Cori (00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. You can do hard things. Many of you know that my favorite or one of my favorite sayings is suck it up Buttercup, because I think that a lot of times we have to encourage ourselves to overcome the hard, to embrace the difficult situations and sort of pick ourselves up and keep on moving forward. And that’s why I’m super excited today to dive into the power of grit with Sara. Sara is one of my fabulous coach managers. Sara, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Sara (00:56):
Hi, Cori. Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited as well.

Cori (01:01):
So talking about grit and us being able to do hard things, can you talk a little bit about why this is so important, what grit really is, and then how it can contribute to our success?

Sara (01:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And I would say I want to start with, it’s so important because I felt it in my own life. Just like you said, one of your favorite things is suck it up buttercup. I think so too, and I’ve had to tell myself a similar saying of that over the years and going through hard things for myself. I found that overcoming them, and you can’t get it from going through it. You can’t go under it. You can’t go over it. You have to go through it. And by going through it yourself and overcoming it, it gives you this confidence that you just can’t have by not doing it. Right. So what is grit? I think grit is the secret sauce to getting to your full potential. It’s really finding, well, let me do the definition of it because I think this is important as well.

(02:06):
The definition is courage and resolve or strength of character, and then to have the drive stamina and determination to push through any challenge or obstacle thrown your way until you succeed. And I think that’s so important for us, whether we are on a fitness journey, a health journey, any part of our life, because we can’t earn competence. I’m sorry. We do earn confidence. We don’t just magically get it. We don’t just have it. It is by earned. And so how can we look for hard things is going to give us that confidence that we may be lacking and are wanting.

Cori (02:48):
I love that you bring up that you’ve seen this in your own life. Play out because I think so often we can feel alone in our struggles. We feel like we’re the only one going through the hard that has to encounter it, that they run out of willpower. But really everybody has encountered some sort of struggle in their life and success isn’t the opposite or not having struggles, it is just overcoming them. It’s how many times can you keep picking yourself back up? And we see this confidence, the strength being built physically and mentally and often even on our fitness journeys. We see some of the things that we overcome as translating into confidence in everyday life, like other areas of our life. In terms of how you’ve seen this really play out with clients or how you work with clients to build that grit, what do you do in terms of encouraging it, helping other people overcome struggles? As you said, we’ve all gone through them, but it’s not necessarily easy to embrace that.

Sara (03:42):
I think when working with clients, I will always like to having them take a step back because when we’re in it ourselves, sometimes we’re in the hard, it just sucks, right? You think that you’re the only one. You’re like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is happening to me again. And I like to have them really take a step back and really think about, if you were talking to your best friend or your niece, would you say those mean things you say to her or him as you say to ourselves? Because our thoughts and the things we say to ourself are part of that. And so I always say, let’s take a step back. Let’s look at how we’re talking to ourself and then let’s look at this as a challenge and as something that, oh my gosh, think about something in the past you’ve overcome in the heart and you got, how good did you feel on the other side?

(04:34):
Now sometimes it’s a little hard to recognize that when we’re in it, but yet if we have think of it as a challenge and as a growth, this is going to help us grow. Even though it’s hard and even though it sucks, I always share, you’re not alone, but going through that, you’ll come out the other side. And even if it’s just accomplished that you got through it, maybe you don’t win. Maybe you don’t win the race, maybe you feel like a failure, but I believe there’s no failure. It’s always learning. And if we can use that, even that mindset, just like we have to suck it up sometimes, but yet if we think if we’re failing and reframe it as we’re learning and we can actually help our brain refire and feel like it’s learning instead of failing and feeling like a failure,

Cori (05:25):
It really is all that reframing. And going back to talking to yourself as you would a friend, what would you say to them? You wouldn’t say that they were a failure ever just because they didn’t necessarily hit their goal or they didn’t win the race or they did have a little setback. Instead you would encourage them to keep going. You’d say, well, hey, what did you learn from this experience? So I love that you brought up that reframing and even taking that step back to talk to yourself as you would a friend, because I think so often we don’t even recognize the language we’re using with ourselves and how different it would be from how we would encourage somebody else and how that might be holding us back. Speaking about failures, it is something that I feel like often stops us from even getting started, that fear of failing. And I love that you mentioned that it’s really a learning experience. How can you start to embrace the struggles might lead to some setbacks, might lead to not seeing results right away might lead to what feels like failing and recognize that is part of the journey.

Sara (06:22):
I think the thought process around what we’re doing, and a lot of times it’s not actually the fear of failure necessarily, it’s the fear of being seen at somebody’s watching us fail. And I say this myself as well because as I’m just going to use an example. When I ran my first half marathon as a trainer, I felt like I should win. I should be the best. And honestly, I wasn’t very good. I barely finished. And so that kind of felt like a failure in that moment. I mean, I felt really, really proud, don’t get me wrong, but it kind of felt like a failure in that moment, and I just had to really think about it. I would’ve just ran 13 miles. There is no failing about that. I would’ve been happy if I crossed across the finish line. But it’s that mindset of like, okay, are we actually failing or are we worried about what other people think?

(07:18):
And I think that recognizing that too, of if you are afraid of other people seeing you fail again. Because as we go throughout our life, lots of people we’ll say, I’ve tried everything and I failed. But the reality is is that, well, you haven’t tried the right thing, I always say, but it’s also learning to recognize that, don’t use that as letting it down or letting you get down. Use it as this isn’t a failure, this is learning. And at least I’m trying. I do say the cheesy thing, at least I lapped everybody on the couch. And that has gotten me through a lot of times too. But it’s cheesy, but it’s true. There’s lots of people who are not trying and therefore they’re not going to fail, but they’re also not going after their goals and probably feeling super, feeling underwhelmed as well.

Cori (08:11):
What you just mentioned with someone saying they’ve tried everything and failed, it sparks something that I’m like, this is actually very interesting because we think, oh, I’m afraid of failing publicly. There is that sort of not peer pressure, but we don’t want to be seen as a failure in other people’s eyes, but we are trying. And if you’re not trying, that’s more potentially true failure, but then you’re also not putting yourself to actually fail. So there’s a safety mechanism there. But in thinking about that, I’ve tried everything and failed often. We haven’t, as you said, tried the right things, but we haven’t truly tried anything. We’ve said we’re going to do something and we halfheartedly go about doing it. But the second we get to that same hard, we turn back. Instead of risking failing at that next challenge, failing to get to the next level, failing to push our comfort zone, we turn back.

(09:02):
And so in our fear of failure, we fail and we still tell ourselves we’re a failure. So if you start to think about it that way and be like, Hmm, every time I’m turning back, I feel like a failure anyway. Why not push through the hard? Why not take that risk and fall down? Because if you’re going to feel like you failed anyway, might as well actually put yourself out there to be a little uncomfortable, because that’s where we get ourselves stuck in that change loop. We make a new change, we start a new program, but at that same hard point where the going gets rough, where we’re really pushing that comfort zone where we have to stick with things even though results aren’t snowballing, where maybe now we’re publicly announcing a goal and other people might know that we didn’t do it or we didn’t do as well as we’d like, or whatever else it is, we turn back. But again, you can fail in the way that you know, had that setback and that failure, you didn’t accomplish what you wanted or you can just not do it, not put yourself out there for the risk, but still tell yourself you’re a failure anyway. So if you think about that, it’s a very interesting mindset where it’s like, why not do the hard, right?

Sara (10:01):
Yeah, absolutely. And if you think about just what you said with comfort zone, our brain naturally wants to stay in our comfort zone. It wants to keep us safe, and comfort zone is safe. And so just like you said, if we get out of that comfort zone and we push ourselves either way, and I don’t want to say either way, we’re failing because we’re not going to fail either way, but we’re definitely going to learn and grow and feel more like accomplished at the end of the day, if at least we’re trying. And at least we’re focused on what is going to help us, whether it be, again, have a lower body fat percentage, a higher muscle, have it be the clothes you wear, the fit the way that you want to, and or your life, your dream life, those big goals that may be stuffed down.

(10:53):
We all have them and sometimes we got so used to hiding them and stuffing them down because maybe we shared with the wrong people who were stifled our ghost. You can’t do that. Who do you think you are? Maybe somebody really knocked you down when you shared their goal with them. And I like to share, we have to share our goals and our dreams with the right people because people who are farther along than you are never going to put you down. I would never ever find somebody who’s going after their goals and be like, you can’t do that because I’m fighting for mine too. And you’re too, right? But the people who are feeling bad about themselves and aren’t getting to their goals are the ones that are going to stifle everybody. So that’s where I say sharing with the right people and getting around people who are going after their goals, getting into fitness, doing some of those healthy things with their life makes a big difference.

Cori (11:51):
You have to find that community because as you said, the people that often are going to punch down on your goals, trample your goals are the people that are feeling maybe they can’t work towards theirs as well. And it actually came up on a coaching call with clients yesterday, well, how do you even know what’s possible? How do you know what’s a lofty goal and something achievable and something that’s delusional? And I commented back and I just said, I think we all need to be a little bit more delusional in our goals because we don’t truly know what is possible until we prove it possible. And no, there are some things you’re like, okay, realistically I’m not going to accomplish this, or genetically I’m not going to get any taller. There’s certain things we can’t change at the same time. There’s so much that we really can control if we give ourself the opportunity to move forward.

(12:35):
And if you shoot for 10 times and end up only achieving two times, you’re still going to have moved forward and probably seen a lot more progress than you thought possible than you even wanted before. You might amaze yourself in what you’ve overcome, and that can translate to even success in other areas. So it is very important that we find that community, but also in finding that community, you’re going to recognize how the most successful people have failed the most. I mean, think about the movies we like to watch, we to watch people who have overcome things that have had setbacks and keep going. And so we’re our own hero or heroine. Why don’t we want to write that story ourselves and celebrate our failures as part of our journey to the success that we’ve had, knowing that we wouldn’t be where we are without them? Right?

Sara (13:21):
Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes we just with that example of we don’t always want to share while we’re in it don’t always, sometimes we’re embarrassed. We have thoughts that aren’t. We’re like, oh, I don’t want to share, but we recognize what we overcame and then we’ll share more down the road. But I find the most value is that if we can share with people, whether it be a coach like me or with your bestie or with people that while you’re going through it and really learn while you’re going through it, because the most we forget really fast, all of us do, right? Sometimes, sometimes it’s like, what did I say yesterday? So if we write it down, if while we’re going through it, and even if it’s writing down everything that you can think of and journaling, and then maybe a day, maybe a week, we reflect on it and we reflect of what could I have done differently?

(14:19):
If anything, sometimes it is, sometimes it’s like say we feel we failed at a party. Sometimes it was that what we could have done differently is that we ate more protein before we went. We were more cognizant of going and starving. And sometimes it’s like I did the best I could with what I had. I wouldn’t really change anything. And now I know moving forward I can get through that, not always feeling like I’m failing at it, but yet at the same time, moving forward, going through it while you’re in it and learning from it. And I think that growth piece of there is just like you said, being your own heroine, your own hero. What would you do? What would you say to somebody else? And I say that a lot to my clients as well, because we are the worst critics to ourselves.

(15:02):
Believe me. I’ve said the meanest things to myself and I’ve ever said, I would never say what I’ve said to myself in the past to anybody else, but at the same time, we can learn to capture those thoughts. We can capture those maybe the mean girl inside of you and use it to our advantage to then find more hard things because we went through this hard thing. And sometimes if you do something hard and you go through, it could be totally non-related of I want to do more hard things, nervous, even me this morning, I’m nervous, but yet nervous and excitement are so close together. I’ve changed my words. I’m no longer nervous. I’m excited. And so I’m excited to look for hard things. That doesn’t mean I don’t still feel fear, but we just learned to move through it and grow through it and really find then afterwards, man, it feels so good.

Cori (15:54):
It is reminding yourself of how good it feels in overcoming something. And even in embracing more hard things, you become more comfortable being uncomfortable in different ways. So it is that growth mindset and there are lots of different ways to approach it, and you’ve got to find what works for you. It might be saying, Hey, I turned back at a specific wall. I’ve got to lower the wall a little bit in order to go over this first hurdle. Maybe you break down the changes so they’re not quite as hard and it’s just pushing your comfort zone a little bit. So it’s slowly expanding versus you just punch punching through and running away from it. So you can maybe sometimes break things down, but even off of that, sometimes the other approach of overwhelming yourself even more makes it easier. We talk a lot about breaking down habit changes, breaking down the hard so that it’s more manageable and it’s not pushing your comfort zone quite so much so that you want to run away in fear.

(16:42):
But I also think that sometimes just giving yourself way too much can be good. While it can create overwhelm often it can also create a feeling of, well, I’m going to fail, and that’s almost freeing this thing of like, well, this is just way too hard. There’s no way I can do all of this and this time, therefore I’m just do what I can. And there’s something freeing and feeling like if it’s too much and you’re just guaranteed to fail, it’s like, okay, well, I’m not a failure because it’s sort of guaranteed, so then I’m just going to see what I can accomplish. And then getting that momentum going forward. Ultimately you do achieve that goal and you overcome a lot of hard stuff. So I think it’s really stepping back sometimes, as you said, to learn about yourself, reflect on the experience, but see how your mindset is and how you’ve handled hard things in the past and trying to overcome them.

(17:25):
Because it might be that you’ve overwhelmed yourself and you need to back off, or it might be that maybe you’re giving yourself two small pieces. And so when you fail at these things that you feel like should be easy, that makes you turn back. And so if you actually overwhelm yourself and tell yourself that you’re just, it’s going to be hard, you’re going to fail. You’re automatically freed from that because it’s just sort of an assured thing. And so anything you accomplish is great in terms of how you approach stuff with clients, getting them to take that first step because again, it is that growth mindset. It is reminding ourselves of how we’re talking to friends and using that language with ourselves. What would be one step you would have a client take forward if they’re like, I’ve always turned back at the heart and I feel myself hitting that ceiling right now.

Sara (18:06):
I always like to in that moment, go back to your why. And I think that our why is one of the most important things I have seen ultimately, clients overcome so many things when their why was strong enough. So for example, this is a one that I’ve seen a lot of big ones, is that they get a diagnosis from their doctor, and it’s either this or this. It’s either you’re on medication or you’re doing something or that type of thing. So that is a big smack in the face, but we don’t always get that right. So to think about it as a smaller thing, what is your why? Because when we take away all of the nitty gritty, how hard maybe exercise is or how hard tracking our food is or how hard it is to say no to our favorite drinks when we’re out on the boat in the summer, those things are challenging.

(18:59):
But if we think about what our why is and typically our why is related to inspiring others, whether it be our children, our grandchildren, or our nieces, nephews, that type of thing. And so when we think of that and we think about our deep why, it comes back to I don’t want maybe someone else to go through what I went through. And that makes the hard things, the hard small things, maybe that roadblock, like you said, right? That roadblock that we ran into of like, well, why are you doing this? Why is it important to you? Is this, even though it feels big at the time, being very aware of this probably feels like a big roadblock to you right now. But in that grand scheme of things, what would you do if you got gritty and you climbed the wall with a rope, right?

(19:45):
Think about your hands bleeding and get very visual. We think about our hands bleeding, climbing that rope, but that’s what it takes to get over it. So in our mind, we’re using that as a roadblock and it feels like a roadblock. But what about just like a GPS? You turn it on and they’ll reroute, reroute, and that’s what we have to do. Maybe the path that we’re on isn’t the exact path, but don’t quit. Don’t go to the easier thing. Don’t jump to the next thing, but use that. This is hard in the moment. I have to go back to my why. I have to remember why I am doing this, and then go through the hard and visualize those hard things. It makes me laugh when I say it out loud, but these are things that when you think about your really hard part and physical, the rope in your hands and how much that hurts and the blisters you might get, that’s what this is about. It is about the hard parts in our brain and overcoming them as well,

Cori (20:45):
Maybe it makes me really sick, but the second you’re talking about climbing that rope your hand’s bleeding, but you keep going. I’m like, yeah, that’s instantly what my brain does. The motivation comes back. You talk about how motivation is sweeting, but we can create it through that. And even in that, when you’re talking about your why, sometimes we go, oh, well, I want to lose five van 80 pounds. Maybe I’m not really motivated to do this. But it’s always tied to something deeper. And part of what it can simply be tied to is us proving to ourselves we can accomplish something we thought we couldn’t, that we had the commitment, the willpower, the drive, the determination, the confidence to accomplish something that seemed like it was habits, challenges, or changes that we weren’t able to do before. Because I bring this up a lot of times where I first wanted to get leaner, I would make the excuse, I liked food too much, I can’t do this.

(21:32):
It’s not really important to me. And at some point I was like, but it’s not really about the aesthetic goal. It’s about the fact that I keep telling myself I can’t make all these hard habit changes because I just don’t have the willpower. And I want to prove to myself how much stronger I actually am that I can have control over anything I choose to have control over that I can work towards any goal I set, even if this one might be more of a vanity goal. But we have to remember that that confidence, that strength is built through what we overcome, and it’s only through pushing the hard that we’re going to achieve it, that people aren’t just naturally sort of gifted with this. Yes, people have more confidence, less confidence, it can seem natural, but a lot of it is built through how they push themselves to keep moving forward through things. And I love that visual because for me, right away when you’re saying that, I’m like, yes, okay, I’m going to go. I’m going to do this. Let’s climb. Let’s go push through the heart. There is a good feeling to it.

Sara (22:24):
Exactly. And I think I always laugh, and we talked about this before too, but as trainers, we almost love that physical piece of where you hate us in the moment, but you’re going to love me in about two hours. So I think when we can learn to recognize that in ourselves as well, I know why it’s so hard in the moment because we’re pushing you past your limit. And then in, like I said, a couple hours, whether it’s the endorphins, the endorphin rush that we get, or when you get those goals, that’s what all that hard work was about. And being like you said, maybe it feels it’s just not that important. However, when you get up every morning, what do we have to do? We all have to put on clothes. Well, I hope we do. Right? Some sort of clothes, some, and if you feel confident right out of the gate in the morning, yeah, I feel good. I got my clothes. Or you feel frumpy and you feel down, how do you think that affects our day? It either sets you on the trajectory of, and I’m not saying you’re always going to have a great day because your clothes fit, but it sets you on the trajectory of having a small win, just like making our bed a small win in the morning that helps set the other day, the rest of the day, excuse me, to be on, even if it’s a little bit better of a mindset.

Cori (23:46):
And it comes back to you have so much power and control over that. And even just looking in the mirror and smiling at yourself to yourself, as silly as it might seem, can really change that mindset. Flip the script, put you on that trajectory to want to overcome more things. Because the more you do, the more you do, the more you put yourself out there to overcome things, the more confident and stronger you feel. Any closing thoughts, Sarah? For somebody who’s like, I’ve really struggled to have that grit to believe that I can do hard things.

Sara (24:16):
Yeah, I think, and one of the things that I hear a lot too is like, well, I don’t have confidence in myself because I have not things. And I would say kind of like you said, mentioned earlier about setting realistic goals, and I agree sometimes we have to go with something so big that is exciting. I’m a big dreamer and I share this a lot. I have to go so big. So it’s exciting. So that way, and again, you have to then chunk it down to make smaller goals. So something like, today I’m going to drink more water. You start there and then you follow through with one small thing and then you’re like, right, got four days, got seven days. Maybe one day you had a crappy day at work and you forgot. Instead of beating ourselves up and being, see, I can’t even do the small things.

(25:11):
We’d get back on again because if you do six out of seven days, it’s still better than zero out of seven. But we’re recognizing that it doesn’t always have to be this huge, huge thing that you’re going to get right away, but for having a big goal and for doing something exciting, having that and knowing that each little thing matters and each little thing that you’re going to do. And I always say, what is the biggest needle mover? Because I do think that there are many things that we can do and we can get overwhelmed with, I have to eat good, I have to exercise, I have to do. That’s kind of how my brain feels too. I’m like, but if we start with the small thing and we think of it as this small thing is going to get me to the next thing and then to the next thing, it takes away that fear of the big, hard, big failure, but yet it keeps you excited because maybe it’s something that you are really passionate about.

(26:05):
That’s where grit comes. We have to have that passion. We have to have that perseverance and then the resilience and that resilience is by going through it, maybe taking a couple steps back, but the great saying, get up, dust off your jeans and keep going. And so last thing I would say is instead of feeling like you are stuck or in a really hard spot, even though you may truthfully be knowing that finding hard things, getting around, having your community, getting around people who are doing things, you are naturally going to want to do it. You’re going to feel the energy, you’re going to feel how they feel. Maybe you go watch something and you feel that energy. And so getting around them, getting around people who are doing hard things and you recognize I can do hard things too, because you can.

Cori (27:02):
I love that finding that energy because I do think that’s so key. And whether it’s creating it through the community, through your visualization, through remembering the purpose of all the little things you’re doing, you can really create that motivation in the moment to keep going. And then it’s celebrating each of those things. And I do like that you said break it down with purpose and the find the biggest needle movers, because I think those things give us motivation in that we’re seeing progress forward. We have the purpose to each thing we’re doing, so we understand why, because that’s so important over just being like, well, I’m doing this because I was told to do it right. You see a greater bigger picture with it basically. And then on top of that, it’s like celebrating each of those things that you’ve accomplished as an accomplishment, because so often we write them off and only focus on where we have to go still.

(27:44):
Instead of looking back in our rear view mirror to recognize how far we’ve come and when we see all that we’ve already even overcome on the journey, it can help motivate us to keep pushing. But I love that idea of finding that energy because I think often we do get psyched up by those things, and that can give us that little extra to push through on those times where we’re feeling a little down or we’re counting that hard to have that grit to keep moving forward because we can do hard things and strengthen confidence or built through what we overcome. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack podcast. Again. This is the place where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes, and it would mean the world to me and possibly change life with someone.