When I was drinking I was the furthest thing from mentally strong and resilient. 

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Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do In Sobriety with Amy Morin

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

mentally strong, sobriety, drinking, women, life, self-pity, feel, moment, perfectionist, fail, therapy, helping, big, helpful, good, people pleaser, perfectionism, comparison trap, self-sabotage, self-compassion, set boundaries, learn to say no, take a break, acknowledge what and how you’re feeling, emotions

 

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Amy Morin

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a buzz, how to sit with your emotions when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

Hi there. Today, we are talking about

 

the things that mentally strong women don’t do.

 

And I wanted to do this episode because I think my guest will really help you if you’re in that cycle of trying to stop drinking, going back to it, and then trying to stop again.

 

My guest is Amy Morin. She’s a Psychotherapist, a mental strength trainer, and the award winning host of the Mentally Stronger with Therapist Amy Morin podcast. She’s an International best-selling author. Her books, including 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do and 13 Things Mentally Strong Women Don’t Do have been translated into more than 40 languages, and sold more than 1 million copies.

 

The Guardian dubbed her the self-help Guru of the moment.

Forbes calls her a thought leadership star and people says her book is one of the top 20 Must Read books of all time.

 

Her TEDx talk, The Secret Of Becoming Mentally Strong, is one of the most viewed talks of all time. And I’m really honored to have her on.

 

She also lives on a sailboat in the Florida key.

 

So, Amy, welcome.

 

Amy Morin  02:39

Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  02:42

Yeah, I thank you for responding. When I reached out to you, I had seen your books, I watched your TEDx talk. And I felt like all the pieces that you’re bringing together would really help the women listening to this.

 

Amy Morin  02:58

Awesome. Well, I’m thrilled that you did reach out and happy to share whatever you think will be most helpful to your audience. Awesome.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  03:04

Will you tell us a little bit about you and your story and how you came to this work?

 

Amy Morin  03:09

Absolutely. So, I was a Therapist in Rural Maine thinking I was going to work in an office for most of my career and happy to do therapy-based on what I learned in College. But one of the things that I learned pretty early on was well, in College, I was taught to build on people’s strengths. If they’re doing something well, tell them to keep doing that thing. Because we want to be strengths-based. But it occurred to me, like, if I went to see a Physical Trainer, and they told me to run on the treadmill, that’d be great. But what if they told me not to eat jelly doughnut? Well, then I’d be really mad that they didn’t tell me, then point out like, the counterproductive thing that I was doing, that was really undoing all the work I was doing while I was at the gym. So, I felt like, oh, that’s kind of the same for therapy. If I don’t point out the problem. And that one habit, maybe that’s counterproductive. All of your good work kind of falls by the wayside.

 

And about a year into my work as a Therapist, my mom passed away suddenly, and unexpectedly, she had a brain aneurysm. I was 23 at the time. And I just remember thinking like, you know, that it just, I hadn’t imagined a life without my mom in it at such a young age. And it was my big first big, like, real struggle with grief. And I was thinking, Alright, now it’s not just about teaching other people how to be mentally strong. But gosh, I have to start putting all of these things into place, in my own life.

 

And then, when I was 26, it was 3 years to the day exactly that my mom died, my 26-year-old husband died of a heart attack. And suddenly, I’m a widow. I don’t have my mom and I’m supposed to be a Therapist who helps other people deal with their problems. And I just remember thinking like, what do I do now? How do I do this? But I kind of felt like, I didn’t have too much of a choice because my husband was the primary breadwinner. Therapists don’t make a ton of money and I didn’t want to lose my house. So, I had to figure out, how do I keep earning money even though I’m struggling and so one of the things I did is I started writing articles.

 

You can only work as a therapist so many hours a week. But I could write articles in the evenings and the weekends and make a little bit of extra money to pay the bills. And few years later, I would like it took forever to kind of figure out what which way is up, and which way is down, my heart was broken. And at a time when most of my friends were getting remarried, and they were having kids, I’m a widow, it was the strangest darkest time of my life. And it took years to really dig myself out of it, I think. And to work through the grief, I didn’t want to go around the pain, I knew I had to go through it. But found love again, I got remarried, I got a new job, life was looking pretty good for a moment.

 

But then my father-in-law got diagnosed with cancer. And the doctor said it was terminal, they gave him a pretty poor prognosis. And I just remember thinking like, this isn’t fair, like, life is finally getting better. And now, I’m going to lose somebody else again. But I knew that feeling sorry for myself was not going to be helpful.

 

So, I wrote a list of what mentally strong people don’t do.

 

It was meant to just be a letter for myself during one of the darkest times in my life. But I found it helpful to say, just don’t do these counterproductive things. So, I thought maybe somebody else will appreciate the list.

 

So, I put it on the internet and stepped away from the computer thinking like, five people would read it, but 50 million people read that list. And before I knew it, one of them was a Literary Agent who said, you should write a book. But I said, you know, I’m a Therapist, I don’t really share my story. And there’s a backstory to this, what went on the internet was kind of pretty much just a list without any context to it. So, I was like, Oh, I don’t know. But she said, you know, you don’t have to tell your story. But it might be more powerful if you did. So, within a year, the book came out and I shared the backstory that I wrote the list, not because I’d mastered it, but because I struggled with all of the things that were on it.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:43

One of course, you did. I mean, I can’t imagine going through that kind of loss so early, and so quickly together. I’m really sorry.

 

Amy Morin  06:52

Thank you. I appreciate that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  06:55

Yeah, I lost my dad to cancer when I was 29. And I know that was incredibly hard for me. And I was drinking through the entire thing. I was already drinking, you know, every night, but I definitely ramped it up when that happened. And I have to say, it did me no favors. I would get so upset, feel so much self-pity, so sorry for myself, and then sometimes not even remember the conversations I had in the morning. And it really didn’t help me heal in any way. After I quit drinking, my best friend passed away of brain cancer. And it was an entirely different experience, I was so much more able to be there for her, to be helpful, to stay emotionally grounded, to take care of myself. And I think that, what you have, I’ve obviously, I’ve read your book, I followed your work. I love your podcast – it’s going to help people no matter what they’re dealing with.

 

Amy Morin  08:04

I’m sorry about your losses, too. And I think the fact that we can both share these losses, as I’m sure most of your listeners can relate to, grief is part of life.

 

Life is going to throw us curveballs all the time. And I don’t think we should like, build mental strength just to be ready for like the next tragedy to happen. Because that would be a pretty rough way to live life, because mental strength can help us in the good times, too. But to know, how do you get through the tough times when they do come around without reaching for those unhealthy coping strategies, or the coping skills that maybe backfire in the end. And there’s this thing that happens when we’re experiencing all this inner turmoil and all this inner pain. Sometimes there’s that tendency to kind of make the outside world match. So, we’re like reaching for stuff, doing stuff like these “quick fixes” that will help in the moment, whether it’s drinking or online shopping, when you don’t have the money. And it makes you feel better, like 4 quick seconds, but then it creates bigger problems in the long term and ultimately makes us feel worse.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  09:00

Well, so, tell us what mentally strong women don’t do or what people are going through a really dark time. What are the areas of their lives and behavior they should look at?

 

Amy Morin  09:13

So, well if we started with my first book, which is the 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do. I would say, feeling sorry for yourself is probably number is number one on the list because that’s where I was at that moment in time when I wrote the list, but also something I would see in my therapy office, people would be like, Amy, I’m ready to change my life. And I’m like, okay, but then they’d be like, next week, they just want to come in and tell me like all the bad things that happened in the past 7 days, and they didn’t really want to make any change. Instead, they kind of just wanted reinforcement that it’s okay to stay stuck right where they are. And I know that grief is a really painful thing and it’s difficult to go through. So, our tendency is to try to like, go around or we sometimes dig in our heels and think My life so bad, I shouldn’t have to deal with it. We just want to vent to other people rather than take action. So, it’s about finding that healthy sadness without crossing the line into self-pity.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  10:09

Yeah. And so how do you do that? I mean, so for example, for you, you went through legitimate, incredibly difficult tragedies that impacted you emotionally, financially, every way like, how do you not feel sorry for yourself when you see the world going on around you with people who haven’t experienced this?

 

Amy Morin  10:36

So, I think a couple of things. So, we sometimes talk about emotions, as if they’re all positive or negative, people will be like, well, excitement is a positive emotion and sadness is a negative emotion. But that’s not true. Any emotion has the power to be helpful or hurtful at any given time. If somebody walked up to you with a get rich, quick scheme, your excitement might make it, so that you say yes, and you forget that it’s actually a bad idea. Or your sadness helps you honor something that you lost to a point. But there may be times where you’re so sad, you don’t get out of bed for 3 weeks. That’s when it crosses the line into being unhelpful. So, I think it’s important to take a look at our emotions and say, Is this helpful to me in the long run? Or am I allowing this emotion to really take hold to the point that it’s affecting my ability to function and to make healthy choices for myself.

 

And really, when we crossed over into self-pity, it’s when we, we don’t want to take any action at all ever. So, it’s sort of like when we’re looking more for the reasons about why we shouldn’t have to do anything, rather than actually taking the action. So, when we’re like, oh, look, there’s 8 bad things that happened today. And those 8 bad things may have happened, but maybe 10 good things also happen today. And so, when we indulge in self-pity, we forget to read like screen out anything positive, we only look for the negative. And you’ve probably met somebody who kind of thrives on that, like, Oh, guess what happened to me today. And they only want to tell about the horrible dramatic things that happen. Because they get something out of just repeating like the horror stories of the day, as opposed to acknowledging, Well, you know, some good things happen, too.

 

And I’ve seen. What happens is, that therapists, when people stay stuck in that cycle of self-pity, they just become bitter and angry, and never really worked through the pain. So that thing that happened, it might be 20 years later, but that thing that happened is still like, so painful that they can’t really worked on it. So, for me, it was about knowing, yeah, this is sad. And I miss my mom, and I miss my husband. And it felt really unfair, that that’s the situation. I was in in my 20s. But on the other hand, I was like, you know, but I also have skills, I have resources. I have other friends and family who are very kind people, I have some things I can do. And it was also about acknowledging the good and the bad.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  12:46

So, what should people do? They don’t feel sorry for themselves, it’s look for the good, appreciate the resources they have in their life, sort of, reclaim their power.

 

Amy Morin  12:59

So, a couple of things, sometimes people will say, Well, you know, I’m lying on the couch in a really dark place. And I think, yeah, well, I’m grateful for air and water and it doesn’t really feel genuine. And so, if stirring up gratitude at that moment feels more like a chore, you don’t have to do it. When life is bad, you can acknowledge Yes, things are bad. And we’re not talking about toxic positivity, where you minimize your pain, you can acknowledge. This is really painful. And this is really hard. And this is what I’m going to do today. And it might be, you smile at somebody, hold the door for somebody. But just acknowledging that there’s something that you can do to make the world a little bit better. In that moment, maybe to make your life a little better to cheer somebody else up. It just empowers you to know that even on your darkest days, you can make a difference in the world. And that’s not to say, you have to go out and try to change the whole world when you’re having a bad day, but to know that – that you matter and that there’s still a purpose for you to be here.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  13:55

That makes a lot of sense. So, stop feeling sorry for yourself. Avoid self-pity, what else?

 

Amy Morin  14:02

Second one on that list of that book is, that they don’t give away their power. And that’s probably the most popular one people want to ask me about. And it’s really about knowing that you’re in charge of how you think, how you feel, and how you behave. But so often, we want to blame other people. Like, my coworker wastes my time, my boss makes me feel bad about myself. My mother-in-law makes me go to her house for dinner on Sundays. Whatever it is, we act as though somebody’s forcing us to do certain things. And empowering ourselves can just be about changing the language and recognizing, I don’t have to feel bad I could choose to feel bad, but I don’t have to, or this person isn’t forcing me even if your boss says you have to work late, you don’t have to. There’s a consequence maybe if you don’t, but it’s up to you to make that choice. So, taking back your power can just be shifting your language and recognizing I’m in control of how I think, how I feel, and how I behave today. I get to decide how to spend my time and who to spend it with, I can set healthy boundaries with people, I can make choices that would say, you know, maybe it’s not the popular choice, but I’m not going to do that thing, or I’m going to go home or I’m going to take my own car so I can leave when I want whatever it is, there’s so many things we can do all day every day, and not blame other people for having control over.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  15:20

Yeah, and I think that I sort of identify as this overachieving people pleaser, at least that’s what I was doing when I was drinking, and I’m working on boundaries, and being able to do that without worrying about how the other person is going to react. But I think that’s one of the hardest things to do, right? Because obviously, you don’t have to go to dinner at your in-laws or serve alcohol to people coming over for a dinner party or drive your kids everywhere. So, you are totally burnt out at the end of the day. But we have this like internal critic that we’ve been conditioned to be like, but I should, but it’s not. Okay. Right? How do you? How do you move past that?

 

Amy Morin  16:09

So, I think it’s a couple of things. Sometimes it’s about still doing that thing. Maybe you don’t feel like driving your kids all over the place, but you decide, I’m going to do this anyway. So just then recognizing that this is my choice, and I’m doing it because it’s choice not because I have to, sometimes just that shift in your mindset makes a big difference.

 

Or there’s, you know, my friend invited me somewhere, I don’t really want to go, but she could use a friend to go with her to this thing. So, I’m going to go anyway, just recognizing that like, Okay, I’m choosing to be a good friend. That’s why I’m going not, I’m going because I have to go. And that language shift makes a big difference.

 

And then sometimes, it is about not just changing how we think about the situation, but it’s actually changing the situation itself.

 

So, give himself permission to say, No, thank you. Or ask yourself, like, what’s the worst that would happen? If I invite people over? And I don’t serve alcohol? Like, are they going to judge me or they’re going to be upset, or they’re going to be mad? Maybe, but like, what’s so bad about that thing? And just kind of walking, taking this scenario through all the way till the end? So sometimes we’re like, oh, I have to do this thing. But what would happen if I didn’t? Maybe they’d be upset. Okay, well, what if they were upset if I declined their invitation? You know, the sun would still rise tomorrow, and probably still set tomorrow night. It’s not the end of the world. But if we walk it all the way through to the end of the scenario, sometimes that reminds us of that, like, Okay, people can be upset, people can be angry, they can be frustrated. But often the things we’re imagining don’t happen anyway.

 

How many times do we say yes to something because we think the other person will be offended if we say no? But then in reality, the other person maybe was just asking to be polite to, so you don’t, we’re thinking we’re going to make them happy. They think they’re inviting us to make us happy. So many strange situations we get ourselves in, and I’ve been guilty of it as well, just because we don’t speak up. We don’t say what we want. We don’t set boundaries. And so, it takes practice to be able to say no, sometimes, or it’s it takes practice to be able to say actually, I’m going to take my own car, so I can leave when I want. But I’ll go with you. Those little things that we do sometimes can make a huge difference in taking backup power.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  18:13

And in your therapy practices that something works through with people.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson 

 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit®.

 

The Sobriety Starter Kit® is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course 

 

Amy Morin  18:18

Yeah, we definitely. And sometimes it’s a matter of just helping people like by themselves some time. So, if you’re a yes person, just figuring out what’s the script. So, when somebody calls and asks you, Hey, do you want to do this? Or can you do this for me? We might develop a script that’s as simple as I’m not sure yet. I’ll check my calendar and get back to you. And then so that people don’t automatically say yes to everything. And sometimes that helps. And then they can have a 10 minute break where they check their calendar, or just give themselves a few minutes to think, do I really want to do this? And then get back to the person and say, Hey, thanks for the invitation. But I’m not able to do that. And you don’t always have to have an excuse or reason why said you can just use that. And that often is much more powerful than we might imagine that other people are like, Okay, thanks for letting me know. And then we move on with our day.

 

But in our heads, sometimes we build that up. So, a lot of what we do in the theory therapy office is figuring that out or helping people figure out how do you say no, and stick to it? If you have somebody in your life where you say no, and the other person’s Oh, but come on, you know, you should or you know, you want to or you’re boring, or whatever it is that they try to use against us. And how do you follow up with that and still stick to a no, or if somebody tries to guilt you into something? Or maybe it’s even a business opportunity where somebody says, I’m not going to pay you for this, but I’d love to have you come do this thing for exposure and it’d be really good for you and you say no, and they’re still trying to like to convince you that it’s a good idea. How do you say no and stick to it? So having a few sample scripts can go a long way toward helping us.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  19:52

Yeah, and do you have those scripts in your book?

 

Amy Morin  19:55

I have some in my, so I have a workbook now which is the latest I came out with this the 13 things mentally strong people don’t do workbook, because I was getting a lot of questions like that in my original book, I was talking more about setting boundaries and saying no. And then I have a lot of people that are like, an exactly how do you do that? Or what are the exact words I could use? So, I came out with a workbook earlier this year to help people really get the exact scripts to use are the ideas of how you can say no and stick?

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  20:22

Yeah, I find that really helpful. I know, I have sort of a three part way that women can people pleasers can say no in terms of like different ways you can, you can do that. I think the specially scripts are helpful when you’re sort of deer in the headlights confronted with what do I do at this moment?

Amy Morin  20:42

That’s just it. We know that when our emotions go up, our logic goes down. So when somebody asks you something, and you have that deer in the headlight moment, your anxiety is probably skyrocketed so high that it’s hard to think clearly. Like a I don’t know, or maybe or that we say something like are we know our answer’s no. But maybe we don’t really want to say no. So we say like, we leave them on to boot. So maybe, or I’ll have to think about it or return it into a joke or something like that. If you have a script ready to go, then you know, yeah, when I have my anxiety skyrocket, this is exactly what I’m going to say if it takes a lot of the pressure off of us.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  21:18

And yeah, and for anyone listening this, another script that really helps, is having worked out in advance exactly what you’re going to say to someone if you’re going out to dinner with them, or spending the week with them about not drinking, how much you want to reveal how much you want it to be a big deal. Whether you’re telling them you’re taking a break for 30 days, 100 days, because you feel better, whatever it is just knowing that can help you feel more confident when you deliver it.

 

Amy Morin  21:48

Absolutely, because that’s another one that people find they stumble over their words, they take it in, into place in their head where they’re like, oh my gosh, did I say the right thing? Or I don’t know what to say. And they get tripped up. And so, Oh, absolutely. I love that, that you have those scripts.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  22:04

And so Okay, stop feeling sorry for yourself, stop giving away your power because you’re able to set your own boundaries. And what’s next.

 

Amy Morin  22:16

So, another one in there that you just mentioned, is not trying to please everyone. And so, it’s folded into the other ones a little bit too. But we there’s so much interesting things about people pleasers.

 

So, we know that a people pleaser will try to match the other person that they’re with, right down to like if there’s a bowl of M&Ms on the table. They will and the other person’s eating M&Ms, even if the people pleaser is on a diet, they will match the other person’s M&M consumption. M&M for M&M, right. And so, it’s important to recognize if we want to make them happy, we don’t want them to feel uncomfortable that they’re still eating, and we’re not or that they’re doing something we don’t want to do. So, I would imagine that really comes into play when it comes to alcohol to that we want to match what other people are doing. We don’t want them to be offended or to feel bad about their behavior. So, we’re like, Oh, if you’re doing this, maybe I should do it too, because it will make you feel more comfortable. And so, a big part of it is just recognizing that it’s not our job to make other people happy. In fact, no matter how hard you try to make somebody happy, chances are you aren’t going to do it that we can let other people take responsibility for themselves. And we’ll work on focusing on responsibility for ourselves. It’s tough to do. I have been a people pleaser for a lot of my life. So now saying no and speaking up and saying, Actually, I don’t like that, or here’s what I’d really like to do. Takes a lot of work and practices.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  23:39

Well, no, it absolutely does. And I mean, I think the fear that’s under that is that you’re going to be rejected, right? People aren’t going to want to hang out with you, or they’ll like you less if you don’t do that. Exactly.

 

Amy Morin  23:55

And then there’s a I have a chapter in my women’s book specifically about perfectionism. Because these things often go hand in hand that we grow up thinking if I can just be this certain way, then people are going to like me, I will make them happy. Maybe your parents praised you because you were got an A on the test, and you got praised when you scored a goal in the game. So, we think okay, if I can just keep performing and achieving and doing great things, then somehow I’ll please everybody in my life. But like it’s this constant cycle where we never feel quite same.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  24:26

Yeah. And so, how do you shift that? Is it trying to focus more internally on your own goals? Is it something else?

 

Amy Morin  24:35

So, one thing can just be to try to figure out like, what are you trying to gain by being a perfectionist? Are you trying to get more admiration achievement? Do you feel like you’ll finally feel good about yourself when you cross a certain finish line? And then ask yourself like, what’s it also costing you? I know perfectionist who will spend three hours on a simple email because they can’t quite figure out how to word something. Or they’ll say, you know, I spend all this time at home, working on work stuff, and people don’t know I’m working 80 hours a week. But really, that’s what I’m doing to try to try to get ahead, or to try to feel like I’m competent or to look competent at work to other people. And it’s costing a lot of people, their health, their time with family, their relationships are suffering.

 

So, just knowing well, what is it costing me, and sometimes the perfectionist in my therapy office will actually make a mistake on purpose. So it might be, let’s send an email with a typo in it on purpose just to see what happens. Or let’s just decide, okay, this report is worth an hour of my time. And that’s all you’re going to give yourself and you better be done at an hour, and then you get, send it in and get it off your off your plate. And when people can do that, like it’s super anxiety provoking for a long time. But when people do that regularly, they see that, yeah, maybe that like, extra two hours, I spend rehashing an email, in my mind over and over again, doesn’t actually get me to where I want to be or what I thought I was doing. I thought what I was doing was helpful, but it’s actually holding me back.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  26:06

Why No, that’s interesting. Because especially in the beginning, when you’re stopping drinking, you really need to lower the bar, your body feels physically very, very tired. And you need to stay away from overwhelm. And that’s scary for a lot of women, if they’re high achieving at work, and they’ve got a lot going on, or they’re people pleasers. And so it’s actually an exercise in doing less, and doing things not as perfectly as you want to do it in order to give yourself time to heal.

 

Amy Morin  26:40

And you know, and giving up drinking is another one of those perfect, perfect, I just use the word perfect, perfect examples of how we sometimes have that all or nothing attitude, like I’m either going to be 100% on track, or I have 100% failed. And what And strangely, people who are perfectionist also tend to self-sabotage.

 

So, I had a woman in my therapy office who was trying to lose weight trying to get healthy. And she’d be like, you know, I have like 3 really good weeks in a row. And I’m doing well. And then the 4th week, I’m like ordering pizza all the time. And I’m doing all of these things like what’s going on? But she had these certain goals. And when she get 3 quarters of the way to her goal, it was like this anxiety had built to the point that she was really struggling because she’d be like, Oh, I don’t know if I can hold this together much longer. Sounds like she would sabotage herself just to get rid of that tension and anxiety. Because she’d be like, I don’t know, if I can be perfect. So, then the anxiety would build to the point where she would then blow it just to say, Oh, I messed up again. But she didn’t know none of this was conscious that she was doing it. But that’s actually a really common thing that happens with perfectionist, we get three quarters of the way to our goal. And then we’re anxious about whether we can actually do it. And then we kind of blow it on purpose.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  27:49

It’s an upper limit problem, like scared of what will happen if you actually break through, or something else.

 

Amy Morin  27:56

I think with perfectionist, it’s often the fear that it’s not necessarily the fear of, of failing or the fear of success. It’s more like the fear of what if I do my very best, and it’s still not going good enough. And I think that’s the deep rooted fear that that we often have is like, Oh, what if I do something else? So, let’s say a college student who’s a perfectionist has an exam on Friday. They might not study and then it’s Thursday night, and they suddenly are like, yeah, because they like what if I study all week, and then I still don’t do well on the test? Well, I’d rather not study at all then. And then if I fail, it’s not necessarily my,

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  28:35

like self-protection where you’re like, Well, I didn’t do well because I didn’t study not because I’m inherently not good enough.

 

 

Amy Morin  28:45

Exactly. So, we see that happen often with perfectionist where they end up sabotaging themselves in some strange ways. And it seems like counterintuitive, like you think, no, a perfectionist doesn’t do that they study all week. But no, sometimes they don’t they do these other things just to kind of blow it on purpose.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  29:02

That’s really interesting. I remember. So, I was sort of a daily drinker. But I drink before every job interview and before business trip. And when I was young, like really young, like 23, I was, you know, in this oversized suit, and going up to meetings at American Express in New York, from DC, with these big conference rooms, I felt so unqualified, and I would drink the night before. So, I was so hungover in the morning that all I could concentrate on was trying not to throw up and that’s ridiculous but was totally true.

 

Amy Morin  29:45

That’s a prime example to saying, you know, like, I’m just going to kind of take the pressure off in a very strange, counterintuitive way. But I think if we all looked at our lives, there are examples of times when we’ve done just that because we don’t want to think I’m incompetent.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  30:03

We want to blame some sort of external force on why we struggled, which is ridiculous, right? I’m thinking like, Okay, I’m trying to do this really hard thing. Let me just put a ball and chain around my ankle to make it harder.

 

Amy Morin  30:13

Right, right. But it’s strange. But I guarantee if we all looked at our lives with a magnifying glass, we would find times where we’ve done no, that’s really interesting.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  30:20

And I wonder, I just want to get your take on this as a therapist, something that I see women do a lot is they have legitimate resentments, or grievances or something that they need to address in their life that is going to cause conflict or uncomfortable situations. And they drink to stuff that down. And then they wake up and blame themselves, like so that they don’t have to engage with something that will make someone else uncomfortable.

 

Amy Morin  30:55

Absolutely. And I think that goes back to kind of the people pleasing piece of like, oh, what can I do to avoid this, this thing, and I know there’s something I, I should do, and there’s a part of me that wants to do it, but it’s hard to do. So, what can I do to kind of sabotage it, that’s another great example of how we sometimes sabotage ourselves in weird ways.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  31:14

And that’s hurt you talk about, giving up at the first failure, is that related to perfectionism or separate?

 

Amy Morin  31:24

It can certainly be related. So, some people are like, alright, if I fail was it means I am a failure. So, there’s no use in trying again, it goes back to the whole growth mindset of we can learn from failure, we can bounce back from it. And we can get better from it. But when the strange thing that we never do in society is really talk much about failure. Occasionally, you’ll see it on Instagram where somebody’s bragging about, they failed 30 years ago, but we only see them do that once they get to be super successful. It’s much harder to talk about something you fail that last week, and you have no proof that you’re going to do better at it next time you try. Or there’s no evidence that you’re eventually going to be successful. And so, because of that, we often hide our failure, we put a lot of energy into trying to make sure nobody knows about it, it’s embarrassing. Or we come up with excuses for it like, Well, they didn’t hire me because the boss probably hired their cousin. Or we think that it’s, you know, it’s so far out of our control that there’s no use in trying again, because we’re just going to fail.

 

But to know that failure is part of any process so that we know that nobody’s like, Hey, I’m going to lose 50 pounds, and then they stay on track, and they lose 50 pounds. And the whole thing was easy. And they don’t ever have a bad day like, No, we know that that’s part of the process having bad days. And there’s a whole chapter about making mistakes too, because those go hand in hand. We do make mistakes, but we don’t have to dwell on them or think that a mistake means that we can’t succeed or that if we make a mistake, that somehow we’re a bad person, it’s part of the process is making mistakes. And then how do you recover from that mistake? Or if you fail? How do you then move forward after the failure? And that’s what really makes it

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  33:00

Yeah, that’s really interesting. And I can’t remember a time I’m thinking back when someone shares right after a failure, except in some of these private groups, like both not drinking groups, where someone will come back and be like, okay, day one, again, I did XYZ. But also, I’m in a sort of online, business entrepreneur group, and people will talk about I built this whole product, and I launched it and crickets, you know, I had one person buy it, or nobody showed up. So, maybe it’s when you’re with people who have a similar goal you feel safer, versus the entire universe of your aunt and your former boss.

 

Amy Morin  33:48

Yeah, I think that’s very a very true statement. You know, if you fail at something at work or at business, and your grandmother hears about it, she may be like giving you this really long lecture. Or you might think she’s going to judge you for being stupid, because you didn’t know how to create a product and sell it. But if you can talk to like-minded people, I guess there is some faith that grabs they’ll know what that’s like to see you make a mistake or follow up or have some advice to help you through it.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  34:11

Like they empathy and no, it’s hard.

 

Amy Morin  34:15

Right? And that’s why I always talk to people to about like, support groups and things like that, where you can get together with people who truly understand, because so often, you know, people want to give us advice about everything from your love lives, your business life to your health. And they don’t know because they’ve never been there. So, somebody with depression will be like, Well, my cousin told me I should drink more water, you know, and you’re like, Well, if your cousin had depression, and she said, Hey, this is what works for me. That’s one thing then sometimes we listen, but we don’t really like unsolicited advice, especially when it’s from people who haven’t been in the train.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  34:48

Yeah, they don’t get it. They haven’t been there. They have no idea what it feels like. Right, I also saw you write about mentally tough people being okay with accept team responsibility. Can you tell me more about that?

 

Amy Morin  35:04

Yeah, so that goes back to the idea of whether we’re making an excuse, or we have an explanation. And so often, like, even if we make a mistake, we don’t really want to admit that it was. Because we didn’t have the information, we just want to be like, I’m going to blame something else, like, my boss didn’t tell me what to do, or I didn’t have the resources I needed. And but when we make an excuse, like you can’t really do better next time. So, accepting responsibility can be like, Alright, here’s my part. And you don’t want to accept too much responsibility either. Because I think there is the danger of that. On the other end of the spectrum, there are times where we think, Oh, this is all my fault, but it’s not somebody else might bear some responsibility to so it’s about recognizing that there’s some middle ground to be had, except your share of the piece of the puzzle without blaming yourself too much. But also recognize when you’re tempted to just make excuses and blame other people for, too.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  35:59

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned, perfectionism shows up in women. Are there other things that you see women in particular struggle with that maybe men don’t?

 

Amy Morin  36:12

One big one is the comparison trap. So, and there’s research on this. If I were to open up Instagram, and I see all of these idyllic looking women, I’m much more likely to think, Oh, I could never be like that, right? And I feel bad about myself. If, however, a man opens up Instagram, and he’s on some Men’s Health site, and he looks at all these, like big, muscular men, and he thinks they look amazing. A man is more likely to think I could totally do that if I just went to the gym, right? And for women, I think we tend to, when we look at people who have things that we want, we’re much more likely to think it’s because she’s amazing, and I’m not, rather than she has information that I could learn from, or she has skills or resources or something that that by following her I could gain. Instead, we think either people are better or below us, or that somehow that they have something that will never have so and the women’s book, I talk a lot about that the comparison trap.

 

And the one of the best strategies is to just look at other people as an opinion holder, rather than your competition. So, if you look at somebody who has what looks like an amazing life, instead of thinking they’re better than I am, catch yourself and think, perhaps this person has knowledge, skills, or resources that I could learn from. And studies show when we make that slight shift in the way that we think about it. We don’t feel so bad, we feel more inspired rather than feel bad and beat ourselves up for not having those.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:39

Yeah, I remember when I was wanting to leave corporate and admired some women entrepreneurs, I had a sign on my vanity that said, if she can do it, so can I and that actually helped me make that move.

 

Amy Morin  37:57

I love that. That’s a great question for you.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  37:59

Why do you think men, you know, in the studies have a different approach? Is it something that we’ve been conditioned to believe? Or do I have this joke that my husband, who is a lovely man, also a white man, who I am always like, God, grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man? Do you get suddenly think we’ve just been done? Right?

 

Amy Morin  38:23

No. You know, one of the main reasons I do one of the main reasons I wrote the women’s book was, there’s a study where they asked five year old kids point to somebody who’s brilliant. And they showed him a whole bunch of pictures of men and a whole bunch of pictures of women. Almost all the little five year old girls would point to a woman that they picked out, and they would say, oh, that woman looks brilliant. And then the little boys would almost every single time point to a man who they thought looks brilliant. But then they did the study again at the age of seven. And almost all the little girls and all the little boys all pointed to men, and they didn’t pick out women. And you think well what happens between the ages of five and seven that would make these little girls think it’s only men who are brilliant? Well, we start school, what happens when we start school, we learn about astronauts and presidents and famous scientists who are predominantly men. So, I think it gets ingrained in us from a very young age sometimes that that we’re not as good. And that kind of carries over.

 

It’s not only like, I’m not as good as some of the men in my life, but maybe I’m not as good as some of these other women who were able to break through and do some really cool things. And I think it’s subtle, and it happens early on. And we know too that you know, teachers will praise boys for getting A’s and girls be like, well, you tried hard, that’s good. And girls get praised a lot more for being pretty than they do for being nice. Right.

 

Right, exactly. That you’re supposed to be the kind one and teachers excuse boys bad behavior much more than they do a little girl who acts up those sorts of things. So, I think part of it is the way that we’re socialized and just what we learned from Our childhood experiences really gets ingrained in us over Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:02

And just You’re right about looking around.

 

I mean, I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg said, like, when will you know that there are enough women on the Supreme Court? And she said, Oh, when they’re 12 of them, and people were appalled, and she’s like, Yeah, we’ve had 12 men on the Supreme Court for decades, all of history, and nobody’s ever balked at that.

 

Amy Morin  40:26

Yeah, say that’s a great example. Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  40:28

And then you look at that. And of course, you think, oh, men are the best judges, because they’re all the ones on the Supreme Court, and not realize that yeah, that makes sense. The other thing I always hear is that men get promoted on potential and women get promoted based on achievement.

 

Amy Morin  40:45

Yes, and I have a chapter in the woman’s book about that. Some of it, I think, is ingrained in us in a way that we present ourselves differently. So, I have a chapter about not downplaying success, because we know we do that, too. If you looked at LinkedIn profiles to people, a man and a woman who had similar job experiences over the years, the men play, there’s way up and the women play, there’s way down. And that’s not to say men are right, and women are wrong. But I think it’s important to recognize this is the world we live in a man that just had that same job you did for five years. He’s claiming he’s an expert, and you’re claiming you don’t really know anything about it. So, it’s okay to accept compliments from people, it’s okay to talk about the good things that we’ve done our achievements, and to not feel embarrassed or like we’re bragging when we do it, if something great in your life is going on, like it’s okay to acknowledge that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  41:34

No, that’s definitely true. So, believing that you can achieve what you want. Just need to have the right resources and experience and to learn from the people who’ve gone before you.

 

Amy Morin  41:52

Exactly. And we know that even when it comes down to compliments from women, when somebody says to us, like, Hey, I like your shoes, we’re really quick to be like, Oh, I got these on sale, or, or I like your shoes too. Like we just can’t say thank you when somebody says something nice to us. And I think that goes back to childhood and our beliefs about worthiness. Like it’s okay if somebody compliments you, say thank you. But for whatever reason, sometimes it feels like we’re being a jerk by saying thank you, we tried to give credit to other people where we downplay it or minimize ourselves. Just practice that say thank you, when somebody gives you a compliment. It’s going to feel uncomfortable, but just sit with that discomfort.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  42:30

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And so if someone’s listening to this, if they feel like maybe they keep failing, and making promises that they’re not following through on, what are some small things that that you think they might be able to start shifting today that would help them.

 

Amy Morin  42:53

So, one thing is just the way that you think about stuff going on in your life is to ask yourself, what would I say to a friend who had this problem or friend who is struggling with this right now? We’re way kinder to our friends than we are selves. But give yourself that same kind advice you say to somebody else, we know that self-compassion is key to helping us do better and to feel our best.

 

For whatever reason, most of us think that we should, you know, yell at ourselves, or beat ourselves up like we’re this really mean Coach. But that none of that’s helpful. Self-Compassion, is really what’s helpful to get through life. So, I would say that.

 

Another one is to just take a break sometimes and acknowledge how you’re feeling. There’s tons of evidence that just putting a name to your emotion takes a lot of the sting out of it. So, when you feel embarrassed or rejected, or you feel really sad or anxious, just take a moment and pause and say, How do I feel right now, put a name to it helps your brain and your body make sense of what’s going on. And you almost instantly will start to feel just a little bit better just from doing that. And one other interesting one, I think it was for people who worry a lot, which we know there’s a lot of women high achieving women who tend to worry about just about everything on the planet. If you worry a lot about things than scheduled time to worry, you just take 15 minutes as a set aside to sit down and worry and worry and worry and worry as much as you can in 15 minutes. And it sounds ridiculous. But there’s research behind this. And I’ve done it with plenty of my therapy clients then into my own life.

 

But basically, anytime you worry outside of your 15 minutes, you just remind your brain, Santana worry yet, I’ll worry about that later. And then when you’re worried time comes around, sit down, and worry for 15 minutes and then get up and go do something else to get your mind off of it. It takes about two weeks, but people will come in to my therapy office by about the third week. And sometimes they look like the weight of the world has literally been taken off their shoulders where they’re like, you know, I was so distracted throughout all of my days. And when I was doing stuff, I was always worried about what’s going to happen next or did I say the right thing yesterday and I could never concentrate and then would like now that I know Hey, I’m going to worry about that later. I can concentrate on what’s right in front of me right now. And sometimes people will find that to be one of the most transformational things they could possibly do.

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:00

That’s so interesting. So, do you recommend they write it down? Or they’re just like, Alright, so I’m 15 is 7:30, I’m going to worry today.

 

Amy Morin  45:11

It depends. Some people just sit at the kitchen table and like think, but I’ve had other people who are like, you know, I’m putting a bullet pointed list of all the things I’m worrying about. And either one seems to work pretty well.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:21

You know, it’s funny, when I was leaving a job, at some point, my I’m a big vision board person, and my husband knows me really well. And he put a picture on my bulletin board that said, not to spoil the need for you, but everything’s going to be okay. I just was like, Oh, I kind of needed. You know.

 

Amy Morin  45:44

I love that. That’s great.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  45:45

I used to have what I call the universe jar. And I would write down the big things, the things that I had no idea what would happen, like I worked in digital marketing, layoffs, and reorders were a constant thing that happened all the time and sort of had you living in this place of fear. And I would write down all my worries, and then put them in this mason jar and close it. And the reason I did that was because I had no idea what would happen. But it also helped me come back to it six months later and be like, Oh, my God, it worked out like it.

 

Amy Morin  46:22

I love that. That’s a great idea. Because so often we kind of forget how far we’ve come. We don’t really look back at you know, that thing I wanted to do five years ago, that I’m actually doing it now because we forget, we get so quickly adjusted to what we’re doing now that we forget how cool it is. Yeah.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  46:41

Anything else you want to share before we wrap this up?

 

Amy Morin  46:47

I would just say I guess that I think you’re stronger than you think your brain is a jerk sometimes and it will lie to you, it will tell you can’t do something, it will try to convince you otherwise. So, I guess my parting exercise that can help would be sometimes to write a list of the top 10 reasons why you should do something like go to the gym, or why you shouldn’t do something like drink at dinnertime. And keep that list handy. Because there are moments when your brain is going to be like, Ah, you shouldn’t go to the gym today, you’re too tired. Take out that list and read the top 10 reasons why you should do it. And you’ll talk yourself into it much more often. Or when you’re tempted to indulge in something you shouldn’t do, you read the list of the top 10 reasons why you shouldn’t do it. And you might talk yourself out of doing.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  47:30

So, sort of keeping your why front and center and the reason you’re making this decision.

 

Amy Morin  47:37

Right, because in those moments where you’re tired, you’re frustrated, you’re having a bad day your brain will be like, not today. You don’t need to do that today. When you read that logical list of reasons it can help you or even when you’re in a good mood, your brains like you could serve a day off or you deserve to celebrate today, read the list of why you should stay consistent with whatever goal it is you’re working on. And it’s much easier than to be like okay, I’m going to talk myself into this and stay on target with what I want to accomplish.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:03

Well, so how can people find you find your books follow up with you.

 

Amy Morin  48:07

So, my website is the best place it’s AmyMorinLCSW is in licensed clinical social worker.com. And on there, I have links to all of my books which I have a new book, 13 Things Mentally Strong Couples Don’t Do – it’s coming out soon. And you can find information about my podcast, which is called Mentally Stronger With Therapist Amy Morin.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson  48:27

That is awesome. Thank you so much.

 

Amy Morin  48:31

Thank you for having me. This has been fun.