Hello and welcome to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Shurina. I'm your host, your partner in change, your coach for transformation in personal and professional life and just someone who is obsessed with the process of change, of growth, of personal evolution, of personal evolution, personal collective. I'm just very passionate and enthusiastic about unlocking and using more of our human potential and super pumped about all the science and research guys. To be honest, that is coming out of neuroscience labs and psychology labs and behavioral science labs and there is so much more better, more precise research about how humans change and how we evolve and how we can be better gardeners or better nourishers of this process of human change. By the end of today's podcast, guys, you will learn how to create better conditions for your better health habits, how to make better choices like really important choices for your life, for your career, for your relationships without you having to engage in some complex decision-making. You having to engage in some complex decision-making, strategizing. Now I'm not saying those are bad and we do need to do those from time to time but there are forces in our lives that will shape our life's trajectory, our personal growth and evolution, which are more powerful, even more powerful than that strategic thinking that we might do on a regular or maybe not so regular basis. So I'm going to share with you research-based tools and strategies that will help you to architect your life and yourself in the way you want in things like health, in things like career choices and relationships, and better decision making. For more motivation for doing better work, for showing up as your best self and giving your best self, best effort, instead of maybe choking and not feeling motivated, feeling defeated or not feeling motivated, feeling defeated, feeling a blow on energy or it just doesn't matter or it makes no sense, not having really this excitement about your work. So you're going to learn how to increase your motivation, how to eat better, how to shape your life path better by the end of today's episode. It's going to be very insightful and also very simple to put into practice if you really decide to act on this knowledge, which is again based on really good and consistent research.
Speaker 1So let's begin. I'd like to start with this phrase you don't really know what's helpful until it helps you. I don't know if you had ever this experience, but I certainly did quite a few times in my life when I would consistently get a certain advice, whether that's about my business strategy or my approach to life, I would consistently get this advice and I'm like, no, you know, this might be good advice, but it's not for me, Until something forces me to try it, whether that's because everything else just didn't work or it just happened to happen this way, that that would be like the only option or the easiest choice. And then it works and you're like, oh, I didn't realize it would work. And I again don't know if you had experience experience I had it for quite a while and then I realized maybe, you know, just maybe give more trials to things, especially things that are based on good practices, on good research, on just good advice out there that worked for for many people. Maybe that worked in your industry, worked for other, let's say, in health and fitness. But let's start with examples and stories and research that will illustrate it even better Our tendency to think that we know better, like we know ourselves better, when in reality we often just don't.
Speaker 1First story better eating without more willpower. So there was this body of research, really great research, and the research was about what helps people to eat better, and they asked people like what do you think will help you Better information or more reminders of better I don't know position in a supermarket over a certain product, or making information more prominent so you really know, like, what's good for you or what's not good for you. But in reality and people thought it wouldn't work. In reality, what works a lot better for changing people's behavior are things like what you put in your fridge, what's most available there, what you put in your gym bag or work bag. Where do you have your lunch let's say you go to a more healthy place versus you go to a less healthy place or the servings of snacks that you buy. Let's say, if you usually buy 100 grams of nuts and then you switch to 20 grams, believe it or not, it will work a lot better for your willpower to not overeat than trying to willpower your way to eat less. Having smaller plates, smaller glasses works a lot better for eating less than telling yourself that you need to eat less, not making certain foods available, like at some point.
Speaker 1To give you an example, I decided I'm going to do oil-free cooking and so there is never oil in my house, and even if I want to cook with oil or, for that reason, with sugar or pasta? There is none. And what do you think? I never cook with any sugar or any oil because I just don't have none and I don't even think about that. And even when sometimes I want to eat some pasta, I'm like well, it's not there and it's 7 pm at night. I'm like I'm not that crazy about pasta, so I'm going to go and get it. And there are no delivery apps on my phone. So the environment that's the purpose of this story.
Speaker 1So when people were asked what would help them to eat better, it was like more information, more motivation, more reminders of some sort. And what actually worked better in practice is changing their plates, making things more available and visible in the fridge or in your environment. Right? Let's say, instead of putting some candy snacks in your office, you have a bowl of fruit or maybe some protein bars, whatever you'd like to eat more of. That actually works a lot better, not telling yourself to be different. So the takeaway if you are working on your habits eating habits, specifically, or fitness habits ask yourself how can I make this thing to be super easy and no-brainer? So don't work harder. Make the right thing easy Again for me.
For example, I used to overeat nuts all of the time, like I would eat a whole bag and the bag would be like 200 grams. And then I started buying smaller bags, like 20 grams, 30 grams, and I didn't even finish those Because like, yeah, you know, I don't actually want to eat that many nuts and, no, I don't ever overeat nuts because I don't buy big containers. So, instead of again trying to be different, I changed the packages and well, yeah, just like research says, it worked better. Now the next one is what it's called in research, zip code effect. We often believe, guys, that our choices about our life path, about our career path, about what we decide to do for fitness, where are we going to go on vacation, how we're going to make choices about recycling or environment. We even think that it's my personality and I make choices which are purely my own free will, like hustle, willpower, discipline, and then maybe sometimes I would listen to other people and, yes, very often we wouldn't listen to other people, but we would see, observe, your brain would do that and then we would change automatically our behavior. And so what zip code effect is all about?
Speaker 1What researchers analyzing a lot of data learned, is that where you live, or, basically by what people in community you're surrounded by and what is available in your environment, like, for example, walking places, will define what you end up doing a lot more, and that also will correlate with your lifespan. Like, people in certain communities live on 10-20 years longer compared to other people that live in different neighborhoods. So your neighborhood predicts your health and the amount of years you're going to live more than your genetics. So that's why they called it zip code effect. Your zip code predicts your health better than your genes. So if you don't like where your health is heading, yeah, the easiest thing actually would be to change where you live and be in a place where there are more places to exercise, that people are active. Like yesterday I went out in the neighborhood and it was a public holiday here in South Africa and people are just jogging and cycling and those are the only people I saw on the streets jogging, cycling, and there are all these green places and I was out for a walk and in the morning I didn't feel like very energetic or like being more active. But then I ended up doing more because I saw all these people doing more of active stuff and I analyzed that just because that's my work, that's what I do.
Speaker 1I study psychology and motivation and change of people's behavior. But most people never think about that. But you still end up doing more of what people around you do more of. So the practical move here is change. Map out your default influencers, people you eat with, who you listen to. That's like who you ask for advice and then listen to. We actually don't again, as the example before that, we don't listen consciously that much to people's advice, but when we hear them, sort of like you know a fly on the wall, we hear what people around us talk about, what they do, that we just, you know, swap messages with someone.
Speaker 1Be sure that people who are around you most of the time are the people who you'd like to be influenced by Like. If you want to have a certain habit walking, reading more or doing certain kind of work or whatever that might be make sure that you have people who have these habits already and by default they just represent that Change who you sit with at lunch, at work, on purpose, the events you go to Follow, social media accounts that model the behavior you want, not just the outcomes you envy Like, for example, if you watch some accounts of maybe some wives of some actors or athletes, and they always you know they have all this money and they talk about their style or the things that they choose. Nothing wrong with that. But then you get the idea that why don't I just have it Versus? If you watch some account that talks about, yeah, they also have certain success, but they talk more about how they achieve their, how work ethic matters or how certain self-improvement or self growth and working on the things and on yourself, on your craft and mastery. When you follow more of these accounts, your behavior will change accordingly.
Speaker 1So don't ask for people's advice and listen to people's advice. Instead, surround yourself, be that social life, social environment architect. And what research shows really good research and consistent research shows that that social environment that you are swimming in will predict more where you end up going in your life and how you're going to live your life. That will predict more your social environment than any fancy goal setting, strategizing and trying to willpower your way through it. Yes, we have free will, but what research shows? When we use that free will to design our contacts, our environments, that works a lot better than trying to use your free will to consciously make decisions and choices to shape your life, career, your health path in the way you want. So architect your environment. Don't try to just put all of your efforts into being different.
Now the third story motivation at work, progress, not perks. So, folks, we often think that motivation to do our best work, to show up as high performers, show up as high performers, that it comes from money, some perks, fancy office, what we're going to get I don't know more vacation days or our motivation comes from working with nice people, and that matters to a degree. But the real engine of your best work, motivation and drive to over-deliver actually is the felt sense of making progress towards something meaningful. Research shows that when people can see and feel forward motion towards something meaningful, our efforts add up and they create something that makes a difference. Engagement and performance climb and you feel better, like you're better off, and when you can't see that, you disengage, no matter the perks. There was research by Teresa Amabile, which is documented in her book the Progress Principle, where they found the same thing. They analyzed 12,000 work diaries, entries across seven companies, and they also asked people and managers like what do you think motivates you to do your best work? What creates the best work-life experience, what makes you feel good at work, and they give people a few choices and progress towards meaningful work was named either the last or not at all. Named either the last or not at all.
Speaker 1We people think we often believe like we know ourselves. We know what motivates us, like more money will motivate me more, or certain perks will motivate me more. But actually what motivates us more is progress towards meaningful creation, meaningful goal, towards meaningful result, and so a better strategy of motivating yourself at work isn't thinking about the perks or the raise whatever that might be you might get, but instead manufacturing, architecting the, the visible progress towards meaningful goals, for example, at the end of each day. First of all, there gotta be a goal or some sort of result you're working towards. That gotta be clear, and so if you're a leader, a manager, you need to create that result. Or if you don't have that, then you need to create it for yourself, like what are you working towards? And then you need to everyday document wins and milestones, small steps leading you towards chipping away at that goal, ship work in smaller chunks, like instead of working on a project that might take a few months or maybe even a few years, break it down into smaller and smaller milestones and celebrate each milestone as a progress indicator. That is a lot more motivating than thinking about that reward at the end of the journey.
Speaker 1Again, leaders, you got to instrument progress indicators, like your KPIs depend on it, because they kind of do so. If you want to maximize your motivation at work, the progress has to be prominent, and if it's not, you have the power to design these progress indicators or milestones, so you have something to celebrate, ideally every day. And if you're struggling with motivation and energy at any specific moment in your day, then ask yourself how can I make micro milestones? So almost every half an hour, every 10 minutes, I get some milestone. That's why, when I'm working on some project, like a big workshop or a big presentation for a client, what I do is the first thing I do. I make a plan Okay, this is going to be step number one, this is going to be step number two, like the title. Then I'm going to create the structure, then I'm going to work on this and this and that, and every time I finish it I check the box, I cross it out on my to-do list and that keeps me going. That shows me the sense of progress.
And the bottom line here, guys, is that all these stories that I just shared with you, all these things that change our behavior and motivate us, the thing about them is we don't think they work, but they do, and the hope is that we become more conscious about what actually works via experimenting, testing and reflecting on that and then being more deliberate about architecting those things that make a difference and working with our brains as they are, not as we think they are. So that ends up bringing us more success, ending self-struggle. So that ends up bringing us more success ending self-struggle, self-sabotage and asking ourselves like I want to do X, why can't I just do that? Well, maybe because you're trying to work with the brain that you think you've got instead of the one that you actually got, and working with things that actually work for us, not, again, the things that we think will work for us.
Speaker 1So, to sum it up, if you want to eat better, if you want to change your health habits, look what's around you. Is it the easiest thing? How's your plate side? What's in your fridge? What are the delivery apps? What are the places you go to? What are the people you eat with. Right then to the second one.
Speaker 1We think that people don't influence people around us. Social media accounts we think they don't matter. They matter. We read them like a book and we follow that book to the letter. So who do you eat with? Who do you sit with? There is also research that just proximity to a high performer will increase your performance sustainably and predictably. So I believe it's 15%, or even 25%. So choose your social environment.
Speaker 1Make the things that you want to do easy and if you want to have more motivation in any pursuit, then make those milestones. Don't be lazy, they do matter in any pursuit. Then make those milestones. Don't be lazy, they do matter. Progress motivates you more than any perk or reward at the end could ever dream of.
Speaker 1So the bottom line, work with the brain. You have not the one. You think you have Hope. That was really, really helpful, guys. There is amazing again, research. So make yourself aware of it. Set experiments, test it out and see how much better it works when you design it for the human you are. If this podcast was helpful and useful and you believe that people at work on your team, in your family can benefit from it and you'd like to discuss it with them, then please do share and make it a social learning experience Rate review that helps us to reach more eager to learn and improve ears in the world. So be a part of our collective self-improvement journey and till next time, keep changing, keep growing and, most importantly, guys, work with the brain. You have not the one you think you have. Till next time.