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Hi guys, welcome back to the Conscious Success podcast. I am so glad to be with all of you today. So I wanted to start.
Hey guys, welcome back to the Conscious Success podcast. I'm so glad you're here with me today. I am so excited for this episode. And so I wanted to start with a question.
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Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Conscious Success podcast. I'm so glad to be with you all today. And I wanted to start this episode off with a question. Have you ever recognized a pattern of behavior that you know isn't serving you, and you are committed to changing it, and yet then you find yourself days or weeks or, let's face it, even hours later doing the very thing that you just swore to yourself that you would stop doing?
And you're reacting in that same old habitual way and falling back into the same patterns. You know better, but you struggle to actually do better or do differently. Maybe you realize that hitting the snooze button for 45 minutes in the morning isn't serving you. And you're really committed to getting up earlier and getting a workout in or working on your side hustle. But yet, within a few days, you're right back to ignoring your alarm.
Or maybe you know that you're wasting a lot of time each day scrolling Instagram or TikTok or even LinkedIn, and you vow to stop doing that and spend your time more intentionally, but yet you keep falling down that exact same rabbit hole. Or perhaps when you feel vulnerable or hurt or like a need isn't getting met, you know you tend to either go on the attack or you shut down. And you know that that pattern isn't helpful in your dating life or in your marriage.
But in those heightened moments, that old pattern just takes over. If you're nodding your head right now, first of all, you are not alone. And second of all, this episode is for you. Because here's the thing. The women that I work with are incredibly self-aware. They've done therapy. They've read the books. They've listened to the podcasts. They know what isn't working and what they wish to change. And yet, when that intention doesn't stick, it is really easy to conclude,
that you are somehow broken or incapable of changing, that something must be wrong with you, that you're lazy, or that you don't have enough discipline, that maybe you just have to accept this is just the way you are. But today, I want to offer you a completely different explanation, one that is rooted in neuroscience, which I have found so incredibly empowering in my own life and career redesign journey and have seen so many clients benefit from learning.
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So I wanted to break this down and share it with you today. So in this episode, we're going to talk about why changing your behavior feels so hard and how to actually make lasting changes by walking through a practical step-by-step framework that you can start applying to your own life this week. Because the real reason that you're not showing up differently is not a character flaw. Because the real reason you're not showing up differently isn't a character flaw.
And it's not evidence that the life you want isn't available to you. Once you understand how to actually build more supportive habits, you'll truly feel like there's no shift that you can't make and no goal that you are not empowered to accomplish. So let's get into it. So why is changing our behavior so hard? It is because most of our actions and behaviors are not actually determined by our conscious mind.
Our conscious mind, or our prefrontal cortex, is only responsible for about 5 % of what we do. Our prefrontal cortex is very taxing. It's very energy inefficient. And so it has a very limited bandwidth. And so the other 95 % of our actions and behaviors are governed by our subconscious mind based on pattern recognition and ingrained habits. Think about driving to work or dropping your kids off at school.
After a while, you don't have to read the street signs or follow your navigation. You just know where to turn, and you do so basically on autopilot. Or think about trying to tie your shoes. You probably learned how to do that somewhere around age five. And at first, you might have thought to yourself, okay, one bunny ear, two bunny ears, cross them over each other. But now, decades later, it takes virtually zero conscious thought. You just do it.
because your brain has learned through years and years of repetition that this is the default path to follow. So when you make a conscious decision to change how you're showing up in some way, I'm going to stop doing X and start doing Y, you are essentially trying to override years of deeply grooved neural wiring. And if you expect to be able to do that overnight, that is a wildly unfair fight.
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That is not a willpower problem. It's a biology problem. Just like learning a new skill for the first time takes a lot of energy and concentration, the same is true when we want to override or change a behavior. We can't just make the decision and boom, behavior change. Instead, we have to consciously direct and then continually redirect our mind to the change that we wish to make and then actually take the corresponding action.
until we've reinforced that new pattern of behavior enough times that it becomes ingrained and then it's just habitual. And at that point, it moves from conscious to subconscious thought, and it frees up new capacity in your prefrontal cortex to learn or to change something else. So in order to successfully change your behavior, what you really need to understand and learn how to do is how to update your internal operating system and rewire your brain.
So this is where one of my favorite concepts comes in, neuroplasticity. For really long time, scientists believed that the brain was essentially fixed after a certain age, that after childhood, the neural pathways that you had in your 20s were largely the ones that you were stuck with for the rest of your life. You can't teach an old dog new tricks, right? Well, actually, that's wrong. In more recent years, research emerged that completely overturned that assumption. What we now know is that the blank
What we now know is that the brain is plastic, meaning it's malleable, it's changeable throughout our entire lives. We are literally capable of forming new neural connections, new neural pathways, new ways of thinking, perceiving, and responding to the world at any age. And while the more deeply grooved a neural pathway is, the more time and intentional effort it may take to break that habit and to create a new pathway, it is absolutely possible.
This means that how you show up tomorrow is not defined by how you've shown up in your past. If something isn't working in your life, if beliefs you formed in childhood are no longer serving you, if the patterns of behavior you developed to protect yourself are no longer helpful, you are empowered to change them. I have experienced this personally and I see it with my clients every single day. And it is honestly why I do what I do and why I love my job so much. Now, let me give you an analogy about
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what building new neural pathways actually feels like that hopefully will make this concept a little bit more concrete. So I want you to imagine that you are hiking through a dense jungle, and you need to get from point A to point B, but you've never been to point B before, and there is no path to get there. You have to bushwhack. And you are taking a machete, and you are chopping through branches and undergrowth going through this jungle, and it is slow, it's effortful.
It's uncomfortable, and honestly, it's exhausting. And this whole time, you're not even sure you're heading in the right direction until you eventually arrive at point B. But here's the thing. The next time you walk that same path, it's a little bit easier. The undergrowth is a little bit trampled. You can see where our branches are missing. You don't feel as completely lost. It's still challenging. You might still lose your footing. But you kind of directionally know where you're headed.
And as you walk that path again and again, each time it becomes a little bit clearer and a little bit easier to follow. And over time, a real packed dirt-like hiking trail starts to form. And if you keep walking it, eventually it becomes a paved road, and then a highway, and then a full-on superhighway that feels smooth and fast and effortless. You barely even have to think about it. You can just drive down it.
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This is exactly what is happening in your brain when you're building a new behavior. The first time you try to respond differently, to keep yourself from reflexively picking up your phone to check email or Slack or Instagram, or to avoid getting defensive, it feels like you're bushwhacking. It's awkward. It's slow. It's effortful. And your brain is going to try to just go down the known and well-grooved behavioral path, because your brain is always looking for the most efficient route.
But every single time you make that new choice, you are creating a new neural pathway. And over time, the old superhighway, the problematic behavior you once just did on autopilot, it begins to atrophy. It begins to be covered with tumbleweeds and vines and the pavement cracks. And so with enough repetition, the new behavior becomes your new superhighway, and the old neural pathway closes up.
But when you're just starting to build that new behavior, your brain is going to try to default to the path of least resistance, which is how you find yourself snoozing your alarm yet again when you promised yourself you wouldn't. And again, I just want to emphasize this doesn't happen because you're weak. It is literally how your brain is designed to work. So when you catch yourself reverting to old patterns, and you will, the invitation here is to not judge or criticize yourself.
or decide that you're incapable of changing and just give up. It is instead to bring your awareness to the fact that, no, I've started to go down that old familiar super highway instead. Meet yourself with compassion because that neural pathway is just more familiar, it's more habitual. And then make the conscious choice to redirect, to start down that new road again. And if you keep catching and redirecting instead of shaming yourself, eventually,
you will be able to access that new neural pathway more and more easily. It's just not a reasonable expectation to demolish the old superhighway overnight. It is about becoming increasingly conscious and skilled at catching yourself just before or just after you start down the old path so you can say, OK, wait, backtrack. Let's go down this road instead. And with repetition, that choice becomes easier and more automatic. And studies show that it takes on average
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66 days to form a new habit.
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Studies show that on average, it takes about 66 days to form a new habit. But that number depends on how deeply grooved the old pathway is and how many times you've actually chosen and repeated the new behavior. The more repetition, the more quickly that change will stick.
What building a new neural pathway requires is this, repetition, consistency, and time, not perfection. Missteps are an expected part of the process. What matters is that you keep consciously redirecting and you keep.
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What matters is that you keep directing conscious, intentional effort towards the change you wish to see, coming back and trying again and again. And here's the piece I really want you to hold on to. Awareness precedes choice, and choice precedes action. You can't choose something different if you're not even aware that you're doing it. If you're just running on autopilot and reacting, defaulting, going down the superhighway without even realizing it, there's no opening for change.
But the moment that you become consciously aware of the pattern, that is the moment that you're returned to your power. Because in that moment, you have the agency to do something differently. This is why so much of the work of behavior change actually starts before you even attempt to change the behavior at all. It starts with noticing. What's not working? Why am I doing that? What's happening right before I make that choice? Because once you can see the pattern and the pathway clearly,
you have agency over it. You shift from being run by your patterns to be able to observe them and ultimately liberate yourself from them. So before I share the framework, I want you to really hear this. You are not at the mercy of your past.
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So before I share the framework, I really want you to hear this. You are not at the mercy of your past, your paradigms, or your patterns. You are not a victim, but the creator of your life. If something isn't working, you get to choose something different. You are empowered to change it. The life you want is genuinely available to you. You just have to bring awareness to what is no longer serving you, build an actionable plan for how you're going to show up differently,
and then take consistent empowered actions imperfectly down that new path until that future is realized. Okay, so let's talk about how to actually apply this. I'm gonna walk you through the behavior change framework that I use with my clients and I want you to take it away from this episode and actually apply it to one area of your life where you wish to see change. And I really encourage you to pull out a journal right now if you're in a place where you can do that.
or come back to this section after you finish listening, because change happens in the application of these concepts, not just in your awareness of them. So I'm going to use one example throughout all six steps to make this really concrete. Let's say you want to switch roles, and you're committed to devoting time each week to looking for applying and interviewing for a new job. And every week,
You think you're going to find the time somewhere, but then work and life get busy, and another week goes by, and again, you never actually worked on your resume or reached out to anyone. Your Sunday scaries are intense, you feel completely stuck, and you have no exit path lined up. OK, so step one is to assess your current state. Start by getting really honest about what is not working. What are you constantly complaining about or getting frustrated with? What's happening that doesn't feel good?
What do you wish were different?
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Don't filter yourself here. This is just information. Write it all down, the frustrations, the patterns you keep noticing, the ways you wish you were showing up differently. Just get it all out on paper. And this is one of the reasons I am such a fan of regular journaling.
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This is one of the reasons I am such a fan of having a regular journaling practice. Because when you give yourself a safe space to vent and to process, you start to see the same patterns arise again and again. The same frustrations you're writing down on paper, the same results. And that builds awareness. And as we now know, awareness precedes choice. OK, so after you've done all of your venting about your current state and what's not working,
Step two is to define your future state that you wish to see. So you're gonna flip it. What do you wish you were doing or experiencing instead? Now, I don't want you to make this about some far off future version of you that you can't see or access yet. Instead, make it about your immediate future self, maybe 15 or 30 days from now, and get really specific. Not just, I wanna make more progress towards my goals each week, but what would that actually look like?
How would you be showing up? What would you be doing or not doing each day? And then really allow yourself to feel into how that change would impact you positively. What would be happening in your work, in your relationships, your energy, your sense of self, your life on the whole? So in our example, in your desired future state, maybe you're protecting five hours a week to work on your job search. You're blocking the time. You're protecting and holding yourself accountable to it.
You're having great exploratory conversations. You're following promising job leads. You're building your confidence. And you're feeling so much more hopeful and empowered. OK, so then step three is to identify what is in the way of that future state becoming your reality. And this is where we get really honest about the gap between where we want to be and how we're currently showing up. So how does somebody who's able to create that future reality
actually show up? And what specific behaviors aren't serving you at present? Where do you tend to fall short of your intentions and of how you genuinely wish you'd show up? So in our example, maybe you haven't actually blocked any time blocks on your calendar to work on the job search. You're just waiting for that time to appear. Maybe when somebody asks you if you're free, even though you have blocked the time off, you just say yes and collapse your boundaries and book over it.
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Or maybe when you sit down to work on your resume or send an outreach message, you start to feel really uncomfortable and overwhelmed. And so you just go and check your email inbox or you do some minor but safe task around the house, like putting in a load of laundry instead of the thing that you are actually committed to doing. And this step is not about self-criticism. We are not here to beat ourselves up. What we are here to do is see what we're empowered to shift. And so I really want you to approach this with curiosity.
rather than judgment or criticism. Next, step four is to map our triggers and temptations. Now, this is the really juicy stuff because it's usually not that you're failing across the board. It's that there are specific moments, specific situations, specific emotional states that reliably pull you back to the old pattern that you're trying to break. So what are your triggers? What causes you to act
from habit or self-protection rather than from intention? What are your temptations? What are the moments where the superhighway is most seductive? Get really specific, because the more clearly you can see these moments coming, the more power you have over them. So in our example, maybe when you stay up late the night before, you hit the snooze button instead of waking up early to work on your job search.
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Or maybe when someone asks if you're free for a meeting, you feel guilty and you collapse your boundary and you schedule over your time block. Or when someone slacks you at the beginning of your time block, you feel the need to respond immediately rather than giving yourself that focused time to actually get to work. Or maybe when you feel unsure of how to execute, your inner critic starts to get really loud. And so you tap out and distract yourself before actually applying for that role. So each of these could be
very applicable triggers and temptations to one single situation that you were trying to shift. And each of these is so important to recognize because, again, awareness precedes choice. Once we can see what's happening upstream, we can make a plan for it. So step five is to design your new response. And this is where you start to build the new road. So for each trigger or temptation, ask yourself, what will I do instead?
and then I want you to write it down as an if-then statement. The if is the trigger or the temptations, the situation you know has caused you to go off track before, and the then is the new action you will take instead. So for example, if I feel the urge to stay up late watching TV, then I will remind myself what I want even more than watching that show is a new job that doesn't feel soul sucking.
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So for example, if I feel the urge to stay up late watching TV, then I'll remind myself that what I want, even more than watching that next episode, is a new job that doesn't feel soul-sucking. And I will wind down for bed so that I can wake up when my alarm goes off. Or if I have a block of time to work on my job search, then I'll turn off Slack and put my phone on Do Not Disturb so I can have uninterrupted heads down time to work. The more specific
actionable and accessible your new response is, the more likely your brain is to actually access it in the moment. So I also really encourage you to write these if-then statements down somewhere you'll actually be able to see them. Maybe that's a note in your phone. Maybe it's a sticky note on your computer. But especially in the beginning when you're bushwhacking and building those new neural pathways, accessing the predetermined path and choice
you've already committed to rather than having to choose again or remind yourself is going to set you up for so much more success. OK, the final step, step six, is the real life application of this. This is the real work. And it's the only part that actually builds the new neural pathway. So you have to actually do it in real life when it's hard. You actually have to action that then part of the statement. Even when you're tired, even when the superhighway
is right there and it would be so much easier to just go down the familiar path. And the first couple of times will be rough and it will demand real intentionality from you. You may need to refine those if-then statements or add additional ones as you discover new triggers or new temptations that you hadn't accounted for before. But if you keep bringing your awareness to what is going to...
But if you keep bringing your awareness back to what is going suboptimally and then how can you take a more empowered action again and again, eventually the new neural pathway becomes the new default. This is how behavior change actually works. And I can promise you something right now, you are going to mess this up. You will fall short of your desired actions. You will go down the old super highway sometimes and that is completely okay and completely human.
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The goal is not perfection or immediacy. The goal is curiosity and consistency, to catch yourself more often than before and to choose more intentionally over time. And every single time you catch it is a time for celebration. And every single time you do something different builds your confidence and your belief in your capacity to change. You are able of creating the change you wish to see. Okay, so let's bring this home.
Change is hard, not because you're broken and not because the life you want isn't available to you. Change is hard because your brain is defaulting to what it is practiced in. But thanks to neuroplasticity, you are never stuck. You have the ability to build new neural pathways, to create new defaults, to literally rewire your brain to support the life and the version of yourself you're working toward. It requires awareness, intentional action, and repetition, but it is absolutely within your reach.
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And I know it is because I see it with my clients every day and I've lived it myself. I have often talked on this podcast about how I'm a recovering perfectionist. Perfectionism was my go-to mindset and safety strategy that drove all of my thought patterns and all of my behavioral choices for decades. It caused me to overwork. It caused me to deprioritize my health. It limited my creative capacity. It kept me from trying new things like entrepreneurship.
that I could potentially fail at. And it has taken me years of building awareness of my perfectionistic patterns and how they show up and choosing to meet myself with compassion instead of criticism and then choosing differently until the new way of thinking and being and acting became my new default. And sometimes, especially in times of high stress, I still find myself back in those perfectionistic patterns or spirals and I have to pull myself out of it.
I am human, but on the whole, I now believe that to be human is to be imperfect. I don't get overwhelmed or frozen when attempting something new. I let myself try and fail and learn and keep going. I have been able to radically change my mindset, my personality, and the way that I show up in such a way that it has allowed me to iteratively and imperfectly create the life that I have today. One of my best friends was just saying to me the other day that
I'm such a chill mom, and that was not what she expected from me at all. She thought I was going to be this perfectionistic and rigid mother like I had been in my past. And look, I am in no way a perfect mother. But being able to move through motherhood with any amount of surrender or to build the business that I have today, it simply wouldn't have been possible for the perfectionistic Emma of five years ago. And if I can do it, so can you.
Here is my invitation to you this week. Take this framework that we walked through today and apply it to just one area of your life, one pattern, one gap between where you are and where you want to be. And then work through all six of these steps. Really write them out. And then commit to showing up intentionally in that one area for the next 66 days, the next two months. Not perfectly, just intentionally. And
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If you want support in doing this work or if you find yourself unable to take those empowered actions, despite having the awareness and the desire, if you've written all of those if-then statements and yet you can't actually action the then, then let's talk because there's very likely a lack of safety at the nervous system level that is preventing you from taking those actions out of self-protection. And in that case, we need to neutralize the threat.
and re-regulate your nervous system so that you can actually do the thing that you want to do. You can always DM me on Instagram, I'm at Conscious Success Co. or head to conscioussuccessco.com. It's in the show notes to learn more about working together. So remember, 66 days, commit to the reps, trust the process, rewire your brain, shift your habits and create your new reality. I hope this episode served you. I am so, so grateful that you've chosen to spend your time with me.
I know how precious it is and I will see you in the next one.
