97. Eliminating Expectations

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 97 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today I’m talking about eliminating expectations.

Listen, we all have expectations, every single one of us, you expect things to go a certain way. And when they do, it’s amazing and you feel great. But when things don’t go the way you expect them to, you get frustrated and you feel terrible.

But this is just the way life is right? Not necessarily. What if there was a different way to do things? What if you simply eliminated all of these expectations? How would that change things for you? This is exactly what I’m talking about here today.

So in this episode, I’m going to explain why having expectations just might be the cause of most of your frustrations, and how eliminating all of these expectations just might be the answer to achieving everything good that you want in your life. It’s going to be a fun one, stick around.

And hey, if you like this podcast, you have to come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook. This is a place where you can come and ask questions and feel supported, and feel encouraged and get some positive motivation and inspiration from fellow runners just like you.

It’s a group that I created to go hand in hand with this podcast, it extends the conversation from here to there and vice versa. But it gives you a voice it gives you a chance to share Hey, this is what’s going on with me. What do you guys think?

So just come join us and check it out. And it’s fun. We do have fun in there too. I do a little bit of coaching and training there every week. Just search for Running Lean community on Facebook.

And then I just want to let you guys know that this month in the Running Lean coaching group just in time for the holidays, mind you, we are talking about self-sabotage, yay.

How to recognize self-sabotage. Self-sabotage comes in many very hidden and sort of insidious forms. And we’re talking about how we recognize when it’s happening, how we can stop it before it gets too crazy before things get out of hand. And by the end of the month, we’re going to talk about how we eliminate self-sabotage from our lives for good, guys.

So join the Running Lean coaching group and come and be a part of our discussion this month on eliminating self-sabotage. And this is a great time of the year to learn about this and start practicing these skills.

So that we can slide through the holidays feeling good about ourselves, and not totally blowing it. So just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join, and hope to see you over there in the group.

Alright, so today I want to talk about eliminating expectations. And this is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. And I finally was like, you know, we just need to get this conversation out there. Because it’s one that is a little bit misunderstood. And I’ll get into that in a minute.

But some people don’t understand what I mean, when I talk about just eliminating all your expectations, just getting rid of them. And so hopefully by the end of this conversation, you will have a very good understanding of what I mean by expectations, how to get rid of them, and what to do instead.

So first of all, what are expectations? Well, expectations are when we expect things to go a certain way. When we want things to go a certain way we have thoughts about the way they should go.

Okay, whenever you have a preconceived notion of how things should be, that is an expectation, when you have strong beliefs about how things should be or how things should not be. These are expectations and they could go either way. Expectations could be things, how you expect things to be or how you expect things not to be.

So how this might play out. I’m going to use an example of somebody let’s say you’re trying to lose weight, okay? So you make a decision, okay, I’m going to lose weight and you change your diet you start exercising, and you start to feel a little bit better.

A few weeks go by, you’re really sticking to your plan. You know, you’re exercising like crazy, you’re feeling hungry all the time, you may be tired, you may be cranky. But the real kicker is you’ve been putting in all this hard work and you haven’t lost a single pound, all his hard work, and the weight is just not coming off.

So you get frustrated, you get angry, you say this is stupid, you end up quitting, it’s not working the way it’s supposed to work. So why should I even bother? You had an expectation here, you had an expectation of the way you thought this was supposed to go, I’m gonna just change my diet and start exercising and the weights gonna just melt off. Okay.

But it didn’t go that way, did it? So this is not uncommon. Okay, the reason? The reason you’re getting upset, and the reason you’re quitting isn’t that the diet isn’t working, it’s because you had an expectation about what was supposed to happen.

And that expectation was not met. That’s what’s causing the anger, and the bitterness and the frustration, and that’s why you’re quitting. And if you had no expectations, if you had no preconceived notions about how this thing should go, would you be upset at all? Probably not. Okay.

So I just want you to see that this is a very common thing that we all do in all kinds of different areas of our life. Right, not just when we’re talking about losing weight, but it definitely does show up when we’re engaging in a weight loss plan or changing our diet, or maybe we want to, you know, improve our running or something like that.

So here are some examples of the way that expectations show up. So for weight loss, you know, I should be further along by now, that’s an expectation, I should have made more progress at this point of my weight loss journey. That’s an expectation.

It’s not working the way it should be working, how should it be working? Right? It shouldn’t take this long, you should go faster, it shouldn’t be this hard, it should be easier.

An example, for running like, I should be faster by now. You know, I’ve been doing speed work, I should be faster by now. Running should be easier. That’s what I think of all the time, especially around mile 20 of a marathon, I’m like running, you should just feel easier. Or, you know, I shouldn’t be injured. These are all expectations, you know, I should never get injured. That’s an expectation, okay.

Another area of your life where this shows up very blatantly is in relationships, like my spouse, my partner, whatever, shouldn’t do this, or they should do that, instead, they shouldn’t act this way, they should treat me differently, they should respond to my needs better.

I shouldn’t have to tell him to pick up his socks, she should be a better communicator. These are all different ways that we expect things to go a certain way. These are all different examples of how we have expectations. Some of these are very obvious, you know, some of these are sort of hidden, we’re not really aware of these, because a lot of these expectations that we have, will show up.

And we’re not even like consciously aware that we have these expectations, right. So they’re happening more at the subconscious level, you’re not actually saying like, I expect you to act this way. And if you don’t, I’m going to be upset, or I expect that I should be losing weight faster. And since I’m not, I’m going to be very frustrated.

Like we don’t say these things out loud. You don’t realize that you have these expectations until someone says something or does something and you get all bent out of shape about it. Or when things don’t go your way. And you find yourself incredibly frustrated and wanting to quit then you kind of like can see what’s going on at the subconscious level. Okay.

So maybe like, you know, for example, we’re talking about relationships, maybe your partner doesn’t go all out for you on your birthday, and you’re acting like a little passive-aggressive about it like you don’t really know why. It’s kind of like, beneath the surface.

You may have expected him to do something big for you something special and he didn’t and let you down. The thing is, you weren’t even aware that you had this expectation, but you did. And of course, he didn’t know anything about this expectation. And but now everybody’s aware of it because you’re upset about it.

Okay, this is a way that this shows up for us in all kinds of ways. And speaking of relationships, when I got divorced a couple of years ago, I had all kinds of expectations of the way things should have gone, oh, she should have been a better communicator, she shouldn’t have done this, she shouldn’t have acted this way.

The only person upset in that situation was me, it was very frustrating for me because I had all these unmet expectations of how I thought the way things should be. So there are all kinds of ways that this shows up in our lives, okay.

And here’s the thing, we are all just going by what we know. So when you set out a big goal for yourself like maybe you want to lose some weight, you’re operating from what you know, you can only go by what you know, your own past experiences, what you’ve read about what you’ve heard about.

Maybe you’re working with a coach, which your coach has been telling you, you have an idea of what this should look like, you know, I should lose 2-3 pounds every week for 12 weeks straight. And I should be at my goal weight in exactly 90 days.

Like this is like an idea that may be very obvious to you. And maybe something you’ve said out loud or told other people or maybe this is something that’s just in the back of your mind. But either way, you have this expectation of how this whole weight loss journey should go for you.

Or maybe you’re trying to qualify for Boston. And I’ve been following this Boston qualifier training plan and at my next marathon, I will run a BQ time. And of course, I’ll make the cut. And so everything’s going to go exactly according to plan.

These are ideas of how we think things should go. And it’s all based on what we know, or what we think we know. What about the stuff we don’t know, what about the things that are unforeseen? What about setbacks and failures and injuries and cheat days and stressful occurrences?

Like when we have this vision of a perfectly executed plan from start to finish, you’re really creating a lot of hidden expectations. It might seem like you’re just making a good plan. Like, you know, you’ve got this good idea, this good plan is a good vision of how things should go.

But what you’re really doing is you’re setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration. Because I’ve never seen a weight loss plan or a Boston qualifier plan go perfectly, there are always bumps in the road.

Nothing ever goes as planned in these situations, almost never, maybe sometimes. With all these, like hidden expectations, there’s a guarantee that you’re going to experience some sort of negative emotions along the way, right? Because you don’t even know you have these hidden expectations. But then you start to get frustrated, you start to feel like a failure, you feel disappointed, you feel angry, bitter resentment.

These things can really throw you off your game, by the way. And the reason you’re feeling all these things is because there’s this gap between your hidden expectations. And then reality the things that are actually happening. And the greater the gap, the worse you feel.

So the more perfect you think things should be, and the less perfect they appear to be happening, the worse you feel. And when you’re operating from this place this like negative emotional state, how do you act?

Well, typically, you just say, eff it and eat whatever you want. You give up on trying. You just like stop trying to run faster, because you know, nothing’s going according to the plan. Right?

So having unmet expectations leads to all sorts of negative outcomes. Goals never become achieved. You give up on your dreams, you stay stuck where you are. You never make any forward progress. Because things are just not going according to plan.

If everything would just go as planned, then I’d be happy, then I’d feel good, then I’d make more progress, right? Have you ever found yourself saying this to yourself, like if everything would just go as planned, then I’d be happy?

Or if things didn’t go as I planned, I’m going to be upset. This is a recipe for a lifetime of disappointment. A lifetime of just feeling let down, being frustrated, being angry feeling the bitterness feeling the resentment. Why? Because things almost never go as planned.

And so I’ve talked about this before, and people have said to me, Well, what am I supposed to do? Do I just lower my expectations? I’m not supposed to have low expectations. Aren’t I supposed to have high hopes are supposed to want for the best?

Yes, of course, you should want for the best. Of course, you should expect the best. But here’s the thing. I think that having expectations is a huge, huge problem. I think you should just eliminate any expectations at all.

Are you still with me? Or if you just turned this off by now, here’s what I want you to do. Instead, what I want you to do instead is practice something that I call radical acceptance.

So when we eliminate the perfect scenario, the way things should be, then we got to do something. Instead, we have to practice something called radical acceptance, which means that you just accept everything. And I mean, every single thing in your life for exactly as it is, because, well, that’s the way it is.

Radical acceptance means you’re no longer expecting things to go a certain way. You’re accepting the way things are, you’re accepting the fact that things will go the way they go. Radical acceptance means accepting that your weight loss journey will take a while. That’s okay.

It means that you know, you didn’t Boston qualify this go around, no big deal. It means that you accept that your husband doesn’t do big things on your birthday. You just accept that fact. That’s the way he is.

It means accepting that everything in your life is exactly the way it should be. Because that’s the way it is. How do you know something was supposed to go a certain way? Because that’s the way it went. Does that make sense? How do you tell if something was supposed to go a certain way? Because it happened that way.

People tell me all the time, like, ah, you know, it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. I’m like, but that’s the way it happened. You know, maybe you can wish it didn’t happen that way all you want, but it’s not going to change anything, except the way things are in every area of your life.

There’s a lot of freedom in this. Now, before you start sending me emails, what radical acceptance is not I don’t want you to think that you know, radical acceptance means that you’re just content with the way everything is, and you let people walk all over you or you never achieve anything greater in your life.

That is not what I’m saying at all. Radical acceptance means you accept everything exactly as it is, you’re not fighting against reality anymore, okay? It’s not agreeing with everything, though.

It’s not saying that everything is good, or I’m not going to work to change anything. It simply means you accept the way things are because that’s the way they are.

You can absolutely want to change things, and you should. You can start making changes to your diet to get the scale moving. It’s not like you have to accept the fact that things are the way they are, that you are, where you are on your weight loss journey.

And you can make changes to get the scale moving again. You can figure out what went wrong on your last marathon race day, and you can try something different next time. So you can get to that Boston qualifying time that you’ve been working for.

I’m not saying give up on your dreams. I’m not saying just you know, let people do whatever they want. Maybe you have that conversation with your husband about how you’d like your birthday to go in the future. Let everybody in on your little secret about what you really want for yourself. Okay?

So radical acceptance doesn’t mean you are content with everything exactly the way it is. It just means you’re no longer fighting against reality. It means you’ve let go of all of your preconceived notions about how things should be.

It shouldn’t be this, it should be this. This should be different, that should be this way. It means you stopped shooting all over yourself. I love saying that. I think it’s so funny.

When you eliminate expectations, when you start practicing radical acceptance, you are no longer fighting against the way things are. You are accepting reality exactly as it is. You’re no longer thinking that there’s something wrong in every situation in your life. You can begin to go through your life with a sense of calmness and inner peace that maybe you’ve never really experienced before.

I think this is life-changing. It’s like you’ve been standing in a river trying to hold back the water fighting and struggling against the current and then you just let it all go. You let the flow of water flow around. Without all the struggle without wishing it was different, and it just feels easy, and it just feels good.

There’s no longer anything wrong. There’s no longer internal conflict. There’s no longer negativity. There’s just you accepting that this is the way things are. You’re expecting nothing. You don’t have expectations, you’re accepting everything.

And you’re getting to work, learning, growing and changing, and becoming more. You’re accepting everything the way it is, you have zero expectations, and you’re working to become that badass that you’ve always wanted to be.

I hope you got something out of this episode today. It’s a little bit of a shorter one. But I really wanted to share this information with you. I thought it was so important. It’s been one of the most powerful concepts I have put into practice in my life, accepting everyone and everything for exactly the way it is, and working to change the things that you can. Cool.

Alright, if you’re ever looking for a little help with all this stuff, that’s what I do. I’m a coach. I can offer you the expert guidance, support, encouragement, and accountability that you need to make this work for you. No matter what your goals no matter what your tastes, no matter what your lifestyle.

Let’s get to work in and create that badass that you’ve always wanted to be. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply, and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. Alright, love you all. Keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.

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