I Used A Dopamenu For 30 Days (Here's What Happened)

Coach Will: You ever have those moments where you're stressed, you're bored, or you're burnt out and you just reach for your phone? I used to do this all the time. I'd be super overwhelmed with my homework. I'd grab my phone to take a break, and then suddenly an hour has gone by and I feel way worse than when I actually started. Here's the thing, when you're bored, your brain automatically fills that time with easy, cheap dopamine. And I know you hear dopamine all the time from your parents, and I know you're like, oh, here we go again, another life coach cringe talking about dopamine. But here's what's crazy. You do this when you know you don't want to, which is why I wanted to make this little episode here. You know scrolling TikTok for an hour isn't helping you achieve your goals. You know it, but we do it anyways. Why? Because our brain does what's easy. It takes the path of least resistance unless you're actually intentional about doing what's best. Your brain does what's easy unless you're intentional about doing what's best. I tried something different. I built what I call a Dopa menu. It's basically a list of activities that give you healthy dopamine so that you can fill your time with something other than doom scrolling on the toilet. Here's the key. I split my menu into three parts, like an actual restaurant menu. First, you've gotta, you know, order your appetizers. These are really quick, ten minutes or less activities, things like going for a walk, doing 20 pushups, listening to your favorite song, having a dance party with your overweight dog like Dash, and if you guys haven't met Dash, then you're missing out. Join the eight week programs, bro. I will absolutely get you on understanding that Dash is the q's dog of all time. Maybe you're throwing, you know, or going outside and and and shooting baskets. Maybe you text a friend or you FaceTime a friend. Things that take less than ten minutes that don't include scrolling on your bed. Then the second kind of section of your dopamine are entrees. So these are things that take thirty minutes to four hours, something along those lines. Things like working on some type of skill. So, playing the guitar. Maybe you're going outside and you're going for a long walk. Maybe on that walk, you're listening to a really awesome podcast also known as the Unstoppable You podcast. Maybe you are, I don't know, like cooking up a meal, maybe making some PB and J, maybe you're cleaning your room. I know some of these things sound kinda, you know, cringey and cheesy, but really these things are super, super important for us to do rather than just, you know, scroll away on our phone. Maybe it's like creating a YouTube video. Maybe it's once again, facing FaceTiming a friend, but you're actually, you know, FaceTiming them for longer than ten minutes. Finally, the third section of this dopa menu are desserts. These are things that you typically do when you're escaping things that are uncomfortable. So this is the cheap dopamine that you do after you've had a full meal. And I want you to think about that. You don't, well, maybe you do. I don't know if you do this, but you typically do not eat your dessert before you've had, you know, your full on meal. And if you do, you feel full. If you do, you feel kinda crappy. The same thing goes if you try to, you know, eat your dessert, scroll TikTok, maybe it's playing video games for four hours after school and then trying to, you know, go and eat your entree, which is your homework. After you've done things from your appetizers and your entrees, then it's healthy, or then we can scroll. We can Snapchat our friends. We can play video games guilt free. So for thirty days, every time I felt the urge to grab my phone mindlessly, I pulled up my DOPA menu instead. I had it, you know, kinda posted up where I know I'm gonna see it all the time, specifically in moments where I'm bored. I made a rule. Appetizers or entrees first, desserts only after. And honestly, it changed everything. I feel like it kinda changed my life low key. My screen time dropped by almost three or four hours a day. I felt more in control of my mood. I didn't feel like these crazy energy spikes and crazy energy drops because I, you know, was doing nothing with my life for a couple hours a day scrolling on TikTok. And the best part about this all is I actually felt good about how I was spending my time. So here's what I want you all to do. Create your own DOPA menu. List five activities that take ten minutes or less and kind of label those as appetizers. These are things that I do in between calls. Right? I've got 10, I need to kind of boost my energy, and instead of just sitting at my desk, scrolling my life away, I'm gonna go for a quick walk, I'm gonna make a cup of coffee, drink some water, maybe take a cold shower. Those are appetizers. So make your own list. I also want you to make entrees. Okay? You can literally go and make an entree, and that actually might be an entree on your DOPA menu, but list off five to 10 activities that take you thirty minutes or longer that boost your mood, that give you joy, that give you energy, that make you feel somewhat good. Okay, I'm gonna say better than just sitting on the couch scrolling. Again, that's not bad, but they are desserts. So, I want you to also create your dessert menu, is your cheap dopamine, but only after you've had your meals. And if you wanna make this really, really easy, I've got an awesome dopamine template that you can download. If you go to wherever you're listening to this podcast, go down to the descriptions, grab it, fill it out, and keep it on your phone. It's one of the coolest things that I have up on my desk other than, of course, you know, all my Porsche pictures and posters and all that stuff. Your brain is going to do what's easy, but when you're really intentional about doing what's best, that's when your life can change. So build your dopamine menu, stick to it, and watch the magic actually happen. If this episode helped you, do me a favor and share it with a friend. I feel like your friends eat desserts before they eat entrees. I mean, I feel like that's just kinda how it is nowadays. So there's a good chance that your friend is getting really, really full because of all the cake and all the Pop Tarts and all the, I don't know, chocolate covered Twinkies that they're eating AKA the screen time. And they need to be put on this entree before dessert stuff that we're talking about here. All right. Don't forget to send it to them. Don't forget to download that, that, free dopamine template in the description. Hope that this was helpful. I'm coach Will, and I'll catch you in the next episode.