How do we get to February? So, how are you feeling? Did you start out in January with
a ton of things that you were determined to do, that you were going to do differently?
Maybe you were going to go vegan, or maybe you were going to do dry January. Was it the
gym? Was it stretching? That was my thing. Was it being mindful every day? So January
starts with us all feeling so positive and so up for whatever change that we want to
achieve. And then February comes along. And how do we feel? Well, sometimes February can
leave us feeling like we've just failed. Right? Maybe you did meet some of those January goals.
Maybe you are still going. There's also a chance that you didn't. And maybe one of those
things that you let slip was your dog's separation anxiety training. And if this is you, and
if you're feeling like your motivation to train, to get your dog over separation anxiety
is really waning, you want to do it, but you just don't want to do the training, then just
know you're not alone and that actually what you're feeling is 100% perfectly normal. And
that's why in this episode, I'm going to share my top seven tips for getting you back on
track, for restoring that mojo, getting you training again, so that you can get your dog
over separation anxiety.
Hello, and welcome to the Be Right Back separation anxiety podcast. Hi, I'm Julie Naismith, dog
trainer, author and full on separation anxiety geek. I've helped thousands of dogs overcome
separation anxiety with my book, my online programs, my trainer certification and my
separation anxiety training app. And this podcast is all about sharing my tips and tricks
to help you teach your dog how to be happy at home alone too.
So let's talk about getting your training mojo back. Let's talk about you finding that
motivation. You had it that first week in January, maybe you don't have it right now, but
it's still there somewhere. You just need a little bit of work on it, not work, you just
need to do a few simple things. And I promise you, you will feel differently and you'll feel
more energized about getting back into training. So I'm not going to talk about how separation
anxiety training works in this episode, because I've covered that in plenty of other episodes
in the podcast. Today, we're talking all about you and about helping you get through the
training because the number one thing that contributes to any dog getting over separation
anxiety is what we do. That sounds really simple, doesn't it? Sounds really obvious. But if we
don't feel up for the training, if we don't do the training, our dog doesn't stand a chance. So
this episode is most definitely all about you. Okay, my first tip. Don't beat yourself up for
what you haven't done. Do not, do not be hard on yourself. So what if you meant to train three or
four times a week every week? So what if you wrote that down in January as your goal? So what if you
bought my book or listen to my podcast and were feeling totally up for training and were really
committed to doing it? And maybe you did it for a couple of weeks and then you didn't. Maybe you
trained less than you thought you would. However, whatever happened, if you did end up doing less
than you wanted to, you've got to be kind to yourself. You're human. And how would a friend
talk to you? A friend will probably say, oh gosh, I totally understand because from what I know of
that separation anxiety training, it doesn't sound like the most fun thing you could ever do with
a dog, right? It's just not. And I understand that. And it's easy for other things to get in the way. So
yes, we can start a new year feeling so motivated and so excited and energized. But life happens. And
if you're listening to this thinking, yeah, that was me. Oh my goodness, I was that person. What
happened to me? I want you to stop that. Stop thinking negatively. Okay, do we have a deal on
that? Because you will not be the first person, you are not the first person who has felt like
they've lost their motivation to do this training, who felt like they were flagging. And you know
what, you come home in the evening, you did say you're going to do separation anxiety training at
7pm. It's dark outside, it's cold, you're tired, you're hungry, it doesn't happen. And then you
push it to tomorrow. So the next day, same thing happens. And you don't train again. And every time
you don't train, you feel worse and worse, don't you? You end up just being harder on yourself than
being more more unkind to yourself. So number one, the number one thing that might be the number one
thing that you have to do. Stop it. Stop being unkind to yourself. The past is the past. We're
not talking about January now, we're talking about the rest of the year. Alright, I hope we have a
deal. Tip number two. Remind yourself why this training really matters to you. I don't mean to
say to yourself, I want to get my dog over separation anxiety. Of course you do. Like
everybody who has a dog with separation anxiety wants to get their dog over separation anxiety.
I don't think I've ever met anybody who had a dog with separation anxiety, whatever was going on in
their life who didn't want that ultimate goal. So I don't want you to write that down because I'm
going to assume that's a given. But I want you to get out a piece of paper or if you're more of an
online person, pull up something like Google Docs, which is what I use whenever I'm trying to
brainstorm stuff. Or it could be a post it note, it could be anything, just get something that you can
put some thoughts down on and do it either while you're listening to me now or quite soon after
this podcast and write down why it matters to you. What's going to be different when you've got a dog
you can leave? Because that's really why you're doing it. It could be spending more time with
friends and family at the weekends instead of having to always turn down those invitations.
It could be not being the person left at home while the rest of your crew go out and do the
nice stuff because hey somebody's got to stay and look after your dog. It could be, and it is for
lots of people, I just don't want my dog to suffer anymore. I don't want my dog to be constantly on
edge wondering whether I'm going to walk out of the door. It doesn't have to be one thing, it can
be many many things. But write it down, it's really powerful when you write things down your brain is
much more likely to process that, to imagine it and for it to become really concrete in your
head. So remind yourself why this matters. It can be a long long list, it could be one or two things,
write it down. Number three, recognize what's really going on when you're overwhelmed. Because
actually when we give up, when we stop working on something that's really important to us, that's a
goal that you know if we go back to number two, you know why you're doing this. You're doing this
for lots of amazing reasons. So why would you give up? Why would you stop when you know that the
prize, you know what happens when your dog gets over this condition is amazing. You know your
life will change, your dog's life will change. So why do you stop? Why would anybody stop? Well
overwhelm. The number one reason why most of us give up on things is overwhelm. And overwhelm is a
really interesting feeling. It's a horrible feeling. But there's really interesting things going on in our
brain when we feel overwhelmed. It's actually a very natural response. And it goes back to how our brains
have been wired since forever, since brains became brains and humans became humans. Sometimes, often
we have the brain of a cave person. We have a brain that looks out for threats, that is always scanning for
issues. And that is tuned and primed to respond to threats. Because that's how you survive. That's how
humans got through living in caves. And then our brains developed. And yes, we develop more thinking
and more rationality, and so on. But part of our brain has never left the cave, we're still constantly
scanning for threats. Actually, that's also going on with our dogs, by the way, our dogs brains can be on
hyper alert for threats all the time. But as humans, we do it a lot. And overwhelm is a response to a
perceived threat. And it makes us feel like we are back in that cave under attack. So when we feel threatened,
and what's the threat, the threat is this is too hard. It's too complicated. Or another one I hear a lot, when
people feel overwhelmed by separation anxiety training, they say, I don't want to do it, or I don't want to start
it or resume it, because I'm worried that this might be my dog's last chance. And if I blow it, then what's left? So
actually, I'm just going to give up, because giving up and not starting again is better than finding out it's not going
to work for my dog. So when you feel overwhelmed, what's happening is you're feeling threatened by something. So
while you've got that piece of paper or that screen open, can you work out what it is that's making you feel
overwhelmed? What do you feel threatened by? I'll give you some pointers, because I see this over and over again with
separation anxiety training. And let me tell you what I see most commonly happen. Confusion. And why does that feel
threatening? Well, confusion is a threat, because it stops us from understanding the way forward. Nobody wants to feel
lost. So confusion can be a biggie. Too much, just too much to do, just too much. It's the straw that breaks the camel's
back type stuff, just too much. And we worry, our little brains say, if we take on too much, then all the other stuff's not
going to happen. And then, oh, my goodness, it's just going to be a disaster. Maybe we won't even eat. Maybe we'll all just
die. Oh, my goodness, no. Right? Now, I know you're not thinking that. But there's a part of your brain called your
amygdala that when it's under threat, it goes into a crazy mode that thinks that, you know, it's do or die. So what else do I
see causing overwhelm? We've got confusion. We've got it's taking too long. We've got, I don't want to start this, or I don't
want to continue with it, because I'm worried that it's my dog's last chance. And that's the fear of failure. That's the fear
of losing hope. But you don't know until you keep going. You know that, right? Other things that I see that cause
overwhelm is that people just feel like others will judge them. So not only are you trying to focus on your dog's training, but
you're getting all sorts of advice and opinion, you name it, coming at you. And you're trying to stick to a tried and trusted
method. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm guessing it's because you know that the tried and trusted method for getting a dog
over separation anxiety is gradual exposure, desensitisation. But no doubt you've got people in your right ear, your left ear,
surround sound telling you, Oh, do this, try this. Oh, why are you doing that thing? Why are you going out the door? Why would you do
that? No, don't do this. I read this article, and so on. And our brains just go, whoa, can't process too much. So write down what you
think is causing your overwhelm. Because often when we just give our feelings a name, or we just clarify them by writing them
down, we can call them out, you know, we can look at it and say, Well, why am I confused? Well, I'm confused, because I read the
book, and I listened to the podcast, but it doesn't make any sense. But how can I stop my confusion? Well, maybe I need to ask
somebody, oh, wait, so Julie mentions a free Facebook group. So maybe that's where I need to go to help with my confusion. What I
find fascinating about overwhelm has many fascinating things about overwhelm, because it's, it's a crippling feeling. And so I do
study it a lot. And it happens to me too, is going back to that caveman brain thing. When you get stuck in overwhelm, your brain is
going to tell, or the amygdala in your brain is going to tell the rest of your brain and your body to do one of three things. And
they're responses that our brains have had for ever. And it's either fight it, fight the threat, run away from the threat, or just
freeze, so that the threat goes away, because it doesn't see us. And if you ever feel overwhelmed, and end up feeling really
frustrated and really angry, oh, my goodness, this is so confusing. You might be saying, ah, Julie's method is just so ridiculous and so
confusing. Okay, if you say that, then fine, but pop into my Facebook group and tell me why so that we can help you. But don't, you're
absolutely at liberty to say that. Because when you feel overwhelmed, frustration is a big response. And it's that fight response, I
feel threatened. So I'm just going to rage at the threat. The threat is my confusion and my, you know, not understanding or my worry
that this is taking too long. Then the other thing we do, we run away, we forget, we just pretend it's not happening, we run away, put
our fingers in our ears, la la la la la, because then we don't feel so overwhelmed. So you might press stop on this podcast right
away. You might put my book in the back of the cupboard, you might never think about separation anxiety training again, or at least not for a
little while. Because you're running away. And that's okay. Because overwhelm makes you want to do that. You're dealing with a threat.
And you're just dealing with it in a very natural way. And the third thing freezing. Well, that's just when we don't do anything, we don't get
angry, we don't run away, we just don't take any action. And again, if we don't take any action, the threat will just disappear because it
won't have any interest in us. So if you freeze, if you stop taking action, when you feel overwhelmed, not just about separation anxiety
training, but anytime, if you ever just sit at your desk, you know, when you're at work, and you feel overwhelmed, you've got too many
things going on. And instead of just doing something, you sit at your desk, your head is in your hands. And you don't do anything except
panic about how busy you are. That is you going into freeze mode. So overwhelm is so natural. And it's a very, very old response. It
triggers very old responses. And it's so normal, but it really doesn't help us take action. So my fourth tip, then, how do we get through
this inertia, this overwhelm, this lack of motivation? Honestly, the thing you do could not be easier. In fact, what you need to do is find
something that is so easy, and so tiny, that you do it. In fact, so easy and so tiny and so quick and so short, you could actually do it right now
while you're listening to this podcast. And there's a ton of research behind this in terms of how human brains respond, and how we get through
sticky patches and inertia. And it's taking action. And it's probably the last thing you want to do when you're feeling demotivated and
overwhelmed is take action. Because if you could just take action, you would have done. But what we tend to do when we get off the rails in
terms of our, you know, our goals, and the progress we wanted to make, is we try to make up by setting really ambitious goals. Okay, so I'm
meant to train three days a week, every week in January, that's like 12, or maybe even 15 times, I should have trained, I trained twice. I know, in
February, I'm going to train 30 times, we try to compensate, we set bigger goals, because we missed out on our process on all the stuff we were
going to do. But what does that do to our cave person brain that feels under threat and overwhelmed and like too much is going on? It just makes it
freak even more. You might have a day where you feel motivated by this new big, massive goal that's twice as big as the goal you missed. But
overwhelm is right around the corner waiting for you. So you do need to take action, though. Because action will break the inertia, I promise you
action will stop you feeling like you can't do anything, you're just stuck and you're demotivated. But instead of trying to make up for what you
haven't done, make it so, so small, that it is impossible for you not to achieve it. I say this every Monday, in my Separation Anxiety Heroes
group, we have a goal setting, Facebook Live, and we chat about what people are going to do for the week. And I say every Monday, set a goal so tiny, so
tiny, that there's no way you can't achieve it. There's no way that next Monday, when you check back in, you won't be saying, hey, I did it. So tiny, so tiny that it's
almost harder to miss than it is to hit it. Now, because there's a bunch of overachievers in Separation Anxiety Heroes, they all dive in and they'll say, I'll
train three or four times a week. But I know, there are a bunch of people who don't comment who are also saying to themselves, yeah, okay. Yeah, Julie said
just open the Be Right Back app and just have a look at it as your one goal for the week. Yeah, I can do that. I can do that. And the silent majority, they're all
thinking of the tiny things and I want you to as well. And this tiny action is going to be really powerful. If you don't sit down, I've been talking about writing
things down. I don't want you to write this down. I want it to be so easy, so simple, so immediate, that you could do it right now. Let me give you an example. Maybe you've been
thinking that you can't really see your dog very well when you train and it's such a pain to set up a Zoom call using your two phones. And that takes forever. And then by the time
you've done that, and the connection isn't good. But back in your mind, you're thinking, I've heard people having set up cameras, dedicated cameras that could really work for me, because then I've just, I can just go straight into training.
Well, right now, when you're listening to this podcast, if you're on your phone, just go onto Amazon or wherever you buy your electronics. You don't even need to buy a camera, just type in security camera or dog camera or nanny cam and just have a look.
Just do that. Just do that now. You don't even have to buy. Because if you do that, you have just taken action. You have just done something. Maybe if you bought my book, you know, there's training plans in there, right? Well, maybe it's not. Okay, what I'll do is I will sit down and I'll go through Julie's plans and I'll come up with the plan for next week. And I encourage you to do that, by the way, but not in this moment. In this moment, it could be, you know, I'm just going to go and get Julie's book and I'm going to put
it on my desk so that tomorrow I can work on those plans. And your goal right now in this moment is just go and get the book if you've got the book, or maybe you'll go back through a few podcast episodes or whatever. And just do that tiny thing. Just put it there. Maybe save my podcast to your screen or maybe jump into the Facebook group that I asked you about. But you know, this action in this tiny step, it should take you no more than 30 seconds. If it's taking you longer than that, it's not worth it.
I want you to do right, so it's got to be short, sweet, doable right now. And then you've done it. If you do any of those things, or you've got your own things that you know, could break that inertia, you've just broken the inertia, you've just done something you have got back on track. And tell yourself if it's going to grab my book, if it's just getting the notepad where you normally write down your training, if it's going onto Amazon to look for a camera, if you do that in the next 30 seconds, give yourself a massive
pat on the back and tell yourself you are back in the game. Do you have a deal on that
one? Okay. Number five, you need to stop relying on willpower. Oh, my goodness, that sounded
really lechery, didn't it? It sounded like I'm just like wagging my finger at you. But
no, really, willpower is a tricky, tricky thing. It's, you know, it's what we hear is
everybody's got to have amazing willpower. And, you know, these super high achievers,
they've all got fantastic willpower. No, they haven't. They've got systems. Willpower
is actually really weak. Willpower works for maybe the first two days. So if you got up
on January the 1st, and you were clear about what you're going to do with separation anxiety
training this year, most likely that was your willpower. It was your like, I am going to
do this, it's your declaration of what you're going to do. But willpower, sometimes it doesn't
even get you started. It doesn't, it's just not strong enough. What keeps you going after
the willpower very quickly disappears, is having a process and a system. Just getting
on with it. If you can think about anything in your life that you do as a habit, maybe
that's going to the gym, it might be maybe you're committing to reading a certain amount
of things. And maybe you do read every night before you go to bed. And so you get through
a book a week or a book a month. You've got a system, you've got a process. You don't
have to rely on willpower because it is just so habitual. I've talked about habit and I've
talked about systems in other podcast episodes. So I'll link to some of those in the show
note. But also, I can't go through an episode on motivation without mentioning one of my
favourite books of all time, James Clear's Atomic Habits. So James Clear dives into this
whole concept of why it's all about systems and processes and creating habits and not
about just relying on willpower. He goes into that in his amazing book that's got I think
over 10,000 five star ratings or something crazy like that, maybe even more. Because
everybody loves it. It's a brilliant book and I'll link to that in the comments.
Okay, tip number six. So this all sounds so rosy and amazing, doesn't it? Oh, Julie
says if I just do one little thing now and then maybe I'll read a couple of articles
on habit, then it's all just going to be peachy and me and my dog are going to be just like
flooding along and it's all good. Well, you know, because my next tip is to accept the
bad days. Accept it. Just know that if yesterday you felt really demotivated, and I'm hoping
now maybe now we're on tip number six, you're feeling, yeah, yeah, I feel a little bit more
like I can do this. But just know that in the future, and the future could be tomorrow,
it could be next week, or it could be in a month's time, you will feel flat again. You
just will, even if you get a system in place, even if you get your habits going. Not only
that, but because separation anxiety can be so up and down when it comes to your dog,
so they have good days and bad days. That's how their brains are wired. You're fighting
your brain, your brain feeling good, not feeling good, and your dog. So you are going to have
bad days. But accept that and know that they will come. Know that you'll have days where
you don't want to do this. And your dog will have days where he doesn't want to train.
One thing that James Clear talks about in his book is the concept of a streak. And what do
we mean by that? Well, if you've ever done challenges, challenges are a really good
example of that. You always see them January, the January, by January, they're examples of
streak challenges. The idea being that you do one day, and then the next day, and then the day
after, and the more days in a row that you do, the less likely you are to give up because you're
like, I've done 10 days now, I can get to 15. And then you get to 15, you're like, oh, halfway,
you get to 20. You're like, well, I'm not giving up now. So when we get on a really good run with
a new habit, we don't like to break the streak. And it can be really powerful, but it can also
work powerfully the other way too, and particularly at the start of something new.
So if you are on day three of dry January, and it's your friend's big birthday, you go out,
everybody else is drinking, and you say, I'm only just, I'm just gonna have one glass of wine.
In fact, I'm only gonna have a couple of sips. What you can do at that point, and this is how
our brains will play around with us, play tricks with us, your brain will go, oh, there's no point,
there's no point, you know, you were on a streak of three days, but now it's now, no, no point,
just like give up on it. And it's the kind of do or die, it's like, make your goal or quit.
But you don't have to do that. You could say, okay, I went out for a drink on my friend's
birthday on the 3rd of January, but I'm still going to do the rest of January as dry January.
That's the beauty and the problem of streaks. They work really well, particularly towards the end,
but boy, do they trip us up early on if we miss a day. And so what I want you to do is
know that those bad days are coming for you and your dog, and that you might well break a streak.
I'm not expecting you to train every day, by the way, I don't mean that, but maybe you'll take a
week off, maybe you'll take two weeks off, and you're thinking, oh, I was doing so well, I was
training every week, really felt like we had momentum. Don't give up if you do break that
pattern. If you do take time off, that's okay. And that's not a reason to give up.
I always say to my husband, and we have this big debate about when we get mountain bike riding,
so a big passion of mine, almost as much as I love mountain biking, almost as much as I love
my dogs. Actually, not even close, but I really love mountain biking. And mountain biking,
some people, when they do mountain bike rides, they do really long rides. They do three or four
hour rides at the weekend. I just don't have a week that I can find three or four hours and fit
that in, not with dogs and the business and everything. But I do have half an hour, 40
minutes, or small periods of time during the week when I can go and do something.
My husband's of the view that if you haven't got time to do it properly, don't do it at all. Don't
do a mountain bike ride that's only 30 minutes. My view is, well, 30 minutes is better than zero.
And so I'll do a 30-minute mountain bike ride, or a 45-minute one, or an hour one. I'll do what I can,
because it's always better to do something than to do nothing.
So same with you. If you think, oh, no, I didn't train last week.
Oh, I didn't train this week. OK, well, I'll train five times this week. But no,
I don't have time to do that. Don't do that. Don't say, I'm going to train five times this week.
Don't be like my husband. Instead, say, I think I've got 20 minutes on Thursday night. So do it.
Just do that 20 minutes on Thursday night. That 20 minutes on Thursday night, if that's all you
do that week, that's 20 minutes more than you would have done if you'd have just said, I don't
have time at all to train, quote, properly this week, so I won't do it. Now, I really love Dory
the Boar for those periods where we've just got a few minutes, you know, when the kettles are boiling,
or you're waiting for the pasta to boil, whatever, and you've got a few minutes,
you can do Dory the Boar. Don't think that just because you don't have five days or three days
in a week, you can't do any training. You can always do some. Well, I think you can always do
some. So if it's five minutes, it's five minutes and five minutes is not zero minutes. And my final
tip, I really do hope this is helping you feel like you can get back into training. But if it's
not, if you're still thinking, oh, no, then my my tip number seven is lean in. Your friends and
family probably don't get what you're going through, unless usually maybe your other half
understands. But often we're surrounded by people who just don't get what we're going through.
And that can stop us from focusing on what we need to do and what we are motivated to do because
we feel judged or we feel like nobody understands or we feel like when we need to cast time out to
do this training, people are a little bit, you know, raising an eyebrow and what's she doing.
So if you're still feeling stuck right now, I want you to lean in. If you're not already in
one of my free Facebook support groups, join it, join one of those groups and just share,
share the fact that you feel like you wanted to train and you didn't train and you don't know
how to get your motivation back. Or if you're listening to this and you've just had a bump in
the road again, lean in. Just just tell people that you need some encouragement. You need some
motivation and just ask for that help, because there's nothing like the power of going through
something with other people who are going through the same thing when you when you do something
really difficult and separation anxiety training. Yeah, it's not easy. It's a big
challenge when you do that and you go through it with other people who are doing the same thing
at the same time, then you are more likely to stick with the process. And that's not just me
saying it. That is research backed. OK, so those are my seven tips. I just want to say you've so
got this. You really have. And even if you didn't do that one 30 second action while you're listening
to me, try and do it today, because honestly, I promise you, just breaking that inertia,
getting that tiny bit of momentum back and thinking about all the other tips today.
You can do this. I've got your back. You can get back on track. I know you can.
That's it for me today. Thanks for listening. And I hope you'll join me on the next episode.
Bye for now.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Be Right Back Separation Anxiety Podcast.
If you want to find out more about how I can help you further, head over to julienaysmith.com.
Meanwhile, if you enjoyed listening today, I would love it if you would head over
to wherever you listen to your podcast and consider rating my show.
Thanks so much. Good luck with that training and bye for now.