The Livy Method Podcast - Setting Yourself Up for Success with Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer - Fall 2025

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

In this Guest Expert episode, Gina and Learning Specialist Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer unpack why motivation isn’t something you wait for—it’s something that builds through action. Dr. Deena shares how paying attention to your natural energy rhythms can make it easier to follow through on your goals, and why keeping things simple is the secret to long-term consistency. She also breaks down the power of mindset, self-talk, and how a few environmental cues, like a sticky note or a timer, can turn good intentions into sustainable routines. Whether you’re just getting started or deep in your journey, this one’s full of small shifts that can spark big change.You can find the full video hosted at:www.facebook.com/groups/livymethodfall2025Where to find Dr. DeenaInstagram: @awakenedlearningWebsite: www.awakenedlearning.caTo learn more about The Livy Method, visit livymethod.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Gina Livy, and welcome to the Livy Method podcast. This is where you'll have access to all of the live streams for my 91-day weight loss program. With a combination of daily lives, guest expert interviews, and member stories, there is something new almost every day. Miss the morning live? Want to re-listen to one of our amazing guest experts? Well, this is the place. This podcast is hosted on ACAST, but it's available on all podcast platforms, including the one you're listening to right now, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music.

We're focusing on sustainable habits, not quick-fixing. Is it an opportunity to get curious? We're here to help people get to their health goals. One piece of time. You build and build and build. Dr. Tina Kara Schaefer is back and joining me today. Right at the perfect time, we have new members, we have returning members. some people are feeling like they are crashing it and other people are feeling like they've

already blown it so many feels so many things to do um hi welcome hi hi hi jina hi new humans high returning humans i love this community and a very warm hello so a lot of feels right so we're excited we were motivated to lose this weight so i now this program give it a chance come back and continue we are a week and a bit in so this is the first week of the program last week we introduced the food plan to people they started to make change or got back to you know creating that routine and here we are week one a lot of feels after the weekend and i was talking about this in the check-in video this morning and i say that the thoughts in the feels are not only part of the process, but they can really help people understand where they're

at and the things that they need to do and work through. And it really is different for everybody. And I know you deal with a lot of students. And I would imagine that they all learn differently. They all have their own things going on in their lives. They all want to do well and graduate. And they're not all motivated every single day. So where should we start with this conversation? oh goodness well we can begin with that beautiful word motivation so because that's sort of like the springboard that the energy before we do something so if you are finding that you are unmotivated know that motivation follows action you don't have to be motivated to do the thing that you signed up to do you don't have to feel like it you don't have to be in the mood to

do it you came here and you really wanted something you wanted something for your life you wanted to feel different not just in your body and how you move but like but how you are with your family how you are in your relationships your longevity your business and uh kind of aspirations so why would we trust a passing i'm kind of like i just i don't i don't really want you today why would we lean into that instead of that very like hopeful and uplift that we came in with. So motivation follows action. It's not a precursor to action. We don't have to want to do it to do it. And yet by doing it, by doing this day, by following the plan today, tomorrow, the next day, the day after that's a lot easier. So true. I always use the example of my kids. Like,

my kids are not always motivated to go to school, but they have no choice. They have to go to school. I'm like, imagine if I went, if my kid came to me and was like, I just don't feel like it today. I didn't do very well yesterday. So I'm just going to, I'm just going to start back on Monday. Yeah, yeah. And so this is so true. So I mean, one of the things that I do with my clients, with my learners is if attendance is an issue, right? Which in a way we can think of this. It's sort of like a master class. It's the big project. it's the big learning and unlearning that we're doing. I'll have them, you know, take a calendar and actually connect the X's of every day that they go to school. And it's a lot easier once you do this first day to cross off the second day, to then cross off the third day. And then you don't want to miss a day because you've done 10 in a row. So motivation follows action. You don't have to be motivated before you act.

It grows as you go. Motivation grows as you go. I know that you are also a fan of James Clear's book, Atomic Habits and Habit Stacking. So how do we, when we feel like we're trying to achieve this big goal, how do we show up every day? I always talk about it's not anyone big thing. It's the little things that you do each day that will add up. But we put this pressure on ourselves to do the big thing. So how do we continue to show up every day and do those small things that will add up and make a big difference?

Yeah, that's so beautiful. It's the tension around goal setting, isn't it? So we have these big, delicious, dreamy goals. But those goals to get there are actually comprised of like these micro moments, bit by bit, small choices. It's not even day by day. It's smaller. It's more incremental than that.

So, you know, the beauty of atomic habits, it's really the power of consistency, the power of arriving and showing up each day, not to do all of the things, but to do. a small fraction of the things, to do what is actually doable for you. And that helps us get away from that like all or nothing or black and white thinking, like, well, I messed up one element of today. The day is a write-off. So instead, we're encouraged to go, even small changes consistently over time, lead to very big and lasting change. And so I'm actually a huge fan. If people are into books, tiny experiments by Anne-Lor LeCunf, a neuroscientist, just beautiful around instead of the big goal which can be punishing or aspirational, depending on what moment of the day we're in.

Instead, she reminds us like, it's really about tiny experiments that we bring our curiosity to, ooh, what happened there? Well, that's kind of interesting. It's non-judgmental. We can get really interested in why we make the choices we do and the stakes are lower it's not like we blew the whole thing oh well the goal's over that's it i'm out no don't be out already don't be good at all small and consistent thinking of it as little experiments as you go that are meant to i mean you've designed us to bring up the feelings so if you have the feelings in the program's working like we can really say if you have big feels man you're in the right place doing all the right things because that's the whole point what how do you cope what are

your tools what are your strategies what are your go-toes when you have big fields that's where it gets really juicy and alive and interesting here oh i love that you said juicy and alive and interesting that also can feel like a lot i can feel like a lot well anything that's life changing is a lot like well how would it be any other way um we're we're here to do that's something we're here to do something really important for something and that's fundamentally disrupting the ways that we've been living the grooves the ruts the mindsets so no one ever said it's going to be easy but we did say the plan is simple so it's simple and clear we can follow it and there's many different access points that we talked about last week simple doesn't

mean easy oh ah right because for so many reasons, it can be very trying and frustrating what's going on in your life, your environment, your situation, at work, at home, at school, whatever you got going on. That doesn't even include health issues, your past issues and associations to diet and food and how you're raised. How do we organize it all? Well, I mean, so to your point, how we got here is complex. It's complicated. That's why we're here. So how do we organize it? I mean, I don't know that we have to. Like, I think it's okay for it to just be messy and complicated. I don't know that we're going to necessarily compartmentalize and categorize. What we will do is make sense. We'll make sense of

some of the mess. We'll have a relationship with the past, with how we were duped and manipulated around food and exercise and overdoing and overreaching. I think we'll soften, we'll soften the edges of that and that's what I think is important so I don't know that we're going to organize like that that feels like that the thing that we all try to do it's like oh no chaos is stress let's try to like clamp down control like it's going to all be need and organized I just wouldn't spend my energy there um I just that's not where I would feel inclined we're going to look under rocks we're going to get investigative in a in such a kind way um with our habits and like our are ways of doing our ways of shutting down our ways of avoiding i mean i think also remember i've

done this program the ways that people launch all of their shit on you and are like well i'm this i'm this and i'm this and i might be friends like actually all of that is ours and it's just the richest feedback for us to look at what we do when we want something so bad and it's come with decades of harm attached to it so that's why we're here we're here we're here We're here. We're here to do this messy work and not organize it, but like, see it for what it is, like with some sweetness and compassion. I kind of like, let's all just stop right now and sit back and relax our shoulders and take a deep breath. And this is what I mean by it should be fun because I am just thinking, like I am feeling the stress of it all. So for example, last week I said to people, you know, don't wait until it's perfect, right?

Like I thought that I would have all summer to organize my place and space and get in the right mindset for the fall program. And then I this happened, that happened. And so every day I wake up to my vanity. That is a mess. Like this morning, I took a week's worth of contact things off of it. I'm just like, what? Like, what is this? And yet I am so productive in getting so many things done.

And I want to embrace the, okay, I am just a mess right now, right? But every day I'm reminded that, okay, I still haven't done this. At the end of the day, I am fucking tired. I do not. I want to clean it, but I'm just like, and then sometimes I'm like, who cares? Who cares? And I think this is where with dieting, we feel like we have to have everything perfect in order to start. And because you just highlighted so many different elements that we need to and address and work on and work through, how do we get rid of that feeling of just it's never enough?

It's never enough. I'm never ready. I'm always behind. I'm a hot mess. Like, I'm just learning to embrace it because at this point, I don't know when my vanity is going to be clean. Yeah. I don't know. I don't even care anymore. Now I've just given up. Oh, my goodness. I wish that I could send my tween to you. Like, she just loves organizing.

It is perfect. Here's what I would say to that. Systems. This is where systems are actually very helpful. And like the learning strategist, it's in me to think this way. Do you have systems that work for you, right? So if we think about the vanity, the one strategy as like a life strategy, it's just, 10 minutes of tidy. It's the end of the day. It's a form of meditation. Sometimes we think of meditation. It's like it only looks like one thing. So 10 minutes of tidy. We don't do the whole thing on purpose. But we don't also say, well, since I can't do all of it, I'm going to do none of it. And then we don't also create a storyline. I'm a hot mess. We don't create an identity around it. we we just go wait our system's working for who we are becoming our systems working for who are

becoming so for example for people who are like well i've tried joining the gym and then i get so sore i quit right okay is the system working for you the system here would be 10 minutes not half an hour a smaller group like group training so you learn the machines or you learn the weights lower weights for longer so we we don't and we don't attach an identity to it other than I am a person who moves you don't have to be like I'm going to be in spinning class and cardio and hit and no no so I'm a person who moves for 10 minutes a day or 20 minutes a day and I'm I'm playing a long game here so that vanity is going to get clear if we do it 10 minutes a it's never going to get clear if we throw our hands up and be like, it's too much. So what I identify

so much with you in this is like we have a hunger and an ambition and a drive and we want to create, but then what happens is so when I think about your summer, what you just described, everything is going to be like organized and it's going to, like, I'm going to take my time and set up my space and my place. But did you allot any time for recovery? You would just run one program, another program. You're creating all the time. time did you did you put book in any time to recover did you book in any time to reflect how did it go what actually am i doing so well what do i what are my strengths that i want to lean into and so that's the same for everyone here are the systems working for you of when you're going to move when you're going to

plan the actual like the meals in terms of like the the containers and making sure you have those particular food products? Are you inserting time to check in with the community? Don't make this program impossible for yourself to follow. It's okay if you do it asynchronously and listen to a podcast not alive. It's okay if you miss a day and you're just off by one. Like, it's okay. All the iterations of doing this are okay. And so it's so important, I think, to really hold systems as the way to success, not that goal that we identified and then it's just sort of looming and looking at us. Are we ever going to get there? It is in the systems that consistency gets to grow. That's how consistency plays out. So Heidi is just an offering to you, but it's the same

to everyone. Have a touch point with you in a 10 minutes a day. Well, and that's why I'm using that as an example. And whether it's cleaning your vanity or trying to get yourself organized and reaching your weight loss goals, it's the same thing. And that's the thing. The tools and the skills that you are learning, things that you're working through and working on while you're trying to lose weight are the same things that you need to reach any goal in your life. It's just your goal in this case happens to be losing weight. Yeah. Yeah. I love the systems because the living method is a system right it's a it's a program that is systematic where one week leads into the next leads into the next and builds on the changes that you are making and so what you eat

and when changes and evolves as you go but you are also changing and evolving you're rewiring your brain mentally and rewiring your your body physically you you said something there about you know maybe like food prep or whatever like someone might be thinking oh yeah I got a food prep well if you're not a food prepper, I don't know that you're ever going to be a food prepper. If you're not somebody who follows recipes, I don't know that you're going to ever be a person that follows recipes. Can you just talk about how we can really truly find what works for us? Because now what I'm seeing in the group is comparison, right? I saw someone's comment today.

Well, when I look at what other people are doing for their food, like, you know, mine just looks different or, you know, it's not the same. Or how come they're losing weight and I'm not? how do you be part of a community but make it like focus on your needs and not compare what you have going on or what you're doing or what your results are like to everybody else because that's that's not that's one of the hardest things to do totally totally and in this and in this world of instagram and everything that makes like there's like an illusion of what it what it looks like how people are living the successes that people experience it's just an illusion so we're constantly in that my question to you is as you go into the community and you begin that way of

thinking of comparing why you not me why this not that is that helping you like is that helpful for you there are some people who are going to glean inspiration from knowing how others do it how do you do it how do you shape a day how do you make time where do you work out what's your workout they'll find that really helpful others will feel like oh because my my way looks different than your way i must be doing it wrong yes so in that instance i mean this is why dr beverly's so helpful right it's like catch that thought it's just a thought it's not it's not like real substantive it's a thought and then you might go you'd ask yourself is this serving me like Am I actually helping my own motivation?

Am I helping my sense of momentum or am I tearing myself down? And then we have a real opportunity. Where else do I do that? How else am I doing that comparison in my life that may actually be depleting and self-deprecating and really tearing down my own worth? Because I have a feeling if it's happening here, it's probably going to be happening elsewhere. if we're serious around neural inclusion if we're serious around welcome and and and like embracing difference then why would here be any different there are many ways of knowing being and doing and that's true here as anywhere else find your way because if someone else is doing spinning and you're like oh shit i'm not doing spinning but you actually hate spinning like not useful so find your system like find your systems

fine what works for you this goes along with a question from one of our members how important is my self-talk in creating new habits it's self-confidence that is missing a lot of us don't feel confident we feel like we've done this before and we failed a million

times and we're not sure and maybe people don't know me and they're not confident in me and they freaking want it to work but they just are not sure it's going to oh my god I love this welcome to every single learner I meet with university college high school I like have been told you're not smart enough you're never going to do this you're not this kind of student you're not a math person you're not an

english person you're not a writer you're not like yeah okay so so this is so great this is so helpful and so alive oh self-talk hugely important um it it is like that reinforcing groove so um i'm like listen when beverly talks about the like capture cancel re it's like you're reprogramming. This program is a reprogramming. Our relationship with food, our relationship with movement, our relationship with stress and sleep. And our relationship to ourselves, how do we treat ourselves? How do we treat ourselves when we mess up? How do we treat ourselves? What do we say to ourselves? And that idea of like, if anybody heard the inside words on the outside, would their jaws drop with how brutal and relentless you are with yourself? but what I want to say about confidence I really because I do this I talk about this

do keynotes like there's something here confidence isn't just something that exists for someone or not it's not like oh well you're born that way or not confidence is a skill and you can learn it too so there's an activity I love to do it's you can call it a bunch of different things but I like thinking of it as like a worth wall or a confidence wall and imagine the bricks that constitute this wall, those are the individual moments where you built a skill, where you stood up for yourself, where you had a difficult conversation, where you changed something in your life, where you made a healthy choice, where you were seen by somebody and recognized for your unique gifts, begin to actually name those bricks that make up you.

and you can see worth grow. You can see confidence grow. It's not that you have it or you don't. We have to actually cultivate and pay attention and go, wait a minute. Look at all that I've survived, all that I've done, all that I've made, all the people I've cared for, all the bravery, even if it's subtle or quiet. Bravery isn't just cold. So it's very important we give ourselves credit for what we have. done in the world for the gifts we do have instead of just throwing them away because our gifts

don't look like somebody else's you have this is like a practice standing radiantly in your own gifts and your own inherent worth you know and people might think that this is really deep for I just want to fit my ass into my jeans again but it's not that it's not losing weight it's being able to maintain and sustain your weight. And these feelings are what, you know, cause you to dip back into old habits or sabotage yourself or it's not the losing the weight. It's being able to maintain and sustain your weight. And beyond that, go on to live the person that you know that you are meant to be. Like, you can taste it. You can feel it. You can visualize. Like, I know I am going to be the person where I walk around my house and everything is organized and I feel calm and I'm making

time for myself and I know it's possible is just connecting the dots and showing up and changing and changing my systems. For the sake of time, I have a couple of things I want to address with you. So this program can look different than what people are used to. They're used to that quick fix, that immediate payoff. You know, it looks different. They might have issues trusting, trusting diets, trusting me, trusting themselves. I have a question here. for you where someone says my goal is to complete all 91 days of the program in the past my tendency has been to crash diet starting with intensity but burning out when the results are slow how can I build the habits and mindset I need to stay consistent and push through to the finish

line okay I love this so I want to I want to soften the word push yeah because I just make experience that when we hold on so tight and we're trying to like death grip through it um and i just i want to honor what you're saying like you try so hard you get there the burnout that's so real and what i would offer what i would invite you is like how can you make this as easy as possible for yourself because like make it easy to be consistent make it easy to be consistent if you if your goal if your benchmarks are so high it has to be perfect it has to be this like you can't possibly that are we back yeah keep going on unless you like if you can't if there's no human wiggle room for just being a person and it's not going to work so let's not impose a rigid

structure, rigid architecture, we go, okay, how can I not like shoehorn in, but make this the easiest, the easiest part of your day? So where are the touch points? What are the, like the habits? So habits are interesting because before a habit becomes a habit, it's a desired behavior. I want to do this thing. I really want this to be part of my life. I want my vanity to be clear. Have to turn that over and over and over from a desired behavior into a habit, which means it's automated. We don't think so hard about it anymore. So we do that by, and I'm coming back again and we'll talk more about it, but for simplicity into your beautiful question, find your sequences of habits that you already have, the way you get dressed in the morning, your route to

work, the thing that you do in the middle of the day, the thing you do at the end of day, you have them. It's how we brush and floss our teeth. They're just like these small little sequences of things we already do. We've done them a thousand times. We don't have to think about them. That's a half. Yeah. Insert your desired behavior. I'm going to use Gina's journal. I'm going to reread what I'm to do this week. I'm going to listen to the podcast. Whatever it is, I'm going to check into life. I'm going to write one question a day. Find where it's going to go.

And it's either going to go before that sequence, after that sequence, or in the middle. And then you don't have to think so hard. That's what gets really difficult for people. That's where that like too muchness, we're asking too much of our working memory. We're asking too much of our decision making. We're asking too much of our executive function.

Make it as simple and small as possible by knitting it. into an already sequence that's called habit stacking it's very very um it like promotes habit formation and will help you so how do you make this easeful by thinking about turning those desired behaviors into habits by way of systems and one system is habit stacking i love that make it easy for you because when we try to make it too far hard for ourselves we get tired and we burn it and i love your point about you're going to be back because these conversations are really just about awareness. It's we're not here to solve your problems. We're here to, yes, have the conversation, bring awareness and throughout the rest of the program, you're going to be back and you're going to be

sharing tips for us. Before you go today, I have one more question. Sure. And this is from a returning member. I understand the concept of fresh eyes. And this is technically my eighth program, although I haven't always finished. Any tips to stay engaged. and stay in it for the long game. I love this. So look, one thing, oh, I love God. It's the bravery of saying that, the bravery of that is so beautiful. What courage to come back an eighth time with like this time, this time.

So, you know, with awake and learning, I try to think, because, you know, Gina, to your point, it feels like a lot. So in what I do for learners, I try to think about how do we make this work, whether it's studying or a project or a program how do we make this startable and doable sustainable finishable so what i invite you to do or anybody who's returning is where along that is it tricky for you to start that startability piece doesn't sound like it right is it around the doability piece we were just talking about that what your habit-promoting systems? Is it around the sustainability piece? Like, I make it so unwieldy

each day. There's too many pieces that in three weeks, I just get so tired. Who wouldn't? Or is it around just manageability? That's like self-belief. That is your community that you turn to to help you. It's not just around accountability, but to keep you uplifted. So begin to look at where does it get tricky? I don't mean a specific week necessarily, but when we think about this program is a beautiful arc, a very intentional arc that you've created, Gina.

Yeah. What part can you bring those fresh eyes to? Fresh eyes is a lovely way of thinking about don't be a know it all. Don't think that because you did it before, that there's nothing to learn. There's always something to learn. So what is one question or one facet?

or one provocation, or one access point, like the journal, like, you know, coming on to listening to a live or spill the tear, whatever, what have you not accessed that you bring those fresh eyes to? So look at the arc and look at something either in a new way or that you've never considered that might be important, like sleep, like community and so forth. Love that. Dr. Dina Kara Schaefer is not just a renowned learning strategist. She is also a best-selling author. She is the author of Feel Good Learning and Raising Well Learners. She is going to be back and joining us again and continuing the conversation. In the meantime, if you want to reach out to her, follow her on Instagram. Awakened Learning is her Instagram handle. You can also head over to her website. She has a variety of of different offerings, awakenedlearning.ca. She also is running a few workshops that you can join up and sign up for. And she's also offering us a bit of a price big. I hate to say discount because we would never discount to you. You can sign up for her essentials. It's every

Thursday in October and you can get 15% off by using the code Libby 15. Thanks everyone who joined us live or who's watching or listening after the fact. Dr. Dina Kara Schaefer, always a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. It is an absolute honor. Thank you, everyone. All right.