Additional menu

Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

Outcomes

208. Remembering Your Future

By

Most people spend a great deal of time thinking about the past. They ruminate over things they did that they regret doing. They replay situations over and over and wish they’d handled things …

Continue Reading about 208. Remembering Your Future →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 208 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, remembering your future.

So most people spend a lot of time thinking about their past. They ruminate over things they did that maybe they regret doing. And they replay these situations over and over and over again, wishing that they’d handled things differently in the past, all their focus, all their energy is on past events. And they spend zero time or zero energy thinking about their future.

This is a mistake. Why? Because you can’t change your past. It’s over, it’s done with. But you can 100% change your future. So that’s a much better place to focus your time and your energy. So this episode is all about remembering your future so that you can make that future your reality.

But first, I talk a lot about losing weight, improving your health, improving your fitness, and improving your running here on the podcast. And I know all of this can feel very overwhelming. If you’re looking for a good place to start, where I’ve consolidated everything and given you some steps that you can take right away.

It’s all encapsulated in a free training that I created called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. In this free training, you’ll learn how to fuel your body properly, so that you can lose weight and improve your running.

You’re going to learn the incredibly important role that strength plays in being a lean healthy runner, you’re going to learn to make mindset shifts that actually help you make all of this stuff sustainable, and so much more.

If you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, to run faster and longer, and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself yet, then you need to check out this free training now. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training.

Okay, on to the topic of the day, which is remembering your future. So most people spend all their time focused on past events, and usually not the positive ones. We’re talking about the negative past events, the things you wish you had done differently, the things that you regret the traumas in your life, the things that that you did wrong, the things that you don’t feel good about.

And this can create a lot of stress in your life. And this stress can become chronic stress. And chronic stress means your sleep is disrupted. And chronic stress leads to not being able to lose weight. And chronic stress leads to your workout suffering and your recovery suffering.

And so we spend all this time and energy focused on our past, the things we did wrong, the things that did not go our way, the mistakes we’ve made the people that wronged us. And we do this, and we seem to not be able to get out of this cycle of focusing on the past. A friend of mine explained it to me like this, he said, imagine you have a plastic bag in your pocket. And inside that plastic bag is some dog poop. And every so often you take out the plastic bag and you open it up and you smell it and you’re like, oh god, that’s horrible. That’s horrible. But then you put it back in your pocket. And then a couple days later, you take it out again, and you smell again. Oh my God, that’s terrible.

Why do we do this to ourselves? One of the reasons is, is because as human beings, we’ve evolved to be really efficient problem solvers. And we want to fix the problems that we’re experiencing in our lives, whether they’re happening to us now, or they’ve happened in the past.

And in fact, we spend a lot of time trying to fix our past. Even though it’s over and done with our brains don’t know the difference between past, present and future realities. And this is important, and I’m going to talk about why it’s important in just a minute. But think about this.

You’re trying to fix problems from your past. You rehearse a scenario over and over and over again in your mind. Because your brain is trying to change that outcome. It’s trying to solve the problem. And I know it doesn’t make sense logically. But that’s just the way our brains are wired.

From an evolutionary standpoint. It served us really well. It helped us to learn how to not make the same mistakes twice. So from an evolutionary standpoint, this is great, it’s helped us. But today, we don’t really need to keep focusing on the past, but we do it all the time.

What you’re hoping to get out of all this ruminating on the past is a different outcome. But you can’t get a different outcome, the past is fixed. So one of the first things you need to do is you need to accept the way things played out in the past.

And I talk about this concept called radical acceptance, where you need to be practicing radical acceptance that this is the way things down. This is the way things went down in my life. This is the way things were supposed to go down.

How do you know it was the way they were supposed to go down? Because that’s the way it happened. You know, things were supposed to happen, because that is the way that it actually did happen in the past.

It’s kind of a radical concept. Because most people live in this fantasy world where they think things should be different. They have zero acceptance of the reality of a given situation. This is very convoluted thinking. And it only leads to your own internal turmoil, your own misery.

So you’re focused on these past events, you wish they were different, you think they should be different. And you don’t understand why you’re miserable all the time, you keep taking the plastic bag of poop out of your pocket and smelling it. And then you’re wondering why it smells so terrible all the time. I love that imagery. I don’t know why, but I just love it. It feels really visceral to me like I really get that.

Okay, so instead, what we need to be doing is spending time remembering, not our past, but remembering our future. Now, this is not a hard thing to do, it doesn’t take a lot of time. But it is an extremely powerful tool that you can use if you want to change who you are.

So you’re this version of yourself right now. And if you have any ideas for changing that version of you in the future, then you need to spend some time imagining what that future version of you is going to be like, instead of focusing on your past things that you cannot change, focus on your future, the things that you can change.

And you might be thinking, well, I don’t know, I’m not really going to change that much. But think about your past, like, there’s a version of you from last year, who is vastly different than who you are today, or five years ago, or ten years ago, that’s a completely different person than who you are today.

Would you agree? Yeah, you’re different today than you were in your past than when you’re in your 20s or 30s, or 40s, or 50s, or whatever.

You’re different now compared to who you were in the past, hopefully better. So there’s also a version of you out there in the future, that is vastly different than who you are today. It could be a year in the future. It could be three months in the future, it could be five years, ten years, whatever.

We are constantly evolving and growing and becoming more as human beings, or at least in my opinion, we should be. So what I want you to do is focus on that future version of yourself. What does that future you look like? How’s your health? How’s your fitness? How’s your running? Are you still running?

How’s your mindset? Do you have a growth mindset? Do you have more of a negative mindset? What do you see when you look at yourself in the mirror in that future version of yourself? Think about your relationship with food and with alcohol in the future. What does that look like?

How are you sleeping? How are your stress levels? How do you feel about yourself in the future? So I want to give you some homework assignments. Say I got two homework assignments for you to do here. Step one is to answer these questions. Write out a detailed version of who you want to be in the future. This can be a month from now three months from now, a year from now, five years from now, it doesn’t matter.

And you can do this multiple times in the future. You can keep changing this because we do evolve and grow and we change as we go and our priorities change. So you can always do this later.

But for now, I want you to focus on writing out a detailed version of who you want to be in the future. What does that future version of you look like? Think about yourself from a health and fitness standpoint, mindset, your relationship with food, with alcohol, with other people. How do you feel about yourself?

All those things, write it down, write it down on a piece of paper, write it in a notebook, write it in a journal doesn’t matter, but write it down, take the time to write as much detail as possible, especially those, those ways that you feel about yourself.

Because when you include emotions, in an exercise like this, it makes the exercise even more powerful. Because in order to create that future version of you, you have to be able to feel what it feels like to be that future version of you. Okay, so just write it all down, spend some time on this, don’t skip this step, do it, they won’t take you that long. Okay, that’s step number one.

I said, there are only two steps, the next step is to practice visualizing that future version of yourself. Visualization is a powerful tool that you can use at any time. But most people don’t use it or don’t use it properly. They spend all their time visualizing their past, like I talked about at the beginning here, right?

You’re spending all this time focused on the past the things you cannot change, the regrets, the mistakes, the failures, right, instead of focusing on this amazing, healthy, fit, leaner, stronger, faster future version of you, you get more of what you focus on. So focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. Don’t keep spending all your time focused on this version of you that you do not want.

Unfortunately, that’s our default. So you have to stop doing that. Gotta break out of that habit and start focusing on the future, you focus on the version of you that you want to become. When you imagine something, and when you imagine something vividly. Your brain and your body don’t know the difference between what’s real and what’s imagined.

Your subconscious mind just believes that whatever you’re envisioning is happening right here. And now it doesn’t know the difference between the real and the imagined. This is why so many elite athletes, and other people in other industries, but elite athletes spend so much time visualizing the outcome of an event, like a race, because it gives them a competitive edge that a lot of other people do not have, because they don’t spend the time visualizing how they want this thing to go.

A lot of elite athletes spend a lot of time thinking about, let’s say, a marathon, and they think about the entire race, they visualize how they prepare how they show up at the start line, they’re pacing the course they spend time, you know, focusing on how they’re going to feel when they crossed the finish line.

And they see that number on the clock, and they feel that exhilaration of finishing, and they hear the crowd and they can taste the salt in their sweat on their lips. And they, you know, they have this visual and visceral experience this emotional experience of of winning a race. And when they imagine it over and over and over again, they spend time every single day imagining this thing, they inevitably will work. Your brain will work towards becoming that version of you, it will work towards that outcome that you’re visualizing.

They did this cool experiment a while back involving students who were basketball players, and they did this experiment with free throws. And there was an Australian psychologist named Alan Richardson. And he was testing this visualization, this mental imagery, and benefiting athletic performance.

So they did this study, they took three groups of students who were basketball players. And the first group practiced basketball free throws for 20 minutes a day, for 20 days. And then they had two other groups. The second and third groups shot free throws on day one. And then on day 20 because they wanted to be able to compare how they did from day one to day 20.

The second group spent 20 minutes every day in the middle there, so they weren’t shooting free throws just on day one and day 20. But in the middle, they spent 20 minutes every day visualizing themselves shooting free throws, just 20 minutes a day visualizing shooting free throws, the third group did nothing in between.

So they just shot free throws on day one and day 20. They compared the three groups at the end of the 20 day experiment. The first group the people who actually physically practiced shooting free throws every single day. They improved their free throws from day one to day 20 by 24%. All right. The third group did not improve at all. They didn’t practice at all, they didn’t do any visualizing in between at all, and they did not improve at all.

The second group who just practiced mental imagery for those 20 days and didn’t practice any actual physical free throws, they improved by 23%, almost exactly the same as the first group at 24%, who was physically actively shooting free throws every single day.

And this is just one example. There are many other examples like this, that show the benefits of visualization on athletic performance, on relationships, on different areas of your life, even your career.

So what I want you to do is practice visualizing that future version of you. It’s a very simple step. But it does require you to spend some time holding that mental and emotional image of your future self, remembering your future over and over and over again, who do you want to become? How do you want to feel?

It doesn’t take a lot of time to do this. And you don’t have to be like, you know, meditating and sitting in the lotus position and chanting or anything like that. You can do this while you’re journaling in the morning, you can do it while you’re showering, you can do it while you’re driving. As long as you keep your eyes open, you can do it while you’re running.

I think this is an awesome way to hold a vision and to get into that meditative state while you’re running. I love being in this state. While I’m running to feel so good. It really doesn’t matter how you do it.

As long as you do it every single day, you need to spend some time every single day holding that vision of your future self. Practice it just like the basketball players practice shooting free throws, practice being that future version of you, and do this every single day.

Now remember, I said you need to write this down, you need to write it down on a piece of paper. The reason is that you should also spend time reading it every day as well. So read it and feel into it every day. So you can just write this out in your journal. And you can look at it every day, just open up your journal and read it every morning. That’s a great way to start your day. And a great way to finish your day, at the end of the night only takes you a few minutes to read through it.

You can write it on a piece of paper and stick it on your computer, your fridge or your mirror. So you see it every single day. I like the idea of writing it out every day. And really, it only takes a couple of minutes to do this, but open up your journal.

And as you start writing your journal for today, just write out you know, here’s my future self. And then just write out how you feel how you want to feel how you want to be how you want to act, what you look like, what you feel like how your health how your fitness is.

And write this every single day. When you write it, you’re you’re doing something very visceral. And you’re cementing this into your subconscious mind. And it’s a really, really powerful way to remind yourself that every day you are on this journey of becoming more. And this doesn’t stop there is no finish line here.

I want to make that very clear here that we are always evolving, we are always growing, we are always becoming more or we should be, and we don’t want to stay stagnant. We don’t want to stay small, we don’t want to stay where we are now, we always want to grow and evolve and become more.

And that process never really stops. It’s a process that continues to evolve. And change and, and blossom as we as we get older as we become more. So we’re going to become that future version of ourselves. And as we are becoming that that will begin to morph and change into that next version. Or we should always be wanting to become more.

So the two steps to this process are number one, know who you want to become. You have to know that and you have to write it down. So you have to be very crystal clear on who that future version of you is. And then number two, spend some time remembering your future.

Remember, visualize that future version of yourself. This is not hard. It doesn’t take a lot of time. It doesn’t take a lot of effort, but it works. And right now is the perfect time to get started with this because it’s the end of the year. We’re about to start a new year. And instead of spending a lot of time and energy reflecting on the past, take that time spend that time and energy focusing on your future and holding that vision for your future self. Okay. Take a little bit of time every day to remember your future. And then every day just do a little bit of work that’s required to get you there.

Take small actions every day that move you a little bit closer to that future version of you and over time all these little tiny steps, they add up to big big changes. Cool that’s all I got for you today, love you all keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon, bye.

189. Shifting Your Locus of Control

By

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 →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to episode 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.

188. The Cycle of Unstoppable Motivation

By

Most people tend to be pretty motivated when they start something. You decide you want to lose weight so you change your diet, and for the first few weeks, maybe even a month or so, you are super …

Continue Reading about 188. The Cycle of Unstoppable Motivation →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 188, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, the cycle of unstoppable motivation. So most people tend to be pretty motivated when they start something.

So you decide you want to lose weight. So you change your diet. And at the beginning, maybe the first few weeks, the first month or so you feel super motivated. You’re tracking your food every day, you’re sticking to the plan perfectly, and you feel good about yourself. You think, man, I’m crushing this.

But then over time that motivation begins to fade, you kind of stop tracking your food every day, you cheat on a few meals, which leads to a few more and a few more. And you just no longer feel motivated to keep going. Have you experienced this? I know I have.

This is the same reason why in January, all the gyms are full, but then in March, they’re empty again. Because people lose their motivation. So today, I’m taking a look at why that motivation fades, and what you can do to keep it going. I’m calling this the cycle of unstoppable motivation, so that you can actually crush your health and fitness goals.

But first, listen, when it comes to coaching programs, there are basically two main types of coaching out there. There’s group coaching, and private one on one coaching. Group coaching is something I do in my program where I lead a group Zoom call a couple times a week. These group calls are beneficial for a couple of reasons.

First, you get more opportunities for coaching to be held accountable, to ask questions and get answers. Second, you get to hear from people in the group who share similar goals and experience similar struggles. It’s very helpful. And third, having the support of the group is one of the main reasons why so many people are successful in my program, because they never feel alone. Right?

They always have this group of people who get it who are right there to help them and support them every step of the way. So that’s group coaching.

And then also, there’s private one on one coaching, this is probably the most powerful part of any kind of coaching relationship. This is where you and I develop your personalized plan, we make sure you’re sticking to the plan. That’s the important part. It’s one thing to have a plan, it’s another thing to stick to it, right?

And then that’s also where we make changes to that plan if necessary. One on one coaching is where you specifically are held accountable for your actions. Did you do what you said you were going to do? Yes, no, why? Why not? Losing weight and keeping it off for good requires a lot of knowledge, support, encouragement and motivation, feedback, accountability. That’s why I created my program the way that I did, because it delivers all of this and more.

If you’re interested, you can learn more about the Running Lean Coaching Project. This is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me.

And if you want a little bit of help getting started with all of this stuff that I talked about here on the podcast, I created a pretty comprehensive training program that you can check out. It’s a video, I think it’s about an hour long.

It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on the Free Training link to get started with that. Cool. Okay, so today I’m talking about the cycle of unstoppable motivation.

So when people set out to do something to make some kind of big change to their health or fitness, you know, like, people will join a gym or they’ll start running or they’ll change their diet. Early on in the process, they feel really motivated. They got all these positive vibes happening. They’re pretty excited.

But over time, something happens. They begin to lose the motivation to keep going. And eventually, they give up and they quit. I know you’ve experienced this in some form or fashion because I think everyone has at some point in their life, right?

Here’s the thing: we use all sorts of external excuses, and reasons why we stopped doing the thing and why we lost our motivation. People will say well, I had a bad week at work and you know, or, you know, the scale just stopped moving or it was really cold outside, so I couldn’t run outside or it was too hot outside, so I couldn’t run outside or whatever.

The bottom line is people lose their motivation and they quit. And they justify quitting with all these excuses, you know, and then they’ll say to themselves, like, why should I even bother, it’s too hard, it’s taking too long, the results aren’t coming fast enough. I don’t think this is working for me. And all of those are just excuses.

Even something like this isn’t working for me, it isn’t working, because maybe you need to change something. So instead of going off track, giving up and quitting, if you want to get results, if you want to improve your health, your fitness, if you want to change your body composition, if you want to lose weight, if you want to gain muscle, if you want to get faster. The only way to achieve this is to keep going, you can’t quit, there’s no quitting, right?

You’ve just got to keep going until you finally succeed. There’s this quote that I love. It’s like,
“Every success is built upon a big ol pile of failures, right?” So even though you think you’re failing, you gotta keep going. But people don’t keep going because they don’t feel motivated to keep going.

But here’s the thing, motivation is one of those things, and I’m gonna explain a little bit more about this in a minute here. Motivation is one of those things that we are responsible for. It doesn’t come from outside of us. It’s something that we create ourselves.

Okay, so if you want to accomplish anything, let’s just say that motivation helps, but it’s not the answer. Like you don’t have to be motivated to go run. I’m telling you what, here’s a good example: this morning, I woke up, I was tired, I didn’t sleep well last night. And for whatever reason, I woke up, and I was really tired.

And I did not want to go to the gym, I had zero motivation for going to the gym, and it was leg day, my least favorite day at the gym. And I was like, I do not want to go to the gym today. And I was saying that to myself, as I was putting my shoes on and as I was brushing my teeth and getting ready to leave the house to go to the gym.

I didn’t have the motivation. But I did it anyway, because it’s something that’s kind of become a habit for me. And while on this topic today, I’m not really talking about habits, that is kind of where we want to get to with a lot of this stuff, we want to build good habits.

Listen, if you want to lose weight, you have to stick with your food plan consistently, you’ve got to develop good habits around that. If you want to get bigger muscles, you have to continually lift weights, you got to get into a good habit around that.

If you want to run faster, you got to practice running faster, and you got to do it consistently. The problem is that most people won’t accomplish what they want for themselves, what they really want for themselves. Because it takes time, it takes time to lose weight, it takes time to get stronger, takes time to get faster.

And the road to getting there is hard. That’s why most people don’t do it. It sucks. Sometimes, today at the gym, I gotta tell you, I did not feel good. That was not fun. But I know that this is a means to an end, like I know that I suffer for an hour at the gym in the morning. And the rest of my day is amazing.

And I’m getting stronger, and it’s improving my running, and it’s improving my body composition. So we just have to understand that those things that we want for ourselves, we have to do them consistently, we have to stick to them. And that’s where this conversation comes in here.

Because how do we stay consistent? How do we stay motivated? How do we keep our head in the game, even when we don’t feel like it? That’s kind of what this whole topic is about tonight. Okay. So the goal of this talk today, this episode, is really to teach you how to make motivation a habit, how to stay motivated, how to stay on track, how to stick to the plan, how to keep taking action, even when you don’t feel like it.

When you get to that place, then there isn’t a question of whether you’re going to go to the gym or not, whether you’re going to stick to your diet or not, whether you’re going to do your speed work or not. You’re going to do it because you’ve created good habits around that. And you feel motivated to do that because you’ve created that motivation for yourself. Okay.

So here’s what I want you to visualize. I teach this to my coaching clients and I’m sharing this with you guys here today. So just so you know, this is one of those things that I teach to my clients but I thought pretty strongly about sharing this with you today.

And one of the things I can’t really show you here, but if you can imagine a visual of a circle with arrows, you know, circling around, like, you know, clockwise arrows circling around the circle. And in the circle, there are four quadrants basically.

And the first one is action. The next one, action leads to progress, which leads to confidence, which leads to motivation, which leads to action again, okay? So just, I want you to be visualizing this, you know.

I have a slide that I, when I teach this to my coaching clients, I have a slide that I use, and it shows this and it gives you a good visual, but just imagine a circle with the words action, progress, confidence, motivation around that circle, okay. I’m gonna explain what all that means here because I think it’s important to understand each one of these steps.

Okay, so the first part of the cycle, the cycle of unstoppable motivation is action. An action is everything that you do. So it’s your behaviors, your routines, your habits, it’s your plan, it’s like making a food plan and sticking to the plan, that’s taking action.

It’s like maybe abstaining from alcohol. So that’s actually something you’re not doing, you’re not taking action, but I’m going to consider that an action as well. Abstaining from alcohol is an action.

Running, you know, sticking to your running schedules, sticking to your resistance training schedule, going to bed early, so that you get a good night’s sleep. So you go, you can hit your workout at four o’clock in the morning, because you gotta do it before you work.

Reading a self help book every day, doing your morning routine, maybe some meditation, yoga, journaling. All of these things are actions. And what’s specific about these kinds of actions is that when you take these actions consistently, you start to get, you start to make progress. And you start to get results.

And the important part of taking action is that you are taking aligned action. So aligned action is actions that are in alignment with your goals. So if you take no action, you’re not going to get any results. I think we can all agree on that. Right? If you take misaligned action, so eating cake for dinner, instead of the salad and the chicken that you had planned, that’s called misaligned action, you’re going to get misaligned results. Results that are not in alignment with your long term goals.

Aligned action will give you aligned results, this will give you the results that you do want. So when you stick to your food plan, and you do this consistently, you will start to lose fat weight, you’ll start to improve your body composition, you’ll start to sleep better, you have more energy, running will improve, all those things, right. So we want to stay in aligned action.

I think we can all agree that this is pretty basic stuff right here, right. But this is where a lot of people will fall off because they stop taking that aligned action because they’re not motivated. So remember, in our circle, we have action, progress, confidence, motivation, which leads to more action and the cycle continues. Okay.

So we need to be taking consistent aligned action, that’s how we are going to make progress. So once you get started with a certain behavior, it’s much easier to just keep going and keep doing it.

It’s much harder to stop and start, stop and start. So for example, let’s say you want to eat healthy and you kind of created a healthy eating plan and you’ve stuck to it for a few weeks but then you went back and forth for a week you went and did you know back to the way you were eating before and then you decide oh, you know what I better go back to eating what I was before.

That’s a lot of work to get back started doing something like that same thing when you take a break from running . It’s much easier to just continue running and keep your fitness level up all year long. Yeah, we train in cycles.

Yes, it’s okay to take some time off here and there, but if we take an extended period of time from running because we just hate it or we don’t feel like it. I’m not talking about being injured but that can apply to you know, but that’s something you may not have as much control over.

So if you take a break from running, trying to get back into running again is really hard and I talk to people about this every day they’re like I just can’t get back into running again. It’s so hard. I took a year off because you know I got injured but then I got better but then I just didn’t feel like running, I wasn’t motivated anymore.

So keeping up and just maintaining your fitness is much easier than stopping and starting. Maintaining your good eating, your diet, your nutrition plan is much easier than starting and stopping. Okay, so we want to stay in action mode, we want to be taking a wind action. And we want to make sure that we are not relying on something like willpower to keep us going. Okay?

Taking action, taking consistent aligned action requires more than willpower, because willpower is like, it’s like a fuel tank, it gets drained as it’s used. So think about this, at the beginning of the day, you have lots of willpower, like you feel pretty, pretty strong and confident that you can stick to all your plans.

But by the end of the day, you’re like you’re tired, you’ve had an exhausting day, you’ve experienced all this stress. And that willpower has been drained that willpower tank is like empty by the end of the day. That’s why so many people just plopped down on the couch with a pint of ice cream and Netflix instead of working out when they said they’re going to work out in the evenings.

And I encourage people to, you know, work out in the mornings, if you can do it first thing in the morning and just get that out of the way, if you can do that. If you can’t, then you got to have more than willpower to get you going. And that’s kind of part of what we’re talking about here.

So really the secret of like creating and starting the cycle of unstoppable motivation is to take aligned action. And you got to take aligned action, even when you don’t feel like it. Example me this morning, putting my shoes on and going to the gym, even though I was like, not excited about it, not motivated, not feeling it. No good vibes happening at all, but I took aligned action, because I know, that’s what I want for myself. Okay.

So number one action, take aligned action, even when you don’t feel like it. What happens when you take aligned action, you make progress. And that’s kind of the second part of the cycle of unstoppable motivation, progress.

When you take consistent aligned action, you make progress. When you don’t take action, you don’t make progress, right? You can’t like lose weight by just thinking about losing weight, or listening to a podcast about losing weight or reading a book about losing weight, like you have to take action, right.

But here’s the thing, once you start seeing some progress, you start to feel good about things, right. Most weight loss principles adhere to the idea that we want to get you making progress from the very beginning and continually keep that progress going. Because that helps you to stay motivated.

Because once you start seeing progress, that progress will lead to the next step, which is building confidence. Okay, but once we see some progress, we want to keep going. We stay motivated when we’re making progress. So when we take consistent aligned action, we make progress. And we stay motivated to keep taking more because of consistent aligned action. Right.

When you make progress, you build confidence. When you make progress, you get results, even though they might be small, like little baby steps. You know, if you start lifting weights at the gym, and you expect to like grow some big giant muscles, it’s going to take some time, like, honestly, if you want to get big, like bodybuilder big, like it may take a couple of years to get there for you.

Which you just have to like understand that that’s the way these things work. And like you just have to commit to that. But progress, even if it’s minimal, we want to celebrate that and continually take action that’s going to lead to more progress. So you take more progress, you create better results, and that cycle just keeps going right? We want to measure our progress, right? So you can’t you can’t track something you can’t improve something that you don’t measure. So make sure you’re measuring progress.

Track your runs, are you getting faster? Track your weight loss, are you losing fat and gaining muscle? Track your strength training, are you getting stronger? Track your sleep, your productivity at work, everything that you want to improve, make sure you’re keeping track of this, okay?

And then also when we’re talking about progress, don’t focus on where you’re not, so don’t focus on well, you know, I really want to run a sub two half marathon. But you know, gosh, I’m at a 2:30 right now. I’ve got so much to go like it’s gonna be so hard to get there.

If you keep focusing on where you’re not though, oh man, you’re just going to be, that’s depressing. You’re going to be very unmotivated, if you’re focusing on where you’re not okay, so focus on the gain. That’s the progress that you’ve made. That’s why we track our progress, because we want to celebrate that and focus on the gains we’re making, even if they’re tiny.

And don’t focus so much on the gap. So let’s say you want to be 150 pounds, but you weigh 200 pounds, you know, you’re gonna be concentrating on that 50 pound gap. And that feels terrible. 50 pounds, oh my God, I got 49 pounds today, oh, my gosh, I got 48 more pounds to go. How about, you know what, I’ve lost a pound a week for the last three weeks. And I feel good about that. Oh, my gosh, that’s great progress, right?

I mean, that’s a very different way of looking at this, okay. So take consistent line action. When you do that, you start to make progress. Making progress helps to build confidence. That’s the next step in the cycle of unstoppable motivation, which is confidence. So confidence is a feeling, it’s an emotion, motivation is a feeling too.

Both confidence and motivation are created by you. These things are not out there. They’re not something that you get from someone else. You know, you might be inspired by somebody else. But you don’t get motivated. Motivation comes from within, you don’t get confidence from looking at what other people are doing, you get confidence because of what you do.

When you do something and you stick to your plan, you build confidence, you build trust in yourself, making progress helps to build confidence. So when you see things moving in the right direction, your confidence builds, you see that things are working, and this feels good. And you’re like, oh, you know, this could actually work, you know, I’ve started losing weight, I’ve started running a little bit faster, oh, man, I might be able to do this, oh, I might be able to hit this weight loss goal. Right.

So just the act of being consistent and taking consistent line action will create a little bit of progress and help to build your confidence. And again, we want to celebrate the wins, we want to focus on the gains, not the gap. So celebrate those successes, celebrate the progress that you make, that helps to build more progress, more confidence. And the longer you stick with something, the more confidence you create.

So keep making your plan and sticking to your plan. Keep planning on your workouts and stick to those workouts, keep planning your food and stick to that food plan. Just the act of being consistent with your plan will help to build confidence. Because honestly, that’s the only way you’re going to make progress and get results.

You don’t get results by being confident you don’t get results by being motivated, you get results by taking consistent aligned action. Okay? Again, confidence is a feeling it’s like this inner knowing that you’re on the right path.

Even if you aren’t getting much in the way of results, but you just know you’re on the right path. So building confidence is one of those things that will keep you in the game, it will keep you on track.

And one thing a lot of my clients have told me is that having somebody there like having me as a coach or the other people in the coaching group there helps them to get through some of the tough spots, helps them to stay on track.

It helps them to make progress and helps them to build their confidence. So having somebody there to hold you accountable is key to like gaining and maintaining confidence to keep you going okay? So you have all this confidence, and this is going to dramatically improve your motivation. Confidence leads to more motivation.

So now you’ve taken aligned action, you’ve made significant progress. This is building your confidence and trust in yourself. An inner knowing that you can do this, which keeps you motivated. Right. So motivation is like a general willingness or a desire to do something. It’s a feeling that drives actions and behaviors in a positive way. So now you feel like taking more aligned action. And then the cycle just continues.

So this is a beautiful thing, this cycle of unstoppable motivation, continually taking aligned action, continually making progress, feeling more confident, feeling more motivated, which leads to wanting to take more aligned action. And that’s it the cycle continues and continues.

And when you’re motivated, when you’re taking consistent aligned action, when you’re making progress, you create momentum. Momentum is what keeps the cycle moving like we want to stay in momentum, we want to keep the momentum going because momentum creates more motivation, which creates more momentum.

So you’ve heard this phrase, probably, “An object at rest remains at rest, while an object in motion remains in motion.” This is Newton’s first law of motion or inertia. So in other words, another way of saying this, and I kind of said this earlier is that it’s much easier to just keep going than it is to stop and start, stop and start, stop and start. Don’t do that.

Get into momentum, and keep the momentum going. Because once you stop, again, it’s really hard to start again. So we want to stay in the cycle, stay in the cycle of unstoppable motivation, which is you’re taking consistent aligned action, you’re making progress, you’re building confidence, you’re, you’re creating motivation to take more aligned action, making more progress, and on and on and on. Okay.

Now, there is sort of a dark side to this, this is the dark side of motivation. And I call this the cycle of demotivation, okay? The insidious cycle of demotivation. So this is where you don’t take action, or you take a misaligned action. What happens there is that it creates a lack of progress, or a regression of backwards progress, negative results, which destroys your confidence.

It creates a lack of confidence, self doubt, uncertainty, pessimism, which leads to a lack of motivation. you’re discouraged, you’re demotivated, which means that you are not motivated to take action. So you don’t take action. And you don’t make progress. And you feel less motivated and less confident. And that cycle just continues and continues, right?

Sounds depressing even talking about it. This is a terrible cycle to be in. So stay out of that cycle. How do you stay out of the cycle of insidious demotivation? Well, the first step is to never get into it in the first place. So, consistently do what it takes to stay in aligned action and consistently stick to your plan.

Just remember that when you’re in this cycle of demotivation, it’s like a whirlpool. It spins faster and faster. Like, especially in the middle. So stay out of the vortex. Like if you’re on the outskirts of this thing, and like you find yourself being pulled in a little bit. Just shut that down as fast as you can.

So that’s like, Oh, I missed a workout. Okay, well get out of this. Get out of the Whirlpool, get out of the vortex. Oh, you know, I had a cheat meal. I just couldn’t give up this donut they had in the break room at work like, okay, next meal, you get back on track, you skipped a workout. Great. Next workout, you’re back on track, stay out of the cycle of demotivation. Right?

Just because you screwed up once it doesn’t mean you’re done. Right? Stay out of that get back into align action as soon as possible. Failure is never final. Just because you screwed up. It doesn’t mean you are done. Right? You pick yourself up again, you look at what you did. Think about what you could do differently next time, and then get back on track as soon as possible.

We never miss two workouts in a row. We never have two cheat meals in a row. Okay, be consistent consistency beats perfection. You’ll never do all this stuff perfectly. Nobody’s expecting you to. I don’t do it perfectly. Nobody I work with does this perfectly. But yet, we all get amazing results. Because we do these things consistently. We are not after 100% perfection. We’re after 90%. Some days 95%. Some days might be 100%. Whatever it is, we want to be just taking consistent aligned action. Okay. So don’t get out of control.

Just, you know, another way of thinking about this is like divide your day up into four quarters. So we have like, early morning, late morning, afternoon, evening. And if you give into temptation, eat some cookies at lunch like okay, you lost that quarter. You lost your afternoon, quarter. No big deal. Now your goal is to win the next quarter. You might lose a quarter, no big deal. Don’t lose the day. Get back on track ASAP when the next quarter.

Losing a quarter will happen. It happens to all of us, okay. Never, ever lose two in a row. Never ever lose the day. Okay. That is how you stay in the cycle of unstoppable motivation. Take consistent aligned action, make progress, get results, feel confident. That increases your motivation to take more consistent aligned action and on and on and on that’s where I want you to be.

You do that, you’re golden. Cool, alright that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.

185. Why It’s So Hard to Stick to Your Food Plan

By

I work with a lot of runners who are awesome at sticking with their running plans. They get up early on Saturday mornings religiously, regardless of the weather outside. They do the required …

Continue Reading about 185. Why It’s So Hard to Stick to Your Food Plan →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 185 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, why it’s so hard to stick to your food plan.

So I work with a lot of runners who are awesome at sticking with their running plans. They get up early on Saturday mornings religiously, regardless of the weather outside, they do all the required speed work every single week, no matter what.

They never miss a workout even when they’re sick. And they should probably take a day or two off. So they’re really good at sticking with this plan, but when it comes to sticking with their diet so that they can lose weight, it all seems to fall apart.

Why is this? Why is it so easy for runners to stick to a very difficult marathon training plan, and it’s so hard to stick to a healthy eating plan? I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot lately. So in this episode, I’m going to explain why it’s so hard to stick to your food plan. And I’m gonna offer up some sound advice for changing this.

Okay, but first, when I first set out to change my diet so that I could lose weight, I did not do things perfectly. In fact, for the first few months, I kept slipping up, I kept reverting back to old eating habits. And I kept getting into cravings that I had for junk food.

And I used to think that every time I got off track, it meant that I was a failure. I thought it meant that I would never get this figured out, I would never lose the weight. I would stay on track for a while and I would slip up and then I would start again.

And I did this over and over and over again. And every time I failed, instead of quitting, I just got back on track as soon as I could. So I never did this perfectly, but I always kept going. I never quit, I never gave up on myself.

So instead of focusing on perfection, I focused on consistency. You won’t do this perfectly either. Actually, spoiler alert, nobody does. Nobody does this perfectly. So don’t aim for perfection. Aim for consistency. The key to losing weight and keeping it off for good is not perfection, but consistency over time.

Practice staying on your plan, practice avoiding those urges to eat junk food, practice being consistent over time, and I promise you, you will get there eventually. And if you want a little help with this, you want a little help practicing consistency, I’m here for you.

Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners.

Okay, why it’s so hard to stick to your food plan? So really, the big key to accomplishing anything that you want for yourself is to make a plan and then stick to the plan, right? This is so simple. It’s such a simple concept.

And if you’re part of my coaching program, you know I say this all the time. And we actually sort of joke around about it because I say it so much. But really, it’s ‘make a plan and stick to the plan no matter what’. That’s it. That’s the key.

And you guys are so good at doing this when it comes to running. You’re so good at doing this when it comes to training for some big event. You know, I work with runners all the time. And they are great with sticking to their running plan, their cross training, their weightlifting schedule, their stretching, all these things are easy. Like they’re like, oh, yeah, I got it. That’s not a problem at all.

But why is it so hard when it comes to food when it comes to sticking to a food plan so that they can lose weight and get healthier, and improve their life in all kinds of ways? It’s so hard. It’s so hard that most people don’t do it. Most people rarely will take the time and the effort to stick with a food plant to where they actually succeed at losing weight and getting healthier and failing, but some people do. And that’s great, but so many people don’t.

However, they are sticking with a running plan. They’re training for a marathon or ultra marathons and they’re great at that, they never miss a workout. So it’s interesting, isn’t it? I’ve always found this to be very interesting.

And I’ve been thinking a lot about this lately. And I’ve and I’ve got some ideas here that I’m going to get into in just a minute, but I just want you to be thinking about yourself. During this episode, think about where you fall.

In this scheme of mindset here, are you one of those people who was really good at sticking with a training program, but not a food program? And if that’s you, this is definitely going to be something you’re going to want to listen to maybe a couple of times, okay.

So we find it very difficult to stick with a food plan, but find it pretty easy to stick with a running schedule. Even though that running schedule, for all intents and purposes is hard, it is challenging, most people would say, oh my gosh, that is such a hard thing, I could never run a marathon, I could never do the work, I could never run an ultra marathon.

So let’s break this down a little bit. So when you are planning to, let’s say, I’m just going to use the running a marathon as our example here at a training schedule, because that’s pretty difficult, something that requires time and, and it is difficult.

So when you have a training plan written out, so you have a training schedule, you’ve planned this in advance, you know, you’ve signed up for something ahead of time, you’ve got all your training planned out, and you are most likely to stick to that training schedule, like your life depended on it, right?

Why is food so different? Why can’t we just apply that same concept to food? Logically, they are very similar things we’re talking about here. They’re very similar undertakings. Training for a marathon is hard. It requires, you know, a lot of hard work, it requires time, so does losing weight, it requires hard work, it requires time, they both require consistency over time.

They both require you to plan things out in advance and stick to the plan. Even if things aren’t, you know, perfect. Even if the weather is terrible, or, you know, you aren’t at home to make dinner for yourself or whatever, we still stay on track, right?

So logically, they require the same things like making a plan in advance, we have structure around that plan, there are steps involved. So for running, it’s your training schedule, this is a structured rigid thing, and it has very specific steps laid out, you’re going to run five days a week, you’re going to do speed work on these days, here’s when you’re doing your long run every week, you’re going to increase your mileage by so much every week, these are your days off, it’s all laid out for you.

And your food plan can be just as structured, in fact, I encourage you to, to create the structure around your food plan the same way you create the structure around your marathon training plan, eat these things, don’t eat these things. Only eat two, three times a day, cut out snacking, you don’t need to be snacking all the time, make protein your priority, eat mostly whole foods.

Stay away from stuff and packages and processed foods and you know, concentrated forms of carbohydrates. Again, this can be all laid out. It can be very structured and rigid. And it can be something that is all laid out. Right? They’re both the same.

And it’s interesting because looking at these two things on paper, they look identical, right? So what’s the big difference? Why is it so hard to stick with food? And I think that a lot of this boils down to your mindset. And here’s what I mean by this.

The mindset required to train for a marathon and successfully finish that marathon is exactly the same mindset that’s required to stick to a healthy eating plan so that you can lose weight. And I bet you’ve never really thought about it like that before because most people don’t.

They think they’re totally different. There are some differences. I’ll get into that in a second, but listen, here’s what’s required. From a mindset standpoint, to be successful at both running a marathon, you know, training for a marathon and running that and finishing it successfully, and losing weight, they both require a plan.

But more importantly, they both require sticking to the plan. And that’s kind of what we’re talking about here is focused on sticking to the plan. So the first mindset standpoint that they’re that they both need is this, this has to be something that is important to you. It matters. There’s a reason why you are doing this.

Why are you running a marathon or why do you want to lose the weight? It’s not just to be healthy. It’s probably to prove something to yourself that you can do hard things. It might be so that you can level up and grow and become more, evolve a little bit as a human being.

Maybe it’s to be an example to your kids. Or maybe it’s because you don’t want to die at age 60. Like, you know, you have a family history of that in your family. And yes, of course, to be the healthiest and most badass version of yourself.

So training for a marathon sticking to your food plan, they both require that same mindset, they are both important to you, it matters or, or it has to you, you have to adopt that same mindset across both. Okay.

The next thing I think you need to make sure you are doing, the other mindset you are adopting is that you have to have a clear end result in mind, what is your goal for this marathon? What is your goal for eating healthy? You need a very clear vision for the outcome that you want for yourself.

I want to finish this marathon, I want to finish it feeling good. I mean, relatively speaking, marathons are hard, and you usually feel pretty terrible at the end of it, but feeling good relative to maybe feeling really bad. Maybe not puking at the end too, I don’t know, maybe it’s to PR, or to, you know, qualify for Boston, that is a very clear outcome that you want for the marathon.

Okay, so what’s the clear goal that you can apply to your healthy eating, what’s the clear end result is it to lose weight is it to lose 40 pounds, is it to just feel better about yourself, to feel good about the body that you are carrying around, to have more energy, to wear those clothes you used to wear, to look better naked?

What’s the end result that you want for yourself? Be very clear about that. Because in order to stick to the plan, you need that clear end result in mind, you have to hold that vision of who you want to become at the end of this process.

Both of these things require a little bit of healthy fear of failure too, so you might not complete that marathon, that’s why you stick to the training plan. Training becomes very important. I remember training for things like my 100 miler that was very challenging.

Just you know, thinking about running 100 miles became one of those things where it pushed me through my training so much because I was failing, I had fear of failure, I did not want to fail, I really wanted to succeed at that.

There’s so many things that can go wrong, or training for an Ironman, lots of things can go wrong there because you’re talking about swimming, and I got kicked in the face, like within the first 10 minutes of being in the water almost knocked me out, gave me a black eye, somebody kicked my goggles and smashed my goggles into my eye socket. And just like really kind of gave me a black eye.

And I was like, oh my god, I could die in the water. I haven’t just started this thing, but you know, being out there on the bike, there’s all kinds of things that can go wrong there. And then, of course, running that marathon at the end of it.

So lots of points of failure can happen in these things that we do for ourselves, right? We can also fail at losing weight. And what does that mean? If we fail at losing weight, we tend to beat ourselves up, it means we’ll never be able to accomplish that, or we’ve tried in the past. And we’re afraid we’re gonna fail again, because we keep doing the same, we keep repeating the same things over and over again.

So there’s a little bit of a healthy fear of failure there. I think it kind of moves you away from what you don’t want, I don’t want to fail. I don’t want to be a failure. I don’t want to not succeed at this. So that’s actually not a bad thing.

Okay, that mindset can apply to both your marathon training and to sticking with your food plan as well. Another principle we need to apply here is that listen, both of these things are hard. They are both challenging, they will be tough to complete. They both require some hard work, some discomfort, some discipline, they both require a little bit of pain and suffering.

There’s pain and suffering involved in training for a marathon. Would you agree? Yeah, I think we would all agree with that. There’s some pain and suffering involved with giving up sugar. Or sitting there when everybody else is eating pizza and you have ordered a salad and you’re just gonna eat the salad that requires discipline, it requires grit, and requires enduring a little bit of suffering.

And then lastly, they both take time, like you can’t train for a marathon in two weeks, right? You just, you know, unless you are you’re already trained up but for most people anyway, training for a marathon takes time. It takes months right? And you can’t lose weight by just sticking with your diet for a couple of weeks. Right? These things both take time, months, sometimes years. years of work to succeed.

I know people who start running, and they’ve never run before, and they’re maybe a little bit older, 30s 40s 50s, whatever they’re like, I’m going to start running. And their goal is to run a marathon, but they know it’s going to take them like 18 months, two years or something like that, before, they’re ready to do that, they’re gonna start with a 5k, and then a 10k, and then half marathon, whatever, they’re gonna work their way up, and they, they plan it out.

And they know that if they stay committed and stay focused, and don’t get injured, that they can run that marathon in 18 months or two years. What if you committed to your food plan like that? What if you just said, you know what, it doesn’t matter how long it’s gonna take, I’m committed to this process, I’m gonna stick to this plan, you’d be a total badass, you’d be like, at your ideal weight, eventually, I don’t know how long it’s gonna take 12 months, 18 months, whatever, it doesn’t matter.

The point is that these things both take time. And so just make sure you understand that and apply that same mindset there. Okay. So I hope you can see that the mindset to be successful at both of these is the same, the mindset to stick to your marathon training program is the same as the mindset of sticking to your weight loss plan to your healthy eating plan.

So then, why is it so hard to stick to the food plan, when you have the same mentality around your training schedule, because you might be saying, oh, well, I do all those things. So we can talk about the addictive qualities of some foods. This is something we do have to consider here, sugar in particular.

So there’s certain foods, we call them hyper palatable foods, they are amazingly delicious. And it makes it hard to lose weight when all these foods are around. You know, it makes it hard to give up those kinds of foods because they light up our brain, they make us feel good.

And even with the right plan, and the right amount of structure around your diet and the right mindset, sugar, hyper palatable foods is a tough one. Every person that I work with has a little bit of struggle when they give up sugar, especially if they haven’t done this before.

So we do this because we want to get out of that addictive state that we’ve been in for a while. So we remove the quote unquote drug (the sugar) for a period of time, and then those cravings go way down. The cravings for junk food go away.

When you give up junk food, the cravings for sugar go away. when you give up sugar, stop eating donuts, and you won’t be craving donuts anymore. Stop drinking beer all the time, and you won’t be craving beer anymore.

And so these things don’t become a big deal after some time, but you’ve got to like have a period of abstinence in order to get to that place. But that’s where freedom comes from. That’s where true food freedom happens. Okay. So there are some addictive qualities of some foods that make it a little bit tougher, I get that part. Okay.

Also, there are a lot of marketing messages around food, like, oh, you can’t have a good time unless you’re eating doughnuts and pizza and drinking beer for breakfast, right? We get peer pressure from the big food corporations from friends and family to eat a bunch of junk food. There’s food pushers in our lives who are like, oh, come on, it’s just a little bit.

Just screw the diet for one day, just live a little bit. Enjoy. Can’t you enjoy your life? Come on. It’s my birthday. So please eat all this junk food with me, you know. And then there’s FOMO of course, which goes along with that.

We have fear of missing out like we feel like we’re missing out on something good if we don’t do what everybody else is doing. Okay, so there’s all that that we have to deal with. It makes sticking to the food plan a little bit more difficult, I get that. Also, food is most people’s go-to emotional management tool.

If you have a hard time coping emotionally without food, then it’s going to be harder to stick to a healthy eating plan. So part of what I do with my coaching clients is that we get to this place where we don’t use food as an emotional management tool anymore. And part of eating a healthy eating, diet or eating plan has to involve not using food to numb out to your emotions anymore. It’s a big part of what we do in my coaching practice.

I help runners to stop using food as a way of dealing with their emotions. And listen, if you’re doing this, if this is something that is an issue for you just understand that we all do it. Everybody uses food as an emotional management tool to some degree, okay, but we want to get out of that habit. You’ve just trained yourself over the years to use food to cope with your emotions. That’s it.

We’ve just got to train you and you can do this right. It’s not impossible to do it. But again, this can be a little bit challenging for people, okay, so there’s a few things here that do make, you know, sticking with a healthy food plan a little bit more difficult. And I get that.

But I think the biggest reason why it’s easy to stick to something like a marathon training plan, but not a healthy food plan is this, you haven’t made the decision. If you want to accomplish anything, first thing you have to do is make a decision that you are going to do it, you have to decide, like really decide.

And if you look at the root of the word decide it means to cut off like, you cut off all other options, except for this one, I am going to do X, I am going to stick to my training plan, I’m going to run a successful marathon. Right, you’ve made that decision. And that’s what you’re going to do.

What about food? Have you made that same decision about food? Probably not, I’m guessing. I know that when I personally make a decision to do something, it’s as good as done. If I say I’m going to do something, I do it, period.

16 years ago, I quit drinking. I wasn’t ready to stop for a long time, I knew that drinking was a problem for me. I knew that I had to stop at some point. But I hadn’t made the decision until I did when I did make that decision to stop, I quit and haven’t had any alcohol since then.

So for me, it’s like when I decide I’m going to do something, I do it. Training for an Iron Man. Once I decided I was all in, I knew I was going to do it. It was hard, hard work during all that training. And the race itself is very hard. But I had made that decision early on. And I did it.

Same thing running a 100 mile trail race. Recently, I sat down and did a 12 hour run and talked about that a few weeks ago on the podcast. I decided to do that back in like November or December of 2022. And I did it in May of ‘23. So I decided six months prior that this is something I’m going to do and I knew I was going to do it. Right.

So you have to make a decision, you made a decision to run a marathon, right? You signed up for it, you paid for it. And you committed to doing that race in your mind that is done. You are all in. So you can do this, right?

So sticking to your training plan, that’s a no brainer, right? Because you’ve already made that decision, you’ve decided I am going to do this, I’m going to run this marathon, I’m going to be successful, I’m going to qualify for Boston, I’m going to PR whatever that is.

So now you just have to make that same decision around food, just decide, I’m going to lose 40 pounds, no matter what I am all in, I’m going to put a plan together and I’m going to work the plan and I’m going to stick to it. And I’m not going to stop until I am successful.

I have decided. I’ve cut off all the other options. No other options. Now I’m just gonna do this. I’m gonna stick to the plan. So make that decision. Yeah, I’ve had this conversation with people, and they’ve told me, but Patrick, I’m stuck. I just can’t decide, I can’t do it. I can’t start. And this is all just BS. This is excuses and stories.

And it’s just you deciding that you don’t want to do it. There is a quote that has stuck with me since I first heard it back in 1980 from the band Rush. And it says this, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

So if you choose to do nothing, you’re making a choice to do nothing. If you decide that you want this for yourself, great. Take action, move forward, but don’t use these excuses about oh, I’m stuck. I can’t do it. I just can’t start.

Think about it like this. I heard another coach use this analogy. And I love it. She was saying like, oh people tell me they’re stuck. And they’re like, oh, I just can’t get up out of this chair. I’m stuck. I can’t get started. I want to go over there. I want to walk across the room, but I can’t because I’m just stuck in this chair. And it sounds ridiculous, right? It’s ridiculous.

But this is what we do all the time. It’s about making that decision and then taking that first step. It’s about just getting up out of the chair, making the decision and then going over there. If that’s what you want for yourself. It’s really that simple. We overcomplicate all of this stuff, okay?

So I hope you understand now why it’s harder to stick to your food plan. Yes, there are a few things that make sticking to a healthy diet a little more challenging than sticking to your training plan. But at the end of the day, I think it boils down to making that decision, decide what you want for yourself, make a plan, and then stick to the plan no matter what.

And that is also the important part is that very last little no matter what, because things will go awry. Your plan will meet challenges, obstacles will be in your way, all the time. This is called life. And it just happens. And that’s okay, we still stick to the plan, or we do our best, you know, plan, plan, plan, plan, plan, and then go with the flow and do the best you can. Right.

But if we decide that we’re going to stick to the plan, no matter what this is, this is all you got to do, is make that decision. Okay, that’s it. That’s how easy this is. It’s not that easy, but it is simple. It’s a very simple concept. Make the decision, make the plan and then stick to the plan no matter what. Okay.

And if you want a little bit of help getting started I’ve got a great training program you can watch for free. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training to get started. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.

184. The Incredible Power of Focus

By

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 …

Continue Reading about 184. The Incredible Power of Focus →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

106. A Powerful Way to Start Your Day

By

It’s a new year and there’s all this talk of goals and dreams and what you want to accomplish in the year ahead. But without the right mindset, it’s extremely difficult to create the kind of big, …

Continue Reading about 106. A Powerful Way to Start Your Day →

Podcast Transcript

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.

Hey there, and welcome to episode 106 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today, I’ve got a powerful way to start your day. I love how that rhymes. So it’s a new year. And there’s all this talk of goals and dreams and what it is you want to accomplish in the year ahead. But without the right mindset, it’s extremely difficult to create the kind of big permanent changes that you want for yourself.

Whether you want to lose weight, become a faster runner gets stronger, or just become the healthiest you yet I want to help you to develop the right mindset, the mindset that is absolutely required to get you there. So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to share a very simple mindset exercise that when done consistently, when done every day can be an incredibly powerful way to start your day and help you achieve all your goals.

But first, if you like this podcast, you got to come check out the Facebook community. This is the Running Lean Community on Facebook. We do some weekly coaching and training in there, we get tons of encouragement and support from runners that are just like you, we have fun. We just finished up our running through the holidays challenge and everybody had an amazing experience with that. Lots and lots and lots of great feedback from that. So definitely come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook.

And then listen, the most powerful way to hit all of your health and fitness goals is to really have someone there guiding you every step of the way, helping you to overcome your struggles, showing you things about yourself that you just don’t see holding you accountable, and keeping you on the right track. This is what I do as your coach. And I’d love to work with you here in the new year and help you absolutely crush all of your health and fitness goals in 2022. I want to encourage you to take action.

If this is something you’ve been thinking about for a while, I want you to stop thinking about it and just do it. Take action on yourself, invest in yourself in 2022 and make this the year that you finally become that lean, strong, badass runner that you’ve always wanted to be.

You can apply for coaching over at runningleanpodcast.com/apply and I’d love to see over there. And then in the Running Lean coaching group this month, this is another way to get some coaching – in my group program we’re doing a weight loss is our focus for January. So we’re doing the eight pounds down challenge. And so we’re into week number one people are having some great experiences. It’s not too late to join, we’re going to show you exactly how to become a fat-adapted runner and lose weight and hopefully get to eight pounds down by the end of the month. That’s the goal. That’s kind of what we’re challenging and pushing each other to do this month over there.

Okay, this is a good time to get started with this thing because we’re, you know, not quite in a marathon training season yet we’re still kind of in the offseason we’re just getting started with that. So it’s a good time to get fat-adapted and be able to crush your spring marathons. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join if you want to learn more.

Alright, so let’s get into this topic today. This is something that one of my coaches shared with me and I wanted to pass it along to you guys because I thought it was so powerful. I’ve been getting a lot of good results by practicing this little daily mindset exercise and I want to share it with you guys.

So first of all, why do we need to work on our mindset? Like why is this something we actually have to do? Aren’t you just supposed to have the right mindset? And listen, no, no. Mindset is not something you have or don’t have. It’s something you learn it’s a skill. If it’s a skill, that means you got to practice it right. That means you can get better at it.

And if you don’t practice it you’ll probably not have a good mindset and so in order to just like building muscle at the gym, right if you want to get stronger muscles you got to go lift heavy things at the gym right? Getting a stronger mindset requires a similar approach. You have to work on it.

You have to, you know, work on your thoughts, your feelings and things that you believe about yourself and believe about the world, you have to challenge yourself, you have to push yourself mentally, emotionally, just the same way that you do have to push yourself physically if you want to, you know, become a faster runner or build bigger muscles, right? So we have to work on our mindset, okay.

One of the most powerful ways of working on your mindset, in my opinion, is journaling. And some people think that journaling is just stupid, and it serves no purpose, and it’s pointless, and they feel stupid doing it. And that’s okay if you think it’s dumb. You don’t have to do it. Okay.

But I just have to tell you, the people that do this on a regular basis, are achieving at a higher level. They’re building mental toughness, they have a much more sort o well thought out and more powerful mindset. They got a mindset game going on. Okay.

So I just want to encourage you, if you’re one of those people that thinks journaling is pointless, I want to encourage you to kind of reconsider that and give it a go. And listen, journaling doesn’t have to be, you know, like, oh, dear diary, you know, here’s what Billy said to me today. No, it can be, it can be very specific and done in a very specific way, right?

I’ve talked about this before, we can do things like thought downloads, where you just get everything that’s going on in your head, all the thoughts in your head, and just get them out on the page. That right there can be a powerful way to start your day, that can be a powerful way to just get the junk out of your head and see it on the page and see what you’re actually thinking about.

Like what are the big thoughts that are just kind of swirling around in your head, we can become very overwhelmed with our thoughts. You know, I think we think something like 60,000 thoughts a day, 60,000 thoughts a day. And what if you just put some of those down on paper, and you could actually see what’s going on up there.

It’s kind of like a little snapshot of what’s going on in your brain. I love the thought download. And I kind of do this every single day. That’s kind of the way I start my day. There are other types of journaling you can do, which is you know, doing like a training log, you could do a training log for running, or resistance training, I highly recommend this, you know, to keep track of your runs, how you felt, timing, pacing, how you felt before and after, the weather. You can just like record all kinds of things, heart rate data, that kind of stuff.

And in resistance training, obviously, you need to log your resistance training, see how you’re feeling during those workouts, and keep track of your weights and reps. So you can see that you’re making progress, okay. But journaling can also be just like writing down daily goals and objectives. Okay?

So it can be like a food journal where you’re writing down things you’re eating just to keep track and create some awareness around that. It could be an exercise journal, where you’re creating awareness and helping you to make good progress then in that way, but it can just be whatever you want. Okay. Now, I’m not talking about journaling in general today, but I just wanted to mention that journaling can be a very, very powerful mindset tool. Okay.

So, right, just writing in general, is one of the best ways to build a stronger mindset. Okay. Some of the benefits of journaling, and doing some writing every day. It helps you to review your past and be honest. So it helps you to kind of, you know, you can recap the past day or the past week, and you can say, like, here’s what actually happened.

Journaling actually helps to reduce stress and anxiety, it’s been shown that people that do journaling, have less stress and anxiety, which is awesome. It creates a massive amount of self-awareness because like I said, you’re starting to create, you’re creating self-awareness by looking at what you’re thinking about, right? You’re sort of like, it’s kind of meta, you’re kind of thinking about what you’re thinking about. But it’s important to write it down, not just like, think about it in your head because when you write it down, you start to see things in a much different way. And it starts to really bring things into your consciousness that you may not be aware of.

Journaling can help you to make progress towards your goals. It can help you identify weak areas so that you can improve them. Journaling helps to boost motivation, helps you to stay motivated, helps you to stay on track, with whatever goals that you have. It’s been shown to help improve focus and concentration. And it just helps you to kind of see the bigger picture and get some perspective on what’s going on. Okay. There are no real rules around journaling. And you can do it any way that you want, but I just want to encourage you to get into some sort of daily journaling, practice okay.

Now I have a very specific little exercise a journaling exercise that you can begin to do to kind of add to your daily journaling practice if you’re already doing it, or if you’re not doing any journaling at all, you can start with this because it’s super, super simple and very powerful. So there aren’t really any rules about what to do or how to journal, okay? But having a purpose, and having an intention for your writing for what it is that you’re actually putting down on the page can really make this daily act of writing much more impactful.

Okay, we’re talking about creating a mindset and working on your mindset and improving your mindset. And it requires daily practice, just like lifting weights, if you want to get stronger lifting weights is your daily practice. Journaling can be your daily practice to work on your mindset, okay.

And so what I’m going to share with you today is one very simple writing exercise that you can do every single day, it’s going to give you one thing to focus on every day. One simple mindset exercise that can help you to create powerful results in every area of your life. Okay. And this little exercise is called the word of the day.

So it basically works like this is so simple it’s not even funny. Okay, you just pick a word each day, you write it down. And then you write about that word, you write about what you might do today, to embody that word. And that’s it. It’s super simple. I love simple things. It’s very powerful.

Two words can be life-changing, right? How many big events in your life could be summed up with just one word? Words like divorce, cancer, or injury or illness or failure or disappointment? All of these words describe powerful times of pain and suffering and despair in your life. Right?

And, and when you hear one of these words, or you say one of these words out loud, it sort of brings all those emotions from that time from that event, from the past that brings it all right back into the present, right?

What about positive words, positive words that describe good times, where it’s like marriage, birth and promotion, and PR, and it’s not a word, but close enough vacation, joy, accomplishment; these positive words can bring those good memories and those good times right back into your consciousness right back into the forefront of your mind. And they can help you to kind of get through some of the tough times in the present. Okay?

So words are very, very powerful, right? And so what we want to do is we want to sort of hack into this little process of using words in a powerful, positive way. So you’re going to pick a word each day, you’re just gonna write about it.

So how do you pick the right word? How do you know you’re picking the right word, there’s no right or wrong way to do this, okay? And if you’re doing this every day, let’s say you, you decide you’re going to do this for a month, or you can do it for a year or a week, whatever you want to do is fine.

But you’re going to have a whole bunch, there are so many words out there, there’s a lot of words out there like you’re not gonna really need to worry about not finding a word, okay? But I just want you to focus on whatever sort of comes to mind or whatever you might need in the moment. So for me, when I’m sitting there, and I’m thinking about like, what word should I make my word of the day here?

I might be like, so I listen to a lot of books and podcasts, and I read a lot. And sometimes I see a word or hear a word over and over again. Or maybe when I’m talking with my clients, I’ll hear a word and I’ll hear the same word like three or four times in a row or three or four times in just a couple of days. And that’s like a little alarm for me.

It’s like a little sign that I need to pay attention to that word, okay? So, there’s no real right or wrong way to pick a word and there’s no right or wrong words here. Okay? We do want to pick words that inspire action, like sit.

So here’s a couple of guidelines for you pick a word that inspires action, because you’re going to be using your word, to inspire some sort of action, some sort of change in your behavior, something that you’re going to do differently. Or something that you’re going to do today.

So even a word like rest can inspire action if resting is what you need today, maybe you need to rest physically, mentally, emotionally, that’s a great word. And it could be just like, I’m just going to rest, you know, I’m going to spend some time not doing anything, that would be a great word of the day for you if that’s what you need in the moment. Okay?

The other thing is you don’t have to pick a different word each day, you can reuse words. You know, I’ve got some examples that I’m going to share with you guys where I’ve, you know, basically, I’ve been doing this for a few weeks now. And I just wanted to share with you some of the words that I chose.

So you can like reuse words, you don’t have to use the same one every single day. But just pick something that you want to focus on for that day. Okay, so let me give you my examples. And this might help to clarify all of this for you. This is a really fun and really simple exercise, and I think you’re gonna get a lot out of it, I just want you to try it, I want to encourage you to give it a go.

So here are some words that I wrote down. And I’ll give you a little bit of a little, you know, I’ll explain each one a little bit and just tell you kind of like what I did each day, or how I wanted to embody that word each day.

So the first word was strength. So this for me meant that, okay, so I, you know, started this after my shoulder surgery. And so strength for me was like, showing strength in the face of pain, showing strength in the face of like being tired, feeling weak, to do what I needed to do to do my physical therapy exercises, which hurt to build a little bit of strength every single day. So that was kind of like a word that I needed in that moment. And I embodied that word in that day. So I did things that day, that embodied the word strength, and to build a little bit of strength, that data was really helpful for me.

Another word I chose was action. Like just getting into action and getting things done. I wrote this down, because I had a lot to do over the holidays, I had a lot of work to do. And I was feeling like, Man, I need to get all this stuff done. How am I going to get all this done? And it was just like, the word that popped into my mind was action. And so I just got into action, you know. And it’s one of those things where, for me, I am all about, like, you got to take action, even when you don’t feel like it. And maybe I just wasn’t feeling it at the time. So writing this word down really got that ingrained in my brain, I was just like, I need to just take action, get all this stuff done. And I did, which was awesome.

Another word I picked was vulnerable. So for me, asking for help putting myself out there, you know, telling people how I’m feeling, even though I may not be feeling very supportive makes me feel very vulnerable. You know, I’ve had some bad moments over the last month or so I’ve had some tough days, you know, and sometimes it’s hard for me to, like, share that with people and say that I’m having a hard time, or to ask for help, like, I need help doing things sometimes. But I’ve just been sort of embracing that and being able to ask for help and being vulnerable. And it’s very powerful to do that. Right.

Another word I picked was heal, like just to, you know, to give my body the rest that it needs to heal properly. To slow down. I think I wrote this down, because, you know, I started to get into some action. And I started to like, you know, do more exercising and taking more walks and things like that I can’t do a whole lot still.

But I think I may have overdone a little bit. And I was, you know, creating some stress in my body, you know, and the stress that I was creating was kind of making things worse for me, you know, I needed to slow down I need to rest a take care of myself. And I needed to give myself a chance to heal this long process of this recovery from this rotator cuff surgery, right? So it’s going to take a while. And I have to give myself the time and the space to heal. So I spent the whole weekend just like resting last weekend, which was amazing.

Another word I picked was clarity. So for me, this is one of those words that I heard over and over again. I just kept hearing it. I heard it on a podcast. I heard it from clients. And I was like, ‘Well, I think I need to write this word down. So what does this mean for me?’ I was like, ‘What is clarity?’ What do I need clarity around and really for me, it was like, I needed clarity around this vision.

I need a clear and focused vision of who it is I want to become. It’s being able to see and feel very clearly my future self. It’s like having this sharp and focused image of who I’m becoming. That’s what that meant for me. You know, so I spent some time getting clear on my goals getting clear on who I want to become in 2022.

Another word I picked was discipline. So for me, discipline is like suiting up and showing up to do what needs to be done. Even though I don’t feel like it, right? Motivation is great. But discipline will beat motivation every single time. You know, motivation is a feeling. So you got to have that feeling in order to like, take action. But discipline is doing it despite feeling motivated, right.

So for me, discipline was like, I need to do some things that are going to move me towards that future version of myself, right? It means I need to do what needs to be done here, not what I feel like doing. And I think at the time, I didn’t want to go outside. It’s like, I don’t want to go outside and take my walks, it was cold. I wrote this a few days ago, it was like 21 degrees outside. And I just didn’t feel like it.

But I was like, dude, discipline is what you need here. So I put on my coat, put on my hat, and just went outside and took my walk. And I was still in pain. And it was still, you know, cold and whatever. But I enjoyed it. And I showed myself that I can do it and was practicing discipline which got me out the door. Okay.

And then the last word like I’ve been doing this every day. And I’m just picked a few words for you guys here. But the last word I’m going to share with you today is impact. And this is this was my word for the day. And it’s also my word for this year like impact is the word that I’m choosing to embody for 2022.

And I have had to think about this recently, like, what is the impact that I want to create in the world? You know, what am I doing today to create that impact? Am I doing something today that’s helping to create that impact? Right? So how can I make a bigger and more powerful impact in this world, that’s my goal.

You know, my mission is to be an example of what’s possible and to inspire those around me to do the same. And that’s what I mean by impact. I’m being an example of what’s possible, and I’m inspiring you to be an example of what’s possible, and then you’re gonna inspire others.

And it’s a ripple effect. It’s a ripple effect of positivity. It’s a ripple effect of health. And feeling good. That’s the impact that I want to make. And so it’s very easy for me to see like, what am I doing today, to make that kind of an impact? Okay.

So I want you to take action on so I want you to like, get into action with this little simple mindset exercise. Try it for a week, try for a month tried for the year. My goal is to do this every day for this year, right every day. So I do some writing every day. And I’m just adding this into my journaling practice every single day. doesn’t take any extra time.

But for me, it’s just like, I look forward to this every day and like, ‘Ooh, what, what word can I sort of embody today? What area of my life do I need to improve today? What do I need to focus on today?’ And all I feel like I’m just starting each day with more purpose and more direction, and more intention and more focus.

And I’m going to tell you this right now, that if you do this every single day, you know, over time, it is going to dramatically alter the direction of your life. Because you’re treating each day as an opportunity to move a little closer to your goals. You’re treating each day as an opportunity for you to become that future version of yourself. And when you practice this every single day, and when every day you’re moving just a little bit closer to who you want to become. Little by little, you will eventually get there. Try this I think you’ll love it. All right, you guys love you all keep on Running Lean. 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.