MilesFromHerView
MilesFromHerView
60- How to Stay Focused When the Goal Feels Far Away
In this episode of MilesFromHerView, host Kat shares personal insights from her recent experience during the Highland Sky 40 Mile Ultra Marathon. She delves into the mental struggles and revelations she faced, paralleling them with the common challenges her clients encounter in their fitness journeys. Kat discusses the importance of behavior-based goals over outcome-focused goals, the role of metrics, and how to maintain consistency and self-compassion amidst life's chaos. She also offers practical tips on developing sustainable fitness plans tailored to individual lifestyles. Lastly, Kat invites listeners to join her coaching programs for personalized support in building lasting strength and resilience.
☎️ - Schedule a complimentary call to see if KatFit Strength is a good fit for you: https://katfit.moxieapp.com/public/katfit/consultation-call
00:00 Introduction to the Highland Sky 40 Miler
01:01 The Mental Struggle of Fitness Goals
01:18 Welcome to MilesFromHerView
02:18 Personal Reflections and Ultra Marathon Insights
04:35 The Importance of Small, Consistent Efforts
05:17 Setting Realistic and Achievable Goals
09:42 The Role of Metrics in Fitness
13:28 Behavior-Based Goals for Long-Term Success
17:24 Building a Plan That Fits Your Life
21:30 Conclusion and Call to Action
☎️ - Schedule a complimentary call to see if KatFit Strength is a good fit for you: https://katfit.moxieapp.com/public/katfit/consultation-call
📩 KatFit Strength Weekly Newsletter:
https://katfit.kit.com/7564404daa
❓ - Have A Question About Strength Training, Nutrition, and cardio training? Submit It HERE: https://forms.gle/kndmqaf91psZEmPs6
Let me take you back to the Highland Sky 40 miler that I ran this weekend. It's really early and I'm about a few miles in and I'm already power hiking up a long, steep hill. My legs are burning and my mind is spiraling in a subtle, sneaky way that it does sometimes when I am just deep in an effort and I thought. What's the actual point of this? I wasn't quitting, I wasn't injured, but mentally I was floating in that foggy space of is this even worth it? No one was watching, no medal at the top, just me, my breath, my thoughts, and right there in that moment I realized this is exactly how a lot of my clients feel. They're working out, trying to make healthier choices, showing up, but it's hard to see progress some days. The goal feels far away. The scale's not moving. Life is chaotic, and suddenly the thought creeps in. Why bother? That's what we're diving in today, how to keep going even when it feels like the goal is out of reach and how to create a plan that actually sticks and how to reconnect with the why when your motivation gets muddy. So let's get into it. Welcome to MilesFromHerView, the podcast powered by KatFit 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. Hey, welcome back to MilesFromHerView I am Kat, the host. I'm a coach, an ultra runner, a mom, your teammate in the whole juggle of life, of motherhood, and making time for your health. And today's episode, I'm gonna get a little bit more personal. And honestly, I really do feel that this one is going to stick with you. Yes, you may never, ever run an ultra marathon, or maybe that is on your ultimate goal list. You know, but you don't have to run copious amounts of miles to understand what I'm talking about. I will share part of my journey, and most recently, I did complete an ultra marathon the last Saturday, and I will share just kind of bits of that and how it relates to sticking with things in the long haul. I genuinely love what I do, and even though I train regularly and I coach women every single day. I still have moments when I wonder what's the point? Why get up early to strength train? Why go out for that long run when my to-do list is already overflowing? Why keep showing up when life feels like it is just overflowing? That thought hit me hard during the Highland Sky 40 Mile Ultra Marathon. It was really early in the race and the sun was coming up, and in this race, they have an extremely challenging uphill climb. In the beginning, my legs were burning, my breath was really heavy, and my mind was just spinning. Not in a way I'm ready to quit, but in that quiet, heavy, why am I doing this kind of way? I started thinking about all those early morning alarms, the workouts that I had to move or skip the times I just pulled back because mom life, client schedules and just plain exhaustion, the unplanned rest days. Those happen, the modified lifts and the many, many, many times. I had to adapt. I'm not getting paid to do this, and honestly, I am a middle of the pack runner. I'm not gonna stand up on that podium. I'm doing this for me. So why does it matter? And that hit me. That question, that mental dip. It's exactly what so many women that I coach go through, especially when they're training for something long term. No one sees their effort. There's no medal for doing four strength sessions in a week. There's no trophy for choosing movement over excuses. But it matters because progress in real life, it's not flashy. It's made in the quiet, small, repeated choices. Let's dive into this here. How do we stay focused when the goal feels far off or worse when you're not even sure the goal makes sense anymore? Whether you're training for a race, rebuilding postpartum strength, or dealing with the perimenopause symptoms, or just trying to stay consistent. This whole episode is for you. You are going to get a lot out of it. I am going to ask some questions, and if you are in a space where you cannot write them down, I do hope you go back and listen to it. What we're gonna unpack today is when metrics matter, when they don't, and how to set goals to help keep you going even on those messy days. But here's the truth. We all love outcome goals. Clients come to me with outcome goals, and they may sound something like this. I want to feel like myself again. I want to lose 10 pounds. I want to work out consistently. I want to be able to run without stopping. And those are all amazing. They give us direction, but they are not always something we can control. You can follow the best strength plan, eat well, and still not see that scale move the way you want it to. You can train consistently and still miss a pr. You can plan out your week and then you get, sidelined with your kids getting a stomach bug, and you, your whole week goes awry. So when we tie our successes only to those outcomes, you set yourself up for frustration because life does not care about a perfectly written plan. And if I judge myself solely on the one day of that race. To be brutally honest, I'm gonna say I failed that day. I missed my goal time. I needed to power hike a little bit more than I wanted because the trails were covered in deep slippery mud that I just couldn't get my footing. I had to completely switch up my fueling for the race because what had always worked just was not working the way it should have. Maybe it was the heat and humidity, who knows? And the pace I wanted to set. Was not what I had envisioned. But when I zoomed out from that race and looked at the preparation, I showed up, I made time to train consistently for months. I adapted every time. Life got messy and I showed up, and that's the part that matters. So I wanna offer you this today. When things aren't going the way you planned or expected, instead of spiraling into this isn't working. I want you to ask yourself these questions. What is actually in my control this week? Am I looking at just one moment or the bigger picture? How did I respond when things didn't go perfectly? What skill am I building right now, even if I don't see the outcome yet? What would I tell my best friend if she's in the same spot? These questions are powerful. These questions help you shift from self-judgment to self-awareness, and when you shift to self-awareness. It's huge. It helps you maintain consistency in that long game. It stops you from guilting and shaming yourself and falling into that all or nothing trap. To be honest, you're never going to have a year, a month, a week where your training in the capacity of strength, training, cardio and mobility, rest and nutrition is gonna fit perfectly and go. Perfectly according to plan. Without any adaptation to life's messiness, you're going to have moments where things are moving along and clicking, and then the inevitable will hit. It will become tough. When you develop those self-awareness in those key moments, it will help you stay in the long game. I'm gonna pause for a second. If you're listening and thinking, this is exactly where I'm at, I wanna invite you to work with me. I'm currently accepting new clients at KatFit, and the summer is one of the best times to get started. I know your schedule looks different right now between camp drop offs, work, travel, family vacations are just shifting routines. Summer is the perfect time to build fitness in a way that works for your actual life. With KatFit, you don't need hours in the gym. You don't need a perfect calendar. You need a plan that adapts to you, your energy, your responsibility, your goals. If you've been trying to keep up on your own and you feel like you're spinning your wheels, let's hop on a consultation call. No pressure, just a chance to talk and figure out what you need to move forward. All right, let's dive into those metrics. Metrics are everywhere, and I honestly love'em, and I also know they can completely mess with your head. I wear a watch. I track my pace, my heart rate elevation, gain my mileage. I look at my HRV, my sleep quality, my recovery status, my stress levels, my training readiness, and I especially do this in those higher mileage weeks when my training plan is getting a little bit more intense leading up to race. These numbers can absolutely be helpful. If you know how to interpret them, the data points may include steps, calories, burn, calories, consumed macros, and so on. But see, here's the thing. They are just a snapshot, okay? And when you see those metrics for one workout, it is one workout. Your watch may say you underperformed. You might look at your pace and think, I'm running really slowly, but that's a brief snapshot right there. You might. Miss your step goal or get poor sleep score and decide I'm off track. But the truth is one data point does not define your progress. During my Highland Sky Prep, I had workout to where everything looked off. My pace felt weird, my sleep was trash. My HRV dropped, but. When I zoomed out and I looked at the trend over weeks and months versus one rough day, I saw it. I was progressing, I was adapting, and my body was handling more. So instead of asking was it a good run, try asking how did this fit into the bigger picture of my week? Did I show up today with what I had? Am I honoring both effort and recovery? Because that's what matter. When we zoom out like that, we stop letting tech dictate our worth. We start using data as a feedback, not judgment. And when I start to feel anxious and like just really nervous looking at that data, one of my favorite things to do is just ditch tech literally. I can be on a run, and if I look at my watch and I'm constantly obsessing about the pace and frustrated that maybe I'm not going as fast as I think I should. Oh, the watch comes off, it gets thrown in my pack, especially a long run, and I ignore it until I finish my run. I pay attention to what my body's telling me because the more you tap into that, you're gonna understand what you need in that moment. That will give you way more insight than a random stat. That doesn't tell the whole story. Here's a funny example I had one night, it was like a couple weeks ago, where I woke up feeling like, man, I'm ready to get the day going. My feet hit the floor. I'm like, I feel pumped. Then I was like, yeah, let me just check to see how did I sleep? My sleep score was poor. The first thought I had was cool. I'm gonna be feeling really tired today and dragging myself through the whole day, but I didn't. I trained my clients. I worked, I got my run in, I strength trained, and I felt fine. Maybe I was a little tired by the end of the day, but I didn't let that number decide how I felt. And that's the trap. We can let data override our reality. So yes, metrics can absolutely be a tool. But they don't tell the whole story because what actually gets you to stick to a goal and build real momentum isn't about the perfect numbers in your data and your tech scores. Now, all that being said. And I know we're in a tech heavy world but the way to ensure that you are going to hit that goal is by looking at your behaviors goals that have BA behaviors in that is going to be more within your control. It's not just about what you want, but it's like. What you do. So here's how you can reframe it. Instead of, I wanna be strong, say I will strength train two times per week. Instead of, I want more energy, I'll walk 20 minutes after lunch each day again, these are examples. They're broad-based examples. These kind of goals provide the anchors. They give you something to come back to when life gets messy and we know it will. So right now, in my own training, I know for me, I need to focus on time-based runs. I can't sit here and say I need to run this many miles per week. Doesn't mean that I can't handle it. My life right now is so chaotic and busy that time-based runs allow me to understand that I need to go out and run for this many minutes, this many hours, and that helps me schedule the time in. I put the trust in knowing that the work I get in is the work that I need to reach, said, finish line of the race that I'm training for and strength training for me. And this is specifically to me. This is not a how to, I know in my training cycles, it's gonna vary between two to four times per week. it goes on where I'm at with my training cycle, where my mileage is. So it's not just, oh, I might have four this week, two next week, three of the next. No, it's based on my run training as to the amount of times I'm going to strength train in that week, so it's programmed a little bit deeper. So what it might look like, I just finished an ultra marathon. So I'm entering a build phase again. So I'm going to start lifting and I always do it in ranges three to four times per week. My runs are gonna start to build, so the volume is gonna be a little lighter. And the intensity is gonna be a little lighter as well. I'm working on building up strength. I'm working on developing that base and allowing that bigger aerobic base to fill in there before I start to. Get a little bit more intense with my runs, and then I'm going to shift to more three times a week with my strength training. And when I get into taper, or just before taper and when my mileage is at the most highest. I dropped down to more two times of strength training per week. The point is, consistency lives in those behaviors and not the perfect outcomes. And here's the thing about metrics. They're easy to chase, they're shiny, and they're so trackable. But the stuff that actually helps you stick with the long term, that's behavior. And it starts by getting really honest with a few things, like really honest. You have to be so honest. Where I see the frustration, where I see people quitting on their goals is they're not honest enough as to what they can handle. They're letting other things dictate where they're at in order to understand what will really work for them and understand. If you are in a really chaotic season, things may look differently. For me, I would love to be like, this is the mileage I'm going to run today, but I need to stick to time base because that's setting me up for success. If I focused on the amount of miles I need to run on a specific day, my schedule may not accommodate that. so what sets me up for success allows me to train for these ultra marathons is going time-based. How do you develop these behaviors? How do you understand? I'm gonna give you four questions for you to do a deeper dive on. So where are you now? This means what season of life are you in? Are you up four times a night because you have an infant and you also have a toddler and you have a partner that travels and you have a demanding career. Okay, well maybe working out six days a week for two hours is, it's just not, it's gonna set you up for failure so you can get there, but your lifestyle isn't going to handle that energy output. Maybe right now you are in your mommy taxi season where you're just doing constantly pick up and drop offs. You have barely a moment to yourself. You're working from home and every spare moment you're trying to work and you're just all over the place. Well, again, maybe the frequency needs to be a little lower and the intensity is going to have to adjust. To the day you're in, you still have the capacity to do something, but we need to be honest and where we are now and what can fit our lifestyle. Number two is what it actually is within your control. Question number three is where do you wanna go? So for me, and I'll give an example here, after. I give the fourth one is how to build a plan that fits your life and moves you forward. So when I was in the thick of, young kids,, so my early thirties is when I had my second and final child.. I knew I wanted to get back to more intense training. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I'd always aspired to do a half marathon, a marathon, an ultra marathon. There was many things I wanted to do. For me, it was I wanted to train for something that is something that brought me joy. I wanted to, you know, continue strength training. I wanted to have more time for me to work out. When my kids were younger, my training looked so, so different. My kids weren't sleeping through the night. I was arguably, like my, my training looked, oh my goodness. I, it was all over the place. And what I needed to do was recognize where I am. I had a lot of guilt and shame and frustration built up around will. This plan on the internet says, I need to be doing X, Y, Z. This person on Instagram who is a run coach and fitness influencer is able to do all this. I should be able to know, I had to recognize my own situation where I was at, the capacity that I had, what was in my control, where I wanted to go, and I had to build a plan that fit my life to move me forward. So when I acknowledged and I answered all. Four of these questions, I was able to put together a plan that allowed me to be set up for success. This is what I do for my clients. I need to know where they are now, what they have in their own control, where they wanna go, and then I build the plan that fits. Their life and helps move them forward. Because when you do that, you shift from chasing quick fixes and you build something that is more sustainable. That's how you build self-trust. That's how you stop relying on motivation and you start creating that real momentum that you're finally feeling like I have made it. I've stepped into that version of me that I've always wanted to be. So if you're sitting there right now and you're wondering. If any of this is even working, if you feel like you're behind, if you feel like you're off track, if you feel like you're never going to feel like you again. Let me say this clearly. You are not behind. You are just in the middle. In the middle. That's where it all happens. It's where the trust gets built. It's where you show up, especially when no one's clapping. It's where the strongest version of yourself lives. So. What behavior based goals are you setting this week? DM me. Tag me on Instagram, KatFit strength, and let's keep this conversation going. If this episode has helped you share it with a friend, please subscribe so you won't miss an episode. And hey, just a quick reminder, what I mentioned earlier, I'm currently taking on a few one-to-one clients inside Cafe, and if you've been listening and you think, this is what I need, this is your moment. I work with women in many seasons of life, postpartum, perimenopause, returning to movement after burnout, injury, or trying to feel strong and grounded in the middle of all of life's chaos. There are two coaching options essentials, which gives you a clear plan. And support in the app, regular check-ins, which is perfect if you're self-motivated and you just want structure and guidance. Premier is for when you want full support, custom programming, coaching calls, accountability and messaging, or access. To me, it's literally you have a coach in your pocket. It helps you navigate pivot and celebrate all the wins along the way. So if you're ready. To stop starting over and build strength that sticks, I'd love to work with you. Click on the link in the show notes. Book a free call, or just simply go to www.kat.fit and get started. Let's build something that actually fits your life. Until next time, keep moving forward. One rep, one mile, one moment at a time. You've got this. Thank you for tuning in to MilesFromherView, 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.
