#575： Counterintuitive Advice on Making Exercise a Sustainable Habit
Episode Stats
Summary
Why is it so hard to make exercise a habit? And more importantly, what can we do to make it stick? My guest today argues that more willpower and discipline isn t the answer. Instead, you need to completely change the way you think about exercise. Her name is Michelle Seeger and she s a behavioral scientist and the author of No Sweat: How the Simple Science of Motivation Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast. It's a new
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year and like many people, you may have set a goal to exercise more regularly, but like
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most people, you've set this goal before only to give up on it after a few weeks. Why is
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it so hard to make exercise a habit? And more importantly, what can we do to make it stick?
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My guest today argues that more willpower and discipline isn't the answer. Instead, you
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need to completely change the way you think about exercise. Her name is Michelle Seeger
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and she's a behavioral scientist and the author of No Sweat, How the Simple Science of Motivation
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Can Bring You a Lifetime of Fitness. We begin our conversation discussing Michelle's counterintuitive
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finding that common reasons for exercising like losing weight or even getting healthier
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aren't effective motivations. And she shares research on how our ideas of what exercise
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should look like as well as the propensity towards an all or nothing mindset also set us
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up for failure. We then discuss why sheer discipline isn't very effective for staying on track either
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and why exercise needs to have an immediately positive impact on our lives if we want to
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stick with it. Michelle and I spend the rest of our conversation discussing the research-backed
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framework she's developed to help people make exercise a sustainable habit, which includes
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less emphasis on willpower and more on changing the meaning you lend to physical activity and
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its priority in your life. After the show's over, check out our show notes at
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aom.is slash no sweat. All right, Michelle Seeger, welcome to the show.
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It's great to be here. So you are a behavioral scientist and you spent your career focusing
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on how to help people make exercise a sustainable habit. And this is a new year, but I know a lot
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of people are making resolutions to exercise more. And I think people have said that every
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year and it never works out the way they want to. I mean, do you know, like with your research,
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what's the success or failure rate of most exercise or health goals that people set for themselves?
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You know, I've worked with people with exercise goals, with healthy eating goals, with sleep goals,
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and the statistics I know refer specifically to physical activity. And in general, by six months,
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most people have discontinued their planned exercise. However, when it comes to resolutions,
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I'm not an expert on this topic, but my understanding is it's much shorter that people
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drop their resolutions, probably most people within six to eight weeks.
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And why do the vast majority of fitness or exercise or healthy eating goals, why do they
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It could be New Year's. It could be just goals that people set for themselves in general.
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Sure. Well, I think the same thing happens in both cases. And I call it the motivation bubble.
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When people decide they're going to change their health behavior in some way, whether it's
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start exercising or changing their eating, it's their commitment and declaration and decisions
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and purchases and all the things that they do occur in this bubble of high intensity motivation.
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And it could be because of New Year's resolutions. It could be because their spouse is pestering them.
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It could be because their doctor's warning them about prediabetes. Whatever it is,
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it happens within this high motivation bubble. And as the name implies, we're all really motivated
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in that bubble. The problem is that once real life hits, whether it's an unexpected urgent work
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deadline or the call from school saying that your child is sick and you have to pick them up,
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whatever the unexpected thing is, it puts a hole in the bubble. And often it bursts the bubble because
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we have this all or nothing thinking when it comes to these behaviors. And so we feel like we've been
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taught to feel like when we miss one of our planned sessions, when we didn't eat exactly as we had planned
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to, we messed up. And, you know, it bursts the bubble. Um, and then, you know, all hell breaks
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loose, if you will. The other thing that happens is that oftentimes we aren't aware of this, but
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oftentimes our motivation for initiating things, which is part of that kind of gets us in the motivation
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bubble is actually contaminated. And we're not aware of it. Most, and I would say for most people,
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our motivation is contaminated when it comes to exercise or changing our dietary habits.
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And what I mean by that is coming out of self-determination theory, if we're initiating
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a behavior because we think we should do it, we've bought into the societal norms. We've bought into
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the notion, oh yeah, I should drop that 20 pounds or, oh yeah, my doctor's right. Or, oh, swimsuit,
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swimming suit season is coming. I need to look buff or whatever it is.
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Those motives are often contaminated by a sense of obligation, a sense of I'm not good enough the
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way I am. And I would say without fail, most of the time that contamination also can be what
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bursts our motivation bubble because research on dissonance theory shows that we are motivated
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to actually rebel against the things that we feel take away our freedom. So if we feel like we should
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exercise, then gosh darn it, I'm not going to. Or if we feel like we shouldn't eat the chocolate
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cake, gosh darn it, I'm going to. And so that's a big part of the phenomenon too.
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Well, I thought that was interesting in your book, No Sweat, talking about the goals are
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contaminated. Even like goals, not even goals like I want to look better in a bathing suit,
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but like goals like I need to lose some weight so I can get a control of my pre-diabetes or I need to
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exercise more so I don't have another heart attack. Even those goals can backfire.
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It's so counterintuitive. You know, when I started researching this topic, you know, which was
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back in 1994, I had assumed that when people initiated a lifestyle change for health-related
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reasons, whether it, you know, whether it was for current health or future health, that those were
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somehow pure motives and they should be really effective because wow, what's more important than
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our health? And then my colleagues and I conducted a study and we were really surprised to see that
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people's motivational profile and how much they exercised were very similar to the participants
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who were exercising to lose weight. And, you know, we already knew from other research that
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weight, you know, weight loss and body shaping is not a motivation that keeps most people motivated
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for the long-term. But when we saw health, we were like, oh my gosh, how can that be? You know,
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I really, I looked at these data with disbelief, but after, you know, looking more into other
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literatures and thinking more about it, and by the way, that's the beauty of research is that when what
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you hypothesize doesn't turn out to be as expected, it forces you to think more deeply about your
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assumptions and, you know, the way you think the world works. And that's what happened in this case,
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because once we looked into it, it was clear that, you know, while health seemed like a really
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relevant motive, when it comes down to it, A, we can feel pressured to boost our health for, you know,
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in our society, people feel pressured to do healthy things. It's kind of a moral imperative,
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if you will, you know, just as a cultural norm, it, it, we feel pressured by our doctors. We feel
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pressured by our families. We feel pressured by our employers. So there's a lot of pressure in there,
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which, you know, undermines high quality staple motivation, as well as motivating us to rebel
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often. But the other, and I think this might've been, if not equal, it's at least equal, if not greater.
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The other problem with initiating a quote unquote healthy behavior, you know, to boost health is
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that we, we live very busy, overly busy, full hectic lives. And if you make a list of the urgent
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compelling things that you have to get done every day, you know, health in theory is, is important,
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but it's not necessarily urgent or relevant today. And so it winds up not having what I call goal clout
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in that it, it just doesn't have the clout to cut through the other things that we actually don't
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have a choice about doing. Well, yeah, that makes sense. I mean, like a goal, like getting healthier,
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like you can't really see it, right? Like you can't tell, well, is my blood sugar down? Well,
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I can maybe check my blood sugar, but it's not like, like I get my kids, like not, not that concrete.
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So it just gets pushed to the back burner. And that's part of it, but it's also,
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it's also more than that because it's not just, I mean, yes, we need feedback to keep striving
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towards our goals, but you know, on a daily basis, if you say, you know, how relevant is,
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is exercising for better health compared to all these other things. And all the, we don't have
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time to do all these other things, let alone add a behavior that doesn't make the list of the top 10.
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Well, and besides goals being contaminated or goals we set for exercise, how can people's ideas
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Well, in addition to the goal topic that we've already talked about, you know, if we're aiming
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for future goals, like better health or weight loss, or, you know, what another future oriented
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goal, we know research shows that people are much more motivated by immediate rewards, AKA how do I feel
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right now, as opposed to goal rewards, we have to wait for dropping 30 pounds in six months or
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avoiding disease, uh, diabetes at a certain point. So that's one thing. The other thing that really
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gets in the way is people's beliefs about what constitutes a valid session of exercise or a, you know,
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a good enough eating experience or eating choices. They're often, you know, overly lofty and ambitious
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and it really prevents us from doing anything. So if in order to successfully, you know, exercise or be a
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healthy eater, I have to achieve X, Y, and Z, and I can only achieve X, then why bother? So that's a really
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big thing. And, you know, it's no one's fault that they, that we have these beliefs because as a society, we have
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been socialized to have an all or nothing perspective on these topics, but that's a big reason people
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don't stick with it. Yeah. I mean, something that you talk about in the book is that people have this
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idea that exercise has to be hard. Like if you don't work up a good sweat and you don't feel like
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you're thrashed at the end of it, well, that doesn't count. That's exactly right. And you know, what most
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people don't know, and even when people know this, it's still very hard to change these beliefs because
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they've been embedded for decades. But in 2018, in November, 2018, the national, the physical
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activity guidelines were changed to restate something that they had basically originally
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said in 1996, which was that you can accumulate physical activity during the day and everything
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counts, everything. And I think, you know, knowing that science is really important for people to know
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this isn't just a, gee, wouldn't it be nice if everything counted? And, you know, my walk down
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the block with my dog that takes, you know, five minutes total, that doesn't really count, but it
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does. And, and I think what I found in my coaching with individuals is that once people do start to
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believe this, that they actually discover that they're doing things that count, which makes them feel
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good and confident, which motivates them to do more, which makes them feel even better. And, and then
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once people feel comfortable and confident that they can be successful this way, they actually wind up
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doing more and they often graduate to a next level, which might be, you know, fast walking or going or
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joining a gym. But we need to give people permission, just like people do in kindergarten. Let's get
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successful on the little stuff and then let's graduate. And, you know, by the way, as you
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probably know, that's not, that's not a new message. Start small. That's, you know, common
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knowledge and education and, you know, everyone's kind of talking about it and it's not new. The
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problem is people still have trouble starting small and it's because of the reasons, you know,
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Well, so you talked about how we've been socialized to one thing that you should exercise for
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specific reasons, right? It's like a, it's an external motivator put on you. So it feels like
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a should, we have these ideas of what exercise is that's been socializing, but people would hear
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this. Okay. So yeah, that's what motive, that's what discipline, that's what willpower is for.
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If you can't stick to the goal, it just means you don't have enough willpower or discipline,
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but you make the case that willpower and discipline aren't enough to overcome our inability to
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Well, it's, I would say that it's more than they're not enough. It's that the way our brain
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works, we, we have a finite amount. And while, you know, there is some research that shows that,
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you know, people can increase their self-control, it's also hardwired to a great extent. And so
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if there's a finite amount of willpower and discipline, then, you know, banking on that as
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your, as your driver is, is not a very good idea. And the other thing is inherent in needing to use
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willpower and discipline is that you really don't want to do it. So why not flip that on its head and
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figure out how to do things in ways that if they're not pleasurable, they're palatable,
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and you deeply understand the immediate value of your choices, not only to yourself and your mood
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and your energy level, but the domino effect that those things have on the rest of your life,
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like your family and how you talk to your kids and your partner and how much energy and enthusiasm
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So in your research, you've developed an approach to sustainable exercise, sustainable
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physical activity, and you've developed this program called MAPS, which is an acronym for
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Meaning, Awareness, Permission, and Strategy. And you use this with clients when you coach them.
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Let's dig into this, like this meaning component of MAPS. When you start off working with a client,
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like you ask them what exercise means to them, what are the most common answers you get to that
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question? Well, I start with this very broad categorization that I found to be very helpful
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that people really resonate with. And I ask people on a scale from one to five, one being a chore to
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five being a gift, you know, where do you sit on that continuum? That's really the beginning of the
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whole process. And, you know, if someone's coming to me, then most likely they're a one or a two,
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which is exercise feels like a chore. And then that's the perfect entree into, well,
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why does it feel like a chore? And then, you know, people explain the reasons why, and it might be,
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I hate to run or I feel really uncomfortable in the gym. And, and those are, then you can say, well,
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why are you choosing that? Or what about being in the gym makes you uncomfortable? And so
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what you want people to do is to start to develop self-awareness about what deep down underneath the
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word physical activity or exercise, what does it mean to you? You know, it's a chore, if it's a chore
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or a gift and just getting people to assess that can be very eyeopening.
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And how does starting off, you know, an exercise goal with a faulty meaning, right? How can that
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create what you call the vicious cycle of failure? So first off, I guess the question is like, what
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does this vicious cycle of failure look like? And then how does starting off with a bad meaning
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Sure. So the vicious cycle of failure keeps you stuck. It's vicious because it harms people. It prevents
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them from being active in ways that would benefit them. And it makes people feel bad about themselves.
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So it's vicious in that way. It's the second way it's vicious is that we can't escape it. So the way
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it starts is what I call the wrong why. And, and nothing is inherently wrong motivationally unless A,
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it doesn't work for you. B, it makes you feel bad about yourself. And C, if research shows that it's
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actually not going to work for you because there's research about that. And so what happens is, is
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that, and I consider wrong whys to be things like, you know, focusing on weight loss, far away health
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goals, that sort of thing. What happens when you start with the wrong why, the beginning of the
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vicious cycle means that it feels like a chore from the get-go, from the get-go. And it doesn't,
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but the important thing about the cycle is it does get you motivated to start. And, you know,
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I'm just going to link back to my comment about the motivation bubble. It does get you to start
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in your motivation bubble, but eventually most people drop out or the bubble bursts and that,
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you know, they feel like failures, life gets too busy, whatever it is. And they, you know,
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they may stop for two weeks, two months, or two years, but eventually when they start again,
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it's always in search of the next wrong why. And that keep, that's what keeps us stuck in the
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vicious cycle. And, you know, the wrong whys are on magazine covers. They're the messages we might
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get from our employers that make us feel pressured. I mean, whatever it is, but you stay stuck. And it's
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because that's the only system we've learned in society. Yeah. And I think we've all experienced
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that vicious cycle of failure, right? You start off with this, these good, what do you think are good
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intentions? They're probably, there are good intentions. Yeah. You fail, then you feel worse,
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which kind of demotivates you for a little bit. You can kind of go through that trough. You're like,
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I just, I'm not good at anything. It's never going to happen. And then you kind of
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flagellate yourself to get back on the track and then it just goes over and over and over again.
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Exactly. And so when you work with clients and you're helping them figure out the meaning of
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exercise to them, like how do you, what's, what works, what have you found works for meaning? So
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you don't start this vicious cycle of failure. Well, the way that you, so the meaning, the way
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that I mean it, the way that I've come to understand it is that the meaning, your meaning
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of exercise, whether it's a chore or a gift is determined by number one, the reason why you're
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doing it, your goal or motive. And we've talked about that already. But the second is, the second
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part of meaning is, is created by the experiences you have while being active. So if you're
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exercising in a way that you're exhausted, you're too tired to do, but you force yourself to do it,
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you know, some people might think that's a good thing. And some people do power through those,
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you know, that punishing type of feeling. And if it works for them, great. A lot of other people,
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it creates such a bad feeling that it actually, you know, creates a negative association with
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exercise and unconsciously you want to avoid it. So the way you help someone create a new meaning,
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which I talk about extensively, the steps in my book is you want to start to have positive
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experiences with physical activity. You want them to, to not only have positive experience with
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physical activity, you want them to start linking their reason for doing it, which would, you know,
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research shows is literally, it's better if the reasons are about immediate benefits versus these
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distal, you know, health-related logical goals. And if we're aiming for something positive now,
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then we have to make sure that our physical activity delivers that. So it's working with
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both of those things kind of synergistically get people to change their meanings.
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Yeah. So it sounds like you're, you're, you're trying to help clients find
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physical activity that they actually enjoy doing just for the thing itself.
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Well, enjoyment is a specific word. And, you know, a lot of people use that word, I think,
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because we don't want, you know, I don't think exercise is enjoyable, you know, for everyone.
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And what, you know, what I say is that we want to help people have some type of positive experience,
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or at least not a negative one. I mean, I've worked with people who say, who say,
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you know, I just don't feel anything, Michelle. And, you know, at the beginning process of getting
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in touch with how we feel, some people don't even feel it. And it's because we've been taught to be
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disconnected from our bodies, whether it comes to eating or exercise. So it can be a process, but
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at least it's not negative. So, so for example, I like to walk outside. I wouldn't say I enjoy walking
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outside. I might say it feels good to walk outside. It lifts my mood to walk outside or it energizes me.
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So I think what we want to do is offer up kind of a menu of, of potential benefits and rewards from
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moving that then people can, you know, pick their own.
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We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors. And now back to the show.
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And this also means broadening the scope of what people consider exercise, because oftentimes
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people narrow in, like it's either running on a treadmill, it's doing like CrossFit, it is doing,
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you know, some sort of weightlifting program and that's it. But there are other things they could
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do that could provide benefit, but they don't think about it because they've never even considered
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an option. That's right. That's exactly right. And it gets back to something that we were talking
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about earlier, which is that the physical activity guidelines, you know, officially says everything
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counts and anything is better than nothing. And, but because we've been, you know, I will use this
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very intense word. We've been brainwashed that we, you know, have to do it in the way that you just said
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that it's very hard to become unbrainwashed, but that is why, you know, I think that's why I developed
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the process I did because I think we need to give people an opportunity. I call it exorcising
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exercise. We want to give people a chance to toss out the beliefs and attitudes and practices that,
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you know, they discover are in there really getting in their way. And that's, you know, that's why,
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you know, I use a process. I don't think it's enough to just say change your beliefs, develop a new
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mindset because there's this contaminated heavy stuff below the surface of our consciousness that
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if we don't address it and basically burn through it, let it evaporate, let it out,
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it's always going to be below the surface. So even if you try some of the strategies we're talking about,
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like starting small, if you don't address the negativity, the shoulds, the resentment,
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the punishing meaning you have for that five minutes, those things are going to rear their
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ugly heads and get in the way. No, one of the reasons why you're, when I found your book and
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I read it and it resonated with me is because I, my experience, it synced up with what you were
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talking about. So, you know, for years I had tried different exercise modalities, like I should
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exercise, I need to do this. So I tried running that lasted, you know, a month or two. I tried different
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weightlifting things with like dumbbells and things. Didn't enjoy it. Tried a CrossFit thing. That
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didn't last for very long. But then like three or four years ago, I discovered like barbell training
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and I like, I really enjoy this. And I, like, I, I've, I've, in the past four years, I've missed
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maybe a handful of workouts and it's not because like I I'm disciplined. It's like, I, I look forward
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to it. It's like, I, I enjoy moving my body in that way. And it, it's funny. It took me like
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almost a decade to figure that out. And just that idea of like, I enjoy moving my body. It's not
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unpleasant. I mean, it's unpleasant in a different way, but it's not like I dread doing it. It's
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helped me sustain this, this modality that I do. And you said it took 10 years, but you know,
00:25:36.520
when you think about the majority of the population, you're way ahead of the game,
00:25:39.920
you know, and I do want to say this, I don't know if I've ever said this before, but you know,
00:25:44.540
I think this is a really good analogy in some ways, you know, when you do something intense,
00:25:49.860
like you're talking about, cause it is pretty intense, right? Yes, it can be. Yeah. Okay. And
00:25:54.840
what is, I'm trying to think of the name of, oh, um, it's very quick, high intensity. Oh,
00:26:03.820
I don't know. Oh yeah. It's not hit it's weightlifting. That's, um, no, I do like powerlifting type
00:26:10.520
stuff, but, um, okay. So that's different, but you know, you said you enjoy it and they're like,
00:26:15.000
well, it's not that it's not, you know, there isn't some challenge, but you know, it, it,
00:26:18.860
when you said that, it reminded me of wasabi, like, you know, I love wasabi and, and it is painful
00:26:27.580
sometimes, but there's something about that experience that I enjoy. So, you know, but the,
00:26:35.220
the difference, the, the, the big thing is, is that I'm choosing to eat the wasabi. It's not being
00:26:40.400
forced down my throat. You're choosing to do that exercise. And research shows that while in
00:26:46.060
general, you know, high intensity exercise, which is not what you're talking about, but in general,
00:26:51.620
you know, exercise that is intense and hard in some ways reduces people's displeasure. So that's
00:26:58.400
not a good thing if your pleasure is reduced, cause you're not likely to keep going. If you
00:27:03.180
autonomously choose to do the exercise and deeply autonomous, cause a lot of times people say, well,
00:27:09.340
I chose to go to orange theory. So it doesn't that count? Well, if you're going to orange theory,
00:27:13.740
you, yeah, you chose to do it, but are you doing it out of the wrong? Why does it feel like a should,
00:27:19.780
you know, those sorts of things. So when you choose those things, because you deeply want to do it,
00:27:26.000
then your displeasure may not go down or may not go up. So, you know, picking the experiences,
00:27:35.840
even if they are challenging or slightly painful, like wasabi or whatever, as long as you're in
00:27:41.300
control, it's going to have a different meaning than if, you know, if someone stuffed wasabi down
00:27:46.340
my throat, it would be horrible, right? I'd hate it. So, and that's true with exercise.
00:27:51.360
So someone might be hearing this say, okay, uh, with exercise, I just need to like, my why needs to be
00:27:57.020
something that maybe I don't necessarily enjoy. It feels good. It's pleasant. I could,
00:28:03.200
I can make that a meaning, but I can also make the meaning of exercise. Well, I'm going to lose
00:28:07.240
some weight and look better. Can you have multiple meanings to exercise?
00:28:12.500
So that's a really great question. And I think the short answer is that, and I, you know,
00:28:19.740
that there's been research that shows both sides, what the challenge with weight loss. And I'll give
00:28:27.480
you an example. I, I was working with a client who is wanting to eat in healthier ways.
00:28:33.200
And she, you know, came to me pretty obsessed about losing weight and unhappy with her weight,
00:28:40.980
you know, that she'd basically maintained for, you know, 20 or 30 years. And she, you know,
00:28:46.100
she, she had been in the vicious cycle failure for that long. Like, and, and that was one of
00:28:50.580
the questions I asked her, you know, have you tried to lose weight and eat in, in, in ways by
00:28:57.200
focusing on your weight and doing it in an extreme way? And she's like, yes, that's how I've
00:29:01.380
always done it. And I said, has it worked for you long-term? And she's like, absolutely not.
00:29:05.820
It's never worked. And so I said, well, do you want to stop? Are you ready to stop
00:29:10.880
hitting your head against the same wall? And in theory, the answer was yes. But as we were doing
00:29:19.480
our work, you know, she kept talking about weight and focusing on the scale. And it's, so in,
00:29:27.480
to answer your question, if weight is in the equation, it contaminates your relationship
00:29:33.460
with a behavior like physical activity. So you can say, yes, I want to enjoy it. But if you're,
00:29:37.940
if you're a slave to your scale, then you really can't create a new meaning for exercise or other,
00:29:45.740
you know, behaviors like it. So, you know, I, I, it's not that you shouldn't try to lose weight.
00:29:53.480
It's that, you know, I, in my work with people, I say, put your desire for weight loss, pause it.
00:30:00.660
You know, I, I really can only work with people who can pause it because otherwise I can't be,
00:30:04.480
they can't be successful. And then once you've learned how to institutionalize physical activity
00:30:09.860
into your life in sustainable ways, that means consistency through the ups and downs, then,
00:30:15.540
you know, if you want to lose weight, focus on eating. And the, you know, the other really
00:30:18.860
important thing. And, you know, a lot of people know this, but a lot of people don't eating beats
00:30:23.640
out exercise by, you know, exponentially in determining how much we weigh. So if you want
00:30:29.260
to lose weight, you know, exercise is good to, you know, for helping you sleep, for boosting your
00:30:34.680
energy, for boosting your mood, all of those things would support better eating. But when it comes
00:30:39.500
to calorie expenditure, you know, it's just not that effective. So if you want to lose weight,
00:30:45.980
you're better off, I think, creating this foundation of physical activity, what's going
00:30:50.500
to benefit your mental, your outlook, your mindset, your mood, which will then, when you're
00:30:57.640
ready and when you've learned how to sustain physical activity, then focus on eating. I mean,
00:31:02.060
and, you know, clients of mine have said that they've done that. And, you know, then I run into
00:31:06.940
them in some cases and they're like, you know, I decided to start losing weight and I, you know,
00:31:11.140
I joined a program like Weight Watchers and it was so much easier to do because I didn't
00:31:15.960
have to think about exercise too. It was already a part of my life.
00:31:19.720
All right. So that's meaning. The next part of MAPS is awareness. What do you mean by awareness?
00:31:24.520
Well, awareness, you know, it's kind of a hard word to define. It's really like being aware of
00:31:31.840
and mindful of the beliefs you hold about physical activity. Is it, does it have to be hard and
00:31:39.940
vigorous like you suggested earlier? Does it have to be done exactly the same? Every time
00:31:45.900
I do it, is it supposed to, is it going to, you know, help me drop 10 pounds? So awareness
00:31:52.420
is really about helping people become aware of the beliefs they have about physical activity that
00:31:59.000
either support or undermine it, as well as become aware of the true challenges they have to sticking
00:32:08.280
with exercise. And is it like, is it other people in your life? Do they undermine you? Is it that
00:32:14.400
you've picked a physical activity or a gym that takes an hour to get to? I mean, you know, real,
00:32:20.580
is it simply the beliefs you have that it's hard and vigorous and you hate doing it that way? So
00:32:24.900
awareness encapsulates both of those things. And that's part of the process.
00:32:31.420
And it sounds like awareness also might involve being aware of what you enjoy or what feels good,
00:32:40.480
Yeah. Cause I mean, a lot of times people will, they, they, I think you talk about there's clients
00:32:44.400
who were able to tell you things that they enjoyed, but they would just ignore it because
00:32:47.720
they're like, well, that's not exercise. It's like, you say, no, no, no, no, no. You need to pay
00:32:51.920
attention to that. And let's, let's focus on that.
00:32:55.500
Absolutely. I mean, I had a client and he, you know, when, when, you know, at first people are like,
00:33:01.340
I, I don't think I like anything. You know, that's a normal response based on a history
00:33:05.920
that was full of negative experiences. And then, well, what, what did you like to do? This is like
00:33:10.660
a classic, you know, cliche thing. Well, what did you like to do as a kid? Well, I like, I biked,
00:33:16.940
I loved to bike. And then this gentleman, you know, bought a, you know, a, a grownup bike and that,
00:33:24.160
you know, during the summer months that became the physical activity he did. And so, you know,
00:33:30.060
search deep for the answer and then experiment. It's not like you're not mirroring what you choose.
00:33:36.900
You're actually just experimenting to see what works, what you like, what you don't.
00:33:41.360
So moving from awareness, there's permission. What do you mean by permission? Is it just permission to,
00:33:46.460
to allow you just permission to enjoy exercise? Like think of exercise as a gift to you. Is that
00:33:51.400
what you mean by permission? Or is it something broader?
00:33:53.240
I mean, two things by permission. Absolutely. Permission to get rid of the beliefs that get
00:33:59.800
in your way. Permission to pick physical activities that are pleasurable or make you feel good. But the
00:34:08.580
overarching permission that I talk about in the book is about permission to prioritize your own
00:34:15.740
wellbeing and self-care. And, you know, a lot of people don't feel that it's, that they have the
00:34:23.200
right to take time out of their day or that it's worth taking time out of their day to feel good
00:34:29.300
from physical movement. And, you know, the way that I help people, you know, give themselves permission
00:34:36.280
is to help them understand, you know, in, in real ways in between our sessions that, you know, if you do
00:34:43.640
the, you're, you know, selected healthy behavior, you know, how do you feel when you do it? How do you feel
00:34:49.720
when you don't do it? And then how does the rest of your life go? And once people in a very real way
00:34:56.100
begin to notice, gee, when I don't do this, I feel this way. And that really undermines, you know,
00:35:03.080
I'm grumpier when I talk to my kids, you know, I feel resentful at work and certainly not creative,
00:35:09.420
but when I do do it, it turns everything around. Then that legitimizes the time spent,
00:35:18.080
whether it's getting an extra 30 minutes of sleep or walking for 20 minutes outside after work,
00:35:24.500
before you go home, whatever it is, it legitimizes that time because you, you begin to understand
00:35:30.920
that, wow, this isn't just about feeling good. This is actually about everything else. This is
00:35:36.040
about me feeling myself for what matters most. Yeah. I imagine this is, could be a really hard
00:35:41.400
part of the program. Cause I think a lot of people might listen to you. Yeah. I'm going to change my
00:35:45.160
meaning. I can do that, but like, man, I'm, I'm so busy. I've got obligations with work,
00:35:49.760
with family, with these other activities I'm doing. I just, it would be self-indulgent. I just
00:35:54.600
don't have the time to do that. And that's something I'm sure you have to work a lot with your clients.
00:35:59.240
This is the hardest issue. This is the hardest part of the process because at its core, this issue
00:36:07.800
touches on what are we valuable for? Like what, what are, you know, who are we and what is our
00:36:16.620
value in the world? And so in society, we're rewarded for being successful at work. We, you
00:36:23.360
know, we are rewarded. We feel rewarded for being good parents and partners and all that, but we're
00:36:29.600
not rewarded for self-care and we're not rewarded to increase our sense of wellbeing. So that truly is
00:36:35.660
the most difficult thing. And, um, you know, there's a couple of things I want to say in
00:36:40.080
response to it. Number one, one of the reasons people, an interaction with this issue is that
00:36:46.740
if people's goal, you know, plans are too lofty, yeah, it's really hard to fit in exercise if it
00:36:53.080
has to be an hour as opposed to 10 minutes. Right. So that interacts with this issue. The second thing
00:36:58.940
is, is that a lot of people perceive, you know, people like me who advocates for this stuff and
00:37:07.520
maybe you, you know, who does this regularly, people believe that, you know, we don't have any
00:37:12.760
challenges and that it's just easy and effortless for us to, you know, to make it work. And, you know,
00:37:18.960
I think it's really important to say that, you know, unless you're like my husband and some people
00:37:24.100
are, I don't think most people are. I mean, he gets up every morning at five to do his exercise
00:37:27.800
because that's what he needs to feel good during his day. But I, you know, I still struggle. You
00:37:34.320
know, I've got an inbox that's full that I want to get down. You know, I have work I want to finish
00:37:40.360
and sometimes I choose to take my walks and sometimes I don't. And I think it's really important
00:37:45.560
for people to know that I don't always choose to do the exercise. What I don't do is feel like a
00:37:51.120
failure or, or think poorly and be very negatively judge our, ourselves for that choice. That's,
00:37:59.100
that's one of the contaminators of motivation. When we judge ourselves negatively for not doing
00:38:04.360
something, that's like an injection of, you know, poisoned motivation, if you will. And so I do think
00:38:12.940
it's really important for people to give themselves a break, cut themselves some slack and know that most
00:38:19.980
people, you know, even those of us who seem successful or are successful, we don't do it all
00:38:27.660
So finally, the MAPS program that you have is strategy. And you've got six big ideas that to
00:38:32.840
help people think about exercise and self-care differently to help, help them overcome roadblocks
00:38:37.400
they're going to probably encounter because they're busy, life happens. Let's talk about a few of
00:38:41.520
these. The first one is this idea of making your exercise a learning goal as opposed to performance
00:38:49.300
goal. What's the difference between the two and why are learning goals better?
00:38:53.400
Sure. So, you know, in different fields, they use different terms and, you know, whether it's a
00:38:59.940
performance goal or an achievement goal, it means you're aiming for something. It means when you're
00:39:06.620
doing it, you're really focused on hitting the bullseye and that creates a lot of pressure and stress.
00:39:14.120
And research shows that in complex contexts, that type of goal in, you know, changing dynamic context,
00:39:22.460
having that kind of goal is going to be less effective for you to achieve what you're trying
00:39:28.900
to achieve than if you consider what you're doing as a learning goal. So, for example, if, you know,
00:39:35.840
I'm aiming to either lose 50 pounds through whatever I'm doing or I'm aiming to perfectly enact my healthy
00:39:44.940
behavior goal five, you know, five out of five days, those would be considered, you know, achievement
00:39:51.560
or performance goals. But if instead I'm thinking about this as a project where, gosh, sometimes I'm going
00:40:01.220
to get it, sometimes I'm not. But every time I do it, especially when I don't do it, it gives me an
00:40:07.780
opportunity to learn and get better for the next time. And that takes the pressure off. Research shows
00:40:13.320
that when people have these types of learning goals, they have more intrinsic motivation, which is,
00:40:19.200
you know, one of the, you know, best type of motivation, intrinsic motivation in terms of
00:40:24.640
sustainability. They have greater persistence in the face of challenges. I mean, think about it. If
00:40:30.300
you've got to be perfect and a challenge happens, what's the point of going forward? But if instead,
00:40:37.420
you know, something happens and gets in your way, you're like, oh, okay, this happened.
00:40:43.600
What can I learn about this? How can I do it differently the next time? You don't have to stop.
00:40:49.040
You just have to pause and learn. Does that make sense? Yeah, that makes, that makes, that makes perfect
00:40:53.580
sense. And then another idea is this idea for strategizing is learning how to negotiate with yourself.
00:40:59.580
What do you mean by that? And what does that look like?
00:41:02.700
Well, you know, in a lot of areas of life, we have to negotiate, we have to negotiate,
00:41:08.260
you know, when we get jobs, we have to negotiate over who's going to do the dishes at night. You
00:41:12.860
know, we have to negotiate all the time in all kinds of circumstances. And typically we don't,
00:41:18.060
we, you know, we associate the word negotiate mostly with money, but, you know, really we,
00:41:23.980
we always do have to negotiate ourselves and it gets back to the permission content that we talked about
00:41:28.580
earlier, which is, okay, am I going, you know, this, the all or nothing thinking really, if that's what
00:41:36.920
you're doing, you're not negotiating. So here's an example. Okay. I need, I, I plan to take a 45
00:41:43.320
minute walk outside and I really want to finish this manuscript. So what am I going to do? You know,
00:41:52.380
the way you negotiate is you go, okay, well, I don't want to give up my walk, but I really,
00:41:57.340
I'm going to be stressed out if I don't, you know, make progress toward this, finishing this
00:42:02.860
manuscript. So negotiating would be, well, how about we split the time 50, 50, or, you know,
00:42:09.440
at this moment, finishing that manuscript has some urgent urgency associated with it. So
00:42:14.740
maybe I'll do 35 minutes and give myself 10 minutes of the walk. So it's, it's really
00:42:21.440
understanding that we do have to negotiate with ourselves. And, um, you know, when it comes to
00:42:26.620
this stuff. So when I was been talking about this, we've been talking about exercise, but this, this
00:42:30.760
maps program you develop, it sounds like it could work for other habits that people want to develop
00:42:35.600
as well. Absolutely. And, and, you know, uh, that's true. And I've used it for other things and clients
00:42:42.080
who worked with me with exercise, for example, on their own have used maps in other areas,
00:42:49.120
including eating. You know, I had someone contact me really, I don't know, over a decade later who said
00:42:55.300
that, um, she had had to have hip surgery, you know, just a regular kind of aging related thing.
00:43:03.460
And in her recovery period, you know, she used maps to help her do what she needed to do with her
00:43:10.420
physical therapy and the, the meaning she brought to what she was doing. So yeah, maps really can be
00:43:16.460
used for anything. So we've been talking to kind of big picture and there's a lot more details in
00:43:20.860
your book, but like say someone's listening to this, like, okay, I want to start implementing this
00:43:24.140
today. What, what would you say? Like the one or two things that you would recommend someone doing
00:43:28.780
today so that they can start making exercise a sustainable part of their life?
00:43:34.120
Well, I think the first thing I would say to them, you know, be very clear about whether your
00:43:41.340
intention to do this is truly yours or if you're doing it out of some type of should. And, you know,
00:43:50.260
if it's truly yours, then move forward and, you know, find something that you want to do. You know,
00:43:56.860
if, if you want to do it with your family or alone in nature, what, find something that's,
00:44:01.220
that really feels like it would work for you. And then experiment with, you know, whether it gives
00:44:07.680
you what you're hoping for, how to fit it into your life. You know, there's all these logistical
00:44:12.020
issues people have to figure out. If it feels like it should, when you really ask yourself to be honest,
00:44:19.320
then the question is, well, why? And, you know, why does it feel like it should? And, and, and,
00:44:24.620
you know, are you willing to maybe let go of that and instead decide to fuel yourself
00:44:31.120
in some way? So I would say that's the beginning phase.
00:44:35.320
Well, Michelle, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn
00:44:40.360
I have a website that's michelleseeger.com and there's information about the book. There's some
00:44:45.880
blog posts, that sort of thing. So yeah, it's been such a pleasure to speak with you.
00:44:50.740
Well, Michelle Seeger, thanks so much time. It's been a pleasure.
00:44:53.980
My guest today was Michelle Seeger. She's the author of the book, No Sweat. It's available on
00:44:57.960
amazon.com. And you can also find out more information about her work at our website,
00:45:01.480
michelleseeger.com. Also check out our show notes at awim.is slash no sweat. We can find
00:45:06.900
links to resources where you can delve deeper into this topic.
00:45:16.200
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AWIM podcast. Check out our website at
00:45:19.680
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00:45:23.900
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