Creating positive behavior change in our own lives and in our communities and workplaces
This episode was suggested by Liz:
“I have clients that I fear will let go of their habits when they don’t have me there to hold them accountable. How do you coach someone to create that accountability for themselves or hold themselves accountable?”
Continue reading “Ep 50: Motivation and Accountability”The Serenity Prayer (“Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to tell the difference”) counsels us to accept the things that we cannot change. But often, the things that we say we cannot change are actually 100% within our control. In this episode, we explore whether something is truly out of our control or if we just prefer to believe that it is.
Continue reading “Ep 48: Wisdom to Know the Difference”We all have those tasks or projects that, despite our best intentions, we find ourselves procrastinating. It might be a new behavior or practice that we want to create a habit around, like exercising or meditating. Or it might be a personal or professional project that we want to accomplish, like writing an essay or report or creating a program or product.
In this episode, we offer a practical strategy that can help you overcome the tendency to procrastinate or to simply not do the things that you intend to do.
Continue reading “Ep 47: Defeat Procrastination with Microplanning”Heather Hutchison is a singer/songwriter and author of the new memoir Holding On by Letting Go. Heather has been blind since birth and one of the things she hopes to do through her music and writing is educate people about disability and mental health.
One of the concepts she explores in her book is this idea of Radical Acceptance, a term that Brock introduced in our recent episode on coping. So we thought it would be great to have Heather on the show to talk more about that. Please enjoy this conversation between co-host Brock Armstrong and Heather Hutchison.
Continue reading “Ep 46: Radical Acceptance with Heather Hutchison”Coping mechanisms are not an inherently bad thing. If we can’t avoid or escape something unpleasant or even harmful, figuring out a way to cope with it is a good survival strategy. But sometimes we use coping mechanisms to tolerate things that maybe we shouldn’t be tolerating. In this episode, we explore the difference between helpful and unhelpful coping.
Continue reading “Ep 45: Stop Coping So Well”To-do lists, checklists, scorecards can be great tools to keep us on track. But they can also seem like an overwhelming task themselves. Or worse yet, they can become yet another way that we judge our own abilities or self-worth.
In this episode, we will show you how to create a list that suits you and your goals. We will also explore how to structure that list so it can keep you on track without being a constant reminder of how much work you have to do.
Some of our goals or objectives require us to master a range of different skills. You’ll probably be naturally stronger in some areas than others. And sometimes, in order to reach our goals, overcoming or strengthening a weakness is essential.
But it’s not just about forcing yourself to work on the things that are hard for you. In this episode, we focus on identifying areas where you need more support–and seeking out resources that can help.
We all have cues in our lives that prompt us to carry out certain behaviors, like putting a seat belt on when we get in a car, grabbing snacks when we sit on the couch to watch a movie, or pouring a glass of wine when we change out of our work clothes.
Some of our cue responses are good (like seatbelts), and some are not so good (like snacks and alcohol). Many of them probably developed over time without our conscious intention.
We can, however, deliberately create cues in our lives to help us make decisions and perform behaviors that will benefit us. In this episode, we’ll teach you how to identify and dismantle unhelpful cues and also build some helpful ones.
Continue reading “Ep 42: Cues and Prompts”Having a firm grip on reality is usually seen as a sign of good mental health. But social scientists have discovered that happy and successful people routinely overestimate their skill, talent, and chances of success. In fact, that may be one of the secrets to their success.
In this episode, we explore why being overly optimistic is not a cognitive defect that needs to be overcome but a constructive trait that we can cultivate.
A year ago, virtually every aspect of our lives changed profoundly: How we eat, shop, work, socialize, exercise, etc. These weren’t changes we chose but changes that were forced on us. Now that we are beginning to imagine life returning to something more similar to pre-pandemic, we have some decisions to make. Are there new habits that we’ve adopted that we might want to keep? Old habits that we don’t want to return to?
What’s clear is that we DON’T want to do is miss this opportunity to make a conscious choice.
Continue reading “Ep 40: Changes We’d Like to Keep”