The Prefrontal Protocol: Daily Practices That Actually Change Your Life

In today’s episode of the Default to Yes™ Podcast, we’re looking at the real purpose of morning routines, evening reviews, and journaling—and why these practices are not about “me time” or aesthetic ritual.

They are the foundation of what I call The Prefrontal Protocol: a daily rhythm that trains your brain to operate from clarity, calling, and intention rather than reactivity or overwhelm. These simple practices aren’t luxuries—they’re the training ground for capacity, resilience, and the ability to show up as the woman you want to be.

We explore the difference between capability and capacity, and why you may be fully capable of living your purpose but still lacking the capacity to sustain it. The good news? Capacity is grown. Cultivated. Built daily—and your routines are where it begins.

You’ll learn how morning regulation sets your mind “on things above” (Colossians 3:2), how evening reflection integrates insight and releases emotional residue, and how journaling helps you seek first the Kingdom by aligning your thoughts, identity, and energy with what matters most (Matthew 6:33).

If you're ready to move out of survival mode and into intentional, spirit-led, neuroscience-backed living, this episode will give you a framework to begin today.

✨ In This Episode, We Cover:

• Why morning routines and evening reviews matter more than ever
• The Prefrontal Protocol: how simple habits activate your higher brain
• The difference between capability and capacity—and how to grow both
• Why these practices are not about “self-care” but self-leadership
• How scripture aligns with neuroscience in building daily intention
• How journaling separates truth from mental noise
• Why these rhythms help you know when to rest
• How these daily decisions help you Default to Yes in your calling, identity, and character

✨ Scripture Referenced

• Colossians 3:2 — “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”
• Matthew 6:33 — “Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness…”

✨ Takeaways

• Your routines are neurological tools, not hobbies.
• Capacity is trained through rhythm, not intensity.
• Evening reflection is what frees tomorrow from yesterday’s noise.
• Journaling builds clarity, identity, and emotional regulation.
• You don’t have to wonder when to rest—your rhythms will tell you.
• When you consistently activate the prefrontal cortex, you consistently Default to Yes.

If this episo

Transcript

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Today we're digging into the heart of what makes this entire philosophy come alive in real and daily life, The practice that I talk about a lot here, morning rituals and evening reviews, journaling, all the different practices that we talk about in coaching, what really brings us all together and makes them come alive, makes them work for us. And I'm gonna get into that. Before you roll your eyes or picture a Pinterest perfect ritual with candles and artisan tea, and three hours of silence, let me ground this for you. These rhythms are not about me time. They're not a reward. They're not a luxury. They're not something that you squeeze into life when it feels convenient. They're the training ground for the kind of person who wakes up every day and defaults to yes to their extraordinary self. They're the scaffolding that allows you to repeatedly summon the best version of yourself, even on the days when that feels so far away. let's dive into some of our daily practices that we all kind of know. They're a good idea, but do we do them consistently? And maybe we don't do them consistently because we haven't really pulled it together for why we're doing it, or we haven't seen the benefits, or it just feels like one more thing to do. The morning routine is not really the point. And the evening review, it's also not the point, the journal, it's not the point. Who you become because of them. That's the point. So we're gonna walk through why it matters so deeply and how we incorporate this in a way that it doesn't feel like so much of a to-do list. routines are not about ritual. They're really about regulation. I use the word ritual. I use the word routines. Routines are what happens when you design a ritual. So I design a ritual to make it novel and to introduce some new elements to give it meaning, and really ground myself in that practice. And then once it becomes really just something that I do, I tend to call it more of a routine, but it's really about regulation in the coaching world. in the wellness world, mornings and evenings are often framed as self-care moments. They're sweet lovely and soft like me time, but I want to talk about it differently, with some clarity. Your routines are more neurological interventions. I feel like this is a way that we can think about it so that we start to see the purpose of it and don't feel so maybe. Self-indulgent, which I'm not sure there's anything wrong with that thinking, but. They're simple, repeatable practices that shift your brain out of reactivity and into intentionality, and that is really what we want, right? It's why we would even consider getting up a little early to do some things that we know are good for us. Your morning routine activates that prefrontal cortex the part of your brain That can plan decide create, solve, and choose. That's your higher brain. your evening review quiets the amygdala. It allows you to release the tension from the day, the amygdala is that part of that tends to panic. It spirals, overreacts talks you out of your potential. And we are, we are, dealing with that all day long. And this is why I call the, we call the the prefrontal protocol because it's strategy not a vibe, it's really science-backed, self-leadership. The goal is not to check off a box. The goal is to build a nervous system that supports the life that you want. This is why this is a practice. It's a daily practice because Life throws us different things, and some of those things are not things that we are prepared for and some of them trigger things that we didn't know are even there in our background, in our conditioning. So why this matters for defaulting to yes, because defaulting to yes to your extraordinary self doesn't mean saying yes to everyone and everything. It means saying yes to your calling, to your clarity, to commitments, to your character. it means choosing the activities that align with who you want to be rather than how you feel in the moment. It allows you to take opportunities that come across your path without worrying about if you're capable Or overthinking the opportunity, or fearing failure. here's the truth, you are already capable, but your capacity, is built, trained, and cultivated every day. so these routines are what turns capability into capacity. And those things are different. Let's talk about that a little bit. Capability is what you can do, and you are very capable. There's probably not a whole lot that you can't do or can't learn to do. Capacity is what you can do consistently. Capacity is where the indicator lights for me tend to go off or have been going off lately. Where I get anxious or feel anxious feelings and capacity is those indicator lights that tell us to slow down or reevaluate the things we are doing now. Capability is talent intelligence and experience. Capacity is resilience and structure and follow through. your morning routine doesn't just make you more capable. It makes you more steady, more grounded, more intentional, and more ready to live from your higher brain instead of your amygdala. It increases your capacity. And your evening review doesn't change what you already know. It changes what you notice, So you can use your day instead of just living through it. You can grow that capacity. Capacity is how you transform potential into purpose. So you can notice the things that happened and you can evaluate the things that happened in your response to it, and you can decide how you would really want to decide. You could notice the thoughts that you thought and where you maybe thought something that you can't believe. That's a whole nother distinction that we make in coaching over and over again, is that we can't really believe everything that we think, and most of our actions come out of what we think, and they're not always aligned with what we believe. Alright. That sounds like we're getting in the weeds because maybe we are, but that's what coaching is for. That's what coaching and serious journaling is all about, is sorting all of that. I'd love to go on that journey with you Schedule a call with me and we will do a little bit of discovery and you can feel what that's like and maybe you'd wanna join the Yes society and really make this part of your capacity building so that you can summon on a regular basis the best of you now. I am a person of faith and so my faith has been teaching me a lot lately and for thousands of years we have scriptures that point us in these directions. And if you notice, we have verses in scripture, like set your mind on things above and not unearthly things. This points us to something beyond us. so that we can get out of our own heads and really decide using that preferential protocol, we can decide who we want to be, what kind of thoughts we want to think, what we don't want, what the thoughts we don't wanna think. this is morning work. Setting your mind, directing your focus, and choosing what gets your attention before the world chooses it for you. Jesus said in Matthew, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. this is something whether you're a Christian or not. The principle applies. I know that I wanna seek first the kingdom. But I don't always live that out. Sometimes my amygdala kicks in and I'm pursuing something else. I've had to evaluate some of that where I let people dictate some of the things that I'm thinking or some of the things I, and that that follows with emotions and behaviors. And then pretty soon I am behaving in a way or, going along with something or I'm not really seeking first the kingdom. I've got my eyes on something else. So that's both a priority and a posture. It's a lens, it's a filter. It's a command that aligns our inner world before we try to navigate the outer one. But that's what any of our intentions would be. So when you write down in the morning what your intention is for the day. It's deciding ahead of time what priorities, you value, and bringing those to the forefront so that you can live. A day aligned with those things that are really important to you. your routines are the practical expression of these truths, and these are how you set your mind and they're how you seek first. They are how you build a life from the inside out, not from the outside in. Now let's talk about the morning protocol, because the morning is when you calibrate. if you're not a morning person, I'm not talking about getting up hours earlier. This could be a 10 minute. Ritual or routine. It could be five minutes. It could be at you, make it what you wanna be, and I've gotta guide if that helps, so that you can just get some ideas and customize. But basically you're doing that on your own time. you make it what works for you and do what you will actually do. There's no rules to it. This is your protocol. this is where you breathe before the rush. You anchor your focus. You read or meditate on some truth. you can do that in the car. You could listen to something and do a little bit of focus on that in the car, on your way to work. Regulate your nervous system, taking some deep breaths while your coffee is brewing. Choose your identity for the day. You're getting ready, doing your hair and makeup, and looking at your face. remind yourself of those values. And this is where you might wanna even just stick a note on your mirror to remind you that doesn't take any extra time in the morning either. That's where you can cut the time. If you're not somebody who has a lot of time in the morning, I guarantee you that once you start doing this and it starts working for you, it'll become more valuable and you'll want to get up a little bit earlier. establish the non-negotiables that matter, whatever that means to you. That looks different for all of us, right? And you do this before your amygdala has a chance to hijack your day with urgency, anxiety, distraction, workplace chaos, personality clashes, all of the things that come at you during the day. You've already set your intention and you have a little bit more capacity to stay on track. This is how you build the capacity to show up with clarity instead of chaos. Now the evening review evenings are when you integrate. your wins and you really take the things that you've learned and noticed about your day and make them part of your observation. What worked today, what challenged you? What did you learn about yourself? What needs attention for tomorrow, what needs to be released tonight? All of those things will help your brain then navigate the next day so that you don't go in and react the same way to the same things over and over again. Took me a lot of years in the workplace to learn this, and I will say that I still have reactionary times where I have to pull myself back, but I have the tools now to do that and do it quickly. When you don't review your day, you drag that emotional residue of today into tomorrow, you'll notice that when you talk to somebody they're already stressed today because yesterday was crazy. When you do the review, you wake up clear and not cluttered. You're able to let that stuff go or you know what you're working on. The evening review is also a time when you can notice those things so they don't turn into shame or guilt without you even noticing it. And the evening review is really just a gift to the future you. It's a promise that you won't have to sort through yesterday's noise before you start today. So when I talk about journaling there are no rules about journaling. You don't have to have a beautiful bound book. this can be on loose leaf paper, on your notes in your phone. It can be an audio, you can speak it, you can write it on a napkin, put it in a regular notebook You can throw it away, you can keep it. Journaling is not a diary. It's a neurological tool. It moves the clutter out of your head and then onto paper where you can observe it. There's something really, powerful about the brain to the hand, to the paper, and that practice of separating truth from story, fact from fear, identity from impulse, and calling from conditioning, and that is powerful. This is what we do in coaching. Any external processing that you do is going to separate these things and make distinctions. It sharpens your awareness and increases your emotional regulation, and it gives that mental space to choose the best version of yourself again and again. And I'll say again and again and again because this is a lifelong journey. I don't think we ever get done with this work, but when we make it our own and make it something that we do, it is amazing and it's really starts to get to be a lot of fun. here's the beautiful part. When you're living from the prefrontal cortex, from clarity and truth, from grounded leadership, you don't have to guess when it's time to rest. We have this conversation a lot about when you get going and you get tired, and then people wanna take a day off or a mental health day or just stop Just do nothing. This is also when we end up vegging on the couch or taking in Netflix when we didn't mean to. Now, if you wanna spend a day binging on Netflix, choose it Think I talked about this before as I spent a whole afternoon reading a book that I really enjoyed It would've been great had I decided ahead of time, but I hadn't decided. That isn't what I planned to do. It's what my default mode did. My amygdala, I was just reacting. And so I just sat down and I started reading and I was enjoying it, but it wasn't how I meant to spend my day. So I didn't get the things that I had committed to done. And to tell you the truth I don't even remember what they were. when you do that over and over again, the consequences are, that you stop trusting yourself. And that's where we need to go, is to just train our brains to be able to trust that. So again, you don't have to guess when it's time to rest, because it's always. in the rhythm. It's already in the capacity that you're cultivating. Your body will tell you, your spirit will tell you. Your schedule will reflect it and your peace will confirm it. Rest stops being avoidance and becomes stewardship. It's something that you already plan for. So here's your invitation for the week. If you are enjoying this, please invite a friend to listen That means a lot to me. I love to know that people are listening and that is my indicator of whether this is helpful or not. that also helps you. Maybe you could have a good conversation with your friend and go on this journey together, schedule a call with me. I'd love to hear what you're putting together. Don't make your routine pretty. Make it powerful and consistent and honest. Make it yours. we get caught up in doing the perfect thing or buying the perfect planner, getting the perfect journal that is beautiful and inspiring is it leather? are the pages pretty? Do they have scriptures on them? Do they have poems in them? All of we get caught up in, in all of that. Don't make it pretty, make it powerful, consistent, honest. Make it yours. And that might. Be pretty, might turn out pretty, but it doesn't have to. Mine honestly isn't very pretty. So the morning and evenings are not about perfection. They're about presence. Do that how you will do it. They're also about creating that capacity to default to yes, not to everything, but to things that matter. To your extraordinary self. Yes to God, yes to calling future opportunities, identity, character, adventure. Yes to the life you are being invited into. you already have the capability. These practices are about growing the capacity, and that is where transformation accelerates. Alright, you stuck with me this long. I'm so proud of you for doing that. I'm honored to be on this journey with you and I can't wait to hear from you and Who you're becoming as you lean into your prefrontal protocol. I hope you will reach out and share that with me. I would love that. Until next time, get up every day and default to yes, your extraordinary self.