Discipline: Small Steps to Big Changes

This week, Richard & Fiona discuss the importance of discipline and consistency in achieving personal and professional goals, along with tips to maintain habits and overcome cognitive biases.

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Transcript

Richard: 0:09

Greetings everybody. It's another day and another episode of Therapy Natters for Natters for you all. if you're new Therapy Natters is a little sneaky peek into the world of psychotherapy with two therapists, Richard Nicholls and Fiona Biddle, who have both got half an hour or so to spare just for you. And If we don't have it spare, well, we're going to do it anyway. But I do have spare time. I'm here for you, if you're available for the next, well, I was going to say half an hour, but

Fiona: 0:42

We do often, yes, yes, we do tend to take a little bit longer, don't we? And that's editing out our mistakes as well, but, and some of our ramblings get edited out, but mostly we leave them in.

Richard: 0:55

I leave a lot of them in for the Evolve to Thrive members. I think they might sometimes get a good 40 minutes, maybe even 45 minutes,

Fiona: 1:03

And, and they get to see us. I don't know if that's a good thing.

Richard: 1:07

Yeah, absolutely. And with my I'm a typical bloke. I've probably got 20 shirts, 20, yeah, probably 20 shirts, some long sleeves, some short sleeves. And I wear three or four throughout the week, maybe, and a couple of t shirts. And I'll just chuck them in the wash, and the magic washing fairy washes them for me. And the magic ironing fairy irons them for me, my lovely lady wife, because that's not my skills. Play to your strengths, Rich. That's not them. she does that for me, you know, I do all the cooking and most of the cleaning and stuff like that. It's a, it works. But then those shirts just end up on the top of the pile and I just take those again. So I rotate for about four months the same four shirts. And then I'll notice what I've done and gone, What am I doing? Put those away. And then rotate through another four for a year until I look in my wardrobe and go, These are old.

Fiona: 2:08

Yeah.

Richard: 2:08

a blokey thing?

Fiona: 2:10

Well, I mean, I, I don't know. I, I certainly tend to have some things that I just wear over and over during a particular season. This top that I'm wearing today.'cause I, I had sort of thought I'd, I'd make a note of what I was wearing on these episodes, so I didn't wear the thing and, but then I, I sort of forgot to do it, but then I saw this in the cupboard and thought, oh, I definitely haven't worn that. I haven't worn that for ages. So I put that on. So, yes, it's similar, I guess. Have your favourites, don't you? And that's okay. I don't think anybody's going to object if we wear the same thing twice.

Richard: 2:43

Well, they shouldn't.

Fiona: 2:45

If they do, let us know and we'll, we'll refer you to we'll refer you to a good therapist.

Richard: 2:53

But we're a judgmental species and maybe that's just part of culture. The newspapers and lots of websites have been doing it for years with Royal Family particularly. Oh, look at her, she's wearing that dress again. She wore that at that BAFTA

Fiona: 3:09

But of course now it's considered a good thing. Whereas it used not to be considered a good thing. Now it's, it's they're reusing, so that's good. if I might find myself thinking it's pub quiz night so I'll, but I wore that last week and then I think what were the other people wearing last week and I haven't got a clue what they were wearing last week so why would they possibly know what I was wearing last week. So, it's, it is an odd thing, isn't it?

Richard: 3:37

you will always be the main character in your own story. And there's a cognitive bias at play that most of us will fall into, if not pretty much all of us, that we think we're more important, positively or negatively important, we're the focus of attention, more than we actually are. Because we aren't. We really aren't. There was a wonderful study. Quite funny, really, asking, always university students, because where else are you going to do studies? So you give a university student a t shirt with a funny slogan on, and the study I saw was one with a picture of Barry Manilow on it. So he's got this picture of Barry Manilow on his t shirt, and he has to simply go into a lecture room and give a note to the lecturer and then walk out then you just ask them on a scale of one to ten or something like that how noticeable did you think you were what sort of percentage of the room do you think noticed you? And they were consistently scoring high saying oh yes many people 70 percent 75 percent of people would notice me and when they then asked the students that were at the lecture Do you remember anybody coming in with a note? Some said yes. Many said no. Of the yes, did you notice what they were wearing? A huge majority said no. They didn't notice the Barry Manilow t shirt. Most of them didn't even notice that somebody had come in. Because we're not that important, actually.

Fiona: 5:01

We're not that important but there is, of course, the way you notice things subliminally. So, I mean, I watch a lot of court TV, I've probably said that a million times, but the lawyers pay a lot of attention to how they present themselves and how they get the defendant to appear,

Richard: 5:20

Hmm.

Fiona: 5:20

to try to have that subliminal influence on the jury.

Richard: 5:26

Uh, I get it. We've got to try and do the best we can if we're trying to make a good impression. But actually, I'm not sure how much of an influence we can really have over somebody's opinion of us. Usually people have made their mind up about somebody, well in advance, because of stereotypes, because of the time of day, because of how hungry they are, and we see that with judges, that

Fiona: 5:49

Yes, yeah,

Richard: 5:51

you get sent down for longer,

Fiona: 5:52

yeah.

Richard: 5:53

just because it was closer to lunchtime.

Fiona: 5:55

Well, there was, there was one where, the defendant was a 60 year old woman and every day, in court, she was wearing pearls. And the commentators were saying this isn't a good look. This is not a good look. Because she was looking too posh.

Richard: 6:12

Hmm,

Fiona: 6:13

She also didn't stand up for the jurors when they came in. Which is an American thing, everybody stands up for the jury. I don't know if they do it here or not.

Richard: 6:23

I don't know, I've only ever been to court once. That was horrible. What did you do? Speeding.

Fiona: 6:31

You actually, you actually had to go.

Richard: 6:34

Yeah, I had to go to Redditch. I was coming out of Birmingham from Kingsheath because I'd been lecturing for Nick Cook in Birmingham. And I wanted to get back to take Billy swimming. It was really little at the time and I was, I just tanked it there was a policeman on the bridge. I say policeman, I'm making an assumption here about the genitalia of the police officer, which is not very 21st century, but I think it was a policeman. With a radar gun got me. I managed to get it down to 97 when I spotted him. I know, I know, I know.

Fiona: 7:12

Well, that's probably why you had to go to court, because I don't think people usually do for speeding, do they?

Richard: 7:18

Well, they do at that speed, I

Fiona: 7:20

I think, yes, that's what I'm thinking.

Richard: 7:22

And I was so embarrassed. Really quite ashamed. But it was quite motivational. Because prior to that, I'd been on three speed awareness courses. And loved them. I love courses. I really did! They thought one they thought I was a plant

Fiona: 7:39

Oh,

Richard: 7:40

from the DVLA. Because I was answering the questions, and I was asking other questions, and I was encouraging people. I've been on a lot of CPD over the years. I already know all of this stuff, but I'm going to see what I can pick up anyway, just in case. And, um, yeah, despite the 3 speed awareness courses over 10 years or 15 years or whatever,

Fiona: 8:00

But you hadn't learnt?

Richard: 8:02

Not as much as standing there in court feeling like absolute crap and somebody saying you have no significant reason for driving at that speed, do you? No, no I don't. I, I, I really was, I I love public speaking. Me, the centre of attention, I love it.

Fiona: 8:25

No, no, yes, not in that case.

Richard: 8:27

But it really did motivate me to put my foot on the brake.

Fiona: 8:31

I remember hearing about the American, hypnotist Don Mottin telling a story. He used to be a policeman. But he said he wasn't a very good one and he gave the example of when he stopped somebody speeding and asked why he was going so fast and the guy said because he didn't want his pizza to go cold. and Don said, oh that's perfectly reasonable, off you go then.

Richard: 8:53

that's not a good reason. There are no good, well of course there are good reasons, there are always exceptions, but on the whole, wanting to get back to take your son swimming,

Fiona: 9:03

It's not one, no, no. And it's also, I mean I remember doing some, calculations on this when I was working with a client who wanted to be able to slow down his driving. and he sort of knew he had to, but he was doing a lot of driving and he was saying that, I'd lose so much time, so I just did a bit of calculations of the amount of time he would save. I remember it was driving from Loughborough to Exeter. He'd save something like 10 minutes if he stuck to the speed limit. So what's the point?

Richard: 9:34

yeah. it genuinely did change my driving habits, that experience. It was a wake up call. It really was, to say, don't take the mick. Dawn to say, you've got a very heavy right foot. And I, yeah, not anymore, really not anymore. I do deliberately drive, sometimes quite under the speed limit on the motorway. I'll go into the very left hand lane and just stay there and it, use the cruise it gets to 65 or something, I think, I suppose I could overtake. If I'm driving down to Chichester to see my son or something. And, um, I think, well, there's no point. And there isn't. But it makes life so much easier. When you, you see people weaving in and out of the lanes, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. And you think, well, you're not going to get there any quicker. They will a bit, but they're not going to get there very much quicker, compared to the amount of pain they go through and stress that they go through. And danger that they put themselves and others in. So, yeah. changed my attitude over the last few years. Really, really have. But I had to have that experience, I think, as a wake up call to go look you have a choice of how to be how to live. Because that became a very much mindset of mine then that just take it easy.

Fiona: 10:50

You can choose the things that you rush. I mean, I've said this before, I know I'm a very strong hurry up driver. If I want to do something I want to do it now. I don't want to wait a fortnight to do whatever it is I've just decided to do. So, I definitely have a get on with it thing, but you can get on with things slowly you don't have to rush everything.

Richard: 11:15

And if that's the way somebody wants to be, in fact, however somebody wants to be, it takes deliberate practice. It means being that person that you want to be until it feels natural to be that person. We can't suddenly become confident. We can't suddenly have no anxiety about being the centre of attention. We have to do something that makes us anxious. And we do it again, and again, and again, and again, until, eh, this has come down now, it's not so bad. Well, what do you need to do to feel anxious then? It needs to ramp up a bit more, so you stretch your comfort zone. And that has to be done on a daily, on a daily practice, really.

Fiona: 12:05

I do agree with you, but I do also think that there are times when things can be quite easily fixed. If they're, well, simple, I guess. Because that's the difference, isn't it? So, If somebody was having a lack of confidence in school, they were feeling a lack of confidence in a particular subject, but their marks were absolutely fine. Could just need somebody saying to them, Just look at this for a minute. Look at where you are. Look at how you're doing. Realising you haven't learnt everything yet, because that's what you're doing. You're learning something, so you haven't got to the end. So where you are is perfectly fine for where you'd expect to be. So, could you not just let that go, that feeling of lack of confidence? And sometimes people do just go, yeah, of course, it's fine. So, it can,

Richard: 12:55

Yeah, of course

Fiona: 12:55

it can.

Richard: 12:56

Yeah, I guess, my world, because I'm not a coach, I'm a, I'm a therapist, My world is filtered with people who have already had those examples of, look, but here's the evidence that you can. And there's always a cognitive bias there that says, well, I must have fluked it then. That was an accident. That was luck. I was just lucky. No you weren't lucky. It was, it was done through hard work. Yeah, but I'm useless. And it's difficult to change their beliefs.

Fiona: 13:24

Well, it can be difficult to change their beliefs, absolutely. I remember, thinking that a real, real life client who came to me with a fear of heights, thinking of simple fix. I just pointed out at the beginning of this that he was talking about examples of when that occurred. And I just said what I thought was just stating the obvious, which is, well, you do realize that fear of heights is actually a fear of falling. And he went, oh, oh, never thought of that. We didn't have to do anything else. We did, we still did the ritual, the hypnotherapy.'cause that's what he was there for and he was paying for, we still did it. but then It was just embedding that.

Richard: 14:09

Sometimes it is just a little nudge that sends us in a particular direction that is all we need. This attitude falls into so many different categories, But we've got to keep ourselves on that path. If somebody wants to get healthier for example there are things they've got to stick at

Fiona: 14:26

Yeah, I mean, we talked last time about creating a habit, but once you've done it, you've got to then keep going, keep the habit. And, physical health things that you do, you can't just do them once. I've never been much of a gardener, but part of it is, well, you've done the weeding, now you have to do it again? That doesn't seem fair, but it's fine in other areas of life. But if you want a decent garden, you've got to keep at it.

Richard: 14:53

Yeah.

Fiona: 14:54

If you want a clean house, you've got to keep at it. If you want a tidy house, you've got to keep at it.

Richard: 14:59

Most things need a daily practice. Whether you're learning a new skill, like the piano, or the violin, which is apparently a very tricky instrument to practice. Try and find somewhere where you're on your own and there's nobody about if you're going to be learning that. But it needs to be done every day. You can't just put it down for a week and come back and go, well, I'll just do it before my lesson. You'll be having those music lessons the rest of your life and you'll never improve. It needs discipline.

Fiona: 15:32

Yeah, but there's also the element of doing the right thing because sometimes we do the wrong things Entrepreneur's Circle, which I've mentioned on here before, I think, they make the point that if say you've got an accountancy business, you need to be spending your time on two things. One, accountancy, and secondly, building your business. What you don't need to be doing is spending your time on bookkeeping. You can pay somebody to do the bookkeeping. So you pay somebody to do the bits that you don't need to do, that don't need your specialist skills. And put your energy into the right things. But you then mustn't forget the little things. There's this guy, on the course that I went to, he was an electrician.

Richard: 16:25

hmm.

Fiona: 16:25

he so enjoyed doing the marketing, which is why he's then come to work for Entrepreneur's Circle. He so enjoyed doing the marketing that he got annoyed when he got electrician-y clients because he didn't want to do that bit.

Richard: 16:38

Ah, that tells you something. That wasn't giving him enough joy in his life. Whereas the marketing stuff, there was more pride in that. Whereas for some it would be the other way around.

Fiona: 16:48

exactly.

Richard: 16:48

But you've got to live your life to know.

Fiona: 16:51

Stephen Bartlett, you know, the diary of a CEO guy.

Richard: 16:56

The Huel fan.

Fiona: 16:58

Yes, he's gotten in trouble lately, hasn't he, for advertising too many, physical health products. Yes. But in the Diary of the CEO, he's got 33 laws of business and life. Well, I think that's part of the title. But number 19 is that you must sweat the small stuff which is in contrast to the book by Richard Carlson which is don't sweat the small stuff but that's actually not that dissimilar because Richard Carlson's idea was it's about perspective so you've got to make sure that there aren't holes that things are falling through because Bartlett says that a small task that is easy to complete is also easy to skip.

Richard: 17:41

Yeah, don't forget the small stuff, I suppose, is a better way of thinking about it, yes.

Fiona: 17:47

guess what? It's about awareness haha, funny

Richard: 17:51

yourself and so on, yes.

Fiona: 17:53

and for goal setting, getting to know what that goal really means in depth. So, in the Evolve to Thrive document about what we're talking about today, discipline, got a couple of examples Shall I tell them?

Richard: 18:06

go for it.

Fiona: 18:07

One is the example of Heather, who's a hairdresser. She didn't want to do online bookings due to a fear of being out of control. And the fear of being disciplined is actually something we perhaps need to talk about. But she wasn't also happy with technology generally. Obviously she couldn't really answer the phone in the middle of doing somebody's blow dry. That wouldn't go down very well. So she was finding that clients would just not leave a message or by the time she called them back they'd booked somewhere else and so on. And when asked about it, she admitted that she'd regularly wait 24 hours before returning the call. and so all she had to do talking about concentrating on the small stuff, was set a five minute gap between each client and in that five minutes return the calls. Every time always return the calls.

Richard: 19:07

it every time, it becomes a habit, it becomes second nature. It becomes, well, this is just what I do. You can then tackle then the underlying stuff that might be kicking around because you can hear the voice in your head then that says, well there's no point replying to this email or returning this phone call because they probably don't want me anyway because I'm rubbish. And then you can look at that and go, oh that's what's going on. Like you say, it's awareness.

Fiona: 19:32

Moving beyond the excuses and that fear. Yeah, so her, her expressed fears of being out of control and so on weren't the genuine fears. The other example I've got was a guy named him Ken, who set a goal to run a marathon within 12 months from a standing start. So he decided he'd run four times a week and go to the gym three times. Created his schedule, building up his strength and stamina, sets, repetitions, weights, etc. But then he realised that he kept stopping before he'd reached that chosen number. And realised that his thought pattern was, well that's enough now, another ten won't make a difference, and I deserve to stop. So he recognised that it was a lack of discipline, and he was sort of treating himself on a very regular basis. But by treating himself, he was actually cheating himself. Because he wasn't doing what he had chosen to do to meet the goal that he had set that he wanted to achieve.

Richard: 20:40

Setting himself up for a great deal of pain when he does do the marathon. Because, oh, I'm, my body isn't used to feeling this much discomfort. Some runners would say that if you can run 10k, you can run a marathon. Because once you get that uncomfortable that the 10, that 10k would bring you, you just live in that discomfort for the rest of the day, for the rest of the race. But you've got to be in that level of discomfort. You've got to get to that point and it is just monitoring your breathing keeping a pace and just keeping it up one step at a time. Bang, bang, bang, But you've got to be okay with being uncomfortable. You can't cut it short unfortunately.

Fiona: 21:23

Lots of things that are good are painful, and if you want to achieve that goal, you've got to be willing to go through it, and that can be physical pain as in running a marathon, physical pain as in going to the dentist or going to an osteopath, as I'm about to. and I know it's going to hurt, but it's got to hurt to make it better. But it also, it does apply to psychological stuff as well. Working through, past traumas can be traumas with a little t as well as with a big T. Just things that have not been perfect in life can be painful. But you get through the other side and the benefits there.

Richard: 22:06

Hmm. Why might people not try? And that's a question we have to ask ourselves. This is who I want to be. Well, why you not able to do it before now? What has stopped you? And if you can identify those goal blocks then you know what you're dealing with. You know what to say to yourself. But I think it needs, like we talked about, we've talked about smart goals or realistic goals, particularly achievable goals. Everything we set has to be achievable, otherwise what's the point? But we have to know, this is genuine, I do want to do this, and this is real to me. This isn't a half baked idea, whatever somebody's idea might be. Whether it's to, I don't know, write a book, or learn to sing. I was thinking about that psychologist who learning to sing, I was telling you about earlier on. I went to make a cup of tea before we started recording. As I was making the tea, I was sort of singing to myself. Not particularly well, just humming, really. Just wandering around the kitchen going, Hop a doop a doo. More like Swedish Chef, really, to be fair. Hop a doop a doop a doo. And I thought, I'd love to be able to sing. cos I can speak You can't shut me up. And I do a lot of vocal performing. I do a lot of theatre stuff. So I know how to use my voice. But not in a way that's pleasant to listen to. Not in a singing way,

Fiona: 23:42

Well, why don't you?

Richard: 23:44

Because I don't value it. Oh, no, actually. Oh, I value so much. I'm trying to learn Welsh. I'm trying to learn the guitar. I've got two different

Fiona: 23:51

Well, you could learn to sing in Welsh whilst playing the guitar,

Richard: 23:54

That's a very Welsh thing to do.

Fiona: 23:59

You've given one of the answers to your question of why don't people, don't value it enough and if, if I was, if you say to me why don't you try to learn to sing, note the try in there, it's because I don't believe I could. My husband's aunt was a singing teacher and she always said she could teach anybody to sing. Noticably she didn't try. But of course that'll be because I didn't ask her to. But you see, I don't, I didn't interpret it as that it was because I didn't ask her to. I thought well I must be the exception. I was the exception to a guy I knew when I was a kid. He was a lecturer at the college where I lived, and he was a swimming coach, and he did say that I was the only person who he'd failed with. I mean, I can swim, but I can't swim properly. I can't do front crawl and breathe. I have to choose one or the other.

Richard: 24:58

Okay.

Fiona: 25:00

So, on that, you know, he didn't help by saying that he'd failed.

Richard: 25:04

But just because anybody learn how to sing, or anybody could learn how to musical instrument, doesn't you have to. Even if you say, well if I had an infinite amount of wishes, then yeah, I'd use one of them to give me a good singing voice. But we don't have wishes to do that, we've got to put the work in. Do you value the amount of work you've got to put in to achieve your goals?

Fiona: 25:28

I sing in the car. I used to sing in the car when the boys were with me, when they were little, and they were quite old before they started to object. I mean, I'd say sort of late teens before they started to object. Because they were belting it out as well, you know, Patience and by Take That, those sorts of things. James Blunt. Yeah, we would absolutely, we'd really go for it. And now I'm singing to Rory. And he hasn't, he hasn't burst into tears at my singing yet.

Richard: 25:57

Yet.

Fiona: 25:57

Yet. Well, there's time. He's only six months old. But, but I, yeah.

Richard: 26:03

says, that's enough now Nan,

Fiona: 26:04

Well, yeah, Nonni. But yeah, he probably will, if he's got any sense. But, you know, it doesn't matter, does it? It, you know, a baby isn't listening to how good a singer you are. He was looking for the interactions and the intonations and the facial expressions and all of these, Yeah. The attunement with the baby.

Richard: 26:27

You are in tune. And I don't know how true it is, but I think the word to be attuned, that comes out of attachment theory psychology. We never used it before then. Again my world is filtered with psychological stuff, but now people do use that word. That we are tuned in.

Fiona: 26:50

Probably attunement is more of a psychological profession y word, but we certainly say you're tuned in to somebody else. Oh

Richard: 26:58

Only since we invented radio.

Fiona: 27:00

Yeah, oh yeah,

Richard: 27:01

That's how language works and evolves and the meaning behind it all. Well, find a word for you. Find what you need. Because everybody's got their own unique way of seeing themselves and the world and what they need. And even if it's just a silly catchphrase or a mantra that you say to yourself to get you going, as long as the meaning behind it is, this is valuable, this is worthwhile doing. Whether it's 10 minutes doing Pilates in the morning because you want to avoid a hip replacement in 20 years time. Do you want a hip replacement in 20 years time? Or do you want to spend 10 minutes doing Pilates before you start work? Because I've mentioned that a few times on my Patreon, podcast. And occasionally somebody then will email me and go, Thank you, because I keep forgetting how beneficial doing that is for me. But my body is in so much better condition if I do that. But the mistakes people make, is they notice improvement in their physical or mental health because they've been doing something like meditation or yoga or something then they're feeling a lot better about themselves so they

Fiona: 28:08

stop doing it.

Richard: 28:10

and within six months they're back to who they were. I'm just as miserable or sad or depressed or lonely or whatever. I'm feeling just like I was before. You gotta stick at it unfortunately.

Fiona: 28:22

the other thing that springs to mind then is how I've heard this so many times with clients, but I've also done it myself, is that it's always tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow. I'll start tomorrow. Yeah, yeah. Well, not today, because I've already done such and such. I was going to do it first thing in the morning, and now it's ten o'clock, so I can't do it today. So, I'll start tomorrow.

Richard: 28:44

Yeah, well, Nike had the right attitude that yesterday, you said tomorrow.

Fiona: 28:51

Tomorrow never comes. That's another advertising slogan or something, isn't it?

Richard: 28:55

Somebody's,

Fiona: 28:56

Somebody's, So, in the spirit of being disciplined, perhaps we ought to finish sort of vaguely on time.

Richard: 29:04

I think that would be a good idea for once. So, we'll be off for another week. If you need us, you know where to find us. Links to all of our contact details are splattered all over the notes and descriptions and all over the website. You can sign up for Evolve to Thrive, you can message us that way. You can send us WhatsApp messages, you can email us, you can SMS text us, you can open a window and sing to us, and if it sounds good enough, we'll sing back at you. But Fiona won't.

Fiona: 29:36

No. You don't want that. No. Oh, I ought to try autotune sometime. I've heard about it.

Richard: 29:42

Let's do it!

Fiona: 29:45

No, don't value it enough.

Richard: 29:49

No, let's, let's stick to what we're good at. Play to our strengths. And hopefully that's making half an hour or so podcast episodes for you. And we'll be back next week with another one. And I can't remember what we're talking about, but it follows on from this one very nicely. I know that

Fiona: 30:02

yes, we're into month four already. I don't know how that's happened.

Richard: 30:07

That's come round

Fiona: 30:08

Time! Yes,

Richard: 30:10

Alright. Well, we'll leave you to it. If you need us, you know where we are. Love you all. Speak to you soon.

Fiona: 30:16

Bye!