Health Habits & Behavior Change Strategies – Hadley Garrison – ep 75

Join Hadlee Garrison and me and learn more about “Health Habits & Behavior Change Strategies”

📢 Hadlee is a health and lifestyle change coach who helps people feel better in their bodies, have more energy on a day-to-day basis, gain more confidence, cultivate a better relationship with food, and become less stressed and more joyful in their day-to-day lives.

She graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.S. in Biopsychology, Cognition, and Neuroscience and a Master’s in Public Health in Health Behavior and Health Education.

Her online program, called Happy Healthy Habits, combines the concepts of behavioral science, habits for optimal health, and group dynamics to help her clients make lasting, influential changes in their lives.

Summary:

  • Introduction to Hadley garrison. 0:02

    • How she got started in health.

    • What she does and who she serves.

  • The definition of burnout. 5:13

    • The definition of burnout and what it looks like.

    • Breaking the all or nothing mentality.

    • How physical and mental health are connected.

    • Mental and physical health are inseparable.

  • How to avoid decision fatigue? 10:59

    • Decision fatigue and social media.

    • Grocery stores know about decision fatigue.

    • Tips to reduce social media use.

    • Architecting the environment for behavior change.

  • How to get rid of your phone. 16:08

    • Making it physically impossible to reach the phone.

    • Dedicated time. Peter Drucker

    • Why it is so hard to implement healthy habits.

    • Breaking out of the all-or-nothing mentality.

  • The importance of asking for help. 22:07

    • Culture of being able to figure it out on your own.

    • Women are better at asking for help.

    • People pleasing and fear of people not liking you.

    • Receiving compliments and boundaries.

    • Identifying the root of old beliefs.

    • Tips for implementing healthier habits.

    • Architecting the environment and making habits less appealing.

    • Making habits more appealing.

  • How to implement healthy habits in your life? 31:36

    • Breaking it down into smaller pieces.

    • Breaking down habits into smaller steps.

    • Common mistakes people make when trying to implement healthy habits.

    • Taking on too much at once.

  • The importance of having clear health goals. 36:46

    • Gift health, free 30 minute health goals sessions.

    • Health and wealth goals.

    • Start with one thing and do it every day.

    • Favorite books and resources.

    • Hire help and get coaching help.

    • Advice to 20 year old self.

  • Worrying about things doesn’t get things done. 47:16

    • Worrying about things doesn’t get things done.

    • A common theme with entrepreneurs.

    • Self-compassion is a big piece of behavior change science.

    • Give yourself permission to fail.

    • Reaching out for help when in a mess.

    • How to get more information about Hadley

SHOW TRANSCRIPTS:

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Mostafa Hosseini  0:02 

Welcome to the daily conference for entrepreneurs. My name is Mostafa Hosseini. And today we’re talking about healthy habits and making changes and sharing some strategies with Hadley garrison. Welcome, Hadley.

 

Hadlee Garrison  0:18 

Thank you so much. I’m so excited to be here.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  0:21 

Likewise, great to have you. So the sponsor for the show this week is the confidence giveaway, the conference giveaways coming up during November. And the theme of the giveaway is going to be sharing gifts with entrepreneurs to help them boost their confidence in different areas of business, whether it’s mindset sales and marketing strategy, and you know, a bunch of other gifts in different categories.

So, the link for that is daily confidence dot show forward slash giveaway, if you want it to go check it out. And actually, I will share the link here later in the show, I’ll share the link so you can access that. So let me do the proper introduction for Hadley and we’re gonna get into a conversation about health habits and behavior change strategies. Hadley garrison is a health and lifestyle change coach who helps people feel better in their bodies, have more energy on a day to day basis, gain more confidence, cultivate a better relationship with food, and become less stressed and more joyful, joyful in their day to day lives.

She graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science in bio psychology, cognition and neuroscience and a master’s in public health in health behavior and health education. Her online program called Happy Healthy Habits combines the concepts of behavioral science habits for optimal health and group dynamics to help her help her clients make lasting influential changes in their lives. Welcome, Hadley.

 

Hadlee Garrison  2:06 

Thank you so much. Yes, I’m so how was your

 

Mostafa Hosseini  2:09 

day? It must be evening where you are right now?

 

Hadlee Garrison  2:12 

Yes, yeah. It’s actually really late. I’m in Croatia right now. So it’s 1030. For me, which is much later than I usually go to bed. Oh, wow. That was really interesting. Interview. Yeah, absolutely.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  2:26 

I’m looking forward to this conversation, because Because healthy habits is something that most business owners don’t do really well. And then what happens? We’re going to talk about it so happy. What is what is your story?

 

Hadlee Garrison  2:43 

Yeah, so I always knew that I wanted to do something in health, I initially thought that I would be a doctor, because that’s kind of all I knew as a kid. And so that’s what I went to school for. But I quickly realized that that was not the path for me.

So I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do. So I went and got a master’s in public health, I was very, very interested in health behavior, and influencing behavior change for individuals and populations. And so that was kind of why I was drawn more to public health, and specifically health behavior and health education. And then I also interned for this, this company called Yoga healer, and they were all about creating health habits based on the science of Ayurveda, as well as modern science. And I got to take their program as compensation for the internship work that I did.

And I was actually writing show notes for their podcast, so kind of fun. And so that was where all of the all the things that I had been learning in school, all of those things clicked for me. And I was able to then become certified as a health coach at the same time as I was getting my master’s. And then I just decided that I wanted to start my business right after I graduated and have been doing it since then.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  4:05 

Beautiful. So what do you do these days? And who do you serve?

 

Hadlee Garrison  4:09 

Yes, so I really help people. I tend to help really ambitious people who might have a tendency for burnout, which I think we’re gonna be talking about a little bit more today. But really people who feel frustrated that they can’t control gain control over their well being and their kind of day to day lives. So a lot of the people that I help struggle to manage their time, their health, their relationship with food or exercise, their stress and their confidence levels.

So I really help people build respect for their bodies and cultivate more body intuition acknowledging what they need at any given point in time, instead of relying on like, rules, prescriptive rules, external things with how to, you know, eat, move, be present, all of that kind of thing. And so a lot of the people that I work with, were have high powered careers, or are entrepreneurs just because that’s the nature of the kind of people that tend to be drawn to what I do.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  5:11 

Fantastic. So you talked about burnout. What is what is burnout? What’s your definition of burnout?

 

Hadlee Garrison  5:21 

Yeah. So, you know, there can be a wide range of burnout. I think a lot of times when we think of burnout, we think of everything, like, everything goes wrong, and we’re like in the hospital, right. Or maybe we start having like, really intense panic attacks. But burnout can be definitely different levels. So sometimes, sometimes people will have like a low level of burnout for a long time before they really fall even further into that burnout state.

So it can look different for for different people, and at different times in our lives and with what we’re doing. But really, what it looks like is sort of not having the joy for what we’re doing anymore, I think is kind of the best, the best way to think about it is like we’ve sort of lost all of the passion around what we do. And, you know, there have been different points in my life before I started doing this work, specifically, where I absolutely had that experience.

Burnout, physically. So you know, with a lot of health issues, as well as mentally, emotionally and just being like, what am I even doing with my life with, you know, my health, all of that kind of thing?

 

Mostafa Hosseini  6:38 

Oh, yeah, I think as entrepreneurs, we experienced that quite a bit. As we I think we tend to go really hard for for so long. And then we get tired. And then the brain goes, Alright, I’m done with this. This is not what I was looking for. And then we give up on the whole idea and the vision and the goal. And then now we have to pick ourselves up and you know, do the whole thing. Again, I guess. Yeah,

 

Hadlee Garrison  7:07 

exactly. Yeah. It’s really real,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  7:14 

I guess. Yeah, there’s that cycle.

 

Hadlee Garrison  7:17 

Mm hmm. Absolutely. So I help people break that cycle. One of the biggest things that I one of the biggest mindset shifts that I help my clients with first when they come into my health coaching programs, is I help them break out of that all or nothing mentality that so many entrepreneurs have of I’m going to just do it all, or do it like the quote unquote, right way, or I’m not going to do anything at all. And that ends up with a burnout.

And then also, it makes it so that a lot of times we don’t do all of the things that we would maybe want to do or that would help us attract more business. And that kind of thing, because we have this like perfectionism all or nothing mentality.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  8:06 

Got it. We’ll talk about I guess, how some some more depth into that. So how are the physical and mental health? Connected?

 

Hadlee Garrison  8:18 

Yes. So when we are not healthy, we are willing to spend whatever it takes to get healthy, right? Pretty much like when we’re really really sick, we are, we need to get better, we will do whatever it takes to get better, right. But if we don’t, if we don’t manage our health now that we might get to that place. So that’s kind of the classic answer, the classic response of how mental and physical health are connected, and you know how personal physical and mental health impact our businesses like we have to take care of ourselves so that we can then take care of our businesses.

But the other reason and the one that might actually make a bigger psychological difference for behavior change in the moment in the short term is that if you have more mental clarity and capacity to be efficient, then you’re going to obviously do a better job in your job and you will have more of that mental clarity and capacity to be efficient and effective if you have more physical and mental capacity. So if you’re in the best possible condition that you can be physically and mentally and you can have a lot more capacity to make really wise decisions in your business.

So you know, it comes down to both decision fatigue and maybe not feeling good physically or mentally. So when we make too many decisions, we get this decision fatigue. This is like a psychological phenomenon. And it’s much harder to make rational optimal decisions when we have decision fatigue.

So basically, we can think of it like a muscle if we have to make too many decisions throughout our Day. And often when we’re trying to be healthy with our health and wellness, if we haven’t automated habits, then we’re trying to make too many decisions throughout the day. And then we can’t make good decisions as the day progresses on.

And so that impacts our capacity to make smart business decisions. Then the other thing is, when we don’t feel good physically and mentally, we don’t have as much energy, mental clarity, we don’t get nearly the amount of work we want to get done. And then also, of course, we’re prone to burnout, sick days, all of that kind of thing. And so mental and physical health are really inextricably connected.

The mental health affects physical, physical, affects mental, and now we’re trying to we’re starting to realize that that’s more of a thing in our wellness culture, we’re starting to realize that there’s a, there’s a mind body connection that can’t really be separated. But that’s kind of a lot of what I do.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  10:59 

Fantastic gang, if you’re watching or listening, if you have any questions about the health habits, and behavior, change strategies, pop them as a comment, and we’ll do our best to cover your questions. Now, happily, the other day I was I learned something about decision fatigue. And that was about social media.

And all the decisions about liking, commenting, accepting, ignoring a post watching or not watching a post on social media and how that gives us decision fatigue. And if the first thing we do, you know, in the morning for an hour or two, or for however many hours or minutes, that gives us that it drives that decision making power and lucky makes us tired, and can only make so many decisions. I was like, Oh, that makes total sense.

But I’m on say Instagram or Facebook or any platform. If I could making a decision to like something that’s a decision. It sounds very small. But when you make 200 decisions in an hour to like, and you know, what, what’s your take on that?

 

Hadlee Garrison  12:12 

That’s so good. Yeah, I had never heard that. But it makes absolutely perfect sense. Because even just micro decisions that we have to make throughout the day, that’s where it’s like the most insidious, and making micro decisions on social media would absolutely impact our decision fatigue throughout the rest of the day.

Grocery stores know about decision fatigue. And that’s why they have all of the impulse buys. Like in the aisle, when you’re leaving the grocery store, they have all the like, really like, you know, candy and gum and stuff that’s like way more expensive than it would be if you bought it back in the grocery store. And because they know that you have spent so much time deciding on all of these things, and you don’t have as much capacity to make good decisions.

So you’re gonna make those impulse buys. So, yeah, so and that happens in a lot of different areas, you know. So I think that’s a really good point about social media, and one of the many reasons to not start our day on social media first thing in the morning, right?

 

Mostafa Hosseini  13:19 

That’s it. And it’s tough, because there is that feeling of wanting to be connected to the world and to other people. And I’m guilty of it. I mean, I do it, I first thing I check is whether I have a message from my family or not. And then yeah, I have to make a conscious decision to maybe do to social media stuff, maybe later in the day, or maybe an afternoon or evening. And there’s I think the way it’s designed, it’s like the it’s designed so it has that feeling of urgency of losing something if you don’t check every frickin second.

And oh, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Do you have any tips for people that want or need to, to reduce social media or quit it altogether?

 

Hadlee Garrison  14:12 

Absolutely, yes, this is a huge thing that I work on with my clients and the first the first thing is in one of the behavior change strategies that I use with my clients is architecting our environment and so making so making it so that you can’t actually like roll over in your bed and reach for your phone. I keep my phone on a different level of my house.

My bed so that I don’t look at it first thing in the morning. And I actually I actually don’t look at my phone for like an hour after I wake up because it just makes me feel so much better for the day and so the first piece is architecting your environment make means making it so that it’s actually not physically possible for that to happen.

So that’s, that’s the number one thing, then you don’t have to use willpower either you don’t have to choose choose whether or not to do it, you don’t have to make a decision and, and decrease your amount of willpower for the day. Because it’s already there. And that can happen architecting your environment can be a great thing for so many different habits.

But then the other thing that that we might do for social media is to schedule it in. And so because we do want to be connected we and obviously, for entrepreneurs, a lot of times we do a lot of our marketing and that kind of thing on social media, so it is important. But making it so that there are strategic chunks of time throughout the day can be really, really helpful. So yeah, and I am not perfect at that by any means. But I have gotten a lot better at it the past few years.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  16:08 

So the thing was making it physically impossible to reach the phone. I was just thinking about like, I have my phone as my alarm.

 

Hadlee Garrison  16:18 

Ah, yes, by an alarm clock. I know. Yeah, I was just thinking, when I got here it was we bought some alarm clocks. Both my husband and I have our own alarm clocks. So we can both wake up at different times and whatever. Yeah, it’s a great, it’s a great investment.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  16:36 

I gotta, I gotta fly that alarm clock so that I can put my phone away. It’s a bad habit. And I do it and I is I turn I stopped the alarm. The first thing that I do is turn on Wi Fi, and check everything. I’m guilty of that. But if the phone is away, it’ll take me a minute to get to the phone and do that.

So maybe there is a but if I and a great friend of mine, who is very successful he does he’d like his phone is at a different level in his house. Like they sleep upstairs and the homies that with the phone is downstairs. So he does he, by the time he gets down, he’s fully awake. And then

 

Hadlee Garrison  17:23 

same love. It’s a great way to do it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  17:27 

And then the other point you brought up about putting it putting dedicated time. Peter Drucker, I think that famous management guru brought this up, like doing dedicated amount of time allocated time to do something specifically, for example, between 12 and 1230 noon, you could check your social media for half an hour.

So that we could do our work and make our decisions. And then, you know, don’t, don’t make your brain tired first thing in the morning of making all this. Alright, I’m gonna be honest, it’s like dumb, stupid decisions about liking posts and commenting on some random right post on Instagram, which will be a waste of brain resources to me. Yeah.

 

Hadlee Garrison  18:13 

The other thing I thought of well, while you were talking is two things, one, turn off all notifications. So turn off your Instagram notifications, Facebook notifications, email notifications, that was like a game changer for me turning off my email notifications and setting aside a time to be able to check them. But that that is huge.

And then the other thing is, you can you can set your your not your alarm, you can set your phone on Do Not Disturb and have it have it do that at certain times during the day. So at 8pm Mine turns on to do not disturb and I don’t get any more pings or anything like that. So it’s not that I completely put my phone away at 8pm Every night, but it makes it so that I am less likely to go on my phone. So it makes it a lot easier to stay off of it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  19:11 

Yeah, I have my I think I probably have a setup to go on night mode at eight or 10pm. I’ve double check.

 

Hadlee Garrison  19:19 

Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I used to do 9 pm. And then I was like, I think I need to do this earlier. So yeah, yeah. And my ad is on Do Not Disturb until 9am. Yeah, until I start my workday. So

 

Mostafa Hosseini  19:37 

why is it so hard to actually implement healthy habits?

 

Hadlee Garrison  19:43 

Yeah, so this is something that I don’t think the wellness industry talks about or does very well is actually helping people create the habits and do the things. I’m really great at, like education. information and trying to sell people on whatever they’re selling. But they’re not great at actually helping people with the behavior change tools that we need.

And some of these things are kind of counterintuitive. So especially if you tend to have that all or nothing mentality, that’s the, that’s the biggest killer of habits. Because we don’t allow ourselves to create that consistency in a small way. Because we’re like, I have to overhaul everything, I have to do everything, right, I have to do everything perfectly, or in this specific way that someone told me to do.

And so then that sets us back really far. And so there are a number of different behavior change strategies that I that I help my my clients with. And one of that one of those is breaking out of the all or nothing mentality. The other one is small, incremental improvements over time, which is like, the least, like glamorous thing ever, like, just take small steps.

But it really is the most effective thing for behavior change. Whether that is health habits, health behavior change, or if you are wanting to create more structure for your business, create more structure in your workday, say you want to, you know, work on something first thing in the morning, before you check emails of pre check, Instagram, that kind of thing.

And you want to have that automated, we have to do this in like small steps. And we have to do it in a way that’s not an all or nothing mentality. And, and so it’s cool, because a lot of times I work on my client work on this stuff with my clients, and then they realize that it actually, it actually translates to a lot of different areas of their lives, rather than just health and wellness. But the other thing that I think, I think makes it so hard is that we have this culture around, we have to do it ourselves.

And we we have to be able to figure it out on our own, especially, especially in the US. It’s very, like, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, do it yourself kind of thing. And, and I think that’s also the culture in a lot of entrepreneurial circles and stuff, too. But I am a huge fan of asking for help getting as much help as we possibly can, hiring out help where we need to, and doing it in that way.

And and I think that we need to change the culture around that of like, there’s nothing wrong with us if we need help with something. In fact, we’re going to be able to uplevel a lot more in our health and in our business. If we do get the help that we need.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  22:55 

Absolutely, I agree with you. 100%. I mean, if we if and when we become vulnerable, and share our issues and reach out for help and accept help. And by the way, women are way better at this than men are. Aren’t us men we try we tend to rough it out and tough it out. And I’m gonna figure it out on my own. And I’ll let you know when I have it figured out and

 

Hadlee Garrison  23:27 

not ask for directions. Yeah, exactly. I

 

Mostafa Hosseini  23:29 

was just recently I was reviewing men. Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. The bow Yeah. Yeah. And how men tend to, you know, cave out and try to figure it out on their own. But women tend to talk and, you know, get help on that. And then when we get help, like you said, it’s a lot easier a lot easier than trying to figure everything out on our on our

 

Hadlee Garrison  23:56 

right. Yeah, and there’s no badge of honor for doing it ourselves.

 

Hadlee Garrison  24:04 

Yeah, yeah, we’re

 

Mostafa Hosseini  24:05 

not gonna get a

 

Hadlee Garrison  24:08 

gold star.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  24:10 

Yeah, register. I have trouble asking for help. But I I easily love to help others. It’s exhausting. That’s Richard, that’s a common common thing.

 

Hadlee Garrison  24:22 

Absolutely. Yeah. That happened. Yes.

 

Hadlee Garrison  24:28 

So that is a huge thing, especially for women, I have found is that like, women tend to be more, you know, I would just want to help everyone and some of that tendency comes from people pleasing and the fear of people not liking us. And so that, you know, what I would say is, I would I would want to get to the root of that with you and that’s what I do with my clients is okay, what’s the story behind that?

What’s the What’s the story behind why you want to help people all the time, and obviously, like, it’s great to help people we need to, to be giving and generous of our time, talent and resources. But it’s also really important to be able to ask for help and receive help ourselves. And so one of the habits that I work on with my clients is actually giving and receiving.

And so you know, if our tendency is to just give, give, give, and over give, is to work on that receiving one of the classic examples. And just a really easy example is that a lot of us are really bad at receiving compliments. So we deflect, you know, if someone compliments us, we just say, Oh, no, no, or like, Oh, I got it on sale, or someone compliments, like our clothes or something.

And so we don’t, we don’t allow ourselves to receive that. And so just allowing yourself to receive in little ways throughout the day like that can be really helpful for helping you to start practicing how to receive. But again, I would want to, I would want to get a little bit more about like, what’s the story behind behind the giving, and you say, Here, it’s exhausting.

So I would guess that, that there’s a story of like, I have to sacrifice for other people. And I’m not allowed to ask for that help. And that’s so so common. And I just want to give you permission, or I want to invite you to give yourself permission to be able to ask for help, and also maybe set some boundaries as well. And that’s a huge piece of it, too, is setting those boundaries, and setting up those expectations beforehand. So it’s like, this is what I can do for you. This is what I can’t do for you. And that’s that’s kind of how I go about it with my clients.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  27:05 

So the story behind that is the why is important. Yeah.

 

Hadlee Garrison  27:10 

Yeah, absolutely. And, and always getting to kind of like the root of what’s the story, what’s the belief, because a lot of times we have these old beliefs that were maybe ingrained in us from our parents or from society or wherever it doesn’t, you know, it doesn’t matter that much where it comes from, obviously, it can be helpful to kind of dig into that. But when we have these old beliefs, we can, once we actually identify those old beliefs, it makes it a lot easier for us to shift them.

If we we can’t, we aren’t, we can’t solve a problem that we’re not willing to have. One of my colleagues always says that. And so if we aren’t willing to have a problem, if we aren’t really willing to identify a problem that we have an old belief that we have, perhaps we won’t be able to actually then solve it. And so if we actually identify what the belief is, then we can start to work to shift that old belief and rewrite that story. And, you know, bring that into the forefront.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  28:20 

Got it. So to make it easier for us to implement the habits and and to, to open up about getting help. I guess, understanding the why and the reason behind it. Yeah, yeah. helps us to become aware of what we’re actually doing and how we’re hurting ourselves. And then I guess, open up?

 

Hadlee Garrison  28:50 

Mm hmm. Yeah. And then shift it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  28:53 

Exactly. And then and then when, I guess, I guess, when you have help on that, that becomes a lot easier. That’s true. Can you share some tips on on what we can do to actually make it easier to make that change? To healthy habits?

 

Hadlee Garrison  29:12 

Absolutely, yes. So. So for implementing healthier habits, we can start to implement some of these behavior change strategies. So obviously, the first one was perfectionism. The second one is the small steps. The third was architecting our environment and then there’s a there are a few other ones that I that I help my clients with, but making are making the habit more desirable or making the habits that you don’t want to do less desirable, or like less appealing.

And so, so one of you know, for example, it makes it a lot less appealing to go on your phone. It If your phone is downstairs when you wake up, because you will have to get out of bed and go down and grab it, which doesn’t sound great, doesn’t sound super fun to have to go to bed, right. And so when we make the habits that we don’t want to have less appealing, that makes it a lot easier to not do them.

And then also when we, when we create habits and make them more appealing, that can be really helpful as well. So for example, with that, we might, we might take exercise, for example. And it sounds really unappealing to go for an hour long run, maybe say, you know, it might not for people but and So break it down, break it down into something that sounds way more appealing, if you hate running, do a different workout, and maybe make it a shorter amount of time.

And the goal here, and this is another behavior change strategy. The goal here is not to not the one off workout, it’s to become the kind of person who works out every day or works out consistently. And, for example. So the goal is never the one time that we do it. So if we can shift our minds from that, to I’m shifting my identity into someone who does this every day, then it becomes more of a habit. And we can start to actually automate it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  31:36 

Got it? Love it, making it easier, break it down into smaller pieces. One One advice that I received was just get it started. Yeah, absolutely. If you need to run, like, run for a minute. Yes, yeah. And you will see, the brain will see that it’s not actually that bad. No,

 

Hadlee Garrison  31:56 

I had a client who I just started her with, just walk out the door. You didn’t do anything else, you just

 

Mostafa Hosseini  32:06 

walk for a walk.

 

Hadlee Garrison  32:09 

Yeah. And, and doing it, breaking it down. And it’s not that we’re trying to trick ourselves. Often people will say like, and then you’ll probably do the the workout that you weren’t going to do before. But sometimes, then we get into our brains. And we’re like, Well, I’m just tricking myself to actually just try to do the workout. And that’s actually not what we’re trying to do. I want you to just do that thing, and not do the other things like that’s fine.

If you don’t do the other things. You’re just becoming the kind of person who starts the workout every day, or starts the things first the meditation practice or whatever it is, every day. And that’s it, and you don’t have to do anything else. And then once you have that in place, then you can build upon that. And that’s how behavior changes automated.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  32:57 

Absolutely, yeah, I love the idea of breaking into smaller pieces and look alike. I’ve heard many, many times that we need to say meditate an hour a day. Some Yeah, right. And I’m like, There’s no way in hell, I’m going to, you know, meditate for an hour a day. But then the thought is running in the back of my mind. And I’m like, and then I’m like, you know, I really need to sit down and meditate so I can calm down and I can you know, improve a bunch of things. And then I don’t do it, and I get frustrated with not doing it.

Yes. And then I’m like, You know what, why don’t I just do five minutes, because I could do five minutes. That’s not a problem. anytime of the day, I could just shut everything down and meditate for five minutes. Right? And then as soon as I do it, the brain goes See I told you this was a great idea. Yeah. And then or when it comes to writing or reading or, you know, there’s a book that I need to read that I just can’t get myself to pick up the book and read it. But then let’s just get started. And then as soon as I get started, then the brain just, you know, gets going. Oh, yeah, this is great. We should have done this. I told you

 

Hadlee Garrison  34:23 

the same brain that was coming up with all the excuses, yes.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  34:30 

What are some of the most common mistakes that people make when when they’re trying to implement healthy habits in their life?

 

Hadlee Garrison  34:41 

Yeah, so. So I would say the biggest mistakes are, first of all, the perfectionism. And you know, there are so many forms of it. Even what you were just talking about is a form of perfection. Like, Oh, someone told me I’m supposed to meditate for an hour a day. And so If you just don’t do it at all, until you, you’re like, Okay, I just need to do it for five minutes a day. And that breaks you out of that perfectionism that all or nothing mentality, right?

So that’s so most of the mistakes that we make are really like our mindsets around behavior change. The other thing is definitely taking on too much at one time, which is like a classic. I would say a classic thing for entrepreneurs.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  35:32 

I’m gonna make the revolution. schedule that I’m gonna do it that has nothing to do with what I’ve been doing for the past 20 years. Make a massive change.

 

Hadlee Garrison  35:43 

Yes, every New Year’s you know, people do it right.

 

Hadlee Garrison  35:48 

New Year’s resolutions, I’m gonna change this beer in my life. Yeah, yes. So taking on too much at once is a ha man, I see it all the time. And the other thing is like thinking, Oh, once, once this happens, then I’ll be able to do this thing or change my life or, you know, whatever up level in this way. And whenever we think that that’s always a red flag when, whenever anyone says that to me, like, oh, once you know, work slows down, or once the kids go back to school, or once the kids aren’t in school anymore, or whatever it is.

I’m like, is that a recurring thought for you? Because it will likely not change when your external circumstance changes. So do it now.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  36:46 

That’s such a common thing once everything is perfect. And I’ll start thinking about, you know, doing something about my health and wealth and death. And that, you know, yeah, for sure. Interesting. So, you have graciously shared a gift with our audience. Could you tell us about your gift? Health?

 

Hadlee Garrison  37:10 

Yeah, absolutely. So I offer 30 minute health goals sessions, if you want to gain some more clarity on what your health goals even are. So that’s another thing is that we don’t make plans. It’s another mistake that we make. We say, Oh, I’m going to change everything. And then we don’t actually know what we want to change.

 And so that’s a really big thing that I help people do is gain that clarity. I offer them for free. help you gain clarity, see if it might be a good fit for us to work together. But really, we’re just trying to help you figure out what the next step is for you. And so if you are wanting to shift some things in your health and your wellness, this is a really great opportunity to gain some real clarity on all of that.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  38:02 

Absolutely. And so gang if you’re watching or listening, to get access to Hadleys gift to health goals session, and to set up your goals and get a deeper understanding of your health goals and you know, to become healthy, go to happy healthy hadley.com forward slash contact Hadley’s spelled h a d as in Deidre, Ella’s and Linda e.com.

So happy, healthy hatley.com forward slash contact, the link is going to be in the descriptions of the show, so you could click on it, reach out to her and you know, get a better handle handle on the health aspect of your life. Because here’s what happens with a lot of a lot of business owners and entrepreneurs is that they get so we get so focused on business, we get so focused on creating money and you know, building a big successful business, you know, 789 10 figures, yada yada, that we forget about our health.

And by the time we reached the business success, to health is all gone. And now we have to spend all that money on becoming healthy again, which in most cases doesn’t really work. And so, what I’m trying to say is, reach out to Hadley, this is a free 30 minute session, have a conversation and see what she can do to help you and your life and your business. And then I think in my case, it has definitely been the case is as that healthy habits helped me run a healthier business.

 

Hadlee Garrison  39:47 

Oh yeah.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  39:49 

If we don’t have a healthy mind and body. I cannot extract healthy decisions and good decisions out of a malfunctioning messed up Mind and Body. Right? It’s just mathematically and logically impossible. Absolutely. To extract say gold. You can’t extract gold from crap. How’s that?

 

Hadlee Garrison  40:16 

Yes, I love it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  40:22 

Anything else you’d like to add there?

 

Hadlee Garrison  40:27 

That’s a good way to end it. No, I, um, I would just say, the main takeaway that I would love to have everyone take from this is, is start really, really small. Start with the one thing and just do that every day, do it consistently, and then build on from there, because that’s going to actually create the change over time. So that’s what I would want to leave everyone with.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  40:57 

Fantastic. Now let me ask you some personal questions. Would that be okay? Absolutely. All right. What is something new you have tried recently?

 

Hadlee Garrison  41:07 

Whoa, well, I just moved to Croatia. So that’s something new I’m trying.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  41:13 

That’s a big one.

 

Hadlee Garrison  41:14 

Yes, yes. What’s it like

 

Mostafa Hosseini  41:17 

so far?

 

Hadlee Garrison  41:18 

Oh, my gosh, it’s amazing. I’ve been here since the beginning of October. And it’s awesome. There’s all of these beautiful beaches and beautiful islands. And we’ve had some summer weather and some foul weather, but it’s just been awesome. All of the buildings here are like old stone buildings. You can see behind me, I’m living in one. So it’s just absolutely gorgeous. I love it here.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  41:43 

Love it. Love it. Now what are your top two or three favorite books that have made it impact on you or in your business?

 

Hadlee Garrison  41:54 

Number one, Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Really great for bringing ourselves into the present moment. So great for all of life. He has some amazing, amazing books and resources and stuff.

And and then the big leap is a really great one for both personal and business. That’s by Gay Hendricks. Have you read that one?

 

Mostafa Hosseini  42:26 

It is on my list to read actually. Yay.

 

Hadlee Garrison  42:29 

Yeah. Oh, it’s so so good. I’m, I’m going over that with some of my some of my clients right now we’re we’re kind of up leveling with with that one. And it is amazing. Every chapter is just packed with great stuff. So I

 

Mostafa Hosseini  42:45 

just got another tick on my list. So I think it just got pumped up one more spot.

 

Hadlee Garrison  42:51 

Awesome. Love it.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  42:54 

What else? Is there a third one?

 

Hadlee Garrison  42:56 

Oh, um anything by Brene Brown is so good. It’s really good for interpersonal skills and communication skills and being able to work with clients and like you know anyone that you may be contract but also just in life in general all her books are amazing. So

 

Mostafa Hosseini  43:20 

what’s one advice that made a massive change in your life or business

 

Hadlee Garrison  43:25 

Hmm Oh, let’s see. Hire help.

 

Hadlee Garrison  43:33 

That was the biggest thing and well something that I wish I did sooner contract out help and also hire like coaching help as well.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  43:46 

Yeah, that’s that’s a big one. A big one getting Yeah.

 

Hadlee Garrison  43:51 

I thought I had to do it by myself. Like I thought that was important.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  43:59 

Absolutely, yeah. Trying to do it on our own. And in a lonely way is like the heart toughly, and I don’t think it’s healthy either.

 

Hadlee Garrison  44:08 

Definitely not. Yeah,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  44:09 

well, you have support. It is cool, correct me if I’m wrong. If I have like a support network or a support group, or even have a coach or a consultant, it is a lot easier on the mind.

 

Hadlee Garrison  44:24 

Oh, yeah. In our heads,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  44:27 

oh, my god to carry all that load of ENDA responsible responsibility to figure everything out to make all the decisions to come up with a working solution alone, as a lone wolf is not healthy.

 

Hadlee Garrison  44:43 

No, I completely agree. And a lot of times we want to like skimp on it. We want to like save money, especially as entrepreneurs, we’re being scrappy. We’re hustling, whatever. And we’re like, Well, I don’t have enough money to do that.

But you will likely be able to make more money a lot faster if you invest in the help that you need, with your business, with your health, with your wellness, with whatever it is that you are needing. So yeah, that’s the biggest advice I

 

Mostafa Hosseini  45:13 

got to me is like a major source of stress for business owners.

 

Hadlee Garrison  45:19 

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  45:22 

Yeah. Good. If you had a Facebook or an air egg Google ad, that everyone on Earth, whoever has access to internet could see, oh, what would your message be?

 

Hadlee Garrison  45:37 

Man? That’s such a good question.

 

Unknown Speaker  45:44 

Ah,

 

Hadlee Garrison  45:47 

I’m gonna go with the same theme that we’ve been talking about, which is start small, and you’ll be able to achieve big things.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  46:01 

Love it? That’s such a strong, powerful message. Beautiful, what advice would you give your 20 year old self?

 

Hadlee Garrison  46:15 

Don’t worry so much. It’s gonna be okay.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  46:21 

Already behind that? Oh,

 

Hadlee Garrison  46:23 

man. Well, I when I was 20, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. You know, I was just spinning around and around trying to figure all of that out. And I’ve talked to a lot of people who that was the case for them when they were in college as well.

 

Hadlee Garrison  46:42 

But I think

 

Hadlee Garrison  46:45 

it’s interesting how once we’re able to look back on our stories, and make sense of it from like a future like from, from our perspective, now, looking back on that time, it’s like, Oh, of course, I had to go through that so that I could experience this thing. And so then I could do this thing or whatever. And so I think not worrying so much would be huge. So it’s advice that I think anyone could take at anytime, too.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  47:15 

That’s great advice. Worrying about things doesn’t get things done.

 

Hadlee Garrison  47:20 

Right. Exactly.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  47:23 

Like we can worry ourselves to success, can we No, I need something done. I’m gonna sit down here. And that sounds funny. But a lot of us do that. Like we do that, right? I have to do something and I’ll instead of doing something about it, I’m like, Oh, I’m really worried about it. And people are like, what’s up? And we’re like, don’t talk to me.

I’m worried about some shit. Don’t bother me. I’m worried about things. Let me help you. They’re like, No, no, no, no, no, no, I got it on my own. And I’m gonna try to figure it out. Oh, my God. Yeah, that’s a common theme with entrepreneurs.

 

Hadlee Garrison  48:02 

Mm hmm. And sometimes when we don’t have like, full clarity on something when we don’t have when we don’t know, like, what kind of question to ask or what like, specific thing to ask for help with. We feel like we aren’t allowed to ask for help, because we don’t have that clarity ourselves.

But we can just be like, Hey, I’m not even sure what I need right now. But I need some support, or can I just like, share this with you? So that can sometimes be helpful.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  48:29 

Can you repeat that one more time? That last piece?

 

Hadlee Garrison  48:32 

Yeah. So. So sometimes we tend to, when we’re when we don’t have full clarity of what it is that we want to ask for. We don’t ask any questions. But if we just reach out to someone that we might need help from or that we want might want support from and just say, Hey, I’m not even sure what I need support in right now. But I know I need some support.

 I know I need to just like talk this out. Can you help me with that? Can you just be a listening ear and help me gain some clarity? Because, yeah, we don’t have to have perfect clarity in order to get help.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  49:10 

Absolutely. Love it. Love it. Love it. Hadley, this has been a really interesting and powerful conversation that I think any business owner could benefit from gang, if you’re watching or listening, joining us later, make sure you go to the beginning and start from the beginning and listen to the whole interview because we had Lee shared a lot of good information that a lot of stuff you could actually start using today.

If you’re not already. Is there anything you’d like to add that we maybe forgot or you’d like to end up with?

 

Hadlee Garrison  49:41 

Um, there’s one thing that actually I just thought of, while we were talking about these couple of questions, and that is self compassion. That is a really big piece in behavior change science, and I think a lot of times, people in the entrepreneurial world and I thought As to I was always I always kind of rolled my eyes at self compassion and like, you know, I was like, oh, that’s just like fluffy you whatever. But it’s actually really important for behavior change.

So a lot of times, we think that we can beat ourselves up into doing what we want, we want to do, but that’s actually completely counterproductive to behavior change. And so have a little bit of grace for yourself. If you mess up, that’s fine, you can get back on track if you just have a little bit of compassion for yourself. And then just keep keep chugging along and keep changing that identity.

 

Mostafa Hosseini  50:37 

Love it. That’s a powerful message. And I think we need to give ourselves permission to fail. Oh, yeah. And I’ve done that. I’ve done that a million times where when I fail at something, or when something doesn’t work out exactly the way I want it, I beat myself up for a long time. Right. And to a point where I don’t I didn’t even move on to the next point. Or I didn’t move on like to to fix it. Right. I think that’s where like a support network cups quite a bit.

Like, when I’m in a mess, when I if I reach out for help, like you were saying, people could see it and be like, hey, you know what, my stuff is not a big deal. Just just just fix that that part. And he’s going to fix and I don’t know, and I can’t see it, because I’m beating myself up over something that could have been fixed, like, five years ago. But then I couldn’t see it because I didn’t reach out for help. I didn’t, you know, ask for support. And then that wasn’t very healthy, I guess. So I love that.

 

Hadlee Garrison  51:43 

Yeah,

 

Hadlee Garrison  51:44 

yeah. Awesome. Self Compassion,

 

Mostafa Hosseini  51:46 

beauty. Hadley, this has been an absolutely amazing conversation gang, if you’re watching or listening to to get access to Hadley, and if you want to reach out to set up more healthy goals, go to happy healthy hateley.com forward slash contact, and visit her website.

Happy, Healthy hateley.com. And reach out and then get that 30 minute, complimentary session, have a conversation with her and see what you guys could do. And then the confidence giveaways again coming up at the end of no in the middle of November. But you can still right now you could join in to get access to the waiting list. And once we go live, you will get notified and if you know anyone that would like to get access to a list of amazing gifts to help you boost your confidence in different areas of business.

Join the confidence giveaway and or if you would like to join as a contributor, you can do that as well. Thank you for joining us.

My name is Mostafa Hosseini and you just listen to episode 75 of the daily confidence for entrepreneurs. Thank you for joining us and we’ll see you next week. Bye now.

 

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