Mastering the Mindset
Mastering the Mindset
Habit-Focused & Actionable
You don’t rise to the level of your goals—you fall to the level of your daily habits.
In this episode, I break down 5 simple habit shifts that will help you improve focus, build momentum, and finally stay consistent. From phone distractions to multitasking overload, you’ll learn how your current routines might be killing your productivity—and how to replace them with intentional habits for personal growth.
We cover:
- How to break bad habits and replace them with better ones
- Why your brain resists important tasks—and how to push through
- How to stop procrastinating and build momentum every day
- What high-performance habits actually look like (and how to build them)
If you’ve ever searched “how to stay consistent,” “how to build good habits,” or “why can’t I stay focused?”—this episode is your guide.
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I'm in mistakes goals. I bury my clocks because it take time. I gotta go. I already know if I want to grow, you reap what you sow. That be the case. Planting my seeds and water my base. Yeah, I made mistakes. Yeah, I know you grow in your garden, but watch for the snakes, the people that act like you crazy but trying to stay far away. They don't think it's possible. I think it's possible. That is just hate if they hate themselves because they're on the shelf.
Speaker 1:Why you create a life that you love, a life that you love, yeah, loving the fact you're improving yourself. Decided that you would not settle. Decided that you got the drive to do what the road got, bumping your foot on the pedal. You go up a level. You turn up whenever it's time for you to go put in that work. I know my worth. I know it ain't gonna be easy. Yeah, I know it hurt. One thing is for sure yeah, until they put me in this earth before I ride in that hearse, I'm chasing my goals. I'm chasing my goals. Yeah, love and affect you improving yourself. Decided that you would not settle. Decided that you got the drive to do it, to go. Got bumping your foot in the gutter. I'm chasing my goals.
Speaker 1:All right, and welcome back to another episode. Thank y'all so much for being here. If you are watching me on youtube, go ahead and like and subscribe to the channel. If you're listening to me on a podcast platform, please leave me a review. These things help me out a whole lot. Also, please become a supporter of the show. You can choose the monthly amount. It can be three, five, eight or $10. You can cancel at any time, but why would you ever do that? Let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 1:Today I want to talk about habits, specifically how habits get made and how we can break them. And I'm really going to break it down and give you some science around it, because it's one thing to know what your habits are good or bad, especially the bad ones so you can fix them and make a change for the better, but it's another thing to understand exactly how you got that habit, to understand why that habit exists in the first place, and to know the science and the way your brain works with this habit. What I don't want is for us to be just shooting in the dark trying to break old habits, because, let's be real, we don't all been there, done that, right, we didn't all recognize the bad habit, understood how it was negatively affecting us. We even call ourselves out while we're in the act of doing that bad habit. And yet here we are, still having to deal with this habit, still having to feel that little guilt we feel when we realize, damn, look at me, I said I wasn't going to do this and I'm doing it again. I said I was going to stop doing that thing. And look at me, right, we done all. Been there, done that.
Speaker 1:But if you understand how the brain works, how the habit gets formed, how you can approach changing that habit with scientific methods, then I know we can have a better shot at breaking them habits. Because, like I always say, you're the kind of person that listens to this kind of podcast. So you got goals, you're working towards things, you're working on yourself, and habits, well, they stunt growth, they halt that progress. So when you look at what a habit is, scientifically put, a habit is a neural shortcut. A neural shortcut, a behavioral loop that gets created and this behavior is stored in what's called your basal ganglia, the basal ganglia, and what that is is the frontal part of your brain that's responsible for a bunch of things like motor control, motor learning, emotions, reward reinforcement and also habit forming. This part of your brain is what's responsible for forming habits. It forms patterns for all those repetitive behaviors we have, and when the behavior gets repeated enough times, then it becomes automatic.
Speaker 1:Your brain don't need to use energy it normally needs to to focus on this action, on that pattern. It's your brain's way of saving energy. And why is this important? Well, our brains are complicated and beautiful and your brain's main job is to make sure you are alive, right, and it's constantly looking for ways to save energy, to not have to work as hard, to be as efficient as possible and I just talked about this on a couple of episodes ago. But your brain is the most energy consuming organ in your body. It only weighs two percent of your body weight, but it uses 20 percent of your total energy. That's one fifth. And critical thinking uses a lot of energy. And to be able to use less energy, your brain is going to want to store those actions as habits. Habits save energy.
Speaker 1:So how are habits made? And this is all research done in behavioral neuroscience. So habits are made in three, in a three step process the cue, the routine and the reward cue, routine, reward. So the cue, it's something that triggers, it's a signal, some prompt, some situation that causes a behavior. You can feel a certain way, you think a certain thing, you in a certain location, a time, a place, an emotion, a thought, some kind of event. Basically, it's the trigger. That's the cue. The routine is the behavior, the action you take, whether it's a habit you're trying to create or if it's a habit you don't like, it's the action you want to stop taking. If you're trying to get rid of a habit, right. And the reward, that is the payoff for your brain, the benefit, that positive feeling your brain feels for doing the routine. And when this happens several times, the cue and the routine and your brain gets the reward, and it happens several times Well then the loop gets closed off and the habit is made.
Speaker 1:Let me give you an easy example. Let's say the cue for you is you in a room with a lot of people you don't know and you don't feel completely comfortable, and the routine is you pull out your phone and you start looking at social media right, and the reward? The reward is you get a temporary distraction from the feeling of being uncomfortable in a room full of folks you don't really know. And I feel like we've all been there, done that right, probably more than we care to even count or maybe even realize. Right, cue routine reward. And I think this is probably one of the main reasons why people can be so addicted to their phones we look for a distraction or we just get distracted.
Speaker 1:Another easy one and this especially relates to me, probably most of you too let's say the cue is a long day of work or rehearsal or tech, or a long stressful day around kids maybe your own kids. That's the cue In the routine. At night, you pour yourself a glass of wine or you crack open that beer. You pour that drink because you had a long ass day and the reward you can numb a little bit, you can feel how good this drink is, or two or six Right, how good that drink feels. Again, it's temporary, of course, but it feels good in the moment. You can take the edge off and what happens is, over time, your brain starts to associate that drink with relief and eventually, whenever you have a stressful day or a challenging day, at the end of the day guess what you want that drink. Another good one and I don't work in the office situation, office setting no more. But when I did, man, I see why folks can gain weight easily, and you probably already know where I'm going with this.
Speaker 1:But sitting around in the office at a desk looking at a computer, you can feel some boredom and the mundane and the mundaneness of it all, and you can start to snack out of boredom. You find yourself just eating snacks, especially if you work in a place where folks always bring in food and snacks for the whole office, please, right. So the cue, the boredom, the low energy, the routine you eat some and the reward you can take your mind off being bored and eventually your brain starts to anticipate the feeling of the cue, the low energy, the boredom. And now you just snagging, right, you have been snagging at work and you, low key, don't even like whatever the hell. That snack is Right. But you just look up and you just eating it, right, Because you fell into that cycle.
Speaker 1:Another one, and I'm guilty of this and I know 99 percent of all of y'all are but shopping online, amazon, the queue, maybe it's your board, like at work, Maybe you see something online or a commercial or something Right, something new. Some ad then got you to spend your money, right, like a lot of folks, and maybe you also just got paid. You got some extra money to spend, you feeling good and sometimes we just feel good to spend money. It just does that's. That's just what it is. So that's the cue, the routine.
Speaker 1:You buy the things you put in that credit card number. You got that three digit number on the back Memorize I know you do and the reward, and again, it's temporary, but you don't feel the boredom or you feel the excitement Seeing that package at your door and you can't wait to go open it. Now, I ain't gonna lie, I like that feeling. I get it. Nothing like ordering a few things and then you end up forgetting what's supposed to be coming that day. So you open that box and it's like a little mini Christmas. You excited just a little bit to find out what it is, even though it's your damn money and you bought it yourself, right? But you still feel that dopamine and you do that enough times and boom, you then close the loop and now it's a habit and this neural pathway. It just got stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger.
Speaker 1:And let me explain a little deeper on how this works, so how the habit gets stronger, how you strengthen those neural pathways. So the way it works is like this so there's a thing in your brain called myelin and when you repeat something, some habit, you myelinate that pathway Myelinate, word of the day. And what myelin is is basically isolation wrapped around your brain, nerves, nerve fibers to be exact. So think about it like this Think about your phone charger, whatever phone, whatever color your cord is Mine is black, so you have the rubber black part on the outside and on the inside you have the wire, the copper wire or whatever the material is on the inside. And the reason for the black rubber on the outside is to allow the electricity to flow more efficiently, to move better. And the myelin is your brain. The myelin in your brain is like that black rubber on your phone cord and the more you do that habit, the more myelin is created around those signals in your brain. And the more myelin you create, then the more efficient that connection is, and the faster it happens Right and over time, the more automated it gets. More myelin means less time having to think about it. So every repetition, every time you do that thing, it strengthens that habit on a biological level, and this is how habits get made.
Speaker 1:So now that we have a little better understanding of how the brain works, let's talk about how to build habits and how to break habits. So, first of all, the cue is the most important part in this equation and if you're trying to make a habit, then you really have to define what that cue is. You have to make it obvious, as obvious as you can. You need to put it in context, right? If your brain can't find that trigger, it won't make the routine, and this is why most folks fail at making the habits they want. They think it's all about intentions. You can have the intention all day. You can say I really, really want to make this thing or that thing a habit, and you can really desire that. But if you don't trigger that cue, then your brain won't form the connection. You need to have that context. You need to figure out how you can clearly anchor that habit into your brain, to something real in your life, not just the thought that you want to make it a habit.
Speaker 1:So how do we do this? Well, let me tell you so your basal ganglia and your hippocampus. The hippocampus is important for learning and for memory and, like I said earlier, the basal ganglia tongue twister got it out. The basal ganglia plays a large role in habit forming, so very important parts of your brain. Well, they all are important, but these parts of your brain work together to recognize patterns, patterns in time, patterns in emotional states, patterns in location, thoughts, actions, right actions that create certain thoughts. And your brain takes these little mental snapshots and if your habit, if your habit is not tied to a specific cue, it's just going to be floating around in a sense.
Speaker 1:So let me give you two formats, and I won't lie and act like I made these formats up. I found these from another life coach I listened to and I heard him speak on this and I'll be damned if it don't work. And it turns out I already been doing one of them. I kind of combined them actually, and it helped me so much. But here's the format. You say I will blank in blank. Wait, I messed it up already. You say I will blank at blank in blank and say it again I will blank at blank in blank. Basically, I will blank some form of action at blank, a specific time in blank, a particular location. Right, so I will do this action at this particular time in this particular location.
Speaker 1:So let's say you wanted to start stretching more. Your body ain't nimble like it used to be, so you say I will stretch at 7 am in the living room. That's a structure, that's a specifically designed cue. That's a whole lot better than you telling yourself that you want to stretch more Because in reality you do want to start stretching more. You really do. But unfortunately, wanting to start the habit just ain't enough on its own. We didn't all want to form a habit, whether that's spending less money, waking up earlier, getting to work on time, whatever but we didn't have that structure Right. So that's one way to build that habit, to really carve out that cue. Give yourself the action, the time and the location so your brain can tie these things together. So that's the first format.
Speaker 1:The next way to form a habit is to what's called habit stack. Stack the habit that you want to start. Stack it along with a habit that you already have. So let's say you want to do 100 push-ups a day and this is fresh on my mind because I'm seeing this challenge go around and people challenging each other and tagging each other. And if you get tagged, you got to do the challenge.
Speaker 1:And let me be a Debbie Donna for a second, because, as a fitness coach, I know that this is actually not a good idea. Sure, you will get stronger, Sure, you will gain some muscle, but 100 pushups for one is a lot. And, yes, that's a good thing. But the bad thing is doing it every day. You should not be working the same muscle two days in a row. You need to give your muscles time to repair, and a day in between just ain't long enough, so you actually stunt your progress. Anyway, I digress, but, yes, habit stacking.
Speaker 1:So let's say you want to do the 100 pushups a day, and let's say you also drink coffee every day in the morning. Well, you could say I'm going to do my pushups while my coffee is brewing, or I'm going to do my pushups while my coffee is brewing, or I'm going to do my pushups after I have my cup of coffee, or I won't have my cup of coffee until my pushups get done, right. Or let's say you want to meditate more. We all, we, a lot of folks, meditate in the morning, right? So let's say you decide that. Okay, after I brush my teeth, I'm going to meditate. So now your habit is tied to you brushing your teeth right.
Speaker 1:Take the habit and tie it to something else and this gives your brain that predictability. Our brains love this. It's a survival mechanism. It's why comfort zones are so hard to get out of. It's the predictable. Your brain knows the predictable is safe, so use it. Make that predict, make that predictable connection that with your habit that you already have and the way I've been stacking my habits before I knew what it was.
Speaker 1:I used to always say I want to keep my room cleaner. Right, that was a habit I wanted to make, and I know that one easy way to make your room look cleaner and make it easier to clean and just feel more clean is to make a bed. Right. Your room could be pretty junky, but just by making that bed it feels that much cleaner, right. So the habit I tied to make it to making my bed was to with coffee Right, I drink coffee every morning. So I said, ok, I'm going to make my bed. After I put the coffee on and boom, connection made. I also knew I wanted to get closer to God. The best way to get to strengthen your relationship with God is to pray. So I decided and this didn't happen all at once, by the way, this all happened over time but I decided the best time to pray is while my coffee is brewing, after I made the bed, and over time, boom, habit created and this was my morning routine. And the final step I made was my daily plan. I know I had goals. I did the research, I listened to the podcast. I knew that successful people write out their goals and it's important to write them out in steps and it's important to give yourself a day plan to execute those steps. So I decided that you know what I'll make my daily routine after I pray and boom, have it, and that's my daily routine. I do that every morning, unless I'm on vacation or something Right. But I wake up, I make coffee, make the bed, pray, then make my daily routine. I stacked all those habits and now I do them every day.
Speaker 1:So figure out how you can use your habits to birth other habits. Create that predictability for your brain, for brain, to your brain, in your brain, for your brain. So another thing you can do is use sensory anchors. Make it visual, make it auditory. Both will be even better. But what do I mean. So. Let's say you want to make the habit of journaling more? Well, one thing you can do is to put your journal next to your bed on the nightstand. That way, when you wake up in the morning or when you get ready for bed at night, it's going to be right there in your eyesight. Let's say you want to start running or walking more in the morning. Well, one thing you can do is put your running shoes in the bathroom or your running clothes, the whole outfit, in the bathroom. That way when you get up in the morning and you go to the bathroom is laid out for you right there. You have that visual and the auditory.
Speaker 1:Are you a person who likes to work to music? I personally, I can't do it. I get too distracted by the song. But one thing I do do, one thing I do grow up that one thing I do is I put on sports talk shows while I clean up every morning, either that or a gospel sermon, and I do that every day. And what happens is your brain, over time, starts to make that connection that OK, I see my journal. I should journal. Ok, I see my running shoes. It's time to go for a run or for a walk. Ok, I hear sports talk. It's time to clean. And again, let your brain make these connections, let it become as predictable as it wants to become in this aspect.
Speaker 1:And I kind of tricked myself into making one of these connections before. It was before smart TVs and streaming services and all that. I had this little DVD player in my room and I used to watch the same movie every night when I would lay down and go to bed, the same one because I knew it, it was easy to fall asleep to. I wasn't invested in what was going to happen next. And when I tell you that after a while I could start to fall asleep so fast with this movie on, I would literally fall asleep in like five minutes because my brain knew OK, movie on, it's time to sleep. My brain tied sleep to the visual and the sounds of this movie and it worked right. I'm sure some of y'all got the same thing Right. You had, you have formed that connection.
Speaker 1:And one last thing One, don't confuse a habit with a routine. And two, don't try and build a routine for the future version of yourself. Let me say that again, don't confuse a habit with a routine and don't try to build a routine for the future version of yourself. What I mean by that routine for the future version of yourself? What I mean by that? So, one, a habit is just one thing, one action, one step that you're trying to make.
Speaker 1:What you don't want to do is to try and build a routine all at once. For example, let's say, if I wanted to start running in the mornings, well, if I don't run like that, what I shouldn't do is try and run six miles right away. No, I need to make the habit of just getting up, get my clothes on and getting out the door. That's the habit I should focus on first, the habit of my body saying OK, it's early morning, it's time to put these clothes on and time to go. Then, after you build the habit up, you get better at running. Then you worry about the distance. Start that habit out small. Don't try and start the routine of getting up, putting clothes on, going to the lake, running around three times, creating a stretch routine for before and after. No, that is a routine. Build the habit, build that first. And two, don't try and build the routine for the future version of yourself.
Speaker 1:If you just started, if you just started out running, don't try and do six miles If you're just starting to work out. You wouldn't go to the gym and try to bench 300 pounds. No, you start with what you're capable of doing capable of doing right now. You start small. So if you got goals to start a business or to make a certain amount of money or to travel more you gotta start at a realistic place. If you're trying to start a business let's say you want to sell candles you wouldn't buy thousands of dollars worth of candle making stuff right away and make 5,000 candles right away. No, you would start smaller. You would try to sell to your friends and your family first right. Let's say you want to focus on growth in sales and you want to make a certain amount of money. Well, you can only start on that first one sales call. Right, you can only focus on getting better at your sales pitch. You wouldn't expect to land that high end client on your first phone call. Let's say you want to travel more. You ain't gonna book like five flights at once. You will start with just one trip first, right. Probably bad examples, but you get my point.
Speaker 1:So build these, build these habits, create that, cue the routine. Let your brain crave that reward, the cue. Put yourself in a situation, trigger that thing your brain, in your brain, whether it's the location, visual or sound. The routine will follow us after that. What you do after the cue and the reward will follow behind that and eventually you will form that habit, habit stack, allow your habits, your other habits that you already have in place, to help you form other ones, and also, uh, the format we talked about. Right, I will do blank at this time in this place. Set up that connection for your brain and also remember it is a habit and not a routine. So that's what I got for you today. Uh, and also remember it is a habit and not a routine. So that's what I got for you today.
Speaker 1:If you like this episode, please share this on social media. My roommate shared the episode last week and it really did boost my numbers for the episode. It did the best it's done, actually. So it'll be greatly appreciated if you would share this with your friends, family members, also on social media. Also become a supporter of the show. You can choose the monthly amount. It can be three, five, eight or ten dollars. You can cancel at any time. But why would you ever do that. All right, let's go ahead and get to this music. The song I got for you today is called they Selling Crack. Let's ride out.
Speaker 1:I grew up like this Uh, going hard for my last name, trying to make it a brand name. It's Dodge and I'm lit all summer long. I don't need no ashtray. I don't need no ashtray. For who am I to tell another man how to make his own money? It's getting dark out here. You don't wanna walk out here. Fuck minimum wage. It ain't no jobs out there. No niggas standing on a corner. Cocaine, marijuana and life is all about choices. You only get what you're born with and your two shoulders with the weight. We'll be right back If the system fell him a convicted felon or the police kill him what you tell him when he a kid who influenced by crack you can ask my big brother Cal about that, my big brother Al about that, and these was my role models.
Speaker 1:And them niggas had that crack, want to smoke weed, just like them, 13 years old, like, yeah, nigga, pass that sack, break it down, roll it up, smoke it up First time smoking. I old enough. I give my pop some props. No, he didn't do everything right. Still, he was always in my life. We ain't never have to worry about no lights when your best friends wanna ball out like globetrotters, they looking up to they role models, who selling crack with no problem. That's why, whenever your mama said, when that street light come on, your ass better be home, cause they selling crack on the corner, I grew up like this they selling crack on the corner. I grew up like this yeah, they selling crack, they selling crack, he selling crack and she using it.
Speaker 1:His family ain't cool with it. Her family got used to it. He got a bird and he flew with it. He know just what to do with it. Her family got used to it. He got a birdie. He flew with it. He know just what to do with it. Take it straight to the kitchen on the stove making stew with it. Ain't no money in the classroom, so he dropped out of school with it. The bad schools get the worst teachers and they don't know what to do with it. He gets labeled by society. Yeah, they call him a hooligan because they think we are animals and the cops are the zookeepers. I wish I could fly because I would say bye, I'm going to jupiter. I'm way too close. I got numb. I got used to it. We murdered the most. All this death, all these funerals, because they got beef and keeping it hot like aluminum.
Speaker 1:Trying to get closer to jesus, I want to pray in jerusalem. I see the devil influences. I think the devil recruiting us. I'm trying to get closer to jesus. I want to pray in jerusalem. I see the devil influences. I think the devil recruiting us. I'm trying to get closer to Jesus. I want to pray in Jerusalem. I see the devil influences. I think the devil recruiting us. I'm trying to get close. I'm trying to get close. I pour some liquor for all my dead ones. Let's make a toast. I don't want ice. I don't want coke. I'm trying to get through. I'm here today, but tomorrow I could be a ghost. So let's do the most.
Speaker 1:My favorite rapper We'll be right back. He's selling dough. His brother was a hood. Nigga had a mouth full of gold. His brother got in a fight, showed the hood. He ain't no ho. He won that fight. You fucking right. You better let him know. But they had a revolver and not a revolving door and he let that revolver blow Was hard to see him go. He won that fight but lost his life.
Speaker 1:We got the call later that my heart hit the floor. I was scared to go to the funeral. Mama made me go, was scared to see him cry. He couldn't keep it dry. I just wanted us to fly so we could be closer to Jesus. I want to pray in Jerusalem. I see the devil influences. I think the devil recruiting us. I'm trying to get closer to Jesus. I want to pray in Jerusalem. I see the devil influences. I think the devil recruiting us. They said they crack on the corner. I grew up like this. They said they crack on the corner. I grew up like this yeah, they said the crack. They said the crack. Pray you.