EP41 Three things that hinder lasting change

In this episode, Mike delves into the art of sustainable change, exploring how small, manageable habits can lead to significant results. Drawing from personal experiences and coaching insights, Mike discusses the importance of systems over sheer willpower and the role of identity in achieving lasting transformation. Tune in to discover practical strategies for implementing change in both personal and business contexts.

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Transcript

Mike Scott (00:01)
Hey guys and girls, good to be back. So for a long time now, I've been doing growth coaching. I work with CEOs of small and mid-sized businesses, generally their owner operators. And we work on a lot of things, right? We work on their businesses. We work on their business operating system. We work on their strategy. We work on their personal lives as well, because a big thesis of mine is it's about whole life wealth.

whole life success so that all the parts of us need to be together in order for us to be great business builders, great business leaders. So a lot of what we talk about is not actually business. People come to me to grow their business and to run better businesses, but I'd say up to 70 to 80 % of the time, I'm actually not talking to them about business. I'm generally talking to them about change, behavior, habits, systems, identity, belief systems, right? Because

you know, if my journey is anything to go by this only when I have my own stuff together, do I really perform as a business builder, business leader, et cetera. And one of my observations is that it's like a lasting change, lasting behavior change, lasting habit system change is actually very difficult. You know, more often, unfortunately what happens is there are these little like spikes of behavior change or spikes of habit change, but they don't last. So some of the observations

that I've sort of come across over the years are I've kind of whittled down three things that I've noticed we do badly when we're looking for sustainable habit change or sustainable implemented change. And I just want to break them down quite quickly today, right? So the first one is we try to do things that are too big. know, James Clear is very famous for his book called Atomic Habits, Tiny, tiny habits, small manageable things.

that when compounded lead to very large results. If you want to nerd out on the stuff, Atomic Habits is one book. Another book by Charles Duhag, I think his name is, ⁓ what's his, I've totally forgotten the name of his book, but I'll drop it in the notes. ⁓ And then another one is Unwinding Anxiety, which is a bit of a misleading title for a book. It's actually about habit creation and change by Dr. Judson Brewer, I think is his name.

And this whole concept of habits and tiny small behaviors is really, really interesting to me because, you know, when we set these like massive goals, they often feel very overwhelming. And actually, even if we hit the goal, we haven't necessarily created change. there's a sort of, there's a thinking and a sort of a phrase that I love at the moment, which is goals are for people who want to win once systems or

processes are for people who want to win again and again and again and again. So this concept here is really about breaking things down into very, small, sustainable, compounding effects and compounding actions. So we don't talk about, I mean, I love mountain biking. I don't talk about, hey, I want to come top 20 in the Otway Odyssey race.

That is a goal that's there, but really what I think about more is, well, what is required on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, and what system am I going to use to help me get there? So how do we break down these big things into small things? Right? So if I want to lose 10 kilos or lose 20 kilos, that's the goal. Sure, that's there, but that's kind of just the evidence of the actions that I'm going to be practicing daily or weekly. Right? So the first thing is,

It's too big. That's the biggest mistake that I see being made. Like how do we make it smaller into manageable, sustainable, repeatable chunks? There's a concept here of like, what is the infinitely maintainable pace that we can kind of hold onto and sustain? Right, that's number one. Number two is we rely on willpower or discipline alone.

And again, this is an extension of the first one, right? James Clear has got a great saying, which is like, don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems, systems and processes. use those words interchangeably, right? So what is the system? What is the process that we have in place for our personal or our business change? Often in business, what I see is like individual heroics. So things are going well in a business, but if you really look at the business, it's because of one or two or three very key, very stressed.

very overworked people that are holding it all together. The results are showing that it's good, but actually you've got a massive weakness in the business because if those people leave or those people get injured or God forbid even worse, everything comes grumbling down. So it's a bit of a vanity and the same thing might actually exist in your personal life. If you suddenly on a very good tip with training or eating or diet or meditation or something, it's not really sustainable because you're relying on this massive amount of willpower or this massive amount of discipline or this enormous individual heroics in the business.

So here, again, we've got to look for the systems that we can put in place that almost auto execute, right? And this is where accountability comes in. This is where a habit tracker might be useful. This is where a scorecard and a meeting rhythm that just happens. It's in the diary. It just happens. You've got accountability there. You're not relying on willpower and discipline alone. It basically becomes autopilot. My brain, I've realized as I'm getting older,

doesn't like I'm not actually good at executive function, right? So for me, having to think about stuff a lot and having to make decisions makes it really, really difficult for me, all the way down to like really simple things. Every morning I wake up at 530 and it's if I have to think about this is serious. If I have to think about what I have to do next, I actually find it very stressful. So like when I wake up in the morning, it's just so automatic for me now. I wake up, I walk to the kitchen, I have my athletic greens.

I then go and brush my teeth. I then walk into my garage where I've got a gym. I then do the workout that's scheduled for the day. The sauna is on. I have a sauna. I go back. I have a shower. I get dressed and I leave. I don't think about that. For me, weirdly, if I have to think about that every morning, I just won't do it. I get totally overwhelmed. I'm quite extreme in terms of bad executive function, but that process follows through everything. So how I run my weekly meetings. If I have to think about that, I won't do it.

But if I know it's on this morning and I know that it starts like this and then it goes this and then that happens and then this happens and then that happens and then that happens, I hugely increase the chances of me doing it. The goal is going to be the outcome of doing that stuff, right? So what are the systems that we're putting in place that just run automatically and we just have to show up and do them? We don't have to think about it. I get a comment from a lot of my clients, which is, in fact, I'll share a story recently with a client that I've just brought on.

This guy's running a 15, 20 million dollar a year business and he's awesome. He's built this with his bare hands and it's very profitable. But the thing he's battling with most is he's just absolutely fatigued from the amount of decisions he has to make every day. When he gets home, he said the other day, his wife said, hey love, what would you like for dinner tonight? And he actually just freaked out because he said, I cannot actually make another decision. I am done with decisions, right?

This is the executive function thing. So how do we build process and automation? And I'm not talking about AI automation here necessarily. It's just like, this is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm going to do it. This is when I'm going to do it. And when I've done this, then I'll do that. Then I'll do that. So what is the system that is helping us to remove the need for just sheer willpower or sheer discipline? That's the second thing I see the most is it relies

too much on discipline and too much on willpower. The last little example I'll give of that is my co-founder Troy of the ILN. He's about to go to Worlds for Triathlon next month in October. And he has a coach. And actually the most he's getting from his coach is that he basically just every morning wakes up and it just shows him today you're gonna do this at that time at this intensity. And he just goes and does it. He doesn't have to think about what he's gonna train. He doesn't think about how he's gonna train.

It's just there for him to do. Everyone's brain is different. But in my experience, having the system in place for you to follow makes the chances of you maintaining this much, much, much higher. So really what I'm saying here is we don't rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems. And if we haven't done the work to create our systems, we probably won't succeed in our goals or we will succeed sometimes, but then we drop off.

So that's number two. Number three is a bit of a softer one, but I actually see this really, really often. And there's different ways to talk about this one, but this is about neglecting to address the underlying beliefs and the underlying identity. So for me, there's been quite a game changer in terms of my training, in terms of my discipline. When I got hold of this kind of concept of first it's about identity, then it's about environment, and then it's about habits.

So the identity piece is like, you know, let's go back to my analogy of waking up at 5 30 every morning. What happens in my brain when I wake up at 5 30 in the morning is every single morning, there's a fight every morning. I want to sleep in every morning. I want to stay in bed. I'm not like some robot that just happily gets out of bed. But the shift happened a few years ago when I started thinking about identity rather than tasks. So it wasn't like I need to get up and train now. It was more.

I am a person that trains every day. That's who I am. I am a person that values health and fitness over comfort. I am a person that invests deeply in my physical wellbeing. This might sound soft, but it's actually quite a fundamental principle that's worked quite well for me, in fact, extremely well for me.

And for a lot of people that I've worked with, right? I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a therapist. I don't even know if there is evidence on this. I just know what I've seen and I know what I've experienced. So this is, this is actually quite a, quite a big one because the negative side of this is like, I am unhealthy. I am a person that can't train. I am a lazy person. I am a person that struggles with discipline. The funny thing is if we say this enough subconsciously or consciously, we begin to believe it, but the opportunity there is there as well.

Because if we say, am a person that trains every day, I am a person that can do hard things, I am a person that can push through discomfort, you begin to manifest that as a real thing. And this is not woo-woo magic. I've seen it in myself and I've seen it with a lot of my clients, right? But we've got to start with the underlying beliefs. What are the underlying beliefs that are stopping you from training every day? What are the underlying beliefs that are stopping you from being successful in business? What are the underlying beliefs that are...

getting you into that position in business where you're going, how am I here again? This is the 15th time I've been here, right? And to actually get curious about what are the underlying beliefs here that are holding me back from implementing the maintainable systems to get me to where I want to go. And a really practical thing that we can start doing here is literally just writing down who we want to become. I want to be a person that.

So in my case, I'll just share some stuff. I want to be the father that my kids look up to and respect. And in fact, now I'm gonna change those words. It's not about looking up to and respect. In fact, there's a line that I'm gonna steal from a friend of mine. He said, be the father that your son wants to be when he's older and your daughter wants to see in their husband. And I realized those are some social norms and we can break those. But really you get the point there.

Model the behavior that you want your children to be right be the person That you want your children to be and be with and be around that's valuable to me be that person that helps me to make better decisions Another thing for me is I am an athlete is narrative that I use so when I ride on a bike I push myself really hard because part of my identity is I'm someone that's competitive I'm someone that's an athlete and it's allowed me to do really really well on that kind of a stage

Another part of my identity is I am someone that does hard things. I am someone that embraces discomfort. These are identity things that I've built and are building over the years. Do I get all of them right all the time? Of course not. I fail all the time. But it's creating an identity of I am somebody who. I am somebody that. I am someone who values this over that. I am someone who embraces this and pushes away that. So we sit and we are

the person that we want to become. Then we can shift and say, well, what about my environment do I need to change? What about my environment is within my control that I can change? And then back into the habits. What are the habits, the systems that I need to implement to make that identity true? So these things all sort of link up with each other. So really just to summarize that we've got three things that we want to just be very aware of. The things that really stop us effecting ongoing and maintainable and sustainable.

behavior change and change in our lives and our businesses. Number one is that we make the things too big. We bite off things that we're basically setting ourselves up to fail. Number two, we rely on willpower alone. Willpower is a finite resource. So we need to set up systems that we don't have to think about, that we just have to show up and do. Remember that phrase, we don't rise to the level of our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. And number three is we neglect

to address the underlying beliefs that got us here and keep us here in the first place. A great way to do that is to articulate intentionally your identity. Who am I becoming? Then we can look at the environmental changes that we can and should make, and then we can look at the habits, is now we're talking about systems again. So really the intention of today's episode is not to fix anybody, it's not to teach anybody, it's really just to give you those three things.

And maybe just to sit down with a curiosity mindset and ask yourself, hey, where am I setting my goals that are just too big and therefore I'm not getting any momentum? Where do need to make them smaller? Secondly, ask your question, where am I relying on sheer willpower alone where I could benefit from a system? That answer is probably gonna show up everywhere. It's gonna show up in your training. It's gonna show up in your diet. It's gonna show up in how you run your business. It's gonna show up in your marriage, your partnership, your parenthood. It's gonna be everywhere. I'm trying to implement systems

everywhere from date night to how I ride, to how I run my businesses, to how I show up everywhere to remove the need to make a thousand decisions a day. And then the last question is, what are the underlying beliefs that I'm not acknowledging here that are holding me back? Right? I will say that this work is actually very, very difficult to do alone. It's possible, but it's very difficult.

Right? And this is a bit of a shameless punt, I guess, but this is one of the reasons why we created the ILN is because this work is hard to do by yourself. It's a lot easier, a lot more enjoyable and a lot more high chance of success of success. When you're doing it with a group in a structure that is facilitated and whether it's ILN or anything else, you know, while I do really believe in that, doing this with other people that get it and that have structures and frameworks hugely increases your chance of success.

of actually getting to where you want to go. So as always, I want to challenge you to do something about this. Don't just listen and nod and say, that's an insight. Insight without action is mental masturbation. So do something about this if something is resonated. As always, you can reach out and chat to me if you want to. I hope this was valuable, and I'll see you again soon.