How to do the things that you don’t want to do

Why is it sometimes so darned hard to just do the things that we KNOW will make us healthier, happier and more effective in our jobs and lives?

Behavioral activation offers us a framework for understanding and responding to that familiar situation of not wanting to do the thing that we know will actually move us forward.

Joining me on the show today is Dr. Bethy Campbell, a clinical psychologist, teacher, and coach who regularly stops by the Change Academy to help us make sense of our own brains.

Four Ways We Get Stuck (and How to Get Unstuck)

1. Overcoping (aka doubling down):: Excessive or overly intense efforts to manage stress or negative emotions.
   What to do: Set realistic goals, prioritize, and establish boundaries
2. Avoidance (aka procrastination): Staying away from situations, activities, or thoughts that are distressing.
   What to do: Break the task or behavior into small steps
3. Withdrawal (aka isolating): Staying away from people and activities that you previously enjoyed; refusing to ask for help or support.
   What to do: Actively seek out social interactions and engaging activities
4. Unintentionality (aka numbing): Lack of awareness or conscious control over behaviors: engaging in mindless activity that may not be that rewarding.
   What to do:  Set limits on mindless activities, create structured routines

Mentioned

- Change Academy #115: How to transform difficult emotions into powerful insights

- Change Academy #11: The Attention Intention Action cycle

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Creators and Guests

Host

Monica Reinagel

Monica Reinagel has been helping people create healthier lives for more than 15 years through her Nutrition Diva podcast, books, online coaching programs and in-person workshops. As a licensed and board-certified nutritionist, her approach is grounded in science but is also practical and realistic. Monica is also a former professional opera singer.

Editor

Brock Armstrong

Brock has been working in audio since the 1980s (the late 1980s to be sure) and has focussed his expertise on podcasting since 2007.

Guest

Elizabeth Campell

Counseling Psychologist specializing in career development, helping skills, and counselor training, and passionate about guiding individuals toward fulfilling futures.

What is Change Academy?

Learn how to cultivate a more productive mindset, form sustainable habits, and create a lifestyle that supports both your goals and your wellbeing with host, Monica Reinagel. Drawing on decades of expertise and experience, Monica provides guidance on navigating the challenging process of behavior change in a fun and accessible way. Learn more and find show notes for every episode at https://changeacademypodcast.com

[0:00] Why is it so hard sometimes to just do the things that we know will make us healthier, happier, more effective in our jobs or in our lives?

[0:11] I feel as if this one question has driven my most important work.
If you're stuck trying to figure out how to get yourself to want to do the thing that needs to be done, well, today we're going to talk about how to get yourself moving forward.
All right. All right. everyone, take your seats or lace up your sneaks.
We're about to get started.

[0:33] Welcome to the Change Academy podcast. I'm your host, Monica Reinagle.
And in this show, we talk about what it takes to create healthier mindsets and habits in our own lives, as well as how we can create healthier communities and workplaces.
Whether you're working on your own health and well-being or promoting healthy behaviors is your job.
We're going to talk about what works, what's hard, what's needed, and what's next.
Joining me on the show today is Dr. Bethy Campbell.
She's a clinical psychologist, a teacher, a coach, and a friend who regularly

[1:05] stops by the Change Academy to help us make sense of our own brains.
And we're going to be talking about behavioral activation, how to do the stuff you sometimes just don't feel like doing.
And the key insight is this. Instead of waiting for our mental state to change in a way that makes us feel like taking action, we recognize that taking action can be the best way to change our mental state.

[1:34] Behavioral activation can be a very effective therapeutic strategy for people suffering from depression or anxiety because in these conditions, people very often struggle to do the very things that would actually help them feel so much better.
For example, we know that exercise can relieve depression, but people who are severely depressed often experience lethargy and fatigue, so the last thing they feel like doing is exercising.

[2:04] But if they can push through that resistance and do even a little bit of physical activity, they often find that they feel so energized and they want to keep going.
Even if we don't suffer from depression or anxiety, behavioral activation offers us a framework that helps us better understand what's going on when we find ourselves in this familiar bind of not wanting to do the thing that we know will actually move us forward.

[2:32] So good to have you back on the Change Academy podcast, Bethy. So glad to be here.
So how can we get ourselves to do the things that we don't want to do when we know that they're good for us?
I think that our general framework of ourselves is that we act from the inside out, that we have a thought or a feeling of, I want to go to the gym, it feels good to go to the gym, therefore I will then take action and go to the gym.
And yes, some of our behaviors are based on this internal process inside out.
And yet what you describe is so much more often the case when we're trying to make a change or doing something that isn't going to be just immediately pleasurable or rewarding, that we need to instead act from the outside in, where we do the behavior and then the thoughts and feelings follow from that.
And we do this all the time without realizing it.
Sometimes we're going along and we're doing something because we want to, but then we'll stop and say, They...

[3:42] Oh, I'm either doing this too much or not doing what I should be doing.
And so then we naturally just reverse the system back and forth and back and forth. I like to use the example of eating cookies.
I want a cookie. A cookie will feel really nice. So I eat a cookie.
And then I say, I want another cookie. Inside out, inside out.

[4:04] And then oftentimes when we're in a healthy space, we will then naturally reverse the system where inside out is saying, I want another cookie.
And we just naturally say, it's time to stop with the cookies.
And we just reverse the system, stop eating the cookies, even though inside we're saying we still want it.
We reverse that system, act from the outside in, and eventually we might be glad that we stopped eating the cookies. Yeah, I've heard people say so frequently, I wish I wanted to do this more.
I want to want to make this change.
And they can wait for that desire, that motivation, that activation for a very long time.
And this is like a shortcut to that.
We can actually activate the behavior before we activate the desire.
And we should say that this whole theory of behavioral activation was is really developed and fleshed out by Christopher Martel, a psychologist.
But the reason we're talking about it today, because this is not a therapy podcast, I want to talk about it today because I believe that even if we're not suffering from depression or anxiety, we can really borrow this strategy to help us do those things that we sometimes just don't feel like doing.

[5:22] Yes, this theory was originally created for people who were struggling with mental illness, and yet these concepts still apply.
So yes, the treatment for a lot of mental illnesses are doing the exact thing the person doesn't want to do. We behaviorally activate.
We act from the outside in when they're acting from the inside out.

[5:45] However, I think we need to normalize the fact that while this works for mental illness, this also speaks to all of us, wherever we're at, that yeah, just simply having a basic case of the I don't want us is a very watered down version of what people who are struggling with mental illness are dealing with.
It's the same concept at just a different level of intensity, and yet we can apply the same concept.
We often need to do the very thing that we don't want to do.
So I think the first step in this is normalizing this, that this is a normal, typical thing to experience.
We need to stop expecting that when we want to make change, that we're going to be motivated to do it.
Motivation rarely comes from just this spark of desire.
And instead, Instead, it usually comes from the outside in. We get motivated to do something after we're already doing it.
So I think that first step of just when we find ourselves having trouble doing something that we want to do, just acknowledging that and saying, it's okay that I'm not feeling motivated to do it.
And yet that still doesn't need to stop me from doing it.

[7:04] I'm so glad you brought up motivation because this is another thing that people feel like they struggle to find and to keep the motivation.
And often there is a little burst of motivation that comes with that initial decision to make a change, that enthusiasm, that buy-in.
The problem is that it dissipates very quickly.
As soon as people get into the hard work of creating new behavior, somehow that motivation is not as strong, is not as consistent as we wish.
And people feel You're like, ah, this is my problem. I just, I can't stay motivated.
And they're looking for tricks to keep them motivated. And what you just expressed is my favorite trick.
You don't have to wait to feel more motivated in order to take action.
You can actually take action in order to feel more motivated.

[7:56] Love that. I think that was so well said.
I want to just emphasize for just a moment that we're talking about instances where someone isn't feeling good because they know they need to make a behavioral change that they're just having trouble doing.

[8:14] What we're not talking about here is instances where people are doing the things.
They are engaging in healthy ways and still not feeling good.
So they're eating healthy. They're sleeping well. They are exercising.
They have good balance in their lives, and yet they still feel down or anxious inside.
That's a different issue. And that, rather than needing behavioral activation, really needs more of an emotional approach.
So for that, we've already done an episode about that. For those instances, I would encourage people to listen to our episode that we did about dealing with difficult emotions.
Thank you for that. It is such a good reminder that not every problem is a nail.
And so a hammer is not always what we want to pick up.
And it just reinforces what seems to be the recurring theme of this podcast, which is that it all starts with self-awareness, right?
We have to be able to really think a little bit about what we're experiencing and hold Hold it up against some of these rulers that we provide in these different episodes and see if there's a fit there before we try to apply a solution that might not be right.

[9:28] You've also talked about self-perception theory as being part of this behavioral activation model.
Tell me more about that.

[9:37] Absolutely. This is the idea that we are what we do rather than just what we think and feel.
And what's nice about this is it acknowledges that back and forth that yes sometimes we act from the inside out and yet anytime we see that we're not acting in accordance with how we want to be then we reverse the system naturally and act from the outside in yeah to me that speaks to something that we've talked about before which is that change creating change often requires or involves an identity change, that our identity, our self-identity is informed in great part by what we do on a regular basis.
And if there's something that we want to do, but we haven't done it, we may not have really created that identity for ourselves yet as someone who goes to the gym regularly, as someone who makes healthy choices with food, and that acting from the the outside in, starting to take those steps, even though we don't always want to, is part of building that new identity that reinforces that new desired behavior.

[10:49] So takeaway number one, there's nothing wrong with us because we sometimes come up against this, a case of the I don't want us.
It's normal. It's expected.
We should just be ready for that to happen.
But another part of Martel's theory is that we will flow back and forth, as you're saying, kind of in a self-correcting way.
And if things go too far in that inside-out direction, we will naturally sort of correct course and bring in a little bit more of that outside-in mode to stabilize.
But this doesn't always work perfectly.

[11:27] There can be a tendency for us to get a little stuck in that inside-out mode.
And that self-correcting impulse maybe eludes us.
And we keep going, we keep going, and before you know it, now we've got a new problem.
So I want to talk a little bit about out how that looks when we may have gotten stuck in an inside-out mode of behavior.

[11:54] And you've shared with me that there are actually, in the clinical world, four signs that someone might be stuck behaviorally in this inside-out mode.
And they are overcoping, avoidance, withdrawal, and unintentionality,

[12:10] which is an interesting word.

[12:12] Let's break these down one by one. Let's start with overcoping.
What does that look like?
So sometimes what we'll do is we'll engage in excessive behaviors, almost like a distraction.
Where we'll do something else to cope with the fact that we don't want to do the thing we don't want to do.
So for example, let's say we're feeling really stressed and overwhelmed by work, and what we're really needing is to take a pause.
But instead, we distract ourselves by just busy, busy, busy overworking ourselves so we don't have to think about the switch that we need to make in our schedule.
Another example might be that if we want to make a nutritional change, that instead of actually making changes like buying some nutritious foods to have on hand, we'll excessively spend our time researching, researching, researching about different diets that we could do to avoid making a different behavioral change that we don't want to do.

[13:21] So that sounds a little bit like getting stuck in the intention part of the attention-intention action cycle, where we've identified something that we want to change, and then we get stuck in research mode and we never move forward.
So it's a way of delaying taking action. No, wait, let me just make sure that I've got the right action, the best action. Let me make sure I'm ready.
But it also sounds like there's a way in which if we are over coping, we may be leaning into...

[13:51] The things that are causing the problem. So if the problem is overworking, continuing to overwork is a way of avoiding setting better boundaries at work, obviously, not a very functional response.
Exactly. And this is what Martel talks about, that oftentimes when we engage in these behaviors, that they actually exacerbate the original problem or create a whole new problem.
So with over-coping at work, now we're actually overworking ourselves even further and might then create a health issue or it might manifest as a mental health issue.
And so now we have actually a new problem by the very fact that we were trying to cope with another problem in an unhealthy way.
Right. And very often when we are over-coping, it boils down to our unwillingness to set boundaries, to request more realistic deadlines, to ask for help.
We want to be the super employee or the super mom or the super partner.
And so instead of asking for support and expressing what is beyond our ability, we just double down on getting it done. And then we wonder why we are so burned out.

[15:12] Excellent. And that's exactly it. So if we find ourselves engaging in problematic behaviors like overworking, then the response to that kind of stuckness is to do things like setting goals, prioritizing what's important and establishing boundaries.
Yeah. Okay. So the thing that encapsulates that for me is that doubling down energy.
Let me just do more harder. So that's what I'm going to watch for in terms of my own tendency to overcope.
The second one is avoidance. So what does that look like?
Avoidance is our classic, I don't wanna. So this is just simply, I don't want to do something.
Therefore, I just straight up don't do it.
So we stay away from the thing that's distressing. So let's say we're stressed about work.
This would be procrastination, that we just halt and avoid doing the stressful thing at all.
Or maybe avoiding difficult conversations.

[16:22] Avoiding any kind of engagement that might feel confrontational.
So basically just putting as much distance between us and whatever the field of contention is as possible.
And I just wanted to say that with avoidance, that one is super, super common.
And often there's overlaps with these other ones.
And if you find that your stuckness is manifesting in avoidance.

[16:52] The best thing to do with that is to break the problem down into even smaller steps.
So breaking a work task down when you're stressed out into just what is the next thing I need to do, or even that cookie example that we used earlier, I can't get myself to stop eating cookies. cookies, then we just want to break it down.
We can literally break the cookie down into eating it in tiny bites and taking drinks in between.
So it's not so much like with overcoping where it's establishing boundaries.
Now we need to break the problem down into tiny bits to be able to get through the stuckness.
Right. And often I find that it's easier to commit to a tiny bit, especially if a project feels overwhelming or too big.
And that leads me to avoid engaging with it at all because I just don't know how I'm ever going to get to the other side of it or figure it all out.
This is a classic writer's block strategy, right? Like just write for five minutes.
That's all. That's your only job.
That equals success is just a way of getting engaged and getting that behavioral cycle moving in that other direction.
Awesome. But the third one on your list after or overcoping and avoidance is withdrawal.

[18:07] That sounds a little bit like avoidance. What's the difference between avoidance and withdrawal?
Good. Yes, they do sound really similar. And yet withdrawal, we're talking more about your connection with other people.
We'll find that sometimes we're hiding. We're avoiding telling people that we're struggling.
We pull away from our social supports. So it's specifically withdrawing from people in those distressful moments.

[18:35] That's helpful. So avoidance is more about maybe a task and withdrawal is more from people. Well said.
Yes. Isolation. Great. And if we kind of self-diagnose, I seem to be sort of in a withdrawal mode.
And as you said, these are not mutually exclusive.
We could have a pleasing cocktail of more than one.
But if withdrawal is a big feature of this, we find ourselves withdrawing from social opportunities, canceling plans, saying, no, I don't want to get together. I'm just not up for it.
How do we respond to that form of being stuck?

[19:13] And yes, thank you for acknowledging the fact that yes, so often these four signs are going to show up all together.
And so we want to identify which one is most present or problematic, keeping us most stuck, or which one of these signs are we feeling most able to tackle first.
Great strategies to use. And if we see that withdrawal is a big component of this, break the silence.
If there is something that you're feeling stuck with, say it out loud to someone that you trust.
I know for me, when work gets really stressful, just talking with someone about that, that I trust.
Monica, you're one of those people. I know. I was just saying, I feel like I did this with you just this week. Right.
Right. I took on too much just saying that out loud. It's not a secret anymore.
I re-engage with that social support and it helps to reverse the system and go, oh, I heard myself say it. I heard her say it back to me.
Now I'm feeling more capable to act from the outside in and address it. Great.

[20:22] And that brings us to the fourth and most mysterious of these signs of being stuck in an inside out mode.
And that is unintentionality. That's probably a clinical term in psychological counseling, but I don't understand what you mean by that. Yeah.

[20:39] Unintentionality just means acting without thinking.

[20:43] We've numbed out and unplugged our brains. Okay. That I'm familiar with. Right.
So this is a classic example of that is eating in ways that we'd prefer not to where people say, I just looked down and the bag of chips was gone.
Yeah. Mostly because I was sitting in front of a screen while I was eating them because that's how I wanted to watch TV or that's how I wanted to snack.
Yeah. So it's that mindlessness. And I think numbing is a good trigger word for me because I am often aware of something where the main appeal of it is that it just kind of turns down the noise in my brain and I feel just sort of comfortably numb.
So that's unintentionality, getting stuck scrolling through social media or news apps or just watching TV when you're not really even being that entertained or edified by it, but it just feels easier than turning off the set.
Yes. So we want to go to the gym. We want to address a work task and yet we don't want to. too.
And so then we find ourselves just unplugging and mindlessly engaging in something else. And oftentimes, you're right, it's screens.
Yeah. And it's so frustrating because it's not even that relaxing or that...

[22:09] Enjoyable. One part of my brain is thinking, God, this really isn't even worth it. And yet I can't, I seem to be paralyzed.
Right? So, and that's the thing.
So if we find ourselves acting with unintentionality, then what we want to do is just set some limits on those mindless activities.
A great strategy for that is to create some routines around times when we tend to check out. so we plan ahead of time for how we're going to handle those times.
Or setting alarms is great. Giving yourself some time to unplug, but making sure you don't lose a whole hour to it. Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so officially they are overcoping, avoidance, withdrawal, and unintentionality.
But I think I'm going to think of them as doubling down, procrastinating, isolating, and numbing.

[23:03] I love it. We need to come up with an acronym for that.
But actually, I just say that because I would encourage anybody listening to come up with their own keywords to help them recognize most easily which one of these things they are engaged in, because this is all a matter of being aware and attuned of what's going on so that we can take appropriate action.
I love what you said earlier about there may be more than one of these going on, and each one has slightly different strategies that you might want to counter.
And I really liked your advice of choosing either the mode that seems to be having the.

[23:44] The mode that you feel most prepared to take action on.
Yes. It really takes into account the nuance.
So often we'll say to ourselves, oh, I don't want to do this and I just need to. I just, you know, take the Nike approach.
Just do it. Just do it. Just do it. Which, yes, that is the theory of behavioral activation in a nutshell.
And yet, as we're talking about today, it's more nuanced than that.
If we figure out what the a stuckness is, then we can target our just doing

[24:17] it in a way that will actually gain traction.
So let me just bring our conversation to a close with a couple of takeaways for anybody listening who struggles to take consistent action on something that they've identified as being aligned with their values, with their goals. It may be exercise.
It may be submitting resumes for jobs. It might be doing some meal prep on the weekends or taking steps towards a big project, whatever it is, struggling with that action step.

[24:50] Number one, this is normal. This is so normal. We should actually expect this to happen.
This is just a natural feature of how our brains work and sometimes resist taking new actions, especially when the payoff isn't immediate.
And then the other takeaway is to do a little sleuthing to figure out, am I doubling down?

[25:11] Am I procrastinating? Am I isolating? Am I maybe numbing?
And use that as a guide to some practical strategies that you've outlined here for us that we can take to just reverse this direction and move ourselves back into that more useful balance of inside out and outside in. I think that that summarized it well.
We'll put these takeaways and the action steps into the show notes for you so that you can see them written down, which is always helpful.
I know it was helpful for me to see them written down as we were talking here today.
And Bethy, thanks again for coming by and sharing your wisdom and your practical advice with us.
Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.

[25:59] So what is that thing in your life that you know you need to do or stop doing or change, but you just aren't doing it?
If you can identify a place where you are stuck, where you need to activate your behavior.

[26:13] First give some thought to the four ways that this might manifest and see if you can identify one or maybe two that seem to be the dominant mode for you in this situation.
And then with that insight, see if you can apply the behavioral activation strategy for that mode.
And you can check the show notes if you need a little reminder of what those were. And if you'd like some help figuring out what your next step is, my inbox is open at hello at changeacademypodcast.com.
Thanks to all of you who have emailed in response to recent episodes, to those of you who have posted such nice reviews, and to those of you, and you know who you are, who have so generously kept the Change Academy team caffeinated.
If you'd like to buy us a coffee sometime, just look for that support this show button in the show notes.
All right. Thanks, everyone. This has been the Change Academy podcast with Monica Reinagel.
Our show is produced by me, Brock Armstrong.
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Now here's to the changes we choose.