The One You Feed - Re-Release: Michelle Segar on Making Lasting Changes

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

Are you ready to make some changes in your life in 2020? Click Here to book your Free Strategy Session with Eric!Michelle Segar, PhD, is a motivation scientist and author of critically acclaimed “No Sweat! How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness” . She is also the Director of the Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy Center (SHARP) at the University of Michigan, and Chair of the U.S. National Physical Activity Plan’s Communications Committee.Her evidence-based ideas about what motivates people to choose and maintain healthy behaviors is changing the conversation across fields. She consults with global organizations on these issues and delivers keynotes and sustainable behavior change trainings. She ran with the Olympic Torch at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.In This Interview, Michelle Segar and I Discuss…The One You Feed parableHer book, No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of FitnessHow considering a different “why” for starting to be more physically active can be helpfulThat why we engage in physical activity and what it is that we do are critical when it comes to us sticking with itHow too many “whys” dilute their positive effect on usIntrinsic vs Extrinsic goalsHow answering the question, “What kind of physical activity did you enjoy doing as a kid?” can be importantThat we should start doing what makes us feel good and stop doing what makes us feel bad when it comes to physical activityThat any physical movement is better than none at all – Everything counts!That flexibility is a strategy for success when it comes to sustained physical activity in your lifeThe vicious cycle of failureThe sustainable cycle of self-careThat it’s important to focus one complicated behavior change at a timeThe self-care hierarchyMichelle Segar LinksHomepageTwitterLinkedInSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It is almost here, New Year's 2020, new decade, new year. And this is another in our re-release of old episodes that talk about behavior change and habits. And this one goes way back. It's with Michelle Seeger, but it's a really good interview. I really like talking with her and she has a phrase that she used a lot that I have hung on to ever since. And it's everything counts. It means that the little changes we make add up. So if we can't get in 30 minutes of exercise, can we walk for five minutes, three different times? It all adds up. And so particularly for those of us who are really, really busy, we find that we have to capture these small windows of time because we're just

not going to get two hours of open time to do these things. So we've got to capture these small bits of time very often. And that adds up. Everything counts. So that's the interview you are about to hear with Michelle Seeger. If you want some help with making changes to your behavior, your habits, and having a better 2020 and a better decade, consider the One You Feed Transformation program. If you'd like to talk more with me about it, go to ericzimmer.coach application and we can get to know each other. And I'll tell you about the program. I'll learn what's going on with you. I'll give you my best input and insight during that time. And if it makes sense for us to work together, we will. And if not, we will be friends after that. And that's a good thing for me,

and hopefully for you. So ericzimmer.coach application. Also wanted to tell you that the BJ Fogg interview coming out tomorrow is not a re-release. It is a brand new episode with BJ Fogg, which we are pretty excited about. So that'll be coming real soon. Enjoy this interview with Michelle Seeger. Something is never going to work for everyone, and we always have to keep that in mind whenever we're listening to an author or science or anything. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.

We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like

why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really Know Really podcast.

Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on thisRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr. Michelle Seeger, motivation scientist and author. Michelle is the director of the Sport, Health, and Activity Research and Policy Center at the University of Michigan. She's also the chair of the U.S. National Physical Activity Plans Communications Committee. Her book is called No Sweat, How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness. The book was chosen as the 2015

number one book in diet and exercise by USA Best Book Awards. When released, it achieved the number one selling exercise and fitness book on Amazon. Here's the interview. Hi, Michelle. Welcome to the show. Hi, it's great to be here. I'm happy to have you on. Your book is called No Sweat, How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness. And I came across it because somebody said to me, you ought to check out this book because a lot of the things that you talk about on the show and in your coaching, this woman wrote a book about. And they were right. I mean, there were countless things in the book that I went, oh yeah, that's a common theme on this show. So, I'm excited to get further into some of those things.

Thanks. I'm really excited to hear your questions and where you're coming from on this too. Excellent. So, we'll start though, like we always do with the parable. And in the parable, there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and thinks about it for a second and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life

and in the work that you do. Sure. Well, it's such a great parable. And the funny thing is, is that before you contacted me, I believe I had just reread that in a Pema Chodron book, if I'm remembering correctly. So I had to chuckle when I heard that. You know, wow. You know, I think in life, it reflects the challenges, right? And what do we fuel when we're going through challenges and what lives? But the interesting thing, I was thinking about how to respond to that from the perspective of no sweat. And I recognize that in a way, the whole shift that the book is asking people to do relates to that in a different way.

So typically people start to exercise or take care of themselves more generally out of a medical model. We feed our beliefs and our approaches from the place of clinical, approaches from the place of clinical, abstract, I want to avoid a disease, I want to change numbers on a scale. And that's what we feed in our approach. And it's the feedback we get, or in fact, don't get because the outcomes we're looking for are actually far in the future. So we may never get them, but we certainly won't get them in the type of timeframe that our brain needs to be reinforced. In contrast, the approach that I'm asking readers to take in No Sweat is consider a different why or reason for starting to be physically active or for starting to get more sleep. I mean, my book is specifically about changing exercise from a chore into a gift.

But it really says if you reframe your reason for being active and you do it differently. So in essence, you're feeding a different why and you're receiving different feedback because when you move, for example, to increase your energy or to boost your mood, you're going to get feedback immediately, immediately that what you're giving to physical activity and why you're doing it is giving it back to you. So that was kind of my big picture takeaway as it relates to my work, is that in a way, a shift in what you're asking from physical activity in a way is feeding it. It's feeding the results you get and how you experience it and whether you want to keep doing it or not. Right, exactly. I mean,

the book really is, you know, there is that fundamental shift there of trying to understand why you do something. And I often say on the show that I do exercise as basically a mental health routine at this point. It's like I do it because it makes me feel better, like immediately, that day, that sort of thing. And so the motivation for me is, you know, is to do it very similar to what you're talking about. My why became something that was a lot more connected to me right now and not as vague as something like being healthy in the future or losing weight. Right. Well, you know, most people don't exercise for the reason you just said. And the biggest reason they don't is because our society simply hasn't taught us that that's an actually wonderful reason

to be physically active. So it's no one's fault that they're not using physical activity as this vehicle for energy and happiness and all these things that we really, that impact our daily life in significant ways. It's just that we haven't learned to do it for those reasons. And the secondary reason which follows from the why, which I explain in the book, is that we typically choose physical activities in order to achieve the why or reason we're exercising for. So if we're exercising to feel better, to boost our mood, it's logical, although people may not know this, that you would pick physical activities that are pleasurable to you, that feel good to you, if not are at least tolerable. But when you exercise for better health or to lose weight,

the physical activities you choose tend to be intense and maybe make your heart rate go higher and cause sweat, even though this might not be a way that people like exercising. And the problem is, is that when people exercise in ways that tend to not feel good to them, they don't stick with it for the most part. So why we do it and how we do it is actually crucial to whether we're going to stick with it. And that's why we have to be talking about this. Yeah, exactly. And a question I had though, because in your book, you say that having more than one primary why for doing a behavior is thought to dilute our motivation. So, for example, I was saying that the primary reason I exercise is because I know that it helps my emotional and my mental health. I feel better when I do it, and I don't feel good when I don't do it. At the same time, the fact that there's a vanity aspect to it and there's a long-term health aspect to it appeal to me also, but help me understand this dilution of our motivation a little bit more. You know, it's so counterintuitive, and I think we actually need a lot more research until we

have kind of conclusive evidence. But the research suggests that if you have, you know, what I call the right why, which is a reason for exercising that you determine that it's something you deeply want, not because you think you should do it or a doctor or employer is telling you to. One would think that, okay, I have that reason. I want to feel better, but I'm also, you know, going to try to avoid cardiovascular disease and, and maybe I'll try to live to, I'm 85 years old. Research suggests that coupling a, an intrinsic internal, internal motivation with these, you know, maybe distant or extrinsic motivations, potentially saps their power. So it's thought to dilute the power of the positive emotion when you bring in these kind of logical,

cognitive reasons for change. And something that I've been toying with my mind, I haven't studied this yet, but, you know, I've been wondering if we could couple, for example, the motive for exercising. I want to feel better with the motive of spending time with other people. So another positive intrinsically driven motivation, if that potentially wouldn't dilute the goal. But the reality is, is that we don't know from the research because it hasn't been done. So I think we need a lot more on this topic. Right. Because what I realize is that my primary why is pretty strong and it's pretty clear. And maybe it's not that I'm doing it for those other reasons, but it's hard for me not to appreciate that they're happening. Yes. Right. Like, I can't put it out of my mind,

like, well, you know, no, it's, you know what I mean? It's like, there's there, but I get, I get what you're saying about how, you know, the primary why is the thing that drives us. So let's talk a little bit more about that. So you're talking about intrinsic versus extrinsic goals. Why don't you first tell me kind of what those are, and then let's talk about what some examples of good whys are and some examples of whys that are maybe not as useful. And for everybody listening, when we say why, we mean W-H-Y, not the, everybody probably figured that out, but just in case. Yeah, no, that's good. And I also want to. Because it sounds weird. It reads well, but it sounds weird. Yes, no, you're right.

Although I have to say I've been hearing a lot of people, it's getting into the vernacular. People are talking about your why. So it's really interesting. I want to start by saying a why is people's reasons for change. And there's no, you know, inherently horrible why. It's whether it works for each individual. So when I'm going to say there might be some whys that are optimal and some that are non, it's not that they're going to be non for everyone.

Because, you know, Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors because we all like different things and different things resonate with us and work for us. So nothing is always going to work or something is, is never going to work for everyone. And we always have to keep that in mind whenever we're listening to an author or science or anything. So having said that. Our own experience. Right? Our own experience is important. Our own experience. And, and so. And so, having said that, internal reasons are sometimes what are called intrinsic goals, are the things that we do because

they're going to feed us immediately. You know, if we're talking about exercising, being intrinsically motivated would mean that we're exercising for the inherent pleasure or satisfaction it gives us. An intrinsic goal would be a reason or a goal or a why that relates to how we feel or doing good in the world, things that we deeply, deeply want on a personal level. In contrast, being extrinsically motivated to exercise would be you're motivated to exercise because you think you should look like the magazine cover or you wish you looked like you did 30 years ago, although I have to say that's kind of a complicated one. Your doctor tells you you need to do this for your blood pressure or to win in a competition. do this for your blood pressure or to win in a competition. Although, you know, to some extent, the whys, there are differences, but we can categorize them as intrinsic versus intrinsic, or maybe even more importantly, helpful versus unhelpful.

The thing about exercises, we've basically in society, this is this is across the country we've been socialized in other words for socialized is educated to be physically active and exercise from a really a singular perspective that we've learned from science and also marketers who have been trying to sell fitness products and services to get us to buy them. So when you ask people in general, why do you exercise? And this is people who do and don't exercise. The majority of people say they do it to improve their health or to control their weight in some way. So, you know, we did a study and we found that 75% of people gave either weight or health related reasons. And that's very common to see in the literature. But what I think is fascinating on this topic is that people give those reasons because those are

the reasons for exercising that they've been taught to have. So it's not necessarily that those are actually the most motivational reasons. There's certainly logical reasons, right? People do want to control their weight and they want to be healthy. But the research on decision-making would suggest that if our reasons for exercising are to achieve something in the future, whether it's weight loss or avoiding a disease, that we will not, you know, in general, people will be less motivated by those reasons or whys than if they're motivated to improve how they feel immediately. So that's a big difference.

And again, people haven't been socialized to think about physical activity as a way to spend time with friends and family and as a way to boost their mood. In fact, in a recent study I was part of, we discovered that a lot of, that I think it was only 40% of clinicians actually recommended that people exercised for mood issues. And so that's fascinating. Research is very clear that physical activity reduces anxiety and depression and boosts mood and energy levels.

So we're simply not being told that this is a great way to feel better. And so that's why it's so important for you to be talking about it and why you do it and how it affects you as well as other people because we have to basically re-socialize society about the value of physical activity for our sense of selves

and for our greater life context. So making lasting change in our behavior and habits is very challenging. It's why a lot of people don't do it. It's not because they're weak. It's not because they're undisciplined. It's simply that it's pretty hard, particularly in today's world and with all the demands we have on us. And so it's why I love doing the work that I do in the Transformation Program, because I get a chance to work with people and bring together a whole suite of tools, knowledge, science, practices that I've learned from all these interviews, from years in recovery, and from coaching well over 100 people at this point and doing a ton of reading, right? We need several different things in order

to make changes to our behavior. I often say to people on coaching calls that there are two main things we have to get down. One is very tactical. There are things like starting small. There are things like knowing when and where you're going to do something, setting up your environment to make it most likely, making sure you're moving to the right stages of change. There's a ton of stuff in the tactical area, and we've got to get those right. And that's one big part of it. And then the second part is the emotional regulation. You can get all the structure in place, but if when the moment comes, when it's

time to do or not do something, if you're not able to work with your emotions skillfully, you end up falling into the same traps again. So the program, we really work hard on both of those components, and we work hard to build a customized plan that works for you. This is not a cookie cutter program that everybody goes through the same things. There's some core principles I teach, but it is not the same program. We really work to develop a plan for you. And we lay out a plan for the week and we're in contact each day via email to see how you're doing. So the level of accountability and support that you get is really a lot. And so I'm proud of the program and I'm proud of the people in it and if you're trying to make change and you're having some trouble I just encourage you to at least talk with me for 30

minutes and let's see if this program is a good fit for you a lot of people say they're nervous to have the conversation they're afraid to do it uh no need to be right I'm just a normal person and we'll have a good conversation about where your blocks are. And if I can help you, we'll talk about how I'll do that. And if not, I will give you something useful that you can walk away with. And so if this is something you've been thinking about doing, this is a great time to do it. I encourage you just go to ericzimmer.coach application, fill out a short form and we will find a time to talk soon. Again, that's ericzimmer.coach slash application. Thanks. Part of what we're saying is that when we think we should do something,

it becomes a chore. Yes. And we resist chores to some degree. However, on the other hand, when we want to do something, then it's not a chore. And so if the goal for exercise is, you know, ideally the best would be that you really enjoy doing it. But if you're a step away from that, then the next best would be the benefits that you feel from it are very, very immediate. Yes. And, you know, one of the things I've asked my clients to do is to think back, what did you enjoy doing when you were a kid? When you were a kid, moving was not a chore. It was this way of being and playing, right? And once people ask themselves that question, it opens up, oh my gosh, I used to love riding my bike. I used to love taking walks in parks.

You know, that changes everything. Right. You say in the book, and I'll quote you here, you say, there's only one basic instruction. Take any and every opportunity to move in any way possible at whatever speed you like for any amount of time. Do what makes you feel good. Stop doing what makes you feel bad. Everything counts is a radical, simple, but timely idea because A, we know that the typical recommendations to exercise, the standard recommendations to exercise for a certain amount of time at a certain intensity have not successfully gotten most people to fall in love with movement or to do it consistently. That's kind of the first evidence that that's not going to really help most people sustain a physically active life. The second level is that research in a completely different area is showing that sitting a lot is actually really bad for our health. So we now have permission and there's research to show that, you know,

anything is better than nothing. And that's kind of the bottom line. Any movement is better than no movement. And if that's true, then we can stand up joyfully, take a few steps because that's all the time we have and pat ourselves on the back and say, I just chose to move. I noticed a burst in energy, which research would suggest would actually happen on, you know, with very small amounts of movement and I'm taking better care of myself. And I ask people to consider the idea. We didn't go to school to learn how to sustain a physically active life. So now is the time to start. And guess what? We have the pleasure of being in kindergarten, which is finger painting. We want to start small and experiment

with new activities and durations and places because we have our whole lives to be physically active. So let's invest in learning how to integrate it into our life in ways that we can sustain. Yeah, you're saying that anything is better than nothing. The phrase that I use a lot with coaching clients and on the show is that a little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing, which is that basic idea. Like, you know, it's so easy for us to go, well, if I can't get to the gym to do 35 minutes of running, I don't do anything.

And I'm always like, anything is better. In that case, go walk for five minutes. You can't make it to the whole class that you want to go to, go for half of it. Yes. Any little bit. And I really like what you're saying is that everything counts kind of across the day. And this is a practical illustration, because I work a lot with people on how do you how do you make these changes and sustain them. And so exercise for me is one where I travel a lot. And so, you know, traveling a lot rains chaos on, you know, an exercise schedule. So one of the things that I figured out is that one of the places that I go very often, it's I do some e-commerce consulting, and it's a very large distribution center. And

what I found is if I just structure my day in a certain way, I can get 10 to 12,000 steps in a day by adding them up all day. And so for me, that's a way of getting my exercise in, even if time doesn't seem to permit. And that's the sort of flexibility I think that you're talking about that allows us to integrate into our lives. Cause that's really the key is how do we do the one month, two months, one year, three years, how do we keep doing these things? Yes. And you, you know, you're really, your point is so important because what I found over the years is that the thing that keeps people

starting and stopping instead of sustaining is that they have gold standards. It's about a bullseye. And on any given day, when you can't meet that bullseye, you feel like a failure and eventually you stop. But that model, that bullseye model of physical activity is based on a medical dose. And the reality is, is that human beings, our lives are so complicated. You know, curveballs come multiple times on most days. And so, unless we have the luxury or the type of mindset that thrives with rigidity, you know, where you do everything at the same point, I don't mean rigidity in any kind of negative way. It's just, you do what you planned every time and there's no deviation, which a lot of people, literally their lives don't permit that to happen.

You have to be flexible in life. And so once we recognize that flexibility is actually a strategy for success instead of a reaction to failure, again, it changes our mindset about what's possible. It gives us permission to get creative with those challenges. Those aren't barriers that are falling down in front of you and stopping you in your tracks. They're opportunities to dance and be creative with solutions. And, you know, research suggests, and this is, I usually talk about this as with regarding our reasons for doing something, but research shows that the frame we use on any, you know, on a topic determines how we feel about it. So if we can turn it into a game, things not going our way, then we're going to broaden our thinking and be able to be more creative. And again, there's science and theories to support

that. Yeah. And it's an absolute given, like you said, that for most of our lives, we're going to make a plan and that plan is going to hold up for about two hours. And then, you know, we need to be able to adjust. And it's that for me, it's a combination of flexibility and a little bit of rigidity. The rigidity is like, I want to get this in somehow. Like, yes, it's important. I want to do it. The flexibility is when, where, how, you know, you say in the book, keep the end in mind. And I know you're talking a little bit more long term, but for me, you know, you say in the book, keep the end in mind. And I know you're

talking a little bit more long term. But for me, you know, it's that just being flexible. And that's one of the big things that I work and I think you do to work with so many people on is developing and learning that flexibility, because none of us have been taught it, you know, and so many of us have the, you know, I call it the effort syndrome, right, where it's like, I try, and it doesn't go perfectly, and so I give up. And you refer to this called the vicious cycle of failure. And it starts with the wrong why. Research shows that our reasons for initiating any behavior have incredible downstream results on the quality of motivation we have and whether we stick with the behavior or not. And so that's what the vicious cycle of failure is. And so logically, if you want to get into the successful cycle of motivation, where do you start?

You start with your why. You change it away from clinical abstract reasons that might make you feel bad about yourself, even if that's how you've been taught to think about it, to reasons for change that are about you. What do you care about? What do you want to feel in your day? And once you reframe your reasons, it changes the downstream effects on motivation. Instead of low quality, unstable motivation, you get high quality, stable motivation. And that's the ingredient for sustainability as well. Going back to what you just said about flexibility, as well as being able to improvise in life. We have to improvise with everything. Our kids get sick, a work deadline all of a sudden comes up. We have to improvise in

all areas of our life pretty much. So even though we do have a goal, we do want to be physically active. If we're not able to improvise with our goals in any area, we won't be able to stick with them. What you're saying, though, is really, really important because I think that all these things that you're talking about, I know, work with things besides fitness. These principles are very sound kind of across the board. You're very focused on and your research is in fitness. These principles are very sound, kind of across the board. You're very focused on and your research is in fitness, but these sort of things really, they apply to behavior change in general. I'm sure when people are hearing us talk about this, these ideas, they're common sense. They're shaking their heads. The nice thing is that even though they are common sense, they're backed by fundamental science.

And that gives these ideas even more credibility. We talked about the vicious cycle of failure, which is we start, we stop, we feel bad about it, we start, we stop, we feel bad about it on and off for years. And that whole process sort of damages our opinion of ourselves as able to even do it. I think the more we do that, the harder it becomes because we don't even take ourselves seriously sometimes that, you know, like, here we go again. But let's talk about the sustainable cycle of self-care. What is that? Yes. So, that gets us into the third cycle, which is the cycle of sustainability. And this cycle takes us past physical activity to really our own self-care and to the recognition and consideration of, do we feel even comfortable prioritizing our own self-care, our own selves?

And what I discovered, the reason I got into this work was because we were doing research with cancer survivors. And people ended the study. They complied. We saw the effects. We hypothesized. But when the study was over three months later, we were shocked to discover that despite talking about how great exercise was for their health, participants had stopped exercising because they had more important things to do than their own self-care. And think

about this. They committed to exercise for our study, but these cancer survivors, when our study ended, they did not feel comfortable committing to their own self-care and that people who had faced a life-threatening illness didn't feel comfortable prioritizing their own self-care suggested that in society we have a real problem. is about this issue. It says, my work, so my work over the last two decades suggests that we can create a positive feeling about exercise or another self-care behavior. We can make it feel like a gift. And actually converting exercise from a chore into a gift is incredibly easy to do if you follow the steps in the book. The challenging part is then to go on to say and i am going to prioritize time for that gift so for an other example is going to the movies i michelle seger love going to the movies but it's not a priority for me so i almost never go so we want something to be a gift, something we want to do, but whether we make it a priority and self-manage it in our lives is really a completely different and actually more difficult question.

So the third cycle, the sustainable cycle of self-care, asks people to step way back away from physical activity and to think about who they are and the roles they care about. So the why goes from a reason to who I am as a parent, partner, professional, volunteer, seeker. And when my self-care behavior, whatever it is, whether it's getting more sleep or changing my dietary habits or exercising. When my self-care behavior aims to fuel who I am, it turns it from simply being something I'd like to do, a gift, something that helps me feel good, to something that I actually need to perform in these roles that I care most about. So it becomes essential fuel. And when a behavior becomes essential fuel, we stick with it because we know that when we don't fuel ourselves, we actually perform worse in everything we care about and everyone we love.

And so, it turns the behavior into something profound and deeply meaningful. Then, we can legitimately prioritize the behavior once we recognize those connections. So in essence, what we're talking about here is taking a behavior like, let's just take exercise, and recognizing that it contributes to our mental health, and then recognizing the important role that our mental health plays in who we are, who we want to be as a parent, what kind of parent we want to be, what kind of husband we want to be, how effective we want to be at work. It's tying that to that next level of meaning. Yes, almost the most profound level of meaning. How do we contribute to others and the things we want to achieve? But I would dare say it goes beyond our success

in our roles to actually how much we enjoy doing them. I mean, think about it. If you are low energy or you're in a bad mood, when you're talking to a child who might be frustrating or not, or you're just cooking dinner or you're at work, when we do things with energy and in a better mood, we enjoy things more. So it actually doesn't just lend itself to contributing more to the world and to being more successful, but actually to being happier because we're enjoying everything we do that much more. Right, right. Absolutely. I think for people that have a hard time saying, I'm important, that recognition that as an interim step, that doing this makes me better with my kids is a really powerful one because then you can step away, at least I think, from the being selfish and recognizing like, no, this is really important.

It's actually, you know, it's a gift and a help to them also. Absolutely. if you listen to an interview with Adam Grant and Krista Tippett on On Being, she asks him about this issue about being a giver. And he discusses the nuances, actually, that the most successful givers are actually people who make sure to get their own needs taken care of first. So it's wonderful to be a giver. But if we don't fuel ourselves, then we really do have that much less to give and to contribute. So, it's actually not counterintuitive and hopefully will help people who are challenged in this area know that it's not just a gift you're giving to yourself, but you actually are giving it to everyone else as well.

So, we're running near to the end of time, but I've got a couple quick things that I would like to touch on. Integrate one new behavior at a time. This is sort of an equivalent to a saying, you know, we say start small and connect the dots. But let's talk about, you know, why is integrating one new behavior a really useful way to approach these things? Well, if we begin with the end in mind, and that's one of the six big ideas in the book, toward the end of the book, if we begin with the end in mind, which is sustainability or forever, consistency is another way of thinking about it, then we have to actually learn the ins and outs of sticking with and being consistent with that behavior through the ebbs and flows of life and seasons

of life, sickness, semesters in school, work deadlines, et cetera. We actually, it takes our cognitive energy and time to do it, to see what gets in the way, to pay enough attention to what gets in our way so we can make a mental note and say, oh, gee, this is what happened. Next time I get to this point, I'm going to do B instead of A. Human beings have a limited cognitive capacity. So how on earth can we learn to change to more than one complicated behavior at a time when we are working and taking care of our families and potentially

aging parents and trying to do A, B, and C? So we simply don't, most of us, there are some talented people who probably, you know, have a lot of more cognitive resources than most of us, we simply don't have the energy and attention to dedicate to learning how to sustain more than one complicated behavior at a time. Right. And I think it's a lot easier when you're trying to do a lot of things to start falling apart in a couple of them and give up on the whole endeavor. So the last thing I want to talk about, and I had, it was a really interesting concept in the book that I looked at, and I thought it was interesting the way yours and your husband's were different. But let's talk about what the self-care hierarchy is, because I think that was an idea I had never seen before,

and I thought it was really interesting. Sure. The self-care hierarchy, you know, came out of my work with people. And I'll give you an example. A woman contacted me, this was many years ago, and she said to me, Michelle, I would like to start exercising. And so part of my client intake is to ask some questions that help me assess what's going on with people. And after the assessment, I said to this woman, I said, wow, you're getting four and a half hours of sleep every night. You know, I'm not really sure physical activity is the behavior, the foundational self-care

behavior that's most appropriate to work on because you told me you're sleep deprived and you feel terrible and you overeat because of it. So through that assessment, we figured out that sleep was truly on the foundation of her self-care pyramid. She wanted to be physically active, but if she didn't start getting more sleep, that was going to undermine her physical activity goal too. So the self-care hierarchy is the idea that we all have some fundamental self-care behavior that if we don't get it, we are not going to have a good day. And many people may not be aware about what that is. And I think for many people people it is sleep and they just don't know it. But for other people like my husband, he's very clear that it's not sleep,

that it's physical activity because he knows he feels terrible if he doesn't exercise, but he, he doesn't feel nearly as bad even if he doesn't get, you know, very much sleep. So it's incumbent upon people and potentially the coaches they work with like you to identify what is that behavior that I'm not getting that if I got it, it would truly radicalize my day for the better. Exactly. I think that's such a great, great thing to learn and understand about ourselves. So Michelle, thank you so much for taking the time to come on. We will have links to your website, links to your book, as well as a download of a couple quotes from your book that I really loved at oneufeed.net slash Michelle. And that way people can find you

and get to your website. I highly recommend the whole book. I thought it was wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It was just a pleasure to speak with you today. Okay. Take care. You too. Okay. Bye.

you can learn more about michelle seger and this podcast at one you feed.net slash michelle