Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
One of the toughest things about losing weight and keeping it off for good is developing a healthy relationship with food. I work with runners every day who admittedly have a very unhealthy …
Continue Reading about 202. Unraveling Unhealthy Thought Patterns →
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 202 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, Unraveling Unhealthy Thought Patterns.
So one of the toughest things about losing weight and keeping it off for good is developing a healthy relationship with it. I work with runners every day who admittedly have a very unhealthy relationship with food, they overeat, they’re constantly making unhealthy choices.
They know what to do, they’re doing something different all the time, and they generally feel very out of control around food.
If this sounds like you, rest assured there’s nothing wrong with you. You’ve just developed some unhealthy thought patterns about food. So one of the most beneficial things you can do for yourself is begin to recognize and then start unraveling those unhealthy thought patterns.
That’s what this episode is all about. So stick around, I think you’ll find some very helpful tips throughout this podcast.
But first, I talk a lot about losing weight and improving your health and your fitness. And I know all the stuff I talked about here can feel a little overwhelming. If you’re looking for a good place to start, I’ve created a free hour-long training called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
In this training video, you’ll learn how to fuel your body properly to lose weight and improve your running, you’ll learn the incredibly important role that strength plays in being a lean healthy runner.
And you’ll learn how to make changes that are actually sustainable, and a lot more. If you’re ready to get started, get leaner, get stronger, run faster, run longer, and become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself, then check out this free training now go to my website runningleancoaching.com and click on free training and get started. Cool.
All right, let’s talk about this unraveling unhealthy thought patterns. So when it comes to things like losing weight and trying to keep it off for good, there is a big problem out there.
And people talk about that this diet isn’t sustainable, this diet isn’t sustainable. And honestly, any diet can be sustainable, it’s the one that you stick to the one that you can do consistently is going to be the one that works for you.
And it’s going to be the one that is sustainable for you. But a lot of people blame the diet as being wrong, or this one doesn’t work when in reality, it’s all about you. What are you willing to stick to? What are you willing to do consistently?
And so one of the things I work with, with the people that I that I do coaching with is understanding that it’s not about the diet necessarily. Now, of course, there are some things we can do that will help to lose weight. And we want to get you eating whole foods and get you off of the junk food and the processed foods and sugars and seed oils and things like that.
But how do you do this consistently? How do you do this for for life? You know, that’s where the real magic happens when you get to this place where this just becomes pretty automatic for you. And it’s no longer work and it’s no longer effort.
And one thing that stops a lot of people from getting to that place where they’ve developed good healthy eating habits is their own mind. You know, it’s their own thoughts about food, it’s their own thoughts about whether they can sustain this or not, it’s their own thoughts about how they failed in the past and how they’ve tried everything, and nothing ever works for them.
And all these thought patterns are just that they are thoughts in your head. And not necessarily true. They’ve just been things that you’ve been telling yourself for a long time. And so you believe them to be true.
But they are not necessarily the truth. Okay, so we have to understand that the way that each one of us sees the world is a little bit differently.
We see the world based on our own thoughts, feelings, past experiences, and all kinds of other factors. And no two people really see the world the same way. No two people, you know, experience a diet the same way no two people experience food nutrition, and exercise the same way.
So just understand that you are an individual. You have your own thought patterns that you’ve been practicing for decades, decades. And it’s really hard to undo that. It’s really hard to even see that that’s what you’re doing because you just believe all this stuff to be true about how things work.
If you feel out of control around food, you’re gonna see that that’s just an automatic thing for you that when there’s donuts sitting there, you can’t help yourself, you eat the doughnuts.
When in reality, there’s more going on there, you’re not automatic, you’re not a robot, you haven’t been programmed, please sort of programmed yourself in a way to just eat the doughnuts. But there’s a thought and a feeling and an action happening.
And those things happen before you pick up the doughnut and put it in your mouth. There are thoughts and feelings about that donut that are happening in that moment. That happened very fast.
And when I talk about thought patterns, thought patterns, our thoughts and feelings that lead to actions, thoughts, and feelings that drive our actions, those are thought patterns. And you’re really good at doing some thought patterns.
Think about how you tie your shoes in the morning, or in the afternoon or whatever. You don’t even think about it anymore. You’ve developed a thought pattern about how to tie your shoes.
But when you were like four or five years old, and you’re learning how to tie your shoes, you’re in kindergarten, whatever. It took some thought you had to, you know, make the loop and then put it around this, wait, look, no, wait, I did it wrong, that was supposed to go under here.
And it took some thought and some effort and it was hard. And it took a while to do that. Now you can tie your shoes without even thinking about it, you don’t have to think about it, it’s become an automated behavior for you.
Driving a car is the same way. It’s an automated behavior. There are lots of things that we do in our lives that have become automated behaviors. But they weren’t always that way. eating donuts, when you see donuts is not an automated behavior.
I mean, it’s kind of automated, but there’s always something going on, there’s thoughts and feelings that are driving those actions. And we want to start to break this stuff down.
We want to start unraveling the thought patterns that are not serving us the unhealthy ones. The other ones like tying your shoes, who cares, just keep tying your shoes without thinking about it. That’s fine. That’s an automated behavior. You don’t need to break that down and journal about it.
And you know, you know, it’s not causing you any problems most likely, you know, driving a car, you don’t have to really think about that you just do it. So you don’t really need to break it all down. Oh, what am I thinking about backing up in this moment about, you know, parking in this spot, you know, or whatever, like, you don’t have to think about it, just do it.
But there are some thought patterns that are unhealthy, especially when it comes to food. Why is that? Why are there so many unhealthy thought patterns around food? My guess is that it’s just one of those things where we’ve used food.
For years and years and decades, we’ve used food as an emotional management tool, we’ve used food to make ourselves feel better, to soothe ourselves when we’re down to destress us when we feel stressed out to make us feel better when we’re not feeling good.
And you’ve just developed these habits that feel really natural, and really automatic, and, and really out of control. When in reality, you’ve just been practicing thought patterns and actions. And we got to start practicing those things. Okay?
It’s learned behavior that’s going on here. These are things that you have learned. Over time, you’ve taught yourself how to handle stress by using food. You’ve taught yourself that when you see donuts, you eat the doughnuts.
When you see the pizza, you eat the pizza, you haven’t taught yourself that you can have self-control, that when you see the pizza, you don’t have to eat it. That’s no big deal. But that is a thought pattern as well right there.
So let’s break down what we’re talking about here a little bit. So you have some context of what I’m talking about here. So when we talk about thought patterns, I want you to understand there are several layers to this.
The first layer is the circumstance layer or just the stuff that’s going around us in our lives. So everything that’s not you, is just a circumstance in your life. So if you’re you know, sitting at home and you’re in and your kids are running around and your husband is in the kitchen, you know yelling at you about something, that’s all circumstances, you don’t really have control over that stuff.
And maybe a little bit of control over the kids, probably not the husband, but there’s a little bit of control out there, but pretty much know right? Your boss, what your boss says or does or thinks about you what other people do or say or think about you the actions of other people, you have no control over any of that stuff.
All you have control over is your own thoughts, feelings and actions. You don’t have control over anything else in this world. Sorry, I hate to break it to you but that’s reality.
All the circumstances are a lot of our lives are just that they are just circumstances. It’s just the situation we happen to be in at the moment. So if somebody brings in doughnuts to the break room, that’s just a circumstance, it’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s not positive or negative. It’s not healthy or unhealthy. It’s just neutral.
It’s just a circumstance, it’s neutral. You’re making a split decision about what that means to you. In that moment, you’re making a really quick assessment of that situation.
And you’re assigning, whether that’s good or bad, you’re assigning, whether it’s positive or negative, whether it’s healthy or unhealthy. Doughnuts in the break room is a neutral circumstance, it’s not healthy or unhealthy. It’s just what it is, you don’t have to eat those things.
If you don’t eat them, then it’s healthy. If you choose to eat them that might be unhealthy if you do it all the time, the occasional donut is fine. Please understand, donuts, they’re amazing. I love donuts, but I eat them very rarely, I can’t remember the last time I ate a doughnut.
But every now and then eat a doughnut. It’s not a big deal. But we have to get into this place where it’s not an automatic behavior anymore. So anyway, circumstances are the stuff in our lives that we do not have control over and it’s all around us food is going to be around us all the time.
You can’t blame the fact that there’s food there on the reason why you ate it. That’s not why you’re eating the food, you’re eating the food because you have a thought and a feeling about it.
And that is the pattern that I’m talking about here. So the circumstance is how there’s doughnuts in the break room, then you have a thought about it. Oh, I bet those donuts would taste really good right now. I’ve been good all week. And this is my reward.
Or I worked out this morning, I ran five miles, I can do a donut. Like you have all these thoughts about what that donut means, oh, that’s gonna taste so amazing. And then those thoughts cause you to have a feeling. And that feeling is going to be like a craving; that’s a feeling, a craving is a feeling.
So you have this desire, that’s a feeling. You have this desire and this craving to now eat the doughnut. And you think that, that feeling that desire that wanting that craving is just because the doughnuts are there? And it’s no, it’s not just because they’re there, it’s because of your thoughts about the donuts.
I know lots of people who don’t eat donuts who see it on and they’re like, no big deal. Like I can look at donuts and be like, no big deal most of the time. But I understand that if I start to have those thoughts about how amazing that’s going to taste and how it’s gonna make me feel good because it’s a bunch of sugar and, and fried dough.
Oh my gosh, like sugar and fried dough together? Oh, yeah, that’s gonna taste good. That’s gonna light up my dopamine receptors, you know, that’s gonna make me feel amazing, you know, for a short period of time, then I’ll probably feel terrible.
So our thoughts are what’s causing those feelings that desire, the craving, the wanting, those are all feelings. Other feelings we have are our stress, anger, sadness, and anxiety. Those are all feelings as well, their emotions, feelings, and emotions, they’re interchangeable.
So we have circumstances in our life, and we have thoughts about those circumstances, those thoughts cause us to feel certain feelings or emotions. And it’s those emotions and feelings that drive our actions. So then when we feel the desire, we want to eat the donut so that we can enjoy that, you know, and, you know, take part in that feeling.
When we feel sad, we want to eat something that makes us feel better. So that sadness will drive actions, the anger that we have will drive us to take action, you know, maybe lash out at somebody.
Or, you know, like you’re in traffic and somebody cuts you off and you flip them off out the window or something like that. Like, that feeling of anger is what’s driving that action, not what that person did, because that what that person did is a neutral circumstance. They cut you off in traffic, but who cares, big deal.
Some people are like whatever. Other people get all upset and road rage happens. You know, road rage is caused by people’s feelings. Rage is a feeling. Okay? So circumstances are neutral, we have thoughts about them. That’s what creates the feelings that we have inside those feelings drive our actions, and the actions we take will create results in our lives.
Right, you don’t have results in your life if you don’t take action. So the behaviors we engage in will cause us to have some sort of a result the actions that we take on a regular basis will cause long-term results.
So if your goal is to lose weight, and you’ve cut out sugar, and every day you abstain from eating sugar, that action will get you the result of losing weight. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, and you’ve abstained from eating sugar, but you can’t stop yourself from eating sugar every single day, that’s going to cause a different result, you’re going to probably gain weight in that process.
I’m guessing that result is not in alignment with what you want for yourself. Okay, so that would be what I call a misaligned result, you know, so misaligned actions will produce misaligned results, and aligned actions will produce aligned results.
So you want to be taking actions that are in alignment with your long-term goals. Okay. So the results that we’re getting are not due to our circumstances, but they’re due to our thoughts feelings, and actions.
So whether you’re able to walk away from the pizza, or walk away from the doughnuts in the break, room or not, has to do with those thought, feeling action patterns that you’ve been practicing and practicing forever.
You know, one of the best ways to create a habit is to repeatedly do something over and over and over and over again. And we’ve repeatedly done the same things. We’ve had a feeling we get stressed out, and we go to the cabinet, and we look for something crunchy or salty or sugary to eat.
Nobody stress eats, like broccoli out of the fridge or leftover chicken or something like that. I’ve never heard anybody say that. They’re like, oh, I got to stop the snack and like, what are you snacking on? Is it like, hard-boiled eggs? Or chicken? They’re like, oh, no, I’m going for the salty stuff, crunchy stuff. I’m like, yeah, I know, I know what you’re doing.
But if you’re really hungry at that moment, you know, a piece of cheese would satisfy you or, you know, some leftovers from the night before.
Instead, no, we’re going for those things that light up our dopamine centers that make us feel good. And usually, it’s the stuff that’s unhealthy for us, right? So you’ve just developed these coping mechanisms. And the coping mechanisms are just thought patterns.
That’s all they are thoughts, feelings, and actions. So you have to understand that this process happens in a split second, once you’ve developed good habits, kind of like tying your shoe, right, you can tie your shoe very quickly, you don’t have to think about you just do it.
Same thing with food, we’ve developed these thoughts, feelings, and action patterns that happen so fast, that we just do them automatically without even knowing that this process is happening.
So one of the biggest keys to unraveling all this for you now that you understand the pattern is to start to become aware that you’re doing it, that’s all just start to become aware of what you are doing and the and the and the thoughts and feelings that you’re having that precede the actions that you’re taking.
So when you’re about to grab that donut, just pause, and hit the pause button for just a moment. And ask yourself what is the thought and feeling that’s driving me to reach for the doughnut right now.
That little step right there is going to go a long way in helping you to start to change your relationship with food to stop, start to help you change these thought-feeling-action patterns, and start to develop some other patterns, which is I see the donuts, I have a thought about the donuts. They look amazing.
But they taste great. You have a feeling like a desire that happens. And then you take the action of not eating the doughnut. That’s a different thought pattern altogether.
What if the thought was instead, I bet those donuts taste great? But you know what, that is not on my plan today. So I’m not doing the doughnuts, maybe another time.
That’s a thought you could have. What feeling might that thought cause? Oh, it might cause you to feel proud of yourself for sticking to your plan in that moment. And if you’re proud of yourself in that moment, and you and you’ve boosted your confidence a little bit.
That’s another feeling, by the way, pride, confidence, those are all emotions. That’s going to drive a different action, the action is going to be I’m sticking to my plan. I brought my lunch today. I don’t need to eat doughnuts, my body isn’t that stuff.
So you can see that your thought-feeling-action patterns can shift over time and go from being unhealthy, you know, thought patterns to healthy thought patterns. And when you start to break it down and hit that pause button, you can really start to go a long way in developing those new thought patterns and those new behaviors and start to repeat those behaviors over and over and over again and develop those as your new habits.
Okay, now this whole process begins As with that self-awareness of like, here’s what’s going on. The doughnuts are just a neutral thing in my life, they don’t have any control over me. I’m always in control, I have agency.
You know, I’m making decisions on my own here. I love it. I think Tony Robbins said, “The direction of your life is determined by tiny little moments of decision.” Tiny little moments of decision, thousands of them.
It’s not about one big decision, oh, I’m gonna change my diet. It’s not that it’s about those tiny little moments of decision that you make, over and over and over and over and over again, thousands of them.
That’s what makes big change in your life, that can change the whole direction of your life, you can go from being an unhealthy person with an unhealthy relationship with food to somebody who is healthy, fit, feels good about themselves has confidence and has completely changed their relationship with food.
All it requires is lots and lots and lots of repetition of these tiny little moments of decision, hitting that pause button, and becoming aware of the thoughts and feelings that are driving that action that you’re about to take.
Okay, that is your work for this week, is to hit that pause button and start to see what it is that’s driving this behavior. Why am I choosing this decision at this moment?
Really ask yourself that, sometimes it helps to stop and write a few things down. That’s not always the case. It’s not always practical to do that. But if you can stop and write some things down, that’s very helpful.
But if you can’t, you know, maybe just think about it, like what am I thinking and feeling right now in this moment? Is this a behavior that I’ve been practicing for a long time? And how can I make a better decision in this moment, okay, that is step number one.
And when you do that, you’re going to be on your way to becoming a different person. Because once you start practicing these things regularly, and you start changing those thought patterns on a regular basis, and you start doing things differently consistently over time, you can become an entirely different person, for the better, cool.
And as always, if you’re looking for help with any stuff, we can talk about coaching, just go to my website runningleancoaching.com, and click on Work With Me.
You’ll fill out a short little application we’ll get on a zoom, we’ll talk about what coaching might look like for you and we’ll just see if it’s a good fit. Cool. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
If you are having a hard time sticking with a health and fitness routine, then you might want to have a look at your locus of control. Locus of control refers to where you believe your control lies …
Continue Reading about 189. Shifting Your Locus of Control →
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 189 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, Shifting Your Locus of Control. So if you’re having a hard time sticking with a health and fitness routine, sticking with a healthy food plan, then you might want to have a look at your locus of control. And I’ll explain all this in the podcast here.
But your locus of control refers to where you believe your control lies either outside of you or within you. So people who have a strong external locus of control tend to have a pretty hard time sticking to a plan and accomplishing really anything.
On the other hand, people who have a strong internal locus of control have an easier time sticking to a plan and are generally more successful in all areas of their lives. So today, I’m going to explain what locus of control is, and how you can begin shifting your locus of control so you can get better results and really just live a healthier, happier life.
But first, I know I talk a lot about the amazing transformations you can experience when you join my program and get coaching from me how you can commit to becoming your healthiest self, but instead of me yammering more about it, I’m going to share some of my clients personal stories with you.
So Elisa said, “Since working with Patrick, I don’t beat myself up anymore. I believe in myself. I’m finally in control of my eating habits. I’m steadily losing weight.” Flora said, “I’ve learned how to become a fat adapted runner. And the feeling of running with a clear head and so much energy is just amazing.” Eric said, “I’ve learned how to create good habits to replace the bad ones. I’m down 18 pounds so far, and I feel really good about myself for the first time in a long time.”
Mick said, “Accountability and education were key to my success with Patrick. I’ve had so many positive changes. I know I’m not going to slip back into old habits.” Leticia said, “I no longer have sugar cravings, I’ve taken control of my eating habits once and for all.”
Michelle said, “I’ve lost 25 pounds, I’ve gained immeasurable confidence. I am totally in control now. And I’m fully capable of doing everything I set out to do.” And Amy said, “I’m thinking so much more clearly, I have more energy, I’m sleeping better, running is easier. So far, I’m down 30 pounds and several dress sizes.”
Listen, you can add your name to this list, you can be one of these people with an amazing transformational story to share. All you gotta do is get some coaching. Join the Running Lean Coaching Project. This is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more. Book an interview with me and you and I’ll have a conversation, we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you.
And if you want a little bit of help, just getting started with all this stuff, I’ve created a great training program that you can check out. It’s about an hour long video training, you can watch it at your own pace. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner. You can get that by going to my website Running Lean coaching.com and click on the Free Training link to get started. Cool.
Okay, so let’s talk about shifting your locus of control. So I talked to a lot of people who struggle to accomplish what they want for themselves, they struggle to reach their goals. So this could be a weight loss goal. This could be a strength goal, it could be a running related goal. Maybe they want to run their first marathon, qualify for Boston, or maybe they just want to run their first 5k.
But when it comes down to when you kind of boil it all down when it comes down to why it is they can’t seem to accomplish whatever goal they’re trying to accomplish. They start telling me all about the external factors affecting their life.
You know, I was doing great at sticking with this running plan. I was going to run my first marathon but then things got crazy at work. Or you know we traveled or went on vacation or the kids out of school so you know how that is or jeez, it just got hot out or it got cold out. Whatever.
So they look at their life as having all these external forces, external being things that are outside of themselves, that are affecting their ability to reach their goals or not to stick to their plan or not. That thing that seems so important to them, not that long ago has been pushed to the side because of all these external factors. Okay.
And the problem with this is that when you allow outside forces to affect your weight loss goals, your health and fitness goals, your running goals, then you’re going to have a very hard time accomplishing anything for yourself, you will always find reasons why you can’t do it.
You’ll have reasons and stories and excuses, you’ll always have somebody or something else to blame for why you can’t lose weight, why you can’t stick to this healthy eating plan, why you can’t train for that marathon or whatever.
The problem is that you’re going to really just stay stuck where you are. You won’t be able to accomplish these big goals that you want for yourself or small goals that you want for yourself, you won’t be able to accomplish much, you will always feel like you’re going to struggle, because it’s out of your hands.
It’s all these outside forces, all these external situations, these external circumstances that are to blame. You don’t have control over your own life. So this is known as having an external locus of control. So locus is just a Latin word, and it means place or location. So locus of control really relates to where your sense of control is located. Is it internally? Or is it externally? Is it within you? Or is it outside of you?
And locus of control is a term that’s used in psychology, and refers to a belief that the control of your life is either within you or outside of you. Okay, some people have a very strong internal locus of control. And some people have a very strong external locus of control.
And they’ve looked at all these people, and they’ve seen that people who have a mostly external locus of control tend to be not as successful, they tend to be not as happy, they tend to be maybe not as healthy.
And the people with a strong internal locus of control tend to be happier and healthier and tend to accomplish more in their lives. Okay. So somebody believes somebody with an external locus of control believes that outside forces control their destiny, I am not in control, I’m profoundly affected by external forces in my life.
People with a strong external locus of control, tend to be more passive, because things just happen to them. They tend to blame others for their situation, they tend not to accomplish goals. They believe that there’s really nothing they can do about their situation, because hey, it just is what it is. Right? Whatever happens, happens, why bother even trying?
They feel like they are unlucky, but like nothing good ever happens to them, because they’re just, it’s just not meant to be. Must be nice for those other people. But never, nothing ever works out for me. And what’s interesting is these people tend to be at greater risk for illness, they’re typically unhappy and unhealthy. They have a hard time sticking to a plan.
If you have a mostly external locus of control, it’s going to be harder for you to stick to a fitness routine, to train for a marathon to stick to a healthy eating plan. If you want to lose weight, you got to stick to a healthy eating plan. You have to be consistent with that plan. But if you’re constantly, you know, blaming everything around you for why you can’t stick to that plan, you’re gonna have a really hard time sticking with that plan. Okay.
So that is what external locus of control looks like. Can you relate to any of this? Does any of this sound like you? Because we’ve all had bits and pieces of this and I’ll tell you a little bit about my story in a minute here. But we’ve all had maybe times in our life when we had more of an external locus of control more of an internal.
So people with an internal locus of control tend to be more active, they’re actively engaging in changing their life. They’re actively engaged in improving their situation. Because they believe that they make things happen. You know, I did this, I made this happen, you know, my determination and my hard work, created my future, I’m not relying on outside circumstances, outside circumstances be damned, I’m going to make this happen.
They tend to accomplish goals regularly, consistently. They feel like they are in control of the events of their lives, they are in control of their own destiny. They don’t look to lock or fate, you know, to determine what they can accomplish or what they can accomplish, they take responsibility for their situation, whether that’s a good situation or a bad situation, they take responsibility, they tend to be healthier, they tend to have a reduced risk of illness.
And honestly, they just tend to stick with a plan. And it’s easier for them. All right. So wherever you feel like your locus of control is now just understand that it is not fixed. It is not something that is predetermined. And it is not something that you don’t have control over, you can actually change it.
It’s about what you believe to be true, not about what you think is true or not, what you believe to be true, will be true for you. If you believe you have no control over your life, and that it’s all about external circumstances, then that will be true for you. If you believe that you’re in control, that will be true for you.
Your locus of control is not something you are born with, it’s not something that is, you know, genetically imprinted in you or anything like that, it’s not a fact. It’s where you put it, it’s where you decide it’s going to be. So your goal then, is to shift your locus of control inward.
If you find yourself blaming external circumstances for where you are, why you can’t lose weight, why you can’t stick to that marathon training plan, why you can’t go to the gym and lift heavy weights. If you find yourself blaming external circumstances, for all that, then it’s time to make a shift, you need to shift your locus of control inward.
So shifting your locus of control can be as easy as making the decision that you’re going to do it, it can be as easy as taking 100% responsibility for everything in your life, for every result you’re getting or not getting in your life, it can be as easy as making that decision. So right now, decide “I’m going to stop blaming others, I’m going to stop blaming outside circumstances. I’m going to stop using stories and excuses and reasons why I can’t and start making it happen. I control my destiny. And it starts with me, and it starts right now.”
Right, that can be a very powerful way of taking control making that decision that you are in control. Because honestly, you are another way of beginning to shift your locus of control is to start reframing situations. So instead of just believing that here’s the way it is, not everything is just the way it is. And that’s the way it is because that right there is just a belief.
You need to start questioning what you believe to be true in every situation. So you can do this by reframing. And that is just like looking at a situation from a different angle. It’s like putting a different frame on the situation. Okay, instead of, “Man, it’s just so hard to stick to my food plan because my wife keeps bringing home junk food for dinner, you know, and burgers and french fries and pizza. Like she just keeps bringing this fun stuff home for dinner for the kids. And I can’t stick to my food plan because there’s pizza on the table.”
So that’s having an external locus of control when you believe that. So shifting inward, you can reframe that situation. And you can ask yourself, like, how can I stick to my plan, even though there’s pizza sitting here on the table right now and it smells amazing, but what am I going to do right now? Right here, in this moment, to stick to my plan. I made this promise to myself that I’m not eating pizza this month or whatever, this week. What am I going to do about that in this moment right now?
How can I control my eating in this moment, right now? Because there is an answer, but you have to look inward. And you have to start asking yourself, What can I do about this? Because the external circumstances are always going to be whatever they are, you have no control over that. You don’t have control over that.
You do have control of what you do about it, though. So reframe these situations. Don’t look outward, look inward. It’s never ever about what’s going on out there. It’s always about what’s going on inside. What can I do about this? How can I make this work? What action? What action am I going to take right now in this moment, that is in alignment with my long term goals?
So I first heard about locus of control in one of my coaching programs, this was many years ago, and I can’t even remember the class I was attending. But it was a live class. I was out in LA, I was there for about a month taking all these different coaching classes and live coaching classes before COVID and all that.
And we were in this class, and the instructor was talking, it had something to do with like the business side of coaching. And at the time, I was struggling to figure out a business plan. I had tried a few things in the past that didn’t really work. I loved coaching, but the business side of things, it just wasn’t clicking for me, you know.
And, and I felt like, I tried some things, and I kept failing. And so after the class, I went up to the instructor, and I was like, okay, I get what you’re saying here. But you have to understand, I don’t think this is going to work for me, because I’ve tried this and it failed. And I’ve tried this, and it failed. And none of this stuff ever works for me.
And I said something like, you know, I don’t think this is my fault. It’s like the economy, it’s the competition out there. You know, I don’t understand the technology, whatever, like I started, you know, kind of rattling off some of these excuses, right? And I’ll never forget this, he just looked at me and said, “Well, it’s definitely not going to work with that attitude.”
And I thought to myself, how dare you. This is not in my control. It just doesn’t work for me. It’s the economy. It’s the technology, it’s the competition or whatever. And I’ve tried these different things. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I just, I’m a failure, you know, and I was really feeling sorry for myself.
And I really had this external locus of control. I didn’t realize it at the time. But I had this aha moment where I had to accept this reality that I had a very external locus of control. And what he was saying to me, wasn’t about, you know, whether I could do it or not it was about or whether the outside circumstances had anything to do with it or not. But it was about my attitude about it. It was about my state of mind about it. It was about what I decided I was going to believe.
And if I wanted to be a successful coach and have a thriving coaching practice, then it was going to be up to me to make it happen. And yes, I’ve tried things that failed. And I tried other things that failed. And I kept trying until I figured out what really worked for me, and what felt good for me, and what was in alignment with my values and my beliefs. But it was always up to me.
It had nothing to do with anything else outside of me, it was me and my attitude. I had to stop blaming circumstances, and take ownership of my situation. And as soon as I did this, as soon as I decided that I was going to make it happen, everything shifted for me.
Now, it wasn’t like turning on a light switch. It took time to get there. But it only took a moment. It was a brief moment where I made that decision that I was never going to blame anyone else ever again. I wasn’t going to look outside of myself for reasons and excuses and be a blamer and a complainer. Like if it is to be it is up to me. If it’s going to happen, I’m gonna make it happen. That’s the only way It’s gonna work. But I made that decision and I took a moment to make that decision. Okay?
So here’s what I want you to do this week, I want you to make that decision. You can do this by taking an inventory of where you are right now. So maybe get out a piece of paper or journal, something like that, and do a little bit of writing on this, like, write down all the things that are happening in your life, what’s going well, what’s not going so well.
What are you getting? Where are you getting good results in your life? Where are you not getting good results in your life? What activities are you engaging in that you’re proud of? That are in alignment with your goals, what activities are you engaging in that are not necessarily in alignment with your goals, maybe you’re not so proud of?
Where are you in regards to your goals? Are you on track? Are you not on track? Are you feeling stuck? Like just kind of take an honest inventory and look at each of these situations with yourself in your life? And honestly, ask yourself, you know, is this something that is in my control or not? Are you in control of each of these areas of your life or not?
Because if you keep thinking, I’m not in control, this has to do with, you know, my boss at work, or my wife is not, you know, being supportive. If you keep looking outside of yourself, for answers to these situations, or reasons why you’re not making progress in these situations, you’re gonna have a really hard time changing any of that.
If you’re feeling stuck in any area of your life, you’re gonna have a hard time getting unstuck, if you continually blame others. Take control. Reframe each of those situations, what can I do about this? What can I alone do about this? How can I take control of this particular situation right now? What is my part in this? Because there’s always an answer. You are always in control. Even though it doesn’t feel like it, you are, you just have to make that decision that you are going to be in control.
Being out of control is an illusion. You know, unless somebody has you chained to a water heater in their basement, you are in control of your life. And if you’re chained to a water heater, in somebody’s basement right now, then please reach out. We’ll help you, we’ll help you get out of that situation.
But listen, you have control, you just have to make that decision that you are going to take control of your own life, that you’re going to shift that locus of Control inward. And start being 100% responsible for everything in your life. You do that and I promise you things will begin to shift for you.
Okay, it takes some time to get there. It takes some time to accomplish those things you want for yourself, but it starts with that decision. Make the decision, you’re going to shift your locus of control inward, make that decision that you’re going to start being 100% responsible for every result in your life, good or bad.
Okay, this is a game changer right here. That’s all I got for you guys today. I love you all. Keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
Most people tend to be pretty motivated when they start something. You decide you want to lose weight so you change your diet, and for the first few weeks, maybe even a month or so, you are super …
Continue Reading about 188. The Cycle of Unstoppable Motivation →
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 188, of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, the cycle of unstoppable motivation. So most people tend to be pretty motivated when they start something.
So you decide you want to lose weight. So you change your diet. And at the beginning, maybe the first few weeks, the first month or so you feel super motivated. You’re tracking your food every day, you’re sticking to the plan perfectly, and you feel good about yourself. You think, man, I’m crushing this.
But then over time that motivation begins to fade, you kind of stop tracking your food every day, you cheat on a few meals, which leads to a few more and a few more. And you just no longer feel motivated to keep going. Have you experienced this? I know I have.
This is the same reason why in January, all the gyms are full, but then in March, they’re empty again. Because people lose their motivation. So today, I’m taking a look at why that motivation fades, and what you can do to keep it going. I’m calling this the cycle of unstoppable motivation, so that you can actually crush your health and fitness goals.
But first, listen, when it comes to coaching programs, there are basically two main types of coaching out there. There’s group coaching, and private one on one coaching. Group coaching is something I do in my program where I lead a group Zoom call a couple times a week. These group calls are beneficial for a couple of reasons.
First, you get more opportunities for coaching to be held accountable, to ask questions and get answers. Second, you get to hear from people in the group who share similar goals and experience similar struggles. It’s very helpful. And third, having the support of the group is one of the main reasons why so many people are successful in my program, because they never feel alone. Right?
They always have this group of people who get it who are right there to help them and support them every step of the way. So that’s group coaching.
And then also, there’s private one on one coaching, this is probably the most powerful part of any kind of coaching relationship. This is where you and I develop your personalized plan, we make sure you’re sticking to the plan. That’s the important part. It’s one thing to have a plan, it’s another thing to stick to it, right?
And then that’s also where we make changes to that plan if necessary. One on one coaching is where you specifically are held accountable for your actions. Did you do what you said you were going to do? Yes, no, why? Why not? Losing weight and keeping it off for good requires a lot of knowledge, support, encouragement and motivation, feedback, accountability. That’s why I created my program the way that I did, because it delivers all of this and more.
If you’re interested, you can learn more about the Running Lean Coaching Project. This is my unique weight loss coaching program for runners. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me.
And if you want a little bit of help getting started with all of this stuff that I talked about here on the podcast, I created a pretty comprehensive training program that you can check out. It’s a video, I think it’s about an hour long.
It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner, Stronger Runner. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on the Free Training link to get started with that. Cool. Okay, so today I’m talking about the cycle of unstoppable motivation.
So when people set out to do something to make some kind of big change to their health or fitness, you know, like, people will join a gym or they’ll start running or they’ll change their diet. Early on in the process, they feel really motivated. They got all these positive vibes happening. They’re pretty excited.
But over time, something happens. They begin to lose the motivation to keep going. And eventually, they give up and they quit. I know you’ve experienced this in some form or fashion because I think everyone has at some point in their life, right?
Here’s the thing: we use all sorts of external excuses, and reasons why we stopped doing the thing and why we lost our motivation. People will say well, I had a bad week at work and you know, or, you know, the scale just stopped moving or it was really cold outside, so I couldn’t run outside or it was too hot outside, so I couldn’t run outside or whatever.
The bottom line is people lose their motivation and they quit. And they justify quitting with all these excuses, you know, and then they’ll say to themselves, like, why should I even bother, it’s too hard, it’s taking too long, the results aren’t coming fast enough. I don’t think this is working for me. And all of those are just excuses.
Even something like this isn’t working for me, it isn’t working, because maybe you need to change something. So instead of going off track, giving up and quitting, if you want to get results, if you want to improve your health, your fitness, if you want to change your body composition, if you want to lose weight, if you want to gain muscle, if you want to get faster. The only way to achieve this is to keep going, you can’t quit, there’s no quitting, right?
You’ve just got to keep going until you finally succeed. There’s this quote that I love. It’s like,
“Every success is built upon a big ol pile of failures, right?” So even though you think you’re failing, you gotta keep going. But people don’t keep going because they don’t feel motivated to keep going.
But here’s the thing, motivation is one of those things, and I’m gonna explain a little bit more about this in a minute here. Motivation is one of those things that we are responsible for. It doesn’t come from outside of us. It’s something that we create ourselves.
Okay, so if you want to accomplish anything, let’s just say that motivation helps, but it’s not the answer. Like you don’t have to be motivated to go run. I’m telling you what, here’s a good example: this morning, I woke up, I was tired, I didn’t sleep well last night. And for whatever reason, I woke up, and I was really tired.
And I did not want to go to the gym, I had zero motivation for going to the gym, and it was leg day, my least favorite day at the gym. And I was like, I do not want to go to the gym today. And I was saying that to myself, as I was putting my shoes on and as I was brushing my teeth and getting ready to leave the house to go to the gym.
I didn’t have the motivation. But I did it anyway, because it’s something that’s kind of become a habit for me. And while on this topic today, I’m not really talking about habits, that is kind of where we want to get to with a lot of this stuff, we want to build good habits.
Listen, if you want to lose weight, you have to stick with your food plan consistently, you’ve got to develop good habits around that. If you want to get bigger muscles, you have to continually lift weights, you got to get into a good habit around that.
If you want to run faster, you got to practice running faster, and you got to do it consistently. The problem is that most people won’t accomplish what they want for themselves, what they really want for themselves. Because it takes time, it takes time to lose weight, it takes time to get stronger, takes time to get faster.
And the road to getting there is hard. That’s why most people don’t do it. It sucks. Sometimes, today at the gym, I gotta tell you, I did not feel good. That was not fun. But I know that this is a means to an end, like I know that I suffer for an hour at the gym in the morning. And the rest of my day is amazing.
And I’m getting stronger, and it’s improving my running, and it’s improving my body composition. So we just have to understand that those things that we want for ourselves, we have to do them consistently, we have to stick to them. And that’s where this conversation comes in here.
Because how do we stay consistent? How do we stay motivated? How do we keep our head in the game, even when we don’t feel like it? That’s kind of what this whole topic is about tonight. Okay. So the goal of this talk today, this episode, is really to teach you how to make motivation a habit, how to stay motivated, how to stay on track, how to stick to the plan, how to keep taking action, even when you don’t feel like it.
When you get to that place, then there isn’t a question of whether you’re going to go to the gym or not, whether you’re going to stick to your diet or not, whether you’re going to do your speed work or not. You’re going to do it because you’ve created good habits around that. And you feel motivated to do that because you’ve created that motivation for yourself. Okay.
So here’s what I want you to visualize. I teach this to my coaching clients and I’m sharing this with you guys here today. So just so you know, this is one of those things that I teach to my clients but I thought pretty strongly about sharing this with you today.
And one of the things I can’t really show you here, but if you can imagine a visual of a circle with arrows, you know, circling around, like, you know, clockwise arrows circling around the circle. And in the circle, there are four quadrants basically.
And the first one is action. The next one, action leads to progress, which leads to confidence, which leads to motivation, which leads to action again, okay? So just, I want you to be visualizing this, you know.
I have a slide that I, when I teach this to my coaching clients, I have a slide that I use, and it shows this and it gives you a good visual, but just imagine a circle with the words action, progress, confidence, motivation around that circle, okay. I’m gonna explain what all that means here because I think it’s important to understand each one of these steps.
Okay, so the first part of the cycle, the cycle of unstoppable motivation is action. An action is everything that you do. So it’s your behaviors, your routines, your habits, it’s your plan, it’s like making a food plan and sticking to the plan, that’s taking action.
It’s like maybe abstaining from alcohol. So that’s actually something you’re not doing, you’re not taking action, but I’m going to consider that an action as well. Abstaining from alcohol is an action.
Running, you know, sticking to your running schedules, sticking to your resistance training schedule, going to bed early, so that you get a good night’s sleep. So you go, you can hit your workout at four o’clock in the morning, because you gotta do it before you work.
Reading a self help book every day, doing your morning routine, maybe some meditation, yoga, journaling. All of these things are actions. And what’s specific about these kinds of actions is that when you take these actions consistently, you start to get, you start to make progress. And you start to get results.
And the important part of taking action is that you are taking aligned action. So aligned action is actions that are in alignment with your goals. So if you take no action, you’re not going to get any results. I think we can all agree on that. Right? If you take misaligned action, so eating cake for dinner, instead of the salad and the chicken that you had planned, that’s called misaligned action, you’re going to get misaligned results. Results that are not in alignment with your long term goals.
Aligned action will give you aligned results, this will give you the results that you do want. So when you stick to your food plan, and you do this consistently, you will start to lose fat weight, you’ll start to improve your body composition, you’ll start to sleep better, you have more energy, running will improve, all those things, right. So we want to stay in aligned action.
I think we can all agree that this is pretty basic stuff right here, right. But this is where a lot of people will fall off because they stop taking that aligned action because they’re not motivated. So remember, in our circle, we have action, progress, confidence, motivation, which leads to more action and the cycle continues. Okay.
So we need to be taking consistent aligned action, that’s how we are going to make progress. So once you get started with a certain behavior, it’s much easier to just keep going and keep doing it.
It’s much harder to stop and start, stop and start. So for example, let’s say you want to eat healthy and you kind of created a healthy eating plan and you’ve stuck to it for a few weeks but then you went back and forth for a week you went and did you know back to the way you were eating before and then you decide oh, you know what I better go back to eating what I was before.
That’s a lot of work to get back started doing something like that same thing when you take a break from running . It’s much easier to just continue running and keep your fitness level up all year long. Yeah, we train in cycles.
Yes, it’s okay to take some time off here and there, but if we take an extended period of time from running because we just hate it or we don’t feel like it. I’m not talking about being injured but that can apply to you know, but that’s something you may not have as much control over.
So if you take a break from running, trying to get back into running again is really hard and I talk to people about this every day they’re like I just can’t get back into running again. It’s so hard. I took a year off because you know I got injured but then I got better but then I just didn’t feel like running, I wasn’t motivated anymore.
So keeping up and just maintaining your fitness is much easier than stopping and starting. Maintaining your good eating, your diet, your nutrition plan is much easier than starting and stopping. Okay, so we want to stay in action mode, we want to be taking a wind action. And we want to make sure that we are not relying on something like willpower to keep us going. Okay?
Taking action, taking consistent aligned action requires more than willpower, because willpower is like, it’s like a fuel tank, it gets drained as it’s used. So think about this, at the beginning of the day, you have lots of willpower, like you feel pretty, pretty strong and confident that you can stick to all your plans.
But by the end of the day, you’re like you’re tired, you’ve had an exhausting day, you’ve experienced all this stress. And that willpower has been drained that willpower tank is like empty by the end of the day. That’s why so many people just plopped down on the couch with a pint of ice cream and Netflix instead of working out when they said they’re going to work out in the evenings.
And I encourage people to, you know, work out in the mornings, if you can do it first thing in the morning and just get that out of the way, if you can do that. If you can’t, then you got to have more than willpower to get you going. And that’s kind of part of what we’re talking about here.
So really the secret of like creating and starting the cycle of unstoppable motivation is to take aligned action. And you got to take aligned action, even when you don’t feel like it. Example me this morning, putting my shoes on and going to the gym, even though I was like, not excited about it, not motivated, not feeling it. No good vibes happening at all, but I took aligned action, because I know, that’s what I want for myself. Okay.
So number one action, take aligned action, even when you don’t feel like it. What happens when you take aligned action, you make progress. And that’s kind of the second part of the cycle of unstoppable motivation, progress.
When you take consistent aligned action, you make progress. When you don’t take action, you don’t make progress, right? You can’t like lose weight by just thinking about losing weight, or listening to a podcast about losing weight or reading a book about losing weight, like you have to take action, right.
But here’s the thing, once you start seeing some progress, you start to feel good about things, right. Most weight loss principles adhere to the idea that we want to get you making progress from the very beginning and continually keep that progress going. Because that helps you to stay motivated.
Because once you start seeing progress, that progress will lead to the next step, which is building confidence. Okay, but once we see some progress, we want to keep going. We stay motivated when we’re making progress. So when we take consistent aligned action, we make progress. And we stay motivated to keep taking more because of consistent aligned action. Right.
When you make progress, you build confidence. When you make progress, you get results, even though they might be small, like little baby steps. You know, if you start lifting weights at the gym, and you expect to like grow some big giant muscles, it’s going to take some time, like, honestly, if you want to get big, like bodybuilder big, like it may take a couple of years to get there for you.
Which you just have to like understand that that’s the way these things work. And like you just have to commit to that. But progress, even if it’s minimal, we want to celebrate that and continually take action that’s going to lead to more progress. So you take more progress, you create better results, and that cycle just keeps going right? We want to measure our progress, right? So you can’t you can’t track something you can’t improve something that you don’t measure. So make sure you’re measuring progress.
Track your runs, are you getting faster? Track your weight loss, are you losing fat and gaining muscle? Track your strength training, are you getting stronger? Track your sleep, your productivity at work, everything that you want to improve, make sure you’re keeping track of this, okay?
And then also when we’re talking about progress, don’t focus on where you’re not, so don’t focus on well, you know, I really want to run a sub two half marathon. But you know, gosh, I’m at a 2:30 right now. I’ve got so much to go like it’s gonna be so hard to get there.
If you keep focusing on where you’re not though, oh man, you’re just going to be, that’s depressing. You’re going to be very unmotivated, if you’re focusing on where you’re not okay, so focus on the gain. That’s the progress that you’ve made. That’s why we track our progress, because we want to celebrate that and focus on the gains we’re making, even if they’re tiny.
And don’t focus so much on the gap. So let’s say you want to be 150 pounds, but you weigh 200 pounds, you know, you’re gonna be concentrating on that 50 pound gap. And that feels terrible. 50 pounds, oh my God, I got 49 pounds today, oh, my gosh, I got 48 more pounds to go. How about, you know what, I’ve lost a pound a week for the last three weeks. And I feel good about that. Oh, my gosh, that’s great progress, right?
I mean, that’s a very different way of looking at this, okay. So take consistent line action. When you do that, you start to make progress. Making progress helps to build confidence. That’s the next step in the cycle of unstoppable motivation, which is confidence. So confidence is a feeling, it’s an emotion, motivation is a feeling too.
Both confidence and motivation are created by you. These things are not out there. They’re not something that you get from someone else. You know, you might be inspired by somebody else. But you don’t get motivated. Motivation comes from within, you don’t get confidence from looking at what other people are doing, you get confidence because of what you do.
When you do something and you stick to your plan, you build confidence, you build trust in yourself, making progress helps to build confidence. So when you see things moving in the right direction, your confidence builds, you see that things are working, and this feels good. And you’re like, oh, you know, this could actually work, you know, I’ve started losing weight, I’ve started running a little bit faster, oh, man, I might be able to do this, oh, I might be able to hit this weight loss goal. Right.
So just the act of being consistent and taking consistent line action will create a little bit of progress and help to build your confidence. And again, we want to celebrate the wins, we want to focus on the gains, not the gap. So celebrate those successes, celebrate the progress that you make, that helps to build more progress, more confidence. And the longer you stick with something, the more confidence you create.
So keep making your plan and sticking to your plan. Keep planning on your workouts and stick to those workouts, keep planning your food and stick to that food plan. Just the act of being consistent with your plan will help to build confidence. Because honestly, that’s the only way you’re going to make progress and get results.
You don’t get results by being confident you don’t get results by being motivated, you get results by taking consistent aligned action. Okay? Again, confidence is a feeling it’s like this inner knowing that you’re on the right path.
Even if you aren’t getting much in the way of results, but you just know you’re on the right path. So building confidence is one of those things that will keep you in the game, it will keep you on track.
And one thing a lot of my clients have told me is that having somebody there like having me as a coach or the other people in the coaching group there helps them to get through some of the tough spots, helps them to stay on track.
It helps them to make progress and helps them to build their confidence. So having somebody there to hold you accountable is key to like gaining and maintaining confidence to keep you going okay? So you have all this confidence, and this is going to dramatically improve your motivation. Confidence leads to more motivation.
So now you’ve taken aligned action, you’ve made significant progress. This is building your confidence and trust in yourself. An inner knowing that you can do this, which keeps you motivated. Right. So motivation is like a general willingness or a desire to do something. It’s a feeling that drives actions and behaviors in a positive way. So now you feel like taking more aligned action. And then the cycle just continues.
So this is a beautiful thing, this cycle of unstoppable motivation, continually taking aligned action, continually making progress, feeling more confident, feeling more motivated, which leads to wanting to take more aligned action. And that’s it the cycle continues and continues.
And when you’re motivated, when you’re taking consistent aligned action, when you’re making progress, you create momentum. Momentum is what keeps the cycle moving like we want to stay in momentum, we want to keep the momentum going because momentum creates more motivation, which creates more momentum.
So you’ve heard this phrase, probably, “An object at rest remains at rest, while an object in motion remains in motion.” This is Newton’s first law of motion or inertia. So in other words, another way of saying this, and I kind of said this earlier is that it’s much easier to just keep going than it is to stop and start, stop and start, stop and start. Don’t do that.
Get into momentum, and keep the momentum going. Because once you stop, again, it’s really hard to start again. So we want to stay in the cycle, stay in the cycle of unstoppable motivation, which is you’re taking consistent aligned action, you’re making progress, you’re building confidence, you’re, you’re creating motivation to take more aligned action, making more progress, and on and on and on. Okay.
Now, there is sort of a dark side to this, this is the dark side of motivation. And I call this the cycle of demotivation, okay? The insidious cycle of demotivation. So this is where you don’t take action, or you take a misaligned action. What happens there is that it creates a lack of progress, or a regression of backwards progress, negative results, which destroys your confidence.
It creates a lack of confidence, self doubt, uncertainty, pessimism, which leads to a lack of motivation. you’re discouraged, you’re demotivated, which means that you are not motivated to take action. So you don’t take action. And you don’t make progress. And you feel less motivated and less confident. And that cycle just continues and continues, right?
Sounds depressing even talking about it. This is a terrible cycle to be in. So stay out of that cycle. How do you stay out of the cycle of insidious demotivation? Well, the first step is to never get into it in the first place. So, consistently do what it takes to stay in aligned action and consistently stick to your plan.
Just remember that when you’re in this cycle of demotivation, it’s like a whirlpool. It spins faster and faster. Like, especially in the middle. So stay out of the vortex. Like if you’re on the outskirts of this thing, and like you find yourself being pulled in a little bit. Just shut that down as fast as you can.
So that’s like, Oh, I missed a workout. Okay, well get out of this. Get out of the Whirlpool, get out of the vortex. Oh, you know, I had a cheat meal. I just couldn’t give up this donut they had in the break room at work like, okay, next meal, you get back on track, you skipped a workout. Great. Next workout, you’re back on track, stay out of the cycle of demotivation. Right?
Just because you screwed up once it doesn’t mean you’re done. Right? Stay out of that get back into align action as soon as possible. Failure is never final. Just because you screwed up. It doesn’t mean you are done. Right? You pick yourself up again, you look at what you did. Think about what you could do differently next time, and then get back on track as soon as possible.
We never miss two workouts in a row. We never have two cheat meals in a row. Okay, be consistent consistency beats perfection. You’ll never do all this stuff perfectly. Nobody’s expecting you to. I don’t do it perfectly. Nobody I work with does this perfectly. But yet, we all get amazing results. Because we do these things consistently. We are not after 100% perfection. We’re after 90%. Some days 95%. Some days might be 100%. Whatever it is, we want to be just taking consistent aligned action. Okay. So don’t get out of control.
Just, you know, another way of thinking about this is like divide your day up into four quarters. So we have like, early morning, late morning, afternoon, evening. And if you give into temptation, eat some cookies at lunch like okay, you lost that quarter. You lost your afternoon, quarter. No big deal. Now your goal is to win the next quarter. You might lose a quarter, no big deal. Don’t lose the day. Get back on track ASAP when the next quarter.
Losing a quarter will happen. It happens to all of us, okay. Never, ever lose two in a row. Never ever lose the day. Okay. That is how you stay in the cycle of unstoppable motivation. Take consistent aligned action, make progress, get results, feel confident. That increases your motivation to take more consistent aligned action and on and on and on that’s where I want you to be.
You do that, you’re golden. Cool, alright that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I’ll talk to you soon.
A lot of people set out to lose weight and then quit. They change their diet, start exercising, and then at some point just throw up their hands and give up. This was definitely me and it was …
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 184 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, The Incredible Power of Focus. So a lot of people set out to lose weight and then at some point they quit.
They changed their diet, they started exercising, and then at some point, they just throw up their hands and they give up. This was definitely me, and it was probably you at some point, I’m guessing.
And while there are a lot of reasons why someone might just give up on themselves, one of the most likely reasons is a serious lack of focus. Being focused means more than just paying attention to what’s in front of you, it can actually be the key to accomplishing all your health and fitness goals.
So in this episode, I uncover the incredible power of focus and how it can help you become the leaner, stronger, more badass runner you’ve always wanted to be. But first, I often get asked by runners who want to lose weight, how to get started, how to get started with proper nutrition, resistance training, how to get stronger how to improve their running, maybe run longer or run faster, or maybe they just want more energy, they want to improve themselves from the inside out.
I get asked this so much that I put together a free training program designed to do just that to get you started on your health and fitness journey to get you started on your weight loss journey. And it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
If you’re looking for a great place to start, this is it. It’s an on demand video training. So you can go through it at your own pace, whenever it’s convenient for you, you’ll learn what it means to eat real food, how to improve your ability to burn fat, how to get stronger, how to increase your endurance as a runner, and so much more, just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training to get started.
Alright, let’s talk about the incredible power of focus. So if we look up the definition of focus, there’s a couple. One of them is, “The center of interest directivity.”
Another one is, “A clear visual definition.” That’s like when you take a camera and you bring something into focus into clearer visual definition.
And the third definition here is, “To pay particular attention to something.”
Okay. So when we think about focus, I want you to think about a couple different ways of looking at this, you know, this is the center of your interest, you’re putting your mindset on something, and you are paying very close attention to that something or paying particular attention to that area of interest or activity and bringing it into clearer focus, bringing it into clearer definition.
So I like all of those definitions of the word, focus, think about focus this way. And this, this describes the incredible power of focus for sure. If you were to take a 150 watt light bulb, and you are to put it on a lamp in the middle of a large room and turn it on middle of a dark room, and you turn on that 150 watt light bulb, it would scatter light all over the room and light up the room you wouldn’t be able to see in a dark room. Very cool, right?
But if you were to take that same 150 watts, and focus the light into a very small laser beam, you could actually cut through steel with that same amount of light, it’s the same amount of energy, the same amount of light being produced, but it is focused.
And you can see that the power of that focused beam of light is much more powerful than a light bulb that’s just scattered as its light all over the place. There’s nothing wrong with a light bulb, it’s doing its job, it’s lighting up the room. But think about how much more powerful that light is when it is focused.
Okay, your focus is similar. If it’s spread all over the place, if there’s no precise direction to it, if you’re scattered. I mean this is okay and most of us live our lives this way where we kind of scatter our focus and our attention everywhere. And that’s okay. But what would happen, if you took that same amount of energy and you concentrated it?
What if you were to concentrate that energy more precisely on certain areas of your life, on certain goals that you have for yourself? I think things would change dramatically for you. And I think you would agree with that, you would become unstoppable. You could accomplish amazing things.
You know, if you want to lose weight, this requires focused energy. And a lot of people that give up, that quit things, they do it because they lack the focus, they lack the ability to stay focused on the goal.
What do you need to succeed at anything, especially like, health and fitness goals? You need a very clear, focused vision for that end result that you’re looking for. Who is it that you want to become? What do you really want for yourself? What does the future version of you look like?
And we talk about this a lot in my coaching program, when you’re a client of mine, I kind of make you go through this process of like painting a very clear picture of what that future version of you looks like.
What do you look like? How are you sleeping? How? How is your life different than it is today? How are your clothes fitting you? What clothes are you wearing? Are you comfortable taking your shirt off at the pool? You know, things like that.
And when we have this clear vision of our future self, when we have this sense of purpose, and we know exactly what we want for ourselves, well, that’s good, because now we have focus, we have direction, we have a plan a path steps, we can change our actions and behaviors because we know where we’re going.
But you have to have a clear and organized version of that future self, you have to have a clear and focused vision for who you want to become if you want to become that person. Because without a clear vision for yourself, you’re just going to be like, whatever.
So when we have this clear focus, this creates a lot of consistency, it creates a lot of motivation. And we’ll talk about more of that in a minute. But you are more likely to reach those goals. Because you have a clear vision for who you want to become.
When you don’t have focus, you don’t understand where you’re going, you know, you have no clarity of purpose, no clear vision for your future self. There’s no like big picture here, or you have a big picture, but it’s very, it’s like a blurry big picture. It’s not focused, right?
And without focus, we tend to forget our purpose, why we want these things for ourselves. So your health, your fitness, your exercise, your nutrition, it’s all scattered, right? No direction, no motivation to do anything. Because it doesn’t really matter. Because you don’t have that sense of purpose.
You don’t have that clear vision for who you want to become which just drives your motivation down. And this is why people quit. Because they don’t have that focus, they don’t have that clear vision of their future self.
And when you don’t have motivation, you lack progress. You don’t get the results you want. And of course, you’re gonna quit, why would you keep going. But with focus, you create that clear vision of your future self, you have that clarity of purpose, you have very clear goals, and dreams and hopes and things that you want to accomplish for yourself.
This is amazing at helping you to maintain motivation. Because without focus, you get very, it’s very demotivating. You know, you’re just scattered all over the place. You don’t even know where you’re going. How can you even track progress? You know, and that’s where you kind of lose motivation and give up.
But with focus, you maintain motivation. You continually make progress because you’re, you’re taking consistent aligned action. And you end up getting the results that you want, you produce results consistently. And even small results, even if they are, you know, small wins, achieved consistently you will eventually reach your goal.
It’s like running an ultra marathon. It doesn’t matter how slow you go, you gotta run 100 miles, just keep moving forward. But when you stop moving, or when you go backwards, or your heart isn’t in it anymore, and you have no clear vision of where you want to be at the end.
And there’s no purpose for you to continue, why would you continue? It’s just so easy to give up. Okay, so you can start to see, I’m hoping anyway, I hope you can start to see that focus is the key here. Whatever it is you want to accomplish, you want to lose weight, it takes time.
If you want to run an ultra marathon, it takes time, it takes time for the training, it takes time to do that actual event as well. And these things mean that you are going to have to spend a lot of time staying focused, so you stay in the game.
And another way of thinking about focus is this word, constraint, think about constraint. So what is the definition of constraint? This means a limitation or a restriction. And I know when people hear this, they think of this in a negative way, oh, I don’t want to be restricted, I don’t want to be limited. But don’t think about it in a negative way.
Think about it as restricting or limiting your focus to you know, one thing at a time. So constraint of focus is very important. And they’re similar. But it’s almost like taking your focus and really fine tuning it, it’s like, you know, that laser that I’m talking about earlier, instead of being a light bulb, be the laser constraint helps you to do this.
So we don’t want to scatter our focus all over the place, we want it to be very laser like and so constrained is how we do this. So one thing to understand is that people make a big deal about their ability to multitask.
And I don’t know if you guys know this or not, but multitasking is really not something we do well. It’s just as nice as it would be to be able to do two things at once. Lots and lots of studies have shown that the human brain simply isn’t capable of paying full attention to more than one thing at a time.
In fact, our brain has evolved to be really good at single tasking, to only be able to think about or do one thing at a time. So when somebody says they’re multitasking, that’s just somebody who is scattered. They’re trying to justify it. Oh, I’m just, I’m a multitasker. It’s like, no, you’re just not focused. You lack focus and constraint. Okay.
So multitasking is not real, we want to focus on one thing at a time. And let’s, you know, see what this would look like. So if you want to achieve health and fitness goals, you know, and like I said, these things take time, you want to lose weight, it’s going to take time, you want to become a runner, and just be able to run a half marathon or marathon or a 5k, whatever this takes time.
It’s really hard to get out there and just like run and accomplish something big from a running perspective. Or lifting weights at the gym, you know, you want to build some muscle you want to, you know, get more toned, that is not something that you’re going to see right away, you can’t go to the gym three times and be toned, like it takes a while months of hard work to get to that place. Right. And so we don’t see results for a while.
So we need to stay focused. And we need to practice constraint. So here’s an example of someone who’s trying to lose weight, let’s say you’re, you want to lose weight. And you are really motivated to lose weight.
And so you are going to do everything all at once you’re going to cut calories, and give up sugar, and start intermittent fasting and cut out snacking. And you’re going to start logging all your food and tracking your food and an app and counting your macros and skipping breakfast and doing all your workouts fasted.
And I will tell you that this approach can feel way too overwhelming. It’s just too much to change all at once. And you are very likely to fail and or quit. And a quick story of one of my clients who was very motivated early on in the process. And he came to me and on our first call, he had said okay, I’ve made all these changes.
And he literally was doing everything I just said. And he was like I’m super motivated. I’m doing all these things. And I said listen, I really don’t recommend that because you’re going to kind of feel overwhelmed and you’re probably not going to be able to sustain this very long.
But he was determined that it was fine that he could do it all. And so I said okay, let’s see how it goes. And two weeks later, he was like I can’t do this. He could not maintain that type of lifestyle, you know, all those changes at once was way too much for him.
So I said, Okay, let’s just start over. Let’s start over. Okay. But I don’t know about you, I have done this before, too, because I get this, like, you know, what do they call it shiny object syndrome, where I’m like, oh, this is cool. Oh, look at this cool thing over here. Let’s try that too. Oh, that looks fun. I saw that on Instagram. Oh, let’s try that.
So when we have shiny object syndrome, and we try all these different things at once, that all sounds great, but it’s too much. It’s too much. And it’s really hard to maintain that, especially when it comes to, you know, lifestyle changes, like from a nutrition and exercise standpoint, okay.
So constraint means focusing on one thing at a time. So for this particular person, and for you, and for others, I would say, let’s just start with one thing, like, let’s give up sugar, let’s just give that a couple of weeks, see how you feel, get over the withdrawal symptoms, which are real, by the way, once you feel good about where you are, and you’ve gotten over that initial withdrawal from sugar, and you’re starting to feel better, let’s go on to step two. Let’s try something else. Right.
And this is my strategy with clients. It’s always a layered approach, we make one or two small changes, we wait a couple of weeks, we see how things are working or not working. And then we can layer on the next change. This is my, I call this like my layered approach, right?
We’re layering on different changes, making sure that your body and your mind adjust to these things, and give you enough time to adjust to these things. So that then when we move on to the next thing, it doesn’t feel so overwhelming. You’re like, oh, I already got this one thing, let’s, let’s go on to step number two.
So this practice is very effective. It gives you the ability to get used to one small change at a time, this is how you change habits. Right? You cannot change habits by changing everything at once. You have to do these one step at a time.
So this is where constraint is very important, right? This practice is effective because it gives you feedback. And so you know exactly what’s working. What isn’t? Because you’ve only changed the one thing, if you change 10 things, how do you know which one of these things is making you feel terrible, you just don’t know?
Alright, so we change one thing at a time. And then this practice is also sustainable, because we are constraining our changes to one thing at a time. You get used to each stage to each change before we move on to the next stage before we move on to the next change. And so building habits this way is very powerful, very effective.
Okay, so let’s, let’s talk about how to get started with this. How do you get started with practicing constraint and focus? And I want you to start with that vision for your future self. So who are you becoming? Where do you want to be in 6 to 12 months? What goals do you have for yourself?
Do you want to lose weight, improve your strength, you want to get faster, maybe you want to qualify for Boston or run that ultra marathon. Maybe you’re just someone who’s like, I just need to fix my dysfunctional relationship with food. Whatever it is, be very clear and focused on who you want to be. And then write it down.
And then spend at least five minutes a day thinking about this future version of yourself every single day, spend some time writing about it, journaling about it, reading those journal entries, recording a voice memos, talking to somebody else about your goals and your dreams for your future for yourself who you want to become.
Everything that you want for yourself, every accomplishment that you want to achieve starts in your mind. It starts with thinking about who you want to be, and what you want that end result to be, what is the outcome you’re looking for. And the more focused and the more clear that vision of your future self is, the more likely you are to achieve that.
So spend time every single day thinking about who you want to be, you have to have this very clear vision of who you want to be if you want to get there, right? If you don’t have focus around your goals and the vision for your future self you’re just going to fail. So don’t skip this step. Consistent focus on your future self will help you stay motivated. It will help you keep your head in the game and keep you making progress towards those goals.
Keep reminding yourself why you’re doing what you’re doing. People who don’t do this, they will be motivated at the beginning of the process. You know, we all get motivated when we make a change. Oh I’m gonna lose weight. I’m gonna change my diet. I’m gonna stop eating sugar and they feel motivated at the beginning.
But over time, that motivation will fade and then they will think that they are just a failure, that they can’t do this, that it will never work for them. That is not true. The actual truth is they just lost their focus. That’s it. Clarity of purpose, that’s the key.
Keep reminding yourself of this purpose, keep reminding yourself why this is important to you, and you will stay motivated. And you will be much more consistent in your actions. And you’ll keep moving toward that vision of yourself for the future. Okay, so start with that vision of who you want to become. And then you have to practice constraint.
And this is the thing that is hard for most people, because I’m going to tell you, just pick one thing to change. You know, pick an area of your life, whether it’s, you know, running, getting faster, improving your endurance, whether it’s losing weight, or getting stronger, pick one area, and then pick one, you know, behavior that you want to change one action that you want to change, don’t get sucked into the shiny object syndrome, where you want to try to change everything at once.
Just choose one area, and then one action item that you can do and give it a couple of weeks, you know, like giving up sugar. Give that a couple of weeks and see how it’s going for you. What are the results? Is this working, or not? Is this terrible? Do I still feel terrible? Or am I feeling better now?
Okay, but don’t be tempted to keep changing things every single day. Don’t do everything at once, make one small change, and then make sure that you’ve adapted to that change before layering on the next thing. And then it’s just a matter of rinsing and repeating this process, because over time, you will find that changing habits is much easier if you practice constraint instead of trying to do it all at once.
And then the third part of this is to have a plan. Being focused means that you have a plan. And of course, you got to stick to the plan. But people who lack focus, people who are scattered, they don’t have a plan.
Their plan is to just wing it with everything that they do. And how does that work for you? That doesn’t work very good. I’m gonna tell you, it might work in the moment, and sometimes we do have to wing it. And that’s just because, you know, maybe something happened externally. And your plan has to change because of outside circumstances that you have no control over.
And that is completely fine. But winging it is not a plan, okay. So I always tell my clients that the key to accomplishing everything that they want is to have a plan, right and stick to the plan. That’s the important part, right? You got to have a plan, but then you got to stick to the plan, right?
Being focused and practicing constraint. This gives you the ability to stay on track. And it helps you to continue to make minor changes, tweaking the plan if necessary. But when you’re focused and you’re practicing constraint, it means you are working a plan very intentionally, not haphazardly.
Like you’re, you’re doing everything with intention. With direction you have a laser-like focus on what you’re doing. And then what the next thing is, what’s that next step that’s going to move you closer to your goals. Without focus, you don’t have any idea what the next step is, with focus.
And with constraint, you know exactly what the next step is, because you’ve planned it in advance, and then you do it because you’re not distracted by a million other things. So make a plan. And stick to the plan. This is simple, but it requires you to be focused and it requires constraint, okay.
Remember to continue focusing on your future self always. And anytime you feel like you’re stuck, or you’re lacking motivation, you don’t feel like going to the gym, you don’t feel like running, whatever it is, remember why you’re doing this, go back to that future version of yourself, spend some time in that place. And then the other thing should fall into place for you here.
And then lastly, be careful where you put your focus. So if you focus on the negative on the things that are not working for you, you’re going to feel terrible, you’re going to feel less motivated, and you’re probably going to quit. So if you focus on your failures, you’re destined to repeat them and continue to fail.
If you focus on how long it’s taking, or I can’t do this or I’m a failure or this is too hard. It will continue to be hard, it will continue. You will continue not to be able to do it and you will continue to fail, right. If you keep focusing on the negative, you’re going to feel more and more negative and keep getting more negative results.
You always get more of what you focus on. So focus on what you want. Have you ever noticed that negative people always seem to attract more and more negativity into their lives? Have you ever noticed that positive people seem to attract more and more positivity into their lives?
It all has to do with where they put their focus, you get more of what you focus on. So focus on what you really want. And I love this quote from Bruce Lee that says, “The successful warrior is the average man or woman with laser-like focus.”
So be the successful warrior. Maintain laser-like focus on your goals and your dreams, and you’ll experience success like never before.
And then lastly, have you ever thought about doing something hard and then just decided I can’t do that? I’ve done this many times. I’ve told myself, I can’t lose weight. I can’t run a marathon. I can’t finish an Ironman. And the problem with thoughts like I can’t is that that thought becomes the truth for you.
Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” And I love this quote so much because it sums up this whole principle beautifully. It means that whatever you believe you can or can’t do will be true for you.
So thoughts like ‘I can’t’, they don’t serve any purpose other than to keep you stuck and limit your potential. By the way, I stopped saying I can’t a long time ago. Since then, I’ve been able to lose weight. Keep the weight off for good. I’ve run like 20 marathons, I finished the Ironman Triathlon.
Stop saying I can’t and start saying I can and see what amazing things you’ll be able to accomplish. Let’s you and I work together to see what you can do. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more about my unique weight loss coaching program for runners. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you want different results you have to do things differently, right? But doing things differently requires some work, it’s an uncomfortable process, and honestly, this is why most people refuse …
Continue Reading about 170. Getting Started With Habit Change →
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 170 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners and today, Getting Started With Habit Change. If you want different results, you have to do things differently, right?
But doing things differently requires some work. It’s an uncomfortable process. And honestly, it’s why most people just refuse to change. But what if you could make changing easier? What if you could replace a bunch of your bad habits with good ones that would make change much easier? Right? It’d be amazing.
That’s the basic premise of developing good habits: making things like living a healthy lifestyle automatic, make it easy. But again, most people won’t do the work to change their habits because change is hard. And it doesn’t feel good. Not at first anyway.
So today, I’m going to give you some actionable tips on getting started with habit change. Because if you can just get started, you can start making progress. Change won’t happen if you never start. So let’s get started, shall we?
But first, I think you will agree with me when I say that most fad diets don’t work. Have you ever tried a fad diet? I have, I’ve tried all of them. The promise of a fad diet is that it’s the best and fastest way to lose weight. And a lot of them will tell you it’s the only way and nothing else works, but this way does work.
And every year millions of people get sucked into this idea that this thing is going to be different. This thing is going to be the cure all for everything right. And every year millions of people are disappointed because they don’t get the results that they want. Why? Because fad diets are not sustainable.
Humans are not designed to survive on cabbage soup alone, or just grapefruit or baby food or whatever the latest trend is, baby food diet. That’s actually a thing by the way. I know, weird, right? These fad diets may help you lose weight in the short term, but they don’t teach you how to change your habits.
They don’t teach you how to change your lifestyle. They don’t teach you how to make this something that is sustainable because eating baby food or grapefruits or cabbage soup for the rest of your life is totally not sustainable. Right. A big focus of my coaching program is to teach you how to integrate healthy eating habits into your life for good in a way that is sustainable for you as an individual.
So a rule of thumb, I think we can all follow here is that if you can’t sustain it, just don’t do it. Stay away from the weird fat diets. And just do what we’ve always done as human beings eat real food, food that still looks like food. Food our ancient ancestors would still recognize they can go oh, well, I know what that is. Because you can’t go wrong with this plan, right?
And if you want some help with this, if you want some guidance every step of the way through this whole process, check out my unique weight loss coaching program for runners just go to runningleancoaching.com/join. You can learn all about my program. And I hope you see hope to see you in the Running Lean Coaching Project where the project is always you.
Okay, so today I wanted to talk about getting started with habit change. Because when it comes to changing habits, I think we all know that there’s processes involved, and that there are some things that we can do. There’s been books written about this, to really, you know, change habits and make them last for good. Okay.
But just getting started with this whole process feels overwhelming for a lot of people. And I wanted to take some time today to just go over a few principles and give you a few tips and ideas for getting started with habit change. Because if you can just start doing things differently, if you can just start making some effort and getting some movement happening, then you can start to see some progress happening. Okay.
If you want to change anything in your life, you’ve got to do things differently. All right. I think we can all agree on that and doing things differently is the challenging part because we’re just so used to doing things a certain way, it’s so ingrained into our brain that this is the way I do things that doing something differently feels uncomfortable, it feels scary, it feels foreign to us.
And until those new things become a habit, it’s going to feel uncomfortable and scary and foreign, so just getting started with this process. A lot of people will not even bother, they won’t even bother starting and changing something because the whole process feels too hard, it feels too scary, it’s gonna be a challenge. But if you’re willing to accept the challenge, then you can start making progress, and you can start creating good habits in a lot of different areas of your life.
Okay, today, I want to focus on a few I want to focus on, you know, weight loss is a topic I talk about a lot in here, as a weight loss coach for runners, this is a topic that I’m going to focus on a lot. So I’m going to kind of frame the conversation today, around you know, losing weight and changing your diet, but you can apply these same principles to any habits that you want to change.
The principles will be the same if you’re trying to get stronger, or improve your running or, you know, improve your relationship or, you know, improve your career or you know, better the relationship with your kids or whatever it is. There’s so many different ways that we can apply these same principles in different areas of our life. It’s not just related to weight loss, but that’s my jam. So that’s what I’m going to be talking about today.
So the first thing I want to say is that you have to just start, and I know this seems like too rudimentary. But so many people procrastinate changing. They procrastinate getting started, that they never take action. Have you ever said I really want to lose weight, or I really want to run a marathon, but I’m just going to wait until X, Y or Z happens and then I’ll start?
You know, I want to wait until after the New Year, or I want to wait until after St. Patrick’s Day, or I want to wait until when the summer comes around, or I want to wait until; you know what I mean. And we could just do that forever. Why don’t you just start right now? And you can come up with all kinds of excuses, and all kinds of stories and all kinds of reasons why you can’t start right now.
But it all boils down to you’re just afraid. And that’s it, and it’s okay. It’s okay to be afraid to start. Because getting started with something like this can be a little bit scary. If you’re somebody who’s like, man, I’ve been wanting to lose weight for 10 years. And I’ve got a lot of weight to lose, like 50 pounds.
And you know, just getting started just feels so daunting and scary. Because what if I fail, I failed before, but I do really want to do this, but maybe I’ll just wait until and then you fill in the blank with whatever is going to happen. And whenever the planets align or whatever. Just throw all that garbage out the window and just start right now. Start right now.
If you want to just start losing weight right now, I’m going to give you one tip that will absolutely point you in the right direction. Just stop eating sugar. Do that today. If you do that, starting today, I promise you a week from now, if you stick with it, you’ll feel better and you’ll probably lose some weight. And you’ll be like, dang, why didn’t I start that earlier?
I can’t tell you how many people come to me for coaching. And we start working together. And we start to put together a plan for them and they start feeling better and running gets better and they’re losing weight and they’re feeling amazing and they’re sleeping better. And they’re like I had been thinking about working with you for like two years and I just finally said why didn’t I do this earlier?
Well, gosh, I’m just kicking myself for not starting earlier. I’m like well let’s just, you know, it takes what it takes but I just want to encourage you that wherever you are right now is a perfect time to get started. It is the perfect time to change, it is the perfect time to give up junk food or sugar or whatever it is that is your Achilles heel. Okay, so just get started, stop saying later.
Stop waiting for the planets to align, they never do. Although the whole Mercury being in retrograde thing is just messing with my computer, right? Is that a thing? I think it is a thing. So don’t wait for that to happen just like do your thing and do it now get started now. This idea of later is a killer of hopes and dreams. Later, later, later, because later never happens. Okay, so the first thing is just like start, just start where you are is fine.
And the next thing is that I want you to start simple, don’t overcomplicate this stuff, we have to make things very, very simple. At the beginning, when I’m working with new people, we change a couple of things, okay? I might say like, Hey, we’re going to stop eating sugar, we’re going to stay away from, you know, junk food, we’re going to limit how much you know, carbohydrates, you’re eating, whatever, like it all goes a little bit different for each person.
But we start with a few things, we see how that goes for a week or two, and then we layer on something else, okay? If you try to change 27 things at once, it is going to be too overwhelming for you. And it’s funny, because I’ve worked with a couple people who have told me like, I can handle it, Patrick, just tell me everything right now, I want to start doing it all.
And I’m like, okay, here’s a few things. And I’ll lay out five or six things, you know, that they can change. And, you know, they’ll start doing all these things. And they’ll message me like three days later, and they’re like, okay, that was too much, is too overwhelming for me, I can’t do all this stuff all at once. I’m like, I know.
So we change a few things at a time. First, for a lot of reasons. Number one is like we want to get your body used to doing things a little bit differently. And if you remove sugar, if you’re somebody that’s eating a lot of carbs, a lot of sugar, and we lower your carb intake and stop eating sugar and refined grains, that might be a bit of a shock to your system, you know, and so we want to get your body like feeling good again.
And then we can layer on the next thing, okay. That’s why one of the reasons why we do this also, from a psychological standpoint, we can handle a couple changes at once, one or two things, but much more than that, and we just feel too overwhelmed. And we’re more likely to give up because it feels too overwhelming.
So start simple, start very simple. Change one thing, give up sugar, just stop eating sugar for a week, see how you feel okay? I heard this recently, I like this principle called the ABZ principle. That’s like Alpha Beta Zulu. And the ABZ principle is this. Where you are right now is A and where you want to be eventually, maybe lose 50 pounds, that’s going to be Z.
All right, that’s the end game, where you want to be is the next aligned action. That is your next step. That’s what you’re going to do. Now. That’s where your focus is on B, keep your focus there. Do not worry about steps C through Y. We’ll get there later. Start where you are. Start with here you are at A and I’m going to focus on B right now. I’ll get to C later.
And then D, E and F and so on. But for right now it’s just B, that’s all we’re going to focus on right now. If you can just use that kind of as a basic principle for habit change, this whole process is going to become so much easier for you, because you’re not overwhelming yourself. You’re literally just working on the next aligned action, what is the next thing I can do that will move me an inch closer to Z?
Not three feet closer, just an inch or two. That’s all we want to focus on right now. Okay, so just keep it very, very simple, especially at the beginning. And think about all the different ways that you can simplify the process of habit change, it could be as simple as like, okay, I really want to get in the habit of eating healthy food every day at lunch. And so one way I’m going to simplify that process is to meal prep once a week on Sunday afternoon. And then I’m going to have my lunches all prepared.
You know, when I go to work, I can just grab one of those and I’m done. I don’t have to think about it. I’ve simplified that part of the plan. You know, I don’t have to think about what I’m going to do every single day. I’ve kind of made it very, very simple. And that right there. That simple little tip right there is going to help you increase your compliance every single day.
It’s going to be much easier to stay on track and develop a good habit of eating healthy lunches, if you’ve already prepped them ahead of time, right? So keep it simple. And then make it simplify the process as well as much as you can. If you want to get in the habit of running early in the morning, every other day or whatever; get out your running clothes and your running shoes the night before, lay it all out, get it all ready to go so that when you wake up in the morning, all you have to do is slip out of bed and slip into those running clothes and slip out the door and you’re ready and you’re running.
If you can just kind of get in the habit of putting out those clothes the night before, when you’re thinking clearly and it’s not like cold outside and you’re in bed all snuggled up all warm and thinking about being outside, get yourself ready the night before. That way, when you wake up in the morning, you’re just like ready to go. And you can just get right into the start of developing that habit of getting into running right away. You don’t have to think about it because you’ve already made that decision ahead of time. Okay.
Another way of developing good habits, especially at the beginning, is to kind of ritualize some of the things that we do and, and putting out those running clothes would be kind of an example of a ritual that makes things simple as well. But it’s also a way of building into your day, some rituals so that some of these things can become habits for you.
So I’ve used this analogy of like a sports team, whatever. Like they have pregame routines, right? You’ve seen the baseball players, they’ll go out and they’ll toss the ball around. And they kind of do the same thing. Every single time. Football players do drills, whatever, I guess I don’t really know. But I have seen baseball players go out there and toss the ball around.
Today, by the way, I took a little run through downtown Cincinnati. And it happens to be Opening Day. Opening Day is a big deal here in Cincinnati as like the first official baseball team in the United States, Cincinnati Reds. And we have a big parade every year. And so there’s thousands of people downtown kind of playing in the streets getting ready for this parade.
I didn’t even know it was Opening Day until I was running down there. But I was like, oh, this is so cool. This is so fun, you know, but it just got me thinking about like baseball and how they have these pregame routines, these rituals that they go through. And they do this not because they’re really trying to warm up, you know, that’s probably a little bit of it. But it’s a little bit of just like they’re preparing their mind, and they’re preparing their body to start to do this work that they’re going to do, okay.
So if you’re somebody that wants to change your day, you want to feel a little bit more, you know, mindful during your day and you want to, you know, start your day on the right track every day, create like a morning routine.
So you might get up, you might put the coffee on, you might do a little meditation, you might spend a few minutes journaling, that would be a great way to start every single day. So you’ve developed this ritual, about how you start your day. And if you want to feel better throughout your day, every day consistently, then maybe starting every day with the same morning routine.
Much like baseball players start a game with the same warmup routine, you are going to set yourself up; mind, body and spirit to like, you know, approach that day in a more mindful way. Same thing, like if you want to sleep better at night, maybe have a wind down routine at the end of your day. So you can start your day with a morning routine, you can end your day with a wind down routine, where you might dim the lights for a little while, you might do some journaling or some reading, you know before going to bed.
You know you brush your teeth, you put your pajamas on, you kind of get in bed, like whatever that looks like for you create a little bit of a routine around some of these things, make it a ritual and it will make the process of winding down much easier for you and you’ll probably sleep better if you get into this habit of of this ritualistic routine, okay.
Your pregame routine is what’s going to get you into action that’s going to get you to start the process of taking action when you don’t feel like it. So you may wake up in the morning and you’re like I don’t feel like doing much today, but I’m just gonna go ahead and get up every day and I do my journaling and meditation. So I’m just going to start with that. And just the process of doing that will set you up for a better day. Right there. Even though you may not even feel like it. It’s just gonna make it that much easier for you. Okay.
Another way to get started with changing habits is that you have to make changes to your environment. And there’s a lot of different ways of looking at this and a lot of different ways to interpret what I mean when I say environment. And I’ll give you a couple examples here.
One of them is if you if you want to start eating better, and you want to stop eating junk food, get the junk food out of the house, you have to get that stuff out of your house, the environment that you live in the environment that you spend the most amount of time in, cannot be laden with junk food everywhere you look.
Every time you open the fridge or the pantry, or you look on the counter and you see cookies, or ice cream, or whatever, chips, pretzels, just junk, just, that’s going to make it very hard for you to stay on track, right. So you’ve got to change your environment and clean out the fridge, clean out the pantry. If you only have one option for the food that you have in your house, and it’s healthy food, and it’s food that’s on your plan, you’re going to be so much more likely to stay on track and develop good habits around what you eat and what you don’t eat.
The more you can control your default food environment, the healthier you are going to be. For most of us, our default food environment is our house, our own home. And if you can control the heck out of that you are well on your way to being the healthiest version of yourself. Some other forms of environment that we can change to improve our compliance and to improve our ability to create good habits is things like what we’re reading, what we’re listening to, what we’re watching, the people we’re hanging around, this is all part of your environment, okay.
I’m a person who likes to consume a lot of content. So I read a lot of books. I listen to podcasts, I listen to audiobooks. I watch documentaries, I hang around people, I follow people online. And all these people are like, people that lift me up. The books I read are on topics like habit change, and nutrition. The podcasts I listen to are on things like mindset, and coaching, and improving your health and your fitness and strength and, and all the stuff that I’m constantly immersed in.
This world of healthy, living, healthy eating, I’m always learning, I’m always growing and evolving. One way that you can do this is to join a running group. If you have a local running group, join the group and immerse yourself in this world of running with other people. Because you’re going to be surrounded by other people who have similar goals.
Maybe you’re all training for the same marathon, or half marathon, or 5k, or whatever. But when you’re surrounded by people who get it, who are all kind of doing the same thing. You’re listening to podcasts on that subject, you’re reading books on that subject, and your world becomes like focused on running marathons – you’re gonna be so much more successful, and so much more driven, to stay on track and create good habits.
So immerse yourself in this world of losing weight, healthy living. This is one of the reasons I designed my coaching program the way that I did. It’s designed exactly for this purpose, to help you stay surrounded by people who get it, who will encourage you, who lift you up, who inspire you and motivate you and who help you stay on track.
The people who show up for all my group coaching calls, the people who do the homework, who immerse themselves into this program, honestly, they get the best results. So if you want to get started with habit change, one of the best things you can do is sort of immerse yourself in this world of healthy eating, of nutrition, of running, of losing weight, all that stuff.
And I promise you, it’s going to make changing your habits so much easier because everybody that’s around you is doing the same thing. You know, they say if you surround yourself with that you’re kind of the sum of the five people you spend the most time with. And I love that because if you spend your time around, you know five people who eat junk food, you’re probably the sixth.
If you spend your time with five really overweight people Well, you’ll probably be the sixth. If you spend your time with five people who run marathons, you’ll probably be the six or five people who are losing weight, you will probably be the sixth. Okay? So immerse yourself into this environment of being a healthy person, and you will be.
And then lastly, you know, this is something that is often overlooked. And a lot of people don’t really talk about this. But when it comes to losing weight, and changing habits, and getting healthier and getting stronger, I think people have this presupposition, this idea that it has to be a suffer fest, that in order to lose weight, you’re going to have to suffer your way to your weight loss goal, and it’s going to really suck.
Now, I’ll be honest, there are times when it might, and I talk about this, I say, hey, you know, you have to embrace the suck sometimes, right? But that doesn’t mean it has to be a suffer fest through the whole process. So my last tip for you is that whatever you’re doing, you have to make it fun. You cannot suffer your way to your ideal weight. I mean, you can and some people do, but I do not recommend that.
So you need to find some ways of making the process fun. And in my coaching program, I try so hard to have fun with it and be light hearted. And we laugh and I think we do have fun doing this. Okay, we don’t, you know, sit there and you know mope around about this. There’s times when it’s challenging for us and for me and for you, and I get all that. But for the most part, we have fun doing this, we look for ways of making this process fun.
So how can you put some fun into changing your habits or getting started with habit change? Now fun is very subjective, it’s going to look different for different people. For me, I enjoy trying some different foods, and you know, kind of changing up my diet every now and then. And, you know, still focused on the principles that I teach and, you know, in maintaining high protein and you know, a lower carb approach for the gym, for the most part, you know, in general that works for me, other people, like, you know, eat more carbs and stuff like that.
But I try to have fun doing this. I try to make eating part of the process of having fun. I recently made some green enchiladas with my girlfriend. We made this big casserole dish of enchiladas that were so amazing; chicken enchiladas and with cheese and sour cream and green enchilada sauce and hot salsa stuff. So much fun. Like we had a really good time doing that.
Putting those together and eating, eating can be fun. It doesn’t have to be you know, oh, gosh, we’re eating you know, just kale again. It’s not like that at all. Not like that at all. But I tried to have fun doing this. And I had tried to have fun with my training, with my diet, with the way I approach nutrition, with the way that I approach strength, all this stuff. I try to have fun with this.
So think about ways that you can make losing weight fun. I know it doesn’t sound logical because most people don’t look at it that way. They think of losing weight as being such a tough process and such a unfun process, but I promise you, there are ways that we can make this process fun. You can have fun, while losing weight, you absolutely can. Okay.
And if you ever want to make habit change and weight loss easier, join the Running Lean coaching project. I promise you’ll get all the support that you need to create healthy habits that actually stick. Just head over to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more, and I’ll see you there. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I’ll talk to you soon.
If you’re a runner and you’ve been struggling to lose weight or you keep losing and gaining the same 10 pounds over and over again. Or you’re finally ready to get to your natural weight and stay there for good this time then I have something you will love. I’ve created a powerful new training just for you called running lean for life. You’ll learn exactly how to transform yourself into a lean fat-burning running machine. So you can run without bonking, lose weight without calorie counting and develop the habits required to make it last for life. To get this free training right now go to runningleanpodcast.com/leanforlife and start your transformation today.
Most people don't realize that their thoughts are responsible for every result they are getting or not getting in their lives. They blame other people and outside circumstances for their inability …
Continue Reading about 124. Back to Basics: The Thought Model →
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 124 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, the weight loss coach for runners. And today is another episode in the Back to Basics series. And today I’m talking about the thought model. So most people don’t realize that their thoughts are actually responsible for every result they’re getting or not getting in their lives. They blame other people. And they blame their circumstances for their inability to stay on their food plan or for their lack of motivation.
They have all kinds of stories and reasons why things just don’t ever work out for them. But I’m going to argue that this is a pretty crappy way to go through your life. Instead of being a victim of your circumstances. I want to talk to you today about how to take back control. So today I’m going back to the basics. I’m going to explain the thought model, I’ve talked about this before. But I want to explain in a bit of a different way today.
And I’m gonna show you how this is one of the most powerful coaching tools that I use in my coaching practice. And it’s also something that you can do on your own. And it’s a way of getting back your control. And so that you can get the results that you really want in your life. This is a very, very important concept, one of the most important concepts that I teach that I work on with my clients. And so I want to go over that with you today.
And this whole idea of like changing your thoughts, or you know, your thoughts or creating your results, and like how do we change this? How do we change our thoughts so that we can get better results? It’s a pretty simple concept. So I’m gonna go through this today, and you’re gonna understand, you’re going to understand this, like, theoretically, you’re going to understand is pretty simple, right? You just got to kind of change your thinking. But it’s not easy.
It’s one of those things that it’s simple, but not easy, okay. And it really takes three things to get better results in your life. It takes a commitment. It takes discipline, and it takes consistency. It takes those three things if you want different results. So if you’re ready to make that commitment to yourself, if you’re ready to be disciplined to show up and do the work, and if you’re ready to stay consistent, then you’re ready for the Running Lean Coaching Project.
This immersive coaching program includes group coaching, one-on-one coaching and all the knowledge support and the accountability you need to stay on track. You’ll learn what to do, you’ll learn how to do it, exactly what to do, you’ll learn all the tools and skills you need to stay on track and to stay consistent. Most importantly, you’re gonna learn how to make these powerful shifts in your mindset. So that you can create new habits, you can create new habits that feel easy and effortless, and that last for good.
I would love to help you with this, I would love to teach you exactly how to change your thinking. So you can get the results that you want, so that you can lose the weight , so you can get more fit so you can become a faster, stronger runner. If you’re ready for some change. If you’re ready for realistic lifestyle changes, shifts in your mindset and sustainable results. Then you’re ready for the Running Lean Coaching Project. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply.
To get started, you’ll fill out a short application, ask you a few questions, and you’ll schedule a zoom call with me which is free by the way. We’ll talk about your goals and we’ll see if coaching is a good fit for you. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/apply. And I would love for you to join us in the Running Lean Coaching Project. Cool.
So let’s get back to basics. Let’s talk about the thought model. Okay. I’m very excited about bringing this to you today. And I talk about this every single day, sometimes with one of my clients or more every day we talk about this. And it’s one of those tools that I have in my coaching tool belt that I think is one of the most powerful and when you understand this, and when you start living it you’re gonna see how powerful it is too, okay.
This has been one of the most life changing concepts that I have ever learned that I have used myself, and that I now, you know, use extensively in my coaching practice, okay? And there’s no secret here, this isn’t some secret thing. I’m going to explain how this works and how you kind of use this to get better results in your life. But I want you to apply this.
So be thinking about that, as I’m talking through this today, be thinking about how you can apply this in your own life. I’ll give you some examples and stuff. But think about how this stuff would apply to you in whatever you’re going through right now, whatever your goals are right now, whatever results you’re wanting to change right now. Okay.
So what is the thought model? I’m going to break it down, then I’ll and then I’ll dig into it a little bit deeper. The thought model is basically this. There are circumstances that happen around us, that’s just our circumstances, our circumstances are basically neutral. They’re neither good nor bad. Our circumstances don’t mean anything to us until we assign meaning to them. So that’s our thoughts.
Your thoughts are how you interpret the world around you, okay. And those thoughts will create feelings within you. Those feelings drive your actions, your actions, create your results. So the results that you get in your life is basically, you know, your reality. So your thoughts, if you really want to extrapolate this out, your thoughts create your reality. And this isn’t some like woo-woo thing, this is like, just the way it works, right?
This is, and it’s not some crazy fringe idea that just happened with this, like new age of thinking or something, this has been around for centuries, for thousands of years, right? The Greek and Roman scholars, the Stoics, started talking about this extensively. Epictetus was a Greek stoic philosopher from you know, he lived around 2000 years ago. And one of the quotes I love from him is that, “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” I’m going to say that one more time, because I love this. “We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.”
Think about that. That’s some powerful stuff right there, no matter what’s going on out there. You get to determine how you respond to what’s going on out there. And then Marcus Aurelius, he was another stoic philosopher and Roman emperor and lived around the same time around 2000 years ago. And I love his work and have been reading through, you know, his meditations. And we’ll just kind of pick a random, you know, passage and read through it.
But here’s a couple of quotes that I love from him. And this is from Marcus Aurelius. And he says, “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” What I know, it’s crazy, right? That they were thinking about this and talking about this so far, in the past and in ancient history.
And then another quote of his is, “Our life is what our thoughts make it. Our life is what our thoughts make it.” So your thoughts create your life, your thoughts create your reality. And more recently, in psychology, there is this law of philosophy, or a, I don’t know a concept called CBT, or cognitive behavioral therapy. And CBT focuses on challenging and changing, you know, what’s called cognitive distortions.
So these are thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes, and their associated behaviors, to develop better emotional regulation, your feelings, right, and develop personal coping strategies that seek that target solving current problem. So basically, what CBT is, is that your thoughts create feelings, your feelings, drive your behaviors or your actions. And then your actions will create, you know, you can solve problems or create problems based on the actions you’re taking.
So all this stuff, just lines up beautifully to gather. So this is not some weird fringe thing that like I came up with or whatever. And then there’s a couple of people that I’ve followed and read books from and like Byron Katie, she uses a very similar model of thought called, she calls it the work and she has a slightly different take on it.
Brooke Castillo. She’s the owner of The Life Coach School. I consider her one of my mentors. She teaches this very thoroughly, and she just calls it the model. And that’s her interpretation of it. But really, this is all the same stuff. This has been going around for thousands of years. So, in my coaching practice, I use this extensively. And I use many tools to help people get results, right?
This is what coaching is all about. When you think about it, this is a very, like, basic explanation of this, but like therapy kind of focuses on the past, you know, in general, and coaching, life coaching, the kind of coaching that I do, focuses on the future. therapy focuses on okay, why have you become who you’ve become up to this point?
And my coaching kind of focuses on, okay, here’s who you are today, how do we get to become who you want to be tomorrow. And so we kind of have a more forward focus, instead of being past focused, okay. And that’s where this thought model really is very powerful. Because you can, you can use it to change your current thinking, your current emotional state, your current behaviors, and start creating better results for yourself today.
And it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past, we don’t really look to the past much in coaching, okay? we’re more focused on what can we do today to start changing our future and get better results? Okay. So that’s kind of the basis of where this came from, and what it’s all about, let me get into the details of how this works a little bit, okay.
So again, circumstances are neutral in our lives. And, you know, the things that are happening around us the things that are happening, or happening outside of us really don’t mean anything until we assign meaning to them with our thoughts. Okay. So once we have a thought about something that thought typically creates a feeling within us, and that feeling will drive our actions.
So whatever you’re doing something or not, is based on how you feel, then of course, your actions create results, you don’t get results without taking action. Okay? So let’s break this down. Circumstances: this is the stuff that’s happening outside of you. It’s the stuff that’s happening in your life.
So what’s going on at work? What’s going on at school? What’s going on in the household? So when you’re driving around in traffic, and so what’s going on everything that’s not you? Those are your circumstances, okay? It may even feel like you know, it’s your, you know, your spouse who’s you know, very deeply connected to you, but also not you.
Okay, so your spouse is still something that is a circumstance, it’s outside of you. The only things you have control over are your own thoughts, feelings and actions, what you think how you feel and what you do, you don’t have control over the circumstances in your life. Pretty much, pretty much the only thing you have control over is your own thoughts, feelings and actions. So circumstances, all that stuff out there is always neutral. It just is what it is.
It’s not good. It’s not bad. It’s not right. It’s not wrong, typically. And your circumstances really don’t mean anything until you assign meaning to them. This is very important. The circumstances in your life doesn’t mean anything until you assign meaning to that with your thoughts. Very, very important to understand these circumstances are neutral.
People blame their circumstances for their behavior, they blame the economy for their lack of financial, you know, well being, they, they look at the weather for how, you know, they’re they don’t feel like running, you know, they look at, you know, their situation at work for why they can’t, you know, maintain their food plan or whatever. These are also circumstances that don’t mean anything. Right?
Stop blaming your circumstances for your behavior, stop blaming your circumstances for your lack of results doesn’t work that way. People love the blame game. They love to blame everything that’s outside of them for their behavior. So they don’t have to take responsibility for it. Because it’s way easier to do that, right? This bugs me. It bugs me. Take responsibility. Take responsibility. When you understand that your circumstances are just neutral and that you know what you do or don’t do is based on your own thoughts and feelings, this changes the game. You cannot blame anybody else anymore.
In fact, I’m going to tell you right now, if you’re listening to this, and you understand this, which I hope you do, you will by the end of this episode, I’m sure you will. You can no longer blame me or anybody else for your lack of results, okay? That’s just the way it is. Okay? Because it’s just not, it doesn’t work that way that just doesn’t work that way.
But we do it, people do it all the time. Because it’s easy. It’s easier to blame other people that we can, I can’t lose weight because of you know, this is the way it is. Never works for me. Or the you know, boys, you know, I’m stressed out right now, because it works. So can lose weight. But it just keeps you stuck. You don’t get what you want, you don’t ever change, you don’t grow. Keeps you small and safe and comfortable. Yeah.
But that’s not what you want for yourself, right? If you’re listening to this right now, it’s because you want more for yourself, you want to become more, you’re not going to become more by blaming other people for where, where you are. So this is where we need to, like, stop blaming, stop looking at our circumstances as meaning anything. So your circumstances only mean something if you assign meaning to them, okay?
Very, very important; circumstances in our life are neutral. Everything that’s happening outside of us is neutral, doesn’t mean anything until you have a thought about it. So what are your thoughts? Thoughts are just sentences you say in your head, right? You experience thoughts in your mind, in your head. Your thoughts are basically that voice in your head. And for most people, it’s your own voice.
Have you ever thought about that before? Like your thoughts are in your own voice? I think that’s kind of cool. Now, if you’re hearing other voices in your head, that might be a problem, you may have to like seek some professional help for that. Typically, we hear our thoughts in our head in our own voice, okay. But if you’re hearing other voices telling you to do stuff, then I think maybe that could be problematic. Just saying, go get yourself checked out.
But our thoughts are just the sentences we say in our head. This is just like the chatter in our in our, in our minds, right? It’s the stories that we tell ourselves about what’s happening. It’s the way we interpret things. It’s the meaning that we assign to stuff. And your thoughts can be, you know, things that you believe to be true, because you’ve been thinking them over and over and over again for decades.
And, you know, when we put together lots of beliefs, that can become a whole belief system. And that’s a whole nother thing that’s like, really deep seated thoughts is all it is, and just systems of thoughts that you just kind of, you know, you put them all together, and they mean this, you know, but your thoughts are just your thoughts. That’s all they’re not true or false, necessarily. They’re what you believe to be true for you.
But the same thing is not necessarily true for somebody else. This is very important, like your thoughts are just about you. Your thoughts are only true for you. And when we extrapolate all this out, your thoughts actually create yours, your reality. And I’ll talk more about that in a second. But I just want you to understand that your thoughts, create your results, your thoughts are actually responsible for, you know, whether you’re getting what you want in your life or not.
So your thoughts are very important. So I call this the thought model, because it’s so much based on your thoughts. So it’s not what’s happening out there, that matters. It’s not the circumstances that matters. It’s how you perceive those circumstances. It’s important. It’s how you interpret it, it’s the meaning that you give to it, it’s the way you respond to what’s going on around you that really matters.
Okay, so let me give you a quick example, a couple examples here, of how our thoughts can be very different and create different realities for people. And so I was just at the beach, I love going to the beach, and I take a trip every year. And I love this place down in Central Florida that I go to and it’s just a beautiful beach and a little island. It’s very walkable. I don’t even get a car when I’m down there. I just walk everywhere and run and run on the beach every day.
But I was thinking that you know I grew up around the ocean and you know I grew up in Southern California and you know, lived in Northern California for a period of time and did a lot of surfing. And I just love the ocean. Love love the ocean right? But some people do not like the ocean, they think it’s very scary.
Okay, so imagine two different people standing at the ocean and looking out over the ocean. One person, somebody like me, could be standing there thinking of the ocean. This is like it brings back memories of my childhood and boogie boarding you know and surfing and and just playing in the ocean all day long and never wanting to leave. And even, you know, today, I, you know, I was swimming in the ocean just you know, days ago. And I just love it so much, it brings me so much joy, it brings me happiness, it’s like my happy place.
But for somebody else standing next to me, they could be looking out at that same ocean. And maybe when they were a kid, they have like a near drowning experience in the ocean, or maybe they saw somebody else drown in the ocean, something very traumatic happened to them. And for them, the ocean is a very different kind of place, it brings up all these feelings of fear, and danger. And it’s a dangerous place, and it should be avoided at all costs. Do not go in the ocean.
So different people looking at the same circumstances have very different ideas of what this means for them. So their reality is very different. One person would never go in the ocean at all ever. Another person wants to live in the ocean. That’d be mean, by the way. If I guess I live in the water, like a fish, that’d be amazing. But yeah, but for some people like it’s just a scary thing, and they would avoid it at all costs. So you can see different realities for different people based on their thoughts based on their interpretations.
Another example, and I use this one a lot too, which is when we talk about losing weight, one person might think that losing weight is hard, it never works, they always fail. They always give in to cravings, they can stay on track for any amount of time, they do find her in the week, but on the weekends always blow it can’t go on vacation because they always gain weight, or they go on vacation, but they always gain weight.
And so you know, they just come back, you know, heavier every time and blah, blah, blah. So that’s one person’s interpretation of what it means to lose weight and how hard it is and how it never works.
Another person might think that losing weight is easy, and kind of effortless, and so much fun. And no matter what’s happened in the past, they know that if they practice discipline, they stay consistent, they’ll eventually get there. And this is not something I’m just making up. I literally work with people who have both of these interpretations. One person who thinks it’s hard, it’s going to be hard for them.
The person who thinks it’s easy and effortless and fun, it’s going to be easy and effortless and fun for them. They will get their goals because they have this thought that you know, Hey, as long as I stay consistent, I’ll get there. This other person who says I always fail, I always give in, they will always fail and always give in. It’s just what happens. Okay, so this is thoughts, thoughts are sentences we say in our head thoughts are our stories, our interpretations of reality, or of our circumstances. And they are like the meaning that we give stuff. Okay, thoughts, so important to understand your thoughts.
So next, we have our feelings. So feelings are also emotions, we can use those two words interchangeably, and I do. But our feelings are caused by our thoughts. Our thoughts will create feelings within us. So if I think oh, losing weight is hard, it never works. I always fail. Whoa, how do you think you’re gonna feel when you think those feelings or think those thoughts you’re gonna be feeling terrible, right?
You’re gonna feel like, like a failure, you’re gonna feel frustrated, you’re gonna feel unmotivated, right. So, our feelings we all experience emotions, we all experience feelings are created by our thoughts, you cannot have an emotion. Without a thought that precedes that you cannot experience a feeling without a thought first. So your thoughts will make you feel an emotion, fear, anxiety, stress, boredom, frustration. These are all feelings. These are all emotional states.
Even love, happiness, joy, connection. These are all feelings. You know, if you think, you know, let’s say you’re newly dating someone and you’re just falling in love and every time you think about this person you feel this amount of like happiness and love that’s created by your thoughts about that person. Right? It has nothing to do with that person necessarily. It’s like your interpretation of it, because you don’t have those same feelings about somebody else. Okay.
So your thoughts always create your feelings, you have a thought, you think a thought and then it creates a feeling within you. You cannot experience a feeling without a thought that precedes it. You just can’t. Okay, now, thoughts you experience in your head, feelings you experience in your body. So your feelings or sensations that you feel in your body?
Think about it as like vibrations that you feel in your body, that’s all it is. That’s all it is. And you can get really good at just feeling your feelings or experiencing your feelings in your body, like experiencing your sensations in your body. And we do this in the coaching project, we learn how to experience and emotion without all the drama around it. Right, we don’t have to eat over our feelings anymore. This is a game changer, right?
When you’re willing to just experience an emotion just to feel that sensation in your body without having to do anything about it. This is where you become what I call a total emotional badass. Because you can experience any kind of emotion, fear, failure, frustration, whatever it is, doesn’t matter. When you’re willing to experience those emotions. You can do anything you want.
Most people don’t do stuff, they don’t go after what they really want, because they’re afraid of how they’re going to feel. Isn’t that crazy? People will say like, I could never run a marathon, it would just be, it’d be too hard. I’m like, what are you really afraid of? And when we break it down, it’s like, well, I’m afraid I’m gonna fail. And I’m like, well, what would that mean?
I just feel bad and feel like a failure. It’s just an emotion. What if you were just willing to feel like a failure, you would just go and do that you just go train for a marathon and do it. Who cares if you finish it or not? You did something that was super hard, you tried. If you’re willing to experience that failure, you can do anything you want. But people are afraid.
They’re afraid to try anything hard, they’re afraid to do anything that might you know that they might not, it may not work. All because they’re afraid to experience that feeling. Get good at feeling your feelings, and you can become a total badass. Okay.
What I really want you to understand here is that thoughts create your feelings, your feelings just don’t magically appear within you, okay? Your feelings are created by you. People don’t make you mad, you make yourself mad, based on, you know, how you’re interpreting what somebody said, somebody could say, you’re an ugly piece of crap. You know, but you don’t have to, like, take it personally.
You could be like, I’m beautiful. And I’m awesome. So I mean, sorry, it’s just not going to affect me. Or you can really take it personally. It’s all in how you interpret it has nothing to do with what the words are that are coming out of a person’s mouth. It’s how you’re interpreting it. So your feelings and your emotional state is caused by your thoughts, okay?
We have to understand that your feelings drive your actions, your actions are the things you do, what’s your behaviors, right. And your actions are driven by your emotional state, they’re driven by your feelings. So most people don’t take action unless they’re feeling like taking action, like they are driven by a certain feeling.
For example, motivation. This is a feeling that, you know, when you’re feeling motivated, you will do something like, if you want to go for a run, and you’re feeling motivated to run, you’ll go for a run. But if you’re feeling overwhelmed, or stressed, maybe you’re going to not feel like going for a run. So that feeling can be causing you to not take action.
Or maybe you’re frustrated because the scale isn’t moving. You’re feeling frustration. That’s a feeling. And so you go eat a whole sleeve of Oreos, right? This is like you’re feeling frustrated. And that’s what’s driving that action of eating the Oreos. You think it has something to do with the scale? You think it has something to do with something outside of you. But no, it’s just you.
You have thoughts about what it means. And you have this feeling. And so you decide you’re going to go and take this action based on how you’re feeling. Now there are some behaviors that we do, some actions that we take, that are automatic, like brushing your teeth, you don’t really need to feel a feeling necessarily, you don’t have to be really motivated to brush your teeth. Right? It’s just what you do. It’s kind of like an autopilot thing, okay.
But it’s taken you years of doing that behavior for it to become automatic. It wasn’t always automatic, right. But there could be other behaviors that you’re doing that feel automatic, like binging out on ice cream every night. This feels like an out of control behavior. Like it’s just something you have to do like you’re on autopilot. The fact is, you’ve just gotten really good at this behavior. And in order to change it, it’s going to take some work, okay?
But listen, this is important. You can always change the behavior, but it’s going to require you to do work, you got to like, change your thinking. That’s the gist of this whole thought model is that you have to like look Look at your thoughts and change your thinking in order to change the behavior because when you change your thinking, you’re going to change your your feelings, and then you’re going to change the the behavior that’s being driven by those feelings.
So that out of control eating seems like it’s just happening. And it’s just like, you know, out of your control, but you are in control, you always have a choice. I would even argue, like, you could choose not to brush your teeth, you could just be like, Oh, I’m just not going to brush my teeth. I would recommend that you do though, by the way. In the same vein, you can choose to not eat that ice cream, you are in control. You just don’t see it because you’ve just been doing the same thing for so long. It kind of feels automatic. But really, it’s not. It’s not automatic, like you can absolutely, you are always in control. And you can take back that control and take back your control, take back your power.
But people think their circumstances are causing them to take action. And that’s never the case. It’s never the circumstances like I’ll hear people say, well, I was on vacation, so I had to eat like crap all week. I was just on vacation, I ate amazingly well, all week. Or, you know, my husband always brings home pizza, so I just have to eat it. No, you don’t, that has nothing to do with it. Or I’m busy, so I don’t have time to work out. Oh, really? Who’s not busy?
These are all just circumstances, they don’t mean anything unless you assign meaning to them. They don’t mean anything until you have thoughts about them. You don’t act, you don’t take action based on what’s happening out there. You take action based on how you feel. And that’s always determined by your thoughts, okay, your behavior is driven by your feelings, your emotions, drive your actions, okay.
And then lastly, we have results. So you know, when you take action, you get results, you don’t get results by thinking about stuff, right, you don’t get bigger arms by thinking about lifting weights, you get bigger arms by going to the gym, and lifting heavy weights over and over again, consistently for some time. You only get results by taking action by doing things.
And since your actions are driven by your feelings, and your thoughts, create your feelings, your thoughts really create the results that you want. Your thoughts almost always prove. No, let me say this, again, your results almost always prove your thoughts to be true. The results that you get pretty much always match your thoughts. So here’s what I mean by this, let’s say you want to lose 40 pounds. But you think losing weight is too hard.
So you think you know I always fail. And that creates feelings of frustration and you and unmotivated. And these feelings cause you to take the action of quitting, you just give up you give up trying, why bother? And what are the results you get? You fail. So the thought I always fail has just been proven true for you. You just you manifested that, that thought I always fail. It’s just become true for you.
Here’s another way of looking at it. So here’s me. I’m building a badass body right now. Right? Here’s my circumstances. I’m 55 years old. And I’ve heard people say as you get older, you can’t get a badass body. Like you’re just going to continue to get fatter, and fluffier and saggier, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But here’s my thoughts about this.
My thoughts are, I believe in my heart that age does not matter. And I am armed with a commitment and the discipline and the mindset that’s going to make this happen. I’m going to stay consistent, and I’m going to make this happen no matter what. Those are my thoughts. These thoughts get me feeling pretty motivated. Like it gets me fired up when I think about this.
And that feeling of being fired up and motivated. This feeling drives me into action. Every day I hit the gym, I lift weights, I run, I eat right? I go to yoga. I do this every day. I’m not all that stuff every day. I eat right every day. But everyday I show up and I do something and I do it consistently. And these thoughts are what’s keeping me motivated. That motivation is driving me into the action of showing up and doing the work every day and the results.
I’ve got to tell you I’m becoming that badass that I want to become. I’m not where I want to be yet, but I am getting there, it’s going to take some time. But I’m already seeing bigger arms, bigger chest, my legs are way stronger than they were a year ago, whatever, I’m making it happen. And it’s the thoughts that are driving my behavior. And those thoughts are I am going to make this happen no matter what. And so those thoughts are proving this to be true that my thoughts are making this happen, my thoughts are making this my reality.
Okay, that’s what I want for you. So a couple things here. First of all, you are not your thoughts and feelings, all of your thoughts and feelings are optional. And they are all things you choose. You’re always making choices on how you think and feel. And these things are not you. They’re just your thoughts are just sentences you say in your head.
If feelings are just sensations you experience in your body, you are much more than just your thoughts and feelings. So I want you to understand this, okay? Your thoughts and feelings are creating your reality, though. They’re creating what’s happening to you. They’re creating the results that you’re getting or not getting in your life, okay, but they’re not you.
But if you want more for yourself, if you want different results, if you want to lose weight, if you want to get stronger, you want to become your most badass self, you gotta go within you got to do this work. You got to work on your mindset. And so mindset is the word that I use to encompass everything I just talked about. It’s basically a one word catch all that means your thoughts, your beliefs, your interpretations of what’s happening around you, it’s your feelings, your emotional state, it’s your attitude. It’s what’s driving your behavior, all of that stuff.
I just use the word mindset to kind of encapsulate all of this, it’s all the same stuff. So when I say mindset, I’m really talking about the thought model here, okay. And, for me, like this was one of the most profound things I’ve ever learned. And it’s changed my life more than anything else. And I liken it to seeing the matrix, right. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it.
So this work, living the thought model, this is life changing. And when you learn this, and when you start living it every day, it’s like taking the red pill in the matrix, you take the red pill, and you learn a potentially unsettling but life changing truth.
When you take the blue pill, you remain in contented ignorance. Most people live in a blue pill kind of world, they live in contented ignorance, they blame everybody and everything outside of themselves for their lack of progress. They can’t stick to their food plan, they can’t lose weight, they can’t get dry, they can’t run, they can’t bah bah, bah, based on you know, oh, it’s just everything that’s happening outside of me. I have no control over any of this stuff. That’s blue pill thinking. contented ignorance.
I want you to live in that life changing truth. Start living the thought model, right? Do not live in contented ignorance. Take the information you learned here today and apply it. Start noticing how you’re interpreting your situation. Start seeing when you’re creating stories around stuff that’s happening to you. Start noticing how your thoughts are making you feel. See how those feelings are driving you to take action, or maybe causing you to not take action.
And if you want different results, look to your thoughts. Get curious and approach all of this work with curiosity. You can ask yourself questions like hmm, I wonder what else could be true about this situation? I wonder how else I can interpret this. What thought patterns are keeping me stuck here today? I wonder what thought patterns might get me to moving closer to my goals. Okay. Ask yourself good questions. Stay curious. I truly hope you got something out of this episode today. And I truly hope that you do something with it. Okay. Love you all keep on Running Lean. I’ll talk to you soon.
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