63. Systems Over Feelings - How To Built-proof Your Health Journey

Ever notice how easy it is to make big plans when you’re sitting still—and how fast those plans crumble when life gets messy? We unpack why motivation feels powerful yet disappears at the first sign of fatigue, stress, or a busy weekend, and we show how to build a system that keeps you moving when feelings check out. The goal isn’t perfection; it’s creating guardrails so your best choices happen on autopilot.

We start with a candid shift from a bodybuilding-only mindset to training for athleticism, energy, and longevity. From there, we dig into the central idea: motivation is an emotion. Like happiness or frustration, it spikes and crashes. That’s why so many people yo-yo between “all in” and “off the rails.” Instead of chasing moods, we walk through evidence-backed structure: routines, accountability, and simple rules that beat willpower over months and years. You’ll hear practical examples from coaching thousands of sessions and the personal systems that keep training consistent through work, parenting, and setbacks.

Then we get tactical with the if-then strategy that turns triggers into automatic actions. If you get home tired, then you walk 20 minutes. If Monday’s workout is missed, then you run a short Tuesday session. If it’s the weekend, then breakfast and protein stay the same. If you forget your lunch, then you choose a salad or sandwich shop. If motivation is low, then you do the first 10 minutes and let momentum take over. We also reframe emotion as a tool—tie your choices to being present for your kids, protecting your independence, and honoring promises you make to yourself—so feelings fuel, not derail, your plan.

By the end, you’ll have a clear playbook to remove decision fatigue, prevent backsliding, and build an identity anchored in action. Ready to replace yo-yo cycles with steady progress and become the person who shows up, regardless of mood? Follow the show, share it with a friend who needs structure, and leave a review to tell us the if-then you’re starting this week.

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Transcript

Welcome & Weather Check-In

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. We share general health and fitness information and professional experience, not individualized medical advice. This content does not replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your health routine.

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Welcome to Live Transformed, the podcast from Transformed Health Initiative, where evidence-based truth meets real life transformation. Lead yourself, integrate health, value what matters, engage in the process. This is how you live transformed. And now, here's your host, Adam Kelly.

From Bodybuilding To Broader Fitness

The Real Problem: Feelings Over Systems

Motivation Is An Emotion

Culture, Emotions, And Decision-Making

Coaching Break & Mission

Why Feelings Derail Health Habits

Use Emotions Wisely: Fear And Pride

Systems Beat Willpower

Structured Programs Outperform DIY

The If-Then Strategy Explained

If-Then For Workouts And Weekends

Start With Ten Minutes

Automatic Responses Over Debates

If-Then For Eating And Busy Days

Comfort Causes Regression

SPEAKER_01 0:45

What is up, all of my favorite people? Welcome back to the Live Transform Podcast. This is episode number 63. And I think I have a good one for you guys. So I'm excited to share what I have to say here. It is a beautiful day here in Moore, Oklahoma. Um, today is actually February 12th, 10th. Sorry, February 10th on a Tuesday, getting it done a day ahead of time. And um it's a beautiful day. It's nice and sunny outside, nice mild temperatures out of all the frost and freeze and snow and all that. So finally able to get outside and get some steps in and enjoy the beautiful weather, get some sun on my newly bald scalp. Yes, I'm bald now. If you've ever seen photos of me before, you've probably seen 18 different versions of me. Totally fine. You get the bald one again. Um, so yeah, it's just a great day. Finished up a nice conditioning workout myself in between training clients and then, you know, recording this episode real quick before the next round of folks show up. Uh that's kind of new for me, so I'll share that a little bit. Um I have been a huge fan and proponent of bodybuilding and bodybuilding style lifestyle, if you will, for years now. Uh, it's been kind of the only thing I've been interested in as far as my own training goes. But I've had a host of different training perspectives and training modalities that I've executed throughout the years and throughout the decades. Uh, used to be pretty big into boxing style training, never got in the ring and fought myself outside of just some basic sparring because I'm not all about getting punched in the face. But I really enjoyed the workout and the intensity and being able to train the full body in something that's fun and actually useful. Hopefully it doesn't have to be used in real life, but it's actually useful and just a great time. So have that history. Then, like I said, I got really into bodybuilding as a lifestyle and as a fan of the sport, and that's kind of taken over my training philosophy and just how I operate in my own um physical health. And, you know, in recent years, especially recent months, I have kind of shifted my mentality a bit. I realized, you know, at the young age of 36 that I'm not getting any younger, and my body is aging and my joints are aging, and I just don't tolerate the things that I used to. And I still have young kids that I want to be able to play around with and run around with and play ball with and do all the different things outside of just lifting weights. So it's kind of really been on my mind and just wanting to be more athletic overall, wanting to be more fit, wanting to be able to run and jump and climb and crawl on top of lift heavy things. So that's you know, something kind of new for me that I've been adding in. And um, it's kicking my butt, but that's what you expect when you're out of shape, and this too shall pass. And I'm just enjoying being able to be alive and move my body and utilize what the most high has given me because we definitely can't take it for granted. But that's not why I'm recording this episode and what I have for you today. Today I want to talk about something that I feel is probably one of the biggest stumbling blocks and roadblocks for most people's success when it comes to their health and fitness, and why so many of us stay in the same cycles and can never seem to break free of the yo-yo dieting and the back and forth and gaining weight, losing weight, being 100% in, being.000% in, and you know, why this seems to happen? Because it's definitely more than just one, not knowing what to do. Most of us know we need to eat better, we need to move more, you know, we need to get better sleep, we need to manage our stress. A lot of these things we we have a knowledge of that it's important, right? So why does that not correlate to action? And we have a lot of conveniences in our day and age. There's gyms everywhere, home equipment's become much more affordable, easier to get, uh, easier to store. You know, there's so many more conveniences we have. There's healthier food available everywhere compared to what it used to be like. You know, you have grocery stores on pretty much every corner now with the neighborhood Walmarts that we have here in Oklahoma, uh, and just the different grocery store chains, things like that. Even convenience stores are starting to carry healthier options. So we have the conveniences uh and we have the knowledge. So, why is this not translating into results? And that's something I want to touch on today. And I have a viewpoint that I've learned my own self through my own journey, and I'm still learning and applying every day. Something I've really focused on the last couple of years with my clientele, and you know, really trying to change the way people think and really hammering down what we're gonna talk about today, because it can be the difference between success and failure and accomplishing your goals versus having to start again every year or every six months or every six weeks or every six days, okay? And that what we're gonna talk about is systems over feelings, okay? Systems over feelings or over emotions. So I'm gonna break this down what I mean by this, what that looks like, where I feel people are maybe getting it wrong or attacking from the wrong angle, maybe investing energy in the wrong places. And then I'm actually gonna give you a practical um tactic, if you will, strategy that you can start implementing today that can help you really overcome these moments of being emotionally driven, which typically leads to backsliding, which again I'm gonna break down for you. So a lot to talk about here, guys. I think this is gonna be very fruitful for you. If you don't mind, share this, comment, like, share it to somebody you care about, put it on your Instagram story, Facebook story, TikTok, all those things. It really helps us get sound information out there to more people, help more people, and just have a better reach and impact in this world. And that's exactly why I take the time to do this on a weekly basis. So that would be highly, highly appreciated. But let's get into it. So, systems overfillings. What do I mean by that? So, we know that most people, when they decide that they want to work out or they realize the pain that they're in, or the situation that they're in that is not good for them, that they, you know, realize that they need to make a change, they need to make an adjustment to their life, they need to improve their health, lose weight, get in shape, all those things. It typically starts with a high level of motivation. When you get to that point, that kind of breaking point, usually that's when motivation, the first wave of motivation tends to be the highest. Okay. It's like that I know I need to do something, so I'm gonna get after it. And we start making all these plans in our head of I'm gonna go to the gym this many times per week, I'm gonna get this many steps in, I'm gonna eat this type of way, I'm only gonna eat these certain things, I'm gonna clean up this, that, I'm gonna make sure I get this much sleep. And we start making all these plans because we all know how easy it is to make plans when we're not doing anything. Like it's super easy. I still write my own workouts that I've done for decades, and still to this day, when I write a new mesocycle or a new workout plan and I start actually executing it, I'm like, who in the world wrote this plan? Because this is psychotic. And then I'm like, oh yeah, dude, you did it because you were chilling in your office chair while you were writing it, thinking, oh, this sounds good, this will work, this will work. And then you actually do it and you're like, oh wow, I'm a little over my head. So kind of that same thing there. Like we have all these ambitions and all these tasks that we're gonna start doing, and all this stuff we're gonna quit doing, and like we just want to go 100% in because we're so tired of being at the bottom, like we we see no other way than to just jump in 10 toes deep and give it our all. And that sounds great and all, right? That sounds like a good thing, and it is because a lot of times that's the spark that gets people going, that's the spark that gets people active and starting to make changes and correct their lifestyle. So that's a good thing in that sense. But there's something very important here about a motivation that we need to understand, and that motivation is an emotion, okay? Motivation is an emotion, just like joy, just like happiness, just like sadness, just like anger, just like frustration, just like um any other emotion that you want to throw in there. Motivation is an emotion, okay? We have to understand that right away. And we know how emotions work. They come and they go, they rise and they fall. A lot of people think motivation is like this own its own thing out there, and we can just have it or we don't have it, and it just comes and goes independently of anything else. But when we understand that motivation is just a natural uh emotion that we have, we can kind of get a grasp on its use and its place in our journey a little bit better. And, you know, one thing our society has learned to operate on emotion and feelings rather than logic and reason, rather than what we know is best, we have been wired and programmed, conditioned, you know, um brainwashed, if you will, get into the conspiracy talk to run off of strictly emotions and feelings. So everything is about how we feel, right? Everything is about being in touch with your feelings, with your emotions. And I'm gonna go ahead and say this right now because obviously I'm just kind of talking to the air. I'm not following notes or anything like that. Um, I'm not dogging on emotions and I'm not dogging on feelings, okay? I'm gonna I'm gonna explain that here shortly, but let me just say that now before you're like, oh, here we go, Mr. Tough Guy, Mr. No Emotions. It's not what I'm talking about, guys. I'm just setting the groundwork, okay? Setting the foundation of this conversation. So, you know, like I said, we've been trained to operate off of emotions and feelings, and this drives most of our decision making in our lives now and in our culture is our emotions or our feelings. And there's a dichotomy here. There's like a there's a good thing about that, there's a positive, and then there's a negative about that. The positive is that our lives have become so comfortable and so predictable and so blessed that we can operate off of emotions and feelings. Because if you think about it, if you're in survival mode and every day you're trying to fight off predators or enemies and you're starving constantly and you're constantly looking for food and you're constantly looking for water, you don't have time for emotions. Like if you're hungry and you're truly hungry, not just like, oh, I haven't ate since lunch, but like you haven't eaten days and you're really feeling it, it doesn't matter how your emotions are going that day or what your feelings are that day, you're gonna get up and go find food, period. It becomes more of an instinct than it does an emotion. So the fact that we have it so good in our society, this allows us to operate in a place from emotions and feelings because there's not a lot of necessity of much other than going to work. And that's one area that most of us don't allow our emotions to run. It's like, yeah, if I'm happy, I'm gonna go to work. If I'm sad, I'm gonna go to work. If I'm angry, I'm gonna go to work. Like I'm gonna do this regardless because I have to. This is a necessity because this is how I feed my family, this is how I, you know, um create the life that I want. So we don't usually allow work to run off of our emotions and feelings, but a lot of other things we do in our lives, and that includes the big things and the small things, that includes, you know, politics, that includes religion, that includes health, our health status. A lot of times we're so emotionally driven now that reason and logic just have no place anymore. And the biggest place you can see this because of our political climate, especially here in the United States, is politics. Everybody, not everybody, most people that are plugged into one wing or the other are very emotionally driven. And if you can't accept that, then you need to take a look in the mirror and realize what side you stand on. It's emotionally driven. It's feeding off of what upsets you or what gets you riled up or what offends you or what makes you happy or what makes you glad or what makes you satisfied. You know, all these things, that's where most people's political choices come from, not from policy, not from what's logic and rational and reasonable. It's based on our emotions. This is what politicians run off of. They don't run off their policies. How many times do you actually know all of the politicians' policies and what they're going to be implementing and their political background and what they voted for and what they support when you pick a candidate? That's typically not how people pick candidates. They see a commercial, they hear something. Oh, this person backs this type of people, this person is compassionate about this situation, this person cares about this thing. And so that's how we pick who we support is based off of how we feel or how they make us feel, not based on their policies. And same thing with religion, we see this a lot. Not necessarily the idea of belief, but more of the construct of religion is based on emotionalism. It's like, oh, well, I need to feel something. I need to feel something. It's not about devotion, it's not about obedience, it's not about respect, it's not about honor, it's about feeling and emotion. So I'm constantly moving around, going from church to church or or congregation to congregation or system to system or religion to religion because I'm looking for that feeling like I belong and like it's real and like whatever. It's emotionally driven. And we see the same thing with health. We see this when it comes to demonizing certain foods, has to do a lot of times with emotions. We see excluding whole food groups a lot of time has to do emotionally driven. And even if it's like, hey, this food group is bad for you and it's causing these bad health effects, and I know how hard this is for you, and I know how terrible you feel, and you should be outraged that these food companies are X, Y, and Z, and these pharma companies are XY and Z and all this. It's it's emotionalism, guys. They're pulling on our emotions and they're making decisions for us rather than us logically looking at situations and saying, okay, what lines up with the bulk of the evidence? Because that's what's being studied. That's something we can almost hang our hat on. And then what is my own personal experience rather than being pulled and prodded and pushed and maneuvered based on what somebody's saying, because it is hitting us in our feels, right? And this is a big problem in our society. And the same thing goes into what I'm talking about as far as committing to a health plan, committing to changing your lifestyle, transforming your life and your health. A lot of times it's built on emotions and feelings. Okay. Look, I know what it feels like to be frustrated with your health. Trust me. To feel like you're doing everything right, but nothing seems to be sticking. That's why our coaching isn't about perfection. It's about building a system that works even when life gets messy. At Transform Health Initiative, we help busy adults rebuild their health, rewire their habits, and redefine their identity without shame, without overwhelm, and without starting over every Monday. If you're tired of trying to do it all on your own, we're here when you're ready. All right, back to the episode. Improving health and emotion-driven living will most certainly end in compromise and failure. Okay. Things like, well, I don't feel like working out today. I don't feel like eating better. I don't feel like eating, you know, vegetables and lean protein today. I don't feel like, you know, doing my cardio or getting steps in. I don't feel like going to bed at a good time and getting up at a good time. And a lot of times that's driving all of our decision making. Again, even when it comes to our health, you know, our our our health journey. And this usually ends in a negative situation. Rarely does being emotionally driven with your health journey end in a positive place. Now I'm going to talk about how we can use those, how we can use feelings and emotions to positively benefit our journey. But overall, what most people experience, it's a negative impact. Okay. So I do have a couple of points that I'm going to bring up that I have noted down. Um, and I will put references in the show notes like I always have from any of the studies I'm pulling from, kind of giving you a general consensus. I'm not going to break down specific studies anymore, things like that, because honestly, most people don't really care. They just want to know the answer. They don't want to know all the nerdy specifics that I'm into. So I'm just going to break things down based on the bulk of the evidence, and then I'll give you references where you can go and actually check out this information for yourself and see that I'm either telling the truth or I'm full of it. All right. So motivation and wanting it don't reliably turn into action. Okay. Just like I started with. We all start motivated. We all want it really, really bad, but that doesn't reliably turn into action. So studies consistently find that having good intentions and strong motivation explains only a small part of whether people actually follow through. Okay. Most people generally want to change, but intention alone doesn't predict consistent behavior. Okay. Just wanting it bad enough and being sick and tired of being sick and tired is typically not enough to actually produce consistent behavior change. Again, it may give it may give you a day of change, an hour, a week, a month, maybe even a year, but it typically does not end in consistent behavior change when it's based off of just good intentions or having strong motivation. So, like I said, you know, people they may want it badly, they may feel fed up, they may feel motivated, but those feelings tend to fade. And without a plan or a system, again, system over feelings, follow-through drops even when desire is high. Okay. Even when we truly want it, that doesn't mean we're actually going to make a difference. Okay. So feelings and emotions are not a bad thing, guys. Like I said before, I'm not demonizing feelings. We all have feelings, we all have emotions, all right? We just need to know their place because they all have a place, okay? And if we're going to allow our feelings to impact our health journey, we need to make sure that those feelings are actually helping us and not harming us. So some of the biggest feelings I feel that we can attach to our health journey is when it comes to the people that we care about the most, okay? The people in our lives that we want to be here for. So the feeling of fear, not because you're not making a change, because that's not going to be strong enough to keep you in the game, but the fear of not being here for those that need you because you weren't responsible with your health. Okay. You died early, or you had to be taken care of, taken care of for the last 30 years of your life because you didn't do what needed to be done now. And now you become a burden to the people that you love and care about and also to society as a whole. Okay. That sounds that sounds kind of mean and cruel, maybe and blunt, but that's just is what it is, guys. We need to understand this. And that is a feeling that's that's a positive thing because if we truly feel fear that we're not going to be here for our children and our grandkids and our spouses, that's enough power to keep us in the game when we don't feel like showing up, when we don't feel like eating better. Because that feeling of fear of letting people down or not being here for the people we care about is a much stronger feeling than being tired because you're sore from working out yesterday and therefore you don't want to work out today, or because you stayed up a little bit too late. Now you don't want to get up and handle business. Okay. That fear of not being here for your loved ones is a much more powerful driver than just the fear of I'm not going to feel comfortable in my bathing suit this summer, right? So that's that's a way that you can take an emotion, a feeling, and use it to positively impact your journey. Um let me try to think of like some other or at least another example of feelings that will. Be beneficial for you. How about the feeling, the anger and frustration of letting yourself down? So not the frustration of failing and not achieving your goals in the past, but the frustration of letting yourself down. Because if you're just running off of the not, I think I said fear, sorry, the anger and frustration of letting yourself down. Because if you're just running off of the frustration and anger of failing at a diet plan, then you may turn around and blame that diet rather than taking accountability. So you may say, well, low carb didn't work for me, or calorie counting, macro tracking didn't work for me, or time-restricted eating didn't work for me. So as if those things are the problem and not the person who was implementing them incorrectly. So we don't have to take accountability when we can blame other things, right? Or the feeling of I'm tired of eating healthy and making good decisions and I just want to go off the rails. I just want to take out the demo the decision fatigue and just give myself a mental break and not have to think about it. That is way more powerful than the regret of not sticking to your diet. But if you start developing the anger and frustration towards letting yourself down, now that becomes even more personal. Now, in those weak moments when you do feel like giving in because you're just tired of tracking everything, or you're tired of making better choices, or you're tired of going to the gym, you can now reflect on that emotion of anger and frustration every time that you let yourself down. And I promise you, that is a powerful emotion that can keep you locked in and focused whenever things are hard or when you just don't feel like it. Okay. There's a couple of examples of how we can actually utilize our emotions for a benefit. But even with that being said, guys, even though those are powerful drivers that can keep you locked in, just that alone, you're still going to end up in failure almost every time. Okay. We need something a little bit stronger and a little bit more structured, right? So this is where having a plan or a system dramatically improves consistency. Okay. This is the crux of what we're getting to here. So people who use structured plans, things like clear routines and schedules and different strategies like that, control strategies, are significantly more consistent with exercise and health behaviors than those who rely on willpower or mood. Okay. So when people remove decision fatigue and emotion from the moment and they instead follow a system or a plan or a program, they show up even more, even more often, even on low motivation days, okay? Even when their mood is off, even when their willpower is low. All right. You can stick to that system and that program and that structure that doesn't change because the plan is the plan. Like you may make adjustments to it based on the results that you're achieving currently, but the plan is the plan. Regardless if you're mad, sad, happy, angry, motivated, inspired, depressed, whatever it is, the plan doesn't change. It's kind of like what I tell people one of the things I love about training and I love about the gym so much is it's so consistent. 100 pounds today is 100 pounds tomorrow. It doesn't matter if I'm angry, upset, tired, whatever it may be. The gym is always consistent. I'm the one that's inconsistent, not the gym. And so, same thing with systems. Systems are consistent. If it's built well and designed well, it's consistent and it will work. And the plan isn't the problem. It's the one implementing the plan who isn't succeeding. That's where the problem lies. Okay. Again, it comes down to taking accountability. All right. When we take accountability, we can actually make a change. Until we take accountability, it's always everything else's fault around us, and we're never the problem. But an old wise proverb that I heard as a child that I've never forgotten is anytime you point a finger at somebody else, you got three fingers pointing back at yourself. Okay. Again, accountability. Or as uh um Jocko Willings says, if you know who Jocko is, wants a motivation, there you go. As he says, extreme ownership, taking full accountability and ownership of your situation, no matter what it may be, and then you are empowered to actually do something about it. But your feelings and emotions will keep you locked in place because you never get to the point of realizing, oh, wait, maybe I'm the actual problem. Maybe I need to figure out what I need to do correctly and what I haven't been doing correctly, and then you win. So that is very important to, for consistency's sake, to have plans and systems in place, okay? So we know that structured programs tend to outperform the do-it-yourself approaches, especially in the long term, okay? And we and there's plenty of randomized controlled trials that consistently show that people who fall people that follow structured programs like clear guidelines and accountability and routines and check-ins and all those things, they lose more weight and maintain results better than those given general advice and left to self-direct or a YouTube video or an online programming that they just bought and then they're supposed to follow it for X amount of weeks. Okay. Typically, the structured programs yield way better benefits. I've not only seen this in research, but as a practitioner of health and fitness, I've seen this dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of times with clientele since I got into personal training in 2012. Okay. Yes, I'm dating myself. Boy, it's been a minute, but I've seen it. And I've seen it in my own journey multiple times. Okay. So it's just, it is what it is. And people don't typically fail because they're lazy. Matter of fact, some of the most driven, hardworking, you know, striving people I know could improve their health. Okay. So it's typically not because people are lazy. Most people that do fail at their goals, they fail because they're trying to rely on their feelings instead of structure. Okay. Again, that is like shooting yourself in the foot and getting mad at the gun. Systems outperform motivation over months and years. All right. Systems keep you moving forward regardless of how you feel, regardless of what you think. And one thing I can say on this is how you may not think how this could be a problem, is even when you have the feeling of success and you're like, oh man, like my goal, yeah, was to lose 50 pounds, but dude, I've lost 25 pounds. I'm halfway there. I'm crushing it. Yeah, I can go out for pizza this weekend. Yeah, I can have a few extra beers. Yeah, I can, you know, slack off here. Hey, it's all right if I skip a workout. Look how great I've done. It's all right if I back off my intensity for no good reason. Like, hey, I'm crushing it. That a lot of times leads to failure as well. Okay. So, you know, even if you're crushing it and having success, but you're not, you don't have a system, you don't have structure, you don't have guardrails, you're just kind of like a ticking time bomb at the end of the day. Okay. So one thing that I want to bring up, one strategy that you can start implementing today that will literally change your life and completely transform your health journey is what is called the if-then strategy. Okay. If then or strategies, okay. If-then strategies. So basically, an if-then strategy is a pre-decided plan that links a specific situation, the if, to a specific action, the then. Okay. So instead of deciding in the moment how you'll act based on feelings, you decide ahead of time what you'll do when a predictable situation shows up. Okay. The if-then strategies. So there's several ways how this works. Before I really break down and give you guys some examples of what this looks like, easy ways that you can implement today. Again, like I said, it the if-then strategies tend to help remove emotion and decision making from the moment. Okay. It takes that pressure off in any given moment because most people don't crumble, you know, from being on track and everything going right. It's in those moments of compromise, those moments of temptation, those moments of life life at you, as I like to call it. Life likes to life. And in those moments, that's where most people end up throwing in the towel. Even if they don't realize they're throwing in the towel, that's when the throw actually is initiated. So uh if then strategies, you know, they tend to turn behavior into an automatic response. And this is a big one, guys. You take your emotions out of it because you have a predetermined plan of action when a certain situation arises, this is why planning ahead and thinking ahead is so important. Okay. If you don't, if you if you fail to plan, you plan to fail, as they say. But it takes out the emotions. And now instead of it being a behavior, now it's an automatic response. It's like you, it's like you're kind of like become a robot. You're programmed. So no longer do you have to stop and think how you feel in the moment. Well, that five o'clock alarm's going off. I need to get to the gym before work. Instead of laying there saying, Oh, I don't feel like it. I'm tired, your automatic response is if I'm tired, then I get up. Well, I just gave you an example, but broad example. Uh, it it becomes an automatic response. All right. So also it reduces reliance on motivation and willpower. We know these things are finite. We know that they run out. We know we only have so much motivation. It's an emotion, just like you're not happy all the time, you're not angry all the time, it spikes and then it drops off. Same thing with willpower. Willpower is not what I would consider as an emotion necessarily, but it's tied to our emotions. It's tied to our ability to do things that we may not want to do in the moment for a bigger purpose than what we're feeling in the given moment. Okay. And it runs out fairly quickly. And the brain doesn't have to negotiate when the situation occurs. Again, this is a safeguard. All right. Think of guardrails on a on a mountain road that's swiveling around the mountain. Well, if there's no guardrails, like your risk of error or incident goes up much higher. But if those guardrails are there, there's at least something there to get in the way of you in demise, right? So that's what we want to see is when these situations occur, we don't have to negotiate. There's not an inner an inner discussion that has to happen because that's when people talk themselves out of doing what they need to do, when they get in their head. And we can jump ahead of that process with our if-then strategy. So we don't have to talk ourselves into doing something or talk ourselves out of doing something that we shouldn't be doing. And we just have that automatic response of execute, execute, execute. And that's exactly what we want. So let me give you guys some like, you know, more thorough, uh detailed examples, I guess. Maybe things that you can actually apply if you don't think of your own. You should think of your own because your life is different. I'm not living your life, I'm not in your shoes or in your situation. So you should have your own, but you can use these as a start, and then this will get the ball rolling. All right. So, for example, if I get home from work tired, then I still do my 20-minute walk. Okay. So then it's non-negotiable. Tired, not tired, energetic, wiped out. I still get it done. Okay. If I miss a workout, then I do a short session the next day instead of quitting. So I don't just take it as, oh, well, it's all over with. I couldn't get there on Monday. You know, Monday you have to work out. You can't skip it, never skip a Monday. Well, guess what? There's still Tuesday. So you still have a choice there. It's not a wash. You don't lose. Um if it's the weekend, then I keep my normal breakfast and protein intake the same. Okay. So just because it's the weekend doesn't mean that we get off course and just are allowing our feelings to make all of our decisions. We have a game plan. If it's the weekend, then I at least do the, you know, grab the low-hanging fruit that I keep me on track. It doesn't mean I'm perfect the whole time, but I still keep some standards in place. All right. If I feel unmotivated, then I commit to the first 10 minutes. This one is big. So I can't tell you, you know, again, I work with clients, amazing, beautiful, wonderful people, but we're all human. And I have to I've had these battles with my own self. I can't tell you how many times I've had a client come in, and immediately I can read it in their face. They have zero interest in training today. Like they are over it, they're going through life is lifing, and they're tired, they're beat up, whatever the situation is. And you can just tell immediately by their facial expression, by their energy, the way they walk, the way they're talking, they just are not in it at all. They're like, I would rather be a trillion other places than here about to experience the discomfort of training by choice. But once they get going, once they get the blood flowing, once they get moving, once we get hype, once that music starts settling into their veins, and you know, just all the things, the environment, all of that start to click, then almost always, I can't say always, but nearly always, their mood is completely different when they leave the gym versus when they got there. After the first 10, 15, 20 minutes of the workout, their mood is completely different. They may have come in in tears because of their situation. And I'm not being insensitive to that because life is real, life is hard, life sometimes sucks. And people come in broken and like, you know, tears in their eyes as they're talking about what their week has been like, but then they're laughing and smiling, even if it's at their own discomfort, but they're laughing and smiling 10 minutes into the workout. It's a beautiful thing. And so I've seen this so many times, and including myself. Typically now I've just kind of built in this auto response that I don't even think about working out anymore. It's like if I've got a workout scheduled, uh, it doesn't matter how I feel, it doesn't matter what I'm going through, I'm just gonna knock it out because that's just what I do and I've done for years and years and years. But I remember plenty of times where I had zero desire to be at the gym. It still occasionally happens. I'm human, I'm not gonna lie. Like I love lifting and training, but there's days where I'm just like, man, I am exhausted. I'm whatever, I'm whatever. And again, I have to check that immediately. But I know for a fact, because I've trained so many thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of times over the years, that I know that once I get going, likely how I'm feeling at the moment is going to fade. Okay, it's going to disappear. I'm gonna get locked in, I'm gonna get in the zone. And then even if I can't perform how I did the week before or beat the week before or whatever, I'm just going through the motions. I know I'm gonna feel way better than if I would have not showed up and got to work in. So I tell myself, and I started this way, just get in and get started. Get in and get started, get in and get it warmed up, especially after my neck surgeries and you know, just all the pain and inflammation and nerve damage and all that I've had to experience makes moving very painful. Not as much as it used to, but used to be really bad. Like it was, I'm gonna go work out, then I have to go lay down for the rest of the day because my neck is I can barely move. Um sounds crazy. I wasn't doing crazy stuff, just that's just the way the pain of this injury was and is. But I knew that once I got going, I wouldn't regret it. Even if I'm just going through the motions and halfway doing the workout, I know it's gonna be a thousand times better than if I just did nothing. And that is powerful there. So even if you feel unmotivated and it's the last thing you want to do is exercise, just commit to the first 10 minutes. All right, the rest will take care of itself. So there's some examples of you know, the different ways that you can implement the if-then strategies to really realign your lifestyle and how you live and how you see things. And then eventually you practice this so much and you do it so much that now it becomes, again, an automatic response. It becomes second nature. No longer do you even have to go through the if-then situation in your head. You just reach a situation and immediately your automatic response is this, and that is where it becomes powerful. That's where things actually start becoming easier, and that's where people really get hooked and addicted to this lifestyle when they get to that point. The problem is, is most people never actually get to that point to experience what that's like to keep them hooked for the long term. Okay. So, one reason why the this totally just whoops motivation when it comes to keeping people, getting people started and keeping people hooked in is motivation will ask things like, Do I feel like it today? Well, how does my back feel today? Uh, how much sleep did I get? How tired am I? What else do I have going on? What else could I be doing? But an if-then plan says, I already decided what I do in this situation. I already know what I'm gonna do if I wake up extra tired. I already know what I'm gonna do if, you know, my schedule gets thrown off. I already know what I'm gonna do if this situation, this situation, you know. Another example when it comes to eating, because this is where probably if-then situations become way more beneficial than with exercise, is eating because we eat a lot more than we exercise per day and food is all around us all the time. Um, some if-then situations are like if I forget my lunch, then I'm only gonna go to Subway or a sandwich shop or a salad bar to get my meals. So that way, when you're stressed out and you're tired, and that what led you to forgetting your lunch for the day, and now you're hungry, and now you're hangry on top of tired and frustrated. Most people are gonna go straight to the burger joint or whatever closest and just grab something. It's like, hey, it is what it is. I wasn't prepared. All right, moving on. But instead, if you already have a game plan planned ahead of time, now, regardless if you're tired, frustrated, and whatever other reason you forgot your lunch, you know automatically it's not even a decision. I'm not going to McDonald's. Or if I go to McDonald's, I'm only getting a salad. Like you don't even have to think about it. You just go through the motions at that point. People act like going through the motions is a bad thing, but going through the motions can be very beneficial if it's done correctly. All right. So that shift is what creates consistency, longevity, and progress over time. Okay. That's where we want to be. And that shift of I already know what I'm going to do in this situation. Um, you know, work ran late, so I don't have time to cook dinner. Well, the if then says if I work late and shift runs over because this isn't something new, I know this happens. Then I make sure I have frozen healthy meals in the freezer, rather, if it's store-bought or I pre-made that I can pull out in microwave for the family or for myself, instead of again, just stopping and grabbing a burger or a pizza or eating a bag of chips for dinner, right? So we have this plan ahead of time. Okay. So an if-in strategy is when you decide ahead of time how you'll act in predictable situations so your behavior doesn't depend on motivation, aka feelings in any given moment. Okay. So this, guys, I'm telling you, if you implement the if-then strategy, it will completely change your life. I promise you, especially if you're someone that's struggled with your eating and your routine and staying disciplined and all those things. If you keep allowing your emotions to make your decisions, you will continue to stay in the same place because your emotions and your feelings, for the most part, are designed to keep you in a place of homeostasis. It sorry, stuttering. It aligns with your physiology. Like your physiology is how can I stay in homeostasis? I drive you to get water, I drive you to eat calories, I drive you to rest, I drive you to do these different things. Same thing with our emotions. They're self-preservating, self-preservation tools that we've been endowed with, thankfully. Uh, but again, we can be uh we can have our feelings hijacked, first of all, and they can actually work against us if we are not intentional with our planning and our programming in our systems, okay? So systems over feelings, guys. We cannot run off of feelings anymore expecting to have a different result. It will always lead to you being comfortable, and being comfortable is stagnant, okay? I'm not saying you shouldn't rest and have a comfortable bed to sleep in or anything weird like that, but being comfortable for the most part in our society, in our existence as human beings, typically is going to lead to regression rather than progression. Progression takes effort, it takes work, it takes discipline, it takes doing difficult things consistently over time to progress. Okay. To regress, you can literally just do nothing, right? It's the easiest path. Okay. It's like, you know, the whole example of. The yard. If you want a terrible yard, just do nothing. You don't have to do something to have a terrible yard. It'll become terrible on its own if you do nothing. It actually takes work and effort to have a nice yard, right? And then you get to sit back and look at it like, man, look at this beautiful. And this is the dad of me talking. Look at this beautiful yard I have. Look how amazing. And then look at those lines that I cut. Look at those edges, just so sharp and neat and clean. Oh, it's a great feeling. You don't regret it when it's done because you see it and it looks amazing. But if you allow your feelings to say, boy, it sure is hot and I'm tired and I don't want to be hot. Uh, it's it's dirty out here, and I don't feel like getting all sweaty or man, I just, and we start relying on our emotions, you may not take care of the yard, and then you do nothing, and then it gets worse. But if you override those feelings with a system of, hey, this certain day of the week, this is my mowing day. This gap of my day, this is this, this is devoted to me taking care of my yard. And regardless of how I feel, regardless if I'm tired, regardless of what the kids are doing, this is my time, this is when I'm gonna get things done. You have an if-then. And if I can't do it on Sunday when I normally do my yard, then I'll break it up and do half of it Monday and half of it Tuesday. That way it's not interfering with work or anything else. Boom. There's your if-then theory or your if-then strategy to save you from having a terrible yard this summer. You're welcome. So, anywho, guys, that's all I have for you today. I hope this is beneficial for you. I hope you receive something out of this. I hope it produces fruit in your life and understanding that systems will trump feelings every single time. And if you build your journey off of your feelings, it will likely end not how you want it to. But if you have strong systems in play and you add in consistency, discipline, structure, you know, um, accountability, things like this, we can't neglect those and act like systems are going to solve all your problems. We have to align ourselves with that system. But once you do, your chances of success skyrocket compared to just how I'm feeling today. Because I promise you, no matter how bad you feel about yourself and your health, and how terrible you feel, and how low energy you feel, and how many aches and pains you feel, and how how depressed you feel when you see yourself in the mirror, and how angry you feel when those pants won't button up anymore, all that fades when that delicious food is in front of you. All that fades when you're tired and don't want to move. All that fades when you're sore from yesterday's workout. All of that fades in a moment, but systems don't. Systems say, regardless of how I feel, this is the work that needs to be done. Now it's time to execute. And that's how you went on purpose, folks. So I love you guys. If you guys have any questions or anything, feel free to reach out. If you guys are interested in coaching, feel free to reach out. We do in-person, we do online coaching, all the above. We'd love to work with you, love to chat, see where you're at, see where you're wanting to go, see if our team can help you be successful and set you up for a place of transformation for good. We're not in a transformation, a 90-day transformation that you do three times a year. Okay. We're in full transformation mode. Think of metamorphosis rather than just going from this to that, but we become a whole new creation. Okay. And it starts with how we treat ourselves. All right. I love you guys. Do something good for yourself, something good for your health, something good for those you care about. And whatever you do, make sure you win on purpose and live transformed. Peace out.