The Power of Tiny Habits // with Julie DeLucca-Collins

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:00:03

Welcome to know them. Be them, raise them a show to help moms stay informed and inspired so they can show up for themselves and their daughters the way they want to. I'm your host Carmelita to join me each week as I cover a variety of topics, all designed to support mindful. And growth-oriented moms of girls, especially girls in their crucial tween and teen years. My guest today is Julie DeLuca Collins, the founder and CEO of go confidently services and the host of the popular. Casa de confidence podcast and a weekly radio show confident you featured on a global talk radio network. She's also the number one bestselling author of the book, confident you simple habits to live the life you've imagined. And Julia is a certified coach in cognitive behavioral techniques, holistic coaching and tiny habits. She's also certified as a social emotional learning facilitator and has completed her 200 hour yoga teacher certification. As a business and life strategist coach Julie helps women business owners launch or grow their businesses, get clients be productive and achieve their dreams. I invited Julie to chat and shed some light on the power of tiny habits. Here's our conversation. Julie, I am so excited to connect with you. Um, your wisdom and your light is just infectious, and I can't wait to share that with the listeners.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:01:32

Carmelita Kat, thank you so much for having me. It is a pleasure to hang out with you because I know that surrounding yourself with the people that you admire is an honor, and I, I'm excited to be a guest on your show that I admire

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:01:46

Thank you. Well, um, in your bio, confidence is such a linchpin that your work revolves around. I'd love to hear a little, a little bit about your personal journey and where we can take that from there, when it comes to raising our daughter,

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:02:02

Yeah. You know, when I, I was growing up, I was born in El Salvador. My mom is from El Salvador. My dad was from New York and he happened to meet my mom and they settled there. I was the first granddaughter and I, I was born to a woman who was, um, very privileged to have been educated in the states, traveled abroad. And my dad grew up in a very, humble home in in the projects of New York, but he grew up with a strong woman as well, and that really set the stage. And my mom's mother also was someone who was ahead of her time. My grandmother, my maternal grandmother was someone who was expected to because she grew up in an affluent home, get married, raise children. But no, she wanted a career. She wanted to be an educator and she kept going through and getting education and my great-grandfather, wanted her to settle down and she said, no, I wanna work. And finally he gave in and decided to build a school for.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:03:08

Oh, that's amazing. Wow.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:03:10

it's like, okay, you have a school you can teach here. And my grandmother began teaching and subsequently took over the school when my great-grandfather passed, and I was born in this environment in which women were very strong.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:03:26

Hmm

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:03:27

that's what I saw at an early age. At about five years old, my grandmother had her leg amputated because she had a rare form of cancer, and most people thought that someone at 70 something was done right. And this illustrious career was pretty much behind her. But instead, my grandmother made it her mission that she was going to come back and come back greater. And I watched her. Um, continue to rehabilitate herself, teach herself to walk with a prosthesis that weighed a hundred pounds, and continue to give and volunteer and have a successful career. and I was told that I was a leader from an early age. Someone that was told that service was important, that needed to be part of my life. And most importantly, I learned my voice. I learned to speak. I was never afraid to speak to, to adults and have a conversation, and I read a lot. So all of that contributed to who I am today. Ultimately, you know, confidence was something that I never knew not having it, but there were moments in which, especially in middle, When I started to be teased and you, you start to kind of, you know, this is who you are and your family tell you you are, and then you hit middle school and your classmates like, who are you? You, and, and all your confidence is kind of knocked out.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:04:59

Yes. there's that dissonance between what your family, your parents tell you. Like I tell them they're beautiful and strong and whatnot, and then they go off into the world and then have these experiences that kind of knock 'em down. So, yeah, totally

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:05:13

sure. You know, in my, in, in my book, I actually talk about this. There's an experience that I had in the locker room and changing for gym and how I came in full of confidence and sure enough, surely thereafter, um I was knocked down. And I remember at that time my parents had divorced at, and we're living in Miami at this point. Um, but my dad shared a quote with me that's become my mantra through my life, and that's what my business is called, is Go Confidently Services because of the Henry David Thoreau quote,

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:05:44

Mm

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:05:44

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. And it became the mantra when I didn't feel confident, when I felt like I didn't have it all together, I kept saying, just go forward. Just do it. Just it's okay. And we don't always feel confident. And this is something that I wish, um, you know, when I look back at that 11 year old girl, she just kept going, right. And I, and I wanna tell her that it turns out okay. And then you don't have it all together. But that's part of the process of learning and becoming stronger. Someone has to be a beginner at everything in order to get to be who you want to become.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:06:26

Hmm mm-hmm. Yeah, that's a, a great insight that sometimes I, forget, but that you have to anticipate and normalize and accept that things are gonna feel awkward or unknown or uncertain, just by virtue of the fact that you're trying new things.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:06:43

Yeah, for sure. And I think this is where in my career, right? I started to look around me as I got higher and higher in that corporate ladder. And I thought, where are my sisters? Where are the girlfriends? Where are the ladies? You know, we, we can deep dive into this so much. But ultimately like Cheryl Sandberg says, right, like, lean in, it's okay, and maybe you don't feel like you belong, but the more that you lean in, the more that you create a space for yourself. And that's something that I want women, young women and girls to really know and pay attention to.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:07:22

Mm mm, on that point, you know what women and girls can do. I know that you have some thoughts on how habits can really contribute into building up this sense of confidence. I'd love to hear you say more about that.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:07:37

Well, you know, habits for me have been that frenemy because we love it, but also they're hard and for many years, I just kept thinking, what's wrong with me? I really wanna create these great habits, but my motivation is not there. What can I do to motivate myself more? And then I kept learning about habits and wanting to adopt them, and I was successful at them. There was a piece missing, and then eventually I found that. Well, one, your brain does wanna have habits, and if you don't create good ones, your brain is gonna create not so good ones because your brain I is, is going to want to change the uncertainty of things and wants to automate the processes. Number two, motivation is something that you can start, it's a feeling, but when something gets hard, motivation goes away.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:08:31

Oh, so

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:08:31

And this is why we cannot rely on motivation to create habits.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:08:36

Mm.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:08:37

early in 2020. As I launched my career, my second career, my business as, as I was laid off at the beginning of the pandemic. I started to really explore this concept of simple habits and I had created some great ones that have served me, but also was struggling to create others. And what I found is that when you have consistent action and you learn the thing, you hone in your skills, then you're doing it, and you automate it and becomes a habit, then your confidence grows.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:09:08

Mm mm

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:09:09

And that's when I, I read a book that was life changing and I've read a lot of books and I love reading, but Tiny Habits, it's a book written by Dr. BJ Fogg, who is A behavior researcher out of Stanford University, and he has made in his life work to be researching behavior change and how people change and what creates change. And in the book, one of the things that he talks about is how motivation cannot be relied upon, number one. Number two, the ABCs of habits are having that anchor moment, doing the behavior, and then creating the one action that allows your brain to. Make that habit stick. Your brain changes when you feel good. So when we beat ourselves up because we didn't do the thing right, then your brain is like, I don't wanna do that. Because if I'm not good at it, then I don't wanna do it. I'm gonna beat myself up. I'm not gonna feel bad. But if you do it and do it in a minimal manner, and you celebrate that you did it, even if it's a tiny step, your brain is like, oh, I like feeling that, and it begins to say, I better do that again.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:10:22

Hmm.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:10:22

And that's when you begin to create these habits. So the premise or the method for tiny habits is finding the anchor moments or the prompts that will remind you to do the behavior, create a behavior that is small enough, and then celebrate that you did it. And if you go above and beyond that tiny behavior, then great. And you start to grow your habits. But really starting tiny is key. And when I started to create tiny habits for myself, and I noticed that even those habits that I had already established, they were born out outta doing something in a very minimal way. Feeling good about having it done. And then continuing to start again if for some reason, oh, I didn't do it. Okay, let me try again. But always celebrating that, oh, I remember that. I didn't do it. Good for you, Julie. You remembered. Let's try again

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:11:12

Yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:11:13

And then that creates the ability for your brain to be a able to automate some of that. So tiny habits. I am then pursued a certification as a coach, as a tiny habits coach.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:11:24

very cool.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:11:24

and really has been so instrumental in my life and in the life of the women that I work with because when you create those habits and you feel proud, then immediately you gain more confidence and when you are more confident, you're gonna go and do the thing. And the more that you're successful at it, then guess what? Your motivation starts to show up as

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:11:45

Right. It's all linked together. Yes. Oh my gosh. That makes complete sense. When you talked about celebrating that, oftentimes I'm just reflecting on my kind of my own day-to-day, but I feel like that part can go missing.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:12:02

Yes.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:12:03

Reminding and encouraging our daughters to do that feels really important because like you said, if there's no sort of positive outcome or positive reflection moment, then that, feeling of success is less likely to be there.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:12:19

absolutely.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:12:20

I never really thought about the importance of celebrating and kind of patting yourself on the back,

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:12:26

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be a big celebration. And, and I think that this is where people also, I, well, I know when we coach Tiny Habits, um, and we, we have a five day, it's a free, uh, five day coaching. The, the Tiny Habits Academy does. It goes on every week. And, um, I jump in there and I coach every once in a while. I will tell you that 90% of the people is like, I didn't celebrate, I don't feel good. I don't know how to celebrate. And we really struggle. And I think that if this is normal for 90% of the population, I think it's much more so for us women who we are so used to not giving ourselves credit for what we do. Um, I was speaking to my, my niece who was nine the other day, and I, we speak a lot and she was practicing the violin. And she's like, oh, I'm just so terrible at it. I said, I know, but you should. You know what you should do when you're going to practice the violin? You should, when you come finish your homework, that's her prompt. Open your violin case. And then say, good job. I opened my violin case to practice and that's all she has to do. And guess what? That's her tiny habit. But then she, once she celebrates, we'll do, it's an open, I might as well practice. Right? That's where she goes. And what that creates is like, oh, I feel good. And that little hit of dopamine feeling. Um, then helps her keep going. And the celebration is mainly giving yourselves a little thumbs up or just saying, oh, smile, I did that, or, Hmm, I remembered. And, and those little things can create big momentum. Dr. Fog says, tiny is mighty, and it's so true.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:14:08

Mm I'm, I'm still kind of processing. I think that thought of celebration and what that can look like, I'm thinking through some of the, the routines that, I'm trying to build into my daughter's lives. Like they both take their lunches to school and then when they get home, they're supposed to empty it out, wash out, you know, the, the plastic containers and whatnot. Mm-hmm. uh, and sadly, I know that I often point out when they bring the lunchbox to the kitchen, but they don't empty it out and.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:14:37

let's, let's create the recipe so that, because this is what we do, we create recipes, right? So first you have to have that ability. And the ability to make the habit happen means that you have to have the right space, the right time. So when you're coming home from school, what happens, right? Do you come in the door? Because that's already automated, right? You've been doing that. Um, so think of what is the prom? So for instance, when we walk into the house and we put our, our backpack down, then we take out the container and we celebrate.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:15:12

Uhhuh.

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:15:13

the tiny behavior, right? So pay attention to what happens when you're coming in. Where do they drop their backpack or do they go into their rooms directly? So as soon as I put my backpack down, I will take out the container. So the recipe typically is when I blank, I will blank and then celebrate. That's the framework of the recipe.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:15:35

When I blank, I will blank and then celebrate. that's actually super powerful

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:15:41

So I'll give you one of my ma basic automations. I try to drink a gallon of water. I don't always hit it, but the water bottle has to be filled. So in the morning I already have an automation. I have to let my dogs out in the morning. The door to the backyard is next to the sink. So when I let the dogs out, I fill my water bottle, that's all, and, and then I'm like, Woohoo. We filled my water bottle. I'm there. Right? And of course, if it's already full, I typically start to drink a glass of water right then and there. And once I drink my glass of water, then of course, you know, we get into the other other habits, right? Where I'm gonna go to the bathroom. So after I go to the bathroom, I drink a full glass of water and celebrate. So, so throughout the day, that one action kind of is the domino effect to the rest of the actions. And you know, and I think that you can make it into, a fun competition into like, okay, who, who was able to, you know, who came up with the most interesting celebration and who went ahead and right. And who did. After I bring it into the kitchen, I will empty out the container. Something like that.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:16:56

That's, oh my gosh, I'm so excited to try and sort of, you know, incorporate this into our routines now

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:17:02

and Carmen, you know, the, tiny Habits Academy. Again, it's, we don't try to sell anything or do anything other than teach people tiny habits. It's a free five day and it takes less than five minutes a day to participate. So if you go to tiny habits.com, you can participate in in the process and it's great because then you get a coach that. Coaches you through the week and says, Hey, by the way, did you try this? And they can actually look at your recipes because as you're creating you, we ask you to create three recipes and then you get a two minute teaching from Dr. Fogg, and then you just email back and share whether or not you did your tiny habit.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:17:39

So fun. I will include that link in the show notes. Even the idea of a recipe feels super empowering. Like, what's my recipe gonna be? What habits do I already have that I can build upon using this recipe?

Julie DeLucca-Caldwell: 00:17:53

Yeah. There's so many things that can be done and, and I have to tell you, you know, one, one thing that I say all the time, I is consistent action gets you traction. it's just that showing up, you know, yes, we're gonna be imperfect, but show up again, and that's consistent action is gonna move you forward, is that compounding effect that we really are looking for.

Carmelita (Cat) Tiu, Host: 00:18:17

I loved that closing reminder about consistency. It's been several weeks since I recorded that interview with Julie. And I'll say that. I've been more conscious about celebrating my wins. Instead of jumping right into the next thing. I actually do smile. I try to make myself smile, even if no one's around. I'll take a few deep breaths to savor the moment. And I think it's working. I do seem to feel less angsty when tackling things that I need to do, but don't want to like flossing. Don't tell my dentist. Um, and with my daughters, I think there's been an overlap of celebration and kind of positive reinforcement. And. And this does seem to help with them wanting to show up and do. The thing again, for example, My older daughter is way better at feeding the cat lately. And I think it's because we've identified a prompt, which. Is. Finishing dinner, putting the dishes away. And I've expressed appreciation and given her positive reinforcement when she does it, which is kind of like celebrating. So now she's actually way more inclined to just do it. No nagging. So that's my very anecdotal and unscientific report out. Um, but hopefully some inspiration to try the celebration and recipes that Julie's talking about. So to recap, here are my key takeaways from this conversation with Julie. And remember these can be shared with modeled um you know discussed with your daughters as well Number one. To learn and become stronger. You are going to feel awkward and uncertain. You're going to make mistakes and. I'd be a beginner and this is all part of it. Anticipate and normalize these feelings. So when you feel them, you can remind yourself that this is exactly where you're supposed to be. Just keep going. Number two. Julie advises like Sheryl Sandberg says don't be afraid to lean in. Maybe you don't feel like you belong, but the more you lean in, the more that you create a space for yourself. Number three, your brain wants to have habits. And if you don't create good ones, your brain is going to create not so good ones. And motivation is a feeling you can't rely on it to create habits. Instead, we have to turn to consistent action. Number four, starting with the tiny habit is key because you're more likely to accomplish it, celebrate it and feel good about having it done. Number five. Be sure to remember to celebrate. That little hit of dopamine will help rewire your brain. Because it likes feeling good. And it'll start wanting to do that thing more often. Number six, the premise of tiny habits is finding an anchor moment, which acts as a prompt for you to do the desired behavior. Then celebrate that you did it. Create a recipe. When I blank. I will blank. Then I'll celebrate. Number seven. Consistent action gets you traction. We aren't going to be perfect, but just keep showing up those consistent tiny steps can add up to big things. Thanks so much for listening. It takes action to claim something. And by tuning in, you're showing up for yourself and your daughter. And embodying curiosity and a growth mindset. Celebrate that. If you haven't done so already follow on your favorite podcasting platform, tell a friend and leave a review. Also visit no B raise them.com and drop me a line or a voice memo. If you have questions, comments, or topic ideas. Again, I am grateful for your time and here's to strong women may we know them may we be them and may we raise them