Stop Wasting Your Energy — Here’s What to Do Instead (with Dr. Diana Hill)

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0:10Pushkin.

0:17Welcome back to a new season of the Happiness Lab. And happy 2026, Happiness Lab listeners. There's something so hopeful about the start of a new year. For many of us, January feels like a clean slate. A chance to start fresh as the healthier, happier person we want to be. But if there's one thing we know about human nature, it's that behavior change is hard. We set goals, make resolutions, feel motivated to do things differently, and then we slip back into exactly the same habits we had the year before. The ones we know just don't work. So the goal of this new season of The Happiness Lab is to give us the psychological traction we need to break out of all the ruts that we've been stuck in for a while.

0:57Rather than give you the usual New Year platitudes, we'll be exploring strategies that research shows can actually help us get unstuck and back in motion. Over the course of the next few episodes, we'll hear science-backed tips for embracing the kinds of changes that feel scary, for finding a sense of purpose in the midst of exhaustion, and for feeling less overwhelmed with the current state of the world. And in this first episode in our Getting Unstuck in the New Year season, we'll tackle the challenge of unsticking our effort. We'll explore how to use our time and energy a bit more effectively, which is so important if we want to feel less stuck in 2026.

1:34Because let's face it, a lot of us are putting a lot of energy into the wrong kinds of things. To better understand just how much unwise effort can keep us trapped, today's guest, the psychologist Dr. Diana Hill, invites you to think of a bit of an animal analogy. Imagine, if you will, an unfortunate little bird who has accidentally made its way indoors. And it does what birds do best, which is, I think, what humans do too. Like, we want to get out when we feel stuck. And we go out in the predictable ways that maybe worked at some point to get us unstuck. For a panicked bird, that means flying as hard as possible into the nearest bright window.

2:13It's smart. It wants to go for that tree, right? But what happens when that bird flies at a window? We all know it's that painful experience of hitting its head. And sadly, that poor little bird might not hit its head just once. It will probably continue smashing itself into the glass over and over. Rather than pausing and rethinking its path to the outside world, it just starts pushing into the glass even harder, using more and more of its energy to slam into the window. Until it winds up exhausted, or hurt, or worse. Diana has worked with lots of humans who are feeling stuck. And she says they don't behave all that differently from a frantic bird.

2:53Like if I just fly harder at this relationship or work harder in a work setting that's actually toxic for me, maybe that will get me out. And that can lead us to just feeling exhausted. Right. It can lead us to blaming ourselves. And it also can lead to another pattern which some of us can get stuck in, which is the very classic psychological problem of learned helplessness, where we just say there's no way out. There's nothing I can do here. There's no other possibility. I've tried everything, you know, as hard as I can. Sound familiar? Well, not to worry, because Diana is here to help us get our energy back on track.

3:33In fact, she's the author of a new book on just this topic. It's called Wise Effort, How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most. So as a psychologist, I've been training in and involved in this concept of psychological flexibility for a really long time. And what that bird actually needs is not to fly harder at the same thing. Maybe it could use a little rest, a little rest on that kitchen floor, but not to, you know, give up, but to use its energy differently. That may be look around, look in places that you haven't looked before, try new things. And there may be an open door. And that requires you to be flexible in your attention, but then also flexible in your behavior.

4:17And it doesn't mean you shouldn't fly. So you can still be the bird that you are, but shift that energy and attention to get out and to free yourself from whatever place you're stuck in. Diana is a clinical psychologist and an expert on getting your energy unstuck. But she admits that she too has been in situations where she was putting too much energy into the wrong things. Well, in 2021, I was on a podcast that I had been working on for a number of years. I put a lot of energy into it on the outside had you know close to two million downloads and there's a term in psychology the sunk cost fallacy you know we put so much time and energy and effort into it so therefore we keep doing it even if it's not working for us and what I started noticing is that I would have a panic attacks before I'd go on team meetings I started to feel like my heart wasn't in it anymore.

5:14I wanted more freedom. I wanted more flexibility. I wanted more creativity, but I kept at it and I just kept on going harder at it and became quite inflexible to the point where I became unpleasant to be around. I became more controlling. It was finally in the letting go. It was turning around, looking around, are there other options here that freed up my energy. And it took a bit of a, as many people experience when they're starting something new, of having to go back to the beginning. My ego take a bit of a beating, like, yeah, I got to start from zero here. And I got to give some of this up, but why am I doing it?

5:53I had lost my purpose, my values, and the deeper things that maybe were driving me starting a podcast in the first place. And so I had to remember those again. And so this was really a story of trying to make sure that your energy was going in the right direction. And this is really the subject of your book, how we can put wiser energy into things. You've argued that we need to pay attention to where our energy is going, that this matters a lot. Why does it matter so much? Well, energy is kind of everything, right? Right. One hour of something that brings you vitality, of something that opens you up, of even something that's a little bit hard for you.

6:33But the end of it, you feel regenerated by is an hour that could shift your whole day. Right. When our behavior is out of alignment with our values, it actually can really de-energize us. And that's why a lot of people come to work with me as a therapist is because there's a misalignment of who they want to be, how they want to show up. And then it's showing up in dissatisfaction with life. And so sometimes we're throwing way too much energy into the wrong things. In your book, you mentioned this idea that our striving can sometimes get us stuck. This is something that I resonated with a lot. Talk about how our energy can be both a gift and a challenge.

7:11Pretty much anyone in your life, you can think about their genius qualities, the things that make them them, the special characteristics and strengths and aptitudes that show up, that make them right. Those can also become a problem for them if it's not channeled with wisdom. So for example, with me, that podcast, there was a point of diminishing returns where I needed to shift. I need to be like the bird in the kitchen and look around and do something different. and that takes some discernment. It takes where do you want to put your energy, what your values are and curiosity and mindfulness. And so we're going to be exploring really deeply your strategies for kind of figuring out how to deploy our energy in as wise a way as possible.

7:55I think all my listeners should check out your book to see all the strategies that are in there. But today on the podcast, we're going to focus on my favorite seven, my favorite seven strategies for getting your effort back on track. And a big one is one that you just mentioned, this idea of getting curious. Why is curiosity so essential for getting our energy back on track? Well, one thing about curiosity is it's hard to be curious and judgmental at the same time. You know, if you watch a two-year-old, I used to have two-year-olds many years ago, and you try and take them for a walk or a puppy, you try and take a puppy for a walk and they stop at every snail, they stop at every caterpillar.

8:29And when they pick up that snail or that caterpillar, they get down real close to it and lean in. they don't really come at it with the oh gross and they don't really come at it with that I already know how this works mind. So as we become more inflexible in our thinking we tend to take on these cognitive inflexibilities of I already know so I no longer see what's there or I'm judgmental critical, right? So curiosity is the practice of open-mindedness. And I would say, you know, I kind of think curiosity and openness is the new mindfulness. You know, psychology goes through all these trends. I've been in the field long enough to see the trends change.

9:15So I'll tell you, the next thing that's coming down the road, down the pipe is openness. So much so that Jonathan Schooler, who's at UCSB out here, is changing the name of his center from the center of mindfulness to the center of openness, because it's a little bit different than mindfulness. It's staying open to the field of possibility. And when you are stuck in unwise effort, often it's because you're that bird flying at the window and you are not open. Either your mind is not open, you've already decided, or you're being judgmental, or you're stuck in a story. But the nature of curiosity is also interesting in that the more curious you are, the more things people experiences can become rewarding to you.

10:06Every single client that comes into my office, I am deeply curious about and I and I am not judgmental about the behaviors or ways that they're stuck. I'm curious about their patterns, what's keeping them stuck? What are the different complex networks of processes that are contributing to their stuckness? Could we almost like map it out? Like we'd map out a route on a page of how we get from A to B. And when you take that stance towards your own self, rather than the judgmental or I already know stance, you're more likely to see possibilities to get you unstuck. But it can also be hard to do that.

10:42And one of the practices you've recommended to get a little bit more curious is the act of journaling. Why is journaling so powerful for getting us to become a little bit more curious if done the right way? I'm so glad you said if done the right way, because journaling can also be a practice in rumination. And we know that from some of the research. If you're sitting there ruminating about how life sucks, then you may feel a little bit more stuck in your mental patterning about life sucking. So with journaling, there can be a practice of a little bit of what we call cognitive diffusion or a little bit of stepping back and looking at yourself rather than being in it.

11:22And if you journal with some prompts or there's a really classic journaling exercise that I have clients do, which is just right now, what are five things that I'm thinking? What are five things that I'm feeling? what are five behaviors that I'm engaging in? And then can I draw my experience? I also like journaling without language and in wise effort, the book, I draw it. I'm like, this is what it feels like when I'm stuck. Scribble on the page. It's like the flight pattern of that bird that's all tangled up. What does it feel like inside of you? Draw it. And just that stepping back from something, sort of like if you are really up close to a screen and you see that, you know, all the pixels of the screen and you take three steps back or you take three steps back from a painting, you'll have a different perspective on it.

12:09And flexible perspective taking is incredibly helpful when we are stuck. So journaling can be a way to do that. Then we can also use our journal with that flexible perspective taking and that curiosity to potentially look at many different views. You know, like what would be a compassionate view? What would be a view from the end of the week If you were to look back on those thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, sometimes with clients that are stuck in negative body image, I'll have them write a letter from their body part to them. What would your stomach tell you? You have a lot of things to tell your stomach.

12:50I hear it all the time, you know, but what would your stomach say about what it's like to be your stomach? You know, what does your stomach say it needs? What does your stomach say it wants? What does your stomach wish for you? and it shifts your perspective on pretty much anything that you are critical of. So that's one way to get our energy back on the wiser track, right? Get curious, get some perspective, maybe even do that through journaling. But another tip that you talk about a lot in the book is this idea that if we want our energy to go in the right place, we need to better align our energy to our values.

13:21You have this quote that I love that when your energy becomes a problem, it's often because your gifts and talents aren't aligned with your values. What are our values and why are they so important to pay attention to. You know, there's a lot of talk about values and folks will have lists of values. You could go on chat and say, give me a list of a hundred values. And we come up with all these words. But I think of values as qualities of action. What brings you a sense of aliveness? What deep in your heart really matters to you? How do you want to show up in the world? What do you want to stand for?

13:55In your book, you note that our values are often the clue to what makes life its most lifey. I love that quote because for me, it was like, oh, my gosh, what makes my life the most lifey is like humor or social connection or kind of doing fun things, being a little bit adventurous. I don't tend to think of those exactly as my values. But when I think about my life at its most lifey, those are the things that come up. Before bed oftentimes is when we worry about stuff. We think about the day we ruminate on the day or we worry about what's going to happen tomorrow. I really encourage my clients before bed to do a little scan of their day.

14:30And when did they feel life at its most lifey? You'll be surprised. It's often not where we're putting most of our energy. It's in the in-betweens. For me, life at its most lifey, I have this little strawberry plant outside my kitchen door. And so I planted this little strawberry plant and I've been watching these strawberries change color. And it's life at its most lifey growing something, right? Life at its most likely two weeks ago was taking my 16-year-old son and his best friends in a car trip down the coast of California surfing and being completely on their schedule and standing outside and watching them surf.

15:11It's life at its most likely. Growing strawberries and surfing with teenagers is not how I spend most of my time or energy, but it tells me a little bit about maybe how I want to be spending more time and energy, what I want to be amplifying. And it's also a great way to figure out how to make whatever you're doing a little bit more enjoyable. One of the things I know you talked about is all these studies where if you can just reflect on your values and how that connects with what you're already doing, it actually makes you do the thing you're trying to already do better and perform better. Tell me about some of these studies.

15:41Well, there's a classic study that Steve Hayes did with college students who set SMART goals at the beginning of a semester. and we think about these SMART goals as being specific and meaningful and timely. And many of us have tried SMART goals, but what he found was when he added values writing to the SMART goals, like why do you care about getting better grades? Why does it really matter to you? What's important to you personally about that? And values are like favorite colors. Yours may be green and mine may be blue. Two kids may have totally different reasons why they care about their grades.

16:19And he found that folks that set the SMART goals plus the values writing did much better at the end of the semester. They had a significant increase in improvement in their grades. Those that set SMART goals alone didn't see that improvement. You mentioned makes things more enjoyable, but I would tweak that a little bit because living your values doesn't always make things more enjoyable. We know that from parenting and the research on happiness and parenting where parents aren't necessarily happier, but they do report more meaning. So living your values may help you have more intrinsic motivation.

16:56I have written quite a bit on exercise and psychological barriers to exercise. If you connect your exercise to your values, like why does it matter to you to have more physical fitness in your life? What will open up for you? People will say things like, I want to get on the floor with my grandkids. I hate sitting in the chair. I want to actually get down and like build the blocks with them. Or other people may say, I want to travel and be able to walk through the airport and feel stronger as I walk because I love travel so much. When you connect to those intrinsic reasons, those things that are deep down inside meaningful to you, you're more likely to stick with it, but it doesn't necessarily make it more enjoyable.

17:41Fair enough. It also means that we need to disconnect not just maybe from the enjoyment, but also from the outcome. This is something I loved hearing you talk about your strawberries, right? You were just kind of enjoying the process. And this seems to be something that's critical about values. Values aren't about the outcome. They seem to be more about the process. How do we get closer to focusing on the process so we can get closer to our values? Well, one of the challenges about outcomes is our finish lines seem to keep on moving forward. You know, you think about people that are, they go on and they get their degree and then their postgraduate degree.

18:14And then it's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game. Oh my gosh, yes. Well, I actually bought the game for my kids when they were little. And I was horrified about what we're teaching our children through the game of life because it's this path that you're on and you get a little car and then you put little pink and blue people in it, which is a problem to begin with, right? And then you take the car along and you try and get money and you try and get degrees and you try and get to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack. And once you get to retirement, you're done, right?

18:45You won. What about the whole path along the way? And enjoyment, yes, but meaning. And just the process, the process of growing the strawberries is very different. I could go to the store and buy some strawberries pretty easily. And actually the outcome of those strawberries, I'm sad to say, is they got a little eating. It got a little eating. Sounds like you're gardening similar to mine, yes. Much of my garden gets eaten. And it's not about that. So we know that our finish lines keep on moving forward. And so trying to go for the finish line is problematic. We know that focusing on the outcome can interfere with our ability to be in the here and now.

19:25And it's not that we don't have goals. You make values-based goals, but you're also flexible if you don't reach those goals. and focusing on the process can make our effort feel different because we're in it. If you focus on the process of writing a book versus the outcome of the book, your experience of writing is so different. While I was writing this creative process of thoughts coming to me and following this trail and having conversations with people about this idea, It's incredibly exciting and invigorating and brings a lot of vitality when you're in the process, whatever that process is.

20:04It's time for a quick break. But when we return, Diana will share more of my favorite tips for getting your energy back on track this year. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.

20:21clinical psychologist dr diana hill is on a mission to help us allot our energy in healthier ways so we can stop putting effort into the things that don't serve us and start investing in stuff that benefits our well-being so far we've heard two great tips from her new book wise effort but Strategy number three is what I like to call, when in doubt, seek variation. A principle that Diana borrowed from an unlikely set of teachers. Autonomous robots in war zones. So Dave is my brother-in-law. And he designs what he calls the brains of robots. He designs self-driving planes. He's worked on Segways.

20:57And robots that go into war zones and look for minds. And one of the things that he designed that he said was his favorite thing was something called the get unstuck button. And what this button does when deployed is if the robot is stuck, can you imagine a robot stuck in a cave, right? It's designed to do everything in its repertoire other than what it's doing. So this robot may jump up and down. It may hit its head against the wall. It may crawl down real low. It may go backwards. It may go sideways. And eventually the chances of that robot getting unstuck are much higher than the robot doing what it was doing.

21:35but this maps on to behavioral evolution. We have a lot of interest in evolutionary psychology and how evolution can inform our understanding of human behavior but there's also something about how evolution can help us understand how to evolve our behavior in this lifetime and one principle of evolution is that you need variation to evolve. You think about Darwin's finches, you need all those varieties of finches to figure out which beak fit to crack which nut on which island. So we need variation in our behavior. One of the things that we tend to do when we get scared, or when we're frustrated, or when we're angry, is that we tend to have a narrowing of attention and a narrowing of our behavioral repertoire.

22:20That narrowing actually leads us to stay more stuck. So we first need variation. But there's actually three steps to behavioral evolution. One is variation. The second one is selection. Notice when something works. We have to notice when something is shifting and it may be working. And then the third step is we have to reinforce and retain what works. And we go through that cycle over and over again. Mix things up when you're stuck. Find things that are working and then retain and reinforce what does work. But Don't get so stuck in your habit, you know, just because it worked five years ago doesn't mean it's going to work now.

23:02So we also need to stay open and flexible. I think that act of trying to stay open and flexible can be really tricky because it sometimes means trying out behaviors that we think are wrong or that we've rejected or that we worry won't be a good part of our identity and so on. And so this act of engaging in variation sometimes comes with a little discomfort. And that gets to our next strategy, strategy number four. One of the things we need to do to apply our energy a little bit more wisely is to stop running away from discomfort. Discomfort doesn't feel good. Why is running away from it so counterproductive?

23:34Well, there's two things that are problematic about running away from discomfort. The first is often the ways in which we run away from discomfort cause secondary problems. So we can think about this. You know, I'm sitting at my computer. I'm going through my emails. there's the emails that I don't want to respond to. So I just kind of pass over them. And then I repeatedly avoid those emails and avoid those emails and avoid those emails until, oh no, one of those emails was really important for me to pay attention to. Or the way in which you're avoiding it, maybe you're getting up and you're going to the fridge or you're going outside to have a smoke.

24:13These avoidance strategies usually fall into the category of distracting yourself, numbing yourself out with substances, food, technology. We avoid through bracing with our body, holding our breath. I don't want to feel it. We avoid through procrastination. We avoid through giving up. So all of those strategies, you can think about what your favorite ones are, and we all do them, have these secondary problems because now not only are you dealing with the pain that you were avoiding, but now you're dealing with the pain of the thing that you do to avoid. The other problem with avoidance is that oftentimes signs, the things that we avoid are connected to our values in some way or form.