Introduction: The Mindset Trap

[00:00:00] Have you ever asked Google a how to question, like, how do I sleep better? How do I drink less? How do I exercise more? How do I start meditating? Well, in today's episode, I'm going to talk to you about why that is the number one mindset trap that keeps you stuck and going back to sleep. To Google to ask how to over and over and over again.

[00:00:19] And I'll give you the four steps where you can identify which level of change that you're in and which level you need to actually achieve in order to have lasting sustainable change. Are you ready to make this year the year where you stop googling how to and finally making the lasting sustainable change that your heart's desired?

[00:00:40] Apply now to join me and a cohort of women as we journey through three months together, unraveling that one thing that is holding us back, but more importantly, creating lasting and sustainable change, so you no longer have to ask Google how to.

Holiday Season and Family Time

[00:01:18] Welcome back to The Habit Within, I'm Camille Kinzler, your host and guide for turning habits into happiness and helping you find peace in the chaos of life. Oh, it's so good to be here today. It is entering holiday season. My youngest, my nine year old, is actually with his Nana, who is 80 years old, in New York City for a Nana grandson trip.

[00:01:44] My mom takes each of her grandchildren, when they turned 10, on a trip somewhere in the United States. And my oldest chose Philadelphia, one of their cousins chose Washington, D. C., and Sydney chose Japan. And then my mom was like, uh, guess again. And so he chose New York City as his place to go. And we felt, even though it's a little early, that going during Christmas time would just be so precious and beautiful for the two of them.

[00:02:16] So they are there right now, and my mother has sent me texts, many, many pictures, but she sent me a text and said that he wants to live in New York City someday because it has his energy. I believe that. So, anyway, they are traveling around there, seeing the Empire State Building today, along with Rockefeller Center, and ice skating, and all of the beauty that is there.

[00:02:39] What is so beautiful about this is I get the opportunity to spend a few days with my oldest son, and this past year, he finished reading the trilogy of Lord of the Rings. He didn't want to watch the movies until he finished reading the trilogy, so that is what we're doing, since his brother is too young to watch the trilogy.

[00:02:57] We are spending our evenings watching hours and hours and hours of Tolkien, and it is amazing. We are having so much fun doing it. I encourage any of you out there who have more than one children to spend a little bit of one on one time. It doesn't have to be in this massive way. It doesn't have to cost money going to New York City.

[00:03:15] It can just be going on a walk, going on a date night, driving around, going to the grocery store. But it's so precious just being able to spend this time with them in today's podcast. 

New Year's Resolutions and Intentions

[00:03:25] As we enter the holiday season, what comes after that the new year and what comes in the new year. So often we start thinking about what our new year's resolutions are going to be, what our intentions are.

[00:03:37] So the next several episodes are going to be about that. How can I help assist you and guide you to where you don't fall into these traps that you have year after year after year. And where you can finally accomplish the goals that you want in your life. 

The Tell Me What to Do Mindset

[00:03:53] So today we're going to talk about the number one mindset trap that I see women so often fall into.

[00:03:59] And it's this. They say, tell me what to do. Tell me exactly what to do. So we're going to explore why this approach only lasts for a month or two. And what it actually takes to make lasting, sustainable change in your life. Grab your favorite bevy and let's jump right in. So let's unpack a little bit about this mindset trap of tell me what to do.

[00:04:23] Just tell me what to do and I'll do it. Give me the blueprint and let me follow it. And then I will finally make changes in my life that I so desperately want to. How many times have you asked that question? How many times have you asked a coach or a mentor or Googled just tell me what to do? How do I lose weight?

[00:04:43] How do I quit drinking? How do I exercise more? How do I sleep better? How do I meditate? How do I blah blah blah? We're googling and searching this answer of please just tell me what to do and it feels really empowering in the moment, doesn't it? Because then something pops up and you're like, oh here is the answer to my question You I'm just going to go ahead and do these things.

[00:05:05] Well, how does that work? How is that working out for you? Because even though it might, for the instant, remove that burden of decision making, here is the biggest problem with this. Is the strategies rarely stick beyond one to two months. Think about it. Just take a second. If you started a meditation practice or a breath work practice or eating a different kind of food or exercising, anything, it could be absolutely anything.

[00:05:32] Most of the time, it doesn't stick for over a month or two. And there is always Data out there that shows that New Year's resolutions, the majority of people can't even make it the month. And I don't want that to be you. I want for you to have that lasting, sustainable change that you so desperately know in your soul, in your heart of hearts that you are able to obtain.

[00:05:54] So why doesn't this approach work? Why doesn't receiving the how to work? For a couple of reasons. One, is it bypasses that internal process of truly changing those habits of your mind. Truly changing the way you perceive the world and yourself. So that's number one. And number two is that it bypasses that internal process of really feeling what it feels to achieve the goals that you're wanting to achieve.

[00:06:23] You're borrowing somebody else's solution without aligning it to your own identities and your own values. This is not a one size fits all approach. When the novelty wears off, the old habits creep back in and you're left feeling stuck all over again. It's You're left in 1 2 months googling the same question, how do I fill in the blank?

The Power of Identity and Mindset

[00:06:46] I've talked a few times within different episodes, I know in episode 30 I talked about this, but about how our identity is so important, who we are, who we want to be, in order to truly change, Any aspect of our lives, any of our habits of the mind, the habits of our behavior and the habits of our emotion came across this fascinating article in the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation that reminds us about the importance of identity and who we believe we are.

[00:07:14] Our mindset about who we believe we are, that has on our lives, but not only our lives, our biology, y'all. So this fascinating study was on multiple personality disorder, now called dissociative identity disorder. Researchers found that depending on which personality was active, it was possible to Physiological markers like blood glucose levels, allergies could change.

[00:07:39] In this study, it demonstrated that individuals with dissociative identity disorder exhibited measurable physiological changes between their alternate identities, such as differences in vision, handedness, and even allergic responses. Think about that for a second. The body responds differently to the mind's identity so strongly that it can manifest physical changes.

[00:08:02] This is the power of mindset and identity. Without shifting who you believe you are at your core, no external strategy will create this lasting transformation. I mean, it's just wild. One personality might show signs of diabetes on blood work, and the other Their levels are completely normal. Isn't that just incredible?

[00:08:23] This shows just how powerful our habits of the mind are and our identity that's attached to it. Let's go ahead and tie this back into what I was saying earlier about the mindset trap of just tell me what to do. And the reason why the tell me what to do strategy is so attractive. Well, for one, it makes us think that we're doing something if we can Google and we can find a strategy and we can find this blueprint and write it down and then take the next steps.

[00:08:49] It makes us feel good. It empowers us. The other thing it does is actually gives us a little bit of a dopamine hit. We start getting excited about this fresh new thing. But what happens after this fresh new thing wears off? Well, we become our old and tired self. I'm just kidding, I'm sure you're not old and tired.

[00:09:08] I know that I am old and tired sometimes, but anyway. What happens is that we fall back into these old patterns because again, we haven't really established that identity and mindset change when we move forward. 

The Four Phases of Mindset Change

[00:09:20] To explain this a little bit further, I'll tell you the four different phases of mindset change so you can see where you are in this learning and transformation phase.

[00:09:28] So the unconscious, incompetent person, in this phase, you don't really know what you don't know. So you might not even realize there's a better way to approach life or solve a problem. For example, a woman in this situation might not recognize how unmanaged stress is affecting her sleep and overall health.

[00:09:47] Just don't know what you don't know. You might not even realize there's a better way to approach life or solve a problem. As a side note, my husband and I were on date night the other night. And he was talking to me about this idea of mindset and he's reading a book and where we have a coach around significantly changing our diet and exercise and he focuses a lot on it all begins with your mindset.

[00:10:10] So, you know, it's all my jam, totally get it. But my husband, who I've been talking with about this for years, for almost eight years. And he was like, oh, yeah, I mean, I heard what you were saying, but I never knew what you were talking about when you would talk about limiting beliefs, and you would talk about this idea of you just have to change your mindset, he said, it's like, I thought that wasn't a real thing.

[00:10:35] He thought that as a man in his forties, that this is just who he was, that this is how he was raised and this is how he will always be. He said, I couldn't even imagine the idea of becoming this huge, successful person because that's just not who I am. That's what other people do. I just have moderate success, you know, I'm going to live a comfortable life, but nothing to excess.

[00:10:59] Or, I could never be somebody who's super fit because I've always been overweight. Ever since I was a little kid, there's no way that I could ever lose weight. By the way, he, of course, lost 20 pounds within like 6 weeks of us doing this program together. Meanwhile, it's a different story for me and women in perimenopause and menopause, but he thought he would never be able to get to this weight.

[00:11:22] Because he hadn't been at this weight for over 30 years. And when he was at this weight 30 years ago, it was only for a blip in time. So at that point, he was unconsciously incompetent. He didn't know what he didn't know. Then the second phase is what's called conscious incompetence. So this is where you have that light bulb moment.

[00:11:43] It goes off and you realize, oh, there's something that I am missing, that I'm not quite good at yet. It can feel uncomfortable, but also really exciting in this phase, because you're starting to see possibility. So a woman who falls under this category might recognize that she has reliance on late night snacking to deal with stress, or drinking a glass or two of wine at night to deal with stress, but really unsure about how to stop this pattern.

[00:12:10] This is where you might start Googling how to cope with stress without overeating. How to cope with stress without over drinking. It's kind of uncomfortable in this phase, but yet super exciting because you're starting to see that there is possibility to change. Then we have the third, which is conscious competence.

[00:12:28] Here, you're putting in the effort. So, you're Googling, how do I do X, Y, and Z? You're paying for the program, you're getting the coach, you're reading the book. You start practicing these new habits and ways of thinking, but it takes a lot of attention and focus. And a woman who is consciously competent might actively be practicing mindfulness or drinking less or trying to stick to consistent workouts, even though it feels like effort and it's not automatic.

[00:12:56] So this is where I work with a lot of women who are at this consciously competent stage. But this is the thing, where I want to get you is from consciously competent to this next level, which is unconsciously competent. So in the consciously competent stage. You know, you're doing the thing, you're implementing the strategies that will be helpful and work for you, but I wanna get you to where you don't think about it anymore, to where you become unconsciously competent here.

[00:13:27] The new habit or mindset becomes your second nature. You've rewired your brain so effectively that you don't have to think about it anymore. So a woman in this area might automatically reach for water instead of soda without even thinking about it because it's deeply ingrained as a new habit. And finally, this right here, where you are unconsciously competent, this is where lasting transformation happens.

[00:13:52] But so often I see women going from the consciously competent slipping back into consciously incompetent back to consciously competent And they stay in that cycle never actually pushing through until they're on the other side of the unconscious competent woman and again, that is where I work with people.

[00:14:12] That's where I want you to get this is how I manage to do everything in my life. I don't even reach for mocktails or kombucha or even really sparkly flavored water anymore. That's just not ingrained in my nature anymore. I reach for water, but it wasn't always that way. I had to go through these phases of not drinking a cocktail at night, to drinking a mocktail, to drinking kombucha, to drinking flavored sparkling water.

[00:14:37] Now I just drink water, because it tastes the best out of everything that's there. I And this is also how I went through breaking my habit of over drinking habitually. Five years of not drinking and then the past several years being able to drink again without it being an issue because that's not second nature to me anymore.

[00:14:57] That's not the thing that I go to when I'm feeling stressed or overwhelmed or tired or just want to have fun. And now in full transparency, this is what I'm working for when it comes to food choices. Really looking at I'm the person who gets the lean protein and the vegetable instead of the hamburger and french fries.

[00:15:15] And I know I can get there because I was able to get there and other aspects of my life. And this is the time for me to take my health as top priority. And so in order to really work through this, I'm using what I teach in my programs in order to get myself from consciously competent to this unconscious competent stage.

[00:15:35] Before I forget, if this is something that you're interested in, where you want to get from consciously competent to unconsciously competent, I am going to open the doors in January for a small cohort of women to walk through this system with me. It will start somewhere in January and will last for three months.

[00:15:53] We'll have weekly group visits. You'll have daily check ins with me. We'll come up with a master plan. You will receive the blueprint, but you'll also receive, which is the basis and the foundation of the program. It's how do you implement this, implement these strategies to where you can become unconsciously competent in your life.

[00:16:15] So if you're interested in that, reach out to me in the show notes, there's a link for you to contact me. So reach out to me and I can give you more information about that. Okay. 

Practical Application and Bliss Break Moments

[00:16:24] So here's the part of the podcast where I give you practical application. If you are on my email list, then you'll receive this email in the podcast weekly email.

[00:16:33] Okay. That will have our bliss break moments. And this is the bliss break moment, the practical application, if you will. The first one is get clear on what's missing. Identify the gap between where you are right now and where you want to be. If you feel like that's a blind spot, this is something that you and I can work through.

[00:16:49] Journalists out, work with a coach, ask your bestie, ChatGPT, because you need to bring this unconscious incompetence to light. Two, embrace the discomfort because it will happen. You will be uncomfortable when you make change. Growth happens in conscious incompetence. It's okay to feel like you're fumbling.

[00:17:08] The key is to keep showing up. The third is celebrate the small wins because conscious competence, every bit of progress counts. Reflect on how far you've come. Even if you're not where you want to be yet. And this is where it's so wonderful to work in a small group and with a coach because we celebrate wins, we celebrate wins every single day.

[00:17:28] So that can really help establish that habit of gratitude, of celebration of wins, even when my feels like it might be falling apart. 

Conclusion and Next Steps

[00:17:39] So if you're ready to break free from the, tell me what to do mindset and step into lasting change. I've got you. I am your resource for that. And send me an email if you're interested in learning more about the cohort that will start in January, where we identify that one boulder, that thing that needs to be moved in your life in order for a ripple effect to have.

[00:18:01] And again, it's not about just starting and stopping a couple of months later. It's about how do you establish it for lasting change. So you're not repeating the same New Year's resolution year after year after year. As always, I'd love to hear your thoughts on today's episode. What phase of mindset do you think that you are in?

[00:18:21] Shoot me a message on Instagram. And please share this episode with anyone who might pop in your mind right now. And if you haven't, leave me a 5 star review on Apple or anywhere you listen to podcasts. This helps the algorithm and for me to get in front of more people. And thanks for tuning in to The Habit Within.

[00:18:38] Remember, transformation is a process. Not a quick fix. So until next time, keep building the habits that lead to your happiest, most peaceful life. See you then.