Behavior change is never easy, even the process of deciding TO change. But by consciously watching and maneuvering around common pitfalls, and strategically using the tools of your adult brain, you will be able to do things in your life you’ve never dreamed possible. Join me as we dig into common pitfalls stopping you from making a decision to change, and tools you can incorporate every day to ensure your inevitable success. Let’s today learn all about the first step of behavior change.

Welcome to Your Living Health, the podcast where we talk about real life strategies to reduce chronic inflammation. Each episode will uncover tools for you to lose weight and achieve optimal health. I’m your host, Carly Lucchesi, I’m a UC Davis trained registered dietitian and I’m also a life coach. Together let’s coach through the science of inflammation, but in a way that is simple, purposeful and fun.

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Hey there! Welcome to the new year everyone! We just ended 2022, and are welcoming 2023 with all of it’s excitement and possibilities. It’s hard to think of the new year without thinking about what changes you want to make, or reflect on what changes you made possible in the previous year. Last week we talked about why changing any behavior permanently is so hard, and what goes on behind the scenes leading to easy frustration when trying to do new things. This week, I want to take a closer look at phase one of behavior change which is the lightbulb moment. It seems all too fitting with today being January 1st, but equally necessary with your end goal to reduce inflammation and lose weight. There has to be a moment when a decision is made to change. But when you make the decision to change, this is just the finale of this phase. Instead, I want to help you understand what you are going through prior to this first step of change.

And it all starts with desire.

True to our subconscious TFA cycles, often the clearest hints we will receive about our internal desires is from the presence of an emotion. It is easy to feel emotions, even when we don’t yet hear the thoughts that created them. But sometimes there is desire when we don’t even know why yet. Like a pit in your stomach, or a twinge of excitement laced with fear. Maybe this certain desire is hidden deep inside, like a hidden gem waiting to be uncovered. Maybe this desire is more obvious, like a goal you’ve put off for years. There are many desires that we can hold at one time, we aren’t limited to just one. There can be a desire to change something physical about yourself, coupled with a desire to change the way you show up for your marriage. Or you can want to make more money this year, and be a better mom for your kiddos. We are not limited to only holding one desire at a time. BUT, what triggers these desires to come to the surface is what we want to notice. And even more fun is when a desire is felt when we don’t even have words to what we want to achieve. I’ve seen this often with my clients. When we work through the clutter in their mind and life, what can be revealed is a deep desire for a lifelong dream. Maybe it’s volunteering at a local pregnancy center, opening an in-home senior daycare, open a photography business, or even leave work to become a doctor of psychology. These lightbulb moments are filled with pride and excitement, because it’s like they’ve finally uncovered their purpose. What they want to do, and how they have been uniquely gifted to be able to serve those around them. Those lightbulb moments are the best.

But the more common lightbulb moments are those complete with the emotion of desire, and already knowing the result you want to achieve. For many of you, this looks like a result of weight loss, feeling better, getting off medications, or reducing the number of chronic disease diagnosis you have. You see the result, you feel the desire, and then it’s the elusive moment of finding the courage to decide when this will take place. This is where New Years resolutions take hold, or where wedding deadlines, landmark birthdays, or even reunions with classmates or friends provide the external drive to make a change. But the problem isn’t in using a certain day as motivation to begin a change, the problem comes around not being properly aware of the problems you’re up against in the first place. This is where I want to transition this conversation into highlighting the struggles that you come up against as you try to achieve completion of phase 1.

Achieving completion of phase 1 would like you’ve decided on a result you want to achieve, and you’ve committed to a timeframe. But many of you get stuck between deciding on a result you want to achieve, and coming up with a timeframe you want to achieve it in. Pitfall one looks like waiting for an external stimulus to trigger change to an internal problem. What happens here is that we’re passively waiting for a reason, or a certain ending of a chapter and beginning of a new era to occur. This is the previous example of waiting for a pretty day to begin a change. This can be the start of a new year, after a birthday party, after a holiday, or even as simple as “I’ll start on Monday”. It’s like we expect there to be more energy and motivation to exist if we wait for a particular day or season. But there isn’t, because we know phase 2 is right around the corner. We know that motivation and excitement quickly fades, but we hope by deciding on the “right” day to start, that we will more likely have the motivation to reach the goal. So pitfall one is waiting for a certain day instead of consciously deciding upon a day to start.

Pitfall 2 will be the consuming pit of overwhelm and confusion. Your brain LOVES to keep you stuck in this space because it is indulgent and void of action. From overwhelm and confusion, you never take steps towards the accomplishment of a desired result. Instead, you’re much more likely to buffer with snacks, TV and alcohol instead of consciously enacting change. Pitfall 2 will be believing the subconscious TFA cycles that are creating overwhelm and confusion. Thoughts that litter this area sound like “I don’t’ even know where to begin!” “This is going to suck.” “I have to do this.” “It’s now or never.” “I don’t know what to do.” Pitfall 2 keeps you stuck in indecision, but can conveniently lead you right into pitfall 3 which is habitual consumption. This is where you are obsessed with figuring out how you are going to make this change. This is where you’ll find yourself listening to every podcast episode, reading every piece of research, asking all your friends what’s worked for them, reading every magazine article or blog post, researching every possible supplement, and spinning in what the “right” thing to choose. What’s interesting is the hidden TFA cycle you’re believing that if you don’t choose the “right” thing to try, that you’ll be setting yourself up for failure. What if Pitfall 3 is just another way your brain keeps you stuck in indecision and too afraid to take action.

From here, you will easily fall into pitfall 4 This is where you’ll look to your past to decide to determine what’s possible for your future. Your brain will offer up to you thoughts of what’s possible, self-limiting caps on what results to expect, emotions to feel, and steps to take. Your brain might be using your past to create the “screw it” mentality of why bother. Or your brain might be using your past to set limits on how long you’re willing to take action, and set limits on what results you should expect to achieve. If you’ve only been able to lose the weight and keep it off for 2 months in the past, why should you be so stupid to expect it to stay off longer? Your brain will set into place internal defense plots to cause you to sabotage yourself before you even begin! Pitfall 4 is sneaky, but quite easy to fall into if we are being lead by the tricks of our primal brains.

So in recap, there are 4 pitfalls that your primal brain will use to keep you from making your way through phase 1 and into phase 2 of behavior change. Pitfall 1 will be the need for a particular day to create the motivation and energy for this change to occur. Pitfall 2 will be the overwhelm and confusion of not knowing what to do. Pitfall 3 will be the desperation of researching the “best” way to move forward. And finally, pitfall 4 is looking to your past to determine what’s possible for your future. And remember, all of these tricks are simply tricks of your primal brain to keep you stuck where you’re at in life. Your primal brain knows that enacting change means pursuing pain, expending energy and denying yourself pleasure. And quite honestly, this TERRIFIES your primal brain. But this is where the beauty of decision and awareness can be used to help you to pursue what you truly desire in life. Let’s go over what tools you can use to help you get through these pitfalls, and into the completion of phase 1.

The tools you use with intention to pursue a desired future will ALWAYS come from your adult brain. This is because it’s only with your adult brain that you even think about your future. Your primal brain is stuck in instant gratification, and stuck in living for the moment. Your adult brain is beautifully designed to plan for the long game. Tool 1 of the adult brain will be to consciously gain awareness of the hidden TFA cycles your primal brain is using to keep you stuck. When you take a step back and simply listen to your brain, it can be astounding what you hear. Some thoughts will sound like facts, others will sound like questions, some will just be bold faced lies or mean comments. But if you don’t hear these thoughts with intention and curiosity, you will never be able to decide if you want to keep thinking them. Awareness is imperative, and tool 1 will help you gain this. Tool 2 to help you move forward will be the art of asking the right questions. This will be not only asking your brain the right questions, but also deciding to hear and respond back consciously. Your brain is a fact finder, it will find you answers to whatever questions you ask. Your brain loves to be right, so it is very good at finding answers and proving itself tur. So if you ask poor questions like “why can’t I lose weight?” It will be quick to find you all the reasons why. BUT, if you ask the right questions, it can be used as a powerful tool to find evidence for your inevitable success. Questions like “How can I lose weight for good, and enjoy the process?” Asking quality questions will be incredibly valuable, but equally valuable will be a willingness to talk back to your brain. When you brain says, “this is never going to work,” you get to kindly respond back, “ I know this seems like it won’t work, but let’s just see what happens.” Or when you brain tries to be mean with comments like “You’ll never be able to do this.” You can consciously respond, “We don’t talk like that to us anymore.” Tool 2 is an incredibly valuable tool that will become easier the more you use it. Talking back to your brain is not intuitive, but when this becomes your normal, you will naturally shift into a higher and more evolved version of yourself.

Tool 3 is deciding ahead of time to have your own back. I did an entire episode on this concept, back in episode 11. I highly recommend you listen to it if you haven’t already. When you have your own back no matter the outcome, it will allow you to courageously decide to make decisions, set timelines, and move out of the first phase of behavior change. If you haven’t consciously decided ahead of time to have your own back, you will 100% of time fall into the behavior pattern of beating yourself up when things don’t go the way you planned. You will make your results mean something about you as a person, and there is no upside to that whether the results are good or bad. Your worth is not tied to any result you achieve. Period. So when you decide to separate your results from your worth, what happens is that you stop the cycle of beating yourself up, and decide to have your back no matter what. This will allow you the confidence to boldly move out of phase 1 into phase 2 of behavior change.

And finally, tool 4 is to decide ahead of time that the timeline you set means everything, but nothing at the same time. When you set out to lose 50lbs in a year, and come month 11 you’re only at 25lbs, you have the power to extend the timeline. Fascinating, right? AND you can also have this extension mean nothing about your success or failure. Adjusting the timeline does not give you free reign to sandbag, because the timeline is everything! It sets the tone for your intentional action steps to get this result. However, the timeline also means nothing because you have no idea what this journey will look like. You’re just taking your best guess, and with guessing most of the time we’re dead wrong. When you come to adopt the idea that the timeline is everything and nothing, it will give you the space to confidently set goals, adopt timelines, and willingly step into phase 2 of behavior change.

I have given you a lot of information in this episode, and hopefully it has helped you to better understand the challenges with the first step of behavior change. It seems so simple, you’re just identifying a problem you want to solve, and setting a timeline for when and how you’re going to accomplish it. But now you understand a little of what’s going on in the background. Behavior change is never easy, even the process of deciding TO change. But by consciously watching and maneuvering around common pitfalls, and strategically using the tools of your adult brain, you will be able to do things in your life you’ve never dreamed possible. I hope you’ll join me next week as we dig deeper into phase 2 of behavior change, complete disconnect. I’ll talk to you next week, bye!