Why Don't I Do What I Know? Closing the Gap With Practice

Think you know what positivity is? Think again. This is pathological positivity, where psychologist and author, doctor Paul Jenkins, challenges conventional thinking, explores the science of positivity, and talks with extraordinary people who put it into practice. Real psychology, remarkable stories, a radically different way to live. And now, here's your host, doctor Paul. Pathological positivity, episode 729. Why don't I do what I know? The central message of today's conversation is knowing what to do and being programmed to do it are two different things. So as we understand our programming, we recognize the pleasure and pain dynamic and intentionally practice new behaviors, we can start to close the gap. You know, this is one of the the most common laments that I hear in my office and have over all these decades. And that is, why do I do what I do when I know what I know? The lament has to do with that gap. I love the way Dan Sullivan put this. He said the gap is the permanent, and underscore that word permanent, distance between your reality and the ideal. In other words, we're always falling short of what's possible. We talk sometimes about meeting our potential. You can't. You can't fulfill your potential. There's always more that you could do. Does that ring true to you? And that causes some problems for us when we get trapped in the gap and we're judging our progress based on how close we are to the horizon, the rainbow, the sunset. It's it's not a real place. It's a perception that's out there. So that causes some frustrations. But it's also really common for us to identify something that we intend to do, we commit to do, we are absolutely on board to do, and then we keep doing what we've been doing instead. So some questions that might come up. Why do I keep doing things that I know are not good for me? Or why don't I exercise when I know how important it is? Why do I keep eating the way I've been eating? I know that it's having an impact on my health. Why do I keep reacting negatively when I know that there are better ways to handle things and I even know what some of those ways are? Why do I neglect relationships that matter so much to me? We could go on and on and on. There's always this gap and we all experience that gap between what we know and what we do. So there are two major psychological factors that I want to get into with you today. And these are neural pathways. Okay. That's one of the psychological factors that we'll explore a little bit. And the pleasure pain dynamic that always influences our choices. Knowing what to do doesn't mean that you're programmed to do it. So let's look into programming for a minute. Your programming determines your defaults. What feels natural to you is often simply whatever you've practiced. So take your native language for a moment. Let's just start there. You didn't consciously choose your first language. Mine is English, and I was programmed to speak American English by two people who didn't even give me a choice, my parents. Okay. Now, you don't give children a choice on what language you're going to program them with. You choose it for them and then you program them. And I'm not saying parents are bad for doing this, I'm just saying that's what we do. Your parents in environment began programming this language into you long before you had any ability to choose. And then through thousands of repetitions, it became automatic. So today, you speak that language without consciously even assembling each sentence. You don't have to think about how do I speak my language. You just do it as if it's easy. Other languages are available, but your brain naturally defaults to whichever one you've practiced the most. And usually, that's one that you were programmed with. It's not just our language. I use that as an example because I'm inviting you to see that you've also been programmed for how to handle conflict. How to show up in a relationship. We are programmed in how we respond to disappointment or not getting what we want. How we interpret other people's behavior. How we manage emotions, stress. Whether we habitually engage in positive or negative thinking. These patterns become familiar and default. They're programmed in. They're in our very neural pathways. Neural pathways are like the cruise control or autopilot of your brain. Whatever we repeat over time, those experiences and behaviors become the learned practiced, programmed responses. So our brains have learned some familiar ways to protect us. And some of those strategies were developed really early in our life. Awareness precedes choice. It's awareness that gives us an opportunity to establish some new patterns. So notice this as we settle in on this concept of neuro pathways. What feels natural is often simply what you've practiced the most. Your default setting is the result of your previous programming. And just because a thought comes naturally doesn't mean it's the only thought available to you. This is good news. But programming is only part of the explanation. So there's another powerful force psychologically that influences what we actually choose to do. And this has to do with the pleasure and pain dynamic. So consider this for a minute. Every choice, and I know that's an all inclusive statement, but it's probably true. Every choice comes with a consequence, a cost. Our brains continually evaluate the potential rewards, the discomfort, the consequences, the cost of every choice that we face. Let's use exercise as an example for a minute because this is a common one that people tell themselves, oh, I need to do more of that. So there's a gap between what we know we need to do and what we actually do. So just using that as an example, what is the immediate experience of exercise? And each one, by the way, comes with... Each choice, I mean, comes with pleasure and pain. So what's the immediate experience of exercise? Effort, sweating, discomfort, hard. What's the longer term experience with exercise? Well, greater fitness, strength, health, the benefits that you signed up for in the first place. Now, what's the other option? Either you're going to exercise or you're going to avoid it. What's the immediate experience of avoiding exercise? Comfort, relief. Right? When you ask, you're lying there in bed. K? And your brain asks, do I feel like exercising today? What's the answer? Usually, you're comfy. You're in your bed. You're all snuggled in. No. I don't feel like exercising. Different question. Do I need to exercise today? Okay. Different answer too. Dramatically different answer. But the immediate experience of avoiding exercise is the comfort, the relief, the convenience. What's the longer term experience of avoiding exercise? Yeah. You miss out on all the benefits that we listed earlier. Those long term benefits of greater fitness, strength, health. You don't get those. And there can be potential health costs. We tend to give this portion of weight to immediate pleasure and pain. Whatever is happening now seems to weigh heavier in our evaluation than whatever is delayed or off in the future a little bit. So beneficial action often requires accepting discomfort upfront. Avoidance can provide immediate relief to that discomfort while postponing the potential costs. So sometimes we behave as though postponing pain means eliminating it. And don't be deceived about this. You're not eliminating it. You're kicking it down the road. Every choice has pleasure and pain associated with it. And so does the choice not to act. The pain of discipline comes right up front. The pain of avoidance sends the bill later. Let's get real about that because that's part of how we understand why we do what we do and why we don't do what we don't do. It's the pleasure and pain. So years ago, I had a client who was dealing with the challenge, and this is a real challenge of stopping his smoking. He had been trying to do this for years, probably going on a decade. He went to his physician and got a diagnosis of emphysema, which he always knew was a possibility, but now it's a reality. This made the consequence immediate and personal to him. He quit smoking that same day. Cold turkey just quit. See, the potential cost of continuing became very real to him and very immediate. His reason for change suddenly outweighed the anticipated discomfort of quitting. We can become more honest with ourselves about the costs of our choices without waiting for the crisis. I think at some point in his heart and mind, he really knew that it was inevitable that his health would deteriorate if he continued smoking. He knew that. Every time he opened a package of cigarettes, he read the surgeon general's warning. I mean, it's right there. Right? This could kill you and probably will if you don't stop. But we delude ourselves sometimes into thinking, Yeah, well, not today though, right? And we push it off and then we think that the delayed pain means that we avoided the pain. Yeah. We just kicked it down the road a little ways. So how do we actually change our programming? Let's get to that next. I do a little demonstration in some of my leadership trainings that makes this really clear. I have a scrambled keyboard. I just took an old computer keyboard and, popped off all the keys with a butter knife and just put them on in random positions. And then I encourage people to to type their name. That... That's the challenge. Just type your name on my scrambled keyboard. It takes a while. As I timed people, it's on the average about forty eight seconds for someone to type their first and last name on my scrambled keyboard. Now usually, you can type your name without even stopping to spell it or think about what the letters are because it's such a programmed response. This is a demonstration of how neural pathways work. It's surprisingly difficult to type your name on my scrambled keyboard. But check this out. The one you're already familiar with, the QWERTY keyboard. Look at your computer right now. It starts with a q. That is not an alphabetical sequence that they taught us back in primary school. The simple fact that you have practiced thousands of times on this keyboard makes it seem or feel natural to you now? I just invite you to notice that because the keyboard that you use is scrambled too. Would you like to learn to type on my keyboard? Now the answer to that is going to be a resounding no. Why? Because it would be an enormous waste of time. Why would you learn to type on my randomly scrambled keyboard? What if I paid you 500,000 US dollars to learn how to type on my keyboard? Oh, okay. Now suddenly there's a compelling reason to put in the effort. And this is an indicator of what is required here. There are two essential ingredients. Number one, a strong enough why. The value of the outcome has to justify the effort of changing. And when you're honest with yourself, you'll see that you already have compelling reasons to improve all of those things that you've promised yourself you would improve. Right? Whether it's your health, through your relationships, your mindset. Acknowledge the real costs of continuing with what's familiar. It's like my smoker client who saw immediately that, okay, this is real. You don't have to wait for the crisis. Acknowledge the real cost if you were to not change this. Connect with what matters enough to make the change worthwhile. I remember one of my clients also was working on losing weight. And what really got his attention is when his son turned eight and started asking him to go out and play ball or to go hiking with him, and he wasn't able to do that physically because of his obesity. And that was enough of a compelling why for him to go to the trouble of doing what he already knew was required to drop some of those pounds. A strong enough why makes the discomfort of change worth accepting. But obviously, there's another essential ingredient here. If I offered you $500,000 to learn how to type on my keyboard, you still couldn't do it unless you took my keyboard home with you and practiced. Right? You can't develop fluency in a language without putting in the reps. Or in this example, typing on my keyboard. Understanding the layout doesn't establish the necessary motor patterns and the the neural pathways that gradually build proficiency and the automatic default changes. Consistency probably matters a whole lot more than occasional bursts of enthusiasm. Let's be real about that too. A strong enough why can get you started. Repeated practice is what creates the new programming. And I don't know of any substitute. You gotta get the reps in. This is the purpose. This is why we've built the positives platform behind the daily, weekly, monthly positives that you get to practice and put into a rhythm and get in the reps. It's been fun to watch this too. At the time of this recording for this episode, we've had the platform open now for a couple of months. And I'm getting feedback from people that it is moving the needle for them. Finally, after years sometimes of telling themselves that they're going to start being more positive, they're actually accomplishing that with the repetition and the rhythm that they're able to get through their daily, weekly, and monthly. There's a distinction here between breakthrough learning and transformational learning. To get back to the question of our episode, why do I do what I do when I know what I know? It has to do with the programming. Now there's one more challenge. Because even when we have a compelling reason, we understand the importance of practice, something can still get in our way. I had one of my guests, this is years ago now, who said it's the start that stops us. Think about that for a minute. What if we could get started? A parked vehicle is really hard to steer. Once it's moving, you can start to adjust its direction. But we often wait for confidence or clarity or motivation before we actually act. What if you were to just take a manageable first step? Just get moving. And then once that car is moving, we can steer it. One of the Disney movies, Frozen. The sequel Frozen two. There's a song called The Next Right Thing. And the whole theme of the song is to do the next right thing. This gives us a practical strategy for overwhelming circumstances. We don't need to solve every problem or completely transform our lives today. That's not what it's all about. We can identify one appropriate next action. I got this from David Allen also. He wrote a book called Getting Things Done. And he said it a little differently, but it's a very similar idea to identify the next physical step. The next physical action, I think is what he called it. The next visible concrete step that moves something forward. And if it requires a prerequisite, then it's the prerequisite that is the next physical action. Not the thing that it qualifies you to do. Does that make sense? So identify the next right thing, the next physical action. So what have you been telling yourself you wanna do? You wanna improve your marriage? That's hard to do as an entire project, right? So what's the next physical action? Maybe it's simply scheduling a conversation. A time to talk? Do you want to exercise? What's the next physical action? How about put your walking shoes by the door? Get out your walking shoes and stage them somewhere where you're gonna stumble over them. Want to learn a new skill? Find the contact information for the class. That's the next physical action. Do you wanna improve your thinking? Set aside three and a half minutes today for intentional practice. I said three and a half minutes because that's how long those daily positives are. Three and a half minutes every day. Here's the practical takeaway. Ask yourself what's the next physical action I can take today and then take it. Not something that you'd have to wait till tomorrow to do. Something you can do now, today, in the next five minutes. Take that action. Get moving. Movement creates opportunities for adjustment. And the next right thing is usually smaller than the whole thing you're trying to imagine. So start changing your programming with the very next choice that you make. Alright. We've gotten into some of the reasons, some of the psychology. Can you identify your next physical action? And then repeat that action. Start getting the reps in. You already know more than enough to take your next step. And every time you practice a new response, you're giving your brain another opportunity to learn a better way. You're putting in the reps. Hey. If developing more intentional thinking is one of the changes that you want to make, please come over to our platform. Visit the positives platform. Okay? I've got a free positivity power pack there for you, and you can start getting those reps in with your daily positives. Just head over to positives.life. It's not a.com. Positives,plural,.life. Come see what we're doing. If you like the podcast, you're gonna love what we're putting into place as your daily, weekly, monthly positives. Alright, you guys. Did you get what you needed? I'm going to turn you loose, with that for this week. We'll catch you next time. 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