Note: This is Part 2 of 5 in the Most Commonly Asked Questions series. Make sure you check out all 5 parts.

It can often feel like we are dealing with the same issues over and over again and when that happens, it can feel like tapping is just a giant waste of time. Our reasoning tells us that if tapping was working, the issue would be taken care of.

There are three main reasons behind why it can feel like we aren't making any progress with our tapping. This week I explore these reasons and what we can do to recognize the true progress we are making.

(Full transcript of the audio can be found below the player.)

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PLEASE NOTE: Below is a slightly edited transcript of the audio. I speak in a more casual way than I write, so the following might be a little less precise than some of my other writings. Even though this is far from perfect, many people prefer a written version over the audios and this is the easiest way for you to get the same content in written form.

This week we're dealing with: Why is it that I keep dealing with the same issue over and over again? I spend time tapping on it, I'm thoughtful about it, I watch videos. I use scripts. I might even work with a practitioner, and I'm just not making the progress I want.

I even regularly have this conversation with my clients that will be five or six sessions into multiple months of work. My clients will say something like, “You know, Gene? I really enjoy our time. You are charming. This is lots of fun. But I don't feel like we're actually making any progress.” In those moments my response is, “Great. I appreciate the feedback. Let's pull out your intake form and let's take a look and see what has actually happened.”

Then what we're able to do is we're able to compare the current moment to where they started, and then there's this recognition that transformation actually has happened.

There are three reasons why we feel like we keep dealing with the same issue over and over again. Two of those reasons are like the example I just gave – they are a perception that we're dealing with the same issue over and over again. The third reason is why we of do keep dealing with the same issue over and over again. It's important to keep these three things in mind when you are frustrated with the amount of progress it doesn't feel like you're making; or it's a good thing to keep in mind when you begin to work on a new issue, so that you're positioning yourself in a way so it is able unfold in a way where your appreciating the progress that is happening.

Reason number one why we feel like we keep dealing with the same issue over and over again is the phenomenon of the new normal. What this is about is when things change we adapt to the change very, very quickly, and we forget what the old way is like.

As a practical example, last year about this time I got the new iPhone X. And the new iPhone X doesn't have the home button on it like the other ones. There's not button that you push. It's all just screen. It's a new form factor and you use it in a new way. I got the new phone and it took me a couple of days to get used to the new way of interacting with the phone because the button wasn't there and I had to interact with it differently.

A week after I got used to the new phone, I was at a conference where a friend of mine wanted me to videotape some of the stuff that he was doing onstage. He handed me his older iPhone. It took me about a minute to figure out how to actually video him. Now keep in mind, this is a phone, ten days earlier, I owned. But because I had moved to the new operating system, my brain just let go of the old operating system because it was no longer useful.

We adapt to what we are dealing with and we forget what comes before. How that shows up in transformation is … Let's take pain for example. Let's say that you have a knee injury and on the SUDs scale of zero to ten you would describe the pain as a seven. You and I do some tapping and all of a sudden the pain level is a four. You're very happy about that because we've almost reduced the pain by half. You wake up tomorrow and the pain level is only a four and you're still appreciative of that fact. You wake up the next day and the pain level is a four and you're still appreciative of that fact. You wake up the next day, and the only thing that you notice is, “I'm in pain and I hate being in pain.”

Four has become the new normal and you have forgotten what it was like to be at a seven. Because the further distance you get from the old discomfort, the more likely you are to forget it. It feels like you're dealing with the same issue, which is the pain in your knee, but it's not the same issue. Because the issue before was a seven and now the issue is a four.

You might be saying, “Well that's just semantics. It's a lower level.” For me it's a different issue because when it's a four it could actually be a different problem. That we've solved problem number one which has reduced some of the pain, and now there's problem number two that is there.

The same thing can happen with a fear. I might be afraid of speaking in public and that fear is at a seven. We tap on the fact that you're afraid that you're going to lose your place. We get that all taken care of and now the fear of speaking in public in only a four because you're comfortable with that. But in that four what is left is you're afraid you're going to be judged. Even though we only had one number of discomfort, it was a couple of issues that were joined together. If you're still afraid at a four, then it doesn't feel like you're making any progress and you're still dealing with the same issue.

The phenomenon of the new normal makes it really easy for us to miss the progress that we are making, and it feels like we're dealing with the same issue.

The second reason why it can feel like we're dealing with the same issue, and it's very related to the first, is how we understand the transformation in relation to the action that we are taking.

This is an analogy that I have actually been using quite a bit over the course of the last two months with my clients. What I want you to imagine that you are standing next to a lake on a beach. The reason why it's a lake is because I don't want you to imagine waves coming in and out. You're standing at the edge of the water and the water is three inches from your toes. As you look down you can only move forward three inches before you get wet It's kind of like imagine the water being a fear or an issue or something that is holding you back.

We do a bunch of tapping and you feel better and you have more confidence. As that happens, imagine that the water is receding away because that fear is getting smaller. But because the fear is getting smaller, you take advantage of all of this new land that you get to walk on. What you do is you walk up to the edge of the water again, because you're moving forward, because you now have the opportunity to do that.

From this new position, if you look down at your feet the water is still only three inches away from your feet. The distance from where you are to where the edge of what is comfortable is still exactly the same, and what you've done is you have forgotten that you have walked forward. There's now all of this new land that you can walk on. But because you're trying to move forward, you've pushed yourself to the edge.

Again, the fear is still there and it's the same distance from us. It feels as if we're dealing with the exact same issue, because we have lost track of the context of how far we've moved . We're only looking in relation between where we are and we're our struggle is. When we do this, we mistake the fact that we haven't made progress with the relationship between us and the fear. Hopefully, you are in a circumstance that as you are clearing fears, you're giving yourself the opportunity to move forward and try new things.

A perfect way of thinking about this is thinking about speaking in public. At the beginning you might be in a situation where speaking in public is not something you are comfortable at all with. We do some work and all of a sudden you feel good enough that when you are at a meeting at work and there's ten of you sitting around the circle, you now feel comfortable enough to speak in public and you can share your idea.

But because your idea is so good, your boss wants you to share it with the whole team. Now you're in a situation where you have to stand in front of 25 people. It's not a circle, everybody around the same level, but you're now standing in front of the group and you're having to share from that position. All of a sudden you're nervous again.

So we tap and we tap and we tap, and all of a sudden you are super comfortable presenting in front of 25 people. The presentation goes so well, the boss wants you to give the presentation to the entire company. Now you have to speak in front of 125 people. Once again, you're worried and you're afraid.

So the entire time, over the arc of this story, you're afraid of speaking in public. Every single time you and I tap together, we're tapping on the fact that you're afraid of speaking in public. It feels as if you're dealing with the exact same issue, but we've had three radically different contexts: me sitting around a conference room table with ten people; me standing in front of 25 people; me standing in front of 125 people.

Because those are different, they're actually different issues but they feel the same. The analogy with the water at our feet. The water is at my feet; sitting around a table with ten people. We tap, the water recedes, but you walk to the edge of the water because now you're speaking in front of 25 people, and so on. It's important for us to recognize that even though we name the problem the same – speaking in public – it's really a different problem each time.

The third reason why it feels like we keep dealing with the same issue is because in some cases, we actually are dealing with the same issue over and over again. But what we don't realize is we're dealing with the issue on a different level.

Let's pretend that the issue that we're tapping for is feeling comfortable inside of my own skin around other people.We tap on this issue and you feel better. Then as time passes, you notice again that you're uncomfortable being around these people and being comfortable inside of your own skin. What you don't realize is before you were uncomfortable with talking about the news of the day. You get comfortable with that but then you become uncomfortable talking about the work that you do. Then you get through that and then you worry about talking about your personal life.

What happens when we're doing that, because we're passing through the same issue over and over again, it's like going up a spiral staircase. If you look at someone from above, who's walking up a spiral staircase and you're straight above them, it literally looks like they're walking in a circle. They're just going round and round and round. But if you're looking at them from the side what you do is you see them going up, and what's happening is they're passing through the same spot.

If you imagine on a clock, at 12 o'clock you're walking in the circle around and around, and 12 o'clock is that self-esteem issue. From above it looks like as you walk in the circle you pass through self-esteem, you pass through self-esteem, you pass through self-esteem. But when we look at it from the side what happens is as you pass through self-esteem, you're six feet higher, and then you're six feet higher, and then you're six feet higher. The issue is the same but you're standing in a new place. You're actually moving forward, and in this case moving up and making progress, but it's easy to miss that.

The big take-away from all of this is as we do the transformation process, it's really easy for us to miss the progress we're making either because of: 1) the new normal; 2) we keep pushing to the edge and only notice the edge; or 3) as we pass through an issue again and again, we're not recognizing that we're moving up.

It's important to recognize this because if you don't recognize this, it's really easy to be discouraged. It's really easy to be overwhelmed. It's really easy to feel as if the tapping and the time that you're investing in this is not working. That's why it's so important when you're working on an issue over time by yourself, or you're working on an issue over time with a practitioner, that you are documenting where you're starting and you're documenting where you're going along the way so that it's really easy to recognize the progress that is happening.

Sometimes the progress is self-evident. Sometimes it's like, “I couldn't do this thing and now I can do it, and we don't need to be doing this.” But lots of times, particularly with these issues that we're creeping through, it's really easy to miss the change that is happening.

Keeping this in mind before you begin, and documenting your progress along the way, is going to make a huge difference in getting you to a place where you can see the actual progress as it's happening. And you're going to be able to celebrate that, and you're going to be able to build on it.

Note: This is part 1 of 5 in the Most commonly asked questions series. Make sure you check out all 5 parts.

When someone joins my mailing list, one of the two questions I ask them is, “What is the biggest issue you have when it comes to tapping?”

When I started asking this question I expected to receive lots of answers about specific topics or issues that are particularly hard to deal with. I do get a lot of these types of responses, but a good 25% of the responses say something along the lines of, “I know tapping works, but I just don't do it.”

This week I have for you three simple steps you can take that will transform tapping from this thing you beat yourself up for not doing, into something you reach for every day. (Full transcript of the audio can be found below the player.)

Support the podcast!

Subscribe in: Apple | Android | Spotify

PLEASE NOTE: Below is a slightly edited transcript of the audio. I speak in a more casual way than I write, so the following might be a little less precise than some of my other writings. Even though this is far from perfect, many people prefer a written version over the audios and this is the easiest way for you to get the same content in written form.

I would be willing to bet that when people tell me the most common struggle that they have with tapping 25% of the time the response is, I just don't reach for tapping. I know it's a useful tool, but I never seem to be able to do it.

Today, what I'm going do is I'm going to share with you three things that will make it much easier for you to make tapping something that you regularly reach for, and reach for in the moment when you are struggling, and turning it into a routine so it happens more and more often. We know it's so useful, and if you know it's useful, and you don't do it, then it becomes really easy to start beating yourself up, because you are missing opportunity, and you are wasting time.

Here are some things to keep in mind that will make it much easier for you.

Number one, create a new habit. It takes time for us to get into a space where something becomes habitual, and the reason that is, is that when we do something over and over again, we are creating neural paths for doing that activity, but it takes us doing it a certain number of time before it becomes something that is habitual.

You'll hear people often quote that it takes between 14 and 21 days to create a new habit, and there's a really amazing study that leads us to that. The details of that study aren't super important at this point, but just know that it takes time to do it.

As an analogy, think of it kind of like a path. If you were walking through a field in which you've never walked through before, after you walk through the field, we might be able to see your footsteps, we might see the grass that's matted down, but a few hours later there might be no recollection of that as all, as the leaves of the plants have regained their strength, and stood back up again.

But, if you walk that path over and over again, slowly that path becomes more trodden. It's easier to see because there are remnants of the path, and it actually creates space for you to move through. That's basically what happens inside of our brain. The more we do something, the deeper the path becomes, the easier it is for us to fall into that. Think about putting on a pair of pants, you always put on a pair of pants one leg first, and the other leg second, just because of that habit, and you don't think about it. It's just the steps that happen.

Here are some easy ways to make something a habit.

Number one is, to do it at the same time. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that you are going to do it at the exact same time, at 6:47 every single day, but to do it at the same point in your day consistently. For example, you might choose to do it after you brush your teeth in the morning. The exact time you brush your teeth in the morning is going depend on when you get up, and what your day looks like. For me, I get up depending on the day as early as 4:00 in the morning as late as 8:00 in the morning, but I still brush my teeth as one of those first few steps in the morning, so the exact time isn't important, but the time within my day is important.

The second thing is, to do it in the same location. That if you do it in the same location, that location starts to remind you of that task. It becomes anchored in. It's a time of day, it's a location that makes it easier for us.

The third thing to do, and I've already mentioned it, is to attach it to a habit that you already have.
Starting a new habit from scratch is difficult, because you're having to think about it, and do it from willpower until it becomes that habitual thing. If we're attaching it to something that you already do, then it becomes easy to do.

One of the ones I use the most often is the example I already gave, which is brushing your teeth, because almost all of us do that every single day. Most of us do it at least twice a day in the morning, and in the evening. It's something that we're already connected to. For me, I spend some time stretching every single morning, and I spend some time on my foam roller just because I have a better day when I do that, and so, tapping is a really natural thing to attach to that thing. If there's something that you are doing every day already, tap after it, or before it, because that habit is already installed.

Number two is to do it earlier in the day. When we're creating a new habit, it is requiring us to use willpower to do that. It's a conscious act of our will to do this thing that is not regular. Willpower is a limited resource. As the day goes on, you're using that willpower to make all of the choices throughout your day. What you're going to have to lunch? What you're going to wear? What order you're going to do tasks at work? And, because that is the case, you're putting yourself in a position where it becomes more difficult to navigate all of these things later in the day, because you have spent that willpower.

That's the reason why when you create a new eating plan, breakfast is really, really easy, and dinner, and after dinner is really hard. It is because you have expelled all of that willpower throughout the day, and it becomes harder, so if you're creating a new habit. The earlier in the day you do it, the more likely you are to be able to make that conscious choice. By doing it over and over again, we start deepening that path which makes it a habit.

Number three is to initially to only do it for a small amount of time. I think of my clients who decide that at new years they're going to get themselves in shape, and to get themselves in shape. They're going to work out three times a week for 90 minutes. That is a huge ask, because what you are doing. You are asking yourself to find four and a half hours to do something that you weren't doing before. I don't know about you, but I don't have four and a half hours just lying around in my schedule where I can throw in something new.

When we choose a large chunk of time that we're going to try, and do, it becomes really difficult, because of the amount of changing we have to do the rest of our lives to accomplish it. It would be great if you were in a circumstance where every single morning you were going to spend 30 minutes tapping, and that's what was going to happen. Because finding 30 minutes every single day becomes a difficult thing for something that is not habitual, it makes it hard to do.

Start with a small amount of time so that the habit becomes you are tapping every single day. Then once that becomes a habit, then you can expand the amount of time that you're tapping every single day, because the habit is already installed.

The second thing you can do is to set the goal of tapping every single day around the amount of time you are tapping, not the amount of progress you are making.

Sometimes when we tap it can go really super fast, and we can go really super deep. I was working with a client on Friday, and we were supposed to tap for a half an hour, and after about 11 minutes we had done really profound work around money, and family, and a bunch of stuff, and she was done. We had just completely wrung her out, and doing more work wouldn't have been useful.

There are other times where I can spend 45 minutes on an issue, and I don't see this real tangible progress. I know I am doing work, and I'm undermining the belief system, and I'm making it easier for me to see the world in a new way, but there's not this immediate tangible results inside of that session.

Even though both of those sessions happened, and they're both valuable, our emotional response to them is different. 11 minutes profound work, 45 minutes, boy it just feels like I'm scratching the surface. If your definition of success is based specifically on the outcome, then it becomes really easy to become frustrated.

When you're trying to integrate tapping, and to make it happen more often, say I am going to tap for this many minutes, set a timer, and then you are successful, because I know if my goal is to tap for seven minutes every single morning, I can achieve that. I can find seven minutes in my morning. I can find an issue to tap on for seven minutes. I can execute it for seven minutes.

Some days those seven minutes might be absolutely amazing, and absolutely transforming, and other days not so much. But because you are doing it every single day, you are making a habit out of it, so the goal being the amount of time not the amount of outcome makes it easier for you to persist, because you have been successful even if there hasn't been world transforming changes.

Three, make tapping every single day a non-negotiable. That no matter what happens today, this particular thing is going to happen, and what I have found in my life is, typically, I can only have two, maybe three non-negotiables.

That doesn't mean I have two non-negotiables in my personal life, and two non-negotiables in my health, and two non-negotiables in my work. No, I have such a limited amount of willpower. They're only two things that hell or high water I'm going to do those things. When I'm working on those things, sometimes I might be doing it at 11:45 at night before I'm going to bed, but I've said this is a non-negotiable, this is something I'm going to do every day.

If you do those three things, 1) go through the steps that I laid out on how you can create a habit, 2) as you're making that plan, choose the amount of time that you're going to tap, not the amount of progress you're going to make, and 3) make it non-negotiable. This is something I am going to do every single day.

If you do these three things over the course of the next couple of weeks, you are going to be in a circumstance where tapping every single day is something that happens, that becomes easier, and easier for you to use.

Two great things will come out of that. One, you're going to tap a lot more, and two, you're going to be in a circumstance where you're not going to be beating yourself up for not tapping regularly, so you get a bonus both directions.