Might actually make somebody a little bit uncomfortable. But if I were to tell
you that most of your goals, they're not actually yours.
You didn't choose them. You most likely inherited them from magazines,
from social media, from your parents, from your church, from your community,
or from that version of yourself that you think that you're supposed to become.
And that is why most of them don't stick. Hey, everybody. My name is Tony Overbay.
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And welcome to the virtual couch and potentially a bonus episode on waking up
to narcissism, because I think this is some really important stuff that we're
going to talk about today.
Do me a huge favor and follow me on social media at virtual.couch on Instagram,
at virtualcouch on TikTok, Tony Overbay licensed marriage and family therapist on Facebook.
I think Tony Overbay, maybe just that, maybe an LMFT over on LinkedIn,
but Substack, oh my glorious Substack, go find me on Substack,
substack.com, I believe slash the virtual couch.
There's a lot of a lot of content there and getting back to doing a lot more
live question and answers in the new year.
And if you have questions, if you have, I was going to say answers,
I'll take your answers as well.
But if you have questions, relationship questions, marriage questions,
emotional maturity questions, narcissism questions, faith crisis questions,
you name it, please send them through my website, Tony overbay.com. And I will answer them.
I'm going to be doing a lot more with the question and answer episodes.
And I want them all. And I really, I really appreciate when somebody sends me
their marriage related questions because I would love to weigh in on that.
But let's get to today's episode.
So I've been a therapist for well over 20 years now, and I have noticed something
that is pretty consistent.
Every December, people come into my office with anticipation or dread.
They're already thinking about New Year's resolutions. Some are excitedly planning
what they're going to do differently this year and others, and probably the
majority are feeling guilty about not wanting to set any resolutions at all.
And some are asking my opinion, should I even bother because they never stick anyway.
And then by February or March, or maybe for some mid to late January,
they're back and not celebrating their success, but beating themselves up again
for failing, which is such a strong word. And they'll say things like, what's wrong with me?
Why can't I just do the things that I say that I'm going to do?
And here's what I've learned. Nothing is wrong with them.
Their problem isn't their willpower or their discipline or their character.
I think the problem, and maybe my New Year's resolution for 2026 is going to
be calling it a challenge.
But the challenge is that they're
setting goals based on what they think that they should care about.
And yes, I am required by therapist law now to say no one likes to be should on.
But what they should care about, not what they actually care about.
And a lot of times, I don't even know if we know what we think that we're supposed
to care about or what we really truly care about.
And that's why we're asking people, what do you think? What do you think I should
care about? Or what do you think I should do?
So I am releasing this episode just in time to either inspire you last minute
to do something New Year's resolution-y related that has a better chance of sticking.
But probably, and more importantly, I'm hoping you listen to this after you've
already either not declared New Year's resolutions, if you are avoiding them,
if you are protesting against them, or if you're a day or two in or maybe even
a week or so in and you kind of already know,
but you don't want to admit it, that this is not going to stick.
Or bless your heart, you've already given up on them and you're starting down
that path of self-deprecation and beating yourself up and doing the old what's wrong with me story.
Because if that's where you are, I want you to know you're not broken.
You're a human and you're not weak. You're not lacking discipline.
I think you're just using the wrong framework.
And I know this oh so well because I have done it for years myself with something as simple as pushups.
So I would like to introduce to you my pushup story.
And if you are a client of mine, unfortunately, you've probably heard this many times before.
And I'm pretty confident that this started in elementary school or maybe middle
school. And I don't even know if this man, the muse to all this is still alive.
I believe his name was Mr. Johnson and he was a vice principal.
And if you're already picturing, because I am a 56 year old human being,
so if you do the math, that was a long time ago.
If you're picturing a short sleeve, white button up shirt and truly unfortunate,
somewhat yellowish tie that looked like it had lost a fight with a highlighter
kind of vibe, that was Mr. Johnson.
And one day in the lunchroom, a group of middle school boys were doing what middle school boys do.
And one of them said something like, you know, I'm tougher than you.
I could beat you up, whatever.
And instead of escalating, Mr. Johnson calmly said, all right,
drop down and give me some pushups.
And I would just watch with amazement. And a couple of boys got down and they
cranked out a respectable number of pushups. And I remember thinking,
I don't know if I could do a lot of pushups myself.
And then Mr. Johnson got down on the floor and he started doing pushups and he just kept going.
And it was like a scene from a movie. There was a whole circle around him and
we were all chanting and cheering Mr. Johnson.
I think somebody was counting and I don't even remember what the number was.
It felt like minutes passed and he didn't rush and he didn't strain and he just kept doing pushups.
And I remember thinking, I will never look at this man the same way again.
And we would talk about Mr. Johnson in hushed tones from that day forward.
And I'm pretty sure that's the exact moment that my pushup obsession was born.
So fast forward through high school and into college, and I started hearing
about this thing called the 100 pushup challenge.
And if you did a certain number of pushups in various sets on different days,
the promise was that you would be able to do...
A 100 push-up set all in a row. So I bought the magazines.
I downloaded PDF files when computers became a thing. I even got the app where
you put your phone on the floor and you're tapping the screen with your nose
and pretty much every year.
And I'm talking every single new year's, I would set the goal.
This is the year that I actually follow through on the 100 push-up challenge
and I get to do sets of 100 push-ups.
And every year I would start somewhat strong until I would forget and I wouldn't
do it any longer. And I really don't think I ever lasted more than a few days.
And here's how my brain worked pretty much every single time.
If I started the program and I realized later in the day that I didn't have
time to complete all the prescribed sets and reps, my brain would say,
you know what? We'll just do it tomorrow.
Then tomorrow would come and then it would be later in the afternoon.
And my brain would say, okay, honest to goodness tomorrow for real this time.
And if it got to be Wednesday or Thursday, well, obviously at that point.
I am starting on Monday. And as a matter of fact, what I would probably do is
not do anything between then and Monday because I really had to take advantage
of this downtime because starting on Monday, oh my gosh, I'm a machine.
I'm going to be a push-up machine.
And if it was the middle of the month, say the 16th of the month, 17th, you know what?
Honestly, the first of next month sounds more official. I'm sure that I'll give it my all then.
And if it was July or August, well, that's basically New Year's resolution season.
So I might as well kick the can down the road until January 1st.
And I did this for years. And I genuinely believe the story that my brain was telling me.
I just really wasn't disciplined enough. And I just had to try harder.
And what's wrong with me?
Then years later, I started learning about my beloved acceptance and commitment therapy.
As I've mentioned so often on my podcast has changed my world and changed my life.
And so push-ups became my muse within the world of acceptance and commitment therapy.
And throughout the remainder of this episode, I will use the shortened version ACT.
Because ACT helped me see something different. The problem was not the push-ups.
The problem was that I had turned 100 push-ups into this goal instead of noticing
what actually mattered to me.
What I eventually learned or what mattered to me was fitness.
Fitness is a core value of mine. As somebody who has run now a hundred or more
ultra marathons and other races and needs to work out to feel somewhat alive
at this point, it's a value. It's a core value.
So pushups stopped being the goal and they actually started becoming the vehicle to get there.
So instead of asking how many, I started saying, okay, well,
we'll do these and we'll see.
And at first I still would forget. Days would go by. Then I remember to do 10, maybe another day, 20.
And eventually I got to the point where I could do a set of 25.
And some days that was it. just one set and that was okay because my value was
fitness and push-ups were the vehicle to achieve my value.
And then one day without planning it, without chasing it, I just passed a hundred.
101 set, but 100 in the day. And it didn't happen all at once.
But I realized that old goal didn't even matter anymore. Most days I was probably
doing 150, some days 200.
And I knew that there were days where I also did well over 300.
And the wild part was that the less I obsessed over this goal,
the more action I tended to take.
ACT taught me something that I still use constantly, and especially with clients
called expansion, which is making room for my thoughts and feelings instead
of fighting against them. I'm learning how to accept them.
So now I'll have a few minutes in between clients and I'll think,
oh, okay, now's when I should do some pushups.
And immediately, several times a day, my brain says, I don't want to.
And instead of arguing with that thought, instead of saying,
okay, I need to not think that or what's wrong with me for thinking that,
Now, this concept of expansion allows me to say, cool, you're cool, I don't want to thought.
Why don't you just come on down to the ground with me and do push-ups with me?
I literally invite not wanting to do push-ups to get down on the floor with me.
And regularly, sometimes more than half of the sets that I'll do during a day,
I am telling myself I don't want to be doing these and I'm acknowledging absolutely
don't want to do them while I'm doing them.
And every once in a while, a day or two will go by and I'll forget and I'll
notice that my brain starts to beat me up again.
And then I'll notice those are just thoughts and I'll start again.
Then last December 28th, right around the time of year that I'm recording this
episode, I felt a strange pain in my back after a Peloton arms and intervals bike workout.
And then numbness started radiating down my left arm.
And that moment ended up leading to a spinal fusion surgery three months later.
And now almost a year after that first incident, I'm doing pushups again.
And it feels like starting over and I still forget for days and then I'll remember
and I'm finally up to sets of 20.
And it's so funny because my brain is still fighting hard telling me we'll do
it later. But this time I know something that I didn't know before. This is a value.
Fitness is the value. Push-ups are just the vehicle.
And because of that, I have a deep confidence, not an urgency,
not pressure that this is going to work again.
So that difference between setting a goal because it sounds impressive and then
choosing an action because it connects to something that actually matters to
you, that's at the heart of what I want to talk about today.
Because as we get closer to the end of the year, I've been thinking a lot about
New Year's resolutions as I do every year at this time, because I was once a
very, very big New Year's resolutioner and not one who kept them very long.
And in previous years, I've done episodes where I've had the fun facts about
what the most popular resolutions were and how long people keep them and the psychology behind why.
This year, I really just want to talk about what I think is a healthier way
to go about looking at any kind of behavior change.
And also, if I'm being a little bit podcast host selfish, I've been taking on
a few more new clients recently, more than I have in quite a while.
And that has been energizing because I really, it just proves me how much I love this work.
I genuinely love it. And I think that matters because it's a lot easier to do
meaningful work together when we're already speaking a similar language.
And that language for me is ACT.
I've been this unapologetic ACT fanboy for well over a decade now.
And even though ACT is still considered this new kid on the block in therapy
terms, because it's only been around for about, I don't know,
25, 30 years, it honestly still surprises me that it hasn't taken hold more
widely in the therapeutic community.
So before I get into comparisons between, I will call it traditional therapy,
CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy and ACT, which I have been a CBT therapist
for a large part of my career before I found ACT.
I want to talk about something that Dr. Stephen Hayes, and he is the founder
of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, what he writes about in his book called
A Liberated Mind, which is a perfect title, the more that you learn about ACT principles.
He introduced this concept that just made so much sense to me,
and it's this idea of socially compliant goals.
And I do think this is so relevant right now, heading into New Year's resolutions.
Socially compliant goals are goals that we pursue because we feel like we have
to or we're supposed to or because somebody we care about expects it because
society says that we should because we'll potentially be disappointed in ourselves
if we don't do these things that we think we're supposed to do and here's what
the research shows socially compliant goals give rise to motivation that is weak and ineffective.
We may try to drive our own behavior with these external goals,
but we also secretly resent them because they undermine our own process of becoming, of unfolding.
If you think about your classic New Year's resolutions, losing weight,
get to the gym, quit drinking, eat healthier, journal every day,
read my scriptures, say my prayers.
I'm not saying that those things don't matter, but what I'm saying is, do they matter to you?
Are you choosing them because you genuinely value health and vitality and longevity?
Or are you choosing them because you think you're supposed to because everybody
else is, because it feels like what a responsible adult human being would do.
Because I promise you that distinction changes everything.
When I was chasing a hundred pushups, I wasn't doing it because fitness mattered
to me in a deep way at that time.
I realized now in hindsight, the reason pushups began as this socially compliant
goal was number one, the Mr. Johnson story that I told you about.
And then because in that time of my life, I walked by enough muscle magazines
at local convenience stores that I decided, oh, I just want these gigantic arms
because I was a teenage boy.
And I thought that that would lead to me having to find a very polite way to
turn down the thousands of girls who would be vying for my attention and affection
hanging off the aforementioned giant arms.
And I was a little bit of a comic book reader back then. And there were typically
these ads in the back of those, first of all, for x-ray glasses that I never
saved up the money for, which I guess in hindsight, I'm probably better for.
They also had these ads that showed a scrawny kid getting sand kicked all over
him at the beach and then coming back the next summer with girls,
here we go again, hanging from his ginormous arms and he's kicking sand now in the bully's face.
Now, who cares that I lived in Utah and my parents' vacations consisted of camping
in the woods and I would not be on a beach anytime soon. That didn't matter.
That image was planted. Mr. Johnson and how cool that was and these muscle magazines
and I don't want to get sand kicked in my face if I ever do happen upon a beach.
So that goal was set not by me, but by the culture around me.
That was a socially compliant goal.
Dr. Hayes says that when we're operating from socially compliant goals,
we end up in a pattern called experiential avoidance.
Experiential avoidance is this process where if we don't want to do the thing
that we think we're supposed to do already, then we are going to avoid this
by a number of different experiences.
There are so many things that we can use for experiential avoidance rather than
do the thing that we already don't want to do that we think that we're supposed to.
You can see how the game starts getting, we run from or we attempt to control
all of our personal experiences and our thoughts and our feelings and our sensations.
And we do it because our mind tells us this is an easy way to avoid pain.
The pain of not wanting to do the thing that we think that we're supposed to.
And then we kick this can down the road because we think, well.
Be able to feel free only when we feel good. So I want to do these things that
make me feel better before I have to do this thing that I know that I'm supposed to do.
But avoidance typically only compounds our difficulties and it restricts our
capacity to even feel at all or to be present in that moment.
Let's talk about what experiential avoidance actually looks like in real life,
because if I already truly didn't want to do the goal because it's socially
compliant, let's give a better example, organizing my room or starting some
side business or learning a foreign language.
That was one that I had put on my bingo card every year.
I used to travel to Japan for business a lot, so I was going to learn Japanese.
But if I really don't want to organize my room, start a side business or learn
Japanese, then I am going to turn to experiential avoidance like a champ.
I'm going to watch one more video on YouTube.
I'm going to do one more episode of whatever series has my current attention
on Netflix, or I'm going to play another game, or I'm going to scroll through
social media just a few more minutes, or I'm going to clean out my email inbox
because, hey, that feels like I'm doing something productive, right?
I'm going to reorganize my desktop files. I've done that a time or a hundred on my computer.
I'm going to research the perfect productivity system instead of actually doing
the productivity thing.
And there are so many things to use for experiential avoidance these days that
you darn well better find out what matters to you or doesn't before you start
basing your confidence and your self-worth on not doing the thing that you already
don't want to do that you think you're supposed to do.
Because here's what I think happens. You tell yourself, okay,
I'm going to organize my room. You really don't want to, but you think you should.
So you sit down to start and immediately your brain says, you know what?
I'm just going to check my phone first. And then a couple hours later,
you haven't organized anything.
Now you feel worse because not only is your room still messy,
but you also feel like a failure for not doing the thing that you said that
you were going to do that you think that you're supposed to do that you set
the goal of doing. But the problem wasn't discipline.
The problem was that you were trying to force yourself to do something that
you didn't actually care about and your brain knew it.
It did what brains do. It found literally anything else to focus on to avoid
the discomfort of doing something that you felt was meaningless.
I heard a quote recently, the author is unknown that said, you can't add more
time to life, but you can certainly add more life to your time.
That one hit me. That one gave me all the feelings because when you're spending
your time on things that don't matter to you,
when you're organizing your room because you think you should or chasing goals
because they sound impressive or scrolling through TikTok to avoid the discomfort
of admitting that you don't care about the thing that you said that you would
do, you're not adding life to your time.
You're burning time. But when you're doing something that actually aligns with
the value, when you're reading because you genuinely love learning or knowledge,
or you're moving your body because you value vitality or having a hard conversation
because you value honesty, that's adding life to your time.
That's the difference between getting 10 more rounds of Candy Crush under your
belt or building a life that feels more like your own.
One is experiential avoidance. The other is living.
So, if I go back to the push-up example, when I missed a day or I didn't complete
all the sets that the program told me, I used to feel bad.
I felt like I was failing. I felt lazy and undisciplined and weak.
And what did I do with those feelings? Well, I avoided them.
I told myself, yeah, no, but I'll start fresh tomorrow. Rather than say,
is this even something I want to do?
Or we'll start next month. I wasn't moving toward fitness.
I was moving away from the discomfort of feeling like I wasn't good enough or
I didn't know what I was doing. And here's the trap that the more I avoided
those uncomfortable feelings, the more power that they had.
And the more that I reinforced the idea that I couldn't handle them,
that I needed to wait for these perfect conditions, the perfect Monday,
the perfect month, the perfect motivation before I could take action.
This is what Hayes means when he talks about the anxiety trap.
He also refers to it as the monkey trap. Because in some parts of Africa,
people drill these small holes and gourds. They fill them with banana chips
and they tie them to trees.
And the holes are just big enough for a monkey to insert its hand.
But when it grabs the banana chip, the fist is too big to pull his hand out.
And the monkey is trapped. Now, you would think that the monkey would just let
go of the chip, but it doesn't. It hoots and it hollers and it struggles and
it fights all the while clinging to the chip.
That was me with my push-up goal. I was clinging to this prize of being someone
who could do 100 push-ups. Somebody disciplined, somebody fit, somebody impressive.
And in clinging to that prize, I was trapped.
It was only when I let go, when I stopped chasing the goal, and I started connecting
to the value that everything changed.
Stephen Hayes writes, It was only when I abandoned the attempt to control my
anxiety that I began discovering how to heal.
It was only when I gave up on that false vision, when I dropped that mental
banana chip, that my mind was free. It was only when I gave up on that false vision,
And I really think that's what happened for me with push-ups.
When I stopped trying to control the outcome, when I stopped avoiding the discomfort
of not being perfect, I was just free to do push-ups.
Some days 10, some days 50, some days none.
And then paradoxically, the less I fought with my feelings about it,
the more consistent I became because I wasn't running from the discomfort anymore.
I was moving towards something that mattered.
And this connects to something I think is really important about why a lot of
New Year's resolutions don't succeed. lead. We tend to focus on what researchers
call lag measures instead of lead measures. A lag measure is the outcome.
It's the thing that you want to happen. But here's the key though,
you don't always have control over the lag measures.
There are a thousand variables outside of your control that could impact whether
or not that outcome happens. Now, the lead measure, that's the action. That is what you do.
And you have much more control over that.
So what this might look like in practice, a lag measure would be lose 15 pounds,
a lead measure, eat vegetables with every meal, move your body for 20 minutes daily.
A lag measure is I'm going to read 12 books this year. A lead measure,
I'm going to read for 15 minutes every morning before checking my phone.
Or maybe even better, I'm going to find authors and topics that I enjoy reading
or learning about to set myself up to actually want to read.
A lag measure is run a marathon.
A lead measure is to start movement. Run three times a week.
Gradually increase my distance. Find a running group. Talk to a friend who's run marathons before.
A lag measure might be saving 10 grand. And then a lead measure is start transferring
money into savings every paycheck or pack a lunch three out of five days a week.
A lag measure is have a better marriage.
And then a lead measure is try to have one meaningful conversation with your
spouse at least a couple of times a week or practice my beloved four pillars
of a connected conversation out in the wild.
A lag measure might be I'm going to grow my business to six figures.
But a lead measure is reach out to potential clients each week or create one
piece of content daily or sit down and write out a pros and cons list about
your job. Do you enjoy what you do?
Lag measure, learn to speak Japanese. I can't even remember how to say,
Nihongo suko shi wakare masu.
I think that's something about Japanese. The lead measure, practice with a language
app for 10 minutes every day.
Watch a Japanese language show with subtitles or be honest with myself.
What do I want to learn Japanese for?
A lag measure, I'm going to get promoted this year at work. Lead measure.
Start taking on one stretch assignment per quarter or have monthly check-ins
with your manager about your development.
Be proactive about where you are at work, what you're doing.
A lag measure, and I hear this one often, people want more friends.
They want to expand their social circle. But the lead measure would be saying
yes to a social invitation, maybe each week, join a group or a class that meets
regularly, find a community of people that like the same things you do.
Be afraid to go do something once a week and then do it anyway.
So do you see the pattern? The lag measure is the outcome and outcomes are affected
by the things you can't control.
Your metabolism, your genetics, the economy, other people's decisions,
unexpected life events.
But the lead measure, that's what you do every day. I remember talking with
a client once and her goal was she was going over to Hawaii and she was going
to skydive and that was her life's ambition and she had gotten herself in a
good mental space to do that.
And then she got there and she had a small window that she was going to be able
to do this and the weather was horrific and no one could skydive.
And she came back and she was sad and was kind of beating herself up,
but she did enough of the lead measures to...
She did things that were of value and the lag measure of actually going skydiving
didn't happen. And that was okay.
When you focus on the lead measures, when you consistently take the actions
that align with your values, the lag measures often take care of themselves.
Not always and not perfectly, but I think often enough. And there's a decent chance.
And I think this is what is so cool about ACT is understanding that the lag
measure may not even be what you anticipate.
I once worked with a client who started reading regularly, truly for the first
time in his life, which led him to think, man, I actually could write better
than some of the things that I'm reading.
And now that client is world-renowned author, Stephen King. Not really,
not at all, actually. I'm kidding.
I don't know if he kept writing or not, but it was such a fascinating thing
that he became a very good writer over the time that we worked together.
And he began journaling every day. And that started because he wanted to read.
And even when and if the lead measures don't necessarily result in the lag measure
that you intended, it can still be such a growth opportunity.
I did work with someone once who, when training for their first marathon,
discovered that any training run longer than 10 miles resulted in some serious
pain in a hamstring, which then led her to getting the hamstring check,
which eventually led her down a larger fitness and physical therapy path.
And I can report that we're years down the road now.
And that lead measure didn't result in her original lag measure of running a marathon,
but it did lead her to a career and eventually a life partner that she met in
that new space that slowly became more of her identity because this becomes
so much more about the journey than the result.
When I moved out of the computer industry, quite frankly, I tried to be a financial
planner, a pharmaceutical sales rep.
I still have my rejection letter and I made it a few rounds through interviewing
with Apple for a marketing position.
And I also went back to school because there was a chance that maybe I could
become a therapist. Yeah.
And I love the fact that I didn't know. I just knew that I needed to try to
figure things out or figure myself out.
When you start figuring out what matters to you, it becomes so much more about
the proverbial journey than the result because you learn what matters to you.
You learn to take action in a direction and over time, trust that you're going to figure it out.
Because while expectations and goals and resolutions, I think are wonderful
things, I really think that they need to be held somewhat loosely,
not gripped to the point that they're going to break.
Their directions to start heading toward. But when we have it so deeply ingrained
that I need to say that I am going to do this thing that I possibly never done
before, and then I need to hold myself to doing it at all costs or else I'm
going to deem myself a failure and doggone it,
I better enjoy it when I get there too, because I don't want to admit to myself
that I did all this stuff that I didn't want to actually do.
Maybe I was doing for other people, probably to get people to tell me how awesome
I am really only to get here. And now it's not all that it's cracked up to be.
Think about that. Slow that down. Break down that game film.
You thought doing something would make you happy or get you validation.
I think about clients that I'm working with now, one who did say that they wanted
to write screenplays and they finally were able to clear off all the time in the world.
And now that they're writing them, they realize, actually, this is not what I thought it would be.
I'm very proud of them for recognizing that this thing that they had held in
such high regard, and they had told themselves, if only I had time to do that, then I would be happy.
Then we figured out how to find that time. And now they're realizing,
oh, wow, I'm glad that I did get to see that this wasn't the thing that I thought it would always be.
I want to coin this term so bad when somebody says that they want to do something.
Don't you be the one that says, I don't think that's a good idea.
No, don't you be the one that knocks the wind out of their sails.
Let life do it if it's going to do it. I have another client that went back
to school and got an advanced degree, we'll say, for protecting the confidentiality of this person.
I won't tell you in what field, but now that they got that degree,
they realized that it isn't everything that they thought it would be.
This person is able to now acknowledge the fact that this was not a waste because
had they not gone down this path, they would not have known themselves as well as they do now.
And they would have still clung to this idea that if only I could have done
this thing, I'm thinking of some movie with the, it was, if only I could have
been a farmer, then I would be happy.
Well, if that's the case, go plant some things, farm some things and figure
out, is that the thing that I really like?
Before I go any further, I want to make a crucial distinction that I think trips up almost everybody.
Let's talk about values. Values versus a goal because values are not goals.
And this is where most, I think, New Year's resolutions tend to fall apart because we confuse the two.
You think about it, we spend more time researching which Netflix show to watch,
which is something I did a couple of nights ago, than trying to really understand
the internal compass that guides my biggest decisions in life.
But that compass affects everything from how you handle conflict to what hills
you're willing to die on.
Your values aren't just these lofty concepts, these ethereal things that we
continually are in search of, they're the beating heart of how you show up in
your life every single day.
Your values are basically your life's GPS system. They're not the destinations themselves.
Those are goals, but rather the internal navigation system that helps you determine
what roads are actually worth traveling.
And most of us have never actually sat down to program this internal GPS.
We're just driving around sometimes bewildered or confused about why we keep
ending up in places that don't feel right or worse.
We're constantly asking others to plug in the coordinates for us,
essentially saying, hey, will you tell me where I should go and who I should be?
It's no wonder that we feel lost a lot of times.
Let me clarify this with some hopefully concrete examples.
Goals are checkboxes on your life to-do list. Get married, buy a house,
have kids, maybe make six figures, lose 15 pounds, read 12 books.
Those are all fine things to pursue. Once you achieve them, now what?
It's part of the old, I'll be happy when. Oh, I'll be happy when I get married
or I'll be happy when we finally have a house.
But then you get there and it's like, okay, not bad. But apparently that wasn't the secret to life.
You check the box and you look around and say, okay, now what?
I thought I would feel a whole lot different than I do now.
Values, on the other hand, they are this continuous way that you want to show
up in the world. They are how you want to be, not what you want to have.
Values are never finished. You don't complete them and move on. They're ongoing.
Instead of the goal, get married, the value, I want to have a connection.
I want to be in a partnership. I want intimacy, verbal, emotional,
cognitive, intellectual.
A goal might be lose 15 pounds, but the value, health, vitality,
self-care, good eating.
A goal might be read 12 books, but a value might be knowledge,
learning, growth, curiosity.
A goal might be to make six figures, but the value behind that is maybe financial
security or providing for the family or financial freedom.
A goal might be running a marathon, but a value might be challenge or discipline
or physical strength or connection through joining a running group.
Hopefully you can see the difference. The goal is more like an event.
It's a moment in time. There's a finish line there and they're great.
The value is the direction. The value is the way of being. It's a compass heading.
And I think most of us are walking around then with values that we've never consciously chosen.
We've picked them up like lint on a sweater or from our families,
friends, churches, schools, social media, the one teacher who made a throwaway
comment in third grade that we've never forgotten.
So we set goals based on values that we don't actually hold,
that we don't actually clarify. And then we wonder why we can't stick with them.
So remember, you're not broken if you haven't figured this out yet.
You're a normal human being. A lot of people, I don't think,
truly figure out their core values.
At all. The good news is though, once you start clarifying your values,
then the decisions become a little more clear and motivation becomes a bit stronger
in that sense of something's missing, tends to fade, and it is never too late
to recalibrate this GPS.
So when you're thinking about your new year's resolutions this year,
don't start with the goal.
Let's start looking at the value. Ask yourself, what do I really care about?
What kind of person do I want to be? What direction do I want my life to move in?
And then let the goals or these lead measures kind of flow naturally from that.
Because when you're clear on your values, the goals become a little more obvious.
And more importantly, the motivation to pursue them becomes more sustainable.
I think back to the story often of, as I have worked on clarifying my own values,
I have a strong value of fitness.
I have a strong value of curiosity, genuine curiosity.
I want to know things and knowledge and adventure and authenticity.
And that can sound like something that people will often say, well, I have that too.
But if you have a value of authenticity, now what follows, I want to introduce you to the yeah, buts.
If I have a value of authenticity and somebody asked me my opinion on something
and I want to be authentic, then I need to express my opinion.
Now the yeah, but is yeah, but they might not like that opinion or yeah,
but they may think differently of me.
The reason I like framing this with the yeah, buts is because,
oh yeah, they might, but that's not a productive thought toward my value of
authenticity. So I'm not even arguing that.
When people now ask me my opinion about anything, whether it's political or
religious or therapeutic, I have discovered that I feel alive when I am in alignment
with my values, my core value of authenticity.
So I will share my opinion and I have to accept the fact that.
The person I am interacting with may not appreciate the things that I'm saying
because they most likely have thought of me in a certain way,
or, oh, I always thought you thought this, or from the content you've created,
I have made it mean this, which I am so grateful for. I want to hear all of that.
I'll give you another example, summer league for the NBA in Las Vegas.
Some of my most fun times are going with my son, Jake, and my son-in-law,
Mitch, and we go and we golf and we watch lots of basketball.
And one year, we got some pretty decent seats and I'm exploring my values and
I'm figuring all this out.
And we're on maybe the third game of four in a row.
I got my guys here. We played golf that morning. This should be the most amazing thing ever.
And I'm noticing that I'm kind of feeling bored and I'm thinking,
okay, I should be more excited.
And as I started to notice that I'm feeling a bit down, this is where your values
become so important because I don't tell myself what's wrong with me.
And I don't tell myself I need to stop thinking what I'm thinking because I
try to stop thinking about a white polar bear right now. There it is right there in our mind.
You turn toward your value. I have a value of curiosity like nobody's business.
So I immediately pull out my phone and I start looking up NBA players that are
trying to make these rosters at the NBA Summer League.
And I start learning about one, I believe his name is Luka Garza who is still
playing in the NBA now and I find that he has a I believe it was a nine pound.
Tumor on his spleen and that's a funny thing now about memory because I was
very confident about what I saw at the time and all of a sudden I'm talking
to Mitch and Jake about that or there was another guy who his name was Timu.
Like the app where you buy things from. But he was, I believe,
a former Finnish dunk champion who had a very, very strong tan and bleach blonde hair.
And so, I looked at that guy and all of a sudden I'm reading about he's won
these dunk contests all over Europe.
And so, I'm talking about these things. I'm being genuinely curious.
That's a value of mine. And now we're having a conversation.
Now, I did not stop thinking anything. I didn't beat myself up,
but I turned to a value of curiosity and I took action on this value.
And the yeah, but might've even been, but yeah, but you aren't paying attention
to the game. It's like, totally.
That's not even a productive thought though, if I'm really trying to turn to this value.
And I like giving the example of honesty here because a lot of people are going
to say that honesty is a core value and that can be an amazing thing.
I used to do some volunteer check-in work with a lady in my neighborhood named Sister Warner.
She was an older lady. She was from the South, as I was early in my life,
being born in Tennessee, and she could make biscuits and gravy.
And I would go over to her house once a month, early in the morning,
and she would make me biscuits and gravy before I would go to work.
And I loved being able to serve Sister Warner in that way.
But the older that she got, and the more her memory started to fade,
the more salt she tended to put in the biscuits and gravy. And there were mornings
that I would go there and she would say, oh, it's all ready for you.
And I would take a bite. And I think of a cartoon where my mouth would pucker
up so much that my face would cave in on itself.
And she would say, how is it? And I would say, it is amazing.
Because in that moment, I valued compassion more than I valued honesty.
So, when I had this value of compassion, then the yeah buts are,
yeah, but you're not being honest. Like, totally.
Oh, I am not. That's not a productive thought toward my value of compassion
in this moment. Now, if I had a core value of honesty, and that's okay.
I know people that do have a very strong core value of honesty.
Then the yeah but is, well, yeah, but you're going to hurt this lady's feelings.
And then the same thing would be, oh, totally.
But I'm not even arguing that. That's not a productive thought toward my value of honesty.
So for me, it became a adventure, which is a core value of mine in and of itself,
as I would enter each day ready to see, is this a major salt day or a minor salt day?
And you can reach out to me through my website, contact at TonyOverBay.com.
And I do have a values worksheet that I'll be happy to send you because I think
one of the first steps to try to figure out is what are my core values?
And I can't say this enough. When you start to recognize that it's okay to have
different values than your parents or your community or your church or your
friends or the things that, again, you think that you're supposed to value.
Almost unlocks a door because then people will find two, three,
four core values, and then they start to live by them, but they still hang on to those very rigidly.
You didn't even really know what your values were just a little earlier,
and now you've got these three or four core values.
So in reality, start test driving them, and you may find, oh,
actually, this isn't something that I value as much as I thought I would,
even though now I'm allowed to pick my own values.
And there's a pretty funny, little bit cheesy exercise to figure out your values in a very quick way.
Now I highly recommend you can use an AI assistant, a chat GPT,
a Claude, a perplexity, something like that, or reach out to me.
I'll give you my values worksheet, or think about what you would want somebody
to say at your funeral or not quite on your tombstone, but what they would write in your obituary.
Again, might sound a little bit morbid, but he was a very curious person who
was always there for others and was running with his grandkids right up until the day that he passed.
So you can see there's some values there of curiosity or knowledge or adventure
or fitness, and that might just give you a start.
I did a training once about values and I loved the ACT clinician who gave the
training, although I cannot remember their name, but she said that when a client will often say,
okay, now I know I need to figure out my values, but I don't even know what my values are.
That is still just a story that their brain is hooked to that keeps them from
going out and figuring out their values.
And she said that you can literally tell your client, okay, that's a,
we're not even arguing if that's true or false. You haven't picked your values yet.
So just go outside and start interacting with the world and walk by a flower
and smell it. and you might realize that you like it or you don't.
And this is why I think it's so important to do things because you're going
to learn more about yourself as you do things and you're not doing them wrong.
Every moment that you're interacting with the world, with a person,
with a burrito, with a song, with a podcast is the first time that you've ever been you in that moment.
And it's going to bring up some things, some questions, some thoughts, some feelings.
And that is a wonderful you thing, something for you to take in and do a little
self-confrontation and think, why does this bring up feelings or emotions?
Why does this motivate me?
Why does this not? Why do I want to turn this off now? Why do I want to listen
to more of this person's stuff?
So let's move on. This next part is fascinating.
Perceived value versus perceived capability. And the first time I heard about
this concept was with my friend Neil Hooper,
who I brought on and I've rerun that podcast episode several times around this
time of year because Neil is a big goals person.
And he works with a lot of high achieving professionals.
And he brought me into one of his courses to add the therapist flavor to,
to the work that he was doing.
And it was one of the most fun times that I've had of working with Neil.
So Neil came on my podcast and he talked about goal setting.
And I threw this act. I want to say at the time, it probably felt a little bit
like a wet blanket over some of the things that he was talking about,
but boy, we came to some powerful resolutions,
but he brought some really interesting things to that episode.
And I'll link that in the show notes because I still think it's one of the classic
virtual couch episodes.
But he talked about this fascinating research from Clemson University that looked
at hundreds of factors to determine what actually impacts our drive toward goals.
And he said they narrowed it down to two key ingredients, perceived value in
the goal, and then perceived capability in achieving it.
So in other words, do you actually care about this, kind of what we've been talking about?
And do you actually believe that you can do it? And when either of those is
missing your motivation, your drive to do it.
Goes into the toilet. And this is exactly, I think, what ACT addresses.
Values work is about clarifying your perceived value. And then acceptance and
expansion are about addressing your perceived capability.
So let me give you some examples of what this looks like when one or both of
these ingredients is missing. High perceived value, but low perceived capability.
That will lead to discouragement. So if somebody says, I want to lose 50 pounds,
and they genuinely want it, maybe their doctors told them their health's at risk.
They now have of grandkids. I know this one now also well, having an actual
grandkid that you now all of a sudden want to be around and see this little
guy grow up and do all kinds of cool things because he's awesome.
Or maybe they just want to feel comfortable in their own skin again. So the value is there.
There's a reason why they want to do this that matters to them.
They care deeply, but then they think about what that actually requires,
changing their entire relationship with food, cooking differently,
exercising when they haven't moved their body in years.
Maybe they've tried and failed before multiple times and their brain says,
yeah, but we've never been able to do this. Why would this time be different?
So that's a low perceived capability.
So when you have the high value, but low capability, again, you'll end up feeling pretty discouraged.
You may want something desperately, but if you don't believe that you can get
it, that's a pretty painful place to live.
And this is where people often give up before they even start.
I'll just wait until I'm more motivated or I'll start when things calm down at work or next year.
Because the discouragement feels like too heavy of a load to carry.
So I guess that's another reason why they need to go to the gym.
Old man pun intended there.
So now flip that low perceived value, but high perceived capability that can lead to disengagement.
So let's say you work in corporate America. I've actually had this example a
couple of times this year. So it's really fascinating to work with people that
are struggling with this.
So your boss hands you some sort of new thing, a new initiative.
Maybe they say you need to increase our social media engagement by 30% this
quarter. There's a metric there.
And the thing is, you know how to do it. You've got the skills.
You've done this before.
You also know that this is just another metric that this executive cares about
so they can look good on their quarterly report.
And you don't even really care so much about maybe the product that your company makes.
So there's not a lot in that for you. Now, yes, honest days work,
honest days pay, those sort of things are wonderful, but we're talking about
you as a human and what you truly care about. Not the cliches.
So you may struggle to see how this connects to anything meaningful,
because I think we really do want purpose.
So the value isn't there. So that's disengagement. You're going through the
motions. You could even probably accomplish the goal because you can,
but you're not driven. You're just showing up.
And I think this happens a lot with New Year's resolutions. Somebody says,
I should go to the gym. Well, why?
Because everybody says it's good for you. Okay, but do you care?
Maybe I guess so. That is a low perceived value.
And even if you know how to go to the gym, let's say that there's a gym in your apartment complex.
Let's say that your company offers you a free membership to a very nice gym
that is literally on the way to work.
And they even give you time to go to the gym. So even if it's that easy,
you're not going to sustain it because age from the why, the why it matters
or why do I really want to do it?
So then think about the classic New Year's resolution. Somebody says something
like, I'm going to go to the gym five days a week. So let's now check in with
both of those factors. Perceived value.
Why do you care? Is it because you genuinely value health and vitality and strength?
Or is it because January 1st is a day on the calendar? It is now here.
And now this is what I'm supposed to say.
Because if it's that one, your perceived value is pretty low.
You're disengaged before you even start.
Now let's look at the perceived capability. Do you actually believe you can
go to the gym five days a week? Do you have childcare?
Do you have the time? Can you afford it? Have you had much success sustaining
that level of consistency before and something that you haven't necessarily
wanted to do? If the answer is no, then it's okay to admit that your perceived
capability might be a little low.
And so we need to acknowledge that you're possibly setting yourself up to feel
very, very discouraged.
So here's what's brutal about most New Year's resolutions. They're often low on both factors.
A lot of times when people are setting these, you can maybe now check in with
yourself and even see that you may not actually deeply care about the goal itself.
And you don't find value in it. And you don't even really believe you can do it.
So you start the year discouraged and disengaged. And that is a recipe I was
going to say for quitting by February, but by second week of January,
and then you beat yourself up.
That's why, again, I will fanboy for acceptance and commitment therapy all day,
every day, because it's this different path.
Instead of starting with the goal of I'm going to go to the gym five days a
week, let's find a value. What do you actually care about? Maybe it's the longevity.
Maybe it's being able to play with the grandkids. Maybe it's feeling strong in your own body.
That's perceived value. And then instead of demanding perfection from yourself,
you practice expansion. I don't feel like going to the gym today becomes a thought.
You have lots of thoughts and you can notice it. You can invite it to come along for the ride.
You can even sit with it a little bit, mull it over. Where do I feel that?
Do I feel my chest? Do I feel it in my stomach? What's the story my brain's telling me?
That builds perceived capability even before you get to the gym,
not because you suddenly believe you're Superman, because you learned that you're
learning how to do things, even hard things, even when your brain is fighting you.
And that is the difference between a socially compliant goal that sort of fizzles
out and then a value driven life that sustains you, that helps you find a purpose,
a sense of purpose and sneak preview for when you've lived that way for a while.
Everything is pretty much figureoutable.
And you'll notice that you have a lot of thoughts and emotions and feelings.
And why do I hook to certain ones and not to others?
And you get really good at the yeah, buts. Whenever you want to do something,
almost every time you get a little bump of dopamine, oh man, that sounds good.
And then I will sit back and say, all right, welcome aboard boys,
meaning the yeah, buts, what do you got for me?
And I can even acknowledge that that's a good point.
Is just a story that you're telling me. And okay, I will acknowledge this other
yeah, but over here, that's probably even correct.
Jump on board. Let's go see if we can figure this thing out.
So let me talk about how this shows up in therapy and why I moved from being
a cognitive behavioral therapist to becoming an unapologetic act fanboy,
which is I think the third use
of the phrase fanboy, the word actually the fourth now in this episode.
I started my career as a cognitive behavioral therapist. I was trained in CBT.
I practiced CBT for close to 10 years. I saw people feel better with CBT.
And I want to be so clear about this upfront.
CBT absolutely has value. It's not wrong. It's not broken. And it helps a lot of people.
At a very simple level, CBT starts from the idea that our thoughts influence
our emotions and our emotions influence our behaviors.
So if we're feeling bad or acting in ways that we don't like,
the work often focuses on identifying unhelpful or distorted thoughts and then
learning how to challenge them or reframe them.
And again, to be fair, it can work, especially in the short term.
Let me give you a really common example.
Somebody comes into therapy upset because their girlfriend hasn't texted them back all day.
Now, as a CBT therapist, I might say, okay, what's the automatic thought that
you're having? And they might say, well, she obviously doesn't like me.
We would label that as an automatic negative thought or an ant,
A-N-T, automatic negative thought.
And we're going to stomp out those ants, or we're going to call it your stinking thinking.
And then we're going to challenge it. Hey, what's the evidence for that?
Or what are some other possible explanations?
And because the client, I think, here's where I'm inserting a lot of my opinion.
I think that the client wants to be good at therapy. They want the validation
of the therapist and I want to feel like a good therapist.
So they might say things like, maybe she fell asleep. Maybe she lost her phone. I will validate that.
I will validate the heck out of that and they will feel better and I will feel
helpful and they will leave calmer than when they came in and I will pat myself
on the back and then I will go out to the waiting room and bring the next client in and repeat.
And again, that's not nothing. That absolutely matters.
But then something might happen later that same day. So she still hasn't texted back.
Suddenly to the client, the thought pops right back up and he says,
no, it isn't that she doesn't have her phone. She genuinely doesn't like me.
Only now there's a second layer. Okay. Why am I still thinking this?
I should be better at this by now. I just went to therapy.
I just paid a lot of money. He comes back the next week and we do it again and again and again.
And over time, as I sat with people longer, not just for one session,
but across several weeks, maybe even months, started noticing a bit of a pattern.
Not that CBT wasn't necessarily working, but for many people,
the work quietly shifted from living their lives to managing their minds.
They became very good at spotting distorted thoughts, but then they became very
frustrated that those thoughts didn't stop showing up.
At one point, I was keeping little tally marks in my notes about how often people
were saying, I know I should not think this.
What is wrong with me? I keep thinking this. And thank
goodness I was exploring acceptance and commitment therapy at
that time because people can really have
this internal negative dialogue which yeah those are your automatic negative
thoughts but let's talk about why i think it's okay to acknowledge that they're
there and to not beat yourself up and to not think you're doing something wrong
and if i'm gonna go find my soapbox in my office here for a second,
this is where i do i do believe that cbt has such a wonderful place in the mental health world.
And I also am fairly confident that a lot of motivational speakers and life
coaches and most therapists are trained in cognitive behavioral therapy right out of the gate,
out of school or through their coaching certifications or when someone wants
to become a public speaker.
Because you can find a tremendous amount of video out there where you have some
cool images and some nice music, maybe a bald eagle flying by and a mountain and the rushing water.
And then there's these motivational words today.
Today's the day first day the
rest of your life Maybe a nice little guitar riff going in the background,
And you are going to grab the bull by the horns and you're going to just show
up and you're going to just take charge of your life And take charge of this
day and it feels so good and you just are going to do it Then you go outside and you had a flat tire.
No problem That that's an automatic negative thought that the universe is conspiring
against me I'm, just gonna gonna pump this thing up and that you might even
do it Now you're running a little late to work and then you miss a couple of
lights and then starting to get down on yourself.
And now all of a sudden there's traffic because you started a little bit later
than you normally do. Now you're stuck in traffic and now you're just like, you know what?
This sucks. And I can't even believe that I'm doing this again.
And why couldn't I have just gotten up a little bit earlier?
And I should have known that my tire would be flat.
And then we just go down this path of beating ourselves up again.
And in reality, that just happened. It's the first time that you ever were you in that day.
So check that out. Had a little flat tire, started a little bit later.
So you're not thinking wrong. Those are just thoughts.
And so I find that often...
Okay, and true confessions of the therapist. And I'm talking here about this value of authenticity.
And I've got a lot of just really, I think, fun, amazing content coming in 2026
around this about being my more authentic self.
I get to work with some phenomenal people. I get to be a lot of therapists therapists.
I have worked with motivational speakers. I've worked with a lot of life coaches
where I am their therapist.
And it's fascinating to work with people who will be putting out this kind of
content or putting out this image who are struggling with this in their very own life.
And so I worry often about this concept of projection that people are projecting out to the world.
No, this is really who I am. See, look, I say these things.
I can put these videos together. I can tell you to change your thoughts,
change your life and stomp out those ants and don't do any more stinking thinking
and choose this day that you're going to be happy.
And if I put that content out, then maybe people will assume that that's the way I'm living my life.
Versus acceptance of I'm having thoughts, I'm having feelings,
this thing is happening.
And that's where I often worry that while something like CBT is such a wonderful
thing when somebody is coming into you and they have zero idea what to do and
they are spiraling and they're thinking some pretty dark thoughts,
then I will start from a cognitive behavioral therapy lens and say, okay,
that's the wrong thought. What's the right thought?
Let's just get you identifying that this is some distorted thinking.
That's absolutely fine.
But then we may want to quickly move into, but you're just thinking thoughts. You think a lot of them.
If you allow yourself to not get stuck or caught or hooked on that thought of
the, I'm a piece of garbage, there's probably another thought coming next,
which might even be, I'm also thinking I need to go to the bathroom.
Now I'm noticing that I'm wondering, is the latest season of Stranger Things
all that is cracked up to be?
Oh, but wait, I forgot. I'm also a piece of garbage. So, making space for having
all the thoughts that you have, having a position of sitting back and being
able to observe the thoughts is a pretty powerful place to operate from.
Back to this narrative, again, not that CBT wasn't working for a lot of people,
but you would watch people start trying to manage their thoughts and their minds.
And they would get frustrated that they were still thinking certain things,
even though they had this new tool and you can't not think something and nothing's
wrong with you for thinking things because things pop up in your brain.
And that's where I think my own curiosity really started to change the way that
I practice because I began working with more and more people whose thoughts
you start to acknowledge. They're not distortions at all.
They're just there. They're learned. They're shaped by real experiences,
by other people's judgments, by rejection, by humiliation, by lost opportunities, by trauma.
And that's where ACT didn't just give me new tools. It changed the questions that I was asking.
Now, one client in particular stands out, and I will tell the story every chance I get.
He had been significantly overweight for a lot of his life, and when he lost
weight, instead of feeling free, he more or less felt exposed.
And he came into therapy saying, all right, I want connection with other humans,
but everywhere I go, I feel like people are looking at me funny,
and I think they're judging me.
Now, from a traditional CBT lens, we could have worked on challenging that thought.
I might have said things like, Like, what evidence do you have that people are judging you?
And he tried to come up with alternative explanations. Okay,
yeah, you're right. Maybe they're just curious. Maybe they're not actually looking at me.
Maybe they like my outfit. Maybe he's misreading their expression.
And he would leave feeling a little bit better. The anxiety would go down and
we would both feel productive till later when he's back in public and somebody
glances at him and the thought pops up again and he says, nope, they're judging me.
And then that's where that second layer, why am I still thinking this?
I should be better at this by now. I went to an ACT training while I was working with him.
And it was almost like we had a before ACT and then an after ACT therapeutic experience.
Because after learning acceptance and commitment therapy, then we were able to slow things down.
And I was able to ask him, hey, tell me what your life had been like before
the weight loss happened.
And he had been heavy his entire life, even as a little kid.
And then the picture changed completely.
People had stared at him. People had mocked him.
People had absolutely judged him openly to his face around his family.
He told me a story, painful, humiliating, about an experience on an airplane
that had led him to avoid flying for over a decade.
So from an act lens, the question wasn't, hey, is that thought irrational?
Is that an automatic negative thought?
The question was, how could your brain not think this way? That is what it has felt like to be you.
And that's where acceptance enters, not as a resignation, but more as realism.
Acts starts by saying, you're not broken. Your mind learns something based on
your real human experiences, and you're the only version of you that's ever
walked the face of the earth. Here's where I love to insert my take on that.
You're this unique combination of your nature and your nurture,
your birth order, your DNA, your abandonment, your hopes, your dreams,
your fears, your rejections.
All of those things make you, you. And that is why you think and feel the way
that you do. So, instead of trying to eliminate the thought for this guy,
we acknowledge that, oh, that is a thought and I can even validate that makes a lot of sense.
Then if he were to say, well, how do I get rid of it? Then I can confidently
say, oh, that is not what we're here to do, my friend.
How do we accept it? How do we make room for it? Because yeah,
it's going to show up again.
So we ask a different question altogether. If the thought is here, well, okay, it is.
But tell me what kind of life you want to live. And for this client,
the answer wasn't confidence or comfort. It was about connection with others.
He wanted friends. He wanted belonging. He wanted to find his tribe, his people.
So the work shifted not toward controlling his thoughts or managing his emotions,
but toward changing his relationship with his thoughts and emotions.
So now when those thoughts show up, they're judging me. We don't argue with it.
We don't debate whether it's true or false. We simply notice it.
And then we ask, okay, is following this thought helping you move toward your value of connection?
And if the answer is no, then the work becomes about making room for the thought and continuing anyway.
This is where ACT can really start to feel different as well.
There's a lot of metaphors in ACT.
And one of my favorite ways to explain this comes from a classic ACT metaphor
called passengers on the bus.
So imagine you're the driver of a bus and the bus is your life and your values.
Things like connection and friendship and honesty and courage.
And authenticity and fitness.
Those are the destinations that you are driving toward. Again,
they're not a, I'm going to get there, but I'm just, I'm moving toward them in that direction.
Now on this bus, you have passengers. Some of us have a whole lot of passengers.
Some of them are great and they're nice. And some of them are very encouraging.
And a lot of them are very loud and aggressive and deeply unhelpful.
So in this situation, one of the passengers stands up and starts yelling,
Hey, you suck at driving.
Everybody's judging you. They also think you look pretty weird that you don't
even belong here driving a bus.
And then here's the key part. That passenger, some of the things might be telling
the truth, or they might be exaggerating, or they might be completely wrong.
Act doesn't require you to figure that out. What matters is this,
that passenger is not driving the bus.
In most of our lives, what happens is we'll pull the bus over and we'll stop
moving toward what matters and we'll turn around and we'll start arguing with the passenger.
And we try to reason with them and we try to prove to them and we try to get them to understand.
We try to throw them off the bus. We try to not hear them.
And the irony is the more that we engage with the passenger,
the more control they get and the further from our value we're moving toward.
So ACT offers this different move. It says, oh, I hear you. It would be wonderful
if you take a seat, but you don't let them touch the steering wheel.
So now that thought, they're judging me, gets a seat. It's uncomfortable.
It's probably sitting right up in the front. It's loud. It's annoying.
But you're driving and you are still looking in front, looking ahead.
And you still show up to where you need to go. And you still move toward connection.
And this is the part that people don't always love at first,
but it is so freeing once it lands.
You don't have to wait for the passengers to quiet down before you live your life.
You don't have to get rid of fear to be courageous. You don't have to eliminate
your anxiety to do things, to be connected.
You don't have to feel confident to take a meaningful step.
You just have to keep driving the bus in the direction of what matters.
And over time, something very interesting happens.
The passengers are still there, but they kind of get quieter.
But it's not because you silence them.
You just stop letting them run your life. they become repetitive acoustic stimuli or white noise.
Why is this so liberating? So this client in this situation learned that he
could feel anxious and seek connection.
He could feel exposed and also still be courageous.
He could hear the old story that his brain is trying to tell him,
but also know that he's creating a new chapter through the action that he's taking.
And sometimes the connection landed and sometimes it didn't.
And that's why it isn't necessarily this outcome independent.
I made it to the destination because either way, he left feeling something deeper
than relief from his anxiety. He felt integrity.
He felt his own agency. He felt aligned with who he wanted to be.
He never even exactly knew who he wanted to be.
And over time, interestingly enough, the thoughts soften, not because we fought
them, but because they stopped running the show, because you expanded your capacity.
You made more room for them. And this is why ACT became home for me as a therapist.
Not because CBT was wrong, but because ACT matched what I kept seeing again
and again in real people's healing journeys and what started to truly heal myself.
People don't heal by becoming better thinkers. They heal by becoming freer humans.
And ACT gave me a language and a framework from that freedom.
And here's another thing that Neil Hooper had helped me with.
Something practical you can do with this. And on this podcast,
we developed what we called the Get Back on the Saddle Plan.
Because the reality is, you are going to have off days. That's to be expected.
You're going to forget to do things. You're going to skip going to the gym.
You're going to have days where you don't eat perfectly and
that is not failure that's part of being a human being because every single
moment every day is the first time you've ever been you in
that moment so instead of waiting for the shame to kick in we
created a little five-step plan for what you'll do when you notice that you've
gotten off track first notice without judgment let's do the push-up example
i notice that i have not done push-ups in three days that is a thing that is
fascinating it is interesting and it is definitely something I've noticed,
notice there there is no what's wrong with me I'm such a piece of garbage I
knew this was going to happen none of that is welcome in this dojo.
So step one, notice without judgment. Step two, name the thought that's showing
up. Oh, my brain is telling me the old I'm lazy story.
Okay, period. I'm not even arguing that. That is the thought. That is the story.
Step three, invite that story to come along with you.
Hey, you think I'm lazy brain story? Why don't you come with me?
And then step four, get just one little quick win.
Something small, five push-ups, 10 push-ups. or if it's about the value of knowledge
and reading is the vehicle, read a sentence, a paragraph.
If it's about fitness, take a walk around the block or walk to the bathroom
in your building or go up a flight of stairs and back. Get one quick win.
Step five, keep going because the goal is imperfection. It's continuing.
It's doing. That's it. And you can write those five steps down.
Reach out to me. I'll give you those as well.
Because when you wobble and you will, you'll want to reduce the friction to getting back on track.
Because what you're also training your brain to do is that when I notice that
I am not doing the thing that I wanted to do or that I was pretty sure I wanted
to do, first of all, I can do a quick check-in.
Is this truly something that matters to me? And if it is, okay, thank you, brain.
And now I can do the thing again, even if my brain says, yeah,
but you might not even keep doing it.
It's like not even arguing that, not a productive thought for right now,
because you want to make things as figureoutable, as doable,
as easy as possible to just start again, to get back on the saddle.
That's the work. It's not never falling off. And it's certainly not telling
yourself that something's wrong with you.
You're just doing it. It's a thing. It just is. So get back on the saddle.
Now, from an ACT lens, I would say you don't necessarily become what you think.
And thank goodness for that because our thoughts can be pretty harsh.
But instead, ACT will say you maybe become what you do in response to what you think.
The thought I'm not good enough doesn't make you not good enough.
But if you believe the thought and then you pull the bus over and refuse to
drive toward connection or toward growth or toward what matters,
that's when it impacts who you become.
I do think it's really important to talk to yourself kindly.
And I'm convinced because it's been a big part of my own life is that as you
take this journey that I'm talking about today through acceptance and commitment
therapy, that when you can start to recognize that I'm not broken, I'm human.
This is the first time I've ever been me going through life.
So I do and think and feel the way that I do because I do.
It's a lot more easy to just check that out, to look at it as data.
And then what do i want to do with that as i move forward if
you can really commit to this that it takes a
fair amount of time i think it does take it can take a
year it can take a couple of years till eventually all of
a sudden the internal monologue in your brain your implicit memory or what it
feels like to be you which again is based off of the very slow residue of your
lived experience starts to be okay you notice that it has been quite a long
time since you've told yourself that you are broken or not doing things right.
You're just doing things and now check that out.
It's learning how to change the relationship with your thoughts,
with your emotions, which will impact how you speak to yourself.
When your mind says you're lazy, don't argue with it. You don't have to replace
it with, no, I'm hardworking.
Although if that is something that helps you, then please do continue to do that.
But what I found very effective is you notice, oh, there's the I'm lazy story again.
And that's just a passenger on the bus. I'm still driving. Because the truth
that ACT keeps coming back to is you're not broken. You're human.
And nobody else knows exactly what it feels like to be you, regardless of what they think or say.
So therefore, you are never doing you wrong. You think what you think and you
feel what you feel because you do, because you're the only version of you to
ever walk the face of the earth.
I genuinely believe that change will come, but you need the right tools and
you need to be somewhat consistent, but also incredibly forgiving.
And by consistent, it really boils down to trying again when you realize that you aren't doing.
That's the work, not perfection, not never wobbling. just noticing when you've
stopped and starting again and being able to check that out.
Is this something that really matters to me?
Here's something else that I think ACT does such an amazing job and makes really clear.
Your emotions are not problems to get rid of. They're signals to pay attention to.
But most of us, since we were young, we're told that our emotions were incorrect or not welcome.
Things like, don't worry about it. Calm down. You're fine. Stop crying.
We learn to avoid them, to push them down, to distract ourselves from our emotions
and to think that, wow, I thought that it was a big deal, but apparently I'm
being told right now that it's not.
So my emotions and my feelings must be wrong.
But Acts says, what if you could feel anxious and still be courageous?
What if you could be uncertain and still take action? What if you could feel
exposed and still choose connection?
That's expansion. It's making room for the feeling and moving forward anyway. And fear.
Fear actually exposes some amazing growth opportunities. Because if everything
ultimately is a me thing, and it is, then why am I afraid right now?
Why is it that I'm scared? Or what am I scared of? Is it embarrassment?
Is it doing something wrong? And yes, I'm using air quotes. Is it this expectation
that I should already know how to do something?
Well, says who? That's a passenger. It's a loud one.
Maybe it's one that's been on the bus for a long time, but it's still just a passenger.
And this leads me to something I find very liberating and important.
And I believe this so much.
What if I were to tell you for right now, let's make right and wrong hindsight principles.
Because if I say something and somebody likes what I said, does that make it right?
Because somebody else may hear the same thing and say, I actually don't like
what this guy said. Oh, no. Is it wrong?
ACT doesn't ask you to figure out if you're doing it right. ACT says,
are you doing it in alignment with your values?
Is this something that you are doing that moves you closer toward purpose?
That's a question only you can answer, not your parents, not your spouse,
not your church, not your friends, not society, just you and the person in the mirror, which is you.
So let's wrap this thing up. As we head into this new year, I want to leave you with this.
You don't even need a perfect plan. You don't have to have it all figured out.
You don't need to wait until you feel confident or motivated or ready.
You just need to know what matters to you. And that is a journey to begin.
Not what should matter. Not what matters to everybody else. Not what sounds impressive.
What matters to you? And it's okay if most of you listening are going to think, actually, I don't know.
That is the number one answer of the Family Feud version of this game.
And then be willing to take one small step in a direction. I was going to say
that direction, but who knows what that direction is?
Any direction. And you're going to start interacting with others and life and
things that will help you know, I like this, this I'm not a fan of,
and this is going to help you start figuring out what you care about.
So taking that small step in any direction, even when your brain is screaming
at you to stop and giving you the yeah buts, even when passengers on your bus
are loud and obnoxious and telling you all the reasons this isn't going to work.
Or even when you forget for three days or three weeks or three months to do push-ups.
Because here's what I know after 20 years of doing this kind of work,
people don't heal by becoming better thinkers. They don't even necessarily heal
by eliminating anxiety or fear or self-doubt.
People heal by accepting that they are a human being going through life for the first time.
Carl Rogers, great psychologist, has the curious paradox.
Once I accept myself as I am, then I can change. And I even wonder at times,
if you throw an act lens on it, it's maybe that once I accept myself as I am, then I am.
And now, if I want to change, well, I can figure out what that looks like.
It starts from a place of acceptance. People heal by becoming freer human beings.
They heal by learning that they can carry discomfort and still move toward what matters.
That they can sit with their emotions and they aren't always these terrifying, scary things.
They can actually be messengers telling you things to move toward or things to be aware of.
People heal by discovering that a little uncertainty and some wobbling isn't
failure. It's part of the process.
And they heal by realizing that the goal isn't to silence the passengers on
the bus. the goal is to keep driving even when they're loud.
So forget the lag measures. Maybe don't worry as much about the 12 books or
the 50 pounds or the impressive sounding goals that you can tick off and then
post on Instagram or things that you think you should care about.
Ask yourself, what's the lead measure? What's the daily action I can take that
aligns with something that I actually value?
And then do it today. Not perfectly, just do it.
And then if you forget to do it, because you probably will, remember to get
back on the saddle again.
Notice without judgment. Name the thought. Invite it to come along.
Get a quick win and just keep going. That's it. Rinse and repeat.
That's the whole thing. You don't have to wait for perfect conditions.
You don't have to wait until Monday. You don't have to wait until the next semester.
You don't have to wait until you get the new house, till the kids are out of
the house, till you have the six-pack abs or the raise.
And you don't have to eliminate the fear before you act courageously.
You don't have to feel confident before you take a meaningful step.
You just have to be willing to drive the bus. And I promise that if you do that,
if you keep showing up to what matters, even when it's hard,
even when you don't feel like it, even when the passengers are loud,
again, you won't just achieve goals, you'll find purpose, you'll build a life,
a life that feels like yours, you'll know what matters to you,
a life where you're not running from discomfort and you're not continually...
Experientially avoiding things. You're moving more toward meaning.
And then as you find more meaning, you will find more opportunity for growth.
You'll find yourself having a life where your worth isn't dependent on outcomes
or the validation of other people.
It's more grounded in integrity and purpose.
And that, to me, is what makes this all worth it. Here is to the new year.
Not as if it has to be this big, dramatic, fresh start or a clean slate or a
chance to finally get it right, but more as another opportunity to drive the
bus in the direction of what matters, passengers and all.
Thank you everybody for your support this year. I hope that you have an amazing
new year, taking us out per usual.
The wonderful, the talented Aurora Florence with her song, it's wonderful because
man, you're not really seeing that life can be wonderful.
That is an indication from your emotions saying, well, then do me a favor and
figure out how to make it wonderful.
Figuring out what really matters to these values and learning to take action
on them is going to be a big part of figuring out how to make things a lot more wonderful.
We'll see you next year on The Virtual Couch.