Change Your Day, Not Your Life

So Janet started talking about all the things that she does in her day, and she eventually just got to a point where I said, "OK Janet. Hold on: listen. You don't have to change your life, just change your day."

And for me, that was the lightning strike moment because that's essentially what I believe – it's that for busy, hardworking people who are trying to improve, they typically try to change too much, and they let their big goals end up leaving them frustrated, because they aren't doing the things that they know they should.

Rachel Salaman: And in your book you make that point – that most people know what they should be doing to improve their lives, they just don't do it. And in your experience that's pretty universal. So is the solution also universal?

Andy Core: That question of why don't I do what I know I should is a tough question, and I hear it all the time. Every person I speak to, every group that I go in and consult for, they essentially will ask that question of themselves at times. And what I've found is the more successful the person is, the more pressure they feel from that question. They ask that question more often than people who aren't as successful; that's the problem – that inconsistent motivation to improve.

Is the solution universal? I think for most people it is, because we all get up each morning; we all go to bed each night and how we organize those hours between waking and sleeping – that's a pattern that we live. It's called our way of life.

I consider it more of a standard operating procedure: your thoughts and actions and experience – how they sequence and what do they make you feel and do they energize you, or do they add to the resistance to improve?

Rachel Salaman: You start your book by talking about the cues that can make a difference to your day. Could you tell us a bit about those, including some examples?

Andy Core: Sure. In my presentations, one of the questions that I ask my audience – I have them turn to the person next to them and tell them what's the very first thought that enters your mind at the moment you wake each morning. And people laugh, and then I get people to really go into that, and so here are the top three most common responses.

The number one response is their mind just starts to race, like they've got so much to do; it's like go, go, go. The second most common response is Oh, hit the snooze button, I need five more minutes of sleep. Then the third is Oh, I've got to pee.

I want people to understand that their very first thought is a trigger – so what you think in the morning starts the way that your mind thinks, and then what your mind thinks changes the way your body reacts. And so that is just one example of a trigger that is mental, physical, and emotional.

Rachel Salaman: So how can you make sure that you're thinking the right thing when you wake up in the morning?

Andy Core: So I interviewed a guy from the United States Olympic Training Center. He is one of their lead sports psychologists, and I asked him what he does to help his athletes stay motivated, because most of the people that I speak to, you, me, especially Olympic hopefuls, are motivated – they want to improve, but it's staying motivated I think that's the hardest part.

So I asked him what he does to help those athletes stay motivated through four, eight, twelve years of work for no money, and so he basically helps them do two things; and the first one is he sits down and he asks them why are they sacrificing so much – why are they working so hard?

And that's what I do with business people, with working at goals. I say, "Why are you sacrificing so much?" And most of the time the response that I get is they kind of look at me for a minute and really have to start thinking about it, and they go, "Huh, oh well I need to pay my bills."

Now paying your bills is a wonderful thing, and you should give yourself a lot of credit for paying your bills, but if that's the only thing that's driving you, then it's going to be hard to stay high energy, positive, motivated, creative in a busy, high demand environment.

So what I want people to do is to clarify that into something that they can use, so if you think about why are you sacrificing so much, really identify that, and I think tactically make that your very first thought of the day, will then trigger you into being more energized and motivated.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you talk about something you call Do, Know, Be, and you say it's different from Know, Be, Do. So this is a very interesting idea – can you explain it?

Andy Core: It's an eternal debate in the world of psychology: do you take action and the action then makes you become motivated, or do you have to teach someone the importance?

So I'll give you an example. Let's just use exercise. If I came up to someone and I said, "Listen, you really should exercise for this reason, this reason, this reason," and I keep going, so I'm telling them, then they're going to know that they should exercise. Well, that doesn't really work very well: we all know we should exercise – it's important to basic health and survival – but not nearly enough people take the know and are able to do it and then be able to be.

So you know you should exercise: "Oh then I'll do it and then I will be healthy or more successful."

I think it's the other way around. I think you have to do it first and then you know, then you really get it and then you can be. So I'm a proponent on the debate side of behavior saying that you really must experience it first. Do it first and then you truly get it, and then you'll be able to stay motivated.

Rachel Salaman: Now, throughout the book you talk about strugglers, strivers, and thrivers, with the latter category being the happiest and most effective. So how can a struggler or a striver become a thriver? What's the process they need to go through?

Andy Core: So I came up with this concept of thriver, striver, and struggler from going into high-demand organizations, I find that people, when they are put into that situation, they will eventually, in a culture like that, shift into one of those three categories, and the strugglers are the people who aren't ready or are not a good fit for a high-demand work culture, and they typically leave or are liberated at some point.

The strivers are the people who are willing and do work very hard, but oftentimes find their energy and motivation levels fluctuating, and they can't really explain why they don't feel like they should or they don't do what they know they should as often as they should, and they feel a lot of stress and anxiety.

And then there's the thrivers, and those are the people who don't work any more, they work hard, but they're able to accomplish more, and they also have interests outside their work life – hobbies and personal interests – and they have a great quality of life outside of work.

So my focus is not then on the strugglers as much, but on the strivers and the thrivers – so with the people who are willing to work really hard: what are the differentiators between those two? So the processes that I run people through really are what ended up being the impetus for my book. It's basically how I help people think through their high-demand schedule and how to get more from their time at work and get more life from their personal life, and so basically what I do is have them focus on changing their day in the ways that they need to change.

Rachel Salaman: Can you give us some examples of the kind of things people change? You've already talked about what you think of when you first wake up. What other things do people change?

Andy Core: To me it's that first part of your day: it's super critical. In the book I say there's a better way to start your day, and so we've already talked about the first thought, but I also want people to develop a pattern – a peak productivity pattern for themselves in the mornings.

One of the things that I believe is that I think the snooze button on your alarm clock is secretly plotting to destroy you, because basically when you wake up and you hit the snooze button, your first choice of the day is to procrastinate, and one of the things that I truly believe in is this concept called behavioral momentum. It's basically whatever actions that you take – any of the thoughts that you think, the experiences that you experience – they create an energy, and so from the moment you wake, what you think and do starts to create an energy, and that energy starts to build.

That's why behavioral momentum, that energy, starts to build, and pretty soon that energy is built and then whether that energy is really driving you forward or is kind of holding you back is dependent upon those early day patterns. So, for instance, I help people think through what's their first thought, what exactly do they do immediately when they get out of bed, so that way when they wake up they just check the box, check the box, check the box, and momentum builds on their side.

And I take that same approach to the first 30 minutes of work, because if you get to work and you sit down and you think about what do I really need to do today. First is, if you sit down at work and your first thought is that you already know and it's pre-planned what your most important activities are, and you launch into those, then you get to check the box, check the box, and then your momentum and work builds. So I'm a big believer in starting each phase of your day off with specific patterns that energize, motivate, and accomplish your most important tasks.

Rachel Salaman: And in the book you also talk a lot about hope and the importance of hope to that kind of process. How can a person genuinely feel more hopeful when they actually in their heart of hearts feel pretty hopeless?

Andy Core: I'm glad you asked me that question because most of the interviews have not. I really believe this is a key element. One of my friends and mentors is a psychologist who does therapy for high-level executives – that's his area of expertise – and he said, "Andy, there is not one executive that comes into my office who doesn't have anxiety and stress. And the reason for that is they feel out of control – like they don't have as much control over the results of their company; the way their day is organized. They feel like everybody is at their beck and call, and to me it's a control issue."

So when you feel loss of control in your life, that's one of the fastest ways to dramatically increase stress, anxiety, and to get your mind and body to start shutting down. Re-establishing control on the other hand is what most psychologists are trying to get people to do; they're going to ask them a series of questions that are going to lead them to discovering that they're more in control of their situation than they believe they are, and that feeling of being more in control of your way of life – your choices – is truly energizing.

So for me, one of the ways that I help instill hope is to get people to shift their focus from having to change so much in their life that may be beyond their control, and to just focus on your day. And let's not even talk about your whole day – let's focus on one area of your day; get you really in control of that and then that positive momentum builds to where you start to feel more confident, more in control, and more motivated.

Rachel Salaman: Now, most people believe that balance is important in life, and in your book you reframe this as integration, and you ask the question, what does it take to live an integrated life? What's your answer to that question?

Andy Core: I believe that work and life should be a one plus one equals three equation. Most of the time I run into people and I felt that myself that when work and your personal life gets busy you can kind of feel like a one minus one equals you've got nothing left.

I want them to refocus mentally that it's a one plus one equals three situation, so they should be complementary. I believe that work-life balance is the solution to the more with less dilemma that so many others face. I believe that it's not a reward of being successful, it is a pattern: a way of life that the most successful people use to reach high results over the long term.

So one of the most common problems that I see in hardworking, busy adults is that they just don't have enough regeneration time – recharge time – in their lives, and there is some amazing research on how people that don't recharge in the evenings, how their level of engagement and motivation and productivity at work drops.

There is some really cool research too on how vacations are really important and they really work, but for only about four or five days. I want people to think about how do they really recharge, and I want those to be more of a priority in their personal life, and if they do that, work performance improves.

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Rachel Salaman: I was interested in the anecdote you includes about Amy Jo Martin, who was asked by her boss in a meeting to choose two out of three things, and the three things were work, family, and self, and she was supposed to choose two but instead she chose to leave the company. Now you say that we should be able to have all three. How does that work in practice?

Andy Core: The reality is that we're going to be busy. We're going to have lots to do; there's going to be times of year, certain deadlines that you're going to have to hit where you're going to have to sacrifice something from your family life or your personal life, work, family and self.

You're going to have to sacrifice, but the problem that I see is that when people do that they typically don't bring it back into their lives, and remember I believe that balance is a pathway to success – to the highest level of sustained success.

Many bosses – but they don't say it as abruptly as Amy Jo Martin's boss did – like pick two between work, family, and self – but I think that many of us impose that on ourselves, and it's not necessary. It's that by adding regeneration and focus into your personal life by developing and deepening your relationships with the people that you love and that you care about. Those two things are proven through a mountain of research to make you more productive, more creative, more resilient at work.

So whenever you're starting to ask yourself the question of Man, why don't I do what I know I should? Or why am I so tired or why am I so stressed? I want you to think about am I getting enough work, family and self? I know that can maybe sound a little fluffy to the hard-nosed business person but that's why I bring a ton of research to back that idea up.

Rachel Salaman: So what would you say to someone who said, Well there just simply aren't enough hours in the day for work, family and self. I would love to be able to give the time to all three but I have to choose. What would you say to that person?

Andy Core: What I say to those people every day is that they are typically working a lot of junk hours: hours that they are at work, but they're not really giving as much work as they could, and that creates a vicious cycle.

So what we know from the research in productivity and well-being is that people that take care of themselves personally – let's say their health and their personal emotional regeneration – those people that take care of themselves are 47 percent more productive from 3 o'clock in the afternoon to 5 o'clock in the afternoon.

Now they're not any more productive up until 3; I mean you can totally abuse yourself and do the same level of productivity for the most part until about 3 o'clock in the afternoon or whatever the final two hours of your workday is, but that's when the people that don't take care of their well-being tank, and their productivity, their concentration, and their motivation drops off. At that point, instead of making the important phone call that you need to make or tackling the project that you really need to do, people will open up a browser for re-research or they will do non-productive tasks at that point. When they do that, that work that they didn't accomplish from 3 to 5 oftentimes then has to be brought home, which reduces their personal regeneration time, which then reduces their desire to do well the next day, and so that's how that cycle goes.

Rachel Salaman: So what can people do to keep junk hours out of their lives?

Andy Core: So in my book I wrote a chapter called Big Box Time Management. It's really a simple way to go about your day, because I want people to be more productive, but I also want people to be able to leave work at work, because oftentimes I get the complaint that Andy, I'm lying in bed, I'm exhausted but I can't sleep because my mind is racing and churning, and the reason for that is that you don't really know, you're not clear on what are the most important tasks that need to be done, or you're not confident that you did that during the day.

What I want people to do is to do an actual to-do list, whether it be on smartphone, computer, or on a piece of paper. I suggest that if your motivation is fluctuating, put it on a piece of paper, write out your to-do list with a box near it so that you can actually check the box. It's a real strong motivator in behavioral science, this simple checking the box. It's a powerful trigger to do more, but for your most important tasks I want people to make those boxes bigger: I mean just simply make the box bigger, so for me in most days I have five big boxes, that if I check those boxes in my day I can lie in bed at night relaxed and know that I've had a great day.

Rachel Salaman: OK, so you might redo your to-do list so that it's a little bit more graphic, you might have a larger piece of paper, and you might have bigger boxes for the more important priorities, and some smaller boxes for things that could perhaps wait for another day?

Andy Core: That is exactly the idea, and they may not have to do that forever, but I strongly suggest that they do that for three weeks, and at the end of three weeks they will probably want to continue doing it. But even if they don't they will have much greater mental clarity about what are the most important things that they must do each day, so that way when they're at the end of the day they can review that more clearly and feel more accomplished and be more relaxed.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you introduce readers to the core four, which are meaning, confidence, energy, and patterns. Now, you've touched on some of those elements already, but could you talk us through how people can use the core four to improve their productivity and their sense of well-being?

Andy Core: When I go into organizations and I study their people – and I've done it for 22 years – a pattern eventually develops in every expert's work. Most of the people who are not thriving are typically short on one or more of those four items: they're not clear enough on why they're working so hard – the meaning of their work – they're not confident in their daily patterns. They're not confident in what they did or need to do each day to be successful. They don't have that confidence that they're doing it. They don't have enough energy; they're running out of juice by 3 o'clock in the afternoon, and then they struggle and don't finish their day well, and that triggers them into working at night or not feeling satisfied.

Then the last one is patterns: it's that to make consistent change in a busy schedule. To me it's all about patterns. Being productive is a pattern; having great relationships is a pattern; being physically active is a pattern. All those things are patterns, and I want people to focus on how they do those little mini patterns in their day, and turn those into consistent or even automatic behavior, so the moment you wake you automatically think about connection. When you get to work you automatically start on your big boxes each day, and just ideas like that on how to make each day a series of successful smaller patterns.

Rachel Salaman: What are your specific tips for people who might want to do that – to maximize their mini patterns?

Andy Core: Basically what I do is I get people to think about which of those four they need to work on, and pick one thing, because that's one of the primary elements of my philosophy – it's that you really should only change one thing at a time. Basically with that one new challenge you tackle it; you hold it to the ground, you put all your energy into it until it gives and then it's part of your patterns and you don't really have to think about it. It becomes more automatic, and then that motivates you into wanting to do more and more and more. So I suggest that people identify – are they clear on why they're working so hard, do they feel like they have enough energy in their day to where they can finish their day productively and still be a human being? You know – the best version of themselves when they land home. Do they feel confident in their daily way of life? Is it supporting and serving what they want to accomplish and do they feel like their daily patterns are supporting them or are they creating struggle? And so I ask those four questions to help people identify, and then I break each of those ideas down into I guess more digestible and do-able pieces.

For instance, if you don't feel like you're real connected on the meaning of your work, which has been proven through some really interesting research. Portland State University of Michigan has found that the number one most energizing break that you can take during your workday to get yourself re-energized is to reflect upon the meaning or the importance of your work.

Now that‘s contrary to the research showed the number one thing that strivers and strugglers do when they want to re-energize is switch tasks at work or check email. If your mobile phone is in your pocket and you're doing something and it buzzes, whether a text or an email, if you break what you're doing – break your focus – check your phone and then go back to your work, that really sabotages your level of productivity, creativity, much more than most people think. Actually it made you as productive as someone who has not slept in 24 hours.

So I want people to develop better patterns when it comes to checking and responding to the digital messages in our lives. There's some really cool research on multitasking, and I forget the psychologist's name, but she's in the U.K. and she believes that there is no such thing as multitasking – there is only a thing called task switching. So you're not doing two things at once, you're just bouncing back and forth, and that time that you go from back and forth is a real detriment to your productivity level.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you talk about three enemies of confidence: perfectionism, pessimism, and procrastination – three Ps. How can someone use that insight to improve their day?

Andy Core: Well, when people are thinking about being perfectionistic, they are thinking about the outcome of what they're doing, so they want to do whatever they're doing to the best of their ability because they're worried about whether or not they're going to make their goal, hit their deadline, make their goal, or whatever the case may be.

And so people that are really highly focused on whether they're going to make their goal or not, we typically know they're not going to make it because the pressure of trying to do things perfectly leads to procrastination, and so what I want people to do is to jettison all of that – think less about the potential outcomes and think more about the execution.

Bring your focus down to the daily level, not whether you're going to make your new sales goal or not, but how can you execute today? How can you check the boxes today and make sure that you just move the ball forward – move the ball down the field?

And if that's your focus – that was the second key concept that I learnt from the psychologist at the U.S. Olympic Training Center: he gets people to focus less on outcome and more on execution. He doesn't want to hear about winning or not winning the gold medal, he wants to hear about how they executed today, and that creates that behavioral momentum.

Rachel Salaman: And that probably helps with pessimism and procrastination as well.

Andy Core: Yes, all three of those things I believe stem from the worry about the future. I want people to be more grounded in the present, and it's been shown to be one of the most …. People who are execution-focused stay motivated, are more productive over the long term and the short term. I strongly believe in execution beats outcome seven days a week.

Rachel Salaman: In the book you talk about the benefits of journaling. What are those benefits?

Andy Core: The benefits of journaling are enormous, and every motivational speaker, every psychologist that I know, every accountant, every nutritionist – they all help their people do journaling in one form or another.

In one of my presentations a lady asks me, "Andy how can I turn off my mind at night? I just can't seem to quit thinking and it keeps me awake and makes me sleep lightly."

So I went and I interviewed two different psychologists. I reviewed the research, and the fastest and most effective way to turn your mind off at night is to journal, and it can be as short as five minutes, and all you have to do is pull out a piece of paper and a pen and write out what am I thinking? – what's on my mind? – and it's like a real download from your brain to the piece of paper and then your mind and body relax.

It's crazily effective, but that's just one aspect and that's a tactical way to use it, but long-term success I believe is related back to being able to express your feelings and chronicle what works for you and what doesn't work for you.

Rachel Salaman: I really liked your story about your mom and how she changed her life by changing her day. I wonder if you could share that with us now.

Andy Core: Sure. One of the hardest things to do is to get people that you love, that you're close to, like your significant other or your mom or your siblings or your kids even at times, to change, because you have such a personal relationship with them.

And my mom had smoked for 30 years, and if there's one thing that I could help her do that would change her life it would be to quit smoking. And so I was always on at her about it. People sometimes aren't ready to change until they're ready to change.

One day she told me she was ready, and so I said, "Mom, OK: quit thinking about all these changes that you need to make. Let's just do one change in your day, so now at lunch instead of sitting in the cafeteria, I want you to go walk around." (She worked at a hospital.) "Walk around the hospital for half of your lunchtime and then eat the other half."

And she complained every day about it: how it made her tired, it made her legs hurt, how she didn't want to do it. Well, in about three weeks she stopped calling and complaining. I asked her, and she said, "It just feels good, I'm into it now." And went from someone who has never exercised a day in her life and smoked for over 30 years, to now she was not smoking and walking.

And then that momentum, she didn't know it – this goes back to do you need to know something and then do it to really be it. No, once she started doing it then she really got it, and then she was not only living and experiencing a healthier way of life, it was improving her work, her relationships – everything. And then within six months she ran a 5K race and within six months of that she ran her first marathon, and today she has run 12 marathons; has done Iron Man triathlons; has run the Pikes Peak marathon which is up 14,000 feet. I'm not sure what that is in kilometers, but there's no air at the top of that mountain.

So it's just one of those things where anybody in my field has seen people that have said they'll never change, but then they change and become so motivated I affectionately call them the annoyingly motivated, and that's what my mom had turned to be, because then all she really wanted to talk about was eating healthy, and exercising, and how much better she felt, and she wanted to tell everybody about that, and so I pity the fool who doesn't believe it. Anybody can make dramatic changes.

Rachel Salaman: So what are your one or two favorite tips for people who want to make a lasting positive change in their life, so they actually do what they know they should do?

Andy Core: So number one is I want people to take the pressure off themselves and say, I don't have to change my life, I only have to change my day. I want them to take one thing at a time in their day, plug it in and don't give up and don't let yourself be distracted until you get that one thing integrated, because I mentioned behavioral momentum – I'll rephrase it a different way: it's that motivation is really just momentum in disguise.

So if you have hope that you don't have to change your life, you can just make small changes in your day in a way that turns them into automatic behaviors, then that positive momentum will turn into lasting motivation, and then you're going to end up changing so many things in a positive way that you too will become annoyingly motivated, and I hope that for you.

Rachel Salaman: Andy Core, thank you very much for joining me today.

Andy Core: It was my pleasure Rachel. Thank you for having me.

Rachel Salaman: The name of Andy's book again is "Change Your Day, Not Your Life: A Realistic Guide to Sustained Motivation, More Productivity, and the Art of Working Well."

You can find out more about him and his work at www.andycore.com. I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.