Pod Insights The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos Stop Wasting Your Energy — Here’s What to Do Instead (with Dr. Diana Hill) About this episode A lot of us spend our energy on things that aren’t worth it: projects, relationships, or goals that may feel important in the moment but ultimately leave us frustrated and drained.
Dr. Diana Hill, clinical psychologist and author of Wise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most https://drdianahill.com/wise-effort-book, gives us a roadmap for applying our energy more effectively in the new year — so that our lives feel lighter, more purposeful, and energizing instead of exhausting.
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0:00 Speaker 00 This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.
0:04 Laurie Santos? This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab, hosted by the amazing Katie Milkman, behavioral scientist and author of the bestselling book, How to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. Each episode shares the latest research in behavioral science and dives into themes like the power of self-control, shaping your mindset for success, navigating new beginnings, and why starting over can feel so hard. Katie talks to authors, athletes, Nobel laureates, and everyday people about why we make irrational choices and how to make better choices to help avoid costly mistakes. You'll learn about tools and strategies to help improve your
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1:31 Laurie Santos? Pushkin.
1:38 Laurie Santos? Welcome back to a new season of the Happiness Lab, and happy 2026, Happiness Lab listeners. There's something so hopeful about the start of a new year. For many of us, January feels like a clean slate, a chance to start fresh as the healthier, happier person we want to be. But if there's one thing we know about human nature, it's that behavior change is hard. We set goals, make resolutions, feel motivated to do things differently, and then we slip back into exactly the same habits we had the year before, the ones we know just don't work. So the goal of this new season of the Happiness Lab is to give us the psychological traction we need to break out of all the ruts that we've been stuck in for a while. Rather than give you the usual New Year platitudes, we'll be exploring strategies
2:22 Laurie Santos? that research shows can actually help us get unstuck and back in motion. Over the course of the next few episodes, we'll hear science-backed tips for embracing the kinds of changes that feel scary, for finding a sense of purpose in the midst of exhaustion, and for feeling less overwhelmed with the current state of the world. And in this first episode in our Getting Unstuck in the New Year season, we'll tackle the challenge of un-sticking our effort. We'll explore how to use our time and energy a bit more effectively, which is so important if we want to feel less stuck in 2026. Because let's face it, a lot of us are putting a lot of energy into the wrong kinds of things. To better understand just how much unwise effort can keep us trapped, today's guest, the psychologist Dr.
3:06 Laurie Santos? Diana Hill, invites you to think of a bit of an animal analogy. Imagine, if you will, an unfortunate little bird who has accidentally made its way indoors.
3:17 Speaker 03 And it does what birds do best, which is, I think, what humans do, too. We want to get out when we feel stuck. And we go out in the predictable ways that maybe worked at some point to get us unstuck.
3:28 Laurie Santos? For a panicked bird, that means flying as hard as possible into the nearest bright window.
3:33 Speaker 03 It's smart. It wants to go for that tree, right? But what happens when that bird flies at a window? We all know it's that painful experience of hitting its head.
3:44 Laurie Santos? And sadly, that poor little bird might not hit its head just once. It will probably continue smashing itself into the glass over and over. Rather than pausing and rethinking its path to the outside world, it just starts pushing into the glass even harder, using more and more of its energy to slam into the window, until it winds up exhausted, or hurt, or worse. Diana has worked with lots of humans who are feeling stuck, and she says they don't behave all that differently from a frantic bird.
4:14 Speaker 03 Like if I just fly harder at this relationship or work harder in a work setting that's actually toxic for me, maybe that will get me out. And that can lead us to just feeling exhausted. Right? It can lead us to blaming ourselves. And it also can lead to another pattern, which some of us can get stuck in, which is the very classic psychological problem of learned helplessness, where we just say, there's no way out. There's nothing I can do here. There's no other possibility. I've tried everything, you know, as hard as I can.
4:47 Laurie Santos? Sound familiar? Well, not to worry, because Diana is here to help us get our energy back on track. In fact, she's the author of a new book on just this topic. It's called Wise Effort: How to Focus Your Genius Energy on What Matters Most.
5:02 Speaker 03 So as a psychologist, I've been training in and involved in this concept of psychological flexibility for a really long time. And what that bird actually needs is not to fly harder at the same thing. Maybe it could use a little rest, a little rest on that kitchen floor, but not to, you know, give up, but to use its energy differently. That may be look around, look in places that you haven't looked before, try new things. And there may be an open door. And that requires you to be flexible in your attention, but then also flexible in your behavior. And it doesn't mean you shouldn't fly. So you can still be the bird that you are, but shift that energy and attention to get out and to free yourself
5:48 Speaker 03 from whatever place you're stuck in.
5:50 Laurie Santos? Diana is a clinical psychologist and an expert on getting your energy unstuck. But she admits that she too has been in situations where she was putting too much energy into the wrong things.
6:00 Speaker 03 Well, in 2021, I was on a podcast that I had been working on for a number of years. I had put a lot of energy into it on the outside. It had, you know, close to 2 million downloads. And there's a term in psychology, the sunk cost fallacy. You know, we've put so much time and energy and effort into it. So therefore we keep doing it, even if it's not working for us. And what I started noticing is that I would have a panic attacks before I'd go on team meetings. I started to just feel like my heart wasn't in it anymore. I wanted more freedom. I wanted more flexibility. I wanted more creativity, but I kept at it.
6:41 Speaker 03 And I just kept on going harder at it and became quite inflexible to the point where I became unpleasant to be around. I became more controlling. It was finally in the letting go. It was turning around, looking around, are there other options here? That freed up my energy and it took a bit of a, as many people experience when they're starting something new, of having to go back to the beginning, my ego take a bit of a beating. Like, yeah, I got to start from zero here and I got to give some of this up. But why am I doing it? I had lost my purpose, my values and the deeper things that maybe were driving me starting a podcast in the first place. And so I had to remember those again.
7:25 Laurie Santos? And so this was really a story of trying to make sure that your energy was going in the right direction. And this is really the subject of your book, how we can put wiser energy into things. You've argued that we need to pay attention to where our energy is going, that this matters a lot. Why does it matter so much?
7:40 Speaker 03 Well, energy is kind of everything, right? One hour of something that brings you vitality, of something that opens you up, of even something that's a little bit hard for you, but at the end of it, you feel regenerated by, is an hour that could shift your whole day, right? When our behavior is out of alignment with our values, it actually can really de-energize us. And that's why a lot of people come to work with me as a therapist is because there's a misalignment of who they want to be, how they want to show up, and then it's showing up in dissatisfaction with life.
8:19 Laurie Santos? And so sometimes we're throwing way too much energy into the wrong things. In your book, you mentioned this idea that our striving can sometimes get us stuck. And this is something that I resonated with a lot. Talk about how our energy can be both a gift and a challenge.
8:32 Speaker 03 Pretty much anyone in your life, you can think about their genius qualities, the things that make them them, the special characteristics and strengths and aptitudes that show up, that make them bright. Those can also become a problem for them if it's not channeled with wisdom. So for example, with me, that podcast, there was a point of diminishing returns where I needed to shift. I needed to be like the bird in the kitchen and look around and do something different. And that takes some discernment. It takes where do you want to put your energy, what your values are, and curiosity and mindfulness.
9:08 Laurie Santos? And so we're going to be exploring really deeply your strategies for kind of figuring out how to deploy our energy in as wise a way as possible. I think all my listeners should check out your book to see all the strategies that are in there. But today on the podcast, we're going to focus on my favorite seven, my favorite seven strategies for getting your effort back on track. And a big one is one that you just mentioned, this idea of getting curious. Why is curiosity so essential for getting our energy back on track?
9:33 Speaker 03 Well, one thing about curiosity is it's hard to be curious and judgmental at the same time. You know, if you watch a two-year-old, I used to have two-year-olds many years ago, and you try and take them for a walk, or a puppy, you try and take a puppy for a walk, and they stop at every snail, they stop at every caterpillar. And when they pick up that snail or that caterpillar, they get down real close to it and lean in, they don't really come at it with a, oh, gross. And they don't really come at it with a, I already know how this works mind. So as we become more inflexible in our thinking, we tend to take on these cognitive inflexibilities of, I already know, so I no longer see what's
10:15 Speaker 03 there, or I'm judgmental, critical, right? So curiosity is the practice of open-mindedness. And I would say, you know, I kind of think curiosity and openness is the new mindfulness. You know, psychology goes through all these trends. I've been in the field long enough to see the trends change. So I'll tell you, the next thing that's coming down the road, down the pipe, Is openness, so much so that Jonathan Schooler, who's at UCSB out here, is changing the name of his center from the Center of Mindfulness to the Center of Openness, because it's a little bit different than mindfulness. It's staying open to the field of possibility. And when you are stuck in unwise effort,
11:00 Speaker 03 often it's because you're that bird flying out the window and you are not open. Either your mind is not open, you've already decided, or you're being judgmental, or you're stuck in a story. But the nature of curiosity is also interesting in that the more curious you are, the more things, people, experiences can become rewarding to you. Every single client that comes into my office, I am deeply curious about. And I am not judgmental about the behaviors or ways that they're stuck. I'm curious about their patterns, what's keeping them stuck? What are the different complex networks of processes that are contributing to their stuckness?
11:45 Speaker 03 Could we almost like map it out? Like we'd map out a route on a page of how we get from A to B? And when you take that stance towards your own self, rather than the judgmental or I already know stance, you're more likely to see possibilities to get you unstuck.
12:01 Laurie Santos? But it can also be hard to do that. And one of the practices you've recommended to get a little bit more curious is the act of journaling. Why is journaling so powerful for getting us to become a little bit more curious, if done the right way?
12:12 Speaker 03 I'm so glad you said if done the right way, because journaling, journaling can also be a practice in rumination. And we know that from some of the research. If you're sitting there ruminating about how life sucks, then you may feel a little bit more stuck in your mental patterning about life sucking. So with journaling, there can be a practice of a little bit of what we call cognitive diffusion, or a little bit of stepping back and looking at yourself rather than being in it. And if you journal with some prompts, or there was a really classic journaling exercise that I had. Have clients do, which is just right now, what are five things that I'm thinking? What are five things that I'm feeling?
12:56 Speaker 03 What are five behaviors that I'm engaging in? And then can I draw my experience? I also like journaling without language. In NY's effort, the book, I draw it. I'm like, this is what it feels like when I'm stuck scribble on the page. It's like the flight pattern of that bird. It's all tangled up. What does it feel like inside of you? Draw it. And just that stepping back from something sort of like if you are really up close to a screen and you see that, you know, all the pixels of the screen and you take three steps back or you take three steps back from a painting, you'll have a different perspective on it. And flexible perspective taking is incredibly helpful when we are stuck. So journaling can be a way to do that.
13:38 Speaker 03 Then we can also use our journal with that flexible perspective taking and that curiosity to potentially look at many different views. You know, like what would be a compassionate view? What would be a view from the end of the week? If you were to look back on those thoughts, feelings and behaviors. Sometimes with clients that are stuck in negative body image, I'll have them write a letter from their body part to them. What would your stomach tell you? You have a lot of things to tell your stomach. I hear it all the time, you know? But what would your stomach say about what it's like to be your stomach? You know, what does your stomach say it needs? What does your stomach say it wants? What is your stomach wish for you?
14:22 Speaker 03 And it shifts your perspective on pretty much anything that you are critical of.
14:28 Laurie Santos? So that's one way to get our energy back on the wiser track, right? Get curious, get some perspective, maybe even do that through journaling. But another tip that you talk about a lot in the book is this idea that if we want our energy to go in the right place, we need to better align our energy to our values. You have this quote that I love that when your energy becomes a problem, it's often because your gifts and talents aren't aligned with your values. What are our values and why are they so important to pay attention to?
14:53 Speaker 03 You know, there's a lot of talk about values and folks will have lists of values. You could go on chat and say, give me a list of 100 values. And we come up with all these words. But I think of values as qualities of action. What brings you a sense of aliveness? What deep in your heart really matters to you? How do you want to show up in the world? What do you want to stand for?
15:16 Laurie Santos? In your book, you note that our values are often the clue to what makes life its most lifey. I love that quote because for me, it was like, oh, my gosh, what makes my life the most lifey? It's like humor or social connection or kind of doing fun things, being a little bit adventurous. I don't tend to think of those exactly as my values. But when I think about my life at its most lifey, those are the things that come up.
15:37 Speaker 03 Before bed oftentimes is when we worry about stuff. We think about the day, we ruminate on the day, or we worry about what's going to happen tomorrow. I really encourage my clients before bed to do a little scan of their day. And when did they feel life at its most lifey? You'll be surprised. It's often not where we're putting most of our energy. It's in the in betweens. Like for me, life at its most lifey, I have this little strawberry plant outside my kitchen door. And so I planted this little strawberry plant and I've been watching these strawberries change color. And it's life at its most likely growing something, right? Life at its most likely, two weeks ago, was taking my 16 year old son and his best friends
16:22 Speaker 03 in a car trip down the coast of California surfing and being completely on their schedule and standing outside and watching them surf. It's life at its most likely. Growing strawberries and surfing with teenagers is not how I spend most of my time or energy. But it tells me a little bit about maybe how I want to be spending more time and energy, what I want to be amplifying.
16:44 Laurie Santos? And it's also a great way to figure out how to make whatever you're doing a little bit more enjoyable. One of the things I know you talked about is all these studies where if you can just reflect on your values and how that connects with what you're already doing, it actually makes you do the thing you're trying to already do better, perform better. Tell me about some of these studies.
17:02 Speaker 03 Well, there's a classic study that Steve Haste did with college students who set SMART goals at the beginning of a semester. And, you know, we think about these SMART goals as being specific and meaningful and timely. And many of us have tried SMART goals. But what he found was when he added values writing to the SMART goals, like, why do you care about getting better grades? Why does it really matter to you? What's important to you personally about that? And, you know, values are like favorite colors. Yours may be green and mine may be blue. Two kids may have totally different reasons why they care about their grades. And he found that folks that set the SMART goals plus the values
17:44 Speaker 03 writing did much better at the end of the semester. They had a significant increase and improvement in their grades. Those that set SMART goals alone didn't see that improvement. You mentioned makes things more enjoyable, but I would tweak that a little bit, because living your values doesn't always make things more enjoyable. We know that from parenting and the research on happiness in parenting, where parents aren't necessarily happier, but they do report more meaning. So, living your values may help you have more intrinsic motivation. I have written quite a bit on exercise and psychological barriers to exercise.
18:23 Speaker 03 If you connect your exercise to your values, like, why does it matter to you to have more physical fitness in your life? What will open up for you? People will say things like, "I want to get on the floor with my grandkids." "I hate sitting in the chair. I want to actually get down and like build the blocks with them." Or other people may say, "I want to travel and be able to walk through the airport and feel stronger as I walk because I love travel so much." When you connect to those intrinsic reasons, those things that are deep down inside, meaningful to you, you're more likely to stick with it, but it doesn't necessarily make it more enjoyable.
19:02 Laurie Santos? Fair enough. It also means that we need to disconnect not just maybe from the enjoyment, but also from the outcome. This is something I loved hearing you talk about your strawberries, right? You were just kind of enjoying the process. And this seems to be something that's critical about values. Values aren't about the outcome. They seem to be more about the process. How do we get closer to focusing on the process so we can get closer to our values?
19:24 Speaker 03 Well, one of the challenges about outcomes is our finish lines seem to keep on moving forward. You know, you think about people that are, they go on and they get their degree and then their postgraduate degree and then they, it's sort of like the game of life. I don't know if you ever played that game?
19:38 Laurie Santos? Oh, my gosh, yes.
19:39 Speaker 03 Well, I actually bought the game for my kids when they were little and I was horrified about what we're teaching our children through the game of life because it's this path that you're on and you get a little car and then you put little pink and blue people in it, which is a problem to begin with, right? And then you take the car along and you try and get money and you try and get degrees and you try and get to the end where either you have a mansion or a ranch or a shack. And once you get to retirement, you're done, right? You won. What about the whole path along the way? And enjoyment, yes, but meaning and just the process, the process of growing the strawberries is very different. I could go to the store and buy some strawberries pretty easily. And actually, the outcome
20:22 Speaker 03 of those strawberries, I'm sad to say, is they got a little
20:25 Laurie Santos? It sounds like you're gardening similar to mine, yes.
20:28 Speaker 03 Much of my garden gets eaten and it's not about that. So we know that our finish lines keep on moving forward. And so trying to go for the finish line is problematic. We know that focusing on the outcome can interfere with our ability to be in the here and now. And it's not that we don't have goals. You make values based goals, but you're also flexible if you don't reach those goals. And focusing on the process can make our effort feel different because we're in it. If you focus on the process of writing a book versus the outcome of the book, your experience of writing is so different. While
21:10 Speaker 03 I was writing, this creative process of thoughts coming to me and following this trail and having conversations with people about this idea, it's incredibly exciting and invigorating and brings a lot of vitality when you're in the process, whatever that process is.
21:25 Laurie Santos? It's time for a quick break, but when we return, Diana will share more of my favorite tips for getting your energy back on track this year. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.
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25:04 Laurie Santos? Clinical psychologist Dr. Diana Hill is on a mission to help us allot our energy in healthier ways so we can stop putting effort into the things that don't serve us and start investing in stuff that benefits our well-being. So far, we've heard two great tips from her new book, Wise Effort. But strategy number three is one I like to call, "When in doubt, seek variation", a principle that Diana borrowed from an unlikely set of teachers, autonomous robots in war zones.
25:31 Speaker 03 So Dave is my brother-in-law and he designs what he calls the brains of robots. He designs self-driving planes, he's worked on segways and robots that go into war zones and look for mines. And one of the things that he designed that he said was his favorite thing was something called the get unstuck button. And what this button does when deployed is if the robot is stuck, can you imagine a robot stuck in a cave, right? It's designed to do everything in its repertoire other than what it's doing. So this robot may jump up and down, it may hit its head against the wall, it may crawl down real low, it may go backwards, it may go sideways. And eventually, the chances of that robot getting unstuck are much higher than the robot
26:16 Speaker 03 doing what it was doing. But this maps on to behavioral evolution. We have a lot of interest in evolutionary psychology and how evolution can inform our understanding of human behavior. But there's also something about how evolution can help us understand how to evolve our behavior in this lifetime. And one principle of evolution is that you need variation to evolve. You think about Darwin's finches, you need all those varieties of finches to figure out which beak fit to crack which nut on which island. So we need variation in our behavior. One of the things that we tend to do when we get scared, or when we're frustrated, or when we're angry, is that we tend to have a narrowing of attention and a narrowing
27:01 Speaker 03 of our behavioral repertoire. That narrowing actually leads us to stay more stuck. So we first need variation. But there's actually three steps to behavioral evolution. One is variation. The second one is selection. Notice when something works. We have to notice when something is shifting and it may be working. And then the third step is we have to reinforce and retain what works. And we go through that cycle over and over again. Mix things up when you're stuck. Find things that are working and then retain and reinforce what does work. But don't get so stuck in your habit, you know? Just because it worked five years ago, doesn't mean it's gonna work now. So we also need to stay open and flexible.
27:47 Laurie Santos? I think that act of trying to stay open and flexible can be really tricky because it sometimes means trying out behaviors that we think are wrong or that we've rejected or that we worry won't be a good part of our identity and so on. And so this act of engaging in variation sometimes comes with a little discomfort. And that gets to our next strategy, strategy number four. One of the things we need to do to apply our energy a little bit more wisely is to stop running away from discomfort. Discomfort doesn't feel good. Why is running away from it so counterproductive?
28:17 Speaker 03 Well, there's two things that are problematic about running away from discomfort. The first is often the ways in which we run away from discomfort cause secondary problems. So we can think about this, you know, I'm sitting at my computer. I'm going through my emails. There's the emails that I don't want to respond to.
28:39 Speaker 03 So I just kind of pass over them. And then I repeatedly avoid those emails and avoid those emails and avoid those emails until, oh, no, one of those emails was really important for me to pay attention to. Or the way in which you're avoiding it. Maybe you're getting up and you're going to the fridge or you're going outside to have a smoke. These avoidance strategies usually fall into the category of distracting yourself, numbing yourself out with substances, food, technology. We avoid through bracing with our body, holding our breath. I don't want to feel it. We avoid through procrastination. We avoid through giving up. So all of those strategies, you can think about what your favorite ones are, and we all do them, have these secondary problems.
29:23 Speaker 03 Because now not only are you dealing with the pain that you were avoiding, but now you're dealing with the pain of the thing that you do to avoid. The other problem with avoidance is that oftentimes the things that we avoid are connected to our values in some way or form. The things that matter to us are often the things that cause us the most discomfort. You will avoid or procrastinate on the projects that you really, really, really care about doing a good job for. And then you'll choose the things that like don't really matter. You'll answer the emails that don't really matter. Right? Because you're putting off the email that really is the one that's the important one that you care about.
30:05 Speaker 03 And if we start to look at it that way, like, oh, no, the thing that I care about is also in the same direction as the thing that brings me pain, then we actually need to practice and get better at being with discomfort so we can pursue what we care about. And that's a good use of our energy, pursuing what we care about. It's going to be uncomfortable.
30:27 Laurie Santos? And so let's talk about some strategies we can use to deal with that discomfort. One of the ones you talk about a lot, I know, especially in kind of ACT therapy, is this idea of radical acceptance. What's radical acceptance and how can it help us through discomfort?
30:40 Speaker 03 Radical acceptance is willingness, openness, making space for, allowing. I'm using other words because some people do not like the word acceptance. As a therapist, I'm like.
30:51 Laurie Santos? This is going to be my next question because whenever I talk to my students about radical acceptance, they'll be like, well, this is some, you know, terrible thing about the organization I work for or a thing that I'm really frustrated with in the world. I don't want to just radically accept this thing that's bugging me. Those other words feel a little bit softer, but the idea seems to be the same. It's that like, this is just a fact about the world. So we can either keep denying that fact and sticking our head in the ground and avoiding it, or we can just take a deep breath and realize that this is the way it is.
31:19 Speaker 03 Yeah, so, so there's a difference between acceptance and approval. There is a difference between acceptance and allowing harm to be done. There is a difference between acceptance and saying something is okay. Radical acceptance is exactly what you described. This is what is. And once you can acknowledge this is what is, even if I don't like what is, you're welcome to not, not like it and still accept it. You're welcome to. I don't like it and I'm going to accept it. When my son was little, he hated getting his head wet. Ever since he was born, he was learning how to swim and all his friends were in the deep end. It took him a while to learn how to swim because he didn't want to get his head wet. And I remember at some point telling him, you know, honey, in order to go play with
32:03 Speaker 03 your friends in the deep end, you're going to have to get your head wet. I know you don't like it. And we can think about whatever that deep end move is for us. You're gonna need to accept some things that are happening. And radical acceptance actually allows for change, allows for a shift. Because often the non-accepting is what narrows us, what keeps us, you know, in the shallow end of life. Because we don't accept that we're gonna have to get our head wet. And life is a series of headwets, you know? Over and over again, like, oh, you know, radical acceptance can be like, I'm radically accepting the discomfort of this relationship with this person.
32:48 Speaker 03 And how uncomfortable it is to be honest with them about something, or to set a boundary around something, or to stay in the conversation long enough that we get through the hard part to the other side of it to understand each other. I'm gonna radically accept what's happening inside of me. And there's a big distinction in acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT around acceptance is really about what Kirk Strassel calls your TEAMS. Acceptance of your thoughts, T. Acceptance of your emotions, E. Acceptance of your action urges. Acceptance of your memories, acceptance of your sensations. And when you can accept what's going on inside of you, then you can be more flexible on the outside
33:33 Speaker 03 and maybe make some changes on the outside.
33:36 Laurie Santos? I love that you brought up the TEAMS acronym, because the next tip that we're gonna be jumping into is tip number five, which is that to channel our energy wisely, we need to learn to work with those thoughts. We need to learn to work with what you've called our rooster minds. I've heard of our monkey minds before. Rooster minds was the first one for me in reading your book. Why a rooster mind?
33:56 Speaker 03 Oh, gosh, during COVID, a lot of people got pets and they got cats and dogs. Well, my neighbors got a rooster. We live up in this foothill area of Santa Barbara. Lots of people have chickens, but this was a first. And what this rooster did was crow. All day long. We have, we think that roosters just crow in the morning, you know, like on the Kellogg's cereal box. But no, they crow all day long. And our mind is a lot like that. So our mind is constantly producing thoughts. Some of those thoughts may be helpful. Some of those thoughts may be unhelpful. And when you follow or fight your mind, what
34:37 Speaker 03 happens is you get pulled off track from what you're doing. So if that rooster was crowing, and I was working on, you know, a session with a client, or I was in a podcast interview, and if I was just sort of like, I hate that rooster. Oh, there's the rooster again. Then all of a sudden, I'm not engaging in my values, which was being present with a client, or maybe sharing some information on the podcast. Oftentimes, that's what we do with the mind. We either follow its rules, or we fight it. And really, to work with that rooster, the best thing you can do is just to notice that it cock-a-doodle-doo's all the time. And where do you want to focus your energy? We can become better at creating space for our mind, noticing our mind. We can choose which thoughts we want to pay
35:22 Speaker 03 attention to, which thoughts are aligned with our values, which thoughts are helpful in the moment. As you and I have this interview, and as listeners are listening in, they're having all sorts of thoughts that are going on. Some may be related to what we're talking about, some may be completely unrelated. But they get to be the chooser of which thoughts they pay attention to. And that's a revolutionary way of living in the world. I know that you have written about and speak a lot about the problems of the mind. And this concept of cognitive diffusion in ACT is the capacity to just take like, three steps back, and let the mind do what it does, rather than being all entangled in it. Steve Hayes, the
36:03 Speaker 03 founder of ACT, talks about our minds being like spider webs, and trying to go in and rearrange our mind is like trying to rearrange a spider web. Do you really want to do that?
36:13 Laurie Santos? You've also talked about how we can question our thoughts and specific questions we can bring to our thoughts when we need to. What are some questions that we can bring?
36:21 Speaker 03 Oh, I love wise speech from the practice of Buddhism. And actually, this whole concept of wise effort comes from Buddhism, and it's one of the steps on the Eightfold Path of Awakening. Buddhism has all these numbers, like the Four Noble Truths. And the Fourth Noble Truth is that there's a path to awakening, and then there's eight things in this path to awakening. I grew up, my dad was Buddhist, and so there was always these lists of things, right? But one of the steps on that Eightfold Path is something called wise speech. And I really like it because we can think about wise speech in how we talk to others, but we can also think about wise speech in terms of our own internal speech. And wise speech has these questions you can ask. If you're in the middle of the night
37:04 Speaker 03 waking up and you have a worry, or maybe you're about to do something that's really difficult, and you're going to step into something new, or maybe you're learning something, and your mind is crowing away, you can ask yourself these four questions. One, is it kind? Two, is it true? Three, is it timely? Like, is this a good time to be focusing on this? It's 2:00 a.m. Should I really be dealing with my worry right now? Do I have any capacity to deal with this right now? And then, four, is it helpful? Because sometimes it may be true. You may be stumbling over your words. If you have social anxiety, maybe you did make a little, you know, sound,
37:48 Speaker 03 or said a word in the wrong way. But if you stick to it, you know, like get into that spiderweb, all of a sudden, it's not helpful for you. It's going to mess you up even more. So is it kind? Is it true? Is it timely? Is it helpful? Just asking those questions, you don't even have to fully flesh out the answers, can give you that step back enough to engage in wiser speech with yourself. What is kind? What is true? What is helpful? What is timely right now for you?
38:17 Laurie Santos? It's time for another break. But when we return, Diana will share her final two tips for getting unstuck. The Happiness Lab will be back in a moment.
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41:50 Laurie Santos? Welcome back. Clinical psychologist Dr. Diana Hill and I are ready to dive into strategy number six for getting your energy unstuck. And that tip involves learning to form a more compassionate relationship with your body. That might sound a little abstract. So I asked Diana to break down what this idea of embodiment really looks like in practice.
42:09 Speaker 03 First, we can think about people who we think of as being embodied. You know, like, they walk into the room and you feel like they're in their body. They're not in their heads. They maybe speak from their body, from their heart. Most of the time, we, many of us are like walking heads. We're not in our bodies. We don't feel our bodies. We're cut off from our bodies. We're afraid of our bodies, the sensations in our bodies. Being embodied means living inside this bodily form. And part of that has to do with something called interoceptive awareness, which is something that I researched really early on in my studies. My master's thesis was around interoceptive awareness. My dissertation was in part around interoceptive awareness.
42:53 Speaker 03 And interoceptive awareness is just your awareness of what's going on. Do you know your own heartbeat, your own breath, your own hunger, your own fullness? Can you feel emotions in your body? Could you point to it, like where you feel it? Could you describe it with words? Like, if you're having anxiety, rather than the heady anxiety, things that you might say, like, "I'm worried about this, I'm worried about that." You may say something like, "It feels heavy, it's..." Got a texture to it. It's got a color to it. So to be embodied is really helpful in the sense that it gets us out of our heads, for one. Our bodies hold a lot of information that may be useful to us. There is some research on folks that have higher levels of interceptive awareness, make better decisions.
43:38 Speaker 03 Even financial traders make more money. There's an association around that. Like if you're a financial trader and you have more intercept awareness of your heartbeat, you make better decisions. And in my work with eating disorders, there's a good amount of research on intercept awareness and choices around food and eating. That if you know if you're hungry or full, it's kind of a useful tool, right? In terms of when to start eating and when to stop eating.
44:05 Laurie Santos? Our body is also really useful for the decisions that we make. You know, sometimes we're making a decision that might feel like a hard decision. But if we check in with our bodies, even though our mind is like, I don't know, should I accept this thing or not? Our bodies are screaming at us, saying like, don't accept that calendar invite, or don't say yes to that thing. One of my favorite parts of your book is you've talked about the importance of noticing a whole body yes, or a whole body no. I now get the sense of what that is, but explain to our listeners what you mean by that.
44:33 Speaker 03 Yeah, well, as you described, we've all had the experience where maybe we've been invited to do something, or I'll be asked to be on a panel. And everything on paper looks really good about it. Like, this is a great opportunity. There's all these, you know, esteemed researchers on this panel. This would be a great thing to have on your CV. And my body's like, uh-uh. No. You know, and I'm like comparing, like, should I go on the panel? Or should I take the surf trip with the kids? Right? And my body's like, yes! And part of that embodied intuition, or the whole body yes, comes from your body's learning.
45:10 Speaker 03 Your body has been on panels before and remembers. Your body has put off the surf trip before and remembers. So it's not necessarily like it's this like magical thing coming out of nowhere. Some of our intuition comes from past experiences of learning that we may not have the cognitive memory, but we have more the embodied memory and the embodied memory comes quicker. Right? So a whole body yes is just that, like you check in with your body. I think it's an important part of wise effort and you ask your body, is this a yes? Like, what does it feel like? Does my body feel more open or does it feel more contracted? Does it lean in or does it kind of shy away? And we want to combine the whole body yes with other things. Right? So is this a whole body?
45:55 Speaker 03 Yes. And does it align with my values? So we can listen to our bodies, but it's one piece of information. I'm always a fan of multiple forms of information to help inform our wisest efforts and our decision making, but the body is often one that we leave out.
46:11 Laurie Santos? Given that we need some help paying attention to our bodies, you've suggested an acronym that we can all use to get a little bit more in tune. It's the acronym of HART. H E A R T. What does this acronym stand for?
46:22 Speaker 03 It's just a little check in around some of the things that we often don't pay attention to that maybe we could increase our attention to. H stands for hunger and fullness. Before you start eating, are you hungry? As you're eating, when is the point of diminishing returns? Where if you keep eating, you're eating past fullness. Right? Just checking in with that helpful thing to relearn and get more used to. There's a lot of things that are pulling us away from our hunger and fullness. E stands for emotions. What am I feeling in my body? Not thinking in my head. And that increases our just capacity to be with emotions. The more we can be with urges without acting on them, strong emotions without reacting to them, the more emotionally flexible we become.
47:05 Speaker 03 A is an interesting one, which is activity. Does your body want to move? Is it craving movement? And you see this in kids. They naturally want to move their bodies. When I took those 16 year olds on a surf trip, as soon as we would hit the gas station, they'd jump out of the car and start throwing the football. Right? They needed to move. But many of us have disregarded, overrided our need for movement. And it can turn into things like I'm feeling irritable, but really what I need is a walk, you know? And then R stands for rest. Do I need to rest? Again, this is another one that we need to rest. But what we do is we turn to junk food sources of rest.
47:49 Speaker 03 We try and rest by scrolling on our phone. We rest by watching YouTube. But what our body may really need is a deep rest. Alyssa Epple talks a lot about the benefits of deeper rests, you know, getting a really deep relaxation state. And then finally, T stands for tension. What's the tension in your body right now? Are you holding it in your shoulders? Are you holding it in your gut? Are you not breathing? And that can be an indicator of stress, but also maybe just a need to let go a little bit. Exhale a little bit longer to give your body a little bit of release.
48:27 Laurie Santos? Yeah, I love the tension one. I was just driving with a friend and there was some traffic and it was looking like we were going to get late. And I just had this moment of noticing that my neck was tight and I was like gripping the steering wheel. And I was like, wait, I can soften. I don't need to feel this, right? But it was only just through that little short act of noticing what my body was doing in that moment that I realized, oh, my gosh, I'm like holding way more anxiety about kind of getting to this place on time that I really needed to. But had I not had that moment of noticing, I wouldn't have known how to fix it.
48:57 Speaker 03 Yeah, information flows both ways, right? So our bodies can send information to our mind. We don't think about working from the body up. We always think from the top down. So it can be really beneficial to work from the bottom up. Like if I were to exhale longer, release some of the tension in my shoulders, drop my shoulders, let go of my face a little bit, let go of my belly a little bit. We don't always have to hold it in, right? That that actually may send some information to my brain that I'm okay. Because your brain is thinking you're not okay if your shoulders are up to your ears and you're holding your breath and you're sucking it in. Something is obviously wrong because you're bracing for something bad. And so it's good to think about our body as sending information to our mind as well. And we can have a little bit of wiser efforts in that.
49:42 Laurie Santos? And so now we get to the seventh strategy we can use to have wiser effort. And this is to watch out for the energy frenemies. What are the energy frenemies?
49:52 Speaker 03 Well, earlier on, I talked about our strengths, our talents, our aptitudes, our, what I call our genius energy, the things that come easily to us. And sometimes that can kind of spin off and become a frenemy. So an example of that is maybe you have a great talent at humor. You are always the one that comes into the room and can lighten up the space. But when misused, when overused, you may start becoming a little bit too lighthearted in situations where you actually need to feel a little bit more. Or maybe folks that are like super good at helping others.
50:35 Speaker 03 The frenemy of being a super helper is maybe you never turn that towards yourself and help yourself out. We can see frenemies all over the place. In Buddhism, they call it near enemies, like the near enemy of compassion is pity. And when you start to spot that a little bit, you can adjust your energy a little bit so that you are using it in the right amount, in the right way, at the right time. If you're super persistent, there's a time to dial back your persistence. If you're super patient, there's a time to be a little bit less patient.
51:07 Laurie Santos? And so how do we know? Like, what are some signals that we might have switched from kind of wise energy into the kind of frenemy use of our energy?
51:15 Speaker 03 I think it all goes back to values. So one way I look at values is they're like the banks of a river. And your energy is a river that's, you know, kind of flowing through. And the values help direct that. So you can tell when you're off track with your values by a few things. I had mentioned before that values bring you a lot of vitality. But another indicator that you're off track with your values, and maybe it's turned into a frenemy, is regret.
51:43 Speaker 03 The other day, I was dropping my son off at school. And I really am trying to like, keep my schedule figured out. Because I have a tendency to overbook myself and doublebook myself. And I was worried that I had doublebooked a client. And I drop him off at school. We're driving. As soon as the car comes into the parking lot, I pick up my phone. And I start looking at my schedule for the day. As my son is grabbing his backpack and getting out of the car. And I look up and he's gone. And I had a pang of regret. Because he was leaving and I was looking at my phone. Now, this is the acceptance thing, you know? Okay, so my frenemy here showed up. Where I was trying to like, be a good therapist,
52:27 Speaker 03 but actually was getting in the way of me being a good mom. And I need to accept that feeling, that discomfort, as an indicator that I was out of alignment with my values. And when you feel that pang, it's just an arrow pointing to a little self-correction. So next time, when I pull into the parking lot, keep the phone in the bag until he leaves. And I can look him in the eye and say goodbye. And I will feel in better alignment. My frenemy of scheduling won't have gotten in the way. So we can use regret as a powerful indicator to help us course correct. We can use vitality and values as an indicator to course correct. The big question is, is basically, how do you want to show up in this moment? And how can you use your strengths, your gifts, your talents, you,
53:12 Speaker 03 to help support you in doing that? And I think that's wise effort.
53:17 Laurie Santos? Let's recap the seven strategies Diana covered for finding wiser effort in the new year. Number one, get curious about your situation. Step back, look at yourself with compassion. And if it helps, journal your thoughts. Tip number two, clarify your values. What makes life most life-y for you? And how can you channel more of your energy towards those things? Strategy number three is when in doubt, seek variation. We don't have a built-in "get unstuck" button, but we can stay open to new approaches. Tip four is to embrace discomfort. Sometimes moving forward means accepting what's imperfect in the present moment. Strategy five involves working with your rooster mind. Your brain will keep crowing. You just need to choose when
54:02 Laurie Santos? to listen. Tip number six is to tune into your body. Where are you holding tension? Can you soften even just a little right now? And our last strategy, number seven, is to notice your energy for enemies. Even your strengths can drain you if they're running the show unchecked. I hope these strategies will help you deploy your energy a bit more effectively in 2026. Next week, The Happiness Lab will continue the season on how to get unstuck by taking a deep look at change, why it can feel so intimidating, and how to lean into it. And we'll get to learn with a brilliant psychologist who also happens to be my former student.
54:39 Speaker 04 I'm a fan of exploring change, and I am recovering when it comes to my relationship with change.
54:44 Laurie Santos? You're a recovering change hater.
54:46 Speaker 04 Change hater, exactly, exactly.
54:48 Laurie Santos? All that next week on The Happiness Lab with me, Dr. Laurie Santos.
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