Step 1.2 of the 'Your Happiness Flywheel Challenge'
This article will help you recognize the three biggest barriers to positive behaviour change, it starts with awareness and insight. The goal of this article is to offer simple, actionable insights that you can use to enhance your happiness, resilience, and wellbeing.
If you're part of the Your Happiness Flywheel Challenge, consider this the first of three essential reads for Week One. Not a fan of reading? You can always watch the Step 1 video, which introduces five simple exercises to complete before moving onto Step 2. And if you're not on the Challenge but enjoy these insights, discover how three simple steps over four weeks can help you become happier here. Let’s begin:
The Prison in Our Minds
Many of us unknowingly spend too much time in the “prison” of our own minds - crafted by our conditioning, trauma, and unmanaged inner voices. For some, this prison is a relatively benign, low-security centre; for others, like my brother, it can feel more like maximum security. Regardless of its form, there are tools and techniques almost anyone can use to reduce stress, improve confidence, and build resilience.
In this article, I’ll unpack the three most formidable barriers to positive behavioural change – and then share six practical tools to help you break free.
Three Big Bad Barriers:
1. 50,000 Years of Conditioning:
While there is some debate over exactly when Homo sapiens evolved into ‘modern humans,’ most believe it was approximately 50,000 years ago. That’s when our ancestors' brains became like yours and mine; capable of abstract thinking, creating tools, art, and more.
For nearly 50,000 years, our brains were hardwired to spot danger at every turn - a survival trait that now manifests as a “negativity bias.” Today, instead of worrying about whether you have enough food on the table, or what animal might be considering whether or not to have you for dinner(!). For most of us our food choices are simpler and have far less serious consequences. Yet that ancient bias can still drive stress, anxiety, and even depression.
In the blink of an eye, your brain’s core function - keeping you alive by seeing danger everywhere - is no longer helping you, it’s hindering you.
Scientific research and common sense tell us that negativity bias can contribute to increased levels of stress, anxiety, cognitive distortions, lower self-esteem, avoidance behaviours, and depression.
I saw this first hand in my brother, who once described living with anxiety was like walking down a dark alley at night. While he knew no one was there, he felt anxious and scared that someone would jump out and beat him up (figuratively speaking). That fear may have been real for our ancestors, but not today.
Tools: Later in this article, I share links to two resources that offer 10 ways to be more optimistic and five gratitude practices to help overcome negativity bias.
2. Generational Trauma:
You don’t have to go back 50,000 years to discover generational trauma. It’s here and now, it happened to your parents and your grandparents. Go back two to three generations, and you’ll find an overabundance of traumatic events that our ancestors suffered. Some of that trauma was passed onto our parents, who then unknowingly passed it onto us. It’s not their fault; it’s called generational trauma, and it can be a nasty son-of-a-bitch.
Both dramatic (Big T) traumatic events like war, physical abuse, or loss and everyday (little t) traumatic experiences such as rejection, emotional neglect, or constant criticism can be passed down from generation to generation.
For example, many in the 1940s and ’50s experienced harsh parenting techniques (think corporal punishment and emotional suppression) that still echo in our lives today. When it comes to Big T trauma, at the same time our grandparents were experiencing the Big T trauma of World War II, where between 70 to 85 million people were killed. That doesn’t account for the many millions of survivors who suffered from PTSD (a mental health condition not recognised until the 1980s).
If you are lucky like I am, with loving parents who are good people, then it’s relatively easy to work through your trauma. The first step is to remind yourself that they did the best they could with the tools they had (whilst managing their own trauma, realised or not). After that comes awareness, understanding, and forgiveness. From forgiveness, you then have the opportunity to take responsibility for our own actions by stopping passing trauma onto the next generation. One tool to help you do that is reframing - a technique used in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
Tools: At the end of this article, I share a powerful reframing exercise recommended to me by my therapist. I found it so useful that I built it into Your Happiness Flywheel.
3. Your Inner Critic:
My brother often talked about his inner critic - a voice that kept him from rediscovering his mojo and ultimately contributed to his struggles. Over the last few years, I’ve discovered more about inner critics and other subpersonality types, realising that I, like many people, also have an active inner critic who sometimes controls my thoughts, feelings, and reactions. Experts tell us not to try to eliminate your inner critic and other subpersonality types (it's impossible), instead we need to honour them and ‘invite them in for tea’, just as Siddhartha Gautama (the Buddha) did with Māra.
Māra is the ‘Evil One’ who in many Buddhist traditions represents internal struggles and external obstacles, he is the personification of temptation, desire, and death. The story goes that for many years after the Buddha’s battle with Māra under the Bodhi tree - on the evening before his enlightenment - Māra continued to visit the Buddha to tempt him with desire and despair to obstruct his spiritual progress. Rather than trying to ignore or push him away, he said “I see you Māra. Please be my honoured guest and come in for tea.” The Buddha did not try to eliminate or judge Māra. Instead, he accepted and acknowledged him, ultimately disengaging from and disempowering the Evil One.
I believe that if my brother had better understood his inner critic and other subpersonality types, he could have been happier, healthier, and quite possibly still with us today. With that in mind, let’s explore this important psychological concept to help us begin "inviting our inner critics in for tea."
Excerpt from ‘Embracing Your Inner Critic: Turning Self-Criticism into a Creative Asset’ by Hal Stone Ph.D. and Sidra Stone, Ph.D. 1993. HarperCollins:
“The inner critic is a self (or subpersonality) that develops to protect us from being shamed or hurt. It is extremely anxious, almost desperate, for you to succeed in the world and be accepted and liked by others. It really wants you to be okay. It really wants you to make it in the world, to have a good job, to make enough money. It really wants you to be loved, to be successful, to be accepted, to have a family. It developed in your early years to protect your vulnerability by helping you to adapt to the world around you and to meet its requirements, whatever they might be. In order to do its job properly, it needed to curb your natural inclinations and to make you acceptable to others by criticizing and correcting your behaviour before other people could criticize or reject you. In this way, it reasoned, it could earn love and protection for you as well as save you much shame and hurt.”
The good news is that similar to the first two barriers, once you become aware of and acknowledge your inner critic, you can learn how to better manage it. This journey begins with recognising the dominant and disowned selves influencing your thoughts and behaviours.
Tools: A great place to start this journey is to read the article ‘Embracing All Our Selves’ by Hal Stone Ph.D. and Sidra Stone, Ph.D. If you like what you see, then I recommend reading their book ‘Embracing Your Inner Critic: Turning Self-Criticism into a Creative Asset’, which I reference above. Noting that part of The Happiness Flywheel 3-Step Program includes discovering some of your primary (dominant) and disowned selves.
6 Techniques to Beat the Big Bad Barriers:
If you’re part of the Your Happiness Flywheel Challenge, I recommend you skip these techniques and move straight onto article 1.3 ‘Happiness is Closer than You Think’.
If you’re not on the Challenge check out the 6 resources and techniques below to help shift your mindset and build resilience.
1. Boost Optimism by exploring: “10 Ways to Be More Optimistic” article.
2. Embed small moments of gratitude into your daily routine with: “5 Gratitude Practices to Embed into Your Routine” article.
3. Invest in ‘mental fitness’. Your brain is the most important muscle in your body, and just like any other muscle it benefits from training and care. So, get professional help from coaches, counsellors, or therapists to enhance your mental fitness.
4. Embrace the Power of “Yet”: Shift your language to reflect growth. Instead of saying “I’m not good at this,” say, “I’m not good at this yet.” This small but mighty three-letter word is closely tied to the psychological concept of a growth mindset. This subtle shift opens the door to possibility and highlights the potential for growth and improvement.
5. Realign your network. Social support is a core pillar of health, happiness, and resilience. As Les Brown once famously said: "If you hang out with nine losers, you’ll soon be the tenth.” I agree with him, so take some time to review and realign who you hang around with so that your network better supports your growth. Here’s an exercise I often facilitate that will help you do just that:
Find a quiet space for 5 minutes.
Identify the “Vampire Suckers” (energy drainers) and “Superheroes” (uplifters) in your circle.
List those who drain your energy and those who support you.
Reflect on what’s holding you back from spending more time with your Superheroes and take action to reduce time with the Vampire Suckers.
6. Reframe negative experiences: The simple reframing exercise below was recommended by my therapist. When I first tried it, I was surprised at how effectively it helped me reframe a past traumatic event, reducing its power over me today.
In a nutshell you consider a negative experience from your past involving someone else. You can keep it light by choosing a relatively minor argument or disagreement. Or, you can go deeper by choosing heavier baggage that you’re still carrying with you. This would be a more traumatic experience, such as a breakup, or argument that has had a long-term negative effect.
Then follow these 4 steps:
Write down your perspective (1st Place).
Consider the other person’s point of view (2nd Place).
Step back as an objective observer (3rd Place).
Sleep on it and revisit your thoughts the next day to gain fresh insights. Can you reframe this experience seeing it from either the 2nd or 3rd Place?
Next Steps:
Read the next Your Happiness Article 1.2: ‘Beating the Barriers to Positive Behaviour Change’
Join the waitlist for the next available 4-week Your Happiness Flywheel Challenge: Check Your Challenge out here.
Interested in a workplace wellbeing program that boosts happiness, productivity, and collaboration? Contact Gareth at: gareth@happinessflywheel.com.au
A Note on Support: If you or someone you know is struggling with mental health, please seek professional help. In Australia if you need someone to talk to call Lifeline: 13 11 14, Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636, Kids Helpline: 1800 551 800, or the Suicide Call Back Service: 1300 659 467. In New Zealand call Lifeline: 0800 543 354, Youthline: 0800 376 633, or the Suicide Crisis Helpline 0508 828 865.
About the Author:
Gareth is one of Australia’s foremost experts on happiness and habits, having dedicated 6,000+ hours researching human behaviour over seven years. During that time he has coached and trained more than 2,000 people from 150+ organisations, bootstrapped a startup, and navigated personal challenges - summarised by the line: “four funerals and a wedding.” The culmination of his research and lived experience is The Happiness Flywheel and the 5Habits App.
Thank You:
Thanks for taking the time to read this article. If you found some value in it, I’d love for you to give it a 👍 and share it with your network to help others become happier. For more tips on happiness, habits, or communication, feel free to reach out or follow me on LinkedIn.
All the best, Gareth
Comments