Okay. Well, don't ponder yourself into

stagnation, div.a, you got this. So,

there's something really cool about

this. So, a lot of people get stuck and

we sometimes call this analysis

paralysis, right? Because you don't know

what to do and then we feel stagnant,

right? So, inaction feels like

stagnation, but it's not really

stagnation. It's often times conflict.

If you don't know what to do, which is

often times a conflict between what you

want and what you should, what a lot of

people assume is that I need to use

willpower. I need to use discipline. And

it turns out that using willpower or

discipline fosters something called

action crisis. Okay? And I'll explain

how this works. So let's say that I want

to do one thing and I should do

something else. When I'm in that

situation, I use willpower to overcome

my want and move towards my should. And

a lot of people will be of the mind that

like this is the right thing to do.

Right? Then you blame yourself for being

lazy. You blame yourself for being

undisiplined. You look at other people

who are consistently moving in a

particular direction. I love this paper.

Stuck in limbo. Motivational anticedants

and consequences of experiencing action

crises in personal goal pursuit. So

controlled motivation has been

positively associated with a

participant's intended effort at the

decisional phase of goal striving, but

it was not shown to translate into

actual goal effort at 2 or 4 weeks

later. suggests that people have trouble

translating their controlled intentions

to tangible activity at the actional

phase of goal pursuit. So what is a

controlled intention? First thing

controlled motivation. Controlled

motivation is things where you have to

control your motivation basically when

you have to force yourself to do

something i.e. willpower or discipline.

So controlled intention is not our

natural intention. Our natural intention

is I want to hang out today. My

controlled dis in intention is I need to

work today. So often times we have a

struggle between something called a

controlled intention and autonomous

motivation. Right? So what does

autonomous motivation mean? Autonomous

motivation means it's what you naturally

want to do. And controlled motivation

means it's what you don't want to do but

when you try to control your motivation.

And here's the crazy thing. Right? So if

you measure in this study, if you

measure at the po moment of crisis when

you're stuck, if you measure controlled

motivation, it can be high. But two

weeks later and four weeks later, it's

low. And this is our experience, right?

So if you use willpower to force

yourself into something, what happens

two weeks later? What happens four weeks

later? Oftent times what you end up

doing is finding yourself in another

situation where you have to use

willpower because you don't feel like

it. So one study on LinkedIn, for what

it's worth, found that 70% of people, I

think, no, had an early life crisis or

were burnt out. I forget, right? But the

levels of burnout are really high. Why

do people wind up in a state of burnout?

It's because when they don't feel like

doing something, they force themselves

into it. And when you force yourself

into it, it's not like you wake up

tomorrow and then you want to do it. In

fact, it's the opposite, right? You are

squashing your wants. So then your

automatic motivation, that intrinsic

motivation, that internal motivation is

not being selected for. It's not being

supported. So what we tend to see and

this is what this paper shows is that

when you use control motivation, when

you use willpower, a couple of things

happen. First is when we force ourselves

to something, frustrations or setbacks

set in. Controlled goals may have a hard

time competing against other action

tendencies resulting in an action

crisis. I.e. you can force yourself to

do something, but when that thing gets

hard, then you want to do what you feel

like is basically what it's saying. the

valitional strength behind them is

likely to fade once obstacles are

encountered. So if you use willpower, I

don't know if this makes sense, there's

a good chance that you will need to use

more down the road. Right? Here's the

really interesting thing. Controlled

motivation represented an independent

risk factor for developing midsemester

action crises after controlling for the

personality traits of action

orientation, which we can get to later.

Controlled goals by their definition

represent a conflict between external

demands or internal pressures and

inherent psychological needs and growth

tendencies. So what does this mean? This

means this is insane. Using willpower,

forcing yourself to do something is an

independent risk factor for stagnation,

for analysis paralysis. When you force

yourself to do something, you are not

overcoming analysis paralysis. This is

the [ __ ] part. You're not overcoming

analysis paralysis. You are creating

analysis paralysis. And even though that

sounds insane, right? Because that's

insane. If you look at your life, this

is exactly what you see. You see that

when you force yourself to do things,

you end up having to force yourself to

do things. Now, there is an element of

conscientiousness, and that's what's

pretty cool about the study. This study

looked at conscientiousness and

neuroticism. So conscientiousness is the

tendency to work towards a goal with

delayed gratification without reward

things like that. Okay. So there are a

lot of people out there who will use

willpower.

But this is the tricky thing. It's not

that they actually use a ton of

willpower. It's that they are more okay

not giving into themselves in the first

place. And there is absolutely I'm not

saying never use willpower. Willpower is

great. Right? So there are many

situations in which if we use willpower

sufficiently,

we will eventually train our neurons to

be okay with something that can

absolutely happen too. But I want y'all

to look at the bigger picture here for a

moment and look at what many people

experience. What many people experience

is the opposite of that. Many people

experience I use willpower and then I

don't feel like doing it. I use

willpower, I don't feel like doing it. I

use willpower. I've been using willpower

every single day. I'm burnt out in my

career. I've been in this job for three

year. three years. I force myself to go

every day and things don't get better,

they get worse. Every day you have to

fight more. Willpower becomes a drug

that your motivational system becomes

addicted to and it needs more willpower

and more willpower and more willpower to

keep going. How do we fix this? How do

we stop being stagnated? So, these are

the kinds of behavioral things that we

really lean into with coaching. So, I'll

give you all a simple example. when I

was putting together the pro program.

Okay, so a lot of people get confused

because they come into coaching and

they're like, "Oh my god, we're going to

explain what we do in coaching. Going to

give you all a cheat sheet right here

and now of the psychology of how this

works." Okay, a lot of people think I

want my coach to help me accomplish this

thing. That's not actually what coaches

do. Coaches, it's really confusing for

many people because they come in, the

coach starts asking you about your

feelings. So the key thing if we want to

fix things is not to force ourselves to

do it. It is to self-conordant goals are

thought to arise from a person's

lifelonging evolving interests and his

or her core values. Since autonomous

goals reflect people's authentic values

and interests, they allow individuals to

draw upon valitional resources such as

sustained gold effort to ensure

consistent goal energization. So if you

don't want to use willpower, if you

don't want to become dependent on

willpower, there are two things that you

need to do. You need to ask yourself

what do you want? Why do you want it?

You need to actually explore what you

want. And then the second thing that you

need to do is focus on what you're going

to do. So I know this sounds weird, but

most people think that the problem is

behavioral. How do I get myself to do

something? And this is why everyone

loves habit building because habit

building is about getting yourself to do

something automatically without effort.

And there's a lot of merit to habit

building. But be clear, habit building

has nothing to do with motivation.

Habit building bypasses the motivational

circuit. The biggest problem with

building habits is that you never do

extra. You guys understand that once

something is habitual, you never go the

extra mile with a habit because the

whole point is that it's programmed.

It's automatic. Habit building raises

the floor of behavior from zero to 50.

It never gets you to 100. It never gets

you to 150. The people who accomplish at

the height of their potential are not

relying on habits from that for that

extra bump. They're utilizing their

motivation, their intrinsic motivation

for sustained effort and goal pursuit.

The other really interesting thing is

that when we use internal effort, you

also manage obstacles better. In the

goal striving literature, autonomous

motivation, i.e. wanting to do things,

has been robustly linked to sustained

goal effort, increased goal progress,

decreased goal ambivalence, i.e. you

stick with things. You're not internally

conflicted. Reduced temptation makes you

want to put down your phone. Increased

goal attainment. Also, autonomous goal

motivation has been shown to moderate

the effect of implementation planning on

goal progress. Okay? So that

implementation plans are associated with

relatively greater goal progress. Okay.

What so what does this basically mean?

This means that when you, this is kind

of common sense, when you want to do

something and you make a plan, making

the plan is associated with goal

progress. How many of us have been in a

situation where we want to do something

or we should do something. I want to go

to the gym more. And then we develop a

plan and then we just don't stick with

the plan, right? We think, oh, I need to

make a better plan. I need to make a

better plan. We are missing the forest

for the trees. So, when I was sitting

down and I was thinking to myself when I

was getting 10,000 requests in my

private practice a month and I was

thinking to myself, how the [ __ ] do I

help these people? I took a group of

noobs from the internet, 12 of them, and

I was like, okay, I'm going to teach

y'all some stuff. I'm going to teach

y'all how to get people to do things.

And this was the key thing. And you guys

may remember this from many years ago. I

did a stream where I drew this quadrant.

There's like desires, values,

shoulds, and something else. I don't

even remember model now but the key

thing is if you want to have sustained

progress implement things successfully

it's about cultivating

autonomous motivation right and this is

where there's a bunch of people like the

productivity like gurus on the internet

that are like forget about motivation

forget about emotion we need discipline

we need willpower we need consistency we

need habits they're not entirely wrong

but this study actually shows that

they're wrong. Right? There's truth to

all of those statements. There are

plenty of studies that show that the

habits are good, willpower is good, you

know, effort is good. But if you want

it, and this is the key thing, the

excellence, achieving excellence does

not happen through willpower. Does not

happen through habit. Achieving

excellence happens through cultivating

your internal drive. So what what do we

do? We ask people questions. What do you

really want? Why do you want it? What

makes this important to you? You have to

cultivate that internal motivation from

the bottom. The second thing that we do

is this dispositional predict predictors

of action crisis. Disposition towards

action versus state orientation is

considered in two circumstances. Okay.

So I'm going to explain this. There's

one other element to understand. Human

beings think in two ways. They think in

terms of action or they think in terms

of state. This is something that is like

so mind-blowing but so few people think

about. So here's an example of someone

who thinks in terms of state. They

always think about how something is

going to make them feel, right? They

don't think about what they're going to

do. They think about what they have to

do

in order to feel a certain way. How much

do I have to work in order to relax?

They're thinking about the state of

relaxation, right? How long do I have to

be at my job before I can go home? and

then I can relax. Why? How much do I

have to listen to my husband or my wife

complain again about the dishes? How

long until they shut the up and I can

finally be at peace? If you look at the

world today, many people chase states.

Chasing a state when it becomes when

that chase becomes pathologic, we call

it an addiction. I'm chasing oblivion

with ketamine, with fentinil. I'm

chasing euphoria with THC, with video

games. We are chasing states. There are

two kinds of people. This is what this

research shows. Some people focus on

actions. The end goal is an action. What

am I going to do? Some people focus on

states. How am I going to feel? And the

action gets tied to the feeling. The

action is in service to the feeling. For

some people, the action is the end. So

that's why we do two things. We first of

all cultivate your wants and then we ask

you about behavioral change. Part of the

reason that I don't know if you guys

know this but um you know at HGI we now

have NBHWC certification national board

of health and wellness coaches and the

reason that that we went through that

that that rigorous process took the

original version of the coaching program

buffed it up for focus on behavioral

change. Health and wellness coaches are

all about getting you to take your blood

pressure medicine getting you to

actually alter your diet. They're all

about actions and behavioral change.

Now, in my experience, and this is what

I think is super cool about this paper,

this paper shows the crux of what I try

to do with the people that I work with.

First of all, what do you want? You

really have to dig into that. Because

when you figure out what you want,

that's how you get to sustained effort.

That's how you get to resistance to

obstacles. If you don't focus on what

you want, if you focus on your

controlled motivation, which by the way,

I don't think we actually defined. So,

let me take a quick look and show you

guys this. I know I'm kind of control

motivation subsumes the two least

internalized forms of motivation on the

continuing pursuing goals in response to

external contingencies such as rewards

or punishments. How do I get this

reward? How do I avoid this punishment?

Right? That's that state feeling that

we're talking about. It's not about the

action itself. It is about chasing a

particular outcome and pursuing goals

out of internal feelings of obligation

or pressure. This is another really

interesting kind of mind [ __ ] So

there's something called introjected

motivation. This is when you think it's

your motivation but it's not really your

motivation. It is motivation that you

absorb from the outside world and comes

from within you but is really coming

from the outside world. Internalizing

the standards of the people around you.

So what do I do when I work with a

client? What do coaches do when they

work with clients? We try to help you

get rid of your introjected motivations.

the way you've been conditioned by

society for what you should want. You're

going to be a wonderful doctor one day.

As long as I can remember, literally as

long as I can remember, my grandmother

has been telling me I'm going to make a

great doctor one day. She also said that

to my daughter when she was four

reflexively, you're going to be great

doctor, great doctor. And we think these

are our motivations. They're not our

motivations. And when we lean into this

stuff, right, when we have these

introjected motivations and we start

moving towards them, we get into a a

stagnation. We get into an action

paralysis. We don't feel like doing it.

I don't want to. And then we use

willpower and then that just advances

the whole thing. Willpower is an

independent risk factor for an action

crisis. [ __ ] insane. You are signing

yourself up. And for the love of God,

tell me I'm wrong. Tell me that that is

not your experience. that forcing

yourself to get out of bed one day

sometimes means you have to force

yourself to get out of bed the next day

and forces yourself to get out of bed

the next day. Instead, what we really

want to do is something that seems

really counter intuitive. We don't think

to ourselves when I want this and I

should do this. I think about how to

overcome the want. That's the wrong

direction. Why do you want that? What

direction is that leading you? Cuz

following your wants is easy, bro. I'mma

play Dota all weekend. I'mma play some

BG3 and some Unicorn Overlord and some

Split Fiction with my kids. That's easy.

The really cool thing is that if you

cultivate that connection with what you

want, cuz the cool thing is y'all want

to do more than just play video games.

Y'all want to paint and y'all want to

learn more about AI and you guys want to

develop jailbreaking methodologies for

AI. Y'all want to write books and start

companies and meditate for four hours a

day. Y'all want these things. So stop

using willpower to get them questions.

What to do instead? Yeah. So, so this is

the thing, right? So you spend some time

cultivating what you want. Ask yourself

what do you want? Spend some time

focused on implementation. What are you

going to do? And be super careful about

doing things to evoke a state. So if in

your mind you are trying to get a state

and then you are reverse engineering

actions it's the wrong way to think

right because then you're chasing a

state that's not a good thing to do but

what if you when you meditate you find

out you don't want anything just sit

absolutely you can just sit but also I

would say you can change your technique

don't you need willpower for consistency

no here's the crazy thing right so I

don't know if you guys remember this

sustained so autonomous goals are

associated with sustained goal effort

the most consistency on the planet.

Let's be clear, okay? Consistency comes

from wanting something.

Who here is struggling with consistency

to play video games?

Man, I wish I could play more video

games on a daily basis. Man, I know some

of us are anhidonics, so you guys have

struggling with consistency, right? But

like, who here has consistency with like

spending time on social media?

Consistency. This is my whole point.

Consistency does not come from

willpower. A controlled motivation is a

risk factor for an action crisis. Using

willpower today buys you using willpower

tomorrow. So some people will adopt the

strategy of like going hard in that

direction, right? So like it's kind of

like one of these like I'm thinking

about like these games like Sefue or

like you know I don't know like Risk of

Rain like these games that get

constantly harder. The further you go,

the harder it gets. That's what happens

with willpower. Action crisis number

one. You use willpower. You are buying

yourself. You are staying in a job that

you don't love. What do you think is

going to happen a month from now? You

are forcing yourself to stay in a job

that you don't love for a year. What do

you think is going to happen a month

from now? You forcing yourself to stay

in a marriage that you don't want to.

What do you think is going to happen a

year from now? Consistency comes without

willpower. That's the crazy thing,

right? Willpower can be still useful.

I'm not like anti-wpower, but I think

our model isn't supported by the science

or isn't a model that involves habit and

willpower. And this is where a lot of

the research on habit and the the desire

for habit comes from, right? We want

habits because we know that willpower is

inconsistent. That's why everyone loves

habits. But the problem with habits is

once again, they simply raise the floor

of behavior. They make sure you take

your medicine every day. They don't

cause you to excel in and of themselves.

Now, there's an argument to be made that

if we look at what excellence is,

excellence is raising the floor, which I

think is a good argument. But when we're

talking about like really knocking it

out of the park, right? So, when I think

about if you look at not to say that

we're great, but objectively I think you

can make an argument that this channel

is in the top 1% of like channels on

whatever like on YouTube, mental health

channels, right? There's a lot of great

people who are probably better than us,

but we do pretty well. And what's our

inspiration? Our inspiration is not

forcing. I don't like I have to use

willpower here and there, but I [ __ ]

love this stuff. This is so cool. I love

you guys talking to y'all.