The tug-of-war we keep losing to ourselves

^{Hi! Welcome. You being here means more than you know. Knowing it resonates with you keeps me going. I'm Lavena Xu-Johnson. I write about psychology for founders. Why? Because scaling a business means knowing ourselves first.}

Happy Wednesday, founders.

What's that one behavior you wish to change, only to watch yourself relapse into it within the same 24 hours you promised would be different?

Every day I am somehow committed to not giving myself ‘permission’ to rest and fall asleep until the clock hits exactly 00.00.

I'm torn between exhaustion and excitement, and if I'm not working on my laptop, my default neural network still has 100s of tabs open in my mind's back office.

I play tug-of-war with myself between resting early and staying up late, but I succeed in sleeping early about 1 day a week.

Until… on the last thread of hope, I decided to try a therapeutic technique that is apparently so effective that in a randomized trial, adding a single session before cognitive behavioral therapy began significantly improved people's outcomes, compared to CBT alone.

Which leads to today’s piece on what 40 years of research on behavioral change tells us about why we just cannot change and how to solve it.

PS. Thank you to the readers who wrote in last time about enjoying the last piece and for the advice to include more scenarios for better understanding. Your feedback is my fuel!

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Motivational interviewing believes that instead of instilling motivation for someone to commit to change, liberating pre-existing motivations for change within the person is key.

On a 1982 sabbatical in Norway, clinical psychologist Dr. William Miller was demonstrating counselling techniques with patients who suffer from addictions to alcohol and substance abuse in a role-play for a group of young psychologists.

The way he led the conversations was so intellectually intriguing to the young psychologists that they kept asking mid-session why he'd chosen a particular question and what the thought process behind it was.

Their questions inspired him to format them into decision rules which were later formalized into a book, Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People to Change Addictive Behaviour.

The motivational interviewing method is rooted deeply in the humanistic approach of therapy, emphasizing a collaborative, empathetic and interactive style. The goal is to empower a person to align more closely with their intentions and values, using open questions and reflective listening rather than correction. It is not the practitioner's responsibility to make the client change, but rather, in Dr William Miller’s words, ‘It’s a way of being with people to help people make changes.’

In a randomized trial with generalized anxiety disorder patients, adding a single MI session before starting cognitive behavioral therapy significantly reduced worry and improved how much of the assigned homework people actually completed, compared to starting CBT with no MI at all.

Over the last four decades, more than 2,000 studies have been published evaluating the use of motivational interviewing across a wide range of applications, and it is now widely used among clinicians, coaches, and managers.

The centre of any resistance to change is the ambivalence about change: that we are ultimately holding two contradictory beliefs at the same time.

In my case, to be ‘addicted’ to sleeping late, I am holding the contradictory beliefs that

This means in order to change, I must empower the ‘sleep early is productive’ narrative.

But how?

After analyzing hundreds of transcripts and recordings from therapy conversations, Miller and his collaborators broke down a person's own language about behavioral change into two categories: Change talk and sustain talk.

DARN language occurs when someone is considering a change:

CAT language mostly occurs when someone is close to change:

DARNAC language occurs when someone might want to sustain their current status quo, perhaps problematic behavior.

Underneath both categories of language sits the same starting condition: ambivalence, carrying two opposing beliefs about the same behavior at once. Change talk: "I know I should rest" and sustain talk "I can't afford to right now" coexist, which is what keeps a habit in place.

So, if the outcome of a change in behavior is tied to our narratives, can we act as our own therapist or counselor to evoke change?

Miller's 2014 review found that writing built to draw out our own change talk was linked to positive behavior change, without a therapist asking a single question.

Through the process of MI-based guided interactive journaling, we observe our own contradictory narratives, and by evoking ourselves with questions, we empower ourselves to weigh pros more than cons so that we mobilize our desire for change.

The most common narratives we give ourselves in workaholism are:

The contradicting beliefs are:

The contradicting beliefs are:

More often than not, we stay in habits that don’t add value to the business, and unless we take a deep dive into our minds through metacognition, we will be carried along by the inertia of old beliefs that may no longer serve us.

Let’s keep using the scenario where our inner tug-of-war is on rest vs work, here are some guided questions to answer:

A belief shift does not happen in one sitting but requires our active self-observation and patience over time.

Simple steps to put motivational interviewing into practice:

Instead of telling yourself "I'll rest more," walk yourself through your desire, ability, reasons, and need. Let the contradiction untangle itself.

Change your narrative from "I should probably" to "I will."

Miller's review found structured journaling produces the same effect as a therapy session with a counselor.

Try the same method in other areas of life you’d like to improve: it could be cutting back on sugar intake, going to the gym, or asking for help.

We've learned to interview candidates, investors, and customers with intention; but the most overdue interview might be the one we keep skipping with ourselves.

As always, hit reply if something in here hits home.

Lavena

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