Confident Eaters

Georgie: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Confident Eaters Podcast, where you get proven methods to end overeating, emotional eating, and stressing about food. We are heading for harmony between your body, food and feelings, hosted by me, Georgie Fear, and my team at Confident Eaters.

Hello and welcome to this episode of the confident eaters podcast today. I'm with Shannon Ballard. Say hi, Shannon. How are you doing today?

Shannon: Hello. So good. It's always good when I get to hang out with Georgie

Georgie: and when you get over COVID and you're back to feeling human.

Shannon: Yes, I can move more than like three feet away from a tissue box now it's, it's amazing.

Georgie: Freedom! So today, we are going to talk about when our clients reach out to us for help because they reward themselves with food. This is a really, really common issue, as are most of the topics we discuss. So if you've ever thought it [00:01:00] was just you, it's probably not just you. So, What sort of things, Shannon, have you seen emerge as patterns with your clients rewarding themselves for with food?

Shannon: It typically sounds something like, Well, I had a really hard day at work, so I insert blank about ate a treat, or I had a really hard day, I had a really long day, I deserve this thing, or honestly, sometimes you're like, Well, it's Tuesday, so I was rewarding myself for making it through Tuesday or studying.

I've worked with several students and studying really comes up with one as a reward, so that's sort of what I see personally. I have done this myself. Of course, I mean, most humans have done this themselves, rewarding myself for doing something, or also when I was a teacher, I handed out treats and candy for all sorts of things, as food is a reward too.

And so I think it's something that a lot of us [00:02:00] have done at some point in time. Could also be something like I've heard from clients. I was really, and I'm going to use air quotes here. Podcasters using air quotes. I was really good this week. So I deserve this treat. I earned this treat. I was so good earlier in the week.

So that's sort of what I've heard. Georgie, what about you? What do you hear from clients about how they word these?

Georgie: A lot of the same stuff, like as you said, surviving the day or making it through the week or making it through the day. Like those are really, really common phrases. I see sometimes people are using food to reward themselves for a hard day at work or parenting, like putting up with the bedtime mayhem of having you know, multiple small kids. And then general life stress. Like I felt like I wanted to reward myself after dealing with the DMV and renewing this and filling in that form and then sitting in traffic, like just all those little. general life stresses. Sometimes people think like, yeah, I'm going to reward [00:03:00] myself with a cookie.

Now definitely one of the most unfortunate is when we hear people say that they're doing it to reward themselves for accomplishing a weight loss goal or for exercising. So those are the common things that people reward themselves for and I usually see people in terms of what they're using to reward themselves.

It's usually treats like desserts, cookies sometimes alcohol. Is that the same thing that you find, Shannon?

Shannon: Yeah, definitely the treats. I think that's most of the time what I see. The reward is typically something sweet or treat or a beverage. I have heard to rewards In terms of a restricted food type.

So for example, if earlier stages with a client I say that because we learned that foods are not off limits, but if it's, we're starting out, it's like, oh, I can't eat bread and it's like, but they love bagels. And so sometimes that food that they have restricted in the past could be at their reward or maybe a particular high [00:04:00] calorie meal, something they air quotes again, shouldn't eat.

Those types of foods, typically.

Georgie: Yeah, it's interesting because just as we're saying this, now I'm realizing that when people call a food a reward, it's like they need a justification to consume it.

Yes,

Georgie: it's like if I call this my reward for all the BS I put up with at the office, then I don't feel guilty, but that's sort of pointing at the problem that you feel like you need an excuse to eat that low nutrition food, whatever it is, when you and I would want to encourage people to realize like you can eat those foods.

Just because they're tasty. Because having pleasure is an important part of life. You don't need to label it as a reward or deserved. Like, it's perfectly good reason just to eat something because it's darn tasty.

Shannon: Yeah. So you mentioned the word deserved. You mentioned reward. I know we've talked about that just a moment ago too.

So, We know that those are words that are very obvious that someone's using food [00:05:00] as a report, but maybe talk about awareness in general, Georgie, for us about how does someone know that they're using food as a reward, what are some of the giveaways that, oh, this might be happening?

Georgie: Sure. Well, probably the clearest is if we're using that word in our internal dialogue, reward or earned.

Like this will be my reward for getting through the hard day. Like, as soon as you hear that thought in your brain, you should be like, whoop, whoop, whoop. The alarm goes off. Like, wait, what's going on here? Let me take a closer look. If you're not sure if you're Using food as a reward. You might also question, am I using this to motivate me to do behaviors that I otherwise can't find a reason to do?

Like I will do it if I can stop by the bakery and get a chocolate croissant afterward. In that case, you might be using food as a reward, and that's not always problematic, but as we'll talk about it certainly can be problematic in some ways. The last one that comes to mind is if you feel [00:06:00] entitled to a particular food or a particular eating experience because of actions that you've performed earlier.

That's a pretty clear giveaway that you're using food as a reward, and it can lead to feeling resentful or annoyed if that reward is even delayed or denied. So if I'm using food as a reward, and I really look forward to eating my lucky charms at the end of the day, after I get the kids in bed, and I go through all the work of putting the kids in bed, and I realize that somebody else ate the last of my lucky charms, I'm going to have a lot of resentment or annoyance, because my brain is conditioned to expect that I do this task and I get this, and if that reward isn't coming, we're going to have a lot of unhappiness.

So let's talk about the problems that this creates, because on a superficial level, it won't necessarily be a problem to reward any behavior with food on the surface. Like that could work out just fine. But let's talk about why [00:07:00] people bring it up and why people want help for this. How do you see it negatively impacting people?

Shannon: Yeah, definitely. I think the biggest problem here is that a reward is earned and food isn't something that's earned. You have an inalienable right to eat as a living being, like, full stop.

Georgie: Yeah.

Shannon: You don't have to earn your food by doing something during the day or by the extra 20 minutes on the treadmill when you're already tired and ready to go home or, you know, being good all week or whatever it is. If our goal is to have a healthy relationship with food and be confident eaters, then in my opinion, that would say that food, treats, drinks, whatever, they're not earned.

They're just part of our eating plan. that we set aside food as a reward. It just feels restrictive to me in a way that it's transactional. I have to do X in order to get food Y. That's really helpful when you're teaching your dog to sit. Like, I want [00:08:00] you to sit and you get a little liver treat.

Like, that's really great. But it doesn't work for us in that way. And it can create emotional dependencies upon food, because you're using it to cope. It can also lead to eating when you aren't hungry, because maybe it's outside of your regular meal.

Georgie: Ah, but I need to reward myself. Like, this is a now or never thing, because I earned it today. So even if I'm already full, I better eat that thing today.

Shannon: It's exactly what reward mindset will have us saying. Or, you know, for example, if it is paired with studying, okay, if I study for 30 minutes and I get to eat a cookie, I don't know about you all, but if I know that a cookie is on the end of that 30 minutes of studying I'm probably not thinking a lot about my studying. I'm like, oh, I'm going to have the chocolate chip. No, I'm gonna have the white chocolate macadamia. Ooh, with the raspberry chunks. You know, I'm thinking about that and same thing. It works with the treadmill example. You're going to make those 20 minutes on the treadmill miserable because you're thinking about the cookie the whole time.

So what if, [00:09:00] hypothetically, we had the cookie at the end of our lunch? And then we go into study, and then we give ourselves another reward at the end that's not food.

Georgie: Mm hmm.

Shannon: I would probably, probably learn more and enjoy a full break later. Plus, when it comes time to eat that one cookie after studying, how often is it really only one cookie that we eat?

Georgie: Right? Right. Yeah. When we set something up to be a reward, it amps it up. Like it better deliver.

Shannon: Yeah!

Georgie: Especially if it's coming after a really unpleasant task. It's like you better deliver, and that sets us up where we can be easily disappointed if it's not, you know, this fantastic experience. When you were describing feeling like we have to earn the permission or grace or whatever to eat just tasty, delicious foods. It strikes me. I was like, that's a significant cognitive load that we're carrying all day long. And if you think like, Oh, I have to earn my food, because you need to eat every day, that's now a job that you're putting on yourself every day [00:10:00] to earn your food.

When. The truth is that you can just live as in thank goodness, I get to enjoy food every day and like, yes, I need food every day and food is all around me every day. Like, wow, this works out great. And some of it's more delicious and some of it's more nutritious, but we don't have to create those ties between doing tasks to get to eat the delicious things.

Shannon: Definitely. Totally agree.

Georgie: Definitely when it comes to health and fitness, I see if people reward themselves for exercising with food, they're often just undoing the progress that they could be making. And the same thing if you reward yourself for, let's say, losing a pound by eating cake and ice cream.

Those are obviously high calorie foods. And so if you eat them, every time you lose weight, you're almost creating a recipe for weight stagnancy because every time you create a calorie deficit, you're going to create a higher calorie day. So

Shannon: And that gets so frustrating to be on that back and forth. It's so frustrating.

Georgie: Yeah. [00:11:00] And again, we're not saying like, you can't have cake and ice cream. We're just saying don't connect it to your weight loss success, your weight loss as of late to make decisions about that. We're big fans of considering the consequences and the outcomes of our decisions.

Shannon: Definitely.

Georgie: So you'd want to consider, you know, your goals with the frequency with which you eat cake and ice cream.

But I wouldn't base your eating decisions on weight loss performance in a moral sense. If that makes any sense. More subtly, the dynamic of rewarding ourself for doing particular behaviors impacts our emotional state and how we feel about those behaviors. The classic example here is if a parent tells their kid, no ice cream unless you eat those vegetables.

The child is getting the message, okay, vegetables are icky because somebody's giving me a bribe to eat them. That thing they're bribing me with must be really good and these vegetables must be lousy. So this is [00:12:00] how it works. You eat the lousy things to get the ice cream. Got it. So children who grow up with this sort of, lesson, they learn that ice cream and other foods are superior and more desirable, which sets them up to crave them and desire them, especially during times of stress.

And it also raises them not to enjoy vegetables, but to think about eating them only to get to the dessert or to something else. So you're not raising kids who are naturally going to be inclined to find pleasantness in enjoying vegetables. Similarly, if we ourselves want to find a way to enjoy exercise.

We know that enjoying it is correlated with how consistently we'll show up to break a sweat. So if I want to find it fun, and I keep rewarding myself by saying, after you exercise, you can have that donut. It's somewhat counterproductive because just like you said, during the whole study session, you'll be thinking about the cookie.

Well, during my whole exercise session, instead of looking for things I can enjoy about this current moment and the feel [00:13:00] of my heart beating and my lungs working and the rhythm of the music, I'm just going to be like, donut, donut, donut, donut. So it's really hard to find fun in something if you're, you know, simultaneously bribing yourself to do it.

When we reward a behavior, it also means we have to keep rewarding it to keep doing it. And so if somebody offers you money to pick up trash, then you might agree to do it. Be like, okay, you know, dollar per piece of trash seems worth my time.

And that could work out day after day after day, you keep showing up, they keep rewarding you. This is what we call employment. Do things that we might not otherwise do, millions of us, because we get financially rewarded for doing so. And clearly it's successful. Because here we are, millions of us still going to work every day.

But the consequence there is that... If the reward dries up or is withheld or reduced, let's say your employer says, I'm sorry, I have to cut your salary in half, will you keep picking up the same amount of trash? You're

Shannon: [00:14:00] definitely not

Georgie: right you're motivational systems can be like, ahem. We're out. You got something better to do.

So if you're rewarding yourself with food for doing something like Putting your kids through a bath time or being patient with somebody on the road, you're just setting yourself up to expect that reward every time. And that can lead to eating excessively, eating when you're not hungry etc. So in short, using rewards can block you from having positive emotional associations with healthy food and exercise. And if you use it to reward yourself too often, it can directly block your progress toward a weight loss or health goal. So the bad news is passed. Let's talk about some good stuff. Like what could we do alternatively, if we've even been rewarding ourselves for a long time, what's a good,

Shannon: There are so many things that we can do. I mean, I've got a list. It's a huge list, honestly, so get ready to write things down later. Yeah, it is the good news, like, this is something that we can definitely change. I feel like when I'm [00:15:00] working with clients here, there are two key pieces that I want to snap in place simultaneously, which is one, let's move the food away from the reward.

But very importantly, two, we need to put another reward in place. Otherwise, it's like, well, now I just have to do this thing that maybe I don't want to do or that's really hard and there isn't a reward. And rewards can come in all shapes and sizes, so it's important to have both of those things moved.

And particularly if, like we've talked about, if your reward is a treat. Can you incorporate that somewhere else during your day across your week so that it's still something that you really enjoy? You get to have this enjoyment around foods. We're not just leaving this gaping hole in your life here.

Georgie: No fun foods.

Shannon: Right. So we want to move that to a different spot. That's all we're doing. We're moving it to a different spot. And then we want to find a non food reward here. But Georgie, what about you? What are some other things that you think of about how we can break this habit?

Georgie: I like the way that you [00:16:00] described that. Like we want to keep the run and we want to keep the donut. We just want to disconnect them so that you stay motivated to run by other things and that you still eat doughnuts if you really enjoyed doughnuts because they're delicious and we're not trying to take all the pleasure away. We just don't want to make it a package deal where every time you have one, you have to have the other.

It gives us a lot more freedom and flexibility. When I talk about this with clients, I tend to have two ways of discussing it. And really it's the same thing in two different semantic forms. So,

Shannon: Okay.

Georgie: One method is to make it so we're not looking for rewards in any sense when we do something healthy, but to focus on developing positive emotional experiences with that behavior itself.

So, like the example I used earlier, Focusing on how fun it can be to go to a dance class and to move your body to the music or how much you actually enjoy seeing the blue sky and having fresh air when you take a walk. Let's try and find things about that [00:17:00] activity itself so that you don't need a separate reward to get yourself to do it. The other way that I can approach it, and again, this is really the same thing just stated another way, is to focus on other rewards, as you said.

Shannon: Mm hmm.

Georgie: like the mood boost that we get, the fun that we have, the knowledge that this is moving us closer to our healthy heart or lower weight goal. The rewards can also come in the form of integrity. And by that, I mean, when we take actions that align with our values. So if you value patience and kindness and I'm able to resist honking and yelling at the slow driver in front of me, I won't need to promise myself a candy bar when I get home for being a nice patient person. I'm going to say, well, you know, I'm glad I did that in that moment. I chose to be a patient person rather than road rage, Georgie. And I like that quality in people. I want to have that quality myself. That does feel really good.

Like that's a little positive dopamine hit there. So. [00:18:00] Really, I guess, whichever way we say it, not looking for rewards and trying to enjoy the activity or simply framing it as the enjoyment of the activity or the alignment with our values being their own rewards. I think either of those can work. It's sort of which phrasing resonates with the client will probably be the one that I go to in that conversation.

when it comes to finding rewards that really work for people, the one thing I do encourage is differentiating between The immediate benefits or rewards and the longer term ones are the ones that we have to wait for because too often if somebody's weighing the immediate delight of the dessert versus the long term delight of fitting into smaller pants next spring, that immediate delight is just going to win out.

Shannon: Oh yeah.

Georgie: Yeah, so when we talk about, stuff that you can use every day to keep yourself doing your consistent behaviors, I find it's more effective to focus on the things that we get right away, like the pride, the happiness, the mood [00:19:00] boost, the better sleep.

Shannon: Yeah. Okay, so you mentioned earlier the example, Georgie, of a kid eating their broccoli in order to get to the ice cream. Right, which is like good, it's really good intention from the parents.

Like, we want you to eat your vegetables. Like, we get that. But the reward that sets up. As you mentioned, Georgie, it could be troublesome. So, how do parents go about changing this? Maybe it's something they already have established or, you know, their kids do chores and they get to pick out of the candy bucket or something.

So I know that I've had a lot of clients and have clients that are parents and it's really cool because they're always thinking about how their food behaviors and how can I pass on and make things as healthy as possible for my kids. So... What would you tell a parent in a situation that's using food as a reward?

Georgie: I like the way you said it earlier, where, you know, I want you to do this and that. What we're trying to move away from is doing this because of that. So, when it comes to the example of the broccoli and the ice cream, I might say, Well, we want to eat these foods, you know, motioning to the foods that are on the plate [00:20:00] because they're really high in stuff that's healthy for us, vitamins and minerals.

And we also eat some foods just because they're really tasty, but we can't do all one or none of the other. So sort of like life includes both of these things and life includes doing chores. Because we work and we contribute to this household and then we also get gifts like birthday gifts and they're not contingent upon you doing your chores.

It's it's just that life contains a balance of things. It contains work and play, rest and exertion. And we don't need to earn one with the other, so why don't we eat the healthy foods and eat the other foods so that we get both happy taste buds and healthy bodies. How is that? Could you see that flying at least with a little kid?

Shannon: I think so. I'm not a little kid, but I know a few little kids and I think that would fly.

Georgie: Yeah. I find a lot of times if we just use the word balance, it [00:21:00] works because it doesn't imply the linkage or the earning or the transaction sense. Like yes, after a day of doing responsible, difficult, cognitive things, I want to balance it out by playing a game on my phone.

But it's not necessarily a reward like I'm not doing all the responsible adult things just so I can play the game on my phone. There's a different relationship there, but I think it's important to create around food that we get to balance it all.

Shannon: I love that.

Georgie: Yeah,

Shannon: if any parents out there give it a try and let us know how it goes.

Georgie: So, did you grow up using food as rewards? And do you have maybe a lawn care story to share with us?

Shannon: I do! And my parents listen to this podcast. This is going to be really great. Love you, Mom and Dad! So, for example My dad loves peanut butter milkshakes. Like, you spend any time with him and you won't realize.

Which is totally, like, understandable, right? They're delicious. So something that... I experienced growing up was that if I spent. Lots of time outside in the heat doing lawn care, a[00:22:00] lot of times my dad would be like, hey Shannon You want to go get a peanut butter milkshake? this is a reward for working in the yard for a long amount of time and It's like, of course, I want to go get a milkshake so Georgie, when we're thinking about these types of situations, because this came from such a loving and wonderful place too, and thinking about rewards with food or now, just make an example of if I've had a long, hard day outside, like I deserve something cold and sweet.

Like I just deserve a milkshake or some ice cream. How, reframe that in my mind? So I'm not using food as a reward. And making this just a little bit healthier, mindset wise.

Georgie: We could say these two things go great together. Like, it's... Wonderful after a really hot, sweaty anything to get something that's cold and refreshing and tasty and to enjoy it with somebody you care about.

But if you're, [00:23:00] voicing this to your children, your adult children, your roommate, your husband like you probably wouldn't say like, I'll reward you for doing this or I'll do this for you if you do this for me. Why? Because it feels a little slimy, you know, like that's not how love works. Like love is not keeping score and I'll make the bed if you do this, but if you don't clean up the dog poop in the backyard, then I'm not going to make dinner.

Like that's, that's not how love works.

Shannon: No, that's not how it works. If that's how my marriage worked. That would not work.

Georgie: Right. Right. Like I think when we have this healthy relationship with other people, we understand that there's give and there's take and that there's times when we're leaning on them and there's times when they're leaning on us and it's not going to be 50 50 every day some days it's 90 10 or 70 30 but on the whole we do lots of giving and we also do lots of receiving and so with food we can look at it like Yes.

I do a lot of nutrition, responsible, healthy food eating. And I also do some [00:24:00] just because it's really pleasant and enjoyable. And thank God somebody invented Cheetos, you know, sort of eating. So, yeah, I think just the words that we use around that, like, it'd be a pretty good day for a milkshake, don't you think?

It's different than like, I'm going to reward you with a milkshake for what you've done.

Shannon: Yeah, 100%. And I think too that that's probably where a lot of parents come from, that they're not trying to turn it into this necessarily transactional. It's like, Oh, I love them. I want to do this thing. I want them to have the ice cream after they eat their broccoli and all of that. So it's just changing the wording slightly to make a really big impact, which is really cool.

Georgie: It is. It's, it's amazing how words can change how we feel. And if we see anything on a regular basis, it's that how we feel dramatically impacts how we behave.

Shannon: 100%. Okay. So the other thing I wanted to talk about was a list of big, [00:25:00] beautiful rewards that we can have for when we want to swap out a reward for food. What could we do instead? And sometimes you can find it really helpful with clients to make a list. So if we were working one on one together, we would, in your tracker, go in and just brainstorm all these things that felt like rewards to you.

And we would make a list so it was here for you when you needed it. So if you catch yourself having to study or, you know, clean the house, do chores, you had a long day at work, how can we reward ourselves in ways that aren't with food? Because that could be a pleasure piece that we're missing.

Georgie: Yeah absolutely. When life feels totally devoid of like fun and frivolity, like we gotta bring in some deliberate Fun.

Shannon: Definitely. Okay, so I have a nice long list that I would love to share with our confident eaters. And genuinely, if you don't have a list of things that you find as a reward that are non food related, grab a sticky note, grab your notes app. And if some of these [00:26:00] are like, Ooh, that sounds nice, like jot it down. Come on, make your own list.

Georgie: I'm ready.

Shannon: Georgie just got a pen.

Georgie: My pen's ready.

Shannon: So I like to break my reward list into three categories, free, cheap, to moderately expensive, and then expensive. Okay, I got the thumbs up from Georgie and a head nod and a smile. Let's go. Okay. So, and Georgie, you'll have to tell us what's on your list.

So some of these are things that I really enjoy and some of them are just brainstorm of things that other people have found helpful. Let's start with free because there's so many free rewards.

Georgie: Mhmm.

Shannon: All right. Number one, take a nap.

Georgie: Naps. Love them!

Shannon: Free! Me too. Similar to taking naps, you could just take a break. Like just take a break.

Georgie: Yeah.

Shannon: Yeah. Just take a break. Earlier today. My break while I was at work was that I laid on the floor and put my legs on the sofa for like a modified legs up the wall. and I set a timer on Alexa for five minutes and just like conked out. It was great. Five minutes . [00:27:00]

Georgie: This is not horizontal on the couch pose

Shannon: Exactly, exactly. Similar to that, personally I find yoga to be a nice break.

Georgie: Mm-hmm.

Shannon: Do a little sun salutation or something. Going for a walk outside is a free reward. Reading a book, listening to this podcast, or a podcast could be a reward, especially when you know a new episode's coming out, like that's really exciting.

Music, meditation, journaling, exercise, watching a sunset or sunrise. All free rewards.

Georgie: Definitely good.

Shannon: Taking a bath. Stargazing. Here's a weird one and kind of one of my favorites, but it's taking a phone break is my reward. Sometimes I can feel really overstimulated by emails and like chat notifications going off and like texting and sometimes my reward is that I put my phone down and I just walk away for like 15 minutes.

Georgie: Nice. I like that one. Yeah.

Shannon: Okay. Going into nature. Dance break. It's a fun [00:28:00] one. Connection can also be a nice reward. Maybe it's a hug, or Georgie, I know you've talked to me before about that there's like self compassion that you can do to like reconnect with yourself, would you mind to share that real quick?

Georgie: Yeah, like connecting with yourself, sometimes, especially people like me that tend to just like live in our skulls connecting with our physical body can be really nice, so like putting my hand on my heart, or sometimes putting it on my cheek, or wrapping both my arms, like that self hug can actually be really nice.

a really nice way of reconnecting that there's a whole lot going on below the neck and I don't just live in my brain. So this can be really nice.

Shannon: I love that. Yeah. Other free rewards and I'm almost to the end of my free list and there are so many more than just this, but movie night, visit a library could be a reward.

Going somewhere new like that, creating a new playlist. If you play an instrument, that can be a reward looking at you, Georgie, for that one. Did I miss any free rewards?[00:29:00] What else do we have?

Georgie: I think time with pets. Yes. Like, I'll find that dog and be like, get over here, I feed you, you have to cuddle me. Let me touch that warm furry belly.

Shannon: Yes.

Georgie: Take a break to cuddle our pets. And like, we're everything to them, so it means so much to them. Their favorite thing in the world is that human that comes over to cuddle them. So, yeah, I really like time with dogs. I... second you on the hugs, or just connecting with somebody else, as that can be super nice if you're in an office and you have other people that you can talk with. Obviously you don't want to interrupt people while they're working, but if people are You know, getting food or it's break time or coffee time, like, yeah, just going over and chatting with somebody else can be a real boost.

It can sort of pick us up again. Yeah, I find those are really nice, like social plans. And so making social plans, I think, can also be its own reward. Like, if I'm really dragging through the middle of the week and I text some friends like, okay, where are we going hiking this weekend, because I need some mountain time and people get back to me and they're like, yeah, [00:30:00] let's hike here.

How about Saturday this time? And now I have those plans. I'm already feeling

Shannon: something to look forward to, yeah,

Georgie: I haven't even hiked. And I'm already like, yes. So, making social plans, I think, is an under related.

Shannon: Oh, I love that. Yeah. Okay. So, moving into the cheap or moderately expensive category.

Georgie: See what we've got a lot going on in here.

Okay.

Shannon: Okay. So, I mentioned on the free one that you could take a bath. Or if I didn't, I meant to mention that. So, I'm going to call this one, take a fancy bath. Because you could get a bath bomb. Or you could get some essential oils. And then light a candle. And have just a whole vibe.

Georgie: Totally. Totally.

Shannon: Buy a plant. Buy a book. Buy a puzzle.

Georgie: Yep. Yep. I like all those.

Shannon: Make art.

Georgie: Or buy a kit. If you're not feeling creative, I'm always like, buy a kit. Like, buy a paint by numbers kit so you don't have that whole, like, blank page.

Shannon: Yes.

Georgie: Like, interrogation thing going on, like, I don't know which color and what I want to do. Like, buy a kit.

Shannon: Yes, yes. That would, that would make [00:31:00] painting so much easier. Also, side note, have you ever seen those little kits? I've seen them on social media and I like clicked on it once and I'm getting a whole bunch of them. And it's like, crochet these little animals.

Georgie: Yeah.

Shannon: This looks so magical. It'd be a great reward.

Georgie: I want to crochet a mini frog. Who doesn't?

Shannon: Right? Okay. Chief Remoderate. I don't know if this is available in everyone's area, but. Look for student massage places, because their massages are cheaper, and then you can get a massage, but you don't have to break the bank.

Georgie: Good point.

I've done that myself.

Shannon: Love that one. Getting your nails done, maybe go camping, or if you have family somewhere else, maybe going to visit them, buy some new makeup. Nail polish. Go to a thrift store and see if you can find something really unique.

Georgie: Hair conditioners, or like single use masks, you know.

Shannon: Or a good bath scrubby.

Georgie: Yes, pharmacies are like a treasure trove of good stuff for just a little, little bit of [00:32:00] financial investment.

Shannon: Yeah, you can get a lot of fun walking around with a new nail polish, then you get to walk around with a new nail polish and feel good. Okay, that ends my cheap to moderately expensive category.

Georgie: That was pretty comprehensive. I can't think of too many other ones. I do like the... I don't know if you said candle. You mentioned the candle with the bath.

Shannon: Yeah.

Georgie: Do you ever go to T. J. Maxx or HomeSense?

Shannon: Just smell candles for a while?

Georgie: They're just like, go up and down the smell aisle.

Shannon: It's especially because it's fall. Smell a whole bunch of them.

Georgie: Whether you buy one or not, it's a good experience.

Shannon: It is.

Georgie: What else? You can buy yourself flowers.

Shannon: Such a good one.

Georgie: You said buy a plant. And my heart sunk a little because I, I just still feel guilty about killing the plants that I bought this summer.

Shannon: You have a really nice one in the background of your office though, right?

Georgie: I do, but it's fake. That's why it hasn't died. [00:33:00]

Shannon: Buy yourself a fake plant.

Georgie: Buy yourself a fake plant. Yes. What about like buying yourself some decor, like

Shannon: Oh, fun!

Georgie: Throw pillow or

Shannon: I love a good throw pillow.

Georgie: Something for the walls. Right? Yeah. A print for the wall could be a really nice low expense sort of thing.

Shannon: I love it. I love it.

Georgie: Cool.

Shannon: Okay. Speaking of expense, this is the smallest category and it's the expensive category. Yes. The expensive one. Starting off with a reward might be a weekend getaway. Like maybe. That's your jam.

Georgie: Why stop there? Right? Make a week. Yeah. Go to Europe for a week. Work hard, play hard.

Shannon: Yeah. I love it. Or maybe it's a spa day, or a really nice date night, or... Splurging on the fancy pair of shoes, or maybe like new technology that you've been drooling over [00:34:00] and, you know, yeah, that's a fun one. That's my expensive category.

Georgie: Yeah, it's, it's limited because we can't go there every day, but it can be really nice. And again, we get to anticipate and look. Toward them

Shannon: forward

Georgie: for a while. So that can be helpful to motivate you for a longer term project that is really, you know, a whopper when it comes to, you know, trying to get up and at 'em day after day after day.

So, yeah, I like those big ones that you named an experience like getting tickets to something.

Shannon: Oh, I love that.

Georgie: Some of my friends, and my husband Roland and I are going to see the Taylor Swift eras tour in a movie theater, because we don't, we don't roll with the big bucks to like actually see the concert but for 19. 89, you can buy a movie ticket and see, I guess they have a film version, so. [00:35:00]

Shannon: Go be a Swiftie, sing along to all the songs.

Georgie: I also love sporting goods, like the way to my heart is sporting goods. So like new roller ski gloves on the small end up to new skis on the higher I love a new warm hat.

Anything like that can be good because it's, you know, reminds me of the things that I like most in terms of like getting outside and having fun and doing stuff with my friends and

Shannon: very rewarding,

Georgie: very much. I'm rewarded on all forms by outdoors fun. With really cool accessories and gadgets and clothing.

Shannon: I love it.

Georgie: So, okay, those are some awesome ideas for things we can do to just balance out the work and tedium and responsibility in our lives with things that make us feel happy and rewarded. And we don't have to tie [00:36:00] any of those things in particular to performing a particular task. We can just enjoy them as they are, and we can recognize that life has so many pleasant things, we're going to include a lot of fun, and then it's not so painful to try and also show up for the things that we do just because we care about the cause, or maybe we need to earn that paycheck.

All right. Thanks for joining us. As always, we'd love to hear any ideas you have. If there's content you want to see, or if you have a personal trouble that you could use some brainstorming, shoot me an email. My email is georgiefear@gmail. com. Have a great week.