The Mindset Mentor - Become addicted to discipline with journaling

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

Do you really know yourself? In this episode, I share how journaling can help you uncover unconscious patterns, break free from limiting beliefs, and create real change. I’ll teach you how to ask the right questions, go beneath the surface, and use pen and paper to gain clarity in your life. 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'm your host, Rob Dial, if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you live in the U.S. or Canada and you want to get some inspirational mindset, motivational text messages from me sporadically throughout the week, text me right now, 512-8-0-9305. once again, 512-580-9305. Well, I'm going to teach you how to pseudo-become your own therapist.

I'm not saying that journaling should be in the place of therapy. I absolutely don't believe that. But there's ways that you can sit down and you can start to understand yourself and you can start to learn who you truly are. I've said this in the podcast so many times. But one of the things that I found with people is that people think that they know themselves until they start working on themselves. And they think that they know themselves

until they start journaling and sitting down and asking themselves questions that really are deeper than where we usually truly go with ourselves because we're trying to avoid it. And one of my favorite quotes I've said over and over again in this podcast is the cave that you're afraid to enter

holds the treasure that you seek. Your freedom, wherever you're not free, your triggers, the things that are holding you back, your fears, your limiting beliefs, all of the things that are stopping you from going out and creating the life that you want are all going to be found. The answers to all of them are going to be found in the cave that you're afraid to enter. That's where the treasure that you seek holds. The things that are holding you back are in the dark. And when you bring something to the light, it no longer has control over you. And so that's what we're going to talk about today,

is how to actually bring about some things that are maybe conscious to us, but a lot of times are unconscious to us. When we start writing things down, we start becoming becoming aware of patterns within ourselves that we weren't aware of before. And so I'm going to talk about with you what I feel is truthfully one of the most important routines that you can ever have for yourself, for improving yourself, for improving your relationships, making you a better spouse, making you a better boyfriend, girlfriend, father, mother, human. And I think it's one of the most important things you do for your personal development, but also your spiritual development as well. and we're going to talk about how to be a better human through journaling.

And so I did it wrong for years. I'll be honest with you. I remember when I was 20 years old, there was a guy that came in and was talking at the company. I was at a sales company and he was like, hey, you should journal. And I thought journaling was like sitting down and saying, dear diary, you know, today I did this thing.

Tomorrow I want to do this thing. And I did it wrong for years. And then I was like, ah, there's no value in it. I didn't see much value from it at all. And so I just didn't do it for like 10 years. And then one day, I was having a really hard day and I remember exactly where I was. I remember I was in Zilker Park in Austin and I was sitting in a hammock. And I remember sitting there and I was thinking to myself like, why do I feel so anxious all the time? Why do I feel so stressed? Why do I feel like I always have to be running like towards something? Like what am I running from? And I started asking myself these questions, and I was like, I don't know the fucking answers to these questions. So why don't I jot them down? And so I literally jotted down, like a half of a piece of paper in my journal, all of these questions.

What am I running from? What am I trying to get towards? Why can't I just allow myself to be happy? Why do I feel so anxious? Why do I feel so stressed? And one by one, for a couple hours, I made myself answer those questions. And I started to learn myself. And I started to go, oh, my God.

I kind of knew this, but I never connected my dots here to here. And I started to notice patterns. And I started to notice like, yeah, one of the reasons why you might be really anxious is because of this thing and because of that person in your life. And you're drinking too much fucking coffee. Chill out on the coffee for a little while, dude. And so from that day on, it changed the way that I journaled forever. And that's really what I want to teach you is a little bit of how to do that today.

But why do I feel it's important journal is because things pop up in your head. And you've heard me say this before, but when things are in your head, they tend to be really hard to understand because you don't just have one thought pop up in your head. You have one thought and then immediately another thought, another thought, another thought. And so you're trying to solve like four problems at one time. And that's really hard to do. What you need to do is you need to be very precise with solving problems. And when your brain creates problems or starts to think of a fear or limiting belief, like for instance, it's not just you sitting there and saying, oh, well, I have this problem in my life. Usually it pops up and it's like, I have this problem

and this problem. And also this problem and that woman is making this a problem. And that person's making this a problem. And we can get very complex when it's in our brain. And I mean, just think about how complex your life is for a second. Like you've got all of the things you do all day long. You've got every single thought that goes through your head. You've got every single different person that you interact with, and a lot of people change themselves just a little bit to be who they feel that the other person wants them to be. So you're playing a different character a lot of times for all these different people. And then there's places that you want to go. There's things that have happened in your past. There's goals. There's fears. There's limiting beliefs. And it's all

kind of one big pot of jumble eye. And you're just kind of taking it and stirred it up. And you're like, I'm trying to figure out what the hell's wrong in my life. It's really hard. And so it can be really hard because it is so complex. And the other reason why journaling is really important is because I think it's like 65 to 70% of people are visual. And so researchers have found, yeah, I'm actually looking at the statistics that I have here. 65% of people are visual learners. And so when you see something on paper, sometimes it helps you comprehend what's going on.

And sometimes it helps you make a connection. I don't know about you, but I've noticed many times that sometimes when I sit down and I write something. And sometimes also when I talk things out, I start to build more awareness around those things. And it starts to make you realize, oh my God, I never even thought of this. And so sometimes the act of writing, and there's many studies I've given these studies before in previous podcast episodes, is that when you sit down and write something with pen and paper, not typing on your computer, that it actually makes new neural connection inside of your brain, your recall rate becomes better, your creativity becomes better, and you connect into dots become better. So

people are always going to ask this question. You're probably thinking it in the back of your head. Can I do this in my computer? You can if you want, but it's just not going to be as good as slow writing pen and paper. And, you know, if I gave you a math problem like 254 times 439, a very small percentage of you listening out there would be able to get that in your head. But if I gave you a pen and paper and you were to go back to like fourth grade multiplication and figure it out, you can probably figure it out with pen and paper. It's the same thing for figuring out things in your life or figuring out your feelings. Because feelings are even more complex than thoughts, right? Because there's stories that are around it. There's narratives that come up as well. And, you know, there's triggers that you have and figuring out

your emotions around something. And so all of these things can be extremely complex, which is the reason why journaling helps so much. So have I sold you on journaling? Because I hope that you can go, you know what? I'll take 10 minutes today, Rob, and I'll do it. Because I promise you you'll start to learn yourself. So this is how you journal, okay? The key here is to be curious. Okay? Be very curious about yourself. Don't act like you know yourself. Don't act like you've ever met yourself. Imagine that you don't know yourself. Imagine that you're a therapist and this person has come across into your room and they have laid down on the couch and they said, hey, I don't know why I'm this way. Can you help me with my relationship with my father? What questions would that

person ask? What questions would you ask if you were a therapist, right? So imagine you're a therapist trying to get into a client. You don't know them. Don't make any assumptions. Ask a question and then answer the question. And so, you know, if you go to a good therapist, this is, you know, a psychoanalyst will will sit down and they will barely say any statements. They'll just ask you questions and help you figure yourself out. So, you know, if you say something like, if you wake up happy today, like let's just say you have a good day. Let's just, let's even say that we're in the dumps, right?

You wake up and you have a great day. Why do I feel so happy today? Like, I feel freaking amazing. Why do I feel so good? And then you wake up and you, and then you answer the question, well, you know, I had a, I got a good night's sleep. I had some coffee. I spent some time with my children. I sat outside with my dog and some silence. Then you can also start to make some connections of what makes you happy.

Maybe you could bring more of those things into your day tomorrow. If you wake up and you don't feel happy, hey, why don't I feel happy today? And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. Why do I feel in the dumps? Why do I feel so emotional? Why do I feel so sad? I don't even know why I feel so sad. I just feel sad today. Why do I feel sad? Maybe there's something carrying over from yesterday that you're not paying attention to.

And you can ask yourself a ton of questions. I'm just going to throw tons of questions at you today. What can I do to make myself feel happier today? What would make today a great day? If you wake up and you feel anxious, for a long time, years I woke up and felt anxious. And it was just immediate. As soon as I woke up, it would hit me.

Man, I'm so anxious today. Why do I feel so anxious? what am I thinking about, whether that's consciously or subconsciously, that's making me feel so anxious. Am I worried about something? Am I scared? What's making me feel this way? And you ask yourself some questions. One of my favorite questions that you can ask yourself any day that you want to is what do I want. So many people don't know what they want in their life. And you can say, what do I want? And you could be really vague. You can say, what do I want? And it's a it could just be broad and you can just see whatever comes up today. You can say, what do I want?

And what comes up today could be something completely different than tomorrow. So you could be very open or you could get very precise and surgical with this question. What do I want in my life? What do I want in my business? What do I want in my relationship with my wife? What do I want in my relationship with my children? What do I want in my relationship with my parents, with my mother, with my father. What do I want in my bank account? What do I want to feel like every single day? What do I want in my physical fitness? And so you could be very open and just say, what do I want? Just see what comes to the surface? Or you can just throw, you know, very surgical. Yeah, what do I want with my relationship, my children, with my wife, with my bank account, in my career, and my body?

What do I want my, what do I want my mindset to feel like? And then here's the secret. And this is where most people screw up, okay? We have been talking. We have been talking. in our society to be very surface level. And believe it or not, whether you realize it or not, you're most likely extremely surface level with yourself. You don't actually know yourself. I promise you this, because you know your conscious mind, your 5% of your mind that's working, but a lot of people don't know they're subconscious. They're 95% of what's happening. The patterns, the feelings, the emotions, the stories, the narratives, all of that stuff, the things that trigger us and what we're bringing into today.

And so when you answer a question, like what do I want in my relationship? And you come, you ask yourself the question, obviously you're going to answer that question. Then what you do is you ask yourself another question around the answer that you just gave. Don't go from one topic to another topic to another because then you're just staying surface level with yourself. You want to go below the surface and below the surface and below the surface. This is where you really start to notice things about yourself and start connect dots. you never really knew. And so you're going to answer the question. And then you're going to ask yourself another question. All questions start with who, what, why, when, where, or how. And so who, what,

why, when, where, or how is how I want to start it. Okay. So let's say, your level one question, you wake up in the morning and you just feel really anxious. Okay, I feel really anxious right now. I'm going to sit down. I'm going to see if I can figure out where this is coming from. Level one question. Why do I feel anxious right now? Level one. answer. You know what it is. It's not life. It's not my children. It's not my spouse. I'm worried about a presentation that I have to give it work. That's your answer to level one. I'm worried about doing, I really want to do a good job today at the presentation I have at work. That's your level one answer. That is not going to solve any problems. So what do you do? You ask yourself a question

about the answer that you just gave. What can I do right now to lower my anxiety about the presentation? right? What can I do right now to lower my anxiety about the presentation? That's a level two question about a level one answer. And then you answer the level two question. So I can do, you know, that guy Rob always talks about doing 60 breaths. I can do a breathing exercise followed by reviewing my presentation and reading it out loud. Okay. That would make me feel better. You know what it would probably do? It would probably make my anxiety go away a little bit. And if, then you go deeper and you go deeper and you go deeper until you feel like you have a pretty good plan or a pretty good awareness of what's going on but you want to try to go deeper and deeper so you ask yourself a question

around the answer you just gave another example let's say level one you sit down and you're like man my love life is crazy tinder's nuts hinges nuts these these people on there are just crazy right okay what do i want in my love life you know what i would like to find somebody that i could just feel safe around. Okay, that's cool. Why don't I feel safe right now in my own body? Do I need another person to make me feel safe? Hmm, interesting. Maybe I should start to dive into that. Can I give myself what I'm looking for in someone else? Hmm, that's a really good question. Let's find out. Right, what else do I want in my love life? Let's say you're married, right? I want my spouse to respect me more. Okay, level one question. answer. Where do they respect me now? And where do I see them not respect me? Well, hey, they respect me

here. They don't respect me here. Okay, cool. So then you go a little bit deeper. And so you have the level two question. So the level two answer would be like, he respects me around other people, but I don't feel respected with this new business that I'm trying to grow. He kind of talks down about this business. Okay. Let's go level three. How can we go deeper into that? What can I do to get his respect in my business. Hmm. Interesting question. Okay. Um, have a conversation, I'll have a conversation about how I don't feel respect. I don't feel supported. And I would like to ask him for support. Okay. See how we're starting to figure this out is it's very much like a psychoanalyzing session. You know, psychoanalysts are trained to ask as many questions as possible and give as few statements as

possible. You can do this for free. Once again, this doesn't take the place of therapy, but this is going to help you start to understand your subconscious mind much, much more. Okay? And so then then people start saying, well, like, well, you know, Rob, I do want to learn myself and I do want to journal. I do want to get better at this, but what if I journal and someone finds it, right? Some of you out there I've already, I'm reading your minds because I've heard this so many times, I want to journal, but I'm so afraid my husband's going to find it. I'm so afraid that my mom's going to find it and I write about her because we have a lot of problems, okay? Hide it. You know, act like you're a, you know,

13 year old boy hiding a playboy where would you hide it in your house right or you can rip it up if you want to right journal through it so you get the awareness and then rip it up burn it throw it away i don't care what you do with it just don't not go deep with yourself that's the important thing i don't really care what you do with it i want you to become aware of who you are i want to become aware of your unconscious patterns once you become aware of what you need to do to improve yourself and to go deeper into the cave that you're so afraid to enter because as i said The cave that you're afraid to enter or holds a treasure that you seek. And then everybody always asks, well, how often should I do this?

I would recommend doing it, you know, every morning for 10 minutes. Just ask yourself two to three questions a day. That's it. And then ask yourself the one question I love to ask, which is, what can I do to make today amazing? All right, I got through journaling. I feel good about it. What can I do to make today amazing? Oh, okay, cool.

Let's dive into it. And let's figure out what I can do to make today amazing. and so don't make don't ask yourself that question and only that question every day make that the last question that you ask yourself and so really i think it's important if you really want to start to know yourself start to understand yourself start to improve yourself it's super super important to do journaling so that's what i got for today's episode if you love this episode please show it on instagram tag me in at rob dow junior r b d i a lj r and if you're out there and you love this podcast you want to learn a little bit more about coaching with me outside of the podcast you can go ahead

and go to coach with rob.com. Once again, coach with rob.com for more information. And with that, I'm going to leave the same way I leave you every single episode. Making sure mission makes somebody else's day better. I appreciate you. And I hope that you have an amazing day.