How to Get your S*** Together and Do Everything You Said You Would

0:02 Hi, I'm Bella Dane and this is How to Stop Being a Loser, where I chat about things I'm absolutely not qualified to talk about, but am randomly very interested in. I do my best to learn from industry professionals and based what I share on as much as science, evidence and real life lessons as possible. Hey y'all! Welcome back to another episode of How to Stop Being a Loser. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'm really excited about this episode. I know I say that every episode, but I have been plotting my fall rebrand and I know everyone's been plotting their fall rebrand. I'm saying it all over TikTok. Everyone is like rebranding for fall. It's just that time. Like September, October. I feel like it's when everyone decides they're going to do their like winter arc,

0:48 like whatever, whatever the kids call it these days. But it's always like a rebrand. Or you want to like refresh and realign and reset with your goals and everything. And can I just say, I have never felt more confident in my life with my ability to rebrand, realign, my goals, reset in terms of like mental organization life, not procrastinating and just being able to get everything done. I actually feel really confident in my ability to do that, which is a big deal, and it's a big accomplishment for me because I've always been someone who works smarter, not harder. So I wanted to make a whole episode about it because I have so many tips and tricks and systems and mindset things and tangible tools to give you all that I think will

1:36 really help. Because if I hear anything from every woman I know, it's that there's just not enough hours in the day. Like, how do we get everything done? Being hot is a full time job. Maintaining your health is a full time job. Maintaining your home is a full time job. Like your careers, your goals, your personal goals, your long term goals. Like all of these different things. Just too much to maintain and it feels like there aren't enough hours in the day. And also trying to make it esthetic and make it look like all these things that you see online. Like it's hard, but we can do hard things. And I've learned there are enough hours in the day you can get it all done and not want to die. And I feel I've truly mastered this. So we're gonna get into it.

2:21 I do want to say I'm the most type C person you'll ever meet in your life, and you all know that if you've been following me for a while. But you have. Thank you, by the way. But I'm very ambitious and go getter. I'm a really hard worker. I'm not timely at all. I am very like, just do things. I'm not a planner. I'm not a naturally like organized person. So this has taken me a long time to balance and just find strategies, find productivity strategies that truly work for me and my productivity style and my brain. I think that's a big thing that I want to kick this off with is you need to sit down. Maybe with AI. Honestly. Or just journal and figure out who am I in terms of how I am productive. Like am I type a person or might

3:12 be person at my type C person? Do I have ADHD? Like, what are these things that make up me? Like when when I reflect back on my life, when are the times I was the most productive, the most creative, where I felt like I was really in the zone where I felt like I was on fire? Like, when were those times, I think, taking some time to self-reflect and have that, like pensive time to figure that out so that you can develop a productivity style and a way to organize your life in a way that you love, that actually is going to work for you. Because if I were to try to do it like a type B person, it would stick because I've done it. It doesn't work. And if I try to do it like a super type A person, I've done it and it doesn't stick. I've had to do it in a way that works for

3:51 me. So I'm just gonna kind of throw everything at you. And I think, like anything, anything I say, anything anyone online says, take what resonates and experiment with it and then leave the rest. You know I'm saying, so this is how to get your shit together and stop feeling like a hot mess and do everything that you said you would. Truly, I think being someone of integrity is is massive and also such a confidence builder. I talk about us all the time, but the brain needs evidence and you sitting around saying, I'm so organized, I'm so productive, I'm such a badass, but you're not doing anything that aligns with that. Your brain basically calls bullshit, like, your brain has such a strong bullshit detector, so that's why you're not actually feeling the confidence. I have found

4:31 so much confidence in doing what I say I'm going to do, even if it's something like, I'm going to do a full reset routine tonight and then I do it, or I'm going to clean my house and I do it. Little wins, I truly believe, make the distance or make the difference, make the distance. Maybe that to make the difference and the distance. I've always been someone who works harder, not smarter. I work really, really hard. I used to work really, really hard and give it my all. And I'm a super energetic, like, fiery, ambitious person. But my lack of efficiency was crippling me, and so I wasn't able to achieve all the things that I knew I had the capacity to achieve. And I remember looking around, even when I was a bartender or in school or anything, and I'd

5:19 be like, I'm the hardest working person here. Why aren't I accelerating? Why am I stagnating? Why am I vacillating? And it's because I was focused so much on working hard that I wasn't channeling all of my energy and my ambition into systems, and I truly believe in any successful person will tell you your procrastination is a result of a lack of systems, not a lack of discipline. It's not about discipline. It's a it's about the systems that you have in place, like Leila or Mosi, who I love. It talks about this a lot, and she was like her ability to stay healthy and maintain her health. In terms of like her diet and nutrition. She has an app. She has all these things on her phone. She has reminders set up to eat, she has her fridge

6:04 and her pantry organized in a way where it's like she cannot fail. And so is that discipline, or is that systems you have in place, like one of the girls that I, when I was doing coaching, when I had my cohorts, there was a girl who was like, this sounds ridiculous, but she couldn't drink enough water. Like. And she was like, I know it sounds ridiculous, but it's ruining my life. Like, the fact that I'm so dehydrated is ruining my life because I constantly reminded that I'm not drinking enough water and it makes me cognitively fatigued. And then I get nauseous because I take this medicine and I'm supposed to. The fact that she wasn't drinking water was ruining her life. And I think that's true. I think that can be true. If you are like on creatine or you're just someone who

6:40 deals with gut health issues and you're, um, bloated all the time, that shit, like, fucks with you. Like it can ruin your life and ruin your confidence. So little things like that that you take for granted that you think are ridiculous, they're not. And so I said to her, okay, so it's not a lack of discipline. Let's get that out of your brain. It's a lack of system. So when you get up in the morning, do you have a timer set that says, fill up three water bottles and they're on your desk and they're there in front of you during the day. And do you have timers and goals set up to be like, I can't, you know, do whatever, go on my walk or scroll or read or whatever until this water is halfway through, like setting up things like that for yourself. She did that and

7:19 now she drinks enough water and it sounds so crazy. But like in Atomic Habits, James Clear, who's like the coolest guy I ever read, the way he talks about how he had clients who would just sleep in their running clothes so they should get up and go run. Or he had a client who he wanted to go to the gym more, and he just started with going to the gym. Like literally he would go into the gym, step foot in the gym and then leave. And he did it every day. And that sounds ridiculous. But what you're doing is you're priming your brain to get used to this new system, and you're telling your brain, you're showing your brain with evidence like, I am someone who shows up to go to the gym. And then one day you get on the treadmill, and then one day you pick up a weight. And so I

8:03 think those are good examples that just really stuck with me. That reminded me. And that's why I would say you can't read ten pages. Read one. And now we're getting into habits. I'm getting kind of off topic, but I just wanted to sort of convince y'all that what I'm about to share with you on all these systems, it's truly what works. And I think it's very much worth your time to invest in improving your systems instead of working on improving your discipline. So now let's get into some actual useful tactics. I guess I wanted to share with y'all.

8:37 I started doing this last month, and I really have been tailoring it and tweaking it, and I'm sure it will continuously evolve. But these are my this is my notebook that y'all see in every single video that I do because it is my life. Like, if I don't have my eye, make a list for everything. Like I have a morning list, an afternoon list, a night list, a day list, a week list like I'm a list person. And the list is always changing and I have to write it down. Also, if you're creative, I would absolutely recommend like writing things down because if you are a creative, you know ideas just will come to you and you can't plan it. Your brain will just sometimes pop an idea in your head. So having a list that is with you 24 over seven notes app on my phone, it just gets lost on my

9:20 phone. Having it in one place where I have a dedicated like notebook for this shit is amazing. Anyways, so what I do at the beginning of the end of every month. So like end of August or beginning of September, like the last day of August or the first day of September, I will do my September goals and I have it organized into sections. As I'm doing this, I'm also referencing my yearly goals, everything I wanted to accomplish this year, and maybe like quarterly goals too. And again, depends on how your brain works. Like, I'm a very detail oriented person, so I will time block things and plan things down to the, you know, five minutes of this. So I think figure out a way where the scheduling and the goals, it works with your brain. It doesn't have to

10:03 look exactly like mine. This is just so y'all know what's working for me. I think I wrote down like I'm feeling unfulfilled in this area. I'm feeling really fulfilled in this area, and I just do check in with myself, with my career, with my relationship, with my health, with my friends, with my home. Like all of those things I really write down how am I feeling? Like, what's going on? You got to check in with yourself, and then I will refer to my yearly goals and refresh those because they change all the time. And then I'll do. That's sort of the beginning of my month. So that's how I kick off the month. Look at my yearly goals and journal about how I'm doing and check in. And that gives me a good, uh, framework to build off of. So like September goals and then I

10:46 separated into career and it's I have a. I have a career, I have a metrics. So I have career and I have career metrics. Home health. And then maybe like personal or like emotional goals, personal growth goals. Um, and just like personal life things. So like for my career, I'd separate the career with career metrics because for me, a goal of having more authentic, showing my personality more content or once a week posting this kind of video is different to me than I want 1.2 million followers on TikTok, so I think it's just whatever's going to motivate you more. What speaks to you more? But I like to have those separate. So I have like my Career Weekly podcast episode, maintaining my podcast content schedule, um, 3 or 4 TikToks syndicated to Instagram Reels daily about these

11:44 specific topics, focusing on this. And maybe there's like a split there of 70 this 30 this weekly YouTube vlog, weekly Substack, and then like, you know, different things like that for my career. And then metrics is like how many followers I want by the end of September on TikTok, how many I want on YouTube by the end of September. And then from my home, it's like, get my new couch set up, get lights on my mirror, organize this closet, get this makeup organizer, you know, whatever. And then health is how many steps I want a day and those kind of things. And then I look at this every morning actually when I do my. Oh. And then I also will do long term career goals. So that's like end of the month. And then I'll sort of refresh, as I said, like the year. And then I just write down

12:26 like a goal of mine is I want to launch a business and I want it to be mentioned in Forbes, or I want 100,000 followers on YouTube, or I want to, you know, whatever. There's there's more like long term goals. And it just keeps you so centered, too. And I think journaling is a great way to sort of center yourself. Like I remember that a big goal of mine is being a mom. Like, I just want to be mom and be the best mom. And so that's a big motivator for me personally, is like making sure my shit's together so that I'm the best mom possible. And all of those pieces of you make up your year, and then your month and then your week and then your days. So that's just kind of how our how I roll, okay. I use my calendar like my outlook calendar is my life. And I look at

13:13 that week by week and I plan out my weeks based off of my calendar. And that's like collaborative with everyone of my team and my assistant who helps me manage all of that. But then when it comes to day by day, this is actually like changed my life. I am not a Sunday. Plan the week out and stick to it kind of girl because my life is so spasmodic and unpredictable. Like, I don't fucking know. So I change it multiple times a day. But I do it every night and every morning. So every night before I go to bed, without fail, I will write down 8 a.m.

13:50 wake up 830 skincare and eat breakfast like 2AT. Time blocking has worked so well for me. For me, it might not work well for you. Maybe you're more of a week person or a month person. I'm a detail oriented person. I'm not a big picture thinker. I'm not like ten steps ahead. I'm more like, I won't miss a single freaking detail of like, what's right in front of me. So that's a good thing too, is like, how do you think? And I, I mean, literally y'all like down to a tee I will.

14:19 And then I edit it like three times a day and then I'll say, well, now I want to accomplish this in this window. And now that it's 9 p.m. and I've accomplished everything, here's how the rest of my night is going to go. And I block things out for going and getting a cocktail with someone I'm in. Seriously, like the workout is blocked out, the walk is blocked out, having a snack is blocked out.

14:39 Um, and it changes. But if I do change it, I write it down, it holds me accountable and it has kept me on track like you would not. Believe. You would not believe. And I incorporate things into my day and I'm so blessed. And in the pros and cons. But I work from home, so my office is my home, and the pro to that is maintaining it is a lot easier because I'm here so I can take five minutes and clean something up and then do ten minutes later. And those little moments throughout the day end up keeping my space clean and keeping my office clean. But it is my office. And so for me, if my home is not clean, I cannot function. It's like my brain is messy, you know what I mean? Like, I can't, I don't get to go to an office and forget about everything at home and forget about

15:24 everything. My personal life, like my life, is my career. And so it's all intertwined. So for me, keeping all of it together and organized is so important. So do you want to say that, like, I understand if you work a 9 to 5, you know there is a pro there in terms of you have so much more structure than I do, but you don't have the same autonomy to go do something for five minutes and then go back to what you were doing, because you got to be in that office. And I get that. I'm just telling you what I do. And you, you know, take this in, adapted and mold it to you instead of trying to mold it, instead of trying to mold yourself to someone else's organizational strategy or mold the organizational strategy to you. I mean, it's

16:06 literally like get up, put in load of laundry, start robotic vacuum, do my skincare, and it's time blocked out like that. I get everything done, I get everything done, and I work until like 910. I worked until 11:00 last night and I get everything done. I think that's another thing is I don't watch TV. I don't do those things. I believe we severely overestimate how long things take. Like doing the dishes can take ten minutes. And we think, oh, I gotta do the dishes. I gotta go home and clean. Sometimes that shit only takes five minutes. And so I utilize timers a lot because they really show you Like you have a lot more hours in the day than you realize. And I think people don't realize, like, are you getting home at five and

16:52 watching TV until 10 or 11? That's 5 or 6 hours that you're spending being unproductive. What if you took 20 minutes of that and deep cleaned room of your house every single day, and you had a different room that you prioritized every single day? So Monday you're going to deep clean the kitchen. Tuesday you're going to deep clean the laundry room. Like whatever. I have a feeling you would find a lot more peace and productivity in your life if you prioritize consistency over intensity, and that's how everything works, I find, is prioritizing consistency over intensity. It's so much better to do 10% every day than trying to do 150%, you know, once a week, once every two weeks. So I build those into my routines when I plan my day, little, little things. And I have a room, a day of my house that I

17:43 clean and I have a specific self-care night where I, you know, it's more like I stay consistent with my routines instead of trying to go crazy like one day a week. Like I love a Sunday reset. Truly believe if you're trying to accomplish everything on a Sunday and you're not doing any of it during the week, it's kind of like, oh, let me go do a really hard, intense workout that really challenges me and kicks my ass and and challenges my mobility and my flexibility. And I do a wellness detox workout weekend once a month, and then I do nothing. I don't eat healthy and I don't work out the rest of the month. It's like, okay, that's great, but it's kind of useless and you would be so much more productive if you would have just done 30 minutes a day of a workout.

18:28 That's that's what actually is going to breed results. And I found that to be true with literally everything in my life. Like, you got to go one bite at a time and one step at a time. And once you start doing that and you stay consistent with it, then you look up after a month and you realize, wow, I have this system in place where I'm dedicating 20 minutes a day to every, you know, dial of the clock in my life. If your life is a clock, this is going to be a shitty analogy, but bear with me. If you've got like noon is your health, 1:00 is your, uh, home and keeping your home decorated and esthetic and cute and 2:00 is your. I'm doing these wrong, aren't I? I'm gonna put my hand down because I haven't seen a clock in a while. Anyways,

19:10 if you have all of these different compartments of your life, however, your brain works like every dial of a clock is a different aspect of your life. You've got your beauty, you've got your career, you've got your long term goals. You have your relationship, you have your friends, you have your, you know, all these different things. If you were to put little chunks of that or little, little bits of intention and attention into those things every day, instead of trying to reset your skin, hair, home, brain, everything you would get where you're going a lot, a lot quicker. But you have to build it into the routine. and I truly believe you have to write it the fuck down and you've got to relate it to you and your life. Like, if you want to be someone who intellectually

19:50 stimulates yourself more, you got to start reading every night. Even if it's a page and it takes like a minute sometimes y'all like, I seriously think we underestimate, um, or overestimate how long things take. I really want to hammer that point home, because if you were to take 20% of your scrolling or TV time and dedicate it to investing in your in yourself in any capacity every day, just 20% of that. I have a feeling you would find a lot more productivity and accomplishment and confidence in your life moving right along. So yeah, that's how I plan my days, talked about how I plan. And you know, I do it weekly too. I do it on a Sunday, but I'm a day by day person. And then I'll do, uh, outstanding goals too. And the carry on to the next day. I also think picking you

20:40 know, another thing I want to say is, like I said, I will dedicate time to going and getting a cocktail with someone truly. You have to be honest with yourself. This is what took me from crashing and burning so astronomically embarrassingly bad in college, to the point where I lost my scholarship and was at the lowest point in my life. I mean, it was it was embarrassing to really feeling on top of the world and like, I was kicking ass. I started being honest with myself about how much I wanted to go out and how important my social life was to me. And I stopped being like, I'm not going to go out this week. I'm just going to lock in and stay home on a Friday night. No, you're not like you're 21 years old at an SEC college. You're going out, girl. Just write

21:23 it down and just be honest with yourself about that. If you can be honest about the fact that you're going to be hungover on Saturday, if you can just be honest and and put it into the routine and make it a non-negotiable. The way that other things are, oh my God, my life literally changed. And you got to be honest about like I. That's what I'm saying. Including every little thing. Like, I need to chill. I'm going to be exhausted after this. I want an hour to scroll. And a lot of people are like, well, I'm not going to scroll anymore. Well you are. And so you might as well be honest about it and fit it into the routine and make it work for you, like you're working against yourself instead of just working for yourself. And you know what I'm trying to say?

22:07 So yeah, lists and journaling is a big thing. Journaling lists and then figuring out a way to schedule your weeks and your days that works for you. Time blocking those non-negotiables. And then a lot of times I'll write it down and I'll take photos of it and put it into chat or Claude and ask it to maximize the efficiency and ask it to have it stack in the best way possible. This works a lot better if they get to know you and know your schedule. I know that sounds creepy, but you know it does make you a lot more efficient. And it might catch things like, hey, I actually think you could fit this into here, or actually think you could fit this into here and just talk to it and be like, this is everything I want to get done this week. This is what I've put

22:50 together. Is there anything you would change about this to maximize the efficiency? Maximize my productivity? I really want to prioritize my rest this week, or I want to prioritize my self-care this week, or I want to figure out time or ways where I can intellectually stimulate myself. And sometimes that can be really helpful. I don't want to include this because I'm afraid what people will say about like, oh, well, you're privileged or you have the money. And it's like, let me give you some different perspective on this. Okay. Anyone that you see that maybe me and you're like, whoa. Like, she does all this stuff and she has all these jobs and, like, gets all this stuff done. It's because I have help. Anyone that you see that is just killing it and kicking ass and seems

23:33 to be accomplishing 87 things at once, it's because they have help. I think leveraging your resources is something that a lot of us resist doing because you don't think of it. You think it's something that is inaccessible to you. Like when I say, oh, I have an assistant, sometimes people are like, whoa, you have an assistant? And I'm like, yeah, I have a part time assistant that makes me so much money. Because if you run a cost benefit analysis on those things, which is how much money am I losing by doing these things that someone else could be doing that I could pay to do? It's so much cheaper. Like, if it's going to take you hours, hours and hours and hours that you could be working, making money to do something that an assistant or a housekeeper

24:19 could do, like depending on how much they charge, how much you pay, all those things, you might look at that and it's sometimes like, I don't want to. I can't justify that. I can't justify currently, my housekeeper, every time she comes to clean my house is like $160 and I don't have her like once a week because I think that's expensive. And if you run a cost benefit analysis, it's, you know, you got to figure out what's worth it. But having her once a month or having her, you know, come whenever him or her come whatever. Just thinking about resources that you can implement, whether it's an assistant or a TaskRabbit or a housekeeper or just hiring someone maybe to come help or, you know, take whatever, whatever it is. I really think you'd be surprised at how much money you

25:02 would be saving if you actually realized how much you're losing spending, doing the things that someone else could do. You know what I'm saying? Like, if it takes me four hours to deep clean my home, that's four hours of work that I could be doing and brand deals I could be getting and podcasts I could be recording. Like, I could have recorded two, at least two podcast episodes in that time, but instead I'm cleaning my house. And how much money could I have made off of those, you know, potentially, versus how much I would pay the housekeeper? So I think think about that. That's a really, really big thing. So I think I mentioned this, but my outlook calendar and my notebook are where I keep everything. And I know a lot of people love Google Calendar or like notion.

25:46 There's a lot of productivity apps and specific planners. I think it's just about finding the ones that work for you. I used to have outlook Calendly, Google Calendar physical like paper, and then I had all these other planning apps on my phone. And I mean, obviously it never worked. So I think doing everything you can to keep it in one place that you can refer to regularly, for me, it's I have to have this with me. It goes in the car with me. It's like an appendage of my body at this point, and it is the best thing I've ever done. So whether you're a notepad person, you have an iPad, whatever it is, find something. I think that goes with you everywhere. Maybe it's a second phone again. You can get like cheap refurbished phones online, and you have a

26:29 productivity phone and you've got a personal phone, you've got a work phone, you've got a personal phone. That's been really helpful for me. Also, I. This is another thing I've talked about a lot that maybe people think is silly, but genuinely Pinterest will change your life. I have been talking about how Pinterest changed my life for so long. I have a whole episode on like personal branding and how to start liking yourself again. Those might be good to refer for this topic, but I think if you're a visual person, which most of us are to some degree, and even if you're not a visual, I'm actually an auditory learner myself. But if I have a visual of what my goals look like and what I want my life to look like, and I'm reminded of

27:13 that, and I'm referencing that when I'm planning my literal life, it's so much more fun and it becomes so much more like a hobby. You don't have to have it all figured out right now. But I do think having long term goals of like, okay, if I had my dream life, what would it look like? And then you can go, okay, well, what if I have my dream week, dream day? Within reason, not all of us have our dream job right now, and I get that. But, you know, think about that. What would it be and what and what can I do every day to invest a little, a little bit of my time? 20% of my time into working towards that. So so much of it. Yeah. Like productivity and discipline and systems and all this stuff. But I think especially for women, like we're so much more complex and deep than that. And

27:56 we're so creative and imaginative. I think taking the time to really be honest with yourself about what do I want this to look like, not like what do I need to get done so that I don't implode? Like, because I don't feel like that sometimes it's like, if I don't get all this done, I'm going to spontaneously combust and the world is going to end because my house isn't clean, my hair is not washed, my skin's not clear, my nails aren't done, my goals aren't achieved. I'm not walking 10,000 steps a day. And it's like, hold on. Like, who said that? That's what it needs to look like. Like, what do you want it to look like? Like, when are you truly fulfilled? Like when you look back on your life, when do you truly feel accomplished and like you're in a reality that you love?

28:33 And then I think working towards that. So doing mood boards for your different esthetics and eras of life and months, maybe you do it monthly, maybe you do it for just different goals and things that you have. Oh my god. And no phone in the morning. Seriously. Seriously. This has so many benefits when you are priming your brain first thing in the morning to. There's so much neuroscience behind this. What happens is when you do that, you are triggering the release of so much dopamine in the brain, which is a neuro modulator that releases in the brain. That has to do with motivation and reward and pleasure and all this stuff you're releasing, you're triggering the release of so much of it in the brain first thing in the

29:19 morning. It's raising your dopamine levels and so, so much that everything else throughout the day that is not scrolling is going to seem boring to you, because you're not going to be able to get that high level of dopamine release. Unfortunately, doing things like the dishes, doing things like laundry. Doing little things every day that keep you consistent and hold you accountable to your goals should be releasing little bits of dopamine, but you are literally getting in your own way so much and sabotaging that by let's pump it all right now in the morning and just kick off my day by killing the chance for me to feel any sense of reward or accomplishment after these little tasks. Those little wins should feel really, really good,

30:07 and they should propel you forward through your day and keep you motivated. But you sort of, yeah, you really get in your own way. And I think that's part of the reason why scroll in the morning, go to work, get home. What do you want to do? You want to scroll and watch TV because you're looking for that instead of let me, oh, let me look for dopamine sources in ways that are just more healthy and sustainable. There's no real or fake dopamine. I know people always say like real dopamine is little wins, and eating healthy and doing things you don't want to do and fake dopamine is this there's no real and fake. It's more just about healing your relationship to it.

30:41 And if you want to be someone who's really productive and gets everything done, it's going to be really hard to do that. If you don't feel rewarded after you have those little wins. Because that's what I'm talking about. How many little wins can you get throughout the day, and how can you program and tailor and choose little wins that are going to suit you and your long term goals? Best? If you are frying your dopamine receptors and crashing out your entire dopaminergic system before you, you're not even giving yourself a chance to enjoy it. And my dad always did this. Like Saturday, we always deep cleaned the house. He would get coffee, he would make me, um, virgin mojitos always, and play music and open up all the windows. And we would

31:23 stop and like, have, you know, dance or joke or, like, whatever. That sounds really cliche, but it was always so much fun, Like, why are you going? I have to. Go do the dishes. And then you go stand there and act like you're going to war or something. Like, get a little drink. Put some music on. Put your headphones on. Put a podcast on. Like make it a fun experience. Or just maybe enjoy doing something that you don't want to do and knowing that you're going to feel really rewarded and good after it. Make it easier on yourself. You're getting in your own way, not letting other people influence the way that you are productive. Like, if this podcast doesn't resonate with you, then don't do it girl. Then don't do it. You gotta you

32:11 gotta shut everyone out and realize that, like, if you if a big thing for you is I love for me, I love investing in my health and wellness and self-care. I live for it. I live for it, and I love it. I love studying neuroscience for fun, I love it. It is fun for me. It is not a lot of people's biggest priority. It's a really big priority of mine. And maybe that's kind of odd, but that's just how I operate. And so I put that into my routine like that's just who I am. Also, I love going out every Friday night. I love drinking, sorry, I drink once a week, Sue me.

32:50 But I love going out and being social and being an extrovert, like it feeds my soul to be around other people and to have fun. And I love a good party that's, you know, just because someone online is saying that that's something you should stop doing and cut out of your life, and this is the way that you need to be doing things like you really need to tune everyone out. And that's part of the reason why I started this off by saying, get in the zone, get in your head and write down who am I in terms of productivity and what works for me, because only you know that truly. Only you know that. And you know what your dream life is and what your dream lifestyle would be and how you want to do that. Figuring out your productivity style. Another thing. A lot of this is

33:30 centered around procrastination. Not to brag as if I don't brag, every effing episode is, um. I'm really not a procrastinator. I'm really, really not. To my own detriment, it's made me very impetuous, and I just do things like, I think I'm gonna start a podcast, and then you wake up one day and suddenly you've committed to being a full time podcaster and you've a bunch of people relying on you to do podcasts anyways. So I just do things. I just pop up and go, I think I want to be a lawyer today. We all saw that. Like, I just, I just I just do shit and that's great. Sometimes bites me in the ass. But I will say I prefer it to the opposite, which is being a procrastinator. And it's like the most. Useless thing ever. An idiot in motion will go further than a genius at rest

34:14 every single time. If you were to watch 100 football games and you took every single note you memorized, every single play, every position you bought, all the right equipment, you did everything right, and you planned. And you did this for a hundred football games, and then you tried to play. You'd make a fool of yourself and you'd be awful. Versus if you would have just gotten in the game, game one, you'd have 100 games behind you by now. You'd probably be pretty good by now. So the human brain, the human being, does not learn by planning. It learns by doing. You cannot get better at something that you avoid. And so I don't give myself the conversation that happens when you start procrastinating. Well, and then the excuse to start, well, I'm really

35:00 tired and. Well, I'm gonna wait until this. I'm gonna wait until tomorrow because of this. Well, I'm gonna wait to film this video because I'm gonna do my self tan tonight, and then I'll look better tomorrow morning. I'm gonna wait til I wash my hair. I'm gonna wait until I'm in. Dear Lord, if I paid you $1 million, could you find more reasons to do it instead of not? Yes, we're a product of our own biases and excuses. So if your bias right now is to come up with a bunch of reasons why not to You're you have the same capacity to come up with a million reasons why you could so truly like, don't even allow yourself to go there. It got to the point where I would, I would if I started doing that. And also this was programed into me from a young age. My father, he

35:43 always said, be someone who is massive and immediate action, massive and immediate action. He would tell me that all the time, like, you just gotta do shit. You just gotta do shit. Procrastination is more addictive than any other drug. It really, really is. And if you start not allowing yourself to even have the conversation where you start negotiating with yourself, you follow your plan, not your mood. If you said, I think I need to do the dishes right now, I think I need to make that video right now. I think I need to work on my business right now. And then this sort of weird conversation that you've programed your brain to start having with yourself about all the reasons why you're not going to do it. Literally stand up, like, do something to interrupt

36:21 the thought pattern and say, no, no, no, no, we're not having this conversation. We're not doing this, and we're we're going. We're going. We're going like you can't feed it. So there's something called implementation intentions that work really, really well. They've been proven in studies to work well for years and years now. And it's something I used to teach in my courses. So I said in the beginning, it's not about discipline, it's about getting better systems in place. Read Atomic Habits first of all. Second of all, having those replacement systems set up like an if then statement. If I start procrastinating, then I will get up and say I'm not doing this. If I am starting to feel burnt out, then I will go on a five minute walk. Uh, you

37:07 know, you know what I'm saying? Like, put those replacement systems in place so the current systems that aren't serving you right now, take an audit of that and audit, okay. Which systems are making me lazier, making me procrastinate. What am I doing? Do I get home and immediately turn on the TV? Okay, if I get home then I will. I will set a timer for 20 minutes and spend 20 minutes cleaning my house. Replace those systems and you can literally write down, get a piece of paper and you're going to draw a line down the middle of the page. Current loser system. Replacement system. Current loser system is I scroll every morning. Replacement system I'm going to journal every morning. You know what I'm saying? And do that with everything. And then

37:50 you implement it one at a time. So those are great for procrastination. If you take an audit of the areas in your life where you're procrastinating, figure out why you're procrastinating, and then swap it with something that's actually going to serve you and serve your long term goals. My favorite trend that is so science backed and legit, which is rare for trends, is the trend where it's like my nervous system when I stop treating everything like it's an emergency. When you think of productivity and I'm a very charged, energetic person as you all know, so I can relate to this. I actually don't work like that though. I get a lot done in a day. I'm not racing around frantic like my ass is on fire. You know what I'm saying? I do it. I'm doing a lot, but I'm not doing it in a way

38:36 that's like, oh my God, I have to get this done right now. And like, let me do this, like slow down. You've created a time slot for it. You have a plan. You have a system set up where this fits in. Do it calmly. You actually are killing your productivity by doing that. Because when you're stressed, your brain is going to tunnel vision you because you're going into this fight or flight survival mode. This is way oversimplified, but for the purposes of this video, it goes tunnel vision and you're not able to see and be creative and be solution oriented problem solver, because you're so stressed out and frantic that you're not able to be as productive as you could be. So just remember that when you go, okay, I'm going to take a deep breath. And this is a great if then

39:17 statement. If I start being frantic and feeling like I'm feeling my cortisol raising, I'm feeling the neck vein popping out of my body. Then I will take three deep breaths, and sometimes that's enough to reset your system to get your heart rate back down to a normal level, and you'll be so much more productive that way. You need to be slow. You need to be really productive and maximize productivity, and you need to do it slowly in a calculated, strategic way.

39:50 I mean, I feel like this whole episode was kind of non-linear. Behavior, but I was going to say laziness is loser behavior and laziness is not. I need to rest in my luteal phase and I need to be kind to myself. I'm talking about like, legit laziness. It's different. It's not an offensive word. If you're lazy, that is loser ass behavior. Like, it really, really is. It really, really is. I'm not talking about, like, being kind to yourself and holding spit, whatever, all that shit. I'm talking about literal laziness. where you promised yourself you will do something. There's not a reason on the planet while you haven't done it yet, and you continue to sit there and scroll.

40:30 That is a lack of self-respect for yourself and it's embarrassing. Non loser behavior is putting in a replacement system. Like I said, if you think you are a lazy person, FYI, there's not like a circuit in your brain for laziness. It's not like a thing that we can measure. The best thing you can do is figure out why you're lazy, and then put in a replacement system to fix that. No one is just lazy because they're lazy. Are you lazy because you're frying your fucking dopamine receptors every morning and everything in your life seems boring, so you have no motivation to do anything at all? Are you lazy because you feel unfulfilled in your life? Like, what is it? And then put in a replacement system because that's this week's non loser behavior. And I think everyone

41:12 should seriously do that is do the the audit of your systems and which which systems are not serving you and then do the replacement systems. That's my challenge for everyone. Guys, I'm so excited because we have a new segment. You may. You may be wondering, Bella, what's this gold phone behind behind you. This is for a segment that we're doing called the Gold Line, where you can call into the show like old school radio show.

41:53 It's so funny. I was thinking, you know, how we're always like, okay, I'm just leaving a voicemail because it's easier. That's what this is. So you can leave me voice memos. Now, the links in my bio, on my Instagram on how to set bangles your Instagram, and you can literally send me a voice memo yapping about whatever you want. And I will reply, so I think we have some good ones today.

42:15 Gold line segment. Let's hear from our first calling. Hey, Bella. So my question for you is what are some things that you recommend young adults to start doing right now that you feel like would really help them in their 20s? And this can be socially, intellectually, financially, whatever you want. Love you. Love you too. That's so cute. So when you said young adults, I was thinking 20s. But then she said, in 20s, I'm assuming this is like late teens. Oh my God, I have. So much advice. Just just. Thinking about.

42:54 18 year old Bella and what a little train wreck I was like. I have so many things, but I also feel like there's only so much you can do at 1819 and you can't see til you continue. You can't hear what you can hear. I will tell you, don't worry as much about making as much money as possible and saving as much money as possible as you do about establishing a healthy relationship with money.

43:19 Early on, I know you said financially, and that's the first thing that came to mind because, girl, I was a late bloomer to that. I mean, I've just now gotten my finances under control. When you don't grow up in a setting where you're taught all of the things about finances and how to set yourself up for success, and then you get older, you kind of feel like you're drowning a little bit. I will say you don't need to start learning about investing and how to be a millionaire by 25.

43:45 What you need to do. What I wish I would have done is truly just developed a relationship with money where I was balancing being generous and having fun, and enjoying my life with being smart and saving and being frugal. Really, really figure that out. That's the first thing I would say financially. Second thing I would say confidence comes from two things. One is having a really strong understanding of who you are as an individual. The second thing is competence. Your brain needs evidence, and you need accomplishments under your belt to feel like you have something to be confident About the first thing I said, getting a really strong sense of who you are. It comes from developing a personal brand. Your personality is not real. It's just something that

44:26 you're making up. It's something that you have consciously or subconsciously made a decision that you're going to stick with or you're going to throw away based off of everything that you've experienced. So you can be anything that you want to be. And before you're 25, you have this immense capacity for neuroplasticity on your side, so you can rewire your brain to be anyone and anything that you want. I would really start taking note of what inspires you and who inspires you when you watch movies, when you read books, when you you watch TikTok or just someone in your life, probably a woman in your life where you go, that girl is a badass. That girl is a rock star.

45:01 That's so cool. And really start spending time in your head and figuring out what is that in you that's lighting you up. What is it like specifically? What trait is it not? Oh, she's so confident. Oh, she's so funny. No. What is it? Is it how she walks into the room? is it that she has a career that you find is fulfilling and mission oriented? Is it how she dresses? Is it how she talks? And then I think, realize that those traits are within you because you wouldn't be able to recognize them unless you yourself possessed them. It's just about leading with them like you have those things. So when you make those decisions and when you start forming habits, do it with that in mind of what inspires you and what you look up to. And then you will slowly sort of become that.

45:47 Second thing is competence. When you're 18 and 19, you're not competent, you don't know anything and you've accomplished very little. And so that's why confidence really comes with age. But I think doing everything you can to little wins, celebrating little wins, being someone that that does what you say you're going to do, being someone that is a good friend, being someone that is like when it comes to romantic relationship, you've established a healthy attachment style.

46:16 Those are big accomplishments. Just because you haven't saved the world doesn't mean that you don't have things to be proud of, and you recognizing that competence and working towards it. Reading about attachment styles. Taking the time to heal your attachment styles. Developing a healthy relationship with money, learning about self-care and your health, and investing in your health. Those things will show your brain. I work out three days a week. I develop a strong sense of confidence and independence that helps me be a better friend and a better, um, daughter or son or boyfriend or girlfriend that will really, really help you. So those are the two biggest things I would say. Start focusing on building real, authentic confidence instead of just being like, I

46:56 own the room, I'm a. Bad. Bitch, like whatever. And really focus on building it from the inside out. And then and then the money thing, I would say for finance. I was scared to say anything, but I mean, I've experienced this, like, weird thing. I know people say, just get off social media, do this, do that. But it's like this guy that I had previously saw. His friends and family are consistently on all my pages, and it's even like his new girlfriend and her family. And it's just like, it's nonstop. Like I block them. I ask for it to stop and it's like, just keep blocking them. But like, it's easier said than done when it's been so many people in connection to him. And it's like, not even a guy I dated

47:48 very long and even my ex-wife lived with his friends and family are consistently on my pages, and I would have more, you know, phone numbers and stuff. I'm not in like same location as them or anything. And I'm just I'm not really understanding why this is happening. And when I've asked them to stop, they've almost like rebelled against me and said that like I was the one with issues because I'm asking for it to stop and I just, I don't know, it's like I'm having the time trying to deal with it. That is crazy. And like, those people are losers. I'm sorry, but do you know how much time you have to have on your hands to obsess? Also, you sound young. Like what is a grown adult doing stalking you and and blowing up your social media? That is so bizarre. Okay. I think

48:34 it's really good that you blocked them and that you asked them to stop. That is all you can do. And I know that's probably not what you want to hear. I don't think you should get off social media. I don't think you should really do anything anymore. The only thing that you can do is control how you react to it and your mindset around it at this point, which is so crazy like that is insane. I will tell you, as someone who deals with chronic haters and deals with this a lot, obviously it's not a personal thing, so I think it's maybe a little bit easier for me. Like it's not my ex and his entire family looking at all my stuff. But I think you can't control the wind, you can adjust your sails. And right now there's some weird fucking wind blowing at you.

49:19 Like what? Weirdos. That is so bizarre and so crazy. Like, it reminds me of the, um, like, evil parents in high school that would, like, bully and talk shit about the kids. And it's like, what is a grown adult doing talk anyway? So that's what I would do. You the only thing you can control in this situation. Stop asking them because you've already asked. They heard you and they know they will get bored and stop. I'm telling you right now, this won't go on for forever. And I would, hilariously, in relation to this episode, put a replacement system in place. So anytime you start getting bothered by it, or annoyed by it, or freaked out by it, which you have every right to. I would truly just do everything you can to redirect your energy back onto

50:00 yourself, until eventually it becomes meaningless. Because I can tell it's holding a lot of weight in your brain and it's really weighing on you. And so all we can do now keep them blocked. You already asked. You can't control them, but you can control you. And I would do everything you can to make it as insignificant as possible. Be patient and be disciplined and consistent with replacing that. Every time you start thinking about it, you're going to go on a walk instead, or you're going to do you know, you're going to work instead or something like that. But I'm sorry, such loser behavior. Okay, guys. So that was the gold line. I hope you enjoyed. I really liked that segment. I'm excited to keep doing it. And that is the end of this episode. I

50:42 hope you guys enjoyed. I loved this episode. I had a lot of fun. If you want to keep watching, follow, subscribe, like, comment and let me know what you want to see next in the comments on YouTube or Spotify or Apple Podcasts or whatever. And thank you guys so much. I love. You. And I will. See you next week.