Outsmarting Temptation and Winning the Long Game with Guardrails Strategy

TUNE IN TO LEARN: 
 
What if you could finally gain control over your cravings and steer your life toward long-term success? 
 
 
Join me, Angela Shurina, as we unravel the complexities of decision-making and explore effective strategies to outsmart our inner "cookie monster"🍪👾 
 
—the part of us constantly seduced by immediate gratifications like cookies, alcohol, or taking the easy way out. 
 
"Easy choices - Hard life. 
Hard choices - Easy life." 
 
How to win the long game. 
 
Discover how you can set up foolproof guardrails to stay aligned with your bigger dreams, whether they relate to health, business, or personal relationships. 
 
All while equipping you with actionable tools to build habits that support your long-term vision. 
 
We delve into the concept of "practical optimism" to keep your health and fitness goals on track, even when faced with life's inevitable challenges. 
 
Through personal stories and practical tactics I'll guide you through the process of staying committed to your objectives, VS letting the cookie monster win.  
 
Listen in for a treasure trove of insights to help you navigate those rainy days, creating a life you genuinely love and proud of living.  

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey there and welcome back to another episode of your Brains Coach podcast. My name is Angela Shurina, I'm your host, I'm your Brains Coach and sometimes a partner in beating the cookie monster, and I'm here to bring to you, share with you, uncover, discover all the best recent, cutting-edge, most important, useful and sometimes fun brain-body tools so you could take better control of your emotions, of your thoughts, of your actions, of your efforts, so you could create the life experience that you absolutely love living Today. Folks, you're going to learn how to beat a cookie monster in your head. Why cookie monster, you'll understand very soon. But the podcast, today's episode, today's podcast, is about how to win the long term, how to get better at making the choices that are more aligned with your long-term goals versus satisfying your short-term cravings, like cravings, maybe, for cookies or ice creams, whatever. That might be your thing. I love freshly baked cookies. Hope this, you know. That might be your thing. I love freshly baked cookies. Hope this, you know. Speaking about cookies will not make you sabotage your healthy eating efforts, whichever they are. But we are talking about Cookie Monster but, most importantly again, it's about winning the long-term game In life, in business, in diet. There are going to be so many moments when your brain is going to tell you go for this right now, eat this cookie, or get this customer, or take this shortcut, go on this date, make out with this person, or drink alcohol.

Speaker 1: 2:02

I was was watching also a video about why we still, as society, look down almost a frown on people who choose to be sober for life and choose not to drink alcohol because they feel so much better without it, right? So I was thinking about that. And then it also relates to yes. It might be comfortable in the moment to say yes to a drink, to comply, to feel a little bit of buzz and do not feel as awkward to some degree or for a bit of time. So you say yes, but then you sabotage your long-term goal of being perhaps the healthiest, fittest, most energetic you In terms of alcohol. It does kill your gut bacteria. It does worsen your mental health. Obviously, there is a dose to make it very poisonous or make it just a little bit of poison, but it's still not an optimal experience, especially if you're using it as a way to numb the pain or to numb uncomfortable feelings or to manage stress and to help you fall asleep, which is not a great strategy. So it's your choice. But the point is, in our lives we're going to be confronted with so many choices that in the moment are going to feel comfortable, but long-term are going to sabotage our dreams, our goals.

Speaker 1: 3:37

A friend of mine also a coach, in response to yesterday's newsletter, by the way, are you on your best daily newsletter yet? If not, it's free. It's daily. A lot of cool strategies and research and tips, not to just overcome your cookie monster, but to be more productive, to manage stress better, recover well and just stay healthier and fitter. So during the newsletter.

Speaker 1: 4:08

But a friend of mine shared with me this quote in reply to one of the newsletters that short-term and that's not the exact quote might be difficult, but long-term might be difficult, but short-term leaves long-lasting scars. And what the quote means is that when we're choosing short-term over long-term goals, priorities, visions, dreams, what happens is we lose the ultimate game of life. Lose the ultimate game of life that choosing short-term leaves permanent scars on our psyche. We know we could do better, we are destined for more, but we are not there because we chose a cookie versus some protein and salad, which is better aligned with our long-term goals. Or in business, we took on customers that were easier, that just kept us afloat, versus thinking strategically and very often suffering in the short term financially, to create a plan and implement the plan that will allow you to actually create a lot more wealth and impact and help a lot more people and serve a lot more people.

Speaker 1: 5:35

Or, in relationships, you might choose to stay in a comfortable one. You might choose to go for a comfortable relationship even though, long-term and to a bigger degree, it doesn't fulfill you. It's just why so many people are not satisfied with their marriages, because at some point, they chose the easy when it comes to, perhaps, this relationship. They didn't work through certain friction points or certain difficulties, or they didn't leave the relationship when it was time to leave it, and both people end up being in an empty relationship that fulfills neither. In whichever case, in whichever case we have this opportunity, we have this possibility to shape our life, to create our dreams, to create our goals, and yet, in the moment of weakness, we are choosing something that derails us from those dreams and goals and aspirations that we have for our bigger, more expansive, more extraordinary life.

Speaker 1: 6:50

So, without further ado, introducing guardrails and beating the cookie monster game that I often share with my clients and I still use it till this day, although, when you build certain habits, it gets easier and easier to do certain behavior even without the game. But that's what I use, for example, to get into my ideal shape, body weight, to create the kind of eating habits that are 100% aligned with my personality, my goals and my future better self. I used this game and the concept of guardrails for so many things to change myself and I'm using it till this day, till this day, in any point when I need to change my behavior, to choose long-term, when I'm still struggling with these kind of choices consistently. So, for example, in my business, I need to do a lot more reach out and a lot more lead generation and be learning from that and leaning into uncomfortable conversations that I feel I'm not yet good at at all but still, however clumsy, get in there and learning and getting better and improving and ultimately that will build the kind of business and the kind of people and skills that I need to succeed and get better and serve people at a higher level. So I still use this same concept guardrails and beating that metaphorical cookie monster in my head, or basically learning how to choose long-term, how to show up my long-term goals with harder behaviors now which will create the future that I absolutely love living.

Speaker 1: 8:38

One of my favorite quotes from Jersey Gregorick. He has this happy body system Look it up if you're curious Very amazing system that keeps him fit and healthy in his probably 70s or 80s, like deadlifting and doing all kinds of Olympic powerlifting. So he has this quote Easy choices, hard life, hard choices, easy life. And that is all on the same theme of when you choose harder now for the better long term, you're going to have a heck of a life experience that you absolutely love. But if you choose, more often than not, easy now, the short term, choosing the dopamine fix, the heat, the pleasure, the getting over, getting with this craving instead of getting over it, then you're going to have a harder life experience and that experience is going to leave scars that are going to be very painful at the end of your day or maybe at midlife.

Speaker 1: 10:03

Crisis in architecture on the road, which protect you from wearing into dangerous territory right so you don't go over the edge of a cliff, or so you don't go off the road when traveling on highway or a dangerous road, or it just protects people from basically usually falling or getting into a bad, dangerous situation, right. So those are like physical guardrails, but guardrails is also used as a concept, as a tool in business, for example, to create specific metrics, specific policies, specific measures to make sure that people, that companies, stay the course, especially when the situation is tough, especially when it comes to hard choices, or especially it's when the situation might make people prioritize the wrong choices that create the kind of culture that the company actually doesn't want, like maybe the culture of inequality or gender biases or profits over quality, right. So in business, those are metrics and measures and policies that are used in order to make sure that the business stays in line, aligned with their vision and their philosophy or their purpose In life, and also in diet and in coaching, you can use guardrails as a system of different measures, of tools that help you to stay on your game, prioritizing the choices you want to make, even on your worst days. So, for example, you want to lose 10 kilos. I always like using dieting as an example, because we can all relate. Most of us can relate, like most of us at some point worked on their eating habits or some health habits. Maybe it's drinking for you. Maybe it's sleeping enough. Whatever that might be, most of us can relate to health in general, but also diet and improving your eating habits.

Speaker 1: 12:17

So let's say you want to lose a few kilos, maybe you want to lose 10 kilos, and, yes, you're going to have some good days when you're super motivated, pumped and energized, especially at the beginning, and you want to do this awesome quote-unquote meal plan and you want to count all the calories and all the macros and micros and you're super excited about everything. But then, like a week, two weeks. More often than not, for people it's like two, three days. You know that that cookie, that ice cream or that takeout meal that I absolutely love sounds pretty good right now and I'm super tired and it's been a stressful day at work and I didn't have good sleep and kids are misbehaving. You know how it goes. What are you gonna going to do then? And you're going to have more those days than good days. That's just the reality of life. You know I'm an optimist, but I'm a practical optimist. I know that things will and can work out in the end, but till that end, there are going to be a lot of days when shitheads hits the fan and you have to figure out what to do then. So what do you have in place then? What kind of system, support system, what kind of guardrails do you have to make sure that on your worst days, in your worst moments, in your weakest moments, you still do the behavior you need to do in order to move forward towards your long-term goals? And that's what I also call strategic doing. Strategic thinking, it's not just planning for the good days, for the sunny days, but also for the rainy days which will come. Those bad moments will come. It's being a practical and realistic optimist. Yes, we're going to win, but before we win, there are going to be a lot of rainy days. So what are you going to do then? Do you have a raincoat? Do you have guardrails?

Speaker 1: 14:18

Back to Cookie Monster, back in the days when I didn't have my nutrition habits as dialed in as I do have them now. And from time to time, that cookie monster still comes into my life and it's like oh, why don't you eat that gallon of ice cream? Or like these cookies, look really good at the store. Or you're just passing a bakery or some you know cafe with all these smells Like this looks really good, angela, why don't you have it? You've been having some stressful times and business didn't have any wins for a while. Why don't you make life a little bit sweeter, even though eating a piece of cake is not going to make your business work better, but somehow your brain still thinks well, at least you're going to get some calories, right. So back in the days I used this much more often, but still, from time to time this cookie monster comes into my life and I created this game. I'm like Angela you can have that cookie or whatever that you know, gallon of ice cream, whatever that is, but you can only have it tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 15:28

For now, go the after sleep, sleep on it and see how you're going to feel the next morning. Guess what? Not a single time I went for that cookie or that ice cream in the morning In the morning. After that early night and all that great sleep and rest, I would wake up with all these ideas how to solve the problem, with all this energy and zest, and never, ever, I wanted that cookie first thing in the morning. Did you have cravings for cookies first thing in the morning? Unless somebody's cooking pancakes in your house and it smells? The whole house smells like pancakes, which sometimes would happen when I was staying with my parents. Unless that, you probably usually don't have those cravings in the morning, especially when you had an amazing night of sleep and you dedicated a little bit more time to rest and recovery, right? So I would play that game over and over and over again, and after a while, yeah, those cravings disappeared.

Speaker 1: 16:24

I developed better stress management mechanism, I started practicing breath work and another thing I would do I would either call up my mom or call up my friend, or ask someone for a walk, get out of the house, listen to some funky music. So I developed quite a lot of strategies that had nothing to do with cookies but were aligned with my long-term goal of being the most fittest, the fittest, most energetic self I can possibly be, so I could get out there and invest into my other long-term goals, whether that's business or relationships. So that was my form of guardrails, and some people use safes like those made of glass or transparent plastic, literally like a safe with timer on it, and so you would put cookies in it or your phone to avoid your scrolling at night. So you put it there, you would lock it up and set a timer on it and the only way you could get your phone out or your cookie out is if you broke the damn thing or the timer would come to the time that you set it for. So that is also an example of guardrails.

Speaker 1: 17:43

Or in your business, if you know, like I know, that my brain will start making excuses why I should not be reaching out for the next couple of hours to my potential clients, I ask a friend to follow up on me and tell me that, angela, if you don't do that, you're not going to hit your goals, you're not going to spend this amazing vacation with your parents For me, what also works and works for a lot of people. That's why some people hire coaches like myself, someone to keep you accountable in those moments when you know you're going to start making excuses. So that is a way to create guardrails in your business. If you have specific goals or specific behaviors that you want to encourage for your teams, for yourselves, what kind of metrics, measures do you have to make people behave in the way you want them to behave, even when you're not there, when you're not watching? So the system is set up in a way to protect humans from the worst angels of our nature, which is lazy, energy-conserving and kind of selfish at times.

Speaker 1: 18:54

So what systems do you have in place?

Speaker 1: 18:56

What guardrails do you have in place?

Speaker 1: 18:57

So what systems do you have in place? What guardrails do you have in place? They can be psychological guardrails, they can be physical guardrails, like with the safe Psychological, like with the delay game or cookie monster beating game that I created for myself. So what guardrails do you have in place? What incentives do you have in place to make sure that people behave the way you want them to behave, or you yourself behave the way you want to behave? Like, for example, if you want to incentivize you working on additional profits or revenue in your business, what can you promise yourself to get when you hit that number? That will excite you, that will push you like ah, if I do that, I'm going to get this experience, or I'm going to help this person, or I'm going to do this for my spouse or my kids or myself.

Speaker 1: 19:56

What guardrails do you have in place? So, at your worst, on your worst day, in your weakest moment, you still do the thing that you need to do, that you must do to create the kind of dreams and goals and visions in your life that you desire. And those guardrails can be social, like me asking my friend out or me calling my entrepreneur friends out and telling them what I'm struggling with or what I'm procrastinating, or having a coach, and that kind of accountability is also a social guardrail. So what systems do you have in place to make sure that you do almost your best, even on your worst day? Do you have them, or are you still relying on your willpower, which is a failing strategy or what we know from all the humanities experience that we're accumulating? A willpower does not work, especially at night, when you're sitting, perhaps alone with your thoughts and your hard emotions and your losses of the day. What's going to help you to still do your best?

Speaker 1: 21:16

A much better predictor of your success in life is what you do on your Wednesdays, not what you do on the sunny days that come here and there yeah, they come, but there are a lot more days in between where, again, things will be hard and you'll still have to show up. So what systems do you have in place? What guardrails do you have in place to help you show up on the rainiest, gloomiest, no-winds days? What guardrails do you have in place? And if you have none, sit down today and first write down all the moments, all the situations where you tend to make your worst choices, choices you're not proud of, choices that derail you from your long-term objectives. So write down all the situations and then, for each of those situations, write down ideas for guardrails and implement them right away. What will keep you from doing the wrong thing on your worst days? What will keep you accountable? What helps you to do the best thing on your worst days? So what guardrails can you install right now for all of these situations? And if you're having troubles coming up with some, then let me know, email me.

Speaker 1: 22:55

Angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom. Angela at brainbreakthroughcoachcom on Instagram. Angela Brain Body Coach. One word, angela Brain Body Coach. So hit me up, dm me and let's figure it out for you so you could win the long term. The only term that matters if you ask me, the only term that matters if you ask me. That's it for today. Guys, hope you enjoyed this podcast episode and you are all fired up to beat your cookie monster. Today is Friday. Here, a lot of people will be fighting cookie or booze monsters. So let's fight them. Let's win this time. Let's install some guardrails. Reach out. If you need some help with that, don't forget to share this episode with at least one person who might be struggling, and you know they're struggling, so give them this podcast to listen to, like, hey, I thought that was useful. I'm going to use it there. What do you think? Share because you care? What do you think? Share because you care? And till next time, stay on your A-game. No-transcript.