312: The Science Behind Getting Unstuck & Defeating Procrastination - Britt Frank

Britt Frank: 00:00:00

I mean, the behaviors are real. Like, I understand that we do things that annihilate our well being and fully compromise our relationships.

I'm not saying the behaviors aren't there, but self sabotage is not the function of those behaviors. It's self protection at the expense of whatever else. Again, your brain's not wired for health, it's not wired for success. It's wired for survival.

Ella: 00:00:26

Welcome, you're on air with Ella, where we share simple strategies and tips for people who are doing something better than we are.

Whether it's wellness or relationships to just living better and with more energy or changing your mindset to accomplish more in your own life and succeeding. However you define it, this is where we share the best of what we're learning from the experts and we're learning more every day. Live better.

Start now. Let's go. Hey, you're on air with Ella and I am with Brian Britt Frank today. I'm very excited about this, Brit.

Would you do me the kindness of telling us who you are and what you do?

Britt Frank: 00:01:05

I'd be delighted to. I've been looking forward to this forever. So I have my shiny resume and my sorted resume.

The shiny resume is I'm a neuropsychotherapist and trauma expert. I've been in private practice for over a decade. I wrote the book the Science of Stuck because it's the one I needed. And so that's sort of my shiny.

I'm an adjunct professor at the University of Kansas. I went to Duke, blah, blah.

My sordid history is I am a former drug addict and like really bad ones and relationship toxicity and eating disorders and just a general hot mess of a human life. So I tell people I can come at you from both sides of the couch.

I can give you the clinical perspective and the smoking meth in a bathroom at five in the morning perspective. But wherever you fall on the spectrum, I got you.

Ella: 00:01:50

We are big fans here, Brit, about talking about our unique stack and now talking to shiny Brit. These are the things that make your unique stick stack like nobody else has that resume that's just like yours.

And honestly, I don't think you could have written the science of stock as beautifully and as usefully as you did without those experiences, both light and dark. Would you agree?

Britt Frank: 00:02:18

Thank you for that. I appreciate that.

And yeah, it's really easy for anyone, whatever your thing is, if you're launching a business or starting a podcast or writing a book, to look around at all of the amazing people with the amazing histories and be Like, I just watched this woman who summited every peak on every continent, and I'm like, I suck at life. I should just quit. But my book, the Science of Stuck, is not an inspirational. Here's how I climbed all the mountains. It's.

Here's all the stupid stuff I got into because I didn't know some really simple pieces of information.

And so my offering to the world is a very easy to understand bullet list of do's and don'ts based in science, so you don't have to learn the hard way like I did. But I have not summited Everest and the ski to the North Pole or the South Pole, I haven't done it, but I've done a lot of drugs.

So here's how to do that.

Ella: 00:03:08

Well, we talk a lot on air with ella. We talk a lot about breaking old habits and patterns. We talk about habits and the science of habits in the first place.

We talk about taking control of your choices to create the life that you want. And we talk about living intentionally and living with intention. Brit.

And one topic that we cannot get enough of is, okay, but how do we make the leap between thinking and. I would add to that thinking and reading and consuming. And consuming, but thinking and actually doing.

And it's a question that I get asked all the time and it's like, okay, Ella, but I know what to do. Like, I know I've been alive for enough years. I've listened to enough podcasts, I've read enough books.

I know what I quote should be doing, but how do I actually pull the trigger and do it? So you wrote a literal manual on how we make the leap between thinking and doing. And that's what I would love to jump into with you today.

Britt Frank: 00:04:07

It's so true, right? We are drowning in information. I mean, if you boil it down, it's not hard.

Like, we know, don't do drugs, don't have the third glass of wine, go to the gym, phone a friend, put down the video, whatever. Like, it's not hard to know which things are good for us and which things are bad for us.

Nevertheless, the gap between what we know and what we do is like Grand Canyon esque. But the problem is, is there's a piece of information that we're not privy to.

So the story everyone, myself included, lands on is, well, I'm just lazy. I'm just unmotivated. It's just me. I just have the don't do the thing gene. I just have the pick the wrong partner, the broken picker.

I was like, none of that is actually true. And it's. Unfortunately, I was so angry when I learned, like, the secret, the trick. Because I'm like, are you kidding me?

Like, I spent 25 steeped in dysfunction and chaos and hundreds of thousands of dollars on school and training, and it comes down to like, are you effing kidding me? No, this. So here, like, here it is. Like, you can know what you want all day long, but number one, what are your choices?

If you're like, I want to get fit and do this, but you've got six kids and aging parents and a job that demands 20 hours a day, that's not a choice available to you.

So we need to know in real time, not tomorrow, not next week, not next month, whatever the thing you want is, what are three choices available to right now? What are you willing to do in the next. Here it is, 30 seconds. Not, I'm going to start tomorrow. I'm going to start next week.

What are you willing to do in the next 30 seconds in service of your thing? And if the answer is nothing, then we got to find something small. A microscopic. I call these micro yeses.

A microscopic step in any direction gets you unstuck. The second you say yes, you are no longer stuck. So we need to go from stuck to micro. Yes. Everyone wants to. Here's my sticky thing.

Everyone wants to go from like the stuck zone to the end zone. And that's not the path. The path is take a baby step. Not even a baby step. Take a mic. I should be able to walk 10 minutes after work.

Well, if you're not, it's because that's not a viable choice for you right now. It should be. Well, it's not. Let's start with 30 seconds. Let's start with 10. What are you willing to do right now? Right now.

And if the answer is there's nothing I can do, I'm going to call BS on that. There is always a choice in the next 30 seconds. Seconds available to anyone in.

And I say this as someone in a domestic violence situation, you know, like assaults as an adult, childhood abuse as a kiddo. There is. And I'm not victim blaming. I'm just saying in any 32nd time span, there is always a choice.

If there's not, my work is not the relevant work for your situation right now.

Ella: 00:06:45

There are two themes that you've just touched on that I have got to highlight. And one of them is that we always think future me will do better and future you. Like, I don't know how to tell us this, but future you is you.

Like, I want to be the person. You know, I bought all that arugula because future me is going to eat it all before it goes bad. Right? Future me is me.

Like, when will I learn this, Brit? That is one phenomenon that I think that we need to just get real about. And that is future you is you 30 seconds from now.

It's you one minute from now. If you're not doing it, then, then how do you ever get to that idyllic version of you?

But the second thing that you mentioned that we talk about a lot here is, you know, we want to Amazon prime that motivation. Like, we want to just be like, wait, I clicked on motivation. It should be arriving any minute to go do the thing.

And I am absolutely captivated by your work and the substance behind your thesis that it's not about having motivation land on you, but creating your own momentum through. What would you say? Nano. Micro yeses.

Britt Frank: 00:07:58

Micro yeses.

Ella: 00:07:59

Give me an example of a micro yes. Working in your life, in your environment today.

Britt Frank: 00:08:06

Oh, I love it. I love the motivation piece. Because if we can crack this myth of motivation, I'll. I need to have. Well, one. I need to feel motivated to do it.

No, you don't. I need to have motivation in order to. No, you actually don't. It's. What you need is a micro yes.

So I'll use, like, fitness, because that's one that I can't. I know most people struggle with to a degree, myself included. I'm going to go to the gym every day this week. It's like, no, you're actually not.

So, like, the choices comes down to, are you going to be honest with yourself without shame? And that's the key, right? We.

The degree to which we can be honest with ourselves without shaming the crap out of ourselves is the degree to which we can change and build momentum. So it's like, after all, use myself after a day of worki ng back to back to back to back with clients. You know, I have private practice. I see clients.

I write books. I do corporate speaking. I do. I'm a circus performer in a student circus troupe.

Ella: 00:08:59

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. That's not a metaphor.

Britt Frank: 00:09:02

No, that's like legit. That's real. That's like me hanging upside down and not Cirque du Soleil.

This is like, I'm 43 and I'm a student, but we have our student company and we put on shows and it's really awesome. Do street festivals, and it's really Fricking awesome as the next drug addict with a pack a day cigarette habit.

That I can do acrobatic stuff in, like, sparkles and sequins, but pretty cool. Point being, I didn't go from, like, stuck to circus. So a micro yes, literally might be.

If you're mired in depression and addiction and dysfunction and all these habits, it's not a realistic get to go for a walk. Like, it's just not. So let's work with your brain's design. Your brain is not designed for health. It's designed for survival.

Your brain is not optimized for happiness. It's optimized for survival.

A micro yes for someone in that, you know, situation is put your shoes by the door, walk to the door, look at them, then go back to your couch for the rest of the night. Then the next day, walk to the door, pick up the shoes, put them down, go back to the couch, then the next day. And people get so.

Like, I work with really high functioning people who get very, very angry. Like, that's stupid. How am I ever supposed to get anywhere if I'm moving this slow?

And the answer is a lot faster than if you keep trying to take steps that are too big for your brain to metabolize. And on a loop of maybe someday, yes, I should. I know I want to. Why didn't I? What's wrong with me? Micro yeses get you moving.

And the thing is, like, you don't micro yes the whole way.

You micro yes the first mile, and then once you have momentum going, the momentum carries you and motivation hits you way after the start process, if at all. Like, you don't need to feel motivated to do anything. But motivation usually hits at mile two, not at step one.

Ella: 00:10:49

Yeah, I always say nothing motivates me more than witnessing my own progress. Well, you don't start that way. If I waited for motivation to land on me, I would do almost nothing. I would do negative amounts of things.

Okay, I want to set the table because I want to invite a few people into this conversation, Brit.

And one of the things that you do really, really well is you write through both the lens of trauma, capital T trauma, and the lens of what you call brain indigestion. Now, this was important to me, and I like you to explain it, but I'm going to first share why this is important to me.

A lot of us who have been gifted childhood that didn't have capital T trauma in it, we take ourselves out of the conversation when it comes to work and development because we feel like we almost didn't earn our spot there. Please tell us the phrase you use to welcome everyone to this table, and that is brain indigestion. Walk us through that.

Britt Frank: 00:11:48

Yeah.

And especially in the last, I'd say, year or two, trauma has become, I think on the COVID of New York magazine this month is like, trauma, America's favorite diagnosis. Everyone is talking about trauma in a way that they just weren't 10 years ago, five years ago.

And so we sort of over index now on trauma, where at first nobody copped to having it. It's like, I don't have trauma, but now everybody's walking around traumatized.

So I still have the problem with the word that I used to have was people would disqualify themselves because their traumas didn't, quote, count. But now I have a problem with the word because now everybody is walking around traumatized and everyone's a narcissist and everyone's being gaslit.

And that's just not accurate. Forget about what we call it. Let's talk about what it is and how to move forward. So I came up with, to me, trauma is like brain indigestion.

It's not a moral fail. Like, if you eat poisoned fish. The vomiting that you do later is not a sign of, like, personal weakness or a character flaw.

It's your body supposed to throw up food when it's poisoned so you don't die. Great. Brain indigestion is when a life experience, for whatever reason, doesn't settle with your system.

And the symptoms, anxiety, stress, fatigue, burnout, whatever the thing is, are often the. The equivalent of vomiting up salmonella infected food. So, like, let's just demystify it and call it brain.

And then I've had people send me angry DMS calling it brain indigestion is invalidating to trauma survivors with the big T. I'm like, is it though? Like, I'm just describing the function, not telling you you didn't survive hell. It's like it's brain indigestion.

Ella: 00:13:26

You shared one of the best definitions I've ever heard when you said trauma is anything that exceeds our brain's processing capacity. Like, done and dusted.

Britt Frank: 00:13:34

Right? And that again, is not because your brain's better than mine or mine's. We. It's like, why does my brain process things different than yours?

I don't know. Genetics, environment, family of origin, access to resources, choices. It doesn't actually matter. The point is, is how's your.

How's your relationship to sex, to Food to money, to friendships, to your body, to your work, to your passions. It's not working. Don't worry about what we call it.

Let's just not like not all indigestion is food poisoning, but when I have a stomachache, I don't care that it's not salmonella. Like I want to fix it and fix it now.

Ella: 00:14:07

And to connect the dots, here's why this matters. We're about to talk about how your brain is wired to keep you alive, to keep you safe, not to keep you happy.

As you said, that's a really important fact to understand.

In order to understand other things, we're going to talk about like self sabotage or laziness or procrastination or why we know what to do, but we don't always do it.

So I wonder, and this is a big ask, but I wonder if you could just overview for us kind of at 30,000ft, the connection between why it matters, the way our brain works, and then this whole science of getting unstuck, if you will.

Britt Frank: 00:14:45

Absolutely. So let's say I have the most amazing car.

And it's so funny because I don't drive a stick, but this is a good metaphor and everyone can like land on it. Let's say I have a Ferrari. Ferrari. And it's like this beautiful car and it's amazing and it's all like, I don't know cars.

It's all like supercar, yay. And it goes fast. It's really cool. Now I put a three year old in it.

That three year old has no skill set, no understanding of how to operate a vehicle. The car is going to crash, right? But we're not going to sit there and be like, what's wrong with the car? And the car is terrible.

And there's something fundamentally wrong with the car that 3 year old doesn't know how to drive. So of course it's going to crash. We all walk around in these three pounds like blob of salt and mush and fat called brains.

None of us were given driver's ed for the brain. And then we wonder why we're crashing into life all of the time.

It's like there's not a fundamental problem with your vehicle, it's that we don't know how to drive it. And so understanding the brain is not just about me being a neuroscience nerd, which I, I am, I love learning this stuff.

And again, you don't need to be an auto mechanic to drive a car. I don't know how my car, cars I just know what I need to know to drive. And the brain is the same way.

When you know, basic brain 101 driver's ED level stuff, life works a lot better. Like, I drive a lot better now that I know how to drive than when I would just get in a car and hope for the best.

Ella: 00:16:07

Well then tell me, brain 101, why can't we think our way out of being stuck, Brit? Why can't we think ourselves forward?

Britt Frank: 00:16:18

It's so frustrating.

Like, as a thinker, I tell people I'm like the most anti feelings therapist you'll meet because I would so much rather analyze my way out of my shit than have to sit and do other things. The reason you cannot think your way forward. I know I should turn off my screen. I know I should put down the thing. I know I should pick up the thing.

Because the thinking part of your brain is not available. It's again here, metaphor alert.

You can have the most amazing computer in the world, but if you don't have WI fi or a hotspot, you're not getting online. So you can have the most logical reasoning in the world.

But when you're stuck, when you're stuck in that state of I know what to do and I'm not doing it, your logic goes away. That's why you do stupid things. That's why you don't do what you say you want to do and why you do lots of the things you say you don't want to do.

It's because our brains are not just thinking. There's lots of other mechanisms at play here.

And our thinking logical functions are the first to exit the building, which, and if anyone's ever gotten into a fight with a loved one, where all of a sudden you are no longer my beloved cherished friends or partner, but I'm going to claw your face off because I hate everything about you right now. That's your logic brain going offline. And we can fix it. But it's hard to fix something if you don't know what's happen.

Ella: 00:17:33

Yeah, I mean, isn't it true?

Or you tell me, you're the expert here, but isn't the part of our brain that's responsible for logic and reason and rationale, isn't that like not at all the same part of our brain that creates high panic and anxiety and emotion?

Britt Frank: 00:17:49

I call it the brain safety team. So like, you've got your brain's. If you think of your brain like a company of people, you've got like the executives the logical people.

But you also have the safety team that anytime they think something bad will happen, whether logical or not, the safety team team's gonna come running online and destroy everything in order to make sure, not destroy. But the safety team, think of them like firefighters.

They're gonna come in and hose down everything and self sabotage, saboteurs, imposter syndrome, self criticism, self blame, they're all members of your safety team. Like, again, they're not pleasant and we can work with them.

But they think you're in danger of being rejected, humiliated, abandoned, failing, socially undesired, whatever, they're going to come in and hose you down. And we call that self sabotage. But like, our brain safety team has been around a lot longer than the executive team.

And the safety team gets ignored largely because we don't know that they're there. And then we wonder, why did I self sabotage? I'm like, you didn't.

Your safety team sniffed out danger and no one was there to tell them, no, actually gang, we're fine. And so when your safety team is deployed, that is responsible for the majority of the humaning that we get stuck in.

Ella: 00:19:02

So from your perspective, is self sabotage actually real?

Britt Frank: 00:19:07

No, I mean the behaviors are real. Like, again, I understand that we do things that annihilate our well being and fully compromise our relationships.

I'm not saying the behaviors aren't there. But self sabotage is not the function of those behaviors. It's self protection at the expense of whatever else.

Again, your brain's not wired for health health. It's not wired for success, it's wired for survival.

If your brain thinks locking you down on the couch is going to conserve energy and keep you alive, it's going to do that.

Unless you know how to work with your safety team to give them new information, it gets like the fire alarm is constantly going off and your safety team is constantly putting out fires because no one is training them that actually there's no fire right now, we're okay.

Ella: 00:19:51

Well, one of the reasons that I think that this matters is because self sabotage engages shame for us.

So if we're doing that thing that we always do, so to speak, I find it's very, very rarely that I can be like, oh, there I am doing that thing again, and then beat myself into some sort of submission or progress, like shame. Again, if it were a useful strategy, we'd all know by now, we'd all, we'd all be there at our pinnacle.

So when we look at engaging shame, whether it's through self sabotage or even Just, just calling ourselves names or saying that we're lazy or this is what we always do.

We're telling ourselves a falsehood because it's just, is it the wrong language when we should be using more of a curiosity about why we're going into self protective mode?

Britt Frank: 00:20:37

And you're, you're absolutely right.

This one gets dicey because then again people will say, well what about personal accountability and what about owning like I legit me personally back in my earlier days made some really bad choices and I made some really like did some, some very, very dangerous things and was not the nicest person to all of the humans in my life. So I'm not suggesting that we co sign on our bs. I am saying that it's not just a self compassionate like oh, you should love yourself.

There are real biochemical things that happen when you shame yourself, the chief of which when you yell at yourself, you're an idiot. How could you do that again? What is wrong with you?

You're deploying stress hormones that then further aggravate the safety team, which then create more of the thing you're trying to stop doing. So refusing to shame ourselves is not the same as taking accountability. You can take accountability for your choices without shame.

Those two things do not have to mean the same thing. And again, it's not about just being like super woo and there's nothing wrong with that, but this is.

Shame creates cortisol, which creates stress, which creates fear, which creates safety team fire hosing all your efforts. So let's change the shame. Like you said to curiosity. Curiosity is not the same as co signing. It's like, oh my God, wow, I just did that.

What's going on? I wonder which parts of me are freaking out. Then it's how can I help them?

How can I deploy strategies that are more effective than what they think they need to do on my behalf? But shame is just not effective from a chemical standpoint, not just an emotional standpoint.

Ella: 00:22:14

Oh my gosh. This is a conversation that we have never had on the show before, which is the difference between accountability and shaming.

And I think this is really worth underscoring because accountability is one of my top five values. I believe we can get very few places successfully without it.

But if you just think of like a base level example, a spat with your partner, let's say accountability is I own my part in this. I own that this behavior was below the line or that this was suboptimal in some way.

And shame is flagellation and it hits different and it chemically feels different in your body. I would argue that accountability can even feel empowering when you're wrong.

Britt Frank: 00:23:00

It's so true. And relationally, this matters so much because let's say that you harmed me. Let's say that we had a. A coffee day and you forgot or whatever.

If you come to me in shame now it's my job to comfort you. You, which makes it all about you, which means you are actually fully not seeing me whatsoever.

So the shame that you think is accountability is actually creating a further rupture. How much more powerful. And I train people in companies this way. It's like you don't need to explain yourself away or feel so shame.

It's like again, it's not about you. If you create harm to someone else, whether unintentional, whether minor, it doesn't matter. It's oh my gosh, I was late date or I forgot.

I forgot our coffee date. Just name it then. Oh my God, Brit. You must have felt so disrespected. Your time is so valuable.

You must have felt frustrated, you must have felt confused. You must have felt really, really sad and angry. And that all makes sense. That flips the narrative from your shame to my experience.

And that's what creates connection and bonding and what repairs and strengthens relationships. So again, it's not just about give yourself a pass on being an asshole. It's about. It's no, shame is all about you relationally.

We want to see the person in front of us so we can actually connect with them.

Ella: 00:24:16

So good. So, so good. Okay. And there's another tenant that's really key to your work, in my opinion, that I just want to make sure everyone got.

And that is at the end of the day when we talk about procrastination or self sabotage or avoidance, I believe that a better response than shame would be a real curiosity. Like, isn't that. That doing the work of adulting.

Britt Frank: 00:24:42

It was the procrastination one. That makes me. That makes me so. It feels. It makes me so ragey.

Ella: 00:24:48

We all do it. Talk to me.

Britt Frank: 00:24:49

We all do it. Myself included. But the word procrastination is inherently shamy.

So the second you say I'm procrastinate and this is not about me, gatekeeping terminology. It's not about that. It's about. The word procrastination implies you're. You should be doing something and you're not. What's wrong with you? You're bad.

Shame on you. And it's just not useful. So let's Say, I'm procrastinating, sending an email, which, hello, we've all done.

It's not like, oh my God, what's wrong with me? I'm procrastinating. Name it. Right now, sending that email feels really heavy to me.

I know it needs to get done, but this is feeling super heavy to my system. Nobody in my system feels like it's okay to do, and we're really scared what will happen when we do it.

But then everyone goes into, well, I shouldn't feel this. It's like, let's just take the shoulds, the odds, the musts, and all of that wishy washy stuff off the table and let's just focus on what is.

Procrastination is largely solved when you commit to the what is. And then what am I willing to do in the next 30 seconds?

I might not be willing to send the email, but maybe I'm willing to get up and splash some water on my face. Maybe I'm willing to just like get up and do a stretch. Maybe I'm willing to hug a puppy or whatever. It doesn't matter.

Again, it's not about what future me is going to do. It's what is 30 seconds in the next, you know, span of time be willing to do. And that's what creates again, the momentum that's needed.

And that's why micro yeses work. Because a micro yes gives your brain a little micro dose of, oh, I just did a thing. Yay. Little tiny droplet of dopamine.

And the more of those that build up, the more you can do, the harder, scarier things on your plate.

Ella: 00:26:26

Yeah, I'll just use. This might sound silly, but I'm going to use something I'm procrastinating about right this very second.

And it's a business administrative task that I actually don't fully understand. So I'm avoiding it like the plague, Right? Totally avoiding it. And that it's not a problem.

Like, there's nothing negative about it, but if I avoid it, it will legit become a problem. Okay. Like I have to do this thing. And a micro yes. Yesterday was calendaring when I'm going to deal with it.

And then opening all of the mail that pertains to to this issue and putting it in a single stack. That was yesterday's micro yes. I mean micro, babe, micro.

Britt Frank: 00:27:05

I'm here for it.

Ella: 00:27:06

Today's micro is that I will actually read it all so that I understand what I actually have to do. Neither of these things is going to get it Done. But I. Two things I want to point out. I'm getting closer to the getting it done. Okay.

And so these micro yeses are, in fact, a momentum. It's true. The second thing is, is. And I don't know, you might. You might tell me.

I'm going backwards here, and I'm really open to your feedback here, Brit, but do you ever find that the thinking about the thing and the buildup, the avoidance of it, is 10x bigger than the actual doing of the. At the end of the day, I have to fill out a form and probably email my accountant.

Like, I have thought about this 10 times more than the time it will take to actually resolve it. What is my actual problem?

Britt Frank: 00:27:58

You're a human with a human brain. Like, again, I do it too. Yes, we know. And the research has shown that the anticipation of the thing is probably 10 times worse than doing the thing.

So what, you're still gonna build it up in your head, and so am I. I just went surfing for the second time. Oh, my God. It's like, I love it. I hate it. When it's good, it's so good. But when it's bad, it's, like, so bad.

And I keep going back for more. It's. But the point is, is what they teach you to do when you wipe out is don't fight it.

The faster you just surrender to the washing machine, the faster you're going to find your way back up to the surface. Because the harder we fight the ocean, the more we're going to lose. It's the same thing with our brain.

Yes, anticipation creates more tension, but we all do it anyway. So I know I shouldn't be anticipating this. I should just get up. It's like, don't fight it. Like, lean into what it is.

Your anticipation has created anxiety. Cool. What's your micro? Yes. You can always come back to a micro. Yes. And here's the kicker. With them, you can't shame yourself for doing it.

Like, what I love about what you just said. You're like, all right, I am now two steps closer to the thing. Not. Oh, my God, what's wrong with me? That. All I did was take the stack out.

What's wrong? It's like, no, no. You gotta bank the win in order to get the benefit of doing the micro. Yes. So, you know, again, anticipation creates anxiety.

Like, yeah, it does. And I still do it. You still do it. We're all still going to do it, so why fight it? Let's just lean into. Into it.

Ella: 00:29:21

Lean into it. And determine your micro. Yes, that is a very powerful combination.

Okay, there are two more words I want to get on the table, Brit, and that is I want to know from you why the words lazy and unmotivated are complete misnomers according to your work.

Britt Frank: 00:29:41

Well, they're not accurate. Right. So there's no such thing as an unmotivated brain. And again, this is not me just being a word nerd. It matters.

The words that we use to talk to ourselves and about ourselves have a huge impact on the change process and our ability to get momentum. So this matters. No such thing as an unmotivated brain.

Your brain is either motivated by your choices, or it's motivated by its default mode, which is survival. If you don't know it has a default mode, then when it goes there, which is what brains do. That's how. Brains. Brain. Then it's what's wrong with me.

I must be unmotivated. It's like, no, it's. Right now you're more. More motivated by safety and security, perceived safety, than the thing you want to do.

If you launch that business, you might fail, you might lose money. People might think you're stupid. In this moment, you're not making your sales calls because your brain is more motivated by safety.

So we have to get really clear about it's not, why am I unmotivated? We have to reframe it to it's always motivated. What's it motivated by?

In this moment, if you're not doing what you want to do, it's because your brain is motivated by either fear or self preservation, preservation or protection. And that there's something we need to get honest about in order to make a change.

Ella: 00:30:56

This is so critical. So what you're telling us is the brain is always motivated. Always.

But it's motivated by the need to survive or by survival, the drive to survive, real or perceived threats as they may be, or motivated to mobilize in a direction of our choosing. Okay, so when we think, oh, I'm just not motivated. Why can't I find the motivation? You're saying, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

What we're saying is, for example, my brain is motivated right now by safety and. Or. Or fear, like avoidance, Avoidance of loss, not showing up, not being good enough of failing, etc.

And you want it to be motivated by something else. The positive force, the direction of our choosing over. Okay, what's the antidote, Brit?

How do we get in there and tinker with the engine so that we aren't being driven by fear or lack or avoidance. And we can be motivated. Tricky word. But by the thing we want to do.

Britt Frank: 00:32:02

Yeah. And this is true, and I'll give you an example with parents. So I had a parent I worked with and they're like, my 18 year old is so unmotivated.

All he does is lay around all day and smoke pot and play video games and blah, blah, like why, how do I motivate, motivate this kid?

And I'm like, all right, if we take the morality of what's good and right off the table, technically your kiddo having rent paid, food paid for, video game console, electricity, Internet, wi fi, if we're going dollar for dollar, your kid is actually pretty smart because you keep paying for their stuff.

So why would they be motivated to get a job making eight bucks an hour when you have made it really easy and comfortable for them to be more motivated by comfort? Comfort. If you take that away, there's no longer the, you know, I'm now comfortable in my, you know, dysfunction or whatever.

It's, we have to create conditions for those changes to happen. So, and again, I'll use going to the gym. I don't want to go to the gym because I'm unmotivated.

No, you don't want to go to the gym because you're more motivated by comfort right now. So then let's look at your context. Does it make sense? Because sometimes it legit makes sense to be motivated by comfort.

Again, if you just, just done a 15 hour work thing and life is falling apart, it might be that you just don't have the bandwidth and the energy to go to the gym. And in that context, staying on the couch might be the wisest course of action. But then it's, I'm more motivated by comfort because it's cold out.

Then we look at. All right, well, what's actually true here? If I stay comfortable now, what's the cost of that later?

And this is where I wish the therapy world and the business world would get together more. Because the idea of a cost benefit analysis in business is the tool that you want to apply here.

Everyone can count the cost of not exercising, of not having friends, but no one's looking at the benefit column. That kiddo without getting a job has a lot of benefits to his inertia. And so we want to do cost benefit analysis.

And when the costs exceed the benefits.

Ella: 00:34:01

We change who you are speaking my language. Okay, you guys, you got to go back and listen to this episode again, please. Thank you. I 100% am all right, Evelyn, one more question for you.

You said something that was so interesting to me and that was that we do need the parts of ourselves that we dislike. And this is of interest to me for two reasons.

One, because I'm human and so I fall into this category of having lots of shades of myself that I don't love.

The other is the Internet would like to tell you that we should a embrace, absolutely love ourselves and like we're not doing well unless we are fully enamored with ourselves and like existing in this bubble of self love that I don't even know what that looks like. I can't even, I can't even elaborate on that to you because I don't even know what it looks like.

I think that this relates to our conversation about replacing shame with curiosity. And I just really need you to hit that home and make that connection for us, if you would. Brit.

Why do we need the parts of ourselves that we dislike and what are they teaching us?

Britt Frank: 00:35:14

So good and you're so right, we don't. And self love and like love all. You know, like, yeah, that's a great goal but like I that lives there. So let's start with forget about self love.

Let's get curious.

Assume that all of the parts of yourself, the parts that procrastinate, the parts that binge, the parts that are bitchy, the parts that are like, like, you know, not awesome on any given day at showering or like slowing down or whatever your thing is. Let's just start with the assumption that your brain is always on your side. Again, I'm not co signing on every behavior.

I'm not saying you should just love the parts of yourself. For me, you should just love the parts of yourself that manipulate people and act out in really, really not healthy ways. I'm not saying that.

I'm saying, huh. If my brain is on my side, that means that all of these parts of myself that I don't like, like, are doing a job.

And if I don't like the job that they're doing, it's not because these parts of myself suck. It's because they've been forced into extreme roles.

It's my job as the owner of the brain to reorg the system approaching this like a business full of people you can't fire. Assume that like whoever's in HR right now would be much better off in production.

So like my drug addicted parts for example, they're actually quite resourceful when it comes to sales and marketing and spinning a turn of a Phrase like, yeah, those parts that wanted to get drugs at any cost are. Are really good at writing copy. So we want to find better jobs for these parts of ourselves to do.

You don't have to love the part of you that's mean, but assume that her anger, properly channeled, is probably gonna be really useful to you in some form or fashion.

So, like my risk seeking parts that really like adrenaline and like toxic people do really well with things like surfing or circus performing because it's. You get beat up a lot and you puke and it's scary, but it's also really fun and exciting.

So we want to reorg the system and assign different jobs to these parts of ourselves.

Ella: 00:37:07

Transferable skills.

Britt Frank: 00:37:09

Yes, exactly. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Ella: 00:37:12

Okay, tell me if I am the only one. I'm probably the only one.

Guys, it's probably just me, but in my experience, and when I say my experience, I mean all of my 20s and like a solid portion of my 30s was just n equals 1.

Research Brit, that the harder I fought to ignore those parts of myself, those demons, if you will, the harder I fought to ignore them, the stronger they fought to be heard. It's just me though, right?

Britt Frank: 00:37:41

Just you. You're the problem. It's you. I mean, I wish that kind of thing works, but it's like having a toddler.

I don't have kids, but I've been around enough of them and I was a play therapist early in my career. Career. Watch what happens when you ignore a toddler now after too long. Again, child development. They'll either act out or shut down.

But assume that you've got a regular environment. A toddler that you ignore is going to flip out. And our internal systems are the same.

If you have parts of you that want your attention, dreams that have gone unheard, desires that you're ignoring, like weird little things. Like I want to take up knitting. It doesn't have to be that deep. It's just like whatever.

The thing is, is if you ignore these parts of yourself, the parts that are upset, the parts that are just sad, oh my God, if I admit that I'm dissatisfied in my marriage, I'm going to have to leave it. It's like, not necessarily. The more you pay attention to these parts of yourself, the more they feel heard. A system that feels seen, settles.

And so ignoring amplifies. Paying attention to and getting curious dials the volume down quite a bit. So then you can get back to choice power to what do I want to.

What decisions can I make in service of the direction I want to go.

Ella: 00:38:52

Brit, this is so, so rich. This is such a rich conversation.

I swear to you, if you listen to it twice, you're going to hear a completely different conversation and take away a totally different set of gems. With that said though, Brit, is there any sort of a wrap up thought that you would share with us?

And another way of asking you this is, what would you tell 25 year old you if you had her in front of you do now?

Britt Frank: 00:39:17

It's tricky, right, because I wouldn't actually. Not that I'm proud of everything, but I wouldn't redo anything if it given the chance for a redo because I really love where I've landed.

But I would tell my 25 year old self, it gets so much better. Like just, just ignore what you've been told about yourself. This gets better. Like you're, you're not broken. No one is.

No one given access to resources and safety and all of that, assuming that that's all there, no one is broken. Like you are absolutely capable of finding choices, making choices, finding 30 seconds of micro movement like things can change and get better.

I would tell my 25 year old self, you have no idea how much fun life's gonna be. We all joke about how much it sucks to adults, but like actually being an adult is awesome.

It's just none of us, not none of us, many of us were not shown how to do it. So we get here and we got these childlike parts doing adulting tasks like taxes and admin and feeling overwhelmed.

But think about how little choice power you had as a kid. I would be an adult over being a child again. Sign me up any day of the week. Adulting is awesome. Properly supported with the tools and the skills.

Ella: 00:40:27

Brit, thank you so much. Where do you like to be found?

Britt Frank: 00:40:31

Find me on Instagram where I have poor boundaries. So say hi. DM me. I would love to chat with you. It's just my name at Brit Frank and my, My website is scienceofstuck.com.

Ella: 00:40:40

Did you just say find me on Instagram where I have poor boundaries?

Britt Frank: 00:40:44

I sure did.

Ella: 00:40:44

I love it. That's fantastic, Brit. I'm going to share your book with the world.

It's called the Science of Stuck Breaking through inertia to find your path forward. And thank you for the work that you're doing.

Britt Frank: 00:40:55

Thank you so much. This was a fun combo.

Ella: 00:40:58

Okay, that's a wrap. I hope you enjoyed today's show and got something out of it that you can use.

If you did and you want to learn more, find me on instagramairwithella or get the show notes and all the links shared today@onairela.com there's no whiff, it's just on airella.com thanks for listening, thank you for sharing the show, and thanks for inspiring me. You are, quite simply, awesome.