Motivation

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Possible. This is running Lean.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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