Stop Doing These 7 Things (For A Better Life)

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. If you're out there and you love this podcast and you live in the United States or Canada and you want to get inspirational texts from me, text me right now, 512-510-9305. Once again, 512-510-9305. Today, we're going to be talking about how to create a better life and what you should stop doing in order to create a better life for yourself. So when you're saying yes to something like, yes, I'm going to create a better life, you're also saying no to other things, which is I'm not going to do these things anymore.

0:45And so as much as you need to do new things, you also need to stop doing some things you've done before in the past. And that's what we're going to cover today. So let's dive into it. The first thing that you really need to stop doing to create a better life is stop making so many damn excuses and stop playing the victim in your life. I had a mentor and he used to always tell me excuses are like buttholes. Everybody has them and they all stink, right? They don't help you grow. Excuses don't help you do anything. Excuses are just an easy out. And I used to be one of those people who was really good at playing the victim, who was really good at making excuses.

1:20And the reason why we make excuses, the reason why we make ourselves the victim is so that we don't have to take any responsibility for our lives. We don't want to blame ourselves. So let's see what else we can blame or who else we can blame. Oh, it's my spouse's fault. It's my children's fault. It's the government's fault. It's my parents' fault. It's not my fault that these things happened. And I had my first mentor, like paid mentor that I paid when I was 19 years old, had a really serious conversation with me and it changed my life completely. And I worked with them for two years. We had a bunch of really great conversations, but the most impactful conversation we ever had was I kept not hitting assignments every single week.

1:59I kept showing up late a few minutes late to our calls. I kept giving him excuses. I kept telling him how I was the victim of my life, all of these things. And he had this conversation with me and he said, I got a question for you. If a business succeeds and all 1000 people in that business are just moved into one direction and the business creates the thing that it's supposed to create and it does what it's supposed to do, whose fault is that for getting all of the people to move in that direction. I was like, that's probably the CEO's fault. He's like, okay. And if a business fails, whose fault is that?

2:32I said, that's the CEO's fault. He said, okay. So if you get to the end of your life and you have everything you've ever wanted, all of the money, the happiness, the love, the family, the legacy, whose fault would that be? I was like, I guess that'd be my fault. He goes, okay. But if you get to the end of life and you don't have what you wanted, you didn't create the life that you want. You didn't have the money, the happiness, the love, the legacy and you regret what you did, whose fault would that be? I was like, that would be my fault. And he goes, the problem with you, Rob, is that you need to grow up.

3:03You're still acting like a child. And what you need to do is you need to realize that you need to be the CEO of your life. If you get to the end of your life and it's not what you wanted it to be, it is your fault and nobody else's fault. If you get to the end of your life and it is everything that you want it to be and it is a home run, it is your fault. You need to be the CEO of your life. That was the moment when I decided to stop making excuses, I stopped, you know, being a victim. Too many people play the victim and they like to blame their circumstance. They like to blame other people. I did that for years and guess what?

3:33It got me nowhere because there was no responsibility on me. And so we like to remove our responsibility and say, oh, it's somebody else's fault. And so you have to learn to take ownership for your life. And this empowers you to create the change. When it is your fault in a good way, it means that you are the one that's in the driver's seat. Excuses only help you reinforce your helplessness. And so when you look at a situation, ask yourself, what can I control in this situation? And then do something that is within your reach. So that's the first thing. Stop making excuses. Stop playing the victim.

4:06That's number one. Number two, stop complaining. Instead of complaining to somebody else, look for solutions. Complaining and sitting there and taking time to complain about something requires energy. You have to use energy for that. But finding a solution to a problem instead of complaining about a problem also requires energy. The difference is complaining is just a waste of your energy. It doesn't lead to any change. Instead, you want to look at the problem and say, how can I find solutions for this problem? One recommendation that I'll give you is something we use in my company, where if somebody, instead of coming to a manager in their company and, someone comes to one of the managers in my company and says, hey, I've got a problem.

4:46What they do is they use this thing called the one-three-one method. We've been using this for years and it works so well. Do it for yourself in your own life. Whenever there's one problem, what you want to do is come up with three possible solutions. So you come up with that one problem, the problem is this. Here's the three possible solutions. And this is the one that I like the most. One-three-one. One problem, three possible solutions, the one solution I like the most, and you take action on that one. And what happens is when someone in our company comes with the one, three, one, they're basically coming to the manager saying, here's the problem.

5:18I've already designed the solution. I just need you to say, okay, that I can go with the solution. And it empowers that person, but it also empowers you when you find a problem, start looking for solutions. When you find a problem, start going, how can I overcome this problem? How can I change this problem? And so what you do is when you start to find yourself complaining, which we all do, You know, you catch yourself in the moment you're complaining about something. Redirect that energy for actually finding practical steps forward. Because really, that's the only thing that's going to move the needle in your life.

5:50So that's number two. Number two, stop complaining. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. Number three, this is a big one. And I just did an episode on this fear a little while ago. But stop being afraid of failure. Failure is 100 % your greatest teacher. It provides you lessons that success never will. The creator of Honda, he has a famous quote that says, success is 99 % failure. Most people try to avoid failure because it then usually reflects back to them their greatest insecurities and greatest fears of I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'll never amount to nothing, whatever it is, I won't make any money, I won't be able to thrive for my family.

6:30That failure, quote unquote failure, reflects their insecurity that we just covered with them. Fear is something that you need to overcome. Failure is your greatest teacher. If you're going to do something that you've never done before, if you're going to get out of your comfort zone, avoiding failure is impossible. You have to learn to embrace failure and go, okay, I need to fail fast. I need to fail as much as possible because those failures show me what's not going to work so that I can then find out what does work. Avoiding failure or trying to avoid failure, I guess you could say, keeps you in your comfort zone.

7:06If you want to be successful, whatever success means to you, successful people want to fail quickly in business, in money, in relationships. Salespeople want to get the objection as fast as possible so they can try to overcome it, whatever it might be. Because what you want to do is you want to find these parts where you fail because it reveals what doesn't work and then you can start to figure out what does work. I like to think about life as sports as well. If you look at a sport, how ridiculous would it be for you to go, I want to play basketball, but I never want to miss a shot. Missing shots is inevitable.

7:41It's just part of playing the game. But every time that you miss, it gives you an idea of how to aim better the next time. If you look at baseball, if you strike out 70 % of the time in baseball, you're a freaking all-star. You're one of the best that plays the game. So why fear failure or messing up or falling on your face when it's all part of the game? So you've got to fail quickly so that you can figure out faster how to refine your approach, what you need to do to change so that therefore you can create whatever you need to create. And so really what it comes down to is you've got to start embracing the fear of failure and just realize, hey, this is part of it.

8:22This is how it's going to be. I've got to understand that nothing is going to change in my life until I change it. And as I start to change things and do things I've never done before, yeah, I'm going to fuck up. That's the way it goes. You're not perfect. There's no such thing as perfect. And so you've got to look at it as just another lesson. Okay, I messed up. What can I learn from this? That's number three. Number four is stop procrastinating so much. Stop putting things off. You've just got to learn one of the things that is super, super important. is you've got to learn to make a decision and go.

8:55The longer that you wait, the more you're going to overthink, and then the harder it becomes to start. You ever done that? You made a decision, you're like, okay, I'm going to do this thing. And then you sit around for a few minutes and you think about it. And the more you think about it, the worse it becomes in your mind. The scarier it becomes. The more that you start to think about the failures or what could possibly come. One of my favorite phrases in the way I run my business, the way I've run my life for a really long time, is the phrase, ready, fire, aim. Now, if you're going out and you're thinking about, okay, you go and shoot guns, it's ready, aim, fire, right?

9:26Ready. Okay. Now you aim and then you fire. Life is more of like ready, fire, aim. Get ready, take action, mess things up as much as you possibly can, miss the target, and then you start to aim and go, okay, what works, what doesn't? And so it's really about instead of procrastinating and trying to do it perfect, trying to make sure you do it right the first time, it kind of goes back to what we were talking about a minute ago. Mess up as fast as you possibly can. You know, ready, fire, aim is way better than ready, aim, aim, aim, aim, and just think about shit all the time. Like you just got to take action just to adjust as you go.

10:06If you're the type of person who's an overthinker or an over planner, those things absolutely kill your momentum. All you have to do is just start small. Whatever it is you need to do, just start small in some sort of way. If you're planning and planning and planning and planning and planning and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking, all of those are just a waste of energy. Planning is good. Thinking is good. Doing too much of it is just holding you in a pattern of doing nothing so that therefore you don't have to put yourself out there and potentially fail or whatever else that might be out there.

10:37So start small. Take some sort of action. I don't really care what it is. Usually when you look at procrastination, procrastination is rooted in some sort of fear. So what's that fear that you're afraid of? I'm procrastinating. I'm not doing the thing I'm supposed to be doing. Why? What am I afraid of? Ask yourself that question. What am I afraid of? Well, I'm afraid of failure. I'm afraid of judgment. I'm afraid of what my mom might say to me. I'm afraid of what my husband might say. I'm afraid of the unknown. I'm afraid of change. You figure out what it is that you're afraid of because there's some sort of fear that's behind procrastination.

11:10But action is the only antidote. You've got to take action. As you start moving and getting momentum on your side, it becomes so much easier. Like even like if you think about like super simple things, like if you think about you have a lot of laundry and you think about, oh my God, I've got so much laundry to do today. I've got to do so much laundry. Shit, there's so much laundry. And you just think about it. It seems like it's such a huge mountain to climb off the laundry, right? But then you start and you do like a little bit and you start doing and start moving a little bit in the right direction, you get a little bit of momentum.

11:41A lot of times you get to the point where you're just like, I'm just going to finish this. And it becomes easier once you start. The hardest part is thinking about starting, not actually starting. And so break your tasks, your to-do list into manageable tasks to make your life easier. It's just manageable chunks. And then take the first step. It doesn't need to be perfect. It just has to be taken. So that's number four. Number five, stop being so damn hard on yourself. You're a human. You're going to mess up. You're going to mess up a lot. You're not perfect. And I want you to start getting better at self-compassion.

12:14Really understanding like this is one of the biggest keys to happiness is learning to let things go, to stop shaming yourself, stop guilting yourself, stop dwelling on mistakes. Because those dwelling on mistakes, it just keeps you trapped in the past. You're not going in the past. You're going into the future. And you're always doing the best that you can in every single moment based off of what you knew at that time. So don't get mad at yourself for something that you did five years ago. Or should I say, don't continue to be mad at yourself for something that you did five years ago. You did it.

12:43You might've screwed up. Learn from it. Don't let it define you. Do better next time. Let it go. Because when you sit there and you're being so hard on yourself and you're starting to think about what you did wrong, it has nothing to do with your future. So like just get better at just letting things go. Stop being so hard on yourself. Have more self-compassion. Have more self-love. Have more self-acceptance. I've done many episodes on that. You can go back and listen to the self-love and self-acceptance episodes because I think many, many people in this world need it. So that's number five. Number six, stop giving up on yourself.

13:17You need to want to succeed for yourself. Not for anyone else's approval, not to get validation, not to get some sort of achievement or award, you need to want to succeed for yourself. And you have given up. Like think about how many things in your life you've given up on. Like giving up becomes a habit. Giving up becomes a habit. So stop stopping. Stop giving up on yourself. How many times you said you're going to lose those 10 pounds and then you work out for a week and you stop. So stop stopping. Another thing to stop doing that has to do with this as well, like stop putting other people's needs in front of your own.

13:53You can't pour from an empty cup. You need to take care of yourself before you just immediately go and try to take care of others. Your mental health and your physical health are the two most important things in your life because the better that your mental health and your physical health are, the better that you take care of your children, the better spouse you are, the better person you are, the better that you impact the world, everything. You deserve to follow through on the things that matter to you, whether it's your business, whether it's your fitness, whether it's your love life, whether it's your personal goals, you deserve to stop stopping, stop giving up on yourself.

14:22So just learn to keep going, you know what, I'm going to do this for myself. And it's okay that I do this for myself. Every little bit of progress that you make builds a foundation for future success. Like, how can I just get a little bit more progress? So that's number six, stop giving up on yourself. You deserve more. Which then goes into number seven, which is stop settling for okay. So many people just settle a life because things are okay. They have relationships that are just okay. They have a job that is just okay. Their finances are just okay. Their happiness is just okay. Okay, that doesn't sound exciting.

15:00Would your young childhood self, if they came in and saw your life now, be like, this is amazing? Or they'd be like, this isn't inspiring at all. You get one shot at this life. Why waste it selling for less than you deserve? If no one has ever told you this, I'm going to tell you. You were meant for more. I don't know where you are right now, but you were meant for more. What is that more? Get out of your comfort zone because comfort zones are where your dreams go to die. Push beyond what is okay and start finding stuff that's truly fulfilling for you. Settling happens when we're afraid to ask for more.

15:33So either you think you don't deserve more or, you know, and that might be in your relationships or your career or your personal growth or your love life, you feel like you don't deserve more or you're afraid to expect more because you're like, oh, well, what if I get let down? Stop settling for okay. Start realizing that you can go out there and create something that is really amazing. A life that's amazing, a friendship that's amazing, a love life that's amazing, a parent-child relationship that's amazing, a business that's amazing. Everything can be amazing. You just have to go out and create it.

16:08So stop just settling for like, ah, life is all right. I like to call, you know, there's a lot of times I get on phone calls with people who are trying to change their life and make something amazing of it. And sometimes I hop on phone calls with people who are making decent money. Like they make$150 ,000,$200 ,000 a year and it's really hard for them to make a change because they're what I call quote unquote fat and happy, right? I'm not talking about physically fat. I'm just talking about fat and happy. They've kind of just, you know what, I'm going to plump down on the couch of, you know, life and I'm just going to be okay.

16:35Like, you know, I'm 45 years old. Things are fine. I want more, but yeah, it's okay. And so they're just settling for okay. And so greatness requires discomfort. Make yourself uncomfortable. You know, the road to creating an extraordinary life starts with wanting more and thinking bigger, knowing that you deserve more, knowing that you can create more, knowing that you could create more for yourself, for your family, for the people that are around you, knowing that you can experience more, you can travel the world, you can buy more cool shit, you can impact more people's lives. All of those things come down to the life that you're creating.

17:07So stop settling for okay. And so this is really what it comes down to. So if you want to create a better life, these are the things that you need to stop doing. 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. Also, if you love this podcast, you'll 100 % love something that we have called Mindset Mentor Plus. It is like the podcast, but on steroids. For every single episode that comes out of the Mindset Mentor podcast, Mindset Mentor Plus listeners and subscribers get a whole lot more.

17:36They get detailed worksheets that go deeper into every single topic with journaling questions, with assignments, with an entire community of over a thousand people you can connect with, with multiple Q &A sessions that we do with me. So if you want to learn more about it, go ahead and go to mindsetmentor.com. Best part about it, it is way less than a dollar a day for you to join us. So if you want to learn more, once again, go to mindsetmentor.com. There's a video that explains everything there. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better.

18:07I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.