Ep #371: Tough Love

Welcome to the Not Your Average Runner podcast. If you’ve never felt athletic, but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, and I help fat women over 40 to start running, feel confident, and change their lives. I have worked with thousands of women to help them achieve their running goals, And now I want to help you.

Hey there runner. Welcome to another episode of Not Your Average Runner, the podcast that is here to get you running safely and confidently, no matter your size. I’m Jill Angie. Your coach and running BFF and today’s warmup topic, buckle up buttercup is all about the nitty gritty, no sugar coating, just straight up tough love about showing up for yourself.

Now, before you hit pause and run away, pun intended, I promise this is not about shaming or guilting you. So it’s actually about giving you the clarity and truth you need to reach your goals. And sometimes a little tough love is exactly what we need to break through those excuses and start living as the person we truly want to be.

So I want to start with this. We’re all human. Every single one of us has excuses. I have so many excuses. I’m too tired. I don’t have time. I’m not a real runner. It’s too hard. Like, it’s all, all the excuses out there. I had a good hair day this morning. I don’t want to mess it up, or I don’t have any clean sports bras, or like, oh my gosh.

We have a million excuses, and I know you do too. So, here’s the thing. The excuses, they feel really valid. Some of them are valid. Um, but they’re also usually just stories that we tell ourselves to avoid discomfort. And let’s be honest, change is not comfortable. Growth is uncomfortable. But you know what else is uncomfortable?

Staying stuck. Waking up six months from now and realizing you are still in the same place because you didn’t take action. That is the kind of discomfort that tough love is here to help you avoid. All right, so the discomfort of growth doesn’t feel great, but it gives us a nice result. The discomfort of staying stuck doesn’t feel good and gets us nothing, right?

So we’re gonna dive into some tough love to help you with the growth kind of discomfort. All right. All right. I know that you know that if you want to become a runner or achieve any goal in life, you got to show up for yourself even when you don’t feel like it. You have to decide that your future self is worth the effort you’re putting in today because nobody else can do it for you.

I cannot train for a half marathon for you. I wish I could. I feel like I would be the richest woman alive if I could just go out and train for my clients instead of them actually having to do it for themselves, right? That’d be such a great business model. But the thing is, you know, and I know you can’t, nobody else can do it for you.

You have to do it yourself. So the thing is, it’s not enough to just really, really, really want the result. You have to want the process as well, okay? We all want the feeling of crossing the finish line. We all want the joy of holding the medal and being able to tell people what we did. The process of putting on your shoes, stepping out the door, moving your body, doing those training runs on the days when you’re tired and you don’t want to, and you’re bored.

That’s what you have to also want because you’re going to get a shit ton more of the process than you are of the actual results. All right, you’re training for a race. It’s week after week after week of the process, and you’ll only get one day, maybe not even a day, maybe a half day. of the result. Okay? So the process is learning to love the effort, even on the hard days, being okay with being a beginner, with being slow, with not looking like the stereotypical runner.

That’s the process, my friends. And you don’t have to be perfect. You just got to be consistent. And consistency starts with showing up. There are days when motivation is at zero and the thought of running feels impossible. I get it. That is where tough love shows up. And that is where tough love meets compassion, right?

Because Showing up doesn’t mean doing all the things. It means doing something All right So I’m gonna give you three ways to show up even when you don’t feel like it and the first one is to start small And we talked about this in detail last week the minimum baseline right that we went over is the minimum The key to starting small, right?

Your goal doesn’t have to be big or impressive. It just has to happen. So maybe it is walking for five minutes. Maybe it is just putting on your shoes and stepping outside. That is enough. That is showing up. Okay? Another way to show up for yourself is to call yourself out. So when you catch yourself making excuses, you take a, take a beat, take a moment and say, I don’t know.

Is this really true? And if your brain says, well, yeah, we don’t have time. I want you to challenge that. Can you find five minutes? Can you find 10 minutes? Because chances are you can. And I promise you, whatever on social media that you’re looking at, whatever thing you think you need to do to decompress after work or what, what have you, it will wait.

Okay. You can find five minutes or 10 minutes. And then finally, focus on how you know you’re going to feel afterwards, because you’re very rarely going to feel motivated ahead of time. All right. You don’t have to feel motivated to start. As one of my coaches says, Coach Jen, you don’t need a ticker tape parade to start your run.

All right. But you’re going to feel so proud of yourself when you’re done. So think forward to that post run glow, that. Satisfaction of following through because that is what you’re working towards. All right, now addressing the elephant in the room. If you are really struggling, if you are truly struggling and you’re like, I, I do not know what to do right now.

Um, it’s not just excuses, but it is absolute exhaustion, complete overwhelm and, or deep self doubt. This is where that tough love starts. sort of softens into compassion. Okay. So tough love doesn’t mean yelling at yourself. It doesn’t mean ignoring how you feel, pushing yourself to the point of burnout. It means being honest with yourself about what you need.

And sometimes truly what you need is a break and that’s okay. All right. This isn’t about being harsh. It’s about being truthful. And the truth is you deserve to take care of yourself in a way that feels sustainable. So, here’s my tough love for you today. Stop waiting for the perfect time, the perfect weather, the perfect level of motivation.

Okay? It’s not coming. What is coming is you showing up as you are right now and deciding that you’re worth it because you are. All right, the journey is not about being fast, it is not about being perfect, fitting into somebody else’s idea of a runner. It is about becoming the version of you who keeps promises to herself.

The version of you who says, I’m doing this for me and means it and believes it. All right. So here’s your challenge. I want you to pick one day this week, just one. And show up no matter what. Doesn’t matter if it’s that minimum baseline, five minutes of walking, ten minutes, whatever. The point is to do it, to prove to yourself that you can, and then when you do, celebrate the hell out of it.

All right? Because showing up is worth celebrating. Tough love is not about being hard on yourself. It is about being honest, honest about what is holding you back, and honest about what you are capable of. And let me tell you, you are capable of way more than you think. So get out there, show up for yourself, make the decision to become the runner you want to be.

Because again, no matter your pace, no matter your starting point, you are already amazing. And I believe in you. All right, Runners, that is it for today’s episode. I hope you are feeling inspired to add, uh, some of this tough love to your routine, okay? And if this episode helped get you in the right mindset for today’s run, don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.

As always, stay safe, get your ass out there and run. And I will talk to you next week. Real quick, before you go, if you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have to check out my seven day jumpstart plan. It is a free downloadable guide that will teach you exactly how to start running safely and confidently in the body you have right now.

Head on over to notyouraveragerunner. com slash jumpstart to grab it. That’s notyouraveragerunner. com slash jumpstart. I’d love to be a part of your journey.