7 Steps To Be More Disciplined

0:07Welcome 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. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, please do us a huge, huge favor. Just give us a rating and review on whatever platform you listen to us on. It helps more than you could possibly know. Today, we're going to be talking about seven different ways to build self-discipline within yourself. And today, we're going to talk about the seven different tips because the more discipline that you do have throughout your life, the more you can get yourself to do more and not have to really necessarily force, but it's just something that you naturally do because you're building, same way that you can build confidence within yourself.

0:49Nobody's born with confidence. You can also build discipline within yourself because nobody's born with discipline. Now, when you look at actually discipline itself, it's actually kind of important that we really start to dive into what is discipline because if I ask each person on the street that I pass, what is discipline to you? it's going to be a little bit different of an answer but when i talk about discipline i simply the easiest way to put it is being able to get yourself to take action especially when you don't feel like it take action regardless of how you feel and i don't mean like if you're super sick or in the hospital you have to get work done but i mean like you're sitting around it's a normal day you feel fine you're on your couch you're like i need to do something oh i'm not going to do it I don't really feel like doing it today.

1:35And then you don't go to the gym or you don't make your cold calls or you don't build your business, whatever it is. It's the feeling of the resistance of, I don't want to do this. And then leaning into that resistance versus building a muscle of leaning away from the resistance. Because at this point, it's a habit to give up. It's a habit to throw in the towel when things feel a little bit difficult. And so at this point, you might have over 10, 20, 30 years built up the quote unquote muscle of giving up when things get tough. Now we want to talk about how do you build the muscle of leaning in when things get tough, doing it regardless of how you feel, following the mind and what the mind says versus the body of being like, oh, I'm tired.

2:20The mind knows you need to do it, but there's a disconnect somewhere in there. And so let's go through the seven ways to help you. Okay. The first one is to do this thing that I call focusing on opportunity, not obligation. You're not going to love everything that you have to do. Like for me, I love this podcast, but there are aspects of it, like the planning out of the podcast, all of the research that I have to do. You know, it takes 15 to 20 minutes to record a podcast, but it takes like an hour, hour and a half to plan and research an entire podcast, right? So I love coming here, turning on the cameras, turning on the microphone, speaking.

2:58There's also part of, I don't really love, you know, and that's the whole planning and putting it on order and having to do all of that. But what's really important of it is that is the obligation is I have to do that. The opportunity is this is going to go out to potentially millions of people and some people's lives are going to change from it. And so you have to remind yourself of your why. So the obligation always needs to be done, right? The research, the putting together that needs to be done. The opportunity is, man, it could go out to millions of people and change people's lives. Another thing is an example of like obligation versus opportunity is like obligation is you have to eat healthier.

3:36You have to go to the gym. That's the obligation. But the opportunity is, hey, I could be healthier. I could be in less pain and I could live longer. So you're still going to have to do the obligation, but you're going to be focusing on your why, why you actually want to do it. And so I'm going to have a question for you at the end of each one of these seven. And I got two questions for you on this one is where are you not taking action where you should be? And what opportunity should you be focusing on? Right? So like, what's something you've been wanting to do? And instead of doing it, you've been focusing on the obligation of like this task that you have to do, versus the long term outcome or results that you're going to get from doing that thing that you need to do.

4:17So that's the difference between opportunity versus obligation. Obligation, what you have to do, it still needs to be done, but you're focusing on quote unquote, how hard, how tough it's going to be versus, Hey, what is this going to get me? That's the difference. So that's the first thing. Number two is to do the small things really well. I'm a really big believer on mastering the small things. You know, if you look at the best athletes in the world, If you look at Steph Curry before every single basketball game, he does the exact same dribbling technique and mastering the fundamentals. Athletes master the fundamentals.

4:53They focus on the small things. And so success is doing the small things the right way day in, day out, and just being consistent with that. So what are the small things required for you to get what you want? I always talk about the act of like, you know, finishing the tasks that you do. So for instance, when you get done with sleeping, finish the act, make the bed. It'll take you 45 seconds. But, and believe me, I'm the type of person that's like, I don't really care. You know, like I don't use my bedroom except for the sleep in, right? I don't really care because I don't walk in there and see it.

5:30But it's the simple act of, I need to finish what I started, right? It's a small things, do the small things really well. If you end up eating something, wash the dish immediately and put it away. Wash it dry, put it away. Just get into the act of doing those small things. Is it going to change the world if you make your bed? Absolutely not. Is it going to change the world if you wash one dish? Absolutely not. But you're training yourself to finish what you started, which is a huge part of being disciplined. So the question I have for you on this one that you can journal through is what are the small things that I need to master every single day?

6:04What are the little teeny tiny things that you know you should be doing? Okay, number three is to design your environment. This is super, super important. I wrote about this in my book. My book's called Level Up if you want to get it. And in Level Up, I say that for me, there's a difference between Rob with sugar in the house and Rob without sugar in the house. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you probably know I got a sweet tooth. And when I have sugar, I just want to finish an entire bag of something, right? And so for me, the thing that I wrote about inside the book was that, but then also what I said is the most disciplined people, the people with the highest willpower are not necessarily more disciplined or have the higher willpower.

6:45They just don't test their willpower. They design environments for their willpower to not be tested. You know, if you need to get work done and you only find yourself on your phone, whenever you need to get work done, throw your phone in another room and don't allow yourself to go into that other room. And now you just got to sit and do some work. And so how can you design your environment to not test your willpower, not test your discipline, but make it easier for you to be able to do whatever action is that you need to do? So like for me, if I have a piece of candy, I want the entire bag. So what do I do?

7:24I design my environment. I just don't buy any candy. If you look at my desk, literally there's when I, when I'm working, there's nothing on my desk. It's my computer stand. It's my, uh, my trackpad and it's my, um, keyboard. And then there's an external monitor. That's it. There's nothing else that's on it. I can't go and search through my phone. I can't, you know, doodle something on a piece of paper. Like it's, it's the only thing that's in front of me because then I have no other option, but to do what needs to be done. Waste. I put this in my book too, but you know, if you waste too much time on the couch, take all of the cushions off of the couch and throw them in your closet in the morning.

8:02Because if you ever sat on your couch without cushions, I guarantee you, it's not comfortable. If you waste your time and by having too much time on social media, you can use apps to help you with that. There's one app that's called OneSec, O-N-E-S-E-C. I'm not affiliated with them anyway. I should be based off how many people I've sent to it. But if you're on Instagram too much, when you click on Instagram, it will delay 10 seconds before it actually pulls up Instagram. It tells you to go through a breathing technique to breathe in and breathe out. And it shows you how to do it on your phone.

8:33And a lot of times you can open up your phone, unconsciously go to Instagram and find yourself on Instagram for 17 minutes. But if you go to Instagram and then you see there's a 10 second delay, it says at the bottom, do you still want to go to Instagram? Yes or no. And you just click no. and then it just closes it all out. So that's a way to help you with social media or you can use something like, you know, there's an app called Freedom you can use on a computer that doesn't allow you to go to certain programs, certain websites if it's a certain time of the day. You know, if you want to go up and wake up and go for a run, put your running shoes and your entire outfit and your underwear and your socks next to the sink so that when you wake up, you brush your teeth and you just get clothes on.

9:11Shit, you could just wear those clothes to bed if you wanted to. Make it easier for you to do this stuff. How can you design your entire environment? How can you design your entire environment? Design your environment to support you taking action. Okay, so the question you can journal on this one is what in my environment do I need to change in order to make taking action easier on myself? Okay, tip number four to help you get there. Make your body move. just the there's study after study after study that shows basically that when you're inactive, it makes it easier to stay inactive. When you're active, it makes it easier to stay active.

9:51So if I'm finding myself inactive, I need to break the actual habit of inactivity and get my body moving in some sort of way. You know, I almost never feel like working out, but after working out, I can usually make myself go a little bit more. I'll be like, all right, I'm going to do 45 minutes. And then 45 minutes, I'm like, I could probably do another five. I actually want to do more sets, more reps and feel amazing after pushing myself further. But at the beginning of it, before I actually start, I'm like, I don't want to fricking do it. And when I first walk in, I'm like, I don't even want to be here.

10:22But at the end of it, I'm like, I feel amazing. I can go a little bit more. So what happened? I forced my body to create action. I forced my body to find energy. And in that action, chemicals, chemicals change in my body and, you know, in my body, it then sent this message to my brain that gave me more drive to keep going because action creates more action and inaction creates more inaction. And so get your body moving. And so what I would recommend is, is make the barrier to entry as low as you can. So I don't think that you need to go and just do an hour long workout every single day, but if you need to get your body moving in some sort of way, whether that's to go to a workout or whether that's to literally just get some work done, how can you design your environment to change and actually make it easier to take that action?

11:06What is a five-minute movement that I can do to get my energy flowing? And what I would do is go onto YouTube and type in five-minute high-intensity interval workout or five-minute yoga routine or five-minute band workout, something that's going to get your heart rate up in five minutes. Believe me, if you start doing these, don't underestimate these YouTube high-intensity interval workouts. in five minutes you can get yourself sweating and so i would go online and try out a few of them find the one that you really like and have that be the pattern interrupt when you find yourself being lazy and sitting around and doing nothing you're like i gotta get up i gotta figure out what i need to do this has to happen i'm gonna put it on and i'm gonna go so you didn't have to think about it so you saved in your bookmarks you just click it because the more that you have to think the more you have to do the less likely you are to do something i don't have to think about it i just go to bookmarks i go to the one that i pick that i like and i just make myself move and after those five minutes, you're going to feel like taking more action.

12:02So that's number four. Number five is basically just do a countdown and go. So Mel Robbins wrote an entire book on this. It's called the five second rule. Me, it's interesting. This is something that I used to do when I was younger. I was, I used to be really, really shy. And, um, in eighth grade, I realized I'm never going to have a girlfriend if I don't talk to anybody. And so what I would force myself to do is I would, I would figure out the first, you know, what the sentence was going to be. This was not just around girls, but this around everybody, right? I would figure out the first sentence and the first word of what I was going to say would be, and I would go three, two, one, and I would say the word.

12:36And if I said the word, I'm going to look really weird if I don't finish the sentence. So then I just had to finish the sentence. There's still some times that I do this. If I have to have a real tough conversation with a friend or employee or my wife, I'll literally go through the three, two, one process and then force myself to say it. Cause then I'm just, I've just jumped in. I'm in the deep end. I'm not dipping my toes in. I'm in. I don't know if I should say this. I don't know if I should say this. Do it. Three, two, one, go. And I just literally make myself say the word. Now we're in the conversation.

13:05We've got to do it. And it's ingrained into us by a lot of us, by our parents counting down. Three, two, oh, you don't want to know what's going to happen when I get to zero. And you're like, I don't. And you just do whatever you're supposed to do. It also, with the countdown, doesn't allow us to just sit around and think. It's just countdown go. And so the question I have for you on this one that you can journal through is how can I incorporate countdown into action? How can I incorporate the countdown action in there? Okay. Number six, this is something that I used to do with every one of my clients that I worked with.

13:38Ask yourself, how can I make this easier? The one thing that we would do is at the end of every one of my one-on-one coaching calls that I had with people, we'd have assignments and we'd have goals that they wanted to work on before we talk next week. And when you look at life and success and happiness, all of those things are not difficult. We make them way more difficult. And so what I wanted to have my clients do is they would come up with their assignments. We'd figure out what they want to work on. We'd mutually agree on it. And then I'd say, how can you make it easier on yourself to do X, Y, Z?

14:08So instead of just saying, here's the thing, it's like humans naturally want to find the easy route. Can I find the easy route to taking the action that's necessary? If you can make everything easier, why not make it a little bit easier to take action? And so I want you to look at the stuff that you need to do and what actions you need to take and say like, how can I make this easier on myself? How can I design my environment? How can I make this easier? How can I do all of this? So the question I have for you on this one to journal through is how can I make my actions easier? How can I make whatever it is you're working towards?

14:42How can I make building this business easier? How can I make getting myself to the gym easier? right and then the seventh one is to get an accountability partner and you've heard me explain this many times I also said this inside of my book as well where I talk about getting an accountability partner a lot of times and for years this is what I thought an accountability partner has to be somebody who you know if you say you're going to the gym five times a week they need to be the person that goes to the gym with you five times a week and also has the same goals as you if you can find that that's great and I definitely recommend having that type of person but you can also have because I have had a lot of people over years say oh well I don't have any supportive friends.

15:15My friends don't want the same things that I do. What do I do? I say, find your most annoying friend. And if your goal is to go to the gym five times a week, just call them up. They don't have to be in shape. They don't have to have ever gone to a gym before. They don't have to have any want to go to a gym, but you say, Hey, my goal is to go to the gym five times a week. And I'm going to send you a selfie at the gym every single time. If I ever miss a day, five days out of seven days, if I ever miss a, you know, and only go four times, then every time that I don't send you a photo, I have to send you a hundred dollars.

15:52I'm going to send it through Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, whatever it's used. I'm going to send it to you. If that's your most annoying friend, they're going to be on your ass asking you about, hey, did you go to the gym this week? How many times you go to the gym? I only got four photos. I'm supposed to get five. It's Sunday now. And so you can get an accountability partner. It's just somebody who's constantly checking on you. They don't have to have the exact same goals as you. If you can find someone who has the same goals as you, and you can also find another one that's your most annoying friend, you're not gonna wanna pay your most annoying friend$100.

16:20And once you do have to do it one time, you're like, no way, I'm not doing that again. And so get an accountability partner that can help support you. And so the question I have for you on this one is who can I use as my accountability partner and how often will we talk? What's the agreement between us? And so when you look at these questions, I'll go through the questions one more time so you can write them down if you missed them. Journal through these questions and see how you can build this into your life. So where are you not taking action where you should be? What opportunities should you be focusing on?

16:50What are the small things that I need to master every single day? What in my environment do I need to change in order to make taking action easier on myself? What is a five minute movement that I can do to get my energy flowing? How can I incorporate the countdown action? and then who can I use as my accountability partner and how often will we talk? You have to understand that the discipline is something that you build within yourself. And these are just seven different tips, seven different ways to help you build more discipline within yourself. So that's all I got for you for this episode. If you love this podcast, I have a special announcement.

17:26You're absolutely going to love something that I'm about to launch called Mindset Mentor Plus. It's something that I designed and I've been designing for a long time. I've been really racking my brain of how I can help you, every listener, fully integrate every episode that you listen to. So you're not just listening to it passively and it goes one ear and out the other, but you actually take each episode and integrate it fully into your life. And so inside Mindset Mentor Plus, there's a lot of different things, but every single episode that I put out on this podcast comes with detailed worksheets.

17:57It has journal prompts that are inside them so you can really start to get self-awareness around every single episode. and then it's got assignments that are targeted and designed to help you actively engage and apply every single episode to your life so therefore you're not just listening but you're a participant in it more than anything else we also are going to have exclusive q a sessions with me you're going to get entire access to a community of mindset mentor listeners all of the people who are in mindset mentor plus you can connect with and there's a whole other bunch of bonuses that are going to come with it as well and founding members are going to get a 25 discount so if you want to sign up for the waitlist, you're going to be the first to get notified before I announce it on the podcast.

18:36Just go to mindsetwaitlist.com to learn more about it. And I'll send you the email out, let you know when it comes out so that you can be a founding member. You can get 25 % discount and you'll be able to sign up before it's announced on the podcast. So if you're interested, once again, mindsetwaitlist.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.