Episode 910 · Jan 22, 2024

How to Act in Spite of Your Mood: Strategies That Actually Work

Listen

On a Monday episode of The Daily Mastermind, George Wright III returned to one of his core "Prosperity Pillars": the principle of acting in spite of your mood. This is Prosperity Pillar Number Three, and for good reason. Of all the habits that separate people who reach their goals from those who stay stuck, the ability to take action regardless of how you feel is one of the most powerful and most overlooked.

George opens with a Bruce Lee quote that sets the tone perfectly:

"The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus."

You don't need to be extraordinary. You need to be consistent, focused, and willing to act even when every part of you is pushing back.

Why Your Mood Is the Enemy of Progress

Feelings are not facts, and they are not the boss of your calendar. George is direct about this: your emotions, your fear, your disappointment, and your low energy are the exact things that will keep you from doing the activities that produce real results. And here is the uncomfortable truth: it is usually the activities you least want to do that will create the most success.

Everyone struggles with this. High performers, beginners, business owners, and athletes all face the same internal resistance. The difference is not motivation. The difference is the decision to act anyway.

Stop Making It About You

One of the most useful reframes George offers is this: when you are avoiding an action because of fear or insecurity, you are making it about yourself. Shift your focus to the impact you are creating for others, the people who depend on you, and the life you are working to build. When the stakes become bigger than your ego, it becomes easier to push through the discomfort.

Set Goals and Make Commitments in Advance

Clarity is a powerful motivator. When you have a clear goal and a specific direction, you are not wandering. You know where you are going, and that makes it easier to move even when your mood drags you backward.

Beyond setting goals, George recommends making commitments in advance. If you decide ahead of time that you are going to the gym at 6 a.m., you do not have to re-litigate that decision at 5:59 a.m. The decision is already made. Your only job in the moment is to find a way through, not to decide whether you want to show up.

Use the Five-Second Rule

This is a practical, in-the-moment tool. When a doubt or moment of hesitation surfaces, you have roughly five seconds before your brain starts constructing elaborate reasons why you should not act. George puts it plainly:

"With any hesitation, any longer than five seconds, all of the initiative and the drive and things you have starts to wane."

Count down. Take the step. Do not wait for the feeling to catch up. The feeling comes after the action, not before.

Change Your State with Power Statements and Environment

George recommends two tools for moments when you need to shift your internal state quickly. First, power statements: short, present-tense declarations like "I act in spite of my mood" repeated consistently until they become hardwired responses. Over time, these statements create the neural pathways that help you default to action instead of avoidance.

Second, use your environment and your senses intentionally. Build a playlist that energizes you. Put photos of your goals and the people you are doing this for somewhere you can see them. When your mood is working against you, your environment can work for you.

Build Daily Rituals So the Decision Is Already Made

Habits remove the need for willpower. When working out, journaling, or doing your daily priority review is just what you do every morning, you stop fighting yourself about whether to do it. The ritual carries you. George makes the case that building these consistent daily patterns is one of the most reliable long-term strategies for acting in spite of your mood, because eventually the habit fires automatically, even when the motivation does not show up.

Action Steps

Write down one clear goal this week and identify the single action that will move it forward most.
Make at least one commitment in advance by scheduling it, telling someone, or setting an alarm.
Practice the five-second rule once today: the next time you hesitate on something you know you should do, count down and move.
Create a short power statement you can repeat when resistance shows up.
Build or refine a morning ritual that puts your most important actions on autopilot.

George closes with a challenge worth taking seriously:

"The difference maker for someone who's going to be successful is that individual that when they don't feel like doing it, does it anyway."

It's never too late to start living the life you were meant to live. But you have to be willing to act, especially on the days when you least feel like it.

READ THE FULL TRANSCRIPT

All right, welcome back to the Daily Mastermind, George Wright III with your daily dose of inspiration, motivation, and education. And today it is Monday. Monday, we're really excited today because today we're going to be talking a little bit about prosperity pillar number three. Prosperity pillar number three is I act in spite of my mood, which is a tough one for a lot of people. But let's get you started with the quote of the day. The quote of the day is from Bruce Lee. I love this quote, by the way. It's, the successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus. The successful warrior is the average man with laser-like focus. And I tell you, you've got to learn to focus in life. It's so difficult. I have trouble with it as well. Whether it's business, personal life, or whatever, you've got to find those things that are going to create the biggest, most significant impact. Tomorrow, we're going to be talking a little bit about 10x in your life and focusing on the top 20% of things that will make the biggest difference. But today, I want to bring you back. Since it's Monday, I want to bring you back to the prosperity pillars, the 12 pillars of prosperity that I've kind of put together over the last 20, 25 years. Gosh, probably even more than that now. And here we are on episode 910. And what you're finding is that no matter how far you go in life, the success principles, the basic principles of success remain the same. It's like the fundamentals that you'd have in any sport. And I certainly didn't put these, I mean, I certainly didn't create these. These are time-tested principles. but I accumulated them over the last 20-25 years based on a lot of mentoring I was able to receive. I was able to work with some of the greatest thought leaders out there. And so these ideas, and you've probably seen them on my poster before of the prosperity pillars, are the things that Monday morning I want to kind of get your day going and started with. And so the third one is I act in spite of my mood. I act in spite of my mood. Now, I don't know if you're struggling right now. I don't know if you're crushing it. But the bottom line is this, no matter how successful, no matter how disappointed, no matter how much of a failure, no matter how much of a grinder you are, all of us struggle with acting in spite of our mood. Everyone struggles. At the end of the day, there's certain things that you have to push through, whether it's getting up early, whether it's your health, your fitness, whether it's doing that one more rep, that one more set, that one more call, whether it's staying focused on the menial tedious tasks or whether it doing things you love The bottom line is you got to learn to push through your feelings Your feelings are the things that are going to keep you from doing the actions of the activities that are going to give you the results in life. And generally it's the activities we don't want to do that will create the most success for you. And so you just have to understand that no matter where you are in life, everybody struggles. Everybody has trouble. Look, nobody wants to get up early. Nobody wants to work hard. We all like the idea of relaxing. So you've got to learn to push yourself. And this principle is all about that. But one of the things I will start right out of the chutes telling you is that one of the best ways there are to overcome your feelings, the things that are keeping you, your fear, your emotions, your disappointment, your failure, whatever it is, it's to stop making it about you. And I've talked about this in the past. A lot of times when we fail to act on things that we know we need to do. It's because we're having feelings of insecurity or fear. And that is about us. And so if you learn to stop making it about you and start making it about other people and the impact you're having and the overall benefits and experience that you're going to create in your life, it'll make it a little easier for you to act in spite of your mood. But the bottom line is this, you've got to start taking action. You've got to start doing things. And so I want to just give you some tips, some strategies, and some ideas to get your week going that you can use to act in spite of your mood. And the first one, the most important one, is setting goals. You've got to set goals because when you have a clear intention, and I talk about this a lot, and you have a clear focus or vision in your life, it's much easier to act in spite of your mood. It's when you're, you know, just wandering around or when you're just going throughout the day that it's difficult to motivate and inspire yourself. But you have a clear direction. And if you have focus in your life, then you're going to be able to act in spite of your mood and push through even when you may not want to. And so setting goals and creating direction is a very important part of that. Another thing you can do is make commitments. See, you and I both know that when you make commitments ahead of time, then you don't have to go through that point in time where you question if you want to do something. Make a decision and make a commitment ahead of time that you're going to go to the gym, that you're going to get up early, that you're going to spend a certain amount of time doing a certain function in your business. Make that not just decision, but commitment. And then when the event comes up and you're second guessing it, you won't so much be trying to decide if you want to do it. You'll just have to find ways to push you through. And if you set an alarm you get up when the alarm goes off If you are deciding to eat on a diet or on a strict regimen then you make that decision and commitment and then when things come up when temptations come up it be much easier for you to push through them So writing goals, having a clear vision and a path, and also making commitments are key elements to helping you to act in spite of your mood. But there's another tip that I've started to adopt more and more, and it's called the five-second rule. There's a lot of people that, you know, have talked about this over the years. I've talked about this over the years. But there's a five-second period of time after which some kind of a doubt or indecision occurs in your mind, that once that five seconds has passed, it's much more difficult. Your mind starts to kick in. Your mind starts to convince you of reasons and ways and excuses for why you shouldn't take action. And so you need to act. The reason we call it the five second rule is when a doubt comes up, you've got to act within five seconds. Taking action within this time frame will move you forward much easier than if you wait. Because with any hesitation, any longer than five seconds, all of the initiative and the drive and things you have starts to wane. You're going to fail to accomplish the things that you want. Your mind is going to start working heavily against you. But if you can catch yourself within that first five seconds, it'll make a big difference. The other thing I would recommend is to create things like power statements. saying things like, I am, I am this, I act in spite of my mood, I don't stop. A statement that helps create that neuroplasticity and that wiring, that hard wiring of your mind that when a doubt comes up, if you have a power statement, that'll allow you to be able to move forward. And another thing I do a lot, especially when I don't feel in the mood, and sometimes it's not so much that you don't feel in the mood, but maybe you're trying to motivate yourself. Maybe you're trying to inspire yourself. Well, I will always go back to this idea that when you're in that state of doubt or fear or hesitation, you need to do things, use tools to change your state. And what I mean by that is other senses, whether it's pictures or music or journaling or your environment, you've got to change your state. So it might be getting up and going out. You know, it's one of those things where like if you're trying to work out, when you're in that environment, you're much more motivated. But when you're sitting at home, you're not. And so be prepared with that. Have a playlist on your phone of music that inspires and motivates you. Have pictures either on your phone or maybe even hung up on your wall or, you know, wherever it is that you need the motivation, the mirror in the bathroom or whatever. Put pictures up of what your vision is you trying to accomplish of your goals of the people in your life the stuff that you trying to create this amazing life for Another thing I like to do is sometimes journal If I not feeling in the mood I will journal and write down the things that I trying to accomplish And those are types of activities that will inspire you to get up and move. So look for ways, tools, and resources that you can use to change your state. And then when your state changes, it'll be easier for you to take action. And I really can't emphasize enough finding ways to create habits and daily rituals because as you get locked into a daily ritual, you're going to find that you don't have to try to convince yourself to overcome your feelings as much. If you're used to getting up, going and working out, or meditating, or journaling, or when you get to the office, you sit down and you create your priorities and you move forward, when you set those intentions and rituals, what's going to happen is those habits will kick in when your feelings work against you. So that's kind of my different suggestions, tips, and strategies that I would give you for this. But the bottom line is this. Ultimately, you've got to be able to back up the things you say you're going to do with action. And so that's why it's so important, this principle of act in spite of your mood. The difference maker for someone who's going to be successful is that individual that when they don't feel like doing it, do it anyway. And that's what I know you want to do and I know that's what you are trying to do in your life. If you're going to create your best life, and like I've said many times, it's never too late to start living the life you're meant to live, but you've got to take action. You've got to be willing to do the things you need to do even when you don't feel like doing it because if you don't, you're going to find that you're going to be continuing to live that life that you've been living. You're going to have the same results that you've always had. So do yourself a favor. Adopt this principle throughout your week. adopt the principle that you're going to act in spite of your mood and catch yourself become aware of that every time you don't feel like doing it and you do it anyway that repetition that frequency that neuroplasticity those things are kicking in and they're starting to program your mind be be recognized and be grateful for your ability to be able to do that so that's my message for today if you do me a favor and share this show i would really appreciate it and i look forward to talking with you more i want you to do me a favor also and hit me up on the daily mastermind let me know what you're working on. This is Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. You can go to dailymastermind.com and you'll see the programs that we're launching here for our group academy. It's going to be an amazing academy this year. And so I look forward to talking with you more. Once again, my name is George Wright III. I'm your host and I hope you have an amazing day. Talk to you soon.