366: Stop Second Guessing Yourself

Stop Second Guessing Yourself: Embrace Your Running Decisions

In this episode of the Real Life Runners Podcast, we discuss the importance of avoiding second-guessing yourself, particularly in running and training plans. Emphasizing the significance of making informed decisions, sticking to them, and giving training plans enough time to show results. We also share personal anecdotes and practical steps to recognize, remind, and recommit to decisions. The episode highlights the masks that fear often wears when it comes to decision-making and offers advice on gaining confidence in your choices and staying committed to your running journey.

03:22 The Importance of Making Decisions

07:12 Gathering Quality Information for Training

10:36 Choosing the Right Training Plan

15:58 Different Paths to Success

22:01 Choosing the Right Mentor

22:17 Overcoming Information Overload

24:01 Making Decisions and Avoiding Indecision

29:53 The Fear of Making the Wrong Choice

33:15 Trusting the Training Plan

41:23 Recognize, Remind, and Recommit

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Transcript

Angie: 0:00

Welcome to the Real Life Runners Podcast, episode number 366, Stop Second Guessing Yourself. Welcome to the show, everybody. We're excited that you are all joining us today. I'm just going to start out by asking you, if you have not yet left us a rating or review, will you just pause the podcast? the podcast for about 30 seconds to 60 seconds. Scroll down, um, in your podcast player and leave us a quick review so that you can help other runners find the podcast. That would be so awesome of you. And we would be so grateful. So today we're talking about second guessing yourself and this episode, like most of our episodes are often triggered by things going on in our real life. So. Actually, before we jump into this, I want to just say thank you to everyone that has reached out about the last podcast episode. I've gotten so many amazing messages, um, via email and on Instagram in the DMs from those of you that just really. Resonated with the last episode that really struck a chord with a lot of you. So thank you so much for taking the time to reach out and express whatever the podcast meant to you or whatever kind of, um, struck a chord with you or resonated with you. It is so helpful to me to hear that from you so that we can keep making content that's relevant and that is helpful for you in your real life and your running journey, wherever you are.

Kevin: 1:46

Yeah. I mean, that's always nice to, to make sure that the content makes sense to the people that are listening to it. That's, that's kind of the point of the, of the podcast is to make sure that people like it. So if we get the messages, it's like, wow, that was a great podcast. It's like, Oh, okay. We need to get some more material that seems like that because that's what we want. Is that's what we want. People that are appreciating it and gaining something from the podcast, right?

Angie: 2:07

I mean we do this podcast for free as you guys notice there are no sponsors on this podcast You don't have to listen to any commercials on this podcast like a lot of other podcasts out there So it is so important for us that We're using this time, your time and our time in a, in the best way possible by producing and creating content that is actually helpful for you. So when there's an episode that you really love that you like, leave us a review, send us an email, send us a DM on Instagram so that we know, okay, this is a topic that people really like. Let's do more on this. Let's do more research, whatever it might be. Um, or if there's a topic that you're very interested in that we haven't talked about, Reach out and tell us that too. You know, we want to make content that is important to you in your running, in your real life, something that helps to integrate both of those things in the best way possible. So if you are a runner and you are out there and you just want to be strong and healthy and mobile for the rest of your life, and you have questions about how to do that, reach out to us. That's what we're here for. Okay. Both on the podcast. And then if you're someone that wants more help, we have coaching programs for that as well. Okay. But let us know when. Podcasts, episodes really speak to you. That's really helpful. All right. So let's talk about second guessing yourself, because this is definitely something that's been popping up in my brain a lot lately, and I'm guessing Probably with you guys too. So oftentimes we have lots of decisions. What is it like? Well, we have lots of thoughts every single day, but we also make a lot of decisions every day. Like if you sit back and think about how many decisions you make every day, It is in the hundreds, if not the thousands. I mean, even something as simple as, am I going to get out of bed? What do I want to drink right now? Like, am I going to go walk over to the refrigerator and get some water or get some lemonade or whatever it might be? There's so many decisions that we make every single day. And sometimes, especially if it's a bigger decision, our brain likes to. Question it. If your brain is anything like mine, oftentimes after I make a decision, and this is something that I've been working on for a little while now, but oftentimes for me, When I make a decision, I'm someone that number one likes to have information, likes to gather necessary information to make a good decision. I don't want to just totally make decisions on the fly without any sort of information. But then a lot of times when I do make that decision, I then my brain wants to second guess it and say, well, are you sure about that? Is that the right decision? And so we really want to dive into that idea today. Especially, you know, when it comes to your running, to your training, to your training plans and then, of course, in the rest of your life as well.

Kevin: 4:53

Right. I mean, you pointed out that we make hundreds, probably thousands of decisions a day and we don't second guess most of them because a lot of them we make the decision without actually realizing that we decided on something. Like the alarm went off and I got out of bed. I didn't really think about that of being like, should I get out of bed or not? Some days I do. Sometimes that's not really like a conscious decision I make, it's just the action that I do next, you know. I got out of the shower and I brushed my teeth, because that's just the thing that happens, it's a pattern, but we could have decided the other direction. What we're talking about today is those decisions that you really kind of had to stop and think about. Because When you have a decision that you, you really take a minute or two or longer than that and stretch out, you could usually decide multiple different outcomes. Sometimes there's clear cut, there's two different options that you could go to different paths that you're heading down, but sometimes there's multiple outcomes and it makes it really easy for your brain to say, Hmm, was that the best choice when you've taken a little bit? And it seems like the longer you think about something, the more your brain is going to want it to say, was that the best choice that you, that you actually decided? Yeah,

Angie: 5:57

it's. It's so ironic in that way, isn't it? It's so true though. It's, it's when, when you make a very quick decision, oftentimes you're just like, okay, we decide and then we go with it. But if you take a little bit longer, we do, I think, I think you're right. We tend to second guess those decisions more. And the mistake that, that a lot of us make. I know myself included is when a decision feels really heavy, we end up not deciding at all because when we are confused or when we feel overwhelmed, the oftentimes the action is in action. We just don't take an action and we just end up stuck and deciding not to decide, but not deciding is also. In a weird way, a decision in that process as well.

Kevin: 6:41

Right. It's, it's the choice of inaction. It's like, should I do this thing? Like at work, should I go do this action? Should I go talk to this person? I don't know. Maybe I should check my email. Like that's, that's the default of like, it seems like I'm being productive, but what I'm really doing is just avoiding that decision that's just inaction. You're not getting anything done.

Angie: 6:59

Productive work versus busy work. That needs to be, I need to write that one down for, for another podcast episode. So let's dive in because we really have three steps or three ideas, main ideas that we really want to talk about today. Um, kind of three steps in this decision process and in this second guessing process, so step number one, we need to gather quality information to make a quality decision. Okay. So let's relate this to our training. So say you want to. Run a half marathon or a marathon, or you, you're considering it, but you're not quite sure if you're ready, if you want to, which one you want to do, maybe you have decided and you're not sure what kind of training plan you need to be on. So the first thing we need to do is gather information. We have to figure out, you know, First of all, am I ready for a marathon? Do I want to run a marathon? Let's say the answer is yes. Okay. I want to run a marathon. So now we're going to look at what training plans should I go to? It's important to just do a little bit of research and figure out what kind of training plan you want to be on. It's important for us to not just. Randomly choose some plan because it's on a free app or it's on our watch and that's what comes for free

Kevin: 8:14

or to go Completely planless like this is the whole like jump and build the wings on the way down That is a dangerous way to make big decisions Especially if if the the goal here is i'm not sure what plan i'm going to use to train for a marathon Winging it without a whole lot of knowledge is kind of a good setup to not quite make it to the starting line. So, yeah, you're going to want to make sure that you actually have quality information and that you've put in a little bit of thought into what the plan is, rather than I googled Marathon Training Plan and I clicked the sponsored one at the top. That's not you making a decision, that was Google making a decision for you.

Angie: 8:48

Yeah, one of my least favorite. Commercials right now, um, that we laugh every single time it comes on. I believe it is a meta commercial and it's, it's like the commercial for the new meta AI. And it shows a woman sitting on a couch and she picks up her meta AI and says, build me a training plan. And like, I assume that it's for a marathon and she looks at her phone and, and starts to type in, build me a training plan. And then it kind of shows her. Like smile a little bit, tilt her head and be like, yep. And then she puts her phone down and starts running. It like opens the door and just starts running.

Kevin: 9:29

She

Angie: 9:29

had AI create a training plan for her. And then she decided, yep, I'm going to start immediately.

Kevin: 9:35

There are multiple things wrong with this. One, don't let AI make your training plan without any sort of like thought of to where that came from. And two, why was she sitting on her couch in a pair of dirty running shoes? Like, I feel

Angie: 9:47

dirty.

Kevin: 9:48

I feel like if she was dirty. Yeah. In my head, these were dirty running shoes because. Like she should not jump from couch to marathon. There's a reason why there's not a couch to marathon So she had used running shoes that she was just casually sitting around in take your shoes off Those are dirty and and my my biggest issue with it is actually that she doesn't close the front door after she runs That is my biggest issue. It

Angie: 10:10

also looks like she's on a beach So she just like goes out and like runs and like is on the sand immediately. Yeah,

Kevin: 10:15

she's through three steps away from a gorgeous running path on the side of the beach, which does sound awesome. Um, so maybe like under that scenario, make me a training plan because the path is literally three steps out the front door. But yeah,

Angie: 10:28

no,

Kevin: 10:28

that one needs some second guessing,

Angie: 10:30

right? Yeah. Please second guess that one. So So, you know, one of that, that's a big mistake that people are making these days. And I think that with all of the apps and all of the resources out there, people don't even realize that they're making this mistake because they're thinking that they're doing a little bit of research. They're thinking, okay, I want to train for a marathon. We're just going to keep using that example because it's easy. So I need a plan. Okay. And let me go find a plan. Oh, this app has four and a half stars, 4. 9 stars. I bet they make good plans. But that's not always the case, right? Like there are so many apps, there are so many training plans, there are so many opinions out there about what is the best way to train. And depending on who you are and your running experience, your history, your body type, your lifestyle, so many different factors, those plans may or may not be right for you. Does the plan that you're. Working with looking at creating. Does it take anything other than running into consideration? I think that's a really. Important first question to ask yourself, you know, a lot of them will ask you like, how many days per week do you want to run? And then it'll pop out a plan for three days a week, four days a week. But like, what about your strength training? What about your work? You know, like, do you work full time? I, are you a nurse that works? You know, 10 to 16 hour days, do you work three 12 hour shifts in a row? Like these are real people that I've talked to this week, you know, the same plan does not work for that person as it does for someone else is like a stay at home mom who is able to have a couple of hours when her kids are in school, you know, to train, like people have different schedules and different lifestyles. And so it's important for your plan to fit that. And it's also important for you to have reputable sources. You know, there are. Lots of different information out there, and it's it's really it's getting harder and harder. I think to sort through what is a good source of information and what is not such a good source of information because it all sounds really good. Like people are getting really, really good at presenting information, sounding very Educated and very reputable in the presentation of that information, but it may or may not be actual quality information.

Kevin: 12:47

I mean, you can sound super smart when the AI writes the script for you for the ad that you're making for the, the training plan that AI also created for you. Like this is, this is the issue is it all sounds really, really good. And it might be like, that's kind of connected to the next point I want to cover is that plan might be good. But you're not really sure exactly where it's coming from, like what really went into it. This is one of the things with like the chat GPT of like the question you ask really leads to the quality of the answer that you get. So maybe you're getting a good response, but maybe not. But do you even know how to like refine the question to come up with a better answer? Because what you don't want to do, and this is like the social media trap is you don't want to necessarily base your choice on the result of one person. Like I'm scrolling through my feed. That person looks amazing. That person just ran a time that I want to run. I would like to look like that person. I want to run as fast as that person. So why don't I figure out exactly what their training plan is and I'll do the same thing or that person looks great. And. In this ad that I just, that just popped up, they're telling me that this is the magic plan. They've tried all of the plans, and this is the plan that led to the success. This is the particular exercise. This is the particular diet. This is whatever the thing is that works for them. And it's going to work for you. Anytime that you've got that absolute, there's going to be an issue here because your path is not necessarily their path. And if that's the time that they just crossed the finish line in, Your current training ability is probably not their current training ability. Like if you're at step a and they're already crossing the finish line at point like S, like there's a lot of steps along the way. So you can't jump to point S and be like, I'm just going to skip the beginning of the alphabet. You gotta kind of work your way up to that and not just be like, that can be a goal, but you need the steps that are actually going to take you from your current location towards that place.

Angie: 14:40

Yeah. And I think it's important to remember that. Just because you're someone is a good athlete does not make them a good coach. And I think that that's where A lot of people get tripped up in this too. It's the same thing with, you know, students and teachers. It's the same thing, like with lots of different things, like just because you're good at something doesn't mean you actually know how to teach it. Doesn't mean you can actually help others do that thing. And I think a lot of times people that are at step S often forget what it's like to be at step a, and they remember maybe, you know, P Q and R, but they forget. What it's like to be all the way back at A, B, and C, you know, and so. Someone that's that far along in their journey, while it seems like that would be a really good coach because they have the results that you want, that doesn't necessarily mean that they know how to translate the actions into something that's going to work for you in your life, because what worked for them is Exactly is probably not exactly what's going to work for you. It could be the same idea, right? The same basis, the same foundation, the same framework, if they even have any sort of framework. Um, but a lot of times it's like, well, this is what I did. If you just do the same thing, you'll get the same results. Um, Most of the times that's not the case.

Kevin: 15:57

Okay. So I saw a great picture that kind of demonstrated the different paths. Sometimes that person gets to, we're going to continue going with this alphabet metaphor. If you're at like point S on the path, what about the person who's so naturally gifted that they started at P?

Angie: 16:13

Yeah. Yeah.

Kevin: 16:15

You're like, Oh, awesome. They've gone from P Q R S. Look at, look at how successful they are. They have no idea how to get to P. They were genetically gifted and started at point P and they're looking down and they're like, well, that person that they're at age just needs to try harder. Like, no, they, they don't. They're on a completely different path. Maybe you have the same goals, but they've got some work to do before they get to point P and the person who's like, who's shortcutted it. genetic anomaly, they don't know how to get there. So you can't necessarily follow their path at all. Like this is the whole idea of like why Michael Jordan could never be a basketball coach.

Angie: 16:50

Yeah. Well, and this is not, it's not even genetic anomaly, but it's also the 40 years of experience before now, right? Like you started running at the age of 14. I mean, I hated running at the age of 14, but I also was an athlete. I, you know, I was still an athlete growing up. I played volleyball, basketball, and softball. That's going to put me at a different starting point than someone who never ran a step or never did any sort of athletic endeavor in their entire life. Right? Like these are three different places.

Kevin: 17:20

Yeah. Do you think we would have gotten along if we were together in high school?

Angie: 17:24

Um, you and I were different people in high school. I think that I've grown a lot in high school. So I don't know how much you would have liked me in high school.

Kevin: 17:31

Interesting.

Angie: 17:32

I think you probably would have.

Kevin: 17:34

I know, but I don't think that you would have talked to me in high school.

Angie: 17:36

I

Kevin: 17:37

was that weird kid that ran all the time.

Angie: 17:40

I mean, I like, I mean, I was friends. Let's see, did I have friends on the cross country team? I wasn't. Close friends with anyone on the cross country team, but I didn't dislike anyone on the cross country team. I just didn't understand them.

Kevin: 17:52

Yeah. I looked

Angie: 17:55

at them and I'm like, why do they do that? I don't understand them at all.

Kevin: 17:59

Yeah, there's

Angie: 18:00

no ball. Why are they running?

Kevin: 18:02

There's no ball. I feel like, like we would have had a lot of classes together, but you would have been very confused as to why I kept running so much after school.

Angie: 18:10

No, I wouldn't like, I'm not confused why you're running. I just don't like, yeah,

Kevin: 18:14

yeah, no, you didn't get the point of the sport.

Angie: 18:17

I mean, I get the point of it as I mean, it's, it's hard. It's funny, you know, to say this now from where I am, yes, but what in high school, I, I didn't understand why people enjoyed that because it was, Torture and punishment to me,

Kevin: 18:31

right? And at that point that was finally where I found the sport that I, I found my people and I found like success and something that I could actually do and be good at.

Angie: 18:41

Yeah. But I feel like you were also very shy with girls in high school. So how much would you have actually talked to me?

Kevin: 18:46

Oh no, not at all. You would have been terrifying. So it would have been fine that you ignored me. Cause I

Angie: 18:51

was athletic and smart. Like there was a lot of, Yeah. Intimidation factor there. No,

Kevin: 18:55

not at all. Like, I definitely would not have talked to you. And that would have been fine because I would have been that awkward kid on the cross country team. That's how we would have gotten along. It would have been just fine. I don't know. Ultimately, best that we met when we met.

Angie: 19:06

Yes. I mean, even if we met earlier in college, it probably would not have gone well.

Kevin: 19:11

Uh, definitely not. So the other part that we, we need to cover on this one of trying to gather enough information is what if you go to gather enough information? I mean, you Google any topic you try and Google, give me a 16 week training plan and it's going to come back with 2. 6 million results. This is what if there are so many options because it's nice to find reputable sources It's even sometimes beneficial to find disagreeing sources and figure out okay They might both be correct which one seems like it's going to be a better fit for me But sometimes it gets to the point that there's so many options out there. That's difficult to pick a path

Angie: 19:49

Yeah, I think this is really important because I really like what you said like there are Sources that disagree and both can be right. It was probably,

Kevin: 19:59

and

Angie: 19:59

that's the weird thing, right? I think a lot of times we think very black and white. We think very, this one's right, which means this one's wrong because that one disagrees, but that's not the case. It could be, this one works for some people and this one also works for other people, right? And that's what you said there about. Which one's going to be the best one for me that I think is the tough one. And I think that that's where a lot of us get stuck in that indecision because we're not quite sure which one's going to Be the best for us.

Kevin: 20:26

Yeah, the uh, men's 800 at the olympic trials demonstrated this one because the people that qualified one of them trained from Super super speed and then build the endurance onto it And the other one changed from endurance and built the speed on top of it and both of them qualified for the olympics Within like tenths of each other, you know You But one of them went speed up and one of them went endurance down, and they still both got to the same ultimate result because both paths actually do work,

Angie: 20:51

right?

Kevin: 20:52

So

Angie: 20:52

which one do you like better?

Kevin: 20:54

Yeah, which one, which one do you like? Which one makes more sense for you? Because it's possible that if they traded training styles, they would, neither would have them. Would have gotten the same level of success, right?

Angie: 21:03

Or maybe they would have

Kevin: 21:04

yes, or maybe gotten even better success. You have to pick the path that makes the most sense And you know to go back to a thing that we've said, I think it was last week. It has to be enjoyable Yeah, like you have to enjoy the process also if both paths are going to get you to the result Pick the one that seems like it's going to be more entertaining because you'll be able to stick to the path when things kind of get a little tough along the way.

Angie: 21:26

Yeah. And I think that that can be one of the biggest problems in our information overload society right now is that we have so much information at our fingertips. You can Google the answer to anything. There are millions of different training plans out there. There are probably. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of coaches out there. I don't even know at this point, right? Probably not millions, but like lots of thousands of coaches out there, right? That is a lot of different things. And a lot of them are similar probably. So if a lot of coaches are doing similar things, then really. Who do you wanna work with? That's gonna be the biggest question. Who do you actually, like, who's going, going to be enjoyable to communicate with on a weekly, monthly basis? Like, who do you want advice from? When you know you have questions about your training, that's really important too. Like, do, do you jive with that person? Does your personality mesh well? Um, but going back to like kind of that information overload, like when we have so much information, it can be really hard to pick a path or to pick a plan or to make that decision. And so we just get stuck in indecision and, you know, we like to often think about this like the menu at the Cheesecake Factory,

Kevin: 22:34

which comes as a 27

Angie: 22:36

pages. It

Kevin: 22:37

thuds when the like hard copy book drops on the table in front of you. They're like, here you go. And then they come back 30 seconds later and like, do you need an extra minute? I'm like, I haven't opened it yet. I did open it and I'm on page six and I'm still looking at drinks. So no, I'm not sure what I would like to eat. But at that point you have to refine yourself and be like, all right, I'm, I want this kind of food and narrow it down from seven category.

Angie: 23:01

You have

Kevin: 23:01

to, you have to kind of start narrowing that thing down with bigger Like remove a chunk of the menu. So when you come up with, you know, the various answers, like you can come up with different styles of training plans, remove things that don't look like they're going to make any sense for you. And you can start narrowing it down, which gets to step two, where you actually make a decision.

Angie: 23:22

Yeah. And so ultimately, after you gather enough, enough information where you feel like, okay, I feel like I've got some, a good amount of information here because You're never going to have all of the information. Let's just be honest. There's no way that you're going to know all of the information. There's something called, uh, what is it? The Dunning Kruger effect, where once you learn more, you realize how much you don't know. Like the more, you know, the more you recognize how much you don't know. And that. That's the Dunning Kruger effect, right?

Kevin: 23:53

That is.

Angie: 23:53

Okay, just making sure I'm, um, re

Kevin: 23:56

When you learn just a little bit, you think you're an expert, but as you start learning more, you think you have no idea?

Angie: 24:00

Exactly. And so when we start gathering information, it can be tempting to want to continue to gather, but at some point you have to make that decision because you don't want to get stuck in that trap of just not making a decision and thinking you need more and more information. The The trap of that is that it feels productive. It feels like you're taking action. Well, I'm researching, I'm reading more, I'm learning, I'm understanding. It feels like you're taking action, but it's really passive action. And that's important, right? Learning, getting information is important, but ultimately you have to make that action. Decision where you're going to start taking actions because that's how you're actually going to get to the results that you want

Kevin: 24:45

This gets tricky because as soon as you make a decision You you choose a path it immediately closes off the other paths And as soon as you close other things that feels like a negative it feels like you're putting constraints on yourself of well I can't choose all the paths simultaneously What is this like robert frost two paths diverged in a yellow wood like this is you have to take one You This was my issue. I just had to find myself a new car because mine is, did not have air conditioning and it had been too long to driving around in South Florida without air conditioning. So I had to get in years,

Angie: 25:19

y'all years. It'd been too long. How much Kevin doesn't like to make a decision. So just FYI, we are, we understand this from a very personal level.

Kevin: 25:28

This was heat training to run an ultra marathon in South Florida. This is

Angie: 25:32

always what he says.

Kevin: 25:33

That's how I could justify it. It seemed nice. And that way I didn't have to make a decision. So ultimately it got to the point where it's like, all right, we're going to have to make a decision.

Angie: 25:40

Tell, give the context of why. I, I finally was like, you need a new car. Like I am

Kevin: 25:48

because I have to take our child to school next year in that car.

Angie: 25:52

Yeah. I basically gave Kevin an ultimatum. Like I said to Kevin, you need to buy a new car this summer. This there's no more putting this off. You need a new car because if you want to torture yourself, that's up to you. But you are

Kevin: 26:07

heat training.

Angie: 26:09

If you want to do that, that's your call. But you are not doing that to our high school daughter driving her to school every single day. Like, that is not okay.

Kevin: 26:19

It's like getting one of those fancy barrel saunas, except mine also took me to school and back. It really

Angie: 26:24

It was even fancier.

Kevin: 26:25

It was a drivable barrel sauna. It was amazing. But yeah, you said Our

Angie: 26:31

daughter's hair would be a frizzy mess and she would hate you forever.

Kevin: 26:34

I understand that. So, so that was not gonna happen. So I, you know, leap on the magic of the interwebs and start searching for a car. Oh my word. There's 7, 000 car dealerships down here. Plus all the, like the national ones where you just like cars. com and all these things, you just start looking for cars. There's virtually an infinite number of cars that I could find. And you can start, you know, clicking on them.

Angie: 26:59

One sells and another one gets added the next day.

Kevin: 27:01

This is why there's an infinite amount is. Because I'd go from one day to the next and be like, Ooh, what, what new thing showed up today as though there was going to, at some point in time, be the magic, perfect car, but there wasn't because I was looking for a used car and it's not going to be a magic, perfect car. There's not actually a magic one that is perfect thing for you. There's the best choice you can make with the information provided

Angie: 27:26

right now.

Kevin: 27:27

Right.

Angie: 27:27

Like at this point in your life.

Kevin: 27:29

That's, that's what you've got. So anytime someone tries to sell you, this goes back to our last point, if there's the magic training plan, no there isn't. There was a plan that worked for that person. And it needs to get adjusted to other people. So I had to make a choice and it took a little while because we had some busy weekends so it was kind of a time consuming process but ultimately it came down to, See? We, we had some busy weekends. Stop laughing at me. We had some busy weekends.

Angie: 27:55

See, it's a good thing. This isn't a video podcast. You guys could just see the look I just shot at Kevin right now.

Kevin: 28:00

Lord. All right. So, so I understand that this was a challenging thing because the possibilities were infinite and every time I would go in and I had stopped looking at cars and I'd go and like refresh the, the search the next day. Some cars would be gone and new ones would be on there. And it was like, Ooh, there's going to be a magic car this time. And ultimately it got to the point where it's like, no, I have to pick one of these car options. Let's go drive a car. Let's actually just go get a car. And so then we did. Then I got a car. Now I have a car.

Angie: 28:29

Now we did. Yeah. Because avoiding a decision is also a decision. You're just deciding not to decide. I

Kevin: 28:35

decided on my sauna.

Angie: 28:38

And, and at some point. That decision was going to be made for you because that car was going to stop running at some point. Like that car was a 17 year old car and God bless it. Like, you know, it was a bittersweet moment yesterday when we sold that car because it was the car that brought both of our babies home from the hospital. It was a car that served us very, very well, but it had just, Outlived itself, you know, like it it was done

Kevin: 29:05

right and by not picking a car along the way because I started this I don't know like a month ago by not picking that car a month ago and Waiting to see if maybe something better showed up the next day. I literally I was avoiding possible positive Outcomes like I could have gotten a car three weeks ago. I could have gotten a car two weeks ago I kept waiting for something possibly maybe better to show up You're missing out on the potential positives by not making a decision trying to ultimately be like well I need the absolute perfect training plan to In the meantime, you've missed a month of potential training. Yeah. That's a negative. And you're like, well, no, no, no. I need the perfect training plan. Just get running, pick a plan and go for it because you're missing out on the benefits of starting by hoping that you can find the perfect first step.

Angie: 29:52

Yeah. And it, it's all fear, you know, this is the thing that I don't think that. We often realize is that fear wears many masks, and one of the masks is indecision. You know, it can be scary to make a decision because it feels very final, right? Like if you by you choosing a car, even though you chose a car like you could technically change your mind and go for something else if you decided you didn't like it, but it feels very final. And so. It seems easier at the time to just not make a decision, because we're afraid often that we're going to make the wrong decision. That's really the main reason why we delay. Making a decision is because we don't want to make the wrong one.

Kevin: 30:34

Yeah, and we're like, oh, I don't know It's such a hard decision. No, it's not No just pick one of the options in front of you and then your decision is made but we we add this extra layer of Fear and worry that it's going to be the wrong choice that we couldn't ever undo it Sure, you can if I wanted to go sell the car that I have and go find another car. I could do it It would be an annoying process because oh my word buying a car is an annoying process where you're stuck there for hours But I could It is, it is a possible decision that I could make. You can undo things. You shouldn't necessarily immediately do it, but that's part of the fear is that there is no undoing it. It's kind of what we want to talk on this last part of this whole idea of second guessing, of make a decision and ride it for a little bit of time, but make a decision knowing that. If this is not the best path for you that you could ultimately change it,

Angie: 31:26

you could, but you don't want to do that right away. Right? And that's really kind of the title of this episode is stop second guessing yourself, make that decision and then stick to it long enough to see if it's working. So if your brains anything like mine, You often will make a decision and then pretty soon afterwards. You're like was that the right decision like I mean at the day So we bought Kevin's car on Saturday and that night my brain started going in all sorts of different directions like oh my gosh Like I forgot to ask them this question in this question like we were sitting there for long enough How did I how in the world did I forget to ask all of these? Seemingly very very important questions that my brain was now popping up with like I literally didn't sleep Well that night because I was dreaming of crazy dreams about the fact that we had bought the wrong car

Kevin: 32:18

Yeah, of course because it's it's a big decision You know, there was a lot of money involved in buying the car And so now you're like, ooh, was that actually the best thing and the longer? I went into it. The more research I did, the more I can justify that that was the right decision and the more research that I have swirling around in my head, that that was the wrong decision.

Angie: 32:38

Yeah. Well, and you did a lot of the research on this car too. Like I kind of stayed out of it because I really wanted, this is your car. I really wanted you to be the one to make the decision. I told you I was, you know, I'm here if you have questions or if you want to run anything by me or you want my opinion on anything, but I really stayed out of the process for the most part. So. That kind of took me like step one where it's like gather the information like I really didn't have a lot of my own information I just was relying on you and assuming that you had done your due diligence and enough research and information To decide that this was the good a good choice,

Kevin: 33:14

right? And so sometimes this happens when you start a training plan that you start a plan that is designed for multiple months and you're not seeing the progress you want it by the end of the first week. Ooh,

Angie: 33:26

yeah.

Kevin: 33:26

And we're like, Ooh, I don't know if this is the best training plan for me. Okay. It's designed for four months. You don't know if it's the best training plan for you at the end of week one. You really have no idea.

Angie: 33:38

Right. Or even at the end of month one or month two, like if it's feeling terrible, Maybe you need to take a look at it, right? Like if you feel like you're just completely over your head, or it's so, so easy that, you know, you're not even challenging yourself at all. That's a different story. But if you're out there running and your brain's just second guessing you, you ha there has to come a point where you say, this is the decision that I've made. And this is the decision that I'm going to stick to for the length of the plan. Like. Like I said, unless you feel like you're over your head because you don't want to risk injury Like if you feel like you're putting your your body on the on the line of injury, that's a different story That's not what i'm referring to but just kind of talking about that normal mind chatter of like wanting to stay in limbo wanting to you know, just Second guess. Well, maybe it's not this plan. And then you stop this plan. You jump on something else. And then you're kind of jumping from plan to plan, thinking that you're going to feel better on one of them. But you don't actually give any of the plans time to do what they're supposed to do.

Kevin: 34:41

Right. And ultimately, by jumping from plan to plan to plan, You lose all sort of consistency. Like if they're a well thought out plan, it's designed to progress from one week to the next, or from one month to the next, from one section, the next out, whatever the plan is based off of. So deciding by the end of week one that you feel real tired and sore, and you don't think that you're making improvements. Maybe that's how that plan is designed. Maybe that plan overloaded week one and you're about to kind of pull back and recover. If you're not sure what the point of the plan is, the layout of the plan, it's really easy to justify that it's not working for you. Oh, well, this plan must just not be the one for me. I need to go a different direction

Angie: 35:20

or that something's gone wrong. You know, like this was a conversation that we had today on our coaching call inside the Academy. Like we have a coaching call every Tuesday and one of our members got on. She's training for a half marathon. Shout out to you. You know who you are. Um, and I adore her and she just, she asked the question that so many people have is, you know, she had just finished. It was her peak week of training. She's training for a half. She had her 13 mile long run, um, last weekend and she was just like, you know, at the end at about like mile 10, mile nine, 10, like my, my legs were just really, really tired and I just didn't really want to keep running, you know, and I, I didn't, I was fueled well and I was hydrated well, you know, she went through a checklist and I'm like, okay, I Well, welcome to running like that was your peak week. This is what training is for. Nothing's gone wrong here. And like, she was so relieved by that answer. She was like, Oh, okay. Like, this is just part of it. I'm like, I kind of pulled everyone else that was on the call. I'm like, raise your hand if you've ever had a run that felt like that. Right? Like we all have that and that doesn't mean that anything has gone wrong, but that's so reassuring to hear because so many times when we our bodies feel that way, we want our brains sound an alarm. You know, something's going wrong. This isn't the right plan. Something's, you know, something's off here. Maybe I'm not prepared. Like, why am I feeling this way? If I feel this way now, how in the world am I supposed to run a marathon in a couple months? Like all these things. Thoughts that our brain wants to offer us, but that second guessing, whether it's the plan, whether it's just that run, whatever it might be, oftentimes reveals a lack of trust in ourself, a lack of trust in the plan. You know, sometimes it's just, you know, You know, lack of knowledge, right? Like our client today, like she just didn't know. She's like, yeah, okay. Some, like she's a newer runner. She's like, yeah, sometimes runs can just feel like this. And unfortunately there's not always an explanation and that's okay. It's like, oh, okay, great. Now that she had that knowledge, she was like, great. Like, you know, she, she has trust in herself in the plan, but for a lot of us, you know, I think that fear can often mask. Again, fear wears many masks, fear masks as indecision, as we talked about before. It can also mask as logic, right? Like we can try to logic our way out of situations. We can find all of the very logical reasons why this thing isn't working or why this thing isn't right for us or why, you know, we should have had results by now. Right. And we can try to logic ourselves as logic. Out of a decision that we've already made,

Kevin: 37:55

right? I mean, this happened so much. You mentioned the half marathon training plan. How many people have we coached that they go through and they hit a workout where they're training for a half marathon and they run five miles at goal pace and they feel spent and they're like, I don't know how I'm possibly going to do that for another eight miles. It's like, well, yeah, but you just had a long run over the weekend. So you're still tired from that. And you did no cut down in any of your thing. You had a strength training session yesterday. Like this is just a normal workout that you're putting into the middle of the week. Sometimes this happens as people are building their long runs up and it's the longest long run they've ever done. And they can't figure out how they're so tired on that. How am I going to go further? And faster than this, than this particular day. It's like, well, because you're still building, of course, you're tired by the end of it. This is the longest you've ever run. So it makes sense that you would be tired by it. That's where the logic comes in is it seems like, and this one hits me a lot is sometimes it seems like the plan isn't doing enough. Like, well, if the marathon plan builds me up to 20 miles, how am I possibly supposed to run 26? If the half marathon plan builds me up to 13 at a nice, easy slow pace, how am I then going to run 13 way faster than that? The only time I've ever run that, that pace was up to five, maybe six miles. There's a gap here and it doesn't make any sense to me. So obviously I need to crank up the distance and intensity of my training plan.

Angie: 39:21

Yeah. And that's that logic brain trying to protect you and second guessing you and. It's again, fear. It's fear. It's worry that you're not going to be ready or that you might not achieve the thing that you want to achieve. And like you said, it often leads to people making poor decisions, which is, I need to increase my training plan. I need to do more. I need to, you know, I know that this is only supposed to be a six mile steady run, but maybe I should make it a 10 mile steady run because then I'll feel better. Then I'll feel more prepared. And You're actually not more prepared. You're just breaking your body down more and not gaining a benefit from it. And this is the benefit of working with a coach that knows what they're talking about, that has trained hundreds and thousands of athletes to do these same things. And they understand that just because you're putting in more effort does not mean that there's going to be a greater payoff.

Kevin: 40:10

Yeah, that that's a big one is more effort does not necessarily lead to greater payoff. Sometimes more effort just leads to a greater chance of injury and sometimes it it screws up the whole like the guiding principle of the plan is we're gonna build for these weeks and then pull down and Athletes will look at that and be like well if I just don't have a pullback week and I continue pushing that week I can get to even greater heights. You know, that's the thing that shows up people who have you know, disordered eating They're like well I know that I should be fueling my run, but I think that the coach is really hiding something from me. This is actually the elite way to eat. Like I've heard that from multiple podcasts that I've listened to of guests that have been struggling with eating disorders where they're like, yeah, I thought coach was just lying and said, well, This is the eating plan for you and they were reserving a different eating plan for the truly elite athletes on the team And it's like no no that you can get this what sounds like a logical answer Even if it's illogical in that case, but you can get this result You can get your head wrapped around it that you're not doing things the right way Find a plan that you think is gonna make sense Make the decision that that's actually the plan, and then you've got to ride that plan out and see where it actually takes you.

Angie: 41:23

Yeah, and so when I was thinking about this, I came up with three R's so that when you're second guessing yourself, these, remember the three R's. Okay, R number one is to recognize. Okay, recognize when you're second guessing yourself. Number two, remind, remind yourself of what you're doing and why you're doing it, or remind yourself of the decision that you've already made. And number three, recommit, okay. Recommit to that decision that you've made. Like, Hey. Angie, you made this decision. You thought this was a good idea. Your brain's just trying to protect you right now by second guessing you and try to convince you that the decision that you made wasn't correct, but you made that decision. And if you have. New, new information and that is going to change your decision. That's a little bit different, right? But a lot of times our brain just starts swirling and spiraling. And my mama brain does this all the time with my kiddos too, right? So I came up with those three R's. Recognize, remind, and recommit. Okay, recognize when you're doing it. Remind yourself of why you made that decision in the first place or what the decision was and then recommit to it and write it out. Well, maybe there's four hours. Write it out, right? Like, actually give it time to work before just, you know, spiraling and second guessing yourself along the way.

Kevin: 42:43

I like the remind one in there. Remind yourself why you made this decision, because if there is like a huge new piece of information for you, reminding yourself why you made the decision and being like, here are new facts that I have might in fact change your decision, but it allows you to go back and say, this is why I made the decision. Here's new information. Does it change why I made the decision? Or is it just new information? Like, is that new information actually related? Is it going to make me change my decision? If I had it months ago, would I have made a different decision or is it just something else popping up there? Make kind of distracting me.

Angie: 43:16

Yeah. Yeah. Very good point. So. Stop second guessing yourself all the time. Recommit to your goals. Recommit to the training plan that you've chosen. If you need help with that, reach out to us. We have a coaching program. We've got group coaching. We've got one on one coaching. We love helping athletes to achieve their goals and to really train in a way that, you know, You can find, um, more joy, more strength, like more energy, um, and just feel really good in the process. So reach out to us if you guys are looking for help, um, and as always, if this episode was helpful, please leave us a review, share it with a friend, um, and don't forget to hit subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast app. So that the latest episode will always be downloaded to your phone. And as always, thanks for spending this time with us today. This has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 366. Now get out there and run your life.