7 Tips To Get Out Of A Rut

0:07Welcome 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 and you want to work on yourself more, I have a free tool for you to be able to do so. If you go to mindsetmentorjournal.com, you can actually download a free video lesson that I created that teaches you how to journal as well as giving you 30 free journaling prompts to help you deepen your journaling practice. So once again, if you're interested in that, go to mindsetmentorjournal.com right now and get it for free.

0:43Today, we're going to be talking about seven different tips to get yourself out of a rut quickly. When we're in a rut, first off, like what the hell is a rut? You know, a rut is really like you don't, you're not motivated, you're not taking action, you don't feel like taking action, and you probably haven't been taking action for a while. And I want you to realize this, inaction, not doing something, will always cause more inaction. And action will always cause more action. Now, some of you guys might be out there and be like, what the hell? Like, yeah, of course, the way to take action is to take action.

1:17That makes sense. That doesn't help me at all. But I want you to realize this. A lot of us think that, a lot of people I've heard this before, think that we need to be motivated in order to take action. But psychologists have actually found that in order to be motivated, you need to take action first. So instead of motivation comes first and then you take action, you need to take action and then you will become more motivated as you're taking action. Because, you know, you take action all day long. It's just, you're not taking the action that you truly want to in order to build the life that you want.

1:49Like, I'll give you an example. You might be like, well, no, Rob, I haven't been taking action all week. Okay, well, if you have to pee, you get off of the couch to go pee, don't you? If you're hungry, you get up and you go get food from the fridge. You don't need to be inspired to go pee. You don't need to be motivated to go get food, do you? No. So you're taking action. Even if you're just sitting there on the couch, staring at the ceiling, you're still taking action. Action is still being taken. You're sitting or laying, looking. At the ceiling, both of those things are actions that are being taken.

2:26It's just what you're actually saying is, I want to get out of a rut and take the action that I need to to actually move the needle in my life. But if a lion walked in your front door right now, you wouldn't have to be like, let me see if I can search and find some motivation for me to run. No, you would just do it. You would just get moving if a lion walked in your door. So you have to just learn to just get moving. And really what it comes down to, and what I've been focusing on talking about a lot lately, is starting small. Like a lot of times you're not starting because you're thinking about all of the things that need to be done.

3:03And you're like, oh, this is my year-long goal. And you're thinking about the entire year. You're like, I want to make$100 ,000 this year. I want my business to get to a million dollars this year. I don't give a damn about any of those things. Those things will happen as long as you focus on today, as long as you focus on the next hour. And really what it comes down to is working on two different things. There's your mind and your body. Your mind is your thoughts, what you're thinking about, the inspiration that you can build up inside of yourself. And your body is the way that you're feeling inside of your body, but also getting your body moving.

3:37Sometimes you can hear something, you can go onto YouTube, You can listen to this podcast and it inspires you. And you're like, I'm going to fuck it. I'm going to take some action. And it motivates you to go actually take some action. Sometimes you must take action even if you feel like hell and your body will catch up to your mind, which will then help you create more action. Motivation can come from the body, but it can also come from the mind. And so we're going to go over seven different, very simple, this isn't rocket science, but these are just small things. Once again, it's just small things every single day, compounded over a year, over five years, over 10 years that make an incredible life.

4:16So let's dive into it. The first thing, get your ass up. That's number one. Just get your body moving. Whatever you have to do, I don't care what it is that you have to do. If you got to go and get some caffeine, you got to run to Starbucks, you got to drink some tea, whatever it is that you need to do, get your body moving, get up, do some jumping jacks, do some pushups. Even if you're just like cussing me out the entire time and you're just each push up, you're like, Rob Dial sucks. Rob Dial sucks. Rob Dial sucks. I'm only doing this because he told me to, right? And you're getting your heart rate up.

4:43You can curse me out as much as you want to inside of your house. Doesn't matter to me. I want you to live the life that you want. So if you're in inaction, you're going to find more inaction. But if you can just get the mindset of, I just got to do something. I just got to get this physical body moving. Your heart rate will change. Your breath will change. Your blood will start moving through your body quicker. and you'll start to feel better. And then that brings us to step number two, which is just take small steps. When you think about all the things you need to do, you're thinking about all of them, but you're not thinking about one at a time.

5:15So I do this every single time. Like, shit, I'll be honest with you. I did this today. I did not want to work out today. I don't want to work out any day, if I'm being honest. Like, there's no part of me that's like, yay, I got to go and work out. But for me, the whole thing was, I went into my garage, I have a full gym in the garage and it happens every single time. I'm like, I don't really want to walk in the garage. So what did I do? I did the exact same stuff we always do. I went to the fridge and I looked at the fridge and I was like, oh my gosh, I've got so much work to do today. I've got to record these podcast episodes.

5:48I've also got to plan all these podcast episodes. I got to do all this stuff. And I was like, but I've got to get my work out in because I know if I get my work out in, my brain will be working better throughout the day. I'll have more energy going into the podcasts. I'll create better podcast episodes. Get your ass in the gym. And so I got my ass in the gym. I was there and I'm like, all right, I'm here. I'm in my garage. I was like, just do something, dude. Doesn't even matter what it is. So what did I do? I'm going to be fully transparent with you. I took my speakers inside of the garage. I put on Slipknot and I freaking just went, I'm going to do 200 jumping jacks nonstop.

6:21And if I don't want to do it after, I'll cross that bridge at the 200 mark. So I just did, you know, blasting slipknot duality. And I was just freaking blasting it to try to get some music going into my body to try to get my body moving. And I just did 200 jumping jacks. At the end of 200 jumping jacks, I was like, I got a little bit more motivation. Let me just go and do one curl. I'm just going to do one curl. All right. I got one curl done. All right. I'll just do another one. All right. I'll do another one. I get my first set done. And then it just feels a little bit of momentum on my side.

6:53I get my second set done. About 25 minutes in, I'm literally just like, this is it. I'm in the zone. It's great. The first six minutes are always the hardest, right? Get the first jumping jack done. Get the music on. Do whatever it is that you need to do. Get your body physically moving, but take the small steps. Don't worry about all of the big steps. What I was thinking about is all of the stuff I had to do today. I was thinking about all of the things that need to be done. I was thinking about the entire workout that I needed to do. And what helped me was going in, just small step, walk inside of the gym.

7:27Okay, here I am. Small step, put on music. Okay, music's going. Small step, do a jumping jack. Okay, I got one. I'm going to go two, three, four, all the way up to 200. 200, I'm three minutes in, four minutes in, whatever it is. And I'm like, I'm out of breath. I feel like my body feels a little bit more into it. I'm feeling a little bit of momentum. So I'm just riding the momentum into the next thing. I'm not letting myself look at my phone. I'm not letting myself stop. And then I just did it again. I got my first set down. Okay, I'm going to go for my next one. Hey, have you ever searched your name on a search engine?

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10:41As soon as I got done, and this is, I call them celebrations for micro wins, right? Little tiny wins. I'm trying to find reasons to celebrate myself. You can dance after you get your first set done. You can say, hell yes. Like I was like, dude, you're doing it. You didn't want to be here. You're doing it. I'm proud of you. And I'm talking to myself. I'm proud of you, dude. You're doing it. You're going to impact so many more lives because you're going to be more on point when you record these podcast episodes today than you would be had you not walked into the gym. And what happens is you do these things that when you start to celebrate yourself, your body will release dopamine.

11:15Dopamine is subjective. You can just decide to celebrate anything. And when dopamine gets released, it starts to make you feel better. But dopamine is also the molecule of motivation. So when you get some dopamine, you want more dopamine. We're all dopamine fiends in many different ways. And so when you celebrate yourself, this isn't like some stupid thing. This is actually BJ Fogg, which is a psychologist at Stanford, found that celebrating yourself makes you more motivated to do the next action that got the dopamine in the first place. It's called a dopamine reward system. You got the dopamine.

11:49It made you feel good. You want to get it again, right? And so that's what you're actually searching for. So you're celebrating these little tiny wins, okay? So that's the third thing. Celebrate the small wins. We're focused on the small things. Number four is to turn off your phone. Turn off all electronics if you can. One thing I've done is I've gotten away as much as I started using Kindle and started using all of that stuff, I've realized that it was just another screen I was looking at. And so I've actually gone back to reading physical books because I read every single morning. And I was noticing that when I was reading and looking at a screen with my Kindle, it was just another screen.

12:25It was like the screen, the blue light was going in my eyes and it was just my eyes get tired from it. All of this stuff. There's a whole lot of, I don't need to dive into it about what's called convergence eye movement, which is your eyes actually, you know, converging in the middle, looking from, you know, towards something that's smaller and how that requires focus and how that actually starts to tire your brain out. So turn your phone off, stop looking at it. One of the things I used to do all the time is I used to always like in between sets of working out. I'd go to my phone, make sure I didn't get any text messages, check in in the business, see how all that's going, check my emails, check social media, maybe I should put up a reel and you start thinking about all this other stuff.

12:59No, disconnect. When I was, whatever it is, if it's going to the gym, if it's getting your research paper done, if it's writing that next chapter, whatever you can do to turn off as many electronics as possible to get rid of your phone, to get it away from you, is one of the most important things you could do. So try to get away from your phone. Try to get away from your TV. Try to get away from electronics. All I did, put on music and then put my phone off to the side. Just let the music play. I didn't try to DJ and put on, oh, what's my next song? It's just like, nope. All right, I've got a playlist on Spotify.

13:30You know, I've got a, you know, literally it's just a metal playlist on Spotify. Sometimes it's that, sometimes it's trance, sometimes it's EDM. I've got all these different ones depending on what it is I want for the day. And then I just leave it over there so I can get my workout going. That's number four. Number five is to focus on the next 60 seconds. So I've given you examples of working out, okay? My next 60 seconds is just working out. But it might be the next 60 seconds, what do I need to do to move myself in the right direction for finishing this chapter of this book that I want to write or to create this next article?

14:02What are the next 60 seconds? Because what happens is I want these to be so small that it's just focusing on the next minute instead of focusing on, okay, well, I'm writing this book. This book, you know, I just finished my book, 64 ,000 words. It's a lot. But to think of starting a book or being in the middle of a book and how much further you have to go can become very demotivating. It could become very much paralysis by analysis. But if you say, what's the next sentence that I need to type? What is the next paragraph? What is the next meaning that I need to convey in the next 60 seconds to get me one step closer to doing what I need to do today?

14:43And you just focus on the next 60 seconds. That's it. That's number five. Number six is once you start to feel momentum on your side, ride the momentum, right? This is one of the things that I find with a lot of people is you start to get momentum on your side, in the lazy side of you, the ego that wants to keep you in the exact same place will kind of pull you in. And so when I'm talking about riding the momentum, this is another reason why I don't go back to my phone in between sets is because, let me just be honest with you, like I found sometimes I'll be in the middle of a workout, and then I'll notice a notification on, you know, oh, my Slack just popped up.

15:18One of my team members is trying to talk to me before the day starts, right? And I'll go to it, and then I'll starts, I'll message him back on Slack. And it's, you know, it's supposed to be a 60 second rest in between my sets. Seven minutes go by. And after those seven minutes, the momentum's gone. And I'm like, now I've got to go to my next set. Oh my gosh, I've got to do this next thing. So once you start to feel momentum on your side, which you will feel momentum on your side, it might be six minutes in, it might be 15 minutes in, but just take the action. And when you feel the momentum, ride the momentum.

15:52I always give the example of like, if you're pushing a car, a car is completely stopped. The hardest part of pushing the car is getting it from zero to one mile an hour. Like just getting it moving is the hardest thing. So if you have a little bit of momentum on your side, it makes it so much easier if you just continue with that momentum, do whatever you can. Like I think that one of the most underrated things that people don't ever really talk about is momentum, is finding momentum and riding that momentum. So when I'm going from zero, from doing nothing to trying to get something done, I'm trying to just get a little bit of a win, man.

16:28I'm trying to make myself feel like I'm going in the right direction. And I love having this podcast because I don't lie to anybody here. I tell you all of my struggles, the shit that I dealt with this morning of not wanting to go to the gym and all of those things. I want you to realize that even though I've been working on myself for 17, 18 years now, I still deal with all of the exact same things that everybody else does. It's just I notice these little tiny things, these little, what can I do right now? How can I get a little bit of momentum? Oh, I'm noticing momentum. Keep the momentum going.

17:00I notice my brain pulling me towards my phone. There's times when I'm literally walking towards my phone. I'm like, no, no, no, nope, not doing it. You can't do that, dude. Pull yourself back in. No, no, no. We're not going to that phone. It's going to fuck up your workout, right? It's going to say, oh, I have an eye. Oh my gosh, I forgot to text this person back. Maybe I should stop writing this article and go to text them back. No, no, no, no. You got the momentum on your side. Write down on a piece of paper next to you and just say, hey, text Stacey back. And then you can get back to your writing your article, whatever it is.

17:29Ride the momentum when you feel the momentum. Too many people start to push the car. The car starts moving and they're like, oh, hold on. Let me go to my phone. And the car stops moving and they stop the momentum. Now you got to push it again and get it going. Once you feel the car moving, once you feel it going, get it done. Keep on going, okay? And the last one, which I think is a very important one, and this happened to me. This is why I'm using my life as an example. Try to get around other people that can help you move towards what it is that you want to. Earlier this week, I don't know why I'm using all the examples of working out so far right now in this episode, probably because the workout's been a struggle this week.

18:05but earlier this week, I didn't want to, I feel like I say it every episode, I didn't want to work out, right? And I was like, I'm not going to work out today. And I knew I had a group of my friends that were working out over at my friend's house. And I was like, okay, it's going to be a 25 minute drive to go to his house. It's just easier not to get in my car and to drive over there. Maybe I should just stay home and maybe I'll do some yoga. Maybe I'll do some stretching. And I was like, no, bitch, you're going to go. You're going. And so I forced myself to go because it's a group of guys that were over there.

18:40I'm very competitive. So I know that if I'm around other people or if there's just the energy of working out and moving, it's just I end up getting into the energy of it, right? I forced myself to go to his house. True story. Got to his house. Tried to talk myself out of going into his house. This is really what happened. Tried to talk myself out of going into his house. I'm like, I'm here. I don't really want to do it though. I got shit I got to do. I've got a business. I've got all these employees. I've got things I'm working on. I've got stuff I've got to do. I was like, get up, get out of your car, go say hi to somebody.

19:12Because once you say hi, you can't walk away. I forced myself to walk in. So first off, I forced myself to get in my truck. I forced myself to drive 25 minutes. I forced myself to get out of the truck and not turn back around. And then I'm working out for an hour and 21 minutes with everybody. I was wearing my Apple Watch. an hour and 21 minutes and I burned a thousand calories. I would not have burned a thousand calories by myself. And so sometimes you just need to get around other people. If you know that you need to, you know, do some work, maybe one of your friends wants to meet you at a coffee shop and you know that they're not going to take a whole lot of your time with talking, but just being in the energy of being around them will help.

19:47Or maybe you just go to a coffee shop and you don't meet anybody, but being around other people who are doing that, you know, you're chugging your caffeine, you're seeing other people that are getting stuff done. You're like, you know what, I'm going to get stuff done as well. And so these are just some simple ways to get yourself out of a rut is to just focus on the little teeny tiny things to get yourself moving, to get the momentum going. Once you notice the momentum going, you keep the momentum going. If you do this, it is a very simple way, not easy, very simple way of getting yourself out of a rut.

20:15So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories right now and tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. I love every single time that you guys share it. Every episode, hundreds of you guys share it. And I greatly, greatly appreciate it. And sometimes I send you guys messages, hey, thank you so much for sharing this because I appreciate it. That's how this podcast grows. It's how it's become, you know, from nothing to one of the top 100 podcasts in the entire world. So with that, I'm gonna leave the same way I leave you every single episode.

20:42Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you. And I hope that you have an amazing day.