The Most Effective Strategies to Overcome Anxiety and Build Positive Habits

In this special episode, Eric coaches a listener named Tommy on the most effective strategies to overcome anxiety and build positive habits. Tommy struggles with low-level anxiety, self-doubt, and difficulty acting on healthy intentions. He knows exercise and social connection help his anxiety, but often defaults to avoidance and self-criticism instead. Eric introduces his SPAR framework: Specificity, Prompt, Alignment, and Resilience, to help Tommy create actionable plans and overcome mental hurdles. They also explore self-compassion as a tool for breaking the cycle of guilt and inaction, emphasizing that lasting change requires both structure and kindness toward oneself.

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Key Takeaways:

• Discussion of the challenges in following through on positive behaviors like exercise and social connection.
• Exploration of internal struggles, including a harsh inner critic and feelings of shame and inadequacy.
• Importance of creating specific, actionable plans to bridge the gap between knowledge and action.
• Introduction of the SPAR method: Specificity, Prompt, Alignment, and Resilience.
• Examination of the cycle of avoidance and guilt related to anxiety.
• Strategies for setting clear intentions and reducing ambiguity in daily plans.
• Emphasis on the role of momentum in managing anxiety and maintaining positive behaviors.
• Techniques for reframing negative self-talk and treating oneself with kindness.
• Encouragement to focus on small successes and build a supportive environment for change.

If you enjoyed this special episode, check out these other episodes:

How a Little Becomes a Lot: A Real Coaching Session on Small Changes That Stick

How to Create Elastic Habits that Adapt to Your Day with Stephen Guise

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Eric 00:00:00  If I am clear, like the next two hours have nothing planned except me laying on the couch and reading a book. I can relax into that, but if I’m unclear, it’s where I default into a behavior that often doesn’t feel great.

Chris 00:00:22  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Eric 00:01:07  We’re doing something a little different today instead of an interview. You’re going to hear a coaching conversation, a real one, not scripted, not rehearsed.

Eric 00:01:16  We did one recently with Birgit, and many of you really loved it. So today we are back with another. And the reason I wanted to do this is that so much of what I write about in the book, and so much of what I talk about on the show, lives in the space between knowing and doing. We know what would help. We know what we should do, and we don’t do it. Not because we’re lazy, not because we’re broken, but because something happens in the gap between the plan and the action. And then something even worse happens afterward in the way we talk to ourselves about it. That gap is where I think coaching is most useful not giving someone information they don’t have. Most of us have plenty of information, but working through the specific, practical, sometimes embarrassingly simple stuff that actually makes the difference between a day that feels like yours and a day that just kind of disappears. So that’s what you’re about to hear. Me and Tommy working through his version of that gap.

Eric 00:02:18  And I think a lot of you are going to recognize yourselves in what he shares. Hi, Tommy. Welcome. Hey, Eric.

Tommy 00:02:26  Thanks for having me.

Eric 00:02:27  Yeah, I’m really excited to get to talk with you about some of the things going on in your life and, and do a little live coaching and hopefully add some value. So why don’t we start off by having you just tell us a little bit about yourself and the challenges that you’re facing.

Tommy 00:02:44  Yeah, it’s a little bit about myself, Tommy Zora. I have two sons and one’s going to be nine in a few days and the other one’s ten. so they’re 18 months apart. I’m out of Buffalo, New York. I work in tech sales. I’ve been sober for quite a while. What I struggle with is really, you know, not necessarily like full blown panic attack, but more of just like a low level, low decibel, like kind of dread or anxiety that something’s going to happen. Like an impending doom type of feeling.

Tommy 00:03:16  can’t really always pinpoint what it’s going to be, but just have a feeling like something bad is going to happen or something. Something is going to not go my way. Definitely. You know the anxiety. I know when it hits, I should, be out in nature. Go on a walk, go to the gym, go to a meeting. But it’s tough. Sometimes my mind tells me, like, just go lay down or just sit on the couch and veg out and can just kind of maybe think this through and get into a different mindset. And I know from experience it just doesn’t work. You know, kind of overthinking sometimes I don’t live life, I ponder it. You know, I I’m thinking, you know, more than I’m actually, you know, out there living Definitely. Carrie, you know, a little bit of shame, you know? Accepting, you know, some of the things I said or did when I was out drinking were quite embarrassing. It was a while ago, but still, I kind of feel that shame or embarrassment that I’m less than everyone else has their stuff together but me.

Tommy 00:04:10  I don’t use much social media, but I use LinkedIn and I go on and you see all these people winning awards and going on presidents club trips. And, you know, I do fine at work, but I kind of feel like, oh, man, everyone’s out there living their life and I’m here in my house. I’m scared. It’s like fear has got me gripped. and people on the outside will even say, you know, you got a lot of good things going on. You know, I’m. I’m healthy. My sons are healthy. I, I’m not worried about, you know, housing or anything like that, but I just feel like I’m less than, like, I don’t I don’t deserve to enjoy life like other people do. for some reason, like, I don’t just don’t feel like I deserve, you know, things to go my way or to get lucky or to catch a break. Almost like that mindset of like, you know, I just have bad luck. That’s just how it is.

Tommy 00:04:57  That’s kind of what I’ve been struggling with for for a while. It gets better and there’s better days and then there’s worse days.

Eric 00:05:02  Well, thank you for sharing all of that with me and with the listeners. That’s a lot to carry, but I think everybody’s going to relate with that to some degree. Many people to quite a great degree. Let’s walk through a recent decision point where you were feeling the anxiety, and you chose not to make the decision that you think would have been helpful for you. As far as, like you said, going out in nature or going to a meeting. Can you give me a recent example?

Tommy 00:05:35  Yeah, I would say, you know, last weekend was when I woke up. And for me personally, like sometimes mornings are the worst, you know, wake up from a good night’s sleep and it’s like, I try not to use my phone in the morning, but my brain’s going. Going like, you know, think of all this stuff I got to do And like last weekend, I was like, okay, it was nice out here.

Tommy 00:05:52  Let’s go for a walk in the park. Maybe I can go to the gym. go grab a coffee. You know, kind of do, like, normal things. And part of me was like, just stay home. Like, stay in my bedroom or in my house. And I just didn’t have the umph to do it, like, just. And I knew it was the right thing to do. I knew I’ll feel better later. You know, it’s kind of like, do I want to feel better later or do I want to be lazy now? And, And then it caught up with me. You know, like, you lay down or you relax. So then the guilt sets in of, like, oh, I should have went and did that and I didn’t. And I, you know, got a black belt and, like, beating myself up really. Like, I’m like, not like, why didn’t I go to the gym? Why did I do this? I had no excuses.

Tommy 00:06:32  So like last weekend was one of those days where it was like dinnertime and I kind of was like, I didn’t I didn’t do anything today, like really super productive or some of these things I could have knocked off my list or done, and you go to bed kind of feeling guilty about it or, you know, ashamed like why everyone else goes to the gym. Everyone else is at the park. And why? Why am I just wanting to stay here and, like, live in my head?

Eric 00:06:55  Okay. And when you do that, when you stay home versus do the things you want, does that make your anxiety worse?

Tommy 00:07:03  It does. Yeah, it definitely makes it worse because I have I have more time to sit there and think. And I’m not you know, it’s the one thing like action, you know, like depression hates a moving target or, you know, action, like action is the antidote to keep my feet moving. And, when I don’t feel even worse about it and the anxiety creeps up even more because I’m not doing what I should be doing.

Tommy 00:07:24  And I kind of like, you know, in your spirit, you’re not doing the things you should be doing to. Yeah, to make you feel better or just to, you know, live a normal life.

Eric 00:07:34  Let’s pick a time where it could be a week. I don’t know how long where you’re really kind of firing on all cylinders. Meaning you’re, like, doing what you think you want to do. You’re doing the things that are important. You’re being a good dad. You’re doing well at work. Like you kind of feel like you’re on your A-game. What’s the anxiety like then? Does it still feel like an awful burden, or is it turned down enough that it feels pretty manageable?

Tommy 00:08:00  It definitely turns down that momentum gets going. Like you go to the gym and then you’re going here. You have a couple great work meetings and then you hit them. You go to a meeting at night and connect with a couple of friends, and then that kind of carries over like you get that momentum going and it also goes the other way.

Tommy 00:08:15  If I’m not doing it, it kind of like snowballs into like now I’m not doing anything for a couple of days. but when I’m on, like when I’m on fired, I feel like I’m firing on all cylinders and things are just going my way or going good. I’m doing what I got to do. The anxiety is a little bit less, still there, but it’s not nearly as much when I’m being active and knocking things off the list and going to the gym, going outside, connecting with people and going to meetings. I feel a lot better.

Eric 00:08:43  Okay, so it sounds like there is an underlying anxiety that is kind of there in general, and I’m not really equipped to take that piece on. But what I’m hearing and I just want you to validate that you would agree, would be that what we have on some level is a behavioral issue, that when your behaviors feel on point, your anxiety feels manageable.

Tommy 00:09:08  Yeah, yeah, I totally agree with that.

Eric 00:09:10  So I think there’s a couple things then that we could work on.

Eric 00:09:13  We could talk about how to make it more likely that you take those behaviors. And then I think the second thing is it’s really worth talking about how to deal with yourself when you don’t, because you won’t do it perfectly all the time, no matter what. And you’ve got a pretty harsh internal voice that is going to start piping up the minute that you’re not living up to every aspect of life that you think you should. So I think those are two sort of challenges that I think it’s worth working on. Does that make sense to you? Sound correct?

Tommy 00:09:46  Directionally, that makes sense.

Eric 00:09:48  So I want to pause here for a second, because what Tommy just described, that cycle of avoidance and guilt is one of the most common patterns I see. Here’s what I mean. Our brains are wired to solve for short term discomfort. When you feel anxious or overwhelmed or just kind of heavy. The brain says, make this feeling stop, and lying on the couch makes it stop. Scrolling your phone makes it stop.

Eric 00:10:17  Staying in bed can make it stop for about an hour, and then you’ve got the original feeling, plus a layer of guilt on top of it. But your brain doesn’t calculate that far ahead in the moment. It just wants relief now. In the book, I call this the tension between what we want most and what we want now. And I think it’s worth naming because it reframes the whole thing. Tommy’s not struggling because he doesn’t care enough or doesn’t know better. He’s struggling because his brain is doing exactly what brains do. Choosing immediate comfort over delayed reward. So the question isn’t what’s wrong with me? The question is, how do I set things up so that the right choice is easier to make? And that’s a much more solvable problem. That’s where we go next. So the first thing that I noticed when you described your weekend was a I should do this or that or that or that. And what I hear in that is what I would call ambiguity and ambiguity is really problematic for those of us with mood issues, because you’re not ever at a point that you have to make a decision.

Eric 00:11:37  You’re at a point where you’re contemplating what decision you might make, right? So you’re trying to both figure out what to do and do it at the same time. And that, in my experience, is a recipe for failure. So one of the things that I think would be helpful is to get clear, like, okay, tomorrow is Saturday, and here’s how I want to spend my day. And to get very specific about it and to pick like the thing that will start, okay, you know, the best way to start for me is to get out and take a walk first thing or whatever it is. And so let’s let’s talk about what that might be like. What do you think would be on an average weekend. And I would assume you get a little bit more lost on weekends than you do during the week, because your week has some degree of structure that carries you through it.

Tommy 00:12:26  Yeah, definitely.

Eric 00:12:27  So yeah, let’s pick a upcoming weekend and think about like, what do you think is like the ideal way to spend that day? Not the perfect way.

Eric 00:12:34  Not every moment scheduled into positive behavior. But what might a day like that look like that would feel like you were taking care of yourself and your family and the things that were important?

Tommy 00:12:44  Yeah, it would be definitely like first thing in the morning is getting some movement. And whether that’s at the gym, is it a walk outside, kind of starting the day with a little bit of movement? Definitely spending time with family or friends, you know, kind of my loved ones close to them, you know, taking care of just like household chores, like knocking things off the list. This has to get done. This has to get done. maybe having some quiet time to, you know, like to read. I’m a big reader. Listen to a podcast or two. so spend a little bit of time kind of like in reflection, obviously try to go to some meetings on the weekends. Connect with guys that I have in my group. What kind of keep it, you know, like a steady busyness throughout the day where I’m doing I’m doing something productive or something useful throughout the day, but also having a little bit of downtime, and that’s where I struggle sometimes with the downtime.

Tommy 00:13:35  It was like I could be doing something else. I could be doing something more productive. why? You know, why am I sitting here?

Eric 00:13:42  Yeah. And I think what we want to get to is conscious choice. And what I mean by that is downtime that you decide you’re going to take is downtime, that you can relax more then downtime that happens because you’re not clear on what to do or you’re not doing something else. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, I’m certainly that way. If I am clear, like the next two hours have nothing planned except me laying on the couch and reading a book. I can relax into that, but if I’m unclear, it’s where I default into a behavior that are often doesn’t feel great. So I want to focus on like next weekend, which is like two days away. How much do you have planned at the current moment? Is it a pretty open weekend?

Tommy 00:14:27  Yeah, it’s like a pretty open weekend. You know, like the schedule is open, so it leaves me with a lot of, like, ambiguity.

Tommy 00:14:32  Like what? What am I going to do?

Eric 00:14:33  Okay, we’re not going to have time to go through all the steps we would go through if we were working together. But I want to start with Saturday. And what I want to get clear on is like, what does Saturday morning look like in a great deal of specificity? Movement is a good goal, but it’s not a plan, right? So we want to get really specific, like what time will you get up? What will you do before you go out and move? If anything, what is the movement going to be? We want to have a very clear plan. So help me think of like what what Saturday morning ideally would look like. And you just have to pick something, you know. Should you walk outside? Should you go to the gym? I don’t know, we’re just going to pick one for now.

Tommy 00:15:15  Yeah. It would be like wake up around, you know, 6:30 a.m. usually like the time I’m getting up every morning.

Tommy 00:15:20  I try to keep it the same on the weekends. Okay. you know, I have two boys. They get up early and usually like a walk outside. If the weather’s nice. Would be like my first. My first thing. But I never have, like a set time. Like it’s not like written. Like having to go for a walk at seven, but it would look like, you know, look like wake up. You know, maybe I’m at the house for a minute and then get outside, go for, you know, like a mile or two walk.

Eric 00:15:43  Okay. So before you have coffee, before you do whatever the things you do in the morning, get up, get yourself awake a little bit, get out the front door and walk for a couple miles. Yep. Okay. Where will you walk?

Tommy 00:15:54  Usually I live on the right by a park, so I walk to the park. Then I walk inside the park.

Eric 00:15:59  Perfect. Okay, so we know when we’re doing it.

Eric 00:16:02  We know what we’re doing it. We don’t need to really figure out how, because the walking is fairly obvious. I use a method in the book that I call spa for doing this, and so specificity is the first step. The second step is a prompt like what is going to tell you to do it? And so it may be as simple as you just remember I wake up, I walk outside, you know its first thing. So you don’t need necessarily a reminder to do it because you do it first thing. Do you think you need a reminder or do you think you’ll just be like, okay, I know what I’m doing here.

Tommy 00:16:36  I usually kind of know what I’m doing and I’ll have a I’m an index card guy. Like, I’ll put it on an index card or even leave like my sneakers, like, right to buy the stairs. When I come downstairs, I see him.

Eric 00:16:46  Great. Well, you led us to the next step of a, which is alignment, which is setting up our environment to make it likely that we’ll succeed.

Eric 00:16:53  So this is, like you said, having sneakers by the door, you know, doing everything you can to make it likely that you’ll go out. It’s sometimes having support from other people. So do you think it’s something you would share with your wife? Like, hey, I’m trying to get out on a walk tomorrow morning, you know? Does that help to share it with someone else for you?

Tommy 00:17:12  Yeah. Usually would like, share it. Like let them know this is what I’m going to do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Eric 00:17:18  Right. It’s not her job to hold you accountable, but you’ve said out loud, this is what I’m doing to someone else. And that support is valuable. Having your shoes by the door. Alignment and environment also is thinking about sometimes we’d have to see as we went on, but sometimes even that you have to back up to the night before and be like, okay, if I’m going to get out of bed at 630, I better make sure I don’t pull the 2 a.m. Friday night part plan, right? So that’s another example of alignment.

Eric 00:17:51  And then finally R is for resilience, which is where we think about what could go wrong with this plan. So what is likely to get in the way of this Saturday morning plan.

Tommy 00:18:02  besides myself, you know, possibly a family member needing me to, you know, to take them somewhere or someone needs to be picked up, or someone gives me a call the night before and wants to do something else, or even in that morning, like someone calls me and then I’m on the phone for half an hour, kind of throws me off my off my schedule. And then, it doesn’t end up, you know, kind of gets in the way, you know? Little distractions can, like, kind of throw my regiment out of whack.

Eric 00:18:28  So how likely is a 7 a.m. family need or call?

Tommy 00:18:33  It’s not very likely. like half and half.

Eric 00:18:36  All right. So here’s what I would say is we’re not going to do it here together. But I’d like you to do it on your own, which is think about what you will do in each of those circumstances.

Eric 00:18:49  So if a friend calls you the, the the plan and we often do this just, you know, if then if a friend calls me, then I will say, hang on one second and you will put on your shoes and you will walk to the park while you talk to your friend. So like that’s a way to handle that one. If a family member wakes up and needs something, then I will try and decide either I, you know, I can take care of it real quick and the minute I’m done with it, I will get out the door and walk, or another one might be. When that happens, I will say, I would love to do that and help you with that. I’ll be back in 30 or 40 minutes and then we can do that.

Tommy 00:19:32  Yeah.

Eric 00:19:32  So just sit down and think about what you’ll do if this doesn’t work. So that’s the spa plan and you can apply that to anything you are trying to do is get specific. And I think that’s going to be a big one with you, is we don’t want to schedule every minute of your weekend down to the last moment.

Eric 00:19:55  That sucks the joy out of it, but it is good to have a number of things in there, particularly if you know your pattern. And in the beginning, my experience is we have to be more specific, we have to be more structured, we have to be more clear. And then as momentum builds, we can often let a little of the structure, you know, fall away. My experience is one of I’m in a place now with most things I do, that the structure is pretty loose and there are times that I am feeling off emotionally. Maybe I’m feeling off physically. I’m under a stress of some sort that’s different, where I need to sometimes tighten the structure up again, because I’m back in that sort of wobbly place. And so you’ll play with that over time. But early on for you, it’s probably good to have some degree of things, sort of slot it out roughly in your mind, you know, to sit down and write yourself a plan. All right. I’ll go do I’ll walk.

Eric 00:21:04  I’ll come back. Then I’m going to make breakfast for the kids. You’ll probably think and be like, oh, yeah, one of them has this tomorrow, the other has that tomorrow. So you slot that in. It’s just like building a schedule. It’s probably what you do at work all week, right? You know, in your meetings all you know where your calls are. You know what else needs to get done? You put it all together, and ideally you have a plan. So, so that’s that’s the structural element of what we need to do. And I think we’ve covered it well enough that you know what to do next. Yeah.

Tommy 00:21:33  Yeah.

Eric 00:21:34  So if you were listening to that and thinking about your own version of Tommy’s Saturday morning, your own thing that you keep meaning to do and don’t, I’d encourage you to try what we just did. Pick one thing, get specific about it. Not all exercise more, but when? What? Where? Figure out what’s going to remind you.

Eric 00:21:56  Set up your environment. And then. And this is the part most people skip. Sit down and think about what’s going to go wrong and decide in advance what you’ll do when it does. That whole process takes maybe 10 to 15 minutes and it won’t solve everything, but what it does is get you to a choice point, and that matters more than it sounds like, because most of the time when we fail to do something, we never actually decided not to do it. We just drifted past the moment the morning got away from us. We were going to and then we didn’t. And we’re not quite sure when the decision happened. That’s ambiguity. Winning a specific plan eliminates the drift. It puts you at the door with your shoes on, facing a clear yes or no. It’s more uncomfortable than drifting because now you have to choose. But at least you are choosing. And that’s where a different type of work begins. Because what happens at that choice point, the conversation you have with yourself in that moment is a whole different challenge.

Eric 00:23:05  And that’s what Tommy and I explore next. The next thing is, you said it. You said it very well. I said, what could go wrong with this plan? And you said, well, besides myself. So we want to talk about yourself because this is the next element that happens. If we get all the structural right, then we put ourselves at a choice point. And in that choice point, which is I just woke up. I’m awake enough. Now it’s time to walk out the door at that choice point. Then we often find ourselves making the decision we don’t want to make. So I want to. I want to spend a little time and talk about that. So what is likely and I want to stay specific with this example on Saturday morning, to be the sort of thing that might derail you internally.

Tommy 00:23:58  could be, you know, like having like that dread or that anxiety or the feeling of, this walk doesn’t it’s just one walk. It doesn’t matter, you know, like it’s, it’s just just I was just going to go for two miles, like it’s fine.

Tommy 00:24:11  I’ll do it tomorrow. And then that waterfall, you know. Then it’s like the next day, then doing no walks. And it’s like doing that one walk. It’s like so. It’s so. Doesn’t matter at all that it’s okay. I give myself like, an internal pass. Like I don’t need to go today. It’s. Or I’ll go later tonight. And you know that never happens. I’m kind of minimizing that. Just one walk.

Eric 00:24:36  Yeah, I call that the Insignificance trap. I’ve got a section in the book that I call the Six Saboteurs of Self-control. And and these are the things that happen in those choice points. And one of them I call the insignificance trap, which is exactly what you said. Your brain goes, who cares? It’s just a walk, you know, it’s just no big deal. I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ll do it later. And it’s really being able to connect the dots in our mind. And the thing about it is, from one perspective, a two mile walk does not make a difference in your overall health long term.

Eric 00:25:09  You know, over, over the next 30 years, whether you take a walk tomorrow or not does not likely matter. You’re not adding years to your life by getting out the door tomorrow. The thing that’s important to think about, though, is that it does all add up. And it’s why little by little is often hard. Because you look at one little thing and you go, who cares, right? You know, so it’s it’s connecting the dots in your mind. And it’s also realizing that the biggest consequence of not going today is that you’re likely not going to go tomorrow. That’s its most direct effect. We build momentum. When we start to string positive action together, it starts to become easier. And so that’s the that’s the the piece that’s really important about that, as well as connecting the dots of just really recognizing like okay, you know what this thinking I’ll do it later or I’ll do it tomorrow is part of what the problem actually is. So it’s it’s really mentally connecting the dots.

Eric 00:26:10  Talk to me about dread dread or anxiety. Like what’s happening there in your mind that you think might derail you. Walk me through what you’re thinking or feeling.

Tommy 00:26:19  Yeah. So, you know, like, sometimes I’ll like, hey, I got a plan. I’m going to go for a walk at seven in the morning, and I wake up and like I mentioned, like the morning sometimes hour, hour. Tougher for me. Like, as the day gets going. Like, I try to get outside and get in the sun and be like. And I tell myself it’s just the cortisol. It’s just the cortisol, you know, like I wake up kind of like jacked up a little bit, almost like, you know, the tempo is fast. Like, I gotta get this done. I gotta get that done. I gotta, I gotta take care of this and that. Yes. Yeah. And sometimes, like, I’ll instead of going on the walk, I’ll just like sit there and think about things and worry about this or worry about that, like things that are far in the future.

Tommy 00:26:57  Or I’ll think about things that happened in the past. You know, I felt like playing things over in my head. And then before I know it, I’m kind of like, I don’t really feel like it or, you know, it doesn’t matter. You know, like. Like I said, insignificant. Like I’m like, I want to lose £10. I’m like, I’m not going to lose £10 on this one walk, so who cares? Like, you know, it’s not. Yeah. And then that carries over to the next day or the next day before, you know, it’s I’m never going. But the anxiety can definitely, you know, it comes and goes but it can definitely like kind of cripple me where I don’t I don’t really have motivation or I don’t, I guess like, I don’t say hopeless, but like knowing that that walk is good for me is kind of like a it’s like it doesn’t. It just doesn’t matter. Like kind of like that. It doesn’t matter type of type of attitude.

Eric 00:27:41  Yeah. So that’s back to the insignificance trap, right? You have to find what you can say to yourself that will help you see that it matters. What sort of things have you said to yourself in the past that help you get past that?

Tommy 00:27:53  You know, like it’s a habit? Like I need to build a habit. I need to have the discipline and the feeling of not doing it is the feeling of not doing it. The pain of going on that walk or that run. Is that more than like the guilt and the pain I’ll feel later for not doing it? so sometimes I’ll do things because I know I’m going to feel better number one physically later, but I’m gonna feel better about myself. Like, the more I miss it, the less confidence I had. And I started like, oh, I can’t keep any of my any of my words. I don’t have any discipline. And I’m back to, like, beating myself up like all the other guys are at the park and I’m not.

Tommy 00:28:29  And you know, I’m a loser. Like, that’ll like, kind of get get in the way.

Eric 00:28:33  Yeah, that all does get in the way. And I want to I want to talk about that in a minute. I think one of the things to kind of recognize is can you name what you’re feeling and then talk to yourself about the better way to handle it. So, for example, what’s happening when you wake up and you’re feeling anxiety and you jump on your phone or you start piddling with something else, you’re trying to relieve the anxiety. That’s what it is. It’s a habitual response to that anxiety and what you want to be able to do. And this is why you want to get yourself to a choice point, right? And this is the this is going to be the trick with not completely specific time to be out the door. You may end up needing to say 645 I walk out the door. You may need to get your you may need to get that specific right, because we want to get you to the choice point.

Eric 00:29:25  If you’re not at the choice point, your brain is in the habit of just doing the very vague not yet, not yet, not yet, not yet. Right. So you want to get yourself on the horns of the dilemma, so to speak. And then we’re trying to bring as much consciousness to that moment as we can. And the consciousness for you, one of them will be, oh, I am I’m feeling really anxious and I’m really wanting to be on my phone. I’m, you know, my phone is calling me. My computer is calling me. I’m anxious. this the saboteur? This one is, I call emotional escapism. We don’t like how we’re feeling and so we bail out for you. It’s going, I’m anxious. And the better way to solve my anxiety is to walk out the front door. And you may have to coach yourself. Like this is figuring out what you say to yourself that allows you more often than not, to win. But early on, even clear awareness of the moment is helpful.

Eric 00:30:25  But you want to name that or you want to name. If your brain is really doing the insignificance trap, it doesn’t really like your point. I got to lose £20. This isn’t getting it done. Yeah, and you learn to say to yourself, no, but it’s the place that I start, whatever it is, because I can’t give you those words. You got to find them yourself. And it may take you a little while of of trying it and it not working and then trying it again. And until you, you find the words that tend to learn to coach yourself. My versions of this avoidance are just usually some version of I don’t feel like it.

Tommy 00:31:04  Yeah.

Eric 00:31:05  You know, they’re just usually some version of I don’t feel like it. And most of the things in my life, I’ve got enough momentum at this point that I simply trick myself into starting. I say this on the podcast all the time. It’s embarrassing how often I need to say to myself, just put on your gym shoes, or just get over to the weight room like that.

Eric 00:31:25  I have to just get that little bit done, but it works. That’s why I keep doing it. And resistance is real. I think at any stage of our journey we face resistance. We want to be habitual because we want these things to happen with no effort. That’s not the way. Complex behaviors like this tend to work. You can make brushing your teeth habitual. It’s harder to make something like this habitual, but you can cultivate momentum. And that’s kind of what we’re after.

Tommy 00:31:56  Yeah.

Eric 00:31:56  So do you feel like you have a the tools to plan out Saturday and be at least some new strategies for how to talk to yourself?

Tommy 00:32:05  Yeah, I think being more specific, like instead of just saying oh in the morning because in my mind I’m like, well, up until 1159, it’s the morning. You know, I could go at 645 to, to then and it it’s leaving me with a lot of options to get distracted and. Well, I can do it at ten. Like being like, this is the exact time I’ll get out the door at, like, being very specific about it rather than just kind of like I’m going to walk in the morning.

Tommy 00:32:32  It’s very loose, very vague.

Eric 00:32:35  I have a list of things I try and do every morning before work, and there are times that I just do. It just happens. I’m in a good phase. It’s just happening. I am not there right now. I’m I’m in deep in book launch, which means certain mornings that I would do it just get washed away because I’ve got to go do this or I got to go do that. My consistency is a little out of whack, so I’m having to get a lot more specific. I’m having to like, plan out and then I’m having to set an alarm on my phone. So okay, I give myself, you know, 20 minutes to have my coffee and maybe look at Substack or something. Then I need an alarm because now I’m at a choice point. That alarm tells me to go do the next thing. I need more structure right now than I often do. As you do this, you’ll you’ll find what works for you. So here’s something I want you to notice about what just happened.

Eric 00:33:28  We got the plan in place. We got specific. We figured out the prompts, the environment, the backup plans, and then we hit another problem. Tommy had it exactly right when he said, besides myself, you can have the best plan in the world. And it still comes down to what happens inside you at 645 in the morning when the alarm goes off and you don’t feel like it. I spent a lot of time in the book on these moments. I call them moments of action. In the seconds where you’re standing at the door with your shoes on, and your brain is making a very convincing case for the couch. And what I found in my own life, and in working with a lot of people, is that the inner obstacles tend to run on a few predictable scripts. Tommy’s brain runs two of them almost simultaneously. It tells them the action doesn’t matter, and it tells him to escape the feeling. Those are two of what I call the six saboteurs of self-control in the book.

Eric 00:34:28  And once you learn to recognize them, they lose some of their power. Not all of it, but some. And some is enough to change the odds. But there’s a layer underneath those saboteurs that I think does even more damage. And it’s what I want to get into next. Because Tommy isn’t just fighting avoidance, He’s fighting a story about who he is and that story that he’s less than, that he’s broken. That everyone else has it figured out is the kind of thing that turns a missed Saturday walk into evidence that he’s a failure. That’s a different kind of problem, and it requires a different kind of work. All right. So now what I want to talk about is this harsh internal critic and this feeling that everybody else is doing better than you are. And I want to give you a couple of approaches here. And I think the first is and this you just kind of have to take my word on, but if you pay attention to other people, you will not their social media feeds, but other people you actually know.

Eric 00:35:41  You’ll probably find that lots of people struggle with exactly the same things.

Tommy 00:35:49  Yeah.

Eric 00:35:49  We don’t want to compare ourselves to Tony Robbins, right? Like, I am not wired up inside like Tony Robbins is wired up. That is a bad comparison point. But what I do know is that I talk to lots and lots of people, both people that I coach, people that take my programs, as well as really successful people that I interview on the podcast. And I know that all of them struggle with stuff like this. There’s periods where they do better, there’s periods where they do worse. There’s times that they deal with discipline. I found a book once, or maybe it was just an essay or whatever, but it was all the absurd things. And these are well-known writers do to make it so that they cannot access the internet when they’re trying to write. And you would think, like these guys, you know, they’ve written multiple books, they know what they’re doing. What they know is that it’s hard.

Eric 00:36:40  They’re giving their WiFi password, making their wife change it every morning. They’re gluing shut their Ethernet ports. I mean, they’re doing ridiculous things because this is a human struggle. And that, I think is really, really important that you recognize that it’s a human struggle. And if you’re working and taking care of kids, it’s hard to start then doing a lot more than that, particularly with an anxiety condition.

Tommy 00:37:09  Yeah, I think it was you. But with the solitaire, with the blocker. Is that you look. Yeah, yeah, like like the structure sometimes just isn’t there. Like I think it’s structure but it’s. Yeah. If you break it out it’s not. It’s just an idea or a thought.

Eric 00:37:23  Right. And then the other thing that I think is really important that we start doing with you is that we start paying attention to what you’re doing instead of what you don’t do. Meaning you are viewing this through the lens of I keep not doing these things that I know I should do.

Eric 00:37:42  However, you do plenty of things that you quote unquote should do. Meaning you show up, you work. You’re probably a good dad. You do take care of yourself sometimes. You’re probably a kind and decent person. You’re right. There’s all these things that you are doing, and a principle is that motivation goes up when we feel good about ourselves and about our chances of success, and it goes down when we feel bad about ourselves and our chances of success. So the key to the way to keep motivation up is to find a way to feel good about ourselves. Now, this is not blow smoke up up your ass BS. That’s not what I’m advocating, but I’m advocating that if you were to do 50% of the time, do what you should, and 55, 50% of the time do what you shouldn’t do. You’re better off paying attention to the 50% that you do, because it’s going to build a little bit more of a good feeling in you. If all you do is focus on where you fall short, and that’s the way your brain is trained.

Eric 00:38:49  So this is not going to be easy, right? It’s not going to be easy that you’re suddenly just going to be like, oh, I’m just going to change and start, you know, thinking about the good things. This is going to be a dedicated metal mental effort. But we really do want to focus on, like if you take a walk in the morning when you said you were going to do good job, you try and feel as good about it as you can.

Tommy 00:39:09  Yeah, I definitely focus on what I didn’t do a lot, you know, or what I’m not doing or what I didn’t do definitely has much more weight in my mind than the things I do. Things I do. Yeah, there’s things I’m doing well, things I do do, but I just don’t. I just don’t focus on that. I really like zero in on like, what didn’t I do?

Eric 00:39:28  Yep. And that is just an ingrained mental habit that you’ve, you’ve had for a long time and again can change, but it won’t change overnight.

Eric 00:39:37  But it’s really Worth catching it and saying, hang on, let me try something different. And there’s another reason that this is important, because and what I’m talking about is sort of both where we direct our attention, but also your attitude towards yourself. And we want to develop a more self compassionate attitude. And there are a couple of reasons this is really important. The first is it’s simply a much better life to not have an asshole in your head. Right? So a it’s just a big life upgrade. It’s the biggest one I’ve ever given myself. Won’t happen overnight, but it’s a place to aim at. It’s a goal. But the second thing is that what we have to figure out. If you’ll notice everything I have shared with you up till now, none of it is like, oh, let’s change your character because you’re a bad guy. It’s all strategy, it’s all approach. And what happens when we’re hard on ourselves is what we do is we just conclude, I’m a piece of shit, right? Yeah.

Eric 00:40:38  So whatever your version of that phrase is, I just can’t do it. I’m lazy. I’m on discipline. What’s wrong with me? No no no no no no. And there’s a whole lot of emotional energy and drama around that. And you can’t do what you need to do to learn to change, which is to learn. Change is a learning process. So the emotional drama stops you from being able to say, Let’s see. Last Saturday I did walk and I did do this, and I did do that. I wonder what went wrong this Saturday? Oh, well, I, I just didn’t get specific about what time I would leave in the morning. Okay. There’s a learning. Oh, it was the insignificance trap again. I fell into thinking it doesn’t matter. We’re learning. Okay. Let me. What can I do differently next time? So turning down the harsh internal critic is really important, because I truly believe that change in behavior like this is a skill that you can learn, and that it’s a puzzle that we can figure out.

Eric 00:41:41  And that’s a really important thing to keep coming back to, is you don’t have to convince yourself like, oh, I can change. I know I can, I know I can, I’m great, I’m great. Not that, but we have to open the door in your mind on the idea that it’s possible that you can change and that you are learning. And as you learn, you will get better at this. Does that all make sense?

Tommy 00:42:08  Yeah. Well, yeah, that definitely makes sense. Like, that inner critic is strong. You know, it’s like it’s it’s definitely there and it’s loud and, you know, okay, if like I said, a bunch of people tell me, hey, you’re doing good and this is going good, you’re doing, you know, you’re a good dad, you know, this. And I kind of just don’t listen to them. And I listen to, like, I have being like, you’re not good enough. You’re not as good as the next guy.

Tommy 00:42:31  You could be a better dad. You could be a better word. You know? You could be better at every you know, you could be better everywhere. It’s just my brain telling me that one thing.

Eric 00:42:39  That is an easy thing that I recommend to people who are dealing with that inner critic, is to give it a name, make it a character. So my example of this, my inner critic, is he’s not around in the same way he used to be. What I have more now is just a I have an internal mopey ness sometimes. So my internal moping is I call Eeyore. There you go. I picture that donkey from Winnie the Pooh, the pathetic donkey who walks around saying, like, I’m.

Speaker 4 00:43:09  Not much of a donkey. You know, I don’t have much of a tail.

Eric 00:43:12  And I hear whatever mopey ness I’m saying. I hear it in that voice, and it does two things. It gives me a little distance from it so that I see that it’s not me.

Eric 00:43:22  It’s just a voice, a pattern, whatever you want to call it, a preconditioned firing of brain cells and it kind of makes me laugh, which helps also. So I want to give the harsh inner critic for you a character. Can you think of anything?

Tommy 00:43:41  I’m trying to think. I know I would sometimes like, refer to it as like part X, like I don’t like from a book I read, like part X, I’m like, oh, that’s just part. It’s just part X trying to trying to, screw me up. Just trying to take me down like it’s just, but I can think of, like, a better, a better one. I just have always, like, referred to it as that.

Eric 00:44:00  That’s a good start. A lot of people in recovery were just referred to it, like their addict brain. Yeah. And the principle is the same. What I’m doing is I’m just getting a little bit of distance from it. I encourage you to come up with a character that you can see and you can bring to mind, because it helps that distance a little bit.

Tommy 00:44:18  Yeah.

Eric 00:44:18  So we’ve talked about specificity, having a prompt like when am I going to do it? We talked about the A of setting up your environment and the R for planning for what will go wrong and having plans. That’s the spa.

Tommy 00:44:32  Is our resilience.

Eric 00:44:33  Yeah, R is resilience. It’s where we went. Like what’s going to go wrong with this plan. We plan ahead for what might go wrong and we have plans to deal with it. Got it. And then we talked about the moment itself, learning to catch what you’re saying to yourself and feeling, and work on how you can rescript those moments so you’re more likely to do it. And then we talked about being kinder to yourself and focusing on your successes. I think it’s just really important. Also with that voice, the one that says all the negative things, the one that says you’re broken alone, you’re different. All of that recognize it as a condition, thought pattern. It’s not truth. It’s a conditioned thought pattern. Because I could put somebody else into your life and they would look at what you do, and they would look at everything that’s happening and they would think, I kick ass.

Eric 00:45:28  Yeah, same exact life. And it’s not that I would pull some loser off the street and drop him in. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that a different, entirely reasonable, healthy person would see your situation in a very different way. And all that says is, the way you see it is a construction.

Tommy 00:45:48  Yeah. Yeah, I know I get your text and it was like the one was like, it’s not it’s not the actual situation. It’s how I think of it. Like what I make, what I think of it like it could be a great situation. And I think of it as being bad. It’s. Yeah. And I don’t know where that comes from, I don’t know. Like, I didn’t have like a traumatic childhood, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know, like where like started.

Eric 00:46:06  Well, I mean, we could try and understand it and we could come up with some tenuous theories that might be helpful. And sometimes they are. But what ends up happening, even when you know where it comes from, is you still just have to see it and interrupt it, see it and interrupt it, see it and interrupt it again and again and again.

Eric 00:46:24  The good news is it can change. I can’t think of the last time I was mean to myself internally. No matter what challenges I’ve done, that doesn’t mean I don’t look at my behavior and go, oh, that was a stupid thing to do. Or, boy, you didn’t do that well. Or like, it’s not that I can hold myself accountable, but I don’t ever do it in a mean way anymore. And that is completely different than it used to be. So the good news is, you know, we can change these deeply embedded thought patterns. The bad news is it takes a lot of reps. So kind of leaving here. Was there one thing that felt most relevant to you that you feel like was the most helpful?

Tommy 00:47:03  I really think the being specific about what I’m going to do when I’m going to do it, and like having it be very at least to begin, like very down to the, you know, very like minute and kind of having it like, like you said, until that structure kind of almost starts to carry itself.

Tommy 00:47:22  yeah. But like right now I know, I know, I’m missing that. And I know it would help a bunch because I’ve been. There’s been times where I’ve been there and I’m like, you know. Yeah. And like, I’m flowing like things are going well and the momentum is there and I’m feeling good about myself. I’m feeling confident. And when you get away from it, it kind of like that’s when I start feeling like it’s just kind of loosey goosey, like I might, you know, I might do this. I might do that. Like, if you’re giving like too many options.

Eric 00:47:46  Yeah, that is the structural element. And that is the place to start. Once the structural gets solid, then you can say, okay, well where’s the emotional winning? But if you don’t do the structural first, it’s all a mess. I want to say one more thing before we wrap up, and it’s for those of you who heard a lot of yourself in Tommy, you might be thinking, okay, I get it.

Eric 00:48:09  Be more specific. Watch for the traps, be kinder to myself. And that’s all true. But there’s another thing I’d want you to take from this conversation. It’s something Tommy said, almost in passing. He said, I’ve been there before. When I’m flowing. Things are going really well. The momentums there. He knows what it’s like when it’s working. He’s done it. He just hasn’t been able to stay there. And I think that’s actually the most hopeful thing, he said. Because it means this isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about getting back to something he’s already proven he can do and getting back a little faster each time. That’s what I really believe change looks like for most of us. Not a straight line, not a breakthrough. You do it, you stop doing it. You start again. And each time you start again, you know a little bit more about what tripped you up. You catch the saboteur a little sooner. You’re a little less brutal with yourself when you fall short.

Eric 00:49:10  And over time the good stretches get longer and the bad ones get shorter. So thank you for listening. I hope this episode was really valuable to you and. See you next time. I really, really appreciate you being willing to come on the show. Be brave and vulnerable enough to share all of this. I mean, some of the things you’re sharing about what you’re saying to yourself. It’s hard to say that. And I really appreciate that you did do it. And it’s going to help a lot of people.

Tommy 00:49:36  Yeah, I appreciate you. You know, having me and been a fan for a long time, and now I’m glad.

Eric 00:49:41  All right. Take care.

Tommy 00:49:42  Thanks, Eric.

Eric 00:49:43  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity.

Eric 00:50:00  But we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom. One episode at a time. Thank you for being part of the one You Feed community.