🎙️ Podcast Script
Running to Myself
The Book I Needed to Read
Hi friend.
Welcome back to Running to Myself. I’m Trisha Stanton.
I heard something recently on a podcast that really got me thinking.
The guest was talking about a book she had written, and she said,
“I wrote the book I needed to read all those years ago.”
Isn’t that interesting?
it made me start wondering…
What would I write if I wrote the book I needed back then?
What would I tell a younger version of myself—
the one walking through uncertainty…
the one second-guessing…
the one trying so hard to get it right and not even really knowing what getting it right would mean?
And then an even more useful question came up..
What do I know now…
that I’m not tapping into?
we’ve all heard the phrase,
“hindsight is 20/20.”
But that only helps if we actually apply what we’ve learned.
Otherwise, it just becomes a collection of experiences that we survived without ever letting them shape how we live going forward. Or worse, our collection of experiences become our victim story that keeps us stuck.
So I started reflecting and asking myself:
What have I learned through the hard things?
What patterns have I seen in my own thinking?
What actually helped me move through those seasons?
And doing that from a neutral state of mind felt empowering.
It kept me out of that place of
“Why did that happen?”
or
“I wish I had known…”
And in the place of:
“I do know something now.”
And that matters.
we don’t always pause to recognize how far we have come.
I’m not unique in this. It applies to you too.
You’ve already lived through things that required strength.
You’ve already figured things out.
You’ve already grown.
The question is…
Are you using that growth?
Or are you leaving it in the past?
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I find this useful when I’m doing something new.
When Something that feels unfamiliar… or uncertain… or just hard,
instead of trying to create confidence out of thin air…
I borrow it from something I’ve already done.
Often I think about training for my first marathon.
At the time, that felt really big. Because it was Unknown. Even all these year later i remember that I felt a little overwhelmed.
There were plenty of moments where I didn’t know if I could do it.
But I followed the plan.
I stayed consistent.
I kept showing up.
And eventually… I crossed the finish line.
So now, when I’m facing something that feels similar—
something new, something stretching—
I don’t tell myself,
“This is different. This is harder.”
Instead, I remind myself:
You’ve done hard before.
You’ve followed a process before.
You’ve walked in the unknown before.
And that simple shift brings me back to belief.
Not hype, not pressure.
Just belief.
Just Enough belief to take the next step.
And that’s really all we need most days.
We don't need the whole plan.
We don’t need a guarantee.
We need Just enough belief…
to take the next right step.
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Here’s another question I come back to in times of uncertainty.
This is also one of my favorites. It’s so good for times when there doesn’t seem to be a clear path forward.
When I feel stuck…
or unsure…
or caught up in overthinking…
I ask myself:
What would the 80-year-old version of me say right now?
I love this question because it clears out so much noise.
When I ask this question the little distractions…
the unnecessary pressure…
the need to get it perfect…
Those things fall away.
Because the 80 year old version of me isn’t worried about small things.
She’s looking at the big picture.
She’s thinking about how I lived.
How I showed up.
What I chose.
When I ask that question, the answers are usually simple.
Not easy… but simple.
Keep going.
Say the thing.
Try it.
Don’t wait.
Be present.
Let it matter.
And sometimes…
Stop overcomplicating this.
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So here’s what I want to offer you today.
A couple of questions you can carry with you.
Not as something to overthink…
But as something to return to.
If you wrote the book you most needed to read…
what would it say?
What truths would you include?
What would you remind yourself of?
What would you simplify?
And…
If you could sit down with the 80-year-old version of you…
What would she tell you today?
Not from fear or urgency.
But from the perspective of a life well and fully lived.
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You don’t need to become someone new to move forward.
You don’t need a completely different plan.
You just need to access what you already know.
And trust it enough…
to take your next step.
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If this resonated with you, and you’re realizing
there are patterns in your thinking that you want to understand more clearly…
This is exactly the kind of work I do in coaching.
We look at what’s already there—
your thoughts, your patterns, your experiences—
and we start using them in a way that actually moves you forward.
You don’t have to figure it all out on your own.
You can book a free consult with me using the link in the show notes.
Or, if you’re not quite ready for that,
you can join my email list where I share weekly tools like this—
simple ways to think differently and move forward with more clarity.
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And I’ll leave you with this:
You’ve already lived through things that shaped you.
Don’t leave the wisdom behind.
Use it.
And keep taking your next right step.
I’ll see you next time.
