The Mindset Mentor - The Problem with Your Goals

Starting point is 00:00:00 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 that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you love this podcast, you're also going to love my YouTube. We're putting up a ton of podcasts on there, but also YouTube exclusive videos to help you learn and grow. So if you want to follow me on there, go to YouTube and type in my name, Rob Dial, and go ahead and follow there. Today, we're going to be talking about your goals, and I'm going to be talking to you about the problem with your goals. I'm going to tell you why it is so hard for you to hit your goals, for you to stay consistent in taking the right action hitting your goals. And I'm also going to give you a hack in your brain to help you make it easier to hit your goals. And I'm also going to give you a hack in your brain

Starting point is 00:00:45 to help you make it easier to hit your goals. And let's talk about goals, for instance, right? I could sit down and I could say, hey, let's come up with your 10-year plan. Where do you want to be in 10 years? What do you want to have in 10 years? What do you want your family to look like? What do you want your happiness to look like? Where do you want to have traveled to? How much money do you have? What kind of house do you have? What kind of cars do you have? And it can be exciting in the moment. But then after you get done planning, one thing that happens with a lot of people, it can become paralysis by analysis because you start thinking, here I am today, and that's where I want to be in 10 years. And your mind can immediately go to processes and all of the things

Starting point is 00:01:25 that you need to get done in order to get there. And it can seem so far away that sometimes it could actually be demotivating. This is something I've learned over years and years of working with people. I thought that, hey, when you create a 10-year goal, you're excited and then you work your ass off to get there, right? And you're all fired up that you're going to be there. And then you wake up the next day and you start thinking about how long this journey is, this journey of a thousand miles, this journey of 10 years to get you where you want to go. And the thought of how many things need to be done in order to get you there can actually stop you from taking action. And so really what it comes down to is we're focusing too much on the outcome and everything that

Starting point is 00:02:05 needs to be able to get there over the next 10 years, like what we have to do every single day over the next 3,650 days. And it's like, man, that's a lot of things when really we should be focusing on the process. And so that's what we're going to be diving into today is the process instead of the outcome. Because we all want the outcome. We all want the goals. We all want the outcome. We all want the goals. We all want the money. We all want the successful business,

Starting point is 00:02:28 the great relationship, the incredible children that we've been able to grow and help and create into these great humans. We all want those things. We want the goals. But what we need to focus on is we need to focus on the process. We need to focus on what it is

Starting point is 00:02:43 that we need to do every single day. And not just every single day, each moment. What's the best thing for me to do right now? And so most goals are focused on what I like to call results-based goals. We're focusing on the result that we want. What we're going to talk about today is the benefit of having action-based goals, having daily action-based goals, right? So results-based goals would be like, I want to lose 10 pounds and then I'll be where I want to be, right? I want to make, I want to hit a million dollars in revenue in my business and then I'll be where I want to be. And those are great. Those are results-based goals. And I think that they are important to create. But then after you create them, you actually transition into creating from your results-based goals, action-based goals.

Starting point is 00:03:31 What action do I need to do today in order to be in alignment with where I want to go? What do I need to do today? Just focusing on today, even just the next hour in order to get me to where I want to go. And then we want to act in alignment with the type of person that we want to be, the type of person that we want to show up as every single day. You want your actions to reflect the type of person that you want to become. And so what you do is you actually focus on just today. And then what you do is you develop focus on just today. And then what you do is you develop something called a dopamine reward system. So what is dopamine, right? So dopamine, most people think that dopamine is like the feel-good chemical in your brain. And it does feel good, but that's more

Starting point is 00:04:15 of a serotonin thing. When you look at dopamine, dopamine is the chemical of motivation. Dopamine is a very external-based chemical. Serotonin is a chemical of here and now and everything's peachy and everything's beautiful. Gratitude, grateful for what you have. Dopamine is the chemical of motivation. Dopamine is a chemical of more. I want more. I did this thing and I want more of it. It's the chemical that's released also when you get really excited about something or you're celebrating something. And the best part about dopamine, it is completely subjective, which means that you can literally be in this moment right now and you can just decide, you know what? I'm going to try to feel my body up with as many good feelings as possible. Think about how amazing my life is.

Starting point is 00:05:00 Think about how amazing these challenges have come in my life have helped me get better. And we can actually celebrate anything that we want to, make ourselves feel good, release dopamine. And when we release dopamine because it's a chemical of more, our brain will actually want more of it. you look at people like Michael Jordan, you look at Kobe Bryant, you look at the greatest CEOs that are out there, some might say hard work, dedication, obsession, and that's all correct. But there's a secret behind all of it. All of those things are true. They are really hard workers. They are extremely dedicated. They are obsessed with what they do, but there's something underlying. Most of them fell in love with the process. They fell in love with the process. And most of them, whether they realized or not, probably created a dopamine reward system. I don't know if they meant to do it, but they probably did it. And this is why you see somebody like, I always hear people that are like,

Starting point is 00:05:58 oh, well, if somebody is a billionaire or they're a millionaire and they could retire, why don't they just retire and just enjoy the rest of their lives? Because they've actually fallen in love with the process. They've fallen in love with becoming the person that they're becoming. They've fallen in love and created a dopamine reward system, whether they realize it or not. And so I'm not sure that they knew they set up a dopamine reward system, but they did. So when you look at a dopamine reward system, what is it? What does a dopamine reward system actually mean? It's a way to get your brain to release some dopamine after you accomplish a task that's part of your process. So it's a way to get your brain to release dopamine as soon as you get done and you accomplish a task that is part of your process. And once again, it's subjective. So you can basically feel excitement for doing something, right? So in the context of a dopamine reward system, dopamine is released in response to

Starting point is 00:06:57 rewarding or pleasurable stimuli. The release of dopamine, it signals to the brain that the behavior that led to the reward, the release of the dopamine, the celebration should be repeated in the future. So the release of the dopamine signals to the brain that the behavior that led to the reward, the celebration, whatever it is, the, hey, I showed up at the gym and I didn't want to, hell yes, congratulations, you're amazing, I'm so proud of you for doing this. You can literally tell yourself this in your head. It's the release of dopamine and that signals to the brain that the behavior that led to the reward, the celebration, the being proud of yourself

Starting point is 00:07:33 should be repeated in the future. And this is because dopamine reinforces the neural connections that were involved in the behavior, making it more likely that the behavior will be repeated in the future. So I'll give you an example of what I mean by that. Let's say that you're trying to lose 10 pounds, right? You could be like, I'm gonna lose 10 pounds

Starting point is 00:07:54 and lose 10 pounds and lose 10 pounds and lose 10 pounds. And you can focus on it, but at some point in time, you're probably gonna do some really good stuff and you're probably gonna fuck up. We all do, right? You're gonna mess up at some point in time.

Starting point is 00:08:07 Usually when people mess up, they feel down on themselves. They start to tell themselves, what an idiot, you should have done that, you screwed up. And instead of making themselves feel good about the correct actions that they took, they make themselves feel bad about the time that they kind of fell off track. And that's not going to motivate you to want to do it again. And so what happens is, how can we reward ourself in this process? So let's say you did go to the gym. You showed up at the gym. While you're working out, you're getting your first set in.

Starting point is 00:08:34 Hell yeah. I'm so proud of you for showing up. You didn't want to freaking be here. You didn't want to be here and you're doing what you didn't want to do. I'm proud of you. You get done with that next set. Hell yeah. Great job on this set, right?

Starting point is 00:08:44 Releasing dopamine. Great job on this. I'm so proud of you for showing up. I'm so proud of you for showing up. Every single set. I'm so proud of you for showing up. I'm so proud of you for showing up. You're doing what you didn't want to do. We're on the right path. We're in the process. We will get the outcome. We just got to keep going. You're talking to yourself. You're talking to yourself. You're talking to yourself, right? You get done at the gym. Hell yes. I'm so proud of you. Instead of leaving the gym and look at yourself in the mirror and be like, damn it. I'm so far away from my goal. I'm still not where I want to be and getting pissed off at yourself. You leave the gym and as you're walking out of the gym, you're like, I'm so proud of you.

Starting point is 00:09:16 You eat that thing that you wanted to eat. Hell yeah. I'm so proud of you. You say no to that thing that you didn't want to eat or you know you shouldn't be eating if you're trying to get to your goal. Hell yeah. You said no to that. You said no to that bag of you didn't want to eat or you know you shouldn't be eating if you're trying to get to your goal. Hell yeah, you said no to that bag of Skittles. I know you wanted that bag of Skittles, right? Hell yeah, so proud of you for this. Hey, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. One of the things that I love about personal development and about being a human

Starting point is 00:09:37 is that I always find something new about myself and sometimes it's a challenge that I need to work through. Getting to know yourself can be a lifelong process, especially because we're always growing and changing. Therapy is about deepening your self-awareness and understanding because sometimes we don't know what we want or why we react the way that we do until we talk through things. BetterHelp connects you with a licensed therapist who can take you on that journey of self-discovery from wherever you are. And if you've been listening for a while, you know that I think that every single person should go

Starting point is 00:10:04 to therapy at some point in time, not because something's wrong in their life, but simply because they want to learn, grow, and improve. So if you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited for your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire

Starting point is 00:10:19 to get matched with a licensed therapist, and you can switch therapists at any time, no additional charge. So discover your potential with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash dial today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash dial. See, the problem with results-based goals is that if we're only focusing on the achievement of the goal, dopamine won't be released until you achieve the goal. And that could be years down the road. If you set a 10-year goal and you're only going to be

Starting point is 00:10:50 proud of yourself when you hit that 10-year goal, you're not going to get dopamine. You're not going to get the chemical of motivation until you achieve that goal. That could be years down the road. That's not motivating you to do it that way. How can you use the chemical of more, the chemical of motivation to actually want more? And so when you look at like, for instance, a person that pops in my head is Kobe Bryant. Cause I used to, I studied him after he passed away and just was like, what, what made, he was obsessed. What made him obsessed? He accidentally set up a dopamine reward system. I don't think he knew that this is what he was doing, but maybe, maybe he did. Maybe he worked in neurologists and they told him this, right? His thing was never about winning

Starting point is 00:11:28 championships. His thing was never about winning championships. Did he want to? Of course. But his was, I'm going to be the best freaking basketball player that's ever walked the planet. Sure, this is exactly what LeBron James did. I'm sure this is exactly what Michael Jordan had done as well, right? But if we look at Kobe Bryant, he would wake up at four o'clock in the morning every single morning to work out because it motivated him knowing that his average competition would wake up at eight, nine, 10 o'clock. And so he would tell himself how amazing it is, how proud of himself that he was, that he was working out while everyone else was sleeping. And he would do it over and over and over. He would be proud of himself for doing the thing that he needed to do. So what does that make him more likely to do with the dopamine reward

Starting point is 00:12:09 system? Show up tomorrow and do the exact same thing. And the end result, the outcome was five, I think he won five NBA championships, right? But it wasn't just the outcome that he was focused on. It wasn't just becoming the best basketball player. It was the process that he fell in love with. And this is why daily action-based goals is way more important than the results-based goals. Because you can celebrate yourself immediately while doing it. And if dopamine is released, you're more likely to do again. It's not about achieving the goals. Achieving the goals is the byproduct of the process. Achieving the goals is the byproduct of stepping into being that person every single day. It's all about falling in love with the journey. Because humans, we're all biased towards the present. We're really biased towards the

Starting point is 00:12:53 present if you think about it, because if you go back 100,000 years to our ancestors, it was the present moment all of the time. It was, we need to eat, we need to survive, we need to be safe, we need to get water, we need to get food, all of this stuff. And so humans are very biased towards the present. So what happens is if we start thinking about it that way, we're really biased towards the present. This makes sense why humans are so obsessed with instant gratification. We're so obsessed with it. So what I would say is, can we make the goal for 10 years for now and then forget about it and focus on the actions that you need to take every single day in order to hit that goal and then celebrating yourself on the way to the process

Starting point is 00:13:36 of hitting that goal, right? So we have a problem with instant gratification. We're not really good with delayed gratification. We want everything now. We want everything now. We want everything now, which is normal because that should be built into our system. That's how our ancestors survived. But if you want to build the business that you want, if you want to build the relationship you want, if you want to build the body that you want, if you want to build the mindset that you want, if you want to build the amazing life that you want, it doesn't happen like that. It takes time.

Starting point is 00:14:02 That's not how the world works. Everything great takes time. That's not how the world works. Everything great takes time. But we can hijack our system and give ourselves instant gratification now for the things that won't happen for a while, right? Because when you look at delayed gratification, if you go to the gym now, you're not going to see the results you want for months. You're not going to see the results you want for maybe a year. If you go to college right now, you're not going to get the degree for at least four years. If you save for retirement right now, you're not going to get the degree for at least four years. If you save for retirement right now, you won't be able to retire for like 20, 30 years.

Starting point is 00:14:32 And so when you look at instant gratification, the beautiful thing about instant gratification is that we are geared more towards instant gratification, but our goals won't come for the future. So can we use the dopamine reward system to actually hijack our system and feel instant gratification for something that might not come for years,

Starting point is 00:14:50 that might not come for months, that might not come for weeks? And you think about that, it's actually kind of interesting to think about, right? So with instant gratification, when we look at everything that we want, we know that we can't get, we won't go into the gym right now

Starting point is 00:15:04 and have a six pack as soon as we walk out of the gym. That'll take delayed gratification, when we look at everything that we want, we know that we won't go into the gym right now and have a six pack as soon as we walk out of the gym. That'll take delayed gratification. Instant gratification, reward comes immediately. Delayed gratification is a reward comes later on down the line. And we can know this and we can give ourselves immediate rewards by releasing dopamine with action-based goals, with literally the daily action-based goals. We can feel proud of ourselves in the moment. And that's the amazing thing about it. The immediate reward won't come for a while, but we can immediately reward ourselves for going to the gym. We can reward ourselves while we're in the gym. We can reward ourselves while we're making the sales phone calls. We can reward ourselves while we are waking up in the calls. We can reward ourselves while we are

Starting point is 00:15:45 waking up in the morning. We can reward ourselves for showing up and being present with our children and putting the phone away. The immediate reward doesn't happen when you just go to the gym, but celebrating yourself can actually feel like the reward. Think about this for a second. Can you hijack your system to make your habits, your actions to become easier? Because if you decide, you know what? Let's go back to the gym example. If you decide, okay, I'm going to go to the gym. I want to lose these 10 pounds and I know that it's eventually going to happen as long as I take the right action. That's all I'm going to do. I'm just going to follow the right action. And then you just show up for yourself and you just

Starting point is 00:16:22 do it every single day, every single day, every single day, you're going to get to where you want to be. The goals are a byproduct of the actions that you take. And the actions that you take become easier when you link a dopamine reward system to it. Habits become easier when you find pleasure in doing them, not when you talk shit to yourself during it because you don't look the way that you want to look or because you're not where you want to be or because it seems like it's so far away. And it's as simple as being proud of yourself for showing up and taking the step in the right direction. And a lot of times, doing what you didn't want to do. See, because all too often, what we do is we pay attention to the bad. We pay attention to the negative. We pay attention to what we don't want. We pay attention to how we're not where we want to be. We pay attention

Starting point is 00:17:07 to, man, I fucked that up in that conversation with my spouse, right? What we need to do is we need to get better at praising the good in ourself when we did show up. My feet hit the floor at 6 a.m. I'm going to praise myself for doing that thing that I wanted to do. We need to get better at praising the good in ourself and ignoring the bad. We need to get better at praising the good in ourself and ignoring the bad. We need to get better at celebrating ourself the same way that we would celebrate a child that ended up hitting the tee ball and getting to first base.

Starting point is 00:17:34 Or your friend that calls you up because they got a job promotion. The one person that you want to see succeed. Can we get better at celebrating ourself the same way that we would celebrate someone that we truly love? Because progress feels good. When we feel like we're progressing in the right direction,

Starting point is 00:17:50 it actually feels good. Can we feel the progress? Can we feel the feelings of how proud we are of ourselves for showing up and doing what we need to do? And so the secret to all of this is we need the goals. I 100% think that we need the goals. We need the one to all of this is we need the goals. I 100% think that we need the goals. We need the one-year goals. We need the quarterly goals. We need the five-year goals, 10-year goals, whatever it is that you want. But then when you look at the goals, you've

Starting point is 00:18:12 got to ask yourself, who do I need to be? What do I need to do in order to achieve this thing? And then all we do is we just show up every single day. And when we show up, we're proud of ourselves. And so the way that I've been using this recently, just to give you an idea of how I'm using it. So I've been working out on off three to four times a week for probably 15, 16 years now, right? But for me, it was always about how can I build muscle? How can I lose fat? How can I lift the most amount of weight? How can I get as big as I possibly can? How can I become a beast in the gym? And all of that and it was always goal goal like outcome based outcome based outcome based outcome based and then I just decided this year you know what I'm just going to show up to the gym every single day I'm going to move my body in some sort of way three to four times a week that means lifting

Starting point is 00:18:58 really heavy right three to four times a week the other three or four times it's moving my body in some sort of way sometimes it's yoga sometimes it hot yoga. Sometimes it's going for a run. Sometimes it's getting in some floor movements and what they call animal flow and primal movements on the ground. Sometimes it's doing crawls outside. It's just, what does my body feel like it needs to do today? And what's crazy about it is this entire year, I've worked out probably 95% of the days this year. And so I am looking and I'm going, this is actually pretty crazy. I'm in one of the best shapes of my life. And I haven't been focusing on the outcome at all. All I've been focusing on is what do I need to do today? And I'm going to tell you, majority of the days, I don't feel like moving my body. Just going to be honest. I'm like, I'd rather just sit here and do nothing.

Starting point is 00:19:46 It's a lot easier to sit on the couch and do nothing. But I've been saying, I'm just going to show up every single day. That's all I'm going to do. I'm going to show up for myself today. And when I show up, I reward myself. I reward myself with, hell yeah, great job. Once I start to feel the movement, my heartbeat getting better, of getting a little bit more into it, I'm like, I'm in the zone.

Starting point is 00:20:04 I'm starting to feel in the zone. This is great. And what I'm doing is I'm through the process. Man, you showed up and you didn't want to show up today. I'm fucking proud of you for doing that. Man, looking in the mirror, dude, those muscles are looking good. I'm really proud of you today. And just showing up, oh, my set was supposed to be done. I'm going to do one extra one. Dude, you just did one extra one. You did an extra set. I'm so proud of you for doing that. done. I'm going to do one extra one. Dude, you just did one extra one. You did an extra set. I'm so proud of you for doing that. And what happens is you start to actually get the results that you want. You get the outcome that you want, but you don't even focus on the outcome. You focus on the daily processes, the action-based goals of what needs to happen today,

Starting point is 00:20:39 and you celebrate yourself for it. And when you celebrate yourself and you release that dopamine, and you celebrate yourself for it. And when you celebrate yourself and you release that dopamine, your brain and your body go, hey, that's pretty good. We should do that thing again. Because if you go back to what I said earlier, when you look at the dopamine reward system, dopamine is released in response to rewarding or pleasurable stimuli. The release of the dopamine signals to the brain that the behavior that led to the reward should be repeated in the future. And this is because dopamine reinforces the neural connections that were involved in the behavior, making it more likely that the behavior will be repeated in the future.

Starting point is 00:21:16 Find your long-term goals and then ask yourself, what actions do I need to take each day? And how can I reward myself every single day for taking those actions? Do that and watch how many goals you hit. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. I have to thank all of you for the hundreds and hundreds of shares that you guys have. I see them every single time a podcast comes out. So I greatly, greatly appreciate you guys sharing this podcast because of you guys. We're one of the top 100 podcasts in the entire world and we continue to keep growing. So I greatly, greatly appreciate you for that. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode.

Starting point is 00:21:56 Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

The Mindset Mentor - The Problem with Your Goals

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