
Episode #145: How to Plan as a Perfectionist with Sara Bybee Fisk
Jan 14, 2025
Summary
Are you the type of person who loves to map out every detail, dream big, and create the perfect plan—only to feel derailed when life throws you a curveball? In this special episode, I’m sharing an inspiring and practical conversation with Sara Bybee Fisk. Together, we’ll uncover why overachievers and perfectionists often fall into planning traps and how to break the cycle for lasting success.
Whether you're planning for weight loss, career growth, or personal wellness, this episode will help you approach your goals with curiosity, realism, and self-compassion.
Sara Bybee Fisk is a Master Certified Coach and Instructor who teaches women how to eliminate people pleasing and perfectionism from their lives. She is an anxious optimist and born again feminist who listens to more books than she actually sits down to read. She loves a good hike, good dark chocolate and good conversations. Her big dreams include learning to sail and to sing and dance like JLo and helping thousands of women create the big, juicy lives they want to be living. She is a wife and mom of 5 and she enjoys those roles most of the time.
Sara’s Links:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarafiskcoach/
Website: http://www.sarafisk.coach/
Podcast: https://theexgoodgirlpodcast.buzzsprout.com/share
Facebook Group: https://sarafisk.temporary-domains.com/sppcommunity
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sarafiskcoach?lang=en
Learn more about the group: https://www.burnstressloseweight.com/group
Get the Hormones Training: https://www.burnstressloseweight.com/hormones
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
- The #1 mindset mistake overachievers make when planning big goals.
- How to embrace discomfort and take action without relying on willpower.
- The science behind cortisol, stress, and how they sabotage your goals.
- Why celebrating effort—not just results—rewires your brain for success.
- A sneak peek at my ABCDE framework for breaking out of procrastination and perfectionism.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Featured on the Show:
- Want to work with me? Learn about The Burn Stress, Lose Weight Group by clicking here.
- Get the Hormones Training by clicking here.
- Listen to Sara’s podcast by clicking here.
- Join Sara’s free Facebook group by clicking here.
Download the full transcript here.
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Priyanka Venugopal: This is that time of year where we are all deeply in planning mode. If you're anything like me, you're looking ahead at what the possibilities are for 2025, what you want to achieve in your body goals, in your wellness goals, maybe around your time, your task list, your kids, your family, you might have a huge vision for what you want for yourself. And if you're like me, you also love planning. But before you get too far into the planning process, there are a couple of very, very, very sneaky pitfalls that overachievers and perfectionists often make. Recently, my good friend and master certified coach, Sara Bybee Fisk interviewed me over on her podcast, The Ex Good Girl podcast, which by the way is amazing, where I shared my exact strategy and framework for how to plan as a perfectionist, how to plan as an overachiever, who maybe tries to fit in a little bit extra into the calendar because I know you have huge dreams. It was such a good episode that I knew you all would benefit from. And so she graciously agreed to have us air it over here on this podcast, the Burn Stress Lose Weight podcast, so that you can also benefit from it from not just the concept that we talk about around, you know, a lot of the pitfalls that we have as overachievers, but also a framework that I walk through in this episode that in a way that I've never really walked through in this podcast. So I think it's going to be a highly valuable episode for you as you get into the planning and the dreaming for your biggest goals for yourself this year, for your wellness and weight loss goals, for your family and for your time.
I believe in you achieving your wildest dreams. But to do that, we do have to have proper planning before I shared this interview. I also want you to just take a moment to think about why you're planning. I know that we often talk about goals over here on this podcast. We talk about vision and dreams that we have for ourselves because that's the whole reason that we plan it all. Right. And I think it's really important that we really step back and ask ourselves, why are we going through this effort? of planning. Why is it that we even have this dream? Why is it that we have this weight loss goal or this wellness goal or this goal around our relationships or our time? It's usually because we want to feel better. If you want a proven strategy that will walk you through every single step of the process, that takes the guesswork and the piecemealing out of you, hitting your weight loss goal and your wellness goal, where you feel better as a busy professional with working mom, as you lose the weight you want. I just want you to know that the January cohort of my intimate small group coaching program is starting next week. So if you feel that readiness to prioritize yourself, if you are ready to invest in your dream goals and you want to have a coach in your corner, then this is it. The Unstoppable Group is, in my opinion, really the best combination of science informed strategy that will help you lose weight as you support your hormone health. As you learn how to feel better as a busy professional, where you take science informed decisions and you fold it into the structure of your real life. There's no wishfulness. We're not optimists or pessimists. We are realists when it comes to taking decisions and plugging them into your calendar. And most importantly, we have to take that structure and really have accountability for yourself and being in a group, working with me, having other brilliant women in the group alongside you is how you make it happen. You can go and get all of the details, the nuts, the bolts over at www.burnstressloseweight.com/group. There's a button there that says apply. Now hit the button, answer a couple of questions so that I can best Know you best customize a strategy that will help you and we'll set up a time to talk either on zoom or on chat and really decide if you and I working together would be a best fit for you I really believe in your vision for yourself this year. I know that you can feel the possibility of making it happen and Between you and me, I want you to just remember that wanting a goal and dreaming about a goal while it feels really good is not the same as putting in the effort to make it happen. That is where it is uncomfortable. That is where you might hit obstacles and you will feel doubt and uncertainty and friends. That is a normal part of the process. So if you want to work with me, if you want my help to make your goals happen this year, don't wait. The next group is starting next week and think about this as your sign to grab the last spot. Head over to www.burnstressloseweight.com/group. I cannot wait to see your application come in so that we can decide if this is going to be a good fit for you. Without further ado, let us get into, this is maybe one of my favorite interviews that I have ever done on how to plan properly for find the pitfalls as an overachiever slash perfectionist, busy, professional working mom. Hey, unstoppable friend. You're listening to The Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Priyanka Venugopal, a physician turned stress and weight loss coach for professional working moms and the founder of the Burn Stress, Lose Weight, Feel Unstoppable, small group coaching program. This podcast is going to inspire change at the root for you on and off the scale. I've lost a little over 60 pounds while being a busy physician, mom with two young kids and an unpredictable schedule. And along my journey, which was full of, full of many, many imperfect moments, I have learned how to skip past the fads and the gimmicks. I am on this mission now to share with you how you can have a real strategy and mindset skills to really have more of the life you want that you have worked so hard for. Let's get into it.
Sara Bybee Fisk: I have Dr. Priyanka Venugopal with me today. Priyanka is a friend, a fellow coach, and one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation is because she is a doctor, an OBGYN turned stress and weight loss coach for professional moms. And I know that's a lot of you, those of us who identify as overachievers, and we also want to lose some weight for various reasons. And I will just say this, I have other podcast episodes that go into The good girl rules around what your body is supposed to look like and how it's something that other people get to look at and they're supposed to be pleased with it. That's not what we're going to be talking about in this conversation. So if you want to remind yourself about kind of those good girl rules, I'm sure you can just think about it for a second and they'll all come to mind, but I will link a couple of those episodes in the show notes. If you want a refresher. Our conversation today is really going to draw on Priyanka's, like 10 years you've been doing this with thousands and thousands of high achieving women and getting to the heart of two things where our work really overlaps, which is perfectionism and stress responses and how those two elements come in and just the effect that they have on women's bodies in particular, and if weight loss is something that you are interested in, in weight loss in particular. Is there anything you want to add to that?
Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. Well, first of all, I'm so glad to be here. So thank you all for being here and listening to this conversation. And absolutely, I think that it is It actually even touches on what we're talking about today, like the all or nothingness around weight loss and how people do perceive their bodies. So either it's because somebody else told us we have to look a certain way or we want to look a certain way. And I'm like, maybe there's so much gray in between. So I think this is such a good conversation. And. You know, I think one of the things that's really informed a lot of my perspective and my strategy is my experience as an OBGYN. I would say the top three complaints I would see in my office would be low libido, fatigue, and difficulty with weight loss. Women 35 and up, they would have their first baby and then they would come in saying, Please check my hormones. Something is wrong. I have low libido, fatigue, or weight gain. And after talking with thousands of women, sometimes you start to see patterns with overachievers or perfectionists. That I just started to see, you know, that there's a serious mindset obstacle that a lot of us have. That is getting in the way of us feeling better on and off the scale.
Sara Bybee Fisk: What is that mindset? The problematic mindset that you're talking about right there?
Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. So I would say the number one lie that we tell ourselves, I know that I told myself this as IK, if I just had a really good plan. And then I will be able to either lose the weight I want, hit that next personal goal, the next professional goal. I just need a really good plan. And then I will insert the result that you want. So I have a story on this. So I remember when I was at my personal heaviest a few years ago, I was a little over 200 pounds. And I remember somehow when that number hit 200 something really woke up in me where I said, you know, I really want to not just lose this weight, but I want to have this energy to run after my kids. They were three and six months at the time. And I was like, I just want to run after them. I did not have the energy to do that. And I felt this seriousness in myself. Like I'm ready to take care of myself. I have been taking care of everyone else forever. It's my turn now. And so I did what all of us do type a, you know, overachievers. I made a plan and I had a little calendar with color coded perfect, you know, very perfectionist meal plans and what foods I would be getting at the grocery store. I even got my husband on board. So I'm like, listen, he's naturally skinny. He can eat three dinners and not gain a pound. But I'm like, you're not allowed to bring in my favorite Cool Ranch Doritos. Like we need to just, we're all get, we're all going on this adventure. And I started losing weight, right? So as we do, we have a great plan. We all put the plan because our motivation is high, and I started seeing results. And I want to say I probably lost like that first 10 pounds. I'm like patting myself on the back, like, go girl, you're doing so well. And then one day in the middle of my office, I was seeing patients, back to back patients running behind, people were getting mad in the waiting room, one of those scenarios. And I got a call from my son, who was in preschool at the time, from his, the assistant principal. And she was like, Dr. Venugopal, everything's okay. You know, as they say, like, your kid is safe.
Sara Bybee Fisk: Right.
Priyanka Venugopal: And also, we need to have a little conversation about him, and we need to kind of talk about how we're going to support him because we had a couple of incidents happen this week and we're kind of concerned about how we can best support him in the classroom. And I remember at that moment, I had a flood of emotions enter my body in that moment. I was already feeling a little bit behind with my workflow in the office. I was frustrated. I felt worry about my kid. Why is he different than the other kids? How come I am the one that always has to get these phone calls about him? What's wrong with him? What's wrong with me? Where am I going wrong? Right? A lot of those thoughts. Then I had some entitlement and some like indignation. Why didn't they call my husband? Why are they calling me and not my husband? I had a slew of all of these thoughts. And I remember I got home that day. I was irritable with my kid, my poor little three and a half year old at the time. I was annoyed with my husband. Just overall, we can all imagine like that snippy scenario. And that evening I put the kids to bed, cleaned up the kitchen. And I was like, this is my break. I just need a break. That amazing plan on paper went right out the window. The plan that I was loving, that I was losing weight with, that I was feeling good with, went right out the window and I sat down for my Netflix plop down Cool Ranch Dorito Nacho night with the extra glass of wine because I just needed a break from feeling so many emotions. And of course the next day I woke up, I felt a lot of regret, not just because the scale was up, which of course it was, but my gut felt so terrible. And I felt like, Priyanka, the stress, I still have to deal with my kid. Turns out, I ate the Cool Ranch Doritos, and I did the wine, I did the Netflix, but it didn't solve anything. And that, there was a moment that happened for me in that moment where I realized, just having this plan on paper is not enough. If I want to lose the weight, and most importantly, keep it off for a lifetime, I'm going to have to learn some additional skills. Which is how I want to navigate the plethora of feelings I'm going to have as a busy, professional working mom. That was where I really started to see just having a plan on paper wasn't enough.
Sara Bybee Fisk: I really identify with that cycle of what one of our other coaching colleagues, Kara Loewentheil causes like perfectionist fantasy, right? Where you have this perfect plan and it's color coded and it's on the calendar and you know exactly what you're going to eat every single day. I identify with like loving the perfection of it and just like seeing it in front of me. That beautiful plan. And there is no room to mess up at all ever because I didn't have, and I did the same thing you did over and over again, I didn't have like the elasticity in my emotional life to rebound from messing up, quote unquote, like eating something I quote unquote wasn't supposed to be eating. And it was always motivated by big feelings. Always motivated by some big thing that had happened that I either didn't feel prepared for or like I could really handle. And the food just kind of took it away for a little while.
Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. And it's not even, you know, I described like a really charged situation where I was behind in the workplace and I was annoyed with my husband, even though, I mean, he didn't tell them to call me, but I was just annoyed. So I described a really charged scenario, but you might notice this coming up simply just by feeling bored. Tiny. It might be tiny. You're so busy in the workplace. You finally settle in the evening. You just feel bored and you don't want to feel bored. So this applies, you know, what we're talking about. It applies for big charged, like a rubber band of feelings, and it applies for the tiny little like, it almost feels like nuisance emotions, where if we don't understand the skill, which we're going to talk about, just having a plan on paper is never going to create lasting results. And I want to take this to the next step, what I would do, and I think I'm curious if you listen, if you identify as an overachiever, this may be you. You'll go back to making another plan. And this is what I have had to learn over the years. I've seen this come up when I was studying for oral board exams. I'd make a calendar, which chapters I was going to read in the OB textbook and the GYN textbook, but then I didn't do it because I procrastinated. And I'm like, we'll do two chapters tomorrow. And then two chapters tomorrow turns into four chapters the following week. And now we're behind. And now I have to make a whole new plan because we don't want too many red marks. So you know, I shared that story to say that planning feels very productive. And the lie that a lot of us might tell ourselves is, I just need to plan more, plan better, plan again, have a fresh start to see results. But what we're not doing is getting into, I wonder why that plan failed. I wonder why that plan that was like the Cadillac of plans, I wonder what happened there, right? And before we make a plan again, to gather that wisdom, which I think is the most skipped step for most overachievers.
Sara Bybee Fisk: I love that because I can clearly see this cycle in my own life. You have a plan that's perfect. The plan fails. So you go back to planning. The plan fails. You go back to planning. The plan fails. You go back to planning. And I've heard you say before, like you can't out plan perfectionism. And I think this is the cycle you're talking about.
Priyanka Venugopal: Absolutely. Yeah, because planning, see if you think about, planning is safe. Planning is very comfortable. Planning is familiar. Planning is talking about the idea of success. So the reason planning feels good, and you will likely get a dopamine hit simply from researching and planning and making your color coded calendar, your brain is lighting up with endorphins and dopamine, simply because it's safe. It is imagining you at your goal. It's an imagination. So the part that's so fascinating to me is planning. We and our brain learns, our brain gets trained. Every time we release dopamine, we're rewarding our brain, we're rewarding the planning phase because we're like, this is productive. And the lesson we also then learn secretly, this is a kind of a subconscious lesson we learn is not taking action. We stay in action. And so that's the perfectionism piece. Thanks. Perfectionism is basically we end up avoiding action which is uncomfortable, which requires courage, which requires messing up and getting it wrong and having to look at the mess up and looking at the, like, that's all a lot of action and it feels more uncomfortable. Perfectionism is like we need to feel better. We need to feel a little bit more solid, a little bit more certain, a little bit more confident before we can go do that hard work. So we'll stick to planning instead. This is why we try to out plan the perfectionism because we say, I need to just feel good or confident first. I'm like, no, no, no. You need to feel like terrible first. And then like, that's kind of how we have to start walking out of that, that habit.
Sara Bybee Fisk: Okay. I really want people to hear this because it even feels like for me, I'm hearing it in a new way. And this is a thing that, you know, I have conversations about all the time. Planning is the productive part that triggers all that dopamine and the reward centers of the brain because you are imagining doing the plan perfectly. Okay.
Priyanka Venugopal: Yes. When I made my whole calendar with all the OBGYN chapters, I'm like, Oh, I'm going to be so smart. Yes. Once I do the whole plan, I'm going to have hit my goal weight. So that is releasing our brains like, this is amazing. If we executed it perfectly, but this is also conscious. So if this is feel like I'm calling you out, it is because this is normal. Our brains are designed to expend the lowest amount of effort. And this is one of the ways it's like so sneaky and brilliant, be like, let's just plan. It feels really, really productive.
Sara Bybee Fisk: It does. And the mistake is in the imagination of arriving at the goal by completing this perfect plan and not imagining what we're going to do when we're a regular human who gets a call while they're at work and stressed and behind in their schedule. And, you know, there's a conversation needs to happen about your son or. Just sitting on the couch and you're bored and you're antsy and you're not feeling like there's something exciting happening in your life, like big emotions, small emotions. We're not trained to be, I don't know if honest is the right word, or realistic about what the actual human experience is, and build that into the plan, not as a problem. But as like, this is a part of the plan.
Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, so you're, you're touching there two pieces to this. And I want to kind of talk about them separately. I think that it will be useful for somebody hearing this. When we really, instead of just planning again, blindly, like, let me print out a brand new calendar with my new color coded pens, like, let me just do that all over again, instead if we take the extra step to evaluate, I wonder what I missed here, I wonder why I went off track. Where did I make some decisions that didn't take into the structure of my life? Did I really plan to read three chapters of OBGYN on a Friday night at 8 o'clock after working all week? Like, what were the decisions I made? Did they really make sense? Were they thinking about the real structure of my life? Right? So being realistic. We almost never get that leveraged information because we're not being realistic and curious. So that's the first piece. And then the second piece that I really have been thinking a lot about is, as a overachiever, I do hard things all the time, right? You do hard things all the time. I think a lot of women say, I can do hard things. We can double down and do things for short periods of time, but when it comes to really hitting our goal, I think sometimes we forget the purposeful step of accepting there's going to be effort involved. So there's like this wishfulness. There's a wishfulness of like, I want to just not want the food. There's a wishfulness of I just want to not scroll my phone and I want to just read the chapter. So what ends up happening over time again, our brain learns, I need to just feel motivated all the time. I have to just feel the food. excited and committed and determined all the time to execute consistently on the plan. And the moment we don't feel motivated or excited, we're like, see, like, I just don't want to. And we forget that there is a purposeful effort there that we can actually bridge the gap on. But it requires understanding that this is a part, a normal part of the process.
Sara Bybee Fisk: I want to talk about those two pieces with a little more detail because evaluation. It's interesting in, for me, in the focus on people pleasing. Evaluating why I pleased why I went ahead and did the thing that I said I didn't want to do is a huge part of having compassion for myself as a human. And so I think, especially in the weight loss. Realm. I was so used to like, come on, what is the matter with you? Just do it. Why are you, why are you eating these fill in the blank, right? Just stop it. Just stop. And that evaluation, there was no compassion in it, right? No, like, Of course you want Cool Ranch Doritos. They are literally, like, made so that you want to eat them. And I think without, like you mentioned curiosity, I just want to add some compassion that makes evaluating not like an indictment of like where I did all the things wrong, but an actual opportunity to look at these decisions. Do they make sense for the life that I live. It reminds me of when I started keeping track of like the time it took me to do things. Like I would say, I'm going to sit down, I'm going to write an email in 20 minutes. And then I would actually keep track and it took me 30 to 45, sometimes over an hour. And how unkind I was being to myself by having a plan that was literally not realistic. And I was able to give myself more time from that compassionate evaluation. And so now it's like, why did this plan fail? What were the decisions that left me, led me here? Do they make sense for my life? I love those questions.
Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. I think that this is the difference. The way that I talk about evaluation with my clients is coming from the lens of a playful scientist and as opposed to kind of what you're describing is it's not actually, uh, an evaluation. It's more just a punishment. Yeah. So we are asking questions rhetorically, like, you know, when you're saying, like, why did I do that? And just, it's not actually a question. Really what you're doing is you're just yelling at yourself. You shouldn't have done that. So we might just throw a question mark on at the end of things, but it doesn't make it a question. Right. So what I've really started to see is when we think about putting on the hat of a playful scientist and ask ourselves, I wonder, like for, and I'm thinking about that example with my full range Doritos and my bottle of wine. If I was coming from that really curious, playful lens place, I would ask myself, Priyanka. Girl, what happened here? What was going on for you? And it's, I, I, the way that I break down evaluations is, in my experience with high achievers, it's one of five things. Was I missing nutrition today? Did I eat enough? As working moms, busy professionals, I know from me and my clients, we will miss breakfast and lunch and we'll skip things because of meeting. So maybe I just had the desire to eat because I actually didn't get enough food today. Guilt free rest is another one. Have I been resting at all this week, this month? Or have I just been going and putting myself at the back and running on fumes? No surprise that my brain is trying to offer me a break. Number three, play. Am I playing at all? Am I doing fun things outside of food and alcohol? Because if I'm not, my brain is learning food and alcohol is my only way to have fun. Number four is movement. There's so much science and data on simply getting outside and going for small walks, like actually your, your body feels safe, like, Oh, I don't have to run from this lion. Like we can actually go for a gentle and leisurely walk, it creates so much safety for us. And then the fifth piece is of course mindset. So, you know, when I do an evaluation from a playful scientist place, I'm asking like Priyanka, what's up? What was missing? What happened? And then I, in this specific scenario, I have gotten to mindset. Which is, oh, you were so mad and so angry, of course your brain offered you a break. That's all it was. So it's kind of interesting, right, when we think about playful scientist energy versus.
Sara Bybee Fisk: I love that because it's actually the way that I, evaluate things with my kids, like when something didn't go wrong, I was like, okay, walk me through what was happening for you. And just tell me how you got to this decision, because I am more interested in understanding you than punishing you. And if I'm missing something, like now's the time to tell me. And I'm sure that we can work like I, I have a, like a collaborative way of parenting with my older now teenager kids who are, you know, who are ready for that and who really respond to that of like, I just want to better understand you because from, from my experience, these aren't decisions that are going to help you, but I want to work together with you and not just like, Hey, you're grounded, which that's the playful scientist in action in these, these questions. And I love these, these things. Was I missing nutrition? Was I getting guilt free rest? Was I playing enough outside of food and alcohol? That's such a good thing.
Priyanka Venugopal: We will find so much wisdom when we come into, you know, that failed moment or the pound up on the scale. And I know this is, this is the part that's hard because we are so Dis at either doubling down, like I'll just do a longer fast tomorrow to undo the damage. Or I, you are like, this is me trying to read three chapters instead of one because I got behind. So this is, again, a big thing with perfectionism. Procrastination. We start to overwork to get out of the overwhelm. And so now, now we're spiraling in creating a lot more kind of optional stress and overwhelm on top. But when we come in from that lens, we actually get wisdom. So, in this situation, what I uncovered is like, I got so mad and so sad and so worried and that feeling felt so big for me that my brain offered me food. And now the solution for me is like, oh, I wonder what was so terrible about me feeling that sadness. So, I was thinking about my son recently ran, he's nine years old, he's in fourth grade, he recently ran for class treasurer. And you know, a little backstory about my son, he has had a challenging, he's had a challenging way in elementary school, let's just say. He has like a handful of friends and he's been navigating it, you know, just being who he is. He comes home and he says, Mom, I'm probably not going to win, but I'm going for it. If you don't play, you can't win. I'm, I'm all in. I'm like, Oh, okay. So he got really excited about his speech, delivers it. And I mean, it was so cute, such a cute speech. We find out the results, like this is three or four days ago now, he did not win. So initially he comes home and he's like acting like it's not a big deal. And I'm thinking it's not a big deal, but that night as he's going to bed, he says, Mom. I can't believe I didn't win. Maybe it was my thumbnail. Maybe it was the song that I chose. Like, he was trying to make sense of his loss. And this is what a lot of us do. We start to look for, where can I blame why I'm feeling this disappointment or anger? We try to blame the person. I'm blaming my husband. I'm blaming my kid. I'm blaming my time or my, my boss. Just like that. He's trying to blame, like, figure out, like, why am I feeling this way? And my work with him at that moment was, your disappointment is so normal. Like, what if we don't have to talk ourselves out of it, or fix it right away, or have the Cool Ranch Doritos to numb it? What if we can actually practice growing our capacity, our tolerance, for disappointment? sad, worried, angry, frustrated. Like imagine what that kind of super skill would do in the face of our very naturally occurring perfectionism.
Sara Bybee Fisk: Yeah, this is so relevant to everyone who wants something and doesn't get it to go into like blaming and trying to figure it out rather than to just feel that feeling of disappointment. And I mean, I know this is probably hitting the podcast episode in January, and there's a lot of post election, you know, feelings that people are trying to work through by not just feeling the feeling of disappointment or grief or worry or whatever it is. And I love that you're, Focus, like, what's so terrible about just feeling the feeling?
Priyanka Venugopal: And I think for, for women like us, at least for me, it feels sometimes either indulgent or complacent. For me to say to my, my son, for example, like, I know it's, you're disappointed, like, and just sitting with it, it feels almost like we're ignoring their disappointment or we're not fixing, you know, if we're not fixing it, we're being complacent in solving the problem. And this is where I think we go awry. This is why we go into punishment and criticism, because we think that that's more active than And what I kind of want to offer to anyone listening to this is when we're really leaned in to allowing an emotion, it's actually a very active sport, feeling worry or discouraged after the selection. It's an active sport to allow the emotion. And at the same time, so there's two things that can be true at the same time, so I can allow this emotion and at the same time, playful scientist is not just sitting on the bench not doing anything, playful scientist is like, huh, this experiment didn't work. I wonder why. I wonder what was, you know, it's so curious, it's active. It's like, I wonder what I might want to do differently next week. Next time that, you know, my son's already like, next time I run, I'm going to change the thumbnail. I'm like, well, is that really what the issue was? But okay. Right. So like already coming into our strategy and our next solution from a, it's a place of wisdom. It's not complacent to allow an emotion because we're going to do. Action at the same time.
Sara Bybee Fisk: And I think this action that you're talking about is part of the second piece that I wanted to dive into you and that's accepting that there is going to be effort involved. So one of the efforts involved is feeling feelings. Yep. In that very active, loving, generous, present way. I also just love that you said that when our brain is conditioned in the planning mode that this feels so good and excited and motivated and all of those feelings come to the surface that really kind of fuel action. I, gosh, I identify with that so much. And then just, there's a failure, right? Or the plan doesn't go the way we want. And my brain says, see, it's not working. Go back to planning.
Priyanka Venugopal: Right. It's a fascinating pattern to catch. Like, and I think that, you know, when I think about that moment of putting an effort, the example I'm thinking of is like, okay, it's time. I said at this o'clock, I'm going to read this chapter in this GYN book. I have to read it for my oral boards. There will be a very normal moment, nothing is going wrong when our brain's like, Oh, I don't want to. Oh, like I would rather watch a movie or I'd rather like, you know, just chill with my husband. That's normal. Our brain is just making a suggestion. She's just making a little suggestion to avoid putting forth the full effort, because putting forth the full effort of opening the chapter and reading this book, I'm asking my brain to stretch. I'm actually asking my brain to challenge itself to learn new information. There's an expenditure of energy there. So I think this is one of those things, like, if we are actually anticipating, our brain might offer us an urge to go off track and to procrastinate and to scroll our phone. And I think overachievers will procrastinate to work. So we may not open up our phone, but we'll go hold the laundry. Or clean the kitchen rather than opening the chapter because it's productive, right? So there are so many brilliant ways that our brain is like, let's just not put forth the full effort now because there's like this irritation in our brain to stretch and I'm like We need to learn how to welcome and not just welcome Fall in love with that piece of the process of putting forth the full effort and stretching and growing and learning Because when we do that Then, taking action starts to become so much simpler.
Sara Bybee Fisk: Okay, so the obvious question, at least for me, is how do we learn to fall in love with the irritation of feeling the challenge and expending that energy?
Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, so I love that you're asking this. I teach this framework, I call it the ABCDE framework. Let me just tell you each piece of the process. A is awareness and acknowledgment, B is breath, taking a beat, C is courage, D is love. D is do it anyway, E is elate and evaluate. So I'm going to tell you why I told you this framework. So there's that moment that comes where your brain is going to be like, I don't feel like it. I'm supposed to work on this project. That's what's on the calendar. That's a decision I made. And the moment will come like, Oh, I don't feel like it. Let's go do something else. Instead. The first step is being aware of that sentence. Oh, this is just me wanting to not. Follow the plan. I'm so used to just procrastinating. We're not making ourselves wrong. We're not adding the judgment and the, oh, I can't believe you, Brooke. Of course. I like to get a little like humorous with myself. I'm like, of course, I want to go and watch the movie instead of read this chapter. Like who wouldn't? So playfulness, I'm aware. I'm acknowledging it. Be his breath. Just be his breath. Taking a beat and breathing. I like to think of a box breathing. Breathing in for four, holding it for four, out for four, holding it for four. Calms our nervous system. So when we have an urge to not follow through, instead of reacting to it, we can respond. Instead of reacting, we can take a minute and just, we're like proving to ourselves we're safe. This chapter is not a lion that I need to run away from. It's totally okay. Seize courage. This is the moment I'm saying it's uncomfortable to put in the full effort to open the chapter to read this one. I don't feel like it. I'm not motivated at all right now. There's a courage there. Courage doesn't feel good. It feels like, well, actually, do it anyway. That's D, do it anyway. So whatever you had on the plan, do it anyway. And when you do it after doing A, B, and C, you don't need willpower to do it anyway. You actually do it from a very different place, from that place of courage, that place of like, I've got this, let's go. And then E is elate and evaluate. E is celebrating following through, recognizing yourself, like, girl, look at what we just did. We just followed through on the chapter. Go us, pat on the back. It actually releases dopamine to celebrate you taking the action you said you would. And your brain gets rewired. It's like, oh, that felt really good to do what we said we were going to do. Maybe we should do that again. And as you do that again and again and again, and then you evaluate, it's like evaluating, did I put this chapter at the right time in my week? Did I build it in on a Friday at eight o'clock? Maybe next time we don't do that, right? Next time when I'm going to build in this chapter, maybe I don't do it Friday night movie night time. Maybe I, so now evaluation is going to allow us to be dynamic with our decisions. We get to remake decisions, change decisions, and rinse and repeat.
Sara Bybee Fisk: I love this, especially Elate and Evaluate, because one common, common, common thing that I see is overachievers don't celebrate. We don't get a pat on the back for just doing what we are supposed to do. And so that's how this kind of grind. becomes, I mean, we hope that other people notice us and other people celebrate us. And if like, that's kind of the most we can hope for is to, you know, get that pat on the back or the recognition, but to just give that to yourself is such a beautiful thing.
Priyanka Venugopal: And it's hard even to this day. And I've been doing this now for years and it's work that I feel so passionate about. Even to this day, I feel it's hard for me to receive acknowledgement from myself. Even to this day, I think a lot of us are ready to move on to the next goal. Or we think, you know, if I lost a pound, it wasn't really enough. I'm actually just making up for yesterday anyway, so does it really count? Can I really celebrate this? Keeps this perpetual not enoughness with whatever goal we are hitting. And I think that's why we perpetually feel deprived of pride. Right? We're constantly chasing and making more plans because we haven't taken that pause to stop and recognize ourselves for the effort we are putting forth. No wonder our brain doesn't repeat the pattern. Every time, if I'm not celebrating, the way that I am showing up. If I'm not celebrating myself for following through, why would my brain repeat the pattern?
Sara Bybee Fisk: It has no motivation to. That is such a good point. Like if I'm not building in that celebration and that really, that joy of like recognition, self recognition, why would my brain want to do it again? And especially when there's a cookie right there, where there is a very definite pattern. of feeling good, at least for the moments when I'm eating it.
Priyanka Venugopal: Food like Cool Ranch Doritos and cookies are chemically going to just release, they're going to do the work for you. Yeah. So that's the effort, right? So the cookie is, our brain's going to want the lowest effort option. Scrolling and the cookie and the chips is the fastest way to have that. dopamine and endorphin release. We're here talking about what if there was another way to create that feeling of feeling good. I often think about my daughter. She is now six and I think about, you know, every time, so she's into soccer and imagine with our children, and I think a lot of us have done this. So this is you again, me too. If we only celebrate her scoring goals, and that's the only time we celebrate her. That's the only time I clap for her when the ball goes into the net. What does she subconsciously learn? She learns, oh, I'm only worth celebrating when I make a goal. And so no amount of her practice, no amount of her drills, no amount of her effort or running around the field, even if she assisted on every other goal, will just not be enough. Because at some point she's learning the lesson, my mom is only clapping for me when I make a goal. This is what all of us have unfortunately and inadvertently have happened to ourselves when we were really little. Like, I remember the big people in my life, like when I got an A, they're like, Priyanka, that's really good. Good job. The lesson I learned is, oh, this is when I am good. Not that the A was good. I learned, oh, Priyanka is good when she gets an A. Priyanka is good when she gets this answer correct. So, like, notice there's so many ways that we've been programmed where just the result is worth celebrating and not the effort to get there. What about all the effort of studying? Of opening the chapter? Of, you know, waking up early or sleeping late and doing the committed work? Imagine if you celebrated that.
Sara Bybee Fisk: Oh, it just, you've just given me another layer of understanding because celebrating is something that I do with my clients. We do it in group coaching. I'm like, tell me what's good. Tell me what's working. And I say all the time, like we celebrate awareness. Like I noticed I don't like this thing anymore. I noticed a dynamic. I can't change it yet. I'm not to where I have the skills yet to actually do something different. But what we're creating rewards around the patterns we want our brain to repeat, which is the effort, putting in the effort, not actually even getting the desired result. Because you know, this from working with your own clients, people pleasing and coming out of people pleasing and perfectionism is a journey of a thousand steps, right? And, and for, for a lot of the people listening to this people pleasing is the cookie. Right? Like it's the fastest way to a dopamine hit. If I'm feeling the tension of someone wanting something or needing something from me, the easiest way to feel good is to just do it for them. And I get that momentary hit. And then later I'm like, gosh, why did I agree to this? Or why did I say I would do this? You're really helping me better understand why the celebration piece is so important, because if we only celebrate the moments when we don't people please when we stick to the plan, when we make the goal, there's a loss of opportunity to celebrate all the effort that gets us there and that makes that effort that recognize it as an essential part of the plan and not just all the terrible things we have to do to get to the part where we get to celebrate making the goal.
Priyanka Venugopal: And I'm not sure how, you know, people feel about the word celebration. For me, celebration has always felt like a lot of pressure. For, this is just, so for, for anyone that feels like, oh, I, I can't just celebrate my effort. That feels like it's not like matching, I can only celebrate a win. If that's you, even to me, what has landed much more deeply than even celebration is just acknowledgement. Just like putting a hand on my heart, this takes literally 60 seconds. I'm so proud of the effort you put today. That is it. It's like when I tell my daughter, like, I loved how hard you ran across the field. You know, when I say that to her, her little face, she was like this tiny little face. She has this huge smile on her face. Mom noticed me running across the field. And it's, it sounds, these are like such tiny little examples, but imagine that we threaded in these little moments of acknowledgement throughout our day. And this might feel really disconcerting because without realizing it, a lot of overachieving women are not feeling good. A lot of the time we're feeling perpetually behind or inadequate or worried or overwhelmed. So this is a pathway to feel better. It might feel actually disconcerting. Like, can I actually, can I actually feel good right now? And I want you to just go on a, go on a playful experiment with me. Try for 30 days where you really acknowledge and recognize yourself in the process. It might be a game changer.
Sara Bybee Fisk: Oh, it will be. It will be. Because the times that I have done this, the times I, like, I have had clients tell me, like, I, Think of things all the time now to celebrate because I know that that's what you are wanting me to do, right? So it does rewire your brain in that way. Oh, this has just been such an important Valuable conversation. What have we is there anything that we haven't talked about that you wanted to make sure? that you get in here.
Priyanka Venugopal: I feel people could talk about like hours and hours on this topic and kind of go off on like tangents and offshoots. I think that a lot of times women, again, they think that their hormones are out of whack, 35 and up, you're feeling like a slew of stress and fatigue and overwhelm and you're struggling with weight loss or libido or, you know, your energy. And yes, in certain scenarios, it might be hormones, but more often than not, it is unchecked stress. It is high levels of cortisol that is just running awry and it's running awry not because of what your boss said or the time you have or what your partners that are dead, but it's how we are engaging with these sticky moments, how we are engaging with the challenges and obstacles of our life. And that's where I think we have so much. more control than we realize. Cortisol on its own, I think of as like a little superhero. It's designed to help us survive. Little amounts of cortisol is so good for survival, but I feel like with a lot of overachieving women, we're just letting it run amok and eventually it plays a role physically, physiologically with our body.
Sara Bybee Fisk: I heard that when you said that so many of us, and I do this, often we overwork to try to get out of the overwhelm and we double down on more effort, doing more, giving more, staying later, and I know that I never had anyone explain to me like, Hey, there is this little superhero in your body, cortisol, that when you get used to too much of that cortisol, or when cortisol becomes like the driving factor, everything feels like panicky and frenzied and pressure y and so stressful. What else? Do you think, just maybe from a medical standpoint, what is important for us to know about cortisol? And then engaging in those sticky moments from a mindset perspective, what would you want people to know?
Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. I think, so this is like a, this is a complex topic, but just to simplify cortisol, cortisol drives up urges and cravings. At a just a super fundamental level, sometimes we think, Oh, I just love food. That was me. He used to tell me, I just love food so much. And I still consider myself a foodie. But the reason that I have these really strong, what feels like compelling urges. is because I had high levels of cortisol and my brain was trying to get me a break. So that's the very first reason. And to me, that's a compelling enough reason for why do we want to do this work of navigating stress, navigating our emotions, understanding how to, to really take care of ourselves in those moments is just this. Cortisol drives urns and cratings. Cortisol also Contributes to belly fat, actual physiology for how like high levels of cortisol our brain is thinking if you just imagine a kind of evolutionarily, if we have high levels of stress and cortisol, our brain is assuming there's a threat. There's a lion outside the cave or we are in deep danger and we better store resources as a safety and survival mechanism. It's why we store fat, especially belly fat around our visceral organs, because we have high levels of cortisol. And the third thing that I think is interesting with cortisol is it also leads to insulin resistance. So it's, it's just interesting, right? So when we have high stress, because again, right, our brain thinks there's a line outside the cave. It's going to release sugar into our glucose, into our bloodstream to make us fight or flight. And eventually that leads to insulin resistance. So it's like, if you can see the cycle on its own in small amounts, stress is not a problem. It gets you outta bed, gets you places on time, but when it goes running amuck. It's having a lot of these downstream effects that can be really harmful, not just physically, like belly fat and changing, you know, insulin resistance and physical ramifications, but how we are feeling in our life, in the prime time of our life. We're feeling overwhelmed and stressed all the time. And I don't think any of us at the age of six or seven thought, I want to be an adult who feels stressed and overwhelmed all the time. Right? So the only way out, my friends, is we have to take ownership of it, we have to take charge of it. It's possible. Totally possible to do.
Sara Bybee Fisk: If someone is wanting a few pointers. To take charge. Where would you have them start?
Priyanka Venugopal: So I would say that there's, I would think that there's like a structural piece and a mindset piece. The structural piece, and this is one of the things that I think is so important that we come out with it when we're evaluating from a playful scientist lens, is actually making realistic science informed decisions around your life. So if you have a weight loss goal, having science informed strategy to become a fat burner, making you sure you have the right nutrition, that you're eating enough, that you're eating appropriately to actually fuel your hormone pathways and your fat burning pathways, right? This is actual strategy. Actually building in structurally into your day and your week, guilt free rest. and play and movement. Right? So when we make those decisions, now we have a plan, right? The plan that we all love. We all love a plan. We need to have that plan. It has to be informed by, by realistic structure and strategy. And then the second piece is there's going to be a moment. So we have to accept that moment that it comes to putting the plan into action. It'll feel uncomfortable. If we're used to procrastinating, or if we're used to negotiating, or we're used to giving ourselves exit strategies, following through on a plan might feel a little uncomfortable. And this is where you can go through A, B, C, D, E. Right, being aware, catching it, nothing is going wrong, your brain is being very brilliant. To avoid putting forth the effort, take a breath, calm your nervous system, feel courage and do it anyway. And the celebrate or acknowledge yourself for the effort.
Sara Bybee Fisk: As a woman who has a plan for what I'm supposed to do today This feels really really good and I'm just so grateful for the really thoughtful way you've broken this down if People listening want to know where they can find you and learn more about the science, the mindset, and how you help your clients lose weight and actually keep it off as you have done. Where should they go?
Priyanka Venugopal: So I am Burn Stress, Lose Weight everywhere on the internet. That's my podcast. I'm on Instagram and I love chatting on Instagram. So you can send me a DM and let me know what you thought about this episode and what you're taking away. And if you have a question, send me a DM. We'll chat. We'll chat on Instagram and definitely the podcast. I think that that's where I deliver a lot of real stories and I do not hold back or filter anything. I think of myself as a very open book. So I share real life fails and real stories and. again, how I playfully evaluate them and science and strategy. That is my number one mission for women to have science informed strategy. I don't want you having gimmicks and fads where you lose water weight and muscle mass. I've seen plenty of just, you know, do this detox and do that cleanse and just do no flour, no sugar, and maybe you're going to lose the weight. I want you to have science informed strategies. So we do that on the podcast.
Sara Bybee Fisk: Well, I could not recommend it more. And Priyanka, thank you so much for being here today.
Priyanka Venugopal: It's been amazing. Thanks for having me. I hope you all enjoyed this interview that I did with Sara over on her podcast, the Ex Good Girl podcast. It was one of my favorite conversations. I love talking about topics that touch professional women in every corner of their life. And I know that you and I, you and I both know that planning is a big part of it. You love to be efficient and productive and your time is so valuable. So we, it makes a lot of sense. We want to plan, but I cannot tell you how often I am finding that we are wasting bucket loads and I mean hours of time per week planning improperly, not making decisive decisions, not knowing how to feel uncomfortable when it comes to executing the plan that we have. When it comes to not knowing how to make a mistake and then have a strategy to get right back on, like you never left off. These are pieces of the strategy. I mean, I can just now go on and on and on. These are the pieces of the strategy that are missing in proper planning. And it's what we address in spades in the Unstoppable group. So if this episode resonated with you, if you loved the story and the background and what I shared, I want you to just trust your intuition that maybe it's time for us to work together. If that is you, don't wait, head over to www.burnstressloseweight.com/group and apply so that we can decide if this group would be a best fit for you. I hope you all have an amazing, amazing day. I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode and you're leaving feeling a little lighter, a little bit more inspired. And if you loved it, share it with a friend. I hope you guys have a great day. Bye. Thanks for spending this time with me on the burn stress little speed podcast today. I hope that you are leaving today's podcast episode, feeling a little lighter and more inspired than when we started, it turns out that you don't need to have a stress free life to hit your goals on and off the scale, but when you feel more empowered to respond to your real life stresses with true strategy, we will game change how we show up and how we hit our goals. If you want to take what you're learning here on the podcast and put it into real life implementation, it might be time for us to work together in the Burn Stress Lose Weight Feel Unstoppable Group Coaching Program. Head over to burnstressloseweight.com and you can learn all of the details, the nuts, the bolts, when the next group is starting and exactly how you can join. Okay, friend, I'll see you next time.