455: Choose Your Hard… But Not Like You Think

We hear it all the time: “choose your hard.” But here’s the truth—not all “hard” is created equal.

In this episode, I break down the difference between aligned hard (the kind that builds you) and misaligned hard (the kind that leads to burnout, injury, and disconnection). Because constantly pushing isn’t discipline—it’s often your body being ignored.

Aligned hard looks like showing up when you don’t feel like it, staying consistent, and being patient.

Misaligned hard looks like pushing through exhaustion, running hard every day, or ignoring pain.

We also reframe “easy” as intentional recovery—and a necessary part of progress, not a step backward.

Think of your training like a volume knob, not an on/off switch. You can adjust based on what your body needs.

I’ll also walk you through four simple questions to help you decide when to push and when to pull back—plus a quick story that highlights why restraint matters just as much as effort.

Because the goal isn’t to choose hard all the time.

It’s to choose what actually helps you grow.

00:38 Why Hard Matters

04:31 Aligned Hard Growth

05:56 Misaligned Hard Burnout

10:01 Intentional Easy Recovery

15:10 Volume Knob Balance

17:17 Lent Purposeful Sacrifice

22:59 Four Discernment Questions

29:02 Safety Story Bench Press

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Transcript

Speaker 0:00

You've probably heard the phrase before, choose your hard. When people use this phrase, the whole idea is that we have a choice in life. We can choose to run and it's hard to run, but it's also hard to be outta shape. It's hard to strength train, but it's also hard to lose muscle and bone. So you get to choose your hard. But here's the question I wanna ask you today. Are we supposed to choose hard all the time? yes. Choosing your heart is good, but not like you think. Today we're talking about when to choose hard and when not to. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to the show. I'm sure if you're like me and you have any sort of fitness content on your social media feeds or in your algorithm, you've probably heard this phrase before, choose hard or choose your hard. And like I mentioned in the intro, people often say this and it's very well intended. I've used this phrase before as well, and Kevin and I actually talked about this back in episode 325. So I'll link that in the show notes. or you can then scroll back in whatever podcast player you love listening on and find. Episode 3 25. We talk about this concept of choose your Heart because we all have choices in life, and it's true that a lot of the choices that we have are hard. They are difficult. They require effort If we want to get the results that we're hoping for. So the whole idea of choose your hard is you get to choose which thing you want to be hard. Do you want it to be hard for you to go out for your run or to do your strength training or to put that work in now? Maybe it's building a business, maybe it's raising your kids, whatever it is. there's lots of hard things that we have to do in life and we can choose to do those things intentionally. Or we can be faced with hard things later on, we can be faced with the hard choice that. We might have to leave our home because you're not independent, because you're weak and frail and you fell and broke a hip, and now you need constant care. That's a choice that I'm guessing everyone. I think I can confidently say everyone listening to this podcast does not want to ever have to make that choice. I'm sure that everyone listening to this podcast wants to remain strong, active, and independent for as long as possible, hopefully. For the rest of your life until you hit that grave, right? I, you all know that I very rarely use all the time, always everyone, but I think I'm pretty safe saying everyone in this context because I think that's what all of us want. We all want to be independent, and so that's really the concept behind choose your heart. It's Either you choose the hard stuff now of eating healthy food, or you have the hard choice of later having your toes amputated because you have diabetes. Like those are both hard things and Obviously we would want to choose the things. Now they're gonna lead us to better outcomes down the road. So yes, growth requires challenge and choosing hard now is often a good thing. However, like anything, there's always a shadow side to these things, and this is what. Inspired this episode today that I wanted to dig into and look at, because there's always nuance to any of these because if we choose hard all the time, constantly choosing hard, that can lead to burnout. Injury, nervous system overload and disconnection from your body. So not all hard is helpful and not all easy is wrong. And I think that this is really important for us to hear because as runners we take pride. A lot of us, maybe all of us, but definitely the majority of us. Take pride in doing the hard things in challenging ourselves, in making the choices that other people aren't making. We like that feeling and sometimes we can get stuck in always choosing the hard or always chasing the challenge, and for a lot of us. The easy part is the hard part and that's Talk about a paradox, right? Talk about kind of a weird thing. So the way that I like to look at hard when we're deciding if you wanna choose your hard, I think there's two different types of hard Type one is what I'm going to call aligned hard or growth oriented hard. This type of hard. Builds you, it moves you forward. It requires effort, but it actually creates energy over time. So examples of this would be going for a run when you don't feel like it. Strength training, consistently doing your easy runs, actually easy. And being patient with progress because we all wanna rush our progress sometime. let's be honest, right? So this kind of hard, when we are doing these things that are uncomfortable. That your brain is telling you that it does not want to do, you should really not do that. You really don't need to go out for a run today. I don't really think you need to put more weight on the bar or pick up a heavier dumbbell. Like doing those hard things actually leads somewhere. It leads to you growing in some way, and that can be physical growth, it can be mental growth, emotional growth, personal development. there's so many ways that we can grow. And doing those hard things leads to some sort of growth that is good for you, that's moving you forward, that's helping you to evolve in some way. Then there's type two hard. So type two hard is what I like to call misaligned hard or destructive hard. This kind of hard drains you, and it comes from pressure. Ego or fear, it keeps you stuck. And this is the, the thing that a lot of us don't even realize sometimes, because that ego is tricky. All, it can hide itself and disguise itself in so many different ways. And we can just put all this pressure on ourselves and we can convince ourselves that we're doing this for the right reason. Because we can use that phrase of choose hard. To make ourselves do things that we don't wanna do. And that, quite honestly, if we really step back and think about it, might not be the best choice for us right now. Because when we're pressuring ourselves into things, when we're doing things out of fear or out of ego. Is that really moving you forward? Is that really helping you to grow? Or are you just layering on guilt and shame and other negative emotions to try to force yourself to do things that you don't wanna do? So examples of this would be pushing through exhaustion. a few episodes ago we talked about the stoplight framework of how to decide if we should push through, if we need to adjust, or if we need to take a rest day. So if you are at a red light and you are having a red light kind of day and you decide you're just gonna push through anyways, that is destructive, most likely like that. I shouldn't say most likely. If you are having a red day, that is destructive because pushing through when you're already in the red zone. Is not a good idea for your health and for your long-term progress. Another example of destructive hard would be running hard every day. You know you're a runner that is convinced. That if you continue to press hard every single day, that's going to make you better. And so you choose to go out and push hard every single day. This is going to lead you to all sorts of destruction, injury, burnout, all sorts of issues down the road. You might be able to get away for it, get away with it for a while, but it will catch up to you. Another very common example of destructive hard would be ignoring pain, believing the mantra, no pain, no gain, and using that to ignore the signals that your body's trying to give you, and just pushing through or over training to try to prove something to yourself. Maybe you're even following a training plan I've had. I've seen this way too many times than I would like to admit, but like people that have a training plan and decide they're gonna do extra because they don't think that the training plan is enough, and maybe it's to prove something, maybe it's just because their ego is getting the be best of them at that point in time. Maybe it's'cause they're, they don't actually trust their training, so they feel like it's necessary to add a bunch of extra things into the training plan because they don't trust their coach or they don't trust the plan. And they're just trying to do more and more. So those are examples of misaligned hard because that kind of hard does not build you, it breaks you. And especially over time, if you are constantly engaging or consistently engaging in misaligned hard, this is going to break you down. And this is why so many people have difficulty with consistency. Because they're constantly out there doing the hard things, and that's not how your body is wired. We are not wired to do the hard things all of the time. Constantly. Yes, hard is good. It is important for us to choose hard. Sometimes you can even say, 50% of the time, it's okay to choose hard. not. If you're doing easy running, hard running, like that's not what I'm talking about.'cause we wanna be more on like the 80 20 ratio of easy running to hard running. You don't wanna be doing 50 50, but again, that also depends on you and your experience level and your goals and all sorts of different things. But. When you're engaging in destructive hard constantly, that's going to break you down and make long-term progress, basically unachievable. So those are the two types of hard. What about easy? Okay. Because a lot of times people think that easy is lazy and easy means not disciplined. And I'm not just talking about easy running because if you've been listening to this podcast for any length of time, you know that we are big fans of easy running to actually allow your body to adapt to those harder days. So I'm not just talking about easy running, I'm like, I'm also talking about taking the easy way out. Just that phrase, think about that phrase for a second. Taking the easy way out, what does that imply? Or doing it the easy way, what does that imply? What is your brain telling you about that? So instead of thinking that easy always means lazy or not disciplined, or something negative. Let's instead start thinking about this as aligned, easy or intentional, easy. So this can include things like recovery runs, rest days, listening to your body, and actually allowing life to be easy sometimes. And I think that we get into this trap. Of thinking, it can't be easy. Or if it's too good to be true, then it probably is. Or if it's easy, it just means that I'm not doing enough or I'm not trying hard enough. But there are times in our life where easy is the best choice. And here's the crazy paradox that sometimes the hardest thing is choosing easy, actually allowing yourself to choose easy. Sometimes that can be the hardest thing for us, especially those of us that are very. Driven towards productivity. Like we love being productive. I love checking boxes. I actually write things down after I do them, just so that I can check the box. I love feeling that sense of productivity and allowing myself to rest. Was, has not been something that has come easy to me throughout my life. And honestly, this has been something that I've genuinely been working on for, I would say probably about a year of allowing myself to not be working all the time. When I'm at home, I work from home. I run a business from home. My laptop is portable and obviously I take time, for my family and I'm always doing things like that. we have family meals every night, but when. Dinner's cleaned up. the kids come home from school, they're doing their homework. We have dinner together, and then we clean up from dinner. A lot of times I used to then go back to work, the kids were off doing their homeworks or studying or doing, going to bed. I would go back to work because I felt like if I wasn't doing something, if I wasn't being productive, I was wasting time. There was. Progress that I could be making that I wasn't making because I wasn't doing it, and to just sit on the couch and read a book or watch TV was not productive and I felt so uncomfortable doing that. It was so hard for me to just relax or on the weekends. you all know there's always projects we can do. If you own a home, there's always things that we can do. not, forget about just the regular cleaning to maintain your home, like vacuuming and mopping and doing laundry and all of that stuff. But there's projects that we always know, there's all these other projects we would like to do around the house, and so for me to just sit and sit outside or go in the pool or do something enjoyable. Ha in the past has been very hard, and I'm not gonna say in the past because that will make it sound like, oh, now I have no problem with that because I still feel this need to be productive. Most of the time I will not say all of the time, but definitely most of the time, and for me to just sit down and not do anything does require intention. And so I have been. Like at first I had to force myself. I know this sounds crazy, but I'm guessing at least some of you can relate to this, to force myself to sit down and just watch TV after dinner and not bring my laptop over and not try to get work done also, and just watch a TV show for enjoyment or read a fiction book. Like this is another big thing, like if I. Was gonna spend time reading I for the longest time, for years. Always chose a personal development book or some sort of self-help or psychological type, something that where I was learning something because then I felt productive. Then I would allow myself, I'd give myself the permission to actually sit down and read a book because I knew that I was gaining something from that. When I went out on my walks, I always listened to podcasts because again, I don't wanna waste time when I could be learning something, and I still do that the majority of the time. I just also am practicing allowing myself time to just relax and to just recover and to choose the easy, because I find for me, and I'm guessing I'm not alone in this, that, doing the easy thing and just resting and relaxing can feel very strange, can feel very difficult, and unless we practice it. And so sometimes the hardest thing is choosing the easy and a good way that I like to think about this is. You're treating your training like. A volume knob and not an on-off switch. So there's a lot of people that treat training like an on-off switch. Either I'm going hard or I'm doing nothing. It's very polarized. It's very black and white, all or nothing types of thinking. But your body doesn't work like a switch. It works like a vol. A volume knob. So some days we wanna turn it up, we wanna turn up that intensity, we wanna do the hard things because it is important for us to do hard things and to challenge ourselves if we wanna get better. Adding progressive overload to the body is important if you want to do better, and some days we need to turn that knob down and allow ourselves to actually. Participate in the easy things because you can't get better and do hard without the easy. They have to balance each other out and it's not 50 50, but we do have to find a balance. We have to have both. And so the skill becomes knowing where to set that volume knob. You don't wanna be turning it up loud and hard all the time, and we can't leave it on low and easy all the time either or. We're not gonna be giving our body the training stimulus that it needs. So the goal is not max volume all the time. It's the right volume for today, and I think that's a really important way that we can think about this. We are gonna be, doing all sorts of things. And we can think about this in our training and we can also think about this in other areas of our life. We're gonna have seasons where it feels really difficult. Maybe you're, you've got a project at work and you're going hard with that project at work. After that project is over, you're gonna need some time to rest and allow your mind and the team that you're working with to recoup and, get back on track. Because if you're just pushing hard all the time, people just get burned out and then the work is not gonna be productive. It's gonna lead to all sorts of issues and it's not going to lead to the sustainable progress that you want. And I wanna also look at this through another lens as well, because I am a Catholic and we are currently in the season of Lent, and this episode is actually gonna be released on Holy Thursday. So we've got the Easter Triduum, leading up into Easter. So we've got Holy Thursday, good Friday, and then Easter Sunday. And so the 40 days before Easter. In the Catholic Church is called Lent, and Lent is really all about intentional sacrifice. There's a lot of messaging about taking up your cross and it, this is just a kind of messaging that's in the Christian and Catholic faith as well, is to be a follower of Jesus. It's important for us to take up our cross, and we talk about the way of the cross and sacrifice and suffering, but. Honestly, the more I think about this, I think that sometimes we can get this wrong also because. The way of the cross is not about choosing suffering for the sake of suffering. It's about purpose and alignment, love and obedience. We are not called to choose what is hardest and to just do things just because they're hard or just because suffering is involved. We are called to choose to do what is right and oftentimes the right thing. Is the hard thing because the right thing is often. The thing that goes against what society is telling us to do. It's going against feeling comfortable all the time. It's going against some of the norms that we are supposed to see as acceptable. So that is the way of the cross. It's not about choosing hard just to choose hard. It's not about choosing suffering for the sake of suffering. I believe in a loving God, and I don't think a loving God would want us to suffer just for the sake of suffering. I think that. We have things that are placed in our lives that we can use that may cause suffering, but that we can use for growth and for our greater good that we can learn from, that we can grow from. And that sort of suffering is not just for the sake of suffering, that's suffering for the sake of growth, whether that's your own personal growth or helping other people, there's lots of different ways that we can look at that. And I really think that's what the way of the cross is about as well. And Lent is that intentional sacrifice. it's the aligned hard, it's choosing the hard things that are aligned with our faith or the person that you want to become no matter what faith background you are a part of. I don't think, this is not just for Catholics or Christians. I am speaking from that point of view because that is how. That is the faith tradition that I follow. But there's these types of messages through all different faith traditions, through Judaism, through Hinduism, Buddhism, all of them have somewhat have suffering weaved in somehow because the human condition, pain and suffering and discomfort and hard things, that's part of being human. So it's all about how we choose to look at those hard things and the hard things that we choose to do. Versus the hard things that are really not the choices that are going to help us in any way, because there's a lot of hard things that we can choose that are leading us down a path of destruction, whether that's destruction of our physical body, whether it's destruction of our spirit, our mind, there's all sorts of different ways that we can choose the hard, destructive things in our life. So it's important for us to really start to ask, what kind of hard am I choosing? Because some days the hard or the cross is going for the run, and other days the cross or the hard is resting when your ego wants to push. So sometimes discipline looks like pushing yourself, and sometimes discipline looks like restraint. So yes, choosing hard is a good thing, and sometimes letting things be easy. Is actually the hard choice, and that's pretty, pretty crazy. So we don't want to always choose hard, and we don't want to always choose easy. We have to learn how to discern this for ourself and learn how to choose what your body and your life actually need. So if you imagine that you're driving a car and you only have a gas pedal, what would happen? You'd crash, right? You would burn out the engine. If there was only a gas pedal and no break, but there's so many runners that train like that, they're only pushing, they're never braking. They're never taking a step back because that gas, that's the hard efforts and that break those, that's the recovery and the easy days. I like to think of this as like an electric car too.'cause Kevin explained like electric cars and hybrid cars. To me, and there's some hybrid cars that are set up so that every time you press the brake, it actually recharges the battery, and that allows hybrid cars to go for long drive for longer, because with every brake push, you're actually recharging the battery. Isn't that interesting? So in some cases, you don't get faster just by pressing the gas because that could lead you to crash and to be completely destructive, in which case you would just stop moving all altogether. You can get faster and make more progress by knowing when to use the break. So how can we figure this out if we have these two versions of hard, how can we figure this out? When we're making the choice for aligned hard and growth oriented hard, or if we're choosing hard and it's more of a misaligned hard, a more destructive, hard. So there's four questions I want you to ask yourself. Number one, is this choice building me up or breaking me down? And this question comes with a caveat because building me up versus breaking me down, obviously we would think, okay, if it's building me up, then clearly it's the good kind of hard, right? it's the aligned hard, that's a good choice. And breaking me down clearly. That's the misaligned hard, that's the destructive one that I don't wanna be choosing. But there's a nuance here that I think is really important for us to think about as well, because sometimes. Breakdown is necessary for the breakthrough. Breaking yourself down is actually what's required for you to build back stronger, and that's how workouts work. That's how training works. That's literally what you're doing to your body in training when you have hard training days. So when you go out and do a long run or do a speed work or do a heavy lifting session. You are actually breaking your body down. You're creating micro damage to your tissues, and then during the recovery and adaptation process, your body comes back in and builds itself back up stronger. So you are actually breaking yourself down in order to build yourself up. And so that's an important distinction to remember because that is necessary sometimes. So whenever you're making a hard choice. And you ask yourself, is it building me up or breaking me down? You can also add in, is this breaking me down now so that it builds me up? In the future, because sometimes we also have to break down our limiting beliefs or those thoughts about yourself that are not serving you anymore, or your people pleasing tendencies that are leading you to be inconsistent with your training because you're always putting other people before yourself. So there are some types of breakdown that are actually, they might be destructive temporarily, but they are really leading to growth in the future. Okay, so that's question number one. Question number two, is this coming from alignment or from fear? Ego or pressure, because a lot of times we think that if I just put more pressure on myself or if I shame myself or make myself feel guilty about something, then I'll actually do it. And we know from neuroscience and lots of different research studies, and you know this too, if you really get honest with yourself. That's not a sustainable way to create change. It might work temporarily. You might be able to guilt yourself into doing something that you don't wanna do once, twice, maybe a handful of times, maybe a bunch of times. But eventually it's going to catch up to you and maybe, if you are a people pleaser, this is a big one because you might do things that you don't wanna do. And you're like, I've been doing this my whole life and it hasn't broke me down yet, but has it? How much resentment do you hold towards others or towards one other person? Maybe it's your mom, maybe it's your dad, maybe it's your siblings. How much resentment do you hold in your heart because you are always the one saying yes, you are always the one doing things for others and you are not honoring your own desires. So it's destructive in ways that we don't always see. So that's question number two. Is this coming from alignment or is it coming from fear or ego? Question number three is, will this move me forward long term? So this is related to question one, where we talked about building me up or breaking me down. Sometimes that breakdown is necessary temporarily, but we know that's going to move us forward long term. So we know that we're choosing an aligned hard or growth oriented hard when we can say, yes, this is moving me forward long term. Because sometimes the hard thing is what is necessary. I believe that hard things are necessary for growth. Challenge is necessary for growth. You don't move anywhere in life by just staying in your comfort zone, but it's about choosing that intentionally. I. And then question number four is, what would the strongest, most grounded version of me choose right now? Or said another way? What would the future version of me choose right now? So if you could go out into the future and you know that version of you had exactly what you wanted, had the results that you wanted, was the person that you wanted to be that person that you're striving towards, it doesn't matter if it's your. Fitness goals. Your running goals, your personal goals, that future version of yourself. Imagine her, imagine him. What would that version of you choose right now? What would that version of you, looking back on where you are right now, where you are today, when you're deciding what choice to make, what would that version of yourself tell you to do? That is such a good question because when you think about that, the answer could be to rest, the answer could be to push, right? Like it just depends on what. You're facing right now. So like life, all of these things are nuanced. All of these things depend on what's going on. So if you're tired before a run, sometimes it's important for you to go. Sometimes it's important for you to choose the hard thing and go, and other times it's important for you to rest when your strengths training, sometimes it's important for you to push heavier and try to push out that last rep, and sometimes it's more important for you to back off. And she was safety. This is the crazy thing. So the other day, this was like last week. Last week I was strength training and my mom was here with me.'cause my mom strength trains with me, twice a week, which I freaking love. It's the best. And we have a Smith machine at home. And so I was doing a chess press, the bench press, and I was attempting my like heaviest weight ever. And. The week before was the first time that I attempted this weight. And I, we have these bumpers, they, that are like a safety mechanism that you can, that I can put onto the Smith machine so I can limit the range of motion. So I put those bumpers on to make sure, because anytime you're doing a weight that is heavier than you've ever lifted before, there's a chance that you're not gonna be able to do it. And so I was pretty confident that I was gonna be able to do this, but I didn't know how many repetitions I would be able to do. And so I had those bumpers in place. And so I did that weight the week before and I was super psyched about it. And so I went to do this weight again last week, and so I foolishly. Assumed that the bumpers were still in place because I'm the one that works out in the gym most of the time. And what I didn't realize was that Kevin actually moved the bumpers because he had worked out and apparently, he wanted the machine to go down deeper. Totally fine, totally my fault. This is definitely not Kevin's fault at all. 100% my fault that I didn't check and make sure that those bumpers were in place before I started lifting that day. And never take that. Never take that for granted. Granted, always choose safety first. Always double check these things. So I just lay down and I start doing my bench press. And the bumpers are not in place. And I was like, so I did four reps and I was gonna try to, I was trying to do a fifth, and so I was like, do I have it? I'm like, questioning it. Which one do I choose here? Do I choose to try for that last rep? And so I brought the bar down. I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it. Like I, if I can't, I'm got the bumpers. So I. Bring the bar down, and there's no bumpers. And so I try to push it up and my muscles were like, Nope. Absolutely not. Like I, I went to failure and so there was no bumpers. And so this bar was literally on top of me and my mom was there and I was like, mom, I need help. And she's she comes over, she's I don't know what to do. And she like grabs this side of the barbell. God bless her. She's so cute. She grabs the side of the barbell and is I can't do anything. I can't move. And so like part of me was like. laughing in my head that she's so cute and didn't know how to spot me. And then the other part of me was like trying not to get crushed by the bar. So I'm like trying to figure this out and luckily, thank goodness Kevin was off that day and so he was home and I said, just go get Kevin. Just go get Kevin. And so she went into the house and got Kevin and he came out and helped me lift the barbell off. But that was a day that it would've been smarter for me to. a number one check and make sure that my safety plan was in place and not lift without my bumpers in place. But two in that set, it would've been better for me to back off and not try for that last rep because, there's nothing wrong with that. I, I chose the hard thing. I chose to go for that last rep, which would've been fine if my safety was in place, but was not a good idea because my safety was not in place. And obviously I didn't know that, but that's why it's important to check. Other idea is, training consistency. Like when we look at training consistency, what's the heart when we're choosing the hard? Is it choosing discipline and always sticking exactly to your training plan? Or is it sometimes choosing to adjust and choosing to add in an extra rest or recovery day to allow your body to act, actually adapt to the training that you've been putting in? It depends, and that's why we have this podcast. That's why we have the stoplight system that we talked about a couple episodes ago to help you make these decisions because I really want you to understand that. You don't need to prove how hard you can go every single day. You need to learn how to choose wisely. You need to choose your hard, but you need to choose it wisely because yes, it is more important. Like I, I shouldn't say more important. I think it is a good choice, in my opinion, the better choice for us to choose to. Exercise and to be active and to do those things versus sitting on the couch, that is the hard we wanna choose. But when we choose that main path, then we have to also understand that day by day we have to also choose which one is the hard one, which one is the smart one, which is the right choice for our body at that time. So I would invite you. After this episode to really reflect where in your life are you choosing hard, and what kind of hard are you choosing? Are you choosing aligned hard that is growth oriented that's going to help you grow? Or are you choosing misaligned hard? That destructive hard? And that can change from day to day, but it's important for us to become aware of them and so that we can figure out when you're choosing the good hard, the good kind of hard or. The destructive kind of hard and choose appropriately. So I would love to know your thoughts on this episode. So if you guys wanna reach out, you can find me over on Instagram at Real Life Runners or at Dr. Angie Brown on Instagram. I'm on TikTok at Dr. Angie Brown. Or you can shoot me an email. if you're not on our email list yet and you wanna be, we send out a weekly newsletter with, a recap of the podcast episode, links to the podcast. And then some reflection questions like this,'cause the goal is always to help you to continue to become the strongest. Version of yourself, the best version of yourself in all aspects, not just in running, but in all areas of your life. And if you really wanna take this episode and this theme and expand it out, you can ask yourself these questions in your training, but you can also ask them in all areas of your life and kind of figure out when you're choosing the hard that's going to lead to more personal growth, or when you're choosing the hard, that's just going to break you down. So if you haven't yet, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify. We would love to hear from you and we would love it if you were to share this episode with a friend as well, because our goal is just to help as many runners to feel good and to choose the right kind of hard, but not choose hard all the time so they're not breaking themselves down. So thanks for joining me today. This has been The Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 455. Now, get out there and run your life.