Creating the Recipe for Sustainable Change with Dr. Heather McKee

Have you ever attempted to build a new habit, but found yourself struggling to follow through? What if our failures are not so much a lack of discipline or willpower, but that we were never taught to create change in a way that actually works in real life? 

In this week’s episode, Shanon shares an insightful conversation with Dr. Heather McKee, a health behavior change specialist, about building healthier habits rooted in real life with more self-compassion and consistency. Dr. McKee has spent more than a decade studying the psychology of lasting habit change and bridging the gap between our desires and our actions. Her work centers around helping people and organizations create sustainable, evidence-based changes in a world that prioritizes quick fixes. 

This inspiring conversation emphasizes the importance of struggling on the road to success, how motivation is not always a reliable driver of change, and how to think of behavior change more as a skill to be built rather than an inherent trait. 

If you have ever stumbled in your journey and want to build habits that are grounded in honesty, intention, and self-compassion, this episode is for you. 

To keep up with Dr. McKee and the latest in behavioral science, you can find her on LinkedIn. 

Transcript

All right, everyone, welcome back to the Redefine What's Possible podcast where we explore the stories, science and mindset that help us expand what we believe is possible in our health, our leadership and lives. Today's conversation is for anyone who has ever thought, I know what to do. So why am I still not doing it? You want to move your body more consistently. You want to eat in a way that supports your energy.

You want to be more present in your relationships and you want to stop living in reaction mode and start living with greater intention. And then real life happens. Let's get serious. Work gets full, the kids need you, stress ramps up, sleep slips. You miss a few days and before long, it's easy to wonder whether the problem is your discipline or maybe even something deeper. That's what makes this conversation so important.

Because when we misunderstand how habits actually work, we don't just lose momentum, we often lose confidence. We start to make inconsistency mean something about who we are. But what if that isn't true? What if the problem isn't that you care too little? What if it's that the most of us were never taught how to create change in a way that actually works in real life?

That's why I'm so excited for today's guest. Dr. Heather McKee is a health behavior change specialist who has spent more than a decade studying the psychology of lasting habit change. Her work is centered on helping people and organizations create sustainable evidence-based alternatives to the world of quick fixes and health fad. She's worked with major global companies to design wellness programs that create meaningful long-term change

And what I especially appreciate is that her work is not just about motivation, it's about helping people build healthier habits with more realism, more compassion, and more consistency.

Heather, welcome, and I'm so glad you're here.

Thank you Shanon, that was such beautiful introduction.


Awesome. Well, Heather, before we get into the science, I'd love to begin with your story. You've devoted so much of your work to understanding healthy habit change. What first pulled you into this field?


Great question. I started out in academia, which was fascinating and I love working with groups and different people. And the reason actually I went into what I went in is because my primary degree was in sports science and I went to work at a hospital, metabolic syndrome clinic. So metabolic syndrome is people have diabetes, heart disease, have a high BMI struggling with weight or obesity or more morbidly obese. And they tend to have two or three of the key kind of symptoms of heart disease.

We had the most incredible tech there. We had the most incredible machines. We had access to nutritionists, dieticians, and it was a small cohort that we had. We only had like 60 people, but people couldn't make it stick. And I couldn't understand why things were taught in university, like all of the best equipment, all the best programs, all of the best things. People had every tool they wanted at their disposal, and yet they couldn't make things stick. And that got me really curious.

I ended up sitting down with all 60 people at the clinic and talking to them, just wanting to know why is it hard? You've got everything right here where you need it. What are the barriers? That really was a slap in the face of my naivety. Life was the problem for everyone. In sports science, we were thinking about ideal life, not real life. There were themes 100 % throughout the population, but people had their own unique difficulties, things that they were struggling with.

So often, I often talk about this, we think that we just need more ingredients. Like we just need to find the perfect sleep pack or the perfect workout or we haven't met the right PT or they've gone to the right gym yet. In some cases that's correct. But the thing is, ingredients alone isn't what makes, you know, the beauty of the dish of life. It's the recipe that's the important part. It's how you take those ingredients and apply them to the context of your world. And I think that's a lot of people miss is that context piece that

Yeah, they started out all perfect, but it's actually how we take them and how we adapt them to all of the challenges that we are facing in our life. We need to focus less on the ingredients. I always call behavioral sciences the method and the recipe for health. It's how we take those ingredients and make them work for us.

Okay, two things stood out to me there. I love the analogy of recipe and ingredients. How did that come forth for you?

It's quite interesting because I'm not quite sure about like when I think about this show over in the UK and it's called Great British Bake Off. There's a round where they have to, they're just given the ingredients and they're not given the method. And it's crazy how everyone struggles, but the people that rise to the top in that round.

are the people that have tried it before. They failed. They know what works. They know what doesn't. They know how to iterate. They know the signs and the signals that things are going well or things are not going well. And yeah, I just think it's a really good analogy for how we should apply behavior change. We all think that we just...

set a goal and then we stick to it and it's just like in a perfect straight line. But I don't know anyone that has managed to do that. And I studied these people for a living. I think it's just really important that we understand that actually it is a little bit of a roller coaster. It's a bit of an experiment. It's a bit of a try on, see what works. With time we start to learn, we start to see, we start to understand the methods that work for us. I just kind of see it from, yeah, Great British Bake Off was my inspiration.

That's so great. Okay, the other thing I'm so impressed you sat with 60 people that you worked with in that hospital setting. What did you learn? What came up for you in that?

Yeah, great question. I think most people really want to take care of themselves, but they're trying to build habits in a way that only works when life is calm, or they're well rested, or things are predictable, and it's not real life. It wasn't a lack of discipline or willpower. It was that they designed those habits for just ideal rather than real conditions. Something I saw a lot in this population is people over relying on motivation. And as you said, motivation fluctuates with sleep, stress, you know.

what made your boss, your kids, your other half is, how caffeinated you are. It's not a reliable driver of long-term change. Ultimately, it's kind of a state, not a strategy. And it's not a personality trait as well. A lot of people think, I was sick the day in school that everyone got handed out the willpower, the motivation muscle, and therefore that's why I struggle. But it's not a personality trait. It's not like some people have it or they don't. It's something that's built. Behaviour science gives us those skills.

to be able to build motivation. People think about the Monday version of me rather than the Thursday 4 p.m. exhausted version of me and that's why their habits fail because they only work on their best days rather than their worst of days.

That is so funny for me. We make food on Sunday and Monday and we're very disciplined and we carry through and about Thursday, where are we eating out? Like, let's just go to the get our pickup food. It's funny how you just said that Thursday because Thursday is the day we get it. I struggle with as well.

But do you know what's interesting about that channel though? Like I think it's okay to have wobbles but if they're repeated patterns then struggling on Thursday becomes the habit, getting the takeaway becomes a habit and that's fine if that's an occasional thing and it works well for you in the context of the rest of your life because I think it's important that everyone should be able to eat whatever they want and feel that flexibility but if that is becoming a problem for you then the question is you know how do you structure things around that to make it?

But the problem is when that Thursday, so a lot of people will eat well or go to the gym all week and then on Thursday they'll have a pizza and then they're like, okay, the wheels are off for the weekend. I'll start again on Monday. And it's that kind of all or nothing attitude that can really like sink people because then they're training their brain to say, okay, as soon as I pizza, that means I can't eat healthy the next day. Like I've got to just go all in on the unhealthy foods or as soon as I miss a workout, that means, you know,

Jim is off for the rest of the week or whatever it happens to be. I compare it, this is gonna just bear with me on this one, right? But I've got a toddler at the moment, he's learning to walk. And he wobbles, he falls over, he says, bang, mama. He pulls over and I'm like, was it a bad bang or a good bang? When he looks up at me, he's not looking for a performance review. He's not looking for a critique. He's looking for, it's safe to try again. He's looking for that reassurance. Can I pick myself up? Can I keep going? Is that okay?

And I think that is a lesson we've kind of lost as adults. I think that we can call it confidence, we can call it competence, we can call it belief or whatever, but we've designed, and particularly like the fitness industry, I think are particularly bad at this, doesn't allow for wobbles. And yet we all wobble, we all fall. What we need is that reassurance that it's safe to keep going. You just wobble sometimes and that's fine, but it's how you pick yourself up and keep going that redefines the rest of your habit journey.

That is beautiful. I love the concept of a wobble. And I have four kiddos, ages five to 15. It is wild. And the wobbles change, right? Our youngest now is five and he's riding his bike without training wheels. And like when he tips over, he looks at us and we're like, you got it, buddy. Let's go again, right? And so, and then at every age, it's like, ooh, okay. Our 12 year old. And he's like, I don't know about math. Like he's.

working on math and what did his grade get? And it's like, that's okay, you're learning, how can we get it? And so I think each age phase has a different thing. And I love how you phrase that we forget because I feel like we do. And if we can reframe it as a wobble. ⁓

Isn't it so sad that we don't have the same compassion? We're not talking to ourselves the same way. Keep going, buddy. It's just a wobble. It's all part of the learning process. It's all part of growth. It's like we've decided that growth finishes when we're 25 and then the rest of the time we've just got to be like, Like we make it, like you said, we make it into something about the person we are. And it doesn't need to be that. doesn't need to. It's more like...

We haven't failed, it's just the plan we've created has failed us. We planned for the perfect person rather than actually for the real human that we are.

That resonates so deeply. I love that. Okay, Heather, a lot of our listeners are thoughtful, high capacity people. They care about their health, they care about their families, they care about showing up well, but they struggle with consistency that you talked about earlier. Why do good well intentioned people still have such a hard time following through? What's behind that?

I think a couple of things, and then there's some of the things we've mentioned, like we've over-reliant motivation, motivation isn't stable. We design for our best self, not our real self. I think as well, when we start out on a change, lot of people focus on outcomes, not identity. So they focus on a certain weight on the scales, a certain time in a race, a certain amount that they can lift. If you think about the work context, people might think about a number on their paychecks or anything like that. And the thing is,

That's all extrinsic motivation. So it's what I call slippy motivation. It only tends to last for like six to eight weeks. And then what you're following, it's just, it's not really part of who you are. It's not ingrained in your identity. And like, I think James Clear is the winner and the one that is tributary. The goal isn't to do the habit, the goal is to become the kind of person that does the habit. And I think that's really important because

your identity is much more stable. Those extrinsic motivators are much more fragile. That's why call it a slippy motivation. Whereas the opposite of that is sticky motivation. And that's intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic comes from the Latin word called inward, which means goods for the soul, which means that your goal is nourishing your soul essentially. And now that sounds big and lofty and people are like, don't like creating a goal that nourishes my soul.

but it's more of the process of the goal nourishes you. So you can see what it contributes to your life. You're not doing it for your doctor or your spouse or yeah, to gain a certain number of followers or a certain number on the scales. You're doing it because...

how it makes you feel, what it gives you back, your confidence, you feel more confident, you get a sense of mastery. You just like being the type of person who does X, Y, and Z. I think that's a really big piece for people, that they focus far too much on those extrinsic outcomes and not enough on that intrinsic and building the identity of I am the kind of person who.

I am the kind of person who that's powerful. Heather, when you were talking about the slippery motivation, the sticky motivation, and then talking about, for instance, looking at a number on a scale and or the time of my 5k race, I like to use the concept of applaud the effort, not the result or focus on the effort, not the result. Like the result is the scale.

And so then my self-worth or how I feel about myself until I hit that number on the scale, the outcome, I can't be happy or fulfilled and that drives me versus what if I focused on the effort I'm putting in that will lead to the outcome that maybe I think I want. Can you unpack that for me or for us and what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, like it's interesting because it's hard because people want these things. Like most people that sign up to a gym, to a wellbeing program, to an app, to a wearable, like they want to lose weight or they want to feel healthier. They want to prevent like long-term disease. They want these things. But the thing is they're such distal goals, like they're so far off in the distance that it's often hard to keep them close enough to feel motivated by them. And so the process is a little bit more...

short-term, it's more proximal. It's really important then because the process needs to be rewarding because when we get rewards, especially immediate rewards, and there's a whole neurophysiology about this dopamine release and then we learn that's something that feels good and we want to do it again and again, but we need those immediate rewards because weight loss takes time. Improving your 5k time takes time. Being able to lift a certain amount in the gym takes time. And so

As humans, we're not rewarded by medium to long term goals, we're rewarded by how we feel in the moment. And that's why it's so important to bring people back to exactly like you said, Shanon the effort piece, feeling rewarded for the effort. You know, that feeling when you come home from a run and you walk in, you have a shower, you know, that feeling of feeling energized when you're engaged in something, when you're improving, that feeling of just being someone who follows through in the goals. You said you were going to do something, you followed through, it's a good feeling.

That feeling you get when you you mastered something, you get better at weights and this is finally clicked. I think that effortful piece can be rewarding if we let it be, but we often let those outcomes, that long-term piece just shroud and shadow the fact that we're actually getting some benefits, we're getting some bonuses in the moment. And ultimately, like when, like I work a lot with digital health companies and digital tech and...

We often try and design for more immediate rewards because it's important that people feel immediately rewarded and then in interventions we try and get people to actually tune in to how they feel. What are they getting back? You can crave good habits as well as unhelpful habits. So there was ⁓ kind of interesting study where they got to, they tried to motivate people to run and they were doing it in the winters when it was cold and then like back beyond of Canada.

They basically got them to think about all of the good things, that hot cup of tea that they would have when they come out of that lovely shower that they would have, how the wind feels on their hair, or how they feel like rocky when they're like running in the snow or whenever it happens to be. And the more they could get people to tune in to actually what it gave them in the moment, the more likely they were to actually then go and carry out the behavior as opposed to thinking about, oh, it's going to be cold. It's going to be, it was like that positive affect that they could create in their brain. Now that's not easy to do, but the key is that we do focus on that effort in the moment and we try and remind ourselves of those immediate rewards and look for those immediate rewards and ask ourselves day to day, what contribution does this make? Does it make me a better parent? Does it make me feel more focused at work? Do I just feel better about myself? Do I feel happier? Does this bring me closer to nature? Does this help me build a skill? Like all of those kinds of things. There again, we're going back to that sticky motivation, but they're much more engaging. 

They're much more sustaining than those long-term outcomes that we have to wait for. And then it's interesting, because what we've seen in our studies, so I did some research on people who are long-term maintainers of healthy habits versus those that kind of relapse. And we looked at people specifically from a weight management point of view, those that lost a clinically significant amount of weight and managed to keep it off versus those that didn't. And like ⁓ a differentiating factor was their identity and the fact that they focused on these kind of more immediate rewards and who that made them and all of that.

And then the weight loss became a side effect. The preventing disease became a side effect. Feeling better later down the line became a side effect, but like a positive side effect. But that wasn't even the goal at the time anymore. The goal was just to stay engaged and to keep feeling good day to day. And then the rest of those changes just came.

That is so powerful. And I think you said the identity focusing on the immediate rewards. What I heard you saying as you were talking through that is being present to the moment. When I'm out there running, feeling the cold air in my face, I'm not thinking about what the scale will be or what my time will be. I'm just grounded in the moment to notice these things.

I'm curious if that is ⁓ getting present is a habit that you coach, teach or have thoughts on.

Well done on picking that up. He is very perceptive. We did use it actually, we used that as one of our measures of people being engaged in long-term change. We used actually, it's a widely available skill, it's called mindful attention awareness skill. But just to see if that was a positive outcome actually of people engaging more with their psychology side. So we did an intervention where we got people, we put people on a program of normal dietary and exercise support to help support their weight management. And then we did psychological skills.

And what we found was that both groups lost equal amount of weight, but the psychological skills, well, they actually lost a little bit more, but actually they weren't allowed to do any exercise or dietary changes. They were just working on their skills, but they skyrocketed in their mindfulness. Once they started working on self-compassion, once they started working on failure management, once they started working on all those key skills rather than just relying on information.

to turn into implementation over time. The mindful attention thing is important, but I also, think in a way that classically people don't think of meditation, but it's more about attending to the cues. And they call it affect in exercise psychology. It's about attending to feeling good in the moment or what feels good and things we have such a bias towards the negative affect of exercise. And again, this is important in terms of the industry because if you haven't noticed before, but people often,

when they run January gym campaigns, February gym campaigns, it's all about like go harder, go home. Which actually doesn't always work for a beginner because actually they get quite a lot of negative affect from that type of exercise. One, because they don't feel competent and two, because it's really hard and like not very nice to do. And so people tend to end up having bad exercise experiences because everything focused on making it harder, where actually the problems that focus on making it easier for people more enjoyable, creates more positive affect, makes people, supports people to be more mindful over time and notice those positive changes and engage in that process more. So it's actually a really important nuance. And I wouldn't say like, I haven't really pinned it down to mindfulness, but I'm sure that it's a skill that would be just of a huge benefit to people.

Yes. And we like to say like what we focus on expands. And so if I'm, am I putting my attention onto something that's empowering me or am I putting that attention to like a number on a scale and I'm not there yet. So I'm not enough now. One thing we subscribe to, and I'm curious your thoughts on this is the concept of health at every size. So in our clinic, we don't have scales. We focus on the behavior and where are we at, what are we believing, and what are the things we can control in this moment? And that the scale is the lag measure, right? The 5K time is the lag measure. And am I putting my identity or self-worth on what a number of a scale is? And unless I'm that number or unless I run that time, now I'm less than. And so we really tried to embrace this health at every size. So today, right now, where I am, I'm whole, I'm complete enough, and I have this opportunity to do all these different things to help move the needle on my health. But it's not dependent on until I hit that number, will I be successful, healthy, fulfilled. I'm curious your thoughts on that.

I actually quite agree with the no scale philosophy because I often ask people, if you step on the scale and it doesn't agree with the effort that you've put in, does that make you feel more motivated or less motivated? And I think often for some people, and there's a minority of people that actually are resilient to that.

And they often say that if you weigh yourself kind of daily, you become more resilient to that in terms of you accept the daily fluctuations. But I think that takes a bit of psychological training and it depends on like what we've seen in the studies, it works actually better for men than for women because they actually tend towards being more rational about numbers than women. And that is unfortunately just the way that our brains work. But not all men as well, it's still a small minority of them that actually can be like.

of numbers resilient to the scales because the scales as you say that doesn't represent effort and so if you feel like you've made a huge amount of effort in the scales and show that and because it's a lag measure that's really like disincentivizing for people. I've completely forgotten what the other half of your question was now I'll go back to it.

No, I think that was just like that was the essence, like health at every size. How can that reframe my mindset where I'm, I don't have to wait to be successful or fulfilled until I hit a number on a scale that might be there for one day and then gone the next.

I think that's like, it is really hard for people and I know having worked in weight management, like it's really hard for people to kind of step away from that number  because they want that control and so often when you're struggling with your weight you do feel out of control and it's to provide them with the confidence that what they're doing and falling in love with what they're doing is going to get them to where they want to be. Maybe not in the timeline that they've created for themselves and unfortunately this is something that isn't talked about widely enough is that in order to successfully lose weight, takes years. Like it actually takes years. And yet what we hear in the media, what we see in social media, know, how our influence is that it takes a really quick amount of time. If you have medical intervention, yes, it may be faster, but then it's not sustainable. And so people have that kind of warped perception that this should happen now. What should happen now is experimenting, finding things that work for you, falling in love with different things.

Asking yourself what brings me joy in terms of movement, what brings me joy in terms of nutrition, what brings me joy in terms of my health. Those are the key things because they're what's going to keep you going in five years time. It's not going to be what the scale says. It's going to be the fact that you show up because they're now part of you. That's, you know, you are just the person who does X, Y and Z. That's the real shift.

Hmm, I really appreciate that joy. What brings you joy? Because if we don't enjoy it, it's just a struggle. It's torture, right? Like how can we find something? And for our listeners, I want to encourage you to have like an open and growth mindset. Sometimes I'm curious your thoughts on this, Heather. When we try something new, we're not good at it. And if we try something new, it's probably not joyful because we're not good at it.

How do we find joy and give ourselves permission to not be good at something to find the joy on the other end of

I think that's a really hard and I'm really glad that you touched on that. I think it's really perceptive that you touched on that part of change. Like we have to go through growing pains to grow. And yes, I always tell people like start with joy, create a joy list, like start collecting examples of like healthy things that bring you joy, but there will be struggle along the way. When we're learning.

new language, if we're learning new software in a computer, there's always gonna be that part where the challenge outweighs our competency and it's gonna be incredibly frustrating. But in order to build new neural pathways, in order to kind of get to the next stage, we need to struggle. Like struggle is a huge part of the success. Again, going back to my toddler, he needs to fall in order to learn how to balance his weight when he walks.

He needs to bang into the corner of the table in order to know, okay, I've gotten too close to the table this time. We have to have struggle in order to have that long-term success. And yet it's frustrating. And I, as a business person, forget it all the time. And anytime things are hard, I'm just like, ⁓ why is this hard? But I have to say, new level, new devil. We have to, we grow. And sometimes I'm like, I've learned everything I can from this. I'm ready to move on. But it's so important, as you say, to have that growth mindset, to have that perception that actually...

and that understanding, and I often tell people when they start in a program and I write it into the programs that I help create, this is hard, this is not going to be easy. We're gonna do everything that we can to create the environmental, physical, social, structures that are gonna support you, but it will still be hard, there will still be struggle, you will still not want to show up on certain days, you will struggle with past ghosts, there will be things that will haunt you, but if you can break through those, there's a difference of people that have the lifetime success versus those that keep staying in the same loop.

Absolutely. Your analogy of your toddler again, when you fall down, am I going to get up and am I going to try and walk again? Right. I feel like I'm the other side of every struggle or frustration is a breakthrough. And if we don't have the struggle or frustration, there's no breakthrough. And so how can we reframe that? And in business, I'm right there with you. I'm like, okay, how much struggle do I need right now? Okay, Heather, I want to shift to motivation a little bit. So

You've spent years studying motivation, but also the skills needed to maintain change. So let me ask you, is motivation overrated?

I think it's over relied on. And I think there's two different types of motivation. There's motivation to get started and then there's motivation to stay in the game. And I think motivation is often around getting started, but it's skills and systems that ultimately keep us going. often say like motivation will press vehicles. So will press like a muscle. If I went to the gym for the next week and just train my right bicep, by the time I get to this day next week, I wouldn't be able to pick up a cup of tea. But if I went one day a week for the next...

seven weeks, that's more habit forming, it's more manageable, it gives me time to rest and recover. I get stronger, I kind of work out what systems work for me. So I would say, I often talk about focusing on skill power, not willpower. Because willpower, like all of those things you mentioned earlier Shanon, is dependent on stress, it's dependent on sleep, it's dependent on how much food you eat and how caffeinated you are, you know, what, if you're a female to what stage your hormonal cycle you're at. Whereas skills last you better, and they're much more

kind of routine, they're more systemized. And so when I talk about skills as well, I don't want people to just be like, what are skills? Skills are things like friction management. So making it easier to engage with something than to skip it. Skills are being able to scale your habits up and down depending on what energy, what cognitive capacity you have. Skills are working on consistency over intensity. There are hundreds of skills that we can create, but I think what's really important is

that people focus on those process skills rather than just trying to motivate or white-knuckle or willpower their way. Because actually in studies they've shown those that have the greatest willpower are actually people that use it the least because they've created environments to make relying on their willpower basically rare. And then that's what we want to do. If there's something that we're struggling with, you we want to make it as hard as possible to actually engage with that. And we want to make the things that we want to engage with as easy as possible to engage with.

Hmm. So I like how you named that. At the beginning, you might have the willpower, but then willpower, you're going to struggle to maintain it unless you develop a skill power. How does someone develop a skill power? How does someone create that mind shift of, can just do it too? What are the skills that'll actually get me what I want long term?

I think to explain this a little bit better, I explain it in terms of how habits are formed as well, because motivation, when we start out, let's say on a new program or the new app or whenever it happens to be a new gym, our motivation is high, but our habit is low. And habits are formed through context-dependent repetition. So what that means is do the same thing in the same circumstance enough times it becomes a habit. So like tying your seatbelt.

brushing your teeth in the morning. It's not like you have to motivate yourself to go all the way to your back molars. It's that you naturally do it because you've done it every morning. You get up, you see your toothbrush, it's a cue in your environment, you engage with it. And so when we start out, we have this motivation and motivation, like I say, is fickle. It only kind of lasts and depends if our motivation is extrinsic or intrinsic, but it only lasts a short period of time. But we want to repeat in the same context, the behaviors that we want to create as often as possible. So

That's where skill power comes in. Skill power comes in a way that, okay, how do we make the environment, the circumstance as supportive as possible to make us create that repetition? Because it is repetition that builds a habit. know, everyone talks about it takes 21 days to build a habit. Actually, research shows that it takes anything from 18 to 280 days to build a habit. What habits are dependent on is repetition and how complex they are. So habits like drinking an extra glass of water.

much easier to engage with than going to the gym because there's so many different more steps that we have to overcome. And so the skills we want to create our skills like, okay, am I making this small enough to engage with? So often I talk about this a lot and it, it's really important to me. When people set out, let's use fitness example, cause I find them easiest to explain. When people set out with a fitness goal, they set out with a 10 out of 10 fitness goal. So they say, I'm going to go to gym three times a week and lift, let's say.

or I'm gonna go running three times a week. Again, that's a goal, that's great, but that's only a 10 out of 10. What's a nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one? What can you do on your worst of days? What can you do when you're most depleted? What can you do when work's really up against the wall? Because if repetition is what builds a habit, we have to be able to keep that habit fire lit regardless of the conditions that life throws at us. And so there will be days when we can do the 10 out of, or there'll be weeks when we can do the 10 out of 10.

but there will also be weeks where we can only do a five or a four or a three. But the key is that people don't just stick with the all or nothing of the 10 out of 10, that they say, okay, what can I do if I have less time, less energy, less availability to me? And that kind of scaling then allows us to have the platform for repetition to happen, regardless of the circumstances that life tries out. Though it takes a while, you've got to experiment, okay. When I go traveling, I find it really hard to...

get to the gym or run. So I just do a YouTube video. That's my five out of 10. Okay, I've got that locked down now. I know what I need to do. What's my one out of 10? Maybe it's just like five squats while the kettle boils. If you drink a lot of tea or coffee, you might be getting lot of squats in there. And it doesn't mean that you're failing at your fitness goals. It just means you're adapting for the circumstances and you're doing the same thing in the same context. Sometimes it could be a different context, but you're repeating it.

And the repetition is what builds the habit over time and we want to create the conditions that make the repetition most likely to happen.

Thank you for spelling that out for us. What a 10 out of 10 is, what a 5 out of 10 is, what a 1 out of 10 is. I think that really lands and makes it a little bit more concrete. So let's get more real life. Picture a listener who's balancing work, family, maybe aging parents, maybe kids schedules, and trying to take care of their own body in the margins. They don't need more guilt. They need some realistic help. What does sustainable health behavior change actually look like for a busy human.

Do you know what comes to mind there? I call it, just did a talk in London a few weeks on this. I call it the hidden habit because what we found in our body of research and we've seen a lot in the weight management research as well is that people who have this trait, people who develop this even and who have it quite strong are the people that tend to be most successful long-term. And what people in that place need is self-compassion.

That is why I call it a hidden habit. Self-compassion is the ability to not critique yourself to success, but actually look back down the mountain and see how far you've come rather than constantly looking up and telling yourself how far you've got to go. Self-compassion is trusting yourself. It's knowing that you're going to follow through on your promises. And when you don't, understanding that maybe there were certain conditions that you didn't, but actually being able to be kind enough to yourself to pick yourself up, to give you that reassurance. Self-compassion is actually

seeing that this is a long term game and that it's okay to start small. So instead of meditating for 20 minutes, it's a three minute meditation, which a 30 second minute meditation. Sorry, you want to say something?

I do. think with self-compassion, to me, for some of our listeners, that actually might be more challenging than running a half a marathon. Oh, completely. Where does someone start in saying, OK, Heather, it's great. You want me to be more self-compassion? Like, me.

I know and it's so hard and it's a lifetime's work. It's not something that happens overnight. It's definitely a skill to be developed and there's a number of ways in which you can do this. There was an exercise I did at this talk where I asked people to think about three people that matter to the most in their life. So three people that just really meant a lot to them that they really loved and imagine that one of them was struggling with a goal. So let's say it's fitness. They were trying to get fit but they kept falling back, they kept getting injured, they weren't getting...

to where they want it to be and they really need support. So you sat down with that person and I got people to write out what would you say to that person? What words would you give them? What reassurance would you give them? How would you help support them in this time of need? And then at the end of that, I said to the people, I said, how many of you mentioned yourself in those three people that mattered the most? And I think one person in the room of 40 said that they did.

And then I said that those words they've shown in studies time and time again are exactly what you need to hear. That's exactly the type of support. So one way we can start to think about it because it's much easier for us to be compassionate to others than it is to ourselves. Start to notice the language you use to support other people. Maybe it's your team, maybe it's your pets, maybe it's your children, and maybe it's your spouse. Start to notice that language you use. Capture that and that's the kind of language you need to use it yourself. Not always easy, but it is a way.

get started. Another way is the scaling exercise that I said that is an example of self compassion in motion. It's telling yourself we don't have to just do a 10 out of 10. In fact there are nine other options here that are available depending on my time and my energy. Self compassion is also being able to hold strong even if you're only doing let's say like a three minute meditation versus a 30 minute meditation. And the thing is you just need to do it once to prove to yourself that you've done it and then it will be an option in your repertoire.

I think it's a really difficult skill to build. would say to people there's an amazing researcher called Dr. Kristin Neff who has incredible exercises online. could go on and on and give you multiple ones. I would give you one of hers in order to build this skill. So throughout your day, when you experience struggle or when you're just having a pause in your day, ask yourself, what do I need to do to nourish myself in this moment? This could be physical. You might need to just get up from your chair because you've been sitting too long.

It might be that you need to go get a glass of water. Maybe you actually haven't, you skipped lunch, you haven't eaten. It could be mental or emotional. It might be that actually you're having a tough day and you just need to stand outside and listen to the birds for five minutes or put on a really good song for 30 seconds or get a nice hand cream or light a candle or go talk to a colleague. It could be social. But the thing is when you stop and ask yourself, do I need to do to nourish myself right now? You stop.

the scrolling, you stop relying too much on caffeine or sugar or other things to get you through and you start tuning in with your own intuition. And you might only do this once a day or you might do it three, four times a day. Again, it's not a goal to be achieved. It's just a skill to be developed, but it's one way in which you can check in with yourself and actually start to learn what it is you need and build that self trust over time.

That's beautiful. What do I need for self compassion right now? Just pausing to ask that question. Did I say that right?

I often say, what do need to nourish myself right now? Self-compassion, some people are kind of allergic to the word because it sounds a bit like fluffy. But actually on that point, all of the research shows that those people with the highest self-compassion scores, they procrastinate the least. They have the best failure resilience. They tend to be most productive, most successful and most likely to actually be in positions of leadership and authority throughout the world. know, self-compassion is actually a really important trait and not fluffy and soft.

Yes, not fluffy. Okay. Let's shift just a little bit to relationships. What are some relationship habits that folks can lean into to help improve? We talked about the self-compassion with self, but what about with your partner, your kids, your coworkers? What are some habits that will help create more vulnerability, more connection that maybe we don't think about?

It's interesting, do you know what I thought you were going to say was something else completely, which is what a lot of people ask me after my talks, which is how do I get other people to change their behavior? Or how do I get other people to support me in changing my behavior? And actually it's quite a similar, it's on a similar thread. And I think the thing is you've got to lead from the front. If you want to change your, someone else to support you, let's say to change your behavior and you want to those relationships where people understand and they see you.

The key thing is to let other people in on the journey. Like let them in on your why. What is your intrinsic motivation? Why are you doing this? And one, because it feels that's threatening to other people. So they're less likely to sabotage you because what we see often is more often than not, which is a bit sad, but like some people like to sabotage with this because they're not ready to change and they feel threatened by this person changing. But when someone actually says this and this isn't about you, it's not about the family, it's not about anyone else, it's about me. And here are the reasons why I want to do this.

And importantly, here are ways in which you can help support me. And this is where people go wrong, especially in relationship when it comes to creating habits is they don't know what type of support works for them. So they expect the other person just to automatically know what type of support works for them. So then when the other person is like, didn't you say you were going to go to the gym? And they're like, how dare you speak to me like that? That's not their fault. They haven't told them what type of support that they needed. And so I often say to people like,

Do a bit of a support audit. Like what has worked for you in the past? If you've been on a sports team, if you've been on a work team, what kind of support is, like is it that self compassionate support or is it that army sergeant support? What ways do you need to be lifted up by others? Do you need to have visual motivation? Look at your social media feed. Like does that provide, like what profiles provide you with support and what don't? Do a bit of an audit on that. But if you can understand, you know, and this takes a,

takes time, like anything with habits, which is annoying because you want everything now, but that is just the reality of it all. But do a bit of a support order and then come back to those that you're in relationship with in your life and tell them, these are actually the things that work for me. Here are some ideas of the ways in which you can support me. It's very much up to you if you decide to do these, but I know that these are gonna work better than actually if I just don't give you any support in supporting me at all.

Fantastic. That's powerful because it reframes habits not just as a performance tool, but almost as like practice.

And do you know what actually makes me think there's an amazing book on this on the relationships piece and more precisely would answer your question. It's called Connect. It's, I've got it here on the bookshelf. Here we go. David Bradford and Carole Robin. It's from one of the most subscribed courses, I think at Stanford. And it's all about relationships and the fact that we're never taught the skills to actually be able to manage personal work, life, friendship.

how to manage conflict, how to manage arguments, how to manage ourselves, all of these things. And actually it scripts out specific conversations with a beautiful book and it's really supportive and actually helping us with those relationships, skills and habits too.

I'm going to add that to my list of my library as well. yes. OK. Heather, one of the things I found most compelling in this space of change is that people often know a lot but still don't change. What are your thoughts on that? Why doesn't knowing what to do automatically lead to doing it?

It's brilliant, it's absolutely brilliant.

It's annoying, isn't it? Yeah, and it's the same kind of thing with the ingredients. It's like information doesn't lead to implementation. And often it's because we actually often get stuck in information gathering mode. You know, we're seeking out, let's say, you you're trying to manage your sleep better. We just seek out information, but what we need is experimentation at that stage. We need to start trying things on.

We just leave the information as information. And I so often see this in behaviour change programmes. People think that they can educate people into change, but that's not necessarily what creates change. Change is created through experimentation in the context that you're in. All of this information is out of context. It's not in the context of your life. And so the only way to understand if it applies to you is to start experimenting with it, trying things on.

People put so much pressure on themselves. If they take a hack or they take a piece of information that they've learned, they put some pressure on themselves to get it right. Not everything works for you. So an example of this would be meditation. Everyone thinks they have to this perfect morning routine and that's how things work. But if anyone who's got, I'm sure, like four kids and you're the craziness trying to get them out the door, this is not the time to be meditating. Maybe actually it's in your car as you pull up to the drive on your way home from work or.

on your public transport or in the bathroom at work. I think it's important that people actually take into regard their context. And so that's how the information then becomes implementation. It's about experimentation within the context of their lives.

That's a brilliant example. And I'm a testament. I have my meditation routine in the morning, but now I've been driving my daughter to school. She starts school at 7.15, so we're leaving at 6.45. So I can't get up early enough to meditate. So I drop her off at school, and then I turn my meditation on as I drive to work in traffic. And I'm just so calm. And I'm like, oh, this was brilliant.

But that's okay. It's okay to do that. You're not cheating. You're making it work for you. And that is ultimately what we're trying to do here. Stop trying to carve perfect habits like other people do them because they're missing context. Do it in the context of your life. What works for you. I think it's a beautiful example.

what are some of the biggest myths people still believe about healthy habit change?

Well, I think we've kind of covered a few of them, which is people think that it can happen quickly. And I feel sad in telling people it doesn't happen quickly. You know, and the more complex your habits are, the harder it is to happen quickly. But I say that with all of the compassion in the world so that you can give yourself the self-compassion that this is a lifelong

learning journey, this is a lifelong relationship. always say habits are for life, not just for January. It's not like we do all our tooth brushing in January that our dental hygiene has done for the last year. If we're no longer doing it, it's no longer a habit. Why not set ourselves up in a great way for this lifelong journey? Experiment, try, iterate, fall over, wobble, all of the things because it's those wobbles and those failures that are successes if we can learn from them. And that was actually the conclusion of one of our

So these were failure of success, if you can learn from it. Those that were able to manage and create long-term health behaviour change were those ones that actually just looked back and saw their failures, not as a personal failing, but as a failure of the plan, and were able to then examine it and say, okay, well, where did the plan fall down? Where did the plan fail me? Not that I failed the plan, but where did the plan fail me?

I think the other thing, and we discussed indeed today as well, is that people think that you can white-knuckle your way to success, you can willpower your way to success, that you can motivate your way to success. You know, what you need to do is skill your way, skill power your way to success. You need to be able to create systems, create habits, create nourishing behaviors, create self-compassion, be able to learn how to scale up and scale your habits in terms of like...

what life throws at you. think being able to anchor your habits to something stable that already exists in your life, being able to track showing up, not just outcomes, being able to actually engage with the process rather than just those end goals and those extrinsic numbers. Those are the things that actually will help you stay the course. There is no quick way to do this, unfortunately. And again, so annoying. I would hate someone to tell me that and I'm annoyed at myself for even telling you that, but having spent nearly

15, 20 years in the field. There just isn't. And actually, okay, if I'm gonna contradict myself, the quickest way to do this is to fall in love with the things that help you feel good, that help you feel well, that help you thrive. That is what is gonna be the quickest and most enjoyable way. That's why we always go back to when we want children to exercise, what do we do? We bring them to the jungle gym. We bring them to the playground. We want them to eat their vegetables. We make them in the shape of dinosaurs. We make it fun. We add variety. Why not bring that?

fun into our own lives. Mary Poppins said in every job that must be done there is an element of fun, we find the fun and slap the jobs again. So why can't we build that game, build that playfulness, build that joy back in, take things a little bit less seriously and be okay with the fact that we are going to fail and we are going to struggle. That is part of the growth and actually that's the essential part of the growth.

I love Mary Poppins. I need to take that to my dish washing with ⁓ four kiddos and the two of us at nighttime. It's eight o'clock, the dishes are over piling and I put on my pouty face and I'm like, I'm gonna do the dishes. But I'm not doing it with joy and I'm not doing it with love. And I'm like, okay, I need to change my being. I need to become one with the dishes. That's so good. Okay, Heather, we're gonna do a rapid fire. Just first thing that comes to mind in your head and then we're gonna close this out.

I'm curious, what's the most overrated advice in health behavior change?

go hard or go home or just do it.

Love it.

What is the one habit people should stop trying to force?

That's a great question. I'm really going to make your rapid fire very slow. I would say doing things perfectly. Fantastic.

What is one small habit with outsized impact? Self compassion. The best advice for the person who keeps saying, I'll start on Monday.

Find out what you can start today regardless of the circumstances and start small, laughably small.

And one question everyone should ask before trying to change anything.

Will it bring me joy? And if not, how do I make it bring me joy?

Fantastic. OK, Heather, in the spirit of this podcast, what does redefining what's possible mean to you right now?

I think working in the boundaries of the fact that we're human, we're fallible, we're vulnerable, we're going to make mistakes. I think when we think, we too often think about optimizing everything rather than actually being okay with our humanity and working within the boundaries.

Fantastic. Heather, for our listeners who want to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to connect with you?

LinkedIn really, I think is the best way. I'm Dr. Heather McKee on LinkedIn and I love hearing from people. I love getting their messages. I love getting their takeaways or things that work well for them. And I always post kind of the latest research up there as well. That's a platform that I really enjoy and I like engaging with people. I love hearing what people are reading, what they're finding is supporting them. And so Dr. Heather McKee on LinkedIn.

And I will testify she has an amazing LinkedIn page and presence. So go follow her, check out her information. Heather, what I appreciate about this conversation is it reminds us that lasting change is not about being perfect. ⁓ My favorite line from you, think, today is, habits for life, not just for January. It's about becoming more honest, more intentional, and more self-compassionate while we build a life that supports what matters.

So maybe the goal isn't to be flawless. Maybe the goal is to make health more livable, movement more joyful, relationships more intentional, and change more human. So if this conversation resonated with you, share it with someone who's been hard on themselves lately. And if it gave you something meaningful, subscribe, leave a review, and keep joining us here on the Redefine What's Possible podcast. Heather, thank you so much for being our guest today and wishing you all the best.