The Mindset Mentor - How to Build Systems to Achieve Success

Episode Date: January 28, 2026

What if the reason you keep falling off track has nothing to do with motivation—and everything to do with your systems? In this episode, I break down why relying on willpower, discipline, or motivation will eventually fail—and what actually works instead. 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 podcast episode because I put out episodes four times a week to help you learn and grow and improve yourself because if you can improve yourself, you can improve your life. So if that's something that you want to do, come along on this journey with us. Today, I'm going to be talking about how to build systems in your life to actually achieve success. because if you're relying on motivation, willpower, or self-discipline to reach your next level in life, you're already probably in trouble. Success is a marathon.

It takes a long time for you to become successful. And if you don't build systems that carry you through the days when you don't feel like showing up or when you fall off, you will mess up. And I'm sure you've done it over and over and over again in your life. What I have found is that the top performers in the world, they're not better than you. They're not smarter than you. They've just become better at removing friction from their lives and automating consistency for what they need to do.

And so today I want to show you how to actually build a system in your life that makes success your default. So that it's not this constant daily battle of I want to do it, but I'm not doing it. It's just, hey, I'm waking up and I'm taking action at the life I want to create. because think about this for a second. Is your life, when you look around, is it built to support the person that you're trying to become? Is it built to support the life that you're trying to actually grow into? For most people, that answer is no. And it's not because they're lazy or because they're stupid or because they're undisciplined.

It's because of fact that they haven't built systems to support who they're trying to become. So, you know, you need to stop like trying harder. And what you need to do is go, okay, I'm not going to try harder. I'm going to start building smarter. Like, I'm going to build systems to help me achieve the success that I want so that you don't rely on motivation or hustle or vision boards or any of that stuff. You just have a system that you've built and you just got to follow the system. The way I like to think of a system is it's like the scaffolding that holds up your habits.

They are unsexy, but they are a powerful strong. that stops you from sabotaging yourself over and over and over again. Like we all do. And so what I have found is that the most successful people in the world do this. And what they do is they build a life that supports what they're trying to build. Right. And so let's talk about it and dive into it. Right. There's a pattern that I see all of the time with people, especially when it's like New Year's resolutions and right around January. Most people, they'll set a goal. They'll get really excited about the goal. And then they'll have a few good days, maybe even a good week or two. And then life happens. And I hear it all of the time over and over and over again. I'm really good at starting. I'm really terrible at following through.

I'm really good at starting. I'm really terrible at following through. Because life happens. You know, you're tired and sometimes you're overwhelmed and sometimes you're just not feeling it. And so you end up missing a day. And because you just missed a day, it makes it easier to miss the next day. And now you're going back into old patterns. And then you can, if you're like most people, you can cue in the guilt and the shame and the telling yourself that you're worthless or that you're never going to change, whatever it might be. Is that sound familiar? Like I was here like, oh, like, you know, I worked out for 17 days in a row. And then I missed one day. And then I never went back to working out again. And I was like, well, what happened in that one day? Like, oh, well, I didn't go to the gym and did it. I say, okay, but what did you, what did you tell yourself about yourself? Well, I told myself, I'm a loser. I'm never going to, I always mess up. This happens to me every time, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, hold on. So you worked out 17 days in a row. And then you guilted yourself and shamed yourself for missing one day instead of celebrating the fact that you went

17 days in a row. And they're like, oh, yeah, I guess I did do that. And so it tends to to be a typical cycle. And so does that sound familiar for you? If it does, I want you to realize that you're not the problem here in most cases. Your system is the problem. It's like you've been trying to reach the top floor of success in your life without building a staircase at all. Without a system, your goals are just being run by emotions and old patterns. And those are unreliable. So you need to build something stronger. And that's where you really need some structure in your life. let me show you some examples, right? Because the system is how you achieve a goal. It's not just what the goal is. And so I'll give you a couple of examples of what that might be. Like let's say that you want to work out. Okay, well, maybe your goal is to work out consistently and to lose 10 pounds or to gain five pounds of muscle or whatever it might be.

Well, you need to build a workout system if that's the case. What could that look like? Well, maybe what you do is you decide that you're going to schedule workouts three days a week. week and you're going to put them in your calendar for 60 minutes. And then part of that system is, let's say it's Monday night and Wednesday night and Friday is when you work out, right? Well, then the night before, your system is going to be that you're always going to pack your gym clothes the night before. And then you know that your specific workout plan before you even wake up that morning. So it might be like Monday is push day. Wednesday is pull day. And Friday is, and Friday is is legs day. And so you've already got it figured out. So you don't have to make decisions. It's just like something that you run with. Right. And if if you're short on time, because life happens,

well, then we're going to have something where if, you know, if shit hits the fan, we're going to default to this thing. And so maybe if you're short on the, you know, something goes crazy. When your kids get sick, things go awry. You're going to default to say a 10 minute YouTube body weight session. And you're going to have it already planned and save. so that if it ever does happen, which it will happen, life gets crazy. This is my 10-minute workout to make sure that I get it done. You see what I mean? It's in your calendar. You've got your gym close out. You have your specific workout plans figured out. And if shit hits the fan, I've already got a plan. That is what a workout system looks like versus like, I'm just going to figure it out

today. You know, you need a system, right? So let's say you want to eat better. Maybe eating healthier is a system that you want to create. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. Right. So if you're creating an eating better system, well, then maybe what you want to do is you want to plan all of your meals on Sunday and prep as many as you possibly can. And you're going to go to the grocery store every Sunday at 3 p.m. And that's just in your schedule. And you're going to create three like go-to healthy meals that are just on. on repeat for busy nights so that you don't have to think. You don't default to fast food or you don't default to chips or anything like that. You've just got your three go-toes that you go to on the

busy nights. And then maybe you say two nights a week, I'm going to use a meal delivery service, like DoorDash once or twice a week. So I can just remove decision fatigue. And you know what place you're ordering from. You know exactly what you can be ordering. You know that those things are healthy. And now you have created a system for you to be able to eat healthier. Okay, let's say that you want to get better at focusing and like really get better at being productive. Well, then you're going to create a deep work system. And so that would be 90 minute deep work blocks where you've decided your phone is going

to be in the other room. You're going to use the Pomodora technique, which is 25 minutes on, five minutes off with one task only. And you're going to do it three times in a row, which makes 90 minutes. You're going to make sure that you do this, let's say, Monday, 3 minutes. through Friday from 10 a.m. to 11.30, right? And you're going to move all of your meetings that you normally have in the morning to your afternoons. And in order to get yourself in the mental prep and to get yourself ready, you're going to have some sort of like focus ritual. You're going to do breathing or

you have a specific playlist or you're going to have your headphones. And so you're developing a system, not just like, I want 90 minutes of deep work. You see, that's why I mean that's like the whole system is like the scaffolding that holds it all together, so that makes it easier for you to take action. And then let me give you one more, because I know people want to get better with money, right? Let's create a finance system. Let's say that your goal is to manage your money

and not be overwhelmed by all of it. And so the system is not like, I want to save more money. That's just a goal. The system is I'm going to set a weekly money review where I'm going to check my bank account. I'm going to check my investments. That's going to be the last thing I do on Friday.

so it's Friday at 4.30 p.m. I'm going to use auto transfers for my savings. So every week, I'm going to have $50 for my paycheck. You know, I get paid every single week. So, you know, when I sue my paycheck kids. I'm going to put $50 into a separate savings account that I will never touch. And then maybe you figure out how you're going to invest it each month. And then you're going to track your expenses every Sunday for 15 minutes. And there's many apps now that you can just literally plug up your bank account to an app and it shows you exactly where you're spending money and where you need to cut back. Like it's so much easier now you can use this. And so you can use that one app to keep visibility over it. And so you see it's like the goal is

to save and to invest more money, but you're building a system, a framework around it, the scaffolding to help you get it done. The reason why systems work is because first off, it removes decisions fatigue. Like if you have to make a decision, a lot of times people are just like, I'd rather sit on the couch to do nothing. And so it builds habits into your existing routines. It makes it easier on you so that you don't always have to like rely on willpower. And then it turns your goals in from like a wish, oh, I wish I could do it's to like a workflow. Like you're creating an actual workflow to achieve your goals. And it's in your calendar. Like if it's not scheduled or if it's not tracked or it's not supported in some sort of way, it's not a system. It's really a hope more than anything else.

And so that way, you don't sabotage yourself. Like, you just take action. Because we all sabotage ourselves. Like, there's a few different ways I see people sabotage himself. Like, first way is they have, like, have this all or nothing, like, rule that they've created. Like, I have to be perfect. That's stupid. You're not going to be perfect.

And so what you're doing in this system is you're creating, like you're building a minimum viable product, like a minimum viable version into your system. Like you can't do a, like I said a few minutes ago, you can't do a full 60 minute workout. well your system includes a 10-minute body weight backup plan. Your system should always have some sort of backup plan built into it so that you're defaulting to something, not nothing. So that's like the first way people usually self-sabotage. Second way is like people are sitting around like waiting to be motivated.

I'll do it when I'm feeling inspired or when I feel excited. The fix for that is like you kind of like have a trigger-based system that you've built. So you don't wait until you feel like it. You just get it done. Like you don't wait until you feel like brushing your teeth. You just do it because it's part of your morning flow. And so can you get everything to be like that? Like use consistent triggers.

Like right after breakfast, I do this. When I make my morning coffee, I do this. Right after work, I do this. When I get home, I do this. And you're anchoring all of these habits to specific things that are already happening in your life. And then the third thing that I see a lot of times is people are just like, oh, like a huge trap is like, I'll just remember it.

No. Please don't just think you're going to remember it. Because systems, the reason why they works well is because they live outside of your brain. You know, so you can use a calendar, a habit tracker, a recurring reminder, accountability buddy, a visual checklist. Like if it's not visible and you don't see it multiple times a day in your external world, it's very easily forgettable. Okay. And so if you want to achieve and start to build out your own systems, let me give you the three simple Ss for building a goal hitting system, right? so that you can actually build on today. Okay, the first thing is make it simple.

Make it so easy that tired you or grumpy you can still follow it, right? Make it if it's, if it's, you don't have time, make it a five minute version of your, your habit. Have some sort of backup that you can always go to, right? Like no setup required, clear next step like, okay, I didn't do this. Like I said, you know, 60 minutes, I don't have it to work out. I've got, I've already got a 10 minute body weight work. I've got 10 minutes right now. Let me take action on it. The key is that you design it for,

like you don't design it for your best day. Like, oh, if everything was perfect, they'll do. Like, you just design it for your average day and you keep it as simple as you possibly can. The second thing that will really help you is it needs to be scheduled. Like, random goals get random results. So if you put it in your calendar and you pair it with a trigger and you attach it some sort of existing routine, it's more likely to be done. And so an example could be like, I'm going to, instead of going, hey, I want to write an entire book, I'll just say, hey, I want to write 100 words right after I get my morning coffee. I want to meditate every day right after I get my morning water. I want to call 10 leads before I check my email. Right? If it's not in your

calendar, it's not planned, it probably doesn't exist. So that's the second thing. And the third, S that you want is you want it to be supported. Like you want reinforcement around you. So like ask yourself who knows about this goal? Like what tools can remind me of it? What reward or feedback system do I have or can I build? And it could look like, you know, a Monday check-in with a friend who's also trying to work out more. It could be something like using an app like streaks to track yourself. It could be putting Post-it notes on your mirror so that you see it everywhere. Right? You know, you're going. You you're more likely to succeed when you build an environment that makes your success easier, but also visual as well, so that you can't forget about it. Right. And now, what happens when

you screw up? Because you will screw up. I promise you this. You're not going to be perfect. But the difference is now your system has a reset button in some sort of way. And so like if you miss a workout, cool, no big deal. But your system includes a never miss twice rule. If you, skip a writing session because something happens, your system includes a five-minute, like, recovery prompts tomorrow. If you, you know, go off track for a week, which sometimes happens to all of us, your system includes a Sunday night review that's in your schedule. And so what happens with these is you build it so that success becomes easier and so that failure is not final. Like, messing up is actually part of the system. You will mess up. So just plan ahead on what you're going to do,

next time that you do mess up. And so this is what the point of systems are, is to build a actual framework in scaffolding so that achieving your goals actually becomes easier. And as I said in the very beginning, this is what I have seen from the most successful people in the world, is not that they're smarter, it's not that they work harder, is that they have built systems to actually make achieving their goals easier. And that is what I want you to do. 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 in it. Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-A-L-J-R. And if you're out there and you want to learn more about coaching with me outside this podcast, you can go to coach with rob.com. 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 you have an amazing day.