124. Back to Basics: The Thought Model

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 124 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today is another episode in the Back to Basics series. And today I’m talking about the thought model. So most people don’t realize that their thoughts are actually responsible for every result they’re getting or not getting in their lives. They blame other people. And they blame their circumstances for their inability to stay on their food plan or for their lack of motivation.

They have all kinds of stories and reasons why things just don’t ever work out for them. But I’m going to argue that this is a pretty crappy way to go through your life. Instead of being a victim of your circumstances. I want to talk to you today about how to take back control. So today I’m going back to the basics. I’m going to explain the thought model, I’ve talked about this before. But I want to explain in a bit of a different way today.

And I’m gonna show you how this is one of the most powerful coaching tools that I use in my coaching practice. And it’s also something that you can do on your own. And it’s a way of getting back your control. And so that you can get the results that you really want in your life. This is a very, very important concept, one of the most important concepts that I teach that I work on with my clients. And so I want to go over that with you today.

And this whole idea of like changing your thoughts, or you know, your thoughts or creating your results, and like how do we change this? How do we change our thoughts so that we can get better results? It’s a pretty simple concept. So I’m gonna go through this today, and you’re gonna understand, you’re going to understand this, like, theoretically, you’re going to understand is pretty simple, right? You just got to kind of change your thinking. But it’s not easy.

It’s one of those things that it’s simple, but not easy, okay. And it really takes three things to get better results in your life. It takes a commitment. It takes discipline, and it takes consistency. It takes those three things if you want different results. So if you’re ready to make that commitment to yourself, if you’re ready to be disciplined to show up and do the work, and if you’re ready to stay consistent, then you’re ready for the Running Lean Coaching Project.

This immersive coaching program includes group coaching, one-on-one coaching and all the knowledge support and the accountability you need to stay on track. You’ll learn what to do, you’ll learn how to do it, exactly what to do, you’ll learn all the tools and skills you need to stay on track and to stay consistent. Most importantly, you’re gonna learn how to make these powerful shifts in your mindset. So that you can create new habits, you can create new habits that feel easy and effortless, and that last for good.

I would love to help you with this, I would love to teach you exactly how to change your thinking. So you can get the results that you want, so that you can lose the weight , so you can get more fit so you can become a faster, stronger runner. If you’re ready for some change. If you’re ready for realistic lifestyle changes, shifts in your mindset and sustainable results. Then you’re ready for the Running Lean Coaching Project. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply.

To get started, you’ll fill out a short application, ask you a few questions, and you’ll schedule a zoom call with me which is free by the way. We’ll talk about your goals and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. And I would love for you to join us in the Running Lean Coaching Project. Cool.

So let’s get back to basics. Let’s talk about the thought model. Okay. I’m very excited about bringing this to you today. And I talk about this every single day, sometimes with one of my clients or more every day we talk about this. And it’s one of those tools that I have in my coaching tool belt that I think is one of the most powerful and when you understand this, and when you start living it you’re gonna see how powerful it is too, okay.

This has been one of the most life changing concepts that I have ever learned that I have used myself, and that I now, you know, use extensively in my coaching practice, okay? And there’s no secret here, this isn’t some secret thing. I’m going to explain how this works and how you kind of use this to get better results in your life. But I want you to apply this.

So be thinking about that, as I’m talking through this today, be thinking about how you can apply this in your own life. I’ll give you some examples and stuff. But think about how this stuff would apply to you in whatever you’re going through right now, whatever your goals are right now, whatever results you’re wanting to change right now. Okay.

So what is the thought model? I’m going to break it down, then I’ll and then I’ll dig into it a little bit deeper. The thought model is basically this. There are circumstances that happen around us, that’s just our circumstances, our circumstances are basically neutral. They’re neither good nor bad. Our circumstances don’t mean anything to us until we assign meaning to them. So that’s our thoughts.

Your thoughts are how you interpret the world around you, okay. And those thoughts will create feelings within you. Those feelings drive your actions, your actions, create your results. So the results that you get in your life is basically, you know, your reality. So your thoughts, if you really want to extrapolate this out, your thoughts create your reality. And this isn’t some like woo-woo thing, this is like, just the way it works, right?

This is, and it’s not some crazy fringe idea that just happened with this, like new age of thinking or something, this has been around for centuries, for thousands of years, right? The Greek and Roman scholars, the Stoics, started talking about this extensively. Epictetus was a Greek stoic philosopher from you know, he lived around 2000 years ago. And one of the quotes I love from him is that, “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” I’m going to say that one more time, because I love this. “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”

Think about that. That’s some powerful stuff right there, no matter what’s going on out there. You get to determine how you respond to what’s going on out there. And then Marcus Aurelius, he was another stoic philosopher and Roman emperor and lived around the same time around 2000 years ago. And I love his work and have been reading through, you know, his meditations. And we’ll just kind of pick a random, you know, passage and read through it.

But here’s a couple of quotes that I love from him. And this is from Marcus Aurelius. And he says, “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” What I know, it’s crazy, right? That they were thinking about this and talking about this so far, in the past and in ancient history.

And then another quote of his is, “Our life is what our thoughts make it. Our life is what our thoughts make it.” So your thoughts create your life, your thoughts create your reality. And more recently, in psychology, there is this law of philosophy, or a, I don’t know a concept called CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy. And CBT focuses on challenging and changing, you know, what’s called cognitive distortions.

So these are thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes, and their associated behaviors, to develop better emotional regulation, your feelings, right, and develop personal coping strategies that seek that target solving current problem. So basically, what CBT is, is that your thoughts create feelings, your feelings, drive your behaviors or your actions. And then your actions will create, you know, you can solve problems or create problems based on the actions you’re taking.

So all this stuff, just lines up beautifully to gather. So this is not some weird fringe thing that like I came up with or whatever. And then there’s a couple of people that I’ve followed and read books from and like Byron Katie, she uses a very similar model of thought called, she calls it the work and she has a slightly different take on it.

Brooke Castillo. She’s the owner of The Life Coach School. I consider her one of my mentors. She teaches this very thoroughly, and she just calls it the model. And that’s her interpretation of it. But really, this is all the same stuff. This has been going around for thousands of years. So, in my coaching practice, I use this extensively. And I use many tools to help people get results, right?

This is what coaching is all about. When you think about it, this is a very, like, basic explanation of this, but like therapy kind of focuses on the past, you know, in general, and coaching, life coaching, the kind of coaching that I do, focuses on the future. therapy focuses on okay, why have you become who you’ve become up to this point?

And my coaching kind of focuses on, okay, here’s who you are today, how do we get to become who you want to be tomorrow. And so we kind of have a more forward focus, instead of being past focused, okay. And that’s where this thought model really is very powerful. Because you can, you can use it to change your current thinking, your current emotional state, your current behaviors, and start creating better results for yourself today.

And it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past, we don’t really look to the past much in coaching, okay? we’re more focused on what can we do today to start changing our future and get better results? Okay. So that’s kind of the basis of where this came from, and what it’s all about, let me get into the details of how this works a little bit, okay.

So again, circumstances are neutral in our lives. And, you know, the things that are happening around us the things that are happening, or happening outside of us really don’t mean anything until we assign meaning to them with our thoughts. Okay. So once we have a thought about something that thought typically creates a feeling within us, and that feeling will drive our actions.

So whatever you’re doing something or not, is based on how you feel, then of course, your actions create results, you don’t get results without taking action. Okay? So let’s break this down. Circumstances: this is the stuff that’s happening outside of you. It’s the stuff that’s happening in your life.

So what’s going on at work? What’s going on at school? What’s going on in the household? So when you’re driving around in traffic, and so what’s going on everything that’s not you? Those are your circumstances, okay? It may even feel like you know, it’s your, you know, your spouse who’s you know, very deeply connected to you, but also not you.

Okay, so your spouse is still something that is a circumstance, it’s outside of you. The only things you have control over are your own thoughts, feelings and actions, what you think how you feel and what you do, you don’t have control over the circumstances in your life. Pretty much, pretty much the only thing you have control over is your own thoughts, feelings and actions. So circumstances, all that stuff out there is always neutral. It just is what it is.

It’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s not right. It’s not wrong, typically. And your circumstances really don’t mean anything until you assign meaning to them. This is very important. The circumstances in your life doesn’t mean anything until you assign meaning to that with your thoughts. Very, very important to understand these circumstances are neutral.

People blame their circumstances for their behavior, they blame the economy for their lack of financial, you know, well being, they, they look at the weather for how, you know, they’re they don’t feel like running, you know, they look at, you know, their situation at work for why they can’t, you know, maintain their food plan or whatever. These are also circumstances that don’t mean anything. Right?

Stop blaming your circumstances for your behavior, stop blaming your circumstances for your lack of results doesn’t work that way. People love the blame game. They love to blame everything that’s outside of them for their behavior. So they don’t have to take responsibility for it. Because it’s way easier to do that, right? This bugs me. It bugs me. Take responsibility. Take responsibility. When you understand that your circumstances are just neutral and that you know what you do or don’t do is based on your own thoughts and feelings, this changes the game. You cannot blame anybody else anymore.

In fact, I’m going to tell you right now, if you’re listening to this, and you understand this, which I hope you do, you will by the end of this episode, I’m sure you will. You can no longer blame me or anybody else for your lack of results, okay? That’s just the way it is. Okay? Because it’s just not, it doesn’t work that way that just doesn’t work that way.

But we do it, people do it all the time. Because it’s easy. It’s easier to blame other people that we can, I can’t lose weight because of you know, this is the way it is. Never works for me. Or the you know, boys, you know, I’m stressed out right now, because it works. So can lose weight. But it just keeps you stuck. You don’t get what you want, you don’t ever change, you don’t grow. Keeps you small and safe and comfortable. Yeah.

But that’s not what you want for yourself, right? If you’re listening to this right now, it’s because you want more for yourself, you want to become more, you’re not going to become more by blaming other people for where, where you are. So this is where we need to, like, stop blaming, stop looking at our circumstances as meaning anything. So your circumstances only mean something if you assign meaning to them, okay?

Very, very important; circumstances in our life are neutral. Everything that’s happening outside of us is neutral, doesn’t mean anything until you have a thought about it. So what are your thoughts? Thoughts are just sentences you say in your head, right? You experience thoughts in your mind, in your head. Your thoughts are basically that voice in your head. And for most people, it’s your own voice.

Have you ever thought about that before? Like your thoughts are in your own voice? I think that’s kind of cool. Now, if you’re hearing other voices in your head, that might be a problem, you may have to like seek some professional help for that. Typically, we hear our thoughts in our head in our own voice, okay. But if you’re hearing other voices telling you to do stuff, then I think maybe that could be problematic. Just saying, go get yourself checked out.

But our thoughts are just the sentences we say in our head. This is just like the chatter in our in our, in our minds, right? It’s the stories that we tell ourselves about what’s happening. It’s the way we interpret things. It’s the meaning that we assign to stuff. And your thoughts can be, you know, things that you believe to be true, because you’ve been thinking them over and over and over again for decades.

And, you know, when we put together lots of beliefs, that can become a whole belief system. And that’s a whole nother thing that’s like, really deep seated thoughts is all it is, and just systems of thoughts that you just kind of, you know, you put them all together, and they mean this, you know, but your thoughts are just your thoughts. That’s all they’re not true or false, necessarily. They’re what you believe to be true for you.

But the same thing is not necessarily true for somebody else. This is very important, like your thoughts are just about you. Your thoughts are only true for you. And when we extrapolate all this out, your thoughts actually create yours, your reality. And I’ll talk more about that in a second. But I just want you to understand that your thoughts, create your results, your thoughts are actually responsible for, you know, whether you’re getting what you want in your life or not.

So your thoughts are very important. So I call this the thought model, because it’s so much based on your thoughts. So it’s not what’s happening out there, that matters. It’s not the circumstances that matters. It’s how you perceive those circumstances. It’s important. It’s how you interpret it, it’s the meaning that you give to it, it’s the way you respond to what’s going on around you that really matters.

Okay, so let me give you a quick example, a couple examples here, of how our thoughts can be very different and create different realities for people. And so I was just at the beach, I love going to the beach, and I take a trip every year. And I love this place down in Central Florida that I go to and it’s just a beautiful beach and a little island. It’s very walkable. I don’t even get a car when I’m down there. I just walk everywhere and run and run on the beach every day.

But I was thinking that you know I grew up around the ocean and you know I grew up in Southern California and you know, lived in Northern California for a period of time and did a lot of surfing. And I just love the ocean. Love love the ocean right? But some people do not like the ocean, they think it’s very scary.

Okay, so imagine two different people standing at the ocean and looking out over the ocean. One person, somebody like me, could be standing there thinking of the ocean. This is like it brings back memories of my childhood and boogie boarding you know and surfing and and just playing in the ocean all day long and never wanting to leave. And even, you know, today, I, you know, I was swimming in the ocean just you know, days ago. And I just love it so much, it brings me so much joy, it brings me happiness, it’s like my happy place.

But for somebody else standing next to me, they could be looking out at that same ocean. And maybe when they were a kid, they have like a near drowning experience in the ocean, or maybe they saw somebody else drown in the ocean, something very traumatic happened to them. And for them, the ocean is a very different kind of place, it brings up all these feelings of fear, and danger. And it’s a dangerous place, and it should be avoided at all costs. Do not go in the ocean.

So different people looking at the same circumstances have very different ideas of what this means for them. So their reality is very different. One person would never go in the ocean at all ever. Another person wants to live in the ocean. That’d be mean, by the way. If I guess I live in the water, like a fish, that’d be amazing. But yeah, but for some people like it’s just a scary thing, and they would avoid it at all costs. So you can see different realities for different people based on their thoughts based on their interpretations.

Another example, and I use this one a lot too, which is when we talk about losing weight, one person might think that losing weight is hard, it never works, they always fail. They always give in to cravings, they can stay on track for any amount of time, they do find her in the week, but on the weekends always blow it can’t go on vacation because they always gain weight, or they go on vacation, but they always gain weight.

And so you know, they just come back, you know, heavier every time and blah, blah, blah. So that’s one person’s interpretation of what it means to lose weight and how hard it is and how it never works.

Another person might think that losing weight is easy, and kind of effortless, and so much fun. And no matter what’s happened in the past, they know that if they practice discipline, they stay consistent, they’ll eventually get there. And this is not something I’m just making up. I literally work with people who have both of these interpretations. One person who thinks it’s hard, it’s going to be hard for them.

The person who thinks it’s easy and effortless and fun, it’s going to be easy and effortless and fun for them. They will get their goals because they have this thought that you know, Hey, as long as I stay consistent, I’ll get there. This other person who says I always fail, I always give in, they will always fail and always give in. It’s just what happens. Okay, so this is thoughts, thoughts are sentences we say in our head thoughts are our stories, our interpretations of reality, or of our circumstances. And they are like the meaning that we give stuff. Okay, thoughts, so important to understand your thoughts.

So next, we have our feelings. So feelings are also emotions, we can use those two words interchangeably, and I do. But our feelings are caused by our thoughts. Our thoughts will create feelings within us. So if I think oh, losing weight is hard, it never works. I always fail. Whoa, how do you think you’re gonna feel when you think those feelings or think those thoughts you’re gonna be feeling terrible, right?

You’re gonna feel like, like a failure, you’re gonna feel frustrated, you’re gonna feel unmotivated, right. So, our feelings we all experience emotions, we all experience feelings are created by our thoughts, you cannot have an emotion. Without a thought that precedes that you cannot experience a feeling without a thought first. So your thoughts will make you feel an emotion, fear, anxiety, stress, boredom, frustration. These are all feelings. These are all emotional states.

Even love, happiness, joy, connection. These are all feelings. You know, if you think, you know, let’s say you’re newly dating someone and you’re just falling in love and every time you think about this person you feel this amount of like happiness and love that’s created by your thoughts about that person. Right? It has nothing to do with that person necessarily. It’s like your interpretation of it, because you don’t have those same feelings about somebody else. Okay.

So your thoughts always create your feelings, you have a thought, you think a thought and then it creates a feeling within you. You cannot experience a feeling without a thought that precedes it. You just can’t. Okay, now, thoughts you experience in your head, feelings you experience in your body. So your feelings or sensations that you feel in your body?

Think about it as like vibrations that you feel in your body, that’s all it is. That’s all it is. And you can get really good at just feeling your feelings or experiencing your feelings in your body, like experiencing your sensations in your body. And we do this in the coaching project, we learn how to experience and emotion without all the drama around it. Right, we don’t have to eat over our feelings anymore. This is a game changer, right?

When you’re willing to just experience an emotion just to feel that sensation in your body without having to do anything about it. This is where you become what I call a total emotional badass. Because you can experience any kind of emotion, fear, failure, frustration, whatever it is, doesn’t matter. When you’re willing to experience those emotions. You can do anything you want.

Most people don’t do stuff, they don’t go after what they really want, because they’re afraid of how they’re going to feel. Isn’t that crazy? People will say like, I could never run a marathon, it would just be, it’d be too hard. I’m like, what are you really afraid of? And when we break it down, it’s like, well, I’m afraid I’m gonna fail. And I’m like, well, what would that mean?

I just feel bad and feel like a failure. It’s just an emotion. What if you were just willing to feel like a failure, you would just go and do that you just go train for a marathon and do it. Who cares if you finish it or not? You did something that was super hard, you tried. If you’re willing to experience that failure, you can do anything you want. But people are afraid.

They’re afraid to try anything hard, they’re afraid to do anything that might you know that they might not, it may not work. All because they’re afraid to experience that feeling. Get good at feeling your feelings, and you can become a total badass. Okay.

What I really want you to understand here is that thoughts create your feelings, your feelings just don’t magically appear within you, okay? Your feelings are created by you. People don’t make you mad, you make yourself mad, based on, you know, how you’re interpreting what somebody said, somebody could say, you’re an ugly piece of crap. You know, but you don’t have to, like, take it personally.

You could be like, I’m beautiful. And I’m awesome. So I mean, sorry, it’s just not going to affect me. Or you can really take it personally. It’s all in how you interpret it has nothing to do with what the words are that are coming out of a person’s mouth. It’s how you’re interpreting it. So your feelings and your emotional state is caused by your thoughts, okay?

We have to understand that your feelings drive your actions, your actions are the things you do, what’s your behaviors, right. And your actions are driven by your emotional state, they’re driven by your feelings. So most people don’t take action unless they’re feeling like taking action, like they are driven by a certain feeling.

For example, motivation. This is a feeling that, you know, when you’re feeling motivated, you will do something like, if you want to go for a run, and you’re feeling motivated to run, you’ll go for a run. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed, or stressed, maybe you’re going to not feel like going for a run. So that feeling can be causing you to not take action.

Or maybe you’re frustrated because the scale isn’t moving. You’re feeling frustration. That’s a feeling. And so you go eat a whole sleeve of Oreos, right? This is like you’re feeling frustrated. And that’s what’s driving that action of eating the Oreos. You think it has something to do with the scale? You think it has something to do with something outside of you. But no, it’s just you.

You have thoughts about what it means. And you have this feeling. And so you decide you’re going to go and take this action based on how you’re feeling. Now there are some behaviors that we do, some actions that we take, that are automatic, like brushing your teeth, you don’t really need to feel a feeling necessarily, you don’t have to be really motivated to brush your teeth. Right? It’s just what you do. It’s kind of like an autopilot thing, okay.

But it’s taken you years of doing that behavior for it to become automatic. It wasn’t always automatic, right. But there could be other behaviors that you’re doing that feel automatic, like binging out on ice cream every night. This feels like an out of control behavior. Like it’s just something you have to do like you’re on autopilot. The fact is, you’ve just gotten really good at this behavior. And in order to change it, it’s going to take some work, okay?

But listen, this is important. You can always change the behavior, but it’s going to require you to do work, you got to like, change your thinking. That’s the gist of this whole thought model is that you have to like look Look at your thoughts and change your thinking in order to change the behavior because when you change your thinking, you’re going to change your your feelings, and then you’re going to change the the behavior that’s being driven by those feelings.

So that out of control eating seems like it’s just happening. And it’s just like, you know, out of your control, but you are in control, you always have a choice. I would even argue, like, you could choose not to brush your teeth, you could just be like, Oh, I’m just not going to brush my teeth. I would recommend that you do though, by the way. In the same vein, you can choose to not eat that ice cream, you are in control. You just don’t see it because you’ve just been doing the same thing for so long. It kind of feels automatic. But really, it’s not. It’s not automatic, like you can absolutely, you are always in control. And you can take back that control and take back your control, take back your power.

But people think their circumstances are causing them to take action. And that’s never the case. It’s never the circumstances like I’ll hear people say, well, I was on vacation, so I had to eat like crap all week. I was just on vacation, I ate amazingly well, all week. Or, you know, my husband always brings home pizza, so I just have to eat it. No, you don’t, that has nothing to do with it. Or I’m busy, so I don’t have time to work out. Oh, really? Who’s not busy?

These are all just circumstances, they don’t mean anything unless you assign meaning to them. They don’t mean anything until you have thoughts about them. You don’t act, you don’t take action based on what’s happening out there. You take action based on how you feel. And that’s always determined by your thoughts, okay, your behavior is driven by your feelings, your emotions, drive your actions, okay.

And then lastly, we have results. So you know, when you take action, you get results, you don’t get results by thinking about stuff, right, you don’t get bigger arms by thinking about lifting weights, you get bigger arms by going to the gym, and lifting heavy weights over and over again, consistently for some time. You only get results by taking action by doing things.

And since your actions are driven by your feelings, and your thoughts, create your feelings, your thoughts really create the results that you want. Your thoughts almost always prove. No, let me say this, again, your results almost always prove your thoughts to be true. The results that you get pretty much always match your thoughts. So here’s what I mean by this, let’s say you want to lose 40 pounds. But you think losing weight is too hard.

So you think you know I always fail. And that creates feelings of frustration and you and unmotivated. And these feelings cause you to take the action of quitting, you just give up you give up trying, why bother? And what are the results you get? You fail. So the thought I always fail has just been proven true for you. You just you manifested that, that thought I always fail. It’s just become true for you.

Here’s another way of looking at it. So here’s me. I’m building a badass body right now. Right? Here’s my circumstances. I’m 55 years old. And I’ve heard people say as you get older, you can’t get a badass body. Like you’re just going to continue to get fatter, and fluffier and saggier, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But here’s my thoughts about this.

My thoughts are, I believe in my heart that age does not matter. And I am armed with a commitment and the discipline and the mindset that’s going to make this happen. I’m going to stay consistent, and I’m going to make this happen no matter what. Those are my thoughts. These thoughts get me feeling pretty motivated. Like it gets me fired up when I think about this.

And that feeling of being fired up and motivated. This feeling drives me into action. Every day I hit the gym, I lift weights, I run, I eat right? I go to yoga. I do this every day. I’m not all that stuff every day. I eat right every day. But everyday I show up and I do something and I do it consistently. And these thoughts are what’s keeping me motivated. That motivation is driving me into the action of showing up and doing the work every day and the results.

I’ve got to tell you I’m becoming that badass that I want to become. I’m not where I want to be yet, but I am getting there, it’s going to take some time. But I’m already seeing bigger arms, bigger chest, my legs are way stronger than they were a year ago, whatever, I’m making it happen. And it’s the thoughts that are driving my behavior. And those thoughts are I am going to make this happen no matter what. And so those thoughts are proving this to be true that my thoughts are making this happen, my thoughts are making this my reality.

Okay, that’s what I want for you. So a couple things here. First of all, you are not your thoughts and feelings, all of your thoughts and feelings are optional. And they are all things you choose. You’re always making choices on how you think and feel. And these things are not you. They’re just your thoughts are just sentences you say in your head.

If feelings are just sensations you experience in your body, you are much more than just your thoughts and feelings. So I want you to understand this, okay? Your thoughts and feelings are creating your reality, though. They’re creating what’s happening to you. They’re creating the results that you’re getting or not getting in your life, okay, but they’re not you.

But if you want more for yourself, if you want different results, if you want to lose weight, if you want to get stronger, you want to become your most badass self, you gotta go within you got to do this work. You got to work on your mindset. And so mindset is the word that I use to encompass everything I just talked about. It’s basically a one word catch all that means your thoughts, your beliefs, your interpretations of what’s happening around you, it’s your feelings, your emotional state, it’s your attitude. It’s what’s driving your behavior, all of that stuff.

I just use the word mindset to kind of encapsulate all of this, it’s all the same stuff. So when I say mindset, I’m really talking about the thought model here, okay. And, for me, like this was one of the most profound things I’ve ever learned. And it’s changed my life more than anything else. And I liken it to seeing the matrix, right. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.

So this work, living the thought model, this is life changing. And when you learn this, and when you start living it every day, it’s like taking the red pill in the matrix, you take the red pill, and you learn a potentially unsettling but life changing truth.

When you take the blue pill, you remain in contented ignorance. Most people live in a blue pill kind of world, they live in contented ignorance, they blame everybody and everything outside of themselves for their lack of progress. They can’t stick to their food plan, they can’t lose weight, they can’t get dry, they can’t run, they can’t bah bah, bah, based on you know, oh, it’s just everything that’s happening outside of me. I have no control over any of this stuff. That’s blue pill thinking. contented ignorance.

I want you to live in that life changing truth. Start living the thought model, right? Do not live in contented ignorance. Take the information you learned here today and apply it. Start noticing how you’re interpreting your situation. Start seeing when you’re creating stories around stuff that’s happening to you. Start noticing how your thoughts are making you feel. See how those feelings are driving you to take action, or maybe causing you to not take action.

And if you want different results, look to your thoughts. Get curious and approach all of this work with curiosity. You can ask yourself questions like hmm, I wonder what else could be true about this situation? I wonder how else I can interpret this. What thought patterns are keeping me stuck here today? I wonder what thought patterns might get me to moving closer to my goals. Okay. Ask yourself good questions. Stay curious. I truly hope you got something out of this episode today. And I truly hope that you do something with it. Okay. Love you all keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

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