111. Thinking Beyond Your Current Self

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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