← The Mindset Mentor
The Mindset Mentor
What If It Actually Works Out
00:16:53
What if everything you’re afraid of actually works out better than you ever imagined? In this episode, I walk you through why your brain defaults to worst-case scenarios, how your nervous system keeps you stuck in what’s familiar, and how to start interrupting those patterns by asking a more powerful question: what if it goes right? I’ll show you how to use awareness, action, and intentional thinking to expand your comfort zone and finally allow success to feel normal in your life.
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- [00:00]
Rob Dial
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- [02:01]
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the perfect morning routine once again, that
- [02:02]
Rob Dial
is theperfectmorningroutine.com today I'm going to be talking about actually allowing things to work out the way that you want them to. I want you to think about something for a second. Have you ever noticed how your brain will immediately go to everything going wrong whenever you get inspired to do something different? Like you have an idea and you feel excited about it for a split second, and then almost instantly it's like, yeah, but what if it fails? What if I embarrass myself? What if I get judged? What if I'm not good enough? What if it doesn't work out? And so automatically it just pops into your head and it feels so real because it's so automatic that a lot of times you don't even question it. It just feels like truth. But I want to introduce a question today that might feel like it's simple, but if you actually sit with it and allow your creativity to find out what's possible with it, it can change your entire life. Like, what if it actually works out? Not in a toxic positivity way, not in a just think happy thoughts type of way when the entire house is burning down. I mean, like, really ask yourself, what if this thing that I'm afraid of, this thing that I want my life to turn into, but my body is saying, no, no, no. Danger, danger, danger. What if everything actually goes right? What if the other shoe never drops and my life just continues to unfold in an amazing way all the time? And so I'm going to say something that I feel like I have said 4,000 times on this show, and I feel like a broken record saying it, but I really need you to think about this multiple times a day, every single day. When you have a bad day or you go to the negative, or. Or you spiral or you catastrophize, your brain is almost always going to go to the negative. Most of the time it is the human brain's default. Your brain is not designed to imagine best case scenario or to make sure you're happy. It is designed to protect you. It is designed to predict the future based off of the past. Which means if you have failed before, if you have been rejected in some sort of way before, so your brain goes, cool, I've got an idea of what might happen based off of what's happened to me in the past. So let me go ahead and project that into the future. That's it. It's not intuition. It's not truth. It's basically just pattern recognition inside of the brain. Pattern recognition does not mean truth. It just means it is searching through your database of your past, taking what's happened in the past and. And throwing it into the future. So if you failed before in the past, it thinks you're gonna fail again. If you've been judged before, it thinks you're gonna be judged again. If you've been made fun of before. It thinks you're gonna be made fun of. It's just taking the past and throwing it into the future in order to keep you in the exact same place. And your brain will always default to that. It will always default to what feels familiar, especially if what's familiar is you playing small. And that's why, for a lot of people, like, failure doesn't really feel scary all the time. Sure it's scary, but it's like, we've done that before. Do you know it feels scary for a lot of people. Success. Success does. Think about that for a second. Because failure is known. We could predict what could happen based off of what's happened in the past. You've done that before. You fail before, and your brain thinks about that a lot. Success, though, that's unknown. And an unknown thing to your brain feels like a threat. So let's go a layer even deeper. Okay. When you say things like, oh, yeah, I don't know if it's going to work out, that's not really 100% what you mean. What you actually mean is, I don't know who I would be if it did work out. Like, I've always messed up or I've always not been good enough. I don't know who I would be if I succeeded. Like, if it did work out, you'd have to be more visible. You would have to be more responsible. You would have to sustain that success. You'd have to handle new problems that you've never seen before. You'd have to change your beliefs about who you think you are. If it all worked out, if you actually succeeded, that's a new and different identity. That's scary to the brain. And your brain goes, yeah, we've never seen that person before. That sounds scary. Let's not risk it. Let's just hit the brakes. And so it pulls back because it wants to keep you within your current identity. It doesn't know anything outside of what you already have and what you already are. And so here's something that's really crazy about it. There's a book that's called Thinking Fast and Slow. And here in the book, he explains a really important thing. Okay, Inside of your brain, you actually have two different systems inside of your brain. One that thinks fast, like immediately automatic, emotional. You don't even really notice it. So fast, it just pops in. And one that thinks slow, it thinks logical, it thinks intentional. So that fast brain is the one that comes in first. System one is what comes in first and it comes in immediately and it runs your identity, it runs your patterns, it runs your this is the story of who I am. So even if your slow Brain System 2 is like yeah, this could work, your fast brain has already run in there, pulling you back to whatever feels familiar. And so system one runs most of your life, especially your default reactions, system 2. What's funny is it thinks that it's in control, but usually if you're not intentionally using system two, well, system one ran in and made its immediate reactions. System two, if you're not in control of it just usually explains what system one has already decided because it comes in slower. So you, knowing this, need to stop getting caught in all of your first thoughts and first feelings and give yourself some time. Let system two come back in. Be intentional with system two and say, okay, like I've noticed the fears of system one, the worries of system one, the limiting beliefs of system one, but let me bring in system two. What if this actually works out? And use system two, which takes a little bit longer to come in. It's the logical side, it's not the emotional side, a little bit more logical. Use System 2 asking the question, what if it actually works out to challenge system one? And we will be right back. Hey, showing up for yourself day in and day out and doing the hard things is what creates a better life. At Noon, Hydration helps you stay moving with the real deal activated hydration built to support you through those moments that challenge you. Noon Hydration tablets deliver clean ingredients and optimize electrolytes that hydrate better than water alone, especially when you're sweating or on the go. 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- [11:40]
Rob Dial
And now back to the show. So that is your brain and how it works. But there's another layer that we need to talk to that's really online that really is happening inside of you. Right? That's your nervous system. This is the part that most people miss. Your comfort zone is not just your thoughts and your behaviors, it's your emotional states too. If you're used to stress and overthinking and doubt, in inconsistency, in anxious feelings inside of your body, your nervous system will go back to Those feelings and emotions because they feel, well, normal, even if they suck, even if you don't want them, they feel normal. And you want to go back to what is normal unconsciously. Your nervous system, your brain, all those things want to go back to what is normal. So when something starts to go right, when there's momentum in the right direction, when there's opportunities popping up, your nervous system goes, hold on, this isn't familiar. Like this is unfamiliar. This doesn't feel like us. Like this is something I've never seen before. I can't predict this. Let's hit the brakes. And so you subtly will procrastinate and you'll overanalyze and you'll over plan or your pullback in some sort of way, or you will create problems in your mind that don't actually exist. Not because there's something wrong with you, but because your body is trying to return to what feels safe and what is known. Misery doesn't feel good, but it feels familiar for a lot of people. Your nervous system, even if you don't want to feel miserable, but misery is your standard, will still want to go back there because it knows this is what feels normal. And so if it's about to do something different, if you're about to do something different, if you're about to think differently, what you need to do is let yourself feel the discomfort of doing something new and out of the ordinary for you. Don't run from it. You're going to feel your nervous system kick on and be like, danger, danger, danger, alarms, alarms. Don't do it. Breathe into it. Let yourself feel the discomfort. You're doing something new and prove to yourself that you're not going to die. And sustaining it long enough in doing this for a while, it will eventually start to feel normal, to take action and to do something different and to get out of your comfort zone. Now I promise you this, this is not a couple weeks kind of thing. This isn't even like a couple months kind of thing. It's probably like six to 12 months kind of thing for getting out of your comfort zone and doing something new and building an identity to actually feel more normal to you like to feel normal. It's a two to three year thing for it to actually feel like who you are. Is that longer than we want? Absolutely. I have found this to be true. Nothing you want will ever happen as fast as you want it to, but when it does happen, it will be 10 times better than you thought it was going to be. Right? It might take Two to three years. But damn, it's better than being stuck and miserable for the rest of our lives, isn't it? Sure. So how do you actually shift this? Not like intellectually or theoretically, but in real life, how do you actually do this? Let's get practical with it. Okay, the first thing that you want to do is catch the default question. Questions direct your mind, and so you're constantly ask yourself questions. Your brain will ask questions like, what if this goes wrong? What if this doesn't work out? What if I'm not good enough or smart enough or a failure? So it's going to ask those questions, which is why it immediately goes to things not working out, things going wrong, you being a failure, not being smart enough, all that. And so you want to notice the question that is system one part of your brain. Just expect it, expect it. Stop getting so wrapped up in it. Oh my God, why am I so negative? I wish I was more positive. No, just expect it. It's going to happen. Deal with it. Stop getting caught up in it. You just want to notice it. That's system one. You can't always control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. And I want you to interrupt it and ask, okay, but what if it goes right? And now you're going to bring in system two, which is to be more intentional. Right. Instead of letting system two agree with system one, you're going to use system two to actually start to get more creative and think, what if it does work out? Ask better questions. Not, what if I fail? What if I'm a loser? What if I'm not good enough? But, like, what if this actually does work out for me? Like, I don't need you to convince yourself. Like, I don't need you to do any of that. I just want you to open up the possibility loop. Right? Allow your brain to get creative in a new and positive way versus the old protective ways that it has your entire life. Because right now your brain is only running one scenario and it's all of the old scenario it has. It's your entire life. Give it another scenario and see what it comes up with by asking better questions. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second thing is I want you to build evidence through action. Confidence doesn't come from thinking about it. Confidence comes from doing something and surviving it. And you're showing your brain, oh, I did this thing that was hard. I did this thing out of my comfort zone. I did this thing that felt uncomfortable, but I'm still alive. Okay, then I probably shouldn't be afraid of it. So every time you show up, every time you follow through, every time you do something uncomfortable, every time you survive, you're building proof. I can handle more than I thought. I am still safe. And that's where real confidence comes from. And the longer that you do it, the more you'll actually start to see yourself differently than you have before in the past. Okay, that's number two. Number three is I want you to start to regulate, not try to, like, motivate yourself. Okay? If your old nervous system patterns kick in and your body feels unsafe, your mindset won't matter. Like, your body will override your mindset almost every single time. You can be like, I need to be positive. I need to be positive. But if your body and nervous system feels like it's in fight or flight, and it feels like sends the alarms like you're about to be attacked or killed, doesn't matter how positive you want to be in your. In your mind. So when things start going well, it will also feel very foreign. And your nervous system is going to kick in and be like, I don't know if this is right. So instead of, like, when they do start going well and they start going in the direction that you want, instead of rushing, instead of sabotaging, instead of doing any of that stuff, just pause and let yourself feel it. It's like when people get a compliment and they have really hard time taking compliments, it's because it doesn't line up with what they think of themselves. So it's kind of the same thing. When things start going well in a direction you've never had before, instead of rushing through it or sabotaging yourself, pause for a second. Feel it. Like, actually try to receive it in your body. Like, let it be okay for you to grow and to succeed and to be somebody different. It will feel foreign to you and your body, but you need to try to make it feel normal. You're trying to, like, brainwash your body. I guess you get this, a lack of better words. Brainwash your body into like, oh, this is possible. Things working out need to be conditioned into your body. So give yourself three minutes of breathing. Breathe in through the nose. Maybe you can hum out through the mouth. Calm your nervous system so that you can encode the. That feeling of things going right. So that way everything working out for you actually starts to feel normal. That's how you expand your capacity and allow more good into your life. And so the last part, I really want to cover with you is that you have to understand you don't get the life that you want. Like, you don't just want to have a better life and get it. You get the life that, that matches who you believe that you are. So if you believe things never work out for me, if you believe I always mess up, if you believe I'm not that type of person, you will unconsciously make that true. You have been unconsciously making your entire life true because your brain is wired to act in ways to stay consistent with who you think you are. And so I want you to sit with this today. Like, actually sit with it and think about it deeply. What is that thing in your life right now that you keep assuming won't work? That goal or that idea or that relationship or that version of you, whatever it might be, like, where you're like, I really want it, but like, it probably won't work out. Instead of asking why, like, why will this fail? Or what if it fails or what if I screw up? I want you to ask yourself, what if it actually works out? Watch what your brain does. Watch how you'll start to get excited, but then you'll pull back and then you'll get excited and you'll pull back and just allow yourself to just imagine things working out and imagine, imagine long enough and you'll notice your body starts to get excited about things working out for you. Allow your brain to start getting creative and thinking about new and exciting possibilities that you've never thought about before instead of old patterns that just come in from your protection mechanisms in your brain. Because that actually sitting down and thinking, what if it works out? And feeling into it, that's where your next level starts. 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 obdialjr R O B D I A L J R and once again, if you want to download my free workbook and video on how to create the perfect morning routine based in science, go to theperfectmorningroutine.com right now and download it for free. And with that, I am going to leave you the same way 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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Rob Dial
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Capella University Announcer
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