EP 3660 What we resist is often what we need

0:00Hey guys welcome to today's podcast today's episode. What we resist is often what we need. So I've been having, obviously I've conversation with people all the time, people I'm coaching and friends and people at workshops or chinotes or whatever. Corporate is all sorts of people and here's the thing that I notice over and over again. The thing that makes us the most frustrated, the thing that we're the most, we get angry about, the thing that we dig in and fight the most about, the thing where we refuse to capitulate the thing where we are stuck on our justifications, those are the things that we often need. So I was talking to someone recently about a particular circumstance in their life and they'll get really frustrated and angry about it and I'm like look here's the thing. I said from my perspective looking in a situation it's really simple. This is the behaviour that you are exhibiting these other decisions you are making. This is why they are not working for you. Hence why you

1:00creating the place in your life where there is problems. And for me it's an objective assessment because I'm outside your life for you it's subjective because you're inside it. I would suggest that the objective opinion or most things is normally the better opinion because just out of the sense of being able to see it from the outside. Objectivity is normally more powerful than subjectivity. But I'm also open to the fact that maybe I don't understand so explain it to me. These are explaining it to me. I'm like yeah there's flawed logic in that because of this, there's a challenge in that because of that. Oh yeah I can see why you would do that and I can see much of what they were sort of doing was justifying why they were in the position they were in, why they got stuck there, how it kept perpetuating, why it was hard to change, how it was going to take more time for them. And this is a really interesting one with people. I might do a podcast in that tomorrow actually which is about why do we think it's going to take so much time. And what I realised with them was the ultimate

2:02expression for this person of their situation was it was painful and they wanted to be different. But the difficulty in that for them is that they want it to be different in an easy way in the way they want it to be different. They want to take the action to make the decisions they want to take and they want to make. And they want it to be on their time frame and they don't want it to be difficult and they don't want it to have to be done something that's hard. And I'm amazed at how often people are trying to justify the existence of the problem for themselves and why it occurred. Rather than working on changing it, it was something my beautiful, my maristous soul was a master. We would talk about particular things like I'm mum do you see how you are making life so hard for yourself because of this mindset or attitude or this way of being yes I do but I've been like that for a long time and it's so hard to change you know and I don't know if I'll be able to change it. I'm like well when your predominant belief system around it is you've been engaging it for a long period of time so therefore it's harder to change. It's just a foundational belief system that makes it almost

3:03impossible to change that thing quickly because you have the opposite belief. So you would have to not only do the work necessary but you'd have to do the work necessary in the face of the opposite belief which is unlikely because people find it hard to do tough things even when they have a belief system that the tough things are the right thing for them to do. So you're putting yourself in a place where it's inherently very difficult for you to do what you need to do to get the result you want and she would just be baffled and to me it's really easy. If you believe it's fucking hard and it's going to take forever that's it. If you believe you can do it immediately you can do it and I've found I've trained my brain in such a way now over many years that I believe or something that I have over belief in. I can change that belief quite easily now in the presence of evidence that my belief has floored or there's a better way to think and that can be with anything. Relationships, money, friendships, jobs, whatever but the interesting thing for me is how often

4:06I come across people that are quite wedded to their ideas. Now rarely is it the people that pay me to coach them. It's very rarely my high performance coaching clients because they are people who are by nature of being willing to invest financially and timewise and effort into themselves. They are people who want change. So they are inherently far more open and willing to change. The people that the irony is the people that I will talk to who and help who are not my clients, who are not paying me are often the people that are the hardest to convince about doing the particular thing and I've always heard that really interesting and I think it's a very simple explanation. If you're someone who's willing to engage me as a professional and is willing to pay the money to go, hey, I'll come and work with you to change the things that I'm working my life, then you are willing to engage in a level of discomfort. The financial discomfort of investing in yourself, the time discomfort, the effort discomfort to change things, you're

5:07willing to engage in that. If you're someone who's my friend or a family member or someone who's closer to me, then you're doing that because it's an easy thing and one of the things that I'm absolutely rationalising back these days is how much effort I put into helping people that just because I can because I find those interactions are normally the most frustrating because the people that I'm helping just because I can and because I care about them are often the people that are the hardest to help because there's a different dynamic and they don't have the same investment in themselves. So someone who's decided for me as a professional who they don't have a relationship with that they want to engage with me as a client, they're like, I see this guy, I like what he's doing, I love the way that he's managing things I think he can help me and I'm willing to do that. So they're inherently more engaged in the process of their own change. Someone who's a friend of mine or a family member or whatever will have preconceived ideas about what I do or say of course there's a different relationship, there's a different

6:07level of vulnerability required, I look at it and think yeah well it makes sense to me why those people often have more trouble getting the result because they just are so wedded to their excuses and their justifications and it's sad because often they're the people close to me, my mum was absolutely an example of that. So what I find these days I just am less willing to just help people that are friends or family or whatever just because I can. I'll have some conversation but it will be very basic or go hey you really need to look at changing this and this and this and if they're like oh yeah no I don't think that's a problem I think it's something else I go cool no worries then don't you don't really need my help you go do you think because the fact I will love that person want them to change my mum's a great example I was so I so wanted her to be different and change for her say to be happier and have a better life which you said you wanted that it would become extremely frustrating I've spent a couple of those circumstances I've learnt through more recently right over the last year or two or I'm like oh wow I have spent way too much time and energy trying to get the change for people that I know

7:14well or know certainly more than I would know a client in the initial stage and those people are casually invested in their change they're not committed to it and their casual investment in the change is the problem because a casual investment in anything in this work in fitness in whatever doesn't change anything so I go ah that's been an absolute mistake of mine where I have someone who's like oh I really want to change this thing but I go you don't really because you're only probably engaging in the conversation because it's easy because I'm close to you I'm easily accessible if you had to go and find someone to help you do what you probably wouldn't do it it's just been a lesson for me no problems and no issues with it but I go you have make sense because the ideas we are wedded to the ideas that you are stuck on the thing you are justifying is probably the very thing that you need to change and the fact that you just want to spend time and money explaining to me why you're stuck in it is the very reason you're stuck in it because I don't care why you're stuck in it what I want to do is help you get out of it and for me

8:19I don't spend any time justifying why I do with it if I'm doing a thing in my life and then I go oh man this doesn't work like that like putting so much effort and energy in trying to help people who are close to me that actually are only casually motivated or inspired to change the minute I sort of clicked on that I was like oh fuck all right I'm gonna change that I don't go well you know I do it because I love them and I want to do I don't have a justification to go oh wow that doesn't work I've got to change it back change it and it isn't that easy because I will no doubt keep wanting to do that over and over and over in the future and have to keep catching myself and I'll do it with someone then I'll go that's right that's a mistake and I'll learn and it'll be very will not be a linear road road at all but I'm also not wedded to it I'm certainly not wedded to the excuses or the reasons I'm just like that doesn't work I'm gonna stop doing that until you have the attitude that doesn't work and I'm just gonna stop doing it until you don't need to justify or explain it until you're willing to acknowledge and you're like that you do things that are good for yourself and there may be very deep-seated and strong foundational reasons why

9:22you do it but they are irrelevant you just need to learn how to change a behaviour why you do it is something that you need to have a peripheral understanding of you do not need to go into the depth of it for me I go one of the things that I've understood romantic relationships because the way my mum was I've chosen partners who are a bit distant or who can be guarded and it doesn't matter how much I try to help them or do whatever normally I can't get to the point where I feel as though I'm helping them enough and it's just very simple because of the relationship with my mum now it took me years to work that out now I'm like oh well that was simple I won't do that again that's what it's about why don't you can identify the thing and you understand where it came from it's no need for me to go through 56 years of stories as to why I do it just stop fucking doing it the ideas and the behaviours we are wedded to and we want to justify and we want to explain to people are the ones we want to hold on to but they don't service have an epic day check tomorrow I hope you enjoyed this episode always remember if you want the results you have

10:30to do the work if you want to know more about how I can help you and my story go to thestronglifeproject.com