Growing Plants Growing People

A Special Conversation with Dr Shad Helmstetter — Part 2: Can We Change Our Programming?

If much of what we believe about ourselves has been learned, an enormously important question follows:

Can we change it?

In Part 2 of our special conversation with Dr. Shad Helmstetter, we move from understanding how programming develops to exploring whether the patterns we've accumulated throughout our lives can genuinely be rewritten.

Dr. Shad takes us deeper into the relationship between Self-Talk, repetition and the automatic patterns that can quietly influence the way we think, feel and act.

We also explore the important distinction between positive thinking and Precision Self-Talk — and why simply wanting to think differently isn't necessarily enough to create lasting change.

In this episode you will discover:

• Whether long-established programming really can be changed
• Why understanding a limiting belief isn't necessarily enough to replace it
• The difference between positive thinking and Precision Self-Talk
• Why repetition matters when creating new patterns
• How repeated thoughts can begin to become automatic
• Why changing the conversation we have with ourselves can ultimately influence our actions and results

Continue Your Self-Talk Journey

Want to take what you're hearing in Growing Plants, Growing People further?

Download the Self-Talk Listener's Guide and receive 30 days FREE access to the Self-Talk app, giving you the opportunity to begin putting Self-Talk into practice in your own life.

Download your Self-Talk Listeners Guide here  

Direct link to free 30-day trial of the Self-Talk Plus app here

This is Part 2 of our continuing special conversation with Dr. Shad Helmstetter.

Throughout Growing Plants, Growing People, we'll return periodically to this remarkable conversation as Dr. Shad takes us further into the principles behind Self-Talk and the discoveries that have shaped more than forty years of his work.

Growing Plants, Growing People

Because the most important conversation you'll ever have is the one you have with yourself. Make it count.

Understanding Your Programming series

Have you ever read a book, attended a course, set yourself a new goal or made a determined decision to change — only to find yourself gradually slipping back into old ways of thinking?

For a while, things really can feel different. You feel motivated. You see new possibilities. You may even begin getting different results.

So why doesn't that change always last?

In this episode of Growing Plants, Growing People, Kristian and Daniel explore why our previous attempts at self-improvement may not have failed at all. They may have helped us make genuine progress — while leaving some of the underlying programming unchanged.

 Kristian returns to her paper bag story, reflecting on the many holes she had punched through it during years of learning and personal development. Daniel brings the principle to life through Dr. Shad Helmstetter's memorable Mental Apartment, and a rather cluttered garden shed provides another way of looking at what happens when we clear out the old without deciding what should take its place. 

In this episode, we explore:

• Why wanting to change isn't always enough to make change last
• Why positive thinking can help without necessarily changing the programming underneath
• The difference between removing an old pattern and replacing it
• Why familiar thoughts and behaviours can gradually find their way back
• How previous attempts at personal development may have helped far more than we realise
• Why repetition matters when we begin giving ourselves different messages
• How understanding our programming can give us a new starting point for lasting change

Perhaps the question isn't whether all those books, courses, goals and attempts to think differently worked.

Perhaps the better question is:

What did we put in place of the old programming?

Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook

If you've been following us through the first six episodes of Growing Plants, Growing People, the individual reflective worksheets from our Foundation Series have now been brought together into one resource — the Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook.

 It's designed to help you take the conversations we've been having beyond the podcast and give you space to pause, reflect and explore how those ideas relate to your own life.

 nd if you're joining us for the first time, the workbook also gives you a place to go back and explore the foundations we've been building throughout the podcast at your own pace.

Download your FREE Reflective Foundation Workbook here

Try the Self-Talk App Free for 30 Days

Today's conversation raises an important question.

If recognising and removing some of those old messages is only part of the process, what are we going to begin putting in their place?

If you'd like to take what we've been exploring in the podcast and begin putting Self-Talk into practice for yourself, we'd like to invite you to try the Self-Talk App.

As a listener to Growing Plants, Growing People, you can try the app free for 30 days.

But we also know that downloading an app and knowing how to make the best use of it are two different things.

That's why we've created something specifically for our listeners — the Growing Plants, Growing People Listener's Guide to the Self-Talk App.

It's designed to help you get started, understand how to begin using Self-Talk and make those first 30 days something you can actually explore and experience for yourself.

Throughout the podcast, we'll continue exploring why the conversations we have with ourselves matter. The Self-Talk App gives you an opportunity to begin experiencing Self-Talk for yourself.

Download your Growing Plants, Growing People Listener's Guide to the Self-Talk App and Start your free 30-day Self-Talk App trial here

Episode 010 brings our Understanding Your Programming series to a close.

Over the last four episodes, we've explored how programming creates beliefs, how the brain gets programmed, the remarkable possibility of neuroplasticity and now, why simply wanting to change may not be enough to make that change last.

And that brings us to the next stage of our journey.

Because once we begin understanding how we got here, we can start asking a very different question:

Where do we want to go from here?

Next episode: Episode 011 — Active Goal Setting, as we begin our new series, Rewiring Your Future.

Growing Plants, Growing People

The podcast where we discover that the principles which help gardens flourish are often the very same principles that help people grow.

The most important conversation you'll ever have is the one you have with yourself. Make it count.

Understanding Your Programming series

What if the way you are today doesn't have to be the way you remain?

In the previous episodes of Growing Plants, Growing People, we've explored how our programming influences our beliefs and how the brain becomes programmed through the information, experiences and repetition we encounter throughout our lives.

But that raises an important question:

If we've spent years building that programming, are we stuck with it?

In this episode, Kristian and Daniel explore neuroplasticity — the brain's remarkable capacity to continue changing and adapting throughout life — and why understanding this can completely change the way we think about our own potential for growth.

Kristian also shares a personal part of her own journey and explains why discovering neuroplasticity through Dr Shad Helmstetter's The Power of Neuroplasticity became such a significant turning point after decades of searching for the missing piece in her own personal development.

In this episode you will discover:

• What neuroplasticity means in straightforward, everyday language.
• Why the adult brain is not simply a fixed and unchanging structure.
• How learning, experience and repetition can contribute to changes within the brain.
• Why understanding neuroplasticity matters when we begin looking at our existing programming.
• The important difference between having the capacity to change and expecting change to happen instantly.
• Why long-established patterns don't necessarily have to determine the rest of our lives.
• How discovering neuroplasticity transformed Kristian's understanding of what might still be possible in her own life.

Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook

If you've been following us through the first six episodes of Growing Plants, Growing People, the individual reflective worksheets from our Foundation Series have now been brought together into one resource — the Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook.

It's designed to help you take the conversations we've been having beyond the podcast and give you space to pause, reflect and explore how those ideas relate to your own life.

And if you're joining us for the first time, you can use the workbook alongside the Foundation Series to explore the journey from the beginning.

Download your FREE Reflective Foundation Workbook here:

Foundation Series Reflective Workbook

Would You Like to Take the Conversation Further?

Sometimes reflection brings up questions that are difficult to explore on your own.

When was the last time someone focused solely on you, what you want to be, do and have in your life?

We're offering listeners the opportunity to book a free coaching conversation — a chance to explore those questions with someone completely focused on you.

There's no obligation. It's simply an opportunity to have a conversation, gain some clarity and see where it takes you.

Book your FREE coaching conversation here:

Free coaching call

Neuroplasticity doesn't promise instant transformation. But it does give us an extraordinarily important starting point:

Our past has helped shape us, but it doesn't necessarily have to have the final word on who we become.

And that leaves us with another fascinating question:

If our brains are capable of change, why do so many of the things we try in order to improve ourselves fail to last?

That's where we'll be going next in Episode 010: Why Most Self-Improvement Doesn't Last.

Remember, the most important conversation you'll ever have is the one you have with yourself. Make it count.

Understanding Your Programming series

Where do the thoughts and beliefs we carry about ourselves actually come from?

In Episode 007, we discovered that programming creates beliefs. But that raises another important question: how does that programming get there in the first place?

In this episode of Growing Plants, Growing People, Kristian and Daniel explore how the messages we receive, the experiences we have, the conclusions we reach and the things we repeatedly say to ourselves can gradually become part of our programming.

Using the idea of the mind as a filing cabinet, Daniel explains how new information doesn't necessarily arrive in isolation. We often make sense of what is happening today through information and experiences that are already stored.

Kristian brings this idea to life through her own experience of learning plant identification. Beginning with twenty plants a week at horticultural college and continuing through more than forty years in horticulture, her ever-growing mental “filing cabinet” demonstrates how new information connects with what we already know — and why the filing cabinet is never finished.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• How our mental “filing cabinet” develops over time 
• Why new experiences can be interpreted through information we already carry 
• The difference between an experience and the conclusion we draw from it 
• How messages from other people can eventually become our own Self-Talk 
• How “I found that difficult” can gradually become “I'm no good at that” 
• Why repeated conclusions can begin to feel like facts about who we are 
• Why our programming has a history — but also a present 

You'll also be invited to listen more closely to some of the phrases you use to describe yourself:

“I've always been…”

“I'm no good at…”

“I never…”

“That's just the way I am.”

Not to judge them. Not even to change them yet.

Simply to become curious about where they came from.

Because the filing cabinet is never finished — and what is already in there may not have to be the end of the story.

Your Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook

If today's conversation has encouraged you to think more deeply about the programming you may have picked up along the way, our Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook will help you continue that exploration.

Throughout the first six episodes of Growing Plants, Growing People, we created an individual reflective worksheet to accompany each conversation. Those six worksheets have now been brought together into one free resource — the Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook.

It's designed to help you take the conversations we've been having beyond the podcast and give you space to pause, reflect and explore how those ideas relate to your own life.

Whether you've been listening from Episode 001 or have only just discovered Growing Plants, Growing People, the Reflective Foundation Workbook gives you a place to begin and allows you to work through those foundation conversations at your own pace.

Get your free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook here:

Download the Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook

Try the Self-Talk App Free for 30 Days

If you'd like to take what we've been exploring in the podcast and begin putting Self-Talk into practice for yourself, we'd like to invite you to try the Self-Talk Plus App.

As a listener to Growing Plants, Growing People, you can try the app free for 30 days.

But we also know that downloading an app and knowing how to make the best use of it are two different things.

That's why we've created something specifically for our listeners — the Growing Plants, Growing People Listener's Guide to the Self-Talk App.

It's designed to help you get started, understand how to begin using Self-Talk and make those first 30 days something you can actually explore and experience for yourself.

Throughout the podcast, we'll continue exploring why the conversations we have with ourselves matter. The Self-Talk App gives you an opportunity to begin experiencing Self-Talk for yourself.

Download your Growing Plants, Growing People Listener's Guide to the Self-Talk App and Start your free 30-day Self-Talk App trial here:

Download the Listener's Guide and get your free 30-day trial of Self-Talk Plus here

Direct link to free 30-day trial of Self-Talk Plus here

Next Time on Growing Plants, Growing People

If our brains can become programmed through what they learn and experience, an important question follows:

Can they also change?

In Episode 009 – Neuroplasticity Explained - we'll explore the brain's ability to change and adapt — and what that could mean for the programming we've been carrying with us.

If our minds can learn programmes…

…perhaps what they've already learned doesn't have to be the end of the story.

Understanding Your Programming Series

Have you ever stopped to wonder why you believe some of the things you believe about yourself?

 I'm not very good at that.

I've never been a confident person.

I always struggle with things like this.

That's just the way I am.

 When we've believed something for long enough, it can stop feeling like a belief and start feeling like a fact.

 But what if it isn't? 

In this episode of Growing Plants, Growing People, Kristian and Daniel begin a new series, Understanding Your Programming, by exploring one of the most important connections in the way we think:

Programming creates beliefs.

Through conversation, Daniel's computer-keyboard story and a little horticultural thinking, we explore how the messages and information we receive can gradually become part of what we accept as true about ourselves — and why not every message we receive necessarily has to take root.

 Most importantly, this isn't about looking backwards for someone to blame. It's about understanding where some of our beliefs may have come from and beginning to ask a very different question: 

“How did I learn to believe that?”

 Because if a belief was learned, perhaps it doesn't have to stay that way.

 In this episode, you'll explore:

• What we mean when we talk about “programming”
• How someone else's words can eventually become our own beliefs
• Why not every message we receive takes root
• The importance of positive programming as well as negative programming
• Why programming doesn't stop when we become adults
• How becoming curious about our beliefs can be the beginning of change

 Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook

If you've been following us through the first six episodes of Growing Plants, Growing People, the individual reflective worksheets from our Foundation Series have now been brought together into one resource — the Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Foundation Workbook.

It's designed to help you take the conversations we've been having beyond the podcast and give you space to pause, reflect and explore how those ideas relate to your own life.

And if you're joining us for the first time with Episode 007, you can use the workbook alongside the Foundation Series to explore the journey from the beginning.

 Download your free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Workbook here:

Growing Plants Growing People Reflective Workbook 

 Would You Like to Take the Conversation Further?

Sometimes reflection brings up questions that are difficult to explore on your own.

When was the last time someone focused solely on you, what you want to be, do and have in your life?

We're offering listeners the opportunity to book a free coaching conversation — a chance to explore those questions with someone completely focused on you.

There's no obligation. It's simply an opportunity to have a conversation, gain some clarity and see where it takes you.

Book your FREE coaching conversation here:

Free Coaching Call

And in the next episode, we'll take the conversation one step further and explore How Your Brain Gets Programmed.

Growing Plants, Growing People — because the principles that help gardens flourish are often the very same principles that help people grow.

Every body of work has a beginning.

For Dr Shad Helmstetter, bestselling author, founder of the Self-Talk Institute and one of the pioneering voices in the field of Self-Talk, part of that story takes us back to a young boy working alone beneath an enormous sky, surrounded by wheat fields and wondering what might exist beyond the horizon.

In this first part of our special conversation, we go back to those beginnings and explore some of the experiences and ideas that would eventually contribute to more than forty years of work devoted to understanding the conversations we have with ourselves.

Shad also introduces a powerful image for understanding how our programming develops: the canvas upon which, brushstroke by brushstroke, the picture we hold of ourselves begins to emerge.

In this episode you will discover:

• Where Shad's extraordinary journey began
• How the messages and experiences we encounter can become part of our programming
• How programming begins to influence the beliefs we hold about ourselves
• Why those beliefs can become part of the picture through which we see ourselves and our possibilities
• Shad's powerful analogy of the canvas, the colours and the brushstrokes
• Why the picture painted so far doesn't necessarily have to be the picture we continue painting

Continue Your Self-Talk Journey

Want to take what you're hearing in Growing Plants, Growing People further?

Download the Self-Talk Listener's Guide and receive 30 days FREE access to the Self-Talk app, giving you the opportunity to begin putting Self-Talk into practice in your own life.

Download your Self-Talk Listeners Guide Here

You will find your FREE 30 day trial of Self-Talk Plus here

This is Part 1 of a special conversation with Dr Shad Helmstetter that we'll be sharing throughout the Growing Plants, Growing People journey.

Across the series, you'll hear Shad reflect on Self-Talk, programming, neuroplasticity, goals, language, choice, attitude and the evolution of his work through to his latest book, The Twelve Super Habits.

The conversation continues.

Growing Plants, Growing People

Because the most important conversation you'll ever have is the one you have with yourself. Make it count.

Have you ever tried to change something in your life, only to find yourself slipping back into the same thoughts, feelings or behaviours?

We often focus on the result we want to change. We tell ourselves we need to behave differently, try harder or make better choices. But what if the result we can see is actually the end of a much deeper sequence?

In this episode of Growing Plants, Growing People, Kristian and Daniel explore the connection between our programming, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, actions and ultimately the results we create.

Drawing on the pioneering work of Dr Shad Helmstetter, they work backwards from the results we experience to explore where those results really begin — and why changing our actions alone may not always create lasting change.

In this episode you will discover:

• How programming creates beliefs, beliefs create attitudes, attitudes create feelings, feelings influence actions, and actions create results
• Why a belief doesn't necessarily have to be objectively true for it to influence the way you live
• How the things you believe about yourself can affect the opportunities you take — or avoid
• Why repeatedly trying to change a result may mean you're starting at the wrong end of the sequence
• How to work backwards from a result and become curious about what may be driving it
• Why understanding your programming can give you a very different place from which to begin creating change

Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet

We've created a free reflective worksheet to accompany this episode and help you explore the ideas for yourself.

Choose one result in your life that you'd like to understand better and use the worksheet to work backwards through the sequence — exploring the actions, feelings, attitudes and beliefs that may be sitting behind it, before considering the programming that may have helped shape those beliefs.

You don't need to change everything at once. Start with one result and get curious about where it really began.

Download your free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet here:

Where Your Results Really Begin Reflective Worksheet

And there's something special coming next.

After six episodes exploring the foundations of Self-Talk, Kristian and Daniel will be joined in the next episode by Dr Shad Helmstetter, widely recognised for his pioneering work in Self-Talk, for a special conversation about the story behind the work and what decades of studying Self-Talk have taught him.

The most important conversation you'll ever have is the one you have with yourself. Make it count.

Have you ever noticed how one thought can quickly lead to another — particularly when something goes wrong?

In this episode of Growing Plants, Growing People, Kristian and Daniel explore what happens when the messages we repeatedly give ourselves become familiar patterns, and how those patterns can influence the way we interpret situations, respond to experiences and ultimately behave.

Daniel introduces the memorable Golden Brain illustration to help explain how the programming we accumulate can influence the messages our brain feeds back to us. We also explore the extraordinary number of thoughts we may experience across a lifetime — and why the goal isn't to make every thought positive, but to become more aware of the messages we repeatedly reinforce.

In this episode you will discover:

• How repeated thoughts can become familiar patterns
• What the feedback loop is and why it matters
• How existing programming can influence the way we interpret new experiences
• The Golden Brain illustration and what it can teach us about the messages we repeatedly reinforce
• Why two people can experience a similar situation yet respond very differently
• The important difference between what happened and the story we tell ourselves about what happened
• Why Self-Talk isn't about pretending everything is wonderful or denying reality
• Why you don't need to control every thought to begin changing the patterns you reinforce
• How the brain's ability to learn and adapt gives us the opportunity to begin strengthening different patterns

The thoughts and messages you've repeated in the past may help explain some of the patterns you experience today — but they don't have to decide the patterns you create next.

And as we prepare for Episode 006, we'll begin connecting those patterns to something even bigger: how programming creates beliefs, beliefs create attitudes, attitudes create feelings, feelings determine actions, and actions create results.

Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet

Want to take today's conversation a little further?

We've created a free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet to accompany this episode, helping you notice some of the messages you repeatedly give yourself and begin exploring the patterns behind your own Self-Talk.

Download your free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet here:

Episode 005 Reflective Worksheet

Episode 005 Bonus Reflective Worksheet

Because the most important conversation you'll ever have, is the one you have with yourself.

Make it count.

Have you ever discovered a great idea, started with every intention of sticking with it...and then watched everyday life get in the way?

In this episode of Growing Plants, Growing People, Kristian and Daniel explore why struggling to maintain a new habit, goal or personal-development practice doesn’t necessarily mean you lack commitment or discipline.

Every attempt to change has to compete for three limited resources: our time, our physical energy and our mental energy.

Through the story of Dr Shad Helmstetter’s own experience with goal setting, along with a rather familiar gardening analogy, we discover why even a good idea can gradually become another chore — and why having the right tools can make all the difference.

In this episode you’ll discover:

• Why even good ideas can become difficult to maintain when everyday life gets in the way
• Why time, physical energy and mental energy all influence our ability to stick with something
• Why struggling to maintain a new practice doesn’t necessarily mean you lack commitment or discipline
• The three important requirements for a personal-growth approach that is going to survive the realities of everyday life:
  • It needs to be simple
  • It needs to be easy to use
  • And when you put it into practice, it needs to work
    
    

Perhaps the question isn’t:

“Why can’t I stick with it?”

Perhaps there’s a better question:

“Am I using the right tool?”

Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet

We’ve created a free reflective worksheet to accompany this episode and help you explore how these ideas apply to your own life.

Use it to consider the things you’ve tried to introduce or maintain, what may have made them difficult to stick with, and whether the tools or approaches you’ve been using are realistic for the time, physical energy and mental energy available to you.

Download your free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet here:

Why Good Ideas Are So Hard to Stick With Reflective Worksheet

Download your free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Bonus Worksheet here: Your Three Resources

Bonus Reflective Worksheet

Listen now and continue the journey as we explore how lasting change really happens.

Growing Plants, Growing People — because the principles that help gardens flourish are often the very same principles that help people grow.

Have you ever read an inspiring book, listened to a great speaker, or discovered an idea that made you think, “This is going to change everything”—only to find yourself slipping back into familiar habits a few weeks later?

If the advice was good and you genuinely wanted to change, why didn't it last?

In Episode 003 of the Growing Plants, Growing People Foundation Series, Kristian and Daniel explore why information, inspiration and good intentions aren't always enough to create lasting change. They look beneath the surface at the programming already influencing the way we think, feel and act, and introduce the three necessary ingredients for lasting change.

Drawing on Kristian's experiences from more than forty years in horticulture and mentoring, alongside Daniel's coaching and Self-Talk perspective, they discover a principle that applies equally to plants and people: lasting growth requires the right conditions.

Perhaps the problem was never that the advice was wrong. Perhaps we were simply expecting good advice to overcome years of existing programming.

And once we understand that we can begin approaching change very differently.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why inspiration can feel powerful but still fade
• Why knowing what to do doesn't necessarily mean we'll do it
• How existing programming can compete with new ideas
• The three necessary ingredients for lasting change
• Why understanding how change happens can replace frustration with hope

Free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet

We've created a free reflection worksheet to accompany this episode and help you explore the ideas we've discussed. Use it to reflect on the times you've felt inspired to make a change, what helped that change last, and where old patterns may have quietly returned.

Download your free Growing Plants, Growing People Reflective Worksheet here:

Why Good Advice Isn't Enough Reflective Worksheet

Because yesterday doesn't have to decide tomorrow.

Growing Plants, Growing People — where we discover that the principles which help gardens flourish are often the very same principles that help people grow.