Darcy: If Zach and I were to say that we believe in your ability to reach your goals around pornography and that humans often underestimate their ability to succeed, would that statement insult you, or would it cause you to feel hopeful?

I am sure you are all very familiar with the placebo effect. Scientists gather a group of individuals who all struggle with say, depression and create 3 groups of people. One group gets the prescription medication, one group gets nothing, and the last group gets a sugar pill that they believe is the real deal.

A miraculous thing occurs! People in the sugar pill group reported a reduction in their depression even though they received a placebo pill.

This happens for all sorts of things, from pain management to weight loss.

We know that the sugar pill had no ability to create change, yet change occurred! This helps us to see that the change comes from within the person. They had the power within them to create the change they wanted.

Another example of this is the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy. When people believe in our ability to succeed, we often perform better. We see examples of this all the time. If your boss thinks you are a genius you will often perform better. Studies have been done on children in classrooms whose teacher praises them just for their effort, and the children’s schoolwork, attendance, and test scores improve. A growing body of research suggests that the expectations a teacher sets for an individual student can significantly affect the student's performance.

What the placebo effect and the self-fulfilling prophecy teach us is that you can succeed and that the power is already within you!! You likely don’t yet believe in yourself, and you lack the hope you need in your ability to create the result that you want.

That is where coaching comes in handy. Having a coach who believes in your ability to succeed and helps you access that power from within you when you don’t yet see it or even believe it is there in the first place.

We as humans are crazily capable of achieving, yet we often fall short of living up to our capacity.

Almost all of my clients are crazy successful in many areas of their life, yet when it comes to their struggle with pornography they find themselves unable to create the desired outcome on their own or even through countless other programs, books and therapists. These clients often doubt themselves and fail to take action.

Here’s the deal.

When trying new things, our minds often fight, protest, and reject new ideas. Our minds tend to put us in a cage and keep us stuck. I am sure you have experienced that feeling of being stuck and unable to move forwards when it comes to your struggle with pornography.

Zach: here’s what the cage is like. Fleas are powerful jumpers that can leap 13 inches. If you put them in an eight-inch mason jar, they will just jump out. But if you put a lid on it, they will jump into the lid a few times, but, because it’s painful and doesn’t seem to get them anywhere, they will learn to jump just high enough not to hit their heads. You can then take the lid off the jar and the fleas will stay trapped.

This is what we are experiencing in terms of our cage. We are trapped, often by our perception of limitation more than actual limitation.

Darcy: Our goal in the episode is to help you break out of the cage and create the change you want!

Before we can get out of the cage we have to understand what the cage is all about.

Zach: Here are some examples of what the “bars” of the cage looked like for my clients and...