• In this jam-packed episode, Melinda Cohan, our host and senior coach, has a fascinating conversation with Kai Alday, the founder of SuccessAlday, a company focusing on creating mindset and habit success. Melinda and Kai geek out on the neuroscience of habits and discuss several practical steps that you can immediately apply to break any nonserving habit and create a new one that serves.
•In this episode we discuss:
Kai Alday is a self-proclaimed momentum junkie, AKA a coach obsessed with creating traction for service-based businesses. She has a not-so-secret love affair with brain science and loves using it to create mindset and habit success for her clients. Kai’s specialties are customer experience design, program creation, and science-based goal setting.
In this episode, we're going to dive into the topic of habits. First, it's human nature to have habits and there's nothing wrong with that. However, as coaches, it's our job to help our clients get the results they want, and they may involve changing a habit or two. When we try to break a habit and establish a new one, we usually experience it as hard and isolation makes it even harder. Breaking a habit on your own is extremely difficult and it takes a ton of self-discipline, which is why having the support of a coach for this is so important to talk about habits today. On just between coaches, I've invited chi all day. Kai is a business coach to entrepreneurs. She also coaches course creators at Mirasee. Before I bring Kai on, I'm going to read an email from a listener that reflects today's topic again. Unless you tell me otherwise, any email that you send me that we read on the air will be anonymous. Here's what anonymous had to say. Hello, Melinda, I need your help and advice. My client told me five months ago that she wants to integrate meditation into her hectic life. She is a ceo of a public company and one of her goals is to feel more relaxed and focused. But in our coaching sessions I continue to see an old pattern showing up again and again. She never turned her cell phone off. It vibrates constantly. She went to the result, but engages in the status quo. I've brought it up with her and she sticks to meditation as the goal, but she fails or refuses to see that she isn't willing to change her habit of always being available. How do I help her break free from her old habits so that she can create a new one that supports the results. She says she wants. Do you have any systems or tools that you recommend? Dear anonymous. Thank you for bringing the topic of habits to our show. First, I don't look at habits as good or bad, but more as actions that support you and what you want to create and ultimately become, or they can be a barrier that prevents you from getting where you want to be. So some habits are serving and some habits are not serving and so what's important is to understand what's the goal, what's the desire, what's the end destination and what habits serve that and which ones don't. We're going to talk about that and much more in a moment. Today on just between coaches is our guest coach Kai Alday. In her business Success Alday, Kai coaches entrepreneurs to get clear on the business they want and the steps to get there. She also coaches course creators that Mirasee Welcome Kai,
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Kai: thank you, I'm so excited to be here.
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Melinda: I am so excited to have you here. Now, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your background just to give our listeners a picture of who you are, where you come from?
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Kai: Yeah, I actually come from the nonprofit and corporate background and I was in that world for a while and decided that I wanted to become a coach and that was what started me on this journey and that's kind of why we're here today is because I was in the midst of all of this, seeing everything and noticing my own habits and I really dove deep into it and that became how I started to inform my coaching practice.
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Melinda: Well, I'm excited to get into this topic with you and to start off, can you just give us a view on what habits are, like? What exactly is a habit? What does that mean to you?
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Kai: Habits are usually the thing, you know, when we're getting near to the Gold Time, right, it's like December, everyone's trying to think of a goal. Typically it's the thing that either helps us to reach that goal or prevents us from reaching that goal. So I believe that habits are often they're either something you're very aware of and you're trying to change, right? Like I want to lose weight, so I need to eat less. But they're also often one of those sneaky little things that we don't actually pay any attention to. So I I I typically called them like the invisible creature just because sometimes you just don't even know that they're there.
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Melinda: I love that the invisible creature, they're just kind of lurking, You're oblivious to it. Yet you can't quite figure out why you can't get to that goal.
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Kai: Yeah, exactly.
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Melinda: Well, I think you and I agree that the thoughts we think become our actions and the more actions we take over time creates a habit.
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Kai: Yes.
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Melinda: Would you say that like that action becomes habit and when can that moment be identified?
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Kai: I think yes, you can definitely be aware of it, but I do think that oftentimes it happens unconsciously. So we are creating this habit and typically it happens when we're younger or at some stage or trying to deal with something, right? And this is just an example, so we're trying to deal with something and then as we're dealing with it, we're figuring out how to navigate. And oftentimes when we figure out how to navigate it, we're doing what is easiest for us, what is what protects us in some way. And then from there, it either is something that is reinforced as we get older as that same thing happens over and over again or it's something that we just don't even pay attention to because we didn't think twice about it. So habits can start when we're kids, they can be informed at that age, but they can also start when we're older. And typically it's not like, hey, I'm trying to create a bad habit. Almost always were unaware when we're creating these habits that don't service or um, you know, and it's not until we're trying to make a change that we actually start to dig into that. And almost all the time when I used to speak with my clients about this. Almost always, they didn't even think about it as a habit. They, it was something that they didn't even think twice about, right. It was just, I can't, it was always, it always came down to will power. And so I do think that you can be aware of it once you're informed about it. But until that point, sometimes it can be really hard to pin down what's going wrong.
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Melinda: And so to tie into that, why is it so hard to change a habit?
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Kai: There's a few reasons, right? So, you know, sometimes sometimes the habit is, so let's say that we have the goal. So for example, the letter right, she was talking about she wants to meditate, but she also wants to be on her social, she's falling in line with what she thinks she needs to do, whether that's for work or something that, you know, a social connection, right? But for whatever reason, she is choosing one thing over the other. And because of that, she's creating this habit, but she probably doesn't realize that she's creating the habit. So until, like you say, right, you need a coach to help. You see that sometimes to help break some of those patterns, but until somebody points that out, or until you've read a book or heard about the fact that a habit can be the issue, you're really not going to think twice about the other stuff and what's happening, You're just thinking, it's all about willpower, like I just can't do it or if I just try harder, um and oftentimes that keeps us from being aware of what the actual problem is.
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Melinda: So once you become aware of it, whether you become aware of it yourself or you're working with a coach and they kind of pointed out, you're like, oh my gosh, that's going on. How long does it take to change a habit? Like some research out there says 21 days, is it longer? Is it shorter? Like what is your, what's your take on that? You're so many different perspectives?
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Kai: Yes, I would definitely. So the 21 day habit thing I drives him crazy with, but
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Melinda: I like that you're laughing about this. I
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Kai: am, I am because I hear it so often and yes, if we did the brain science and I know that you love brain science as well. So this is something we can both speak out together on. But when you look at the brain science and you start to look at, you know, our neural pathways and how they form and how it all works 21 days. Yes, you can create a new neural pathway in 21 days. That is correct. But let's think of it this way you have two roads, you have the road that you've been driving your whole life, right? This is the same way you go every single day and then all of a sudden they decided, hey we're going to make a new road but it's a small road, it's like a little back road, right? But you're thinking to yourself, well, that would probably save me time because there's not as much traffic, but just out of habit, you always go on the main road, so you have to actually focus on taking that new road in order to make that the new habit, so to speak. And so when you're thinking about the neural pathways, it's the same thing, we, we can create that new road within 21 days, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the connection is going to actually happen within 21 days. So it typically takes, I believe it's like 67 plus days and not even days, but it's more about how often we practice it versus how long it takes because I could drive on that new road, you know, for 67 days once a day. But if I'm on the other road, let's say, you know, 100 times a day, For 67 days, I'm still reinforcing the other road, right?
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Melinda: That yeah, that's fascinating. Yeah, that's very fascinating. So what I'm hearing you say is there's like 22 components to this. Yes. You know that research that we hear 21 days, three weeks, whatever. Uh it's like, yes, we can create a new habit, but it's about making that conscious decision to reinforce that habit can take longer and typically takes longer and all of that is dependent on the frequency of practice,
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Kai: correct? Yes, exactly,
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Melinda: okay, like that's mind blowing, you're right, I could geek out on this. And it's it's also interesting like when we go back to help anonymous, like in my coaching practice, I will usually call a habit a pattern instead because I find that um there's like this defensiveness or a negative connotation when it comes to the word habit. Well there's more of a curiosity about the word pattern in your experience. Is there a difference? Is it easier to change? Like thought patterns or actions? What is your take on that?
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Kai: I've never actually really thought of that in that sense, but um so I've always called it a habit, but I guess yeah, I can see what you're saying when we're talking about habits. Sometimes you think of it like the bad habit, right? It's it's not we don't often think of the good habits that we're trying to create, we're often thinking about the bad habits were trying to get rid of, but I could definitely see how addressing it as a pattern might help someone especially because if you really look at that it is a pattern, right? If we look at the habit of, let's say going to the gym, there is a pattern that happens, let's say that every, you know, I want to start going to the gym or maybe I do go to the gym but there is a pattern that starts to set itself, I leave work, I grabbed my bag, I walk into the gym, I put on my clothes, I go and I work out for however long I'm starting to actually set a pattern. So think of it as a series of habits and so I love the way that you frame that as a pattern because that is exactly what it is. It's the series of habits that we're trying to, we're trying to reinforce or we're trying to essentially get rid of or alter in some way to help us get to where we're trying to go and yeah, I love that, I'm gonna I'm going to keep that if you don't mind. Yeah,
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Melinda: you keep that. I'm keeping your brain science because when when I think about the brain science and this idea of you know, it's the new habit. Sure. But you have to focus on making those new decisions and the frequency when I think about calling it a pattern and like you said, there's specific steps that create that pattern. Now I can consciously, it's okay, what's the pattern I'm creating in the steps involved and then the repetition of that is easier to focus on where the habit is just all that negative connotation. It just makes it even harder I think,
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Kai: right? And you know when you look at it as a pattern as well, a series of steps or habits that are lined up, then you can also look at it and see where are you experiencing the problem because sometimes it's it's not me getting my gym clothes and then you know going to the gym, sometimes it's just leaving the workout room and getting onto a bike or figure out what to do. So you can usually, when you look at it as a pattern you can start to see okay here is where I'm experiencing the problem, right? So I'm able to get my clothes in my car, I drive to the gym, but as soon as I change my clothes I lose all motivation and I want to leave. So then that is the specific spot where we need to start working.
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Melinda: Love that. Just get really hyper focused on that piece in the process and the pattern and just focus on that.
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Kai: Exactly,
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Melinda: that's really cool, I love the pattern and brain science combination, that's awesome and and when I think about, you know, the role of coaching in all of this, it's about strengthening the actions that are supportive and you know if we can hone in on that one aspect of it, it's even better. Reframing the ones that are obstacles are preventing us. But before I put any kind of system in place to help a client do that, I make sure to clarify three levels with my client, their level of commitment, the level of priority. Is this a priority for them and the level of value? The impact it's going to have. Right? So when we go back to that letter from anonymous, you know that person's client wants to integrate meditation, very hectic schedule also wants to be available to people. So getting really clear what's your level of commitment in this? What's the priority for you and what's the value the impact on the outcome going to be? What's your take on that?
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Kai: I love it. I mean, you have to all three of those things are essential to actually creating change, right? If you aren't committed, if there is no value and let's kind of dive into the value. So when we think of value oftentimes, what is the value that why are we actually pursuing the goal? And sometimes especially in my world, I see these women and they're, you know, they're trying to let's let's go with the five a.m. Club right there trying to get on the five a.m. Club, which I think is an awesome goal. But what is the value for them? Is it that they're getting more time from it? Is it that it's you know, allowing them to have some space before they have to tackle their day? Is it what is the value that's coming out of that? And sometimes there is no value? They're choosing it because, you know, somebody said like, this is a great thing, this is what I do, and I'm really, you know, I'm famous and I'm popular and so now they're trying to get on this bandwagon, so they don't really understand the value for themselves. And so I think that that's so important that, you know why you're doing it because you can commit to something. But at the end of the day, if we don't understand the value that commitment is gonna start to wane after some time, or it's just willpower, right? It's it's more it's not so much commitment as much as it is, may be disciplined or, you know, I will make this happen, but then it happens and then then they're like, well, this hasn't changed my life at all. And it's because they haven't really thought about the value that they're going to get from it. So I love how you go through that with your client. But I do think that the value is so important to tackle.
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Melinda: Yeah. And that that's the driver of it really because from there then they can make their commitment. And when I say commitment, it's also like, are you willing to do whatever it takes to what degree are you willing to do? Whatever it takes to get this outcome and the value and what kind of priority? Where in your priorities? Because if it's not a priority, you're not going to commit your time to it.
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Kai: Yes, exactly.
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Melinda: Now, what systems or tools do you work with to help your clients change a habit?
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Kai: I have a few. So it usually depends on what the struggle is. So as we talked about earlier, when you're looking at the patterns, right? Then we can see, hey, here is the issue. But one of my favorite things that I do is that we often talk about, well there's two. I love temptation bundling and I also love the idea of friction, friction is, let's say that the problem that I'm having is that I want to start going to the gym, but I can never seem to make it there. So then we're looking at those that pattern and saying, where is the actual issue? So maybe the issue is that okay? I have, I normally go to work, then I come home and I change and then I never make it to the gym. So even if I change, I don't get to the gym. So then it's, we need to get rid of some of the friction because right now what's happening is you're going home and then the friction is that it's leaving your home again, right? It's actually you you put on the clothes but to leave you need to reduce the friction that's right there. So what would that look like? So for reducing friction, basically what we're saying is we're trying to make it easier, how would it be easier is probably packing my bags the night before and already having it in my car, right? So we're reducing that friction of me going home and then having to again make the decision to leave my house. So that's one of those things you can do the same thing with increasing friction. Like the example I gave you of the many women and the five a.m. Club. I was trying to do this myself and for me it's because I don't like to wake up with my kids, I want to get up beforehand, have a little bit of space and coffee so that I'm not grumpy. So I was like, okay, I'm going to get up and I'm going to start waking up at 5:30 AM now keep in mind that I had a four-month-old at the time. So there was a lot of things wrong with this picture, but I was a coach and so I knew this, this whole friction thing, right? I was like, okay, well we'll increase the friction. So I started to set an alarm and then I knew that as soon as I set the alarm, I would turn down two news. So what I did was I put it across the room so that worked for a little bit, probably about three days. And then what happened is I would get up, turn it off and then jumped back into bed. So I had to create more fiction. I went through this whole series of steps. But by the end of it, what I started to do is I actually put the alarm under my daughter, my four-month-old’s crib so that I would have to crawl under her crib, grab it and by that time I would be awake. So I had already had two alarms, right, the one that was telling me, hey you need to get up. And then the second alarm that would be blasting. And that second alarm was the one that was under her crib. So I increased the friction so that I wouldn't wake her up. There was so much motivation to not wake her up at five a.m. That I definitely got it done right and then the adrenaline was pumping because I made sure there was only about a minute in between alarms so that my adrenaline would get going as soon as my first alarm went off. So that's one of them. The other one that I love is temptation bundling and temptation Bundling is essentially, it's like, let's say we're trying to create this new habit of meditation and maybe I want to meditate in the morning and typically I wake up, I have a cup of coffee because that's something that I love. It's a virtual I love. But what if instead I meditated first and as a reward, I bundled that with my coffee. So after I did my meditation, then I could have my coffee right? So I'm starting to create, It sounds bad, but I'm trying to work with the dopamine in my brain and I'm trying to create a trigger essentially, that gets me excited to start meditating. And that might start with, okay, I'm excited because maybe not for the meditation, but because I get that coffee in the end. But what happens is that I start to your brain is starting to recognize that every time you do this you get a reward. So now it's actually Bundling the two together.
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Melinda: I love that and it's it's not just bundling it with a reward, but it's something you're already doing on a daily basis. So it's taking an existing habit, bundling it with this new thing you want to develop setting it up. So it's a reward and I love what you call it temptation Bundling. I mean, I'm like, okay, I'm ready to take notes, tell me what this is temptation Bundling, that's pretty cool. And I love with the friction, the consequences that you put in place for the motivation. And I love that coaching question. When you identify that point where the friction is happening, how would it be easier or what would that need to look like? That's a great coaching question so that the client can then identify? Well what does that mean for them? And then they can have fun with it. Like
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Kai: you
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Melinda: Now let's go back to the question from anonymous. Uh what can anonymous do to help the client change her habit? Is there anything else I know you talked about the temptation bundling the friction. Is there anything else that you would add into that to help anonymous change that habit? Or help our client change that habit?
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Kai: Probably. Yeah. I mean, gosh, there are so many things right that I think about. I think about the toxic habits that you know are great things to talk to your clients about. Um and one of those things that I think about is the misaligned habit. And what I mean by that is the discussion I'd probably be having with her is, you know, this habit seems great, but like we talked about earlier, what's the value in it? Is it something that she really wants? Because, you know, everyone says that meditation is great. Is it something she's tried and really enjoys? Like where is it actually falling in line for her? And that's probably one of the things that I dig into first. But then after that, there is this idea of placing your vote right? And you can do this with a visual. Typically we would say something visual. Like, let's say you had to clear jars, let's say that you had a little bag of beautiful rocks, right? And so in these rocks every day, what you're gonna do is you're going to place your vote on who you want to be on the habit. Let's say that you're trying to achieve or the goal that you're trying to achieve, right? So let's say, okay, every day that I meditate, I'm going to put one of these beautiful rocks into this jar on the right and every day that I don't, I'm going to put a rock into the jar on the left. Now, what's happening is number one, you have a visual cue of what you're actually committing your time to and what you're actually following through on. And number two is when I do reward myself with that beautiful rock into the jar on the right, I'm also rewarding my brain, right? It's almost like a positive. So while the goal might be something that's far off for me and I'm not getting any immediate, um, you know, reinforcements because nothing's happening yet, What I am doing is I'm getting an immediate reward by putting that little stone into that jar. And so I'm doing a few things there, right? Is number one, I'm congratulating myself, I'm rewarding my brain, I'm giving myself something great for doing something. But also at the end of the 21 days or 67 days or however long you choose to do this, you're gonna be able to see where you're placing your vote. Are you actually, are your actions actually voting for the person that you want to be or are they voting for how life already is? And I think sometimes we don't really think of that. We think of, you know, I really have this great goal and I want to be this person, but we don't think how our actions are contributing, that we are actually deciding for ourselves what kind of life we're going to create. We kind of take that decision out of our hands and just leave it up to fate. And in reality, I think as coaches oftentimes it's talking to your clients and giving them, like you said, that kind of tough love that everything that's happening in our lives, the problems of the great things, we are contributing to it in some way. We have the decisions that we get to make on a daily basis and that's the beautiful thing about it is that we get to make those decisions. I get to choose every day to vote, to be somebody better. I get to choose every day to have a better life, to be nicer to people to whatever the goals are. I get to choose and what the placing your vote does. It shows you where you're really voting? Where are you really spending your time?
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Melinda: Love that, love that, love that and and you know, in order to be able to change a pattern, I believe that you have to have the internal motivation, but also that external inspiration. And I love how you describe the placing your vote exercise. Is that part of that external inspiration? That visual cue those small winds, right? The internal motivation that's about that commitment and priority level, the value that we talked about. But that external inspiration that reminds you it's constant visual reminders or if you're working with your coach, the feedback from them of what's possible if and when and as you change because you know, left to our own devices, we'll just slip back into our own patterns if we don't really pay attention and we don't even realize it. But that external inspiration causes the pattern to interrupt and produces, that it just helps strengthen that new neural response that we were talking about in our brain.
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Kai: Yes, 100%.
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Melinda: So let's go back to anonymous and summarise a couple of the things that we talked about today. So we talked about looking at habits as serving or not serving rather than as good or bad, right? We talked about uh maybe not even calling it a habit, but referring it as a pattern. And you called it the invisible creature, which I loved, that phrase. And it's also important to understand and have a clear picture of your clients motivation, their desire, like they're in destination and the value and help them see the habits that serve and the habits that don't. And to make sure that you clarify the three levels with your client, their level of commitment, the level of priority and the level of value or impact from what you're trying to create. Then it's easier to put a system in place for your client to get the desired results right. And you talked about maybe using tools like temptation bundling or working with the friction points and I love that coaching tool of placing your vote for that visual cue, right? Making sure that you've got that external inspiration as well as the internal motivation. And then to change a non-serving habit, your client needs both that internal motivation and the external inspiration to create that new neural response in the brain and that frequency over time is what's going to help solidify that new habit that does lead to the goal or end desire. So kai, do you have anything else that you want to say to anonymous?
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Kai: I think the only other thing that I would encourage her to do is really dig into, like you said, that value peace and remember why she's doing it because when we can really tap into that and remind ourselves of that every day. So, you know, I put sticky notes because I just, well, you know, sometimes all of us are so busy and that sounds like anonymous is really busy. So putting sticky notes where she will see that reminder of why she's doing it will also help her to not just think about it as an afterthought or as something at the end of the day that she didn't accomplish, but to think about it throughout the day and realize that every time she sees those notes, she has another opportunity to place her vote. And I think that that is so important to realize that, you know, oftentimes we think, okay, I'm gonna wait until Monday. I'm going to start this on Monday, I'll start it next month. And really, if you mess up, you can start in the next minute. And I think we often forget that every single second that was passing is an opportunity for us to create and make a new decision. And so I would really encourage her to put those reminders around to dig into why she really wants this and put that everywhere that she is, whether it's on her cell phone, whether it's, you know, on the bathroom mirror or whether it's on the tv or coffee pot, whatever that looks like put them everywhere. But every time she sees it, then she'll have a reminder that hey, I can make the right decision or the decision that serves me best right now.
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Melinda: Thank you so much Kai and I want to thank you for listening to this episode of just between coaches and also a big thank you to Kai Alday for this fascinating conversation, let's do this again sometime.
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Kai: Oh, I would love to thanks
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Melinda: If you like today's podcast, you'll surely enjoy the inspirational episodes over a Course Lab. In each episode, Danny Iny of Mirasee and Abe Crystal of Ruzuku interview of course creator to shine a light on what makes their course so interesting and successful.
It's a great opportunity to pick up some really cool tips. I'm Melinda Cohen and you've been listening to just between coaches.
Just between coaches is a Mirasee FM original production. This episode was produced by Cynthia lamb Danny Iny is our executive producer. I wrote this episode with Michi Lantz and Cynthia. Geoff Govertsen and Michi assembled this episode. If you don't want to miss future episodes, please subscribe to apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you're listening right now. And if you liked the show, please leave us a starred review. It's the best way to help us get these ideas to more people.
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