1 0:00:00 --> 0:00:03.240000 Today's episode is a bit of a two-parter. 2 0:00:03.240000 --> 0:00:10.560000 I want to talk briefly about being productively unproductive and even more about when you've 3 0:00:10.560000 --> 0:00:13.820000 identified some behaviors you want to improve. 4 0:00:13.820000 --> 0:00:17.400000 How do you go about it and where do you start? 5 0:00:17.400000 --> 0:00:20.960000 So when we talk about being productively unproductive, we talked about it a little bit in the last 6 0:00:20.960000 --> 0:00:22.920000 episode. 7 0:00:22.920000 --> 0:00:29.640000 And the big thing with productively unproductive and being easy is all get out to full yourself. 8 0:00:30.200000 --> 0:00:37.720000 Is you're going to easily think you're solving one problem by undertaking a different activity. 9 0:00:37.720000 --> 0:00:49.720000 So you'll go, for example, and maybe if you're trying to stop overeating, for example, and you start 10 0:00:49.720000 --> 0:00:58.160000 locking up the food, that seems like it's going to mitigate root cause, but it is not. 11 0:00:58.160000 --> 0:01:00.240000 That's just symptom management, right? 12 0:01:00.240000 --> 0:01:05.500000 So when we lock up the food because we're overeating, without understanding the causes of our 13 0:01:05.500000 --> 0:01:11.040000 overeating and why we're avoiding something or why we feel disappointed or depressed or upset 14 0:01:11.040000 --> 0:01:16.640000 about something such that we need that dopamine hit from the food, we're not really solving 15 0:01:16.640000 --> 0:01:20.240000 the problem by putting the food under lock and key because it doesn't address the root 16 0:01:20.240000 --> 0:01:21.240000 cause. 17 0:01:21.240000 --> 0:01:25.800000 If we don't understand some level of the root cause, we can't get to the next level of 18 0:01:25.800000 --> 0:01:27.160000 fix. 19 0:01:27.160000 --> 0:01:31 So productively unproductive comes in when you start doing things that seem like your 20 0:01:31 --> 0:01:32.800000 address when we cause, but they don't. 21 0:01:32.800000 --> 0:01:41.080000 They actually just cut off a symptom or they move the distraction from one place to another. 22 0:01:41.080000 --> 0:01:44.080000 And again, we talked about this a little bit in the last episode, but I wanted to make 23 0:01:44.080000 --> 0:01:50.120000 sure that for folks out there that have spent years maybe diluting themselves as I have 24 0:01:50.120000 --> 0:01:56.960000 to that you're going to fix it this time for real by locking the food up. 25 0:01:56.960000 --> 0:02:02.320000 Or you're going to fix it this time for real by making sure that you have a treadmill at 26 0:02:02.320000 --> 0:02:04.080000 your desk like I do, for example. 27 0:02:04.080000 --> 0:02:08.120000 This is great at your desk, but if you don't use it, it's not going to do anything. 28 0:02:08.120000 --> 0:02:13.760000 So that level of, again, going back to the first episode of the week here being honest 29 0:02:13.760000 --> 0:02:20.880000 and then on to attempting to find root cause, it's not until you find root cause, can 30 0:02:20.880000 --> 0:02:24.320000 you meaningfully address the problems now. 31 0:02:24.320000 --> 0:02:30.520000 But I'm not talking about here as some sort of psycho Freudian like regression therapy 32 0:02:30.520000 --> 0:02:36.400000 where you try and figure out, you know, which one of your parents did this to you and why. 33 0:02:36.400000 --> 0:02:41 That root cause is interesting, but not important for us. 34 0:02:41 --> 0:02:50.360000 What we're really looking for is the direct behavioral cause and effect from you recognizing 35 0:02:50.360000 --> 0:02:56.920000 or not recognizing a situation or a problem you're trying to solve when you're on psychology. 36 0:02:56.920000 --> 0:03:04.440000 So it doesn't matter necessarily how the sort of behavior got there. 37 0:03:04.440000 --> 0:03:07.840000 What does matter is how you're going to address it moving forward. 38 0:03:07.840000 --> 0:03:13.760000 And if you don't get to the root causes like for example, I eat every time I feel rejected. 39 0:03:13.760000 --> 0:03:18.200000 If that's a thing that you do, then you're going to need to find a better way with deal 40 0:03:18.200000 --> 0:03:19.600000 with being rejected. 41 0:03:19.720000 --> 0:03:24.960000 Doesn't matter necessarily that you feel rejected because you had some sort of trauma in your past. 42 0:03:24.960000 --> 0:03:34.880000 What does matter is if you don't handle the symptoms or the the the triage from feeling, you know, 43 0:03:35.920000 --> 0:03:40.360000 a lack of approval, you're not going to get anywhere. 44 0:03:40.360000 --> 0:03:46.080000 Right. So it's not just locking up the food because now, you know, I have this, this lack of approval. 45 0:03:46.080000 --> 0:03:48.760000 I'm going to go find something else to get it from somewhere else. 46 0:03:48.760000 --> 0:03:52.560000 Right. That don't mean it. This is one of the underpinnings of addiction. 47 0:03:52.560000 --> 0:04:01.160000 So the other thing I want to the sort of part two of the episode today that I want to be very mindful of 48 0:04:01.160000 --> 0:04:05.680000 because I can tell you a thing that I have learned in my years. 49 0:04:08 --> 0:04:10.160000 You can't fix it all at once. 50 0:04:11.160000 --> 0:04:22.160000 There is no sweeping grandiose single act that's going to pull you back from the breach on some of these behavioral issues. 51 0:04:22.160000 --> 0:04:28.160000 It's it's it's not even a function of whether or not you could. 52 0:04:28.160000 --> 0:04:31.160000 In many ways, it's a function of whether or not you should even consider it. 53 0:04:31.160000 --> 0:04:33.160000 And the answer is always no. 54 0:04:34.160000 --> 0:04:39.160000 Behavior is built. It is a it is much like we talk about in Freemasonry. 55 0:04:39.160000 --> 0:04:44.160000 Behavior is a built sort of structure. 56 0:04:44.160000 --> 0:04:49.160000 It's a it's a process that you're going to build to create a consistent outcome. 57 0:04:49.160000 --> 0:05:01.160000 If you don't get to a built set of behaviors, it doesn't matter if you go and wrestle all of this, you know, all of the stuff you have to do to the ground once. 58 0:05:02.160000 --> 0:05:08.160000 And say, hi, one, if you're going to continue to live, it's going to continue to get messed up. 59 0:05:08.160000 --> 0:05:10.160000 And that's just the way it is. 60 0:05:10.160000 --> 0:05:21.160000 So if you don't figure out how to sort of create these iterative step changes, these process improvements, you're never going to get to close the gap. 61 0:05:21.160000 --> 0:05:23.160000 Whatever that gap might be. 62 0:05:23.160000 --> 0:05:28.160000 Let's say you're avoiding looking at your credit card bills, for example. 63 0:05:29.160000 --> 0:05:38.160000 I know people that struggle with this, there's no amount of like, well, I'm not going to I'm just going to eat ramen for three months and pay off my credit card bills. 64 0:05:38.160000 --> 0:05:45.160000 Because the not looking at your credit card bills is has really very little to do with what's on the bills. 65 0:05:45.160000 --> 0:05:51.160000 It has everything to do with, you know, you avoiding the financial impact of all of that stuff. 66 0:05:52.160000 --> 0:06:02.160000 Again, even if you were to solve it all at once or an instant kind of model where you, you know, again, start yourself for three days and, you know, then you can pay all your bills. 67 0:06:02.160000 --> 0:06:13.160000 If you don't triage the root cause of this that puts you in that situation to begin with, you're going to be forever behind that behavior. 68 0:06:14.160000 --> 0:06:20.160000 You're always going to be doing this and that bringsmanship that pulling yourself back from the breach does isn't free. 69 0:06:20.160000 --> 0:06:23.160000 It has a cost and it has a huge cognitive cost. 70 0:06:23.160000 --> 0:06:35.160000 It has some upsides. I'm not going to lie to you, but they are few and far between compared to consistent small behavioral changes you can make along the way. 71 0:06:36.160000 --> 0:06:45.160000 It should help you a whole lot more and be a lot more effective as you start to engineer and architect a life that's richer and fuller and better. 72 0:06:45.160000 --> 0:06:55.160000 So, so note well how you're going to start solving some of these challenges that you're surfacing through the work we talked about this week and little bites, little bites. 73 0:06:55.160000 --> 0:07:02.160000 And that's a little tidbit. The best thing you can do is figure out your protocol for getting back on the horse, whatever it is. 74 0:07:02.160000 --> 0:07:09.160000 You fall off for whatever reason. Don't worry about architecting the perfect day, architect the solution for how to get back on the horse. 75 0:07:09.160000 --> 0:07:15.160000 That's going to save you so much time and so much headache. Ask me how I know.