The Mindset Mentor - The Secret To Self Discipline

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

In this episode, we'll explore some practical, actionable tips to help you strengthen your discipline muscle. From completing what you start, planning ahead, to designing your environment for success – we've got you covered. Plus, I'll share why focusing on progress rather than perfection is key, and how rewarding yourself can actually make discipline a joy rather than a chore.Remember, this journey towards a more disciplined life is not just about the hard stuff; it's about embracing self-love and caring for your future self. So, grab your headphones, get comfy, and let's dive into this together. If you find this episode uplifting or helpful, I'd be over the moon if you'd share it on your Instagram stories and tag me @RobDialJr. Let's spread the positivity and power of discipline far and wide!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 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, the number one mindset podcast in the entire world. Thanks to all of you out there that are listening. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. Today, we're going to talk about how to develop discipline within yourself, how to become more disciplined. And the first question that I always think for anything is why. So you clicked on this episode that is titled something along the lines of how to have more discipline.

And you think to yourself, huh, I should listen to that. I think I could use a little bit more discipline. Why do you want to be more disciplined? What is it that you think about when you think about being more disciplined? Is it that I want to be more disciplined in making 100 phone calls in my sales job? I want to be more disciplined to eating the right food. I want to be more disciplined to turning off my phone when I come home so that therefore I can have family time. I want to be more disciplined to go to the gym five times a week. I want to be more disciplined to get up when my alarm clock

goes off. I want to be more disciplined to go to bed when I should go to bed so I can wake up earlier. Why do you want to develop more discipline? What do you think would change in your life if you started to become more disciplined? You probably think to yourself, my life would be better. I would probably make more money. I'd probably be in better shape. I'd probably be happier. My children would be happier. So you can see that discipline is a positive thing because the word discipline can have a negative connotation because we think to ourselves, like if somebody doesn't do something, your child doesn't do something, you discipline them, or your dog doesn't do what it's supposed to do, you discipline it.

So we think discipline has this negative kind of feeling behind it. But discipline is actually one of the best things that you can do for yourself. And so today we're going to talk about how to be more disciplined. And I want you to understand this before we dive in, is that discipline is like a muscle. It is a habit that you build within yourself. Nobody is born disciplined. There's no very disciplined two-year-old. And they're just like, ah, I'm going to do this thing. Like there's no, there's no disciplined person that's born into this world. And the reason why I can say this is because I feel like now I am a very disciplined person. Um, but I was extremely

undisciplined and I was a lazy piece of shit for a long time. And then I developed a why behind it. Like I saw where my life was. I saw where my life was going if I continued down the same path that I was already on. And I thought to myself, well, I want to go down a different path. I want a different life path. I want something to be different than that. So I'm going to develop some discipline. I'm going to get better at taking action, to doing what needs to be done, and sometimes doing what I don't want to do for the greater good of myself and for my life. And so I developed it over time. And the interesting thing about discipline is that discipline, you don't have to have it for the easy things.

You don't need any discipline at all to do the things that are easy. To sleep in, you don't need discipline for that. To eat something that's really tasty but not good for you, you don't need discipline for that. To not go to the gym, you don't need discipline for that. To not go to the gym, you don't need discipline for that. To decide to stay home and not grow your business, you don't need discipline for that. To not make cold calls, you don't need discipline for that. Ultimately, you need discipline to do the things that are actually good for you, that are good for you, that are good for the people around you, that are good

for your mind, your body, your soul. You need discipline to do those things. You need discipline to sit down and meditate for 10 minutes, right? Because there's so many other things you could make excuses for. But you know that when you sit down for 10 minutes and you meditate with nothing else, that you end up being a more calm, better version of yourself around your children, around your employees. You need discipline to do the good things. You need discipline to do the things that are harder, right? You don't need discipline for the easy things. You need discipline for the hard things. But these are the things that you know should be done. You need it. And the way that I want to frame your mindset and to change your mindset around discipline is that when we hear the word discipline, I think it's kind of a hard thing and it feels

kind of like constraining, right? Like for me, I always think very visually. So when I think of like discipline, I think of almost like a normal connotation that it has kind of in society is discipline is kind of like a straitjacket. Like you can't do anything else. You have to do this. You have to be mean to yourself. You have to kind of white knuckle your way into discipline. No, not really. That's the way that we normally think about it. But I just shared with you that you need discipline to do the things that are good for you.

And so in a sense, I want to reframe your mindset around discipline and realize that discipline is a form of self-love. Discipline is a form of self-love because you are doing what you know is good for you in the long run. You're focusing on something in the future. It's like planting a seed. You know that you're not immediately going to get the tree, but you know that if you plant a seed now in five years, you'll be able to sit under the shade of that tree and protect yourself from the sun, right? So you're focusing on delayed gratification. When you work out, you don't immediately see the results. When you eat

healthy, you don't immediately see the results. You don't see immediate results most of the time when you have to do something that requires discipline because you're focusing on delayed gratification versus instant gratification. We live in a society where we get everything immediately nowadays. We immediately get almost everything that we want. We get an answer when we want to figure something out. We get food delivered to our house. We get someone to come pick us up and drive us somewhere if we want to use Uber. And so we really are so used to instant gratification, but for our lives and the things that make our lives better, it's almost always delayed gratification is necessary. You put in the work now and eventually you get the fruits of your labor.

Everything works its way out in time. You know, now that I'm slowly each year getting closer and closer to 40, I am now starting to realize that everything works its way out in time. If you take good actions for yourself consistently, time will be your best friend. If you take good actions for yourself and you fast forward 10 years from today, time is your best friend. You're going to live longer. You're probably going to be happier. You're going to be healthier. You're going to be wealthier. You're going to have a greater life. If you take bad actions for yourself, time is your worst enemy. It will catch up.

And as I start getting to the age of almost at 40, I look at people, I can see people on Facebook and Instagram that I grew up with, that I went to elementary school, high school, middle school with, and I can see now people, just by looking at them and go, yeah, that person looks really good. They probably took care of themselves for the past 20 something years since I last saw them. And I can see other people and go, yeah, it doesn't look like they took care of themselves. Time catches up. We like to act like it doesn't. We like to prepare, prepare, prepare. We like to God, I can't even say pretend. We like to pretend like it's not going to catch up to us. It's fucking catching up at some point in time. Time is either your best friend or it's your worst enemy. So discipline, when you think about it, is not about being perfect. It's not about the straight jacket.

It's a form of like, you know what? I am going to eat healthier to take care of my body because I want to live longer because I do want to have more energy because I want to be able to play with my grandchildren, right? So it's not about being perfect or about being this like badass productivity machine, you know, like the overly aggressively masculine fucking go out and get it done, bro. Like it's not about being that. It's about going, you know what? I'm going to show up for myself. And it's not about being perfect. It's not about beating myself up when I'm not perfect. It's about winning that battle more than losing. So I'm going to have more wins in the win column than in the losses column. Yeah, I'm going to try to do the best that I possibly can. I'm going to show up for myself and be more disciplined.

And so let me give you some ways to help you be a little bit more disciplined and to try to do the best that I possibly can. I'm going to show up for myself and be more disciplined. And so let me give you some ways to help you be a little bit more disciplined and to start to develop the muscle. The same way that, you know, if you don't go to the gym, but you decide that you want to start going to the gym, you're going to have some weak muscles. That's okay. But as you lift, you're going to be sore for a couple of days. The first time that you lift heavy, but you'll eventually start to get there. You'll eventually start to get better and you'll eventually start to have this muscle grow. And so I'm going to give you a couple tips just to kind of help you get a little bit better with your discipline. The first thing that's a very simple thing to help you get better with your discipline is to challenge yourself to finish

everything that you start. You know, the way you do one thing is the way you do everything. So the way you do small things is also the way you do big things. And so I always recommend try to do the little things the best that you possibly can. Because eventually you're building that muscle of this is just who I am. This is how I show up. So if I get used to finishing the small things, I'll get used to finishing the big things. So for instance, like doing the dishes, right? You end up going and eating some food. You end up taking that dish and just cleaning it. Finish the act of eating your food, which means finishing

the dish. Clean it by hand, put it inside the dishwasher, whatever you need to do. Sleeping. Finish the act of sleeping. Make the bed. It's these little things that impact the big things. When you can start to develop the feeling of finishing what you start, because all too often what I find with people is that people are really good at starting things. Most people have no problem starting things. They'll start it and they'll excite about it. The problem that most people have is finishing things. The follow through is where most people usually fall off in some sort of way. So if you can get with the little things and you can get good at finishing those things, you get really good

at the big things as well. Just finish what you start. Don't allow yourself to stop something early. Stopping early is a habit too. Following through is a habit. Stopping too early and not following through is probably not the habit that you want to develop within yourself. And that muscle might be strong. The giving up early muscle might be strong. What we're trying to do is we're trying to make the following through muscle stronger now. Okay. So that's the first thing. Second thing that I would recommend to help you be better at discipline is to plan ahead. And plan ahead not as a form of, oh, I've got to plan ahead to get all this shit done and make sure I'm as efficient as possible. No, plan ahead to make it easier on yourself.

You know, plan your workouts ahead so that when you walk into the gym, you don't have to think as much. You just literally take action on what it is that you need to do. So plan ahead in some sort of way. If you're trying to eat healthier, plan ahead your meal plans. Plan ahead in some sort of way to look into the future versus being like, oh my gosh, here I am. I'm at the gym. What should I do? Oh, now I got to think about it. Now I got to find something. Oh, I don't want to do legs today. Do I want whatever it is. Try to figure out a way to plan ahead for the sole reason to make it easier on yourself to take the action

that you need to, right? I always think to myself, how can I make it easier? When I used to do one-on-one coaching and my clients would always say, okay, I want to do this this week. I would always say, how can you make it easier on yourself? Let's try to figure out the easiest way to do it. Let's try to figure out the path of least resistance to get you to the destination that you want. So that's the second thing is to try to plan ahead. The third thing is to design your environment to make it easier once again for you to take action if you need to. Right, so designing your environment. If you want to wake up when the alarm clock goes off, well go ahead and take your phone and put on the other side of the room. That's designing your

environment. There's also an alarm clock I saw the other day that as soon as your alarm goes off, it's got wheels on it. It'll fall off of the side table. It'll roll around and you actually have to go and pick it up and turn it off as it's rolling around and running all over the place. Well, that's a way to design your environment to make sure that you get out of bed whenever the alarm goes off. Design your environment. How can you make it easier? How can you remove temptation? Can you remove the processed food from your house if you're trying to eat healthier?

Can you remove the sugar if you're somebody who loves sugar like me? I love sugar, right? I don't have anything that's processed inside of my house or any sugar that's inside of my house. If you want to stop drinking, remove all of the alcohol. And then as far as the environment goes, can you also just try not to get around people who will challenge your discipline? You know, if you're trying not to drink, well, then it's probably good to maybe distance yourself at least for a little while from your friends that love to party. And they are the ones that will always try

to push it on you if you have that. Or if you have a friend that doesn't eat as healthy and you want to start eating healthier for the next 30 days, maybe distance yourself a little bit from them. So how can you design your external environment to make it easier on yourself to take the action that you need to? That's number three. Number four, focus on progress, not perfection. You will not be perfect. And when you mess up, make adjustments. When you mess up, don't be an asshole to yourself. Because all too often, I see people that will mess up in some sort of way.

They do, like for instance, they'll work out, they'll be on their meal plan, they'll do everything they need to do, they'll be reading, they'll be doing the morning routine for 17 days, and then they screw up one day. And then they get into self-pity and guilt and shame and beating themselves up, and they don't get back on track because of all the shame and the guilt and everything. No, you're going to mess up. When you mess up, make adjustments. What made you mess up? How can you avoid it next time? Stop judging yourself so much. You're a human, not a robot. You're not going to do everything perfectly. So focus on your progress, not your perfection. And so if you did 17 days of doing something well and you screwed up one day and the only thing that you're focusing on is the

one day where you screwed up, why not look at the progress that you made and look at the 17 days where you actually did well? And so that's number four is to focus on progress, not perfection. And then the fifth one, please reward yourself. You are more likely to show up tomorrow if you're rewarding yourself for all the little things that you do. So one of the things I recommend, like for some reason, this, this episode, I've been talking a lot about like meal prep and to be working out and stuff, right? Is to reward yourself, please. If you're eating really healthy, have one cheat meal a week. Like for me, I eat really healthy, but I have one cheat meal a week where I'm allowed to go and eat pizza because I freaking love it. And I eat so much of it and I love it so much that I'm like, all right, I'm good for the rest of the week.

And then I look forward to the cheat meal on Saturday nights where I'm like, I can't wait for Saturday night when I can have that cheat meal. And I love all the stuff that I eat. Like eating healthy can actually be really delicious too. It's not like you only eat a piece of lettuce or anything like that. So reward yourself in some sort of way. If you eat really well, have a cheat meal. If you make 100 calls and you get 100 calls done, have a piece of chocolate.

Whatever it does to make your brain, it's actually something, and I wrote about it in my book. You can get my book if you want to. It's called Level Up. But the entire last chapter, chapter 12, is on your dopamine reward systems and developing a dopamine reward system to celebrate yourself and to get your brain to actually start to fall in love with the process of doing the things that you want to have done and you want to be done. And so you actually develop a dopamine reward system so that you

are more motivated to do it again. And so once again, it's in my book, Level Up is what it's called. It's available everywhere. It's chapter 12. You can read it. And I've also done episodes before about dopamine reward systems, but really it's about rewarding yourself so that you want to show up and take the same action again tomorrow. Because all too often, what do we do? We go to the gym and then instead of rewarding ourself for going to the gym, then we look at ourself in the mirror and you're like, oh, you could have worked out harder. Well, you should have shown up earlier so that you could work out longer. You still look fat. Oh, you still don't look good. And then instead of actually rewarding yourself and celebrating yourself and being proud of yourself, you're still an asshole to yourself, right? I hear this all the time from people.

So how can you reward yourself? How can you celebrate yourself? How can you get yourself to actually start to love the process of being more disciplined and taking the action that you need to? So ultimately, discipline is not something that is struggling and white knuckling and forcing yourself to do something. Discipline is another act of self-love because you need to develop discipline to do the things that are ultimately going to be the best for you in your life. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories. Tag me in it.

Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. The only way that we grow is from you guys actually sharing this podcast. And ultimately, my only goal of this podcast is to help more people because I think more people need to work on themselves in this world. And the world would be better if more people worked on themselves. So if you would help us by just sharing this podcast, more people will be able to find it who have never heard of it before. And hopefully we can continue to keep helping people and changing the world and our own little

space of the world. So if you do that, I'd greatly appreciate it. And with that, I'm gonna leave 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.