episode 133: three skills to help make change easier
For the first time ever I’ve done a sequel to a previous week’s episode!
So if you haven’t listened to episode 132 yet, go back and do that first—so you can get the most out of this 2 part series.
Last week was all about the instant gratification trap—why you get stuck in it and why it’s keeping you from making the changes you want to make around fat loss, body confidence, changing eating habits, and improving body image issues.
Today I’m talking about 3 specific skills you can use in the moment to resist getting pulled in by the shiny, comforting, relieving allure of instant gratification. Because let’s keep it real—it’s not easy to resist and it will always be easier to just give in. There’s a lot of discomfort that comes up when you try to avoid instant gratification—and that’s what we’re getting into in episode 133.
I’m talking through specific skills that will help you learn how to tolerate that discomfort so you can make choices that line up with your values and goals—because that’s the only way you’ll make the changes you want to make around body confidence, improving body image issues and fat loss and have them stick, for life.
The three skills I’m sharing are tangible, accessible anytime, anyplace and will totally change the way you think about motivation and will power.
This blog post is another great resource for learning simple skills to help you feel better about how your body looks….without a diet.
Add your name to the early interest list for the Fall Mini Retreat here!
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[00:00:00] Hi friends. It's episode 1 33 of The Diet Diaries. I'm recording this directly after I recorded last week's episode 1 32. So if you happen to watch this on YouTube, which I don't think many people are, that's why I'm wearing the same clothes, same hair, cuz Larry, five minutes later, um, I was gonna wait, maybe do this follow up episode a little later on, but I'm like, you know what the ideas are in my head right now.
[00:00:22] Let's keep these tight together. So they become kind of like a, like a part A and a part B, part one, part two, sequel. Original, whatever, and this is gonna be pretty short cuz I'm gonna give you three specific skills. This is a follow up to last week's episode around discomfort, frontloading discomfort, delaying gratification, and how not to fall into the instant gratification trap.
[00:00:46] All just different ways of saying the same thing. A client articulated as. Suck now so it doesn't suck later. And I love that too. That's like the really human way of saying it, right? Front loading discomfort is kind of like the technical coaching, therapeutic term, instant gratification is kind of like a catchall.
[00:01:05] So when you feel the urge, To do something or not do something that you know is not in alignment with what you are working on and your values that you know after you do it is going to make you feel crappy. But that urge feels so strong that you don't know if you can like not sit with it, right? That you need to find relief from that, even if it means feeling crappy later on.
[00:01:33] Right? So finding comfort now. So then you'll deal with the discomfort later. We're trying to deal with discomfort now to get comfort later. Again, that quick recap, that's how change happens. Changes not happen through constantly giving into instrument gratification. It happens through delaying gratification for sitting in discomfort now sitting in the quote, suck now so that you can have comfort later so it doesn't suck later.
[00:01:59] So three skills that you can use. To help to learn to tolerate that discomfort because it's hard. It's hard. I'm not saying it's easy to like feel the urge to go eat all the leftover cookies in the cabinet. Know that that's really not gonna feel good in an hour, and just be like, oh, great. Now it's no problem.
[00:02:17] Like, I know it's not gonna feel good an hour, so I just won't do it. Like, no, that's just not how it works. It's gonna feel really uncomfortable not to do that, even though you know the outcome isn't good. One set a timer. I have many clients who have used this skill and it works really well. I have used this personally as well.
[00:02:34] Set a timer on your phone for any amount of time. It could be a minute, it could be two minutes, it could be 10 minutes. So it gives you some structure, it gives you some boundaries, and you know that that timer's gonna go off, right? So it's not like you're sitting in discomfort forever. You set the timer.
[00:02:53] Notice kind of what are the physical sensations that come up, come up? What are the thoughts that are coming up when the timer goes off? Reevaluate, where are you at? Is the urge as strong? Do you still want the thing or not want to do the thing? Whatever it is. Like if it's like you said you were gonna go to the gym and now you're like, I don't wanna go set a timer, and a minute after like a minute, two minutes, what are your feelings?
[00:03:17] If it's still as strong, you can set the timer again and sit in that discomfort again. You can also choose to do or not do the thing, right? That is always an option. But either way, what you have done is you have increased your window of tolerance. You have proven to yourself that you do not have to do or not do that thing.
[00:03:34] The immediate moment that you have the reaction to do or not do it, you can in fact sit with it and be uncomfortable. You can delay the gratification and that is really meaningful. So baseline. Even if you end up doing the thing you didn't wanna do, okay, you're human. That's going to happen probably a lot of the time.
[00:03:55] You have also proven to yourself that you can sit with it and delay it, which means that you can then over time learn to delay it further, right? If you were able to delay it in a minute or two minutes, you build that up slowly over time. Each time this happens, you set the timer a little bit longer, and what will happen is you will go five minutes, 10 minutes, a half an hour without that thing, and then you'll be like, I don't actually need this thing.
[00:04:18] I can actually sit in that discomfort and I don't need it. That's what happens. As you stretch out the timing, you may find that setting the timer, you're like, oh, you know what? The urge kind of passed. I don't actually need that thing. Or, you know what? I'm actually just gonna go do it. I've had a chance to kind of think through, and I know I want to go do this thing.
[00:04:35] Right? I'm kind of thinking about that in terms of like going to exercise. If you've made a commitment that you're going to go for a walk or go lift weights or go to a class, whatever it is, That's number one. Set a timer. Number two is a little bit more of a somatic exercise. It's a little bit more of an internal exercise.
[00:04:50] I'm kind of giving you a, a mix of options here. Pick one out of these three to practice. You don't need to do all three, and that is a bit of a body scan technique, but really specific. Feel your feet on the ground. Or wherever they are. Wiggle your toes. What part of your foot do you feel connected to the ground?
[00:05:08] What part of your foot do you not feel connected to the ground? Can you press your feet into the ground and really feel that connection? Right? This, the point of this is to give your brain something else to pay attention to. Not to that discomfort, not to that thing that you want or don't want to do.
[00:05:25] Right. The timer's different. You're probably gonna be thinking about it the whole time. The timer's going, this gives you a bit of a distraction. We're not ignoring it. We're just shifting our awareness and our attention to something else, to something physical. And again, when it proves to you that you can sit in that it proves to you that you can pay attention to something else and it gives you some of that space and time.
[00:05:45] So after you've done this, you can then come back and see, reevaluate, where am I at? Is that urge as strong? Okay. Maybe I'd do that again. Maybe I feel my feet on the ground again. Maybe now I set a timer, right? You can pick one, you can combine. These are different techniques. You have to experiment and see what works for you.
[00:06:05] The third one is a state change, and if you have done any body image, work with meme. You've heard me talk about this before, a state change is kind of similar to the tool before about feeling your feet on the ground, but a little bit more kind of dramatic. And by state change, I mean changing your state, like your physical state.
[00:06:24] I mean, putting on some loud music, I mean going outside. If you're inside, go outside. If you've been staring at your computer screen, go outside and look out at some trees really far away. Go walk in the grass, feel a different texture. If you have any little bottles of essential oils or really strong spice.
[00:06:42] This might sound weird, but I'm gonna tell you a quick anecdotal story about this. Go smell it, right? You're trying to change the state of one of your senses. Um, right. So that can be smell, sight, taste, touch, sound. I think those are all the senses. Um, Taste. Let's let, let's set taste aside since that involves eating and that kind of complicates things.
[00:07:03] But in terms of sight, um, smell, touch, sound, right? Put on loud music, go outside, touch the pavement, touch the grass. Go look at something far away. Um, move, put on loud music and move your body. Go for a walk around the block. Change if you're sitting on the couch watching a show when you're craving cookies or you're sitting at your desk and like you've got the mid-afternoon munchies or like, You're lying in bed and you're like, oh my God, the alarm went off.
[00:07:30] I'm supposed to go for a walk. I really don't want to go get up and go do something different to change that state and then make a decision. Don't make the decision while you're lying there in bed all nice and comfy, right? Because we know where that's gonna go. So a state change is like a change to one of your physical senses.
[00:07:46] That's pretty dramatic. What I was gonna share with you around the smell thing, cause I know it sounds a little weird. Is that two years ago I did a cadaver lab dissection. You guys have heard me talk about this. And at the end of one of the days, right? And this is a very intense experience physically for your body.
[00:08:02] Like you're standing there in the way you're using a scalpel and working and looking and examining this form. And emotionally and mentally it's a lot. And at the end of the day, um, Gil Headley, who, he's the one who leads these and facilitates these experiences, has this jar with all of these different like.
[00:08:20] Herbs and there's like soil and there's clove and all these really strong smelling scents, herbs, whatever they are, spices in this giant jar. And we all sat in a circle and he passed it around and he was like, put your face inside this jar and breathe it in. And it was really strong and really powerful and I don't even remember that it smelled like good.
[00:08:40] It was like really, um, like spicy and strong. I don't know if pungents the right word. Cause it wasn't a bad smell, it was just strong. But it wa it totally like took me out of where I was and put me somewhere else. It got me out of my head. It got me kind of out of that lab and kind of a little bit back into my body.
[00:09:03] I. Just from smelling this, it's really powerful. You're trying to get out of your head where your thoughts are just spiraling and spiraling and spiraling, and get back to feeling what's happening in your body, right? So that's why state change is a very physical thing, right? If you're talking about those five senses, again, those are kind of physical experiences.
[00:09:22] So again, don't underestimate the power of like a little vial, of an essential of essential oil. Or if you like fresh herbs and you've got a bunch of basil in your kitchen or cilantro. Again, I know this might sound weird, this stuff works. Um, and it's also kind of like a do what you've always done, get what you've always got kind of thing.
[00:09:41] It's try, it's time to try some different skills. Um, so anyway, those are the three set a timer. Feel your feet on the ground. Give yourself a state change, right? By changing something pretty drastic to one of your five senses. Uh, smell, sight, touch, sound. Let's leave taste out of it for now. Um, so there you go.
[00:10:03] The next time that you, again, have an urge, have a craving, have a desire to do something or not do something that you know is probably not gonna feel good later on. But doing or not doing that thing is gonna feel good. Now, in the moment we have to learn to sit in that discomfort. These three skills are ways for you to learn, to sit in that discomfort, to tolerate it and build up that capacity over time.
[00:10:27] This is how change happens. If you try one of these, I'd love to hear how it goes, what you like, didn't like, what worked, what didn't work. And it's a nice short episode. I'm kind of excited about that. Everyone loves a good 12 minute podcast episode. Um, I know I do love listening to stuff like that and getting some really good, helpful information.
[00:10:46] So really quick at the end, I will leave you with, I'm gonna drop a link in the show notes and on the website to add your name to the fall mini retreat interest list. Date is gonna come out soon. This will kind of just give you Fe's a first access to get all the info and sign up. Add your name to the list.
[00:11:00] There's no obligation by having your name. It's just to get the info. All right, I'm out. Back next week.