 It is the transformation month, Johnny. In our previous episode, we did a deep dive into transformation. We began looking at the various reasons that we transform our lives. We also took a little detour into some philosophy, talked about your favorite philosopher, Nietzsche. And we also talked about his ideas to see Envy not as something to be avoided, but as something we can use to motivate action. And of course, the concept that we can use anxiety as an indicator that something is important to us. And I know a lot of us look to avoid anxiety, so it's interesting to look at it from a different lens. We also looked at the research behind what's called experiential avoidance and how that is linked to low levels of life satisfaction. We also looked at a recent study on procrastination, and it was something that obviously we all struggle with. I thought that study was really fascinating. So if you haven't heard our first toolbox of the month, check out last week's episode. We also wrapped it with two techniques, as always, to help you using science in your own life to start that transformation. Now, in today's episode, we're going to talk about the inevitability of pain during a transformation, as well as the supporting role it can play as we go through it. So this should be pretty fun here. We're also going to look at the difference between pain and suffering and tell you how you can distinguish between the two of them. And of course, we're going to wrap this episode with a powerful exercise based on Peter Golitzer's work on the implementation intentions. Lots to cover, so let's kick this off. Now, when it comes to pain, I think all of us are trying our best to avoid it. In fact, pain is scary, and because of it, it transforms our behavior. Now, we also know that transformation is hard work. It's not going to be easy if you want to make changes in your life. And as we discussed last week, we're bringing habits, behaviors to the table that we need to change. And we've talked about slowing down that locomotive and getting it moving in the other direction, so it is going to be difficult. Now, there are two books that we love, of course. We've talked about on the show previously how to win friends and influence people and think and grow rich, far ahead of their time, still famous books that I'm sure a lot of our listeners have also encountered. Now, a hundred years ago, no one thought working out was normal. In fact, to exercise a hundred years ago, people thought you were crazy. What's wrong with you? They viewed our body as having an energy battery that lasted our life. And if you worked out too hard, you drain that battery. You might not have energy later in life. Now, think about that for a second. How far have we come and how do we view exercise today? Completely different. In fact, many of our listeners right now are engaged in exercise as they're listening to the show. Well, certainly what we did just to get motivated and moving today. Yeah, we were talking about Barry's Bootcamp and all the changes they're making and how frustrating it is to screw up our workout routine. But working out is no longer something that we look differently at. It's no longer something that we try to avoid. And it's certainly something that I think a lot of us are understanding the importance of transforming your body and all the impacts that it has on us mentally. Well, much like a lot of the other things that are happening for us as human beings, we have all these technological advances to allow life to be easier. Now that life is easier, we have to make time for these moments to grow, to strengthen ourselves. And much like we're going to have to do that physically, we're going to now have to do that emotionally and mentally as well. Because the technological advances that we're having are making it easier for us to connect, but not actually really connect. And it's making it easier for us to think with and work through problems that are virtual, but we still have to do that in our own lives in real life for the actual real growth. Now, why did we mention those two books? Because transformation at the turn of the century was not something that people were interested in. Self-development, self-improvement was not a hot topic like it is today. Much like working out, we're now starting to see self-development become more and more mainstream, so to speak. Well, here's my question about that. Are we becoming more and more mainstream? Because more and more people need it and they're looking for it and they're finding a void in their life. So they're reaching out to to feel good again. Or is it because it has been made easier to indulge in self-development? We're now no longer relegated to the creepy section of the bookstore. We hope no one sees us over there. It might as well put it in the self-help section. Yes. You know, so or is it a combination of both of those things? You know, this is the thing that makes me laugh. And I always and I love this and this happened a while ago and I think I brought up on the show where a young girl had asked me to do an interview for her podcast, which was geared towards the the Generation Z, the next group coming up, right? The ones after before the millennial sound and. And she was 17. So and for me to be speaking to a 17 year old about self-development was just a bit odd. It was nice. I'm glad that she was interested in it. And her dad is a as a pretty well-known psychologist, so I could see the link there. But it was still a bit odd. And talking I was like, listen, I have to know why, you know, how did you get into self-development? I'm just kind of curious that you're a bit young for that. And she's like, you guys made self-development cool. And I that was that kind of shocked me. I was happy about that. I and in fact, I love that and I want to do more of that. And I want to make self-development cool. I want it to be for people much like Nietzsche said, it's for a select few. It's for the underground. We are the new punk rock. But, you know, I love that. And I'm trying to think of all the different components that allow for that to happen. You know, and as we're talking here about it, you know, relegated to the weird part of the bookstore is now accessible online. It seems to be more and more coming to the forefront in the mainstream. Absolutely. I mean, one of our previous guests, Jay Shetty and his viral videos all around these concepts that, you know, he learned in the monastery and now people are gravitating towards the stuff. They want these answers. And it's so interesting because we have live chat on the website. And over the last 12 years, we've seen more and more parents reach out to us, more and more 15 year olds, 14 year olds, hopping on the chat, finding us on our YouTube channel, the Art of Charm TV and seeing the videos and saying, I want that, I want to change. And a lot of what we do in boot camp, you know, we're talking about the subconscious mind. We're talking about these habits that we've built over the years and life experience is an important part of that. But we're having younger and younger students approach us saying, Hey, I want to learn this stuff. I want this, too. Yeah, you're looking a little tense, as I say that. Yeah, because here there is an issue with that, though. And I don't mean that this this issue it would stop any growth, but it's something that you have to think about. And this goes back to what we were talking about last week, the two reasons why people get in the transformation, right? There's no internal. Yeah, so there's this moment and then and then just the growth part of it. And in teaching this and talking about this for as long as we have now over a decade, it really helps in your transformation when you have life experiences to draw from. And when you're really young, that's a bit difficult not to say that you can't grow, you can't learn, you can't practice some of these things and then be ready for the events in your life that are that are going to come. But however, sometimes when we're in the room and we're chatting with these young guys, you could see their eyes sort of like glazing over as they're trying to put some of these pieces together, which are rather difficult if you haven't been through struggle. So let me lay out my case. As you grow older, it takes your body. I think fully finishes around 25, 27 years old and in growth. And it's a while you're growing for the most part, you feel good every day because you're continually you're you're growing. And so there's all this growth. You feel good. There's good hormones, good chemistry. Once that stops, then you become then you begin the slow downhill role. Well, let's also think about that, right? For all of our early adulthood, we're studying, we're in school, we're being forced into higher education, we're learning, we're trying to absorb all this material that around 24, 25, you start to settle into your career. You start to go after your dreams, your desires, but it's a lot different. It's not the same as it was in school. And so when I'm chatting with some of the younger guys, right? It's like it's hard for me to how do you even explain to a young man or young lady who hasn't stopped growing yet, right? They they there is no way to wrap their heads around being slowly degenerating, like regressing one day after the next incrementally, so much so that you don't feel it from day to day. But over time, you you notice it. There's that's a very difficult thing to explain or for anyone to experience. And so and that's then when the, you know, the guy sitting next to the young kid on the couch is 35 and he's like, well, I know what the hell you're talking about. But, you know, so the young kid sitting there, he's like, he's trying to figure it out. He's trying to wrap his head around it. It's like, well, don't worry, because it's coming. Whether you like you want it to or not. And then but after that, we have to find these moments to unique ways to continue the growth so that we can limit the regression, but also find other ways to continue feeling that that growth, which allows us to feel alive and well. And that's extremely important. And this is why starting out your day, first thing by going to the gym is as you get older, like for me, I'm telling my body, here's what we're doing today. Here's how you're better be responding. If that doesn't happen, then my body is going to dictate to me how we're going to be moving, how we're going to be rolling that day. And I know what that's like. I've already been through that. And that's why I started working, working out to be in control that to override that physical system. And and and self development is a learning that there's a physical system, a mental system and and your emotional system. All needs to be overridden and you need to be dictating to all of those systems and how they're going to be behaving or they will be dictating to you and they'll be dictating to you only in the way to avoid any pain. Well, let's talk about the pain here, right? That's that's what we're talking about. There's there's two types of pain. There's the pain of being stuck and feeling stuck. And for some of our younger listeners, they may not have reached that point to your earlier point. They may not have reached the pain of feeling stuck because they just keep growing and it doesn't really feel like they're spinning their wheels. But for those of us who are early, late adulthood, we've been through some things and that pain of feeling stuck often is the external force that leads to transformation. Now there's pain that comes with transformation, too. Oh, yeah. There's pain in the gym. There's going to be a pain of failure as you start working on yourself, whether it's improving your social skills, trying to boost your emotional intelligence, there's going to be pain along with self development. Well, there's a few more that I want to put in that box. There's the pain of the mistakes that are you will inevitably make that you have to deal with, right? Yeah. And there's also the pain of the new verse endeavors that fail that you're going to have to go on. And then there's also the pain of of dealing and knowing all of your bad habits. So we're throwing all those in a box that there's a lot of work to be done there. However, all those can be used. They're not for nothing. Right. They can be motivators. And, you know, I was on a core confidence group over the weekend and one of the young ladies in the class asked me, OK, AJ, how can I find my values? And she wanted a nice, tidy little nest, right? Just great. This is a simple exercise. I can put my five values down on a piece of paper, not realizing that, hey, I'm in my late 30s. I'm still rewriting that sheet of paper. Of course. They've shifted and changed for me. They're going to shift and change for you. And they're not going to be perfect the first time you put on down. There are going to be mistakes as you start working on yourself, trying to identify what matters to you. For those who are listening and wondering what you're referencing there, you can hear about it in the Russ Harris episode where we talk about these core values and why it's important to your growth. You know, we also have this exercise that is in our are the free Facebook challenge group. And one of the things that annoys me about that is everyone just either, oh, there's a good list. They copy and paste somebody else's or they just throw up some core values and like, there you go. That's not enough in order for you to emotionally engage with those values. There needs to be some thought out of how you got to those and why those values are important to you and how you're going to engage with them. That allows them to stick to just cut and paste somebody else. Like, oh, those those look good. Just to move on to get the next challenge to get the next email. That's not that's not helping. And that's all again, coming from that avoidance of pain, that avoidance of making the mistake, that avoidance of failure. And which one are we going to choose? Are we going to choose the pain of transformation or are we going to choose the pain of being stuck? Some of us reach a point where the pain of being stuck is so unbearable. We just move forward and make the change. Some of us are struggling to figure that out. Which one do you choose? And the moment you realize that you're going through pain in either case, it makes it so much easier to choose the pain associated with growth. And this is where it gets difficult. So in this. In choosing this pain in order to grow, you have to admit and start with the presupposition that you are just flawed throughout. And you're going to continue to be flawed throughout fears, insecurities and adequacies that all of us have to deal with. That is not a that is not a comfy place to start from. In fact, that's a terrifying place to come from. Because if you start from there, then you have to look at a very long road ahead of you. And who wants to do that? However, as as long as you continue to to ignore this fact and and and ignore this road, then each day is going to get progressively worse. Now, Victor Frankel, the founding father of logotherapy and the author of a phenomenal book, Man's Search for Meaning writes, in some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice. That is why man is even ready to suffer on the condition to be sure that his suffering has meaning. So let's unpack that a little bit. Yes, let's do. We have to understand pain is inevitable. We are going to be faced with this choice. And the avoidance of pain is only going to lead to more pain. Right. It's a it's a check that always comes due. That bill is always due and you're not going to avoid it. But when you attach meaning to that pain, right? It's for a greater purpose. You now are supercharged to power through it. But if we don't attach meaning to the pain, well, all of a sudden it becomes suffering. And this is where things get a little bit difficult. And this is where philosophy, I think, still reigns king. And it has some hold. So let me set this up. If we go ahead and decide that we're inadequate, we need to get on the work and we have this long road ahead of us. How are you going to jump into that road without a force or your emotions carrying you through? It's a very it's it's it's this uphill Sisyphus boulder up the hill. That is, it's never going to it's never going to add. And Sisyphus's whole thing is in finding meaning and pushing this up the hill. His daily routine of pushing that rock up the hill becomes his meaning. Now, this the the meaning part of this is where I think philosophy and religion can come into play. Unfortunately, religion doesn't work for everybody and there are some holes in that and and it does work for some. And what's where I'm at now is that. Hey, it is if religion works for you, if it's the motivator, if it can push you through this long slug and this boulder up the hill. Fantastic. I have now at the point where I don't think it makes anyone less or any more. It's what works for them. Absolutely. And. So for the other folks that it doesn't work for, you're going to have to figure this this meaning out. You're going to have to put this together and it needs to be larger than yourself. It has to be the the the meaning cannot be for you. It has to be to society. It has to be right. It just it has your emotions have to be engaged in this. The the point of it needs to be large enough where your small exhibitions, your small contributions are are able to be set into a. I guess a larger picture where that at the end of the day, you can feel good about what you've contributed to this large cause. And that's why we're so big on being in service to others. Yeah. Being a high value person who's generous with their time, with their energy, with their thoughts and feelings. That is how we can counter the suffering. So this this point about the making this contribution that is something to others too larger than yourself. Over the the week, there was a there was a client who who happened to be in a place where he has put his power, his emotions, his well-being in the hands of others. And that's that happens easily. We all want to be liked. We all want to have be connected. Isolation sucks. And it's important for us to get attention, approval and acceptance from our peer group and a sense of belonging. However, that that's a slippery slope where you can get lost in that. If if you do in order to get out of that, because think about how that mindset and that frame has you maneuvering through the world, you're reactive to everything. You're reactive to everyone around you. You're reactive to the situation. You cannot gain control if you're reactive. You cannot forge your own destiny if you're reactive. How do you get out of that? If that's the case that you're in, which this goes back to this up now, rather than focusing on what you need in this moment to feel good, you have to focus on others. You have to look in at what you can add to the group around you and start getting validation through your efforts towards other people towards a bigger goal. Once you were able to get a few wins in that situation through those efforts, that frame starts to spin. So now you're proactive towards everybody. You are proactive towards your day. And that that look at that shift in how you view your day and the people around you, that changes your behaviors. That changes your mindsets. Well, we talk about that when you focus on changing your mindsets, your behaviors will soon follow. And when your behaviors follow, they become habits and those habits build character. We talk about that all the time because we need to make this mindset shift first. That's why we've been doing the show for 12 years. It's all about that mindset shift. Now, in some cases, the question, which pain do you choose is enough to finally push people over the edge towards transformation? But in some harder cases, we need to ask a different question. And I love this question. Have you had enough? Because I feel like when you answer this question, yes, to your point, Johnny, you take your power back. Yes, you now take responsibility and you reclaim everything that is yours, right? Instead of letting the world dump on you and let everything just come at you and being that reactive person. Have you had enough in saying, yes, I have. You take back that power. Now, sometimes we have to go through a lot of pain in order to finally say, that's enough. I have to make a change. And this is something that Dr. Stephen Hayes talked to us about when we interviewed him. And whether it's not having a circle of friends and feeling lonely, we talked about how much isolation sucks or being dissatisfied with your options romantically or feeling completely stuck at work and feeling like you're just on that treadmill every single day, spinning your wheels, dreading going in and feeling that you're in a job that you hate. Either way, any of those scenarios have you had enough when you finally say, yes, I have had enough. I want better friends. Yes, I have had enough. I want better matches. I want better dates. Yes, I've had enough. I want more out of my career. That's when you've taken your power. Now, that's obviously something that we do here at the Art of Charm. We focus on allowing our clients to take back that power, whether it's on our online community, whether it's our in-person programs. It's all about making the choice. Well, and to go along with that, there's a lot of work in doing that because we also know that the language that we use is programs are subconscious. And then, of course, that subconscious is then in control of our behaviors. And it's you. This is, you know, we were just experiencing this with a with a friend who just happens to just run his mouth about any, I think just for the sake of running his mouth, running it for the sake of being heard. And because of that, pontificates on things and and actually treats some of the things he says back to Daniel Kenneman's idea of System One, System Two, of the things that he's just rambling off that he's read or seen or just as just heard or misunderstood. Just talking as fact and the stream of consciousness and a stream of consciousness. And now it's just fact that it's the way things are. And because there's no there's no introspection, there's no. Exactly. The rest of his mindsets are completely entangled in this web of fact, fiction, story, emotions. And it's it's difficult for him to find his way through these mindsets. And and this is where it becomes very important where you have to be selective and your all of your thoughts need to be scrutinized so that you can work through some of these things. And we've talked about this, you know, sometimes you're fortunate enough to have a friend, a family member who will do that. But sometimes you don't have that. And oftentimes, you know, when you realize that you're digging a hole and all you have is a shovel, well, you can only dig so far until you're like, I need to get out of this abyss. And I want to say how this happens as well. And everybody is guilty of it because we're all exposed to so many different influences and where we cannot be in control of everything, all the stimuli that's coming our way. It's difficult. We can be selective to be influenced or be in the presence of certain stimuli. And we have to be careful of that as I've gotten older and realize just how easily I am influenced. I now make it a point to be as selective as I could possibly be. And my point in this is because we're we are exposed to so much stimulus. A lot of times it's it contradicts other ideas that we have. And if you just this is what this is why I think journaling is so amazing because when you're writing these things out, you actually see where these contradictions are. And you could go, well, wait a minute. And we're all hypocrites and we all have this this. Well, our combinations biases work towards us holding on to the facts, the facts and using air quotes that back up our beliefs and completely discounting the facts that challenge our beliefs. And there are there's ideologies that contradict our natural incanations that are innate as a human being. There are there is science then that contradicts the ideology or the natural incanation that we have through nature. I mean, there is science that contradicts science. It started the show with the science at the turn of the century said exercise is not yet you want to be doing. Yes, exactly. So how are you supposed to put this together? And what's going on inside? And the thing is, because we're all hypocrites, because we all live in contradiction, it is important for us to limit them to as little as possible. And so we can live a very decisive, straight ahead life as best as we can with without the filter, without the scrutiny, without the the being critical of all these thoughts and ideas. We are doomed to our own thought processes. Now, let's unpack the difference between pain and suffering. Yes. And there's a famous quote attributed to Buddha. Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Yeah, like that. And it is a great, absolutely great quote. Next time someone uses that quote, tell them it actually goes back to a Japanese author, Heruki Murakami, but we digress here. Thank you, Michael, for that pro tip. So yeah, don't allow that quote to be attributed to Buddha. What is the difference between pain and suffering? Think about going to the gym, lifting some weights, doing some cardio, your berries boot camp. And let's face it, that stuff is painful. It's not always pleasant. Sometimes it really sucks, especially if Chris is yelling at you. You're getting tired, your muscles are sore, and you only have a few more sets left. But this is painful, right? I got to push through. Now, if you go through this same routine and you start complaining about those last three sets that you still have to do and that your metabolism is slow and you didn't get enough sleep the night before, all of this sucks. Well, now we've moved beyond pain. We are in suffering, right? Your thoughts, your beliefs and and verbalizing them are now leading to the suffering. Now, what allows you to keep the suffering at bay and enjoy the pain? Logic is not enough. No, you need a narrative, you need meaning, you need a story so your emotions can get engaged and carry you the rest of the way through with just looking at the logic of I need to be in the gym because it's going to that. Yes, that might get you in there. That might make that that might allow you to book your time. That might allow you to pay for your your entrance for the new gym membership. But that's not going to carry you through the pain. This is why you got to have your story. You have to have your meaning. And what's great about this is it could be whatever it needs to be to get you through. I made this silly story a few podcasts ago, but it was the one and I still think about it, which is, you know, you if you can get up before the the sun's up, right? You get into the gym and by the time you leave, the sun's open, you've earned your day. Like that's a cute little story. Also, something that puts us for me that puts a smile on my face and gets me giggling as I go to the gym. That little story, that little narrative is enough for my emotions to get engaged. And when I see that I still got 20 minutes left and I have some more reps, I'm like, aren't in the day, let's go. Let's get it going. That's enough. And this is why myth, philosophy has been so important throughout the ages and why, you know, logic, because it's not been able to place it. And then I made that reference to religion earlier and why that has been so prevalent in our culture and all cultures through time. And even this weekend, Chris texts me, our trainer. And he said, OK, we finished the half marathon last year. We ran the Tough Mudder this year. And he says, are you guys aligned on what your new goals are? And, you know, in the past, I've even said on the show, I just want to get a six pack. I want to be in better shape. I want to look good for the beach, right? Not enough. And update. I've had a lot of people asking me. We are very, very close. Johnny's already there. I'm very, very close. So I'll hopefully be doing a reveal very soon of the transformation. But that is not enough. Chris is like, no, looking better is not enough. You need something deeper, right? What is that next challenge that you want to take on? And, of course, the transformation to take on that challenge is going to lead to all that other stuff, looking good, feeling good. But you need something more than that. Well, this let's go back to Victor Frankl. Let's go back. And this is this is this is the thing that I'm most amazed about. You know, when we had Alexandra, was it Alexander Sachs? Yeah. Once we had her on and we're about to have Warren Farrell and I have just finished his book. One of the things that stood out to me is just how malleable and and fragile children are. And it's and not only that. And it is just for the idea of having children is just terrifying to me because of that. However, that's only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is just how amazing and resilient human beings can be as well. So when we hear stories, when we run into people like Victor Frankl, who through being in a concentration camp has found a way to derive meaning to carry him through the worst of conditions. And then not only that, people like David Goggins, who will put themselves through that same sort of pain and stress for the for only because of the benefits that will give him. So here you have somebody unwillingly being in this situation and trying to figure out a way to get through it. Then you have someone else who is willingly and wantingly putting themselves through that. And then on top, we can add another level to that of people who were just born into it. Like imagine being born in through a harsh environment such as Siberia. Like so there's three examples of finding meaning in some of the worst of places in order to thrive if they can, you can. Right. And I mean, look, all of our friends who've been having children recently, right? Notice their behavior change. Oh, yeah. Children provide meaning. Yes, they do. Becoming a parent flips the switch. And all of a sudden you take more personal responsibility. You take your health more seriously. Why? Because you want to show up for your child now. It provides that deeper meaning. Well, what did Alexandra Sacks say? Not only is it a new baby, it's a new parent. Absolutely. Talking about transformation. There you go. Let's take another example. Right. I know all of our listeners exercise is important to us. We still firmly believe you should be exercising. But let's take another example to really delineate pain from suffering. Right. You're heading to a first date. And if you've enlisted in the last month's theme, hopefully you learned some great tips on how to make that first date amazing and have great conversation. But as you're arriving to the first date, you start getting a little nervous, right? I don't know if this person is going to like me. I hope my conversation skills are good. You feel a little anxiety, right? That's pain. Yeah. Now you go to the date. You crack a couple of jokes. Your date doesn't laugh. All of a sudden you start going, I'm worthless. I'm unattractive. This person doesn't like me. Now we're in suffering. We're taking the little discomfort, the anxiety, the nervousness, and we're transforming all of our thoughts and beliefs around it to woe is me. This sucks. I hate dating. I hate first dates. I hate Tinder. All those things that is creating suffering in your life. And Dr. Kristen Neff, one of the world's leading experts in the field of self-compassion writes, suffering equals pain times resistance in her vast body of scientific work. Dr. Neff lists a few indicators for resistance. Number one, we're being distracted or we try to distract ourselves with work or food or video games or social media. We're always working to distract ourselves from that pain. Number two, we're getting physically tense and close our body language, self-comfort. Or number three, there's worry and rumination. Over-analysis and irritation, right? That is resistance. When you add pain to being distracted, trying to unplug and just avoid it, right? Sweep it under the rug. Or you get physically tense, you're closing your body off. Or even worse, you're using worry and rumination. Now you've created suffering out of that pain. Now these are the signs that we're resisting the experience itself. That we're going into experiential avoidance. That's a concept we talked about in last week's episode and gave you two techniques to deal with it. So we're not gonna double back on that. Check out last week's episode if you haven't. Now that we've covered a lot of theory here, we wanna give you one very concrete, improving technique to work through your own transformation. And the technique we'll cover today is based on what's called implementation intention. And it was first introduced by Peter Golditzer in 1999. Ah, my high school graduation. This technique ties together a lot of the concepts that we've covered in the last episode. Now when we talk of Golditzer's work, this technique, we're really talking about an entire field of behavioral research that's been going on for decades. But we wanna break it down into one easy use technique that you can start using right now. But of course, we would be remiss if we didn't explain the few scientific findings that allowed this technique to blossom. Now in his studies, Golditzer found that there is a surprisingly low correlation between intention and action. Or in his own words, the correlation between intentions and behavior are modest. That's a very polite and scientific way to say that there's only a very loose connection between what we say we will do and what we actually do. I know Amy's cracking up in the car right now saying, oh yeah, I've understood that. Implementation intentions are different from goals. An implementation can be best explained as a simple if then statement. If, situation, then behavior. It's very precise, very actionable. So a goal might be, I wanna get fit. Oh, simple enough. Great, not really concrete, right? Chris would be very upset if we said that's our goal. An implementation intention would be every day after I leave work, I go to the gym for an hour, right? So, situation, behavior. A great example of this is described in a study done by Shayna Orbel and Pascal Sharon. Motivational and volitional processes in action initiation, a field of study of the role of implementation intentions. Now what these two researchers did was they found a group that really needed to change, but that would also be as reluctant to change as it possibly gets. And then they tested these exact implementation intentions on them. Orbel and Sharon found that those very people in orthopedic hospitals, you know, the over 50 senior citizens that had just gone through hip replacement. Now, for those of you who have not yet had a hip replacement, this is an extremely painful procedure, and also one that requires the patient to start exercising pretty much immediately. The researchers gave the patients a booklet with an exercise regimen that had a few empty pages at the end where they were asked to write down their precise implementation intentions. Three months later, they found a huge difference in the mobility and the overall health of those patients who had filled out those blank pages, unlike those who hadn't. One of the patients went so far as to write a detailed step-by-step instruction of the route he'd take, the coat he'd wear, and the pills he'd take when the pain became too much. So how do we use this in our own life? Here's the questions we want you to answer for each of your goals. Pull out a pen, pull out some paper, let's get to work. What are you going to do? How are you going to do it? When are you going to do it? And lastly, what problems do you foresee and how are you going to tackle each one, right? Now we're switching from reactive to proactive, right? This is the preparation, but this has massive consequences on your transformation. And I just want to add, so we do this in class, and it's usually taking place when we're talking about beliefs. So we're trying, in order, we're going to act out what we internally believe. And so if we have a belief that is not beneficial to us, that it's actually hindering us, then you have to replace it with a better belief, right? The old script needs to be replaced with a better script. And what happens for the people who are trying to get out of being specific with their words and their actions, they will use very broad strokes. And that doesn't help. And so when you're writing these out, you have to make sure that you are, if you just say, well, I'll do it tomorrow or on Wednesdays, doesn't work. You have to write down the time. You have to put it together. Why? Because if you leave it nebulous, well, then it's not strong. It's not going to will you into doing anything. Well, yeah, let's think about that, right? I want to get fit. Okay? Great, great goal. Fantastic. What are you going to do about it? Well, I'm going to go to berries every morning. I'm going to make sure that my exercise clothes are laid out before I get up so that it's easy as possible for me to go from waking up to the gym. Now, what are the problems you're going to foresee? Well, have a tendency to hit the snooze button. So I'm going to set my alarm for an extra 30 minutes to give me buffer so that I counteract my snooze habit. And what are you going to do on the days where maybe you're not feeling it? Well, you know what? I'm going to enroll my accountability Johnny to make sure that on those days where I'm like, you know, I don't really feel like seeing Chris and Johnny can be like, no, we're seeing Chris and vice versa. This is how we transform. You can't just say, I want this, I want that. We all have those words in our head and sometimes we even verbalize them, but that is not enough to get you there. Yeah, and here's one small tactic that I use to get moving in the morning because on the days that may be a little difficult because you can imagine with work, you're hitting the gym every morning, once you get a lot of these habits going and working for you, you contend to easily get worn down a little bit and you want to be conscious of those things. So let's just say there's a morning where I'm not as spry and ready to get after it as much as I'd like. And I'm doing the whole arguing with myself and how I'm going to go about this, which we on the habit building episode had talked about getting up a little bit earlier, right? So you can go on the day with offense. By you allowing yourself to get up that extra hour earlier, you now have an extra early, then you have that extra hour to do what you will and what you need with that hour. And this works for me. That in the morning, so if I'm really fighting it and fighting myself and how I'm going to go about getting to the gym, the wager is that all you have to do is get to the gym. You get to the gym and you do your hour. If you're still tired, you still are dragging, you're still a little beat up, you have that extra hour to take a little nap. And I believe I mentioned this on the podcast a few months ago, but that has really helped me because the likelihood that I'm actually going to want to go to bed after I'd going to the gym is minimal. And however, if I still need to, then it's- It's that insurance. It's an insurance. And I have that opportunity and I don't- And you've identified your most likely excuse process, which is what this exercise is about. It's about the preparation. Now, I might remind you, what did I say? Get out a pen and get out some paper. This is not an intellectual exercise. This is not, I'm sitting in my car listening to these two jabronis. Oh yeah, let me just work it out while I'm in traffic. No, no, no. This is the commitment of pen to paper. That's how real transformation starts. And this is how we can set up the implementation intentions. As we saw from the research, you write these things out, you are more likely to achieve those goals and reach the transformation you're after. Can I just say, I think, well, it's necessary, I don't think it's necessary. I think everybody needs to spend more time- Writing. It helps in so many different ways, mind and body and organization and learning and commitment. Well, think about our day, right? As adults in the modern world, we are shortening all of our communication, right? The popularity of emojis and gifts and shorthand and emails, BRB, everything we're doing is to write less, not write more. And it is impeding our personal growth because we are not committing to these thoughts and feelings that we have. How can you flesh out an idea if you're not willing to commit to the words and allow that idea to be fleshed out and strengthened if you haven't wrote it down? And this is where it goes hand in hand with reading. And I think you should always have a book in your back pocket that is ready to be opened up at any moment so you can go through that process and then you should always be able to write. And I have, whether paper and pen is great, I have a war board that I write ideas on so I don't forget and so I can work them out so I can see them as a visual reputation. And I also have a notepad that's always open on my phone that is thoughts that I have throughout the day that come to me that I write down, that I flesh out. And those thoughts that go into that notepad, then go onto my war board, then go onto a story, I mean, then come into this podcast. These things are constantly being worked out. And even in the boot camp, day one, we hand you a 100 page workbook and we say, we're gonna be writing this week. And I get confused looks. No, I came here to learn social skills. I'm not here to be a writer. No, we need to put pen to paper to work through these beliefs, these thoughts we have, these values of ours that have become nebulous because we don't spend enough time thinking about it. This is the exact exercise that we kick off core confidence with our group online coaching as well. Now, everything we're talking about here, it's tough. We get it. Sometimes you need accountability. You may not have a Johnny to be your accountability buddy. Sometimes you need someone to hold your feet to the fire. And that's why we've been coaching for the last 12 years, to be that accountability partner for you, whether it's in person in our boot camps, whether it's online in our core confidence groups, no matter what, you are writing out your goals, you are writing out your values and we are going to work through them and we're going to help you hold yourself accountable. The best thing is you're going to be that much better for it. And I will also add this, if you don't believe us, you want to prove us wrong, right? Take the challenge, right? Go ahead and write that. It's free. You know, and it's, I know for myself, it's these small little things that I have implemented that had the most profound changes. So here is our challenge for you as we wrap. This week, block out half an hour. Pull out your calendar app on your phone, block out half an hour, sit down and write out your implementation intentions. Whether it's dating, social skills, professionally, personally, physically, what are your implementation intentions? And if you're up for it, share them with us. Johnny and I would love to see them. Let us know. We're always excited to hear from you. You can send them over at theartofcharm.com slash questions. You can also email them, questions at theartofcharm.com. You can find us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, all at the Art of Charm. And certainly, if you would like to leave us a review, we would greatly appreciate it. It allows others to find us and we like reading them. So go ahead on over to iTunes, find the Art of Charm and leave us a review. Make sure you give us five stars. We're one star if you hate us, but we like the five and we appreciate, we thank you.