Change Your Thoughts Today

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 podcast episode. I am coming to you from my living room. So for those of you guys that are watching on YouTube, you're like, oh my gosh, it looks like a different scene. For those of you guys that are listening on the podcast and maybe just audio, you're like, hey, this sounds a little bit different. Well, I just wanted to switch up the vibe, get out of the studio. I just came back from LA. I was there for a week and went into a bunch of different studios.

0:38I was like, you know what? I was shooting in some people's living rooms and I realized that when I was in a living room, the vibe and the way I communicated was different than when I was in the studio. And so I thought to myself, why don't I try a couple of podcast episodes from my living room? Maybe the way I communicate will be a little bit different. Maybe my message will be a little bit different. And so that's what you might notice. It's a little bit different. But today I'm going to talk about the simplest way to reprogram yourself. And so I've been teaching this a lot recently. It's something I've been using on myself for about six years.

1:12And I want you to understand this about yourself. You can't always control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. And if you have enough repetition of changing your first thought into your second thought over and over and over again, eventually over time, your second thought, which is the one that you prefer, ends up becoming your first thought. And so that's really what we're trying to do is I'm going to teach you the simplest way today. of how to reprogram yourself. And it's a very simple acronym that I'll give you. The acronym is APR. A-P-R. And I'll go through this three-step process with you today.

1:52And the reason why this is important is when you look at a human, and I look at humans, I love people. I love figuring people out and sitting down with somebody and being like, why are you the way that you are? What happened in your childhood that made you the way that you are? And I try not to be too judgmental of people. I try to accept people. When I see people and I see an adult, what I realize is I'm really seeing a child in an adult's body. There's traumas that we've had. There's good times that we've had. There's bad times that we've had. And there are conditionings and programmings and patterns that we have that we developed in childhood.

2:35And there's nothing wrong with that. They serve their purpose. But at some time as an adult, we need to take a step back and say, you know what? I'm in control of who I am from this moment forward. And maybe I unconsciously created patterns when I was a child. And that's fine. But there are some patterns that I want to keep that I love about myself. And there's some patterns that I want to change within myself. And those patterns that I want to change are the ones that I actually want to put through this system, this system. And so it's really, really simple. APR. So I'll take you through the step-by-step process on this.

3:11If you're taking notes, you can jot it down. A stands for awareness. I think, and my personal belief is that too many people, including myself, lack awareness of who they are, of what they do, of how the small things that they do when they think about themselves and they think about other people affect the world around them. And so I was on a podcast the other day and I was being interviewed and one of the questions that was asked to me was, if you could create a law that every single person in the entire world has to follow, what would it be? And I sat there for a second and I said, you know what?

3:49I would create a law that says every person on earth has to develop a five-minute self-awareness practice that they do in the morning, whatever that is for them, to become more self-aware. Because I believe that almost all of the world's problems come from people who are just very unaware. We're unaware of how we think, we're unaware of how we act, and we're unaware of how our actions affect other people in the world. And so if everybody was more aware of themselves, everything would be so much better. If politicians had to be self-aware, I feel like everything would be so much better. If parents were more self-aware, everything would be so much better.

4:27People would be raised better. And so the first thing is the awareness side of it, is we need to become aware of who we are, how we act, things that are going on, not in our conscious mind, but our subconscious which is subconscious means below our conscious mind, which means it's usually something we're unaware of and all of those actions. And so the first thing we need to do is we need to become aware. And so we can take a step back and we can look at ourselves and we can say, what are aspects of myself that I want to change? And we can do this in a journaling practice. We can do this in a meditation practice.

5:01And I did this within myself. And I'm going to tell you exactly how I've used this to reprogram and repattern myself. So the first thing that I noticed about six years ago is that I was really judgmental and I don't like being judgmental. And so I took a step back and I was like, man, I feel like I'm judging people and I don't want to judge people. I want to love people. I want to be nicer. I want to be kinder. I want to not judge people when I first meet them. And so I became aware. I was aware of something within myself that I wanted to change. And that right there was the first step. I was aware judgment.

5:34And then so that's the first thing is the A. The second part, the P, is practice. When I am aware in the moment that I am being judgmental, I need to develop a practice that I create with myself now that I have that I can go to immediately. Not when I become aware that I'm judging somebody in the moment that I need to take a step back and say, oh, let me develop a practice. No, I need to actually create the practice now. And so I was like, okay, I'm aware that I judge people too much. I don't want to judge people. So I need to create a practice. And my practice was when I noticed myself judging somebody, I'm going to force myself to say three things that I like about that person in that moment.

6:16I'm going to stop everything that I'm doing. And I'm going to actually sit there and I'm going to say three things in my head that I like about that person. Because once again, I can't control my first thought, but I can't control my second thought. And so I'm going to force myself to take a step back and say, I'm going to say three things I like about them. And now, you know, you might say like, why does somebody develop a judgmental side? And so this is something I've kind of dove into with myself. I think that because of the fact that I had childhood traumas and, you know, issues with my father, that I had developed a lack of self-worth.

6:49And so with that lack of self-worth, I think I developed a pattern of judging people to make myself feel better about myself in the moment to make myself feel like, oh, I'm a little bit more worthy. So yeah, it was a pattern I developed as a child to make myself feel better about myself. This is what I think about, you know? And so I said, okay, I'm going to start doing this. And so the very first time I've shared this on the podcast before, the very first time I used this practice and this awareness is I was in a grocery store and there was a guy that was in the deli section and he was ordering meat and he had a Bluetooth headset on.

7:25And it wasn't like a small Bluetooth headset. It was like a huge Bluetooth headset. Like, you know, went all the way from his ear to his mouth. You know, it was like the Britney Spears old school headsets. Right. And he was using that and he was on a full on conversation as if it was like, you know, he was making sales calls at his desk. And my immediate thought that came into my head was just judgment of this guy and his Bluetooth headset. And I was, and so I had the awareness of in the past, you know, in the moment when I was journaling weeks before, I want to stop judging people. That was an awareness.

7:54Then I became aware in the moment that I was judging him. And I said, okay, I'm noticing my awareness. What is my practice? My practice, once again, is I'm going to find three things I like about this guy. And I made myself stop everything I was doing. And I looked at the guy and I made myself in my head say three things that I liked about him. And I was like, he looks like he's dressed pretty nice. I like his outfit. The second thing that I said was something I remember he was, he seemed very kind. He was very kind when he was on the phone with the person. And he was also very appreciative of the person who was, you know, cutting up his deli meats for him.

8:32And so what I made myself do was stop when I became aware and follow my practice. So awareness, practice, repetition. That's the R. The R side of it is the repetition. So if I'm, you know, I'm about to be 38 years old, if I've got, if I'm now becoming aware of something that I am wanting to change, I've probably got 30 to 38 years of programming, of patterns. Those are really, really strong patterns in my brain. The only way to overcome them is to have a new practice and to do it over and over and over and over and over again. And the thing about it is, I'll tell you this, I've been doing this for six years now.

9:10I still do this practice. I am not judgmental of people, but I am way less judgmental than I was. And so I see this as a journey. I see this as something that I'm working on, that I'm gonna continue to work on. I don't think I'm just gonna be past it within a week. And so the important thing in this, and we're gonna talk, I'm gonna give you some more examples so you can really start to see how this can relate in your life and how you can use it. But the important thing is when you find yourself in the moment and you find yourself in the awareness, don't be an asshole to yourself. A lot of times what we do is we become aware of what we wanna change.

9:44And then when we find ourself in the moment, judging like I was doing. We're like, oh God, you're such an idiot, Rob. Why aren't you past this? Why are you judging this person? And we become really mean to ourselves. Instead of that, it's like, oh, okay. Hey, Rob, you're a little bit off track. You've gone off track and been judgmental again. Let's pull you right back over here. Oh, Rob, you're being judgmental again. Let's pull you right back on here, buddy. And so it's not about being mean to yourself. It's about understanding that you're going to take time. And you're just, when you find yourself off track, you just got to nudge yourself a little bit back on track.

10:20So that's how I used it as obviously a judgmental side. Let me give you a couple other examples of how you could use this as well, right? So another thing that I had is I realized years ago that I had a really scarce mindset around money. And I didn't want to have scarcity around money. I wanted to develop an abundance mindset around money. And so what I noticed was that I would get a paycheck or I would get a payment or I look at my bank account and I would always think to myself, damn it, why don't I have more? It's not enough. And I would get mad about what I did have. So instead, it was crazy.

10:54Instead of being grateful for what I had, I was mad that I didn't have more. And then I thought to myself, why would God or the universe or life or whatever it is that's out there give me more if I'm so judgmental of what I already have? If I'm such a, if I'm like, oh, it's not enough. I'm just a whiny little child, right? No, I don't have enough money. I need more. I'm not good enough. Why don't I have more? I deserve more. And so I was like, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to switch my mindset around it from scarcity to abundance. And so what I started doing is every time that I would get a payment, and so like, you know, I have an online business and all of that, is I would turn on my notifications on my phone so that every time I got a payment, a notification would come through.

11:39And what I would do, because I was trying to switch from scarcity to abundance and gratitude, is every time a payment would come through, no matter how big or how small it was, I would stop immediately what I was doing. I would take a second. I would look at the person's name who just put the payment through. And, you know, I would, I would say, say it was Sam. I closed my eyes and I would say, Sam, thank you so much for trusting me with your transformation. I take this very serious and I promise I will do everything in my power to try to help you get the transformation that you want. Thank you.

12:12And I would open my eyes and I would go about my day. What happened was I realized that over time, I went from having a very scarcity, very, um, woe is me. I'm not, why don't I have more mindset to being much more grateful for everything I had. And what was crazy is that if I truly believe that if you can be trust, if you can't be trusted with a little, you'll never be trusted with a lot. And so what I realized is the more that I became a better steward of my money, becoming more grateful for my money and for thanking the universe or God or whatever it is that out there for my money, I started being able to handle more.

12:52I was given more to handle and more to be grateful for. And so someone could look at that and be like, oh, it's a coincidence. They can if they like, but that's the practice that I developed around having a scarcity mindset around money. I've worked with many people as well who have used this exact practice. And once again, it's awareness in the moment, it's practice in the moment, stopping the pattern when you're in the middle of it and repetition over and over and over again. I've had many people who have had, you know, trouble with, with self judgment, with self love, with being really mean to themselves.

13:23And they're like, Rob, I just want to be nicer to myself. I want to accept myself more. So I was like, all right, let's develop a practice around it. And so what they would do is, you know, if they notice themselves, screw something up or something doesn't go the way that they want it to, they would immediately go to, you're such an idiot. You're so stupid. Why do you always do this? And then I've become I'm aware. Look at me. I'm aware in this moment. I take a step back. You know, I get myself out of my head and look at it and say, Oh, Hey, you're judging yourself again. You're being, you're being an asshole to yourself again.

13:54What's your practice. And so the practices is once again, it's already figured out before you find yourself in that moment. The practice for some people that I've seen two different ones I've seen people do is number one is they will stop in the moment and they will make themselves say three things that they like about themselves. So they'll stop judgment, the self-judgment, the self-ridicule, all of that. They'll stop in the moment and they'll say, okay, okay. What are three things I love about myself? I love this about myself. I love this about myself. And I love this about myself. Okay, cool.

14:30And I can go about my day. And then other people will take it even more serious, which I've had people that have really, really changed yourself talk by doing this. Whenever you find yourself speaking negatively to yourself, go to the bathroom, set a five minute timer. If you don't have enough time, three minutes, whatever it might be, look at yourself in the eyes. I mean, you could do this at work. If you want to, you're, you're, you screwed something up at work or you didn't get an email out in time and not really a big deal, but it's just an email and you're, you're judging yourself. You're, you're guilting yourself.

14:59You're beating yourself up. And you're like, you know what? I'm going to go to the bathroom. It's a one person in bathroom. You go to the bathroom and you look at yourself in the mirror and you put a timer on for five minutes, three minutes if you don't want people to think that you're pooping, right? Whatever it might be for you. And you set a timer for three minutes. You look at yourself in the eye and you just say, I love you. And you take a deep breath and you say, I love you. And take a deep breath and you say, I love you. And I've had people that have done this and they're like, man, it completely repatterned the way that I look at myself.

15:30I've had some people where they're like, man, I just started crying because I felt so much gratitude for myself and I've put myself through so much and I should love myself more. I've had people say, you know, it was, you know, one day it's so much love and so much gratitude. And some days it's just, I can't even get through the three minutes. And I'm like, something's coming up. I'm blocking myself. What's coming up? And they start to get really curious around that. The important thing is that we have these patterns that were, that we somehow created in our childhood. and they were patterned by ourselves.

16:01They were patterned by our perception of the world. They were patterned by other people. And as adults, we can take a step back and be like, no, no longer am I going to do this anymore. From this moment forward, I am going to be a different person and I'm going to take this more serious than anything else in my life because it is that freaking important for me to change my programming. Now that I'm an adult, I'm going to take the wheel and I'm going to go where I want to go. So, you know, if you find yourself procrastinating in your business and that's the thing that you're becoming aware of, oh my gosh, I've got this business, but I realized I work from home and I'm not putting the effort that I need to.

16:39And I distract myself. Okay. Well, how do I distract myself? What I do is I do a bunch of tasks around the house. I do, you know, I clean and I put the dishes away and, you know, I do the, the laundry at 2 PM on a Wednesday. And so I go, okay, when I noticed myself procrastinating in my business, what's my practice? Okay. I'm aware. What's my practice. It might be that you do a hundred jumping jacks. So you're just completely getting yourself out of that feeling. And it's after a hundred jumping jacks, I'm going to take the next most important action in my business, whatever it might be. The important thing about it though, and I really want to hammer this home is that we have accidentally programmed ourselves over the course of our life and nothing will change unless you change.

17:23You are the only one that can reprogram yourself. And so what you need to do is you need to become aware of what is it you want to change. You need to develop a practice of what it is that you're going to do in that moment when you find yourself in an old pattern that doesn't serve you anymore and you need to have repetition. You need to do it over and over and over and over again. And it needs to be one of the most important things in your life. because as you start to reprogram yourself, you start to change yourself. And when you change yourself, you start to change the way that you interact with other people, you interact with your family, you interact with your coworkers, you interact with your children, you interact with your mom, your dad, everybody.

18:02And so this is one of the most important things you can do. We were all somehow programmed as a child. As adults listening to this podcast, it's our turn to take control, to step into the driver's seat and to start to become the person that we want to become. And that's the simplest way to reprogram yourself. So if you love this podcast, please do me a huge favor. Please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it. Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. Hey, if you like the vibe of the look or the sound or the vibe that I'm giving off from my living room, send me a message. Let me know. Send me a message on Instagram.

18:40Let me know if you like the vibe and the look of it and all that stuff. We'd love to hear from you guys. And I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission, make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.