472. Planning for “Bad” Behavior

Do you ever fall off the wagon with your health goals? Do you tell yourself that you’re going to work on your business but then you get distracted with other things instead? How about your budget? Do you follow it 100% or do you occasionally or often spend money more recklessly? What would happen if you started planning to do such things intentionally? Sound crazy? Then today’s episode is just for you and it might just surprise you how much faster you’ll achieve your goals if you give it a try. This is episode 472, Planning for Bad Behavior. Let’s go.

This is Better Than Happy. I’m your coach, Jody Moore. And on this podcast, my objective, just so we’re clear, is to change what you’ve been taught and have likely believed about yourself up until now. Here’s what I believe about you. I believe that what you think is real is mostly imagined And what you imagine is actually creating what’s real. I believe that in the ways you desire to achieve, you 100% have the capacity to succeed.

And finally, I believe that joy, love, and miracles are your God given natural state of being. And any time you feel far from them, the way back is much simpler than you think, but that’s about to change. Are you ready? Let’s do this. Welcome to Better Than Happy, I’m Jody Moore and I’ll be your coach today.

Hey there, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for joining me. I’m so excited to teach you this simple but kind of a game changer of a tool today. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it here on the podcast before, but it’s one I’ve used a lot in my own life and helped a lot of people to implement as well.

Before we get into it, make sure you’re registered for the How to Help Your Anxious Kid webinar. School is about to start, whether you’ve got young kids or kids going off to college or missions or whatever stage your kids are in, kids get a lot of anxiety at this time of year thinking about change and new things and unknowns and maybe going back to some things they do know that they don’t love.

So that’s why here at Jody Moore Coaching, we want to put some tools out there to help you to help your kids. Unfortunately, I see a lot of parents who have best of intentions doing the exact opposite thing of what I recommend that actually a lot of the things that people are doing, I think are making it worse and we want to make sure that we’re not doing that. Of course, I know you’re not doing that intentionally, but I want to equip you with the three biggest mistakes I see parents make that I think make it worse and then I’m going to give you some tools that you can utilize instead that are very practical, very doable.

I do this with my own children and loved ones and literally thousands of other people have used these to guide their children. So go to jodymoore.com/anxiouskid to register. I want to encourage you to mark your calendar off and come live because I’ve got some kind of awesome things to give you, but you have to be there live to get them. And worst case scenario, if you can’t come live, there is going to be a replay, but you’ve got to register to get it. So jodymoore.com/anxiouskid. If you’re like me and you’ve forgotten how to spell, thanks to technology, it’s A-N-X-I-O-U-S is how you spell anxious, jodymoore.com/anxiouskid. I’ll see you there.

All right, so today we’re going to talk about planning for bad behavior. What do you think I’m talking about? Well, I gave you an intro, so you kind of have some idea what we’re going to be talking about. But you might think by just looking at the title, and if you’ve listened to me for very long, you might’ve thought I was going to teach you how to plan for knowing other people are sometimes going to behave in ways we don’t prefer, that are not ideal. But that’s not what I’m talking about today. I’m talking about planning for yourself to misbehave.

Now, the reason I put “bad” in air quotes, which you can’t really see, because you’re just listening to me, but I’m doing air quotes right now, planning for bad behavior, okay? The reason I put it in air quotes is because bad may not be the best word to describe it. I’m not going to encourage you to plan to lie, or cheat, or steal, or hurt somebody, or be dishonest, or anything that you might determine is morally wrong. But I am going to encourage you to plan for some behavior that is not ideal, that is even the opposite behavior of what you know you need to implement in order to achieve a goal or change some kind of a habit.

For example, eating junk food when you’re trying to eat healthier. Sleeping in when you’re trying to get yourself to get up early and do whatever it is you want to be doing in the morning. “Wasting time,” again, more air quotes today, wasting time when you’ve got a whole list of things that need to get done. Not working on your business when your business needs a lot of help and your to-do list from your business is very long. This is what I mean by bad behavior. Planning for it, like scheduling time in your calendar to do it.

Now, why would I tell you to do that? Why in the world would I tell you to do that? Well, first of all, any area of your life where you’re not indulging in such behaviors, you don’t need to do this for. If you’re like, “Hey, I used to not be able to get up and exercise, but I’ve been doing it for years. Now I get up and exercise” – I don’t know how many days a week you want to do that, let’s say four days a week. I told myself I wanted to and it’s a habit now that I do and I almost never miss or if I do it’s like every now and again and then I get right back on track, then you don’t need to do this in that area of your life, okay? 

I’m talking about the areas of your life where you do fall into this again ‘bad’ behavior. The areas of your life where you’re really trying to make a change or to achieve something and you keep falling back into old ways. What I want you to do is pause what you’re doing right now, pause your whole plan, reassess your plan, and I want you to include in your plan this kind of indulgent behavior.

You know why? I’ll tell you. Right now, when you do it, if you’re like most people you feel bad after, right? You feel guilty because it wasn’t what you said you were going to do and I do think that that is actually pretty harmful. I think it’s toxic to your relationship with yourself. I hesitate to use the word toxic. It’s so powerful. But I do think it’s harmful to your relationship with yourself, okay? It shows you that you can’t count on you. It reinforces the idea that you don’t follow through on what you said you’re going to do, and then you feel bad after. And when we feel bad after – so think overeating, overspending, wasting time. When we feel bad after, do you know what we want to do? More ‘bad’ behavior, right?

If I feel guilty because I didn’t work on my business, then what sounds really helpful in that moment is a piece of chocolate. So maybe I switch topics in terms of the bad behavior, but I don’t have a lot of energy or motivation or drive to get back on track with my best self when I feel bad. So if we just plan for it, then we don’t need to feel bad because we told ourselves we were going to do it. The only reason you feel bad is because you think, “Oh shoot, I didn’t want to be doing that. I shouldn’t be doing that. And I did it anyway.” That’s the reason you feel bad, okay? It’s because of that story.

So if you can change the story in your head, great, I’m in. But this is just another tool to try out, to plan for it. To plan for, on this day of the week, on Saturdays or whatever it is, I’m going to eat whatever I want. Or instead of trying to get up four days a week, I’m going to try to get up two days a week and I’m going to sleep in the other days. Or I’m going to try to get up four days but one of those four days I’m going to ignore my alarm and just sleep in and not get up.

Notice we’re still making the decision in advance. Still deciding ahead of time. So we’re using a much more developed and wiser part of the brain called the prefrontal cortex that is necessary to make decisions in advance to decide it. That part of your brain is the part we want driving the car as much of the time as possible. We want that part of our brain making decisions because that part of our brain is the human part of the brain. This is the part of the brain that my dogs don’t have. 

My dogs cannot plan, “Hey, you know what? Maybe I should go to sleep a little earlier because I’ve been tired lately and I’d like to have more energy tomorrow. They don’t think that way. They’re just in the moment, spontaneous about what they want. So we want this part of our brain driving because it’s more intelligent, therefore it will create a better life. But it also considers a lot more factors.

Whereas the other part of the brain, the instant gratification monkey part of the brain just wants to do what is pleasurable and fun and easy right now and avoid anything painful or challenging or hard right now. That part of the brain cares about right now. That’s the part that my dogs do have.

So if I plan in advance for it, then I stay driving with the prefrontal cortex. That’s number one. Number two, I give myself a little bit of a break from trying to make the changes or do the work that’s challenging to do. It’s okay to have breaks. It’s okay to let the instant gratification monkey have his way some of the time or her way some of the time. That part of you matters too.

I like to think about my three parts of me and that it’s my job to maintain a healthy relationship with all three parts of me. There’s my past self, my present self, and my future self. And just like I want to hook up my future self by choosing how I’m going to spend my time, what I’m going to do with my money, what am I going to eat, all that kind of that stuff takes care of my future self if I do it right, I also want to take care of my present self though.

I don’t want to give her huge expectations that she can’t really meet without an endless amount of suffering because she’s not that person yet. I want to push her, I want to encourage her to try and be uncomfortable to a certain extent, but sometimes I want to ease up on her and maintain a healthy relationship.

So that’s the second thing. It kind of gives you a break from this new or different or more challenging pattern in whatever area you’re applying this to. The next thing I love that it does is it creates a really fascinating effect if you really pay attention. And that is the thing that you thought you wanted to do so badly, that you have this impulse or craving or urge to do, whether it be spend a bunch of money, eat a bunch of food, waste time, watch Netflix, whatever it is, that thing is a lot less appealing when you don’t just come up with the idea on the spot and then answer that urge or craving.

Now, this is both interesting and cool and kind of disappointing, if I’m telling the truth. So I first experienced this with food years ago when I decided I’ve got to change some of my eating habits here. I can’t keep eating this way and feel good and live the life I want to live. So I started cutting out some of the junk food, some of the indulgent treats and things, and I decided, instead of just eating dessert anytime I wanted, what if I planned in advance?

Some of you have probably tried a strategy like this with food, right? What if I plan in advance that I’m going to eat a dessert five nights from now, and I plan what it is and when I’m going to eat it? And then instead of being like, “Hmm, you know what sounds good right now? A Sidecar donut.” That always sounds good to me, by the way. If you live in Southern California, you know what I’m talking about. Sidecar donuts.

Instead of going, “Ooh, that sounds good. Do I have time to go get one? Should I?” And having all that debate, and then the craving grows, the urge grows, especially if you resist it and you’re like, “No, no, no, not eating donuts, remember?” Then you want it even more, right? If you finally answer that urge or craving, it tastes amazing. At least the first couple bites. And then the guilt starts to set in and the loathing and the discomfort, right?

If you decide on Friday, and let’s say it’s Wednesday, right? You decided at least a couple days, a day or two in advance, I’m going to eat that donut. Then Friday comes along and it’s time to get your donut, you may not have the craving or urge right then. And maybe you still want it, maybe in your mind it still sounds good. And so I genuinely want you to still get it and eat it. I just want you to notice how much less amazing it is. 

Because whether it be food or overspending money or watching Netflix, a time issue, whatever category we’re talking about here, all the things that we think are so amazing or enjoyable or fun or whatever are not that great, not as great as our brains believe when we’re not also satisfying an urge or craving or like instant gratification, impulsive desire.

So if I say to myself, “I’m going to go to Target today with $50 and I’m going to buy anything I want to buy.” Then you’ll go to Target and there’s a good chance there will be nothing you want to buy. Have you ever had this happen like with a gift card, right? Somebody gives you a gift card to your favorite store. And you’re like, “I don’t see anything in this store I want right now. There’s just such a problem.” And it’s because you didn’t just have an impulsive decision. 

You weren’t at Target walking around going, “Oh, that’s cute, I really want that,” and suddenly have an impulse to buy something. Or you weren’t sitting around feeling bored or stressed or upset with your life, and so you got online and decided to shop and see what you could find that you liked, and answering that desire for dopamine. You just made a decision ahead of time to indulge in something you don’t even need, maybe, but just want. And answering that when you made the decision ahead of time is not nearly as satisfying.

You see why I’m saying this is both good news and interesting and disappointing? What I love about it though is it teaches the brain, okay, what I think I really want is this food or to lounge around and not work on my business and watch TV instead or to spend money on these cute things, to buy whatever I want. That’s what I think I want. But what I actually really want, what’s at the root of all that is a dopamine hit. I’m looking for joy. I’m looking for happiness. I’m looking for pleasure. Maybe I’m looking for relief. Maybe I want a break from some other negative emotion or some other stressful part of my life. Maybe I’m trying to get relief of some sort. Maybe I’m looking for change. Maybe I need more variety in my life. Maybe I’m looking for rest, for peace. There’s always something that we’re looking for that is available in many different forms.

So yes, buying the thing gives us the temporary hit of dopamine or eating the food or whatever gives us the temporary hit of dopamine or the relief or whatever. But it’s short-lived, first of all, and second of all, it doesn’t get to the root problem of whatever’s going on. And there are many ways to satisfy that, even if we don’t get to the root problem. Even if we just decide, hey, I need more variety in my life, or I need more joy and more happiness in my life, and I don’t know how to create that. But if I’m really working on, let’s say, a health goal, then instead of getting it from food, I could ask myself, what are other ways I could get some joy or some happiness? How else can I give myself something fun and pleasurable and rewarding that doesn’t create this problem I’m trying to solve of food, right?

Now, again, like I said before, I still want you to give yourself the food. That’s what we’re doing in the schedule. We’re building in, on this day, I’m going to eat whatever I want, or at this meal, I’m going to order whatever I want, or on this day, I’m going to eat this specific thing. You can approach it in a lot of different ways. My point is that when you do that with the prefrontal, you will gain the awareness necessary to then start asking these questions. Why is it that I think I always want that thing? What is really missing in my life or for myself? Because you won’t get the same reward loop happening in the brain. 

Okay, here’s what I mean. Let’s say I have a craving for, let’s just go back to Sidecar donuts because I don’t know, right now I’m not having a craving, but I feel like I do a lot. Okay, so let’s have a craving for that. And I go get a donut and I eat it and it’s amazing. And then what happens is I just rewarded the ask, my brain sort of asks for it, right? It asks for a donut because it wants the sugar and it wants the dopamine, it wants the pleasure and the joy. And then I give it to it and it logs that away as that was great, that worked really well. I asked for this thing, she answered it, we got the reward we were seeking, we should do that again. And that’s why a day or so later, or maybe even later the same day, I’ll have another craving for a donut.

We don’t want to keep rewarding that. What we want to do is, again, decide in advance, I’m going to go have a donut on Saturday. And then we’re not rewarding that same loop, reinforcing that same loop, we’re just having a donut, and it’s going to be disappointing because it’s still going to be good, but not as good as if you were rewarding the craving urge. Are you with me? Feel a little bit like I’m talking in circles. Hopefully you’re following me.

So it can look like a lot of things. It can look like on Saturday, I’m going to eat whatever I feel like eating, but really pay attention to what you feel like eating. It can look like, hey, this money gets set aside for me to spend on anything that I want to. This amount of time in my calendar is the time when I do anything I feel like doing in the moment, or it’s the time when I watch Netflix, or like I said, you can get specific with it. You can plan specifically what you’re going to do, but I like to sometimes even just give myself permission to like, the instant gratification monkey’s going to decide then what we want to do.

And again, fascinating to me how the instant gratification monkey, if I set aside time for her to be in charge, she’s like, “I don’t know, whatever you want.” She doesn’t have like strong urges or cravings. She’s not like, we have to watch Netflix right now or we have to eat this thing. She’s often really reasonable. And I don’t know, if you want to work out, we could do that. Or if you wanted to get some work done, we can get some work done. Like, she actually is okay with doing all these things. At times, I should say, not always, but at times. Because it’s just when that craving or urge pops up and we answer it that we reinforce the dopamine loop in the brain, okay?

So I want you to plan time for this kind of ‘bad’ behavior with whatever goals you’re working towards. Sometimes I’ll plan a whole week or more of time when I’m not going to work on my business other than maybe do the bare minimum, not going to do anything else in my business, I’m just going to relax and be with my family and do whatever sounds fun. And I have to keep reminding myself during a week like that, it’s okay, because part of me is like, are you sure this is okay? I mean, there’s so many things that we should be getting done right now, and it feels like we shouldn’t just be going to the beach every day. I’m like, no, we decided in advance that’s what we were going to do this week, right?

Or plan time to eat something a little bit more indulgent, a little bit less healthy. Plan, again, to spend some money frivolously, recklessly. It could be just a little bit of money, it could be a lot of money. It’s all dependent on your budget. Remember, we’re making this decision with the prefrontal, with the wise owl part of the brain that makes wise decisions. So I’m not talking about like, go into credit card debt for this. I’m just saying, plan what’s reasonable. Be like, and here’s $100, so you can spend on whatever you want or $20 or $1,000, I don’t know, what is your budget? But plan if, again, if you notice that you tend to overspend and you don’t stick to your budget, then you might need to plan for some, ‘bad’ behavior.

I’m telling you, this is a game changer. It minimizes the guilt. It strengthens your relationship with yourself because you’re no longer just telling yourself you’re going to do one thing and then doing something else. It gives you a break and you need breaks sometimes when you’re trying to change habits or behaviors.

And I don’t know, I don’t work with people that are having, or I should say, I don’t work on this part of their lives. I have clients who have serious addictions or things, but a lot of times if you’re dealing with some kind of a serious addiction, you need a therapist in addition. But I still believe it would be useful. 

Let’s say you have a habit of looking at pornography, whether you call it an addiction or a habit, and you’re trying to stop that. I would still plan a time to look at pornography, if that’s a challenging thing for you to stop doing. And again, I know it sounds like, why would I plan that? Well, because if you’re doing it anyway, and you’re just feeling bad afterwards, and you’re reinforcing the cycle of craving, urge, answer the urge, you’re just reinforcing the problem. So I would plan for it, I would advise you to plan for it, and notice the difference, and notice how it’s not even that enjoyable.

All right, give it a try, my friends, and then come and tell me how it goes. I want to hear about it, all right? You can find me on Instagram and my DMs, or you can, if you’re in The Lab, you have access to us through the Ask a Coach page. And by the way, when you guys write in to ask a coach and have a comment or whatever, they always forward it to me. Or you can call into our hotline, 877-HI-JODY-M. I’d love to hear from you. I want to hear how things are going in your life as you implement these tools, all right?

Thanks for joining me today, everyone. Have an amazing rest of your week and I’ll see you next week, bye-bye.

If you find the podcast to be helpful you’re going to love The Lab. In Better Than Happy: The Lab we experiment with applying all of it in your real life. Whether you’re in the middle of a challenge and ready for some relief or you’re ready to commit to pursuing your dream goals and making them a reality, come join me in the lab at jodymoore.com/thelab. That’s jodymoore.com/thelab.