About the Hosts

Christy Wilkie provides therapy for children and adolescents, ages 5-25, who have complex behavioral health issues. She combines her extensive clinical expertise with a belief in kids, and has a unique ability to find and develop their strengths. She works hard to be an ideal therapist for her clients, doing what is best to fit their needs.

Lucas Mitzel provides therapy for children, adolescents, and adults, ages 5 - 30. He believes building relationships with clients is the most important piece of successful therapy. He loves what he does, because it allows him to walk next to people he would never have met had he chosen a different profession, as they work to make amazing life changes. He has the honor of meeting people at their worst, all while watching them grow into the people they’ve always wanted to be.

Transcript
Trying New Things With Confidence

Featuring Christy Wilkie, LCSW, and Lucas Mitzel, LCSW, Dakota Family Services

Announcer: (00:00)
This episode of, is It Just Me, is brought to you by Dakota Family Services, your trusted partner in mental and behavioral health, whether you need in-person or virtual care, the team of professionals at Dakota Family Services is dedicated to supporting children, adolescents, and adults in their journey to better mental health.

Christy Wilkie: (00:21)
Disrupting life patterns and life routines that aren't serving you.

Lucas Mitzel: (00:26)
It's how we feel that keeps us going.

Christy Wilkie: (00:29)
You can be a masterpiece and a work of art all at the same time.

Lucas Mitzel:

Hey everyone, I'm Lucas Mitzel.

Christy Wilkie:

And I'm Christy Wilkie.

Lucas Mitzel:

And you're listening to the, "Is It Just Me" podcast where

Christy Wilkie:

We aim to provide education, decrease the stigma, and expel some myths around mental health.

Lucas Mitzel:

Is it just me or do you feel like you don't know what you're doing either? Correct.

Christy Wilkie:

But this is our first podcast, so I feel like it's a warranted feeling to have.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. So, hello to our like two viewers so far. <laugh>, um,

Christy Wilkie:

Hi Dad.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. Specifically Christy's dad.

Christy Wilkie:

Yes. It's accurate information.

Lucas Mitzel:

So Christy, why don't you tell us a little bit about you,

Christy Wilkie:

I suppose with this being our first podcast, I am a wife. I'm a friend. I love the Minnesota Vikings and all Minnesota sports really. But I bleed purple and gold. I'm a Peloton enthusiast. I'm a runner. I love music, traveling, and I really, really, really love my job.

Lucas Mitzel:

How long have you been doing this?

Christy Wilkie:

Just about 20 years. Yeah, I started when I was four. What about you, Lucas? Tell us a little bit about you.

Lucas Mitzel:

I've been working in mental health field for, it'll be 10 years this year and doing therapy for maybe like five or six. 'cause math is hard. And I am an outdoor enthusiast. I love going backpacking, hiking, camping, you name it. I love working out, running. I play guitar. I love to sing. Music is huge for me. I have a son who I love dearly. I'm getting married this year, which is fantastic. Ha. And yeah, I also just really, really love my job.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah, I imagine that.

Lucas Mitzel:

So today we're gonna talk about trying new things we are, which is ironic.

Christy Wilkie:

It seems like an apt topic.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. Totally not planned. And I think that trying new things is hard for people.

Christy Wilkie:

It is. It's very hard for people. It's very hard for me.

Lucas Mitzel:

What do you think makes it difficult?

Christy Wilkie:

I think for me, probably the fear of failure. I've always kind of been that way my whole life where I've been afraid if I don't do something right the first time, that everybody's gonna think that I'm terrible and stupid and then, and then I try one time and I'd be done. Yeah. But I mean, I've grown since then, I think, which is why I'm willing to go on this podcast journey with you

Lucas Mitzel:

Yes, absolutely. I think another thing that makes it difficult is not just fear of failure, but then just fear of being judged or like looking weird while you're doing something. Like maybe you're not doing it correctly. And it's not the fear that it was a failure, but just like, what if people judge me or think that I am strange or that I'm just not doing it the way that I should be doing it, or whatever. Right.

Christy Wilkie:

Well, and the thing, I mean, we talk about this all the time with, with our clients, but how many cognitive distortions, were just in that one last sentence that you had, right. Where there's no evidence to prove that any of that would ever be true. But we allow it to get in our head and it almost becomes paralyzing. And you're like, what are we missing out on? Because we are assuming that other people are thinking things about us that likely they're not, we don't have any, any evidence to say that anybody's thinking that or saying that. Yeah, absolutely. Or going home to their husbands and wives and being like, oh my God, Christy tried to do a cartwheel today. And it looked more like a somersault. Yeah.

Lucas Mitzel:

You know, most people just don't care. They just wanna live their lives and they're worried that you're judging them. Right. Yeah. Question then, is there anything in your life where you were really nervous or terrified to try something and then you tried it and you were like, this is awesome?

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah, I mean, there's a, there's a lot of things, but, but I think the biggest thing for me was going to the gym.

Lucas Mitzel:

Mm. Yeah.

Christy Wilkie:

I think that it probably is more common than I think it is, but at the time I was like, everybody's gonna look at me and be like, this girl doesn't belong here. They're gonna judge me. They're gonna, oh my God, she's not running fast enough. She's not lifting. Right. She's not doing any of these things. And I had to get outta my head and like took my first step in. And what you realize then is that the gym is actually a really welcoming culture. And if it's not, it's not the right gym for you. And so the, the culture of that gym specifically, I liked so much and it was so rewarding and it was so reinforcing that I ended up, you know, going for a long time and ended up turning into a runner that I never wanted to be

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah.

Christy Wilkie:

You know, but it was that reinforcing, it was that powerful. I was like, imagine if I wouldn't have taken that first step into the gym, I would not be anywhere. I wouldn't have met the people that I've met or have the experiences that I've experienced. And it's like, man, what one step can do in your life. It blows my mind sometimes to think about that.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. How many marathons have you run so far?

Christy Wilkie:

Three.

Lucas Mitzel:

That's insane.

Christy Wilkie:

Three full marathons. Yeah.

Lucas Mitzel:

I did one and that's crazy enough.

Christy Wilkie:

But you killed it.

Lucas Mitzel:

Well, I mean, I made it so

Christy Wilkie:

Well, yeah. It didn't kill you.

Lucas Mitzel:

That's the point. Yes. Um, how many medals do you think you have?

Christy Wilkie:

Well, I became a bit of a metal collector. There was one year where I decided that I was gonna run at least one half marathon every month. I would guess that there's probably 30, 35 that I have down there between five Ks, 10 Ks.

Lucas Mitzel:

That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So not only did you find that you really enjoyed it, but it became kind of a lifestyle.

Christy Wilkie:

It did. Yeah. Yeah. And it, and it still is. And I still think, like we were talking about fear and I was talking to one of my running coaches the other week, Justin Harris, and he was talking to a, a group of third graders about fear. And he was like, I didn't really know what to say. But then he is like, I thought about doing think, talk, act. Think about the thing that you wanna do, like think through what that's gonna look like. Find someone that you trust and talk about it with them. And that talk part of it to me is like almost threefold. 'cause there is the talking about it. And what we know about emotions is that if you can state the emotion, if you can say what it is, it reduces the intensity of that emotion. So that's one thing when you talk about it, it brings that fear level down significantly.

Christy Wilkie:

Two, you know, as well as I do that a support group, people that are like, rally around you and support you and like cheer you on is like invaluable. Like, you need to have those people. And so that's where the talk part comes in. And then the act part, it doesn't have to be where you go out and you run a marathon. I mean, that's stupid. Right. I think when I started running, I was like, five seconds, and that's not even an exaggeration. Like, it was like, oh, I can, I can do this for five seconds. Like, that's amazing. But tempering your expectations, there's just so many things that, that go into doing something that makes you scared.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right.

Christy Wilkie:

What have you done? What, what have you conquered Lucas?

Lucas Mitzel:

I think one of my favorite ones is, so I'm really into the outdoors and I've always loved camping, but I've always seen people with these pictures of going up on these mountains and just having these amazing views and seeing these awesome things. And fun fact about me. I'm terrified of heights. Yeah. And to get to these places, you have to do what's called, uh, scrambling, which is like, it

Christy Wilkie:

It has nothing to do with eggs I'm assuming.

Lucas Mitzel:

Nothing to do with eggs. Way easier. And way more nummy. But, so scrambling is kind of like rock climbing with no ropes or gear, except it's not as, not as dangerous. And there's different levels of scrambling. It's basically just anytime you're hiking and you have to go use your hands to go up something. And for somebody who's really scared of, I say, I'm scared of falling. That's intimidating.

Christy Wilkie:

That's a fair fear.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So I would say in the last couple of years, some of the big hikes that I've done, especially that have involved any scrambling, this last year, I went and did my first mountain and that was one of the coolest experiences that I've, I've ever had. I cried at the top of it. And I will never forget that. And now I cannot wait to go do another one and just wanna keep going.

Christy Wilkie:

So my question is always, because we always say that like, it's such a cool experience. Right? It was the coolest. Like what was so cool about it for you?

Lucas Mitzel:

That I did it? Yeah. You know, like I'm standing up there and I look down at the giant trail that I just did and all of the, all the climbing and just all the scary parts that I then conquered. I was like, I can do anything. Yeah. I, if I can do this, then what's the next thing that I can do? It makes you wanna go do harder stuff. Right. 'cause if, if I could do this, what else can I do?

Christy Wilkie:

It's, it's interesting to me because you started that by saying you saw all the pictures that people had and how beautiful they were and that and whatever. And then when I ask you what the coolest part about it was, it was how it made you feel inside. And it wasn't necessarily the aesthetic part of it. That's a bonus for sure, for sure. But I think the thing that got you motivated was not the thing that was as rewarding. As like the internal "Heck yeah, we did that. It's interesting to me.

Lucas Mitzel:

Well, and I think that goes into motivation too, right? Like a lot of people, they feel like they need motivation in order to start something. So like when we look at that picture or we look at with working out, a lot of times people try and get motivated by looking at a picture of a human being that they want to resemble aesthetically. But the thing that keeps us motivated, 'cause motivation is more about us, us continuing to do the thing that we wanna do, not necessarily starting it. It's how we feel that keeps us going. So when you kept running, you were getting endorphins and serotonin dumped into your brain, dopamine, all of these things, you get what's called the runner's high. And that's an amazing feeling after a run or a big workout. And so that keeps you going. Not only that, but then just the confidence I'm sure that you were getting afterwards of like, holy cow, I just ran all of this distance when there was a time where walking to the car might have been winding or whatever. So it's the, the feeling that we get is what keeps us doing stuff. The problem is that it can take a minute before we start getting those things

Christy Wilkie:

Right. Yeah. So we go back to like the topic of starting new things. Right. For me, my motivation clearly is I'm, I'm internally motivated Now. I couldn't say that that was always the case. There was maybe some external motivation, but I think you have to meet people where they're at and meet yourself where you're at and find out what's motivating for you specifically. 'cause there are some people that are motivated by looking a certain way or doing a certain thing. And then there are some people that are motivated by other things. And we do a lot of work with our clients to figure out what is your specific motivation and how can we work with that?

Lucas Mitzel:

Absolutely. And then trying to capture whatever that is when you start being successful and really pointing that out and celebrating that. Yeah. Because a lot of times people will, they'll start something and they'll make a little bit of progress, but it's not fast enough like you had mentioned before. And that can be a downer. And part of that can be how we're looking at our goals and how we're measuring things, which we'll get to, I think in a little bit later. Yeah. But when we can actually sit there and celebrate, like, I got off the couch and I ran for five seconds. That's amazing. Because yesterday you didn't run five seconds at all. And now you just, you just did that. Holy cow, can I go 10 seconds tomorrow? Like, this is amazing. Right. So we have to take those little steps that we, we make and really, really celebrate that in order to keep going. Yeah.

Christy Wilkie:

Something that I've always gone back to in my head where people are like, you're so motivated. And they're like, I mean, there are some days sure. But most of the time it's, it's discipline over motivation for me where it's just, I know that eventually doing something is gonna make me feel better. So I just have to take the step, just take the one, the one movement toward it, and then hope that that clicks.

Lucas Mitzel:

Absolutely. What do you think? Like, why is trying new things so good? Like, we hear this, people talk about this, motivational speakers talk about this. They really encourage people to try new stuff. I mean, we encourage people to try new things all the time. But why do you encourage people to try new things?

Christy Wilkie:

I mean, there's a number of reasons, but I think that so many of us get stuck in a routine where this is just what we do, and we don't know anything different, and we don't really know what our potential is, I guess. But it's really easy to just wake up every day, do the same thing, go to bed, go to sleep, which is fine if that works for you. But a lot of people that are in my office are not feeling the greatest. And so it's like, there's something in that routine that's not working for you. So how can we change it up? What can we add to it? What's gonna bring you some joy? And a lot of times it's just asking the question and people are like, well, I'd really like to put Legos together. Like I'd wanna, I wanna do one of those big Lego projects. And I was like, okay. So what gets in the way of you trying to do that thing? I mean, insert any sort of reason. Right? It's, I'm afraid that it's too tedious. I'm afraid that it's gonna take too much time. I'm afraid I'm not gonna be able to do it. I'm not gonna understand it. It's like, okay, well let's, let's work through some of those fears and like figure out what it is. But to me, the big thing is disrupting life patterns and life routines that aren't serving you.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. To go like in a clinical viewpoint for just a second, when you look at things like depression, trying new things can actually increase happiness over time. And when we do new things, and it, especially when we're successful at it, we get dopamine dumped into our brain and serotonin and all these things. And that starts to improve your mood over time. Now it's important that you are picking things that you're really interested in, number one, which seems like a no-brainer. But like, I've talked to many people that are like trying things that they're not even interested in. It's like

Christy Wilkie:

Right. I think Covid messed with everybody. Yeah. Because it's like, Hey, let's do a, a sourdough bread starter. And everyone's like, well, everybody's doing it, so let's try it. And that's just not right. Bread doesn't bring me joy.

Lucas Mitzel:

Picked up knitting when they've never wanted to in their life. And now it's just all gone.

Christy Wilkie:

Everybody else is crocheting. So I'll try that.

Lucas Mitzel:

Or even just picking an activity that, uh, you can do what's called building mastery on. So that's where you pick something that is difficult enough that it's a success or like it feels good when you complete it, but it's not so hard that it's impossible. So an example of this could be, if I wanted to start running, I would need to set a realistic goal. So I am going to run five minutes today. And that could be awesome. Like, that's gonna be hard enough that it's gonna feel good. But then at the same time, I'm not gonna say that I'm gonna go run a half marathon today because I'm not gonna be able to make that. Right. When you pick something that's too easy, you're not gonna get that dopamine dump or that, uh, sense of accomplishment, which is going to feel really good. Right. And when you do something that's too hard and you fail at it, then that never feels good. No. So you have to be careful with what you're picking and make sure that you're doing something that is kind of in the middle there. And that can be, it doesn't have to be physical exercise. I know we've talked about that a lot. But you mentioned Legos. You could do any sort of art is awesome for building mastery. Any sort of building something or creating something.

Christy Wilkie:

When we were talking about this earlier today, and I was thinking one of my fears is of cooking in my head. I'm not good at cooking. I have burnt brownies. I have set off more fire alarms than I have made successful products in my house. And so those failures of mine, and I know this about myself, get in the way of me trying to do it again. But should I have started with something simpler? I mean. Toast, that would've been a good start. I mean, but I, I have also set microwave popcorn on fire, so

Lucas Mitzel:

That's impressive.

Christy Wilkie:

Honestly. Thank you. It was on the first date with my husband, actually.

Lucas Mitzel:

Even better.

Christy Wilkie:

I know, but he, he stuck around. He did. He's a sucker, you know. But, um, but I think about that even now, that those failures that I've had with cooking get in the way of, of me even trying to do something. Now if I were to try, like, maybe I should try to scramble an egg, you know, and then shouldn't just go straight to the Wellington.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. Yes. Good idea.

Christy Wilkie:

Maybe even start with cereal, actually at this point would be

Lucas Mitzel:

Even better.

Christy Wilkie:

But I mean, I have to set an attainable goal, and so I, for me, I have to overcome the other failures that I've had in the past. Right. So I have to find ways to find mastery somehow in the kitchen. And then I'll be like, oh, heck yeah. Yeah, I did that. Okay, now we can try. I don't know, a boxed cake maybe.

Lucas Mitzel:

There you go. Yeah. Yeah, that'd be great.

Christy Wilkie:

I, I think so. But if, if I were to set out now, and I think my failure in that is that I started out too big. I started out trying to do something that I didn't have the skill set to do. Right. And then I get in the way and it's like, oh my gosh, what if I have somebody over and I try to cook something and it's terrible and I burn it because I mean, I do have some evidence to prove that could be the case. I just don't do it.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. And I think it's, we, you mentioned anxiety and one of the best ways to work through anxiety is by having you challenge those thoughts by doing the thing that you're anxious about. Right? So, for example, I'm scared of heights, but I also really wanted to get up onto a mountain. And so in order to do those things, I have to challenge my fear of heights by going up high. Yeah. And so it can really help lower that anxiety by doing what's called opposite action, which is a skill where your body tells you an urge or your emotions tell you an urge to do something or not do something, and then we just do the opposite. It's very intuitive, easy to understand, incredibly difficult to do.

Christy Wilkie:

Yes. I think the other thing we talk about with a lot of people that have fears, any sort of graded exposure where if we're gonna use your fear of heights, like you could start with going on a stair and you celebrate that, right? You're like, I made it up a stair and then you go up two stairs and you go up, you know, 10, and then we, then we, maybe we bring out a ladder, you know, we start doing that.

Lucas Mitzel:

I hate ladders.

Christy Wilkie:

I would imagine that you would. Yes. Which is interesting because you climb mountains,

Lucas Mitzel:

It's different for some reason. Sure. I don't know why

Christy Wilkie:

That is an issue, that you can, that you can work through, but I mean, you just start to, to build mastery little by little by little. Yeah. In facing the thing that's causing you distress.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah, absolutely. I think also trying new things overall. Like you, you're boosting confidence in yourself. And a really awesome thing is that a lot of times when we try new things, you're around other people. So there's a big social aspect of that, making new friends, finding support systems in that. And when you're doing something that you're interested in and there's people around, you already have a built in common interest. Yeah. So, I mean, that's the best way to make a new friend, is by doing something that you enjoy with them. So now you have a place to go and hang out with them and do something that you like.

Christy Wilkie:

Right. And I think some people take that as being like actual physically going out and being with people. And for some people that's great and for other people that's terrifying. But there are online communities and online groups for anything. Right now, my biggest group of run supporters are on a Facebook page through Team Wilpers. And that's just what we do. And have, I, I've met some of them now in person, but for the most part it's a network of, you know, thousands of people that are all working towards the same goal. And it's like, you don't have to go and join a, a run group in town or join a book club or whatever. There's, you can do it virtually, whatever makes sense to you to make you feel connection and belonging. Because I feel like everybody wants to feel that. You just have to figure out the way that that works for you.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. With all the negative stuff that can come out of social media and just online stuff, like there is some major benefits to things like that. Yeah. And it, I think it often gets missed and a little like demonized as this is just all bad, but there's some amazing stuff that can come out of that, especially when it comes to social interactions. When you have somebody who really struggles with face-to-face social interactions. Those online communities have been lifesavers for them. Like literal lifesavers

Christy Wilkie:

For sure. Yeah. Without a doubt. And you know, we talk about failure a lot, right. And figuring out how to overcome, I guess we haven't really talked about how to overcome failure because there's going to be setbacks in every journey. Nothing that you try that's new is linear. I'm gonna go out on a limb here, Lucas, and say that this isn't going to be our best podcast ever.

Lucas Mitzel:

I don't believe you.

Christy Wilkie:

I know, I know. And that's what we call delusion. But I'm just gonna put out there that I'm hoping that we get better at this through time. Right. But it's, it's not gonna be like, the next one is better, the next one is better, the next one. It's, that's not how anything works. The next one might be better. And then we're probably gonna bomb. And hopefully my dad still continues to listen, which would be great because we got one, one listener. But then we could come back with one that was even better than the last one. I think that people don't realize that failure is a part of progress. And it's, it's figuring out how to put that into perspective to be like, I can fail at trying, and that doesn't mean that I am never going to be great at it.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right? Yeah. And I, we have to almost rethink what failure is because if you're doing the thing that is really, really hard and you, you don't necessarily make it to your expected goal, you still tried it. Yeah. That's a huge success. Right. And throw in things like anxiety, depression, you name it, other barriers, and you still went out and tried it. I don't care what the result was, that was a huge success. And you should pat yourself on the back for that.

Christy Wilkie:

For sure. Lucas and I both use analogies, and I'm gonna say that 63.4% of them are really good and the other remaining a hundred percent of whatever that is, because math are questionable. But we try. But one of the ones that I use a lot is like, we talk about neuro pathways and you, and that's kind of what you're, that is what you're doing when you're trying something new or you're trying something different, you're trying to think about something differently. I think about it as like walking in a park, right? There's paths there because thousands of people have walked that path. And so you go in there and it's like, okay, I know this path. I know this path is comfortable, I know how it ends. Even if at the ending it's not great, but you know, it, it's comfortable, it's familiar, whatever.

Christy Wilkie:

And so you talk about building a new pathway, you're talking about like trying to build a different pathway in that park in places where you haven't walked before. Like you're going into the woods and you might get two feet in and go, Nope. Going back to what I know. Right? But hey, you took those two, two steps in and so maybe the next time you go four steps in, and eventually you start to form this new pathway that didn't exist before. And the one that you used to use that ended in maybe not a great way starts to overgrow. And then we've had this new pathway that maybe leads to something that is reinforcing and rewarding. And so I say that because it's like, it takes a long time for a pathway to build and it takes a lot of practice and consistency and routine to continue walking that pathway. So it's like, ah, that is a clear path to that. Right. I know how to do that. But it, it takes a while and, and it's really easy to go back to what's familiar.

Lucas Mitzel:

So when it comes to, I know it's not January anymore, but New Year's resolutions are still really big right now. So I, I did some Googling before we met, and I, I found some of the most common New Year's resolutions. Oh. And I think this is an order of the most common, to least common. So number one is to save more money. Number two is to exercise more, which I thought would be number one. Then it's to eat healthier, spend more time with family and friends, reduce spending on living expenses, spend less time on social media, reduce stress on the job, improve job performance, quit smoking, and do more for the environment.

Christy Wilkie:

Those are all doozies.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. Yeah. Why are they doozies?

Christy Wilkie:

Because they're looking at the end game instead of the steps. If somebody came in to me with those, with any of those goals, I'd be like, that's a great goal. Six months from now, maybe what's our goal for this week? Like, how are, how are we gonna work towards that this week? 'cause those all or nothing goals, setting yourself up for failure.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. And this is why a lot of New Year's resolutions fail so fast for people and why people get so frustrated with them. A big thing that I notice with these is they're so ambiguous. Like when you say, I want to exercise more. Okay. So like five seconds more, or like, are we talking every day of the week? And a big one that isn't on here that is related to exercise that I hear often is, I wanna lose weight. Or I wanna be more fit. What does that even mean? When you don't have a specific goal in mind, then it's really hard to know what you're going for. Right.

Christy Wilkie:

I think the other thing that I always look at when people talk about goals is, is the why? Like, what's behind that? What is, what's, what's driving you to feel like you need to spend more time, time with your family? What's driving you to feel like you want to eat healthier? What's driving you to feel like you're smoking too much and you wanna get rid of it? Like is it, is it health? Is it money? Is it relationships? Is it, I mean, are you doing it for you? Are you doing it for somebody else? Because I think a lot of times too, we make goals that we think are important to other people in our lives rather than that are important to us. And so it's like getting behind the why is important because then there may be other steps behind that that people don't think about.

Christy Wilkie:

Like, I think about the losing weight goal, right? Is that a self-esteem issue? Is it a perception issue? Is there anxiety that's kind of hiding under there? Depression that's hiding under there? Can we do some work on your person and your identity and, and who you are? And, and then maybe, you know, we can figure out back to motivation, better motivation for you to do something like, you know, are you doing it to be healthy and to stick around and, and you know, enjoy your life. You know, it's, I think that that why is really important.

Lucas Mitzel:

The why is super important. I can't tell you how many times I tried to work out or get fit or lose weight and I fail, would fail every time. And then when my son was born, it clicked in my head. I wanna get to a point where I, when he is older, that I can keep up with him. And that is because I don't want to be a dad who can't play with his son. Yeah. So that kicked me in the pants. That's what I always focused on when I wanted to stop or when I was getting tired or things like that. So the the why is really important. I think that it gets missed a lot.

Christy Wilkie:

It does.

Lucas Mitzel:

It does. Another thing that gets missed is we're kind of going into how to set a goal is through one of the main or most popular acronyms to use is, is called a smart goal. And that stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. So we've already talked a bit about specific and relevant, but so measurable is another one that gets really missed. And specifically, I talk about this all the time with my clients when it comes to wanting to lose weight when it's measurable, you would say, well, I just need to measure my weight on the scale. Well, okay, sure. Technically that's a measurable thing. However, is that a reliable measure? Because if I am gaining muscle at the same rate that I'm losing fat, my weight's not gonna change. I'm not gonna feel like I'm doing anything and therefore I'm gonna wanna stop because nothing's changing. But if I measure what I'm able to do instead--how much weight I can lift or how far I can run, that's gonna change much more frequently. And I'm gonna feel much more successful regardless of how much I weigh. And then I'm gonna keep going. So being able to measure is really important.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah. Just that goal in general. If you can't do it on your own, you can work with your therapist. You can do this on your own too. But what's more important to me when it comes to any sort of exercise or weight loss or whatever is how you feel. So if you can, if you can measure how you feel, and you can come up with that, like make yourself a zero to five rating and be like, how did you feel before? How'd you feel after? How did you feel at the beginning of the week? How'd you feel at the end of the week? Like, those are all measurable too. It doesn't necessarily have to be in the, the feats, you know, that, that you achieve. For me, I would rather have somebody working out and eating right and feeling better than lose a pound.

Lucas Mitzel:

In therapy, we, in psychology and all that stuff, we use a lot of assessments to measure things, but there is a lot to say about what's called subjective units of distress or subjective measurements and how you feel. And so when we measure success, I like to focus on three things. And that's frequency, duration, and intensity of things. And that's with behaviors or anything like that. But you can use that with anything. How long are you working out or how long are you doing the thing that you want to keep doing? How frequently are you doing it? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you can use those three things to also measure success and it's subjective to how you feel or, and can be objective by like tallying how many days in a row you did it or how many times. And just by doing that and measuring those things in conjunction with how you feel can also make you feel like you're making a lot of more progress than you otherwise would if you weren't measuring it or weren't paying attention to those things.

Christy Wilkie:

I think that works really even with the not smoking, because quitting smoking is one of the hardest things that people do. I mean, I think I'm making up a statistic, but I've read somewhere at some point in my life that quitting smoking was equally as difficult if not more difficult than coming off of heroin or any sort of addictive drug.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yes.

Christy Wilkie:

Okay. I'm not alone.

Lucas Mitzel:

I'm fairly certain That's true. See? Okay. Or we're both wrong.

Christy Wilkie:

I mean, that's happened once before and it was a bad day.

Lucas Mitzel:

It was a really bad day. Let's not do that again.

Christy Wilkie:

Let's not, but we talk about cigarettes. I think, you know, a lot of people, they have that concept cold Turkey, I quit cold Turkey. And there's some like bravado, I feel like that's surrounding the fact that you could go from smoking a pack a day to just not, and it's like, okay. I mean, cool, if that worked for you, I will, I will cheer you on all the live long day. Is it likely that that's how most people are gonna be able to do it and be successful? No. But if you look at the frequency or the, the intensity and, and how often you're smoking a cigarette and you go from a pack a day to even one less than a pack a day. Heck yeah.

Lucas Mitzel:

That's awesome. Let's

Christy Wilkie:

Go. Yeah. That's amazing. Right? It's not, it doesn't have to be this like Yeah. An all or nothing thinking.

Lucas Mitzel:

And that goes straight into the achievable part of it. Right? Right. So like an example I think of is we hear people who, like, they wanna spend more time with their family or their kids, right? 'cause they feel like they're at work too much or whatever. And so then they're like, Hey, we're gonna play board games every single night. Nope, you're not. You might be able to do that for like a week and then you're gonna drive each other nuts. Or things are just gonna come up because life and you're not gonna be able to do that. That's not a, that's not an achievable goal. Let's pick something that's actually achievable. In fact, I prefer starting small and then building up. Right? And I think a lot of people, they get these really big ideas in their head and they wanna just dive all in. I know nothing about that <laugh>. And when that happens, it's overwhelming or it's just too much. They burn themselves out and then they just stop and they don't go back to it for a very long time, if ever.

Christy Wilkie:

Right. And I do love the goal of wanting to spend more time with your family. Right. That's a great goal. However, again, you look at the why, like what's behind that? What's behind you feeling like you're either not spending enough time with your kids or your spouse or whoever it is. Is it guilt driven? Is it phone driven? Are you spending too much time on your phone and you're like, Ugh, I just need to get off the phone. But it goes back to like really boiling down. What is it that you wanna get out of this goal? Is it to have better relationships with your family? Then maybe we start talking to your family and be like, what do you need from me more? Instead of trying to fit this square pig in a round hole to just be like, I just need to be around more and everything's gonna be better and we're just gonna need to do this thing. It's like we got a lot of people in your family ask them what they need from you. They'll tell you. We say that about kids all of the time. 'cause everyone's like, I wonder what they would, I wonder what they're thinking. I wonder what they ask 'em.

Lucas Mitzel:

They're It's crazy. Yeah.

Christy Wilkie:

They're like people

Lucas Mitzel:

Like, how did, how did you get 'em to say that? I just asked the question.

Christy Wilkie:

Right. It's inquisitive. Right? Be curious, not judgemental.

Lucas Mitzel:

Exactly. Yeah. And so, I mean, we've talked a lot about relevance already or like the why's are, we're doing things and so then time bound, right? If you just have this ambiguous, like sometime in the future it'll get done. I'm a procrastinator. It's not gonna happen. One thing that was, shout out to

Christy Wilkie:

Shout out to ADHD.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. Yeah. One thing that was really helpful for me personally was having a race that I was preparing for and having that deadline of, I need to be able to run 26.2 miles by this time or else I'm not gonna make it. Obviously that kept me going. And you can do that with anything. In fact, you should be doing that and having goals with time bound.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah. I mean there, there's, there's being time bound and also giving yourself some grace. But I keep going back to this cooking thing. And this is not my New Year's resolution, by the way. Like, I don't intend on becoming a baker or a cooker.

Lucas Mitzel:

Oh, because 'cause I was holding you to it.

Christy Wilkie:

Well, I was thinking that. I'm talking about a lot. So I just don't want you to walk into it really.

Lucas Mitzel:

Honestly. There's something there. But,

Christy Wilkie:

But like right now, it's so important to establish a baseline. So it's like right now Christy Wilkie is making zero meals at home in a week outside of throwing chicken in an air fryer. Which I have got a great recipe.

Lucas Mitzel:

I think that counts by the way.

Christy Wilkie:

Take it out, put it in the air fryer. That's the recipe.

Lucas Mitzel:

I think it counts.

Christy Wilkie:

It comes from my grandma's cookbook. But if I'm making zero meals at home, my goal should be one a week within this week starting February 22nd, 2024, and ending March, whatever. Like I will make three meals within that time period. That should be an attainable goal. Or, but setting your baseline, it's like it doesn't make sense for me to go from, I'm going to do zero meals and then seven, I'm gonna make seven meals a week. It's not gonna happen.

Lucas Mitzel:

I mean, and that's a huge point that we haven't talked about yet, is, I mean, the long-term goal of whatever it is that you want to do is the one that's really attractive, right? Like that's the one that we're looking for, that we're shooting for. But we gotta set those short-term goals too. Right. And those are almost more important because that's what we have control of right now. And if we don't get these short-term goals down, we're not gonna get to the long-term goal anyways. So we just gotta focus on this, this week, this day, this minute. And move towards whatever it is that that goal is for that day. Right. Or that moment. And when you keep doing that, eventually you're going to get to that main goal. But let's first just focus on today. Right? That's what we have power over.

Christy Wilkie:

Which I mean is really mindfulness in the big scheme of things. And mindfulness is just being ever present in the moment that you're in and not worrying about what happened yesterday. And not worry about what's to come, but what's happening right now in your world. And that is actually a really powerful tool for a lot of things.

Lucas Mitzel:

We should talk about that in the future.

Christy Wilkie:

We probably should. Yeah. But it's, it's true. Even with, you know, with your progress in, in what you're doing. I can't remember, I've, I've heard this a lot of times over the several years that I've been working out, whatever, but you can be a masterpiece in a work of art all at the same time.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yes. I love that one.

Christy Wilkie:

And I think that we lose sight of that so quickly where it's like you can be great right now as it is, but that doesn't mean that there aren't places that you can do better. Exactly. But right now, where we're at today, you're a masterpiece. And a work of art all at the same time.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. It's a wonderful dialectic. It is, isn't it? I'm doing the best I can and I can do better.

Christy Wilkie:

The other thing I thought about, we were talking about, you know, find something that you're good at and make it a goal. Right. And find joy in it. And just because you're good at something doesn't mean that there's joy in it. You know, like I could be really good at math and find zero joy in any sort of math. I could be really good at drawing and not find any joy in drawing. So just because you're good at it doesn't mean that that has to be where you put your effort into it. You can be really bad at something and like love it. I think about art a lot. I am terrible at art. I have never been, I have never been creative at all, but I've always loved it. Like I've always loved like new crayons and like markers and I love watching other kids draw.

Christy Wilkie:

And that's probably why I put every picture that any kid has ever drawn me in my life is on the wall in my office. Because I think that they're all masterpieces, honestly. It's my favorite but it's, and I will never not put a child's art on my wall if they draw me something and they wanna be like, I want it on your wall, dude. Let's go find your place. Because I think I wish that when I was younger somebody would've been like, you don't have to be great at this to wanna do it and enjoy it. And that's, I think that's something that we lose sight of sometimes. And then sometimes people that are really good at things, they pick their stuff apart and they become perfectionists and they're like, well if it's not perfect, it's not good enough.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah.

Christy Wilkie:

It's like, come on now.

Lucas Mitzel:

That's imposter syndrome.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah.

Lucas Mitzel:

Which is a great segue.

Christy Wilkie:

Look at that.

Lucas Mitzel:

That was wonderful. Wow.

Christy Wilkie:

I wasn't planning on it, but yeah.

Lucas Mitzel:

We're good at this

Christy Wilkie:

but we can get better.

Lucas Mitzel:

Absolutely. Look at that. Wow. I know. So what is imposter syndrome, Christy?

Christy Wilkie:

Imposter syndrome is convincing yourself that you really aren't as good at something as you probably are thinking that you are fooling everybody.

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. Like you don't belong in whatever thing you are doing. That could be a career, it could be a hobby, it could be anything. . I did uh, some more quick Googling and it was really interesting because one of the professions that has the most imposter syndrome is actually anything in the social service area.

Christy Wilkie:

This is my shocked face. Yeah. It's not, it's not shocked.

Lucas Mitzel:

Also that ranks really high is volunteer work.

Christy Wilkie:

Oh, that's interesting actually.

Lucas Mitzel:

It's really interesting because

Christy Wilkie:

They're not philanthropic enough

Lucas Mitzel:

I guess. I don't know. It didn't give a reason as to what

Christy Wilkie:

Oh, that's interesting though. Because like if you're giving of your time, like are we judging ourselves for giving our time

Lucas Mitzel:

That we're not good enough at it? Or that we're not doing enough maybe,

Christy Wilkie:

Or not doing it for the right reasons or it's self-serving. You know what? That I can see for volunteering, because I talk about this a lot 'cause people are like, I love volunteering because it makes me feel good. And somehow or other people think that that's bad or that it's selfish that they're volunteering so that their reasons behind volunteering or like doing charitable work are not pure because it makes them feel good to do it. And it's like technically it's a distressed tolerance skill. Right. Giving back to others. Yeah,

Lucas Mitzel:

Absolutely.

Christy Wilkie:

Look at that. Cool. Nailed it. And so it's like both can be true. You can feel good for giving back to a good cause and also be doing good work. I bet there's a lot of cognitive distortions out there surrounding that topic. Right.

Lucas Mitzel:

You should probably be enjoying the work that you're doing. Right. Like it shouldn't, if you're volunteering and stuff and you just hate every second of it, that's not great. That doesn't seem fun. No, it

Christy Wilkie:

Seems not the point. Exactly.

Lucas Mitzel:

So there's five archetypes of imposter syndrome. So I'll just go through them really quick and we can chat about 'em. The first one is the perfectionist, which you kind of already mentioned before. Then there's the expert, the soloist, the natural genius. And the superhuman. So the perfectionist is, as you could imagine, they have to be perfect. You could have 99 successes and if one thing fails, then you're a failure. The expert is the primary concern is what or how much they know. And so if you lack knowledge in something, then you are inadequate and you don't belong. The soloist is more focused on who completes the task. So they have to be the one that is the primary task completer. Mm-Hmm. And if not, then they're not adequate. The natural genius, we've kind of talked about this already, is how and when accomplishments happen. So like if you don't do something well quickly or don't get it fast, then you aren't smart enough or you're not good enough at it and you should just stop.

Christy Wilkie:

Like if you have to work for something.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. So like if you're,

Christy Wilkie:

You just not, wasn't naturally a

Lucas Mitzel:

Well, the cooking thing. Right. So like if you, if you try to make something and you're not good at it right away, then you shouldn't be in the kitchen.

Christy Wilkie:

I feel like I be able to see the illogic in that.

Lucas Mitzel:

We should talk about that. And then the superhuman is more focused on how many roles they can take. And so if they don't do enough roles, then they're not enough.

Christy Wilkie:

If they're not doing everything

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. Which one do you think you fall into?

Christy Wilkie:

Well, I was just trying to think that

Lucas Mitzel:

My theory is that we all have aspects of each one at some point in time.

Christy Wilkie:

That's probably true. Where do you fit?

Lucas Mitzel:

I think my biggest one is probably the expert. Like if I feel like I don't know enough about a topic, then I should never talk about it.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah. I mean that's not true. You can talk about not knowing.

Lucas Mitzel:

Well, yeah, well

Christy Wilkie:

We talk about that a lot. I mean, Lucas and I both do clinical supervision with new therapists, which is like my favorite thing in the whole world to do. And I think both of us maybe overcompensate in probably feeling that way at some point in our career by saying, I don't care how dumb you think the question is, it isn't dumb. Right? Like, you do not have to know everything. You just don't, it's impossible to know everything. Like you think of doctors, right? They're smart, they know a lot of things. But do I want an OBGYN doing my heart surgery? No, but they're both doctors. I would assume that that's the same for almost every profession. Right? You kind of have a niche that something that you're really good at doesn't mean you have to be good at every single thing. I mean, logically I can go there in my head.

Lucas Mitzel:

Me too.

Christy Wilkie:

I do do a little bit of the superhuman thing where I feel like I have to do everything and if I need anybody's help then I'm, I'm failing in some way.

Lucas Mitzel:

It's interesting because people who are super humans also get really burnt out and they're like, why am I burnt out though?

Christy Wilkie:

I don't know anything about that. I don't, I don't, don't understand what you're talking about.

Lucas Mitzel:

So then when you're burnt out, then you have to pick up more things. In order to feel like you're not burned out because then obviously you're just not doing enough and that's why everything's wrong. And then you get more burnt out and around and around we go,

Christy Wilkie:

You know, it feels so good to be understood. What were the other ones? Natural genius. I don't think I've ever felt like that. Like if I'm not born with it that, that I'm not,

Lucas Mitzel:

I definitely have when it comes to anything athletic. So if I can't do something right the first time, then I should probably just give up. Or when I was learning how to play my guitar, I couldn't pick it up right away. That was really hard. And so for a minute there I, I just stopped doing it. 'Cause it was just so frustrating that I wasn't good at it right away. I've gotten over that and just celebrate now what I do know and how it just again, makes me feel. And it makes me feel good to play. It doesn't matter if anybody else is good.

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah. I guess now that you say that, there are several things that I, I mean, I just talked about sucking as an artist, And that got in the way. It's like I wasn't one of those kids that was drawing these beautiful things in art class, but I enjoyed it. But I just thought, well that's just something that I need to do by myself in the corner of my room that nobody sees or judges me because it just didn't come naturally to me.

Lucas Mitzel:

And I think the soloist part came out a lot in school because I would get put in groups and I would just want to do it all myself because it wouldn't be good enough otherwise. And if I let anybody help, then I'm not pulling my weight when in reality I'm pulling all of the weight and I'm forcing that on people. Right. Which isn't fair.

Christy Wilkie:

No, it's not fair. But I mean, we could do a whole podcast probably on group dynamics

Lucas Mitzel:

That would be interesting. Because

Christy Wilkie:

That is, that is interesting. But some of that too is I wonder fueled by anxiety or needing everything to be perfect.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. So then the perfectionist, right? I've never done that.

Christy Wilkie:

Not you.

Lucas Mitzel:

No. But you know that you're maybe struggling with a perfectionist archetype if you receive a single ounce of criticism and then you hang onto that for a really long time. Or it really bothers you even though you just got like a perfect score on a job review or something like that. If even the tiniest criticism is bothering you, you might just want to like just check in. On, on some of that.

Christy Wilkie:

I mean we, we talk about this all the time, right? Somewhat deficit thinking where you always think about what you don't have versus all the things that you have. And I feel, I feel like it's not like in a narcissistic way, right? It's not like you get a criticism and you're like, that bothers me that you've criticized me. Like that's not what it is. It's like hanging on that one thing that somebody said, Hey, you're doing great, but this is where you could improve. And what you hear is you suck at that thing. And that's 99.2% of the time. Not at all what was said, but that's what your brain hears and you just like clinging to that one thing. It's like there were 99 other things going on in there.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah, absolutely.

Christy Wilkie:

Which I feel like is a plug for like report cards.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah.

Christy Wilkie:

Because kids, you come home with an A two B is a C and a D and what do we spend all of our time talking about? The D. The D. Because what is going so wrong that you're getting a D in the class and we're not looking at, you got an A in science. Like talk to me about that. What, what do you like about science? What's good about science? Like eventually, do you have to address the D? Sure. But should that be the focus all the time? No, but I feel like we grew up thinking that you get F's or you do poorly and it's like you have to fix that thing that you're not doing well. Instead of looking at the reasons behind what's getting in the way of you doing well, which is kind of collaborative problem solving ish. But like what skills are you lacking that is making it difficult for you to perform better in that class?

Lucas Mitzel:

Right. Or people who, if something is going wrong, especially in a group setting, that it's all their fault when in reality it's a combination of a lot of different factors possibly. Right. And people who just take it and put it all on themselves are at risk of, I mean they probably are already having anxiety issues, but that style of thinking can really lead to some depressive symptoms and be very self-deprecating and can in extreme cases lead to some really dangerous thoughts. And so it's really important that we watch what we're saying to ourselves when we feel like we're a failure or that we feel like we mess something up. Because just because you mess one thing up does not mean you're a failure.

Christy Wilkie:

Right. And I think we have to look at how we're addressing other people too when they do something. Like I think about kids in school, right? There are some kids that just have behavior in school, they're spicy kids, whatever. But all of the time that's spent talking about that child is about what they're doing wrong in the classroom. And typically speaking, it's less often that they're doing poorly in the classroom than the days that they're doing well. But we spend all this time talking about the days that are bad instead of figuring out what is going right on the days that are right, what's happening there that why is it clicking on those days and not on this day. Like let's find the reason behind why any of that's happening. And that goes for ourselves. It goes for other people. The way that we talk to ourselves, we also have to be mindful that we're also talking to other people in that way. Yeah.

Lucas Mitzel:

It's super important. Do you have any last thoughts or any last things that you want to, you feel like are really important that maybe we haven't talked about?

Christy Wilkie:

Not that maybe that we haven't talked about, but I just think that in my head there's nothing bad that can come out of trying something new or trying something different that's healthy for you.

Lucas Mitzel:

Good disclaimer. Christy said,

Christy Wilkie:

Yeah, that I should try something new. Yes. But that's good for your health if your something that brings you joy or that's gonna, you know, fulfill your life in, in a different way. And that most of the time the thing that gets in the way are barriers that we create for ourselves that don't really exist.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah. I think one of the big things that, if anybody could just take one thing from this is if you really want to go out and do something, if you have a goal and there's something that's holding you back, whether that be anxiety or that little voice in your head that says, no, you're not good enough, kick that voice to the curb. Do it anyways and just see what happens. Right. Focus on how you feel and if it feels good, no matter how it actually turned out, if it felt good, keep going. Yeah. 'cause that's awesome. That's all that matters,

Christy Wilkie:

Right? I, I mean, and also a plug, I guess in a way is that if you find that you're constantly finding barriers or you're too anxious, or it's that anxiety and depression is getting in the way of you trying something that you really wanna try, find a therapist that can help you maybe figure out what's going on or maybe the origin or the etiology of what's happening. And you deserve to live a life where you're free to try to enjoy things.

Lucas Mitzel:

Yeah, I agree. So we always want to encourage you guys to ask the question, is it just me? You're likely not alone, and there is always a way to help. If anything we have talked about today sits with you, please reach out and

Christy Wilkie:

If you have a topic you'd like to talk about, message us. We'd love to hear from you. We'll be setting up an email with Dakota Family Services in a short amount of time so you can write in and ask questions. Or if you have a topic you want us to talk about, let us know.

Lucas Mitzel:

Don't forget to share us with your friends and family.

Christy Wilkie:

Thanks for listening.

Announcer: Thanks for listening to today's episode of Is It Just Me? To learn more or make an appointment for psychiatric or mental health services at Dakota Family Services, go to Dakota family services.org or call 1-800-201-6495

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