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If 2020 has felt like an unusually difficult year, then read on – this post is for you.

I’ve been hearing from more and more people lately who are struggling with symptoms of depression and low mood.

Depression and I have been traveling down this road of life together for over 30 years.

Sometimes depression is way down the road somewhere – so far away that I can barely make out its silhouette. Sometimes it has shackled itself to me and I feel like I’m walking on a road made of quicksand.

So after decades of experience, I’ve gotten pretty good at working with depression so that when it draws near, I don’t get derailed anymore like I used to.

Whether it’s just a crappy, low mood or a full-blown depressive episode, there are three things I always do to support my wellbeing to get me through these tough times:

1. Decide in advance, execute during

As a behavior coach, the principle of separating decision from action is one that I refer to often with my clients. It’s a foundational approach to positive behavior change and it’s a big one when it comes to getting through depression.

Because on days when you’re feeling low, you most likely won’t be able to think of much that you feel like doing and your depressive mindset will skew your perspective on what might be a good way to spend your time.

So, take the “decision” part off your plate by putting those pieces in place on days when you aren’t struggling with your mood. That way, all you need to focus on is doing those things when you feel low. You know you won’t feel like it, but that’s ok. You can still do them and it’s important to because they go a long way towards supporting your wellbeing.

Essentially, when you aren’t feeling low, work to establish a healthy daily routine that includes things like mediation, exercise, healthy eating, and connecting with others. Following along with that rhythm and structure will support you on days when you don’t feel well emotionally and mentally.

Bonus tip: Music has always had a powerful impact on how I feel so I have a playlist already created of songs that make me feel good. Listening to that playlist almost never sounds like a good idea when I’m feeling depressed, but doing so almost always causes me to feel lighter and better.

2. Keep moving forward (even if it’s a bit slower than normal)

I first heard the phrase, “Depression hates a moving target” many years ago in recovery and it hit the nail on the head for me. Forward, positive action moves energy through us, changing our biochemistry and impacting our state of mind.

When you’re feeling low, go through the motions, even if you’re just not feeling it. You’ve probably heard me say on the show that often we can’t think our way into right action – we have to act our way into right thinking. There is a lot of research to support the fact that if the body leads, the mind will follow.

So, on days when depression looms, find ways to take positive action. When you feel like doing nothing, do something – reach out to a friend or go for a walk around the block. Take action and momentum will kick in to help you.

3. Connect to a broader perspective

Depression tells me that I’ll always feel this way. So when I get that message, I consciously remember that I won’t always feel this way and it will pass. Everything is in a constant state of change and I remind myself of that fact during these times. I even go so far as to think of my depressive episodes as having a bout of the “emotional flu”. There’s no need for an existential crisis, I’m feeling lousy now but it will pass.

Also, I remember that I am not alone in feeling lousy. In Buddhism, The First Noble Truth says that in life there is suffering. It’s unavoidable and part of the human experience. When I remember that what I’m experiencing is not just MY pain, rather it’s THE pain of life, I feel less alone and am comforted by this connection of a shared human experience.

Most importantly though, after I have done what I can to make things better, I focus on just allowing my depression to be there, accepting it for what it is. The more I fight it, the worse it gets. So, I ask myself, “Can I allow this to be exactly as it is?” and then I try and relax into a state of not resisting the fact that I am feeling depressed. I’ve found that I suffer more when I am fighting the reality of things.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I work as a behavior coach which means when I work with clients, our focus is on modifying their behavior so that they can make real progress in their life where they’ve otherwise been stuck or struggling. Very often we can pull the lever of behavior change to impact our emotional and mental well being.*

To learn more about working with me in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program, click here.

If you’d like to book a free, (absolutely no pressure to sign up) 30-minute coaching session with me to see if the program might be a fit for you, click here.

All in all, remember this: You are resilient, capable and hard times will pass. They always do.

Wishing you well,

Eric

Has this ever happened to you?

You start off the week really motivated and determined to exercise every day. This time, it’s for real – you’re not messing around.

The first half of the week goes great – you workout Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Bam.

The second half of the week, it’s not so great – you only workout on Friday. What happened?

There could be a lot of factors, but essentially, they’re all going to fall into one of two buckets.

Let me explain.

When it comes to behavior change, I look at two main components: The tactical and the emotional.

The tactical component is made up of all of the variables that contribute to “good behavioral hygiene” – getting really specific about what you’ll do and when, starting small, upskilling when needed, having a plan for when you miss a day, and so on. (If you want to dive deeper on this topic, I go into detail about the tactical component in this video.)

The emotional component is rooted in a concept called emotional regulation. Essentially, this refers to a person’s ability to feel difficult emotions and still act according to their values. (Again, if you want to dive deeper on this topic, I wrote all about it in this blog post.)

When a desired behavior doesn’t happen, the reason why – along with the remedy – can usually be found by examining these two components.

So, for example, let’s say you want to start spending time writing every day. You create a solid tactical plan: You’ll spend 10 minutes doing “stream of consciousness” writing on your laptop at the kitchen table as you have your 2nd cup of coffee each morning this week.

But, despite this great plan which checks all of the boxes of good behavioral design, you only end up writing two out of the next five days. Why? As it turns out, on the days you didn’t write, your mood was low and you felt really uninspired.

Ah ha. Now we know the component to spend time strengthening: Your ability to act according to your plan despite difficult emotional weather. This is a learned skill and something we can develop.

So, when you find yourself wanting to do something but not following through, try diagnosing the problem through these two lenses.

If you’d like some help, check out The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program in which I work 1-on-1 with people to help them accomplish their goals and make lasting change in their lives.

If the program seems like it might be fit for you, I offer a free 30-minute Personal Transformation Coaching Session.

On this call, you will tell me about the changes you’re looking to make and I will offer you my thoughts on how you might go about doing this. If we’re a match to work together, that will be clear and I never pressure people on these calls. If the program is not right for you, we part as friends and you will have my ideas to consider as you move forward towards your goals.

You can book your call by clicking here.

Creating good habits and changing your behavior is something that we actually know a lot about how to do successfully. If you’ve struggled to make changes in your life, it’s not a character defect on your part. It’s just that you need to get some support and learn some skills that will help you to do the things you know you want to do.

Don’t stay stuck when you could be moving forward in the direction of the life you want to live.

Until next time,

Eric

The Most Important Component of Behavior Change (And it’s Not What You Might Think)

I wonder if you can relate:

If I didn’t have an alarm set for 9am every day, I would forget to take my vitamins at least 50% of the time.

I want to take my vitamins (it’s not a motivation issue) and it’s not a hard thing to do (it’s not an ability issue). But without this daily prompt, I would forget and this behavior just wouldn’t happen much of the time.

A mundane example, perhaps, but it’s a good one for illustrating how to go about determining why a behavior isn’t happening and subsequently setting the stage for it to happen.

Stick with me here – I’ll explain. And what I’m about to share with you will take you far when it comes to making habits stick (for yourself and others) as well as saving yourself a lot of frustration, drama, and grief when habits aren’t happening and you’re trying to figure out why and how to fix it.

Renowned behavior scientist, BJ Fogg, (a two time guest of the podcast – you can listen to his first episode here and his second one here) came up with a simple but incredibly effective and powerful formula that illustrates what it takes for any behavior to happen:

B=MAP

To explain, BJ Fogg says, “A behavior happens when the elements of MAP (motivation — your desire to do the behavior; ability — your capacity to do the behavior/how difficult it is to do; and prompt — a cue to do the behavior) come together at the same moment.”

When a desired behavior isn’t happening, we can use the Fogg Behavior Model to troubleshoot why. But not in the way you might expect.

We tend to – mistakenly – start with evaluating a person’s motivation. BJ Fogg says that instead, we should work this equation backward. We should start by determining whether or not the person had a prompt, then look at ability, and only after that do we look at motivation as a factor.

Here’s how he explains it in his book, Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything:

“No behavior happens without a prompt. If you don’t have a prompt, your levels of motivation and ability don’t matter. Either you’re prompted to act or you’re not. No prompt, no behavior. Simple yet powerful…If you don’t hear the phone ring, you don’t answer it.”

“To do an expert job of troubleshooting a behavior for yourself or others, start with the prompt. Is the person being prompted to do the behavior?…If that doesn’t work, then you move to the next step. See if people have the ability to do the behavior….Notice that fussing around with motivation is the last step in the troubleshooting order. This process of troubleshooting can save you some grief….In many cases, you’ll find your lack of doing a behavior is not a motivation issue at all. You can solve for the behavior by finding a good prompt or by making the behavior easier to do.”

As it turns out, motivation is the most unreliable and also the most complex. It waxes and wanes. It’s here one minute and gone the next. And it is connected to multiple factors such as what you want in the moment, rewards or detractors that are in place, and the overall context in which you and the behavior exist.

So, it makes sense – and his research supports – that we will be the most effective at getting to the root of the problem via the shortest path of least resistance: Start by asking the question “was there a prompt to remind the person to do the behavior?”. Then, look at ability and determine if it was too difficult to do. The last step is to examine a person’s level of motivation.

BJ Fogg says, “When you apply this troubleshooting method to your own behavior, you’ll find that it stops you from blaming yourself.”

And this is an important point. When we blame ourselves our inner critic is often at work. And even though it might have good intentions for us – like trying to get us to perform better – we know that when this inner critic shows up, we do NOT perform at our best.

Back to my example of taking my vitamins. On the days I don’t take them it seems harsh to assume I just didn’t want to or I was too lazy to swallow them or I defiantly said, “No way am I taking those vitamins!”.

It’s more likely that I just forgot because I didn’t have a prompt to take them. Put in an effective prompt and problem solved. It’s often that simple. And it turns out with many behaviors, that is the case.

This is also helpful when it comes to diagnosing what’s getting in the way of other people’s behavior.

Like, if your husband doesn’t take out the trash on Thursday nights so that the garbage collector will pick it up on Friday mornings, instead of jumping to the conclusion that “He didn’t do it because he doesn’t care about our family!” maybe start with putting a post-it note on the garbage can lid as a reminder that day. The same applies to your kids: If they don’t make their bed, instead of thinking, “They don’t respect what I tell them to do!”, make it part of their morning routine – after getting dressed and before coming down for breakfast.

Troubleshooting in this order can save us a lot of heartache and miscommunication.

Working the Fogg Behavior Model backward to troubleshoot for why a habit or behavior isn’t happening is something I often talk through with my private coaching clients.

We start the conversation by asking, “Did you have something to prompt you at the time you wanted the behavior to happen?”. If so, next we move on to ability and try to determine what might be making this hard to do. If it was a very easy behavior and it still didn’t happen, then we look at motivation.

There are lots of different kinds of prompts you can put in place. Here are a few examples:

1. Time-based prompt (I’ll do ____ at 3 pm.)
2. Location-based prompt (Every time I come to a red light, I’ll….)
3. A preceding event as a prompt (After I take the dogs out in the morning, I’ll….)
4. Emotional based prompt (When I feel ____, I’ll….)
5. Other people as a prompt (When I see my friend, I’ll….)
6. Technology as a prompt (Set a reminder on your phone.)

If you have a goal but your behavior is sabotaging your progress, it’s really helpful to have someone help you to diagnose what’s going on, customize a path forward, and support you along the way.

That is precisely what I do when I work 1-on-1 with clients in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program.

Through weekly calls and daily email communication, I teach my clients how to apply the science of behavior change to help them achieve their specific goals based on their unique life circumstances, ensuring their long term success.

To learn more about the program, click here.

To find out if the program is a fit for you, I offer a free 30-minute Personal Transformation Coaching Session. You can book your call by clicking here.

On this call, you will tell me about the changes you’re looking to make and I will offer you my thoughts on how you might go about doing this. If we’re a match to work together, that will be clear and I never pressure people on these calls. If the program is not right for you, we part as friends and you will have my ideas to consider as you move forward towards your goals.

One thing I have learned from decades of coaching people is that, with the right approach and support, everyone can make real, meaningful change in their lives. You can grow and make progress and accomplish far more than you ever would have expected.

And this is something I love helping people do.

Here’s to creating a life worth living, 

Eric

What is “Enough”?

Enough. These few words are enough.

If not these words, this breath.

If not this breath, this sitting here.

This opening to life

we have refused

again and again

until now.

Until now.

– Enough, by poet David Whyte

So, what is “enough”?

It’s something I think about a lot.

In my Zen training, we have something called “The Great Vows For All” which talks about how “greed, hatred, and ignorance arise endlessly“. Greed, specifically, is just an extreme version of wanting and these vows point out that it arises endlessly. It’s beneficial to know that when we find ourselves stuck in a “wanting mindset”, it’s not some personal flaw – it’s part of the human condition.

I’m struck by how this idea of “enough” is one of the antidotes we can turn to in order to satisfy ourselves when this inflamed version of wanting shows up in us.

But back to my original question – what is enough?

Epicurus said, “Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.” In AA, it’s often said that one drink is too many and a thousand is never enough. And we can get caught in a “never enough” mindset when we compare ourselves to others. There’s always someone with more of something than we have.

If you can spend some time thinking about what constitutes enough for you – which is a worthwhile endeavor – then wherever you are or whomever you’re with, you can rest in the knowledge that you have enough. That you are enough.

The Tao Te Ching puts it this way:

“Fame or integrity: which is more important?

Money or happiness: which is more valuable?

Success or failure: which is more destructive?

If you look to others for fulfillment,

you will never truly be fulfilled.

If your happiness depends on money,

you will never be happy with yourself.

Be content with what you have;

rejoice in the way things are.

When you realize there is nothing lacking,

the whole world belongs to you.”

To discover the truth of “enough” in your life, you might set aside some time to consider this idea.

When I work with clients in the Spiritual Habits Program, I offer people weekly reflection questions so that they can dive a bit deeper internally to discover and experience within themselves the concepts we are exploring together in our sessions. So, I’ll offer you a reflection on this idea of “enough”. I’d encourage you to set aside a few moments to sit with this inquiry and write down the thoughts that come to you:

Sense what it’s like for you if you view your life in this moment as “enough”? Are there any obstacles that you discover that make it challenging for you to fully let go into this idea? What do you discover when you explore your life and yourself through the lens of having and being enough?

Wishing you well as you discover “enough” in yourself and your life.

To learn more about the 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program, you can click here.

To explore how applying Spiritual Habits can deepen your experience in your unique life, you can click here to book a free, 30-minute (no pressure) call with me to talk more about it.

I hope to talk with you soon, 

Eric

Have you ever noticed how disconnected from your senses you are when you’re lost in thought?

When we wake up out of the dream-like state of thinking, in order to reacquaint ourselves with where we are and what’s going on, we need to quickly reconnect with what we can see or hear around us. Doing so brings us back into the reality of the present moment.

Our 5 senses are a portal back to the present moment. When we see, hear, feel, smell, taste, or touch something, we are experiencing it in the here and now.

Thinking is different. When we spend time thinking about something, we very often travel to another time and place. It’s a virtual reality of the mind. And you can sense the difference between this virtual reality and the present moment when you notice what your experience is like in each.

Thinking is not a bad thing to spend time doing. Far from it. There is a time for planning and reflecting and that time is very useful as we look to be more intentional with the way we live our lives.

As you may have noticed, though, our thoughts can very easily go from helpful tools for insight to sources of rumination or stories full of anticipated fear or harsh criticism towards ourselves or others.

Because it’s a slippery slope, it can be really helpful to have tools that can bring us out of the imaginary realm of thoughts and back into the present moment.

In The 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program, I offer my clients certain Spiritual Habits that they can use to apply spiritual principles to the moments of their daily lives to help them experience the transformational gifts they have to offer.

I’d like to offer one to you now – one that can help you come back to the present moment when you find yourself lost in thoughts that aren’t serving you very well.

This Spiritual Habit practices Grounding in Your Senses.

The trigger or prompt to practice this Spiritual Habit is any time you find yourself lost in thoughts that are causing you suffering.

When this happens, ask yourself, “What are 5 things I can see? What are 5 things I can hear? What are 5 sensations I can feel in my body?

When you answer these questions, you are back in the present moment. From here, you can determine what’s actually happening vs. what stories might have been playing out in your mind through your thoughts.

Remember, you are not your thoughts. You are the thinker of your thoughts and with some support and practice, you can begin to think and relate to your thoughts differently. As a result, the way you experience your life can radically change for the better.

If you’d like to go deeper to explore how working together might be helpful for you,  click here to learn more about The 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program and for more about The Personal Transformation Program, click here.

I hope to talk with you soon,

Eric

You’ve undoubtedly heard the saying, “when one door closes, another one opens”. But what’s not as talked about is the “dark hallway” in between these closing and opening doors.

When in the dark hallway, we can feel lost and scared and it’s very disorienting. How long until the next door opens? No one can say.

This idea that I call the “dark hallway” isn’t new. It’s been referred to as “liminal space”, which comes from the Latin word “limen” which means “threshold”. It’s a place of transition, a time between what was and what’s next. It can be a season of waiting, of not knowing.

We are in a liminal space right now. We know that the world we knew is gone but we don’t know what the next world is going to look like. And this brings us face to face with our deepest fears which arise amid such uncertainty. But that is precisely where it’s power and gifts are. Being in a liminal space breaks us out of our habitual ways of life. It gets us off of autopilot.

Previous guest of the show, Father Richard Rohr, says this about being in a liminal space:

“We have to allow ourselves to be drawn into sacred space, into liminality. All transformation takes place here. We have to allow ourselves to be drawn out of business as usual and remain patiently on the threshold where we are betwixt and between the familiar and the completely unknown. There alone is our old world left behind while we are not yet sure of the new existence. That’s a good space where genuine newness can begin. Get there often and stay as long as you can by whatever means possible. It’s the realm where God (or spirit or wisdom) can best get at us because our false certitudes are finally out of the way.”

Think of the metaphor of the caterpillar and the butterfly – the chrysalis stage is the liminal stage of transformation. It’s not really a caterpillar, it’s not really a butterfly yet – it waits as the transformation happens.

My own liminal spaces in my life, as uncomfortable as they have been, have taught me so much.

The key, though, is that in order for this liminal space to be transformational, we have to actually inhabit it. We have to allow ourselves to feel the fears, the doubts, the sadness – we have to pay attention to what’s going on inside of us.

If we’re willing to listen, sense, and feel into what’s waiting for us in this space, if we can let go of control a little bit and surrender to a greater potential, then the personal transformation can be enormous.

Guest of the show, Sue Monk Kidd, writes this about the liminal space:

“For in many ways waiting is the missing link in the transformation process. I’m not referring to waiting as we’re accustomed to it, but waiting as the passionate and contemplative crucible in which new life and spiritual wholeness can be birthed. We seem to have focused so much on exuberant beginnings and victorious endings that we’ve forgotten about the slow, sometimes tortuous, unraveling of God’s grace that takes place in the “middle places.” This is an important principle in waiting: coming to the enormous realization that there are seed forces within us. The potential for wholeness, Life with a capital L, is fully here. We don’t have to go out in conquest and make it happen. We can simply let it happen, consciously.”

The good news is that you don’t have to try harder, be more productive, or work harder to make the changes happen during this time. It’s not about effort, rather, it’s about opening and allowing.

In The 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program, I offer my clients certain reflection questions that they can spend time thinking and writing about in order to deepen their thoughtfulness about whatever they’re looking to explore. I’d like to offer one to you now – one that can help you deepen your contact with your own transformation during this liminal time:

What choice(s) do you want to make about how you are existing in this liminal space?

Often, the act of setting an intention becomes the catalyst that sets in motion the transformation and growth that are to follow.

You have a choice about how you co-exist with liminality. I’d encourage you – in whatever suffering you’re experiencing – to set your sights a little higher than just coping. There’s no pressure on you here. Remember, rather than doing, it’s about allowing and opening to what’s showing up for you right now.

The liminal space is about allowing yourself to inhabit what’s really uncomfortable and from there the transformation happens.

If you would like help, support, and guidance in moving through these struggles with skill, wisdom, mindfulness, and compassion (towards yourself and others) click here to book a free intro call with me to see if we’re a fit to work together.

You can click here to learn more about The 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program and for more about The Personal Transformation Program, click here. 

I wish you well on your journey,

Eric