Mastering the Mindset
This Is What's Wrong With Your Goals
Trying to reach your goals can be challenging. You can find yourself feeling overwhelmed and "stuck in the mud" or inaction. There's power in embracing the journey, not just the destination. It's time to align ourselves with the person we aspire to be; the person who achieves the kind of goals you're going after.
This podcast is 100% donation driven. If you like the content I provide I would truly appreciate any donation you have to offer.
Listen To My Music!
Here's how you can donate:
VENMO
PAYPAL
CASH APP
Need other options? Email me at:
dariusdotch@gmail.com
Trying to reach your goals can be challenging. You can find yourself feeling overwhelmed and "stuck in the mud" or inaction. There's power in embracing the journey, not just the destination. It's time to align ourselves with the person we aspire to be; the person who achieves the kind of goals you're going after.
This podcast is 100% donation driven. If you like the content I provide I would truly appreciate any donation you have to offer.
Listen To My Music!
Here's how you can donate:
VENMO
PAYPAL
CASH APP
Need other options? Email me at:
dariusdotch@gmail.com
What's up everybody and thank you for listening to Mastering the Mindset. My name is Darius Dodge and I'm an actor, hip-hop artist and fitness and life coach. I'm here to personally help you train and improve your mindset so that you can, one, become the best version of yourself mentally and, two, gain focus and motivation to be able to take action and achieve the success in life that you want and deserve. Before we get started, please like and subscribe to my channel and at the end of this episode, if you liked it, please share it with a friend or a loved one or someone who would benefit from hearing this message. I'm so glad you're here and I'm ready to go on this journey with you, and that journey begins now. All right, and welcome back to another episode. Thank y'all so much for being here. Please be watching me on youtube. Please like and subscribe to my channel. If you are listening on a podcast platform, please leave a review. Both of these help me out a whole lot, but let's go ahead and get to it.
Speaker 1:Today. Let's talk about goals and the problem with your goals and also why it's hard to stay consistent and actually hit those goals, and I'm going to give you a tool, a cheat code, something that's going to make it easier for you to hit your goals. And again, this episode is as much for me as it is for you. So let's dive in. So let's say we sat down and I asked you what your 10 year goal is and what are all the things you want to have accomplished by then and what do you want to be. And we can sit down and write everything down, all the milestones, the big ones, the small ones, and you can look at that list and get excited about it, like, yeah, that's going to be dope, that's going to feel good to do all that. And what happens is after that, after that excitement wears off, and you really look at that list and you start coming up with all the steps you're going to take, that you have to take.
Speaker 1:What can happen is you can get stuck and you can get paralysis by analysis. You start thinking, okay, here I am today and that's where I want to be in 10 years, and your mind starts to process all the things you're going to have to get done, all the things you're going to need to have to give up, all the hours and long nights it's going to take, all the things that you don't even know how to do yet, that you're going to have to somehow be an expert at, and the goal can seem far away. At times, it can actually be demotivating. You start thinking about how long that journey is that journey of 10 years, of how many things need to get done, and it actually holds us back. We get caught up on focusing on the burden when really what we should be focusing on is the process, and that's what we're going to be focusing on today is the process and not the outcome.
Speaker 1:Now, it's a concept we've all heard before. We've all heard that phrase. Fall in love with the process, and I'll be the first person to tell you that it's easier said than done with so many things. Don't even get me started. You know I'm a professional actor, I've been acting professionally since 2009 and you think I love auditioning and the audition process? Hell, no, anyway.
Speaker 1:So, yes, we all want the money, the success, the business, the great relationship, the amazing children. We all want the goals, but we need to be focusing on the process, on what it is that we need to be doing every day, not the end result, but the daily tasks that we can see, daily action based goals, but we do the opposite. We get caught up in the results based goals. For example, let's say we say I want to lose 10 pounds, then I feel better about the way I look. Or I want to make one hundred thousand dollars this year, then I feel like my business is successful. And, yes, those are good goals, good results based goals, and they are important to create. But this is where a lot of people get stuck. They don't transition or not transition, what's the word? They don't implement action based goals.
Speaker 1:Implementing action based goals is an important step when going up your goals. What do you need to do today in order to be in alignment with where you want to go? And it don't have to be anything big. As a matter of fact, it's better if you can break it down into small tasks. What can you do today? What can you do in the next hour? Those actions that can get you going in the right direction.
Speaker 1:You want to act in alignment with the kind of person you want to be. You want to act in alignment with the kind of person you want to be. You want your actions to reflect that of the kind of person who achieves the kind of things you want to achieve. And from here you set up what a lot of life coaches refer to as a dopamine reward system. And I've talked about that before and we know dopamine is that thing that makes you feel good. It's what your body produces and it creates motivation inside your brain. You want to strive for gaining that dopamine. You always want more, right? It's the chemical that's released when you're excited about something or when you're celebrating something. And the best part about dopamine is it can be subjective. You can assign that rewarding feeling to whatever you choose that reward to be. You can celebrate whatever it is you want to celebrate and make yourself release that dopamine if you want more of it. And one thing that's common with everyone every one of the greats, right at any profession, whether it's sports, music, acting moguls, right the greats they all have the same thing in common they decided that they would fall in love with the process. And in that process, whether they realize it or not, they set up a dopamine reward system.
Speaker 1:And what this is? It's a way to get your brain to release dopamine each time you accomplish a task. That's part of your process getting your brain to release that feel good feeling when you accomplish something that gets you closer to your goal. And I actually hesitate to say to say get you closer to your goal, because a lot of times folks take that phrase and they make it mean some huge milestone or some big task that gets them a third of the way, a third of the way, done, right? No, I'm talking about the small things, the everyday things.
Speaker 1:Once again, it is subjective. You can feel excitement for what you, whatever it is you want to, right? So let me break that down a little bit more and bear with me if I'm saying things you already know about dopamine. So dopamine is released in response to rewarding or pleasurable stimuli. The release of dopamine signals to your brain that what you just did, the behavior that led you to celebration, it should be repeated. Whatever that behavior is, it can be hey, I made it to the gym today when I didn't want to. Hell yeah, that's what's up, let's go. I'm proud of myself for showing up for myself. Hell, yeah, right. And you literally tell yourself this in your head and really, truly be excited that you're showing up for yourself. And that release of dopamine, that celebration, that feel good proudness of yourself, it sends a signal to your brain that this action should be repeated because? Should be repeated because and let me read this verbatim because dopamine reinforces the neural connections that were involved in the behavior, making it more likely that the behavior will be repeated in the future. So how can we reward ourselves in the process? And let's stick with this gym example.
Speaker 1:So, after you congratulate yourself for making it there, go do a set and say, hell yeah, you got that first set out of the way. That's the hardest one. And on top of all that, you ain't even want to be here. You ain't want to be here and you're doing what you need to do. I'm proud of you. Then do another set and you say, hell yeah, I'm on a roll. Or even, if you ain't fully persuaded yet to be there, say hell yeah, I don't even feel like being here and I'm getting it done. You didn't want to come and here you are. You don't even feel like it, but you're getting it done. You're still doing it. Let's go. That's what's up. I'm proud of you.
Speaker 1:Most folks would have stayed home, but look at you, right, and you keep rewarding yourself, right? Let's say you decided to go on a diet Diet suck. The food can be nasty and when you eat that thing that you should be eating and you resisted the urge to have that cheeseburger. You say, hell yeah, look at you, you being dedicated. You showed up for yourself. You said no. You said no to that bag of chips. Hell yeah, I'm proud of you.
Speaker 1:And one of the biggest problems with results-based goals is people wait or they feel like they can't celebrate until they reach the goal. They don't feel any sense of accomplishment until they complete the full goal. They rob themselves of all those moments to have those dopamine hits along the way, and that could be years down the road. You got those 10 year goals. Are you telling me that you're going to wait 10 years until you start feeling good about it? You're going to try and wait 10 years from now before you celebrate anything. That's not going to motivate you. That's not going to help you keep going, and this is definitely something I've been working on myself, especially with my music career, and I'm really like for real, for real, taking moments to look back and to see how far I've came.
Speaker 1:It's the reason why I named my EP that I just released Peak, and yes, it was a peak in my acting career to have a lead role in the Guthrie. But I've also been doing big things in my music. The fact that I just had my music featured in the show, that's amazing. The fact that I was just the headlining performer for the City of St Cloud on Juneteenth crazy. The fact that I released an EP, that's amazing. And lyrically, I'm getting better and better and better. I can look back and see how far I came and where now? Am I? Where I ultimately want to be? Of course not, but I'd be damned if I ain't closer than I was five years ago. And the peaks just keep getting higher and higher.
Speaker 1:Right, and those big goals we have, those ones that we dream up, like everybody. It'll motivate you to start, yes, but everybody is motivated when they first start. In the beginning, everybody's motivated. But what's going to keep you going? And this is why daily, action-based goals are so important. You can celebrate yourself immediately when you do something, because achieving that ultimate goal is a process. It's a result of showing up and doing those little things day in and day out. It's the process of you becoming that person who achieves those goals.
Speaker 1:The journey and this is even harder right these days in society, because everything is so evolved around instant gratification. We're obsessed. We can't even scroll on social media and look at something for only like three point five seconds. That's the average and that's if whatever that thing is grabs our attention in the first one point five seconds. Everything is instant. Everything has to happen now. We don't have to go to the movies. We can watch movies at the touch of a button. We don't have to leave the house to go grocery shopping. We text, we email. We don't got to buy stamps, no more. Do they even sell stamps? I'm sure they do, but I ain't even thought about a stamp in years. Right, we can pay our bills in an instant. We don't got to mail that in Hell. You can make instant coffee Not a fan, but hey, you can. We got microwaves, even with fitness.
Speaker 1:And why I think a lot of folks don't stay with a healthy lifestyle and they end up quitting is because they get sold this lie that they only have to work out 15 minutes a day. 15 minute workout, this 10 minute cardio, that 30 minute fat burner and, yes, a lot of those workouts are effective, but not long term. You can't fully give your body and muscles, your full body and muscles, all the attention they need to truly make a change. And for true sustained weight loss or fitness you have to make a bunch of changes, not just a physical change, not just a fad, not just something that if you diet and do the quick workouts you'll lose weight. Because as soon as you fall off your diet or you fall off the workouts, you fall off too. And I'm going to go on a tangent a little bit. But a lot of folks don't realize that to fully change or fully have that body you want, it has to be a lifestyle change and 30 minutes ain't going to get it done. Yes, the 30 minute workouts do work. They work, but you know who they work best for the folks who've been working out for years and years and years and have already seen the results they already put in the work and a 30 minute workout is a nice change up to what got them to where they are.
Speaker 1:I do a 30 minute workout every now and then and they feel great. But I know that ain't the only kind of workout I have to do to be where I want to be with my fitness. It has to be who we are, anyway, off my soapbox. So instant gratification is brainwashed into our brains. So instead of focusing on the end goal and how far away it is, how long you have to do whatever it is you have to do to get you there, focus on the actions you need to do daily to get you closer and closer day by day. Those are the things that are more important, and celebrating yourself throughout that process on the way of hitting that goal.
Speaker 1:And my process, or one of the things I do on my daily plan, my to do list, is I have a mini celebration. Whenever I cross something off, I say hell yeah, let's go. I'm being productive baby and I do this every day. With every action, like this episode, after I write it, I'm going to have a little celebration. After I finish recording, I'm going to say let's go, boy, another one down, another one done, and there's somebody out there that needs to hear this one and you got it out there in the world for the world to see. Let's go. Or if I make a piece of content, I say hell yeah, let's go. You cross that one off the list and what it does is it makes me look forward to having those productive days. Now. I love when I have a day that's wide open and I don't have rehearsal, and it's not a day that I need to rest, because rest is important. But those days when I know the night before, oh yeah, I don't have anything to do, nowhere to be, I'm about to be so damn productive and I look forward to those days and that's the process. That's one of the parts of the process that I'm teaching myself to fall in love with. That's part of my dopamine reward system.
Speaker 1:Now, those goals you have, that life you want to build, that thing you're trying to pull off. It's going to take time. It's going to take you having to show up for yourself over and over again. Having a dopamine reward system will absolutely help that, and I've said this before. But one thing that I absolutely love and is 100 percent part of my dopamine reward system is having a smoothie after a workout. Man, I love these strawberry banana smoothies I make and I crave those smoothies. I'll be in the middle of a workout and I'll be struggling and then I remember when I finish, I get to get to that smoothie and I tell myself come on, dodge a few more sets and you got that smoothie.
Speaker 1:How can you set up your dopamine reward system? What does it look like for you. We live in a world where instant gratification is the standard right, but goals and going after them, they take time. It ain't instant. So how can we give ourselves some gratification along the way? What are the ways we can motivate our actions? How can we use this system to feel gratification for something that might not come for months, for years, 10 years? Right, we know that we can't walk in the gym and walk out with a six pack. It takes time. What immediate rewards can we give ourselves to keep us going back to the gym?
Speaker 1:You start in your business or hitting your goal with your business. That could take months, that could take years. What can you do now in the pursuit of it? Celebrate yourself along the way. What action based goals can you have? Can you, what can you create to make yourself proud in the moment? Reward yourself for going to the gym, reward yourself for waking up early in the morning. Reward yourself for creating a business plan. Reward yourself for making a business cause, reward yourself for taking that first step, for showing up for yourself. Those are all rewards that are immediate If you take the right actions and you show up for yourself and you do this every single day, every single day and you keep focusing on those action based goals and, as you do, you strengthen those neural connections in your brain, like with me and smoothies, or my love for being productive, like with me and smoothies, or my love for being productive.
Speaker 1:Now, over time, you might not even realize it in a moment, but what you've done is you've fallen in love with the process and that's exactly where you want to be. Your goals and how close to them you get it is a byproduct of the actions you take. Your goals and how close to them you get is a byproduct of the actions you take. So, yes, have those big goals, but also make sure you have those daily goals, those action based goals. Set up that reward system, celebrate yourself when you show up, and this is going to help you get closer. So that's what I got for you today.
Speaker 1:Thank you for being here again. If you on YouTube, please like and subscribe. If you're listening to me on a podcast platform, leave a review. Those greatly help me out. Also, please make a donation. Your donations help me keep this thing going and they are much appreciated.
Speaker 1:I'm going to leave you all with a song from my EP. The EP is called Peak and this song is called Peak. It is the titled or how do you call it EP is called Peak, the song is called Peak and that's what I'm leaving y'all with. So thank you so much, man. Let's get it in. You know, sometimes you got to remind yourself as you're climbing up to take a second and look down to see how far you came, enjoy the view and keep going. They telling me I got it. They tell me I'm the hottest. I don't even rap about money, drugs or violence. I be being honest, you know I'm still modest, but I think we the hottest and I feel like DJ Khaled Nigga, we the best, nah, really. Nigga, we the best, nah, really. You should see this mess Last night had a party.
Speaker 1:You know that boy Mosley got it started. You know that boy Sapp was all about it. She telling me I'm fly Got me feeling like a pilot. She kept it first class and she sat by the pilot. I can't even front here. I told her I like the spirit and dealt her my phone number and now she be flying diamond and I'm feeling so excited because I'm gonna get it popping.
Speaker 1:They done, let me in the gutter. I'm feeling so accomplished. I'm feeling like I'm closer to my peak. Uh, feel like I'm closer to my peak, but I feel like. I feel like I'm never home until I'm gone. Feel like when I'm alone I'm in my zone and I feel like, feel like I really should pick up a phone. Sometimes I just need to be on my own. I need to call my daddy, I should call my auntie. Rip my mama. That ain't how she raised me. I work so damn hard. The competition looking lazy. I work so damn hard. The competition better chase me. Okay, let's get it started.
Speaker 1:When it come to rap, it's like playing a game of tag. I'm on this mic yelling, not it. I can't be touched. They whisper criticism can't be much. They probably jealous cause they can't keep up, mad, cause they can't be us. I wish somebody would say that. I wish somebody would say that's whack. We'll be right back like.
Speaker 1:I'm closer to my peak. It ain't as easy as it look, but we gon' celebrate, pour my cup Cheers to being overlooked, to being overbooked, but won't give up cause I got close, but I ain't close enough. It's time to hold my nuts and I got coconuts. I put my feelings on the page. They already read me like an open book. I should be endorsed by my feelings, cause I wear them on my sleeve. So take a look at me and tell me what you see, cause I look in the mirror and I see a fucking tree Started as a mustard seed. Oh yeah, and please excuse my long toast. I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast Not on Google Maps, but I know I'm getting close. I'm closer to my peak. I don't mean to brag, I don't mean to boast. I don't mean to boast Not on Google Maps, but I know I'm getting close. I'm closer to my P's. I'm closer to my P's. Outro Music you.