159. Trait vs State

-: 00:13

Hello, darling heart, and welcome to this episode of the drink less live better podcast. This is the podcast that helps you

-: 00:22

to see that drinking less doesn't need to be stressful, lonely, or boring. I'm your host, Sarah Williamson, and I decided

-: 00:30

to have a year alcohol free as a little life experiment and haven't looked back. I'm a best selling author, expert speaker,

-: 00:39

and life coach. I'm here to champion you with your alcohol free or drink less adventures. Give me a follow on Instagram at

-: 00:47

drink less, live better, and head over to the website, drink less, live better.com, where you'll be able to sign up to the

-: 00:56

5 day drink less experiment, find blog posts, and you can choose to join the email club where I share resources, wisdom, insights,

-: 01:09

and glimmers of hope and joy. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Let's get straight to it. Traits versus states. I said something

-: 01:20

to myself the other day, and in that magic moment, I caught it. The thought that had formulated in my head was, I am worried.

-: 01:30

Now, I don't know about you, but I have about 11,000,000,000 t thoughts that go through my head in a day, and I don't catch

-: 01:41

very many of them to put under careful scrutiny. This one was a gem. I had something going on that was causing me some anxiety

-: 01:51

and discombobulation. I pulled the thought around for a while and then came out with a bit more clarity around it. I wasn't

-: 02:05

worried. I was feeling worried. I had got caught up in thinking I was a worried person versus I was experiencing a feeling

-: 02:19

of worry. Let's look at this with a different thought for a moment. I am anxious versus I am feeling anxious. Do you hear

-: 02:32

the nuance in that? I am someone who identifies as anxious, versus I am someone experiencing thoughts and or feelings of anxiety

-: 02:47

right now. When I had the idea of I am worried, it felt quite heavy and immovable. I am worried sounds like who I am, an identifying

-: 02:58

feature perhaps. Who is Sarah? Well, she is a worried person. It's just who I am, my general disposition. I can be relied

-: 03:10

upon to be worried. I don't think that's it, actually. I am feeling worried. Let's try that out. It's the way I feel right

-: 03:20

now in this specific moment in time. It might be my emotion for the next 5 minutes or maybe longer, but for sure it's going

-: 03:31

to be temporary and it will be replaced by a different way of being, a different feeling. So what do we have here then? Well,

-: 03:41

personality traits and temporary states each play a crucial role in shaping our behaviour. Understanding the difference between

-: 03:53

them is useful for comprehending our very complex human natures. If we were to say that personality traits are enduring and

-: 04:04

long lasting patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that characterize a person across different situations, and over

-: 04:13

time, we could say that they are relatively stable and consistent throughout a person's life. Perhaps these traits form the

-: 04:23

very foundation of somebody's personality and they tend to remain relatively unchanged. They could, of course, be influenced

-: 04:32

by life events, personal growth, and perhaps deliberate efforts for self improvement, or maybe not. Maybe they just don't

-: 04:44

change. In contrast, temporary states refer to transient, emotional, cognitive, and behavioral experiences that change in

-: 04:55

response to specific circumstances, perhaps environmental goings on or, indeed, internal factors. Unlike personality traits,

-: 05:06

temporary states might vary widely from one moment to the next moment or from one day to the next day. These dates are definitely

-: 05:16

influenced by situational factors such as stress, mood, fatigue, arousal level, what social interactions you're having, and,

-: 05:30

of course, external events going on all around you. We could say that temporary states are maybe emotions, things like worry,

-: 05:43

anxiety, happiness, sadness. They could be cognitive states, how much attention, concentration, or maybe memory we can give

-: 05:54

to something, or indeed behavioral states, how motivated we're feeling, how impulsive we're feeling in a given moment. And

-: 06:01

while temporary states might influence a behaviour in the short term, they typically actually do not have a lasting impact

-: 06:10

on one's true personality. Here's another example for you. We're gonna take a different thought from the other side of my

-: 06:23

head. I am not confident, and I switch that up for, I am not feeling confident today. If I choose to go with I'm not feeling

-: 06:32

confident today, it gives me the opportunity to believe I am ordinarily quite a confident person. I wonder if I'm able to

-: 06:41

choose more positive leaning characteristics and think that they are my personality traits and think the less positive thoughts

-: 06:52

I experience are states that I move through. It's one to ponder, moron. As ever, I'm delighted to hear your thoughts. You

-: 07:04

can always email me, sarah@drinklesslivebetter.com. And speaking of email, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the emails

-: 07:14

about your favorite thing about you. Last week's episode and accompanying email I sent out brought in some total delights,

-: 07:25

and I loved replying to every single one of you. What? What do you mean? You're not in my email club? Darn it. You are missing

-: 07:36

a trick. I send emails sporadically, never ever at 9 AM on a Monday morning. I distribute helpful resources, I tell useful

-: 07:46

stories, I give the heads up on which festivals I'm speaking at, and I share very, very honest snippets of midlife insight

-: 07:57

and wisdom. Get yourself on that list by clicking the show notes under this episode and click join email club. Leave a podcast

-: 08:08

review, and you'll have my undying love forever. Thank you for listening in today. Come back again next week. And PS, I believe in you.