Highest Potential Goal Setting Part 2

Our brains are powerful. We have the potential to shift into a positive mindset, but it's not as simple as it sounds. To access a positive mindset and mental toughness under pressure and during setbacks, we need self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and critical thinking skills. So if you're curious about science-backed tools to strengthen your mental resilience, you're in the right place. Welcome to the Mind Body Space Podcast, where I aim to share actionable tools you can use to reach your highest potential. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD. I'm a mom of 2 kids who love challenges, for the most part, and I'm also a physician, and my specialty is teaching the science of resilience. In this episode, my awesome friend Fiona Murden joins me to share her expertise on human performance. Fiona is an award-winning author and Chartered UK Organizational Psychologist who works with Top-level executives and leaders. So in this part 2, we continue the talk about the important components to keep in mind while we successfully work toward our goals. We need to do work on a daily basis, and that's where the difficulty comes in. So keeping that regularity, keeping that routine, sometimes it may feel a little boring perhaps, but ultimately the step-by-step, minute-to-minute choices and work that we do on a daily basis is what really gets us to the those massive goals that we have for ourselves. Here we're gonna give you a few tools on how to manage our own minds when we wanna get off the path that we really want for ourselves. Because let's face it, we all have goals and then we're derailed by our mood or emotion, by the latest shiny thing that grabs our attention. So there's a lot of little tricks that you can do to help your brain stay on track. And stick around because at the end we're gonna talk about an exercise prescription called FITT, F-I-T-T. Exercise and movement is what our bodies were meant to do. It helps our brains, our mood, our cognition. It literally increases momentum, and it's even been shown to increase neurogenesis, bumping up the creation of new neurons. So stick around. Then you can go on and head over to the podcast episode at mindbodyspace.com where you can download the PDF for a fit prescription for yourself. This is a continuation of my conversation about goal setting with Fiona Merton. Yeah.

And then the other thing that it's really important to think about is what obstacles may I come up against and what can I do about them? And those obstacles might be most motivational. So they could be feelings, so there could be, oh, I'm having self-doubt, or I'm angry, or I'm, I'm feeling anxious. Or it could be actual things. It could be that there's a person who is just so, so annoying that you can't be empathic to them, and you think, oh goodness, you know. Um, or it could be time. It might be that you're really time-pressed and so it makes it harder to put the, the effort into thinking through how should I be responding in this moment, because you just need to get something done. So think through what those obstacles are. And, and what's sometimes helpful with that is to break it down into which obstacles are internal, so which are the things that I'm going to trip myself up on, and which of those things are external. And then what am I going to do when they arise?

The if-then rule. If this happens, then I will. And that is, uh, what I call with my students, I call that a protocol. So if something happens, then you're going to react in this way. So you have like a system of tree branches of how you're gonna make decisions on how you act. And this is funny because I wanna talk to you in the next episode about manners. I'm revisiting manners. I have all these little books on manners when my kids were little, and I'm starting to realize the importance and the significance of having manners and using manners in this way, because that, that is a protocol. That's a way of acting where being polite to others, and you get that empathy going without having to think about it. So you don't have to naturally think about it if you have these set set rules of manners, then your habit is set. So I would love to talk about that on our next episode, but getting back to what you were saying, which was absolutely awesome, you know, understanding what, what you're gonna do in these situations. For example, you said when something's external to you, let's say that terribly annoying person, which you can't, who you cannot control, then, uh, maybe you don't wanna talk to them at 4 o'clock when you're feeling cranky and tired, right?

Yeah, yeah. And there's ways around that, aren't there? Is—

yeah. And also, if you're working on empathy, perhaps you can think about why this person is the way they are to you, and perhaps there's something going on in their lives that you will never understand. And maybe it's something horrible that you have no idea what is happening with them. So you can work on that empathy there. Easier said than done.

That's a really good It is easier said than done. And I think it's a bit like the, the branching. It's easier said than done because when you sit down to set goals and you think, oh, do I have to work through all this stuff?

Yeah.

That's the complaint that I get from my students all the time. They're like, why? Why? I don't need to do this.

I don't—

but yes, your brain needs this repetition.

And the other thing is that when we are stressed, we forget things that might seem really obvious. So when I've been working with frontliners in the pandemic, I've— when they've been in the less stressful periods, I've got them to write down, what do you need when you're under the very, very worst pressure ever? So it might be, I need to pick up the phone to my— this friend when I feel like this. And they sort of look at me like, do we really need to do this? This seems ridiculous.

Yes.

But then once they were in those periods of immense pressure, it was amazingly helpful because their brain had no capacity to think about, what do I do to help myself in this situation? They're just getting through moment to moment. So having a little guide, a little list on ourselves, like, just like the branching, means that when that happens, we just look at that and say, ah, this is what I should do now. So it takes away that cognitive load of making those decisions. Yes.

So did your, um, frontline people that you were coaching, did they have that list on their phone or did they just have it somewhere handy? What, how did you do it? How did you execute?

I don't know how, I don't know how each of them did it. We did it where we worked it through on a piece of paper and then they, they'd put it where it, it was accessible for them. So that might have been notes on a phone. It might've been, um, the front of a notepad. It might've just been on a piece of paper by the bed.

That's great. Uh, one of my students today actually showed me that she has a piece of paper on the wall. It's her go-to list when she's feeling a certain way and she just goes down that list.

Exactly.

What about the resistance that we feel when we have a list as such? Sometimes we'll say, I don't want to do that. Right. Your brain is saying to you, I don't want to do this. I don't need to go to this list. How do you deal with that kind of resistance, inner resistance?

I think it's actually one of the best ways of making that go away is to accept it, which again is easier said than done. But if you try and fight it or if you try and push it away, it'll come back stronger.

So accept that you don't want to go to the list and then, and then go to the list anyway.

Accept it.

Uh-huh.

Yeah, I really don't want to look at this, but I will. I'll just— or, or I'll come back to it in 10 minutes and go and do something else and then come back to it in 10 minutes. So that you're not fighting against yourself, because otherwise it becomes this battle in our heads of, I don't want to do that, but I know I should, but I really don't want to, I don't feel like it, but I know it'll be helpful, but will it be helpful? You know, so that's the will.

That's the part, the will it be helpful? Yeah, that's what a lot of kids tell me. Will it— is this enough? Is this helpful? Is it gonna be helpful? But you need to just take that action, right? Because change— you need action in order to change.

Well, and what I was talking to my friend who's a sports psychologist the other day, and she's really good at actioning what she talks about. So I'm good at talking about things but not so good at doing it myself. But she says, she says what she'll do is if she's feeling really fed up, she will let herself wallow, so just get fed up, but she sets a time limit on it. So she'll say, right, I can, I can sit here and feel sorry for myself for the next 20 minutes, but then I've got to get up and do something. Um, and And she does the same with her kids, and it works really well because it allows you to feel how you're feeling. It's not resisting how you're feeling, but it also says there's a limit, you know. I'm not just going to let you give in to this and think, right, I've given up. It's saying, right, you can feel like that, but, but there's a point at which you have to say, no, I need to actually do something about this.

Yes, that's awesome. I love, I love timers, and I love Scheduling in wallowing time. That's really great and powerful. So getting back to goals, you give yourself time to kind of wallow or doubt what you're doing, but then you come back to it and in the end it takes that action. So even if it's just one thing that you do to change, because then that's the feedback you get, your brain will get feedback. So, oh, I exercised for 10 minutes and now I feel better. Or maybe it's even just, yeah. 10 sit-ups or 10 push-ups and you feel better. You know that you can take action. As you said, you tend to think about things a lot more and your friend who's a sports psychologist tends to do, uh, more physical things. And I'm assuming that she was an athlete in the past.

Not like a pro athlete, but it's, it's funny because movement is such a great thing to get us out of funny state of mind. So even if it's going for walk, going for a run, even things like tidying up, because we're moving, which just, it helps us to change our perspective on things mentally, but it also helps our body to get rid of all those built-up chemicals of just sitting still.

My mentor, Dr. Linus, the world-famous neuroscientist, he used to say to me that emotions are there so that we can move through three different 3-dimensional space. If we didn't have emotions, you know, when they did studies on, on people with neurological disorders where they didn't have motivation, they wouldn't move. They do not move through space. They sit and they're sessile. So he said that our nervous systems really actually developed in order for us to navigate 3-dimensional space. The nervous system became advanced because we were traveling. Through space and having to interact with our world. So if we're sitting in one spot and we're not moving and we're just thinking and thinking, we're not using that neural circuit.

I think it's to take their natural course. Emotions are meant to come and go. If we're literally emotive and we're holding on to them, and that's really bad for our brain. Our brain should be in a, in a more fluid state rather than holding on to particular thoughts. Catastrophizing over things. And so if you can't get your brain to do something different, get up and move your body because that will help shift your brain.

Yes. So we take that mental goal, that mental processing to create these goals and to remember our purpose, um, and keep it in our memory. Then that is an important part of change. However, if we sit in that and only think about change, it's not really gonna happen. So the action has to come and action has to be repetitive. You have to do it even when you don't feel like it. So even when you're emotionally against it, you need to remember that you set these, you set these goals for yourself, these mini goals for yourself on a daily basis for a reason in context of that larger goal. So you continue to. Do these little things daily, whether it's 10 minutes of exercise or 10 minutes of talking to a friend or 10 minutes of, or one meal of eating fresh fruits and vegetables. All of these things are done on a daily basis in part of that larger goal. And sometimes you have to ignore that little voice saying, I don't wanna do this. And planning it is great, but then you have to take that action basically.

And I think to that point you were just making, it's also— is celebrating what you've done, because again, it reinforces it in your brain if you say, "Well done, me, you know, I've just done 10 minutes of exercise." I mean, I write down every day the things that I've achieved that are working towards where I want to be. Now, what I used to do is I used to also write, write down the things that I hadn't achieved.

Hmm.

But that's not actually so helpful for your brain because because your brain seeing the things you have achieved is far more positive and constructive and helps you to feel good. So I now stopped writing down the things I haven't achieved, and I only write down the things I have achieved. So for example, I've had hamstring injury and an elbow injury, and my physio travelled down to London to see me at the end of December, and she set me exercises, and a lot of exercises, exercises I had to do every day. And I thought, I want to be able to surf when I go back to California this summer. I mean, I couldn't surf with my friend this time because my elbow's bad and my hamstring's bad. And so that's my bigger goal, 6-month goal. And so I did those physio exercises every single day, but I wrote it down as well. So I wrote down, physio done. And that's a really nice feeling because you see it and you think, Wow, yeah, well done me. I've done it. I've done it.

And what did you do on those days when you, uh, really didn't want to do it?

Well, what I find, and what I know actually factually as well, is that you reduce the decision-making. So, because once we start having that dilemma in our brain of, oh, I don't really feel like it, I don't want to go for a run, it's a little bit cold, maybe if I do it tomorrow, we start reasoning and arguing with ourselves. If you take that away and you just say, I am going for a run every day at 9 o'clock, and you're not— you don't allow yourself to question it.

Yeah. We call it a lifestyle prescription or an exercise prescription where you have to write down the very specifics of exactly what you're doing, when you're doing it, who you're doing it with, what time you're doing it, what you're going to even wear when you're doing it, the intensity. Of what you're going to do. So very, very specific about what you're going to do in that time period. And I think that's what you're talking about. You don't give yourself a choice. You have that prescription and that's it.

Yeah, that's it. But the thing that can be— should be not only used but motivating is looking at your strengths. So if we go back to the example of empathy, you might say 'Which strengths can I make use of to help me move towards this goal of being more empathic?' And you could say, 'Well, I'm, I'm really interested in other people, um, and I actually have been told that when someone's got a problem, I'm actually good at listening. I really want to do this.' So it's, it's looking at those strengths. And so for, if we take the goal of, say, running, which I'm not suggesting everyone should start running, but it might be saying You know, looking at times where you've done it before, said, actually, 5 years ago I ran every day in the cold and the wind, or I know that I can, I can exercise when I'm feeling tired because I did it at this time before. And it's remembering those times, building on those successes, those strengths that you have to help you and to motivate you and to help you realise, actually, I can do that.

Yeah, building that confidence by remembering a time when you succeeded at something. That's, that's fantastic. So just to recap, I just want to say one thing about the exercise prescription, which is called FITT with two Ts. So the F is for frequency. So if you're going to say 2 times a week or 5 times a week, that's your frequency. Intensity, I is for intensity, moderate to moderate to high, and There are specific definitions to what is moderate or moderate to high aerobic exercise. And then there's time. T is for time, 30 minutes, for example. And then T is for type, the second T. So that could be strengthening exercise or aerobic exercise or going for a bike ride. So it's called FITT, F-I-T-T. That's the prescription model. And it's frequency, intensity, time, and type. There you have it for exercise, but you can do that for anything. You can use that sort of prescription for anything you're about to, uh, embark on.

Yeah, and what we— what I do when I'm setting these sorts of goals with leaders is I would say, what's your action and when are you going to take it by? So that might be every day. For example, I am— I mean, I'm talking about leaders, so excuse me for it being a leadership.

That's okay. No, we love, uh, talking about Leaders.

Okay, so it's—

we're all leaders.

Yeah, we're all leaders. That's true.

Yes.

I'm going to make sure that I engage with the people that I, I lead in one way, shape, or form. So it's that— what action is that going to take? Well, it could be that I do a short video and I post it every day on, on an internal network. Or when I walk into the office in the morning, I make sure I smile and I speak to a couple of people and really listen and ask them what their day's, what their weekend's been like. But it's putting that action down and then saying it, when are you going to do it, or when by. So if it's doing something like, I need to write my decision tree for goals, when are you going to write it by? What's your deadline? What's the date on which you'll complete it?

Have a commitment.

And then how do you know how well you've done? What's going to be your review mechanism? How are you going to measure it? Awesome. And you might say, say with something like empathy, well, how do you measure empathy? Well, actually, it's quite simple. You ask people, how empathic do you think I am?

Make sure you ask people who are fair to you. Yeah.

And you don't want people that are just going to go, oh, you're brilliant. I think everything you do is wonderful.

But I really do think you're wonderful, Phi.

So, oh, well, I think you are.

Oh, one last thing. Always remember that there is going to be relapse. So this is part of your brain changing. Whenever you fail to do that exercise or whatever you set out to do, and, uh, that's perfectly fine. The best thing to do right then is to just, like you said, accept those feelings of disappointment or whatever happens and then get right back on.

I think that's a massively important point. Yeah. There will be relapses.

Yeah. There used to be a, a model of behavioral change where at the end it was like, now this behavior is permanent. And they, they've changed that.

Ta-da!

No, you will always, you know, have times when you relapse and that's totally fine. Perfectly normal. Yeah. Thank you so much for this. This was awesome. And next time we talk about manners. So excited.

Yay.

Yay. Thanks so much, Juna Bobby MD. Have an awesome day. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening. To support the creation of this free content, please subscribe and share this podcast with anyone curious about achieving their highest potential. Go check out Fi's website, fionamurden.com, to find out more about her podcast and award-winning books. And then go on over to mindbodyspace.com to sign up for my newsletter. You'll get tips from my unique neuroscience-based planning courses developed from over 10 years of experience teaching high-performing students of all ages at Juilliard, NYU, Columbia, Achievement First, and many other organizations. Thanks again for spending this time with me. Until next time, this is Dr. Juna Bobby MD wishing you and your family wellness.