Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Michelle Segar on Why We Need to Shift to the Joy Choice EP 135

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on the Passion Struck Podcast. These micro choices, our affirmation, that we are worthwhile people actually validating our values and our core identity. And that is why we need to shift from simply talking about the perfect and perfect or something is better than nothing to, I'm picking the joy choice. It isn't what I planned, it isn't what I hope to do, but gosh darn it, it's good enough for today. I'm gonna give myself and my eating some grace, but I am staying on that path with this teeny little micro-choice.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles, and on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people, and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews,

Starting point is 00:01:06 the rest of the week with guest ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello everyone and welcome back to episode 135 of Passion Struck, recently ranked by Feed Spot as one of the world's most inspirational podcasts.

Starting point is 00:01:31 Thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn, how to live better, be better, and impact the world. In case you missed it, yesterday I interviewed the one and only Brechen Ruben. Brechen is the number one New York Times best-selling author of the Happiness Project, happier at home, better than before, outer order, inner comm, and the four tendencies. Last week, I also interviewed astronaut Nicole Stott and former WNBA player and O'Neill.

Starting point is 00:02:02 Please check them all out. I also wanted to say thank you so much for your ratings and reviews. We are now over 50, 200 of them on iTunes alone. If you love today's episode or the podcast in general, we would appreciate so much. You giving it a five star review and sharing it with your friends and family members. I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. They mean so much to us now. Let's talk about today's incredible guest. Dr. Michelle Seger is an award-winning NIH funded behavioral change researcher at the University of Michigan and a lifestyle

Starting point is 00:02:42 coach. She is the best-selling author of the book, No Sweat, how the simple science of motivation can bring you a lifetime of fitness. For nearly three decades, she has pioneered methods to create sustainable, healthy behavioral change that are being used to boost patient health employee wellbeing

Starting point is 00:03:04 as well as gym membership retention. On April 26th, she released her latest book, The Joy Choice, How to Finally Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating and Exercise, which the big idea club selected as one of their top 22 books to read in 2022. She is a sought after expert and is frequently featured in major media like the New York Times, NPR, Forbes, and Prevention.

Starting point is 00:03:31 And in our interview, we discuss how she developed her passion to focus her career on the science behind sustainable, healthy behavioral change, why we are incorrectly taught to focus behavioral change on starting and stopping, but not on sustaining. How the joy choice comes down to being intentional about everyday microchoises and the fact that we are all perfectly imperfect. Why is physical activity and exercise not just about sweat?

Starting point is 00:04:03 The four decision disruptors in the joy choice that she refers to as trap. Why we encounter a vicious cycle of failure and our lives are so much like the metaphor of blowing bubbles. What she means by the perfection rabbit hole and its impact today on so many in society, the pop decision tool for guiding playful activities and the Wonder Woman effect and so much more.

Starting point is 00:04:26 Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on creating an intentional life. Now, let the journey begin. I am so excited to welcome Dr. Michelle Seger to the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you, it's great to welcome Dr. Michelle Seger to the Passion Struct Podcast. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you. It's great to be here.

Starting point is 00:04:49 It's so great to have you on and you're one of only a couple University and Michigan graduates I've had on the show. And as we talked beforehand, the life long fans, so love to give publicity and support to anything I can University of Michigan. Thank you so much. Go Blue! Go Blue, exactly. So I guess I wanted to start the interview out

Starting point is 00:05:15 by understanding since our show is about passion and intentionality, how did you develop the passion to make the science behind creating healthy behavior change your focus? While there was a very specific incidence in 1994, I was doing my first masters degree in kinesiology. And this was for my master thesis. We studied whether exercise could improve psychological outcomes among cancer survivors. And these were people who were living normal lives about four and a half years after treatment. So they weren't actively going through treatment. And we aimed to, we did a rigorous randomized trial where one group got exercised and the other group didn't. And then we took the

Starting point is 00:06:02 measures again. And we did, we found that exercise significantly improved anxiety and depression in this group. And that's really the research question that we set out to study. But part of our study design was to call people back and conduct focus groups and talk to them. and we gave them the measures again to see how things were going. But despite the fact that everyone had been smiling and laughing in their respective focus groups before we kind of brought it to the full room, I was shortly to discover that even though the measures showed that they had improved with exercise. It turns out that almost everyone stopped exercising when our study had ended like three months before the focus groups. And I was floored. I was in my mid-20s, naive.

Starting point is 00:06:56 I had thought that we had helped them in real life and not just did good research. But when I asked people why they had stopped exercising, they said they were too busy. They said they had families and work and aging parents and this and that and the other. And it dawned on me at this time that if people who had faced a life threatening illness,

Starting point is 00:07:20 like let me just pause there. If people who have faced a life threatening illness don't feel comfortable prioritizing their own self-care through a behavior like physical activity, then we have a true problem in society. And I want to add that, let's just think about this. They prioritized exercise for us and our research, but they stopped prioritizing it once their commitment to the study and so did their commitment to themselves in this way. And it was that realization almost 30 years ago that was my passion igniter. It was like, oh my gosh, this is a huge problem.

Starting point is 00:08:05 And guess what, it's mine. And I'm going to solve it. So everything I've done since that time has been in service of understanding. Not just my focus really, it hasn't been about behavior change. It's been about how do we, what are the challenges to, and what are the solutions for creating sustainable behavior

Starting point is 00:08:26 change in self-care behaviors like exercise and healthy eating? And I think so much of your passion weaves directly into what this podcast is all about, which is the power of intentionality in our lives. If I did a solo episode on the importance of choice and it's become one of the most popular podcasts out of all of them, I really went through in life so many of the choices we make become subconscious and we just make them out of ritual or without even thinking about them. But the same thing applies to the most important choices in our life.

Starting point is 00:09:06 And I really think too often we aren't conscious about the day-to-day choices that we're making. And so when you're new book, The Joy Choice, you're really talking about this power of micro-choice throughout it. And I was hoping you could maybe introduce the book through that lens. Oh, I love that. Thank you for asking me that question.

Starting point is 00:09:30 No one has asked me that question, and it's so profound and is at the very core of why wrote the book. I'm excited because you're asking me to think about it in this really relevant and compelling way. The secrets to sustainable behavior change, drumroll is the consistent choices that we make now, and now, and now, and now throughout our days, throughout our weeks, throughout our months and years. So if we want to achieve sustainable change,

Starting point is 00:10:06 lasting change, where we need to put our attention is on these micro choices. There's so much automatic thinking, the first thing that we have to do if we want to create the conditions for sustainable change and consistent choice making. We have to have a drive in a well that's kind of a given,

Starting point is 00:10:26 but if you have that, then we need to have the wherewithal in the moment to improvise. No matter how hard we plan, no matter how good our intentions, life just seems to throw those curveballs. The best way we can create consistent choices so that we can stand the path of lasting change is to know how to improvise. And I can't help myself.

Starting point is 00:10:53 This is a word that I love. It's in Spanish. It's espabilan, which is like land on your feet and make it happen, make it work. And so, and we can do that. The good news is that we can help people learn how to more adaptively address the in the moment choices. And number one, when they understand

Starting point is 00:11:16 what are these unconscious forces that are mostly, by the way, socialized within our brains. They're not necessarily forces that are due to who we are, although our own experience connects them. It's things that we learned in society, like, do it right. And you're doing this because your body isn't good enough and that it's connective with shame. But then you want to rebel against it.

Starting point is 00:11:39 So there's all these things, temptation, rebellion, accommodation, perfection that I have found in my coaching work, that really do rails are thinking at these choice points, at these micro choice points about healthy eating and exercise, because healthy eating and exercise are in a class of their own. So, because they're intertwined with weight and all the cultural and junk and social norms that go at that.

Starting point is 00:12:05 I'm going to stop there. I didn't get the solution yet, but I want to stop there and see if you have any reactions. We will be right back to our interview with Dr. Michelle Seeger. I would like to emphasize that this podcast is part of my desire and effort to bring zero-cost information to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I would like to thank the sponsors of today's episode. Today's episode is sponsored by Trade Coffee. I just finished a cup of their Panther Coffee, which comes from Guatemala. I love how it tastes of chocolate, black cherry,

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Starting point is 00:14:33 When you go to Babel.com slash passion struct, that's b-a-b-b-e-l.com slash passion struct for up to 60% off your subscription, babble, language for life. Please consider those who support the show and make it possible and free for our listeners. And I know all those links can be difficult to remember, so we will have one easy location you can go to at passionstruct.com slash deals. Now back to my interview with Dr. Michelle Seeger. Back to my interview with Dr. Michelle Seeger. No, I could not agree with you more. And it's something that I talk about a lot on this podcast,

Starting point is 00:15:10 is that our actions and what we do every single day are what influence the long-term outcomes that we want to have. But you can't think that you're going to get to this long-term outcome and one fell swoop. It really comes to deliberate things that you approach in your life. So for an example, for me is I read The 5am Club by Robin Sharma and it completely changed the way I was looking at things. And after that, I made this decision that I was going to follow his guidance and start getting up at 5 a.m. Well, as with any habit we're

Starting point is 00:15:52 trying to create, I love his saying that kind of all habits start out with this just enthusiasm towards him. And then you kind of put her out in the middle, and then if you're able to achieve them, it's glorious. But oftentimes, we never get past that middle stage. It's because of the choices that we make along the way that are derailing us from keeping that habit in the first place. This is something that you cover about habits, and kind of defunct some of the more popular books that are out there right now on Habit Formation.

Starting point is 00:16:27 Yes, so let me just make a blanket statement. Habits are awesome. I count on my flossing habit. If I didn't have a habit to feed my dog and give him water in the morning, he might start. So there are things I'm joking, that's not really true, but I do depend on that habit. So there are things I'm joking, that's not really true, but I do depend on that habit. Because our lives and our minds are so busy, it is helpful to have things that are automated. Having said that, having said that, the new thinking about habit formation is that complex behaviors like healthy eating and exercise just might be too complicated for habit formation to stay cold. Now, I want to make a distinction between in the world today, people conflate the word habit

Starting point is 00:17:15 with behavior and all kinds of other things. But what I'm talking about is habit formation and the goal of making a behavior so automatic that you don't have to think about it. And that's what a lot of the books are about. But here's where there's some challenges and concerns about it. I do have a flossing habit. It's automated. I walk into the bathroom and at night, that's my floss. And it's tied automatically to my brushing. I don't have to think about it. It's just, it's in this unconscious dance with my toothbrush.

Starting point is 00:17:50 But there aren't forces or things that get in the way in the bathroom. And the habit loop depends on a cue, an unwavering cue that if is it where when you see your gym bag at the door or is it when you walk into the bathroom or is it when your see your gym bag at the door or is it when you walk into the bathroom or is it when your alarm goes off? A cue that is so central to everything

Starting point is 00:18:10 that it cannot have any variety, any variability, because the whole thing falls apart. And the rest of the steps are a cue behavior. So for me, that would be flossing. And then some kind of reward, which is, I'm not really sure what my unconscious word is. It's something that I feel good about.

Starting point is 00:18:29 I know it's part of my self-care. But if every time I floss, something unexpected happens, or even just a few times, it would just blast. They have a habit loop to smithereens. And that's why I propose, and actually, this is an aligned with the current conversations that are actually going on in the scientific literature about having a formation that physical activity is so complex, there's so many aspects to it, there's so many people that are involved, our schedules are involved, which means the unexpected and unanticipated

Starting point is 00:19:02 the unexpected and unanticipated, that it's in a completely different situation. And I categorize people as habiters and unhabitors. And I'm an unhabitor. I have a lot of unexpected unscheduled. I'm a little undisciplined and unorganized, but my husband is a the embodiment of a habiter. And he does his exercise habit every day.

Starting point is 00:19:27 He set the conditions for his habit loop so it there's absolutely no room for disruption. 5 30 in the morning, he gets up, no one else is up. There's nothing that's going to disrupt that habit loop.

Starting point is 00:19:39 So I welcome people pushing back against this because I think this is a really interesting conversation. Conversation, but I do think there's been an uncritical acceptance of the value of habit formation for complex behaviors that are intertwined with societal norms that actually are the opposite of rewarding. Well, I tend to agree with that and you've got a great analogy that's in the book and I also happen to see it in a thrive global article, which I'll put in the show notes about why our life is like forever blowing bubbles. And I wanted to ask you, out of that, why do some money of those bubbles collide and then burst on impact? I'm not a physicist, but I feel like that's a metaphysical question. It's how life is, right? I could be, I remember having a book deadline and really needing the time to work on something

Starting point is 00:20:39 so I could turn it in, but my mom called and she had a need for me. She had a medical issue that she needed to get advice on. That's a bubble colliding, this really urgent book deadline, but my mom, my dear mom's real needs, for that was a collision. And of course, taking that 15 minutes to talk to my mom, it didn't burst my book writing deadline,

Starting point is 00:21:05 but it certainly cut into it. And that's how it works, right? Who knows? Before this podcast, you could have had an animal that you needed to take to an emergency vet. And then you would have called me and said, I have to reschedule and really salary. And that's the way things work, right?

Starting point is 00:21:21 That's the way life works. But we haven't been taught to think about our eating and exercise with grace in the same way, with the same grace we give these other life areas. Well, I think that's a great point. And it reminds me of a concept that you have called the vicious cycle of failure that came out of your first book, but I think it applies to both books.

Starting point is 00:21:50 And why do you think people fall into this trap? It's all due to the foundation of the vicious cycle of failure. Why we don't give ourselves grace when it comes to healthy eating and exercise and slice and dice healthy eating and exercise like we do these all the other bubbles in our lives is because we've been socialized to have very narrow views of why we should be exercising and changing our diets and how we should be doing it and what success looks like. And the problem is that view that it's a belief system.

Starting point is 00:22:25 It's created a belief system in the whole world. And the belief system derives out of our interest in research and the prescription, the doses that we find out about fruits and vegetables and exercise that are the optimal doses. And so of course, that's what we think we should do in the recommendations.

Starting point is 00:22:43 Tell us we should do that. But there's only a minority of people I have found in my 30 years of working with this that truly can push through all these the traps that we face a reason for exercising that feels like it should. Getting up every morning when that 530 alarm happens, it's not a scientific category,

Starting point is 00:23:08 it's a practitioner-based category, the habiters. But even though maybe in the fitness industry that they say that 20% of the people are regularly coming to the gym and 80% don't and haven't made physical activity a permanent part of their lives. Despite the fact, I'm just going to borrow that 20%, that 20% of the population really are the only ones who can succeed at this kind of all or nothing gold standard bullseye approach. It's what the world has taught us.

Starting point is 00:23:45 And so the other 80%ers, which I am included in, now I am regularly active, but I am not part of that very disciplined group who stays, sticks to the plan no matter what. And so given that the vast majority of the people have not been successful, learning how to sustain physically active lives and stay regular with more healthier eating practices, we need a game-changing approach. And that was really one of the motivations for writing the Joy Choice. Yes, well, it leads me to want to ask you about all four areas of the trap that you introduce, but I'm going to tackle one of them first. And I've recently had the honor of interviewing both Susan Cain and Liz Possilyen in the past couple of weeks. And in both of those interviews,

Starting point is 00:24:48 the topic of effortless perfection came up. That is really plaguing so much of society today. And in chapter seven, you go into one of the four areas of trap, which is perfection. But your book is really about how do you live with perfect imperfection? So why do you think perfection is becoming such a huge issue and how does someone break themselves of that and learn to accept that being perfectly imperfect is fine. That is the question.

Starting point is 00:25:27 And I want to, before I answer, before I give you the answer, I wanna just say that it's so embedded in our psyches that even when people understand that it hasn't worked for them, they're unwilling to try to change. And I want to tell you a very brief anecdote of a client I worked with this woman. She sat hugely ambitious goals,

Starting point is 00:25:54 and as a coach, you don't want to tell people, oh, you can't do that, right? You want to give them an opportunity to learn. She didn't make any of them the first week, the second week, if the third week I decided to ask her, like, why when you come to these choice points when something's going to get in your way, why aren't you doing something else that is going to work? I've told you about the research, I told you

Starting point is 00:26:13 about the new recommendations, why are you choosing to do that? And she said to me, just very frankly, Michelle, I understand that something is better than nothing. I understand the science, but I just don't want to believe it. And she dumped me. She stopped working with me. I don't blame her. It's, this is how bad it is.

Starting point is 00:26:42 People can recognize that something hasn't worked for them. What other people are calling effortless perfection and I'm calling perfection and all are nothing thinking. It's just become this mental heuristic that it's this automatic go-to. The good news is, I think we can help people learn to embrace the perfect and perfect when it comes to healthy eating and exercise. And I want to say there is this kind of global societal optimization, belief or our promotion that has been going on. And I think it's probably tied to technology.

Starting point is 00:27:18 It's tied to the way our whole society is evolving. But I think we're seeing the mental health effects of people trying to do every area of their life right all the time. And when something, when one bubble pops, it is a failure. And so in my coaching work that I do, I find that's very important to help people that's very important to help people exorcise or take the bad out of the unhelpful, the non-optimal beliefs out of what they're trying to do. This is about intentionality and awareness. It's not just our past experiences,

Starting point is 00:27:58 but what beliefs do we hold about X, Y and Z that is driving me to make, once we're aware of those beliefs, then we can intentionally decide, are these working for me or are they not? And if they're not, it's an opportunity to exercise them. And then what we need to do is shift into an experimental mindset. We also need to understand that there is new research that shows that in, of course, my area that I'm studying that the book is about is about healthy eating and exercise. And the research is mounting that showing that aiming for imperfection when it comes to our diet plan or our exercise is actually more predictive of

Starting point is 00:28:47 ongoing behavior and even weight loss maintenance. So it's counterintuitive to think that if you decide if your MO is too, I'm going to, you know what, I'm just not going to try to do everything perfectly when it comes to my eating and exercise. And that that actually is a more adaptive approach and mindset than saying, I have this play hunt, I have to stick to it even on the weekends, even when I'm at a party, 100% 100%, 100% the research shows that it has a boomerring effect. And the alternative, which is the perfect and perfect,

Starting point is 00:29:28 is what leads to consistent choices. And so I also think we educate people about that. And then we give them an opportunity to experiment. Well, let's just try it. Because it is hard to shift from all or nothing to something is better than nothing. There's one other really important part to the solution, but I'm gonna pause here

Starting point is 00:29:48 to see what you think. I am very similar to your husband. I get up at 5 a.m. And I immediately, when the alarm goes off, jump out of bed, the first thing I do is I go right downstairs and I take my dog on a three to four mile walk. And for me, it's a great time to not only get some physical fitness in, but to listen to podcasts,

Starting point is 00:30:11 think about the things I've got to do. Sometimes I just like to be completely mindful on the walk and just sit with my own thoughts. But then I go to the gym pretty much every day at the same time. And it's remarkable going back to your 80-20 that I would say at that time in the morning, whether I'm there 530-7 window, about 99% of the people I see are the exact same people every day. And on this perfection lens that we're talking about, one of those people I see on a regular basis happened to see me at the beach. And I have always been a gym rat.

Starting point is 00:30:55 I'm in the gym five, six days a week because for me, it's how I handle my mental health and getting anxiety out. I think I look great. I feel great. I just did an inside tracker evaluation that showed over 10 years according to their evaluation lower than my actual age.

Starting point is 00:31:13 So I feel like I'm doing the right things, but he came up to me and he goes, if you would like to look like me, I can help you get there, but you're gonna have to do some changes. And what I wanted to say to him was, do steroids like you're doing? Have a cocaine habit like you have and other things,

Starting point is 00:31:36 but you don't want to degrade someone like that. There's just this image of perfection is someone who's got this Olympic body style and the reality is we all have our own body styles and I don't care how many hours I put into the gym. I have a difficulty and have always had it even when I was a division one athlete of having a six pack. But I will tell you I've won had it, even when I was a division one athlete of having a six pack. But I will tell you, I've won the strongest cores of anyone I know.

Starting point is 00:32:11 So, why do you think so many people go down this perfection rabbit hole that you mentioned in the book? The short answer is that we've been brainwashed. We've been educated socialized, which are other words, for indoctrination and brainwashing. It's no one's fault. This is the societal thing. This is how our society has evolved. And the way it works is we unconsciously take in attitudes, beliefs, and belief systems. It's an unconscious process through the culture we grew up in, through our family systems, through many ways, but it is what we,

Starting point is 00:32:53 our brains now believe. The good news is we can change it. And I'm thinking about it as brainwashing or indoctrination, I think is really helpful because speaks to the embedded nature of this belief system. But we can change if we choose to, if we recognize that something is getting in our way, then we can make a change. Changing beliefs is, and it's not like you can just snap your fingers. I mean, having awareness is important, but then you have to bring intentionality to these microchoises. And I want to shift to just parenting for a minute

Starting point is 00:33:27 because as if I'm a parent and I get frustrated and when I am my best parenting self, even when I'm upset at my son, I can speak in a calm and loving way. But when I don't have control, I go to automatic reactions, which my voice might raise a little bit. If I'm going to change that reaction, that automated reaction, then I'm going to have to be aware of that I have this trap. It's not part of the decision traps in the joy choice, but it is certainly a trap in my parenting.

Starting point is 00:34:05 I need to bring intentionality and awareness and go, okay, here's what I want to say, like you just said, you stopped yourself from saying that to that gym person. I want to yell, but that is not the parent I want to be. And in the moments when I am able to harness my cognition and my emotions, I am able to stop myself and go to a much more adaptive way, but we have to be aware.

Starting point is 00:34:32 And that is a process of learning. The day I decided that I didn't want to yell at my son when he did something that frustrated me, it wasn't the day that I was able to take over, but it was the day that I became intentional about that goal. We need to bring the same approach and frame to our healthy eating and exercise. I think that's a great explanation.

Starting point is 00:34:55 And it's funny when I read most books and these days I'm reading two to three a week, if you can believe it. Wow. I typically start out at the acknowledgements, but in yours, something caught my eye and I just had to dive right into it because you start out by saying, it's not your fault, which I was like, what is she getting to by saying that? And then I started reading, you lay it out that the singular story we've all been told of behavioral change is

Starting point is 00:35:26 to start and stop. But we're not told how to sustain. And why is that so important? It's so important because like anything in life, we do what we're taught to do, right? If the story of behavior change, which is very outdated and simplistic right now, has taught us to do something, it's taught us to start and stop. The story hasn't been focused on sustainability. Let's shunt that word and talk about what it really means. It hasn't taught us how to adaptively, successfully navigate these microchoises that underlie the path of sustainability. If we want to create consistent decisions that keep us on the

Starting point is 00:36:19 path of lasting change, then we need to be taught how to do it. And not just taught because education is definitely not enough, we need to be compelled and inspired. And that's the other part of the Jewish choice that I think is really important. I was giving a lecture in Texas a couple weeks ago, and this very esteemed professor at the end of it said, okay Michelle, I'm going to push back. Do we really need to teach people that something is better than nothing? Like, hasn't that message, at least, in the physical activity world been out there for 30 years with the Surgeon General's report in 1996?

Starting point is 00:36:56 And it's like, I can't believe that such a simple message, we actually need to teach people. And I said, not only do we need to teach people, yes, yes, and yes, we need to do something more because it's been out there for 30 years. That's a sign that what we've been doing is actually ineffective. So what we need to do is we need to absolutely leap from simply giving people the updated science to making it compelling and meaningful. And so let me tell you how to do that with this.

Starting point is 00:37:30 So here is how it goes and there's a new integrative theory on joy that lends itself perfectly to the joy choice. Joy reflects feeling that there is complete alignment between what we are doing in the moment and our core sense of self. So whenever we or our clients or employees or our patients are making an in the moment decision that favors their greater eating and exercise goals. What's actually happening is that we are realizing, we are actualizing who we truly are. And that is why we call it the joy choice. If we need to start believing and it is truly the case that when any micro choice we make, that is aiming to help us take care of ourselves,

Starting point is 00:38:28 whether it's through choosing, and the key is in perfectly imperfect ways, because we can't do it perfectly. So we need to adapt this more flexible approach that science shows literally is what works for most people. But we need to understand and believe that these micro choices is affirmation that we are worthwhile people actually validating our values and our core identity.

Starting point is 00:38:56 And that is why we need to shift from simply talking about the perfect and perfect or something is better than nothing to I'm picking the joy choice. It isn't what I planned. It isn't what I hope to do. But gosh darn it. It's good enough for today.

Starting point is 00:39:16 I'm going to give myself and my eating some grace. But I am staying on that path with this teeny little microchoice. Well, I'm going to stick on this topic for just a little bit longer. In a recent solo episode I did, it was all on the importance of living a balanced life. And I think so many people today are feeling helpless about so much in their lives. And so much they feel is out of their control and they're kind of stuck where they are, whether it's their physical eating, life in general, whatever it may be.

Starting point is 00:39:54 And I think we tend to categorize joy around the opposite of being unhappy. around the opposite of being unhappy. But to me, it's more as I've looked at it, the helplessness that we're feeling is really the opposite of the joy. I think that that is a true statement, and I also think that I think overwhelmed having too much to do that would tie into feeling helpless. I mean, when I think about what is the opposite of joy for me is often when I feel like I am juggling too many things and I can't stop. I literally have to keep juggling. But in a way that is a hopelessness, right? I can't change it. Right? If now

Starting point is 00:40:48 From a bigger picture, if I always felt that way Then and I didn't change it then I am Being very unproactive about creating a life that is allowing me to live in the way that is going to lead to all being enjoyed Now, I have the luxury of being able to have choices over my life in that way, but I mean, in part of the problem is that so many people are working two or three jobs to make ends meet, and they don't have the same luxury of saying, I need to change something so that I can not

Starting point is 00:41:22 be juggling all the time. So I think in this question where we acknowledge helplessness, I think we need to differentiate between those of us who are in situations where we can bring intentionality to something and mindfulness and say, okay, this has been going on too long, I have to change something and the people who are barely getting by and don't have the same resources, if you will, or opportunities to do that. And that speaks to really big structural level changes. I can agree more with you. I think one of the issues that we run into is we have so many

Starting point is 00:42:02 to-dos in our lives that those to-dos are so overwhelming. It kind of goes back to your bubble reference. But one of the concepts that I loved, and it was a diagram in the book, was the tornado of to-dos. I wanted you to explain that, but in the context of how does that impact life in general, but most importantly, our exercise and eating? Well, the tornado of to-dos is just this metaphor for how all these different things we have to do, right? And they're swirling around like a tornado, whether it's usually a combination of work

Starting point is 00:42:41 and family needs, right? And now my son isn't playing sports right now, but if he were playing sports and was on a travel team, imagine all that. And you have these work needs and they've got homework needs and you've got cooking needs and they all twirl up together into a tornado. The thing that I like to visualize is if you go back to all nothing thinking, and we think about how we tend to use eating an exercise as these huge cow. I got to do it right. It's a huge cow. And when you think about your tornadoes, which is just the frenetic nature of our lives, and if you put a cow in there, it's

Starting point is 00:43:24 going to fly right back out. But if you put a cow in there, it's going to fly right back out. But if you put a feather in there, or something light like a piece of paper, it's going to integrate into the tornado. Now, the reality is that our lives are kind of like tornadoes. The speed at which life goes now because of technology is the tornado. And we want to as much as we can, whether it's maybe turned down the speed of the tornado, but our lives are like tornadoes. So when it comes to healthy eating and exercise, and especially when we come, we confront a choice pointer, unexpected challenge to our plans, the perfect and perfect is what lets us keep our exercise in healthy eating, intentional eating in the tornado and not have it fly right out. So that's

Starting point is 00:44:14 how it fits together. Okay, I think that's a really helpful explanation. And I think one of the things that we don't allow ourselves to do enough as we get into these tornadoes and life is play. And it's funny, my most popular article I have ever written, I think it's had 25,000 plus views, was on the vital importance of adult play. And it's funny because I think some schools must be teaching this in their curriculum

Starting point is 00:44:47 because they're periods of the year that all of a sudden the thing just gets thousands of hits and then it kind of wanes. But I liked how in chapter 10, you covered this whole area of play. And I wanted to ask you you why is play so important and how do you apply the three-step pop decision tool to it? Well, thank you for asking about that because the notion of play and being playful really underlies what I'm trying to the experience I wanted to design for people using pop and specifically picking the joy choice.

Starting point is 00:45:30 So I think I'm going to give you a technical answer first and then we'll get to the more pragmatic aspect of it. We have this, our brains have this innate self-management system called executive functioning. And that is the system that helps us make the consistent choices and solve problems so that we can stand the path of lasting change. And so really the most adaptive thing to do getting back to why we haven't learned sustainability is we need to think about how we can best support this tool. We already have in our body to work optimally at these, when things go awry, or what I call choice points.

Starting point is 00:46:18 And the way we do that is we have to keep it simple because our working memory, which is this transitory space in our executive functioning, part of our executive functioning, it's a mental ability, we can only hold one or two things in there at a time. So if you want to optimally navigate and improvise and problem solve, at when things go awry, we want to support our working memory. Now I do want to say that there's a lot of businesses out there that have tried to sell us that we can play brain games and that's actually going to help us beef up our working memory, but research conclusively shows that those types of things do not transfer into real life.

Starting point is 00:46:58 So we have to come up with other things. If those brain games aren't going to help us with our working memory, what do we need to do? Wow, we have to keep things simple. Whatever tools and techniques we're going to use at that choice point has to be simple. So that's the first executive function that I talk about in the book. But then we get to the fun part, play. Why do we call it play? When what we're really talking about is supporting our flexible thinking, which is the second executive function. It is a

Starting point is 00:47:31 deactive. This is our brain. It is considered across all areas of life. Maybe not, you know, you're a military guy. So maybe not in the military, you know, maybe you can speak to that. But when it comes to living our lives and creating innovation in business and societies, flexible thinking is the holy grail. And it's, while it's one of our executive functions, so how do we support that incredible resource? We do it through calling it play. Letting our brains come up with new ideas, solutions to solve

Starting point is 00:48:09 what is going on in the moment. Oh my gosh, I was supposed to go out and take a walk, but I got a call and it interfered with my 60-minute walk that I planned. Do I just throw in the towel because I have all or nothing thinking or do I play with the possibilities and say, okay, I'm going to make the perfect and perfect choice because something is all or nothing thinking, or do I play with the possibilities and say, okay, I'm gonna make the perfect and perfect choice because something is better than nothing. What else can I do? I could go out for 15 minutes now. I could take a family walk after dinner.

Starting point is 00:48:35 In fact, just a couple of weeks ago, my son on this walk, which he was not thrilled to be on, said to me, mom, is this a joy choice? And he knew immediately that that was, that was the joy choice that I had picked out of the options I was playing with. But so, so let's get to pop. Pause. We have to pause because that's what lets us harness this automatic, unadaptive thinking that tends to get in the way. I can't do my walk, shoot. I didn't, I missed my exercise today,

Starting point is 00:49:06 so we've got to be able to name. I see you perfection. Then we go to the O and pop, open up our options and play. We're playing, coming up with solutions can be fun if we view it that way. And then the third part, which is the second P is pick the joy choice. And the joy choice is is the perfect imperfect option that lets you stay on the path that lets you do a

Starting point is 00:49:36 micro choice of self care, because it reinforces the value. And when you can start thinking about this, what I've been experimenting with this, and I have truly, I've seen how powerful it is. When we anticipate that picking the joy choice, no matter how small, is an act of aligning our core self and values with this moment of self-care, it does lead to a joyful feeling. So, the pop acronym, circling back to working memory, keeps it simple so that we can support our brains and management, self-management system at these unexpected choices of

Starting point is 00:50:23 conflict, and that's how that's training us for making the consistent decisions. Well, I think that's a great answer and was one of my favorite chapters in the book. And I believe today, we do not have enough flexible thinking. That was my experience both in the military and working in big-forking consulting with many large companies and then myself working at multiple

Starting point is 00:50:54 Fortune 500 companies. We practice too much group think and don't reward introverts and people who want to bring different ideas to the table, unfortunately. But that also happens in our own lives as you bring about in the book. So I can't go through this discussion without, in some way, you talking about traps since it sits in the middle of the book. But I thought I'd go about it in a little bit different way. And that is today before the interview, I discovered that you have this great quiz

Starting point is 00:51:31 on your website that measures what's really getting in the way of lasting change. So I thought maybe you could discuss, trap through the lens of that quiz, tell the listeners where they could access it, and then what the results might show them. Oh, thank you. I appreciate that. Like we talked about earlier, we need to identify what are the automatic thoughts and challenges and forces that arise at these choice points. And so I've identified

Starting point is 00:52:02 four core, what I call decision disruptors, aka traps that get in our way. And let's go over. We talked about perfection and we can circle back at the end if you want. The first trap is temptation. And this is exactly as it sounds. It's this visceral desire we feel to devour the piece of chocolate cake that might be at a party and might not be at our current on our current eating plan or it's the visceral pull of the couch and we're watching the good place now and the visceral pull of wanting to just relax on the couch instead of maybe go out for a run. And this is human nature. This is part of our brain too.

Starting point is 00:52:47 But the mistake with thinking about temptation is that it's the external cake that's pulling us or the couch that we feel so drawn to. In fact, it's all inside our brain. It's our past experiences that we had the last time or our history of eating the cake, who we were with, what we were doing, the texture and the smell and the taste of that cake going down. So what's really, and that's what I talk about in the book and that you have to temptation, I explain the new emerging theories that help us better

Starting point is 00:53:28 understand why temptation has such a powerful pull, but what we can do to overcome it, because it goes back to your earlier question, which is so untargeted, we've been taught to start and sustain, and stop and start and stop and start but not sustain. And one of the reasons that we haven't learned how to make consistent decision making is because we haven't been taught to think about temptation as actually being a form of what's the technical word in the computer,

Starting point is 00:54:05 like a software, we've got software and hardware, software, just software in our brain. But guess what, we can update the software once we understand that it's actually creating a glitch in the system. So that's temptation. The second trap is rebellion. Rebellion reflects another human nature thing that goes on in her brain.

Starting point is 00:54:31 That is that human beings are motivated to reclaim their freedom when they feel it's been taken away from them. Let's just dive right into changing our eating habits or exercising more. Often people initiate those changes out of shoulds because going back to what we talked about, that's the cultural narrative. The cultural narrative has taught us we should look like this. We should weigh this much.

Starting point is 00:54:55 Our physicians tell us what risk of pre-diabetes. The magazine tells us we're not worthy or people on the beach come up and tells us we're not worthy if we don't look like them. So there are all these pressures and that has been the cultural, outdated and really harmful story of behavior change that has gotten us to adapt. So many times, start and stop and start and stop. healthy eating and exercise, but those reasons actually get us to rebel against the very thing that we said we wanted to do.

Starting point is 00:55:30 It's this innate brain-based reaction, but once we recognize that, only then are we in a position to say to do something different. So that's rebellion. The third is accommodation, and it's a little, it's in a slightly different category, because it has to do with less about eating and exercise per se, and more about our beliefs, our belief systems around whether our own

Starting point is 00:55:58 self-care behavior is as worthy as the emotional needs, the other needs of our, of the people in our lives that we love and care about and respect, as well as the work we have to do. And accommodation is about consistently all the time for the needs of other people in projects. Now, it's so important connection is among the most important things in our life, helping people and taking care of people in pro-social motivation is so important. But if we consistently, as Adam Grant,

Starting point is 00:56:40 so eloquently showed in his research and in his book Give and Take, if we consistently do not, um, prior, or if we consistently subsume our own needs, then we won't have the energy and the resources to actually, often, we take care of other people in projects. So that's what a commendation is. Let me, I'll give you a teeny little example. I was giving, uh, talk to physicians and about these issues

Starting point is 00:57:07 and a physician pulled me aside and whispered in my ear, the man who hired me and said, Michelle, you have this new gym. And I don't prioritize man's self care and go to the gym because the work he said, in fact, I'm even embarrassed about going to the gym. So when I do decide to go to the gym at lunch, I actually try to hide behind the pillars of this new building. True story.

Starting point is 00:57:30 So he's facing accommodation as the trap. And then the final one is perfection. The quiz on my website, which is free, is a very quick and it will let you see which of these phenomenon are your biggest traps and it gives you insights into how you can sidestep them so they don't pull your thinking under. I'm going to ask you one more question, but before I do that, I think this is a good time for if readers want to find out more about you, get access to things or tools with either of your books,

Starting point is 00:58:08 what are ways that they can do that? Oh, thank you for asking. On my website, which is my name, michelleseager.com, there is a book page, well there's two book pages, there's the, if you click on the books, there's two links, one to the Joy Choice, that's where the quiz is housed for the traps. And then there's another link to no sweat too. So yeah, it's very easy. And there's a lot of different sellers, including local bookstores, links to that people can find

Starting point is 00:58:37 both in the US and the UK. Okay, well in chapter 11, you discuss inhibition and why we need to rethink self-control. I couldn't do an interview without you discussing the Wonder Woman effect. Yes, well let me just say what inhibition is. Inhibition is the third executive function that we want to support when it comes to navigating these momentary challenges and choice points. We need to be motivated basically to make a choice. And the field has come at how

Starting point is 00:59:13 do we strengthen the inhibition muscle? I'm through brain gain through computers and pushing joysticks toward broccoli on the screen and away from the french fries that show up on the screen. joysticks toward broccoli on the screen and away from the french fries that show up on the screen. Doesn't work. Why doesn't it work? Because when it comes to real life, daily moments, we have these parts of our lives that are so compelling, that are the bubbles that are coming to the forefront, that we're focusing on, that tie into our identity. So the Wonder Woman effect that tie into our identity. So the Wonder Woman effect is when we have a plan. And well, can I tell you just quickly the story of how that introduces the Wonder Woman effect, the way it happens? So we were changing all of our insurance to a new company. And as you know, there's lots of logistics and credit card stuff and decisions.

Starting point is 01:00:05 And so I was about to just close the deal and make the new payment. I wanted to check that to do off my list. So my new insurance agent emailed me about finalizing things and saying they needed a credit card. So I literally got it flew into my inbox and I immediately emailed back and said, call me and put my number to make it really easy. And she emailed back right away and said, sorry, I have to go to the gym right now.

Starting point is 01:00:35 Can we talk? Well, let's talk tomorrow. No person asked for permission. She's like, sorry, have to go to the gym. And when I asked her the next day, why was she so motivated to put off the seemingly two-second task? She's like, I just know that if something happens and I don't make it, regardless of how long I'm there, I just don't feel my best. And I don't enjoy, you know, my work is much and, you know, I'm not as good of a parent,

Starting point is 01:01:05 yeah, et cetera, et cetera. And so for what I imagined her doing when I made that request, is I imagined her putting her arm, her strong bracelet arms off and going, boom, Michelle's trying to get me to miss my gym, boom, boom, boom. So she protected her trip to the gym and, you know, that is rather than thinking about it, is inhibition. I think about it. And I think the research suggests it's much more helpful to think about how we can support this part of our executive

Starting point is 01:01:38 function. And if we actually figure out how to make the choice deeply meaningful, deeply meaningful, deeply compelling and a positive experience for us. And that's why how we frame it matter so much. Okay, well, I'm gonna ask you one last fun question, but I wanted you to apply the wisdom from both books, hopefully into the answer.

Starting point is 01:02:02 Okay. So I've been lucky to have a number of astronauts on this podcast. In fact, my podcast coming up this next Tuesday is with Nicole Stott, a former astronaut. And my question is this, if you were an astronaut and you were on the first mission to Mars, and the world parties told you that you could implement a guiding principle and the world parties told you that you could implement a guiding principle or law or behavior for civilization on Mars. What would it be? In today's answer, it would be being flexible and giving grace because I think that principle, the word grace is a new word for me. It's only come to me as I've been talking about the need

Starting point is 01:02:46 for flexibility and the adaptiveness of being flexible when it comes to our life. We have to be flexible in our jobs. We have to be flexible in our marriages. We have to be flexible in our parenting. So why wouldn't we also need to be flexible within our healthy eating and exercise project. When you take a big step back and you think about what we're doing, we're giving ourselves

Starting point is 01:03:10 grace and we're giving the rest of the people we interact with grace. And that is kind and compassionate and what a great energy to put out in the world. Well, I think that's a great way to end our discussion today. And for the audience, I will make sure I have links to both of Michelle's books in the show notes, of course. And if you go to the Passion Struck page, I'll have pictures of the covers and even more about today's episode. But my takeaway for the audiences,

Starting point is 01:03:46 I've had a chance to read both books. Michelle's writing style reminds me of my own. They're very easy to digest books with great illustrations that you will find very fun, and will help you get through the books very rapidly. So Michelle, thank you so much for giving us here on the show, the honor of getting to do this interview with you and getting to talk to you about your amazing new book.

Starting point is 01:04:12 Thank you so much. I was going to say such a pleasure, but really it was more than that. It was a joy. That's a huge compliment. So thank you very much. Thank you. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Dr. Michelle Seger and wanted to thank both Michelle and Hatchet Books for giving us the honor of releasing her new book, The Joy Choice, on the Passion Struck Podcast. During today's episode, I brought up a lot of past episodes that we covered in our discussion. These included the episode I did on applying the power of choice, which was episode 19. My interview with Susan Kane, which was episode 19. My interview with Susan Cain,

Starting point is 01:04:46 which was episode 121. The interview with Liz Fossleyen, which was episode 128. My solo episode 124 on creating a balanced life, and episode 96 on burnout, and why we need to stop living a materialistic life. Please check any of those out that appeal to you. And if you're new to the show, or you would just like to introduce this,

Starting point is 01:05:07 a friend or family members, we now have episode starter packs which are collections of your favorite episodes organized by topic, both on Spotify and on our website. These give you a great introduction to everything that we do here on the show. Now go out there and become PassionStruck. Thank you so much for joining us. The purpose of our show is to make Passion Go viral. And we do that by sharing with you the knowledge and skills that you need to unlock your hidden potential.

Starting point is 01:05:36 If you want to hear more, please subscribe to the PassionStruck podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to your podcast at. And if you absolutely love this episode, we'd appreciate a five-star rating on iTunes, and you're sharing it with three of your most group-minded friends, so they can post it as well to their social accounts and help us grow our passion-struck community. If you'd like to learn more about the show and our mission,

Starting point is 01:06:04 you can go to passionstruck.com where you can sign up for our newsletter, look at our tools, and also download the show notes for today's episode. Additionally, you can listen to us every Tuesday and Friday, or even more inspiring content. And remember, make a choice, work hard, and step into your sharp edges. Thank you again for joining us. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Dr. Michelle Segar on Why We Need to Shift to the Joy Choice EP 135

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