My name is Patrick Mcgill, and I'm an
experienced marathon,
Alt runner, sports nutrition, Matt Master life coach
and weight boss coach for runners.
I've dedicated my life to helping runners just
like you, properly few 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 02:37
of running lean My name is Patrick Mc
mcgill, the weight loss coach for runners. And
today, what to do
when you feel stuck.
So many people I talked to about... Losing
weight or running faster, tell me they just
can't seem
to make any progress because they feel stuck.
And this is a really tough place to
be because when you feel stuck, it's like
there's nothing you can do to get out
of that. You feel like nothing's ever gonna
work.
You get discouraged? You feel defeated, And what
do you do when you feel defeated? You
give up, you quit.
Why bother eating rider? You're never going to
lose weight. Why bother doing the speed work
or if I'm never gonna break 4 hours
in the marathon.
But listen, there's a better way to approach
these things. If fear So today,
what to do when you feel stuck so
that you can get back on track, making
progress toward your goals.
But first, if you wanna get leaner or
stronger or run faster or longer, you need
to change what you do. Doing the same
things will not get you new results.
Nothing changes if nothing changes. Right?
The real secret, though is doing these new
things consistently. You know, if you decide you
wanna get stronger, so you go to the
gym,
once a month. That's not gonna get you
very far. You need to adopt new behaviors
and start doing them
consistently. And this is where coaching really helps.
Trying to stay on track yourself. It can
be difficult. I know because I've tried it
like a million times, it never worked for
me.
You know, it starts some thing. I do
it for a bit that go right back
to doing these same old stuff, and I
never really made any progress.
But once I got a coach, everything changed.
I had somebody there, guiding me, thing every
step of the way, holding me accountable.
Calling me out when I started slipping back
in old behaviors. Most importantly,
I had someone there that was in my
corner that was never
ever ever going to let me quit.
So if you're ready to start doing some
new things and you wanna make sure you're
doing them consistently, and you want somebody there
to make sure you never quit, let's do
this. So let's get this done together. We
can do it together.
It's hard to do it on your own,
but we can do it together. So just
go to my website, running lean coaching dot
com and click on work with me, and
I'll show you exactly how to become the
most badass version of yourself yet. Cool.
Okay. What to do when you feel stuck
So the reason I wanna talk about this
today
is because so many people that I talk
to.
They tell me that they feel stuck.
That being stuck is why they aren't making
progress towards their goals.
You know, being stuck. I'm stuck. So this
is never gonna work for me.
Or they feel stuck. And so they don't
even feel like starting something new, especially. Right?
It's a huge problem.
And
I mean, we've all felt like this at
some point in our lives. Right? We felt
stuck.
For me, a time that I remember, feeling
stuck because
when I was trying to lose weight some
years ago, and nothing was working for me.
And I was running a bunch at the
time I was training for some ultra marathons
that year. So I was running a ton.
And I was following, you know, some advice
from whatever
professionals, elite runners, whatever it was. It wasn't
working for me. Whatever I tried didn't work.
It's
and I was actually gaining weight in the
process. Right? This is what it felt like
to feel stuck because I was gaining weight.
I was doing all these things. They weren't
working.
And I felt stuck.
So maybe you've felt stuck at some point.
Maybe you felt stuck
trying to run faster, you know, You're not
making any progress. You're not getting faster.
You... Let's say you wanna run a sub
4.
Marathon or a sub 2 half marathon or
whatever. It doesn't matter.
But season after season, you keep trying, you
you sign up for races,
you do the work, and then
you
can't get there. Right? You just keep coming
up short.
You know, you train and then you show
up for this race and you're you're, okay.
This is gonna be the time and you're
like, a 04:04 or something like that. Right?
It's disappointing, you know?
So you decide that you're just stuck, and
you're just never gonna get faster.
You have to understand something though that, like,
these things are gonna take time. Right? The
reality is that
things like losing weight
or running faster.
They do not happen
overnight. It is a long process,
and progress can be slow or seem slow
So you have to commit to this process.
You have to show up for yourself every
single day
and commit to the process of change.
Every single day.
It's like a rec commitment. Every day you
wake up, and you have to go, okay,
I'm committed to staying on track again
today,
no matter what. And listen, it may take
months or years
to reach these kinds of goals.
Are you okay with that?
Because guess what you have to be? Because
if you're not okay with that, you're gonna
give up at some, you're gonna quit.
If you're not committed to the process of
change, you will eventually feel stuck and you
will quit, you will give in.
And and you definitely will not reach your
goals at that point.
So here's what... Feeling stuck is. It's really
that. It's a feeling. Right? You're never
actually
stuck. This is really important.
The feeling of being stuck, it's an emotional
state that you're in.
And if you feel stuck, it's because you
put yourself
into that emotional state. You got into this
emotional state
of feeling stuck. That's all it is.
And listen,
what I'm about to talk about is gonna
help you a lot because once you
understand how you got there, the feeling of
stuck stuck,
feeling stuck. Once you understand how you got
there, it's
then you can see the path out of
it. K.
So there's a couple of ways that we
get ourselves into this emotional state,
of feeling stuck.
And there's 3 that come to mind. The
first 1 is this.
You continually
let yourself down.
So listen, order accomplish any big goal. It
takes consistency.
Right? You have to continually.
Do the right things
over and over and over and over and
over again. Like, sticking with your meal plan.
You have to do that every day. No
matter what, until you reach your goal.
I talk a lot about planning ahead, and
this is on a recent episode. I did
number 02:33,
the power of planning ahead. Definitely listen to
that 1. If you haven't checked it out
yet.
But the the way we do this is
you plan ahead,
and then so you make a plan for
what you're gonna eat, Let's say you you
do this 24 hours in advance. And then
you follow through with that plan tomorrow. That's
it. That's how you do it. And you
rinse and repeat that every single day.
This is how you're gonna eventually reach your
goal.
It's in these tiny
little moments of decision that you make every
single day for a long, long time.
Tiny little moments of decision that add up
to big change to big results.
Okay. So that's the way we do it,
but
Here's what most people do. They make a
plan
and then they don't follow through with that
plan. And so in that,
situation. What are you doing? You're letting yourself
down.
And when you do this over and over
again, you start to really break down the
trust that you're trying to build in yourself.
Because you don't trust yourself anymore. Like, I
can't trust myself to stick to my plan
And look at me, I failed again,
You know, I didn't do what I said
I gonna do again.
And that really like shakes your confidence. You
lose tons of confidence when need to do
that.
And then you begin to think
this is never gonna work for me. But
you know what?
That is just a lie that you keep
telling yourself.
Because you're full of guilt and shame and
remorse over not doing what you said you
would do. You're not in integrity with yourself.
So you have to stop doing this. This
is a vicious
cycle to be in.
And this is what leads to feeling stuff.
And giving up on yourself.
So when you constantly
let yourself down
you break
confidence and trust in yourself, You lose
confidence, then
you feel stuck, and you feel like there's
nothing you can do. Get out of it.
So why bother and this is what why
people quit.
And when you're feeling that way, when you're
feeling to defeated and, you know, you don't
trust yourself anymore. You lack confidence.
You're definitely not doing the right thing things.
You're not taking aligned action. Those are the
things that are gonna get you to your
goals. Right?
So your progress grinds to a halt. And,
yeah, You're gonna you're gonna be stuck and
you actually will feel.
Stuck, and you will actually not be making
progress, and most people at that point will
quit. Alright? So you have to stop letting
yourself down.
Stay in integrity with yourself.
Say you're gonna do something then do it,
Make a plan, follow through a plan and
show up for yourself every single day.
So that's number 1 number 2 is that,
for a lot of people progress can be
slow.
And this is another way that we,
tell ourselves were stuck when we're really not.
So remember what I said earlier about, like,
losing weight or running faster these things take
time. They take a long time. Most people,
are not okay with this. They say they're
okay with this They're like, oh, yeah I
get it, Patrick. I know it's gonna take
a while. But when we actually get into
doing the work. So maybe I'm working with
somebody
at the beginning of the process. I say,
listen. I, you know, it's a little bit
different for each person that's is gonna take
a while. I don't know how long it's
gonna take for you 3 months, 6 months
a year. I don't know, You know don't
say you have 50 pounds to lose. I
don't know how long that's gonna take.
Everybody's so different, different metabolism, different lifestyles, different
peoples. You you know, stick to things differently,
you know, different people are more committed than
others, whatever.
More peep... Some people are more disciplined than
others.
But anyway, I'll get them on a meal
plan, and they might doing... They might start
doing that
pretty regularly and they're doing okay, and they
might see some results
But then if they don't see results fast
enough you know, or
immediately, then things aren't changing. They're they're like,
I'm stuck.
And you know what? I get it. It's
it's a tough thing to accept that you
gotta do all this hard work every single
day.
But the payoff is like way later.
That's tough for us, especially in the world
we live in today.
You know,
waiting for results, you know, waiting
committing to something and and knowing that the
results are gonna be way off in the
distance. That's a tough sell for a lot
of people, because we're a society that's been
trained to expect things now.
You know, Amazon has same day delivery. Uber
eats delivers food to your couch and minutes.
You know, sometimes.
Every movie or song you've ever wanted to
watch or listen to. It's instantly downloadable to
your phone, wherever you are.
Right? So we are not a society that
likes to wait for things, You know?
Like, for me, if I'm buying something online
and the shipping is like, well, this is
gonna take, like a week or 10 days.
I'm like, I don't know for really want
that. Right? I mean, it's ridiculous to think
that way.
Iron funny recently, I bought a couch.
I can't remember last time I bought a
couch. I think it was in 20 10.
It was the last time I bought a
couch. Right? So I I think I was
due for a new couch.
And I love this couch. Beautiful, and I
went into the store, and I saw it
and I sat in it and all that
good stuff. And Like, I want this couch.
And and this is back in May. It
was like, maybe eleventh Who's the day that
I ordered this couch.
And they're like, you know, we... I sign
all these papers and pay for it and
everything and they're like, okay. Let's kinda talk
about the shipping. I'm like, cool. You know
I'm available
this weekend or whatever they're like, oh, no.
It's not gonna be ready until the middle
of July.
I was like, wait a minute. What now?
I'd had wait 2 months for this couch.
Actually, I haven't even got it yet. Today's...
As I'm recording this, it's July 11, so
it's been exactly 2 months since I ordered
this couch. Still not here. I'll keep you
posted on that. I'll tell you when I
get the couch.
But I had to really think about this.
After I did all this stuff and I
sign the papers and I paid for it
and everything. I was like,
I don't know if I want this now
because it's gonna take so long to get
here in the grand scheme of things is
2 months really that big of a deal.
No.
But I've been sitting on this jin old
couch forever, and I'm like, I just want
this new couch, like it's ridiculous. But this
is... Anyway, this is the world we live
right now. Right? Everything,
we want it now. Right? So when it
comes to things like losing weight. It takes
time. If you wanna run a faster marathon
or qualify for Boston or, you know, break,
2 hours and a half, whatever it is.
It's gonna take some time.
How much time? Well, that's the cool part
because we don't know. That's the fun part,
2 it's different for everyone. Nobody really knows.
So this goes back to what I said
earlier about committing to the process of change.
So so many people I talked to, will
we'll say, yeah. I wanna lose 30 pounds
by, you know, September first or whatever. I'm
like, okay. Let's just take that date off
the table right now. Because
we don't know is how long it's gonna
take.
Now we can make some progress between now
and then, absolutely, but I don't think... I
don't know if you're gonna get. That goal
in that amount of time, like, who knows?
So we gotta come into the process of
change. And it doesn't matter how long it
takes 6 months, a year 3 years does
not matter. What matters
is that you've chosen to live your life
in a healthy way.
You're always improving a little by little, day
by day,
and remember it's in these tiny little moments
of progress every single day that add up
to really big change.
Okay? So we have to understand that progress
can be slow. Don't take that as a
sign that you're stuck because you're not
stuck.
Just accept the fact that progress is slow
and commit to the process.
The third way that we can really feel
like we're stuck.
Is that we
misunderstand failure.
So 1 of the things I talk a
lot about with clients is that
we have to change our definition of failure
if you wanna avoid feeling stuck.
So
me ask you this. What you think of
when you think of failure?
It's like the end. Right? Like you failed?
And so you're done. That's what most people
think of failure as. Or they think of
it as like, I am a failure.
Like, I did not succeed at this, so
I am a failure.
Like, this is never gonna work. I'm always
gonna fail
and we look at failure as such a
huge negative thing. We look at it as
like the worst thing, Really.
Oh, and this a big reason why a
lot of people will not even start stuff
because they're afraid of failing.
Right? That's crazy because listen, failing is just
part of the process.
It's part of the process of succeeding. Right?
So
when I was in junior high, it was
like, ninth grade.
I was not the best student. I f
off a bunch. I really didn't care. All
I cared about was
do around my friends and girls. Like, that's
all. I really cared about.
And
I got, like, mostly cs a few d's,
and then in 1 class at the end
of the year, I ended up getting an
f. In algebra ninth grade algebra. I got
it f, and I was like, oh my
god. I was devastated,
and I felt like such a huge loser.
So So
I kinda deem myself as a failure. I
figured my parents were gonna kill me. First
of all, I'm never gonna graduate from high
school. I'm stupid dumb loser.
And listen, is any of that stuff true?
No.
But does thinking these terrible things help us
at all? No.
So how do you think I felt
with that kind of a mindset?
Well I felt like I was completely stuck,
Like, I can't do math. I'm never gonna
be good at math. I can never get
it. Why bother trying.
By the way, happy ending to that story.
I took summer school that year. I got
my grade up to where it needed to
be, so I didn't have to retake that
the next year or whatever.
I did graduate from high school. My parents
did in fact not kill me, which is
awesome, and I ended up not being a
stupid dumb loser. I'm actually...
I've turned out to be pretty awesome and
smart. Okay? So failure is part of the
process.
It's never the end. We have to just
accept this. Right? Failure never means the end,
and it never ever means that you are
a failure. It just means you tried something
and didn't work. Okay. So try something else
or try that again.
Failing is part of the process,
and you have to commit to failing
if you eventually wanna succeed,
failure is inevitable. It will happen.
You will go off your food plan. You
have a terrible workout. You won't p of
that marathon that you've been training for. Your
progress might go in the wrong direction. You
might gain weight. You might actually get slower.
You know what? It's all okay.
Embrace failure for what it is. It's part
of the learning process.
Every success is built
upon a big old pile of failures.
Alright. So stop seeing failure as the end.
Stop seeing failure as I'm stuck.
Start seeing it as just another's. Step towards
success. That's it. That's all it is.
So the bottom line here with all this
today. You are never
stuck.
Being stuck is just an emotional state that
you are putting yourself into?
And so what do you do when you
feel stuck the way out,
stop letting yourself down. You gotta start building
trust
and integrity with yourself instead. And when you
do that, when you do what you say
you're gonna do. You build confidence in yourself,
You make progress, and then you you wanna
keep doing that. Get out of that vicious
cycle of letting yourself down and feeling terrible.
Get into the cycle of of
building
that trust and integrity with yourself, doing what
you said you're gonna do and building that
motivation to keep going.
Number 2, accept the fact that progress will
be slow. That's okay. Progress can be slow.
It doesn't matter how long it takes. The
important thing is that you are committed to
the process of change
and that you're in this. Right? There's no
finish line.
Being healthy. It's not a destination we're trying
to get to it's how we live our
life.
Period. Okay? And then number 3, you gotta
reframe failure. Stop seeing as the end.
If and just start seeing it as just
1 more thing that you learned
that maybe didn't work on the road to
eventually reaching your big goal. And eventually being
successful.
Okay? You got this. Love you all, keep
on running lean, and I will talk to
you soon.