The Mindset Mentor - The Great Purge: Spring Clean Your Life to Purge Negative Habits & Thoughts

Episode Date: August 28, 2023

Welcome to today’s episode of The Mindset Mentor Podcast today. We are going to talk about some thing that I call “The Great Purge”. The great purge is all about doing a deep cleanse of your mind, your relationships, and your environment… and and the way you start this process is by simply looking at each of those things and asking yourself one question:“Is this serving me? Or is this stealing my energy?”But it’s not serving you, nor giving you energy, and is, in fact, sucking the energy from you… I’m going to recommend you completely eliminate that thing from your life.And yes, sometimes that’s going to be very hard. Not just when its relationship to either, maybe something that’s been holding you back is more like an addiction, or a bad habit, like alcohol. It’s time to make some adjustments.The reason why you wanna do this periodically throughout your life, and not just once a year it’s because as you live your life, you are developing new habits meeting, new people and finding yourself and you places. Which is a really cool and exciting thing, however, it is crucial that if you want to protect everything that you are working hard to become, then you need to reassess these things periodically so that you don’t find yourself spending time having to unlearn habits, or go through the heart aches, later.You are strong, and you are on a powerful journey, and this is just a part of it. In this episode, I’ll give you everything you need to know in order to sort through all of this, and by the end of this, you will also know why you did it all for to begin with.If you like this episode… Make sure to share it with someone that needs to hear it and help us get the message out there so that together we can help make people’s lives better and make the world a better place. And BY THE WAY:My first book that I’ve ever written is now available for pre-order. 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.Within its pages, you'll discover powerful insights and practical steps that will revolutionize the way you approach your goals, personal motivation, and mental focus.📚If you want to pre 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: https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@robdial?lang=enFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/themindsetmentee/Or visit my Youtube page that is designed specifically for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHl3aFKS0bY0d8JwqNysaeA 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 am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, please do me a favor, go to take out your phone, go to whatever platform that you're listening to this on, whether it's Apple Podcasts or Spotify or Google, whatever it might be, and give us a rating and review however you listen to us. The reason why is because the more positive rating and reviews that we get, the more that those platforms show this podcast to people who have never listened to it before. So if you love this podcast, that would allow us to be discovered by more people

whose lives we could hopefully change later on down the road. So if you do that, I'd appreciate it. Today, we're going to be talking about how to purge stuff from your life. We're going to talk about going through a massive purge, and it's something that I recommend that you do a few times a year. Two to four times a year is what I recommend, either every six months or every quarter. And it's kind of like spring cleaning, but it would be spring cleaning. It'd also be summer cleaning. It'd also be fall cleaning and winter cleaning for your entire life. I don't mean that you have to just go through and purge your clothes or just go ahead and dust up every corner of your house.

You can definitely do that if you want. I'm talking about the whole person that you are. I want you to look around your entire life and look at something and say, is this serving me anymore? And if it's not serving you anymore, can you let go of it? Can you actually purge it? Because imagine this, just imagine that every single thing, and this is the way I like to think about things.

Imagine that every single thing that you own, you know, it could be from a car to a house to a pencil. Every one of those things occupies a little teeny piece of your brain. Even if it's a pen that is inside of your drawer that you haven't seen in three years. Just imagine that every single one of them owns a piece of your brain, just a little tiny piece. How much of your brain is scattered all over the place? What if we could get rid of all of the things that are not serving us in any sort of way? And I'll tell you what I mean by serving you in just a minute and start going, you know what? If it's not serving me, there's no reason to have it anymore. If it's

not serving me, there's no reason to have it. And so when I talk about serving you, what I mean by is it helping you get to where you want to go in life? Is it helping you or is it hurting you? And if it's not helping you, there's no real reason for it to be around. But we like to hoard things and go, well, maybe in the future I will need this thing that I've had for 17 years, but haven't used it in so long. It's like, why don't you just purge those things? Why don't you just let go of them? Why don't you just have, and I'm not talking about being a minimalist, which I do think that that would be good for a lot of people, but just having less so that you can have more mental space. That's really the way I like to think about it. Because all too often we hang on to things that we just don't really need them

around anymore. That could be physical things, but it could also be thoughts. It could be habits. It could be other people because we think we might need them later on down the road. But if it's not propelling you forward in life, it's weighing you down in some sort of way. And when you purge, you move faster. You feel lighter. Life becomes more effortless. You think quicker on your feet. And you don't have that mental energy scattered all over the place.

And so some of you may have never done this before. Once again, I'm not just talking about cleaning out your environment. That will be a part of it. But really, some of you have never done this before. Once again, I'm not just talking about cleaning out your environment. That will be a part of it. But really, some of you have never done this before, which means that when you do this, you will feel like a different person. It will help you. And I like to call it the great purge. And really, the great purge, it's not the most fun day.

It's not the most fun thing you could do. And some people are going to listen to this podcast episode, and you're not going to do shit. I already know that. But some of you are going to listen to this podcast episode, you're going to do it, you're going to implement it, and it's going to make you feel better. And what you do is you take one day and you do nothing but purge. You get rid of whatever is not serving you, whatever is not propelling you to be better. And I'm going to teach you all the different categories and just a

few that popped up into my head as I was planning this. There's quite a few more. But really, had as I was planning this. There's quite a few more. But really, it's not just spring cleaning. It is mental and emotional cleaning as well. It is mental, emotional cleaning more than it's spring cleaning. So when I say like, oh, throw away of a pen. Yeah, that's fine. You can throw away a pen. But I'd prefer you throw away that toxic relationship of this person that's just been kind of lingering around. And you're saying to yourself, well, you know, I'm keeping them around because we were friends in middle school and I would feel really bad if I didn't hang out with them anymore. But there's a part of you that knows that they're holding me back. They're really just holding me back in some sort of way. And so, you know, we could talk about

physical objects and we will, but we're going to really dive into some deep stuff. And we're going to go through every single thing in your house, every single thing in your relationships, every single thing in your thoughts, all of that stuff. And we're just going to get rid of everything that doesn't serve you. Purge anything that doesn't serve you. Stop hoarding all the things. Everything that you own takes a tiny piece of real estate in your subconscious. And so we want to design your life to support you in hitting your goals. Hitting your goals is hard enough, but if you have all of these things that are just holding you back in some sort of way, it's only making it harder. So wouldn't it be easier if we could just make it easier on you? That's what we're trying to do. So let's dive into it. Mental. What about thoughts? What are some thoughts that you have?

You know, with my wife, I'm going to have her on the podcast soon and we're going to talk through this, but we were together for like five years before she really opened up to me and told me that she was so tough on herself and just talked so much shit to herself. And eventually she got to a point where she's like, this isn't serving me. Being this way is not serving me. Talking shit to myself is not helping me get to where I want to go. And so really what it came down to is a mental purge of like, how do I speak to myself? And is that helping me or is that hurting me? Because if you're, like I said, hitting your goals is hard enough, but if you're shitty to yourself, man, that's so much harder. It's like somebody punching you in the face as you're trying to run the marathon, right? It's unnecessary. You don't need to. So I want you to think of like inside of

your own head. What goes on? How do you talk to yourself? What fears do you have? Are those fears helping you in some sort of way? Because some fears can help you in some way, but a lot of fears really hold you back. You know, take a pen and paper, write this stuff down and think like, okay, category of mental. How do I speak to myself? What fears do I have? What limiting beliefs do I have? Are these things helping me or are they hurting me? And if they're hurting you, how can you start to work through them? Now, the process of my wife starting to work through the way that she talks to herself has been years now. Three or four years she's been working on it and she's way better than she was but we had a conversation a couple days

ago and she's still not where she wants to be. She still says some things, she still holds herself back mentally and that's just a process of just purging them. Slowly starting, you know, if she could get rid of all of them at once and flip a switch, she definitely would but sometimes things have been there, they've been habits for so long. That's just really hard to let go of the way that you talk to yourself. And so thoughts that go through your head, maybe you're more of like a pessimist. Is that pessimism really helping you get to where you want to go? Something to think about. And you start to go through your life and say like,

in the way that I speak to myself and the way that I think of things, maybe you're, maybe you don't talk trash to yourself, but maybe you sit there and you're like, well, I want to do this thing. And you say, oh yeah, but I've never really been a motivated person. I've always kind of been lazy. Is it like, is that mindset helping you or is it hurting you? And how do we start to actually switch it? So the first category that I think of is mental. Next thing I think of are your habits. What habits do you have? We all have tons of habits. About 47%, according to Harvard psychologists, a study that did, about 47% of what you do on a daily basis is habits. So can we start to become aware of our habits and say,

does this habit help me? Like if you have a habit of waking up early in the morning, that's probably a habit that you want to keep. If you have the habit of, you know, eating Twinkies at 11 p.m. at night, is that one helping you get to where you want to keep. If you have the habit of, you know, eating Twinkies at 11 p.m. at night, is that one helping you get to where you want to go? And you start thinking about the habits that you have and you take a mental assessment of the entire day. From the moment that you wake up to the moment that you go to bed and you say like, what are my habits? Like the things that I consistently do. I brush my teeth every single morning. Is that helping me? Yeah, I would recommend you continue to brush your teeth. And you start thinking about all the things that you do on a daily basis. Oh, usually after eating, I usually get a cup of coffee. Is that helping me? Yeah, I'd recommend you continue to brush your teeth. And you start thinking about all the things that you do on a daily basis. Oh, usually after eating, I usually get a cup of

coffee. Is that helping me or hurting me? Well, it depends on who you are and what you're trying to do. And while I'm drinking that cup of coffee, I spend 45 minutes on Instagram. That's probably not helping you. So is that something that you need to purge? You start thinking about the habits that you have throughout the day. Next one, going to be a really big one and also triggering for a lot of people, is your relationships. Go through all of your relationships and ask yourself, is your relationship with this person helping you or is it hurting you? And it could be friends, it could be family, it could be significant others, it could be people that you follow on Instagram. That's a big one as well I'll cover in just a minute. But one of the things I want

you to think about is, and I've said this on the podcast and I've gotten some backlash on this before of people from the podcast as well, is if somebody is holding you back in your life, if somebody talks down to you, if they make you feel less than, if they make your life less peaceful, no matter who they are, there should be an opportunity where if you want to, you could let them go. And this does even go back to your parents. And this is where I get a bunch of backlash. Oh my gosh, how could you ever tell someone to get rid of their father? And then what I say to them is, if you heard some of the stories

of what some people's fathers have done to them, you'd go, oh yeah, they should definitely get them out of their life. Because maybe your relationship with your father is not toxic. But when you hear somebody's relationship with their father and what toxic. But when you hear somebody's relationship with their father and what is it they do and some of the toxic people that are in other people's lives, you'd go, oh yeah, shit. Yeah, I would. Yeah, you should get rid of that guy. Right. So that's, I get a lot of backlash every time I talk about purging your parents, if they are toxic or, you know, spending less time with them. People are like, how could you ever say that? I'm like, if you could hear some of the stories that I've been told from people about what

their parents have done to them and what they continue to do to them daily, every single day. I got a message on Instagram the other day and it was just terrible about how someone's mother treats them and what they say to them. But, you know, someone's mother says that almost on a daily, every single day, their mother calls them a piece of shit. I'm like, that sounds pretty damn toxic. And so you might be like, well, you can't get rid of your mother, but you have a great relationship with your mother. Well, there's other people.

You never really know what people are going through. And so it's something to think about. And it's tough. It's not easy. I know it's not easy, but you can start distancing yourself from some people. Another thing that I would recommend is the people that you follow on Instagram. Every couple of months, I go through my Instagram and I unfollow like 150, 200 people. Cause I'm like, is this person helping or hurting me? And about two years ago, especially when all of this stuff with COVID was happening and it was, it was kind of really ramping up. I unfollowed a lot of people because I realized that I would wake up in the morning and you know, I'd go through my morning routine and then I'd spend about five, 10 minutes on Instagram and I would see some people's stories. And some people, I didn't realize, but about an

hour later, I was like, man, I feel like shit. Why do I feel so bad? And I realized that I was seeing people's stories that were just talking about doom and gloom and conspiracies and this and that. And they were both sides, you know, the right and the left. And they were saying this thing and that thing and this thing and that thing. And I was like, oh my God, seeing other people's stories is making me feel bad throughout the day. And so I just went through and I said, do I, do I enjoy following this person anymore? And what you have to realize is when you decide to follow somebody, I heard James Clear say this one time, when you, when you decide to follow somebody, you're deciding your future thoughts. So if you look at what they're doing, you're following

somebody that's a quote unquote celebrity on a reality show, and they're just trashing other people and it's throwing people under the bus and it's drama, drama, drama, drama, drama. Is that drama helping your life get better? Or do you think there might be a part of your mind that's kind of being pulled down by it? So what are some people you should stop following in real life and also on Instagram as well? Another thing you could think about purging as well, go through all of the food in your house. Yesterday, literally yesterday, I opened up the pantry and I was like, we have so much food that's just sitting here that we haven't used in like two years. I was like, we got to purge this entire thing. That's actually

what inspired me to make this podcast episode. I was like, we have so, Lauren, we have so much shit in here. We got to get rid of some of these things. We have rice from like 12 years ago, it feels like. Like it's just old. It doesn't need to be in the house. And it's like, I open up the pantry and there's just so much clutter. I'm like, this doesn't just, it doesn't feel good to open up this thing. I have to like search for stuff. So we decided on this weekend, we're just going to purge the pantry. So is there food in the house? You know, if you're trying, if you're on your fitness journey, is there certain food that you need to purge from the house? Therefore you don't get tempted. So there's food in the house. What about your finances? What

are you spending money on? Have you actually gone through and looked at your finances and see where you're spending your money and seen like, oh man, like I have this thing I've been paying $12 a month for. I haven't used it in two years. Well, why don't you recoup? You know, if it's $12 a month, 12 months, that's $144 a year. Could you recoup some extra finances? So start looking through your finances and purging some of the things that you don't need anymore. What about your living situation? Maybe you live with a roommate and you're like, you know what? Living with this roommate, I've been trying to wake up early. I'm trying to change my life, but they're up late, they're partying, they bring people over and they wake me up in the middle of the night. Maybe your living situation needs to change. And it might not be like an immediate thing that

changes today, but it's something that you could start moving towards. So you could change your living situation. Also, when you look at your living situation, think about your entire house. Does your house facilitate you growing and becoming better? I always say this all the time. So many people spend time watching too much TV. And if you find yourself watching too much TV, can you go for the next 30 days? I'm going to take my TV off the wall. I'm going to throw it inside of the closet.

And I'm just going to put books on the coffee table instead. When you come over to my house, we have like 10 books on the coffee table. Just because there's sometimes I find myself there and it's like, I could be on Instagram or I could pick up a book. And at least I have the decision. I'm like, I'm going to pick up this book instead. And so look at your living situation. Next thing I think about, technology.

What technology do you have in your life that you don't really need anymore? We go back to the TV. I just explained like, are you spending too much time? It'll be really good as if Netflix had like screen time the same way that you have screen time on your iPhone. Netflix came in and said at a weekly report, this is how much time you spent every single day on Netflix. Most people are like, what the hell? I think the average person spends about two and a half to three hours a day on Netflix. And so do you spend too much time on your TV? Could you start to purge some of that? What about social media? Are there social media apps you're spending too

much time on you can delete? I don't know. It's completely up to you. I know that I took Instagram off my phone. And I have two phones. I have my personal phone and I have my business phone. And my business phone is where I post on Instagram and it stays inside of my office. I never move it from, it's always charging all the time. And I have Instagram on that phone. I don't have it on my personal phone. I took it off. My screen time went down 22% the very first week. I gained 22% back. It was like an hour and 15 minutes I gained back just from not having it. So maybe you could try out purging some social media for a little while. Try it for 30 days. If you don't like it and you want to have it back, re-download it. Not a big deal. Okay, what about your physical possessions? Like what are the things that you actually own where

you're like, I don't need this anymore. This is too much stuff. What's your garage look like? Oh God, right? Probably have a lot of stuff in your garage you get rid of. What do your possessions look like? Could you have a garage sale, make some extra money, do some of that money, go to a conference? What if you decided to get rid of some of the possessions that are just hanging out in your garage that you don't have anymore? You had a garage sale, you get an extra thousand, 2000 bucks. And you're like, you know what? I'm going to go to a self-development conference. Then you go to some sort of conference, or maybe you go to some conference of something that you're interested in. Maybe you're interested in cryptocurrency and you go to cryptocurrency

conference, whatever it might be. And you actually start working towards your goals a little bit more. Wouldn't that be better than just keeping that stuff in there? Because those things are worth money. You can get rid of them. You haven't been golfing in 12 years. You still have your golf clubs? Maybe you can make a couple hundred bucks off those golf clubs, right? So you start thinking about the possessions that you have as well. And then the last thing, and there's many categories of life, the last thing I think of is like your goals and your vision. Your goals and your vision are going to change over time. You could purge some goals. Oh, this doesn't really line up. You know, this is, we're halfway through the year. This one that I had that was a New Year's resolution doesn't really line up with

me anymore. I'm going to change this around a little bit. I'm going to make it different. What about your vision? Your vision should change over life. Like you should always know kind of the direction that you're going in, like your North Star where you're following this thing. But there might be some things that don't necessarily align with you anymore. And that's completely fine. What we're really trying to work at here is to clear out anything that does not serve you and does not propel you and help you in becoming the type of person that you want to become and really accessing your true potential here. Because I believe that we're all here to experience life and have fun and see what it's like to be a human and to really find out what our true potential could be. And if anything gets in the way of that, can we just purge it?

And this is something really good to do. If you've never done it before, do it this weekend. Okay. Take a day. I know it's a lot of work. Hey, so is also creating the life that you want, but it will benefit you and be able to have more mental clarity, more space when you start to purge the things that you don't really need anymore. So that is how you access your true potential. So that's what I got for you for today. If you love this podcast episode,

please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single podcast episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.