but you're feeling the resistance.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Stage three, the valley of the despair.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is the suck.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: This is where people quit.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: You got two choices decision point, start over or continue to press on.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: The promises, the the valley is where promises go back in the drawer if you're not careful.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Stage four, this is informed optimism.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you start to notice the difference.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: You start to see the results.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the payoff coming.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the sweet spot because this is where you start to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then stage five, this is where you're at the finish line.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you're like, you know, standing victorious.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: You're winning and you know it, and you're right there.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so the map matters because if you know where you're at on the curve, you know what's happening to you.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: You're not lost.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: So having a map is really important.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so here's some tactics that you can use.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, find yourself on the curve.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta, you gotta know where you are at in the stages, and that will help you.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: So you can you can write down and anticipate, you know, not anticipate, but you know exactly where you're at on the curve.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you can see what's coming next, and you can see the what's coming before you.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Tactic number two, knowing that, knowing that you're going to hit the valley of despair, you can plan the valley before you enter it.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that I like to do is tell people you got to remember why you started.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: When you start anything difficult, like what is it about that endeavor?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: What why do you want to get to that destination?
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: And a couple questions.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who does it impact?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes we'll do more for other people than we will ourselves.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Who does it impact?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Your wife, your kids, your teammates, who loses when you don't win, right?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And even if you don't win, it affects them.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: It has an effect on everyone around you.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: What does it actually feel like to win?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like imagine yourself and visualize yourself being there.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: What would that truly feel like to be there?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: And then how might your life change from the outcome of actually achieving this?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Writing those down, signing it, dating it, putting it in the drawer so when you get to the valley of despair, you can pull it out and reread it and connect with that, could be the thing that enables you to forge ahead and move forward.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things, you know, about the 340, like I journal and I journaled about it a lot.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: I was flipping back through my notes and just, and I really started to think about what finishing this race would mean for me this year.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I got connected with that.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I had a lot of people that were going to volunteer, and we were, you know, raising money for a Veterans Community Project.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that helped me push through when I wanted to quit.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Tactic number three get out of your head.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Really get your head, heart, and your feet aligned.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your head is where, you know, the six inches between your ear, this is where fear lives.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you're running scenarios in your mind.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what if I fail?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: All the bullshit beliefs that it comes from your thinking.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Your heart is where you're truly connected.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is your why.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you get connected to spirit, something bigger than yourself.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: And getting your your head in alignment with your heart is really important.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then your feet, like one foot in front of the other, right?
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: So getting all of these systems in line, your head, your heart, your feet moving, like moving one foot in front of the other.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that's tactic number three.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Get these things in check, get them aligned.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Tactic number four, score the lead, not the lag.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you're familiar with lead and lag indicators, lead indicators is scoring the things that you can control.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: The sessions completed, the calls made, the workouts done.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: You can read those today.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: The lag indicators are the results of doing the lead.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's the scale, it's the number on the scale, it's the revenue, it's the finish time.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so you got to track the lead indicators, not just the lag.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so you measure the input while you're waiting on the output.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: So that's really, really important.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then number five, embrace the suck.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: Don't brace for it.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Embrace the suck.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is a term that we got thrown around in the army quite a bit.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Bracing is what most people do.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: You brace for impact.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: You tense up, you grit your teeth, you wait for it to be over.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Bracing can be exhausting.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: It makes every, you know, every every moment, every minute that you're you feel like you're you're you're you're waiting for that impact, it just, it just sucks the life out of you.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Embracing is different than bracing.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Embracing means you're accepting the discomfort as part of the deal, part of the experience.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: You have reverence.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: I get to do hard things.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm part of this.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_00: You find the humor in it.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: You you laugh at the absurdity of it, you know?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just embracing the moment, embracing the discomfort.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so embrace it, don't brace for it, if that makes sense.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So some additional do's and don'ts.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Don't decide on a bad day.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you're gonna be in the Valley of Despair, when you are in the Valley of Despair, the just be cognizant of don't do it on a bad day, like sleep on it at least.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sleep on it before you quit.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's some of the best advice I ever had?
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: Just sleep on it before you quit.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: Don't confuse a hard day with the wrong plan.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the plan genuinely needs some adjustment, but sometimes you can't tell the difference from the bottom of the curve when you're standing in the middle of the valley of despair.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's something that uh you can adjust the plan, but don't confuse a hard day with a really bad plan.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: Don't go quiet.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: Isolation is what the valley wants from you.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you need someone to connect with.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: You got to have a battle button, you got to have someone to report to.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when you go quiet and you isolate, easier to quit that way.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: Don't expect the curve to be one and done.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: Anything worth doing has smaller cycles inside the big one.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna, you might have a few moments.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You might you might revert a little bit, you might feel the valley of despair a second time, second wave.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's all good.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just know where you're at.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Can you press on?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then when you're done, like when you're done with whatever, when once you've winned, what once you've won, once you've achieved the finish line, you might just capture how the valley felt.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where the military would call an after-action review.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: You go back and you relive it.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_00: What what what was supposed to happen, what actually happened, what went well, what didn't go so well, and maybe capturing the moments of the Valley of Despair because you might achieve that, get there again.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, yeah, so that's that's pretty much that's pretty much it.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we talked about today.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: So today I shared with you, you know, why it gets harder before it gets better, some of the science of the emotional cycle of change.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Shared with you my own experience this year with the MR340, the whole gamut of emotions felt, the uh the bullshit belief that makes you quit, the uh, you know, sharing with you the map and the the five stages of the emotional cycles of change, and you know, a few tactics, a few tactics to help you navigate that and some do's and don'ts.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever you're looking to start a hard change, just realize that you're gonna navigate the emotional cycles of change.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have the map, you know what to expect, you can better plan for it, and you can embrace, you can embrace for it.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: You can instead of bracing for it, you can embrace the suck that's going to come.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so you might just simply know where you're at on the curve right now.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, utilizing the principles of the do hard things, nation, grit, purpose, and peace.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: Grit is what you face navigating the valley.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: Purpose is what keeps your eyes on the horizon when you're down there to keep moving forward.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then peace is waiting at stage five.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: It it it it's it's there and uh it's waiting for you.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: If I appreciate you taking the time.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you got any value from this, please share it with someone.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: If you'd like to know more about what we're doing, feel free to go to do our thingscoaching.com.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: We've got uh some expeditions coming up, some retreats.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if looking for keynote opportunities.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: So if your organization is looking for a keynote speaker, looking to find opportunities to go speak, feel free to grab a copy of Life on Offense, a tactical guide to dominate life and end mediography.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't done that, it's been mentioned in Forbes a couple times.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's an Amazon bestseller.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I'm honored to serve.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: If there's anything that I can do for you, please feel free to uh to reach out.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: But this is just a reminder to keep getting after it and every day, you know, embrace, embrace the grit, connect with your purpose, and make sure that you find peace on a daily basis.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So honor to be here.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: We will see you guys in the next episode.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Keep doing hard things.