147. How Structure Eliminates Stress and Unlocks High Performance

0:00My fellow high performer, there's a version of you that wakes up every single day with clear intentions and still ends the day wondering where it all went. Not because you're lazy, not because you lack discipline, but because more often than not without realizing it, you handed the steering wheel over to your emotions, emotions. They don't care about your long-term goals. They care about comfort, immediate relief, avoidance, instant gratification. So what happens? You wake up with the plan, but you check your phone first thing because it's easy, familiar. You tell yourself you'll start the most important task of your day immediately, but you open

1:03your email because it feels productive, again, familiar. You feel a little overwhelmed throughout the day. So you switch tasks, you scroll, you snack, you delay, just to help take the edge off a little. And in each of these moments, something subtle, yet powerful is happening. You're not making decisions based on where you want to go. You're making decisions based on what feels best right now. And that's the trap. Because when emotions are driving, the destination is always the same. Short-term pleasure, immediate relief, zero resistance, and overall, a genuine feeling of stuckness in that perpetual cycle of two steps forward, three steps back.

2:05And in the moment, it may seem that all of those decision examples I shared feel harmless but over time, they quietly compound into something far more dangerous. Another day where the most important work didn't get done. Another round where you play to well below your potential. Another evening where you feel busy but unfulfilled. Again, alone, it's not dramatic. Often, not obvious, but incredibly costly. Because every time you let your emotions take the wheel, you reinforce a pattern. Comfort over commitment. Ease over execution, now over next. And over time, guess what? You grease the groove of this pattern so much it becomes your default habitual pattern.

3:06And this is the hidden cost of a lack of structure. It's not just disorganization. It's living in a constant state of emotional reactivity where your mood dictates your actions. Your actions dictate your results and your results. Well, they never quite reflect what you know you're capable of achieving. Because without structure, you don't control your day. Your emotions do. What's up fellow high performer? Welcome back to another episode of the Scratch Golfers Mindset Podcasts. Spoiler alert, this is a peak performance. Personal development podcast disguise as a golf mindset podcast. I'm your host, Paul Salter. I'm a high performance hypnotherapist and mindset coach. My goal is to empower you with the collection of the education, the frameworks, the information,

4:11and the swift kick in the ass you likely need to ditch the excuses. Stop the bullshit and go after your biggest goals and desires to be the best version of you. Today's conversation is a follow up on last week's conversation where I began to metaphorically dip my toes in the conversation of structure, if you will, really examining structure from a much more high level macro overview. And the purpose of that conversation, episode 145, was really to set the tone for the guests conversation I had that following Thursday, episode 146, Kevin K. Hill, where we spent a lot of time talking about systems and structures to sustain significant success. But for me, structure is such a multifaceted, complex concept that really I could talk

5:11about for days and I could take this conversation in so many different directions. My point in today's conversation is to get a bit more granular and detailed to help you understand how structure eliminates emotional interference, which is one hell of a benefit considering you are an emotional being. And like for a moment, taking one gigantic step back, structure just makes everything fucking better. If I had, for example, just a brief idea of what I wanted to talk about in this conversation, I didn't sit down ahead of time to plan, clarify, and structure the conversation. It's going to fall incredibly flat. Structure is the root of all beautiful, powerful, emotionally charged storytelling. Structure is the foundation of significant sustainable success.

6:14Structure is necessary. We're going to bring in some Alex Hormosi into today's conversation. And if you don't know who Alex is, I mean, Google him. He's probably all up in your algorithm. Even hearing me say his words right now, I'm sure Alex Hormosi is going to pop up in your Instagram or take tech feed. But this man is incredibly successful, incredibly productive, efficient, and effective. And it's because structure is at the core of what he does and his approach to all aspects of his life, and that's one takeaway I want you to extract already. Structure is essential. In every area of your life, you want to be successful. If you want a thriving, beautiful, connected relationship, there needs to be structure. If you want to be an incredibly successful talented golfer, business man or women, successful professional, structure needs to be at the foundation of what you do.

7:15We can apply structuring or structure in so many areas of our life. Again, marriage, parenting, but also we can get more granular. The structure of how you begin your day, how you end your day, the structure of your diet, the structure of your exercise, the structure of your golf practice plan. So I want you to keep that open mind as to just where and how structure shows up in your life, where and how it needs to show up to give you the best opportunity to be the best you. And I want to begin the conversation as we transition into the meat and potatoes portion with a bit of a working definition of structure. And this is really how I think about structure. So for me, structure is a pre-decided system of priorities, behaviors, and standards that removes the need to negotiate with your emotions in real time.

8:15Again, structure eliminates emotional interference one more time. Structure is a pre-decided system of priorities, behaviors, and standards that removes the need to negotiate with your emotions in real time. Structure is the elimination of unnecessary decisions so your energy can be spent on execution, not constantly spent on deliberation, preparation, deliberation, preparation. And as I alluded to, structure is very multifaceted. What I think of structure, what comes to mind initially for me is a collection of time blocking and time management, clarity around priorities and intentions, goal setting, long-term, short-term daily micro goals, habits, routines, rituals, standards, expectations, non-negotiables.

9:17So structure encompasses all of those concepts and frameworks. And ultimately, it is a framework. Again, a pre-decided system to allow you to understand exactly what the most important task is, the best use of your time, energy, and attention in this moment, and it frees you up from as many distractions as possible to dig in, be productive, effective, and efficient for that allotted period of time. And you've heard me share before, I love the analogy of when an emotion takes over, when we feel that wave of anger, anxiety, fear, overwhelm, agitation. It's almost as if one of those emotions was previously sitting in the back seat of your car, maybe even locked in the trunk, you'd repressed that particular emotion for so long. And suddenly that emotion has kicked you out of the driver's seat, hijacked the steering wheel

10:17of your day decisions and actions. Structure gives you the best defense and exponentially increases the likelihood of preventing that from happening. Structure removes feelings from the equation of action, and it keeps those feelings or emotions strapped into their seat belt in the back seat of the car. Structure provides clarity and a plan to do what needs to be done, especially when you don't feel like doing it, and structure ensures that what matters, what matters to you actually gets done. So I want to take a moment now and dive deeper into explaining the real value of structure, by highlighting three key benefits and then sharing one slightly under the radar secret, sneaky benefit, if you will, to bring it all together. So first and foremost,

11:22structure removes emotion from decision making. When your day is unstructured, your emotions become your manager, your driver. When you have low energy and you lack structure, you just procrastinate. You avoid. The same thing happens when you're overwhelmed. If you lack structure and you feel like your mind's moving a million miles an hour, you don't know what to do, what's the priority, when does it do, when should I do this? You just avoid, avoid, avoid. And when you're anxious and you lack structure, you just stay busy, rather than productive. You're busy for the sake of being busy. And if we go one step further with anxiety and we continue with that analogy of driving the car, you know, anxiety doesn't drive you towards success. It drives towards certainty and safety. And we see it on the golf course all the time for my fellow golfers listening like, look, you're standing over a tee shot. There's trouble left. There's water right.

12:23Anxiety takes the wheel and says, hey, just don't hit it in the water. Don't hit it in the water. So what do you do? You guide the ball. You decelerate. You aim away from trouble instead of committing to a target. And ultimately the destination that anxiety takes you to is, well, a tentative swing that produces the exact miss, you feared that you would make. You didn't swing to succeed. You swung to avoid disaster. And in business, consider this example. You're about to send a proposal, make the pitch, make a sales call or post content. And then anxiety takes the wheel. Wait, what if they don't respond? What if this isn't good enough? What if I get a negative comment? So you begin to fall into this pattern of over editing, avoiding procrastinating. You delay hitting send. You stay in preparation mode versus execution mode. And the destination anxiety takes you is to a place where inaction is disguised as productivity.

13:25You didn't act to win. You acted to avoid judgment. Structure flips this power dynamic. You don't continuously ask yourself, what do I feel like doing? You execute. What did I already decide matters most? And what did I already deem of the utmost importance and priority for this particular allocated block of time? This is how elite performers operate. And notice here, this often falls under the radar. Pre-determined. These decisions are already made ahead of time. So you can show up and execute. You don't have to waste valuable time, energy and emotion, deciding what to do, what's important, how to approach it. These decisions are made ahead of time, which then offers another benefit of structure. When you structure or another use for structure rather, every high performer has structured, planning, preparation and periods of reflection.

14:31It's the 30 minutes on a Sunday to outline the priorities for the weekend to build out your calendar. It's the 30 to 60 minutes before the turn of a new week or a new month to outline the approach to your golf practice plan, what you're going to intentionally focus on, what drills are going to help you determine or rather implement those intentions and ultimately what does success look like at the end of that month or the end of that week. You always need to structure in this planning, this preparation and reflection time. The planning and preparation allows you to show up on Monday morning at 8 a.m. and when you have two hours of uninterrupted time, you're able to work on the biggest needle-mute movers and drivers in your business. So the reason I bring that up, many of you listening right now, skip this entirely. You might feel that slowing down to plan

15:33and prepare is not the best use of your time. You may feel that you're completely aware of all that's on your plate. You understand the priorities, the cadence, the schedules, but I call bullshit. You are already processing so many bits of information per second, and then you have all of these outside sources competing with that, trying to feed you additional bits of information. There's so much going on, you are likely to let one or many things fall through the cracks, structured preparation and planning allows you to clarify what matters, when it matters, and when and how it will get done, which leads into the second key benefit of structure. It conserves cognitive energy. Every decision that you don't pre-make, it drains your mental bandwidth, and this is decision fatigue in action. Without structure, you burn energy deciding what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and this creates more resistance. The feeling like you're climbing up

16:39hill to actually start working on what needs to be done. Structure protects your most valuable resources. Energy, focus, and attention. It turns your day into execution mode instead of evaluation mode. The third benefit, structure protects your attention from being hijacked. If you don't define your day, someone else will. And I have an imagination that you listening right now. You check your phone within 30 minutes of waking. Horrible. You have now just outsourced your attention to somebody on social media. You've outsourced your feeling state to that email that came in. That fire you're now aware of that needs to be put out. You've got to enforce structure to protect your energy, your time, your emotional being, and state. The moment you let the enemy

17:42of social media or email infiltrate, you lose all control. Structure serves as a filter. Not a cage. It allows you to say this can wait. This cannot. It is a direct declaration that you matter. It is validation and proof to yourself that you are important. When you put you, your needs, dreams, goals, and desires first, and block out all of that noise and negativity that surrounds you throughout the day. And that hidden underlying value of structure I alluded to is the fact that structure builds emotional stability. This is the hidden benefit nobody talks about. When you remove constant decision making, when you remove those sources of media and people competing for your attention, trying to convince you that their needs are more urgent and priority

18:45than you. When you do all of that consistently, you reduce internal friction. You reduce overwhelm. You reduce anxiety. Why? Because your brain no longer has to just figure it all out all day. Instead, it learns to trust. This is the plan. I execute the plan. That creates predictability, familiarity, and guess what? The potent recipe for a cocktail of psychological safety that your subconscious drives to create or strives to create, predictability, and familiarity are two potent parts of that recipe. Structure creates calm, confidence, momentum. To be successful in any area of your life, you need structure. And the way that I want to shift this conversation now is beginning

19:46to think about structure as really a sign, a demonstration of who you are and who you're becoming. And I give Ed my let all the credit in the world. This is where I first heard this many years ago. If I were to open up your calendar right now, I'm quickly going to be able to identify what's important to you and what's the priority versus what's not. And if listening to that sends a wave of tension or tightness throughout your body because you don't have a calendar of some sort, well, fuck, you better start keeping track of your time and managing it. I don't care if it's a Google calendar or an outlook calendar. If it's hand written in a journal or a planner, you need to be aware of how and where you're spending your time, energy, and effort. Your calendar will reflect that. And guess what? Your calendar isn't only for work. You might have a work calendar

20:46when all of your work calls and team meetings show up. You should also have a personal calendar. And I'm not one to advocate for multiple calendars. Let's keep it simple. So put it all on the same calendar. When are you going to the gym? When are you practicing golf? When are you learning? When are you spending time with your significant other and your children? When are you completely shut off from work? When are you vacationing? When are you enjoying your social life? All of this should be on your calendar. Your calendar is a direct reflection of who you are and who you're becoming. What is and isn't a priority? Your calendar encompasses structure, time blocking and time management. Your morning and evening routines. Everything I mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, your calendar embodies all of that. And one of my favorite lines from Alex Tormosi on the theme or topic of structure is just specific to what I shared. Your calendar is a better measure of your wealth than your bank account. And then he also goes on to say,

21:49if it's not scheduled, it's emotional. And if it's emotional, it's inconsistent. If you're relying on how you feel to determine how you show up, you've already lost control of your performance. Structure strengthens effectiveness and speeds up efficiency. So we need to begin putting structure in action. So what does that mean? What does that look like? Well, the big action stuff I want you to walk away with from today's conversation is choosing one specific area of your life to begin putting structure in place. It could be the first 60 minutes of your day, the last 60 minutes of your day. The intention and clarity you bring to your practice plan on the golf course to your diet, to your exercise, to your marriage, to your parenting. Choose one area to latch on to for the remainder of this conversation so you can begin filtering the information and the thought

22:53prompts I share with you to this particular topic. What's a priority for you in that particular domain? What's the priority in your marriage, in your business, in your golf game, in your parenting, your relationship with your son or daughter? When you start to get clear on what the priority is, how then, part two, you want to feel in that area of your life. You begin to set the stage for an opportunity to build structure because now you can get really clear on what actions help you feel the way you desire to feel. And then in contrast to that, what actions do not help you feel that way, help you feel something you would prefer to avoid feeling. So this is where you're getting really clear on what you need to be doing so you can structure around this versus what you should not or cannot afford to be doing. And we can structure around this by blocking it or making it incredibly difficult to engage in those behaviors. Essentially, you're beginning to

23:54create your standards, your expectations. What you are willing to do versus unwilling to do, what you are willing to tolerate versus what you're unwilling to tolerate. And we've got to get granular now. When you've outlined, I'm going to go through an example in a moment, don't worry. But when you're clear on what's the priority, what you need to do, what you need to avoid, what you will do, what you won't do, what we need to start seeing where and how that begins to fall in the calendar. Is there a structure of a weekly date night and an evening ritual of connection in your marriage? Is there a structure of planning the week every Sunday and then planning tomorrow today is the last task you do in your business before you shut off and spend the remainder of your time with family, yourself, whatever that may be. But we then need to start getting clear on the blocks of time. You're allocated to doing the actions and taking the steps necessary to achieve that goal and priority in your chosen domain of life.

24:55So that was a lot. Let's talk about a very simple, relatable example. You have a goal of losing weight. And the reason you've struggled to achieve and sustain this goal in the past is your goal has been misinformed. You don't really have a desired number on the scale you want to weigh. Underneath that is a collection of feelings. You want to feel confident, strong, fit, healthy, sexy, lean, whatever it may be, energized. That's what you're really after. So when you can really get to the crux of what it is you're after, name the handful of feelings or emotions, you can begin to put structure in place. Okay. What action steps help me feel that way? What needs to be done to help me feel that way? What do I need to avoid? Well, you might know that you need to either meal prep a couple times a week or you need to hire meal delivery to ensure that you have pre-portioned, nutritious meals, sources of premium fuel readily

26:02available for you. And when you do this a couple of things happen. You've now structured by choosing one of these routes, you know, the healthy foods you're going to prioritize eating the apportions ahead of time are already structured. So for here you're eliminating future decision fatigue. And by doing this too, you're preventing a situation in which you are tired, exhausted, angry, sad, stressed, overwhelmed and letting one of those feelings be the version of you that opens the fridge or pantry to make the decision about what's to eat. When that inevitably happens, because you're an emotional being, well, you're going to have the pre-prepared, cooked meal or the meal delivery meal that just needs to be heated before being eaten readily and you can circumnavigate that emotion that was trying to hijack the steering wheel of your day and get you off track. So you've suddenly through this process gotten clear on how you want to feel, what you need to do, what you cannot do, you need to avoid to achieve those feelings. And we can

27:04ripple this into your golf plan. You know you want to golf twice a week or rather two practice rounds a week for 60 minutes. You know that in the month of April, you need to focus on wedges or short game. You got to put the actual drills, the allotted time, what makes the drill a success as it pass, fail or repetitions. You need to know all of that ahead of time. So you can show up at the golf course for your allotted 60 minutes, do 20 minutes of this, 20 minutes of that, 10 minutes of that, and 10 minutes of this. And all of this comes through reflection. The same now tying it back to the diet, you've chosen what to eat either through the meal prep company or preparing ahead of time. You've prepped it, you've portioned it, it becomes as simple as heat and eat. On the golf course, it's as simple as show up, execute, follow the plan, simple, eliminating decisions, eliminating emotional and even mental interference. Because if you're relying again on how you feel to determine how you show up, you've already lost control of your performance. Structure

28:09gives you the guiding set of principles, removes in the moment decision making, removes the need to let an emotion take over an influence which destination you get to. Structure sets you up for success. Structure strengthens effectiveness, speeds up efficiency and you need structure in every area of your life you wish to be successful. And one of the frameworks, as I begin to wrap up this conversation, that has helped me not get lost in the weeds of applying structure to every nook and cranny of my life is creating big buckets of structure. So what do I mean by that? And bucket number one is all things diet and exercise. This is health. This is self-care. This is, you know, personal well-being energy. I'm going to use the word health again. So having some structure around my diet and exercise, like that is one big bucket of structure.

29:13Number two, the second bucket of structure for me is the working on myself, the mindset, the continued education, the learning basically in this bucket. I'm very clear on when and how often I'm investing in myself. I am learning and I'm working on myself. So I think a better name for the first bucket is actually just the bucket of self-care. The bucket of number two is the bucket of self-development. So I know I went back and forth. Let me clarify. Bucket one, self-care, diet, exercise, sleep, stress management. This can be the son of the cold plunge bucket two is self-development. This is the learning, the courses, the coaching, the meditating, the journaling. Step three then is the bucket of work, professional life. What does that bucket look like? What are the structures you have in place within the structure of your professional life, your work, your career? Bucket number four is your, are your most important relationships? Yes, we can get more granular here and go your marriage. You're with your children, with your family, with your best

30:15friends, your social community. And then the next bucket would then be your bucket of finances. And you might have a separate bucket of professional versus personal finances, depending if you work for yourself or what your unique setup is. But I have found having these five bigger buckets makes it much more digestible. And when I'm very clear on what my overarching goal is for this season of life in each of those five buckets, then I can break them down a little smaller. So for example, I have a structure of diet, a structure of exercise, or a structure in my relationship, a structure in my time with my son. It allows me to take a big bite to it, get clear on the structures, take another bite a little bit deeper. Okay, it's like the micro structures within the structure, the systems, the routines, the rituals that allow that structure to exist that allow that structure to thrive. And if you had the over chosen for how many times I would say structure more or less than a hundred a single podcast conversation, I think we hit it.

31:18I think we hit it or we are damn near close. But I'll leave you with this structure makes everything better. Structure expedites your results. And candidly, I'm biased, but I'm a big believer in it. Anybody serious about being the best version of themselves has structure more importantly has a coach in their corner to eliminate second guessing and to hold them accountable to ensure they show up and execute when they don't feel like it. So whatever domain of your life you are committed to thriving it. Coaching accelerates time collapses your journey to achieving result and being the best you and structure is the foundation of which the best you and your success is built on. So there you have it. I hope you found today's conversation thought provoking,

32:21inspiration and valuable. And I just asked that you share this conversation with somebody you know will find value. I asked that you take 30 seconds to leave a genuine rating, review, out and apple podcast on Spotify wherever you're listening to today's show. And if structure or the lack thereof continues to be the main culprit getting in your way from becoming the best version of you reaching your potential. Let's have a conversation. Use the link in the show notes to apply for one-on-one mindset and performance coaching and we'll build a structure that's unique and sustainable to you to allow you to thrive and achieve your potential. Start the week strong, make today great and I'll catch you in Thursday's episode.