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There can be two wolves at battle within you when it comes to actually making changes and moving forward in your life – and one of them can be hidden deep within you, out of plain sight where you could otherwise recognize and work with it more skillfully.

Let me explain.

Let’s say you decide to move forward in your life – to make a change, initiate something new or make your life better in some important way. 

Then you are hit by resistance. 

Doubts flood your mind, your inner critic starts yapping away, you feel blocked, conflicted and struggle ensues. Perhaps you self sabotage or maybe you just don’t take any action at all despite the fact that you really want the change. 

Nope – I haven’t gotten to the hidden wolf that’s working against you yet. Stay with me.

Perhaps the problem genuinely seems to be in the circumstances surrounding you: you lack the resources you need, the risks are too high, other people start interfering and make it hard for you to move forward and get even some small semblance of momentum. 

Maybe you want a great relationship, but you just can’t find the right partner. Or, you want a better job, but there aren’t any good ones. You want to be at a healthy weight but you just can’t shake the extra pounds around your midsection. 

Circumstances appear to be out of your control. Opportunities seem to be limited, or non-existent. 

You really want your life to be different and better in some specific way – you can envision a better life with more of what you want and less of what you don’t want.

It just doesn’t seem to be accessible to you because making real, substantial change and sustainable progress doesn’t happen even when you try your best.

Let me introduce you to your hidden “bad” wolf:

“Resistance to change does not reflect opposition, nor is it merely a result of inertia. Instead, even as [you] hold a sincere commitment to change, [you] are unwittingly applying productive energy toward a hidden competing commitment. The resulting dynamic equilibrium stalls the effort in what looks like resistance but is, in fact, a kind of personal immunity to change.”

Competing commitments.

That’s what this article from The Harvard Business Review calls your two battling wolves. 

Consciously, there’s something you want and have committed yourself to. Subconsciously there’s something else you want and have also committed yourself to.

The hidden wolf is lurking there, just under the surface of your consciousness, keeping you locked in inertia. 

The key to unlocking this inertia starts in bringing this subconscious commitment up into your consciousness so you can examine it and decide where (or if) it belongs in your life.

Here are a couple of examples from the HBR article.

Jane’s stated, conscious commitment has to do with turning around her department at work. She wants to do that. She’s committed to doing that. However, Jane lets things slide too often and is not proactive enough in getting people to follow through with their tasks. As it turns out, Jane is also subconsciously committed to not setting full sail until she has a clear map of how she gets the department from here to there. She assumes that if she takes her group out into deep waters and discovers she is unable to get them to the other side she will be seen as an incompetent leader who is undeserving of trust or responsibility.

Next, take Mary, for example. Mary’s conscious commitment is to distribute leadership by enabling people to make decisions. Despite that, she doesn’t delegate enough and she doesn’t pass the information she has on to people she distributes leadership to. Her subconscious, competing commitment is to having things go her way and being in control and ensuing the work is done to her standard. She assumes that other people will waste her time and theirs if she doesn’t step in. She thinks deep down that others aren’t as smart as she is.

Now, back to you. 

Maybe you want to make more money but you were taught early on that money is the root of all evil. Your subconscious commitment to being a good person (as it has been defined for you)  is keeping you locked in your current financial situation. 

Maybe you’d like to assert yourself in some way and draw clear, firm and healthy boundaries. But you also have a subconscious commitment to not creating separation with those around you and being nice and accommodating and helpful has been your modus operandi pretty much your whole life. 

How do you know if competing commitments are at work in your life?

Pay close attention. Would you like more in some area of your life but it feels out of reach? Do you self sabotage? Are you engaged in some form of perpetual procrastination? 

Mary O’Malley says that any thought that tightens you is not the truth. It’s from the conditioned self. When you consider your life through this lens, does tightness show up inside you? Do you feel like there’s an invisible block that exists between where you are and where you want to be?

These competing commitments can be barriers to realizing our fullness. 

They aren’t the only barrier, but they certainly can be one of them. 

How do you go about relaxing your barriers and questioning/dissolving your limiting competing commitments and beliefs?

I’ll teach you. 

The key to unlocking this inertia is to start bringing this subconscious commitment up into your consciousness so you can examine it and decide where (or if) it belongs in your life.

So, how do you do that?

By picking an area of your life and engaging in the following exercise of inquiry and exploration.

For some people and for some areas of life, doing this as a solo exercise works great. For others, working through these questions with a coach – someone who exists outside your own head and who has the skills to help guide you through mental blocks or biases – can be the key to unlocking your subconscious, accessing and identifying your competing commitments.

Ok, here are some areas of life you might consider:

My body • My health • My work • My financial situation • My sexuality • My circumstances • Handicaps, injuries, illnesses • My family • My relationships • Life • Death • The past • The future

To start, pick one and ask yourself these questions (which are based on the ones found in this HBR article), filling in the blank with the area of your life.

You might allocate some time to do this – to sit with these questions and see what comes up for you. Journaling can be really helpful here, too.

Let’s use work as the area of life and someone named Elisabeth (not a real person) as an example.

1. What would I like to be different about the work I’m engaged in? (so that I could be more effective or so that it would be more satisfying?)

In other words:

What precisely do I want in this area of my life? What do I want more of? Less of?

For example:

Elisabeth would like to devote more time to the work she does. Right now, she only devotes 5 hours a day to work. She knows if she worked 8 hours a day, she could be more successful.

2. This dissatisfaction with the way things are or wanting things to be different in this way implies something about you. What commitment does it imply?

In other words:

Why do I want that? What is the purpose behind my vision for this area of my life?

For example:

Elisabeth is committed to making her business a success. She is a high achiever.

3. What am I doing that goes against that commitment? What am I doing, or not doing, that is keeping my commitment from being more fully realized? (The answer to this question reveals your undermining behavior)

In other words:

What exactly do I need to do to achieve my answer to question #1? Am I actively and consistently doing those things now? If not, what am I doing instead that is preventing me from my desired outcome?

For example:

Elisabeth tends to take long breaks during her work day. She ends up meeting or talking with friends for longer than she planned.

4. If I imagine doing the opposite of the undermining behavior, do I detect in myself any discomfort, worry, or vague fear?

In other words:

What do you think would happen if you did not do the behavior(s) you identified in question 3? If you did the opposite of the undermining behavior, what would worry you about this?

For example:

Elisabeth worries that if she doesn’t actively work at staying connected with the people in her life, they will lose touch and she will become isolated.

5. What does this worry imply that you’re also committed to?

In other words:

By engaging in this undermining behavior, what worrisome outcome are you committed to preventing? The resulting answer is the competing commitment, which lies at the very heart of a person’s immunity to change.

For example:

Elisabeth is committed to connecting with others and being a good, dependable friend.

Bingo. There’s your competing commitment.

So, now what? Where do you go with it from here? How does this help you move forward?

Well, we’re not quite done yet.

Here’s how the HBR article puts it:

“Competing commitments should not be seen as weaknesses. They represent some version of self-protection, a perfectly natural and reasonable human impulse. The question is, if competing commitments are a form of self-protection, what are people protecting themselves from? The answers usually lie in what we call their big assumptions—deeply rooted beliefs about themselves and the world around them. These assumptions put an order to the world and at the same time suggest ways in which the world can go out of order. Competing commitments arise from these assumptions, driving behaviors unwittingly designed to keep the picture intact.

People rarely realize they hold big assumptions because, quite simply, they accept them as reality. Often formed long ago and seldom, if ever, critically examined, big assumptions are woven into the very fabric of people’s existence.

Only by bringing big assumptions to light can people finally challenge their assumptions and recognize why they are engaging in seemingly contradictory behavior.”

So, the next step is to identify your big assumption(s) and it’s a critical next step.

If you think metaphorically, up until this point, we’ve cut the weed off at the ground level. But if you stop there, the weed just grows back. You’ve got to pull it up by the roots and it’s the same way with beliefs. They’ll keep reappearing if you don’t go down underground into your subconscious mind and pull them up for examination.

And I will teach you how to do that.

It’s important to know that these blocks, barriers and sources of resistance are natural and automatic. Everyone faces them. They’re part of how the mind works to try and keep us safe and not something to get down on yourself about.

If, deep down, we are holding on to some sort of unresolved fear or pain – if we think there’s some sort of danger, it’s only natural that our minds would conspire to protect us, to keep us safe.

The key to moving forward rather than staying stuck is to identify, investigate and re-define competing commitments and underlying assumptions or beliefs.

So, let’s find out about Elisabeth’s underlying assumption.

To do this, we invert her answer to question five and make it into the beginning of a sentence that is an assumption. So it would read:

I assume that if I was not dependable and useful, available when my friends need me or want to connect with me, they will find other friends and I will be left alone.

As it turns out, most of the time, her friends call needing to vent or process or seek advice from her because of something going on in their lives. This, combined with her desire to be a dependable shoulder to lean on, leaves her feeling like she has to hustle for her worthiness in these friendships.

Ah ha. The weed has now been dug up by the roots.

But it would be a mistake to stop here. Continuing with the metaphor, what will we plant in its place?

A process of questioning your underlying assumption and then trying some different, more skillful approaches will help you form new more accurate and helpful beliefs.

That’s work that we can do together as part of The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program. 

Click here to learn more.

If you’re interested in going deeper into this work together, you can book a free 30 minute coaching call to see if the program might be a fit for you.

Whether or not you’re interested in taking that step, I’ll close this post by offering some questions you can continue to ponder, to sit with, and explore within yourself surrounding whatever underlying assumption(s) or belief(s) you have uncovered through this process of self inquiry.

The following questions come from the work of Lion Goodman:

• What has been the advantage of having this belief? How has it served me in my life? What did I get or gain by having this belief? What did I avoid by having this belief?
• What would be different in my life if I held a different belief?
• Would I be willing to try on a different belief? Who would I be without this belief?
• What belief could I replace it with that would be more positive, beneficial, and empowering in my life?

In one of her dharma talks, Tara Brach introduced the inquiry, “Who would you be if you weren’t blaming anybody anymore? Am I willing to see myself and/or others differently?”

I have heard Glennon Doyle pose the question, “How would our lives transform if we stopped being so afraid of pain? What if we decided we were strong enough for it and stopped hiding from it?”

I hope this post has been helpful for you in some way.

Wishing you well.

Do you have a “someday but not today” version of yourself that you imagine?

The “today” version of yourself is doing all you can just to meet the demands of your daily life. And there are a lot of them. It takes all you’ve got to be all of the places you have to be and do all of the things you have to do and you don’t have much to spare after it’s all said and done. 

The “someday” version of yourself, however, is living more fully into daily life. 

“Someday” you is not completely and utterly taxed by the demands of daily life. In fact, you are able to do what needs to be done AND THEN SOME. Your life has things that enrich you in it. Things that fill you up, that you enjoy and that allow you to put your unique gifts more fully out into to the world. You’re not merely surviving, you’re truly thriving and you, along with everything around you, are better because of it.

Here’s the problem with having these two versions of yourself: Someday may never come. 

First of all, it certainly won’t come on it’s own. It doesn’t arrive at your doorstep ready for you to step into and live at ease in. You actively and intentionally create this version of your life – amidst the craziness of today.

Secondly, this moment – this day – really is all that we have. We don’t know if we will have another moment or another day or another year. We all know of people that this has been true for. 

And a life only partially lived to its potential is a tragic thing to witness. An even more tragic thing to live out in your own life.

The key to living the “someday” life today lies in having a healthy lifestyle with healthy habits that support your mental, spiritual and physical well being. 

Some call it self care and it looks different for everyone based on their unique selves and their unique life.

My girlfriend (she and I care for her mother who has Alzheimer’s) sent this in her email to a friend whose spouse was recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s:

“Self-care is often hard for me to practice because when someone else’s well being is your responsibility, it feels like you’re doing wrong by them to prioritize yourself – at least that’s what I’ve found. However, that’s not the case -if I’m not taking care of myself (in the way I eat, exercising, meditating, having time off from caring for Mom, connecting with others etc) then the care I give her plummets. So, I remind myself that my well being AND her well being depend on my ability to set boundaries for myself which enable me to practice good self-care.”

Can you relate to this? 

Perhaps you’re not caring for someone else.

Have you ever stopped to think about how much better your OWN life could be if you had a healthy lifestyle with the right self care practices in place for the unique you? How would it boost your presence, engagement, and performance in life? 

I’ve seen it time and time again in my private coaching clients – when, despite all of the demands that are in place, a person is able to build in the practices that support and nourish their well being, the way they show up for their own life is elevated, taken to the next level and then the one after that.

Not only have I seen it in my coaching clients, this has been my own experience and part of my own story. 

A few months ago we shared an article from Spirituality and Health Magazine in our Newsletter. It explored the idea of Self Care vs Soft Care and it said:

“We often think of self care as something we do only when we’re stressed, in grief, or otherwise hurting, but it’s really something we have to be doing every single day in order to honor the one relationship we’ll have until the day we die: our relationship with ourselves. Self care is the foundation of self love.”

“The danger with self care is that it’s easy to conflate with self-indulgence, selfishness, or what’s sometimes called “soft care.” Soft care is those actions we take that make us feel better in the moment but don’t actually serve our best good.”

“True self-care doesn’t cost much aside from the basic necessities of having a warm, safe place to be in and healthy food to nourish our bodies with. Prioritizing time to rest, nourish ourselves, and process our emotions helps us stay honest with ourselves so we know whether or not we’re in self care or soft care (and there’s nothing wrong with a little soft care when you need it!). Truly nonviolent self-care is a radical commitment to our own self love and thus the possibility for growth.”

Your “someday” life doesn’t just happen to you. You have to create it.

How do you go about creating it amidst all of the many very real demands of life that exist right now?

I’ll teach you.

There’s something that, if you get clear on, can go a long way in bringing someday into today. 

That something is the way you organize your time and tasks – aligning them with your values and goals. 

Very often, people think that they don’t have time for the things they need or want to do when in reality, it’s not a time problem it’s a prioritization problem. 

Having a strategy and a system to help you prioritize and plan can truly transform your day to day life. Our lives are nothing more than a series of days – so how you structure and prioritize your time during these days will determine the quality of your life. 

One strategy that I have found to be particularly powerful is The Eisenhower Decision Matrix – sometimes called the Urgent Important Matrix.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix helps you decide on and prioritize tasks by urgency and importance, sorting out less urgent and important tasks which you should either delegate, limit or not do at all.

The matrix consists of a square divided into four boxes, or quadrants, labeled:

1. Urgent and important (tasks you will do immediately).
2. Important, but not urgent (tasks you will schedule to do later).
3. Urgent, but not important (tasks you will delegate to someone else).
4. Neither urgent nor important (tasks you will eliminate).

Urgent tasks are things that require immediate attention. Time is the factor that pushes things into and out of the urgent category. If a task must be done soon, that makes it an urgent task. Urgent tasks put us in a reactive mode and stress often accompanies living in a state of reactivity.

Important tasks are things that contribute to our long-term mission, values, and goals.  As former guest of the show, James Clear , says:

“…It can be hard to [determine whether or not a task is important] if you aren’t sure what you are working toward. In my experience, there are two questions that can help clarify the entire process behind the Eisenhower Box.

Those two questions are:

1. What am I working toward?
2. What are the core values that drive my life?”

What quadrant are you currently spending most of your time in?

Ideally, it’s box or quadrant 2.

The Eisenhower Decision Matrix isn’t a perfect tool and it’s not the only tool but it is one that can really help you think about your time and tasks differently. 

Many people need help in jumpstarting a reorganization or re-creation of their day to day lives. 

That’s where I come in. 

Through The One You Feed Transformation Program, I help people get clear on their core values, goals and things that they want and need more or less of in their life. Very often, they need help learning how to say no to some things so they can say yes to others. 

We work together to build in sustainable self-care practices, for example, to support a healthy lifestyle so that they have the resources to show up fully in their life, not depleted but instead from a place of abundance.

Then, we work together to put those things into action and as a result, real and lasting transformation happens. 

See, we can’t get to where we want to go in life alone. That truth doesn’t make you deficient in some way – it makes you human and fighting it only sets you back in life. 

You can live your someday life today. 

I work with people 1-on-1 in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program  to make the changes they want to make in order to live their lives in line with their highest self and fullest potential. 

You can live your someday life today. And I can help you make that happen. 

Wishing you all the best,

At first glance, procrastination seems like something that’s simply a nuisance in our lives. 

Maybe we’d put procrastination in the bucket of our less-than-desirable-but-no-big-deal personality traits.

But what if it actually IS a big deal? 

What if the impact that procrastination has on our lives is more widespread and more profound than we’ve ever really stopped to consider?

I think after reading this post, you’ll see procrastination in a whole new light and you may feel a stronger conviction to address it as it shows up in your own life. 

Let me explain.

Back in December, we released an episode of the show in which I talked to Professor Tim Pychyl all about procrastination.

Professor Pychyl says that when we procrastinate, we are putting off our lives. He says:

“It is in the getting on with life that makes procrastination in a very real sense is an existential issue of not getting on with life itself….It’s not about becoming an uber productive money making machine – it’s about living the life [you] want to, achieving the goals [you] want to achieve rather than stewing in [your] own juices of guilt and shame which so commonly accompany procrastination.”

When you put off a task, you are delaying forward motion in your life. You are delaying progress towards moving to and through your goals, however big or small they might be. 

And, though momentarily it may feel like a relief to procrastinate something, inevitably it ends up feeling like a weight on our shoulders. 

Perhaps we end up in dread about that thing we know we need to do but aren’t doing. Feelings like guilt or feeling down on oneself for continuing to procrastinate something that’s important inevitably follow. 

When we make a promise to ourselves to do something and we break that promise, it corrodes our sense of self-respect. Think of when you keep a promise you make to yourself – doesn’t it feel good deep down? 

When there’s something we need to do and we don’t do it, it just feels awful.

Like another “Tim”, Tim Urban of the blog Wait But Why, says that when we procrastinate something we know needs to get done in order to do some things that seem more enjoyable, we actually don’t fully enjoy doing those pleasurable things. He calls this place “the dark playground”. We are on a “playground” engaging in enjoyable activities but we aren’t there with the feeling of total freedom because we know we’ve got this other thing looming over our heads.

So, not only are we not “getting on with our life” when we procrastinate, we are also polluting the potential for pleasure in the other moments of our life. 

But that’s not all – the impact of procrastination goes even further.

The fact is, procrastination causes stress. You probably know this to be true in your own life and there’s plenty of scientific research that affirms your experience. We all know by know that chronic stress is linked to all kinds of health problems. You don’t want cortisol pumping through your body for extended periods of time. 

In addition, procrastination is linked to fewer wellness behaviors and treatment delay. Think about it: you don’t want to go to the doctor so you put it off. Diagnosis and treatment are then delayed and that can seriously compromise the effectiveness of the treatment.

Here’s the good news:

The antidotes to procrastination are amazingly simple, doable and effective. 

I work with my private clients on implementing these very practical techniques all the time. 

And I’m going to share them with you. 

Let me teach you 4 simple techniques.

The first technique can be summed up as: Don’t give in to feel good now because giving in now has a future cost.

As Professor Tim Pychyl says, procrastination is actually a form of self-regulation failure. 

When you are tempted to procrastinate it’s because you’re having an emotional reaction to a task; Specifically, the “I don’t want to, I don’t feel like it” reaction. Perhaps the task makes you feel anxious, stressed, bored or full of dread and it’s human nature to want to avoid things that feel bad. 

Avoidance is what Professor Pychyl calls an “emotion focused coping strategy”. But it’s a misregulation of emotion because we’re not really going to feel better in the long run. It’s just that the moment we get rid of the task we feel better, creating a habit.

And it’s the feeling better the moment we put something off that contributes to our bias when it comes to thinking about the future. 

There’s this thing called Affective Forecasting. Essentially, we rely on the present to predict the future. The moment you decide “no I’m not going to do this today” you feel good. So then when you use that momentary feeling to predict how you’re going to feel tomorrow, you think you’ll feel like it tomorrow. 

But you won’t. You won’t feel any more like doing it tomorrow than you do today. And that’s the truth.

“If you have to swallow a frog, don’t stare at it too long.” 

– Mark Twain

In fact, you’ll feel the weight of this task until you do it. Remember the “dark playground”?  That’s where you’ll be until you do the thing that you need to do. 

The second technique has to do with ambiguity. It’s a common cause of procrastination. 

If you don’t know what the specific next action to take is, you’ll procrastinate. 

Often what we have on our to do lists are projects, like “host dinner party” or “get ready for upcoming trip”. The thing is, we don’t DO projects. We DO tasks. We take actions. What’s the next action?

For “host dinner party” the next action might be, “look at calendar to find a date to host dinner party”. Another action might be “make a list of people to invite” or “decide what to cook”. Those are specific tasks within the project of hosting a dinner party. 

There’s another piece to this technique. 

Once you’ve identified the specific action you need to take, you need to plan when (and possibly where, if that applies) you’ll do it. 

Consider attaching the action to something else in your schedule. 

For example: tomorrow morning after you walk the dog, you’re going to sit at the kitchen table and spend 5 minutes making a list of people you want to invite to your dinner party. 

When it comes to taking the next right action, research shows if you know the specific what, when and where you’re 5x more likely to do it. That’s 500%. That warrants giving this technique a try, doesn’t it?

If you have an action or a task on your to do list and you approach it using these first 2 techniques, you’re less likely to keep procrastinating.

But not always.

That’s where the third and fourth techniques come in.

The third technique, simply put is: Just get started. Even if you don’t feel like it.

“What saves a man is to take a step. Then another step.”

Antoine De Saint-Exupery

See, momentum is a powerful thing. Once you start something, momentum will propel you forward. 

The resistance you feel in getting started will not be there every step of the way. It gets easier to keep moving once you just take the first step and actually get moving. 

Sometimes you have to trick yourself into getting started by making the first step really, really small and allowing yourself to only do that one small thing. If you do that small thing and want to stop afterwards, you can stop. 

I use this strategy all the time when it comes to working out. I tell myself that all I have to do is put my workout clothes on. Then, after I’ve done that, I tell myself that all I have to do is drive to the gym, etc until inevitably, I’ve made it through the workout. It gets easier once I just get started. 

Here’s a critical piece to this technique: Somehow, we get the idea that we have to be motivated or have the energy in the moment in order to do something. We assume that feeling like it precedes taking action. 

But in reality, that doesn’t always happen. Especially with tasks that we tend to want to procrastinate. 

Getting started or taking an action leads to the motivation or momentum to continue doing it. 

“If you want to do something, begin it, because action has magic, grace, and power in it.”

Goethe

Thinking we have to be in the “mood” to do something is fundamental contributor to procrastination.

Ok, the fourth and final technique is: Remember your motivation. 

And it helps if your motivation is an intrinsic one rather than an extrinsic one. 

An intrinsic motivation is one that comes from within you. It’s yours. You authored it. You want it. It’s personally satisfying to you.   

An extrinsic motivation is one that comes from outside of you. Someone else authored it and now you think you should want it. There’s usually a form of getting a reward or avoiding a punishment associated with extrinsic motivations. 

Here’s an example: 

Let’s say you are the one who is responsible for making sure your spouse and/or kids have something to eat at meal time. 

An example of extrinsic motivation when it comes to a healthy dinner would be because you heard a segment on the news about the importance of healthy eating at home. 

There’s an expert telling you it’s important. You get that it’s “the right thing to do”. 

But, at the end of a busy day when you have to muster up the energy to make that happen and it takes some effort, you cave in and drive through McDonalds on the way home. 

An example of intrinsic motivation in that scenario would be that it’s connected to the value you hold deep within you of making sure your family has nutritious, healthy food to eat each day. 

Perhaps you didn’t have that as a child and as a result, you struggled with your weight, were made fun of and you don’t want that for your kids. 

Or, perhaps your father died from heart disease which was connected to his poor diet and you want to do all you can to avoid that same destiny. 

So, at the end of a busy day, you remember that and push through, making the effort to ensure what’s on the dinner plate is healthy and nutritious.

Remembering your why when things get tough is often just what you need to act according to your values rather than according to how you feel in the moment.  

If you would like help applying and implementing these concepts in your life to help you make progress towards your goals, I can help you.

I work with people 1-on-1 in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program to make the changes they want to make in order to get on with the living of their lives – the living of their lives that’s in line with their highest self and fullest potential. 

To learn more and book a free 30 minute coaching call with me, click here.

“Don’t let perfectionism become an excuse for never getting started.”

Marilu Henner

Here’s to getting on with life.

I’ve heard from many of the listeners of the show that they’d like to be more skillful with the way they experience and deal with difficult emotions.

We all feel unpleasant emotions and sometimes they can really get the better of us. 

In addition to just feeling awful, fueled by these feelings we then often act in ways we later regret – like emotional eating, saying unkind words, physically acting out, or turning to substances to numb the pain.

If you can relate, then this post is for you. Read on.

The good news is there is a way to move through these difficult feelings so that you actually get more in touch with yourself and later appreciate (rather than regret)  the way you decided to act (or not act) at the time.

This process is called emotional regulation and it’s all about helping us to be driven to action (or inaction) by our values, rather than by our emotions. 

There are four parts to The One You Feed’s model for emotional regulation.

The first part is to Realize You’re Triggered. 

By triggered, I mean, that you are feeling an unpleasant emotion.

This may sound obvious or too simple of a thing to do to merit its own step in this process but it is an essential step and one that has to happen in order for anything else to go right.

Once we notice and acknowledge that we’re feeling triggered, we can begin to work with the feeling(s) and thoughts that are going on inside of us. But if we don’t notice that we’re triggered, we often jump right to action, sometimes without even realizing that we’re being driven by a bad feeling. 

For example, let’s look at a couple of scenarios around emotional eating.

Scenario #1: You might notice that you’re feeling sad and so you think – I’ll comfort myself with food. 

Scenario #2: The first thing you might consciously notice is that you are really craving a piece of cake. From that point on, you are addressing the craving for cake – should you have some or not, can you resist the temptation. It’s all about the cake at this point –  or is it?

If you were to back up a minute and connect with your emotions, you might have first noticed that you were feeling bored and blue. And what’s a quick fix to stop feeling bored and blue? The serotonin and dopamine boost that comes with eating sugar. So, the first thing that surfaces into your consciousness is the action of eating something with sugar in it. Blowing right past the unpleasant emotion and right to action. (And, an action that you might regret later.)

This applies to any action that would serve to numb or discharge a difficult emotion. If you feel an impulse to act, pause first and check-in with yourself to see if, in fact, you are actually feeling a difficult emotion beneath that inclination to do something. 

At this point, it’s important to commit to non-action until you’ve worked through the 4 steps of this model of emotional regulation.

You may experience strong emotion when triggered and though it can be uncomfortable, know that you can be emotionally uncomfortable for these 10 minutes or so. Emotions aren’t emergencies. As Julie Simon puts it:

“Stop, slow down, and make the conscious choice to delay gratification for ten minutes. Say to yourself, “I am willing to be uncomfortable for ten minutes so that I can reach my goals.” Remind yourself, “I can endure discomfort for a short while. It’s not a root canal or childbirth!”

So, part 1 is to Realize You’re Triggered. Literally say to yourself, “I’m feeling ______”. 

At this stage, you may know the name for the emotion or you may just know that you feel bad. Either way, acknowledge it by filling in that blank. 

The second part of the process is to Feel/Address the Emotion.

After you Realize You’re Triggered, you might then sense that the feeling(s) can be really intense and you can feel overwhelmed or hijacked by a strong surge of unpleasant emotion(s). In this case, you’ll want to engage in some form of self-soothing practices.

If you can remove yourself from the situation that triggered you at this point, that can be really helpful. 

Here are some ideas for self-soothing practices according to Julie Simon:

• “Breathe deeply
• Snuggle up with a beloved pet
• Listen to comforting music, uplifting audio messages or affirmations
• Read comforting passages
• Play a musical instrument or sing
• Do yoga or stretching exercises
• Take a walk or hike in natural surroundings
• View or create artwork
• Write about your feelings
• Meditate”

Once you feel less emotionally overwhelmed, you can move into a skillful experiencing of your emotions. 

The following exercise, RAIN, will help you to do this. 

Maybe you already know about RAIN – but are you actually doing it? For it to work, you have to engage with it so I’d encourage you to bring it into your life at moments of strong emotion.

RAIN

Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture

1. Recognize: Ask yourself, “What emotions am I experiencing in this moment?”  Go ahead and say to yourself, “I feel (name your emotion(s).” 
2. Allow: Give yourself permission to feel all of these feelings and sensations. Breathe through them. A helpful phrase can be, “It’s ok to feel _______.”
3. Investigate: Get curious about your experience with the emotion. Pay attention to your bodily sensations. Just notice what you’re feeling. What does it feel like to feel angry? Where is the emotion showing up in your body? What bodily sensations are you experiencing? Tightness in your chest? Clenching at your jaw? Do a mental body scan to find out.
4. Nurture: Bring some kindness and compassion to your experience. Pretend you are a mother talking to her child, or an older version of yourself talking to your present self. A benefit of this step is to create a safe psychological space in which you can work. Some helpful phrases can be “This feeling belongs” or “I’m so sorry you are feeling sad” or “It’s understandable you would be angry right now”. 

Former guest, Tara Brach, teaches the method RAIN as a way to experience difficult emotions.

Now that you’ve made skillful contact with your emotion(s), you are better able to identify and work with the thoughts that exist. And that is what part 3 in the process will help you to do. 

Part 3 is to Untangle Your Thoughts.

As in part 2, there is a specific exercise here that will help you to untangle your thoughts. But before jumping into the exercise, it’s important to understand the framework you’re working within.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy explains the way we process life experiences through the framework of Activating events, Beliefs, and Consequences.

A​ctivating event → ​Be​liefs → C​onsequences

The ​activating event​ is the instigator in the equation. It’s any kind of stimulus which you perceive that goes on to activate a series of thoughts and emotions within you.

Then, there’s the belief​ – i.e. what ​you think about​ the activating event or situation.

Following the belief, come the ​consequences​. The consequences are the emotions you feel and/or the behaviors you engage in as a result of the activating event and belief. 

Putting it all together: something happens, you have a thought about it and then you have a feeling about it or you take an action on it. A  → ​B  → ​C. 

Ok, on to the exercise to untangle your thoughts: Cognitive Journaling

This is modeled on a method devised by Richard Ragnarson.

I’m going to pair this exercise down to its core components. If you would like to know more about how to practice Cognitive Journaling in your own life, I help people do that through The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program and you can schedule a free 30-minute call with me here https://ericzimmer.coach/ to see if the program might be a fit for you.

Cognitive Journaling 

1. Step 1 is to write down the consequence; in other words, write down the emotion or behavior you’d like to reflect upon. 

(Note: We’re working backwards through the  A → ​B → ​C equation in this exercise, starting with “C”.)

1. Step 2 is to describe the activating event; in other words, write down a description of the instigating situation. 

1. Step 3 is to find out the belief. To do so, write down the answers to the following questions to discover what the activating event meant to you: 

1. What did this event mean for me at the moment?
2. Why did I feel this emotion or behave that way?
3. What did I think following the event that could have caused that feeling/behavior?
4. What was my thought at the moment of the event?

1. Step 4 is to challenge the belief; in other words, using a perspective of doubt and skepticism, question the validity of the belief.  To do so, write down the answers to the following questions:

1. Is it based on sound logic?
2. Is it falsifiable?
3. Is it useful?
4. Does it make me more flexible or is it rigid or extreme?
5. Do I have proof of it?
6. Is the belief useful?

If your belief is good, each answer should be a yes. If you answer even one no, you can go on to ask these questions:

1. How can I demonstrate this?
2. Does this belief help me feel good and achieve my objective?
3. Is this fear really that terrible? What’s the worst that can happen?
4. How likely is my projection?
5. Why should things not be like this?
6. Is it really possible to have the world go according to my wishes?

1. Step 5 is to form a replacement belief. Here you’ll brainstorm up to three new beliefs that are flexible, logical, helpful/supportive of your wellbeing, falsifiable/objectively true/congruent with reality. 

1. Ask yourself, “what is an alternative thought that can I think?”
2. For each thought, determine if it fits with the activating event and identify what emotion it causes in you.

Part 4 is to Act According to Your Values.

Now, it’s time to determine the “right action” for the situation based on your values (rather than your emotions). This approach is called ​Values Based Action​. 

In their book, Emotion Efficacy Therapy, Matthew McKay and Aprilia West explain Values Based Action this way:

“Values-based action (VBA) is defined as any behavior that is in alignment with or expresses value for the context of the situation. VBA is an alternative to acting on painful emotions. ​VBA can also be defined as behavior that takes one’s life in a direction that matters, that’s in alignment with what feels important and right for the situation. ​Clarifying values across life domains is the first step to being able to identify VBA in the moment of choice.

1. Step 1: ​In your journal, identify your core values that guide (or that you would like to guide) your life’s decisions.

1. Step 2: ​Consider the situation at hand and list which value(s) apply or are relevant.

1. Step 3:​ Identify specific values-based actions that allow you to express yourself —in the moment of choice—in a manner consistent with your values.”

When working here to determine “right action”, it can be helpful to take on the voice and perspective of a wise older version of yourself, a kind friend who also holds you accountable or a loving yet firm parent.

The goal of The One You Feed emotional regulation process is to help you work more skillfully through the space between the moment you feel triggered and the moment when you decide to act (or decide not to act), so that you can ultimately act according to your values, rather than acting according to your emotions.

If you would like to have your values drive your actions rather than your emotions – in other words, you realize that having your emotions run your life will not lead to the quality of life you’d like to have – then this process will help you get there. 

Would you like some additional help in applying this 4 step model to your life? 

I help people every day to do just that – and more – in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program. 

In this program, I work 1-on-1 with you to help you uncover what is standing between where you are now and where you’d like to be in your life. Then we work together to create and implement a plan to get you to your goal. 

You don’t have to go it alone and some would argue that you can’t. Whether it’s me or someone else in your life, having someone to support and guide you on the path to a better version of yourself – and thereby a better life – can be the difference between another failed attempt and a new reality for you.

You can learn more about the program here or go ahead and connect with me for a free 30-minute call to see if we’re a fit here.

Wishing you all well.

As a coach, I have the unique perspective of seeing firsthand that people are not alone in their struggles.

The details may differ from person to person, but often, many of my clients share a common struggle, pitfall or source of derailment in their efforts to build a better life for themselves and stay on track.

I’ll bet many of you can relate to this particular scenario that I’ve been working on with several of my clients lately:

Let’s say you set out to start and maintain an exercise routine. 

A slight feeling of trepidation stirs in your stomach because this isn’t your first time (or second time, or third time…) setting out to create and sustain this habit and you have some doubt in your ability to be successful this time.

The first 7 days, you do great. You execute your plan flawlessly, doing each workout you planned to do each day. You’re feeling great about yourself.

Then, life happens – specifically, a day when just about everything went wrong and you felt lousy and you didn’t do your exercise as planned.

Feeling defeated, the next day you miss again and by the third day, this dreaded thought triumphs:

“See, I knew it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to stick with it. Other people seem to be able to stick to a workout routine, but not me. I’m just not cut out for it.”

I’ll bet you can relate to – if not that exact scenario, some variation of it. Specifically, that pattern of not executing your plan perfectly, getting frustrated with yourself and then getting derailed because of it.

But this path can be avoided altogether with a two-part approach. I’ve seen it work time and time again with my coaching clients.

The first part has to do with adjusting your mindset from the beginning.

As you set out to execute your plan, you need to know that you will miss a day or more of your new habit or routine. Everyone misses and it’s to be expected.

Since it’s an inevitability, a good plan takes that into account and makes provisions for it.

The easiest formula to use is the if…then… formula.

IF you miss a day, THEN you will make your workout the #1 priority for the next day and everything else takes a back seat until it’s done.

-or   – 

IF you miss more than 3 days in a row, THEN you will start back on day 4 but instead of doing 45 minutes on the elliptical, you’ll do 25 minutes so that you don’t absolutely hobble your way through the next day, making it harder to hop back on the machine again.

Whatever the habit is, ask yourself, “what’s the next right step at that point to keep the new habit alive?” and bake that into your plan.

Make a plan for when life gets in the way and you miss a point of execution in your plan.

The second part of the approach – and it’s a critical one – has to do with adjusting your self talk when you miss a day.

See, you need to know that missing is not a sign of failure or your lack of ability.  

So, let’s adjust your self talk when it happens.

Rather than thinking, “I knew I’d fail, I’m a failure, I can’t do this”, try dropping the emotional value or story that you attach to your behavior.

A more helpful thought might be, “Well, like everyone does, I got off track and I have a plan for what to do in just this scenario.” or another really useful thought is “What can I learn from this?”

This destructive line of thinking is so ubiquitous that scientists have a name for it:

The confirmation bias.

In other words, we find what we expect to find.

So, if you start out thinking that you’re going to fail, you’ll look for evidence to support your conclusion all along the way. So, you see a miss as a sign of failure. It gets written into your story that way. The end.

So let’s stay one step ahead of our human tendencies. Let’s realize human nature and plan for the inevitable reality of life.

That’s how you can set yourself up for success.

Another piece of the puzzle is accountability and support for when you miss in your routine. 

That’s one of the benefits of working with me 1-on-1 in The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program. 

When you miss, we look at what happened together and adapt the plan to account for the unique challenges in your life.

With daily email check-ins, we get to adjust things in real-time together. You’re not in it alone. That makes a real difference.

If you’re interested in learning more about The One You Feed Personal Transformation Program, click here.

I’ll teach you the #1 technique I teach all my coaching clients – for free.

Do you know about the program already and want to book a free 30-minute intro call with me to see if it might be a fit for you? Click here.

Wishing you all the best.