BONUS Episode: The 5-Minute Daily Routine That Rewires Your Habits with Shahroo Izadi

0:00This episode is brought to you by Peloton. Break through the busiest time of year with the brand new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus. Powered by Peloton IQ. With real-time guidance and endless ways to move, you can personalize your workouts and train with confidence. Helping you reach your goals in less time. Let yourself run, lift, sculpt, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus at OnePeloton.com. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. listening to this podcast smart move being financially savvy smart move another smart move having state farm help you create a competitive price when you choose to bundle home and auto bundling just another way to save with a personal price plan like a good neighbor state farm is there prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state i'm with Sheru Izzardi and this is the third extra that you've got for Wellness Month.

1:02It's January. How are you doing? Are you doing okay? Sheru is an amazing award-winning psychologist and she is also an award-winning author, best-selling author and speaker and she has come up with a method that is going to help you stick to your guns and change the narrative that you have around yourself to change your life basically correct yes right teachers pets here look at me i'm i'm positioned i'm very impressed eager eager i'm very impressed this exercise is one that i get people to do that reinforces that the version of you that wants to change your habits is the version of you that's really clear on what you want and why you don't want to be where you are now.

1:50Yes. But it's a version of you that you will probably not be able to access very frequently. Yes. Other than those moments of desperation. So what you want to do is that every morning you want to wake up, depending on how you feel, depending on what's going on in your life, you will wake up with a certain amount of bandwidth. Yes. And what you're looking for would do for the day. Oh my God, that's so true. Yes. And if impulse control is an issue for you, with anything, you know, like whether it's alcohol or is yelling at your boss or whatever else if impulse control is an issue for you it can be helpful to think that every day you're waking up with a certain number of steps between you having a bad idea and following through with an unhelpful action yes and so what it can do help to do enormously is to anticipate based on what's happened in the past and based on your knowledge of yourself yes for five minutes in the morning i do it by the kettle because it's the first place i go and i dictate it because i can't bother to write it down and i literally write down if I had to guess what will make me want to do things quickly what will make me want to blow things up today what will make me lose my impulse control and ultimately what will move me from behaving from that version of myself that's the age I am now that knows what I know now on my most confident day yeah and it will be things like hormones there'll be things that are unchangeable but the pattern you notice the more there'll be things like other people there'll be things like you noticing well on Wednesdays people tend to bring in cake so that will be a test and on Wednesdays I tend to to miss lunch or whatever it is so you'll have your own ones petrol stations are desperate placement so on a day when you know that you're most likely to eat sugar why don't we use that as an example if you're comfortable using that sugar's mine okay for sure so what does a day look like if you had to wake up this morning and identify what could tempt me based on today what you've got today how you feel today and what today looks like what could tempt me to each sugar?

3:45I would say either like going out for a meal, so like going out for dinner. If I go out for dinner with Michael, I will go, stick it off the pudding? Okay. And he'll look at me and he'll go, I've now said, please can you help me? And he'll go, I don't think we need it. And I'll go, oh, thank you. But if he said yes, I'd go, great. I instigate it. So that's a danger. Going out for dinner is somewhere I'd like to change patterns. And the danger by extension, I would add, would be being enabled or being given permission. Being given permission. Or somebody going, go on. Exactly. You deserve it. Okay.

4:28So I deserve it thinking is one of the risks that I am going to come up against today. Can I write that down? Go for it. Yeah. right dinner michael whatever makes sense to you dinner michael sticky toffee pudding i deserve it thinking is brilliant yeah and by the way you do everyone's definition is different maybe you do deserve it but what you don't deserve is to beat yourself up for five days afterwards and spiral and eat 10 times more yeah so that's where the kind choice is very personal so if i think so essentially what you can do is associate it with what gives me the kind of using thoughts It's like, I've done it now.

5:06I've blown it. What else today could do that for you? Well, just having one of something would give me that I've blown it. I'm just going to. What about the setup to even have the one? What would make, what would increase the likelihood of you having one today? I'll tell you, the worst thing for me isn't even I deserve it. It's just pushing the fuck it button. There's something in me that's naughty where I go, oh, fuck it. and I think, sorry, you're going to have to beep a lot here. But I make it sound or feel fun. Do you know what I mean? Yes. So when you, and so you would say when I'm reframing cravings as mischief, for example, if I start hearing that voice, then for you it would be the equivalent of hearing that I can just have one.

5:55Yes. Right? So you want to start as early as possible. That's why they say, you know, relapse doesn't come out of nowhere. Yes. When you start doing this exercise for five minutes every day, what you start doing is you start isolating the periods of the day that you actually need to worry about. And they are brief. Like if, for example, this evening you're at dinner, you have a lovely evening and then you decide not to have the sticky toffee pudding. For example. I feel so good about myself. But how long would you how long would it be difficult for? I don't think it would be difficult for long at all.

6:25I just say no. And then it's gone. Because today we've had, and hopefully it would also be because you go, oh, now I'm going to want the seat of putting it. Then I'm going to, the same way you have with using. Like if something bad happened, if something, God forbid, you know, I'm sure you've had this example recently where you think this is the sort of state I would be in and ordinarily use. Yes. And so I want you to understand that if the fuck it switch ends you in places you don't want to be. Yes. then what you want to recognize is not when the fuck it switch has already been done because the train has left the station by then, right?

6:58What you want to identify is the most subtle way. And usually it comes from thinking. Usually it's when someone's criticized you or something's taken you back to that place of feeling like a piece of shit, basically, and taking you back to that narrative. So what will make you think, oh, I can just have one. Nothing will happen. Those are the things you want to listen out for. And then you don't have to worry about sticky toffee pudding 7 p.m. you can just listen out for. When I decide to be a rebel with no cause and I forget that I'm the age that I am and start behaving as though I can't have one of something, it's not about this.

7:28Something else is going on. But what's really interesting about what you've just done for me now is I've had to really think about what are the triggers. It hasn't been obvious to me. That's quite interesting. You would think that I would know what the triggers are, but I've had to think about these two. I deserve it thinking and reframing mischief, mischief for me. I'm suddenly like oh my god I do this all the time and then if you write that down every day you are thinking about it and more aware of it so then you can do something about something you're more aware of and it's a need this isn't remedial this is also identifying I'm a mischievous person yes I would like it not to be channeled this way yes so I shall be challenging it this way yeah you're acknowledging your needs throughout the day you're not saying I'm just going to hold everything down and i'm not going to not be mischievous no i'm just going to pick these guys again would really miss it if i stopped would you none of us should be mischief is the one but what you want to find out is what you want to assume is that you're going to want to do the things that you've always done yeah right and you're going to be swimming against the current yes the other exercise the other thing that's fantastic about this exercise is that in three or four weeks it will become so predict you will become so predictable to yourself yes and you'll realized that every time was like well yeah but it's not this sticky top of it not this one because i'm today is important because it's thursday so i should have a sticky top and it becomes just like aa where you're like yes and no yes but the only difference is that you might decide because you can that under these circumstances a yes and under these circumstances a no so for me my criteria has become i consume my substances that i feel less empowered around because of my leg you know my history with them not disempowered anymore but less empowered i consume them when i'm getting into it not getting out of it yes that's my criteria if something's great then i know that i can i'm i'm gonna bounce back after one and i'm gonna enjoy it if my life isn't going well and i consume something like that quickly before i can even notice myself yeah and you don't enjoy it or nothing that is not gonna return that's not gonna return in countless ways for days and so it's not worth it for me and i just cut to the end with that and that's the maturity and the self-witness So here where you would write like, okay, sticky toffee pudding.

9:40Initially, what this will do from a behavioral change perspective is in the morning, if you anticipate what will come up, there's, you know, the sort of smugglery that comes with knowing like, oh, I guess this, I know myself. It will interrupt the pattern in terms of automatic action. But what it will also do is that over time, it will teach you more broadly that every day you're waking up with a certain amount of bandwidth. And regardless of the habit that you find most difficult, ultimately, it's all the same. So now when I notice myself on social media a lot, usually those would have been the times when I was eating.

10:13So you become very aware this is not about one habit. You need a temperature of how you feel every day, not least before everything's coming in ready to distract you and take you away. it's a little agreement that you make with yourself to say i know based on what's always happened what's likely to happen today yeah i acknowledge my vulnerability to it and actually when i reduce it to that you've got about 10 minutes of decision to make and you're in the clear whereas if you think are thinking all day yes oh i hope i don't give into the sticky toughie pudding i hope i don't give into it and that's make your decision even if you decided to have it that's a different thing because then your mission isn't to white knuckle it and wonder what which version of the vena will be there.

10:49And also not to hate yourself when you do it. If you decide to do it, you have made a conscious decision knowing that tomorrow you're not going to feel guilty about it. You're going to go, okay, that was yesterday, but today I'm going to restart again and I'm going to avoid my deserve it thinking and I'm going to reframe my mischievous streak. Absolutely. All I will say though is

11:13it's that most people won't enjoy it at first. they will try but i don't want them to become disillusioned um what will happen is that you will go into a panic if it was as easy as that unfortunately of like i forgive myself it's okay the the diet industry has made it for example with food where you are going to go into a panic because you've done something objectively bad no one's ever recommended if you want to be healthy and lose weight have a sticky toffee pudding right no so that isn't even a complicated one i've been bad exactly yeah but i've ruined it now right and so what you want to do is even if you feel that way which you should expect to for a while because we're not asking you to turn on a dime you know but we're asking you to gather data so you should go through the motions as though you haven't messed up you know yeah it's like when people gain weight and what they do is rather than the logical thing which would be i've gained weight so i might eat less they think i've gained weight which means my diet isn't working so i'm gonna eat a lot more for a week and then i'm gonna eat nothing and i'll lose it yeah it makes no sense you know you need fiber for a healthy gut But do you actually know how to get it?

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13:37That's what I do. You'd be able to refer back to it. And the things that you... So for people that really don't want to write, that's actually quite a good idea, isn't it? Yeah. And do it like on the loo. Do it for the kettle. I always used to think that if I ever got into like a wellness industry, I would be basically... I have to live like ashram life. You know, I'd have to get up in the morning and journal. No. Oh my God, no. You have to design for your own brain. I'm going to coffee. Number one, I'm going to coffee. in the morning. I'm going to be there for three minutes. Me too. I'll do it then.

14:08Oh God, that is really helpful. I'll just do it then. And then what are you asking yourself in the evening then? What did I find difficult that I didn't anticipate? Oh, okay. Until eventually you've got a collection of literally who you are. Yes. Not who you wish you were. So if you do this in the morning, this is probably how you're going to feel. Yeah. So you'll see action and outcome. And you'll notice what you managed to do, what you didn't manage to do. And what will happen eventually is that you'll get so excited. If you are an all or nothing perfectionist person, you'll be like, well, I want the PM to be fantastic.

14:41So I shan't be having that because I've already made it to 9pm. So it hacks your sort of all or nothing, gamifies your all or nothing thinking. Yes. And assumes that you're going to be perfectionist about it. And that tonight, if you don't manage to do what you said you were going to do. It'll be annoying. It'll be annoying to you. And if you wanted to change that, you'd have to sit in that annoyance and discomfort, go through the motions tomorrow as though you had had a miso soup for dessert and start to gather data and associations with that food should you wish to do that heavy lifting. But other people, I think, should be allowed to say this damage has been done to me.

15:15I used to get so annoyed when people would say to me, don't restrict. It's really unhealthy. But it's because they didn't realize I had an eating disorder because I was already overweight. But restricting for me meant not gaining masses amounts of weight. That's like saying, Davina, just enjoy a glass of wine. Just enjoy it. Why don't you just enjoy it? You'd be like, I don't think you understand what's about to go down, right? I always say to people, I will be naked dancing on the tables. Quickly. Yeah. Yeah. You've got to design for yourself. Yes. I kept trying to sit cross-legged and not be naughty.

15:49And I just thought, no, just find other ways to be naughty. Yes. You know? And I have done. I have found other ways. I mean I also drink but I wasn't that was never my my drug of choice and also I just I found other ways to be naughty to be with other naughty people who want to have naughty conversations and like meet random people and find out their stories and yes yeah you know when I work with young women a lot of the time they've had to cut out entire parts of their lives that would have had nothing to do with using just to stay safe yeah and it is nice it is important to say look you've got mischief in you let's find a way to make that yeah yeah like i for example and you can find that feeling for example i like i get that mischievous feeling when i open a door and i don't know what's behind it if i go to like a club or something that's like or anything a restaurant a prep if i go down i'm like i don't know what's behind this door ah i could just feel it i could feel it like i feel like i might go to the loo just just telling you the story if that part of me was taken away I would be bummed out to use a clinical term I love that I need mischief but if if I don't decide where it's going to go I either need to completely eradicate it yes or um it's going to go somewhere naughty yeah so um can you now sorry so we've we've I would like to ask you about paper clips because normally you would use paper clips and we're going to explain why we've got some marbles here because it's easier to see but normally you would say to people have paper clips maybe in your pocket or something what would they signify this is an early doors exercise to bring to people's opinion the degree to which they are not sabotaging themselves because of low self-worth and things that they don't understand but literally stopping themselves from making the next best choice and gaining a mastery because of how frequently they speak to themselves in unkind ways so they they treat a blip like a catastrophe so what I tell people to do is to put a bunch of paper clips in your pocket at the beginning of the day and every time you do something you're not delighted with anytime listen in on what you say to yourself and what kind of things has that been everything from I'm hopeless I'm not worth it usually the messages that you didn't give yourself that you and that you never used to other people We were talking off camera.

18:05I'm stupid. You've said to yourself, I'm not funny. Everyone's worked out that I'm all these things. So I would go like, I'm not that smart. At home, if you've got this at home, this is like a visualization. It's a sweet thing to do with partners and kids and stuff too. And just be like, look, I would never think that about you. Where did that come from? Because what it does this is when you look at it, you're like, hold on. Okay, so I'm saying these horrible things to myself. on the one hand if you're on board with thinking this isn't the mentality that's going to get hard things done yes right and i can appeal to people even with the lowest of self-esteem by saying what would you literally say to someone else yes right but the other thing that it helps you to do is to really keep reinforcing that we are all already having a conversation with ourselves we're not blank and when you do this rather than thinking oh my god i'm so horrible to myself how will this end usually people are pleasantly surprised because they're like i don't speak that way where did that come from yeah that's not even true anymore yeah so people usually get worried or overwhelmed because they think well i can't change that i can't go around saying i'm wonderful all day and i'm like listen i'm just asking you to update the information you're still going around saying that you're the same stuff you were when you were nine yes i still go around saying i'm unfit i exercise like every day and have done for years so sometimes it's very pleasantly surprising to realize that it's just an update process and there's nothing in society that has us go hey what program am i running by the way do i want to live exactly the same way my parents did and it's not a blame game it's just like i have absorbed a way of doing things and now i have a bunch of choices and unless i decide and unfortunately unless the shit hits the fan in my life yes that's ridiculous we're waiting until people have no resources so i have to decide to keep doing every year we should be sat down and be like right how am i speaking to myself yes what is new and it's not woo woo stuff it's literal data i used to say i was shit at this and then i demonstrated that i wasn't and i seem to be to keep telling myself that i am let's update that it's a personal inventory personal it is an inventory and an audit and you know one of the things that's great about writing these things down and making them quick and easy is that after time as you well know these things become automatic yes as does by extension gratitude and things like that where you think this is where I'm at today this is my responsibility to myself and this is how I'm going to show up and sometimes it's going to be harder than others but I know what to do and when I hear these things yeah a I should assume that they are alerts that I can listen to that give me insight they're not commands I have to obey no and b if I didn't choose them they chose me yeah I have tools to unlearn them thanks Sherry my pleasure so good thank you

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