The Truth About Personal Growth

What if personal growth isn’t about reaching a finish line, but learning to appreciate who you are while you continue to evolve? In this episode, I’ll share four powerful mindset shifts to help you let go of limiting beliefs, stop judging yourself, and understand why real growth isn’t about eliminating your struggles but learning to navigate them differently. You’ll discover how to recognize the patterns that no longer serve you, return to your true self faster, and embrace the journey of becoming who you’re meant to be. Freedom Live is a 3-day live experience in Austin designed to help you break through what’s keeping you from your next level. Get $100 off your ticket: https://robdial.short.gy/freedomlive The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life. Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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  Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am 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 want to finish this year strong, join my free three-day challenge, October 27th to 29th, live with me. Here's why. Because most people check out around this time of year. They look at their goals that they've set, they see how far away they are, and then tell themselves that they'll start over again in January. Don't do that. There's still enough time for you to make real progress this year. You just have to use it. Over these three days, I'm going to teach you how to deprogram and reprogram your identity, how to start taking real action, and also how to start changing your brain to the new you. You're going to get a 60-day roadmap for the rest of 2026 and a workbook, so you know exactly what you need to focus on next.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  To join for free, go to finish2026strong.com. Once again, finish2026strong.com, and I'll see you live on the challenge. And today, I want to dive into the truth of personal development and this life journey that you're currently on. And I want to try to expand your thinking and have you actually think deeply while listening to this episode. And I want you to understand something as we go into today. I want you to look at nature, and I want you to understand that we are part of nature. And if you see a tree, a tree does not stop growing until it dies. It goes through seasons, it creates leaves, it loses leaves, and it keeps growing along the way until eventually it does die. A flower is constantly blooming until it dies.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  It goes through seasons as well, where it doesn't grow, it does grow. When it does grow, it creates new petals, and then some old petals fall off. It's constantly growing and losing leaves and petals as well. Every single living organism on this planet is constantly growing, constantly changing, and constantly evolving until the day that it dies. There's actually a psychologist named Carl Rogers. He's one of the most influential psychologists of the last century, and he called this the actualizing tendency. And basically, what it means is this. Every living thing has a built-in drive to grow toward its full potential. And he had a great example of his childhood that I love.

• 4:01Speaker 01

  When he was a kid, he used to store, his family used to store, potatoes in the basement for winter. And there was one little tiny window where the sun would come in, just a little bit, in that basement. And those potatoes, in almost complete pitch dark, except for one little tiny bit of light, with no soil, no water, would start growing these pale, little, weak sprouts, reaching towards that little, teeny, tiny bit of light that was coming in. Do you understand what that means? Even a potato in a dark basement is trying to grow. It cannot help it. It is always evolving. Everything is. It is the fundamental nature of being alive. Why the hell would you think that you and I are any different from that?

• 4:46Speaker 01

  The fundamental nature of anything alive is to grow and to evolve. You are alive, and your fundamental nature as a human is to grow and evolve. Now, let me tell you when I actually realized this, and how I realized that I had been completely missing the point of self-development for a really long time. For about 15, 16 years of working on myself, I had this idea that I would eventually get somewhere. Like, there's a destination that I'm working towards, that I would finally get to a point, and I would have no more problems. I would have no more of my neuroses. As long as I worked hard enough on myself, I would eventually get to this random destination that I thought I would get to in my life. And I think a lot of people kind of feel like, when am I going to get there?

• 5:31Speaker 01

  Where am I working towards? And I thought I'd get to this point and just like, hey, everything's good now. And I'd probably just sit on my couch and close my eyes, and I would just be enlightened. Like, I would just float off into nirvana because I had made it, and there was nothing else to do in this life. Now, this was a few years ago. I've been working on myself now for over 20 years. And I started working on myself when I was 20 years old. I'm in my 40s now. And I still feel like the same person that I was when I was 20, but just further along in this journey. Like, I still deal with a lot of the same things that I used to back then. Like, a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, you're the mindset mentor. You must have it all figured out. No, I don't. I don't. And I still deal with all of the same that everybody else does.

• 6:15Speaker 01

  Fears, anger, limiting beliefs, all of that stuff. And, but the difference is, instead of them being at like a level 10 and screaming at me, and my problems and my fears screaming at me, they're at like a level 2, like they're barely there. And when my old fears or beliefs or patterns do come up, I recognize them much faster than I ever have, because I can see the pattern now, usually even before the pattern starts. And I also know exactly how to get myself out of them quicker, because I've got tools in my tool belt to be able to do so. And I remember listening to a podcast one time with Ram Dass. And if you don't know who Ram Dass is, his original name was Richard Alpert. He was a psychology professor at Harvard, super analytical brain.

• 6:59Speaker 01

  He was one of the heads of psychology at Harvard. And then in the 60s, he started experimenting with psychedelics. And he got fired from Harvard because he was using psychedelics and trying to use it in therapeutic sessions with his students and clients and stuff. But when he got fired, he went to India, he found a guru, and he went all in on a spiritual path. And so he, in his mind, he's a very hardcore analytical person. And he's also a hardcore spiritual person at the same time. And I love that he's got both ends of the spectrum. And in this talk that I'm referencing, he's like 80 years old, and he says something like, all of my neuroses are still here. And neuroses are basically all of the things that we're trying to deal with, that we're trying to work through. And I'm like, oh my gosh.

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Everything that Ram Dass has been working on himself, he's been working on himself for 60 years. None of that had fully gone away. And I realized, oh, well, if Ram Dass isn't getting past it, I'm definitely not getting past it. Like, I'm not going to go to India and find a guru. I'm not going to take as many psychedelics as he did. And I'm definitely not going to become a Harvard professor. So that's when it kind of woke me up and hit me. There is nowhere to get, ever. And weirdly, it might sound kind of shocking when you fully realize there's nowhere to actually be. But like, once I truly understood it, it was one of the most freeing things that I'd ever realized.

• 8:23Speaker 01

  I felt like, I feel like it took so much pressure off of myself because I had been working so hard to get to a destination, and I realized a destination doesn't even get, doesn't even exist. And so if there's nowhere to get to, how are you supposed to actually live this journey? And we will be right back. I used to take a whole bunch of different supplements every day. And honestly, it was a lot to keep track of. Since starting IM8, I've simplified my routine so much, I just have one daily drink and I'm done. The problem with supplements is you think you need a cabinet full of them to feel your best, but you don't. IM8 is the way to simplify your supplement routine once and for all. IM8's Daily Ultimate Essentials has 16 supplements, replacing 90 ingredients across nine major

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• 12:01Speaker 01

  And so, let me give you a few of the shifts that I actually recognized, okay? And things that I think would help you. The first thing that we all must do is we all must kill the finish line. Most people treat their growth like a race to the finish line. And I hear it all the time in people that I'm coaching, and people that are on my live sessions and stuff. "Oh, when I get there, then I'll be happy." Or "When I fix this, then I'll be good enough." But there is no finish line. Like, there is no finish line. Think about that for a second. And there's research that shows just how badly our brains actually get this wrong. In 2013, a psychologist named Daniel Gilbert published a study in the Journal of Science with over 19,000 people that they studied.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  And they asked people how much they've changed over the past 10 years. Their values, their personalities, their preferences, all of that. Pretty much, everybody said, "Oh, my gosh, over the past 10 years, I have changed a lot. I've changed so much, I'm not even really the same person." And then they asked them a question. "How much do you think that you're going to change over the next 10 years?" And what was weird is that most people said, "Oh, like, I'll probably change a little bit, but not too much." And they thought like, almost like they had come nearly close to the most constant version of themselves until the end of their life. Like, they had kind of not found themselves fully, but they would kind of change a little bit, but not as much as they had over the past 10 years. And so, they called this the "end of history illusion," meaning that every single one

• 13:28Speaker 01

  of us thinks, "I'm pretty close to the final version of me." And everybody gets it wrong. Like, if you were to fast-forward 10 years from today, and you were to ask yourself the same question, "How much have you changed over the past 10 years?", guess what you're gonna say? "Oh, my gosh, I've changed so much, I'm not even the same person." So, when you think about your own life for a second, are you the same person that you were 10 years ago? No, I hope not. You're definitely not. So, why would you think that the version of you 10 years from now is going to be the same one, or very similar, to the one that's sitting here today? You're not a finished product. You never will be. You will constantly always be evolving. So, what I want you to get from this is to stop measuring yourself against a finish

• 14:11Speaker 01

  line that doesn't exist. Which then brings me to the second thing I want to cover. Number two, start getting better at appreciating what you currently are. This is hard for a lot of people, but I want you to think about this. When you look at a flower, you don't walk up to a flower and go, "Huh, what are you going to become? I can't wait to see your finished product." You just look at a flower, and you appreciate it for what it currently is, don't you? And then tomorrow, it blooms a little bit more, and you appreciate it for what it is then. But with ourselves, for some reason, we do the exact opposite. We're always looking at who we're going to become, and we completely skip over appreciating,

• 14:55Speaker 01

  and noticing, and recognizing who we currently are right now. Like, just take a second with me, okay? Sit back for a second, and think about your life. Think about all of the things that you've done. Think about all of the things that you've overcome. Think about all of the that you have been through in your life. And just allow yourself to take a second to be proud of yourself, to fully appreciate yourself. Like, look at yourself with some admiration instead of some judgment. And stop being so focused on always thinking that there's some endpoint to get to. It's like a looking at a flower that's halfway open and being pissed off that it's not fully open. That's insane.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  It just needs some more time. But that's exactly what most people do when they look at themselves every single day. And like, think about it from like, a toddler standpoint. If you, nobody looks at a toddler and says like, "Why aren't you in college yet? Why aren't you driving a car?" No, like, you just look at a toddler, and you just sit there, and you appreciate them as they currently are, and you think about who they used to be, and how they've evolved, and how they've grown, and you look at them now, and you see the magic that is that little child. Like, I do this with my son all of the time. I just sit back, and I'm like, "Oh, my God." Like, and I just appreciate. Why don't we do that for ourselves? Like, you deserve to look at yourself the same way. And so, here's what I want you to do. Before you ask like, "What do I need to change?

• 16:23Speaker 01

  How do I need to grow?", ask yourself, "What do I actually appreciate about who I am today?" Not who you will be, but who you are, right now, in this moment. And once you can appreciate where you are, then you can look honestly about where you're ready to go. And that's gonna be number three, okay? Which is, find the petals that are ready to fall off. And that is, think about how like, a rose bloomed. Once it opens up from the center, it continues to keep opening up from the center, and it keeps blooming. And as it blooms, what happens to the petals that are on the outside, and the old ones? They fall off. They die off. They don't stay on forever. They need to make room for the new ones. And the new one comes from the center, and over time, it will eventually become an old

• 17:08Speaker 01

  one. It's constantly doing this as it blooms. It's constantly growing and letting go. It's constantly opening up and letting go. Opening up and letting go. Opening up and letting go. I try, I try hard, it's not always easy, to see myself the exact same way. And here's what I've started to realize over all these years. We came into this world perfect. We learned some things that were good. We learned some things that were bad. We learned some things that were not us. We took on fears and limiting beliefs and patterns that have limited us, and kept our lives in many different ways. And we followed paths that are not us. And they're so deeply ingrained in us that, as of right now, a lot of them, we don't even notice, but we will start to notice more and more of them over time.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  And we won't notice them until it's time for them to die off, like the petals on a rose. And that's when you notice it and go, "Oh, here's another thing to work on." It's not you going backwards. It's not you going, "Oh, my God, I should be over this by now. I can't believe this is coming up." That's just the petal that's now ready to fall off, because it's at that stage in your life. Man, like, that really changes the way that you think about it, doesn't it? And so, growth is not about adding more. A lot of times, growth is about subtracting more. And a lot of time, it's basically about letting go of the stuff that was never really, truly you in the first place. And those are things like the fears that you have, and the need to please everybody,

• 18:33Speaker 01

  or the fear of what people are gonna think of you, or the identity that you're not good enough, or not smart enough, or that you need to stay small and not take up too much room, or you shouldn't shine your light as bright as you possibly can, because it might offend other people, or it's the voice that says that you're not pretty enough. Like, those things are not you. They're just old petals that you picked up along the way. And when their time comes, they will be ready to go. And you should look at them and say, "I think this, I think this part of me is ready to die off." And believe me, even when they're ready to go, it can be really hard to let them go. It is our job to let that petal fall off.

• 19:17Speaker 01

  It is our job to let go of old patterns that we are so identified with. Which then brings us to number four. Remember Ram Dass, that I was just talking about a few minutes ago? In his 80s, he said that all of his neuroses were still there. All of the old stuff kept showing up.

• 19:36Speaker 01

  So if that's the case, what's the goal? What's the actual goal here? For me, it's this. The journey of life isn't about never falling off the path. It's about how fast I can get myself back on the path as soon as I've realized that I've lost myself, or as soon as I've realized that I've gotten into fear, I've gotten into judgment, I've gotten into limiting beliefs, or I've gotten into old identities that are just really trying their hardest not to die out. So when something pulls me out of enjoyment and into suffering, I just ask myself, how can I get myself back to enjoyment as fast as I possibly can? That's it. That's the whole game. That is the game of life. You're going to get lost, you're going to realize that you're lost, and you're going

• 20:20Speaker 01

  to get yourself back on track, you're going to find yourself again. And you're going to lose yourself thousands and thousands and thousands of times over the next 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 years, however much time you have left. There is never a moment where you can just be like, you know what? I've discovered who I am, and in every single second till the moment that I die, I will be this person forever. Like, let me give you an example. This is the whole game of life. Let's say that you used to get pissed off at your partner, and you would stay pissed off for like three days. You give him the silent treatment, you'd be rude to them, the whole thing. And now, when you get pissed off, you can lose yourself again, but you come back to them three hours later, and you're like, hey, I'm sorry, I overreacted. Did the anger go away? No. Did the reaction go away? Not fully.

• 21:04Speaker 01

  But you went from three days to three hours. That is growth. You didn't fully eliminate it, you just noticed it faster, and you came back quicker. Most people think growth means that the old stuff never shows up again, but when it shows up, they think they failed because like, I should be fully over this. They think, I've been doing this work for so long, and I'm still like this. Yeah, you are. I am. Ram Dass was, right? Like, the difference is, you now have the tools in your tool belt to recognize and to be able to get past it, and these are tools that you didn't have before in the past. So stop measuring yourself based off of if it still comes up or not.

• 21:48Speaker 01

  Start measuring yourself based off of how fast you came back when you were lost. So growth is not the absence of the old you a lot of times, it's the speed that you return back to your true self. And so here's what I want you to write down today and really think about. Just ask yourself, what petals in my life are ready to fall off? And just sit with it. Not, what's wrong with you? Not, how are you broken? What am I ready to let go of? Because you're not supposed to arrive to any destination, you're just supposed to constantly be in bloom, and that's the beautiful thing about being a human. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it with someone you know and love. And once again, if you're out there and you're ready to finish this year strong so that

• 22:31Speaker 01

  you set yourself up for a great 2027, join my free three-day live Finish 2026 Strong Challenge. Once again, all you gotta do is go to finish2026strong.com, register for free, and I'll see you live on the challenge. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode, making sure your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.

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