5 Steps to Designing the Life You Want

Summary

Podcast Summary: "5 Steps to Designing the Life You Want"
The Mindset Mentor Podcast with Rob Dial
Release Date: March 28, 2025

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Introduction

In the episode titled "5 Steps to Designing the Life You Want," host Rob Dial delves deep into the transformative process of intentionally crafting a fulfilling and purposeful life. Drawing from his extensive background in neurology, psychology, and cognitive behavioral therapy, Rob provides listeners with actionable steps to move from living passively to actively designing a life that aligns with their true desires and strengths.

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1. Clarify What You Truly Want

Key Points:

• Self-Discipline in Clarity: Rob emphasizes the paramount importance of gaining crystal clarity on one's desires. Without a clear vision, individuals often feel lost and unfulfilled, continuously chasing vague notions of success.

• Personal Definition of Success: He highlights that success is highly subjective. For some, it might mean financial wealth or professional accolades, while for others, it could be centered around family, creativity, or personal growth.

• Visualization and Documentation: Rob encourages listeners to "spend 10 minutes every single morning journaling about the life that you want" to solidify their vision and recognize patterns that resonate with their true selves.

Notable Quote:

"Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure." – Rob Dial [05:40]

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2. Build a Life Around Your Strengths and Passions

Key Points:

• Leveraging Natural Strengths: Rob discusses the importance of aligning one's career and lifestyle with their inherent strengths and passions. Forcing oneself into ill-fitting roles leads to exhaustion and dissatisfaction.

• Flow State and Engagement: Operating from one's strengths induces a state of flow, where work feels effortless and deeply engaging, contrasting sharply with tasks that drain energy.

• Real-Life Example: Rob shares his own experience, identifying himself as a visionary who excels in generating ideas but relies on others to handle detailed execution, such as his VP of Operations, Brittany, who is an integrator.

Notable Quote:

"Most people are blindfolded throughout this entire life. ... when you are operating from your strengths, the work feels pretty effortless." – Rob Dial [13:32]

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3. Create a Transition Plan

Key Points:

• Strategic Planning: Dreaming about the desired life is insufficient without a concrete strategy. Rob advises breaking down the vision into manageable timeframes (e.g., 6-month, 12-month plans) with specific, actionable steps.

• Financial Strategy: Incorporating financial planning ensures a smoother transition, providing security and flexibility as one moves towards their dream life.

• Consistency in Action: Implementing small, consistent steps daily can lead to significant transformations over time.

Notable Quote:

"Dreaming is great, but without a clear strategy, nothing's going to change." – Rob Dial [17:00]

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4. Take Action Despite Your Fears

Key Points:

• Embracing Fear as Growth: Rob asserts that fear indicates stepping out of one's comfort zone and is a natural part of personal growth. Instead of letting fear paralyze, one should lean into it.

• Action Over Readiness: He advises acting before feeling fully prepared, as waiting for the "perfect" moment can lead to perpetual inaction.

• Expanding Comfort Zones: Regularly facing fears diminishes their power, making bold actions feel less daunting over time.

Notable Quote:

"Fear is not a stop sign. It's a sign that you're on the right track." – Rob Dial [19:00]

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5. Make It Feel Effortless

Key Points:

• Streamlining Success: Rob encourages finding ways to make the journey towards one's goals feel more natural and less strenuous by aligning actions with personal strengths and passions.

• Eliminating Struggle: By designing a life that resonates with one's true self, the path to success becomes more enjoyable and less of a battle.

• Continuous Alignment: Regularly assessing and adjusting actions ensures that they remain in harmony with one's evolving desires and strengths.

Notable Quote:

"Success, whatever that looks like for you, doesn't have to be a struggle." – Rob Dial [21:30]

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Conclusion

Rob Dial wraps up the episode by reiterating the significance of living a life true to oneself. Referencing the book "The Five Regrets of the Dying," he underscores that the greatest regret people have is not living authentically. By following the five steps—clarifying desires, leveraging strengths, planning transitions, taking fearless action, and making the journey effortless—listeners are empowered to design a life that is not only successful by their own definitions but also deeply fulfilling.

Closing Quote:

"The biggest regret of people who are dying is that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not what others expected of me." – Rob Dial [22:42]

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Key Takeaways

• Intentional Design: Taking proactive steps to shape one's life leads to greater fulfillment than passively drifting.

• Self-Awareness: Understanding and embracing one's strengths and passions is crucial for long-term satisfaction.

• Fear as a Catalyst: Recognizing fear as a natural part of growth can propel individuals beyond their comfort zones.

• Actionable Planning: Concrete plans with manageable steps facilitate the transition towards desired life goals.

• Authentic Living: Aligning actions with personal truths ensures a life free from future regrets.

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By internalizing and implementing these steps, listeners are equipped to transform their aspirations into reality, crafting a life that genuinely reflects their unique selves and deepest desires.

Transcript

[Rob Dial]

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[Co-host]

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. If you love this podcast, you want to get some inspirational texts from me, some mindset texts sporadically throughout the week and you live in the United States or Canada, text me right now. 512-580-9305 once again, 512580, 9305 today I'm going to be going through a five step process to design the life that you want. Have you ever just woken up and thought to yourself like, how the hell did I get here? Like you were actively participating in your life, but you didn't really build exactly what you wanted? I don't know if You've ever felt this way? I've definitely felt this way. And I remember waking up and I was like, luckily still younger. I was about 28 years old. I remember being like, if I fast forward my life five years and I get, I do really well and I make more money and I get my manager's job, I'm not going to like the life that I have, like, where what the hell am I doing with myself? I need a full reset. And I have many people that come to me and they're like, hey, I need to redesign my life. I need to start it over. I need to change something at least, how do I do it? The first thing that we need to talk about, and this is not one of the tips, but I just want to say before we dive into it, is, this is the truth. No one's coming to save you. No one's going to come in and design the life that you want. No one's going to come in and then create the life that you want. And as children, we don't really have from a transition from children into adult like they used to five, 10, 20,000 years ago, maybe even more, right? There was always like a rite of passage. Like, you know, certain tribes, you'd go off into a cave for five days and eat, you know, five handfuls of mushrooms or something like that. Then you come out and you're like, now you're a man or now you're a woman. Now it's like, oh, you just go to college and we still have this feeling kind of lingering in the back of like, is someone coming to help me? Like, our parents were there. Our parents were always telling us what to do and now they're not telling us what to do. And so it's like we never really get this full, like cutoff of like, hey, you're an adult now. This is your decision. There's no one coming to save you. But I do want to tell you that before we dive in, and if you want a life that excites you, that fulfills you, that gives you a sense of purpose, you have to be the one to create it. I'm going to go through this simple five step process to design your life. Your life, not the life that someone else expects of you, not the life that your parents told you that you needed to be or else you were a loser, not the life that just kind of happened to land on your lap, but the life that you want to actually create. And this is the way that I think of today's episode. Confucius has a. Had a quote that was very famous and Sundays, we have two lives. And the second one begins when we realize we only have one. And so we kind of live this life unconsciously. And then we wake up one day, we're like, oh, my God, I've only got one life and I'm already 40 years into it. I need to do something about it. So hopefully this is the start of your second one, is when you realize that you only have one. And. And from this moment until the day you die, you're going to do what you want to do. So let's go through the five step process. Number one, you've heard me say this before. If you listen to podcasts for a while, but you have to get crystal clear on what you actually want in your life. If you don't know what you want, you will always feel lost. If you don't know what you want, you'll never quite feel like you got what you were looking for in this life because you never got really clear and said, this is what I want. This is what I'm shooting for. This is something that I see so many people struggle with. I have people that come up to me after talks or in the streets.

[Rob Dial]

Or send me emails, or I'm on.

[Co-host]

Zoom calls in some of my coaching sessions in Mindset University, and they're like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I want to create the life I want to create. And then I say, okay, well, what do you want? I've never gotten a really good answer. It's always this vague, nebulous idea that they explain to me, and I'm like, listen, this. It doesn't sound like you've gotten very clear on what you want, and if you're not clear, you're not going to get it. And I always say, like, one of my first mentors used to give this example on why you need to get so clear on what is it you want. He used to say, if you were to take the number one archer in the world and you were to give him a bow and arrow, he's going to beat you every single time because he has way more practice. But if you blindfold him and spin him around, who has a better chance of hitting that target? You. Why? Just because of the fact that you can clearly see where it is and he has no idea where it is. Most people are blindfolded throughout this entire life. And what I'm trying to do is make you say, hey, I'm going to get really clear on what it is that I want. And so too many people chase success, quote, unquote, success, without ever stopping and asking themselves, what is their definition of success? If I were to ask every person listening to this episode right now, what's your definition of success? All of you will have completely different answers. And if you don't know what success is, your version of success, you'll never really, truly be fulfilled. And as Tony Robbins says, success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure. Maybe you've been conditioned to believe that success means money or success means titles or achievements or approval from certain people or becoming famous. But real success is living a life that it feels deeply fulfilling to you, regardless of the money in your bank account, regardless of all of the achievements or what other people might define as success. So what makes you the happiest? What makes you happiest? Say, that would be a successful life for me. That's what you need to figure out. You might be a doctor right now and be worth, you know, $1 million a year, because that's what your parents told you go do. But you might just be the happiest living in a country, in a small house with your children and your spouse, working on a family farm, making enough money, doing side jobs just to pay the bills and save a little, even though you went to school for years, you'd be better just spending the majority of your time raising your children into good humans. And that's what you want to do. Good. Go do that. Let's say you're not a doctor. Let's say you're struggling to pay the rent. Okay, well, what do you need to do in order to if that exact same life is what you want? In order to get a small family farm, whether it's something to rent or to save up enough money to buy it to eventually get there. What does success mean to you? For some people, success would mean something.

[Rob Dial]

Completely different than living on a small.

[Co-host]

Family farm and raising little tiny humans. But without clarity, you just keep drifting and reacting to life instead of actually sitting down and designing it. So you need to intentionally design every aspect of your life with clarity, not with vagueness, so that you know what you're shooting for and what you're working towards every single day. This is where really the biggest first step and probably the most important. So you've got to ask yourself the right questions. What does my ideal day look like from start to finish? How do I want to feel every morning when I wake up? What kind of work excites me? How do I want to spend my time? Who do I Want to spend my time with? What kind of lifestyle would make me feel the most alive? What are things that matter most to me in my life? Whether it's freedom or creativity or family or impact or adventure, whatever it is for you. And so write it all down. Don't just think about it. Document to write it down. The act of writing helps you turn these vague desires into a clear vision. Then when you see it in front of you, it becomes more real. And I always say when it's on paper, it can be planned. It's really hard to plan things in your head. And so I challenge you to spend 10 minutes every single morning journaling about the life that you want, not the life that you have, the life that you want, and getting more and more clear and just. Just bringing a little bit more clarity to that vision. And then you'll start to see patterns emerge and you'll go, you know what? I do actually love doing that. It'll give you more clarity over time. So that's the first step. The second step is to then start to take action towards that by building a life around your strengths and your passions. Too many people try to force themselves into careers or lifestyles that aren't really a good fit. As I'm, you know, getting older, I'm seeing this. I'm seeing so many people that are in jobs that I'm like, why do you have that job? That doesn't make sense with your personality. It doesn't make sense with the way that your brain works. And those jobs just drain them because they have to use so much energy to do those jobs. So they pick jobs because they're safe, or they pick jobs because they decided when they were 18 years old to go for a major and now they're 50 years old. And it's completely different than what they thought at 18 years old. I didn't know how. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know how my brain worked. I didn't know what my personality type was like. And that's why so many people wake up and they feel unfulfilled, is they don't build a life around their strengths and their passions. And we will be right back.

[Rob Dial]

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[Co-host]

So you need to build a life that plays into your natural strengths. When you operate from your strengths, the work feels pretty effortless.

[Rob Dial]

It's really interesting.

[Co-host]

You get into a flow state where everything can kind of disappear and you feel fully engaged. You know, what would look like work to other people but but feel like fun to you? Like for me, I've told you this before on the podcast. I love researching human neurology and psychology.

[Rob Dial]

And early childhood development.

[Co-host]

Those things are so interesting and I love learning them and putting them all together. And then teaching them into lessons. That's fun for me. For a lot of people, they'd be like, screw that. I would never want to do that. I get that. I have things that I hate doing as well. Do you know what I hate? I hate? I hate building and fixing stuff around my house. I don't. I just hate doing it. My friend Alan loves to do it. Remodel his entire house by himself. When I need something hung up, I'm like, hey, can you come hang something up with me? And then we'll hang up a TV together. Cause I don't want my TV to fall on my kid. So I'm just like, please, Alan, come over so I don't screw this thing up. So he loves doing that type of building. He also loves cooking. I hate cooking. So like him, his natural inclination is to go towards building something as far as, like a meal or building and fixing something inside of a house. If I was in construction, I just wouldn't fit. But that could have been a job I picked up when I was 20 years old. I'm like, well, I've been doing it for so long, might as well keep doing it. We're different people. We all have different brains. We have different interests as well. So many people are doing the wrong thing for them because they just decided to do it one day. And they're like, well, I've been doing it for so long, I might as well keep going. But it never really fit. And so it feels like they're struggling in some way. It feels kind of like you're trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. It doesn't make sense. You know, like another good example of this that really changed my mind of the way that brains work. There's a great book on business. It's called Rocket Fuel, and it talks about how people can be visionaries or they can be integrators. So, like, a visionary is a big picture thinker. There are usually entrepreneurs with big ideas. They're very, very creative. They love to drive and innovate. They often struggle with execution and managing details and processes. That's me. I can force myself to do, like, the processes and the managing of the details, but I just hate doing it, to be honest with you. That is more for what's called an integrator. An integrator is much more of a structured, detail oriented leader who, you know, will take the visionary's ideas and turn them into managing teams, systems, growing a business with them, the processes, ensuring the business runs smoothly and efficiently. So for me, I have the visionary brain and I'm constantly coming up with ideas and I'm. You could throw me on a stage and I could just talk the entire time and all these ideas come through. And I'm very visual. I can force myself to integrate, but it's not really my, my thing. On the other hand, I have Brittany on my team, who's my VP of operations. She is a hardcore integrator brain. She's very structured, she's very detail orientated. She's very into managing teams and systems and processes and ensuring that things run smoothly. We work really well together because we can bounce ideas. And the visionary and the integrator both need each other. And so she just has a way different brain than me. And so we are both in a position that best fits us, but also makes me, makes me the most excited about what I'm doing. It makes her the most excited about what she's doing. That's a good example of fitting into the right position. And so you've got to find out like what your zone of genius is. You know, what do people come to you for advice on? What do you lose track of time when you're doing, like, what feels fun and effortless but can be hard for other people? What type of skills come naturally for you? That's what I would recommend. Trying to try to start doing is finding something that actually feels like a passion and feels like a strength, which is number two. Number three, once you start to get clear on what you want, how you want it, what you want your life to look like, and what your strengths and your passions are, create a transition plan. Not just like a dream board or a vision board. I'm talking about a transition plan. So you might be 50 years old right now and working in a job, you know, in HR for the past 30 years and you're like, I'm over this. I don't expect you to just quit your job today. And I don't think that you should quit your job today. But what I would recommend is if you know that you're done and you want to do something different, create some sort of transition plan. 12 months, 24 months, whatever it is, listen, dreaming is great, but without a clear strategy, nothing's going to change. And so you need to turn your, your vision into an actual plan of action. Because if you're not careful, years are just going to pass you by. And some people listening years have just passed by. Some, some of you, decades have passed by and your dream's just going to still Be a dream. And so what I would recommend is breaking it down into an actual whatever feels right for you. A 12 month plan, a 24 month plan, a 36 month plan, a 6 month plan. Next. What is it for you? Make a six month plan a goal. What's one major step that you can take towards your dream life in the next six months and work towards that thing? And then once you figure out that.

[Rob Dial]

Six months, well, then what are your daily habits?

[Co-host]

Like what? Small habits can start to move you in the right direction, you know, and then you can come up with a financial strategy so that you can start to move and feel safer to transition. So, you know, you can save, you can invest, you can build some side income, something like that. So that when you transition out of what you've been doing for 20 or 30 years into this new thing, you have much more of a longer Runway because you've been planning ahead financially, which allows you more time and more of a Runway for this thing to take off. And so you just want to start doing some small steps. But do them consistently every single day, because small steps lead to massive changes over time. So write down like three small steps that you can take this week to start moving towards your dream life that you want to create. Okay? So that's number three, Make a transition plan. Number four, take action already. Even when it's scary, fear is not a stop sign. It's a sign that you're on the right track. If you're not a little scared all the time, you're not growing, you should feel scared. You should feel fear because you're getting out of your comfort zone every single day. Most people let fear paralyze them, but the secret is to feel the fear and decide to do it anyways. Because fear is just really the physical feeling of your comfort zone. When you feel fear, that's the physical feeling of, oh my God, I've hit the edge of my comfort zone. So instead of backing away, I'm gonna lean a little bit forward. It's the body's way of saying danger. But that's a good thing because you're not actually in any physical danger.

[Rob Dial]

What you are is you're in the.

[Co-host]

Danger to your brain and your body is, no, no, no, we're on the edge of our comfort zone. We've never done this before. You gotta remind yourself, that's okay. No big deal. It's a good thing. So we've probably, and a lot of us have created the habit of when you feel that fear, you just shut down. Or you back down. You need to feel it. Remind yourself, this is okay. I'm not in any danger right now. And then lean into that fear. Push past that little bit of physical discomfort because you're on the edge of your comfort zone. So do something when you don't feel like you're ready. Don't wait till you're ready. Do it before you're ready. You know, apply for that job before you feel like you're quote, unquote qualified. Publish the, you know, the, the podcast or YouTube video before it's quote, unquote perfect. Reach out to a mentor or someone that you want to work with before you feel like you're, you're worthy in some sort of way. And so your comfort zone is where your dreams go to die every time you stay in it. You just push your dreams a little bit further down the road every time you step out of it. That's where you expand and possibility can come in. The more scary things that you do, the less they become scary. You just get used to doing things out of your comfort zone. So feel your fears. Do it anyway. You need to take action. And the number five. This is the thing I used to do with all of my one on one clients. Whenever we would come up with our goals for the week and the assignments and things they need to do, I used to always ask them this question, how can you make it easier on yourself? And so number five is to ask yourself, how can I make this easier on myself? Success, whatever that looks like for you, doesn't have to be a struggle. You don't have to white knuckle your way through life. And so you can ask yourself, how can I make this easier on myself? How can I make this feel more effortless? It can become more effortless because you're more in line and you're excited. It's really easy to work hard when you're doing something that you love. It's really easy to lose yourself when you're doing something that you love. And so how can you make it easier for you to take the right action for you to, to build the life that you've been looking for? And how can you make it feel more effortless versus so much of a struggle? And so you have to understand, like, you have one life now that we've gone through the Confucius quote, you've got.

[Rob Dial]

Two lives, but you're on the back.

[Co-host]

End, which means you're on the second life, which is realizing that you only have one. So don't waste it by living in default or just staying in patterns. Design it from this moment forward with intention. Get really clear on what you want. Build a life that's around your strength. Make some sort of transition plan. Take action despite your fears, and then try to make it feel more effortless as well. Because the biggest regret on people's deathbed according to statistics and to a book that's called the Five Regrets of the Dying, the biggest regret of people who are dying is that I wish I lived a life that was true to myself and not what others expected of me. So live a life that's true to yourself. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at robdial Junior R O B D I A L J R I love seeing when you guys share it. The only way this podcast grows is when you guys share it. So if you do that, I would greatly, greatly appreciate it. And with that, I'm going to leave 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.

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