The Mindset Mentor - How to Know if You’re Making the Right Decisions

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

Are your daily choices setting you up for success or sabotaging your future? Today, I dive into the hidden consequences of your actions—both good and bad—and reveal how even the smallest habits shape your life over time.  Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

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 for the past almost 10 years to help you learn and improve yourself. Cause if you can improve yourself, you can improve your life. So hit that subscribe button so that you don't miss any more episodes to improve your life. Today, we're gonna be talking about the consequences of all of the actions that we take.

I want you to understand this. Everything in life has consequences. And consequences can be like a negative connotation, but there are good consequences and there are bad consequences. And it all just depends on the actions that we take. And last night my wife and I were watching a documentary and we were having this conversation about the person who the documentary was on and how unaware they were of the negative long-term consequences of the actions that they were taking. And we have this long discussion about everything

that we do, good and bad, has consequences. And most people that I have found in this world want to turn a blind eye to the consequences of their action down the road. We want to act like, I can do this thing in a silo and it won't affect me later on down the road. And it's kind of like, if you look at science, Newton's third law, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Well, it's the law of cause and effect. It's the same here for every cause there is an effect. There is no way to get away from this thing.

And so if we take a step back, we have to realize that whenever we're saying yes to something, we're saying no to something else. You know, if I'm saying yes to waking up, well then I'm saying no to sleeping in. If I'm saying yes to waking up early, then I'm saying hopefully no to staying up late. And so like if you're saying yes to watching Netflix,

you're saying no to maybe building your business or no to creating wealth for yourself and for your family. You're saying no to the people whose lives you could change from building an amazing business that helps the world. Maybe you're saying no to playing with your children outside. If you're saying yes to something, you're always saying no to something else. And see what we tend to focus on is relaxing

and hanging out in downtime, which is great. There's nothing wrong with that, but there's always consequences to everything that we do or do not do. So if you're saying yes to sleeping in, then you're saying no to your morning routine that you want to do. You're saying no to maybe morning yoga. You're saying no to morning meditation. You're saying no to spending your morning reading a new book. You're saying no to spending that time with your children in the morning before you take them to school. You're saying no to journaling

and getting to know yourself on a deeper level. Life is full of consequences. There is no way to outrun them because with every cause, there is of course some form of an effect. And when you look at are there consequences, let's say that you're someone who's wanting to build your business, right? Are there consequences of building your

business? Good and bad? Yeah, of course, there's, there's maybe creating generational wealth for your family, maybe doing something that you love that actually feels fulfilling, maybe, you know, the work that you have to put on yourself to, to become better to grow that business. Maybe there's time freedom down the road that you might get. Maybe you'll be able to travel when you want to with your family if you build this business

and five years from now you might have more freedom. Maybe you really knock it out of the park and you're gonna be able to have a life where you can do what you want, when you want, with who you want. Those are some of the consequences. Are there maybe negative quote unquote consequences about building a business? Absolutely. Sure, there's hard work. There's dedication. There's getting out of your comfort zone.

There's all of your insecurities that are going to come to the surface when you decide to do something like grow a business. There's maybe some nights where you wake up and you can't fall back asleep because you have a massive to-do list. So yeah, there are some negative consequences, but really what you have to do is you have to weigh the options between the two of them. What are the consequences of not building your business? Well, it's the same old life that you've always had. Maybe it's working a job that's unfulfilling for you,

not ever feeling fulfilled with what you spend the majority of your life doing. Maybe not creating the wealth that you wanna create for your family. Maybe not getting to take as many vacations as you want to. Maybe it's less freedom than you would prefer. Everything has consequences and we need to really start paying attention to them.

Life is either easy now and hard later or hard now and easy later. The beautiful thing about life though is you're the one that gets to make the decision of which one you're going to choose. You can't act like you're a victim and that life is just throwing it at you. Which one are you going to choose? Because life is going to be hard at some point in time. Either it's easy now and hard later, or it's hard now and easy later. Are there consequences of creating a healthy lifestyle?

Like are there positive consequences of it? Yeah, absolutely. There's the possibility of being able to live longer. There's maybe having more energy. There's feeling healthier, maybe better sleep. Maybe you're more mobile now and more mobile as you get older. Are there negative consequences to being healthier?

Yeah, hard work. It's a whole lot easier not to work out than it is to work out, right? There's this dedication that's required from you. There is maybe not eating some of the food that you would normally enjoy. Maybe having to wake up earlier and getting to having to push back your sleep time and not being able to watch as much Netflix. So instead of going to bed at 11, now you're going to go

bed at nine so that you can wake up earlier so that you can have time to actually get your workout in. The negative consequences? Yeah. Swe, soreness, ow, like heart, like you've been waking up and being sore for a couple of days. If you have stairs in your house and now you gotta walk up the damn stairs when really you don't wanna move your legs at all, of course there's consequences to it.

Are there consequences to not creating a healthy lifestyle? Yeah, I mean, to be honest with you, maybe you don't live as long. Maybe not looking as good as you feel like you could. Maybe you have less energy, which will permeate into other parts of your life. Maybe that less energy is gonna permeate into your relationships with your spouse,

or boyfriend, or girlfriend, or maybe it's gonna permeate into relationships with your children, because your children wanna go outside and play, but you know what? I haven't been taking care of myself, and I don't have as much energy. So maybe it's gonna permeate into relationships with your children because your children wanna go outside and play, but you know what? I haven't been taking care of myself and I don't have as much energy. So maybe it's gonna permeate into,

I don't have as much energy, so I can't put as much energy into growing my business. What we like to do, and the reason why I'm bringing all this up is because we really would prefer to turn a blind eye to the negative consequences of our actions or the lack of action that we have in our life. But just because we turn a blind eye to it doesn't mean that they disappear.

It's just that we prefer to act like they disappear. Whether we want to look at the negative consequences or not, they will still always be there. And time, I always say, is either your best friend or it's your biggest enemy. Because if you're working on yourself and you're taking the right actions, the consequences later on down the road, you will eventually be able to, the fruits of your labor will eventually come in

at some point in time. It might be next year, it might be two years, it might be five years, it might be 10 years, it might be 20 years down the road. five years, it might be 10 years, it might be 20 years down the road. But eventually, it's gonna bear fruit. You're gonna get it. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show.

So, there is that, but there's also on the other side of it, if you don't take the right actions now, for your business, for your family, for your relationships, for your family, for your relationships, for your health, everything later on down the road, the consequences will eventually catch up. And at that point in time, that is when time is your greatest enemy. And usually what I have found from talking with a lot of people is a lot of times it's

too late. It's too late for me to do this thing. It's too late for me to do this thing. It's too late for me to save my relationship. It's too late for me to start working on my mobility because my children are already a certain age and my grandchildren are a certain age and I can't do what I want to with them. It's the fact of life is that life is either hard now

and easy later, or it's easy now and hard later. There's gonna be hard at some point in time. But the good thing is, if you don't act like you're a victim in your life, you do get to choose your hard. We can't act like we're a victim of our circumstances. We have to realize that our actions create our circumstance in life. And the fact is, it is hard for us to focus on long-term

because long-term doesn't happen right away. That's one of the things that's, it's not like, you know, if you go to Vegas and gamble and you lose a bunch of money, you immediately got the consequences right in your face same day. But for most things, we don't really have the consequences immediately. Like there's very little difference

between somebody who works out today and somebody who decides to skip their workout today. There's pretty much no difference when you wake up tomorrow between the person who worked out today and the person who skipped the workout that they said they were gonna do today. Tomorrow, not much of a difference, but there is a big difference between them.

If you fast forward 10 years from now, between the person who works out four times a week for 10 years versus the person who hasn't worked out in 10 years. There's a massive difference between the two. Time, it will always catch up. So if we're out here and we're making bad decisions, we like to look at right now and be like,

yeah, but my body's still okay at this point. It's not really a bad thing. We like to act like, and what I'm doing is not really a big deal. And I want to stay blind to what the future could hold of these decisions. I want you to understand that it's not the big decisions in your life that change your life. It's the tiny little actions compounded over years and years and years that make the biggest changes of who we become. You know, if you eat fast food today, it probably will not kill you today. But if you eat fast food four times a week

for the next 10 years, yeah, it might kill you. Time is gonna catch up. Working out today versus skipping the workout, like I said a few minutes ago, not gonna really make any difference in your body when you wake up tomorrow. But fast forward 10 years, big difference. The person who consistently skips

will have a way different body than the person who consistently works out. You know, if you're trying to grow your business and you need to knock on doors in order to start talking with people and selling your product, if you don't knock on doors today, probably not gonna make a huge difference today or tomorrow.

But if you don't knock on doors, then you could have knocked on 100 today and you compound those two different actions over the next five years, way different life for those two people. And so what I really want you to start thinking about is think about the life that you want in the future. Think about, I always love to pull people into the future as often as I can. What are the actions that you need to take in order to change your life? So when you look at the life that you currently have and you look at where you want to be in the future.

So many times I ask people what they want. They're like, I don't even know what I want. Figure it out. Sit down with a pen and paper after this podcast episode is done. Turn me off right now. I don't care. Anything that you want and get clear on what it is that you want in your life. It's like if you look at so many ancient texts, one of the things that's almost always in

so many of them and it pops up over and over is something along the lines of asking you shall receive. If you don't know what you want in life, you're not ever asking for it, which means that you will never receive it. And so it's like where do you want your life to be? What do you want your life to look like in the future? And then from there you work backwards. Okay, if that's the future that I want, if this is what I want my body to be like, this is what my relationship with my spouse to I want, if this is what I want my body to be like, if this is what my relationship with my spouse to be like, if this is what I want my relationship with my children to be like, this is what I want my bank account to look like, and you

figure all of those things out, you then ask yourself, what are the actions that I need to take to change my life? And what I want you to do is you might come up with 10, 15, 20 actions that you need to take to change your life. I would recommend just focus on three. Focus on three. What are the three that are going to be the biggest needle movers for you in your life? If you do that and you start taking those actions, will your life be harder now? Hell yes, absolutely 100%. It will be harder now. But if you fast forward into the future, there's a version of you in the future that is grateful for deciding to make your life harder. Now, I promise you that

I would much rather my life be harder when I'm younger than my life be harder than when I'm easy when I'm when I'm older. I'd rather it be easier when I'm older. And so will your life be harder now if you make big adjustments and you take bigger actions? Yes, because if you make big adjustments and you take bigger actions? Yes, because if you're saying yes to this, you're saying no to a lot of other things. And then you ask yourself the question, what are the long-term consequences of me taking these actions day in, day out?

How's it going to change my life? How's my life going to be different? How's my body going to be different? My mind going to be different? My relationship's going to be different? My happiness going to be different? My bank account going to be different, my mind going to be different, my relationships going to be different, my happiness can be different, my bank account going to be different. What are the long term consequences of me taking these actions day in day out?

Okay, now let's talk about the other side. What are the three actions in my life that I need to stop doing in order to change your life? What are the three actions where you're looking at me like, you know what, I got to stop doing this? For some people listening, you know that you probably should stop smoking. Whether that's weed, whether that's cigarettes, you might say, you know what, that doesn't line up with the person that I want to be in the future. For some of you might be, I don't want to drink anymore. For some of you, it might be,

I need to stop eating fast food. I need to stop doing these things because it doesn't line up with the person that I need to be in the future that I want to be in the future. Is it going to be hard to wean yourself off of something you've been doing for a long time? Of course it will. Hell yeah, it's gonna be hard to stop doing things that you love doing. Like maybe maybe maybe love is not the best word that you've enjoyed doing over time and have become habitual for you. Sure, it's gonna be hard to stop those things. Once again, hard now, easy later. Well, maybe if you decide to stop smoking,

it's gonna be hard now, but it's gonna be way easier later in life when you don't have any lung problems, when you don't die early from it, when you can spend more time with your children. So what are the three actions I need to stop doing to change my life? You know what, I need to stop sleeping in. I need to stop staying up so late. I need to stop eating the junk food.

I need to stop talking so negatively to myself, whatever it might be. And you find your big three. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to actually put yourself in the future. Because a lot of times as humans, what we do is we will avoid pain almost at all costs. But we're usually looking at the tiny little bit of pain right now. We're not looking at the long-term consequences in the future, that pain. And change happens when the pain of staying the same is way more painful than the pain of change. And so the question I want you to ask yourself

and journal through is what are the long-term consequences of my bad actions if I don't change them? If I put myself 10 years into the future, what are the long-term consequences of me not changing? And then get very detailed, see what your life could become. I promise you, you're not gonna be stoked about it. You're not gonna be happy about it.

I want you to see how painful it can be in the future, because if you see how painful it can be in the future, you go, screw that, not going down that road. It's gonna be way harder in the future than it will be right now for me to stop smoking, for me to stop drinking, for me to eat healthier, for me to decide to wake up earlier, for me to decide to have that tough conversation with my relationship, for me to decide to go on a run every single day. And so when you see the long-term consequences of your negative actions, usually it's like that, honestly, what I'm looking into my future is a train wreck that I want to avoid. What do I need to do to avoid it? And so you find those big three actions that you need to stop doing and you focus on those.

So once again, you find three actions that are big actions that you need to start doing in your life. You find three actions that are big actions that you need to stop doing in your life and you actually start doing what you need to do. Because I'm telling you, and it's just the fact of life. It's a universal sledgehammer to the side of the head. Life is either easy now and hard later or hard now and easy later. You get to choose what your heart is and when it comes. Hopefully, you choose the right one because everything in our life has consequences. So that's what I got for you for today's episode.

If you love this episode, please do me a favor, share it on your Instagram stories, tag me in a RobDowellJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And once again, if you also want to make this the best year of your life and you want to actually start to reprogram the habits that you have inside of your life, the actions that you take to stop self-sabotage

and to stop procrastinating, I'm running a free two-day workshop, January 15th and 16th in the evening. And if you want to join me absolutely free and register, it is habits2025.com. Once again, habits with an S, 2025.com. And I'm gonna 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.