Lead With New Behaviours

✨ Hello, I’m Fran, Your NLP & Business Coach. I’m exploring a wide range of business ideas and money-making paths, with practical takeaways you can apply.

In this episode, I'm interviewing Lou Collins.

Lou is the consultant leader's hire when their next-level goals demand new behaviours.

With more than fifteen years in behaviour change, she brings proven insights from the field into the business world to help women break the habits and patterns that keep them stuck. 

Her work focuses on changing everyday actions to empower you to build the business you’ve been dreaming of and become the woman you’re meant to be.

You can connect to Lou in the following ways⬇️
https://www.instagram.com/theloucollins/

Find me @ www.melancholymentor.com

As a coach, I listen without judgment, understanding that others views may differ from my own.

#nlpcoach #nlpcoaching #creativity #inspiration #transformation #businesssuccess

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Guest Introduction
• 1:33 From Substance Work To Business Change
• 3:40 Behaviours Over Mindset And Strategy
• 5:35 Belief In Change And Early Influences
• 8:12 The Avoidance Habit In Leaders
• 11:25 Instant Gratification And Real Progress
• 14:20 Regulation Versus Doom Scrolling
• 17:05 Misconceptions About Behaviour Change
• 20:10 Next Doable Step And Momentum
• 23:30 Resolutions, Goals, And Identity

Transcript

Fran: 0:27

Hello and welcome to Melancholy Coaching Podcast, the show that highlights different business owners and ideas. I'm Fran, your NLP and business coach, and I'm intrigued to introduce a motivational guest. Lou is the consultant Leaders Higher when the next level needs new behaviours. With over 15 years in behaviour change, she's bringing those insights into the business world to help women break the habits and patterns that keep them stuck. Her work focuses on changing what you do so you can finally build the business you've been dreaming of and become the woman you're meant to be. Lou, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me, Fan. Oh, you're very welcome. So for complete transparency, we've met online, haven't we? We haven't actually met in person. So it's it's nice to get these networking connections, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. I've got a couple of questions for you. We'll have a chat around them and go from there if that's okay with you. Yeah, by the way. So what turning point in your own journey changed your approach to work?

Lou: 1:33

So I like you've just introduced, I've been in the behaviour change field for over 15 years, and that started and still is, is around substance too. So that is where I've kind of built all of this. And what I was noticing was a lot of things that I was coming up against in the workplace, I was doing myself. And even though I was working with people who, you know, they were at rock bottom, and I was thinking, hang on, they're making changes, they're doing the things that they need to be doing. Why am I not doing the things I need to be doing? Like I know the strategies, I've got the plans in place, I know what I need to be doing, but I'm still not doing it. And it all came down to the behaviors, the habits, the patterns, and the routines that I had or didn't have. And that's what was keeping me stuck. So I when soon as I kind of put those two together, I was like, that's it. Because ultimately, everything we do is around behavior, absolutely everything.

Fran: 2:34

So yeah, and that that also impacts our belief system and our values, and there's so many more things that go into it, isn't there?

Lou: 2:42

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

Fran: 2:44

Yeah, I hear you on that as well. In that quite often I will say to people, like, just I can help you with this, just don't necessarily look at everything I do because I don't I don't show it. You know, this you know, my shop front is not that great. So doesn't necessarily reflect my knowledge. Yeah, um exactly. That's probably what you identified, but then you were able to put that in and you know to to bring yourself forward even more to help people.

Lou: 3:12

Yeah, and you see, you whenever you kind of break down behaviour, it's quite it's quite simple but complex at the same time. So if you ever want to kind of create a new one, it follows the same kind of process. But obviously, it's not as simple as me saying you've got to do that process, there's lots of things that go with it as well, you know, kind of things you've got to break, things you've got to introduce. But yeah, on that and it in its like simplest terms, behavior is quite easy to change, I guess. It's just recognising that it is it's always more than kind of your mindset and the strategy, it's the things you actually do after you've got that mindset and strategy in place.

Fran: 3:55

It's it's also the knowledge that we can change. Yeah. The the belief that we can change. Yeah. Because if somebody's got a fixed mindset or if they've never been introduced to the fact that they can change their behaviors, they wouldn't know that it exists in the first place.

Lou: 4:11

No, and I get that all the time. So I often work with kind of young people as well, and I see that a lot with them, that they'll have a conversation. I'm like, Well, what do you want to do? Like, what do you want to be when you're old? And they're like, Oh, nothing. I'm never gonna do anything. And I'm like, Oh my goodness, yes, you are. And you can often see like that's the first time that somebody's believed in them. So when somebody else believes in them, they start believing in themselves, and like they believe in themselves and they believe that it's possible.

Fran: 4:38

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, another question for you that I'm intrigued about myself. So, what what habit? I'm gonna go for a habit here. What habit have you seen recur most most often in leaders who feel stuck? And how do you typically um help them to shift it?

Lou: 4:56

I think it is not just kind of I suppose the yeah, there's lots of different habits that we do, and I think probably the most common one is our avoidance. So we will do things that we don't always know we're avoiding. So one habit that I've got I'm terrible for is I'll just pick up my phone and start scrolling, but I'm doing research, I'm looking at what I need to do, and I'm looking at what people are doing on Instagram. I'm not, it's a total avoidance pattern that I'm doing because I won't have quick dopamine hit to avoid the things that I'm trying to do. And I think, especially with like women in business and leaders in business, we are we often face those things that are quite hard and difficult. You know, we sometimes we're on our own and trying to kind of go through a thought process or trying to get us from A to B. We can sometimes be like, oh my god, I don't know what I'm doing. So we'll go to that avoidance because it's easier. And this is what our brain wants us to do. Ultimately, our brain wants us to feel safe and it doesn't want us to feel uncomfortable. So the easiest thing for it to do to try and protect us is to put that avoidance pattern in. So the thought of going on a podcast or the thought of putting yourself out there on Instagram, our brain goes, Oh my goodness, that's really scary. I don't really know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna avoid it. And I think that's probably the thing that I see most common is that avoidance. But we don't always know that that's what we're doing. We can sometimes hide behind like that uh lack of knowledge. So if we're trying to build something, we're like, oh, I can't possibly do that because I don't know enough. So we might then do avoidance, but it looks like we're being productive. So we'll join another membership or we'll buy another course or we'll read another book, but actually off a little bit longer.

Fran: 6:45

There's there's a few things to unpack there. We just get into a couple of them. So, firstly, there's no judgment for any of this at all. We, you know, we're all prone to doom scrolling, instant gratification, putting things off. So there's no judgment, you know. If you're feeling, if you're listening to this and you're feeling called out, it's it's the intention for this is to say, okay, well, you've identified it then yourself, come to Lou for for guidance. There's no judgment with any of this. And I do feel that a lot of it is revolves around that instant gratification because we've got so much at our fingertips now, which is amazing, but it gives us more to um put in those avoidance patterns, doesn't it?

Lou: 7:28

Yeah, yeah. You know, even things like Amazon, we never have to wait for anything anymore. If I've got to wait more than two days, I'm not happy. I want it tomorrow. So yeah, we're definitely in that kind of instant gratification. And again, I think that like leads into that kind of business thing, is that you know, we see a lot of people out there that'll put out their their outcomes, but they never ever show their experience of how they got to those outcomes. It'll be like those big goals, and they're amazing to share, and you know, we all want to celebrate everybody, but let's normalize the process of how they got there as well. It's not that they made those 10K months within a week, they spent years and years and years doing that, or they've got a team that's helping them. So let's be less, you know, be a bit more transparent with that and share our experiences because things don't change overnight, and behavior definitely doesn't change overnight. So it's a process that we have to keep working at, and we have to keep addressing things don't change straight away. I don't know anybody, and I've never worked with anybody that has changed something perfectly the first time, it just doesn't happen.

Fran: 8:40

Yeah, it's about it's testing, you know, learning from that, what worked, what didn't work, and then moving forward, but having the guidance to and the confidence to be able to do that.

Lou: 8:51

Yeah, yeah, definitely. If we don't do, if we don't get it right the first time, how are we gonna learn what is gonna some some of that as well?

Fran: 9:00

I was gonna just heart back to the the scrolling a little bit, the doom scrolling and stuff like that. Because some of that could potentially be regulation, like to regulate, you know, if you've had a busy day or something like that, and you you feel like you want to do something, like you've been overstimulated basically, and you think I'm gonna do some research, but you end up scrolling, that could be a form of self-regulation. Yeah, and I definitely do that in the evenings.

Lou: 9:25

Like I'm always on my phone and my husband's like, Why are you why I want to have a chat? And I'm like, Well, no, I've had a really busy day, I just need to, you know, like say, regulate myself. I think about like when you know you're meant to be doing a task, and the easiest thing is to just pick up a phone. I mean, that's but that's what what I tend to do anyway.

Fran: 9:44

Yeah, so part of this also would be that there are times for that, however, you're still gonna move people forward, you're still gonna get them where they want to go. Yeah. And again, there's no judgment for any of that either, because I'm I'm I love a good scroll on my phone, I do. Yeah. Um is there just out of curiosity, is there a common misconception about behaviour change in leadership that you encounter? One of them I think you've touched on already, that it it is either it's not for me or that it's instant and I can't achieve that. So that potentially could be a misconception.

Lou: 10:23

Yeah, I think a lot of people maybe think that if they can't do something, like they're just not cut out for business. And I think that does come out too that you know, social is a massive part of it. We tend to see, like I say, everybody's business out there. Whereas if you went back to kind of, you know, the days before social media, you wouldn't have so much kind of thrown in your face of what you potentially what what makes you feel like you're doing something wrong, but you're not doing anything wrong, it's just somebody else's journey. And yeah, I just think we're probably just exposed to probably too much information.

Fran: 11:06

So well, our brains can only take so much in anyway, yeah. Because you know, we're bombarded with thousands of pieces of information, whether that in all sensory context, isn't it? And we can only process a certain amount of that, and that's what can lead to overwhelm and dysregulation and things like that.

Lou: 11:22

Yeah, and I think that's what it comes down to, is we just get so much, we end up going into that kind of comparison spiral as well, that I'm just not cut out for it, I'm not doing as well as I should be, according to everybody out there. Yeah, you know, I'm not as far as long as I should be. And like I say, our brains are then programmed to keep us safe. So I'm not, I don't want to feel uncomfortable, I don't want to feel those and you know, those uncomfortable feelings. Therefore, I'm just gonna take a step back and do something that I do feel comfortable. And I think like with behavior change, you have to take that step forward. But I always say it needs to be the next doable step. So there's no point in saying, I'm gonna go from, I don't know what business relating is, I'm gonna go from not posting a talk on Instagram to showing up five times a week, you know, a talking head for it's not gonna happen, it's gonna feel too much, too big, and you're just gonna go back to that.

Fran: 12:21

Well, I know that I would be okay on day one. Yeah, I would more or less be okay on day two, I'd think about it on day three, and then I wouldn't do it again. Yeah, and that could stay motivation. Because it's that momentum, isn't it? It's building in that momentum as well, that build-up to it.

Lou: 12:35

Yeah, and that's where behaviour change comes into it as well. That you know, where in January everyone started their New Year's resolutions, and it's probably around now that their motivation is starting to dip, that they're starting to wobble and think, oh, can I keep up with this?

Fran: 12:52

It's a funny thing, isn't it? New Year's resolutions. So whenever you're listening to this podcast, this is being recorded, you know, at the first at the early part of the year. So this is this will go out in February, we're recording it in January. And funny thing about resolutions, I never make them. No. No, and I used to because I think I thought I was meant to. Like when I was younger, it's a thing that you're meant to do, and then like it didn't hold any substance to it. There was no backbone to it, there was no plan to it. So I stopped and then realized it's because I didn't know how to. A resolution more or less is a goal, isn't it? And I didn't know how to goal set.

Lou: 13:35

Yeah, and that's it. I I think a lot of people, and it is that I'm what I'm supposed to do, I knew you're a resolution. Yeah, but why?

Fran: 13:41

If you haven't gone the reasons of kind of why you're doing it, and like say the goal, it's just yeah, it's just you're just saying something, but I think we we pick up parts of other people's identities as well, which you know is a natural thing for human beings to do, yeah. But it's it's also about crafting who you want to be, isn't it? And and what you want to achieve, and and being able to stay in your own lane and look at other people out of research or modelling or enjoyment, but be able to stay in your own lane because otherwise it's that I guess that's where people get kind of thoughts about their identity or that they're not good enough. Um, things like that. It can lead into so much more, can't it?

Lou: 14:26

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And you know, when it comes to behaviour change as well, that can work really well having other people around you. Yeah. Because you can then see what is possible. So that's another, you know, it's about having the right influence around you, I suppose.

Fran: 14:45

That's a very important point, actually. It's about so with your social media, you can curate your social media so that it's inspiring or motivating, you know, educational. You can also do that with your the people that are around you and the things that you go to, your networking events and things like that. It's about building in the things that are going to build you up. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Yeah, oh I love that. So, what's next for you?

Lou: 15:13

Oh, what is next? What is next for you? I I'm um I see, yeah, I'm kind of going with the flow. This has been a really kind of strange journey for me to get to this point, if you like, because like I said, I've spent 15 years in this field, and it's only now that I've kind of realized that yeah, it applies to absolutely everything. So I going with the flow. I'm really, really excited to get this kind of out into the open because I think, yeah, I just think it's the the missing piece sometimes that like you say, you can have all the mindset, you can have the strategy, but it's the behaviours, then so you can know what you need to do, but it's about actually putting it into practice and doing the thing, but in a doable, realistic way, and that's what I'm all about is I I'm all about working with somebody to move them forward, but in a in a comfortable, safe, safe way as well. Because, like I said, there's no point in me saying, you know, you need to do this, this, this, and this, and that person inside thinking, absolutely not, it's just never ever gonna work.

Fran: 16:22

So yeah, it has to it has to be built in a way that's achievable, doesn't it?

Lou: 16:26

Yeah.

Fran: 16:27

Because we're all different. Because I was I was just thinking actually while you were talking, and I'm one of these messy, imperfect action people, so you know it's like give you an example. I did uh I modelled mother of the bride on a on a runway in a bridal show yesterday, because I do other things as well, and I nearly fell off the end of the stage. I'm okay by the way, but I nearly fell off the end of the stage, and then I I went out another time and knelt down, like bent down to do something to help a bride with their train, and then my aphrodic knees wouldn't stand up again. And I'm I do all these things, do you know what I mean? And I'm like, why did I do that? But I'm quite comfortable in my skin, you know, I'm quite comfortable showing up how I show up, it even if it's it shows imperfections. Potentially, what not what I'm guilty of, but one of the things I tend to do is that get into that analysis paralysis type thing. So I'm like, I do this thing, I'm just gonna do the research first, I'm gonna learn about it, and I get stuck there. Now that could be a behaviour change thing, couldn't it?

Lou: 17:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that could be that that you're gonna do something, you probably already know what you need to do, but it's it's again, it's it's that avoidance thing that oh, actually doing it, it's a bit scary, so I'm gonna go learn something else about it. But if you kind of think about it, you probably are not learning anything more than you already do. They might genuinely be that knowledge gap, and if it is, you know, that's fine. But again, I'm guilty for it. Where I've done millions of courses, millions of master classes. I'm like, actually, I haven't learned anything different, I'm just avoiding doing the thing that moves me forward.

Fran: 18:12

Yeah, because you're not appreciating that you you're already ready.

Lou: 18:16

Yeah. And it's just something new, you know. Whenever we try something new, it is scary the first time, but the more you do it, the more your brain gathers evidence then of actually I'm okay. And I think a lot of the time as well, things that we do often stem from stories we were told when we were younger, and we don't necessarily realise that if that's what might be keeping us back. So yeah, I noticed that quite a lot as well.

Fran: 18:45

Well, I think that our belief system is formed in the first few years and that we get it from our our caregivers. So that would be our environments, our caregivers. We're we're not necessarily born with that, are we?

Lou: 18:59

No.

Fran: 19:00

And that's why those early years of are very important.

Lou: 19:03

Yeah, I think it it happens like throughout your throughout your life as well, that even though like the the the ones that are kind of foremost are in our kind of early childhood, I think throughout kind of school and things, you know, you might have a teacher that tells you you're never ever going to be good at math. So basically don't bother. And you know, that is a story you might take with you forever. But you take it as a belief, you take it as a truth. Yeah. Yeah. So every time then you approach something that is similar to that situation, your brain goes, right, try and think of a time when this happened before, and it takes you straight back then and that uncomfortable feeling happens, you and your brain goes, No, we're not going there again, we're gonna do something completely different. So we're gonna create an avoidance pattern, so we're not gonna do that because that's scary. So until you kind of do the behavior change work and you can recognize that and think, right, actually, that's what I was. This is what's gonna move me forward, but move me forward in a safe way that I can now gather evidence and my brain can go, actually, I've done this before, and when I did it the last time, it was okay. I was saying nothing really happened, so I can do it again. That is what I'm, you know, I'm that's the work that I do, is that it's it's identifying what that trigger is around that behavior, around that habit, around those patterns, and seeing how then you can change the routine that you do to be able to then get like the reward, then so that is the evidence to the reward.

Fran: 20:39

Sounds lovely. See, that would that would even work on somebody that that resonates with my stories because although I do that messy and perfect action, so my brain has got so much evidence of me tripping up, falling over, doing something wrong, showing up online and it, you know, it going terribly wrong. And I've got loads of evidence of failing. I've got loads of evidence of things not working out for me. And I'm okay with that because I'll look at it and adjust it and learn from it. But when I couldn't self-regulate and I didn't know that I could have a growth mindset, I would have just run away. I would have just said, no, there's so many things in my younger years that I turned my back on because I was embarrassed or I was frightened. Yeah. Um, and so even at you know, if you're at any stage, this can come in. So if you're at my stage, it can come in because it can be that analysis paralysis, or just to even move you forward that that bit more, or if you're in those early stages, it still works, doesn't it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Everything is yeah, it's really fascinating when we're gonna do it. I know it is, it is, and it's it's a big old rabbit hole to get into, and we're not gonna do that today. I've had a little teaser, little teaser from you. Right, so thank you, Lou, for sharing your And your strategies today. I think that your your work can actually be transforming. It's a transforming thing, isn't it? You know how to get into belief work and stuff like that. Getting showing leaders how to show up. Yeah. So for those of you interested in learning more about Lou and her work, you can find her on Instagram. And you're there as the Lou Collins. Amazing. What's just out of another bit of curiosity? So what's uh what's coming up next for you? If you've got anything coming up at all?

Lou: 22:36

There is gonna be a membership that is coming, and the reason that I want to set that up is even though I've kind of looked at leaders, I'm also realizing this applies to absolutely anything anybody does. Um so it's gonna be kind of a safe space where I can help people move forward, like I said, in that safe controls, you know, way and those realistic ways. So that is what is on the cards.

Fran: 23:06

So yeah, watch the space. So watch the space for that. So somehow we see I'm fascinated by language and communication. So it's also how we interpret the word leader because you could well get somebody say, Well, I'm not a leader, but in a in a sense, we we're all we've all got the potential to be leaders, and we're all leaders in in something. Yeah, yeah. So it's it's the mindset around your interpretation of what that means as well. Yeah. So I think that it would be, I think it's a lovely idea to start a membership and just start, you know, including people, and then you can, I don't know what that's gonna be. Is it gonna be educational? Is it gonna be network-based? Is it who who knows? It's very exciting. So we're gonna have to come back and and see how that manifests itself. Um, good, good. I just I just heard you say that. I was just gonna I was just gonna um start wrapping the podcast up and then I heard you say that, and I'm like, oh, I'm back in again. Um if you're interested in more content like this, be sure to visit www.melancolymentor.com. That's me. You can come and follow along for my messy and perfect actions and you know, just to show you, you can do it too. Not necessarily all my mistakes, but if I can do it, you know, you can do it. You can do it as well. And if you're interested in behaviour change or anything to do with that and you're intrigued about loose membership, come find her on Instagram. So until next time, stay curious and keep igniting your creative potential. Thank you for listening. I'd love for you to subscribe and visit www.melancolymentor.com for the latest update. Till next time, stay curious and keep igniting your creative potential.