The Viall Files - E523 Going Deeper with Dr. Maya Shankar - Keeping New Year’s Resolutions With Science

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

Welcome back to another episode of The Viall Files, Going Deeper Edition! Today we are joined by cognitive scientist and creator of A Slight Change In Plans, Dr. Maya Shankar. Before getting into the interview, we first get a quick update on GMA’s TJ and Amy’s relationship status, the recent info released about the Idaho murders, Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper getting banned from drinking on New Year’s Eve, and speculate on what they hope to learn from Anderson Cooper’s upcoming interview with Prince Harry. We then dig deep with Dr. Maya Shankar, talking about the best ways to set and hold yourself to New Year’s Resolutions. We talk about framing goals to be motivating and if it’s better to start something or quit something.. We also discuss the “empathy gap” between your present self and future self, and integrating slack into your goals. Dr. Shankar explains what she learned from having parents in a successful arranged marriage, the science of quitting, and why it’s important to tolerate boredom when structuring goals. We also talk about using novel experiences to break patterns in a relationship, and how “temptation funneling” can help you accomplish your goals. We then welcome our Texting Office Hours caller who recently matched with someone on Hinge who is extremely allergic to dogs. Our caller, having a dog herself, wonders if this is a dealbreaker or if she should try to give this guy a chance.  “How would a cognitive scientist write their wedding vows?”  If you are interested in running a book club in your city, send an email to: [e-mail]  Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to our new email address [e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.  If you would like to get some advice on Office Hours send an email to [e-mail] with “Office Hours” in the subject line!  To Order Nick’s Book Go To: http://www.viallfiles.com Support a Local Bookstore: https://bookshop.org/books/don-t-text-your-ex-happy-birthday-and-other-advice-on-love-sex-and-dating-9798212185622/9781419755491 THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Modern Fertility: Right now, Modern Fertility is offering our listeners $20 off the test when you go to http://www.ModernFertility.com/VIALL.  Episode Socials:  @viallfiles @nickviall @drmayashankar See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You can listen to The Vile Files ad-free on Amazon Music. What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of The Vile Files, Going Deeper Edition. Boy, do we have a great episode for you today. I'm Nick, your host, joined by Allie in studio. Amanda is abroad or home. This is like in New York. She's not here.

Surrounded by some beautiful Native American art because my grandmother loves Native American art. So I would consider myself a little Santa Fe in New York. All right. All right. We have a great episode for you today. Dr. Maya Shankar is with us today, the behavioral scientist who's been on our show before. She's also worked for the Obama White House,

who works for Google. A lot of interesting things in regards to behavior and habits. And with it being the new year and people constantly talking about new year's resolutions and hopefully starting new habits, we brought in the expert to talk about how to actually maybe accomplish some of these goals. And we get into a bunch of other cool stuff as it relates to healthy behaviors and habits and relationships and keeping the spark alive. And it's always great. Identity. Identity. It was great. You're definitely, it's a, well, you've already downloaded it. So here we are. Thank you. So thank you. So keep listening. Is there anything, before we get to Dr. Maya,

is there anything we've missed that there's a lot, there seems to be a lot going on. Holidays and traveling, I want to touch on TJ and Amy because I heard that they spent Christmas together. Like, they're just, like, not being subtle in the slightest. Remember we talked about that. Do you think they should be subtle?

I mean, if they're together. I mean, pop, I say pop off too much. But, like, live your life. I say, I might, the picture I took with TJj and amy i feel like

is like it's upped its value yeah yeah it's valuable oh yeah you're basically their third wheel i'm gonna drop an nft with uh me me tj and amy i also i think you can argue like if the whole point of two hosts is to have chemistry they understood the assignment almost too much and i think it would be wonderful to watch it play out on national television. Yeah, put them back on TV. I want to watch it. Yeah, I mean, they're getting more press

for GMA3 than ever. I say put them back on air. I've never been more into... What was the reason they got taken off the air or temporarily? Because they said it was like the scandal and they didn't want... It was like the whispering in the hallways. Like, it like the scandal and they didn't want, it was like the whispering

in the hallways. Like, it's too much. They didn't want to distract from the hard-hitting news that ABC does. Which, you know, I was on GMA3 to promote my book,

but I feel like we could still have promoted it. Even if they had been happily a couple and out at that point. Yeah. It could have been like, it could have been

an even better interview. You know, we could have really got into it. You could have read them passages and asked how it applies to their relationship yeah so but they're they're like full-on together yeah full-on together spent the holidays together there's many many pictures there was one article that was like they're making out like teens in miami and i was like so you mean making out like teens like teens only teens make out i mean listen like there is some infidelity it seems like there we don't condone that i mean and and for the for the spouses who you know and

who knows we don't really know the full scope of these relationships or how they were maybe they were maybe there was an understanding already like who knows like maybe they were kind of already separated i have no idea uh but i think any criticism coming their way probably is coming from the camp of of not condoning infidelities but as someone who doesn't know anything about the details of any of these relationships i mean if they're together they should just be together and i don't think they should hide yeah you know it was the hiding that yeah yeah. Yeah. It's like, we're treating this like a murder investigation.

And it's like, have you guys been following the story of the very tragic Idaho murders? Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, so they, it's gotten really crazy now. It's truly like CSI level because the person who they arrested and have in custody was studying criminal crime. It's almost too crazy to be true. person who they arrested and have in custody was studying uh criminology literally crime it's

almost too crazy to be true well and he was arrested in pennsylvania right and from what i read from there his dad didn't he and his dad drive from where the murders happened to pennsylvania like was his were his parents hiding him oh where's the line there's with your child there's a girl on tiktok claiming to be his ex-girlfriend. She's making a lot of TikToks about it. I don't know how I feel about it. How do we feel about that nowadays? With like, I mean, I'm assuming all her TikToks are about, she's been popping off.

Yeah. How do we feel about that? Because it's funny how like all of these things, the second it was announced that he was arrested, all of these people were kind of coming forward with details, whether it was people who'd gone to high school with him. Or I know when he'd been a TA, people were coming forward and saying he was apparently really harsh and would grade everyone extremely low grades and the whole class complained to the professor and that he would write these very long criticisms. And it's all this stuff where it's like you have no idea what's relevant and what's not. And is it? And it's, you know, it's all this stuff where it's like you have no idea what's relevant and what's not.

And is it? Yeah, like just because he was kind of a perfectionist or a dick doesn't mean he's a murderer. But maybe all of these little things played in the role of his like psychology of like who he was. And is it like, was this like the first of what could have been many? Like, you know, is this like serial killer like mentality? Because it seems like this was like an arbitrary killing. Well, it happened on the 13th of November. And after Thanksgiving break, only 9,000 out of 11,000 students on the campus did not return because they think there was absolute terror because it was this out of nowhere crime in a place that hadn't had a murder in i think seven years or something crazy so it's like it really does kind of like

you make you quake in your boots because it's just you have no idea like what's going on or what did you hear about him apparently he called into some show too and like and he was like speculating about who the murderer could be no way well they're that's how i found out who this girl this girl who's claiming to be a boyfriend she's claiming to have been his girlfriend and she's also saying that she thinks that's his voice it sounds like him it was some it was like a really weird call it's floating around on tiktok and he's this person on the other end of the phone sounds kind of just sounds like a sounds kind of weird and they had like a real like interesting opinions on the case but it was like which would make sense because high school with him said like he was always very dominant and would like put me in headlocks and

like was just like kind of like this very i don't know violent handsy person like aggressive aggressive yeah yeah stuff like that it's hard to like like, again, there's a big gap between, you know, authoritative figure. My brother, who's a cop, is a bit of an authoritative figure. He likes to be in charge. Like, murdering four random college students is a big leap. four random college students is a big leap so i guess brian's dad when they drove when they did the cross-country road trip for two and a half days uh said that he was acting normal and not out of character despite having just committed like it's like that's almost like weirder to me like you can be completely normal and calm after killing people well i mean sure but he also like

killed four like he randomly killed four people so like yeah because it doesn't seem this wasn't like a crime of passion or like it was it sounded like one of those movies where someone's trying to get away with the perfect murder and didn't jump in the car time for and like what would they have done had they not gotten caught probably continued doing it right yeah isn't that the mentality? So creepy. And it is crazy the way it turns everybody on the internet into a journalist.

Being like, I knew XYZ Ida. Trying to piece it together. Oh wait, but speaking of journalists, did you guys see that Barbara Walters passed away? Yeah. Sad. Icon. R.I.P. I used to like the hard hitting questions. There was a moment in my childhood that every Friday, me and my mom and my parents, we'd like eat ice cream and watch 2020 on Friday nights when Barbara was headlining 2020.

Love that. I saw a TikTok and it was like me after I've had several drinks and it was just a compilation of like her hard-hitting questions. It's like, how did you know your father? Like blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, yeah. Especially presidents. Like she would get president interviews with presidents

to be like, talk about your relationship with your mom. And I was like, me on a first date. Yeah. Barbara, what a legend. R.I.P. Truly. Do we all want to ask each other a very intense question? Do we have any hard-hitting questions we want to ask each other?

That's my biggest. That's not a hard-hitting question. Well, answer it then. What's my biggest regret? I was going to make a joke. I don't want you guys to cry today. You're going to be hiring you? Yeah, I was. That's not a hard-hitting...

Hard-hitting questions are more specific about... Do you consider yourself better than your bachelor peers, Nick? That would... That's not a hard-hitting... He doesn't like our questions, but he's still not answering them. No, I don't. Okay. Yeah, it's got to be...

Well, you come up with one then. Well, I don't... This game was a good try. up with one then. This game was a good try. I don't know. This game was a good try. Barbara, we need you back. Well, I think we are going to get some hard-hitting questions on... Did you guys see if there's an interview coming up released this coming Sunday with Harry

and Anderson Cooper? Our widow nepotism baby. Our widow nepo baby. What are hard-hitting questions we'd ask Harry? Well, he said there was a little poll quote of him saying that he wants Our widow nepotism baby. Our widow nepo baby. What are hard-hitting questions we'd ask Harry, you know? Well, he said there was like a little poll quote of him saying that he wants to basically get back on good terms with his brother and his father. And I just thought that was so ironic because I'm like, as we've discussed on all of our coverage of the Harry and Meghan thing,

that's probably not the best way to go about doing that. They clearly don't like all these public interviews, the tell-alls. Or saying that publicly. My question to Harry would be, what, if anything, do you think you have to apologize or are responsible for the falling out with your family? Oh, yeah. Do we think Anderson Cooper was the right person to do the interview? Yeah. I feel like Anderson Cooper is a good journalist. I think he asked some tough questions. Yeah. I'll watch it. I'm excited to see it. Do you think Anderson Cooper will ask tough questions or it

will just be like hanging out with harry i know that's what i'm afraid of like is i mean i don't think there's a right or wrong like are there a hard question like i know some of the fans will want the hard-hitting questions but like is this this he is that he isn't interviewing a president he's not a head of state he's not like this is not like when you think of hard-hitting questions it's like these people are in charge of like real policy. It's also definitely promo for his book coming out as well. So it's like, is it going to be more of a tease of things that we can learn in the book?

Like, I don't know where promo and. I just don't, I just think at some point they need to take some ownership of whatever role they're playing in this dynamic. Yeah. Right or wrong. I don't think they just can keep coming out and. I want to know what William's text was to Harry after the Oprah interview. Well he won't share that.

That's what I want Anderson to ask. When is this interview? I believe it comes out on Sunday. It's coming out this Sunday. Yeah. Well we can talk about it in Freestyle next week. Harry and Meghan keeping us busy. I hope Harry doesn't sound... I mean, I don't want Harry to sound whiny. I don't think he will.

I think he came across very well in their documentary. No, he did. He did. But enough is enough of complaining about your situation. Is it complaining or is it explaining? It sounds like complaining to some people. I would be really curious how Harry personally feels because I think, you know, so much of like the topic of the documentary and discourse and that has existed around Megan has been like the role of like, what is it to have an American and actress and like a woman of color

welcomed into this institution? And I would be curious how Harry personally feels about his role in that and like whether he feels like he should have protected her more or whether he feels like he should have foreseen the hostile environment that like, you know, such a colonial and white like institution has. And I would really kind of wonder like what his thoughts around that were. I kind of feel like they touched on that in their series though too. You know, like he talks about

he could anticipate it, but yeah, the race element was completely different than it was for Kate, than it was for Diana. That's what he brought up to his family of why it was so different. Yeah, I feel like he touched on that a lot. Yeah.

Yeah, I guess I'm more just like curious like him on a personal level like does he like to what extent he feels like a sense of like responsibility well i don't think that would be i think he does feel bad it's like it's like a hard-hitting question it's like how he said he feels responsible for megan and her dad's falling out i'm actually less curious about i'm more curious about his actual relationship with his family and his father megan yeah then like because megan almost seems like a easy scapegoat of like of blame like even the phrase meg's it like it's all on blaming megan for this fallout or this

relationship with megan has something to do with the fallout. And like, maybe there, maybe that played a role, but like, I just don't think, I think if you have a fallout with family, people can be, other people, outsiders can be a catalyst, but there has to be already damage and scars and fractions in a relationship for you to allow other, if other people are playing a role and are pulling you apart i feel like there already has to be wounds and things like that and i am more curious at that at this point and finding out what those were and finding out uh harry's relationship with william and his father that has nothing to do with megan leading up to the point where he met megan rather than figuring you know trying to like the pointing of the figure finger and like this whole hair you know that you know with anything

to do with context yeah it's just kind of like okay fine like they're together they're in love they left fine you know like at the I'm willing to just chalk it up to like they just wanted a different life than the expert in the institution wanted for them. And whether some people agree with that or disagree with that, it's their life. They have the right to choose that. But in terms of Harry having a relationship with his family, I am curious about that dynamic, especially as it relates to anything not Meghan related. Well, I wonder also, I think for me, like the security element that was discussed in Harry and Meghan is really relevant in terms of like, as much as there's, I just feel like that was kind of next level in terms of like the conflict that you may have interpersonally between a family versus the way

it seemed like his family and who knows, maybe the three weeks would have passed. They would have seen like how atrocious the hounding was and would have kind of stepped up and provided security again. But that to me feels like a real point of no return. That his family was going to leave him vulnerable and put him and his wife

and his children... Yeah, but also they have to respond to people with budgets and taxpayers. Are the British taxpayers going to pay for them over in Canada when they're no longer part of the family? And that's what I mean. It's not that I get Harry and Meghan wanted to explain their side of the story. And the difference between explanation or complaining, again,

is the eye and the beholder. But at the end of the day, until we, and I don't think we ever will, hear the other side, at this point, it we ever will hear the other side at this point it just sounds like like until the other side can share their others share their side i think it behooves them to maybe just not keep throwing stones even if those are justifiable stones like especially in the public forum because whether you're justified or not, if your ultimate goal is to reconcile, then it's not going to feel like a justification to the other side.

It's just going to feel like more airing of dirty laundry. I saw a photo of, you know, how Kate and William were just in Boston. I saw some photos that people took of, like, them on a commercial flight to Boston. I think they were in the more business class, first class area, but they were for sure on a commercial flight overseas. And I was like, good for them. Living the normal life.

That's kind of wild. Yeah. Yeah, I hope they had to. Boston luggage baggage claim is egregious. I apologize to anybody who works there. I'm sure there are circumstances beyond your control. But Boston... My guess is they don't hang out waiting for their

luggage. Probably not. Probably not. Anyway. But the car has to hang out. It takes so long. I'm using my platform for something I'm passionate about. It is the system of baggage claims in Logan. Well, let's... I'm glad we could bring awareness to that.

All right. Well, it's time for learning some new behaviors. Let's get into it. So I feel like we're entering the time of our life. Maybe, Amanda, you agree with this, where people our age are starting to get married or thinking about having kids. And I feel like a lot of that is still mysterious. And there's this mentality of, oh, we'll just wait and see, or we're trying. But we have the technology and the power to know what our bodies are doing. If we're having any sort of fertility issues, one in eight couples struggles with infertility. And now we have tools from modern fertility to help us know what's going on with our bodies, know how to prep for things.

Yeah. One of my best friends is experiencing fertility challenges and it's, I feel it's like makes my heart break hearing about going to doctors and not getting answers and just how there's these long turnaround times where it's like to even understand the results of a test, the follow-up appointment isn't for months. It can be confusing. You have to like try to find different doctors and tests can be very, very expensive, but modern fertility is the opposite. So it's easy. It's affordable. You can test your fertility hormones at home with a simple finger prick. You can mail

it with a prepaid label. They've literally taken out all of the legwork for you and you get your personalized results within six business days. Traditional hormone testing at a fertility clinic can cost over $600, but Modern Fertility tests the same general set of hormones for only $179. And if you go to modernfertility.com slash V-I-A-L-L, you can get $20 off your test. So then it becomes $159, which is a hell of a lot better than $600. Plus you can get reimbursed for the test through your FSA or HSA. So there's that possibility too. Yeah. Yeah. So if you want kids today or maybe one day in the future, clinically sound info about your body can help you make the decision that's right for you. No, it's just power. It's always good to know and you can do it very affordably from the comfort of

your home. So check out Modern Fertility. Right now, Modern Fertility is offering our listeners $20 off the test when you go to modernfertility.com slash V-I-A-L-L. That means your test will cost $159, which is a fraction of what it costs at fertility clinics. Get $20 off your fertility test when you go to modernfertility.com slash V-I-A-L-L. That's modernfertility.com slash V-I-A-L-L. Maya, welcome back. Thanks so much for having me. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you. How are you? I'm doing okay. Doing okay. I somehow managed to not get sick over the holiday break. So I feel like that's a success. Wow. Yeah. I know. Go us, right? You got sick, Allie. Oh my God. Oh, sorry. It just felt like I was everywhere. Because I wish I was you. I've had pretty good luck with that stuff.

Were you around a lot of kids though? I mean, I think that's the key. I was. Yeah. That's impressive. To not get sick. You have an immune system of steel. I feel like I've always had a pretty solid immune system. Yeah. Yay for me. Yay for you.

Good job, Nick. Do you usually get sick? Now everyone can resent you. So far, so good. But again, I don't want to, you know, I don't want to jinx anything. I mean, eventually we'll get sick again. I don't believe in jinxing. Yeah, we'll get sick at some point.

Yeah, definitely. Every time I'm around my nephews at least i i get sick little boys how old are they uh so the oldest one is seven and then five and three okay oh yeah they're carrying a lot of the yeah a lot of the schools yeah well so great to have you back it was always fun talking with you when we first had you on. And I know you and I were texting and we thought, well, what a fun way to bring you back to talk about, you know, it's New Year's. People are always talking about New Year's resolutions. New Year, new you.

New Year, new you. And it seems like really good in theory, hard in practice type of idea. We were talking with our last guest, Heath, we were talking New Year our our last guest heath we were talking new year's resolutions a little bit and how it almost seems like new year's resolutions are more just like what they really end up being is this like a list of things you're not good at you know because it's just you just kind of like well i don't like this about me or i don't do this enough or I have to stop doing this. And we just kind of like identify it and usually just kind of falls off a few months or a few months, a few weeks later,

a few months if we're lucky. But they don't really become new behaviors or new habits that I think are really required to make something a real part of our lives. And I thought it'd be fun to chat with you about how we might actually be able to do that. Because you have a lot of conversations about this type of stuff in your work and with a lot of important people. Yeah, I mean, I myself gave up on making New Year's resolutions when I was younger because I was like, what's the point? And so then being trained as a behavioral scientist and actually studying the science

of human behavior and motivation and decision making, it's actually changed my own. I mean, when I was texting you, right, I was like, Nick, this stuff has genuinely changed my own life. And I feel like I'm sticking to my goals more than I was before. And so I wanted to just share whatever's worked for me or what the research says. So we might, we might be changing people's lives in this episode if we, well, in small ways at least, I hope, but you know, the small ways add up to big ways. So that's what we always say on this show. Yeah. All right. So, uh, per your advice, let's figure out how to first identify how we should, what, what things we should actually try to, what our goals are, what things we can work on, and then what we can do to help make those goals a reality. defining your goals. In fact, a lot of the hard work's happening at the goal-defining stage,

which is something we tend to overlook. We're just like, yeah, I want to get fitter or, you know, I want to eat healthily or whatever it is. But we can... I want to be off my phone less. Yes, whatever. But those goals seem so effortless. And we're like, okay, I already know what my goals are. Now it's just a matter of executing. But we know from research that the way that we frame our goals can have a big impact on motivation levels. So for example, the way that we frame our goals can have a big impact on motivation levels. So for example, you can frame a goal as an approach goal. So I want to eat healthier foods, or you can frame goals as avoidant goals, right? I want to avoid eating unhealthy foods. And these distinct frames can have a very different impact on motivation. And I would recommend that people experiment with

them because some can work well or not well, depending on the domain, right? Like what area of life you're in. So there's not one that's necessarily better than the other. It depends on the person? It can depend on the person and the activity. However, by and large, the approach goals are better and more motivating and they lead to greater endurance and resilience and a greater sense of pride in having accomplished the thing. So I want to eat healthier is better than I want to avoid unhealthy sugar or whatever. Exactly. And you can understand why, right? So when you avoid doing something, it's really hard to measure success, right? As you're going through the day, you're like, how many times did I avoid picking up my phone and checking Instagram, right? It's not as measurable as actually creating a goal about the things you

do want to do that are easy to quantify and easy to measure. So if you made your goal, oh, I want to take more steps during the day, that's actually something that you can quantify at the end of the day, right? Let's say that's a substitute behavior for picking up your phone. Every time I pick up my phone, I'm actually just going to like walk around my kitchen once. Like a penance. Yeah. Well, penance, substitution, you could call it either thing, but yes. But I'm wondering, I mean, I'm curious to know from the three of you, if you've ever had this experience where when you were, when you had like an abstinence goal, like I'm trying not to do something over time time you just kind of lose some of the motivation

right it's just not as energizing as racing towards something right feeling like there's actually a thing that you're abstaining from it also then almost puts that on a pedestal definitely you know of of like a cheat day yeah you know like if you abstain from something then all of a sudden you have cheat days and then you glorify those cheat days as something you really enjoy. Like I made a resolution one year, no Girl Scout cookies, and suddenly Thin Mints became the most delicious food on planet earth. It was incredible. But that's, I mean, your point about like the cheat days, that's actually another important lesson for us is when we're thinking about how we define our goals, it's actually really important to build in some slack, some get out of jail free cards. Those are good, actually, because I think what happens is as we're approaching January 1st and we have our aspirational selves in the driver's

seat, we're like, we're going to kick ass in 2023. I got all my goals covered. We can be purists about our goals. It's like, I'm going to the gym every single day this year. And we all know that life happens and it's not actually possible to so purely execute on your goals. But when you build in what are called emergency reserves, so you say, okay, I'm gonna go to the gym every day this month,

except I'm giving myself five freebie days where if you're a parent, right? If my kid's sick, I have to be at home with them or, you know, maybe I'm just lazy one day and I just want a day off. That way, you can still feel that you can achieve your goal and you don't risk falling completely off the wagon, which is what we typically do when we create these really audacious goals where there's no wiggle room whatsoever. We have our first cheat day and we're like, all right, to hell with it. I'm done. Yeah. It's like I want to go to the gym every month, like you said, and all of a sudden you've

missed two days in a row and it just feels like, well, what's the point? What's the point? I'm not going to reach my goal anyway. And, you know, we know, we know from research, I certainly have seen this in my own experience that our goals are really tethered to our sense of self-identity. And so when you don't fulfill a goal, it's almost an indictment on who you are. It's like, wait a second, I thought that I was the kind of person who actually follows through on their goals. So it can be really discouraging when you do have those two cheat days or you do miss the gym two days to be like, darn it, this is kind of a threat to who I am or the kind of person that I want to be. And that's why building in those reserves can

be really useful. That makes a lot of sense. So building things that you want to do better than... Hold on to your kilts, dearies. Peacock original The Traitors is back with a new season of strategy, betrayal, sabotage, and murder. This killer season features an all-new celebrity cast that Vulture hailed as reality royalty living in a Scottish castle for the ultimate murder mystery competition. We're talking fierce competitors, reality stars, and public figures battling it out for a whopping cash prize. This season's cutthroat missions are next level, just like whatever Alan Cumming pulls out of his brilliantly eccentric wardrobe. One thing is for sure, these 21 players will do anything to avoid a plot in Alan's graveyard. Find out why critics and

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What do you mean? Just keep it simple. I'm making the promo. Just keep it simple. Just say, hey, we're the Brav Bros. Two guys that talk about Bravo. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, we're the Brav Bros. No. Oh. Dude, stop with the brav bros. No. Oh.

Dude, stop with the voice. Just keep it simple. I've seen promos on TV. Dude, this is how you get the fans engaged. This is how you get listeners. We're trying to get listeners here.

If we just say, oh, we're two dudes that talk about Bravo, people are gonna get tired of it already. We need some oomph. All right, then fine. Let's try to do it with your voice.

Brav bros. Good job. Things that you don't want to do, but not necessarily... It's not always bad to say... For example, staying off your phone. Very popular one. Or eating less sugar. Is it just like...

Is it coming up with... Instead of telling myself I want to be on my phone less, I'm going to almost trick myself with an activity that's more productive to be on my phone less, I'm going to almost trick myself with an activity that's more productive than being on my phone. Like every time I have this desire to go on my phone, I'm going to do something else. Is that better than... The way that habits work, right, is that they're triggered by certain cues in our environment. And so what we want to do is associate whatever cue leads us to want to check our phone with

something else. In fact, they've done research with people who are trying to quit smoking. And they find that a lot of the desire to smoke, I mean, of course, there's the physiological component, right? You're addicted to nicotine and you enjoy that experience. But is the habit of taking a break from work, going outside, being with your buddies, right? work, going outside, being with your buddies, right? And so when they found a way to replace that particular smoking behavior with another behavior that still gives you that short break in the day, that still gives you that habit that feels nice and grounding and relaxing, they were much more likely to quit smoking. And so what we want to do is, what I found really

successful in my own life is to find substitute behaviors rather than saying, I don't want to do this thing. Because then you're just sitting there being like, don't do the thing, don't do the thing, don't do the thing. And that's really, really hard. But at the same time, why do we check Instagram? It's because we're tired and we want a break and we want a distraction. And so just find something else. It's just a distraction, really. Yeah. It's just like something else to do and I want to check out.. Yeah. And by the way, like some online behaviors I think are just better than others. So I have taken to texting my friends more, like checking in on old friends when I'm feeling that way. And it's just like, oh, I just want to take a break or I want to relax for a bit. I, you know, I go and I just, I'm like, oh, who, who do I want to reach out to that I've lost touch with? And

that feels slightly more nourishing than scrolling, you know, the discovery feed on Instagram, which is just endless. It's interesting. Yeah. Now I'm trying to think about what habits I'm going to replace being on my phone with. Are there any specific habits that are better than others when you are trying to think of those types of replacement habits? Are there ones that are more positive than others or there are certain types of things

that you want to look to do? Social connection is key. And so I actually think, and this is why I was talking maybe about texting is like maybe not being that bad because actually texting is a way of connecting with other people. It's a wonderful way of staving off loneliness

and feeling like you do have a sense of community in this world and you do have people that you can commiserate with or share your feelings with. And so I think that the challenge with Instagram becomes when I, Maya, am in bed and I'm literally just passively scrolling through people's feeds. And there's nothing interactive about that. There's nothing that's actually forging connectedness between me and the other person, really. I mean, okay, sure, now I know the beautiful view they had in Hawaii when they were on their wonderful vacation, but I don't feel closer to the person.

So I think any habits, whether it's calling a friend, you know, like I started one of my New Year's resolutions this year is like handwrite more cards, like old school communication, right? So I have like a goal. I'm going to like send my friends letters letters which i haven't done in so long right so you can just find other ways of expressing that desire for again relaxation or you know just distraction yeah i don't know if anyone could read my pen so work on your handwriting could be one nick oh my gosh can i please get you like the old like kuman packages with like the little letters

i'm gonna i'm gonna Necco a handwriting course. I'll never do it. Okay. The other really important thing we should think about when we're setting our goals is, and this touches back on the thing we were talking about before about our aspirational selves getting ahead of our real selves, is to try and define our goals when we're in the same physiological and psychological state as we'll be in when we're actually trying to execute on the goal. And so when it's 4 p.m. on a Sunday and Nick, you're like watching football, that's probably not a good time for you to be like, yep, I'm going to get up at 5.30 a.m. on every weekday and go to the gym because there's an empathy gap between your present moment self and your future self, right? And you're not emphasizing what that future version of you is.

So when you have gotten up at 5.30, let's say three days in a row, fine. I'm going to give you the rights to actually create that goal. But you really do want to approximate what your psychological and physical state is going to be like when you're in goal pursuit mode, because that makes it much more likely that you're actually going to achieve your goals.

Empathy gap. Empathy gap. Empathy gap. That sounded great. Is that a clinical term? Yeah, it's a term we use in behavioral science research. But basically, we put a huge premium on current day Maya, like current moment Maya. I'm like, I really value Maya right now. And when I think about the future, I discount. In fact, this is well corroborated in the research. I'm like, I really value Maya right now. And when I think about the future, I discount, in fact, this is well corroborated in the research, I really discount future Maya. Like, I'm less concerned with how she turns out. I'm less concerned with what pain she suffers,

but I really care about not suffering right now. And so a lot of the biases we have in our mind lead us to act in ways or make decisions that privilege our present selves, right? This is why we might procrastinate. It's like, well, you know, I really care right now that I don't suffer, but oh gosh, tomorrow, you know, when I was in college, right, Maya's going to have to write that term paper that she refuses to write right now. And so part of making smarter goals, part of being smarter about our decision-making is trying to actually envision what your future self is going to feel like having been handed this, you know, in this case, non-gift from former self. It's also, I'm guessing it probably plays

a role in why so many people, when they're having that like breakup or get back together fight, and one person's promising to do better in the future or promising to change or making these wild claims of what they are willing to do in this relationship they're trying to save. But when they get to that future moment, it seems like such an unattainable goal. That is so true and so well said. It's actually, it's bringing me back to my wedding day. This is what happens, guys, when you're married to a behavioral scientist from the perspective of my husband. In his vows, he was talking about things that he was committing to. But then at the end, he said, I promise to try and build the habits of mind that actually allow me to be this way. Very knowledgeable of the fact that, yeah,

it's one thing to state that, okay, I promise I'm going to change. I promise I'm going to be X or Y way. But in the same way that you go to the gym and you do pull-ups and push-ups and bicep curls to build strength, you have to actually cultivate new patterns of thinking and new ways of thinking. How would a behavioral scientist write their wedding vows? Because now that I'm thinking about it, wedding vows are so about you're thinking about your future self, of which you're not really empathizing with as much. Is it safe to say that we never really fully empathize with our future selves as well

as we're able to empathize with our current selves? I think that's fair to say. I mean, in part, because there's so much uncertainty too about what the future will bring, but more importantly, how we will change, right? We rarely think about that. We think about us as being stable entities that are operating in this dynamic world, but our own preferences can change, right? The things that we value can change. The way that we feel about ourselves can

change. All of that is very hard to take into account in present day. But on that note about the wedding stuff, I think we had very pragmatic vows. Like they, I mean, I found them romantic because I felt like they were like genuinely trying to ensure a long-term marriage, but I can imagine other people not. For example, you know, Jimmy and I, Jimmy's my husband, like we don't believe in unconditional love very much. Right. Okay. So there are absolutely conditions on my willingness to love my husband and vice versa. If I were to change in some marked way where I suddenly was like mean to him all the time, it doesn't matter that I am the same quote person. I'm not actually the same person because my behaviors have radically changed and that should change, in fact, how he feels about me. I've always, I think pragmatism is romantic. I think. Oh, thanks, Nick. I feel better. Well, because I think it's just more honest and real. And if you're willing to kind of face that realism and then still choose to find romance in that and build a romance, I think it's a lot more romantic because it's harder than just simply saying we're destined to fate or I'll always feel this way or I'll love you no matter what.

It's just like, well, if you love me no matter what, then I don't really do anything. I don't have to work hard. I don't have to work hard. I don't have to hold myself accountable. I don't have to earn your love day in and day out. And I find that all to be very romantic to have to earn that on a continued basis. I still remember. This is so funny. You're really bringing me back to 2016. But I remember writing the last paragraph of my vows.

And at one point I said, with a family and community like the one that's here today, I really feel that we can get through anything. And then I scratched that out. I was like, no, I don't. I don't actually think we could get through anything. And I changed it to, you know, hopefully it'll help us beat the odds. And so again, it's all very pragmatic, but I think I've been, yeah, mindful of, I'm mindful of the ways that we- Your vows are going to be like this, Nick. Like I'm thinking about this. I'm like, you're going to be calling Maya saying, okay, can you help me write these? I think deep down I'd probably want that, but I'm not going to be marrying a behavioral scientist.

So I might- Yeah, you might want to be a little bit more- I might gloss it up a little bit, you know, just for the sake of- And again, there were sweet moments. It's just that, you know, we were very, we were measured in the way that we committed to each other because I think that's really-

I'll find a way to have both, right? very we were measured in the way that we committed to each other because i think that's really yeah right i i just yeah i i feel like we should we should give more credit to that type of thought process and i and i i sincerely think it is more romantic than just saying kind of these profound things without anything really behind it or or of how we're going to make this work. Yeah. So death do us part. Yeah. And when you don't think things are destined, then you really do have to work every day to be the best version of yourself, to try to earn the respect and love and compassion

of the people that you surround yourself with, not just in your romantic relationships, but in any relationship, right? You need to feel like you're at least aspiring to be a good version of yourself versus taking for granted, because especially with the people we're closest to, right? We can take them for granted. I've often, so early on in my relationship with Jimmy, we talked about the fact that it was going to be very easy for us to desensitize to our good fortune and having met each other, because that's just how humans are. We just get used to good things. We also get used to bad things, but a lot slower than we get used to good things.

We desensitize to good fortune effortlessly. And so we implemented at the beginning of our relationship, a gratitude exercise where at the end of every day, we just shared a moment that we were so happy to have shared with the other person or something that we really liked or loved about the other person because we wanted to stave off

that desensitization process, I guess, and make it so that we are constantly reminded of our luck. So when you say desensitize the good things, are you talking about like flying first class and then having an almost like getting used to that good thing so quickly? Yeah, I think when we have a good thing happen to us or something good happens in our lives, I feel like what happens is it so easily becomes the new status quo. It becomes business as usual, right? I mean, the first time I ever flew on a business class flight, this was for a work trip, I was like, oh my God, this is blowing my mind, right? Especially if work is paying for it. You know, it's just a little less exciting than it was like the first few times, right? Because that's just how we work. We habituate, right? We

become used to the norm. And that's why they say actually in behavioral science research that when it comes to day-to-day happiness, we're much more affected by, say, the length of our commute, which we know actively makes people unhappy, than we are by how beautiful the interior of our home is. So it's much smarter to get a slightly less nice place that's closer to your workplace where you could actually walk to work every day than it is to have a beautiful mansion somewhere and have a 45-minute commute in LA traffic in order to get to your job. Because those are the things we don't habituate to. But we do habituate to the nice house. We habituate to the nice thing that just becomes normal. But even just like I'm thinking

relationships too. I love that gratitude exercise because that idea of, I think that's where a lot of people struggle after like the honeymoon phase is this expectation of how their relationship is supposed to feel without really having to do any of the work because it just, well, it was so exciting and great.

And that becomes the standard of how it should it just, well, it was so exciting and great. And that becomes the standard of how it should be without the effort, so to speak. Yeah. And I wonder, I'm just thinking in this moment, whether I benefited from growing up in a family where my parents did have an arranged marriage. So I'm of Indian descent, and my parents, they were given a choice, but they met on January 1st, and then they got married on January 21st. So they were asked to decide whether or not they wanted to get engaged on the very day they met. And then they got married 20 days later. What a choice. We'll let you choose. Yeah. You know, a lot of people though, they show up to the altar, there's no choice, right? So it is important to differentiate that they had a choice in the matter, but they got married and

the whole approach to marriage is so different when you're coming from that kind of tradition, right? And I think it's like sobering. I don't know. You just grow up with a very realistic understanding of what's involved in two people living in harmony over the course of their lives.

And so I just wonder whether that maybe has affected me. Is that why? I mean, because I've heard this a lot that arranged marriages have a surprisingly good track record. Yeah, I think it's about expectations. I don't think it's about the nature of the relationship. I think it's about the expectations we go into that union with, right? Am I expecting fireworks every day for the first 10 years? And then do I have a midlife crisis when all of a sudden the fireworks go away?

Or do I anticipate that this is something, this is a love I'm actually trying to cultivate and build with my partner? Now, again, in my case, I was really lucky. I fell in love with my husband. He fell in love with me. And so we, you know, we had that as like a, we were almost at a better starting point, let's say. But yeah, I do think that that kind of daily intentionality when it comes to relationships is really helpful. Empathy gap. Empathy gap.

Empathy gap. I really like that. Yeah. I was wondering if, you know, from a behavioral science standpoint, like how you might be able to categorize behavior and know whether it falls into the category of, okay, this is just the fireworks dying down. It's not as glamorous as it was at the beginning, but we can ultimately navigate and overcome this versus behavior that might be indicative of a more fundamental change in someone. I think at the end of the day, patience is really helpful when you're first running up against some of those feelings like, oh, the fireworks or we're fighting a little bit more. I think it's easy to just want to

jump ship, at least in your mind, you start checking out because you're freaked out, you're like, oh my gosh, this is really alarming because I love this person. I loved this person. And now suddenly the dynamic feels totally off. And because our behaviors and our moods and the way that we feel about others can be so influenced by our environments, our hormonal states, right? Depending on where someone is in the course of even a day and how their hormones are operating can affect the way that you feel about others. If you go on The Bachelor and you're denied all access to the outside world, it can definitely amp up how much you think you like other people. I think it's really helpful to allow more time to pass where you're in a more diverse set of environments.

You have a more diverse set of mood states and you really pressure test whether there's an underlying, you know, fundamental problem or whether this is actually something that is more like a current, right, that can pass. And I don't want to discourage people from leaving, you know, truly toxic or harmful relationships, right? We tend to have a bias towards the status quo, towards quitting in general, and certainly quitting relationships is something that's really hard for us, in part because we don't really think about the opportunity costs of the fact we're in a relationship and that we could actually be dating someone else. We could actually be spending that time doing something else. And so there's a huge body of

literature. There's actually an episode on my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, called The Science of Quitting. It is the most popular episode we've ever had. And she talks about in the context of relationships, she talks about in the context of lots of parts of life where there's so much virtue in like grit and perseverance is staying in the course and being able to say, I've been married for 40 years. But there's a lot of virtue in actually choosing to exit a relationship and choosing to quit something, right? And so it's important that there's a balance there, right? I'm certainly not advocating for people staying in a relationship that's unhealthy. And that's why Amanda's question is so good. I told a sibling I was, he's going through, he has a big decision to make in his career. And it's a decision that

could affect him for a very long time, based on the career he has and i and i just i was talking to him and i just said if on your you know if your reason to stay if your reason to do well if your reason to stay in this current situation rather than explore a different opportunity if like if if on your top three reasons is how much you've already invested or how much work you've done or how much time has passed in this, in this current situation, if that's on your top two or three, that's a huge red flag. see, right? So we really overweight the prior investments we've made in something. Even though at the end of the day, really, do I want to torture myself for five more years just because I was already in a relationship for four years? Or do I want to wipe the slate clean potentially and find a healthier relationship? What's the science behind why we do that? Why are we so willing to have the perspective of a new and exciting opportunity. Why are we so prone to hang on to something, even if it was a struggle, even if we wake up every day and we're like,

do I really want to show up to this place? Or do I even like the people? Or if we're in a relationship, it's like, oh, I'm tired of fighting. Why can't we just wipe the slate clean and just say, oh, I've learned so much from all these ups and downs and now I'm set up for such much more success, but we are so, like, that's not our norm. If you are that person who can do that, you've had to really teach yourself to have that perspective. And then remind yourself when presented with a situation, be like, oh, yes, you're right. I need to not do that. Like, what's the science behind why our brains work that way?

Yes, there's at least two reasons why we're like that. The first is that we'd like to think that we're good decision makers. It's a huge part of our identity to feel like we made good choices in the past and present. And so when we're admitting to ourselves that we may have chosen the wrong spouse, that maybe we went against our friend's advice or our parent's advice or whatever it was, that's a big blow to the ego, right? You can feel pretty defeated by that. But what I want to remind people of is that you may very well have made a great decision at that time, given the information you had and given how things were. People change over time,

and we don't account for that when it comes to our egos and decision-making, right? You might support a politician, let's say, and then three years later, they do something really stupid, right? You didn't know they were going to do the really stupid thing. So you were totally rational. You were a good decision maker in supporting that person, right? Or admiring an actor or whatever it is, right? And so one antagonist for whatever shame you might feel in having made a bad decision is don't forget you changed and your partner changed in some way. Or the world changed in some way.

Or your boss changed. Anyone changed. And so it's not necessarily an indictment. Now, maybe you did make a shitty decision, in which case you should just learn from that experience, but it could also very well be the case that you didn't make a shitty decision. You actually made a great decision based on, again, the information you had at the time. The second reason is that when we pour a lot of effort and energy into something, when we invest a lot in something, it signals to our brain that we really care about that thing and that thing is valuable. In this case, it might be a

relationship, it might be a job that you have, it might be, I don't know, the bounty of things that we care about in our lives. And so it's really hard in a moment to say, oh, this thing that I really care about, nope, I'm not doing it anymore. Oh, I'm out, right? That's hard for our brains to reckon with because it breeds a lot of cognitive dissonance to feel like this thing you poured so much energy and effort into was for naught. Yeah. If only we could take that mindset and apply it to goal settings when we're trying to have new behaviors. If only, right? I mean, if you just had, yeah. Some of our, we're so willing to stubbornly stay in things. And then we're also so reluctant to try to change new behaviors. But if we could take that stubbornness and apply it to things that, even things we say we want to

do but haven't done yet. Yeah. And I should also say, I should caveat that the research is complex, right? So there's never going to be a one-size-fits-all, this is what Nick should do every single day, this is what Amanda should do every day, Allie, this is your recipe. Instead, we have to be experimental. But what I've tried to do on my show is, and Nick, you know this, but it's part storytelling of people's personal life stories about change, and then part science. So if people scroll through the feed of A Slight Change of Plans, any episode that starts with the science of will be a deep dive into that topic. So we have an episode, for example, on the science of regret and all the mistakes we make about how we

think about regret and how we can reframe our relationship with regret so it's more positive. We have an episode called the science of loneliness, where we talk about all the things that can make us lonely and the health threats that loneliness can have and what we can do about that. We have episodes on the science of motivation, the science of behavior change, the science of mindset change. And if you listen to those, you'll get a deeper dive on each of the things that I'm talking about so that you can actually try and prescribe for yourself a different set of plans depending on what it is you're trying to achieve.

I'm curious if, I think one New Year's resolution that a friend had and that I've noticed with a lot of people who I'm close to is integrating more creativity into their lives, particularly because I come from a background with a lot of people who might have like done improv in college and then don't get to do it anymore, who played the instrument every single day and then with the rigors of work sort of fell off the wagon. And I'm curious if you have any insight into specific with like creative endeavors and tapping back into the more like artistic side of oneself, how someone can go about like reintegrating that back into life. Oh, I think that's so lovely. And I haven't heard someone commit to that. And I think that's such a

wonderful goal. I would make it concrete and tactical because that's the important part of the translation problem we sometimes face, which is I'm going to be more creative. Let me be creative by scrolling Instagram, right? So you have to make sure you're mouthing it to a concrete set of goals. But I will say in my personal life, you know, when I was a child, I was a concert violinist. I was an aspiring concert violinist. I studied at the Juilliard School in New York, and I was on the speed train to hopefully becoming a professional violinist in my future. And then a tendon tear ended my career overnight. It was a complicated medical saga that ensued from there.

And then I became a scientist, right? I got my PhD in cognitive science, behavioral science, which was a completely different sphere than being in the arts. And I really craved stimulation in that part of my brain, right? I mean, obviously there's creativity when it comes to science, but it felt so different from the kind of creativity I was using as a musician. And it was only two years ago, actually, when I started a slight change of plans that I feel like I've been able to tap back into that kind of artistic creativity again. Because I, first of all, I picked up my violin again after decades and I played some of the soundtrack for some of the show, which was really fun. But more importantly, you know, Nick, you and I were talking about this before we started recording and being an executive producer of the show and actually thinking about the story structure of the show. It's a kind of creativity that I didn't get to use before. And it is so satisfying. Like it nourishes me in a way that I've not been able to

nourish myself through the lens of being a scientist. And so, yeah, you just filled me with delight, actually, in sharing that because I think that's such a wonderful resolution for people to have. I feel that way. I wanted to be a cartoonist when I was a kid and then got into business school. And then coming out to LA and doing all this stuff,

yeah, same thing. It's just like I felt like I started tapping into the creative things I was good at or liked that I just dropped for like 15 years. Yeah. And it's always possible to reclaim because I think I really believed, I mean, I'm 37 now. So I remember believing, okay, my time in the artistic sun is over, right? Like there's, what was I possibly going to discover midlife right that or i don't know it's midlife yet gosh my i don't age yourself unnecessarily but you know what i mean it's hard to think that some somehow like artistic things will fall from the sky but it's it's truly been

like the greatest blessing in my adult life to have discovered this podcast and to be able to have this this artistic outlet on the flip side of that though, with goal setting, I feel like sometimes, using Amanda's example, I think there's a lot of people who have a genuine goal or maybe had a creative interest, got away from it and want to do that. But then I think there's other goals that maybe we like the idea of it more than we actually like it. It's like, oh, I want to paint more because the thought of me being a painter sounds cool or whatever it is. And then we try- We want to have that identity, but we don't actually enjoy the day-to-day. Exactly. So how do we stop ourselves from falling trap to setting goals that maybe even deep down,

we don't really have a passion for, but we like the idea of us accomplishing that goal. Yeah, I was reading a behavior change book the other day, and it was talking about how important it is to tolerate boredom when it comes to pursuit. So we think a lot about like, you have to get motivated and amped up if you want to achieve this goal. But actually, a large part of what it takes to become, say, an endurance athlete or an amazing singer-songwriter is just doing that gritty practice all day, every day. That rule of 10,000 hours kind of thing.

And yeah, though, I mean, I know Malcolm Gladwell runs the production company where I create a slight change of plans, but the 10,000-hour rule is up for debate. But yes, deliberate, yes. But deliberate practice is very important, very intentional, focused practice. And so what I've realized is that grit does not transfer across domains. At least it hasn't in my life. So when I was a violinist, I was gritty as all hell.

I would be like a 12-year-old in a practice room for hours. I would practice five hours a day in the summer. When I got to my postdoc and I was studying cognitive neuroscience and I was putting people in brain scanners, like could not do it, did not have grit, like hated it, wanted out from my windowless lab. And then with podcasting, again, I find that I'm willing to do a lot of the boring, gritty stuff because I love it enough. So you have to pressure test these goals you have to make sure that you're willing to tolerate the boredom. That's going to constitute a sizable part of the goal pursuit. And of course, you can enjoy the 20% joy of like it being a cool thing to do. Being a painter is like a cool thing to say to people do, but are you willing to

learn all that painstaking technique in order to become the great painter, you need to test it out and see if you have it in you. Yeah. All the, all the little things that go into, you know, becoming a painter or the getting the equipment or, you know, all the behind the scenes. I remember watching some interview with Taylor Swift from a long time ago where she was basically saying like, you know that I'm like seven, I don't know what the exact interview was, but it was something along the lines of like, you know that I'm like at least 70% businesswoman day to day. Like the actual job that I have day to day is not actually being a singer songwriter. It's like running a business for myself. And I think that's true for, you know, almost, almost everything that anyone has ever been good at has involved a lot of very unglamorous work behind the scenes.

And so you just have to be willing to take that on. Yeah. And I think on some level you have to maybe not enjoy every day to day, but you enjoy it because what it's accomplishing, like what it's behind. You mentioned the podcasting. I feel the same way about this show. There's a lot of things about making the show it's like you know exactly but i always enjoy it because of why like what it's accomplishing and what it's what it's working towards it reminds me of those like very cheesy motivational posters and like the the iceberg one

where it's like what people see versus what people doesn't see and like majority's under the water so they don't know like what goes into it but yeah yeah I think that's right I also think though you know so Nick you described something where we want to commit to a goal like painting let's say because it sounds really cool but we actually don't really want to be a painter I want to also make sure though that people's self-identities don't hold them back from pursuing new things because I think sometimes we you know we have a very strong identity and we don't want to take the risk of exploring new terrain. We're worried we might fail. Which I think is a very popular topic on this show of people calling in. There's, you know, you know, you get to that point in life, it's whether you're, it's kind of like

right around 25, 30. I think it's like between 25 and 35, where you spent most of your early twenties or whatever, like living up to the expectations you said as a teenager, your parents, and then you kind of figure out a lot of people like, I don't like what I do, or it's fine. But these other dreams, they set aside, maybe it's people because they had, you know, kids early on, and now they're at a place where they have a little more freedom, or maybe they got out of a relationship. There's all these things that they make them want to try new things, but they feel very reluctant to do for a variety of different reasons. And there's just a lot of fear of trying that new thing.

Absolutely. I think we need to see our identities, our self-identities as these malleable dynamic constructs. We tend to have a fixed sense of self. In my own life, I was mentioning to you, right? I'm like the 15-year-old who's dreaming to be a concert violinist and then overnight my career ends. And so a malleable identity in many ways was forced upon me, right? And I had to be like, oh crap, what do I do next? And I wonder if this is helpful for people who are going through a change, an unwanted change, let's say, and they're trying to figure out how to maintain a stable identity throughout. Because I think one thing that throws us off in the face of change is that it can threaten our sense of self-identity, right? Or it can push us beyond the limits of what we feel comfortable,

the identity space we feel comfortable occupying. And that is instead of attaching my identity to any given pursuit, like the violin, or you can imagine like being a teacher or being a podcaster, I have tried to attach my identity to the particular traits and features that underlie that pursuit that really make me tick. And so when I think about my time as a violinist, the stuff that really lit me up was the idea that I could emotionally connect with people, right? I could forge this incredible emotional connection with strangers as a kid, right? You go on stage, you're playing in front of thousands of strangers, and you could potentially make them feel something they've never felt before. And then when the violin, when it left my life, right, against my

will, I could then have a through line. I could say, okay, the violin's gone. And by the way, this took me a long time to figure out. So it's not like I was having these thoughts as a 15-year-old. This was like 30s thoughts. But I did in the White House, it was a lot of, all of it was actually about understanding the human mind and, you know, what policies and programs could better help people who are leaving prison or who are coming back from war or, you know, varied psychological states. And then with my podcast, A Slight Change of Plans, like this is again, me and my human connection element, right? So I, it's a completely different sphere than music and it's a, different sphere than music. And it's a totally different medium. Everything's different. But that underlying seed of a desire

to understand how people work, to understand what makes them tick, to understand what motivates them and drives them and how they heal from trauma and pain and sorrow, whatever it is, that's still present in my day-to-day work. So I would urge people who are listening, who are going through a change or want to inspire change in their lives, try to figure out, okay, what's that through line?

What's the one thing about yourself that you're really passionate about that you can hold constant even when the manifestation of that thing is different? If someone has a partner who is trying to make a change, is there anything that you can speak to in terms of the way that you can support someone who's going through that identity and soul searching? Because it seems so personal and intimate. And yet I think there's, as someone who's very impacted by a partner's identity and also who has this unique vantage point and being able to potentially help, I'm curious how you think folks might be able to navigate that. Yeah, it's again, such a great question. I would say try to leverage the power

of what's called a fresh start. So there's a thing called a fresh start effect in behavioral science. And it basically says we are much more likely to commit to new goals, to commit to new ways of being, new ways of behaving at these departures from the past, at fresh starts. So this could be the New Year's, right? So again, I used to not even set resolutions, but I realized I was missing out on the opportunity to capitalize on a fresh start, which is New Year's Day. It could be when you move from one city to the next. I mean, Nick, you were talking about moving to LA and then maybe that emboldened you to start anew. And I was listening to your episode with Susie and like, Susie's going to be moving to LA and she might introduce a whole new way of life, right?

And so what these big changes, these like what can be earth-shattering changes, right? Moving to a new place, getting married, having children, upending your life in any way, what it can do is it can break you free from old patterns of behavior, old habits of mind, even old physical structures that influence your day-to-day. So, you know, every day on your walk home, you pass by the burrito shop, let's say, and like, now the burrito shop's not there. Okay, time to introduce a new habit. But in even a deeper way, which is, okay, I have this sense of self-identity, but in some small way, I'm wiping the slate clean when I depart from my past and I try to become this new person. And that's when our brains are especially ripe for behavior change, for mindset change.

So if you have a partner who's really striving to make a change and you want to be supportive, encourage them to think about upcoming fresh starts that they can use to try to give themselves like a kick, you know, a step up when it comes to motivation. Is there ever a time where you could set a goal for a partner or do they have to come up with it

for themselves? Yeah, there is research showing that we're much better at achieving our goals and we're much more motivated when we set our own goals. And granted, a lot of us don't have that freedom, right? I mean, Nick, you basically work for yourself. So like lucky you, you actually do get to set your goals. But a lot of us have employers and we're told what we have to do or, you know, we're struggling because, you know, there is some fixedness in our environment. But we can always try to find entry points, even within that structure, for us to assert agency and control. So let's say you work out with a personal trainer, right? Or you have a fitness coach of some kind.

That's great. I'm encouraging you to have the trainer who prescribes a great routine for you every day, but have them give you some options. So in any given workout, it can be like, okay, today you get to choose like you're going, you know, hardcore on squats or deadlifts or whatever the option set is, right? And just giving people the ability to choose from among options makes them feel like they're in the driver's seat. They feel more ownership over their goals and they're much more likely to actually complete them. So wherever possible,

you want to make sure that people are articulating goals for themselves. What about a couple that's been together for a long period of time and they want to, the mutual goal of the couple, who they're creatures of habit even, but they want to find that spark,

or they want to introduce chemistry or they want to improve chemistry or they want to improve their sex life, whatever it is that, you know, the goal is to like get away from like this, the staleness of their relationship. Yeah. But they are together. They don't feel like they're doing anything new. You know, what would, how could you recommend like new behaviors that would might entice

them to make it easier to accomplish this goal of. Like that freshness. Yeah, that freshness or going out of the way to these date night ideas or whatever it is. What's that mindset that would be beneficial to keep them on track? So I think what sabotages us in situations like this is that we feel that it needs to be an escape to Europe or bust, right? And again, not everyone like Greg and Victoria get to go. Do you get to go to Europe? Yeah.

They went to Europe quite a bit. They went quite often. Were they in Rome or something? I can't remember what city they were in. They were just in London and Paris for holidays. Okay. So some people among us get to do really fancy pants things. But for the rest of us, it's like, okay, we've got our jobs and we have like, let's say a dog at home.

And then we just have, we're limited in our ability to do that. Really small novel experiences can go a long way. And I mean going out for a movie night, going to a restaurant you've never been to, taking a different walking path on your, say, evening walk, engaging in activity together, right? Like, okay, you know, I'm not into pottery. I don't even like painting. We're just going to do this like one time, one hour painting class together. As long as there's novelty, it helps break us from, again, any patterns that we have in our day-to-day relationships. And it also helps see new aspects of the person that we're with, right? So I might see a part of my husband emerge in a pottery class that, and this guy does

not like pottery, by the way, like he's not super into artsy stuff, but there might be some aspect of his personality that I've never tapped into because we've never been in an environment like that. So I almost feel like the smaller the budget, the better, because then it's a more sustainable commitment where you're carving out a small amount of time. And again, you just need some novelty. And during COVID, we had to get really creative with novelty, right? Because we were all locked in our homes. But you find ways to introduce that kind of those fresh new experiences. And ideally, you're finding things that both of you have never experienced before. I was going to ask that. I was like, does it need to be both of you? Or something that one of you is really, really passionate about and the other person has never

found a passion for. And you just say, look, just give me the treat tonight of me exposing you to my world. Like, I know you don't get it. I know you don't appreciate, let's say, I don't know, classical music or hiking or scuba diving or whatever the thing is, but just like give me my one shot. And you can find, you know, there's going to be a lot of bonding through that experience because at a minimum, the person will learn why you love it, Allie, right? Like why you get so excited about it. And that brings people together. Yeah. Yeah, the newness of things really.

I mean, well, I was going to ask you. Natalie and I are both creatures of habit, which in a lot of ways we love in the sense that we, thankfully, we like a lot of the same things. Yeah. And we're able to do that over and over. I'm curious about like creatures of habit and like the pros and cons to that type of behavior. But the other night I was on TikTok and I've been big on food TikTok lately. And so finally I was like,

I like to cook. I need to start trying these. And I made this new chicken dish. It was delightful. And just the fact that it was a new thing we both liked and we introduced it into our like food rotation both like gave us a sense of like wonder and excitement it's like oh something new we're gonna eat on a regular basis that because before it was like we will make fun of ourselves because like what do we want for dinner and then we kind of always go back to

our or the same five or six options and just just knowing that we have something new was exciting and enjoyable. And that alone made that night exciting. Exactly. You're almost building your repertoire of things that you can pull from. And it's kind of crazy, just that little thing. But I am curious about, as a creature of habit. Yeah, I'm also a creature of habit, by the way.

And so I really relate to you. And it is so easy for us to just revert to our normal day-to-day habits. But I mean, I'm just thinking about one experience I had recently where my husband plays competitive squash. So he'll like travel for, sorry, not as his profession, just he's an amateur competitive squash player. So he travels for tournaments. He's so passionate about playing squash. This is like when we signed our marriage contract, it was like I knew number one was squash and number two was going to be me. That was well established. And so I don't play racquet sports. I've never been good at this stuff. I've occasionally gone to a squash court with him and tried and I've sucked at it. But we

were at a birthday party a couple weeks ago and they were playing pickleball. And like pickleball is like easier for someone who's never played a racquet sport to actually like try to do. And Jimmy was stunned because I was like, yeah, I want to try playing pickleball. And this was the sort of thing I think a couple of years ago, I would never have been eager to try. I would just been like, whatever,

that's not going to be a part of my long-term future. And again, I'm a creature of habit. So I'm going to stand by the food and eat my food. And that's where my passion lies. But it was such a fun experience for us to play on the same team. Jimmy was really excited by the idea. Maybe this was something we could actually do as a couple in the future, right? And I'm so grateful that I, again, this is, again, such a small thing, right?

So I'm not talking about the Elizabeth Gilbert, like, eat, pray, love, travel around the world type of novelty. I'm literally talking about going to a birthday party and like maybe they're playing badminton or maybe they're playing charades or whatever it is

and just participating in those activities. Yeah. It's a memory for us in the same way that cooking that chicken dish is not a huge deal. You and Natalie

view that as a really sweet memory you have. And especially when it comes to being in a relationship and there's just a lot of redundancy and familiarity and same doing the same things over and over, which are valuable, you know, because there's consistency and you know what to expect, but it is nice to just mix it up, you know? Yes, exactly. And I think, you know, in part this new, what I'll call zest for life, like an eagerness to try new experiences

emerge from. So I was mentioning that one of the interviews I did on A Slight Change of Plans was around regret. And like regret is this like icky, stomach-churning feeling that we hate feeling. I mean, we try to stave off feelings of regret all the time. I mean, how many times day-to-day are we making decisions because we think to ourselves, oh, I'm going to regret if I don't do this thing, right? So it's a very, very powerful force. And what the research shows is that when we're in our 20s and 30s, we tend to equally regret things that we have done as we do things that we have not done, right? So those are in equal proportions. But after we turn 50 and we look back on our lives, we are far more likely

to regret the things we did not do than the things that we did do. And that's an interesting turning point. If you're trying to, again, build and bridge that empathy gap between you and your future self, if you want to try to minimize the regret that 50-year-old Nick experiences, you just want to do more things because chances are you're not really going to regret having done the thing. You will regret not having done the thing. Yeah. I don't know where that comes from. I think it's, for me, I feel fortunate to have bridged that empathy gap. And I think it's because I've experienced from like what for me was a lot of disappointment or sadness or, you know, just, you just, yeah. And a lot of that was this

heartbreak at the time, but like I, until I was able to experience and have moments in my life where I at least felt like I was at rock bottom, whether I actually was or not, but just the, my perspective was like a rock bottom and I overcame it. Like that allowed me to recognize that failure isn't that big of a deal or disappointment is fine or rejection or regret, you know? And then that's, you know, it's like when people ask about regrets, it's like, well, sure. I mean, yeah, I can nitpick choices I've made that didn't work out the way I hoped, but now I've learned from them. So that's when you have the kind of no regrets kind of mentality. But there's a lot of truth to that because you just have the perspective of recognizing like you would just rather be that.

the perspective of recognizing, like you would just rather be that. It's like, it's me knowing that I'm going to be 50 and 60 and 70. And I want to look back and, and, and be proud of the things I said yes to more than disappointed in the things I didn't try. And, and I think it's having felt that failure at times that, and it's like a chicken before the egg because until you actually try and fail, you won't have that confidence or that lesson to know that you should try more things even after you failed. It's like failing gave me the confidence to fail more. Yes. Yes. I so resonate with that. And that's certainly been the case in my life. And it's exactly as you said. I mean, regret teaches us what we care about. We don't regret things if we don't care about those things, right? Or if we don't care that if we didn't have certain values,

right? We didn't privilege certain things. We didn't have certain dreams or goals. We wouldn't have regrets. And so regret can actually be a really instructive emotion. It's not one necessarily we should run away from. If we do the hard work, like it seems like you've done, Nick, where you sit in your regret for a bit and you realize, okay, first of all, this is not as scary as I thought. I'm not as concerned as I thought I would be. But two, I can learn something from this that can help me make better decisions in the future. It can actually be a good friend of yours. Regret can be a very helpful advisor as you live your life. Yeah. I like that. A good friend. Regret is your friend. Yeah. I like that. A good friend. Regret is your friend. Or can be.

Can be, yeah. This has been all great. Before we get to texting office hours, what's, any final thoughts around new habits, new behaviors as, for people who want to obtain some of these new goals for the new year? Okay. So there's one that I learned from a friend of mine, Katie Milkman. She's a professor of behavioral science and it's called temptation bundling. And all this requires is pairing an undesirable activity with a desirable activity. So folding laundry would be an undesirable activity, or for some people, working out would be undesirable, or walking in the morning would be undesirable.

You want to pair it with something that you find immediately rewarding. working out would be undesirable or, you know, walking in the morning would be undesirable. You want to pair it with something that you find immediately rewarding. So that might be your favorite Netflix show. That might be a podcast that you're really excited to listen to. And you need to save this content for only those times where you're doing the undesirable activity. So you have to deny yourself the pleasure of listening to your favorite pop song, your favorite podcast, your favorite TV show outside of the environment in which you're working towards that specific goal. And this has been a game changer for me. Like I will save my favorite.

So I saved, Nick, I saved the Greg Victoria episode for like a really hard workout that I was doing because I wanted to be really immersed in something else while I was doing this really hard strength training workout. So I actually saved it. I remember I saved it for that Saturday and I like tried to avoid any spoilers in advance. So I literally like in my podcast feed, in my Netflix feed. So the thing recently, like I just finished watching, is it Harry and Meghan or Meghan and Harry? Harry and Meghan, right? The documentary. It's like only when you're doing like incline treadmill can you watch this show. I did the exact same thing. And I looked forward.

My 12, 330 with Harry and Meghan. I looked forward to getting on the treadmill. I do that with below deck. It's like I need to know what happens to Meghan. I need to know what happens to Meghan. But again, the only way this works is if you don't allow yourself to watch Harry and Megan when you're not on the treadmill. Otherwise, it's just, you know, it's available to you all the time, right?

And so again, this leads to kind of bizarre behavior sometimes because my husband and I will discover like an album we really love. I remember Golden Hour by Kacey Musgraves, one of my favorite albums. And he was like, let's play it while we cook dinner. And I was like, nope, that's actually a workout album. Can't listen to it right now. So you have to be strict, but it really, really, the temptation bundling really helps. And you end up looking forward. Because the reality is that the things that are undesirable, those are often activities that only have a long-term reward. So you're helping future you. And we

already talked about the empathy gap we have between present us and future us. We know future us is going to be healthier if we do X. We know that future us is going to be more socially satisfied if we have coffee with a friend versus scrolling Instagram. We know all these things rationally, but they only deliver a reward typically down the line, right? Immediately, we don't often feel a great reward. So you need to find a reward to accompany that experience so that you associate that particular habit with something good. That's great. All right. It's time for texting office hours. And if we have time after texting office hours, I want like your 30 second thoughts on the Harry and Megan doc and your thoughts on

Zach as a new bachelor being the bachelor fan that you are. Yeah. All right. Let's bring him on. How's it going? I'm good. How are you? Good. What's your name? My name is Taylor and I'm 25. How can we help Taylor? So over the last couple of weeks of right before heading home for the holidays, I matched with a boy on hinge that I was excited about, saw him at my gym, and just kind of hit it off very quickly, moved to texting very fast and kind of just very much hit it off. The fact that I have a dog did not come up in conversation, even though it is in my Hinge profile, till maybe about a couple days. And so we started talking about my dog and his initial response was I am very allergic to dogs and to me that is a very initial deep deal breaker but I don't know how to let him

down pretty easily and very easily as well as kind of continue the confidence that I just gained and going back into the dating scene after kind of just that initial boy of dislike that I got excited about and want to continue to put myself out there and date. So is he aware that you have a dog? He's very aware I have a dog. The ad sent him a picture of this like, oh yeah, this is my dog Bailey. And right away he said, I'm very allergic to dogs. i was just at my aunt's house and my throat almost closed up because of these dogs wow what kind of dog do you have yeah i have a golden retriever okay yeah so a lot of hair a lot of hair flowing around this apartment yeah and where did it go from here like where like did it did it just end no so he started to just be like, oh, how clean are you?

My cousin has air purifiers and vacuums all the time. And I've been at her apartment and I have had no issues. So it kind of went of him getting a little bit, to me, a little bit presumptuous. After not even just been texting, I'm just like, oh, if this continues on, here's the steps that you need to take. So you haven't even gone on a date with this guy? Haven't even gone on a date yet. Okay. But you like him?

I like him. I was excited about going on a date. First date I've been on in two years since moving to my new city. And I was just kind of excited about it, you know, until he told me about the dog thing. So, and now you're a little annoyed by his follow-up, basically? Yeah, I guess I'm a little, like, that's a little too soon to, like,

I guess I'm a little confused about where to go next. I guess maybe I don't need to let him down. But it's just, like, I don't know if I should go on a date and just kind of put myself back out there and just like do the date thing but i don't want to lead him on well how would you he knows you have a dog right so you're not leading him on in that department and neither of you know how you're going to feel about each other on a date. And he doesn't know how... I mean, I'm allergic to dogs. I have like...

I'm allergic to some dogs more than... I have found that I'm severely allergic to some dogs versus others. He might be the same, you know? So there is that. Yeah. He did say gold ants are very much set off as allergies. Okay. Okay. Yeah.

So it's like... So where did the conversation go after he was asking you about your cleanliness? I was just like, yeah, I'm very clean. I have a dog with a lot of hair. Kind of keep up with it. Could be better. And then it just kind of kept on moving into the getting to know each other. But he keeps on bringing up like I

want to meet your dog like he he's actively wanting to meet my dog and like get to know me which is great but it's just like I get nervous of him coming over to have other friends that are allergic to dogs and I just don't bring her around them and they've been over with her not even in the apartment and they just get very, their allergies flare up. So I just like, I just don't know where to go. I would not go on that first date. You wouldn't? No.

You should just shut it down. The cards are stacked against you guys because, well, one, I mean, if this were to become a long-term relationship, you can't travel with air purifiers around you all the time and you shouldn't have that pressure of maintaining. I don't know what it would mean to maintain a level of cleanliness with a golden retriever that would keep this person safe. Right. And that's what I was thinking, too, of like, it seems like he was putting a lot of pressure on me to keep my apartment clean. And it just seems like it's reasonable for you to prioritize your dog over this person you've never met before i mean i agree with that yeah i'm as the exhibitionist in me would say

i think you could go on the date as long as you have just reasonable expectations you have a lot more information now than you did before with like you know like you know this is a potentially a big problem there's also nothing wrong with like if someone you're you kind of identified as somebody who's kind of newly back in the dating scene so that's true if she's not looking for it yeah like there's a good point i think you both needed to maybe chill out a little bit both of you like if you know you haven't met so you guys kind of asking some of these more specific questions it's just like you still don't really know if you're going to enjoy each other's company.

So you're kind of trying to figure out, you guys are talking like, fuck, we fell in love and now we don't know what to do, but you have this dog. And that's the kind of energy you're bringing to this. And I think maybe you both need to like, be excited that you met someone online that you have some sort of connection with, but let us know there's just a lot more to learn. But I just want to remind, like, there are a lot of people out there who really love dogs and aren't allergic to dogs. And I guess it really depends on the intensity of your feelings for this person. I didn't get the sense that they were like in love with each other. I

just got the sense they were excited. Right. And so you could potentially. Yeah, like they like each other's profiles. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I just wonder if there are other people whose profiles you would like that, or you're again, at least there's a there's the potential of what's interesting is I'm have to hope that the people you fall in love with or meet will be like amenable to like working with you a little bit but like maybe just get to know her faster before you start asking her about you know like her her hygiene or things like that i don't think it's i i don't know i'm in the perspective where i can understand it seems a little pushy for you and like, oh, he's trying to force me to do stuff. I'm wondering if in his mind, he's trying to just create a solution or like he's so

excited by you that he's like, oh, but like here are the solutions that have worked for my friend. So I was like, you know what I mean? Like, I don't think he's trying to say like, get a cleaner. Like as far as like his pushiness rubbing you the wrong way, I think to Allie's point, it's like kind of coming with good intentions. He's just like trying to like not die, you know?

Yeah. Which is totally fair, you know? And, but he also, but he's asking you because for whatever reason, premature or not, he seems to have as much as like interest and optimism about the potential

that you seem to have as well. So I think maybe you guys just like, if you go on the date, you know, just pull back and just be like, well, you know, you have this dog, but let's just grab a cup of coffee and go from there. But like this, like, I need to meet your dog. Well, that's the part that concerned me just from a health perspective is I like care about this guy's safety and he's asking to meet your dog, but I thought he's like deeply allergic. Oh, he wants to see just how allergic he is?

Yeah, I think he wants to test it out. Oh gosh, that's the dangerous. Okay dangerous okay yeah that's a lot of pressure now that you put it that way of like you want to see how allergic he is yeah like what if he has a really bad reaction you're gonna feel terrible and i don't know i think maybe if you have any interest in seeing him you should say let's let's table the dog conversation for now and just like without the dog first see if we like to see where this goes and see if we like each other he's probably on some level just being like everyone like has a fucking dog i'm gonna have to figure this out so like he's trying to work with you but it's a good point

it's like there's so many other hurdles you two would have to cross than the dog one before the dog one even became relevant like do we like each other do we actually enjoy spending time together how old is your dog uh she's two okay so she's gonna be here for a while she's gonna be yeah she's pretty young i mean if you were like she's you know 12 i'd been like well you know maybe by the time you guys need to move in with each other well the thing is i thought about the same thing too i'm like well she's a little older it's a little to think about, but she's around for a long time. And I think the issue I'm having, too, is now that he's said these things about my dog and my cleanliness, I'm getting the ick. And I don't want to get the ick.

Well, if you have the ick, doesn't matter. We have to worry. We have to think of ways to get over the ick. Yeah, you can't let the ick be disqualifying. No, you can't. No, the ick can be a transient state. I think that we need to try to resist the ick. We have given too much credit to the ick. Yeah, totally. We've given it too much valid, you know, it's, so yes, we have to work through our icks because we treat

them like non-negotiables. Well, that's something that I've been dating that I've been having an issue with is that I get the ick very quickly and that's something I'm trying to work on, but I don't know how to stop. Well, go on. Maybe like, again, like don't waste your time, but try to encourage yourself to go on dates and just have an open mind and try to learn something new about them and see if that new thing is an attractive thing that you learned despite the other ick about it, you know, in a different department. Like people are multifaceted. They have different layers. Like, you know, trust me, no matter what, if you get in a serious relationship, the person you end up with has a ton of icks. You're just like now in love with them and stuck, you know, it's trying to figure out not stuck, but you know

what I'm saying? Like you're pot committed, like you care. And all ics are, I think, are bad habits people reveal to their people they're dating just a little too early. Or things that are foreign to us, right? Like we're not used to that particular mannerism and it just takes some getting used to, for example. But again, I think my like TLDR would be if you were going to go on a date with this guy, make the dog a fourth date sort of situation. Meeting the dog a fourth date situation. She's like meeting my child. Like my child. Also, and then you've already covered it.

The dog shouldn't come up in conversation in the first date. Yes. Let's just figure out other things and more focus on getting to know each other outside of the dog. Like conversations about air purifier quality, not really a great.

Yeah. And just do that. But I think as someone who's kind of know each other outside of the dog. Like conversations about air purifier quality, not really a great, yeah. And just do that. But I think as someone who's kind of, you know, trying to have this, you know, new to dating and be adventurous, be adventurous and just try to go out and meet new people and have the mindset of not trying to, you know, decide who these people are

before you even get to know them. I mean, you're getting icks about a guy you've never met. That's premature, you know? So a lot of those icks are just like, it must be things that are going on in your head. I mean, certainly he's doing things, but you have never met him. So someone asking you about cleanliness wouldn't, in a lot of other scenarios, wouldn't give you the ick. You just don't know him. And so you've created this kind of character of who he is rather than who he actually is yeah and i think the other thing to other question i kind of have is being newer to the dating scene like i'm getting out of situationship that i just realize it's not going anywhere out of here i'm done we're done and so i'm going out and like going out with my friends and stuff but they're all in relationships so it's been very tough to like put myself out there when i'm out trying to meet new people so i get and i have like

one or two single friends so it's kind of like how do i how do i put myself out there because like in the city that i'm in there's so many single people but it's just like when i go out i don't i'm not surrounded by enough people to like act like a group of single fun people you know just gotta be patient and give yourself time you know these things aren't going to happen overnight you know and so maybe focus more on meeting friends rather than people you should date like build up your friend group when you have a couple single friends just be adventurous about meeting new people who are who can become your friends rather than people you could possibly date. And then from there, just be more open-minded.

Okay. And just try that out. So I guess going back to the… I vote go on the date and don't talk about the dog. The no dog. And just kind of set that up front of expectation with him. Like, hey, I think we should go on a date and we should table the dog conversations

and see how we actually just feel about each other for now. Because neither of you are going to propose to the other person after the first date. You stop acting like... And if you do too much advanced planning around the dog situation, you might not even like each other on that first date. And so it's just a waste of time, right? Make sure that you actually like each other before you start talking about the logistical elements. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Because I also haven't talked to him in a couple days because, again, the dog thing got brought up and I was really trying to move past it.

And knowing I was on here, I was just like, let's move past it. Let's not really talk about my dog just because I know that if you meet her, she will probably have some type of allergic reaction. So I'd rather us continue to get to know each other. So I haven't talked to him in a little bit. And,

and so I'm like, how do I, do I just text him out of the blue? Like ask if he wants to grab a drink this week. Like, do you think like, okay. Yeah.

Just cat, keep it super casual and simple. Like that's the thing. I think you should just, I think you should focus on making friends and, and be open to dating and then just kind of keep your dates casual for now and just focus, by the way. I was reading like the first, the chapters about like first dates is kind of where, and like being single is where I really like kind of focused my reading. And so I liked in the book that it was like

asking questions, get to know each other. Cause like you guys said it perfectly. I'm like, I might not even like him when I meet him. So I think I want to focus on asking those good questions about who he is as a person and his interests versus about my dog and the potential future because you never know what could happen. Exactly. All right. Well, keep us posted. Let us know what you decide to do. Sounds good. Thank you so much. All right. Take care. Have a good one. All right. Bye-bye. Bye. Maya, it's been great. I wish we could talk more. Thanks for having me. This is really fun.

Please let my audience know all the great things you're doing. Obviously, you have your podcast, A Slight Change of Plans. Anything else you want them to be aware of and follow? Yeah. So A Slight Change of Plans, check it out anywhere you get podcasts. The nice thing about the show, all the episodes are very timeless. So if you go back into the feed, they will apply to your life no matter when they were put out. And then I'm on Instagram. And I wasn't on Instagram the last time I came on here because I was resisting social media. But I finally took the plunge.

Next stop, TikTok. My handle is Dr. Maya Shankar. So D-R-M-A-Y-A-S-H-A-N-K-A-R. And are you excited or bad about zach being the bachelor i'm there about him being the bachelor yeah it's really unfortunate but he seems like a nice guy well maybe there will still be a good drama with the cast of yeah with the cast of women yeah always a pleasure always a pleasure thanks guys Thank you so much. Don't forget to send in those questions at asknick at thevilefiles.com for anything, all and every and all things Ask Nick.

Next week, don't forget, we have Justin Baldoni on the podcast. That should be a great conversation. He's got some great books about masculinity and men and dating. And that'll be fun to talk with Justin about. And be sure to tune in next week on Going Deeper. And I think that's it. Okay. Happy New Year, everyone.

Happy New Year. Bye. Bye. Bye. With a Planet Fitness block card, you don't just get a great workout, you get a great workout We'll be right back. of equipment in the judgment-free zone relax in the black card spa and more workout and perk out with a planet fitness black card get started for zero down and 29.99 a month plus 49 annual fee offer ends march 15th