Run Your Race Podcast
When I first listened to David Goggins' book in 2019, I was hooked. If he could run 100 miles without training, I thought I could do it with training! It unlocked something in me, leading to my journey into ultramarathons. Since then, I've completed multiple 100- and 200-mile races, something I once thought impossible. This podcast aims to give you that same mindset shift. Each week, we interview elite endurance athletes to inspire you to believe more is possible and push yourself to the next level.
Run Your Race Podcast
#018 - The Hardest Part of Being Consistent and How to Overcome It
We explore why maintaining consistency becomes challenging not when things are difficult, but when they become routine. Drawing from my experience running daily half marathons for a world record attempt, I share insights on overcoming the monotony that threatens our progress.
• The danger comes when consistency becomes routine and we lose reverence for what we're doing
• David Goggins' wisdom that in SEAL training, losing focus for just one second can lead to quitting
• Galatians 6:9 warns us specifically about growing weary "in doing good"—when things are going well
• Call a friend who can provide perspective when you're losing motivation
• Change your energy by rejoicing in the suffering, seeing it as a pathway to growth
• Refocus and get your excitement back by finding new aspects to optimize
• The difference between short-term gratification and long-term fulfillment through consistency
Go out there and run your race!
What is up everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Run your Race podcast, and I'm your host, pure Shao, and today I want to be talking about the hardest part of being consistent and how to overcome it. Okay, and the reason I want to talk about this is because for the last 44 days, I've been running a half marathon every single day to break a Guinness World Record and make America healthy again, and I've been thinking a lot this past week just about the challenge, reflecting on how it's gone, all the thoughts right, and, to be honest, I was a little bit frustrated just thinking through things, thinking about some unrealized expectations, some things I thought were going to go one way but fell through in a different way, and just all these different things that have come up, and also thought about like how the challenge, to be honest, has gotten a bit monotonous, and you may be able to relate to this and think, like back to some time that you got really consistent in your health goals, whether it's walking, eating, running and you've been doing it day after day, week after week, and you just get in the habit, the flow of things and you just get so used to it. Right, think about it. Has that ever happened to you? I know it's happened to me and it's happening right now. And this is going to sound super unrelatable, unrelatable to a lot of people, but just like the 13.1 miles I've been doing every day has just become routine. It's just something I do, like it's not impossible for me it's just like a daily dose of discomfort, just like knocking out a workout every single day. And yeah, there are some harder days than others, but like we get it done and unless I have bathroom problems, like I'm not like overly straining for it, just being completely honest. I don't say this to sound egotistical at all, but just to give you exactly where I'm at.
Speaker 1:But the thing that has been challenging is when something is just happening you're in routine, getting it done it's super easy to lose your reverence for the thing, to lose sight of your discipline. So I mean, even in this challenge, there have been times where one day I forgot my computer going to the gym and the camera hooks up to the computer, or I forgot to check the battery life on the phone or whatnot, and it created these issues to where a video got messed up or a device died or I didn't have a camera and I had to make changes, and so one of the things about when you consistently do things is that you grow weary in it. You lose sight of what you're doing, the impact that it's having, because it's just so normal that it's having because it's just so normal, and sometimes, at least for me, I can lose sight of how important these things are, that I'm doing Like something as small as going through this pre-run checklist of making sure I go to the bathroom, I stretch, I put tape on my nipples as funny as that is so they don't bleed, as if you've seen my Instagram, you've probably seen the pictures. Making sure I do those small things has been so important because if I don't, if I get lulled to sleep by the monotony of the consistency, it could be detrimental. It could completely take away what I'm going after, it could ruin the challenge. And actually I was talking to David Goggins about this one time. I was asking him a question at an event and if you don't know David Goggins, he's an incredible endurance athlete and motivational speaker and just has an amazing story and he said the hardest part about SEAL training is there's however many thousand seconds, and if you lose sight of your why of the goal for one second. It can be very easy to quit on that thing that you have trained for so long for, and so that's sort of like. This challenge with the days is there's so many days, so many hours of the day, so many minutes in the day where, if I lose sight of the goal it can isn't maybe having the impact that I want it to, or whatnot right, and then that just leads to just changing my energy around it and then it becomes monotonous and then it becomes like, oh man, these negative thoughts towards doing this thing every day.
Speaker 1:And it's so powerful in the Bible, in Galatians 6.9. I'm not a Bible scholar, but it's just so powerful. It's one of my favorite verses. Galatians 6.9 says do not grow weary in doing good, for in due season you will reap if you do not give up. And it's interesting there how it doesn't say do not grow weary in doing bad or do not grow weary in hard times, but it says do not grow weary in doing good. And I think one of the most powerful things about that is and why it says in doing good is because it can be so easy that once you get into a routine, once you get into the flow of things, it can be easy to lose sight and to stop while you're doing good, while things are going well, while you're being consistent, before you actually realize all your goals and the potential that you have.
Speaker 1:And so right now I want to talk about how to stay consistent when the newness of the thing you've been consistent in has run off, has dried up and you're not super like infatuated is not the right word, but I hope you get. What I'm saying is like, when you're not excited about the goal anymore and maybe not excited is the right word, but like you lose a lot of that excitement, not saying you're not excited at all, but you lose that newness to it. And so one of the first things I did as I was feeling this way is excuse me, I called a friend, I called one of my buddies and I just told them what I was going through. And Proverbs 17, 17 says a friend loves at all times and a brother is born for a time of adversity. And that's so powerful to me because, like you, you need a brother in it with you for times of adversity. I think this is talking about a brother more conceptually, like it could be either a physical brother or a spiritual brother. And I called my friend and he was able to help me see things differently and change my perspective and take it from oh I'm not sure if this matters as much to man. You're having such a big impact that you don't even see it and you need to refocus. So that was super helpful to me. So these are going to be quick, but the first thing is call a friend, call a brother who's not going to pull you back but who's going to help you have your best foot forward and accomplish the goal at hand.
Speaker 1:Now the second is to rejoice. You have to change your energy when you're in a state like that, if you're in a monotonous state, if you're in a state where it feels like the consistency has just gotten boring, you need to change your state because you can't create out of that state. You have to create out of a better state, a positive state, an inspired state. And the Bible says in Romans 5, 3 through 5,. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, and it talks about rejoicing glory and in the suffering, and how important that is to actually see the suffering as the gateway to growth. See suffering as the gateway to growth. It's so powerful. It's so powerful.
Speaker 1:It's like you don't do things because they're easy. You do things hard things because you know that they're going to grow you. It's like the difference between short-term and long-term gratification. Short-term gratification like things like drinking, like lust, like all these different things that you can do in the short term People watch porn, like I used to watch that. It feels good in the moment, but long-term it leaves you feeling empty, it leaves you feeling shameful, it leaves you feeling guilt, all these different things. When, in reality, if you go after the long-term gratification, where you're putting off those short-term desires and you're actually doing the hard things right now, like going to work out, like eating right, like being disciplined you end up reaping the reward over a long period of time.
Speaker 1:But you have to rejoice in that hardship that you're going through because that's going to allow you to keep going. And this is something that happens during ultra marathons, like a lot of people think during these ultra marathons that it's just hard all the time and that I don't enjoy it and whatnot the time and that I don't enjoy it and whatnot. But when it gets hard, I actually have to rejoice in my suffering, because I know that that's going to help me continue. If I just focus on how hard it is, how much it sucks, that's going to take away my energy and lead to me quitting the race, because at some point it's just going to be unbearable. That's why it's so important to have a powerful mindset, be in a powerful state.
Speaker 1:Okay, so once you've called a friend to help you see things differently, call a brother and you've shifted your mindset to rejoice in the suffering and not think about how bad it is. You need to get your excitement back and refocus. And I'm speaking to myself. This is a process that I've been going through. It's like I called that friend. Now I'm rejoicing, I'm shifting my state and now I'm refocusing and getting my excitement back. I'm thinking about the different things that I can optimize with this challenge.
Speaker 1:I'm adding back in strength training because for the first really five, six weeks, I haven't been strength training like I usually do. So I'm adding back in three days a week strength training so I can stay strong, I can keep my muscle. I am focusing on dialing in fueling even greater. I'm focusing on the impact that I can have with the people at the gym with me. I am going to start a live stream where I'm going to broadcast some of these runs, where I'm going to broadcast some of these runs, right? So these different things have been super, super powerful for me to be able to get my excitement back and refocus, because when I have these different levers I can pull, it makes things great. So that's really it. Those are the three things. Rejoice in your suffering First call three things. Rejoice in your suffering First call a brother. Rejoice in your suffering and then refocus to help get your excitement back. So, guys, that's it for today on the Run your Race podcast. I hope you have an amazing day and go out and run your race.