EP 177 - Learnings Don't Change

How many things do you know you should do that you still have a hard time living?

Resources from the Episode:

•    The Mission Driven Life: The 7 Laws of Life Mission and How to Live Them
•    Free Masterclass: How to Stop Feeling Powerless and Become the Expert in Your Own Life
•    Mission Driven Mom Academy: A step-by-step journey through the 7 Laws of Life Mission
•    Episode 176: Everything Right and Wrong
•    Episode 174: Why Am I Struggling?

 

AI-GENERATED TRANSCRIPT

Episode 177: Learnings Don't Change You Know What You Should Do

Audrey: Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Audrey Rindlisbacher, author of The Mission Driven Life and founder of The Mission Driven Mom. I want to ask you a question today:

How many things do you know you should do that you actually still have a hard time living?

For example, you know you shouldn't worry so much about what other people think, but you still do. You know you can't control your adult children, but their choices still consume your thoughts for days. You know you need to set a boundary, but when someone gets upset with you, you cave. You know you need to communicate honestly with your husband, but you avoid the conversation. You know you shouldn't compare yourself to other women, but you still find yourself doing it. You know you should forgive, but you keep replaying the offense.

Or you know you have power over your own response. We talked about that last week. You can recognize what isn't yours to control. You can release it, turn your attention back to yourself, and say, "Okay, what's mine to govern here?" And sometimes you even know what you need to do. So why is it still so hard to do it?

So Many Answers

Audrey: That's a question I've thought about for years, because I've spent an enormous amount of time in my life learning. I've read hundreds of books. I've taken classes. I've been to therapy. I've listened to experts. I've studied relationships and parenting and personal development and education and faith. I've gone looking for answers to problems I was trying desperately to solve, and I learned a lot of good things.

But for many years I had this frustrating experience of learning something that sounded completely true, getting excited about it, trying to apply it, and then discovering that my life didn't necessarily change very much. Or something worked for a little while, but it didn't work for another situation. Or I would read this really good book, and that author would tell me something completely different than what someone else did.

One parenting expert would tell me to do one thing, and another would recommend almost the opposite. One relationship expert would tell me I needed to be more accommodating, and another would tell me that I needed stronger boundaries. One person would tell me to trust my feelings, and another would tell me my feelings weren't necessarily to be trusted. One person would tell me to sacrifice, another to engage in more self-care. One would tell me to push through the difficulty. Someone else would say that if something felt hard, maybe it wasn't right for me.

And I was sincerely trying to learn. I was sincerely trying to change. But eventually I began to realize that there was a much deeper problem. I'd been given an enormous amount of answers, but I had never really been taught how to determine which answers were true. And that changed the entire way I thought about education.

Learning to Ask, "Is This True?"

Audrey: Because when I was a young mother, I was struggling in my marriage, with my parenting, financially, with my extended family, and especially with my own self-image. I had a lack of confidence and ability to lead myself and my family well. I just felt that something important was missing, and I couldn't figure out what it was. And I tried everything. I sought advice from others. I read books. I tried self-help courses. I went to women's retreats, to financial events. I listened to experts. I went to therapy. Nothing got much better, and I still felt unprepared to be a successful adult and thrive in the major areas of my life.

I finally decided I should try to do something for my own development. I searched for a year and considered all sorts of things, from writing, mentoring, going back to college, selling Usborne books, starting a business. When I was finally introduced to classical liberal education, I had exactly zero reference point for what that was about. I'd literally never heard of it. When I finally saw the book list for the school that offered these online classes, I was blown away. They read the writings of people I'd only heard of. Some of them I'd never heard of. It was intriguing.

As I mentioned before, it took a long time for me to give myself permission to take classes, because I couldn't just take that time and money and effort and put it on myself when I knew my family could use it for other things, until I read this quote:

"There's no better investment a family can make than in the education of the mother."

And I knew it was true. Whoever I became mattered immensely, to me, to my family, to the world around me. And I knew I needed to be better equipped to face these difficult challenges that kept showing up in my life. So I dove in. I took a chance. And that one decision has changed everything.

It was in those classes that I was first exposed to the idea of natural law and universal governing principles. And it was here that my ideas and words were challenged. I was encouraged to ask hard questions, reason things through, look for evidence, and compare ideas. I was told to look for truth and strive for ways to build my life on it. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't just asking, "What does this author think?" or "What does this expert say I should do?" I was learning to ask, "Is this true?"

What assumption is this idea resting on? What evidence supports it? What is the principle underneath it? Does that principle correspond with reality? And if it is true, what does it mean for the particular circumstances of my life?

Principle or Application?

Audrey: That was a completely different kind of education, because I began to realize that one of the most important distinctions we can learn to make is the distinction between a principle and an application.

So I want to see how well you can make that distinction. I'm going to give you some statements, and as I read each one, I want you to decide: is this a principle or is it an application? Are you ready?

Never go to bed angry. Principle or application? Have a weekly date night with your spouse. Principle or application? Spend one-on-one time with each of your children every day. Principle or application? Wake up before your children do. Principle or application? Don't let your child quit something that they've committed to. Principle or application? Have dinner together as a family every night. Principle or application? Don't argue in front of your children. Principle or application?

Now, every one of these is actually an application. Every one tells you something specific that you should do. That doesn't mean they're bad ideas. Maybe having a weekly date would be wonderful for your marriage. Maybe one of your children desperately needs more individual time with you. Maybe family dinner is one of the best things your family does together. Or maybe waking up before your children makes you a much more peaceful and prepared mother.

The point isn't that the applications are wrong. The point is that they aren't principles. And that distinction matters, because applications can change when circumstances change. But principles don't.

Getting Underneath the Application

Audrey: So how do we get underneath an application and discover the principle? One thing we might do is start asking why.

So let's take "have a weekly date with your spouse." Why? Why should we do that? Well, maybe because it's important for a husband and wife to spend time together. Okay, why? Because spending time together helps strengthen their relationship. Okay, great. Why does that matter? Maybe because relationships require attention. Maybe because spouses need to know one another. Maybe because intimacy requires communication. Or because relationships deteriorate when they're consistently neglected.

Do you see what's happening? We're digging underneath the application. But here's where it gets interesting. Not everything we discover by asking why is necessarily a principle.

We might discover a goal: "I want a strong marriage." That's a good goal. We might discover a value: "My marriage is important to me." That's a great value. We might discover an assumption: "If my husband and I don't date every week, we're going to grow apart." That's an assumption, and it may or may not be true. You might even discover another application: "We need to spend more time talking." That's still something we're proposing that we do.

So asking why is extremely useful, because it begins taking us underneath the advice. But simply asking why doesn't automatically reveal a principle. Discerning a principle requires us to keep looking for what is actually true.

What Does Love Require?

Audrey: Let me show you the difference, using a principle we teach very early in Level One of the Mission Driven Mom Academy. One of the first principles we introduce is:

Love is the work we do to heal ourselves and others.

Now notice how different that is from "have a weekly date night." "Have a weekly date night" tells you what to do. But "love is the work we do to heal ourselves and others" gives me a truth I can reason from. If that's true, then I can begin asking a completely different kind of question. What would love require here? What would actually contribute to healing myself or this other person in this particular situation? And suddenly one principle could produce many different applications.

Suppose my husband and I have become disconnected. Maybe love does lead us to have a weekly date night, but maybe that's not what we need at all. Maybe what love requires is that I finally have a difficult conversation I've been avoiding. Maybe I need to listen instead of defending myself. Maybe I need to apologize or forgive, or stop trying to control something that belongs to him. Maybe I need to tell the truth about something that isn't working, or get help. Or maybe we do need more time together. Or one of us needs some space to think.

These are all applications, and they're very different. And I'm no longer asking, "What's the rule for having a good marriage?" I'm asking, "What does the principle of love require in the reality I'm actually facing?"

And we could do the same thing with motherhood. If my child is struggling, what does love require? Maybe love means comforting her or listening to her. Maybe love means teaching, correcting, allowing her to experience a consequence. Maybe love means saying no, or even yes. Maybe love that will heal us means giving her another chance. Or it means recognizing that this is her problem to solve, and resisting my desire to rescue her.

Those applications can look almost opposite from one another, and that's precisely why the principle matters. If I confuse love with one particular application of love, then when circumstances change, I don't know what to do.

I might conclude, "A loving mother always makes her child feel better." But is that a principle? No. That's an application, or perhaps even an assumption that needs to be examined, because there may be times when doing the work of love means allowing someone I love to experience discomfort. Or I might conclude, "A loving mother gives consequences." Again, that's not the principle. There may be situations in which consequences are exactly what love requires, and other times they're not.

The principle gives us something stable from which we can reason. The application requires me to look at reality and determine how that principle should be lived here.

No Expert Can Do My Thinking for Me

Audrey: And this is where I think so much of our frustration with experts and advice comes from. Most of the time, we're being handed the application. Have the date night. Set the boundary. Give the consequence. Validate the feeling. Take time for yourself. Don't let them quit. Spend more time together. And because someone we respect told us to do it, we can easily mistake their successful application for a universal truth.

But I don't just need to know what worked for someone else. I need to understand what's true. Because once I understand the principle, I can begin learning how to reason from that truth in the changing circumstances of my own life.

And I think about how different this is from [how most of us constantly bring in information?]. We have books, we have podcasts and YouTube channels and therapists, coaches, parenting experts, marriage experts, doctors, teachers, pastors, influencers. We take courses. We engage in social media. All day long we're being given all these applications. You should do this, or don't do that, or say this, or never say this. Use this parenting method. Try this morning routine. Set this boundary. Have this conversation. Organize your home this way. Educate your child this way, or manage your marriage this way.

And when these applications contradict each other, what are we supposed to do? Usually we go looking for another expert. We think, "Maybe I just haven't found the right answer yet." So we read another book, we listen to another podcast, ask another friend, find another therapist, take another course.

And again, I am not against any of those things. Other people have taught me an enormous amount. The problem is that no expert can do my thinking for me. I still have to determine what's true in what I'm being taught. And expertise in a particular subject doesn't automatically mean that every assumption underneath an expert's conclusions is true.

Every piece of advice rests on something. It rests on assumptions about human nature, about happiness, children, marriage, freedom, about responsibility, about morality, about what constitutes a good life. And most of the time, by the time the advice reaches us, we're way down at the end of that chain. We hear "do this," but we don't necessarily know what beliefs and assumptions produced the recommendation.

And if I haven't learned how to examine those assumptions and seek evidence and identify principles and reason about how those principles apply to my particular circumstances, then I'm left trying to choose between other people's conclusions. Maybe one of the reasons you've learned so much and still don't know what to do is that you've collected hundreds of applications without understanding the principles that tell you when or whether to use them.

From Head to Heart to Habit

Audrey: And here's where this connects to the question we started with. Why can I know what I should do, genuinely want to do it, and still find it so difficult to actually do it?

Sometimes the answer really is that I need more discipline. Sometimes I understand perfectly well what I should do, and I simply need the courage to do it. Sometimes I really do need more practice. But I think sometimes what looks like an execution problem is actually an understanding problem.

Maybe I don't understand the truth deeply enough. Maybe what I think I know is actually an application someone handed me. Maybe I have competing applications in my head and haven't identified the principles underneath them. Maybe I haven't examined whether the belief driving my behavior is even true. And if that's the case, trying harder isn't going to solve the problem.

We talked about this with Blaine and his viola. Once Blaine finally understood the fundamentals of playing correctly, he still had to practice a lot. Truth didn't eliminate the effort. It made his effort fruitful.

And I think the same thing is true in our lives. We don't really need to work harder at applying every good idea we encounter. We need to become better at discerning which ideas are actually true, and then learn how to bring our lives into alignment with those truths. James Hunter taught:

"Getting people to agree to the principles is easy. The great challenge is learning to move the principles from your head to your heart and from your heart into your habits. It can be a long journey from [head?] to habit."

I love the distinction that James Hunter makes here, because there are really two enormous challenges we face. The first one is: can I discern what's true? And the second one is: can I get that truth from my head into my heart, and eventually into my habits? And those are not simple things.

And that's why I don't want to sit here and tell you that I'm going to give you three easy steps for discerning principles. I'm not, because I don't think that's honest. Learning to discern truth is a capacity. It's a skill. It requires learning to ask better questions, to examine our assumptions, to seek evidence, reason carefully, distinguish principles from applications, and to compare our ideas against reality, listen to our conscience, recognize where we went wrong, and change our minds. And then to take what we discover and practice bringing our lives into alignment with it.

That's a very different conception of education from simply consuming more information. You don't learn to think differently from a checklist. You learn to think differently through the right education. And that's what changed me. I stopped thinking that education was primarily about accumulating information and began to see education as developing my capacity to seek truth and live by it.

A Small Experiment

Audrey: So I want to give you a very small experiment to try this week. I don't want you to learn anything new. In fact, I'd like you to stop looking for another answer for just a minute.

Choose one piece of advice you already believe you're supposed to be following. Maybe it came from a parenting expert. Maybe from your therapist, or a marriage book, or from church, or a podcast. Maybe even from me. Write it down, and then ask yourself:

Is this actually a principle, or is it an application of a principle?

If you think it's an application, ask, "What would have to be true underneath this for this advice to be sound?" And then sit with that. You may not know the answer, and that's okay. In fact, that's partly the point of the exercise. I want you to begin noticing whether you actually know the difference between the advice you've been given and the truths underneath that advice. Because trying 100 applications [isn't the same thing?] as understanding one principle, and not nearly as effective.

Learn Differently

Audrey: And if you're beginning to realize that you don't know how to do this very well, I want to invite you to go to themissiondrivenmom.com. I have a free training there where I go much deeper into natural law, the difference between principles and applications, why discerning principles matters, and how to begin developing this capacity. I'll walk you through some of the same ideas and lessons we work on inside the Mission Driven Mom Academy.

Because this is ultimately why we built the Academy the way we did. I don't want women to spend their lives dependent upon me or any other expert to tell them what to do. I want women to become increasingly capable of asking good questions, seeking truth, identifying principles, making sound judgments, and then learning to live by what they discover. So if this distinction between principles and applications has made you realize that there's an entirely different way you could approach the problems in your life, go watch that training. That's a good next step.

And if you've learned an enormous amount and you're frustrated that it hasn't changed your life as much as you thought it would, I want you to consider something. Maybe the problem isn't that you haven't tried hard enough. Maybe the problem isn't that you haven't consumed enough information. And maybe the answer isn't another book, another podcast, another expert, another application to add to your list. Maybe you don't need to learn more. Maybe you need to learn differently.

Thank you so much for joining me, and I'll see you next time.