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Summary
On episode 563 of 40+ Fitness, Coach Allan sits down with Dr. Corey Yeager, a licensed marriage and family therapist known for his appearance on Prince Harry and Oprah’s The Me You Can’t See on Apple TV+ and for his work as psychotherapist for the Detroit Pistons, to discuss his book How Am I Doing? 40 Conversations to Have with Yourself.
Dr. Yeager explains that most of us struggle with our health and fitness because we are in our own way, and that self-awareness has to come before any real change. He introduces narrative therapy, the idea of personifying your problems instead of becoming them, and the difference between shallow first order change and deep second order change.
The conversation moves through some of the toughest questions in the book: who is the most important person in your life, what untruths are you telling yourself, and what is the one linchpin problem that, if fixed, would improve everything else.
Links
- https://40plusfitness.com
Key Takeaways
- Self-awareness has to come before self-improvement. Dr. Yeager argues that most people already know what to do to get healthier; what they lack is the awareness of who they are, in the context of themselves and of others, that lets them actually follow through.
- Narrative therapy works by personifying your problems instead of becoming them. Rather than saying “I am a depressed person,” Dr. Yeager has clients turn the issue into something outside themselves, like anxiety as a visitor, which creates the sense that you can tell it to leave rather than being trapped inside it.
- Change comes in two depths: first order and second order. First order change is like repainting a room, a surface level shift. Second order change is knocking down the walls, a profound restructuring. Dr. Yeager asks every client which kind of change they are actually seeking before starting the work.
- You have to put your own oxygen mask on first. Dr. Yeager says he must be a good Cory for Cory before he can be a good husband, father, or therapist. Prioritizing yourself is not selfish; it is what makes you capable of showing up for the people who depend on you.
- Congruency is the real measure of success. The question is whether who you believe you are and who you want to be actually matches your daily actions. When Allan admits he avoided mirrors during periods he was not being the man he wanted to be, Dr. Yeager calls that a clear signal of incongruence.
- Find your linchpin problem and other issues start to resolve on their own. Dr. Yeager describes his own struggle with alcohol after his football career ended; once he addressed that cornerstone issue, his finances, his marriage, and his relationship with his kids all improved without being directly targeted.
- We tell ourselves untruths to make life more manageable, a concept Dr. Yeager ties to Sartre’s idea of bad faith. Repeating a false story, like “I have to stay at this job I hate,” long enough can make it feel true. Naming the untruth is what creates the option to choose differently.
- Treat your own self-talk the way you would treat a friend’s. If a friend spoke to you the way your inner voice sometimes speaks to you, you would not stay friends with them. Noticing the negative tape and consciously replacing it with a positive one changes your outcomes.
- Dr. Corey Yeager’s strategies to get and stay well: prioritize good sleep as the foundation for facing each day well; budget your energy deliberately since it is finite, and use journaling or talking things out to release what is bottled up; and give yourself grace, stay present in the current moment, and hold an internal locus of control rather than spending energy on things you cannot change.
“Before I can be a good husband, before I can be a good father, a good therapist, I must first be a good Cory for Cory.”
Dr. Corey Yeager
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