PNTV: No Sweat by Michelle Segar, PhD (#224)

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Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today, another great book, no Sweat by Michelle Seeger. No Sweat Subtitle how the simple science of motivation can bring you a lifetime of happiness Michelle Seger is out of the University of Michigan. She's one of the world's leading authorities on the science of motivation for health related behaviors and maintaining those behaviors. The book just came out. It's awesome. I did a little micro class on one of the ideas we're going to talk about earlier this week. I'm going to be interviewing Michelle soon. Excited to share that if you've ever struggled with finding the motivation to to sustain a healthy exercise program, I think you'll love the book. So, Philosopher's Note, bunch of big ideas. Five of my favorite ones here. Let's jump straight in. First, big idea. Meaning matters. Meaning matters. Michelle talks about what she calls maps. The book is organized around four basic ideas. Meaning, awareness, permission and strategies. Maps. Maps. We're going to go into some detail on each of those, but it starts with the meaning. It starts with your why. Why do you exercise? Why do you workout? Michelle and her team ran some research where they asked people, why do you work out? And what she discovered was 75% of the people said they work out to lose weight or to generally be healthy now and in the future. Sounds pretty reasonable, right? 25% of the people said they work out to feel good, to feel more energized and focused, better mood, etc. What was fascinating was when they looked at Those why's the 75% of the people who said they exercised to lose weight and to feel generally healthy exercised up to 32% less than the other group who exercised because it felt good. Moral of the story is we need to have a right why? There's a right why and there's a wrong why. This one leads to what she calls a cycle of success. This one leads to a vicious cycle of failure. So as good as it may seem for you to work out to lose weight or generally be healthy, it's not compelling. We're not motivated by logic. We're motivated by how we feel. So check in on that and figure out how you can translate that idea into how you show up and how you work out. Now, of course, the book is all about that. The second big idea is related to it. If meaning matters. If you're picking the wrong why, guess what? You think working out is a choreography. If you Pick the right. Why Working out is more like a gift. And she says not only can you move it from chore to gift, you can move it to fuel. You get to a point where you've integrated exercise into your life to such a depth, a deep degree that you couldn't imagine not doing. You couldn't pay me to not exercise. It's fuel. Everything that I want to achieve in my life, I know exercise provides the fuel to, to do that. So this morning I'm doing my little burpee challenge, right? I started earlier in the year. I did one burpee. Most people don't consider burpees fun, but I do. I think they're awesome. I started with one and then I did one more the next day. Then I did one more. So on day 10, I did 10 and I did 100 on day 100. Super easy when you build up like that. This morning I did 143 burpees. Super easy. And it was fun. It's fuel. And I didn't do it thinking that I'm going to lose weight or gain weight or be generally healthy. I did it thinking that I'm going to give myself a gift right now. I'm going to work out and I'm basically going to guarantee that the rest of my day is awesome. I'm going to, as John Ratey says, give myself a little bit of Ritalin, focus my attention, and a little bit of Prozac. I'm going to boost my mood. I'm not going to wait for some abstract fuzzy goal in the future. I'm going to get immediate gratification right now by working out. That's the why that we want to have and move from a chore to a gift. And she has a little exercise in the book, she says, okay, if 1 is chore, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 5 is gift. That working out feels like you're doing a chore versus like you're giving yourself a gift. Where are you on that scale, 1 to 5? Identify it and know that you can move up this scale. If you happen to be lower, you can move up. It's exciting. Meaning matters. Chore to gift to fuel. That's our second big idea. Third big idea. OTMs. OTMs. What's that? That equals opportunities to move. OTMs. This isn't a chapter all about the fact that everything counts. She says everything counts too often. We have this idea that you have to go to the gym for 30, 45, 60 plus minutes, super sweaty, all in intense workout. You have to do that or it doesn't count. She says, no, no, no. All the research shows that everything counts. A minute here, a minute there, five minutes here, 10 minutes there. It all adds up to our overall well being and sense of vitality. And she says when you look at that and you know that everything counts, then you look for opportunities to move. OTMs is what her clients call it, OTMs. And she has a chapter where she has like 25 different examples and ideas of how you can find opportunities to move. Simple things we've heard of, like if you're at the grocery store or going shopping, park a little further away. You just created an opportunity to move. And that extra one or two minutes of walking is good. Take a roundabout way. If you're walking to the grocery store, add another five minutes each way. You just got 10 more minutes of movement. When you're on the phone, can you walk around while you're on the phone? If you have a meeting, rather than sit in your office, can you go out and do a walking meeting through the park? Even go through nature? Amazing. What opportunities to move can you find in your day? And the idea here is that we often have the story that I'm just too busy. And she says, no, no, no, no one's so busy they can't find a minute in their day. When we start realizing that everything counts, then we can start embracing those little opportunities. OTMs, think about your OTMs and go on. She calls it a treasure hunt. Make it fun. I didn't mention in the Chore versus Gift and the Meaning Matters, but she talks about research on amazing stuff where you can bring people into a lab, have them go out and go for a walk. You tell one group that they're going to exercise. You tell the other group they're just going to have fun. You give them music to listen to and just have fun. And their enjoyment of the exact same activity changes, right? And how they report their energy levels changes. People who thought they were having fun have more energy. It was less work than the group that was told they're going to exercise. And then they even ate differently. The fun group ate more healthfully than the exercise group. Same exact research is done. Fun versus work. You can have people come in again to a lab, split them up. One group does. They both do the exact same thing. One group is told this is going to be fun. The other group is told this is work. And you can guess it. The fun group has more fun. So make things you do fun, don't make it a chore. Fourth, big idea. Is the idea that we covered in a little micro class. I'll link to that self care hierarchy basic idea here as we discussed in that ideas you have a hierarchy of self care needs and what you want to do is identify the number one non negotiable thing that you do that keeps you plugged in. So for Michelle that's sleep. For her husband it's exercise. And then you have other things that kind of stack on top of it. Right? But identify the one thing that if you don't do it, your day is almost certainly not going to go as well as it could. If you did do that particular self care habit, identify that, prioritize it and make it a non negotiable daily habit. That's our abridged fourth big idea. The fifth big idea is a really good one. Having a learning mindset. A learning mindset. So we've talked about Carol Dweck's fixed versus growth mindset. Heidi Grant Halvorsen describes it as being good versus getting better. But this idea of a learning mindset, I've never seen this phrase before and I love it. A learning mindset. When you have a learning mindset, Seeger tells us there's really no such thing as failure. If you don't work out in a given day, the last thing in the world you want to do, and you wanted to work out, the last thing you want to do is criticize yourself. She tells us that's unequivocally the best way to demotivate yourself. Shame doesn't help move the ball forward. We want to look at that through the eyes of someone committed to learning, like an experimenter. Imagine you're a scientist in a lab. Put on your white lab coat, get your clipboard, maybe even put on some goggles because you're going to be doing some heavy experimentation. And then everything that comes into your experience is data. If you succeed, awesome data. I worked out and I felt great. If you don't succeed at whatever you set for yourself, awesome. It's just data. You don't beat yourself up. You say, wow, I didn't get adequate sleep and I didn't exercise and I ate really poorly and I felt terrible, felt really bad. And I did some addictive behaviors I'm not proud of. Interesting. I'm an experimenter. That's data. I'm going to see what would happen if tonight I got a good night of sleep to turned off the Internet, digital sunset style. Got a good night of sleep, worked out early in the morning or meditated, did some creative work. I'm going to run that experiment and see how I feel then. What we used to think was the worst thing that could happen, us failing to do what we said we could do, wanted to do becomes the best thing because it shows us just how important doing the thing that sustains us is to our well being. Huge idea. Learning Mindset Lab coat, goggles, clipboard. It's all just data. It's neutral data you're going to take into your life as you optimize day in and day out. So there you go. Learning mindset, self care, hierarchy. Prioritize it. Identify your number one. Find opportunities to move. Capture everything. Everything counts. The little one minute here and two minutes there count. I love doing little one minute workouts. When I'm taking a little break in my day. I do my normal kind of exercise, but I like finding little bursts of energy and again, literally make it a treasure hunt. Fun. Not work, not a chore, but a gift and fuel for everything that you want to be in your life. And then remember meaning matters. Pick your why wisely. Right why Wrong? Why? A good why is the immediate gratification that you know that you're going to feel great as a result of doing this workout. Worry and think less about the weight you may lose and the long term health. Give yourself immediate gratification. And then of course when you focus on that process, the outcome of improved long term health and weight loss will be a natural byproduct. But you want to find the motivation by feeding your feelings. Now. There you go. Hope you enjoyed. As I said in the intro, if you've struggled to integrate exercise into your life, I think you're going to love this book and I look forward to sharing more. Have another awesome day. See you.

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