17. Making Peace With Uncertainty

My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, running coach and mindset expert. I believe mindset is the most powerful and most underrated tool you have as a runner. So I’ve devoted my life to helping runners like you develop the mindset you need to fuel your inner fire and become the badass runner you were meant to be. This is The Running Mind podcast.

Well, hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host and the life coach for runners. And I teach runners like you how to stop struggling and start getting the results that you want in your life. And that’s what I’m doing here on the podcast, I want to teach you how to manage your mind and take back control of your life. So you can stop overeating, or quit drinking, or stop feeling so unsure of yourself all the time.

I want to teach you how you can start achieving more and start becoming the badass runner that you were always meant to be. Listen, you get to choose, you decide who you want to be. So start making better decisions. Alright, today I’m talking about making peace with uncertainty. And this is kind of a follow up to a recent podcast that I did called how to manage your mind during uncertain times. And that’s episode number 11.

And to find that, you can just go to therunningmindpodcast.com/11. And you can actually find all the episodes that way, just go to the running mind podcast.com/ and then whatever number of the podcast. So for instance, this is podcast number 17. But anyway, in that episode, I talked about how your thoughts cause your feelings, and how you can take ownership of those thoughts so you can feel better and choose how you want to show up in your life, especially during this global pandemic during this global crisis that we are all involved in right now.

So today, I want to take a little deeper dive specifically into this issue of uncertainty because this has been coming up a lot. Lately, I hear a lot of people talking about how uncertain things are. You know, I hear people saying like, am I gonna get sick? Well, somebody I know gets sick. We don’t want our business, our business is going to have to reopen again. I gotta get my hair and my nails done, we’re gonna get back to running with my group. Will my 401k ever recover?

Well, all my races will be canceled this year. Well, I have a job. How am I gonna pay the rent? You know, what do we do about all this homeschool time? When are things gonna get back to normal? When are we gonna be able to buy toilet paper again? So there’s all this uncertainty, all these thoughts about uncertainty. And when we think all these thoughts, and think about all of this uncertainty, how is that affecting us?

Well, it’s creating a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety, stress, worry, doubt. All of these thoughts, these thoughts about the future is uncertain, are causing all of these unwanted feelings inside of us. And we’re making ourselves miserable. Why do we do this? And then what happens when we think these thoughts and we feel all this fear and stress and anxiety like we feel all these unwanted feelings? What do we do? You know, how do we behave?

What actions are we taking when we feel this way? Well, for a lot of us, we go to the fridge, you know we eat over it, we drink a lot more. We veg out in front of the TV, we just want to numb out you know, maybe we get angry, we yell at the kids, we have a fight with our husband. Or maybe for some of us we just don’t do anything at all. We just sort of check out, we avoid and ignore and just check out completely, ignore everyone and ignore everything.

So how is all this working out for you? You know if this is you, if any of this resonates with you at all, how’s this working out for you result? What results are you getting from taking these actions or not taking any action? Probably terrible results.

You know, I know a lot of people are gaining weight. They feel hungover all the time. They’re not getting enough sleep. You know, they’re not getting any work done. Their kids are afraid of them. Their husband doesn’t want to talk to them. Work sucks. Running sucks. Life sucks. And then you can say see because of all this uncertainty, my life sucks.

All this uncertainty is making me eat too much. It’s making me drink too much and making me angry all the time. This damn coronavirus lock down is making my kids and my husband hate me. You get the exact results that you are focused on. When your thinking is terrible, you feel terrible. And you take terrible actions and you get terrible results. Your results are always directly related to your thoughts.

But here’s the truth that so many of us are not seeing right now. Life is always uncertain. Your life has always been 100% uncertain, your future is always uncertain. There’s no such thing as certainty, ever. It’s a myth. Actually, that’s not entirely true. There are two things that are certain number one, you are a human being alive on the planet Earth right now. And number two, you will die. These two things are certain. But only these two things.

Everything else is uncertain. It’s unknown, everything else is up for grabs. Now think about it this way. Think back to a few months ago. Were you certain about what you’d be doing right now? My guess is you probably felt pretty certain about where you’d be right now. You are probably you’d have, if somebody asked you three, four months ago, you’re probably you know, very certain that you’d be like running your spring marathon right now, maybe even this weekend, you’d be going to work every day, you’d be making the same amount of money, you’d be paying your mortgage just like normal.

You might have been going on that vacation, or at the very least going out to dinner with friends and hanging out at Starbucks, having a coffee. But guess what? You are wrong about all that. You thought you had all this certainty, but it’s just an illusion. The truth is, life is always uncertain.

And I’ve experienced this profoundly lately, if you’d asked me five or six months ago, where I’d be today, I would have told you with 100% certainty that I’d be married, I’d still be living with my wife. I’d be running with my friends, I’d be coaching the running group, I’d be getting ready for the Flying Pig this weekend.

I’d be working my day job, I’d be going out for coffee and dinner with friends, I’d be working out at the gym. And all of that would have been dead wrong. You know, today I’m separated from my wife, I’m living alone in my own place. I’m about to get divorced. I’m not running with friends. I’m not coaching the training group, there are no training groups, there is no spring marathon.

My job, my day job has been canceled. Two, the gyms are closed, the restaurants are closed. There’s a global pandemic and I have to wear a face mask every time I go to the grocery store. I never in a million years would have predicted any of this stuff. All of this is 100% different than what I thought my life was going to be like.

I was so certain about everything, so certain about what things were gonna look like today, and I was wrong. And here’s what you have to wrap your head around, your life is always uncertain. We have no idea what’s going to happen three months from now or three weeks from now or even three days from now. And all the worrying about the future, all the fear, the anxiety, the stress, it’s making us miserable.

We need to accept the fact that life is uncertain. We need to make peace with all of this uncertainty. And we need to acknowledge and accept that there is no such thing as certainty ever. There never was, and there never will be. So stop thinking and worrying about your future. It’s not serving you. It’s making you miserable and your life sucks because of it.

Start accepting that life is uncertain and then move on. It’s like start practicing radical acceptance of everything that’s happening around you. And then get on with living your life right here and right now. Now, I’m not suggesting that you don’t plan anything for the future ever. Just give up on your dreams and goals. Not at all. Make your plans, set your goals. Keep the dream alive.

Get your training plan together, visualize the future that you want and go after that. But just know that anything could happen between now and then. And you have to be able to roll with it. So by all means, prepare, plan, schedule, but then be ready to go with the flow. Life is always uncertain, you have to make peace with the uncertainty.

If you’re constantly thinking the thought like life is uncertain, and all these terrible things might happen to me and my family. Thinking this thought over and over and over again. It’s going to cause all kinds of internal misery, misery, the fear, the anxiety, the stress, the worry, the doubt, thinking these thoughts constantly is going to cause you so much internal suffering. Because what you’re doing is you’re trying to control your future. And it doesn’t work. It never works. It just creates a lot of inner turmoil.

So how about trying on a new thought like, life is always uncertain. And no matter what it brings, I can handle it, bring it on. Damn. How do you think you’d feel if you focused on this thought over and over again? You’d probably feel a lot more secure, confident and at peace with what is you wouldn’t have all this internal suffering and be a better human to be around, you know.

You’d get more done, you’d be able to show up for your work and be able to show up for your kids for your husband, be a lot happier. Listen, when you can manage your thoughts, you create so much inner peace. All this uncertainty just becomes a part of your life, it doesn’t matter anymore. You can be at peace with all of it. You can handle any curve balls that life throws at you, you can become a real mental badass.

Lose your job, no big deal. I’ll find another one. Maybe even a better one. Wife wants a divorce. No problem, I’ll find another one. Maybe even a better one. Unsure of how you’re going to pay the rent this month? I got it. I’ll figure it out. I always do. I’m super creative. I’m tenacious, I’m driven. I got this. This is such a powerful concept.

I hope you’re grasping this. And you can apply this to everything in your life. No matter what the circumstances out there, whatever’s going on outside of you around you always know that the future is always uncertain. And if you just accept this fact, and make peace with the uncertainty, there’s nothing that you can’t do.

You know, think about this, what could you accomplish, if you just stopped trying to predict and control the future and just accepted all of it. And then you did your best, you showed up, you suit it up and you did your best no matter what. My guess is that you’d be a lot happier, your life would be a lot less stressful, you’d probably be a lot more fun to be around, you’d get more done, you’d probably sleep better.

The choice is yours. You always get to choose. You can keep trying to predict, control everything in the future, live in a state of constant worry and anxiety and fear and suffering. Or you can make peace with all of it. Make peace with the uncertainty, practice radical acceptance of all of it. And then live your life fully, show up every day more confidently knowing that no matter what happens today, tomorrow, six months from now that you got this you can handle all of it.

There’s nothing you can’t do. There’s nothing that will phase you. There’s nothing you can’t handle. Bring it on. Okay. That’s all I got for you today. I wanted to make this short and sweet. I want to leave you with that. Okay, and I’d love to hear what you think about this. Did you love it? Did you hate it? Are you confused? You have questions? Reach out anytime. hello@innerfiretribe.com. And much love to you my friends. I’ll see you soon.

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