Mile Marker Matriarch

10 Powerful Mindset Shifts that will Change Your Relationship with Running...and Yourself

• Stacy • Season 1 • Episode 9

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Today's episode will show you how to shift your mindset, with 10 powerful techniques, that will completely transform your relationship with running and yourself. 

If you've ever struggled with a lack of motivation or confidence, perfectionism, juggling too many responsibilities, feeling discouraged, thinking that you're not a "real runner," or are stuck in your running journey, today's episode is a MUST listen! I'm sharing the ultimate guide to running strong and feeling unstoppable--which all starts in the mind.

In today's episode, you'll learn:

    • How to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset, so unexpected setbacks don’t derail your progress
    • Why challenging your inner narrative and reminding yourself that you can do hard things will unlock untapped resilience
    • The secret to moving beyond motivation to discipline, forming habits that keep you consistent even when running feels hard
    • How progress, not perfection, fuels long-term growth—and why consistency beats perfectionism every time
    • The art of listening to your body, tuning into emotional and physical cues to run smarter and prevent burnout
    • Mental tools like visualization and the “ladder method” to build real grit before hitting the pavement
    • The power of embracing the journey over the finish line, learning to find joy in every mile

After listening to this episode, you will be equipped with strategies, tips, and specific exercises that will upgrade your confidence, mental toughness, resilience, and grit. You're about to unlock mindset secrets that elite ultra-marathoners rely on--that will transform not only your runs, but your entire life.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hi, Mailmark for Matriarch listeners. It's me, your running buddy, Stacey Cacciatore. And you are going to love today's episode because it is not only going to change your relationship with running, it's going to change your life. It's going to change your life. That may seem like a bold claim, but stay with me here. I am going to be sharing today 10 powerful mindset shifts that are going to completely change your relationship with running, and you are going to be able to use these mindset shifts in your everyday life. As we go through the 10 mindset shifts, I'm going to be sharing with you a little bit of the research that backs up these claims, as well as some personal experience. Long before I knew the research behind mindset shifts, I was playing these little games in my mind to help me get through the long training season for marathon training as well as the race itself. Many studies have shown that mindset has a tremendous impact on running. In fact, one study published in the Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that psychological factors do not only present as indicators associated with performance, but also with the runner's ability to finish the race. The same study found that resilience is the number one contributing factor to a runner's success. Following closely behind is mental toughness. Now, both of those beat out obsessive passion. Let's talk about this for a minute. So having an obsession passion, I always think about that person being the runner, right? Like it's what prevented me from calling myself a runner for a long time. I always view a real runner as like waking up in the morning and always feeling motivated and loving every run and loving how hard it feels and being naturally athletic. But it turns out many runners don't feel that way. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to find a runner who feels that way all the time. Another study showed that mental toughness and self-efficacy are two highly related constructs that strong runners have. Self-efficacy is defined as the belief in one's own abilities. So if you have a lot of self-doubt, that's going to contribute to a lower self-efficacy. But if you believe in yourself, have confidence that you can achieve your goals, that's a higher self-efficacy. You have the power to improve your self-efficacy. In fact, this podcast today is going to give you a start on how you can improve your self-efficacy by building your confidence and having a positive mindset. I'm going to be giving you strategies tools and specific exercises that you can do to build your confidence and become an even stronger runner the first powerful mindset shift i want you to make is to shift from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset now i know the term growth mindset has been overused a bit in fact i was looking for other words i could use in place of it because in my mind a growth mindset really is about adaptability flexibility the opportunity to grow and learn from past mistakes to continue in the face of obstacles, to be inspired by the success of others, not intimidated. Having a growth mindset or a fixed mindset isn't actually fixed in something that is static within our lives. There are times that we ebb and flow through thinking with growth, thinking with fixed, and that's okay. That's part of life. Ask yourself a few questions to see where are you right now? How can you move into a growth mindset to help yourself become a better runner? Well, first ask yourself, do you think that being a good runner is innate ability or something that you can work for. Having a fixed mindset believes that there's just innate talent that certain people have. And it's really easy to be like, well, that person's a great runner. They have good genetics. They've already been running. They have some advantage. To be honest, I have felt this way before in my life. I've looked at other runners and thought, gosh, I'm never going to be fast. Why do I continue doing this? Or said, gosh, they probably ran when they were younger or on a sports team. And they developed those muscles at an early age. I just don't have have it it's too late to get started it's never too late to get started becoming a runner is not something you are born with it's not an innate talent you can develop that skill and having a growth mindset will help you get in that headspace taking accountability and responsibility for one's own actions is a huge component of having a growth mindset with a fixed mindset you typically blame external factors when things don't go according to plan the weather other people too busy work there are a lot of excuses and listen we all have them and they There are times when we want to just blame an external factor. On the other side of blame sits accountability. This mindset allows you to get up, brush yourself off, and try again when you're faced with a setback. Imagine that you're running on a trail at the greenway. There's a root that's sticking up from the ground and you don't see it and you trip over it and you fall flat on your face. Gosh, you're so embarrassed. Your knee's bleeding. Take a look closer and there are little bits of rock and dirt in the wound. It hurts so bad you don't know if you can even get up. Why is that branch in the path? You lay there you debate whether you scream for help or just lay in the path and wait for someone to find you damn this greenway do you know if you're even going to come back at this point how annoying this place has so many roots sticking up they don't maintain the paths people aren't coming to help me gosh don't they see me laying here this is terrible or you can take a moment to assess the situation take the water you brought along with you and wash off the blood on your knee wipe out the rocks stand back up take a look at that root and remember where it is and make sure to make a mental note to avoid the root the next time you you run this path because there will be a next time you're not going to give up you just took that as information you've cataloged it route and path don't run in the middle of this path next time you start walking slowly oh it hurts you brush it off you start to do a slow jog next thing you know you're running you're back on the course and the thought of that route is really a past memory that's the difference between having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset don't wait for someone to help you don't lay there and think about blaming everything around you Think about what you can do. You can get up. You can brush off your knee. You can start walking or running again. You can make a mental note to not do that path. How about also maybe thinking about maybe I should look down every once in a while and make sure the path is clear. You take that as information, not criticism against yourself, not as blaming yourself or others, but it's information that you can use to improve next time and get your ass back out there. You take responsibility. You take an honest look at where your role is in what happened. I'm reminded of something I read in Mel Robbins' book, The Let Them Theory. She talks about let them as far as letting go of control and letting others do what they want to do, which is really great. It's been mind-blowing. I highly recommend the book. But the other component to let them is let me. Let me is so powerful because it emphasizes taking responsibility for your own thoughts, actions, and emotions in the situation. It's about recognizing that you have power and agency to how you react. You may not be able to control those factors, but you can control your response. The magic of LetThem is that it allows you to free up your energy to focus on what you can control, not what you can't. And in running, that is crucial because you only have so much energy to give. Agility and flexibility and adaptability are all extremely important to help you navigate challenges and quickly bounce back. To give a few examples, let's say you have to do your long run on Saturday, your going to do 10 miles but you slept through your alarm and you wake up and you realize it's going to be like 100 degrees. A fixed mindset might say well I slept through my alarm it's too hot to run so I guess I'm just going to skip it for today. A growth mindset will look for other opportunities to still get the run in but also navigate the unexpected challenge of the 100 degree heat and humidity. For example you can decide to run your 10 miles on the treadmill or you could go somewhere and run on a track. You could also move your run to the following day That's a little bit different than just saying, oh, I'm not going to run. I messed up and it's too late. Instead, you can intentionally reschedule your run to another day and that will allow you to still stay with your training plan. I think that women do a great job at adaptability and flexibility. And I want to take a moment and just recognize all the women runners out there. I see you. I see you out there at 2 p.m. running in 100 degree heat. I know that probably wasn't your top choice and that in the morning there was a kid's soccer practice birthday party slash slash my gym slash you didn't have anyone to watch the kids, whatever it is. I know you probably had a very busy morning and you were having to fit in the run at the only time you have available in your schedule. I see you and I'm clapping for you. Whether I'm driving by in my car or running, I am clapping for you and I'm saying, good job. I am building you up. Even if you can't hear me, I am cheering you on because I think you're incredible. I remember the days of waking up at 4 a.m. to get my long run in before my son's soccer practice. I may have some male listeners and I am applauding you two for getting in. I applaud all runners. It's not easy and you're out there and you're getting the miles in. But I do want to say that research does show that 16% of women have more on their plate than men. A recent Gallup poll found that the significant majority of women, 59%, report taking on more household chores than their male partners. Furthermore, a large proportion of mothers, 74%, say that they manage their kids' schedule and all their kids' activities more than their partner does. So women, and especially mothers, it's compounded, have a lot more responsibilities that they're juggling. And if you're out there and you're running in addition to everything else you have going on, I am clapping for you. And given all the multiple responsibilities that we're managing, I am sure there are times when you don't have a lot of time in your schedule to get your run in. If you had an hour scheduled and you only have 20 minutes, just do that 20 minutes. Don't beat yourself up about it instead of applaud yourself for getting out there and doing something. We create our own reality and we do that based on what we think, say, and feel. So make sure that you are saying things that are kind to yourself and that build you up, not things that tear you down. The first step to challenging your limiting beliefs is to identify them. For example, if you tell yourself, I'm not a runner, make sure to change that. If you run, you're a runner. Don't let anything else convince you otherwise. If your self-talk says, I am too slow. I shouldn't be out here running. Reframe that and say, I'm putting one foot in front of the other. And I know it's cliche, but you are beating everybody on the couch. Arm yourself with positive phrases that you can use in place of negative self-talk. For example, remind yourself, I can do hard things. Instead of lamenting about how hard it is, remind yourself, I've done challenging shit before and I got through it. Yes, it's hard. Yes, it sucks, but I can do it. You don't even have to use running examples when you tell yourself that you've done hard things. If you're a mother, you've certainly gone through something hard because you've given birth. Or maybe you've gone through something hard in your personal life with your family or your kids or your career. And this is why I say that these life lessons aren't just for running. They're also for life. Running is life. This is particularly why I think that running is essential for those who have gone through trauma. It's a two-way street. And I talk more about this in my podcast on running through trauma, which you can go listen to. I'll link it in the show notes. Once you've been through something traumatic and come out the other side, you do know that you can handle almost anything that life throws at you. And so when you're running and you feel like it's hard, you can remind yourself, I've been through more difficult shit before. I definitely can do this. And the inverse is true as well. Difficult runs remind you that you can do hard things and you can remind yourself that in your everyday life. When something happens at work, with your family, if you feel like giving up, just remind yourself, I can do hard things. Remember that hill that felt terrible and I thought I was going to die. I got through it. Remember that run I really didn't want to do, but then I did it and it ended up feeling amazing. All these things build confidence and you can take that confidence and take that positive mindset and it will transform your everyday life. I promise. Another powerful mindset shift is to shift from I have to, to I get to. Nothing will help you shift into this mindset more than having something happen where you can't run. Then all you can think about is how much you want to run. Another way to frame this up is to think about all of your blessings, not what you're lacking. Think about how blessed you are to have your health, how amazing it feels to have the ability to move your body and to run. These are great qualities that we should all be so thankful that our bodies can perform this way. And if you shift into thinking like that, it'll really help you appreciate your body, help you appreciate the moment and help you have gratitude to being able to do something like this for yourself for now and for your future self. Recognizing these self-limiting stories, consciously replacing them with empowering ones, really helps us build mental toughness. The third mindset shift I want to talk about is moving from motivation to discipline. I am so big on this because I really think that motivation is fleeting. It's great to have something that motivates you for sure, but what is going to get you the results you want is discipline. As my favorite coach Rebecca Kennedy likes to say, motivation is a flaky bit. don't wait for her to show up motivation is the desire to do something while discipline is the act of doing that thing even if you don't like it show up on the days you don't want to run especially show up on the days that you don't want to run those are the days that are going to build the most mental toughness you may even surprise yourself some of my best runs are those runs I did on the days I did not feel like it at all I had this run a few weeks back and I did not want to do it but I got out there and the first mile was terrible There's a reason why they say the first mile is a liar. I was sluggish. I was slow. My legs felt heavy. I was hot. I was like, I don't want to be out here at all. I got into mile two, started feeling a little bit better. By mile three, I was kind of in a groove pace. By the time I got home, I had got all my miles in and I felt great. My mind felt refreshed. I felt ready to face the day. So do those runs when you don't feel like it because you might even surprise yourself with how good you feel during and after. Discipline is also the answer when you wake up and say, I don't want to. Discipline says, I don't care. Discipline says, you committed to doing this and you're going to do it. Discipline builds habits and habits build routine. And that is the key to success in almost any area of your life that you want to improve. It definitely applies to running. Again, another example of something you can take as a lesson with your running and apply it to work or a Discipline builds progress with small, consistent actions over time. Speaking of consistency, I'm going to move on to number four, which is progress over perfection. And a part of that is being consistent. Consistency is something that we can all do. And that's great news because the strongest indicator of success in running is through your consistency. Sustained effort, even if it's not always perfect, leads to long-term progress. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. It may not always be perfect. It may not always go how you think it should go, but keep moving. This is particularly important to me because I know I'm not perfect. I know I'm not the best runner out there, but damn it, I'm consistent. Perfection is the myth anyways. There's no perfect person, no perfect run, no perfect situation, no perfect time. If we hold out for perfection, we're going to be holding out for our entire lives. Don't let getting off track from your plan, a bad run, a skipped workout, or regression stop you. It won't be perfect, but keep showing up. I've seen so many runners give up if they feel like they're not doing something perfectly, but you have to meet yourself where you're at, which leads me to number six, which is meet yourself where you're at. Put the ego aside. This is challenging. It might be one of the most challenging mindset shifts of all 10. because it is really hard to put that ego aside. I know for myself, I had to take some time off running. I'll do another podcast on this, but I was reaching overtraining and burnout. In fact, I think I not only was reaching it, I had reached it and was like on the other side. So I had to take a little bit of time off running to like regroup. I lifted weights. I did yoga. I did Pilates. I did a lot of other things to stay active, but my running was reduced significantly. I liken where I was at to eating two much of your favorite ice cream like you love it but if you eat it every single day and sometimes that's all you eat for like months maybe years on end you get a little tired of it so I definitely needed a break but it didn't mean I was swearing off ice cream altogether I wanted to eat it again I was ready I picked up the bowl I had a scoop I had my spoon in it and yet I I was really disappointed. I mistakenly thought that I could scale back my running and when I was ready to re-engage, I could just hop back to where I used to be. But that was not the case. I was humbled greatly. I was first humbled when I went to lift weights after running exclusively for so long. I thought I could hop back into lifting weights where I did before. And I was humbled again with lifting very light weights, not being able to do full reps. My form wasn't great. I had to get back into it. I had to relearn. I had to build my strength. strength, and I focused on that for six months and I got really good. But then when I went back to running, I discovered, I guess you can have it all, but not at the same time. I hopped on the tread at my usual pace and found it to feel wildly out of control. So I scaled back a little bit, a little bit more. A little bit more. And I was really shocked to see where I was at. I had to take walk breaks a lot. My pace was very slow. I did not have the energy for even the length of runs I used to do. I had to reduce my time, intensity, speed, and duration. It really made me want to give up. I'm going to be honest with you. I remember thinking, maybe I'm not cut out for running. Maybe I'm too old now. And talk about a lack of motivation. I was telling myself, why even try? You're doing so terrible. How are you going to get better? You shouldn't have taken that time off. But then I had a hard conversation with myself. I said, what are you going to do? It's hard. You're going to not run. And then what? You think it's going to get easier by not running? No, I'm going to have to get out there and put those miles in. I have to go back to a beginner mindset. I highly encourage everyone to embrace a beginner's mindset because a beginner's mindset helps you approach running or approach any new endeavor you have as a learner first and it reduces the ego and it opens you up to growth. You also need to eliminate a word from your vocabulary and that word is should. Oh, I should be faster. I should be able to go longer. I should be able to keep up. Fuck the shoulds. They do nothing for you. Don't worry about where you think you should be. Meet yourself where you are right now. Use this as an opportunity to get back to the basics. It can be really fun. When I was approaching my running with a beginner's mindset and I took all the shoulds away, I was having a lot of fun with it because I was able to focus on my form and the mechanics of running itself. I was able to look at it from a completely different viewpoint. And instead of focusing on the numbers, like my speed, my pace, my time, I listened to my body. which brings me to the next mindset shift, which is listen to your body over your training plan. So here's where I really geek out and I could go on about this topic forever, but I think that the mind-body connection and running is absolutely huge and it's not intuitive necessarily. I was not in tune with my body for a very, very long time. Yoga tremendously helped me with that mind-body connection and helped me listen to my body when I was running. I would use the phrases that I heard in yoga classes Like, where can you relax? You're holding a pose for a long period of time and obviously holding tension in that pose. But there are other places you can relax. Like, is your jaw tight? Are your arms that you're not using currently, are they loose? You pay attention to these things. And I am now able to tune in while I'm running and listen to my body instead of just focusing on running as hard as I can, as long as I can. Speaking of geeking out, I particularly geek out on running rhetorics, especially the mind-body connection of running rhetorics, because I think there's a constant form of communication between our mind to our body and our body to our mind. And I think that running in particular helps create this rhythm them and really help strengthen that connection and again that is a mindset shift that you can take everywhere in your life. The book, The Body Keeps the Score, goes more into the mind-body connection, especially when it comes to trauma. Now, I have a very strong passion about the correlation between running, trauma, and the body, and I will be doing more on that. But in this context, we're talking about a mindset shift. I just want to remind you that your body is talking to you at all times, and you are talking to your body. So please make sure to pay attention to that. Running calls for us to really pay attention to our bodies like knowing the difference between pain and discomfort which will help you know when to push through and when to rest it'll also help you understand when you're thirsty when you're hungry do you need to slow down your pace or do you just need to take a sip of water do you need to eat your on race nutrition all these things you're going to find out by tuning into your body yes you can create a hydration schedule yes you can tell yourself that you'll eat your race nutrition at certain mile markers but it's so much better if you can just tune in with your body and run accordingly versus sticking to an arbitrary schedule that may not work for you. Another component of the mind-body connection is that emotional situations will affect your run. If you had a super stressful work week, you may find that you don't have the energy for your planned run. Don't beat yourself up. Meet yourself where you're at. You may have a very taxing emotional situation at home with your kids or family or any wide variety of things, and it could affect how you feel on your run. Just make sure you are tuning in and adjusting accordingly. It's more important to listen to your body than adhere to that training plan. Another tip for listening to your body over your training plan is to run based on your rate of perceived exertion and your heart rate versus a specific distance or time frame. This will really help you be in tune with how you're feeling. You can even go just on your rate of perceived exertion if you don't want to have to look at any technology or external device to tell you how you're doing just trust your body and trust yourself I'm going to give you an exercise to do to help you tune in with your body so I want you to use a treadmill for this experiment and I want you to start at your pace whatever pace you're comfortable at now even if that means walking so start at a normal pace and I want you to pay attention to your body pay attention to your heart rate you can feel it you can also look at the number so that way you know what does it feel like when my heart rate is 100 when my heart rate is 120 what does it feel like when my heart rate is 150. These are all really good indicators to pay attention and correlate your rate of perceived exertion with your heart rate. I want you to slowly build up that speed and climb a ladder. Ladder climbs on the treadmill look like starting at that comfortable pace and then raising the pace up by 0.1 or two at a time. So for example, if I'm going to start at five miles an hour, I'll go up to 5.1 or 5.2, depending upon your comfort level. Go up again every minute or so. I I want you to go up in your pace until you can't go anymore. You're going to reach your maximum and you'll feel your lactic acid building up in your legs. And then you're going to know you've reached your maximum. By paying close attention to your body, you are going to know when you're in the race, when to push and when to hold back. This is going to be great for you in helping make sure that you're maintaining your strength and your mental resilience. The seventh mindset shift I want to talk about is believe. Believe in yourself. Believe in your abilities. Believe it's all going to work out. Believe that everything happens for a reason. It's easier said than done. When you're in a rut, it's really difficult to believe in something bigger and more powerful. But for me, what helped me through that was my relationship with God. I'm not here to push my religious values onto anyone, so please know that. And I respect and admire everyone's personal relationship with a spiritual entity. My belief in God helped me believe that there's something bigger and more powerful than myself. My favorite Bible I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Last year during the Chicago Marathon, I wore a shirt with this Bible verse imprinted on the back. It helped remind me throughout my journey that it's not me alone who's going to get me through this. It's God. Trusting in God and handing my power over to him and telling him, I can't do it all, God. I need you. That has helped me tremendously, both in life and my runs. If you prefer a secular reference, take a look at Disney. One quote that I absolutely love from Disney is, all of our dreams can come true if we have the courage to pursue them. Think about what you dream of. And if you can think about your dream coming true and believe in yourself and your ability to chase your dreams and make them come to fruition, that is going to go a very long way in your running and in life. The eighth mindset shift I want to talk about is visualizing success. So whenever I think about this, I think about Eminem's song, Lose Yourself. I'll spare you my poor rapping skills, but I'll just say the line is, success is my only motherfucking option, failure's not. The key takeaway is that failure is not an option. Not showing up, not an option. succeeding, finishing, sticking with your plan, being disciplined. That is how you're going to achieve success and you're going to make it not even an option to not succeed. By eliminating the option to quit and deciding ahead of time, you are really going to be able to tap into your resilience and grit. So for example, if you set your alarm for 4 30 a.m. and you say, it is not an option. I'm getting up at 4 30 and I'm getting this workout in. When the alarm hits, remind yourself of that. Not an option. Get up. Count backwards from five. Get your ass out of the bed. I'm going to give you a very simple exercise to do to help you with visualizing your success. Choose a time of day to do this when you know you won't have any interruptions. I'd like to do it at night right before I go to bed. If you don't have time at night, just do it at any quiet point in the day. Go to a room where there won't be any distractions. Don't bring your phone. Just sit in a nice quiet place. You're going to need 10 minutes for this activity and you can play some soft music in the background. Anything that just helps you feel really relaxed. Close your eyes and I want you to begin picturing your running. Not just any run. I want you to picture yourself running strong, feeling good, feeling grounded, feeling strong. Maybe you're running up a hill and it feels easy. I want you to not only visualize yourself running, but more importantly, visualize how you're going to feel in that moment. You feel relief that the run feels so good. You feel so strong. You feel confident. You feel like you could do this all day long. Now I want you to visualize your surroundings. If you're training for a race, visualize the race course. Visualize the people on the sidelines cheering for you. Imagine your family out there saying your name. You can do it. Then just like before, I want you to concentrate on how you feel. Look at the sights. Take in the sounds. But how do you feel in your body? You feel so proud. You feel happy. You feel excited that people are cheering for you. Use all five of your senses. What do you hear? Are your headphones on? Is it your favorite song playing? Remember how you feel when your favorite pumped up song is on and you're actually running at the tempo of the song and you feel incredible like you're flying. That's how you feel. We need to take in the scents of the air. I know in the Chicago Marathon, there are scents of people cooking because people cook on the streets out there. They're waiting all day to see the runners pass and they're out there grilling. They have Twizzlers. They have candies handing out to the runners. Picture that. Smell the smells of the city. Imagine snapping on a Twizzler mid-run. The sweet sensation, which you're welcoming because your mouth is so dry and it gives you a little boost of energy. Or maybe your favorite spot to run is right by the pool and you can smell suntan, low and hear the kids laughing and playing ball and you do a loop around a path right near the pool and it feels so comforting and so much like home and you can't wait to jump in that pool when you're done with a run and feel the nice cold water on you. Picture yourself crossing that finish line feeling strong, hearing the crowds get louder and louder as you get closer to that final.2 miles that put you over the finish line of the marathon. Imagine how the metal around your neck feels, how heavy it is and how cold it feels in your hand. The feeling of the foil wrapped around you to keep you warm after running that long of a time. Picture every detail of your race, of your run, of the best running experience you can have. And then I want you to take that into the race with you. You can even visualize how you handle obstacles. You can visualize maybe someone accidentally running into your path and how quick and agile you are to get out of the way. Or you can imagine feeling a little bit sluggish and then having a gel and then feeling your energy come back as the glucose pumps through your body. Picture, visualize, and feel each of these sensations and it will transform your race. I promise you because you will have already lived it in your mind. The ninth mindset shift I want to talk about today is being able to differentiate between emotions and facts. The difference between fact and emotion and running. A fact is is that you ran a five minute mile pace. That's a fact. That's information that you can take in. The emotion behind it could be anything. Depending upon where you are as a runner and what your own personal journey is, you might view that five miles an hour as a huge milestone and feel super proud of yourself for the work that you've put in to reach that. Or you could view that as really slow and sluggish and being down on yourself for not being faster. It's all relative depending upon where where you are in your journey, of course. So take the emotion out of it. The emotion would be the guilt or the shame or the worry, the fear about your pace. But the fact is your current pace is five miles an hour. If you view it strictly as a fact, you can take that information and then decide what you wanna do with it. If you wanna improve your pace, you could do speed work or perhaps join a running club and join a group that's at a slightly faster pace and over time, as you try to keep up with that group, you might find your own pace increasing. You can take that information as data and then take a look at what you want to do with that data and then develop an action plan to address it. If you view five miles an hour through an emotional lens, you might be filled with guilt or shame over where you are. You might be discouraged. You might not want to run anymore. You might feel a little jealousy or envy if someone else has a faster pace than you and think that's where you should be. But none of those emotions really serve you in a way that's going to help you improve. You could wallow in those emotions, or you can take the information as data and turn it into an actionable plan. Using another example, let's just say you had a really sluggish run and you felt tired the entire time, your legs felt like bricks, and your energy was low. You can look at this through an emotional lens, which might be beating yourself up, again, more guilt and shame, fear that you may not finish the race, guilt over a workout that you may have missed envy over someone who had a really great run. All of these are emotions, but again, they're not really serving you in any constructive way. Instead, if you look at the information purely as facts, I had a sluggish run. Okay, well, let's look at the other facts during that week. Were you hydrated enough? Did you drink enough water leading up to the run or the day of the run? Was it more hot that day of that run than a previous run that you're comparing it to? Because heat will slow you down and that's okay. Training through heat actually makes you a stronger runner, as horrible as it is actually, but it will make you a stronger runner. So if your pace is slower, that's fine. Just again, take that as a fact and compare it with other facts during the situation, the weather, your hydration, your nutrition. Did you lift heavy the day before? Did you exert yourself too much? Did you have a busy week at work? All of these could be factors. And if you want to take this information as data, You can actually document it. And then over time, you'll learn what things to tweak to make sure that you're full of energy for your runs. So let's say, for example, you did discover that you didn't really eat enough the past couple of days and that's why your run was sluggish. Okay, then you can take that information. The next week, you can make sure your nutrition is on point and you can strengthen your runs. And that's how you improve. You don't have to look at a disappointment or not meeting a certain goal as a failure. Instead, view it as an opportunity to learn, view it as facts, take out the emotion, and learn and improve. This is a great way to approach your running and it really takes all the beating yourself up and guilt out of it because all that does is waste energy that you could be directing towards something more constructive, which is your running. Drum roll please. Our final number 10 mindset shift that will help transform your running and your life is embrace the journey and not the finish line another way to say this is run the mile that you're in don't look ahead stay grounded in the moment this has been a really hard one for me i used to think about the marathon being the event the big thing i was training for which is true but it needs a slight reframing so the way i like to think of it now is that the marathon is the last 26.2 miles of my total mileage for the segment of my journey for this mindset shift, I want you to start to think about your training runs as part of your overall marathon experience. Try to enjoy them as much as you can. View them as learning opportunities to try out new nutrition, new drinks, trying out new neighborhoods to run in, trying out different strategies, working on your form. Think about every training run as just an opportunity to learn something new about yourself, your body, or your community. The most important component of this mindset shift is to not think of the marathon as the finish line. The problem is if you only think about the marathon as the thing that you're training for and crossing the finish line as the goal, you're going to lose all those tiny moments of appreciation in between. Isn't this true for all areas of our life? We typically think that we're going to be happy once we reach a certain goal or we attain something. We make a certain amount of money or reach some type of milestone that we've set for ourselves. But the love, our life, our hope, the beauty, it's all in the journey, not reaching the destination. And life is made up of those million of little micro moments of joy. Those are the things that you're gonna remember. Those are the things that are gonna stick with you. And it's the same thing with marathon training. Again, running is life. Life is running. And when you're running, I want you to think about all the little joys you experience. Did you see a rainbow? If you see a dandelion, why don't you take a moment and just blow the dandelion and make a wish? Well, maybe not in front of your yard if you don't want weeds, but like into the street or something, I don't know. I don't care about weeds. So I do dandelion blowing all the time in my front yard. Okay, that was a total distraction. Let me get back on track here. So enjoying every moment. Why don't you play a game with yourself if you're running outside and see how many Corvettes can you find? How many can you identify? That's a fun little game that you can play that might give you a little bit of joy. Another one that I like is I like to run up to a store, buy a magazine, and run back home. I know you're probably thinking, that's ridiculous. And it probably is, but I just really like shopping and I really like magazines I'm going to give you a little exercise. So first, I want you to think about the things in life that bring you joy. It can just be the small things. Finding a four-leaf clover, looking at beautiful homes, maybe hearing kids laugh. All those things can be little small points of joy and I want you to look for them on your next run. Another method you could do is just when you're on your next run, pay attention to the little things that are around you. Maybe you didn't notice before how the flowers on the corner of that street look so beautiful. Or maybe you love that sip of Diet Coke when you're done with your run and you're hot and it's so refreshing. Or maybe what brings you joy is listening to your favorite song through your headphones. No matter what brings you joy, do more of it. Find more of it. build more joy into your runs, build more joy into your life. Because that's what life is. It's made up of those small moments of joy that we could just ignore or they could be fleeting if we don't pay attention. And I want you to share with me your experience. Leave a comment on Instagram or you can DM me at milemarkermatriarch. You can also go to my website, milemarkermatriarchpodcast.com or milemarkermatriarch.com. I want to hear how these mental shifts have changed your life and changed your runs because I know that they will. If you like this podcast or if this resonated with you at all, please hit subscribe. You know, you can find this podcast anywhere where you listen to them, including Apple podcasts and Spotify, or you can find them on my website, milemarkermatriarchpodcast.com. I would love to hear not only what you think about this episode, but any of the episodes we have or any future topics you want to hear. I am here for you and the mile marker community is cheering you on. And we want to make sure that the topics that we bring to you are ones that really resonate and help you become a stronger better runner until next time I hope you have a great run Now for the legal language. The content shared on this podcast is for informational and motivational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. I'm not a doctor. I'm just your running buddy cheering you on. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider before beginning any new exercise program, especially if you have a medical condition or an injury. You're responsible for your own health and well-being. Listen to your body and take care of it with love.