Ep #124: Why You Keep Losing Your Mojo and How to Get it Back

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 124 of The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. I’m your host Jill Angie, and this is the last episode of the decade. I cannot believe we are about to head into the 20s. My mom and dad were born in the 20s. The 1920s. How is it possible they were born almost 100 years ago? It blows my mind.

But we are not here to talk about that. On this very last podcast of 2019, as we approach the season of resolution and New Year, new you, and all that stuff, I want to talk about motivation. Because all the resolutions in the world are useless if you’re not feeling the mojo. Am I right?

Like, you’ll start out all excited but then you lose motivation and boom, you struggle and you quit and you feel like shit. And I just made a nice little rhyme. So let’s just talk about this whole motivation thing. And you guys, there’s going to be some tough love ahead. There may even be a rant. Because I have some things to say.

So first of all, I want you to stop saying you’ve lost your motivation. Just stop it. It’s not accurate. What really is going on is you stopped creating it for yourself. Motivation only happens when you think thoughts that motivate you. So instead of saying, “I don’t know, I just lost my motivation,” tell the truth. Motivation is not something you can lose.

I mean, I understand why you think that way. Because one moment, you’re feeling all excited and inspired and you’re like, yeah, I’m going to slay that race, and then the next you’re like, I don’t want to run. And it seems like there’s some kind of magic repellent that someone sprayed on your running shoes so that every time you go near them you can’t seem to pick them up.

Here is the thing though; motivation, it really doesn’t just disappear because it comes from your thinking. And when you think thoughts like I don’t want to run, you feel unmotivated. Of course, you do. When you keep thinking I just don’t feel like it, you feel unmotivated. Who wouldn’t?

So why the hell do you keep saying that to yourself? Stop it right now. You know what makes you feel motivated? Thinking about all the reasons you really do want to run. Like doing well at your race, or feeling so much better after work when you can come home and chill instead of having to go out for your run, or knowing that you did something that was out of your comfort zone.

Those things make you feel awesome. So think about why you want to run. What are those reasons? And you also feel unmotivated when you tell yourself a story about how running is just so hard for you, or you’re not getting any faster, or everyone else is better at it than you, it’s so easy for them. Poor me.

Stop it. Stop feeling sorry for yourself because you’re not getting the results with running that you want. Feeling sorry for yourself like that will not make you feel motivated and make you even less likely to get out there and work your ass off. Feeling sorry for yourself because you’re not getting what you want makes you want to sit on your ass and eat Cheetos.

Ask me how I know. But seriously, if you think it’s easy for everyone else that they just somehow magically wake up ready and excited to run every day, they don’t. Nobody does because we all have human brains that want to seek comfort all the time. It is how we are wired.

Now, the problem is not that your brain is always seeking comfort, and the problem is not that you feel unmotivated. The problem is that you think this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. You believe that you’re supposed to feel motivated or you’re doing it wrong, that it’s supposed to be easy peasy lemon squeezy. Just always motivated and happy and oh yeah, I get to go run today.

No. Not even close. Most people do not feel excited about running. I seriously do like, maybe 5% of the time. If it’s a cloudy, cool and dry day, maybe 60 degrees, no rain in sight, I slept 10 hours the night before, I have nothing else planned for the day, I can take a long leisurely stretch and shower afterwards and then still have time to watch an episode of 90 Day Fiancé before I take a nap, yeah, then I’m excited.

The rest of the time, not so much. The rest of the time, I have to get my brain on board because it has a million excuses, like there’s not enough time, you didn’t sleep enough, it might rain, it’s too hot, it’s too cold, you can do it tomorrow, you get the picture. I never ever feel like it. Never.

I mean, even on the days where the condition is perfect and I have literally nothing else to do, my brain is still usually a little like, let’s just sit here on the patio with some coffee just for a little bit longer. If I waited until I was in the mood, I’d run about twice a year.

So I just have to do it anyway, and that’s what you need to do. You got to figure out how to make it happen. Now, I recently did a Facebook Live about this and people were asking questions like, “Yeah, but seriously, how do I get motivated when I’m really not in the mood? Not just sort of unmotivated but really unmotivated.”

I’m like, it’s all the same thing. Here’s how you do it. You take responsibility for your thoughts and your feelings. That is it. That is the secret sauce. You got to put on those big girl panties and say, nobody else is going to do this for me, so I can either wait until hell freezes over and I’m magically motivated, or I can grow the fuck up and decide that motivation is mine to create. If I want it, I got to make it.

But it’s so much easier to just say you lost your motivation, right? Then you get to blame everything else. All the circumstances in your life for not feeling motivated to run. And then you never get better at running. So you guys, it takes courage and guts and maturity to decide that enough is enough and you’re going to woman up, take responsibility for how you show up as a runner, or for anything really.

So I want you to stop making dumb excuses and really own this. Own your fails, own your successes, own all of it. Because failure, we always think like, I failed and I kind of lost my motivation. No. Failure doesn’t demotivate you. You demotivate you. Failure is a good thing, you guys. Failure helps you get better and stronger and smarter.

Running is a lot of failures. Running is awesome. But don’t expect that it is going to be rainbows and daisies and unicorns all the time. That is not how anything works. Anything worth working on is going to make you feel frustrated and defeated and discouraged sometimes because you are going to fail on your way to success. And it is normal to feel disappointed and annoyed and all of those things when something doesn’t go how you want it to.

If you succeed really easily, it is not reproducible because you don’t really know what it takes. You just got lucky. If you fail a lot, before you succeed, you know exactly what works, exactly what doesn’t work, and you can keep refining and improving and getting better and stronger, and you develop fortitude when you fail a lot. You develop resilience.

Failure is a bonus. It’s a gift. It’s something to be proud of. The more you fail, the sweeter your success. Now, when you believe that you’re always supposed to feel excited about running, you’re pretty much screwed because it means something is wrong with you as soon as you’re not excited. And then you’re like, oh shit, I better go figure out how to get motivated or I won’t be able to run.

You don’t have to feel motivated to go for a run. Now, if you get really good at creating motivation for yourself by working on your thoughts, you will feel motivated a lot. This is awesome. I’m all in for this. But really, you don’t actually have to be motivated.

You can just think a thought like, “I’m going to do it because I said I would.” Nobody feels excited to go running when they think, “I’m going to do it because I said I would.” They just do it. They feel determined or they feel calm or they feel devoted, I guess. But nobody feels drama, like that motivation drama like, I’m just not into it, I don’t want to do this. Nobody has the drama when they say, “I’m just going to do it because I said I would.”

So I want you to look at where you are creating drama and self-pity, like poor me, I’m struggling to feel motivated, because that will kill your motivation. Any little scrap of motivation you might have had when you start going into that self-pity place, it’s gone, it’s done. So stop it. Stop expecting it to be effortless. Sometimes you’re going to have to put in some effort.

And you know what? It’s easy. If it’s easy all the time to get up and go running, you don’t get any better at doing hard things. So I think feeling unmotivated is an opportunity. An opportunity to figure out why, uncover whatever bullshit stories you’re telling yourself, and then get busy working on them.

I lost my motivation is an excuse. You know it and I know it. What you are really saying is it is more important for me to feel comfortable right now or avoid discomfort rather than keep my commitment to myself about this run. Every time you give into that desire to just stay in bed, you reinforce your identity as someone who doesn’t feel motivated. As someone who doesn’t just get the fuck up and do it.

You’re expecting it to be easy so you can get up and go. You think there’s some magical mojo fairy, but it doesn’t have to feel easy. You don’t have to feel excited. You don’t have to feel motivated. You don’t have to think like, oh my god, I can’t wait to go running today. Believing that motivation is your birthright is a lie. Believing it’s easier for other people, it’s a lie, and it’s keeping you stuck.

So you got to be prepared for those times when you don’t feel motivated. Either you tell yourself I’m just going to do this even though I don’t want to, you can tell yourself that, or you can ask yourself and answer truthfully, why don’t you want to? And then really understand it. I don’t feel like it is a bullshit response. Why don’t you feel like it?

Is it because you’re tired? Okay, why are you tired? Is it because you don’t want to do your hill workout? Okay, why? Why don’t you want to do your hill workout? What story are you telling yourself about a hill workout that is making you feel unmotivated? Is it because you think you’re not making any progress? Girl, skipping your run because you don’t feel motivated is not going to help you make progress.

So really like, do the thought work around it. Ask the hard questions. Find out what you’re saying to yourself behind your own back because that is where you need to start. Stop waiting for the fucking mojo fairy to show up. Just get busy running. Just get busy creating an identity for yourself as a runner because once you start identifying as a runner, you don’t struggle to get out there and run.

It’s very rare that I feel motivated to get up and go running, but I still do it because it’s who I am. I’ve created an identity for myself as somebody who runs. I don’t ever feel excited to brush my teeth. I brush them multiple times a day because it’s who I am. There’s no drama.

It’s not like, oh my god, I have to brush my teeth again. Let me summon up the mojo to do it. No. Just get up and do it. And so you’ve got to create that identity for yourself as somebody who shows up and does what she says she’s going to do. And when that becomes your identity, as a runner who doesn’t back down, who doesn’t say I’m just not in the mood, that identity will serve you well.

Now, if you’re struggling with motivation, the one piece of advice that I can give you that I know will help you is just join the Rebel Runner Roadmap. Just do it. We are going to spend half our time in that class on mindset. Helping you feel confident and determined and motivated and badass. And also, helping you craft the thoughts that are going to get you out of bed on those days when you wake up and you’re like, I do not think I could summon up a shred of motivation, like, what else am I going to do? We’re there to help you figure it out.

If you want to become a runner, this is your class. This is it. You can get coached by me in this class. We’re going to get on video, we’re going to talk about what’s going on with you, how to get yourself where you want to be, figure out why you’re struggling so you can start shifting into that future self version of you that is just killing it, right?

So you can totally keep doing what you’re doing right now, waiting for the perfect time to start, avoiding failure so you don’t have to feel bad, because nobody wants to feel bad. But then of course, you feel bad because you always seem to have the same old shit pop up over and over.

You can keep hoping you’ll magically wake up in the mood to go running one day. You could totally keep doing that for three months or three years, and still, at the end of that time, be wishing that you were a runner. Or you can decide that enough is enough and just start running already.

Start imperfectly, not really feeling like it, but doing it anyway. Which of those options do you think is more likely to get you where you want to be? Wishing and waiting and hoping, or just starting and sucking at it and being like, all in to suck at it until you get better.

Now, if you chose the second option, again, join me in the Rebel Runner Roadmap. Let’s get busy. That’s what she said. The official class starts on January 6th, but the Facebook group is rocking and rolling. So if you join now, you’ll get access to all the bonus Facebook Lives and coaching I’m doing in December for everyone that signed up early.

And I have an extra special offer for you on this podcast only. If you join the Roadmap, use the code podcast, you will get my video class on perfectionist. Now, why should you want a class on perfectionism? Because perfectionism is a motivation killer, my friends, and I want to help you start running. I want to help you knock perfectionism out of your life so that you can get going, so that you can start this amazing running practice that you’ve been thinking about for so long.

So use the code podcast, all caps. Use that code when you join the Rebel Runner Roadmap and you will get my video class on perfectionism in addition of course to all the other amazing things that we’re doing in the class. You can join at rebelrunnerroadmap.com. That’s rebelrunnerroadmap.com.

I hope to see you there. Okay, my rebellious friends, that is it for this year. I’ll see you in the next decade.

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.