How to Build a Year You'll Love | Being Well

Hello and welcome to Being Well. I'm Forest Hansen. If you're new to the show, thanks for listening today. And if you've listened before, welcome back. Last week, we talked about a different way of approaching the year ahead. Instead of focusing on specific resolutions, we talked about identifying key values and developing a kind of stance toward life. This is your current answer to the question, what kind of person do I want to be? We walked through a number of ways to do that. And by the end of the episode, hopefully we all ended up with a few core values, maybe two or three that you want to really focus on in the year ahead. So today, we're going to be creating a framework for putting those values into practical action. To help me do that, I'm joined today by clinical psychologist Rick Hansen. So, Dad, how are you doing today? >> I'm really good. And I love this fundamental topic that has to do with applications. It's easy to have a good idea. >> I've had so many good ideas. Many, many people have good ideas. It's actually and we recognize things sometimes when we hit bottom in some ways or sometimes, you know, when someone brings something to us, what do you do then? So, that's what we're going to be focusing on and I'm really excited about it. >> I remember years ago, I think I was like 16 or something, Dad. We were having a one of the classic like what do you want to do with your life conversations that of course you have with your kid around the dinner table when they're like 17 years old or whatever. Um and I said something like I think I'm just an ideas guy and you were like well that sounds nice but I think that everyone's an ideas guy son everybody wants to be an idea yeah something along the lines of that. I mean you were more affirming than that. You were like wow yeah you have great ideas and also you know a lot of people a lot of good ideas out there maybe about that. So I I distinctly remember this. It was like a formative experience for me. for you. They didn't just throw it off or, you know, throw the tomato at me. >> I think I probably did throw it off for a good five years, but then I I came back to it. I went, "H, you know, maybe the old man had something there. Maybe maybe he had a point." Um, so, okay, maybe to to make this real for people, I think it would be kind of helpful if we sort of uh put our bodies up for science a little bit and and maybe used ourselves as example as examples of the the couple of values that a person could maybe pick here. to to put myself up for it. First, I was playing with one that is some version of I don't know exactly what the right word is. And I think that finding the right word for this actually matters for people cuz language is powerful. Words have kind of feelings associated with them. What's the word that feels right to you? Um, some version of like engagement or investment or commitment of a different kind. Um, which is just how I want to relate to my work, the stuff that I'm doing for enjoyment in my life. I want to feel like I'm really investing in it in that sort of pursuit. So that's maybe more of like a work life one. Uh but it connects to another one which is maybe more of a of a social life, personal life one which is I don't know the word I'm working on. I started with connection but it's kind of a generic word. So then I moved to warmth which I kind of liked. Then I I messed around with presence a little bit. Just the idea that if I'm having a conversation with somebody I want to be there. I don't want to be a million miles away. I don't want to be thinking about seven other things. I want to like show up in that way inside of my relationships, inside of my interactions. And so those are two that I'm kind of thinking about myself. Um I didn't ask you to prep this before we started recording that. So I don't know if you've got anything just off the dome that you want to roll with uh or if you want to take a you know 30 to 90 seconds here, which we may or may not cut for the podcast listening audience uh for you to think about this. >> Okay. So we're just doing the values, right? We're not yet. We're not Yeah, we're living with values right now. Not in action yet. There are two that are very top of mind for me and one of them is the broad value on emptying my cup which as you know is extremely full and overflowing with the dooka of too many good things. I'm dealing with the burden of too many good things. >> Yeah, I know it's a world agree with all you're suffering from success dad. You're like out here but it is a certain kind of challenge for people. So, I want to empty my cup more. That's a value. And a second one is going to get a little primary here. Not to freak you out cuz you've got some skin in this game, but I'm, you know, more and more oriented around the end of the runway and great matter of life and death as Dogen >> said in a quote I just read earlier today. And so preparing myself through practice to be more um taking into account the eventuality and perhaps even imminence of my own passing. That's >> for the record. Rick is not facing any kind of terminal diagnosis or anything. You know, he's doing okay still. >> I'm the most lively 73y old. >> Yeah. But it's it's normal normal stage of life stuff. Exactly right. Totally. Totally. Well, I think those are both great and they're great examples. Uh to toss one that's maybe a little bit more prosaic onto the onto the platter cuz we've got four that are I think all kind of wide ranging in different ways. Another one I'm thinking about a lot these days is novelty. >> A lot of my days look the same. They can all kind of blur together. >> And uh I want to do an episode or or a short video or something at some point on like um how to double your lifespan. the the joke is that it's the same amount of life, you just experience it differently. And the answer is novelty. Uh the brain tends to shorten essentially our memories of times that are the same. Uh it's why we really remember the moments that are unusual to us. We really flag those and so you can experience yourself in a funny kind of way as having uh to your point kind of a much longer and fuller life if you're just doing more different stuff. Um, I spend a lot of days just kind of camp out in front of my computer working and um, that's something that I want to really think about and work on more in my life. >> Can I drop in a little research on people who are Zen practitioners? >> What the heck? It's kind of cool. It's a detail. So, >> we started with Dogga and we might as well just keep on going here. >> Rolling. That's right. Well, um, so the brain produces a certain wave form that's detected by EEGs when something new happens. >> Okay? And it's very physiological. It's deep kind of in the underlying, you know, infrastructure of your brain. Well, they some scientists did research on longtime Zen practitioners compared to normals and they started playing for them a repetitive metronome click. So that every I'm not sure when, every 3 seconds it would click or every 1 second it would click. Well, the brains of uh normal people, you know, untrained people started to react to the click, but within a reasonable amount of clicks, you know, 10, 50 clicks, they stopped noticing the click and the their brain did not react to the click. Okay. On the other hand, the long time Zen meditators, every time there was a click, that P300, I think it's called, waveform, uh, appeared in their brain because for them, beginner's mind, every click was a new click. And I think that was just a super cool demonstration of some of the underlying changes in a brain that can occur with me mental training which need not be super rigorous just you know somewhat significant and sustained. So as we go through this life in this year uh someone might have a value like you're saying about novelty and which could then move into the attitude of of course beginner's mind and and helping every day be a fresh day. I love that because it's it's a little subversive of the premise in a good way where the premise of novelty is oh I have to go out into the world and find all of these like new and different experiences and you in classic Rick fashion just immediately you know did the did the little took out the legs from under it where you go well no what if what if this cup of coffee were always the new cup of coffee you know so it's very very in keeping with our overall ideology here which I love >> I'm sort of a both end about it you know do new stuff that's for Right. But yeah, that's how >> really be in it, really experience it, which which gets back to the uh the kind of like engagement >> piece that I also mentioned or like presencing, you know, like really being in whatever it is that you're doing in a way where like you're efforting to some extent. Yes. And the brain doesn't like effort. Effort is hard, but it's also what makes things fruitful. As we were just talking about a couple of weeks ago on the like the importance of caring episode, you know, caring matters. It's what makes our lives feel full. And so we're going to be kind of following that idea to its uh hopefully natural conclusion during this episode. So, okay, I want to talk a little bit about how do we go from like a value, how do you take that value and you turn it into something that you can actually like structure your year around or think about in sort of a new year's year way. Part of the premise of all this is that resolutions are a real mixed bag for people. So, we were looking for a way to make it feel a lot better for people and to also just like maximize your chances of things going well this year. Okay. So, we've got our top of the funnel. That's our values. That's how you want to show up. Directions you can move toward again and again. Uh words you can hold in your head as these kinds of north stars for you. Then from there, we've got goals and these are specific completable targets. We talked about this a little bit last week. Then we've got behaviors. This is what we do day after day. And then we've got outcomes and that is what actually happens. In general, we want to avoid focusing on our outcomes and we mostly want to focus on our goals and our behaviors. My big take about this is that a year is too much time. Too much time. It's easy to procrastinate for starters. People often underestimate also how much they can actually accomplish in a year uh with diligent week- toeek effort, but they don't think that they're underestimating it. So the goal feels too big. So it spooks them from starting, right? So personally when I kind of set things up for my year, I tend to focus more on monthly targets and then weekly process goals. To give a a clunky example of this, and then maybe you can chime in here, Dad. Uh for each of your top values, so I've got my kind of engaging with people more. I've got maybe more novelty. Okay. You can maybe pick one simple project for the month. So connection, you know, I I want to connect more with my friends. What am I going to do? Am I going to uh text my, you know, closest five friends? And particularly, I'm focusing on developing my male friendships more these days. Um, am I going to text them on a weekly basis? Am I going to like host a low-key dinner? Am I going to uh, you know, reach out more in other kinds of ways or find things that they care about and try to make them more things that I care about? Like, how am I actually going to do that? Then on a weekly basis, can I review what I've done? Like what are the little actions that I can take this week that are just clearly aligned with this particular value? Could you even do it on a daily basis? Like what's one little thing that you did today? Uh what's one email that you deleted that that helped you empty that cup or whatever it was? So I wanted to ask you, you're doing a lot of coaching these days. In your experience, do people actually know how to implement a value? >> What a great question. Um, yeah, I think in general with prompting they do. It's often uh going from I wrote this list of things out to actually putting this list of things like into a calendar, making soft commitments to it. That's where I find that people tend to break down more. What's your experience with that? I think that people first of all um have on average you know I say people as a generalization a lot of associated pain uh frustration disappointment self-criticism shame >> uh feeling let down by others in the reaching for their values uh my dissertation as you know is on 15-month-olds who uh who want something and then what happens next with their parents in terms of responding to the wants of a child a toddler 15 months that are problematic and there's a lot of socialization that gets internalized and that affects how we relate to our wants including you know broad wants like values. So part one part two I think for a lot of people they actually don't know how to do it. It's not that clear to them or they have a lot of doubt. They they don't think they can do it. Like let's suppose someone um in my case let's say I want to empty my cup. Sure. >> I stare at my calendar. I stare at my commitments. I stare at my inbox on a bad day. I look at it and I go, I have no idea how to do this. Or people want, let's say, they have a value on being healthier or they have a value on finding a lifemate or a value on changing a career. But what do I do next? So, I want to just kind of underline and encourage people go back to our first episode in this series because we did talk a lot about there how to develop a plan, right? That's a good plan. And the foundation of the good plan is to uh look for ways to shift your own state of being >> so that it already embodies and lives the particular value at least to some extent and also is highly likely. It's your best odd strategy for manifesting that value. >> Yeah. We've also done previous New Year's episodes on that were very focused on a more typical like goals, resolutions, that kind of thing approach that has some of that content in it. Yeah. >> That's great. So, I'm just kind of acknowledging, okay, you know, that's good stuff. Yeah. For people to take a look at. >> For sure. Then I would just say beyond that kind of a classic approach is to um imagine yourself before doing it, while doing it and after doing it. And especially in some ways the most important part is to imagine how you will feel, how you will be uh after having done what's in your plan to fulfill your value. Right? And that makes it very tangible and kind of real. Like if I were to imagine what would it be like to wake up in the morning and have received no new emails. Well, I would check my internet connection first. You know, I couldn't believe it. But after that, wow, I'd really love it. You know what I mean? Like I I think, oh, wow, that would be so wonderful. And that motivates me to accomplishing it. And it makes me also realize, huh, what would have what needed to have happened the day before so that I would receive no emails today. Okay, now I can start thinking more concretely about how to actually implement my plan. So that's another trick where you put yourself into the future looking back. That's a kind of a trick. That's a good trick into this. >> Yeah, totally. And I I think that for so many people the problem is a they think the problem is a motivational one. to some extent it is. But there's all this really interesting material from something called self-determination theory that I'm really into personally. We've talked about it a bit on the podcast in the past that I think can be really helpful for people. So if you're trying to realize a kind of stance for for the year as a whole, you're trying to do some combination of the following at least in my opinion. Having some kind of sense of the best stuff inside of you. These are values. What do you really care about that that overarching feeling you want to create? Then second, you're trying to create conditions that let that stuff come out. And that's very self-determination theory. Then to some extent, you're being an active agent in that process. You're you're the one who's doing it. And you're feeling like the one who's doing it. It's not just happening to you. You're really creating it. You know, your hands on the wheel. And then you got to figure out how to deal with all of the stuff that's going to come up that's going to get in the way of trying to do what it is that you're trying to do here, whatever that is for you. And the big insight from self-determination theory is that motivation is context dependent. So what this means is that a person is naturally intrinsically motivated. If you look at a kid, they have something called um mastery motivation or you know it's called other things, but it's typically referred to as mastery motivation. But the conditions need to be right for the kid to want to master putting the blocks on top of each other or learning how to walk or whatever it is that you have to learn to become, you know, a functional adult being in the world, right? And particularly good enough environments that allow a kid to do that typically meet three core needs. First, competence. You're feeling like you can make progress. Second, relatedness. You feel connected to other people. Like, you know, we're all in this together. And then third, autonomy. You feel like you can make your own choices and have some degree of influence over what happens. Now, if you take a little peak behind how we've set up these two episodes, you're going to see how thinking in this kind of values focused way actually does help you check those boxes. you get clear about what you value, that's autonomy. Then if you set up little micro goals, you know, you're focusing on weeks and months rather than years, okay, that maximizes your chances of feeling competent. You get to feel competent along the way cuz you've made the goal small enough that you can actually obtain it. And then we're approaching this in a way where hopefully at the very least by listening to a podcast like this, you feel connected to us and supported by us. And hey, hopefully you can recruit some people along the way that you also feel connected to and supported by. And I think that for a lot of people, this is kind of the secret sauce of the whole thing. Like how do you set up values, goals, behaviors, just how you want to think about the year ahead in a way that's going to check those three boxes as consistently as possible. Understanding that there are going to be some days where, sure, we don't check the boxes or things go sideways or whatever, but we try to kind of get back on the horse tomorrow. Is there anything you want to add here, Dad? >> I think what you're doing is really interesting. You're drawing people into the question of okay, what would set you up? Yes. >> On a >> environment foundation. Oh yeah, totally. Like foundation to in which you feel you're to a reasonable extent autonomous recognizing of course we're interrelated. Fine. to the degree to which you have choice and um you are being and becoming competent. So there's a learning dimension here which of course I'm a big fan of as you know and then there's also a heart dimension uh in which you are connected to other people. So if you kind of get the foundation right, if you feel like yes, you are making your own choices for which you are responsible, you're taking responsibility for your life, you're owning it, you're you're establishing your sovereignty over your life. Yeah. And you're also focusing on skillfulness. You're using what you know how to do and you're calling yourself to do that and you're calling yourself to learn along the way. And then meanwhile you're doing this in a field of relatedness which includes moral concern for other people nonharming benefit to them you know while feeling loved and loving along the way. >> Yeah. What a great foundation. >> I think it's it's worth flagging that both of us had values that we chose that to some extent were relational. you know, when I was talking about kind of being really present with other people or you're talking about kind of broader life reflection and connection and you know, I think those are profoundly relational topics >> and most of the important values that people are going to have are going to have some amount of stake that involves other people in them and that sense of connection to other people and support by other people. Um and the the kind of painful revelation for a lot of people through this process and it's also what you know self-determination theory says is that most environments are not this way. >> Mhm. >> Now most environments do not reinforce connection and you know relatedness and autonomy and you know feeling competent. We feel incompetent. We feel like we're disconnected from other people and we feel like we have very little control over our lives. That's the big takeaway here is that like that's most environments. So, okay, we live in the world. We got to live in the real world, including in these real environments that really do not support those needs. What can we do anyway? And it it's the the two poles that we talk about all the time on the show of acceptance and agency. On the one hand, we accept that, you know, this is the way that life is and it's frustrating. Um, and on the other hand, we do what we can anyways and we try to do it for ourselves. Uh we try to do it in between our ears sometimes because that's the only place we can as you talk about all the time, Dad. >> That's the inner climate that you talk about. >> Yeah. Yeah. I like this idea of like the the environment. A big piece of environment is what's happening inside of your own brain >> in your life or what you see in the life of others. And I'm reflecting on this question myself. Hm. Autonomy, competence, connection. Are they equally challenging for a typical person let's say in America these days or are they all equally challenging or is one in particular a standout? I would say for me autonomy and competence were very solid through high school and connection was dead on arrival. >> Yeah, that's where I'm I'm leaning to is that connection is the tough one. But I I also wonder if that's just kind of the nature of who we are as as as related people. Um and so maybe other people would have a very different feeling about it. I I know a lot of people who just feel beset by external forces. The majority of people who come to me for coaching, they express that as one of the core things that they're trying to work on. >> Very feel more feel more autonomous, feel more like they can become in charge of their life in a world where, >> you know, there are a lot of factors that make that very hard for people. I'm going a little far a field. Yeah, we can roam for a minute here. >> You're getting at a challenge. I totally see it the same way myself that for many people, they're not on their own side. They don't have a sense of agency and authorship in their own life, including in what's clearly within the field of their influence inside their own mind. I I don't mean to derail you here, Dad. There was this fascinating Twitter thread recently that I bumped into where they it was a um a woman who posted a picture of like a Saturday hangout with her and her buddies where she was like, "Wow, this is, you know, everything I've wanted from life or something." And it was this really beautiful photo and it was very viby and it it just kind of went viral because there was so much commentary on it. And a lot of the commentary from people was like, "Well, this is only a life you can achieve if you're like a wealthy person who, you know, has time to themselves and the resources to create a beautiful space and all this." And her response to it was like, "Guys, I'm making 50 grand a year, if that, and this is all thrifted. Like, what are we what are we talking about here? You just have to kind of view this as a thing that you can create." I think that she named like working at different kinds of service industry jobs and our schedules happened to line up and it was >> I love that she did this. >> It's not a silver spoon situation. And it was something that we were able to create. >> Yeah. >> And I'm like, yes, yes, that's the whole thing, you know, imperfect world, a lot of limitations. What can you do anyways? >> And um I think that feeling has been really bled out of people >> by the way that we've set up society. And that I mean, you could point to a lot of social factors and a lot of um you know, corporate control this and capitalism that that are all incredibly relevant here in really reducing that sense of agency and control that people have over their lives. So, I just thought that this was such a perfect example of a of a part of what we're talking about today. You know, doing what you can even when things are imperfect, basically. >> And actually, the more that the world is kicking you in the teeth, the more that you are Victor Frankle stuck in Achvitz or Bookenvald or one of those concentration camps he was in, the more important it is to claim agency inside your own mind. and in those very small little acts in daily life, a smile here, sharing a crust of bread there to go back to Frankle again, uh, that you actually have under your control. And this is such a huge piece of your work in general is that kind of like inner climate, right? Like working on the stuff that's between our ears and and I think that a huge part of a good enough environment, an environment that includes these things that we're talking about, you know, connection, agency, competence, is how you talk to yourself. Like are you talking to yourself in a way that feels kind, supported, like you believe in your own autonomy, like you believe in your own competency? Can you move from that kind of harsh judge that we talk about all the time on the podcast to more of like a I've been rewatching Ted Lasso recently for whatever reason. Can you like Ted Lasso yourself here? that that core humanistic finding that unconditional positive regard is just the way to go. Period. If you want to affect change in somebody else, >> this doesn't mean you don't have any rules. This doesn't mean that there are no um no shared agreements. It it doesn't mean you have no commitments to yourself. It means that when things fall, you know, fall apart as they inevitably do, you have a certain tone with which you talk to yourself. given the benefits of claiming your autonomy, claiming your power for where you do have power. And um then the question immediately arises, gosh, why don't people do that more? And I wonder about fears of responsibility having to do with a history of being punished, >> learned helplessness >> in relationship to it was your fault. >> Yeah. >> Right. So if it's not your fault, you're not vulnerable then to the risks of punishment for failing in your responsibilities. But if you really do have power, well then you have responsibility. If you don't have power, you don't have responsibility, right? And I I think it's worth surfacing for people in this topic, and I know we're going to get more practical in a minute here. Um to really look deep down inside. What is the resistance inside you for claiming the power you do have? Acknowledging the limitations on it and being really careful about challenging powersful structures outside yourself that might create really serious blowback against you. Be careful about that >> limitations as we've said over and over. Yeah. >> Yeah. Where you do have power though. And then what get what's getting in the way of it? Well, sure people might say, "Well, I can't." But then when it's obvious that you actually could, now what's stopping you? And I do think it's worth considering that maybe some of the stoppage has to do with uh fears of responsibility, fears of being seen, fears of standing out, you know, being that nail that stands up which gets pounded down. You know, look into the fears around this because of all those three, frankly, I think the one of the three, autonomy, competence, and connection, the driver of all the others is autonomy. And and it it frankly, for lack of a better way of putting it, it sucks that we exist inside of a broader social structure that makes it very difficult a lot of the time >> for people to feel autonomous in their lives. And >> that's kind of the catch 22 of it that like yes, this is a really hard thing to do. Yes, there's a lot of stuff that gets in the way of this. And that's actually why it's so important to figure out where you can express yourself in these different kinds of ways. A really important part of this for people is for starters this kind of fundamental aspirational stance that unconditional positive regard that like okay you know accountability we keep our agreements sure but we start from the stance of believing that we can do it. This doesn't mean that you actually always do it. It means that even when you don't you go all right missed that pitch still swinging at the next one. That becomes like a part of your fundamental orientation. We're moving from, you know, I'm such a bad person because I didn't do it to, okay, that happened. Now what? How am I doing this tomorrow? Is there an apology to make here? Uh, do I have to come clean about something? And then how can I commit to this kind of change in the future? Um, I think that being really explicit and really warm about the evaluation of effort and progress is also a huge part of this. Like if we're just aiming for the goalpost at the end, we don't give ourselves a lot of opportunities to feel good along the way. And bottom line, I think that the big missing piece for most people in the world of New Year stuff and values and goals and all of this is actually figuring out how to feel good along the way. Like how can you make this enjoyable, right? Um the value should feel good to you as you are expressing it out as you're as it's kind of coming through your life and can you really focus on that good feeling and go like, "Wow, this is really rewarding. This is not just, you know, sisphus with the boulder." or if it is sophistic with the boulder. God, I'm really enjoying pushing this boulder right now. And it's okay to feel that way and to like let that in. >> I'm gonna now speak against my point in in a sense. >> I don't just speak against your points. I speak my point sometimes. Um well, I'm the other way about it. It's like why do people not claim the power they have and do what's in front of them to do? >> That's a deep question. And in the answering of it, of course, that will help people to implement their values this year. And on the one hand, I was saying that I think sometimes there could be internalized fears of responsibility because that was associated with pain in your past. And there needs to be a willingness to step into taking responsibility because you now have the power, you have the agency to move in the direction of your values with your good plans on the one hand. On the other hand, it's also true that we are not responsible for usually well over half of the factors that determine outcome. Very often 90% 99% of the factors that determine outcome are beyond your control. Therefore, you don't have responsibility for them. So in a funny kind of way being comfortable with and acknowledging and being morally on your own side justice here about where it's not my fault actually to claim your responsibility for what you can actually do. >> Totally. And so I think that there's this funny little mental flip. >> Yeah. >> This is just I guess this is my thing over the last like four or five episodes that we've done, but it it's the absurdism thing again >> where you go from Yeah. me me and Seisophus just holding hands on the way up the mountain. Um the you go from like I'm crushed by the weight of the universe and therefore it you know it doesn't matter and I am the beetle underneath the foot to like wow I'm crushed by the weight of the universe. How about that? And it's like this like fundamentally tonal shift. Does that make sense dad? Do I need to explain that? >> It's a shift. How about that? >> The how about it is how you're relating to the thing. Okay. So is is the the fact that 90% of the things in our life are constricting and predetermined to some extent and you know we're victim to circumstance and whatever it is. >> Does that just make you go like might as well give up or does that make you go well then I can kind of do whatever I want with that remaining 10%. >> It's all made up. The points don't matter so I guess I got to figure out what's relevant to me. And then wow I I get to kind of choose there. That's kind of cool. I kind of like the feeling of choosing. Oh, okay. Now I'm going to kind of start playing around with with what could matter to me and well, all right, this is now this is getting sort of interesting. Um, and I I think that that's available to everyone. So true. Like Leonard Cohen is in my mind right now. Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. >> Yeah, totally. You you you lighted an effigy and now we're here today and what are we going to do? What are we going to do from here on out? And and I just think that that tone has a feeling associated with it, which is itself a kind of stance toward life, a a kind of stance of possibility and more influence and curiosity and who knows what if, as opposed to, well, I'm just screwed, which I I think is kind of the stance that a lot of people have internalized. Again, very understandably, learned helplessness, all of that. But nonetheless, that stance is not going to lead to the best possible life for you. I'm just screwed is not going to lead to the best possible life for you. um I'm screwed in some ways and I've got some opportunities in others could lead to a much better life for you and and I think it's just like a much healthier mindset for people overall. This goes to your emphasis on process >> for sure for me as a person who wanted to always get an A. And so it's been so useful for me to realize that so much is actually not my fault. you know, and this beautiful line in the Ich. We got to get you into the Echang forest. You know, they kind of we're working on you right after we do astrology. Yeah. >> I think the Iching is even cooler in its own way. But anyway, look, I I am a parody of myself. I own a tarot deck, okay? Like it's, you know, we're we're all the fuzz here. >> Fiance, you know, >> oh, Elizabeth is way out in the deep end. Way out in the deep end. I want to clarify, I do not believe I'm defining divining the future with that tarot deck. I I just think it's very pretty. Um, and I and I like, you know, messing around with it. But anyways, go ahead. >> My point in the That's right. this great line, perseverance furthers. The other great line, no blame. >> Yeah. No blame. Really nice. No blame. And I think it was really useful for people to imagine their year and to zero in on, okay, I'm going to do these things. This is how I'm going to water the fruit tree. All right. And I really am going to be diligent about what is in my responsibility. And otherwise, wow, so much of it is totally out of my hands. >> And notice how that helps you feel uh uh in in a way it will probably uh encourage and reinforce your diligence to realize that there's so much that's just out of your hands. And then it does become kind of absurd and comical and and you have the sense of novelty because you just don't know if it's out of your hands. Whoa, beginner's mind. don't know what will happen next. So, it's it's a great package deal. >> Hey there, thanks for watching and sorry for the brief interruption. But it turns out that over 60% of the people watching this right now are not subscribed to the channel. So, if you could just take a moment to hit the subscribe button, it would really help me out. I'd appreciate it a lot. All right, back to the show. So, let's try to kind of rein it in a tiny little bit here because we've just been vibing so hard throughout the first first 30 minutes or whatever that we've been recording. And I've I've enjoyed it thoroughly, but I think being slightly practical for people could be helpful here, too. So, okay, here's here's a little mini exercise to kind of start this this piece of it. >> Start with picking a value. So, of the three values that you had, pick one of them. Great question to ask yourself. If that value were you, if it were deeply internalized, if you just were that way, what behaviors would naturally flow from it? Another good question to ask yourself, what's a behavior or a move or a thing that you could do that would make acting out of that value more likely? Environmental design blocking time on the calendar. Are you texting a friend? Are you putting the book by your bed? Are you putting the shoes by the door in the beginning of the morning? How are we setting up our environment to support your competence and autonomy and connectedness? And then another really one that I think is important for people, what's a kind of story that you have, particularly about who you are that's getting in the way of letting that value in? Do I have a sense of myself as somebody who, you know, doesn't really sit in it with other people that I that I'm still kind of carrying around that's getting in the way of that value really landing? And this kind of reflection process can, for starters, give you some very practical to-dos. Uh those behaviors in the second one, if that value were deeply internalized, how would you behave? Can all of a sudden become targets for you. They can become kinds of goals. Uh that inner story can be something that you can re-evaluate. So this just becomes a little bit more pragmatic. A big part of this I think for people is moving from the thought about something to a committed behavior related to it. I think that this also can help with that kind of a process. Like how do we get this on the calendar? Okay. So you know I have a I have a value around a lot of people's values around this time of year have to do with like health and living style. You know I have a value around vitality. I want to live a more vital life. if I want to be more connected to my body. Okay. What are the behaviors that would naturally flow from that if that were a real value for you? Okay. Are we going to put those behaviors on the calendar? Is this not going to just be I'm going to take a walk sometime this week? It's I'm going to take a walk Wednesday at 6:30. >> You know, for me that would be 6:30 in the evening. I'm not waking up at 6:30 in the morning, but whatever it is for you. So, does that make sense, Dad? As a kind of a way to really break this down, make it practical. >> Oh, totally. Uh, how do you feel about tracking things? I love I feel hugely positive about tracking things. I I think that uh track it to change it >> is a great phrase and I deeply believe in it. >> I want to talk about tracking because I've done a few things with it and it can be very helpful to uh keep it simple and keep a record and if it takes more than 5 or 10 minutes a day tops you're making it too complicated. Pick something really easy. So one simple thing is to make it really binary just if you want to encourage certain activities as part of your plan consistent with your values uh in some kind of calendar or a piece of paper you keep uh just mark yes no did you do it and then after a week look back and you're going to see the wise and the ends you know and that'll tell you something. Just knowing that you're recording it will increase it. You know, generally speaking, if you measure it, that improves it. Just measure it and you will improve it. Part one. Part two, it's quite helpful to actually tell the truth about certain kinds of behaviors you'd like to do less of. Uh so, how many times in a day did you express a kind of reactivity toward another person? Maybe zero. That's great. But other times you go, well gosh, I really admit it. There was that person on the phone at UPS customer service and then there was my partner and then the dog. I kind of snarled at the poor dog and oh, six times today. So, you start to see it. I actually had a client of mine a while ago who was trying to smoke marijuana less. I said, "Okay, how about just keep track of toes? How many toes a day?" You know, put a little piece of paper next to your pipe. She always smoked in the same place. Just track it down. Next time I saw her, a week later, she said, "Rick, I hate you." Uh, because she realized that she was hitting the pipe so much. Uh, so those are useful things to do. Another really useful thing to do is to track your time for a week. And sometimes this is helpful in relationships because you're trying to maybe with another person. This is something we haven't really gotten into. How about a couple or roommates uh forming shared values for their points of intersection like living together and what are your shared values this year and what are your shared plans? Well, very often when couples are raising young children um certainly true heterosexual couples in particular, but probably same gender too, there's a tension sometimes around teamwork and intimacy. So, it's actually helpful to track the time of each person for a week. And typically in heterosexual couples, it's revoly that um she's spending a lot more time on task than he is. Now, he's typically spending more time on task for the family than she has thought he was, but he's spending less time on task typically uh than he thought he was. Anyway, so that kind of thing can also be very revoly in a couple to track your time in that way toward a shared goal. >> One kind of an obstacle that a person can have with this is the fear of tracking in the way that you're describing that in part because they fear what the results of that tracking is. >> In part because again they fear the kind of negative critical blowback that could come from all right I looked at that sheet at the end of the week and it didn't didn't have what I wanted on it. And I think that this is then when we come back to that idea of the warm inner climate. >> Are you living in an inner climate that allows you >> That's right. >> to track in this way to take on this useful activity >> and to be able to get the good from it without being totally beaten down by it. So I would just add that as a little um >> I'm so glad you did. You're right because I can start talking like this and I know people like your mom who will just start start curling up like oh no. Yeah. Gee honey, why don't you weigh yourself every day? >> Oh god. Yeah, totally. >> You know, cuz there's a charge on it. I understand. In her case, she wants to gain weight. But anyway, that's a whole other topic. And so, I think that again, just like reconnecting with the values aspect of this, what are you moving toward in your pursuit of this? So, it just becomes less negatively loaded for a person can be really helpful. >> Well, in a weird way, Forest, uh, we're getting at how people see themselves. >> Oh, for sure. I think that self-concept is a huge part of this. Yeah. Yeah. In other words, in my little example, if you see yourself as a winner, as someone who's going to set a stretch goal, realistic, but a stretch, and you're going to, if you see yourself as someone who will in a muscular and determined way, not sweating bullets or going crazy, but in a muscular and determined way going toward their goal, of course, you would want to track your progress. How exciting. all that progress would be motivating. On the other hand, if you see yourself as someone who, you know, would start slow and then taper off, let's say, toward your goal or um get very distracted very quickly. Well, then you're anticipating failure. And of course, then who would want to track that? So, I love the emphasis you have here on your inner climate and warming it up so that you start mobilizing inner voices. uh who are encouraging. I talk about the caring committee, right? I think we had that notion in our book, Resilient, the idea of an internalized caring committee, which is supportive of you and and encouraging and and has a kind of a firm coach while also a very sweet and compassionate, very godmother. They're both in your caring committee. If you believe if you experience that and you see yourself as a winner, as someone who tends to succeed, well, then you're going to be much more comfortable with tracking your your success step by step by step toward your goals. You know, Forest, you had a little riff before we started, which I thought was so sweet >> because you were anticipating the mind streams, you know, of many listeners. >> Yeah. >> And you started talking about you believe in and I wondered if you could say more about that. I got inspired hearing you. >> Well, I think some of it we kind of got out earlier in the episode in terms of that bit about, you know, uh, constrained environments, people really beaten down by stuff. What can you do anyways? the the uh the tagline to that is that as I've done and I I don't do too much coaching work with people. I I do you know five coaching sessions a week or something like that. It's it's you know something but it's not a huge volume. Um but in doing that with people I it has really reinforced my belief in the whole humanistic thing. >> Finally I've seen the light >> parents I don't know at the light you know. Yeah. Absolutely. as my hippie parents were indeed trying to sell me the Kool-Aid on that one for most of my life. >> And that's school that Kool-Aid was spiked when you became an adult. >> Oh, I'm sure it was. It had something in it. >> If you would have ever drunk it, >> would have drugged me out. You would have had to drag me into the cab. Anyways, uh yeah. So, what I've really what I've really found over and over again is that what helps people move is believing that they can move. >> Yeah. Bottom line, if I believe that they can do it and I believe that they can figure it out and I believe that they can be successful, even if they aren't successful, frankly, even if they they try and they initially can't do it, if I just keep believing in them hard enough and long enough, it eventually seems to work out. That that's kind of my my core coaching stance at this point. Uh plus like motivational interviewing and some other things like that. But it's just it's so deeply true. You know, you have to believe in yourself at least to some extent. If you were to address listeners directly, >> sure. >> Speaking from your heart. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Forest, what would you say? >> I'd say that this stuff is hard for people. This stuff is hard for everybody. And most of us have such a catalog of every time that prepare the bleep counter, we just that up. Absolutely. And last year, it didn't quite go the way we wanted it to. Five years ago, it didn't quite go the way that we wanted it to. And guess what? Next year, it's not going to go the way that we want it to either. And this is what a certain part of our brain is telling us all the time. And to do 15 more seconds of social commentary, this is what a lot of powerful forces want you to feel. They want you to feel like the little worm who is beset by circumstances and is constantly begging the boot not to smush it. Okay? That's the world we live in. Um, and it's just not true. It's just true that you are probably more competent than you think that you are. You probably have done better than you realize to this point. You're probably doing better than you think you are right now. And I truly believe that if a person believes in themselves, they can get pretty darn good at almost anything. Now, both of those phrases matter. Pretty darn good is an important modifier and almost anything is an important modifier. And the key question is, do you think you can? And if somebody is able to move that just a little bit, it is like maybe the biggest variable, controllable variable um in a person's life. And I just think you can do it. Just bottom line, I think you can do it. I hope this is helpful. I I believe in you. I hope you believe in yourself. And so many of the obstacles that we have in our lives are are about that moment where doubt comes in. And like what do we do in the moment where doubt comes in? It's it's 6:30. It's been a long day. Uh you're driving home or you're on the bus or getting home and you're like I had this commitment. I have this value. I do not believe I've lived from it today. Uh what do I do? And so much of the story that we have about like how to do this kind of thing just screws people up in that moment cuz now we're in the world of self-inccrimination. Now we're in the world of self-criticism. Now we're in the world of there's nothing I can do. I'm screwed. Oh, you know, I'm the kind of person who always messes this thing up. So on and so on. Okay, this is why we go into what's too small to fail. You were supposed to go for a walk today. You do not want to go for a walk today. Can you walk around your room for 5 minutes? Can you walk to the mailbox? Can you uh put on a song that you really like and jump around? Can you keep the chain going? Can you do something? And can you connect that to that feeling of I am the kind of person who fill in the blank. I am the kind of person who moves my body. I like moving my body. Moving my body feels good. Yeah, I'm tired. Uh maybe I don't want to move my body right the second, but you know what feels nice? Stretching a little bit. Whatever it is, I'm still the kind of person who moves my body even if I didn't go for a walk today. And tomorrow when I wake up, there might be that warm loving coach inside of me who's like, "Hey buddy, didn't go for a walk yesterday? That's okay. You're still somebody who likes moving your body. Maybe you should go for a walk today." And that's how we do it. And I just think that we've really cut people a raw deal in how we set up uh values and goals and resolutions with all of this perfectionism and all of this self-criticism. And it just screws people up and then they get to February 3rd and they're like, "Ah, I just I'm I'm done for the year." It's like, "No, man. 11 more months. Do your best." For me, and I bet it's also true for you as I speak here being recorded, something that will be played in the future for people almost all of whom I do not know personally. Still for me there is a kind of anticipatory empathy for the listener. There is a listener in my mind. There are listeners and I'm imagining the listeners, those who are hearing this. We're in conversation with them. It's kind of a one-way conversation, but a lot of it has to do with us anticipating what would a reasonable person be objecting to or wondering about or wanting to hear about next. Right? And when I hold that person in my heart and know and and imagine that person persons I see people who are beset and belleaguered by the typical demands of life that are weighing them down. I I see all that. I also see people who truly are living their values in many many many kinds of ways already. So I think recognizing that success and building on it and paying attention to how do I live my values? How uh am I successful? How do I overcome obstacles? That's actually really useful. And then apply that to okay the additional value that you want to bring in or prioritize more. That that's a really good thing to do. And what I also see is that uh when people have a little bit of a light bulb moment that has to do with a combination of what we've talked about here, a sense of wanting something, being drawn toward it, uh a sense of possibility for it, being inspired around it, and having a realistic plan, typically based on small things accumulating over time day after day after day. then they usually succeed at it. They certainly succeed at the process of producing it. And so therefore, I believe in you. I believe in the you who is listening here. I believe that you are already carrying a big load that you have learned to carry loads already and that with a little focus and a little perseverance which furthers as the Iching says I believe in you being able to have the life you really really want within the constraints of reality. >> Totally. >> And I know you feel the same way Forest. >> Yeah. And this kind of crux moment, a derailment moment is maybe a way to put it, is I think one of the most important things to learn about how to deal with. And some of the best research on this suggests something called an implementation intention. And this is an if this then that kind of visualization that a person does ahead of time. So let's say that you've got a kind of value that you want to put into action, whatever it is for you. You know, we talked about connection or novelty or emptying the cup. You imagine a realistic moment kind of like in the picture that I painted. It's 6:30. You're tired. You get home that's really happened. This is really happening right now. You're picturing it in your mind. Ask yourself, what are you going to do inside of that moment? What is your plan for dealing with that moment? Okay, if it's 6:30 and I just don't want to go for a walk, then I'm going to commit to 5 minutes of playing a song that I like and running around the room. Okay, that's your implementation intention. And what we're trying to do here is, like I said, not break the chain. We want to stack up day after day after day of doing little things that feel kind of aligned with that bigger value that we have. Another piece of this that we can do is we can do a form of gentle exposure is maybe a way to talk about this. We're rehearsing not just the kind of behavior that we're trying to live from, but the feelings that come with it. So, in that moment at 6:30, you haven't done the thing you set out to do that day. Okay, here we are. What's the emotional experience that you're having? And you can do this in a kind of imagined way. Try not to, you know, go overboard. Don't trigger yourself. Don't go crazy. But like, hey, is there a little boredom? Is there fear? Is there fatigue? Is there embarrassment? All right, what are you going to do when those feelings come up? How are you going to relate to them? How do you want to be about them? And those are all things that I think could really help us increase the likelihood that things are going to go well when we face that moment that's really challenging. You've made a point about how our sense of identity, which so relates to this. >> Yeah. >> Is a kind of lagging indicator. >> Yeah. Yeah. Six months out of date. Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly right. And every time you act in line with your values, you in fact, you're voting for an identity. You know, I'm someone who can have hard conversations. I'm a dancer. I'm someone who um stays disentangled Rick Hansen here from incoming opportunities. One more. for you, Dad. Love this. >> Oh, man. I'm I'm like >> I'm going to hold you to that one. >> New opportunities rather than Velcro. I'm going to have to work on that one. Uh yeah, that's right. Um yeah, that's that's really sweet that that sense of identity. And of course, we have to we doesn't work to pick values that are a million miles away. Like if I said, "Okay, I have a new value on being a high level professional football coach." Sorry, that's just not gonna happen. that boat sailed 68 years ago maybe u when I did not go out for popcorn or football. That's true. On the other hand, I think for a lot of people the values that they really long for are actually pretty close, you know, to their nature. They are self-conordant as you might say. Yeah. I had a conversation with a friend of mine a while back about uh what does it mean to be a dancer? And this is relevant for my kind of hobby area. Dance is a serious hobby. And that that selfidentity being a dancer is something that's sometimes even kind of gatekept by people. You know, you have to do A, B, and C in order to be referred to using that kind of terminology. In order to be an athlete, you must fill in the blank. I just think that's silly, man. I think that we actually start there. I I think it's the other way around and people have this bass actwards like I I think that you start from the view of yourself as the end point. Okay, I am a dancer. What do dancers do? They A, B, and C. Okay, I am a virtuous person. What do virtuous people do? They A, B, and C. I am somebody who is consistent in my relationships. What do consistent people do? They do those things. our our behavior kind of naturally flows from that sense of who we are and then reinforces it. What is the the thing that the dancer does as opposed to thinking about okay I'm going to do A, B, and C and then I'm going to allow this thing to kind of like fill me up. >> There's a teaching from Ajano to kind of wander into the deeper into the pool who says something like um don't be someone trying to become enlightened. uh let go of passing things and rest in awareness itself. As someone who is already presently enlightened and this also goes to the great matter of the distinction between being and becoming. I mean the brain is a prediction machine. You know a lot of research on that we tend to lean in. But people experientially can track the difference between um what it feels like to be engaged with becoming. you know your goals, your plans, who you are, who the future you, you will be, so on. It's really different to really let go of that. Speaking of don't know mind and every click is a fresh click where you just don't know what will be arising next. You let go of expectations. Uh you can't do everything in your life on the basis of this attitude. But just knowing what it feels like to be disconnected from the machinery of becoming and resting entirely in being is is a really good thing. And then of course what is the identity of that being? What are you being? And maybe you're being someone who is really present as you were saying for us. Or you are being someone who is uh naturally appreciative of vitality and healthiness and healthfulness in their body. Or you are being someone who um is not hijacked by the chasing of the next shiny opportunity to become which then fills the cup with yet one more thing. That's a great and very Rick way to kind of put a bow on this whole thing. So maybe to to wrap up some of the what we've been talking about in terms of like creating an a sense of who you are, self-concept affecting your identity. There's this kind of loop that we can see in our lives. We've got this value. Now we're taking actions based on that value at least a little bit. You know, we find little ways in the course of a week to take little actions that are expressing this value. As we express that value, we acquire evidence. This is new identity evidence. I am the kind of person who, you know, I'm that dancer. I'm the kind of person who invests in my relationships. I'm the kind of person who uh lets the email slide by or whatever it is. And this creates then a stronger pull to keep on acting on the basis of that new identity. We're starting to reinforce this identity. So even when things get hard, we have that innate feeling of like, oh, I actually like that thing. That matters to me. I'm being pulled toward it. And as we do this, one of the cool things that happens is that we kind of stack up identities. So we're no longer just a this person. We're this person and a that person and a that person over there. We've got a more flexible sense of who we are. We're adding more rooms to the house of our uh self-concept. That's a line from Brad Stolberg that that he likes in his work. We had a conversation recently. Um, and then you can do little things day after day. I have these little mini habits that then keep on reinforcing that, you know, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, morning and night is normally a good way to do this for people that keep on building up that sense of who you are. That keep on building up that sense of, you know, I'm the dancer. I'm the person who's committed to my relationships. Whatever it is, little things that you feel pretty in control of. And I think that if you stack that up for a long enough period of time, it doesn't even need to be that long, month, two months, all of a sudden things can really change for a person. And one of the things that's going to really change is that feeling of autonomy and competence cuz you're doing it. You're living it. You're seeing it happen. You're doing it right now. Oh, maybe it's possible that I have control over these things or more control over these things than I realize. And that is a really cool part of the process. And so I wish for everybody who is listening to this that they are able to stick with this for long enough that they can get to that part of it cuz that's like the fun part. Anything you want to add at the end here, Dad? >> It reminds me a little bit of the really beautiful practice you approach your actions as in effect offerings to other beings. And it's important to realize and I think it's also motivating to appreciate that we uh pursue our values very often because they will benefit others as well. It's rare for a person to have a deep value that actually harms other people in any significant way. And it's inspiring to realize that we cultivate qualities, noble qualities inside ourselves because of the rippling effect throughout our various social networks out into the world in ways seen and unseen. It's good to know that. It's good to know that your own goodness makes differences in ways that you'll never be entirely you'll never entirely know. Thanks for doing this with me today, Dad. This was really great. Really enjoyed this one. Really enjoyed today's conversation with Rick where we talked about putting our values into action this year. At the very beginning of the conversation, I named a couple values that mattered to me. He named a few that mattered to him and we used those as kinds of examples throughout the episode. We also talked a bit at the very beginning about novelty, uh the importance of having different kinds of experiences and also maintaining beginner's mind. We started by talking about moving from a value to a structure. So values are how you want to show up. It's a kind of direction that you can move in over and over again. And then from there you can find different goals and behaviors. Goals are these specific targets. Behaviors are what you're actually doing day after day. Most of the time when people approach the new year, they really focus on their outcomes, what they want to get from the year ahead. And that's something that we're kind of steering people away from here. Also, most of the time when people do a yearly resolution, they do it, hey, in a yearly fashion. My problem with that is that a year is just too long. Uh people can easily procrastinate over the course of a year. They can underestimate or overestimate what's realistically possible for them. Why not focus on a much smaller chunk of time? This also allows us to capture something that's called the fresh start effect. This is a very well-ressearched phenomena that when people feel like they have a fresh start, they're more likely to take on new behaviors and kind of get after the thing that they've been wanting to do for a while. So, if your fresh start only happens once a year, man, that's a pretty small window. But if your fresh start is every week, you've got a lot of possibility, even if the previous week didn't go exactly the way that you wanted it to. In general, what we're trying to do is experience oursel increasingly as the kind of person who and then whatever your values word is the kind of person for me who is very engaged with and connected to uh my work life somebody who feels a real sense of excitement and connection to the things that I'm doing and then if I am that person if I increasingly internalize that as my sense of who I am what behaviors would just naturally come out from there and this then took us to a conversation about self-determ termination theory and setting up environments that support people in meeting their goals or living from different values. So we want to have a sense of the best stuff inside of us. That's our values. Then from there we want to create the conditions that let that best stuff come out of us. Then we want to become an active agent in the process and deal with various obstacles along the way. And this took us to that self-determination theory part of it where I talked about autonomy, competence, and connection. I think they actually call it relatedness in self-determination theory, but that's a bit of a mouthful. So, we kept on using connection as the word. And how unfortunately most of the environments that people live in do not support those three things. They do not support your autonomy or your connection or your sense of competence. We live in a world where people feel beaten down and like they don't have a lot of control over their lives much of the time. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time. And this then took us to a bit of a conversation about balancing acceptance and commitment effectively. Our own autonomy, yes, but also stacked up against all the things in the world that we have no influence over and how understanding and appreciating and seeing clearly the things that we can't control then lets us focus increasingly on the stuff that we can control. Then we talked a bit about the resistance to feeling some level of agency. I mentioned the uh the Twitter thread or the X thread, whatever it is, uh of the person who was sharing this just like beautiful image hanging out with friends and how immediately they received thousands of comments about how like, oh, this is, you know, you can only do this if you're rich or you can only, oh, I have no I can never do this in my life. And it's like, well, no, this person's not rich. This person just wanted to do a thing. And then they looked at that thing and they went, how can I make that thing something that I can do? How can I make a beautiful environment in spite of not having perfect resources? What can I do to have some friends around in spite of the fact that all of our schedules don't line up all of the time? What can I do over and over again to make my life the best that it can be? Understanding that it's not going to be perfect and being okay with the fact that it's not perfect. How do we set up our environments in ways that support our competence and relatedness and autonomy? How do we set up the environment that is between our own ears? What's going on in our own mind in a way that does that? Are we are we talking to ourselves in a way that is highly self-critical, highly punishing? We're constantly getting down on ourselves, and then we don't want to take on different kinds of commitments or values or desires because we fear in the future, oh, when we inevitably don't do it quite right, that self-punishing voice. Or can we move increasingly toward a view of oursel as somebody who really can do the thing? And something that can help people do this is making explicit and very warm and supportive rules for the evaluation of effort and progress. Again, effort and progress over a specific outcome. How much of doing the thing is enough of doing the thing in a given day? How much of living from the value is enough in a given day or in a given week? In general, remember, we want to try to make this too small to fail whenever we can. We're trying to live from that value more often, not do it perfectly, not never fail. This then took us to a conversation about dealing with obstacles. The reality is that most people don't have no willpower. They might experience themselves as having no willpower, but they actually do have willpower. The truth is that most people's motivation collapses not because they don't have any willpower, but because we exist in environments that are fundamentally not supportive. They're not supporting those three values from self-determination theory. And this means that obstacles, different things that get in the way of progress are a natural and normal part of this whole thing. One of the things we can do to overcome different obstacles more frequently is by having what are called implementation intentions. These are if X then Y kind of format sentences. You know, if this thing happens to me, then I will do that thing. And we can do this by visualizing the moment where the sticking point actually happens. you know, after I'm done with with this recording, my plan is to go to the gym, but I'm not going to want to go to the gym. I'm going to be tired. I'm going to be kind of h, you know, it's a long day. Do I really do I really have to do this thing? And then, okay, what am I going to do when that happens? Well, I'm going to think about I have this kind of value. I want to support myself. I want to feel a certain kind of way. I want to uh improve my dancing, you know, whatever it is for me. I want to do things that improve myself athletically. You know, I like the feeling of sort of pushing myself in different kinds of ways. There's even uh some sematic aspects to going to the gym that I actually really enjoy even though it can be kind of hard and difficult from time to time. And those are all things that I'm going to think about and I'm going to go, you know what, Forest, you're going to feel better at 8:00 p.m. 9:00 p.m. when you get home from the gym if you went than if you didn't. And that's a very simple example. That's very basic example. I'm not trying to do something that's actually that hard. You might be trying to do something that's much harder than that. But this is just a way of thinking about that kind of problem. And part of that is anticipating the difficult emotions that you might experience along the way. Anticipating the fatigue or the sadness or the self-criticism or whatever it is that's hard for you. So then you can expose yourself to those feelings in a kind of soft way. And then in the moment when you're not activated by them, right now when I'm I'm doing okay, I'm just figuring it out. Huh, how am I going to meet those feelings when they come up? How do I want to be about them so I'm not surprised by them? I'm not overwhelmed by them. I see them coming and I go, you know what? I know what to do. We then talked at the end of the conversation about creating a values-based identity. And this is the idea that the stuff that we do impacts how we feel about ourselves, right? Our self-concept is constructed from what actually happens, at least to some extent. And it's very natural to think in that way. It's very natural to think in the way of okay, if I do enough dancing, I will become a dancer. It tends to actually be better for people to think in terms of the value or think in terms of the identity and then to let their behavior flow naturally from that. So if you were a dancer, what would you do? If you were somebody who cared about that value, how would you act? What would your behavior be? And then you start looking at that be behavior and you go, okay, I can actually target that. That's a thing that people do. I'm a person. I can make that happen to at least some extent in my life. maybe in a small imperfect step-by-step sort of way, but those steps will add up and eventually I'll look back and I'll go, "Wow, I've come really far away." I hope that you found something in this series of episodes focused on caring this year, identifying what your important values are, and then putting those values into action that's been helpful for you. I really enjoyed working on these episodes. If you've been listening to the podcast for a while and you haven't subscribed yet, please subscribe. You can do that on YouTube, on wherever you get your podcast, Spotify, Apple, whatever it is for you. If you want to support the show in other ways, you can find us on Patreon. That's patreon.com/beingwwellpodcast. And for just a couple dollars a month, you can get a bunch of bonuses. And also, we really appreciate it. If you want to support us in other ways, you can just tell a friend about the show. That's probably the best way that we have to reach new people. You can hit the thumbs up button on YouTube. You can write a nice comment, a rating, and a positive review on Spotify or iTunes. All of those things help us out. I guess it's Apple Podcast now, not iTunes, but you know, I'm a dinosaur. It is what it is and I just hope you're enjoying the show. And if you would like to hear us cover a different topic in the future, you can send us an email. It's contacting wellpodcast.com. Once again, thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon.

@RickHanson and I explore how we can put our key values into action in 2026. We discuss how we can identify authentic values, and then translate them into goals and daily behaviors while reducing our focus on outcomes we don’t control. If you want to live more from your values and achieve your goals this year, this is one to return to! Key Topics: 0:00 Introduction 2:00 What values are you focusing on this year? 8:50 Turning your values into plans 16:00 Motivation is “context dependent” 22:10 Claiming autonomy in an imperfect world 34:20 Turning ideas into specific behaviors 41:15 Updating self-concept 51:00 How to deal with normal obstacles 1:00:34 Recap I'm not a clinician, and what I say on this channel should not be taken as medical advice. Subscribe to Being Well on: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/being-well-with-dr-rick-hanson/id1120885936 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5d87ZU1XY0fpdYNSEwXLVQ Who Am I: I'm Forrest, the co-author of Resilient (https://amzn.to/3iXLerD) and host of the Being Well Podcast (https://apple.co/38ufGG0). I'm making videos focused on simplifying psychology, mental health, and personal growth. Subscribe to Rick on YouTube: http://youtube.com/@RickHanson?sub_confirmation=1 Get Rick's Free Newsletters: https://rickhanson.com/writings/newsletters-from-dr-rick-hanson/ Follow Rick Here: 🌍 https://rickhanson.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/rickhansonphd You can follow me here: 🎤 https://apple.co/38ufGG0 🌍 https://www.forresthanson.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/f.hanson