The Power of Habit

What if changing your life doesn’t require more motivation, but simply better habits? In this episode, I’m breaking down six powerful habits that can transform your health, creativity, knowledge, mindset, relationships, and finances, along with a simple three-step method to make them stick. I’ll show you how to start small, build consistency, and shift your identity so that success becomes a part of who you are, not just something you chase.

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• 1:47Speaker 01

  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 episode. And if you're looking to get to your next level and you realize that it's not found in another strategy or another book, it is only found by you conquering the version of you that is holding yourself back. Then you need to be at my live event called Freedom Live this December. We're going to find out exactly where you want to be in life, why you're not there yet, and then the unconscious patterns and fears and limiting beliefs that are capping your success without you knowing it. So if you want to live up to your full potential, but you don't know how to break through, come to my event. Go to FreedomLive2026.com. There's currently a $50 off coupon on that website.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Once again, it's FreedomLive2026.com. Today, we're going to be talking about the power of building habits. We're going to talk about six different habits that you need to create in your life to move the needle today, because you don't need more motivation. You need better habits, because right now, whether you realize it or not, your life is being run by invisible habits that you might not even be aware of. And most of them, a lot of times, are working against you. They can be draining your energy, stealing your time, and then quietly stealing your potential. And if you keep saying something like, someday I'll get my life together, but your habits don't change, then nothing else in your life is going to change.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  And the scariest part about this is that if you don't change, you will wake up in 10 years from now and you will have the same problems that you do today. But the difference is, you're going to just be older, and those habits and problems are going to be 10 times harder to break. So let me show you how to change your habits so that you can change the entire course of your life. First thing I want to talk about is let's stop pretending that you need 500 new habits to fix your life. You need maybe one, two, or like three habits that will create a massive ripple effect in your life. So you don't have to think like, I need 57 habits. No, you just need a few. And I'm going to give you six different ones to choose from today.

• 3:59Speaker 01

  And the truth is, 80% of your life results come from 20% of the things that you consistently do. And if I'm being honest with you, it's probably like 5%. And these 5% are like the biggest needle-moving habits that you can create in your life. They are super important. And so let's find your 5%, because these are not the same for every single person that's going to be listening to this episode. But I'm going to give you six categories that I want you to explore, and I want you to pick out the ones that you feel you need the most in your life right now. Number one, the first one is you need one habit that keeps you healthy and in shape. I'm not saying that you need a six-pack. I'm not saying that you need 5% body fat.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  I'm not saying that you need to run a marathon. But you need a body that can carry out your mission in life. You need a body that can keep up with the life that you see in your future that you want to create. And if you don't have the body that you need in order to bring you there, you need to create it. And I don't mean like, this isn't about punishment. You're not punishing yourself. You're not punishing your body. I want you to understand that when you feel better physically, everything in your life is easier. You work better mentally. You work better emotionally. You have more energy. Like, you need this vessel that you live in to be as full of energy as you possibly can every single day.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  And the first thing that you really need to understand is that you need to move more, and you need to move every single day. You don't need to walk 10 miles, but I cannot highlight this enough. So few people nowadays move their body as much as they need to. And then they wonder why they're depressed and why they have a foggy brain and why they don't look the way that they want to, why they don't have the energy that they want to. You need to move your body more. So go for a daily walk outside. Move your body, clear your mind, do strength training two to three times a week. You'll get some muscle on your body. And I want you to realize this. If you're trying to burn fat, one little secret a lot of people don't know about

• 6:09Speaker 01

  is the more muscle that you create in your body, the more your metabolism works to burn fat. So if you just try to bring on more muscle into your body, number one, you'll probably look better. Number two, you'll burn a whole lot more fat as well. Do some yoga throughout the week. Do some running throughout the week. Go for more walks. Do more stretching. Give your body some love. It needs some love. So many people are neglecting their body. Free your body from sitting down in this position that we're all stuck in all day long. Another healthy habit, prep one healthy meal per day. Like, your body is your home. It's the only home you're ever going to have. Treat it like it's the foundation of your life. Start treating your body like it's a temple and stop treating it like a tent.

• 6:50Speaker 01

  So that's number one. Number two, you need one habit that is a creative outlet for you. This one is really, really underrated. But if you're always consuming content, whether that be reading, or on Instagram, or TikTok, or YouTube, or Netflix, if you're always consuming, you're never creating. And your creativity is screaming inside of you to get out. Humans are made to create. Every single person is creative. You have seen how creative children are, right? I want you to realize that didn't die inside of you. You weren't just like born without creativity. You weren't the kid that just was, you know, popped out and you just decided to stare at walls. I'm sure you had a creative mind when you were a kid.

• 7:33Speaker 01

  It didn't die inside of you. It's just buried under all of the errands on your to-do list. And so you need something that is just yours. Not something that you're going to do to make money, but something that's yours, that is your creative outlet. What is it? It could be guitar. It could be singing. It could be dancing, painting, pottery. It could be writing for 10 minutes a day. It could be making videos. It could be editing. It could be gardening, photography, even Lego building, puzzles. Just something that is just you creating something that you're putting out to the world. It's not about being good, or being perfect, or mastering this thing. It's about getting your internal world out into the external world. So that's number two.

• 8:15Speaker 01

  Number three is you need one habit that builds your knowledge. The fastest way to change your life is to upgrade your brain, not just once, every single day. So if you want a better life, figure out what knowledge you need in order to create that life, and then download that knowledge into your brain every single day. Read five pages a day. Listen to 10 minutes of an audiobook while you're walking. Replace TV and scrolling with the podcasts are going to download the most knowledge into your brain. You want to download knowledge into your brain. 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.

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• 12:04Speaker 01

  And now, back to the show. That's it. If you want to change your life, you need knowledge and you need a skillset. That's it. What do you need to learn? And then what skillset do you need to learn? That's it. You just need to download both those things into your brain. Everything in this world can be taken from you, except for one thing, and that is the knowledge that's in your brain. The smartest people I know are not born smart. They built themselves. They become obsessed with learning. You need to become obsessed with learning. Knowledge doesn't change your life, I understand that, but applied knowledge, that's a weapon. And that's what you want to create in your brain. So that's number three. Number four is you need one habit that evolves your mindset. You want to know why so many people are stuck for decades? It's not laziness, it's mental stagnation.

• 12:47Speaker 01

  They need to grow their mindset. You do too, that's why you're here for this podcast, right? Your world will change when your inner world expands. And so you need to build stuff into your life that develop your mindset. Journaling to try to really become more aware of yourself, or journaling through a hard moment or emotion. Practicing 60 seconds of gratitude. Developing affirmations and repeating a truth that you want to believe in. Brainwash into yourself every single morning. Meditating and watching your thoughts and not judging them at all. Visualizing who you're becoming in the life that you're creating. You know, hiring a coach to help you get better with all of that.

• 13:30Speaker 01

  Mindset work isn't therapy, it's basically like mental strength training. And you can't build a strong life if you have a fragile mind. So that's number four. Number five is you need a relationship strengthening habit. Because success and achievement without connection is just loneliness with more money. Like, we as humans are wired for connection, but most people who are trying to achieve unintentionally neglect their most important relationships. Friends, partners, children, and especially themselves. And so, maybe you want to make sure that you have one intentional conversation per day with someone that you care about. Maybe you have a daily phone-down dinner, where you have dinner with your family every

• 14:15Speaker 01

  single night and you never look at your phone during dinner. Maybe you send one gratitude text every morning to somebody. Maybe you have a weekly date night, no matter what, with your partner, or if you don't have a partner, maybe you have a weekly date night with yourself. Right? The reason why this matters is because your relationships shape your nervous system. The better that your relationships are, the safer, the stronger, and the more joyful that you actually feel in your life. So that's number five. And number six is a wealth-creating habit. Money won't buy happiness, but the stress of not having money will rob you of happiness. And I always say, the only problems that money solves are money problems. And so, you know, I'm not just talking about like making more money.

• 15:00Speaker 01

  Of course, you can have a habit where you make more money, but you can also have a habit where you learn how to save money. You can have a habit where you learn how to invest money so that your money makes money babies and makes you more money without you having to do anything with it. Right? So it's not just making more, it's learning how to actually steward the money that you have and you will continue to make. And, you know, building trust with yourself and your financial life. And so, it could be a habit of checking your accounts weekly and to, you know, track spending daily. An app that helps you with that. It could be reading one finance article per week. It could be 10 minutes a day on a side hustle that makes you more money. It could be learning how to invest so that you make sure that your money makes you more money.

• 15:42Speaker 01

  Because you'll never really feel rich if you feel out of control. Money's a game, and whether you realize it or not, we're all in the game. If you want to not learn how to play the game, that's your prerogative. But if you're going to be in the game and you can't leave this economy that we're in, you might as well learn how to play the game and get better at it. I promise you this, it won't take away any of your problems, but it will take away your money stress. That will make your life a whole lot easier. So, that's the six habits that you can build within yourself. Now, let's talk about how to simply put habits into your life. I'm going to make these simple, and if you've been following this podcast for a while, you may have actually heard a couple of these before, but if you've ever tried to change your habits through like hype and willpower and force, you know you can do it for like

• 16:27Speaker 01

  three or four days. Sometimes you can do it for like two weeks if you have like really strong mentality and willpower. But eventually, you're going to find yourself right back in the same Netflix-stained hoodie that you wear every time you sit down and watch TV, wondering what happened to your habits. And a habit doesn't need to be hard, it just needs to be done daily. It's the consistent chipping away until it eventually just becomes part of who you are, not something that you do. And so, this is the three-step method that I teach my clients to start any habit. The first one, you've probably heard me say this before, it's been listed for a while, is you need to anchor it to something that you already do. Right? Don't rely on your memory.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Attach your new habit to a current habit. It's called habit stacking. After I brush my teeth, I do 100 pushups. After I pour coffee, I, you know, read five pages of a book. After I put the kids down for bed, I do a five-minute breathing technique. After I take my morning shower, I do two minutes of breath work. I don't know, whatever it is. You take one habit that you do every single day and you attach the new habit onto it. It's called habit stacking. Habits love anchors. You're trying to anchor a new habit onto an old habit you already do. It's like, it's basically like this. It's like putting a new train car on a track that's already running.

• 17:53Speaker 01

  Like, you're just attaching it and, oh, it just keeps going and takes off and has a whole lot of momentum to it because it's already on the back of another one. Right? So that's the first one. The second thing is you want to make it so small that it's almost laughable, because it's not the habit itself that we usually resist, it's the changing of tasks. It's doing something new that our brain usually resists. Our brain usually doesn't want to do something new. And so, if you want to meditate, don't go, "I'm going to meditate for 20 minutes." Like, just sit quietly for 60 seconds. That's it. If you want to start writing, don't write a novel. Don't sit down and say, "I'm going to write a novel." Don't say, "I'm going to write 20 pages today." Like, start by writing one sentence. Like, stupid simple is what you want to do.

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Don't run five miles, just put your shoes on and walk for two minutes. What you're doing is you're trying to just get this thing started. You're not working towards the outcome, you're trying to just get yourself started in this thing and to continue to keep showing up every single day. And what you'll do is you'll start to build an identity of the person who does X. Like, you're going to build your identity of the person who meditates. You're going to build your identity of the person who writes every single day. You're going to build your identity of the person who loves going on runs by just those small little steps. Small steps make the larger steps easier. So that's the second thing. And the third thing is to celebrate yourself when you do this habit. Your brain loves rewards. It sounds ridiculous.

• 19:20Speaker 01

  Every time I say it, I feel ridiculous, but then I read another article about how much your brain loves to celebrate. And because when you celebrate, it releases dopamine, and we all like dopamine. And when we get dopamine, we want more dopamine. So our brain goes, "Hm, that thing that I just did, I got dopamine for. I'm going to do more of that thing." So, you know, even if it's just like a smile, a fist bump, like, "Hell yeah, you're doing amazing." You know, put on your favorite song and dance like an idiot for three minutes and 30 seconds. Right? We don't change through shame. And most people are trying to shame themselves into changing. We change because we build self-trust in ourself.

• 19:59Speaker 01

  We change because we build more connection with ourself by celebrating ourself. And so tiny little wins turn into more trust within yourself. More trust within yourself turns into bigger wins, which turns into more momentum. And over time, it will create an entire identity shift. And so if you really want to change your life this year, what I want you to figure out is what are the two to three of the six habits that I just gave you that you're going to start this week? Don't do all six. Please don't do all six because if you do too much at one time, you're going to run this, this car right off the track. I promise you that. I've seen everybody be like, I'm going to do every single one of them. Do a couple of them, whatever it might be.

• 20:43Speaker 01

  And you want to do these things every single day. And as you're doing them, remind yourself, this is who I am now. I am this type of person that does this. I am the type of person who does this. Because what we're doing is we're shifting our, through our actions and our habits, we're shifting our identity. And if you become the type of person that just does this, it makes taking your habits so much easier. A quick example is like, if you think about somebody who's severely overweight, they, they might not have the habit at all of going to the gym and working out and being healthy. But if they just start doing it every single day and they don't stop, and you see them five years down the road, and they're in incredible shape, and they go to the gym every single day, just because they love it and it's become a habit, it's just become who they are now.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  And that's really what we're trying to build within ourselves, is the identity shift that this is who I am now. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, once again, like I said, this is exactly what I may be diving into in a much, much, much deeper way over the course of three days at Freedom Live in Austin, Texas. It is going to be live in person, Austin, Texas, December 3rd, 4th, and 5th. If you want to learn more about it, you can go to freedomlive2026.com. Once again, freedomlive2026.com. 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. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

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