Motivation?

I didn’t want to go on this run… and it ended up shifting my entire energy.

In this episode, we’re talking about why you don’t need to feel motivated to change your state—you just need to move. If you’ve been feeling stuck, off, or low-energy, this is your reminder that the shift comes after action, not before.

One small decision can change everything.

https://www.highvibesmethod.com/

Transcript

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I did not want to go for a run this morning, but it turned out to be one of my favorite runs this entire year, and we're at the end of March. Megan. Today's episode is going to feel a little different. It's more energy, more movement, more real-time shift because I literally just experienced this today and I knew I wanted to come talk about it. So this is for you if you've been feeling stuck or just not really like yourself or like you don't want to take action or just unmotivated. So today I did not want to go for a run at all. This morning I woke up, I woke up early. I mean, I woke up around six. Like I always wake up around six. I like to get out the door by no later than 7.30 because once it's like 8.30, I feel like it's too late in the day to go running. It's Florida. So it's hot, right? And every single second that you get into the daytime, the more humid and hot it gets. But I just wasn't feeling good. I was like tired. I was in my head. I've got a lot of changes coming up. I'm gonna be in an office starting next week, Monday through Friday. And I'm just feeling kind of overwhelmed with that. And I could feel that heavy, resistant energy, you know, that feeling where everything just feels like uh no. And I had every single reason not to go. I could have stayed home, I could have told myself to go later, but you know, something in me was like, no, we're not doing that today because it's gonna be 87 and I want to go to the pool later. And honestly, it wasn't even motivation, it's just like a decision. And I think that's where a lot of people get like held back. I cannot even tell you how many times someone has said, Oh, I just am not motivated to go running or I don't have that kind of motivation. And let me just tell you, it is not motivation. It is consistency. It is forcing myself to go when I don't want to. It's forcing myself to write in my journal when I don't want to. It's forcing myself to eat nutritious meals when I don't want to. It is consistency, consistency, consistency. Motivation, I just feel like it's one of those words that people think is this magic recipe for success, and that's just not true. You have to take action no matter what you're feeling, and ultimately you will be rewarded for that. Like, seriously, I had one of the best runs I've had in so long. I want to say this entire year, it was just magical, okay? I mean, magic. But I'm not gonna lie to you, okay. The first part of the run, it was not cute. It felt hard. My body felt heavy, my mind was still trying to pull me back, and every step felt like running through mud. It was gross. I was sweating within five minutes because again, Florida, humidity, hot, summer is upon us, it's coming. And all of a sudden, something kind of shifted. I was like, wait, hold on. I'm out here, I'm on the third day of the week of running. I try to hit three to four days a week of running. It is Friday. And um, you know, I know for sure I'm running tomorrow. I never miss a Saturday. And I and lately I've been doing Sundays too. But um, so I'm already ahead of my schedule. I'm already ahead of myself, right? And I just knew that if I didn't go, I would feel terrible. And um so I went. So already I am like, why am I putting pressure on myself? I'm literally already out here. And I do have a rule, you know, just give it 10 minutes. If you hate it, you can always turn around and go back home. Everybody's entitled to have a bad run every once in a while. Um, so if I give myself 10 minutes, it gives myself time to like ease into it. But I was like, you know what, let's not worry about pace today. Let's just focus on one foot in front of the other, let's slow down, let's back off, let's listen to some good high vibe music. So I literally pulled over on the grass and typed in good energy high vibe playlist on Spotify, press play, had no idea what was gonna be playing, and it was like such an incredible playlist. Oh my god. Um, and I just vibed out in the villages, just had fun, listening to music. I was going like a 13-minute pace, 1330 pace, you know, which is not like some people will think that's really fast, and some people will think, oh my god, that's walking. And the thing is, we're all different. I I don't know about other runners, but I know for me personally, my pace fluctuates a lot. Like on good days, I can run a 10-minute mile just feeling great, but I can't run faster than that unless I'm doing intervals, like unless I'm doing speed drills and stuff, and then I'll run like I can run like an eight-minute mile for 30 seconds, or even a 730 mile for 30 seconds to a minute. Um, and then I'll walk for 30 seconds and then I'll do it again. So I do that um at least once a week and do speed drills, but this wasn't that. This was just like, let's see if I can slow it down so I jog without taking any walking breaks and just enjoy the process of being out here because it's a gorgeous day. The butterflies are out, there were dragonflies, the birds were chirping, nobody else was out. I don't know why. I mean, I was drenched and dripping sweat within about five minutes of my run this morning. Um, you know, but it was, I kind of embraced it. And once, and it's just like yoga when you're in a pose and it's really, really hard, once you breathe into it and embrace the the pose, it automatically like becomes easier. And so here I am, I'm running about a 13, 25 pace, just real slow and easy. And I hate to use the word slow because we all have different measures of how fast and slow we are. For me, that's a slow pace. So I um, or it is on the slower pace side, but let me tell you, it's comfortable. I could breathe normally, I didn't feel out of breath, I felt relaxed, I could look around and enjoy the scenery. It was much more pleasant and enjoyable, and everything kind of shifted as soon as I was like, what's up with the pressure? Nobody else is putting pressure on me except for myself. Like, you can just go out there and go for a walk if you want. It doesn't have to be a run, you know. This is just what happened with me this morning. But what I noticed was as soon as I was able to relax, my thoughts got quieter, I started to feel present. And by the end of it, I was like, wait a second, this is exactly what I need. And nothing about my circumstances changed except my energy. My energy felt completely different. Like I was going with the flow per se. And that's kind of why I wanted to bring up motivation, because the truth about motivation is we are so conditioned to believe that we need to feel motivated before we act. And that is not how it works. Motivation is super unreliable. Feelings are temporary. No matter how you feel, it will shift, it will change. And if I had waited until I felt like going on that run, I would not have gone on the run. I would have stayed in the same energy all day long. I would have been feeling stuck and kind of blah all day long. And action creates energy, not the other way around. So instead of like going about my day feeling kind of, I feel revitalized. I feel energized, I feel happy and hopeful and motivated, which is so ironic. You know what I mean? So action creates energy, not the other way around. Action creates motivation, not motivation creates the action. And this is true for everything that you ever do in your life, any project, any activity. You must take action or movement towards your goal in order to create motivation. But really, what you want to create is momentum. Okay, so here's the craziest part. As I'm running, I'm about 15 minutes into my run. I'm vibing out, I'm listening to the birds, I'm listening to my music, my good positive energy playlist. I am looking at all of the wildlife around me. I notice all of we have all these incredible like cranes, and they're called Ibis. They're so freaking cute. Little white baby flamingos is kind of what they look like. And I saw Brenda, my favorite alligator, who I named. I see her almost every single time I go running, but I was worried that someone maybe reported her a few weeks ago because I hadn't seen her in a while. And um she's back. So that made me very happy. And she kind of does this weird thing when she sees me. And it I think she's just like does this to every single person that runs by because she's just like, I think she's trying to like intimidate, but maybe she's just playing a game and she's being cute and funny. Who knows if alligators have cute and funny personalities? But that's what I'm saying in my mind, okay? She's cute and funny to me. So she sees me, she's in the middle of the pond, and she kind of slowly turns her head and starts swimming. Now she's not, I'm not saying she's swimming towards me because she's just moving her body like a few inches, but she rotates her body as I run by, and she's still super far away from me. Like there's no, I mean, obviously she could get out and run towards me, but the likeliness of that happening is super, super rare. Okay. Most of the time when there are alligator human attacks, it's they're provoked. It's an accident or they're fishing at night or they're throwing the ball in the water and having their dog run and you know, it it's human error, is what it is, usually. So I'm not really afraid of her. But then I get to my second pond because I run through all these different lakes and ponds. It's gorgeous, gorgeous trail. And I see a baby alligator, and he's so, so cute. I have no idea if he's a boy or a girl, but I named him Daryl. And he was just a little baby, and he was out just checking things out, swimming along, and oh, it was so cute. And the thing is, like, there are literal ducks in the water with the alligators. So if anything, they're gonna go after them first. You only have to run faster than the person behind you, right? That's so bad. But you know what I mean. So I'm not afraid of the alligators, but that just kind of warmed my heart because in recent news, uh, people have been reporting alligators for no reason, and then what happens is they're no longer around. And it's super sad. I wish people didn't report them. It's the same thing we used to experience um in Oregon with cougars. Like people would report the cougar, and then next thing you know, the cougar is no longer, and it just breaks my heart because at the end of the day, we are all in their territory. It is their home. We have developed on their land, and they deserve every right to be here before us. Um, and alligators are so I don't know, they're they're pretty dang cool. Um I'm I I never knew I liked alligators until I moved to Florida. So here we are. But as I'm running, this is what I'm talking about with momentum, right? I'm enjoying it, I'm vibing out, I'm noticing everything around me. I'm starting to smile while I'm running. Next thing you know, and also mind you, my breathing is still super under controlled. I'm relaxed, I'm just having fun, and I'm not looking at my watch, I'm just taking it easy. And next thing you know, I'm running at an 1130 pace. And two years ago, 1130 pace would be my best mile. Um, so that's where I want to highlight because getting into running it's not for the week. Like it's hard, and it is the epitome of delayed gratification. You do not see results for months, years, decades. Okay. Um, it takes a long time to build up your base and your cadence and your form and your breathing and um everything. It like I'll never be perfect at it, you know. But that's also what I love about it because I consistently learn new things about myself, my internal system, how to manage stress and what my body is capable of, whether I've gained 10 pounds or lost 10 pounds. Um, running is never going to be linear, which I also love. It's always going to be a constant challenge. But then when you hit these little milestones, it is such a beautiful reward. And it just made me feel so loved because I was out there giving love to myself, taking action, and creating momentum myself and doing the hard things because I know that I can. And because of it, I'm already having a way better day. I already feel so inspired and motivated to even do the podcast. That's the other thing. I was not motivated to create an episode today, which I knew I had to do because I knew I wanted to get an episode out today. And, you know, again, you have to be inspired to talk about stuff. And you have to be willing to go deep and look inside and show that mirror to yourself and do a little self-reflection because that's what this is all about. You know, I'd be such a phony if I didn't practice all the stuff that I talk about. Um, but I'm here doing it with you. And I just wanted to share this story because being a marathon runner is all you see most of the time are my cutesy little videos on Instagram that are like 20 seconds, there's a good song to it, and it's just me running and vibing out, okay? But what you're not seeing is I'm running and all of a sudden I start crying because something triggered me, or I'm um healing trauma like from my childhood through running. I have had really bad days. I've tripped and fallen. I've, you know, had severe pain on running on runs. Um, I've collapsed on runs. Like not every run is a good run. Um, but you do learn how to manage these things with every single time you get out there and do it. And so you're not seeing the hard days on our Instagram feeds. You're seeing us, and by us, I just mean people that post about running on Instagram or or TikTok or whatever. You're seeing us smiling and vibing out, but you're not seeing the work and the effort that it took to get there. And the bad runs and the snot rockets, the crystallized sweat on my chest because there's nowhere for the sweat to drain. Like I have salt crystals all over my chest. It's crazy, it's so disgusting. Um, toenails that have fallen off. Like, you're not seeing all of the terrible stuff that you have to go through to be a marathon runner. Um, the nutrition, I mean, don't even get me started. Like, it's crazy what I go through on a daily basis on what I'm tracking for my meals, making sure I get everything that I need to fuel my runs, but then also making sure that I'm not having anything that is gonna crash my runs. I'm not super meticulous about it anymore. Um, but I am thoughtful. I do constantly research online, and I don't know if any of it is factual, but I constantly research online what is going to help me as a runner in my mid-40s because I'm also in perimenopause. So, like my doctor told me last year, we I don't want you training for a marathon. You should not be running marathons, you should not be doing distance running, you should only be doing weightlifting because long distance running stresses you out. It automatically sends stress signals to your nervous system, and then you gain weight, you can't lose weight, you are mentally um disheveled, you have brain fog, you have all these other side effects because of the high cortisol and all these all these things. And it is true that does happen, it did happen to me. Um, and just learning how to balance that and how to clean my body through nutrition has been really helpful. So now, I mean, I I did my run, I felt amazing, and instead of making like I don't know, a breakfast or a bad meal or whatever, and or had sugar, I made myself a protein smoothie. So what I do is, and this is not uh what I eat in a day, okay? This is just what I felt intuitively that I needed to have after running and feeling amazing. And that's what I mean is like this motivation that I created caused me to make other decisions once I got home because I was feeling a higher vibration. I was already feeling better about myself, and so I in turn made better decisions going forward throughout the day. So I could have had this breakfast, which is a delicious breakfast I love, um, but I didn't. And it's not a bad breakfast. I'm not labeling either of these things good or bad, okay? Um, because like I used to struggle with ED, and I know lots of people that do, and I just don't want to put that out there with food. It's there's no good or bad food, okay? But for my body, my body reacts poorly to this meal, and it is one of my favorite meals. But it's a slice of sourdough toast, scrambled eggs with cheese, a couple of berries, maybe some strawberries and raspberries, and half an avocado or a fourth of an avocado.

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Honestly, that's not bad. Like, that's a somewhat healthy recovery meal. But what eggs do to my body is like what eating gluten does to my body. And so um, it just makes me feel poorly for the rest of the day as far as like my autoimmune disease that I have. So, anyway, I went ahead, I made a protein smoothie. It was absolutely freaking delicious. This is what I do. I do one banana um vanilla protein powder right now. I'm using grass-fed whey. I really like it. It um I don't bloat, it makes me feel good. It's super cheap. I got it, I got it at Walmart. Um, I think it's called Level Up. Anyway, it's good. I like it. It's not chalky, it's great. I add one tablespoon of non-fat plain Greek yogurt and one tablespoon of peanut butter. Now, this is really, really, really important. When choosing your peanut butter, it should have one ingredient, and that is peanuts. Okay. Um, I don't do any peanut butter with sugar, and I also don't do any peanut butter with palm oil. I don't like palm oil at all. Um, that also affects my body. So just listening to my body and and learning what makes me feel good inside has been like a decades-long journey. And like I was diagnosed with Hashimoto's, I don't know, when I was like 35, I'm 46, and um, it has taken me this long to like figure out food. Um, so good luck. If you have it, I'm sorry. It's really, really challenging. Um, just all I can say is be your own advocate, do your own research, and notice how you feel internally with what you are eating. Um, the other thing I started adding was beet powder, raw organic beet powder, and creatine and vitamin C powder. So vitamin C powder lowers my cortisol. Creatine, I've noticed a huge difference in creatine. I do um unflavored creatine powder. I just like it better. I just feel like it works better. And then I do I do five grams of that, and then I do a tablespoon of raw organic beet powder. I stir it all up and I drink it and I chug it when I get home. The other thing that I started doing is a tablespoon of raw apple cider vinegar with the mother and water. And it is important to add a little bit of water to it. It's just one tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and then probably like, I don't know, four ounces of cold water, and then drink it with a straw because it kind of is not good for your teeth. That has helped my gut immensely because with autoimmune diseases, you can have gut health issues. And so that's where all this is going. I mean, I guess learning how to fix my gut health has helped me become a better runner and helped me to feel stronger and more alive, but also I just feel healthier. Like I used to have all these symptoms that I didn't really know or understand was a symptom. You know, I used to have chronic headaches, I used to have brain fog all the time, so much so that people thought that I was smoking pot a lot more than I was back then. I I don't anymore, but um people thought I was stoned when I was really just dealing with brain fog. And um that's a really interesting, that's a really interesting thing to feel. Um and so yeah, I, you know, I've been through the ringer with my body and becoming a runner when you are kind of always slightly curvy and you don't have necessarily the quote unquote thin runner body type, it is intimidating and overwhelming. And sometimes you just feel heavy when you're running, and it's not always easy. Sometimes I don't sleep good, sometimes I have night sweats. This is all perimenopause bullshit. And you just get up and you do it anyway, because when you do it anyway, it completely trickles down to every single part of the rest of your day, and that is so cool. So, you know, it you're just creating the life that you want through your actions. And if I didn't go on the run today, I would have kind of felt crappy all day, I think. And I don't know if I would have actually recorded an episode today. I think I just going on the run, just lacing up the shoes and getting out the door completely changed my day. Because after this, you know what I'm doing? I'm putting on my swimsuit. It's gonna be 87, 88 degrees today, clear blue skies, gotta live it up while we can. And I'm going to the pool because next um week I will be working a nine to five job again. So running today on the Friday before I start working full-time again was crucial, you know, crucial to starting off the weekend and feeling like positive and refreshed and ready to go and just ready to start this next chapter. Um, but that's what I mean with motivation. It's like motivation just isn't what causes you to be better, and it isn't what causes you to get the life that you want. It motivation comes after that. You have to take the actions, you know. So when you're thinking about who you are and having the life that you want, and the version of you that has the life that they want, the version of you also has to feel aligned, confident, and grounded. You can't wait until you're motivated. You can't wait until it's easy. You have to still take action. You have to move anyway, you have to trust yourself enough to follow through, even when it's uncomfortable, even when it doesn't feel good, even when you don't feel like it. And this is the part that people don't talk about. You don't become that version of yourself when it feels good. You become that version of yourself in the moments you almost didn't show up. So this moment this morning, when I woke up and I thought about staying home and honestly scrolling on TikTok, I leveled up a whole nother vibration just by lacing up the shoes and getting outside. So here's what I want to do after this episode. I want you to do one thing your current self does not feel like doing, but your future self would thank you for. And, you know, it's like never once ever have I ever said, well, I wish I didn't work out today, or I wish I didn't eat healthy today, or I wish I didn't journal today. Like, never once have I ever said that. I don't think anyone ever has, to be honest. So do one thing that your future self would be proud of. Whatever it is, it doesn't matter, whatever that is to you. Um, you can go for a walk, you can step outside, you can send the message if you've been thinking about a long-lost friend or whatever, you just pick up the phone and call. Um, it doesn't need to be big. You can clean something. It doesn't have to be anything big, it just has to be different. So I'm gonna do a little bit of a two-minute activation. Okay, so all right, before we go, I just want to guide you through a super quick reset. Okay. So find a comfortable place and sit down. And if you can, close your eyes. Or you can just soften your gaze, take a deep breath in and let it go. Again, deep breath in and out. Now just notice how you feel. No judgment, no fixing, just awareness. Now ask yourself, what is one small thing I can do right now to shift my energy? Not perfect, not huge, just one thing. Got it? Now picture yourself doing it. See it, feel it, feel the version of you who follows through. The version of you who moves, even when it's uncomfortable. The version of you who takes action even when you don't feel like it. Take one more deep breath in and out. And when you're ready, go do the thing. You're not stuck, you're just one decision away from a completely different energy. I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for listening. This is Megan, and you've been listening to the High Vibes Experience podcast.