This is The #1 Habit That’s Holding You Back in Life | Mel Robbins' Advice in 94 Minutes

50% of men and women will not or do not look at themselves in the mirror because they do not like the person that they see. And if you can't even look yourself in the eyes in the mirror, that is a habit of self-rejection. That means you are starting your day by rejecting yourself. And that's why so many of us race out into the world and seek validation from partners and friends, because we haven't even given ourself the respect we deserve. And so I want to teach you how to bring it back home, because for those of us that look in the mirror, we see the things we don't like. This is part of your morning routine. This is the part where you stand in front of the mirror and just trash yourself. We're gonna change that using science. What I want you to do is you're gonna look yourself in the eyes, take a minute. That's not a reflection, that's a human being in the mirror, and she needs you. She is tired of Bob running, "Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop," in your head. She's working hard. She needs you to show up. And then you are gonna raise your hand, as cheesy as it sounds, and you're gonna high-five the woman you see in the mirror. That's it. Do not say a word. Do not have a mantra, because your brain isn't ready for it yet. Need motivation? You better watch a top 10 with Believe Nation.

Hey, it's Evan Carmichael, and I make these videos because you are probably the most ambitious person in your circle, but you know you're capable of more, and you get that push by surrounding yourself with the best. So today, let's learn from one of the best, Mel Robbins, and my take on her top 10 rules for success. Enjoy.

I want you to turn to the person next to you. We're gonna count backwards to 5, and then we're gonna give each other a high five, and I'll explain something. Ready? Turn to the person next to you. Yeah, I— don't, don't. Everyone's like, "Ugh." Here we go. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 4, 3, 2, 1. Okay, great. Okay, so let me tell you what's going on here. Let me tell you what's— I know we gotta wrap it up. Okay, what's going on here is never in the history of high fives have you high-fived somebody and thought, I hate you. You look terrible today. If you're in a sports team and you screw up a shot and you come back to a huddle, what do you hope your coach and your teammates say to you?

Good try.

Yeah, and if they hand you a high five to send you back in the game, what does a high five say? Good effort. Good effort, I believe in you, keep going. You know, like on and on. It is always positive. Remember how I talked about the fact that your brain is a pattern learning machine? Your brain knows the pattern of a high five. It has a lifetime of experience with them. So all the programming's here, everybody. When you stand in front of a mirror and you physically do a high five, it grabs all the neural association in your brain and it aims it at your face. Literally, it shuts down Bob, broccoli, tomato, Maria, whatever, Karen, you know, that we're saying the name is, shuts it down, 'cause you can't think something negative while you're doing this because your brain won't allow it. It's not programmed that way. It takes less than 5 days for you to be able to stare at yourself in the mirror and see a woman that you're rooting for. Your brain, every time you do it, gives you a drip of dopamine. That's why you guys laughed. It's not from the slap of the hand, it's what your brain's doing. You feel a little bit energized, don't you? That is your nervous system giving you a little jolt of energy. The 5-second rule, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and a high-five in the mirror after you brush your teeth are two free, science-backed tools that you can use to interrupt old patterns that are holding you back and to start to create new ones that will push you forward. Because that is where you're headed. We're not looking back. I want you to look forward, and I want you to quiet the noise, shut it down in your head, and listen to what's in your heart and in your gut, because that's what's meant for you. And all you have to do is wake up every day, and if yesterday blew, okay, it was whatever, we're gonna shake it off, we're gonna high-five that off. You didn't go to the gym, no problem, you're still gonna give yourself a high-five today. You didn't make that phone call you said, no problem, you still get a high-five today. Because you need to send yourself into the game of life every day knowing that you have your own back, that you believe in you. And the way that you prove that is through the actions that you take. And 30 minutes a day just for you to focus on you, to set your day up, because how you set your day up is how it ends up. You deserve that, and that's how you claim it. And trust me, you're never gonna feel like it, but I want you to do it anyway. You got it? Got it. Good. Awesome.

Rule number 2: master visualization.

If you expect to achieve your goals, if you expect to reach your potential, if you expect to have your dreams come true, what I'm about to explain to you is mission critical. You must become a master at visualization. Now, for those of you that are like, what the heck is she talking about? I did not sign up for some sort of meditation, woo-woo spiritual thing here. Don't worry, this is Mel Robbins. There's always science and research involved in everything that I talk about. So visualization is a extraordinarily powerful skill. And you may have heard of the law of attraction, you may have heard of the word visualization, you may have heard of the word manifesting. I call it, um, seeing signs. So I'm a master at seeing positive signs. I am a master of creating coincidences. I have the world's most incredible luck. You want to know why? Because I understand the science and the skill of visualization. I know that your brain, it is a gigantic detective machine. Your brain is a filter. Your brain is constantly looking for evidence, and that's good news. It's good news when you know how to use it to your advantage. Let me explain. So your brain has a system in it. Here's the technical term. It's called the reticular activating system. It is a network of neurons all up in here. And what is the job of the reticular activating system? It is a filter system. It's basically a system that allows certain information in your brain and it blocks out other information. And guess who programmed that filter? You did. And so did the people from your past. And so if you constantly feel like you're unlovable, guess what? Your reticular activating system is going through the day, and it is going to point out every single piece of evidence that confirms that negative belief that you have. If you think that people don't like you at work, the reticular activating system, the filter, it is literally going to be looking for evidence to confirm that belief all day long. This is one of the reasons why we have such a problem with politics in this country. This is why there's something called a confirmation bias. Confirmation bias means your mind loves to read things that you agree with. Because reading things that you agree with confirms your filter. Why do we have a reticular activating system? There's a really important reason why you have this. The reason why is if your brain let in everything— have you ever looked at a Facebook page? Have you noticed how many words are on a standard Facebook page? And the ad over here, and the ad over here, and the ad over here, and the ad, and the zoo seed right here, and the stuff up here, and all this over here. If your brain took in everything at equal value, your head would literally explode off your shoulders. Your brain would melt down. And so the reticular activating system protects your brain by filtering information and only letting in stuff that it agrees with. So that's the scientific reason and mandate for why you got to get busy reprogramming that thing. Because if you live like I have lived for a very long time, one of the beliefs that I had— we're going to be talking about this a lot this month— one of the beliefs that I had for a very long time is that I was a bad person, that I was not lovable, that, um, I did not deserve to be a good person, that people didn't think I was a good person. And consequently, that led me to do a lot of hurtful things to myself. It led me to do a lot of hurtful things to, uh, people that I cared about. And it, it really damaged decades of my life. And I believed it. I believed it and it drove my actions and I saw evidence everywhere. If you're gonna do a mindset reset, you've got to change what you believe about yourself. And so for those of you that had a very negative assessment of 2018 and you're feeling down about your goals already as you look at 2019, you have a very negative belief system. About yourself, and that's going to stop right now.

Rule number 3: Learn to let go.

Letting go is really, really hard. And when you are going to start a new chapter in your life, when you're going to try to launch yourself forward, it requires you to let go. And the reason why letting go of whatever it may be— a relationship, a friendship, a job, my case, the place that you lived for the 24 years. The reason why letting go is so hard is because we tend to grip very tightly to things that are familiar. And when you grip really tightly to the things that you know, it's going to be really hard. In fact, it's going to be impossible to launch yourself forward. And we grip really tightly to the things that we know, um, because It feels safe. And the truth is, change is really, really, really hard because you're holding on to things that are no longer meant for you. If this is speaking to you, I want you to write into the comments right now: what are you holding on to? Whether it's out of fear or self-doubt or overwhelm, you're just gripping so tightly. What are you holding on to that you know is no longer meant for you? I guarantee you, you're probably going to write a friendship, a job, a relationship. Uh, maybe it's a way of eating or treating your body. Maybe it's a way of thinking that you're holding on to. Maybe you're just gripping tightly to staying stressed and tense and in a state of fear. You can hold on to a way of thinking and that can keep you stuck for decades. I wanted to bring this up because I have been thinking a lot about this idea of gripping and holding on, and I think if you've, if you've followed me for a while You've probably heard me say that you are one decision away from a different life, better life, a life that is full of more joy, full of happiness, full of you feeling connected and alive and just engaged in your life again. Just one decision away. And the first decision that will change everything is to let go, to stop gripping, and to find the confidence and the courage and the clarity to let go of what's no longer serving you and to turn yourself toward what you truly want in your life.

Rule number 4: Start making changes.

Tell me, is there some project or some area of your life or a business or a goal or some change that you want to make that you feel like you think about all the time, but you just can't seem to push through all of that thinking, or push through the fatigue, or the overwhelm, or how do I get started, right? You can't seem to just push through. Is there some area of your life where you feel that way? If so, I want you to write it in the comments. Okay, I see, I want to work with animals. I see somebody going, oh my gosh, I keep thinking about doing a TikTok account. Oh, I want to get control of my addiction. Oh, I want to launch a business. Oh, I really want to get a degree, but I feel like it's too late. Um, and you may be telling yourself, uh, that, uh, things just feel like it's too late. Mel, like, I, I got a divorce and now it feels like my life is Frozen, I see some of you saying. I feel like ever since I got the divorce, or the pandemic hit, or I lost the job, or I took the wrong job, or I moved to the wrong place, or I realized that I wanted to start this thing and I started it, but now it's stalled out and I'm embarrassed to keep starting. I want to finish my PhD. I want to be persistent with the gym. I want to get back to creating art. I see all this stuff that y'all are writing down. It's beautiful. I see so many of you saying that you have a little side hustle and you know that you want to turn your attention towards it, but you just can't seem to literally push through whatever it is, the fear, the overwhelm, the busyness of your life, to laser focus on what really matters to you. And I think that's why it's so painful. Because you're not going to stop really wanting and longing for those things that you keep thinking about, everybody. They're going to linger for the rest of your life. You're going to have to at some point make a decision that it is important enough to you to make changes so that the thing that you want to see happen, or the life that you don't want to miss out on, or the degree that you always longed to get, or the way that you want to feel in your body, or the energy. For me, a big theme, uh, recently has been about loneliness. I am so lonely in my personal life because of the pandemic, because our kids have launched, because we're moving to Vermont, because I'm always working. Like, I can see very clearly that I have tried to solve loneliness in my personal life by working all the time, and that's not the right solution for loneliness. And so I even see all this. And so I'm glad that you can see an area of your life where you feel this friction and tension because you know that you want to focus more time and energy there. But there's so much resistance and there's so much friction and there's so much else going on that it is robbing you of the ability to push forward toward the life that you really want to be living. And look, it's not going to happen overnight, but so let me tell you, let me tell you this sentence, this truth about life that I truly love, that, that always kicks me in the rear end, honestly. And here it is: no one is coming. That's it. No one's coming. No one is going to come into your life and do the work for you. No one is going to come into your life and, uh, just remove your problems. No one is going to come into your life and, uh, make your dreams come true. When it comes to the changes that you want to make, when it comes to the things that you long for in your heart, when it comes to the music that you want to put out into the world, or the TikTok account that you wanna create, or the degree that you wanna get, or the life you wanna build after divorce, or after your partner dies, or after, you know, you change jobs, or after the kids launch. When it comes to those things that you deeply long for, deserve, and desire, no one's coming. You are not too late. If you're breathing, you're watching this video, You have plenty of time to create a life that makes you happy, to create a life that is full of meaning for you, whatever that means. You have plenty of time to take control, to heal. It is so important for you to hear that, that you have plenty of time, but no one's coming. At some point, you have to make a decision. And you'll often hear me say you're one decision away from a different life, a better life. But you have to make the decision. No one's coming to make the decision for you. You have to decide that you are done feeling beaten up. You're done feeling lost. You're done feeling stuck. You're done feeling isolated. That all that crap that you've been enduring, you're freaking done. You have to decide that.

Also, to make sure you're actually taking action after watching this video, I've designed a special free worksheet just for this video. The worksheet will highlight all the lessons learned in this video, as well as pull out our 3 favorite learnings and quotes that will inspire you to actually do something. The worksheet will also give you space to write down what your key takeaways are and your specific plan of action to make sure you're getting results. If you want the worksheet designed specifically for this video absolutely for free. There's a link in the description below. Go click on it and start building the momentum in your life and your business. I'll see you there. Rule number 5: Prioritize happiness.

When's the last time you felt excited because you were up to something that was either cool or it was new Or it was exciting. You know, I think about times in my life when I was up to something. It's like those moments of anticipation. I was applying to college or I was applying to law school, or I was making a decision that I was going to leave a job that I didn't like. Or even after a breakup, you know, where you're newly single and you feel like, whoa, Oh, I love how many of you are saying right now. Right now, I feel like I'm up to something. Right now, you know, I feel like I could be a part of something. Or maybe for many of you who are saying, I don't feel that way, Mel. I'm feeling like my life is pretty stagnant. It was a long time ago. I can't remember when. I want to have you imagine something. Imagine how energizing and exciting it would be to wake up every day and feel like you're a part of something really cool. Imagine if you made a decision that starting literally today, you were gonna be up to something. You were going to push yourself. You know, it makes me kind of sad, everybody, how many of you are sitting there saying, I can't even remember. I've lost my direction. And I want to tell you something. If you feel lost, if you feel stuck, if you feel like it has been way too long since you've had something that you've looked forward to, I, um, I want to tell you something. You deserve— you deserve to have that energy back in your life. You deserve to get the push that you need. Because yet last night was a reminder of something. You know, it's so easy. And I know that I can fall into this, too. It's so easy to kind of get stuck in your rut, especially after working from home for 2 years, especially after coming through the pandemic, especially after being in this routine of isolation and feeling like nothing is ever going to change. Last night, for me, being in New York City and just coming down and being with friends and seeing how energizing it is to be around people that are up to something, it reminded me of this piece of research that when you hear it, it sounds kind of stupid, right? But then when you stop and think about it, it's so true. When researchers study happiness, you want to know something crazy about happy people? Happy people are just prioritizing and making time to do the little things that make them happy. And what we also know, and you know this too, that when you look forward and you see things in your calendar, just this weekend, for example, just this weekend, having something that you've planned, something that you're going to be a part of, that just having something, just out in the near future to look forward to, it gives you two bursts of energy. Two. Number one, the planning of it makes you think about it, right? And as you anticipate it and you anticipate what something is going to be like, you get this burst of energy. And then the doing of it makes you feel energized and excited again.

Rule number 6: Believe that you're worthy.

Who can relate to this? You feel like you're not worthy of the things that you're accomplishing, or that somehow this is luck, or somebody's like giving you a break, but you didn't earn it. God, every one of you? That blows. Really. So what you're dealing with when you have imposter syndrome is you're dealing with a lack of self-worth. You literally kind of see all the things working out, but you've got this annoying voice in your head that's saying, "You don't deserve this. This is luck." How many of you have that story? "This is luck, this is gonna run out, this isn't due to me." Yeah, we got to literally destroy that voice. That is from your past. And part of the reason why you have that voice, by the way, is because of racism. It's because of discrimination. It's because of childhood trauma. It's because of various experiences that you've had, where either your experiences growing up, society at large has made you feel, either overtly or in a really like gross and sort of sly way, like you don't belong. And so it is critical for you to start to punch that voice literally out of your head, and I'm gonna give you some steps to do it, okay? The second thing that's really important is that in addition to stopping down that voice, because it's not your voice, voice. That is somebody else's voice that your brain listened to and then started repeating. And the thing about your brain is that your brain is this really cool computer that learns patterns. And what I want you to understand is that patterns repeat unless you break and replace them. And if you have a pattern of thinking like what Heidi has, that says you're not worthy, you don't deserve this, luck is gonna run out, at some point the you know what's gonna hit the fan again, brace, don't count on anything, like you didn't earn this. If you got that pattern running in your head, that is a broken pattern. You're not broken. That pattern of thinking is broken. And so, the line in the sand that I wanna draw starting today is you're not allowed to listen to that garbage anymore. We are gonna go on a mission together to notice whenever it comes up, "Oh, interesting, there it is. There's that pattern. It's spinning just like a load of laundry right up there." And I'm gonna teach you, once you recognize that pattern, you're gonna use this thing that I created called the 5-second rule, you're gonna count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, because that shuts that down. And counting backwards, let's all do it together, here we go, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now notice when you counted, did you feel a little pressure right here? Yeah, that was me hypnotizing you. No, I'm just kidding. What you were feeling is by counting backwards, it's a little brain hack, that interrupts all the garbage that's here in the interior part of your brain. This is where imposter syndrome lives, everybody. This is where anxiety is, this is where self-doubt is, this is where self-criticism is, this is where it's all stored. When you notice, oh, there's that voice again, and you count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you shut it down, and then you awaken this part of your brain. This is the part of the brain that you used when you were taking the SATs. This is the part of the brain that you used when you applied for that job, when you speak up in that meeting, when you tell somebody, no, you cannot borrow my dress tonight. No. When you have boundaries, right? This is the part of the brain that gives you immediate control over what you think and do next. And so that's a really important thing.

Rule number 7: Picture a positive future.

The reason why visualization and picturing yourself succeeding and allowing yourself to feel the happiness and the pride that comes with Picturing a positive future. The reason why that's as important is, let's say Shelley does that every single day this week. Every day she wakes up, she walks for 5 minutes, and as she's walking on that treadmill, she's visualizing herself finishing a 10K in 6 months and how proud she is. Every time she does that, she is changing what's going on up here. This isn't something I made up. This is true, and it's not only true based on science, but let's think about this from a common sense perspective. If Shelley wakes up, or if you wake up every single morning, and instead of thinking about the worst case, instead of looking at your body in the mirror and going, I'm so fat, I'm so out of shape, I'll never run a 10K, this is never going to happen, why didn't I exercise last year, I hate my flabby stomach, I hate my, my big thighs, I hate how out of shape I'm, embarrassed, like I'm And if that's what you're thinking, then that is what you're allowing your brain to continue to filter the world through. If you start teaching yourself the skill of visualizing a positive outcome and feeling the pride that comes with achieving that positive goal, what happens for you right now is you start to think like the kind of person that does a 10K. If after an entire week what Shelly does is she looks in the mirror and she goes, I'm getting stronger every day. I'm really proud of myself. Even though I'm feeling flabby, I'm not saying you're flabby, Shelly, but even though I'm feeling flabby, I'm doing the work. I can do this. What happens a week from now is when she sees a registration for a 10K, the old mind that wasn't programmed correctly would go, oh, you're fat, you're out of shape, you're not prepared for that, don't sign up. But the new mind, because she's been visualizing every single day, the new mind just 7 to 10 days later is gonna go, oh, wait a minute, I'm in shape, I'm proud, I'm doing this. Why do you say that? It's gonna filter the world in a very different way because you're training it to. This is the heart of doing a mindset reset, and this is why visualization works and why it's an important step and why I'm so glad you're doing it.

Rule number 8: stop holding on to misery.

One of the things that I have to do is I have to stop holding on to misery. I've got to stop holding on to my own habit of hesitating and overthinking and feeling scared and gripping. And I'm working on it. So I want to know, what are you getting out of this? And I see— oh, I love this. I see so many of you going, Oh my God, happiness is so unfamiliar. Happiness is so unfamiliar. Trauma that you haven't released. I relate to this. Holy cow, I'm so glad that you do. I remember, um, a couple months ago I was doing a bunch of research for, um, a project that we're doing for Audible about happiness. Was one of the episodes that we were working on, and it was kind of striking to me that The research around happiness shows that folks that feel happier and are present to more joy in their life have a habit that those of us that sort of grip tightly and feel a little wound up and stressed and have a hard time relaxing don't have. And that habit that happy people have is that they make time to do things that make them feel feel happy. And when I started digging into that research, it was a little confronting because I thought, holy shit, I don't even allow myself. I'm so gripped to feeling stressed out and intense and bracing for what's next that I haven't even made it a priority to allow myself. And so becoming a happier person— again, I'm going to go back to what I said earlier in this broadcast. The first step is literally letting go. Stop gripping. Let go of what's no longer serving you because holding onto it hurts a hell of a lot more than letting go of it. And so wherever in your life you are not happy or you are just bracing or stressed or stuff isn't working, I guarantee you, you're gripping onto something, a relationship, a job, a habit, a routine, a place that you live, of a mindset. You're gripping onto something that no longer serves you, and gripping to it is going to cause you so much more pain and misery than letting go. It's really that simple. Every single ending in your life has a brand new beginning contained into it. That's it. Every single ending that you are avoiding in your life, inside that ending, there is a new beginning. I am right in the thick of this, which is why I'm talking about it.

Rule number 9: stop hesitating.

For years, hesitation kept me trapped in my head. Hesitation made me doubt myself. Hesitation kept me from, uh, taking the actions and taking the small risks that change your life. And you have a habit of hesitating. Hesitating is this little habit that we all have. And, you know, I obviously invented the 5 Second Rule, which is a tool that you can use to push through the hesitation that holds you back and to break that habit of hesitating and to replace it with an action of moving forward. But there's an area in your life where you are hesitating. You know what you want, or you at least know you don't want what you currently have. And you think a lot about what you need to do or what you could do or what you wish would happen. And all that thinking that you're doing That is the problem. You're not going to change your life. You're not going to get what you want if all you do is think about it. And I want to challenge you. I think that there is some change you want to make, something that you want to do, and you're sitting there questioning it, whether it's going back to school or launching that business or moving to a different place or breaking up with somebody or changing up your exercise program. There's something that you wanna do. And I want you to put in the comments, what's that thing that you really wanna have a breakthrough in or you wanna change, but all you do is think about it and think about it and think about it. Maybe it's your job, maybe it's your health, maybe it's your relationship. Well, I know one thing that a lot of you are hesitating on right now is jumping into this new program that I have called Launch. I'm gonna talk about it in a minute, but for those of you that are not considering Launch, that's cool. I want you to get something out of our conversation right now. But the habit of hesitating, of questioning, I think it kills more happiness, more possibility, more dreams than fear, failure, and every excuse that you have. Because it's so subtle. You see, what happens to you is that throughout your day, you are going through your day, and as you bump into people or you have experiences or you see things on social media or you're reading a book, you have this impulse or this inspiration, this moment where you're like, oh gosh, I'd really— I'd love to launch a business like that, or oh, I'd love to launch a podcast, or maybe I should write a book. Book someday, or, you know, whoa, uh, I should really get serious about that thing that I want to do. And then instead of taking a step forward, you stop and think about it. So I see Steven wants to stop smoking. I see that, um, you know, a lot of you want to launch a business or change your job or learn how to invest in real estate full-time. There's a lot that you're thinking about. But this moment of hesitation— what happens when you stop and think is you literally get trapped in your head. And the more that you think about this thing, whether it's real estate investing or launching a business or changing your health or quitting smoking or, uh, whatever it may be— maybe it's just mindset. Maybe you just wish you weren't so negative all the time. Maybe you wish you could be happier. That's something I'm working on in this chapter of my life. Learning how to allow myself to be happier. Learning how to be okay with everything that's happening and everything that's not. I mean, that would be a huge change for somebody like me who is so Type A and so hard-charging and so driven. To learn how to just be happy and okay no matter what's happening, that that would be enough. That's something I'm working on. But thinking about it, that's not going to help. So as you write down an area of your life where you're hesitating, I want to tell you the simple truth. The only thing that is going to change that relationship, that job, your financial situation, your attitude, your mental health, your friendships, your relationship with your fam— the only thing that's going to change that is action. You got to learn how to launch through the excuses, the the fear, all of that crap that's holding you back.

And rule number 10, the last one before some very special bonus clips, is do the things that matter.

Do you feel overwhelmed right now? Yes? Oh, okay, I'm not the only one that feels overwhelmed? Okay, good. I find it very comforting when I know that I'm not the only person who feels a certain way. And whether you are overwhelmed right now, because of your job or because of your health or because of what you're seeing unfold in the news or the world around you, or whether you're overwhelmed because you just have so much on your plate, you feel like you are standing underneath an avalanche. I hate that I see so many hearts going because that's a terrible place to be. I want to share a surprisingly simple thing that you can do in order to deal with overwhelm. And the reason why I say that this is surprising is because whenever you feel overwhelmed, isn't it true that the last thing that you want to do is take on anything else? You're sort of like, I can't do one more thing. I barely have time to go to the bathroom, I'm so overwhelmed. And that's why what I'm about to recommend is incredibly surprising, because this is going to seem like it's super counterintuitive as a solution based on research and based on, for sure, my personal experience as a solution to moments in time where you feel overwhelmed by life or by the world. Or by what you're facing. Now, what is that surprisingly simple solution as a way to deal with overwhelm? Well, the surprisingly simple solution is to take on a simple little challenge that you're gonna take on every day. You're gonna take on something that, uh, aligns with growth and change. It pushes you forward, and it gives you something to look forward to every day. Because part of the reason why overwhelm is so debilitating is because when you're overwhelmed, your focus is scattered across absolutely everything, and you're thinking about your family and your health and the news and the this and the that and the prison presentation and the emails you didn't do. And at the end of the day, each and every one of those things is not really that important. There's probably— can we agree— 1, 2, or 3 things a day that really matter, that really need your attention. And the reason why we get so freaking overwhelmed with life is we allow our attention to get scattered and to get pulled in a bazillion different directions. And the solution to feeling more in control and to literally dealing with overwhelm, which is just an overwhelming amount of things that really, most of which are not that important to you, but they're just distracting you, which then pulls your attention away from what really matters. You see, I'd rather have you do 2 or 3 things a day that really matter to you and let the rest just kind of fall where they fall, right? And so the surprisingly simple way to deal with overwhelm is to pick one thing that you're going to focus on every day for you. Like, no matter what, you're going to do this thing. You're going to add a little structure. You're going to add something that you're committing to as a way to laser your focus on something that's in your control. It's absolutely awesome how this works. This one is like really important. You need to do the work, okay? You got to do the work because it's only through your actions that you will accomplish what you want. Let's say that you've always wanted to climb a particular mountain, okay? There's a mountain called Haystack. It's not even that tall, so I should probably pick a bigger one, but let's just call it Haystack Mountain. You've always wanted to climb Haystack Mountain. You pull up to Haystack Mountain and you get out of the car, you park at the, you know, National Forest parking lot, and you make the mistake of looking up at the mountain, which is the end goal, right? And you notice it's up in the clouds. And then you start to think, oh my God, that's a really far way away, you know. I don't really know how I feel about doing this anymore because that looks like it's going to take a really long time. And then all of a sudden it starts to rain and you go, I don't think I want to do this because I don't think I feel like doing this. And next thing you know, you are back in the car driving back down the road to that little diner that you saw. And instead of climbing the mountain that you've always dreamt of climbing, you've now come up with an excuse and you have abandoned ship. You now have literally become your own obstacle. You talked yourself out of it. You started to doubt yourself. You told yourself you weren't ready and that you didn't feel like it. You pull the ripcord, you're out of there. In order to have what you want in life, you must stop staring at the top of that mountain. You must stop creating excuses for why you can't or don't feel like it, and you must put your head down and look at the first step in front of you, and then you must take the action. And start walking toward what you want. And it'll be a hell of a lot easier for you to do that if you have also been putting in the time every day consistently to not only see yourself walking up that trail step by step, but that you have felt yourself pushing through the resistance, the fear, the obstacles, the bull— the excuses that are stopping you now, and feel proud in every fiber of your being as you push through those obstacles and see yourself and feel yourself doing the work. That's how you manifest properly. And if you do that before you pull into the national park parking lot, if you look up at that mountain and you see clouds and it starts raining, it won't matter because you've already rehearsed this moment in your mind, body, and spirit. And you, my friend, hand will start walking up that trail, and you're going to be proud. That's how you use manifesting to get what you want. That's how you leverage all the science and research to train and prepare your mind, body, and spirit to help you get what you want. And that's how you hack the motivation and inspiration that you need to take the actions that get you everything that you want and deserve in And one of the things that will help you to do the work to create the things that you want in your life is it will help you if you train your mind to start spotting evidence as you're doing the work, as you're going through your day. It will help you if you train your mind to start scanning the world and spotting evidence that yes, Indeed, the world is sending you positive signals that things are gonna work out. Now, why is it important to train your mind to help you get what you want? Well, the reason why is because if you get into a negative mindset, if you start thinking this business is never gonna work, why even bother, I'm never gonna meet anybody, it's nothing but losers out there, look at all these idiots on hand Why the hell should I keep doing this? If you allow your mind to start to rest in a pessimistic, negative, protective, scared, and doubtful stance, your mind will continue to show you reasons why there's nobody on Hinge worth talking to. Your mind will continue to show you all the reasons why you will never make it in business. Your mind will continue to show you all the more reasons why you're never going to lose that weight and be able to tuck in your shirt, as my friend Corinne Crabtree always talks about, that transformational moment. And when your mind goes negative, your mind starts to scan the world and will show you more reasons to stop. And the power of training your mind to spot positive signs is very simple. The power is that your mind will start to show you reasons to keep going. Your mind will help you take the step. Your mind will encourage you to feel optimistic, to feel empowered. Just like you woke up today on a Tuesday and it was February 22nd, 2022, and those numbers are lining up and that makes you in your heart and soul go, whoa, something cool could happen today. Like that only happens like once in my lifetime. Those numbers are going to line up like that today. Is a really cool day. Let's go do something with this. You could create that kind of attitude every single freaking day of your life. You could if you train your mind and if you start taking action. And training your mind is the key piece that we're going to talk about. So for those of you that have read The High Five Habit, one of the things that I talk about a lot is every single day find a naturally occurring heart-shaped object in the world. It could be a stone, it could be a leaf, it could be a cloud, it could be a shape in your coffee. Hey Chris, if we've got anything around here that looks like a heart, hand it to me. And the reason why I love telling you to start playing a game with yourself where you start your day going, mind, brain, show me some heart— oh, what is this? Come here. Dog treat. Oh my God, it's a dog treat! Look at this, guys. What shape is that? That right there is a heart. There we go. Check that out. If you say, brain, mind, show me a fucking heart today, guess what's gonna happen? That damn dog biscuit, it's gonna show— it's gonna— you're gonna be like, there's a heart. You're gonna look out at the sky and you're gonna see a heart shape. Oh, right there in the mountains, there's a heart shape in the mountains in Southern in Vermont. You're going to see it in the clouds. What you're doing when you tell your mind what's important to you is you're telling your mind and the filter in your brain to change in real time and allow into your consciousness what's important to you. And if you want to see hearts, by God, those damn dog treats are going to start looking like hearts, everybody. That's how you train your mind. It's freaking incredible. And if you want to see evidence of this, follow me on social media. If you follow me, Mel Robbins, on social media, you will see every day I am reposting your stories of finding heart shapes around the world. Now, why is this important? Well, it's important because it's a simple way to prove to you that your mind changes in real time, that if you get serious about becoming more positive and optimistic and encouraging of yourself, if you get serious about about saying, fuck this, I don't want to see all the reasons why I'm unhappy. I don't want to see everybody else in the world that's launched a business or that's lost weight and is healthy or that has a really good marriage or relationship. And I don't want to see that and have my mind process it as evidence that it's never going to happen for me. I want my mind to reprogram itself and see other people's businesses and see other people getting healthy and see other people in relationships. And I want my mind to say, yeah, if they can do it, I can do it. That's evidence. If that person can get healthy, so can I. If that person can find somebody on Hinge, so can I. If that person can reconcile with their child, so can I. Other people can become evidence that you can have it too. Right now, your mind is so fucked up from your past that when you see what other people have and you don't have it, you can't actually translate it through a negative mind and see that that's evidence that you're gonna win. You see it like, oh, somebody already stole what I wanted. That sucks. And so what I want to start to open your mind to is that you have the power to train your mind to filter the world differently. Just like you woke up and you saw the date today, 2/22/22, and your brain saw that and was like, Whoa, this is a once-in-a-lifetime day, everybody. You are never going to have another day that lines up like this, ever. What are you going to do with this day? Your mind already interpreted this as, wow, something cool could happen. And if you tell yourself something amazing is going to happen today, something will, because you're going to be looking for it. I swear to God, something will. Something will. If you want to see the good all around you, you got to tell your mind you want to see the good. And this just isn't a bunch of horseshit, everybody. This isn't toxic positivity. There is a filter in your brain called the reticular activating system. The reticular activating system, I call it the RAS. I like to think about it like a giant hairnet on your head, and this RAS sits over your brain. I'm probably getting this wrong. I'm not a neuroscientist. I could give a shit about getting it right. I just need you to know the basics here so that you can apply it to your life, okay? You don't need a PhD to use the science that super smart people have been working really hard on in order to apply it to your life. That's what I'm here for in your life. I'm here to translate this stuff into simple, believable, and actionable things that you can do to take all this super cool stuff that people are researching and apply it to your normal person's everyday life to help you change from the inside out. And one of the coolest things that you have at your disposal is you have a whole system in your body that you can train and change. And one of those things that you can train and change that is impacted by that real— that word you're hearing a lot of, neuroplasticity. That just means that things are able to twist and bend and change, and you're able to learn new things for as long as you're alive. As long as you're breathing, everybody, you got a chance to change the way that you think. As long as you are breathing, you got a chance to change from the inside out how you experience your life. As long as you are still here watching me, people, you got a chance to create a new experience in your life. And one of the things that helps a lot is understanding that right now all of the bullsh— from your past has jammed the filter in your mind, body, and spirit, the reticular activating system, and it is clouding your ability to look at the world around you and see hearts. Remember this? Dog treat, hearts. Look at that, there's a heart right there. Number 1, the secret to an optimistic mindset: you got to be maniacal about your intake. Negativity in here means negativity in your body gets stored here, and negativity comes out here. It becomes this loop of negativity. And so in order to build a positive mindset. I want you to be maniacal about positive input. That means really watch your news intake. Do not be watching it every day. Get the facts, get what you need to know from a trusted, measured, calm, factual source, and then turn that off. Okay, that's number one. Number two, edit your social media. Anything on your social media feeds should be helping you be more resilient, more optimistic, more, um, positive. Anything that you're following that triggers you, that is negative, that rubs you the wrong way. You know, one of the things that I've noticed, I have some favorite celebrities that I have followed for a while because I think they're funny or I love just kind of their sense of humor. But there are so many people that I have muted right now because I think that what they're doing online is so freaking out of whack. Seeing people give us advice about quarantining from the back of their estates and mansions, telling us to donate when they're not saying they're donating, seeing this kind of tone-deaf celebrity thing going on. I'm normally not a negative person about that, but I have muted, muted, muted so many accounts because it's not doing anything for me. And you gotta be selfish right now. You have got to edit your social media feeds so that your social media feeds are helping you build an optimistic optimistic and positive mindset. And so every day, the second I see some— mute, mute, mute, mute, unfollow, unfollow, unfollow. Because negativity in means negativity gets stored here, means negativity goes out there from you. You want to put positivity, optimism, tools, strategies, things that keep you laughing, keep things that keep you giving you things that you can use right now. The second you start getting overloaded with corona stuff, mute that stuff. Edit, edit, edit your social media based on what you need. That's number 1. Maniacal about your intake. You must visualize the steps that lead you to the thing that you want, not the end goal. This is a major mistake that people make. They manifest improperly because all they do is focus on the end goal. If you've ever made a vision board, think about what you put on the vision board. You put up just the beach house, or the million dollars in the bank, or you crossing the finish line, or you launching that business, or you having the body that you want, or you driving the Maserati. Whatever it is, the end goal is what you put up on a vision board. That That is not what you're gonna do when you manifest. If you start focusing on crossing the finish line of the marathon, that is a one-way ticket to being unmotivated and completely discouraged. In fact, research shows that if all you do is focus on the thing that you want and you just focus on that vision of you and your bikini body, or you with the love of your life on your arms, or you at the Oscars winning that award or the Grammys. What happens is because you've only focused on the end goal, you start to feel really unmotivated and discouraged because you're nowhere near it. That's where manifesting comes in, because we're not going to focus on the end goal. You got to pick something that you want in order to get started, but manifesting isn't about the end, it's about the bridge. It's about going from where you are here to where you want to go. Imagine that there is a bridge that connects where you are right here with what you dream about doing. Now, that dream could be to be a Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter. That dream might be to have a family of your own. That dream might be to have a beach house or a ski house or to take a trip to Fiji. That dream can be whatever the hell you want it to be. But when it comes to manifesting, once you've given yourself permission to dream with the lid off and really want what you want, to feel the pull of that thing, now we got to talk about the path that connects where you are with where you want to go. And this is all about visualizing the little little steps. There's a lot of research that proves why visualizing the steps is the most important thing that you could do. There was a study done at UCLA, for example, where they were researching manifestation and the power of visualization, and they broke students into two groups. And they had Group A— we're going to call these the vision board group— they had Group A close their eyes, visualize in their mind and feel in their body themselves taking the test and then walking up to a board where the test scores were posted and finding their name and seeing an A+. That's what Group A, the vision board group, were told to do, to visualize themselves achieving what they wanted. Group B, we're going to call these the hard workers. These students were coached in this research project to close their eyes and to visualize going back to their dorm room, sitting down at the desk and studying and staying up late and putting in the work, studying and preparing for the test. Tests. Now let me ask you a question. Which group do you think did better on the actual test? Was it Group A, the vision board group, who were taught to visualize and picture themselves walking up to a board and seeing the A+? Or was it Group B, the hard work group, the group that was taught to close their eyes and visualize and seeing themselves doing the work to study for the test? Well, if you answered Group A, you're wrong. If you answered Group B, you got the correct answer. The reason why Group B, the students who visualize studying for the test, got better test scores is because when you visualize yourself doing the work, visualizing it leads you to doing the work. And it's only through action that you will get the result that you want. Preparing your mind and visualizing yourself doing it lowers your resistance and leads to you taking the action. That's why manifesting works. You know, the same is true in sports. There's all kinds of research in sports psychology. In fact, our Olympic athletes for the US Olympic team, they hire sports psychologists to train our top top Olympic athletes, particularly after they've been injured, in visualizing themselves competing. When you coach an athlete to mentally rehearse every single detail about going through the competition, you are training the mind, body, and spirit to show up and dominate. This is particularly true for athletes after they've been injured and they're stepping back into competition. If you've been injured in competition, you're naturally going to feel anxious, you're naturally going to be nervous. Your brain and nervous system circuitry is now programmed with the intensity from that injury, the memory from the injury. So of course it's natural to bring that into your pre-competition feelings about it, right? So manifestation properly, remember whatever it is, manifesting is preparing your mind, body, and spirit to do the work. It's aligning your mind, body, and spirit with what you want. It removes the obstacles that would normally stop you, which then prepares and motivates you to take the actions to succeed. So in the case of athletes who visualize themselves and see themselves doing all the steps over and over, they're removing the nerves. They're removing all the programming related to the injury. They are preparing their mind, body, and spirit to go in and freaking dominate. And so are you. Do tiny things every day that boost your mood. Okay, so we're going to build your mood muscle. If you can, move your body, because negativity gets stored here. And moving your body— we know based on the research, simply moving your your body for 10 or 20 minutes a day will release chemicals in your mind that help you boost your mood. The second thing that will boost your mood is I want you to make a tiny promise to yourself every day. Just one thing that makes you feel more positive. Is it getting up on time? Is it eating something healthy? Is it only having one glass of wine or reaching for a mocktail? I want you to put one tiny promise into place. Put it into the comments right now. What's one tiny promise that you can make to yourself that you're going to do every day? It might just be that you're going to wake up every day, take a deep breath, remind yourself that you're healthy, and that's going to be the tiny promise. I want you to do one tiny promise every day because keeping a promise to yourself will boost your mood and make you feel more in control. Another way to build your mood muscle is have a zero tolerance policy for your own negative thoughts. Right now, as you edit social media and edit your news take and edit your negativity coming in from the outside world, do not tolerate negativity from the inside world. I woke up this morning, I looked in the mirror, I looked at the gray hairs that are coming in, particularly like right up here, and I started to go negative. I started to feel dreary, and I went, Mel, cut this out. You gotta fight to stay positive, gal, because we are in this for another couple months. And do not succumb to despair. Do not start thinking negative stuff. When you have negativity internally, you gotta have a zero tolerance policy for that. It's one thing to feel what you need to feel so that you can move through it. It's another thing to let negativity dwell up here and start ruminating. The 5-second rule is genius for this. Count backwards. The second I neg— 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Not listening to it. No, I am redirecting my thoughts. That's right. I am looking for the things I can control. I am keeping a positive attitude by focusing on things that I can control right now, today. I think I am, um, engaged in emotional eating right now. Uh, it is 2:22 in the afternoon. And the wheels are off today, and I know why. The reason why is because I did not stick to my normal routine. And I've noticed since I did not stick to my routine, my day has sort of slid off the rails in terms of the decisions that I'm making. Um, it's really random. Like, I had my son's chicken nuggets for lunch, and there's half an apple that I ate I have not finished the amount of water I normally drink. It is 2:23 and I made myself an ice cream sundae because, you know, why the hell not? And so as I'm sitting here enjoying my ice cream sundae, I just thought to myself, God, am I emotionally eating right now? Oh my God, this is so good. If I really unpack back what I'm feeling right now. It's raining, it's freezing, I am mentally in a creative block, and I'm gonna get this tool that we use on the Mel Robbins Show out. I call it the word wheel. So I'm going to show you the word wheel right now. Here's how you use a word wheel. The average person can only name 3 emotions: happy, sad, and angry. But our emotions are actually much deeper and more complex. And the secret to getting unstuck or untriggered or freed up in any situation is to find the words that describe what you are truly feeling. So I'm going to start with the core emotion of anger and fear and work out from there. And so as I look at the word wheel, I feel inadequate as a writer. I feel worried that I'm not gonna have a creative breakthrough. I feel helpless. The big one is I feel inadequate as a writer. Whoa, big breakthrough. So I am feeding my inadequacy with an ice cream sundae. You know what's interesting? Is simply finding the words heard that I feel inadequate as a writer, and that makes me feel afraid that the book isn't going to be good, that it's not going to be as good as I want, it's not going to do as well, it's not going to get any, um, accolades or good reviews, it's not going to make a difference in your life. As you identify the feeling— and for me it's inadequate— that sundae doesn't taste very good anymore because it wasn't a sundae that I was craving, it was assurance and comfort from this deeper feeling that I was feeling. Wow, that's powerful stuff. Really powerful stuff. So if you are at a moment where you catch yourself emotionally eating, or you just feel untethered or numb, pull out the word wheel. You can find it at melrobbins.com and I think you'll find it to be a really incredible tool that will help you locate what you're truly working through. And instead of reaching for an ice cream sundae, which honestly is gonna now tank my mood because of all the sugar and make me feel lethargic, if you can identify the word, which for me is inadequate, inferior, worried, Frustrated. You can let those feelings rise up, move through them, and then move on. 2 hours later, and let me tell you the impact of having fed my feelings. First of all, I am totally bloated. So I realize that that's not big, but you know, for me, I my stomach is just like, ugh, 'cause all that sugar and dairy that I just pounded down is now sitting here like a rock. And this is the problem with emotional eating is you get caught in this cycle where you feed these feelings and then your body starts to tank and your mood tanks and your stomach gets bloated. And so then you start to make yourself wrong and feel ashamed and feel like a bad person because you did it. So how do you stop emotional eating? And what business do I have giving any of us advice given that I just did it? Well, I'm gonna tell you what I'm gonna do tomorrow when I inevitably hit that creative block. Is emotional eating, you know that it's emotional if it comes on suddenly, if you aren't just craving something, but you are reaching for something that is a treat or that's soothing. And before I do that tomorrow, when my writer's block inevitably happens again, I will take a deep breath and I will ask myself, what am I feeling? Why am I reaching for this food? Am I hungry? Am I trying to soothe or comfort or distract myself? Because I was clearly trying to soothe and distract myself from the feelings that writer's block was bringing up. And now I need to get some Gas-X or something because I gotta distract myself from the gas pains that I have from my emotional eating. But, you know, honestly, the discomfort I'm feeling right now, that's not gonna stop me from doing it tomorrow. The only thing that will stop this pattern is spotting the pattern and using the tools that I just gave you. Identify what you're feeling, ask you why it is you're reaching for this if you're not hungry, but you're trying to soothe, distract, or reward yourself. You're feeding some feeling. Recognize the feeling, put down the ice cream, go for a walk, Choose something healthy, address the feeling, don't reach for the food. You got to be honest with yourself. If there are things about your appearance that are within your control, whether it is the shape that you're in, whether it's the health choices that you're making, whether it's how you take care of yourself in terms of self-love, and you're not taking action in those areas, the lack of action says to your brain You don't care about yourself. And so what I want you to do is pick one thing, one behavior that you could do every day. The high five's one of them. Pick another one. And I want you to practice doing it. And it's a behavior. If you think about the person that you want to become, what's that person do every day that you don't do right now? And when you start to do the thing that the person you want to become is doing, you leverage something called behavioral activation therapy. And that is a whole body of research that says when you act like the person you want to become, it's the most powerful way to change a habit. It's even better therapy than talk therapy because the action proves to your brain that you're becoming that person. You're seeing the change through the action, and so then the brain catches up and starts to relate to you like a person that's confident or a person who adores their appearance or a person that celebrates themselves exactly as they are. We moved to Vermont. I got a brand new primary care doctor, and I thought he said something really interesting. He's this great guy. He settled here because his wife's family is from Vermont, and so he's now lived here for 40 years. And at the end of my first appointment with them, he said a really interesting thing. To me. He kind of chuckled because of course I'm very entertaining and bubbly and all this stuff. And he said, it's going to be really fun to watch what happens to you. And I'm like, what doctor says that to somebody? And I said, what do you mean? And he said, well, I'll tell you, Mel, in the years that I've been practicing as a primary care doctor in southern Vermont, I have seen so many people move to Vermont They're seeking a quieter lifestyle. They're seeking a change, a new chapter. And what I find is, if you— what you're actually seeking is a safe haven and you're running away from your problems, a funny thing happens. Your problems always go with you. And when you move somewhere very quiet, the solitude just magnifies the that you were trying to get away from. And so if you're starting a new chapter because you're excited and you're reinventing yourself, that's fabulous. Still take time to complete the last chapter that you were in so you step into the new chapter with all of the wisdom and the gratitude and the learning and the growth that you gained. If you are starting a new chapter, as so many of us do, because we are running away from the old us, we're running away from a bad relationship or closing the door on something that wasn't working, you better make sure you take the time to think through and journal about this last chapter, who you've been, the habits you no longer want to repeat, the mistakes that you made, what you've learned, what you're running from, and more importantly, what changes you're going to make and how this new chapter is going to to support you in doing it and in becoming the person that you're meant to be. Without that intentional moment of reflection and without that intentional moment where you're going to list out the behaviors and thinking patterns and habits you're changing, my doctor's right, you're just going to take all that crap you're running from right into this new chapter. I wanted to make this video because I know in some area of your life you are wanting to start something, you're wanting to put yourself out there more, and you are holding yourself back. And one place that I see this playing out all the time is the fact that so many people, probably you, are self-conscious and nervous about putting videos online. You're self-conscious and nervous about talking about your business or sharing the breakthroughs that you're having, or just showing up in a bigger, bolder, more express way, because heck, it makes your life more fun when you do. And so you have this deep yearning to be doing more. And then I know exactly what happens to you. You look at the number of people that follow you. You then say, who the hell am I to say that? You then go, nobody's going to watch it anyway. And I want to share with you brand new research that blows that lame excuse, although normal excuse, right out of the water. It was published literally this month. From Ohio State University, and it proves that when it comes to video content, the video content that people find compelling has nothing to do with the number of views that it has. It has to do with the person and the message that's being communicated. To be compelling, to make an impact, to be influential— because I know everybody wants to raise their influence and their visibility and to show up in bigger ways. It is all about the message, and you're in control of that. Do you communicate with passion? Do you have conviction about what you're talking about? You could be talking about, oh, I don't know, whether you like white cords or these like black cords with this end, or whether you like this kind of end or this end, or where you like this cap, or whether you— oh, I love to drink this way because because I have a big nose, and then this way. And I'm telling you, you don't have to have this thing on. You could literally talk about anything, and if you bring passion and you bring conviction to what you're talking about, people will pay attention. That's what real influence is. It's the ability to show up in ways and have conviction and and passion about the things that you believe in, whether you're talking about a water bottle cap or you're talking about how to be healthier, happier, or more effective in your life. So enough with the excuses, enough with worrying about how many followers you have, or whether or not Aunt Sue is gonna like the video or not, or what people are gonna think. The only thing that matters is the conviction and passion that you communicate with, and of course, getting started. So based on the research, get started. Put that video out. The coolest thing about jealousy— okay, embrace it. Let me tell you why. Okay, you are only jealous of the things you authentically want. So for example, for a long time in my life, I was super— when we were struggling financially, I was super I was super fucking jealous of anybody that had a big house or was putting on an addition. And I didn't know what to do with my jealousy. So it would consume me. I tell the story in this book of going into a friend's brand new, you know, house at a time in our life where Chris's restaurants were failing and I was unemployed and we were like profoundly in debt. I was— it nearly made me self-combust in this woman's kitchen. Okay. My jealousy because I didn't know what it was. We get in the car, and what do you think I did for my poor husband? Why aren't you more successful? I should have married somebody in finance like she did. Why are we in this situation? Like, you just like aim it at people, right? Because you don't know what to do with it. Yep. My jealousy was not about a house. When I finally started to unpack it, it was about my ambition. Very good.

Yeah, very true.

And so you cannot be jealous of something you don't want. If I believe that jealousy is blocked inspiration— I've never heard that before. It is blocked by your fear. It is blocked by insecurity. It is blocked by— you have this deep inspir— like, you have this, and, and like you said it earlier, I'm really jealous of this idea, Mel. I wish I had come up with with it. You have a new book coming out. I'm not going to say what the title is, but here's what I want you to take away from it. There's something about the simplicity of the idea, right, that makes you jealous. That is what your inspiration is trying to get you to pay attention to. Very good. So I'm jealous of you. You got this show. You have the discipline to do it all the time. You, you're translating I've been sitting on my ass talking about doing a podcast for 4 years. What the old Mel would do before I understood jealousy is because it's blocked by insecurity, I would then tell myself a story. You're too late. It's already done. There's not enough room for you. If you do it, you're a copycat. All of that just blocks what you really want.

Really true.

Pay attention to your jealousy and stop and unpack it. What really is it about it? About that person? Is it their marriage? Is it the way that they're being treated? Is it how they take care of themselves? What is it about financial freedom and anybody that has it that makes you feel jealous? Really get to the core of what feels right for you and then get to work on it. You can choose what you tell yourself about a situation that's happening, but it was helpful for me when I started to understand that your emotional waves and your nervous system response happens before your thoughts appear. And so it's really important for everybody to realize you will not be able to control the fact that there will be moments when you're disappointed, moments when you feel rage, moments when you feel betrayed, moments when you feel pissed off, moments when you feel shortchanged, moments when you feel aggravated and these waves come over you. You will never be able to control those from coming up, but you can choose what you are going to tell yourself about what's happening. And the other thing is, is that when it comes to trauma, I mean, all of this is sort of dysregulation in your nervous system that's stored there that keeps getting re-triggered. And so if you're dealing with a trauma response, you will not be able to also think your way through it first. And part of what has really helped me is when I started to understand, oh, the wave of emotion and feeling comes before my brain can actually help me get back in control. And so when I started to understand that, oh, there's going to be these waves of emotion, don't resist them. Let them come. What you said, by the way, was so strong that we will celebrate other people, but we won't celebrate ourselves until we feel like we have done something. Yes, you have done something. Every single morning you've woken up and you're breathing. That's it. Like, think about what it's like to walk into a crowded room and nobody says hello to you. We've all had that experience, right, of walking into— like, think about middle school when you walk into the cafeteria and you're looking for a place to sit and nobody acknowledges you. Like, you just want to disappear in that moment. Yeah. I'm telling you, you have made yourself feel like that. And so there is this moment in the mirror where when you see yourself and you celebrate and high-five yourself, you're acknowledging your own existence because you've literally been ignoring yourself. We— you talk about these themes all the time on this show of self-love and self-confidence and self-awareness. And we've all heard that phrase, you got to put your oxygen mask on first. You got to put yourself first. Nobody knows how to do it. And you do it by fulfilling your own needs. And you can start every day doing it. You can use something called the vagus nerve. And a tool that I like to talk about is called high-fiving your heart. So you put your hands right here, right, like, in the center of your chest, over your heart, and you say these 3 words. You say, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved. I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved. And when you put your hands here, you are toning and activating what's called the vagus nerve. The vagus nerve runs all the way from your seat to the top of your head, through every major organ, through your vocal cords, and it is the It's the switch between your fight or flight state of anxiety and your calm state. And so first things first, you wanna develop a practice first thing in the morning, not only of high-fiving yourself in the mirror, which we're gonna get to, which is all about self-confidence and self-esteem and self-love and self-worth, but you're also gonna wake up every morning, put your hands right here and go, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved. You're gonna say it as many times as you have to, 113, 11 times, 2 times until you actually feel your body settle down. And you will, you will feel yourself ground back into your body. You will feel something shift. And if you can hear yourself saying those words, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved, it's true in that moment. And by putting your hands right here, this is what activates the vagus nerve. Other things that help you tone the vagus nerve: an ice pack, a hot shower, a hot bath, singing, gurgling, humming, chanting, because it stimulates your vocal cords. And so this is a little tool you can use. I love doing it first thing in the morning, but you can use it anytime you feel anxious to settle yourself back in your body. When you're a kid, your parents force you to do the things you don't want to do. Get out of bed, make the bus, eat your vegetables, be nice. Look the people in the eye, turn your homework in, don't talk back. Like all the things you need to do, right? And what is really interesting about becoming an adult is nobody tells you when you become an adult, now it's your job. Nobody is coming to save your ass. Nobody is gonna tell you to get outta bed. Nobody is going to do the work for you. Nobody's rescuing you. Nobody's discovering you. It's up to you. And here's the other piece that nobody tells you. You're never gonna feel like it. By the time you're 18, you are already stuck in your ways. You're stuck in your story about yourself. You're stuck in the habits that you have, many of which you picked up by either witnessing what your caregivers were doing or reacting and trying to survive the situation that you were in with your caregivers. So you have a whole set of patterns that you're stuck with. Your brain is designed to repeat patterns. And so now you have a choice. You either live with the patterns that you have or you spot them and you fricking break 'em and replace 'em. And this is why you're never gonna feel like doing the things that you wanna do. And you have to parent yourself because your brain will always default to its patterns. And so from this point forward, here's what you should assume. I will never feel like doing the shit I need to do ever. So stop waiting to feel like it. Stop waiting for motivation. Stop waiting for inspiration to strike you in the ass and make you get off the couch and finally take the advice that you're giving and take care of your health. Stop waiting to feel like you're gonna turn off Netflix and do the kind of evening routine cycle to make sure that you're gonna get a great night's sleep. Stop. If you want an amazing life, you're gonna have to work for it. If you wanna change, you're gonna have to break patterns. And the number one rule that is gonna help you is to assume You are never gonna feel like doing that stuff. So stop expecting it and push your fricking ass to do it. And you can use the 5-second rule, count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That'll help you break the pattern. In habit research, it's called a starting ritual that interrupts an old pattern and prompts your mind to focus on a new one. And then you move. That is the only way to change. Just like your parent was annoying, get up. The bus is coming. I don't care. You're not getting up from this table until that plate is clean. You didn't feel like it, but you did. So that tells you something. You are capable. You just don't feel like it. Here's the thing about morning routines. I think morning routine envy is a real thing. And I do believe that a lot of people lie about their morning routines. I think lying about your morning routine is a real thing. I think pretending you have the perfect morning morning routine is a real thing. I'm about— when I'm home, I'm almost 80% in my morning routine. I get it done because it's super simple.

Right.

So I mean, I think I need a simple one. Yes. And when I'm traveling, I almost never get the whole thing done because there's too many excuses. I think the key to having a morning routine and Starting routines are critical because how you start your day has a massive proven impact on how your day turns out. There's one piece of research that I think is really profound, and this comes from Shawn Anchor. I talked about this yesterday, but I'm gonna tell you this too, Susie. If you consume 3 minutes, just 3 minutes of negative news, of negative television, of negative emails, maybe stressful emails from work or stressful texts from friends, you have more than a 50% chance 8 hours later to say you had a bad day. And the reason why is because of what consuming that kind of information does to your mind. It literally sets your mind up to be on the lookout for things going wrong. And so The reason why a morning routine is actually so important is because number one, it determines what your priority for the day is. And we also know based on research that your mood in the morning, it impacts your productivity all day long. Just because you identify, and for me as a kid, for whatever reason, I have my own version of feeling invisible and feeling like I'm not good enough. And so my way of coping both with my anxiety and being a survivor of of sexual abuse and wanting love, which we all need, is I was like an overachiever. And so I'm the kind of person that's super busy and a go-getter because it got me attention. And if I was the one that was super busy and achieving, I not only got praise, but it also insulates you from other people not picking you. Because you're the one in a leadership role doing the picking.

Right.

And so there's a part of me at the age of 51 that is realizing that, you know, these feelings of feeling unworthy and this hyper drive to try to achieve shit, it's all coming from a place of feeling inadequate or like what I'm doing is not enough.

Still, at 50, having the talk show, having a bestselling book, having the Audible Originals, having the platform everywhere, having the impact, it still don't feel— being the most booked female speaker in the world, like you still don't feel—

It's so fucking stupid. It's annoying. And human beings are annoying. We are stuck with this wiring. Like if you think about it, like all of the crap you believe is probably a hangover from age 0 to 10. That as adults, we walk around thinking the same stuff we thought as kids. And I can't stand that I feel that way. But knowing it, it allows me to catch it before it has me— before it stops me from having an event or writing that next book or taking a risk. Now here's a trick about gratitude. Writing down what you're grateful for doesn't work unless you do it this way. Because if you— if I ask you what you're grateful for, everybody says the same thing. I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful for my health. And I'm grateful for my family. And that's so generic that you're not retraining your brain. Right. You've got to add in the because. I'm grateful for X because. And the Added detail will make you change up what you say, and it will also train your mind in a way that's more detailed, so it actually has a lasting impact on the way that you view the world. Everything that I have done since we launched The 5 Second Rule book was in reaction to things that were coming to me. So I never sat out and said, "Hey, The 5 Second Rule audiobook has been a complete complete, like, record breaker. We clearly have an audio audience. Let's go pitch Audible. Audible came to me, which is fantastic. I never— I always dreamt about having a talk show, but I wasn't out pitching one. Sony came to me. In fact, the only reason why we got into courses, online courses, and we now have more than half a million people that have taken our courses online. Was because Success Magazine came to me and said, let's do a course together.

I remember, I was there interviewing you for it.

Oh, I hated it. Because what I discovered is I hate being told what to do. And so, but that gave me the idea, oh, we should do courses ourselves. And so this pause has made me stop and go, what do I really want to do? And the truth is, I want to go and make the biggest possible impact that I can. And I want to collaborate with more people. And I want to do events. And I don't want to be the CEO. I'm a terrible leader, horrible leader, the worst, actually. Because I'm amazing at coaching, I'm amazing at creating, I'm amazing at reacting, I'm terrible at managing people, I am terrible terrible at managing a project. I have ADD, I have dyslexia. I'm a bulldozer when I get anxious. I know we are. We'd kill each other if we were roommates or business partners. But, but I think understanding yourself is really important. And so there's a couple things that I've decided. Number one, I'm going to consciously create the next And what is that? And I'm, um, well, I'm still in the middle of doing it.

Yeah, but you want to advance, you want to do these things you're talking about. Yeah.

Yes. And I want to, I want to collaborate more with a wider audience of people. And I want to build a brand bigger than Mel Robbins. Yep. I don't want it to just be me. I want to build a platform-based business that reaches more people. Because here's the thing that has got— that got me through kind of the loss of the talk show and the way that I think about things that I hope helps if you're listening, kind of struggling with something. I believe, and I went into the talk show saying this to myself, because there's a 99% chance based on the history of people that have tried to have a daytime talk show that it was going to fail. And I went in there saying this, I'm not doing this because I expect to have a successful talk show. I'm going to put 1,000% into it so that I have no regrets and I wouldn't change a thing. But I'm going into this because I know that there is a skill, a person, or an experience I am meant to have that will help me. For the next chapter that I can't see coming.

Because you made it this far in the video, I want to celebrate you. Most people start and don't finish. Most people never actually follow through. Most people say they want something, but they don't ever do the work to actually get it. But you are different. You are special. Believe Nation, you made it here all the way to the and I love you. So as a special celebration, if you put a hashtag #believe down in the comments below on this video, I will showcase you and celebrate you somewhere on the screen in a future video because you are awesome. To see my recent interview with Mel Robbins one-on-one, check the video right there next to me. I think you'll love it. Continue to believe, and I'll see you there.

I hope your business goes bankrupt, Evan. Evan, you're a terrible person. I spent the first 40-some years of my life trying to be somebody else. I'll give you guys a secret way