BSB 103
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Bite-Sized Brilliance podcast. I'm your host, Dr. April Darley, and last week on episode number 102, we talked about how to make these new year resolutions, how to do that new year, new you, not from a place of deficiency, but from a place of amplification. Find what you love about yourself and do more of that. Just go amplify it. So this week I wanted to do somewhat of a companion episode, and whether I officially title the episode this or not, but it's going to be unofficially titled. _"So you want to change now what?"_
That's what we're gonna be diving into today, is when you do have this fire that the new year that Capricorn energy tends to give you. What do you do with it? To start us all off, I wanted to remind you of a couple of things that happen from a neuroscience perspective when you are trying to [00:01:00] make change.
Your motivation will be the highest at the beginning which every gym owner can tell you. People are gung-ho to get in there and do the change. That fades. So just know that motivation is highest in the beginning. This is normal. And if you break any journey into beginning, middle, end, you're going to find that it's that middle piece that's actually the hardest and has the highest percentage of quitters.
I guess you could say that because those gym owners will also tell you by mid-February, the gym is empty again. Even consumer reports will tell you, if you want a new gym membership, don't buy it in January. Buy it in late February or March when everybody has quit, when they've already given up on their motivations. They weren't able to sustain what they really wanted to [00:02:00] change.
I don't want that to happen for you, my friend. So just know, motivation is highest in the beginning, and you want to maintain that fire through the middle and ending portions as well. And there are so many techniques out there to help you do it. Understanding why you're doing something, really connecting with your motivation and to give yourself a reward because the brain loves dopamine, let's face it.
If you make this goal, what is your reward for achieving it? Now, high performers, elite performers, they don't necessarily tend to reward themselves. They just go from one goal to the next, to the next, to the next, and that is something that I don't want you to do. I want you to take a minute and think about what your goal is, why you want this goal, and what your reward will be when you attain it, because that reward keeps the dopamine going [00:03:00] that you're going to need in the messy middle.
Okay, so that is what I wanted to bring up. Now, let's talk about habits for a second. There is a well known and well repeated myth out there that habits take 21 days to form. So if you are trying to create a new habit, you've got that stuck in your head that I just need to do this for 21 days, and then we're good.
But that's a lie. It's a dirty, dirty lie, my friends. Neuroscience research has shown that on average habits take between 61 and 120 days to solidify, and for some people it can take up to a full year depending on what you're trying to change. Now, I don't want you to get demotivated by that, but I want you to have a little reality interlude here. Consider this your piece of reality therapy that we're talking about right now. [00:04:00] If you go in with this delusional thought that I just need to do this goal for 21 days and I'm set. No. Because you're going to be disappointed when 21 days hits and you're still struggling with that goal.
So don't go in with that delusion. Go in with a realistic perspective that new habits take around, on average, 61 to 120 days. Now some take hold faster. It just depends on your discipline, your decision, and your dedication. It can be done faster. But the average is 61 to 120 days. Keep that in mind. Expanding habits a little bit further, if you are thinking about doing change in some area of your life, I want you to sit down right now and do what I call a personal audit. Because we all need to make changes and the brain will fight against change. It's not a big fan of change at [00:05:00] all because the brain has two main jobs: to keep you alive and to be energy efficient. Well worn routines and pathways, this includes thoughts or emotions and actions create well-worn pathways in the brain that are energy efficient. This becomes your default. And because you've repeated these thoughts, emotions, or actions over and over and over again, it does not take that much energy for the brain to run them.
So it puts them on the background on autopilot, devotes the bare minimum of energy to running that program and puts its precious resources elsewhere. But when you are trying to make a change, any change that deviates from your normal program, your normal thought, emotion, or action, you are basically carving out a new neural pathway.
It is like if I dropped you in the middle [00:06:00] of a jungle and gave you a machete and said, go for it my friend, you're gonna hack your way out of here. Same. Same. Your brain views that activity as a threat. If you have to create and carve out a new path for yourself that is not energy efficient, that takes a lot of time, dedication, discipline, and energy for you and your brain.
It also creates an inner conflict in your brain between the old and the new, the old program, the old identity, the new desire, the new identity. The brain does not like inner conflicts. It does not consider them to be e fficient. It actually considers inner conflicts to be a threat, and its prime directive is to keep you alive and to be energy efficient.
So it seeks to squash inner conflicts quickly, and the way it squashes inner conflicts is by defaulting [00:07:00] you to the old habit, the old pattern, the old program. and the old identity. So this is why slip-ups wobbles, crisis of faith happens and you start to doubt yourself. It's not that you can't do it, these wobbles have nothing to do with your capability.
It doesn't mean you're not good enough or that you're not a good planner, that you don't have willpower or discipline. You are literally fighting the program that keeps you alive, which is energy efficiency. This is it. That's it. It has nothing to do with you or your qualities or capabilities as a person.
You are fighting against the survival design of your brain. That's it. So this is why intentionally choosing your new habit, your new thought, your new emotion, your new action. Over and over and over again creates the new pathway. And this is why it takes 60 to [00:08:00] 120 days. Because you have to consistently keep reinforcing the new program, the new pathway, the new identity, the new habit, the new action, all of those things before the brain creates a program of energy efficiency for it.
And when it does, it clicks over. It clicks over into the new program, which has taken you in the absolute direction that you want, but in times of extremely high anxiety or crisis for you, you may still wobble and go back to the old program just because you ran it longer. Okay, so just be aware, wobbles happen.
This is why wobbles or slip ups happen, and this is why your motivation needs to carry you through the messy middle because it's a lot longer than 21 days. Now, when you do this personal audit, I want you to really think about what is no [00:09:00] longer working for you. The brain creates systems rhat are composed of micro habits.
So at first I want you to think about the system. That could be your way of eating, your way of dressing your business model. There is some system that isn't working and you feel some kind of way about it. It's either a frustration or hopelessness. Maybe you have that victim mindset or anger even that why isn't this working?
I'm going to give you a new way to look at this. If the system is no longer working, you really wanna do a piece of reality therapy and go, _"Do I even want this system to continue? Is this system even a match for me or have I absolutely outgrown it?"_ Be very honest with yourself because every human, we stay too long.
We stay too long in situations that we have moved. Beyond that we have [00:10:00] outgrown either in our mindset, our emotions, or with our physical body. We stay too long, and eventually that creates a friction where you start to feel stuck, lost, frustrated, angry, all the things. If you find yourself at that point, the system needs to be changed in some way.
So think number one,_ what is the system that is no longer working for me?_ Number two, _do I still want to keep the majority of this system?_ Because there is a reason why it's not working. You may have outgrown it, or you need to change the habits that create it. So this brings me to that third thing. Once you identify the system and do you want it, then the third piece of that personal audit is to look at what habits you currently have that contribute to the operation of that [00:11:00] system. So I'm gonna go back to the gym model. If you currently do not work out at all, you completely sit on the couch and you have decided this no longer works for me, and I no longer want to continue being this way.
Then we have identified your system is not working and you do not want this system anymore. So step three is to look at your lifestyle, look at your habits that are contributing to you sitting on the couch. Is that, are you distracted by tv? Are you distracted by social media? Are you feeling some kind of way about your body or your abilities?
Are you telling yourself stories that you don't have time, you don't have the energy, you don't know what you're doing? Are you letting yourself get stuck in shame or embarrassment or fear? And that is keeping you from getting up and going to the gym. That is a big example of what habits do you currently express [00:12:00] that are contributing to this system.
Now, it could be that you want the system, the system is no longer working, but you want the system. Then just look at the habits that you're doing and you just might need to refine a couple of habits. For example, if you are addicted to tv, turn the TV off. And free up that mental space for your business or your workout.
How much free time will you give yourself if you stop scrolling on social media? Will that allow you to then begin your goal of personal development? The 20 minutes that you would've spent scrolling on social media, could you instead read a book for 20 minutes?
Think about substitutions, because this is what helps you create these energy efficient brain programs. The brain fights against change, remember, because it's not energy efficient. Habit substitution tends to work better. For example, if you want to [00:13:00] quit caffeine for the new year, be very kind to your adrenals.
That's a great thing Then, y ou look at your habit pathway, a habit is made of three pieces. It's the trigger or cue, the action or behavior, and then your reward. For example, if you were a coffee drinker in the morning, the trigger or cue is that you wake up, you go into the kitchen, you turn the coffee maker on when it's done, you drink your coffee.
The trigger or cue was waking up. You cannot change this. You're gonna wake up every day. So this is not the place we need to target for change. Step two is you go into the kitchen, turn the coffee maker on. This is the step that you want to change. If you want to cut out coffee, what can we substitute it with?
Hot lemon water, herbal teas. You just now have to change the action. And their reward stays the same or similar to the brain is that you're still drinking a cup of something hot. [00:14:00] The brain considers that close enough that you will still get your dopamine as a reward, and the brain will not fight that change as much as it would if you just don't drink anything in the morning at all. You're robbing the brain if it's feel good dopamine, and it doesn't like that, so it fights it. Think about what habits you want to change, what substitutions you can make that will actually contribute to the new system you want to build or upgrading your old system.
I hope this was helpful, and I 100% believe in your ability to create the best life possible for yourself. Now, if you feel that the structure of this was complicated and you want some support, this is where I shine, is to help you find these hidden pieces that are standing in your way that don't necessarily need to be radically changed.
There's [00:15:00] something you're already doing right now that you have built the system that's going to be a successful system for you somewhere else. My goal is to show you where that system is hiding, to show you how to slightly refine it and then apply it to your goal so that your brain gets tricked and you actually get to move with greater speed, accuracy, and precision without the resistance.
If that sounds great to you, then go over to my website, aprildarley.com and sign up for a free consultation. They're quick, they're easy, and you're gonna immediately get some insight about how to amplify whatever you're working on and where you can turn your attention to something that's going to elevate you even faster.
All right, my friends. Let me know if I can be of help to you and I hope you have a fantastic week. Goodbye.
