85. Understanding How Habits Really Work

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.

Well, hey there, and welcome to episode 85 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today we’re talking about understanding how habits really work. If you really want to create change in your life in any area of your life, you really have to focus on changing your habits, right, I think we all get this concept.

But most people don’t really understand how habits actually work. Most people just focus on trying to change the behavior, the actual actions that they are taking, they don’t focus on the things that are driving the behavior in the first place.

So in order to change a habit, you first have to understand how the habit is created in the first place, you have to go deeper and get into the root cause of the habit. So today on the podcast, I take you on a deep dive into understanding how habits really work. So you can create the change that you want in your life and make those changes last.

But first, if you like this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. This is a group that goes hand in hand with the podcast, I extend the conversation from here, over there, you get to ask questions, you have a voice, you can feel supported, encouraged, inspired by other runners and people that are sharing similar goals to you. And it’s fun to if I haven’t mentioned that already. The Facebook Group is a lot of fun, we do kind of have a lot of fun over there. So definitely just check out the Running Lean community on Facebook, and join us it’d be super awesome to have you there.

Here’s another five star review of the Running Lean podcast. This is from Laurie from Alaska. And she says, “So much to learn. So many great tips, I learned something new on every run, because that’s when I listen to your podcast. I’ve learned how to think differently. Thank you for being such a positive influence on so many.”

Thank you so much Laurie from Alaska, I appreciate those kind words. And listen, if you want to share the love, you can also just go to iTunes, Apple podcasts, whatever you call that wherever you listen to your podcast, scroll down, tap the stars leave a few words, I would really appreciate it.

And just so you know, for the month of August, if you are part of the Running Lean community, you can leave a review on Apple podcasts just like I described, take a screenshot of it, drop that screenshot in a post. And at the end of the month, I’m going to randomly select somebody from these posts, people that have reviewed the podcast and and you’ll you’ll earn a free, you know, coaching session with me. So it’s just a fun way for me to say thank you for supporting the show. Okay.

And also the Running Lean coaching group is open. All month long, we’re talking about thoughts, feelings and actions, and how these patterns show up in our life. We’re gonna be talking a lot about this in this podcast today. So you’ll get a feel for kind of what we’re going to be covering in the group this month.

But you know, this this topic of the month is, is vital. It’s the foundation for creating any kind of change whether you’re trying to become a better runner, or become healthier or lose weight or whatever your goals are. You have to understand how your thoughts, feelings and actions all tie together to help you create the life that you want for yourself.

As a member in the coaching group, you also get access to the weight loss training course for runners, my course called achieving the impossible which is about creating an extraordinary life by going after unrealistic goals. You get weekly live coaching with me. I just created something new, which I think is pretty awesome.

It’s a private podcast. So it’s not this podcast, but it’s a whole different podcast with all the replays of our group coaching calls, so you don’t have to necessarily show up to the live group zoom call although that is super fun to do. You can listen to the private podcast stream on your runs and stuff like that. So super fun. Come join us over in the Running Lean coaching group. For more information just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join Okay, cool.

Let’s talk about this, understanding how habits really work. First of all, what is a habit? So a habit is a learned behavior. Habits just don’t occur spontaneously, right habits are something that we have been practicing and learning over time. Habits tend to occur unconsciously though.

So habits are something that you’ve been practicing so much that you can do it without much consciousness or without a whole lot of conscious thought. So some types of habits that would fit this would be stuff like tying your shoes, right, you don’t have to think about you just do it. Driving a car, driving the car is something you had to learn how to do. And at first, it took a lot of effort, a lot of conscious thought. But now you can do it pretty much without thinking at all. Sometimes you’re driving and you’re like, how did I even get here, you sort of like zoned out? Have you ever had that happen to you?

Or something like taking a shower, like, you know, we do these things just completely automatically, we don’t even have to think about it. It’s super unconscious behavior, right. Some other types of habits and things that kind of relate to what we’re talking about here today would be like getting up early to work out every day, that would be habit that you do, just unconsciously, you just kind of do it.

Sticking to your marathon training schedule, like you’re gonna show up and do your runs, every day, no matter what that can be something that has to develop into a habit. Or it could be something like, you know, eating sweets late at night, could be a habit that you have that maybe you don’t want that habit, you know, or snacking all day long eating junk food, like some of these habits, you know, like sticking to your training schedule might be fine. And something that you want for yourself.

Others habits like eating junk food might be a habit that you want to change, or just drop all together. Either way, the key to to all of this. And the key to changing a habit is to understand how the habit really works. And the problem is that most people attack habit change, just by focusing on the behavior, just by focusing on the physical action that you are taking.

So if your issue is you know, you’re snacking too much or snacking all day long, they’ll just say, well just stop doing that. Stop eating snacks. Or if the habit is like you, you don’t seem to get up every day on time, or you know, you’re not, you want to hit the gym early, but you just can’t get out of bed.

People will say well just get up early every day, set your alarm get up early. Or, you know, if your habit is eating junk food, those don’t drive past the fast food places, or just don’t eat junk food. And if this was this simple, this would be amazing. But it’s not changing the behavior, changing an action. And then the goal for the what most people would tell you is just like just change the action. And then just keep doing that until that becomes a new habit.

Have you heard this before? Like just change the action? And then just keep doing it? Does this work? Maybe maybe for some people, for most people? No, it does not. And honestly, if it was this easy, I wouldn’t be talking about all this today. I just tell you to stop doing whatever it is you’re you’re doing or tell you to start doing whatever it is you want to start doing and boom, we’re done. I don’t have to have this conversation with you here today.

But it’s not that simple. A habit is a learned behavior that you’ve been practicing, until it’s pretty much an unconscious thing. Right? So you have to understand what’s beneath the action, you have to understand what’s driving the behavior. You have to go deeper you have to understand why you do what you do. You have to have to understand how the thought feeling action pattern has become unconscious for you.

So habit is always a thought a feeling. And then an action is a pattern that you’ve been practicing over and over until it becomes automatic. It may feel like there’s no conscious thought happening. It may seem like everything is happening instantaneously. But I assure you, there’s always a thought and a feeling that precedes every action that you take. Even if it seems like it all happens in an instant.

There are always choices and decisions that are being made by you. Even if it seems like you’re running on autopilot. And if habits are learned patterns of behavior, then it stands to reason that they can be on learned. Right so you can unlearn an unwanted behavior, right you can replace the old unwanted behavior with a new one. But if we only focus on the action, the actual behavior itself, you’re not going to get there, or it’s going to be a lot harder for you.

So habit is really the whole thought feeling action pattern that you’ve gotten so good at doing, you’ve been practicing this over and over and over again, it’s like, you know, eating sweets late at night, you just keep doing it every day until it just becomes like something your brain expects. And there’s a thought and a feeling that precedes the action. But it all happens in a split second, and you just find yourself eating ice cream at you know, 10:30 at night. And so you have to understand that your thoughts and your feelings are the real drivers of your actions, your thoughts and feelings are the real drivers of your choices of your decision making. And whether you are consciously aware of this or not, this is what’s happening.

So habits are not reflexive, they’re not reflexes that are just happening like, like a knee jerk, you know, reaction. So I hear people tell me all the time, like, you know, I was doing fine. The next thing you know, I’m stuffing a Cinnabon into my face. And I have no idea how this just happened.

So we tend to make our habits out to be reflexive, like things that we don’t have control over, we tend to say, Oh, this is beyond my control. And I think one of the reasons why we do this is because when we say we don’t have control over it is because then we are not to blame. But listen, our habits are not reflexive, we are in control, they don’t just happen spontaneously. They don’t bypass your brain, they don’t bypass the thought feeling action process.

But it’s easiest to think of habits as reflexive, like, you know, when the doctor hits your knee with that little hammer thing, the doctor hits your patellar tendon with that little, you know, rubber hammer. And what happens in that moment is a signal is sent from your knee to your spinal column.

And immediately that signal is sent to a motor nerve in your quadriceps, and that extends your leg forward. This is called the knee jerk reaction. And it’s a motor reflex, it bypasses your brain completely, it’s actually called the patellar tendon reflex. And it bypasses your thinking your consciousness your brain totally, it goes from your knee to your spinal column to your leg muscle. That’s it. That’s a reflex.

But that is not how habits work. Habits are not reflexive, they don’t bypass the brain, okay, habits are processed by your brain very quickly. Because you’ve just gotten really good at doing this. You have a thought you have a feeling and then you take action. And it seems it’s so fast that it seems automatic. But it’s just why well formed habits, well practiced habits seem unconscious, but your brain is still involved.

This is good news, your your brain is still involved. The good news is that this is still your fault, okay. It’s still something that you have control over. And that’s good news to me, like I would rather have control over what I’m doing. Because if I feel like I’m out of control, I have no say in the matter, I have no authority over myself, right. And I don’t want that.

I don’t want to feel like I’m being you know, manipulated or controlled by some outside force. So if I know that this is within my control, this is good news. This brings the power back to me. So your brain is still doing the work has just gotten really efficient because you’ve been practicing it so much like eating the snacks, you know, late at night, or taking a shower like you take a shower, you don’t even have to think about it, you just do it right.

And sidebar here. This is why so many great ideas come to us in the shower. Because the activity that we’re engaged in, is using it doesn’t use your conscious mind. It uses your subconscious mind. So the activity of taking a shower is a subconscious activity. This is a really good example of how this works. So the conscious mind is free to think, to dream to think more creatively and this is why we get good ideas in the shower. Because our conscious mind is free and open.

Okay, so anyway, that’s a little sidebar. So the key to all of this is to understand that your thoughts and feelings drive your behavior and this is what creates the habit is the thought the feeling and the behavior all combined. and it’s just something you practice. You’ve been practicing these habits for a long, long time.

And then you might be thinking, okay, I get this, Patrick, it’s the thoughts and feelings. But where are these thoughts and feelings coming from? Like, how are those created? Well, thoughts are just sentences in your mind. They’re just things you say to yourself, or little sentences, you say to yourself, they are the stories that you tell yourself about what’s happening around you.

You know, you might be taking a walk through the park, and you see a squirrel and you see a tree, and you see a fountain, and you see a lake and you see a deer. And you’re telling yourself how wonderful all of this is. These are just thoughts, you know, they’re just stories, you’re telling yourself about what’s going on, around you.

So your thoughts are just your interpretations of your circumstances, your thoughts are the meaning that you give to every situation in your life. And your thoughts are determined by how you see the world around you. So your thoughts are heavily influenced by your past experiences by your beliefs, your upbringing, your culture, your family of origin, your education, the type of career you’re in, and on and on, like, this is what we call our model of the world.

And everyone has their own unique model of the world. So your model of the world is unique to you. It’s how you interpret the world around you. And I would argue that there is no one reality that we each have our own version of reality in our minds, because everything is up to interpretation by your brain. And your brain is going to interpret things very different from my brain.

This is kind of cool, because that means that like, we all have an opinion. And we all have a different interpretation of every situation. I think this is pretty cool. And so here’s an example of how the model of the world can influence your thoughts and feelings. And I’ve probably used this example before, but I love it. It’s so good.

So imagine two guys standing on the beach, and they’re both looking out over the ocean. And each of these people has a different view of the ocean. They have different thoughts and feelings about the ocean. One guy has been a fan of the ocean ever since he was a little kid. He used to surf every day. You know, as a kid, he grew up near the beach. And for decades, he’s been an avid surfer, and he just loves the ocean. To him the ocean is a zen like experience. It’s his happy place. It brings him joy. He can’t imagine not getting into the ocean and surfing every single day. Okay. He loves the ocean, loves loves loves it. He feels a sense of peace and joy when he’s standing on the beach looking at the ocean.

Guy number two standing right next to him looking over at the same ocean. Maybe he had a near drowning experience as a child. For him the ocean is a very scary place. For him the ocean is full of danger, and fear. And for him, he wants to avoid the ocean at all costs. He can’t imagine stepping foot in the ocean, okay.

These two people are experiencing the same ocean the same, quote unquote reality but their view of it is completely different based on their model of the world. Their model of the world affects their thoughts and feelings and actions. And different habits will emerge out of those thought feelings and action patterns.

Okay, so one guy’s become an avid surfer. He has a habit of surfing every day, no matter what loves it. The other guy has a habit of never going anywhere near the ocean won’t get on a boat won’t go on a cruise hates going to the beach would never dream of setting foot in the ocean. Right? So two different people, same circumstances, but different models of the world. Different thoughts, feelings and actions, different habits, different results.

So what does all this mean? This this is not to say that we cannot change that. Once you’ve experienced something like trauma or you know, or you’re sort of you’ve got a well established habit that you can’t change it, you absolutely can change it. You can change anything you want about yourself. The point of talking about all this is so that you understand what’s driving the behavior. It’s always your thoughts and feelings. Okay?

And all month long over in the Running Lean coaching group, we are taking a deep dive into this work all month long, we’re focusing on our thoughts, feelings and actions and these patterns, how they show up in our life and how they are creating the results that we’re getting or not getting in every area of our life.

You know, we’ve got people that are trying to change their diet and lose some weight. And they have to understand how their thoughts and feelings are driving their actions of sticking to their plan or not. We’ve got people who want to, you know, qualify for Boston. And their thoughts and feelings are either driving the actions of like making them, you’re keeping them dedicated and disciplined and running faster or not.

And each week, we’re focusing on one topic. So last week, it was our thoughts this week was our feelings next week is going to be all about actions, the and then we’re going to be talking about how to start to change these things and how to start creating the thoughts and feelings that we actually want, so that we can change our results.

And each week, we’ve got a little bit homework to do. So we’re creating a bunch of self awareness around our thoughts and feelings and habits. And then later this month, we’re going to talk about changing them and creating new habits. So if you haven’t checked it out, come over and check out the Running Lean coaching group. It’s super fun, and we’re taking just such a deep dive into this particular topic. Because I really believe this is the foundation of creating any kind of change that you want for yourself, okay.

But the first and most important step is understanding how all of this works. And understanding how your brain works, you know, you got to understand that your brain is is amazing. It’s like one of the most amazing things in the known universe, if not, the most people think it’s the most powerful thing in the known universe, the human brain, nothing is compares to the human brain, what we can do with it, right.

And you have to understand that you are always in control, even though it doesn’t seem like it. Understand that you have authority over your choices, and over your decisions, these things are not just happening to you, okay, you’ve just sort of lost touch with this part of your brain, you’ve gotten into a habit. And you’ve done you started to do something unconsciously and automatic, you’ve been on autopilot. And that’s okay. You just understand how all this works. Understand that you’re just sort of going through the motions now without a whole lot of conscious thought.

So the first step is to bring all of this back into your awareness back into your consciousness. So here’s a weird thing to think about. This is kind of random. I’m gonna bring it back, though. Okay, so I’m going to go off on a little tangent here. But listen, when you were growing up, did anyone ever teach you how to eat? Now? Of course, you’re like, well, yeah, of course, my parents taught me how to eat when I was like, one or whatever, right?

But no, I mean, like, how to eat healthy food, how to eat food that will nourish your body, how to obtain optimal health. Did your parents teach you about the effects of eating sugar and how you should stay away from junk food? Did they teach you how to moderate these things? Or avoid some of these things all together? Probably not. I don’t know. For most of us, that’s probably no.

If you are brought up that way, that is awesome. Your parents are awesome. Congratulations. For most of us, though. No, no, I grew up in the 60s in the 70s. I come from a pretty good sized family, five kids. And my mom was an amazing cook. And she always was had these home cooked meals. She loved cooking. It’s how she showed love to all of us. And, and I grew up, you know, with this idea that, you know, this is how we show love is but food.

And I also grew up thinking that food was entertainment. So Saturday mornings as a kid in the 70s. Like I would watch the cartoons. And there were all these ads, right for Count Chocula and Captain Crunch and sugar Frosted Flakes. And, of course, every time we went to the grocery store, I insisted that we get like one or all of those cereals and stuff, right?

So I was eating a lot of sugary cereals. I remember drinking a lot of sugary soft drinks, and we had dessert pretty much every night. And listen, I’m not blaming my mom or my parents, right. My parents are amazing. Amazing. People love them so much. And they always did their best. And I would say they did a damn fine job raising their five kids. We are all awesome kids, by the way. But this was my model of the world. For many years. For decades, really. my model of the world was driving my thoughts and feelings about food.

And so some of my thoughts and feelings were food is fun. Food is entertainment. Food is a reward. Food is how you show love, the more sugar the more love, more love. Like more sugar equals more love. And I used food in this way to feel good about myself for four decades, really, this was my model of the world, this would become my thought feeling action pattern.

This was my habit in trying to change this habit, you know, I tried all the diets in the world. And nothing ever really worked. Because I didn’t understand what was behind all this, I didn’t understand what was driving the habit, I was just trying to change the behavior, I was just trying to change the actions that I was taking.

And it wasn’t until I started to understand what was underneath the habit, what was underneath the behavior, the thoughts and feelings, that I could actually start to change things for myself. So I learned how I was using food as more like an emotional management tool, you know, I was using food to feel better, or to not have to feel anything at all.

So I was using food as a way to numb myself a lot of the time. So and have to deal with my thoughts and feelings, which are just too much for me, I’m a very emotional person, I feel my feelings, right. And so for years and years of doing this, you know, I I just was numbing myself as much as possible.

I used alcohol for the same reason, you know. And then eventually, I had to like, take a step back and understand what was driving all of this. And after years and years and years of doing this really decades, this all became, for me, an unconscious habit. And in order to break the habit, I had to develop a deep understanding of how the habit actually worked, how it was formed.

While I was thinking and feeling all this stuff, I was thinking and feeling what was driving the behavior. And all this stuff had to be brought out of my unconsciousness and into my consciousness out of the darkness and into the light. I had to just get really curious with myself and start asking myself, why am I thinking these things about food? Why am I thinking and feeling these feelings about food?

And what’s a different way of thinking and feeling about all of this. So if you can relate to any of this, I want you to know something that there’s nothing wrong with you. There’s nothing wrong with me, there was nothing wrong with me in that moment. This is just how our brains are wired, you know, our brains are we have this primitive part of our brain that just wants to keep us safe.

So we have a part of our brain, you know, it’s called the amygdala. It’s this like, very primitive, I call it the lizard brain, it’s always seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, seeking comfort, avoiding discomfort, seeking, the familiar avoiding anything unfamiliar. And, you know, it’s okay, this is just normal. And it’s okay, that we, that we, we have a brain like this, we just need to understand that there is another way to live our life, that if we want something different for ourselves, and we just have to understand what’s driving our behavior, it’s not automatic, it really isn’t.

And we have the capacity to override that primitive brain, we have the capacity to, you know, seek discomfort and seek the unfamiliar and get put ourselves out of our comfort zone and begin to change the habit. All these habits that we’ve developed over the years, they’re just learned behaviors, driven by thoughts and feelings that we’ve practiced over and over again, your work has to understand how all of this is formed, how it works, so you can begin to change things for yourself.

And once you’re armed with all of this self awareness, it’s like taking the red pill in the matrix like nothing will ever be the same for you. Once you see this and you understand it, you can’t unsee it. Or you can take the blue pill and remain contented and stuck where you are. But you seem more like a red pill kind of person to me. Alright, that’s all I got for you this week.

Be sure to join us over in the Running Lean coaching group for August remember we’re taking a deep dive into all of this thought feeling action patterns, how they show up how you can change them so you can start getting the results you want around weight loss running, health and fitness, all of that runningleanpodcast.com/join. And I truly hope that you got something out of this episode today. And if you did, please consider sharing it with a friend I 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.