The Mindset Mentor - Are You Ambitious but Lazy?

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

Are you ready to stop letting laziness, procrastination, and distractions keep you from creating the life you want? In this episode, I break down five powerful steps to overcome laziness, from being honest with yourself and breaking your goals into bite-sized actions to finding your why, eliminating distractions, and using the Pomodoro technique to build focus and productivity. If you want to stop waiting for motivation and start taking consistent action, these strategies will help you turn on your focus, get more done, and finish 2026 strong. Freedom Live is a 3-day live experience in Austin designed to help you break through what’s keeping you from your next level. Get $100 off your ticket: https://robdial.short.gy/freedomlive The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life. Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not, you done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you want to finish this year strong, join my free three-day challenge October 27th to 29th live with me. Here's why, because most people check out around this time of year, they look at their goals that they've set, they see how far away they are, and then tell themselves that they'll start over again in January. Don't do that. There's still enough time for you to make real progress this year, you just have to use it. Over these three days, I'm going to teach you how to deprogram and reprogram your identity, how to start taking real action, and also how to start changing your

brain to the new you. You're going to get a 60-day roadmap for the rest of 2026 and a workbook so you know exactly what you need to focus on next. To join for free, go to finish 2026 strong dot com. Once again, finish 2026 strong.com, and I'll see you live on the challenge. Today I'm going to give you five steps to stop being so lazy. Let's dive in. I used to be somebody who was very lazy. And in fact, there are definitely sometimes where I am lazy, but it just doesn't go throughout my entire day. Like after 6 o'clock, I'm pretty damn lazy when it's during the week. So when I was younger, though, I was a very lazy kid and didn't really do anything or care to do anything. They didn't want to go to work, didn't want to do any of that stuff. And so I do think

that you can be lazy and also still succeed. And I do think that laziness is not a trait that you have to have forever. Sometimes if you're an introvert, you can turn it on and be an extrovert for a party that you go to and then turn it back off. Well, your laziness can be the exact same thing, I believe. Because you know, I know, that in order to get the life you want, it requires effort. And if you're being too lazy, you're not putting the effort in, you're not going to get the life that you want. And so, let's dive into those five different things. Number one, I want you to start being honest with yourself.

I want you to just stop lying to yourself, and I want you to admit to yourself, I am lazy. Or I have been lazy. And then tell yourself, I'm not going to be lazy forever. It's like a, you know, a 12-step program. The first thing is you have to just admit. you know you have to stop lying to yourself call it what it is once you admit it once you become aware of it then you start to work to overcome it i think that humans are just inherently lazy i think most people are inherently lazy i think there's some people that i see that have so much

energy and i'm like i wish like if i had that person's energy i feel like i'd be 10 times further than i'm in life but i just ain't got it and i think that most people don't have it are there some who are blessed with copious amounts of energy? Sure. Am I one of them? No. Are you one of them? I don't know. Probably not as well. I think the majority of people don't have a ton of energy. And I think that most people are kind of lazy. You know, if we were to, like here in the summer in Texas, it gets so hot. Like 107 degrees for like 45 days in a row. It is torture to be outside and it is torture to be in the sun. I think if we went back 100,000 years ago and we viewed it whoever happened to be living in Austin, Texas at that point in time, I bet you the majority of the day, they're probably hanging out under trees.

Probably ours. They probably woke up early in the morning. They did their hunting. They did their gathering. They did everything as the sun was coming up. And then around 1, 2 o'clock, they probably went and hung under some trees, waited for sunset. They might have taken some naps, you know, a midday nap as a caveman or cavewoman. And then they would go out and do their thing as the sun is starting set as it was cooler again. And it is natural for us as humans to take the path of least resistance, which when we're trying to build a life that we want can seem lazy. And so the first thing I want you to do is just admit to yourself that you are lazy sometimes. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. I don't want you to shame yourself. I don't want

you to guilt yourself because that's completely unnecessary. I want you to say, hey, if I am lazy, this is something that I want to work it. This is something I want to change. You know, I can be lazy anytime outside of 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. if you're trying to build a business, if you're trying to get something done. And then stop blaming anything that's outside of yourself. Everybody, we like to blame the external. What we have to do is we have to look at it and we have to take full acceptance. Yes, I am lazy, but it's something that I'm going to change. I'm going to change it and I'm going to allow myself to be lazy outside of my working hours. But during my working hours, I'm going to be a machine. I'm going to figure out how to get done, whatever it is I need to get done. Okay, so that's the

first thing, right? Number two is to take your goals and to make them bite size. One of the things that I realize in for years I would do New Year's resolutions with people and we would do you know planning sessions and I would do a webinar and we'd do all the planning for the year and I'd help people come up with their goals and then I realized as I started talking with different types of people is that some people are motivated by that and then some people because it's a year away it feels far away it actually feels more demotivating for them and to sit down with somebody and then say you know let's plan out the next 10 years it can be extremely demotivating them because their brain is more process driven and they start thinking about all of the things that they have to do over the

next 10 years in order to get to wherever it is that their goal is. And then in their head, they start to get so overwhelmed because they think they need to get all of those things done over the next 10 years done today. And then it becomes too much for them. So if you're that type of person and you're more motivated by short-term goals, then take your goals and make them short-term. You can make them this week. What do I need to do this week to get further? And then if you want to give you more short-term, you can go to today. And then if you're really just an overthinker and you want to make it even more short term,

it could be what do I need to do in the next hour? What do we need to do next five minutes to get me closer? And then you just focus on those things. And so I always give this example just because it makes it very easy, but if you are a sales rep and you want to make $100,000 this year, if you've been a sales rep for a while, you know your numbers. You know with this amount of calls, I get this many pickups, and with this many pickups I get this many people closed.

And with this many closes, does that make this much money? And so if you come at it and say, okay, I want to make $100,000 a year, okay, well, how much is that per month? Okay, that's just over $8,000 a month. In order for me to make $8,000 a month in, how much sales do I need to be bringing in over the course of a month? Let's say that's 40 sales for you. Okay, 40 sales. And there's four weeks in this month, so I need 10 sales a month, which is basically two sales a day. Can I get two sales a day? Well, let's see. If I do 50 calls, I'll usually get about two sales. Okay, so all I need to focus on every single day for the next year is just doing 50 calls a day.

And now that's the only thing that you focus on instead of focusing on, oh my gosh, this goal seems so big, it seems so far away. And how you got to do is just focus on the calls that you need to do today. And some days you're going to get less than two sales. And some days you're going to get more than two sales. But over the course of the entire year, you should average out to make about the $100,000 that you want to. And so now you're focusing on a very small thing that you need to do every single day versus thinking about everything that you need to do every single day for the rest of the year. You know, it's hard to focus on something that's too far in the future.

And so it's better for us to break it up into smaller goals. And so that will help you stop procrastinating. It'll help you be a little bit less lazy. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. The third thing, and this one's a fun one, is to find your why. And the reason why I love this is because I've got a new story. I always tell this story as well because it's just, it's so perfect.

But when you care about your goals and you're sitting there and you're like really invested in your goals, you're more likely to get there. And the example I've given so many times, and I'm going to tell you this story, and then I'm going to tell you a new story because it's funny how it relates. I was used to give speeches and I would be in rooms of people who, you know, make $100,000 a year, $200,000 a year. And they're pretty consistently been making that amount for a while, right? And I would sit in that in their rooms and I would say, hey, what's the chance of your room

of you making a million dollars this year and everybody was like zero percent one percent two percent and i say what's the chance of you making a million dollars this year and if you don't there's a gun to your head and everyone that you love is going to die including yourself and everyone would say 100 100 percent a thousand percent there's no way that i won't hit my goals okay cool well did the time did the goal change no did the time frame change no what changed what changed what changes the why behind it it's 100% possible to hit that million dollars a year. It's 100% possible for you to hit the goal that you want to, but you just don't have a strong enough why behind it. So the other day, one of my team members called me and he's like, hey, you know how you always tell that story about making a million dollars a year?

I was like, yeah, he's like, I got a crazy story to tell you. He's like, so there's a guy that I went to college with. And one of my friends called me up and he's like, hey, do you remember Joseph? And he's like, yeah, of course I remember Joseph. He's like, I got a crazy story to tell you. He's like, so Joseph, is addicted to gambling. And he got himself $40,000 in debt with loan sharks. And the loan sharks called him up a couple months ago. And they said, hey, if you don't pay us the $40,000 by the end of this month, we're going to kill you.

And so it's like real story. Now, this example that I've been giving for years is like a real story in real life. I'm talking to my team member and I'm like, so what happened? He's like, so he literally worked all day, every day for 30 days straight. and obviously he slept in all that, but he started getting creative and he started going to junkyards. And when he went to the junkyards, he would actually take off, you know, different bumpers that were made out of different materials and he knew it could melt down. And he ended up finding copper and finding, you know, steel and finding all of these different things that he could.

And then he started buying and reselling things, different parts that he would find on cars because the guy knew about cars. So he would find different parts. He would go to different, you know, he'd go and find a good part inside of a car that was abandoned and then we'd take it to take it off take it to mechanic shop and he would sell it and so he got super creative and then just worked and because of fact that he only had 30 days and there was a timeline he worked his ass off and he made over 40,000 dollars in that month and paid off his debts the crazy part about it the guy had never made in his entire life more than 50,000 dollars a year and he made 40,000 dollars in a month why because his life depended on it. How would your life be different if you started going at your success that you want,

the life that you want, as if your life depends on it? And I was like, man, that's crazy. I was talking my team member, I was like, that's crazy. Because if he were to just continue to work like that, he'd make $480,000 a year. Because he made over $40,000 in that month. He's probably going to get better at it. So he's probably going to hit like if he wanted to go for a year at that pace, maybe he has to scale it back a tiny bit because maybe he was going a little bit intense because he had a very short timetable. But if you want to scale it back a little bit, he might make $450,000 a year

doing exactly what he did. And so it's just a great example because I always give the million dollar example when I'm giving speeches, and this is a real-life example of loan sharks who are going to kill this guy if he didn't come up with the money and he worked his ass off and he came up with it.

It's just like, I don't have enough time to think about my insecurities or to not care or to procrastinate or to be too busy. It's just, I've got to get it done. And I love that because I think everybody. And I don't love the fact they got himself in that predicament, but I love that everybody listening has that opportunity to work that hard to do it as they want to do if they really truly want to. Okay, so that's number three.

Number four is to remove all of the distractions you possibly can. I wrote about this in my book, Level Up. And I said that the people who are the most consistent at taking action are not the ones with the best willpower. Like people think they have this amazing willpower. It's that they've built an environment around them where their willpower is not testing. And so when you're being lazy, when you're procrastinating, when you're not doing what is that you need to be doing, you're not just sitting there staring at the ceiling. You're doing something else. You're doing something.

That's why recently I've not really said procrastinating as much as I used to. I'm reframing procrastinating into avoidant behavior is because when you're procrastinating, you're doing something. And that something is to avoid whatever it is that you're trying to avoid. So that is an avoidant behavior. And so you're doing something. The question is, what are you doing? and anything that is a distraction to you needs to be removed. So, you know, when I really sit down to, like, get productive work done, I like to call it

Deep Work that comes from Cal Newport's book called Deep Work. My phone is my greatest distraction. It is, and I know that it is. And so what I do is I take my phone and I put it inside of my kitchen drawer and I leave it in there when I'm really trying to do deep work. So that, therefore, I don't even have that distraction around me. When you sit down at my computer, I have no notifications. that pop up my computer. If you email me, I don't see it. If you slack me, I don't see it. If you text me,

I don't see it. So that therefore, the only thing I could do is what's in front of me. And then, when you start to think about distractions, there's obviously technology, there's obviously different other things. People can be a really big distraction. If you work from home, your children can be a really big distraction. You know, so why don't you try to see if your spouse say, honey, I need two two hours of really deep work, can you make sure you take care of the kids for me and don't let them come in the room. Then if you work at an office, put a sign on your door or put headphones on, whatever it might be. If your kids are loud in the other room and they're typically yelling and screaming, put your headphones on, get noise-canceling headphones, turn on some music so you can't hear

them. And so what you're trying to do is create an environment, whether it's an hour a day, whether it's two hours a day, three hours a day, whatever it might be for you to fully get rid of all of your distractions. And the only thing that you can do is the thing that you need to get done. And then you just give yourself, I'm going to work on it. And I'm going to work on. There are no other options. I can't get distracted. And what I would recommend is completely clearing off your desk so that the only thing that's up there is your computer, maybe an external monitor, headphones on your ears, and then just get the work done. And so try to remove all of the distractions you possibly can. Try to get anything that will lower your willpower out of the way. So that the only

thing you can do is that. And it's funny because your brain will bounce around it. something else. Yesterday I was creating a PowerPoint for a speech that I had to give. And as I was creating it, my brain did what brains typically do. It was like, oh my gosh, there's this thing I forgot to do. And I kid you not, I literally took off my headphones and I started walking to the door. And then I was like, hold on. I don't need to get my phone right now because that's going to distract me. So I started walking back to my computer. And I was like, I could just do it real quick. And so I started walking back to the door. And I was about to open the door. I was like, no, no, no, no. You can always do that later. Just go back and don't break your distraction.

do what you were doing, don't get out of the flow. And I was like, okay, I'm not going to do that. So I put my headphones on. So even I struggle with this where I was like, I was like, oh, I'm going to go get my phone. No, I'm not going to get my phone. Oh, I'm going to get my phone. Oh, I'm going to get my phone. And so it's trying to remove as many distractions as you possibly can.

Now, if my phone was next to me, I would have just picked it up and I would have been lost for the next 10 or 15 minutes. And so how can remove as many distractions from your area from your life as you possibly can. And then the last one that deals with this perfectly. If you're going to sit down, you're going to get a work done, you're going to need to do Pomodora technique. But essentially it's very simple. When I sit down to work and do really, really deep focus, I use a Pomodora technique. It's 25 minutes on, five minutes off. So for 25 minutes, I can do one task and one task only. And the only thing I do have on my desk is a timer,

and I set it for 25 minutes. And I do 25 minutes of dedicated work on one thing and one thing only. Then after I'm done, I get myself five minutes off. In those five minutes off, don't look at your phone, don't go talk to somebody. There's only a couple of things that you should be doing. You could go for a walk if you want to. You can go outside and just stare at nature and stare at trees. You could close your eyes, do some breathing, do some meditating, whatever it might be. But the point is to, is your brain is so stimulated in those 25 minutes, is not to go do something else and stimulate it, but it's completely to de-stimulate your brain. So there is no stimulation coming in. And so it's 25 minutes on, five minutes of absolutely

nothing. Twenty-five minutes on, five minutes of absolutely nothing. And what happens is you start to focus on being more productive, focus on being more focused because both productivity and focus or things are like a muscle that you can build within yourself, you become better at it. And so you might be lazy right now. It's okay that you're lazy right now. I was lazy for a good portion of my life. But then I started building up.

It's like going to the gym. It's like building up muscles. I was building up these muscles to be more focused, to be more productive, get more stuff done. And it's like a light switch. Sometimes I walk into the gym and I work out. Sometimes I don't go to the gym and I'm not working out. So it's the same thing.

Sometimes I need to sit down. I need to get focus. I need to get stuff done. and there are no excuses for getting those things done. And sometimes I'm completely off. I'm lazy. I'm watching TV. And I allow myself to just to be a lazy rock for an hour or so.

And so it's like turning on and turning off. You can be lazy. You can not be lazy. But I guarantee you this, if your life really depended on it, if someone that she loves life really depended on it, if there was a really strong why behind it, there would be no such thing as laziness for you. You would just get it done when it needed to be done

without any questions asked without any distractions. And that's something that you can build in yourself. You can turn on whatever you want to. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it with someone you know and love. And once again, if you're out there and you're ready to finish this year strong so that you set yourself up for a great 2027, join my free three-day live finish 2026 Strong Challenge. Once again, all you got to do is go to finish 2026 Strong.com.

Register for free and I'll see you live on the challenge. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.