The Mindset Mentor - Forget Motivation, Just Do These 8 Boring Habits

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

What if the reason you haven’t changed your life has nothing to do with motivation? Motivation is an emotion and emotions are unreliable. In this episode, I break down why motivation fails and what actually works: a boring, repeatable system that works even when you don’t feel like it. Feeling stuck? It's time to take back control. If you're ready to master your mind and create real, lasting change, click the link below and start transforming your life today. 👉 http://coachwithrob.com   High performers don’t wait for clarity, they create it. This Mindset University call will help you see your blind spots and your next level. Grab your spot here 👉 https://www.coachwithrob.com/mindset-university-call-rob   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 episode. I put out episodes four times a week to help you learn and grow and improve yourself. So if that's something that you want to do, hit that subscribe button. Today, I'm going to be talking about why you should forget motivation and why you should just rely on these eight boring habits that I'm going to be teaching you. Because if you're still waiting to feel like it, Before you change your life, you are going to be waiting forever. Motivation is not coming and it is not something that you want to rely on to save you. No one is going to come and give you clarity or confidence or discipline to take action. So in reality, you don't need a podcast episode today that hipes you up and motivates you. What you need is one that hands you a step-by-step system that you can take action on. a boring, repeatable, unsexy system that works even when you don't want to. In these eight habits, they'll change your life starting from the moment that you wake up and they're built to help

you make success autopilot for you. Let's dive into it. Let's talk about why I actually hate the word motivation and why motivation fails. Okay. Motivation is an emotion and I think too many people are trying to rely on motivation before they do anything in their life. And the problem is you can't rely on an emotion because emotions are temporary. If you rely on motivation to start, you're going to sometimes start, but most of the time you won't. And if you do that, you'll rarely get anything done. But if you rely on action and then momentum, you're actually building forward energy that will self-sustain. And studies actually show this as well. There's a study done in 2009 in the European Journal of Social Psychology that found it takes about 66 days for a behavior to become an automatic

habit in your brain. Not because of motivation, but because of your consistent action and repetition. So you don't need to feel good or motivated to get going. You don't need to believe in yourself to get going. You don't need to believe in yourself at all to take action. Action does not require a belief. but getting going and actually taking that action is what starts to make you feel good. Progress equals happiness, as Tony Robbins always says, an action, once you do it, will turn into momentum, which will then make you feel more motivated down the line. And so let's go over your new system, okay? These are the eight boring habits that are going to build real momentum in your life.

Number one is to start with a fixed wake-up time. And what you're going to notice is I actually went step by step from the moment that you wake up in the order that I would go for if I was you. Okay. Then the first one is to start with a fixed wake-up time, even on the weekends, even on the weekends, okay? Consistent wake-up time regulates your sleep cycles, and it will boost your morning energy if you do this. So I would recommend that you pick a realistic time to start, you know, even like 7 a.m. is fine. Like if you go to bed and kind of late and you're trying to move your morning wake-up time a little bit earlier, like don't shoot for, for 4 a.m. right out of the gates, unless you have to. The point here is to try to start

being consistent with a time and then stay consistent. So if you normally wake up at 9 a.m., don't immediately go to 5 a.m. You can give yourself some time to start moving that time back for 15 minutes. So every 15 minutes, you move it back a little bit further every few days until you land on the time that you eventually want to consistently wake up at. And so discipline will actually start the moment that you wake up, not when your motivation kicks in. So that's the first one. The second thing is to make your bed every morning. I used to think that this was stupid until I started doing it. Like I was like, I don't want to make my bed. It doesn't make any sense. I don't spend any time inside of my room. I'm going to get back in the bed a little bit later. It's not a big deal.

But what I realize is that it starts your day with a win. Like it builds a sense of control and order. you will win right in the morning. And it like basically signals to your brain. Hey, we're in motion now. Like your brain, we're not in control. I'm in control. We're going to do this one thing. And this is how you start to build confidence in yourself. Not by reading a book on confidence or by meditating or mantras about being confident. You become confident when you start your day by finishing something. And that builds trust within yourself. And that's how you build confidence within yourself is by doing what you say you're going to do. And so this quick act that could take 30 seconds can have you start building confidence within yourself and start momentum for your day. And so my goal for you here is

not to overthink it. Like don't try to make the most perfect bed that's ever existed. Just like pull the sheets tight, fluff the pillow and go. Make it look a little bit better. But even if it's just like a tiny bit messy, it is not the aesthetic of what it looks like that matters. It's the act of you actually did something that you wanted to do first thing in the morning. And then what I would recommend at that point in time is then pair it with a mantra or with some sort of affirmation. Talk out loud to yourself. Say something like one thing done, let's keep going. Or you can say something as soon as you get it done, say, I'm a person who follows through. And you're starting to take this behavior of taking action and following through and pair it

with an identity of who you're building yourself into and what you want yourself to believe about yourself. When you look at motivation, you don't need motivation to make your bed. You just need two hands in 30 seconds. And so that's number two. Just make your bed real quick. The third thing that I would do if I were you as soon as you wake up in the morning after you get done with the bed is drink a full glass of water. And so the reason why is because you lose up to a liter of water overnight just by breathing and sweating. Most people don't realize that the majority of their problems in their life could actually be fixed if they just drank more water. Like most people don't realize that they're just dehydrated all day long. They just drink sodas and coffee and, you know, sugar water with a whole

bunch of crap in it. Like your body is made up of 60% water. In your brain is 73% water. So even if you're slightly dehydrated as little as one to two percent, it can affect your focus, which makes you feel a little bit more all over the place. It affects your mood. It affects your memory. It affects your energy. And that's why you can feel really fatigued and not realize that you're fatigued and foggy and irritable and tired and all of that because you're actually dehydrated. Not because there's something wrong with you. It's because you can't get yourself to just drink the thing that we are mostly made at it. And so hydration improves focus, mood, and energy. So here's what I would recommend, just to make it easy on yourself. Keep about a 12 to 16 ounce bottle or cup right next to your

sink. So as soon as you get done brushing your teeth, because I hope you brush your teeth in the morning, you just drink that thing and you're done. And you did the thing that you needed to do. Now you've got even more momentum on your side. If you want to make it even better, add a pinch of sea salt and some lemon, so you get some bonus minerals in there. And so what I want you to realize is for a lot of people listening, your body isn't actually tired. It's that you're thirsty and you think you're tired. So now you're you're. you're drinking coffee and coffee is making you more dehydrated. And so just please drink more water. Most of you guys out there are like, yeah, I know I should be drinking more water. Just do it.

So that's number three. Number four, the next thing you get you want to do is you're going to want to get sun on your face, your skin, and your eyes within the first 30 minutes of waking up, the sooner the better. And this is before coffee. This is before looking at your phone. Go outside. Let the sun hits your face. Your brain is literally wired to need sun. I don't understand why so many people try to avoid the sun. Obviously, you don't want to be in the sun for five hours in the middle of the day in the middle of the summer. But morning sunlight is the on switch for your brain and body. Andrew Huberman talks about this all of the time. A couple things that it does that's important is it triggers a cortisol pulse in a good way in your body. And this boost your energy.

It boost your mood and it boost your focus. It also starts your melatonin countdown clock. And so it makes it easier to fall asleep at this moment when you start to get more sun, 14 to 16 hours later. Another thing it does is it boost your dopamine. So it increases your motivation and combat's low mood. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show.

An indoor light does not work. It does not cut it. Even though you might think like, well, this is a really bright light. An average bright indoor light bulb is 500 lux. The sun is 10,000 to 100,000 lux. And so even though you're looking at it and you might not be really sure that there's a difference between the two, your body really understands the difference.

And so get outside, even on cloudy days, your brain's clock doesn't really start without real light. And so go outside within like 30, maybe 60 minutes of waking up. No sunglasses. Don't look at this, you know, don't look outside of a window and think you're doing the same thing. You need direct light to your eyes, not staring at the sun, but like just being outside

for at least 5 to 10 minutes on sunny days and 15 to 30 minutes on cloudy days. And what I would recommend to pair that with is show as much skin as you can legally show. If you live on your own property and there's nobody with inside of you, do your own thing. If you have neighbors, you know, bathing soup, man, you take a shirt off, whatever it is it works for you. And the reason why is because then you're getting vitamin D as well. Roughly 35 to 42% of adults are vitamin D deficient. And so both of these two things right here, this right here just getting outside and seeing some sun.

This is the simplest way to upgrade your sleep. your focus and your energy, and it's absolutely free. So that's number four. Number five, this one's going to hurt for a lot of people. Delay your caffeine intake for 60 to 90 minutes after waking up. I know, this one hurts. I love coffee too. But if you drink caffeine the second that you wake up,

you're actually stealing energy from yourself later on in the day. When you wake up, your brain is clearing something that's called adenosine. And adenosine is a chemical that builds up while you're awake and makes you feel sleepy. So caffeine doesn't remove adenosine. It actually blocks the receptors. So if you drink caffeine too early, adenosine is still floating around and wasn't cleared. And so once again, adenosine is the chemical that makes you feel sleepy. And so when the caffeine wears off, that adenosine hits all at once, and that's what they call a midday crash. Science shows that if you wait 60 to 90 minutes after waking

up before you have any caffeine, it allows your body's natural cortisol spike, which is, you know, the built-in wake-up chemical to do its job first. And then adding caffeine adds energy instead of masking fatigue. And so early caffeine is basically like fake energy. Delayed caffeine is sustained energy. And so this is why so many people feel wired in the morning and then wrecked by two or three o'clock. Right. So wake up, water, sunlight first, right? And then wait 60 and nine minutes. You can have your caffeine after that, right? Caffeine will actually work better when you do. Your focus will last longer and you're less likely to need a second or even third cup. So that's number five. The sixth thing that I would do is do gratitude for five minutes. Gratitude is, I used to think it was just

like, oh, I'm going to just do this to feel good. What I've actually found is that using gratitude the morning is a brain rewiring tool. When you practice gratitude, you're training your mind to notice what's working and what's good in your life versus what's missing and what you don't have. and that shift will completely change your mood for the rest of the day. It changes your perception of reality. And studies actually show that regular gratitude boost your dopamine and your serotonin. And those are the same chemicals that are targeted by antidepressants, dopamine and serotonin. Studies have actually shown is that five minutes to focus gratitude can chemically lift your mood,

it can improve your sleep, it can lower your stress, and it can even reduce inflammation, believe it or not. And so it's not about like fake positivity. It's about building emotional accuracy by learning to see what is good in your life without ignoring the hard stuff. Because naturally, we all have something in psychology that's called the negativity bias. Our brains are wired to find what is wrong in our life. And it does that as a protection mechanism, right? That's how our species survive. Your brain's wired to find what's wrong in your life. You need to actually be intentional to see what is good in your life or else you miss all of it. And so write down three things that you're generally grateful for. Small, specific, and real. It could be like my sister texting me that funny meme

yesterday or, you know, that beautiful sunset that I saw in the drive home last night or, you know, waking up without anxiety this morning. And then what you want to do after you write it down, this is a secret to it, is to close your eyes and to actually feel it. Like they're just try to fill your body up with that feeling of gratitude. Like imagine there's a hole in the top of your head and someone's just pouring this liquid of gratitude in through the top of your head. It's just filling your entire body. Like let your body feel the gratitude. And gratitude works if you don't feel like, oh, I have to do this because it's a checklist. It works if you're just, I'm going to make myself see my life differently. I'm going to give myself a different perception. I'm going to find

what's good in my life. And I'm going to feel how grateful I am. for this amazing life that I have. You can't be anxious and grateful at the same time. One always wins. And so you've got to actually train yourself to see what's good. Okay? That's the sixth thing I would do. The seventh thing that I would do is just do a 10-minute brain dump every morning.

Just clear the mental noise. You already have your journal out from a gratitude. It helps you just notice all of your emotional clutter. It helps you notice your anxious loops or your fears that you're putting in front of yourself or the stuff that you're avoiding. And what it really starts to do is build awareness, which is the key to changing anything. And so just set your timer for 10 minutes.

You don't need any structure. You don't need to worry about grammar, what your handwriting looks like. Just dump whatever is on your mind. And you can ask yourself questions if you want to. Like, what am I feeling right now? What's taking up a lot of mental space for me? What's one thing that I really want to let go of?

Like, what do I want in my life? And it could be vague, what do I want? just see what comes in today or it could be direct. What do I want in my relationships? What do I want in my career? What do I want in my bank accounts? What do I want in my friendships? And just allow yourself to put what's ever going on to your brain on a piece of paper. You know, you're not writing to be perfect, like perfect in any sort of way. You're writing to get a little more clear on your life, and you're writing to empty the clutter that's just inside of your brain. Right. Your thoughts need to go somewhere. And when it's on a piece of paper, the good thing is it can usually be worked through

and it can be planned from there. And so that would be number seven. And the last thing that I would do before I go into my day is to use a three task daily to-do list. I've been talking about this for years. Three things. So you can put your entire to-do list on a piece of paper. And then you prioritize number one, number two, number three. And this focuses prioritization so that you're not just busy, but you're actually productive. If you finish three tasks a day, like your three most important tasks, that's 21 tasks per week.

That's 84 wins per month. So just every morning, write down your top three like must-do items. Label them one, label them two, number three. And then what I like to do is take an actual index card, like a three-by-five card, and write number one, number two, number three, put it in my back pocket, and then it's with me all day long. And then now you just actually start hammering out the to-do list. Okay?

And so my goal for you with all of these is not to have you do every single one of them tomorrow. It's honestly just to try to start with two of these this week. That's it. You're not trying to overhaul your entire life overnight. You're just proving to yourself that you can be consistent. And that consistency will build identity of I'm someone who follows through. And then you can go to three things. And then you can go to four because you're trying to build your identity of a consistent person.

And once you see yourself as somebody who follows through, everything will become easier. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me at Rob Dowell Jr. R-O-B-D-I-L-J-R. and if you want to learn more about coaching with me outside of this podcast, you can go to coachwithrob.com to learn more. Once again, coach with rob.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way. I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better.

I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.