41- Mind Over Miles: How Mindset Transforms Your Fitness Goals

In this episode of MilesFromHerView, Kat dives deep into the true essence of mindset and mental toughness. Discover how to rewrite your internal narrative, reclaim your confidence, and push through life's toughest challenges. Kat shares her personal journey and offers practical strategies for building mental resilience, celebrating small wins, and rethinking how you talk to yourself. Tune in to learn how to align your actions with your internal beliefs and embrace the strong, capable woman you're meant to be.

00:00 The Race Begins: Mile 80

01:05 Mindset Matters: Transforming Your Life

01:27 Welcome to MilesFromHerView

02:16 Personal Stories and Mindset Shifts

05:14 Identity and Mental Toughness

09:41 Reframing Discomfort and Celebrating Wins

15:03 The Power of Self-Talk and Affirmations

19:18 Reclaiming Your Time and Space

25:33 Taking Action: Start Moving Today

26:48 Conclusion: Keep Moving Forward

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Transcript

0:00

Mile 80 is where the race truly begins. By now it's dark. Your legs are heavy. Every step feels impossible and the doubt starts creeping in. The finish line is still 20 miles away and eternity. This is the breaking point. The moment where your mind starts whispering, you've done enough. Maybe you should stop. But this is also where something deeper takes over because you didn't come this far just to quit. Now imagine this isn't a race. Imagine it's your life. You've built something incredible, a career, a family, a home. You've checked the boxes, done the things you were supposed to do. But somewhere along the way, you lost you that fire, that strength, that belief in your own power. And now you find yourself watching other women strong, confident, relentless, and thinking, I wish I could be like that. What if I told you? You already are today. We're talking about mindset, how mental toughness self talk and rewriting your internal story can change everything because it's not just about miles or muscle. It's about the narrative you tell yourself. And if you're ready to stop waiting and start becoming, let's do it.

Kat: 1:28

Welcome to MilesFromHerView, the podcast powered by catfit strength, where busy women like you find practical solutions to fuel your fitness journey with authenticity and resilience. I'm Kat your host, a mom of two active boys, a business owner and an ultra marathon runner and a strength trainer in her forties with nearly two decades of experience. I'm here to help you cut through the noise of fads, hacks, and quick fixes. This is a space where we celebrate womanhood and motherhood. All while building strength and resilience and reconnecting with you from a place of self compassion and worthiness. Whether you're lacing up your running shoes to go out for a run, driving your kids to practice or squeezing in a moment for yourself. I'm right here in the trenches with you. Let's dive in. Welcome back. I'm Kat, your host, I'm excited to talk on this topic. It's something that's I'm going to say near and dear to my heart. Throughout this, you're going to hear some of my personal story sprinkled in. I encourage you with every podcast I put out with all of the content I put out take from it, what will serve you and discard it, what won't, and hopefully at the end of this you discover the incredible power that you hold within yourself and how powerful you are as a person. The biggest thing that stops individuals from showing up is not the motivation. It's not, it's just, it's not the motivation it's to me. It's the mindset, the stories that get intertwined in us prevents us from moving forward. If we can control our story, our identity, you will find You can achieve incredible things and you are achieving incredible things. It is just so wild how you can feel so certain about who you are until life pretty much just flips the script. When I became a mom, I struggled so hard with my sense of self. I felt pulled in every direction. Society's expectations. Families. Well, meaning advice, the identity of who I was supposed to be at work. All these titles, mom, coach, wife, daughter, athlete, me, but they felt like they were at war with each other in somewhere in the chaos. I completely lost. myself, and then there was my body for so long, it had been my source of confidence, my tool for conquering challenges. I was an athlete in college. I was an athlete as a child growing up. That was what made me feel alive, running, lifting, pushing the limits. I came alive in those moments. But after my first child, That connection started to slip and then after my second thrusted into a complicated high risk pregnancy and a delivery that shook me to my core, I lost complete trust in my body. The thought crept in. Maybe I broke myself. Maybe I'll never be an athlete again. I was over a year building my business helping women feel strong. While secretly, I wondered if I would ever be strong again. Looking back now, I can see what that season of my life taught me. That experience of fear, doubt, disconnect gave me a deeper understanding of the identity and its power. It shaped the way I coach, the way I move, and the way I show up for my clients. Let's talk about this identity shift athletes don't just train their bodies, they train their minds and when circumstances challenge that identity and injury, a life change, a setback doubt creeps in, but we have the power to reclaim it. Bodies change. It's a simple sentence, but it holds so much. The way we see our bodies, the way we speak to ourselves, that's what dictates how much we can truly achieve. And that's what we're going to dive into next. How to build mental toughness to rewrite your story, shift your mindset, and take up the challenge. space in your own life. So let me ask you this, when was the last time you did something hard? And I don't mean the kind of hard where it's just an inconvenient or exhausting. I mean that kind of hard that makes you question yourself, the kind that forces you to wrestle without push through discomfort or decide whether you're going to keep going or let the struggle win. Remember, mile 80 is where the race begins. Maybe you have, or maybe you haven't. Run a hundred miles. Maybe it's on your list. You don't need to run a hundred miles to understand these, these concepts, but a mile 80, your legs are screaming. Your body is begging you to stop. And that finish line, it feels so far away. You've conquered so many miles at this point. You have been out there all day on the trails, on the road, moving. But this moment, the one where you wanna stop, but choose to keep moving forward. That's mental toughness. And here's the thing it's just not about running for me, running does allow me to not just understand life, but it applies to life. Think about those moments where you felt stuck, stuck, exhausted, unsure if he could keep going. Maybe it's in your fitness journey. Trying to reclaim strength after years of putting yourself last. Maybe it's in motherhood, in your career, in the version of the self you're fighting to reconnect with. The question is when you hit your mile 80, what do you do? Let's dive into what mental toughness really is. Mental toughness isn't just about grinding through workouts or forcing yourself to be disciplined. It's about resilience. It's about how you respond when things don't go as planned. When life throws you curve balls, when progress stalls, when your confidence wavers. It's about the ability to adapt, shift your perspective, and keep showing up even when the path forward just isn't clear. I highly recommend this book. It's a great listen to if you are someone who really enjoys audiobooks psychologist Angela Duckworth wrote a book called Gr what she discovered in there is the idea of talent alone does not determine success. Perseverance does. The most successful athletes, businesswomen, and leaders aren't those who have it easy. It's the ones that show up even when it's hard. So that kind of mild reference of 80, one of the things I, and I even tell my own kids is look for the times where you need to get really gritty. You need to, it's just, it's uncomfortable. It's, it's You're growing, you're feeling this discomfort. Now, I really, I want to take a sidestep here. In the context of working out and even in ultra running, we're not talking about abusing the body and the essence of lasting damage or injury. That is not what mental toughness is and that is not what grit is about. It's when you're, You are feeling this overwhelming desire to quit and not persevere. So when I talk about mile 80, surely, yes, I could stop. Nobody is paying me to do it. But it's finding that inner strength, that trust and belief in yourself. So I want to be perfectly clear that it is not about abusing or injuring yourself causing that bodily harm. Grit is about that mental perseverance and really stepping into all of you are. So let's reframe that discomfort. So how do you train for this? Because it's not just in sport. It also goes into life. So we want to reframe that struggle. Instead of thinking, this is hard. I can't do it. We're going to shift to this is hard. And it means I'm getting stronger. So the way you talk to yourself in these hard moments, determine whether you push through or give up. So we want to hear ourselves. Are we telling ourselves that we can't? Or we're saying, Hey, you know what, this is hard, but I'm growing through this. So for me, when I'm in that moment, I always kind of say, the pain, the discomfort can be alongside of me or behind me, but it will never get ahead of me. I'm in control of this. It's acknowledging that yes, it's hard. It is going to be hard at some point. The hardness never goes away when you are looking to move your career to the next level. When you are looking to build more strength, the hardness changes. Things become a little easier before the next bridge of hard. And that happens in ultra running. When you're in that 100 mile race, some miles are going to be really, really hard. Even for mile one to 20 and some miles are going to be really, really easy, even for mile 80 to a hundred. So it's looking at the acknowledgement of, yeah, this is hard, but I'm getting stronger. Celebrate micro wins. I talk a lot about celebrating wins, the small wins, the micro wins, what this is doing is again, reframing that discomfort. Like a five minute workout is a huge win. It's still a win. Yeah. Choosing a protein at breakfast is a huge win because every small action reinforces who you are becoming. When progress feels slow, you want to track these small movements and prove yourself that you're moving forward. So in that context of a hundred mile race, it's a lot of miles. It's a lot of time you're on your feet. I look at the small wins. Sometimes it's, I'm just going to keep taking a step forward and I'm going to celebrate that because in that struggle, that is celebrating that I am taking a step forward. That finish line is getting closer. And then it ties into mantra and power words. I, I love myself a good quote. I mean, give me a good quote that will fire me up. I'm for it. Power words are huge. You want to choose words that align with the woman you're becoming. I am resilient. I take up space. I finish what I start. Your brain believes what you tell it. So give it something powerful to hold on to. So I've talked a lot about like a hundred mile race. Doubt creeps in. I want to stop, but instead I am reframing how I think. Yesterday shared on my miles from her view in a long interval speed training workout. My mind just it went negative. Sometimes it just happens. Sometimes there's a reason, sometimes there's not. I practice. I'm like, okay, what can I give my mind here? I'm stuck in this interval. Honestly, it did not feel good. When you're pushing yourself, it does not feel good my body can handle this. We're working on growing. And the mind is saying, just quit, just quit, just quit. But I needed to give it something. What popped into my head? Was just before my first hundred mile race. My youngest son gave me a huge hug, a big bear hug. And he said, mommy, today, you're going to run a hundred miles. That triggered a memory that I had not thought about. I don't know, decades, maybe of the first time my great grandmother saw me compete. At the time I was competing in the sprints and jumps high jump was my main event. That was the first and only time she ever saw me compete. The track meet was near her home where she lived. I wanted so bad to break the school record so she could see. Because in her time, sports weren't accessible for women. She was such a fiercely strong, independent woman. And she still inspires me today. And it was one of those things that in that moment, seeing her in her late eighties, after I broke the school record, the stadium record, it also set a personal best for myself, jumping up and down with her hands up in the air, and she was not a cold individual at all, but she was not a hugger. She gave me the biggest hug. and told me, don't stop, believe in yourself. Words that are simple. That's nothing profound. Words that have popped into my head in and out over the years, but it was just so compelling from her she was a person who wasn't very affectionate or emotive. and that Changed my mindset on those things and be like, don't stop. Believe in yourself. We all have stories like that because at the end of the day, success isn't about never struggling. It's about who you decide to be in the struggle and the decision is entirely in your control. So what if the biggest thing holding you back isn't your schedule, your genetics, or your ability, but the way you talk to yourself? your brain believes what you repeatedly tell it. If you're constantly saying, I'm too busy, or I'm not an athlete, your actions will align with that belief. This is called the self fulfilling prophecy. Your thoughts shape your reality. Think about the person you want to be. You already know what they do. You know, they show up how they move through life, but when it comes to fitness and consistency, I hear clients or others say things like this. I hope to get consistent one day. I fell off the wagon again. I'm never going to be the person who can maintain a gym routine because insert everything. Start noticing how often you tell yourself why you can't. Every time you reinforce those thoughts, you build up resistance. You keep yourself small, but here's the best part. You can change this. Shifting the inner dialogue takes work. And I know that's not what you want to hear, but the thing is when you dedicate that energy, to changing that internal dialogue. It is incredible. So the first thing is you want to become aware, track those negative thoughts for a day. Just observe how often you tell yourself you're failing or you can't before you've even started. You don't have to jot this down in a journal or anything like that. Start to listen to yourself, talk to yourself. You might be shocked. Personally, I know I was when I started listening to myself. Then we want to reframe the narrative. When we have that awareness, we want to reframe that narrative. Instead of, I'm so inconsistent, try, I'm someone who keeps showing up. Instead of, I don't have time, shift to, I prioritize what matters and movement matters and finally. You probably have heard this before, but really let's break this down. Talk to yourself like you talk to a friend. Would your best friend tell you you'll never be able to do this? Personally, if I had a friend to say that to me like, well, you're not really a friend, you know, you wouldn't stand for that. So why say it to yourself? You wouldn't tell your children that. You wouldn't tell your partner that. Speak to yourself as kindly as you want your friends to speak to yourself and how they speak to yourself. So when I started training for endurance races, it was after my second son was born. He was still a baby and my eldest was a toddler. I kept thinking this isn't for me. I can't do it. I'll never be able to train the way I need to. I mean, everything I'd read, every training plan I saw told me I needed hours upon hours of training to succeed. But in reality, My 24 hours did not match the 24 hours that all the experts out there told me I needed. So I quit. I quit time and time again. I kept telling myself, there's no way I can do this. Like, this is impossible. And I would think of people who were doing it like, oh, well, they have it easier. They have more help than I do. They're just so gifted. You know what? That is so untrue. I'm stubborn, like really stubborn. I'm a Taurus. So if you know, you know, I'm stubborn. Eventually I realized, what if I just met myself where I was? What if I rewrote my story instead of seeing all the reasons why I couldn't? What if I focused on all the ways they show up? I trained differently in a way that fit my life. When I had this realization, I started looking at how I coached my clients. And I changed how I coach them. So for me, in the context of running, I ran when I could, I lifted weights when I could, and every time my mind told me I wasn't an endurance athlete, I stopped and pushed back and said, no, I am that person. I am becoming her. So let's get real. How many times have you been told directly or indirectly to shrink yourself? Be smaller. Take up less space. Don't be too loud, too strong, too much. For so many women, this conditioning runs deep. We internalize it. It plays out in our fitness journeys. I don't want to look too bulky. I'm not an athlete. I could never lift heavy like that, but see, here's the truth. The strongest, boldest version of yourself is already inside you. You just have to start seeing her. So we need to flip that script. So in sports psychology and therapy, there's a tool called cognitive restructuring. It's the process of recognizing limiting beliefs and replacing them with empowering ones. Visualize your future self. What does she look like? How does she move? How does she carry herself? Picture her walking into a room. Does she hesitate or does she own the space? Just think about that. Think about that for a moment. Now, affirmations get a little like wooey, but I want you to think about again, that awareness piece. How are you talking to yourself I kind of consider myself an introvert and. networking or walking into a room full of people and having to start up conversations with individuals who I may not know is really, really hard. That's where daily affirmations and physical cues come in. When your body shapes your mindset, stand tall, breathe deeply and move with purpose. When that doubt creeps in, you remind yourself, I am capable. I deserve to take up space. I am strong. Think about this. How are your physical cues playing into? So remember I said, how does she carry herself? How does she move picture? How does that future self walk into a room and owning that space and develop that language to demand those physical cues. Then the last one is reclaim your time. So we always tell ourselves that we don't have time, but I'm going to be honest here. If you have time to scroll on Instagram, if you have time to play on your phone, you have time for 10 minutes during training session. I know that's tough love and I will stand by this. The fact is we all have 24 hours in a day or 24 hours in a day. Look totally different, but you have time. If you have time to sit there and watch endless Netflix that goes into the night, you have time to turn it off and go to bed because 10 PM. Okay. Turn off the TV. So we, we have to stop blaming that we don't have time. I'm guilty as charged telling myself I didn't have time to do things, but what I wasn't doing was acknowledging the fact that that was a way to keep me small and safe versus telling myself I do have the time. My life is packed. It's still is packed. I still have kids. I still have a business. I'm still training and I had fully bought into that idea that if I can do it perfectly, it wasn't worth doing it at all. And that shift happened when I stopped trying to fit into someone else's definition of success and started rewriting my own. I found pockets of time. I lifted weights from my living room. And there was a time where I did run early before the kids woke up. And every single time I showed up, I proved to myself that I am that person. I did not train perfectly and I still don't train perfectly. I find ways to show up for myself because it is a priority for me to be me and to be that person I am becoming. Because you don't become her someday. You become her by showing up today. It's not just. You wake up one day and therefore you are, it is showing up today, tomorrow, and the next day. How do you keep showing up? We got to get deeper. We got to find out what's driving you. If you dive deeper and you really under like uncover what fuels you, that intrinsic motivation, that deep, deep inside, What actually keeps you going when things are hard. Think about that. If you ever made it to mile 80, or if you've ever been at a point where things are super, super hard, it is so easy to quit. Think about that deep, intrinsic thing. Think about the things that get you out of bed. I'm going to give you a little journal prompt. Ask yourself, what's my real reason for wanting to feel strong I want you to ask yourself probably five or six times. I keep asking myself that over and over again. It's not because it constantly changes, but it's digging deeper. It's pulling back the layers, getting down to the deep core. I'd always had this dream, this idea of running a hundred miles. It wasn't just about finishing. For me, it was proving something to myself. It was proving that I could redefine who I was, that I wasn't limited by the stories I once believed. I'm not going to sugarcoat things. It was years upon years of failing, learning, failing, learning, but I continued to show up because just like my great grandmother gave me that big hug and said, don't stop, believe in you. It triggered something. There have been so many times, and maybe you can think about the times where people have told you you weren't good enough. People have told you to quit. People told you you didn't belong, but you know what? You do. You at any point can step into your strength and do not for once believe in the notion that it's too late because you are such and such age, because you know what? That, that is a lie. You don't have to wait for permission to take up space. You do not have to wait to earn your place at the table. And you already belong here because you get to decide who you are and the strength that you hold. And this applies to all facets of your life. So I want you to pick one action today that shifts that internal narrative. Maybe it's choose a mantra. I'm strong. I'm capable. I show up. Move for five minutes. Just start. Literally just start. I don't want you to pick up your phone and be like, Ooh, what is the best exercise? When is the best time to work out? What is the best pre workout? What is, put your phone down and just start moving. Maybe it's walking around the perimeter of your house. Maybe it's walking up and down the stairs. Just start the moment you pick up that phone and try and look and Google the best workout you are delaying. I just want you to start. Maybe it's squats. Maybe it's in the Netflix. You know, do you want to keep watching the next episode, the whatever, how many seconds you just start doing squats. You are starting move your body. Maybe write down who you are becoming. Write down in detail who you are becoming, because the version of who is strong, consistent, and capable, she's already here. It's up to you to extend a hand and decide who you are. So start speaking to her. Thank you for tuning in to miles from review powered by KatFit Strength. If this podcast inspires you don't keep it for yourself, hit, follow, or subscribe to stay updated on the new episodes and leave us a review to help more women and moms discover this space. Your feedback fuels this podcast, and I'd love to hear what's working for you or what topics you want to dive into next. You can connect with me on Instagram at KatFit Strength, or share this episode. With a friend who is ready to embrace her strength. Remember fitness isn't about perfection. It's about showing up for yourself and finding strength in every step of your journey until next time, keep moving forward one mile at a time.