#314: Getting Unstuck: The Three Hidden Roadblocks Blocking Your Progress with Cat Mulvihill

Cat Mulvihill [00:00:00]:
For a lot of creators, there just might be this, are people going to think I'm a sellout? Are people going to think that I'm just jumping on a bandwagon? Are people going to take me seriously? So any of these negative reactions that could happen, that can all add up to this dreaded identity. Hello, my friend.

Jay Clouse [00:00:19]:
Welcome back to another episode of Creator's 2 weeks ago, I published an episode with my wife sharing the behind the scenes of this year's Lab Offline powered by Circle. And in that episode, I mentioned that the 2nd most popular session of the whole event was an immunity to change workshop facilitated by my friend Kat Mulvihill. Kat has been a longtime member of the Lab, and I've learned a lot from her over the years. So when she reached out to me with an idea for an episode, I was excited to bring her on the show. Kat is a speaker, trainer, accountability coach, and a licensed immunity to change facilitator. She has more than 20 years of experience leading workshops. After formally being diagnosed with ADHD in the spring of 2024, she developed the Momentum Formula, a framework centered on 3 roadblocks preventing follow-through. Those are logical, biological, and psychological.

Jay Clouse [00:01:18]:
And she argues that the biological roadblock is the one that often gets missed when giving advice to creators. And she was right. I was like, that's something I haven't really thought about. That's what she shared with me ahead of this recording, and that's why I brought her on the show today. That's what we're talking about, those 3 common roadblocks to follow-through, Logical, biological, psychological, and how to identify which one is currently in your way and then what to do about it. Kat periodically runs live workshops around immunity to change and the Momentum Formula. I think she has one coming up, so I've put links in the show notes for you to stay in the loop on those as well. We'll get to that full conversation with Kat right after this.

Jay Clouse [00:01:59]:
So you sent me a note that really opened my eyes and kind of intrigued me because anytime that I am made aware of a blind spot, I'm immediately like, ooh, I feel naked, and I need to cover that. So you sent me a note, and you basically said, you've covered a lot on the show related to logical blockers, psychological blockers, but not biological blockers. And in my mind, I was like, wait, but biological, isn't that your brain? What's the difference? I just had a lot of uncertainty. So I'd love to hear—

Cat Mulvihill [00:02:30]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:02:30]:
How you think about these different forces, And dig into it a little bit.

Cat Mulvihill [00:02:35]:
Yeah, so I know that a ton of traditional advice that is out there, whether that's for creators like listening to a podcast or reading books, anywhere where you are looking for advice for how to do something, something important that matters, for a long time I was very much trapped in this idea that it's binary and that you either need to solve a problem with skill sets or systems, or you had to work on your mindset. And so when I reached out to you, I said, you know, you've got great content about mindset, and you have great content about systems and how people put things into place so they can be successful. But what I found a couple of years ago is that I was stuck in this binary of, okay, I'm stuck, I'm not moving forward. Do I need to work on my skill set, or do I need to work on my mindset? And then one day it just struck me, and this was while I was going through a diagnosis for ADHD, when I realized, hold on, it's brain chemistry. which is different than your mindset. So your mindset, this is psychology, and I call it a psychological roadblock where you have a fear or a hesitation, you're stopping yourself, and that's in the Immunity to Change, we look at that. And when you have a logical roadblock, this is when you're missing information, you're missing skills, or you just don't have the right tools. Those can all be solved logically, but sometimes we don't take action because of our brain, our body, our energy, even our environment can actually impact our ability to follow through on things.

Jay Clouse [00:03:56]:
Yeah.

Cat Mulvihill [00:03:58]:
And I reached out to you because I know it's so, so common with creators and entrepreneurs, people who set out to run their own business, and they have the skills, and they actually have the mindset, but then they're stuck. And for me, I used to call those paralysis days, where I was like, I do not understand.

Jay Clouse [00:04:15]:
Yeah.

Cat Mulvihill [00:04:15]:
And I would just kind of be circling thinking, do I need to learn more? Do I need to work on my mindset? And then that's when I connected the dots and realized, you know, sometimes it's your biology, Sometimes it's your circumstances, but it, it's not either of those two.

Jay Clouse [00:04:29]:
I have kind of adopted the belief over the years that a lot of times my problems are literally just like the chemicals that are sloshing around and they're in the wrong proportion. And it's like sometimes I just need to go for a walk. Sometimes I need to work out. But I have become slowly aware that like my brain chemicals just aren't working in conjunction with each other right now, which sounds like what you're, what you're kind of suggesting, but like, To me, that can be very acute. Probably there are times when this is more chronic for folks. So what do we do with this? To what degree can we actually manage this? Does it require medication? Like, what is the answer here?

Cat Mulvihill [00:05:13]:
It's actually multifaceted. And for me, I just think, just like any problem that you need to solve, so what is the actual issue for you? Because let's take an example of 2 people and they're both struggling to follow through something, and they have the skills, they've got the mindset, that's not an issue, but they're both struggling to initiate. One person could be struggling to initiate because of dopamine. Maybe they have ADHD, or maybe it just doesn't have that level of importance, or it's important but not urgent. So they just don't have this— they don't have enough dopamine to kind of cross the threshold to initiate a task. But the other person could actually just have really low blood sugar and be tired because they didn't sleep properly. So it's still a physical thing that's happening, but it's not necessarily dopamine in our reward center, it could actually just be a mismatch of their actual energy. I also think about people with chronic illness who are dealing with the fact that they have real physical constraints that are happening to them.

Cat Mulvihill [00:06:11]:
And so it, it depends on what's going on. I mean, you bring up medication, so I actually have a personal experience where when I was diagnosed with ADHD, I used medication for about a year and a half, and I remember the first week of taking it, I thought, hold— okay, hold on, is this how other people live? Is, is this how other people's brains are, that they can sit down and look at a to-do list and just start doing the to-do list? Because to me, that was completely foreign. I had no idea because my brain was functioning differently. And I look back at all those years now— I'm not currently on medication, that's for personal health reasons— but it was such an eye-opening example of Oh, this makes a huge difference. But even not medication, some of the other strategies like body doubling. So I don't know if you're familiar with body doubling. That's just the presence of another person who is working at the same time.

Jay Clouse [00:07:04]:
Interesting.

Cat Mulvihill [00:07:05]:
And I, pre-pandemic, so I left my job. I used to work at a university for 14 years. I left in 2019, and the first year was rocky because I could not seem to focus at home. My spouse would leave for the day, go to work, and I just could not. going out of the house. I'd go to coffee shops. I'd just find other places that helped me focus. And then when the pandemic happened and everything shut down, I genuinely believed I was in deep, deep trouble because I had this belief that I can't actually focus at home.

Cat Mulvihill [00:07:38]:
I've never been able to focus at home, so how's this going to work? And all of a sudden, everyone's shut down, everyone's at home, and I just started getting full days of work done and thought, oh, I guess I was just really, really wrong. Until my spouse went back to work. And then all of a sudden the same thing happened. Me in an empty house, much harder for my brain to focus. But as soon as I'm around other people who are doing work, it completely changes my ability to initiate tasks and focus on my work.

Jay Clouse [00:08:04]:
Okay, interesting. I'm trying to figure out where I want to take this because, well, my one thought is, how do I know when one of these problems is present and not the others? Meaning, Sometimes I probably am having a lack of skillset. Sometimes I probably am having the wrong mindset. So if I'm feeling stuck, how do I diagnose which area is failing and then what do I do about it?

Cat Mulvihill [00:08:33]:
I really like to go in order of logical, biological, and psychological. Reason being, first we just want to make sure, do you have all the tools to do the thing you're trying to do? Like, do you have the skillset? Do you have the right information? And if you have all of that in place, you've got a basic plan that is good enough for you to take action, but you're not taking action, well, if the plan is complete, then move on. And then I would go to biological and just say, based on what I know about myself and how I am struggling, and this might be looking back at other experiences. So for example, my pandemic experience of knowing, okay, now I know that when I'm alone in the house, it's harder to concentrate. So I tend to say, okay, I'm going to try this plan, but do it with coworking or have a group that meets up, trying to use some of the strategies that I know are effective. And then if I'm continuing to hesitate, I'm not following through, I'm not taking action, that's usually a sign that you need to work on the mindset. And often, I mean, there are many examples where it is all 3, but I like working on them in order. So you're sort of setting yourself up for success because sometimes you just are missing information or someone gives you a strategy and it just unlocks it.

Jay Clouse [00:09:40]:
Yeah.

Cat Mulvihill [00:09:43]:
And then you're fine. You have no trouble.

Jay Clouse [00:09:45]:
The mindset thing is also a little tricky for me because some of these challenges are not fully solvable long-term, meaning like there have been periods of my life where I have been more confident than I currently am, even though I would argue I had less reason to be more confident at that time. So it almost feels like I solved a confidence problem at one point, And I had a more confident mindset. But now if I look at it, it's like, actually, I'm lacking a little bit of courage because I'm lacking a little bit of confidence. So I just don't know how to solve these things in the moment. If I'm stuck, when I think about myself being stuck, usually I'm also like kind of fooling myself in some way. And it's hard for me to reason with my own brain to figure out, am I fooling myself? Am I procrastinating? Like, How do I identify this and how do I fix it? So I like this progression of, okay, most of the time it's either not a skillset issue or it's very obvious when it is a skillset issue. It's these other 2 that feel harder for me to correctly identify and then know how to action in that moment.

Cat Mulvihill [00:10:55]:
Yes. So, I mean, one of the giveaways or patterns that I think is helpful to look for is If you have a pattern. So if you are noticing over time that, okay, this is a thing I continue to struggle with, and I know what to do, I know how to do it, and I'm not doing it, to me that is signifying that it's probably not logical. You probably have the skills and know what to do, and you're not doing it. And so I think when it comes to the other two, it might be honestly a combination. And, you know, there's an example where Someone in the lab, I'll keep it anonymous because I didn't ask for permission, but someone had posted publicly in the lab saying, hey, I'm having some— I need some help with operations, and maybe I need to hire someone, maybe I need a new tool or system. And then there was one sentence in there, though, that clued me in that it might not be that simple or logical. So they said, even when I have great systems, I still don't use them.

Cat Mulvihill [00:11:53]:
And to me, that is an immediate alarm bell of, okay, I think there's something going on. It's not just logical. And now when And I saw people in the lab weighing in. They started giving advice of, oh, this is a tool that I really love for my operations, or, I hired a VA and that made all the difference. I commented on the post kind of saying, hey, I noticed you said that even when you have great systems in place, you're not using them. That makes me think maybe it's not just a practical solution. And we actually ended up hopping onto a call. And the more I just kind of asked some questions around what are some of the roadblocks, what are the patterns that you're noticing when you're putting off this work? And it became clear that there's actually a combination going on of biological.

Cat Mulvihill [00:12:33]:
So if there's no urgency, his brain just wasn't responding to it. It was important, but he could put off. So that was one big one, and that's biological. It's very common for people to put off things that are important but not urgent. And then the second thing was actually a mindset around the work itself. And, you know, he admitted, I actually don't think this is a good use of my time.

Jay Clouse [00:12:53]:
Hmm.

Cat Mulvihill [00:12:54]:
And so as soon as I heard that, I realized, okay, you are not only putting it off because it's not urgent, but also you have a perspective on this work and you assume that if you're working on this, that you are wasting your time because you should be working on other higher leverage things. And after that conversation, I got a message a couple weeks later just saying, holy, this changed everything. So instead of just hiring a VA or getting a new tool, actually addressing the mindset, but addressing also the biology of how do I actually make myself follow through on this. And there are multiple tools you can use, like accountability, different different ways that you can make things a little bit more urgent. But at the core, there were also some psychological things going on too.

Jay Clouse [00:13:35]:
I relate to that. I feel like a lot of times when I'm stuck, it's a lack of interest or curiosity or value that I place on the thing. And if that's paired with nobody else is expecting me to do it and I'm not letting anybody down, then that's a recipe for this thing is never getting done. I will constantly You and I have talked about The Four Tendencies by Gretchen Rubin, and I'm an obliger. I believe you're an obliger as well. And so I will constantly just make promises to people because I know the act of doing that will be the forcing function to do the thing. Because even if I'm not curious, if I'm not interested in doing it, the fact that I have committed to somebody else that I'm doing it means that I will follow through. I just know that's how my brain works.

Cat Mulvihill [00:14:18]:
I actually, I thought you were an upholder, 'cause I thought you were really good at being self-directed and following through without needing other people.

Jay Clouse [00:14:25]:
I don't know. I feel like maybe I'm cosplaying as an upholder. Yeah, maybe I'm misremembering this. It is very much like if I do not have interest in something, but I know it needs to get done, I know if I make a commitment to somebody else, I will do it.

Cat Mulvihill [00:14:40]:
Okay.

Jay Clouse [00:14:41]:
Which maybe that is upholding.

Cat Mulvihill [00:14:43]:
Well, so upholders, so for anyone who's not familiar, and I really recommend looking into it, but Gretchen Rubin came up with the Four Tendencies framework, which essentially is all about how we react to expectations. So inner expectations, things you say you'll do, and then there are outer expectations where someone else is expecting it. And depending on how you respond, you either kind of meet or resist, is in our nature or our tendency. And based on that, there are 4 different types. So an Upholder tends to meet inner expectations and they meet outer expectations. A Questioner is someone who tends to meet inner expectations, but they tend to resist outer expectations. So if they decide to do it, they do it, but if someone else says do it, their instinct is, why are you asking me to do this?

Jay Clouse [00:15:25]:
Yeah.

Cat Mulvihill [00:15:26]:
And then the obliger, the biggest group, and that's where I fall, is someone who tends to resist inner expectations, but they meet outer expectations. So if I know I'm going to show up at a call today at 3:30 to talk to Jay, you better believe I'm going to be ready. But if it's my own thing, it often gets pushed off. And then the final group is the rebel, and the rebel tends to resist inner and outer expectations. Like, don't tell me what to do, but I also don't want to tell myself what to do. And I think knowing how you respond to expectations is really powerful because you'll start to see those patterns. But if you are an obliger who does tend to resist doing their own thing because no one's coming to check on it, no one else is hurt by it, so there are strategies you can use. And that's absolutely, I think, an example that falls under the biological roadblock is if I just try to do everything inner-directed knowing that that's just not how I'm wired, then it's a losing battle.

Jay Clouse [00:16:19]:
I believe she has a sort of Enneagram system here where you can be mainly one, but there's a wing.

Cat Mulvihill [00:16:26]:
You can tip. Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:16:27]:
You can tip one way or the other. So I think I actually am an Upholder, but I tip Obliger rather than tip Questioner. I don't know how to help the Rebels. That sounds very difficult.

Cat Mulvihill [00:16:39]:
I am— I have a few Rebels that I am very close to. And what does help, just for the record, in case we have any who are listening, is a Rebel can tap into their identity and who they are. And so if they are a person who keeps their commitments, follows through, then they're more likely to do it because there's a deeper meaning behind it, and ultimately what's on the other side is important to them. I think it's also really helpful for the rebel to remember that doing the opposite of what people expect is not freedom, even though one of the things that drives a rebel is they want freedom. They don't want to be told what to do, they don't want to be restricted, and yet always doing the opposite, like as soon as someone expects it, they want to do the opposite. That's not freedom. And I think remembering that, that's a mindset thing. around pausing and using discernment and deciding, no, no, I'm going to do what I choose to do, not just the opposite of what someone expects from me.

Jay Clouse [00:17:34]:
So is your message to folks listening to this, let's say someone listening and they're perpetually stuck on something that they feel like, I should be doing this, and so they're listening to this saying, okay, maybe it's not a skillset thing, maybe it's not a mindset thing, it's a biological thing. Is the message just, This might be a biological thing, or are there some clear non-pharmaceutical solutions to the biological problem?

Cat Mulvihill [00:18:00]:
Yeah, well, I mean, it's twofold. One of my messages is just to even, for me, it was a huge unlock to just start categorizing the 3 ways I was stuck. And there are actually multiple examples, and I can give a couple of examples of where I was just genuinely stuck on all 3. But the other thing when it comes to biological, and I think why I reached out to you, is I think there's a ton of shame At least I felt so much shame, especially being on my own as an independent creator, an educator, and I would watch all these people around me do the thing they're supposed to do. And these are things I want to do, I'm capable of doing. And I call myself an inconsistent high achiever. I am a high achiever, I am capable of a lot, I've shown that in the past. So when I'm not doing it, when I'm watching myself self-sabotage, and I would wonder what is going on, I just thought I'm broken, there's something wrong with me.

Cat Mulvihill [00:18:52]:
And what I really want people to understand is that a lack of follow-through doesn't mean there's something wrong with you. It means that you're trying to solve the wrong problem. And what I see is a lot of people spend so much time trying to learn their way out of a problem, or they try to adopt what works for someone else even though it does not work with how they're wired. Or when they focus on mindset, they're so focused on the desired identity that they want to be, and they're not actually looking at some of the— that hidden stuff of the person they're trying to avoid.

Jay Clouse [00:19:24]:
Say more about that.

Cat Mulvihill [00:19:25]:
Yeah, so when traditional advice often looks at tap into the identity you want to be— so if we take writing, for example, instead of saying I want to write every day, you say I want to be a writer. And that's really powerful. Connecting to your why is really important. And, and so a ton of traditional advice talks about identity, and I think that's important, and I applaud that. And a lot of traditional advice ignores the fact that we also have a version of ourselves that's the dreaded identity or this dreaded image. And it's this version, which is often subconscious or unconscious, where it's that person we don't want to be seen as. So what if I want to be a writer, but if I start publishing online, what will people think? Will people take me seriously? What if I post something and it goes wrong or I'm criticized? So maybe there are all these other things that are causing you to stop, and those are psychological roadblocks, but often we don't even realize them. And that's where I like to use the Immunity to Change process as a tool to uncover those hidden dreaded identities that we're trying to avoid.

Jay Clouse [00:20:33]:
I would love to play this out a little bit. I mean, we did this at our offline event, and I know that 75 minutes is insufficient for what we're trying to do, and we're trying to now fit this into an hour-long podcast and a segment of that podcast. So I'm not asking us to go through the whole immunity to change framework.

Cat Mulvihill [00:20:50]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:20:50]:
But I would love to play out this dreaded identity a little bit more because I, this was a unique, new novel insight for me during this process.

Cat Mulvihill [00:20:59]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:20:59]:
And I'm happy to role-play this also if that helps make the case.

Cat Mulvihill [00:21:03]:
Well, what I'd like to do maybe is give you an example of somebody working through all 3 roadblocks where they actually have all 3, but we can spend a little time on the last one.

Jay Clouse [00:21:14]:
Great.

Cat Mulvihill [00:21:14]:
So, LinkedIn. You and I know there are a lot of people who listen to your podcast who are either on LinkedIn or telling themselves they should be on LinkedIn. And I had a conversation with a colleague who said, I know I should be on there, and every time I try, I just can't seem to make it stick. It just doesn't work for me, but I know I should be on there. So, we went through an order, and when they first described what they do, they just kind of log into LinkedIn and just let the feed tell them what to do. So, I said, did you know that LinkedIn has a saved search function. And you and I both know this saved search function. It's a great little tip.

Cat Mulvihill [00:21:49]:
Also, I have a— I think I still have a little tutorial of how to set it up. But essentially, you can tell LinkedIn, I want to follow these people, I want to follow these topics, and save it. And so I showed him how to do that, and he's like, mind blown. No idea this was a feature, and it's actually part of LinkedIn. And so this was suddenly starting to say, okay, this is solving a logical problem. when he would go on there, it just was a whole mess. He didn't know where to start. So that's a logical solution.

Cat Mulvihill [00:22:14]:
Then we went to biological and I said, what time of day are you going on LinkedIn? And he said, it's either the start of the day or the end of the day, and both don't work. And I had noticed for myself, when I first started posting on LinkedIn a number of years ago, I was following the advice from all of the big names saying, sign on there around 8 or 8:30 in the morning. So I was starting my day on LinkedIn, posting, commenting, but I noticed that my brain then, it, it's sort of just hijacked by dopamine. So when I would try to shift to focused work, it was actually ruining my mornings, and my mornings are my most focused time. So there was actually, it was causing this mismatch for how my brain works and how I want my day to go. So then I started posting, I think right before lunch, and just saying, you know what, I'll just pretend I live in a different time zone and that's my morning. And just stop doing what everyone else is doing. And so he realized that both the morning and the end of the day were just bad fits.

Cat Mulvihill [00:23:10]:
He wasn't engaged, his energy wasn't there. And so he was like, okay, maybe I can play around and experiment with other times of day that work with my energy, like my natural rhythms of the day. And then the third one, and this is very common on LinkedIn, is around this, you know, you've got this desired identity. I want to be someone who publishes my work and I've got great ideas and I'm a thought leader. And so that's your desired identity, but on the other side, this dreaded identity could be things like, I have colleagues from my corporate days that are on there, and if I start suddenly posting, treating it like every other social media platform instead of just posting job updates and anniversaries, what are people going to think? Or maybe there's a person that I'm worried if they see these posts, they're going to think differently of me, or maybe it's going to harm a relationship. Or you could take somebody, now this person, they were completely independent, but I've spoken to people who are in current work situations and they're worried that if they start posting on LinkedIn, their boss is going to think they're jumping ship. Even if they are planning to jump ship, it's suddenly a signal. So that means that it's sort of this unsafe zone, so you can't be seen a certain way.

Cat Mulvihill [00:24:20]:
Now that one, the job example, that's just a true risk. And so maybe that person doesn't post about, maybe they're not trying to build a business while they're working full-time.

Jay Clouse [00:24:28]:
Right.

Cat Mulvihill [00:24:29]:
But I know for a lot of creators, there just might be this, are people going to think I'm a sellout? Are people going to think that I'm just jumping on a bandwagon? Are people going to take me seriously? So any of these negative reactions that could happen, that can all add up to this dreaded identity.

Jay Clouse [00:24:45]:
Yeah, the are people going to think rabbit hole is challenging. And also, most of the time, as soon as you say, are people going to think, the answer is no, because no one's actually thinking about you. But it's hard to internalize that.

Cat Mulvihill [00:24:57]:
It's hard to internalize that. And also, I've done this exercise with clients before where I said, pay attention when you're scrolling. As soon as you see a person and their post and you have a negative reaction to it, notice that. And what is it about that post? And I've actually had people screenshot and they were like, this is my dreaded identity. I never want to be like this person. I think back to when Instagram— remember when everybody was pointing. They were dancing and pointing in the early days of Reels. And I would see those and just think, am I going to be a person who points on Instagram? And I was having a negative reaction to the fact that everyone's pointing, and I would think, do I have to do that too? So when you notice your reaction to other people, then that actually is a good clue to maybe what you're avoiding being perceived as by others.

Jay Clouse [00:25:44]:
We'll be right back to my conversation with Kat Mulvihill after this quick break. And now back to my conversation with Kat Mulvihill. You were talking about energy. So I have, as I've gotten older, embraced more of this idea of energy management over time management. Is energy just enthusiasm, interest, curiosity? Is it dopamine? Like you've said dopamine a few times as well. Am I secretly just ruled by dopamine? And is that what it means when I'm managing my energy?

Cat Mulvihill [00:26:20]:
Well, I actually come at it from multiple angles as a person who's actually had multiple chronic autoimmune issues and different things that I've had to deal with in my life. I don't think it's just dopamine. I genuinely think there is a mix. And also, if you have ever changed your diet where suddenly you're eating more balanced meals, eating less sugar, and then, and you're like, oh, Wow, I have a lot more energy throughout the day. You'll also notice things like your blood sugar can impact that, things like having a good sleep or not impact that. I mean, you as a parent to a new child know just how much that can change. So it's a combo and it doesn't necessarily mean it's one thing. And that's really where the secret is.

Cat Mulvihill [00:27:03]:
When you start to notice things like, okay, I just cannot seem to focus, I don't have the energy, you can start to guess what might be going on based on what you know about yourself or about anything that's maybe changed recently.

Jay Clouse [00:27:12]:
Yeah.

Cat Mulvihill [00:27:14]:
recently, or if there's been a pattern, and you experiment. And I really like, you know, Ann Lorre talks about tiny experiments, and I love this idea of, okay, just for this set period of time, I'm going to try something different. And so an example for me, I read the book, I am— I might blank on the name of it, but it talks about energy management. And in there, he talked about how he changed his lunches to make sure that they were a little bit lighter on carbohydrates and more focused on, you know, big salads with protein and healthy fats. And how that just changed his afternoons. So sometimes experimenting that way can be helpful. I also think experimenting with— if you do think it's a dopamine thing and an attention issue, then also trying to make those changes, like spending less time on social media or short-form content, or having it maybe later in the day instead of in the middle of the day or in the morning. I mean, we know that there are things that hijack our brains, And so just trying an experiment like, I won't go on social media until afternoons or later, and I'm just not going to touch it in the morning.

Cat Mulvihill [00:28:19]:
You can experiment with different things.

Jay Clouse [00:28:22]:
So one takeaway I'm going to have from this conversation is, I think I know some of this stuff, but it's a good nudge to try this again, which is notice when I'm feeling particularly good and then try to say what was true that led to that.

Cat Mulvihill [00:28:36]:
Yes.

Jay Clouse [00:28:37]:
Especially as it relates to potential biological blocks.

Cat Mulvihill [00:28:41]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:28:41]:
'Cause I think the logical stuff, it's like, okay, I don't have a plan or a certain skill, but usually it's a plan. For me at this stage, it's like, I don't have a plan that is clear and stepwise enough, or I don't have conviction in that plan. But that to me feels more like a psychological problem actually. So I feel like I can solve that. And the psychological stuff, immunity to change, which maybe we'll talk more about, but biological, I really don't have a solution for that other than figure out like what has worked for me before, which I've kind of naturally done it sometimes anyway, like from doing LinkedIn Learning courses. I know actually if I'm gonna be on camera and performing, better not have a big lunch.

Cat Mulvihill [00:29:26]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:29:26]:
Like you were saying. So some of the stuff I've taken, but I, I feel like I could do a better job of understanding the leading indicators or leading determinants of my biological processes a little better.

Cat Mulvihill [00:29:39]:
I love what you said about paying attention when something's working really well. And that's something, you know, I have clients where recently they were— I was asking them to do a reflective exercise, and I said, what is an environment that is— it's just helpful for you to get into that reflective mode? Is it your favorite coffee shop? Is it an outdoor patio? Is— where do you like to be? And also, do you have a favorite pen and journal that you prefer or something? So What are the circumstances that support and match what you're trying to do? And then they've told me exactly where. They said, yes, actually I really like this place. And I said, okay, can you go there this week? When are you going? And also these are people who are obligers like myself. And so they make that plan, and when they come back, they say that that matching of the environment and the time of day makes a huge difference. Trying to expect yourself to do really important work, reflective work, or maybe it's really methodical work at a time of day that's completely mismatched. I mean, that's even a simple experiment that many people can do. I know not everyone has that luxury because you might have other constraints that might make that difficult, but I think paying attention to, oh, that worked really well, or, ooh, that did not roll off as well, what's going on there? And I think that can be really helpful.

Jay Clouse [00:30:54]:
The Four Tendencies stuff that we've talked about, Does that all live inside of psychological, you think?

Cat Mulvihill [00:30:59]:
I use the Four Tendencies primarily for biological because this is about our natural tendency and the fact that most of us are pretty consistent throughout our life for how we respond to inner and outer expectations. I think it's really important to remember though that framework is one where it's just how you respond to inner and outer expectations. It has nothing to do with how smart you are, how creative you are, how loving you are. It's It's literally just how do you respond to inner and outer expectations. But that does mean that it can sort of predict if you are more likely to follow through on something depending on if it's inner or outer. And so for me, once I accepted that, it went a long way because now I lean on turning my inner expectations into outer. I use accountability as a way to say, okay, I work better with outer accountability, so I'm just going to turn the things I want to do into outer accountability. Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:31:52]:
I'll put a link to The Four Tendencies in the show notes here, but I think just the explanation you gave is pretty good at helping you determine where you land if you have some self-awareness. But I think Gretchen also has a free quiz to go through to figure this out.

Cat Mulvihill [00:32:07]:
She does.

Jay Clouse [00:32:07]:
So what are some of the ways that you have mechanized reliably turning your obliger tendencies into a positive?

Cat Mulvihill [00:32:17]:
Well, I don't know if I would say into a positive, but I would say how I work with them is, I will look at the thing I'm trying to do and then try to match the most appropriate type of external accountability that fits my circumstances. And also there's budgetary. I mean, you and I both know that in an ideal world, let's say for the gym, most people understand that it's a common challenge for many people, not everyone, to get to the gym regularly. And one of the best ways to have accountability for that is to have a private personal trainer. That's sort of the Cadillac, right? And when it comes to that, that is not always within everyone's budget or reach. So if we kind of scale down and say, okay, what else? Someone signing up for group classes can be really helpful. Somebody who decides, I'm going to have a workout buddy, and I know that there's someone waiting for me. So there's different scales and different financial commitments.

Cat Mulvihill [00:33:11]:
Now, one of the things that I've done for myself as a creator and business-wise, is I record my content live for the most part. I have a podcast and I go live on YouTube because I know I'm going to do it. If even one person could be there waiting for me to go live, then I'll do it. Now, I learned this through past experience. Back in 2021, I built up a YouTube channel. It was more around tutorials for speaking, virtual presenting, but And when I did that, I was consistent. I'd just show up, I'd go live. That was my constraint.

Cat Mulvihill [00:33:50]:
I said, I have to be ready to go live, like the SNL quote, we don't go on because we're ready, we go on because it's 11:30. And so it gave me those constraints. And then later I started saying, okay, I'm going to give it a try to YouTube videos that are recorded. And I was so inconsistent because there was— I do this too. No constraints. And also nobody is, I mean, yeah, some people might notice, but no one's knocking down my door saying, hey, did you publish this week? And so I would also think to myself, oh, well, you know, nobody's— it's not a big deal and it's not hurting anyone if I don't put out a video this week. And so as I looked back in retrospect, now that I've been thinking this in terms of is it a logical problem, biological, psychological, when I switched to recorded videos, it's not like I didn't have the skill set to make videos, although I'm not a very good editor. It's not like I didn't have a mindset problem.

Cat Mulvihill [00:34:40]:
I had built up a channel, it was growing, and I liked what I was doing. So this is a prime example where it was not a mindset issue, And it was not a skillset issue. It was truly that with no actual real deadline, I kept putting it off, or I would say, oh, I need more time. But anytime I had that constraint of going live, now for me, that works great. I'm also someone who loves presenting in front of a group. Other people, that would be their nightmare. They would never want to record their content live. Another example though is like with your podcast interviewing people, that's a really great way for you to make sure you show up.

Cat Mulvihill [00:35:16]:
And you record with a guest because you've made that commitment. And so I think I just try to figure out ways within the circumstances and also what I'm trying to do, how do I do this? And one other shout-out I'll give is to the Lab where when I have started certain projects, sometimes I'll say, hey, is anyone else working on this? Do you want to work on this together? Or does anyone want to do an accountability group? I've used that for when I kicked off writing my book, Which, still working on it. And then also within the mastermind groups, I have a mastermind group where they know that if I say I'm going to do something, they'll actually follow up and say, okay, but what day are you doing it? And when are you going to report back to us? And so they know that I respond well to that kind of accountability. Not everyone in that group needs that. There are some members of the group, they don't ever have to report in or tell us because that's not how they're wired.

Jay Clouse [00:36:10]:
Right.

Cat Mulvihill [00:36:11]:
And so it's been really helpful for me to follow through on important things in my business that could happen at any time, so they just kept getting pushed off.

Jay Clouse [00:36:18]:
If folks want to dig into the immunity to change stuff after this, because again, it's just too big for us to fit into this window, but like, I truly want people to experience this for themselves, what's a good next step for them?

Cat Mulvihill [00:36:32]:
So I would say, one, it's a framework that is by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. So there is a book on it, which is I don't recommend it to everyone because it's pretty academic and it's a little bit dense, but it is out there. So in case anyone's wondering about the source material, that's where it comes from, and I've been licensed to teach that since 2012. But then the other places you can learn about it, one, I do talk about things like the dreaded identity pretty regularly in my newsletter, kind of giving examples of the hidden reasons that we get stuck. And then I'm also looking to, after the feedback I got from the June event that you hosted where I ran the workshop, The feedback has been incredible, and I'm looking to host a virtual version of that. And I don't have an exact date yet, but that's definitely something that everyone who's on my email list is going to hear about, that be the first to know when there's an immunity to change live workshop. And I would also give a shout out the authors of the framework. They have a book, I believe it's called Right Weight, Right Mind by Robert Keegan and Lisa Leahy, and it's an immunity to change approach specific for weight loss.

Jay Clouse [00:37:37]:
Mm-hmm.

Cat Mulvihill [00:37:37]:
But even if your goal is not weight loss, it's just really practical. It is not academic like their other work, and it does walk you through the process that you would have as well.

Jay Clouse [00:37:48]:
Nice. I'll put a link in the show notes to your workshop page so that if folks wanna go through this with you, which I recommend, that's where they can sign up for that waitlist. Not an affiliate, no kickback here, just endorsing that that was a great experience that both Mal and I were very moved by. I mean, we shared this in our recent episode recapping offline, but Mal and I both had really powerful experiences with that. And it has helped between my initial call with Michael and then that follow-up with you. Like, we made some pretty significant changes in how we're operating stuff over here. New scary doors opened for sure, but we're walking through them. Yeah.

Cat Mulvihill [00:38:22]:
I mean, the one thing I'll just add on that is that the immunity to change process, the immunity map that you walk through, it uncovers all the things, but then you have to do the work. And it's— I, I just wanna say that the psychological roadblocks Yeah. They tend to be some of the most important because if we have something that is holding us back and sort of tethering us and saying, don't go there, this is unsafe, to actually overturn that psychological immunity, the roadblocks or this dreaded identity, it takes work and it takes patience and it takes paying attention, but it's so worth it. When you actually push back against some of these beliefs that are keeping you stuck, It can just completely untether you from some of these challenges. So it's really worthwhile work. It's just, I want to remind people that it's not the easiest work. And that's— and I think that's why people are—

Jay Clouse [00:39:13]:
It is work.

Cat Mulvihill [00:39:14]:
People are drawn to the quick fix. They want to just, just show me a YouTube video, just tell me what to do. The number of times I hear people say, just tell me what to do, it's like, okay, but most of the time we already know what to do, we're just not doing it. And so let's take a look at what's really keeping you stuck here.

Jay Clouse [00:39:29]:
Totally. Because a lot of times it's like, I know what to do, but I'm not doing it. And without solving the fundamental thing that's keeping me from doing it, what's most likely to happen, that either A, I stay in the status quo, which means that I'm actually kind of slipping backwards in terms of business growth over time, or B, I just give in to the fear and stop trying to do the thing at all.

Cat Mulvihill [00:39:49]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:39:49]:
And so, you know, for me, that was, that was hiring and committing to team building and like decentralizing from me, which has been just something I've resisted and has been very scary for a long time, but now I've fully embraced it. So yeah, big plus on that front.

Cat Mulvihill [00:40:07]:
Yeah, it's been really incredible to watch your journey from the podcast you did with Michael and then just seeing the changes that you've made. They're very real and noticeable changes. And when you make changes like that where you're challenging these beliefs and you're stepping forward and saying, okay, what if I try this? Does the bad thing happen? It can look like we're solving it logically. Do I just need to do the thing? You're doing the thing, but you have a different lens because you're actually paying attention to whether this kind of threat that you were worried about is happening or not.

Jay Clouse [00:40:39]:
So as we wrap up here, we talked about these 3 levels of psychological, biological, and logical. Is there any last wisdom you would give to folks listening to this as a next step to take, or something we haven't touched on that you think is absolutely fundamental to getting unstuck No matter what layer you're stuck on?

Cat Mulvihill [00:41:00]:
I think my main message is to be kind to yourself. I truly think that it is possible to overcome any of the roadblocks as long as you know that they exist. And also, I think it's a little bit meta, but sometimes we need to do mindset work on the other things. For example, I have really tried to pride myself on if I can follow through on my own inner things without outer accountability, that somehow that's better. And I've really pushed back against that. And the analogy I like to use is, you know, if you're a person like me who tends to just do better with external expectations or urgency or any of that, it's like needing glasses. Some people need glasses, some people don't, but I would never begrudge someone or judge someone because they need glasses to correct their vision.

Jay Clouse [00:41:47]:
Yeah.

Cat Mulvihill [00:41:48]:
And so when I think about needing external— and I, I use the term loosely— I don't technically need it for everything, But it is far more effective of a strategy for me. And so lean into it, just like putting on a pair of glasses. And I think it's just for me thinking that way of my eyes might be shaped different than someone else's. There are people who don't need outer accountability. They decide to do the thing, they do the thing. Am I envious that they don't need a strategy or tool? Yeah, I am, because I'm human. But also, I have tools at my disposal, and I can use them and lean on them. And I think that's really helped me with my perspective.

Cat Mulvihill [00:42:22]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:42:29]:
If you want to learn more about Kat or participate in one of her upcoming live workshops, visit katmulvihill.com. We have links in the show notes to find her everywhere on the internet. And while I have you, leave a rating or review on Apple Podcasts. Go on, do it. I double dog dare you. Those reviews go a long way, and we're still on a quest to hit 500 on Apple Podcasts.

Cat Mulvihill [00:42:49]:
Yeah.

Jay Clouse [00:42:49]:
If you're on Spotify, those ratings mean a lot too. And just so you know, it was my birthday recently, so you can consider this a personal gift to me. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you next week.