Dr. Jay: Welcome to Childfree Life by Design. Today we’re talking about ways to build new financial habits and what it means for people who are building a Childfree life on their own terms. I’m Dr. Jay Zigmont here with Fiona Waller, and in this episode we’re covering the why all or nothings thinking, sabotage your progress and the power of making progress visible.

And how do you science of habit formation to make changes easier. If you’ve ever wondered how to build financial habits to support the intentional life you’re designing, instead of the habits you’ve inherited or defaulted into, this conversation will give you clarity and the tools to make intentional decisions that support the life you want

Speaker 2: From Childfree Insights, this is Childfree Life By Design, the go-to resource for building the Childfree life you want. Every episode gives you practical guidance, clear direction, and meaningful conversations to help you live intentionally and design a future on your terms. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only.

Please consult your advisor before implementing any [00:01:00] ideas heard on this podcast.

Dr. Jay: alright, Fiona, I think they partnered us together on this because we have an interesting background and it’s not really about being a CFP. So my PhD’s in adult learning. You come out of the social work world, like how does where you came from impact kind of how you help clients work on this.

Fiona: Yeah, that’s a great question and it’s really fun to be here with you, chatting about this topic ’cause it’s such an interesting topic. I got my master’s degree in social work, went the clinical path, became a therapist. And I think there’s an emphasis there on all of the like gray, mushy area of human behavior.

And a lot of folks want behavior change or they want maybe something different in their life. And as a therapist, that comes up a decent amount of how can you help someone through that or talk it through. And so now. Being a CFP professional and working as a financial [00:02:00] planner, I think those topics still come up in a different context.

And it’s fun to also encourage folks for changes they wanna see, or new financial habits they wanna start in that new context, if that makes sense.

Dr. Jay: It does, and I’ve had. Folks kind of like, talk to me about my background, whatever. And I’m like, I’m not a financial guy by training. Like I’m not like, Hey, I worked in Wall Street and this is where I came from and it’s all about the numbers. No, I’m on the behavioral side. Like 80% of your success with finance has to do with your behaviors, the way you think your mental models.

And to me, that’s where the tough work is done. And it’s not really a topic that’s, the core of CFP. I mean, I think it’s what now, 10 or 20% of the content is that right? I think you did yours more recently than I did.

Fiona: Yeah, I did do it more recently. There was a small section on behavioral stuff, and it’s great to. See that, and hopefully that continues to develop, and I think it’s a little broad of just more like [00:03:00] vocabulary terms or learning the basics, but it doesn’t really get into the nitty gritty like you would’ve in an entire PhD about adult learning. Like that’s way more in depth.

Dr. Jay: It’s funny because you know, some colleagues will say, well, what do you talk to your clients about every month when you meet with ’em? And I’m like, we’re working on the behavioral side. If 80% of your success on finance is your behaviors, that’s where we spend 80% of our time. It’s not numbers, it’s not the stuff that goes in the Excel sheet that matters. You know, it’s the behaviors that go with it. Does that make sense?

Fiona: Yeah, and I think too, when we’re say diving into a more math topic like investments or an insurance review, like you’ve said this before, that’s kind of the easy stuff. Like we can run through that on a spreadsheet and give some good suggestions of how to simplify, how to be more tax efficient, et cetera.

But that doesn’t touch on someone sitting with bigger [00:04:00] questions like, I wanna relocate, but I’m not sure if I can, or what if I wanna change careers? Or every time I check my bank app I get really anxious. I don’t wanna do it. You know, the investment spreadsheet is just like easy in comparison to that stuff, I think.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, I’m kind of laughing. I had a client tell me they had a map of all the ATMs in the area that you can get money from that would not give you a receipt so you don’t see the balance. And I was like, wow, that’s some serious, like you’re diving in trying to figure that out and whether that’s avoidance or whatever else it is like that’s interesting.

All right, Fiona, let me bear my soul we’ll use some examples from me and from others to kind of work this through, because I think it helps as you’re working through examples. All right, so here’s one that I’ve been working through, and I think it’s one that’s relatively common particularly in my generation, but it’s also relatively common in, a lot of people we meet with, and most of your habits kind of from.

The way you were raised or you know, what you came up with or [00:05:00] what you grew up with or whatever else it is your experiences. And one of the ones I’ve been working on personally that, I’ve kind of, reflected on and worked, but I don’t have a full answer, is as a kid, what I was always taught is no matter what you do, be the best at it. It doesn’t matter what you do. If you’re gonna be the fry cook at McDonald’s, you’re gonna be the best damn fry cook. You know? You have to do the best. And the translation of that in my head is often either you’re gonna be the best at it or just don’t do it at all. What do you think about that?

Because like, that’s kinda like the gold star, you know, I gotta get the gold star, I gotta do this right around finances. And I think that hurts folks.

Fiona: Yeah, and what I hear in that, that’s a great example and I appreciate you sharing it, is. That kind of classic all or nothing thinking that I think a lot of us are really used to or grew up hearing. And I think that can get people feeling kind of stuck because often that gray area [00:06:00] is where like the truth is and where the values lie and where maybe the better choices or like the better path might be.

When you’re in the all or nothing mindset ’cause that’s what you heard and that’s what makes sense to you, you kind of get stuck on one extreme end or the other, like you said, I either am the best at it or it’s not even worth doing or it’s nothing at all. And that misses that whole middle ground for self-compassion and try new things and failing, but that’s okay. Like all of that messy stuff gets lost. Does that make sense?

Dr. Jay: It does. And I think let’s be real, none of us are as compassionate for ourselves as we should be. Like, you know, giving ourselves—

Fiona: Myself included. Yeah.

Dr. Jay: —and lemme give you an example of this all or nothing that I’ve seen all time. It’s like, well, I blew my budget for the month, so screw it. I’m just going out. It’s same. Or I messed up my diet, for the week, I’m done for the month. And I think that’s the hard part is there’s [00:07:00] like, oh, I lost, so therefore let me just give up.

Fiona: Yeah, and I do that all the time as well. It’s almost just an automatic habit. I’ll do it with stuff. This is kind of a silly example, but like I’m very sensitive to my environment and I like things tidy and if they start to get disorganized, I feel disorganized on the inside and I’ll notice like I’ve been busy, like some dishes have piled up or laundry’s piled up and I notice in my brain the switch gets flipped.

End. It’s like the story starts of like, well, I guess you’re a total slob and everything’s a mess and it’ll always be messy. So like you shouldn’t even bother trying to clean up. Like it just sort of goes down this weird path instead of maybe a more middle ground. Just like, why don’t I spend 10 minutes doing a little bit of tidying and then pick it up tomorrow? ’cause I have been busy and I’m a human being. Why is that middle path like so hard to get to, [00:08:00] you know?

Dr. Jay: Yeah. And I think it’s part of the way we’re wired and I don’t know that it’s one of those things we can get rid of immediately. And, and I’m gonna give you an example. It’s gonna sound a little weird, but just kind of bear with me. So I’ve been doing some research working with a NASCAR crew chief and a NASCAR team, and in NASCAR I didn’t know this before I started—I wasn’t a race fan before I started all this. Like, I started to understand the sport because I was doing this research and what I found was that in NASCAR each week there’s a race, there’s one winner and 35 losers.

Fiona: Okay.

Dr. Jay: And when you lose, you crash, you burn. I mean, like it’s bad, literally you’re talking about running into a wall at 180 miles an hour. And the hard part there is when you’re trying to motivate a team and saying, Hey, you know, we crashed last week, or We didn’t win last week. It can be very defeating really quickly. You’re 12 races in and you’ve won nothing. In actuality, the odds of winning is about one in [00:09:00] 36 times, 36 races. It’s not like another sport, like, you know, basketball or football or baseball—eh, you’ll win some, you’ll lose some.

But the odds for a NASCAR team is you will lose most, if not all, of the races for the year. And this becomes a psychology problem because, well then why are we doing this? And I think the hard part is in shifting the mindset. And what we ended up talking about with the team was, all right, how about if we stop focusing on winning the race? Which sounds really, really weird, but how about if we focus on each race, getting one car better, getting one finish better. Like, you know, if you finished 15th, now you’re finishing 14th, or, you’re restarting better. And it’s interesting because if you can focus on, Hey, I get one car better, then you can celebrate the win. It feels like you got better, but you actually lost the race. What do you think about [00:10:00] that?

Fiona: I think that’s really interesting and that makes me think of the sort of strategy that some folks will use, and I think it’s useful of framing things of what can I control and what can I not like? That’s kind of what it reminds me of. Because there’s so many things in life where there’s maybe like a big picture win, like even a promotion at work or like your example, winning the race or, different achievements that look great on paper and are like really flashy and exciting and motivating. And to your point, we can’t always control all of the external factors that could get you there or things that can change. So I really love that idea. I assume when you’re chatting with them and when they’re working on it, they are trying to zoom in on what are the things within our control, within the team and the mechanics of stuff that could get us, you know, 1% better each day. Is that the approach [00:11:00] they take?

Dr. Jay: Well, that’s where we’re headed to, I think. And you said 1% better. And that’s kind of the coming outta the Atomic Habits work. And how do you get better every day and how do those add up?

Fiona: Yeah, what do people say? Like the, put 1% more into your 401k each year.

Dr. Jay: Yeah.

Fiona: a good example.

Dr. Jay: There’s an example in financial world, which is when you have your 401k, you know, you’ve put whatever 5% into start. The goal is every year you put 1% more or 2% more. And what I tend to tell folks is try to put your whole raise if you can, or like half your raise. You keep putting more and more away each year. You are not gonna feel the 1% difference, but you will see it in your 401k.

Fiona: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And I think too, with Atomic Habits, which is a great book. I know a lot of folks have read it. One of my takeaways from that book was the piece about making a habit connected to your identity. And I’m trying to picture like the [00:12:00] NASCAR world you’ve been in and like different contexts like that where I’m guessing it helps folks to connect to—we are the kind of team who doesn’t get discouraged and we look for the next thing we can improve—or trying to tell yourself or frame a story about who you are that is in line with your values and your habits.

Like for me with, for example, I really like weightlifting and lots of things. I’m really tired. I don’t wanna go. It helps me to reframe onto the idea of I really do value my health, especially my health span, not just lifespan, like hopefully having good bone health and like joints and like all those things as we get older and like reminding myself of that as a reason to do a habit. I don’t know if you’ve seen that with NASCAR or in your own life.

Dr. Jay: I think [00:13:00] habits and identity are tied together. So when we talk about this, like all or nothing thing, that’s the gold star. You know, if you actually wanna see some interesting research, look at people that were high achievers as a kid and their happiness as adults, it’s not always a good relationship. It’s setting you up for almost failure because life smacks you in the head and you’re like, oh, that didn’t go as planned.

And I think when we’re talking about changing your habits, yes, the small incremental changes matter, but you’re absolutely right. The way you look at yourself makes a big difference. And I’ll give an example for my life. So all throughout my life, I have struggled with my weight. It’s one of those things I’ve been working with. And by the way, health and finance, very similar in habits. And how do you work with ’em? And very hard to change. So just being transparent on that.

And there’s system things. There’s individual things. There’s things that, you know, the environment you’re in, like all of that. So I had been working on my weight for a while and I actually got decent on it. And I’ve [00:14:00] always make jokes at my expense. And I was teaching a course with one of my colleagues and I was making jokes at my expense about being a fat man. Afterwards my colleagues stopped me and said, you know, “Hey Jay, why are you making jokes about you being a fat man? You’re not a fat man anymore.”

And now here’s the interesting thing. That was actually the lowest weight I had been in decades when I got to that point and two years later, I looked back and my weight went up after that day and I was like, whoa, there’s something broken here. Like, what is that? And it was about another year or two later, I realized in my family there’s a lot of assumptions around what a man is. And a little scrawny man is not a man. You know, your wife, when she takes care of you, feeds you. If you come in and you’re skinny, like, you’re not being taken care of. There’s a lot of identity around being a man the size you are that I had to pull apart to be comfortable with it.

And what happened was my colleague being helpful [00:15:00] was like, Hey, you know, you’ve made your goal, you’ve done well. Set me off the wrong direction. And it wasn’t intentional. This was all unconscious stuff. This is all stuff that you don’t realize till afterwards. And it’s the same thing that happens with finance. When you start doing well financially and some of your other family members start making random comments, it might set you back. ’cause like if you do well then obviously they could do well too if they wanna change it. But you know, we all came from, we’re held back because, or you have privilege, all the other garbage that comes with it. You have to make that identity part of who you are and be aware of it might change how you fit in with your group, your friends, your family, and others.

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Fiona: there’s so much to unpack with that example you gave. Good for you to have the self-awareness to see that you’d had that interaction with a colleague and then something had sort of shifted and going back in time, like pinpointing it and reflecting on it. That’s a skill all on its own. And I think yeah, you’re definitely highlighting some of those external factors and the stories piece of it of like if you’ve heard a certain story in your family or there’s expectations around appearance, gender, [00:17:00] which is so common. You have to be kind to yourself and recognize, like your brain doesn’t just forget that even if you’ve moved away or maybe some of your values have changed or your personality’s changed or something, like your brain remembers that stuff and it’s not your fault that it can be really ingrained in there and often really subconscious. That’s really interesting that you did the work to pull it apart and identify what some of those actual scripts were from childhood. Did you find doing that help you start like a new script for yourself?

Dr. Jay: I actually found that I couldn’t change the script of this picture of a man and being a big man. So what I started saying was, well, I can be a big man in a different way. You know, I use kettlebells and you know, do weightlifting that way. Like there’s ways you can still keep the identity ’cause you’re probably not gonna be able to reprogram it. And by the way, like this is technically called [00:18:00] metacognition. You’re thinking about how you’re thinking it is a skill to build, once you are aware of how this works in you, you can start kind of picking apart at stuff.

But even knowing what I know and knowing the skills I have—I jokingly say my PhD, went there to learn about how to help others, but spend more time learning about how to learn myself. Once you get it, you can do it, but there’s still limitations. And I’ll give you a silly example. One of my professors gave us—in your mind there’s this thing called mental models. So your traits are really related to mental models, the ways you think of the world, and kind of the filters you look at. It’s kinda like rose colored glasses and they drive things at a subconscious level. So we have mental models of how we work, how we live, how everything else. I was giving you a mental model around health and around what a man is. And he gave an example: he broke his right arm, which happened to be his arm that he used to [00:19:00] eat. So he had to shift to using his left arm to feed himself. And he found he was having a lot of issues using a fork. Didn’t get to his mouth, right? Because like, if you think about like how you use a fork in your right hand, it’s not the same to move it to your left hand, like everything’s inverted essentially.

Fiona: I would struggle with that. I feel like.

Dr. Jay: right? So here’s what he did. Now he’s an adult learning expert. This is what he’s been doing for his life. He said, you know what I started doing? He said, I picked up a pair of chopsticks in my left hand and learned how to eat with chopsticks. He said it was easier to teach himself how to eat with chopsticks in his left hand than how to actually reteach how to eat with a fork.

Fiona: Yeah. Like the fork is so ingrained. Yeah.

Dr. Jay: right? Your mental model is all there. You can’t rewire it. And part of this with your financial habits is realizing which habits you cannot rewire and then figure out a way around. So for example, if you are one of those folks that has [00:20:00] some problems with debt—alright, you pay off your credit card, then the bill keeps going back up and you get stuck in this debt cycle over and over. My answer often is, okay, you are not allowed to have credit cards and people are like, that’s a little harsh. And I’m like, it is, but we can’t reprogram that part of you. When you have a credit card, your mind is saying, I have money. Let me use it. When we shifted you to using cash or a debit card, you were more mindful of it, so you’re just not allowed to have a credit card. People say, well, that’s kind of wrong. Like I should be able to get points or whatever. I’m like, look, if we can’t reprogram your mind, we need to shift it. And I’ll use a personal example of this. I can’t buy a bag of Doritos. Why? ’cause if I buy a bag of Doritos, I’m gonna eat the whole bag of Doritos. I cannot eat just like a handful of chips. Not gonna happen. So I don’t buy them. If you can’t handle the credit card, you don’t use it.

You know it’s often like for folks that have a lot of trouble shifting their money mindsets. I’m like, we’re just [00:21:00] gonna automate everything so that you have very little money in your checking account or your spending account, and it’s all forcing you to do it so that it makes good habits. It’s not always that you can just like magically retrain your brain. Sometimes you have to create systems to do that.

Fiona: Yeah, that phrase like, you can’t magically retrain your brain. I just wanna hit on the self-compassion piece again. ’cause I feel like that’s often so missing when people talk about this too, of like, take a minute to tell yourself that I’m not broken because I can’t just through sheer force of will, pick a totally new path or completely change a behavior. ’cause I feel like people get so stuck on that. I really like everything you shared ’cause it’s reinforcing that a lot of this is urinal pathways and like the way we’re wired and it’s not like a personal failing if you can’t just really easily and seamlessly change your whole [00:22:00] life just through like motivation or ’cause you have a new idea you wanna pursue. It’s really hard and I think it’s a good technique to center what will get me a result I’m looking for, regardless of if it seems right or wrong or too extreme, like what would fit my brain and my boundaries and try that instead of just doing a little thing and then that feeling and then you feel really bad about it, ’cause that’s the cycle people get into as well, myself included.

Dr. Jay: Know, but I’ve been struggling with—and this kind of goes back to the bigger discussion I was having—goals versus not goals. So I really have loved what Duck G has written on the purpose code. He talks about the Capital P purpose. That’s the big Harry audacious goal of like, this is what I want for my life. And his point is, if you’re always searching for that big goal, you’re always gonna be hit unhappy because when you get it, you’re just gonna move the goalpost. Like this is like, oh, well if I have a million dollars, I can retire. And [00:23:00] then when you hit a million, it’s like, it’s 2 million and it just keeps moving. Or if I just… and his point is it’s more about kind of the journey before the destination and the lowercase purpose and how do I focus on each day getting better, doing better and not the goals. And I think where my struggle is, is I kind of need a goal ish—let’s call it an ish goal—of direction. Hey, in general I wanna go in this direction, and then I can break it down into, all right, let me celebrate kind of the day to day things I’m doing to get there. But it’s kind of hard to rewire my brain to not have, like, you must get your goals. I mean, look, I did my entire bachelor’s degree in nine months. Like I’m goal driven, like, let me get it done in nine months. It is crazy. But I did. And that’s just part of how I’m wired, but I don’t know that that necessarily helps me or is a good behavior.

Fiona: Yeah, and I’m kind of similar in [00:24:00] that way where if I can gamify something and set up my little trail of dopamine—I picture like breadcrumbs leading towards a goal—I can usually find a lot of energy and motivation, but there is sometimes that kind of burnout at the end or that cliff. And I think one thing I try to do—I don’t do it perfectly ’cause who does—but connecting goals to values, which sounds kind of broad. Like, well, what’s even the difference? But I feel like values are kind of overarching things that are important to you that I picture them like a compass. Like if you stack them in a direction, you can ask yourself, is that the direction I wanna go? If you set your compass with your values and then you work on slowly aligning your behavior with it, then that’s like a good recipe of—I don’t wanna say like happiness, like everything will be perfect—but it’s like one way to start to feel [00:25:00] more aligned. I think some people have success with the values compass first, and then still using some goals. ’cause I can’t really picture not using a goal as a stepping stone, like in that compass direction of the value, you know?

Dr. Jay: Yeah, and I think part of this is we need to shift. Goal as being like, Hey, I’m over it, I won the race—that is the goal—as versus like a goal of improvement or structures or principles. I’m kind of old fashioned. I do love a lot of the kind of the old motivational stuff and, you know, Thinking Grow Rich is one of those that I love and he talks about as your definite purpose in life. I’m gonna say that closer to where Fiona’s going, that’s closer to where I’m at. Where like, here are the principles, here’s what matters to me. Here’s my purpose. That doesn’t mean that’s my goal. So, you know, I wake up every morning going, how do I help the 25% of the US that is child free—and there’s different ways of doing it and different things to get it. And if my goal was, hey, [00:26:00] how do I make a billion dollars, I would actually probably go in a different direction. Or if my goal was whatever those like rising grind goals that are so popular on social media right now. But what it also does, it makes me make different decisions. I can always go back to my lens and go, okay, here are my principles. Here’s what matters to me, and am I living those principles and am I getting closer and closer to living those better? Because none of us are perfect. There are times I’m like, my body will be off and I’m like, what’s happened? And what it is, is I strayed away from one of my principles, or I did something that didn’t hit right. My body’s like, you are wrong. And I’m like, why? And I don’t know it yet. And then you’ll figure it out and go, okay, let’s give myself a little bit of grace. I tend to, whenever I get kind of feedback I don’t like, or whether it’s from me or from outside, I give myself one day to have a pity party. You know, like, oh, you suck. And then I’d be like, all right, now let’s get better. I think that’s kind of the difference between having like a “I must hit this gold mark” [00:27:00] and “I must follow these principles or structure or lowercase p purpose.”

Fiona: Yeah, and I think what I hear in that too, which I definitely resonates with me is like the idea of self-efficacy. Like if I put it in a therapy context, just briefly, I think a lot of what folks work on is—or like what I would help people with—is like all of that sort of journey, not the destination part where the point is to do the hard thing and like you don’t wanna do it, but you do it anyway. And like that feeling and the little bit of self confidence you get from it, like that’s what’s valuable more than the final destination. If someone’s struggling with anxiety and they wanna work up to—I don’t know, going back to the gym example—going to the gym for the first [00:28:00] time or by themselves and it just feels really intimidating, which is totally fair. The point of that isn’t just, Hey, let’s get you going to the gym and then all your problems will go away, and then it’ll be great. The skill is all the in between to work up to that of maybe doing an exposure, like stopping by the gym in the parking lot and checking it out and sitting with—maybe that makes you feel really anxious and uncomfortable—but like it’s all of that work and mental labor you’re doing in the in between that builds up your self-efficacy to then do harder things in the future. I dunno if that makes any sense, but I kind of popped into my mind while you were talking about the journey piece of it. Like it’s not always just the finish line because that’s not where the skills are built and your self-esteem is built.

Dr. Jay: Yeah, and self-esteem, self-efficacy, all that. There’s a bunch of terms in there, and self-efficacy is one of those I try to focus in on, which is the belief in yourself that you can do it, which is different than confidence. It’s different than [00:29:00] self-esteem. There’s some good meat there. And I think the hard part of this is we’re all super harsh to ourselves. Our internal language—if you’re one of those people that is kind to yourself, I give you full credit. ’cause that is not me right now. It’s something I struggle with every day. And I think many more people are harsh themselves than we’d love to say the words. I was having a conversation with a colleague about Impostor syndrome and they defined it this way: they said Impostor syndrome is the worry that people will say about us, what we say about us. I was like, oof, there’s some meat there. Like I gotta spend some quality time on that. And it’s about pulling apart the stories we tell ourselves and where we’re going and how we treat ourselves. There’s a whole lot to it. And I think the result—and I want to kind of get your vote on this too—is I don’t know that this is anything you can do alone. When it comes to changing true habits, changing the way you look at the world, changing your behaviors, you need some [00:30:00] outside help. And it doesn’t always have to be professional help, but the way I tend to phrase it is, across your life you need three different people. So you need somebody to look back to kind of where you came from to understand how that’s impacting things. Someone to help you look up. Now that doesn’t have to be religious context, but it’s the bigger spiritual purpose of like, what’s the point? What’s the big picture in the world? Some people it’s spiritual, some people it’s religious. That’s your choice. And then the third person is someone to help you look forward. And what happens is you need that balance because whichever of those three you like working with, you probably need the other person. If you love looking back and thinking about the past a lot, you need a kick in the butt forward. If all you do is look forward, you probably need to look back. You have to find that balance across your life and find resources, people, masterminds, coaches, therapists, others to help on each of those roles across your life in order to truly make a long-term change. What do you think about that, [00:31:00] Fiona?

Fiona: Yeah. What that makes me think of is the idea of relationships as an intervention. I’m using like a little bit of mental health language there, but the idea of being in relationship with someone—coach, therapist, friend, mentor—can be like an actual intervention to create change or improve a symptom or improve someone’s life. And I think it works that way because on one hand, and I’ve experienced this myself, it can be actually healing to have another person reflect back to you like what they see in you or a different story than the one you tell yourself. I feel like I even sometimes discount that—like, oh, it’s just a friendship or a mentor or something. But it’s like, no, that’s a serious intervention that can do a lot for you to [00:32:00] be in a safe, meaningful relationship and get that reflection back. So I think one, that’s one big benefit of a third party and the other is just the piece of skill building. Like some of this stuff is just like learning a new skill. Often a third party is the one that can maybe more effectively teach you that skill or hold you accountable or maybe call you out if you’re struggling with it. And like on that note, just to give an example, two skills come to mind and they’re both kind of simple and I think they work for behavior change and one is naming and giving a caricature to the voice in your head. I’ve done that before and it sounds kind of dumb, but like, it honestly does work and it’s it’s pretty helpful. And I think a third party, you can have accountability by sharing it with someone. Someone I knew called it their Committee of [00:33:00] a-Holes. And they like gave them descriptions and pictured it in their mind. It’s one way to just—to use the clinical term diffuse—but like take who you are one step back from that like mean story or the mean voice. And then another skill is—I use this one a lot—but I picture like a fish hook dangling down and hooking me behind the shirt and like yanking me. That’s the thought kind of yanking me out of the present moment, towards something that’s really unhelpful or not nice and the skill is to picture the fish hook like unhooking off of your shirt and floating away. Those are like just two tiny examples, but my point being, having someone else with you on that journey, a professional or a friend can help you build those skills—teach them to you or you can talk to a friend about it. And I do this with people where we can call out like, oh, that’s that voice in my head I’ve told you about [00:34:00] this, because it’s from this family member or this experience I’ve had. And it’s just really validating and humanizing to have someone else and just reflect that back to you.

Dr. Jay: You’re on the right page. I jokingly say when I do coaching for folks, I rotate in between patting you on the back saying you did a great job and kicking in the ass and saying, get moving. And like, that’s kind of what you just talked about is like somebody that can do that and it might not be the same person, but you know, those type of people. And I think the voice in our head’s really important. You know, I’ll often ask my clients, whose voice is in your head say, you gotta do that? Which is the next question: where did that come from? By the way, that one gets a little scary at times ’cause you’re like… I had somebody, they had bunch of investments in real estate and I said, whose voice said you had to do that? What we got done with it, they’re like my ex-boyfriend and I’m like, well, he’s an ex for a reason, so maybe we need to get rid of his advice. It sounds silly, but once you have that awareness, the next step I like to do with folks is say, okay, we’ve named it to Fiona’s point [00:35:00] and we acknowledge it. Said, Hey, behavior, thank you for getting me to here. I’m gonna take it from here. Like my turn now I’m leaving you behind. And that’s very valuable when it’s kinda like the family member’s voice in your head—your mom, your dad saying you gotta do X, Y, Z. You’re like, mom, thank you very much, you got me to here. So you’re acknowledging it and respecting that it got you here. But I’m gonna take it from here, like my turn. and that’s hard. It takes time. And I’m gonna encourage you, if you’re working on the financial stuff, working with a certified financial planner, working with a financial therapist, others can help you through it because if you’re just trying to grind out the money and try to hit the goal of, I need save X to get to Y, you’re gonna struggle. So let’s bring it all together. We’re gonna start small. We’re gonna be like, you know what, let’s just work on getting a little better each day, that 1% or one car better, or whatever else it is. We’re gonna give ourselves a little bit of grace or [00:36:00] our self-talk and work self-compassion, whatever you want to call it. And then as appropriate, we’re gonna build a team to help us through it. That sound about right?

Fiona: Yeah, definitely. I think those are all like mindsets and skills that are by the research we have and human behavior and you know, we both shared personal examples too where that’s kind of played out for us and I’m sure others listening might relate to some of those, oh, yep, my brain has done that too. It’s, yeah, we’re all human.

Dr. Jay: And I shared the personal examples because often when people are doing like podcasts with social media, they just show you their highlight reel and don’t show you the bloopers. Like don’t show you the mistakes they made. And I just think that’s wrong. And I think that’s part of the reason why our internal voices are so bad is we see social media, all the great things people are doing, but we don’t see the grind behind it. The work they’re doing it, we don’t see the lies they’re telling us like all the other junk. And we’re just constantly fed [00:37:00] highlight reels. So we’ve reached the final segment of the Childfree Life by design we call deliberate detail. It’s a segment where we share a small, intentional thing we’re doing to design an amazing life, and we share what it is, why it matters to us, and what it costs, if anything. And we try to relate it to a topic today. So Fiona, what’s your deliberate detail?

Fiona: one that I am working on is ordering less stuff from Amazon. I feel like that sounds kind of cliche.

Dr. Jay: Oh, I’m with you.

Fiona: and I’m not someone who gets a bunch of like junk per se. I really value minimalism and I also value the environment. And so it would be in line with those values to just try to reduce some of that quick consumerism transactions that are so easy. ‘Cause sometimes I think I buy things just ’cause they’re so convenient, but it isn’t always in line with those values and it helps save money. So with [00:38:00] working on that, we talked about trying to start small and be kind to yourself. Like honestly, the only thing I could think of that would actually work for my brain was to delete the Amazon app off my phone. And it’s like, well, what’s that gonna do? But it’s like I know myself and it’s so quick and easy for me to get dopamine from going to that app and looking at it and maybe picking something out that I like. Do I really need it? Eh, maybe. And anything higher than that like, maybe I should cancel Prime for a month and just test it. Or try to do like no Amazon for a month. I know that that’s too big a leap and I won’t do it. And then I’ll go all or nothing and be like, and just give up on the goal. Knowing myself, it’s starting with the app. And we’ll see how that goes.

Dr. Jay: That’s fair. And you, if you figure out how to get rid of Amazon, you let me know because that’s one I’m still working on. So that’s all for this episode of Childfree Life by Design. Remember, intentionally choosing to [00:39:00] invest in moments of joy is just as important as investing in your future. Until next time, happy designing.

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