9 Things That Have Simplified and Bettered My 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. I put out episodes four times a week to help you grow yourself and improve yourself because if you can improve yourself, you can improve your life. So if you don't want to miss these episodes, hit that subscribe button so we can listen to them multiple times a week to help you get better.

Today, I'm going to be talking about nine different things that have made my life better and also simplified my life as well. Some of these things are going to be internal, things that I've worked on in myself. Some of these things are just going to be different systems that I've set up around my life to make my life better as well. And so they're not in order. They're just going to pop at you sporadically. And so these are just some of the things that I've done and how they've made my life better.

The first thing is I have intentionally been very hardcore about setting boundaries with technology. Technology is amazing. People act like, oh, social media is the devil. The phones are the devil. They're not inherently bad. It's how we use them that can make them bad, right? So technology is amazing.

but it's also a major source of stress for so many people. And so we really haven't adapted and learned how to coexist with technology in a healthy way, I don't think. And so for me, that's something that I've been very diligent about is my relationship with technology, because I don't believe that I should just be staring at my phone all day long. Like if

If I were to get to the end of my life, live to 100 years old, and 90% of it from this moment forward is me staring at a screen, in the moments that I'm awake, it would be a complete waste of life. And life is not looking at a phone. Life is everything that's happening around you that's not a screen. And so what I changed basically is,

is implementing really strict screen time limits, especially with social media. So I noticed a couple of years ago that I was like, I'm spending too much time on my phone. I have to use my phone for business. That is a natural thing. I do have social media. I do have a following. And so that's a natural thing I have to do as well. But I don't want to be sucked into this thing. And so I started scheduling no screen times.

And so my phone, as soon as I go to sleep, goes on airplane mode and doesn't come off of airplane mode until 8.30. Now, some people are automatically freaking out going, oh my God, what if there's an emergency with your family?

To this day, years and years down the road, there hasn't been an emergency yet. Knock on wood, maybe there will be at some point in time. But at this point, that's the way I'm living my life. I turn my Wi-Fi off when I go to sleep. My wife's phone is on airplane mode. Mine's on airplane mode. I just don't want those frequencies going through my head in the middle of the night. And so I also keep my phone

In another room when I am doing my deep work sessions in my day. And so when I'm sitting there and I've got two to three hours of really deep work that I need to get into, my phone is in a different room. When I get done with work and I am going to shut off, I am going to take my phone and put it into a different room so that I can hang out with my family. And so those are just different ways that I have distanced myself.

The results of this, I'll just be honest with you, like my productivity and my mental clarity from having my phone, having very strict times that I'm on it, not getting on it first thing in the morning, waiting until 830 so I get an hour and a half to two hours of my self-time and being with the baby and being with the family and all of that has been way better. Way more mental clarity, but then also way more productivity when my phone is not next to me when I'm working.

I've also noticed that since I've been spending way less time on my phone and way, way, way, way, way less time on it on social media, I am way less anxious. I don't feel anxiety popping up. And this happened for me in 2020 when I realized one day,

It was like 10 o'clock in the morning and I had a great day and I was like, I feel really anxious right now. And I was like, why do I feel anxious? And I realized because I was on social media for like 12 minutes an hour before and I just saw some crazy out-of-pocket posts that people were putting up that were just fear-mongering and all that. And that literally I saw just a couple stories and it made me feel like shit an hour later. And I was like, I'm going to distance myself from this. So I've noticed myself way

way less anxious since I've done that as well. So that's the first thing. Second thing that I've become very hardcore on that's really made my life better is focusing on gratitude. Gratitude is deceptively simple.

I'll say that for the longest time. I was like, yeah, we got it. She's nice. Gratitude's great. But really what it's, it's something that is, is one of the most important parts of my day. It's helped me shift my focus from lack and from scarcity to appreciating what I already have and making me feel more abundant. And so how I practice gratitude every day, I start every single day, pretty much the same.

And when I go to drink my coffee, I go to the window and I can, you know, I stare out and view into my backyard or I go on the back porch and I look into the back porch and the view that we have and

And I just focus on being grateful. And this is something I've been doing for a couple of years at this point. And I just focus on being grateful and just actually, this is the key part, really feeling the feelings of gratitude. Not just being like, oh, I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for this. Okay, cool. Let me go about my day. But like really trying to feel the feelings of gratitude as if it's just like filling up my body.

To be honest with you, I do this seven days a week and two to three of the days each week. At some point in time, two to three times, I'm going to start to tear up because I'm like, I can't believe how amazing my life is. And for me, when I get done with every single session where I'm actually focusing on how grateful I am, I feel amazing after. And the reason why is because I'm not thinking of what I lack.

which is what I did for years. And many people do as they think about what they don't have, don't have, don't have. I'm focusing on everything that I have. So it gets me out of, out of our, out of my scarcity mindset. It makes me feel all of the abundance that's in my life. And I've been doing it for years. And when I started doing it, I had way less than I do now, way less things to be grateful for all of that. And since I've been doing it, I've been blessed with so much more, like 10 times more to be grateful for. And, and,

Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, but I have this feeling that if you can't be trusted with a little, you definitely can't be trusted with a lot. And so if you take that, I also think that if you can't be grateful for the little things that you do have in your life, you're not going to be given a lot.

Because you're kind of just whining about the blessings that you do have. Why would the universe give you more blessings? So the result for me is I feel more grounded. I feel happier. It just makes me feel amazing throughout the day when I'm like, oh my God, I don't have to think about anything that I don't have. I can think about everything that I do have and I don't need anything. What a great feeling that I should not need anything. So that's the second thing I've been doing.

Third thing I've been doing, and I've been talking about this a lot recently, is morning mindset priming. And so I've been doing this for years now, but I've been really starting to teach it. And I actually believe it's one of the most important things people can do every single morning. I've been teaching my clients to do this every single morning, and they've developed their own specific practice that's tailor-made for them because they're the ones who made it. And it's really starting to change their mindsets

of themselves, change their subconscious thoughts about themselves, change their fears, change their limiting beliefs, change their identity of themselves, and it's starting to change their lives as well. And so it can be different for everyone, depending on what it is that you want in your life and what it is that you want in your day. But basically what it is is this, is it's you finding dedicated time first thing in the morning to set yourself up for how you want to feel and how you want to be and what you want to do each day.

The way I like to think about it is it's like setting your internal GPS. So you're actually setting the tone for the day. I lived for 30 something years of my life of just like,

waking up and hope I don't get, you know, hit by a truck today with the way that I feel and the fires that I have to put out and all that versus like, it was very reactive, I guess you could say. And when you set yourself up for how you want to feel and how you want to be and what you want to do, you're actually being very proactive for how you want to feel and how you want to show up. And so what I would recommend is you get 10 to 15 minutes every single morning,

No matter what. And you actually develop some sort of routine to get your mind and to get your body set up for what you're doing in your life. You can use journaling. You can use visualization. You can use music. You can use meditation. You can use affirmations.

whatever is going to make you feel like, you know what? I've got this. I'm going to crush today. I believe in myself because all too often we're just not believing in ourself and we don't think that we're good enough. We have these self-limiting beliefs. The idea of the morning meditation of just like morning mindset priming is like, I'm going to brainwash myself for how I want to feel and how I want to show up. And so that's what I recommend you do is have some sort of

10 to 15 minutes that you have every single morning, not just sitting down and meditating or sitting on breath work, but like you're priming your brain and you're priming your body for how you want to feel, how you want to be and how you want to act today and in your life and what it is, some sort of visualization practice for thinking about what is it you're creating. So

If you want more on this, I said a couple episodes ago, but you can get my free lesson that comes with worksheets and videos so you can work through and create your own morning priming. And so if you want to do it, you can go to morningpriming.com. It's absolutely free. You can download all the information. You can download the worksheet, download the video, and it'll actually show you how to create your own. So that's morningpriming.com.

So that's the third thing is I have that routine. The fourth thing that I've been doing is I've been developing what I call a do it now mentality, which is we all procrastinate in some sort of way. And when you procrastinate too much, it creates stress. It builds unnecessary mental clutter. It makes you feel like you're not productive. All kinds of things come up from it, right?

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And getting a task done feels liberating. Like you feel when you cross something off your to-do list, like, oh my God, I feel accomplished. I feel like I'm progressing. And, you know, as Tony Robbins always says, progress equals happiness. I feel like I'm progressing in some sort of way. And so if I find a task that is going to take me less than five minutes, then my immediate thought is just do it now.

I'm not going to throw it off. What's crazy about it is like sometimes the tasks that are like building up in our head take like 90 seconds sometimes. It's just like something you could do really quick or you can get it done in less than five minutes. And so if the task is in the back of my head and I can get it done in less than two minutes, it's the immediate thing is just do it now.

Unless I have like obviously some huge thing that I have to get done. That's just a massive priority over this. It's like if I can get this thing done in five minutes and it's lingering, it's been lingering for two weeks. Just do it now. Get it done. And when you have bigger, larger tasks, you break them down into smaller manageable chunks. And then you tackle each one of those chunks one at a time. And it's like, oh, well, this thing I thought was going to take me all day long. I can get the first piece of it done in the next 10 minutes. Well, 10 minutes, just I'll just do it now. No big deal.

And then I just get to the next thing. I'm like, what's the next thing I can do? Well, this next task is going to take me seven minutes probably. Okay, well, I'll do it now. Okay, this next thing is going to take me probably 30 minutes. Okay, I'm going to do it now. And it's like, I'm just going to do it now and just tackle these things. And I think this will help people around the house where if it's like, oh my gosh, the laundry is piling up. We'll just do it now.

my gosh, the dishes are piling up. Just do it now. You know, I just got done trying on a bunch of different clothes because I'm about to go out and I've got clothes all over the bed.

I'll put them together. I'll put them away later. No, just do it now. Just do it now. And so you really just want to just develop this mindset of just do it now. Just do it now. Just get it done. And, you know, the one question I ask myself is, will this feel harder or more overwhelming later? And if the answer is yes, just do it now. And so it's just developing this mindset of just this mentality, just do it now.

So that's number four. Number five is I have become really good at saying no. And so for those of you guys that are people pleasers out there, this one's going to be hard for you. And as I have grown a business, we have 40 employees. I have the podcasts. I have multiple businesses. I have...

a family, I have investments, I have all these different things that I have to do. Over time, I've just had to get better at saying no so I don't drive myself insane. And so for you, protecting your time and your energy means that you're going to have to say no. And you're going to have to say no to things that maybe don't fully align with your values and your goals. You're also going to have to say no to things that they're just not really going to add value to your life.

And so this was really a struggle for me for a while where I was like, just saying yes to things and yes to things and yes to things. And people would say, hey, do you want to go do this? And I'd be like, yes. And then I just realized that anytime you're saying yes to something, you're saying no to something else. And so I would say yes to somebody and I'd be like, well, that's no to spending time with my family. And I'm saying yes to somebody and that's no to spending time in my business. I'm saying yes to somebody. It's just no to something else all the time.

And so I got better at saying no, because when I'm saying no, I'm also saying yes to something else. When I'm saying no to going and doing something with somebody, then I'm saying yes to spending more time with my family. If I'm saying no to maybe being interviewed on somebody's podcast, then I'm also saying yes to spending time in my business instead. And so it's about learning when to say no and prioritize what really matters in your life. And looking at something and saying, hey, does this really add value to my life?

And, you know, remembering that every time you say yes to something, you're saying no to something else. And every time you say no to something, you're saying yes to something else. And so you've just got to get better at saying no, protecting yourself, protecting your time, protecting your own mental energy as well. So that's number five. Number six, very simple, but I find so many people do this, weekly planning sessions with myself, by myself. And

It's very simple planning ritual that I've been doing since I was younger. This was taught to me when I was like 20 years old, when I was working full time in a sales company and I was full time at school and I was full time as a manager in the company that I was also in. I just had a lot that was going on. And he developed this routine in me to sit down for 20 minutes or so every single Sunday

and just start to work through what my schedule is going to look like. And so this could be Sunday evenings for you, this could be Monday mornings, but it's these weekly planning sessions. And I have found that so many people are so bad with time management. And the only reason why they're bad with time management is because they just don't schedule time to manage their time. They just go into their day. They don't sit back for a second and take themselves out of their life and then look at their life and plan it all out. And so it's real simple. It's very, very simple, okay?

On Sunday, or if you want to, you can use Monday mornings. You look back on how last week went, and then you look forward on this next week. So it's just called look back, look forward. You look back on last week, you look forward on this next week. And then what you do is you do something called stop, start, continue. You ask yourself, looking back on last week and looking into this next week, what do I need to stop doing? And you answer all the things that you need to stop doing.

Then you ask yourself, what do I need to start doing? And you write down all the things you need to start doing. And then you ask yourself, what do I need to continue doing? And you write down all the things you need to continue doing. And then from there, you just put all of your priorities into your schedule,

And then you highlight the three to five tasks that are the biggest priority for you. And you make sure that you focus on those more than anything else for the week. It's very simple. It's not rocket science, but it just takes more time and attention and intention in your life. So that's number six. Number seven, decluttering mental clutter. And so our minds can get very overwhelming. There's a lot of stuff that's happening. And just putting all of our stuff that's happening in our brain on a piece of paper,

will make you feel so much lighter. So I recommend doing, I recommend you take a dump every single day. And what I mean by that is you take a brain dump. You dump everything that's happening in your brain onto a piece of paper, right? Don't everything going in your mind, every thought, every task, every fear, every limiting belief, all of the things that you're worrying about, all of the stuff that you have to do, your to-do list, everything. Put it all on a piece of paper and

And the reason why is because when it's on paper, first off, it makes you feel better because it's out of your mind. And second off, it makes it easier to plan what it is you need to do and start to work through stuff. And so you can categorize some things. You can sort your items into urgent. Okay, this is really urgent. You can sort it into can wait. And you can sort it into not worth my energy. So some things in your life are going to be urgent.

It's funny because that's usually not a very big one once you start working through them. So there's urgent, there's can wait, and there's not worth my energy. And then from there, you start working through and planning through what's going on in your head. Just take a dump every single week. I'm sorry, every single day. Don't get mentally constipated, okay? Take a mental dump every single day. That's number seven. Number eight is not worrying about what other people think. I have just, it's part of, I guess, putting yourself on the internet, right?

for, you know, what, almost 10,000 posts on Instagram over the past almost 10 years, 1,600 podcast episodes is...

I realize that there's a lot of judgments of other people and I'm not going to worry about what other people think. As long as I'm being true to myself, then I am going to think that that's okay. The only time that it's not going to be okay is right here. So instead of taking everybody's opinions and just taking what they are, I would recommend that you make a list of people whose opinions you really care about.

Like the people who are there for you, who love you no matter what, unconditionally, they want the best for you. They want you to be the best that you can possibly be. Make a list of those people. My guess, there's usually less than five to 10 people, right? So you have this list of people who really, really are in your corner. If somebody gives you their opinion or they judge you or whatever it might be, if they're not on the list of those five to 10 people,

Don't worry about it. I don't care what they say about me. The people who care about me will put me in line if I get out of line. And that's the way that I see. And the way that I see it more than anything else. Remind yourself, no one else gets to live your life but you. And so no one else can make the judgments of what you should or shouldn't do. So care less about what people think. And easier said than done. I get it. But make the list. Try it out. And then the last one, number nine, is laughing when I fuck stuff up.

I realize now, and you know that mistakes are part of life. I used to get really mad at myself when I would mess up. Like I would get mad at myself. You should have known better. You should do better. And then I would beat myself up as if it like helped in some sort of way. Yeah, that doesn't, I'm just gonna go ahead and tell you, it doesn't help when you're an asshole to yourself. And so you just get really mad. I can't believe you did that. You're so stupid. I would like ruminate on screwing something up

Now, I just laugh at myself immediately as often as possible. Like we're human. We're going to fuck it all up. And when we do screw up, it's usually pretty funny.

Like it usually is pretty funny when you're like, oh my God, that was so stupid. I can't believe I just said that. That's hilarious. Versus like, that was so stupid. Why did you do that? Why do you always screw stuff up? Like, remember to laugh about it. Have fun. Stop being so uptight and serious. Don't be such a serious Sally. Like life is, take life a little bit lighter. It's not that big of a deal. You know, practice more self-compassion. Remind yourself it's okay to be human. It's okay to screw up. Laugh at yourself. It ends up being much more fun when you do it that way.

And so those are the nine things that have really helped me better my life and simplified my life in many different ways. Hopefully it helped you. Hopefully you can pull a couple of these, put them into your life. If this helped you in some sort of way, go ahead and do me a favor, share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. The only way this podcast grows is from you guys sharing it. So I'd greatly, greatly appreciate if you would share it. And with that, I'm gonna leave the same way I leave you every single episode.

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

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