Secondary Gain

Stopping Self Sabotage - Understanding Secondary Gain
With Amber Kay

In today’s video, Amber looks at why we keep on doing those things that we know we shouldn’t – those things that stop us from getting the results that we want. She then looks at how to stop these habits once and for all! 

It’s all about working out what benefit we get from those destructive habits – because if there wasn’t a benefit then we wouldn’t do them.   

After you’ve watched the video, go through these important questions:

1. Firstly, identify the behaviour/area that you want to improve. Any aspect of your physical and mental health where you're telling yourself you want it to be different but haven’t made the change is worth looking at.  What do you tell yourself about why it isn’t how you want it?

2. Next, ask yourself ‘what has been the payoff of not choosing to change until now?’. Think about the secondary gain (benefits) that you're getting from this behaviour, and go beyond the ‘I don’t know’ response that may pop up. Ask yourself – if I did know, what might it be? And be open to what comes up for you.

3. Next, think about what the secondary gain has prevented you from being, doing, having or experiencing? What don’t you have in your life because you had the secondary gain instead? What do you have that you don’t want in your life because of it?

4. What are you going to take action on now that you have identified the secondary gain? What is going to be different from now on? Write this down and stick it up as a commitment to yourself. Write a list of all the ways you’re going to meet your needs more resourcefully. For example, if it’s emotional eating, write a list of all the ways that you can change your state that doesn’t involve food e.g. going for a walk, listening to music, calling a friend or having a shower. The next time you find yourself doing that old thing, break your pattern – do something unexpected e.g. clap your hands, sing your favourite song, or my personal favourite, give yourself a very painful thwack on the wrist with an elastic band. Whatever will work for you and then immediately do one of the actions on your list.

5. Finally, you must hold yourself accountable when you become aware of the secondary gain returning. How will you make sure you continue to be free of it? Will you tell someone you trust to pull you up if you fall back into an old pattern of behaviour or thinking? How will you ensure that you follow through, always from now on? Work out your strategy.

If you need assistance, ideas, clarity, insight – get in touch and we’ll have a chat, that’s what we’re here for!

 

You can read the transcript for this video below:

Transcript: Post-Surgery Program - Week 14: Mindset (Secondary Gain)

Do you have a stubborn habit or behaviour that just keeps creeping back into your life or that won’t let go? 

Would you like to understand why you keep on doing it even though you know you don’t want to and to be able to break it?

Hi, it’s Amber here from Fresh Start and this is what we’re going to cover today. 

I’m going to help explain why we keep doing those habits and behaviours that we don’t want to do and I’m going to share a process with you that will help you to create different, more-empowering behaviours. The habits I’m talking about could be a behaviour such as snacking in the afternoon even though you don’t want to, or not following through on going to bed early or incorporating some movement into your day, even though you planned it in your diary. Perhaps it’s a recurring negative thought about yourself or disempowering self-talk.

The concept that we’re going to be looking at is called ‘secondary gain’. Secondary gain means that you’re doing the behaviour or habit because, despite the fact that you’re frustrated with it, you’re actually getting a benefit from that behaviour or habit - otherwise you wouldn’t do it.  We only do what works for us on some level, what we believe works and gives us a benefit.  If it wasn’t working for us then we wouldn’t do it. There are no exceptions to this! 

We’ve coached hundreds of people who have had Weight Loss Surgery and who have struggled with stubborn habits and behaviours and the concept of secondary gain has helped many of them to understand why they do what they do and to replace these habits or behaviours.

No matter how unlikely it may sound, the reality is that every habit or repeated behaviour that we do has a secondary gain – we’re doing and repeating that action to get some kind of benefit or gain even though we might not be consciously aware of it.

A classic example of this is eating treats that you know aren’t good for you. You might feel sick or guilty or even shame after doing it, but at the time you’re doing it to get a benefit - or a secondary gain. You might ask yourself, what on earth is the secondary gain of doing this?! In reality, bingeing on treats has many potential secondary gains. For example, it can:

• give you a feeling of certainty, as you experience tastes and textures that you’re familiar with;

• help you to connect with yourself and give you some time out from your busy life as you indulge in something just for yourself;

• help you to get attention from others as you express how you struggle with this behaviour that you don’t want;

• provide you with some variety in your day as it gives you a break from work or a task that you’re doing and don’t want to do;

• enable you to access feelings of comfort associated with a particular person or time in your life;

• assist you to sabotage yourself with your weight so that you stay feeling low in confidence so you get to stay safe from risking making friends or starting a relationship where you might end up feeling rejected;

• And so on...

Of course there can be many more individual experiences, and the secondary gains will vary greatly.

There is however a simple process that you can use to help change any unwanted behaviour and it involves getting clear on the secondary gain that you’re looking to get from your behaviour and then deciding on another, more-empowering behaviour that will give you the same gain. The process involves the following steps:

Step 1 – Firstly you identify the unwanted behaviour. Let’s call it behaviour ‘X’.

Step 2 – Then you recognise that every behaviour has a payoff that you’re looking to get from it, and you ask yourself what the secondary gain of this behaviour could be – what is it giving you that has a positive intention? 

A very common secondary gain from unwanted behaviour is the desire to have certainty and to stay ‘safe’ and the behaviour or habit is about protecting yourself in some way from something you don’t want to feel or experience. So it might be that it gives you comfort or security or love, or the knowledge that you’re valued, or it might be keeping you from risking feeling rejected, or hurt, or uncertain, or experiencing ‘getting it wrong’ or ‘failure’. 

Write down as many possible options you can think of. Trust what comes up for you and capture it even if it doesn’t make sense initially. Three or more possibilities is a good number.  Have fun and be curious while you do this, and above all be honest with yourself. What does that behaviour really give you? Perhaps it’s attention, perhaps it makes you special in some way, perhaps you get to fulfil someone’s impression of you or meet your need for approval? Maybe it’s an old pattern you’re simply rather attached to, so you get the security of familiarity? Perhaps it’s an old behaviour that you learnt as a child that you’ve kept doing even though it’s no longer needed? Remember to include the seemingly random or silly ideas which you know in yourself are true but seem nonetheless ridiculous to you at an intellectual level – where you ask yourself “Why on earth would I do that to myself?”

Step 3 – Check in with yourself and see which explanation, which payoff, ‘fits’. And then accept that that old unwanted behaviour really does give you something. Something that is meaningful and valuable to you. Think about it for a moment. With that payoff or secondary gain, of course you’re going to find it difficult to change! Just take a moment to stop and accept the truth of this. It could be that your daily visit to the vending machine gives you a break from your desk (gives you distraction or procrastination), provides an energy hit to get through the afternoon (gives you variety and motivation), and also lets you chat with colleagues on your way there and back (giving you connection with others). 

If you’re using your habit to avoid something then there’s usually also a paradox there because whatever you’re trying to avoid, usually turns up in your life anyway because you’re trying to avoid it! For example, you may have a stubborn habit of holding yourself back in relationships because you don’t feel worthy or attractive and because you fear rejection, and yet because you hold yourself back, you don’t give yourself within a relationship and make deep and meaningful connections, and therefore end up feeling the experience of rejection anyway. Or perhaps you have a stubborn habit of emotional eating because you’re scared that you don’t ‘have what it takes’ to succeed and maintain great results with your weight and health, and so you sabotage yourself to avoid risking feeling like a failure if you do achieve great results and then don’t sustain them. And yet because you eat emotionally, you feel like a failure anyway… Get the idea? Humans are very creative in the ways they like to get in their own way! When you’ve done that and you’re ready, it’s time to explore how you could do things differently…

Step 4 – Now take each secondary gain that applies (there may be one or there may be more than one) and ask yourself how you could achieve the same high-level, positive gain – e.g. connection with others, certainty, variety etc. – without behaviour ‘X’. Also ask yourself what inner strengths and qualities you’d need to notice and bring out from within yourself that would render behaviour ‘X’ redundant or unnecessary. This isn’t a commitment and you don’t have to do anything. Enjoy coming up with sensible and crazy ideas. It’s brainstorming time – not judgment time. For example, instead of bingeing on unhealthy food as a way of looking for certainty when you’re feeling anxious, you could do a short meditation, take a walk around the block, listen to some inspiring music or get out a pen and some paper and come up with a plan as to how you’re going to deal with whatever is making you anxious.

Step 5 – Commit to doing things differently. Decide how you will modify your behaviour, and your inner talk, and get clear about how you will remind yourself to do so – what impactful and unavoidable reminder will you put in place to keep you on track? How will you interrupt yourself from engaging in that old behaviour or habit while you create a new one to replace it? Who can you enlist to help you remain accountable? For example, say you have a habit of going to the vending machine at 3pm every afternoon at work, perhaps you could take an apple to work and set a reminder at 2.45pm on your phone to tell you to eat the apple and then go for a short walk.

Step 6 – Acknowledge yourself and reinforce your new empowered choices every time you don’t subscribe to that old behaviour and instead access those feelings and those results with different actions. Whether it’s a mental ‘high-five’, or a punch to the air, or a pat on the back to yourself, or you go and tell someone how proud you are of yourself, or something else, make sure you reinforce it immediately to integrate the change and help build those new neural pathways! 

Remember, you’re in charge of your life and when you take the time to consciously understand why you’ve been doing what you’ve been doing then you can decide on new, more-empowering behaviours to give you the same gains - this will then help you to create a completely different future for yourself.

Thanks for listening, thanks for watching, and I look forward to connecting with you again soon with some more mindset and lifestyle tips.