Why All-or-Nothing Thinking Keeps You From Exercising | Michelle Segar
episode
The One You Feed | Personal Growth, Emotional Resilience & Purpose
56 min
2 speakers
4 chapters
transcribed 2 months ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the main topic of all-or-nothing thinking in exercise?
I really think we're misguiding people when we ask them to form automatic habits. Instead, I think we should be teaching them on what you and I have been talking about this whole time. Because you know what this is? Another word for everything we've been talking about is resilience.
Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf.
Michelle Seeger just ran one of the first studies on all or nothing thinking and exercise, and the results surprised her. A lot of people, it turned out, didn't actually want to do the exercise they planned in the first place. So when life got in the way, choosing nothing wasn't a defeat. It was a quiet escape from something they dreaded. The fix isn't more willpower. It's to find movement that feels better to you and to follow a phrase I've used for years. A little bit of something is better than a lot of nothing. Michelle also wrote the joy choice about sustainable change. I'm Eric Zimmer, and this is the one you feed. Hi, Michelle. Welcome back.
Thanks for having me.
I believe this is time number three, if I am correct. And I've loved your research and your books over the years. I was saying to you before we started, you're actually in my book very directly. I quote you on something called the self-care hierarchy from a previous conversation. And your ideas are also sprinkled throughout. So I'm really excited to have this conversation with you. We'll get into all that in a moment, but before we do, we'll start like we always do, which is with the parable. And in the parable, there's a grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, In life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love.
And then there's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. They think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.
Oh, it's every time you ask me that question, I'm overwhelmed with feeling because it's so meaningful to me. It means that what we put our attention on, what we think about influences the parts of ourselves that we experience and manifest and the energy we put into the world.
Yeah, that's beautiful. I like that energy idea, the energy and where we focus. And a lot of your focus is, you can correct me if I say this wrong, but you are very focused. I would call you a behavior change researcher, but I would say that you're focused primarily on the behavior change of exercising.
So the only tweak I would make to that is really since the beginning of my career, instead of behavior change, I've been focusing on sustainable change. And I think you need different inputs to achieve the latter than you do the former. Because one is about forever and one is about change. And what we need to do at the beginning in many regards for many people, is going to be very different than what you need to sustain. And most of my work in both academic research and coaching has been focused on physical activity. More recently, I've started doing research into eating.
Yes, I think that's a good way to say it. You are focused on the sort of changes that you don't do for a season that you ideally do for a life, you know, lasting and sustainable change.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the main topic of all-or-nothing thinking in exercise?
0:00–5:28
2
How does all-or-nothing thinking affect motivation and exercise habits?
5:28–35:18
3
What are choice points and how do they influence exercise decisions?
35:18–53:06
4
What role do rigid standards play in exercise routines?
53:06–56:17
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The One You Feed | Personal Growth, Emotional Resilience & Purpose
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