Dr. Laurie Santos

One thing we know, though, is that sometimes it takes less than you really expect. Take something like gratitude. There's evidence that just scribbling down three things that you're grateful for every day, that can be enough to significantly boost your well-being in as little as two weeks. Like, it doesn't take that much time.

There's evidence, for example, from Hedy Kober's lab at Yale that even as little as 10 minutes of meditation a day can really start to improve your well-being and some mental health symptoms, right?

There's evidence, for example, from Hedy Kober's lab at Yale that even as little as 10 minutes of meditation a day can really start to improve your well-being and some mental health symptoms, right?

There's evidence, for example, from Hedy Kober's lab at Yale that even as little as 10 minutes of meditation a day can really start to improve your well-being and some mental health symptoms, right?

And so it doesn't take long. What it takes is some consistency. And so my instinct is like because sometimes we hear these tips like, all right, I'm going to drop everything and do, you know, like 70 hours of meditation. It's like, no, no, no. Just start really small. Allow yourself to do these baby steps and test it out. How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?

And so it doesn't take long. What it takes is some consistency. And so my instinct is like because sometimes we hear these tips like, all right, I'm going to drop everything and do, you know, like 70 hours of meditation. It's like, no, no, no. Just start really small. Allow yourself to do these baby steps and test it out. How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?

And so it doesn't take long. What it takes is some consistency. And so my instinct is like because sometimes we hear these tips like, all right, I'm going to drop everything and do, you know, like 70 hours of meditation. It's like, no, no, no. Just start really small. Allow yourself to do these baby steps and test it out. How are you feeling? Are you feeling better?

Is it making is it making things better? Is it making things worse? And so allowing ourself the self-compassion to engage in these baby steps, I think, is really important.

Is it making is it making things better? Is it making things worse? And so allowing ourself the self-compassion to engage in these baby steps, I think, is really important.

Is it making is it making things better? Is it making things worse? And so allowing ourself the self-compassion to engage in these baby steps, I think, is really important.

Yeah. And I think, you know, we're not good at understanding the amount of self-compassion we need to motivate ourselves. I think, again, this is a spot where I think our minds get it wrong.

Yeah. And I think, you know, we're not good at understanding the amount of self-compassion we need to motivate ourselves. I think, again, this is a spot where I think our minds get it wrong.

Yeah. And I think, you know, we're not good at understanding the amount of self-compassion we need to motivate ourselves. I think, again, this is a spot where I think our minds get it wrong.

We think the right way to motivate ourselves is to become these horrid drill instructors and like yell at ourselves in our head in a way that we'd never speak to a friend or a child or someone we cared about, hopefully. Right. But that's And it just doesn't work. That convinces us that it's not good to try. We end up setting our standards lower. We end up procrastinating more.

We think the right way to motivate ourselves is to become these horrid drill instructors and like yell at ourselves in our head in a way that we'd never speak to a friend or a child or someone we cared about, hopefully. Right. But that's And it just doesn't work. That convinces us that it's not good to try. We end up setting our standards lower. We end up procrastinating more.

We think the right way to motivate ourselves is to become these horrid drill instructors and like yell at ourselves in our head in a way that we'd never speak to a friend or a child or someone we cared about, hopefully. Right. But that's And it just doesn't work. That convinces us that it's not good to try. We end up setting our standards lower. We end up procrastinating more.

Self-compassion, it turns out, can actually allow you to engage in new habits better and more effectively and with less procrastination. That's not our theory. We go for the drill sergeant approach. But we'd be better off kind of mindfully paying attention to what's going on and recognizing that we're just human and giving ourselves a little bit more of a benefit of a doubt.

Self-compassion, it turns out, can actually allow you to engage in new habits better and more effectively and with less procrastination. That's not our theory. We go for the drill sergeant approach. But we'd be better off kind of mindfully paying attention to what's going on and recognizing that we're just human and giving ourselves a little bit more of a benefit of a doubt.

Self-compassion, it turns out, can actually allow you to engage in new habits better and more effectively and with less procrastination. That's not our theory. We go for the drill sergeant approach. But we'd be better off kind of mindfully paying attention to what's going on and recognizing that we're just human and giving ourselves a little bit more of a benefit of a doubt.

And we're like, you know, the dickiest of dicks is often the person in our head. Right. You know, it's like, wait, I would never say, you know, that that thing I just said to myself in my head, I would never say that to another human. Why am I talking to myself that way?