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Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray

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102. Choosing Your Struggle

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Have you ever found yourself struggling with something and thought, “Why am I choosing this?” Probably not. If you're like most people then you’ve most likely never considered the fact that you are …

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Podcast Transcript

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 102 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today I’m talking about choosing your struggle. Have you ever found yourself struggling with something and thought, why am I choosing this? Why am I choosing to struggle with this? Probably not.

If you’re like most people, then you’ve probably never considered the fact that you are actually choosing your struggles, all of them. Whatever it is that you’re struggling with right now – your weight, your workouts, how you feel about yourself, feeling stuck – these are all choices that you are making.

So in this episode of the podcast, I’m going to explain what all this means, what it means to be choosing your struggle, and I’m going to offer up some insights for you to start making better choices in your life.

But first, if you liked this podcast, please come check out the Running Lean podcast community on Facebook. This is a group that goes hand in hand with this podcast. Right now we’re in the middle of our running through the holidays challenge. The challenge is to run every day between Thanksgiving day.

And New Year’s Day is a tough time of the year for a lot of people. And running and getting outside and getting some exercise in every single day is a great way to get through the holidays, to help eliminate stress, to feel good about yourself to get the endorphins going the adrenaline going, and to make it through the holidays without losing your mind.

So if you’re interested in joining us, it’s never too late, come and join in the fun, just search for Running Lean community on Facebook. And then if you’re interested in doing more if you’re interested in getting more out of this and going deeper, you know listening to the podcast is great.

But if you want more if you really want to apply all of the stuff that I teach here on the podcast, if you want help applying that to your own life, to make the changes that you want to become the person, the badass person that you want to become, then you got two ways that you can work with me and get more number one is the Running Lean coaching group.

And all month long for this month in December, we’re talking about building mental toughness. Last month, our topic was ending self-sabotage. So each month, I try to pick a topic that’s relevant that will help you to move in the direction of your goals. Right?

So mental toughness, is what’s required to get you through the tough times. And this time of the year, there’s a lot of tough times for a lot of people, okay, things will always get tough. So we need mental toughness to get through all of this, okay. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, run a marathon, or just develop the habits that you need to be able to stick with your food and exercise plans – it all requires mental toughness.

Okay, so join the Running Lean coaching group. And you’ll learn all about how to build mental toughness, you need to get through just about anything in life. Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join, and you can join us anytime.

Also, I am a coach. And where I excel is in one on one coaching. And if you’re looking for a little personalized help with all this stuff, if you want some help applying all these principles, and getting some experts, one on one guidance, support, encouragement, accountability, maybe some tough love every now and then, then you need to apply for coaching with me.

Just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply. And you and I will have a conversation and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. Cool, awesome.

So let’s get into this topic of choosing your struggle. And I think this is something that most people don’t realize that they’re making choices around what it is that they’re struggling with. And for you, I want you at the end of this podcast, I want you to be really thinking about the things that you are struggling with and how you can make better choices around your struggles.

Okay, so that’s just the mindset I want you to be in throughout this podcast. So if there’s something you’re struggling with in your life right now, think about it. Bring it to the forefront of your mind and think about that as I go through this. So that you can be thinking about how maybe you can make some changes to your perceptions of what you’re struggling with, cool.

So if you’re like most people, then you probably think that the goal for your life is to have a struggle-free life, that you think that at some point in the future, you will no longer have any struggles, everything’s just going to be rainbows and unicorns, and sunshine. And this is just not the case.

And I definitely used to think this myself, right, I thought that once I got to my ideal weight, once I got to my ideal body composition, once I started to really get clear on what I wanted for myself, once I worked through a lot of my mindset issues, then everything would just be easy for me from here on out.

And I would be struggle free. And I would never have any more challenges or struggles in my life. But that’s not reality. In reality, life is a struggle. You know, I don’t care how many, you know, self-improvement books or personal growth, podcasts you listen to, you are never going to get to a place in your life, where it’s completely struggle-free. It just isn’t going to ever be that way.

Okay, I want you to really understand this first, okay? Every human being on this planet is struggling with something. Life is a struggle, that’s just a fact, we need to stop pretending that it isn’t, we need to stop pretending that at some point, life is just going to be all blissful and joy and challenge free. It just won’t ever get that way. Okay?

Now, this does not mean that you have to struggle with everything all the time. You know, I’ve talked about this before Life is 50/50. Right, you’re going to be happy about half the time and the other half, not so much.

But what I’m saying here is that you will have struggles in your life, every now and then from here on out. So instead of trying to avoid all the struggles, instead of trying to eliminate all the struggles, I want you to start choosing the things you struggle with.

Now, you might be thinking, what, why would I choose to struggle with anything? Right? And I don’t, I’m not choosing this, this is just the way that it is. And this is a concept, I really want you to understand that you’re absolutely choosing whatever it is that you’re struggling with.

So here’s the fact, you can’t accomplish big things without a struggle. When you set out to do something big, there is a struggle involved. There is discomfort involved. growth requires discomfort, you know, you can’t have growth and accomplish big goals without some level of discomfort.

You know, if you want to lose 40 or 50 pounds, then you have to accept the fact that there will be some discomfort and struggle involved with that process. Maybe you’re gonna, you know, eliminate certain foods from your diet that you’re used to eating.

You know, one of the things a lot of people struggle with is quitting sugar, when you stop eating sugar. This is a struggle for a lot of people, or maybe you want to quit drinking. And so, you know, not drinking alcohol, especially this time of the year can be a real struggle. Right?

If you want to qualify for Boston, then you are absolutely going to struggle with that process, the training that is involved to get you to the Boston starting line is intense. You know, for some of us, it’s more intense than others because we got a lot more time to shave off.

I think my Boston qualifying time now that I hit 55 went from, like 330 to 335. And I’m just like, whatever. That’s just not happening now, maybe later, maybe when I’m 70. But qualifying for Boston requires a struggle. It requires a lot of hard work to get you there. Okay.

You know, when I was training for my 100 miler, that was a lot of struggle, the training involved with that distance with you know, getting your body ready to run that distance is intense. You know, I was doing back-to-back long runs on the weekends where I would run maybe 30 miles on Saturday and 20 miles on Sunday. Yeah, that sounds like fun, right?

And then I was running six days a week so I only had one day off and I was building up my mileage. And I think my weekly mileage ended up getting close to like 85 or 90 miles for a week, which is a lot.

You know, I know a lot of people do more than that. But for me, that was a lot. You know, I’m used to my 30, 35, 40 miles a week for marathon training. So that was a big struggle, the training alone, for an event like that is just a total struggle fest, you know, building up the mileage, building up your endurance, that’s a hard thing to do.

And then the race itself, running 100 miles, struggled all through that, you know, so crossing the finish line of that 100 miler, though, all that struggle was worth it. You know, all that struggle of training for something and pushing yourself and becoming more in the process is completely worth it. Right.

The problem is, most people want to accomplish these big things, but they don’t want to struggle. Like they set out to lose weight, but they’re not willing to experience any discomfort, they don’t want any struggles, they don’t want any discomfort, they don’t want any failures, they just want everything to be easy.

And as soon as it gets a little bit hard, or they start struggling, they quit. I don’t want to encourage you to not do that. Accept the fact that there will be struggles with whatever it is you’re trying to do, especially if you’re trying to do something hard, especially if you’re trying to do something you’ve never done before. Just doing something you’ve never done before, is a challenge in itself, because you’ve never done it before.

And you might think well, I don’t know how to do it. Of course, you don’t know how to do it because you’ve never done it before. Of course, you’re going to struggle. But at the first sign of discomfort, if you’re ready to just throw in the towel, and go back to doing whatever you’re doing before, like, that’s not going to work for you.

Alright, the bottom line here is I’m talking about in some way, shape, or form, you will always have struggle in your life, you have to accept this fact. Right? Struggle is inevitable. The good news is, you get to choose your struggle.

So you can choose to struggle with staying where you are being stuck where you are staying small, maybe not feeling good about yourself not having self-esteem, maybe feeling like crap. Or you can choose the struggle that comes with change.

You can choose the struggle of not feeling good right now of not being your healthiest self, of not loving yourself, of not loving your body. You can struggle with having low self-esteem, you can struggle with feeling crappy about yourself.

Or you can choose the struggle that’s involved with changing your diet, or working out at the gym on a regular basis. Or struggling with, you know, heading outside for those long runs, especially when it’s dark and cold outside. Or the struggle of working on your mindset and improving your mindset.

Either way, there’s going to be a struggle involved, right? Which one do you want to choose the struggle of just being where you are and feeling like crap all the time, or the struggle of doing what it takes to change? You might be struggling with something like emotional eating, which is something we all do.

You know, some people call it stress eating, or I’m just bored, some eating, whatever it is, this is all variations of emotional eating, you’re using food as a way of feeling better. And this could be a real struggle for you. You know, you’re using food as a way to not have to feel your feelings that I have to deal with your emotions.

So you can continue to choose to struggle with this you can continue you know, using food as a way of feeling better. And dealing with you know, and not dealing with your emotions and struggling with how you feel all the time.

Or you can choose the struggle of actually dealing with your feelings, dealing with your emotions, feeling your feelings, even when you know you’re even when you don’t want to because you stopped using food as a coping mechanism.

You know, maybe you start dealing with your emotions for the first time in your life. This can feel like a huge struggle fest for a lot of people. Alright, so you can choose the struggle of emotional eating or choose the struggle of dealing with your feelings, like which one of these would you choose? Which are you choosing?

You might be struggling with your relationship you can continue the struggle and hope that things get better and just feel like well, this is just the way it is. Or you can choose the struggle of having real conversations, tough conversations, honest conversations, and communicating openly and plainly with your significant other.

This is not the easier thing to do, I promise you this is, this is hard to do. The struggle involved with communicating with somebody else, and learning how to communicate openly and clearly, and honestly, with another person, you get to choose which struggle you want to endure though.

The struggle of, you know, passive-aggressive behavior, of not saying what you really want to say, of having all these resentments build-up, or the struggle of dealing with what it takes to improve that relationship, the struggle of having those uncomfortable conversations, running might be a struggle for you right now.

You know, maybe you’re, you’re not hitting your PR, you know, and you keep trying, and it’s just a big huge struggle fest for you, right. You know, you can continue to struggle with this and keep falling short of your goals.

Or, you can begin the process of improving your running little by little, doing what it takes to get faster and struggling with that. You can struggle with where you are or struggle with what it takes to change.

Right, there’s always going to be some sort of struggle in the process of improving yourself, of becoming the person that you really, really want to become, it’s a struggle. But you get to choose that if you want, or you can choose to struggle with just, you know, being where you are.

And thinking that this is never gonna work for me. And I could never stick to my diet. And I can’t get out and exercise because of X, Y, and Z. You can struggle with how you feel every single day because you’re stuck where you are.

Or you can choose the struggle that comes with changing who you are. Listen, you get to change who you are, you get to decide for yourself, who it is that you want to become. And you can become the most awesome, healthiest, most badass person that you want to be, you get to choose that for yourself.

The caveat, there is a struggle involved with getting there. I want you to choose that struggle for yourself. You know, struggle with the pain involved with going to the gym and lifting weights. struggle with the mindset it takes to get yourself out of bed at 4:30 in the morning, to get your running in because that’s what’s important to you.

I want you to struggle with you know, dealing with your emotions when you really just feel like eating something or drinking something and you’re not going to do that. Because who you are is not that person that uses food to feel better.

Right now, I’m struggling. I am choosing the struggle that comes with fixing my shoulder. I just had rotator cuff surgery. And I have to tell you it’s terrible. I was going into this feeling very positive. And you know, I have a pretty high tolerance for pain. And I have to tell you, this is pretty dang painful.

And during the day, it’s gotten better like during the day like right now I’m sitting in my chair, I’m at my computer and it feels pretty fine. Like there’s a little bit of achy pain going on there. But it’s not horrible like I can deal with it you know and I’m taking some Tylenol and stuff like that, it’s fine.

But at night trying to sleep is horrible. It’s incredibly uncomfortable. I can sleep for a couple of hours at a time but I keep waking up with intense pain for whatever reason you know, I’ve got myself propped up in bed and everybody says that you got to be like kind of sleeping sitting up to allow your shoulder to just kind of sit in its natural position.

But for whatever reason, it just starts to be incredibly painful and it wakes me up several times throughout the night. And this is uncomfortable. This is a struggle. This is what I am struggling with right now.

But I have to tell myself, and I keep reminding myself that I am choosing this struggle, I’m choosing to struggle with this right now, rather than the struggle of constantly being in pain for the rest of my life with no end in sight. I tore three different, you know, I have three different tears on my rotator cuff. And I have to get those things fixed because they there was not going to get better on their own.

I gave it a year, I gave it like 14 months actually, of this pain, like hoping it will get better. And it’s only gotten worse. So I can continue, I could have continued to just struggle with this. But I made a decision that I was going to choose a different kind of struggle, I’m going to choose to struggle with the pain that I’m dealing with right now with the discomfort with all of it.

Because I know, eventually, this will get better. I know eventually that I am going to be back to normal, and I’ll get stronger than ever. You know, I decided that this was the struggle I was going to deal with because it’s, you know, it’s short term.

Rather than going through the rest of my life feeling like I can’t do the things I want to do. The kind of pain I was in with the shoulder prior to surgery was like I could not do yoga the way I wanted to. I could not lift weights the way I wanted to. Running started to become very problematic.

So I made a decision, I made a choice that I was going to get this thing fixed. And it’s a struggle. I’m going to tell you, I’m going to be honest with you right now. It’s a struggle. But I’ve chosen this, this is what I’ve I’ve chosen for myself, okay.

So whatever it is that you are struggling with right now. I want you to understand something. Number one struggling is inevitable, you will always be struggling with something. And that’s okay. Right life’s 50/50.

It’s okay if you’re struggling with something, but you get to choose what you’re struggling with. And I want you to stop choosing the struggle of staying stuck and feeling small and staying comfortable and staying complacent and wishing you were more.

I don’t want you to struggle with that anymore. I want you to choose the struggle of becoming more. I want you to choose the struggle that it takes to become that badass version of yourself that you know is lurking inside you.

That’s what I want for you. That’s what I’ve chosen for myself and that’s what I want for you. Good deal. Alright, love you all. Keep on Running Lean. 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.

101. What to Do When Life Throws You Curveballs

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Sometimes things just don't go your way. You might have to deal with a running-related injury, loss of job, divorce, another COVID lockdown, or some other unexpected setback in your life. What …

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Podcast Transcript

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 101, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, what to do when life throws you curveballs. Sometimes things just don’t go your way, you might have to deal with a running-related injury, loss of a job divorce, another COVID lockdown, or some other unexpected setback in your life.

What you do in these situations, and how you respond to them, can have a profound impact on your life, for the good or for the bat. Now, recently, I’ve been thrown a big curveball, and I’m going to talk more about that in this episode.

But instead of sitting around feeling sorry for myself, I’ve decided that I’m going to do everything that I can to get through this tough period, feeling good about myself and being as positive and productive as possible.

So this episode of the podcast is all about what to do when life throws you curveballs because you will always have a choice in how you respond to every single one of these events in your life, even when it feels like you don’t.

But first, if you like this podcast, you have to come check out the Running Lean community on Facebook. And all this month, all through the holidays between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, we’re doing the running through the holidays challenge.

This is where we are challenging ourselves to run outside at least a mile every single day between Thanksgiving Day and New Year’s Day, I think it’s a total of 38 total days of running. So 38 days in a row.

And the reason we’re doing this is because this is a tough time of the year for a lot of people. It’s a time where a lot of people feel like they don’t want to go outside because it’s cold and it’s dark. And the weather is always kind of iffy.

But doing this challenge forces us to get outside every day, which is super good for you. It helps us to get through this challenging time of the year. Feeling good about ourselves, we get a sense of accomplishment. We get all the good endorphins and adrenaline going because we’re out there exercising every day. And we are all having a lot of fun doing this.

So if you’re interested in joining the challenge, it’s not too late. Just come and join us anytime you want. Just search for Running Lean community on Facebook and join us.

And then people always ask how they can work with me. And there are two ways you can do that. There’s the Running Lean coaching group. And then there’s one on one coaching and the Running Lean coaching group.

So the month of December, we’re talking all about building mental toughness. Last month, we focused on ending self-sabotage. And so the next step is once you understand how to avoid and end self-sabotage for good, the next step is to build the Mental Toughness that’s required to get you through hard times; to get you through the tough runs to get you through challenging situations like the holidays, maybe.

So come and join us in the Running Lean coaching group for December, learn how to train your mind to tough it out when the going gets tough because it will always get tough, I promise you. And whether you want to lose weight, run a marathon, run an ultra marathon, or just develop the habits to be able to make a plan and stick with it.

All of this stuff, it all requires mental toughness. You know, there’s going to be times when you don’t feel like working out, you don’t feel like sticking to your diet, or you just want to quit because it’s hard. But when you have mental toughness, you’ll get through all of it. If you’re interested, just go to runningleanpodcast.com/join and you can join the group any time.

And then the one-on-one coaching. If you’re ever looking for a little extra help, and you want to basically guarantee your success, I can offer you the expert guidance, support, encouragement, experience accountability that you need to make this work for you no matter what it is, no matter what your goals no matter what your lifestyle.

The best way to reach your goals is to have a coach guiding you and holding you accountable. Really, it’s just the most powerful thing that you can do for yourself. It’s the most powerfully powerful thing I’ve done for myself. I have several coaches that I work with. And it has made all the difference in my life. So if you’re interested in one on one coaching, just go to runningleanpodcast.com/apply, and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you.

Okay, so I wanted to come on here and talk about this subject today because I’ve had a pretty big curveball thrown my way. And I’ll talk more about that in a second.

But listen, we all get curveballs thrown at us, okay, life is never going to go as you plan it like things just don’t go as planned 100% of the time, right. But when they don’t go as planned, what do you do?

You know, sometimes we really have to step up our game, in order to develop the right mindset to be able to deal with whatever tough things are going on in our lives, whatever curveballs are thrown our way.

You know, so just understand that you know, I may be talking about something that’s going on with me here today. But I want you to be thinking about the kinds of curveballs that you have faced recently or maybe facing in the near future.

And the nature of curveballs is that we don’t know what they are, we don’t know that these things are going to happen. And we don’t know that we have to plan and sort of like build the mental toughness in order to get through these kinds of times, right.

So this is very much on my mind right now, because I’ve had a big curveball thrown my way, I have developed some tears in my rotator cuff. And so I’m having rotator cuff surgery in just a couple of days.

So just for those of you who are interested in knowing the mechanics here, so I have a torn supraspinous muscle in a torn subscapularis muscle. And I have biceps tendinitis. So I have a biceps tendon that should be long and skinny, like a spaghetti noodle. But instead, it’s all like frayed in the middle. And it’s all messed up. And it’s supposed to be in this groove. And it’s not in the groove, or it’s supposed to be, and I have not been able to lift weights for a while now.

And this has been something that’s been bugging me for a long, long time. So kind of the backstory here is that I did some sort of trauma to my shoulder. And I’m pretty sure this happened a few years back running on some trails falling down, catching myself, and jamming my shoulder.

And I probably did some sort of damage at that point. Because since then, for several years now my shoulder has not been right. And it’s been okay like I’ve been able to run, it’s been okay, I’ve been able to lift weights to a certain degree.

But about 14 months ago, 15 months ago, I started getting into heavier weights and started lifting more. And you know, it’s a gradual progression. But at some point during weightlifting, I noticed things starting to like really hurt and my shoulder. And so I’ve just been pushing through the pain, you know. I’ve just been sort of, like, that’s fine.

I went and saw a physical therapist, and they made an assessment. And they thought that you know, it would probably just heal up on its own because shoulder tears can heal up on their own, you know, and it didn’t heal up on its own.

And, and I’ve just been pushing through the pain, and I’ve been, you know, doing a lot of weightlifting. And it’s been okay, you know, there are things I can’t do, some overhead stuff, and there’s their stuff that’s more painful than others. But I’ve been able to pretty much do what I want to do.

I’ve run, you know, a couple of marathons this year, and it’s it’s been okay. But in the past few months, it’s gotten progressively worse. And so I started seeing another physical therapist, and we started doing all kinds of other stuff. And then we just decided at some point that whatever we were doing was not helping.

And my condition was actually getting worse. And so just to find out exactly what was going on, I had an MRI, and that MRI showed the torn rotator cuff muscles and the biceps tendon that’s all jacked up.

So, you know, the surgeon came in and he said, I got some bad news for you. You know, the only way you’re going to get better. The only way we’re going to fix this is surgery. And he’s a guy that’s like he’s not even told me he’s like, I don’t recommend surgery for most people, especially with tears like this, a lot of times we can fix you know, they’ll fix themselves they’ll get better on their own.

What you have is not going to get better on its own. What you have is going to get continually worse. And if you tear through this muscle it’s like hanging by a thread at this point and if you tear completely through it, the repairs gonna be much more difficult and it may not ever be the same. Like you may never be able to use your muscles properly again like they’re you they could atrophy so I was like, Oh my gosh, this is like terrible.

So I’m like, well, let’s do it, let’s, let’s have this surgery. So the surgery is scheduled for a couple of days from now. So my first reaction to all of this was, like, you know, this is just something that I have to deal with I, but I was a little bit pissed off about the whole thing, to be honest with you, okay?

And, and I had some choices about how I wanted to react, so I could be defeated, pissed off, I could be in denial, I could feel really resentful, and just beat myself up, you know, blame myself for not doing something sooner and on and on and on, right? I could do that.

Or I could do something else, right? I decided that I did not want to wallow in self-pity and be pissed off and defeated. That instead, I wanted to use this experience as a way of learning about myself. And being able to use this as a teaching experience so that I could share my experience with you, and put all these practical principles that I practice, and that I teach you guys, I’m going to put all this stuff into place.

I have all these awesome tools that I use in my coaching and all these principles that I teach, and all the mental and emotional tools that I have to build a deal with whatever. And so I’m bringing it all, I’m gonna bring everything I’ve got to this experience.

And because I don’t want to just like get through it, I don’t want to just muddle through it, I want to come out of this experience, I want to come out the other side of this experience, mentally, emotionally, and physically stronger than before.

And, for me, this is like such an important thing for me to do for myself, not just to, you know, prove to myself that I can get through this and feel good and get stronger. But I don’t want to sit around feeling sorry for myself and wallowing in misery. That is not how I want to spend the next few weeks or a few months or whatever it’s gonna take to recover from this thing.

So I’ve decided I’m going to, you know, take this opportunity to, you know, do this in a way that’s more badass. Okay, so for this first situation that I’m in, so I’ve got the surgery in a couple of days, right? And I had some thoughts about this.

And there were some things that were kind of swirling around in my brain. And I was having some concerns and some stress and some anxiety about all this. And I started to think about, okay, what are the thoughts that are causing all these feelings? Right? Our thoughts always cause our feelings, right.

So I decided to write down everything that I was thinking just the good, the bad, the crazy, everything, some of this stuff, and I’m going to share this with you guys here, I’m going to share some of my thoughts with you guys here. And then share, like what I’m doing with these thoughts and how I’m changing them.

But I started writing this stuff down, and I didn’t censor it. I just like wrote down everything I was thinking and feeling. And some of this is ridiculous, but whatever. That’s just the way our brains work. You know, sometimes we think ridiculous thoughts, you know.

But for me, I wanted to get control of how I was going into this whole thing, right? Even before I have my surgery, I wanted to make sure that I have the right mindset going into it. Okay.

So I did what’s called a thought download this is where we just write down everything that’s in our brains, get it on a piece of paper so that we can see it. And then we can look at these thoughts, and maybe challenge some of them because you don’t have to believe everything you think, right? I don’t have to believe everything. I think just because I’m thinking of thought does not mean that it’s true.

So I wrote down everything. And then I challenged all these thoughts. And I want to share this with you guys because I think it’ll be very helpful for you. And you can do this exact same thing for some situation that might be going on in your life, you might have your own curveball that’s been thrown your way. You know, there’s always something right.

There’s always something going on that in our lives that are not going as planned. It may be you know, work transitions, it may be relationship stuff, it may be stuff with our kids, or with school, or whatever. And and we get to choose how we want to approach these things. We don’t have to just react to them the way that everybody else does.

Because the way that everybody else reacts to these things typically is pretty crappy, and they just feel terrible. And they get stressed out and they you know, throw up their arms and just say like, everything sucks and like, I don’t want to do that. That’s not who I am.

So I’m not going to do that. Instead, I’m going to do some work. And so when I say do some work, I mean I’m going to sit down and really get in touch with what I’m thinking and feeling about this stuff. Okay.

So the first thing I’m going to share with you guys is just a list of a bunch of thoughts that I’ve had about this. Thoughts that are kind of causing me some emotional distress. Okay, so I’m going to give you my kind of thought download here and just share some of the stuff with you. And then I’ll talk about what we do from there.

So here are some of the thoughts that I wrote down about this upcoming surgery and in the recovery, and this whole situation. So the first one was that this isn’t gonna work, like the surgeries just not gonna work, it’s not gonna, it’s not going to heal me, I’m not going to get better.

Another thought is I’m going to lose my fitness, you know, I’ve worked really hard to get fit, and I’m going to lose fitness.

The next one is I won’t be able to handle the pain, the pain is gonna be too much. My business will suffer, I won’t be able to do simple things like, you know, tie my shoes or put on a shirt or fold laundry, you know, I’m going to get all soft and mushy physically get all doughy, I don’t want to be doughy.

Again, I used to be doughy and I don’t want to be doing that again. I’ll fall behind on my work, I’ll be in a bad mood all the time since I won’t be able to run and workout like I’m used to, it’s going to take a really long time to recover, I’m going to get fat.

Again, my whole routine in my whole schedule is going to be thrown off. I won’t ever be as fit as I was before surgery, people are gonna think I’m lazy, no one’s gonna want to help me, I’m going to be stuck inside my apartment, I won’t get to go outside, I’d love being outside every day, and I won’t be able to go outside.

I won’t be able to, you know, complete the running through the holidays challenge, which is important to me. I love doing this every year and I won’t be able to do that. I’m going to lose my mind just sitting around doing nothing all day. There are a lot of unknowns, like how long is the recovery going to take? When can I start my physical therapy? When can I start running again? When can I start lifting weights? Again? Like I don’t know, nobody can tell me any of these things right now.

So in some of these things I may not know the answer to for a long time. So these are a lot of the thoughts that I’m having about this. And I don’t know if you guys can probably relate to some of these things like some of this stuff is kind of crazy. Some of it is legit, you know?

So then I asked myself, like, how do I feel, thinking these thoughts? When I just read all those thoughts to you, I started to feel worried and anxious and full of fear and really stressed out. That’s how these thoughts make me feel they make me feel very anxious and very stressed out. Is this how I want to go through all this? Do I want to be worried and fearful and stressed out? No, I don’t.

And here’s the thing, though. We think that we are worried and anxious and full of fear and stressed out because of the situation. Because I have to have surgery and I’m going to be you know, it’s going to take me a while to recover. I’m automatically going to be worried and anxious and full of fear and stressed out. That is not true.

The truth is, it’s all those thoughts that I just rattled off to you – those are the things that are making me feel that way. It’s not the shoulder surgery, it’s making me feel that way it is all this stuff that I just said. So I’m having all these thoughts that are making me feel stressed out.

So what do we do when we feel stressed out? What would I do? Typically, when I’m feeling this way, our thoughts cause us to feel emotions. And the emotions I just went through were anxious fear, fearful, worried, stressed out. When you know, when you feel a certain way you take action, so your emotions drive your actions.

So what actions would I be taking or not taking based on how I feel? Well, I might start eating my feelings, I might start overeating and trying to eat to feel better. I might just sit around all day not doing anything just feeling sorry for myself wallowing in my own misery. Just even saying that out loud, feels terrible.

I might just be like worrying and being stressed out all day long. I just may just walk around being stressed and not do work and just like not feel productive and not want to do anything, not want to move just to sit around and stagnate. Like this is this is how I’m thinking I might show up these are some of the behaviors that I might partake in or avoid because of the way I’m feeling.

So this is just one scenario. This is like an option like I can choose to think all these thoughts I can choose to feel this way and I can choose to do these things. I can choose to feel anxious and stressed out and eat my feelings and be stressed and be and not feel like doing anything and just sit around and stagnate. That’s an option. Like I could do that if I wanted to. But that’s not what I’m going to do.

Okay, so what I’ve done is for each of these thoughts, I’ve reframed each one of these thoughts. And this is I think the part of this process that you can do this too, right? So I’m going to give you each of these thoughts that I had and give you an alternative thought that I’ve decided I want to think on purpose. And I wrote all these things down so that I would remember them and I could go through and read them.

Again and again, if I start to feel some of these things again, or if I start to think some of these thoughts again. So the first one is that the surgery is not going to work. Well, there’s no reason whatsoever for me to think that this is not going to work. Right?

Well, where’s this even coming from? Right? It’s very routine. There’s a very high success rate. The surgeon is awesome. He already told me this is gonna work. He’s super confident. So it’s gonna work. Like there’s no doubt about it. Okay, so that one, is gone, right. I’m feeling very confident. This is all gonna work. Okay.

My next thought is I’m going to lose fitness. Yes, this is true, like, I might lose some fitness, but I’m not going to become a couch potato. I’m not going to like lose all my fitness, I’ll get it back. And it’s only going to be for a few weeks, a few months, whatever it is, you know, I’m not going to be starting from scratch. I’m already very fit right now. I feel amazing right now. So the chances of me like, you know, becoming just super out of shape, it’s just not going to happen. Okay.

The next thought is I won’t be able to handle the pain, like, okay, first of all, I have all sorts of tools, I have meds. I have this Iceman, which is like a device that circulates cold, ice-cold water through a pad that you put around your shoulder. So it keeps your shoulder nice and cold to help with the pain and the inflammation and stuff like that post-surgery.

I have supplements, I even have narcotics that they’ve prescribed to me if necessary, I’m gonna try not to take those but you know that that’s an option if I need to, I have all these tools at my you know, that I can use if I need them.

And also, I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, you know, I’m able to handle quite a bit of pain without using any kind of medications and things like that. So, I’ve had many other surgeries that are way more invasive than what they’re going to be doing. This is arthroscopic surgery, so it’s not going to be as invasive as if they had to just like slice me all open or whatever.

So I’ve had these other surgeries that have been way more invasive, and I’ve been fine. So I’ll be able to handle the pain. Next thought my business will suffer, you know what my business will be fine, I’m only taking a couple of days off work, I can still work while I’m recovering. It’s not like I’m going to be an invalid here. I’m just going to have you know, my arm in a sling, and deal with pain and things like that. But I’ll be able to do most things, right.

Next thought, I won’t be able to do simple things like you know, fold laundry, tie my shoes, things like that. This is true, like these things may be tougher for me. But all kinds of people learn how to do these things, like get themselves dressed, tie their shoes, whatever with one hand. And it’s a skill that I can learn.

And it may be difficult and it may be tough to put a shirt on. Or something like that may be sort of painful to move my arm in that position or whatever. But I can make it work, it’s just something I can learn. Just have to learn how to do it, you know, do a lot of things left-handed.

So it’s my right shoulder that I’m getting repaired. So I’m right-handed. So I’m gonna have to deal with like the left-handed stuff, I’ve already been practicing a lot of stuff left hand like I can drive with my left hand perfectly.

So next thought is I’ll fall behind on my work, you know what, here’s a way of reframing that, like, I’m gonna have a lot of downtime. So I can actually get caught up on my work since I won’t be, you know, out running and working out as much as I was before.

Another thought I’m going to be in a bad mood since I can run a workout. Well, listen, my mood is not determined by how often I run or work out, my mood is determined by my thoughts. So whether I work out or not, that is just a circumstance. And I get to choose what I make it mean.

So I can make it mean that I’m going to be in a bad mood, or I can choose to make it mean that it doesn’t affect me at all. And then I can still be in a good mood. Listen, our mood is not determined by you know, when we you know how far we run or how often we work out. It does help. Those things do make us feel happier at times.

They kind of release some good hormones, we get the adrenaline going, we get the serotonin going, we get you know, these happy hormones going. But at the same time, we can still feel good about ourselves without that, right.

Alright, another thought is that it’s going to take a really long time to recover. And here’s the thing, I don’t know how long it’s gonna take. You know, they told me three to four months before I’m back to normal. So recovery time, just it is what it is. But I’m going to do everything that I can to make this go as fast as possible.

I’m going to hit all my PT appointments, I’m going to go as soon as that they’re allowed me to go, which is right away, they said, you know, they want to get me moving right away, I’m going to do all the at-home exercises.

I’ve got access to a gym, so I can go and do everything that I need to there. I’m going to be the ideal patient, you know. And I’m going to do everything that I’m told to do. And I’m going to get better as fast as possible. I want to blow their minds with how quickly I heal up and get better.

Okay, next thought I’ll get fat again. Well, now this one is one of those silly thoughts. This is just ridiculous, right? Me getting fat, again, would require me to dramatically change my diet. And that’s just not going to happen. Okay, so I’m going to continue to plan ahead and stick to my plan, I’m going to continue to weigh myself every day so that I can react, if the weight starts creeping up, I’ll probably need to cut back on how much I’m eating just because I’m not working out as much.

So when we work out and we run a lot and we’re you know, working out several times a week and things like that, you may need more calories, because you are, you’re burning off some of these calories and your body naturally will require more energy.

As we back off from some of these things and become a little more sedentary, we don’t require as much energy coming in. So we have to be mindful of that. So I’m going to be very mindful of that and just practice a little more restraint and just you know, not eat as much really.

You can use you know, you can get good at this and use your own intuition and your biological the way you feel like your, your body’s internal sort of hunger and satiety signals to determine how much you need to eat. And so I’m going to be practicing that. I won’t get that, again, I’m not worried about that.

Next thought my whole routine in my schedule is gonna be thrown off. Yeah, my typical schedule will be different, that’s okay. But here’s what I’m gonna do, I’m going to create as much structure as possible so that even though my routine and my schedule are different, it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

I can change things up and create sort of a new routine and new structure, and changing things up every now and then is actually a good thing, right? It changes your perspective and gets you focused on different things. So I’m not too worried about that one.

Let’s see the next thought, I won’t be I won’t ever be as fit as I was pre-surgery. So I have this goal to become the fittest, strongest, most badass version of myself yet. And this to me, this period of time is just a setback. And it’s not going to deter me from achieving that goal, it’s not going to make me give up, or quit. This time is very brief in the big picture. This is just a blip on the radar right.

Now, I’ve already decided that 2022 is going to be the year when I improved my fitness like I never had before. You know, I might be doing a little bit less running, I might be doing a lot more weight training. But this is actually getting me feeling good is getting me feeling very excited.

Next thought I’m going to be seen as lazy, okay, this is just one of those fleeting thoughts, I wrote it down because it came up in my head, nobody’s gonna think I’m lazy, I’m not lazy, I’ve never been lazy.

And if somebody thinks I’m being lazy, there is nothing I can do about the way that they think that’s just their thoughts, their opinions of me. And there’s nothing I can do about that. So that one is just sort of ridiculous.

The next thought was no one’s going to want to help me. And this thought has already been put to rest because I’ve already received an outpouring of support and offers of help from my friends and my family. People want to bring me food and get me groceries and just come and hang out with me and watch movies and stuff like that. So I’ve already got all the help and support that I need. And then some. So this is super fun. So I’m feeling good about that.

My next thought was that I’m going to be stuck inside my apartment, I won’t get to go outside. I love being outside. I really do especially this time of the year. And I’ve kind of thought about this and I don’t think it’s going to be that big of a deal.

I suspect I won’t get outside for a few days maybe. But as soon as I can, I’m going to make getting outside of priority like even if it’s just to go sit outside and get a little bit of sunshine on my face or whatever. If we have some sunshine in the Midwest here.

So it might be a few days but that’s about it. You know, as soon as I’m able to I’m gonna try to get outside maybe go for a short walk or something like that and try to get outside every day.

Next thought I won’t be able to complete the running through the holidays challenge and this is true, right? I probably won’t be able to do every day of the challenge, but I’m doing what I can up until the day of my surgery. I’ll even run on the morning of the surgery and the surgery is until like noon or so on Thursday so I’ll be able to run in the morning, but then who knows.

Maybe towards the end of the month, towards the end of December, I can get back into running a mile at a time. I don’t know, it depends on what they tell me I’m allowed to do. I might be, I might be a little too optimistic about that. But either way is fine.

My goal through this challenge then is to be here to help encourage you and support every one of you as you keep up with your running streak, and you are participating in this challenge. And listen, I’m looking at this, this whole thing is for surgery in this recovery as my challenge. This is my, you know, running through the holidays challenge, this is my equivalent of that. My challenge is to get myself through this period and slide into 2022 feeling amazing. Okay.

My next thought is I’m gonna lose my mind sitting around doing nothing all day. Well, first of all, I’m not going to be sitting around doing nothing all day, there are lots of things I’m going to be doing lots of things I’m focused on.

And just because I can’t run, just because I can’t lift weights doesn’t mean I’m going to lose my mind, right? And it doesn’t mean I’m going to sit around all day. So I don’t know that that was just one of those fleeting thoughts that sort of came through my head. So I wrote it down.

My last thought about all this was that there’s a lot of unknowns, right? How long is the recovery? When do I start PT? Where can I start running again? When can I start lifting again, when will I be pain-free? All these things are unknown. There are a lot of unknowns. And this is true, right?

But this is the nature of life itself. Nothing is really ever known for certain. And worrying about all of the unknowns does not make them known. It doesn’t make you feel any better. All it does is it get me super stressed out and anxious right here now. So worrying about the future just destroys this moment right here.

And listen, each thing that I just mentioned, each of these unknowns will eventually become known. And this will give me a chance to practice patience and practice acceptance and practice staying in the present moment, right here now. So these are all my reframes of all the thoughts that I had. Okay?

How do these thoughts make me feel? Well, this list of thoughts that I just went over with you, make me feel motivated, they make me feel encouraged, I feel hopeful. I’m even excited. I’m excited about who I’m going to be when I get through this surgery and the recovery process and all that, I’m excited.

And then what do I do when I feel this way I get into action, I’m going to use this downtime to work on projects. Like I’m writing a book, I’m working to work on them, just give me some time to work on my book, I’m going to move as much as I can.

I’m going to develop more time to pour into the Running Lean coaching group and devote more time to pouring into the Running Lean Facebook community. I’m going to get moving as soon as I can. And I’m going to use this time to better myself.

Instead of suffering and feeling sorry for myself. And wallowing in misery and stagnating. I’m going to focus on growing and becoming more. Even when life throws us curveballs, we can focus on growing and becoming more.

I saw this quote today and it was just so perfect. It’s this: “Fear, uncertainty, and discomfort are your compasses toward growth.”

So I want you to think about that – fear, uncertainty, and discomfort are your compasses towards growth. So for me, this is all about growth. The fear, the uncertainty, the discomfort that I’m about to face here is all about growth, it’s going to point me in the direction of growth.

So this work, I did this thought work that I did, where I listed all my thoughts and then reframe them. This is the first work that I’m doing to get into the right mindset about this whole surgery and recovery thing. So the surgeries a couple of days.

And this podcast has actually come out if you’re listening to this on Friday, then I had my surgery yesterday. So the hard part, hopefully for me will be over by the time you’re listening to this. But my goal is to continue to share my experiences with you and to share my thoughts and feelings about this journey of recovery with you because I think there’s a lot to learn here.

There’s a lot that we can all learn here. There are a lot of lessons in this stuff like when life throws us curveballs. There are things that we can learn and there are things that we can start to practice so that we can build the mental toughness that we need to get through them. Right.

And you may not be going through the same thing as me, but we all have curveballs. You know, it’s up to you to decide how you want to respond to them. Remember, you always have a choice and how to respond.

You get to choose how you want to think and feel about everything that happens in your life. And for me I’m choosing to respond with positivity with motivation and with excitement, right? It’s not easy. It’s tough.

It’s hard to look at these circumstances in our lives, some of these curveballs, and see the good that can come from that. It’s hard to do that most people don’t do this, but this is the work that we all have to do. Alright, you guys, you got this. I got this. Love you all keep on Running Lean. We’ll talk to you soon.

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11. How to Manage Your Mind During Uncertain Times

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These are some very uncertain times we are living in right now. Races are canceled, schools are closed, restaurants and bars are closed, most people are working from home, and what's next? How bad …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host, and I’m the life coach for runners and other cool people. What do I do? I help you overcome your obstacles in running and in life so you can unleash your inner badass. Today I’m doing something a little bit different because of the situation that’s going on in the world today, the Coronavirus and people are concerned.

And what I wanted to do is record this podcast today to talk to you about how to manage your mind during uncertain times. This, I would say, is definitely an uncertain time for everybody. First, let me tell you really quickly about The Runner’s Edge. This is my mindset, coaching and training program. It’s a comprehensive online coaching and training program designed specifically to help runners like you develop the mindset you need to achieve powerful results in running and life.

When you join The Runner’s Edge, you get weekly mindset training, you get to ask questions, get answers, much like the teaching that I do here on the podcast, but we take a deeper dive into the material, we learn it, we study it, we apply it. The runner’s edge is only $26 per month. It’s less than $1.02 per day. It’s a subscription based program. The longer you stay, the more valuable it becomes for you.

Join The Runner’s Edge, ask your questions, get answers, jump on a hot seat coaching call with me that would be fun. Connect with other like minded runners and learn how to master the mindset of running. So you can unleash your inner badass, go to innefiretribe.com/edge to sign up for Runner’s Edge today.

So onto today’s topic, how to manage your mind during uncertain times. There’s some uncertainty, there’s some very uncertain times happening right now. There is a situation going on out in the world today that’s causing a lot of people to panic and a lot of people to have a lot of fear and anxiety.

You know, this virus thing is causing businesses to close their doors temporarily. It’s causing a lot of race cancellations. People are hoarding toilet paper. I don’t know why. But here’s the thing. There is a situation happening here in the world right now. And then there’s our thinking about that situation. And honestly, people are letting their thoughts just go wild here.

They’re freaking out. They’re going out to this worst case scenario. They’re panicking. People are getting angry, they’re gonna be angry about things being canceled about. There’s no toilet paper or bananas at the grocery store. Why did you guys buy all the bananas? I got bananas today, I’ll tell you that. And I feel good about that. Still don’t have toilet paper.

People are getting disappointed. They’re getting angry because races are being canceled. Training groups are canceled, schools are closed, restaurants are closed, bars are closed, public places are closed, blah, blah, blah. Everything is being turned inside out. Like we don’t know what is going on here. There’s a lot of uncertainty.

And so it’s, you know, what people are saying is all this uncertainty is causing me to have all this fear and all this anxiety inside. You know, people have to stay home alone. You know, they’re spending a lot more time alone. Or they’re spending more time at home working from home with their kids, bugging them all the time, which is probably worse, I don’t know. But anyway, all of this stuff can lead to very unhealthy thinking. You know, remember, it’s our thoughts about the situation, not the situation itself. That is the problem, okay?

And what we’re doing is we’re causing ourselves all kinds of unnecessary suffering, you know, we might have an emotional state that is, you know, in a negative emotional state. And when we start thinking this way, it just sort of amplifies everything. And we start self medicating. Because we don’t want to feel this way. We don’t want to feel the fear. We don’t want to feel the anger, the frustration, so we go to the fridge, we overeat, we drink too much.

You know, or maybe you don’t numb your feelings with food or alcohol. And you experience things like panic attacks, or anxiety, or just depression or strained relationships. You know, stress and anxiety can trigger a fight or flight response in the body and actually release a flood of chemicals like adrenaline into your system, which can cause your immune system to become weak and compromised, leaving you more vulnerable to viral infections. Does that sound like something you want to know?

I was talking to a friend earlier today who went through a very highly stressful situation in her life some years ago, and it actually caused her to, she was under so much stress, she put her body into so much stress, that she actually got shingles, you know, and it’s one of those things where that’s a pretty bad reaction to stress and anxiety, you know.

Now’s not the time when we want to compromise our immune systems, you know, we want to be strong, mind and body, okay. But so all this stuff is happening out there. And we start to feel fear, we feel anxiety, we feel panic, we feel frustration, and all those things. And we think this is a normal reaction to what’s happening, like out there. You know, the truth is, though, this is not, it’s not normal. And it’s not healthy, and it’s not necessary.

Like I was saying times like this, they tend to amplify who we already are. So if you’re typically a stressed out person, now, you might be into full blown panic mode. Or maybe you typically manage your feelings by going to the fridge, and now you’re knee deep in edible cookie dough, or Ben and Jerry’s. Or, you know, you can power down and eat a whole large pizza yourself, whatever it looks like for you.

You know, maybe if you’re, if you’re typically a little depressed, now you’re like, in this isolation mode, and this might send you into a deep, dark place, and we don’t want that. Okay. So what we need to do is we need to manage our mind, we need to manage our mind so that we can show up during this time, in a more empowered way. Okay.

So just because things are happening out there doesn’t mean you have to respond, or you have to react to them in a negative way, okay? It doesn’t have to be this way. What’s going on out there doesn’t have to affect you in here, okay? It really doesn’t. You don’t have to react to the news, or to the rumors or their predictions, or you don’t have to worry about what might happen.

Instead of allowing the events around you to determine how you think and feel, you can actually decide for yourself, how you want to show up right here now. Who would you be without these thoughts that are causing you to feel so frustrated? So angry, sad, worried, afraid?

You know, who do you want to be while we’re all dealing with all this uncertainty, because you get to choose how you feel. That is a choice that you make, okay? Remember, every emotion that you feel is caused by a thought, it’s caused by your thoughts and by your thinking. It’s not the situation out there. It’s not the circumstances around you that are causing you to feel the fear and the anxiety. It’s your thoughts about them.

It’s your thoughts about what’s happening out there that is causing you to think these thoughts that is causing you to feel these feelings. All right, whether you like it or not, the truth is you are choosing your feelings. You are choosing to think these thoughts. You choose to feel your emotions, okay, and it’s not a bad thing. I’m gonna talk about that in just a minute here. But I think what a lot of people want is they want some sort of tools, you know, what do I do in this situation?

If I start to feel this way, what do I do? If I start thinking these crazy thoughts, how do I manage my mind? Well, first of all, I want you to take ownership of your thinking, know that your thinking is not determined by what’s happening outside of you, your thinking is 100% determined by you, you choose your thoughts 100% of the time, okay?

Now, take responsibility for your own thoughts and for your own feelings. And we call this being at cause, be the cause of everything that’s happening in your life to you, in your mind, in your body.

Be a cause for all the results that you’re getting in your life, don’t be at the effect of others, don’t be at the don’t live at the effect of the news or the rumors. Okay. So take ownership of your thinking, that’s the first thing you can do, just know that you are going to take radical responsibility for the way you think and feel. That’s a great first step right there. Okay.

The next thing you can do is separate out the facts from your thoughts about the facts. Okay, so what’s really going on out in the world? You know, is this thing that you’re hearing about actually true? You know, I’ve heard a lot of people talking about the number of cases that have been reported. And I’ve heard numbers of 10,000, in Ohio and 100,000. And I’m just like, whoa, this is crazy.

I got on the CDC website, and they’re only around 3500 confirmed cases. Now. I’m not saying that it’s not going to go up. I know it’s going to go up. But there are some, there are some facts that are happening right now. And then there are predictions and there are what might happen in the future. And even if the number goes up a lot, I still can’t do anything about that, other than stay home, wash my hands, use hand sanitizer, and don’t get into fights with anybody over toilet paper at the grocery store.

So, you know, what are the facts of the situation? You know. So, for example, you know, our local marathon here, the Flying Pig marathon, which was scheduled for the weekend of May 2, and third has been postponed until October, October 9 through the 11th. That’s a fact. The Flying Pig has been postponed. Our training group has stopped meeting officially, bars and restaurants are closed in the area. Travel has been limited. I’m spending more time alone. Those are all facts.

I could say, you know, everything sucks right now, you know, or you know, I can’t go out to get food anywhere. The training groups are all canceled. This all sucks. Like, no, I’m not doing that. Instead, I’m looking at what the facts are. Okay, I’m separating out the facts from my thoughts about the facts.

Now I have some thoughts about what’s happening. You know, and I know, I take full ownership of what I’m thinking, I’m disappointed. You know, I’m a little I’m, there’s some uncertainty about what’s going to happen going forward here with our training group. And, and that’s okay, like, I don’t have to have all the answers right now. You know, but it’s not causing me undue stress or anxiety. Okay.

So what are the facts about the situation? Just make sure you know, what’s true. And what are the facts? Okay. And then what are your thoughts about the facts? Now we can separate out? What is true, what are facts? You can separate those from your thoughts about it. What are you really thinking? What are the stories that you’re telling yourself about what’s happening? What are the opinions that you have? What are your judgments?

You know, where are you like, going out in the future and thinking about the worst case scenario? You know, are you seeing only the bad things? Or do you have positive thoughts about your circumstances, like, what are your thoughts? Sometimes it’s helpful to just write all that stuff down, just get it all down on a page, and you can actually see, oh, these thoughts here, those are kind of crazy. I should probably check those.

You know, right now I feel pretty good. I feel pretty calm about things. There are things that are happening with this situation that are affecting me. And as they come to my attention, I can respond to them, I can respond to them with clarity and understanding, I’m not reacting to them with fear, frustration and anger. And, you know, craziness.

You know, I’m calm, I have a clear head. And I have a lot of understanding. And I’m being very practical about what I can and can’t do. I can only control my thoughts. I can only control how I show up in the world. I can’t control what other people are doing at all. Honestly, I think I’m going to be fine.

I think most people are going to be fine. I’m not going to entertain a different thought, I’m not going to entertain a thought that everybody I know is going to be, you know, infected or something like that, you know. I’m just not going to go there until that situation changes and warrants a different thought. I’m going to maintain the thought that like, hey, right now I’m fine. Right now everybody I know is fine. And I think most of us are going to be fine. Okay.

And then I think like, okay, when I think these thoughts, how does that make me feel? It’s important to notice what thoughts are causing your feelings because all of your thoughts cause your feelings. Okay, the situation out there isn’t causing you to feel fearful. The situation out there isn’t causing you to feel frustrated. Situation up there is not causing you to feel sad.

You choose those feelings too. What is it that you’re feeling? What is the name of that emotion? Because sometimes it’s hard to determine, like, what is it that I’m really feeling here? Is that sadness? Is it fear, anger, hurt? Guilt, loneliness, frustration? Are you just pissed off? Are you frustrated with the lack of toilet paper in the world today? What is the feeling that you’re feeling?

And then here’s the part that seems counterintuitive. Don’t try to make that emotion go away. Don’t try to suppress that feeling. Feel your feelings. It’s okay. Feel it, allow it. Let it be. Don’t fight against it. We suffer when we resist our emotions. Resisting our feelings is what leads to most or all of our suffering. It’s okay to feel frustrated. It’s okay to feel sad. I’m frustrated.

You know, it’s okay to be pissed off because your race got canceled. I’m pissed off because, you know, our race got canceled. I was really looking forward to this. You know, it’s okay to feel like you’re going crazy trying to work from home with kids asking you a million questions and bugging you every 14 seconds. You can feel frustrated, it’s okay. Just don’t allow those feelings to consume you. Okay?

Don’t get lost in your feelings. Remember that you are in control. Always you are choosing these feelings. And it’s okay, you can have them, it’s okay. You know, you don’t have to allow them to dictate, you know, your behavior, you don’t have to allow your feelings to overwhelm you so that you can’t take action.

A lot of times we feel stuck. And so we just feel like we can’t do anything. And a lot of people that have depression that will feel like doesn’t, you know, whatever they do doesn’t matter. And so they just stay in bed, you know, they stay on the couch, whatever.

That’s when your feelings kind of can consume you. And they get to the point where it becomes unhealthy. But don’t don’t get lost in your feelings, it’s okay to feel your feelings. It’s when we try to push them away, that we start to see issues. And one of the ways we push them away is by numbing. And we do that with food and alcohol and drugs, or shopping, whatever.

But if you’re not showing up as the person that you want to be because of how you feel, that might be something you want to look at. Because that might mean that you’re not allowing those feelings to be just allow them to be and then look at how you’re showing up, how are you showing up in this world today? You know, what are you doing or not doing because of how you feel?

You know, what actions can you take despite how you feel, you know. Things get bad for us when we feel like there’s nothing we can do about our situation. And here’s the truth, there’s always something you can do about your situation. And the first and foremost thing and one of the most important things you can do is to manage your thoughts about your situation. Okay?

So some actions, you might take some actions, we can all take, I think, to stay more positive, more, more focused, more present moment, more thoughtful. First of all, stop watching the news. Because you know what, this steady stream of like, fear mongering, which a lot of the news is, it just goes, it goes right to our subconscious minds, you know, and it creates all kinds of innate fear and panic and anger in us.

So instead, I would encourage you to consume something positive every day, read a personal growth book, listen to an awesome podcast, like this one you’re listening to right now, watch some good, you know, YouTube videos, some TED talks, some good speakers, read some blogs, soak up good stuff, from high vibe people, you know.

Something else you can do is connect one on one with people I know, there’s a lot of isolation going on right now. We can still connect with each other. You know, I feel like I’m connecting with you here, through this microphone through this video camera, through this social media platform, whatever it is, but you know, get together with people, it’s okay, you know, stay six feet apart.

Or connect with people over the phone, you know, let’s get back on the phone and talk to people. Jump on a video conference like this. I’ve been doing this lately with some people. I talked to a guy today, who lives in Zurich, Switzerland, and we just did a Zoom call. And it was awesome. Had a fun little chat. And they’re dealing with the exact same stuff we are here. It’s no different. Okay?

Everybody’s dealing with this right now. All right. But take the time to like work on yourself right now. You know, who do you want to be today? Who do you want to be right here? Now as we’re going through this, as we’re all going through this together? How do you want to? How do you want to remember this time? How do you want to remember how you showed up?

How do you want to remember yourself in this experience? Do you want to remember it as being like, sad and lonely and frustrated? And you know, crying all the time? Or do you want to remember it is like that was an amazing thing that I did there? Like I transformed myself? Like, what can you learn? How can you grow? What lessons are here for you?

Right now, I would encourage you to get outside, take a walk, go for a run, keep running, run with a friend with a small group of friends less than 10. And you don’t have to react with fear. Okay? No matter what is happening out there, you don’t have to react with fear instead, respond with conscious thinking, on purpose, purposeful, conscious thinking.

The bottom line here, yes, these are uncertain times. Okay, we’ve never had to deal with anything like this before. But you know what, we will get through this, you will get through this. And you get to choose who you want to be while you’re getting through this. So who do you want to be? How do you want to show up for yourself? How do you want to show up for your kids? How do you want to show up for your friends and for your family? How do you want to remember this time? How do you want to remember the plague of 2020?

And I’m not making light of this. Okay, not at all. I do think I’m kind of funny though. All right, my friends. I would love to hear what you think about this, drop a comment. And if you liked what you heard here today, I would love it if you share it with a friend. Also, it would be incredibly awesome if you’d leave a review on iTunes. I truly value your feedback because it helps make me, it helps make the show better. Reach out with questions or comments. Always hello@innerfiretribe.com And I hope you all have an amazing day, much love to each and every one of you.

Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.

9. What Happens When You Take Radical Responsibility

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Are you blaming someone or something else for the way you think, feel, or act? Or are you taking responsibility for all of your own thoughts, feelings, and actions? Today on the podcast, I break it …

Continue Reading about 9. What Happens When You Take Radical Responsibility →

Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. I’m your host, and I’m the life coach for runners and other cool people. I help you overcome your obstacles in running and life, so you can unleash your inner badass.

And I’m really excited about an upcoming event I’m doing here. It all starts Monday, March 9, it’s a three day challenge called how to solve any problem. And the good thing about this is that it is totally free. That is correct, you will learn how to solve literally any problem that’s on your mind. Big or small, earth shattering, or maybe it’s just something that’s annoying, it might be something from your past that keeps coming up, it might be something that’s just bugging the crap out of you right now, whatever it is, show up on day one with your problem. By the end of day three, your problem will be solved. That’s right, it’s that simple.

And what you will learn here is going to stay with you. So you’ll have the tools and systems in place, you’ll be able to solve any problem that comes your way now. And in the future. You do not have to keep struggling with the same old problems, you can end the anxiety and start feeling excited about things in your life again. So whatever it is that you are struggling with, there is a solution. And I’ll show you how to do it.

This is going to be fun, I’m very excited about this, this is the best training I have ever put together. And I’m super excited to share it with you guys. So it all starts on Monday, March 9, I’ll be holding the class in a private Facebook group, you have to sign up to get in, just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to save your spot.

You’re gonna get live coaching and training with me, your master life and success coach, you’ll get to ask me anything. There’s probably something on your mind right now where you’re like, Patrick, I’d really love help with this, well bring it to the table, and I’ll help you. You can also access all the live trainings after the fact.

So you don’t have to actually be on the lives at the time that I do them live. You can watch them later, whenever it works for your schedule. And I got a special bonus for you guys. If you just show up. If you do the work for those three days, which is, it’s not a lot of work, okay. It’s not like training for you know, 50 miler or something like that.

All you got to do is do a little bit of work. Do your homework for those three days, and you’re going to get a free coaching session with me. I know it’s awesome. And I’m calling this a challenge, mostly because most people will not do it. Most people will not take action. Most people have a problem in their life. Most people want something to change in their life, but they’re not willing to actually take any action to do anything about it.

But I know you’re different. You want to make change happen, you’re willing to do the hard work and show up. All you have to do is show up and do the work. Do it for you. Because you deserve this. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have more confidence, more inner peace, you deserve to feel good about yourself. Learn how to solve any problem and you can have all of that just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge and sign up now it’s going to be super, super fun.

Okay, on to today’s topic, which is what happens when you take radical responsibility. This is, I love talking about this topic, because this is one of those concepts that has radically changed my life. I used to blame others for everything that was happening to me. And I don’t do that anymore. I take responsibility for every result that I get in my life. And you know what? My life is way better now.

So let’s talk about the difference first of all between blame and responsibility because when I talk about taking radical responsibility, you’ve got to stop blaming other people and other situations for the way you’re thinking, feeling and the things you’re doing.

Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about blame. First, what is blame? What does it mean when we blame someone? So the definition of blame is to assign the responsibility for something bad. And it doesn’t have to be bad, but this is what the definition says. You assign the responsibility for something bad to someone or something. So when you blame you assign responsibility to someone else or something else, you push that responsibility outside of yourself and you assign it to someone else. Okay?

Blaming is when you look outside yourself, usually to other people, as the cause of all of your thoughts, or your feelings or your actions. So you blame others for how you think and feel and for what you do. That’s like saying, Yeah, I threw that plate against the wall, because you yelled at me. Okay, that is blaming someone for your actions, just kind of crazy.

But when we blame, what happens is that we give all of our power away to the other person. You know, if I say, you know, I threw that plate against the wall, because you yelled at me. I’m giving the power, I’m giving all of my power to that other person, I’m saying, you know, like, you have control over me. So when you blame, it’s very disempowering.

When you blame others, there’s nothing that you can do about it, you’re like a helpless victim, you become like a pawn on someone else’s chessboard, someone else’s driving the bus. When you blame others, it means you’re living at the effect of what everyone else is doing. You know, you’re perceiving everything is like happening to you.

And people that blame, they have lots and lots of excuses, they have excuses for everything, why? They don’t have what they want. They have lots and lots of excuses. So that’s all blaming is, you know, pushing the responsibility off of you and onto someone or something else. Now, the flip side of that is taking responsibility.

What does responsibility mean? So the definition of responsibility says the opportunity or ability to act independently, and make decisions without authorizations. I love this definition. You act independently, you make decisions without authorization. So you act on your own, you have agency, over your own decisions over your own existence over everything that is happening in your life.

When you take responsibility, you accept that you are the cause of all of your thoughts, and all of your feelings and all of your actions because you are, no one can cause you to feel sad, or feel hurt or feel angry. You actually choose to feel those feelings. I know sometimes it doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes it doesn’t seem that way. But it is true. But here’s the thing that’s cool about this is that it’s very empowering.

When you are the cause of how you’re acting and what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, what you’re feeling. When you take radical responsibility for everything that’s happening in your life. It’s empowering. Because you know what? There’s something you can do about it. You’ve no longer given the control away to somebody else, you have taken back the wheel of the bus, okay, you’re back to driving the bus again.

And when you live with radical responsibility, you’re the cause for everything in your life, good and bad. Okay, which is good news. This is actually very good news. You’re responsible for all of your good results and all of your bad results too. But that means that you get to do something about it.

You can make changes to that, you’re not a victim, okay? You’re not, you know, just being you know, told by somebody else what to do or act or think. Okay, so people who take radical responsibility, they get awesome results in their life. Okay, so how do you know when you’re blaming someone else you might just think oh, you know, I’m just thinking this way.

Just because or I feel this way just because well, usually, you know, you’re blaming somebody else because when you feel that feeling inside there’s like the it feels kind of icky. It feels terrible inside you. There’s like this internal conflict inside. Do you feel helpless and disempowered? Blaming others feels very disempowering, you can feel it.

So let’s say you think something like, oh, my husband leaves his clothes all over the floor, and it drives me nuts. He makes me so angry. You, when you say that you start to, you start to feel that little disempowered like achiness inside you, you know, you feel that turmoil inside you, that’s like he’s doing this. And I’m, it’s making me angry.

I got news for you. Nobody can make you feel anger, you are choosing to feel that way. But what happens is you put your husband’s actions, you’re making his actions, be in control of your emotional state. That’s just crazy. Because we know, if you’ve been listening to this podcast, you know that your thinking causes your feelings, your thinking causes your emotions.

And the fact that he leaves his clothes on the floor, it does not cause you to feel angry, what causes you to feel angry, is what you’re thinking about him leaving his clothes on his on the floor, the clothes on the floor, this is just a neutral situation is just a pile of clothes on the floor over there, okay? There’s no magic power in the clothes. It’s not beaming anger into your heart, okay?

You have a story that you’re telling yourself about what your husband should or shouldn’t do with his clothes. And reality does not match your story. The reality is the clothes are on the floor, you don’t think it should be that way. So you are in conflict. Okay, so your husband’s clothes on the floor or him doing this thing is not causing you to feel the feeling you’re choosing that emotion based on the story you’re telling yourself.

Or maybe you are blaming the weather for your last race performance. So you didn’t do so well in your last race because it was a little too warm, or maybe it was too cold or raining or whatever. And so because of the weather, you had all this self doubt, or at least that’s what you’re saying to yourself, oh, you know, I always bonk in my marathon when it’s over 70 degrees. Or, you know, I hate running in the cold. I always do terrible when it’s cold out.

So you have an internal story about what the weather means about how you perform, okay. And this is kind of crazy, because now granted, if it’s like 90 degrees out, you are probably going to run a little bit slower in a marathon. Okay, that’s just science, okay. But to say like, oh, I won’t be able to finish or something like that, like you can, you know, adjust your training to account for slight changes in the weather.

But I have a feeling inside like, I can’t do well because it’s 70 degrees, or it’s 30 degrees, whatever it is, is kind of crazy. You’re putting your power, the power that you have to run this race in the hands of the weather gods, you know, and just FYI, I don’t like running in the cold. Okay, but I ran my marathon PR in November a few years back, but it was in November, and there was an ice storm during my marathon. It was cold.

And then I don’t know about mile 16-17 it started raining and then it turned into ice and like the last five miles of my marathon was this crazy ice storm. I still kicked ass, I felt damn good about myself. Despite the weather. I chose not to believe this thought that the cold weather would affect me negatively.

So when you take radical responsibility, you are the cause of all of your results. Only you are responsible for the way you think the way you feel and the way you act. No one or nothing outside of you can cause you to think, feel or act in a certain way. Your husband can’t do it. Your kids can’t cause you to think or feel stuff. Your training partners, your coaches can’t do it.

The weather has no effect on your thinking, your actions or your feelings, okay? And taking radical responsibility means that you know if it is 90 degrees and you ran a little bit slower than you train and you plan for that next time, that’s what tight taking radical responsibility means in that situation. Okay?

So one of the things you can do to see if you are blaming or if you’re more in the radical responsibility end of the spectrum here, which I’m hoping you are, is to start asking yourself better questions. Tony Robbins says quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions. And as a result, they get better answers. Love Tony Robbins.

So blaming people ask terrible questions, blaming people ask questions like, why does this always happen to me? Have you ever found yourself asking yourself something like this? Or how come everybody else can do this, but not me? Or how come I can never get it? Why isn’t life fair? These are the kinds of questions that blaming people, people who are living in effect of everyone and everything around them, they ask questions like that.

People who take radical responsibility for everything in their life. They ask questions like, How can I get this done? Like what do I need to do to change? What do I need to change in this situation in order to get better results? You know, what internal resources can I tap into? To make this better? How can I figure this out? What can I do better next time? What do I need to learn to make this happen for me now?

Those kinds of questions are empowering. Those kinds of questions will help you to take radical responsibility for everything that’s happening in your life. So what happens when you take radical responsibility for everything, you take back your control, you know, you, you regain agency over your own results, you take back your power, okay, you are empowered. You control your thinking. And if you want to, you can change it.

You control your emotions, you get to choose your feelings, somebody isn’t bestowing them upon you, okay? You control what you do, you control the actions that you take. And if you want to, you can always do something different, you can always take different actions. The best part though, is you control your results. Your results are not determined by others, you are in charge, you get to be the your results are determined by you alone, okay? And you have no excuses, all the excuses are gone. Okay? That’s the good and the bad news.

So, think about this, you don’t need anyone else to change anything. They don’t need to change what they’re doing at all. You have the power within you right now. To get whatever you want in your life, stop living at the effect of what others are doing or saying or poor, or thinking, stop blaming others, start taking radical responsibility, and you’re going to see some amazing changes happening in your life. Cool. That’s all I got for you today.

Remember to sign up for the three day challenge on how to solve any problem and running and in life. It all starts Monday, March 9. It’s a challenge because most people will not take action. That’s not you, though. People who take action get results. And I’m putting this out there because I want to challenge you, my runners. My people who love challenges show up and do this work for yourself. Bring your problem to the table on day one, have it solved by day three. There’s nothing to lose. It’s totally free.

The worst thing that could happen is that you learn some new tools and you could handle problems way better than you ever did in the past. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to sign up now. And always, you can reach out with questions or comments at hello@innerfiretribe.com. I would love to hear from you. I’d love to hear what your biggest takeaway was from today. And I hope you all have an amazing day. Much love to each and every one of you

Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.

8. How to Change Your Past

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Most of our problems are created because we're trying to change something about our past. We cause ourselves so much unnecessary stress and anxiety because we are constantly ruminating about past …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Hey there, and welcome to The Running Mind podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And I’m your host, and I’m the life coach for runners, I help you get better results from your running and from your life in general. And I’m really excited about an upcoming event I’m doing. It’s a three day challenge called How To Solve Any Problem.

And it’s totally free, you’re going to learn how to solve literally any problem that’s on your mind, big or small, earth shattering or just annoying. It might be something from your past that keeps coming up or something that’s just bugging the crap out of you right now. It couldn’t be running related or not.

Here’s the thing, you don’t have to keep struggling with those same old problems, you can end the anxiety and start feeling excited about things in your life. Again, whatever it is that you’re struggling with, just know that there is a solution. And I’ll show you exactly how to do it. This is going to be a fun, interactive challenge. And it all starts on Monday, March 9 2020.

I’ll be holding class in a private Facebook group, but you have to sign up in order to get in. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to save your spot. You’re gonna get live coaching and training with me, your master life and success coach. And you can ask me anything I know, there’s probably something on your mind right now that you want help with. And you’re like, I would love to ask Patrick this question.

Well, guess what? You can do it, I’d be happy to help you with that. You can also access the live trainings after the fact. So you don’t have to actually be in the live group and listen to the live trainings, you can go back and listen to them afterwards. But the most benefit you’re gonna get out of it is if you participate in the live trainings, okay.

And I’m calling this a challenge, because here’s the fact most people do not take action. Most people want something to change in their life, but they’re not willing to do anything different. Think about that. It’s crazy. So my challenge for you is to show up and do the work. Do it for yourself. Because you know what, you deserve this.

You deserve to be happy. You deserve to have more confidence, you deserve to have inner peace. You deserve to feel good about yourself for a change. So when you learn how to solve any problem that you may be experiencing now or in the future, you get to have all of that. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge to sign up. I can’t wait to see you there. It’s gonna be so much fun.

All right, cool. Onto today’s topic, how to change your past. Now that title, I hope it grabbed your attention. Because we’re going to get into this today. One of the biggest ways that I see people get stuck and feel like they’re stuck is they ruminate about the past. They keep thinking about past events over and over and over again. Things that they did, things that they wish they had done, things they wish they had done differently. These could be past experiences, past events, it could be past heartaches, it could be people who have hurt us in the past, how we’ve hurt others failures, we’ve made mistakes we’ve made. The list goes on and on and on.

And we think about these events, and we replay them over and over and over and over again. And if this is you, if this sounds like you, welcome to the human race. We all do this. It’s very, very common. It’s part of the human experience. You know, we’ve evolved to learn from our mistakes, you know, we’ve evolved to learn that if we touch fire, it will burn us or stay away from that one animal because it will eat you or Hey, Jim, don’t eat those berries. You know, like we learn from the past and it’s good that we’ve evolved to learn from the past.

And you know, learning from the past and keeping those memories in our subconscious minds. It serves a purpose: it has helped us to survive as a species. So that’s all good. The problem, though, is that today, it’s really not necessary to keep ruminating about every past event that has ever happened to us in order to survive. We still do it though.

And here’s a few things that happen to us when we keep ruminating on the past. And we keep stewing about past events. Subconsciously, we’re reliving that event over and over and over again in our imagination. And here’s something interesting about the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind doesn’t know the difference between what’s real, and what’s imagined. So when we really relive a past event in our imagination, our subconscious mind is like, oh, yeah, hey, here we are, again, let’s get the body all stressed out, let’s, let’s feel those feelings again, let’s feel the guilt and the sadness and that frustration.

And what happens is, we feel all those old feelings again, we feel the old guilt, or the shame or the disappointment, we feel the worthlessness that we felt five years ago, or, you know, five days ago, or 30 years ago, we feel it as if it’s happening now, we are really good at using our imagination to fill ourselves with stress and anxiety. And we do this all the time, we beat ourselves up over and over again. This does not sound good.

I’m going to say that most of our problems are created because we’re trying to change something about the past, we’re resisting the past in some way. Most of our problems are created because there’s something about our past that we are in conflict with, and that we’re resisting. Most people cause themselves so much unnecessary stress and anxiety because they’re trying to change something about their past or they wish their past had been different.

If only I had done this things would be different. If only I had said this, finally, I hadn’t said that. And if you take this one step further, I say that most of our problems are created by us because we are just resisting, not just the past, but we’re resisting what is. We’re actually resisting the way things are. You know, if my wife would only talk to me this way, if my boss would only treat me like this, if only I trained harder for that last marathon.

Whatever it is we’re doing, we are resisting what is we’re resisting, accepting the way things are? Or the way things were the way things happened? Because what’s happened in the past has happened. And it’s over and done with. Okay, how well does it usually work for you? When you try to change something that’s outside of yourself, really, it doesn’t work ever. And your past is part of that; it’s no longer inside you. It’s no longer a part of who you are. It’s way in the past, it’s over and done with history.

You cannot change what’s happened in the past. And you cannot change most of what’s happening around you right now in the present. You know, I have no control over what the driver in front of me does on the highway. I have no control over what people think about me or say about me.

I have no control over how fast I ran my last race because it’s out of my hands now. Okay, during my last marathon, if I didn’t like my time, I had control over that while I was in that moment. But as soon as that moment is over the control I have over that is gone. It does me no good to keep thinking about oh, I should have changed my training or you know, done my nutrition differently, or if only I’d done you know, we can go on and on and on.

And what happens is we put ourselves into that state of stress. So you’re probably thinking like, Oh, I thought you said this podcast was titled How To Change Your Past and you just said you can’t change the past, what the hell, Patrick? Stick with me here. But you probably already knew that you can’t change the past right? So just be honest, though, you can own that one right now. Okay.

But think about this: when you think about the past, where does that live? It lives in your imagination. Everything that’s ever happened in the past exists in our mind. You know, it lives and breathes in our thoughts about it. And not only in our conscious mind, but in our subconscious mind.

So we can’t go back in time to physically change the events of the past. But here’s what we can do. We can change what they mean to us today, we can change how those past events affect us today. We can change how we think about those events today. So we go back to the past in our minds all the time. But what do we do so we can change the way we think about the past today?

In fact, there are no past thoughts. There are no there’s no past thinking anything you’re thinking about today, is current thinking. If you’re thinking a thought right now, even though it’s a thought about the past, it’s current thinking, it’s a current thought about a past experience.

Okay, so it’s not like, oh, these thoughts from my past keep coming up. No, this is you thinking about that today. Okay. So you might have a thought that you continue to think over and over and over again for years and decades even. But if it’s on your mind, right now, it’s a current thought.

So even though, you know, I had some friends that treated me like crap in, you know, seventh grade, I can still, I can go back to that moment right now and feel hurt all over again, if I choose to. Here’s another example. A few years ago, I was doing this 50k trail series, the Ohio River Road Runners 200k No Way series.

And here’s the deal, you are supposed to complete 4 50ks over one season over one summer. And I had done three of them. So I just needed to finish that last one. So we start the race. And the race is called Broken Toe 50k. And the name of this race is no joke, because there are lots of routes, lots of rocks, lots of people tripping and falling. Well, I tripped and fell at like mile one, we started on like a gravel pathway.

And then we headed into the trail into a single track trail. And as soon as I got onto the trail, I maybe went and 50 feet tripped, fell and bloodied up my knee. My knee was jacked up, okay, it got swollen. And it was one of those things where I’m like, I’m gonna run it off. Well, I’m gonna walk it off. So I started walking.

And then I was like, I don’t know about this. And I could run a little bit. And eventually I got to the point where I could run and it was okay, it still hurt, but it was okay. Well, it kept getting like more and more swollen as the race went on. And it kept getting more and more painful. And finally, I had, I got to a point at like, mile 21, where I could barely bend my leg anymore. And I had like four or five miles to go. So I had to walk like five miles back to the aid station.

So I got to mile 26. And I had to stop. I couldn’t bend my leg. And I was in so much pain. Walking was terribly painful. I had to stop because it was the only race I’ve ever DNF. And I go back to that over and over again. Like, what if I didn’t trip? What if I had stepped two inches to the left? What if I, you know, what if I wasn’t as tired? Maybe I know, what if I had gotten more sleep the night before? What if I had started a little bit slower?

Like I can drive myself crazy thinking about what could have been. And in my mind I’m like, trying to resist what I really wanted to do that 200k thing, you know, just for the sheer fact of like, being able to say I did it, and I couldn’t eke it out, you know what I mean? And I keep trying to change that. But no matter what I do, or how I think about it, the results are never going to change. They’re exactly the same. I did not finish that race. I did not get to the 200k.

So when I think about it, I keep feeling disappointed. I keep feeling frustrated. I keep feeling bummed out. I feel like a failure. Okay. So I think these thoughts and this is years later, by the way, and when I think those thoughts, in the moment I get frustrated all over again, I feel bummed out all over again. And I feel like a failure all over again.

Why am I feeling like a failure today over some stupid trail race that I did a bunch of years ago? It’s crazy, right? Isn’t this crazy thinking? I know, you’re saying, Patrick, that is crazy thinking, but you do it and we do it all the time. Substitute this trail race for any other experience that, you know, causes you to feel pain today.

So, listen, if you’re suffering, the suffering that you experience inside, it’s almost all self induced, because we are incessantly trying to change the past. And when we can’t, we’re in conflict, we’re in turmoil, there’s inner conflict, internal turmoil, and it produces all these unwanted emotions. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast, I talk about problems, the problems we have are actually just unwanted emotions. We don’t want to feel those feelings.

You know, if we feel feelings of like joy and happiness, we’re like, cool, I’m good with that. But if there’s feelings of like, shame and guilt, or unworthiness, then we don’t want to feel those. And so we label that as being a problem. But what happens is, we keep looping through the trying to change the past, we keep looping through that, and we stay stuck, we stay in conflict, we stay in turmoil.

And we think, well, that’s just the way it is. There’s nothing I can do about that. This is just how I am, this is how I’m wired. I’ve heard people say that I’m just wired that way. It’s not true. You know, you may have some habits about how you think and how you feel. But you know, you’re not necessarily wired that way. Like you can, you can rewire, you can reprogram your mind and your subconscious mind, especially.

So I think that for most of us, a shift in our thinking is all we need to do to change the way we feel about some past events. Okay, it’s very powerful. Now, there may be some past events that are traumatic, you know, if you’ve, if you’ve gone through some certain kinds of traumas, too. Capital T traumas, you know, professional help may be required for that.

But for most of us, I think just shifting our thinking a little bit, can work wonders. So here’s the part you’ve been waiting for: how to change your past. So this is a writing exercise, most of the work that I do with my clients is writing, you know, we talk through a lot of stuff. But writing is so important when you write by hand and not typing into a computer, but when you sit down with a notebook, and you write by hand, it ingrains the ideas and the words and the thoughts and the feelings that ingrain them into your subconscious mind.

And you can look back over the things that you’re that you’ve written down, and you can see, these things will pop out at you. Whereas if you’re just thinking about this stuff, those thoughts will come and go, like clouds floating across the sky, they come in, they go, and then they’re gone. You want to write this stuff down.

Okay, so any of the work that we do, typically, we’re writing by hand, okay, you’ll want to reference it to you’ll want to go back and look through it. So this is a writing exercise. And here give yourself the gift of time to do this work. It may seem simple, it may seem like oh, Patrick, this seems pretty simple, but it is life changing work. Okay. It’s very powerful stuff.

And here’s how you do it. You get quiet, maybe even close your eyes. And I want you to think about that past event. If you’re driving right now, do not close your eyes. But think about that past event. Go back there now, get into it. What do you see? What do you hear? And especially like, what do you feel? And it may feel uncomfortable, but get into it. You’re going to feel those old feelings right now. And if you do, that’s good. That means if you feel those feelings right now, that’s good, because it means it’s all in your head. Okay? The actual event is not happening right now. Yet you are feeling those same exact feelings. So it’s all in your mind.

So write down those feelings, those one word emotional feelings, like I’m angry, I’m sad, I’m guilty, I’m hurt. I’m worthless. I feel enraged. Whatever it is. This is so important that you write down the feelings you’re feeling and you get in touch with whatever it is you’re feeling right here in this moment. Okay, so write down those feelings.

And then next, just do a complete thought download of everything you’re thinking about that past event, okay? Just get it all down. Just don’t censor it, don’t leave anything out, just dump it all out on the page. And it should be ugly, it should be petty, it may sound ridiculous, whatever it is, it does not matter. Write down all those crazy, obscure thoughts, whatever it is, wherever you’re thinking about that event, just write it all down.

And once you’ve got it down on paper, and this is why it’s so important to write it down, you’re going to go through all those thoughts that you’ve been thinking about that event, and you’re going to see if you can identify a few thoughts that are causing those unwanted feelings, circling them, write them on a separate sheet, whatever, but underlying them, right, you know, capture a few of those thoughts that are causing those feelings.

And you’ll know it because when you start reading through all your thoughts, you’ll, a couple of those thoughts, as you read them are going to stir up some emotional response inside you, you’ll get that tingling sensation inside that vibration inside your body. That’s a feeling that’s an emotion, that tingling sensation, that’s your emotions.

Okay, so you’re gonna identify a couple of the thoughts that are causing those feelings, okay. And now, for each of those thoughts that you’ve identified, the ones that are causing you to feel something you don’t want to feel. Answering this question is a very, very powerful question. Who am I, without this thought? Who am I? If I didn’t have this thought, if I didn’t think this thought, if this thought were gone, if I no longer believed this thought to be true, who would I be? Pow.

That is a powerful, powerful question. To go back to that past event again. Now, without that thought, how does it feel different? What do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel now? What do you do? How do you act? How are you showing up for others and for yourself? And what do you believe about yourself?

Now, if you do this work, if you really spend time to go back to your past, without the thoughts that are causing you to suffer internally, you can change the past, the entire meaning of that event changes, the emotional charge around that event melts away the unwanted feelings, they’re suddenly miraculously gone. So it may take a little bit of time to develop some new thoughts and feelings about your past. And this is why we write these things down.

And we write down the ways we want to think, feel and act instead. So that we can then read them every day, we want to ingrain those new thoughts into our subconscious, so they become a habit. And when we do this, we’re actually creating new neural pathways in our subconscious mind. We can actually reprogram our subconscious to believe new beliefs about that event, and about ourselves. We can reprogram our subconscious to believe new beliefs about ourselves and about that past event. And so in your mind, you have effectively changed the past.

I really encourage you to do this exercise. It is amazing and powerful. Okay, so think about that past event, that one thing that’s causing you that internal turmoil, that conflict, do the work around it. I think you’re going to be amazed. And don’t forget to sign up for my upcoming three day challenge on how to solve any problem.

And listen, people who take action, people who do the work, those are the people who actually get results, people that listen to the podcast or show up in a training like this. And they just kind of show up and hang out. They might get something out of it. But I’m calling this a challenge because most people will not take action, will not take action.

And I’m putting this out there because I want to challenge you, my runners, my people, the people who love challenges. I want to challenge you to show up and do the work on yourself. It’s not hard work. It’s not like running back to back 20 milers, you’ve done way harder things and honestly this requires you to do some thinking and some writing and to be open to changing the way you’ve been doing things.

So it’s like three days of mindset training, it’s totally free. There’s nothing to lose here at all. The worst thing that could happen is maybe you learn a little bit more about yourself. You know, maybe you feel a little bit better about yourself. Just go to innerfiretribe.com/challenge and sign up. And as always, I want you to reach out to me with questions or comments, you can email me at hello@innerfiretribe.com I’d love to hear what you think about this topic. I’d actually love to hear one takeaway that you got out of this today. You can hit me up on the socials @pmcgilvrayatinnerfiretribe. I hope you all have an amazing day much love to each and every one of you, my runners.

Did you know that most runners fail to reach their goals? It’s not because of lack of training, lack of desire, whether it’s running faster or running farther, I believe most runners just haven’t developed the mental toughness they need to get them across the finish line. That’s why I created a step by step training called How to Build Mental Toughness and Become A Badass Runner. I want to show you how to train your mind so you can tough it out when the going gets tough. And the best part, this comprehensive training is yours absolutely free. To get it right now just go to innerfiretribe.com/badass and get started today.

5. Your Problems Are All in Your Head

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Today on the podcast, I talk about how ALL of your problems are actually created by your thoughts. You can't have a problem unless there's a thought and an unwanted feeling about something. The …

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Podcast Transcript

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

Well, hello there. And welcome back to the podcast. My name is Patrick McGilvray. And today, I’ve got kind of a different kind of episode for you. Today, I’m going to do more of a teaching episode. Now, I’ve been doing interviews up to this point. And I will continue to do interviews because I love hearing stories from real runners. And to hear how they have developed the kind of mindset they need to do amazing things. So that’s gonna continue for sure.

But every now and then I want to throw in an episode like we’re going to do today, I’m going to introduce you to some concepts, some that you may or may not have heard of. Some like today that you, I don’t know, you may or may not agree with me.

But I’m a board certified Master Life and Success Coach. And what does that mean? That means I help people get what they want in life, I help them to overcome their limitations. I help them to resolve inner conflicts, I help people to really become the best version of themself. And I do that through coaching. And we’re going to talk a little bit about that today.

In this episode, I want to talk a little bit about how I work with clients. But really one of the big, big concepts that I want to introduce you to is that you can start sort of applying to yourself. And that’s about how all your problems are just in your head. And I know you’re thinking like, alright, I need to hear more about this.

But first, let’s talk a little bit about The Runner’s Edge. So I talked about this in a previous episode. This is my group coaching program. And I really didn’t have a name for it. But now I’ve decided I’m going to call it The Runner’s Edge, because this is something that is going to give you an edge, an edge that most people don’t have, okay. They just don’t want to do this kind of work. Or maybe they don’t believe in this kind of work. They don’t believe that mindset has anything to do with running.

But if you’re listening to this podcast you do so you will get the edge that a lot of people won’t. So The Runner’s Edge is a comprehensive online coaching and training program. It’s designed specially to help long distance runners to help you bring your mind and your body into alignment so that you can achieve the results that you want.

When you join The Runner’s Edge, you’re going to get mindset training. So this is where you’re going to train your mind to work for you instead of against you. This is actually one of the most important aspects of running. The problem, though, is that most training plans and most coaches don’t really teach you how to do this.

As a master coach, a master mindset coach, this is all I do. I focus on this. I am the expert on building mental toughness, on using the power of your mind to make running easier for you to make you faster and have more fun running. You will also get online coaching so when you join The Runner’s Edge, you’re gonna get live online coaching, I have a private Facebook group.

And, you know, most group coaching programs that work like this, they have these sort of generic one size fits all content that they share with their members. And I don’t want that, I want to give you results. I want to help you with your individual issues. So you’ll get a chance to ask me questions, you can bring your own questions to the table. You’ll get them answered, and maybe even get on a hot seat call with me for some live one on one coaching. It’s very powerful stuff right there.

So you get that supportive community to the Facebook group, which is a small but mighty group right now, but it’s going to continue to grow and become more powerful and more effective and just a big, supportive, fun community of runners just like you it’s a safe place to ask questions get help learn all about building mental toughness, how to overcome failure, how to gain confidence, and more and more and more.

And then everything I do is archived into a video training library. including all of the coaching and training that I do in the group, but also courses that I create. So I have a course out there right now on goal setting for runners, which is a really cool course all about goal setting, from a mindset standpoint, and from a subconscious mindset standpoint.

So you’re gonna get all the courses that I create, including that one, when you join. And the best part about the runner’s edge is that it will not break your wallet. So you get the mindset training, the video archive library, live online coaching, courses, a supportive community, and it’s all for like less than $1 a day. All right, it’s only $26.2 per month. And it’s a subscription based program, the longer you stay, the more value you’re gonna get out of it.

Because it becomes, it keeps growing. It’ll grow with you. Each week, I’ll be adding new training videos, live coaching sessions and more. There’s no contract, no commitment, you can cancel anytime, without any questions asked. I want to encourage you to get the edge you need to perform at your best and running and in life.

Because this is all about life, you know, running is just a metaphor. Everything you learn here is applicable to running, sure. But more importantly, it’s going to help you in all areas of your life and your business and career and your relationships with your friends and family money and financial stuff with your health and fitness with your personal growth. Get The Runner’s Edge and start becoming the all around best version of yourself. To do that, just go to innerfiretribe.com/coaching or click on the button that says The Runner’s Edge.

Alright, let’s get on to today’s topic. I’m very, very excited to share this with you guys today. And this is all about the problem is all in your head. So let’s kind of start out by just saying this, think about a problem that you’re having right? Now, it can be a big problem, it can be a small problem.

But I want you to just have a problem in your mind as we are talking through this topic today. Because I want you to start thinking about that problem in a different way. Okay, and you will start thinking about it in a different way. But it kind of helps to have something.

So just take a minute and like, kind of think about what’s the problem is that a small, tiny problem, or it could be a big, you know, problem that just driving you crazy and keeping you up at night doesn’t matter. But just think about this problem that you have. Okay.

And then I’m gonna go ahead and talk about this topic and how you may be able to feel differently about this problem by the end of this episode. Okay, cool. So you got that problem in your head, right? So think about that problem. It’s a problem that you want to solve, right? You don’t want this problem anymore anymore, you want it to go away.

So some examples of a problem that people have that I talked to that want to go away could be something like, running is hard. Or I’m too old to run a half marathon, or a full marathon or I’m too old to start running. Or I always bonk.

Every time I run a marathon, I bonk. Or I can never get any faster. So think about that problem you’re having. It can be running related or anything. But know what’s, what’s the problem? What’s your problem? What’s your problem? It’s really a great question, though. I love asking my clients this question, what’s your problem?

Because a lot of times people don’t even know what their problem is. They think they know what their problem is. But it’s really not what the problem is. We’re gonna get into that here in a minute. So here’s something that’s going to blow your mind. A problem isn’t a problem until you make it a problem.

Okay, until you make something into a problem in your head, it’s literally just a situation. It’s just a fact. It’s just a circumstance, okay? It’s not actually a problem until you think certain thoughts about it. That causes certain feelings inside you and usually negative feelings, okay?

I mean, if it caused positive feelings like joy or love, you wouldn’t be a problem, though because our thoughts cause these negative feelings inside us. We label it as a problem, okay? Because we don’t want to feel those feelings. Okay, those are unwanted feelings, feelings. We don’t want to feel their emotions that we don’t want. So a problem isn’t a problem until it causes unwanted emotions inside of us. All right. Right.

And I’m going to break all this down. And you’re gonna very much understand this in a minute here. But I want to give you a little example of how this kind of works. And I love this little analogy, I use it all the time. So if you’ve heard it before, I’m sorry, you’re gonna hear it again.

So, two people are standing on the beach, and they’re both standing by the ocean and looking out over the water. And one of the people standing there is deathly afraid of the ocean, it scares him to death. It causes him anxiety to be there. And to just look at the ocean and just thinking about the ocean causes him, you know, to almost go into a panic attack. To him, the ocean is a dangerous place that should be avoided at all costs. Okay? The person standing right next to him, loves the ocean, loves swimming. In fact, he’s a professional surfer.

So he goes out in the water every single morning and serves for a couple of hours. The ocean to him is a source of happiness, joy and exhilaration and excitement. It’s where he goes to feel calm and peaceful. And the reason he feels that way, is because of the way he thinks about it. Okay.

The other person who thinks the ocean is a dangerous place, had a near drowning experience as a child, nearly drowned in the ocean. And so for him, the ocean is very dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Okay? So here’s what we have, we have a situation, we have a circumstance, we have the ocean, okay, the ocean is neutral. It’s just a thing.

Okay, the ocean does not cause emotions or thoughts. The ocean is completely neutral, it’s passive. The two people standing there have different thoughts about the ocean based on their past experiences. And so those thoughts cause feelings inside of them. And so for one person, the feelings of fear and anxiety, and panic and danger, are very, very real, and very powerful.

And for that person, the ocean in his version of reality, the ocean is dangerous. This other person’s feelings of joy and peacefulness, and excitement and happiness. In his version of reality, the ocean is a beautiful thing. And it’s the cause of all joy and happiness in his life. Okay.

Two completely different versions of reality, right? So what is reality? Reality is whatever you say it is. So I love that analogy. It’s just so very, very clear to me about how we see things differently, how we all experience the world differently based on you know, our past experiences and things.

So I want to break this down into some definitions and just kind of give you guys a little bit of, I want to peel back the onion a little bit here and peel back some layers. So you can kind of see how these things work. And see how you can start applying some of these principles to your own thoughts, feelings and problems that you’re experiencing. Okay.

So the first thing I want to do is define what a circumstance is, okay? So a circumstance is just a situation, it’s just a thing. And it’s just the facts. Okay. So in this case, we’re talking about the ocean, it’s just the ocean. It’s just a thing. Okay, it’s neutral. It’s passive.

When we talk about facts, when we talk about a situation, this is something that is going to be true for everyone. Okay, everyone would agree that the sky is blue, okay. Everyone would agree that the ocean causes waves, you know, that the ocean is wet? Okay. Whatever the circumstance is. See, if it can be proven in a court of law, then that’s just facts.

Okay, this marathon is 26.2 miles. I got a cramp in my calf at mile 18 of my last marathon. That is a fact. That is just a circumstance, that is just situation, okay? Doesn’t mean anything. I did not finish my first 50k. Okay, just a fact, just a situation. Okay, I got a flat tire on my way to work this morning. You know, it’s not like, oh, man, my morning sucked. It was terrible. I had a bad day. No, I just got a flat tire. That’s just a fact.

Okay, or like, I weigh 150 pounds. That is just a fact. Okay. So when we’re, when we’re defining what a circumstance is, what a situation is, we want to break it down to just the bare minimum, just the facts. We don’t want to assign meaning to thoughts or anything else to it, we don’t want to interpret things, we just want to see things very clearly for what they are.

If you just did this right here, if you just started to see everything that’s happening in your life, for what it is, as a passive situation, this is going to start to cause some amazing changes in your life. Okay. But there’s more. So the next thing I want to talk about is our thoughts. Okay, so this is where things start to get interesting.

So we can all agree that there are facts that there are things that happen in our lives, okay. But then there are thoughts, we think things about the things happening to us, okay. So when I define thoughts, this is basically like our thinking, our beliefs, these are our values. And a lot of these things are like our filters, okay.

So like our past experiences, are kind of like a filter that one of the filters that we run things through in order to create our thoughts, okay. So our past experiences, our memories, our beliefs, our values, maybe our culture, our family, of origin, our customs, all those things kind of shape, the way that we think, okay, this is why things are so different for everybody.

That’s why the two people standing by the ocean, one person has beautiful experiences and memories of the ocean, other has very scary experiences. Okay, those are different filters that they’re experiencing reality through. And so the way they feel about the ocean is going to be different. Okay, so your thoughts are going to be different, everybody’s thoughts are different, okay?

Your model of the world is going to be different from mine. We can both be sitting at the same time watching the same movie, and have totally different experiences. I’m sure you’ve probably done that before where you sat with somebody at a movie. And you were like, you came out of it. And you’re like, Oh, my God, that was the greatest movie, wasn’t it, in there?

Like I remember going to a concert, I went to a Wilco concert, and Wilco’s an amazing band to see live. And we had like, fifth row, center seats, it was great. I went with like three or four friends of mine. And after the show, we are all sitting around, you know, drinking coffee and talking about how awesome this show was.

And I look over and this one friend just had his arms crossed. And I was like, man, wasn’t that the best show you’ve ever seen? And he was like, I’m like, what were you even in the same theater as us? Well, what is happening here? But it happens all the time.

Or maybe you have siblings and you guys remember a family event? You’re like, remember that Thanksgiving when so and so did this or said that? And they’re like, what are you talking about? Were we even at the same table? That thing’s, I don’t even remember that, you know, I know that happens with me and my family.

But so we all have these different experiences and this way of interpreting reality, okay. And we call that your model of the world. We each have our own model of the world based on our past, our values, our culture, customs, all that stuff, and it’s different for everyone. But your model of the world, this is how you experience reality. Okay?

So it’s actually your thoughts. The thoughts that you have in this moment? are what determine reality for you in this moment. So it’s actually your thoughts, your thinking, that creates your reality. That’s kind of mind blowing. I think this is mind blowing. This blows me away every time I think about it.

Because I’m just sitting here looking at a computer. You know, I’m reading some notes. I’m talking into a microphone. And this version of reality that I’m experiencing right here is, is going to be different for somebody else. If they were sitting right next to me here. It blows me away. This right here is mind blowing. Okay.

But I love this little line, I always hear people say, well, “It is what it is.” And I always counter that with no, it is what you think it is, you know? Because it really is what you think it is. Stuff is not just stuff out there. Okay. I mean, it kind of, I mean, the situation is just a situation. So that is what it is. But reality for you is what you think it is, you create it with your thoughts, okay?

So remember situations, they’re just passive, they’re neutral. They don’t have any meaning at all. It’s our thoughts about a situation that give it meaning. Okay, there’s no meaning to anything. Unless there’s a thought. I’m going to say that again. Because this is another thing that’s blowing my mind right now. I’m blowing my own mind. Talking through this with you.

There’s no meaning to anything unless there’s a thought. So if you get a flat tire on your way to work, it only makes you mad. If there’s a thought about it, that makes you mad. Otherwise, it’s just a neutral situation, it’s just a flat tire. Saying I weigh 150 pounds, it doesn’t mean anything at all. It’s just numbers on a scale. It’s how much this body weighs.

It’s only when we think we should weigh 125 pounds that that number becomes a problem. Seriously, if you get this if you are getting this right now this is one of the most empowering things you will ever learn okay? That a problem is not a problem until we make it a problem. So every problem you have, you are creating.

Okay, so we have a situation which is passive, it’s neutral. It’s just circumstances we have our thoughts that are different for everyone. And then we have feelings, we have emotions. Now, emotions are those typically there like a one word emotion word like fear, anger, sadness, loneliness, hurt, guilt, frustration, confusion, joy, happiness, elation, excitement, pride, love. These are all emotional words.

And you can’t have a feeling you cannot have an emotion without a thought first okay. You cannot have an emotion without a thought about it. Your thoughts are what cause your feelings, okay? So you have a circumstance, you have a situation and then you think a feeling or you think something you think a thought which creates a feeling inside you, okay.

Your thoughts, cause your feelings you cannot experience a feeling, you cannot experience emotions. Without thinking about what the particular situation is you’re in, what that means to you. So you are assigning it meaning and that’s creating a good feeling inside you maybe a neutral feeling or a bad feeling inside you. All of your emotions are created by your thoughts by the thoughts in your head. Okay. So if you get a cramp at mile 18 in the marathon, that is just a fact. Right?

When you think thoughts like I’m a quitter, I’m no good. I suck at running marathons. I can’t do it. I’m a failure. Those thoughts are going to cause you to feel sad, to feel frustrated, to feel unworthy or angry. The leg cramp in itself is not causing your feelings. It’s what you think about the leg cramp that’s causing your feelings, okay? Getting a cramp in your calf does not cause you to feel unworthy. If it does, I mean, that’s crazy. Anybody that got a cramp any time would feel unworthy or angry. Okay.

It’s the meaning that we assigned to these these thoughts, okay? It’s a meaning that we assigned to the situation that cause our feelings inside. Okay? So your thoughts are what cause your feelings. So then anything we say is a problem is actually just a feeling we don’t want to feel. All right.

So a problem is only is an unwanted feeling basically. Okay? So if our thoughts cause us to feel happiness, or excitement or love, you know, we typically don’t label that as a problem, right? You don’t pick up your baby, and look at your baby and feel love, and then want to be rid of those feelings. You don’t want to be like, oh, I don’t want to feel that anymore. No, you want to feel those feelings.

You choose to feel love toward some people, you know that you probably choose to feel hatred towards some people or to feel ambiguous towards some people, you know, you’re choosing all your feelings here, okay, you choose all of them, you create every emotion you feel inside, good or bad with your thoughts. So the problem is only a problem because you don’t like the emotion you’re feeling and you want to feel something different.

Or you don’t want to feel that feeling at all, you want to feel just something different from that feeling you’re feeling right now. So the problem is the unwanted emotions that you’re feeling that you create yourself, by the way.

And here’s the thing that we do, though, so many of us don’t want to feel those unwanted feelings. So we do things like we numb out to those feelings, you know, we want to feel good. So we overeat. Or we drink too much, or we veg out on Netflix. Which, by the way, I love my Netflix and Hulu and HBO. So don’t get on me about that. But I don’t sit all day watching it. You know what I mean?

I’m not using it to feel good. You know, it’s a different situation. Maybe I do use it to feel good, I don’t know. But I’m not watching hours of Netflix at a time, maybe like an hour. I typically watch like one show per night. Anyway, so we do things to numb out like we overeat. We veg out on Netflix, we drink too much, we medicate ourselves.

Even things like over exercising, this is a way of numbing out for some people. Okay? So that you don’t have to feel those unwanted feelings. We do this all the time. It’s a real problem. It’s a problem that causes addiction, you know, the problem when we try to numb out like this is that we’re just covering over the unwanted emotions for a very short amount of time.

They’re still there inside you, okay, those emotions are still there, and you might feel good for a minute. But as soon as the buzz of that numbing wears off, you know, as soon as you you know, when you’re done over eating, and you’re you know, you’re hungry again, or, or when you know, you wake up from, you know, drinking too much the night before, all those feelings are still there, and you’re gonna feel them again, they don’t go away, all you’re doing is just postponing, feeling them. Okay.

Now, oftentimes, you start creating a lot of other unwanted feelings along with that. And then you numb out more, because you don’t want to feel those feelings. And the cycle goes on and on and on. And I know this from firsthand experience, I’ve done it. I used to drink way too much. I don’t anymore. I’ve been sober for almost 13 years now. Because I know what it’s like to just try to numb out and not feel my feelings. Now I’m not afraid to feel my feelings. Honestly, I can sit with feelings today and it’s okay.

But I want you guys to understand this here. So I think this is some crazy amazing stuff. Okay. It’s like seeing the matrix you know? Once you see it once you understand that your thoughts are what is causing you to feel these unwanted feelings. Your thoughts about a situation are causing you to feel those unwanted feelings. Those unwanted feelings are the problem once you understand this. It’s like seeing the matrix, you can never go back to the way things were again.

You know, it’s like having the key to the universe. This unlocks everything for you, anything that you want in your life, anything that you want to experience or feel, or have, you can have, and you can do it. And this is the first way, this is the best way to get started doing it, honestly.

And like I said, we’re going to talk more about this in later episodes. I’m going to talk about how to, you know, change your thinking if you want to, and how to change your behaviors and your actions based on the emotions that you’re feeling. But for now, I just really want you to understand that situations are passive, that your thoughts cause your feelings and your unwanted feelings are what you deem as problems. Okay.

So let me give you a couple of quick examples here. So let’s say you get a flat tire on your way to work, right? That’s a situation, it is a flat tire, done. The thoughts about it, though, are things like, I’m going to be late for work, I’m going to get written up again, I might lose my job, I won’t be able to pay my bills. And then the feelings that those thoughts create are like fear, stress, anxiety, maybe even like shame. Okay?

Now somebody else might have different thoughts about that. So here’s, here’s a different perspective on this, okay, flat tire. This person is like, hey, I got a flat tire. I’ve never changed a tire before. This will be kind of cool. Those feelings might be feelings of excitement, or adventure, or maybe even pay, this will be fun. Same exact situation. But different thoughts about it and different feelings about it.

For one person, it’s a huge problem for another person, it is not a problem at all. In fact, it’s an opportunity for some excitement. Or you know, a little bit of an adventure, let’s change a tire on the side of the highway.

Okay, here’s another situation, I always bonk in the marathon. Okay, or this is what you know is happening right? To some people, they might say like I always bonked in the marathon. Well, the situation might be like, hey, I’ve run five marathons and three times I’ve had to walk around like mile 18 to 20. You know, my time was slower than I expected it to be. I got a cramp in my calf once like that is, those are the facts, okay?

The thoughts might be, you know, I always bonk or I’ll never hit my PR, or I trained so hard. And now it was for nothing. It’s all for nothing. I suck at running the marathon. I hate running. And those feelings that that caused those thoughts would be feelings of like, disappointment, unworthiness, frustration, anger, sadness.

Whereas somebody else might see that same situation and go, okay, you know, I’ve run five marathons and I’ve had to walk three times around mile 18-19, whatever. My time was a little slower than I wanted to be, I got a cramp in my calf. So their thoughts might be, I’m going to figure out this whole cramping thing and figure out why I’m cramping. I am going to adjust my training so that I know I can get through those last, you know, six, eight miles, hey, this might be a fun challenge to figure this whole thing out, you know, look at it as like a little research project.

Either way, it’s no big deal doesn’t mean anything about me. It’s just running after all. And I love running. So the feelings that those thoughts cause that person might be feelings of excitement or determination, maybe even confidence and motivation. Okay. I mean, here’s the thing, if walking at mile 18 of a marathon, causes the feelings of frustration, sadness, anger, and unworthiness, nobody would want to walk.

But there’s people that walk all the time. There’s people that do the whole run/walk thing, you know, they run all all through the whole marathon or walk through the whole marathon. So it’s not the walking that causes the feelings, okay? It’s the way you think about it. Okay. You create all of your problems with your thoughts, all of your problems are created in your head, every single one.

And I know what you’re thinking, you’re like, well, Patrick, what about if somebody just comes up to me, like punches me in the face? Well, first of all, if somebody just walks up to you and punches you in the face, I want to know what your life is like, what is happening in your life, okay? But if somebody walks up and punches you in the face, that punch in the face does not mean you’re going to feel angry, sad and hurt, you know, frustration or whatever.

You know, there’s people that get punched in the face for a living, they’re called boxers, you know, and MMA fighters, whatever, they punch each other all the time, they get punched in the face for living. And they don’t get angry about it. You know, that doesn’t mean anything other than, oh, you know, I got hit, I better like counter with this other punch or whatever.

They even think about that differently. It’s not the punch in the face that causes the feelings, okay? It’s the way you think about it. It’s what it means to you. And you get to choose that this is the thing that’s like, so important is that you get to choose what you’re what you’re thinking, you get to choose your thoughts. Honestly, this is like mind blowing transformational stuff.

Okay, honestly, I hope you think it is too. I hope your like mind is getting blown right now. Mine is, I talk about this all the time. So just a quick summary here. situations, they are always neutral. It’s just it’s just a thing, okay? It’s just a circumstance, it’s passive. Your thoughts about a situation. That’s what causes the feelings that you feel inside.

Feelings, emotions, they’re all caused by your thoughts, okay? Your feelings are not caused by the situation, your feelings are caused by your thoughts, okay? Anything we label a problem is just you experiencing unwanted feelings. That’s it. All of your problems are in your head. You choose what problems you have, you choose what your problems are, every minute of every day. But you love that you are choosing and creating your problems every minute of every day. Okay, so I’m gonna leave you with that.

If you have questions or comments, drop me an email. I’d love to hear from you. I want to hear what your thoughts are on this. I want to hear what your thoughts and feelings are about this. You can drop me an email at hello@innerfiretribe.com. You can find me on Facebook @pmcgilvray, and on Instagram. I would love to hear from you. I want to hear what you think of this topic. I think this is a big one.

And this is just the foundation of the coaching mindset coaching work that I do. And I kind of start with this with all my clients you know, we start talking about how it’s your thoughts that are creating all the problems that you have. And really we break it down from there and everything gets easier from here but getting this concept and understanding these principles is a game changer for sure. Alright guys, that’s all I got for you today. I will talk to you next time.

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