Episode Transcript
Hi everyone, welcome to
the arm coach podcast
episode 15. I have a
question for you, what
have you done today?
What have you spent your
day doing? When did you
get out of bed? What did
you eat? Did you go to
work? Did you exercise?
Did you spend time on
your phone, on Facebook?
Did you watch TV? What
did you do today? Think
about this, because today
we’re talking all about our
actions. It’s the third
episode of the think-feel-
act cycle and actions is the
third part, so that’s what
we’re going to be talking
about today.
So think about what did
you do? I want you to
keep that in mind today
while you’re listening to
today’s episode. The
think-feel-act cycle is the
cycle you have to master if
you want to sculpt your
your arms, or really, if you
want to change anything
in your life. Learning how
to tell the difference
between the different
parts of the cycle is key if
you want to understand
why you eat more than
you want, why you feel
like you rely on scrolling
on your phone in certain
situations or when you
feel certain ways, and it’s
really crucial if you want
to understand why it
sometimes can feel
difficult to cut back and
how to actually unlearn
your desire.
So just to recap, in an
earlier episode, I talked all
about the first part of the
cycle, your thoughts. And
just as a reminder, a
thought is just a sentence
in your mind. It’s the
language that is running
through your head that
you use to assess and
judge yourself and the
world around you, your
past, your future,
whatever. Now here’s the
thing, most of us don’t
question or challenge our
thoughts. We just take all
of them at face value. So if
you haven’t listened to
episode 13, if you’re not
clear on what your
thoughts are or why you
need to pay attention, go
back and listen to that
episode..
In the last episode, I
talked all about the
second part of the think-
feel-act cycle, your
feelings. Now, your
feelings are separate from
your thoughts, although
most of us don’t treat
them that way. They are a
single word, happy, sad,
angry, anxious, awkward,
whatever feeling state you
can imagine. Now,
feelings are located in
your body. Every emotion
is going to produce a
different set of physical
sensations. Your heart
rate is going to change,
your breathing may speed
up or slow down, your
muscles might tense or
relax, the list will go on,
and you’ll be surprised
how much you notice is
happening in your body
when you start to pay
attention to what your
emotions feel like.
And now, the reason you
want to do this, the reason
that you want to focus on
what an emotion feels like
in your body is to create a
little distance. Think
about how many times
when you’re experiencing
a negative emotion, you’ll
often just feel like
overcome with it. It will
feel so strong and that
there’s sort of nothing you
can do to rid yourself of it.
So you want to create a
little distance because
that distance allows you to
be curious about the
emotion. It allows you to
be curious about what
exactly you’re feeling.
That’s not what most of us
do. Most of us feel
anxious or stressed or
awkward or lonely and we
immediately decide that
we have to change how we
feel. And when that
doesn’t work, when we
can’t immediately change
how we feel, then we start
looking to our external
environment to find
things to try to cover up
how we feel, ie. Ice cream
and screen time. So really
understanding your
emotions in a new way,
understanding how they
are different from your
thoughts, how they
manifest in your body,
that is going to help you
so much if you want to
unlearn the desire to
overeat or skip weight
lifting.
Let me just say, all of your
feelings are way more
tolerable than you think.
So you can go back and
listen to the last episode if
you want to brush up on
that. But today, we are
talking about the third
part of the think-feel-act
cycle, we’re talking about
your actions. So in other
words, why do you do the
things that you do in your
life?
Look, the cycle is always
at work in the background
of your mind, and most of
us have no idea. I’ll tell
you that for years, I
thought I felt crappy and
anxious all the time for
two main reasons: one, I
wasn’t satisfied with who I
was as a person, and
because of this I was in
this constant battle to fix
myself and to improve
myself and to make
myself better, and two, I
thought that I felt crappy
and anxious all the time
because of everything that
was happening in the
world around me. So my
job was too stressful and
my relationship was up
and down and I was
struggling with money, I
had all these reasons that
I could point to in my
external environment for
why I felt the way I did.
But the think-feel-act
cycle tells us something
different. It tells us that
we never feel anything
until we think a thought
first, right? Our thoughts
are what create how we
feel, not who we are, not
what’s happening around
us, and also that we never
take an action, we never
do things before we feel
an emotion.
Alright, so let’s dive it.
Now, I know that if you’re
listening, you probably
just want to know how to
sculpt your arms, right,
why you sometimes eat
more than you want, why
your not consistent with
lifting weights. But here’s
the thing, if you’re truly
going to understand the
cycle, you need to realize
this: eating more than you
want and skipping weight
training are not the only
actions in your life that
sometimes feel like a
mystery.
I want you to think about
this. Think about all the
times in your life you have
done something or said
something and
immediately thought,
“Why did I do that? Why
did I wait to the last
minute to work on a big
presentation? Why did I
just snap at my partner?
Why did I drink so much
at dinner? Why did I just
hit send on that text
message? Why didn’t I
apply for that job? Why
didn’t I go to the gym this
morning when I promised
myself that I would? Why
didn’t I turn off the TV
last night and go to bed at
a reasonable time?”
It’s really, really
important to remind
yourself of this. There are
lots of things that you do
in your life, lots of actions
and inactions, not just
your eating and exercise,
that can at times feel
explicable. And reminding
yourself of this is so
important because if you
want to change your arms,
you are probably beating
yourself up for not having
changed them by now.
You might even tell
yourself that because you
are struggling, because
you can’t just snap your
fingers and do it
immediately, that there’s
something wrong with
you.
So many of us use our
struggle as a sign that
there is something wrong
with us fundamentally as
a person, and I know
because I did this for so
long. So I want to be really
clear, there is nothing
wrong with you if you
don’t understand why
sometimes you eat too
much or are not lifting
weights consistently.
There is nothing wrong.
The only thing that is
wrong is that society has
drilled this message into
our heads that struggle
connected to your eating
especially is completely
separate from any other
struggle that you face in
any other part of your life.
So if you’re skipping the
gym or if you can’t put
down your phone or if you
can’t stop procrastinating,
you get the message, yes,
it’s kind of hard to change
your habits, but if you
struggle putting down
your fork, if you struggle
saying no to another
serving, the message you
get is totally different. The
message you get then is,
something might be really
wrong with you,
something might be really
wrong with your brain,
and by the way, here’s a
label that you might want
to wear for the rest of
your life.
It’s such a disservice, it
really is. All of us, myself
included for a very long
time, bought into this
idea, this false dichotomy
between the world being
separated into normal
eaters and food addicts,
and there being nothing
in between. But it doesn’t
make any sense, especially
when you learn the think-
feel-act cycle, and
especially when you learn
how that cycle applies to
everything in your life,
including skipping the
gym, drinking too much,
procrastinating, and yes,
eating more than you
want.
So if you’re beating
yourself up right now, if
you’re telling yourself that
the fact that you aren’t
able to sculpt your arms
with exercise, you aren’t
able to change your eating
by snapping your fingers,
let me just tell you, it just
means you haven’t yet
learned how to apply and
understand this cycle.
The real problem is that
no one, no one ever
explains to us why we do
anything in our life. No
one sits us down and says,
okay, now that you’re old
enough to understand and
to make decisions and to
think on your own, I’m
just going to explain to
you that there’s a really
simple reason for why you
do or don’t do everything
in your life, and it’s called
the think-feel-act cycle.
Right? That doesn’t
happen. No one gets that.
No one that I know was
sat down and had that
conversation. So without
this information, we
decide that the things we
do or don’t do are some
sort of indication, a
representation of who we
are or our worth as a
person, and really nothing
could be further from the
truth.
The good news is this: the
reason you do or don’t do
everything in your life is
truly very, very simple.
The reason you take any
action is how you felt at
the time. Anything you do
or don’t do is because of a
feeling you have in your
body, and this includes
the action of overeating or
skipping weight training.
So I want to give you an
example that came up
recently when I was
working with one of my
clients. So we were talking
about going out with
friends for dinner. Now,
you may have been in this
situation as well, maybe
you promised yourself
that you wouldn’t eat
sugar and flour, maybe
you were taking a break,
maybe trying to lose a few
pounds. Whatever it was,
if you’ve been in this
situation before, you’re
going out with friends,
you want to hang out with
people, everybody’s going
out to dinner but you
promised yourself, you
know what, I’m not going
to consume sugar and
flour tonight. But as soon
as you get there, you start
thinking well, you know,
it’s been a long day, I was
really stressed, I just want
to take the edge off, and
you think to yourself, I
deserve a treat. And so
instead of asking the
bartender for a club soda,
you order a margarita.
And what might happen is
that after that first drink,
maybe there’s nachos,
maybe there’s tacos,
maybe even churros and
then before you know it,
you wake up the next
morning, you’ve got a
hangover but not only
that, you’re wondering to
yourself, why did I eat all
that sugar and flour? Why
did I even have that first
drink and when I
promised myself that I
was going to hang out
with people but I wasn’t
going to consume sugar
and flour tonight.
So here’s what would
happen for me: I would
say to myself when that
would happen, well, I ate
those things because I was
out with my friends and
they were all eating it, or I
was at a restaurant and so
I was surrounded by sugar
and flour, or the
margaritas looked really
tasty and they were hard
to resist, and you
probably can relate to
this. You attribute the
action of eating, drinking
and skipping weight
training to the
circumstance in your life.
And then what happens is
that when we decide that
maybe we want to tone
our arms, eliminate some
arm fat, or we just want to
honor our commitment to
lift weights, we tell
ourselves, okay, well I
need to get away from
these circumstances that
could potentially make me
overeat or skip weight
training. I need to stop
hanging out with my
friends, I need to stop
going to restaurants, I
need to sequester myself
away from food and
alcohol.
And I did this for a really
long time. I thought that
alright, I have all this
desire that I don’t know
what to do with and it’s
desire that I truly thought
was created by my
environment, so if I
wanted to sculpt my arms,
if I wanted to cut back on
sugar and flour, I needed
to get away from the
situations that create my
desire. But it was kind of
terrible, because here’s
the thing: I didn’t want to
stop socializing with my
friends, I didn’t want to
stop going to parties, I
didn’t want to stop and
say no to every dining
event, I didn’t want to
walk through the world
and have this focus all the
time of making sure that I
was never around certain
foods or drink, because
god forbid, it could create
all this desire inside of
me.
I didn’t want that to be my
life, and here’s the thing,
it doesn’t need to be. But I
didn’t understand this
until I understood the
think-feel-act cycle. And
once you understand it,
you’ll see that nothing in
your environment causes
you to take the action of
overeating or not lifting
weights. Your actions are
not created by your
environment, they’re
created by this cycle. You
have a thought, which
creates a feeling, which
drives your action.
So the reason you decided
to eat and drink wasn’t
because you were out with
your friends, it wasn’t
because you were at a
restaurant, it wasn’t
because there was a
special on margaritas. The
reason you took the action
of eating and drinking was
because you had a
thought. A thought like, I
deserve a treat. And when
you think that thought, it
creates a feeling inside of
you, it creates the feeling
of desire. And when you
feel desire in your body,
you’re prompted to act.
You’re prompted to order
that margarita instead of a
club soda.
Now think about this,
because it wasn’t maybe
just that one drink. The
reason you ordered
nachos was because you
had another thought. A
thought like, who cares, or
screw it, I’ll start again
tomorrow. We have these
thoughts that create
desire inside of us and so
many of us have gotten in
the habit of responding to
our desire with the action
of saying yes to food, to
drink, to another episode,
whatever it is for you. But
this isn’t what we tell
ourselves. We tell
ourselves that we made
the decision because it
was too hard to resist our
desire, or we blame our
desire on our friends or
the menu or the drinks or
the show or the setting,
not realizing the role of
our thoughts in all of this.
Not realizing how our
thoughts create our desire
in the first place.
Not only that, we have no
idea why we eat way more
than we wanted, or
walked past the weights,
because we’re not paying
attention to all the
additional thoughts. The
additional thoughts like,
who cares, screw it, one
more won’t hurt, I’ll start
again tomorrow, it doesn’t
matter. Now, for some of
you listening, I know that
you may be thinking, yes
this makes sense, like I
understand what you’re
saying, but I don’t even
notice my thinking. I’m
not even noticing that
there’s a thought there.
And for some of you, you
might have that
experience of feeling like
you ate the entire basket
of chips and you don’t
even know how that
happened.
The only reason is
because you’re not yet
practiced at noticing your
thoughts. You’re not yet
practiced at noticing how
your thinking creates how
you feel and how your
feelings drive your
actions. But I’ll tell you,
once you start paying
attention, once you start
noticing the think-feel-act
cycle at work, you will
start to get a new
awareness about why you
do the things you do, and
I promise it will change
everything.
I’m telling you, this cycle,
the think-feel-act cycle, it
really blew my mind. In
large part because I
couldn’t believe that it
could possibly be this
simple. I had been so
focused on figuring out
what is wrong with me,
right? What is wrong with
me that I seem to have
this big desire? What is
wrong with me that I keep
seeming to say yes all the
time? What is wrong with
me that my eating and
exercise is so
unpredictable? And I kept
looking for that answer, I
kept looking for the
reason, the kind of
fundamental flaw, the
explanation for why I was
doing these things that I
didn’t want to do. And all
I had to do was start
paying attention to what I
was thinking.
But here’s the other thing,
yes, learning this blew my
mind, but you know
what? I was also kind of
frustrated. I really was.
Because when I finally
understood the role of my
thinking and how my
thinking created my
desire sugar and screens
in the first place and how
that desire then drove my
actions, when I
understood how simple it
was, I was also kind of
frustrated that it took me
20 years of struggling for
someone to explain this to
me.
I had spent so much time
thinking there was
something wrong with me
or that I was just born
with too much desire or
that I just lacked will
power or discipline, and
meanwhile no one ever
told me that I was the one
creating my desire to
overeat and not lift
weights. I was
unconsciously doing that
with my thinking, and
that I could change it.
That if I created my desire
with thoughts that for the
most part were
unconscious and thoughts
that I didn’t notice until I
started paying attention,
that if I started noticing
my thinking and I started
consciously practicing and
changing my thoughts
that I could actually
change my desire. And
that I didn’t need to
sequester myself away
from certain foods, I
didn’t need to not go to
restaurants and not hang
out with friends and avoid
parties. I just needed to
pay attention to my
thinking in these
situations to understand
how it was motivating my
actions. My desire to
overeat or skip weight
lifting didn’t bubble up
from some deep dark
recess inside of me. It was
created by what I was
thinking about.
Okay, so now you can see
how the action of
overeating or skipping
weight training doesn’t
materialize out of thin air.
You always feel desire in
your body, desire that is
created by what you are
thinking. So you
understand how that
works but I want you to
also see how the think-
feel-act cycle applies to
every action you take in
your life, not just the
action of eating and
exercise. So you
procrastinated on that
presentation because you
were feeling
overwhelmed, you
snapped at your partner
because you were feeling
angry, you drank too
much at dinner because
you were feeling deprived,
you hit send on that text
message too soon because
you were feeling
impatient, you didn’t
apply for that job you
wanted because you were
feeling insecure, you
didn’t go to the gym this
morning because you
were feeling defeated. You
have to notice the
emotions that are driving
your actions.
If you can notice the
feeling that is driving an
action, then you can find
the thought that is
creating how you feel.
And when you think about
it this way, it’s just using
the cycle in reverse.
You’re noticing the action
first, what action are you
taking, and then asking
yourself how was I feeling
in the moment? What
emotion drove that
action? And if you can
identify the emotion, then
you can start to identify
what you were thinking
that created the emotion
in the first place and
touched off the cycle.
So here’s what I want you
to do: I want you to really
practice noticing what you
are doing or not doing
with everything in your
life, not just eating and
exercise. And then ask
yourself how you’re
feeling in that moment.
Can you pinpoint what is
the feeling that is driving
the action? Pay attention
to these actions, pay
attention to how you’re
feeling before and
understand that no matter
what you feel, no matter
what emotion it is, you
can always look for the
thought that is creating it.
This is going to help you
understand everything in
your life so much better,
but more importantly, it’s
really going to help you
finally feel like some of
those actions, some of the
things you do that feel
mysterious and that you
can’t solve, it feels like you
can’t understand, they’re
going to start to make
sense. But you have to
have this framework of
the think-feel-act cycle in
order to make sense of it
and in order to finally
change it and sculpt your
arms.
Alright, that’s it for today
and I will see you all next
week!
