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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

Future Thinking

184. The Incredible Power of Focus

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A lot of people set out to lose weight and then quit. They change their diet, start exercising, and then at some point just throw up their hands and give up. This was definitely me and it was …

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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 184 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, The Incredible Power of Focus. So a lot of people set out to lose weight and then at some point they quit.

They changed their diet, they started exercising, and then at some point, they just throw up their hands and they give up. This was definitely me, and it was probably you at some point, I’m guessing.

And while there are a lot of reasons why someone might just give up on themselves, one of the most likely reasons is a serious lack of focus. Being focused means more than just paying attention to what’s in front of you, it can actually be the key to accomplishing all your health and fitness goals.

So in this episode, I uncover the incredible power of focus and how it can help you become the leaner, stronger, more badass runner you’ve always wanted to be. But first, I often get asked by runners who want to lose weight, how to get started, how to get started with proper nutrition, resistance training, how to get stronger how to improve their running, maybe run longer or run faster, or maybe they just want more energy, they want to improve themselves from the inside out.

I get asked this so much that I put together a free training program designed to do just that to get you started on your health and fitness journey to get you started on your weight loss journey. And it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.

If you’re looking for a great place to start, this is it. It’s an on demand video training. So you can go through it at your own pace, whenever it’s convenient for you, you’ll learn what it means to eat real food, how to improve your ability to burn fat, how to get stronger, how to increase your endurance as a runner, and so much more, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training to get started.

Alright, let’s talk about the incredible power of focus. So if we look up the definition of focus, there’s a couple. One of them is, “The center of interest directivity.”

Another one is, “A clear visual definition.” That’s like when you take a camera and you bring something into focus into clearer visual definition.

And the third definition here is, “To pay particular attention to something.”

Okay. So when we think about focus, I want you to think about a couple different ways of looking at this, you know, this is the center of your interest, you’re putting your mindset on something, and you are paying very close attention to that something or paying particular attention to that area of interest or activity and bringing it into clearer focus, bringing it into clearer definition.

So I like all of those definitions of the word, focus, think about focus this way. And this, this describes the incredible power of focus for sure. If you were to take a 150 watt light bulb, and you are to put it on a lamp in the middle of a large room and turn it on middle of a dark room, and you turn on that 150 watt light bulb, it would scatter light all over the room and light up the room you wouldn’t be able to see in a dark room. Very cool, right?

But if you were to take that same 150 watts, and focus the light into a very small laser beam, you could actually cut through steel with that same amount of light, it’s the same amount of energy, the same amount of light being produced, but it is focused.

And you can see that the power of that focused beam of light is much more powerful than a light bulb that’s just scattered as its light all over the place. There’s nothing wrong with a light bulb, it’s doing its job, it’s lighting up the room. But think about how much more powerful that light is when it is focused.

Okay, your focus is similar. If it’s spread all over the place, if there’s no precise direction to it, if you’re scattered. I mean this is okay and most of us live our lives this way where we kind of scatter our focus and our attention everywhere. And that’s okay. But what would happen, if you took that same amount of energy and you concentrated it?

What if you were to concentrate that energy more precisely on certain areas of your life, on certain goals that you have for yourself? I think things would change dramatically for you. And I think you would agree with that, you would become unstoppable. You could accomplish amazing things.

You know, if you want to lose weight, this requires focused energy. And a lot of people that give up, that quit things, they do it because they lack the focus, they lack the ability to stay focused on the goal.

What do you need to succeed at anything, especially like, health and fitness goals? You need a very clear, focused vision for that end result that you’re looking for. Who is it that you want to become? What do you really want for yourself? What does the future version of you look like?

And we talk about this a lot in my coaching program, when you’re a client of mine, I kind of make you go through this process of like painting a very clear picture of what that future version of you looks like.

What do you look like? How are you sleeping? How? How is your life different than it is today? How are your clothes fitting you? What clothes are you wearing? Are you comfortable taking your shirt off at the pool? You know, things like that.

And when we have this clear vision of our future self, when we have this sense of purpose, and we know exactly what we want for ourselves, well, that’s good, because now we have focus, we have direction, we have a plan a path steps, we can change our actions and behaviors because we know where we’re going.

But you have to have a clear and organized version of that future self, you have to have a clear and focused vision for who you want to become if you want to become that person. Because without a clear vision for yourself, you’re just going to be like, whatever.

So when we have this clear focus, this creates a lot of consistency, it creates a lot of motivation. And we’ll talk about more of that in a minute. But you are more likely to reach those goals. Because you have a clear vision for who you want to become.

When you don’t have focus, you don’t understand where you’re going, you know, you have no clarity of purpose, no clear vision for your future self. There’s no like big picture here, or you have a big picture, but it’s very, it’s like a blurry big picture. It’s not focused, right?

And without focus, we tend to forget our purpose, why we want these things for ourselves. So your health, your fitness, your exercise, your nutrition, it’s all scattered, right? No direction, no motivation to do anything. Because it doesn’t really matter. Because you don’t have that sense of purpose.

You don’t have that clear vision for who you want to become which just drives your motivation down. And this is why people quit. Because they don’t have that focus, they don’t have that clear vision of their future self.

And when you don’t have motivation, you lack progress. You don’t get the results you want. And of course, you’re gonna quit, why would you keep going. But with focus, you create that clear vision of your future self, you have that clarity of purpose, you have very clear goals, and dreams and hopes and things that you want to accomplish for yourself.

This is amazing at helping you to maintain motivation. Because without focus, you get very, it’s very demotivating. You know, you’re just scattered all over the place. You don’t even know where you’re going. How can you even track progress? You know, and that’s where you kind of lose motivation and give up.

But with focus, you maintain motivation. You continually make progress because you’re, you’re taking consistent aligned action. And you end up getting the results that you want, you produce results consistently. And even small results, even if they are, you know, small wins, achieved consistently you will eventually reach your goal.

It’s like running an ultra marathon. It doesn’t matter how slow you go, you gotta run 100 miles, just keep moving forward. But when you stop moving, or when you go backwards, or your heart isn’t in it anymore, and you have no clear vision of where you want to be at the end.

And there’s no purpose for you to continue, why would you continue? It’s just so easy to give up. Okay, so you can start to see, I’m hoping anyway, I hope you can start to see that focus is the key here. Whatever it is you want to accomplish, you want to lose weight, it takes time.

If you want to run an ultra marathon, it takes time, it takes time for the training, it takes time to do that actual event as well. And these things mean that you are going to have to spend a lot of time staying focused, so you stay in the game.

And another way of thinking about focus is this word, constraint, think about constraint. So what is the definition of constraint? This means a limitation or a restriction. And I know when people hear this, they think of this in a negative way, oh, I don’t want to be restricted, I don’t want to be limited. But don’t think about it in a negative way.

Think about it as restricting or limiting your focus to you know, one thing at a time. So constraint of focus is very important. And they’re similar. But it’s almost like taking your focus and really fine tuning it, it’s like, you know, that laser that I’m talking about earlier, instead of being a light bulb, be the laser constraint helps you to do this.

So we don’t want to scatter our focus all over the place, we want it to be very laser like and so constrained is how we do this. So one thing to understand is that people make a big deal about their ability to multitask.

And I don’t know if you guys know this or not, but multitasking is really not something we do well. It’s just as nice as it would be to be able to do two things at once. Lots and lots of studies have shown that the human brain simply isn’t capable of paying full attention to more than one thing at a time.

In fact, our brain has evolved to be really good at single tasking, to only be able to think about or do one thing at a time. So when somebody says they’re multitasking, that’s just somebody who is scattered. They’re trying to justify it. Oh, I’m just, I’m a multitasker. It’s like, no, you’re just not focused. You lack focus and constraint. Okay.

So multitasking is not real, we want to focus on one thing at a time. And let’s, you know, see what this would look like. So if you want to achieve health and fitness goals, you know, and like I said, these things take time, you want to lose weight, it’s going to take time, you want to become a runner, and just be able to run a half marathon or marathon or a 5k, whatever this takes time.

It’s really hard to get out there and just like run and accomplish something big from a running perspective. Or lifting weights at the gym, you know, you want to build some muscle you want to, you know, get more toned, that is not something that you’re going to see right away, you can’t go to the gym three times and be toned, like it takes a while months of hard work to get to that place. Right. And so we don’t see results for a while.

So we need to stay focused. And we need to practice constraint. So here’s an example of someone who’s trying to lose weight, let’s say you’re, you want to lose weight. And you are really motivated to lose weight.

And so you are going to do everything all at once you’re going to cut calories, and give up sugar, and start intermittent fasting and cut out snacking. And you’re going to start logging all your food and tracking your food and an app and counting your macros and skipping breakfast and doing all your workouts fasted.

And I will tell you that this approach can feel way too overwhelming. It’s just too much to change all at once. And you are very likely to fail and or quit. And a quick story of one of my clients who was very motivated early on in the process. And he came to me and on our first call, he had said okay, I’ve made all these changes.

And he literally was doing everything I just said. And he was like I’m super motivated. I’m doing all these things. And I said listen, I really don’t recommend that because you’re going to kind of feel overwhelmed and you’re probably not going to be able to sustain this very long.

But he was determined that it was fine that he could do it all. And so I said okay, let’s see how it goes. And two weeks later, he was like I can’t do this. He could not maintain that type of lifestyle, you know, all those changes at once was way too much for him.

So I said, Okay, let’s just start over. Let’s start over. Okay. But I don’t know about you, I have done this before, too, because I get this, like, you know, what do they call it shiny object syndrome, where I’m like, oh, this is cool. Oh, look at this cool thing over here. Let’s try that too. Oh, that looks fun. I saw that on Instagram. Oh, let’s try that.

So when we have shiny object syndrome, and we try all these different things at once, that all sounds great, but it’s too much. It’s too much. And it’s really hard to maintain that, especially when it comes to, you know, lifestyle changes, like from a nutrition and exercise standpoint, okay.

So constraint means focusing on one thing at a time. So for this particular person, and for you, and for others, I would say, let’s just start with one thing, like, let’s give up sugar, let’s just give that a couple of weeks, see how you feel, get over the withdrawal symptoms, which are real, by the way, once you feel good about where you are, and you’ve gotten over that initial withdrawal from sugar, and you’re starting to feel better, let’s go on to step two. Let’s try something else. Right.

And this is my strategy with clients. It’s always a layered approach, we make one or two small changes, we wait a couple of weeks, we see how things are working or not working. And then we can layer on the next change. This is my, I call this like my layered approach, right?

We’re layering on different changes, making sure that your body and your mind adjust to these things, and give you enough time to adjust to these things. So that then when we move on to the next thing, it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. You’re like, oh, I already got this one thing, let’s, let’s go on to step number two.

So this practice is very effective. It gives you the ability to get used to one small change at a time, this is how you change habits. Right? You cannot change habits by changing everything at once. You have to do these one step at a time.

So this is where constraint is very important, right? This practice is effective because it gives you feedback. And so you know exactly what’s working. What isn’t? Because you’ve only changed the one thing, if you change 10 things, how do you know which one of these things is making you feel terrible, you just don’t know?

Alright, so we change one thing at a time. And then this practice is also sustainable, because we are constraining our changes to one thing at a time. You get used to each stage to each change before we move on to the next stage before we move on to the next change. And so building habits this way is very powerful, very effective.

Okay, so let’s, let’s talk about how to get started with this. How do you get started with practicing constraint and focus? And I want you to start with that vision for your future self. So who are you becoming? Where do you want to be in 6 to 12 months? What goals do you have for yourself?

Do you want to lose weight, improve your strength, you want to get faster, maybe you want to qualify for Boston or run that ultra marathon. Maybe you’re just someone who’s like, I just need to fix my dysfunctional relationship with food. Whatever it is, be very clear and focused on who you want to be. And then write it down.

And then spend at least five minutes a day thinking about this future version of yourself every single day, spend some time writing about it, journaling about it, reading those journal entries, recording a voice memos, talking to somebody else about your goals and your dreams for your future for yourself who you want to become.

Everything that you want for yourself, every accomplishment that you want to achieve starts in your mind. It starts with thinking about who you want to be, and what you want that end result to be, what is the outcome you’re looking for. And the more focused and the more clear that vision of your future self is, the more likely you are to achieve that.

So spend time every single day thinking about who you want to be, you have to have this very clear vision of who you want to be if you want to get there, right? If you don’t have focus around your goals and the vision for your future self you’re just going to fail. So don’t skip this step. Consistent focus on your future self will help you stay motivated. It will help you keep your head in the game and keep you making progress towards those goals.

Keep reminding yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. People who don’t do this, they will be motivated at the beginning of the process. You know, we all get motivated when we make a change. Oh I’m gonna lose weight. I’m gonna change my diet. I’m gonna stop eating sugar and they feel motivated at the beginning.

But over time, that motivation will fade and then they will think that they are just a failure, that they can’t do this, that it will never work for them. That is not true. The actual truth is they just lost their focus. That’s it. Clarity of purpose, that’s the key.

Keep reminding yourself of this purpose, keep reminding yourself why this is important to you, and you will stay motivated. And you will be much more consistent in your actions. And you’ll keep moving toward that vision of yourself for the future. Okay, so start with that vision of who you want to become. And then you have to practice constraint.

And this is the thing that is hard for most people, because I’m going to tell you, just pick one thing to change. You know, pick an area of your life, whether it’s, you know, running, getting faster, improving your endurance, whether it’s losing weight, or getting stronger, pick one area, and then pick one, you know, behavior that you want to change one action that you want to change, don’t get sucked into the shiny object syndrome, where you want to try to change everything at once.

Just choose one area, and then one action item that you can do and give it a couple of weeks, you know, like giving up sugar. Give that a couple of weeks and see how it’s going for you. What are the results? Is this working, or not? Is this terrible? Do I still feel terrible? Or am I feeling better now?

Okay, but don’t be tempted to keep changing things every single day. Don’t do everything at once, make one small change, and then make sure that you’ve adapted to that change before layering on the next thing. And then it’s just a matter of rinsing and repeating this process, because over time, you will find that changing habits is much easier if you practice constraint instead of trying to do it all at once.

And then the third part of this is to have a plan. Being focused means that you have a plan. And of course, you got to stick to the plan. But people who lack focus, people who are scattered, they don’t have a plan.

Their plan is to just wing it with everything that they do. And how does that work for you? That doesn’t work very good. I’m gonna tell you, it might work in the moment, and sometimes we do have to wing it. And that’s just because, you know, maybe something happened externally. And your plan has to change because of outside circumstances that you have no control over.

And that is completely fine. But winging it is not a plan, okay. So I always tell my clients that the key to accomplishing everything that they want is to have a plan, right and stick to the plan. That’s the important part, right? You got to have a plan, but then you got to stick to the plan, right?

Being focused and practicing constraint. This gives you the ability to stay on track. And it helps you to continue to make minor changes, tweaking the plan if necessary. But when you’re focused and you’re practicing constraint, it means you are working a plan very intentionally, not haphazardly.

Like you’re, you’re doing everything with intention. With direction you have a laser-like focus on what you’re doing. And then what the next thing is, what’s that next step that’s going to move you closer to your goals. Without focus, you don’t have any idea what the next step is, with focus.

And with constraint, you know exactly what the next step is, because you’ve planned it in advance, and then you do it because you’re not distracted by a million other things. So make a plan. And stick to the plan. This is simple, but it requires you to be focused and it requires constraint, okay.

Remember to continue focusing on your future self always. And anytime you feel like you’re stuck, or you’re lacking motivation, you don’t feel like going to the gym, you don’t feel like running, whatever it is, remember why you’re doing this, go back to that future version of yourself, spend some time in that place. And then the other thing should fall into place for you here.

And then lastly, be careful where you put your focus. So if you focus on the negative on the things that are not working for you, you’re going to feel terrible, you’re going to feel less motivated, and you’re probably going to quit. So if you focus on your failures, you’re destined to repeat them and continue to fail.

If you focus on how long it’s taking, or I can’t do this or I’m a failure or this is too hard. It will continue to be hard, it will continue. You will continue not to be able to do it and you will continue to fail, right. If you keep focusing on the negative, you’re going to feel more and more negative and keep getting more negative results.

You always get more of what you focus on. So focus on what you want. Have you ever noticed that negative people always seem to attract more and more negativity into their lives? Have you ever noticed that positive people seem to attract more and more positivity into their lives?

It all has to do with where they put their focus, you get more of what you focus on. So focus on what you really want. And I love this quote from Bruce Lee that says, “The successful warrior is the average man or woman with laser-like focus.”

So be the successful warrior. Maintain laser-like focus on your goals and your dreams, and you’ll experience success like never before.

And then lastly, have you ever thought about doing something hard and then just decided I can’t do that? I’ve done this many times. I’ve told myself, I can’t lose weight. I can’t run a marathon. I can’t finish an Ironman. And the problem with thoughts like I can’t is that that thought becomes the truth for you.

Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” And I love this quote so much because it sums up this whole principle beautifully. It means that whatever you believe you can or can’t do will be true for you.

So thoughts like ‘I can’t’, they don’t serve any purpose other than to keep you stuck and limit your potential. By the way, I stopped saying I can’t a long time ago. Since then, I’ve been able to lose weight. Keep the weight off for good. I’ve run like 20 marathons, I finished the Ironman Triathlon.

Stop saying I can’t and start saying I can and see what amazing things you’ll be able to accomplish. Let’s you and I work together to see what you can do. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

151. The Importance of Play

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I think we can all agree that children need to play. Play is crucial for their brain development and their mental and emotional growth. But what about us adults? Should play be abandoned once we …

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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 151 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, the importance of play. I think we can all agree that children need to play. Play is crucial for their brain development. Play is crucial for their mental growth and for their emotional growth.

But what about us? What about us adults? Should play be abandoned once we reach adulthood? The short answer is no. Play should continue for everyone, no matter what age. But why, why is play so important? Why should we make play part of our everyday life? What does it even mean to play? What does play even mean for us adults, right?

So in this episode, I’m going to take a deep dive into the importance of play, and hopefully inspire you to integrate more play into your day to day life. But first, a quick question for you to ponder. Who are you becoming? Who are you becoming? It’s a very valid question, right? But have you ever really thought about it? Have you ever really taken the time to paint a picture of who you want to be in the future, the future you?

What does the future you look like? How do you feel about yourself? What have you accomplished? Where are you in the future? That may seem impossible for where you are right now in your life. This is one of the very important exercises that I do with all of my coaching clients, we paint a very clear picture of who they want to be, who do you want to be?

And then we put together a plan to get you there. If you’re ready to get started becoming that future, you that healthiest and most badass version of you, then you are ready for some coaching, you’re ready for the Running Lean coaching project. This is my unique weight loss health and fitness coaching program for runners where the project is always you.

So to learn more, go to runningleancoaching.com/apply and get started. You and I will jump on a quick call. We’ll see if this is a good fit for you. If it is, boom, we’ll get you in, we’ll get you started right away. Okay, runningleancoaching.com/apply and hope to see you in the Running Lean coaching project.

Okay, so the importance of play. This is a topic that I’ve been thinking about for some time. And I recently spent an entire week in Disney World, which is the happiest place on earth, apparently. And I grew up in LA. So I grew up in the LA area and spent a lot of time going to Disneyland as a kid even as an adult. And it’s one of my favorite things to do to just go and have fun and play.

And I’m going to talk more about my experience at Disney later in this podcast. But it got me thinking that you know, play is something that we abandon as we become adults, and it’s something that we should not abandon. That’s something we need to embrace on a regular basis. So it really got me thinking about why is play on board and for us as adults like why should we be engaging in more play?

Why should we incorporate more play into our life? And so that’s what I’m focusing on today. And I will talk about my experience at Disney World, which was my first time ever there and had so much fun. It just took me back to my childhood and I had such a great time. But here’s the thing, why is play so important.

Why is play important for kids, first of all. So, you know, like I said at the beginning here that for children. Play is important. It’s really important for kids’ brain development. It’s important for them to learn how to connect and interact with others. It helps them to express their creativity and to learn how to be creative and helps them to express their unique self and to be more self aware and aware of others. It helps to nurture Critical Thinking in children.

Healthy play time for kids leads to healthy adulthood. Okay, so we all know that that play is so important for kids, we integrate it into their day to day life. You know, we make recess and free play part of their schooling. Like, we know that this is important for kids.

But at some point, we take all of that and we abandon it because we’ve quote unquote, like become adults, like, what does that even mean to become an adult? Just because you turn 18 or 21? Or 25? What is that? What’s the cut off for playing as adults?

And I’m here to tell you that never is the cut off for playing. For adults, we never outgrow the need for play in our lives. Okay. So some of the reasons why we want to continue playing as adults is that it helps to continue just like it does with kids. It helps us to connect with others and helps us to build healthy relationships with other people.

It helps us to release endorphins, and dopamine, and all the good feeling hormones, it helps us to reduce stress, it helps improve our brain functionality. It helps us to improve our memory, and stimulate creativity. It helps us to feel young, and energetic play just gives us a feeling of youthfulness and energy. And it actually stimulates brain cell growth in adults.

And if you want to live a long and healthy life with a functioning brain, and cognitive function, then you need to continue to play in your everyday life. Why would we ever stop doing this? There are really no downsides to play. There’s nothing negative about it. And I’ll talk about that in just a minute here, like what play is and what it is, and are you doing it wrong.

Because there’s a right way and a wrong way to play. But think about all of these positive health benefits of play, especially for the aging adult. And if you’re finding your life is full of stress, and you’re finding it hard to be in a positive state of mind on a regular basis, then maybe play is the answer for you. Why would you stop playing with all these positive benefits?

Okay, so let’s get into what play is and what it isn’t. So play has to be something that is done. For the sake of play, it has to be done for its own sake, the act of playing, engaging in play is more important than any kind of outcome that you’re seeking. Okay. So I know that most of the people listening to this podcast are runners and if you’re a runner, and you’re like, Yeah, my idea of play is to run a 5k every weekend and crush everybody else out there and beat my time every single time and if I don’t beat myself up, and I get I’m really hard on myself and I work out really hard in order to crush all these competitors every weekend.

If that’s your idea of play. I don’t think you’re doing it right. Okay, I think that might be fun, competitive. Sports are fun. But they’re not necessarily play. If you like to play poker, let’s say, and you enjoy playing cards and you have fun playing a competitive card game every now and then. That’s all good. And that might be considered play. But if you’re a gambling addict, and your only goal is to hit some huge jackpot and you know you’re blowing through all your life savings, then that’s not play. That is not play, that is something completely different. Okay.

Family Game Night, family game night. Oh my gosh, it’s so much fun, right? It’s play as long as your goal isn’t to dominate every other person in the room and make other people cry. If somebody’s crying at the end of the night, and feelings are hurt, and that may not be play, it may be something you’re taking a little too seriously.

Okay, so play can be competitive. Play can involve tactics and strategy, and you can want to win and you can want to crush a 5k but if it’s causing more stress and anxiety for you, then I don’t think you’re doing it right. Play should cause you to feel more relaxed, it should feel like you should get that release of endorphins and dopamine and it should actually feel good and you should walk away from play. Feeling better, not worse. If you’re feeling worse, you might be doing it wrong. Okay.

Now there is an author of a book called Play Dr. Stewart Brown. And he’s been studying play for forever. And he outlines five different types of play that he’s observed during his years of research. Now there’s more than these five types, but I’m going to go through the five that he talks about, because I think it’ll give us a better picture, it’s a good way of explaining what types of play we can engage in.

Okay, so the first type of play that he talks about is rough and tumble play, which is a good way for us to learn, like, if you’re learning how to, you know, hit a baseball or, you know, playing games, like kickball or dodgeball, or soccer, those kinds of things.

Even you know, swimming and diving and capture the flag, you know, kickball, these are all fun, rough and tumble types of games that we can play. And they help us with, you know, mastering something physically like becoming a good diver and learning how to do a triple flip or something like that, like, that’s a great way of engaging in rough and tumble play.

Then there is another type of play, he calls ritual play, which is things like board games, and chess. And this would be like more activities and sports with certain structures and, and rules, you know, basketball and football and soccer and baseball and those kinds of things. It’s also ritual play, when we are creating and strategizing and designing and engaging in activities that bring different people together for a common purpose or a goal.

Then we have imaginative play. So this is the kind of thing where you are storytelling, drawing, acting, taking an improv class painting, these kinds of things are all imaginative play.

Then we have body play. Body play is what a lot of us kind of, in this community tend to gravitate towards. So this is, you know, where we do things like you know, running and hiking, and Pilates and yoga and riding roller coasters and climbing mountains and surfing and, and maybe snorkeling, these are all things that we can do to use our body as a way of just getting out and having fun and playing. Okay?

Again, if we’re getting too competitive with it, it may not be considered play. And if the outcome is more stressful, it may not be play. So just be mindful of that.

And then there’s object play, which is building things like with Legos and making a fort out of the couch, having a snowball fight, designing things, these can all be like object play. So there are many, many ways of play, there’s many categories of play, we can all find things that we can relate to and that we can gravitate towards.

There’s no right or wrong answer here. But just be thinking about the types of activities that you’re engaging in. How are they making you feel? Are you feeling more rejuvenated and more connected to others? And less stressed out when you’re engaging in this play? Or are you feeling more anxiety and stress and actually feeling resentful of others because you lost and they won or something like that, you see what I’m saying there is a very, pretty stark difference, and you’ll know it when you see it. Okay.

So there’s all these ways that play, and a lot of the things that I just mentioned can help improve your cognitive function, how having the ability to deal with stress better, improving your creative thinking, having this childlike exuberance, about life, laughing more often, far into adulthood. Like, these are some of the most important things you can do for your health, for your physical health, for your mental and emotional health. And I would say for your fitness too, because you know, being in a state of chronic stress, it’s going to be really hard on your body.

And if you want to improve your body and improve your body composition, you’re somebody that’s trying to, you know, maybe get leaner and get stronger. Being in a state of chronic stress is going to thwart that progress. It’s going to make it so hard for you to make progress, losing weight and getting fitter. So play can be one of those things that reduces stress and eliminate stress from your life really helps to keep you sharp.

It helps to keep you functioning at a high level and helps you to grow mentally, emotionally, physically. And it’s so good at reducing stress, right? So why wouldn’t you want to engage in play all the time. So, let’s talk a little bit about my week. I’m excited to sort of share some of this with you, because I had so much fun.

So like I said, at the beginning here, I’m a Disneyland person, like, I grew up in LA, and I grew up going to Disneyland, and I have very fond memories of Disneyland. And it was always just one of those places that we went to as kids, my parents would take us there, we only lived about two hours away from there. So we would go there.

And, you know, every summer and I just have so many great memories from being at Disneyland. So, you know, I was talking to my girlfriend about it recently. And we just decided that for my birthday, this year for my birthday. About a week ago, we decided that we were going to take a trip and just spend a few days down there.

And so we booked a place. we booked one of the Disney resorts. So we were close to all the action, we went to all the parks. And my goal was to do nothing but play for a week. Really, I blocked out my calendar, and I spent, you know, I took my laptop with me, but never even turned it on, didn’t even open it up because I was just so focused on just being in the moment and playing.

And listen, I do things for fun, you know, on the regular I, I like to run and I lift weights, and these things aren’t always fun or play, okay, sometimes they can be but not always. But there’s things I do that would fall into that play category for sure. On a regular basis, like walking and doing yoga and listening to books and podcasts, watching movies, TV shows, I’m a huge sci fi nerd, right. Love Star Wars, love, you know, Game of Thrones and things like that.

And so I’m really into a lot of that fantasy stuff. And to me, that is super fun. Family Game Night is something we do spending time with my grandson, oh my gosh, these are all ways that I love to play and try to play on a regular basis. But I wanted to take things to the next level.

So we went to Disney World, got to go to all the parks. And like I said, my goal was just to have fun and play for a week, not with any sort of like outcome in mind, but just to play, and to experience all of the fun that is available, which is everywhere you look, it’s nothing but fun. I love Star Wars and I got to immerse myself into Star Wars Land there, Disney’s Hollywood Studios. And I just felt like a little kid again.

Star Wars was one of those things that I saw when I was about 11 years old. And it sort of changed my life. I really fell in love with sci fi at that time, because it wasn’t something that really appealed to me until then. And then it was something that I was really, really changed my mind about a lot of that kind of stuff. And I really got into it and was really excited to be immersed in this Star Wars lane.

And I felt like I was among my people. Like all the other people I saw there were a lot of people that were similar in age to me, and had similar looks on their face, which they were just really happy and smiling a lot. I rode all the roller coasters at all the parks and laughed so much and had so much fun, huge smile across my face the whole time.

And even while we were down there in the middle of the week, this big hurricane came through Hurricane Nicole that ended up hitting landfall in Florida as a category one hurricane pretty quickly got reduced to a tropical storm by the time it hit us in Orlando. But so, this tropical storm kind of shut down the parks for about a day so they closed the parks early on Wednesday, and then opened them up for about a half a day on Thursday. So we missed out on a big chunk of time there and then dealt with like just torrential rain all day on Wednesday when we were at the parks. Even that did not stop us from playing and just having fun. Like we still had fun.

We bought some ponchos, some plastic ponchos that we ended up wearing all the time. And I will tell you that it was the best $12 I ever spent on each one of those ponchos because we were able to just walk around and have fun, stand in lines outside and be in the rain and stay relatively dry.

Really not an ideal situation but we made the most of it and still had so much fun. So, so coming back from this trip, I just feel so rejuvenated and relaxed and free of stress. And I was thinking about this this morning. And really this whole trip taught me a big lesson. And the lesson is that I need more of this in my life, I need to include even more play into my day to day life.

Somehow I need to make play more a part of what I do every single day. And so I’m asking myself this question, and I want you to ask yourself this question: what can I do today? To play? Not, you know, to crush the competition or, you know, to, you know, make somebody cry? But what can I do to just play for the sake of play? Just because we’re adults, doesn’t mean we have to stop playing. Having fun, being silly, for no other reason than to have fun and be silly, is crucial.

For us as adults, it’s crucial for physical, mental and emotional health. And I talked to so many people who tell me how stressful their life is. It’s their job. It’s the kids, it’s the families, their relationships, it’s their finances, all causing so much stress in their life. And then I’m like, Okay, what are you doing to play? How are you relaxing? How are you having fun? And they got nothing, just crickets? Why not? Why aren’t you engaging in play on the regular?

Are you embarrassed? Is it silly to act like a kid? You know? Are you too serious? And is this like, below you or something? No, it’s not. I mean, I get it. It can be kind of silly sometimes. And I felt like a little kid all week at Disney World. Like, I was waiting in line for all these rides. And there’s a lot of little kids around and but you know what, I loved every minute of it. Because it was like I was a kid again. And it felt amazing. And it feels good to be a kid. Why? Why not?

So ask yourself how can you play today? What can you do today? To start adding more fun and more play into your life? Who can you include in this play? Can you include your kids, your spouse, friends, family, the more the merrier. We want to build those connections. I want to build those relationships. What kind of a play appeals to you like board games, joining Soccer League, learning how to play the guitar, yoga, dancing, jumping on a trampoline, what appeals to you, just find something and do that.

And if you find it doesn’t work for you, you don’t like it, try something else. But make play a priority in your life. Make play something you do every single day, or at least as often as you can. Embrace that feeling of play. Embrace that feeling of being a kid again. However, that looks for you. You get to decide, play more, and you’ll enjoy life more. You’ll keep your mind sharp, you’ll build better relationships and you will live a healthier, happier life. I promise you. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

143. Upgrading Your Model Of the World

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One nice thing about human beings is that no two of us are alike. And not just in how we look or where we live, but in how we see the world. We each have our own unique Model Of the World (MOW) …

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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 143, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today upgrading your model of the world. One nice thing about human beings is that no two of us are alike. And not just in how we look or where we live, but in how we each see the world.

We each have our own unique model of the world, based on our own past experiences, our beliefs, our values, and our individual upbringings. And your model, the world can either keep you stuck and frustrated, or help you to achieve everything that you want for yourself. So in this episode, I’m going to be taking a good look at how your unique model of the world can be harmful or helpful, and why you might want to consider upgrading your model of the world.

But first, a lot of people ask me about coaching and what it looks like. And it may not look the way you think that it does. So for me, from my perspective, coaching is not me creating a list of rules and then handing that list of rules to every single person that I work with.

Coaching is a relationship, it’s you and I working closely together to look at your goals, to look at your lifestyle, to look at the way that you want to achieve things in your life. And then putting together a plan that is unique to you. Just like we all have a unique model of the world, we each want to approach getting healthy, getting fit, getting stronger, losing weight, we all need to approach this in a slightly different way.

So I don’t have a cookie cutter program that just is the same for everybody that I work with. We’re all individuals and I want to celebrate that really. So with the way that I do coaching, which is different from a lot of other coaches. It is a unique relationship, it’s you and I working closely together to set goals for you to create a plan for you.

And then to help you stick to that plan. It’s really a collaboration, you have some say, in how we structure things, you have some agency here. Okay, this isn’t just me telling you what to do, there’s a little bit of me telling you what to do, but you have to be on board with what we’re doing. Because if you’re not, you’re not going to stick with it. Nobody wants to do something that they don’t want to do. Right.

So what I try to create with my coaching program is a collaborative approach where you get to have some say in how we structure things, okay? The main objective here is to create a plan and then help you stick to that plan. And if you want some help creating a plan, if you want some help sticking to that plan, coaching might be a great fit for you. To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply to get started.

I would love to have you in my unique weight loss coaching program for runners, the Running Lean coaching project where the project is you just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a quick application, we’ll jump on a zoom call, see if there’s a good fit for you. Cool.

All right, let’s talk about upgrading your model of the world. So like I was saying at the top of the episode here, we humans are all very different. We each have our own ways of seeing things in the world. And this isn’t just about, you know, our upbringings. This isn’t just about our past experiences, there’s so many different factors that make up how we see the world. So we will see things differently based upon our past experiences and our upbringing and our cultures and where we grew up.

But also you got to look at the things that you have believed for your whole life, your belief systems, you got to look at your values. You have to look at the things that are important to you. All of these things paint a different picture of what reality looks like for you. So when I talk about how we all have our unique model of the world, really what I’m saying here is we each have our own view of reality.

And if you want to extrapolate this out a step further, you could say that, that reality is what you think it is. That there isn’t one reality that is the same for everyone. It’s kind of mind blowing, if you think about that, right. But it’s pretty true, because we each have a different way of interpreting what’s happening around us. And we each have a different way of approaching the circumstances in our life. That means we each have our own version of what’s real and what’s not.

So all these factors are our belief systems, the way we have thought our whole lives, the people around us, our schooling, our experiences, all make up our unique model of the world. And this is important, because your model of the world can affect you. in many different ways. It can affect how you get through life, it can affect how you get through relationships, it can affect how you achieve big things in your life or not.

And when I talk about making big changes in your life, let’s say you want to, you want to lose some weight. Let’s say you want to become a faster runner, these things take time, and they take effort, they take getting uncomfortable. And if your model of the world says, Hey, every time you try to do something like this, every time you’ve ever set out to lose weight you fail, losing weight is too hard. Losing weight is something you’ll never be able to do.

If you have believed that your whole life, then guess what your reality is, you will not be able to lose weight, your model of the world is your reality. And if your model of the world is keeping you stuck where you are, and affecting you negatively, and keeping you from taking action or keeping you from moving in the direction of your goals or what you really want for yourself, then you have to consider maybe changing that.

Now, if your model of the world is positive, and it is, is one of like determination, and if your model of the world is one of hey, I can achieve anything that I set my mind to, then guess what that becomes your reality. You might want to let go of your current model of the world if it is not serving you. Just because you believe this is the way things are. And you’ve always believed this is the way things are does not mean you have to hold on to that. I know it’s kind of a crazy concept, right?

What I’m talking about here is releasing your grip on reality, releasing your grip on your version of reality. And this is not something most people ever consider is even in the realm of possibilities. Most people are so ingrained and so dug into their own model of the world, they cannot see any other way of doing things.

They cannot see themselves ever becoming more than they are. They cannot see themselves ever achieving anything more than what they’ve already achieved in their life. And it keeps them from ever pushing themselves. It keeps them from ever taking any kind of action that would improve their health, their fitness, their relationships, their business, their careers. They are so stuck in where they are and who they are, they cannot see that there’s more available to them.

So what I’m asking you to do is release your grip on what you believe to be true. Release your grip on your own version of reality. Release your grip on your own model of the world. And this takes some work. This is not really a simple process or an easy process. It takes some work and some time but it starts with you challenging your beliefs and challenging the way that you see things.

And the way that you believe things are about yourself, about others, about society, about the world around you. But you don’t have to believe everything you think just because you think something just because you’ve believed something your whole life doesn’t mean you have to continue to believe that you can choose to believe something else instead.

For years and years, I believed that I could not quit drinking, for example, I believed that I was always going to drink alcohol. I mean, I drank alcohol every day for 25 years, or something like that – a long, long time. And I could not imagine going one day without drinking alcohol. I mean, I did it every now and then. But it was not fun. And it was hard. And I was thinking like, this is just, this is just who I am.

And then at one point in my life, I decided I wasn’t gonna do that anymore. I wasn’t gonna drink anymore. That was a huge mindset shift for me to go from being somebody who believed, firmly believed that drinking was just part of who I was. And it was always going to be that way to being a non drinker. What? I know, it’s crazy. That is completely the opposite of everything I believed about my model of the world at that point.

Everything I did, had alcohol involved, somehow, oh, we’re gonna go out to dinner gotta go somewhere where they serve alcohol, oh, we’re gonna go to this sporting event. No, I’m going to be drinking a lot. Oh, it’s, you know, I got to take the kids to, you know, football practice, well, better, you know, make sure I get some beers on the way home or whatever it was.

Oh, it’s Tuesday, well better stock up on alcohol. You know, it was always part of everything that I did. Not having alcohol was a wild concept for me. That broke my model of the world, I was like, does not compute. I had to release my grip on my version of reality, in order to make that shift for myself. And I had to do the same thing.

A few years back, when I made this big shift from being a, a plant based person, somebody who did not eat meat, I hadn’t eaten meat for 15 years, and I made a big shift, I decided that that was no longer what I believed to be the best thing for myself. My model of the world for the previous 15 years was, you know, meat is bad for you, you shouldn’t eat meat, it’s much healthier to not eat meat. And I was dug in with that belief about myself. And for me, it was the way I believed and the way I was eating. And there’s a lot more to this than just meat.

But you know, I was eating a lot of sugar, a lot of carbohydrates and things like that. But I had gained a lot of weight and I was feeling very unhealthy. And I decided to go back to more of an ancestral way of eating, which included eating meat, again, extremely different, extremely difficult to make this decision to start eating meat again, and change my diet. I’m really glad I did that though. I’ve gotten way healthier, I feel much better. I’ve changed my diet in a lot of ways. But this is just one way.

Okay, I’m not saying you know, eating meat is better than being vegetarian or vegan or anything like that. I’m not going to get into that discussion here. I’m just saying for me, this was a good choice for me to make for my body and my health and my fitness and I feel better now. But this was a big shift for me.

So my model of the world that I was holding on too tightly, even though I was gaining weight and gaining weight and gained like 40 pounds. My clothes didn’t fit anymore. I looked terrible. I hated the way I looked in the mirror. I was not letting go of that model of reality, that model of the world. But when I did when I made that shift when I made that change, it changed everything for me. I had to release my grip on reality, my version of reality, in order for me to become the person that I am today.

This doesn’t mean I’m done either, like I have other versions of myself that I want to become, we are always a work in progress, at least we always should be. And though those versions of myself that I see in the future that I am working towards, are different than who I am today, are different than who I’ve been up to this point. And those versions of me require me to release my grip on reality again, in other ways. And this is an ongoing process, and it’s okay, it’s okay that we do this.

But you have to challenge what you believe. You have to challenge the way you’ve been doing things, if you want to become more, you have to challenge your experiences in the past, because listening to your past does not determine your future. Just because you’ve always done something a certain way does not mean it has to continue.

Just because you’ve always had the same results from everything you’ve tried in the past does not mean you’re going to continue to get those same results, your past does not determine your future. Stop looking to the past and saying well see, this is why I can’t get where I want to in life because of what happened, you know, back in the day, stop doing that.

Release that idea, let go of those old ideas. Just because you’ve done something for decades, doesn’t mean you can’t change it, we can always change. And this idea of upgrading your model of the world of making these changes, letting go of the things that aren’t serving you anymore. Choosing new values, choosing new things you want to believe about yourself and the world around you. This is such a difficult process to go through.

This is uncomfortable, because it goes against everything that you believe to be true to this point. Right? It challenges everything you think you know, everything you currently hold to be true. Everything you’ve believed, maybe your whole life. But what I want you to do is I want you to decide, first of all, decide who it is that you want to become. And then you got to start working towards becoming that version of yourself. Okay?

And then look at what version of reality you’re holding on to right now. And is that version of reality that you’re holding on to helping you to become that future version of yourself? Or is it keeping you stuck where you are. The art of becoming more requires you to let go of who you think you are today. The art of becoming more requires you to release your grip on your current model of the world. That’s it, it really does.

You got to you know, you got to do more if you want to become more. And your work this week, is to look at different areas of your life. Look at your past experiences. Look at the things you think you believe. Look at the things that you think you know, look at the things you think you’re capable of. And challenge all of it, challenge all of it.

Your work is to challenge reality, your work is to challenge your current model of the world. And make some changes and upgrade that. If you want to become more, you ‘ve got to do more. If you want to become more, you’ve got to release your grip on your current model of the world and make some changes and start moving toward that direction of becoming more. Okay. That is your work this week. I hope you will do this. It is so worth it. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

113. Getting Out of the Gap and Into the Gain

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Have you ever found yourself wishing your life was somehow “better”, that there was some future version of yourself that was leaner, stronger, and healthier? Of course you have, we all think about …

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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 113, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today getting out of the gap and into the gain. Have you ever found yourself wishing that your life was somehow better, that maybe there was some future version of yourself that was leaner, stronger, and healthier? Of course, you have. We all think about stuff like this, I teach you to think about stuff like this, there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing this.

The problem is when you’re so focused on what you don’t have, that it completely consumed you. When you’re obsessed about where you’re not, that’s when things begin to break down for you. So today I’m talking about the difference between being in the gap. And being in the gain.

When you’re in the gap, you only see the negative, you never feel like you measure up, you never feel like you’re making progress towards your goals. In fact, making any progress toward your goals feels virtually impossible.

There’s a better way to do this, there’s a better way to think about all of this, and it’s called being in the gain. When you’re in the gain, you’re focused on the positive, you feel more energized, you feel more motivated, and you begin to make significant progress.

I’m going to talk all about this today, I’m going to break down why getting out of the gap and getting into the gain is so important for your long-term health and fitness goals. Cool. This is exciting. I’m excited about this one.

But first, if you’re ready to do this inner work, you know, this stuff that I talked about here, like getting out of the gap and into the gain, this is the inner work, you got to shift your mindset. If you want to become that healthy, badass version of yourself, right?

You have to take action, that action involves doing a lot of this inner work, your outer results are just a reflection of whether or not you’re doing the inner work, okay? The mistake most people make is that they focus on the outer stuff, tell me what to eat, Patrick, just tell me how many times I should lift weights each week, just tell me how many carbs I should eat whatever.

Instead, let’s focus on changing our mindset. Because when you do that, your chances of success go up dramatically. I’m going to talk about this today, I’m going to talk about how when we’re focused on the negative and when we’re focused on what we don’t have, it can affect us profoundly.

But when we start to focus on the positive, the progress we made, it can affect us profoundly in a different way, in a positive way. So if you’re ready to do this inner work with me, then maybe coaching is a good fit for you! Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply, apply for coaching with me, we’ll get on a Zoom call, we’ll have a short conversation. But I want you to take that step, take that first step of becoming that future badass version of yourself. Cool. runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And let’s have a conversation.

And then I wanted to give you guys a heads up about something, something very cool. That’s coming soon. So in just a few weeks, I’m going to be teaching a live workshop, all about how to effectively transform yourself from the inside out into a leaner, stronger, more badass runner.

This is going to be probably the most informative and most comprehensive live workshop that I’ve ever taught. And I don’t do this kind of thing very often. In fact, I don’t know that I’ve ever really done this exact same kind of thing before. I like to teach here on the podcast.

But sometimes, sometimes I’m just so excited about the topic that I want to teach it live. There’s a real energy when we get together for a live workshop like this, you know, I get the feedback from you. Are you enjoying this? Are you getting something out of it?

You get to ask questions you get to you get your questions answered, I get the feedback. We all have a lot more fun doing this. It’s very interactive. So I just want to put this on your radar. That’s all I’m gonna say about this right now. This is a little teaser, I know.

But I’m going to keep you updated on dates and times when this thing is coming. It’s a few weeks out yet, but I’m just I’m so excited. I can’t wait for you guys to take part in this. I can’t wait to share more about this with you.

And if I didn’t mention it’s going to be free, it’s going to be a free live training to help you understand the fundamentals of becoming a healthy, badass human being. That’s all. That’s all. Just that. So more is coming soon on this I promise I’m so excited about this is going to be super fun. So just keep your ears peeled for that. I’ll be talking about it. More on the podcast here, don’t worry, you’ll know when it’s coming.

Okay, let’s talk about this today getting out of the gap and in the gain. So I talk to clients every single day who are working towards goals, right? They want to lose weight, they want to get stronger, they want to improve their body composition, they want to run faster.

And every time we get on a call, and my clients will attest to this, I always ask, tell me what’s good. Let’s talk about something positive share a win from this past week, big or small, doesn’t matter, some victory, some win around your health and fitness, maybe you lost a pound or maybe running felt better or easier, or you’re sleeping better. Or you realize for the first time in a long time that you just weren’t hungry all day long.

Like these are all little wins that we want to talk about and celebrate. Whatever it is, maybe it’s an “aha” moment, like, you know, I just realized that I can run perfectly fine without eating a bunch of sugar. Or when I make a plan ahead of time, and it’s a lot easier to just stick with it. What an aha moment, you know.

So this is the kind of stuff I always like to talk about, I always want to start out our conversations with wins, right? I want to give equal airtime to the good stuff to the positive to the wins, and to the negative to the problems to the obstacles to the struggles.

But sometimes when I ask people, “Hey, tell me something different this past week”, they just sit there and stare off into space. And they’re like, “I don’t know, I can’t think of anything, just crickets. Nothing positive from this whole past week.”

But then I’ll go like, “Hey, okay, well, let’s talk about what’s going on, like, what’s wrong, what issues you’re having, what’s the problem?” and then the floodgates open, there are all kinds of stuff they talk about, they can go on for days telling me what’s wrong, why things aren’t working, the stress thrown at work, the kids are driving them crazy, blah, blah, blah, right?

So there’s a real issue here, right, you’re consumed by the negative, when you’re consumed by all the negative stuff that’s going on in your life when you can’t even articulate one positive thing that has happened for you this past week. You’re in this constant state of like, inner turmoil. It’s a very negative state to be in, by the way.

It has a compound effect on your life. And I’ll talk more about that in a minute. But there’s a real issue here, there’s a bigger issue here because this is a negative state to be in. Right?

This is a place where you are constantly in your whole mental, emotional, physical being is a state of negativity. All right. And I was talking about this recently with my coach, and I was saying, “Listen, I have these clients, and they have a hard time articulating what’s good, and how can I help them?”

You know, why do we have this negativity bias? You know, how can we can’t see the good things in our life. And she started telling me about the gap. And being in the gap. I’d never heard of this concept before.

And so she recommended a book to me. And the book is called The Gap And The Gain by Dan Sullivan. And Dan Sullivan is a coach. He’s awesome. I love him. I read the book. It’s a very simple concept. I’m going to break it all down for you here. I just felt compelled to share with you sort of this concept from this book.

It’s a very simple concept, but very powerful. It explains why we’re so focused on the negative, why it’s so hard to see the good things in our lives. And how we can change our mindset so we can start getting better results.

So what are we talking about here? What is this gap? What’s the gap? So the gap is the space between where you are right now, and where you want to be in the future. So this is awesome. Like I said earlier, if you have a goal of wanting to get leaner, stronger, and faster, that’s awesome. I encourage you to create a very detailed, very compelling future version of yourself. Create that vision of where you want to be that’s important to do you got to know where you’re going if you want to get there, right.

But when you’re not there yet, it can be very easy to focus all of your attention on that gap between where you are today. And where you want to be. There’s a gap you’re not there. And you can focus on the fact that you’re not there.

You can focus on the gap between where you want to be and where you are right now and where you want to be in the future and this can start to feel very terrible, right? You’re focusing on the fact that you’re not there. This is what I don’t have, I am not this person yet.

When you’re in the gap, you start to feel this inner conflict is inner turmoil. So let’s say you want to lose 30 pounds, and you’ve lost 20. So far, right? But you’re so focused on those last 10 pounds that you haven’t, that you haven’t quite lost it that you’re in the gap.

Or let’s say you want to improve your running performance, you want to go from 10-minute miles for half marathon to 9-minute miles, and you’ve made some progress. you’ve increased your speed to 9:39:30 per mile. But you still got like 30 seconds per mile more to go. When you’re just focused on that you’re, you’re in the gap here again, okay.

You may not be in control of your food choices, you’re still binging you’re feeling completely out of control, sometimes, you know, you’re not acknowledging that all the other times that you didn’t binge eat ice cream, that like you used to do. So you’ve made some progress here. But you’re only focused on the gap, you’re only focused on what’s wrong.

Maybe you look in the mirror, and every time you look in the mirror, you just see your flaws. You see the flab, and the wrinkles and the sagging skin, but you don’t see that you’ve already lost inches, your clothes fit better, you’re sleeping better at night, you have a ton more energy throughout the day.

But you don’t see any of that stuff, you just see where you’re not you just see what’s wrong, you are in the gap.

So what happens to us when we’re in the gap? Like when you’re in the gap, you’ll never measure up, you’re not going to see the progress you’ve made, you’re not going to see the good stuff, you’re not going to see the incremental improvements in your health and your well being you’re only going to see what’s wrong. Being in the gap creates this state of inner conflict.

When you’re constantly focused on what’s wrong, and how you’re not where you want to be, you are going to feel pretty miserable, like all the time. And you may not even know why you’re feeling so miserable.

But you’re constantly comparing yourself to some arbitrary place that you’re not there, right. And this conflict, I want to be there. And I’m not, this is what’s going to make it very hard for you to keep going. Alright.

So being in the gap creates this state of inner conflict. It’s also very demotivating. Why the hell would you want to go out there and run faster? Or why would you want to stick to your food plan when all you do is ruminate about how crappy everything in your life is.

Being in the gap will destroy your motivation. Even if you’ve had a little bit of motivation, it’s going to just break it down.

In order to feel motivated, you have to focus on the progress you’ve made, right? motivation comes from within. And focusing on how you’ve been making slow and steady progress can help create this feeling of motivation within you.

Being in the gap, though, has the opposite effect, you feel less motivated, you feel frustrated, you feel like why bother trying, you’re just like tired and frustrated. And you just want to give up.

I talked to a lot of people who have a decent amount of weight to lose, like let’s say you’ve, you know, I’m talking to someone who’s got like 50 pounds to lose, right? And they start making some progress.

So they might lose one or two pounds a week. But they get super frustrated because they’re consumed by this idea of they’ve got like 45 more pounds to go. And it all just feels so overwhelming. I’m never going to get there. Why should I even bother? They just want to throw in the towel.

And I want to just encourage them to stop doing this stop being in the gap. You’re in the gap when you’re getting frustrated and focused on where you’re not.

And it creates these feelings of unworthiness within you, you might know you’re in the gap when you compare yourself to others. Have you ever done this before?

Everybody’s hand should be going up right now. We have all done this. We all compare ourselves to others. But is this ever a good idea? Do you ever come out on the winning end of this comparison? No, never.

Other people are losing weight faster than me. Other people are running faster than me. Other people are making progress, more progress than me. It’s easier for other people. It’s harder for me like this is all the stuff we tell ourselves. When you get caught up in these comparisons. When you’re comparing yourselves to others. You are deeply into the gap.

Alright, you start to feel less than you don’t measure up. And again, you’re like, it leads to frustration and these feelings of just unworthiness, and you feel like a failure. Because you’re like, this isn’t working for me, look at how it’s working for everybody else.

Right. And in this just your perception, the truth is, we all have our own journey, and it looks different for everyone. You have to stop comparing yourself to others because that’s being solidly into the gap. When you’re doing that you’re comparing yourself to others, you are absolutely deep into the gap, okay?

Also, when you’re in the gap, you’re going to have a very hard time making progress, because all of your thoughts and feelings are consumed by where you’re not. And this is demotivating. So you’re demotivated, you experienced this inner conflict, you feel unworthy, you feel like a failure.

Do you think you’re going to feel like you want to stick to your food plan when this is your mental and emotional state? Do you think you’re going to want to stick to your workout schedule when you’re feeling like this? No. Most people just give up, they quit. They can’t see past the gap.

So what about this idea, Patrick, of creating a clear vision of your future self, I mean, should we not be doing that? And, and like I said earlier like I teach people to do this, I think it’s important that we do this, we have to know where we’re going, we have to create this vision of ourselves.

So I want you to, this isn’t about not having a future vision for yourself, okay? You can’t make progress towards your goals if you don’t know what you want for yourself if you don’t know where you’re going. Right?

So I strongly encourage you and I work with all my clients on this to create a vision for their future self, right? Who do you want to become? How do you want to feel? What do you want your life to look like? What do you want your body to look like? What do you want running to look like for you?

These are all things that it’s important to know. Got to know where you’re going, right?

So when I talk about being in the gap, I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a vision for your future, what I’m saying is stop obsessing about not being there. That’s the part where we’re in the gap.

Okay, it’s important to have that future version of yourself that future vision for yourself. But we have to be, we have to approach this in a different way. We can’t be focused on “Oh, I’m not there yet.” Okay, so there’s a, there’s a difference there. Okay.

So at this point, I think we can all relate to being in the gap, right? We’ve all been there happens to all of us, it’s okay. I don’t want you to freak out about it. It doesn’t mean you’re a failure, you’re broken, or you’re a negative person, or you’ll never reach your goals.

If you find yourself in the gap, even regularly, it just means that you’re normal, okay? Just means that you’re a normal, healthy human being with a normal human brain. That’s it. Nothing wrong at all.

And I see this all the time with clients, we all do it. This is normal. As humans, we have this bias towards negativity, this is how we have evolved. We’ve evolved as humans to recognize dangers, right?

We are really good at spotting the problem. “Oh, this other human creature that’s coming towards me does not look like one, one of the human creatures that I know, danger, danger.” Or “This plant that I’m about to eat looks just like the one that Grok ate last week. And now he’s dead. Danger Danger!” Like spotting danger is hardcoded into our DNA.

Now, you know, if everything’s cool and safe, it doesn’t set off any alarms in our brain, right? Everything’s just copacetic or everything’s cool, no big deal. But as soon as something seems dangerous, we go on high alert.

And the funny thing is that there’s no real danger for us these days, right? There’s no other human that’s trying to murder us, I hope not really. We shop at Whole Foods. So we really don’t need to worry about eating poisonous plants.

You know, we see things like, “Oh, I’m not at my goal weight yet.” That’s the danger we see in our lives, right? That’s the problems that we experience in our lives or our half marathon time doesn’t measure up to other people we run with. This is what we perceive as being a threat to us or dangerous. So just know that your brain is normal. It’s doing what it’s been conditioned to do. It’s not your fault.

But there’s a different way of seeing things, there’s a better way to experience everything in your life. And this is called being in the gain. So when you’re in the gain, you’re focused on the progress you’ve made up to this point. Being in the gain, means you’re no longer obsessed about where you’re not instead, your focus is on how far you’ve already come.

Being in the gain means you have a bias towards positivity, not negativity. Your focus is on positivity is on progress, not on the gap between where you are and where you wish you were.

So what does it look like to be in the gain? Well, let’s go back to that example, if you want to lose 30 pounds, and you’ve lost 20 stuff tend to go. So being pissed off about why those last 10 pounds are taking so dang long, you celebrate the fact that you’ve lost 20 pounds already, you focus on the progress you’ve already made.

You see now that you’ve got your sugar cravings under control, maybe for the first time in your life, you feel better, you’re sleeping better, you have a ton more energy running is getting so much easier.

Or maybe you’ve improved your running pace by that 30 seconds per mile, you still have you know, another 30 seconds more to go by, instead of getting all worked up about it like “Oh, I’m not as fast as I want to be.”

You can see how your running is improved, your running form has improved, your running efficiency has improved, you keep increasing your lactate threshold, your heart rate is going down even when you’re running faster, all of the signs that you’re becoming a total running badass, right.

But when you’re in the gap, you don’t see any of this, you’re just focused on where you’re not. I have this goal, and I’m not there. Right.

Instead, we want to focus on the gain, we want to focus on the progress we made. Here’s the cool part about this: when you’re in the game, things will begin to shift for you internally, you’re going to begin to create a whole new mindset for yourself.

When you’re focused on the gap, this is very demotivating, right. But when you’re focused on the gains you’ve made, it has the opposite effect. Being in the gain means you’re focused on progress.

And when you track progress, and you see you’ve made progress, and you’re always moving a little bit closer to your goals, this is very motivating. This builds motivation, it builds confidence, it builds your self-esteem, it creates momentum, making little itty bitty bits of progress creates a little bit more momentum and a little bit more and a little bit more. And this momentum keeps you feeling even more motivated, which keeps you making even more and more progress, right.

So the more you focus on the gain, the more gains you make. And the more you focus on the gain, the more games you play, it’s a cycle. It’s a beautiful little cycle that continues to repeat, creating more momentum and more positive results.

So the secret really to making any kind of big changes in your life, especially when it comes to things like long-term health and fitness. The big secret is consistency, right? I guess it’s not a secret, really. But like, you’ve got to stick with it, you’ve got to stick with it for the long haul. Like these are changes we make for life. And you’ve got to be committed to being a healthy human being as a way of life.

But if you’re in the gap, this is going to be incredibly frustrating and super, super hard to do. I’m just going to tell you right now, it’s going to be almost impossible.

On the other hand, if you’re in the gain, this is how you do it. This is how you become the healthy badass runner that you want to be and how you make it last for life. Being in the gain feels light, it feels energizing, it feels free.

You build confidence and trust in yourself you create momentum towards your goals, you create these feelings of motivation. And then you just want to keep going.

So if you’re at someplace in your life here, where you’re experiencing the gap. I’m going to just give you a couple of tips on how to get out of that. Okay. So I want to give you an example. Like, let’s say you’re at a point in your weight loss journey where you’ve experienced a stall. So maybe you’ve hit a plateau in your weight loss and you’re you’ve lost some weight, but it hasn’t changed for like four or five weeks and you’re getting super frustrated. You just want to give up right?

Do this one thing. Make this one change and see what happens. Stop being in the gap and start being in the gain. Start focusing on incremental progress. start focusing on all the little things that are good. Start focusing on all the tiny little bits of progress you’ve made, and see how that doesn’t feel for you.

Start celebrating all that progress is going to create momentum and motivation within you and you’ll want to keep going and you know what, I have a feeling that scale just might start to move again.

Or maybe you want to run faster and you say, can’t seem to get past that 9:30 pace, right? Start really tracking your progress, celebrate all the metrics that are improving: heart rate, VO to Max, you know, speed, overall pace, you know, splits, you know, interval paces, all that stuff, start to track all of that.

And start to celebrate the progress that you’re making. And I have a feeling you’re going to see your times improve because you’re going to feel more motivated, you’re going to want to keep going.

Slow and steady progress is how we win the game, right? Slow and steady progress, track it, and celebrate it, all of it.

And I talked to people all the time about how long it takes to lose weight. And the truth is that first some people, it just takes a while, right? It just takes what it takes.

So let’s say you want to, you know, lose those last 10 pounds. And it’s super frustrating. It’s taking forever, cording to you.

And you’re like, “Oh, this is just taking so long.” I’m like, “How long is it supposed to take?” So let’s just say for S’s and G’s like to lose the last 10 pounds, let’s say took a year.

Now when I just said that, did you freak out a little bit like, “Oh my god, it shouldn’t take that long.” Whatever. Let’s just say it took a year.

Think about this a year from now, would you rather be at your goal weight? Or would you rather be upset because you gave up because you got frustrated? Because you quit on yourself.

If you are feeling like it’s just taking too long, and you say screw it and you give up this is what most people do. They just say you know what? Why bother.

But even though you’re making progress, even though you’re on track to lose a pound a month, or whatever it is, when you’re in the gap, you cannot see this progress, you can’t see that you’re making changes, and it’s incremental, slow and steady. And you’ll get there eventually, but you can’t see it.

And so you just end up, most people just end up getting frustrated and quitting. throwing in the towel. Do not do this.

Here’s your call to action for this week, I want you to identify one area of your life where you’re in the gap. I know you know what this is you’ve probably already been thinking about this, right? Where are you focused on where you’re not. Alright.

And then I want you to stop doing that. Okay, stop being in the gap and start being in the gain instead. Don’t be obsessed about where you’re not, start being obsessed about all the tiny little incremental progress that you’re making.

And when you start focusing on that, you’re going to start to feel energized about that progress. And then you’re going to start to feel more confident. And you’re going to start to feel more self-esteem, right? And you’re going to start to make slow and steady progress and you’re going to start to create this unstoppable momentum for yourself. You’re going to feel more motivated to keep going.

So that’s your work for this week. Stop being in the gap. Find one place in your life where you’re, you know, you’re in the gap, and start being in the gain. Start being obsessed about progress. Cool, I think this is super fun, and life-changing. Do this this week. Don’t put this off. Do this for sure.

And remember, if you’re ready to get out of the gap for good and stop comparing yourself to where you’re not, and start focusing on the real progress you’re making towards your goals. You might want to see if coaching is right for you. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. Let’s have that conversation. Let’s get you out of the gap and into the gain. Cool? Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

111. Thinking Beyond Your Current Self

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If you’re like most people (me included), your beliefs about what you can or can’t accomplish are based on whatever you’ve been able to do up to this point in your life. You might want to lose 30 …

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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 111, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: thinking beyond your current self. So, if you’re anything like most people, me included, then your beliefs about what you can or what you can’t accomplish are probably based on whatever you’ve been able to do up to this point in your life.

So, you might want to lose 30 pounds, but deep down inside, you don’t believe you can get there because every time you’ve tried to lose weight in the past, you failed. So, your point of reference with weight loss is that you always give in to temptation and you end up failing.

So, you’re looking to your past experiences as evidence that you will never be able to lose weight in the future; who you are today is all you’ll ever be. Whoa, that’s incredibly limiting! It’s an incredibly limiting mindset. It’s keeping you stuck where you are. So, in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to show you a powerful, powerful way to start thinking beyond your current self, so that you can break out of that cycle of your past and become that badass future self that I know you want to be!

But first, if you like this podcast, then you have to come check out the Running Lean Podcast Community on Facebook. This is a group of like-minded runners who come together to encourage each other and support each other. We share goals, we share pictures of ourselves running, and we have fun doing it. I also post some trainings and we do some teaching and coaching in the group. It’d be fun to have you; just search for Running Lean Community on Facebook and come join in the fun.

And then listen, if you’re having trouble envisioning more for yourself, if there’s some version of you that you ultimately want to become, but you’re just having trouble, like figuring out what it really is that you want for yourself. If you’re confused by all of this conflicting information out there around diet and exercise and weight loss. If you’re having a hard time doing things like giving up sugar; it’s just too hard to stop, it’s too hard to let go of. If you’re ready to be done with all that frustration and you’re ready to get some help. If you’re ready to commit to becoming the most badass version of yourself, then you have to apply for one on one coaching with me, this is what I do, I can help you break out of that cycle of feeling like you’re addicted to sugar, I can help you end the frustration, end the confusion and we’ll put together a plan for you that will help you decide who it is that you want to become and then we’re going to work towards making that happen for you.

If you’re interested in working with me as your coach you can apply for coaching at runningleanpodcast.com/apply. Let’s make this the year that you become the badass that you want to be, cool?
Alright, let’s talk about this thinking beyond your current self. So, here’s why I wanted to talk about this today. For a lot of us, and this is me included, I definitely have some experience with this and I’m going to tell you a little bit about that in a second here. For a lot of us we base our beliefs about what it is we think we can do. We base our beliefs about what it is or who it is we think we can become based on what we’ve done in our past and whatever we’ve been able to achieve up to this point. So, you might get to a certain point in your life and then you can’t see beyond where you are. You can’t see beyond your current state.

You decide on goals. So, you choose goals based on what you think you can accomplish based on where you are today instead of what you really want for yourself. You end up thinking very small and only end up getting more of what you have already created for yourself; you end up just getting more and more of what you’ve already done.

Here’s the thing in order to grow: in order to evolve, in order to become more you have to think beyond your current self, you have to believe in a version of yourself that doesn’t even exist yet. And this is what trips up most people. Most people cannot think beyond who they are today.

So let me give you a picture of what this looks like. Maybe you’re carrying around some extra weight and you have been for a while, maybe running has gotten a lot harder than it needs to be for you. And by the way, this was my experience, I’m kind of describing me a couple years back, okay? Running was a lot harder than it needed to be. For me, I felt like I was out of control with my food choices. I’ve tried a bunch of stuff. Nothing ever really worked. I was frustrated, I was confused, I felt pretty hopeless, actually.

And here’s what happens when we’re in that state: we base what we’re able to do on where we are today. So based on feeling out of control, and frustrated and confused and hopeless, what do you think you can accomplish when you’re in that state? Not a lot, I’m going to tell you. So you end up being stuck, you feel like you’re stuck.

You’re just feeling like this is just where I’m going to be. I can’t lose the weight, I can’t control my food choices, I’m always going to feel out of control, I’m always going to feel frustrated, I’m always going to be confused, I’m always going to be stuck.

Now you wish you could become leaner. You wish you could get stronger, you wish you could lose the weight, you wish you could become a different person, but you’re not actually believing that it’s possible for you.

In order to move beyond where you are today, you have to believe in a version of yourself that doesn’t even exist yet. You have to believe in a version of yourself that is greater than where you are today, you have to think beyond your current results.

So if your results are, hey, I’m 30 pounds overweight, I’m frustrated, I’m confused, nothing ever works. That’s where you are today. And if that’s your point of reference, and that’s what you’re using to base what you think you can accomplish. That’s all you’re going to be able to accomplish, you’re just going to stay stuck where you are.

So, you have to get past that! You have to start thinking beyond your current self, beyond who you are here today. Because listen, the current self, your current self, will not get you there, can’t get you there.

Who you are today is probably the result of years or decades of patterns of behavior, patterns of thoughts, patterns of feelings, patterns of actions, habits, really. You’ve been on autopilot for a long time, right? So, who you are today is just a result of all these past habits is the result of past thinking and past patterns of behavior. That’s it. That’s all it is, not that big of a deal, doesn’t mean you’re bad. Let’s just, you know, here’s what you’ve done up to this point. And this is where it got you, these are the results you have today, who you are today is just the culmination of years of past thought patterns and feeling patterns and action patterns and behaviors.

But what got you here won’t get you there. What got you here isn’t going to get you where you want to become. So you have to make a shift, you need to start thinking beyond who you’ve been up to this point beyond what you’ve done up to this point, you have got to break out of those old patterns of behavior.

So, here’s how your mind works. Humans are really good at seeing and recognizing patterns. It’s what helps us to recognize what’s safe versus what’s dangerous when we see patterns of people in nature; animals in the animal kingdom and things like that. Like we used to be like “Oh, this is good. This thing will kill me. Okay.”

All these animals, these little tiny furry creatures are good, but this big one with all the stripes and the big teeth? That’s the one that’s going to eat me. He wants to eat me. These other ones are fine, but this one wants to eat me, so we’re good at seeing patterns.

We’re good at understanding what’s safe versus what’s dangerous. Okay, we’re still really good at this stuff today. We love patterns. We love habits. We love repetition. The more we do something, the easier it becomes, right? Your mind is like a perfect recording device, by the way, so it’s always recording everything that’s ever happened to you. You actually remember everything that’s ever happened to you deep down in your subconscious. You can’t possibly pull it all out right now, you can’t bring it into your conscious mind. It’s all buried down in there, you know. So basically, you’ve memorized all the things that you’ve done, all the patterns of behavior. And that’s just what you know, you know this stuff really, really well. It’s part of who you are, your whole identity is based on all these patterns that you’ve done up to this point, or all the things that you’ve not done up to this point. The things you’ve failed at, the things you’ve succeeded at. But whatever it is, everything about who you are, is based on your past.

But in order to grow into that future healthy, lean, strong runner that you know you want to be, you have to think beyond your current self.

So I know you’ve done this before, think back to when you just started running, you could never imagine running a marathon right? Again, this was definitely me; my experience, I couldn’t imagine. When I first started running, I couldn’t imagine running three miles without stopping. I was training for a 5K and I was like, “I’m going to run 3 miles without stopping.” I couldn’t imagine doing that! But then I did. And then I decided to sign up for a 10K. And I was like, “How am I going to run 6 miles? That’s like double what I’ve ever been able to do in the past.” So, in order to run that first three miles, and in order to double that and run 6.2 miles without stopping, I had to think beyond my current results. My current results said “You know, when I was training for that 5K, my current results said you can run like a mile and a half, and then you have to stop.” But I was going to run three miles without stopping. So, I had to think beyond my current results. And then when I decided at some point that I was going to train for and run a marathon. I know this is crazy, right? I was like “I don’t think this is possible. But I’m committed to doing this. And I need to start thinking beyond where I am today. I need to start thinking beyond my current self.”

Because if I didn’t, I never would have shown up for those training runs, I never would have put the time into it. Because deep down inside, I never would have believed I could do that. But I think at some point, I really did start to believe that. I had to really think beyond where I was at this point, though. Same thing when I ran 50 miles or 100 miles. You know, I ran 50 miles and I was like “I could never run 100 miles. The 50 was hard enough. I can’t imagine doubling it.” And then I did. And I did that because I imagined a future me that could accomplish that.

Here’s another example. I love this one. Like toddlers, they are constantly thinking beyond their current selves. They may not even be able to, you know, articulate this, but they are. If you’ve ever watched a toddler learning how to walk, you’re going to see them. Like, they just keep trying, right? They keep going for it time and time and time again, they just keep trying and trying and trying and they keep failing.

I watched my grandson do this last year. On his first birthday, he, you know, would walk his first few steps. It was so amazing. But then he fell down. But then a couple of days later he did like eight or 10 steps, you know, but then he would fall down. But he kept going, he kept getting up, wiping out trying a few steps. He’d fall down, get up and keep trying again. Right. So he kept going, even though everything he had done up to that point, failed. Everything he had done up to that point was like, “You can’t do this. You can’t walk! You’ve never been able to do this in the past. There’s no evidence that you can look to from your past to make you think that you can do this thing walking. What is that? You’ve never been able to. How do you think you’re going to possibly do this?”

So this little tiny, beautiful little creature was like, screw that I’m going to make this work. And he kept trying. And now of course, he’s running around like crazy and you can’t keep up with him. But if he based whether or not he could walk on his past results, or who he was in that moment, he would never be able to walk. No kid would ever be able to walk or ride a bicycle or graduate from high school, or get a job or buy a house or have kids or anything right. It’s the exact same thing for us.

Wherever you are today, if you’re looking for some evidence, some sort of hard evidence, something to make you believe, without a doubt that you’re going to get to your goal weight, or you’re going to be able to get stronger, or run faster, or become that total badass, there is no evidence for it, because you haven’t been able to do it yet.

The evidence comes after you get there; you have to believe it in order to see it, not the other way around. You have to believe it before you see it. You have to think, feel and act beyond who you are today.

And somebody I was talking about this with somebody recently. And they said, “Isn’t this just like fake it till you make it?” And it’s kind of like that, but there’s nothing fake about it. Your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, these are not fake.

Even just imagining something in your mind using the power of your own imagination. It’s not fake. It’s not fake to your subconscious mind, right? Your subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined.

So, when you imagine something in your mind, to your subconscious, it’s like it’s really happening. Everything you create in this world, every result that you get is first imagined in your mind. Think about it, let’s say you want to build a house, or take a vacation, the very first thing you do is imagine what that house will look like, how big is that master suite going to be? How big is that walk in closet going to be?

Or thinking about that vacation, that beach is going to be so awesome, so warm. Those palm trees are going to be bending in the breeze and that blue green ocean water with those waves crashing on the sand. So, I just conjured up all these images with my imagination. Now I can work to make these things a reality. I’ll pick a place to go. I really want to go somewhere warm now that I’m doing this. As I look outside, it’s cold and snowy and everything, but I’m like now I want to go up, pick a place, book my flights and then go.

But first I have to make that connection in my mind, I have to go beyond where I am today. I have to imagine it. So, it’s really not like fake it till you make it’s more like think beyond your current self and then become it.

I want to encourage you to start applying this in your life today. Stop living in the past, right? The past is not who you are. It’s just what got you here today. Okay, I want you to decide who you want to be. So define your future self. And really spend some time on this. Really think about what it is you want for yourself and who it is you want to be. What does that future badass version of yourself look like, sound like, feel like?

And then start living into your future self by thinking beyond who you are today, thinking beyond your current self, beyond your current results. Regardless of what you think you can or can’t do, regardless of your past and what’s worked or not worked in the past for you. Regardless of where you are today or who you are today, start thinking beyond your current self. And then you can start growing and evolving and becoming that badass future version of yourself. Cool?

And then remember, if you ever want help with this, if you want help thinking about who it is you want to become and thinking beyond your current self, if you’re ready to commit to becoming that future version of yourself, then apply for one on one coaching with me runningleanpodcast.com/apply. I would love to have you and it would be super fun to work with you!

I hope you got something out of this today. Love you all, keep on running lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.

110. Battling The Resistance

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Oftentimes, when you set out to improve your health and fitness, you find yourself feeling all of this negative stuff. Just thinking about changing your diet will bring up all of these thoughts and …

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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 110 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: Battling the Resistance. Oftentimes, when you set out to improve your health and fitness, you find yourself feeling all this negative stuff. Just thinking about changing your diet can bring up all these negative thoughts and feelings like this is just going to be too hard. What if I fail, these things never work for me, and on and on and on. Right?

This is called the resistance. And it shows up in the form of fear, worry, self-doubt, excuses, procrastination. It can absolutely stop you from ever achieving your goals. It can actually even keep you from ever starting anything.

So today on the podcast, I’m going to show you how to recognize when the resistance starts to show up for you and what to do about it. Because it’s all about battling the resistance, not getting into it.

But first, if you like this podcast, if you’re a fan of the Running Lean podcast, then you got to come and check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook. This is a group of like-minded runners who all share similar goals. We post inspirational posts, we encourage each other, we support each other on our goals. And it’s a very positive place to hang out if you do social media. If you want to find a fun group to kind of be a part of and feel like you’re included in this awesome positive community, then please come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook, just search for Running Lean Podcast Community and join us. It’ll be fun, it’s fun.

And listen, I understand that I talk a lot about losing weight, about changing your nutrition about becoming this future version of yourself this, you know, healthiest and most badass version of yourself. And I also understand that it can be confusing, it can feel frustrating or overwhelming sometimes, and trying to figure it all out on your own can be very challenging.

So if you’re one of those people that’s like, you know what, I just want to hit the easy button on this, you know, I just want somebody to show me what to do. I want somebody there that can hold me accountable, and to offer encouragement, and just give you that support that you need to reach your goals, then I absolutely have your back.

Hiring me as your coach will give you all of those things, you’ll learn exactly how to become that future version of yourself, whatever that looks like for you. Because we’re all different, we all have different goals, we all have different needs. We all have different desires. We all have different likes and dislikes. So we’re going to put together a plan that works for you, that feels good for you that feels like something you can do for the rest of your life.

This is about long-term health and fitness. If you’re interested in some kind of short-term, I just want to lose, you know, some weight really fast. That’s not what this is about. This is about making changes at the core of who you are. It’s like changing your habits. It’s changing your identity. It’s making this big shift in how you think and feel about food and exercise and nutrition, all that stuff.

So who is it that you want to become and if you want some help getting there? Let me know. I gotcha. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And you can apply for coaching, you get to fill out a short little application, you and I need to jump on a call and have a conversation and see if this is a good fit for you. And if it is, boom, let’s do it. Let’s go battle the resistance together. Cool. All right.

So I love this topic today. I was talking with my personal trainer Chris Wissman recently, and I started talking about this stuff that comes up for people. These things that come up when people start to want to change something.

So you know I work with a lot of people who are changing their diet, they’re changing their workout routines, and I get get a lot of excuses and reasons why they can’t do it or why it’s too hard. And he and I were having this conversation. He said oh yeah, that’s the resistance. And I was like boom. Yes, that’s exactly what it is.

And it reminded me of this book by Steven Pressfield called The War of Art, in it he talks about the resistance, and he’s talking about how he shows up for creative types, people who are, you know, writers, and people who are creating, you know, written content and things like that, and how when they set out to, you know, create something, they get all this self-doubt and worry, and all these things kind of come up for them, right.

But it’s the same thing. It’s that resistance that comes in whenever we want to change something whenever we want to do something that’s bigger than us, or that maybe we haven’t done before. So many people I talk to want more for themselves, they want to become more, they have that picture in their head of who they want to become. But when it comes to taking action, there’s something that comes up. And there are these excuses. And these reasons why it’s not going to work. And these stories, they keep telling themselves. There’s something that’s like pushing against them.

And whatever it is, they’re trying to do whatever they want to accomplish for themselves, there’s, resistance there, okay. And this resistance can come in a lot of different forms. It can come in the form of excuses and stories and reasons why it’s not going to work.

It can come from things you’ve done or not been able to do in the past, it can come in the form of fear, a lot of it is fear, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, self-doubt, worry, anxiety, it can come in the form of self-sabotage or procrastination. Or I’m going to wait to do this because maybe it’s just not the right time.

And so we procrastinate, right. So why do we do this? Why? Why do we have this resistance? Where’s it coming from? Because it’s counterintuitive, right? It’s counterintuitive to what you want for yourself. You want to lose weight, but you’re telling yourself, you’re probably just going to fail, like all the other times, you want to get stronger, but you keep putting off going to the gym, I’ll go tomorrow, or next week or things at work are a little crazy right now.

So once things calm down and work, then I’ll start going to the gym. So when is this showing up for you like, the resistance shows up in a lot of different times and a lot of different places. But one place it shows up a lot is just when it’s time to start something.

You know, I talk to people every day who want to become that future badass version of themselves, and they want it so badly for themselves. And they tell me like, “Oh, I just want this so bad.” And they tell me why it’s so important to them. You know, they want to be there for their kids, they want to be a good example to their sons or daughters. They want to inspire other people to get healthy. They want to live their life feeling good about themselves for a change.

You know, they tell me they’re ready to go all-in on themselves and they’re ready to get started. I say, Okay, let’s do this. Let’s start and then that resistance comes in and they say “I don’t know, maybe, maybe I’m not ready for this. I’m afraid I’m gonna fail. Like all the other times that failed. I just, it may be too hard.”

So people tell me this stuff all the time. And I, I kind of just cock my head and look at them sideways and be like, you know, like, let’s fight this resistance together. You know, think about when you decided the first time, let’s say you ran a marathon before, like the first time you decided to run a marathon. That was a big deal. There’s probably all these thoughts and feelings that came up for you all this resistance that came up for you. But you did it anyway.

I talk to people all the time who say like, “Oh, I’d love to run a marathon someday.” I’m like, Cool, let’s do it, pick a race. Let’s get you signed up. And then boom here comes the resistance. I’m afraid I’ve never run that far before. I don’t know if I can do it. I don’t know, if I’ll have time to train, it’s a lot of training. It just almost seems too hard. Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a marathon runner.

And all this resistance comes in and just puts this big dark cloud over what they really want for themselves. If you want to be a fit, healthy, strong person, and you got to start something new to get there, it’s gonna feel scary, it’s gonna feel uncomfortable, you might think you might not be able to do it. That’s okay. That’s all the resistance okay.

The resistance also shows up anytime you face an obstacle, or you experience some sort of setback. So first you have to understand that failure is part of the process. You have to accept this principle, okay?

Most people do not accept failure at all and when things don’t go as planned, and by the way, they never do. When things don’t go as planned, then the doubt and the fear and the worry and the resistance all comes up in just pushes against them. And then they just quit.

Like, if you’ve ever changed your diet and you start losing weight, and you start making progress, and you’re feeling good, you’re feeling kind of amazing. But then things kind of slow down or stall for a few days or a week and you start to freak out. And in reality, this doesn’t really mean anything, your weight fluctuates up and down all the time.

But we make it mean, it’s not working, we make it mean that we can’t do it. See, I told you these things never worked for me. All this hard work and no results, screw it, I’m just gonna eat cake for dinner tonight. Why bother? This is all just the resistance, showing up, you got to recognize when this comes up for you. And just knowing what it is, knowing that it’s just your brain kind of freaking out. This is a powerful first step in battling against it, you have to see that this is what this is, and this is coming up for you.

Resistance also shows up when you start comparing yourself to others. Do you ever do this? I don’t do that I don’t compare myself to others. Not true. I do. And it’s something that I have to like, think about and work on constantly. But this is kind of a sneaky way that resistance will show up for you.

So you’ll see what other people are doing. You’ll see what other people look like, you’ll see where other people are on their health and fitness journey. Maybe they’ve lost a bunch of weight in a short amount of time, or they’ve gotten a lot faster, you know, they can run a faster marathon than you or whatever, and you start comparing yourself.

You start comparing yourself to these other people. And for whatever reason, whenever we compare ourselves to others, we always come out on the losing end of that comparison. Isn’t that interesting? I think that’s very interesting. Why don’t we always compare ourselves to others and come out ahead like, “Oh, look, I’m so amazing compared to all these other people!”

No, we don’t do it that way. We look at other people and we say, “Oh, I’m not as fast, I’m not as healthy. I’m not as strong, not as fit. I’m not as lean. Oh, look, she can run a lot faster than me, it must mean that she’s special. And I’m not.”

So for me, this came up when I was, you know, before I kind of got fit again, a couple of years ago, I’d kind of let myself go, I did gain a lot of weight. And I compare myself to these young fit dudes with these big muscles in the six-pack abs. And I would tell myself stories like I could never look like that. I’m too old, I’m a lot older.

And these guys, I don’t have their genes, you know, they’ve got some kind of genetic, you know, thing that helps them to become like ripped like that. And I just don’t have that I don’t have that same determination. I don’t have what it takes, I can never do it. This is for them, but not me. And when I recognize that all of this was just noise, this resistance was just my brain freaking out about all this stuff. I stood up to it, I’m going to battle against resistance.

And I was like, why not? Me? Why not? Maybe I can look like that. Or get close to that. So instead of comparing myself to other people, I don’t do that anymore. I compare myself to my former self, I compare myself to where I was a year ago, six months ago, a couple of years ago, whatever.

I always want to improve myself over where I used to be. And I really work on not comparing myself to where other people are. Sometimes I catch myself I see people I’m just like, dang, you know, I’ll never look like that. And then I’m I recognize that all there’s the resistance. There’s the resistance, it’s just my brain, looking for problems and finding them. When you start looking for problems. You will find them everywhere I promise you. But here’s the thing, the resistance is keeping you stuck if you’re feeling stuck.

If you’re feeling like you’re not making any progress or you’re not making any changes or you just can’t get motivated to do something. It’s probably resistance is showing up for you. It’s what’s keeping you in this loop of wanting more for yourself but never actually doing anything about it.

And keep in mind resistance this resistance is powerful stuff. It’s so powerful can stop you from making any progress and it can keep you stuck for a long time years, decades. And the resistance will try to convince you that you’re not good enough that you can’t do it that you always fail. You’ll never amount anything. You can’t be that badass person you want to be. You’ve always failed. You’re doomed to be a failure.

We’ve got to like fight against these thoughts and feelings that come up, we got to fight against this resistance. Because that’s all they are is just thoughts and feelings. And when you start to notice this, you start to notice these are just your thoughts and feelings.

You’ve got to recognize that you’re embarking on something that’s out of your comfort zone. stuff you’ve never done is outside your comfort zone, you know, things that are challenging or outside your comfort zone, everything you want for yourself, but don’t already have is outside your comfort zone. If it was in your comfort zone, you’d already have it. If it was easy and comfortable for you, you’d have it already. But it’s not, it’s hard.

It’s something you’ve never done before. It’s something that you may have tried and failed at in the past, all that stuff is out of your comfort zone. And when you get outside your comfort zone, even thinking about getting outside your comfort zone will bring up the resistance. So you have to understand something, that the resistance is not something that is out there. It’s within you, it’s you, it’s your mindset.

The resistance is not how things are. It’s just your perception of how things are in this moment. I’m going to repeat that because I think it’s so important for you to understand the resistance is not how things are. It’s just how you perceive things are in this moment.

So this is both good and bad news. Okay, the bad news is that it’s all you. You can’t blame anybody else. You can’t blame anyone or anything else on this, the resistance is you, sorry, you create it, you’re perpetuating it. You’re making yourself stuck in this loop. It’s all you. Okay, that’s the bad news.

The good news is, it’s all you. Because it’s just you, it’s just your mind, it’s your brain, and you have the power to change it. If it was somebody else, you couldn’t change it, if it was something, doing something to you, you wouldn’t have the power to change it. But it is just you, it’s your thoughts and feelings. And you can change all of that stuff.

You can decide if you want to, you know, listen to the resistance and give into it and let it consume you. Let it overwhelm you, and let it keep you stuck. And let it keep you feeling like you’ll never be good enough. Or you can start battling against it.

You’ve got to start working on that mindset, you’ve got to develop an empowered mindset. And whatever it is you want for yourself, you have to understand that battling the resistance is going to be part of the process, it is required for you to become the person that you want to become, it’s the price you pay, it’s the cost of becoming that amazing, healthiest version of yourself that badass, lean, strong runner that you want to be.

So you have to stand up against the resistance, recognize it, and then take action, despite the resistance coming up for you, you’re going to feel the resistance, it’s going to be there, those thoughts and feelings are going to be there. You’ve got to take action despite thinking and feeling these things, awareness, and then taking action. That’s how you battle against the resistance. Not today, resistance. I’m gonna get out there and do what I have to do.

I did this today, I’m back to running again. It’s been a couple of months since I’ve ran and you know, it’s okay. It’s it feels actually pretty good. But I can’t do a whole lot I’m supposed to, you know, take it easy. So today I had about 15 minutes on the schedule to run.

And we’re having this crazy ice and snowstorm here in Cincinnati right now. And I was like, I do not want to go out there and fall on my butt and like hurt my shoulder again or something like that. So all this resistance came up for me. I was like, I’m just not going to do it. I don’t want to do it.

And I have in my building here I have a gym and I have access to several treadmills and stuff. And I was like, I just don’t like running on the treadmill. But you know what I was like, Okay, I’m just gonna do it. So I put on my shorts and my running shirt, laced up my running shoes, and I headed down to the treadmill, I turn that thing on and I started running.

And the whole time I was like, I hate this. Max resistance was coming up for me and I was just like, I don’t run on the treadmill. I just don’t ever do it. I’ll run outside despite the weather, but I was just trying to be safe today and not wipe out. Normally I would go outside and run and whatever. But because I’m still recovering from this, I got to be careful.

So I had to battle that resistance that came up for me and I was like yeah, this is exactly what I’m going to be talking about today on this podcast, because it’s so prevalent, it’s always going to be there in some form.

So recognize when it shows up for you. Okay? And then, you know, take action despite feeling the resistance. Okay? Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to think about that future version of yourself. That strong, lean, healthiest, badass version of yourself. How did you get there? Did you get there by giving into the resistance and staying stuck? And not taking action? And being full of fear and worry, and having excuses and self-doubt and self-sabotaging and procrastination? Is that how you got there?

No, no, that’s not how you got there. You got there by fighting against that resistance. It was still there, but you fought against it. And that’s how you became that future version of yourself. Yeah, I love this idea. I love this idea of going into the future and thinking about who you want to be. And thinking about how did I get there? That is powerful stuff right there, my friends. All right.

And if you ever want a little help with all this I got you just go over to runningleanpodcast.com/apply, and let’s go to battle against that resistance together. Cool. All right, love you all. Keep on Running Lean. We’ll talk to you soon.

If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.