Episode 181: Ask a Coach: The It’s-Not-Working Mentality

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast, where we take a research-based, trauma-informed and results-focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer. 

Hey everyone, this is Kat from Overcome Pornography For Good. Today's Ask a Coach question is in regards to this “give up” mentality, or the “it's not working” mentality. Maybe you've heard others say this, or maybe you've said this yourself. 

It might sound something like, “This isn't working for me. I've just been in the program for three months, and I don't feel like anything has changed. I just keep viewing, it doesn't matter what I do. The pattern never changes.” It might sound like, “I'm stuck.” It might sound like, “I'm not making any movement on this. I'm in the same place as when I started.”

I don't know if you've heard of anybody say this, or if you've said this yourself; it could be slightly different than this or some other flavor of this. But that's what it kind of sounds like when we do this “give up” mentality. When we do this, “it's not working” mentality. 

And so, I want you to imagine with me, for just a second, an ice cube sitting on the table in front of you. So, the room that you're in is very cold, so cold that you can see your breath as you blow the air out of your mouth. It's currently, let's say, 25⁰ and almost imperceptibly the room starts to warm. 

Now it's 26⁰, 27⁰, 28⁰. The temperature is rising slowly, but the ice cube in front of you that you're looking at on the table, it's still the same. It hasn't changed. So, we keep turning up the degrees, 29⁰, 30⁰, 31⁰. Nothing has happened. Still nothing changes. The ice cube is still there, even though the temperature in the room is rising. Then, at 32⁰ the ice begins to melt. This one degree shift, seemingly no different than the others that came before it, has unlocked the change in the ice cube and it starts to melt. 

I took this particular example from James Clear’s Atomic Habits. He says in that book, “Breakthrough moments are often the result of many previous actions, which build up the potential required to unleash a major change,” just like this ice cube. Things were happening, these actions were building up, the degree temperature was changing, but nothing happened until that 32⁰. He calls this The Plateau of Latent Potential. 

You have to keep working. You have to keep making those small imperceptible temperature changes, one degree at a time, to finally break through the plateau that actually unlocks the change that needs to happen. 

So, know that the work that you're doing in this program, if this is you… If you're hearing yourself say this about yourself, “I'm in the same place, nothing's changed. I'm stuck, nothing's moving. It's not working for me.”… know that the work that you're doing, it's not wasted. It's just being stored. You're storing it up until you hit that plateau. And that's when the change is going to happen that you're actually going to see. Okay?

Have you ever popped a bag of popcorn in the microwave? It's similar to this. For the first maybe two and a half minutes, nothing. Not a single pop. In the last 15 to 20 seconds, they all seem to explode at once and your popcorn bag is full of these fluffy, delicious kernels of popped corn. But that would not be possible if you took the bag out one minute in. Because you’d be like, “Well, this is not working. I put the bag of popcorn in; two minutes in, not working, still nothing, not seeing anything.” 

If you remove the bag from the microwave, you miss out on that popped popcorn. How often do we do this to ourselves? We give up too easily. We take the bag of popcorn out before it's had a chance to store up the potential that it needs in order to pop that popcorn. We start turning up that temperature and we don't see the ice cube changing. We don't see anything happening in our lives, so we walk away. We give up. 

This is typically what we do to ourselves. We fail to see the change, we fail to see any tangible results, we feel like we're in the same place, so we give up and we decide to stop. when this thinking starts to take hold, when we allow those thoughts in, it's easy to let go. It's easy to stop. 

And it sounds like those sentences that we began with, “It's not working for me. The pattern never changes. I'm in the same place. Nothing's moving. I've been doing this for three months in this program.” And typically, what happens is we've already been doing this for longer than that. We've been storing the potential up until this point. 

Sometimes we might listen to the podcasts, right? Maybe these podcasts about somebody making a breakthrough. We think, “Oh my gosh,” and it sounds like it happened overnight. But it didn't, they've just been storing the energy for months, maybe even years, of doing some work that got them to that point. 

So, watch out for these sneaky thoughts that come in. Keep an eye out for those. I want this to, hopefully, be the start of you shifting the way that you think about the work that you're doing here. It's not wasted. I promise it's being stored. You're storing it up. 

You're waiting to get to that 32⁰, because that is where the magic happens and the breakthrough begins. And it physically could not happen before that. It doesn't matter how much you turn the degrees up, if you do not get the temperature to 32⁰ that ice will never melt. It just won't. It can't. 

I believe it's the same in this program. You can't give up too early. So, please don't give up. This is my motivational encouragement call, where I just want you to know that you can do this. Don't give up. You've got this. Keep going. Know that what you're doing, even though it seems small, even though you can't tell the difference from day to day, it is being stored and it will make a difference. 

The work that you're doing today matters for your tomorrow, so keep going. I am so excited to hear how this happens for you. I can't wait to hear about your breakthroughs. Don't give up, the ice cube will melt. But you must get to 32⁰, and I know that you can. 

Thanks for being here, you guys. I'll see you guys next time. 

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography. 

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t “have more willpower.” Lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. 

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at SaraBrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.