8 Steps to Change Your Life

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Welcome 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. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, you want to get some text messages from me. Mindset tips, tricks, inspiration sporadically throughout the week onto your cell phone. Text me right now. 512-580-9305 Once again, 512-580-9305 Today we're going to be talking about eight steps to un fuck your life. So let's be real. Life is amazing. It's beautiful. It's also a hot mess. In one day you can wake up and you can feel like, hey, I got a grip on things. Things are going pretty well. Next day you can wake up and you feel like you're drowning in overdue bills. You have all these bad habits. You have toxic relationships. Your tummy fat is falling a little bit more over your waistband. Sound familiar? Well, welcome to be a human. That's the way that we all are. The good news is that you can turn your life around. You can be the person to unfuck your life. No matter how deep you feel like you're in the trenches, you can turn it around. It won't be something that's going to happen overnight. So if you just Think, oh, my gosh, I'm going to get my life together overnight. It ain't happening. It won't be very easy. But if you're willing to put in the work, I don't know if there's a better thing that you should be doing than trying to put your own life back together. And so I'm going to give you the eight different steps, the roadmap to reclaiming your life, no matter where your life is. Okay? The first one, which is probably the most important, is to own it. If you take nothing else from this list, take this. You are the only person responsible for fixing your life. Everything that happened to you in your past, everything that happened to you in your childhood, not everything was your fault. Some things happened, some things were done to you, some things you could not avoid. But even though they weren't your fault,

they are still your responsibility to deal with.

But if you sit around and you're just waiting for an apology for somebody, or you're. You're wanting some sort of closure, or you're waiting for someone to come and save you, you're going to be waiting forever. And so at some point, you've got to look and go, if someone's going to fix my life, it's going to be me. And I didn't want these things to happen in my past, but this is the cards I've been dealt, so I've got to do something with it. The only way forward is to take radical responsibility. You know, I realized this when I was 19, 20 years old, first getting into personal development. And I wanted to hold resentment towards my dad, who, you know, was an alcoholic when I was a child, who passed away when I was 15 from liver failure, from being an alcoholic. And I wanted to. To be mad at him the rest of my life. But then I realized that happened. That's not my fault. The way. The way my dad was was not my fault, but it was the life I was given. It is my responsibility to deal with. And if I just decide that I want to hold a grudge to someone my entire life, it's just going to hold me back. And so you have to stop playing the blame game. At some point, yes, your parents might have screwed up. Yeah. Your ex might have been toxic. Yes, your life may have been unfair. But the longer that you point fingers at other people, the longer that you're gonna stay stuck. And so what you need to do is take an honest inventory of your entire life. Where do you need to make changes? Where are you slacking in Your life, Where are you self sabotaging? Write all of them down. Take like a real account of what's going on in your life. If you can't fix something, then you've gotta figure out some sort of way to change whatever it is. If you can't fix a relationship, you gotta change a relationship. If you can't fix another person, you gotta change a person, right? And so you have to figure out some sort of way to get everything back on track that's not on track right now. Focus on what you can control is important. You can't control the past, but you can't control the actions that you take right now, today. And so what I want you to do is I want you to write down every area of your life that feels like it's out of control. For some of you listening, it might be one. For some of you listening, it might be 10. Write down every single one of them. And instead of writing excuses down or continuing to believe excuses, just write down one small action that you can take to start fixing each one of those. So that's. The first thing is you've got to own it. Okay? The second thing is you've got to cut the toxicity. You've heard me talk about this before. But your life is a direct reflection of who is and what you tolerate. If you're surrounded by negativity and drama and self destructive habits, it will make moving forward in your life incredibly hard. I really want to say this and I really want this to hit home with you. Don't underestimate how much all of the toxicity around you can hold you down. It's like life is hard enough trying to get to your goal and create the life that you want and run this marathon of life and, and get to success. Whatever successful life means to you, it's hard enough. But if your environment is pulling you down, it just makes it so much harder. It's like trying to run with a backpack that's full of 100lb weights.

It's.

It's gonna be harder. Sometimes you just gotta let go of the weights. And so take a look at a few different things. Number one, the people around you. If someone's constantly draining your energy, they disrespect you, they make you feel like shit, they don't deserve access to you. And so set some boundaries, Cut them off if it's necessary. Second thing to look at is your habits. The things that you do on a daily basis shape your future. The actions that you take will become the results in the future that you have. If your habits include binge drinking or mindlessly scrolling or procrastinating or worrying or holding yourself back, then you're the one that needs to change it. And then look at your environment, what's around you. Your surroundings really matter. If you have clutter, if you have chaos, if you have bad energy that keeps you stuck, whatever it might be, clean up the space mentally and physically. Change your scenery in some sort of way. All of these things affect your mental health in some way. And there's nothing more important than your mental health. And so I want you to think of, you know, identify one toxic person or habit or thing in your environment that you need to remove from your life and start distancing yourself today. So that's number two. Number three, just get your money right, okay? At some point you got to realize you're an adult. You're in the money game. You have to use money in your life if you're going to live in society. So you've got to get it right in some sort of way. If you're constantly stressed out about money, you're giving up your peace. You're giving up your freedom and your power as well. Getting your finances together isn't about being rich. It's about not living in survival mode anymore. And we will be right back. Teachers are deep into new units. This time of year.

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And so you've got to face your numbers in some sort of way. Ignoring your bank account won't make the problem go away. I remember for me, I used to hate checking my bank account when I was 21, 22 years old because I never knew if I'd have a few

hundred dollars or if I would have

overdraft fees of a few hundred dollars. So you've got to check your balance, you've got to understand your credit, your debits, you've got to get clear on where your money is going. And I recommend that every single person, because I know so many people, don't do this. Actually create a real budget that works. If you need help creating a budget, go on YouTube, look up how to create a budget and follow someone's YouTube video to do it. It'll take you maybe an hour to do. And then as you do it, cut all of your unnecessary expenses like your Amazon purchases. But, you know, leave some room for joy going out and doing some fun things. But make a plan. Make some sort of plan for you to build wealth in your life, even if it's just saving like $5 a week or starting a side hustle, you have to start somewhere. The thing that I realized when I was younger is that money is a game. It really is. And you're in the money game. If you're going to live in society, you're in the money game, whether you want to be in it or not. And so if you're like, I don't like the way that society is. I don't like money. I don't like greed, all of this stuff. Unless you're going to go live in

a forest, you're in the game.

So you might as well learn how to play the game. You might as well learn the rules. Will it require time and energy? Yes. But will it save you so much

time, money, and energy to learn the game?

Absolutely. And so you've got to understand that whether you want to be in the game or not, you're in it. So you can either decide that, you can just remain ignorant to the fact that you don't understand how money works, or you can go, you know what? I'm in this game. I need to figure it out. And if you do that and you start learning about it, you realize it's really not that complex. You might go, well, I might need to change my job. I might need to make a budget. I might need to. To do this, I might need to do that. And so the action step I want to give you from this is to make some form of a budget. You'd be so surprised where your money is going if you think that you have none. I remember when Laura and I first started dating, she had a job. She moved up to Austin from San Antonio. I was up in Austin. And she had a job for about probably about nine months. And she's like, I have no money. She kept saying that. And I was like, well, okay, like, how much money do you make every other week? She told me how much money she makes every other week. I said, okay, well, like, how much. How much do you have that goes to rent? How much do you have that goes to your phone, to your car, to your insurance? And I added it all up. This is a true story. Add it all up. And I go. Because I'm a big numbers person. She's not as much of a numbers person as I am. I go, Lauren, there's $500 that you're making that's not accounted for. Like, where's the other $500 going? And she's like, there's no way there's $500. I'm like, I'm literally looking at there's $500 a month that you have extra after your bills that's coming in from your paycheck after taxes. She's like, there's definitely not. And I said, okay, well, then let's do the hard thing. Do you want to go ahead and print out the last three months of your debit card? And you and I can literally go through every single one of them. I can categorize them for you, and we can figure out where the money's going. She's like, sure, because I'm going to show you there's not $500 extra. I was like, all right, cool. And so we did it and took us a couple hours to do. We categorized every single thing that she went through. Ended up finding out where the $500 a month was going to do. You want to know where? Target. Because she would just walk into Target, just randomly buy shit. And that's what Target's made for, right? And so she was like, I'm just going to stop going to Target. She stopped going to Target, and she was able to start saving money because Magically, she had $500 more in her bank account every single month. And so I recommend that you do that because you'd be surprised where all of the different holes in your bucket are leaking out to. Okay, so that's number three. Number four, move your body more. Even when you don't feel like it, your body is the only home that you'll ever have. If you neglect it, it will fall apart. It might not fall apart today or tomorrow, but it will fall apart. Stop acting like it won't. Exercise isn't about just looking good. It's about. It's about taking care of the place that you live. Your. Take care of your. Your mental clarity, your discipline, your longevity, all of that. So find some sort of movement or workout that you enjoy. You don't have to go in and just, like, lift heavy weights. You can lift weights if you want to. You can go walking, you can go running. You can do yoga. You could do dancing. You could do primal movements. Just do Some form of movement. Stop waiting for motivation to come through before you start moving your body, because you won't always feel like it, but you're going to need to do it anyways. And if you do find something that you enjoy, you're more likely to do it than something that you don't enjoy. And you can just start small, even if it's just 10 minutes. A day can make a huge difference because so many of us are just

sitting all day long.

Your body was made to move. If you go back 100,000 years to our ancestors, they weren't just laying, sitting down all day long, they were moving. They were doing things your body's made to do that move in some sort of way. And so the action step I want to give you from this is choose one form of movement and commit to doing it for at least 10 minutes every day this week. Sound good? That's number four. Number five, clean up your diet. Please clean up your diet. Your diet directly affects your energy, your mood, your focus, how you treat yourself, how you treat people around you in food is either your medicine or it's your poison. And if you eat like shit, you're gonna feel like shit. And food is another thing, just like money that I had to figure out. I had to start reading about it, I had to start learning about it so that I could understand. Okay, well, I can't escape the money game, so I might as well learn about it. I can't escape the diet game and this body game, so I might as well learn about it. Might as well learn what it looks like and what my nutrition should be and what I should eat and what I shouldn't eat. Maybe I should learn how to read labels. And so simple things are, like, hydrate more often. It's crazy to me how few people are hydrated in this world. Like, most people walk around dehydrated and mistake their thirst for hunger. So many people have headaches all day long and they're just dehydrated. So many people have soreness and sore muscles and cramps and they're just dehydrated.

Just drink more water, please.

Drink half of your body weight in ounces every single day. Okay? Also, what I would recommend, prioritize protein and real food. Try to have less processed garbage and whole foods in some sort of way. General rule of thumb that I live off of, if it doesn't go in the fridge or it doesn't go bad out of the fridge within a couple of days, I don't eat it. That's Just going to help you stay away from processed food. So once again, if it goes in

the fridge, usually pretty good.

If it goes bad outside of the fridge within a couple days, usually pretty good. If I can put it in my pantry and it's good for the next six months, not good, right? So that's just a general rule of thumb. And so just start making small sustainable swaps. Instead of soda, drink water, instead of chips, grab some fruit, grab some nuts in some sort of way. And so choose one unhealthy habit that you have and replace it with a better one this week.

Okay?

That's number five. Number six, stop wasting your time on shit that doesn't matter. If you feel like you don't have time, track where your hours go, you'll be shocked. The same way that if you do a budget on your money, if you do a budget on your time, you'd be so surprised how much time you waste on stuff that doesn't matter. Do you do doom scrolling, we'll cut it in half? Do you do Netflix marathons? Limit it to your weekends? Do you say yes to everything and everybody because you're a people pleaser? Start saying no. Do you find a lot of the time you're stuck not doing something because you're worrying too much? Figure out a way to worry less. You know, if you won't remember it in five years, don't spend more than five minutes worrying about it. Do you ruminate too much in the past? Well, have you figured out a way to change the past yet?

No.

How's that working for you? Oh, it doesn't fix anything.

Interesting.

So what I would recommend is that you audit your time for an entire day. What am I doing here? What am I doing here? What am I doing here? You know, have an alarm go off on your phone every single hour and say, what did I just do for the hour? You'd be really, really interested and surprised by where your time goes. Most people think they don't have enough time. It's that most people don't use their time correctly. So that's number six. Number seven, start building a life that you get excited to wake up to. Existing isn't the same as living. If your days feel like a chore, if it feels like a lot, to get up and to do something and to take yourself to do what you need to do to live your life, Something needs to change. What excites you? Figure it out. Make a list. Do more of that. What drains you. Make a list, do less of it. Stop waiting for someday, just start today in some sort of way. And so write down something that excites you, something that you've been wanting to do. For a write down one goal or dream that you've been putting off, and then just take some baby step towards the future. Life is so much more exciting when you have something coming up in the future that you're working towards or that you have a vacation or a hobby that you're coming up. And so that's what I would recommend is like, figure out something that you can do that's coming up down the line that you can have that excites you. So that's number seven and number eight. Get out of your comfort zone more often. Growth is uncomfortable. If you avoid discomfort, you will avoid growing. Feel the fear and do it anyways. Push past your limits. You're capable of way more than you think. Stop running from the hard things.

The only way out is through.

And so sometimes you just need to go. This thing that I kind of want to do, it also kind of scares me. It's also really out of my comfort zone. Screw it, I'm gonna do it anyways. So find one thing that excites you a little bit, but also kind of scares the crap out of you, figure out what it is, and then take that leap. So with the bottom line of all of this is getting your life together isn't about being perfect. It's about progress. And I say this all the time, but Tony Robbins says progress equals happiness. Whenever I am for myself, but also around other people who are progressing in some sort of way, they're always so much happier because they feel like they're growing and they're moving in the right direction. They've got something to look forward to in the future. One step leads to another, so you've got to start somewhere. And before you know it, if you do these little tiny things, you're no longer stuck. So I want you to figure out right now, what's your first move? Say it out loud to yourself right now. Pick one and do it today. What is one action that you can do today? Your future self is counting on you. Everyone around you, your family, they're all counting on you. What can you do to create the life that you want? So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a huge favor. Please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me in it. RobDowell Jr. R O B D I A L J R the only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it. There's some people out there that probably listen to like 50 or 100 episodes and you've never shared it. Do me a favor. The way you can pay it forward and everything and to help us help the world is to just go ahead and share it. So if you do that, I greatly, greatly appreciate it. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission. Make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day Introducing Fidelity

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