New Year, New Habits: The Science of Change and Lasting Transformation (Episode #47)

On behalf of me and Marianne Michaelis, I'd like to thank you for being a listener of our Human Intimacy Podcast this year. It's always a privilege to spend time with you and I want to express my deep gratitude. If you are ready to take your healing and recovery to the next level, you're ready to deepen your healing and strengthen your connection and gain real tools for meaningful change. I invite you to join us and other Experts at the 2nd Annual Human Intimacy Conference where myself, Marianne and many other leading experts will come together for powerful teaching, live question and answer sessions and provide insightful pre conference conversations to help you get the most out of your conference experience. And right now, you can save 50% when you register before December 31st. Please don't miss this opportunity. Visit human intimacy.com and reserve your spot today.

There's something about you that I can't help but smile. When you smile and laugh when you laugh, something's around.

Welcome to the Human intimacy podcast with Dr. Kevin Skinner and Marianne Michaelis. Marianne, happy 2025 to you.

Oh, that sounds so exciting and new and weird and thank you. Happy 2020. You too.

Yeah. To our listeners, Happy New Year to you. You're listening. Today is going to be released New Year's Day and I'm so excited for 2025. There are some phenomenal events that I'm looking forward to in my family. I've got a couple twins who are out of the country. They'll be back in March. I've got a grandchild in April that I'm looking forward to welcoming into the world. And it's just, there's just a lot of opportunity of good in 2025. But today, new Year's resolutions, a lot of people set them. By January, most people will have not reached their goals. They will have quit, abandoned. They will have found that it was just too difficult. So we want to talk about New Year's resolutions, change and the challenges that we have to complete the goals that we have. So Marianne, your initial thoughts on whether it's goal setting, New Year's resolution. Some people swear them off. I'm never going to do that. How about you? What are your thoughts on New Year's resolutions?

Oh, you know, there's something I oftentimes try to avoid my initial thought. Interestingly enough, I love to bake. And several years ago when we got married, we got a cookbook that was Best of Baking Cookbook and it's lasted a long many years. And you know, sometimes you like page through and you're looking and there's. Years ago, I found a yuletide cake, and it looks like a log. And so years and years ago, I thought, I'm gonna try this because I read about it and it's like an English tradition where you burn. You burn something in the fireplace and you start your new year. And so every year for New Year's Eve, we have a you fuel tide log. It's just this cake that looks like a log. But looking at what we burn, what we look at, the past, what we don't like, what we want to change. And then looking at this new year going forward, you know, it is a cultural phenomenon. I don't know if that's the right word for it, but there's definitely this cultural aspect that we all say, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put that off. And then I'll start in the new year. And then I'll start in the new year. And just as you're saying, and then two, three months, we're. We're just back where we started. So my initial thought, when I think about New Year's and where we're going and change is every single one of us right this second. And I invite all of our listeners to jump into this. Think about right now. What are three things that you need to change? Every single person I would say can say, oh, yeah, I need to improve. I need to get more sleep. I need to. Need to eat better, I need to exercise better. I need to. We all know things that we need to do. It's not hard to know what we need to do. But yes, there is an obstacle in change, and there is an obstacle in coming from that, that preconception to the actual knowledge of and the actual application. And maybe that's not even the hardest part. It's the sticking to it, making the change stick.

Yeah. So I, I created a whole course on human intimacy called change 2.0. I. I've been considering my own change, the change in my life. I've been considering any change. Anytime I make changes in my life, what sticks, what doesn't? Why does it stick? Why doesn't it? So I'm just going to go through some really interesting numbers with you for a second. So this is just based upon some research. Around 8 to 10% of people who set New Year's resolutions actually stick to them for the entire year. 8 to 10%, right. So we're talking 90% plus do not finish a New Year's resolution. And then by the end of the year, only, only 8 to 10%. So let me keep going. Approximately 23% quit by the end of the first week. Almost one in four. Almost one in four by the end of the first week. Like, eh, okay, goal, schmol. I'm done. Not gonna do it. Okay. By the end of January, 64 are still holding on to the resolutions, but this number drops steadily as time progresses. So again, we're setting goals. I'm going to whatever your New Year's resolution is. Mary, you said to identify three. I'm going to say, why don't you start with one?

Oh, I'm not saying start with three. I'm just saying we all have a conscious knowledge. But Dr. Skinner, I want to just jump in right here because I just want to laugh and say thank you so much. I think you validated everybody. If you've struggled with New Year's resolutions, unless you're those 8 to 10% of the people, you're probably pretty normal.

Yeah.

And we are going to talk about change, but it, it also feels good to hear like, oh, I'm pretty normal.

And most people actually have sworn off resolutions. But what's interesting about the change process is we all want a new beginning. Right? That's what I mean. If you think about the new year, everybody has this new energy. It's an energy. It's looking forward to her sweeping out 2024 and into 2025. And that's the thrilling part, the exciting part, right? We, we can. We set this day. And it's. It is a new year. And they've done research with people who, let's say, for example, they get in a new job or they're a professional player and they are traded to a new team. And what happens is there's an initial bump. Sometimes they perform better because it's a new environment, a new situation. Interestingly enough, most people revert back to a mean. They're average, the normal. And so we as human beings go back to. In our language, as therapists, we learned a term called homeostasis. We go back to our pattern or back to where we were. So the change process, this is something that I really want to emphasize. If you really want to create change in your life, it requires a significant amount of bandwidth, mental energy.

Can I give a different name for that?

Yes.

And you can correct me if I'm wrong, but when I hear you say bandwidth, what I'm hearing is it, we really need intentionality. We've got to be incredibly intentional.

And so that's where again, we start with intentional. What am I Trying to change. And this is what I refer to as the process of change. And I introduced this in my change 2.0 course. It's really by the way to our listeners, if you want to join me 2025, first 12 weeks, I have a 12 week online program where I'm going to be sharing with you what I'm going to be changing in 12 weeks. And the reason why I chose 12 weeks. I'm going to be very clear here. Most habits require, and this is interesting, most people. If I said to our listeners, how much time does it take to create a habit? Most people will tell you probably 18 to 21 days, but statistically speaking it's actually longer than that. Most goals, if you're going to create a neural pathway that creates a habit or pattern is about 66 days. There's a term here, it's called automaticity. Automaticity is when you do something without thinking. So it's done automatically. And the research shows that if I wanted to track what I'm eating, make my bed, do simple habits, it's going to take me about 66 days to do it to the point where it's automatically done without thinking about it.

We've got neural pathways that just flow. We don't have to think about it. It doesn't take a lot of effort. But I want to, I want to back up for just a second for our listeners, Dr. Skinner, to make sure. I think I know the answer, but I want to make sure that our hearers or our listeners hear this. Did you just say that you think our listeners can join you in a 12 week online program where you're going to be showing up and saying, hey guys, here's what I'm working on. And you're going to be like checking in and sharing in your journey.

That's right. So it's a Monday afternoon, 4 o', clock, Mountain Standard Time for, and it's, I mean literally it's a minimal fee. It's, it's $150 and you can join and you can participate with me. You want, you want to be held accountable? You want a group of people to support you. I did it last, had a phenomenal time. It is so much fun.

So I live in the west coast. I had to think about that for a second. I'm on the West coast and 3:00 your time. Yeah, I can't do that.

The content is still there. You can have accountability, you can have support. You can put into what we. A specific chat where we all just hold each Other accountable. So whether you can attend live or not, it is a 12 week program where you can go through, there's worksheets. I mean it is, it is designed to literally walk you through the entire change process and help you stay motivated. So you're in that 8 to 10% of people who actually reach those goals. It was so much fun. Last year I had one of my favorites was this lady and she was really stuck on doing some, she was putting together some of her family photo books and putting together a family history and she was just stuck. The end of that 12 weeks she had accomplished one of her core goals. It was so much fun to watch. Just absolutely fun to watch.

And, and I would say I started that last year, but I didn't finish it. But I, I know you have shared with me over time. I've seen a lot of, a lot of the principles and a lot of things that you've shared. And one of the things I would say that was so helpful and has really stuck like a sticking point for me is understanding that intrinsic and that extrinsic motivation, really getting into that and understanding what's my why, what's my purpose. And, and so I, I can't, I can't say enough about how valuable this is.

So real quick, and that's a really fun concept. Extrinsic versus intrinsic. So the, the what I refer to and this is what it, to me it's really simple formula change. You have to figure out what you want to change and why you want to change it. If you don't know your why, the what is really, it doesn't make a lot of sense. What do I want to change? If I want to lo. If I want to save more money, if I want to get a degree or start working towards a degree, if I want to have a better relationship, you need to figure out your why. So what why? And then we really dig in and this is where the change process is fun. I actually walk people through the how and we walk step by step and how to create change again because most people, they set the, you know, I'm going to change this. But when we really break it down, oh, the insight that comes in, it's like, okay, where do you get, where do you get stuck? And, and how to help individuals through that. Let me just give you an example of that. So as we work through the how to do something, you're going to find that there's a time of the day, there's going to be some event that you need to tie Your positive behavior to the concept is called habit stacking. So for me, for years, I walked 10,000 steps every day. Every day, Every day to the point where it was not an option. It was just. It was just what I did. I walk, talk, and it literally was what I did every day at some point during the day. So the research that I read said you want to put positive habits and stack habits on top of it, other positive habits. So what I did is what I would do is while I was exercising, if I was by myself, I also wanted to read books. So I incorporated listening into the habit. So I was habit stacking. It was already walking. Now I add audiobooks into it and I'm learning. That's just one simple principle of adding to a positive habit and just adding on one simple thing to the point where you have it stack. And all of a sudden you got three or four healthy habits that go hand in hand with each other.

A couple thoughts on that. I love that Dr. Skinner, and for our listeners who may not know Dr. Skinner very well, I've had the pleasure of learning from him for many years. And one of the things that I've loved about learning from him is his knowledge, which comes from this habit stacking. When you're out walking, you've got that bilateral stimulation and your brain is ready. Your brain knows, oh, this is what I do here. It's in a learning space. What I've seen, Dr. Skinner, is you come back and say, oh, this comes from this book. Oh, this comes from this book. We see it here in the podcast all the time. And so this is something that you've really created as a tool or a pattern for you that's really effective. One part of that that I think is really important is we're looking at how do I create the best change possible. As a music teacher, I previously taught music. One of the things that I learned is I tell my students, if you're going to practice every day, find the right time to do it and set that aside, that that time aside, because our brain is ready. So if I get home from school, if I'm a kid and I get home from school every day and I have a snack and then I practice for 20 minutes, my brain knows every day after I have a snack, I'm going to practice. And so my brain's already primed, it's already ready to go. It's. And also with that, we do have to figure out, as you're talking about that time of day. We've got to figure out what Are my glucose levels highest? Where, where is my resistance the lowest or the least? And so there's definitely some, some really important strategies to figuring out how can I optimize this, these changed behaviors that I want to create.

You're introducing a concept that we teach in the class and, and that comes from Roy Baumeister's work, Willpower. He uses a term called ego depletion or energy depletion. And he says when your energy is depleted or your ego's depleted, you're going to usually turn to unhealthy patterns or unhealthy behaviors as coping mechanisms. So I'm more likely to have sugar. And I mean, I know this is true of probably me and most of our listeners. When our energy is depleted, we're more likely to turn to sugary foods, donuts.

We need that dopamine, we, we need energy.

So what we're trying to do is we're trying to give ourselves a boost. What it is, is a temporary or a false boost. So we get more carbohydrates at that time. Usually it's in the afternoon, somewhere between 2:30 to 4:30. Because our body would normally, interestingly enough, be going into a circadian rhythm where it would want to rest. And that's why things like down in South America where they have afternoon siestas, they actually get it right. They listen to their bodies, they take an afternoon siesta and in the afternoon, then they go later into the evening because they have the energy that's replenished.

So we're talking about legitimate needs. Our body has legitimate needs. There is some legitimate resistance as you're talking about. There's especially certain times where we have more internal resistance just because we have legitimate needs. Like, I'm tired.

Yeah.

So this is really hard.

Which is why most people fail their goals. If you really want to break down why individuals break down their goals, first of all, they do it, I'm going to call it mindlessness. They set goals, but they don't have the exact plan of action and they don't have the energy. Let's say, for example, I say I'm gonna, I'm gonna exercise three or five days a week. I can exercise three or five days a week. But by the third or fourth day, your body's muscles, because you're not used to that, the third or fourth day, your body's like, are you kidding me? I don't want to get up at 5:30 again. I'll sleep in today and I'll get up. Right. And so you Start then to go back to that other part and it's hard to maintain that energy. So you actually have to start smaller, not larger. So most goals need to be very, very concise and they need to understand your energy levels. And that's why most people don't succeed is because they don't have the energy to maintain that because they haven't developed it over time.

And as you're talking about that, we also have to look at going back again to the, the legitimate need. If I'm getting up at 5:30 in the morning to exercise, am I going to bed an hour earlier or two hours earlier? So I might be legitimately super tired. So that battle with a mattress is going to be so much greater. So I've got to also look at, okay, I want to lose weight. Great. That's my underlying why. And so I need to go to the gym. Great. But I've got to change other behaviors as well. Regarding I still need sleep and I might actually need more rest.

Yes.

I've got a back end and back channel. What my plan is to make sure that I can be successful there.

Yeah. And change isn't just one change. It because when you alter one thing you just described, if I'm going to get up at 5:30, that does mean I've got to go to bed earlier. That's a change. And so we put all of those together and I'm getting up at 5:30, I'm going to bed earlier. But that might also influence what I'm going to do an hour before I go to bed. Because we know that blue light that emanates from our devices can reduce the melatonin in our bodies. So I might need to shut off the devices earlier so I can get meaningful sleep throughout the night. And so one habit. Charles Duhigg in his book the Power of Habit, he talks about keystone habits. You change one habit, it often bleeds out into other areas of your life.

Yeah. And we've got a. You're talking about. There's probably a word for it, you might know it. I don't know what it is, but it's a bat, like a backwards snowball effect. So if I've got to say I gotta go to bed earlier, that means I might have to start saying no to some things. I might need to start having some boundaries and saying I can't make that work and it's going to impact my relationships. Like there's this definite backwards. That's right, backwards to look at it.

That's right. And so if I'm going to get up at 5:30. That means I do have to head to bed earlier. How does that influence my every aspect of my life from my relationship to my energy levels, especially later at night, because now I'm getting up earlier, I might be grumpier in the evening and people don't want to be around me. So we have to coordinate literally a lifestyle change. And I really do believe that that's why most people, they aren't prepar. And I've said this before, proper preparation prevents a pound of pain. But if we put it, but if we put it in a positive way, proper preparation prepares us for long lasting change. And the reason why is because when you're prepared, you have a game plan around the change. And that's why I really believe the 8 to 10% of people who succeed, I bet they're more prepared for the.

Change process because it takes that planning that we're talking about. Because what we're talking about, this, what I'm calling this reverse snowball, there's a snowball. We've got to go back earlier and figure out all the things that need to shift or change or plan beforehand. Sounds intimidating being a listener going, oh, we're talking about change. But that just sounds like I had to like re change my whole entire life. And that's, that's going to be too hard.

And that's why when people set a goal, let's say that they set their goal New Year's Eve, okay, I'm starting this tomorrow. Well, how prepared are they to actually start that tomorrow? My preparation for next year started a few weeks ago. I've started reading books. I've started anticipating what the challenges are going to be. So I have specific financial goals, I have time goals that I'm things I'm going to be working on. And I'm excited for these things to occur. But literally some of the changes that I'm trying to make in 25, they actually started a few weeks ago preparing myself for what, what it's going to take. So I've been reading books. So I'll give you an example. I have some very specific financial goals for retirement planning that I'm putting in place in 2025. I actually started in October reading books about retirement and financial planning.

So you have intentionally said this is something that I want to really focus on. And so I've got to do some research, some preparation. I've got to start spending my time really preparing for where I really want to focus. So it's very intentional it's very thought out. This is. You can't get there unless you're preparing for it.

Weeks, I mean literally it will be months as. And so when the new year begins, I have in place and I already have it in place, I'm already prepared for what this strategy is for 2025 and I've actually planned it out. It's a five year plan that will help reduce debt and help my finances and, and I don't have to change a lot financially. I don't have to make more money. I just have a very intentional plan that will help me in the retirement process. And I've spent a lot of time preparing, hours and hours. So the point I'm trying to get across is when people change, it's not, it's the snowball, but what people see is, oh, you, you did that? No, I didn't do that. I did that for months in advance. I was preparing, learning, growing. And the change process, which I'm really trying to get across is if you prepare, success is really not that far off. When you have prepared properly, it really is a possibility.

So if I were to sum up what we talked about so far. We have to have an underlying why, we have to have the motivation, we have to have a clear vision and we have to do have some intentional preparation and planning for that. We have to have a vision where we want to get and we have to be able to chart out money.

That's right. And I've used that over and over and over in my life. I've ran a marathon. In order for me to run a marathon, it took a four month plan to prepare. So the marathon day I was, my body was prepared. It literally began building up mileage. Building up mileage to about a month before is when you want to hit about 18 to 20 mile run. I literally had mapped that out. I had the people I was running with, so I had my community and my accountability. I had a friend that I was going to be meeting to run the marathon with. We both ran independently and then we ran together. The day of the marathon. He lived in a different state. He was one of my best friends from high school. So my point is that's one. When I write a book, I actually map out the book, how many chapters I write out, how many words I need to do every day. I take one day off the Sabbath, I take Sunday off. I don't write on Sundays. So it's a six day a week. I'm going to write this many words. When do I need to Write it. What time of the day can I write it? Everything is planned in advance. I've written a book in four months.

And I've seen you write a book where you showed up and said to a group of us, I'm writing a book this year and you showed up. This is another concept we haven't really talked very much about yet today, but it says accountability, and it's the support from other people of saying, here's what I'm going to do, and I need to be accountable to somebody. And when we have that accountability, for some reason, it just ups our. Our motivation. I know that even like me texting my sister at night and saying, I went for a walk today. Like, oh, before I go to sleep, I got to tell some. I got to. I got to check in. That accountability is such an important part of our lasting change. And that as you were talking about your marathon, having your support network, I really believe that we need other people to help us, especially when it's hard, especially when we're discouraged or it feels like I'm not getting anywhere. This isn't working. Nothing's changing. We need the outside support. What do you want to talk about with that?

So I love that you bring that up, because without accountability, rarely do goals maintain their success. So if you want to look at the lead indicator, then one of the most positive things you can do to maintain and sustain a goal is accountability and every change. I mean, if you think about addiction recovery, accountability is a part of the 12 step program, and having a sponsor. If you look at the change process, accountability across the board is one of the lead indicators of what successful people do. If you want to change, then you have accountability. It's what you put into the equation.

There's a phrase that I don't know where it came from, but it's that change doesn't happen in a vacuum. I think that definitely applies here.

Yeah. Yeah. So as we look at this accountability and we put it into the. I call the equation of change. So I call it change 2.0. If you look at the research on having someone to talk to, being responsible for something that you say, I'm going to do this, the likelihood of you doing it just goes up so much. So if I say, I'm going to do this in 2025, that's why I'm inviting everybody to join me. Join me, join us. 2025. Again, we're talking a wide range of goals. Yeah, we're going to be vulnerable each other, but for 12 weeks, we're going to be talking about it, we're going to be sharing ideas. Here's where I got stuck. Okay, here's what you can do. Here's some suggestions and you're going to be learning core concepts that I've learned throughout my career of how to create change.

I know there's also a lot of research and science about when we do hard things, having people with us makes it easier. So there's some research that says that if I'm going to go to the doctor and they're going to give me bad news, being able to hold my partner's hand is going to make it easier. Or if I look at a mountain and say I've got to climb that mountain or like the, the perception or the interpretation of how difficult that's going to be is. I think it's half if I have somebody who's going to do it with me. So taking somebody along our journey, having the people who can support us, the science shows us that it makes it easier.

Yeah, it's the we. It's I'm doing this versus the we are doing this. And when we have the we again, there's more energy, there's more support, there's more accountability. If you really want to succeed this year, let's say that you want to go to the gym. I'm telling you, have somebody to go with you. Yeah, meet them, go for that walk. A few years ago, I have a dear friend, Chad Wright. We ran together for years and it was Monday, Wednesday, Friday runs for years we ran and we told stories and caught up and how's job? It was so much fun. But I knew that I had to be out of bed by 5:50 to meet him at 6:00 clock and it got me out of bed, which would would have been much harder by myself. Much harder by myself. But having that conversation, looking forward to the conversation and the feeling of when we were done, we had so many meaningful conversations.

So what I'm hearing you talk about is you had a time set, you had someplace that you had to show up or something that you had to do or be. And when we do that, it really changes that battle with the mattress or that battle with whatever it is, it's like this is something I have to do. There's somebody else who's waiting, there's somebody else who's expecting me. Because I know same thing I've had people over the years that I've had morning commitments to go walking with or I have a weekly hiking appointment every week. And even though I don't want to get up or I don't want to go. I usually wake up and I look and say, oh, it's a really wind, windy, it's like 10 mile an hour winds and it's 40 degrees. And my friend will say, it's okay, just bundle, I'll see you there. Oh, darn it. We need that.

We need, yep, we do need that. And, and so accountability and the connection and I want to add the difference. Right. Accountability is reporting to somebody, but that connection, I don't want to let this person down and, and this relationship and this conversation and looking forward to spending time with that person really can be beneficial. So again, these are, I'm gonna call them, simple strategies that we're talking about today. But if you really want to change. And again, New Year's Day 2025, what are you going to change? And then I got one more question for you, Marianne, and it's a question that I ask everybody. What's the hardest thing you've ever done in your life? I actually start the course that way. I want you to identify the hardest thing that you've ever changed. The hardest thing you've ever done that has required you.

You asked me that in the beginning of this and I halfway through I thought, oh, he's not going to ask me that now. I'm not going to have to go there.

Well, do you want me to share mine?

Yeah, share yours while I'm still thinking about mine.

All right. So I can do it in two different ways. So the hardest thing I've ever done physically is a run that we did. It was called the Red Rock relay and it was a grueling 24 plus hours of running, driving, not being able to sleep, continually running four different runs, 23.6 miles. My body was absolutely exhausted. The hardest thing I've ever done, the preparation for that, my friend Brett Williams, we ran that together with some other colleagues, we trained for that. And as much as we trained for it, it still beat us up. It kicked our butts. So from a physical standpoint, that was probably the most difficult 36 hours sleep deprived running I've ever had in my life. The change that it created in me was the preparation beforehand because I had to prepare. I did. I mean, I didn't let my team down. We did quite well. But for me personally, it required a change of everything that I, you know, everything inside of me. That's the physical version. The hardest thing I've ever probably changed in my life was when the doctor told me about three years ago that I had to go gluten free and I had to change my diet. And that hands down from a, just, just my lifestyle habits, people bringing over Christmas cookies, people, you know, birthday celebrations, holidays, people generally aren't attuned or aware of the gluten free diet. Very, very difficult, very difficult. And I can say three years later, I am gluten free.

Amazing. So as you bring those up, I think about this. I can think about different components. It's a hard question because there's so many things and when you get through them, when you're doing them, you're doing them, you're like, okay, I'm here, I'm doing it. So I look at, I swam across a lake in Florida that was infested with alligators. I mean, we knew they were there because it was Florida. And I had friends, I had a friend who was there who was swimming right next to me all the way. It's called Lucky's Lake. It's, it's pretty wild. I also did a 51, 52 mile bike ride and I had a friend with me. So those were some hard things that I've done physically. I've also, I switched to a plant based diet about nine years ago. And so socially, community wise, like eating differently, family, friends, it's, it's, it's very tricky. But I would say probably the hardest thing, maybe for more of an emotional place for me has been my journey with betrayal trauma. Experiencing betrayal trauma and then hitting a point and saying, I can't do this anymore. And the change that came from that not knowing, it wasn't planned, it wasn't, it wasn't thought out, it was just something has to change. And there weren't a ton of resources at the time. So feeling my way in the dark, trying to figure out how do I, how do I change and doing the internal work that's required to heal, that's been like that post traumatic growth been so hard. But even most recently, so when you ask me, like my brain's just ticking through going like, there's lots of hard things, which one's been the hardest, I'm not sure, but I would say in the last probably two years I've had a lot of opportunities like joining this podcast and creating the courses on human intimacy. I have stretched so far out of my comfort zone of having to learn how to make and edit videos and there's so much vulnerability. And so that's been my most recent changes of really learning to do hard new things that feel Vulnerable, One of.

The things you bring up there. And I just want to ask a question. It's okay if I go here for a second? All right. So the betrayal, how many years ago did the journey begin?

But we've been married for 27 years. Betrayal. My D day was just a couple months into the marriage, and for 17 years I didn't have a name for it. I didn't know what it was. And so 2015 was, for me was a year. So that'll be 10 years. It was January, end of 2015 that I found a support group, that I found a name. And that's where my journey just began to take off.

So let's just say over the past 10 years, you have got to the point where you're not only in that space, but you are contributing in a very meaningful way to helping other people. Literally helping so many people. And my point there is this journey of the last 10 years because we think of change and we want it now. We want it now. That's how our culture is created, is we take the medication, we do this, we do that. But realistically, the journey is a gradual process to the point where over time, we almost imperceptibly don't even realize it. But if I asked you to go back and talk to yourself 10 years ago and say, in 10 years, this is what you're going to be doing.

Flabbergasted. Absolutely flabbergasted. And I, I think a component of that. I don't, I don't know what it's called, but I am very active in advocating, in advocating for children about pornography, creating safety. I'm involved with some anti human trafficking. I'm involved in a lot of places that have been, they've presented along this journey. And each time it's like, oh, really? This isn't really what I thought that I. This isn't where I thought I'd be. This isn't where I, this is never where I imagined that I'd be. So my change started with saying, I can't do this anymore. Something has to change. And finding my way along the way, I did have someone who, early on, one of our colleagues, Jennifer Johnson, she said, sometimes we have to educate other individuals because they don't understand. And like, those words just like burned into me, like, oh, I might have to be the educator here. And so once again, that outside influence can be so impactful and so pivotal.

And creating lasting change. Right? And that's the interaction. So again, to our listeners, we have been talking about the change Process. We're touching the surface of where we can go with this topic, right? The change process is something that we are all engaged in, whether we want to change or not. Change is inevitable. The question is, is will we go along for the ride in a healthy way or when we bump into change, will it shut us down because we're not adequately prepared for the process that it requires? Change is inevitable. The question is, is are you going to be prepared? And if you have the healthy habits, you have the right habits, then change is not only. It can be a great thing. So if you're a person who's intimidated by the change process, if you feel like you can't change, if you feel like I've set New Year's resolutions and I haven't been able to come, join us for a ride, have some fun with us and learn the skills that create life long habits that will help you succeed in whatever you're trying to change.

Have a final thought.

Yes, shoot.

Ready for it? It's choose your pain. Pick your pain. You know, you can say, gosh, I'm not ready to lose weight or go to the gym. I'm not ready to go through that pain. It's too hard. And if that's what I choose, then I'm choosing probably some health problems down the road. We get to choose like, there's, there's pain with every decision. There's pain no matter where we go. That part of life is, is going through pain. I mean, that's, that's a Buddhist principle, like, life is suffering. But we can choose our pain. We can say, well, you know, which one's most important to me. And so thank you to our listeners for joining us today. And this is such an important topic. I, I hope that we'll come back to it, maybe even halfway through the year and say, what's going on in mid-2025? What does the change look like here? But you can do it. I'm so grateful for our listeners and for them taking, for you, our listeners, taking the time to be with us. And I hope that this year, 2025 will have tremendous opportunities and growth in your life and that you'll have the changes that you desire and want and need.

All right? And I just want to say thank you, Marianne. 2024, you've been a big part of the podcast and our listeners, we are literally In February, on February 14, we will have a year down. And so we're about, we're about six weeks away from literally doing a, every week doing a podcast. I'M excited. You've made it worth it to our listeners. You've given us great feedback. If you have questions, if you have topics you would like us to cover, questionsumanintimacy.com would love to get your questions. And then one more thing, change is always possible with proper preparation. And so my closing remarks, it's New Year's Day. Get ready. Change your life, change your habits, change your relationships if you want to be better at relationships. That's what human intimacy is all about. We want to help you have better relationships and I'm so excited for this upcoming year. Have a great start to the year. Find joy, find happiness, be better in relationships and I look forward to helping you along the journey. And I appreciate this time with you. Marianne, again, thank you so much.

So happy to be here. Thanks. Dr. Skinner.

You something surround you. It's like you're shining. You're siren.