What Neuroscience Can Tell Us About Forming Habits
Sprout Sweater Episode 24 : A Big Sweat Interview with Neuroscientist, author and speaker, Dr Lynda Shaw
Join Dave Algeo aboard "Sprout 1" and take another journey into your inner world where mind, meaning and metaphor collide.
In this episode, Dave is joined by Dr Lynda Shaw, a neuroscientist who works with professionals to help them maximise their performance through an understanding of neuroscience.
Lynda is an experienced entrepreneur, having owned 3 businesses. She holds a doctorate in cognitive neuroscience, specialising in the influence emotion has on attention; decision making, motivation, creativity, mindset, reasoning and communication.
She works with senior leaders and individuals who want to better understand the science of change and development and then harness this power through heightened awareness of how their brain works, limiting beliefs and how to take charge of one’s behaviour to embrace this fast-changing world.
She is the founder of the Neuroscience Professional Development Programme, and the Learning Lab which are designed to help professionals use applied neuroscience in their work. Lynda’s presentations are always informative, fun and extremely practical. You can connect with Lynda at www.drlyndashaw.com
LinkedIn: http://uk.linkedin.com/in/lyndashaw
Follow me on Twitter @drlyndashaw
Dave Algeo is a writer, coach, trainer and speaker empowering others to live big, by identifying the small but significant things that can transform the life we are living. Join Dave on the good ship 'Sprout1' as we explore the inner galaxy of the human mind, and find the sprouts that make the biggest difference. These are the sprouts you are looking for.
Search for 'Sprout Sweater' in your favourite podcast feed. To find out more about the podcast, and episode show notes at Podcast — Stress(ed) Guru and more about his in-person and online events at www.stressedguru.com. Drop Dave a line at dave@sproutsweater.com to ask questions, offer feedback or suggestions for future podcast content.
Episode 24 Show Notes
The following is a rough draft of the content (not a full transcript - more notes forming the basis of the podcast recording
It’s strengthening this new behaviour to the point where your brain chooses it by default.
Hi and welcome to another big sweat episode of the sprout sweater. As you know if you’ve been a listener for a while the big sweat episode is a longer episode where I interview a victim, sorry an expert in a particular field of self-development, psychology that kind of thing. And today I have the privilege of having Dr Lynda Shaw with me.
Dave: Hi Lynda, how you doing?
Lynda: I’m good Dave, how you, doing?
Dave: I’m great thank you, I’m good. We finally managed to do this interview because I know last time I messed up on timing so apologies for messing you about last time.
Lynda: No worries.
Dave: Great. So anyway, just before we crack on into sort of picking your brains do you want to tell the audience a little bit about yourself.
Lynda: Yeah sure. I’ve got a doctorate in neuroscience., cognitive neuroscience. I’ve got a background in business psychology and I have also owned three businesses. So I sort of understand the academic side and the human side and the challenging side of the business world. In terms of my biggest business, I had 20 staff so it’s not that they compared to many other people but I thought it was very grown-up at the time so therefore I was running the place which meant that I had to learn on my feet an awful lot of things and I learnt by mistakes too of course. Those mistakes tend to stick those learnings, they tend to stick when they are painful. So yeah I’ve learnt the hard way and I understand academically how things go on and I mainly now talk to large corporations and smaller enterprises about embracing change in terms of peoples behaviour, not in terms of processes and systems. That’s not me I’m all about how the brain changes behaviour and behaviour changes the brain and when we can actually plug into that and understand it better we are in more control of over our destiny and our behaviour. Not in complete control of course because that would be crazy but in more control than we actually realise and we see big differences.
Dave: Cool. Thank you for that it shows a great breadth of experience and I like the way you are talking about you’ve got the research base and the academic but actually applying it as well in I guess the real world which is kind of the real challenge isn’t it and how we interpret this so we can understand it in our day to day lives. For me, that’s the point of the sprout sweater I guess is what can we take out of the research and the knowledge that we have to translate into our day to day lives and for myself because I’m interviewing yourself which as well as for my listeners is what can we learn from your experience and expertise in how we can make those behaviour changes. You know it kind of mitigates the unhelpful behaviours or thinking patterns and introduce new habits, helpful routines, rituals that kind of thing that can stick because one of the things I find with myself but also people I coach and just generally in life is it’s all very well having an idea and a goal; then coming up with some tactics is probably one the easier parts but then how do you make those tactics, routines and rituals stick and happen first and then stick you know in terms of building them into effective habits. I guess that’s a good place to start, what have you learned generally and then we will sort of drill down about it in terms of behaviour change. I know you were talking about the context of businesses changes and the impact on humans but if we are looking at it from an individual perspective if I want to change my behaviour to achieve a goal whether it’s to exercise more, to drink less, to eat the right stuff what would be some initial thoughts?
Lynda: The first thing to do, the very first step is the toughest step and that’s identifying a habit that no longer serves you. Therefore, what the brain does is because it does such a lot it’s exposed to this cacophony of stimuli all the time there’s just masses of it. What it does is it actually tries to get everything into unconscious processing as quickly as possibly which is why we got heuristics as a by-product of that is unconscious bias which is where we have habits because they are automatic. Although they are under our conscious control when we bring them to conscious awareness and that’s the key. So therefore, when we are things are not going well we have to sit down and really think to ourselves ‘well what the hell am I doing’? what is it that’s not working and you’ve got to really and it takes some thinking. It takes a lot and you start to think, you think, you think and then it dawns on you ‘ah I’ve got this habit of doing la and it’s not working and I can see it’s not working’. So that’s the tough bit is identifying that habit that thing you do in unconscious processes. Now it’s in your conscious mind and now rather than stop doing it it is far better to replace it. So you replace that, you replace a habit that no longer serves you with a new behaviour and the only way you’re going to repeat that behaviour which is what you need to do to make it a new habit, the only way you are going to repeat that behaviour mostly the only way you going to repeat that behaviour, is by making it a pleasure. So that new you’ve got to be stimulating those because if we then replace that habit with a new behaviour and then we like it we think ‘oh I’ll do that again tomorrow because it was good and I felt good doing it’. And then we’d repeat it and we repeat it and then it becomes a new Neurol pathway. Then it becomes a stronger Neurol pathway and all that lovely mailing lays down on that pathway and makes it lovely greasy which means the electrical impulses fly across much more readily and more easily, which means that the brain will then go by default to that new behaviour because it becomes a new habit. It will default to the old habit if that is a habit that has been used far more than the new one. So the idea is to keep using the new one over and over again to strengthen that connection which means that the brain will go by default because it’s looking all the time to do things quickly. Looking for things to do quick, can’t think about that lets move on so, therefore, you’ve got to be strengthening this new behaviour to the point where your brain chooses it by default.
Dave: Right so there is a lot in there that I want to pick up on. That last bit I’ll come back to in how we can do that but I guess the first thing you mentioned was this concept that the brain wants to try to shift things into the unconscious processes. I guess that’s because there is such a lot going on it’s too much for the conscious brain to manage and to juggle all of that, is that fair?
Lynda: Absolutely right. Our conscious processing is minuscule. I mean like a pinprick on an a4 sheet of paper and the rest of it is unconscious processing ok. So unconsciously we do a huge amount and there’s an awful lot going on there and that is what we need to, any activity we are doing needs to be put in that automatic processing. Conscious processing in this context basically means you’re paying attention and our attention span is very, very short. No sorry, I correct that this is actually hacking me off a bit. Our attention span is not getting shorter but our attention by default is a very tiny process compared to everything else we do. So, therefore, we really do need to get most things done without our attention because then we are working like driving a car we are doing everything you know there is so much we do. Everything around us, the room you are sitting in everything is visually, sounds all of it is just massive amount of information but you are only attending to a tiny bit at any one time and that is what we have to consider when it comes to habits.
Dave: So now, that’s a good point. I love the idea of it being a pinprick on an A4 piece of paper that kind of puts it in the context that the vast, vast majority of our day-to-day life and behaviour is through unconscious processes, habits, rituals, routines. You mentioned heuristics which is a word that I’m familiar with but would you mind just defining that just for those who aren’t familiar with that word.
Lynda: Heuristics just basically means shortcuts. If I’m looking at an animal it’s got 4 legs, a tail and a couple of whiskers I think it’s a dog. Ok relegate that but of course, it could be a cat. So I have now relegated that into this short cut ok. I’ve looked at the categories, I’ve looked at, labelled it, I’ve parked it in my unconscious processing. Now if we do that all the time. I have to say one of the side effects of that is our unconscious biases so therefore I have now a bias towards a dog and I didn’t think of a cat for instance but actually, it could easily be a cat so I have labelled that creature incorrectly. Therefore I have behaved differently and inappropriately and of course, we all understand what unconscious bias is and how painful and socially unacceptable it is if we discriminate against people because of our unconscious biases but that is a side effect of heuristics. However, there is something I do want to say is that unconscious bias is normal. We all have it the only people on this planet that don’t have unconscious bias are dead people. So, therefore, it doesn’t make us bad people what makes this unacceptable is if we allow those things to happen so we need to bring them to our conscious awareness and not be unkind, cruel or indeed not just in the way we treat people, so that’s that.
Dave: Yeah I think that’s a good way to look at it is the sense that, and it harks back to your first explanation around habits and I guess whether it a) potentially cause harm or discrimination etc. to somebody else in another situation but also to yourself does it serve you. You know that kind of idea of identifying a habit or heuristic or something and I guess the question in case of behaviour change is this helping you to move to where you want to be or to live the life you want to live or is it getting in the way. If it’s getting in the way as you say trying to identify that is the first challenge. Is there anything in terms of that from your experience of how that might, any processes or practices that can really help with that becoming aware. You know checking in on them or …
Lynda: The best thing to do is to sit down quietly and think. That is you’ve really got to concentrate and think. However, there is a rather delicious state that we are naturally in that you can encourage during the day and that is when we put the brain in alpha frequency. Alpha frequency is when we just wake up in the morning we’re half awake and half asleep. You know that sort of limbo land a bit that is when the brain is in alpha and that is when we come up with our creative ideas. We can fix the world if we stay in bed that little bit longer in the morning. If you noticed your ideas will come to you then, they might come to you in the shower, they might come to you when you are staring out of the window watching the rain falls. It is when we get our brain frequency slowed down enough we become more creative and innovative and we come up with answers and ideas. So if we are stuck trying to identify what no longer serves us by concentrating then perhaps the next move might be to stare out of that window and just let your mind wander. I mean I can remember at school being told off for staring out the window – I know, I know it’s a brilliant thing to do stare away. You can deliberately do that and so you can allow your unconscious to work things out for you and it comes to your attention. That’s a rather delicious way of doing things without stressing yourself out.
Dave: So can I pick up on that then because I think that’s an interesting thing. It’s certainly something I’ve experienced in my business life but lie in general. You kind of describing two states. One is a kind of deliberate effort to think and work through and consider I guess for want of a better word versus another state where you kind of just say down tools, down the thinking tools let your head go off and do what it wants. That’s more the alpha state is that what you are kind of describing there.
Lynda: That’s right.
Dave: Both have a place potentially in this process of being more self-aware.
Lynda: Yeah absolutely. We have got so many delicious tools that we can tap into in our brain and we tend not to think in terms of deliberate choice. We tend to think that we are at the mercy of so many forces and of course there are certain things that we can’t control and we can’t unfeel that we are shaping for our benefit or the benefit of our family and loved ones. But nevertheless, we can do more than we realise. So if you are going to think of something and make a deliberate choice about it that is when you feel a little bit more control over your life and your destiny; its that tapping into how to, first of all, make that deliberate choice and then make sure it’s the right one which is quite interesting because that actually means what we need to do is be prepared to re-evaluate recalibrate and keep changing. This is the core of my work, it’s helping people make deliberate choices to wire their brain to the way they want to because we rewire our brain all the time but we often rewire our brain without conscious control of it but we can actually do something about that. I’ve prattled on a bit there haven’t I Dave.
Dave: No that’s really fascinating. There’s something I want to pick up on then because you mentioned something about the choice, making a deliberate choice but then checking that it’s the right one and I think that is a challenge particularly if we are talking about this idea of ‘look I want to change something’. How often is it and I’m kind of speaking from experience of myself and working with others but often myself is that I identify a problem or thing I want to change a goal that I want to achieve and my brain I don’t whether it’s because I’m an ex-police officer it was always about solutions focus is to go ‘right what do I do, what can I do to sort this out?’ and I will deliberately think and work through consciously some options and this that and the other and come up with a plan. That’s practised, it’s deliberate and very conscious I guess. If I was to stay or keep it at that level I can be reasonably confident on this guided potentially because I don’t know if I’m right or wrong because I’ve got a plan and some solutions and some action that it’s the right thing to do and then I can embark on that plan. However, how do I check in on that to make sure that it isn’t just the same old same old? I mean if you work with people who are trying to get fit or healthier or lose weight then often what will be ‘I’ll just go back to weight watchers’ other diet things are available but you know I’ll go back to what I tried before and that might be a reasonable approach. You know there might be reasons why they’ve dropped off the wagon or whatever in the past or it might be that we need a new creative thought or idea or way of thing about it saying it something just to come in from somebody else perhaps. So I guess I’m kind of rambling on here myself now in terms of saying you’ve got that conscious process but I guess one of the things I’ve learned over the last few years is that not to over-engineer a solution and at some point to leave it almost unfinished and go for a walk or as you say go for a shower and maybe the person who has to finish, the perfectionist has been a challenge to learn that habit. But to get comfortable in leaving it and just seeing what comes into my head as I’m out for that walk and times I’ve found that I’ve come up with a totally different perspective or realized I’m solving the wrong problem you know because of that. So you know for me it’s seeing that combination of the two that you were describing there. I don’t know how that fits into your experiences.
Lynda: That’s absolutely spot on. Basically, if you are consciously aware of a goal that you want to achieve and then you set about the steps to achieve that goal that fabulous. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. What you have demonstrated by what you have just said is it that you are prepared to then let your mind wander by going for that walk, going to the shower or whatever it is to check to see if that’s actually worth doing whether you want to do it. I mean how many goals do we set when we get there we think what was that about, you know why did I bother? You know really why did I bother to do that because that’s not what I thought it was going to be like. So you put all that effort in, all that energy, all that money, all that investment of your time whatever to achieve that and when you get there you think what was all the fuss about. So basically, if you are therefore you have done that deliberate choice thing which you’ve identified and then you go for that walk and you’ve let your mind wander and the creativity and innovation comes about, you can then double-check maybe that’s not what I want anyway. But the key there, the absolute key is to be prepared to admit it because that means a lot of us in our culture think that’s a failure and it’s not. It’s not a failure nobody cares anyway. Nobody’s watching, nobody’s looking they are all too busy. But you know you just look at it and you think ‘Nah I don’t want to do that’ and so you change. That’s great, nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing wrong with that because you’ve started with your deliberate choice, you’ve gone through the processes you might have read in a book to actually to get to the point and then you give yourself a break and go for that walk. Check-in on yourself, check-in on how you feel, check in on your innovative thinking and then you think ‘nope let’s do something a bit different’. You start with a blank sheet of paper again and you rethink it. I’m a great, great supporter of that because life is so short and goes so quickly we don’t want to waste it on stuff that’s a nonsense, do we?
Dave: Yeah absolutely. So, you’ve mentioned there about this isn’t even what I want and I think sometimes that can be, having been still am I guess a very driven person in some senses and knowing a lot of people like that is that you can get into it and you will drive yourself to that place irrespective of it and probably not even allow yourself the luxury of questioning whether it’s the right thing. Sorry to interrupt there, questioning could be a way of in a story you tell yourself of ‘oh well I’m just trying to get out of it’ but actually it may be something nagging away saying ‘is this what you want?’
Lynda: Yeah I think it’s really relevant to people who are very capable because when you are very capable there is a lot of things you can do. So, therefore, you think that you should be doing them or somebody comes up with this idea ‘hey have you thought of doing this’ and you go ‘oh that’s a good idea’ but because you can do it but do you want to do it? And that’s what we tend not to double-check ourselves on because we can do it we think we will. It is not necessarily what will make us feel good because if we had the choice, ok there are plenty of people on this planet who don’t have choices I absolutely recognize that 100% but if you do have a choice and choosing a channel or area to channel your energy in a place that is not going to make you feel good and you have a choice not to do that then actually that’s worth double-checking.
Dave: Definitely yeah and I guess that going back to the idea that spotting a habit that isn’t serving you. So we were talking about goals there that you think right actually do I want to do that I think that process of taking time away to go for a walk is important but actually is there benefit in just generally building that process of day, time out, downtime into your days routine etc. to allow yourself to capture those random thoughts that might be saying ‘here’s a bad habit or here’s something’ because that’s happened to me a lot where I’ve been taking a random shower and suddenly I’ve realized I’m doing it again aren’t I. You know that bad habit has come back in a different set of clothes but it’s back. It’s funny when I’ve stopped or I’m like you say in that alpha state that I’ve realized but how many of us are so busy living life full-on that we don’t allow those spaces for that.
Lynda: I actually think we should almost diarize them, I do. You know I’m going for a walk on my own for 20 minutes at a certain time of the day or I’m going to reward myself after doing that chunk of work I’m going out for that walk or I’m going for another shower. Doesn’t matter how many showers you have a day does it? So you know you’ve always got, rather than put the reward in of putting your head in the fridge and see what else you can eat and putting the kettle or coffee machine on actually go for one of those walks or let yourselves just stare out of the window if it’s pouring with rain and just be, just let your mind wander. I find walking better because I’m better at doing and letting my mind wander but I absolutely I try to check in on myself on a daily basis several times a day sometimes.
Dave: I like that idea of diarizing in non-thinking and non-doing time almost. That’s a good point I think you mentioned there about you are better at it when you are doing because how many of us have this story attached to doing nothing in air quotes as a waste of time as dead time you know rather than it being actually of real value.
Lynda: I mean when we are walking we are not necessarily putting the brain in alpha state but you can get quite meditative by the rhythm of the step, the rhythm of your breathing which is great and that would help enormously. But yeah I mean to give ourselves time, it’s funny isn’t it there is no nothing or the brain never does nothing it’s always doing something. Let it do what it’s got to do we don’t have to you know have a tight grip on absolutely everything but be rest assured that you never do nothing when people perceive you doing nothing.
Dave: I love that. That actually goes back to the idea that being a pinpoint on an A4 bit of paper. It’s kind of in a way, pretty arrogant of us to think that pinpoint of consciousness can control all of that and direct all of that which it just doesn’t. Why don’t we just allow that as you say it’s not doing nothing it’s, actually more than likely doing some very, very important stuff. And even those thoughts that can pop into your head, there might be this little person in your head going ‘here shove that one into consciousness for me’ you know or ‘can you let him or her see that one’, yeah I like that. So, you know you mention this about the brain not doing nothing it’s always doing something and you mentioned about the formation of the connections would you mind just giving us a very mini teacher on neuroscience, if you could just give us a quick mini teaching Lynda that would be fine. To explain that a little bit because I think that is a really, really useful thing to understand about the power of our brain about the pathways and how habits can be formed.
Lynda: Basically of course I’m talking about neuroplasticity and neuroplasticity we thought until relatively recently that the brain we were born with and grew by the time we were late teens was the brain that we would keep because it doesn’t that it rewires constantly. It rewires depending on our behaviour, it rewires depending on what’s going on around us in our social environment, it rewires with our thoughts, with our thinking, with our emotional responses to things with our feelings. So there’s top-down bottom-up processing going on. It rewires because of genetics, it rewires constantly all the time and we also know of course that even DNA and the expression of genetics or gene expression means that in actual fact our brain is rewiring anyway even at that level. So, our brain rewires all the time. When I talk about it rewiring what I mean is it’s laying down new Neurol pathways, it’s forming, it’s growing and strengthening and weakening certain synapses. You are creating new Neurol cells your doing then dendrites and the axons are sprouting or their pruning. All of these things are happening all the time to create these new Neurol pathways and when I say we do things with deliberate choice it means that rather than the environment the socially how we shoot from the hip because someone’s really hacked us off and we know we are not in control because we are in a state of stress and high anxiety or whatever, all of that rewiring is still going on but we are not controlling it. We’re not, that’s why the deliberate choice is so delicious because as I say we can’t rewire our brain deliberately all of the time because that would be nonsense. We still need our fight or flight mechanisms. We still need so much else to keep us safe and keep us well. However, there are some things that we can change. We can change our thought processes. We can change our emotional responses to some things by giving ourselves a moment to breathe before we shoot from the hip. We can change our environment sometimes by perhaps choosing different kinds of people that we socialize with or indeed if somebody’s toxic avoiding them, something like that. We can change things more than we realize and we can certainly change the way we respond. So if we start to change that we, therefore, change our behaviour towards all of those things which mean that the brain is rewiring to how we want it to rewire. If the brain will then affect our behaviour better because we have rewired it better to suit us. Our brain changes our behaviour and our behaviour changes our brain is a constant feedback loop going on all of the time. So if you decide you want to be a better person at something deliberate choice be it.
Dave: So that deliberate choice, obviously we are talking about how it becomes into awareness that deliberate choice then needs to be followed by something doesn’t I guess, action or practice or repetition. So how do we start because I’m kind of seeing two sides, one is if you don’t use it you lose it. The older habit that you maybe want to change you change out so kind of is it right that the Neurol pathways will weaken over time or get less. I’ll leave you to explain your far better at it than me.
Lynda: If you knew a neural pathway that you are no longer using because it’s no longer serving you, a habit that no longer serves you you’ve identified it you, therefore, use this new behaviour that you want to become a habit and you repeat it all the time as much as possible. And when that new Neurol pathway is stronger than the older one the brain will go to that one by default. The older one doesn’t disappear overnight but it does start to atrophy it does start to disappear. So it will be there for some time and so, therefore, it’s very important that you practice this new way of thinking. This new way of responding, the new way of something that is going to help you rewire your brain better. So it’s a good idea and the best way of all to motivate yourself to that is through enjoying it, is through pleasure.
Dave: So you mentioned about rather than just stopping doing something you replace the behaviour with that. Would you mind just expanding a bit more about that and then we will build in the aspect of making it more enjoyable I think that’s a really important part.
Lynda: OK. If you decide ‘right I am not going to eat any more pizza’, ok you will start thinking about pizzas so much. It’s all about pizza because you’ve decided to deny yourself something. I don’t do denial in any shape or form so if I don’t deny myself something instead I will think I am going to eat that really lovely crunchy salad and I’m going to eat that salad. So, therefore, I have now got this new habit of absolutely loving the salad because there is certain salad ingredients I adore they make me feel good, they make me feel better and I want to keep doing that as opposed to eating the stodgy thick pizza with cheese through the crust gunginess and all of that stuff. Therefore, if you don’t replace the habit you will just deny the habit and therefore keep thinking about it and therefore strengthening your desire for it. Strengthening your desire for something that you don’t want is not helpful, it’s really not helpful. But to therefore desire something else you stimulate dopamine because that’s all about anticipation reward as well as a reward, so, therefore, you feel really good. You get your dopamine kick and you’ll repeat it because you will start to look forward to it,’ oh great I’m going to have that salad tomorrow’ and you look forward to it and therefore you do it more, you do it more, you do it more.
Dave: That makes total sense and I totally get that idea and I bet many listeners can as well you know whether you’ve embarked on a diet or you know to not open that bottle of beer on a night after work etc. If we are switching it out what one model I am kind of thinking of In terms of habit is that you’ve got three parts, you’ve got the trigger, the behaviour and the reward aspect. The trigger is the cue or the thing that precedes it as the thing that might prompt you to think about ‘oh now time for …’. You know the classic is you finish a meal and you might light up a cigarette if you are a smoker. So you’ve got the trigger finishing the meal, the behaviour and the reward I guess is what you get from that act of the cigarette. So are you talking about in that point obviously the triggers they could be environmental, they could be timing where you are at contextual so you may have less influence over that or though you may have some influence over it but it’s more about the behaviour, switching out that behaviour? The trigger may still be there finish a meal but it’s got to be a reward to it, is that the pleasure bit you are talking about
Lynda: That’s right, you’re absolutely right. You can actually change the trigger or change the outcome so therefore you don’t have to change just the trigger you can change how you respond to it. So you could change one or the other, you can have a go at changing both but the point is to motivate us the best way is to make it fun. To make it interesting, to satisfy curiosity that it’s a novelty. Novelty is a guarantee to get attention so therefore if it’s a brand-new thing and you just think this is really exciting, this is really good, all of that stuff comes into play. So yeah I’m heavily into making life as enjoyable as possible as we can.
Dave: Absolutely I think that’s a great way to approach this to think about rather than the negative of what you are denying how you can and it’s an opportunity to build in something fun. I kind of lost the thread of the question I was going to ask there, erm what was it? Anyway, I’ve no doubt it’ll come back, oh that was it. In terms of this then what’s the thinking on how long it can take because I know I guess it’s a how long is a piece of string but what is the current thinking because there are myths around how long it takes to form a habit etc. and so what/how does that generally work?
Lynda: OK there are plenty of self-help books that will give you 28 days for this, 14 days for that, 7 day for this and 7 days for that. Let me just paint a bit of context here into this. You’re coaching someone and you tell them in 28 days they will have changed that habit and on day 29 they fail. What does that do to them?
Dave: Yeah exactly.
Lynda: It will absolutely crush them. What is the point to that so I never ever put a timeline on anything, I just don’t, I just say one day at a time. One day at a time, feel good each day, one day at a time. Don’t put a timeline on it, it’s not necessary in fact I think it’s harmful.
Dave: Yeah I love that. I think, well I totally get that and I think it’s important. One of the things I often talk about because I talk about the sprouts you know. The cabbage is maybe the goal and you slice it down into sprout sized chunks, tasks, habits, routines it’s to focus on just making sure you sweat the sprouts day to day. Make that enjoyable you know but just focus less on the result and more on what you are doing in each given day. Track those sprouts and make sure you are doing them. So I guess it’s a bit of a leading question this I’m guessing that if you are looking at habit change you don’t want to have too many habits to change at once.
Lynda: No, no, no, no, no don’t overwhelm yourself. Never overwhelm, be kind to yourself. Always be kind to yourself you are a really good person. There are many truly evil people in this world most people are really decent human beings, don’t beat yourself up. Don’t ever, ever beat yourself up. So one thing at a time, one thing at a time nail it move on.
Dave: Love that. That’s the idea as well of trying to take off a deadline or an idea that it will be achieved by then but if we say there is an ongoing process of us embedding a habit then maybe building on with that we can kind of spread out that all or nothing mindset. I’m definitely all or nothing so I totally get that.
Lynda: What we’ve got to be careful of is any kind of learned behaviour that results in a feeling of hopelessness, right. That feeling of hopelessness is awful, dreadful and we set ourselves up for that. You know we really do set ourselves up for that and that’s just nonsense, it’s not fair. But as soon as we actually start to achieve one of those things and remember that we have achieved and not ignore it as if it’s all you know I’ve done that move on. But actually, if we remember and saviour it and think ‘ah I did that’ they, therefore, that learnt behaviour when kind of helplessness is actually overridden and we start to become more confident and more resilient which will enable us to do more than, so that is what we have to be mindful of and honestly do. I mean it sounds awfully crass but we do have to celebrate our successes and remind ourselves what brilliant people we are.
Dave: That’s a really important point that I don’t think we have stated enough in that the habit change is one part of it but actually that’s serving a bigger purpose of trying to re-establish this sense of I can do this, I can and I am worth it look at how amazing I am to do this because I get what you’re saying I think; a) we can be our own worst enemy and hardest critic can’t we and the number of times, I’ve got loads of evidence of how many times I’ve failed in the past and I didn’t achieve that goal and I dropped, I fell off of the day 3 of the New Year’s resolution and all that kind of thing. I’ve got lots of evidence I can call upon but if we can just park all of that and come back to the here and now that one habit is worthwhile changing but changing the story around it as well.
Lynda: Absolutely and also you know it sounds awfully arrogant from Victorian times been seen and not heard. Don’t blow your own trumpet, don’t be cocky, don’t be arrogant you know put down put down put down. You don’t have to be cocky and arrogant to recognize that you are a decent human being because one of the best ways of putting the brain in a pleasurable state which is what we are talking about here, one of the best ways of doing that is through kindness generosity and altruism. You know we can be really decent people the human beings we know we are and it helps us too. Now some people will say hang on a minute Lynda that means there’s no such thing as altruism because you are getting something in return but my answer is I don’t care. It actually means I’m a human being and it’s putting my brain in a best state, you know a pleasurable state for me to continue being a better person than on a daily basis and I’m helping other people as well. That’s not cocky, that’s not arrogant that’s beautiful.
Dave: Yeah, yeah and it’s also about recognizing you can direct that a little bit towards yourself as well.
Lynda: Yes definitely
Dave: I guess I’m conscious of time because we have had a great interview and I know you have got to be off shortly but I guess just on that little note I haven’t dug into it but my understanding you know, this idea of learning to love yourself it’s a very kind of I guess clichéd in some areas of self-help but I’ve always found that really challenging. Probably just as a cynical questioning person from my background but also for some of us that is a hell of a journey to move from hatred, self-hatred to self-love. And actually, some of the things that I have picked up is that there is some interesting research and I haven’t dug into it myself around actually learning to exercise some self-compassion may be a kind of way to circumvent that or a way to redirect that so you are not talking about loving yourself per sei. You are talking about exercising compassion which many of us are able to do towards others but to direct it to ourselves. Any thoughts of that I know it’s probably sprung that one on you but it’s just a question that occurred to me when we’ve had that conversation there.
Lynda: Well I think it’s a really good point. The self-love is a tough call for a lot of people if they feel unworthy of such indulgence, self-indulgence and feeling that or lots of feelings that could get in the way of that. However, compassion is just key, isn’t it. Compassion for others for differences, let me just give an example. Perception, how we perceive ourselves how we perceive others how we perceive everything, our perception is unique. It is our only personal reality that’s all we have so therefore once we understand perception is unique to each and every individual, ok I will tell you a mini-story. Two women are pregnant. Both women’s babies are due to be born on exactly the same day. On the 2nd trimester, the babies in the tummies are developing taste buds on their tongues. On this particular day, the first woman is eating cooking apples and her baby is tasting the sour taste of cooking apples as the first perception of a taste through the amniotic fluid. On the same day the same time the other one was eating chocolate; her baby is tasting sweet for the first time. On the second day, they swap. So now the first lady is eating chocolate and her baby is now perceiving that taste based on the perception of the sour first. The second woman the other way round. On the 3rd day, these women are now sharing a bowl of olives. Those two babies perceptions of the saltiness of the olives will be different from one another based upon their two experiences so far. By the time those babies are born their perceptions are this pyramid of a mathematical so hard to calculate their perceptions. They could be doing the same thing exactly but they will evaluate it based on the experiences so far. By the time we are adults, you can’t calculate that. So, you can see how perception is unique. Now whilst we understand perception is unique it means that we have more compassion and understanding for other people because they’re seeing things differently based on their experiences so far, the same as us. So when somebody says ‘ah I know exactly how you feel’ no they don’t, nobody does only you know how you feel and by the same token nobody else knows how you feel and you don’t know how they feel, ok. We can’t, we can only have compassion, we can only have understanding, we can only have empathy and that is what we need for ourselves. When everybody now is talking about getting back into restaurants, events, conferences all of that stuff and everybody is feeling something different the key to remember is it’s not right it’s not wrong it just is. Everybody’s right because that’s their story, that is how they see things so that’s right for them. If we understand that for others we can understand that for ourselves so it makes it easier to show ourselves compassion.
Dave: I love that and I love that example as well. I’ve never heard that one I think that’s brilliant.
Lynda: There was a bit of poetic license in there but you get my drift.
Dave: Totally get it and I think it’s a great way to bring the conversation to a close that we are all different there are some common things in terms of how our brain forms habits and we can shift them but ultimately that idea of trying to change whatever overarching story we have about ourselves and the world around us and other people to one that’s more compassionate is going to give that any positive can or growth the right fertilizer or what have you to help us sustain that and to grow and enjoy the process as well. Have fun as you said before. Well, that’s brilliant Lynda thank you so much for the conversation and sharing that. I appreciate you have to shoot off but obviously, I want to give to shout – how can anybody get in touch with you and I know you have written a book haven’t you so do you want to give a shout out for the book as well so that people can dig a bit more into your work.
Lynda: The book is called Your Brain is Boss and you can get it on amazon. You can get hold of me at lynda@drlyndashaw.com or my website is drlyndashaw.com. Always happy to chat to anybody who wants to talk about brains or needs a bit of help.
Dave: Brilliant. Thank you, Lynda, thank you for your time and just for everybody out there the links and the details regarding the book will be in the show notes as will a transcript of the podcast so please feel free to connect with Lynda. Jump on over to the website and get a hold of the book that would be great. If its anything like the conversation we’ve had then it’ll be great and thank you so much for your time its really great to dive into the, for me the nuts and bolts behind what I kind of talk about with clients day to day, so thank you so much been brilliant
Lynda: You’re very welcome. Nice to speak to you, Dave.
Dave: Take care, cheers
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Links
Book: Your Brain is Boss by Lynda Shaw
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Your-Brain-Boss-creativity-satisfaction/dp/1912300044
Website :
Episode 25 Teaser:
In episode 25 Dave explores the concept of the 'restless midlifer' and asks you to reflect on how you would re-introduce adventure into your life.