Ep #357 How to Stop Procrastinating Your Runs

Jill Angie:   Hey Runners, I have a little surprise for you this week. I’m bringing back an episode that was really popular in the past because A. I think it’s a good one, and B. I have a hunch there’s someone out there who needs to hear it again. So I hope you enjoy it and I’ll be back with a new episode really soon.

I’m your host, Jill Angie, and today we are talking about how to stop procrastinating your runs. I know you’ve done this. I’ve done it. Everyone does it at least once in a while. And for some of you, it’s actually a big problem, so we’re going to talk about it today.

Alright, procrastination is pretty simple honestly. We think it’s very complicated. We have a lot of drama related to it, but honestly there is one thought and one emotion that causes it. And how do I know this? Because I am a master procrastinator. I really think I need to get a badge made that says that.

Now, I’m actually recording this podcast at 8pm tonight because I spent all day finding reasons not to do it, and even though I love recording my podcast, I really do, I wouldn’t be at 103 episodes if I did not sincerely love it, but there is a lot of prep work that goes into it and I also have deadlines. I need to have the recording completed at least a week ahead of publication so that my producer can do the magic stuff that turns raw audio and takes out all of the sounds of Maddie knocking shit over in the background and turn it into a professional sounding show.

So I love my podcast but I also have conversations with myself, and they sound kind of like this. So this is me at 10am this morning. Hey Jill, your podcast is due today and you haven’t prepped the material yet. You should really do that now so you can chill out tonight after your last coaching call. Also me, I’ll just start at 11am. What’s another hour?

Alright, me at 11am. Okay girl, time to plan the podcast. Also me, I’m a little hungry right now. I think I’ll make lunch, I’ll eat, and then I’ll sit down to do it. I’ll be ready after I eat lunch. Me at noon, okay girl, it is really time to get to work. Also me, well, I need to do the lunch dishes and oh, I need to clean out the bladder from my hydration pack so it’s ready for tomorrow and I should probably play with Maddie because she looks bored.

Side note, she was actually sleeping so maybe not so bored. But you get the picture, right? This was on and on all day long until I had one choice. Sit down and record, or be late turning it in and causing a really big inconvenience to my producer. So here I am. Eight o clock, getting it done.

Now, isn’t it fascinating how we are so much more likely to keep promises to other people than we are to ourselves? I’m not willing to inconvenience Pavel but I’m totally fine with turning my own day into a shit show just because I can’t buckle down and talk about procrastinating. And yes, I see the irony that I was procrastinating an episode to talk about procrastinating.

So I want to break down exactly what’s going on, and I promise we’re going to apply this to running soon. But for right now, let’s talk about why I procrastinated my show. Because I want to do my show. I like doing my show, and yet I resisted.

So before we get into that, I need to kind of explain the process that I use for preparing each episode. Now, it starts with an idea for what I want to talk about, and the ideas I actually come up with a month in advance. I plan out everything I want to talk about for the month, and then on the day it’s due – well actually, two days before it’s due I have a little reminder on my calendar that says spend an hour today writing up your notes so that you can record on Thursday.

And I usually procrastinate that all day Tuesday, I procrastinate it again all-day Wednesday, and then on Thursday morning I have to do it. So the process of preparing is me writing some notes and then I create a script from that, then I edit the script until it seems to flow and I add in any extra stuff like my latest obsession.

So the writing and editing process takes about one to two hours, and I know there are some podcasts out there that can just take a couple bullet points and sit down and talk, but when I do that, I get off topic real fast. I lose my train of thought and so I really, really like to have a script to go through and read to you guys.

And so believe it or not, I am reading a script and I do add little bits and pieces here as I’m reading through it, but for the most part, I write the entire podcast out ahead of time. And so it takes me about one to two hours to do it and then I get to sit down and record, which is the really fun and easy part because I just imagine that I’m sitting and talking to you with my recording software running and my pop filter and my microphone in front of me.

And then after that’s done, I convert the file, which takes maybe five minutes and I upload it to Dropbox, which takes another few minutes, and then Pavel’s got it. So I love the recording part. The part that I’m doing right now, my absolute favorite. I could do this all fucking day. The writing part though, and I’m looking at my script. It says the writing part sometimes feels uncomfortable, but true story, the writing part almost always feels uncomfortable to me when I first sit down to do it.

Once I get going, once I kind of get into flow, it just really just kind of – my fingers fly over the keys and I’m able to just really kind of pour my heart out. But in the beginning, the writing part feels uncomfortable, especially if I’m feeling very resistant that day. Because I have to sit down and focus and really decide what to include and what to leave out, think up new ideas and kind of like, make some new connections in my brain.

I usually rewrite things a few times because it doesn’t always sound right the first time, and then every time my brain gets stuck and I can’t think of what to write next, I can feel myself wanting a cookie. This is legit. And Wegmans, I will tell you about Wegmans. I used to live within walking distance of Wegmans, like a five-minute walk away and every time I would sit down to do my podcast and my brain would want a cookie, I’d walk to Wegmans and get a cookie.

I ate a lot of cookies when I lived at that apartment. But anyway, even though I love the part where I’m writing in flow, where I get past that initial resistance and the words just come right out no problem, and I love the part that I’m doing now where I’m actually recording, I do not love the part where it’s hard. At least this is what I tell myself.

I’m like this is hard, I don’t want to do it. So when it’s time to write my podcast script, even though I love so much of the process, all I can think of is the hard part. I never think oh, the sooner I get this written and the sooner I get to record it, I think – I legit think like, I do not want to do this. I don’t know what to write. It’s going to be so hard. It’s going to be so boring. Nobody’s going to care what I have to say. Like oh, so many things I say to myself.

My brain throws a legit temper tantrum. And what I feel, the emotion I feel is resistance. So much resistance, and I start to dread it like a pap smear or a dentist appointment. I’ve actually described the feeling this way. I feel like my desk is a magnet and my body is made of an opposing magnet, and every time I try to sit down and work it’s like I’m forcefully repelled away. I can’t do it.

And I know – if you know what I mean, I know there’s some of you right now that are like, nodding along saying yes, that’s me, I know, I understand. But really, it’s like I know it’s just my thoughts creating it but it feels so real in the moment. So instead of saying to myself like, come on brain, it’s okay, we can do this, pretty soon you’re going to get to the fun part – and it’s like when I talk about running and I say the first mile feels like ass.

The first half hour of me writing my podcast script feels like ass. I never remember that in the moment. Instead, I speak these magic words to myself and there’s four of them. Let’s do it later. And when I say that, when I say let’s do it later, all of a sudden, all the resistance and the dread disappears and I feel this sweet relief because I’ve just been given a reprieve. Even if it’s just for an hour, I can relax, I can not have to suffer writing and future Jill’s problem. Future Jill’s going to deal with it.

But then the hour flies by and I’m right back in the exact same place and it happens again. I feel that dread. I feel that resistance. I say let’s do it later, and then I feel sweet relief. So it’s like every week, there’s all this drama in my head on podcast day and it’s totally unnecessary because eventually I do hit the point where I have to get it done or I risk pissing off my production team and I don’t want to do that.

So I finally do it. I sit down and I make it happen. But literally like I’m doing right now. And by the way, when I was writing this, when I kind of got to the point of actually sitting down, the writing it, the words flowed so easily. There was no writer’s block because my thoughts had shifted from, I don’t want to do this, let’s do it later, to we need to get this shit done now. And my resulting emotion went from resistance to determination, and relief was nowhere in sight.

So why am I telling you about all my ridiculous podcast drama brain? Because when you procrastinate your run, you’re doing the exact same thing. And my coach – and yes, I have a coach, every coach should have a coach because I’m human and I have drama brain just like everyone else. So my coach has been helping me with this lately and I’ve had some pretty big a-ha moments about it.

And one thing that’s super fun and kind of amusing is that my running is one of the few things in my life that I don’t usually procrastinate. I mean, for sure I will futz around and head outside half an hour behind schedule sometimes. Actually, this morning I left and – did I run this morning? Maybe it was yesterday morning.

Anyway, one day this week I did, I went out like, 15, 20 minutes late. But I’m usually pretty good about doing my scheduled miles on the days that I plan them. Now, why am I so good at that? Well, okay to be completely fair and honest, sometimes I do use running to procrastinate other things. But mostly, I don’t procrastinate my runs because I don’t have thoughts that make me dread running.

And I used to, by the way. During my first half marathon training season, oh god, I had so many thoughts. There were so many times I delayed my long run because I came up with a million excuses and I would just basically run out of time that day. I’d have so many excuses and there was nobody at the other end saying if you don’t get this run done, these are the consequences.

The only consequences were on me and so I’d delay it and then I’d have to do it the next day, and then the next day, same thing would happen. So I had a lot of thoughts like this is going to be really hard, I don’t know if I can finish, I don’t want to get up that early, it’s going to be too hot, it’s going to be too cold, it’s going to be boring, I’m tired, I had too much to drink last night, or just my favorite, I don’t feel like it. I don’t want to.

And when I had those thoughts, which I thought really, really hard, I felt resistance and I dreaded the morning because I didn’t want to run and I wouldn’t sleep well and my alarm would go off and I’d hit snooze. The thing is when we feel resistance, we come up with reasons not to run. We give ourselves permission to delay it so we can feel relief.

And I think most people would say that relief is actually a pretty great emotion. I mean, it always feels good when we are relieved. Like, think about you’re waiting for the results of a medical test. You’re feeling super anxious and worried, but then you get the call from your doctor. All clear, it’s benign and you feel relieved. It feels so good, like a weight has been lifted. It’s time to celebrate.

And in the context of finding out that something negative is not going to happen, relief is definitely the appropriate emotion. They announce layoffs at work and you worry all week long, you feel sick about it, but then you find out your job is not affected and you get instant sweet, sweet relief.

Now, the reason that relief feels so good is because it’s the absence of the emotional discomfort you were just feeling earlier. Relief doesn’t feel good in and of itself. Its only value is the departure of the negative emotion immediately before it. And I think that’s kind of a mind-blower, that relief needs resistance and dread and fear and worry and anxiety to happen first so that it can exist.

But the problem is relief is addictive, and when you’re anxious and you don’t want to feel anxious, you will do anything to get out of it. Now, if the anxiety is thinking about your imminent run, the immediate solution according to the primitive part of your brain is to change the circumstance. Make the run not imminent. Make it go away. Voila, instant relief.

You don’t have to do the hard thing right now. You’re off the hook. But the problem is you’re not solving the problem. You’re just putting a temporary Band-Aid on it and you still have to get that run done. And so your thoughts are not magically going to change without you doing some work on them. The thoughts that are causing the anxiety or the resistance aren’t going to change without you deliberately figuring out how to change them.

So you’re basically saying I’m going to hit the snooze and go back to sleep and let my future self deal with this when you say I’ll do it later. You’re like, this is my future self’s problem. But your future self is not going to be any better equipped than your current self is unless you actually deliberately do some work on your thoughts.

So I’m telling you right now, you do not want to feel relief. You really don’t. Relief does not drive you to take the action of running. It drives you to take the action of skipping your run. I’m going to repeat that. You do not want to feel relief because relief doesn’t drive you to take the action of running. It drives you to take the action of skipping your run.

So to stick with your training plan, you need to feel determined or motivated, which you will never ever get by thinking I don’t want to do it right now, I’ll do it tomorrow. The truth is you actually do want to run. Saying I don’t want to right now is a lie. You do want to run. You want to be trained for your race, you want to feel the pride of accomplishment, you want the joy of keeping a promise that you made to yourself.

And the only way you get that is by doing your run, so you want to run. It’s like think of your taxes. Nobody ever says I want to do my taxes, but we do want to not go to jail. We do want to not pay a lot of extra fees, so really, you do want to do your taxes. So even though you might not feel like it in the moment, I promise you actually do want to get out of bed and run.

I’ll do it tomorrow is a lie. I don’t want to right now is a lie, and you need to stop lying to yourself. The feeling of relief is a liar because what it does is it makes you feel good in the moment and then you forget how agitated you were. But the relief wears off, you’re right back where you started, except now you have guilt on top of it, and then that requires even more procrastinating so you don’t have to feel the guilt, and the cycle just continues.

So eliminating procrastination requires deliberate, intentional thought. Nobody magically feels like running all of the time. I’d say it’s maybe 20% at best. The other 80% of the time, you’re going to have to manage your thinking. So here’s what I do. Now, I used to think to myself, I don’t want to do this right now, and we’ve just established that that’s a lie. I might not be in the mood to do it, but I definitely want to do it. And why? Because I like the results.

I also like several parts of the process. For running, I might not like that first mile all the time, although I usually like the first couple intervals, and then all of a sudden, I’m breathing heavy and I’m like, this sucks, and I don’t like the next eight tenths of a mile or whatever. But then after my body warms up, I like it.

And I may not like every second of it, it might not all feel amazing, but I like overall how it feels. I like how I feel when I’m done. I like that when I’m running, if I’m not thinking about being tired, I’m actually having a great time. I’m thinking about podcasting. When I’m podcasting if I’m not thinking about writing being hard, I’m in flow and the words just come right out. I just enjoy the process.

So you’ve got to stop lying to yourself about not wanting to do it because you do. You do want to show up fully prepared for your race. You do want to have gotten your run done on time so the rest of your day goes well. You do want to carve out that alone time for yourself and you do want to be somebody who runs.

So what you need to do is take some time. Write down all the reasons you want to run. All the reasons you want to get up early, that you want to go to the gym right after work or whatever it is. I want you to decide in advance how you’re going to respond to your brain when it says I don’t really want to do this right now, or I don’t feel like it right now because you do want to and so you need to decide in advance all of those reasons.

Write them down. Review it before you go to bed every night. Prepare your brain. Install those thoughts in your brain before you go to sleep. Then, when your brain does its usual routine in the morning, you’ll be ready with all the rebuttals because your brain is going to go through all the bullshit excuses like a Rolodex every single morning. It’s normal. You have to be prepared to deliberately override that.

So I also want to remind you of the technique that we talked about last week in episode 102, which is the minimum baseline technique and the drama threshold. So this is actually going to be really helpful for you when your brain comes up with a million excuses in the morning and you’ve got your rebuttals like yes, I do want to go running.

I also want you to say to yourself well, I’ve got my minimum baseline and that means that this is the minimum I have to do. This is all I have to do. And you want to set that minimum baseline below your drama threshold. Drama threshold is basically the amount of running or workout time that your brain will not create drama about. And then allow yourself to do that much.

And you can do more if you want to but like, have that conversation. Make that part of your rebuttal process. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about with minimum baseline, go back and listen to episode 102 because it’s really good. Okay, procrastination can destroy your training, my friend. But the good news is that procrastination is simply a habit. That is all it is.

It does not define you. It does not make you a terrible person. It is not a label. Don’t label yourself, oh, I’m just a procrastinator. That’s not super helpful. It’s just a habit that you have. Like nail biting. Reprogram yourself by practicing different thoughts.

So here are some ideas of different thoughts you can think when your brain wants to procrastinate. I love this one. I may not feel like it right now, but I want to show up prepared for my half marathon. I don’t have to feel like it, I just have to go. I want the feeling of satisfaction that I will have when I’m finished. I want to do this because I want to feel proud of myself.

So there are a lot of really powerful thoughts that you can come up with to help you sort of counteract the lie of I don’t want to do this. And the more you do this, the more you deliberately override your procrastinating thoughts, the easier it gets. The more you practice, the stronger you get.

So my friend, stop indulging in relief. Relief is not the emotion that you want to feel. You want to be choosing thoughts that make you feel determined so you get your ass out of bed and get it done. Okay?

Alright, now are you ready for my latest obsession? And this is not something that you can buy. This is something that I’ve been doing lately that I am just smitten with. I have been mind-mapping my thought downloads and my models. And if you don’t know what a mind map is, just go ahead and Google it. You’ll see a million examples.

If you’re not familiar with thought downloads and the self-coaching model, I want you to listen to episode 33 of this podcast. But basically, what I do is I take the circumstance and I write it down in the middle of the paper. And because I’ve been really getting into doing artsy things lately, I draw maybe a little shape around it, but then I write down all of my thoughts about that circumstance around it in a little cloud.

I draw a line from each thought to the circumstance. So basically I’ve got the circumstance in the middle and then all these thoughts kind of coming off of it. And then in the next layer outward, I write the feeling that each individual thought causes, and then the action, and then the result. And at the end of that, what I get is a visual of what my brain is doing with a particular circumstance. All of the unintentional models I’m creating.

Each chain coming off the circumstance is an unintentional model that might – it’s sort of the subconscious crap that my brain is doing. And so if I’m having a problem with a certain circumstance, I can see exactly why. I can see sometimes there’s mixed emotions going on with a circumstance. Sometimes there’s some excitement and then some fear or some anxiety or there’s often – because I have a bunch of different thoughts about a particular circumstance, I’m going to have a bunch of different emotions.

And they’re going to drive me to do different actions and results, and if I can see that most of the emotions are negative, I’ll notice that oh, well no wonder I’m struggling to get past this thing because all of my thoughts about it are negative. Even though a couple of them are positive, the vast majority are negative.

So it really kind of – if you’re a visual person like me, it helps you really see your brain in a different way. So like I said, I’ve been really kind of doing a lot of more creative things lately. I’m trying to develop that part of myself. And so I’ll do them in different colors and play with different styles of writing, depending on the emotion and so forth, and really try to like, connect what I’m putting down on paper with what I’m seeing in my brain.

So that’s the first part. That’s the unintentional model mind map. Then I brainstorm all the things that I want to be thinking and feeling about that circumstance, and the single action and result that I want, and I create a brand-new mind map on the other side of the paper. So it’s the same circumstance in the middle, but I’ve got one action and one result and then I brainstorm all the thoughts that I need to be thinking and all the emotions that’ll help me take that action to get that result.

So this is like, an intentional mind map. This is a mind map that I want to create for myself. And it’s just like super fun. I do the same thing – I take the thoughts, I make little thought bubbles coming out of the circumstance and then I add the feelings and it’s just super fun.

So I’m absolutely loving this concept of mind mapping my thought downloads and my models and I’m actually – I’ll put a photo or two of my most recent ones in the show notes so that you can see what I’m talking about, but I’m just obsessed with this technique. So I thought I would share it with you if you are doing thought work yourself, which you should be because it’s a game-changer, then I think it might be a really fun technique to try.

Thanks for listening to this episode of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more, head over to www.notyouraveragerunner.com to download your free one-week jumpstart plan and get started running today.