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The Number One Reason Why You Resist Making Big Changes In Your Life with Jen Sincero

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In this episode, we discuss how to identify and defeat the stories that hold you back, how to use your complaints as a compass to improve your life, powerful methods for creating permanent habit change, and we unmask the number one reason why you resist making big changes in your life with our guest Jen Sincero. 

Jen Sincero is a bestselling author, success coach, and motivational speaker who spent more than a decade traveling the world helping people transform their lives and their bank accounts via her public appearances, private sessions, coaching seminars, and books, including the New York Times bestseller You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. Jen has since come out with more books in her You Are a Badass Series including her most recent, Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries, and Daily Upgrades You Need to Make Them Stick.

  • All self-development work comes from the awareness of stories and excuses you tell yourself

  • Your parents, your family, etc are majors creators of the limiting beliefs

  • Start paying attention to what you complain about the most. Your Complaints are a COMPASS to the stories that have you stuck.

  • Listen to what your friends talk about.

  • Once you catch yourself in your beliefs, only then can you start changing them.

  • Idea: write a letter to money about your relationship with it.

  • "Money flows to me easily and freely"

  • How mantras can change your identity and your perception of yourself.

  • What happens if you don't believe your new mantra, but you WANT to believe?

    • Start with desire.

    • Repeat the hell out of it.

    • Use it to counter your negative beliefs.

    • Find ways to prove it, shift your focus to finding ways to prove it.

  • We build the foundations of our reality by what we choose to focus on.

  • The uncertainty in life creates a primal need for security, familiarity, and the need to be right.

  • It's gonna get challenging, it's not an IF, it's a WHEN.

  • Identity is the biggest lever driving habit change.

  • A lot of self-transformation work comes down to getting very specific actions, thoughts, behaviors, etc

  • How do you infuse emotional charge into your habit change?

  • How do you write an emotionally charged mantra that can create identity change?

  • What are the specific words that create emotional excitement within your body? What thoughts, imp

  • Journaling - push yourself past the point where you feel like you've said everything you should say

  • What do you do when you put yourself out there and stumble the first time?

  • "New level, new devil" - the process never ends.

  • Mindset is a muscle, and you have to keep working it.

  • When you're shifting your identities and actions, if you don't have good boundaries it will be a major issue.

  • When you change a behavior, it has a ripple effect on everyone in your life.

  • What do you do when the people closest to you resist you changing your identity?

    • You can't change anyone. It's their choice how they live their lives. If you know they won't support you, don't tell them. Don't look for support where you're not going to get it.

    • Get new friends who will support you and cheer you on.

    • Make it all about you, not about them.

  • One of the NUMBER ONE REASONS people refuse to change their lives is the fear of losing or upsetting the people close to them.

  • How do you go about setting healthy boundaries to support habit and identity change?

  • Overwhelm is usually caused by vagueness. Specificity is the cure. To get yourself out of overwhelm you have to be specific.

  • Homework: Journal out all your thoughts and beliefs around an area of your life around an area you're unhappy.

Thank you so much for listening!

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Episode Transcript

[00:00:04] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet, bringing the world's top experts right to you. Introducing your hosts, Matt Bodnar and Austin Fabel.

[00:00:19] MB: Welcome to The Science of Success, the number one evidence-based growth podcast on the internet with more than 5 million downloads and listeners in over 100 countries. In this episode, we discuss how to identify and defeat the stories that hold you back. How to use your complaints as a compass to improve your life? Powerful methods for creating permanent habit change, and we unmask the number one reason why you resist making big changes in your life with our guest, Jen Sincero.

Are you a fan of the show and have you been enjoying the content that we put together for you? If you have, I would love it if you signed up for our email list. We have some amazing content on there along with a really great free course that we put a ton of time into called How to Create Time For What Matters Most in Your Life. If that sounds exciting and interesting and you want a bunch of other free goodies and giveaways along with that, just go to successpodcast.com, you can sign up right on the homepage. That’s successpodcast.com. Or if you’re on your phone right now, all you have to do is text the word SMARTER to the number 44222.

In our previous episode we talked about the major factors that drive business value. How to build recurring revenue and the inside baseball of how to make the right choices when selling a business with our previous guest, John Warrillow. And now for our interview with Jen.

Please note, this episode contains profanity.

[00:01:52] MB: Jen Sincero is a best-selling author, success coach and motivational speaker who spent more than a decade traveling the world helping people transform their lives and their bank accounts via her public appearances, private sessions, coaching seminars and books including the New York Times bestseller, You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. Jen has since come out with more books in her You’re a Badass Series, including her most recent book, Badass Habits: Cultivate the Awareness, Boundaries and Daily Upgrades You Need to Make Them Stick.

Jen, welcome to The Science of Success.

[00:02:27] JS: Thanks for having me.

[00:02:30] MB: Well, we're super excited to have you on the show today. Your work is tremendously impactful and I can't wait to dig into some of the key lessons and themes and ideas.

[00:02:40] JS: Me neither. Well, let's do it.

[00:02:45] MB: Well, to start out, I'd love to get to some of the fundamental pillars of, to me, which is really one of the most important ideas around whether it's habit formation, creating positive change in your life, changing your beliefs, etc. And this is the excuses and stories that we often get caught in and tripped up by. Tell me a little bit about that theme and how you've really approached solving it.

[00:03:12] JS: It's such an important place to start this conversation, because that is what is creating our “realities”, the stories that we tell ourselves. And we get into trouble when we just sort of blindly assume that it's the truth, but all this self-development work begins with becoming aware of the stories and excuses that you are telling yourself. And so the moment you start to be like, “Wow! Maybe I’m broke because I believe that you have to work really hard to make money, and I don't feel like working hard.” Or that you know it's not okay to make a lot of money. Or I suck at making money. Once you catch yourself in the specifics of the excuses and stories you're telling yourself, then you can start to question them and rewrite them, and that's where everything begins.

[00:04:04] MB: That's such a great insight, and it's so true that awareness has to be the first step. You have to – If you can't catch yourself in these thought patterns that are constantly creating self-sabotage in your life, it's very hard to ever really identify them or see how they're manifesting in so many different ways, in your behavior and your interactions with others.

[00:04:25] JS: Exactly. And then you just fall into victim mode. Victim of circumstance, victim of belief systems, and it's all empowering when you take the time to stop and become aware of what's going on.

[00:04:38] MB: So where do a lot of these stories about our past and about ourselves and about our identities, where do they come from?

[00:04:46] JS: Your parents. Really, your family, whoever raised you is definitely the deepest and the most prevalent. And then certainly society and the culture you grow up in. But it's mostly familial.

[00:05:02] MB: Yeah, it's so true. And I love the way you said that. I mean, it's funny the more personal development work that I personally do, I can totally see. Almost now I can hear – When I hear a thought, I go, “Oh, that's my mom.” Or, “Hey, that's my dad talking.” But it's so funny. And you think that these are your own thoughts, but really it's amazing how many stories from outside of ourselves that – And this is a key point, aren't true we're often telling ourselves.

[00:05:31] JS: Right. And back in the day, when we're little, we have to believe they're true because our parents are our method of survival, right? So if they don't know what's going on, we're screwed. So it's really important that we believe that what they're telling us about the way the world is because they're our foundation. So it's deep stuff.

[00:05:52] MB: And you get into this theme in Badass Habits. This idea that, in many ways, identity is one of the fundamental pillars of habit change and it's one that I think it's overlooked.

[00:06:07] JS: I think so too. I was so excited to put that in the book, because I think with habits, we tend to focus on the actions we take, which are important. But if you don't pay attention to the fact that you identify as somebody who sucks at making money or if you identify as coming from a family that has always had weight issues or if you identify as someone who's just intrinsically lazy or unorganized or whatever it is that you're lugging around, when you take the actions to change that habit, you're setting yourself up for failure. If you don't catch yourself in that story, question it, and then work on shifting your belief system around it.

[00:06:50] MB: So what are some of the pillars of starting to, first, identify and capture these beliefs? And then, second, start to break them down?

[00:07:01] JS: So I think one of the best places to start with creating an awareness is to start paying attention to what you complain about the most. Our complaints are amazing compasses for our negative beliefs. Just what are you always bitching and moaning about? And what are the specifics in those complaints that you've decided are the truth and are the reason that you can't find happiness or success? So I think complaints. I think listening to what your friends talk about is really revealing, because we tend to hang out with people who have the same belief systems as we do. And I also think journaling is a great way to catch yourself in what your beliefs are just stream of consciousness on a very specific topic. Write down exactly how you feel about it and what you think about it and then you can see it staring back on the page what you've got going on in your belief system. So that's the first step, is becoming aware.

And then once you catch yourself in your beliefs, you start to question them. So for me, my whole foray into self-helpism just started with finances. Like I was a train wreck financially up until my 40s. And when I started doing this work and reading all the self-help books and getting coached, it always started with what I just said, becoming aware. And I became aware through – I wrote a letter to money. It was one of the exercises I did that was so sobering. There was lots of I wish I had more of you, and I love it when you show up, but I don't trust you, and I think I’m a dirty bad person for wanting more of you and you're not going to stick around. And so I got very aware of what my beliefs were around money. And through that process I became aware that I felt very constricted and very cut-off from the flow. Like I literally felt like the people who made lots of money were a different species than I was. So it was unavailable to me. It was going to be really hard and totally fun free to make it and just that I was going to lose all my friends and be a sellout. So I had all these beliefs and through a process that I actually break down in Badass Habits. I rewrote that story and basically created a new mantra for myself that was money flows to me easily and freely.

And so, for me, the words freedom and ease and flow –Oh my God! It was everything. It felt so good. Now I didn't believe it right away. You don't have to believe that money flows to you easily and freely when you're a 40-year-old financial loser living in a garage. But more importantly, it brought up emotions and it really spoke to my old stories and my old excuses. The new words countered them and sort of like intercepted them with an energy and emotions of excitement, and that's what you're looking for.

[00:09:58] MB: There're so many different ways I want to dig into this, because money is such an interesting topic especially. But before we talk a little bit more about that, tell me about this mantra. I love that mantra. And I understand the concept of creating a mantra intellectually. How do we get that to stick emotionally at a subconscious level?

[00:10:19] JS: By first making the decision to accept it. Again, as I said, like I didn't believe it totally, but I wanted to believe it. I wanted that to be my truth. So it's really about the desire and the decision to accept it. So that's where you start and then you repeat the hell out of it out loud in the car all day long every time you want to say, “I can't afford it,” or whatever, any of your negative beliefs are. You insert that. And what that does is – This is the thing that's really happening on a subconscious level that I think is so fascinating. We basically build the foundations of our “reality” by what we choose to focus on. So if my mantra is I can't afford it. I am constantly looking for proof and opportunities to prove myself right and to make my reality solid, right? We need solid reality in this world, because we're on a ball in infinite space. So we're always looking to be right and we're always looking for some kind of truth to hang our hats on.

So unfortunately what happens is when the focus is on something we don't want, we subconsciously prove it anyway. So I was like, “I’m 40-years-old. I’ve got 40 years of proof that I suck at making money. I’m living in a garage. I’m driving a car that doesn't work.” I had all this proof that I sucked at making money and I can't afford it.

When I shifted my focus to money flows to me easily and freely, because I’m still on a ball in infinite space and I still need to prove that reality true, I started looking for proof and opportunities that were always there, but that I literally could not see because I was so busy proving I can't afford it to be the truth. So that's how it starts to seep in. And even if it was just finding a dollar on the road or getting a freelance job out of the clear blue sky, like that started to build the new foundation of money flows to me easily and freely. And I would accept opportunities and invest in myself in ways I never would have before because I was looking to a different truth and it opened me up to all the things that I would immediately have slammed the door on before.

[00:12:34] MB: Tell me a little bit more about our need to prove ourselves right.

[00:12:38] JS: Oh! It's so fast – I mean, really, if you just even listen to how we speak just like, “I told Shirley that if she goes out with that guy one more time, he's going to dump her. And look what happened?” Like we'd love to tell stories about how we're right, and we do it on a conscious level, but also so much on a subconscious level. And this need to be right really is about security. I think it's a very primal need, because sort of like what I was talking about with the parents, like what your parents tell you you have to believe is right. Because if that's not true and right. Oh my God! There's no solid ground to stand on.

So we find our – Our righteousness comes from needing this solid ground because life is so uncertain and because what the hell is this cartoon that we're zipping around the universe participating in? So I think it really is this primal need for security. And we talk about the comfort zone a lot in the self-help world. And that's what that's all about too, is I prefer to call it the familiarity zone, because I don't think our comfort zones are usually very comfortable per se. But we need the familiar. We need the known. We need to be right because it's like a security blanket.

[00:13:53] MB: Such a great insight, and I love the image of this whole idea of reality is this absurd cartoon that we're all zipping around in, which is fundamentally true. But yeah, that's a great perspective, and the idea that we need certainty, security, familiarity, and we'll cling to it again and again even when it really is causing us harm and pulling us away from what we really want in life.

[00:14:14] JS: Right. It's amazing. I always think of Bugs Bunny holding up that sign like, “Silly. Ain't we?” Like it's ridiculous what we'll fight for. Fighting for the right to be right about the fact that we suck or whatever. It's insane.

[00:14:30] MB: Yeah. When you get that perspective on it, it really shines a light on your subconscious and how the mind works. And that brings me back to what you touched on a minute ago, which is the concept or the topic of money. And I love the notion of writing a letter to money about your relationship with it. Why is that an area where so many people have hang-ups?

[00:14:51] JS: Gosh! I think because it touches on so many things. I mean I think maybe it's the need to be right. I feel like maybe we can boil it down to that where maybe we need to be right that rich people are amoral because we're not rich, and therefore we get to be on a higher moral standing than the people who make money of focus. Or maybe we've never been successful at making money. So we've decided it's really hard, and that makes us feel okay about ourselves. I think there're a lot of reasons, and I’m always baffled by why we've criminalized the making of money. If I said to you, “I’m going to go out and I’m going to get super rich next year.” We immediately go to the thought that, “Well, if you're going to do things that rape and pillages the planet or harm other people or you're going to compromise your morals if you set out to get super rich. We immediately tend to go there even though so many people do incredibly beautiful things for and with their money.

Certainly, there's horrible greed and incredible suffering caused by that. But there's also this incredible –I mean, money does amazing things for us every single solitary day. Like my heat is on right now because I can pay for it. That happened because of money. And we tend to blow past that and focus on the negative stuff, and it's very harmful.

[00:16:18] MB: I totally agree. And without going down this rabbit hole too much, a previous guest on the show, John Mackey, the founder of Whole Foods and author of Conscious Capitalism. We talked a ton about this idea that business and capitalism can be moral goods if you really conceive of them the right way. And it's so easy to coming back to our parents, right? Have these stories about money, about lack, about success that can really sabotage us.

[00:16:47] JS: Yeah. And I just want to say, for the most part, our parents are usually doing it because they're unaware. They're not bad people who are trying to sabotage your life. But that's what they were told was true. And so it just gets passed down from generation to generation until somebody stops and it's like, “Hey, wait a minute. Is this true for me? Do I want this to be true for me?” And they start questioning everything.

[00:17:10] MB: I sometimes think back to I wonder how long this almost chain of trauma has gone back. When did it start? I mean it could be hundreds of years ago in some cases. Some random experience from your ancestors that you never even met and yet that has created this behavior pattern through generations that could have a huge impact on your life right now.

[00:17:34] JS: Yeah, it's incredible. It really is. And it's so powerful. And I remember back in the day when I was starting this work. I was like, “Come on! Can’t be that simple.” Like I change, I look at my thoughts and I rewrite them and I refocus like whoopty-do. Like I’ve really been living in a garage since for the past five years and it was that easy. So I think we try to make it a lot harder than it needs to be. And I’m not saying it's not challenging and I’m not saying there is hard work involved, but it's the reason that we're always screaming and yelling about your thoughts, beliefs and words, is because it really matters, and that identity that is formed around that dictates all the actions you take.

[00:18:12] MB: And it reminds me of something. I forget which book you said it in or maybe it was a speech or something, but this idea that it's not your fault necessarily that your parents might have imparted these beliefs on you. It's probably not even their fault. But it is your fault if you don't do anything about it.

[00:18:28] JS: Yes. If you have been told that you can change your awareness and you still choose to participate in victim mode, then that's on you.

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[00:20:29] MB: So tell me more about how this really fits into the puzzle of habit change.

[00:20:36] JS: Because is if you decide you are going to start running every morning, let's say that's your new habit, but you still are clinging to the idea that you're lazy and that you're un-athletic and that you've tried to start running a million times before and you've never stuck with it. If that's your identity that you're clinging to, no matter how much excitement you have out of the gate or how nice your new running shoes are, you're not going to stick with it when it gets hard, because it's going to get challenging. That's not an if it does. It's a when.

So when it gets challenging, if your identity is not on board, if you haven't really sat and thought about what you've got going on as far as your thoughts and beliefs go, you're going to drop the ball. This is why so many people fail at their New Year's resolutions. It's one of the reasons is that they don't work on the identity. They get their actions together. They know what they're going to do, but they haven't spent any time thinking about what they believe about it.

[00:21:38] MB: Great insight, that if it's going to get challenging, it's when is it going to get challenging.

[00:21:43] JS: Yeah, you would have done it already if it wasn't going to get challenging.

[00:21:47] MB: Yeah, that's a great point. And you had a great personal story that fits into this idea with smoking. I'd love to hear that.

[00:21:56] JS: So love – I still love smoking. I’m going to start again when I’m 85. That's my plan. And I tried to quit a zillion times and I kept not doing it. And the time that it really stuck, I haven't had a cigarette in about 30 years, was when I shifted my identity around it. And instead of being an ex-smoker who's trying to quit, I became somebody who's healthy, who takes great care of her body. So that didn't even factor in smoking to it at all. And so you get into the specifics of that. So what is somebody who has that identity? What does she do for fun? What does she do for exercise? Who does she hang out with? What does she do when she passes somebody on the street who's smoking a cigarette? Like get some specifics down of the identity of somebody who operates like that and start adopting the specifics. It's all about specifics.

So the difference there is once I really sort of got my identity wrapped around that, next time I was out at a bar with a bunch of friends having a cocktail, which was usually when I would drop the ball on my quitting smoking quest. Because I was somebody who took care of her body who was really healthy, I didn't even enter into the negotiation about whether or not I was going to just have a drag. What's one cigarette? It's not going to kill me. Come on. What's the big deal? Because that wasn't part of my identity. If I was still the ex-smoker who was trying to quit, I would have entered into those negotiations. And once you start negotiating, that is the crack in the facade and you're screwed. So by having this identity where it doesn't even factor in smoking, it's as absurd as me negotiating whether or not I’m going to have a bottle of vodka for breakfast, because that's not who I am. It has nothing to do with who I am. So it really saves you from getting into that deadly negotiation process.

[00:23:45] MB: Yeah, the idea of negotiating with your old identity or whatever you're struggling with. I’ve certainly had that experience, and I’m sure we all have this idea that you have this mental dialogue, “Well, I’ll have one little bite. I’ll have one piece. I’ll just do it this one time and tomorrow I’m going to be better.” It's a trap.

[00:24:04] JS: Yep, absolutely.

[00:24:07] MB: So I agree with this notion that, yes, if you can change your identity, you'll almost create habit change much more effortlessly. But the hard part then is how exactly do you really think about creating that identity change and what does the work of that really look like?

[00:24:23] JS: It's about getting into specifics of thoughts, beliefs and words and actions of how that person behaves. And sometimes it's helpful to have a role model to be like, “Well, what would so-and-so do right now?” Somebody who's already got the identity that you're hoping to adopt and getting into the specifics of what that person does around this habit. So again, it really is about taking, I don't know, three or four minutes to get clear on the specifics of that identity. We'll use a smoking example again. What do I do when I pass somebody walking down the street smoking a cigarette? Do I even comment on it if I’m somebody healthy who takes care of her body? Do I cross the street because smoking's disgusting? How do I talk about cigarettes? How do I talk about what I love to do after eating a big meal or having a cocktail? Like really get in the specifics of what you can do instead of what you used to do when you had your old identity or just what you're doing now because you're to this new person.

A lot of this self-transformation work comes down to getting very specific about beliefs and words, and it's not hard. You just got to take the time to do it and to make sure that there's emotional charge around whatever the new stuff is, because we are creatures that are motivated by emotion, not necessarily logic for better or worse. So even though your logical brain would say, “I have been a chain smoker since I was 16. So I’m a smoker.” Your new thought is I’m somebody who's healthy who takes care of her body. So you don't have to believe it right away. So that's a really important part about this. You don't believe it right away, but you do have to make the decision to accept it, because you're not going to believe it right away. And that decision to accept it is going to be a hell of a lot easier to stick to if there's emotion around it. So I’m somebody who's healthy who takes care of her body feels really good on an emotional level. That has meaning to me. That has juice. So it's got to have juice or else it's not going to work.

[00:26:35] MB: How do we infuse that emotional charge into our new beliefs and thoughts?

[00:26:41] JS: By choosing your words wisely. So that's where – I have an exercise in Badass Habits about how to write a new mantra for yourself, and this is all around that thing of identity. So you first get clear on the specific words that correlate to your belief system around the negative aspect of the habit that you're trying to change and then you go through this process where you start to rewrite it and you play with different words and you keep the ones that have real juice, so flow and ease and freedom. For me, when it came to money, that was everything. Like those were my words.

So it's super important, because otherwise then you're going to write a mantra or try to shift your belief to something that's just a bunch of crap that you're not emotionally invested in, but you've got to really – You can feel it in your body. When you say things that excite you, it's different than when you say things that don't excite you. So you know. So you're just taking a moment to really connect with the beliefs and the words and seeing how you feel it in your body.

[00:27:44] MB: Yeah. That's a really good insight. Do you typically do this or envision this as almost a journaling exercise? And is it kind of a one-time thing or are you iterating it over a series of days, weeks? How do you approach that?

[00:27:56] JS: Oh, yeah. Listen, I am a renowned journaling. I can't stand journaling. So I only tend to do it when I’m desperate. But yes, absolutely, I think writing it down is so important, because if you just think your thoughts, you lose the specifics, right? They sort of come and go, and sometimes you can think thoughts you don't even realize you're thinking. So that's why writing stuff down is so helpful because then it's staring back at you on the page. And I certainly I don't know about you, but I’ve had experiences where I’ve just been journaling free flow and then I go back and look at what I’ve written and I’m like, “Wow! I don't even remember writing that. I didn't wasn't even aware that I believed that.” So I think writing it down is really, really super helpful. And then you get to see those specific words and you get to capture which ones have the most sway over you.

[00:28:44] MB: Tell me a little bit more about your perspective on journaling.

[00:28:48] JS: I think it's also really important when you're journaling to go past the point where you would normally stop. So if you think you've written everything down that you know to be true or think to be true, that's usually very coming from your conscious mind. So if you push yourself past point where you're like, “Oh, I got nothing left to say.” That's kind of where the more hidden stuff comes up. So I always recommend people go a couple pages or five minutes past where they think they should stop and see what comes up then.

[00:29:19] MB: That's a great insight, and definitely a very insightful way to really pull some real meat out from a journaling session. I want to come back to a question that's interrelated to all this, which is if you –Let's say you're working on habit change, identity change, and you've done a lot of this mantra work and you go, you're pushing yourself outside of your familiarity zone and you take that first big leap and you fall flat on your face. How do you recover from that?

[00:29:51] JS: Again, it really depends on your beliefs around what that means. Does it mean that you're in the game and you're out there doing it? You're taking action and you screwed it up and now you have new information? It's a learning experience. Or do you decide that it means that you suck and that you failed and that you're never going to be any good at this and it's time to quit? It all depends on how you look at it. So that, again, like you're always being aware, because our thoughts are so sneaky. And especially if it's thoughts and beliefs that we've held on to since childhood, those have very deep grooves in our brains, right? So you're rewriting. You're re-digging these grooves. So this whole self-transformation thing is all about consistently staying aware of what's going on as opposed to being led around by the nose by past reactions.

[00:30:51] MB: Yeah. It comes back to the same thing fundamentally, right? Is can you see how your beliefs are still potentially shaping your behavior. Even after you think you've done the work, there can always be more of these stories of these limiting beliefs down the road that can crop up and sabotage you. And often they hit when you're down, when you're struggling, when you're dealing with something that's really difficult.

[00:31:11] JS: Yeah, I mean you're always doing the work, always. So new level, new devil. Once you have one breakthrough in one area – And it's like a muscle. I always talk about going to the spiritual gym. You've got to stay on this. Like you've got to always be reading a self-help book or listening to motivational talks or working with a coach or an accountability partner. You don't get to go to the gym, get into shape and be like, “Sweet. I’m done.” You got to keep working that muscle. So mindset is a muscle. And you've got to stay on it or else you will slide back. There's no doubt about it.

[00:31:43] MB: I couldn't agree more, I think that that's really important. The gym analogy is perfect, right? You don't get in shape one time and then stop going to the gym forever. And motivation, inspiration, mindset it's the exact same thing.

I want to come to another topic that to me was a really interesting idea and something that I know I’ve personally struggled with, which is boundaries. And I thought it was interesting to have a section that focuses on boundaries in a book about habits. So tell me why you decided to include that.

[00:32:11] JS: At first, mostly just because I was really excited to write about boundaries. And then you knew I was going to be writing this book about habits and I was like, “Oh my God! This is the perfect place to put this.” Because when you're shifting your identity, when you're shifting your actions, if you don't have good boundaries, you are going to make it so much harder for yourself. Because when you're shifting your identity, it shifts everything around you and especially your relationships, because everybody who's in your world right now knows you as a certain person.

So when you shift your identity and you say, “Hey, you know what? I’m not going to smoke anymore.” All your buddies who are your smoking buddies, that's going to affect them. If you start working out more and you’re hanging out with a bunch of lazy slobs who like to sit around and watch TV all day. That's going to affect your relationships with them. So we don't really think about it, but when we change a behavior it absolutely has a ripple effect through everybody in our lives and especially the people closest to us. So I’ve got to say the one question I get the most hands down every single time I do any kind of talk is what do you do when the people closest to you don't support the changes you want to make in your life? And the reason it comes up so often is because of this. When you shift your identity, it threatens the relationship that you have with the people closest to you as your old self, because you're killing off your old self basically and that tends to upset the people who love you.

[00:33:44] MB: So what do you do when the people closest to you –

[00:33:48] JS: Okay. So my first piece of advice is always you can't change anybody, unfortunately. I have tried. It is their choice how they respond to their lives. So if you know that they're not going to be supportive. If you know they're going to make fun of you or tell you why it's not going to work or fill you with worry and doubt and all that lovely stuff, you just don't share it with them. Sometimes we live with them and it's harder, but I highly recommend not looking for support where you're not going to get it. So you just don't really share it with them. And you also go out and make new friends who are going to support you and share their resources and cheer you on. And that's why I joined so many coaching groups back in the day, because I didn't know anybody. None of my friends were excited to change their financial situation. And quite frankly a lot of them made a lot of fun of me about it. So I wasn't getting the support where I needed it. So I went out and got it somewhere else.

And sometimes it gets so bad that you lose those relationships. And I think that this is one of the number one reasons why people refuse to change their lives, is the fear of losing the people closest to them. And certainly that is enormous. But what are you going to do? Play small and not be who you're here on earth to be because it's going to upset your sister? I mean, that's a great recipe for a lot of resentment and passive aggressiveness.

So getting back to boundaries, when you decide to change a habitual behavior of yours, you have to set up boundaries and tell your friends, tell your drinking buddies that, “You know what? I’m going to AA now. I’m not drinking anymore. So I love you, and I’m not going to meet you at the bar anymore, and I’m not going to be around alcohol anymore. So this is a boundary I’m setting up. So please respect that.” And they can either do it or not, and that's their choice. But setting clear boundaries is so, so important because otherwise you really – It's really hard to quit drinking when you're sitting in a bar.

[00:35:59] MB: How do you approach it specifically if these changes will put you at a cross purpose with maybe somebody who's really close family member or close friend? Do you modify your approach at all?

[00:36:11] JS: I’m not sure what you would modify it from. I think you always want to be thoughtful. And I always recommend making it all about you, not about them. So just being like, “This is what I’m doing. I would love your support. You're one of the most important people in my life. This is what I need from you for support. And if you can do that, I would be super happy.” You can tell them what you need, and whether or not they do it is none of your business really.

[00:36:42] MB: So tell me more about the concrete activities. And you obviously just touched on this a little bit. But how do we actually go about setting these boundaries? What does that really look like?

[00:36:52] JS: Well, first you identify the specifics of what kind of time and physical space and emotional space you need in order to carry out this new habit. So let's say you've decided you're going to learn Italian. That's your new habit. Maybe now you have to take that time from something else you were doing. So you tell some friends that you're not going to be able to chat on the phone with them for as long as you used to. Or you ask your partner to pick up some slack in the middle of the day when you have class and maybe you'll pick it up at the end of the day when they need something. First you get clear on what you need and then you tell the people around you what you're doing and lay down the boundary. There're all sorts of boundaries. There're boundaries where you bust yourself on the fact that you're trying to control somebody's life. A lot of times we do this with our kids. Or we're letting somebody control our lives. There're boundaries where – This is a real common one for the ladies where we say yes to everything when we really don't want to. But there're also boundaries where we say no to everything when we prefer to say yes or it would be better for us to say yes.

So I think it's about, once again, stopping and taking stock and becoming aware of how you're operating. And once you've established this new identity of yours being like, “Okay. Well, where do I need to set up a boundary so I can get up and run five miles every morning or so I can successfully quit smoking?” What kind of boundaries do you need to set up? And it's all about taking the time and getting into the specifics. And, again, that can take five minutes. It doesn't need to be a whole college career.

[00:38:38] MB: I think that's a really important recurrent theme that you've brought up several times, which is this idea that it doesn't need to be rocket science. It doesn't need to be over thought. But it's really about setting aside a little bit of focus to map out very specifically what it is you need to be able to create that habit change and that identity.

[00:39:01] JS: Yeah. I’m really hit on that point a lot, because after coaching so many people for so long, I see overwhelm as one of the biggest killers of all forward movement. And overwhelm nine times out of ten is caused by vagueness. I’ve got so many emails to answer. Oh my God! I can't even answer one. And then you're like, “Well, actually how many do you have to answer and exactly how long is that going to take?” Like usually it's maybe five ten minutes. So it's like we make ourselves insane and create such drama over stuff that doesn't even exist really most of the time. I mean sometimes, yes. Sometimes we have enough more than we can chew. But the majority of overwhelm is drama.

[00:39:43] MB: Yeah, I think I remember you saying – We're doing some of our research we found a clip where you said something around specificity will set you free or something like that, which I thought was such a great insight.

[00:39:53] JS: Yeah, and that specificity doesn't take long either. So it's like to get yourself out of overwhelm, you've got to be specific. And don't get into overwhelm about the specifics of getting yourself out of overwhelm. It doesn't take that long really.

[00:40:05] MB: There's an old saying that I’ve always heard, which is how do you eat an elephant? And it's one bite at a time, right? So just figure out what's that bite and then take it and then take the next one and take the next one.

So for someone who's listened to our conversation and wants to concretely take action to start to implement and put into practice something that we talked about today, what would be one action item that you would give them?

[00:40:29] JS: To journal out all of their thoughts and beliefs around an area of their lives that they are unhappy with. And then the second thing would be to rewrite those thoughts and beliefs with words that cause emotional reactions in the body, positive emotional reactions in the body.

[00:40:48] MB: I think that's a great insight and it really lines up with everything that we've talked about today and everything that you've shared. Jen, for people who want to find out more about you, all of your work and your new book, where can they find you online?

[00:41:02] JS: They can go to youareabadass.com or jensincero.com. They both go to the same place. It's J-E-N-S-I-N-C-E-R-O.com and same on Instagram and Facebook, Jen Sincero.

[00:41:15] MB: Well, Jen, thank you so much for coming on the show, for sharing all this wisdom. So many great insights into identity and stories and beliefs and how we can really create proactive, productive change in our lives.

[00:41:29] JS: Thank you so much. This was a really fun conversation.

[00:41:32] MB: Thank you so much for listening to the Science of Success. We created this show to help you, our listeners, master evidence-based growth. I love hearing from listeners. If you want to reach out, share your story, or just say hi, shoot me an e-mail. My e-mail is matt@successpodcast.com. That’s M-A-T-T@successpodcast.com. I’d love to hear from you and I read and respond to every single listener email.

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