Ep #191: Why You’re Struggling to Stay Consistent and How to Fix It

Welcome to The Not Your Average Runner Podcast. If you’re a woman who has never felt athletic but you still dream about becoming a runner, you are in the right place. I’m Jill Angie, a certified running and life coach and I teach women how to start running, feel confident, and change their lives, and now I want to help you.

Jill: Hey Rebels. So this week we are here talking about consistency and how to stay consistent with exercise, and I’m here with my two favorite coaches, my two favorite people, Elle Dee and Jen who are coaches in the Run Your Best Life coaching program. So hi guys, how you doing?

Jen: Hey. Good.

Elle Dee: Hello. How are you?

Jill: I am fabulous. I got vaccinated on Monday and so I’m like – I’m happy. I feel like okay, good; life can start again.

Jen: I know. It really does feel good to get it done.

Jill: Yeah, it does. And I know that they’re rolling it out throughout the country now and everything and I’m just kind of like, alright, we got two months before my wedding. How many of my guests can I get vaccinated before then? The hunt is on. I’m calling everybody up going, “Did you get an appointment? Are you checking every day?”

Jen: I know, I know. It’s crazy.

Jill: Okay, but we’re here to talk about consistency and what mistakes people make with consistency. Why they’re not consistent and how you can fix that, right? We’re actually going to talk mostly about one specific problem that people have, and Jen, do you want to start speaking about that? This was a topic that you and I were chatting about and you had a lot of thoughts about it, so I’m just going to suggest that you kind of kick off what we’re going to talk about today.

Jen: Sure, yeah. I think I texted you about this because I had this realization because I bought a treadmill and the treadmill came broken and I was super mad about it and I sent it back and I got my refund and I was investigating, investigating, investigating and doing all this.

And I don’t know how I had this realization. I think it’s because I also bought a weight bench and weights. And they’re sitting – not totally unused, but not sort of as consistently used as I thought they would be. And I thought like, I’m buying a treadmill to try to fix a problem that is not going to be fixed by buying the tool that I think is going to fix it.

So I’m like, the tool is not the solution. The tool is not a strategy. I’m trying to fix something internal with an external tool that is – it’s not meant to create the strategy. I should have a strategy in place around what I want to do around working out and having the tool should enhance that or make it better or easier or more efficient. But it’s not going to be the motivation and the impetus I need to be more consistent with my workouts.

And so I was like, I’m not buying a treadmill, I’m not going to buy one. That treadmill coming broken was the best thing that ever happened to me because I realized I can keep spending money on stuff like home workout equipment and it’s not going to make me want to workout anymore than not having it, right? And so I had this internal, wait a second.

Jill: Because the treadmill’s not going to make you run. You still have to put your shoes on, you still have to put your workout gear on, you still have to clear your schedule, you still have to go through all the excuses in your brain before you get on the treadmill.

Now, I think it’s interesting that you were trying to buy a treadmill to solve a problem. Talk about the problem you were having and how you thought the treadmill was going to fix it.

Jen: Well, so I used to always run in the morning and my husband and I are separated, so it’s just me and my son here. So I can’t go running in the early morning because A, I can’t leave my son alone because he’s only five, and I’ve done it before where he’s gone with me, but that’s a whole process. That’s not me going out for a quick half hour run. That’s like, getting his little ass out of bed and getting him dressed and whining and fighting and I don’t want to do it, and I’m like well, alright, then we’re not going to do it.

But I want to do it, you know what I mean? So it’s a whole – the getting out the door with a five-year-old to go running and have him ride his bike or whatever takes an additional half an hour or longer. And so it’s not worth the struggle to do it, to have him go with me.

So I was like, okay, well then, I’ll buy a treadmill and I’ll just run at home. And I have a really tiny house so I don’t have anywhere to put a treadmill, so I was going to get one of those fold-up ones. Well, first I was going to get one of those really small ones that slide under a couch.

But I read a lot of the reviews, I’m like, I just don’t think this is going to work for what I need it to be. So then I looked and I bought one of the fold-up ones and it’s so much bigger than you ever anticipate it being. And so I was going to have to put it in my – I have this little weird space in my kitchen.

So I was going to have to put it in my kitchen. I’m like, I’m not going to fucking run on a treadmill in my kitchen at 5:30 in the morning. I just know I’m not going to do it. I know myself and I know that I’m not going to do it.

And so I was like, how can I – I like to run in the morning, but I was like, you know what, maybe I just can’t run in the morning right now. Maybe I just have to do it at a different time when it works out for me and it’s easy for either my son to ride his bike with me, or I can do it on my lunch break or I can do it when his dad has him or whatever it is.

I know I’m not going to wake up early and run on a treadmill in my kitchen. I know it’s not going to happen. My house is so old I have window units for air conditioning. I don’t have any air conditioning in my kitchen. So I’m like, there’s no way. I just know in the summer that that’s not going to happen. So I was like, I need a better strategy and buying a treadmill to try to fix that was not going to be it.

Jill: You were fixing the wrong problem.

Jen: I was fixing the wrong problem.

Jill: So Elle Dee, what about you? Has there ever been anything that you’ve thought, alright, I’m struggling with exercise consistency and I’m going to buy this thing to fix that problem and then you’re like, oh shit, that didn’t fix the problem? Because I’ve totally done it.

Elle Dee: You know, I’m sure I have. Not recently though just because I’m on a – I’m trying to curb a lot of that. As a matter of fact I want a weight bench. I’m jelly about the weight bench and the weights, Jen. Jelly about that.

Jen: I do love them. I really do. I do use them. Not as much as I would like to but I do use them.

Elle Dee: Exactly. And I know you use them because coach Jen teaches our strength training and she will whip out a kettlebell on you in a moment. But I love the idea that you brought to me, the tool is not the solution, because I was talking to some paramedics, I think late last year, and one of the things they were talking to us about was Narcan.

And they said people are trying to treat Narcan, which is the drug that is used to revive people who overdose, people are trying to treat it as the solution to the opioid crisis. And they were talking about no, it’s a tool. It’s something we can use, but it’s not solving the underlying problem.

Happened to be some group from Kentucky or somewhere where the crisis is really affecting the population a lot. Quite frankly, it’s affecting the population everywhere. And I thought about that when you talked about the tool is not the solution. It’s a great tool, but if we don’t have a strategy and if everyone’s not motivated, if everybody who’s involved is not pointing in the right direction and not willing to fail – that’s the one thing they were talking about was be willing to try everything that could possibly work and fail.

Because we’re learning from our failures, we’re learning from things that don’t work. And we can move on to something else. And I also think about education. How many ed tech stuff that people try to push off on me and push off on anybody who was teaching K through 12, especially I would say in the last 10 years, it’s been we have this problem, here’s this piece of technology that we can use for the kids to do x, y, and z, and then all our problems will be fixed.

Rather than really kind of sitting down and saying we may need varied solutions for these various types of people. So we’re going to throw this tool at the people that are in the district but in fact, we haven’t really sat down and grappled with the big old problem, or whatever the problem is.

Jill: Right. So I love that you said that because I think Jen, that’s exactly what happened with you. You hadn’t sat down and really looked at the problem yet. You were just like, oh, I’m going to buy a treadmill and that’ll fix it. And fortunately your treadmill came broken.

Jen: Totally.

Jill: I remember that day too. You were so fucking mad. You were like, this is the worst day ever.

Jen: I know. I was so mad. And it would be a good solution I think to this problem, but I know that I was using it as a way to get back to running because I haven’t been running. I got sick in December and I haven’t really been running since then. And so in my mind, I was like, once I get the treadmill I’ll start running again because I’ll be able to run in the morning.

And I never really dealt with the reason like why I stopped. I got sick. That was part of the reason. But like, why didn’t I restart? And so I have not dealt with that issue yet and so I’m like, when the treadmill comes, then I’ll do it. Because I said that about the weight bench. When the weight bench comes, I’m going to lift weights five days a week. And I maybe do it one day a week right now. Maybe two.

Jill: You can do that with – you don’t have to leave the house for that, right? So that’s how you know oh, the problem isn’t that I don’t have the right equipment. The problem is that my mind isn’t driving me to take the action that I want.

And that’s something I want to talk about because I think – and I even find myself doing this but for sure, people are like, oh, if I could just start doing this regularly, then I would feel better about myself and think better about myself. And it’s actually the opposite.

You have to change your thinking if you want to become consistent. I think for sure there are times when purchasing a tool makes sense. If it’s the dead of winter and there is six feet of snow outside your house, yes, a treadmill is an excellent tool.

Jen: But it’s not going to make you run.

Jill: It’s not going to make you run. But if you’re like, I’m consistently running every single day and all of a sudden six feet of snow landed overnight and I literally – there’s no place for me to go outside because nothing is plowed, then yeah, the treadmill is the solution.

But if you weren’t running regularly and the six feet of snow happened, the treadmill is not suddenly magically going to inspire – how do I know this? I actually bought – this was the year before I actually became a personal trainer. I signed up to do the breast cancer – this is way back in 2009.

Signed up to do that breast cancer three-day race where you got to walk 60 miles. And I went all out, I bought a commercial quality full-sized treadmill and I was like, this is my solution to the training because it’s hot outside in the summer. I barely used that treadmill. And I didn’t train very well for that walk and thank god it ended up being half canceled due to a huge mudslide because I was not prepared to walk 60 miles.

But the treadmill didn’t inspire me to do those 10, 15, 20-mile training walks because it’s a fucking treadmill. It’s not a brain. The best tool you have for consistency is your own damn brain. And the rest of the things are just supplements to that.

Jen: The tools are only useful if you have the strategy in place. It’s like, the tool is going to be helpful when it enhances what you’re already doing or it makes what you’re already doing easier or makes it more efficient or whatever it is. It’s not going to be the catalyst to create the habit. It’s going to be the enhancement to your habit.

Jill: So say that again. The tool – you said three things.

Jen: The tool should either make it easier or make it more efficient.

Jill: But it’s got to fit in with an already established – the tool needs to fit with an established habit for it to really be effective.

Jen: Yeah. You can level up your habit by investing in a tool that’s going to make it more efficient or whatever. But like I said, it’s not going to be the catalyst to create the habit. You could have a gym full of exercise equipment and not – your brain is not ready to create that habit, that gym full of exercise equipment is not going to make you workout. Raise your hand out there if you have a treadmill right now that’s got clothes all over it.

Jill: But here’s an example of how what you said, it enhances your existing strategy because I started working with a personal trainer virtually over Zoom last fall and, in the beginning, I was going to the gym at my apartment and using the equipment there because I didn’t really have any equipment here at my house or at my apartment.

And so I was going there, it was a fucking hassle every single time because there were people that weren’t following the social distancing rules and people would steal the equipment and take it home so it wouldn’t be there. It was driving me nuts.

And Andy said, “What do we need to invest in so that you can do your workouts at home?” So I bought a bunch of gym equipment and you know what, guess what? I use it twice a week with my trainer because that habit was established so it literally just made my life easier but I wasn’t creating a habit from scratch by buying a bunch of weights. Elle Dee, what do you think about that?

Elle Dee: You know, I earlier said I couldn’t think of any piece of equipment that I bought but then as you guys were talking, I realized that there have been several times that I have purchased an app, a running app, or downloaded a training plan that was a tool. But I didn’t have the strategy and the formation of habits to take full advantage of that app or take full advantage of that training plan.

And I thought of – I’m sort of thinking of this as, oh look, the magic carpet has rolled in and all I have to do is jump on it and it’s going to carry me away to the marathon. But no, you got to have – you got to still do the hard work. You still got to the mind work to get yourself ready. You still got to install the habits and you still got to have some kind of strategy for when things don’t go precisely right.

Jill: And I think that’s why a lot of people struggle with Couch to 5K. I mean, for sure Couch to 5K I think progresses too quickly for a lot of people, but you could just repeat the weeks. But what happens is either you can’t make it through a new week and you start telling yourself stories, or you’re making stories in your mind that turn into excuses that keep you from running.

And an app isn’t going to reach out and be like, oh hey, here, let me help you, let’s talk about your thinking. An app is like, alright, it’s day five, let’s go. And so I think – we have the Rebel Runner Roadmap that we coach in that opens in the middle of April and that’s why I teach all of the mindset stuff in that class because otherwise, it’s just like an app where you’ve got this little notification on your phone and if your brain isn’t where it needs to be, you’re going to be like, fuck that. Fuck that ding, I’m done, I’m not doing it this week.

Elle Dee: You know, I just relate to this so much in so many areas of life that where you’re thinking – you have this vague thought I want this thing to happen or I want to do this thing, but I don’t have this one thing that would be the key to the thing happening. And sometimes you got to step back and say do you really need that thing or are you using it as a self-imposed barrier to get the thing that you want?

Jill: Yeah, agreed. So Jen, you were using your lack of a treadmill as a self-imposed barrier.

Jen: Yeah, it’s an excuse. It’s the ultimate excuse. I don’t have a treadmill, can’t do it. I could very well just go out and run up and down my driveway. I have a long driveway. I could just run up and down my driveway while my kid’s asleep, no problem whatsoever, right? But it’s a really convenient excuse to be like, I don’t have the right equipment, I don’t have a home workout gym, I don’t have, insert here, whatever it is. If I only had this, if you hear yourself saying that, you know the tool is not the solution. The solution is changing your thoughts and creating a strategy.

Jill: Well, so let’s talk strategy a little bit. What strategies do you guys employ to keep yourself consistent with exercise?

Elle Dee: I just do whatever coach Jen tells me. And one of the things she told me really almost at the beginning that she met me was don’t let a second day happen. So in other words, if you said you’re going to do something and you let two days pass, don’t let that third – the sun rise on that third day without you doing what it is that you said you were going to do. If you have some injury or any kind of other thing of course, but just don’t let two days pass. And I think you told me that was from Atomic Habits.

Jen: It is. I was going to say that’s from Atomic Habits.

Jill: Yeah. What about you Jen?

Jen: Well, I think for me, it’s about reminding myself of the why. We were just on a coaching call, I don’t know if that was this week or last week, and somebody was talking about motivation. And how whenever they don’t do whatever it is, they miss a workout or they miss a run, they automatically go to this thought and this feeling of I’m so weak, I’m mentally weak, I’m physically weak, whatever it is.

And she was just saying like, how do you guys just hop out of bed in the morning and go do your workout? And I’m like, I don’t think anybody’s hopping out of bed and like super excited about it. I always say you don’t need a ticker tape parade to do it. You just need to do it.

It’s not going to be fun every time and it’s not going to – you’re not going to be excited about it every time. So I have things that I tell myself when it’s time to do those things where it’s like, one of them is you have two ways you can feel. You can either feel like shit for not doing it, or you can feel fantastic for doing it.

And a little bit of discomfort in the beginning of getting yourself there to do it is worth the way you’re going to feel afterwards. The way you’re going to feel if you don’t do it is not worth the pain that it’s going to cause. And so that’s the thing. It doesn’t always work, but it works a lot of the time.

There’s days when I’m like, I need to sleep in, I need the sleep, and I consciously choose the sleep as my strategy for that day as opposed to being like, just screw it, I’m just going to sleep. But then if you have the strategy, it affords you the freedom to be able to pick those things. And not go dark in your brain and deep and be like, I’m such a failure, I’m so weak. It’s like, no, I know my body and today I choose sleep, and that’s okay.

Jill: Yeah. And I think – so we’re talking about strategies for how to continue the habit from a thought perspective. Like this is what I tell myself in the moment. And I know I always tell myself the same thing like, listen – I have three different go-to thoughts.

One is you’re just going to feel better, just do it because you’re going to feel better, the rest of your day is going to go better. Another one that I tell myself is the longer you wait, the less time you’re going to have to drink your coffee and you’re going to have to rush through your shower and you’re going to be late for your first meeting of the day.

I just tell myself like – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve shown up to a Zoom meeting with wet hair because I futzed around in the morning and I didn’t get on it early enough and then I’m basically finishing my workout and rushing through my shower and I don’t get time to dry my hair. And I hate showing up to a Zoom meeting with wet hair. It’s not a good look for me.

So I tell myself that. And then I also say like, hey, you can just do your minimum baseline. And most of the time I get out there and my minimum baseline, and then I’m like, oh, well, I’m just going to keep going. So those are my three mental fallback things. But what about strategies in your life? How do you set yourself up for success so that it’s easier to get past the excuses when they come up? What kind of strategies or things do you do that set you up for success?

Elle Dee: I will say this. This is unusual I guess because most people – I think a lot of people don’t necessarily live alone and I’ve been alone more than usual during this last year. And I mean really alone, like it’s me and these four walls. That’s what we’re working with.

So I normally did not think of myself as a person who needed other people or needed to be around other – but I find that when I go into the Run Your Best Life or NYAR pages or talk to someone or even just see people, people around here running around with icicles on their eyelashes and it’s just amazing what everybody is doing, and I say to myself, “I’m part of a larger community. I’m not just in here with these four walls doing something that’s kind of esoteric. I’m actually doing something where everyone else is around doing some version of it too.”

And people in the group of course are doing all manner of things. They’re kayaking, and it just gives you that spark, that moment of look at these fabulous people who are out doing all these amazing things. I’ve never had that feeling I think some people have about social media. That little pocket of social media for me is never something I look at and think, “Oh, I’m not good enough or I’m not slim enough or I’m not whatever enough.” I don’t ever feel that when I’m around that area of social media. So I consider that to be a big inspiration for me.

Jill: So basically when you’re kind of struggling to get moving or whatever, you connect with your virtual community, with Run Your Best Life, with Not Your Average Runner, with other networks that you’re in.

Elle Dee: Yes, because I realized recently when I felt like I’m really bummed, I’ll do this but I don’t really feel like it, I realized it was because I was so busy that I had not been on Facebook hardly at all or any of the group at all for almost six days.

And I was like, something – I was sitting in the kitchen thinking what’s missing? What’s different? Because nothing is different, there’s not like a raccoon is coming here and bit me or anything. And I said let me check in, and suddenly these are the inputs that you’re getting rather than the normal inputs that may be coming at you that you don’t really want. Like the news, for example.

Jill: Yeah. Because I think what it does is it shifts your thinking away from, I don’t want to, the whole world is falling apart, I can’t stand being in my house one more minute, it shifts your thinking from the negative thoughts that are making you feel unmotivated to, oh my gosh, wow, that looks like fun, this person’s doing so well, wow, maybe I want to get outside and get some exercise as well. It literally shifts your thinking.

Elle Dee: It’s so true because the other day we had storms. I backed my car out because this is the lazy girl’s version of carwash, which is it’s raining, let me – the pollen is going to come off my car if I back the car out of the garage. So I did that, then I have an empty garage, and I was thinking about that guy in France who ran a marathon…

Jill: He ran a marathon on a seven-meter balcony.

Elle Dee: So I’m looking at my garage thinking I could crush a marathon in this garage, just running around this garage.

Jill: If you do that, we have to do some kind of live podcast broadcast. Like every mile we check in with you. Oh my gosh. So okay, so Jen, what about you? What are some of your strategies?

Jen: For me, it always ends up going back to doing the thought work. Again, over and over, you’d think by now I would know these things but over and over, I get driven back there because it’s like, I was not being consistent and I wasn’t able to get back in the habit. So I’m going to buy a treadmill and that will make me run.

And then I realized, oh, that’s not the case, I know that’s not the case. So what I end up doing is going back to the work that we do in our group and doing our thought work and figuring out what’s the mental barrier that I have right now. What are the excuses that I’m telling myself? What are the things that I can come up with to combat those excuses? Why am I resisting?

Whenever now I start resisting doing something, I know that there’s a reason. And so I dig and dig and dig until I figure out why I’m resisting something and then work on fixing that. Then I don’t use that as the excuse to then resist either working out or doing my morning routine or whatever it is.

So I always come back to the thought work and it’s like – I have this tendency to want to use planning as an excuse too. Like I’m going to lay out this whole plan and I’m going to create this, I’m going to write out all my goals and do all this stuff. And that’s all great, but if you’re using the planning as a buffer too, or as an excuse, you can plan until the day is long but if you don’t get down to the real reason you need to do it and the why you want it – I always say motivation is your why.

Nothing else can motivate you. No person, no thing, no tool, no app, no nothing except for your own brain. And so I have to constantly go back to that. Why do I really want this and do I want it? Maybe it’s changed. Maybe I want something different. But what is the thing that I want that’s going to put me in a place where – my goal is always mental calm and a strong body.

Those are the things that I want. And I’m like, why do I want those things? And I go back, and that why has to be stronger than that extra half an hour of sleep or the potential lunacy of running up and down a driveway or running around a garage or whatever it is. There’s no tool that can fix that. No physical tool.

Jill: One thing we haven’t talked about is people signing up for races thinking the race will motivate me. And I think what really happens is we sign up for the race and then we start thinking I don’t want to fail at this, so I’m going to get out there and do it. So it’s not the race that’s motivating you. It’s your thought about I want to do well on race day.

And I think people have been struggling since the pandemic because there’s no races anywhere. And they’re like, oh, all my motivation is gone. It’s like, no, your motivation is still there. You just need to figure out, like you said, what is the real reason? If you’re signing up for a race thinking it’s going to motivate you to run, why do you want to run in the first place? That’s your motivation. The race is just one tool in your arsenal.

Jen: And that’s why the fear of failure is really a driver for people and that’s why they might be “motivated” to train for their race but then once the race is over, then they don’t do anything because they don’t have the habit of running in place. They have training by fear. That only can last for so long.

Jill: Yeah. What were you going to say Elle Dee?

Elle Dee: No, I was just laughing at training by fear. That is a – we’re just going to add that to the Jenisms.

Jill: Yeah, for sure. We’ve all been there. We have all been there. I think for me, strategy wise, all the things we just talked about for sure. I do a lot of thought work for myself on hey, I know it doesn’t sound like fun to go out there.

This morning, as a matter of fact, I got up and it was about 40 degrees outside, it was raining, and I’m like, you know what – because I’m thinking okay, April, I got to kick off my Ragnar training. I thought, you know what, April 2nd is just as good as April 1st, and I was like, wait, you are going to be so disappointed with yourself if you don’t run today. It was on your calendar.

So I had to do a lot – I had to do some thinking about that. And then it actually ended up being a really awesome run. And you know what, I went out there in a tank top in 40-degree weather which was not my smartest idea, and I was fucking cold for the first 10 minutes. I was literally like, oh my god. But then by the time I was done, I was at the perfect temperature.

Some of the strategies that I employ to kind of go along with the thought work are like, little things I do to set myself up for success. So the night before, I always check, what is the workout I have planned for tomorrow? I don’t wait until the next day to get up and be like, oh, I have a five-mile run, or oh, today’s a bike day or whatever.

I always know the day before so that if it’s a day I’ve chosen to ride my Peloton, well, I’m picking out my Peloton workout the night before, I lay out my clothes the night before, I even go so far as to like, get a towel and get my water bottle and everything ready so that there’s less shit for me to do in the morning.

For me, at this point in my life, it’s usually not a matter of will I do it. It’s more like, how long am I going to fuck around before I actually get my shoes on or get my ass on the bike? And what kind of a pain in the ass is the rest of my day going to be if I don’t get on it on time?

So I try to eliminate all of the little distractions that might happen in the morning. And I’m also very realistic. I used to be like, okay, I’m going to get up at six, I’m going to do my Peloton, I’m going to get on the Peloton at 6:30, I’m going to be done by 7:15 and I’ll be in the shower. And let’s be honest, Andy doesn’t even leave the house until 6:30 and he’s gone all day, so I like to talk to him in the morning.

So I was like, okay, I’m being totally unrealistic in saying that I’m going to do these things. So how about I say I’m going to be on the Peloton at eight and then I’m off at 8:45 and then I take my shower. So I kind of had to think much more strategically about what am I more likely to do and set myself up that way instead of coming up with this routine that every morning I’m fighting against it. Jen, you’re nodding.

Jen: Yeah. That’s so true. And it’s like, we have this idea of what it should be and this perfect – we create this sort of perfectionist mindset and it’s like, well, I didn’t get up at six so I failed so I might as well just say in bed. It becomes that excuse to fail. So eliminating barriers is a great strategy. What barriers can I eliminate to be doing this?

Laying out my clothes, knowing what workout I’m going to do, checking the weather. One of my strategies is setting the coffee to brew automatically. That is a motivator to get out of bed. So that’s a great strategy. So removing barriers is part of creating a great strategy.

So knowing what your barriers are, you could call them barriers, you could call them excuses, whatever, they’re all kind of the same thing. But it’s like, I don’t know what to wear in the morning, I don’t have any clean running clothes, whatever. Becomes a very convenient excuse to not do it. So to set yourself up for that kind of success, you have to eliminate as many barriers as possible.

Jill: And noticing what are the things that take you off task in the morning. So for me, if my phone is in the bedroom, I will start scrolling Instagram while I’m laying in bed. And half an hour will go by and then I’m like, oh crap, I already messed up my routine.

So I’ve got an – sometimes I will sleep with the phone in the bedroom, just because I don’t know, I like to have a lifeline there. I don’t know, I literally don’t know anybody anymore except my sister that has a landline. So it’s kind of like, Andy usually has his phone in the bedroom so I feel like okay, if something happens we’ve got his phone.

But anyway, I know that I cannot touch the phone, can’t touch the phone before I get my workout done. Or I can touch it when I’m dialing up my podcast that I’m going to listen to while I run. But otherwise, no. Because every single time it’s a rabbit hole and I keep saying to myself like, oh no, just practice, you’ll get better, you really can do it for just five minutes.

No, I can’t. So I just don’t touch the phone. I just know. So I think it’s little things like that, being honest with yourself about really what keeps taking me off track and how can I eliminate or avoid that so that I keep my brain focused on task.

Jen: Yeah. I use that – when I talked before about what am I resisting, like okay, why am I resisting it? What am I using as excuses to resist it? That is always sort of the trigger in my brain of I’m resisting this, what does that mean?

Elle Dee: That’s an excellent question. Excellent. Because that is a problem for me in the mornings as well. You have every good intention of I’m going to be like Dina and get out the door at 5:30 in the morning and then suddenly you’re like, well, let me do some more warmup lunges so I won’t lock up and let me stretch these calves some more, then you end up having a 30-minute warmup when you really only needed five or seven minutes. And so that’s what I need to start asking myself is what is it that I’m resisting.

Jill: Yeah. And it’s so funny too because what we’re resisting is the initial discomfort of the workout. That’s it every single time, right? We’re like, oh my god, it’s just going to be so hard. Every fucking time. It’s going to be so hard. Like really? Yeah, it is. And that’s okay. And that’s okay.

Elle Dee: The weather is rarely completely favorable. We’re now getting into one of the two times of year where we have totally favorable weather. It’s beautiful, it’s not thunder storming. Of course the fall, we get that little window and then we’re all back to boiling hot or icicles on the eyelashes.

Jill: Exactly. So funny. So it’s interesting too because a lot of what we’ve talked about tonight, I think we address in the workshop that I’m going to be teaching – it’s coming up soon too.

Jen: Yeah, it’s like next weekend.

Jill: April 11th, yeah. So that’s probably good because I think we’re coming up on the end of our time so I kind of want to transition and just tell people that becoming a consistent exerciser is – we’re not born knowing how to do it. It’s something that we learn, that we teach ourselves.

And if you’re struggling with it, it’s not because you’re lazy. It’s not because you’re unmotivated, it’s not because you’re a failure. It’s just because you haven’t really practiced a lot of the techniques that will make you successful. So in the – I’m teaching this workshop, it’s a half day online workshop on April 11th and it’s called How to Be a Consistent Exerciser.

And we really take a lot of what we talked about today and do a deep dive with people, help them figure out what are the excuses that you’re making, why are you making them, how do you get past them, and then what strategies can you use to set yourself up for success.

So you guys have both taken that workshop. What do you think is – what are some of your biggest takeaways from that class that people might want to know about? And then you guys who are listening, I’m going to tell you in a minute – well actually, you can go to notyouraveragerunner.com to sign up for the workshop. The link is right there in the menu. But I want to hear from you guys what you think are some of the best takeaways from that class.

Elle Dee: I think for me, it’s to have a menu of alternate strategies. Sometimes I feel when I see people who are just kind of starting out, I realize some of the difference between a person starting out on a particular thing, whether it’s education or anything else, it’s often just that they have not learned the strategies, they had not learned the habits, and they’ve not really learned how to pivot when faced with a mini barrier or even a little bump in the road.

Sometimes it just freezes them and they just like, oh, this thing has happened. For example, I just got an email from a student saying I can’t turn in my assignment on Thursday because my computer just went to a blue screen. So I can’t turn it my assignment on Thursday.

I’m thinking, well, that’s on the 8th. And today is the 1st. And unless this is an April Fool’s Day joke, I think somewhere in the universe of our town, of our city, we might be able to cobble together some resources for you to step forward and make that happen.

But I’m not mocking this student. If the person is young and they’re faced with this barrier and they – when it’s right in front of your face, you just feel like, this is insurmountable, I don’t have any way around this, and the next person is thinking I could think of 13 things I could do before I go to, I can’t make this happen on Thursday.

So that’s our job to suggest those things. I would say the mind work and that’s really part of the mind work. It really is part of things – when I see an obstacle or see a problem, it’s no longer okay, we’re going to freeze and fret. Instead, we’re going to pivot and try to find something else. We’re going to be willing to fail if our first thing doesn’t work and go on to the next thing.

Jill: Yeah. I love that. Just the sentence that you said, they just haven’t learned how to pivot, I love when we say things like I just haven’t learned how to do that yet because it just means I’m on the path. I just haven’t figured it out yet. But pivoting is so important. Because I feel like as a runner, as an athlete, we come across all kinds of situations where we have to pivot, we have to be like, oh shit, that’s not going to work out, I have to figure something else out.

Jen: I love the word pivot too because then I just think of Friends and yell pivot. I think for me the workshop, what it does – a couple of things. One of the things is it takes away – so many people blame themselves for not being motivated, for being lazy, for being un-whatever.

And the workshop makes you realize like, you’re none of those things. Everything you said, you haven’t learned how to do it yet. And I love that because I think so many of us, especially women, sort of default to the problem being us. And it’s not. It’s just that we haven’t learned how.

And that’s one of the things that I love most about it and I love anything where it helps me gain insight into why I default to certain ways of thinking or why I default to certain excuses, or why I let certain barriers stop me, like the student with the blue screen. I literally thought of 12 solutions like Elle Dee said in that moment. But then come something else, then that’s my blue screen.

I’m like okay well, I can’t do this, I don’t have this one thing so I can’t do it. There’s no – the will to find the solutions isn’t there. So I love this workshop because it creates the will to find the solutions. And it’s really remarkable.

Jill: Alright. Well, this has been a really fun discussion. I’m kind of enjoying our little series that we’ve created where the three of us hang out and talk about stuff. So we’re going to do this again.

Jen: I could sit and talk to you two all day long.

Jill: And you know what, at Ragnar we’re going to get hours and hours and hours to just sit and camp and talk to each other. It’s going to be fun. I know, I’m excited. But that’s not for several months. So if you’re listening and if you’ve been enjoying our conversation, I highly recommend that you come to the How to Be a Consistent Exerciser workshop.

It is April 11th from noon to 3pm Eastern time. It’s $39 for the class and if you join and you can’t make it live, we will send you a recording later on. But it’s really, really a good class. It’s been a game-changer for a lot of the runners that we work with. It’s really helped them go from struggling to really solid in their exercise habit.

So if you want to join, just go to notyouraveragerunner.com and go to the menu and choose workshop from the menu. The signup page is right there. If you’re listening to this after the class happens, if you’re listening to this – I think the registration ends on April 10th. So if you’re listening to this after April 10th, do not worry because we will have the class again much later this year. But hopefully you listen to it before then and join us. Alright, anything – any final words to add, my lovely friends?

Jen: Nope, I don’t think so.

Jill: Alright, this has been fun. Thanks guys for joining me again.

Elle Dee: Thank you.

Jill: Alright. I’ll talk to you later. Bye.

Jen: Bye.

Oh, and one last thing. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, you have to check out the Rebel Runner Roadmap. It’s a 30-day online program that will teach you exactly how to start running, stick with it, and become the runner you’ve always wanted to be. Head on over to rebelrunnerroadmap.com to join. I’d love to be a part of your journey.