Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
If you are having a hard time sticking with a health and fitness routine, then you might want to have a look at your locus of control. Locus of control refers to where you believe your control lies …
Continue Reading about 189. Shifting Your Locus of Control →
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 189 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, Shifting Your Locus of Control. So if you’re having a hard time sticking with a health and fitness routine, sticking with a healthy food plan, then you might want to have a look at your locus of control. And I’ll explain all this in the podcast here.
But your locus of control refers to where you believe your control lies either outside of you or within you. So people who have a strong external locus of control tend to have a pretty hard time sticking to a plan and accomplishing really anything.
On the other hand, people who have a strong internal locus of control have an easier time sticking to a plan and are generally more successful in all areas of their lives. So today, I’m going to explain what locus of control is, and how you can begin shifting your locus of control so you can get better results and really just live a healthier, happier life.
But first, I know I talk a lot about the amazing transformations you can experience when you join my program and get coaching from me how you can commit to becoming your healthiest self, but instead of me yammering more about it, I’m going to share some of my clients personal stories with you.
So Elisa said, “Since working with Patrick, I don’t beat myself up anymore. I believe in myself. I’m finally in control of my eating habits. I’m steadily losing weight.” Flora said, “I’ve learned how to become a fat adapted runner. And the feeling of running with a clear head and so much energy is just amazing.” Eric said, “I’ve learned how to create good habits to replace the bad ones. I’m down 18 pounds so far, and I feel really good about myself for the first time in a long time.”
Mick said, “Accountability and education were key to my success with Patrick. I’ve had so many positive changes. I know I’m not going to slip back into old habits.” Leticia said, “I no longer have sugar cravings, I’ve taken control of my eating habits once and for all.”
Michelle said, “I’ve lost 25 pounds, I’ve gained immeasurable confidence. I am totally in control now. And I’m fully capable of doing everything I set out to do.” And Amy said, “I’m thinking so much more clearly, I have more energy, I’m sleeping better, running is easier. So far, I’m down 30 pounds and several dress sizes.”
Listen, you can add your name to this list, you can be one of these people with an amazing transformational story to share. All you gotta do is get some coaching. Join the Running Lean Coaching Project. This is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more. Book an interview with me and you and I’ll have a conversation, we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you.
And if you want a little bit of help, just getting started with all this stuff, I’ve created a great training program that you can check out. It’s about an hour long video training, you can watch it at your own pace. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner. You can get that by going to my website Running Lean coaching.com and click on the Free Training link to get started. Cool.
Okay, so let’s talk about shifting your locus of control. So I talked to a lot of people who struggle to accomplish what they want for themselves, they struggle to reach their goals. So this could be a weight loss goal. This could be a strength goal, it could be a running related goal. Maybe they want to run their first marathon, qualify for Boston, or maybe they just want to run their first 5k.
But when it comes down to when you kind of boil it all down when it comes down to why it is they can’t seem to accomplish whatever goal they’re trying to accomplish. They start telling me all about the external factors affecting their life.
You know, I was doing great at sticking with this running plan. I was going to run my first marathon but then things got crazy at work. Or you know we traveled or went on vacation or the kids out of school so you know how that is or jeez, it just got hot out or it got cold out. Whatever.
So they look at their life as having all these external forces, external being things that are outside of themselves, that are affecting their ability to reach their goals or not to stick to their plan or not. That thing that seems so important to them, not that long ago has been pushed to the side because of all these external factors. Okay.
And the problem with this is that when you allow outside forces to affect your weight loss goals, your health and fitness goals, your running goals, then you’re going to have a very hard time accomplishing anything for yourself, you will always find reasons why you can’t do it.
You’ll have reasons and stories and excuses, you’ll always have somebody or something else to blame for why you can’t lose weight, why you can’t stick to this healthy eating plan, why you can’t train for that marathon or whatever.
The problem is that you’re going to really just stay stuck where you are. You won’t be able to accomplish these big goals that you want for yourself or small goals that you want for yourself, you won’t be able to accomplish much, you will always feel like you’re going to struggle, because it’s out of your hands.
It’s all these outside forces, all these external situations, these external circumstances that are to blame. You don’t have control over your own life. So this is known as having an external locus of control. So locus is just a Latin word, and it means place or location. So locus of control really relates to where your sense of control is located. Is it internally? Or is it externally? Is it within you? Or is it outside of you?
And locus of control is a term that’s used in psychology, and refers to a belief that the control of your life is either within you or outside of you. Okay, some people have a very strong internal locus of control. And some people have a very strong external locus of control.
And they’ve looked at all these people, and they’ve seen that people who have a mostly external locus of control tend to be not as successful, they tend to be not as happy, they tend to be maybe not as healthy.
And the people with a strong internal locus of control tend to be happier and healthier and tend to accomplish more in their lives. Okay. So somebody believes somebody with an external locus of control believes that outside forces control their destiny, I am not in control, I’m profoundly affected by external forces in my life.
People with a strong external locus of control, tend to be more passive, because things just happen to them. They tend to blame others for their situation, they tend not to accomplish goals. They believe that there’s really nothing they can do about their situation, because hey, it just is what it is. Right? Whatever happens, happens, why bother even trying?
They feel like they are unlucky, but like nothing good ever happens to them, because they’re just, it’s just not meant to be. Must be nice for those other people. But never, nothing ever works out for me. And what’s interesting is these people tend to be at greater risk for illness, they’re typically unhappy and unhealthy. They have a hard time sticking to a plan.
If you have a mostly external locus of control, it’s going to be harder for you to stick to a fitness routine, to train for a marathon to stick to a healthy eating plan. If you want to lose weight, you got to stick to a healthy eating plan. You have to be consistent with that plan. But if you’re constantly, you know, blaming everything around you for why you can’t stick to that plan, you’re gonna have a really hard time sticking with that plan. Okay.
So that is what external locus of control looks like. Can you relate to any of this? Does any of this sound like you? Because we’ve all had bits and pieces of this and I’ll tell you a little bit about my story in a minute here. But we’ve all had maybe times in our life when we had more of an external locus of control more of an internal.
So people with an internal locus of control tend to be more active, they’re actively engaging in changing their life. They’re actively engaged in improving their situation. Because they believe that they make things happen. You know, I did this, I made this happen, you know, my determination and my hard work, created my future, I’m not relying on outside circumstances, outside circumstances be damned, I’m going to make this happen.
They tend to accomplish goals regularly, consistently. They feel like they are in control of the events of their lives, they are in control of their own destiny. They don’t look to lock or fate, you know, to determine what they can accomplish or what they can accomplish, they take responsibility for their situation, whether that’s a good situation or a bad situation, they take responsibility, they tend to be healthier, they tend to have a reduced risk of illness.
And honestly, they just tend to stick with a plan. And it’s easier for them. All right. So wherever you feel like your locus of control is now just understand that it is not fixed. It is not something that is predetermined. And it is not something that you don’t have control over, you can actually change it.
It’s about what you believe to be true, not about what you think is true or not, what you believe to be true, will be true for you. If you believe you have no control over your life, and that it’s all about external circumstances, then that will be true for you. If you believe that you’re in control, that will be true for you.
Your locus of control is not something you are born with, it’s not something that is, you know, genetically imprinted in you or anything like that, it’s not a fact. It’s where you put it, it’s where you decide it’s going to be. So your goal then, is to shift your locus of control inward.
If you find yourself blaming external circumstances for where you are, why you can’t lose weight, why you can’t stick to that marathon training plan, why you can’t go to the gym and lift heavy weights. If you find yourself blaming external circumstances, for all that, then it’s time to make a shift, you need to shift your locus of control inward.
So shifting your locus of control can be as easy as making the decision that you’re going to do it, it can be as easy as taking 100% responsibility for everything in your life, for every result you’re getting or not getting in your life, it can be as easy as making that decision. So right now, decide “I’m going to stop blaming others, I’m going to stop blaming outside circumstances. I’m going to stop using stories and excuses and reasons why I can’t and start making it happen. I control my destiny. And it starts with me, and it starts right now.”
Right, that can be a very powerful way of taking control making that decision that you are in control. Because honestly, you are another way of beginning to shift your locus of control is to start reframing situations. So instead of just believing that here’s the way it is, not everything is just the way it is. And that’s the way it is because that right there is just a belief.
You need to start questioning what you believe to be true in every situation. So you can do this by reframing. And that is just like looking at a situation from a different angle. It’s like putting a different frame on the situation. Okay, instead of, “Man, it’s just so hard to stick to my food plan because my wife keeps bringing home junk food for dinner, you know, and burgers and french fries and pizza. Like she just keeps bringing this fun stuff home for dinner for the kids. And I can’t stick to my food plan because there’s pizza on the table.”
So that’s having an external locus of control when you believe that. So shifting inward, you can reframe that situation. And you can ask yourself, like, how can I stick to my plan, even though there’s pizza sitting here on the table right now and it smells amazing, but what am I going to do right now? Right here, in this moment, to stick to my plan. I made this promise to myself that I’m not eating pizza this month or whatever, this week. What am I going to do about that in this moment right now?
How can I control my eating in this moment, right now? Because there is an answer, but you have to look inward. And you have to start asking yourself, What can I do about this? Because the external circumstances are always going to be whatever they are, you have no control over that. You don’t have control over that.
You do have control of what you do about it, though. So reframe these situations. Don’t look outward, look inward. It’s never ever about what’s going on out there. It’s always about what’s going on inside. What can I do about this? How can I make this work? What action? What action am I going to take right now in this moment, that is in alignment with my long term goals?
So I first heard about locus of control in one of my coaching programs, this was many years ago, and I can’t even remember the class I was attending. But it was a live class. I was out in LA, I was there for about a month taking all these different coaching classes and live coaching classes before COVID and all that.
And we were in this class, and the instructor was talking, it had something to do with like the business side of coaching. And at the time, I was struggling to figure out a business plan. I had tried a few things in the past that didn’t really work. I loved coaching, but the business side of things, it just wasn’t clicking for me, you know.
And, and I felt like, I tried some things, and I kept failing. And so after the class, I went up to the instructor, and I was like, okay, I get what you’re saying here. But you have to understand, I don’t think this is going to work for me, because I’ve tried this and it failed. And I’ve tried this, and it failed. And none of this stuff ever works for me.
And I said something like, you know, I don’t think this is my fault. It’s like the economy, it’s the competition out there. You know, I don’t understand the technology, whatever, like I started, you know, kind of rattling off some of these excuses, right? And I’ll never forget this, he just looked at me and said, “Well, it’s definitely not going to work with that attitude.”
And I thought to myself, how dare you. This is not in my control. It just doesn’t work for me. It’s the economy. It’s the technology, it’s the competition or whatever. And I’ve tried these different things. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I just, I’m a failure, you know, and I was really feeling sorry for myself.
And I really had this external locus of control. I didn’t realize it at the time. But I had this aha moment where I had to accept this reality that I had a very external locus of control. And what he was saying to me, wasn’t about, you know, whether I could do it or not it was about or whether the outside circumstances had anything to do with it or not. But it was about my attitude about it. It was about my state of mind about it. It was about what I decided I was going to believe.
And if I wanted to be a successful coach and have a thriving coaching practice, then it was going to be up to me to make it happen. And yes, I’ve tried things that failed. And I tried other things that failed. And I kept trying until I figured out what really worked for me, and what felt good for me, and what was in alignment with my values and my beliefs. But it was always up to me.
It had nothing to do with anything else outside of me, it was me and my attitude. I had to stop blaming circumstances, and take ownership of my situation. And as soon as I did this, as soon as I decided that I was going to make it happen, everything shifted for me.
Now, it wasn’t like turning on a light switch. It took time to get there. But it only took a moment. It was a brief moment where I made that decision that I was never going to blame anyone else ever again. I wasn’t going to look outside of myself for reasons and excuses and be a blamer and a complainer. Like if it is to be it is up to me. If it’s going to happen, I’m gonna make it happen. That’s the only way It’s gonna work. But I made that decision and I took a moment to make that decision. Okay?
So here’s what I want you to do this week, I want you to make that decision. You can do this by taking an inventory of where you are right now. So maybe get out a piece of paper or journal, something like that, and do a little bit of writing on this, like, write down all the things that are happening in your life, what’s going well, what’s not going so well.
What are you getting? Where are you getting good results in your life? Where are you not getting good results in your life? What activities are you engaging in that you’re proud of? That are in alignment with your goals, what activities are you engaging in that are not necessarily in alignment with your goals, maybe you’re not so proud of?
Where are you in regards to your goals? Are you on track? Are you not on track? Are you feeling stuck? Like just kind of take an honest inventory and look at each of these situations with yourself in your life? And honestly, ask yourself, you know, is this something that is in my control or not? Are you in control of each of these areas of your life or not?
Because if you keep thinking, I’m not in control, this has to do with, you know, my boss at work, or my wife is not, you know, being supportive. If you keep looking outside of yourself, for answers to these situations, or reasons why you’re not making progress in these situations, you’re gonna have a really hard time changing any of that.
If you’re feeling stuck in any area of your life, you’re gonna have a hard time getting unstuck, if you continually blame others. Take control. Reframe each of those situations, what can I do about this? What can I alone do about this? How can I take control of this particular situation right now? What is my part in this? Because there’s always an answer. You are always in control. Even though it doesn’t feel like it, you are, you just have to make that decision that you are going to be in control.
Being out of control is an illusion. You know, unless somebody has you chained to a water heater in their basement, you are in control of your life. And if you’re chained to a water heater, in somebody’s basement right now, then please reach out. We’ll help you, we’ll help you get out of that situation.
But listen, you have control, you just have to make that decision that you are going to take control of your own life, that you’re going to shift that locus of Control inward. And start being 100% responsible for everything in your life. You do that and I promise you things will begin to shift for you.
Okay, it takes some time to get there. It takes some time to accomplish those things you want for yourself, but it starts with that decision. Make the decision, you’re going to shift your locus of control inward, make that decision that you’re going to start being 100% responsible for every result in your life, good or bad.
Okay, this is a game changer right here. That’s all I got for you guys today. I love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
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 …
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.
One of the biggest fears you face when you set out to better yourself is the fear of being criticized. You want to lose weight but you are so afraid of what people will say about you that you quit …
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 168, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today: dealing with criticism. One of the biggest fears you face when you set out to better yourself is a fear of being criticized. You may want to lose weight, but then you’re afraid of what people will say about you.
And so you quit or you never even start in the first place. The fear of being criticized is one of the main three reasons why most people don’t succeed with losing weight, or with really accomplishing anything big for that matter. The other two are the fear of failure and the fear of success, which I talked about in the last two episodes of the podcast.
So today, I’m taking a comprehensive look at the fear of being judged and criticized and how dealing with criticism might be one of the most important things you do on your journey to becoming your best self. But first, if you’ve ever tried to lose weight and failed, you’re probably worried that you’re going to fail. Again, this is very common for most people.
Just because you’ve tried and failed in the past, though, doesn’t mean it’s going to happen again, your past does not determine your future. The real problem is that being so afraid to fail means that you don’t ever try anything new. You don’t ever try. You don’t ever start anything. And the only surefire way to actually fail is to never start in the first place. Right?
So in my coaching program, we look at failure in a whole new way. We never expect to do this stuff perfectly. Nobody does. We accept that failure is part of the process. So we fail. We learn our lessons from it, and then we move on. Every success is built upon a big ol pile of failures.
So don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t be afraid to try something new. Just start. Imagine what you could accomplish if you weren’t afraid to fail. To learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. All right.
So I’ve been thinking about this episode for a while now since I’ve started talking about the three big reasons why people don’t achieve their goals. So this is the third episode in that series. So the first one was the fear of success, which I talked about a couple of weeks ago. Last week, we talked about the fear of failure. And then today I’m addressing the third big reason why people don’t succeed, or don’t achieve their goals, which is a fear of being criticized.
So what is the fear of being criticized? What is this all about? Well, fear of being criticized as being afraid of what people are saying about you. So you’re afraid that people are going to think negative thoughts about you, or say negative things about you? It’s not really a fear of being criticized positively. Get out. It’s like, Oh, I’m so afraid that people are talking wonderfully about me.
No, it’s a fear of being negatively talked about negative feelings towards you negative thoughts towards you. It’s a fear of being judged, being judged unfairly. And we all judge people unfairly all the time, then you might be thinking to yourself, but, but those people shouldn’t judge me like that. They don’t know me, they don’t know my story. None of that stuff matters, people look at what they see on the outside.
Then you might say something, you might put a picture out there on social media, and you’re gonna get judged. So welcome to Reality. It’s just part of being a human being, unfortunately. But a fear of being criticized, the fear of being negatively thought about, or maybe somebody has negative feelings towards you, or says negative things to you, writes a negative comment about you.
And really, it’s a fear of being seen as well. It’s a fear of being exposed, of being vulnerable. We don’t like to put ourselves out there. We don’t like being vulnerable. And here’s why. Here’s where this fear comes from: this fear that we have about being criticized and being vulnerable and being exposed and being judged.
It all comes from, you know, this ancient ancestral fear of being kicked out of the tribe, like it’s that we, it’s that fear of being alone. And the fear of not being a part of this is really what’s at the root of all of this, okay? This is something that’s baked into our DNA. So for millions of years, it was certain death to be kicked out of the tribe, if you were shunned from the tribe, it meant that you had to go it alone.
And going in alone, in those days was pretty dangerous. You needed the safety, the safety and the protection from the people around you, to help you hunt and help you gather food and help you stave off enemies and animals and things like that. So being alone meant that you were probably going to die.
So this fear of being criticized when we get criticized, or somebody says something negatively towards us, it kind of feels like we’re being kicked out of the tribe, like we’re not a part of, we’re different. We’re being shunned. We’re being exposed for who we really are. And those people don’t like that. They don’t like who we really are. Okay. So, how this shows up for us today, you know, obviously, we’re not afraid of being kicked out of the tribe, so to speak, like literally or being eaten by saber toothed tigers, I hope that’s not an issue we have to deal with.
Most of us listening to this podcast probably don’t have to deal with that. But this could be something where you have been working to better yourself. So maybe you are working on losing weight, and you start running, and you’re feeling pretty good. And you’re feeling confident. And you know, you’re starting to feel more like oh, I’m gonna, I’m gonna share my story, I’m gonna put some pictures up there on social media and kind of talk about my journey here.
And you might get some positive comments. And you might get a lot of positive comments, and no might make you feel good, you know, but then you’ll get that one person that says something negatively, or is critical of you. And you, it makes you feel terrible, because you don’t really focus, we don’t ever focus on all the 20 or 30 positive comments we get, we focus on the one negative one, that’s the only one that really stands out where we’re like, why they’re saying something bad about me.
So people can be really, people are mean, people are idiots, and people are mean sometimes that’s the bottom line, right. And when we’re dealing with stuff online, especially, you’re dealing with a bunch of people who are, who don’t feel good about themselves, and they just want to put other people down.
And so you’re gonna get some criticism, you’re gonna get, if you put yourself out there, you’re vulnerable, you’re seen, you’re gonna get judged, whether people are judging you internally, or externally by like actually writing some sort of a negative comment. But you’re being judged, no matter what, whether you see comments from people or not, they are criticizing you internally, they are judging you. And, and we just have to accept this. We have to accept this, okay.
They’re critical of you for wanting to better yourself. I know, it’s crazy. Like I said, people are stupid. They’ll make fun of you for not eating junk food, or like not drinking alcohol. Really, really, that’s not a thing. So why do people do this to us? Like, why are people critical of us? Well, mostly, it’s because they don’t feel good about themselves. You know, so they kind of hate themselves.
They hate where they are, they hate how maybe they let themselves go. And so when you try to improve yourself, and you start losing weight, and you start looking better, and you start feeling better, then saying something negative about you, will help make them feel better about themselves. They feel bad about themselves. So they’re trying to make you feel bad too. And this doesn’t really work. And the people that do this kind of stuff are generally pretty miserable. People will talk about that in just a minute.
But the reason people do this is that they’re just trying to pull you down to where they are, right? So there’s this story, principle, whatever you want to call, it’s called crabs in a bucket. And if you’ve ever seen fishermen like catching crabs, they will put them in a bucket. And if you put one crab in that bucket, it will eventually be able to pull itself up by its little claw or whatever, and then pull itself out of the bucket.
But if you put a bunch of crabs in the bucket, as soon as one starts to pull itself up, other ones will grab it and pull it down and keep it in the bucket. So the crabs will be able to climb out of the bucket. I don’t know if this is actually true in practice or not. But let’s just use this as our analogy here today, okay.
People are just like crabs in a bucket, you know, they want to pull you down so that you don’t, you know, you don’t advance that you don’t get out of the bucket, they don’t want to see you doing well, they don’t want to see you improving yourself, they don’t want to see you losing weight, and looking better and feeling better about yourself, they just want to pull you down to where they are.
So one thing we have to understand about this is that criticism and judgment, this stuff does not happen from the top down, it happens from the bottom up, you will have people who have improved themselves and who are successful. You will not have those people criticizing other people who are trying to improve themselves and who are working on being successful, they just don’t do it.
Successful people don’t put other people down, emotionally evolved, people don’t spend any time putting other people down writing negative comments on people’s posts and things like that. Think about somebody like Oprah Winfrey, sitting behind her keyboard and writing some sort of like crappy little comments about you online, that’s just never gonna happen. It’s never gonna happen. Why? Because she doesn’t hate herself. She doesn’t need to put others down so that she feels better. She’s an emotionally evolved woman, I’m assuming.
I have a lot of respect for Oprah. And she doesn’t need to do that because she’s a successful woman, successful people, people who are working to better themselves do not spend time writing negative stuff about other people. They just don’t need to do that. Okay. And then there’s a big difference here. Now, listen, this is important because there’s a big difference between when we’re talking about randos on the internet, and then the real people in your life, people that are important to you.
For the randos, for the people that are just randomly writing negative comments about you, people that maybe you are friends with on Facebook, or that follow you on Instagram, just forget about those people, they don’t mean anything to you, right. And if you’re friends with these people, and they are doling out some criticism to you about what you’re doing, you’re trying to improve yourself, and you got people that are sending negative energy your way, then unfollow those people, unfriend those people block those people get their energy out of your life, you don’t need that, get rid of them. Okay, so let’s just start there.
For the people in your life, who you actually know, this would be spouses, partners, friends, family members, coworkers, kids, even, there will be some people in your life who are critical of you, who don’t fully support you. They may not be on board with your goals and dreams. We have to accept this, we have to accept that there will be people in our life, maybe people that are close to us who don’t support us.
Now, in this case, it’s a little bit different. We can take some of these, you know, if we’re talking about your partner, or a family or a close family member, you know, you can take some of their criticism and really say like, is this, maybe I need to work on this, this could be something that I need to improve and work on. And yeah, maybe they’re right. Maybe I am, you know, being ridiculous here or whatever, right?
So there are times when you want to take some of this criticism to heart and really look inside and see like, is there truth to this, you know, a lot of times there isn’t. A lot of times, it’s just people that are even though they love you and they’re close with you, they feel uncomfortable when you start to move ahead. I see this a lot with partners, like spouses, husbands and wives who want to better themselves and they start losing weight and they start eating better, and they start feeling better, and they’re running and they’re getting healthy and they feel great.
And their partner is not doing those things and their partners kind of feeling left behind. And they will kind of lash out at the spouse that’s doing better and want to pull them down crabs in a bucket, you know. And so sometimes we have to look at some of those relationships and decide if we want to stay in that relationship.
Now I’m not telling you to go leave your partner or anything like that, but just like sometimes we may need to find new people to hang around. If the people we’re hanging around are critical of us and they’re negative towards us, and they’re judging us, you know We can’t control what other people think or feel or what they say or what they do nothing, right. But you don’t have to hang around that and you don’t have to be a part of it. Okay?
So I forget who said it, maybe Jim Rohn said, like you’re the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. If you spend enough time with four millionaires, you’ll probably be the fifth, if you spend enough time with four criminals, you’ll probably be the fifth. Spend enough time with four people who are ultra marathoners, and you’ll probably end up running an ultra marathon at some point, right?
When I quit drinking, which was, gosh, almost 16 years ago, now, I had to get a whole new group of friends because all the friends that I had were people that I drank with, and people who drank a lot. And for me like to go and hang out with those people was very challenging. And I realized that when, when I was sober, like they weren’t that great of friends anyway. I was like, wow, we don’t have a whole lot to talk about here. We don’t have a whole lot in common.
I think I needed to start getting some new friends. And that was hard. That was a hard transition to go through, where I started, you know, have to kind of find new people to hang around with and stuff like that. But listen, here’s what I’m trying to say. If there are people in your life, who don’t support you fully, who aren’t on board with your health and fitness goals, they don’t want you to lose weight. They make fun of you for eating the way you do.
You know, you go out to dinner, and you’re like, oh, no, thanks. I’m not going to have the bread. And they’re like, what seriously? Or if you don’t drink, and they’re like making fun of you for not drinking and trying to push drinks on you or something like that? Are these people really your friends? Do you really want to spend more time with these people? Think about that.
Do you want to spend more time with those people? And if the answer is no, then don’t. Like if you can avoid it, like don’t spend time with those people. Maybe you need some new friends, new friends are great. It’s great having new friends. And then here’s a good reality check for you, just understand that people already don’t like you.
There are already lots of people out there who don’t like you who don’t like me. And you cannot make anyone like you. You certainly can’t make everyone like you. So if you think that everybody in your world, in your sphere of influence, all your friends and friends of friends and everything is going to like you, you’re mistaken, because they already don’t.
You can’t control what other people think, or say or feel or what they do. All you can control is how you think, feel and act. That’s it. So don’t worry about any of that stuff. Don’t worry about the fact that there are people who don’t like you, like those people, just there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing you can do about it. Okay?
Do not let your fear of being criticized or judged, stop you from becoming the person you want to be. You know what it takes to grow, evolve and become more? It takes trying hard things, and maybe failing and risking criticism all along the way. It takes being willing to be vulnerable, because vulnerability is the cost of growth.
So how willing are you to put yourself out there and possibly be criticized to be seen maybe for the first time ever to be really seen to be judged? How willing are you to be criticized because there’s no way you’re going to do great things and become more without judgment, criticism. In fact, the more you achieve, the more you are going to be criticized.
So most people are not willing to do this. Most people just want to say stay small, they want to stay unnoticed. Because their fear of being criticized or judged is too big. So they want to stay and be criticized and judged. People already see you though, they’re already judging you whether or not you know it. They’re already criticizing you, whether they say it out loud or not. So you might as well do your thing and like kick some ass along the way. Okay.
I get criticized pretty regularly. And as I get more exposure, more people listen to this podcast and follow me on social media, whatever, I get more criticism. All throughout my weight loss journey. I’ve posted pictures and I’ve shared my story. I’ve shared a lot about myself here on this podcast too. And occasionally, I’ll get some negative comments or like a negative review on iTunes podcast, Apple podcast or whatever.
And I’m gonna go off on a little rant here because the reason I get these I’ll get a one star review and I’m like, what, really on Apple podcasts or Spotify or whatever and I’ll look at the review and it’ll say They like, oh, this guy is just, you know, talking about his coaching program on the podcast. So one star.
You know, listen, I put my heart and soul into this podcast and it takes me hours and hours every single week to do this. And I do it nonstop. I have not missed a week in like three years of doing this. And I made a decision early on in the, whatever journey of this podcast, where I wasn’t going to advertise stuff on this podcast.
So a lot of podcasts you listen to will advertise stuff like every 10 minutes, like you got another ad that pops up, right. I’ve even listened to podcasts where I had to sit through 20 minutes of them advertising different products and stuff, before they actually got into the interview or whatever it is they were going to be talking about. Right? I talk about my program. I do it for like 30 seconds. Have you ever listened to a podcast without advertising? No, there aren’t any, there aren’t any.
It’s like going to the movies and complaining about giving the movie a one star review because they advertise popcorn and coke at the beginning of the movie. Stupid, it’s stupid. I’m tired of it. Alright, so this is my little rant here. I’m in integrity with what I’m doing on this podcast. And I feel really, really good about how I do things here. Okay, so I just wanted to say that okay, I’m done with that now. So I had to be okay.
And I’m okay now with these negative reviews, because for every one like negative I get, I get like 20 or 30 positive reviews, right? So I get criticized, and it’s been one of those processes where early on it kind of stung a little bit. I was like, oh, he’s paying up someone like me, oh, my gosh, what am I doing now? It doesn’t matter.
You know, I get criticized for how I look for pictures, I have people body shaming me, I get body shaming comments from idiots on the internet, I just don’t worry about it, I just blow it off, right? Here’s the important thing. I don’t let the criticism stop me from fulfilling my mission. You know, my mission is to be an example of what’s possible and to inspire you to do the same.
My prime directive is to always become more to always improve myself to grow, evolve, become more, the more I grow. The more criticism I get, the more I put myself out there, the more I am seen, and judged and criticized. But I do not let my fear of this criticism stop me from what I’m doing. I just keep going. So do not let the fear of being seen, judged or criticized stop you from becoming more.
Do not allow your fear of critical criticism to stop you from going after your goals and your dreams. You want to lose weight, you will be criticized. You want to run a marathon, people will judge you for it. You want to stop drinking alcohol, you know, people will see that and they will call you crazy or stupid until you’re no fun anymore or whatever.
Do not let any of this get in your way. Do not let any of this stop you from doing what you know, feels good. What you know it’s right for you. Remember, emotionally evolved people don’t spend time criticizing and judging others. The people who do this are typically people who are not where they want to be. They are definitely afraid to try anything that will cause them to get criticized. They are the crabs in the bucket that will just pull you down.
So stay away from the crabs, get the crabs out of your life, do the things you want to do because they’re important to you. They’re meaningful to you. They cause you to level up, keep digging, keep taking action to fulfill your purpose. And you just have to accept all the criticism and all the judgment along the way. It’s the price you pay to become your most badass self. Cool. All right, 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.
Fear of success is probably something most people aren’t aware of. If you ask people why they can’t seem to reach a particular goal, they will come up with all kinds of reasons, excuses, and …
Continue Reading about 166. Overcoming Your Fear of Success →
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 166, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, overcoming your fear of success. Fear of success is something that most people probably aren’t aware of. If you ask people why they can’t seem to reach a particular goal, they’ll probably come up with all kinds of reasons and excuses and stories and such. And they’ll probably almost never say, oh, fear of success. That’s why I couldn’t reach my goal.
But here’s the thing, fear of success is a real thing. And today, I want to bring this into your understanding. I want you to become keenly aware of this natural fear of success that we all have, what it looks like, so that you’ll never have to fall prey to that again in the future. So in this episode, I’ll explain what fear of success is, and how overcoming your fear of success can be the key to achieving your weight loss goals.
But first, when I start working with someone, and they tell me they have a sweet tooth, I’m using finger quotes here sweet tooth. And they cannot imagine living their life without sweets without sugar. So here’s what we do, I suggest they take a break from sugar for a while. And that suggestion usually makes them freak out a little bit. Their cravings for sugar typically go up right away, like if you stop eating sugar, or if you let’s say you stop drinking alcohol, like the first thing that’s going to happen is that your cravings are going to probably go up a little bit.
Okay, but then we work through that and we deal with that. And then something interesting happens after a few days. without sugar, those cravings start to subside a little bit. After a few weeks, the cravings get a lot weaker and more sporadic. So they’re not happening constantly.
And then after a few months without sugar, the cravings are often completely gone. Not always.
But a lot of times, it’s just not an issue anymore. So sugar was something that they couldn’t imagine living without, oh, I have a sweet tooth, I just have to eat sugar all the time. And now it’s something that they don’t care about anymore. They don’t ever want it back in their lives. They feel better without it, they sleep better. They have more energy, and running is easier. They’re losing weight.
So if this is you, if you don’t think you could ever give up sugar, I want you to challenge that thought. Just challenge the thought, what if What if you’re wrong? Because here’s what I think – I think you can do it. I think you can do it. You just need the right guidance, the support and the encouragement to get you there. And I can help you with all that.
Okay, if you want to learn more and apply for coaching, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. We’ll get on call, we’ll talk about it, we’ll see how coaching can help you overcome your quote unquote, sweet tooth. Cool. Awesome.
All right, let’s talk about overcoming your fear of success. And I have been thinking about this episode for a while because it is a concept that I talk to someone about, typically every week, every week, this comes up in one way or another. And it’s something that we have to work through.
So I thought since it’s so prevalent out there, that I thought I would really bring this into the spotlight today and really shine a light on what fear of success is but I think we all experienced this to some degree. And as I go through this conversation today, I think you’re gonna see that you can relate to a lot of this and you may not be aware that you’re doing it or why you’re doing it, but let’s, let’s just get into this.
Let’s start with an understanding of what fear of success is. So fear of success is when you have an ongoing fear of reaching some goal or of accomplishing something and it’s usually something big like you know, losing a lot of weight. That’s that’s a big let’s say you got to lose 30 pounds 50 pounds. That can seem pretty daunting.
So fear of success is having a fear of reaching that goal. And the fear is very real. And it’s also mostly unconscious or subconscious. Meaning that you may not be consciously aware that you have this fear, but it’s there. And it’s real nonetheless. And it’s not that you aren’t capable of reaching your goal, you definitely are, you are capable of losing the 30 pounds or 50 pounds.
But there’s an underlying fear of what comes along with reaching that big goal, the change that happens when you reach a big goal like that, and you’re not so sure that you’re going to be able to handle it. That’s where a lot of this fear stems from. Let’s talk about the underlying issue here, the real root cause of this fear of success. The fear of success is your brain trying to keep you safe and comfortable.
So we have two main different aspects of our brain, there’s more than two, but there’s two I’m going to talk about today, we have our amygdala, our primitive brain, and we have our prefrontal frontal cortex, which is our more modern, that’s more of our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain we use for planning for making good decisions for being organized.
And so this is our modern evolved part of our brain, the amygdala, is a tiny little almond size, part of our brain, one of the most primitive parts of our brain that is responsible for fight or flight for fear for those criminal primal urges that we have, you know, survival and sex drive and things like that.
So we have this thinking, planning, you know, organized brain, and then we have this primitive, fear driven brain, and they’re always kind of at odds with each other to some degree, right? That amygdala, so that lizard brain, I’ll call it right, is always just seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. And this is a very powerful part of our brain, that amygdala drives a lot of our decision making and drives a lot of our behavior.
And it’s up to us using the prefrontal cortex to override that default behavior. So that primitive part of our brain will be seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, it’s seeking comfort and avoiding discomfort, it’s seeking the familiar and avoiding anything that feels unfamiliar. So reaching a big goal, you know, losing a bunch of weight, or, you know, achieving success in other areas of our life.
This seems like it would create pleasure for us, right? And our prefrontal cortex, we say, Yes, this is what I want for myself, this will bring me joy and pleasure and make me happy. But to your brain, this is just another uncomfortable place for you. This is you getting into unfamiliar territory, your natural inclination is to avoid anything that causes fear and worry and anxiety, and discomfort.
And succeeding at something like losing a bunch of weight can create all those things, it can create fear, anxiety and worry and discomfort. So a good example of this is something that I see, probably once a week, I talk to somebody about this, in my coaching practice, someone has a big weight loss goal, and they might be getting close to some big number. So it could be breaking 200 pounds.
So there, there may be, you know, they started at 225 or 230, and they want to get, you know, down to 190 or something like that, and they’re getting close to that 200 pound mark, they might be at 205 or something. And, or it could be someone who’s, you know, trying to break through some other number, like another milestone number, like 150, you know, maybe it’s someone who’s trying to get down to one 140. And, you know, 145 and they’re like 155, and they haven’t been under 150 in decades, you know, okay, so they’re getting close to this number.
And let’s just use the 200 pound number and so we have somebody that’s getting close, so maybe they got really close, they’d been at two, two and two, a one and maybe they even dipped down below 200 And got to like 199 for a day. And then they find themselves moving in the other direction they got to, then they go back to 201 and 203 and 205.
And they don’t understand it. How can this be happening? I just got right below that number that I was working so hard to get to. I was starting to understand, why couldn’t I stay there? So then we dig into the details, we look at their food logs, and then we see a few things that become pretty clear.
Oh, yeah, well, I forgot that I ate that piece of cake. And I ate that medium sized pizza by myself. And while I ate a bunch of my kids’ french fries and ate all this bread with dinner, and I did have a few beers or a couple bottles of wine or whatever it is, right? And they’re not even aware that they’re doing these things.
But they’re sabotaging their own success in the process, right? So their brain is basically just saying, like, getting under 199 feels uncomfortable. So we’re not going to go there. We’re going to keep you up here at like 203-205. Like, this feels pretty good. We haven’t been under 200 in the 100’s for like 20 years. So this is dangerous territory we’re getting into here. This is unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
So your brain will actively try to move you in the other direction. It’s not that this is what you want for yourself, not consciously anyway. But unconsciously your brain is sensing danger, and sensing discomfort and sensing fear and will move you in the other direction. This is classic self sabotage. This is how fear of success manifests itself. In a lot of people.
Okay, this is one example. So we have to be aware of this. And we have to actively work against our brain’s natural tendencies, that means being willing to get uncomfortable. That means noticing, when you are actively seeking comfort and safety and keep going anyway, keep doing your thing anyway.
Even though it feels uncomfortable, and unsafe, and unfamiliar, be willing to be uncomfortable, embrace the suck. Because that’s how you actually achieve anything that you want and everything that you want for yourself. So there are some other signs that you might be experiencing fear of success. And one of those is maybe you don’t have goals, because you lack goals or your goals are very low and very easy to reach.
So keeping the bar low, means you don’t ever have to face any real challenges. You never have to get too uncomfortable. So if you don’t strive for much, it won’t really matter if you reach that goal or not. Because you haven’t put much into it. So many people do this. I talk to people all the time, what’s your weight loss goal? And they’ll say, oh, you know, I want to lose 10 pounds, or they’ll say something small like that.
And I’ll push them a little bit and you know, really dig into it and kind of find out where they really want to be and what their ideal weight is. Let’s say you could wave a magic wand today. Where do you want to be, really? And they’ll be like well, I mean, I really want to lose like 30 pounds.
Okay, so why aren’t you shooting for 30 pounds as your goal? Well, because it seems hard. That’s not realistic. What if I fail, or I’ve tried that before, and I’ve let myself down? I’ve never been able to do it before. And in light of this discussion to say today, I just want to say like what, what if, what if I succeed, I’m going to be a whole new person. And that brings up a whole host of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings about who I’m going to be.
That’s really what’s going on here. What happens if you succeed? So understand that we can self sabotage and we can keep ourselves small, because we are afraid of succeeding. So we we don’t have big goals. We keep our goals very low. Oh, what’s your big running goal this year? Oh, I want to run? You know, a 5k. Well, why not go for more? What do you really want to do? Well, I mean, I’d love to run a marathon someday, but I mean, that’s not in the stars for me. I could never do something like that.
Like no, we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna do that thing that you think is impossible. Forget realistic, I hate those smart goals that are like they’re, they’re you know, “realistic” goals, and I’m like, no, let’s go for unrealistic goals. Okay, so lack of goals are low goals, easily attainable goals. This could be a sign that you’re experiencing fear of success.
Another sign is procrastination. So you keep stalling and stalling until you just don’t ever do anything. Right, a lot of times people will stall and then the opposite opportunity will actually pass them by. And they’ll be like, well see, I mean, it just wasn’t meant to be. But then you know, you never really have to take action if you just keep putting things off. So you never have to worry about failing or succeeding.
And one of the biggest reasons why people do not achieve what they want for themselves. The biggest reason why people don’t achieve their goals and their dreams is procrastination. They say, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it. When I have more time, I’ll do it when I have more money, I’ll do it when the kids are off to college, or when we pay the house off, or after I retire. Or once this big project is over at work or whatever, on and on, and on, and on and on.
Later, I’ll do it later. Later, later, later, is the number one killer of hopes and dreams. Because later never happens. There will always be some excuse, some reason or some story about why you need to wait or why you should put it off. If you want to make a big change in your life right now, stop doing this. Stop saying later, start taking action, not this week. Not later today, right now do something right now, to move towards that goal, whatever it is that you want for yourself. There’s something you can do, right now.
Another reason why people will have this fear of success, and you’ll see it manifest in this way, is perfectionism. So people will say to themselves, hey, if I can’t do it perfectly, why should I bother doing it at all? And I think this is on one hand, hilarious, and on the other hand, insidious, because it’s funny to me, because nobody does anything perfectly right?
No, we don’t ever do anything perfectly. But we hold ourselves to this high standard that if we aren’t perfect, there’s no reason why we should even bother doing it. And it’s kind of insidious, because it keeps us from achieving anything. This is one of the reasons why people won’t start something or they try something for a minute and they quit because they don’t do it perfectly. Or maybe they fail.
But you know what the real key here is, isn’t doing something perfectly. It’s about being consistent about what you’re doing. Consistency beats perfection all the time. So instead of thinking about and striving for perfection, think about and strive to be consistent in whatever it is you’re doing. Maybe you have a goal to run regularly. And your goal is to run five days a week. And you do that pretty well for a few weeks. And then you miss a day.
Instead of saying, “Well, you know, I screwed up, I guess I can’t do this though”, you just keep going. Or if you have a new food plan, you’re trying to not eat sugar. And then, you know, over the weekend you kind of gave in and your kids were having a little birthday party for their friend and they had cupcakes and you had a cupcake. “Well, I didn’t do it perfectly. So I might as well just eat the rest of the cupcakes. Screw these little kids. I’m gonna eat all their cupcakes.”
No, don’t do that. First of all, that’s not cool. Kids want the cupcakes, right? Let the kids eat the cupcakes. But for you, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Just stop eating the cupcakes, just whatever, you ate one, fine, move on. We don’t have to. But you know, we don’t have two cheat meals in a row. We don’t miss two workouts in a row. That’s a good rule of thumb right there. Okay, so forget perfectionism. Strive for consistency. instead.
Another sign that you might be experiencing this fear of success is quitting. Why did you quit? And a lot of people will quit just before they reach some goal or some milestone, like the example of somebody that’s trying to lose weight and they’re, you know, they get to 203 or 204. And they just quit.
Because getting close to that goal, it starts to become real, it starts to feel uncomfortable. And they start worrying about all kinds of stuff. Why they won’t be able to maintain that going forward or, or what are people going to think of them and I’ll get into all that in just a minute. But people will quit, rather than experience the discomfort that comes along with succeeding. I know it’s bananas, right?
And the last sign that you might be experiencing a fear of success is any kind of self sabotaging behavior which we’ve been talking about any kind of self destructive behavior. So doing things that go against what you’re actively trying to achieve. Self sabotaging behavior is any behavior that you engage in, that is not in alignment with your goals. It’s things you do that aren’t aligned with who you want to be. It’s pretty simple. Is this thing I’m doing right now in alignment with who I ultimately want to be as a human being? Pretty easy answer, just like yes or no?
If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, don’t do it. Pretty simple. Should I eat the cupcake? Oh, is that in alignment with who you want to be? No, well, I don’t need it. Pretty simple.
So why do we do all this? There are many reasons why we fear success, as counterintuitive as it seems. So I want to dive into some of the reasons why we actually do these things. Okay. So one of them is that you might be afraid of being the center of attention. So succeeding, losing a lot of weight means that people might start to notice you. So you might be afraid of people noticing you or you might be afraid of being in the spotlight, people might start complimenting you on how good you look.
And consciously you might, you might say, oh, I want that. But subconsciously, you’re like, I don’t want that. I don’t want anybody to notice me, I don’t want people to notice how much weight I’ve lost. Because this can feel very uncomfortable. This is not something that you’re used to, you’re used to hiding in this body where nobody really paid attention to you. Nobody really saw you.
And now you start to feel exposed because people are noticing you. And this can be very uncomfortable. Okay? Notice when this is happening, notice when you’re actively being afraid of being the center of attention. Okay? Another reason why we do this is that we worry about leaving people behind, if we move forward. So if we succeed at something, we worry about, leaving others behind, so has your husband, or your friends will say things to you, like, Hey, you look fine, you don’t need to lose any more weight.
And so as you lose weight, you start to feel like you’re pulling away from those people. And you start to feel like there’s this rift between you because they’re telling you, oh, don’t lose more weight, you know, you look fine. And they’re doing that, because what you’re doing makes them feel uncomfortable. It’s not about you, it’s about them. So instead of continuing on, you begin to self sabotage your own success, so you don’t lose your friends. So you don’t lose your partner.
And of course, it’ll probably never happen. But it’s hitting on that tribal nerve, that part of us that just wants to be a part of that wants to fit in and wants to be a part of the group. And there’s this quote that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, right. And instinctively, we don’t want to stand out, we don’t want to get hammered down, we just want to be like everybody else around us.
But here’s the truth bomb, you may have to leave some people behind. If the people around you don’t support you, if the people around you are trying to hold you back from being your best self, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. It makes them feel bad about themselves. You might need to find new people, or at least have a conversation with some of these people, especially your partner.
You don’t need to get divorced over this, right? But it’s not out of the realm of possibility. So I’m just saying. All right. Another reason why we fear success is that we start to feel anxious about being able to maintain that success. So we say things like, oh, it’s kind of hard work to lose weight, right? Am I going to have to work this hard the rest of my life?
And this is where we stop being afraid of reaching a goal and start being afraid of being able to maintain that goal. The truth though, is that it’s actually much easier to maintain your weight than it is to lose weight. So to lose weight, there’s some restriction there, you have to be a little bit more strict about what you’re doing if you want to lose weight, much more so than to maintain weight.
But most people what happens is they tend to fall back into old habits once they hit a weight loss goal. So they never really learned how to maintain their weight. They never learned the habits to make all this sustainable. And one of the most important things I do as a coach is help you to learn how to make eating right and maintaining a healthy weight just part of who you are part of what you do.
It has to be easy, it has to be effortless. Maintaining your weight has to be an ingrained habit. And inevitably that’s where we’re trying to get with all this but a lot of people don’t see it that way. They don’t understand how to make it sustainable, they feel like they have to be too restrictive, to lose weight and they think that they have to be that restrictive forever and you really don’t.
But, you know, thinking about maintaining your success thinking about maintaining your weight can be enough to cause people to quit and to start self sabotaging, okay. Another reason why people fear success is there’s this fear of being judged. And criticized, especially by the people that are close to you.
We sometimes feel like we get judged, criticized, shunned by friends and family. Sometimes it’s just strangers on the internet, or whatever. But this can be, this can be very uncomfortable. And so you might have a whole new look like you lost a bunch of weight, you got new clothes, you get super fit, you feel amazing, you look fabulous.
And yet, there will be people out there who do not like you. And they’ll let you know that. They don’t like that you’ve changed. They don’t like your new look, they don’t like your new clothes, they don’t like that you’re into running or whatever it is, they just don’t like you period, right? Here’s the thing, though, this is just part of being a human being here on planet Earth. Some people like you, and some people won’t.
And that’s it, get over it. Do not let your fear of being judged or criticized stop you from becoming your most badass self. Because the reality is, there are probably already people right now who don’t like you for who you are at this moment. So you might as well just ignore everybody, all the haters out there, and just you do you you become the person that you ultimately want to become.
And don’t let any of that nonsense stop you. Okay? So all the stuff we’re talking about today is about awareness. It’s about having the insight and the self awareness to notice when your fear of success might actually be the fortune of your success. So once you understand all this, you see that it is happening. And a lot of times remember this is a lot of this is subconscious, right.
But once you see that it is happening. Once you bring it into your awareness into your consciousness, you can do something about it. You have to notice when your behavior might not be in alignment with who you want to be, and then work to change it. Be mindful when you start using excuses and reasons and stories to justify some sort of unwanted behavior. Oh, man, I’ve been really good all week. So I deserve a pizza as a reward. Oh, this might be a little fear of success. Do I really want to undo all the hard work I’ve done up to this point for a few pieces of mediocre pizza? No, I don’t.
So be aware of when you try to tell yourself, it’s okay to do it. There’s just one piece of pizza or whatever. When you know that that’s really not what you want for yourself. Okay. Lastly, I just want you to be willing to be uncomfortable because this process of succeeding or achieving weight loss goals or whatever your goals are is its own comfort.
Discomfort is the price you pay to achieve all your goals and dreams. Discomfort is the cost of your success. Just gotta remember that. 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.
It’s the end of the year and time to look back at everything that’s happened this past year…good and bad. 2022 has been a challenging year for a lot of people and I’m no exception. I’ve had my …
Continue Reading about 157. Lessons Learned This Year and What’s Next →
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 157 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, lessons learned this year and what’s next. So it’s the end of the year. And time to kind of look back at everything that’s happened this past year, the good and the bad.
2022 has been a challenging year for a lot of people. I’m no exception. I’ve had my share of setbacks and difficulties this year. But I’ve managed to get through them all. I’ve also had some pretty amazing accomplishments this year. And it’s this time of the year when I like to reflect on that stuff as well.
So in this episode of the podcast, I share my biggest lessons learned this year, and what’s next for me, and it is the end of the year. And I want you to do something, I want you to start thinking about what you want for yourself in 2023. This is a good time of the year to kind of set intentions for yourself and decide who you want to become next year.
How do you want to feel about yourself? What do you want to have accomplished by this time next year? Think about that. And if you’re ready to take action now to start making these things happen for you then I’m here to help consider coaching with me. And I’ll help you to become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself in 2023. Cool? To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a quick application, you and I will jump on a call and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. If it is awesome, let’s get you started in becoming that most badass version of yourself.
All right, so this time of the year, I like to kind of look back over what I’ve learned over the year, I like to look at some of the things that maybe I’ve accomplished, or some of the failures, setbacks, disappointments that I’ve experienced, I like to look at all of it. I’m not just concerned about, you know, the things that I did well, the successes, that would be easy to focus on that stuff.
Instead, I like to look at some of the things that maybe didn’t go so well. And I like to look at the lessons that I’ve learned from some of those things I’ve had a kind of a challenging year, I’ve had some surgeries and had to recover from those and had to kind of put my training on the back burner for a while when I experienced an injury.
And so I’ve had to deal with a few challenging things this year. And to be honest with you, this entire year, my training has been less than ideal. But I’m sitting here as we close out the year and I’m really grateful that everything that has happened this year has happened the way it has because it’s given me a chance to learn a lot about myself, and to see what really is important to me.
Alright, so I’m going to talk about all of that, in this episode. And I’m going to share with you some of the lessons that I’ve learned this whole year. And understand that I have talked about a lot of this stuff on the podcast.
So for everything that I’m talking about today, you can kind of scroll back through these episodes from this past year from 2022. And you kind of find most of what I’m talking about here is buried in a lot of those episodes. Okay, so go back and listen to some of the previous episodes and you can kind of get a feel for when I talked about these things and maybe take a little bit of a deeper dive into a lot of these topics. Okay.
So some of this might be, you know, kind of not new information. But I’m reiterating some things that I’ve talked about earlier this year. But these are lessons that I’ve learned this year that have been really valuable for me, and have really helped me to see things a little bit differently. Okay.
So, with that in mind, and with that kind of feeling in mind, I just want to go ahead and dive in here. So the first lesson that I learned this year that has really resonated with me is that you are tougher than you think. You are tougher than you think and I am tougher than I think. So like I said I had to come back from two big surgeries and an injury.
So, this time last year, I had my rotator cuff surgery in December of 2021. And that was a long, slow recovery. I also had a hernia surgery in January of 2022. So within about a month, I had two pretty major surgeries that I had to recover from. And it was kind of good that I had them back to back because, you know, I was already laid up, so might as well just get it all over with.
And that was a very interesting time for me, because there wasn’t a whole lot that I could do from a physical standpoint. So I really had to work on my mental game and my nutrition game. So I couldn’t do a whole lot of exercise. But I did what I could, you know, I showed up at the gym, I did sort of my physical therapy type of exercises, I worked on the things that I could do, you know, I couldn’t lift a lot of heavy weights, I couldn’t use my right arm wasn’t allowed to lift anything over 10 pounds for a while there, you know, that whole post surgery deal.
So I was really out of my element, you know, I was not doing the things that brought me joy, I wasn’t doing the things that got my adrenaline going, got me feeling good. And I had to learn that even though I was going through a tough time that I was tougher, that no matter what, you know, I could handle anything, no matter what was thrown my way.
So once I did finally get my training back up and was training for a half marathon in the fall, I had an injury where I, you know, fell when I was running, and busted up my knee. And this was in August, and then I had to take about three months off of running because my knee was just not cooperating, you know, I did something to it, and caused a little bit of traumatic damage there. But it’s better and I’m back to running and the knee is not bothering me anymore.
And so one of the things that I was worried about was like, maybe I’ll never be able to run again. But the knee did slowly start to get better. But that was pretty frustrating because I had just, you know, recovered from the surgeries. And I had come back and I was feeling good. And my training was on point. And I had this half marathon that I was training for. Granted, I’m used to running marathons and ultra marathons. And, you know, training for a half didn’t seem like much, but it was what I could do at the time.
And I felt like I was, you know, kind of making my way back and making a comeback. And then I had that knee injury, which set me back again. And here’s the thing, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what happens if you get a setback, if you experience an injury, if you experience a disappointing event, if you have a failure, it doesn’t matter that you are tougher than you think you can get through all of that stuff.
So I had to really adapt to this mindset that I am tough and that I can get through this, that I’m capable of way more than where I am today. And that, you know, no matter what things are knocking me down, I’m going to get back up again. Knocked down six times, I’m going to get up seven, you know, that I do hard things, whatever this setback is, does not matter. I will persevere. I will continue going. I will continue pushing forward.
And where I am today, I’m feeling good. Because, you know, I’ve definitely recovered from the surgeries, you know, that was, you know, maybe five, six months or something where I felt like I was back to normal again. But I’m definitely back to running again now after the knee injury. And I’m feeling really, really good.
And I’m so glad that I stuck with it. And that I persevered and that I didn’t push it and I didn’t get down about it. I wasn’t like oh my gosh, woe is me. I’m never going to run again. I mean, I could have really gone there, but I didn’t. Okay, so I kept my mind in the game, and realized I’m tougher than I think that I can get through anything. And I did.
So that’s a big lesson for me, that I’m tough and I can get through anything. And I want you to take this lesson to heart, that you are tougher than you think.
The next lesson I learned this year is that discipline equals freedom. That discipline is not a bad thing. And I think that a lot of people think that when you’re disciplined it means you have less freedom. That discipline is the absence of freedom.
You know, they think of discipline as being, you know, chained to a desk or, you know, chained to a schedule, or something like that. And in reality, being disciplined is how you achieve true freedom. You know, if you want to be free from your sugar addiction, then you have to be disciplined about not eating sugar.
If you want to be, if you want to have financial freedom, you have to be disciplined about how you save money. If you want to have time freedom, then you have to be disciplined about how you schedule your time and how you use your time. If you want to run freer and faster and you want running to be easier, be disciplined about how you train, the more running you do, the better it gets, the easier it becomes.
You know, if you want to be free of the whole diet, culture, the whole feeling of deprivation, always trying to lose those last 20 pounds. You want to be free from all that nonsense? Then be disciplined about changing habits around food, be disciplined about changing your relationship with them.
Discipline is not a bad thing. And I think people give it a bad rap. Like, oh, you know, discipline is something that is bestowed upon you from above. And it’s some negative thing. And it’s really not, it’s just how you live your life, right. And so discipline, to me, is not a bad thing. discipline to me is how I achieve freedom. Okay, so discipline equals freedom.
Another key lesson that I learned this year, and this is something I’ve been kind of playing around with this last couple of years, but really solidified it this year is that ancestral eating is the key to health and happiness. So, when I talk about ancestral eating, I want you to understand that I’m talking about how humans have evolved over the last like 3 million years, and the food that we ate, and the way that we ate is much different.
How was much different for 3 million years than it has been for the last few 100 years. And that, especially the last 50 years, when we you know, introduced the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, and, you know, they started pushing this crazy diet of like, all sugar and grains on us and trying to tell us that this is, you know, healthy, and that we got to start eliminating meat and fat and things like that, from our diet, like this is crazy.
Just eat like our ancestors have eaten, you know, just eat like humans have been eating for the last, you know, a few million years, and you’re going to do just fine. We’re talking about eating meat, eggs, vegetables, fruit, dairy and honey.
You know, some of the most natural and most simple things that we have done as human beings and most nourishing foods that we’ve eaten as human beings. You know, people are telling us, they’re, they’re bad for us, we should stay away from them. And the whole idea is just crazy. So I tend to eat very ancestrally. My diet is very simple.
You know, I eat meat and eggs and fruit and some vegetables, but not a ton. And about the sweetest thing, it would be some honey, every now and then. But you know, for the most part, it’s very simple and very nutrient dense. So I stick with nutrient dense foods, foods that still look like real foods, foods that our ancestors would definitely recognize, okay.
The way that we’ve been told to eat over the last 50 years is just awful, right? It’s just wrong. So stick with ancestral eating. And I think this is going to be the key to human health and happiness.
And that leads me to the next point that I learned this year, which is that sometimes we just have to buck conventional wisdom. Conventional wisdom is wrong. It just is wrong. Conventional wisdom tells us to eat all the sugar and grains, sugar is not a problem. It’s fine. Stay away from meat, stay away from eggs, dairy from dairy. And it’s just wrong. And I think that if, in general, if we do the opposite of what everyone else is doing that I think you’re going to be just fine because what everybody else is doing is causing obesity and diabetes and heart disease and high blood pressure and cancer and strokes and all kinds of other issues.
These are all metabolic issues. These are all diseases of lifestyle. And if the conventional wisdom is causing all these diseases of lifestyle, why don’t we just do something else? Right? So I’m not afraid to say that, you know, what’s being recommended by dieticians, for the most part, by the government, by the big food industries, I think it’s just wrong.
And I think we have to take our health and our fitness into our own hands. You want to be a healthy human being, do the opposite of what most people are out there telling you to do, you’ll probably be okay. Now obviously, there’s a grain of salt here, you do have to understand what proper nutrition is.
And, gosh, there’s so much information out there around this topic. I’m going to share more about this with you though, over the coming weeks and months, just so you know, that you know, I want to make sure you understand what the difference is between crappy the crappy Western diet and what it means to eat a healthy human diet. Okay, so I’m going to make sure that it’s very clear over the next weeks and months, okay, but for the most part, duck conventional wisdom, because it’s wrong.
Another lesson that I learned this year, which I love, and this is kind of changed the way I kind of have lived my life really, that’s like to eat and live like an athlete, because you are one. Think about this. Are you currently training for something? Are you training for a marathon? Are you training for a race? Are you training for a triathlon? Are you training for a CrossFit event? If you are, that’s awesome. If you’re not, why not?
Here’s the thing, you should always be training, you should always be eating and living like an athlete. If you do that, then you’re going to be fine. I’m just going to tell you right now, if you eat and live like an athlete, then you are going to be healthy, you’re going to be fit, you’re going to be in top physical shape, right, because that’s what athletes do. And honestly, I don’t think you should ever have to really like “get ready” from scratch for a race, like you should always be ready. Just be ready. Stay in training mode.
Yeah, put goals out there and go races and things that you can train for. But for the most part, train, eat, live like an athlete, because you are an athlete. And if you live your life that way, I promise you, you’re going to be so much healthier, and so much happier and so much stronger. And so much more fit, and you’re going to look and feel amazing.
So eat and live like an athlete, I’ve been doing this. And I have to tell you that I just feel so good right now. Now, I do have a goal out there, I’ll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. I do have a big goal that I’m working towards. But for the most part, I want to stay ready. I want to stay strong. I want to stay fit. Like if you tell me hey, you know, you want to run a marathon next weekend? I’ll be like, sure, I’m ready. I’m ready. Because I’ve been doing the work consistently. All right. So eat and live, like you’re an athlete, and you will be so much healthier and so much happier. And always ready for whatever comes your way.
Another big lesson I learned this year is that simple wins. Every time, simple wins, whatever you do, make it simple. Everything I do when I’m working with clients, I try to simplify things for them. Because there’s so much complicated information out there around food and exercise and running and how to be healthy and people you know, that want to, you know, look at heart rate, and VO2 max, and calories and macros and percentages, and there’s so much data and we can sort of get lost in all of that data, we can get lost and make all of this very, very complicated we can make being healthy, very complicated.
We can make eating very complicated. It doesn’t have to be complicated. In fact, the simpler that you can make something, the easier it’s going to be for you to stick with it. And food especially when it comes to food, the simpler that you can make it, the easier it’s going to be to stick with it. I talk about this all the time. How you know, when I sit down to eat dinner at night, it’s usually something like ground beef. Maybe I’ll slice up an avocado with it, maybe melt some cheese on there, and I’m done. Or I’ll eat a steak or I’ll eat some chicken. That’s it. Like it’s that simple. I don’t have to think about it. I don’t have to spend a lot of time on it. It’s just simple. It’s easy. It’s delicious. And I love it.
But let’s simplify things when it comes to running. Just go out there and run. Don’t worry about your heart rate. Don’t worry about your pace. Don’t worry about trying to, you know, hit some percentage of your VO2 max or stay in zone three or two or whatever. Like, just go out there and run and enjoy it and go by how you feel? Does it feel good? Does it feel too hard to slow down? Does it feel too easy to speed up, run fast, run really hard? Some days, other days run really slow. Let’s just make it simple, it doesn’t have to be complicated.
I think that as runners, we love our data. And I get that part of it. And I love data too. And I love looking at it. But I also try not to be consumed by it, or driven by it, I try to simplify things as much as possible. This is another topic I’m going to be talking about over the next weeks and months, which is going to be how to make running, how to run efficiently, effectively. And simply, gosh, every time I read a new book about some concept of running and how to improve your running performance, there’s all these complicated methods of achieving goals. And I’m just like, man, can we make this simpler? So my job is gonna be to make this simpler for you guys. Okay.
The next lesson I learned this year, this is a big one, is that consistency will beat perfection every time. And that I’m a perfectionist, and I love to do things right. And I’m like, if you can’t do it, right, don’t do it. That’s kind of my mantra a lot of times. And the thing is, though, is that nobody does anything perfectly, nobody does anything perfectly.
You’re not going to eat right all the time, you’re not going to crush every single workout perfectly, you’re not going to lose weight, exactly in linear fashion, like, you know, a pound a week or whatever. Like, everything’s a process, everything has its ups and downs, everything has successes and failures, you’ll experience progress, and you’ll experience setbacks, and you know what, it’s all good. It’s not about being perfect. It’s about doing things consistently, over time, that’s what’s gonna get you to every single one of your goals, stop trying to do it perfectly.
Let go of that idea that there’s some sort of a plus that you’re gonna get a gold star if you do a perfectly let go of that. And do your best but be consistent. And what does it mean to be consistent, that means like, you know, don’t have two bad meals in a row. Let’s say you screw up and you eat some, whatever chocolate chip cookies for dinner. Next meal, get back on track. That’s it.
Now, don’t ever do two bad meals in a row. Don’t ever miss two workouts in a row. You miss a workout, you don’t feel like working out fine, whatever, stay in bed, just no big deal. Don’t miss that. Next one, though. Get back on track, consistently, consistent, consistently do these things and you will eventually reach your goals. But don’t focus on perfection because there’s no such thing.
Another big goal, or another big lesson I learned this year is that there is no finish line. I talked about this on the podcast last week. And it’s such a huge lesson for me and for you. That’s what we do here, when we’re focusing on our health and our fitness, when we’re focusing on improving ourselves and becoming more. This is the way we live our lives. But there is no finish line. There isn’t a destination we’re trying to get to but rather, this is how we live our life. This is a lifestyle that we lead, right? It’s not something we do temporarily. We’re not trying to get to some number on the scale, or just some number on the scoreboard, you know, on the timer.
We’re not trying to just you know, that’s it. You know, once we do that, then we can go back to doing what we’re doing before now. We want to live our lives in a way that supports our becoming more consistently. And in that we’re never done with this, that our work is never done. We’re always working. We’re always living like athletes. We’re always trying to simplify things. We’re always trying to do things consistently. We’re always trying to better ourselves. We’re always trying to, you know, stay disciplined and toughed it out, and that it’s okay. It’s okay.
We don’t have to be finished. Like when I first thought about this, I first heard somebody talk about that. You know, we’re never finished with this . We always have to stay on top of this stuff when we always have to be focused on becoming more. It kind of scared me a little bit at first, because I thought oh my god, do I really want to commit to this for the rest of my life? Is this really who I want to be?
And the answer that I found myself coming up with was a resounding Hell yes, hell yes. This is how I want to live my life. I want to do this for life. This is how I want to live my life every single day, I don’t want to be that overweight couch potato that I used to be, that sick person who drank too much and ate too much and smoked cigarettes and was just a human garbage can. I don’t want to be that person ever again.
I’m okay, that I’ve chosen to live my life in such a different way that I’m willing to continue doing this for good. This is how I want to be for good. Alright, so there is no finish line, you got to embrace that concept. I’ve embraced that concept this year. For sure. So this is what we do. This is who we are. Right? This isn’t there’s no finish line, there’s no destination or trying to get to this is how we live our lives. Cool.
Okay, so those are the big lessons that I’ve learned this year, there’s a lot more, there’s so many more, but those are the big ones. Okay. So what’s next for me. So I’ve kind of, you know, mentioned it a few times that I’m going to be sharing some of these concepts, on the weeks and months to come on the podcast here, because I’ve got a lot of good content coming your way, a lot of good content, I’m gonna continue bringing you all the good stuff, focusing on nutrition and strength and endurance and mindset, all next year.
So keep, you know, just keep listening. I’m going to continue to bring all the good stuff your way, and hopefully give you some inspiration and encouragement to take action on these things and start making some changes for yourself.
I can’t tell you how gratifying it is, when I get a message from somebody who’s just been listening to the podcast, it’s not somebody I’ve been working with, but somebody who’s just been listening to the podcast, and they’ll say, “Patrick, Hey, I just want to tell you, you’ve really changed my life. I’ve been listening to the podcast for a year or two. And, you know, I’ve just, you know, done all these things that you’ve suggested over the years and, and I’ve really changed my life, and I’ve lost all this weight, and I’m so much healthier, I feel so much better about myself. And just thank you so much for doing this.”
Like that those kinds of messages that I get from you guys, oh my god, it just warms my heart, you know what I mean? Makes me feel so good. Because it means the message is being received, and, and that you’re taking action. So take action on this stuff. Because this isn’t about conceptualizing. These aren’t just ideas, these are things I want you to do. These are things that in order for you to change that you have to actually take action on. Cool.
So I’m going to continue bringing you all the good stuff, I got lots of good topics coming your way. And then I’ve got a big goal that I’m working towards, I’ve got this big alter event that’s going to be in May. And more on that later. But I just want you to know that it’s a big goal, it’s going to cause me to level up. It’s not something I’ve ever done before. So it’s kind of a new thing for me. It’s an ultra running event. And really like after taking last year off, like 2022 was not a great year for training for me. Like I feel like I’ve taken the whole year off from significant training.
You know, after taking all this time off, I feel like I’m ready. I’m ready, I’m back. I’m back to running some more significant mileage. And I’m feeling really good about this event. And it’s a little scary. It’s one of those events that’s a little bit scary. It’s causing me to, you know, question my decision here, like, why, what I decided to do something like this, but at the same time, it’s also something that I’m very passionate about and feel good about. So I’ll be sharing more about that as we get closer to the event. But just know that it’s a big Ultra running event. And it’s going to cause me to, you know, get out of my comfort zone in a big way, in a big way.
Okay, so that’s something I’m really looking forward to. And then after that, I’ve got another big goal for the fall. So stay tuned. I’ll share more about this as we go. Last thing I wanted to say is that I just want to really thank you for listening to the podcast for your support this year. Whether you listen, just listen to podcasts, whether you read my social media posts or allow me in your inbox.
I know you get a lot of emails and I appreciate you, you know allowing me to email you whatever where it is that you get from me and how you consume this content, whether you’re listening while you’re out there running, or walking the dogs or whatever, I just want to say that I really appreciate you, I’m doing this for you, you know, I do this because I want to help you to become the best version of yourself, you know, I want to help you to become the most badass version of yourself.
And I want to help to make 2023 your best year ever, I want it to be my best year ever as well. So let’s make 2023 the best year ever, we can do this, right? It just means that we put in place some of these principles that I’ve been talking about, and we kicked some serious butt this year. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Happy New Year everybody. 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.
What separates successful people from those who fail? What do successful people do that unsuccessful people don’t? While there are a LOT of things that differentiate people who achieve greatness …
Continue Reading about 155. 3 Things All Successful People Do →
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 155, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, three things all successful people do. So what separates successful people from those who fail? What do successful people do that unsuccessful people don’t do?
While there are a lot of things that differentiate people who achieve greatness and those who don’t. Today, I’m going to focus on a few that I feel are most important. Whether you want to lose weight or run an ultra marathon, you will either succeed or fail based on a few simple but very powerful principles.
So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to share three things that all successful people do that most people just don’t do. And I hope that you choose to apply these principles that you hear about today, in all areas of your life. So you can accomplish everything amazing that you want for yourself.
Think about this, what do you want for yourself? What do you want for yourself? For 2023? What goals do you have for yourself? What goals are going to push you outside your comfort zone? What goals are going to cause you to level up in 2023? Have you thought about that? It’s a great question, right?
If you’re having trouble coming up with big powerful goals for yourself, or maybe you have some goals, but you have absolutely no idea how you can possibly achieve those goals, then I have something that I think might help you. Let’s work together on this. With me as your coach, I will help you set big, huge, scary, impossible goals for you for the new year. Doesn’t that sound like fun?
Then we’ll put together a plan to get you to those goals. And then lastly, I’ll help you stay on track every week. So you actually make progress every week and move towards that goal, so you actually accomplish them.
So if you’re ready to stop thinking about big goals, and instead start working on them, then you’re ready for the Running Lean coaching project. This is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners where I help you become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself yet. To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply and get started.
Okay, today, three things all successful people do. So it’s this time of the year where we start reflecting on the past year and start setting goals and start deciding what it is we want to accomplish in the new year. So we’re coming up on the end of 2022. And the start of 2023 is right around the corner. And like I mentioned a minute ago, like what is it that you want for yourself? What is it that you would like to accomplish in this coming year?
So for me, this time of the year is a good reminder, not just of what I’ve accomplished through this past year. But it’s a good reminder that I always want more for myself, that I always want to continue to grow, to learn and to become more. This is not something that is a one and done for me. And it shouldn’t be for you either.
We should always be striving to learn and grow and become more. And when I stopped to think about this a little bit, I was thinking about what it takes to accomplish big goals. And it really got me thinking and that’s why I’m talking about this today because it got me thinking about myself. And I’ve got some big goals for myself for 2023.
And the way I’m going to accomplish those goals, in big part, is going to be due to the principles I’m going to share with you today because I’m applying these principles in everything that I do in my life. So some people are able to achieve big, huge, amazing things. They’re able to accomplish big things in their life. And then there’s some people that don’t seem to ever amount to much, right?
So what separates successful people from the unsuccessful? You know, what are successful people doing that the other people are not doing or maybe they’re not willing to do? Okay, I’ve identified three key principles that I’m sharing with you today that are vital. If you want to achieve greatness in your life, however you want to define greatness, what does that mean for you?
What does greatness mean for you? You run your first ultra marathon this year, or you climb that higher mountain, or you lose 40 pounds once and for all? You change your relationship with junk food and sugar, and cake and cookies and ice cream and pizza and french fries? What is it that you want for yourself? What is that big goal that you just saw that seems to be impossible for you to accomplish? What is going to cause you to level up?
Define that for yourself. Think about that. As we’re, as I’m talking through this episode today. What is it to achieve greatness for you? What does that mean for you? Could it be something in your career, maybe you get a promotion and you become, you know, a leader in your industry? Maybe it has to do with your relationships? Maybe it has to do with you know, being a parent? Having kids, what areas of your life do you want to achieve greatness? What would achieving greatness look like for you?
Because I’m going to tell you right now that it doesn’t really matter. You get to decide what you want for yourself. But there are things that will help you to get there. There’s some attitudes or some principles that will help you to get there. And if you don’t adhere to these principles, it’s going to be really challenging for you. And that’s where most people are.
Most people want things for themselves, but they don’t actually apply these principles I’m going to talk about and so they never really accomplish those things. And they’re always out there. They’re always out there on the horizon as in like, one day I would love to run an ultra marathon or one day, I would like to finally lose this way once and for all and keep it off. Like what Why are you just thinking about that? Why not just do it? If that is what you want for yourself, I want to encourage you to start working towards that. Stop thinking about it, start taking action, start taking action today, towards that goal.
So the three things I’m going to talk about will help you to achieve greatness in your life, whatever that looks like for you. These are three things that all successful people do, and that other people just don’t do or won’t do. Most people might know about these things. And when I start talking about these, you’ll be like, oh, yeah, well, that makes sense.
That seems so simple, but they’re not simple. They’re not simple. If they were simple. I wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. You would just do it. These are things that most people maybe know about, but they’re just not willing to do. But if you’re willing to do the work, if you’re willing to apply these three principles I’m gonna talk about today, you will achieve anything you want for yourself.
Now, there are more than three things that successful people do. I’m not going to get into, there’s probably hundreds of things, right? If you really think about it. These three are huge. These three are, are the big ones, okay? And they’re often overlooked, or they’re minimized. You know, people are like, oh, yeah, I get it. I get that one, Patrick. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. I get that. But no, you don’t get it.
You don’t get it because you’re not doing it. If you got it, you do it. But most people are not willing or not. Or are they just not wanting to do these things? Because honestly, because they’re hard sometimes because they’re hard. Okay. Here’s the thing, though, all of us are capable of greatness, you are capable of greatness. We’re all human beings. None of us is a superhero.
None of us are superhuman, we are all you know, pretty much the same, we are able to accomplish huge things that, you know, that a lot of people can’t do because they’re just not willing to do the work. So we’re all capable of greatness. So understand that you are capable of greatness. Whether you achieve that or not, it is going to be whether or not you apply these principles, okay.
So just keep that in mind that, you know, none of us are superhuman, you know, you could run 100 miles if you want to, you could run that ultra marathon, you could lose 40 pounds and keep it off if you really want to.
Okay, the first principle is this. Successful people don’t settle for what’s comfortable. You know, what’s comfortable, everything you already have. If you want to become more, if you want to become anything more than who You are today, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable. You have to go beyond your comfort zone.
But most people never do this. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable by nature, right? That your comfort zone is very comfortable. Outside Your Comfort Zone, not comfortable. It’s unfamiliar. It’s the unknown. And when you start to think about doing something that gets you out of your comfort zone, you start to question that decision, you start to think, what if I fail? You know, what if it doesn’t work? You know, what if I, what if I look stupid doing this? You know, what if I let people down? What if I let myself down?
Yeah, guess what failure is possible, you might fail, you might let yourself down. People might judge you, why? This is not a reason not to do something, though. The reason you do something that’s hard is because it’s hard. It’s not because it’s easy. If success was guaranteed, it’s really too easy. It’s in your comfort zone. If success is inevitable, it’s not pushing you. It’s not causing you to level up, it’s not causing you to grow. It’s too easy.
You know, I’ve I’ve talked to people all the time about goals and stuff, and, and I’ll hear from somebody like, Oh, I really love to run a little bit of a fast or half marathon. Okay. All right. I’m like, why? Why do you want to just run a half marathon? Why not push yourself? Why not run a full marathon? Why not run an ultra marathon? Why not qualify for Boston? Why not do something big?
Why are you just settling for something that you already can do? Why are you not pushing yourself beyond your current limits? You got to go bigger, you gotta dig deeper, if you want to become more. Just doing the same known familiar thing isn’t going to cause you to grow, it’s not going to cause you to level up.
So striving for greatness means going beyond the known beyond the familiar, and it means getting really uncomfortable. If it’s easily achievable. Is it really worth it? Does it cause you to level up? Does it cause you to change? The answer’s no. It really doesn’t. You got to push yourself beyond what you think you’re capable of today. And this process of going after big, impossible goals is that this whole process forces you to become more in the process of going after that goal.
The process itself changes whether you actually achieve the goal or not. So let’s say you decide, you know, you want to train for an ultra marathon. And 50k is a great distance. If you want to get into ultra marathons for the first time. But you could do a 50 miler, you could do a 12 hour run, these are fun 24 hours, see how far you can run in 24 hours. These are timed events, you can do 100k or 100 miles.
But today, you’re not the kind of person that can run 50 or 100 miles, you might only be comfortable running 10 to 15 miles today, right? Today, you are not an ultra marathoner. So the process looks like this: you pick a race, you sign up, you pay for that thing, and you get some skin in the game, and you start training.
The process of training for an event like this will change you in ways that you just cannot imagine, okay? The training alone is very tough. But here’s the thing, the process of doing the training, you’re gonna get really good at being uncomfortable. Just doing the training for an event like this, you’re going to venture into unknown territory, like running 20 miles or running 30 miles at a clip doing back to back 20 mile runs on the weekends, you know, you run 20 on Saturday and 30 on Sunday or something like, right?
The training alone will force you to level up. So when you show up on the day of the race, and you toe the line at the start of that ultra marathon, you’ve already become that badass runner that you worked so hard to become. You’ve made it and it really doesn’t even matter if you finish the race or not at this point.
Now, of course, I’m going to encourage you to actually run the thing and finish it you know, finish the damn race like become that ultra marathoner, but listen, you toe the line at that thing. You’ve done the hard work now you just have to like put the icing on the cake so to speak, right? The process of just going after something like that will change you profoundly.
Training for a half a marathon though, is that going to really change you? Is that something you just keep doing? Because you know, you could do it and it’s comfortable. And yeah, you might shave a minute or two off your time. But don’t settle for that. Don’t settle for what’s comfortable for you. Because you already got all that.
Now, if you’ve never run a half marathon before, and that seems impossible for you today, then absolutely do that. Okay? The point with this is that successful people do not settle for what’s comfortable. I don’t want you to settle for what’s comfortable, either. Do not settle for what you already have, you already have all that stuff, go after something else, something bigger, something that will cause you to level up, something that will cause you to get outside your comfort zone.
Everything you want, but you don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone. So push yourself. See what you’re capable of. Go beyond what’s easy, what’s known, what’s comfortable. what’s familiar, get into that unknown territory, get into the unfamiliar territory, that’s when big things happen for you. Okay. So successful people do not settle for what’s comfortable, they go after the uncomfortable, they push themselves, they level up.
Okay, number two successful people take responsibility for all their successes, and all of their failures. One thing that separates successful people from unsuccessful people is this concept I’ve talked about before here on the podcast, and I call this radical responsibility. What do I mean by radical responsibility?
Radical responsibility means that you take ownership of everything that is happening in your life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the wins, the losses, the successes, the failures, everything. Successful people take radical responsibility for where they are in their life, no matter what. They also take responsibility for where they are not. So if I make progress towards my goal, I did that. If I fail, or if I feel stuck, I did that too. I’m responsible for that, too.
But here’s the thing you know, most people have, most people have stories. Most people have excuses. Most people have reasons, and most people blame others. It’s so easy to blame others when things don’t go as planned. Because when you fail, when you fall off your food plan, when you give up on yourself when you don’t hit your goal. Blaming others is so much easier, so much easier.
And you know what, it takes all the responsibility off of you, because it’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. You know, unless things go well, then it’s like, oh, it’s all me, I did that. Most people are super happy to take all the credit when things go right, and then blame everyone else, and everything that’s going on in their life when things go wrong.
Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you know somebody like this? Is this, you know, have you ever done this before? I have done this before I’ve done this in my past, I don’t do this anymore. Now everything’s my fault. Everything is on me. The Good, the Bad, the successes, the failures, all of it. So what does this look like?
Let’s say you want to lose 40 pounds, and you have a food plan. And you’ve thought about this, you got a well thought out food plan, maybe you worked with a coach and you’ve got figured out a good plan for you. And so you’ve got this plan, and you’re sticking to the plan and things are going okay for a few weeks, and you’re sticking to the plan, you’re laying off the junk food, you’re off the sugar, you’re not eating that processed junk food anymore. You’re getting fat adapted as a runner, running is starting to feel better, you’re losing some weight, things are going well.
And then, for whatever reason, you fall back into old habits, you binge out on a bunch of junk food. Candy, cookies, maybe this goes on for a couple of days, running starts to kind of suck again. Maybe you start gaining weight.
And then you’re like, oh my gosh, why did I do this? And the answer is usually something like this, you’ll start to say well, you know, it’s the holidays, or well the kids are off school now and they really love it when we make these cookies and gosh, things are so crazy at work these days, especially this end of the year stuff so much. So much stress at work. My boss is so demanding or my husband just doesn’t support me.
Oh my gosh, whatever the excuses are, there’s always excuses. They’re always stories. There’s always reasons and all this is just blaming, you’re blaming everyone What else and everything else in your life except for yourself. Everything else is the reason why you can’t stick to your food plan or why you fall into old habits has nothing to do with you.
It is just, you know, you know, everybody’s out to get you essentially, oh, I’d be able to stay on track if it wasn’t for my boss, my husband, my kids, my job, the holidays, the weather, whatever, fill in the blank. Successful people do not do this. They don’t blame anyone else for what’s going on with them. When you take radical responsibility for everything in your life, The Good, the Bad, and the otherwise. There’s no more excuses. There’s no more stories, there’s no more reasons. There’s no more blaming, it’s just you, it’s all your fault.
Whether you succeed, or whether you fail, it’s always your fault. I want to encourage you to start taking radical responsibility for every result that you get, or you don’t get in your life. Starting today. When you do this, you will start making progress towards your goals.
Because listen, everything’s on you. And this is the good news and the bad news. It’s good news. Because if it’s all on you, there’s actually something you can do about it. Because when you blame others, you give away your control. You give away your power, and you’re diverting the responsibility to somebody else.
But when you take the responsibility, you can actually do something about it. And that’s the good news, right? The bad news is, it’s all on you. And now you have to do something about it. So get on that, start doing something about it. Successful people take radical responsibility for everything in their life. So get on that right now. Start taking responsibility.
Alright, the third thing that successful people do, successful people never, ever, ever quit. This is probably the most powerful principle of these three. And the one that separates the successful from the unsuccessful, really, the principle is just do not quit, ever. You might falter. You might fail. You may go backward. You may have setbacks, you may have some disappointments. But no matter what, you keep going, you just keep going.
You never ever, ever quit. It’s like running an ultra marathon. Sometimes you twist an ankle, and you’re hobbling along for a while or you get lost. And you have to backtrack several miles, or you trip and fall. I’ve done all these things by the way, trip and fall and you feel like you can barely walk another step. But you don’t quit.
You keep going no matter what. You don’t stop when things get hard. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You don’t stop when everything hurts. You stop when you are done. Period.
This mentality keeps me going through all kinds of setbacks in my life, personally, professionally, physically. Some years ago, I hurt my shoulder. And I think I did this when I fell during an ultra marathon on a trail. I wiped out, I fell, I put my arms out to brace myself from falling and I jammed my shoulder. And it hurt for years to be honest with you, it hurt for years after that.
But it was never, you know, bad enough to keep me from doing the things I love to do. I kept running, I kept you know, doing some weight lifting and things like that. I pushed through the pain for years until it just kept getting worse and worse and had to finally do something about it.
And so about a year ago, I had an MRI. And it turns out that I had torn three muscles in my rotator cuff. And I had to have surgery, trying to avoid surgery, but I just had to do it. There’s no way these things were going to repair themselves. Okay. So a year ago, I had rotator cuff surgery and the recovery time was pretty significant in several months before I could actually get back into running.
And then when I started running again, it took me a really long time for my running to progress to the point where I felt like, you know, my old strong running self again. And I got to this place last summer back in August where I was feeling really good. And my pace had come back and I was finally at this place where running was really I was feeling really strong in my running again.
And then I was finishing up a 10 mile run and feeling really good about where I was with things. And I happened to be running back towards my house and I was at about mile nine, and I had one mile to go. And I happen to be running down through downtown Cincinnati. And there was a 5k going on. And it was running down the street. I was running up.
And so I was looking at all the people that were running this 5k. And I’m like, because I know a lot of people in the running community. I’m like, Oh, I wonder if I know anybody running this thing.
Well, no sooner did I take my eyes off the sidewalk. Then I just found myself on the ground. I tripped on this big old crack in the sidewalk that I didn’t see. Because I was looking over here at these people running this 5k, totally distracted myself. And couldn’t even get up right away. Like I was, I didn’t even know what happened. Like it happens so fast. You know, at first, I was worried that I had jammed up my shoulder again.
And my hands were really scraped up from hitting the ground. But what was really more concerned when I tried to get up was my knee. My knee was like really painful. So I didn’t think I could run home. I ended up kind of walking a little bit, I did end up kind of jogging at home that last mile. But that night, and the following day, my knee blew up, it was huge. And I had to stop running for a while. So this took me out of running for a period of time.
I tried a couple of weeks later to go for a quick little one miler. And my knee just hurts so bad. Every time I ran, it got worse, it got more inflamed, more swollen. So I just had to take some time off running. So I took like three months off of running, which was really tough, you know, I just got to this place where I was back and had to take time off again.
So now I’m back to running again, I’m building my cardio base, again, is a big setback for me though, right? Because I was feeling so good about where I was. But listen, I’m not giving up. I’m not done here, right. I have big goals for myself for next year. And I refuse to quit just because it’s hard. Or just because it hurts or just because I fell down and busted up my knee. I am not done. I am not giving up. I am not quitting, I will quit when I’m done, which I’m hoping is around the time when I’m about 100 years old.
Honestly, I want to live to about 101. I think that would be really cool to do. So that’s my goal. And I’m going to try to keep running up until that time. So I’ll be watching the sidewalk a little more closely. But here’s the thing, we experienced setbacks, we don’t quit, we experienced failures, we don’t quit, we fall down and bust up our legs. We don’t quit, we keep going.
I know that there are big, amazing things that you want to accomplish in 2023. And I want to encourage you that you do not quit until you accomplish those things. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, you will probably fail. Every success though every success is built upon a big old pile of failures.
How many times have you tried to lose weight? Maybe only to see minimal progress? Or maybe, you know, to see like a little bit of progress on a plateau and then you start gaining weight again. Have you ever done this? Yeah, we all have, right? And then what do you do? You just give up because quote unquote, like that diet doesn’t work? Have you done this before?
Here’s the thing, losing weight is never a linear process. I’ve never seen anybody just lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. And just perfectly like in a straight downward like, like on a graph. It never happens that way. It’s always an up and down kind of a process. Okay. So if you tried some diet and it doesn’t work perfectly for you out of the gate, try something else.
The reason you keep failing at losing weight is that you keep quitting, period. People who succeed at losing weight don’t quit. They never, ever, ever give up. They keep going until they reach their goal. That doesn’t mean they keep doing the same things over and over again expecting different results, they change something, they try something else. And this whole process takes time. It may take months, it may take years. Are you okay with that? You have to be okay with that.
Because the truth is it takes whatever it takes everybody’s a little bit different. Sometimes it takes a while. So just let it be what it is. But where would you rather be a year or two from now? Very, very close to your goal. Maybe you’re just so close to your goal weight you got another five pounds ago or something? Or would you rather be just where you are right now still feeling miserable because you quit after a couple months? Think about that. The only way you truly fail is if you quit. Successful people never ever, ever quit. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.
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