In this episode of the No Days Off Podcast, host Brian Gubernick explores why the final stretch of a big goal often feels hardest and offers concrete tactics to keep moving forward. He frames the challenge as a “last lap” where fatigue, doubt, and life’s distractions can tempt us to quit. Drawing on the ideas of Ryan Holiday ("obstacle is the way") and Michael Stanier (author of The Coaching Habit), Brian outlines seven practical strategies: (1) acknowledge that tough moments are inevitable and adopt a "this too shall pass" mindset; (2) separate facts from judgments to quiet the inner critic; (3) keep the physical engine running by prioritizing health, sleep, and nutrition; (4) reconnect with the original mission to reignite purpose; (5) embrace struggle as an essential part of growth; (6) focus on the process rather than the outcome, winning each day; and (7) lean on friends and family for support. Throughout, he uses sports metaphors, personal observations of 60‑day challenges, and actionable prompts, urging listeners to pick one tactic to implement immediately. The episode ends with a reminder that every day is an opportunity to improve and a call to action to push toward the finish line.
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Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off Podcast. We believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's say you've set a big goal. It's a goal that you've been striving to hit for some time, and you've been working and you've been pushing days and weeks and maybe even months to depending on how far out you made this goal, and you're nearing the finish line. It's the last lap. It's the final quarter. It's the last few minutes of the game. It gets hard. Even though the finish line is in sight, it may not be close enough, and you may be tiring out. You may be going through tough times. You know, you've been enduring a lot during whatever this challenge has been with respect to reaching that goal. And you're at a crossroads. I know the end is not that far away, but it's just far enough away for me to feel like, man, maybe I'm tiring out. What do we do? What keeps us going? How do we persevere during these, these final moments and cross the finish line and get to our goal? I've been thinking about this a lot, a lot as of late, as I have a number of individuals in my life who set out on a 60-day challenge. And of course, like all of us, they jumped into this challenge and they're super excited and they're, they're, they're doing hard things, but they're overcoming obstacles. They're, they're building momentum and, and they're cranking. A couple weeks in, way ahead of schedule, lots of energy. Another 2 more weeks in, same sort of thing. Another week goes by and man, life is happening. It's tough to keep doing this day in and day out. And then another week goes by and we're, say, say we're now, say, 6 weeks into, you know, a 60-day, let's call it an 8-week, 9-week challenge. And you've made a lot of progress. You know, the finish line's not too far away, like in this case, 3 weeks, let's say. But those 3 weeks feel like an eternity. And I've got people in my world right now that are staring at those 3 weeks. And on paper, it looks close. But when you're looking out to that horizon, it looks awfully far away. We all probably know this temptation, this feeling, this— what I was saying— temptation to potentially tap out. Hey, I've made it far enough and maybe throw in the towel. We've all been there. And hey, it's a bumpy ride. And it's gonna be bumpy and it's gonna be rocky when you're pursuing a worthy goal, a daunting goal, a challenging goal. It's gonna push you to the edge of who you are and what it is you believe you know and what it is you've achieved. So there's going to be moments of doubt where you say, man, I, I've had enough. I, I just want to tap out. But if you want to give more to the world than you take, if you want to have a life well lived, you need to keep going and you need to stay committed. So how do you find this inner motivation when things get weird, when things get tough? What steps can you take? First, I think we've got to recognize that no matter what we do in life, we're going to have tough moments. There's going to be tough moments. And as we've all heard, these moments, these hard times, you've heard the phrase, "This too shall pass." And what does that really mean? It means to stay calm. And keep going during the good and the bad times. When things are going great, this too shall pass, that phrase, it should keep you pretty humble. And when things are difficult, it should help you recover, recognizing that whatever feeling you have in that moment, it will in fact pass. The situation will pass, these emotions will pass. The next thing I would say around life, you know, about life and it having tough moments, We all have injuries. We all have scars. We all get beat up. We've got to embrace the fact that wisdom enters through the scars, through the injuries. And that scar tissue is actually the strongest tissue we have. Ryan Holiday talks about the obstacle being the way. When you run at the obstacle, when you, you know, as opposed to running away from it, when you challenge yourself, when you address that fear, it's actually when you grow the most, when you develop the most. It's your journey. It's your personal development. So we've got to let that obstacle lead the way, help us move forward, because the scar tissue that comes about doesn't have to stop us. It can all be broken down. Now, there are a few ways that I think we can— specific ways, tactics that we can use to persevere when things get tough, and they come from the author of a book called The Coaching Habit. His name is Michael Stanier, I think is his last name. And he doesn't talk about it in The Coaching Habit, but he's talked about it somewhere else. And he outlines ways to persevere when things get tough. And I'm gonna share some of what he has to share as well as some of my own thoughts. Okay, number 1, what Michael would tell you is you've got to separate facts from your judgments. He'd say self-doubt is inevitable for anyone pursuing a worthy goal, but there's not a single person in this world apart from maybe some crazy people, some psychopaths, who, who don't ask themselves once in a while, what, what the hell am I doing? Or saying something like, this is a bad idea, or even worse, I'm never going to finish this. As you do when giving and receiving feedback, it's essential to break down this internal monologue into a few different components: data, feelings, and judgments. So break down this internal talk into data, feelings, and judgments. Oftentimes the difficulties that we face become way more overwhelming than they need to be because of our inner critic. We can't stop this inner critic, as Michael would say, from knocking on the door and paying a visit. But you can control how you respond by asking yourself, what are the facts? What's the evidence here? Whenever you're feeling overwhelmed, because what you'll do when you ask, what are the facts? What's the evidence? You're untangling all the noise around your feelings. And you're really separating what's true and accurate from just your judgments and your fears. This aids you in reconnecting with this internal compass, and then you could figure out your next steps. So again, we got to figure out data, feelings, and judgments. Data is what, what are the real facts, what's the real evidence. Feelings and judgments, well, those are those— that's just the noise. That's, that's not what's true and accurate. We've got to separate what's true and accurate from our judgments and from our fears. So, number 1, he'd say separate the facts from your judgments. Number 2, I would say that if you want to persevere when things get tough, you've got to keep that engine, that physical engine going. You've got to not just always take care of your physical well-being, but you especially have to do it when times get tough. Now, I know it's much easier said than done because life is hectic and busy and stressful, especially when you're pursuing a goal and you're nearing the finish line. But we've got to make sure that our physical engine, our body, is fueling, you know, is fueled and is functioning so our brain is fueled and functioning. And we've got to prioritize our physical health because much like a car that takes a high-grade, you know, gasoline, you are striving to get to that finish line, you've got to be at the top. You've got to have high-grade fuel for your mind. So, we can all be tempted maybe to neglect our health or say, "Hey, I'm going to put it aside as I charge to the finish line." And we'd skip workouts or we wouldn't sleep as much or, you know, we'd eat on the go. And I'm going to say that actually is going to make getting to that finish line substantially harder because you're going to be doing it in spite of all those bad habits. Those new habits around food and workout versus because of them. So, establish a solid fitness routine. You're also winning every single morning or every single night whenever you're working out and doing the right things. So, that's going to aid when you're winning in one area, you start to tend to win in some other areas as well. And your physical health will support you through these ups and downs. Now, number 3, back to Michael, he says, remember the mission. If you want to persevere during these tough times, reconnect with the mission. Remember why you started on this journey, why you wanted to achieve that goal. Go back to your old notes, go back to your emails or your texts or your diary or whatever it is, and remind yourself, why did I want to go after this? Usually, when you go back and remember the mission, you're inspired. You're inspired at least to finish strong. Remember, what's the difference you're going to make in achieving this goal for you, for your family, whatever it may be. Number 4, embrace struggle. Embrace struggle. If you want to persevere when things get tough, embrace the struggle. These, these are elements like struggles, things that we experience. These are elements of a worthy goal. Right? There are elements of a worthy goal. When you embrace the struggle, it's the journey that you're on. Like, enjoy that ride. There is no worthy goal that you will ever set that's not going to come with ups and downs. This is what you signed up for. There should be some thrilling aspects to what you do, and that's going to, that's going to ignite a spark. There should be important components to what you're pursuing. There's a purpose beyond yourself. There should be some scary, some daunting elements to what you're pursuing because that gets you out of your comfort zone. That's what's going to make this memorable. It's what is going to make it there. If it was easy, it wouldn't have been a worthy goal for you. So, now, it's going to challenge you to grow and evolve. So, embrace the struggle, which leads me to number 5, you got to separate yourself from the outcome. In other words, trust in the process. Just do the work every single day. We did a podcast episode not too long ago talking about Nick Saban and his process of just winning the play. For you, it's just win the day, right? Just be married to the process. Forget about the result. The result will come. You've just got to win tomorrow. You don't have to win the next 3 weeks if you're trying to close out a goal. Just win tomorrow and then win the next day, right? And we just got to remind ourselves that no matter what happens, And no matter how you're feeling about yourself, you're just doing the best you can. You're great. You're doing it. And just win the day. Which leads me to the very last thing. We'll wrap up with this. If you want to persevere when things get tough, when you're getting towards that finish line, Michael actually has some, some great note around this. He says you got to focus on your friends and family. He said these inner circles of, of your, your, you know, most intimate friends or your closest friends or your closest family. These inner circles, we lean into them because we need the support and we need the connection that come from these individuals. When times get tough, these are the people that remind you of your strengths and how you've overcome so much to get to where you're at. You've overcome so many things in the past. So, you want to invest time and effort into these friendships, into these personal relationships, and these family relationships, and lean in. Because when you engage with others, they're going to help you succeed and they're going to help you nurture your happiness. And most importantly, for sake of what we're describing here today, they're going to help you get to the finish line. So, to wrap up, we are pushing to get to our goals. We're— we see the end, but it still feels rather distant. We've got to persevere, and we can be rather tactical around that. So I want you to go back through this list and see what you could— what you can put in, uh, put into work today, take action around today. That's all I have for you today, the No Days Off podcast. Thank you so much for listening, and remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.
