Getting Uncomfortable

When I say sick, projectile vomit can't stop throwing up sick at mile 18 and everything slowed way down for me those last eight miles, but I was able to qualify with 11 seconds to spare. So I hit my goal and I was so excited. Welcome to the Thrive Her podcast. I'm your host, Amy Sanders.

I'm a fitness and wellness pro, mom, stepmom, second wife, and master certified life coach. I'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create a thriving life you love. Welcome back to the podcast. My name is Amy Sanders and I am excited to be here with you today.

Today we are talking about getting uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. We're talking about how you can do that and the whole point of this podcast or the reason why I wanted to talk about it is because the experience that I had this last week. So this last week I was able to run a marathon and it was a Boston qualifier and I qualified for the Boston Marathon, which I am so excited about, but I wanted to talk about just the goal that it was and why, and then also the discomfort that came along with it.

As we get started and then I'm going to give you some tips on how you can get uncomfortable and why you should get uncomfortable. When it comes to the Boston Marathon, it actually starts years ago when I used to run marathons all the time and I used to run them. I was actually pretty fast and at the time I didn't really think I was that fast because you always think you can be faster, right? And I look back and I'm like, holy cow, I was actually a pretty good runner, but when I would run a marathon, I was actually a pretty good runner.

So when I started to qualify for Boston, because it was just something that happened regularly, I didn't really, first of all, I never went for myself. When my ex-husband qualified, we went to the race. We had a young baby at the time, so I took care of the baby and he ran the race and I cheered him on and I thought next time it'll be my turn. My turn never came.

And then other things happened like going through a divorce, getting remarried, and then juggling everything that we juggled. And I was having a second marriage and seven kids and I wasn't running the distance that I used to run and life just changed. And then I had back issues and it was just like one thing after another. And in 2023, so last year, my husband went and ran the Boston Marathon.

And when he ran it and we were there, I was like, oh my gosh, the love for the Boston Marathon is back. And. I still want to run it. That dream totally came alive and it came alive so loud, so strong.

And I was like, I want to run this Boston Marathon and I have taken both of my husbands to Boston and cheered them on. Yet I have not ever done this for myself. It is my time. But I also had not run a marathon, I think in four or five years at that point.

And of course, I'm not as fast as the runner. I'm going to have to work harder, but I decided to start training then and there. So that was mid-April. Last year and in May around my first marathon with my stepdaughter, Kaylee, we actually ran it because it's a goal that she had, but she is diabetic type one, a diabetic.

So this marathon was ultimately just to see if my back could handle it because of my back issues before. And it did. So when things were okay with that mileage creeping up and everything, I decided to be all in. So I did all of the.

My work. I trained really hard, did all of the long runs, all of the speed work, anything and everything. I even hired a running coach because I was like, all right, the best thing I could do for myself is put myself out there. The biggest way of success, which is hire a coach.

And I did all of her workouts and everything was on point. And marathon day was last July. It was like July 28th of last year. So just over a year from when I've recorded this.

And. When I did it. The race did not come together the way I had planned. So I had put in all of the training.

I had worked really hard and my bus got lost. We started the race 45 minutes later than everyone else, which means I was not with my pacer group. It was a trail run, which means I also had to weave in and out of people. And not only that, but my GPS and my watch, everything that I was wearing actually did not work correctly because it was in the mountains.

And two miles of this race are actually through a tunnel. And so according to everything I was wearing, I was well under what I needed to do in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon. And so I thought I had qualified when I came across the finish line and it's chipped. So you actually don't know what it is until you get your final time back.

And when the time came back, I was 38 seconds. Short. So I had missed the qualification period or the qualification time by 38 seconds. I was literally devastated.

I was so sad. I cried and cried. And I thought this is so crappy, but I am going to have to sign up for another marathon. And so I did.

I ran another marathon six weeks later. Now, this equals three marathons in four months, which I know people have done harder things for sure. But this was. It was a lot on my body, especially because I had just started training in April and now this was now my third marathon was mid-September that I ran.

And when I ran that marathon, everything was going great. I had a really big buffer. I was definitely qualifying for Boston. I got sick at mile 18.

And when I say sick, projectile vomit can't stop throwing up sick at mile 18. And everything slowed way down for me those last eight miles. But I was able to. I was able to qualify with 11 seconds to spare.

So I hit my goal and I was so excited. And when it comes to the Boston marathon, every year is a little bit different. The last couple of years, they let everyone who qualified in and there were no cutoffs. However, I was the lucky one.

One of the lucky 11,000 runners that they actually cut from the race this year because so many people qualified. They had to. But the bottom half, which was 11,000 runners, and I was on the list. I could not believe it.

So I did all of that work and I got cut. And I was, again, completely devastated and just so frustrated that here's this goal that I've been working on and it's not coming together for me. And I continued to train and my husband had qualified. So we went back to Boston this year in 2024.

I watched him run it again, but this was a little bit even more sore. My heart was a little sad because not only was I watching him and cheering him on again, but I had qualified and I was cut. So I was cheering him on even though I felt like I should have been able to run it. But that was that.

So now fast forward. And this year I had more complications. I had a surgery. I was not planning on getting that pushed marathon training back again.

And a lot of things like did not really come together for me. We had to move my race date multiple times. However, we did find one that would work with like healing and everything else. And so we ran it.

Now, my whole point of the story is that a lot of times you don't see what happens behind the scenes, right? All of the running that is going on, the speed work that's going on, the long runs on the weekends. The. The tempo runs the heels, like everything that's going on, in addition to trying to make sure that this body can get through it, because marathons are not the best thing on the body, by the way.

So when it came to race day or the day before race day this year, I was ready. I was like, I did everything. I've done all of the things I am a year and a half, almost a year and a half more trained than I was last year. Let's see.

This is my year for sure. The net. The day before the race. It is my time of the month, which means I am going to run this race on my period.

Are you freaking kidding me? But that was it. That was what I had to work with. There was nothing else I could do.

And so when it came to running this race, this is the whole point of the podcast that I'm finally getting to with a little bit of story time at the beginning was I was completely uncomfortable. Training for the marathon is not easy. It is uncomfortable. It pushes you in different ways.

Sometimes your body just does not want to cooperate. Sometimes you have awesome runs. You just really never know. But when it comes to race day, you truly never know what you're going to get, which is how my last two races had gone with first race, the bus being lost and us starting way later.

The second race, me getting literally ill to my tummy and throwing up this race. I started running. Knowing I knew that my body fell off. I was like, gosh, it's my time of the month, but let's see what this body can do.

At mile eight, it started cramping like really bad. And I was like, are you kidding me? But I was faced with the decision. And the decision was this.

Do I push through this pain and this discomfort that was physical discomfort, right? In this podcast, we're talking about both. Getting uncomfortable can be physical. It can be emotional.

This was physical discomfort. Can I push through this physical discomfort and see what my body can continually do? Am I going to be more sad if I give up now or slow way down and I don't make it to the marathon than if I give it everything I've got and see what I can do? And I figured that I would have to do just that.

So my stomach cramps. We're across my entire belly. It wasn't just one side. My entire stomach was cramping up.

I was running doubled over. It probably did not look pretty, but I knew that if I could hold that pace, even though I felt like that, I would still be able to qualify for the marathon. And there was a lot of things that went on in my head where I had to dig deep. My feet, for whatever reason, blistered really bad.

And so not only was I running with. Just complete pain in my tummy, but my feet hurt. And what I told myself was, this is all temporary. This is temporary pain.

This is something that can totally be over in three and a half hours, which I know if you're listening to your act, that might be a long time, but three and a half hours versus hours and months and a year and a half of training is not very long. And so that's what I told myself. I'm like, if you hold this pace. So I slowed down a little bit so I could feel a little better.

But if I was able to hold that pace, I would be able to qualify for Boston and good news. I did. I was able to hold the pace. I was able to qualify for Boston and it was really hard for 18.

2 miles of the run. I was in pretty good pain. I wasn't throwing up. I wasn't starting the race late like the year before, but.

I was. I was feeling really uncomfortable. And during this whole race, there was a lot of thoughts that I had around this was even just the fact of getting uncomfortable and signing up for the scary thing to hit a goal that I've had for years and years. Running a marathon is not comfortable.

It does not feel good. Training does not feel good, but what does feel good is hitting that goal and hitting that dream that you have had. Now, I haven't gone to go. I haven't gone to Boston yet.

Right. But I'm imagining that. Being there, having gone through a year and a half's worth of training to get there is going to feel so much better than if I would have been able to do it last year within just a couple months of training. I had to work so much harder and it feels so much sweeter.

I also have a much bigger buffer this year. So I have over eight minutes of qual time under qual time to work with in case too many people register again and hit it again. And. So as I was running and my feet were hurting and my stomach was in knots, I just thought, yeah, this is uncomfortable, but this is completely temporary and most discomfort is.

So what we know about the brain is that we will always move towards pleasure and away from pain. And in this case, slowing down felt really good. Wanting to walk felt amazing, which means I would be moving away from pain. Right.

However, the pain that I was experiencing there didn't seem as great as what the pain would be had I slowed down and not hit my goal of hitting the Boston Marathon. So that pain seemed greater and also that goal seemed bigger. So that kept me going. But in today's world, our brain wants us to feel good.

Our brain does not want us to feel pain. Our brain wants us to stay comfortable. And so we stay status quo. We don't push ourselves the way that our bodies and our brains actually can be pushed.

We don't challenge ourselves the way that we used to. And I also think about like little babies and toddlers and how often they're challenging themselves, how often they're climbing up something that they probably shouldn't climb up or how often they're falling down when they try to walk and they just do it again and again. How often they're learning, riding a bike, putting together puzzles, like using their imagination. When you think about toddlers.

And how curious they are continuously getting uncomfortable and they might not even really feel this discomfort like we do now, right? Because we know the difference because we are older and our brain is definitely more mature, but they do the scary thing and they do, they do move forward with some sort of trust. And so that was another thought I had as I was like running through this marathon was where else am I not pushing myself? And where else can I get uncomfortable?

And for listeners that are tuning in, how often are you getting uncomfortable? It doesn't have to be a marathon, right? That was my uncomfortable thing that I did that I wanted to prove to myself that I could qualify for this Boston Marathon. And I did, and it feels amazing.

Being on the other side of this, it's, I feel like this unfinished business is finally finished. Like I hit that goal and now I have to do it again. And I'm like, okay, I'm done. I'm done.

Like, I hit that goal and now I can go. And so 2025, it doesn't happen until next April, 2025, but I will be there. But getting uncomfortable is where the growth comes. And that is what we are meant to do as humans.

And as individuals, we are meant to continually personally grow and develop throughout our lives. We need to venture beyond the bounds of what we're experiencing and getting uncomfortable because when we try new things, we stretch and we grow and it feels great. And so I have just five little tips, five little ways that you can get uncomfortable. And the first one is surrounding yourself with confident people, surrounding yourself with people who are already confident and doing challenging things.

Because when you surround yourself with these people who are taking risks, it'll help breed confidence in yourself. And bringing this back to my marathon story, I was surrounding myself even with my husband that's running the Boston Marathon again, and he did last year and the year before. But I was surrounding myself with people telling me that I could, people that have ran it before, people showing me that I also can do this. So that's something that I was doing.

Even just with training for the Boston, but surrounding yourself with confident people, whatever your goal is, when you are with them, there's something that's going to happen in your conscious and unconscious brain that will help you see yourself as someone who also can, because they did, right? Be if they can, you can type of thing. And that's why I also say, I always want to be an example of what's possible because if I can do it, you can. And if you can do it, other people can do it.

So number two is take it step by step. Sometimes when we do the uncomfortable thing, it can feel extremely daunting. It's so scary when you look at like the big picture, but when you break it down and you just do it step by step, it looks so much more achievable because you're taking several mini steps. And so as you take that mini step.

You're like, okay, that was a step. And then you can move it to the next. You can do the next step and the next step and the next step. And it works really well when you're also sharing your work with your best friend.

Now, if you follow me on social media, that I post a lot about my workouts. Now there's actually a good reason for this. It's me holding myself accountable, but when I post it, other people see what I'm doing. And then they ask me about it and it's not out of like boasting.

Look at this mileage. I just put it in. It. Look at this, like lifting workout.

I did. No, it's not that it's I post it to one, be an inspiration to other people that, yeah, you can go work out to go eat healthy, to go do the things too. But also I know that people will be asking me about it and I feel like I have to make sure that I do it. So I've got this way that I'm holding myself accountable and you can too.

So share your work online, share your work with your best friend, share your work with whoever that person is, and then go from there. Keep moving forward. Step-by-step the third, which is probably my favorite tip that I could offer is asking yourself, what is the worst thing that can happen? Confidence is built over time.

And in order to achieve confidence, you have to start with courageous steps. One followed by the other, right? You just have to continually move forward courageously. And as you do that confidence is you breed confidence, but in order to.

To make it easier, you can literally ask yourself when you're in doing the uncomfortable thing, what is the worst thing that can happen here? Usually it's not that bad. Usually it's just that you might be uncomfortable for a little bit. That's it.

And if you can plan for that, if you're like, okay, I'm going to be uncomfortable for a little bit. What is the worst thing that can happen? But what is the best thing that can happen? If I do this, what is the best thing that can happen?

That usually lights you up and gives you enough. Um, to keep going. And that's one thing with the marathon too. Okay.

If I still up, what's the worst thing that can happen? I'm not going to qualify for Boston. If I keep moving through this pain, even though it sucks right now, what's the best thing that can happen? I'm going to be a boss next year, running the race and experiencing one of the top marathons in the world.

Yes. That's what I want. Okay. Number four, just start small to create these habits.

So starting small is helping your brain. And this is how, when your brain realizes that you've just taken on some big, uncomfortable thing, it is going to freak out. It is going to come up with all of the reasons why this isn't going to work. And it is going to tell you that you can't do it.

So when you start small and you just keep going, you give your brain little series of successes, like just little ones at a time. And there's a reward system that's activated. So when you're doing this. And it's working out and then you do the next thing and it works out, and then you do the next thing and it works out, your brain stops seizing and it starts to trust you more.

And when this happens, it feels more motivated. And when it feels more motivated, it becomes much easier to produce the next steps. And this is where habits can form, right? Because when you're just doing something small and you continually do it, and then you build from there, the brain's okay.

I can handle it. I can handle this, and you stick with it. Same goes when you're trying to eat healthier, when you are adding in a new workout or whatever it is, starting small to create the habit will help that brain from seizing and freaking out. And it will also help you move forward.

The last thing that I'm going to talk about here, there's many more that we can do, but I just wanted to give you my favorite top five. The last one is reward yourself for doing the uncomfortable. Things too often, we skip past the reward and we don't really applaud ourselves for accomplishing something so great, but when you celebrate yourself and when you're in the energy of celebration, it feels amazing and we should all do it, but it also breeds more of that energy and who doesn't want to live in that energy. So when you celebrate yourself, when you celebrate your friends, when you celebrate your family, when you celebrate anything.

And you reward yourself, especially when you're doing something uncomfortable, it'll breed more of that energy and it will feel great, which also can help you move forward. And I can't express that one enough because I think so often we the opposite where we'll have this big crazy goal and we'll hit the goal and we won't really celebrate ourselves. But when we do some something wrong or when we make a mistake, we absolutely punch beat ourselves up over it. I like to call it like punching.

Punching yourself in the face over and over. But it's really just between the ears, the way we're talking to ourselves. So if we can get better at talking to ourselves with love and kindness and we can truly reward ourselves for doing the uncomfortable thing, we will do more uncomfortable things. And as you do more uncomfortable things, you breed so much more confidence.

You breed so much more grit. You develop deeper self trust. You develop deeper self love. And you get to know yourself on a whole deeper level, which is amazing.

And that's one thing that's been fun for me to watch myself this last year is just seeing different aspects of me that I really maybe was taking for granted or I didn't truly push myself to these levels. I learned that I have so much more grit than I thought I did. I also learned that I have so much more discipline than I thought I did. I learned that my body is way stronger than I thought it was.

I learned that I can run long distances at this age where I thought that maybe I was getting too old for it. And I'm like, no, like I'm actually not, I'm not too old at all. There's a lot that you can learn about yourself when you get uncomfortable. And I know that I've said this before in other podcasts, but I'll say it again, the cave you fear holds the treasure.

You seek. And sometimes you got to go through that cave in order to have the most amazing treasure on the inside. And that is getting uncomfortable and getting uncomfortable is going to look different for different people. Sometimes it might be a Facebook live or going live on Instagram or posting something vulnerable.

It might be calling someone that you've been scared to talk to or scared to apologize. Uh, however, once you do, you'll feel so much lighter. It could be forgiving someone like getting uncomfortable. And just really allowing yourself to forgive someone on a level that you haven't ever done before.

It could be running a race. It could be signing up for a triathlon. It could be so many different things. Only you know what it is that's on your heart.

That seems scary. And I want to challenge you to go after it, do the scary thing. Go after it. See how it feels.

Because my guess is that whether you fell at it or not, most likely you won't, but regardless of the outcome, you are going to feel so much better about yourself because you tried. And there is so much that you'll be able to learn along the way. And it's totally worth it. That is what I have for you today.

So again, go do the uncomfortable thing. Tell your brain to stop. Move towards pleasure. Move towards the pain.

See what happens. Get uncomfortable and watch yourself totally grow to new limits. And with that, take care. I will see you in another podcast.

Bye. Hey, if you enjoyed listening to this podcast, you've got to come check out my signature program, Thrive Her Academy. This is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation. I teach you how to apply.

The strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast so you can create that life and business that you love. For more information, go to www. amysanders. co forward slash services.

Again, that is amysanders. co forward slash services.