Change Academy

This episode was suggested by a listener named Liz: “I have clients that I fear will let go of their habits when they don’t have me there to hold them accountable. How do you coach someone to create that accountability for themselves or hold themselves accountable?” Takeaways Being more accountable to someone else than you are to yourself can be a red flag that either your goal is off or your reason for doing it is missing.When you can align your goal with your identity and values, you can become someone who acts a certain way whether they feel motivated or have external accountability or not.Cultivating more awareness of the intrinsic rewards can make you less dependent on external rewards (although you can still enjoy those as well).You don’t need to stay motivated in order to succeed. You just need to stay committed. Lab Experiment When you find yourself searching for motivation, stop and ask yourself instead “Why is doing this thing or achieving this goal important to me?” Next, ask yourself “What’s required of me right now? Who do I need to be in this moment in order to become who I want to be in the future?”Imagine how you will feel after taking that next step–even if no one else knows you did it. Will you be glad you did it? If so, simply commit to taking that next step, whether or not you feel motivated.  Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★

Molly is the host of the Breaking the Bottle Legacy podcast, in which she shares her own experience with changing her long-standing drinking patterns and creating a healthier and more peaceful relationship with alcohol. As you’ll see in this episode, Molly’s approach to behavior change aligns perfectly with what we talk about on the Change Academy, and can be applied to all kinds of behaviors and changes.  You’ll find the Breaking the Bottle Legacy podcast wherever you listen and Molly’s book of the same title will be available soon on Amazon.com  Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★

The Serenity Prayer (“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference”) counsels us to accept the things that we cannot change. But often, the things that we say we cannot change are actually 100% within our control. In this episode, we explore whether something is truly out of our control or if we just prefer to believe that it is.Takeaways:- We may choose to believe that a situation is out of our control to avoid doing the hard work of change. - Taking responsibility for what we are, in fact, choosing gives us the ability to choose differently. - Being honest with ourselves about what we are actually getting from a “bad” situation may allow us to find other ways to serve those needs. - Ensuring that you are acting in alignment with your core values can help you stay on a more meaningful path, especially when your judgement is feeling cloudy.Lab Experiment:Identify a situation in your life that you’re not happy with and make 4 lists.What’s not working: Is it not creating the desired results, is it costing you too much, or creating consequences? What is working: How is the status quo actually serving you? What are you getting from this situation that you want or feel you need?What I can’t control: Make sure the things you’re putting on this list are truly things that you have no control over.Actions I can take: Refer back to what’s working/not working for ideas and inspiration. Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★

We all have those tasks or projects that, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves procrastinating.  It might be a new behavior or practice that we want to create a habit around, like exercising or meditating. Or it might be a personal or professional project that we want to accomplish, like writing an essay or report or creating a program or product.In this episode, we offer a practical strategy that can help you overcome the tendency to procrastinate or to simply not do the things that you intend to do. Takeaways Procrastination may be a bad habit but it’s not necessarily a character flaw. Often, It’s just a sign that you need to put a better system into place.Seeing a large project on your to-do list often creates inertia and overwhelm, but seeing microtasks on the list can create clarity and fuel progress.Once the microsteps that initiate a task have been repeated enough times, you can usually stop planning them as separate tasks.Keep your greater goal (and objective) in view so that you don’t get lost in the tasks.Lab Experiment Pick something that’s been on your to-do (or to-change or to-start) list forever without making any progress.Brainstorm the very first steps that you’ll take–or even the preparatory steps that you need to before you can start. Do you need supplies or information that you don’t yet have? Do you need to enlist someone else’s support or input? Are there barriers that need to be removed?Schedule the first step or steps individually into your planner. When will you start? When will you finish? How will you know you’ve completed that step?When the appointed time comes, execute that first micro-step no matter what. We’re betting that having taken the first step, you’ll find it much easier to take the next one. But if you need to, keep scheduling (and executing) those microsteps until you find yourself in flow. Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this episode, we depart a bit from our usual format and welcome a guest to the show.Heather Hutchison is a singer/songwriter and author of the new memoir Holding On by Letting Go. Heather has been blind since birth and one of the things she hopes to do through her music and writing is educate people about disability and mental health.One of the concepts she explores in her book is this idea of Radical Acceptance, a term that Brock introduced in our recent episode on coping.So we thought it would be great to have Heather on the show to talk more about that. Please enjoy this conversation between co-host Brock Armstrong and Heather Hutchison. Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★

Coping mechanisms are not an inherently bad thing. If we can’t avoid or escape something unpleasant or even harmful, figuring out a way to cope with it is a good survival strategy.  But sometimes we use coping mechanisms to tolerate things that maybe we shouldn’t be tolerating. In this episode, we explore the difference between helpful and unhelpful coping.Takeaways:- Using external pleasures to help us feel better (or cope) in particular situations is natural and normal.  - When those behaviors start to impair your happiness or your ability to achieve your greater goals, it becomes a problem worth addressing. - Sometimes our coping mechanisms allow us to tolerate a situation that we’d be better off changing or avoiding.  - The first step in dismantling a coping mechanism is to identify what situation, emotion, or trigger leads to the unwanted behavior and then decide if we can react to it differently or work to eliminate it altogether. Lab Experiment:1. What problem am I trying to fix with this behavior? 2. Does this behavior actually fix the problem? (Sometimes the answer is yes!…at least for a little while) 3. Does the behavior cause a new problem? 4. How else might I find relief or solve this problem, so that I don’t need this “coping mechanism”? ★ Support this podcast ★

Exploring the art of creating and managing various types of lists like to-do lists and checklists. Emphasizing the importance of setting clear goals and prioritizing tasks for improved productivity. Highlighting the role of scorecards in tracking progress and achieving personal satisfaction.

Some of our goals or objectives require us to master a range of different skills. You’ll probably be naturally stronger in some areas than others. And sometimes, in order to reach our goals, overcoming or strengthening a weakness is essential. But it's not just about forcing yourself to work on the things that are hard for you. In this episode, we focus on identifying areas where you need more support--and seeking out resources that can help. Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★

In this episode, we’ll teach you how to identify and dismantle unhelpful cues and also build some helpful ones. We all have cues in our lives that prompt us to carry out certain behaviors, like putting a seat belt on when we get in a car, grabbing snacks when we sit on the couch to watch a movie, or pouring a glass of wine when we change out of our work clothes.Some of our cue responses are good (like seatbelts), and some are not so good (like snacks and alcohol).  Many of them probably developed over time without our conscious intention.We can, however, deliberately create cues in our lives to help us make decisions and perform behaviors that will benefit us.  TakeawaysBringing conscious awareness to our cued behaviors can help us break them.If we’re trying to break a bad habit it can be really helpful to eliminate or modify the cue as well as the behavior. Purposely introducing new behaviors that are anchored to already existing behaviors can give us a nice head start.Introducing a level of fun and gamification to this process can make it more effective.Lab ExperimentFor the next week, see how many cues or prompts you can spot as you go through your day. Jot them down as you come across them on a notepad or in your note-taking app.  At the end of the week, review your list. How many of your cues are triggering helpful behaviors and how many are triggering unhelpful responses? How can you use this information to dismantle unhelpful cue/response cycles? You might choose to eliminate or modify the cue. Or you might choose to replace the old response to that cue with a new one.  Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★

Having a firm grip on reality is usually seen as a sign of good mental health.  But social scientists have discovered that happy and successful people routinely overestimate their skill, talent, and chances of success. In fact, that may be one of the secrets to their success. In this episode, we explore why being overly optimistic is not a cognitive defect that needs to be overcome but a constructive trait that we can cultivate.Takeaways Being willing to believe that you’ll beat the odds can make it more likely that you willWhen you believe you’ll be successful in the end, it’s easier to cope with (and even learn from)  setbacks.Reflecting on past successes can be a good way to bolster your optimism about the future.Optimism doesn’t save you from having to do the work. But we’re usually willing to work harder for something that we believe we can achieve.Lab Experiment 1. Think of a goal or result you’d like to achieve. 2. Visualize what it would feel and look like to achieve it.3. Picture yourself taking the steps required to make that dream a reality. (If you can’t clearly picture what those steps are, spend some time figuring out what they would be.)  4. Allow yourself to feel confident and optimistic—and let that optimism fuel your determination to do the work. Interested in having Monica present at your next live or virtual event?  Learn more. ★ Support this podcast ★