155. 3 Things All Successful People Do

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

Hey there, and welcome to Episode 155, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, three things all successful people do. So what separates successful people from those who fail? What do successful people do that unsuccessful people don’t do?

While there are a lot of things that differentiate people who achieve greatness and those who don’t. Today, I’m going to focus on a few that I feel are most important. Whether you want to lose weight or run an ultra marathon, you will either succeed or fail based on a few simple but very powerful principles.

So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to share three things that all successful people do that most people just don’t do. And I hope that you choose to apply these principles that you hear about today, in all areas of your life. So you can accomplish everything amazing that you want for yourself.

Think about this, what do you want for yourself? What do you want for yourself? For 2023? What goals do you have for yourself? What goals are going to push you outside your comfort zone? What goals are going to cause you to level up in 2023? Have you thought about that? It’s a great question, right?

If you’re having trouble coming up with big powerful goals for yourself, or maybe you have some goals, but you have absolutely no idea how you can possibly achieve those goals, then I have something that I think might help you. Let’s work together on this. With me as your coach, I will help you set big, huge, scary, impossible goals for you for the new year. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

Then we’ll put together a plan to get you to those goals. And then lastly, I’ll help you stay on track every week. So you actually make progress every week and move towards that goal, so you actually accomplish them.

So if you’re ready to stop thinking about big goals, and instead start working on them, then you’re ready for the Running Lean coaching project. This is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners where I help you become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself yet. To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply and get started.

Okay, today, three things all successful people do. So it’s this time of the year where we start reflecting on the past year and start setting goals and start deciding what it is we want to accomplish in the new year. So we’re coming up on the end of 2022. And the start of 2023 is right around the corner. And like I mentioned a minute ago, like what is it that you want for yourself? What is it that you would like to accomplish in this coming year?

So for me, this time of the year is a good reminder, not just of what I’ve accomplished through this past year. But it’s a good reminder that I always want more for myself, that I always want to continue to grow, to learn and to become more. This is not something that is a one and done for me. And it shouldn’t be for you either.

We should always be striving to learn and grow and become more. And when I stopped to think about this a little bit, I was thinking about what it takes to accomplish big goals. And it really got me thinking and that’s why I’m talking about this today because it got me thinking about myself. And I’ve got some big goals for myself for 2023.

And the way I’m going to accomplish those goals, in big part, is going to be due to the principles I’m going to share with you today because I’m applying these principles in everything that I do in my life. So some people are able to achieve big, huge, amazing things. They’re able to accomplish big things in their life. And then there’s some people that don’t seem to ever amount to much, right?

So what separates successful people from the unsuccessful? You know, what are successful people doing that the other people are not doing or maybe they’re not willing to do? Okay, I’ve identified three key principles that I’m sharing with you today that are vital. If you want to achieve greatness in your life, however you want to define greatness, what does that mean for you?

What does greatness mean for you? You run your first ultra marathon this year, or you climb that higher mountain, or you lose 40 pounds once and for all? You change your relationship with junk food and sugar, and cake and cookies and ice cream and pizza and french fries? What is it that you want for yourself? What is that big goal that you just saw that seems to be impossible for you to accomplish? What is going to cause you to level up?

Define that for yourself. Think about that. As we’re, as I’m talking through this episode today. What is it to achieve greatness for you? What does that mean for you? Could it be something in your career, maybe you get a promotion and you become, you know, a leader in your industry? Maybe it has to do with your relationships? Maybe it has to do with you know, being a parent? Having kids, what areas of your life do you want to achieve greatness? What would achieving greatness look like for you?

Because I’m going to tell you right now that it doesn’t really matter. You get to decide what you want for yourself. But there are things that will help you to get there. There’s some attitudes or some principles that will help you to get there. And if you don’t adhere to these principles, it’s going to be really challenging for you. And that’s where most people are.

Most people want things for themselves, but they don’t actually apply these principles I’m going to talk about and so they never really accomplish those things. And they’re always out there. They’re always out there on the horizon as in like, one day I would love to run an ultra marathon or one day, I would like to finally lose this way once and for all and keep it off. Like what Why are you just thinking about that? Why not just do it? If that is what you want for yourself, I want to encourage you to start working towards that. Stop thinking about it, start taking action, start taking action today, towards that goal.

So the three things I’m going to talk about will help you to achieve greatness in your life, whatever that looks like for you. These are three things that all successful people do, and that other people just don’t do or won’t do. Most people might know about these things. And when I start talking about these, you’ll be like, oh, yeah, well, that makes sense.

That seems so simple, but they’re not simple. They’re not simple. If they were simple. I wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. You would just do it. These are things that most people maybe know about, but they’re just not willing to do. But if you’re willing to do the work, if you’re willing to apply these three principles I’m gonna talk about today, you will achieve anything you want for yourself.

Now, there are more than three things that successful people do. I’m not going to get into, there’s probably hundreds of things, right? If you really think about it. These three are huge. These three are, are the big ones, okay? And they’re often overlooked, or they’re minimized. You know, people are like, oh, yeah, I get it. I get that one, Patrick. Oh, yeah, sure, sure. I get that. But no, you don’t get it.

You don’t get it because you’re not doing it. If you got it, you do it. But most people are not willing or not. Or are they just not wanting to do these things? Because honestly, because they’re hard sometimes because they’re hard. Okay. Here’s the thing, though, all of us are capable of greatness, you are capable of greatness. We’re all human beings. None of us is a superhero.

None of us are superhuman, we are all you know, pretty much the same, we are able to accomplish huge things that, you know, that a lot of people can’t do because they’re just not willing to do the work. So we’re all capable of greatness. So understand that you are capable of greatness. Whether you achieve that or not, it is going to be whether or not you apply these principles, okay.

So just keep that in mind that, you know, none of us are superhuman, you know, you could run 100 miles if you want to, you could run that ultra marathon, you could lose 40 pounds and keep it off if you really want to.

Okay, the first principle is this. Successful people don’t settle for what’s comfortable. You know, what’s comfortable, everything you already have. If you want to become more, if you want to become anything more than who You are today, you have to be willing to get uncomfortable. You have to go beyond your comfort zone.

But most people never do this. Why? Because it’s uncomfortable by nature, right? That your comfort zone is very comfortable. Outside Your Comfort Zone, not comfortable. It’s unfamiliar. It’s the unknown. And when you start to think about doing something that gets you out of your comfort zone, you start to question that decision, you start to think, what if I fail? You know, what if it doesn’t work? You know, what if I, what if I look stupid doing this? You know, what if I let people down? What if I let myself down?

Yeah, guess what failure is possible, you might fail, you might let yourself down. People might judge you, why? This is not a reason not to do something, though. The reason you do something that’s hard is because it’s hard. It’s not because it’s easy. If success was guaranteed, it’s really too easy. It’s in your comfort zone. If success is inevitable, it’s not pushing you. It’s not causing you to level up, it’s not causing you to grow. It’s too easy.

You know, I’ve I’ve talked to people all the time about goals and stuff, and, and I’ll hear from somebody like, Oh, I really love to run a little bit of a fast or half marathon. Okay. All right. I’m like, why? Why do you want to just run a half marathon? Why not push yourself? Why not run a full marathon? Why not run an ultra marathon? Why not qualify for Boston? Why not do something big?

Why are you just settling for something that you already can do? Why are you not pushing yourself beyond your current limits? You got to go bigger, you gotta dig deeper, if you want to become more. Just doing the same known familiar thing isn’t going to cause you to grow, it’s not going to cause you to level up.

So striving for greatness means going beyond the known beyond the familiar, and it means getting really uncomfortable. If it’s easily achievable. Is it really worth it? Does it cause you to level up? Does it cause you to change? The answer’s no. It really doesn’t. You got to push yourself beyond what you think you’re capable of today. And this process of going after big, impossible goals is that this whole process forces you to become more in the process of going after that goal.

The process itself changes whether you actually achieve the goal or not. So let’s say you decide, you know, you want to train for an ultra marathon. And 50k is a great distance. If you want to get into ultra marathons for the first time. But you could do a 50 miler, you could do a 12 hour run, these are fun 24 hours, see how far you can run in 24 hours. These are timed events, you can do 100k or 100 miles.

But today, you’re not the kind of person that can run 50 or 100 miles, you might only be comfortable running 10 to 15 miles today, right? Today, you are not an ultra marathoner. So the process looks like this: you pick a race, you sign up, you pay for that thing, and you get some skin in the game, and you start training.

The process of training for an event like this will change you in ways that you just cannot imagine, okay? The training alone is very tough. But here’s the thing, the process of doing the training, you’re gonna get really good at being uncomfortable. Just doing the training for an event like this, you’re going to venture into unknown territory, like running 20 miles or running 30 miles at a clip doing back to back 20 mile runs on the weekends, you know, you run 20 on Saturday and 30 on Sunday or something like, right?

The training alone will force you to level up. So when you show up on the day of the race, and you toe the line at the start of that ultra marathon, you’ve already become that badass runner that you worked so hard to become. You’ve made it and it really doesn’t even matter if you finish the race or not at this point.

Now, of course, I’m going to encourage you to actually run the thing and finish it you know, finish the damn race like become that ultra marathoner, but listen, you toe the line at that thing. You’ve done the hard work now you just have to like put the icing on the cake so to speak, right? The process of just going after something like that will change you profoundly.

Training for a half a marathon though, is that going to really change you? Is that something you just keep doing? Because you know, you could do it and it’s comfortable. And yeah, you might shave a minute or two off your time. But don’t settle for that. Don’t settle for what’s comfortable for you. Because you already got all that.

Now, if you’ve never run a half marathon before, and that seems impossible for you today, then absolutely do that. Okay? The point with this is that successful people do not settle for what’s comfortable. I don’t want you to settle for what’s comfortable, either. Do not settle for what you already have, you already have all that stuff, go after something else, something bigger, something that will cause you to level up, something that will cause you to get outside your comfort zone.

Everything you want, but you don’t already have lies outside your comfort zone. So push yourself. See what you’re capable of. Go beyond what’s easy, what’s known, what’s comfortable. what’s familiar, get into that unknown territory, get into the unfamiliar territory, that’s when big things happen for you. Okay. So successful people do not settle for what’s comfortable, they go after the uncomfortable, they push themselves, they level up.

Okay, number two successful people take responsibility for all their successes, and all of their failures. One thing that separates successful people from unsuccessful people is this concept I’ve talked about before here on the podcast, and I call this radical responsibility. What do I mean by radical responsibility?

Radical responsibility means that you take ownership of everything that is happening in your life, the good, the bad, the ugly, the wins, the losses, the successes, the failures, everything. Successful people take radical responsibility for where they are in their life, no matter what. They also take responsibility for where they are not. So if I make progress towards my goal, I did that. If I fail, or if I feel stuck, I did that too. I’m responsible for that, too.

But here’s the thing you know, most people have, most people have stories. Most people have excuses. Most people have reasons, and most people blame others. It’s so easy to blame others when things don’t go as planned. Because when you fail, when you fall off your food plan, when you give up on yourself when you don’t hit your goal. Blaming others is so much easier, so much easier.

And you know what, it takes all the responsibility off of you, because it’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. You know, unless things go well, then it’s like, oh, it’s all me, I did that. Most people are super happy to take all the credit when things go right, and then blame everyone else, and everything that’s going on in their life when things go wrong.

Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you know somebody like this? Is this, you know, have you ever done this before? I have done this before I’ve done this in my past, I don’t do this anymore. Now everything’s my fault. Everything is on me. The Good, the Bad, the successes, the failures, all of it. So what does this look like?

Let’s say you want to lose 40 pounds, and you have a food plan. And you’ve thought about this, you got a well thought out food plan, maybe you worked with a coach and you’ve got figured out a good plan for you. And so you’ve got this plan, and you’re sticking to the plan and things are going okay for a few weeks, and you’re sticking to the plan, you’re laying off the junk food, you’re off the sugar, you’re not eating that processed junk food anymore. You’re getting fat adapted as a runner, running is starting to feel better, you’re losing some weight, things are going well.

And then, for whatever reason, you fall back into old habits, you binge out on a bunch of junk food. Candy, cookies, maybe this goes on for a couple of days, running starts to kind of suck again. Maybe you start gaining weight.

And then you’re like, oh my gosh, why did I do this? And the answer is usually something like this, you’ll start to say well, you know, it’s the holidays, or well the kids are off school now and they really love it when we make these cookies and gosh, things are so crazy at work these days, especially this end of the year stuff so much. So much stress at work. My boss is so demanding or my husband just doesn’t support me.

Oh my gosh, whatever the excuses are, there’s always excuses. They’re always stories. There’s always reasons and all this is just blaming, you’re blaming everyone What else and everything else in your life except for yourself. Everything else is the reason why you can’t stick to your food plan or why you fall into old habits has nothing to do with you.

It is just, you know, you know, everybody’s out to get you essentially, oh, I’d be able to stay on track if it wasn’t for my boss, my husband, my kids, my job, the holidays, the weather, whatever, fill in the blank. Successful people do not do this. They don’t blame anyone else for what’s going on with them. When you take radical responsibility for everything in your life, The Good, the Bad, and the otherwise. There’s no more excuses. There’s no more stories, there’s no more reasons. There’s no more blaming, it’s just you, it’s all your fault.

Whether you succeed, or whether you fail, it’s always your fault. I want to encourage you to start taking radical responsibility for every result that you get, or you don’t get in your life. Starting today. When you do this, you will start making progress towards your goals.

Because listen, everything’s on you. And this is the good news and the bad news. It’s good news. Because if it’s all on you, there’s actually something you can do about it. Because when you blame others, you give away your control. You give away your power, and you’re diverting the responsibility to somebody else.

But when you take the responsibility, you can actually do something about it. And that’s the good news, right? The bad news is, it’s all on you. And now you have to do something about it. So get on that, start doing something about it. Successful people take radical responsibility for everything in their life. So get on that right now. Start taking responsibility.

Alright, the third thing that successful people do, successful people never, ever, ever quit. This is probably the most powerful principle of these three. And the one that separates the successful from the unsuccessful, really, the principle is just do not quit, ever. You might falter. You might fail. You may go backward. You may have setbacks, you may have some disappointments. But no matter what, you keep going, you just keep going.

You never ever, ever quit. It’s like running an ultra marathon. Sometimes you twist an ankle, and you’re hobbling along for a while or you get lost. And you have to backtrack several miles, or you trip and fall. I’ve done all these things by the way, trip and fall and you feel like you can barely walk another step. But you don’t quit.

You keep going no matter what. You don’t stop when things get hard. You don’t stop when you’re tired. You don’t stop when everything hurts. You stop when you are done. Period.

This mentality keeps me going through all kinds of setbacks in my life, personally, professionally, physically. Some years ago, I hurt my shoulder. And I think I did this when I fell during an ultra marathon on a trail. I wiped out, I fell, I put my arms out to brace myself from falling and I jammed my shoulder. And it hurt for years to be honest with you, it hurt for years after that.

But it was never, you know, bad enough to keep me from doing the things I love to do. I kept running, I kept you know, doing some weight lifting and things like that. I pushed through the pain for years until it just kept getting worse and worse and had to finally do something about it.

And so about a year ago, I had an MRI. And it turns out that I had torn three muscles in my rotator cuff. And I had to have surgery, trying to avoid surgery, but I just had to do it. There’s no way these things were going to repair themselves. Okay. So a year ago, I had rotator cuff surgery and the recovery time was pretty significant in several months before I could actually get back into running.

And then when I started running again, it took me a really long time for my running to progress to the point where I felt like, you know, my old strong running self again. And I got to this place last summer back in August where I was feeling really good. And my pace had come back and I was finally at this place where running was really I was feeling really strong in my running again.

And then I was finishing up a 10 mile run and feeling really good about where I was with things. And I happened to be running back towards my house and I was at about mile nine, and I had one mile to go. And I happen to be running down through downtown Cincinnati. And there was a 5k going on. And it was running down the street. I was running up.

And so I was looking at all the people that were running this 5k. And I’m like, because I know a lot of people in the running community. I’m like, Oh, I wonder if I know anybody running this thing.

Well, no sooner did I take my eyes off the sidewalk. Then I just found myself on the ground. I tripped on this big old crack in the sidewalk that I didn’t see. Because I was looking over here at these people running this 5k, totally distracted myself. And couldn’t even get up right away. Like I was, I didn’t even know what happened. Like it happens so fast. You know, at first, I was worried that I had jammed up my shoulder again.

And my hands were really scraped up from hitting the ground. But what was really more concerned when I tried to get up was my knee. My knee was like really painful. So I didn’t think I could run home. I ended up kind of walking a little bit, I did end up kind of jogging at home that last mile. But that night, and the following day, my knee blew up, it was huge. And I had to stop running for a while. So this took me out of running for a period of time.

I tried a couple of weeks later to go for a quick little one miler. And my knee just hurts so bad. Every time I ran, it got worse, it got more inflamed, more swollen. So I just had to take some time off running. So I took like three months off of running, which was really tough, you know, I just got to this place where I was back and had to take time off again.

So now I’m back to running again, I’m building my cardio base, again, is a big setback for me though, right? Because I was feeling so good about where I was. But listen, I’m not giving up. I’m not done here, right. I have big goals for myself for next year. And I refuse to quit just because it’s hard. Or just because it hurts or just because I fell down and busted up my knee. I am not done. I am not giving up. I am not quitting, I will quit when I’m done, which I’m hoping is around the time when I’m about 100 years old.

Honestly, I want to live to about 101. I think that would be really cool to do. So that’s my goal. And I’m going to try to keep running up until that time. So I’ll be watching the sidewalk a little more closely. But here’s the thing, we experienced setbacks, we don’t quit, we experienced failures, we don’t quit, we fall down and bust up our legs. We don’t quit, we keep going.

I know that there are big, amazing things that you want to accomplish in 2023. And I want to encourage you that you do not quit until you accomplish those things. Yes, it will be hard. Yes, you will probably fail. Every success though every success is built upon a big old pile of failures.

How many times have you tried to lose weight? Maybe only to see minimal progress? Or maybe, you know, to see like a little bit of progress on a plateau and then you start gaining weight again. Have you ever done this? Yeah, we all have, right? And then what do you do? You just give up because quote unquote, like that diet doesn’t work? Have you done this before?

Here’s the thing, losing weight is never a linear process. I’ve never seen anybody just lose, lose, lose, lose, lose. And just perfectly like in a straight downward like, like on a graph. It never happens that way. It’s always an up and down kind of a process. Okay. So if you tried some diet and it doesn’t work perfectly for you out of the gate, try something else.

The reason you keep failing at losing weight is that you keep quitting, period. People who succeed at losing weight don’t quit. They never, ever, ever give up. They keep going until they reach their goal. That doesn’t mean they keep doing the same things over and over again expecting different results, they change something, they try something else. And this whole process takes time. It may take months, it may take years. Are you okay with that? You have to be okay with that.

Because the truth is it takes whatever it takes everybody’s a little bit different. Sometimes it takes a while. So just let it be what it is. But where would you rather be a year or two from now? Very, very close to your goal. Maybe you’re just so close to your goal weight you got another five pounds ago or something? Or would you rather be just where you are right now still feeling miserable because you quit after a couple months? Think about that. The only way you truly fail is if you quit. Successful people never ever, ever quit. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on running lean and I will talk to you soon.

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