This week, I’m diving straight into a Motivation 101 class! It’s been a hotly discussed topic within the Facebook group and I’ve been getting lots of emails from listeners of the podcast sharing their struggles with getting motivated.
You guys know I’m a stickler for a bit of tough love, and this episode is full of it. I’m sharing my philosophy on motivation and how our personal thoughts surrounding our goals is the only thing getting in our way.
While it’s easy to think some people just innately have it within them as a quality of their personality, I’m highlighting how anyone can muster up the determination to achieve their long-term goals.
Tune in to hear some me drop some truth bombs on how to get motivated. It’s not necessarily fun or sexy all the time, but I hope hearing this will get you off the couch, on your run, and crossing that finish line with pride!
The t-shirt shop is now officially open! Check out the six designs on tank tops and mugs right here!
What You’ll Learn From this Episode:
- Why motivation can only come from within us.
- The one flaw we all have in thinking about motivation.
- The true meaning of motivation and what it entails.
- When motivation will happen.
- Why you need to decide what you want the most.
- 9 examples of thoughts you can use to motivate yourself.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
If you have any questions you’d like answered on the show, email me at podcast@notyouraveragerunner.com
- Join the Not Your Average Runner Private Facebook Community
- Join the Run Your Best Life Coaching Group!
- Not Your Average Runner Instagram
- Ep #33: How to Coach Yourself
- Check out the Not Your Average Runner t-shirt store!
Full Episode Transcript:
Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who is midlife and plus sized and you want to start running but don’t know how, or if it’s even possible, you’re in the right place. Using proven strategies and real-life experience, certified running and life coach Jill Angie shares how you can learn to run in the body you have right now.
Hey rebels, you are listening to episode number 37 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host, Jill Angie, and today we are talking about how to stay motivated. It’s been a common theme in the Facebook group lately, people just struggling with motivation, I’ve had quite a few listener emails about it too. So I thought I would just do a Motivation 101 class today.
And I promise, if you stick around to the end, you are going to love this week’s obsession. Spoiler alert, there is swearing involved. Before we jump in, I want to let you know that today’s episode is sponsored by the Run Your Best Life coaching program. Now, this is a coaching group that I created to help you uplevel your running and uplevel your life along the way.
It’s basically where running meets life coaching. And if you’ve been enjoying the podcasts, I want you to know that you are going to love, love, love Run Your Best Life. So you’re going to become a better runner, you’re going to uplevel your life, and you can join any time at runyourbestlife.com. It’s a monthly membership, there’s no contract to stay in for any length of time, but I promise once you join you’re never going to want to leave. So again, that’s runyourbestlife.com.
Alright, onto the show. And today I’m introducing a brand-new feature. So I was at a podcast conference the last week in July, and while I was there, I posted in the Facebook group and asked you guys what you loved about The Not Your Average Runner show, and one person suggested that I start each episode with a quote. And I apologize for not knowing your name, whoever suggested that. I saw that comment, then when I went back later to find it I couldn’t seem to locate it. But I want you to know that I appreciate the suggestion because I thought it was fucking brilliant.
So we’re going to start doing it right now. And today’s quote is – drumroll please – “You are never, ever, ever going to feel like it. Do it anyway.” So why did I choose this quote? Well, first of all, because it is the absolute truth. It’s also a little bit of tough love, which y’all know is my style. And it’s something I think we all need to hear, maybe almost on a daily basis and that includes me.
But I really chose it because we’re talking about motivation today, and this quote definitely ties in. It sort of sums up my entire philosophy towards motivation. So if you have a moment, if you’re not driving, I would go ahead, get out a pad and pencil and write that shit down. Post it on Facebook, text it to somebody who needs to hear it because for real, if you wait until you feel like doing something, and I’m using air quotes here when I say feel like, you will be waiting forever.
What you really mean when you say you don’t feel like it is that you’re waiting to feel motivated. But motivation is not like the weather. It doesn’t just happen to us. It is not something that’s out of our control and it just passes by like a rainstorm. We have to create it. We have to create motivation ourselves. And that is what I’m going to teach you today.
Actually, that might even be a better quote for today. Motivation is not like the weather, you have to create it for yourself. Anyway, before we dive into that topic of how to get motivated, I actually want to start out by reading a question that somebody sent me right before the latest half marathon webinar. And the reason I want to read this person’s question is because it perfectly sums up what most of you are thinking and saying to yourselves.
So this email was from Hilda, and she asked, “How do you get the motivation to run as part of your training plan even when you don’t feel like it? I just signed up for a half marathon in September, and I have a training plan all laid out but I lack the resilience to stick to the long run plans.”
Now, this is such a great question because how many times have you signed up for a race thinking it would motivate you to run but then you don’t feel motivated to train because races don’t motivate us, our thoughts motivate us. So you don’t feel motivated to train, and then the next thing you know it’s race day and you’re beating yourself up for not having any motivation, for not training, for having a shitty race.
So like I said at the beginning, the truth of the matter is you are never ever going to feel like it. Nobody wakes at 5am every single morning and says, “Damn, I really feel like putting my shoes on and going outside in the cold and being uncomfortable and sweaty for the next hour instead of staying in my warm cozy bed.” Like, nobody says that. Nobody feels like doing that ever.
I mean, seriously, if you are that person, kudos to you, but for real, you’re like, legitimately a unicorn. So here’s the flaw in thinking about motivation. The flaw is that we somehow expect to feel like running instead of doing something else that’s easier. We somehow expect that we should just feel like going for a run instead of feeling like staying on the couch and watching Netflix.
But that is not how our brains are wired. We’re wired to seek comfort, like food, shelter, rest, right? We’re wired to seek those things. It’s how humans evolve because 10,000 years ago, running was not a leisure activity. Running – if you had to run, it meant you were in need of food and you had to hunt it down, or you were being chased. Either way, running was the opposite of rest and comfort. It was survival.
So it makes perfect sense that we are wired to prefer other activities if they’re available in that moment. And here’s another truth bomb: when you say to yourself, “Oh, I just don’t feel like it,” what you are really saying is that the short-term discomfort of going on this run is not worth the long-term satisfaction of having completed it. You are literally saying it is more important to you to be comfortable right now than to feel proud of yourself in an hour.
Like, wow, right? When I say it like that, it’s kind of shitty. It’s pretty awful. It’s the opposite of self-care. It’s the opposite of self-respect. It’s saying my wellbeing and happiness isn’t worth one hour of effort, or two hours or effort, or whatever run you have on your schedule, right?
So like, do you really want to talk to yourself that way? We would never say that to our friends, to our family, to our children? Like, if your kid comes to you wanting to read a bedtime story, and you know, honestly, you’d prefer to watch Netflix right in that moment, you don’t say, “Sorry kiddo, your feelings don’t matter to me. My immediate desire is to sit here and rest my brain,” right?
You don’t say that. It’s not even a conscious choice. You may think to yourself, I’d rather watch Netflix but my child’s needs are important to me so I’m going to head upstairs, snuggle under the bed with my kiddo and I’m going to read that story as many times as necessary until she falls asleep. So what if you started doing that with yourself?
What if you started putting your true need for self-care ahead of your immediate desire for comfort or distraction or just kind of numbing out? In other words, what if your long-term goal, say it’s running a half marathon or running your first 5K, what if your long-term goal was more important than your short-term desire to feel good in that moment?
That is motivation. Motivation is when the desire for a long-term result is stronger than the desire for short-term pleasure or distraction. Motivation is literally a thought in your brain that goes something like this: “I want that thing over there in the distance more than I want this thing that’s right here in front of me.” When you think that way, I want that thing in the distance, I want that thing in the future more than this thing I have right now, you are motivated to take the action to get that thing.
So we think motivation is some sort of life force. We either have it or we don’t. We look at these people who get up and go to the gym every day and we’re like, wish I was so motivated. And the only difference between that person and you is that you have a thought that you want what you have in the moment, staying in bed maybe, watching Netflix, more than you want to finish your race, and that person wants to finish their race more than they want to sleep in. It’s the only difference between the two of you.
And again, this metaphor with the weather, kind of think it’s brilliant. I’m going to keep talking about it this way. So motivation is not like the weather. The weather is out of our control. It’s either raining or it’s sunny or it’s cloudy. There’s nothing we can do about it but endure it, right? And weather passes, right? Rain comes, rain goes. Sun comes up, sun goes down. Moon comes up, moon goes down, or however it works. I’m not an astronomer or an astrologer or whatever the word is.
But really like, weather is something that we endure. I think a lot of people believe that motivation is the same way. You either wake up and you’re motivation or you’re not. And that’s really not how it works. It’s the exact opposite. It starts with your thinking.
So if you remember from episode 33, How to Coach Yourself, we did that a couple weeks ago, your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings drive your actions. So you need to have a feeling of motivation to do the action of getting up and running. And if that feeling is what you want, if motivated is the feeling you need to drive your action of running, you need a thought that creates motivation. You don’t just lay in bed thinking, “I hope I get motivated soon, I hope I get motivated soon.” It’s not going to happen.
And when you sit there and think the thought, “I hope I get motivated soon,” or, “I don’t feel like it right now,” or, “I’m not in the mood,” or, “I’ll do it tomorrow,” you’re not creating a feeling of motivation. You’re creating a feeling of disinterest, of resistance, uninspired. You’re basically creating a feeling that is the opposite of motivation because you’re sitting there thinking, “I just wish I was motivated, I don’t feel like it right now, I hope I get motivated soon.” That’s not how it works.
So when you feel disinterested, resistant, uninspired, unmotivated, it leads you to the action of skipping your run, of sleeping in, of coming home from work and just laying on the couch or doing something other than running when you’ve already planned to run. And this motivation, it doesn’t hit you out of nowhere. I can’t stress this enough. It’s not a fact about you. It’s not like your eye color or your height.
And not even – I mean, I would say it’s not even like being an extrovert or an introvert, right? So those are sort of things that are kind of sort of facts about us, they’re personality traits, but you can also – I believe you can change them with work and effort if you want to. But regardless, motivation is not like extroversion and introversion. It’s not like your weight, it’s not like the circumstances, the irrefutable facts about you.
Motivation is an emotion you are creating with your thinking. That is all. So this is actually amazing news for you because it means you can choose different thoughts to create motivation for yourself. You can become somebody who feels motivation literally by thinking differently. So like I said earlier, motivation happens when you want a long-term result more than you want short-term discomfort or distraction.
So when you want the result of finishing a half marathon three months from now more than you want to sleep an extra hour this Saturday morning, that results in motivation. You need to decide what is the thing you want the most.
So remember how we talked in the last episode with Julie last Saturday about self-care and how it’s not always sexy, right? Motivation isn’t always sexy either, okay? Motivation means making hard choices even when you don’t want to because you would rather meet your goals than take a break in the moment.
It’s not always fun to go to bed early. It’s not always fun to skip happy hour on a Friday night because you have a long run the next morning. It’s not always fun – I would argue that it is never fun to set your alarm for 4:30am when everyone in the house is still sleeping so that you can get up and run and still have time to shower and go to work.
Motivation is not sexy. Motivation is not fun. But you know what is fun? Crossing the finish line of your first race. Knowing that you made hard choices day after day after day and it paid off. Becoming the person who decides what she wants and actively chooses it over and over again. That’s fun, that’s sexy.
You can’t have both. You can either have your results, or you can have your comfort. They really can’t coexist. Motivation happens when you decide you want to result more than the comfort.
Now, remember when I said motivation is a feeling created by your thoughts? The 77 times I’ve said it in this podcast? Here’s what I’m going to do right now. I’m going to give you some thoughts that you can think when you don’t feel like it. You are going to need to practice thinking these thoughts though because right now, your default thinking is I don’t feel like it, I’m not in the mood, I’ll do it later.
These are thought patterns that you have repeated so often that they’re just effortless, right? To access motivation, you need to create new patterns. You need to pick thoughts to think on purpose that are going to give you that feeling of motivation. And then you literally need to practice thinking them. Post them on your fridge, text them to yourself, put them on your mirror. Say them out loud to yourself over and over and over. Practice them hard.
So here are some of the thoughts that I use for myself. You can feel free to use them or create your own and I’m just going to list them out. First one is, “I can be comfortable later. Now, right now, I’m working on my goal.” “I’m going to feel so much better about myself if I go for my run right now.” “Netflix will always be there.” “The sooner I start, the sooner I’ll finish.” “Running today means race day will go smoothly.”
“It might not be convenient to make time for running, but it’s a hell of a lot more convenient than not being prepared on race day.” “My inner mean girl wants to sleep in but my inner cheerleader wants to go running.” “I want to see what I’m capable of if I don’t quit on myself.” And my favorite one of all, “Discomfort is the price of admission for achieving my goal.”
Okay, so those are some of the thoughts that I use for myself and they’re the thoughts that I give to my clients a lot of the time. I say, “Hey, use this. Borrow my thought,” right? Now, I want to know what thoughts that you want to practice to create motivation for yourself.
So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to think about it, decide if some of those thoughts that I’ve given you are going to work for you, or if you want to create some for yourself. And go over to the Facebook group and if you’re not a member of the Facebook group, you can join, there will be a link in the show notes. But hop on over to the Facebook group and share them and just say, “Hey, this is the thought that I’m going to use to create motivation for myself.”
And just take a look at what other people are saying because I promise you, the more you talk to other people, A, everybody struggles with motivation until they figure out this secret, and then B, somebody else might have a really valuable thought that you can borrow, that you can work on and that you can practice.
Okay, I have one last metaphor to share with you, and I don’t know if it’s a metaphor or a simile, and I’m sure there’s somebody out there that knows grammar better than I can that can tell me which one it is. But anyway, I love the comparison of things in our daily lives to how our brains work.
So I’m going to share this with you before we move on to this week’s obsession and here it is: motivation is like bathing. You need to repeat it every single day. You don’t take a shower on Monday and expect to stay clean until Friday, especially if you’re a runner, right? It just doesn’t happen. You don’t take a shower on Monday and expect to stay clean until Friday. No, instead of shower every single day. You bathe every single day to keep yourself clean.
I want you to start thinking about motivation that way. So just because you felt motivated on Monday because you were thinking thoughts that created motivation doesn’t mean you’re entitled to it lasting until Tuesday night. You need to keep creating motivation for yourself over and over and over. That’s how it works. So I suggest taking a journal and just writing down the thoughts for yourself that are going to create a feeling of motivation.
And then when you’re struggling, when you’re like, “I don’t really feel like it,” get out your journal, write some more thoughts down, read the ones that you created for yourself already. That’s how it works.
Alright, it’s time for my latest obsession, and I’ll tell you what, if you’re in the Facebook group, you already know about this so that’s just yet another reason if you’re not in the Facebook group, just join because they find everything out first before it shows up on the podcast. So you’re missing out if you’re not in that group.
But anyway, I’m like, so excited. I’m just like, shaking with happiness. The t-shirt shop is finally open. So we have six designs right now, six sayings, and all of them are on tank tops. The tank tops come in a bunch of different colors, and sizes go up to 2X. Now, I know that there are a bunch of you that want a 3X, and I know that there are a bunch of you that want other shirt styles. I promise you, I’m working on it but I wanted to get everything up and available so that you guys can start shopping because I’m getting – like, every week somebody’s asking me like, when’s the t-shirt shop going to open, when’s the t-shirt shop going to open?
So it’s open, there are six designs. There are actually – you can also grab some of them on mugs I think. I’ll check in with my assistant and see how that’s been set up, but we’re going to be constantly adding new designs and styles. I’m working on getting a 3X option. I’ll tell you what, unless I want to buy all the t-shirts myself and have them printed myself and stuff them in my closet, in which case it’s going to cost you a ton of money because it’s a lot of work, I don’t want to run a t-shirt store full time, the choices are limited unless I decide to stock them in my closet, which I’m not going to do.
So right now we’re working with Teespring, which is – the t-shirt quality is great, shipping is great, and I’m just working on getting a 3X option for you guys. But for the moment, what we’ve got is six designs on tanks in all different colors. So you can check all of them out at nyarshop.com.
All of them are there and here’s the other thing. If you have suggestions for future sayings, I would love it if you’d post them in the Facebook group. Just like, tag me and be like, “Hey Jill, can we get a shirt with this on it?” And several of the shirts have the F-bomb on them.
As requested, so many of you are just like, can we get some swearing on the shirts? There’s plenty of them with swearing. There’s also plenty without swearing. There are plenty that are family friendly that you could wear to Disneyworld and not feel like you have to hide from people with small children. So there’s a mixture of both.
Alrighty rebels, I hope you enjoyed this episode and you’re thinking differently about your motivation. This really is the crux of all of it. If you want to work on your motivation, you got to work on your thoughts.
And if you want to work on your thoughts and your running, and uplevelling all of that, uplevelling your life along the way and you want to do it with a bunch of other rebels just like you, I invite you to join us in the Run Your Best Life coaching group, which is a very cool program where we get down and dirty with all the thoughts that are holding us back and we learn to make our brains work for us instead of against us, and we also run a lot. So you can sign up for that at runyourbestlife.com, and I hope to see you there. Until next week, happy running.
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.
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