How to Make New Habits Stick, Overcoming “All or Nothing,” Dealing with Loneliness - Dr. Josh Smith

Jordan Syatt (0:00)

Before we dive in today's episode, you're probably wondering, Jordan, who's the sponsor of today's episode? And I am very happy to tell you that I am the sponsor of today's episode. I'm sponsoring my own episode. I own the Syatt Fitness Inner Circle, which I think is the single greatest fitness app in the entire world. If you want to get stronger, if you want to get more flexible, if you want to improve your cardio, your heart health, if you want to lose fat, build muscle, get stronger, all of it in one app. And the cool thing is, you can do all of this in the same workout. You don't need multiple workouts for improving strength and improving mobility and improving this and improving that. You can do everything at the same time without spending hours and hours and hours every single week. I make it as simple and easy as possible for you so you can stay consistent. If you've been following me for a very long time and thinking, oh man, I want to join, I'm not sure if I want to join, join right now. The link is in the show notes. If you're brand new to listening, probably don't join right now. Maybe give yourself some time to get to know me and my content before you decide to give me your money. But especially for those who've been listening for a while and you're still struggling with your fitness and nutrition, you want to work out two days a week, three days a week, four days a week. You want to help with calorie counting or not calorie counting. You want to be part of the most amazing and supportive, encouraging community in the world. That's what you get when you join the Syatt Fitness Inner Circle. Link is in the show notes. Now, let's get into the episode. Dr. Josh Smith, we're back.

Dr. Josh Smith (1:12)

Jordan Syatt, I'm here. I love it.

Jordan Syatt (1:14)

Welcome to the show. Today, we are doing... Well, let me just give a brief introduction. Clinical psychologist, Dr. Josh Smith, best in the world.

Dr. Josh Smith (1:23)

No way that's accurate, but I appreciate it.

Jordan Syatt (1:25)

Accurate, it is the truth, objectively, and also the clinical psychologist within the inner circle. And today, I'm excited because we are going to go over some of the most commonly asked questions that you have been asked inside the inner circle from members that many people struggle with, whether it's emotional things, practical things, things they struggle with mentally, all these things. You have a list of some of the most common questions you've been asked.

So you're going to dive in.

Dr. Josh Smith (1:55)

I love it. I'm excited for this one. I'm excited. It's slightly different because we can get into the inner circle overall and the community and how amazing they are. But I think one of the things that this cuts to its core on is that trying to change your life, whether it's fitness, nutrition, all of it is hard.

And it's not just about having access to the information, it's about figuring out what do I do with it? How do I sort through it? How do I learn enough about myself to know what I need? And what's going to work for me? And just because it works for somebody else doesn't mean if it doesn't work for me that I'm doing it wrong or it's a failure. So what's been really interesting is when you first approached me about this, I don't know that I had a super clear image of what is it going to be. But we come together twice a month for these lives and anybody in the IC is welcome. And there's always a mix. And it's an opportunity to talk about the real life applications of trying to figure out, manage, and work through changes, motivation, frustrations, disappointment, unexpected bumps in the road. People that you run into that you hope would be supportive, that think they're being supportive and aren't. And I think a lot of what we go over people experience. And so I'm excited to be able to go over some of those conversations and really see kind of where it went. And I know I had shared this with you earlier, but I'm regularly amazed, blown away, inspired. I'm not really sure what the right wording is. But people come in, and at times people are focusing on such different things. One person might be focusing specifically on their exercise regimen. Somebody else is focused on body image and just saying, hey, no matter what I do, I'm still struggling with how I feel about myself. And other people run into areas where they say, right, it was unexpected that my changing my own behavior is making other people feel guilty. And how do they respond to that? And so, yeah, so I think what I'd like to do is go through some of the things that have come up. And I would like to actually also get some of your thoughts on your response and yours. And so one of the things that has come up a few times is when people set goals, if they don't achieve it or it doesn't go quite the way it wanted to, or if they hit three out of four goals for a day or a week or a month, we got a couple of questions kind of about how come, why do I focus so much on the thing I missed? The one thing I didn't do. So one of the questions had been, when I have many little wins in a day, why do I focus on what I didn't do right? And the follow up question that somebody had put was they said that they had hit their protein goals, protein and gym goals, but missed their step count. And the response was kind of this like, it feels like a loss. Overall, it feels like a, I didn't hit my step count, or I haven't gotten to this. And partially what we were talking about is the idea that I think the second people tend to set goals, they reset their minimum of what I'm supposed to do. So when they say, this is what I'm supposed to do, they register that as, well, if I hit it, it's not a victory.