Who’s Really Making Your Choices? with Paula Houlihan | The Journey: Awakening

How many of the choices you make every day are actually conscious?

In the final episode of Week 1: Awakening of The Delay the Binge Journey, Pam Dwyer talks with behavioral change expert, keynote speaker, author, and Power Pause™ creator Paula Houlihan about the brain’s autopilot, and what happens when the patterns designed to help us begin taking us somewhere we no longer want to go.

Paula explains why automatic behavior isn’t evidence that something is wrong with us. Our brains are doing what they were designed to do: conserving energy, recognizing patterns, and automating familiar responses.

But what happens when those responses no longer serve us?

Together, Pam and Paula explore how awareness creates an opportunity to interrupt automatic reactions, why simply knowing better doesn’t always mean we automatically do better, and how Paula’s Power Pause can help bring the thinking part of the brain back online before we respond.

Paula also shares her own experience of recognizing old patterns returning while writing Hijacked, a powerful reminder that growth isn’t perfection. It’s becoming better at noticing, pausing, and choosing again.

This conversation closes Week 1: Awakening and creates the bridge into Week 2: Choosing.

Your Plus One:
When you catch yourself reacting automatically today, pause and ask:

Is this what I want to choose, or simply what I usually do?

You don’t have to change everything.

Just create enough space for one different choice.

Explore all 20 conversations and follow The Journey:
The Delay the Binge Journey

Transcript

Tiny Choices Shape A Life

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Delay the Bench Podcast, where we explore the pause between life's automatic reactions and our next intentional choice. I'm your host, Pam Dwyer. Most of us think our lives are shaped by the big decisions. The career change, the relationship, the move. But what if our lives are actually shaped by hundreds of tiny choices we don't even realize we're making? Choices driven by habits, stress, old patterns, and autopilot. Today's guest believes that sustainable success isn't about pushing harder, it's about understanding what's really driving the choices we make every single day. Joining me today is Paula Hulahan, keynote speaker, executive coach, and creator of Choice Mastery. After a life-altering health diagnosis forced her to rethink everything she believed about performance and success, Paula developed a framework that helps high performers interrupt unconscious patterns and begin making choices that support both achievement and well-being. Her new book, Hijacked, explores the surprising neuroscience behind the choices we think we're making and how to take back the controls. Paula, welcome to Delay the Binge Podcast. Oh, thank you so much, Pam. I really appreciate your invitation to be here. Oh, I'm so excited.

A Diagnosis That Changed Everything

SPEAKER_00 1:33

I always like to begin before someone's message became their message. Who was Paula before choice mastery? And if we met to 20 years ago, what would we have seen?

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Well, we won't. I'll take it back 15 years ago. Okay. But yeah. Well, actually, we could go back 20 years. So in my past life, I was a corporate senior claims specialist in the insurance industry. And I was in that industry for 15 years doing that work. So that's why I say go back 15 years. But I actually left that career in 2010 when I received my diagnosis. So we could go back 30 years. What happened to me was so I was in a very high demand, high uh critical decision-making environment, negotiating and investigating and settling multi-million dollar litigated cases. So, and that's at all the different court levels, state level, national level. I even had some international cases. And I was at that point, I when I finally took the time to see the doctor, because that's what we do. We wait till we have a checklist of things. So we we get it all done in one visit. One whack. Yeah, right. Because we're so busy. Uh I was sitting in the chair and my doctor told me that I was on the verge of adrenal crisis due to decades of chronic stress. And the words he told me next just completely blindsided me. He said that if I didn't make some changes, that if I didn't make some different choices, I very likely won't be here in a year. And that completely blindsided me. Because number one, I came in to get a prescription. Right. I'm squeezing this appointment into my busy schedule thinking, just give me a prescription so I can stay awake during the day, stay focused, and another one so I can sleep at night. Because, you know, we're up at night, always thinking about all the things we didn't get done. So I didn't consider myself burnt out. I didn't consider myself having health issues. Was I exhausted? Absolutely. Uh, but I think that we consider, at least I did, exhaustion as part of being successful, being overwhelmed, being stressed. That's all part of success. Because if you have a high-level position, we kind of expect that. So when when I got that diagnosis, that surprised me. And then it was the words that he used that I had to make some different choices. And my gut reaction was, I did not choose this. What are you talking about? This is happening to me. Well, what I've come to discover over the years, I went back to school to get a degree in psychology because I wanted to understand what was going on in my brain. Because how did this happen to me and how is it happening to others? And it really drove my drive to understand how capable, smart, high-performing individuals can find themselves making choices, consciously or unconsciously, that work against them. And what I've come to discover is that up to 95% of the choices we think we're making are made unconsciously by our brains for us. And once I understood that, that changed the whole dynamic. And that's what put me on this, on this path to doing this work.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Oh gosh. I am so thankful that you have shared your time with us today because that's what delay the binge is all about, learning about the brain and and the patterns, the good ones and the bad ones, and how to make changes. And gosh, you're going to validify a lot of information and teach us some new ones, I think, today. That's my hope.

Why Autopilot Takes Over Under Stress

SPEAKER_00 5:30

My listeners, they they hear me talk about the pause before the behavior. And you talk about understanding what's driving our choices. And I'm wondering, are we really choosing or are we often just following patterns we never stop to question?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Right. So that's a great question. And understanding how the brain works, whether we're consciously choosing or choosing out of default decisions or habits or patterns, it's still choosing. We've programmed our brain to make those decisions for us. We, our community, our family, our experiences, what we hear on the news, what we watch on TV, what we read, all of those things feed our brain with information that our brain then uses when we are experiencing pressure or stress or crisis. That's when what I call our autopilot, the unconscious parts of our brain, take over. So when we are under stress or under any kind of pressure or demand, and it can be light stress, it could be simply your breast friend asking you, can you help me move this weekend? Right. Anything that develops some sort of anxiety or or resistance in us, there are parts of our brain that activate. And it's the amygdala and basal ganglia predominantly that activate under those situations. Because they are the older parts of our brain, they are designed, this is the best part. It's doing exactly what it's designed to do. They are designed to make decisions quickly, efficiently, and just in the moment, without having to analyze, without having to assess, without having to think consciously. And that's important because if, from an evolutionary standpoint, we're facing crisis, it could be life or death. So our brain is designed to make quick decisions. Now, where that works against us is if it's programmed in a way that no longer aligns with what's important to us or doesn't help us achieve the goals and the life that we want for ourselves. So as we grow and develop, our roles and our demands on our day also grow and develop, but our autopilot doesn't if we don't reprogram it. So to answer your question, what's the difference? Are we really making choices? I would say yes, we are, because it's our brain making a decision. Now, are we consciously making that choice? No. Are we consciously aware that we're making that choice? Absolutely, because we're not walking around unconscious. We know what we're thinking, we know what we're what we're feeling, we know how we're responding, reacting. But let me ask you this have you ever had a moment where you heard words come out of your mouth and you didn't know where they came from? They just came out? Yes. Yeah. Or have you ever faced a situation where you know what you want to do, but you can't make yourself do it?

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Uh yes. And that's the whole reason I'm doing this today, you know, because I've lived it. Yes, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Absolutely. And conversely, when we know what we don't want to do, but we keep finding ourselves doing it. All of those situations are our brain making choices for us. So since it's our brain, my premise is that is us making a choice, whether we're doing it consciously or unconsciously. But to your point, they are patterns and habits and default decisions that have worked for us to a point. That's why you can find, like I did in my personal experience, those that programming helped me become successful. But then I got to a point where it no longer worked anymore because it was no longer aligned with the level of success that I was at with new demands and new responsibilities and new requirements on my time and my energy.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

I find that so interesting.

Willpower Is Not The Answer

SPEAKER_00 9:26

And I love the way you put it. It makes sense to me. A lot of times it can be very overwhelming to learn about these patterns and autopilot. And is this a matter of willpower or discipline? What do I do? And a lot of my listeners always ask me, I understand what you're telling me, but how do I actually put this into action? Like uh when do we know we're making a conscious choice? Or when has stress quietly taken the steering wheel? Is it stress or is it that our brain is making the decision for us? Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Love that. So a couple of things, you so much goodness here. Um, willpower. It's not willpower. So we're taught we need to just be stronger. We need to be more disciplined. Like somehow it's our fault. Like we've failed in some way. It's not willpower. Willpower has a very little bandwidth, and then it poof, it's gone for the day. Um, willpower shows up long after the brain has made a choice, thrown its party in time to maybe sweep up the confetti, right? That's willpower. And discipline, discipline is right there with willpower. Like if your discipline, if what you want is not aligned with what is programmed in your brain, when you're under stress, the part, the conscious part, the executive center of your brain is shutting down, remember? So there goes your discipline right out the window, because that's the part of the brain that manages your discipline. So we're not doing anything wrong. We're doing exactly what we can to the best of our ability in the moment with what programming we have. Now, how can we tell? Love this question, if it's a conscious choice or an unconscious choice. Well, that's great because if it's unconscious, how do we know we're doing it, right? In my book, I talk about um we have within us the ability to feel, right? We have feelings, we have emotions. So let me ask you this how do you feel when you're on course and everything's going the way you want it to go?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

I feel happy.

SPEAKER_01 11:33

Yeah. Safe. Yeah. And how do you feel when things aren't going the way you want it to go?

SPEAKER_00 11:40

Anxious, focused on all the things I've done wrong, things like that. Negative failure. Failure.

SPEAKER_01 11:48

That is that is a good indicator that your autopilot is either engaged or not engaged. So what I tell people is in the moment, take a breath. You've talked about taking a pause. I talk about a power pause because this is more than just a breathing exercise, it's a brain reactivation exercise. So in the moment when we're being pulled, whether that's the friend asking us to help them move or the boss coming with another project or the phone ringing and somebody's emergency is now yours. In that moment where we are being pulled away from what we were focusing on to what others want us to do, taking a breath, a deep breath, does a couple of things. First of all, it interrupts the autonomic nervous system. So that means your blood pressure starts lowering, your heart rate starts lowering, and most importantly, it gives your brain enough space to see more than what triggered it, more than the problem in front of it. Because when we're in reactive mode, we're focusing on the problem. In that moment, you can ask yourself, am I being reactive or proactive? And you know the difference. So if you're being proactive, what you've done is you've reactivated your prefrontal cortex. Now you are consciously making choices. If you are being reactive, typically it feels like those emotions where things are out of control or you're resistant or you're not happy or you're exhausted, all of those things can indicate that your autopilot has taken over. Now, reactive is not always a bad thing. The next question to ask is: is my response appropriate to the situation? Will it move me closer to my goal? Will it help me achieve what's important to me? And if the answers are yes, great, let your autopilot keep flying. You're you're right on course. But if it's no, and many, many times it is, no, that's when you get to make a choice in that moment. What else can I choose here and take action on that new choice? Now that does two things. It interrupts the stress cycle, but it also starts reprogramming your autopilot because now this is going to become your new habit as you continue to do this practice. It is a very simple four-step framework, but it's not easy, especially when we're feeling stressed and overwhelmed. But it does get easy the more we practice it. So, to answer your question, how do we know if we're making them consciously or unconsciously? Check in with how you feel. On an airplane, they have what's called an attitude indicator, not to be confused with altitude. Altitude is how high you're flying. Attitude is about where you are in relationship to the earth. So, attitude, I also talk about an attitude indicator in my book. Check in with your attitude indicator. How are you feeling in this moment? Are you feeling stressed and overwhelmed? Chances are you're being reactive. And now you're making unconscious choices because your autopilot has been triggered and taking over.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Amazing. That is truly amazing. Now, that's what you mean by the word hijacked. Your most recent book is titled Hijacked. That's pretty much in a nutshell what that means, correct?

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yes, your brain has hijacked your choices without you most of the time even being aware that it's happening. That's why when I was sitting in the doctor's office, I felt like it had happened to me, not that I chose it. Well, my brain did choose it. What happened to me was the consequence of the choices I didn't know I was making.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Got you. Got you. A lot of our listeners, that's what they say. I don't have any control. I'm just like on autopilot and doing what I've always done, even though I know it's not serving me. And I say, tomorrow I'm not going to do this thing anymore. But they do. And they continue to do it. But I have a question for you about the brain patterns. If the lower brain is doing the reactive stuff, and if it's just temporary, correct? That's how I look at it as it's just a temporary solution. The front part of our brain, the thinking part of our brain, comes up with a more permanent solution. Is that accurate?

SPEAKER_01 16:02

For the most part, yes. So the macrylot and basal ganglia aren't in the what we would call the hind brain. They're they're so they wouldn't be the lower part of the brain, but they are unconscious. They are operating at an unconscious level. Now we know what's going on because it is in our brain. And when we start recognizing how we're responding and what we're doing and the reactions that we have, we're aware of them. And because we're aware of them, we think we consciously are doing them. So, number one, understanding that uh we're making a choice unconsciously, it is empowering because now, if we can figure out how that unconscious choice is being made, now we can take back the controls and make a conscious choice that, yes, is more analytical. It's based on information and data outside of ourselves. It is with emotional regulation. Our amygdala is very emotionally driven. It's very reactively driven. So our prefrontal cortex, the executive center of our brain, can make better long-term decisions based on what's appropriate for the situation with the data that is also apparent to us, but even more than that, what we don't know yet. And that is critical because our brain, especially the unconscious parts, prefers information it already knows. So that's why we keep making the same decisions and patterns and habits over and over again. It doesn't stop to ask what matters most. It asks what's fastest, what worked before, what's what's easiest to apply. Because remember, we're talking nanoseconds here. Our brain is just like, give me some information, and boom, we're we're reacting. That's firing, yes. Where our executive center of our brain assesses, evaluates, ponders, contemplates, researches. Sometimes it gets into decision overwhelm, right? So that's why I say you can use the five, remember, I talked about up to 95% of the time our our brains are making choices for us. We're in reaction mode, not proactive mode. We can use the 5% of conscious choice to reprogram that 95%. And that is what is so empowering. Because once we understand that, once we realize it's not happening to us, but it's a choice that we can affect, now the power is back in our hands. Now we realize we weren't doing anything wrong. We were doing the best that we could in the moment, and now we can do better.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Thank you. Thank you so much for that because that brings so much clarity to everything that Delay the Binge is trying to piece together and make use of. Because the more curious we get and the more we learn, the more we can apply this to our everyday lives.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

And that's what I love about the work you're doing is that it creates that curiosity and that exploration and brings new information in.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

Yes. Yes. Oh, I'm just excited. I can't wait to get your book. Because I'm going to make notes, I'm going to mark all over it. I've been thinking a lot

When Productivity Becomes Self-Worth

SPEAKER_00 19:17

too. I'm going to change gears a little bit. Yeah. I've been thinking a lot lately about identity. And when high performers do what they do, I think they confuse productivity with self-worth, the titles, the success, all the things that come with high performers, high performance will get you recognized, hopefully. And they put so much self-worth into the titles and into their work that they lose sight of who they really are or who they were meant to be. Do you agree with that? Do you think performers confuse productivity with self-worth?

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Oh, absolutely. I'll speak for myself. Yes. The fact that I was overwhelmed and exhausted and stressed, I was proud of that because that meant I had a lot of responsibility on my shoulders. And the more I could overcome and override that, the more proof I had of how valuable I was, not only to my company, but to my clients and customers as well. So, and and look at the research on people who retire, suddenly they don't know what they're supposed to do or who they are or what their purpose is, because we do identify ourselves and our value with the work that we do. Because we do, we work a big chunk of our lives. And so it's very easy. And a lot of this is pre-programmed into us because you're a doctor, you're a lawyer, you're, you know, right. And so we have these concepts and ideas of what that means, and that can become our personality or at the very least, our identity. Um, so when we are so ingrained in, and this is why we sacrifice our personal lives and our personal well-being, because we're putting everything we can into this value of who we are. I always felt like I had to prove that I deserved the role that was given to me. And how did I prove that? By working really hard, by overachieving, by, you know, sacrificing my health and well-being, giving up sleep, eating on the run, those things, because what was important was the outcome. And I confused, like many, productivity with being busy. And I confuse productivity with my self worth. And we forget that we have self worth outside of what we do. We have self worth for who we are and what we bring to the table, not what we accomplish. And certainly not the the name tag and the the title on the on the On the dust.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

Yes. Thank you for that. I really think sometimes too we want the busyness so that we don't have to look in because there's always something going on, some kind of pain or issue that we're dealing with that we don't want to have to deal with. And so we push it down, push it back, and just focus on the work at hand. And the busier we are, the less we have to think about those things that we don't want to think about.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

Yes. And what's ironic is those things are still influencing and driving our decisions.

unknown 22:34

Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

So whether we're thinking about them or not, they are choosing our life for us.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. And and one thing I've noticed too is that a lot of people tell themselves, this is just who I am. Yes. Do you think that's usually just the identity piece or just a well-practice pattern? Or is it the same?

SPEAKER_01 22:56

You know, I think it'll fluctuate from individual to individual, but I think generally speaking, when we say this is just who I am, that is us identifying as our behaviors. Right? Our behaviors are not who we are. Our behaviors are what we've been trained and conditioned to do in response to something that's not who we are. But we identify, like I said, we when we make unconscious patterns and habits and default decisions, we are consciously aware that we're doing it. It's just our brain has decided moments before we're aware of it. So we identify with the behavior. I'm just a slow learner, or something we've been told, right? Something that someone told us, or something, we have these extrinsic ideas, definitions of what it means to be something. So to be a high performer, I am X, or to be a mother, I am Y, right? We have these things that are operating under the system. So because we are so reactive in these behavioral responses, we assume that's who we are because it comes naturally from us. We're not thinking consciously about it. And that's the sad part because we are not our behaviors. Behaviors and identity are two different things, but they're easy to blend together.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Oh, I love that. I love that observation. That's pretty deep. So you mentioned that our brains are moving so quickly.

Downtime As A Performance Strategy

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Brains love efficiency, I guess is what you're saying. So how do we convince people to slow down long enough to make a better choice? Is that actually more efficient to slow down?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

So there's two different points that we're addressing here.

SPEAKER_00 24:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

We need, as human beings, downtime to regenerate our energy, to bring our, to give our brains breathing space, to not have to be thinking all the time, to just have some downtime, to relax, to engage in things that excite us, that we love, right? All of that fills our cup. All of that helps us be more productive when we are working. If all we do is work, then we have no enjoyment in life. We get overwhelmed and eventually that takes a toll on our health. So that's the one point. And then the other point is understanding that the autopilot is not a bad thing. In fact, we would never walk out of the door if we had to consciously choose everything. If we had to learn how to walk across the room every day and tie our shoes and get dressed and drive the car to work, we'd never leave. So autopilot is a good thing. It does a lot of things for us. It helps us uh operate in a world where things can happen quickly and we need to quickly respond. Uh, let's say you're driving your car and something darts out in front of you here in central Wisconsin. We have deer. They're kind of like so you need quick reactional decision making in that moment. And that's when our autopilot is great. Our autopilot is also great in the fact that our executive center of our brain, so the prefrontal cortex, has a bandwidth. It only can think for so long, and then it's done for the day. So if you've ever had mental fatigue or decision fatigue, that's what's happening. Your prefrontal cortex is struggling to focus and operate. It also takes a lot of energy, a lot of fuel to run that part of our brain. So, again, from an evolutionary standpoint, our autopilot has no bandwidth. It can operate 24 hours a day, like it has no bandwidth. And it requires very little fuel, very, so we can only consume so many calories in a day. So, from those perspectives, it's good. It's only a problem when it's not working for us, when what we've programmed into it or what others have programmed into it no longer support what's important to us. So that's where we can learn to reprogram it to quickly make different choices for us. So there's the brain will always make quick decisions in a moment, but we have the power and the capacity to take a power pause, take that deep breath, take a moment of awareness and decide: is this response appropriate for the situation and will it help me achieve my goal? Will it help me have the life I want? Will it help me be happy? Will it make me feel sustained? Right? Success is not the same as sustainable success. Busy is not the same as productive. So, yes, we we can train our brains to give ourselves permission to slow down. That's gonna take some belief system reprogramming, right? Because we think I know I used to feel like I was lazy if I took a day off and you know, played with my kids like I have so much work to do. That's that's a programming identity thing with a high performer. I also understood the importance as a mother to have time with my kids when they were little, right? So it's it's this, and we all have our things, we all have our blocks, we all have our our ideas about what we should or shouldn't be doing. But it's that ability to take that moment and think, okay, so for example, this weekend I had my grandchildren over. I did not go online, I did not check my phone, I did not check my emails for for four days of an extended weekend. I played with my grandkids, we went in the pool, we went out for ice cream, we took walks. Did I have ideas pop in my head? You know, you should send that email. Yes, I did. Oh, I should work on this video. Yes, I did. But I was able to tell my brain because our brains are constantly working for us, not right now. It's on the calendar for later. So, yes, we can train ourselves to slow down. Yes, we can train our brains to take a moment, take a pause, and slow down so we can make the choice that supports us. But ultimately, what we want to really have sustainable success is simply have an autopilot that works for us instead of against us. And take time to enjoy life.

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Well, that makes so much sense for me in a couple of areas. I've been to eight years of therapy to just to undo all the damage from a horrible childhood. But what I've learned is that uh being around certain people can drain all of my energy. And it's so interesting to me that you said you only have a certain amount of energy, the front part of your brain, the thinking part. And that makes so much sense to me because if I'm around even in a party or an event and there's a lot of people that are draining my energy, I was told in counseling that, Pam, your reflex to answer a question is this, and that it's no longer correct from counseling, from therapy. What you have to do with one sentence or one question is you have to think, okay, this is what I want to say. This is what the correct thing to say is, and then you throw faith in there, hello, this is what Jesus wants me to do. You got to think like three times, and it takes so much energy sometimes for me to be in certain social situations, depending on the people. But we're all wired a certain

Rewiring Patterns And A Real Relapse

SPEAKER_00 30:26

way. Do you think people can truly rewire lifelong patterns, or do they just hang out in the background waiting to show themselves again?

SPEAKER_01 30:35

So, yes and yes. We can rewire our responses, we can reprogram our behaviors. Will the old ones completely go away? No. They can resurface. That's where it's important to be able to take a moment, take that power pause, and assess is this is this appropriate for the situation and will it move me to my goal? Uh, perfect example. When I was wrapping up writing this book and I was under pressure for its final deadline, plus I had two uh speaking engagements that were very big for me. It was the first two different keynotes. First time I'm presenting both of them, both of them in the same month. One is in a showcase, which is even higher pressure. And I found myself in the emergency room having an anxiety attack while I'm writing a book about how not to burn out and stress out, right? So, what I realized after I got out of the hospital, it was not overnight. So, you know, I was medicated and sent home. And the next day I'm sitting there thinking, and in hindsight, so that's why I said this is simple but not easy to apply in the moment, especially when emotions are triggered. In hindsight, what I realized is I slipped into my old patterns from back before my adrenal crisis challenge. I had a mantra that I recognized. What doesn't kill me makes me stronger.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

And I slipped back into it without being aware that that's what I was doing. And when I looked back at the four months leading up to that, my body was giving me signals. It started out with like a sore neck that moved into my shoulder, to throbbing pain down my arm, to having what felt like a heart attack. That's what landed me in the hospital. I was ignoring them because I was so focused on all the things I needed to do. So I was compromising my sleep, my health, my eating, my exercise, like all of that went out the window because I had all these opportunities that I needed to jump on and make happen.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

So I slipped into my old pattern. That old pattern never goes away. What we're trying to do is make it less likely to come up. So that's where the new programming, the new rewiring helps because that now becomes my default. Will your old defaults pop up? Yeah, they can and they probably will. The difference is, and this is why I share it, you know, 15 years ago, I would have never told anyone that I had an anxiety attack. Like that would mean I'm a failure and I can't handle what I need to do. The reason I share it is because it only took me two weeks to recover. Because I have practiced this for so long that when I'm consciously aware of it, and thankfully, my body woke my brain up to say, hey, pay attention here. I was able to make some different choices. And guess what? I finished my book by deadline and I presented both of those keynotes with no problem, doing one of the best presentations I've done in a long time because it was new content and I was excited about it. What I did was I recognized, okay, I put too much on my plate. So I made a new choice. If I have to let any of these go, what are they? And I made a decision. If this pressure continues, I can't do all three. Can I do two? Yeah, I think I can. So I picked which one, and it was the showcase because that had the extra pressure. And I told the event planner, this is what's happening. I just got discharged out of the hospital. I will do my best to attend. I will give you at least a week's notice if I'm not coming. That took so much pressure off of me.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Gosh.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

Yeah. Because I made a conscious choice where before I was just pushing myself through and forcing and overriding because that was my default, you know, decades ago and it came up. Why did it come up? Because the pressure I put on myself was so high that my brain overrid what I already have as healthy practices, because that's what worked before. Yeah.

unknown 34:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:39

And so I was able to rebound in two weeks and accomplish everything. Now, I might have had to have let go of that last one. And that still would have been a success story because what was important was I realized what was overriding me and how I took back the control.

SPEAKER_00 34:55

Gosh. Okay, so let me make sure I understand clearly, and the listeners do too. Um, so old patterns, old habits will always exist. They're never gonna just disappear. We need to create enough awareness to interrupt it, though, yeah, when it's happening, becoming aware that it's happening, and then throw in the new pattern.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

There are some rare exceptions where maybe something does disappear. And yay for you if it does. That's not been my experience. Uh, most people, it'll still pop up, especially, especially around certain people who were part of your life when that pattern was developed, right? You talked about people who drain you. There are people who drain us. Those are the people we don't want to spend time with any more than we absolutely have to. And there are people that energize us too. But it really comes when you think about it. So, you know, I don't know how old you are. I'm in my my 60s. I spent a lot of my life building these patterns, habits, and default decisions. I've been doing this work for 14 years. Okay. Almost 50 years versus 14. You think the 50-year patterns and habits are gonna pop up because they've been there longer. But I catch them quicker and I rebound from them much more quickly.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Well, that makes so much sense. And now all of my therapists I've ever had, they've all explained to me over and over, Pam, you we can't make your past go away. We can't make your behaviors go away, but we can give you coping skills. They would always tell me that. And so I that now that makes perfect sense.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

And coping skills are very helpful because what they're doing is they're interrupting the cycle, the trigger and the response, and they're helping you activate your executive center of your brain to create a different behavior. So coping skills are helpful. Understanding the cause and addressing that cause also can be helpful. So I'm not a psychologist. I do have a degree in psychology, but I will say that this varies from person to person, especially with, you know, childhood trauma and things like that. So I'm not trying to give a band-aid approach to what's unique to each individual. But here's what we do know. We do know that we make conscious choices. We do know that we make unconscious choices. We know that up to 95% of the time our brain is choosing for us. That alone can give us permission to be aware and interrupt the cycle. So I talk about the gap between a trigger and a response. So the thing that makes us behave in a certain way. And the bigger that gap is, the more likely you'll choose proactively, consciously versus reactively, habitually patterned.

SPEAKER_00 37:46

That's a great visual to have, is like a gap, you know, little gap or big gap.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

Yes. Yes. And so that's kind of what I think about when I'm in those moments. Like, okay, take a deep breath. Let's widen this gap.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

Yeah. I like that visual a

Overgiving And The Hidden Yes

SPEAKER_00 38:03

lot. You know, my audience is made up of people who are incredibly capable. And many have spent years taking care of everyone else, putting themselves last. And so what are some of the unconscious choices they may be making every day that quietly lead toward burnout?

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Yes. Well, I'm guilty of that too. So there's a lot of different stories that we have in our psyche, right? Stories of what it means to be a good friend, what it means to be a good daughter, to be a good wife, to be a good partner, to be a good mother, all the all the things, right? To be a good father, to be a good executive, to be a good team player, all the things. And then there's our strengths, right? So um Martin Seligman, who's the he's called the father of positive psychology, he talks about the different, we have 24 different strengths, and they they're they vary in ranking depending on your life experiences. So if you have, for example, the strength of kindness, it's gonna be really, really hard for you not to put someone else first. Yes, it is. I can tell you personally. Yes. But here's here's the perspective shift. Kindness is also about you. So when you recognize are you being kind equally kind to you as well as the other person, chances are we tend to overextend our strength and do for others at the sacrifice of ourselves. So having this awareness of that behavior pattern, am I overgiving? And is that giving reciprocal, like either from the individual I'm giving to or from another source, because we need to keep filling up our cup somehow. So understanding that uh yes, we we also tie it to our value and our identity, right? That's just the way I am. I can't say no, right? You can say no. And here's here's uh um oh shoot, I can't think of his name. Just lost my okay, I'll think of his name in a minute. But um, he he talks about stoicism. And one of the things that he said that really landed for me is he said, when you say yes to someone or something, and I'm paraphrasing here, you are in reality saying no to someone or something else. Oh and he uses the example of when he says yes to a speaking engagement, he's saying no to that time with his family at home. When he says yes to writing another book, he's saying no to other opportunities that would conflict with the time he needs to write the book, right? So thinking it from that perspective, if I say yes to you because I want to help you and love and support you, what am I saying no to, either for myself or somebody else? That was really powerful. That helps you reframe the yes or the no because we can feel guilty saying no.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

That is incredibly powerful. I've never really looked at it like that. I'm going to use that. Because I am a pleaser and I've discovered that it's because of the way I grew up with abandonment, rejection, for me to be the best at something, or the most useful, or the most helpful was survival for me at one time. And so that is a pattern that my brain loves to go back to. And Brian Holliday. That's who it was. Brian Holliday.

SPEAKER_01 41:43

Okay. Got it. Give him credit.

SPEAKER_00 41:46

Yes. It popped in there. Yeah. Yes. I love that. Thank you for that because I'm going to so use that.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

It was really perspective shifting for me. I read it and I'm like, did I just read what I read? And then I read it again. I'm like, wow.

unknown 42:01

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 42:01

You know, just mind-blowing, and it's so simple.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

Yes. That's what all of this can be simple if we let it. If we complicate it, then it becomes difficult.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

That's another topic for another conversation.

SPEAKER_00 42:14

That's another podcast episode.

SPEAKER_01 42:15

Yeah, there you go.

Writing Hijacked And Choosing Time

SPEAKER_00 42:17

What surprised you most while writing your book, hijacked? I want to talk a little bit about that as a writer.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

What surprised me the most was um once I started, so I had all these ideas, and I've been talking, you know, professionally speaking for years and coaching for years. And so I've got all these pieces, right? And I wanted to consolidate it into a book and make it a substantial something. And so I was writing it from that perspective, oh, I need to talk about this and I need to talk about that. And I I created a chapter outline and all of that, and it was a good book. I attended a content model training. So a content model is a visual graphic that displays the essence of what you teach. So that was a process to go through. But once I had it, I could see all the pieces coming into place. And I realized that half the book needed to go because it wasn't pertinent. It was still good content, and I will use it for another book someday. But it wasn't pertinent to this choice mastery concept that I was working on. And so I had 10 chapters written, getting ready to close up the book, told my my editor, I'm throwing away half of it. We had a conversation. He thought I was procrastinating. He realized, oh no, I'm onto something here. And then I wrote another, well, I another 13 chapters, because I have a total of 18 chapters. And at that point, the book almost wrote itself. Like it was guiding me. It knew I knew by it what it needed for each chapter and what it needed to address. So it it was it was when the concept Like I embodied it and then it just came out. For lack of, you know, they talk about being inspired by the muse, or I experienced that. It was like the book kind of started writing itself. And so that surprised me. And it also surprised me in the amount of clarity I had clarity starting, but um even more clarity and especially doing discussions about it, like podcasts with you, having conversations about it, the things that pop up, the questions you ask, or the additional insights that you add and other podcasters, as well as as I present, the feedback that the audience gives me. It's just like it's constantly growing and solidifying and the clarity is getting even sharper. And that surprised me because I thought I knew what it was, and then it exposed itself to being even clearer.

SPEAKER_00 44:49

Yes, I can see that because I experienced that as a writer myself. As I explained before, we started a book for delay the bench just keeps evolving. So it's like I'm never gonna finish it, but maybe I should do the content strategy.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

And then write that book, and as it expands and grows, write the the next book in the series that gets onto it.

SPEAKER_00 45:08

Thank you. Because I am going to look into that. I think that would be very helpful. I need structure in all aspects of my life. We all do. We all do. And time management. I I bought a book on time management, but I haven't had time to read it.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

So time management. I love that topic and it can be helpful. Um and I talk about this in my book too. It's not that we don't have enough time. It's about how we're choosing to use our time. And I have a whole practice around that too. Uh, when we become aware of how we're actually using our time versus how we think we're using our time, suddenly hours and days can appear that we didn't have before.

SPEAKER_00 45:49

Well, and I appreciate that too, because just recently I had a coach helping me for six weeks because for some reason all the things that I'm doing for the message is it wasn't producing like we thought it would. And I just couldn't figure it out. And the coach said it plain and simple, you're because you're pouring all your energy into the things that don't produce. Hello. It was so simple. And she says, I think you're subconsciously doing this, Pam, because you fear something. And so anyway, it was just more about just recognizing what I was trying to avoid. And then once we did that, then it all opened up again. So good.

SPEAKER_01 46:29

I'm glad to hear that. It's amazing how our brain makes choices for us that aren't aligned with what we want to accomplish.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Yes. And that was my point is that being curious is the best thing you can do for clarity. And it's always helped me in every way possible. Because we're just ever evolving, aren't we? Yes. Yes.

Where To Find Paula And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_00 46:50

So let's tell our listeners um how to find you and your work and your book. Where can we go?

SPEAKER_01 46:57

Well, thank you, Pam. Uh, you can find me on my website. So that's www.paulahoolihan.com. So I'm sure you'll have the link. I won't need to spell it. Um, you can also find me on um LinkedIn, also Paulahoolihan, and you can find me on YouTube, also Paulahoolihan. And those are the places you'll find me as well as the events that I present at speak at. And I'm always sharing that either on my website or in my social media as well.

SPEAKER_00 47:26

Amazing. And we'll be sure to list every single link in the show notes, everybody, so that you can click on whatever pleases you, whatever platform is best for you. She's out there, she's driven and led to share an amazing message that helps so many people. So thank you, Paula, for your time today. You know, one thing I'll carry with me from today's conversation is the reminder that our lives aren't only shaped by the big decisions. They're shaped by the small choices we make every day, especially the ones we don't even realize we're making. If today's conversation helped you see yourself a little differently, don't feel like you have to overhaul your life overnight. Awareness is where change begins. And sometimes all it takes is one pause and one moment of curiosity and one intentional choice to start creating a very different future. If you enjoyed today's episode, I'd love, love, love for you to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need this conversation. And if you'd like to hear what stayed with me after Paula and I stopped recording, the insights that lingered, the moments that challenged me, and the reflections that didn't make it into today's episode, join me every Wednesday for my behind the mic newsletter. You can subscribe at newsletter.delaythebench.com, and we're going to feature Paula in the episode when her episode goes live. And you will also gain early access to her episode if you are on the newsletter list. Until next time, take good care of yourself. Ask yourself one simple question: who am I becoming? See y'all next week. Thanks again, Paula, so much.

SPEAKER_01 49:21

Thank you, Pam. It was my pleasure.

Disclaimer And Closing Reminder

SPEAKER_00 49:28

Hey, it's me, Pam. And before we go, just a quick reminder. Everything we share here is meant to encourage, educate, and get you thinking. But it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, legal, financial, or any other licensed advice. I'm simply someone who's walking through life, learning right alongside you. And I'm grateful we get to learn together. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for your unique situation. Thanks for spending this time with us. Until next time, remember sometimes the biggest change begins with one small pause. I'll see you on the next episode of Delay the Binge.