Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
Fear of success is probably something most people aren’t aware of. If you ask people why they can’t seem to reach a particular goal, they will come up with all kinds of reasons, excuses, and …
Continue Reading about 166. Overcoming Your Fear of Success →
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 166, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, overcoming your fear of success. Fear of success is something that most people probably aren’t aware of. If you ask people why they can’t seem to reach a particular goal, they’ll probably come up with all kinds of reasons and excuses and stories and such. And they’ll probably almost never say, oh, fear of success. That’s why I couldn’t reach my goal.
But here’s the thing, fear of success is a real thing. And today, I want to bring this into your understanding. I want you to become keenly aware of this natural fear of success that we all have, what it looks like, so that you’ll never have to fall prey to that again in the future. So in this episode, I’ll explain what fear of success is, and how overcoming your fear of success can be the key to achieving your weight loss goals.
But first, when I start working with someone, and they tell me they have a sweet tooth, I’m using finger quotes here sweet tooth. And they cannot imagine living their life without sweets without sugar. So here’s what we do, I suggest they take a break from sugar for a while. And that suggestion usually makes them freak out a little bit. Their cravings for sugar typically go up right away, like if you stop eating sugar, or if you let’s say you stop drinking alcohol, like the first thing that’s going to happen is that your cravings are going to probably go up a little bit.
Okay, but then we work through that and we deal with that. And then something interesting happens after a few days. without sugar, those cravings start to subside a little bit. After a few weeks, the cravings get a lot weaker and more sporadic. So they’re not happening constantly.
And then after a few months without sugar, the cravings are often completely gone. Not always.
But a lot of times, it’s just not an issue anymore. So sugar was something that they couldn’t imagine living without, oh, I have a sweet tooth, I just have to eat sugar all the time. And now it’s something that they don’t care about anymore. They don’t ever want it back in their lives. They feel better without it, they sleep better. They have more energy, and running is easier. They’re losing weight.
So if this is you, if you don’t think you could ever give up sugar, I want you to challenge that thought. Just challenge the thought, what if What if you’re wrong? Because here’s what I think – I think you can do it. I think you can do it. You just need the right guidance, the support and the encouragement to get you there. And I can help you with all that.
Okay, if you want to learn more and apply for coaching, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. We’ll get on call, we’ll talk about it, we’ll see how coaching can help you overcome your quote unquote, sweet tooth. Cool. Awesome.
All right, let’s talk about overcoming your fear of success. And I have been thinking about this episode for a while because it is a concept that I talk to someone about, typically every week, every week, this comes up in one way or another. And it’s something that we have to work through.
So I thought since it’s so prevalent out there, that I thought I would really bring this into the spotlight today and really shine a light on what fear of success is but I think we all experienced this to some degree. And as I go through this conversation today, I think you’re gonna see that you can relate to a lot of this and you may not be aware that you’re doing it or why you’re doing it, but let’s, let’s just get into this.
Let’s start with an understanding of what fear of success is. So fear of success is when you have an ongoing fear of reaching some goal or of accomplishing something and it’s usually something big like you know, losing a lot of weight. That’s that’s a big let’s say you got to lose 30 pounds 50 pounds. That can seem pretty daunting.
So fear of success is having a fear of reaching that goal. And the fear is very real. And it’s also mostly unconscious or subconscious. Meaning that you may not be consciously aware that you have this fear, but it’s there. And it’s real nonetheless. And it’s not that you aren’t capable of reaching your goal, you definitely are, you are capable of losing the 30 pounds or 50 pounds.
But there’s an underlying fear of what comes along with reaching that big goal, the change that happens when you reach a big goal like that, and you’re not so sure that you’re going to be able to handle it. That’s where a lot of this fear stems from. Let’s talk about the underlying issue here, the real root cause of this fear of success. The fear of success is your brain trying to keep you safe and comfortable.
So we have two main different aspects of our brain, there’s more than two, but there’s two I’m going to talk about today, we have our amygdala, our primitive brain, and we have our prefrontal frontal cortex, which is our more modern, that’s more of our thinking brain, our prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain we use for planning for making good decisions for being organized.
And so this is our modern evolved part of our brain, the amygdala, is a tiny little almond size, part of our brain, one of the most primitive parts of our brain that is responsible for fight or flight for fear for those criminal primal urges that we have, you know, survival and sex drive and things like that.
So we have this thinking, planning, you know, organized brain, and then we have this primitive, fear driven brain, and they’re always kind of at odds with each other to some degree, right? That amygdala, so that lizard brain, I’ll call it right, is always just seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. And this is a very powerful part of our brain, that amygdala drives a lot of our decision making and drives a lot of our behavior.
And it’s up to us using the prefrontal cortex to override that default behavior. So that primitive part of our brain will be seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, it’s seeking comfort and avoiding discomfort, it’s seeking the familiar and avoiding anything that feels unfamiliar. So reaching a big goal, you know, losing a bunch of weight, or, you know, achieving success in other areas of our life.
This seems like it would create pleasure for us, right? And our prefrontal cortex, we say, Yes, this is what I want for myself, this will bring me joy and pleasure and make me happy. But to your brain, this is just another uncomfortable place for you. This is you getting into unfamiliar territory, your natural inclination is to avoid anything that causes fear and worry and anxiety, and discomfort.
And succeeding at something like losing a bunch of weight can create all those things, it can create fear, anxiety and worry and discomfort. So a good example of this is something that I see, probably once a week, I talk to somebody about this, in my coaching practice, someone has a big weight loss goal, and they might be getting close to some big number. So it could be breaking 200 pounds.
So there, there may be, you know, they started at 225 or 230, and they want to get, you know, down to 190 or something like that, and they’re getting close to that 200 pound mark, they might be at 205 or something. And, or it could be someone who’s, you know, trying to break through some other number, like another milestone number, like 150, you know, maybe it’s someone who’s trying to get down to one 140. And, you know, 145 and they’re like 155, and they haven’t been under 150 in decades, you know, okay, so they’re getting close to this number.
And let’s just use the 200 pound number and so we have somebody that’s getting close, so maybe they got really close, they’d been at two, two and two, a one and maybe they even dipped down below 200 And got to like 199 for a day. And then they find themselves moving in the other direction they got to, then they go back to 201 and 203 and 205.
And they don’t understand it. How can this be happening? I just got right below that number that I was working so hard to get to. I was starting to understand, why couldn’t I stay there? So then we dig into the details, we look at their food logs, and then we see a few things that become pretty clear.
Oh, yeah, well, I forgot that I ate that piece of cake. And I ate that medium sized pizza by myself. And while I ate a bunch of my kids’ french fries and ate all this bread with dinner, and I did have a few beers or a couple bottles of wine or whatever it is, right? And they’re not even aware that they’re doing these things.
But they’re sabotaging their own success in the process, right? So their brain is basically just saying, like, getting under 199 feels uncomfortable. So we’re not going to go there. We’re going to keep you up here at like 203-205. Like, this feels pretty good. We haven’t been under 200 in the 100’s for like 20 years. So this is dangerous territory we’re getting into here. This is unfamiliar and uncomfortable.
So your brain will actively try to move you in the other direction. It’s not that this is what you want for yourself, not consciously anyway. But unconsciously your brain is sensing danger, and sensing discomfort and sensing fear and will move you in the other direction. This is classic self sabotage. This is how fear of success manifests itself. In a lot of people.
Okay, this is one example. So we have to be aware of this. And we have to actively work against our brain’s natural tendencies, that means being willing to get uncomfortable. That means noticing, when you are actively seeking comfort and safety and keep going anyway, keep doing your thing anyway.
Even though it feels uncomfortable, and unsafe, and unfamiliar, be willing to be uncomfortable, embrace the suck. Because that’s how you actually achieve anything that you want and everything that you want for yourself. So there are some other signs that you might be experiencing fear of success. And one of those is maybe you don’t have goals, because you lack goals or your goals are very low and very easy to reach.
So keeping the bar low, means you don’t ever have to face any real challenges. You never have to get too uncomfortable. So if you don’t strive for much, it won’t really matter if you reach that goal or not. Because you haven’t put much into it. So many people do this. I talk to people all the time, what’s your weight loss goal? And they’ll say, oh, you know, I want to lose 10 pounds, or they’ll say something small like that.
And I’ll push them a little bit and you know, really dig into it and kind of find out where they really want to be and what their ideal weight is. Let’s say you could wave a magic wand today. Where do you want to be, really? And they’ll be like well, I mean, I really want to lose like 30 pounds.
Okay, so why aren’t you shooting for 30 pounds as your goal? Well, because it seems hard. That’s not realistic. What if I fail, or I’ve tried that before, and I’ve let myself down? I’ve never been able to do it before. And in light of this discussion to say today, I just want to say like what, what if, what if I succeed, I’m going to be a whole new person. And that brings up a whole host of uncomfortable thoughts and feelings about who I’m going to be.
That’s really what’s going on here. What happens if you succeed? So understand that we can self sabotage and we can keep ourselves small, because we are afraid of succeeding. So we we don’t have big goals. We keep our goals very low. Oh, what’s your big running goal this year? Oh, I want to run? You know, a 5k. Well, why not go for more? What do you really want to do? Well, I mean, I’d love to run a marathon someday, but I mean, that’s not in the stars for me. I could never do something like that.
Like no, we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna do that thing that you think is impossible. Forget realistic, I hate those smart goals that are like they’re, they’re you know, “realistic” goals, and I’m like, no, let’s go for unrealistic goals. Okay, so lack of goals are low goals, easily attainable goals. This could be a sign that you’re experiencing fear of success.
Another sign is procrastination. So you keep stalling and stalling until you just don’t ever do anything. Right, a lot of times people will stall and then the opposite opportunity will actually pass them by. And they’ll be like, well see, I mean, it just wasn’t meant to be. But then you know, you never really have to take action if you just keep putting things off. So you never have to worry about failing or succeeding.
And one of the biggest reasons why people do not achieve what they want for themselves. The biggest reason why people don’t achieve their goals and their dreams is procrastination. They say, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it. When I have more time, I’ll do it when I have more money, I’ll do it when the kids are off to college, or when we pay the house off, or after I retire. Or once this big project is over at work or whatever, on and on, and on, and on and on.
Later, I’ll do it later. Later, later, later, is the number one killer of hopes and dreams. Because later never happens. There will always be some excuse, some reason or some story about why you need to wait or why you should put it off. If you want to make a big change in your life right now, stop doing this. Stop saying later, start taking action, not this week. Not later today, right now do something right now, to move towards that goal, whatever it is that you want for yourself. There’s something you can do, right now.
Another reason why people will have this fear of success, and you’ll see it manifest in this way, is perfectionism. So people will say to themselves, hey, if I can’t do it perfectly, why should I bother doing it at all? And I think this is on one hand, hilarious, and on the other hand, insidious, because it’s funny to me, because nobody does anything perfectly right?
No, we don’t ever do anything perfectly. But we hold ourselves to this high standard that if we aren’t perfect, there’s no reason why we should even bother doing it. And it’s kind of insidious, because it keeps us from achieving anything. This is one of the reasons why people won’t start something or they try something for a minute and they quit because they don’t do it perfectly. Or maybe they fail.
But you know what the real key here is, isn’t doing something perfectly. It’s about being consistent about what you’re doing. Consistency beats perfection all the time. So instead of thinking about and striving for perfection, think about and strive to be consistent in whatever it is you’re doing. Maybe you have a goal to run regularly. And your goal is to run five days a week. And you do that pretty well for a few weeks. And then you miss a day.
Instead of saying, “Well, you know, I screwed up, I guess I can’t do this though”, you just keep going. Or if you have a new food plan, you’re trying to not eat sugar. And then, you know, over the weekend you kind of gave in and your kids were having a little birthday party for their friend and they had cupcakes and you had a cupcake. “Well, I didn’t do it perfectly. So I might as well just eat the rest of the cupcakes. Screw these little kids. I’m gonna eat all their cupcakes.”
No, don’t do that. First of all, that’s not cool. Kids want the cupcakes, right? Let the kids eat the cupcakes. But for you, it doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Just stop eating the cupcakes, just whatever, you ate one, fine, move on. We don’t have to. But you know, we don’t have two cheat meals in a row. We don’t miss two workouts in a row. That’s a good rule of thumb right there. Okay, so forget perfectionism. Strive for consistency. instead.
Another sign that you might be experiencing this fear of success is quitting. Why did you quit? And a lot of people will quit just before they reach some goal or some milestone, like the example of somebody that’s trying to lose weight and they’re, you know, they get to 203 or 204. And they just quit.
Because getting close to that goal, it starts to become real, it starts to feel uncomfortable. And they start worrying about all kinds of stuff. Why they won’t be able to maintain that going forward or, or what are people going to think of them and I’ll get into all that in just a minute. But people will quit, rather than experience the discomfort that comes along with succeeding. I know it’s bananas, right?
And the last sign that you might be experiencing a fear of success is any kind of self sabotaging behavior which we’ve been talking about any kind of self destructive behavior. So doing things that go against what you’re actively trying to achieve. Self sabotaging behavior is any behavior that you engage in, that is not in alignment with your goals. It’s things you do that aren’t aligned with who you want to be. It’s pretty simple. Is this thing I’m doing right now in alignment with who I ultimately want to be as a human being? Pretty easy answer, just like yes or no?
If the answer is yes, do it. If the answer is no, don’t do it. Pretty simple. Should I eat the cupcake? Oh, is that in alignment with who you want to be? No, well, I don’t need it. Pretty simple.
So why do we do all this? There are many reasons why we fear success, as counterintuitive as it seems. So I want to dive into some of the reasons why we actually do these things. Okay. So one of them is that you might be afraid of being the center of attention. So succeeding, losing a lot of weight means that people might start to notice you. So you might be afraid of people noticing you or you might be afraid of being in the spotlight, people might start complimenting you on how good you look.
And consciously you might, you might say, oh, I want that. But subconsciously, you’re like, I don’t want that. I don’t want anybody to notice me, I don’t want people to notice how much weight I’ve lost. Because this can feel very uncomfortable. This is not something that you’re used to, you’re used to hiding in this body where nobody really paid attention to you. Nobody really saw you.
And now you start to feel exposed because people are noticing you. And this can be very uncomfortable. Okay? Notice when this is happening, notice when you’re actively being afraid of being the center of attention. Okay? Another reason why we do this is that we worry about leaving people behind, if we move forward. So if we succeed at something, we worry about, leaving others behind, so has your husband, or your friends will say things to you, like, Hey, you look fine, you don’t need to lose any more weight.
And so as you lose weight, you start to feel like you’re pulling away from those people. And you start to feel like there’s this rift between you because they’re telling you, oh, don’t lose more weight, you know, you look fine. And they’re doing that, because what you’re doing makes them feel uncomfortable. It’s not about you, it’s about them. So instead of continuing on, you begin to self sabotage your own success, so you don’t lose your friends. So you don’t lose your partner.
And of course, it’ll probably never happen. But it’s hitting on that tribal nerve, that part of us that just wants to be a part of that wants to fit in and wants to be a part of the group. And there’s this quote that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, right. And instinctively, we don’t want to stand out, we don’t want to get hammered down, we just want to be like everybody else around us.
But here’s the truth bomb, you may have to leave some people behind. If the people around you don’t support you, if the people around you are trying to hold you back from being your best self, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. It makes them feel bad about themselves. You might need to find new people, or at least have a conversation with some of these people, especially your partner.
You don’t need to get divorced over this, right? But it’s not out of the realm of possibility. So I’m just saying. All right. Another reason why we fear success is that we start to feel anxious about being able to maintain that success. So we say things like, oh, it’s kind of hard work to lose weight, right? Am I going to have to work this hard the rest of my life?
And this is where we stop being afraid of reaching a goal and start being afraid of being able to maintain that goal. The truth though, is that it’s actually much easier to maintain your weight than it is to lose weight. So to lose weight, there’s some restriction there, you have to be a little bit more strict about what you’re doing if you want to lose weight, much more so than to maintain weight.
But most people what happens is they tend to fall back into old habits once they hit a weight loss goal. So they never really learned how to maintain their weight. They never learned the habits to make all this sustainable. And one of the most important things I do as a coach is help you to learn how to make eating right and maintaining a healthy weight just part of who you are part of what you do.
It has to be easy, it has to be effortless. Maintaining your weight has to be an ingrained habit. And inevitably that’s where we’re trying to get with all this but a lot of people don’t see it that way. They don’t understand how to make it sustainable, they feel like they have to be too restrictive, to lose weight and they think that they have to be that restrictive forever and you really don’t.
But, you know, thinking about maintaining your success thinking about maintaining your weight can be enough to cause people to quit and to start self sabotaging, okay. Another reason why people fear success is there’s this fear of being judged. And criticized, especially by the people that are close to you.
We sometimes feel like we get judged, criticized, shunned by friends and family. Sometimes it’s just strangers on the internet, or whatever. But this can be, this can be very uncomfortable. And so you might have a whole new look like you lost a bunch of weight, you got new clothes, you get super fit, you feel amazing, you look fabulous.
And yet, there will be people out there who do not like you. And they’ll let you know that. They don’t like that you’ve changed. They don’t like your new look, they don’t like your new clothes, they don’t like that you’re into running or whatever it is, they just don’t like you period, right? Here’s the thing, though, this is just part of being a human being here on planet Earth. Some people like you, and some people won’t.
And that’s it, get over it. Do not let your fear of being judged or criticized stop you from becoming your most badass self. Because the reality is, there are probably already people right now who don’t like you for who you are at this moment. So you might as well just ignore everybody, all the haters out there, and just you do you you become the person that you ultimately want to become.
And don’t let any of that nonsense stop you. Okay? So all the stuff we’re talking about today is about awareness. It’s about having the insight and the self awareness to notice when your fear of success might actually be the fortune of your success. So once you understand all this, you see that it is happening. And a lot of times remember this is a lot of this is subconscious, right.
But once you see that it is happening. Once you bring it into your awareness into your consciousness, you can do something about it. You have to notice when your behavior might not be in alignment with who you want to be, and then work to change it. Be mindful when you start using excuses and reasons and stories to justify some sort of unwanted behavior. Oh, man, I’ve been really good all week. So I deserve a pizza as a reward. Oh, this might be a little fear of success. Do I really want to undo all the hard work I’ve done up to this point for a few pieces of mediocre pizza? No, I don’t.
So be aware of when you try to tell yourself, it’s okay to do it. There’s just one piece of pizza or whatever. When you know that that’s really not what you want for yourself. Okay. Lastly, I just want you to be willing to be uncomfortable because this process of succeeding or achieving weight loss goals or whatever your goals are is its own comfort.
Discomfort is the price you pay to achieve all your goals and dreams. Discomfort is the cost of your success. Just gotta remember that. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will 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.
There’s a powerful principle that you absolutely must embrace if you want to continue growing, evolving, and becoming more. That principle is this: There is no finish line. This means that …
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 156, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, there is no finish line. There’s a powerful principle that you absolutely must embrace if you want to continue growing, evolving and becoming more.
And that principle is this: there is no finish line. This means that whatever you’re doing to improve yourself, you must continue doing for the rest of your life. Now, if this idea scares the crap out of you, rest assured you’re not alone. Most people do not live their lives this way. Why? Because it feels too big, it is too daunting.
Most people think that there’s an end to eating healthy or running consistently. And then they can get back to their comfy cozy life. But the truth is, there is no end. So today, I’m going to explain why there is no finish line, and how this is actually a good thing and the key to you becoming your most badass self.
And if you’re one of these people who thinks that constantly improving yourself is too overwhelming or too daunting, and it feels like it would just be too hard. And you just can’t wrap your mind around that I totally understand, I get that. That’s kind of why I do what I do as a coach.
My job as a coach is to help you set big goals for yourself goals that you don’t think that you can accomplish right now, maybe it’s losing 40 or 50 pounds and keeping it off for the rest of your life. Maybe it’s running that ultra marathon that you’ve been thinking about forever or running that half marathon that you’ve been thinking about forever, whatever it is that you want for yourself, that thing that’s looming out in the distance that feels impossible for you. Let’s work together and let’s make that happen for you.
Yes, you can lose the weight. Yes, you can keep it off. Yes, you can run further or faster than you ever thought you could before. You just need the right plan. And I’m here to help you with that. So if you’re interested in becoming that most badass version of yourself, and you want to make it last, and you want to understand the concepts and the principles of how to make it last and how to make these changes are just part of who you are, what you do, then I’m here for you. Okay, this is what I do. This is my jam. This is what I do as a coach.
This is why coaching works so well because it’s you and I working together, setting big goals, putting together a plan, and then helping you stay on track to reach those goals and helping you develop the mindset, the habits to make this last for life. This isn’t about the short term. This isn’t about quick fixes. This is about long term health and fitness. And the only way we do that is by really changing your lifestyle. Okay, so this is what I do.
If you’re interested in working with me, I’m here for you, this is a great time to get started. Let’s start 2023 on the right track and set some big goals for you and start working towards those goals. Cool. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a quick application, you and I’ll jump on a call. I’ll explain all about the program, and we’ll get you started.
So I think there’s a big misconception out there. When it comes to making changes, like we talked about a lot here on the podcast, you know, we talk about changing your habits, changing your eating habits, changing your diet, we talk about changing the way you approach exercise, we talk about changing your approach to running.
And I think there’s this big misconception where people think that these changes are temporary. Even the term diet itself is a very temporary thing, right? I mean, just the concept of going on a diet means you’re probably gonna go off that diet at some point, right? That’s why I try to stay away from that word, because I think it has some negative connotations. It has some limiting connotations or some temporary connotations. So I don’t really use the word diet too often anyway.
But the thing is, we think I think for the most part, we think that doing these things is something we do for the short term and somehow we’re going to improve our health, we’re gonna improve our fitness, and then we can go back to doing things that we used to do and go back to, you know, our life as we knew it before.
And I think we got to really just, I say it right at the beginning here of this podcast, which is like, that is not how it works. That’s not how it works. When you make changes and start improving your health, let’s say you start running consistently, and you start improving, running, and you and you start lifting weights, and you change your diet and you start eating properly, and you start feeling better, and you start losing the weight.
And then you get to this place where you’re like, yeah, this is pretty good. I’m feeling good. I’ve got to my goal weight, or, you know, I ran that marathon that was so big for me is such a huge accomplishment for me. And then you think what, you’re done? Are you done? Are you just gonna like, give up and throw in the towel and go back to your comfy cozy life? Is that the way that this works?
The answer is no. It’s not. When you make these kinds of changes for yourself, that is bettering yourself. When you set big goals for yourself, and then you accomplish them. Oh, my gosh, that is amazing. These are great accomplishments, celebrate those things. But then ask yourself, what’s next? So you do what you do. And then you do it again, you do what you do to become more. And then you reach that next version of yourself, that next level of yourself.
And then guess what? It’s time to level up again, there is no finish line, there is no stopping. And another concept we have to get out of the way here at the top of this episode is this, like life is hard. And it’s supposed to be hard, life is not supposed to be easy. And I think that this is a big misconception that somehow when we change our diet, or we, you know, start running more often that somehow, you know, you’ll never have any cravings for junk food again, or like running is just going to be so easy. It’s going to just feel effortless.
I’ve been running for a long time, I’ve run a lot, a lot of miles. And running is never easy. It’s never like effortless. You know, there’s some effort involved with running, always. And when it comes to food, I still struggle sometimes with some cravings or with you know, I guess peer pressure is the right word for it, you know, social pressure from others. Peer pressure is so funny, it reminds me of like middle school, right? You know, hey, try cigarettes, good. What’s the same thing?
People are like, hey, just eat some french fries, patties? Fine. Everybody else is doing it, just do it. And I’m like, dude, what is this? It feels like junior high. But I digress. So there’s this concept that like, at some point, you know, eating and choosing the right foods all the time is going to be simple and easy. And there’s times when it doesn’t feel easy. And there’s times when it is hard.
There’s times when I just want to like dive face first into a gallon of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, because that was my jam. And that was something that really made me feel good, you know, eating that much sugar all at once. Boy that lights you up, I’ll tell you what, you want to forget your problems for a few minutes. That’s a good way to do it. Right?
Of course, it comes with all those negative consequences. And of course, I don’t do that. But I still have those feelings. You know, I still have the struggle at times. You know, of course, it’s easier. And of course, running is easier than it was 5 or 10 years ago. But it’s still challenging. I actually just got done with a 10 mile run here this morning. And it wasn’t I would not say that there was really much during that run that felt really easy.
Now I did notice my heart rate was low the whole time. And I was running pretty slow. And I purposely was just making this an easy run. We’re supposed to get some terrible weather here in Cincinnati in the next few days over Christmas. So I was just like, It’s a Thursday morning. I’m gonna go get my 10 miles done now. And I’m not, I don’t normally run 10 miles on a Thursday morning, but I did it. It was cold. It was raining and windy, but you know, there was no part of that where I was like, oh, this is great. Like, this is so easy and effortless.
No, you know, I’m building my endurance again. I had to take some time off because of an injury. And coming back to running has been a bit of a challenge and it’s hard and I thought to myself, this is hard, but it’s okay. It’s hard, but it’s okay. And I approach food the same way like sometimes it’s hard but it’s okay. That can be hard. Life is supposed to be hard. It doesn’t really get easy.
I think we’re missing the point if we think we’re chasing some easy life. I think the opposite should be true. You should be chasing a hard life. You should be chasing hard things constantly in your life, this concept of there is no finish line. That means there’s no end to doing hard things and accomplishing hard things so that you can level up so that you can become more easy, it is easy, everybody can do easy.
It’s the strong, it’s the unique, it’s the dedication, the discipline to achieve hard. And that’s what you want to do. If you want to level up, you want to get outside your comfort zone and become a different person, you got to do the hard things, right? Hard is where you want to live, you want to you don’t want to live in easy, right? You can do hard things. So do hard things.
And life should be constantly a challenge for you, you should be challenging yourself to do harder and harder things. So combined with this concept of there is no finish line, when we are constantly pushing ourselves and constantly setting the bar higher for ourselves, and we’re constantly leveling up.
This is great, because it means you’re constantly growing and evolving and becoming more and becoming stronger and accomplishing more. And this isn’t just about running or losing weight. This can be about every area of your life, relationships, work. If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re building a business, this is hard work. Trust me, I know, I’ve been doing this a long time. It’s not easy.
In your spiritual life, you know, sometimes it can be very hard to have faith. You know, in your family dynamics, your family relationships, dealing with kids. It can be challenging, and it should be challenging, and you should be setting the bar higher for yourself constantly and constantly leveling up. We always want to be leveling up. This is a way of life, right? becoming healthy, becoming the best version of yourself, becoming stronger, becoming your best.
Your most badass self is not a destination. It’s how you live your life. It has to become who you are at your core, it has to become part of who you are at your core. When it becomes who you are at your core, it no longer is an option to stay small, it’s no longer an option to stay in the comfort zone. It’s no longer an option to not go after bigger and bigger things for yourself.
When you constantly level up and constantly push yourself beyond your comfort zone, where all the new stuff is because if you have it already, it’s in your comfort zone. But if there’s something you want that you don’t already have, it’s outside your comfort zone, right? By definition, it’s uncomfortable out there, though, right?
But by constantly pushing yourself, you know, this idea of who you are at your core will continue to drive you. There is no longer a debate in your mind of whether you should stay on your healthy eating plan. There’s no longer a question in your mind, whether you should put on your running shoes and go outside and run even though it’s cold and windy and raining outside.
You do it and then you do it again. You level up, you accomplish something, you set another goal for yourself and then you do it again. There is no end. There is no finish line. This is who you are. Recently, I was running with a friend of mine. And she had another friend, you know that I didn’t know. And she said oh, you know, Patrick, this is so and so. Patrick is an ultra marathoner. He’s one of those guys that runs, you know, these ultra marathons.
So she introduced me as this ultra marathoner. And I thought to myself, like, is that really who I am? At my core? Is that who I am today? Because I haven’t run an ultra marathon in a few years. And so I kind of thought to myself, like, is that still who I am? I think the last time I ran an ultra was two years ago, in December. Yep. But is that who I am? If I don’t do this consistently, does that mean I’m no longer an ultra marathoner?
And I had to think about that for a minute. And it really made me look inside and see like, am I leveling up consistently? And if I’m not, why not? Why am I not pushing myself and creating bigger and better goals for myself so that I can continue to become more and continue to grow and continue to see what I’m capable of?
I’ve done some pretty amazing things in my opinion, you run 100 miles, that’s pretty amazing. Finished an Ironman. I ran 50 miles, I’ve done a bunch of 50k ultra marathons. This stuff is great. But is that like, am I done? And so the last couple of years, I’ve had some setbacks. I’ve had, you know, some injuries, some surgeries, and you know, had to take a lot of time off from running and stuff.
And I thought, you know, now I’m feeling pretty healthy, I’m feeling pretty strong, I’m building mileage. Again, my cardiovascular system is really improving. And my endurance is improving. And I’m just feeling pretty strong where I am right now. I’ve stayed consistent with strength training, which is awesome, but I’m feeling very strong from a running perspective today.
And, and I’m like, yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna continue leveling up as an ultra marathoner and continue pushing myself to see what I’m capable of. Does that mean I have 100 miler in my future or a 50 or 12 hour, 24 hour? I don’t know. But I’ve got some ideas. I actually have an idea of something I’m going to be doing this spring, and you’ll learn more about it later.
But I do have this big goal for myself, that I decided, you know, if I’m going to continue leveling up, if I’m going to practice what I’m preaching here, then I need to set some big goals for myself. So I did and I have this big goal that I’m going to be working towards. And again, like I said, when I’m ready to share more about that I will with you guys, right, but I’m just not ready yet.
But the thing is that I want to continue becoming more, I want to continue evolving. I want to continue leveling up. What does that mean for me? And so you have to decide for yourself, what does that mean for you? Who are you at your core, who do you want to be and then act accordingly. So for me, if I want to be the ultra marathoner guy, then I need to be running ultra marathons regularly. And that is who I am at my core.
And that makes me feel like kind of a badass about myself. And it’s not an egotistical thing. This is just like me being confident and feeling good about myself. I’ve accomplished a lot in the running world. And I feel really confident in my ability to go out there and run 50 miles or 100 miles or whatever it is. And I want to continue doing those kinds of things. I want to continue to see what I am capable of.
So with all of this, there’s that underlying idea that there is no finish line. And in this idea that there’s no finish line means that it’s actually a good thing, because you are constantly leveling up, you’re never going to be stagnant, you’re never going to stay dormant. So you decide who you want to become. You set big goals for yourself, then reach those goals, like work hard to get those goals, like accomplish those things that you want to accomplish for yourself, absolutely.
But decide who you want to become. become that person, then you get to decide who you want to become next. And this reminds me of just the whole concept of like leveling up, like in a video game, you know, you get to this place where you have reached the next level, things get harder, you know, you got that new boss, you got to face and defeat, you know, and this is true for us as well.
Things do get harder as we push ourselves. And we push ourselves further outside of our comfort zone. But what’s cool is that when we push ourselves further outside our comfort zone, what we thought was uncomfortable, what we thought was impossible becomes possible for us becomes more comfortable for us. And we kind of surprise ourselves and what we’re capable of. But if you think that you’re going to be done with this at some point, like an actual video game, where I guess there’s an end, I don’t know, video games even have ends anymore. I don’t really know how they work anymore.
Back in the day when I was doing the PlayStation1, I don’t even know when that was, back in the 90s I guess. But the idea that there’s not a finish line can feel a little daunting for some people, it can feel like why even bother if I just have to do this for the rest of my life. But no, that’s the wrong way to think about it. The right way to think about it is yeah, I’m doing it because there is no finish line.
I’m doing this because this is who I want to be in if I want to become this better version of myself. If I want to become the most badass version of myself. That means there’s no stopping and it’s okay. Embrace that idea that there is no finish line, embrace the idea that this work continues. Embrace the idea that you’re constantly leveling up. And I promise you this, when you do that, when you embrace the idea that this work does not end and that life is going to be hard, and it’s you’re going to continue to challenge yourself and you’re going to continue to push yourself.
When you embrace this and just accept it all, it actually becomes easier because you’re just convicted and dedicated. And the discipline is there, the motivation is there, you don’t have to be convinced that you need to do this, because this is just what you do now. You don’t need to ask yourself, well, do I really feel like running or not? Because that question has been answered. Yes, you feel like running? Yes, you’re gonna go do your run. Even if you don’t feel like it? Yes, you’re going to commit to that healthy eating plan that you said, you’re going to stick to? Yes, you’re going to commit to that training schedule that you know is going to get you to the finish line of that race.
But the thing is, this work continues, you’re never done. That’s okay. Embrace the idea that you are always leveling up, embrace the idea that you’re always going to set big goals for yourself, always push yourself to that next level, always pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, always reaching for more. And when you do that, you become more. And then you guess what you do it again, you set a new goal, you set a higher bar, and then you achieve that. Think about where you could be in your life, if you just embrace this idea that the work continues.
Where could you be in your career, in your relationships, financially, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically? Where could you be, if you just continued to push yourself and continue to level up, this is what I want for you. So think about this, as we begin a new year, think about this idea that what you want for yourself is achievable. With the right attitude, with the right discipline with the right consistency. And sometimes you need help, and I get that sometimes you can do it on your own. But if you want help, I’m here for you. But what you want is achievable. And then you got to like pick the next goal. So just keep that in mind.
I know I’ve talked to a lot of people who have these goals for a spring race, they want to do the spring marathon ultra marathon. And, and I’m encouraging them to, you know, kind of yes, let’s, let’s work towards that goal. But then what’s what’s after that, start thinking about that, thinking about what’s next, what’s around the corner? So that you’re always driven so that you’re always moving towards that next thing. Okay, constantly leveling up.
There is no finish line, this work continues. We’re constantly in the work of becoming more and becoming the best version of ourselves. And then once we get there, we set the bar higher and we do it again. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all keep on Running Lean, happy holidays and parties.
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What separates successful people from those who fail? What do successful people do that unsuccessful people don’t? While there are a LOT of things that differentiate people who achieve greatness …
Continue Reading about 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.
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.
A lot of people feel the need to share their thoughts with me about food restrictions. They say things like, “I don’t ever want to restrict any foods”, or “All foods are OK in moderation”, or …
Continue Reading about 154. The Truth About Food Restrictions →
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 154 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today, the truth about food restrictions. A lot of people feel the need to share with me their thoughts about food restrictions, they’ll tell me things like I don’t ever want to restrict any foods or all foods should be okay in moderation or something like that.
And I know where they’re coming from with this. They just don’t want to have to give up any of their favorite foods. But here’s the thing, if you want to change your health and fitness for the better, if you want to lose weight, maybe even change your relationship with some of these foods, something has to change, you can’t lose weight by eating the same foods that got you overweight in the first place. Right?
Nothing changes if nothing changes. So in this episode, I’m going to share with you the truth about food restrictions. And why it might be necessary to restrict some foods if you want to lose weight, and live your best life. And listen, these concepts that I talked about here on the podcast, the ideas that I share with you here, the things that I teach you here on this podcast are all great on their own.
But if you really want to improve your life, if you want to lose weight, if you want to improve your health, and you want to make changes to the way you you approach food and, and nutrition and fueling, for running and all of that stuff, then you’re going to have to put these principles into practice, you’re going to have to make some changes, you’re gonna have to do things differently.
And that process can be hard, it can be challenging to do that. Because each of us is an experiment of one, you have to kind of figure out the best sort of formula, the best plan that works for you, and for your lifestyle, and for your health and fitness goals.
If I was to tell you that you could just do these five things, and it would improve your life and everybody would do the same things and they would all get the same results, I’d be totally mistaken, I’d be remiss to do that. I don’t want to do that, I’m not going to do that, I’m not going to tell you that, you know, there’s one one formula that’s going to work for everybody, because we’re all so different.
So this is why I do what I do as a coach is that I help you put together a detailed plan that will help you reach your goals. But then we analyze that plan and see how things are working for you as an individual. Are you feeling better? Are you losing weight? Are you sleeping better? Are you improving your running performance? Do your clothes fit better? Do you like the way you look in the mirror?
We’re going to look at all kinds of metrics, and then decide if we want to continue with this path or we need to change the plan a little bit. And that’s the beautiful part of coaching is that this feedback system, it’s you and I working closely together, trying some things, checking to see what’s working and what isn’t, and then we course correct as we go. That’s the way the process works.
I can’t tell you what’s going to be the answer for you as an individual because we are all so different. Okay. But if you want that help, if you want that guidance, if you want that support, the encouragement, the motivation, accountability to stay on track, and reach your health and fitness goals as we enter 2023 then reach out to me just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply fill out a short application for coaching and you and I’ll get on a call and we’ll see if this is a good fit for you. Cool, runningleancoaching.com/apply. And we’ll see you become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself in 2023.
All right, so today I’m feeling pretty compelled to talk about food restrictions. Because I’ve been seeing posts on social media about this. I’ve been getting messages from people. People that are interested in working with me will tell me hey, I really want to work with you. I want you to be my coach, but I just have to tell you, I’m not going to restrict any foods.
I just want to keep eating the same foods that I’m eating and I don’t want to have any kind of restrictions because every time I feel restricted, I binge out on foods and things like that. And I want to address all of this because I think we are doing ourselves a disservice if we think that we can make changes to our diet to our health to our fitness to our weight, and not experience some sort of restriction in some way. Okay?
I hear this from not just from people who want to work with me, but I hear this on social media too. And I see a nutritionist talk about this on social media. And where this comes from, is mostly from dieticians. And these are registered dietitians from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the problem with, and this is not just me saying this to you; you can go online and find lots of information about about the the academy, but this particular association is funded by a number of food multinationals by pharmaceutical companies.
And food industry lobbying groups, such as the National Confectioners Association, the National Confectioners Association, just so you know, it’s an American trade organization that promotes chocolate candy gum and mints and the companies that make these things. Okay, so the AMD is funded by companies like the National Confectioners Association. The AMD is also funded by companies like PepsiCo, and Mars and Coca Cola and Kellogg’s and General Mills.
And this industry funding gives food companies like Coca Cola and General Mills and stuff, the ability to offer official educational seminars to teach dietitians how to advise their clients in a way that advances the interests of those particular food companies. For example, in a Coca Cola sponsored seminar for dieticians, the speaker promoted free sugars consumption, like for kids as a healthy choice, like kids should just be able to eat as much sugar as they want. This is healthy for kids.
So if you’re listening to advice from registered dieticians, and I’m not saying they’re all the same, or that they all offer the same advice, but in general, a lot of these dietitians will say, you know, oh, all foods are fine. In moderation, we don’t restrict any foods, sugar is fine. Flour is fine, grains are fine. Just understand that this whole organization where they got their certification is funded by the sugar industry, by the pharmaceutical industry, by the junk food industry.
Okay, so anytime I see somebody talking about food restrictions, this idea of, of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics comes to mind, and their funding and who they’re sponsored by, okay. And a lot of their material, a lot of their training material is derived from these food companies to help promote their own interests.
So to me, this is a huge conflict of interest. And I don’t think this is where we should be getting our dietary advice. That’s just my opinion. Okay. So I want you to understand where this idea of never restricting foods comes from. Okay. So what does it mean to restrict foods? I want to just kind of touch on this briefly.
So what this means is that we eliminate some foods from our diet. And some people have a real problem with this. And I’m not just talking about dieticians, but some people think that we should never restrict any kinds of foods from our diet. But what if you find that you know, losing weight is very difficult unless you cut out sugary treats. Wouldn’t it be in your best interest to maybe cut out sugary treats, at least for a while.
Is restricting foods something that you should never do something you should always do? Something that you can do? Every now and then? Like what’s the right answer? Unfortunately, there isn’t really a right answer. But you’re going to hear my stance on this and my stance is going to be this – I think that at times it is necessary to restrict some foods. If you find it very difficult to give up junk food, if you find that you, you know, are addicted to junk food to sugar to you know, soda, to cookies, ice cream, whatever it is, wouldn’t it be in your best interest to you know, get off of that substance?
You know, restriction doesn’t mean it has to be a permanent thing. Restriction means that we restrict ourselves from indulging in that food for a period of time, and for some people, that period of time might be a long time. So I’ve worked with some people who have a real bad relationship with sugar.
And anytime they start eating some sugar, they find that they can’t stop eating sugar. The same goes for people who have issues with drinking or with drugs. You know, some people can drink in moderation, they can drink every now and then. You know, I know someone that can drink once a month. And she has like one drink a month. And I’m like, how do you do that?
And I know other people who have a sip of alcohol, and then and then they’re like off to the races. And they can’t stop drinking until they’re passed out on the floor. That was kind of my experience with alcohol, where as soon as I started drinking, and I drove, I couldn’t stop until I was, you know, pretty much passed out, you know? So, for me, isn’t it better for me to just abstain from drinking alcohol and not have to continually fight that battle? Yeah, I haven’t had alcohol in like 15 years, coming up on 16 years now. And it works for me.
So restricting alcohol, for me, feels great, my life is so much better without it. And it did take some time for me to get through that discomfort of, of change and the discomfort of wanting alcohol and not having it. But once I got through that, it was so much better for me. And today, I don’t even think about it like I don’t need to drink.
You know, I go out to dinner a lot. And I sit at the bar at dinner a lot just because sometimes it’s hard to find a table at a restaurant. And so my girlfriend and I will go out to dinner and sit at the bar, and neither of us really drink. So we just sit at the bar and eat food. While everybody around us is drinking. There’s alcohol everywhere there.
I’m watching them make all these drinks, and some of them look pretty damn good too. But I have no desire to drink, that desire is long gone for me. The same goes with sugar for me. So I was really addicted to sugar. And for many years, many more, I’ll just be honest here, decades, for me decades of eating tons of sugar and tons of carbs, and justifying it with all of the running that I was doing.
And that kind of worked for a while until it didn’t. And I started gaining weight and gained within a few years something like 40 pounds, and really had to take a look at my sugar intake and really had to make a decision like is this something that I want to continue to do? Or do I need to restrict this from my diet?
And I made that decision some years ago where I was just going to remove sugar from my diet. And the more I read about the dangers of sugar, and the problems, the health problems that are caused by sugar, and the obesity epidemic in this country that’s been caused by sugar and flour and grains and refined refined carbohydrates and junk food and processed foods. I just don’t want that in my life.
And so I decided that I was going to just cut that out of my life. Now this does not mean that I don’t ever eat any sugar. I do occasionally very occasionally. I recently had a birthday. And I had a big old piece of birthday cake on my birthday. Because you know what? Nobody wants to eat a birthday salad. Right? I had a piece of birthday cake. And it was great. I loved it.
Does that mean that the next day I needed to eat another half a birthday cake or whatever? No, no, it meant that I had that cake. And then I was done. So my relationship with sugar today is much different than it used to be. In the past, it was something I had to have every single day. That’s an unhealthy relationship with sugar. So for me, restricting this, and eliminating this from my diet 99.7% of the time works for me, and I feel better.
And I know that I’m treating my body right and that I’m eating foods that are actually healthy for me and aren’t harmful. For me. I think sugar is harmful. I think refined grains are harmful for us, especially done in excess. Now if you’re somebody that can really moderate your sugar intake, and you’re like, I’m not going to restrict any foods. This doesn’t apply to me because I want to eat some sugar every now and then. It’s not a big deal, then that’s great. You do you, but if you’re the person who is sitting there listening to this right now and you’re like, Yeah, I’m 40 pounds overweight. I do eat sugar. I have a bad relationship with carbs and sugar. But I really don’t want to give that stuff up.
Then maybe it’s this is a time for you to like, start thinking about that. Maybe you’re thinking he needs to change. Restriction doesn’t have to be permanent, it can be temporary. And I’ve worked with some people who have eliminated sugar from the from their diet, have got fat adapted as a runner, have lost a bunch of weight, and then have incorporated some carbs and some sugar back into their diet very moderately, and they’ve changed their relationship with this food substance, this food like substance, so I’m going to argue that sugar really isn’t necessary for our survival.
So it’s more like a, it’s really more like a drug than it is a food but I get it that you know, it’s sugar is in everything, it’s really, it can be hard to avoid. But if you’re the kind of person who can give it up for a while, change your relationship with it. And then slowly, you know, allow a little bit back in here and there, that’s fine. And if that works for you, and you can maintain your health and maintain your weight and maintain your running performance through all of that, then that is awesome. Like you do you absolutely.
But I think it’s stupid to think that we can keep eating a crappy diet, we can keep eating all this junk food and somehow magically, your health and your weight are going to improve. If nothing changes, nothing changes. And sometimes restricting some foods, you know, for a period of time is exactly what you need. So this idea that, you know, foods, we should never restrict any foods or foods in moderation. You know, I think this is not necessarily a helpful philosophy to adopt. Okay?
Some people cannot moderate. Some people cannot moderate things like sugar. It’s kind of like telling the alcoholic Hey, just just drink every now and then we’re telling the person who’s addicted to cocaine, just you know, do cocaine every now and then like, dude, can’t you just moderate your cocaine use isn’t? Doesn’t that sound stupid when I’m saying this out loud? Doesn’t that sound ridiculous? It is ridiculous.
But this is what we’re telling people with sugar, which by the way, they’ve done studies that have shown that sugar lights up your brain more than cocaine does. That sugar actually has more of a profound impact on your brain. They’ve done these studies with rats, where rats would be given the choice of sugar or cocaine and the rats would choose the sugar over the cocaine. Poor little rats, right? They’re always being tormented.
But anyway, interesting studies, no doubt. And so if you don’t think sugar is a powerful drug, you know, studies like that kind of prove that it really is a very powerful drug, okay? But it sounds stupid to like, say to the alcoholic, or the drug addict, hey, just moderate your intake, you know, just you know, everybody else can just monitor it, why can’t you just moderate it and know if that particular substance is harmful for you? And that particular substance is something you cannot manage and you cannot control? Maybe it’s best to just cut it out of your life. All right, maybe permanently. I have no problem with that.
If you tell me like, hey, Patrick, I’m just going to cut out sugar and I’m going to do that permanently. I don’t need it anymore. And I’ve had clients who’ve told me that they’re like, I love the way I feel now that I stopped eating sugar. I don’t see any reason to ever go back to eat that junk. And I’m like, yeah, cool. I’m with you. That’s pretty much how I live my life. The most sugar I eat in a month would be some chocolate that I eat every now and then, some dark chocolate that I’ve tried, dark chocolate that’s like stevia flavored or whatever it has a erythritol or something, and I just don’t like it. It just doesn’t really do much for me. So I go to this dark chocolate that I get. And it’s pretty low in sugar. But it does have a little bit of sugar in there. But I’ll just use a little bit of that. And it’s so delicious. And it tastes so good.
And then of course, you know, my birthday, I do a piece of cake, piece of cheesecake or birthday cake or whatever. And then thinking back through this past year, as we’re coming to the end of the year here, how many times have I eaten sugar, a few bars of chocolate and some birthday cake. And that’s about it. That’s about it. It’s very, very minimal.
I’ve changed my whole relationship with sugar. And now I can do it very, very sporadically. And my life is not suffering because of that. So when it comes to never restricting foods, I don’t agree with that. I think that for some of us, it is perfectly fine to restrict foods. And for some people, maybe it’s fine to restrict foods for a period of time and then they can kind of incorporate them back.
But if you’re going to adopt this approach, you have to change your mindset around the food that you’re eating around that sugar or the soda or the desserts or whatever it is. The whole concept of restricting foods, it’s less about what foods you’re eating and not eating. And it’s more about your mindset around all of this.
So if you have this mindset of, you know, I’m going to occasionally house some sugar and it’s going to be okay. I’m going to make some cookies with my kids. And I’m going to eat a couple, great, do that. You have to have the right mindset around it, though.
But if your mindset is like, every time I eat sugar, I go into this, you know, binging behavior, if it’s if eating a little bit of sugar sets you up for for a sugar binge increases your cravings, you can’t stop thinking about it, you can’t stop eating. And once you start, then I’m going to say like, this is not something that you want to mess around with here. Like just stop eating that stuff.
This whole addictive behavior thing needs to stop. Right? This is just like you, you would deal with an alcoholic or a drug addict, like just cut them off. You got to get yourself off of the drug. All foods in moderation does not work. For some people it’s like saying all drugs in moderation. Doesn’t that sounds stupid? Yeah.
So what we want to do here is make a decision. You got to make a decision for yourself, what is it you want for yourself? If you want to lose weight, if you want to change your relationship with food, you’re going to have to probably experience some food restrictions. It’s almost impossible to do it any other way though.
And one of the big reasons why people buy into this idea of all foods in moderation or never restrict any foods. It’s because it justifies their crappy behavior. Right? If you buy into this idea that you should never restrict any foods, then this just justifies that addictive behavior. And you never have to change anything. You don’t have to give up anything. You never have to get uncomfortable. You never have to do anything differently. You can just kind of keep doing what you’re doing. And use well you know, this dietician said all foods should be fine in moderation.
But remember, the same people that are telling you this don’t restrict foods and all foods in moderation are that those people are being, you know, funded and trained and educated by the junk food companies, by the pharmaceutical companies, by the sugar industry. Just don’t listen to them. Okay? Do yourself a favor. Don’t listen to them. If you want to change, if you want to improve your health, improve your fitness. If you want to lose weight, you’re gonna have to make some changes here.
You’re gonna have to get uncomfortable. You’re gonna have to embrace the suck a little bit here, okay? Doesn’t mean forever. But what would it look like for you? If you were to lose this idea that you can eat all foods in moderation? What if? What if you just adopted this idea that Yeah, at least for a while. I’m gonna cut this junk out. I’m gonna stop eating junk food. I’m just gonna stop doing what? How do you think that would change your life? Think about that.
If you no longer ate sugar, if you no longer drink soda, if you no longer ate processed foods, how much better would you feel? How would your weight change? How would you feel about yourself? How would your energy levels be? I think that we all want more for ourselves. And that’s why you’re listening to this podcast right now, is because you want something more for yourself.
And if cutting out some of this junk food is the way that you get there. I say go for it. Absolutely go for it. It’s not a bad thing. Do it and cut some of this stuff out permanently. works better for you and your life, then I’m fine with that. It works for me. Maybe it’ll work for you. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all I really do. 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.
A lot of people find it very hard to change their diet. They have been practicing the same eating patterns for most of their life and even though this is causing dysfunction in their body, they …
Continue Reading about 150. Do You Have an Addictive Personality? →
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 150 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, do you have an addictive personality? So a lot of people find it very hard to change their diet, okay, they’ve been practicing the same eating patterns for most of their life.
And even though this might be causing some dysfunction in their body, they can’t lose weight, they’re gaining weight, they can’t seem to change anything. Why do they do this? Why can’t they just change? And a lot of times they’ll say it’s because they have a quote unquote, addictive personality. What does this mean? What is an addictive personality? Is this even a real thing? Are some of us just wired to eat junk food, and there’s nothing we can do about it?
So today, I want to unpack this kind of delicate topic, and help you to understand whether or not you have an addictive personality and what you might be able to do about it. And I get it, changing habits is hard. Changing your eating habits is really hard. Trying to do this all on your own is the hardest.
That’s why I do what I do as the weight loss coach for runners, I encourage you to do hard things to do things you might not want to do, or things you find very difficult to do on your own, like changing your habits around food, so that you can become the healthy fit runner that you’ve always wanted to be.
I know that there’s a version of you that you have in your mind, this vision that you have for yourself. And what I want to do, what I do every day is to help you to become that person. I help you to get the outside you to match the inside you. I want the way you look on the outside to match the way you feel about yourself on the inside.
So if you’re ready to get started becoming that healthiest version of you, then you’re ready for the Running Lean coaching project. This is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners where the project is you. To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply and get started.
Alright, so do you have an addictive personality? The reason I’m talking about this today is because I hear a lot of people say this, they say oh, I can’t really change my eating patterns, I can’t really stop eating sugar, I can’t stop eating carbs because I have an addictive personality. And they use this as a reason for their, you know, overeating or over drinking or whatever it is.
So they engage in patterns of behavior that might be detrimental to their health and their fitness. And they can’t stop doing that behavior. And they’ve heard this term we’ve all heard this term, oh, I just have an addictive personality in there kind of using that as a catch all as an excuse for these patterns of behavior, okay.
Now, something I want to say here is a little bit of a disclaimer for this episode. I’m going to be talking about addiction, addictive personality behaviors. If you’re somebody who actually truly struggles with a diagnosed addiction, like if you’ve been clinically diagnosed with a substance abuse problem, you know, some sort of addiction, alcoholism or eating disorder, please seek professional medical help, okay, I’m not a doctor and nothing I say here should be construed as medical advice, cool? Okay.
So, what is this thing about addictive personality? What is an addictive personality? Is this a real thing? The short answer is no. Addiction and addictive behaviors are complex issues, very, very complex issues. But there is not one personality type that will always develop an addiction.
Addiction can affect anyone regardless of your personality. Okay, so some people can drink or use recreational drugs or eat sugar in moderation. They can do these things on occasion and they never develop any kind of addiction to these substances. Other people can try these things once and immediately develop an intense craving or an intense desire to try them again and again and again. And so the truth is this: that experts generally agree that, you know, addiction is much more complicated. It’s not a personality issue. Okay.
So I want to make sure we understand that, you know, just saying, like, oh, I have an addictive personality, it’s not, it’s not a real thing. Okay, now, let’s break this down a little bit here. Okay, so what, what is addiction? And the definition of addiction that I’m using here is addictive behaviors, okay? So behaviors that can be that we can kind of grow addicted to, okay, there’s many varying definitions of addiction. And it can be confusing to know what it is and what it isn’t. But the difference between, let’s say, somebody who’s just enthusiastic about something, and someone who’s addicted to something, is this and here’s a pretty simplified definition. But I like this definition here. I think it’s helpful.
If you have a healthy enthusiasm for food or alcohol, or shopping or whatever. And when you engage in these activities they add to your life, then that’s good. That’s a healthy enthusiasm. That’s not addiction. But if when you engage in these behaviors, it takes away from your life, if the behavior leads to negative consequences, it’s most likely an addictive behavior.
If the behavior lacks the negative consequences, or actually provides some positive results in your life, then it’s probably not an addiction. Okay. Another key factor in recognizing addictive behavior like compulsive eating, binge eating, binge drinking, is a feeling of being out of control.
A lot of people who actually struggle with addiction will report that a lot of times they feel this overwhelming sensation of being out of control, like their behavior is automatic, they don’t even know they’re doing it sometimes. And they feel out of control because they might start drinking or start eating something and they can’t stop. And that’s a very out of control feeling. Okay?
And there are many, many things in this world that we can become addicted to. I’m not just talking about drugs here. So food, alcohol, drugs, shopping, porn, social media, people are addicted to social media, they get a dopamine hit, when they open up their Instagram account, and they see they got 10 more followers or something, right? People get addicted to work. You ever heard of a workaholic, people can even get addicted to things that seem positive like working out or running.
There are people who use running as an escape from their life, they use it in a way that is a numbing, like we use alcohol or food to numb out. And then if it creates some negative consequences in your life, that may be an addictive behavior, maybe something you want to stop, stop doing. Okay? So if when you start engaging in a behavior, and you can’t stop it, or when you engage in certain behaviors, they have negative consequences they take away from your life, instead of adding to your life.
This may be addictive, this may be an addictive behavior that you’re engaging in. Okay. So what we’re really talking about here is not is not your personality, right? It’s your behavior. Now, there are things like genetics that may play a role in addiction. And there have been many, many studies about this, there might be some genes that play a role in addictive behaviors that might predispose you to obesity or alcoholism.
But listen, if you don’t drink alcohol, you don’t become an alcoholic, you’re not an alcoholic. Just because you have a gene doesn’t mean that that gene gets expressed or it doesn’t mean you’re engaging in that behavior. So you might have a gene that predisposes you to obesity, but if you don’t overeat, then you stay away from junk food, you know, you don’t become obese, you’re not you’re not obese, okay?
It’s just, we don’t want to look at these things and just say, well, this is oh, it’s just I’m, I’m wired this way, it’s in my DNA. I have this addictive personality and there’s just nothing I can do about it. So I want to kind of remove that idea from the equation here. Okay.
Now, I used to think that I had an addictive personality. And I came up with this idea or heard about this idea. When I was in my teens, I started drinking alcohol. I started smoking cigarettes. I started doing recreational drugs, you know, and and every time I tried something new like the first time I smoked a cigarette, or the first time I got high or the first time I drank alcohol, that feeling that I got that, the sensation that I got the lighting up of my brain, the high that I got from that substance was something that I immediately wanted more and more of.
So I’d like drink alcohol or, you know, smoke some pot or something like that. And as soon as that high wore off, I just, I needed that, again, I wanted to get it back again. And I did this repeatedly for many, many years. And my idea, my conclusion was that I had an addictive personality. So there’s just nothing I could do about it, I was just, you know, engaging in these behaviors regularly.
I was drinking, you know, smoking weed, I was smoking cigarettes, whatever, there’s nothing I could do about it. Because I had this personality. I was doomed to just be an addict, in one way or another, my whole life. And I thought this for forever. You know, until really, until I was in my 40s. When I was 40 years old, I decided that I had had enough of drinking, and I quit. And I had quit smoking some years before that, but, and stopped doing drugs. So I want to make it very clear that I haven’t done any kind of recreational drugs in decades, right?
But you know, the last thing was really the alcohol, it took me until I was like 40, to decide that I wasn’t going to engage in this behavior anymore. So over time, I was able to break each of these addictions to break the patterns of addiction, right, some took longer than others, you know, food, food was actually probably the last one for me.
And for me, like, once I stopped drinking, I started eating more and you know, gained a lot of weight doing that I used food, kind of the similar way that I used alcohol. And really, the food was the last thing for me. And that was just about three years ago that I stopped using food in an obsessive-compulsive, addictive way. And so here’s what I found out. And this is what I’ve discovered, that was really what was really going on with me, okay, so it’s not my personality. I’m not just an addict, and I’m doomed.
You know, the reason I’m engaging in this addictive behavior is not because of genes or my heredity, heredity, or you know, my parents or whatever, all those things might play a role. It was just conditioning. It was just conditioning, I learned that certain things make my brain light up like a Christmas tree. When I drink alcohol, when I eat sugar, I get the rush of dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, endorphins. And my brain loves this feeling and feels so amazing.
And as soon as that effect wears off, I just wanted to give in. And so the desire within me grows, the cravings become more intense, and my brain wants that rush again, I want to feel good again. And so I just gave it what I wanted all the time. And I reinforced the feeling, I reinforced the desire with a reward.
Every time I had the desire, I rewarded that desire with the dopamine, the serotonin, all the you know, the chemicals that get released when eating sugar or drinking alcohol. And, and I wrote, I did this over and over and over again. And it was a cycle, right? So, you use food or alcohol to feel good, and then that effect wears off, the desire intensifies, and you seek the reward again, and that’s the cycle of addiction.
So the more I continued to reward myself with my quote, unquote, like drug of choice, the more I needed it, the more I needed it, the more I had to have it, and then blah, blah, blah, it was just unending. So this isn’t a personality disorder I’m describing here. This is not a personality disorder. This is a learned behavior. This is something that I practiced over and over and over again for decades, especially in the case of alcohol, especially with food.
And this behavior, for me, felt comfortable, familiar, and safe to my brain. My brain was like, This feels good. It’s like putting a warm blanket on, you know, in the winter, and putting on that soft, comfortable sweater. So your brain is always seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. Your brain just wants you to feel good.
And engaging in addictive behavior, even though it comes with all the negative consequences. It’s very pleasurable to your brain. Your brain just wants to feel good right now, at any cost. Drug addicts will do horrible things to get their drug of choice and from the outside, you see this unconscionable behavior? And you think, how can they do that? How can they hurt themselves? How can they hurt others? How can they break the law? How can they do that to the people that love?
But the reality is that drug, that high, that thereafter is way more important than anything or anyone else. That’s how powerful your brain is. That’s how powerful the drug’s effect is on your brain. And it’s really not the drug itself, but it’s the effect that the drug has on the brain. You’re always seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
Well, this is intense pleasure that they’re going after, and they crave that over everything else. Okay. Alright, so you might be thinking, saying, like, how does this relate to me, Patrick? I’m not some opioid addict stealing my grandmother’s pain medication to get high. But there’s liquor, let me bring this all home here, okay. There’s a way that this pertains to most of us, okay.
Food has a very, very similar effect, right? It’s probably not as intense as drugs, but it is very addictive. Sugar is highly addictive. Carbs are highly addictive. It’s all just sugar, right and varying degrees of concentration, carbohydrates, sugars, a carbohydrate. There’s just all carbs, right. And we are a nation of people who love our carbs.
And we love to numb ourselves. And we use cards to numb ourselves, we use food, and alcohol and drugs and everything else to numb ourselves, right food is probably the most prevalent thing that we use, though. We numb ourselves to the perceived pain that we see out there in the world. If we experience stress, or anger, or frustration, or sadness, or guilt or shame, we don’t want to feel any of that stuff. That’s all painful. We just want to feel good.
So we’ve conditioned ourselves to numb those feelings with, you know, a variety of substances and food being one of the most prevalent, okay, so we’re talking about, we’re not talking about numbing out with food, like asparagus and chicken like that’s, nobody does that, right? It’s the highly pleasurable foods that we use, like a drug because they light up our brain like a drug. Sugar lights up more areas of the brain and stimulates more pleasure areas of the brain than cocaine does. They’ve done studies that show this.
So it’s those highly pleasurable foods that were after sugar, refined carbs in all their various forms. And I call this stuff carbage. So if you find yourself using carbage, as a means of numbing yourself, it’s time to stop doing that. You have to break the cycle of addiction at some point in time, you’re going to have to stop numbing, and start feeling. Now this is easier said than done. I get that. Because you’ve conditioned yourself to not feel.
So feeling an emotion, especially what we call negative emotions, like you know, guilt, shame, anger, frustration, sadness, stress. This is something we’ve gotten really good at avoiding, we will do almost anything to not have to feel one of these negative emotions. No one wants to feel stress or sadness. So just go eat something and you don’t have to feel any of that stuff. Okay? But does this really work?
Maybe for a minute. But then there’s this insidious thing that happens. So it actually creates a counter effect, there is an opposite effect that happens. So you feel stress, you feel sadness, you know, whatever, you eat some sugar, it lights up your brain and you feel bliss, it feel good for a few minutes, until that effect wears off your blood sugar crashes, you begin to feel depressed, you feel even more stressed.
Now the sadness comes back even even more intensely. And now, it’s coupled with the fact that you binge out on on a bunch of Halloween candy or whatever. And so your stress levels become even more amplified, or those negative emotions become more amplified. So now what do you do? Now you’re feeling even worse. So yeah, you go back to the candy bowl, you go back to that big bowl of Halloween candy, you just start diving in, you just start eating more and more and more. And the cycle continues.
So the answer here is you have to break the cycle. You have to stop eating the carbage you have to stop numbing yourself. You have to start learning how to feel instead of you know, not feeling this is not easy to do. I’m not going to Candy Coat and say like, oh, this is so simple. It’s not easy. It’s a simple concept. Yep. It’s not easy, it takes time it takes practice.
But I promise you, this is one of the most powerful life skills that you can and should master. If you’re willing to experience any emotion, good or bad, negative or positive, there’s nothing you can do. You can achieve anything that you want for yourself. break the cycle of addiction, it’s not a personality problem.
You don’t have an addictive personality, you’ve just conditioned yourself to use food or whatever, to feel better. That’s it. So here’s your work. Here’s what you need to do. You need to look at what you’re currently doing. Start by looking at your current eating patterns. Really look honestly, at what you’re eating everything. What foods are you eating? When and what times of the day? How often? How much? When do you go for the carbage? And ask yourself, am I eating to numb out right now? What am I feeling right before I binge out on my kids’ Halloween candy?
And this is just the first step. This is like step one, but we’ve got to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. And you have to understand, if you are using food to numb yourself. This is what I call radical self awareness. It’s a very, very important first step. It’s the first step to changing any kind of behavior, radical self awareness. Okay, this is your work. This is what I want you to focus on this week.
Okay. And like I said earlier, if you’re really struggling with addiction or substance abuse, you know, you need to seek out professional help. But if you want to break the cycle of emotional eating, you want to learn how to stop numbing yourself with food. I got you. Okay, that’s all I got for you today. 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.
Many runners who set out to achieve big goals will get it into their heads that things should just be happening faster. They should be losing weight faster, their running should be improving more …
Continue Reading about 146. Slow Down and Stay in the Flow →
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 146 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners, and today: slow down and stay in the flow. Many runners I talked to who set out to achieve big goals will get this idea into their heads that for some reason, things should just be happening faster, they should be losing weight faster, they’re running should be improving more quickly.
And those strength sessions at the gym should be paying off by now. And the reality of the situation is this, these things take time, it takes time to lose weight, it takes time to become a stronger, faster runner. And when you think everything should be happening faster, all of this becomes very frustrating.
So in this episode, I’m going to talk about what happens when you believe everything should be happening faster. And then what it looks like when you just slow down and stay in the flow instead. And one of the most important things I do with my coaching clients is this: I help them stay on track. Together, we set big goals, we’ll put together a plan to help you achieve those goals, and then help you stick to the plan. It’s that simple.
But I know how difficult and how frustrating it can be to set out to make big changes, especially when it comes to your health and fitness. And then getting to this place where you think everything should be going faster. Listen, these things take time. But imagine how much easier it would be if you had somebody there to guide you through the whole process every step of the way, to be there to offer expertise, support, encouragement, motivation, and to hold you accountable.
Becoming the most badass version of yourself, this is an amazing thing to accomplish. And having a coach there to help you get there. This is a game changer. So if you’re looking for guidance, support, encouragement, motivation, accountability, I want to encourage you to apply to join my coaching program, the Running Lean coaching project.
To learn more, just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. You have to fill out a short application, we’re gonna have a conversation, then we’ll see if this is a good fit for you. I would love to have you in my program. This is a very unique weight loss coaching program for runners. It’s the Running Lean coaching project where the project is you.
Alright, let’s get into this topic, slow down and stay in the flow. The reason I’m talking about this today, like I mentioned at the top of the episode here is that so many people I talked to set out to achieve big goals, they really want to become the healthiest version of themselves, they really want to improve their body composition, they want to get stronger, they want to become a faster runner, they want to PR their marathon or half marathon, they want to lose weight.
And when they set out to achieve these things, they get this concept in their mind that it’s all going to happen according to some arbitrary timeline. Okay, it could be like, oh, I’ve got this goal race coming up in three months. And so I’m going to change my diet, I’m gonna, like start running a little bit faster. And, and somehow I’m going to like, you know, PR this thing and lose 30 pounds in the process.
And while that might happen, for some people, it’s your there’s no guarantee, right? I mean, these things take time, it takes time to change habits, it takes time to lose weight, it takes time to get faster as a runner. And if you’re somebody whose thinking that this is going to be all all said and done in a matter of you know, 90 days exactly, or whatever; you may be frustrated, you may be disappointed with the results in that amount of time. So many of us get it into our heads that you know everything should be happening faster.
And when we get to this place of thinking everything should be happening faster. It’s not happening fast enough. It gets very very frustrating. So some examples of where I see this happening the most first of all is in weight loss. When people want to lose weight. They change their diet, they start making maybe some sacrifices, you know, they start giving up some of the foods they used to love to eat, you know, junk food, let’s just say and they stick with it.
And the weight loss isn’t happening fast enough, they may only be losing a pound or two a week. And over months of working together, I hear this from people a lot who have consistently lost one or two pounds a week, and then will tell me, ah, it’s just, you know, everything’s fine, I guess. But it’s just not happening fast enough, right?
And becoming a faster runner is another place where people want this to happen faster, surprisingly enough, right? So you might set out to like PR, your half marathon or marathon time. And so you start changing your running routine, you start adding more speed work, and you’re really intentionally focused on becoming that faster runner.
And then you have a race coming up and you and you do everything you’re supposed to do and you’re, you’re ready to go and you’re feeling great. And then you get out there and you just don’t hit your goal on that race day. And it gets really frustrating, right, or maybe you’re trying to build some strength and build some muscle. So you’re at the gym, and you’re hitting the weights pretty hard.
And it’s just, it seems like it’s taking forever, you don’t see those muscles bulging out of your arms, like you think you should after, you know, a period of time. You know, another way that I see people getting frustrated is when they want to improve their endurance, they want to be able to run longer distances, but they just keep running out of gas.
And they’re like, what’s going on? Shouldn’t this be happening faster? I mean, just I, you know, I can run a 5k I can run a 10k How come I can’t do a half marathon or a marathon? How come I’m running out of gas at mile 10 or 12 or 19?
Or, you know, overcoming food cravings. This is an area where I’m just going to tell you right now, this is not something that happens quickly. It may take some time to get past the place where you’re really craving junk food, you know, if you’ve, if you’ve been somebody who’s been really eating a lot of junk food, then it may take a long time for you to like get over those cravings, you know, in thinking that it’s going to happen quickly. Oh, yeah. Well, I quit eating junk food two weeks ago, how come I’m still craving pizza? It’s gonna take a while. Right?
Or even this concept of just not sticking to the plan, like I just keep slipping up. How come I’m not sticking to the plan 100% of the time? By now I’ve been doing this for a while. How can I keep you know, reverting back to old behaviors? Shouldn’t this be happening faster? So all of these things are processes that take time.
And the idea that from the very get go, you should be perfect, and everything should be moving along quickly. It’s just a myth, it’s never going to happen that way. All of these processes are things that take time. And when you have this concept that you think it should be happening faster, it creates a real negative state within you.
Okay, because when you think things should be going faster, and they’re not, it can be very frustrating. It can cause you to feel frustration, it can cause you to feel stressed, you can feel disappointed and discouraged. These are all negative emotions. And when you’re feeling these negative emotions around what you’re doing to try to change yourself for the better to try to improve your health and fitness.
When all of your energy is put into this negative emotional state it puts you into a state of mentally and emotionally being really negative. So you’re in this negative emotional and mental state. And when you’re feeling this way, how do you think you’re going to act? Because your feelings really drive your behaviors, your feelings drive your actions, the mental and emotional state that you’re in will determine what you do.
So what behaviors do you think you engage in when you’re feeling constantly when you’re in this negative emotional state? Well, if you’re feeling discouraged and frustrated that weight loss is taking too long, then you’re probably not going to stick with a plan because you’re probably thinking like, why should I stick to this plan? It’s not working anyway, it’s taking too long anyway.
And you might feel disappointed because you know, running isn’t improving as fast as you want it to and that will make you feel very disappointed. Very disappointing and discouraging to you, right? You’re not getting faster quickly enough? Well, if you’re in that state, you’re probably not going to keep doing the speed work, right? Because why bother? Why should I stick to my speed work if it’s not working anyway?
So the thought, the thoughts and feelings that you put into this, the thoughts and feelings that you’re experiencing that, oh, it’s taking too long. It’s frustrating, and I’m disappointed, I’m discouraged. It’s going to take forever, I’m never gonna get there. When you’re in that place, that will absolutely become true for you. You will prove those thoughts and feelings to be true when you act from that negative state, that negative state that you’re in will create that reality for you, you will get those results, it will take too long, it will take forever, because you won’t be sticking to the plan.
You’ll never get there because you won’t stay on track. You’re constantly thinking, Oh, why bother? Why should I do this, it’s not working anyway. And this is a really crappy place to be just so you know. But I see so many people wallowing in this negative emotional state. Your thoughts and feelings, create your results, your thoughts and feelings create your reality, you get more of what you focus your attention on. Right? So constantly thinking, this isn’t working.
It won’t work for you, I promise you, if you’re constantly thinking, I’m never gonna get there. And guess what? You’re never gonna get there. And if you’re thinking to yourself, Patrick, this sounds too simple. I agree that it does sound too simple, but it is absolutely true. And a very powerful concept that I want you to try to wrap your head around here, okay?
Because when you’re operating from this very powerful, but negative place, you get to create results and your reality. And you get to achieve what you want for yourself. Or what you, in this case, what you don’t want for yourself, you get to achieve what you’re what you’re focused on achieving, which is it’s not working, it’s taking too long, it’s gonna take forever, I’m never gonna get there. That’s a very powerful yet negative place to be, it’s a powerfully negative place to be okay.
So you have to understand this, it is a simple concept, that your emotional state, your thoughts and feelings, create your results. Because it drives your actions, your thoughts and feelings drive your actions and your actions create your results. So instead of you know, constantly thinking that these things should be happening faster, we have to let go of that.
Okay, because here, here’s some simple facts. Losing weight takes time, it takes time to change your eating habits. It takes time to figure out what actually works best for you as an individual. Because we’re all different. We all have different goals, different weight loss goals, different metabolism, different lifestyles, different food preferences, and you have to figure out what works best for you, what’s going to support your weight loss goals and your running goals. And figuring all this out, it takes a little bit of time to really dial it in.
And it’s okay, let’s just be okay with that fact. Right, losing weight will take some time, it takes time to you know, get your blood sugar regulated to fix your metabolism. It takes time to you know, get your body working the way it’s supposed to to get your hormones working the way they’re supposed to. But once you get into that place, things start to change for you.
You know, your blood sugar’s regulated, your hormonal changes become more balanced, your hormone hormonal response to food becomes more, more balanced and your your body actually starts to function the way it was made to function, you start burning more fat instead of burning all the sugar. And eventually you’ll see the weight loss start to happen.
But there’s a lot of things that have to kind of happen in the interim before you actually see the number on the scale start to change, right. So just understand that it takes time to lose weight. And if you have a lot of weight to lose, it’s going to take more time. And it’s okay.
Building muscle takes time. It takes time to go to the gym, improve your your weightlifting capabilities to increase the resistance that you’re lifting. You know, we in order to gain muscle and build strength, we have to overload the muscles so that means we have to lift heavier weights and it takes time to get to the place where, you know, you can get stronger and you can actually lift heavier weights.
And it may take time before you can see any improvement at all before you can start to increase the weights or the reps or whatever. There’s a period at the beginning, if you’ve never done any kind of strength training, any kind of resistance training, there’s a time at the beginning where you just gotta get used to the, to the workouts, you got to get used to the routines, you got to be doing things in a safe way, getting your body like used to lifting weights.
But eventually, you’ll start to see some progress happen, okay, but it takes time. Improving your endurance takes time, improving your speed as a runner takes time, it takes time to build the muscle memory of doing harder, faster workouts to improve your running form. You know, you’ll make incremental improvements to your endurance. But these things do take some time.
Do you remember when you first started out as a runner, you couldn’t imagine running a 5k, running three miles without stopping. And you might be running half marathons now and wanting to get faster, or running to take it up to the next level, run a marathon and you’re like, why is it taking so long to build that endurance and think back to when you first started running and how long it took you to make those improvements.
I remember training for my first 10k, I set out to run a 10k. And you know where I could, I could only run like one mile at a time, you know, I could run one mile without stopping. And that felt pretty amazing, you know, and then I could run two and then three. And I couldn’t imagine doing a whole 10k like 6.2 miles without stopping. Like, that’s crazy. Who does this, you know?
But eventually I got there, but it took months of training to get there. Okay, so all these things take time, stop thinking it’s all going to happen quickly or according to some arbitrary timeline that you’ve created, in your own mind. Start accepting the fact that these things will take time, time takes time. And slow down, slow down.
And instead, I want you to focus on staying in the flow. Like, what if you just took your time, instead of trying to rush your way to your weight loss goal or to some running goal or to some strength goal? What if you just slow down? What would that look like for you? What if you made changes slowly over time?
Because we’re talking about changing habits around food, changing habits around how you train. How you fuel for training and races? And, it takes time to dial this in for you as an individual. Right? So understand this and accept that it’s going to take time. Okay. How long did it take you to gain the weight in the first place? Maybe you’ve gained 30, 40, 50 pounds? Would it take two years? Three years? 10 years? 20 years? Why do you think it should all come off in like 90 days?
It might take longer than that. So what? So what. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, stop trying to fast track everything. And instead, just focus on what you’re doing today. And you will get there. Staying in the flow means just being here. Right now, what are you doing today? What are you doing in this moment to better your health?
Are you making your food plan for the next 24 hours, or you’re filling in your training schedule for the week, maybe you’re lacing up your shoes, because you’re ready to head out for a run. Maybe you’re just you know, sitting down to dinner and you’re actually eating what you said you’d eat today. That’s what it means to be in the flow.
It means you’re not thinking about how long it’s going to take. Because that really doesn’t matter. It might take six months or a year or more. Whatever, it doesn’t matter. It’s all okay. Think about this, where would you be a year from now, if you stuck to your plan every day for a year, think about that. A year from now you could be like 95% of the way to your goal or 100% there.
Or you could be totally frustrated and pissed off a year from now because you kept thinking it was taking too long. And you kept stopping and starting and stopping and starting you kept giving up. Maybe you’d recommit. Maybe you’d quit and you’d start again, then you quit again. Maybe you just quit altogether. Staying in the flow means you commit to the process. You commit to the process of change. What things do you need to change to get to your goals?
Stop eating junk food, start lifting weights regularly, maybe doing more speed work? What is the process of change, what does that look like for you and commit to that? Because that’s what you need to focus on. That’s where your attention needs to be. Staying in the flow means staying focused on the process of change and not getting frustrated because it’s taking too long to see your results right?
Hey, when you stop thinking that this is all supposed to be different, somehow faster, whatever. And when you just slow down and you stay in the flow, and you stay committed right now to this process, your whole mindset shifts, you become calmer about everything, you become more at peace with where you are, you feel more encouraged, you feel more confident, and that confidence builds you feel more motivated to stay on track.
You stay more disciplined. When you’re feeling this way, when you’re in this mental and emotional state, you become unstoppable. When you’re operating from this emotional state, what do you think becomes your new reality? What do you think becomes true for you? What do you think are the results that you’re gonna get?
When you’re coming from this place of like, I will get there eventually. And I’m just right where I’m supposed to be, and I’m just gonna stay committed, you will get there, eventually, you will stay committed, you will get the results you want for yourself, you will achieve the goals that you want for yourself.
So what I want you to do this week, I want you to ask yourself, where you might be trying to fast track things, right? Where might you be wishing that things should be faster, quicker, and then notice how thinking that way makes you feel? Because chances are, it’s going to put you in a negative feeling, a negative emotional state, you’re not gonna feel good, you’re gonna feel frustrated, discouraged. You’re gonna feel stressed out. And then ask yourself, how can I let go of these ideas? How can I let go of this arbitrary timeline that I’ve created for myself? How can I just sit here? Slow down? How can I stay in the flow right here now?
How can you focus on the process of change here in this moment, and this isn’t just about like feeling good, or getting out of that negative state. It’s about creating everything that you want for yourself. It’s how you get there. If you want to become the most badass version of yourself, just commit to the process of change, and you’ll get there. Slow down, stay in the flow, and I promise you, you will absolutely get there eventually.
And as always, if you want some help with any of this, or all of this, apply for coaching you and I can work together, we’ll put together a plan for you. I’ll help you stay committed to that process. I’ll help you stay in the flow and together we’ll get you there. Cool. Alright, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
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