Hey, it’s Molly from alcohol minimalist. What do you do in this October? I would love to have you join me in my more sober October challenge. What do I mean by more sober October, it simply means that we’re going to add in more alcohol free days than you currently been doing, whether that’s one or two or 31. It’s up to you, you get to set your own goal and that’s why it’s more sober October. You can check it out and learn more at get got sunnyside.co/molly It’s totally free. I’ve got grises I’m going to be going live every week to announce the prize winners. And it’s just going to be an awesome event. So I would love to have you join me. You can learn more at get.sunnyside.co/molly and you can get registered today. Welcome to the alcohol minimalist podcast. I’m your host Molly watts. If you want to change your drinking habits and create a peaceful relationship with alcohol, you’re in the right place. This podcast explores the strategies I use to overcome a lifetime of family alcohol abuse, more than 30 years of anxiety and worry about my own drinking and what felt like an unbreakable daily drinking habit. Becoming an alcohol minimalist means removing excess alcohol from your life. So it doesn’t remove you from life. It means being able to take alcohol or leave it without feeling deprived. It means to live peacefully, being able to enjoy a glass of wine without feeling guilty and without needing to finish the bottle. With Science on our side will shatter your past patterns and eliminate your excuses. Changing your relationship with alcohol is possible. I’m here to help you do it. Let’s start now. Well hello and welcome or welcome back to the alcohol minimalist podcast with me your host Molly Watts coming to you from this rainy Oregon. Do you ever I get tired of me talking about it in January. I’m sure all of you do too. But that is Alas, the problem with the Pacific Northwest. You can’t get all this beautiful green all around you if you don’t have rain. So here we are in the midst of the middle of the rainy season. And well it’s not even the middle yet. Sadly, it’s really kind of just the beginning. So I’m sure there’s sunshine somewhere in my future. How are you doing? This is the first episode of 2023 Welcome to the new year. How many of you are doing dry January with me? Or are you doing damp January? Or how about one you Arey I love that somebody I learned about one new area. And that’s for people who are doing in any setting, they are having just one drink. But that’s their January resolution. No matter what program or challenge or group that you may have signed up for. I really want to help you make sure that you’re headed into this month with a mindset that supports you in the very best way. I want you to be successful with whichever approach you are taking for this month. And I hope that this episode will help you do that. So when I successfully changed my decades long daily drinking habit, one of the first things that I had to change was my mindset. That’s a word that gets a lot of buzz. And when I looked up the history of the word, I learned that the word mindset is relatively new. Some of the earliest empirical explorations of mindset originated in the 1900s with the work of psychology professor Peter M. Goal with Sir Goldwater’s most notable contributions include his theory of mindset, and the mindset theory of action phases. So, again, I’m just talking about the terminology mindset. You can go all the way back to the stoics to really talk about the foundational goals of mindset and cognition work, but this term mindset is something that’s really only been around since the 1900s the definition according to something on the internet, I don’t remember which which dictionary site mindset is an established set of attitudes, especially regarded as typical of a particular groups social or cultural values, the outlook, philosophy or values of a person and now also more generally, frame of mind attitude disposition. The mindset may also arise from a person’s worldview and philosophy of life. So now it stands for Outlook philosophy, values, frame of mind attitude. All right. So Carol Dweck, Dr. Carol Dweck from Stanford University, wrote her seminal book mindset, the new psychology of success, how can we learn to fulfill our potential only back in 2006. And in that book, Dweck described two categorical extremes, a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. Those with a fixed mindset tend to avoid challenges give up easily and focus on the outcome. They believe that their talents and abilities are a fixed trait that they are either born with or not born with. Thus, effort is not valued as worthwhile to the fixed mindset individual. Those with a growth mindset on the other hand, and this all from the book believe intelligence can be developed, and their abilities can be enhanced through the learning process. With a growth mindset. individuals tend to embrace challenges, persevere in the face of adversity, accept and learn from failure, and focus on the process, rather than the outcome. So help hopefully, you can see where I’m going here. Fixed Mindset focuses on the outcome. Growth Mindset focuses on the process. Now duacs work has been really illuminating for me and helped me better define what mindset means for myself. It’s my own mindset that helped me create my peaceful relationship with alcohol. And it allows me to approach dry you weary with optimism, and dare I say excitement. Now, while I’ve always considered myself to be a lifelong learner, I have also come to understand that I have generally believed over the course of my life, that I was just naturally smart. Yes, I just believed that I was naturally smart. So despite the fact that I enjoyed learning new things, I also had a pattern of not sticking with subjects or activities, or anything that are changes I was trying to make when they were difficult when they were hard. For me. It was a classic example, I was a classic example of a fixed mindset. Even though that isn’t how I would have described myself, I would have described myself as someone focused on growth and self improvement. In fact, I remember motivational speakers from back in my junior high in high school years. I remember motivational events from early on in my career, and even my one day in person event with Tony Robbins back in 2016. And I believed the motivational hype coming out of those events, was just something I needed, like in little energy boost a shot in the arm, a nudge to get me back on track and doing the things that I intellectually knew I should be doing. I believed that I knew what to do. And my mindset was just something that naturally fluctuated, thinned down between positive and negative. Now I see mindset as something that is much more foundational and permanent. I believe now in my growth mindset, where my talents and abilities are skills that are developed through effort, feedback, and failure are opportunities for increasing my ability, and they signal the need to pay attention, invest effort, apply time to practice, and master the new learning opportunity. I want you to hear that again. Feedback and failure are opportunities for increasing my ability that signal me to pay attention, invest effort, apply time to practice, and master the new learning opportunity. Now, I did not understand or know about the behavior map results cycle until the end of 2018. So if you go back to earlier episodes, like episodes 1011 and 12. I share more about me learning the BMRC and why mastering it was at the center of my successful relationship with alcohol. mastering the skills of the behavior map results cycle, took time, effort, practice, and was the Learn An opportunity that changed my life. It changed my fundamental mindset to a growth mindset. And that’s pretty amazing considering it didn’t happen until my fifth. Okay. Hey everyone, just a quick break to talk with you about Sunnyside. Now you’ve heard me mentioned Sunny Side many times before, you’ve heard me talk with Nick and E and the founders of sunny side. And I just want to share with you why I am so passionate about this company. They are way more than just a drink tracking app. They are really about helping people create a mindful relationship with alcohol and they stand for a life that is about having more, not less, right. There are more rested mornings more days. When you’re feeling your absolute best when you have more energy and positivity. Sunnyside is not there to tell you to never go out to never drink, but they are there to help you enjoy your life and to wake up and be ready to be your shining best. It is not an all or nothing approach. It is friendly, it is approachable, and it is absolutely judgment free. They want to be a solution that fits into your unique lifestyle. And I think that’s exactly what they’ve created. You can register for a free 15 day trial, though to www.sunnyside.co/minimalist. To get started. That’s www.sunnyside.co/minimalist to try Sunnyside today. Here’s why learning the behavior map results cycle was important. And no matter whether it’s dry, you’re weary or some other change you’re trying to make in your life, how you feel about it matters. How we feel determines the actions we take. And the actions that we take consistently over time, create the results that we have in our lives. Now it’s natural when we approach change to feel uneasy, fearful, nervous and anxious. But it’s also natural that we feel motivated, excited, optimistic and hopeful. What matters is that we understand that all of these feelings are coming from one place our thoughts, and we absolutely have the power to choose the thoughts that help us feel the feelings, we need to take the actions we want to take. Here are some typical thoughts that happen for people as they embark on dry January or dry weary. One, I’m worried that I won’t be able to do the whole 31 days. Pretty simple, right? One of the first thoughts that people have two weekends are going to be really hard. Number three, I never stick to my goal. So this probably won’t be any different. And number four February just can’t get here fast enough. One of the things that I found to be really powerful in observing my own thinking, which by the way, most of us just are not in the habit of doing. Our brains throw out about 60,000 thoughts a day. We’re not conscious of all of them, we can’t be and when we are conscious of our thoughts, we rarely challenge our own thinking. I never used to question my own thinking. It felt like I was just conveying the truth of the circumstances of my life, that my life was stressful was obvious. And me stating that I was stressed because of it was just an observation of that truth. It never occurred to me that I was creating the feeling of stress by what I was choosing to focus on. Now, don’t get me wrong, life has difficulties, circumstances will arise and they will not be what you expected. There will be wins and losses. There will be wonderful days and horrible weeks. I’m not telling you that all is going to be perfect and peaceful all the time. Learning how to not add to your suffering by managing your thoughts is how I want you to live your life and certainly how I want you to do dry you Arey. Instead of focusing your attention on a thought like I don’t know if I can make it 31 days, which causes you to feel anxious unsure. Instead, make change easier by optimizing and altering your thoughts. Different thoughts generate different choices. It always works. That way. Your thoughts will talk you into or out of every choice you make. Your thoughts have the greatest impact on the change you want to create. You are the thinker, you can change your thoughts at any moment. And changing your thoughts is one of the most effective ways to change your chance. So here’s another thought, let’s say you’ve been going along all week, and the weekend is upon you. You planned on doing the whole month, but you talk yourself into just one beer after work, because only one is still a ton better than the typical Friday night. And so you drink it. After you enjoy it, you choose a guilt response and think, Well, I blew it might as well keep drinking and get these cravings out of my system. And I can just start again tomorrow, a single beer turns into a full blown binge, not because you don’t have control. That because you use the thing over which you have the most control your thoughts to make a case for the binge. Every slip becomes a slide. And it all started with a thought you chose about the choice you made. You created the meaning by way of your thoughts, and that drove your choice. Here’s how thoughts and choices occur and how they form habits and beliefs. Your thoughts drive your choices, your choices, repeated your actions form your habits, your habits, your actions, create your results. And your results actually inform your beliefs, your beliefs, then generate more of the same thoughts that justify the same choices that produce the same results. So understanding how this cycle works can be amazing ly powerful and transformative once you understand it and optimize it, or it can feel like a death trap, preventing all desired progress and making you feel like your habits control you. But your habits don’t control you because you can change your thoughts. And that will open you up to improved choices. This is the starting point for all change. You change the entire cycle when you change your thoughts. When you think the thought I never stick to my goals, how does that make you feel? For me, it was a thought that I used to have all the time and it always made me feel discouraged, dejected and kind of like why even start, right? That thought is optional. Your behavioral tendencies are not who you are, and you can change them. Your habits aren’t your only options. Your past is a memory it is not a projection. There is no behavioral pattern that can’t be changed. In any and every moment, you have the opportunity to change your own reputation. When change feels hard, and you’re overwhelmed by the idea of it. Here’s what can set you free. Think about this thought you are the solution you’ve been waiting for. You are only one choice away from creating a new pattern or establishing a new reputation. Just because you’ve fallen short on goals before doesn’t mean you can’t be something else. Just because you’ve always been a daily drinker doesn’t mean you can’t change that reputation and create a new reality. Every day is a chance to do just that. One of the most powerful tools that I use and believe in and subscribe to in terms of changing behavioral patterns is to challenge my thoughts by asking myself better questions. Questions will help you challenge the beliefs that are currently limiting your potential and your progress instead of defaulting to I’m just someone who doesn’t stick to my goals as a justification for a night of wine. Use questions to open up the potential for other options. What else could I be? What other choices could I make tonight? Am I capable of choosing something else? Just for today? Do I want to continue to endorse the belief that I I’m just someone who doesn’t stick to my goals? How do I feel when I make that choice? What choices would I have to make in order to wake up feeling great tomorrow? If you practice asking yourself better questions and look for ways to change self limiting beliefs you have about yourself and alcohol too, for that matter. Then the last thought that I shared about driver won’t even cross your mind. I’m not eager for February to get here. Other than it’s one month closer to to sunshine here in Oregon. But giving myself the experience it’s dry you weary and celebrating my peaceful mindset as an alcohol minimalist is something I’m truly excited about. As I mentioned last week, I’m all in this month for maximum effort. And that means asking myself better questions when I want to justify taking a shortcut. Whether you’re doing dry January damp, January one you weary or your own version of drinking less. Use this month to understand how your thoughts drive your feelings, how your feelings dictate your choices and actions. Believe in your ability to pay attention to invest effort to apply this time to practice and master your thoughts. I promise you it makes any change easier, and a peaceful mindset possible. That’s all I have for you this week, my friends. Until next time, choose peace. Thank you for listening to the alcohol minimalist podcast. This podcast is dedicated to helping you change your drinking habits and to create a peaceful relationship with alcohol. Use something you learned in today’s episode and apply it to your life this week. Transformation is possible you have the power to change your relationship with alcohol now, for more information, please visit me at www dot Molly watts.com