290 - Structure Over Strength

Your battery isn’t empty because you’re weak—it’s drained because divorce floods your day with nonstop decisions and emotional friction. We unpack why willpower fails under that load and how simple, durable structure can carry you when grit runs out.

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Chapters

• 2:06 Opening & Willpower Reality Check
• 4:30 Decision Fatigue Drains The Battery
• 7:09 The Beach Ball And Burnout
• 8:56 Structure Beats Willpower
• 12:08 Systems For Your Worst Day
• 13:58 Practical Structures: Meals, Phones, Mornings
• 17:15 Focus, Sacrifice, And Presence
• 20:00 Work Backwards From Your Goal
• 21:39 Maintain The Asset: You
• 22:58 One Habit For 21 Days
• 24:35 Community Support & Coaching Invite

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 1:04

Hello and welcome to this show. Thanks so much for tuning in this week. Gentlemen, I want to start out with a question. How many times have you woken up and said, today's going to be different? Today I won't get triggered. Today I'll be patient. Today I'm going to power through this. And then by the evening, you're exhausted. You may have snapped at someone, someone you love, or you're staring, you're just laying there staring at the ceiling, wondering, why can't I just get a grip? And so if you're going through a divorce, I'm willing to bet that this scenario feels pretty familiar. We tell ourselves we're just we just need to try harder. We think we're just stronger, tougher, more disciplined. We can navigate this chaos perfectly. But here's the truth, and this is a truth that I've learned the hard way. You cannot white knuckle your way through divorce. So, what we're going to be talking about today is how structure beats willpower every time. And but before we jump into that, let me just introduce a few of the new members of the divorced advocate community. Those are Jeff, Chris, and Craig. Welcome to the community. Gentlemen, check if you're not a part of it and you're not you haven't tapped into all of the resources that we've got, check out thedivorcedavicate.com and we've got all kinds of resources for you there. Wherever you're at in your divorce, whatever your your means are for accessing those from free to paid, we've got something for you in addition to this podcast. So check it out at thedivorcedavic.com. All right, last week we started this series and we talked about getting figuring out and raising awareness to yourself, what you're going through, and trying to create some vision and direction for where you want to go post-divorce. It doesn't mean that you're going to be able to figure it all out right away. It just meant just means thinking about it. We talked about journaling around it because journaling is a huge, huge opportunity to get clarity around where you're at and where you want to go. This week we're going to talk about structure and how structure beats willpower every time. We're going to talk about why relying on your own strength is actually a trap and how simple, uh how building simple systems can literally save your sanity and maybe even save your relationship with your kiddos. So if you're you feel inconsistent, frustrated, or just tired of being tired, this is the episode for you. Let's let's let's start out by laying the groundwork first. Willpower so willpower fails men because what willpower willpower is a finite resource that we have. So if we're if we're defying willpower as a character trait, that that's a problem. You can think of it as a battery as opposed to a character's trait. You like I said, you have a finite amount of willpower starting every single day. So if you think of it, if you reframe it in your mind as a battery, and a battery starts the day at whatever percentage you're at, and when we're going through divorce, that's not going to be 100%, right? So uh it's not the willpower is not a character trait. So what happens then is when we're going through divorce, we we are faced with decision decision fatigue. You're making and we're making thousands of decisions a day: legal strategy, money, housing, scheduling, managing your emotions, dealing with your ex, like all of that stuff. And so this decision fatigue starts to drain that that willpower, starts to drain that battery. So divorce drains and and and that battery is made up of all of this stuff emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, and divorce drains you in all of those areas, and every single interaction that you have every single day costs you some amount of energy. So when you're relying on willpower, you're assuming you have a full battery every day. But like I said, the reality is, is most days during a divorce, you might be waking up at 50% with your battery at 50%. So so don't get fried not to get frustrated. I had to learn quickly that relying on, and look, man, this was this was hard for me because I wanted to be super dad off the bat. I had all this shame and guilt around what was happening, particularly with my daughters and that I was that I was ruining their lives. So I had to learn quickly that relying on willpower was a losing game. And unfortunately, I had to get to the point where I was literally killing myself before I came to the realization that I couldn't do that. Some days I had it, right? Some days your battery's higher and you can and you can get through it, but most days I didn't. And when I didn't, then that fail, that shame, that that that that that guilt, that failure that that I was feeling just would would come up. And so, you know, I guess the best analogy I can use on this is like trying to hold a beach ball underwater. You might be able to do it for a minute, you might be able to do it even for five or ten minutes, but eventually your arms are gonna get tired and that ball is going to spring up, it's gonna rocket out of the water. That is your willpower every single day. So, what is the solution to this? And again, guys, these this this series of episodes is meant to be short and sweet. We're gonna talk about a specific subject and topic like we did last week, and then I'm gonna give you something to do this week. So I want you to take that time, that extra time that you have, that 15 minutes or so that you would be listening to the rest of this episode, pause and do what's do what I'm talking about this week, because especially with this one right here. So last week was about the the journaling. This week's gonna be a specific one also. Okay. So so what is the what is the solution? And the solution is to create structure, like I alluded to in the beginning, because that can that will create a safety net for you. Structure is reliable, feelings are not reliable, right? So let me say that again. Structure is reliable, but feelings are not reliable. Let me define structure for you. If willpower is the energy that you expend, structure is the environment you build, so you don't have to spend the energy. I'll say that again. If willpower is the energy that you're spending that you're putting out there, the structure or the container is the environment you build so you don't have to spend energy, or or I should say excess energy, right? Structure doesn't care if you're tired, structure doesn't care if your ex sent a nasty text. Structure just is. So here's the here's the shift that I want you to think about in in your mind and the reframe that I'm that I'm asking you to try to make. So the shift that and and the turning point for me was realizing that my life needed systems that worked even on my worst day. Okay, so that's what you need. You need a system, you need a structure that is going to work on your worst day, not on your best day. On your best day, it's a lot easier, right? Anyone can parent well on a good day. We can do, we can handle all of our stuff. You need a system for the days where you literally want to crawl up in bed, crawl into a hole, just hide from the world. And what is so, what are some examples of those structures? One could be meal prep, not having to decide what to eat at 6 p.m. when you are stressed out. So you've got kids, you've got home from work, you've picked them up, they're doing homework, they're asking you a million questions, and you're just having to decide on the fly what you're going to eat. So if you've created a structure around planning the day or planning the meals for the week when you have your kiddos, then that is a small structure that helps you, like again, so that helps you not expend all that energy when you're stressed out. Okay. So maybe you didn't know on a Wednesday your battery was going to be low and you have not done this, you're going to be stressed out about figuring out what you need to do. If you've planned on Sunday and you've already got pre-frozen meal, or at least have purchased something, and and you've got the it's just pasta and and and pasta sauce. You've got it there, you can make it, you're ready to go, right? So so that that helps. That makes it much easier for you to not expend extra energy. You've already got it planned, you're you're done. Another one could be the phone, uh, a phone rule, if you will, putting your phone in uh a box, or we have we have a charging station where we just put things when the kids walk in, so you don't have to try to ignore text messages, right? So you've got hopefully, hopefully, you've got most all of your notifications on your phone off, and you're spending a time just going to your phone when you need to to check emails or messages, et cetera. Text messages might be a little bit different if there's emergencies and you have kids that have phones or et cetera. But but you but you have the time, you create the time to go and look at that phone at a certain time to check your messages, and the rest of the time you are there and you're clear-headed and you are present with your kiddos. Um, another one, and we talked a little bit about one thing that you could do around a system and a structure last week was a morning routine. And and guys, if you have not, so again, these are meant to be brief. We have episodes. I have full episodes on even like all three of these things the meal prep, the divorced dad meal prep, creating your morning routine. Uh we've talked about before as well. Go back in some of the episodes and check on these. The morning routine, doing the same thing every morning so you don't start the day in reactive mode. You can determine how your day is going to start. You've heard me talk about this, and it actually extends to how your family is day is going to go because how you show up once you open that door from your bedroom and interact with your kiddos is going to set the tone for them in their day at school and in their interactions with you, and it's going to set the tone for you. So create the system of what you're going to do. Maybe it's three things that you do. It could be a meditation we talked last week about doing your do your journaling first thing in the morning. It's a great time. Your mind is clear, you've woken up fresh, uh, and it is actually the most creative time for your for you to do that. So the thing is, though, and I'm gonna I'm gonna share a little bit about my experience when when I was trying to work through and figure this out. Just understand you're not gonna work this out immediately, you're not gonna figure it out. It's gonna take some trial and error. But the focus, getting focused on this thing, and and try and do this in in small incremental steps. Find one thing like the journaling and start that in the morning. This the thing is though, that this focus is going to require some sacrifice. I was overwhelmed, like I said, trying to fix everything at once, finances, fitness, I was dating, which was stupid. Parenting, it was too much. So, what I needed to do is I needed to pick one goal that actually mattered to me. And that one goal was being fully present with my kids during my parenting time. Now, the challenge with that was you know, I had to create a structure and I had to make some uncomfortable decisions around how I was able to do that. I wasn't going to be able to be present if I was answering emails at 7 p.m. I wouldn't be present if I was chasing the business that I was working at the moment at that at that moment. And so the sacrifice that that I had to make is I actually went out and I had to find a job because I needed a steady income and I had needed to create a more structured way in which I could interact with my daughters, that I could wake up, that I could take them to school, uh pre um, pre preschool care, uh, pick them up at the end of the day. I had to find something in my business at that time just could not, could not, uh would not allow me to do that because I needed to be working at night, I needed to be working on the weekends, and so I needed to learn, I needed to work less. And and actually that ended up being making less money too for uh for a time being, which for a guy, right, in going through this is terrifying. And it was also partly an eagle hit, right? Taking a job instead of running my running my business and putting my business on pause felt like I was losing ground with all the years of work that I had to do. But I had to ask myself, do I want to be, do I want to have more money and be distracted, or do I want to be a dad to my kids and actually know that I was present with them? And so what the result was is I built a structure around my time with them. I learned calendar blocking, turned off my notifications, the relationship with my with my daughters deepened. That's happened over the the decade plus now. And the structure that I created them has has protected that relationship since then. So so how do you do this? Working backwards in focusing on actions over results and maintenance over luxury, okay? Once you know the goal, and mine was was presence, you can work backward. You don't have to, you can work backwards from the goal. This is like a business, uh business uh philosophy. You don't focus on the results, you focus on the actions that you're taking to get to those results because you're not going to just automatically do it. This is something we work work on in coaching. You're gonna take small incremental actions. You're gonna be better today than you were yesterday, you're gonna be better tomorrow than you were today. So you can just ask yourself, what behaviors do I need to take to support this? Maybe it's something as simple as, like I said, putting the phone away when your kiddos come home and having them do the same thing. Maybe it's cooking together to create some camaraderie and some connection together. The other thing, the flip side of this, is ask yourself what gets in the way. Is it is it a distra is it a distraction? Is it social media scrolling? Is it maybe going out too much? Could it be of a vice or maybe even an addiction, uh, alcohol or drugs or something else? You need to pay attention to those and cut those out of your life. So the other thing I want to I want to mention in this, though, is reframing this idea of self-care because this is a tough one for for guys. And often when we talk about self-care, we get the eye rolls or it might sound it might sound soft. So, what I want to do is I want to call it something else than safe than self-care. Let's let's talk about this in the context of asset maintenance, right? You are the asset, you are the greatest asset to your children. You're the machine that runs this new life. And if you ignore the maintenance, the the maintenance life, the maintenance light on your dashboard, right, that says you need an oil change or you need uh gas or whatever else, the the whole the whole vehicle breaks down, right? So if it's presence like it was for me with your kids, that starts with how you treat yourself, how you treat that asset. When I ignored my my health, everything suffered. Uh, I had a shorter fuse, I was less patient, I just I was exhausted. Like I said, I almost killed myself. So what you need to do, four like four primary things in maintaining that asset is exercise, physical movement. You need to get sleep, you need to eat real food, and you need to get emotional support. These are not luxuries, guys. These are the the simple things of gas in your car, changing the oil, maintaining the tires, stuff like that. Again, you do all that stuff on your vehicle. You are the asset that you need to do that with as well. And so here's my challenge. We're gonna we're gonna wrap it up. I actually went a little bit longer than than I thought this week, but we're gonna wrap it up with this. I want you again to stop relying on willpower starting today. And I want you to build one small piece of this structure this week. So choose one daily behavior daily, right? Okay, that supports your well-being, that's going to help maintain that asset yourself. Just one this week. It might be the one that we talked about last week, which is the which is the the journaling. So maybe you started doing that every morning. So keep doing that. And I want you to do that. It it could be for just five or 10 minutes, right? Something very simple, or it could be something else, drinking a liter of water, maybe a five or 10 minute walk, whatever it it might be. And I want you to commit to doing this for the next 21 days, right? We are creating a lifestyle change, like I mentioned last week. And and and and I want you to stick to it, put it in your calendar, schedule it. Okay, if you don't schedule it, you're relying on willpower. And we know how you we know what happens when when when you when you when you rely on willpower. So in closing, divorce is a marathon, it's not a sprint. You cannot sprint a marathon, you cannot willpower your way through the emotional landscape of divorce. You need structure. And if you're listening to this and you're nodding your head, but you have no idea where to start, if you're looking at your calendar and it feels like a disaster, if you want help creating structure that fits your real life instead of an idealized, let's say, Instagram version of it, I can help. This is what we do every day in the community. Do it in individual coaching. And it's not about telling you what to do, it's about shortening the learning curve so you don't have to. To make the same painful mistakes that I described early. It's about building a custom blueprint for your new life. So if that if that's something that you're interested in, go to the website, thedivorced advocate.com. There's some self-help resources there, but if you're interested in coaching, go to the coaching page, read through that. You've got the opportunity, guys, to do a free discovery call with me, and I can point you in the right direction, whether that's off the website, whether that's an external resource. We've got a we've got a whole page of trusted allies. We can get you pointed in the right direction. Maybe it's coaching, maybe it's not, but utilize that. It is completely complimentary. It's on the main page. It's just, it says, do you need advice? Schedule a call here. Let's do it, guys. Let's get together. Let's talk about this, and we can figure out a blueprint for you going forward. Okay, that was week two of the four weeks. We'll we'll we'll reconvene next week. Work on that one thing this week. And as always, if you found some value in this, I just ask that you please give us a star rating or or even better, leave a leave a some sort of comment. That really helps other guys in the algorithm to find the podcast, to find our show, to get engaged and get the help that they need. Thank you so much. Good luck this week and God bless.