Embracing Discomfort

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.