How to Change Your Patterns

You taught me a really cool way to help my clients change their behavior by taking specific actions in their lives.

It's a simple method. Just requires you to feel a whole bunch of stuff on the, on the way. You have these patterns because you're trying to avoid an emotional experience, and you have to feel all that experience to do it cleanly. I was making excuses for people, which was deeply disempowering. And so the first thing that I did, I announced to the entire company I'd been doing this. I'm sorry for this, and it's not okay.

You taught me a really cool way to help my clients change their behavior by taking specific actions in their lives. And there's a really cool technique to it that I really want to talk about and share with our audience today.

Yeah, that'd be great. I think it's such a good thing because it's so easy to use and it's so efficient and it's so, like, effective, right? It's like an effective, efficient way to change behavior, a particular, very specific kind of behavior, but yeah, great way to change it. Especially if you've had that realization, if you've had that moment of, oh, I get it, now what do I do? This is like a great answer to that question.

Yeah, yeah, this is perfect for once somebody has seen through a pattern, because one thing we notice that a lot of times people will see a pattern.

Yes.

Maybe they've seen it for years.

Yes.

And their life hasn't changed. They just see the thing.

Correct.

And we've talked a lot about feeling the unfelt emotions behind a pattern, and we'll talk for sure some about that here, but I wanna really focus on specific action and how to structure changing your behavior through action. So let's get started. How does this work?

I call it the 4 A's, and the first thing is to announce it. Second thing is to apologize. The third thing is to ask for help. And then the fourth thing is to act immediately. And there's a lot of nuances to each of those things, but the 4 A's is how I think about it, 'cause it's easy to remember. And when you have that, moment of, oh, I get it now, if you do the 4 A's right afterwards, it definitely is super effective of changing that behavior and then therefore changing the pattern in your life.

What's maybe just a brief example of what this might be?

So this summer, you got to see me do this in action. So I came back from my August break, and during the August break, I recognized that I was making excuses for people and doing their job a little bit. And it wasn't heavy, but it was like I was not expecting them to do the job that they were supposed to do because I was getting on the too helpful side of the scale and trying to work with them to figure out, which was deeply disempowering. So instead of saying, hey, this is what you said to do, will you do it? If you're not gonna do it, tell me why. I was making excuses and I was helping out and how can I clear the way for you, et cetera. Which disempowered me, disempowered them, wasn't good for any of us. And so the first thing that I did was that I announced to the entire company I'd been doing this. I've been doing it. It wasn't fair. It was disempowering to them. It was disempowering to me. And then the second thing that I did was apologize to everybody. I'm sorry for this. Like, I can understand if I was in your shoes how this would suck. And it's not okay. And so then there was the apology of it. And then the next thing that I did was I asked the company for help. Hey, I'm gonna be doing, I'm gonna be changing this behavior. If you see me do it, tell me. If you see me do the old pattern, let me know. If you feel like it's at odds in any way, let me know. And then also just, that wasn't the only ask. The other ask was, This is probably gonna be messy. This is one of the times that like, I'm changing something. I'm probably not gonna do it really well. Maybe I'm gonna ask too harshly for a while. I don't know what's gonna happen, but please have some patience with me. So I'm announcing the situation, but then I'm asking for help after the apology. And then immediately I take, and I think it's really important to take 5 actions. So before I even did any of the announcing, and the apologizing, I thought about like, what are 5 things that I can do that are counteractions to the behavior that is the problem behavior? So in this particular case, there was the problem behaviors where I was making excuses for people. I was taking responsibility for their work instead of letting them take responsibility for their work. And so I just lined up, 5 things that I had taken responsibility for and wrote single emails to each person that that was happening with. And I said, hey, this is what I asked, this is what happened, this is what I need. Can you explain to me what's not happening? Can you tell me when it's gonna get done? How do we make sure this doesn't happen in the future? Just bam, just really clean, or as clean as I can make it at the time, to each one of them. And that's the act. Immediately. So I did all of those emails basically within the same day. And that's the easy part.

Yeah, no doubt.

It's what you have to do to get there. And that typically is where a lot of the growth happens and what changes the behavior. But there's nuances to each one of the steps.

So let's, let's start at the top.

Yeah.

Announce.

Announce. So The most effective way is to announce as widely as possible to as much of the many people in your life as possible. So this is often gonna bring up like maybe a feeling of like reputational damage, like, oh, the people are gonna think less of me, or, oh, I'm making sure that I am doing something. If I fail, everybody's gonna see that I fail. If I announce to everybody I'm changing and then I don't change, Right. And you have to have all those, like, significant emotions that are happening. And so the wider you can announce it, the more effective it is that you're going to change, right? Because you have more people who know about what's happened for you. And it also shifts your identity because part of my identity is held in place by who I think I am. But part of my identity is held in place by who you think I am. And so if I'm used to having an interaction with you, where you're like, oh, you're Joe, you're gonna take care of me instead of hold me accountable, then that's how you're going to treat me. But if I've announced to you, I'm not doing that anymore, the next time it happens, you're going to be like, okay, well, what's going to go down here? So you're not holding me into an identity because I've announced it widely. But to announce it widely and cleanly, I have to feel through the grief of maybe that I'm gonna mess it up, maybe that I'm gonna be seen as bad, maybe I'm not gonna be consistent. I have to like feel through all of that stuff, which usually you don't do until you've lived through it. But if you feel through it first, then often you're not gonna be living through it.

Yeah, there's something really cool about that too, where a lot of those feelings are actually feelings you've already been having.

Correct.

Like the fear of reputational loss is, probably one of the things that's been driving the pattern.

Correct, right.

So you're really just feeling the thing that's already there.

That's right, that's right. And that's what each one of these steps, the kind of the greater arc is that you have to feel certain, like you can just do the stuff rote and it works pretty well, works a lot better if you do the stuff and feel everything that comes up while you're doing the stuff. That's when it really works super well to change the behavior.

And if you do it rote while actively avoiding all those feelings, it can go sideways. And we'll talk about that later.

Yeah, very much right.

Yeah. But let's still continue going through the list. We just talked about announce. So the trick with announcing is announcing widely, widely. There's a way that you're really putting yourself, triangulating yourself in the, in the crucible here. That's right.

Yeah. So like when I did, I did with the whole company. Yeah, I was doing this in the company, every single person in the company. And then I asked every single person in the company to acknowledge that I'd written it. 'Just send me a happy face or a thumbs up or whatever.' I, like, very much wanted to make sure everybody saw it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So after announce—

after announce, then there's apology. Basically, you have to apologize. You don't have to, but it's far better to apologize without any shame. So it's just, 'Hey, I was doing this. This is not how I want to be anymore.' If you're apologizing it with shame, then you're not feeling everything that comes along with having that apology. There's— it's actually quite a really good feeling to apologize in an upright way. You're just saying, oh, this isn't how I want to be. It's very empowering.

There's a feeling of relief.

There's a feeling of relief in it. But if you're in shame, then it's like, oh, I'm bad. There's something wrong with me. And you're still in the identity of that you're screw— that you're a screw-up.

Yeah. And that's just looping you right back into the old behavior.

Exactly. So the critical piece there, upright apology. Just very empowered. This isn't how I want to be. And I apologize for all the pain that it caused you. And that is incredibly useful for changing behavior. Yeah, it's not just, I'm sorry, but I acknowledge that this was shitty for you.

Yeah.

And that's not how I want to be. And I don't want you to be in that shitty position. Acknowledging that is really useful because it kind of allows you to have the empathy of what it's been like on the— If you want to take your life to the next level, whether it's business or your relationships or just even your relationship with yourself, the best way to do that is to learn how to be in connection, be in connection with who you are and be in connection with who others are actually, not who you want them to be, not who you want yourself to be. And if you want to learn how to do that, the best way I know how is to join the Connection Course. And if you're interested in learning more, go to viewed.life/connection. The other side of your behavior.

Right. So you've got announce widely, apologize upright, upright apology.

Yes.

And then ask, ask. Tell me more about the ask.

Yeah. So the ask is good for a couple of reasons. The first one is it's like you're basically asking for accountability in one way or another. So which is not accountability the way most people think about accountability, but accountability, like, with love, right? So you're asking for people to remind you, to see you, to show you, to help you. And so that's a really important thing because we learn better when we have reflection, when, like, when we have a teacher and a student, when we have a book and then we think about the book and write a paper, we learn better if we're in that interaction. Instead of I'm all by myself trying to remember to do this thing that maybe I'll forget because I'm in the habit, blah, blah, blah. No, I actually have somebody there who's like, oh, hey, Joe, you're doing that thing. And that reflection is super useful and is also useful in the fact that if I get defensive on that reflection, It's a world of beautiful stuff for me to sort through to undo the pattern.

Right. Right.

If I can't just be, oh, you're right, I'm totally taking care of you in this moment, I apologize for that. Or, oh, you're right, I'm taking care of you for this moment, that's not what I wanna do. Actually, what I want is this. If I can't do that, if I'm like, boy, why are you reminding me? That means I still have a bunch of shame to work through for the thing. So, and it can immediately point that to me.

Yeah, and that moment, shifts too, because first, the person has been invited to remind you. And secondly, you have asked for it. So that changes your own psychology. So when somebody does remind you, you're receptive to it. There's a way that simply by having asked, you will be more receptive.

I have done it. So I have done it in a way where it's like all of a sudden 10 people are reminding me on the same day. And that can be frustrating. It's like, I'm trying, I'm trying, come on. But typically it works really, really well. And so, and it usually, you don't get defensive, but if you do, you can learn something about it, or you can see how deep the pattern is. I did this once in an offsite. There was something where I said, you guys, and somebody was really offended by you guys instead of saying folks, because guys was gender specific.

Yeah.

And you can think whatever you wanna think of that, but for me, it was really important that, the teaching wasn't being disregarded because I was saying guys, right? So I literally gave the person a tennis ball and I was just like, just throw it at me every time I say guys so that I remember it's not about hurting me, but just throw it at me so that I can remember because I'm just, it's just so not, not in my consciousness at all. And I definitely had that, like, I think after the 10th tennis ball, I was a little frustrated, but—

That's a fun one, 'cause then now you're sort of in a game with them. It's not like— Exactly. I can see there's not shame in that too. If there was shame in it, you wouldn't be like, "Yeah, throw a tennis ball at me." Right, exactly. There's like, "Hey, yeah." This is intentional. Like, I haven't been tracking or aware of literally everything. And there are certain things that I could be more aware of. And I want my message to be heard. And if this helps you hear it, then I wanna do that.

Exactly.

So let's play a game, remind me.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

So you're asking for help, it creates a reminder. The other thing is it reminds you that you're not alone in it. And oftentimes these patterns hold in place because we think we're alone in it. And so if you can see, oh, there's other people who wanna support you. And like when people are like, yeah, I wanna support you, Joe. So for me, there's like a little bit of guilt about,, oh, I'm asking you to like, get the job done. Like, am I asking too much? There was like that, like bit of guilt and to hear everybody go, yeah, I'll support you in this process. It was like, oh, that immediately allows me to see that my reality might be different than everybody else's. And people do wanna help me and they see the same thing. And so I'm not alone in it, which is really, really useful for changing behavior.

Yeah, breaks up that presumption of judgment.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah, and shame.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, and being specific, really important for the asks. It's not, you know, like oftentimes I'll even say, here's how I wanna be reminded. This is like the great way to be reminded. And this is, a great story about this was when we were doing Groundbreakers in the early days, I would get into this rush And I wanted to be reminded of the rush. And we sat down and because the rushing wasn't helping anybody, wasn't helping the participants, wasn't helping us. And we sat around like, what is the antidote? What's the specific antidote to the rush? And Jeanine was like, proposed, I see how much you care. And immediately, Anytime anybody said that, my whole system would just, okay, I'm good. Because for me, rushing was, I was told as a kid, I didn't care if I was late or if I wasn't on time, right? That you don't love me if you're not on time kind of thing. And so it just like immediately dissolved that. The more specific you can be, like in these moments, at these times, this is the kind of thing to say that supports me. It makes you really understand the pattern and what it is that that neutralizes that pattern. And just that work, just the work of knowing it and then getting it is unbelievably useful.

Yeah, there's another subtle thing that happens there is in inviting people to interact with you in a certain way, you're inviting them to change their behavior by taking a different action. If the action might have been hold back, resent you, and then blow up at you later or something.

Right, right.

The invited action is tell me, throw a tennis ball at me, whatever. And by inviting them into a different action, it actually changes their side of the dynamic with you. It doesn't change it, it invites them into an action that can result in a better dynamic as you are changing and working on your side.

Right, it empowers. Yeah, it empowers everybody else around your pattern. So they don't have to feel a victim to it. That's right, yeah. It's well seen, I hadn't really put it together like that, but yeah, exactly.

Yeah, okay, so then the final A, act.

Yeah, act. So act, the most important thing about acting is you just have to find 5 ways to do it and you have to do it as soon as possible. That's my experience. And 5 ways is important because one of them might go wrong. So, you know, there is no perfect way of acting that it's gonna make everybody happy with you all the time. So typically what people will do is they'll take like one contrary action, they'll be very scared about it. They'll take that action and they'll do it in the exact place where they are the least likely to get the positive result. So, okay, I'm gonna be honest with somebody. So it's gonna be my mom, and it's gonna be around the thing.

I'm gonna tell her she looks fat in those jeans.

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Or something.

Exactly. So what I notice is if you find 5 different ways, 5 different scenarios, where you can, where you can do it, right? If you can say, okay, in my example, there was a picture of me that I had asked to have changed for like 3 months. Okay, that's one of them. There's a backlog of podcasts that hadn't happened. That's another one. And I just like went through and I'd like looked, I had to search for different places where I could basically say, hey, this was the expectation, what actually happened. So, so that's really important. And to really— a lot of times what your brain will do is like, I can only find one or two. And it's like, there's no way if you're like dealing with a pattern, you're going to see it everywhere. And so part of finding the five is you have to actually dig through your through the gunk to actually see the pattern more clearly. So that's incredibly useful. Taking contrary behavior on 5 of them quickly is like doing reps. It's like, oh, I know how to do this now. I, I, I can do it. You can start with the easiest ones because those are the ones you're going to be most clean on. Typically, Mom, you're fat and ugly is probably like the hardest one. And but, you know, I'm going to share my truth. And the truth is like, I don't want to eat dinner. Tonight at Chinese, at the Chinese restaurant's an easy one. That's a great place to start. But typically I like to do them all as simultaneously as possible. So I can actually see what's the response. Oh, 4 out of 5 worked out really well, or none of these worked out. What is it that I have to do differently, which has never happened, but I assume it could. So it's very much about doing lots of reps so you get the practice. And having different like difficulty, levels of difficulty so you can feel what it's like and see how to do it as cleanly as possible. The other thing that I think is really critical in this is again, there is a lot of emotion that goes through doing that stuff 'cause you are now facing the fear. You're facing the thing like, Oh, this is where I'm gonna potentially get rejected. Oh, this is where I'm gonna potentially get attacked. Oh, this— because you have these patterns because you're trying to avoid an emotional experience. And every time you take the contrary action, you have to live through the fantasy that that negative emotional experience is gonna happen and maybe even feel the negative experience once or twice. And when you feel the negative experience, it teaches you how to do it cleaner so that if you do it cleaner, then it's less likely that you get the negative experience. And when I say cleaner, what I mean is I'm not saying it in such a way that I'm looking for an attack or trying to avoid an attack or making a bunch of excuses or hedging a bunch or being really strong and hardcore about it so that nobody's gonna hurt me in it. Just, oh, I'm open-heartedly saying the thing that is the contrary action. And getting those reps in, super critical. And to do that, you gotta feel all the crap of, oh, I might get hurt, I might get attacked, I might lose somebody that I love, I might, I might, I might. And you have to feel all that experience to be able to get to the, to do it cleanly.

So maybe the recognition of like, oh, I don't wanna be, Mom's source of validation, but I do want to be with her in appreciation. And— Right. Like, so the actions, because you've asked for grace in the ask, you're gonna have some messiness in your actions.

For sure.

And there's a window of tolerance within which you're gonna be able to be with the emotions that come up around that and be like, oh, you know what? I've maybe overcorrected and this isn't the way I wanna be either. The way I really wanna be is this.

Yeah, typically then you just have to take the next 5 actions and you're just like getting cleaner and cleaner at it. They're never gonna be perfectly clean, but the cleaner they're gonna be. And so the real key there is to like imagine doing it, feel all the shit.

Yeah.

Grieve everything you gotta grieve. Imagine doing the second one, feel everything you've gotta feel, grieve everything you've gotta grieve. And then do them.

Yeah. So let's drill into exactly how this works a little bit more from the top again.

Yeah.

Because there's the structure of the process of taking the actions. And then there's this under the secondary layer of all the emotions that are happening. And that seems to be where the real change is happening. Yes. And so the more you front load those emotions by announcing widely and Specifically and asking.

Yes.

And apologizing, that whole, that whole part makes the acting easier, makes the actions you're going to take more expected.

Yes.

And more well received.

Yes.

And makes it more likely that those actions, the having to feel the in-the-moment heat of taking a different action, you've already done a bunch of preparatory emotional work by having Really found the 5 places that this happens in your life instead of just the 1 or 2. Seeing the, helps you see the pattern more deeply. Announcing the pattern broadly helps you feel all the avoided emotions that you've been pushing away for decades. And having felt that, apologizing and getting underneath and feeling what had been behind shame all this time, holding those habits in place. And then asking and changing the social field around you through that dynamic. That's a lot of work before you get to the action. The action then is just pretty simple.

Yeah, yeah. If you've done it fully openheartedly, you'll feel so much stuff through that process.

Yeah.

Yeah, super effective.

So where can this go wrong? What would make this not work?

Yeah, well, there's places where it doesn't work and there's places that it can go wrong. So let's do the first one, your question, then think about the second. But the first one is if you are forcing yourself through it. So it does not work as well if you are, if you do the following, I don't like the fact that I do X, Y, and Z, I need it to change, I'm gonna take these actions. Where it works really well is, Oh, I see that was completely unnecessary. That's not how I wanna be. Then it works really well. So if you're using this as a form of, you know, bootcamp, I'm gonna force myself to do it, you know, then it doesn't work. 'Cause what you're doing is you're pushing down all your emotions. You're not feeling everything. You're just telling yourself the way that you should be.

Yeah, and I wanna double-click on that because that is the way a lot of people are taught to change their behavior.

Correct.

Is identify something they're doing wrong.

Yes.

Beat themselves up about it, rub their nose in it.

Yeah.

And enforce action by possibly bringing in accountability buddy, something that feels like it's really helpful.

Yeah.

Maybe hire a coach, but maybe some Dommy-style coach.

Yeah, yeah.

And like create a system to bully oneself into changing behavior, which just doesn't, create lasting change.

Correct, yeah. So it works really well when you have a recognition, when you have the realization, when you get off a coaching call with me and you say, oh, whoa, I've been doing that thing. I don't need to do that thing anymore. That's the best time to implement this. Just bam, I see it. I'm immediately going to take the 4 A's. I'm gonna do the 4 A's right away. That's when it's most useful. If it is something that you think, some way you think you should be, and you haven't had the recognition of, oh, that's not the way I wanna be, you're still in the should of it, then it's much less likely to work and it's gonna be messy towards you and towards everybody else.

Right, an example might be deciding that I wanna be 100% honest, like Jim Carrey in Liar Liar.

Yeah.

And that's just, maybe that's a morality that I've adopted, but I haven't seen a pattern. I haven't seen the way that it's affecting my life deeply. I haven't felt those emotions. So I'm just like, okay, I'm gonna say exactly what's on my mind. Right. And it turns out that I just say a bunch of really mean and abusive shit to people that isn't really the way I want to be with them either. Right. But I'm pushing myself into a certain way of being.

Yeah, the other way I would think about this is like commitment, commitment. There's a lot of folks who are like, I should be, I should allow myself, or I should be more committed. I shouldn't be as commitment-phobic, right? And so I should commit to stuff, right? But that's not a realization, that's a should. There's not, oh, oh wow, I'm not committing to stuff because I'm scared of getting rejected. Oh, and I'm scared of getting rejected because I've been rejecting myself. I've been rejecting what I actually want. Okay. That's the moment to do it. If you actually have the recognition that's yours. I'm not— if someone who's scared of commitment, there might be many reasons for it, but that would be— that would— you need the recognition to go there.

Yeah. And what's behind the pattern for you, for you, not for someone else or Right.

Yeah.

So what are kinds of behavior that this wouldn't work for?

This doesn't work with bad habits.

Like in terms of like smoking, smoking, and overeating, not exercising.

Because oftentimes bad habits are changing, is stopping a behavior. It's not starting a new behavior. Let's even say like, I want to exercise every day. How do I take 5 actions today exercising every day? Right? So you're all of a sudden, it's not immediately getting done. It's you have to do it daily, which requires some discipline, requires you to remember, you know, some parts of it can work. You can say to somebody, hey, do you want to exercise with me every Tuesday? And hey, can you exercise with me every Wednesday and get help? Like, great. There's things that work. But that methodology generally doesn't work because it's like, well, what are you apologizing to? So habits, They don't, bad habits, what we call bad habits, they're not, it's not a very effective way to change. This is far more of an, how to change your behavior inside of a community or a marriage or with raising kids and stuff like that.

Yeah, it also seems like this is an interpersonal domain. That's right. If you're just apologizing to yourself for your own habits around health.

Useful.

Useful, but it's not gonna be. It's not gonna be as effective as this. Yeah. I see a couple of keys to the effectiveness of this method is that one, it is very relational. So you're working with relational dynamics. So the moment you have the recognition, this process deepens the recognition and then brings it into the relational field around you such that you can't help but change because it's already out there. And there's also—

And people are changing around you.

And people are changing around you. And secondly, it is a really efficient use of willpower and dopamine because—

It's true.

Once you have done the thing where you announce, you have announced. Once you have apologized, you have apologized. Once you've asked for how you want to be interacted with, you've done that. And then once you've identified 5 ways to act, you do them one time each. Yeah. And chances are the behavior has shifted deeply.

Absolutely. Yeah, sorry.

Which isn't the same as every time I'm thinking of putting a cigarette to my mouth, I'm going to tell myself not to.

Right, exactly.

And try to do something else. Right. Which is a different thing that different techniques can be.

Yeah, decision fatigue and all that stuff.

Yeah.

That's right.

Yeah, so it's a really efficient use of decision energy so that you don't go into fatigue.

Yeah. That's it. Yeah, it's a simple method. 4 A's, easy to remember, just requires you to feel a whole bunch of stuff on the way, which is a joy, really. But it can be turbulent, especially your first couple of times doing it.

Picturing a milk box that says the 4 A's, and you're like, oh, this is easy. And then someone flips it over in the back and they see the ingredients. Oh, decades of unfelt shame and inadequacy and fear of rejection and all the love that I was pushing away and the grief of the—

But the cool thing is it's like, yes, that's difficult or not difficult, but it's not easy. It's simple, but it's not easy. But the reality is this methodology makes all of that easier than doing it otherwise. You're gonna have to do it otherwise, right? If you're changing your behavior feeling all that pain, feeling all that shame, feeling the grief, going through the fear that people are gonna reject you or whatever it is, is all gonna have to happen. It is harder to just wake up and go, okay, today I'm gonna journal on this and feel this thing. And then tomorrow I'm gonna journal on this and feel this thing than it is to just take the 4 A's and feel it all while you're doing it.

Just look at the entire ingredient list and be like, oh, this is what's been poisoning me for years.

Yeah, exactly.

Put that down now.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So it makes it easier to go through everything.

Awesome. Thank you, Joe.

Yeah.

Thanks everybody for listening to The Art of Accomplishment. As always, we'd love for you to rate and review the podcast. You can always find us on YouTube if you're listening to this on audio. There's the whole video of this session is on YouTube. The show is hosted by myself, Brett Kistler, and Joe Hudson. Munyi Kelly is our producer. This show was edited by Charlie Garcia.