The 5 Stages to Change Behavior | Lori Gottlieb & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | Do you recommend that your clients make specific subtle changes, behavioral changes after they have an insight or maybe even before they have an insight?

00:00:14.060 | I think the reason that people have so much trouble changing is because the step that they've chosen is too big of a step to take at once.

00:00:22.920 | You need small manageable steps.

00:00:25.960 | And I think people also forget this is why New Year's resolutions tend not to last very long because change is a process.

00:00:32.460 | And there's a chapter in my book called How Humans Change.

00:00:35.380 | And I think it's so important for people to understand that there are stages of change.

00:00:39.420 | And it starts with pre-contemplation where you don't even realize that you're thinking about making a change.

00:00:45.680 | You think like something's not right, but I don't really need to change.

00:00:49.160 | Like something's just not right in the world.

00:00:51.760 | You know, it's my partner.

00:00:52.960 | It's my, you know, it's my child.

00:00:55.060 | It's my whoever, right?

00:00:56.180 | Then there's contemplation, which is, oh, maybe I could make a change, but I'm not quite ready to do it.

00:01:04.500 | And that's when people usually, they come to therapy somewhere around pre-contemplation.

00:01:09.380 | It's kind of between pre-contemplation and contemplation.

00:01:12.100 | Like something's not right.

00:01:13.660 | They come to therapy.

00:01:14.460 | We get them to contemplation, which is like, oh, maybe I'm contemplating making some changes.

00:01:20.240 | And then there's preparation, which is you're taking some steps to prepare for the change.

00:01:25.300 | So it's not like I'm going to dive into the deep end of the pool.

00:01:27.780 | It's like, oh, maybe I need to take some swimming lessons or maybe I need to get a swimsuit or maybe I need, you know, whatever it is.

00:01:33.220 | Like I need to prepare to make this change.

00:01:36.720 | And then there's action where you actually make the change.

00:01:40.040 | And people think that's the last step.

00:01:41.560 | That's action.

00:01:42.380 | No.

00:01:42.940 | The last stage is maintenance.

00:01:44.920 | And maintenance is how do you maintain the change?

00:01:48.460 | And maintenance does not mean that you are perfectly maintaining the change.

00:01:53.300 | It's more like chutes and ladders, if you remember that game, where like kind of you go up and then you go down.

00:01:57.220 | You can make mistakes during this time because you're forming a new habit.

00:02:01.640 | You're forming a new way of being.

00:02:03.580 | And until it becomes familiar, going back to our discussion about how the familiar feels really good to us and the unfamiliar feels really scary, the new thing will take a while to feel familiar.

00:02:13.100 | So let's say that you say, like, I'm going to eat healthy.

00:02:16.180 | And that means that I'm not going to, you know, like eat an entire Haagen-Dazs or something when I'm sad.

00:02:23.120 | Then I'm going to do something different.

00:02:24.520 | Well, sometimes when you're sad, you might do that again.

00:02:27.220 | But then you don't self-flagellate.

00:02:29.660 | So it's not like, oh, it failed, so forget it.

00:02:31.940 | I'm not going to, like, I failed and I'm not able to make this change.

00:02:34.960 | No.

00:02:35.320 | Or you don't say like, oh, I'm so terrible and that was awful and I'm so weak.

00:02:39.520 | Self-flagellation is not helpful.

00:02:42.100 | Imagine if your kid came to you and they said, like, I did really poorly on this test.

00:02:46.300 | Are you going to say, you're so stupid?

00:02:47.820 | You know, like, what's wrong with you?

00:02:50.560 | No.

00:02:51.380 | You're going to say, well, let's talk about what happened.

00:02:53.680 | And they might say, I needed help and I was embarrassed to ask or I didn't understand it and – or I didn't study.

00:03:00.980 | I messed up.

00:03:01.920 | I should have studied and I didn't study.

00:03:03.600 | Okay.

00:03:04.260 | Well, what are you going to do differently next time?

00:03:06.340 | Let's come up with a plan.

00:03:07.820 | So you need to have – just like you'd have some compassion for your child and hold them accountable, both.

00:03:13.660 | It's hard to hold yourself accountable when you self-flagellate.

00:03:17.440 | In the short term, you can, but it doesn't last because it feels so unpleasant.

00:03:21.100 | You're just sort of bathing in shame.

00:03:22.520 | What you need is self-compassion and actually if you have more compassion for yourself, you're more able to hold yourself accountable.

00:03:29.980 | So you can say, oh, you know what happened?

00:03:32.740 | I was feeling really sad.

00:03:34.460 | I had this whole pint of Haagen-Dazs.

00:03:36.960 | But it's okay that I was sad.

00:03:39.900 | And there's another way to do this.

00:03:41.440 | So next time when I'm sad, I didn't have enough support.

00:03:44.140 | So I'm going to call a friend next time.

00:03:45.920 | Oh, self-compassion with accountability.

00:03:49.000 | Or I'm not going to keep the Haagen-Dazs in the house because I know that when I'm sad, I'm susceptible to that.

00:03:54.000 | Maybe one day I'll be able to do it.

00:03:55.440 | But right now, I'm not going to keep that.

00:03:57.580 | But there's something else I can do, which is I really feel like I want – for me, self-compassion is related to I'm going to give myself a treat.

00:04:04.320 | So maybe my treat is I'm going to, you know, I'm going to have like a healthy snack that I like.

00:04:11.720 | Or maybe my treat is I'm going to go to a movie or, you know, whatever it is.

00:04:15.300 | But you have to figure out what works for you and what works for other people might not work for you.

00:04:19.780 | So it takes a little bit of experimenting.

00:04:21.920 | So maintenance is this kind of experimentation but having self-compassion with accountability until you find a system that works for you and the new thing becomes a habit.

00:04:33.120 | It becomes familiar.

00:04:34.460 | And the thing that you used to do becomes unfamiliar and doesn't feel good anymore.

00:04:38.820 | Yeah.

00:04:39.820 | For so many years, the field of popular psychology was obsessed with, you know, how long does it take to make a change?

00:04:47.100 | It was like 28 days.

00:04:48.180 | And it was like 90.

00:04:48.840 | I was like – as somebody who studies neuroplasticity, I can tell you that there's one trial learning.

00:04:55.300 | You'll never go back.

00:04:56.280 | And there's stuff that takes years.

00:04:58.780 | It just depends on the intensity and the consequences, right?

00:05:02.060 | And even with consequences, I mean, anyone that's seen somebody relapse from drugs so many times over, it's – you know, clearly they're working with more complicated dynamics there.

00:05:11.540 | I think that this notion of reinforcing change is super key.

00:05:16.340 | I'm really glad you raised that.

00:05:18.480 | I'm really glad you're working with me because I'm really glad you're working with me because I know it's – I'm really glad you're working with me because I'm really glad you're working with me.

The 5 Stages to Change Behavior | Lori Gottlieb & Dr. Andrew Huberman

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