Beliefs

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 247 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, the Mindset Shift Required in Order to Succeed. So lots of factors go into whether or not you will successfully achieve some goal, like how bad you want it, where you are in your life, your physical limitations, just to name a few. But one of the most powerful indicators of success is actually a shift in your mindset. And most people do not consider their mindset when they set out to accomplish some big goal, like, let’s say you want to lose weight, they just start with, okay, what should I do? What should I eat? What should I not eat? So in this episode, I want to talk about the mindset shift required in order to succeed so you can accomplish everything that you want in your life. Cool.

But first, let’s talk a little bit about what coaching means to me. So for me, coaching is a powerful tool that you can use to help you to accomplish all those hard things that you want to do in your life. I have done all kinds of hard things, and the times when I had a coach helping me, it was exponentially faster to get to my results, and the results were much better. So just keep in mind that, yeah, you can do lots of things on your own. I’m a self starter. I’m somebody that is pretty self motivated. But when I have a coach helping me, guiding me, showing me the way they’ve already made all the mistakes so they can tell me what not to do, and somebody that’s there holding me accountable for my actions, then my results are much faster and much better. So you can do lots of things on your own, and I’m a proponent of that.

And if you’re a self starter, or somebody that’s good at, you know, getting started and staying disciplined, great. But if you’re somebody that wants some help with that, maybe you are good at those things, but it just hasn’t been quite working out for you, whatever the reason. It doesn’t really matter, if you want some help, reach out. Coaching works where a lot of other methods don’t, because it’s not about some particular diet or some particular, you know, workout regimen. It’s about helping you, you know, pick the right things that work for you. It’s about finding the right formula of eating patterns of, you know, running and strength training patterns that work to help you to create the body, the mind, the life that you want for yourself.

Okay, so if you’re interested in coaching, we can have a conversation about it. You don’t have to commit to anything. You and I could have a conversation. It’s free to have this conversation with me, just go to my website, runningleanpodcast.com, because I’ve been working with a lot of people lately and talking to a lot of people lately who really, they get like what to do, but when it comes to actually doing it and sticking with it, you know, making changes and eating differently and working out regularly, they need some help with the mindset that’s required in order to stick with it, in order to make those goals that they have for themselves to become a reality.

And one of the things a lot of people don’t really understand is that there has to be some big shifts in your mindset in order for you to be successful with whatever it is you set out to do. You know, you can’t just decide you want to, you know, run a faster marathon and then just, it’s just going to happen. You have to change at a fundamental level.

We’ll get into all of that in just a second, but just to understand that there’s a lot of people out there, and you might be one of these people that you want more for yourself. You want to change. You want to improve. Maybe you want to lose weight or build a lean, strong body. You want to run fast. Faster. Maybe you want to run farther than you ever have before. So you want all these things for yourself, and you kind of know what you need to do to get there. Oh, yeah, I know I need to eat this way, or I need to work out, or I need to, you know, do my speed work. So you kind of might know those things.

But one area that most people tend to neglect is their thinking, their mindset. So just understand that, you know, in order to succeed at anything, and this could be your health, your fitness, it could be relationships. It can be your career. It can be, you know, if you’re in school, it could be you’re raising kids, all kinds of things, that in order to be a success, that you have to have a shift in your mindset. Okay? You have to sort of create a new mindset, all right.

So I want to start by just talking about the difference between your thinking and your mindset. So I’m going to start with talking about thinking, which is really, this is the process that your mind uses to produce ideas, to make decisions. You know, when you’re thinking about your past, your memories, this is all thinking. This could also be, you know, an opinion about something, or a judgment of something or someone. So it’s your thoughts about something, it’s you logically figuring things out. I like to say that thinking is just sentences that you say in your mind. So this is just your internal dialog.

Okay, so thinking is something that we do non stop, like we’re always thinking. You can’t not think. It’s almost impossible to not think about anything. There are Tibetan monks who sit on mountains in silence for years, you know, I’m assuming, and still can’t shut their mind off, you know, maybe some people can do this, but it is very, very challenging. So our mind is always sort of working, which is a good thing, you know? So that’s thinking. So it’s it’s our thoughts, it’s the sentences we say in our mind. It’s our logical planning, figuring things out, you know, how we think about other people, our opinions, our judgments, when we make decisions, all those kinds of things, and then we have our mindset.

So mindset is a little bit different. Mindset is your established set of attitudes and, you know, beliefs about things that really sort of affects and influences your outlook, your behavior, mind, and you have multiple mindsets. Just like you have multiple thoughts, you can have multiple mindsets. It’s like your frame of mind. It’s the way that you think. You know, it’s your collection of attitudes and opinions and program beliefs and all that kinds of stuff.

Okay, so your mindset is something that’s broader. And when I’m talking about mindset, I’m really talking about something much broader. And I’m going to come back to this in just a minute, but I want to start talking about beliefs a little bit, because beliefs are powerful things, and they go into making up your mindset. So beliefs are the thoughts that you think over and over again. So these are things that you believe to be true about the world, and beliefs are powerful, because beliefs really drive your actions, you know, and actions create stuff. You know, actions create results, whether it’s good or bad, you can’t have results without taking action. So your beliefs, a lot of times, will determine what actions you take or don’t take. And not everyone believes the same things. Your beliefs are unique to you. Beliefs are powerful because they, a lot of times, they determine what we believe we can and can’t do. You know, they determine what we want to do, first of all. So our beliefs, a lot of times, will determine our goals.

So if we think we can do something, if we believe we can do something, then we go after that thing. You know, if you believe in your heart that you can run a marathon, then you’ll probably be able to do that. So if you have a belief like I could never run that far, then you’ll probably never even consider doing that. And of course, our beliefs can change over time. So I used to believe that I could never run more than like five miles or six miles at a time. I ran a 10k once, and I thought, you know, maybe I can run a marathon, because I had never done that before, but I had that feeling of a belief that maybe that is something I could do now, prior to being able to run, you know, 10k I could, I would never think I could run a marathon. That was, it seemed impossible to me, like, who would want to do that first of all.

So I had this whole established belief about not being able to run that far. But over time, that belief changed, and I decided that, you know, I bet I could do that, and then my belief became, I’m going to do that. And I did believe I was going to do that, and I did accomplish that, okay, but it really required a change in my beliefs. And your beliefs about what you can and can’t do will always determine your results. You know, if you believe you can do something, you will probably be able to do it, and if you believe you can’t, you probably won’t be able to do it. So just understand that if you firmly believe I can never lose weight, you’ll probably never be able to and you know what?

Here’s something interesting. Your beliefs are optional. Like you get to decide what you want to believe or not. You don’t have to believe everything that you think. Okay. You don’t have to believe all of the things that you believe. Like you can actually change. You can change your mind. You know, as we get older, we tend to think, you know, that we are inflexible, that our mindset is fixed, but it’s really not, that’s a decision you’re making. And you can decide that you want to believe other things. You can decide that your mindset is malleable, that your mindset is changeable. You can, you can start adopting new beliefs about things, and this is a very healthy way to live your life when you question your beliefs, and you can actually change your beliefs, okay, but beliefs are very powerful. Just understand that.

So those things that you believe over and over and over again, this starts to become something that we would call belief systems. So when we take all sorts of, like, groups of beliefs, and we lump them together, then we become then we have these things that become belief systems. So these are groups of beliefs that feed off of one another. So an example of a belief system might be, I’m always going to be overweight because I’m weak. I have no willpower, I have no discipline. I’m lazy. This is too hard. I don’t deserve this. My metabolism is messed up. I always struggle with my weight. This is a belief system. These are all different beliefs, but we have lumped them all together, and they’ve created this very clear picture of something that we will never be able to lose weight with that sort of a belief system in place.

And I’ve known people like this who have this absolute belief system, and that’s just where they are. And they are unhappy. They don’t feel like they deserve to be happy. They don’t feel like they deserve to lose weight. They definitely don’t believe they can. And so they’re going to be, you know, kind of miserable forever. Now understand that you can have a whole different belief system. You can have a belief system that says, you know, I definitely can lose weight. I have tons of discipline. I have done hard things in my life before. I’m motivated, I am dedicated. I deserve this for myself. It has nothing to do with my metabolism. I can fix my metabolism. I do not have to struggle with my weight like this is a whole different shift in a belief system. And so your belief systems are something that you can change again. If you can, you know, change your beliefs. You can change your belief systems.

And these belief systems, they develop over time. A lot of times they take years and years decades to develop. A lot of times we have belief systems that are built over our entire lives. So every event of our life, every person we’ve interacted with, everything that’s ever happened to us, everything we’ve ever accomplished or not being able to accomplish, goes into making up some of our belief systems. And this can be very hard to overcome at times. And I get that for sure. You know, if you’re the kind of person that has, you know, dealt with childhood trauma and things like that. It’s going to be very difficult for you to get over that, and that’s where you probably need to, like, get some therapy and have somebody else help you with, you know, recovering from some of that past trauma and things like that, but understand that our belief systems are well developed over time.

And so you think that they are just fixed and that it’s something that you cannot change, but whether you believe it or not, they can change. And we all have these types of belief systems. Some of them are positive, some of them are negative, and just start to be aware of what it is that you’re believing about yourself. And we have belief systems around all sorts of stuff in our life over, you know, religious type of belief systems and political belief systems, movies, TV shows that you like. We have belief systems over music that we listen to.

So I have this friend who’s really into country music, and this is a whole lifestyle for her. It’s a whole mindset for her. There’s tons of belief systems about country music. It dictates the way she thinks, the way she dresses, what she does on the weekends, who her friends are, how her friends dress, how they behave when they go out. So there’s a whole belief system around this, you know, country, her love of country music, and it’s all cool with me. She asked me one time, you know, hey, do you like country music? I’m like not really. So, you know, we don’t really hang out much, which is fine, but good for her, you know, this is something that she’s really into. It could be something like whether or not you are really into fitness.

You know, one of my belief systems involves, you know, being a runner and physically fit, being strong, being healthy. So I tend to do things that fit with this belief system, my friends that I hang out with and I do things with. They are runners. They are physically fit people. They’re strong. They like to work out. They like to eat healthy. The person I’m dating is definitely part of this belief system. She’s a runner. She’s really involved in the running community. This is, like the podcast that I listen to have to do with health and fitness, different topics, mindset, the books I read, so a big part of my belief systems involve, you know, being a fit person and healthy and a runner, because I have these well established belief systems around all of that.

Okay, so all this is bringing me to what I really want to talk about, which is we’re going to go one layer deeper. So we’ve talked about our thinking, those thoughts, those things that we say in our minds. We’ve talked about beliefs, and then we have these belief systems, which are very powerful.

The next layer down in our minds, though, would be our identity. So this is like the very core of who you are. So anytime you say the words, I am, dot, dot, dot, we’re talking about thoughts that you’re thinking or you know your identity at your core level. So like, I am a father, I am a brother, I am a runner, I am a coach. These are all part of who I am at my core. You know my friend who is really in the country, she might be like I am a country music aficionado, like that could be part of her identity. It seems to be part of her identity.

So your identity is all of your thoughts, it’s all of your feelings, it’s everything you know, it’s everything that you believe. It’s all your belief systems. It’s like really the essence of who you are. And also understand that your identity is multifaceted. It is not just one thing. You know, I’m not just a runner. I have lots of identities, but understand that one thing we have to really fundamentally understand is that identity drives our belief systems. It drives our beliefs, it drives our thinking, and drives our results. So if you really want to succeed at something, whether it’s losing weight, running faster, running longer, becoming healthier, getting stronger, getting leaner, becoming the most badass version of yourself. You have to shift your identity. This is the mindset shift that’s required for you to succeed at whatever you want in your life, right?

So we have to change our thinking and our beliefs and our belief systems, but we really have to change our identity, and all these things are changeable. You can change who you are at any time in your life. It’s never too early or too late for you to do this.

Let’s see. 25 years ago or so, I used to smoke cigarettes and I drank beer, and I did both of these things to excess, in my opinion, but I had this identity back then of somebody who was a heavy drinker and a smoker. Okay, so that was part of who I was. So this determined what I did most days, most days I was just sitting around, hanging around certain types of people. This, you know, determined my health, my state of mind, my actions, and, of course, my results. I was overweight, I was unhealthy, I was lethargic, I was angry, I was sick, I was just in a bad way, all the way around, because I had this identity of like, this partier, drinker smoker, type of person, and in order to change I had to dramatically shift my mindset. I had to change my thinking. I had to change my beliefs, my belief systems, and ultimately, I had to make a shift in my identity. And of course, I had to change what I did, but it’s much easier to change what you do when you start at these deeper levels.

So here’s an example of how I did this. So, first of all, I really wanted to change. I had gotten to this place in my life where I was really sick. I was diagnosed with cancer at the time. I was really overweight. I was very unhealthy and I was questioning my mortality. I was really thinking, like, I could die, you know. And, and I had little kids at the time, and I was like, oh, my God, this is, you’ve got to change, Patrick, right? So I first really wanted to change, so I did. And I really wanted to change. And then I started doing things like, I started eating healthier, you know, and I quit smoking, I started walking, I even started running. And I didn’t really realize it at the time, but once I started doing some of these things, they started to break down my pre established belief systems. They started to, I started to make that shift in my identity.

You know, I started running. I started making new friends. I started reading books on running and health and fitness. I started listening to podcasts, all that stuff, as soon as podcasts became a thing, and then I started running races. I did a 5k, a 10k, I did a marathon. I started doing triathlons, ultra marathons, slowly over time, I became a different person. Now this is really scary to think about, like dismantling your belief systems, ditching old identities, becoming a new person. That’s kind of scary if you’re feeling a little bit like, you know, uneasy by just thinking about this right now, that’s normal. It is normal because we’re venturing out into the unknown when we do this, we’re starting to become somebody different.

In order to become somebody different, you got to ditch your old ways of thinking, your old belief systems, your old identity, and you have to adopt some new ways of thinking, some new belief systems, new identities. That is scary, because that’s not who you’re used to being. You’re used to being this one person over here, and now you’re saying, I want to be this other person over here, who’s, in my opinion, who’s better, who’s healthier, who’s going to live longer, you know, who’s nicer to be around, you know, and all the things that you want for yourself. And so it requires that shift, which is very scary.

And so this is why a lot of people will not do this, because it doesn’t feel good, it feels kind of bad. It feels like you’re, you’re, you know, you’re stripping away who you are at your core, because you actually are because that identity that you’ve been working on, or, you know, working from that identity that you’ve been, that’s been programmed into you over the last 30, 40 years, or whatever, it’s all kind of crumbling underneath you, and you’re like, now, who am I? Well, guess what, you get to decide. You get to decide what you want for yourself.

So here’s what I want you to kind of think about for this week. I want you to start with your goals. Like, what is it that you want for yourself? What are those outcomes that you want to create in your life? You want to lose weight, you want to run faster, you want to be stronger. Where do you want to be? And then start thinking about your thoughts. Like, what are the thoughts that you have about yourself, about your ability to accomplish these goals. You know, what do you think about regularly? And then, what do you believe about yourself? What do you believe you can and can’t do? Do you believe that this goal is attainable for you? Do you believe that you can do this, or do you believe that you cannot do this? And then, when we start thinking about beliefs, think about and look at your belief systems. You know what beliefs are all linked together to paint a picture of what you can and can’t do.

So think about all the things that you believe, about how likely you are to be able to lose weight or run faster, all right? And then start looking at your identities. What follows the words when you say those words I am, I am overweight, I am a slow runner, I am weak, I am incapable of being more like what are those things you say after the words I am? And which of these do you need to just let go of and then let them go. And then, what identities do you want to adopt instead? You know, I am a fit, healthy person, I am strong, I am fast, I am someone who loves running.

What is it that you want to adopt as your new identity? Who do you want to be? So think about that stuff this week, I think this will be very powerful for you. But if there’s anything that you want in your life, it’s going to require a change at that core level of who you are, at your core, and it’s a good thing. It’s scary, it’s uncomfortable because you’re venturing out into unknown territory. It’s unfamiliar. It’s not what you’re used to. So it’s going to be scary, it’s going to be uncomfortable, it’s going to be hard, and it’s okay. You can do it, okay. I know you’ve got this.

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