Have you ever wanted to break a habit that is holding you back? It might be snacking at night, being the one to always arrive last to meetings, maybe it’s speaking over people. It could even be the habit of arriving home and still being in your head from the day. We all have habits – everything from the way we clean the kitchen, to the way we take notes in a meeting, or even clean our teeth. But not all habits support our success – which is why this is an episode you are not going to want to miss.
Have you ever wanted to break a habit that is holding you back? It might be snacking at night, being the one to always arrive last to meetings, maybe it’s speaking over people. It could even be the habit of arriving home and still being in your head from the day.
We all have habits – everything from the way we clean the kitchen, to the way we take notes in a meeting, or even clean our teeth.
But not all habits support our success – which is why this is an episode you are not going to want to miss.
Presenter: Gillian Fox
Guest: Dr Gina Cleo
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https://www.yourbrilliantcareer.com.au/free-guide/
Have you ever wanted to break a habit that is holding you back? It might be snacking at night, being the one to always arrive last to meetings, maybe it’s speaking over people. It could even be the habit of arriving home and still being in your head from the day.
We all have habits – everything from the way we clean the kitchen, to the way we take notes in a meeting, or even clean our teeth.
But not all habits support our success – which is why this is an episode you are not going to want to miss.
You are listening to Your Brilliant Career. I'm your host, Gillian Fox, executive coach, women's career expert, and entrepreneur. The podcast that teaches you how to get the most out of your career.
We talk tactics, tools, and stories that all help incredible women like you achieve the success you deserve.
If you want to learn more about how to create the brilliant career you've always wanted, I encourage you to check out the RISE Program. It's my four-month career development program. Through a combination of individual executive coaching sessions and group workshops, you'll discover how to overcome obstacles, create opportunities and reach new heights in your career.
Hi everyone. Welcome to the Your Brilliant Career podcast
As always, thank you for being here.
This is Episode 17 – and the beginning of Season 2. So we had a short break but we’re back and we’re talking about habits.
How you create healthy habits for career and life and how you break the bad habits – the habits that hinder your success at work or in life.
There is a very good reason why we all have habits. You see, we need them - they literally help us to preserve energy. As humans we make over 35,000 decisions every single day. Now consider if we had to evaluate and consciously think about each and every one of those decisions – all 35,000 of them – we would be exhausted, right. It simply wouldn’t be possible.
Habits are like little mental short cuts that help us make decisions and move through life. It is a natural process for all of us. In this way, habits are great and we need them.
Of course, the challenging part is some habits don’t support us. Most of us have some bad habits.
One of mine right now is scrolling through good old Instagram at night – not long before I go to bed – probably the worst time to do this.
And yes, I know it’s bad for me… yet I still do it.
Our habits are interesting, and frustrating. Today we want to understand habits so they don’t sabotage our success.
This is why I’m delighted to introduce you to Dr Gina Cleo today. She is one of Australia’s leading experts when it comes to habit change.
Her research has been published in medical journals globally and she frequently appears in the media, so you may have come across Gina already.
She is such an engaging and positive person, and if you haven’t seen her on TV or anywhere, I have to tell she is absolutely gorgeous.
And even better, she is passionate about helping all of us understand how to build good habits and break the ones bad ones. Invaluable!
So let’s dive in.
Gillian Fox: Gina, welcome to the episode. It's so good to have you on the podcast.
Dr Gina Cleo: Thanks so much, Gillian. I've been so excited to speak with you today.
Gillian Fox: Well, there's no one better to speak about this subject than you, Gina. I think it's one of those things that has a lot of what's in it for me for everyone, because we all have habits. Some of them support us and some of them don't. Maybe as a bit of a background piece for everyone, tell us a little bit about your career journey and what attracted you to this idea of habits. Because we're all a bit curious about it, but you seem to take it an extra step.
Dr Gina Cleo: Oh, yeah. I don't like to do things in half measures, that's for sure. I actually trained as a dietician and I was a dietician for about seven years. I absolutely loved what I did. I loved being able to help people achieve their goals. I loved being able to help people with their health, freedom, and wellness. But what I was finding is I was only really getting short term results with my clients and that frustrated me and it frustrated them, and so I became really fascinated with the idea of sustainable change and sustainable outcomes. I started doing some research and I realized it wasn't just me being a terrible dietician. It was actually the 95% of people, for example, who go and try to lose weight will put that weight back on, or most New Year's resolutions are forgotten by the time it's February.
So I started to see a real pattern in research that this idea of sustainable outcomes was actually really difficult to achieve. So I decided to put a very successful private practice on hold and go back to university and do my PhD in sustainable outcomes. I did not know what I was looking for, but I found this fascinating case in habits. So I started to do more research in neuroscience and psychology and understanding what motivates our behaviour. I published a couple of studies that went completely viral. And from there, I've just been getting these incredible opportunities to write programs for organizations, to write programs for people to help people change their habits, and now I run the Habit Change Institute where I get to teach people all about habit change.
Gillian Fox: So Gina, when it comes to careers, what do you think hinders women around habits and their careers?
Dr Gina Cleo: I think women juggle so many jobs. I'm speaking as a general sense because men do the same, but generally, women carry a lot more of the mental load and the emotional load in the household. That means that they have less capacity to really put everything they've got into their jobs and their careers. Some of them are unavoidable. We will always prioritise our families before our careers or our children before our jobs. We have to do that. But because we do that, that does become a little bit of a barrier at times, of course, depending on all sorts of different things for really being able to propel and put everything into our jobs. That's one thing. I think the other thing is having habits that aren't necessarily helping you to be the most productive, most efficient, most focused person in your role. That's probably for men and women, but I think women are more swayed by emotions, by all sorts of environmental things, whereas men can tend to be a lot more habitual and structured in their day.
Gillian Fox: Does that mean they're easier to apply habit change because of those qualities that you're seeing in the male gender?
Dr Gina Cleo: Absolutely. Actually, females tend to be more malleable with their habits, so they can change their habits generally easier than men who like routine, like structure, and feel super comfortable in that space.
Gillian Fox: How fascinating is that? I think we should feel a little ripped off based on that.
Dr Gina Cleo: Yes and no. Yes and no, because there's advantages and disadvantages to both. Let's take someone who's very habitual. They will be very good at structure and routine. They'll be very reliable, but at the same time, they can also be at risk of tunnel vision and being resistant to change. Life's always changing. Our environment [inaudible]. Even a new software at work might wig out a male and the females will be like, "Yeah, no worries. I can get on board with something new." So there's definitely pros and cons to each of those.
Gillian Fox: Absolutely. Absolutely. How do you identify a bad habit? Some of them are very obvious. You want to lose weight, stop having a glass of wine at night. Get up in the morning and go to the gym. Some are very obvious, but not all bad habits are obvious. Is there a way that we can identify where we should be putting our focus to support ourselves?
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah. Essentially, habits are actually neutral. When we talk about habits, it's basically a habit is something that you do subconsciously, that you do repeatedly when you are faced with the trigger that cues or triggers that particular habit, but good habits, if we can call it that, move you towards your goals and bad or unwanted habits are moving you away from your goals. So one of the ways to diagnose those is to think to yourself, if I was to do this particular thing every day for the next five years, where is that going to lead me? Where am I going to end up? If I do it for one year or 10 years, what's going to be the outcome? Then we measure that with what we want for our lives and what we want our future realities to look like, and that's how we can determine if this is something we should continue or something that's not serving us.
Gillian Fox: Yeah. I love that. I have to say it's been something that I've been thinking about more lately. I think it's about getting older to be quite honest with you, but one of the things that we have started as a couple is going to yoga. I love yoga and I've done it for a number of years, but dragging my husband in this has been a whole new episode. Can I tell you? He's really stiff, but the whole thing is, what if he doesn't do it? How much more inflexible is he going to be in 10 and 20 years versus creating that habit now? It's really interesting thinking about what else do you need to do to set yourself up for long-term success?
Dr Gina Cleo: And he could ask, if I was to continue doing yoga for the next five years, what's the outcome going to be? It's more mobility, more flexibility, less chance of falls, all sorts of really wonderful things, and that's how we gain motivation to do the things we might not necessarily want to do in the current moment.
Gillian Fox: Yeah. I think he's still got a lot of pain associated with it versus pleasure, but I'm hoping it's going to kick in at some stage.
What are some of the habits that you've intentionally worked on, Gina? Because I imagine when you put the spotlight on all this work, this incredible work that you've been doing, you'd have to play with it yourself.
Dr Gina Cleo: It's funny you ask that because I always describe myself as my biggest lab rat because I'm constantly trying out new things. I probably-
Gillian Fox: I love that. I love that.
Dr Gina Cleo: I probably describe myself as a bit of a high achiever sometimes. I was reading in the neuroscience research once that said that we can only really change up to three things at once. Our brain's only capable of three things and I was thinking, "No, I think I can do five. I'm going to try five." And I try these five pretty simple habits to start. It was just really simple things like meditating more, gratitude journal, making sure to stretch for five, 10 minutes a day, really easy things, and I tell you, Gillian, I couldn't do the five. I was like, "Okay, I'll cut it down to four." Still couldn't do that. And when I cut it down to three after much resistance, I was finally able to stick with those habits.
Gillian Fox: How interesting.
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah. It blew my mind because even me, I was really trying to very intentionally do this and prove the science wrong, I couldn't do it. But some of the habits that I've intentionally implemented for my career, there's a couple of things. Firstly, this may sound a little bit off field, but exercising most days of the week helps me in my productivity, in my concentration, my focus. I sleep better and I feel better. When I feel better, I'm going to do better work. So exercise is probably my biggest career tip. My other one is I treat my work time as my work time. Whether I'm working from home or the office, if I've dedicated say, 9:00 to 5:00 for that day, I don't take personal calls unless I'm on a break. I don't have these long chats with people that aren't work-related because I'm not going to get back into focus like I need to if I do that. I've just derailed my concentration a bit.
I know that sounds really rigid and stiff, but I know myself. If mom calls and we're having a long chat about all sorts of things, it's harder for me to get back into that high-level focus that I need. The other thing that I do is I have a dedicated workspace. So I'm all for having environmental triggers. If I'm working from home, that's not on the dining table or on the couch, that's in my dedicated workspace. So those are the habits that I've very intentionally adopted.
Dr Gina Cleo: Those habits work for me, but they might not be what somebody else needs. Somebody else might do better in working in different working environments or they do better when they have longer periods of breaks throughout their day. I think the best thing that we need to do is what works for you and what do you find achievable and sustainable and you do that. Don't worry about what everyone else is doing. I'll share a story with you. When we were in lockdown, I was working from home and I remember trying to adopt a routine where I was doing a little bit of meditation during the day and I was doing it to just try to stress less. Because I was finding working from home, I was actually working longer hours and it didn't have as much barrier, I guess, between work and life. It sort of merging a little bit. So I was like, "Okay, I'm going to download some meditation app and I'm just going to do five minutes."
For some reason, I was actually more stressed trying to do it because my focus was all over the place and I wasn't very good at doing this particular app and it really wasn't creating the outcome that I was looking for. I decided to just walk outside and I played with my puppy in the backyard for five minutes. I live on acreage, so I was in nature. I was with the birds and the sunshine, and that created the outcome that I was looking for, which was to de-stress. I remember thinking in that moment it was such a great teachable moment. The outcome is what you are looking for. The journey to get there can look different for every single person.
Gillian Fox: Yes.
Dr Gina Cleo: I'm not going to look at the person next to me who's killing this meditation app for a whole hour and feel envy because at the end of the day, I've got the same outcome doing my own thing.
Gillian Fox: Wonderful. I feel like this is the question that everyone wants to know, Gina, and that is, how do you change a bad habit? A bad habit might be something that you have repeated for more than a decade. Alcohol is a great one because it can be quite addictive and people get into routines and there's been so much research during the pandemic that everyone's drinking a lot more, or it could be, if I think of a work-related example, turning up a few minutes late to a meeting. For the last five years, it hasn't mattered because you've had a culture and a boss that's been okay with that, but now things have changed and you've got a boss that's intolerant of that. You know you need to get there earlier, but this habit that you've just entrenched makes it very hard for you to do it.
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah, great question. To break down the anatomy of a habit, so we first have to understand habits to know how to break them. A habit has three key ingredients, and they are a trigger, then the habit itself, and then some sort of reward. As an example, if I get home in the evening and every time I get home, I eat a cookie on arrival of getting home, a mental link becomes associated between getting home and eating a cookie. So just the anticipation eventually of getting home is going to prompt me to want to eat a cookie and that's how we form habits. They're always triggered by something. It's like sitting in the car prompts you to put on your seatbelt. You don't have an urge to put on your seatbelt any other time other than when you're sitting in the car. So habits are always triggered.
The first step is awareness, because every habit that you have, whether you feel it's helpful or unhelpful is actually still giving you some kind of reward. Although I may not want to eat the cookie every day, I'm satisfying my sweet tooth. I'm loving the taste of it and the texture. So there's some sort of reward associated with it. Binge watching your favourite shows might not be great for your sleep, but it does mean that you get to be entertained at night, or sleeping in too long may not be great for your productivity, but it does give you extra rest. Running late to meetings, although it's dishonouring people's time and your boss is getting upset about it, but it's giving you some kind of reward. So it's really about checking in with yourself and being mindful of your actions and your thoughts and being curious about why you are doing the things you are doing. So just before the meeting, check in to, where are my thoughts at? How are my feelings? Where am I? Who am I around? What are the triggers basically that are creating this habit of being late?
Gillian Fox: Because we are on autopilot, aren't we? You could have the glass of wine poured without even being aware of it in some circumstances. It's the same with turning up late. So you need to bring a lot of awareness and just pause.
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah. Exactly right. A habit diary is really awesome for something like that. A habit diary is really just listing out the things that you are noticing you're doing every day. The great thing about doing something like that is you can start to identify your triggers. Your triggers will either be the time of day, the place that you're in, the people that you're around or your social situation, your emotional situation, or lastly, your preceding action. So what did you just do before? All our habits are triggered by one of those five triggers. If we can identify the trigger and we eliminate that trigger or we change that trigger, that habit will automatically go. I cannot go home to avoid my cookie-eating habit because home is home, but what I can do is instead of walking through the house and going straight to the kitchen, I can make a plan to walk into my bedroom first or to go have a shower or something else, and that just changes the neural pathway that's making me go towards the kitchen straight away. It's being very intentional to do something else.
Gillian Fox: How long does it take to change a habit? I don't know if there's a line in the sand with this response.
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah. I wish there was. I hate the response, it depends, but it does depend in this case. One of the biggest myths that I really love to bust is that it takes 21 or 28 days to change a habit. That's absolutely not true. That is not an evidence-based theory at all. The research shows that it takes on average anywhere between 18 days to 254 days to change a habit.
Gillian Fox: Okay.
Dr Gina Cleo: There is an average and the average is about 66 days, so we can say about 12 weeks to change a habit. The reason I say it depends though is the easier the habit is that you're trying to change, the quicker you will be able to change it. Also, the more habitual you are as a person, that's going to make an impact as to how quickly you can change a habit. If you're trying to break a habit, it's going to take you longer. If you're trying to form a habit, you'll probably do that quicker than someone who's less habitual by nature.
Gillian Fox: Yeah. So how do you stay motivated then? Because that is commitment. That requires commitment. One of the things that came through in your earlier comment was be really clear on your why.
Dr Gina Cleo: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Gillian Fox: Is that part of it?
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah, absolutely, and that is probably one of the biggest things. Keep that big goal in mind. Why are you doing the things that you're doing? And again, visualizing what will happen if you keep doing it and really feeling it. It's one thing to have the cognitive understanding of why we're doing the things we're doing, but when we actually attach an emotion to it and that emotion's positive emotion, that's when we can really hit the height of motivation, because that's what gives us those happy feelings and they actually change our brain chemistry to move us towards doing those things more because we want to feel good and we want to feel happy. So the brain goes, "Oh, that felt really good. We should probably do that more."
Gillian Fox: Yeah. That's so interesting. I'm just reflecting on something. It's quite a personal example actually. I think a lot of women will relate to this. For many years, I was very hard on myself about my body and always needing to lose weight. The internal chatter was quite intense, quite mean, never satisfied, never good enough. I've never been grossly overweight my whole life. But anyway, one day, I don't know what precipitated it, I made this executive decision that enough was enough and I was going to stop any negative talk at all and I was going to be grateful for my body. I really put a line in the sand and I would have to say, because I was so clear and I had such pain associated with what I had done and such pleasure with this idea of, "Wow, maybe I could be really kind to myself and actually really like my body," and you know what, Gina? That's exactly how I feel about it now. It was such a phenomenal shift for me.
Dr Gina Cleo: Wow.
Gillian Fox: But it took years to actually arrive in that space, to go, "I'm done.
Dr Gina Cleo: Wow.
Gillian Fox: I'm done."
Dr Gina Cleo: [Inaudible] freedom, my friend. That's incredible. Well done, you.
Gillian Fox: Well, it feels a lot better. It just feels so much better because you're happier. You know what I mean?
Dr Gina Cleo: Of course. That's amazing. I think so many women will relate to that. I think that's phenomenal. Well done, you. I'm so happy for you. Do you remember going through the transition? Because you would've had moments, I'm assuming, where you still had those negative moments where you're having that negative self-talk. What would you do in those moments?
Gillian Fox: Yeah. I might look at myself in the mirror and your autopilot might go, "I really don't like your legs." You know what I mean? So you'd have this conversation. You go, "Really, I don't like [inaudible]." Then I would go, "But your arms are great."
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah. I love that so much. You made a really important point there actually, Gill, when you were talking about the consistency or that you persevered through that. When you think of our brain and the neuroscience, I think of the neural pathways in our brain, think of them like roads. You've got these tiny little back alleyways or the thoughts that we might just have now and then. Then we've got our consistent daily thoughts and we think of them like big highways or freeways. They're efficient. They're fast. They're automatic and they're really easy to access. The more we think something or the more we do something, those neural pathways get bigger and more efficient and easier to connect with.
The less we do something, again, the smaller those roads become and eventually they become back alleyways, and so the more you think a thought, the more you will do it and the more habitual it'll be, and to the point where you'll be completely subconscious about it. The less you do it, again, the less habitual it'll become and it won't be part of what you do on a daily basis or regularly anymore. You might even be thinking at one point, "I can't believe I ever did that. That was just not part of who I am at all."
Gillian Fox: Gina, any other final tips for our wonderful listeners? What would you say to them if you were to give them one tip around habit change? Because I'm sure they'll be intrigued.
Dr Gina Cleo: Yeah. My one tip is start small because consistency is key and small changes make big differences. Small changes are not only easier to start, but they're easier to sustain long term. But we often don't start things and we procrastinate over things because the tasks are just too big or they're too unenjoyable or they're just not achievable, but often, we want to overhaul our lives. We want to get better careers and earn more money and be better parents and do more yoga and meditate more and eat better and lose weight. We want all these things and we want them now. That mentality of go hard or go home doesn't work. It does not work long-term. Starting small and being consistent, that is the key. It is all about your direction, not your speed. Your direction will dictate your trajectory and your trajectory is what's going to get you to the outcome that you're looking for.
Gillian Fox: Yeah. I love that. If you think about accumulating two small habits every year over the next five years where you'll be versus where you won't be, if you do nothing in five years and 10 years.
Dr Gina Cleo: Exactly right. That's it. That's the key.
Gillian Fox: Yeah. Love it. Well, Gina, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your insights. I think you've inspired me to go away and think about now what habit skill, and I'm sure there's a long list, but start small. Don't go over three.
Dr Gina Cleo: Yes.
Gillian Fox: Be consistent. I've got it all to play with, but it's been an absolute pleasure, Gina. Thank you so much.
Dr Gina Cleo: Thanks, Gill. It's been so fun speaking with you.
Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I would love to give you something for FREE to help you with your career right now.
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