On this episode of RunnersConnect, sport psychologist Dr. Stan Beecham explains how our own thinking can often get in the way of our ability to perform at our best, especially as runners.
You’ll learn why he thinks we need to…
- Learn the importance of difficult tasks and making conscious decisions to prioritize long-term results over short-term satisfaction.
- Be conscious of your thinking: It’s important to recognize how our thinking can limit our potential and affect our performance.
- Embrace your quirks and do the best you can each day
What valuable insights have you gained from this episode? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Finn Melanson [00:00:09]: Hello, fellow runners. I'm your host, Finn Milanson, and this is the Run to the Top podcast, the podcast dedicated to making you a better runner. With each and every episode, we are created and produced by the expert team of coaches@runnersconnect.net, where you can find the best running information on the internet, as well as training plans to fit every runner and every budget. Welcome back, runners. Connect listeners. We've got a special guest on today's show, sports psychologist Dr. Stan Beecham. If you haven't heard of Dr. Stan before, then you're in for a treat, as Dr. Beacham is one of the most prominent sports psychologists in the country and is sought after by some of the best elite runners in the sport. On today's show, we're going to talk about negative thinking and how it can get in the way of our ability to perform our best. Plus, he'll dig deep into some of the strategies you can learn to overcome it. Specifically, in this episode, you'll learn why he thinks we need to learn the importance of difficult tasks in making conscious decisions, to prioritize long term results over short term satisfaction, being conscious of your thinking and recognizing how our thinking can limit our potential and affect our performance, and to embrace your quirks and do the best you can each day. This is an awesome episode, especially if you're someone who is racing in the next week or two, as it will really help you get your mind sharp for the mental challenge of racing. Let's get to it. If you're looking for the most effectively dosed electrolyte drink for runners, check out Element. It's loaded with everything you need to replenish your electrolyte balance. And you can get a free sample pack by going to drinklmnt.com RunnersConnect.
Guest [00:01:57]: So, my name is Dr. Stan Beacham. I'm a psychologist by training. I've spent a good percentage of my work life working with athletes in general and with runners specifically over a wide range of things. But basically what I see with most athletes is, for whatever reason, they're not able to achieve what they're physically capable of. The problems that a lot of runners run into is usually around competition. When you want to run your best, why can't you run your best? And the few people who are able to do it, what is it that they have that we don't have that allows them to access their physical best most frequently? And those are the types of issues that I deal with. What's interesting is that I think most kind of lay people think that elite athletes don't struggle with this. Well, they do. Everyone struggles with this, with rare exception. We're all familiar with this concept of being in the flow or in the zone, right? And so everyone knows about it. And most people who've been in sport for a while have had that experience, but there's really not really knows how to teach that process of how to get into it. There are a number of people who are trying to do it but it's a tricky thing. But I certainly think it's something as an athlete we should pursue right. Which is how do I get to my best more frequently? And that's essentially what I do in my work is help people get there and then stay there as long as you can. So you're referring to my book Elite Minds, which people can get on Amazon and if you want to get in touch with me, you can reach me drstanbeacham.com on the Internet. In my informal research, if you will, of talking with people. Most really good athletes will say it's a very elusive thing to be in the zone or to be one's best. There's also been a great deal of research done about this, right. And so we know that for whatever reason we as humans frequently find ourselves in conflict with ourselves. Does that make sense? And when we are at our best, we're not in conflict with the self. What's interesting is that when we're in the zone or in flow, there is no sense of self. Think about this in the sense of that when I'm doing really well in my life, I don't think about how am I doing and when I'm healthy and doing well with my health, I don't think about my health. And when I'm not troubled by thoughts, I don't think about what I'm thinking about. Right? So we live in this culture that I think what we're really wrestling with is a lot of the things that we've been told that we should do that will help us actually don't help us. And the primary thing is from the time that we were children we've been given this a number of things. One of them is that you need to think about it or you need to stop and start thinking or you need to think about it differently, right? So we live in a culture that believes that you can kind of think through a problem or out of a problem. And this is conversed to the research that we have which basically says when we're doing really well, we're not thinking. The way the human mind is, is we have the capacity to think about ourselves and we know this is what separates us from other animals. An animal in the wild doesn't feel sorry for itself. It doesn't think oh man, I'm having a bad day today. An animal in the wild doesn't say how come nobody's calling me today? How come nobody wants to go have lunch with me? So because the human mind has the capacity to think about its own thinking, which is what the word metacognition means. I mean, think about this for a second. We can think about thinking and this is what most people's problem is. In other words, most of the thing that gets in our way of being our full and complete self and performing at our best is our own thinking, right? So, I mean, the athletes I talk with all the time, they'll say to you very clearly, when you say, hey, what got in your way today? They'll tell you about something they were thinking about, right? So part of what we have to do is we have to give ourselves permission that what might be our problem is not that we're thinking about the wrong thing or that we need to think more. Perhaps the problem is simply the fact that we don't know how to stop thinking, right? If you stopped thinking and just ran or just played the game, what would happen? And most people realize I would do fine. In other words, for most of us, our thinking is a distraction. It doesn't help us. So if you think about performance from a time standpoint, right, you got the past, the present, and the future, okay? We know that when athletes are at their best, they're in the present, they're in the now. And so if I'm being present with you right now, I'm just looking at you, I'm seeing, I'm listening to you, I'm giving you my full attention. I'm not judging you. I'm not evaluating you. I'm not trying to figure out what's that in the background and not trying to figure out, where are you? I'm just sitting here being with you. And so we know the same is true with athletes, right? So when we're really focused and we're really present, our sensory perception is really heightened. And what goes on in the frontal lobes in our thinking mind is really quiet. And so we've all heard this concept of the quiet mind, right? And so for most people, what they have to learn to do to reach their full potential is to stop being distracted by their own thought process. In other words, most of the people that are listening to this, as soon as I say this, they immediately realize that their thought process is much more a hindrance and distraction than it is a help. So if you think about depression, right, depression is usually a thought of the past. In other words, if you talk to a friend who's depressed, you say, Why are you unhappy? They'll tell you about something that happened to them, right? If you talk to your anxious friend, you say, Why are you worried? What are you anxious about? What do they tell you? Something that they're afraid is going to happen in the future. So anxiety by nature is thought about future. So we know in sport, for example, when an athlete chokes or does poorly, they're thinking about the outcome, the future, and they quit being present. Or they go back and think about, I can't believe that I missed that shot, or I can't believe that my workout leading up to this big race was so bad. And so this whole concept of being distracted by your own thought process is huge for athletes. Well, here's the deal with expectations, all right? Just think about it from a general standpoint. Let's take something very basic like eating, okay? Chances are you and everyone who's listening to this, you and I are talking at lunchtime, okay? And you feel pretty certain that you're going to have dinner tonight, right? So chances are you're not going to think about are you going to eat this evening or what you're going to eat because you expect it's going to happen. In other words, when I think something is going to happen or something that's going to work out, I don't think about it. Now, if you and I were lost in the woods and we haven't eaten in two days, all we're thinking about is where and when are we going to get our next meal. We'd be obsessed with food, right? We know this. So what's interesting is if I expect or I believe that something is going to happen in a positive sense, okay, I'm getting ready to run a race. I believe I'm going to do well. I don't think about the outcome. Why? Because what's there to think about? It's going to be fine. Now, if I have some doubt as to what's going to happen, I'm going to spend a lot of time thinking about that, right? The same is true in your own life. When you're happy and doing well, you don't go, am I happy? Or how am I doing? You're just living your life. You follow me? So positive expectation is almost always followed by a quiet mind. But yet when the expectation is negative, which is what anxiety is, then you obsess upon it. So what I'm saying is let's create the expectation that in any given situation, at any given time, I'll do the best that I can. So, I mean, if you think about running, especially distance running, there's a difference between distance runners and sprinters. And I've worked with most, okay? But for a distance runner, you know, at some point in time, your body is really going to hurt and you're going to say, this sucks and I don't want to do this anymore. Right. If you're pushing yourself, there becomes a point of pain. And at that point, you have to make a decision, do I stay on pace and continue to hurt, or do I back off so I can feel better? So part of what we should do as distance runners I assume a lot of your listeners are distance runners, right? Part of what we should expect as distance runners and if you're going to run a race fast, you should expect that it's going to suck, that it's going to be really painful, and you should expect that there'll be a point in time where you're going to want to quit. You follow me? Or you've thought about quitting it's okay. Just keep going. If you're getting ready to do something difficult, it makes no sense to have an expectation that this is going to be easy, right? The expectation is this is going to be difficult, but I chose difficult. I'm running a marathon because it is hard. I'm choosing to do an Iron Man because I know it's going to take me to my limit of myself. So when you get to the end of yourself, don't complain about it. Just remind yourself that I chose this. Right? So the expectation is it's difficult, and I picked difficult. I saw a bumper sticker today, and it had the 13.1, and then underneath it, it said, because I'm only half crazy, but I think most people who've run a marathon realize if you run a half marathon, you can run a marathon. Right? The question is, are you willing to suffer for another hour or two? And so going back to the expectation, there's nothing wrong with consciously choosing to do something, knowing that it's going to be difficult and or painful. So why do we choose to do that? Because it's transformative, right? This whole concept of growth and getting better that we talk about, this transformation, this personal transformation, this physical transformation, it doesn't take place unless you do these difficult things. That's why they're worth doing, because it helps us become more fully who we are. So this is the trade off, right? I'm going to go out and I'm going to run hard today, and I'm expecting it to be really difficult, but here's what I'm going to get for that, right? So another way to think about it is and I do this with myself all the time because I've made a lot of dietary changes in the last year and health changes, primarily because I'm 56. I'll be 56 Wednesday, and I want to keep living, right? The way I think about it, and I say this to myself, is, what do you want now? Versus what do you want most? So what do I want now? I want the cheeseburger, the fries, and the double shake. That's what I want now. What do I want most? I want to have healthy cholesterol and blood pressure, okay. And and weigh 15 or £20 less. And so I remind myself this every day, right? But I'm going to always want the thing that brings pleasure now, right? Versus by disciplining yourself and making yourself do the workout and making yourself eat clean, you get what you want most, right? You can't have both. You can't have what you want now and what you want most. So make it a conscious decision. So my expectation then is if I'm going to live my life in such a way that I'm going to become a full and complete person, which is be the best of me or what I want most, what I'm willing to sacrifice is the cheeseburger and the fries. You got it. Or the cigarette. No, I'm going to run the 6 miles instead of the 4 miles or I'm going to run it at an eight minute pace versus a ten minute pace. And so just make those decisions and consciously do so by reminding yourself, I'm making a choice here. Okay? But if you think about elite athletes or these superstars, what's the difference between them and us? They wrestle with the same things that we wrestle with, right? When I work with really good athletes, I'll say to them, everybody thinks that you're different, especially when I'm talking about something that's really kicking their butt, and they kind of laugh. And so they wrestle with the same things that we wrestle with. Okay? So your friend who's done the 100K race or the 100 miles, and you've only done a marathon because you're a loser, right? The difference between you and that friend is not that they're a better athlete than you, right? They just simply make different choices, okay? And they accept the expectation that this is going to be really hard, right? So if you think about the other thing I want people to be aware of is that we as humans, we all have pretty much the same brain. In other words, the brain does the same thing, right? So a psychologist, we talk about this thing called the motivational triad. So what you have to realize is that you have a brain that is not designed for greatness or doing exceptional things. You don't have a brain that's designed to run a fast marathon or 100 miles, okay? You have a brain that's interested in one thing and one thing only, and that's keeping you alive, okay? And it does that by three things. This is the motivational try. The first is that it moves towards things that are pleasurable. So if food tastes good, your brain wants to eat it. If it tastes bad, it doesn't want to eat it, which is the second part. Avoid the painful, right? So your brain wants to do the pleasurable, wants to avoid the painful. And the third thing is conserve energy. And so, in other words, expend the least amount of energy possible. So 500 years ago, when you lived in the brush and you had to go collect water, you found the shortest trail from the village to the river, right? Not the long trail, but the short one. And you didn't run. You walked, right? You only ran when you had to. Something was chasing you, okay? That's conserving energy. That's what your brain wants to do. Your brain wants to sit on the couch. Your brain doesn't want to get up and go for a run, but nobody's brain does, okay? So we have to realize that you're not lazy, that there's not something wrong with you. Your brain is just trying to keep you alive because that's its job, and it's really damn good at its job. And you have to override that. So you have to do things that aren't fun or eat food. When I think about elite runners. They think about food differently than the rest of us, right? Elite runners, they don't think about, hey, what's going to taste good? They think about food as fuel, right? They think in terms of what does my body need? But the average person doesn't think about food that way. That's why two thirds of us are overweight and a third of us are obese and why we have type two diabetes, which used to be a really rare thing, because the people selling you food know that you want stuff that has fat, sugar, and salt in it, and you're going to eat the hell out of it. And so they sell it to you, and they make it a killing. Meanwhile, they're killing us, right? That's the world that we live in. And that's the brain that you have. You have a brain that wants pleasure, wants to avoid pain, and wants to conserve energy. So as a distance runner, just know that. But everybody else that you line up with has the same brain you do. So it really becomes at the end of the day, it's really you against you, right? Yeah. Let's talk about this again in terms of messages from society, okay? We as Americans, we live in a culture that is obsessed with better. All you have to do is turn the TV on and watch a commercial, right? And these commercials are all basically saying, if you had our product, your life would be better, right? That's what they're selling. They're selling a better version of you. And they want you to believe that if you have their product or their service, your life will be better. And we believe it, therefore we buy it. It's that simple. But when you really dig beneath the better, the question is, why are we obsessed with better? In other words, why do I want to be better? And quite frankly, it's the right answer. I mean, if you sit in a room full of people and you say, how many of you all want to get better? I do a lot of business consulting. All hands go up. If you sit in a room full of athletes and said, who wants to get better? Everybody's hand goes up because it's the right answer. But no one's really thought about it deeply. In other words, why do I want to be better? And the answer is, because I'm not good enough yet. In other words, every one of us has a fundamental belief about ourself, okay? And the belief I have about myself is either I am good enough or I'm not good enough. I am acceptable right now, or I'm not acceptable. Okay? And the vast majority, our fundamental belief about ourselves is I'm not good enough yet. I want to be, and someday I will, but I'm not good enough yet. Well, then how do you become good enough? By getting better. So what I'm saying is what sits underneath this belief of I need to get better is because I'm not good enough. And the other problem with that is it's a future concept. In other words, I'm not going to get better right now. You with me because all I can do right now is be my best self. Right as I sit here and talk to you. I'm either doing the best I can or not. I can't do better. Now, the better is a future concept, but if you look at performance, all performance takes place in the present, in the now. In other words, if you live in the now and function in the now, there is no better. I'm either giving you everything I have or I'm not, right? I'm either my best self or something less than that.
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Guest [00:22:39]: I'm either my best self or something less than that, but this concept of better is very attractive and this is an interesting thing because and I'm glad you brought it up because I've had some real arguments with people about it where they just it's almost like you're having a religious or political debate. The thought of letting go of better is there's just no way that you can do that. The belief is, if I quit trying to get better, everyone will pass me up. Right? I'll lose my competitive edge, everyone will pass me up. Right? It's the same as this concept of want it, right? You'll hear people when you're watching announcers or people talk about athletes, and one wins, and they'll say, well, they just wanted it more than the other, really. But there's a sense of whoever. So, again, we're a culture that's obsessed with our own desires. This is why we live in debt, right? Because no matter what you have, you want more. And so we spend money we don't have because we're obsessed with want. So we're obsessed with getting better, and we're obsessed with desire and want. And the belief is that you have to want to be better, and you have to always want. And no matter what you have, don't ever be content with it, because as soon as you do in the competitive arena, you get passed up. I just simply don't find that to be the case at all. All I see that doing is just cheating you out of enjoying the moment. Right? If the better concept is about development and growth, which I think it is for some people, when they say, I want to get better, what they're saying is, I want to continue to grow and develop. Would you agree? Okay, so if I'm really wanting to develop as a runner, if I go out today and do the best that I can, right? And then I go out tomorrow and do the best that I can, would I not grow and develop? Yes. In other words, if I'm really serious about becoming the best runner I can be, and instead of thinking about getting better, what I would say is do the best that you can do today and then do the best that you can do tomorrow. In other words, take it full advantage of your opportunities, and that's how you would grow and develop. The other thing that people fail to understand is that we're designed for growth. I mean, when you were a little kid and you wanted to be a big kid, did you grow and become a big kid because you wanted to be big, or did you grow because it was in your DNA and your body was designed to grow? See, this is what happens with adults, is we forget that we're designed for growth and maturation as kids. We know it because we experience it. Because every year you have to get new clothes because you can't fit in your clothes from last year, right? But it's still true for us as adults, right? You're going to grow. You're going to develop because that's what your system is designed to do. I think it's every seven years, basically all the cells in your body have regenerated, so you have a whole new body every seven years. We don't think about that, but that's what's going on. We know now, from a disease standpoint, that based upon how you lifestyle choices and what you eat, we can turn disease on and off. We know now that you can reverse heart disease. We know now that you can start cancer and end cancer by primarily diet and exercise. Right. So we know these things. So we have tremendous impact on our physical body by the decisions that we make today. But my primary concern with the concept of better is if I become obsessed with better, at what point do I get there? In other words, if that's my path is to get better every day, when do I ever get there? When will I become good enough? When will I look in the mirror and like, what I see? Of course you're smiling because you know the answer, which is you don't ever get there. Right. And so this is how you have a culture of people who we have the highest standard of living ever in the history of any civilized nation. Right? But yet look at the health problems we have, look at the financial problems that we have, look at the drug problems that we have. We have this opiate epidemic. So we have all these things now, but yet we're miserable because it's never enough. I went for a long run yesterday. I quit wearing a watch. I quit timing myself. It's like, why? And so I know the run. I mean, the run I ran yesterday, it's a ten k run. I know the run. I've done it a hundred times, and whether I run it in an hour or 50 minutes, it doesn't really matter. At the end of the day, go out and enjoy the run so that I want to go back and do it again versus spend the whole time analyzing myself where I'm trying to run. Because I'm not a competitive athlete. I run for fitness. Right. So we as athletes who are obsessed with better, part of what I would suggest to you is you may be stealing all the joy out of it. Yeah, well, first of all, this concept of being lucky or fortunate is very subjective, right. So I do this in my work with people. I'll say, Are you lucky or not? And people can pretty much immediately say, yes, I'm lucky, or no, I'm not. For the person who says I'm lucky, they have evidence for being lucky. Right. They'll say, I'm lucky because of the family I was born into and I got to go to Furman University and I got to be on a good team, and I got to have a good education. And so they can give you all this evidence for why they're lucky. Right. What's interesting. Is the unlucky people can do the same thing, right? I'm unlucky because I was put up for adoption when I was a kid, and then I had this disease and this disorder, and then somebody stole all my money. And so they tell you this story of how they were unlucky. So whether a person thinks of themselves as lucky or not, they have evidence for it. What's interesting to me is the people that I've met, and a lot of them through business, who you and I would think of as extremely successful millionaires, but they don't think of themselves as lucky, which is really interesting, right? So I really do think this am I lucky or not? Really has very little to what actually happened to you. It really is the story that you tell yourself. And so when you think about the story of myself, if you said, Tell me about yourself, you're going to tell me a story. And everybody believes their story, right? And so this whole concept of are you lucky or not? What I'm saying is, think about it this way. Do you want to think of yourself as a fortunate, lucky person? Okay, then be one. Then start your story with, I'm very fortunate. I'm very lucky. Let me tell you why. And if you insist on doing that, you see what I'm saying. So do you want to be lucky? Do you want to be wealthy? Do you want to be successful? Then start with that story, because the evidence really is irrelevant. In other words, there are people who really you would think of as fortunate, who think of themselves as not fortunate. Have things gone your way? I had a buddy I played high school ball with, and he played a number of years of Major League baseball and died a couple of years ago. Tony Phillips was his name. Had a long career in Major league baseball. My brother went out and stayed with him right before he died. And he came back and he said it was really interesting being with Tony. And I said, Why? And he said, well, just the way he talked, of course, being in the profession I'm in. I said, well, what did he say? And he said, I was at his house for two days, and I bet ten times he said, I don't know why it is, but things just always work out for me. Now, think about that. What if that was your belief? I don't know why, but things just work out for me. And you said this to yourself over and over again. What would it do to you? And most people realize that'd be good. Well, then start doing that. Think in terms of things are going to work out for me. Think in terms of I am good enough. I have everything that I need to be successful versus I don't. So you have to start right now with what you have. And so it's really important that we be very careful about the story that we're telling ourselves. Because when you tell yourself a story a bunch of times, you know what happens? You start to believe it. Yeah. So you're kind of getting into this concept of goals. And since I first wrote the first edition of Elite Minds, I've kind of changed my mind about goals, even though I know a lot of people are really obsessed with goals, and they would call themselves goal oriented, and they have a goal for every race and every workout in their whole life. And I get that. I understand that. The problem with the way that most people set goals is, let's say a marathon runner, and you've run a three hour marathon, and now you want to run a two hour and 45 minutes marathon. So that's my goal. And so what happens is you drop your time from 3 hours to 345 right? Now, tell me what you're going to do next. Janae, now what? You're going to change the goal, right, to what, to 340 or 335? And so, again, what happens is you kind of never get there. So we think of goals as a destination, and I think, man, if I could just run a marathon at 345, that would be awesome. Or I think if I could just make $100,000 a year, that would be amazing. And I've worked with these people, and you know exactly what happens. They get there, and now they're dissatisfied, so they have to raise the bar a little bit higher. So that's a goal as a destination. And the problem is you're going to keep changing the destination. What I would say to people is think of the goal as a direction. Which direction do you want to go? And head off in that direction. Okay. And stay on that path with the realization, are you ready for this? You ain't ever going to get there. And nobody else is either, because there's no there to get to, because everybody's story ends exactly the same way. Tell me how's it going to end. That's right. You're going to die, and then your children and your relatives are going to fight over all the shit that you left behind. Right. That's how it's going to end. Even if you wrote a goodwill, okay, you're going to die and the people left are going to fight over your stuff. That's how it ends. I'm being a little facetious, but that sense of is that everything that you acquire, all the trophies that you win, they either go in the trash can or someone else gets them, right? So this concept of getting to a place and when I get to this place, I'm going to be happy and content. I think it's a lie, but we live in a culture that's told us a lot of lies, and we've believed a lot of them. So kind of what I've done in my work is instead of thinking how much money I want to make or how many trophies I want to help people live, I've just simplified it to basically this. My goal is this every day of my life, every person that I encounter try to do something to make their life better. That's it. With the realization I haven't done it yet. And I probably won't. Right? Because the goal is every person, every day. And I'm sure thus far I've skipped at least one person that I've blown a chance. And it might simply be you walk past a person on the sidewalk and you just acknowledge them, right? You just look at them and let them know, I see you. That might be all you have to do. But that's my goal, is that every person that I encounter every day of my life, I behave or do something in some way that would somehow benefit them or help them along their way. That's it. And you know what? I might get it right one day, but I might not. But even if I don't, I'm okay with that. But that's my goal. And here's the deal. I don't need anything else, okay? I don't need more stuff. I don't need another pair of shoes. I just got a new pair yesterday, all right? So I got me some new running shoes. If I go out and run another marathon faster than I ever had, I'm going to feel good for what, a couple of few hours? And then I'm going to go back to being stand. You see what I'm saying? So I want people to think about the goal as not a destination and not something that you acquire. I want you to think of your goal as a path that you are willing to walk as long as in this bag of flesh that you're in and that you're okay walking that path and that there is no there to get to, right? Because as soon as you cross the finish line, they take the whole thing down and set it up somewhere else and you start the process over. And that's okay. That's not sad. It's not pessimistic. It's just the way it is. The human life is a struggle. And there are people who resist the struggle, and there are people who embrace the struggle. And what I want to do is, first of all, be a person who embraces the struggle and then encourage other people to embrace the struggle. Because when you quit wanting it to be difficult, that's when it stops being difficult. As long as you want it to be easy, you're going to suffer. But as soon as you understand that life is difficult, distance running is difficult. Going faster is difficult. Whatever it is you're trying to do, as soon as you accept it, it's difficult. Because it's designed to be that way, then it ceases to be difficult, right? As soon as you realize that you're enough and all you can do is the best that you can do, then you can let go of the obsession of better. And, man, what great peace you're going to have in your life. And the fact of the matter is, you're probably from the outside looking in. You're going to be doing better. People say, man, you look better. You're doing better. You're running faster. What happened? And when you tell them what happened, they'll be surprised, and it's going to make some people mad at me, right? That's what happens. Because what I've learned in my own life, like I said, I'm in my mid 50s now. I've gotten really good at realizing how many things I've had wrong. I've been wrong about a lot of things, and there's still things that I'm wrong about that I don't even know I'm wrong about yet. And it's really making peace with that. You're not going to get it right. You're not going to get it perfect, right? The goal is to have a tremendous ability to be honest with yourself. I call it the ugly baby phenomena. And what I mean by that is every one of us has seen an ugly baby, but none of us has met a mother who held her baby up and said, look at my ugly baby, okay? And so the question is, what's my ugly baby? You follow me with the realization that we all have, and it's okay. I'm working with a runner right now. And he sent me a text and basically said, dr. Stan, I think I'm kind of losing it, right? I've lost my fire. I'm really struggling. I'm just not in it anymore. And this guy runs two events, okay? And so he's talking about the one event, and I said, well, how are you doing in the other event? And he smiles, oh, I have the fastest time in the world. Okay. But he doesn't want to talk about that one, right? Think about that. But this is a lot of us. We've got something going on great in our life, and there's something not what we want to be, and we want to assume that there's a problem. And basically what I've kind of encouraged him to do is to kind of instead of holding it like this, just hold it like this. Just hold it loosely with the running. And so he's kind of backed off of everything has to be perfect. And now what he tells me is it's not that he's running the same times, but what he says is, I'm running faster now, okay? My starts are better, and it feels easier, and he's taking a little more time off to have fun during the week. But what I'm getting to is most distance runners are pretty goal oriented perfectionistic. They keep a lot of records and data kind of people. And what happens is when you make a list of all these things, there might be nine of them that's going great, but you're going to pick the one that's not right, and you're going to obsess on that. And what I was saying to this particular guy is it is going well. It's not going perfectly, but it never goes perfectly. This is another obsession we have, right? It's perfect. I want to have the perfect race, the perfect start, the perfect this, the perfect boyfriend, the perfect job, the perfect workout. And what's interesting is we as Americans, we don't even know where the word perfect came from. Most people don't realize how it got into our lexicon, let me tell you. It came in through the Christian Bible. And there's a quote in the Bible where basically Jesus says, be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect. That word perfect was translated from the Greek word Teleus, T-E-L-L-I-U-S-I think might have that wrong, Teleus. But if you look at it in the Greek, the word Teleus means to be whole or complete. So this challenge to be perfect, what the challenge is really, is sinead. Be your full, whole, complete self, right? So think about it like a pizza, right? You go and you get a pizza, they cut it up into eight slices, right? And they set it on the table and it looks wonderful, right? It's whole and complete. But sooner or later, somebody's going to pull a slice out and now it's less than whole and complete, right? And think about that as your goal in life, is not to be perfect in terms of not ever going to mess up because you're not going to get there. But how do you become a whole and complete person? In other words, if you're being fully you, you're still going to have your same little quirks, right? Right. But I think that's what makes human beings so darn interesting. The people that I like the most, one of the reason my best friends, the people I care most, is because I know what those are. I know what their foldables are, I know what their bad habits are, I know the stupid things that they do. But it makes them that much more interesting to me. And we seem to be really tolerant of other people's imperfections, but not our own. But I want you to think about perfect as being whole or complete. And so how do you become a whole or complete person? By doing the best you can with what you have. I mean, some days the best you can be able to do is just get the shoes on and go outside and limp around the track a few times. That might be the best you can do. Other days, your best might be you go out and run 20 miles and it feels effortless. And so I think that's the challenge, given the fact that we're not robots, that we're human beings. And the fact of the matter is, every day you're different biochemically physically every day you're starting over. And how do you make what you have today work? That's the challenge.
Finn Melanson [00:43:17]: Thanks for listening to the Run to the Top podcast. I'm your host, Finn Milans, and as always, our mission here is to help you become a better runner with every episode. Please consider connecting with me on Instagram at Wasatch, Finn and the rest of our team at Runners Connect. Also consider supporting our show for free with a rating on the Spotify and Apple podcast players. And lastly, if you love the show and want bonus content, behind the scenes experiences with our guests and premier access to contests and giveaways, then subscribe to our newsletter by going to RunnersConnect. Net podcast. Until next time, happy trading.
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