Episode #24: Mastering Follow-Through

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Summary

This episode is all about the implementation needed to create weight loss and follow through on your brilliant plans. Following through on what you said you’ll do is teaching and training your brain that your goals and dreams matter, that your words matter, and that you matter.

This is all about retraining your brain to follow through without negotiating, giving yourself the gift of being proud of doing what you said you would, while feeling lighter in your body and on the scale. We’re diving deep into your brain, and I’m showing you how your higher and lower brain interact when you make promises to yourself. Of course, we need both parts of our brain on this journey, but you don’t need to let your lower brain drive you the whole way.

Tune in this week to discover how to retrain your brain to make follow-through feel simple, so you can always do what you said you would. I’m showing you the things that are getting in the way of you following through on your weight-loss plans right now, and I’m sharing how to overcome each of these hurdles by leveraging the power of your ninja working mom higher brain.

 

If you love what you're learning on the podcast and want to get a real flavor of what it's like to work with me, grab my free training: The Power Start Weight Loss Guide.

When you sign up, you'll get immediate access so you can start implementing my most powerful tools and techniques right now! 

 

If you want to know more about working with me and joining The Unstoppable Group: click here.

 

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• What follow-through is and how we define it in the Unstoppable universe.
• Why this work is not about following through with somebody else’s plan.
• 3 hurdles I see people coming across as they try to follow through on their weight-loss plans.
• The job of your higher brain in following through, versus what your lower brain is designed to achieve.
• How to gain some awareness of where you’ve been allowing your lesser-evolved lower brain to program your GPS and drive you to your destination.
• What it looks like when you let your more-evolved higher brain takes control of the wheel and why it will always get you to the land of forever weight loss results faster and more efficiently.
• How to retrain your brain so you can follow through every time, even in those moments when you don’t want to.

 

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.
• The Free Power Start Weight Loss Training: Click here 
• Episode #6: Your Weight-Loss Process (Part 2): Designing and Customizing Your Process
• James Clear

 

Full Episode Transcript:

Click here to download the full transcript

 

Hey, this is Dr. Priyanka Vengugopal, and you're listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms, Episode 24: Mastering Follow Through. This episode is all about the implementation needed to create weight loss, really following through on your brilliant plan. 

I've been spending so much of this podcast, focusing on your thoughts, beliefs, and feelings that drive you to lose weight in a way that feels more simple and honestly makes space for more joy.

Following through on what you said is teaching and training your brain something important... that your goals and dreams matter, that your word matters. 

That you matter.

In today's episode, I'm going to be teaching you about creating the win, win, win scenario. The three wins being retraining your brain to follow through without negotiating to give yourself the gift of feeling proud for doing what you said and to feel lighter in your body and on the [00:01:00] scale. 

Are you ready? 

Let's get going. 

This is such a good one. 

If you want to reach your ideal weight and create lightness for your body, you need to have simplicity, joy, and strategic decisions infused into your life. I'm a physician turned life and weight loss coach for ambitious working moms. I've lost over 60 pounds without counting points, calories or crazy exercise plans. Most importantly, I feel calm at light on the scale and in my life. There's some delicious magic when you learn this work and the skills I'm going to be teaching you. 

Ready? Let's get to it.

I've really been thinking a lot recently about my higher and lower brain very much like I think about my adult child relationship. Mostly this is coming up because we're in the middle of this fairly complicated four part move. And I've been thinking a lot about my kids as they transition to a new state, a new town, new schools, new friends, and I've been thinking a lot about my role as their Mom.

[00:02:00] My responsibility, what I can think, feel, and do. 

And their role, what their responsibility is, what they get to think feel, and do. 

And as we navigate this move together, I get to train myself and them in how we want to show up in this experience in the most fulfilling way as possible. To get more of what we want.

And I think that there are so many parallels between this adult child relationship and our higher and lower brain, which is bringing me to today's topic: training your brain to follow through. Today, when you hear me talking about your higher and lower brain, this is what I'm referring to. 

Your higher brain is your most evolved part of your brain. The part that calculates and takes responsible action towards a desired result. She's the part of your brain that drives you to show up on time for. To meet your patients and your clients. When you said you would, she's the one that pays taxes on time and your home mortgage. [00:03:00] She's the one that picks your kids up at the bus stop or soccer practice and take your kids to horseback riding lessons.

She's the one that looks ahead and anticipates obstacles while also being willing to work and create solutions. She's kind of like the adult or in our case, she's the ninja working Mom. 

Our lower brain is the least evolved part of our brain. She's the most primitive. She's always scanning for danger and looking ahead with flavors of worry, only wanting to avoid being injured. She seeks immediate and quick pleasure, and she's literally designed and motivated very simply just to avoid pain and to seek pleasure. 

That's it nothing more. Very, very similar to a young child. 

Both of these parts, our higher and lower brain are normal parts of us. What we're doing here together is to start bringing incredible awareness around whether we've been letting our lower brain, that least evolved part, the childlike part of us to program our GPS and drive our [00:04:00] car versus allowing our more evolved, brilliant brain full of sparkle and creativity to really take control of the wheel.

And I promise driving from your most evolved part of your brain is going to get you where you want to go faster and more efficiently. This is how you get to the land of forever weight loss results with fewer detours and get there faster. 

When it comes to reaching your ideal weight. I think that there's plenty of room to make space for your lower brain to do her normal thing. But we want her in the backseat and we want to let our adult self drive. Today what we are talking about is how to retrain your brain to help your adult self drive, to make follow through, feel simple, basically, to do what you said you would do. 

Now, this is such a sticking point when it comes to weight loss and I'm so glad we're getting to spend this episode diving into it together.

So let's get into follow through. I've talked about follow through before as the third pillar of my Unstoppable [00:05:00] Process back in episode six. And what I would really say is that planning in advance and following through are like your right and left hand opening a jar of sauce.

You could expertly plan, but if you don't follow through that jar, isn't opening. Which is why I decided to dedicate this whole episode on just this topic and the common misconceptions I have learned from coaching my clients for hundreds of hours.

Let's just start with defining what is follow through and how are we going to define it here, inside the Unstoppable Universe.

Very simply it is doing what you said you would do. 

You follow the plan that you've made. 

And I really wanna distinguish this from following somebody else's plan. And I think that this is a key and essential difference. Part of the reason that I have my clients create their own plans using the unstoppable framework is for this reason. I want my clients and for all of you to own every part of your weight loss journey. 

This is where you get your power, not from a [00:06:00] downloadable PDF of the internet or following somebody's else's instructions. There is a way to take a simple framework that teaches your body, how to tap into your fat stores and making it your own.

So now we've defined that follow through in the Unstoppable Universe is predicated on creating a plan that you love and then doing what you said. I would say that there are three essential hurdles that I have most commonly encountered.

One you don't plan at all, or you plan very loosely and superficially so there's really nothing to follow. 

Two, you do plan and you just don't follow the plan. When you do this, you don't see results. 

And three, you do plan, but you don't follow through consistently... and this creates results also being inconsistent. 

Today we're going to be focusing on points two and three. You create a plan feeling motivated and committed at the start of the week, but come Wednesday evening or the following weekend, you start to feel that week's [00:07:00] motivation is zapped.

You feel tired, annoyed, overworked. 

You just wanna break in the moment. 

And so you take the common pattern of not following the plan. 

I see you if this is you. Listen, every single action that we take, whether it's to follow a plan or to not follow a plan is driven by a feeling. And it's always, always created by a thought we are having.

So following through is simply an action that we get to take based on something we're feeling. And not following through also is an action that we are taking based on a feeling we're having in the moment. It makes so much sense that Monday morning's motivation is zapped by Wednesday evening and those feelings of fatigue and stress and pressure and overwhelm has been very commonly answered by not following through on the plan.

So really what I'm saying here is that following through or not following through is simply an action. And what we are gonna focus on today is that when we take certain actions [00:08:00] repeatedly, we create certain habits. So when you follow through, you're creating the habit of following through, and the same is true with the opposite.

What this means is that when we take the action of not following through again and again, and again, we train our brain to make it a habit for our weight loss plans. It means that we make it a habit to not create results. This is why being a brilliant woman, a working mom that is high achieving with the best intentions at the start of the week can feel like they're fighting an uphill battle the middle of the week or on the .Weekend.

It's because we haven't paid attention to the inventory of habits that have led us to not follow through. 

Why is this so important? It's because habits matter, I think that James Clear was the one who described habits as mental shortcuts learned from experience. And I would be willing to bet that working moms especially have created many, many, many mental shortcuts given the [00:09:00] lives that we're living.

Now we've all totally experienced following through in certain areas of our life and not following through in different areas of our life. Let's just take a minute to think about all of the times that you have followed through on your plan. 

What is it that you are thinking and feeling? 

Maybe some flavor of "This matters."

"I've got this". 

"Let's go." 

"This is going to feel so good." 

When you think this set of thoughts, you feel Commitment, fill you up and that drives you to follow your plan in the moment. 

This is in stark contrast to a set of thoughts like: 

"Ugh, this time just doesn't matter." 

"Screw it." 

"I'll start again tomorrow."

"Just one more bite."

"I so deserve a break." 

And when we think this set of thoughts repeatedly, we feel unmotivated and even resigned.... and in the moment those emotions are what drive you to not follow through. 

What I want to highlight here is that it isn't your plan, your discipline, your personality, or anything [00:10:00] inherent to you as a human that's driving you to follow or not follow a plan.

It is simply a set of words that you allow yourself to think on repeat. 

"This matters" versus "this time doesn't matter." 

And just this makes all the difference. 

It's the difference between-- "I've got this, let's go..." versus "screw it, I'll start tomorrow." 

And when this happens on repeat, when our think feel act cycle becomes habituated, it starts to train our brain accordingly. Now it's absolutely true when you've thought something thousands of times it does start to feel like a belief that is just true bordering on fact. 

When you think this time just doesn't matter, or I'll start again later again and again, and again, it starts to become a belief structure in every crevice of your life.

Not just weight loss. 

And this is why having a coach to help you see your thoughts is so priceless. 

I know for me, and for many of my clients, because we've coached on this inside The [00:11:00] Unstoppable Group, the thought that "this time doesn't matter", or "I'll start again later" has held back dreams and listen, I know it's familiar because I am all too familiar with this set of thoughts.

So, what we wanna do here together is to train our brains to remember this time does matter. 

I do matter.

My dreams matter... now, not later. 

Now I hear you saying, "Okay, Priyanka. Sure. I can see this logically. How thinking that this time doesn't matter and screw it is driving me to not follow my plan, but what do I do in the moment when I'm having that very practice habituated thought?"

I hear you. 

And that is where I want to get into the heart of this episode, because what we need to do to retrain ourselves is to follow through even when you don't want to in the moment. 

And that's where this training is going to be so powerful.

Now, let me just bring us back to that adult child relationship that I was mentioning at the startup today's episode. It's like telling your kid-- when you're [00:12:00] done putting the dishes away, then you get to go play. But time and time again, you've let your child go play before the dishes been put away. 

You said words: "put the dishes away, then play" but your actions were to allow them to play before they were done. 

What is it that the kid learns?

The kid learns and is literally being trained, that they can just go play and it's not her fault at all. She's just been taught and trained because our actions are speaking louder than our words. 

Our actions of letting her play are training and teaching her that what we are saying can be ignored and not followed. Can you imagine how confusing that is to a child or to your lower brain?

Telling yourself one thing, but doing another it's just like that it's incredibly confusing to your lower brain when you do this time and time again. 

You make a plan, usually from a feeling of motivation and commitment. 

And these are the words that we're saying to ourselves. 

But then the moment of [00:13:00] truth comes. Maybe you're in the middle of an emotional experience after having a busy day and grumbling kids, a milelong task list and you're feeling stress, annoyance, worry, or boredom.

And what I'm here to tell you is that this is just decades old training. Decades. 

Now let's go back to that example with the kid. 

Or after today's episode, the example with your lower brain. 

Imagine now you're realizing, "dang, I've really been teaching her to not follow what I say. Okay. So good to know we are so on it starting now, we are going to say and do what we mean." 

What do you think is gonna happen next? 

Your child is likely going to have a tantrum. 

And so is your lower brain because we've been training her to not follow through on that Wednesday night. Your lower brain will have a little tantrum when you decide to start retraining her because she wants to keep the status quo.

She wants to keep her current mental shortcuts-- they're easier for her. 

Overeating and not following through is simply a habit that she just wants to keep. [00:14:00] So when we come into challenge, let's just expect that our lower brain or that child is going to put up a fuss. Like "what, how dare you make me follow through on that brilliant plan we created on Monday???!" And you, with that loving adult side, get to respond to yourself like you would that child.

Now, before we get into exactly how to do this, let me first talk about a very common obstacle that I see getting in the way of you retraining your brain. 

Don't confuse being firm with yourself as deprivation or restriction. 

Let me say that again, because I think this is extremely common and it's going to make follow through, feel impossible. Being firm with yourself to follow the plan that you created, isn't depriving or restricting yourself.

Being strict isn't the same as restricting.

I think a big reason for this confusion honestly, is decades old diet brain. The years of training that your brain has had to count calories and points [00:15:00] and measure foods rather than really listen to your body has equated weight loss with restriction. So for so many women and maybe so many of you, they feel like one and the same.

And what I'm teaching you here inside the Unstoppable Universe is starkly different. 

For your body to really feel safe enough to release the resource of fat she cannot feel deprived or restricted. She has to feel safe and taken care of. 

Now feeling safe and being taken care of doesn't come in the form of eating more or eating all the crap.

Let me say that again. 

You feeling safe and taken care of doesn't have to come in the form of eating more or eating all the crap. 

She feels safe and taken care of by how you talk to yourself, how you engage with yourself and how you follow through for yourself. Being firm and following through on the plan that you created is literally the easiest pathway to feeling pride and creating more of what you [00:16:00] want.

Let's walk us through with an actual example of creating safety and taking care of to fuel following through. 

So let's imagine that you have a plan and then you get to the office and maybe someone has ordered pizza or bagels for lunch. And just because of some old programming and old habit thoughts, you think, "Ugh, I'm supposed to follow my plan. I can't eat any of that if I wanna lose weight, this is so annoying..." or some flavor of this. 

Some flavor of, "I want it and I can't, or shouldn't have it." 

And when you think this way "I have to, I should, I need..." to you'll feel an emotion of resistance in your body. And it's when we feel this, that the fight starts. 

You start mentally negotiating.

Should I? Shouldn't I? Maybe just once...? 

Screw it.... I'll start again tomorrow. 

And this is what paints the picture of not following through. 

Instead to retrain yourself with calm, connected firmness. 

So you have a plan at the beginning of the week and you go [00:17:00] into the office and you see the pizza or the bagels that you didn't plan for.

And instead of thinking, Ugh, I have to, I should, I need to follow the plan.... you instead notice yourself in the moment, feeling your desire to go off plan. 

You catch it and respond to yourself with compassion. That sounds like, "oh, of course the bagels and the pizza are enticing. It's totally okay. I love you. And we're still following the plan. We're okay." 

This is the alternative to, Ugh. I have to, I don't want to, I need to drama and instead allow yourself to feel connected to yourself. Calm and neutral while also taking the firm and committed action following through. 

And this is how we paved the pathway to feeling proud and create more of what you want.

Going back to the kid example. 

One version is to tell your kid: "you have to put your dishes away before you play."

"You better put those dishes away... or else..." 

Having a raised voice with tense feelings in your body. This is trying to convince your kid to follow [00:18:00] through with the fight and it just isn't necessary.

You're tiring yourself out. 

Your kid is getting tired out. 

There's just a lot of fighting an expenditure of energy. Eventually, you know that this isn't sustainable and it crumbles. Instead, what we are practicing here is a new and different approach. 

We see our kid and we say, "Hey, when we're done putting the dishes away, you can go play." 

It's neutral, calm and firm.

And we expect that the kid, especially when she's being retrained is going to have a tantrum, just like your lower brain is going to have a tantrum the moment that we see the pizza and the bagels. 

Nothing is going wrong when you experience this. 

There's no problem when our kid or our lower brain starts to protest. 

Expect it and plan for it.

We're pulling out the rug from under their playtime escapades. Don't blame them for having a tantrum, we've trained them for it. And now what we are doing together is doing the work to retrain them. And we're doing this by connecting exuding calm and being firm at the same time. 

This [00:19:00] sounds like, "oh, of course I totally get that, you're feeling upset. You're so used to playing first. We just don't do that anymore. I love you. You're okay. You've got this." 

Then you just stick with it. 

Now here's the thing, whatever it is that you decide to say back to yourself in the moment to your lower brain or to your child, you have to believe what you're saying, that you do get their feelings, that you can be compassionate with the change. And also that they are completely okay... that they have got this, and we're doing this new way anyway. 

Seriously, this piece really matters-- that you believe what you're telling yourself, even when we're experiencing that expected fuss. Believing what you're saying is what allows you to stay calm, connected, and firm at the same time. 

Your voice, whether it's literal or proverbial is even your body language is relaxed. 

Here's what happens when you take this connected, calm and firm action again, [00:20:00] and again, night after night, weekend after weekend. You start retraining your lower brain. 

You start retraining your child that we follow through on what we said. 

And now your actions start matching your words.

You've taken away confusion. Give your lower brain and your child a chance to adjust. It's like if you were retraining your child in the same way, she might kick up a fuss for a few days or a week or two. But when you believe what you're saying, that you get them, you hear them, you're connected to them and you're still lovingly and firmly following through-- I promise you this retraining is going to happen so quickly. 

When you stick with this strategy, even when it feels hard in the moment, even when the tantrum is happening, holding firm with your decision, your child or your lower brain will start to respond in kind. 

Here's the other thing, training yourself to take the action of following through is in her best service. [00:21:00] Not just for the mom, it's for the kid. 

She might not know it yet, but the negotiating and the yelling and the tantrum-ing is seriously the biggest expenditure of her time, energy and bandwidth. The back and forth is so draining, retraining her to follow what we say is going to save her countless hours and an immense amount of energy.

And it's going to create more results. 

This is true of your lower brain too, which is why I call this a win, win, win. 

We're teaching ourselves to stop negotiating and tantruming, which is going to save time and energy. 

We get to feel proud for doing what we say... 

and we get more of what we want lightness for our body and the scale.

And we get to do the work to create this lifetime of win, win wins. 

Eventually it comes to the point where we say to our child, "Hey, we play after we clean up" and she will simply say, okay, and go do it. 

Can you actually imagine that? 

Can you imagine that there comes a point where you have [00:22:00] a plan and it comes to the moment of implementing and you're just like, "yep, this is just what we do." 

And you feel proud and light of that. 

It is priceless. 

There's no more mixed messages. 

There's no more confusion. 

There's no more back and forth. 

Part of the win here is that it is so much easier to actually live in this place, free of confusion and negotiating and tantruming and holding back dreams.

It's the ultimate common piece that achieves weight loss goals in a lasting way. Because remember whatever action you take again, and again, is training your brain to get more of that. Now, if you believe that you can't follow through on your plans for weight loss, I promise you, you will also prove yourself, right 100% of the time. 

Here's what I know to be true.

If you are listening to this podcast, if you are a high achieving ambitious working mom, it means that you have goals that you make happen. You are someone that gets things done. You've actually already followed through on an in [00:23:00] incredible number of things, which means you are already an expert at this skill.

You'll follow through at work and home already. 

You show up for work. You show up for your kids, you pay your bills. 

But we've made weight loss different because it's only you. And you're used to putting yourself to the side. You're used to thinking, "I'll wait on my dream for another day. Screw it today, I'll try again tomorrow."

And while we are doing here together is we are interrupting this pattern and retraining your brain and you to believe that you matter, right now. 

This matters because the alternative of not following through on your plan and on your dreams is keeping them on hold and you're here because you want different.

I like to think about us in this orbit together as Unstoppable women, truly with Unstoppable Mom Brains. I would say at some point long ago, when I chose to call my business, The Unstoppable Mom Brain, the Universe was speaking to me because I chose this with [00:24:00] love and intention. 

Our mom brains, our human brains have a limitless capacity to grow, change, and evolve, to be taught and trained. And guess who the steward is? 

That's right. 

It's you. You get to teach and train your brain to grow in the direction of your dreams. And as your coach, I will always help take you to the edge and direction of the growth that you are wanting. As your coach. I'm here to help you see what you are not seeing... to show you how your obstacles are often coming from your thinking, which means we get to use our Unstoppable Brains to create powerful solutions together.

In a space of love and safety. 

Seriously, this is why working inside an intimate group like The Unstoppable Group is so transformative and powerful because of course you get coached as much as you desire, but also you get to grow and teach your brain from the coaching of the other amazing women in this room who are just like you.

So to [00:25:00] recap, today's episode. What I want you to take away from this episode is that your repeated actions speak louder than your words. 

And you've been training your lower brain for years to either follow through or to not follow through simply as a habit. 

What we talked about today is to take a few steps to retrain your brain.

First, make a plan you love, feel committed to and can follow. 

Two, anticipate your lower brain might have a tantrum at this idea of retraining. 

Three meet your lower brain with calm, connection and firmness. Being firm is not the same as restricting or depriving yourself. Being firm is in fact, the most loving thing that you can ever do.

Four challenge the way that you think about follow through to release the fight and instead lead with connection .

Six, allow it to feel uncomfortable in the moment and know that you're. 

Seven [00:26:00] follow through anyway. 

And then eight, let yourself feel proud when you do. 

I love step eight because I imagine falling in love with the act of following through and the feeling of pride you get to feel after. Really imagine falling in love with that fluttery lovey dovey feeling.

Imagine that following through is actually easier because you get to feel proud 100% of the time more often. I say this time and time again, and I'll say it here because it's so fitting. 

I've never, ever, ever regretted following through. 

I've almost always regretted not following through. 

So yes, there is momentary discomfort in the training of your brain and so what? 

There's way more discomfort if you don't. And that's what we're doing here, we're learning the skill of following through from your adult brain and letting your child like self have a seat in the back. So that it becomes a part of your regular Mo. 

I hope that you enjoy today's [00:27:00] episode and if you did and found it valuable, I would love, love, love to hear from you. Leave me a comment or a rating on apple podcast so that I know that this is helping you and share this podcast with other working moms. You know, I want to help the world of working moms have more of what they desire: 

More simplicity, more joy while you reach your ideal weight. 

If you love what you're learning here and want to get a real flavor of what it's like to work with me, make sure you grab my free training, The Power Start Weight Loss Guide.

When you sign up for you're going to get immediate access, right to your email inbox. I have designed this training just for you to implement my most powerful tools and techniques into your life right now. 

You can grab this training at theunstoppablemombrain.com/power. 

And if you ever want to know more about what it's like to work inside The Unstoppable Group, you can learn more at theunstoppablemombrain.com/group to get details about when our next enrollment is and when the [00:28:00] next group is starting.

Thanks for listening to Weight Loss for Unstoppable Moms. It's been an honor spending this time with you and your brilliant brain. If you want more information or resources from the show, visit theunstoppablemombrain.com.