SHAWN STEVENSON: Let's be honest for a moment, most people don't struggle with knowing what to do. Most people struggle with doing it consistently. And here's the thing most people don't realize consistency isn't a knowledge problem, it's a design problem. So today I'm going to share five science-backed cheat codes that make working out consistently feel easier, more automatic, and honestly, something your brain actually wants to do. One of the biggest mistakes that we make is thinking that consistency comes from willpower.

But the research is very clear, the most consistent people do not rely on willpower, they rely on systems. And this brings us to cheat code number one, which is to leverage your social environment. Let's start with one of the most powerful and most overlooked drivers of consistency, the people around you. A fascinating systematic review conducted by the US Department of Health and Human Services revealed something shocking. Based on multiple studies, the researchers discovered that social support doesn't just help people to be more consistent with exercise. It increases the amount of physical activity people do by almost 50%, and that is just the tip of the iceberg. There are many variations in what social support can look like and the impact that it has on our exercise consistency.

For instance, another remarkable study published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness tracked the exercise habits of people who worked out with their spouse compared to people who worked out without their spouse. Over the course of the one-year study, the researchers shockingly found that people who worked out without their spouse dropped out of their exercise plan 43% of the time, while people who worked out with their spouse dropped out only 6% of the time.

In other words, people who worked out with their partner in this study were six times more likely to stick with it. That's astronomical. Now, that's not to say that a ton of people who exercise without their significant other aren't sticking to their workout plans. What this study is indicating is that there might be a substantial advantage for people who find it difficult to be consistent to lean into social support by working out with their partner. But again, it's not only working out with your significant other that can create a huge advantage with exercise consistency. A mind-blowing study cited in the journal, Health Behavior Research, found that group exercise training can boost exercise compliance and consistency up to 97% over the course of their 11-week study.

People signing up and showing up 97% of the time is otherworldly. There's truly no external factor that's more powerful than this, but there are specific things in the group dynamic that they employed in the study, which we will be revealing shortly. But first, let's look back to the previous study and address some practical tips for working out with your spouse or significant other. Now, I know about the power of this subject firsthand. I actually met my wife Anne in the gym at the university that we both were attending. I was working there at the university gym as a personal trainer, and she was coming in and utilizing the facilities. And I was just locked in at this time in my life in being of service and perfecting my craft and helping people to transform not just their bodies, but their lives, because it had been so impactful for me.

And so, but I would notice the people coming in the gym, like, who was consistent. And of course, I noticed this young lady coming in and just being very, very consistent and showing up and she was just going to town on that treadmill, ba, ba, ba, ba, really hitting her stride. She's Kenyan, so she's got that stride on her. And I was just like chalking it up to, "Oh wow, she's really dedicated." And I honestly left it at that. I wasn't plotting or scheming or even like looking at her like that. But as legend has it has now been revealed recently, you know, just in the last couple of years, I had no idea. She was plotting on me.

She had told a couple of her friends she would come to the gym with her friend, shout out to Steph, and apparently she said this line to Steph, "Mm, I want him to train me. " All right, this is, these are not my words. This is what she said. I didn't know she was checking me out. And so long story short, one day I'm doing my own workout and I'm utilizing the universal gym, but maybe, you know, five, 10 feet away, Anne is using the most awkward machine in the gym, which is that adductor machine with the legs, you know, just sprawled open and she dropped her headphones.

And me just being a kind person, I went over, picked up her headphones and handed them to her and she said, "Thank you. " But the way that she said it, I noticed a hint of an accent, which apparently that really made an impact because a lot of people didn't pick up her accent, but working at this university, I work with people from all over the world, so I would pick up on these subtle things.

And so apparently she was impressed. We kind of got the talking and the rest is history, all right? The rest is history, but I'm setting all this up to say that my perception of her and what our relationship was going to be was built on this foundation of this fitness environment that we met in. And so once we started dating and a couple months went by and I'd inquire about her coming to work out with me or like doing some fitness related stuff together, she would basically turn me down like, "I, I'm good," you know, that kind of thing.

So little did I know at the time, she was just coming to the gym to get in shape to go to Miami with her friends, all right? So basically she gymfished me, all right? I thought this was a match made in fitness heaven, but it wasn't like that for her, she was done, all right? She's young, she fit, she's done. But, you know, I just kind of kept offering up time after time over the years. And, you know, here and there we would do some stuff together, but it wasn't until she got pregnant with my youngest son, Braden, that a transformation took place in her own psychology and she began to really train for this event of having our child.

And she carried that practice on with her for years afterwards, leading up to now, to where she is, you know, my closest gym buddy and training partner. And over this time, we've learned so much about each other, and also I've had the opportunity to learn so much about human psychology and the context of an intimate relationship related to working out together, all right? Because in the gym, I mean, I work with countless people, countless people, hundreds and hundreds of, hundreds of people one-on-one, let alone all the group training that I've done. And I've never had an issue with my tone until I worked out with apparently, you know, I didn't even know it was a thing, working out with my then girlfriend and eventual wife.

And so just that proximity creates a new dynamic because for everybody else, I could just kind of coach them on what to do. And for her, now I'm being bossy, right? It's just like this whole new domain. I just thought that I was just, you know, instructing you on what to do, but I had to change my approach to things because And this happens for a lot of men in the context of working out with their significant other as well. You know, coming into the gym, this could be like now you're turning into this old new personality, more militant, you know, more aggressive, but it's a temperament that we might carry with us into this environment in general, and we're not trying to be different per se.

And so what this looks like is, and this is the most important part, and this is where the science really revolves, we actually are different when we go to the gym or when we're doing some physical challenges, because this is stimulating the release of stress hormones, our blood sugar is becoming abnormal.

Just the alteration in our mental and emotional stress as well as we are taking on something challenging is going to change the biochemistry in our own bodies and also our temperament. And so what this can lead to is maybe we are a little bit more sensitive or maybe we are a little more aggressive, but for many people, they don't know that their temperament is changing or that we're becoming hypersensitive to change, but this does not give us permission if we want this to work, this workout relationship to just be all willy-nilly it is what it is.

We want to come to this with more intelligence. So two quick tips here is, number one, is to practice patience. If you're going to workout together, give each other a little extra grace proactively and don't expect them to always talk to you perfectly while in the heat of a training session, all right? Come into it proactively with a little more space, a little more understanding, all right? Practice patience. Number two, push the positive buttons. Just like we know how to push the problem buttons with our significant other, we also know how to push the buttons of love and healthy motivation. We know what motivates our partners better than anybody, but sometimes, especially when we ourselves are tired or irritable, we sometimes feel that they are perfectly able to push the positive buttons for themself.

Why do I have to go out of my way to motivate you when you already know how to motivate yourself? And this is where people run into a lot of conflict, not just in the gym context, but in life in general. Again, we know what motivates our partners. We also know what demotivates them. And so we want to proactively push the positive buttons. This is sometimes going to require us to dig a little bit deeper, but this is one of the things that our relationships are for. They are there to remind us of the capacities that we have within us to challenge us to be the best version of ourselves and to be there to support one another at the end of the day.

And so, as of this recording, my greatest and most consistent gym buddy is my wife, even though she gym fished me in the beginning. So moving on to tips for working out and supporting each other in a group exercise dynamic, leaning into the study that we covered from health behavior research that resulted in a staggering 97% consistency in exercising over the course of their 11-week study. Here's what they actually did to make people feel the sense of community, support, and consistency. Number one, the fitness coaches didn't just put people through workouts. The coaches intentionally facilitated interaction, engagement, and feedback between the participants. They were intentional about building connection.

Number two, the participants did challenging workouts together, i.e., They worked hard towards a common goal together. Shared struggle equals faster bonding. Number three, the researchers had participants connect on social media for outside of the class connection as well. This reinforces identity between sessions, creates ongoing accountability and keeps the group alive outside of the gym. Number four, the coaches provided individual recognition and feedback. Now, this hits a deep psychological need, the need for us to feel significant, the need for us to feel seen, the need for us to feel like we matter. This increases a psychological sense of belonging and value within the group. This is one of the bedrock reasons behind showing up.

Number five, the group had shared goals and common interests. This creates the phenomenon of we're the same kind of people, and this also helps to align with the group identity, feeling part of the whole. Number six, the participants also had frequent touchpoints and check-ins. The participants posted daily heart rate variability stats, for example, and they attended frequent workouts, and this creates repeated interaction loops that ingrains the group identity even deeper.

So the results in this study, seeing, again, a 97% compliance and consistency didn't just happen on accident. It's leveraging very deeply ingrained psychological needs, psychological systems that help us to show up more frequently. So leveraging your social environment is one of the most powerful ways to create automatic consistency in your exercise goals, and it can come in many different forms, from group exercise, to working out with your significant other or friends or family members, to working out with a personal trainer.

There's a lot of science on that as well, and so much more. Again, cheat code number one is to leverage your social environment, and one of the most profound ways to do that is to simply get ourselves around fit people who are doing fitness related things, get ourselves in the environment of those type of people that we want to take on those character traits, be proactive in that. And this phenomenon that we say in our popular culture of things rubbing off on us, this isn't a matter of fitness by osmosis, or just kind of picking up the fitness vibes that are coming off of somebody else who's about that fitness life, because Jim Rohn famously said that "nobody can do your pushups for you", which is absolutely true.

If we don't do the work, we don't get the result. And this is one of the foremost places that this holds true when it comes to our physical health. But Jim Rohn also says that, "Working together, building together, failing and succeeding together, all while pursuing a common purpose is what relationships are made of." We were never meant to do this on our own, leverage the power of our social environment. Now, moving on to cheat code number two on this powerhouse list. If your social environment shapes your behavior, your physical environment might be just as powerful. Cheat code number two is to design your physical environment.

A study cited in the Journal of Physiotherapy determined that when it comes to exercising consistently, barriers like effort, inconvenience, and complexity are primary drivers of non-compliance, not a lack of knowledge. Again, it isn't that we don't know what to do. Consistency isn't about discipline. It's about removing friction. Behavioral interventions that include prompts, reminders, and environmental cues significantly improve adherence to health behaviors, including physical activity. We want to design our physical environment to promote physical activity to the best of our ability. Here are seven ways to make your environment more fitness friendly.

Number one, put fitness in plain sight. Put some simple fitness tools in the places you frequently habitate or walk past. Put some dumbbells next to the couch. This is what my friend and mentor, Dr. Michael Beckwith does, and I was shocked, like, I just, I'd never thought about that or seen that before. Another idea is to hang some bands or even a TRX on a door hook. You can put your foam roller in plain sight as well. I've got one right next to my couch. You can put a pull-up bar in your doorway. A lot of people have found great success with doing that. For myself personally, I keep my grip strengtheners right on the arm of my couch for easy access while I'm watching television.

Remember, visible equals usable. Number two, replace passive furniture with more active options. This can be getting yourself and utilizing a standing desk. Utilizing a balance ball or a wobble stool, wobble, wobble, shaky, shake it. And some people get crazy and implement a walking pad under their desk. There's many different ways to replace passive furniture with more active options. This is a way that we can integrate more physical activity. Number three, create frictionless first steps. Make starting ridiculously easy. Get your workout clothes laid out the night before, so you don't have to think about it.

Make sure that your gym bag is always packed and visible. Have your water bottle and electrolytes already sitting out and easy to grab and go. These are just a few ideas to create frictionless first steps. This helps to reduce decision fatigue in getting ourselves into the environment to do the fitness related things that we wanna do. Number four, use visual cues that prime identity. This can look like having a whiteboard or a big calendar with your workouts being written on there or tracked. This is something that we literally have in our bedroom. This is a newer thing. About a month and a half ago, we got up a calendar that we're utilizing for a fitness challenge that I'm doing along with my wife, and it's been super helpful.

And she's looking at those workout days, and then I have AR days, the active recovery days where we're still getting in the 10K steps and maybe we're doing a little sauna or whatever the case might be. But man, one day I swapped the days and she thought it was a AR day, and she was pissed. She was like, "I thought, this is a AR disactive recovery day. What are you talking about? " It's like, "Babe, we gotta, we, we're traveling, gotta catch a flight, we're gonna flip it. " All right, she understood, she still stuck to the program, you know, that calendar is very helpful. And by the way, when she was pissed, it's more like for me, it's kinda like a puss and boots scenario, like, "Oh, okay, you're pissed with your little, with your little, with your little pause.

Oh my God." But again, we made the adjustment, but having that board up, like, I finally acknowledge for years, I'm, my personality type is I'm down. I'm down for some fitness, like, oh, you wanna go to the park? Oh, you wanna go hoop? Or you wanna go this, you wanna go that? Oh, you wanna go for a walk? Or you wanna go to the gym?

I'm, I'm down. For my wife, she wants to know. She likes to have her day planned and mentally know what's coming up. And so I was fighting against that when she would, what I felt to be like turning me down to go for a walk together, all right? She just had other plans, you know? And so by having this mapped out and this shared calendar, this visual thing, her adherence and just knowing what to do and her proact- like she's sometimes ahead of me on getting to, like, the stage of here, let's go, let's get to our workout today, you know?

So it's really amazing in leveraging our psychology together. So again, this could be a calendar or whiteboard. This could be a picture of your goal, physique, or energy of something that relates to that for you. Again, having these visual cues, this is number four, visual cues that prime that identity. Also, a simple note. You can have something that's written, maybe this is on a sticky note, or maybe this is something bigger that has a positive, affirmative message for you that really resonates with your spirit. For example, it could be something like, you are fitter and healthier every day. Just a reminder, note for yourself.

And remember, your environment doesn't just cue action, it reinforces identity. Number five, reduce distance friction and working out. Choose the closest gym possible and/or a gym that you regularly drive past on your commute. You can set up a mini home workout zone. This doesn't mean that you have to have a gym or a garage gym.

You can have a space that's just a few feet in your apartment that's dedicated to fitness. Here at our studio, we've got a mat laid out and we've got different fitness tools and little therapy balls and things like that to utilize should anybody want to utilize them. There's a little space reserved for that. And so you can create that anywhere, regardless of whether this is a house or an apartment or even at your office in some, in some cases. You don't wanna go, you know, just willy-nilly if you're working at, you know, Saks, 5th Avenue, whatever, like this is the fitness zone. But again, just thinking differently and creating an area that is dedicated to your fitness, your home, workout, fitness zone.

Another idea with reducing distance friction is to keep exercise or fitness related equipment in multiple rooms. In my office at home, for example, I have a large red light panel that I utilize when I'm at my standing desk, you know, multiple times a week because it's right there and I could just turn that bad boy on and be able to get those benefits while doing something that I was gonna do already. I've got some slanted blocks to, like, do some calf stretching and that kind of stuff. You know, as I mentioned, I've got these fitness tools right by my couch, but, you know, keeping equipment in multiple rooms is going to help us to reduce the distance friction. And remember, the more accessible it is, the more likely it is to get used.

Number six, use movement triggers. Attach movement to the things that you're already doing. One of my favorite things to recommend is watching TV while sitting on the floor. This gives you instant access to mobility work while doing something that you are going to be doing anyways. Getting these inputs, these nutritious movement inputs is super valuable.

This isn't taken away from your TV time, and this is an opportunity for you to do some 90, 90 sitting to get into a resting squat, maybe a kneeling squat, cross leg sitting, you know, crisscross applesauce, single leg extension where you're just sitting up on your butt, you got one leg extended and one knee pulled towards you, double leg extension. I can go on and on and on, but your body is going to inform you because when you're sitting in a lazy boy, in a lazy boy, it, the name is right there. It's telling you what it's gonna do to you. You don't feel those pressure points that you need to move and fidget and that your body is looking for some movement.

But sitting on the floor, you're gonna find comfort in different movements, but then eventually your body's gonna be fidgety and wanting to move to a different position. And within a very short amount of time, you just get acclimated like I crave sitting on the floor. I can, I would've never thought. I would've never thought that I would be on that type of time, all right?

And literally at this moment, my videographer just got up from the stool and got on the floor, all right? You can't make this up. And so for myself personally, we just didn't really roll like that. I didn't grow up like that where once you got to be of a certain age, you don't get down on the floor. I'm not a child. I'm not an aminal. I'm not an animal. All right? Whatever. It's one of the most human things that we can do is sitting on the floor and getting those inputs, you know, those pressure points, getting stimulated and activated and driving us to be able to get some great mobility work in. Other movement triggers include doing calf phrases while brushing your teeth, walking outside or around the house on every phone call, et cetera, et cetera.

So again, number six is use movement triggers. The phone rings, I pick it up, I start walking around. It's automatic now. And finally, number seven, use timing triggers. Use the timing of things as prompts for nutritious movement. This could be as literal as setting a timer that goes off every two hours during your workday as a prompt to do 10 body weight squats, or 10 pushups, or go for a 10 minute walk. We can also use the timing of external things as prompts for movement. For example, if you're watching network television, every commercial break can activate 10 pushups or 10 body weight squats. If you're watching a streaming series, you can do a set of 20 body weight squats before every episode, because you know it already, it goes right to the next one, right to the next one.

It doesn't even ask you permission. It's rolling right into it because it knows. It knows you're down. It knows you're down. So for that, you see that trigger, okay, it's going to the next episode, 20 body weight squats. We can use our otherwise sedentary time as an anchor for consistency. Now again, these are just ideas.

If any of these speak to you and you want to put them into action, that's what it's all about. And we do not have to do all of these things, but what we do need to do is to leverage our own psychology so that we can ensure that we're being consistent in getting the goals and the results that we truly desire and deserve. So I hope that those tips were helpful. And speaking of creating frictionless first steps with having your water bottle and electrolytes ready to go, this is something that I do every single day when I'm headed to the gym or I'm headed to a training session. I have my electrolytes ready to go and I have my water bottle ready to go.

And it's never been easier to up-level our performance by utilizing science-backed electrolytes. We know that electrolytes are necessary for literally controlling our muscle contraction, the contraction and relaxation response. For cognitive performance, the list goes on and on and on. And the number one science-backed electrolytes designed to support active hydration, cognitive performance, and an overall healthy lifestyle is the incredible electrolytes from LMNT.

Go to drinkLMNT.com/model right now, and you're going to get a free bonus pack of their most popular flavors with every electrolyte purchase. LMNT is now being utilized by some of the world's top performers, including Team USA weightlifting, NBA, and NFL teams, Navy Seals, the list goes on and on and on. They have science-backed ratios of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to help you to feel and perform at your best with no sugar, no artificial colors, and nothing dodgy. And right now, you get a free bonus pack with every electrolyte purchase plus there are no questions asked money back refunds if you don't absolutely love the way that it makes you feel.

Go to drinklmnt.com/model to take advantage of this. And right now, as of this recording, summer is in the air. The summer bunnies are starting to come out and they're starting to emerge. And the flavor of the summer I'm telling you right now is that lemonade salt. It hits different on a hot day or after sweating a lot, it is phenomenal.

And I'll let you in on a little secret. There's some insider access to pink lemonade right now. For a limited time. So, you heard that from me. But again, head over to drinklmnt.com/model to take advantage. And now moving on with another insight for your physical environment is you have to identify the opportunities for physical activities in your own unique environment, especially those that can supersede perceived barriers that come up.

For instance, you might not have a single problem in the world with walking and getting in your 5K steps, your 5,000 steps outside at the park after work most of the time. But when it's too hot, too cold, too rainy, whatever the case might be at certain parts of the year, you might find yourself more sedentary than you intended to be. So we wanna replace those loose intentions with a strategic environmental queue. You can equip yourself with an IF/THEN strategy. So what does this look like? Well, if the weather is turbulent outside, then I will walk at the mall that's along my drive on the way home. If the weather is turbulent outside, then I will walk on the treadmill at the gym that's along my drive on the way home.

Landmark Research by Peter Goldwitzer found that people who used if-then plans were up to 2-3x more likely to follow through on behaviors. In addition, we have simple positive if then plans that we can include as well. If it's 1:00 PM after lunch, then I go for a walk. If it's Saturday morning, then I play pickleball at the park. Creating these psychological if- then’s proactively is another great mechanism for us to utilize in leveraging and designing our external environment. These are the things that cue active behaviors without requiring motivation. And they shift behavior from decision-based to being trigger-based. Your brain doesn't rise to your goals.

It reacts to your environment. So with that, now we're gonna move on to number three on these five powerful science-backed cheat codes to create more consistency in working out. And number three is something called temptation bundling. This brilliant concept, known as temptation bundling, has been thoroughly researched at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

The idea is simple. Pair something you need to do with something that you love to do. In a remarkable study, participants were only allowed to listen to addictive audiobooks while exercising. This randomized controlled trial titled Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym and Evaluation of Temptation Bundling found that people who were given gym only access to tempting audiobooks like the Hunger Games were 51% more consistent going to the gym and exercising than the control group who were not given this alluring temptation bundle.

Now, the question is, why? The researchers point to the powerful neurochemistry that controls our behavior. Temptation bundling leverages the power of dopamine. It drives our behavior to do what feels good right now. So instead of relying on delayed rewards like future health, if you exercise, you attach an immediate reward like a juicy or exciting audiobook or television show to that behavior. And the craziest part of this study, after starting the temptation bundling habit ... Listen to this. 61% of participants offered to pay to keep their gym only audiobook system going after the study. They said, "Take my money." It created this pleasure, this reward for them that they wanted to keep going and offered to pay to do something what, again, would be deemed difficult, which is the exercise, in order to tie that with the juicy experience, the rewarding or pleasurable experience of enjoying a great audiobook.

So that's really, really remarkable. Like, not only do I get this result and I see the benefits here, but I'll pay you for it. Examples. How can we utilize this? Well, you can set this system up for yourself psychologically so that you can only listen to your favorite podcast during workouts or getting to watch your favorite TV show can only happen at the gym only or you can tie it in with a post-workout ritual that you look forward to. This could be some kind of a body care or self-care maintenance thing. Maybe this is like, you know, getting a massage or a facial or something, something that is like a little bit of extra self-care. Now obviously you wouldn't do the same thing every workout, but maybe this is like bundling a self-care thing.

Maybe it's getting a pedicure, maybe it's like whatever the case might be. That can be a little bit, you know. But it's an idea. If you could tie something that you really look forward to. And another thing is this can be tied to a post-workout ritual after working out, doing a certain type of workout is the only time that you would eat a special food or a smoothie or a treat. Now, this is something we need to be mindful about in the context of tying food rewards to certain behaviors, but if you know yourself and you know that this is something that is like, you know, very accessible and something that you don't twist into something negative, I don't see nothing wrong with a little bumping grind with a little post workout deliciousness, all right?

So this could be for some people here in LA, for example, where only after this particular workout do they go to Irwin and get the Haley Bieber smoothie, right? This billion dollar smoothie, you know, that costs a arm and a leg, but this is when I get that. All right? Enjoy a little, little Bieber after the workout. For me, one of my favorite things is tying to after my workouts on Saturday, my wife making sweet potato pancakes, sweet potato protein pancakes from the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook. So tying this to, again, post-workout ritual that you enjoy or gym only access to certain things is another way to leverage this very powerful cheat code called temptation bundling.

With temptation bundling, now your brain isn't thinking, "I have to work out. " It's thinking, "I get to do the thing that I enjoy." So we wanna make our workouts something that our brain craves and not avoids. Now, here's another fascinating layer to this. Cheat code number four is called the Fresh Start Effect.

Researchers at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania confirmed a phenomenon called the Fresh Start Effect. They found that people are significantly more likely to start and stick to their goals after what they call temporal landmarks. Temporal landmarks are distinct moments in time that stand out from daily routines. This includes things like birthdays, the first of the month, new years, and even Mondays. That's why these days are frequently when people decide to start something new. Again, they're called temporal landmarks. These moments create a psychological reset button, and we can use this to our advantage. Rather than making an open-ended declaration that you're going to start this magical fitness routine, and you're going to do this forever, not bl- likely.

By the way, you can use the fresh start effect to start, stick to, and re-energize your goals. This is precisely why short-term fitness challenges work so well. Seven-day fitness challenge. 30-day fitness challenge, 90-day fitness challenge. This is because they give you a clear starting point. A definitive finish line, a sense of urgency, and most importantly, a narrative.

This is my 30-day transformation, so it's not just a workout plan anymore. It's a mission. And research shows that when people feel like they're in a defined chapter of change, they show up more consistently. And after your 30-day challenge is complete, who said that you can't start another 30-day challenge? Maybe with a different fitness routine, maybe with different exercises, maybe with a different goal. So start your own 30-day fitness challenge. You can, of course, invite a friend or friends or family members to do this along with you. Set your specific goal for the next 30 days and keep it simple, but urgent and meaningful.

You can start with a 30-day, 10K steps a day fitness challenge. From there, you can lock in on your next 30-day challenge. And maybe this time, it's strength training three days a week for the next 30 days. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, for example, or whatever days work best for you. There are so many different ways to slice and dice this, but the bottom line is that it works.And oftentimes, this can be one of those things where you start on Monday. Now, again, don't just set goals, create time-bound challenges that give your brain a fresh start. Now, finally, we're at cheat code number five and the most powerful driver of all. This is the one that determines whether everything else actually sticks.

Cheat code number five is to leverage the power of why. Now, here's the truth. You don't stay consistent because of tactics. You stay consistent because of meaning. There's powerful research and motivational psychology showing that people with intrinsic motivation, a deeper, personal reason, are far more likely to sustain behaviors long-term. When your why is weak, everything feels like effort. But when your why is strong, effort feels purposeful. This is something that I attached to unconsciously that absolutely transformed my life. When I was living in Ferguson, Missouri and struggling with my own health, diagnosed with a so- called incurable condition with my spine, I was in an immense amount of pain and just struggling to get around.

I was struggling with my perceived sense of self, my identity, being somebody who was a high level athlete and now just kind of relegated to sitting on my couch and being in pain and being afraid of standing up and gaining a lot of weight now that I'm on this college drive-through diet still, and I'm not even moving or training anymore.

And I just began to deteriorate. And a huge catalyst for me after two years of suffering, two years of losing myself and outsourcing my potential to others who I accepted that they knew what was best for me, that it, that they knew what was possible for me. What changed everything is when I identified, and I'm sharing this with you right now, something that mattered more to me than the story that I was telling myself as to why it wasn't possible. And at the time, it was my two kids, my daughter Jasmina and my son, Jordan, who was recently born, and just imagining him growing up and me not being able to throw the ball around with him, to teach him how to, you know, to, to play sports and to be a good man and me just being unable to do those things was unacceptable to me.

And so my catalyst for change more than anything was my baby boy and wanting to be there for him and to show him what was possible and my daughter as well. And so that got my ass in motion and it got me to just show up. And I started going to the gym at the university because there were no gyms. I didn't have, I didn't have access in Ferguson.

There's no gym. It didn't exist. But the university was about 10 minutes away and fortunately I had access. But again, my mindset at the time, I could have made access. I could have made do with some tools. I could have created a space in my apartment, which I eventually did. I just didn't know, you know? So the accessibility and even to the equipment, which for me, the stationary bike was all that I could muster up myself to do with some discomfort, but it wasn't as much pain and I could do that. So I found something that I could do and just get moving. And from there, it led to the elliptical machine and then, you know, walking around the track and then tinkering with some weights.

And before you know it, one of the most powerful laws governing our reality, the law of inertia, Newton's first law began to show up in my life. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. And so this momentum just started going until along with transforming the way that I was eating and my sleep habits and my habits of how I was relating to myself and others, my entire reality changed.

This so- called condition was no longer a part of my reality. And so for me, my why was my children and wanted to be there for them, to teach them how to show up when times got difficult, to teach them resilience, to be there for all the things, you know, for, for the, the performances, for the sports, the games, just to be there and to be a light rather than relegated to that life of pain.

And so that was my why. Now, of course, over time, your why can change, but this is one of the most powerful catalysts for action. And so I don't know what that is for you, but this is something that you need to address. Why do you want it? You want to get in the best shape of your life or you want to transform your fitness, you want to feel better. Why? What is the actual reason at the core? And just keep digging and digging and asking why, why? Why do I want this? What's the real reason? You know, eventually over time, after becoming that person that I intended to be, most recently, during the time when the world shut down and we experienced this pandemic, a big part of my training, I mean, I was, I was pissed and I don't tend to carry as my temperament a high level of pisosity as a person, but I was so disappointed in the way that we were treating each other.

I was so disappointed in the way that we were responding to this very unusual situation, and I wanted to ensure that we had more sanity, more empathy, more understanding, more compassion, more patience. And so ironically, I was training to be as strong as I can possibly be, to be resilient in the face of what I deemed to be a lot of chaos.

And so I found eventually a more positive energy to put into it, but that was my why. I was not playing. Like I was, I was moving some serious weight and really just like up-leveling my strength and that was what drove me. And today, it's for my son, for my youngest son. You know, like my older kids, my two older kids, they're adults now. My babies are now adults, but my youngest son is 14 and he's very active in sports and just being able to train with him, to, you know, to, to play, to compete together and have fun together and to do all these incredible things, to teach and to make a powerful impact on this world that so desperately needs it, this is what motivates me today.

So it's not just my son, it's you. And I thank you so much for allowing me to be a part of your life and providing me with the fuel for me to continue to get better each and every day. So again, instead of I want to lose 10 pounds or I want to lose some weight, try ... I want to have the energy to show up fully for my family.

I want to have a body that supports me showing up for the next 30 to 40 years. I want to feel strong, capable, and confident in my life and be a model of that for others. That hits different because now it's not just about working out, it's about who you are becoming. So the bottom line message is that when your why is clear, consistency merely becomes a byproduct. So to wrap all of this up, cheat code number one, leverage your social environment, cheat code number two, design your physical environment, cheat code number three, use temptation bundling. Cheat code number four is to create fresh starts with short-term challenges, and cheat code number five is to anchor everything in a powerful why.

I hope that you enjoyed this. If you did, if there's any one of these cheat codes that truly stood out, please share your voice. If you're watching on YouTube, you can leave a comment below this episode or watching on Spotify, you can leave a comment there as well, or just share your voice. You can share this on social media as well, but let's keep this conversation going because again, consistency is not about discipline, it's about designing a system that your brain doesn't want to escape from.

We can stack conditions to make these things more automatic. We've got a world around us that is dedicated to removing a lot of our physical activity. It is banking on it. And so we have to say no, and we have to say, "I choose to design my life like this. " And so I appreciate you so much for tuning into this episode today. We've got so much in store for you. We got some incredible masterclasses and world leading experts coming your way very, very soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.