Sheldon Mills: Welcome to have a Master's. I'm Sheldon. I'm Jeff. And we have a special guest, Dr. Natalie Lancer. Who's that? , glad you asked. She is an award-winning chartered psychologist.
She's British, they're gonna love her accent. She's the chair of the British Psychological Society, division of Coaching Psychology. She's their host for their podcast, the Coaching Psychology Podcast, Amazon author. , she's gonna talk about her program Guts and Goals. , it is gonna, Amazing. She's gonna go into what she calls the eight tensions framework, which I think will be mind blowing.
For some of us, it was for me at least, , we live in this, you know, continuum and she goes into a lot of 'em. Acoa, she goes into a lot, is this treading water versus pushing forward there's pluses and cons to both and it's just the hope message is you need to live deliberately. , you need to choose where you need to be.
If, if it's too much, you gotta learn to tread water a little more. If you're not pushing forward enough, you gotta go to that continuum a little more, which is kind of where me and Jeff lean, let's be honest. . But that can be stressful and maybe you need to take a step back. Right. So I won't go into it anymore.
She's gonna explain it better than I can. Dr. Natalie Lan.
Welcome Natalie to the show.
I should say Dr. Natalie Lancer. . Thank you. Let's jump right into it. Eight tensions, eight life tensions. Maybe you could just jump in and, explain what that is and guts and goals and we can kick it off that way.
Natalie Lancer: Sure. So I'm a coaching psychologist and so like, , any coach, I'm helping people go from good to great.
But the psychologist part of this is that everything I do is, is evidence-based. And when I did my own doctorate at the end of it, I derived something from lots of data I'd collected over seven years actually called the eight tensions framework, which are essentially Eight overarching challenges that all human beings face.
Now, obviously I wasn't doing a study on all human beings. I was doing a study on a very small group of undergraduates at a university in the uk, but actually it's very applicable to everybody. And that's because these are so it enormous that, , it just is applicable to everybody.
And then if you look into existential psychology, which is where all my work is rooted the philosophers who I was engaging with, say philosophers and psychologists also talk about these sort of tensions. I'm talking people like Irv y and Roo May and even Sar and Dewa and, and some modern day psychologists like Kirk Schneider for example as well.
So people are talking about these sorts of quandaries people face, but maybe not in a very sort of diagrammatic and like easy to use, you know, visual
Sheldon Mills: in
Jeff Corrigan: an existential way. Yeah. . Yeah. So let me, let me see. So basically the eight tensions are considered the things that are holding you back. Is that what I'm understanding?
Like the, these are things that are preventing you from reaching your
Natalie Lancer: goals. No, these , by.
not
Natalie Lancer: navigating these constructively. Mm-hmm. that prevents you from reaching your goals. So everybody is in these tensions all the time. Got it. That, that's got, it's just effect of life. So we're always, for example, either narrowing down or opening up.
So, you know, are, are you like being really focused on this thing that you're doing this week? Or are you sort of like doing a bit of browsing, browsing, listen, listening to this podcast. Are you, you know, going traveling? Are you reading a book? You know, all of these things may be sort of opening up.
Another tension might be day-to-day thinking forward. So this is, are you sort of very much in your day-to-day putting one foot in front of the other, you know, getting through the day whatever that means to you in your life, or are you thinking about the next five years, 10 years, like making some plans, you know?
Mm-hmm. and. The truth is, is that we're all doing all these things. It isn't like I'm a narrowing down type of person or I'm a thinking forward sort of person. We're all both, yeah. But speak of it as a continuum. Mm-hmm. at any one moment in time, you are on a specific place. So it might be that you are in a real day-to-day sort of like head down.
I'm just gonna like, bash out all these client meetings and , go to bed. And other days we might have a much more expansive view and think like, well, , should I go for this qualification that takes 10 years? Where do I wanna be in 10 years? And you're probably not gonna do that on the same day or at the same moment.
You know, you can't. , do all that sort of one meeting after another and think expansively. So at any moment in time we have a choice. Do I want to be on this side or on that side? Mm-hmm. . And normally we find ourselves on one side. So it isn't that we've made a choice, it's just that the day is the day I'm doing this.
But what I'm saying, and it is not really me, it's existential psychology is saying, is actually what we need to do is to live deliberately. So on these eight continuer, make a decision like, where are you now? Is it where you wanna be? If not move to the bit that you wanna be, maybe check in with yourself.
Once every three months or one, once a week or whatever works for you.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah. I love this concept, and I think it's something Sheldon and I have discussed frequently is this idea of living deliberately or living intentionally. Because I think a lot of times we do get caught in, in kind of the wheel of life and just going through the motions and like living somebody else's dream or whatever you wanna call it, where we're not necessarily making active decisions.
We're, like you said, existential, right? It's like we are, we're letting the world kind of de decide that for us. I love this. So w with eight, it's kind of hard to fit all those into a podcast, but I wanna know, so show us. I wanna know all eight, show it. I don't, I don't, I want it all eight, but show us the the graphic you showed us earlier, and then we can, decide on a few that you think would be the most vital to someone who's just getting introduced to this.
Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: I've published this, so one, one could go and look at my journal articles. Just, just
Jeff Corrigan: Google my name. Yeah. Where, where do you find that? Google your name.
Natalie Lancer: Google my name. Yeah. In fact, that's a good website. Name Google my name. Anyway and I think that I think actually rather than delve into any specific one, it's more important to think about how, how does engaging with tensions as a whole, right.
Help us move forward in our goals. I love that. And, and actually I'm just gonna contradict myself. Let's look at number two because this is the one I think that's, that's absolutely. Vital. So those listening, yeah. Do you wanna share? Yeah. Number two is, and, and I said number two, but actually, just to be clear, they're not in any specific order.
It's just the second one that's on the screen. But treading water, pushing forward, so there's this idea of, of striving for your goal. Mm-hmm. . And I think the bit that's missing is that you can't always drive for your goal. If you're constantly in strive mode, you will burn out. Yeah. And that is absolutely fine to tread water.
So you will go through periods of time in your goal and in your life where it's enough just to maintain the status quo, you know? Mm-hmm. , picking your kids up, doing their homework with them, having your client meetings and, having a doctor's appointments.
It's enough like we're, we're busy. That's just enough. And sometimes even that can feel too much. And I, how I think about resilience is a bit like if you've got some shields up and like everyone's sort of firing arrows at you and you are just, you are sort of just, just covering yourself, that's just maintaining the status quo.
The other way of the, as that whack-a-mole game, you know, as things come up you're just bashing 'em on the head. And I do feel like that a lot. And when you are in that position, there may well not be time or indeed energy to push forward on a goal to push forward on a goal. So I think that what we need to do, is to be realistic that
sometimes, we're in sort of full steam ahead mode mm-hmm. , and sometimes we're in this sort of more treading water mode. Now each of these positions has a positive and a negative. So the positions themselves are not positive or negative. Mm-hmm. , but each side has a positive and a negative.
So if we do too much treading water, the danger is, is you become stagnant. Mm-hmm. . So you never do anything. You never change it up. You just sort of get stuck in a rut and we've all been there and we know how that happens. Yeah. On the other hand, with the pushing forward, as I said, the sort of negative part of that , is burnout.
The positive side of that obviously is you know, you're bringing something new into the world. And, and it's very exciting and it takes a great deal of courage. So the difference between resilience and courage is like, rather than sort of just. Shielding yourself from these things phone at you that you are, you are putting your best foot forward and, and you are venturing forth, but there is a positive of treading water.
Mm-hmm. Which is something again, not spoken about very much, which is lateral growth. Yeah. Consolidation. Like knowing what, you know,
Jeff Corrigan: almost like resistance training if you were thinking of from like a physical fitness format, right? Like yes, you're not moving anywhere, but you are getting stronger or more knowledgeable in that area.
Is that what you're suggesting? Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: Cause like expertise is developed from doing the same thing over and over again. Mm-hmm. Or, or it feels like the same thing. I mean, it's slightly
Jeff Corrigan: different conversation nuance. Yeah.
Sheldon Mills: You, you, you're an expert because you, you understand
Jeff Corrigan: it so deeply. Right. The routine's the same, but that doesn't mean it's always the same.
Right. . Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: And, and the other thing about treading water is that often we need to do that in order to push forward. And a, apart from the relaxation piece, which which is well known you know, , you have to have rest. You have to like, like a field lies fallow every seven years or should do to put the nutrients back.
Obviously we all need rest and, and, and a break. And you know, something to think about is how often is that, you know, is that a two week a year holiday? Is that an afternoon a week? Is that four days off a month? You know, have to think about what that break looks like. But, but actually when we are doing something that is new and original we need time for our ideas to percolate and to, you know, All of those words, jest, date, or all of those sorts of things.
Yes. Right. And that doesn't happen sitting down at a computer that happens on walks, that happens in the shower, that happens when you are napping, you know? Yeah. And actually, by denying yourself that sort of free space to do that, you are actually denying yourself like moving forward in your, in your project with something, you know, really creative.
So I think that's important. And I have a special name for that. Which is proto creation. So proto creation meaning like prototype, like something's embryonic and forming. Mm-hmm. and creation. Which obviously sounds very similar to procrastination , and that's because I think people misconstrue procrastination.
So people are, you know, when people say they're procrastinating sometimes it's that the idea isn't fully formed enough yet to be executed. Like they're trying to like, get it out before it's ready to come out. And I think there are ways to move that along, like creative ways. Mm-hmm. involving colored pens and big bits of paper and stuff.
I also use like plaster scene even to like map out some of my ideas and there's all sorts of things I use. But to dwell in that proto creation stage actively, rather than berating ourselves for procrastination.
Jeff Corrigan: Okay. So all of this, so I'm just gonna bring my wife so you can tell her. Cuz I'm that creative type of person, right?
That's like, I got this idea and it's not fully formed, but I really, I I think it's going somewhere, right? And , and then I'll sit on it for weeks, months, maybe even years. Thinking pro and what did you call it, proto creating? Is that, is that Yeah, yeah,
Natalie Lancer: yeah, yeah.
Jeff Corrigan: Proto creating, proto creating this. And it's a process and it's something that Sheldon and I have realized as we've gone more and more into the book writing real realm and trying to get that into place where we feel like it can be really helpful to people.
And, and like you said, it takes time, right? It takes time , for these ideas to fully form and become, I would say, useful or . Sheldon, what's the example we use where. Went a new concept. Oh yeah. Right. Tell
Sheldon Mills: her, tell her the example we, we joke about this of, of, if you could, so you get this like glimpse of an idea, but it's almost like, it was behind your head before and then it's like very edge of your peripheral vision and you can only like glimpse it, but the more you kind of work at it, the more it comes around, you know, you get better view of it till finally you, you work with it long enough, but it's like right there in front of you and you can kind of move it around and see it from different angles and things like that.
Like, I, I feel like that happens with ideas.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: That'll happen with ideas and, and, and also, you know, that it doesn't mean that you are not working at it. So it, it may well be that you are still working at it, but you might be working at it in a way that isn't keyboard and computer. It might be you're telling someone else about it or mm-hmm.
you know, you are writing a pitch about it, which may well be very useful to help you get clarity on what it is, you know? Mm-hmm. So I think there's different techniques we can use. And that's basically what I teach. You know, what are these different ways of actualizing your goal through all these different techniques?
And actually, I don't know if you know the story of Thomas Edison of light bulb fame who he realized the power of naps. So I've, I've got some socks and my friend keeps buying me. There must be a place that must sell these all the time. , it says Nap queen. Nap queen. Cause I'm always having naps.
And because when you are tired , pushing yourself for another half an hour gives you half an hour of shoddy work, going to sleep for half an hour, waking up fresh, you probably have more energy in the output will be better. So it's a false economy to keep going. You know, I don't think.
To keep going. I think you should have a rest. And I think this is where people go wrong. So Thomas Edison realized the power of naps. And specifically that at the point of waking up is the, that special moment of sort of, are you awake, are you asleep? Is where you get your good ideas. That's, that's the point.
It's to do with being a flow state and, and all this sort of thing. And so what he would do is he would hold a ball bearing, which is something that I think everyone must have had in their pocket in that day.
Jeff Corrigan: just carrying around. Ball bearing suit. Yeah,
Natalie Lancer: ball bearing. And and I think he had like a symbol or something, like a, a metal plate.
And he would go to sleep like this and then when he was nodding off, he would obviously go limp. His, his hand would go limp and it would make a clattering sound and he'd wake up. But then that's when he'd have his good ideas and presumably one of them was tungsten.
Jeff Corrigan: Ah, so he'd, he's leveraging this bit of understanding to his advantage.
He's like unconscious working on things. Yeah, and I think that's one of the most powerful things I've learned over the years is how to start using those good ideas. Because like you said, I'm in the shower and I give my best speeches in the shower, right? and it's like, oh, if only I could like write this down right now.
But , it's starting to understand when those ideas come to you and, and how to leverage that. But yeah, what were you gonna say? Well,
Natalie Lancer: on, on that particular point, and this, this, this is of course, you know, where I coach people, but. First of all, there are waterproof note pad and, and pens. It's a sort of di so divers, it's actually called like a diver's note pad and pen because it's or pencil because they make notes underwater and you can have it clipped or you can have it suctioned onto your shower.
But, but the other thing of course is if you, do feel like you're saying things very well, is to record yourself. You know, literally put your phone on the recording part and just in case you know, you are gonna say something and that's very good. And then you can record yourself and of course, afterwards you know, type out what it is that you wanted to keep.
You know, the good old fashioned Dictaphone, which has basically been usurped by, the phone actually dictaphones are rather handy for that sort of thing. And to sort of, to keep it separate from the phone. Mm-hmm. partly cause you're not gonna get distracted from all the other things on the phone.
It's like, actually, although the phone's got all the things together, you know, having a separate alarm clock, having a separate Dictaphone mm-hmm. , et cetera, et cetera is useful so that you don't get distracted by, by all those things.
Jeff Corrigan: I love that we, we, I like so many different
Sheldon Mills: avenues to go here. I actually wanna come back to the tension real quick cuz I have a question about it.
Especially this one about pushing forward and treading water cuz how do I put this? I think more people, if you need to cut the general population more people need to think about pushing forward than just keep treading water. And that's kind of like what we push people toward. But I, I see this, this, this tension very starkly.
It's like, how do you help somebody identify if you're getting burnt out? You know what I mean? Like, you're, you're, you're striving too hard, you're getting discouraged. Do you know what I mean? Like, you're pushing too hard or you know, it is time to quit treading water and, and figure out where you wanna head.
Do you know what I mean? And pushed a little more toward that. Like, how do you, how do you help someone with this particular
Natalie Lancer: problem? I mean, ultimately your body will sort it out. So the question is, do you wanna let your body sort it out, or do you, are you gonna sort of preempt it and do something actively?
So what I mean by that is . If you are pushing yourself too hard, you will get ill. So at one point your body shuts down and you have to stay in bed. There's, there's nothing you can do about it. Obviously you don't wanna get to that stage, but I mean, ultimately it will write itself. It's like what homeostasis is the same with stagnancy.
Ultimately, you can bore yourself so much that your own boardroom will make you go and do something . That's right. So my cure for like people who have severe procrastination is that it's not to stop procrastinating itself, but they're not allowed to do anything while they're doing it. So they're not allowed to use their phone.
Like you try sitting in space and doing nothing for an hour.
Sheldon Mills: Right. You don't have to write, but you can't do anything but, right. Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: Yeah. Well, if you are sitting there for an hour and you are not allowed on your phone or any distraction, you will crave whatever the thing was you didn't wanna do before.
Jeff Corrigan: I like it. . Yeah, it's very good.
Natalie Lancer: We actually wear ourselves out with the, with the phones and the emails. I mean, it's just, it's absolutely exhausting. If you, if you wanted to, obviously you could spend all day just replying to emails and texts and, and whatever. And we know that's not gonna move the needle in your ambitions.
So the first thing I tell people is to just put your pH phone on airplane mode for two hours. Yeah. What two hours of the day are you going on airplane mode? And for those people with kids and they're like, oh, I can't go on airplane mode because the school might call me. Well, actually there's an update to the iPhone where you can allow certain calls in, so like the school line can disturb the airplane mode or, or, or whatever the work mode.
So, so there's ways around that. But like, you know, if you can't allocate two hours of your day or, or whatever, you know, it can, can be whatever time, and it doesn't have to be every day. But . So part of the battle is carving out the time from our busy schedule. Mm-hmm. , there's like several battles we were fighting, but one of them is just to clear, clear space.
Yeah.
Jeff Corrigan: Well, a and this reminds me like this, treading water and pushing forward reminds me of something that Sheldon and I talk about. We talk about organizing your day into kind of offense and defensive tasks. Defense would be essentially treading water, right? The things that you, you must do or that are your routines, current routines, and anything offense would be moving you towards your goals.
And I really love this concept of this tension that exists. And I think most of us, or at least a lot of the time, I should say, I shouldn't say most of us. . A lot of the time we get caught in, in just playing defense or just treading water and, and like you're saying, those are some great tools to push you out of that mode because I, I'm also a procrastinator , right.
Which I don't know, maybe that's just, maybe that's everyone but , but I definitely am. And but I love the idea of not allowing myself any other distraction. So I'm definitely going to use that because I, I think that will help me execute on the plan. Because I also like to do things, I'm not just gonna sit there and do nothing.
So if I have to sit there and do nothing, I might as well be doing the thing that I want to do. . Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: Really great. And, and you know, it's about so how do you stop yourself reaching for the phone? Well, it's really simple. Like you turn it off and put it in another room or whatever so that you know, b BJ Fog Talk talks about this increasing the friction.
so that, turning it on is a bit of a mission. You know, it's not instant. And we want that instant gratification when we look at the look at the phone. So if you have to go in another room and turn it on, you have time for your, you know, more conscious brain to say, actually you don't really wanna do that.
You wanna focus on, on this other thing. So we need to sort of stop the knee-jerk reaction of, of reaching for the phone or, or whatever it is. Lot of the
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: But also, you know, in terms of stopping procrastination and you said, you know, is everyone a procrastinator? It's funny.
So I dunno if you've seen that Ted talk where and I can't remember who it is this second, but the lady talks about stress and how stress itself is not the thing that's bad, it's your perception of stress. So if your perception of stress. is that it's a bad thing. Mm-hmm. , it kills you.
Mm-hmm. . And if your perception of stress is that it's a good thing, it won't whi which is mind blowing in itself. But the point is, is that good stress, which is called eustress. Mm-hmm. , so if you're someone who's a bit of a procrastinator and you like a deadline cause I'm, I think a lot of procrastinators like deadlines.
Let's just do a straw poll. Do you like deadlines, Jeff?
Jeff Corrigan: I don't know that I, I would say like, or don't like, but I leverage them , to get things done. Cuz I'm like, all right, I have to have this done right, this .
Natalie Lancer: Right. Think having, having a deadline makes you jump to it, right? Yes. Right. And you shout.
Sheldon Mills: deadlines, I mean Parkinson's law, right?
Natalie Lancer: Yeah. So, so not everyone does like deadlines. And I was speaking to a client today who actually doesn't like the pressure of that and prefers to have longer time and they will do it. And actually the anxiety of a deadline makes them freeze and, and not do anything. But for those people who, who do like deadlines basically we are enjoying that stress.
Now, enjoying might be a bit of a strong word, but it's tress, it's stress that's galvanizing us into action. Cuz otherwise, you know, we would just not do that thing. So so the question is, I think not, are you procrastinate in general? I don't think that matters. Mm-hmm. , the, the question is when you, like, do you get things done on time or not now?
I think that if you can get things done on time, regardless of if you had to stay up all night to do it, or if it took you six months or, you know, cuz people have different ways of working. Mm-hmm. , I think that's fine. I worry about the people who, who don't do anything, who, like, they don't meet the deadline and then don't do this, and then don't do that because you get into this cycle, it's the opposite of, the can-do, the can-do self-efficacy cycle is, you know, oh I can do it.
That's given me confidence. I can do this other thing. But of course the other one is lethal because it's like, well I can't do that, so then I can't do that and then I can't, then I won't try that and then it goes down. So I think one of the reasons I think it's important to sort of keep busy and keep on with goals, not to the point of exhaustion and not all the time but is to stave off going down that other direction.
Yeah. Which is hard
Sheldon Mills: to get outta. Yeah. It's a confidence. It's like the, the success begets the confidence and it actually changes your identity. Like you said, if you believe that you can't do it, then that's, then you, you can't do it. Right? Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: Yeah. Confidence is key to this whole thing, the whole conversation.
If you think about it, going back to the beginning about the eight tensions framework, having the confidence to say, right, I'm on this tension. This is where I am, this is where I wanna be, and this is how I'm going to move in the way I wanna go. Right? That last piece, this is how I'm gonna do it, presupposes that you are gonna do it, but you can move that you are not stuck forever.
Mm-hmm. , that there's a way out, there's a, there's a change that's possible and that you can affect that change. That's a whole lot of optimism and confide. Yeah. So by teaching people this vocabulary around the tensions and, you know, they're taking ownership, you know, this is where I am. So it's, it's more than self-awareness that gets you so far.
Mm-hmm. , that's just, I'm on, this is where I am the next piece, and I can move
Jeff Corrigan: taking responsibility. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I, I love that. I mean, you just mentioned it and I think that's exactly right, that's at the core of change, right? Is taking responsibility, but having the confidence to move , and obviously we're never sitting on just one side of this thing.
You're, you're talking about oscillating between both of these, right? Both, both sides of tension, positive, negative.
Natalie Lancer: Oh, I was gonna say something about that actually when I said let's talk about the tensions generally, and then I didn't which is, I was gonna come back
Sheldon Mills: to it. So Yeah, you're good. Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: That's me doing the change thing in, in Cihi. Look, so, so first of all, the fact that we move up and down the tension, right? This, this is our dynamism and this is our energy. When you stop oscillating, you're dead. Mm-hmm. Okay? Because all of life is going up and down, up and down, up and down, and that's what it is, right?
Yeah. So you, you're, no, you're not moving. You've got a massive problem. So while, so it is a fact of life that we will go between and we can become masterful of, , as you said, like doing that in a constructive way because, because the change happens anyway. But you know, you, you, you can decide.
But the other thing is if, if you imagine, if you imagine a elastic band mm-hmm. held between your. Hands like this, right? Mm-hmm. Like, you're gonna play, play cat's, cradle, or one of those things. You know, that that tension when you are sort of doing this, I, I don't mean the word tension when I'm talking about it in a bad way.
I'm not talking like a tension headache or something like this. It's a very energetic state, you know, because if, you know, the elastic can ping off somewhere and, and fly, right? . Yeah. And in the same way, you know, knowing that you are on this tension and knowing that it takes energy , to move along, but there's also the possibility of like, of change and just, just general possibilities.
Like, , new things will happen , as you move along. So I, I find it very exciting to think about life as a set of challenges , and, and tensions. And I think that sometimes . The way sort of we talk about things like striving for goals, like mm-hmm. , I think it's, I think it's a shame to only talk about that side and not the other.
You need both sides. Yes. Oscillate. It's not oscillating or just on one side and that doesn't work. So all these things need this other, it's the yin and the yang. Mm-hmm. . And you need both. And you know, I'm gonna give you a quick example of another tension. Being you fitting in.
Right? This is a well-known, I mean, everyone knows this , but when you talk about it sort of as a tension , it becomes a choice cuz all these tensions around, you know, where you choose to be. So, you know, if you. Very you, whatever that means. And you are sort of like going all out as you, there are some people who aren't gonna love that.
That's fine. And there are some people who are, so probably the total number of friends or acquaintances you have, will be smaller than if you try and do fitting in. And then you probably have like a bigger crowd of people, because you are sort of a bit more of a chameleon. You are a bit more like, oh, I do well in this situation and that situation.
And you're trying to fit in. Both are fine. Like you could think of people who do, who do both, right? Yeah. But the point is, is it's a choice. There's always a trade off. If you wanna do like much more being you then accept that some people aren't gonna like it and you probably aren't gonna have a hundred friends.
Mm-hmm. if you wanna do more fitting in, except you'll have lots of friendships, but maybe they won't be of extremely close ones, you know? And, and this is something we know, but maybe. We can apply this sort of knowledge that there's trade offs to any position taken. And that's fine because you already know that in advance and you've accepted it, then that's fine.
You know?
Sheldon Mills: I need to say, I, I love this because too often in society, generally we look at like what these two, these tensions is. If one is like good or bad, right? Or if it's like right or wrong or on both sides, you know, whether it's you need to need to calm down and, and tread water or need to push forward, you know what I mean?
And I love this continuum cuz it's like, it's not a, a right or wrong, good or bad. It's like where you're at and where you wanna go and you can move along that continuum.
Jeff Corrigan: Well, and I, the other thing that's coming out for me that I think the audience, those listening will be is such a key part of this is your ability to choose, right?
You're saying, I, I think so often we've felt subconsciously that we fall into one category, the or the other, the majority of the time, when in fact we can make a more conscious choice about how we want to show up in how we want to pursue our goals, and we take responsibility for it, rather than blaming everything on an external force.
Like, oh, this is just the way my life is, or this is how I was born, or This is , you know? And I feel like that that's an error that so many of us fall into because we've been trained that way. Where, you know, playing the fame blame game, ha being the victim, not giving ourselves the ability to take responsibility and choose.
which way we want to go. And, and I know that you, we play both sides of all of these. That's why it's the tension, right? It's like, and, and I like this idea of the cats and the cradle because it makes me feel like it's more of a playing a game than it is like a headache. Like you said. Like the challenge can be fun.
The challenge can be fun, you know?
Natalie Lancer: There's a word that I think is important to out, which is authenticity. And this is a really good example, and I think this is I just wanna just want to explain it. So from an existential psychological perspective, the word authenticity means something quite different to, to how I imagine most people would, would think.
So from a existential psychological perspective, being authentic means that. As you said, you know, we don't have any say about, you know, what family we are born into or, or, you know, our setup in life, but we can choose how we respond to that and what we do with that. And so, you know, what we make of that context and how we sort of creatively interpret that context and do something with it is, is absolutely your choice.
And another way of saying that is choosing where you are on these tensions is being authentic because you are making that choice. Now that's a very sort of technical definition of authenticity and that's what I use. As opposed to just going back to the being you fitting in mm-hmm.
one could conflate. Mistakenly being you with being authentic. So I don't, I don't mean, so the normal way of thinking about being authentic is Oh, yeah. You know, being, being true to yourself, which is not what I'm saying. So being authentic means from the existential perspective is ,
doing something deliberately, you know, in your context. Mm-hmm. . And I think the reason why I'm highlighting this is there's a lot of train of thought these days where it's like, oh, you know, you should speak your truth, you know, and, and well, you could do like that, that is a choice, right? You, you could speak called truth and put it all on social media and make Netflix programs about yourself and all this , and, and that is a choice.
That is, I don't, but equally, you don't have to tell everyone everything. You can keep things more private or you might want to not tell, you know, everyone about every facet of your life. And, you know that's also a choice. Mm-hmm. . So, so just to be really confusing, it's actually from my perspective, an existential psychological perspective.
It's an authentic choice either way, whether you are being you or fitting in or, or, or wherever you are doing. It's making, making the choice. That's the piece that's authentic. Mm-hmm. . And actually, there may be very good reason why you know, you don't want to speak your truth. Whatever that even means to the world and sort of go, go all out.
And one reason just off the top of my head is that, you know, you, might. Want to say something about your children or another family member or whatever, and then suddenly you're not speaking your truth. You've actually spoken other people's, and it's not for you to say . And it's not that you've taken, you've robbed them of their choice of whether they wanna be spoken about or not in, in that way.
So there is a trait, again, just to repeat. There is, there is a, a trade off, you know? Mm-hmm. being you is not the only way to be, but if you wanna be, you know, on, on that way, then that, that's fine. And then, and then you accept that. And if you don't wanna be like that, that's also fine. So they're all fine as long as you've made a decision one way or another.
Sheldon Mills: Authenticity is making the choice not, yeah.
Natalie Lancer: Yeah, absolutely. Authenticity is making the choice. I love it. Yes. And, and actually justno another point there, there's obviously many domains in life. There's professional life, there's personal life, there's, spiritual life,
and actually, it isn't that if you are, I don't know, narrowing down on one, that means you are narrowing down on all of them. It's much more complicated. You, you can narrow down on one and open up on another, you know, so we might be very private in one sphere of our lives and, and sort of play all out in a, in another sphere.
Mm-hmm. , , these are all decisions to be made. And, it sounds a bit exhausting actually making making all these decisions. And I don't think you need to, like, you know, I, I don't think you need to think about all of these eight tensions every day. Absolutely not. But maybe you can think about one a month.
Jeff Corrigan: Mm-hmm. . I
Sheldon Mills: was gonna say these, these eight tensions are genius. I'll just say that , and you know, guts and goals, how do people learn more from you about this?
Natalie Lancer: Okay, so let me just say what, what got some goals is, first of all, so so got some goals is my program that helps people achieve things, whatever that is.
It might be a business goal, a personal goal, a passion project. It might be a fitness goal. It doesn't matter what the goal is because all goals require mindset and implementation. It's a bit like the eight tensions, like they're all, they're just overarching facts. Mm-hmm. . And and what's, I think some programs might give you one, the implementation and not the mindset and some.
The other way around. But when I say mindset, what, what I really mean is I teach you all about the eight tensions and I teach you you know, how it works. And I've got, I've designed some very specific coaching exercises in sort of booklet like, sort of like work workbook form that are very fun, that really get you thinking about, you know, your stance on some of these things that we've been talking about as applied to your goal.
And so that sort of gets you moving. So you will, you know, if you say like, this is where I am on this tension and this is where I wanna be, the exercise will move you. Cause I've got, so for every single tension, there's, there's a set of exercises moving you one way and a set of exercises and moving you the other way so you, you can choose.
That's sort of about, your mindset. But at the same time, as you guys are well aware, you've actually got to. Do some practical stuff and there are things that we can do to help ourselves. Mm-hmm. , and this is about routines. This is about, you know, well, what, well, what, what time are you gonna get up?
When are talk, talking about, you know, this two hour window without your without the notifications on, you know, when are you going to do whatever it is? You know, how are you going, are you going to get out the pens and paper? Do you, do you even know, what, what mode are you going to be working in?
And so the everyday implementation where you are setting, I suggest to set three nano goals. Just tiny, tiny goals every single day. Mm-hmm. . And I also suggest that, , well, we have a little community. So you put the nano goals into the WhatsApp group, and then the next day you say how many you've done.
So every day you are putting in your three nano goals. And we're making it very like, we're really lowering the bar, you know? Mm-hmm. , make it easy to do three things. Tick these three things. Cuz the more you tick off, I don't mean more like do more than three, I just mean by knowing that you can achieve three a day.
This, this gives you a lot of momentum. And then we do some very sort of tried and tested things like, here's a wall, right? And this is a picture of a very rubbish wall that I have just drawn. And you know, every time you get one of your nano goals done, you know, you call her in a, a wall. And there is something about all of us, and I'd love to find out why we care about filling things in , but we love it.
Everyone loves filling in the wall. We do, we want fill in, like, you know, the next one and the next one and the next one. So there's all these sort of behavioral, psychological techniques that I've studied. Mm-hmm. . , I teach in the implementation part of this, and we're doing both parts of this at the same time.
And after 90 days, your goal is done. Got it. I love it. Painless. And sort of kind way to yourself.
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah. So, for you working with a client and teaching them this process? Yeah. What is it giving them? I think, well, I think I know, but I wanna hear from you. What do you Oh, I, I wanna hear from you,
Well, well, I think, so from my opinion, it all comes back to confidence and responsibility, right? That we've been talking about where those little things, as I've seen them in my own life, as we've taught people how to build habits in their lives, it's so valuable. to build confidence and trust in yourself that not only can you do it, but that you are doing it.
And you can show that progress by coloring in your wall, whatever that looks like. A and then at, and then you have this ownership over your life where I can affect change, effect change in my life. Anyway, that's, that's my thinking. But what , where do you go with it? Yeah.
Natalie Lancer: So I, I think that people, well, first of all, I agree with everything you've just said.
So all of that, and, and I just think you know, another thing is when we're trying to get something new off the ground or, you know, we're, we're trying to do so. Our brain, , our mind, our bodies would rather, we just sort of sat at home and like watched Netflix, . That's what we wanna do, right?
And that's just back to very, very basic you know, sort of responses from the hippocampus in your brain about fear, you know, the fear of the unknown. And you've gotta tell your brain it's okay, I'm just writing a chapter of a book. Like, it's not a sabertooth tiger. It's fine. It is just a book chapter
And yet we, so when we look at this, you know, this fear, this resistance you know, one, one of the things I, I tell people is we've just gotta give it a new name. You know, you can call it energy, you can call it, I don't know growth. I mean, rename fear growth and see what happens, right? Mm-hmm. , because fear is happening at the sort of limits of, of what you know you can do.
Mm-hmm. . But of course, once you've shown yourself you can do a bit more you no longer fear that previous bit. Your fear threshold's gone a bit further and that, that's growing and, and, and et cetera. So, you know, you are sort of developing yourself. And and taking yourself in, in directions you really didn't think was possible.
But this isn't theoretical. This isn't one of these things where it's like, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go to some, I don't know you know, big, big event and get psyched up and all hyped up. And I'm gonna this is, you said you're showing yourself, you know, the, the piece as just what you just said, you know, the pieces are, are colored in.
I was here before and now I'm here and you know, everything is, is so cumulative and sort of stockpiled, you know, the stuff you learn from that mm-hmm. you'll then use and the next thing you do and more stuff. And then everything you learn from that, you do more stuff and. . I think that when this, this is why it's so dangerous not to do things, because it's not only that you aren't doing the things, but you're not learning the things that you learned from doing things, and therefore you become incapacitated essentially.
So people have been sitting on goals often for years. Like, oh, I've always wanted to do blah, you know, whatever it is. Yes. And there's nothing sadder than that. And, and basically I give people a way to get unstuck and to blooming. Well go and do it. .
Jeff Corrigan: I that is ex I couldn't, I mean, you just put into words the whole We have the same mission.
This podcast . Yeah. Okay, perfect. Because it is the saddest thing for me to see people sit on their goals or dreams for years , and feel stuck. And I just, I love that you're doing this , so where can we send them? Where can people find out, more about you and how to get connected there?
Natalie Lancer: Yeah. Head to my website, natalie lancer.com. Natalie lancer.com.
Sheldon Mills: It'll put all this in the show notes, .
Jeff Corrigan: Yeah. Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. We know we're, we've run up against our time, but thank you so much. We love the message and I love your model. I'm, how do we get a link? I know we wanna go , we wanna check it out.
Guts and glory, right? We, this is stuff that we live for. So guts and glory. Guts and goals.
Sheldon Mills: Yeah. Guts and goals.
Natalie Lancer: Yeah, there are absolutely. And I think that you know, different people have. Different role models even. And you know, I think what we haven't said is I, I'm a very busy mom of two. As I said, I'm a, I'm a psychologist you know, , in my forties.
And I'm not saying that I only work with people with kids in their forties who blah, blah, blah, . But like, actually, you know what? You can do stuff even though you've got kids, and even though you are busy and even though you are doing this, you know, the most sort of mundane lives that, that we all have, you can still do something amazing,
yeah. None of this is a limitation in, in fact, it's just to end on this point about authenticity, the original definition of, you know, taking your context and making something out of it. And that's what help people do.
Jeff Corrigan: I love that. . Well, it's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Our sincere thank yous to you for listening to Dr. Natalie Lancer for joining us and for sharing some amazing insight. Thank you. Yes, it was. Thank you very much for joining us today. I gotta tell you, some of this stuff was just like, mind enhancing. Let's just say that, is stuff that we talk about a lot.
You'll notice in there that we're like, Hey, this is the same kind of stuff we share, and she's giving you some tools that. Are really helpful in keeping that balance in your life. , the eight tensions for me is really about life balance and oscillating between those two sides of everything you're doing
and if you haven't downloaded her eight tensions things we're going to, it'll all be in the show notes, the link to her course, the link to her freebies. So go check it out on the show notes. Also, if you loved this episode, share it with a friend. because they need this right , everyone needs this. Yeah, thank you.
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