Summary 

Today I’m sharing my journey from being an overweight OBGYN to a stress and fat loss coach for professional working moms. I’m discussing the realization that being smart isn't enough to achieve weight loss goals and the sneaky procrastination tactics that often hold high achievers back. This interview, hosted by Laura Conley, offers a fresh perspective on overcoming personal struggles and achieving lasting change. Tune in to learn how to break free from the cycle of procrastination and start taking meaningful steps towards your dream body goals.

Laura Conley is a weight loss coach and founder of the Yummy Mummy method and Yummy Mummy podcast. She helps moms lose weight for the last time and be an example to their kids while getting food freedom.

Laura’s Links:

Website: https://www.lauraconley.com/ 

Podcast: Yummy Mummy Podcast

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lauraconleycoaching/  

Be sure to check out my private podcast and discover the steps to burn stress + fat for lasting weight loss here: https://www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• The moment that sparked my transformation journey.
• How perfectionism and procrastination can hinder weight loss.
• The importance of understanding the science behind stress and fat loss.
• The value of having a coach for real-time support and accountability.
• Insights into the challenges faced by professional women and moms in achieving their health goals.

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Featured on the Show:

• Want to work with me? Learn about The Unstoppable Group by clicking here.
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• Laura’s Podcast: https://www.lauraconley.com/podcast 
• Laura’s IG: https://www.lauraconley.com/podcast 
• Laura’s website: https://www.lauraconley.com/ 

Download the full transcript here.

• Priyanka Venugopal: Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. I am not doing much of an introduction. I'm actually jumping in to share today's podcast episode where I was interviewed by my good friend, Laura Conley on her podcast. And it was such a good episode where I talk about being a smart high achiever and how being smart enough is not enough to lose the weight you want, how we have sneaky procrastination tactics. Especially as high achievers and what to do about it. This interview, sometimes I think that these interview episodes are really fun where I am not the interviewer, but the interviewee. I think that you all get to hear my perspective in a slightly different way than when I am talking on the podcast or interviewing another guest. And Laura was kind enough to let me share this episode on my podcast. So without further ado, let's just jump into this interview where we are talking about being smart and having some really sneaky procrastination tactics.

  Laura Conley: Let's welcome my guest Priyanka. She's been on the pod before you guys might recognize her. So Priyanka, give us a little intro about who you are, what you do, tell us about your family, where you live, and then tell us a little bit about your personal struggle with weight loss.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Thank you, Laura. I first have to say I also gravitate towards conversations like that when people are passionate about what they're talking about, which is what I love about you. So if you are new to me, or if you don't know me, hello, I am Dr. Priyanka Venugopal. I'm a board certified OBGYN physician turned stress and fat loss coach for type A professional working moms. You know, when I really think about my journey, I would say up until 2018, 2019, I had a very similar story to probably many, many of you that are listening, which is I had been on the weight loss struggle bus, or we can call it the roller coaster, we can call it the merry go round, we can kind of whatever label you kind of feel resonates with you, where it was an up and down experience, but also was a slow creep up. So while it was a roller coaster, it was not going back down to what it used to go back down to. It was a roller coaster that kept trending upward. And I had a serious moment. This was after my daughter was born. My son was three and a half at the time. My daughter was born. She was like six months old and they crossed the 200 pound mark. And there was something about that moment, you know, when that third digit changed that I felt like I had this makeup call that I am sitting here in my mid to late thirties. I have worked so hard my whole entire life to get to this point, you know, medical school and residency and early attending life and handling these two kids and having the perfect, you know, schedule for my family and I'm looking around and I'm like, is this it? Like I worked really hard and is this it? I'm feeling so uncomfortable in my skin. I'm feeling so frustrated with. The fads and the diet, because I had tried all the things, right? Like you, what you've talked about, calories and points and exercise six days a week, and like, don't eat a piece of cheesecake, all of the things. And I just felt so frustrated. So I remember that that was really the moment that I had an awakening, which was, if being smart was. the solution,  I would have solved the problem. And I think many of us listening to this podcast, probably I'm like, I'm a smart person, right? Like we have figured out so many things in our life yet. Like this thing is the one thing that has kind of gotten away from us or the thing that we feel we have a struggle with. And that was when I realized. It's not smarts that was going to solve this problem. There was something else there. And that was when I really started to do a deep dive. Number one, I discovered coaching through a podcast like this. And I just went down the rabbit hole. And that was when my eyes started to open around the science of fat loss, the science of stress and not understanding the science of how our brains are working is getting in the way of hitting our dream body goals, dream body goals. And so I started to really incorporate a lot of that into my personal life. I started to really burn stress at the root and not a surprise, burn fat at the root. And I lost a little over 60 pounds. And then a few years ago, I decided to leave clinical practice and I created the Unstoppable Mom Brain. And now I'm on a mission to help other professional working moms have the same.

  Laura Conley: Oh, that's so good. Okay. Can you talk a little bit? This isn't procrastination related, but I think it's really helpful. Can you talk a little bit about being an OB? And like, I could see myself like 10 years ago, I go to my doctor and I'm probably frustrated in the appointment because I'm on the same struggle bus that you were on. And I think so many of us look to our OBGYNs for advice. And And I wonder, like, did that ever show up in your practice? I think we turn to our doctors oftentimes, but they don't necessarily have the answers. And so I just wonder if you could speak to that a little bit.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Absolutely. This is such a good question, Laura. Thank you for asking this. I did see it all the time. I think, you know, I had a little bit of this. I don't know if embarrassment is the right word, but I was an overweight physician. I was an overweight OBGYN. And so I want you to think about like the picture, right? So patients coming to me talking about their struggle with their weight and here I am struggling with my weight. So first I want to start by saying that physicians as much education as they have, they're also human and they do have their struggles and you don't learn in medical school what we teach in coaching. You don't learn emotional resilience. You don't learn how to burn stress at the root. In fact, In medical school, what I learned was just work harder, just work more, just push through your fatigue, push through that stress you're having because you have to get the a, you have to learn these skills to be a good physician. So in fact, not only did I not learn the skills that, you know, we talk about in coaching, but I learned a lot of the opposite, a lot of my habits. It came because of my training. And so I just want to start by saying, you know, your physician is a human too. And I was, again, an overweight physician, which just says a lot. So that's the first thing.

  Laura Conley: I just want to also just highlight there, cause I think it's so good. It's like we've been brought up. In diet culture and then so many of the career tracks that we choose then promote hustle culture and like those two together a recipe for disaster, right? I'm going to go on Priyanka's podcast and we're going to talk about having fun losing weight. I think that's what we're going to talk about at least. Oh, yeah. It's so good. It's like diet culture and hustle culture put together. It's like, well, you can't possibly have fun because that's not going to work, right? And so. I think it's so ironic, like, push harder, do better, you know all the things, come on. And then you feel even stupider, like, I don't know about you Priyanka, but it's like, okay, now I have all this training, all this education, I've gotten through medical school, residency, and I still can't, like, Right. I know for me, I would feel like so ashamed, and I feel like so many of us are doing that to ourselves unknowingly. And it's not our fault. Like, I just wanna say that like, it's totally not our fault. It's just like the air that we breathe. It's like the water that we swim in. Being in hustle and diet, culture.

  Priyanka Venugopal: And like, I also just wanna say if anyone has ever, 'cause I, I've heard my clients tell me this, like, you know, I know what to do up here, right? Like, I know what to do, but I'm just not doing it. And what I want to always offer is, again, this, this. premise of it isn't your fault because the modern industrious food industry has crafted the perfect bite. They have crafted the perfect crunch to taste ratio to light up your brain. So we have to acknowledge that that didn't exist 50 years ago. You're not just weak or incapable or have no discipline. You just didn't understand that there was a science in your brain that They have been basically using against you. So I just have to say that like, it's never your fault, but kind of coming back to your original question, I think, and this is probably what even prompted me to leave clinical practice and become a coach, but so many of my patients between the ages of 35 or after they had their first baby, I would say 35 to 55 would come in with The most common complaints would be fatigue, weight gain and low libido. And here I was as a physician. So I want you to kind of like, yeah, and I kind of want to position side of it. My roster of patients was not dictated by me. It was dictated by an office manager, by administration of how many patients I had to see in a given time period. And I'm trying to get through a patient after patient. And again, my approach to medicine has always been. Very holistic, like I'm trying to see the person as a whole human and not just the breast exam, not just the belly exam, not just the heart and lungs, but I want to hear about you as a human. And I think as a physician, what we try to do and what we're trying to do is to help the person in front of us to the best of our capacity. And it's virtually impossible in a 20 minute annual visit or in a 20 minute OBGYN visit, or maybe if you're a new patient, 30 minutes. to cover all of the things that you deserve as a patient to be heard. Like every patient deserves to have all these problems met, but it's like this mismatch. I call it like the big mismatch of what physicians want to do for their patients and what they have the capacity to handle. But I would say it was a huge complaint. So fatigue, Weight gain and low libido and what I would find myself doing, especially before and this is before coaching is how to really help address a lot of the root problems for why are my patients fatigued? Why are they having waking? Why are they having low libido? And it's often because they're putting everyone else and everything else ahead of themselves. And again, this is something that's taught to us by society, the patriarchy for what it means to be kind of a working mom, to be a woman, right? Um, and I think after becoming a coach, I started to really see so many common threads on tendencies that women had that was really holding back a lot of their results. So it's one of those things where you try to address it, but I'm also here to address people's medical health. And so it was hard to do.

  Laura Conley: I think that what you're saying is just proving that we all need a coach. We need a coach. We can't, our doctors can't be responsible for everything because of the system. It's really like the system. It's not the doctor's fault. It's, it's really our system. And so it's like, you need a coach.

  Priyanka Venugopal: If you're coming for an annual, physicians are seeing you once a year. If you maybe have a problem visit, you might come back in six weeks or in two or three months. But what we're talking about, I think with coaching, one of the hugest differences and the biggest impact is having somebody in your corner in real time that is helping you in real time. There's nothing that compares to that. A physician can't do that, right?

  Laura Conley: It's not even their job. It's just it kind of falls on them because we're not trained to hire coaches, right? I think that's a huge kind of hump for us as professionals is like to train our audience that like, We all need coaches. Like I just watched myself the other day, we hired a financial coach and really a financial planner and advisor. And it's like for 10 years, I've had like save X or do by will, or do all the things that. Are involved with what we're going to do with our financial planner. Right. And it's like, it's been on my list. Like I've known that I should be doing it, but I couldn't get myself to do it until I hired this financial planner slash coach. Right. And. Because I just thought, well, I've read the books. Like my dad's a financial planner. Like I should be able to do this on my own. Like I'm not an idiot. I know how to press the buttons and like fidelity. com, but unless I have a coach, I'm, I'm just not going to do it to your point about having those regular check, like accountability is huge. Just having someone in your corner, supporting you is huge and doctors cannot be responsible for that. So anyways, I know that's a bit of a tangent. Let's go, unless you have something to speak on that.

  Priyanka Venugopal: No, I think that that's such a valid point. It kind of goes back to the whole, like, just being smart enough. doesn't actually move the needle. Just being smart enough does not do it. Right. So I think it's really understanding that there's a strategy to taking action. And again, you don't see what you don't see, right? Like you don't see your blind spots in a way that you on your own, the way that you would.

  Laura Conley: I think this conversation has really like, It kind of made me go, Oh, because I've always said, if you feel like all the things and you can't get yourself to do them around diet and nutrition or whatever, it's because you don't have the mindset, which I still think is true. But just talking to you right now, it's also because you don't have a coach. Like. It's really that it's really that simple. And I mean, you and I obviously both teach mindset and like you said, emotional resiliency. So talk a little bit about how procrastination can show up in weight loss and maybe throwing in the towel. And we said before we hit record in a little bit around like hiring someone to help you. So this is kind of a nice dovetail because I think a lot of us do procrastinate. I mean, I know I have.

  Priyanka Venugopal: I did for like 20 years. So I think, yeah, I think that that's the thing. And this is kind of a part of the intention of what I even wanted to share. I think, especially for professional women, procrastination can be. Really sneaky. It's not always, so sometimes it's like what you think of it as, right? Like you're scrolling Instagram instead of like working on your work project or you're like net binging Netflix, right. Rather than like answering your emails at work or, or something like that. But what I found in a lot of my experience, because I never really thought of myself as a procrastinator. I never thought of myself as a perfectionist. Like I don't identify as these labels because I'm like barely I'm getting through, right? Like I'm actually getting through my day. I'm getting the groceries. I'm paying my bills. I didn't think of myself in this way, but I would say when we really kind of peel back the layers and take inventory of what has really been in the way. Between me and my dream goal, my dream body goal for me to lose the weight. What is actually, if you had to map out a course and there's a finish line, what have been the obstacles that have been in my way? I think when I kind of look back at that, it, the number one reason is some flavor of procrastination. And I think it's important to kind of see where procrastination comes from. I know for me, I didn't identify as a perfectionist, but it comes from, I call these like secret, not so secret definitions of perfectionism, because perfectionism is, it's not someone who always gets A's. It's not someone who's perfectly organized. It's not somebody who gets results faster. It's not someone who's more efficient with their time. Would it, because that's what I thought perfectionism was.

  Laura Conley: Yeah, it can show up that way, but it can show up in so many other ways too. Right.

  Priyanka Venugopal: So what I found for me, and this was kind of my own, why, why did I ever get to 200 pounds? Why did I ever struggle with weight? For me, the real definition and how it applies to me. I think for a lot of professional women is it is waiting to feel a certain way, waiting to feel more confident, more certain, more comfortable before you take action. So we want our conditions to be a little bit better before we take action. So this would look like I want anyone listening to this to be like, where does this show up in my life? This will look like you wanting to research a little bit more, or you'll find yourself planning a little bit more making another to do list. You are someone that maybe loves A good fresh start. You love Monday morning. You love the first of the month. New Year's is like a high. You get a high on New Year's Day. You are someone that thinks often like, you know what, when enter season of life I'm in, when this season of life is over, then I will take action. So when the kids are a little bit older, when Tax season is over when summer vacation is over. When the holidays are over, then I will start taking action. You might be someone that ruminates a lot on making decisions. So either to make the decision, you'll roommate a lot. You'll think about the pros and the cons of what's the best strategy, or you'll make a decision and then you'll second guess it. You'll make a decision like she did it was the right decision. I don't know. Maybe I should go back Maybe I should make this decision. Maybe I should do a different way You're someone this is the one that is I think true for a lot of us You don't just procrastinate with instagram and netflix and just like tv you procrastinate to work So you will find other tiny tasks that are deemed productive Instead of doing what you should be doing So maybe rather than planning your meals for the next day you start cleaning the kitchen or you start making your laundry list of to do's that you need to get done by the weekend rather than taking care of the goals like that would be ill for you. Another one that is huge I think is, I was mentioning you make to do list after to do list that creates a lot of overwhelm. And because you're procrastinating or procrastinate working, you have now more to do the next day and then you try to overwork. So now you're trying to make up for yesterday's delinquency by overworking. And then this ultimately leads to getting really mean, self criticism because you're just not getting done what you said you were going to do. So I think if we took a solid inventory of how this is showing up for women across the board, especially moms, listen, if you're listening to this podcast, you're likely a mom. You're amazing and probably doing multiple things. I want you to just think about how and where is this showing up? Because if it's showing up in one area of your life, one corner, it is probably showing up in lots of little ways and lots of corners. And it is going to be the reason that you don't hit your goal this year.

  Laura Conley: Yeah.

  Priyanka Venugopal: So that's like when I really was like, why have I not? I know what to do, but I'm not doing it. Yeah, I love that. It is because I kept waiting for myself to feel better, for me to feel more comfortable to take action. And it turns out that there's literally no such thing if you have a big goal.

  Laura Conley: Yeah, I think that's such a good question of like, okay, first of all, like, where did you identify with the goal? with the things that Priyanka listed, but also what's the, what's happening in that gap? You have this goal, like, why haven't you gotten there? And can you answer that from a place of curiosity and love? I think that's super helpful.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. And I think this kind of leads me to, because I don't want anyone to take this listen now villainize and use it to like,

  Laura Conley: No, it's actually great information. Like, it's just like, yeah, it's like, know thyself. It's like, look back. And I mean, I teach a concept called look back with love. And it's like, we're missing out on the gold. I'm like one of our mutual friends calls it like the buried treasure. Like we're missing out on it if we don't look back, but we're so trained to look back with shame and to look back with just so much judgment. And it's like, I always talk about like my kids, right? Like my son's learning to ride a bike. He falls off the bike. He doesn't make it mean that he sucks at life and that he's a failure and that he's never going to ride a bike. He's just like, Oh, made a mistake. I went up on the curb instead of staying on the sidewalk. Great. I won't go up on the curb next time. Right. It's like, how can we be that light with ourselves and that kind of open with ourselves? I mean, you can even take yourself, for example, like I always, Use like the skiing analogies, but like we're getting into pickleball, right? And it's like, I kind of suck at pickleball. I mean, I'm kind of good too, but I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised you are. Yeah. I mean, I'm a little competitive, just a little.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Can I just say Laura is my most competitive person. We were playing board games at like some event and like, I cannot even, I think I might have, and I'm not a very loud person usually during board games, but you brought the loud. So then I was bringing the loud and like, I think I lost my voice. The next day because it got competitive really fast. I'm not and I told him like, I'm not even that competitive. But like, I mean, That was good. Fun.

   

  Laura Conley: Yeah. I'm so competitive with board games. I'm a maniac, psychotic maniac. But my point is, is like, if I miss a pickleball shot or like, I don't get the taboo word or whatever. It's like, I don't make it mean anything, right? If you're building a skill like pickleball or skiing or riding a bike or whatever, if you make a mistake, you're like, Oh, I'm a beginner. And it's like, we don't think we're beginners at losing weight. Cause we've been trying for 20 years or some of us. Maybe not so much because I do get clients that like, it's just become a problem. And I'm sure you do too. But my point here is like, we actually, this is a new skill. We actually haven't learned how to lose weight permanently. We actually haven't learned how to heal at the root. So of course, we're going to make.

  Priyanka Venugopal: This is the other reason that we'll procrastinate. So I think I'm so glad you brought this up. So one of the, one of the biggest reasons that we haven't already hit the goal. If you're really being curious about it, why have we hidden from the data? So maybe last weekend you didn't follow your quote unquote plan. Maybe you gained a pound. Maybe you had a girl's trip or a big issue. Come back in the scales up. Maybe you don't even weigh yourself. You don't even weigh yourself because you're hiding from the data. That's a form of procrastination. And the reason that we are doing that is because we are so afraid. Of the judgment and the criticism that we are going to feel self inflicted by the way that we hide from the data we hide from. I wonder what it was that made me overeat. I wonder what it was because we just literally have not trained ourselves to talk to ourselves in the kindest way. And that's, again, it's just another habit. This is actually the work of Renee Brown. She talks a lot about if you just. Do better we learned perfectionism is actually if you just do better or you are better that somehow you will avoid Judgment shame and criticism when in fact all that it's doing is like adding this 20 pound backpack to your journey, right? It's like no wonder we have to keep taking breaks from weight loss because we've made it really heavy.

  Laura Conley: Yeah. Yeah. We've made it mean so much about who we are and whether we're good or bad or right or wrong or successful as a person or a failure as a person. Yeah, it's so true. And I love that you brought up Renee because I actually think if we can get ourselves to look back at our quote unquote mistake or whatever, if we can learn from the girls trip when we ate off quote unquote plan, The shame kind of starts to go poof, especially when you talk about it with a coach or you write it down, it starts to go poof because shame hates the spotlight. Like it can't live in the spotlight. It really does start to disintegrate when you look at it.

  Priyanka Venugopal: And this is like, you know, why are we ever hiding? Like, you know, and I think that this is, I want to also normalize, like, even to this day, I will hide from results. Like, it's not something that necessarily has to go away completely. You don't have to recover. I think that's really important to kind of note. You don't have to recover from perfectionism or recover from procrastination. It's just getting to know your tendencies, getting to catch, Oh, this is me hiding. This is me hiding from myself. Oh, this is, that was me being mean to myself. Just getting to catch it gets to become the greatest self, like the greatest discovery of how you're going to be with yourself. And guess what? If you're a mom, You get to pass that on to your children. I, you know, my daughter is now, she's five and a half. And there's one thing, which is lip service. Like I can tell her, be nice to yourself, be kind. She's like really into soccer right now. And she, when she misses a goal, she gets really like, she makes a space and she stamps her foot. And I'm like, I could just tell her like, it's okay. You'll get it next time. But if I'm not doing that with myself, I'm not modeling that behavior. She will not learn it. She'll be like, yep, mom said a good talk, but I don't believe her. Yeah. So if you want your children to believe you, you have to go first.

   

  Laura Conley: Yeah, I think that's so good. And I always talk about like, I really want us as moms to pass down like a legacy that we're proud of around the way that we see our bodies and our weight and our relationship with food. But really what I'm excited about is like the ability to pass down unconditional love. Towards ourselves, which is what you're saying, right? It's like, I think that's what unconditional love is, is like making a mistake or missing a goal and being mad or disappointed for sure. And then loving yourself in that mistake. And it's like, that's the best gift that we can give to our kids, our sons and our daughters, but kind of especially our daughters, because if we don't, it can show up as like, Martyrdom and victimhood and we just continue this legacy Around like we have to be the ones to do everything and we have to do more and a topic

  Priyanka Venugopal: I like i've been getting actually i've been talking a lot about so my clients is like There's going to come a point when your children are going to have thoughts about their bodies. And you know, maybe you'll go to your pediatrician and your pediatrician might tell your kid like, Hey, you know, we have to really pay attention to how we're taking care of our health because obesity is not just an adult thing. Like it starts at a really young age. And how do we want to frame the conversation where we're not villainizing our body, but we're not shaming our body and also really teaching our children healthy conversations around bodies and nutrients. And I think this is like just a conversation that if we don't feel comfortable having, how are we going to have it with them? So many of my friends, like, how do I talk? I don't want my child to think that I don't love them because of their weight, or I don't want my child to think this, right? So. We do that by us doing the work first, which I think is so essential.

  Laura Conley: Yeah. Oh, it's so true. I know people will ask like, Oh, can you teach a workshop on how to talk to our kids about their bodies or food? And I'm like, yeah, the workshop is like, it's an inside job. Like the workshop is you have to do it first. You have to be the one. And what I think is so cool is like, then as like, for me, it's not really that hard for me to do it. naturally teach my kids about food and nutrients and their bodies because I'm so grounded in my beliefs around it. It's like, it's really easy for me to teach my kids about relationships with other people because it's an area of my life that I'm very grounded. I know what I believe. I know what I think is right and wrong. And again, with food and bodies, like there's a spectrum, there doesn't even have to be right and wrong, but it's like, I think when we go down a self discovery process and really are willing to look inside and ask ourselves questions and find, okay, what do I believe about food or my body or the way my body looks? It's like, it's just so natural to pass it down. So, so yeah, we kind of got on a tangent. Is there anything else you want to say about procrastination.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, I think that my kind of mission is to help everyone that's listening. Just start to identify if you could plot a course and your dream ideal weight is waiting for you on the other side of this course, what's gotten in the way. And again, asking it with so much love and so much curiosity and compassion and patience and gentleness, it will be some form of procrastination. There is no life, no matter what, I don't, you could tell me anything. There's literally no life circumstance. Yeah. That ever should drive us to overeat. It actually takes more time, it takes more energy, it takes more effort to overeat than to not. So, if that was really the case, the only reason is because of some form of procrastination, whereas how is this showing up in my life? And I think that when we identify that, you could just start doing the work. Hire a coach. Yeah. Find someone to help you overcome that obstacle.

  Laura Conley: Yeah, so it kind of begs the question, I love the definition that Elizabeth Gilbert has around perfectionism. She's like, it's just fear dressed up in a mink coat and heels, right? I think that's probably part of the reason that we procrastinate is because we're scared that if we do take action, that we're going to fall on our face and that we're going to make it mean something negative about ourselves. So I just wonder if you could speak to that. to why as humans do we procrastinate? Yeah, this is so good. So this actually touches on even like, how do you start to handle it? How do you navigate that moment? That was my next question. Then once we know our patterns, like, well, what do we do about it?

  Priyanka Venugopal: So this is really good. So starting with the first one, like, why do we do this? Why do we have perfectionist tendencies? Why do we have fear of failure? Why is it that we ever procrastinate on something that we know we want? And it comes down really simply to our most Primitive reflexes want us to choose the lowest effort option. It's just that simple. Like it's bajillion years old, this trade, this characteristic that we have wants to choose the lowest effort option. So if there's a part of us, part of our brain is thinking, this is going to take a lot of effort. I might fail. This is going to take a lot. Like our brain has created, I call this, you know, a lot of convenient stories, I call this the three C's our primitive brain is really good coming up with convenient, compelling, convincing stories. Telling you they're going to sound like facts in your brain. Like if you're a mom, you might have felt like, I don't have enough time. I don't have enough time. You might've told yourself that that's a convenient, compelling, and convincing story to keep your status quo. And the reason that we do that, why are we keeping our status quo is because our primitive brain wants to expend zero effort. So this kind of leads me to what do we do about it? We have to decide that our goal, that dream body goal, is worth us putting in a little bit of effort, is worth us challenging our convenient, compelling, convincing stories because it matters more to us than our status quo. And I think that there is fear there. There is fear there, and I think what I found kind of time and time again is the solution to this is you set a goal, you find a strategy that you really believe in, and please let it not be a fad, something that's backed in science, and then you take scary action. This might be like a bigger pill for everyone to swallow, like, you know, there's going to be some like rainbows and daisies way of doing this. No, you have to feel courage, feel brave, and you take it feeling scared, doing it messy. Plan for it to be. Plan for it to be messy in advance and then decide how you're going to treat yourself on the way.

  Laura Conley: I love that because courage is not like the absence of fear, right? Courage is taking action when there is fear. And I think that's so brave. And people are like, yeah, I want to feel brave. Yeah. I want to feel courage, but like feeling courageous in your body actually sucks. Like it's not a very fun feeling. If you're willing to feel it.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. You're willing to feel it. You'll get what you want. Yeah. That's right. So like when people say, Oh, I want to, I want to feel brave. I want to feel what they really want to say, feel confident. What people are saying they want is because confidence feels really good. Confidence feels really good. Courage feels like crap. So, what we're actually saying is, Oh, I want to feel courage. No, you're, what you're saying is, I want to feel confident. But what we have to choose on purpose is, Oh, it turns out that because I have not created this result yet, I probably have a pile. If you are, have been on the merry go round roller coaster, right, that we talked about, you likely have a pile in the past of many attempts and many fails. And so, it makes sense that your brain's like, See, we haven't done it yet. We might not be able to do it. This is why you need courage, because you're not going to have confidence. You haven't done it yet. Yeah. You have to take courageous action to have confidence.

  Laura Conley: Exactly. That's exactly how I wanted to end this piece is like, the good news is like, you can use it as a carrot. Like if you are willing to be courageous, that will build the confidence because you've taken the action then and then you can see that you didn't die. Oh, I could do this. Yeah. Yes. My coach, Brooke Castillo talks about like. Courage leads to capability, which leads to confidence. And so if you don't want to be courageous, but you want your result, use it as a, use it as a little carrot. Use it like, okay, well, if, if what I want is to feel confident, the only way is through courage  and then capability and then confidence, which I think so many, I mean, I know my clients come to me and that's what they talk about over and over and over again. It's like, that's what we really want. So many of us.

  Priyanka Venugopal: And we're a little addicted. Listen, if I, and especially with my clients and I have coached now professional women for hundreds of hours, and the one thing I know is we love feeling confident. We've become a little addicted to feeling confident likely because it has created results. Like, you know, when you think about school, your training, like feeling confident was a good thing. You know, you want your physician to be a confident position, right? So it's been rewarded in so many subtle ways that we have. Really attached like it's good to be confident and what mean I think what Laura what we're talking about is like actually What if in the absence of confidence, it's like it's not a bad thing to not be confident You don't think that anything is going, nothing is going wrong if you don't feel confident yet.

  Laura Conley: You can't feel confident unless you take action. So I think that can help get through the procrastination. Okay, anything else we can do when we're noticing we're procrastinating? We're noticing, Oh, this is a tendency of mine.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, I think that's really like the very first thing is actually to just become aware. So many times we are procrastinating, we don't actually realize it because it's so subconscious is our brain. As brilliant as she is, has created a bajillion habits, subconscious habits that are actually driving procrastination that we're not aware of. So the very first step is just to become aware and like, call it out, right? Like actually name it like, this is me. This is, I would love, right? This is me procrastinating. This is me, like, this is me procrastinating and just becoming aware. It's like, it just changes the whole, it changes the whole picture because now it's not in your subconscious anymore. So once you've seen it, it's like, So you can't unsee it. Oh, this is me doing that thing I do.

  Laura Conley: Yeah. I want to add there too, because I love what you said, like, become aware without kind of beating yourself up. And if you guys can switch it, even push it even farther to like a party or a celebration, like I act because awareness. I hate awareness. I don't like the word. It doesn't sound fun to me.

  Priyanka Venugopal: We're going to have you on my podcast. We're going to talk about how to make it fun. I love it.

  Laura Conley: I'm just like, when you catch yourself having that moment where you're aware, like my knee jerk is to be like, Oh, I'm doing it again. It's like, no, it's like, Oh my God. Yes. I found it. Like, I want you to get so excited in that awareness moment. Like I always say, like, can you turn it into a dare? Like, can you dare? Dare yourself like aware to dare, like, can you dare yourself to actually be excited in this moment? Because I think it'll lead. I don't know what you're gonna say for step two But I think it'll make it easier to get to step two. So keep talking. I love it.

  Priyanka Venugopal: We have to we're gonna have to talk about this one more So the second step for me would be what emotion am I avoiding? What am I actually avoiding like me putting this off is my sub again? It's remember I have a convenient compelling convincing story for why I'm doing this. Where's the effort? There's a part of my brain that's like it takes a lot of effort to what feel what emotion?

   

  Laura Conley: Mm hmm.

  Priyanka Venugopal: I think that's so important. And then the third step is to do it. Anyway, the doing it anyway is not up coming from a place of willpower and like muscling and forcing yourself. This is that piece of courage. Like I know this feels really unlike think about how loving it is to say Like the tone and tenor of that conversation. Like I know this feels really uncomfortable I'm going to do it anyway. I love myself so much. I'm going to do it anyway. It's like such a different experience to take scary action. When you talk to yourself, like, like, how would you talk to your kid? My kid doesn't want to go to school. Like first day of school, we moved to a new town last year. It's like, I don't want to go to school. And I'm like, I get it. I know you don't want to go to school. I can, I get you're scared. It makes so much sense to me. And we're going to go to school. And also like, it's such a different conversation than to try to shove the kid onto a bus, shove them into the car. Like it just doesn't work.

  Laura Conley: Agreed. Yeah, and it's not fun. I mean, yeah, I think it's so true because I think so many people feel like, okay, well, I can't lose weight because I just don't have the motivation or I do have the motivation for a week or three days and then I lose it. And you're speaking to you don't actually need motivation. You need courage. You need it. Awareness. Right? Like you need to put in the effort when you don't want to.

  Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. And people I think have this idea that like motivation is going to fall out of the sky. And I think this is one of those things like how do you take action without getting motivated? And also how do you cultivate motivation on purpose? You have to be thinking about your goal every single day, why you want it, why it's worth you doing what you're doing. That's how you actually pay motivation. I just think it's like, it's so fascinating how our brains are going to be like, let's just not do it today. Yeah. Absolutely. Convenient story, my friends. A little convenient story. Yes.

  Laura Conley: I know. Okay. Anything else that you feel like the people need to know before we wrap up this really fun, awesome episode?

  Priyanka Venugopal: I think that the last piece, and this is a step that I think my clients Probably skip a lot. They just move on to the next to do is when you have done the scary action and you've proven to yourself that you're capable to sit with that for a minute and be like, I just did that. How amazing am I? Like, I didn't die. It wasn't actually that bad. Actually, it was pretty cool that I did it and to prove to your brain that you are actually safe. In taking these scary actions again and again and again, you just build a new muscle in your brain. But that's a step that I think a lot of women who are like, It's time, you know, I need to get on to the next thing. They're skipping that step. And I think that that's, that's kind of an essential piece to cement new habits in your brain. So yeah, I totally,

  Laura Conley: I totally agree with that. Like, I call it like over celebration, like really relishing and reveling in the moment because we're so trained. Okay, on to the next thing. That wasn't that good. But to your point, that's actually what strengthens the muscle because you're proving to yourself, Oh, I do know how to do this. Oh, I can do this, right? And this tastes better than a cookie. It tastes better than a cookie when you're

  Priyanka Venugopal: Oh, I just did what I felt when you do. It tastes better. It tastes so much better, but I think we skipped that step. Don't forget about it. So good. Okay. How do we find you Priyanka? Yes. So I am The Unstoppable Mom Brain everywhere on the internet. That's me on Instagram. That's my website. And I have a podcast, The Unstoppable Mom Brain Podcast, where I talk about a lot of new stuff.

  Laura Conley: I love it. Okay. Yay. Thank you so much for coming on the pod. This was so great. I love you so much. Love you back. Okay. Bye everybody. Have the best week ever and pretty pleased with the cherry on top. Share this episode or an episode that you love with one of your friends and leave a rating and review.

  Priyanka Venugopal: I hope you all loved this interview where Laura was interviewing me on my story and How the things that I teach my clients in the Unstoppable group are not just some things that I pulled out of the sky or Because they sound good. They are my real lived experience after losing 60 pounds as a busy physician with two young kids and What I am now seeing after coaching high achieving women, there are common trends It's common trends that are holding back your results. And I want that in your hands. If you know that you want to have a coach in your corner, the way that we talked about in this podcast episode, someone that is there with you in real time, as you learn the information, as you put it into actual practice, help you catch your procrastination tactics, help you leverage your mistakes, helps you really get to the science of stress and fat loss, then I invite you to work with me. If that is at all interesting to you, I want you to send me an email at [email protected] and let's set up a time to talk. We'll go through really what it is like to be a client of mine and I will give you real tangible strategies on that consult call to help you discover what's been holding you back specifically in your case and how to move the needle forward. So if that is something you want, send me an email, [email protected]. I hope you guys all have an amazing week and I will see you at the next one.