How to Build Momentum and Consistency

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast, the number one mindset podcast in the entire world. 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 live in the United States or Canada and you want to receive inspirational text messages from me sporadically throughout the week, text me right now, 512-580-9305. Once again, 512-580-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about building momentum into 2024. and if you're the type of person who's now listening to this in 2024 we're going to talk about building momentum into the rest of this year i think one of the most underestimated underrated i guess is a better way of putting it the most underrated pieces of life and of success is the idea of momentum i cannot tell you how many people reach out to me and say something along the lines of this, Rob, I need help being consistent because I'm really good at deciding to set a goal and starting on my goal, but I almost always give up at some point in time.

1:16It's like 95 % of people have some sort of issue with consistency and with once they start getting momentum on their side, keeping that momentum going. And if you are listening to this in December of 2023, the way I like to think of this moment right now is not to let your foot off the gas before 2024. A lot of people like to, yeah, kind of take their foot off the gas and go, oh, it's the holidays. I'm going to let myself go a little bit. And then in January is when I'm really going to put my foot down and start working out more. And so they gain like five pounds and then now they have to work off those five pounds and that's what they lose in January versus looking at December as a moment to get a head start into next year.

2:01Usually the way I like to look at it is when December hits is when I really start putting my foot on the gas. I really start making sure that I do what I need to do to set myself up to be even more successful in January and for the next year coming up. And all too often what people end up doing is they get some sort of momentum on their side and then they just kind of let their foot off the gas. And all too often we either stop before we get that momentum or right when we're starting to get some momentum. But if we were to go another week, another two weeks, another month is when really you start to see that the change that you're really searching for starts to become easy.

2:41It starts to become more of a habit. It starts to become more programmed into you. The way I like to think about momentum is like pushing a car. If you've ever had a car breakdown, to get the car moving takes a lot, like a lot to get the car moving. And then once you get it moving, it's a little bit easier, right? And then you get it to a point where the car is going three or four miles an hour because you and someone else are pushing it and you don't have to put as much effort into it. That's really what change. That's really what life is about is it takes a while to get going. But once it gets going, it gets so much easier.

3:17And all too often people quit before it gets to the point where it starts to feel easier. and you know it gets to the point where sometimes if you were to just let go of the car it's still going to keep rolling a little bit and you know the the way i like to think about is this is is a car getting moving or also the other side is the what i'm trying to really think about in the example that my mind always goes to is like if i take a bowling ball and i go to the top of a hill and i let go of that bowling ball let's say it was 15 pounds and 10 feet down the hill i put my hand out, I can stop it.

3:51It might hurt a little bit, might be a little bit of force that goes into my hand, but I'm not going to break my hand if I stop it from rolling down the hill 10 feet after it starts going. But if I'm at the bottom of the hill and I put my hand out, I'm breaking my hand. What I'm trying to do is to not stop before the momentum gets in, but to get that momentum so that I feel the momentum on my side. And you know what I'm talking about? You've been at this some sort of point in this in your life. It could be with working out, for instance, where you're just like, you know what? I'm just going to work out every single day for 30 days.

4:24No way if ands, buts around it. And you start to get a little bit of momentum on your side. And then by day 31, day 32, it's like, it actually feels weird not to go to the gym. That's what you're trying to do. Where right now it might feel weird to go to the gym. It might feel foreign. Maybe you haven't been in the gym in years. Maybe you've never stepped in the gym. but when you go every single day your body starts to become used to it your mind starts to become used to it and then not going ends up feeling weird and not like not there's there's been times in my life where i've gone 30 60 100 days where there's some sort of movement some sort of work out every single day and then i miss a day for some sort of reason and i'm like i don't even feel right i feel like something's off that's what you're trying to get to in your life whether it's working out whether it's growing your business whether it's meditating whatever it might be.

5:12Maybe it's going to bed early. And so, you know, with working out, maybe you don't work out right now, but you know that you should, and you really want to. And you say, you know what, for the month of December, I'm going to work out every single day. Or maybe you say January 1st, I'm going to work out every single day for the month of January. And the first few weeks, to be honest with you, you're going to have to drag your ass to the gym. You're going to have to, it's going to feel like force. And I like to use the word force very specifically because sometimes you just have to force yourself.

5:42A lot of times you're not going to feel like it. You're not, if you're searching and you're waiting for motivation, you're going to be searching and waiting for a really long time. And there's actually a lot of studies that have been found that motivation actually almost never comes before action. Action is usually what needs to happen in order for you to start feeling more motivated.

6:07and so you know it's like getting the car moving where you're gonna have it's gonna be a force it's gonna be a lot of pushing it's gonna take a lot of will in order to get yourself moving but it's then after a while it starts to feel more natural that is what you're searching for that's when you've got the momentum and that's when it becomes a little bit harder to stop and you're trying to not allow yourself to stop and to keep that consistency going. But what's going to happen is there's going to be a part of you that's, we're always at a battle with ourselves, right? Like, we are our worst enemies.

6:37That's what it comes to. There's a part of you that really wants to work out, that really wants to change, that really wants to do something. There's also a part of you that's like, I am fully resisting any change that you want to put in. And so you get to the point where you're working out for two or three weeks, you're doing really well. And there's another side of you that's like, give up, stop. And you know, if you've ever been in a really great workout routine, it can start to become addicting. That's what you want to get to where you start to get used to, you start to like it. And so usually when you get to the point of it's almost, it's, it's almost addicting.

7:09You're almost in that flow is when the voice on the other side is going to push the hardest against you. Like the example I always like to give when I think of a comfort zone is like a rubber band, right? If you think of a rubber band, if you pull it a little bit, it'll kind of pull back. But if you're really pulling a rubber band to its maximum, that's right there is like where it's really at the most is where it's actually pulling you back the most into trying to get you to really go back to where you used to be. And so your comfort zone is the same where it's like, if you're a little bit out of your comfort zone, there's not a whole lot of mental and physical resistance.

7:44But when you get very out of your comfort zone, when you're going from never working out to working out 21 days in a row, that's when you're at the max of your comfort zone. And that's when it's going to try to pull you back in the most. And that's when you've got to become aware of, no, I'm going to fight through this. I'm going to keep going. And if you fight through, that's when it starts to feel like the car, once it's moving, where it's so much easier, it doesn't take as much force. But in the beginning, yeah, there's going to be a lot of force. So you've got to search for momentum. You've got to always want momentum.

8:12You've got to be aware of when the momentum's on your side and to keep it going. Another example of working out isn't your thing would be like waking up early. If you are the type of person who doesn't really wake up earlier, you wanna wake up two hours early for the first 30 days of the year. Is it gonna be hard at first? Yeah, your body's gonna completely resist it. Even if you have eight hours of sleep, your body's still gonna be like, yeah, we don't normally wake up at this time. But then you start getting a little bit of momentum on your side. It's not as foreign. The first week might be kind of hard.

8:43The second week, it's a little bit easier. It's not as bad. You get a little bit of momentum on your side. And then you go for 30 days, 45 days, 60 days. You start waking up before your alarm. And it feels more natural. That's what we're searching for. Searching for less resistance feels more natural. That's what we're really trying to get to. If you're starting a business and you've never started a business before, even if you have started a business before, and you're starting a business, it's going to require you to get your comfort zone and it's going to, in all honesty, take a lot of force in the beginning.

9:17It is you forcing yourself to be different. If you think that you're going to be the exact same person from running your business as you have been, it's ridiculous. You're going to have to change. You're going to have to mold. All of your fears, all of your limiting beliefs are going to come up. I don't know if I can pay my bills. I don't know if I'm good enough for this. I don't know if anybody would ever buy from me. And so there's a lot of force that you have to go through. pushing the car and getting it moving. But then after you're doing it for a few months, three months, six months, eight months, whatever it might be, you start to feel more naturally, feel the momentum on your side.

9:48You could show up to the office and do what needs to be done and not feel as much force. Nothing new is easy at the beginning. It's wild to me how many people think that just uprooting parts of their life and changing part of their life is going to be easy. Everything at some point in time is a struggle. So as long as you just know that it's going to be hard. As long as you just know that there's probably going to be a struggle, you're not blindsided about it and you can figure out a way to work through and go, oh yeah, that makes sense. I'm in the struggle phase right now. But you have to keep going and you have to figure out a way to get that momentum on your side and to harness the momentum.

10:21You know, if you're listening to me and your life has been stagnant for a while, you have to get the moving process going. And it will be like pushing a car. There will be forced. There will be a lot of stuff that you don't want to do. And you don't have to, it's this crazy thing where people are like, well, I don't believe in myself. My response to them is that you don't need to believe in yourself in order to take action. Belief is not a prerequisite to taking action. And, you know, always try to figure out a way to be moving. And action creates more action. Inaction creates more inaction. Humans, we're not meant to be inactive.

10:56If you were to look at our, I would assume, if I had a crystal ball and I could go back 100 ,000, 200 ,000 years, I would assume that our ancestors were probably moving around a decent amount throughout the day. It wasn't moving around all day long, but they weren't sitting down on a couch for four hours watching Netflix, doing nothing. No. And so our bodies are meant to move. Humans were meant to move. We're meant to be thinking different. We're meant to be growing. We're either green and growing or brown and dying. We're supposed to be expanding ourself in some sort of way. And so we've got to get a little bit of force in there.

11:26And with that force, we need to search for that momentum. It's like pushing the car. It's hard at first, but then it starts rolling. and lots of people that will get the car moving and then they stop. And so really what it comes down to is once you feel that momentum, you've got to keep going. Yeah, I go. I got the momentum on my side. Now I'm really brought to breakthrough. You know, and a lot of times people get excited at the beginning of something or they get a case of the I deserve it. Oh, I worked out every single day for the past seven days. I deserve to take today off. I did really good on my diet for the past 14 days and I lost five pounds.

11:58I deserve a pizza. I had a great week of sales. I can take today off. I lost 10 pounds so I can go ahead and have ice cream for the next three days. I made a lot of money in the past couple months. I'm going to go and spend it. And really what it comes down to is this thing. I wrote about it in my book. It's called The Emotional Cycle of Change. And I put the actual diagram in the graph in my book, Level Up, specifically because when I first saw it and first started learning the emotional cycle of change, I was like, this makes so much sense. and there's basically five stages to getting to being successful and getting momentum on your side so stage one is what they call uninformed optimism and that's when you start something like yay new year new me i'm gonna do awesome i'm gonna do so good at this and you're you're you're uninformed optimism you don't know what you don't know but you're all excited because you don't know it you're like this is going to be great right and then you go and you do that thing for a week you work out for a week and you know the first two days are exciting and fun and then they three and four, it's not as fun.

12:58You're like, this kind of sucks. Day five and six, you're like, I don't know how I can do this for 30 days, whatever it is that it might be. And that's stage one, which is uninformed optimism. Uninformed optimism very closely turns into stage two, which is uninformed pessimism, which is you still don't know what you don't know. And you still don't know, but you have a little bit more of an idea, but you're starting to see, oh my God, this is going to go a lot longer than I thought it was. And so you go from uninformed optimism to uninformed pessimism. Now you're just pessimistic. You're negative.

13:32And you would think that that's the lowest of lows, but it's not. Then you get to stage three, which is my favorite. It's called the valley of despair. And when we end up in the valley of despair, that is when we usually quit. And if you can know that everybody goes through all of these cycles of change, stage one, two, three, and four, and five, then you'll start to realize oh okay i'm in the valley of despair right now and i've got to push through to success i'm in the valley of despair because what happens is most people go through stage one stage two stage three and then they usually give up by stage three and why do they give up on stage three because they're in the valley of despair they think it's going to take too long and then they look at a brand new thing but they're looking at that new thing through the eyes of stage one which is uninformed optimism and uninformed optimism looks way better than the valley of despair.

14:21And so what do they do? They quit at stage three and they go into a new thing and now they start at uninformed optimism. Then they go to uninformed pessimism. They go to valley of despair. So that's why people quit, do something new, quit, do something new, quit, do something new, quit, do something new, quit, do something new. And then they never actually get to success is because they don't fight through the valley of despair. But as long as you just fight through the valley of despair, you start to get that momentum on your side. And now you go into stage four, which is informed optimism, which means you now are starting to feel better about yourself.

14:50You're starting to feel like, Hey, I've got this figured out. I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel here. Informed optimism. I know what I don't know. I know what I do know, but I'm optimistic that I'm going to get to the place I want to be. That's when you really start getting the momentum on your side. And then you hit stage five, which is success and fulfillment, which, you know, can be three months down the road. It could be six years down the road. Depends on what it is that you're working for, but you just have to understand and you You should Google it if you want to, or if you want to go into my book, if you have it, you can look at the graph of the emotional cycle of change.

15:23And if you start to look at it, you go, oh my God, I've gone through this so many times. You know, whatever it is that you want is going to take a lot of work. You have your current life that you're in, and you're going to have to break through your current life in order to create the life that you want. You know, like what would your life look like today if you never gave up on anything that you started years ago? Your life would be vastly different. And so really what it comes down to is you're going to have to do things you don't want to do. You're going to have to take action. Nobody in this world is going to come and save you.

15:54You're going to have to get off your butt. You're going to have to put on your big boy, big girl britches. You're going to have to take some action. You're going to have to fight through some things that you don't want to fight through. You're going to have to get some momentum on your side and then just make sure that you never stop. As soon as you get momentum on your side, don't ever stop. If you want to be more successful than anybody else that you know, make a decision and then just don't stop with that decision. And I promise you, you'll get to where you want to be. So that's what I got for you for today's episode.

16:21If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories. Tag me at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. Also, if you want to challenge yourself, if you want to grow yourself, if you want to change yourself and make 2024 the best year of your life, I am running my 30-day challenge, which is called Level Up 30. it is built on six pillars that we will be doing every single day. If you want to half-ass your year, this is absolutely 100 % not for you. If you're the type of person that's like, I'm ready for a challenge. I'm ready to change my life. I'm ready for Rob to push me. Go to levelup30.com, levelup30.com.

16:55I will personally be going through the challenge with you. I'll be going live every single day, coaching you, helping you, everybody else in the group. There's going to be a massive community all across the world. And the first 100 people who join get$50 off and they get entered into a drawing for a free one-on-one call with me. So one person out of the first 100 people who join will get a free one-on-one call with me. So if you're interested in learning a little bit more about it and seeing if it's right for you, go to levelup30.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode.

17:26Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.