About this Episode

We hope you found value in part one of this podcast. Thank you for joining us for this second segment. Welcome to today’s episode of The Communication Solution podcast with Casey Jackson, John Gilbert and Danielle Cantin. We love talking about Motivational Interviewing, and about improving outcomes for individuals, organizations, and the communities that they serve.
In this episode we delve into the concept of New Year’s resolutions, particularly through the lens of motivational interviewing and sustainable behavior change. The discussion explores how individuals and businesses can approach the New Year with a mindset focused on positive change, aligning actions with core values, and the importance of verbalizing goals to trusted, unbiased listeners for clarity and accountability. The podcast also touches on the challenges of maintaining long-term changes and strategies to sustain motivation beyond initial enthusiasm.

In this episode, we discuss:

• Forward-Looking Approach: Casey Jackson emphasizes the importance of a forward-looking approach in motivational interviewing, contrasting it with traditional psychotherapy that often delves into the past.


• Cultural Reflections: The hosts discuss how different cultures view relaxation and being present, highlighting the often hectic pace of life in the U.S.


• The Journey of Change: The concept of life being a journey, not just a destination, is explored, suggesting that sustainable change involves enjoying the process, not just focusing on the end goal.


• The Impact of COVID-19: The pandemic is mentioned as a catalyst for people to reassess their lives, priorities, and what truly matters to them, similar to the reflection that occurs around the New Year.


• Sustainability of Change: The hosts discuss the importance of making sustainable changes that align with one’s values, rather than temporary or superficial adjustments.


• Role of External Feedback: John Gilbert emphasizes the value of having external measures or feedback to complement internal reflection and ensure alignment with values and goals.


• The Concept of a ‘New Day’: Casey Jackson introduces the idea of each day being a new opportunity to progress towards goals, rather than seeing setbacks as complete restarts.


• Balancing Internal and External Measures: The discussion acknowledges the importance of balancing internal feelings and motivations with external, objective measures for sustainable behavior change.


• Invitation for Listener Engagement: The podcast concludes with an invitation for listeners to share their thoughts, agreements, disagreements, and topic ideas, emphasizing the interactive nature of the podcast.

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Thank you for listening to the communication solution. This podcast is all about you. If you have questions, thoughts, topic suggestions, or ideas, please send them our way at casey@ifioc.com. For more resources, feel free to check out ifioc.com.

Transcribe

Hello and welcome to the communication solution podcast with Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. I’m your host, Danielle Cantin, here at the Institute for Individual and Organizational Change, otherwise known as IFIOC. We love to talk about communication. We love to talk about solutions and we love to talk about providing measurable results for individuals, organizations, and the communities they serve. Welcome to the communication solution that will change your world.

Hello everyone and welcome to Creation Solution. I’m Danielle Cantin, your facilitator for today and I am here with your hosts Casey Jackson and John Gilbert. Hey guys. Hey Danielle. Hey Danielle. Hey, I’m excited for this episode today.  I thought we could dig into a topic that I’m, I want to say might be really emphasized in the U. S. But I’m sure it’s felt somewhat across the globe.  The new year and with the new year comes It’s lots of ideas around resolutions and such. And that makes me think of motivational interviewing and how that might affect, you know, not only the fresh start that we look at as an individual with, Hmm, what might we like to go into this new year with, but also as a business, you know, people are looking at that as well.

And when I think of resolutions and, you know, you have to laugh at the age-old. Sayings and beliefs of like, Oh yeah, you go at it hard on January 1st and you know, you peter out with that long-term behavior change. So I thought that could be a really fun topic to think about motivational interviewing, the communication solution, and maybe how to reframe or think about the new year and in a way that could help people take steps forward in a really positive way.

You know, I think it’s fascinating when you were just talking about it and kind of introducing this, Danielle, I don’t know why, but my brain just went to the difference between motivational interviewing and kind of, I was raised a little bit more in the psychotherapy realm.  You know, I was going through my schooling, be a therapist and, and I think that really for me is a bit the difference.

What I love about motivational interviewing is who do you want to be from today forward.  Psychotherapy is talking about what’s happened to you in the past. And, and so I, there’s something that just, I think the thought of new years, I think in so many different celebrations around the world, always have this kind of celebration of new life or rebirth or starting from here or moving forward.

And, and that part just really, that intrigues me. It literally almost lightens my chest even talking about that. Like, just think if, If your thought process was, where do you want to put your foot today? Where do you want to take a step towards today? And I think that is the nature of New Year’s resolution of, you know, the year is gone.

You take a deep breath, you know, give your loved ones a hug, shake off the last year, and then think about literally baby New Year is you’ve got a fresh start. You, you, who do you want to be? How do you want to navigate this? I think what happens where we falter is we straddle our old thinking and our old behaviors and try to straddle that with new thinking and kind of this excitement on New Year’s Eve and New Year’s resolutions.

And then we move back into our old life. And if you’re going to do that, you’re just not going to make progress. And I think this from that, I mean, just brainstorming out loud. And I think that’s one of the things that I wrestled with as a therapist is, you know, every week you talk about what’s happened the week before and, and how that relates to trauma from the past.

And, and I don’t think that’s bad or wrong, but I think that consumes energy for what do you want to do today about tomorrow?  So all the, the moments I’m talking about the past and. And the past week are moments that I’m not paying attention to the present. And what can I be doing to create the life that I want today?

And from this point forward, I think I’m in such a transformation myself right now, living this and believing this,  you know, implementing all the things I know about health and growth and mindset. And teaching it, it’s very present in my mind in a, in a dimensional and visceral way for me right now. So it is interesting that, you know, you brought up the topic of New Year’s because I’m really in this kind of trying to be forward growth mindset,  and feeling the potency of it and how, how many people want to pull you back into old ways of being.

And I think that’s the same for New Year. Yeah. And I think also that is such a brilliant insight because it’s not just other people want to pull you in, but it’s what we know. So it’s just like, Oh my God, I want to leap into this future that doesn’t exist yet. And I want to do it from a place that I’m familiar with, which is contradictory.

I’m also secretly laughing because I’m drinking out of a coffee cup that says counselor, the counselor, which is, you know, just cracks me up because it’s very true about, it’s all about looking back and our facial interview viewing is looking about looking forward. That’s exactly it. And, and I think from.

You know, as I think about this, we’ve all talked about this before with businesses and sustainability and, you know, and I know we need to talk about this on a separate podcast as well, but I think that when you’re thinking about if you’re going to sustain or have forward movement, it just requires change.

And so many people find, we know we find comfort in status quo. You, you, you, there’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the old pair of sweats. It’s the old blanket we like to cuddle with. It’s our old coffee mug that we like to find and pour. It’s just, we like that stability and chronic change is just hard on our brains.

It’s hard on our biology, chronic change. I mean, it’s good for growth, but there also needs to be a time for reset and. you know, regroup as well, too. And I think our world is so chaotic that we’re chronically in a state of change. It doesn’t feel like we get a lot of status quo, except this is where I think why I like that we attempt to think more globally.

There is the U. S. phenomenon that we just Can’t sit down, you have to be multitasking. So I think there is this, how much do we have to do it and how much have we bought into, you know, kind of a, a cultural phenomenon that if you’re sitting down, you’r