Introduction: Do I Have the Will to Go On?

Do I even have the will to go on with this episode?

Well, hey there, welcome back. Do I even have the will to go on with this episode? Um, I do, but I also have something better.

The Willpower Battery: Why “Raw Dogging” Change Fails

Let’s talk about that. If you’ve read my book Because… First of all, thank you. But if you haven’t, let me give you a refresher on something that’s really important. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight or make a change in your life and you’ve ever just tried to raw dog it, meaning you think, okay, I’m just going to use sheer force of will to do this. I’m going to stop eating so much, I’m going to shove myself into the gym, I’m going to change jobs, I’m going to be more tolerant with this, that, and the other thing.

And you’re like, hey, it works. But you’re also like, oh my god, I’m running out of… energy. Because willpower is a battery with finite energy. Well, fine, you say. I’m just going to increase that battery, right? Like you said Mark, if you repeat something, you can increase it. So I’ll just keep using more and more and more willpower.

Burning Out: The Hidden Danger of Relying Solely on Willpower

Well, that can create a really dangerous situation, first of all. So if you decided to go the pure willpower route, you would be doing what a lot of people do in their situations that they’re not happy with. They just say, I’m just going to focus harder and harder and harder. But the problem is if the problem or the change is something that requires an inordinate amount of energy, in other words, a huge amount of energy that perhaps you hadn’t planned on or even if you had planned on it, it’s a huge amount of energy that you simply may not have because you’re busy dealing with all the other things in your life.

But let’s just say you do it. You put all this effort into making this change and it’s working and that sort of delights you. But you’re like… I’m burning out, I have nothing left for me and my family, I’m crabby now, it’s starting to change me in ways that I don’t like, I’m starting to compensate for it, and so forth.

Monsters and Unicorns: The Subconscious Forces Controlling Your Habits

See, everything that I’m describing are things that happen under the understanding of Because, the monsters and the unicorns. And what you’re simply doing is ignoring the monsters and unicorns in place. Well Mark, what should I do? you ask perhaps.

Well, that’s look to the monsters and unicorns first. And that’s what I do. And that’s what I do when someone works with me. It doesn’t mean we don’t use willpower, we use willpower in everything, it takes willpower to make a decision to go against your monsters and unicorns. If you say, look, I certainly enjoy eating, and I enjoy lots of eating, and I enjoy multiple eating sessions and and all that stuff, it takes willpower to say, oh, I want to give up that pleasure, I want to give up that comfort, right? Well, now you’re going against your unicorn.

Diagnosing Your Coping Mechanisms: Are You Protecting Yourself From Pain?

Well, instead of taking it that way, you’re kind of doing it backwards. What you should be doing is examining the unicorn itself. Are you really deriving that much pleasure, or are you deriving pleasure from something else? Is it a certain avoidance that allows you to have the pleasure? Or maybe by eating a lot and too much and often and too fast and so and so forth… you’re being forced to do that because you have a monster that is protecting you from pain.

Maybe you believe that if you do all these things, these unhealthy eating habits, it will actually protect you from pain, even though it’s going to make you live shorter and make your life less happy.

The “Aha” Moment: Triggering Lasting Psychological Change

And as soon as you have that realization, as soon as that hits home, now your monsters and unicorns have literally just altered in your system. Just that one sentence I just said. If you’re like, well yeah, oh, wait a second.

That’s when change happens. That’s when change happens in people, that’s when change happens in coaching. Because if you don’t do that, then it’s just cheerleading. Whether it’s you cheerleading yourself or someone else is being paid to cheerlead you. And I will tell you, I don’t get paid to cheerlead. I don’t want to get paid to cheerlead. I want to get paid to diagnose, to guide, and to help.

Self-Examination and the Unseen Programs Running Your Life

So this was a fast one. We’re not even at five minutes and I already switched to the portion of the episode in which I say, okay, now we recognize this, what do we do? Boom, already gave you that.

Now, does everyone who is wildly successful or really successful at something go through this? Well, typically they’re not even aware of their monsters and unicorns, typically they just work. In fact, as I use in the case of Michael Phelps, he had both a monster and a unicorn for staying in the pool. He didn’t decide that, he didn’t consciously go, I would like to stay in this pool because it helps me with my ADHD. He just noticed that being in the pool helped him with his ADHD.

And the same thing happens in your life. We typically don’t do a lot of self-examination. Well, most people don’t. I do that all the time, which is why I come up with this, but… you typically don’t do that, you go through life with all these programs running and you think, okay, well I I don’t know, look, I don’t know, and we have control mechanisms in place, we have safeties in our psyche that prevent us typically from pulling apart the cover and poking around in all the wires and gears and things.

Understandably so, just like in a car, has a hood, it has caps, and has protective seals on lots of things, so does your psyche, for good reasons. And sometimes it’s not for such good reasons. You have childhood trauma or other kinds of trauma, you may have a protective shield around it because you’re not dealing with it. I don’t want to go there. Right? You have something that’s happened to you and you’re just not going there, which is why you don’t see the psychologist that people tell you to see. Or why you don’t even talk about something. Oh, that’s off limits with Bill. Don’t even go there. Right?

Moving Beyond Cheerleading: Why You Need a Safe System for Transformation

We all know we’ve encountered people like this. We all know we are people like this. If you work with a psychologist or a coach that has a system in place and puts you in a special place that allows you to feel comfortable enough to talk through things. And just being comfortable and talking about things isn’t enough, you have to have a system in place.

You can’t just be brought bare in front of a stranger and talk about your hopes, dreams, aspirations, and everything that hurts you. That’s going to hurt. And that’s going to be difficult. So you need to have something in place. You need to know, you need to tell yourself, hey, we’re going to be looking under this cover, but we’re going to do it gently, we’re going to do it with care and respect for ourselves.

Next Steps: Explore the Podcast Catalog and the ‘Because’ Framework

Your first step in that, frankly, is to listen to podcast episodes like this. And I present my entire catalog of 300 plus episodes. And yes, I’ll stop saying that when we get to 400 plus episodes. But listen through them, listen through them in the 10 or 15 minutes it takes you to listen to them while you’re doing a chore, while you’re in the car… and just think. Think in the safety of your own mental space.

And then when you want to learn more, pick up a copy of Because. It’s not that expensive, it’s a short read, but it is packed with information and citations from other books, medical journals, and things like that. And you can always go down your own rabbit holes to make sure that I’m telling you what I say I’m telling you.

Finding Your Monsters and Unicorns

But I’ll tell you, the moment you discover a monster or a unicorn in place and you go, oh… wait a second. He doesn’t belong there. Sure, he has a useful function, but not there… that’s going to be your aha moment. And all of a sudden, you’ll want to know more, and all of a sudden you’ll want to find all the monsters and unicorns you can.

And if you want my help, all you have to do is reach out. You can go on my Calendly, which is a hard word to say, and schedule a 15-minute free appointment and we can have a nice chat about it and see if we’re a fit. And if not, just read some more books and do your due diligence.

Conclusion and Resources

Wow, this was fun. Thanks for listening as always. And as always, I have a tremendous amount of resources for you. Please, by all means, check out al...