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Planet Money helps you understand the economy. We find the people at the center of the story. Garbage in New York that was like a controlled substance. We show you how money influences everything. Tell me what you like by telling me how you spend your money. And we dig until we get answers.
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I had a bad feeling you're gonna bring that up.
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Planet Money finds out, all you have to do is listen. The Planet Money podcast from npr. Hi, I'm Lindsay Sievert and I'd like to invite you to enjoy a special bonus feature. Today on Tomorrow's Cure, we are sharing a specially selected episode from the Mayo Clinic on Human Optimization podcast. It's hosted by Dr. Christopher Camp, an orthopedic surgeon at Mayo Clinic. The Mayo Clinic on Human Optimization podcast explores the tension between today's rising pressure to achieve more and our growing understanding of the importance of rest, recovery and overall wellness. Through this podcast, Dr. Camp dives into 10 interconnected domains of human performance to help you elevate achievement while also strengthening your well being. We hope you enjoy this special episode, especially Dr. Camp's action forward approach to wellness. In order to become your best self, be sure to follow Mayo Clinic on Human Optimization on your favorite podcast app.
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Welcome to the Mayo Clinic Human Optimization Project where we're creating the blueprint to help you become the best human you can be so you can give your gifts back to the world. I'm your guide and fellow optimizer, Christopher Camp. No matter your role, career or goals, we all need to be strong mentally. One of the things that can limit our mental strength is our very common but usually unintentional struggle with self sabotaging behaviors. Since we all feel too busy to do more, maybe the answer is for us to start doing less of these types of behaviors. And for some of these behaviors, that's exactly what we should be doing. So to better understand how we can actually do less and be better for it, the title of our session today is Very direct. It is things you should stop doing to improve your mental strength. Our expert guest here today is Amy Morin. Amy is one of the world's foremost experts on this topic. As a licensed psychotherapist, keynote speaker, award winning host of the Mentally Stronger podcast, and an international bestselling author of six books on mental strength. She's dedicated her life to helping people reduce their high leverage self sabotaging behaviors. She's the author of the globally acclaimed 13 Things Mentally Strong people don't do, which I consider to be a must read for all of our Human Optimization Project podcast listeners. Out there. Her expertise has been featured by major outlets such as Good Morning America, Today Show, Oprah, Tamron Hall, BBC, and her TEDx talk, the Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong has been viewed over 24 million times today. She's going to help us work through our three big sections. And here are the three questions we're going to answer with her today. Number one, what exactly is mental strength? Number two, what are the things that we're doing that commonly sabotage our mental strength? And then the third one, we'll get into some solutions here when we ask, how can we remove these things from our lives in order to maximize our mental strength? Well, Amy, welcome to the Human Optimization Project, and thank you so much for joining us today.
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A
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
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B
All right, good. So I think when we talk about this concept of mental strength, it kind of conjures up a lot of ideas for people. But I want to know you as sort of a world's expert on this concept. How do you personally define mental strength?
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A
If I had to sum it up in a sentence, I'd say it's finding the courage to live the life that you want according to your values. But to break it down a little bit more, there's three parts to mental strength. It's about the way you think, the way you feel, and the way that you behave. And the thinking part is really knowing that everything you think isn't necessarily true. Just because something pops into your head, you don't have to believe it. You don't have to act on it. And that with practice, we can rewire our brains and think differently. And the emotional part is about knowing that you have some control over your emotions. You don't have to stay stuck there if you wake up in a bad mood. You don't have to stay in a bad mood if it's not serving you well. But on the other hand, that you have the confidence that if you're grieving and you go through a lot of emotions, that you can allow yourself to feel those feelings, to work through them. And then the third part is the behavioral piece that's really about knowing how do you take action? Right. It's one thing to say I'm a positive thinker, but that doesn't matter unless you're taking the positive action alongside it. So knowing what am I going to do today even though I don't feel like it? Maybe I go to the gym or I'm struggling to stay on task. But here's the skills and tools I'm going to use to get this job done that's right in front of me.
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B
No, this is excellent. So this is a phenomenal definition, but you've also gifted us with a model here that we can use to go about actually sort of improving it. So I'm very excited about diving into this with you. Before we do though, I want to hear a little bit more about your journey and how you got interested in this. I mean, obviously you have tackled this from every different perspective and aspect. So how did you get started down this pathway of really focusing on mental strength when there are so many other things that you could focus on?
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A
Well, I'm a therapist by trade and early on in my career, about a year after I started working as a full time therapist, my mom had passed away and it was the first time that I really started being interested in like, how do you get through tough times from a personal level? Wasn't just about teaching people anymore, but it was about how do I do this and how do I show up at work as a therapist when I'm going through grief and what does that look like? And as a, I'm a clinical social worker, so I'd been trained to focus on people's strengths. Like somebody comes into your office, figure out what they're doing well and tell them to keep doing that. And in that moment in my own life, it just, it didn't feel like that was enough. Like, yeah, I had good habits, but I thought, you know, I don't need another list of what to do or what to keep doing. It was really about getting rid of the things that would have held me back and kept me stuck. So I started studying mental strength. With this new routine, renewed interest for myself. And the more I studied it, the more I just kept thinking it's really not about adding more good habits. Sometimes it's just about subtracting it. If I were to say I was going to work on building physical strength, like, yes, I need to go to the gym, but if I wanted to see results, I'd have to also look at what to give up. Right? Too much sugar and junk food and all the things that would make it so I wasn't making as much progress. And then it was the three year anniversary of the day that my mom died, that my 26 year old husband died of a heart attack and I had lost my mom from a brain aneurysm that had ruptured. So it was very sudden and unexpected. And then I'm 26, I lost my husband in the Same way, suddenly and unexpectedly and again just reminded me that life's full of ups and downs. But to get through the really tough times, the last thing I could have handled was a to do list. So I just wrote myself this letter of what not to do and felt like, if I just don't do these things, then somehow I'll get through it. And a lot of people talked about mental toughness, and when they did, it was usually about ignoring your pain or pretending it doesn't exist or pushing yourself to the limits, or they talked about resilience, which is really about bouncing back. And I thought, I don't want to go through life just like, waiting to bounce back from the next tragedy or like, bracing myself for something bad to happen. I wanted to figure out, how do you go through the really tough and painful experiences and grow from them? How do you learn from it in a way that I could then enjoy the good times because I had so many people that would come into my therapy office and something horrible happened to them, and they just felt like they were stuck. Like they were always just waiting for the next bad thing to happen. Or when something good happened, they were like, yeah, but I had this bad thing that happened, and I just saw that so much that I thought, okay, what is it that I want to do so that even though life was hard in those moments, I wanted to learn and I wanted to grow so that I could enjoy the good times. Obviously, since then, life's been a roller coaster, but all of our lives are roller coasters of ups and downs. And learning how to get through the good times and enjoying them fully, I think really helps us get through the rough times, too, so that we know it's not going to last forever, right?
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B
My goodness, Amy, you've been through it, certainly. And one of the things I love about you is that obviously you have a lot of personal experience with this and a lot of these challenges, obviously a lot of professional experience, and you've been helping others. So you've taken sort the practical wisdom that you've applied to yourself, the practical wisdom you've seen and learned from others. And one of the other things that I think makes your approach to this so helpful is that you're also an incredibly busy person and you've got a lot going on and you've been doing a lot. You've written so many books and you're all over the place speaking and your own podcast and all of this. And so I think many of us, although maybe have not had, you know, different. We had different types of success and varying levels of success. We all feel like we're pretty busy with a lot going on and that we don't have the ability to add on more. And we keep, we always tend to go to that, like, oh, I got to do more, I got to add something. But what you're saying is that maybe is not the case and oftentimes subtraction can be much more powerful than addition, which I think is fantastic. And I think that that's something that we really need to be thoughtful about, but proactive about as well. And this is one of those things, I think that people don't tend to take a proactive approach to their mental strength. We often wait until something happens and really test our mental strength and then we find out if we're mentally strong or not. So my next question is, if we're not going to, if we're going to be more proactive about this, how can I gauge whether or not I am mentally strong? Do I have to wait for something to really test it? Or are there some things I can look at in my regular day to day life to help me sort that out?
- [10:40]
A
Well, that's a good question. And I like the way that you put that too, because it would sort of be like if I had to lift a heavy box. And I thought, oh, I know, I'm just going to go do some reps right now in the gym, right, to build bigger biceps so I can pick this box up in five minutes. Like, it doesn't work like that. And that's the last time that you really want to feel like I, I'm struggling. You want to make sure that you're ready for those things because life will be up and down. All of us face those roller coasters of emotions and difficulties. So it's really about deciding what am I going to do to start managing my life now. And it's not about just bracing for the bad times, but it's just evaluating sometimes, like what are my habits, what do I want to work on, what do I want to eliminate, what do I want to get better at? And sometimes people will ask me specific questions, like if I say yes to something I don't want to do, am I, does that mean I'm mentally strong because I'm challenging myself? Or does that mean that I'm a people pleaser and I'm really not? And the answer is, it all depends. And for all of us, that answer is a little bit different. Right. If you're somebody who doesn't usually extend yourself and that's one of your goals, is to say, I'm going to challenge myself to do new things, then saying yes might be a sign of strength. But if you're somebody who says yes to everything and you don't ever actually figure out what it is you want from life, saying yes to too many things is a sign that that could be something you need to work on. So to really say, am I mentally strong? I think it's about really assessing your life and saying, what is it I'm working on, what am I getting better at, what areas do I want to improve on? And what is it that I could do today that I wasn't able to do a year ago? Sometimes those things happen so slowly that we don't even notice. Maybe you're able to do things now that five years ago you would have never thought you could do, but it just kind of happens slowly over time and we don't give ourselves credit for it. So just really evaluating, where did I used to be? How much growth have I made? And then where do I want to be, say in six months or a year from now, now? And how would I get there? That's how you know if you're getting stronger.
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B
So, so it has to be a personalized thing and it's got to be individualized to us. And to go back to the very beginning, you, you, your definition of mental strength, finding courage to live the life you want according to your values. That requires you to sort of know what your values are, know who you are as a person, know what you're striving for, and then decide whether or not you're achieving that. And to add another layer of nuance to this, I think we often tend to ask our, we question as a yes or no question, am I mentally strong or not? Am I strong or am I weak? And it maybe is not that simple. And sort of what you're describing is that we live on this spectrum of mental weakness on one side and complete mental strength on the other. And all of us probably are in different places along that spectrum. Is that a fair way to think about it?
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A
It is. And there's going to be things that affect your mental strength on a day to day basis, right? How much sleep I got in the past couple of days, what I did for fun last week, whether I'm going through something really stressful sometimes that can move you down a couple of notches and you say, well, what is it that I need to do? Maybe I need to take more time to focus on myself or I need to go to the gym today. Just in really looking at that and knowing that we all have room for improvement, there's something we can do every day to become mentally stronger if we choose to. And we're all going to face those challenges that make it harder to move up that continuum and, and that's just part of life and recognizing it rather than declaring ourselves invincible. You know, I had a lot of people that would be like, oh, I'm already mentally strong. I don't need to work on that. But that was like saying, I'm physically strong. I don't ever need to go to the gym. Well, that doesn't make sense. Right? We know it's something that we all need to keep working on.
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B
Yeah. Very, very good. So speaking of that, I think we all know that it's something we need to do. We know that there are benefits. Some of the benefits are obvious, some may be not so obvious. So can you take us through what you think are the biggest benefits, maybe the, the obvious and surprising benefits of being mentally strong?
- [14:42]
A
Sure. I think just about every part of your life becomes easier again. If I were to relate it back to physical strength. I've never met anybody who says, gee, I wish I hadn't become so physically strong. Right. Everything from carrying your groceries to moving about your day just becomes a lot easier. And it's much the same for mental strength. The conversations you have or even having the tough conversations becomes a little bit easier. Or being able to challenge yourself to do new things and knowing that again, you don't have to believe everything that you think, having better control over your emotions. So a lot of people will say, I have so much better self discipline than I used to. I used to depend on willpower, but now I have the skills and tools to be able to stick with something or their tenacity increases. People say, all right, when I used to face things that were really difficult, I gave up after the third day. Now I know I can handle the frustration or the boredom and I can keep working on something. I'm better able to reach my goals. I could do things I never thought I could do before. And these are the things that I hear from clients who come into my office to work on these things where they'll say, you know, I just never thought I could be the type of person who could do this. And here I am. Now. Whether they're talking about the fact that they now run their own business or they set boundaries with their mother in law, they're just saying things that used to be so hard for me to do. I can do it now and again. What's difficult for me might not be difficult for you and vice versa. But we all have these certain things in our lives that are, are difficult and, and sometimes we hide them or we think, I don't want to tackle that, or it's embarrassing. If you have a high profile job and yet you're really struggling with, say, parenting your kids, people will be like, I don't want to talk about the fact that my four year old runs the house because I run a business over here. And so because they don't talk about it, they don't address it. But when you build mental strength, suddenly those things you're like, okay, I've got this and you can work on it.
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B
And I think when you say, I got this and I can work on it and I get better at that. That in turn then allows you to build more mental strength, right? You get this positive feed forward loop where each of these areas of your life get easier or better, your performance improves, you have more joy and the satisfaction of achieving something which then reinfor forces positive mental strength. So you can get this positive flywheel going.
- [17:04]
A
Exactly. Our belief in ourself really matters. If you believe you can do something, it obviously makes it much more likely that you can do it. And it's not about being overconfident or overestimating yourself. It's also about recognizing real limitations. But just knowing, I don't have to have all the answers now, but I trust that I can figure it out. Hey, do you have about 20 minutes? I know you're busy, but what if I told you spending that time could help improve your life? That's what we aim to do on each episode of Life Kit. Evidence based tips. In about 20 minutes or less, listen to the Life Kit podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Now more than ever, technology is a dominating force in our lives. Then there's the threat of AI everywhere. And yet tech can be inspiring and help level playing fields. I mean, a YouTuber with a self funded debut movie just dominated the box office.
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I thought, hey, if you interview me, it'd be good for your publication. And that's not ego. I just have a lot of followers.
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But it's that stigma.
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B
It's like YouTubers, they're not real.
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A
Join me, Lizzie O', Leary, the host of what Next TBD, Slate's podcast focused on technology, power and the future. Follow what Next TBD now wherever you get your podcasts
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B
and you gave Several good examples there. You mentioned sort of the CEO of the company that maybe in another area of their life is having trouble at home or whatever. Do you think this concept of mental strength, is it just something for leaders and CEOs and professional athletes, or is this something that we would all benefit equally from?
- [18:49]
A
I think all of us would benefit from it. I guess. I've never met anybody who's, who didn't need mental strength at one point or another who didn't benefit from gaining these skills. I mean, I have a kids book because I think we should be teaching this to kids of all ages too, to know like, okay, I can learn these skills, I'm capable, I'm competent, I can work on things that I didn't know how to do and work on myself, the way I feel about myself and the way that I view myself too.
- [19:17]
B
And a quick note, a call out of that on the kids book, which I think is amazing. I think it's fantastic. And I know you've written books on things kids should do and also things that parents should do as well. Have you found that this is one of those things where if you start to learn and develop these habits early on, that they continue to pay dividends for you later in life? So it is worth investing early to learn the right habits that will help you later when you start to run into the real problems of the world?
- [19:48]
A
Exactly. That's one of the reasons why my kids book is about the 13 things strong kids do. All my other books about what not to do. But if we teach kids from an early age how to do these things, I feel like they're not going to grow up to develop some of these bad habits that we do as adults because we get in the habit of doing certain things that keep us stuck. But if we teach kids from an early age how to manage their emotions and how to deal with negative thoughts, they're not going to develop some of the bad habits that those of us who weren't taught those things tend to develop over time.
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B
All right, great. So now let's talk about some of those habits that we've developed. So we'll slip into our second section here where I want to talk about some common sort of self sabotage things that we tend to do. And I don't want this section to feel overly negative, but I think we will focus on some of these things. And then in our third section we'll get back to positivity again when we'll talk about how we're actually going to eliminate him. So when we talk about these specific behaviors overall, like how are we doing on this as a society? What grade would you give us on our mental strength overall as a society?
- [20:55]
A
Oh, I would say overall, maybe around a C, somewhere in that, in that vicinity. I think we have areas we can improve upon. I think sometimes we get rewarded for some of the things that aren't healthy in some strange ways. So I would love to see that change. And I think again, our technical society creates bad habits for all of us. Whether we're scrolling too much or we're just not connecting with people, so think that we have room for improvement. But at the same time, I'm thrilled that we are starting to talk more about feelings and mental health and we're making these issues bigger than they were. When I was a kid. Nobody really talked about feelings. I'd never met anybody who was in therapy when I was a kid. All these things have kind of normalized over the years. So I do think we've made a lot of progress that way.
- [21:45]
B
Yeah, I would agree. I love that. So yeah, give us a C. The worry is that we're sort of trending down in some areas. But I agree it does seem to be a very excited area. Like people are interested and people recognize the value of this and it is important they want to get better at it. So now can you tell us as we start thinking about that, what are some of the most common habits or behaviors that people are doing that are sabotaging their mental strengths?
- [22:16]
A
So I would say to begin with is feeling sorry for yourself. One of the things I talk about in the book is just the danger of self pity. And that if we go down that road of thinking our lives are worse than everybody else's becomes harder to change. Another one is giving away our power. And by that one, it's really about giving somebody else permission to have too much control over your life. So if I say my boss ruined my day or my mother in law makes me feel bad about myself, well then I'm giving people power over, over how I feel, how I behave perhaps, and how I feel about myself. Another one would be worrying about things that we can't control. There's so many things in, in life right now that are outside of our control and we have control over where we spend our time and energy. But not, I can't control the politics, the government, I can't control the economy or how other people behave. When you put the energy in the right place, you are able to get things done. You don't feel like you're just running around feeling helpless all the time. Another one would be making the same mistakes over and over again and knowing that we can learn from mistakes. But this would be one of those things that as a society, sometimes we're more tempted to hide our mistakes or minimize them or pretend that they don't exist. And finally, I would say expecting immediate results. And that one's tougher. Even since the. Since I first started talking about this, things have become so much faster between. You can order an Amazon package overnight or in two hours in some places, but yet people will expect. Like, I've been working on my mental strength for three days and yet I don't feel stronger. And to know that making change in your life takes longer than a lot of the things that we just have at our fingertips.
- [24:09]
B
Right, yeah. And that last one, great. I feel like that's one we're definitely getting worse at. And society is sort of set up to make us want that instant gratification. So I've been writing them down here. So, number one, don't feel sorry for yourself. Number two, giving away your power. Three, focusing on what you can't control. Number four, making the same mistakes over and over. Number five, expecting immediate results. So let's run back through each of those, if you don't mind. We'll dedicate a few minutes to each. And I kind of want to hear why you think we struggle with that and how those things manifest in our lives, because I think it's helpful we can, you know, provide some examples for people of how this actually shows up in their day to day life. Because I imagine a lot of these behaviors are there and people don't recognize that they're doing these things. So let's start at the top. The first one you said, don't feel sorry for yourself. How does that show up in our lives?
- [24:58]
A
So sometimes it's just about coming up with excuses, right? It's not my fault that my life is horrible and awful and there's nothing I can do about it. And we have this idea that we should always talk about everything and that, that we're somehow working through the problems. But that's different. Like if I were to call my friend and say, oh, my day was horrible, maybe I'm processing, but then I move on. But sometimes we get rewarded for staying stuck. When you say, I had a horrible day and your friend says, yeah, mine was horrible too, and then you get into that pattern of always just pointing out all of the doom and gloom, or some people do this when they get home from work, you just talk about all the awful things with your partner.
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B
You're battling to see who had the worst day. Almost correct.
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A
Right. And then we get reinforced for that because we get, you know, the other person's like, oh, man, I can totally relate to that. And then we get into this discussion, and research will show that venting actually isn't anything that helps our mental health. In fact, it's the opposite. It's more like adding gasoline to a fire. Right. And you don't vent and feel better. But so many people think, I have to get it out. If I just talk about everything, then I'm going to suddenly feel better. But if I sit down and talk to you about the four most frustrating things in my life, I don't feel calm. In fact, I am going to feel more frustrated. And then you're probably going to tell me what you're frustrated about. And then the cycle continues. And so. But that's how a lot of us tend to relate to people, because it's a great way to strike up a conversation with somebody is to kind of complain. Whether we start with complaining about the weather or you complain about something frustrating like traffic and. And then we commiserate with people, and it then creates this cycle in our brain where we're just focused on finding the negative. And the more that we do that, the more we tell ourselves, it's not my fault. I don't have to do anything different. The world is awful and horrible.
- [26:46]
B
It's a great point. Not only does it force me to relive the list of everything wrong in my life and everything I'm upset about, but then you end up doing the same. So I also inherit the burden of all the negativity in your life. So I've more than doubled the negative feelings. No wonder that's not. Not fruitful. Okay, so how about the second one? Don't. Don't give away our power. How does that show up in our lives?
- [27:10]
A
So this one is. It's just so easy to use the language of, you know, I have to do something. Whether it's I have to go to the grocery store or my boss just expects so much of me and it really ruins my day. Or again, the self worth issue. People will blame other people for making them feel bad, or they'll blame social media for making them feel bad. And we're just really just like, outsourcing how we feel. We're outsourcing how we think about ourselves and how we spend our time. People will say, my, my boss Made me work late. But the truth is, like, your boss didn't make you work late. It was a choice. And, yeah, there's probably consequences if you don't work late, but just that language that we use sometimes, again, implies that we're a helpless victim and there's nothing we can do about anything going on in our lives.
- [27:55]
B
Yeah, that one, I think, is. Is very common for all of us as well. Okay, how about focusing on what you can't control? I think this is something that we all do so commonly and have no idea that we're doing it. It almost seems to be our default a lot of times.
- [28:12]
A
It certainly does. And none of us love uncertainty. All of us want to know what's going to happen next. So we research. I speak from personal experience. I'm going to research something to the nth degree to try to figure out an answer if I don't know what it is. And it might be, like, if it's going to rain on Saturday, because I have an outdoor event. So I'm like, googling the weather over and over again as if that's going to help. Right. But. But just knowing that whenever it comes to a problem in our lives, if you just stop and you ask yourself, like, can I what can I control right now? And it might be, I can control my feelings, I can control my behavior, but I can't control the outcome and then just letting that go. And I think so much of our suffering comes from getting it wrong. When I say, like, do you need to solve the problem or do you need to solve how you feel about the problem? Most problems in life aren't actually ours to be solved. I can't control what other people do. I can't control the weather. And just taking that in and noticing, okay, I can't do anything about this is really scary at first. But in the long term, it's better for our anxiety. The more we try to control everything, the more anxious we feel because we can't control it. And it creates this cycle of anxiety where we feel panicked that everything feels out of control. And then we try to control it even more. And then the key is to really just step back and accept this is out of my control, you know?
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B
And I love the concept. You know, I first heard it in stoicism, the dichotomy of control. You split everything into, you know, what you can control versus what you can't. And I'm often shocked when I do that at how much of the stuff goes in the circle of things I can't control and how little I actually can control. And it's usually more my reaction to the situation rather than the situation itself. But actually just doing that exercise can often be really helpful because you realize, oh, there's only so much I can do here. That takes the pressure off a little bit as well. Okay. The fourth one that we had, making the same mistakes over and over, this one seems self explanatory, but I think it's worth saying or we wouldn't be doing it.
- [30:16]
A
And that's the thing. I mean, how many of us have said, oh, I'm never going to do that again, and then within 12 hours here you are doing that thing again, Right? And then we get mad at ourselves. And then sometimes we create a label like, all right, I'm just not the kind of person who was meant to do that, or I'm a hopeless case. And then we give up. Or when we make a mistake, we're embarrassed about it and often goes back to childhood. Right. You don't want to get the answer wrong in front of your friends or you don't want to make a mistake in gym class. So then as an adult, we get worried about mistakes so we hide them or we minimize them, or we try to pretend that we did it on purpose when we messed up up or. And when we get into those habits, it's really about pride and it gets in our way of creating real change because we're just too embarrassed by them. I mean, how often do we strike up a conversation about mistakes? It's pretty rare, right? Like you want to tell your friends like the good things that happened or the things that happened to you as opposed to, wow, I really messed up the other day and here's what it was. It's difficult, but when we have those conversations with people, that's actually how we connect with them. Like you don't connect with somebody by impressing them. It's usually by sharing something that they can relate to that we tend to connect with people, but we lose sight of that and it becomes harder to own our mistakes and then avoid repeating them.
- [31:32]
B
Yeah, it's so easy for us to identify those mistakes in others and talk about those, but really hard to do it for our own. Okay, and then the last one expecting immediate results. How does that show up in our day to day lives just so often?
- [31:45]
A
You know, whether it's we're taking a medication, whether we're working on an area of our lives or physical fitness, or we're trying to improve our mental health or develop a new Habit. And it just feels like it doesn't happen fast enough. And then we are tempted to give up or we throw in the towel way before we've even given something a chance. And I'll see this in the therapy office. People are like, well, it's been three weeks and my depression's not better yet. And I understand that we're all in a rush to see what's going to work and we want relief right now, but so many things in life, they're just, just not going to happen with a click of a button. It's going to take a little bit longer.
- [32:20]
B
Yeah. And we see this as a marketing strategy for everything, you know, 30 day guarantee or drop, whatever in 14 days. And you see the reason it's a marketing strategy is because we are attracted to that and we want that and we love that allure and we love that appeal. Even though almost everything in life that's worth doing operates on a much longer timeline. Okay, so that was a great, I like that structure. So we'll kind of keep focusing on those five things that you mentioned. And now let's move into our third section here where we'll start talking about how we can actually go about removing some of these things from our lives to try to maximize our mental strength. But I'll tell you, I think a lot of people will look at it and say, okay, yep, I see all that, but I think it's really hard to make meaningful change and improvement. But you're somebody who's been doing this with people for a long time. So have you seen people be successful, successful in, in dropping these, these bad habits or behaviors?
- [33:21]
A
I certainly have. I've seen a lot of people who by the time they come into my therapy office, they're frustrated because they've read the self help books and they've done all of these things and they've been trying to add these new things to their lives. And again, it might just be one thing holding them back. If we took self pity, for example, somebody might say, well, I've been writing in a gratitude journal for 10 years and I just don't feel all that grateful yet. Well, the gratitude journal took 10 minutes, but they spent hours, all day, every day commiserating, venting and talking about the bad stuff going on in their lives. And it just, it didn't undo it. So I say, well, you know, if we get rid of this one thing, suddenly the good habits, you have become so much more effective that it's easier to keep them around. And then you want to Keep working on it. And again, when I talk about physical strength, it often becomes clearer to people. If I were going to the gym and I'm working out, that'd be great. But if I ate a lot of junk food and I had a trainer who didn't tell me, hey, as long as you keep eating me a dozen jelly donuts every day, you're not going to see the results. Like, no, I'd rather get rid of the jelly donuts than to work at the gym for five more hours a day. And I see so many people who are just working harder and they're putting in all of this effort and they're not seeing results. And it's often just one or two little tweaks that makes a huge difference.
- [34:31]
B
That's great. I do think that we end up undoing so much of our progress and self sabotage is a real thing or self inflicted injuries or self inflicted wounds. Life is hard enough and the world is tough enough that we shouldn't be doing these things to make it even harder on ourselves. So before we start talking about changing and removing these things from our lives, can you help sort of set the stage for the mindset that we need to be in to make these changes? Because I know if we're resistant to it or we don't understand it, it's going to be really hard to make changes. So what's an ideal or optimal mindset that we need to get into before we start actually going in and trying to make real changes?
- [35:15]
A
A lot of it's just about being open to the fact that you're willing to give something a try. If you walk into anything and you're convinced this isn't going to work, it isn't going to. And whether we're talking about a new medication somebody's trying or relationship shift that they're trying to make. When people come into my therapy office and say 100% know that therapy is not going to work. I see. Yeah, you're right. And it doesn't. As long as you're convinced it's not going to, it probably isn't. So I think anytime we're going to try something. So being open minded, yeah, maybe this is going to make a slight shift and I'm going to look for that and I'm going to try to document it because sometimes it happens so slowly that we don't notice it. So could just be, you put an X on a calendar on the days that you tried something new and then you can look back and think, okay, well I tried it and then let's, let's praise your effort. Let's really focus on the fact that you tried this for six days in a row. And instead of getting mad that you didn't see the results that you wanted
- [36:08]
B
right away, I think it's great. It's interesting. A corollary in my world, in orthopedic surgery, we actually similar. We know that after shoulder surgery or rotator cuff surgery or even injuries that don't have surgery, one of the greatest predictors of whether or not physical therapy is successful is whether or not the patient believes that it can help them. And so having that mindset of doubt and disbelief, going into any problem, you're stacking the deck against yourself and you're to just going self sabotaging once again. I also like you mentioned focusing on the effort, which I think is critical, especially for things that we know aren't an instantaneous fix, which nothing lasting is. So we talk a lot on this project about having process satisfaction. So trying to find a way to enjoy the process and enjoy the journey. And earlier we talked about how mental strength is not a yes, no dichotomy, that it actually lives on a spectrum. So I think if you think of that concept as being on a spectrum, I want to move towards being mentally stronger. I want to be proactive in that, actively do it. And I'm going to set up some things I'm going to look at along the way so that I enjoy the process. That's really helpful because you're not delaying your gratification, you're not delaying your joy. And that's going to allow you to keep going in that process longer. Right? Because I would imagine you would say this is not something that you ever cross a finish line and you say, got it. I'm done. The race has been won. I am mentally the strongest I'll ever I could ever be. It's over for me. Is that true?
- [37:49]
A
Right. Because. And I think that's one of the big differences. When people talk about mental toughness, they're also talking about suffering a lot of times, right? Like can you finish this strange iron man event with a broken ankle? And that means you're tough at the end if you somehow dragged yourself across the finish line. But when it comes to mental strength, I want to make it clear, like, I don't think you have to suffer. I don't think you have to do horrible things. In fact, if we want you to really stick with something and enjoy it, having fun is a huge predictor of success in the end. So enjoying the journey can be a part of that. Right? If I was going to develop this new fitness routine and I made it grueling and horrible, I'm not going to stick with it. Research will show that over and over again. I'm going to quit by second week. I'm going to say this isn't worth it. But if I turned on some headphones, listened to some music and did a workout that I enjoyed, doesn't feel like work anymore and it becomes really easy to stick to. So just knowing that just because we're talking about mental strength, it doesn't have to hurt. It's not like it's like no pain, no gain kind of a thing. Sometimes it's just about a 10 minute strategy that you're going to employ during the day. And knowing that, yeah, some experiments work, some don't, and that's okay, but you can learn about yourself either way.
- [38:59]
B
Oh, that's great. Amy, you're speaking to my soul here. Life is too short for us to keep delaying gratification. So it is okay. These processes, they don't have to be painful. You can enjoy it if you set it up the right way. Okay, excellent. Okay, so now let's go through it. I want you to kind of help us work through and I love the structure you've laid out here with the five things. So let's just tackle them one by one and maybe you can give us some practical tips and advice on now that we're in the right mindset, how can, can we improve at each of these things? So let's start with the first one. How do we. Which is don't feel sorry for yourself. How do we stop feeling sorry for ourselves?
- [39:40]
A
The biggest strategy that works for this one is to just get out of your head, right? The longer I sit on my couch thinking about how horrible things are, the worse I'm going to feel. And if I said to myself, well, just don't think that way, well, we know from the research that that doesn't work. You're not just going to automatically shift into more positive thinking. But if I get up off the couch and I go do something just to prove to myself that like I can contribute something to the planet and it might be that I do something kind for somebody or I do something to make my situation a little bit better, in some cases it might be I'm going to do the dishes that are in the sink and to accomplishing something is what really makes a big difference. Contributing something to the planet in some way. Shape or form, or just proving to myself that I have value, I have worth, and I can do something makes a huge shift. Sometimes our brain follows our behavior, right? So if you change your behavior first, then the shift in yourself happens when you're like, okay, I'm more capable and competent than I thought. I'm more worthwhile than I gave myself credit for. I can go do this thing and prove to myself that, yeah, I can make today productive. I don't just have to feel sorry for myself about how bad things are, but I could make the world a little bit better.
- [40:51]
B
So that was great. And you said, so action, I think, is fantastic because then your brain often follows that. But the things you mentioned, do something active, do something that's productive, do something that's good and something that sort of gives back to the world. And I think there is a massive list of options of things you could do, some of which are simple. Get up and make the bed or clean something, or go for a walk. That's an infinite list of things that you can do that you actually have control over and can go do at any minute and any time.
- [41:25]
A
Time. And I'll give you an example as an orthopedic surgeon, you might appreciate this one. So I sprained my ankle surfing once, and it swelled up huge. And the doctor had said. We did an X ray, and she said, I'm pretty sure it's broken. I just can't see it because it's so swollen. So she said, come back in a few days when the swelling goes down. And so that she sent me home on crutches. So I thought my ankle was broken, so I didn't move. And so of course, over the course of days, the swelling didn't go down, it got worse. And. And it wasn't until about a week later when my doctor said, well, let's send you to a physical therapist and see what happens. And the physical therapist looks at my ankle in about three seconds and says, it's not broken. You just have a sprain. Well, by the end of the appointment, I could walk, right? And the swelling started going down. But because I treated my leg like it was broken, and I thought I was fragile and I didn't move, I made it worse. And, like, how often do we do that in life? And people say, like, oh, I had a bad childhood, so I'm fragile, so. So I can't do anything. And then because you don't go out and do anything, it just reinforces like, I'm broken, I'm fragile, and I Can't do anything. And it's not until you really put that to the test, like, what can I accomplish? How do I go out there and do stuff? I'm not as broken as I thought I was. That you can accomplish some pretty incredible things.
- [42:42]
B
Oh, I love that. And one of the concepts I often use with patience, I see patients of all types, sometimes they have really bad injuries and really bad physical limitations and they can't do much. And we talk about this concept, the envelope of activity, and it's like, yeah, maybe you're not able to go out and run a marathon right now, but can you just go on a walk? Can you get in a pool and walk a few laps in a swimming pool? Like, whatever, Anything you can do, any movement that you can tolerate is going to be helpful. And then that's going to be step one, that then leads to step two, which then goes to step three. And so I think I would also add, like, you just encourage people that sometimes these activities, they don't have to be big, heroic efforts. In fact, starting small is probably going to be the best place to do it and then build some forward momentum. And I think that can be incredibly helpful. So how about the second one? How do we stop giving away our power? I think this is difficult. You know, you mentioned sort of that feeling of being a helpless victim, which I think can be challenging because for a lot of people, that's rooted in a long history of problems that they may have had. So this one may be difficult to overcome. How do you do it?
- [43:50]
A
And you're right, it is. And it's not to minimize that some people are victims of bad things that have happened to them. But at the same time, moving forward in life, you can decide whether something that happened to you a long time ago is going to keep you stuck, or you can decide whether somebody has power over you. The negative coworker that sits next to you, like, are you really going to let it ruin your day? And sometimes it's just waking up and thinking, okay, I'm in control of how I think, feel and behave today. And when those things around you start to affect you, just noticing it and say, well, what could I do differently to take back my power? Sometimes it's speaking up to somebody, sometimes it's saying, you know, I'm just going to tune you out and not absorb that, or I'm going to work on my own self esteem even though this person is negative towards me. And just knowing that you don't have to be a helpless victim based on the circumstances around you, but you can take back that control. So I always say, just start with a shift in your language. And even years after talking about this, and I've been doing this for so long, I still catch myself saying, like, oh, I have to do this, or that person made me mad. No, you didn't make me feel mad. I allowed it to increase my frustration level. And that slight shift in language can make a big difference.
- [45:02]
B
I think it's great. I've talked to people about this before. One of the analogies I've used sometimes, I think that is if I introduced you to a stranger on the street and I said, hey, Amy, we're going to have this person lead you through the day. They're going to choose where you go, what you do, what you wear, what you order at a restaurant, make every decision for you. How does that sound? You say, not some stranger I don't even know. That's obviously ridiculous. Yet that's exactly what we do with some people that we know in our lives. We hand them the remote control and say, all right, I'm going to let you be in charge of me. Which is wild to think. But I think sometimes when we have these biases towards people we know or there's been a history there that's a little bit complicated, that that can be huge. And so I love that shifting your language and. And how you approach that can be super powerful. All right, the third one. How do we stop focusing on things that we can't control?
- [46:00]
A
Just like you said before, something's about writing it down. When we get something out of our head and on a piece of paper, suddenly it starts to make a little more sense. So we realize, all right, where's all my time and energy going? And when you find yourself really just ruminating on something, you got to break the cycle. Cycle. So it might be, you're sitting on the couch, you're worried about something that might happen next week, or you're rehashing a conversation that already happened. You can't go back and change it. Just ask yourself, like, am I dwelling on the problem? Is this something I can control, or am I just stuck in this thought loop? And if you're stuck in the thought loop, the best strategy is actually distract yourself. We call it changing the channel in your brain. Because again, if I say to myself, ugh, just don't think about that, I can't just stop thinking about. But if I say to myself, you know what? I'm going to go clean the kitchen for 10 minutes and I get up and I go do that. Sometimes I feel a little bit better, but it gets my brain occupied on something else and at least breaks me out of that habit of just continuing to spin on the unhelpful thoughts over and over again that I can't control anyway, once again.
- [47:02]
B
So doing good action can often help us sort of break these mental traps that we get into. So we may find, as I'm starting to see some of these line up, that some of these strategies where you do a couple of things and it actually kind of helps you eliminate multiple of these problems or traps that we get caught into, which is really, really encouraging. Okay, so how about our fourth one? Making the same mistakes over and over again. I feel that one, I wear that one. I catch myself all the time. Like for me it's in so many areas of my life. One of them is definitely in nutrition where I think, all right, I'm going to stick to this, I'm going to do this. I'm not to going, going to cheat. I'm going to stay on my diet and not going to have any sugar, not going to have whatever. And then the 8pm version of me shows up tired and hungry and ends up has a slightly different take on it. Then I make that and I'm like, I said I wasn't going to do this. Why does that keep happening? So how do I break that loop?
- [48:01]
A
So sometimes it's about recognizing the traps that get us caught. So if we were to take that where somebody says, I stick to my diet pretty well all day and at 8pm I go off the rails, it's like, okay, well is there something that you could do differently? At 8pm don't be near the kitchen perhaps, or you replace it with something else, or you already pre plan what snack you're going to try. And sometimes just planning ahead when you know what those traps are. So if I have somebody who says, you know, I'm trying to change this one habit in my life, maybe it's budgeting, but yet every Saturday night my friends call and we go out to dinner and then I completely blow my budget. Well, you know what's going to happen next Saturday night. So let's come up with a new strategy, a plan to try and for some people that's important and for other people it's just about recognizing like what happens when I fall prey to these mistakes. Is it because I'm feeling bored? Am I frustrated? Do I just get caught off guard? Sometimes if there's one specific mistake that we make we can talk ourselves into doing something differently. So I'll give you an example. I used to work with a man who said, you know, I really want to go to the gym. And every morning I pack my bag and I get ready to go to the gym at the end of my workday. At the end of the workday, I have to make the decision, do I turn right to go home, or do I turn left to go to the gym? And he said, I just can't make myself turn left. So we wrote a list of the top 10 reasons why he wanted to go to the gym. And he taped it to his steering wheel. And before he started the engine, at the end of the day, he would just read this list of why he should go to the gym. And suddenly he said, all right, I can talk myself into it. It's not just the emotion of, I'm too tired, or when I would tell myself, I don't. I don't have to go today because I deserve a night off. When I'm reminded of the why I should go to the gym, and it's in my own words, I'm able to make my car turn left more often. So there's a lot of little things we can do when we identify those mistakes. Instead of just pretending that they don't exist, you have to own up to them and then come up with some strategies. And sometimes they're like these tricky little things we can do to talk ourselves into it or to prevent it or to make it more difficult to access one of our bad habits. You put the Oreos in the top cupboard, it decreases the chances you're going to reach for one as compared to if you leave them on the table and they're right there in front of you. So just experimenting with those little things can make a big difference.
- [50:21]
B
Yeah. Seeing if we can change our environment or the system that we're in to keep us out of those. Those repeated mistakes. That's excellent. Okay, and now for our last one. Expecting immediate results. This is a tough one. How do we. When our society keeps pushing us in that direction, how do we break that cycle?
- [50:39]
A
Cycle? Yeah. I think it's about recognizing those pressures that we feel. You launch a business and somebody asks you after a couple of weeks if you have, you know, made a million dollars yet. Like, it's ridiculous. So knowing, like, what's a reasonable expectation for this? Or I'm going to change my health habits, Or I'm going to change some of my. I want to improve my relationship or my parenting. What's a realistic expectation and how will I know if I'm on track and if you can find a way to quantify some of these things? So it might be, I can't control if my kids argue less, but I can control how I parent them. So maybe every day I'm going to spend a few minutes of quality time with each of my kids reading a book to see if that works. And then you're not going to judge the results based on whether the kids fought more. You're going to say, did I actually read a book to the kids like I said I was going to? But just really looking at that. And we know sometimes having an app that tracks your habits, having a calendar where you put X on the calendar can increase your gym attendance just because you're reminded of, oh, yeah, I got to do that thing today. So anything we can do that reminds us that it's the long haul, it's the marathon, not the sprint, that you're not going to change your life in a week. But if you make those little changes every day, that they really do stack up, great strategies.
- [51:54]
B
Okay, so a couple last questions here before we wrap up, and I'm going to give an opinion, and you tell me if you agree or disagree. Feel free to disagree if you want, but I think, you know, you've listed five things here. Don't feel sorry for yourself. Second one, don't give away your power. Third one, don't focus on what you can't control. The fourth one, don't make the same mistakes over and over. Number five, don't expect immediate results. There's probably a tendency for all of us and our listeners to go through that list of five and say, okay, I think I do. Number two, four, and five. In reality, I would say we probably all do all five of them, but to different degrees. Is that you agree or disagree with that statement?
- [52:38]
A
Absolutely agree.
- [52:39]
B
Okay. Okay. So this is not a definition. This is not a question of which of these do I do, but how can I try to eliminate or reduce each of these in my life? Because we're probably all doing them.
- [52:51]
A
Yeah. If we're honest. Yep.
- [52:53]
B
All right, so if, if we last question here before we wrap up. If we dedicate ourselves to really getting better at this, we really say, all right, I'm going to try to work on this. I'm going to try to cut these things out of my life. What does success, what will success look like for us in terms of, you know, how long is it going to take for us to notice improvement? How Frequently. Are we going to mess up with this? What obstacles are we going to hit along the way?
- [53:20]
A
You know, a lot of people will say, I start to feel different after a week or two when I really start making some changes. I can notice that, like, I feel lighter, I feel better, better. And. And just knowing that it's not going to be a straight line. As you encounter some of life's inevitable curveballs, you might feel like you've taken a couple of step back, but that's okay. Again, it's about how we respond to those curveballs and knowing that sometimes progress doesn't come in a straight line. It's a little more of a zigzag effect, and that's okay, too. But you feel better. You feel like you have more skills, tools, and knowledge to handle whatever's going to be around the next corner.
- [53:56]
B
Love it. Love it. All right, so we've talked about a lot. We've gone through a bunch. I've taken a lot of notes, and I'm going to take a chance to summarize these real quickly, and then I'll give you a chance to answer our three big questions once again. So we started off with a definition of mental strength, which you told us is finding the courage to live the life you want according to your values, which is wonderful. And I think that that does require our audience to understand what their values are. So you got to spend a little time knowing what's important to you, and then you talk about, you know, three different components of that. How we think. Number one. Number two, how we feel. And then, number three, how we behave. And I think the whole concept of mental strength has to be personalized. We talked about how it's different for each of us, how it exists on a spectrum. It's not just a yes or no type thing. We talked about a lot of the benefits of it. And essentially, really, everything in your life becomes easier if you have more mental strength, which then gives you more mental strength, which then makes things even easier. So positive feed, forward, loop. We talked about the five big behaviors that people need to work on. Number one, don't feel sorry for yourself. Number two, don't give away your power. Number three, focus on what you can control rather than what you can't. Number four, don't make the same mistakes over and over. And number five, don't expect immediate results. You gave us some good tips on the mindset that we need to have in order to try to improve on those. And to recap, be open. You have to know that you can actually improve at this. Don't say it's not going to work before you start or it won't. Know that progress may be slow at time on your effort. Allow yourself to have some joy in the process. It is okay to have fun. Doesn't have to be all pain and suffering, which I appreciate. And then lastly, we talked about how we all do all five of these. So don't look at the list and say, oh, I don't have a problem with number three or number two. We all do all of them. And progress will come if you dedicate yourself to it. But it may take time and it's going to look different for all of us. And that's okay. That's a part of, part of it. So that's, that's my wrap up. I want to give you a chance to summarize now. I'll re ask you sort of the three big questions and you can give us your quick hitter answers to these. So number one, what exactly is mental strength to you?
- [56:10]
A
So it would be about the way you think, the way you feel and the way you behave and knowing that you have control over all three so that you can create the life that you want to live according to your values.
- [56:21]
B
Good. And one more time, what are the things that we're doing that commonly sabotage our mental strength? Strength.
- [56:27]
A
So feeling sorry for yourself, giving away your power, worrying about things you can't control, making the same mistakes over and over again and expecting immediate results.
- [56:38]
B
Excellent. And then how can we remove these things from our lives in order to maximize our mental strength?
- [56:44]
A
It's just about recognizing when you do them and figuring out what do you want to do instead.
- [56:49]
B
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much, Amy. I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wealth of wisdom and knowledge. And I always like to end the episode with a challenge to our audience to sort of get them started in the process. And so you've set it up well for us. You know, you've given us five things. I want people to recognize that really we all need to be working on all five of them. But it can be difficult to try to do it all at once. So I would encourage the audience pick one of the five and say, let me just pick one thing that I think has the biggest impact on my life. And then I'm going to use some of the strategies that Amy gave me in that third session to actually start improving. So your challenge today is recognize that you need to work on all five, but start with one. So pick one and try to move it forward. Amy thanks again so much for joining us today. We really appreciated having you.
- [57:40]
A
Thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
- [57:43]
B
Great. And to our audience, remember to live intentionally, consistently better keep striving to be the best human you can be so you can give your gifts back to the world and never stop optimizing. Thanks for listening to the Mayo Clinic Human Optimization Project. If you like this episode, hit subscribe and leave a review. It helps others find us know someone who might benefit. Share the episode with them to join us in our mission to help as many people as possible become the best humans they can be. Have feedback or a topic idea. Email us at optimizeo Eduardo and be sure to look for us on Instagram X and YouTube.
- [58:22]
A
This podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be relied upon for medical, professional or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified professional for any questions. The appearance of any guest does not imply an endorsement of them, their employer, or any entity they represent. The views and opinions expressed by the guests are their own and do not necessarily represent reflect the views of Mayo Clinic. Reference to any product, service or entity is for informational purposes only and does not constitute an endorsement or recommendation by Mayo Clinic.