Change Academy podcast

We’ve talked a lot about goals in this podcast: the purpose and function of goals, how to set good ones, and how to pursue them more effectively, even your goal-setting personality! (If you don’t know yours, you can find out here.)

But in this episode, we want to talk about NOT reaching our goals–and why that is not necessarily a problem. 

Continue reading “Why it’s OK if you don’t reach your goal”

Do you get stuck in your thoughts, even when (or maybe, especially when) they aren’t helpful? We all do. There is even a name for it – Cognitive Fusion. Well, in this episode, we are going to learn how to defuse ourselves from those thoughts that threaten to undo our hard work, make us feel unworthy or sad, and hold us back from reaching our goals.

Continue reading “Separate the Thought from the Thinker”

Some new research caught recently our attention because it reinforces and expands on a concept that we introduced about 6 months ago in our episode on the Law of Subtraction. When we recorded that, we weren’t aware that our so-called “law of subtraction” had been studied by University of Virginia professor Leidy Klotz. In this episode, we explore some of that research and how we can use this insight to create better solutions to our challenges.

Continue reading “Countering Your Addition Bias”

Motivation gaps are those times where you feel as if you are not motivated enough to do what it takes to get a particular result. In this episode, we talk about four things that frequently cause motivation gaps, plus what researcher, Julie Dirksen, refers to as a “special motivation gap.”

Continue reading “Mind the (Motivation) Gap”

When people fail to reach a goal that they have set for themselves, we often hear them say something like, “I guess I just didn’t want it enough.” 

In this episode, Monica and guest Cassie Christopher discuss what is really behind this sentiment. (Spoiler alert: It’s usually not about whether or not you wanted it bady enough.)

Continue reading “Not wanting it enough”

In our recent episode “Will I succeed?” we offered some questions to evaluate your chances of succeeding at whatever goal you are working toward. One of them was: Do I believe I am worth the effort – and worthy of the outcome?

What if your answer to that question is No? What can you do to change that to a Yes?

In this episode, we explore some possible answers to this question. 

Continue reading “Are You Worth This Effort?”

Do you know the difference between goals and commitments? Both play an important role in creating a life that is both meaningful and purposeful.

 In this episode, we’ll explore the distinctions between them, and how they can work together to guide your efforts.

Continue reading “Goals vs. Commitments: Why you need both”

Creating change can be difficult. It can also be great…but it is rarely easy.  So it makes sense that we want some assurance that we have a reasonable chance of success before we’re willing to invest our resources–and get our hopes up. 

But when we ask, “Will I succeed?” we often look in the wrong places for the answer.

In this episode, we talk about ways to evaluate your chances of success. More importantly, we want to offer some ideas for maximizing your chances of success.

Continue reading “Will I Succeed?”

Have you ever wondered why you seem to be stuck at a particular weight, or a particular level of fitness, or a particular amount of money in the bank?

If you’re like a lot of the people we work with, you’ve spent a fair amount of mental energy (and other resources) trying to make a change. And yet, you find yourself seemingly stuck…unable to move out of your current reality into that vision of your future.

The reason is both more surprising and simpler than you might think. 

In this episode, we will dig into what actually shapes our current reality (hint: it’s not your goals) and what we need to focus on in order to start making progress toward our future self.

Continue reading “The Surprisingly Simple Reason You Stay Stuck”

Change can be scary. And sometimes, fears about what transformation might cost us can lead us to sabotage our own success. We may have mixed feelings about leaving certain parts of our selves (or our lives) behind–even if they are things that we don’t particularly like.

These worries and fears are totally normal. But left unexamined or unchecked, they can keep us stuck. 

In this episode, we’re going to get all of that out in the open, so we can engage with it more intentionally…and more productively.

Continue reading “Why We Sabotage Our Own Success”