225: ​​Making Lasting Improvements in Eating and Exercise with Michelle Segar

Hello, Kathy here. Before today's show begins, I'd love to share some news. In these past weeks, you've heard me talk about my book, the Most Powerful you and the video companion course that we created. Well, now I'm so excited that we are launching a live version of this course, complete with eight weekly online coaching calls with me starting May 12th. This live version allows me to work together with a group of women from around the world to directly expand your leadership strength, communication, communication skills, networking abilities, negotiating your executive presence, and help you overcome the imposter syndrome that impacts 75% of executive women today. If you're facing anything that you feel is in the way of your highest, most rewarding career potential, then this is the place for you. Please do check it out at mostpowerfulyou.com livecourse and sign up by May 4th to save $500 and get some really great bonuses, too. Thank you so much. I hope to see you there.

We've been told to do it in a certain way and you do it right or not at all. And it's that mindset that really derails people and the joy choice is the antidote to that.

Hello everyone.

This is Kathy Caprino, and welcome to my podcast, Finding Brave. I've created this show for everyone who longs to create something bold and brave in their life, to rise up, speak up, and stand up for who they are and to reach their highest and biggest visions. Each week, I'll be speaking with inspiring guests from all walks of business, leadership, entertainment, the creative arts, and the entrepreneurial world. And they'll be sharing their intimate stories of Finding Brave and offer their best strategies for building your most rewarding, joyful and meaningful life, business and career.

Foreign.

Welcome to another episode of Finding Brave. How are you with this is coming to you April 28th. So we're recording this on March 1st. The world is in a tough place. I am almost afraid to wonder what will be happening in April. And you know, while this is not a political show, I feel like everything I'm doing right now, I need to say sometimes when the world is going through these things, it's. It's hard to do business as usual. That's very hard for me because, you know, my heart is breaking for, for everyone, everyone involved in our. In this situation. However, we want to be fully present today and in what our. What we're doing because these messages on this podcast, I mean, I find them incredibly life changing. I hope you do too. And I think today is not an exception. I think you're gonna love it. And you're gonna love our beautiful guest, Michelle Seeger. Thank you, Michelle, for taking time during your crashingly busy book launch to join Find Finding Brave. So grateful.

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here with you and with your community.

Thank you, dear. So, well, I'm gonna tell you all about Michelle. But first of all, I wanna tell you what this episode is about. And we're calling it the Joy Choice. Finally Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating and Exercise, which is all about Michelle's new amazing book, which is research based, proven incredible framework. And I want to tell you all about Michelle. But we were just chatting and I want to share this too. You know, I love every one of my guests, whether I've just met them or whether I've known them as long as I've known Michelle, which we're thinking is about 13 or 14 years.

Yes.

And you know, I want to say every conversation that I can remember that we've had has been an eye opener for me in some critical way, in.

Some very useful way.

So thank you for the work that you do. Oh, so good. All right people, let me tell you about Michelle. Michelle Seeger is an award winning scientist at the University of Michigan with near 30 years studying how to help people adopt healthy behaviors in ways that that can survive the complexity and unpredictability of the real world.

Wow.

There it is in a nutshell. In her latest book, the Joy how to Finally Achieve Lasting Changes in Eating.

And Exercise, Michelle explains that much of.

What we've been taught about changing our.

Behavior is simplistic, outdated and misguided for many of us.

She shares a fresh joyful brain based solution that breaks the rules of behavior.

Change so we can finally change our behavior for good.

All right, I cannot wait to dive in. The very first thing I want to ask you, Michelle, is why did you write this book now?

Because this is your second book, right? No Sweat was your first.

Why this book now?

You know, it's such a wonderful question because I didn't think I had another book in me. I had no purpose for another book. Because the last book was the culmination of 20 years of my, you know, my passion and purpose and professionally. But over the years I started hearing whispers of, ooh, this is important, people should know this. And about five years ago, I got the whisper turned into a tap, tap, tap. And I started creating an outline for the new science that I had been learning about and the new research that I had been doing. And a couple years ago you know, this takes two to three hard years of putting together a proposal and then writing a book. It culminated into the idea for the book. And because we live in a world where we cannot count on the things we want to count on, and in the world of exercise and eating, we. We've been taught to do things in a very specific way, following certain rules and to make sure we do them right. And guess what? Most people can't. So for those of us which are the majority of people, there are a percentage of people who do it right every time, but they're not the majority of people for the rest of us who need an alternative. That's why I wrote this book. We need, we need something that is going to work with the ups and downs instead of break down with the ups and downs.

Oh, I can't.

I can't tell you how much I can't wait to hear more of this. So you and I were talking before I hit record, you know, talking about food. You know, for me personally, I've had an interesting relationship with food and I've been able to. And struggled with it, struggled with, you know, weight and lots of other issues, but I have been able to keep off that £20 and I'm working on another 10 around changing my relationship with it. Not dieting, not following these rules that never work for me. But what I want to start with here is what do you think? I love to go to the negative. Not to the negative, to the contrary, the contrarian.

What.

What is wrong with what we're being told about exercise and food? What. What are we being told that is not fitting with the brain science work that you've done?

Yes.

What is it?

Well, it's really, it's really interesting. And, and the why we're being told this is related to or what we're being told and what's wrong with it is very much related to the history and the evolution of what we're being told. And when we think about changing our eating in ways that are healthy or exercising more, what we have to understand is that both of those mandates come out of a medical paradigm. The value of exercising more, the value of changing our eating in healthier ways. The research that has been conducted on these behaviors comes out, it's medical research. So it comes out of this medicalized framework which is prescription based.

And can I ask, because I'm already confused.

Yes.

Medical as opposed to humanistic or what would be as opposed to what is.

That's a great question. Medical. I say medical. I mean health care. So it's just, it comes out of a health care context, a health, medical doctors think doctors, nurses, hospitals, illness, it comes out of that paradigm. And you know, I try not even to talk about weight loss and carrying extra weight. And you know, you know, typically the words in my field are thrown around being obese and overweight. But that's part of the problem is that those constructs, those ideas are embedded in healthcare and the medical system. And so that is why when we've been taught to change our eating and to exercise more, there are prescriptions, because taking a big step back, we're being prescribed a certain amount of exercise to optimize our health. Because the research studies, that's what they have aimed to do. We are being prescribed a certain amount of food to eat certain types of foods because of the chemicals. They have the good chemicals and the bad chemicals, avoid the bad ones, optimize the good ones. Coming out of clinical research that has identified certain things. So let's take a step back and think it's prescription based. So it has nothing to, you know, you said, as opposed to what? As opposed to who we are, how we live our lives. That is irrelevant to the ways we've been taught to change our eating and exercise. It's all about the prescription. And the problem is we are not cells in a petri dish that need to react in a certain way to certain doses. We are complex emotional people, human beings that live complex lives in a very complex world. And so it's so much more complicated than eat that much, don't eat that, move that much, don't sit that much. Does that make sense?

Yes. Let me ask a follow up because my brain, I'm curious, would you say, would you agree with this? And if not, push back. So the prescription piece is, research says that if you are 5 foot 3, you should weigh 125 or less. And if you're blip percent over that, you're obese. And if you're percent over that, you're morbidly obese.

Yes.

The prescription part is data shows this. Therefore this is what we're telling you. Are you saying that it's not that the data about the ultimate outcome is incorrect?

It is.

And you know, please tell me if I'm getting this wrong. It's everything that surrounds what happens when a human being is prescribed to. Is that what it is?

Exactly, yes.

In other words, if I'm 135 pounds at 5 3, there's shame, there's humiliation, I'm not what I should be and they also. The prescription's fine, but the how is missing the right kind of how.

That's right.

Missing. Am I getting it? Am I getting.

Well, it's so complicated that there are all these strings attached. So if we're overweight or obese, we're wrong, we're bad, and we have to correct. So right. There is the healthcare context for changing our eating. And on top of that context, we're somehow wrong and have to fix ourselves. And it's not to say that there are not health problems that can come from carrying around X ray. I'm not arguing that there can be true health problems. The problem is that when we wrap up these emotional things like moving our bodies and eating with this wrongness, it completely warps our relationship with these behaviors. Now, I hope this is okay to say, but there's an analogy that I like to use sometime and it has to do with sex. If people were prescribed the right way to have exercise and told to do it in certain ways, or it creates an aversion, it absolutely influences how we feel because eating and exercise are embodied experiences, just like having sexes. So I use that analogy sometimes because it helps people understand when we are told what to do and how to do it and feel like we're forced even to eat in certain ways. What kind of experiences that causes in our bodies, that causes disdain, aversion, pain, rebellion, rejection. Wow, right? I mean, does that make sense?

Yes.

And so are you saying. And we can say it, you're saying, you know, when I'm thinking about that statement, you don't read thousands and thousands of articles in popular magazines and websites about the right way to have sex.

That's right.

In fact, we're encouraged to be creative. The more creative, the better. Do what feels right.

That's right. That's right.

I mean, not to be whatever, but couldn't that be because the ultimate outcome is either joy or procreation or so. So there isn't a prescription at the end. Maybe that's why we haven't been force fed 50 billion ways we should be having sex.

Is.

Am I getting it?

Well, I think it does have to do with the objective. But there's this human brain piece, human being piece that we haven't been taken into, that hasn't been taken into account when it comes to eating and exercise. We've been prescribed them like medications instead of these nutrients that nutrients that we give our bodies moving is a gift. If we view it as a punishment, not only don't we want to do it, but it converts something that absolutely could give us energy and help boost our mood into something that we have an aversion to and don't want to do so well. It's. Yeah, it's very sad. And you know, and then the research, you know, this is something that I studied a long time ago which is what reasons are associated, which motivations are associated with sustainable self care behaviors like physical activity. And I want you to notice something. I don't call them, I try not to call them healthy behaviors because they are self care behaviors. It is moving as a way we tend to our self care. Eating in certain ways is a way that we take care of ourselves. If we can take it out of even the health paradigm to caring for ourselves, it reframes it in a new way that is that we can be much more invested in. Does that make sense?

I so love it.

And you know what's getting me choked up? I play tennis regularly. I'm 61, I have a knee that doesn't work. Include what in terms of what the medical profession would say that I need a knee replacement soon, there's no cartilage yet here I am running and you know, whatever part of what you're saying is touching me that at 61, the way the world talks about how you should get in shape doesn't work for a 61 year old body that has broken parts. And I notice if I'm watching athletes or even in my tennis clinics, I somehow internalize shame that I can't do some of what these people who are 25 and 45 in my clinic can do. And no one's making me feel shame. It's this that you're talking about that there are so many shoulds. Kathy should be able to do this. And so even though you know that you have a limb or a joint that is compromised, you me still feels less than. Is this part of the whole thing that you're talking?

Yes, yes, and you know it. The other thread in this conversation is that when there's a should or a once which ties into kind of a one size, fit all criterion, all or nothing prescription. So that gets back to the earlier comment that we've been told to do it in a certain way and you do it right or not at all. And it's that mindset that really derails people and that the joy choice is the antidote to that because we don't, most of us don't live in a world where we can control everything and do it right every time. And if that's the only option, black or white, all or nothing. Well, then those of us who can't do all, all the time, well, there's no other option but failure and that doesn't have to be an option. And so.

You are so right.

There are people in my life that are on keto, that are on intermittent fasting and they're making huge. Some have made fantastic leaps and bounds and feel healthy and wonderful, but some, when they fall off, they really feel terrible. I had a bad day today, so. All right, I think we've identified everything that's wrong. So, Michelle, let's say someone comes to you, show me what to do. Not right, right and wrong. That sounds prescriptive. What's the loving self care way of approaching this? You know, I would like to drop 30 pounds. Someone says, what are the right ways? I mean, that's your book and everyone should read this book. But what are the key principles that you're teaching here that we can take away here?

Well, one of the very counterintuitive messages that I start the book out with that is still considered. It's becoming more commonplace to hear about it. But my work with clients and especially my research, my research and the mounting research of this is just becoming a truth. It may not be quite there yet, but when you connect changes in eating and changes in adapting exercise into your life, when you link those with trying to lose weight with this explicit weight loss goal, it contaminates your relationship with it. So the first thing that I would do is I would ask this person, well, have you tried to lose weight in the past through changing your diet or exercise, your food plan or exercise? And everyone's going to say yes. And I'm going to say, has it worked for you long term? And most people are going to say no because otherwise they wouldn't be calling me. And so I ask people, would you like to keep doing the same thing and getting the same result, or would you like to try something new and something that research suggests is actually going to help you develop a positive lifelong partnership with these behaviors so that you can stick with them long term? And, you know, it's, it's kind of an obvious answer, but it's really important to take people through that logic because otherwise it's, it's, there's a fear about changing the approach. If you ask people, have you done this before and have you stayed motivated? And they say no. And of course they know that they've done it tens, if not hundreds of times, then you have to ask yourself, why am I continuing to do it this way. So what I ask people to do from that point is my goal is to help you learn how to sustain these changes, because that is the only way you are going to be able to achieve any goal that you have for becoming more physically active or eating in better and healthier ways. So there is this. Yeah.

You know what this reminds me of? I don't mean to cut you off. I sometimes say to people, you know, and I coach career women, let's make you right instead of wrong. If you've tried this 52 times and it's not working, let's make you right.

It's not going to work.

And it's not that you're blowing it. You're not committed, you're not diligent, you're not. It's not going to work. It's inherently going to fail. Let's do something different. What do you think?

Yes, but the thing is, it's that let's. The thing is that people blame themselves because. And that's why I say let's break the rules of behavior change so you can change your behavior for good. Because the rules of behavior change that we've all been taught for decades set most people up to fail. So it's not our fault. And that's one of the biggest things. We have to be able to let go of that and externalize the sense of failure, because it truly isn't. But society has made us feel, or our people don't want to go to the doctor sometimes. And this is. No, I don't mean to criticize clinicians. My clients, many clients tell me they avoid going to the doctor because they feel shamed, they feel judged. And this is a scientific, systemic challenge within health care that I know many health systems are dealing with right now. But this is a truism. So we want people to write the situation, and the science guides us. The science is there to guide us to a new and better way. I mean, that's the good news, is that we're not blindfolded trying to find our way. The science is there to guide us. So that's really good news.

It's like you're going for a revolution here, and I love it. All right, so people are saying, I'm hearing. I have a psychic way of knowing what my listeners are saying are thinking. Okay, she convinced me. Thank goodness it's not me. I can let go of that. All right? Now what do I do? So are there ways. And you talk about choice points and you know, of course, whenever we read anything, we internalize it to what you know, we project our own. But I have so many choice points in the day. For instance, when I'm bored or someone made me mad or I just finished like I did an hour and a half webinar and I'm tired, I'm in the kitchen about to put chocolate in my mouth. That's a choice point for me.

Yes.

Often the old me would say, I fail and the chocolate's in my mouth. I won't say fail, but I can't wait to hear. Tell us about. Because I think these choice points are where the best laid plan fails, even if we're prepared for it. I mean, I remember going to my nutritionist, who I adore, and I said, okay, I'm doing this detox phase, but I'm going to see my daughter in Maine and we go out for lobster with butter and french fries. What that fries. But you know, what do I do? And thank goodness, she, she's like, you're gonna have moments where you're not gonna follow this thing. But she said, try to avoid trigger things. Or, you know, let's say I love Wheat Thins and I can't stop. Try to avoid that if you can. But I'd love to hear. And you talk about habit formation and choice points. Can you just give us as if you had an audience of 2,000 people, which you do. What do I do differently? I would love to drop some weight. I have some challenges with particular addictive things like chocolate. And now we know. Doesn't science show us chocolate can be as addictive as heroin sometimes in our system? Is that not right?

You know, I don't know that research enough to feel good commenting on that. I think there's probably. I don't know if that's been determined. I know some people say that, but I think there might be some really.

Counterbalance that it's not addictive at all or.

I don't think we know the answer to that. I think there's perspectives with different perspectives on that question. And it's not my area of research, so I don't want to comment, but it doesn't mean that it doesn't feel tempting. And there's a few. You said a few things that I want to comment on. One, the choice point is where the challenge is. That's by definition, that is what the choice point is. It's when you are facing a challenge to what your intention or plan is, but it is the opportunity, because it is your opportunity to choose. And I want to jump in and say something really quick and then return to the conversation. Habit formation, make it automatic, you know, offload it, you don't have to think about it. So form habits, automatic habits for your healthy choices. It's very popular these days to be told that. And, but there are some assumptions underlying habit formation that no one really talks about. And unfortunately, most people don't meet the criteria for successful habit formation. For complex behaviors like exercise and healthy eating, almost all of us could form habits for flossing our teeth and putting our keys in the same place and drinking a glass of water when we wake up. Those are very simple behaviors. But for complex behaviors, the newer thinking and the habit research world is really wondering, can we even form automatic habits for these behaviors? So I just want to say that because that is a very counterintuitive notion that I think is really important for people to know about. And the choice point and the opportunity to choose is almost the exact opposite of forming an automatic habit. Because the point right there is you can't automate a decision about something that you weren't planning to have happen or that's really challenging. You can't automate that. So you have to make a choice or you fall into if you're in a bad mood or you're tempted. And these are what I call the traps to the choice point. So in my work with clients, I've discovered about four very common traps that prevent us. They grab our thinking, they rob our choice. And the first one is temptation, like the chocolate. It's tempting, right? The second one is rebelling. Well, you could also bring to that choice point with your chocolate. Oh shoot, I'm not supposed to have chocolate because of that new eating plan I'm on. Darn it, I deserve it. I'm going to eat that chocolate. We are actually motivated as human beings to rebel when we feel that our freedom is removed. And if that isn't a good argument against dieting, I don't know what it is. Then there's accommodation. And I know you share this challenge. Accommodation is when we consistently subsume our own self care needs below those of others. And it's not sometimes it's consistently so that if you're at a party and you're really trying to follow an eating plan and you're doing a great job and you feel really good about it, but everyone else is celebrating and you feel like you need to eat something they actually don't want to eat to accommodate the celebratory needs of others. That's an example of a trap. And then, and then there's perfection, which is I have to do it right or not at all. And that is the entry point for the joy choice. And the joy choice is you are not going to be surprised when I tell you it is the perfect imperfect option that lets us do something instead of nothing. There is no more all or nothing.

My head is exploding.

I mean, every one of these shows us like for instance, and I, before I forget, I need to go back to what is a complex behavior versus I want you to flesh that out. But when you have this perfection thing, which I mean everything you're saying, the accommodation, let's go there. How many of us, I would love you to Write me on LinkedIn and when you see this and say yes, yes, yes. I can't tell you how I have a lot of people that love food who are in my life that it's a celebration to even make food food. And I carbs don't feel good on me, that I feel inflamed and yet they're bringing out the chips and the. And I love it. I literally, I'm not blaming other people. I literally feel badly if I'm not partaking because it seems like they feel I'm not part of the celebration. If I'm not. And I like to drink, don't get me wrong. But if I'm not drinking or I'm not, there's pressure that we feel now in the coaching world. You know, we have to take responsibility. Sometimes it's self imposed pressure. Nobody gives a hoot if you're having a drink or, you know, guacamole, but you feel you have to. Well, you got to get hip to that. But the accommodation piece, the perfection piece that, well, I had one chocolate, darn it. I mean, I've had that moment or I try not to eat too late at night. Well, I already did, so what the heck, let's go. So ridiculous.

If there is no if, the criteria changes from doing it perfectly to doing something. So maybe you really want chocolate and you had a hard, stressful day and you can't have it, you can't have it until you eat the whole bag because you're in reaction. What if you have a couple pieces? Who cares, right? It's because it's that the dieting mentality has contaminated it has our views of our choices.

Oh, Michelle. All right, now can you just tell us, you said there's an enormous difference between an eating behavior, the complexity of that and our relationship with food versus I'm Going to put my keys in this same spot on the bureau. What makes a complex behavior and habit formation harder? What is a complex behavior versus I'm flossing every night.

So yes, to explain that, let me first explain the habit loop, which is you have a cue. The cue is it's time for bed and I floss my. I go into the bathroom and the cue, oh, I see my toothbrushes. There's no thinking. And then the floss is right next to it. The cue form. Then you do the behavior after the cue and then you're rewarded in some way, whether it's satisfaction, your mouth feels better, and that creates a positive experience in your brain. That, that. But it's cue based because there's, there's.

An event or a time or something.

Well, there's a time or a place.

Okay.

And, and so this is the kicker with habit of formation. There is no room for variability.

Oh, gosh.

Okay, so we can understand. Where does flossing happen? It happens in the bathroom usually.

Let's hope not a lot of people.

Not a lot going on in the bathroom to disrupt your flossing habit. Let's think about changing the way we eat. Let's think about exercising. That doesn't. Neither of those two behaviors for the most part, happen in the bathroom. It happens in our day where there's people and there's unexpected meetings and there's dog vomit and there's a friend who needs help and an aging parent who needs to speak to you on the phone. The list goes on and on. So when I say a complex behavior, it's got different parts. So when, if we're talking about eating in healthier ways, we have to plan food, we have to purchase it, we have to prepare it, we have to cook it, serve it. I mean, a lot of cleanup. There's a lot of aspects of it. If you think about exercise, there's a plan, there's a place, there are components of initiating it versus actually following through. And so there are all these components. And so it's not that some people. My husband has an exercise habit. Okay, so there are some people who meet the criteria. But that is a symptom of his whole personality. He is disciplined. He wakes up at 5, 5:30am Every day, no matter what. He sleeps in his exercise clothes. So there is no thinking. He wakes up, goes downstairs, he doesn't even have to leave the house. So. And that is who he is. And I have his permission to talk about him. And I love him dearly, but he's an example of someone that I would call a habiter, someone who's super disciplined and does everything they say they're going to very organized. And people who are unhabiters like me, who might not be as organized, who might be a little messier, who also manage the lives of other people. Those include. Well, it's not to say that habiters can't be managers too, because my husband manages other people in his lab. But the more people we manage, the more room for the unexpected to come in. And so that is one of the assessment tools that I like people to ask themselves is, is your life set up in a way your daily life context where things run according to plan? Most of the time those are the people who are more likely to be able to form habit for more complex behaviors. But again, habit formation is based on the loop. If you mess up the cue, there is no habit.

You know what I also think? I think I'm a habiter when it comes to business because I'm serving other people and I have a team and I'm not going to let them down. Yes. So I'll be up at two, whatever, one in the morning, sending that final, you know, slack note because I know they're waiting for it. When it comes to myself and some of these behaviors, am I getting enough sleep, Am I eating the way I truly want to? Not am driven to. Maybe I'm an unhabit or meaningful. I think that there's a relationship with ourselves and others and there's a relationship with ourselves and ourselves. And we can be different in those different relationships.

Absolutely. And if we can't depend on what's called automaticity, which is doing things automatically at these choice points, and we know we're going to be tempted and we know we might feel, you know, have rebellion and perfection staring us down, the only way we are really going to be successful is to learn at these choice points how to navigate them in ways that will let us be consistent over time. And that's what the book is about. It's about helping people and we can support our brains in the process. That's the other thing, is that we can support, we can simplify things, we, we can frame it as a, as a ways to play and think creatively so that when those choice points come, it's not an ah, this is another should. It's like, wait a sec, what are my options? How can I play here? And then I'm going to pick the joy choice. And the joy choice lets me be consistent, which lets me stay in sync with myself and the rest of my world. It's not about perfection. It's not about all or nothing. Because that doesn't work for. For most of us.

All right, two more questions, then I.

Have to let you go. One will be, can you give us three concrete practical strategies that someone listening saying, yes, yes, yes, yes. But I don't know what to do to make the joy choice in a minute. But I gotta ask you something contrarian here. I think sometimes these things that go big, the medical community and diets saying you're too fat, just lose weight is because there's a simplicity to them. And what I'm saying here is, you know, I just got off the phone doing a zoom, doing a whole thing on building a coaching business. It's not easy. It's complex. Right. I think there's a lot of marketing gurus making millions of dollars saying, do this one silver bullet, make $100,000 next month. Nonsense. You're not going from zero to a hundred thousand. It's a lie. But, but people want it simple. Just, just let me ask you this. Is it possible that the joy choice can have a little more complexity because you're choosing different things? Is, is. Could it be a little more. You're asking more of yourself to do it this way, but it's going to be successful this way.

So am I making sense?

Yeah.

Well, I think you're saying that yes, I agree with you. People want simple things.

That's human nature, system, not trash and nutrisystem. But give me the.

How many times are you going to hit your head with the same glass, a half glass of water that keeps spilling? Well, how many times are you going to do something? At some point, if you really do want to be successful, you have to ask yourself, am I going to buy the Brooklyn Bridge again?

That's it.

Okay, so that's one thing. And the other thing is that I wouldn't say the joy choice is. It's not complex. I designed it actually to be simple and fun and playful because we have to want to do it. We do have to think because that's the only way we can compare options to figure out what we want.

Options. Thinking, do I want this? Do I want. It's. It's awareness, isn't it? It is getting out of a somnambulant, whatever the term is, just sleepwalking through your life. It's, that's.

You have to have awareness to make a conscious choice. But I could have called it problem solving 101. I could have called it so many things. Get your act together, Michelle. But instead I called it the joy choice. Because who doesn't want joy? And it is joyful because we don't have to be perfect who raise their hand for anyone who feels joy when they hear they don't have to be perfect. And it lets us do something. So at least we know we are doing something to tend to our own self care and wellbeing. And if that is not joyful, I don't know what is. So that is kind of my, I guess my long answer to the first question or the second question. The first question you asked was how can people implement this in their own lives?

It was just three practical. Yes, I get it. This is my challenge and this is something I can do. Hanging up from this zoom call.

Yes. Well, I want to say like the work that you do, Kathy, teaching people about building a coaching business, there is a system to learn, so I am not going to sell you a Brooklyn Bridge. There is a mindset to learn to be successful. So having said that, the three things I would say to you are, number one, decide if you have been knocking your head against the same wall for a long time and if you want to keep doing the same thing and getting the same result. Because at some point that's the most important choice point. Do you want to learn something that's going to give you a whole different way of thinking about changing your eating and exercise? That's the first thing I want people easy to think about and you can do that right now. The second thing I want you to notice is to try to be aware when you come upon one of these choice points. And the choice point is just this period, this point of time in the moment when you were supposed to do your exercise this way or your exercise class is coming up or your walk or you're at a party and you would hope to eat this tonight, but there isn't this at the party. So these points of tension where you can't do what you'd hope to do, try to notice those points because awareness is going to be the mental technology you need to actually work with that moment. And then the third thing is I want you to see if you can just name your choice trap, which is either temptation, rebellion, accommodation or perfection. Notice what you say to yourself and whether it's in service of really what you want or whether it's in reaction to something else. And that's kind of, I would say, the foundation for the platform for a whole new way of thinking.

Holy cow.

You and I are so on the same page, and I know you have to go. I would say this life is an internal job.

Yes.

I mean, these things that you're having us do are mental constructs.

Yes.

Gain awareness so that you can gain choice. If you have no awareness, forget it. Nothing is going to work. And people might say, well, that just sounds easy. But then I get to the blah, blah, blah, the guacamole. If you can do these things, life is going to much more easily and fluidly change. But I'm pretty sure if you don't do these things, it's going to be a repeat. It's going to be insanity. Einstein saying definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over. So would you say that it's an internal job first and foremost?

Absolutely. But the beauty and research shows this too. When we have a change in mindset, we drastically. We revolutionize our experience of whether it's eating or exercise. I use the word revolutionize very purposefully because the way we come at things absolutely determines whether we want to do it, how we experience doing it, and whether we will keep doing it.

It's so great.

I could keep you on for another 10 hours. Tell us where we sit, suck up all this wonderfulness. Where do we get the joy choice? It's funny, I can't say it. Joy choice. I want to say it. Where do we get it? Where do we get your book? Where do we learn more about you? Where do we go?

Well, people can learn more about the book on my website, which is my name, michelleseeger.com I talk more about the book, the people, wonderful people who read it early and wrote endorsements. And you were one of those special people, which I really appreciated, such groundbreaking work. And if people are interested in taking a quiz to find out what their traps are, what their main traps are at Choice Points, that is also on my website. It's free. And they'll answer 12 questions and they'll get a personalized readout to know which of the core traps I've discovered in my clients are likely getting in their way of achieving lasting changes. And eating and exercise.

I'm hopping on that now.

Is it possible I have all of these?

Is it possible you can have all of them?

Absolutely. But guess what? Guess what, Dan Siegel. I know you probably say the same thing. This is a quote from Dan Siegel. Who? Someone whose work has really informed my parenting and my coaching work. Name it to tame it. You could say, oh, no, I have got all four of these. I have. But the beautiful thing is, is that when we can name it, we actually remove some of the emotionality and control it has over us.

So great. I am ready to do it.

Naming it, taming it.

Thank you, Michelle.

I love it.

This book is truly going to change lives. I know it is. And we're so ready. We're ready for a revolution around this.

And the other piece I love about the joy aspect is part of it.

Is loving ourselves in a different way that we just society hasn't really quite allowed.

That's right.

I think you're allowing for it now.

Thank you.

Thank you for coming on.

I so loved it. People, we want to hear from you. You say this every time. 200 and blip episodes.

But we.

Michelle, I know she's crashingly busy with her book launch, but you know you're going to see this on every social platform. Can you please tell us? Read the book. What did you get out of it?

Which of the traps are yours?

Give us a question. You know. All right, I figured it out, but I'm a little stuck. We would so love to help in any way we can and if Michelle can't answer directly, she has a resource for it. But now is the time. Let's make these changes and not bloody ourselves in the process. How about it? Thank you everyone. Thanks again, Michelle. I'm so excited for your book. Smashing success it's going to be and everyone thinking of you. Have a wonderful week and we will see you next time. Bye.

Thank you. Bye.

Thanks so much for joining us today. And please don't forget to check out finding brave.org for more programs, resources and tips. And tune in next time for your weekly dose of Finding Brave.