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316. The Leaner, Stronger Runner Framework Part 3: Why Motivation Isn’t the Problem

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In The Leaner, Stronger Runner Framework – Part 3: Why Motivation Isn’t the Problem (And What Actually Creates Consistency), we’re talking about the missing piece that determines whether anything …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 316 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today the leaner stronger Runner framework. Part three, why motivation isn’t the problem and what actually creates consistency. So in this episode I’m gonna be talking about the missing piece that oftentimes determines whether anything you’ve learned so far actually sticks.

Most runners think they need more motivation, more discipline, or more willpower, but if that were true, you’d already have the results that you want. The real issue is an effort. It’s the system you’re relying on to stay consistent. When life gets stressful or motivation fades, or things just don’t go perfectly.

So in this episode, I’m gonna break down why motivation always runs out, why starting over feels so normal for runners and what actually creates long-term consistency. Without burning yourself out. This is about identity, structure and learning how to trust yourself again, not about trying harder or being perfect, so if you’re tired of resetting and ready to build something that lasts.

This episode is gonna bring everything together for you here. Okay. So this is the final part of a short but powerful series. Um, and if you haven’t already listened to the first two parts of this series, go back and and do that now. This is part number three, and today we’re talking about the piece that determines whether everything you’ve learned so far.

Actually sticks or just kind of quietly fades away like it always has in the past. Okay. And what we’re talking about to today more than anything else is gonna be consistency. Okay. Not motivation, not discipline, not trying harder, or you know, trying to force more willpower onto the situation we’re talking about.

Consistency. If you’ve ever felt like you know what to do, but you still struggle to follow through on that. Or if you’ve ever started strong and then you kind of drift off track over time, um, or maybe you’ve wondered why you keep restarting all the time instead of, you know, keeping the momentum going.

Then this episode is going to be for you for sure, and I wanna say this very clearly, upfront, that motivation is not your problem. Okay? So for the three part series that I’m doing here, this is probably the most important one of the series. In part one I talked about training. You know, why doing more often makes things worse.

Um, in part two, I talked about fueling and why restriction often backfires for runners, and those are. Tactical problems. I mean, they’re, they’re real issues and everything like that, but they’re, they’re strategic problems. Okay? This episode is about a foundational problem, okay? Because you can have the perfect training plan.

You can know exactly what to eat. And you can understand everything intellectually and still fail to change. And it’s not because you’re lazy, you’re a runner. You stick to your trading plan. I know you’re not lazy. It’s not because you don’t care. I know you care. This stuff is important to you because you’re relying on the wrong mechanism that’s actually driving your behavior.

Okay, so most runners believe something like this. If I could just stay motivated, then everything would work perfectly for me. Okay? So they think, you know, I need, I need more discipline, I need to want it more, or I need to stop falling off track. And when things don’t work perfectly, they blame themselves.

They beat themselves up, okay? But the truth here is that motivation. Is an unreliable resource. Willpower is a finite resource, and if you have discipline, that’s great, but discipline without structure is just gonna lead to confusion and eventually burnout. Okay, so motivation spikes. Sometimes you feel super motivated to do stuff, but then it fades and it, it will always fade.

Okay? When motivation fades, a lot of runners are thinking. You know, it must be me. Something is wrong with me. Listen, there’s nothing wrong with you, okay? I wanna talk about what is actually happening here, okay? ’cause runners and the people that I work with, and the people that I talk to every single day.

Oh, you guys are great at starting things. Okay, you got a new training plan. You got this new race that you signed up for, or maybe it’s a new distance. Instead of like a A 10 K, you’re going for a half marathon. Instead of a half marathon, you’re gonna train for that new marathon. You got a new goal. I’m gonna PR this time.

And you have this newfound motivation. And the first few weeks of this always feel pretty amazing, right? You’re focused. You’re super energized. Uh, you’re doing all the right things, okay? And then something happens. Life shows up, you get stressed out about work, uh, family stuff. Um, maybe you’re not sleeping well.

The weather turns super bad. You miss a run or two. You skip a workout, you eat off your meal plan, and instead of just adjusting and course correcting or pivoting or whatever you need to do, you’re like, I’m off track. Uh, and, and you try to snap back harder. Like you just try to, you know, force more energy into the situation.

Um, doesn’t really work right. Or a lot of people I talk to, they tell me that over time they just quietly give up. Right. They just lose that motivation and that’s it. They’re done. And then their, their idea is that they’re gonna restart later. Okay. And they’re going to, you know, pick it up again in a few weeks or a month, or when things calm down, or when you’re not stressed, or when you’re sleeping better, or when the weather turns different, or when the kids are outta school or whatever the thing is.

Right? And it’s not about, you know, being inconsistent or not caring or anything like that. It’s just you’re relying on a very fragile structure. So most runners have a plan. That assumes a few things. That assumes perfect weeks, like everything’s gonna go perfectly all the time. How’s that working out for you?

Your most plans assume some sort of high motivation factor, like you’re always gonna feel like. Doing the speed work or doing the long run in the rain, or the snow, or the wind or, or you know, a combination of all those things. Uh, most plans assume no stress and, uh, no setbacks at all, but that’s not reality.

Okay. ’cause real life is not perfect. It’s messy. Training is imperfect. Your energy levels fluctuates. Um, mo motivation comes and goes, right? And if your plan only works, when everything is perfect and everything is going right, it’s not going to work okay? It’s just not so one of the most important concepts.

That I wanna share with you in this episode is this id, this idea of identity versus behavior. Okay? ’cause most runners try to change their behavior. Their actions, what they’re doing without changing their identity. You know who they are at their core or how they see themselves at their core. So someone might say like, I’m trying to lose weight, or I’m trying to be more consistent, or I’m trying to eat better, and this is all very fragile.

Okay, because trying depends on mood. It depends on your motivation, it depends on circumstances, and, and again, it assumes everything is going perfect. Identity is different. Identity is who you are at your core or how you see yourself. So identity is. Usually it’s everything that follows the words I am.

Okay, so identity sounds like. You know, this is how I train now. This is who I am. This is how I eat now. This is who I am. This is how I take care of myself. This is just what I do because this is who I am. So identity removes the questioning of the decision. It removes the negotiation with yourself. Right, because if this is who you are and this is how you train, this is who you are, this is how you eat, there is no question, there’s no decision to be made there.

Do you see how much more powerful that is than just trying to change the behavior? I’m going to try to eat better, versus this is how I eat. You know, I eat like an athlete because I am an athlete. That’s very, very powerful and it’s an empowering statement, and it’s taking that, that power that you have about decision making about.

Uh, behavior about, you know, shifting and transforming yourself and improving yourself, and it’s putting it all on you, which is the good news end, the bad news. Because guess what? It’s all on you, but you know what, it’s all on you. Um, so when you’re, when you’re saying like, I’m trying to do this, uh, that’s very weak.

It’s a very fragile, it’s a very, um, disempowering statement to make. Okay. Instead, start thinking in terms of shifting your identity into, Hey, I’m an athlete. I train like an athlete. I eat like an athlete. I, uh, run like an athlete. Okay? So it removes the negotiation when you start shifting your identity.

Now a lot of runners I talk to, they, they, uh, haven’t got this part dialed in yet, and they end up, uh, starting over a lot. And runners are very good at starting over. In fact, they’re so good at it that it feels normal to them. Like every Monday they have to start over with their diet. Um. You know, uh, uh, I’m gonna start my new training plan on Monday, or, you know, my motivation hopefully will come back on Monday.

Uh, so new plans, new motivation. Hopefully they make new promises to themselves. They’re just starting over constantly. Um, stopping and starting over, stopping and starting over, and it feels. Productive. It feels like you’re doing something good. It feels hopeful. It’s a way of kind of exerting some control over the situation.

If you’re constantly starting over, then you’re constantly feeling that initial surge of motivation. Right. But starting over is also a sign that nothing was built, nothing was established, you didn’t create some momentum, um, and you didn’t really fail. It’s just like you didn’t, you didn’t give it long enough to actually, you know, um, have legs.

Okay, so you didn’t give it, uh, uh, enough time to where it could become stable and create that momentum. It’s kind of like. Uh, the plane takes off, right? There’s a lot of energy required to get that plane off the ground, but once it’s off the ground, you get some momentum going and you can just get up to cruising altitude and you can just, uh, glide almost.

You could turn off those engines. You could fly for quite a long time, or you don’t need as much energy once you’re, uh, in that, uh, gliding mode, you know, once you’re up at altitude. But. So many people give up before they get to that place. They love the surge, they love the, uh, energy and that motivation that comes at the beginning of something and, and they like starting over constantly subconsciously.

It’s not something they’re super consciously aware of. They’re like, why do I keep starting over? But underneath the surface, they kind of enjoy it. Maybe they’re a little addicted to that adrenaline, you know, of constantly having to start over again. Okay. And listen, I’m not talking about being perfect here.

This is where a lot of people, um, get this wrong or they, they misunderstand. They think that being consistent means never missing a workout or never overeating, or never sneaking a cookie or a cupcake. Never getting tired, never falling off track. That is not consistency. That’s perfectionism. You know, and perfectionism is.

Not based in reality, let’s be honest. Okay. When I’m talking about consistency, it looks like this. It means that, you know, maybe you fall off track a little bit, but you return quickly, like you course correct quickly, you adjust instead of. Quit like in, instead of giving up and starting over, you make a course correction, you adjust.

You’re staying in the processed, right, you’re staying in the process of training, in the process of, uh, making a food plan, whatever that looks like for you, and you are making the next best decision. You always tell people, um, don’t, don’t miss two workouts in a row. Don’t have two bad meals in a row. In other words, if you eat off plan.

At the very next meal, get back on track. If you miss a workout, don’t worry about it. Stuff happens. Sometimes we get sick or you know, the kids were demanding your attention or you had to, um, deal with some work stuff and you miss a work. Okay? No, no problem. Don’t worry about it. Just next workout, you’re back on track.

Don’t miss that second workout. Okay? Consistency is about. Continuity, not perfect compliance. All right? There’s no such thing as perfection. Nobody’s gonna do this stuff perfectly. So let’s talk a little bit about some emotions, because this is where a lot of runners, um, get themselves stuck because they, they get emotional about some things and.

We have to, we have to address this, okay. And talk about it. A lot of coaches out there aren’t really talking about this stuff, okay? And this is kind of subtle, but it’s very important, okay? Most runners, uh, their decisions are not super logical. They are emotional. Alright? You don’t skip a run because you decided to, you didn’t make that decision.

You skipped it because you were overwhelmed or stressed or tired, or something got in the way. You didn’t overeat because you’re careless. Uh, you overate because your nervous system is fried for whatever reason. Okay? If your plan doesn’t account for emotions, it will fail. And when I’m talking about emotions, I’m talking about things like stress and overwhelm and frustration and anxiety and boredom.

Is an emotion. Um, fear, uh, these are all emotions, sadness, grief. Um, these are all the kinds of emotions that drive us to, uh, go off our plan, that drive us to engage in behaviors that maybe aren’t aligned with our long-term goals. Okay. Um, so we have to understand that emotions are part of the process and that it’s okay.

To feel these things, it’s okay to, um, you know, have some sadness because something happened or to be stressed out. Like it’s okay that you’re stressed out. It doesn’t mean you have to give up the ship just because you’re a little stressed out. Okay. Okay. I wanna talk a little bit about willpower. ’cause a lot of people think that they just need to exert more willpower to fix a situation.

Willpower is a finite resource. Okay? It works when you’re rested, when you’re calm, when you’re motivated. Um, but it’s a, it’s a tank that’s kind of full at the beginning of the day. By the end of the day, it’s. It can be empty, right? Because you get stressed out, you get tired, you get overwhelmed, stuff is going on in your life, and by the end of the day, your willpower tank is drained.

Okay? So if your entire plan is relying on willpower, as soon as things start to happen, it’s going to dissipate. And, and things are going to get difficult for you, okay? It’s not a weakness, it’s biology. This is why so many people do well during the day as far as their eating plan goes. You know, they, they stick to their plan, they’re great, and then later in the evening they blow it.

Can you relate to that? I used to do this all the time, and I can’t tell you how many people. Tell me this, that, oh, I did great during the day, but it’s at night. When I, when I struggle. It’s because you’re relying on willpower, not structure, not a system. You’re relying on willpower. It’s a finite resource.

By the end of the day, it’s gone, and that’s why you eat chocolate cake for dinner. Okay, so when I talk about structure. I’m talking about the kind of structure that creates freedom for you. Like we hear structure and we think, you know, rigid and, um, controlled and you know, very, um, narrow focus, but structure can create a ton of freedom for you.

Okay? There’s a shift in your mindset that I need you to make here, okay? And this is to stop trying to be more disciplined and start building. Better structure. Structure removes that decision fatigue that I talked about. You know, it removes, or I’m sorry, it creates pre predictability, right? Structure creates something that is reliable and predictable, and this is very important.

Structure makes consistency feel automatic, right? You probably don’t rely on motivation to brush your teeth every day. You just do it. Why? Because you have a structure in place. Um, you know, you get up in the morning, maybe you eat your breakfast, you brush your teeth, then you go to work. You’re not leaving the house without brushing your teeth, right?

That’s what I mean by structure. Okay? You’re not, you’re not disciplined because you brush your teeth every day, right? You’re not motivated to brush your teeth. You’re not relying on willpower to brush your teeth. You do it because that’s what you do, right? You’re the kind of person, again, we’re talking about identity here.

You’re the kind of person who brushes their teeth before they leave the house. And I appreciate that. I think we all do. I hope everybody’s that kind of person. Um, but our training and our nutrition plans should work the same way. We wanna have that same kind of structure in place around strength training, around our, our running and around nutrition.

So when runners finally get this part right, they say things like, you know, I don’t stress about food anymore. I just do what I do. It feels easier. Everything feels, um, you know, just much calmer. And I don’t feel like I’m constantly starting over or, or trying to figure out what to do. Right? And it’s not because they’re more disciplined or they have more willpower, it’s because they removed all the friction.

And that structure, uh, helps to do that. It removes that friction. Okay. And something that a lot of people I talk to, they don’t really want to admit, but it’s true. They don’t really trust themselves. Okay? ’cause they’ve quit before. They’ve fallen off track. They’ve restarted too many times and they’re constantly waiting for that other shoe to drop.

Okay? And what happens is they make a promise to themselves. They don’t keep that promise to themselves, and then they beat themselves up and they, and they break down the trust they have in themselves. And if you keep repeating the cycle over and over and over, you basically cannot trust yourself any longer because subconsciously you’re telling yourself.

I cannot rely on myself. I know I said I was gonna do X, Y, and Z instead. I didn’t. And you would never, I hope anyway. You would never do that to a family member or a friend. Constantly tell them you’re gonna do something and then not follow through on it. Like, think about that with your partner or uh, somebody at work.

Maybe you’re not gonna tell somebody you’re gonna do something and constantly. Uh, fail on that or let them down because you know, that’s gonna break down the trust in that relationship and they’re not going to wanna be friends with you anymore or married to you or whatever it is. Okay. So we do it to ourselves though all the time, right?

We break down that trust in ourselves, right? And that lack of self-trust creates a lot of anxiety, internal anxiety, internal turmoil, and this creates burnout really, because you’re constantly sort of stressing yourself out. Okay? Instead, we want to keep. The promises we make to ourselves. We make a plan.

We stick to the plan. We build a little self-trust. We make a plan, we stick to the plan. We build more self-trust. Keep doing this, and you build tons of trust in yourself. You build confidence, you recover quickly from mistakes. You stop making rules that you can’t keep, like you do what you say you’re gonna do.

And this is built through tiny little wins, not big giant promises that you make to yourself. It’s built through daily repetitions. You gotta get your daily reps in, okay? A lot of small, little, you know, commitments that you keep to yourself. They add up over time. And I’m telling you all of this because this is why the leaner, stronger runner framework actually works.

Not because it’s extreme, not because it’s rigid, not because it demands perfection, but because it’s designed for real runners with real lives who have real stress and experience real setbacks. It assumes imperfection and it survives it. Now when I talk about structure, again, I’m not talking about rigidity, right?

I don’t mean rules that make your life harder, and I definitely don’t mean some perfect plan. You follow until the first thing that happens that blows everything up for you. Okay? I mean, simple guardrails that remove decision making and keep you moving forward even when life gets in the way or motivation is low.

So I’m gonna give you a couple of examples of what structure can look like, things that you can put into practice starting today. Okay. The first is a default training week, right? We’re gonna take the guesswork out of this one. Okay? And one of the biggest mistakes that runners make is deciding what they’re going to do every single day.

That is exhausting. Okay. Structure instead looks like having a default week, uh, not a perfect week, but a default week that you can always fall back on, um, or at least something you can use as a template. So, for example, these are my run days. These are my non-running days. This is when I do my strength training, and these are my recovery days.

Okay? Even if your mileage changes, even if the intensity changes, your training, whatever, the framework stays the same. So when life gets busy, you don’t think, oh, what should I do today? You already know it’s written down. Okay, you have a, a default training week. It’s penned in ink and it’s non-negotiable.

Okay? Um, and you just execute the plan to the best of your ability. Okay? Again, you may not do it perfectly. Stuff gets in the way sometimes, but have a default training week. Um, number two. Is having a non-negotiable minimum? This one is huge. Most runners think consistency means doing everything exactly as they planned.

It does not. Consistency means knowing that your minimum standard, the smallest version of the habit that you’re trying to establish still counts. Okay. For example, if a full run feels like too much. The minimum might be 20 easy minutes. Okay. If a full strength session feels overwhelming to you or you don’t have time, the minimum might be, you know, one circuit.

You know, one full body circuit takes you 15 minutes. If your nutrition feels off, the minimum might be three solid meals instead of, oh, I’m just gonna start over tomorrow. Okay. Again, having a non-negotiable minimum prevents the all or nothing trap. Okay? ’cause you’re never quite off track. You’re just operating at the minimum, and that still counts, and it still builds trust and confidence in yourself.

Okay, and then number three, a simple food framework, right? Not daily decisions about food. That’s a recipe for disaster right there. I’m telling you right now, you need structure around food. And it doesn’t mean eating the same thing every single day. It means removing that daily negotiation, for example, um, getting protein in every meal.

Eating regularly, you know, at regular times instead of just eating whenever you feel like it or eating reactively, you know, because you’ve had a stressful day, um, fueling your training days intentionally stop trying to make up for what you did yesterday, right? When food decisions are made in advance, stress goes down, consistency goes up.

You’re not relying on willpower, you’re relying on the plan that you put in place. Number four, having a reset rule instead of constantly starting over. Okay, this one might be the most important one. Structure includes a reset rule, a rule that says if I miss a workout, I’m not going to punish myself. I just get back on track.

If I overeat, I don’t restrict myself. I don’t try to make it up. I just normalize what I’m doing again. Or if a week kind of gets outta control, things go a little bit sideways. I don’t quit. I just simply come back to home base. I reset. Right? No drama. No guilt, no restarting from scratch. You simply return back to your structure and this is how consistency is built over time and, and if you have a reset rule in place, this might be the most important thing that you can do starting today.

Get this in place because you are going to have setbacks. You’re going to fall off your plan. You’re going to eat the chocolate cake for dinner or whatever that looks like for you. And if you beat yourself up and you have to start all over again, every time that happens. You break down the trust, you break down the confidence, you don’t get the results that you want.

Um, you end up quitting and we don’t wanna do any of that stuff, okay? We wanna get back to normal and start building that consistency. Okay? Again, consistency is not perfection. Okay. And then number five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay. Finally, structure means tracking the right thing, not your scale weight every single day, or perfect weeks or flawless execution.

Um, maybe tracking things like how often did I return back to normal? Um, did I follow the structure more than I didn’t, you know, did I, did I hit like a, a a b plus instead of an a plus? Um, did I get, you know, 25 out of 31 days where I stayed on track? Um. Am I building momentum instead of stopping and then starting over all the time?

Because this stuff actually matters. This is what’s actually going to move the needle for you. Okay? So that’s what structure can look like for you. Um, and again, these are just examples, but I’ll, I’ll recap these really quickly. One, a default training week instead of guessing two, a non-negotiable minimum.

Uh, three, a simple food framework for a reset rule instead of starting over. And then five, tracking consistency, not perfection. Okay, now here’s the important part. These examples work, but they’re, they work best when they’re part of a complete system, okay? So when training, nutrition and mindset are all structured together, consistency stops feeling like something you have to force.

It just becomes something you do, okay? Again, it becomes part of your identity. This is who I am, this is what I do, and that’s exactly what the Leaner, stronger Runner Project is designed to give you. So I wanna zoom out a little bit here. Um, in part one of this series, you learned how to train without breaking yourself down.

Uh, part two, you learn how to eat without fighting your bio, your, uh, body and your biology. And in part three here today, you learn how to stay consistent without relying on motivation. This is the system. It’s not a bunch of hacks or shortcuts or, you know, contests to see how disciplined you are. It’s a framework.

That actually works with you. Okay. If you’ve listened all the way through to this part of the episode. I want you to hit pause for just a second. Okay. Because getting to the end here tells me something important about you. You care. You want this to work. You’re tired of starting over. You’ve probably tried pushing harder.

You’ve probably tried being more disciplined. You’ve probably tried relying on motivation to carry you through and now. You know the truth, motivation isn’t the problem. You don’t need more willpower. There’s nothing wrong with you, okay? What’s been missing is structure a system one that works in real life, not just on perfect weeks, okay?

And that’s exactly why I created the Leaner, stronger Runner project, right? It’s not about grinding more being perfect, it’s about having a clear framework for how you train. How you eat and how you stay consistent, especially when life gets busy, stressful, or unpredictable, because it always will. It’s all about building strength without breaking yourself down, fueling in a way that supports your recovery instead of fighting your body and your biology, and it’s finally trusting yourself to be able to follow through.

Okay, so if you’re ready to stop resetting and you wanna start building something that actually lasts. Go to running lean coaching.com/ready, okay? That’s where everything you’ve learned in this series all comes together. Okay? That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean, and I will talk to you soon.

310. The Lies We Tell Ourselves About Losing Weight

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Today on the podcast, we’re digging into something that every runner deals with but almost no one talks about openly: “The Lies We Tell Ourselves About Losing Weight.” These thoughts are …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 310 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today the lies we tell ourselves about losing. Weight. So today I am digging into something that every runner deals with, but almost no one talks about openly anyway, the lies we tell ourselves about losing weight.

These thoughts are subtle. They’re sneaky. They feel reasonable, and that’s exactly why they keep so many runners stuck. We tell ourselves little stories like, I run so much, I should be able to eat whatever I want, or I’ll start eating better after my race, or it’s just my hormones and we don’t even question these thoughts.

They become invisible barriers that quietly sabotage our progress. So in this episode, I’m gonna shine a big, bright light on the most common lies. Runners tell themselves about losing weight, why they feel so true, and how to shift into thoughts that actually support your goals. If you’re ready for a little honesty, clarity, and a massive mindset upgrade, this episode is especially for you.

But first, if you’re listening to this and thinking, wow, I’ve been dealing with these exact same things, Patrick, then I want you to know something. You do not have to keep trying to figure this all out on your own. Most runners are out there working hard, putting in the miles, pushing through the fatigue, but still feeling frustrated because they’re results.

Don’t match their effort, and it’s not because they’re not capable, it’s because they’re missing a clear plan, the right guidance, and the right kind of mindset that actually supports creating lasting change. That’s exactly what my coaching program is designed to do. I help you fix the stuff that’s been slowing you down for years.

The inconsistent eating, the lack of structure, the confusion about fueling the mental chatter that keeps you second guessing yourself. You’re gonna get a personalized approach for your running, strength, nutrition, and mindset. So they’re all working together to create real. Sustainable transformation. If you wanna feel lighter, stronger, more confident, and finally see all that hard work you’re doing payoff.

Go to running lean coaching.com, click on work with me. Let’s go. Okay, so the reason I wanted to talk about this today is because I had a coaching call recently where a client said something to the effect of, um, you know, Patrick, I’m trying so hard, but I just don’t think this is gonna work for me. Uh, I can’t lose weight because of my age.

And listen, she wasn’t whining, she wasn’t making excuses. This is something that this person honestly believed. And for her it felt very true. And that’s exactly how these little subtle lies work. ’cause they feel like facts. You know, saying something like, oh, I’ve reached this certain age, fill in the blank.

It could be 45, it could be 75. And then you could say, well I, I’ll never be able to lose any more weight because of this number. And that feels like a fact to you. And, and it feels kind of harmless ’cause it just feels like this is just the way it is, but it’s quietly undermining every single effort you’re trying to make.

So today I want to expose some of these, uh, the biggest, at least most common lies that runners tell themselves about losing weight. And I’m gonna show you kind of what you should be thinking instead. Okay. So. Lie number one. This is a fun one. It’s fun to say, and I hear runners say this all the time, but it is definitely a lie I run, so I should be able to eat whatever I want.

Have you ever told yourself that or heard anybody say that? Just about everybody I know who is a runner has said this at some point in their life. Um, runners love this one because it sounds very logical. You know, you’re out there running, you’re burning calories, you’re working hard, you’re sweating, so obviously you should be able to eat everything that you want, right?

Well, here’s the truth. Running is great for your heart. It’s great for your mind. It’s great for your endurance, but it is absolutely terrible as a standalone weight loss strategy. Running alone doesn’t undo overeating. It doesn’t undo poor food choices. It doesn’t magically bypass the laws of metabolism.

Food is fuel, yes, but it’s also data. And when the data coming in is chaotic and consistent or low quality, your body’s just gonna store that as excess fat. A more helpful, empowering thought is I fuel my running. I don’t justify. Overeating. Okay, so think about that. If you’ve ever told yourself, I should be able to eat whatever I want because I run, just remember that food is more than just fuel.

There’s also information stored in that food. Certain foods turn on hunger hormones and make you excessively hungry. Certain foods turn off, uh, leptin production, which makes you never really feel very full, so you tend to overeat. Um, so there’s more to it than just calories and calories out, or being able to eat whatever you want because you run a certain number of miles every week.

Okay? Don’t justify your overeating. Stop telling yourself this lie. Okay? I fuel my running. I don’t justify overeating. That’s a better, more empowering thought lie. Number two, it’s just my hormones. Okay? Now, hormones are real. There’s, there’s nothing, um, magical or mythological about hormones. They matter.

They affect your metabolism, your appetite, your energy, your recovery. All of it, but there’s a, a small little lie hidden inside this truth here. And that lie is that there’s nothing I can do about it. And that’s the dangerous part because as soon as you start believing that you’re powerless, that it’s this completely out of your control, you just stop trying.

You give up. You know, hormones can make weight loss more challenging. But you are never helpless. Alright? There are ways that you, uh, there are things that you can control. You can control what you eat, how much you eat, how consistently you eat certain foods, how much protein you eat, how much strength training you do, how well you are sleeping, how you are managing your stress, how you think and feel about yourself.

These are all things that you have control over. A better thought is, yeah, my hormones play a role, but my choices still matter. So that’s a much more empowered thought there. This puts you back in control. This puts you back in the driver’s seat. Hormones can be a factor. They are, um, a lot of times turned on or off by certain food choices that you make.

Like I just mentioned, you eat a bunch of sugar. You’re turning off your, uh, fullness hormone leptin, and you’re turning on and producing more ghrelin your hunger hormones. So you’re gonna be excessively hungry, the more sugar you’re eating, and then you don’t feel as full because you’re not producing as much leptin.

That’s a very good example of how hormones are affected by the foods that you eat. So they’re not just out there operating, you know, willy-nilly. They have, um. They are being controlled by, by different, uh, forces. You know, there’s forces on your hormones that are either turning some on or turning some off.

Okay. So your choices absolutely still matter. Um, and I’ve had, you know, people that I’ve worked with in the past who have really tried a lot of different things to try to lose weight. And then we’ve looked at getting a, a hormone panel done, you know, like a thyroid panel done, and they’ve realized that they need to be on some kind of hormone therapy because there’s.

Something that’s really amiss there. And that is something that can be a factor. So if you’re really thinking that this is a factor, get your hormones checked. But for the, for most of us, um, that’s really not gonna be, um, a, a factor. Okay. Section, uh, or line number three. Um, I’m gonna start after my race. So this one is pretty sneaky because runners love creating imaginary timelines.

Like, you know, after my next marathon or after that, that Turkey trot, you know, or the 10 k, uh, around the holidays or after the holidays are over, after this vacation, after the kids go back to school. It’s always after, after, after. But here’s what you’re really telling yourself right now is not the right time.

And let me just tell you the right time, never magically appears. It’s not your race. Um, if it’s not your race, it’s gonna be your schedule. If it’s not your schedule, it’s gonna be your stress level. It’s not your stress level. It’s gonna be something else. Waiting for conditions to be perfect is just a sneaky way of staying exactly where you are, because you never have to actually start anything if you just keep saying later, later, later.

So a better thought for this one is, you know, this is something that is important to me. This counts this, this matters to me. I can start making better choices right now because the truth is that when you keep delaying and delaying and delaying your procrastinating and procrastinating, you’re just pushing back.

Uh, your ability to change for the better. And the more you do that, the more you’re just gonna stay stuck right where you are. Um, delay is the killer of a lot of people’s, um, you know, progress in life. There’s a lot of things that people want, a lot of goals, a lot of hopes and dreams that people have, and they just keep pushing that delay button.

And they never start because you know what? When you, when you don’t have to start, you’re never gonna fail with anything. You don’t have to do anything hard. You don’t have to get uncomfortable. And I get it, but just remember that if you start something today, you know, think about where you’re gonna be three, six months from now, as opposed to you just keep delaying three or six months and you’re just gonna be exactly where you are right now.

So I’ll start after, you know, my race or fill in the blank is, is very, very subtle. Lie number four. I just need to run more. So this is the classic runner solution to every problem. If you’re struggling with weight, run more. If you’re stressed, run more. If you’re tired, run more. If you’re injured. Um. Well, maybe don’t run more, but I know some of y’all are going to try.

Um, but here’s the thing. More running can actually increase your hunger. More running, um, can actually lead to more eating because you’re a lot hungrier. You know, more eating can often lead to more weight gain. So not only is running more not solving this problem, sometimes it’s actually making it worse, a better thought instead of, I just need to run more.

It might be. You know, running improves my fitness, but nutrition creates weight loss. They work together, but they are not interchangeable. But I can’t tell you how many times, you know, runners, you know, just try to throw more miles at the problem. You know, this is all again, about this idea of calories in, calories out.

And if you just, you know, do more cardio, you’re gonna lose more weight. And that’s not necessarily true. I know so many people who run all the time, they’re doing cardio every single day, and they are still. 30, 40 pounds overweight and they can’t lose the weight, is the solution to run more? Probably not.

They can’t run anymore. They’re running seven days a week. You know, you just can’t add more, uh, to that, to that situation there. Now stress, I think, you know, a certain amount of running can help with stress. I think, you know, if you’re feeling less energetic, that a certain amount of running can help you feel.

More energetic, but there’s a law of diminishing returns, right? There’s a comes a point in time where. You know, you get to the point where you’re actually overdoing it and then you’re gonna be more stressed and you’re gonna be more tired and more exhausted and over training, and that’s gonna lead to more weight gain.

So running more is just really not the answer to everything, but it’s a great lie to tell yourself. It means you don’t have to change any of your eating habits. You can just keep eating whatever junk you want to, and as long as you just run more, you can justify that. Um, but I hear all the time about runners who are, you know, running all the time they’re in.

They seem to be in pretty good shape and they end up having some, you know, heart attack or something like that because of poor diet, because of other mitigating factors. Okay? So just running more is not gonna be the answer. Okay? So remember, running improves my fitness. Nutrition creates weight loss, so make the focus on nutrition, lie number five.

I’ve already tried everything. I’ve heard this one so many times from people, and you know what? You haven’t, you know, I love you all, but listen, you are absolutely, you have not absolutely tried every single thing out there, okay? What you’ve done is tried a lot of things for very short periods of time, without consistency, without coaching, without a solid plan, without a solid mindset strategy, supporting that plan.

And listen, that’s not. Failure. You’re not doing anything wrong. You’re normal. That’s just being a human, okay? But this lie of I’ve tried everything, convinces you that nothing will ever work for you. And when you believe that, you don’t have to show up anymore, you don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to change because nothing is ever going to work for you.

This is a terrible thought. Doesn’t it sound terrible the way I’m saying it? Just saying it out loud here. I wrote, you know, some notes here and, and you know, it looked fine on paper as I’m saying it out loud. I’m like, God, this sounds awful. A better thought would be there are strategies I haven’t mastered yet.

There are things I have not tried, but I’m capable of figuring this out. That, that is an empowered statement right there. I’ve tried everything. Nothing is ever gonna work for me, is giving your power away. You become powerless when you say that. Alright? But when you say, I am going to figure this out, there’s things I haven’t tried yet.

That is very empowering. That’s putting the power back on your plate. You are now in control because you are in control. You know, we just, again, you know, we don’t wanna have to try anything else. ’cause it’s, it’s, it can be frustrating sometimes and I get it. It is frustrating sometimes when you try something and it doesn’t work.

But guess what? The only way you can succeed is if you try. You may, it may or may not work you. You, um, analyze your results, you make necessary changes. Then you try something else and you repeat that process until you succeed. That’s the way every successful person in the world has ever accomplished anything big.

Right? You, you keep trying. Keep trying. Success is built upon a big old pile of failures, right? So you just gotta keep, keep trying and it’s frustrating, I get it. But this is the way the world works. Okay? So why do these lies matter? Here’s the, the takeaway I want you to, to really think about here for today, the thoughts that you repeat.

Determine the results that you get, the thoughts you keep repeating, determine the results that you get, not because of magic or manifestation or crystals or anything like that, but because your thinking drives your actions every single day, period. If your thoughts are disempowering, if your thoughts remove your responsibility.

If your thoughts make you feel stuck, hopeless, or defeated, then guess what? Your actions will reflect that. The actions that you take will be disempowering. They will, they will remove you, uh uh, your responsibility. They will make you feel stuck, hopeless, and defeated. But. When you choose thoughts that create agency that are empowering, that spark motivation, when you choose thoughts that build confidence, your whole experience changes.

You know, your actions will reflect that. Your actions will be empowered. They will have agency. They will, you know, spark motivation. They will create confidence in you. Weight loss doesn’t start with food. It starts, uh, with the story that you tell yourself. Weight loss doesn’t start with, you know, how many macros you should be eating or, or what kinds of foods you should be eating.

It starts with, you know, the stories that you tell yourself or the excuses that you’re making, or the story or the, um, uh, lies you keep telling yourself. Okay. If you’re listening to this right now and you’re thinking, yeah, this is exactly the kind of work I need to be doing, then I want to just invite you to join me inside my coaching program.

This is where we dig deep into your mindset, your habits, your fueling, your training, all of it, and we build a simple, sustainable, empowering plan that actually gets you to where you want to go. So if you want some expert guidance, some ongoing support, some accountability. To finally reach your weight loss and uh, your weight loss goals and feel amazing doing it, go to running lean coaching.com.

Click on work with me. Alright, my friends, that’s all I got for you today. Stop believing the lies. Okay? Start choosing thoughts that actually support the runner that you want to become. Love you all. Keep on running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

306. Understanding and Identifying Self-Sabotage

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In this week’s episode of the Running Lean Podcast, I’m diving deep into a topic that affects every single one of us—Understanding and Identifying Self-Sabotage. If you’ve ever made progress toward …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought.
Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 306 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today understanding and identifying self sabotage. So today I am gonna be diving deep into a topic that affects every single one of us understanding and identifying when we self-sabotage.

If you’ve ever made progress toward your running or weight loss goals only to find yourself slipping back into old habits and behaviors, this episode is going to hit home for you. You’re gonna learn what self-sabotage. Actually is and what it isn’t. How to recognize when you’re doing it and the surprising reasons why we all do it.

Most importantly, I’ll show you how to start breaking the cycle so you can finally build real. Lasting consistency. This is not about guilt or shame, it’s about awareness and growth. Because once you see how you’ve been getting in your own way, you’ll have the power to stop doing it and to start creating the results that you’ve actually been working for.

But first, listen, I know how frustrating it feels when you’re doing all the right things. You’re running, you’re eating healthy, you’re putting in the work, but something still feels off. You’re tired of feeling like progress takes too long, that you can’t stay consistent, or that maybe your body isn’t responding the way that it should.

Here is the truth. You don’t need another quick fix. You don’t need another cookie cutter training plan. You need a comprehensive approach that helps you to build strength, improve your endurance, and burn fat without burning out. That’s exactly what we do inside my coaching program. I’ll help you develop a nutrition strategy that actually supports your running.

Uh, I’ll help you to build a body that feels strong and resilient, and I’ll help you to master the mindset that keeps you consistent long term. How about no more self-sabotage? Listen, you don’t have to keep doing this alone. The next step is simple. Go to my website running lean coaching.com, click on work with me.

Let’s get you feeling light, feeling strong, feeling confident, again from the inside. Out. Okay, so let’s talk about self-sabotage. Yay. What it is, what it isn’t. How to know when you’re doing it, why we do it, and the sneaky ways it shows up in our lives as runners and just as human beings. This op, I’m hoping that this episode is going to hit home for a lot of you because.

That’s my intention here. That would be a good thing. You can’t change something if you don’t know that you’re doing it. Okay? You have to acknowledge it in order to change it, and so today is all about recognizing, identifying, and acknowledging what’s really going on. So the first thing I wanna do is kind of talk about what self-sabotage is and what it isn’t.

And I wanna start with a, a definition. So self-sabotage is when your thoughts, emotions, or behaviors are working against your goals. Okay? It’s when you say you want to do one thing, like, you know, I wanna lose weight, or I wanna be able to run faster. You know, I wanna feel confident in my body. But what you’re doing, your actions tell a completely different story.

It’s that internal conflict between what you say that you want and then what you’re actually doing, you know, every day. The crazy thing is most of the time. We don’t even realize when we’re doing it, and we all do this. I wanna make that very clear right now. This is not something just for, it’s not just something that weak people do or something that unaware people do.

Like everybody at some point has engaged in some sort of self-sabotage, okay? And a lot of times we don’t even realize we’re doing it. You might just think that you’re tired or you’re stressed or you’re busy, but underneath that, there’s deeper things happening. Okay? So self-sabotage is not laziness, it’s not weakness.

It’s not because you’re broken. It’s not because you’re undisciplined. It’s actually your brain. Trying to protect you. So your brain is wired for safety and for comfort. Your brain wants predictability. It wants safety at wants the familiar. So when you start to change things, when you start a new food plan or a new strength program, you know, you start pushing yourself a little bit.

You start doing hard things that that feel a little uncomfortable and unfamiliar, your brain starts to freak out a little bit. It’s like saying, whoa, wait a minute. This is unfamiliar territory. This feels uncomfortable. Let’s go back to what we know. So it throws up all kinds of thoughts and emotions and behaviors that subtly pull you back to your old ways.

Not because your brain hates you, but because your brain is always trying to protect you from pain, from discomfort, from risk, from change. Your brain does not like things that are different. It likes the familiar. So that’s what self-sabotage is. It’s your subconscious mind saying, let’s just stay safe. Um, even when safe means staying stuck where you are, you know, if you’re trying to lose weight and you start eating differently, that’s gonna feel uncomfortable.

To your brain that’s gonna feel unfamiliar to your brain. What? Vegetables? Like what? I’ve, I’m not used to eating vegetables. Like, what is this all about? And so your brain is gonna be like, no, that, that feels like danger to us. We gotta get outta here. You know, we can’t eat broccoli. Okay. So a lot of times we don’t even know that this is happening.

So let’s talk a little bit about, um, how you can start identifying when you are self-sabotaging. Okay. Because sometimes, sometimes it’s kind of obvious. Okay. Like if you’ve been eating great all week and then you, you binge eat like all the leftover Halloween candy all at once, that might be of. Pretty clear and pretty obvious way of self-sabotaging yourself.

Okay. But it’s usually not that. It’s often a lot more subtle and kind of sneaky. Okay. So here are some signs that you might be self-sabotaging. Okay? If every Monday you’re telling yourself, oh, I’m just gonna start over on Monday, and then the next Monday comes around and you have to start over again.

’cause maybe you, you do pretty well, like, you know, Monday through Thursday and then like Friday, Saturday and Sunday, everything kind of goes to crap. You know, that could be a sign that you’re self-sabotaging. You know, because the weekends are typically when you’re used to living it up a little bit and drinking more and eating whatever, and you’re starting to slide back into those old behaviors, those old weekend behaviors that feel comfortable and safe, you know?

Um, and if every Monday you’re starting over, that could be a sign that you’re self-sabotaging. Um, if you find yourself giving up or quitting, as soon as things start to go, well, this could be a sign of self-sabotage. And what this looks like for a lot of people. For example, let’s say you’re trying to lose weight and you lose like five or eight pounds, so things are starting to go well, and then you kind of give up on yourself.

You know, because what you’re doing is working, but it feels unfamiliar, it feels uncomfortable. And especially at the beginning of any sort of change, it’s going to feel weird and uncomfortable. It’s not what you’re used to. You’re gonna be doing different things, you’re engaging in new behaviors. Um, but if you find yourself, you know, as soon as things start to go well, you, you give up.

You quit on yourself. That’s self-sabotage. Okay. If you tell yourself, you know, I just need to take a short break here. You know, I need to just stop running for a few weeks. You know, I’m kind of feeling tired, or, you know, I just need to give myself a chance to eat whatever I want because I’m just feeling too deprived.

You know, I’m not, you know, I, I. I’m, I’m eating pretty clean, but I need to give myself a, a chance to eat some donuts or cookies or some ice cream or some pizza, and that little short break turns into weeks or maybe months. That could be self-sabotage right there. Okay. Even just telling yourself I need to take a break from eating healthy could be a sign of self-sabotage.

Okay. Another sort of subtle way that we, we can self-sabotage is setting unrealistic goals for ourselves, knowing deep down that you’re not gonna follow through with all that. Um, I remember. Um, some time, a long time ago, um, talking to somebody who had all these massive goals. You know, this person wanted to lose a hundred pounds and, um, uh, run an ultra marathon and, uh, you know, get super strong and had all these huge.

Goals? Well, they had never really run before, ever. Um, they had been pretty large their whole life and hadn’t ever really been able to lose the weight, you know, um, never really been to a gym before. So setting all these huge unrealistic goals made it so that they could just say, you know, that’s just too hard.

I’m never gonna be able to do that stuff. And then they didn’t have to follow through with it, you know, so that’s a sign that you might be. Self-sabotaging, just setting goals that are just unrealistic, um, and, and unreachable really. Another way that we subtly self-sabotage is constantly comparing ourselves to others and deciding that you’re never gonna measure up.

You know, and I, I’ve done this in the past where I said, you know, other people can do hard things. Other people can run marathons. That’s just tsunami. I’m never gonna be able to do that. It’s too hard. And I remember after I did run a few marathons, I remember, um, you know, that part sort of went away. But then I had some friends that were doing.

Triathlons and Iron Man, and I thought, oh, I could never do something like that, you know? And I, and I kind of made a decision that I’m, I would never be able to do that. And that lasted for a while until, you know, I, I, I had to change that thinking and I had to stop comparing myself to other people, you know?

And instead I said, okay, well, what do I want for myself? And I set out to start doing some triathlons, and then eventually did an Iron Man. And, and I proved myself wrong. You know, I was trying to stay safe and comfortable by not having to do something hard, you know, so the way I did that was compare myself to others and say, they’re better.

They can do these things. I can’t do these things. Um, and so I’d never, you know, if I had chosen that path, I never would’ve had to do those things that were hard. Okay. Or lastly, finding excuses for why you can’t do something instead of finding ways of making it work. You know, if you keep telling yourself, I can’t do this, and, and you, you can probably list all the reasons why you can’t do something.

Shift that thinking. Like, instead, find ways to make it work for you. Like list all the reasons why you can do it. List all the different ways that you could. Work to make that thing happen for you. Okay, so these are just sneaky, subtle signs that you might be self-sabotaging and you don’t even really realize it.

You know, you might be procrastinating. You might be saying things like, you know, I’m gonna start after this vacation, or I’ll get serious when work slows down. Or, you know, I just need to be motivated. I do better when I’m motivated and I’m just not motivated right now. Here’s the truth though. You don’t need more motivation.

You need more awareness when you can recognize that these patterns are self-sabotaging patterns. They’re not like. You know, bad circumstances or lack of discipline, you know, or, or you know, fate that you can finally start to change them. Once you recognize that these are just things that your brain is doing to try to keep you safe, you can start working on changing these things.

Now, a lot of people talk about, well, why? Why do we do this? Why do we self-sabotage? What’s at the root of this thing? Because if you understand why you do it, you can really stop judging yourself for it and just start making some changes here. Okay, so there’s a few core reasons, um, why people self-sabotage.

You know, I already talked about our brain sort of wanting to stay safe, and that’s a big part of this, but even underneath that, there’s a few things that. Are really the cause of a lot of our self-sabotage. And there’s like four things I’ll talk about. There’s more, but these are four big ones. Number one is a fear of failure, so this is a big one.

You might think, you know, if I really try and I fail. That’ll, that’ll just prove to myself that I’m not good enough and it’ll prove to the rest of the world that I’m not good enough. So I’d rather just not try, not even start that way. I won’t fail. So you, you subconsciously are. Pre-filing, you’re creating failure ahead of time.

You’re doing it to yourself and you’re controlling your outcome, right? You, you don’t have to fail you, you’re not gonna succeed at anything, but also you’re not failing. So for you, it’s gonna be safer to fail on these terms than to risk, you know, trying something new and hard and giving it your all and then, and falling short.

Okay, so fear of failure is a. Big one. A lot of people will not even start things because they’re afraid that they might not be able to do it. Guess what? There’s no such thing as, uh, success without failure. Like you have to fail your way to succeed in just about everything that you do. Number two, uh, and this is kind of related, but sort of the opposite is the fear of success.

So, believe it or not, for a lot of people’s success can be just as scary. So. What do you do? You know, what if you do lose the weight? You know what if you do get faster? What if you do change your life, but you can’t keep it up? Then what? So a certain level of success brings a whole new set of like pressures and expectations and responsibility, you know, and this can feel very terrifying.

So you sabotage yourself. To just stay in the familiar struggle instead of stepping out into the unknown. So, you know, fear of succeeding can be just as scary. It can be frightening to a lot of people because once you get there, how do you maintain that? What if you can’t maintain it? Um, another big one is the fear of change.

You know, humans, we crave certainty. We crave consistency. So even when your current situation isn’t perfect, at least it’s comfortable, right? You know what to expect. And when we change things, that requires letting go of that comfort. You’re literally getting out of your comfort zone when you make changes.

And this is like your brain saying, you know better the devil that you know than the devil you don’t, you know? So instead of, you know, making positive changes, we will stay stuck. We will stay where we are presently and not grow, not evolve, not become more, because that fear of change, changing anything is too great.

It just feels too hard and too scary for us. And then number four is a fear of judgment. So you might be thinking, well, what will people think of me if I fail? What will people think of me if I succeed? You know, you don’t wanna stand out, you don’t wanna rock the boat, you don’t want to face criticism. So you stay small, you stay safe.

You don’t do things that are hard, you don’t do things that might be considered, um. Uh, great because you are thinking you’re gonna be judged if you do well or, or if you fail. So either way, you’re screwed according to yourself. You know, it’s this like unnatural fear of judgment. And again, these fears are all rooted in one thing.

Your brain is trying to protect you, and your brain isn’t your enemy. It just doesn’t understand the difference between real danger and emotional discomfort. Emotional discomfort is something that we all have to deal with, and if we can get good at dealing with emotional discomfort, um, we can overcome all of these fears and we can, you know, reach our goals much faster.

Without all the self-sabotage, discomfort is where growth actually happens, right? Everything you want but don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone. If you’re unwilling to get uncomfortable, you’re going to stay stuck forever. Now let’s talk about, um, the main ways that we self-sabotage and what this might actually look like in your day-to-day life.

So here are some of the main ways that I see, especially runners self-sabotage, especially when it comes to their health, their fitness, their mindset. And I already mentioned this one a little bit, but it’s procrastination. You know, procrastination is a very popular form of self-sabotage. You know, you tell yourself, I’m gonna start when, and then just fill in the blank.

Like, I’m gonna wait until this vacation is over. I’m gonna wait until. Monday, or I’m gonna wait until after the holidays, or I’m gonna wait until after the kids are grown up and moved out of the house or whatever. Well, guess what? Things are never going to be perfect. The planets are never going to align.

There’s never a perfect time to start other than right now. So procrastination is just fear disguised as. You know, logical thinking. Well, I’m gonna be very practical and very logical about this, and the best time to start is gonna be when this person is, you know, different in my life. And this thing has changed and I don’t have a busy work schedule and the kids are taking care.

Like you can like come up with all these. Excuses and reasons, but it’s, it’s all just a form of self-sabotage. So procrastination, one of the main ways that we self-sabotage in other ways, perfectionism. And you tell yourself, you know, if I can’t do things perfectly, why should I bother doing it all? So a lot of people, they don’t ever start anything or they quit the moment something isn’t, you know, completely perfect.

But perfectionism isn’t just having high standards, it’s the fear of being seen as imperfect. It’s the fear of having to do something imperfectly. You know, I can’t tell you how many people who I. Set out to lose weight. They change their diet, they’re doing pretty well. And then they have like a bad day.

They might, you know, eat some junk food. They like drive through McDonald’s or something like that, and they’re like, look, I can’t do this perfectly, so I’m just not even gonna bother. And they just quit just because they feel like if they’re not doing it a hundred percent, they’re not doing it right. And the truth of the matter is like.

And I always tell people this, like, if you’re doing well, like 90% of the time, if you’re sticking to your plan, like 90% of the time, you’re fine. Go through the McDonald’s, drive through if that’s what you want to do. Um, don’t do it every day. Um, but you do have a little bit of wiggle room there. So if you want to eat some french fries from McDonald’s, knock yourself out.

Number three, negative self-talk. So you might tell yourself stuff like, you know, I’m too old. I’ve always failed at this. I’ve tried before. It never works. I can’t, I can never stick to something. These, these thoughts become self-fulfilling prophecies. You know, your brain. Believes, whatever you repeatedly tell it.

And if you keep saying, I can’t do it, I’ll never be able to stick with it. I’m too old. I always fail. Those things are going to be true for you. You will be too old to do this. You will completely fail. You will not be able to stick to it. So that negative self-talk is a big one, and it’s something that you really have to be aware of.

Okay. Number four, the all or nothing thinking, you know, this is, you know, part of that perfectionism thing, but it’s like either I, I have to do it all and and do it all perfectly or not at all. So maybe you run five days in a row and then you miss a day and you’re like, you know what? Screw it. I’m just gonna start again next week.

Or you eat one off meal, off plan meal and you decide that your whole day is ruined. So you just, you know, just. Trash the rest of the day. Essentially, this kind of thinking just kills progress. You know? Consistency matters more than perfection, right? 90% rule. Just you don’t have to do it perfectly all the time.

Um, and that’s all or nothing thinking like you have to, you know, always, like I tell people, like, take a break from eating sugar, for example. See how your body feels. You might find that you do much better when you’re not eating sugar all the time, but this doesn’t mean you can never eat sugar again in your life.

You know, if you know a month from now you wanna have a donut, or you’re at a wedding and you wanna have a piece of wedding cake, eat the cake, eat the donut, it’s fine. All right? If you’re telling yourself, well, you know, I’m not gonna be able to do this. Uh, if I can’t go all in and then you do eat the donor or something like that, you’re gonna wanna quit because that’s.

Your mentality, you gotta shift that thinking. Number five is emotional buffering. Another big way that we self-sabotage. So you might be using something like alcohol or food or scrolling on social media or just being super busy to numb yourself to your emotions instead of just dealing with them instead of processing them.

So you tell yourself, well, I deserve this when what you’re really doing is you’re just trying to avoid being uncomfortable, emotional buffering. Or numbing ourselves to our feelings. You know, it feels good in the moment. It’s like, oh, you know, oh, I have a glass of wine and I just, I can really unwind and relax.

But it keeps you from facing the real issue. You know, you got emotions that you need to deal with and you need to process, and you need to feel those things. You need to feel fear and anger, and frustration, and stress, you know, and I’m not saying we, we can’t do things too. Um, make ourselves feel better at times, but maybe going for a walk or taking a run or going to the gym for a, for a workout to get those sort of feel good chemicals going, like endorphins and dopamine and stuff instead of just numbing yourself using alcohol or scrolling through social media or food.

Okay. That emotional buffering is, is a big one, and it is a big way that we self-sabotage. Um, and then lastly, overcommitting. So you’re just trying to do too much, too many goals, too many commitments. And then you just burn yourself out and that burnout gives you an excuse to just quit. You know, this is a very subtle but also pretty common form of self-sabotage.

I see this with some people who, they just have to be doing all the things all the time. They say yes to everything, and they can’t possibly commit to it all, and they use. Their overcommitment as an excuse to not be able to stick with anything essentially. Um, and again, this is like that, a type A personality disorder, I’ll call it, because I think it is a disorder.

I think having that type A personality, there are some good aspects to that. Like, Hey, you know, you’re very productive, you can get a lot of stuff done, but if you’re using it as an excuse, then you might be just self-sabotaging. So, what’s the cost of all this? Well, the hard truth is this. The self self-sabotage doesn’t just slow down your progress.

It just, it destroys your confidence. You know, every time you break a promise to yourself, you break a little bit of that trust with your yourself. You start to believe your own excuses. You start to expect yourself to fail, and it becomes a vicious cycle. You sabotage, you feel ashamed and guilty. You promise to do better, you sabotage again, and then the cycle just continues.

Does that sound familiar? This is why so many people feel stuck in the start over cycle, not because they can’t follow a plan, but because they haven’t dealt with the mindset that keeps derailing them. Okay, so how do you stop all this? How do you break the cycle? How do you stop self-sabotaging? Well, it all starts with an awareness, and that’s what we’re really talking about here today.

You can’t change what you don’t see. So what I want you to work on. This week is step one. Just notice, catch yourself in the act. When you skip a workout or you eat something you said you wouldn’t eat, or you make an excuse, just pause. Take a moment and ask yourself, is this action helping me, me, me, move toward my goal or keeping me stuck or move away from my goal?

Don’t judge it. Just notice it. Be kind to yourself, but just. Pause, is this moving me towards my goal or away from my goal? And then just notice what is happening. Identify the emotion. So what are you feeling in that moment? What is it? Fear, stress, boredom. Doubt. Frustration. What’s the emotion you’re feeling?

Because you can’t manage what you don’t understand. And emotions drive behavior. Right. It’s not the other way around. Your emotions drive your behavior. So what are you feeling in that moment? What is driving you to take the action of X, Y, or Z? And then question the thought, like ask yourself, what am I thinking right now that’s creating this feeling?

Maybe it’s, this is too hard, or I deserve a break, or one drink won’t hurt. You know, once you see the thought, you can kind of take away its power. And then number four, just choose intentionality instead of reacting automatically. Pause and make a decision. Decide on purpose. You can ask yourself this question, what would the future version of me, the one who’s already achieved this goal, what would that version of me do right now?

And then do that thing. Okay. Now, here’s a little tough love for you. If you keep self-sabotaging, it’s because some part of you is getting a payoff from staying stuck. Maybe you get to avoid discomfort. Maybe you get to keep blaming your circumstances. Instead of taking responsibility. Maybe you get to avoid the pressure of success, but if you wanna change, you’ve got to give up that comfort.

You’ve got to be willing to get uncomfortable. You’ve got to be willing to fail, willing to feel awkward, to mess up, to be seen trying. That’s what growth looks like. Self-sabotage is not a life sentence. It’s just a habit. And habits can be broken when you bring awareness, honesty, and compassion to them.

So you’re challenged this week. Keep a journal. Just write down the moments when you notice yourself self-sabotaging. When you notice yourself getting in your own way, what’s triggering it? What am I thinking in that moment? What was I feeling? What was I doing? What was the behavior? And then what would I do differently next time?

And then look for patterns. What do you, what are you, when are you self-sabotaging? Like, what does that look like for you? When are you most often doing that? When things are going well, when you’re feeling tired or stressed, when you’re afraid of being judged by others? Look for those patterns and see if you can, you know, put a few of these, uh, uh, connect a few of these dots here.

Okay? And then replace the behavior instead of reacting from fear. Choose from awareness. Even small shifts like pausing before you grab a snack or just skipping that excuse, that’ll start to rewire your brain. And then lastly, practice self-compassion. You’re not broken. There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just human.

Self-sabotage is just a learned behavior. It’s a learned pattern of behavior, and you can learn a new one. Okay. So quick recap here. Self-sabotage is when your thoughts, your emotions, your behaviors work against you and your goals. It’s your brain’s way of trying to protect you from discomfort, not an indication of failure.

You could recognize self-sabotage by noticing when your actions aren’t in alignment with your intentions. We self-sabotage because we’re afraid because of fear, because of fear, of failure, of success, of change, or judgment. The most common forms of self-sabotage include procrastination, perfectionism, negative self-talk, all or nothing thinking, um, emotional buffering or overcommitting.

And the cost of self-sabotage is huge. Loss of confidence in yourself, loss of trust in yourself, loss of progress, but with awareness, honesty, and intention, you can break the cycle. One decision at a time. So here’s what I want you to remember today. Self-sabotage doesn’t mean you’re weak. It means you’re human.

It’s just your brain’s misguided attempt to keep you safe. Uh, you are not here to stay safe, though you are here to grow. And growth requires discomfort. Change requires courage and freedom. Real lasting freedom comes from taking responsibility for your thoughts, your emotions, and your actions. So this week, pay attention.

Notice when you’re getting in your own way, call yourself out with kindness, with love, and then remind yourself, you know, I’m just not gonna do this anymore. I’m gonna choose differently this time. I know you got this. So if this episode resonated with you, if you saw yourself in some of these patterns of self-sabotage, that’s good.

That awareness is your first step towards freedom. And if you want help with this, if you wanna learn how to stop self-sabotaging, learn how to lose weight, get stronger, run with confidence. I’m here to help. Just head over to running lean coaching.com. Click on work with me to learn more about my coaching program.

That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.

292. Why Discipline Will Always Beat Motivation

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Most people think they need to feel motivated in order to eat healthy, work out, or stick to their running schedule. But here’s the truth—motivation is fleeting. It might get you started, but it …

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Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought. Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there and welcome to episode 292 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today why discipline will always beat motivation, so most people think that they need to feel. Motivated in order to eat healthy, to work out, or to stick to their running schedule.

But here’s the truth, motivation is fleeting. It might get you started, but it won’t carry you through, especially on those tough days. What you really need is discip. So in this episode, I’m talking all about why discipline will always beat motivation. You’re gonna learn what each of these really means, how they apply to weight loss, and improving your health and fitness overall.

And how to stop relying on motivation and start building real lasting discipline instead. Also clear up some of the common myths around both motivation and discipline, and hopefully give you some practical tips that you can use right away to help you stay consistent even when you don’t feel like it.

So if you’ve been struggling to stick with Healthy Habits, this episode will help you shift your mindset and get results that last. But first, I know how hard it can be to stay consistent when you’re trying to lose weight, when you’re trying to get stronger, when you’re trying to become a better runner.

If you’re ready to stop relying on motivation. And start building real lasting discipline. Then I want to invite you to apply for coaching. In my coaching program, we don’t chase quick fixes or shirt, short bursts of inspiration. We build habits that last for life. You get the support, the structure, and the accountability that you need to hit your weight loss goals to help you get stronger and to help you become the healthiest version of yourself.

To learn more and apply, just head over to. Running Lean coaching.com. Click on work with me. Let’s get you where you want to be. Okay? Alright, let’s get into this. So a lot of people think that motivation and discipline are the same thing, but they’re really not. But. Motivation is a feeling. It’s something that you feel inside.

It’s, it’s an emotion, essentially. It’s that surge of energy that you get when you get excited about something. Like you, you’re excited about a new goal, or you’re inspired, uh, by something that you read, uh, on the internet or by a podcast that you listen to or by something you watch. Motivation is powerful, but it is just a, a feeling it’s fleeting and it fades pretty quickly, right?

So it comes and goes like all other feelings. Think about other emotions that you experience like a. You know, happiness or frustration or joy or excitement or, you know, uh, anger. All these things are temporary. They can be pretty powerful feelings, right? But they kind of come and go. Discipline, on the other hand, is more like a skill.

It’s your ability to do what needs to be done even when you don’t feel like it. That’s the important part. Because when it comes to motivation, having, you know that as a feeling and that’s something we have and we, we feel like doing something. When you’re motivated to go to the gym, it’s fine. You’re gonna go to the gym.

Discipline sort of kicks in when you don’t feel like doing something. So it’s your ability to do what you need to do when you don’t feel like it. So it’s like waking up early to go for that run. Even when it’s cold and rainy outside, it’s saying no to dessert even when everyone else is diving in.

Discipline is what you lean on when motivation disappears. So, let’s be honest, motivation, it’s, it’s a little overrated. I hear people talk all about, well, I need to be motivated. I need to be motivated, or I was so motivated and I’m not motivated anymore. Yeah, listen, it feels great when it’s there and it can give you a powerful push, especially in the beginning.

But the truth is you’re not going to feel motivated every single day. There will be days when you don’t feel like running. There’s gonna be days when you don’t feel like cooking a healthy meal. It would be so much easier to just order a pizza. There’s gonna be times where you would just wanna stay on the couch with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s or graders ice cream if you’re here in Cincinnati.

Best ice cream in the world, by the way. If motivation is the only thing you’re counting on to get you through those tough moments, then you’re gonna kind of fall short most of the time. Okay? You cannot rely on motivation to keep you going. You just can’t. Whereas discipline, it’s not with discipline.

You’re not relying on feelings. Discipline says, I don’t care if you’re tired. We’re doing this anyway. Discipline is consistent. It’s dependable. It’s built through action and repetition. Discipline is how you become the person that you want to be, essentially. When you look at people who’ve lost weight and kept it off, who’ve completely transformed their bodies, who run marathons or crush it in the gym every week, it’s not because they’re always motivated, it’s because they’ve trained themselves to be disciplined.

Okay, so this is the big takeaway I want you to understand here today, which is that motivation is fleeting. It’s kind of overrated. Um, there’s gonna be a lot of times where you don’t feel like doing the thing or not doing the. This is why discipline is everything. Discipline has to be in place. If you want to stay on track, if you want to get consistent with anything, if you wanna become that person that you ultimately wanna become, discipline is how you do it.

So there’s a couple of common myths or misconceptions around these, uh, ideas here. One of them is that really all you need is motivated, and I hear this from people. Like I said, people say, I just need to be motivated. ’cause if I’m not motivated and I’m not gonna do something, and that is just not true.

Motivation is great when it shows up, but it is not reliable. Discipline is reliable. Okay, so motivation is not all that you need. In fact, you really don’t need motivation. Um, you need discipline though. Okay, so that’s myth number one. That motivation is all you need. Myth number two. Is that some people are just more motivated than others?

Not. Not true either. Some people are just more disciplined. Okay. They’ve trained themselves to be more disciplined. They’ve trained themselves to show up for themselves when things get tough, they’ve trained themselves to continually do the hard thing when they didn’t feel like it. Um, a good example is, uh, going to the gym and a lot of people feel motivated at the beginning of the year, so tons of people join gyms in January, right?

I think we all know this. Uh, come February, March, the gyms are back to what I’d call normal Again. They’re back to not very busy because all those people lack motivation. They, they have not been training themselves to be disciplined. They just were motivated. It was a new year, you know, they’re, I should join a gym.

Yeah, let’s do it. And then they show up for a, a couple of weeks or a couple of months and then boom, they’re done. Because they haven’t been practicing discipline. There’s a couple days where they just didn’t feel like going to the gym, so they didn’t go. And then there was a couple more days and they didn’t go, and then they thought to themselves, well, why bother anyway, you know, I’ve missed all these other days.

And then they just stopped going altogether. That’s why gyms make a lot of money because there’s so many people that pay for the gym and never, ever go. If you’re one of those people, go, go to the gym. Okay. Uh, so that’s the second myth I wanted to kind of dispel, which is that some people are just more motivated than others.

And the third myth is that discipline means you have to be hard on yourself. So this is also false discipline isn’t punishment. I know the word discipline is synonymous. Punishment. Like if you’re going to discipline someone because they did something wrong, that is a form of punishment, but that’s not the kind of discipline we’re talking about here.

Okay? Discipline is a form of self-respect. It, it does not mean being hard on yourself. It’s doing what you know is best for you, even when you don’t feel like it, even when it’s uncomfortable. So discipline isn’t about beating yourself up, it’s not about punishing yourself. Um, it’s about showing up for yourself consistently, even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard.

So motivation might get you started. It might get you to the gym that first time. Uh, motivation might get you out the door for a run once or twice, but discipline is what gets you to the finish line. You know, discipline is that thing that’s going to, um, keep you going and help you to stay consistent. You know, motivation might help you to sign up for that gym membership discipline is what’s going to get you there three times a week.

Motivation might help you start meal prepping every Sunday afternoon, but discipline’s, what’s gonna keep you doing it every single week, even when you don’t feel like it, even when it’s hard. Even when you got better things to do, then you know, cut up a bunch of vegetables and stick ’em in Tupperware. If you want real results.

If you want lasting change, you’ve got to train this discipline. Muscle. And that’s something else I wanted to make sure you understand is that you have discipline. You just haven’t trained yourself to do it. Um, we can all get strong, we can all improve our muscular strength. And you know what, how you do it, it requires going to the gym or, or whatever.

You don’t have to go to a gym, but it requires lifting heavy things, right? So if you wanna get stronger muscles, you need to train those muscles. If you want more discipline, you have to train that discipline muscle. So how do you do that? Like how do you train your discipline muscle? Well, first of all, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with motivation.

I’m not saying motivation is bad. Again, this can be a great Kickstarter. It’s like the fuel that gets the fire started. Um, and if you wanna keep motivation going, if you want to keep motivation alive, then there’s a few things that you can do. There’s a few tips I’m gonna give you to kind of stay motivated, um, and then I’ll give you some tips on how to become more disciplined.

So, how to stay more motivated. Um, first tip might be to set clear, meaningful, meaningful goals. Know your why. Like, why is this thing important to you? Why do you wanna lose weight? Why do you want to run that marathon? Know your why and keep those things front and center. This is like your North star. It keeps you moving in the direction of your goals.

It’s a constant reminder of why these things are so important to you. Most people don’t set clear meaningful goals. Most people go at things half-hearted, um, very vague. They say, I, I wanna join a gym so I can, you know, start lifting weights. Why? Why do you wanna join a gym? Why do you wanna lift weights?

What is that gonna do for you? Do you wanna build bigger muscles? Do you wanna improve your body composition? Do you wanna be able to lift 300 pounds? You know, do you wanna lose weight? Do you wanna, uh, just get stronger? Do you wanna stay injury-free? Why do you wanna lift weights? Why is this important to have clear, meaningful goals?

Another tip is to visualize your future self. Who do you wanna become? What does that version of you in the future look like? Because when you can see that clearly, when, when you can see who it is that you wanna become, it’s much easier to stay, uh, motivated and moving in that direction. It’s much easier to, for that motivation to kind of just linger and stay there.

That feeling of staying motivated. So when you think about your future self, that can be a good motivator for you. Okay? Another way to stay motivated is to celebrate the small wins. Progress equals motivation. You know, taking consistent, aligned action gets you results. Results keeps you motivated.

Celebrate the little victories. Don’t focus on where you’re not focus on, on, on the progress that you’ve made. And a lot of us do this. We like look at where we’re not, well I, I still need 40 pounds to lose. I’m still 40 pounds overweight. And that’s what they focus on where you’re not, instead of, Hey, I’ve already lost 15 pounds.

Hey, you know, I, I wanna be able to run a marathon and, you know, all I can do is run a a half marathon. I’ve never been able to run farther than that. Well, but you ran a half marathon, you know, and you’re consistently showing up and doing the work to progress. Okay? Celebrate the small wins. Focus on the, the wins, the progress that you’re making, the results that you’re seeing.

They’re little victories, but they add up. Another tip to stay motivated is to surround yourself with support, uh, coaching, community accountability. These are all huge motivators. This is one of the things that people say about my group coaching, uh, program. They love the, the group coaching calls because it helps them to not only stay accountable and to share wins and, and to learn some things and hear from others, but they feel like they’re, uh, surrounded with all of this, uh, support from like-minded people, and it helps ’em to stay motivated.

So when they attend the group coaching calls, they feel more motivated to keep going. Um, and ano. And another tip to stay motivated is to just keep learning. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos, keep feeding the fire. I always say total immersion. You know, surround yourself with support, you know, read books, listen to podcasts, watch shows, all these things that are going to help you to, um, you know, help immerse yourself in that world of health and fitness.

But again, all these things are great and these, these are things that will help you to stay motivated, which is great. But again, when the fire starts to burn low, when the motivation starts to lack discipline. Has to take over. Okay, so here’s the good stuff. How to become more disciplined. How do you actually build more discipline into your life?

You know, I said earlier, like, think of it like building muscle. It takes time, it takes consistency, and it takes repetition. You gotta get your reps in, you know, you can’t just expect to go to the gym one time and then expect to get bigger muscles or to get stronger. It doesn’t work that way. It takes time, it takes consistency.

So here’s how we become more disciplined. Number one, start small. Don’t try to overhaul your entire life overnight. Build one habit at a time. Go for a short walk each day. Cook one healthy meal today. How can you win the day? Start there and then tomorrow. Just show up and do the same thing. Win tomorrow.

That’s it. It doesn’t have to be anything huge and overwhelming. People think that they need to make these huge sweeping changes in order to become, you know, leaner, to become stronger, to become faster. You don’t, you need to make tiny changes. Consistently over time. Number two, create routines. So discipline, loves, structure.

Plan your workouts, prep your meals, set your bedtime, go to bed at the same time every night. Wake up at the same time every day. Be routine, you know, um, people are like, oh, I just wanna be spontaneous. Well, you can at times, but for the most part, you need to stay, you need to have some structure. One of the reasons that a lot of people, um, do well.

During the week, and they don’t do well on the weekend when it comes to like sticking with their food plan is because they have lots of structure and routine during the week. They go to work at certain times to gotta get the kids to school. Um, you know, certain bedtimes, uh, everything is pretty well structured, but on the weekends things fall apart because they lack that structure.

They lack the routine on the weekends. So my suggestion is always to create some structure around the weekends as well, right? Just because it’s Saturday doesn’t mean. You can’t have some structure, of course, you can have a little bit more flexibility, but maintain some level of structure even on the weekends.

So that come Monday, you haven’t, you know, undone everything that you, you did the first five days of the week there. Okay? Third tip to become more disciplined is to remove obstacles. So make it easier to do your thing. Maybe lay your clothes out the night before. If you need to go for a run in the morning, you know, get your clothes ready.

Uh. Uh, get your coffee made. If that’s something you do in the morning, um, set yourself up for success. Uh, make it easier to stay on track and to do the thing that you maybe don’t wanna do. Pre-cut your veggies. Um. For a while there I was making a big salad every night and I love making a big salad. I put like a, some grilled chicken on it or some salmon or something like that.

And what I would do is once a week I would buy all these veggies and I would cut ’em all up and put ’em into whatever Tupperware containers and, and then when I go to make my salad each night, I don’t have to like prep each individual vegetable or whatever. I just grab my four or five containers in. Just put the stuff on my salad.

It makes making a salad like literally two minutes and, and I’m done. So with just a little bit of prep work, uh, you can make things so much easier for yourself. Again, we’re removing obstacles. Don’t make it harder for yourself. Number four, and this is the big one. This is the do it anyway suggestion. Okay?

If you want to be more disciplined, you have to do it even when you don’t feel like it. That is the whole point here. You show up, you do your thing. When you do that consistently, you start to build trust with yourself. You start to build confidence in yourself, and then you are more likely to show up the next day and do it again.

This is the part that you have to do. It’s gonna be uncomfortable. I’m just gonna tell you right now, but you have to do this part. You gotta do it even when you don’t feel like it. That is the whole point of being disciplined, is showing up when you don’t feel like it. You can practice this every single day.

Just pick one thing you don’t feel like doing today and do it anyway. It can be something small, you know, I gotta pay the bills or I gotta cut the grass, or you know, I gotta, uh, you know, do homework with the kids or whatever. It’s, there’s something you really don’t feel like doing. Do kids still have homework?

I don’t know. My kids are kind of grown up, but I think kids still have homework. Do you help your kids with your homework? That used to be a thing. My parents would help me. It was always very frustrating. Um, but you gotta show up and do those things that you don’t feel like doing and saying this out loud.

I’m like, yeah, nobody wants to do homework with their kids. You know, we’ve all had a long day. The kids have been in school all day. You’ve been at work all day. The last thing you wanna do is sit down and like do a bunch of like math equations with your kid, especially when they do math. Like, totally different now than we used to do back in the day.

I don’t know. Sounds like it’s more complicated, but maybe it’s easier. I don’t know. I guess it’s on how you learn it, but these things are hard. We don’t feel like doing them, do them anyway. Set your alarm early, that alarm’s gonna go off. You’re not gonna feel like getting up, turn off the alarm. You gotta get the feet on the floor.

That’s step number one. If you can get the feet on the floor, you’re golden. I, years ago I tried to train myself to, um. Or I shouldn’t say try. I trained myself to get up earlier because I was sleeping till whenever I felt like it, and I was like, this is not working for me. Like, I need to start setting alarm and getting up, you know, whatever, 5 30, 6 o’clock every single day.

And I started, um, training myself by setting my alarm maybe 15 minutes earlier. And then as soon as the alarm went off, the rule was I just, I had to turn it off and my feet had to hit the floor. That was it. Once I’m sitting up in bed and the feet are on the ground, like. I’m good. I’m good. Um, so do it anyway.

You won’t feel like it do it anyway. This is the most important part of building discipline, and the last little tip here is just be kind to yourself. Discipline isn’t about disciplining yourself. It’s not about beating yourself up. It’s not also about being perfect. Nobody does this stuff perfectly.

Nobody’s completely, perfectly disciplined all the time. No matter what. You know, if you can hit about. 80, 90% of the time, that’s amazing, right? It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about never failing. It’s not about, you know, never having a bad day or, or missing a workout. It’s about showing up even when it’s hard, and then doing that consistently.

That’s it. So it’s not about perfection, it’s about consistency more than anything else. Okay? So don’t beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself, just like lifting weights. You gotta lift weights and it takes a long time and you’re not gonna do it sometimes, and you’re gonna have some progress, and then you’re gonna not have some progress or, or running faster.

It’s a good example because in order to run faster, you gotta practice running faster, but there’s gonna be some races where you don’t have it. And it doesn’t feel good and you, you don’t hit that PR and other times you crush it. Um, and so it’s a process of like continuing to show up for yourself even when it’s hard and you’re gonna fail sometimes.

And it’s okay. It’s all part of the process. It’s all part of the process. We have to fail in order to succeed. We fail our way to success. Okay, so the bottom line here is that motivation is what gets you started. Discipline is what keeps you going. If you rely on motivation, you are going to struggle to stay consistent.

But if you build discipline, you can crush any goal that you set for yourself, no matter how you feel. So don’t wait around to feel motivated. Train yourself to become disciplined. And if you do this, you’ll become unstoppable. And if you’re ready to stop relying on fleeting motivation and start building real lasting habits that lead to real lasting results, let’s work together.

Just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, click on work with me, and apply for coaching today. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I’ll talk to you soon.

My name is Patrick McGray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner sports nutritionist, master life coach, and weight loss coach. For runners, I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you, properly fuel your body and your mind so you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought.

Possible. This is running Lean.

Hey there and welcome to episode 2 92 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGill. Ray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today why? Discipline will always beat motivation, so most people think that they need to feel. Motivated in order to eat healthy, to work out, or to stick to their running schedule.

But here’s the truth, motivation is fleeting. It might get you started, but it won’t carry you through, especially on those tough days. What you really need is discip. So in this episode, I’m talking all about why discipline will always beat motivation. You’re gonna learn what each of these really means, how they apply to weight loss, and improving your health and fitness overall.

And how to stop relying on motivation and start building real lasting discipline instead. Also clear up some of the common myths around both motivation and discipline, and hopefully give you some practical tips that you can use right away to help you stay consistent even when you don’t feel like it.

So if you’ve been struggling to stick with Healthy Habits, this episode will help you shift your mindset and get results that last. But first, I know how hard it can be to stay consistent when you’re trying to lose weight, when you’re trying to get stronger, when you’re trying to become a better runner.

If you’re ready to stop relying on motivation. And start building real lasting discipline. Then I want to invite you to apply for coaching. In my coaching program, we don’t chase quick fixes or shirt, short bursts of inspiration. We build habits that last for life. You get the support, the structure, and the accountability that you need to hit your weight loss goals to help you get stronger and to help you become the healthiest version of yourself.

To learn more and apply, just head over to. Running Lean coaching.com. Click on work with me. Let’s get you where you want to be. Okay? Alright, let’s get into this. So a lot of people think that motivation and discipline are the same thing, but they’re really not. But. Motivation is a feeling. It’s something that you feel inside.

It’s, it’s an emotion, essentially. It’s that surge of energy that you get when you get excited about something. Like you, you’re excited about a new goal, or you’re inspired, uh, by something that you read, uh, on the internet or by a podcast that you listen to or by something you watch. Motivation is powerful, but it is just a, a feeling it’s fleeting and it fades pretty quickly, right?

So it comes and goes like all other feelings. Think about other emotions that you experience like a. You know, happiness or frustration or joy or excitement or, you know, uh, anger. All these things are temporary. They can be pretty powerful feelings, right? But they kind of come and go. Discipline, on the other hand, is more like a skill.

It’s your ability to do what needs to be done even when you don’t feel like it. That’s the important part. Because when it comes to motivation, having, you know that as a feeling and that’s something we have and we, we feel like doing something. When you’re motivated to go to the gym, it’s fine. You’re gonna go to the gym.

Discipline sort of kicks in when you don’t feel like doing something. So it’s your ability to do what you need to do when you don’t feel like it. So it’s like waking up early to go for that run. Even when it’s cold and rainy outside, it’s saying no to dessert even when everyone else is diving in.

Discipline is what you lean on when motivation disappears. So, let’s be honest, motivation, it’s, it’s a little overrated. I hear people talk all about, well, I need to be motivated. I need to be motivated, or I was so motivated and I’m not motivated anymore. Yeah, listen, it feels great when it’s there and it can give you a powerful push, especially in the beginning.

But the truth is you’re not going to feel motivated every single day. There will be days when you don’t feel like running. There’s gonna be days when you don’t feel like cooking a healthy meal. It would be so much easier to just order a pizza. There’s gonna be times where you would just wanna stay on the couch with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s or graders ice cream if you’re here in Cincinnati.

Best ice cream in the world, by the way. If motivation is the only thing you’re counting on to get you through those tough moments, then you’re gonna kind of fall short most of the time. Okay? You cannot rely on motivation to keep you going. You just can’t. Whereas discipline, it’s not with discipline.

You’re not relying on feelings. Discipline says, I don’t care if you’re tired. We’re doing this anyway. Discipline is consistent. It’s dependable. It’s built through action and repetition. Discipline is how you become the person that you want to be, essentially. When you look at people who’ve lost weight and kept it off, who’ve completely transformed their bodies, who run marathons or crush it in the gym every week, it’s not because they’re always motivated, it’s because they’ve trained themselves to be disciplined.

Okay, so this is the big takeaway I want you to understand here today, which is that motivation is fleeting. It’s kind of overrated. Um, there’s gonna be a lot of times where you don’t feel like doing the thing or not doing the. This is why discipline is everything. Discipline has to be in place. If you want to stay on track, if you want to get consistent with anything, if you wanna become that person that you ultimately wanna become, discipline is how you do it.

So there’s a couple of common myths or misconceptions around these, uh, ideas here. One of them is that really all you need is motivated, and I hear this from people. Like I said, people say, I just need to be motivated. ’cause if I’m not motivated and I’m not gonna do something, and that is just not true.

Motivation is great when it shows up, but it is not reliable. Discipline is reliable. Okay, so motivation is not all that you need. In fact, you really don’t need motivation. Um, you need discipline though. Okay, so that’s myth number one. That motivation is all you need. Myth number two. Is that some people are just more motivated than others?

Not. Not true either. Some people are just more disciplined. Okay. They’ve trained themselves to be more disciplined. They’ve trained themselves to show up for themselves when things get tough, they’ve trained themselves to continually do the hard thing when they didn’t feel like it. Um, a good example is, uh, going to the gym and a lot of people feel motivated at the beginning of the year, so tons of people join gyms in January, right?

I think we all know this. Uh, come February, March, the gyms are back to what I’d call normal Again. They’re back to not very busy because all those people lack motivation. They, they have not been training themselves to be disciplined. They just were motivated. It was a new year, you know, they’re, I should join a gym.

Yeah, let’s do it. And then they show up for a, a couple of weeks or a couple of months and then boom, they’re done. Because they haven’t been practicing discipline. There’s a couple days where they just didn’t feel like going to the gym, so they didn’t go. And then there was a couple more days and they didn’t go, and then they thought to themselves, well, why bother anyway, you know, I’ve missed all these other days.

And then they just stopped going altogether. That’s why gyms make a lot of money because there’s so many people that pay for the gym and never, ever go. If you’re one of those people, go, go to the gym. Okay. Uh, so that’s the second myth I wanted to kind of dispel, which is that some people are just more motivated than others.

And the third myth is that discipline means you have to be hard on yourself. So this is also false discipline isn’t punishment. I know the word discipline is synonymous. Punishment. Like if you’re going to discipline someone because they did something wrong, that is a form of punishment, but that’s not the kind of discipline we’re talking about here.

Okay? Discipline is a form of self-respect. It, it does not mean being hard on yourself. It’s doing what you know is best for you, even when you don’t feel like it, even when it’s uncomfortable. So discipline isn’t about beating yourself up, it’s not about punishing yourself. Um, it’s about showing up for yourself consistently, even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard.

So motivation might get you started. It might get you to the gym that first time. Uh, motivation might get you out the door for a run once or twice, but discipline is what gets you to the finish line. You know, discipline is that thing that’s going to, um, keep you going and help you to stay consistent. You know, motivation might help you to sign up for that gym membership discipline is what’s going to get you there three times a week.

Motivation might help you start meal prepping every Sunday afternoon, but discipline’s, what’s gonna keep you doing it every single week, even when you don’t feel like it, even when it’s hard. Even when you got better things to do, then you know, cut up a bunch of vegetables and stick ’em in Tupperware. If you want real results.

If you want lasting change, you’ve got to train this discipline. Muscle. And that’s something else I wanted to make sure you understand is that you have discipline. You just haven’t trained yourself to do it. Um, we can all get strong, we can all improve our muscular strength. And you know what, how you do it, it requires going to the gym or, or whatever.

You don’t have to go to a gym, but it requires lifting heavy things, right? So if you wanna get stronger muscles, you need to train those muscles. If you want more discipline, you have to train that discipline muscle. So how do you do that? Like how do you train your discipline muscle? Well, first of all, I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with motivation.

I’m not saying motivation is bad. Again, this can be a great Kickstarter. It’s like the fuel that gets the fire started. Um, and if you wanna keep motivation going, if you want to keep motivation alive, then there’s a few things that you can do. There’s a few tips I’m gonna give you to kind of stay motivated, um, and then I’ll give you some tips on how to become more disciplined.

So, how to stay more motivated. Um, first tip might be to set clear, meaningful, meaningful goals. Know your why. Like, why is this thing important to you? Why do you wanna lose weight? Why do you want to run that marathon? Know your why and keep those things front and center. This is like your North star. It keeps you moving in the direction of your goals.

It’s a constant reminder of why these things are so important to you. Most people don’t set clear meaningful goals. Most people go at things half-hearted, um, very vague. They say, I, I wanna join a gym so I can, you know, start lifting weights. Why? Why do you wanna join a gym? Why do you wanna lift weights?

What is that gonna do for you? Do you wanna build bigger muscles? Do you wanna improve your body composition? Do you wanna be able to lift 300 pounds? You know, do you wanna lose weight? Do you wanna, uh, just get stronger? Do you wanna stay injury-free? Why do you wanna lift weights? Why is this important to have clear, meaningful goals?

Another tip is to visualize your future self. Who do you wanna become? What does that version of you in the future look like? Because when you can see that clearly, when, when you can see who it is that you wanna become, it’s much easier to stay, uh, motivated and moving in that direction. It’s much easier to, for that motivation to kind of just linger and stay there.

That feeling of staying motivated. So when you think about your future self, that can be a good motivator for you. Okay? Another way to stay motivated is to celebrate the small wins. Progress equals motivation. You know, taking consistent, aligned action gets you results. Results keeps you motivated.

Celebrate the little victories. Don’t focus on where you’re not focus on, on, on the progress that you’ve made. And a lot of us do this. We like look at where we’re not, well I, I still need 40 pounds to lose. I’m still 40 pounds overweight. And that’s what they focus on where you’re not, instead of, Hey, I’ve already lost 15 pounds.

Hey, you know, I, I wanna be able to run a marathon and, you know, all I can do is run a a half marathon. I’ve never been able to run farther than that. Well, but you ran a half marathon, you know, and you’re consistently showing up and doing the work to progress. Okay? Celebrate the small wins. Focus on the, the wins, the progress that you’re making, the results that you’re seeing.

They’re little victories, but they add up. Another tip to stay motivated is to surround yourself with support, uh, coaching, community accountability. These are all huge motivators. This is one of the things that people say about my group coaching, uh, program. They love the, the group coaching calls because it helps them to not only stay accountable and to share wins and, and to learn some things and hear from others, but they feel like they’re, uh, surrounded with all of this, uh, support from like-minded people, and it helps ’em to stay motivated.

So when they attend the group coaching calls, they feel more motivated to keep going. Um, and ano. And another tip to stay motivated is to just keep learning. Read books, listen to podcasts, watch videos, keep feeding the fire. I always say total immersion. You know, surround yourself with support, you know, read books, listen to podcasts, watch shows, all these things that are going to help you to, um, you know, help immerse yourself in that world of health and fitness.

But again, all these things are great and these, these are things that will help you to stay motivated, which is great. But again, when the fire starts to burn low, when the motivation starts to lack discipline. Has to take over. Okay, so here’s the good stuff. How to become more disciplined. How do you actually build more discipline into your life?

You know, I said earlier, like, think of it like building muscle. It takes time, it takes consistency, and it takes repetition. You gotta get your reps in, you know, you can’t just expect to go to the gym one time and then expect to get bigger muscles or to get stronger. It doesn’t work that way. It takes time, it takes consistency.

So here’s how we become more disciplined. Number one, start small. Don’t try to overhaul your entire life overnight. Build one habit at a time. Go for a short walk each day. Cook one healthy meal today. How can you win the day? Start there and then tomorrow. Just show up and do the same thing. Win tomorrow.

That’s it. It doesn’t have to be anything huge and overwhelming. People think that they need to make these huge sweeping changes in order to become, you know, leaner, to become stronger, to become faster. You don’t, you need to make tiny changes. Consistently over time. Number two, create routines. So discipline, loves, structure.

Plan your workouts, prep your meals, set your bedtime, go to bed at the same time every night. Wake up at the same time every day. Be routine, you know, um, people are like, oh, I just wanna be spontaneous. Well, you can at times, but for the most part, you need to stay, you need to have some structure. One of the reasons that a lot of people, um, do well.

During the week, and they don’t do well on the weekend when it comes to like sticking with their food plan is because they have lots of structure and routine during the week. They go to work at certain times to gotta get the kids to school. Um, you know, certain bedtimes, uh, everything is pretty well structured, but on the weekends things fall apart because they lack that structure.

They lack the routine on the weekends. So my suggestion is always to create some structure around the weekends as well, right? Just because it’s Saturday doesn’t mean. You can’t have some structure, of course, you can have a little bit more flexibility, but maintain some level of structure even on the weekends.

So that come Monday, you haven’t, you know, undone everything that you, you did the first five days of the week there. Okay? Third tip to become more disciplined is to remove obstacles. So make it easier to do your thing. Maybe lay your clothes out the night before. If you need to go for a run in the morning, you know, get your clothes ready.

Uh. Uh, get your coffee made. If that’s something you do in the morning, um, set yourself up for success. Uh, make it easier to stay on track and to do the thing that you maybe don’t wanna do. Pre-cut your veggies. Um. For a while there I was making a big salad every night and I love making a big salad. I put like a, some grilled chicken on it or some salmon or something like that.

And what I would do is once a week I would buy all these veggies and I would cut ’em all up and put ’em into whatever Tupperware containers and, and then when I go to make my salad each night, I don’t have to like prep each individual vegetable or whatever. I just grab my four or five containers in. Just put the stuff on my salad.

It makes making a salad like literally two minutes and, and I’m done. So with just a little bit of prep work, uh, you can make things so much easier for yourself. Again, we’re removing obstacles. Don’t make it harder for yourself. Number four, and this is the big one. This is the do it anyway suggestion. Okay?

If you want to be more disciplined, you have to do it even when you don’t feel like it. That is the whole point here. You show up, you do your thing. When you do that consistently, you start to build trust with yourself. You start to build confidence in yourself, and then you are more likely to show up the next day and do it again.

This is the part that you have to do. It’s gonna be uncomfortable. I’m just gonna tell you right now, but you have to do this part. You gotta do it even when you don’t feel like it. That is the whole point of being disciplined, is showing up when you don’t feel like it. You can practice this every single day.

Just pick one thing you don’t feel like doing today and do it anyway. It can be something small, you know, I gotta pay the bills or I gotta cut the grass, or you know, I gotta, uh, you know, do homework with the kids or whatever. It’s, there’s something you really don’t feel like doing. Do kids still have homework?

I don’t know. My kids are kind of grown up, but I think kids still have homework. Do you help your kids with your homework? That used to be a thing. My parents would help me. It was always very frustrating. Um, but you gotta show up and do those things that you don’t feel like doing and saying this out loud.

I’m like, yeah, nobody wants to do homework with their kids. You know, we’ve all had a long day. The kids have been in school all day. You’ve been at work all day. The last thing you wanna do is sit down and like do a bunch of like math equations with your kid, especially when they do math. Like, totally different now than we used to do back in the day.

I don’t know. Sounds like it’s more complicated, but maybe it’s easier. I don’t know. I guess it’s on how you learn it, but these things are hard. We don’t feel like doing them, do them anyway. Set your alarm early, that alarm’s gonna go off. You’re not gonna feel like getting up, turn off the alarm. You gotta get the feet on the floor.

That’s step number one. If you can get the feet on the floor, you’re golden. I, years ago I tried to train myself to, um. Or I shouldn’t say try. I trained myself to get up earlier because I was sleeping till whenever I felt like it, and I was like, this is not working for me. Like, I need to start setting alarm and getting up, you know, whatever, 5 30, 6 o’clock every single day.

And I started, um, training myself by setting my alarm maybe 15 minutes earlier. And then as soon as the alarm went off, the rule was I just, I had to turn it off and my feet had to hit the floor. That was it. Once I’m sitting up in bed and the feet are on the ground, like. I’m good. I’m good. Um, so do it anyway.

You won’t feel like it do it anyway. This is the most important part of building discipline, and the last little tip here is just be kind to yourself. Discipline isn’t about disciplining yourself. It’s not about beating yourself up. It’s not also about being perfect. Nobody does this stuff perfectly.

Nobody’s completely, perfectly disciplined all the time. No matter what. You know, if you can hit about. 80, 90% of the time, that’s amazing, right? It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about never failing. It’s not about, you know, never having a bad day or, or missing a workout. It’s about showing up even when it’s hard, and then doing that consistently.

That’s it. So it’s not about perfection, it’s about consistency more than anything else. Okay? So don’t beat yourself up. Be kind to yourself, just like lifting weights. You gotta lift weights and it takes a long time and you’re not gonna do it sometimes, and you’re gonna have some progress, and then you’re gonna not have some progress or, or running faster.

It’s a good example because in order to run faster, you gotta practice running faster, but there’s gonna be some races where you don’t have it. And it doesn’t feel good and you, you don’t hit that PR and other times you crush it. Um, and so it’s a process of like continuing to show up for yourself even when it’s hard and you’re gonna fail sometimes.

And it’s okay. It’s all part of the process. It’s all part of the process. We have to fail in order to succeed. We fail our way to success. Okay, so the bottom line here is that motivation is what gets you started. Discipline is what keeps you going. If you rely on motivation, you are going to struggle to stay consistent.

But if you build discipline, you can crush any goal that you set for yourself, no matter how you feel. So don’t wait around to feel motivated. Train yourself to become disciplined. And if you do this, you’ll become unstoppable. And if you’re ready to stop relying on fleeting motivation and start building real lasting habits that lead to real lasting results, let’s work together.

Just go to my website, running lean coaching.com, click on work with me, and apply for coaching today. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on running lean and I’ll talk to you soon.

284. Overcoming Limiting Beliefs: How to Stop Arguing for Your Limitations

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If you’ve ever said things like, “I can’t lose weight,” “I don’t have time,” or “I’m just not strong enough,” then you’ve experienced the power of limiting beliefs. These are the deeply held …

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278. The 5 Biggest Lies We Tell Ourselves About Diet and Exercise

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Let’s be real—when it comes to diet and exercise, we’re all guilty of telling ourselves a few little lies. You know the ones: “I’ll start on Monday,” or “I don’t have time,” or even “I deserve this …

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