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? 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.

You need small manageable steps. And I think people also forget this is why New Year's resolutions tend not to last very long because change is a process. And there's a chapter in my book called How Humans Change. And I think it's so important for people to understand that there are stages of change.

And it starts with pre-contemplation where you don't even realize that you're thinking about making a change. You think like something's not right, but I don't really need to change. Like something's just not right in the world. You know, it's my partner. It's my, you know, it's my child. It's my whoever, right?

Then there's contemplation, which is, oh, maybe I could make a change, but I'm not quite ready to do it. And that's when people usually, they come to therapy somewhere around pre-contemplation. It's kind of between pre-contemplation and contemplation. Like something's not right. They come to therapy. We get them to contemplation, which is like, oh, maybe I'm contemplating making some changes.

And then there's preparation, which is you're taking some steps to prepare for the change. So it's not like I'm going to dive into the deep end of the pool. 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.

Like I need to prepare to make this change. And then there's action where you actually make the change. And people think that's the last step. That's action. No. The last stage is maintenance. And maintenance is how do you maintain the change? And maintenance does not mean that you are perfectly maintaining the change.

It's more like chutes and ladders, if you remember that game, where like kind of you go up and then you go down. You can make mistakes during this time because you're forming a new habit. You're forming a new way of being. 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.

So let's say that you say, like, I'm going to eat healthy. And that means that I'm not going to, you know, like eat an entire Haagen-Dazs or something when I'm sad. Then I'm going to do something different. Well, sometimes when you're sad, you might do that again. But then you don't self-flagellate.

So it's not like, oh, it failed, so forget it. I'm not going to, like, I failed and I'm not able to make this change. No. Or you don't say like, oh, I'm so terrible and that was awful and I'm so weak. Self-flagellation is not helpful. Imagine if your kid came to you and they said, like, I did really poorly on this test.

Are you going to say, you're so stupid? You know, like, what's wrong with you? No. You're going to say, well, let's talk about what happened. 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. I messed up.

I should have studied and I didn't study. Okay. Well, what are you going to do differently next time? Let's come up with a plan. So you need to have – just like you'd have some compassion for your child and hold them accountable, both. It's hard to hold yourself accountable when you self-flagellate.

In the short term, you can, but it doesn't last because it feels so unpleasant. You're just sort of bathing in shame. What you need is self-compassion and actually if you have more compassion for yourself, you're more able to hold yourself accountable. So you can say, oh, you know what happened?

I was feeling really sad. I had this whole pint of Haagen-Dazs. But it's okay that I was sad. And there's another way to do this. So next time when I'm sad, I didn't have enough support. So I'm going to call a friend next time. Oh, self-compassion with accountability. 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.

Maybe one day I'll be able to do it. But right now, I'm not going to keep that. 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. So maybe my treat is I'm going to, you know, I'm going to have like a healthy snack that I like.

Or maybe my treat is I'm going to go to a movie or, you know, whatever it is. But you have to figure out what works for you and what works for other people might not work for you. So it takes a little bit of experimenting. 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.

It becomes familiar. And the thing that you used to do becomes unfamiliar and doesn't feel good anymore. Yeah. For so many years, the field of popular psychology was obsessed with, you know, how long does it take to make a change? It was like 28 days. And it was like 90.

I was like – as somebody who studies neuroplasticity, I can tell you that there's one trial learning. You'll never go back. And there's stuff that takes years. It just depends on the intensity and the consequences, right? 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.

I think that this notion of reinforcing change is super key. I'm really glad you raised that. 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.