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Where fitness and outdoors meet. In this space we chat all things hiking, exercise, wellness, adventure, motherhood, and metabolic health from a female perspective! Get ready to learn + be inspired to live your fullest, most adventurous life!
This ONE mindset hack will help you finally see results
Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and Midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. In combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential, and become inspired to live your most vibrant life, you're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for Hiking podcast. Hey guys, welcome back to the show. My name is Brady. I'm your host today, and I'm really excited about today's topic because I find it so, so fascinating when it comes to behavior change in fitness and health that our minds really do kind of set the trajectory for our habits and our lifestyles and ultimately our success with overhauling our health and making this stuff true habit for life. You know, I've worked in this industry for over 13 years now, and I can tell you with complete confidence from my own trial and error and working with thousands of women over the years, that a lot of us know what we need to be doing. It's the implementation. It's actually doing it. It's battling with our brains about actually following through and getting out of this vicious cycle of following motivation, feeling fired up, starting something, and then as soon as there's obstacles, as soon as the shine wears off, we quit. We fall back into our old habits, our old routines. And unfortunately, that is the cycle that so many of us live in for years or even decades. And so if you're someone who has the same New Year's resolutions every year, or maybe they're just slightly different and you never actually follow through with them where you've had the same fitness goals, you know that you've needed to lose weight. You know that you've needed to make strength a priority or fix your nutrition or whatever it looks like for you for years or decades. And yet you fall into this cycle over and over again. Then this episode is for you. I hope that it will be extremely enlightening as to how to get out of that cycle and get to a place where you don't have to think so hard about doing this anymore. Okay, so if you've ever promised yourself that you're going to start on a Monday, felt completely committed, and then somehow found a reason not to actually do it when Monday arrives, you might think, oh, I'm just lazy, I like discipline or I don't have enough motivation. But the real issue is that your brain is actually doing exactly what it evolved to do. Your brain is not designed to make you successful. It's designed to keep you safe. Okay? And often that safety is avoiding pain. So, so much of this stuff is we want to avoid pain. Our brains are wired to do so. Okay. So the brain evolved in environments where survival mattered more than achievement. So your nervous system is still kind of carrying those priorities. So today we see the discomfort of waking up early. The effort associated with consistently exercising or tracking food intake, the embarrassment of being a beginner, the soreness from exercise, the possibility of failure. Just. Having to do these things when we are exhausted, and all of those things are registering to your brain as something that it wants to actively avoid because it's painful, it's discomfort, right? So this is how the brain kind of evaluates these decisions when you're facing a workout. Obviously the reward is better health, more confidence, weight loss, better energy, longevity, all of these things. Right. But these rewards are weeks or months or years away. So what your brain is actually registering and weighing the cost of is. Yeah, those sound nice. Those rewards are great and they're very real. But the pain is right now the pain I have to go through is getting dressed, taking the effort to drive to the gym, feeling exhausted, the physical effort of actually going through the workout when you don't feel like it. Right. So that pain is immediate versus the reward is very much delayed. So the brain tends to give a little bit more weight to those immediate experiences. So that's why Netflix Oftentimes beats out going to an evening workout or the couch beats out going for a run or scrolling beats out, you know, actually taking time to meal prep, doing these things that are essential if we want to get to the goals. But in the moment, it's a lot easier to just go back to what is comfortable and not just because comfort feels amazing, but because discomfort feels urgent to avoid. This is how our brains work. Okay, so if you've ever skipped a workout like made that decision and been like, I'm just going to skip it today and you feel immediately relieved, your brain is learning that avoiding exercise equals removal of pain. And that's a very powerful reinforcement. So let's talk through why. The real reason is that people stay stuck. A lot of times we think that we are pursuing comfort. In reality we really are trying to avoid discomfort. And there's a huge difference. So seeking comfort would be like I want to relax versus pain avoidance is I don't want to feel awkward. I don't want to fail. I'm exhausted today. I don't want to struggle. Okay, so most self-sabotage is pain avoidance disguised as decision making. That feels reasonable. So examples of this is like we always tell ourselves that I'll start next week. I just need a better plan first. I'm too busy right now. I'm waiting until I feel motivated. I'm waiting for to feel ready. Oh my gosh, I can't even tell you the amount of times that I talk to women that are like, I just don't feel ready. And I'm like, what does that actually feel like again? Like, when will you feel ready? Okay. Because that is kind of more of a choice than a feeling. But anyways, that's just a tangent for another day. But we tell ourselves all these futuristic things because it feels safer to think about it in the future versus actually dealing with it in the now. So our brains really do become amazing at avoiding discomfort and just leaning into that avoidance. So why do fitness goals fail repeatedly? Fitness actually really exposes every pain avoidance mechanism in the book. And that's why it's so complicated. That's why it's not as cut and dry as just follow a workout plan. Like, yeah, you can buy a million workout plans. Are you actually following them though? And that is the exact reason why I transitioned from the model of just having like, you know, ready made workout plans. Here you go. You pay for it. You do it. It's cheap. It's easy. However, there was no accountability. There was no follow through. There was no making sure that that individual was actually doing the things right. That's why coaching is a thousand times more effective, because we can't avoid it when someone is checking in with us. Right. So let's talk through the beginner pain. So looking at an experience kind of that gym intimidation feeling out of shape. It sucks. You don't feel great. You don't like looking at yourself in the mirror. You're comparing yourself to others. You're sore. You're winded. All of those things. The physical pain of fatigue and effort, that's real okay. Even just the identity pain of I'm not where I want to be. A lot of people don't quit just because the workouts hard. It's more of like because the emotions attached to the workout feel really hard and overwhelming. So an important insight to have here is this is why coaching work is addressing the more emotional and mental obstacles with clients that we work with. Because the greatest obstacle usually is not the actual physical effort of doing these things. It's the mental and emotional hurdles, this resistance that we have, and it's really troubleshooting and working through those things and breaking the patterns that leads to everything else being successful. I've talked to so many women in the program who are like, I really thought I was just going to be getting like, you know, nutrition help and a workout plan and check ins. But really, this is completely overhauled my mindset and really helped me realize all these negative patterns that I had. And now that those are out of the way, this all feels so seamless and easy. And that is the power of addressing mindset stuff first, instead of just trying to jump into doing the same stuff you've always done. Just white knuckling your way through hard workout plans that don't really fit your life, and trying to follow these strict diets that that's why you're failing. Okay, so if you're someone who's always just like, I'm just going to start this really crazy workout plan, I'll do 75 hard, I'll do a whole 30. I'll I'll whatever, you know, name your diet, you want to try it, and you try to white knuckle your way through it until you can't do it anymore. And then thus, the cycle continues. Okay. So you really, really cannot skip the mindset work if you want to be successful with this long term. Okay. So let's talk about how do we break through this. How do we use the brain against itself. So instead of asking how do I get more motivated, you have to ask, how do I make quitting more painful than continuing okay. Because our brain is outweighing the pain associated with doing the thing versus not doing the thing. Okay, so humans change when the pain of staying the same actually exceeds the pain of changing. And you might have. I heard that before, but it is so. 100% true. You have to reach this point where continuing in the same path, getting the same results that you've continued getting over the past few years or decades is no longer acceptable, because it's causing you more pain. Maybe you get a really bad diagnosis at your doctor and they say you have to change this, okay? This is no longer optional for you. Or you go on a hike and you realize that you're freaking miserable and you can't even do it, and you want to be able to hike with your kids, or you just are having constant joint pain. You're losing muscle all the time. Looking in the mirror is not comfortable for you. Okay, so you have to kind of look through what this looks like for you. Identify your deep pain points. Because if you don't get to the root of what is causing you pain, why is this even a priority? You're never going to do it. You're always going to come up with these excuses. Anytime I'm talking to people about the program. It's very important that we talk through the pain points together, because if it doesn't feel important enough to actually do something about those pain points, you're probably not going to do it. You're going to come up with the same excuses as always and kind of backtrack to what's comfortable. Okay, so maybe the current pain of your health really isn't even that big. But the future pain is low energy. Being overweight, being unhappy in your clothes, not comfortable being naked with your significant other, poor health, living on medications, lifestyle related diseases. You guys. Six out of ten adults in the US now have a lifestyle related disease, and four out of ten adults have two or more lifestyle related diseases. That is higher than ever and a very, very big deal. And then just missed opportunities like you're not able to live your life to the fullest. You're not able to say yes to the travel, because even just walking for a couple miles is not comfortable on your knees. Okay, so you kind of do have to not only look at the current pain points, but really get honest with yourself about the future pain points in your fitness. You know, current pain might look like the workout discomfort, but the future pain of not doing it is regretting wishing you would have started sooner. So it wasn't so hard to do this at age 50. Lack of confidence. Can't show up and do hard hikes without being miserable, having joint pain or falling behind. Physical limitations. Okay, most people are only really looking at two days pain, but if you want to be successful with this, you have to get honest, get introspective and feel tomorrow's pain too so that can drive you forward. If you don't have deep enough pain, you won't make changes. That is just the reality of it. It's how our brains are wired. So how do you actually rewire your relationship with discomfort? Okay, so let's talk about a mindset mindset shift here. Instead of seeing discomfort as evidence you're failing or this negative thing, see it as evidence that you are growing. So instead of just saying this feels hard, maybe I can't do this. Maybe this isn't for me. You're saying this feels hard. Therefore I know that this is exactly what I need to be doing. In order to change because growth and discomfort, unfortunately, are synonymous with each other. You really don't get one without the other. So instead of just veering away from that discomfort and trying to actively avoid it, you have to be willing to lean in. You have to be uncomfortable. Sometimes changing your lifestyle for your health will require you to do things that you haven't done before, that don't feel entirely comfortable to you. Okay, so let's talk about the five minute rule. The brain fears things that are overwhelming. Or like if you're looking at the the big picture journey, like, I need to lose £50, that feels overwhelming. Okay, so it handles tiny actions much better. So instead of telling yourself, I'm going to work out for an hour today, tell yourself, I'm gonna put on my shoes. I'm going to walk into the gym and I'm going to do five minutes. Okay. That gets the momentum going. Then you're there, then you're in it, and it doesn't feel as overwhelming to your brain. The same way that saying I need to lose £50 feels extremely overwhelming. Instead, say I would like to lose £5 by the end of the month. That is my goal. And here are the exact things that I'm doing to actually get me there. So it feels bite sized and it feels realistic. This is going to really drop your brain's resistance dramatically. Action helps create motivation far more than motivation creates action. So that's something to think about. Taking those small actions instead of just looking at the big picture, getting overwhelmed and trying to summon the motivation. Starting taking action will create more motivation the more that you do it. Also, we have to look at the identity shift piece. Okay, so people who succeed long term with this stuff stop negotiating with discomfort. And it's not because we're necessarily tougher, but we've changed our identities instead of it being I'm trying to work out, I'm trying to do this. It becomes I'm someone who does this three days a week. This is part of my life, no matter what's going on. Instead of saying, I'm trying to be more disciplined, you say I'm someone who keeps promises to myself that is a part of my identity. So every action is a vote for an identity. Okay, every skipped commitment is a vote for staying where you are, staying comfortable and avoiding that pain of doing the thing that you know you need to do to avoid actual long term pain. So the moment that we stop treating discomfort as danger and start treating it as the piece to growth, everything will change. It's so, so important to start here as your foundation. If you're someone who's in that cycle, you know the cycle I'm talking about, you know, the negotiations you make for yourself, you'll get really motivated and hyped up. And then once you actually look head on at what you need to do to change your current reality, you get overwhelmed, the motivation fades, things come up and the excuses start and you completely drop off. I've seen this pattern a million times, and it doesn't change overnight. And it doesn't just change because you feel motivated. All of a sudden you really have to address the mindset pieces that are holding. Bring you back. And this is where coaching is always going to be superior to. Just trying to follow some plan that you find on ChatGPT, or following a meal plan that has absolutely no flexibility and is not realistic in your life at all. Working with someone who's actually helping you troubleshoot and work through these things real time, so that you can get to the other side and make all of it feel a lot more seamless and easy to do for the rest of your life. So I know that this is kind of a quick one, but I hope that you found it valuable. I think it's definitely worth examining in your own life. Where are you kind of avoiding immediate pain and sacrificing the goals that you say you want? And can you actually pinpoint the future pain that you will experience by doing nothing now, by just kind of saying that you'll start next time that things aren't as busy, you'll put it off until the fall. You'll put it off until January 1st, after the kids are older and you don't have little kids anymore. Whatever that excuses that you've been telling yourself, I want you to start really digging into, is this affecting my life now, and will it affect my life later if I just continue to not do anything and I get further and further away from my goal? Okay, so I hope you enjoyed it. Um, I always love getting on here and chatting with you guys. If you want to send us a message at the Fit Underscore for Hiking Instagram page, that's where I love to connect with listeners. You can tell me what you're liking, what you like to hear more of, and if you are someone who is like, I know that my brain is working against me and I need the support, I need to do something different because I'm stuck in that cycle. Then you can click the link in the show notes to apply for coaching. We'd love to have a conversation with you and get you started on the right track. All right you guys, I will chat with you all in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, thanks for tuning into this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.