Podcast Transcription: Shoulder Health for High Performers: How to Avoid Pain and Stay in the Game

Ted Ryce: The biggest lie in transforming your health and your body is this. You just need more discipline. You just need to try harder. And in today's episode, I want to talk about why that's not the case. In fact, we're going to get into a proven formula for sustainably changing Your behavior. So if you're someone who's struggling with consistency with eating well, or with exercise, and you really want to make a change in your body and your health this year, you're going to want to listen to this episode. 

What is up my friend, welcome back to the show. My name is Ted rice. I'm a health expert and coach to executives and entrepreneurs. And I've been doing this for 25 years. And so when it comes to improving your health. So many people, they set an ambitious goal and we're in the beginning of 2025 right now. 

So maybe you decided, Hey, you know what? I'm going to work out seven days a week, or I'm going to cut out all sugar, or I'm going to do a dry January. Look, big plans like those feel inspiring and they sound good. And if you share them with people, people be like, Oh, that sounds so awesome. But they often fail. 

Because they rely on motivation and motivation isn't reliable. Life gets busy. Your energy starts to change. Your focus gets distracted from your health at least. And the goals become unsustainable and the secret to transforming your body. Everyone, let me, I want you to pay attention. Listen to what I'm about to say, because this is What other coaches won't tell you what other influences won't tell you. 

Maybe coaches will actually, but all the arguing about metabolism and hormones and the seed oils and the evil foods and all that stuff, that isn't the issue. The issue is people can't change their behavior and sustain it. And as a coach, I'm always looking for that because I work with people. Those clients that you see that you've heard on the show, those are real people who've worked with me, who are intelligent, highly intelligent, highly successful compared to the average American, and they're struggling to make change and the success of look, we're doing well as a business. 

And the reason is because I create breakthroughs with people. And certainly some of that's nutrition, some of that's exercise, but a lot of it is I get people to create habits that stick. And in today's episode, I want to share one of the people who've inspired me in this area. So have you ever heard of someone named BJ Fogg? 

He's got a method called tiny habits, and it's a science backed framework for creating sticky habits. In other words, habits that you can be consistent with. And the key is you start small, you succeed consistently, and you watch those small wins grow into life changing routines. And so I want to talk about it because I want you to stop fudging around with the diets, the workouts, and looking for the secret thing and spending your money on supplements that just end up sitting in your pantry, collecting dust, because you can't even be consistent with taking the supplements that you spent hundreds of dollars on. 

So let's get into his, um, universal formula for behavior change. And the formula is B equals M A P. So B equals M A P B equals, uh, B stands for behavior. M stands for motivation. A stands for ability and P stands for prompt. And I really love this. So please pay attention because Listening to this. Well, you know, it's up to you. 

Pay attention. If you want to make change, if you haven't been able to sustain change, this is what you need to know. So this equation explains why so many people fail to be consistent. And BJ argues that to perform a behavior, three things need to align your motivation, which is What he defines is your desire or energy to act. 

There's various definitions of motivation, but this is a good one. So motivation, your desire, energy to act, ability. How easy is it for you to perform the behavior and prompt a trigger reminding you to act? For example, Let's say you want to go to the gym three times a week, but as soon as you get into the, let's say you're motivated, let's say you've scheduled. 

So you've prompted yourself. You S you put your workouts on the calendar for the week. But then when you get to the gym, you start looking at the equipment, you're like, wow, this equipment looks a little complicated and you're not sure what to do. And so you go through the motions. Maybe you feel a little bit good about your workout because you've done something. 

Maybe you feel like, no, I, I, you know, did something, but I'm not really sure if I did the right thing. You're going to have problems being consistent with it. And coaching really steps in, in a big way with ability and also the prompt, one of the other things. So let's say that you know how to work out. 

You've been doing it for years. Your motivation is high, but the prompting, in other words, I had one client, every chance he would get, he would reschedule his workout to go do a business meeting because he wasn't. Excited about working out compared to the level of excitement. He really liked to collaborate and connect with fellow entrepreneurs. 

And even if nothing came out of it in terms of business deals or anything like that, he would put working out aside to go do that. And one of the things that we do is we get our clients. Every single week we prompt them to act. It's a reminder. It's bringing their focus back to what they say they want to achieve, what they have the motivation to achieve. 

So again, uh, those are a few examples, but behavior equals motivation, ability, and prompt. Now the motivation thing, you might know how to do things. You may remind yourself to do it, but you may have no motivation. Now that's a motivation waxes and wanes, but it's probably high for you right now, or at least higher than other times of the year. 

It's still, it's still early in 2025. Hopefully you haven't lost all your motivation yet, but motivation comes in waves. Motivation is dependent on so many things. I've talked about temporal landmarks. Those are. Like a milestone birthday. For example, I've got a client who turned 40. He was so motivated. 

He's getting great results in the program. And certainly because we've helped him with his ability. We prompted him to act. We've coached him on what to do. Yes. My strategies are next level, but if someone doesn't bring a certain level of motivation to coaching, it's not going to happen. And when people bring a high level of motivation, whoa, watch out. 

Those become some of our best transformations. So again, behavior equals motivation, flexibility, and prompt. And another thing he says, in fact, this is his whole, let's say, theme is tiny habits. So make your habit tiny. And we'll talk about what tiny is because I think you can go too tiny. Again, this is my opinion, but he argues that big health goals often fail because they demand too much motivation. 

For example, I'm going to work out seven days a week. It's like, okay, cool. I actually work out seven days a week. Almost actually. I mean, I probably don't even work out seven days a week. It depends. Not not consistently. Let's say not consistently. I work out some days a week. I do something every day for sure. 

But do I go and work out and knock out a solid cardio jujitsu or weight session? Every single day. No. So motivation is like a gas tank. It fluctuates daily. If you get a good night of sleep, you're all revved up in the morning. Like I was today. I went and hit my workout. Just did cardio today. But later on, I'm going to have less motivation as the day goes on. 

As I record. I've got a bunch of episodes to record today. So instead of relying on motivation, shrink the behavior until it's so easy. You can't fail. So in exercise, I want to give you an exact an example of what I've done with clients. I'm not done. I'm doing and have done with clients. I'll have clients. 

I've got two clients right now. They're just very inconsistent with workouts and one client in particular. I really like the guy a lot. He's amazing, amazing guy. He was just struggling to hit his workouts because it required too much motivation. So I said, you know what, Carlos, forget about the workouts. 

Let's do one set of an exercise. I just want you to do one set of an exercise every single day. And that's what we started with. And it was so easy for him to do it that we started adding exercises. It got to the point where he was asking me for more. He told me, I feel like I can do a lot more here. I want you to give me more. 

And that's what I always look for. If I give, A workout to someone and it's too much and they're inconsistent. I know that I failed or, you know, I didn't fail because sometimes people's schedules change, but I gave them too much and it needs to be adjusted. So as we've started to add these single sets in, and then we added more exercise, all of a sudden he's doing daily exercise and it's taken him 10 minutes a day. 

Oh, but that's not optimal. I want to go to the gym and do the best workout ever. It's one hour long. Look, if you're not being consistent, you have to always optimize for consistency. Most of my clients actually do follow. Uh, I start my clients off with 30 minute workouts, four times a week. We do an upper lower split. 

And yes, I have clients who do a lot more than that. They'll spend over an hour in the gym. And then I have clients that we can't even do a workout. We have to do these exercise habits is what I call them. And again, people hate this because they think it's too low. They think it, the bar's too low. They think it's not good enough, but this isn't about aiming low. 

It's about building consistency so that you can build momentum, tiny wins. Create consistency and consistency builds habits over time. These small actions compound into big results. I can't tell you the change that I've seen in my clients and in just a few weeks of just doing a few sets of exercise every day. 

And what I often like to tell clients is that the difference between you gaining muscle or maintaining muscle and losing muscle is just one set. And if you go two weeks without exercising, without lifting weights, you're starting to lose strength. You're starting to lose muscle. And the older you are, the faster you're going to lose it. 

The more that age and all the things that come with it are working against you. So making your habits tiny to start with, it just works so well. And again, I would say one set of exercise. Some people like James clear, to be honest, I'm not a fan of his book. I know that's heresy to say not a fan. I liked actually his narration and. 

But I was just listening to it. I'm like, man, I don't know. This guy doesn't seem like he's worked with anyone. And, you know, you can send me hate mail if you want about how amazing atomic habits is and how it changed your life. Fantastic. I didn't find it so great because Like some of the examples, it's like, just do one pushup. 

I feel that you have to make the habit powerful enough so that it, so that people can feel the reward of doing it, or more specifically, or more accurately, the return on investment of doing it. If I do one pushup, I'm not going to feel very different. But if I do one set, oh, and I take that set close to failure, I'm going to feel like I've done something and everyone has a time to do that. 

So again, this is what I like to do and I feel and it works amazingly well. It works amazingly well. Now, the next thing he talks about is the power of action prompts. So have you ever set a reminder for yourself like, oh, drink water or make sure you exercise this week and it didn't work? It's because they rely on external triggers. 

So maybe you set a notification or alarm, or maybe it's like an internal trigger. Like you guilt talk yourself. You, you act like your own, you act like David Goggins. So here's the thing. It's easy to ignore them. So what BJ fog recommends is using action prompts. And action prompt ties your new habit to something you already do. 

And the idea is that you create a seamless transition between that thing you already have a habit with. And the new behavior that you're, that you want to be a habit. For example, after brushing my teeth, I'll do one set of pushups. After starting my morning coffee, I'll do a set of squats. After sitting at my desk for an hour, I'll do a set of, I'll do one. 

Set of a plank, hold a plank, hold. So these prompts leverage existing routines to trigger your new habit, make it, making it easier to integrate into your daily life. And that's really key. Really, really key. Very few people do well with. Just having a very chaotic schedule and just putting things in whenever you can, because as soon as you get too busy, you just won't remember to do it. 

And I'm, I'm guilty of this too. Another thing BJ Fogg talks about that I really like is celebrate small wins. So this is so important. It sounds like it's garbage, new age nonsense, right? Celebrate the small wins, but it's not. It's not celebrate your successes, no matter how small, because you want to reward yourself for doing the thing. 

Look, I'll tell it to you like this. So many people that I work with feel like, Oh, well, I'm not happy right now. But when I changed my body, then I'll be happy when I lose fat, then I'll be happy. And the reason I'm, I'm happy is because I'm 20 pounds overweight. And you lose the 20 pounds and then you're like, yeah, I feel better. 

But what is the next thing that I'm supposed to do? Right? You don't stop to reward yourself for the accomplishment. And what ends up happening is that you don't feel good about accomplishing things, because if you're. In a, in that achievers mindset, where you're always looking for the next thing, looking for the next thing, looking for the next thing to achieve. 

And you never take the time to reward yourself. You don't enjoy it when you hit the goal. And also it becomes harder to keep up because losing weight. I tell my clients this all the time, losing weight. Is not the real challenge. Okay, great. You lost weight. Pat yourself on the back. Now, keep it off for the rest of your life. 

That's the challenge. So when you feel good about completing a tiny habit, your brain associates that action with a positive outcome, increasing your desire to repeat it. Now, BJ Fogg calls this feeling shine a moment of pride. In yourself, that reinforces the habit. For example, I've got a client. He bought a drone. 

You know, we figured out like, hey, what's something that if you hit these habits consistently enough, what is something that you can reward yourself with? And also I let my clients like decide. I talked to them like, Hey, what would make you feel good? What would be a good reward for for doing this for accomplishing this? 

So whether it's something like doing 2 or 3 weeks of consistent daily exercises. Like I talked about earlier so that you can reward yourself with a drone or whether it's something else, it's so important because these moments create success momentum. Okay. Another way to say that is it creates an upward spiral. 

It's like, yeah, I did the thing. Yeah. Here's the reward for it. Oh, awesome. Now I'm going to do the thing again. Oh, reward yourself for it. Right. And it gives you a psychological boost that makes you want to keep going. And I would argue that and this is what comes from BJ fog as well. The frequency of the small wins and the rewards is what leads to lasting change. 

And I've I've noticed that. And if you do this, if you do this the right way. Big changes can happen. You can start to see a major change in your body just from doing a set. I start my clients off with, if they're really in a situation where it's like they're not looking forward to exercise or they just don't like to do it, or they feel like they don't have time. 

I start them with just one set of pushups or squats. I let them choose. And then we start to add, then all of a sudden it's squats and pushups. Where it's squats, pushups, planks, or squats, pushups, planks, jumping jacks, and then all of a sudden, after a few weeks of that, they're starting to see a big difference in their body because it went from doing nothing to doing something, and that is where you get the most bang for your buck anyway, and by starting small, even though your high achiever mind really might struggle with that idea, you end up creating a foundation for bigger behaviors. 

Eventually you'll, you will be in the gym, but you need to create some success momentum first. And over time, those habits, they will naturally grow after you lock in the consistency. Another thing that I want to say is flexibility is the key to sustainability. So on days when you're tired, busy, or unmotivated, you can always scale back to the tiniest version of your habit. 

For example, instead of Skipping all of your exercises, because we, let's say we built, built you up to five or seven exercises, just do one or two and that flexibility, it ensures you maintain momentum, even on tough days. Keeping the habit alive. This is so key. And then what I would say is that eventually what will happen is it you, it'll start to feel weird when you skip your habits. 

For example, how do you feel when you skip brushing your teeth? Yeah, of course. There's other things, right? If you're talking with people, you're like, oh man, my breath must be so bad. You feel terrible. There's that social pressure. Whereas working out, we're, uh, pretty comfortable as a society, seeing people who don't work out. 

So there's not much social, people say there's social pressure for exercise, but, you know, I think there's a lot of nuance there if there was, then people would do it, do it more. But like. I don't want to go off on a tangent, but I remember when I went to Jamaica and then I saw a lot of people, they were missing teeth, like front teeth. 

And that's something that our society, we say like, looks don't matter. It's what's inside counts, but you won't see people who, you know, maybe if they're living on the street or in a really bad way, okay, they're missing some teeth, but in our society, it's so unacceptable. To be walking around with a missing tooth, like people will do whatever right to, to, uh, to, to take care of it. 

So anyway, I just thought I always think about that because there's this narrative. Anyway, I'm getting off on a tangent a little bit, but keep that in mind. Okay. Keep that in mind. Eventually you will feel like weird or like something's missing when you skip your habits. That's the point that you want to get to. 

And that could take a long time. It could take years to be honest. So keep that in mind. Eventually it'll happen, but you don't get to decide when it happens, kind of internally, you do get to decide, right? Your body gets to decide, but that's what you're aiming for. So look to wrap things up. Tiny habits aren't flashy, but they're super effective. 

And again, the secret to long term health isn't, isn't what we talk about on, um, or what we hear on social media. It's about being consistent. So take a moment now to think of one thing that you could start to do, right? Are you struggling with workouts? Can you start to do a pushup, a set of pushups close to failure every single day, just to start off, because remember small changes are sustainable changes. 

Yes, starting tiny. It doesn't sound sexy, but as you start being more consistent, you'll start to see changes, celebrate those wins and watch as your entire body and health start to transform. So that is it for this episode. I hope you got a lot out of it and hopefully a shift in your perspective about how you've been going about trying to get in shape, because if you can't be consistent, you need to change what you're doing. 

Your, your approach is not working for you, period. That is it. Hope you enjoyed this and I'll speak to you next time.