We're going to walk through the five mistakes based on research that everybody makes when they set goals. And when you make these mistakes in setting and defining your goals, you will not achieve your goals. And so these mistakes are super important for you to understand and for you to apply to the goals that you're thinking about right now. So, mistake number one. You're so focused on the how you're going to get this goal achieved that you forget about the why. And this is super important And I have a really good example of how I have failed at setting goals and achieving goals in the years past because I felt pressured to do something. My why was not present. And I'm going to use the example, ironically, of drinking, which is one of my goals this year. I want to go for three months and not drink. So here's the example where I've failed in the past. In the past, I have had lots of pressure around me at the turn of the year to not drink. There's that I did a thing called Dry January, and a lot of people that I love have participated in it, and people around me have been doing it.

And I didn't feel called to do it. I just had a huge sense of FOMO, that I was going to miss out on something if I didn't jump in with everybody else. And so I felt pressure to jump in and have it be a goal that I would do dry January. And here's what's interesting about when you feel pressured to make a goal. When you feel pressured to do something, there is an inner rebel in Side of you that suddenly shows up and pushes back. And sure enough, the last couple of years that I've been like, Yeah, okay, I'll do dry January with you guys. The second that I committed to it out of pressure, the rebel in me was like, Nope. And I lasted two or three days, and then I started being sneaky and lying about it. And here's the deal, the why wasn't present. This is so important, and this year is different. This year is different because this year, one of my goals is not to participate in dry January, but my goal is to not drink for several months. And there's a reason why. The reason why is I have a lot of things that I want to accomplish.

And even just having a beer at night to pull the lever that work is over and you can relax now, it's making me too tired at night, and it's impacting my sleep. And here's my why. I want to see what What will happen? This is like an experiment. To my focus, to my downtime, to the brain fog, to the symptoms of menopause that I'm experiencing, if I just remove alcohol. Not during the week, but I just remove it completely for a couple of months. And so my why is that I want to be present and more focused for the next couple of months. And I feel as though if I removed alcohol, it would have a major impact. And there's more I want to get done. And that's why it feels different this time, because I'm not setting this goal because I feel pressured to. I'm setting this goal because I want to. So Taking that research in mind and that mistake that everybody makes, what's your why for real? What is the goal that you want to do? Because identifying that is going to make all the difference in the world. Now, let's talk about Mistake number 2.

I see this all the time. In my opinion, this is not based on a study, but in my opinion, this is the mistake that everybody makes the most. You ready for it? You're setting too many goals. Stop doing that, okay? Stop committing to dry January, whole 30, learning Spanish, changing Doing your job, painting the back bedroom, volunteering twice a week, and being a nicer person all in the same month. Stop, okay? Mistake number two. Taking on two Too many things based on the research means you get nothing done. That's why we are going to focus on just one to three goals at a time. That is it, okay? That's it. Don't Don't give me the but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, I think I could... But what about habits? No. One to three goals. And in fact, I'd be thrilled if you came out of this episode and you just had one goal that you had defined and refined based on the research and that you were excited about. Wouldn't that be empowering? Of course it would. So let's move on to Mistake number three. When you define the goal, you're missing the sweet spot, based on research.

You see, there is this sweet spot with goal setting and goal achievement, between it being way too easy, and it being way too hard. It's like Goldilocks and the Three Beers, right? One was too little, one's too big, one's just right. There is a just right sweet spot when it comes to goal setting. And most people In addition to setting too many goals, most people go way too big. Do not make your goal way too big. You see, that's what a dream is. Your dreams are big. Your goals have to be small. Your dreams have no timeline. They're aspirational. Your goals must be specific, and they must be on a timeline, and they must be definable. They got to be tiny. See, you want something that you know you can achieve. This comes from research at Florida State University, okay? Anything that's too big is a dream. We're talking about goal setting. This also is grounded in research from the famous Habit research that B. J. Fogg has done at Stanford. You have to have it be something you know you can achieve. But let's go back to the sweet spot. So I know that I could achieve Have journaling one day, but that's not really a sweet spot, is it?

I'm not that inspired doing that one day. The sweet spot means it's achievable, but it still has to be ambitious, because remember the definition of a goal It's got to be something that's going to require you to do something. There's going to be resistance there. And this is really important because you're going to have a greater level of motivation and satisfaction if the goal still has a little bit of ambition to it. That comes from research at UC Riverside. And there's one more reason why. You can't set a goal that's too big. If you make it too big, it's going to be harder to achieve it. And when you set a goal that's too high and you miss that goal, it hurts your self-esteem, and you start to give up on goal setting. That seems obvious. It's research from a university in Germany. And by the way, we will link to all of in the show notes. So you can dig into this research, too. But the bottom line here is, it's a mistake to go way too high. It's a mistake to go way too low. You got to hit the sweet spot. So let me go back to the example of my goal to not drink for a couple months.

I'm going to refine my goal because a couple months, that's vague, isn't it? I don't really have a definition for that. A year, way too big. A year feels like something like a punishment right now for me. I don't want to do that. My husband does not drink at all. He loves not drinking. I don't want to go an entire year. That's not what my goal is right now. My goal is to not drink for several months and learn something about myself. And if I decide to keep going, that's great. I could commit to dry January, but you know what? That feels too little. It feels like something everybody's doing. It feels like something I've tried in the past, and I didn't really into it. I want to do something that feels a little bit bigger, but achievable. And so here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to say that I'm not going to drink for 75 days. 75 days, I'm not going to drink. That's longer than a couple months. It's not an entire year. It still feels achievable, but it is definitely ambitious, especially when I throw in the fact that Valentine's Day is coming up, and I'm going to this big thing at the end of January, seeing a ton of friends, and a lot of people there will be drinking.

So there's a lot in that. So now let me turn it to you. Is your goal in that sweet spot? Let's Goldilocks and the Three Bears this thing. Is it too little, too big, or just right? Is it that 75-day thing? All right, now let's go to Mistake number 4. The goal is too general. And I will say, I I just outed myself saying, Two months not drinking, too general. But my goal to garden more, way too general. It's true. Way too general. Dreams can be general because dreams don't have a timeline. But your goals have to be specific. And there's a particular question that a researcher at Columbia University, Dr. Heidi Halberson, has come up with that you should ask yourself, When will you know if you've succeeded? That's it. When When will you know if you've succeeded? And so let's do the gardening example. When will I know if I've succeeded at spending more time in my garden? This is an interesting question, because when I ask myself this question about succeeding, I realize that it's not really about spending more time gardening. My goal is more about learning how to grow a specific type of flower called a dahlia.

I first discovered them last year. I am in love with dahlias. They are so gorgeous, and they're complicated. You got to dig them up where we live and store them inside over the winter. You can grow them. I mean, it's like a whole thing. There's almost like a cult of people that love dahlias. And so I'm stepping into this, and I realized that my goal is really to grow my first ever dahlias from seed. And I know I will have succeeded when I'm able to cut my first bouquet of dahlias, and they're in a vase next to my sink. And finally, mistake number 5. I'm so excited to share this one with you. This was new to me. I discovered this researching this show. Most of this stuff I've known based on some of the books that we've researched and projects that we've done for Audible. But this new one is so cool. Have you ever heard of a high, A high, low range goal? This will blow your mind. This comes from Florida State University. Now, according to a study from Florida State University, it's easier to lose 2-4 pounds than 3 pounds. I'm going to say that again.

It's easier to lose 2-4 pounds than 3 pounds. Isn't that cool? That a high, low range goal is going to make it easier for you to achieve it. So let me put that into application So for me, you know what that means? I'm going to make it a goal to journal between five and seven days a week. Oh, that feels achievable. That feels like I can do it. It's still a lot, but I can do it. Or how about this one with flowering? When I see anywhere from 1-10 flowers blooming in my garden, Dahlia's blooming, I should say, I will have succeeded at my goal. (sighs) And drinking? I'm not going to budge on it in terms of 75 days, but I can say I'm not going to have had a drink in 75 out of 90 days. I want you to try this research. It's pretty cool because even just saying it, it makes it feel more achievable. So now it's your turn. Let's use this research from Florida State and turn your goal into a high, low range goal. Pretty cool, huh? I know. I know. I'm feeling all excited about my goals, growing my dolly, journaling my journaling, not drinking.

This is going to be awesome. Now I know what you're thinking. Okay, got it. Mel, how do I get started? How do I achieve this? Okay, this has been fun, girl, but this is a lot like buying a brand new planner for the new school year. So now what do I Okay, well, step number one. Based on the research, the second that you define your goals, and we have now defined the goals, we are using the research. I'm feeling super empowered. I hope you are, too. You have to make the first milestone super easy, because that means it feels like you've already done it. Okay? So we got to make a super simple first step. And scientists even have a name for this. Scientists call this incremental illusion. That's what we're using, incremental illusion. If you make the first few milestones really easy to achieve, you will be more likely to succeed at this goal because nothing, and I mean nothing, is more motivating than progress. And research from the University of Chicago gives us a great example of what I'm talking about, okay? So you know how you They go to a coffee shop and they have these offers where if you buy 10 cups of coffee, you get the next coffee free?

Here's a little trick that's pretty interesting that uses this effect, this illusion, okay? So they gave one group of people a card that was, buy 10 cups of coffee, get one free card. But it was blank, okay? They gave another group of people a, buy 12 cups of coffee, and then you get a free card. But two of the slots were already checked off. Progress had already been made. It's still the same thing. You're still having to do 10. But guess what? The folks that were given the card with two slots already filled in, they moved through that card faster by checking the boxes twice. Listening to this podcast, check. You're no longer at square one. You've defined your goals. I can tell you some other things. You want to do the smallest step possible. Chris gave me a book about Dahlias, this flowers that I love for the holidays. Check. I'm in box two. If you can take the smallest step today, can you do a Google search? Could you spend a little time journaling? What's something that you could do? You can't think of something? No problem. I've got something based on the research you could do.

Step number Two, check box number Two. Tell someone you admire about this goal. This debunked decades old research from 2009 from researchers at Yale that said that you shouldn't tell anybody about your goals. But here's the hook. You need to tell somebody you admire. You got to tell the right people about your goals. This comes from a set of new studies from Ohio State. Researchers found that you show So greater goal, commitment, and performance when you tell your goal to someone you admire or whose opinion you value. And these results run counter to this widely reported 2009 study from NYU that suggested that telling other people your goal is actually counterproductive. And so here's what you can do. Just tell somebody you admire. Here's how I'm doing it. I'm sharing these goals with you. And I'm going to go share these goals with my family, and I'm going to share these goals with my I'm going to talk to the woman that I met this summer that is growing dahlias and learn from her. That's another stuff. This is like us checking off the boxes on that free coffee card and getting you to start seeing yourself making progress.

And the final thing, the second that this episode is over, do a tiny thing, one step forward. This comes from a recent study at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine that showed that starting right away resulted in the most change. Do not wait for Monday. Do not wait for the weekend. Do not wait until later. The most important thing you could do, that little box you're going to check, is when this podcast is over, spend five minutes taking a step. Now, I get to talk about the most life-changing part of all of this. You ready? The whole The reason why goal setting is important is because it creates meaning and purpose in your life. And that's the most important part. Your goals are not really meant to be achieved. The most important part is that you're pursuing something. That's why goals matter so much. I mean, remember the research we talked about in the very beginning? Those goals that you've defined and refined based based on the research, having them, taking little steps toward them, it's going to make you happier. It will suppress negative emotions. It makes you feel like you're up to something, and your life is going to be way more satisfying having those one, two, or three goals that you're working on, than having no goals at all.

And there's a reason why I'm going to hammer this idea of pursuing the goal. Okay? First of all, I don't want you to try to get this perfect. I just want you to try. And the second reason why is that when you achieve a goal, the irony is, it's not as satisfying as you think it's going to be. Setting goals makes you happy. Working on goals makes you happy. Achieving goals does not create or promise lasting happiness. Yeah, it is awesome when you finally get to the top of that mountain you've been climbing. You take You take in the view, you catch your breath, you sit down on a rock, you take a selfie, you eat some gorp, and then you stand up and you climb back down. It's over. Yeah, it's amazing when you pay off your bills. You celebrate, you feel the burst of pride, and then you go on with life. The point and the purpose of achieving and setting goals that are deeply personal, that have a will and a why, and a how, and a way, right? Is because when you have goals, you're up to something. You're committing to your own growth, and you're getting intentional about things that are relevant and important that you want to see yourself doing.

And we have a tendency to overestimate how happy we're going to be when we achieve the goal. And there's even a name for it. That's how common this is. It's called the Arrival Fallacy. It's this fallacy that once you lose the weight, once you get the job, once you find the romance, once you reach the destination, then I'll be in nirvana, then I'll be happy, then... No. Tal Ben Shara, the Harvard-trained positivity psychology expert, he has debunked this thing in study after study after study. And all you have to do is look at the number of Olympians or movie stars that we think have achieved it all, that then are just plummeting and struggling with mental health illnesses after their greatest achievements. And we're like, What? How could they possibly do? They have gold medals. They have millions of dollars. Well, because they're not working toward anything that matters. It was working toward the gold medal, working to make that movie, going to auditions and pushing through the failure, and having this goal that you set for yourself, working on it is what gives your life meaning. And that's why I wanted to start this series of life-changing episodes of the Mel Robbins podcast, the foundational stuff about how you create a better life with goal setting.

Because goal setting from this point forward must be a part of your life if you want to feel a greater sense of purpose and meaning, period. And so I want you to come back to this episode. I want you to bookmark it. I want you to share this with people that you care about. If you've got somebody like I do who's a college senior, and as they They approach graduation and they start to feel like they're about to have a quarter life crisis and they're lost, you know what they need? They need goals. If you have a friend going through divorce, you know what they need? They need goals. If you're bored in life or feeling stuck or you got to hit the reinvention button, you know what you need? You need goals. And you can relisten to this every single quarter at any moment in your life and walk yourself through this very simple but powerful and life-changing research to get very clear about what you want, and why you want it, and how you're going to go achieve it. Now, speaking about the how, you want to know how? Habits are how you achieve goals.

Systems are how you make it easier. And so coming up next in this life-changing series, we're going to do a 101 on Habits. What the science says about habits, the three components that make a new habit in code and stick in your brain. And we're also going to give you the research-backed shortcuts that you can use to make new habits stick and to make that change and the new habits that are going to help you achieve your goals easier to implement in your life. That's what's coming next. But for now, I want you to remember the definition of a goal. A goal is anything that you desire that wouldn't otherwise happen without you doing something. Something. And what I want you to do next is I want you to take one step forward on that goal of yours. In fact, you know one step you could do? Share this episode. I like to liken myself to a plant. And I want you to liken yourself to a plant, because this metaphor is going to immediately stop you from questioning whether or not this Grammy moment of yours is even possible. And there are four reasons why I want I'll tell you to use this metaphor.

Number one, every plant starts as a teeny, teeny little seed. But here's the thing about a little seed, which is what you are when you just have a seed of an idea. The thing about a seed that's so cool is absolutely everything that is required of the plant to grow from that teeny tiny little seed into something huge and extraordinary, it is contained inside the seed. And that's why it is so important that you take a moment with me and you acknowledge this seed of a wish or a dream or an idea that you have within you. Because Because that's all that's required. The seed is the beginning of something extraordinary, and you already have that within you. Because if you can envision that grammy moment of yours in the future, that's evidence of that seed. Seed of an idea. And that's why you need to use this metaphor of a plant that's been planted. Any single time that you start to doubt this idea, like I've doubted this idea, what are you doing thinking about a supplement? That is a dumb man. Stop. No, Mel. No. Let that seed take root. I mean, think about an acorn.

Do you know how little that thing is? It is like this tiny thing in the palm of your hand, and that sucker, over time, can explode into a mighty oak? Why? Because all of that intelligence for the acorn to grow into an oak is already inside the acorn. It knows what to do. The same thing is true for a tulip bulb. A single bulb has everything inside of it in order to explode into a gorgeous tulip in the spring. So do you. Stop doubting yourself and recognize that if you already You have this seed of an idea to plant out into the world, it is in you, and it's been sitting there waiting to bloom in all of its unique, beautiful glory. If you have a dream of opening up a restaurant or you want to become a wildly successful influencer, and yet you have all this doubt, stop. Stop and trust. Trust that because you have the idea, It is already in you, and you are meant to plant it into the world so that it can bloom. The universe wouldn't give you that idea if it didn't want you to do something with it.

And I'm here to tell you to stop questioning it and trust it. And the second reason why this plant metaphor is so powerful is because that seed and a plant, it's designed to grow, and so are you. You are designed to grow from the moment that you are born, and you do not You can't stop growing until the day that you die. And once you actually realize that there is this seed of an idea, it is going to haunt you if you do not grow toward it. And I need you to wrap your mind around the fact that you exist right now because your job is to take this idea and plant it into the world and do what it takes to see it grow. And one of the reasons why you may feel stagnant right now or lost is because you're not taking action on that idea. And here's another example of how plants are designed to grow, and that you need to do this. You need to grow. This is the answer that you've been looking for. Have you ever noticed that plants grow toward the light? They can't help themselves. They are designed this way.

For example, if you stick tulips in a vase, like the tulips behind me here on YouTube, you can't see them, if you're listening to me, but they're gorgeous. They're these bright orange Orange tulips, four of them, sitting in a glass vase. If I were to stick that glass vase right on the countertop, within 24 hours, they will be pointed toward the window, looking for the sun, trying to grow. It's called phototropism. For you, it's called action. You must move toward the light. You must take action. Every Every single day, ask yourself, What is one thing I can do to move toward the light of this idea? Now, the third reason why I love this metaphor of likening yourself to a plant is because the undeniable truth about a plant: you cannot force a plant to bloom before it's ready. Every single gardener knows this. If you want to have pees in the middle of the summer to eat, you got to sow those pees into the They got to be in the ground by St. Patrick's Day. Pumpkin seeds, they got to be in the ground right after Mother's Day if you plan to have them ready for Halloween.

And no one plants a zucchini on a Monday and expects to be eating it for dinner on a Friday. Why? Because for something to grow, it takes time. And you are too impatient. You are so focused on where everything is leading that you are skipping the most important part: getting started and giving yourself It's yourself time to grow. See, it's the struggle and the buildup and the journey and the tears and the time and the experience and all the ups and down. That is the most important part of growth. You know that, but you're not doing it. It's the part where you are sowing the seeds and watering the soil and day in and day out, taking care of what needs to be taken care of and putting in the work that is where the foundation lies. If I take you back to our little acorn and you plant it in the soil and you put it in the sun and you water it every day. It takes almost six weeks for anything to sprout. Six weeks. And you are giving up before the time that is required. See, it's in this time where you don't see anything happening.

That's when the roots are taking shape. That is where the success is being built. And there is no skipping this part, because anything that's worth doing takes time. It takes time time to strengthen the vine, to fortify the stem, to get the roots tough and sturdy so that they can support the beauty that happens above ground a long time from now. And that's your problem. You're so obsessed with what it's going to look like in the final product and the big Grammy moment that you are either quitting too soon or you're not even getting started. And honestly, I think part of your problem is social media. Think about TikTok and Instagram. It is constantly shoved In your face. Here's the final product. Here's the overnight success story. Every other count these days seems to be some influencer telling you how to make a million dollars in less than a week or a two-week program to get six-pack abs. It's so in your face that it is easy to overlook the truth. And the truth is, even the stuff that's being marketed to you, these makeup tutorials, the new journal businesses, the clothing lines that everybody's launching like that, it took two or three years of working for somebody to get to the point where they could make one post and market that to you.

It didn't happen overnight. They just want you to think it did so that you buy it. But the problem is, now you're thinking about life in that regard. You're thinking that things should be going faster and moving along faster, and it should be your turn now. And you're so focused on the end of the game or becoming an overnight success that you stop trusting that your Grammy moment is coming someday. And this is so important because the work that you actually need to do, it requires patience. It takes time because it It's in the time and the patience that you build the confidence. So keep reminding yourself that you are a plant that has been planted. But now I know, and you know, why this metaphor is so important. Number one, whatever your genius is, it's already in you. Trust it. Number two, plants are designed to grow, and so are you. So move toward the light and take action to grow. Number three, you can't force a plant to sprout too quickly. Be patient. And this feels like a really good time for us to take a moment and hear a word from our sponsors.

They are essential to the Mel Robbins podcast, Growing and Being Here For You. And when we return, we're going to dig into the most critical factor in a plant's ability to grow. And it's a critical factor in your growth, too. And it's the environment. So stay with us. Welcome back. I'm Mel Robbins, and you and I are unpacking this metaphor that Victoria Monet shared at the Grammys as she was accepting the award for best new artist after working in Hollywood for 15 years as a songwriter for other people. And she shared that she likes to, quote, liken herself as a plant that has been planted. And she uses it as a way to keep herself going during the 15 years that it took for her to get on that Grammy stage. And I want to focus on this idea of being planted, and planted in a particular environment, because the environment that you're in is crucial to your success. I mean, it makes sense, right? A tulip can't grow in cement, and you can't grow in cement either. And there was something else that Victoria Monet said when she was at the Grammys that helps us go a layer deeper.

She said, I like to liken myself to a plant who has planted. And you can look at the music industry as soil. It can be looked at as dirty or it can be looked at as a source of nutrients and water. And my roots have been growing underneath ground, unseeing Unseen for so long. That last part of what she said, My roots have been growing underneath ground, unseen for so long. It's such a relatable feeling, isn't it? And what I want to focus on is what she said in the middle, that she was planted in the music industry for the past 15 years. And the music industry can be looked at as soil, and you can look at that soil as either dirty, getting in your way, and not fair, and all the stuff that you and I tell ourselves as we start to feel discouraged that it's not happening fast enough. Or you can look at the soil, the place that you've been planted in, as the source of nutrients and water, something that is nourishing you toward your best self. And the fact is, she's right. The environment that you're in is critical to your growth, which begs the question, are you even planted somewhere?

When you think about this big Cami moment. The thing that you really want to work toward, are you even planted? Or are you busy looking at other people's gardens? If you haven't started on your goal, then you aren't even planted yet. You're a pack of seeds sitting in the display rack at Home Depot, just waiting for somebody to buy it, nestle it into the ground, get things going. And that's probably where you are, because the hardest part of growing is starting. You have to put the seed in the soil so that it actually can have a chance to grow. And so answer this question honestly for yourself. Am I even planted? Or am I just looking at other people's gardens? Am I looking at social media and TikTok, and Instagram, and all these influencers? Because that's exactly what it means to look at someone else's garden. You're not going to grow by doing that. You're going to actually feel stagnant. You're going to feel lost. You're going to feel discouraged. At some point, you got to wake the hell up and you got to plant yourself. And if you have a seed of an idea, you've got everything inside of you to bloom into something extraordinary over time.

Have you even started drafting out a table of contents for that book you've always dreamt of writing? Have you had the conversation with your boss about moving from HR to marketing? Have you started looking for therapists? Like, truly looking, calling, checking insurance? Have you had that conversation with your partner about what's been triggering you and why you're so annoyed all the time? Or are you waiting for them to do it? You can either be thinking about something, sitting around waiting, waiting for someone else to spot you and sign you to a label instead of creating and publishing your own music. I want to tell you something. No one is coming. You need to start. You need to plant yourself so you can then begin to do the work to put down those roots, to wake up every day and put in the daily reps that it's going to take to grow into something extraordinary. It might take you 15 days. You might be lucky. Might take you 15 months. Might take you 15 years. The difference between The people who are successful and have everything that you want is they didn't quit when they felt like quitting.

They got started instead of thinking about it. And you will never succeed. I won't succeed either in this idea of a supplement business. So let me come back to that question. What is your Grammy moment? Really visualize it. When I close my eyes, I can see the packaging. I can see it on a conveyor belt Being packaged. That's how much I can put myself there. I bet you can do the same thing. Well, guess what? It's time to prove it. Not to me, but to yourself. I don't think you realize how much time you're wasting. Looking at other people's gardens, checking out all the other flowers, talking about what everybody else is doing, instead of taking the action and committing to your own growth. And if you're sitting there and you're complaining to me, you're like, Well, I'm not really going anywhere. I guarantee you, you haven't planted yourself. You started dancing around the idea. Buying planners instead of actually doing the work. Do you do that? I do that. That's the preparing. It's the easy way to make an idea feel like it might be an idea. Okay, we're doing... No, you're not. No, you're not.

I'm going to call you out on this because it's the same thing that I do. I have done this in so many areas of my life where I've admired other people's gardens and then bitched about the fact that I'm not going anywhere. I'll admit something to you. When I was in my 40s, I was so lonely. I mean, I had no social life. It's as if the bottom dropped out. And do you want to know what I I'm not afraid about it? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I knew what I wanted. I could visualize it, but I didn't do anything about it. I spent a lot of time looking at what other people were doing, and then comparing myself to them or complaining to myself about it. When is it going to be my turn? Where did all my friends go? Why does nobody invite me anywhere? Why am I never going on these cool girl trips? Why does everybody else seem to have such amazing friends from high school and college and 55 bridesmaids in their weddings and raising We were kids together? I mean, this went on for years. Why? Because I was staring at other people's gardens.

And then using that to to keep myself from doing anything. And for me, that big idea, that Grammy moment, if you will, was a life that was filled with friendship. That's what I wanted. That vision was so beautiful. I wanted it to bloom so desperately into its fullest expression. And yet it just remained a seed. And here's the epiphany. It's not until I was brutally honest with myself. Mel Robbins. Sitting here behind this desk, scrolling through social media, it is not going to get you the friendships you want. All this freaking jealousy that you have, looking at what everybody else has sowed in their life, looking at the fruits that it beared. It is not going to get you what you want. Woman, what are you going to do about it? See, this is where you have You have to really think about the environment of your mindset. You want this aspect of your life to go prove it. If I want this supplement company to happen, I got to prove it. If I want to have incredible friendships bloom in my life, I got to prove it. I cannot be the human version of a tulip in a tub of concrete and then complain, Why am I not growing?

Why is it there? You want to know where grass grows? Grass grows where you water it. So if this is you in any area of your life where the grass is dead. No, it's dirt. It is downright dirt. And you're sick of looking at other people's beautiful lawns. Shut your mouth. Get off social media. Don't tell me what you want or what you can't You want a green, beautiful, lush lawn? Then you better sow the seeds, and then you better take care of it. Not once, but every day. You got to water that new lawn every single day. Well, my neighbor's lawn is really green, and their dad put it in for them, and so they got, Who gives a shit? Is that going to help your lawn grow? No. You got to get serious about what you want, and then you have to plant yourself. And by planting yourself, I mean you get to work. Stop talking and start doing. And so I'm going to hit the pause. You can hear a few short words for our amazing sponsors. But don't you dare go anywhere. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and we are talking about how you achieve your biggest ambition.

And we've been unpacking something that Victoria Monet said when she won the Grammy for the best new artist and win in a Grammy. That is achieving a huge ambition, and you are going to achieve your huge ambitions. So now I want to talk to those of you who have started. You have ripped open that seed packet. You have seeded the lawn. You've been out there standing with the hose, watering everything. You got yourself out of the cement, and you put yourself into a beautiful pot. I'm talking to those of you, for example, who've been writing songs for other artists like Victoria Monet. She was doing that just not so long ago. I'm talking to those of you who are halfway through '75 hard, or you're on your third draft of your manuscript, or maybe you're in your first week of marathon training, or your fifth month of interviewing for a new job, and you have started, and I want to tell you, amazing. Amazing job. Congratulations. Getting started is the hardest part. Do you know how huge this is, that you're doing it? That is incredible. And every single day that passes by, those little roots, they are spreading underground.

Even though you may not see anything happening, they are spreading. Every day when you wake up and you take a step forward, you're learning something You're getting a little stronger. You're gaining skills. You're starting to get a little bit confident. It's really working, even though you're sitting there going, Why don't I have a job yet? When am I going to start making real money? Why does this look easy for everybody else? When's it going to be my turn to be the one on stage, to win the award, to make amazing money? When am I going to be the one to Sprout? Great question. Great question. If that's you, ask yourself, are you in a place right now where you are going to continue to grow? If you're complaining about the dirt, then do something about it. But you got to ask your sofa real, are you actually getting the nourishment that you need? Are you getting the support from yourself and the people around you? If not, it is time to pick up your roots and move yourself from that little pot where you become root bound and plant yourself somewhere else, somewhere where you have a little bit more room to grow, a little bit more positivity in sunshine, where the soil is maybe a little richer, a little more nourishing.

Maybe it's full of other plants that are like you. It's time for a new environment. It's time to raise the game, to try new things, to be around more people. It is time to level up. It is time to pick yourself up and actually put yourself in a different place to grow. Here's the example. For the past five years, my husband, Christopher, he has really been wanting to write a book. If you're new to the podcast, my husband Chris leads men's retreats. He is a death doula. He is about to finish his master's in transpersonal psychology. This is a human being on a mission to make a difference, helping other men create more meaningful lives. For the last five years, Christopher Robbins has had a Ramy moment. He has had this vision in his mind. He has had the seed of an idea, and here it is. He really wants to write a book. And I got to acknowledge him. He didn't leave that seed of an idea in a packet on some display shelf. He planted it. Here's what he's been doing. For five years, the man has been silently, quietly writing. Every day when he wakes up for the past five years, he has written in a journal.

And he says, You know, Mel, I must have written over 400,000 words by hand in my journals these past five years. Four hundred thousand words. Not another human being has read it. This is something he's been doing day in and day out. So let me ask you, are the roots growing? Absolutely. Stronger every day. Is he becoming a better writer? Absolutely. And you want to know how he feels? He feels the same way that Victoria Monet felt, unseen. He's questioning. He's wondering if this is leading anywhere. I can recall, at at least a dozen times in the past year alone, where he's turned to me and said, I just don't feel like I have anything to say. I mean, absolutely everything that I would actually want to write a book about. I mean, somebody's already published a book on that topic. Somebody has already researched it. I mean, what more do I have to say that's any different than what somebody else has already had to say? And I'm sure Victoria Monet felt the same during those 15 years, just like I'm sure you've probably felt more times than you can remember. Well, about a year ago, it was very clear that Chris had stopped growing.

This daily practice of writing in his journal, I mean, had certainly grown a very, very large system of roots. It had created this foundation. He clearly is a writer, but he needs a bigger pot. He needs more nourishment. He needs to improve the soil that he's in. He needs to change the environment so that he can continue to grow. So what did he do? He hired a writing coach. And when he told me, I'm like, What's a writing coach? He said, It is somebody that I talk to once a month that makes sure I write this book. They help me with the table of contents. They give me assignments related to the book. They help me continue to move toward the light, just like a plant turns toward the sun. Chris took the actions that helped him turn toward this idea of writing a book. Now, this coach certainly helps water and nourish and grow Chris into becoming a writer. And honestly, you need to do the exact same thing. If you're already chipping away at this and you're feeling is stagnant, and you know what that feeling feels like, you have to get into a different or bigger or deeper or wider environment.

And for me, an example of this was joining a mastermind group with other people that are in the same business, authors and podcasters, and surrounding yourself with people that are pursuing what you want is one of the best ways that you can continue to grow. And see, I think you make a mistake. You make a mistake that I made, which is you think you're in competition with people who have already had the Grammy moment. Those people that have had a Grammy moment, those are not people that you're in competition with. Those people should be your best friends because they know what you're going through. And you think that, Oh, my gosh, if I'm around other people that want the same things that I want, then those people are going to cast shadows, and I'm not going to be able to grow around. Baloney. Are you kidding me? Being around other people that want similar things is a way that you can invest in your own growth. Go find them. That's where you want to be. And if you're sitting there and you're still getting all antsy and annoyed with me, and you're like, I have been doing that.

Nothing's happening. I'm going to ask you something. Are you actually hitting it every single day? A hundred %. If you've been at this for a while, I'm willing to bet, you're probably on a little bit of an autopilot. You're probably just cruising along because you're convincing, It's not going to happen for me. You're resigned. The message for you is very clear. You got to be patient. If you've been at this for a while, You probably forgot about the fundamentals. You probably forgot that all that stuff that you hate doing, the stuff that's a pain, you probably stopped doing that. That's always what happens with me. Same is true with a lawn, by the way. Your grass could be absolutely gorgeous and green at the beginning of the summer. What happens if you stop doing one of the fundamental things, like watering it? In the sun, it basically burns and dries up and dies. And if you stop doing the fundamentals because you get discouraged, or you're tired, or you're just sick of it, that's going to happen to you. So the takeaway for you is get back to the basics, get back to the roots, get back to the fundamentals, all that stuff that nobody wants to do.

And don't quit. Day in and day out, build the roots because it's from those roots and the foundational actions that you have to take that you have the strength to continue to bloom. And And I need to warn you about something. It's not going to happen overnight. It just doesn't. It's going to take time, and you're going to have to sit there in the soil, and you have to remind yourself that you are growing, and that when the time is right, those roots, they will be there to lift you toward your version of a Grammy. Don't forget, it took Victoria Monet 15 years of feeling unseen and defeated, and questioning if her dream to write a top song of her own was ever going to happen. That is 5,478 days to win her first Grammy. And I want you to ask yourself now, how long have you been at your role? And don't let this question discourage you, Because it's easy to forget that over the course of those 15 years, Victoria was doing some pretty amazing things. I mean, she was writing songs with Ariana Grande and Brandi and so many other amazing artists.

And there's no doubt that those experiences, while she may have felt unseen, they're part of the root system. It contributed to her growth. It supported her in going on and being able to win those three Grammys. It means that when she burst onto the scene, you know what we know about her? This is not going to be a one and done. Oh, hell no. This is just the beginning, and you're going to be the same way. Why? Because the roots are strong. Do not forget to count all those little wins along the way. You may be knocked down at the end of your rope, and you can have your big cry. But those of us who become successful are the people who wake up tomorrow morning and we keep going after it. The game of success is about stamina. Do not allow yourself to be sitting around looking at everybody else blooming and I'm going, It's never going to be my turn. Of course, it's going to be your turn. Why? Because you're designed to grow. And trust me, I wish there was a shortcut. But in life, there is no miracle grow to make you bloom faster.

But one thing that I have found that helps me on those days when I feel like, My God, is this ever going to happen? It's just six simple words. What if this does work out? What if on those days where I don't feel seen, or I start to question the sanity of my idea. What is a dumb idea, Mel. What are you doing thinking about that stuff? I know you've said that to yourself. Just remind yourself, what if this does work out? When I say those six words, it keeps me in the game. And that's all you need to do. And before you know it, I promise you, you will find yourself just like Victoria Monet did. At the very end of her speech, she said, And my roots have been growing underneath ground, unseen for so long, and I feel like today I'm sprouting above ground. I love that she used the word 'sprout', because when I hear the word 'sprout', I think of this teeny-tiny little thing that comes up from the seed. And I would have expected her in a moment like that to be like, I am a big, beautiful bloom, and I am just getting started.

' And that's the genius of this metaphor, that you are going to grow your whole life. And this idea will take hold. Why? Because of your roots. Big goals, just like huge, beautiful blooms on a flower, they require a big root system in order to support them. That mighty oak that sprouts from a teeny tiny acorn? Massive root system, period. And I believe that patience is the most important thing because the time that you spend building is directly proportionate to just how big and how beautiful your life is going to be.

What are three things that very successful people run every day that helps them be successful?

They get their ass out of bed. You and I both struggled with that. Oh, my God. I still struggle with it.

So do I. I don't think people believe me. It is a thing every day of my life.

Every day of my life. It's such a trip. Well, I understand why, for me, anyway. I don't know the reason why it's hard for you, but there are levels of reasons why it is so hard to get out of bed for me and why you have to get your ass out of bed. I'll explain why it's important in a second, but first, I want to explain why it's actually difficult for me. Number one, from a physiological standpoint, it was very helpful for me to learn that your cortisol levels are their highest when you first wake up in the morning. And so cortisol being the stress hormone, it's also something that can then flood your body with a sense of worry or heaviness or overwhelm. And so knowing that that was just a fact in terms of what's happening in your body was helpful. Second, for me personally, part of my childhood trauma was having a incident where somebody did something to me in the middle of the night. And that encoded an experience in my body that is triggered by waking up. Because at the age of, I guess I must have been nine, I had an experience where I woke up one morning and an older kid had climbed into my bed and done something.

And the second I woke up, Tom, I was in full alarm state. Fight or flight kicked in. I dissociated, and I knew something bad had happened. And then I had a second response, which is, I did something wrong. And so you talk We have a lot on the show about habits and how habits have three parts, the trigger, the pattern, the reward. Waking up in the morning is a trigger, Tom, for my body to remember this experience of feeling something's wrong. So that's the second reason. And the third reason is because I have fucking amazing sheets and my bed is super comfortable. And my husband used to be next to me, but he now gets up at 5:45. He just rolls right out of bed. I I love to just stay in that bed down under those sheets. It's so cozy, it's so snuggly, it's absolutely amazing. And so that's why it's hard for me. I don't freaking feel like getting up. And then on top of it, and you and I both know this, that an object that is resting will stay resting unless there is a force that acts upon it to get it to move.

And so it is always hard for me, and how I've resolved this is by basically realizing that there are a few things that I will never feel like doing. I will never feel like unloading the dishwasher. I will never feel like folding clean clothes. I will never feel like cleaning that damn cat box or picking up the dog poop in the yard. I don't ever feel like getting out of bed, and I still have to do it.

It's interesting. I think for me, my cortisol levels are too low. So whatever it is that gets people out of bed from a physiological level, I don't have that. I've always felt, to me, it feels like the neurochemistry of sleep is slow to be flushed out of my system. Maybe it's just that the cortisol doesn't pump enough. And so getting Getting out of bed just seems like this Herculean task, because even if there's something I'm excited to do, I find myself still wanting to lay in bed. Then the whole warm and cozy thing, yeah, that goes a long way. Even now, if I'm I'm sleeping alone, like Lisa is traveling right now, so I'm sleeping alone. I always wake up before Lisa, so I can't turn the AC off. I need it to be cold when I sleep.

Now, how cold do you keep your bedroom?

Sixty-eight degrees.

I keep mine between 66 and 68, and that's also part of the problem. The bed is warm, and it's like climbing into an ice bag to throw their sheets off.Correct.Yes..

I give myself 10 minutes to get out of bed.10 minutes?Yeah. That for me, going from 4 or 5 hours to 10 minutes was like, oh, my God.Well, that is a huge thing.Yeah. For me, 10 minutes.What are you doing in those 10 minutes? I try not to fall back asleep is the honest answer. When I wake up, even though I've woken up naturally because I don't use an alarm.

You don't use an alarm.

I'm like, I wake up rough. Lisa, in the beginning of our relationship, it was really almost contentious because I was so grumpy in the mornings. I'm like, You don't understand. Whatever the chemistry is of sleep, I have a hard time shucking it off. I remember I heard a joke one time. I'm going to totally bastardize this, but the guy was like, To all you morning people, what the fuck are you talking about? He's like, I don't even want to talk. What are you people going on about? You're so happy, you're so smiling. I was like, Yes, that's exactly how I feel. Everything just feels when I wake up. Anyway, I give myself 10 minutes to get out of bed.

When you're in bed, are you thinking about something? Are you looking at the ceiling? What are you doing?

No, I'm under the covers. This would, I think, surprise everybody. I sleep completely bundled up under the covers.

Like with the pillow over your head?

Not the pillow, but the blankets.

See, I put pillows over my head and I make a little breathing hole right here. It's like a safety thing, I think. I'm hiding.

I couldn't have that on my face. On my body, I would feel nice when on my face. I'm under the covers, and now this That wasn't true historically, but for the last probably two years, I sleep with a book playing in my headphones. With who? A book playing. While you're sleeping? While I sleep the entire night. Why? It is incredible. What? And I don't... This isn't one that I necessarily recommend, but if people struggle to stay asleep, so I fall asleep easily. I have a hard time staying asleep. So I will wake up three times a night, every single night, the third one being the final time I wake up. And I have to switch my headphones out so they don't die. And I have three sets of headphones. So, Headphone 1, I fall asleep, and that's in ear, Headphone 2, in ear, Headphone 3, over the ear.

You sleep with headphones? So are you on your back?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it is unbelievably comforting.I.

Can't even tell you.Is it Is it the same book?

Well, no, it changes once I finish the book. But I'll read it in these little increments because I have to keep rewinding it. Don't worry, we will get to the other two things that amazingly successful people do. But yes, it's the same book until it's done. I read it in these tiny little increments. It's a specific book.

What book?

It has to be a book like... Have you ever read a biography of Lincoln, which is what I'm reading now? They'll spend 17 pages on what the grass was like in his front yard. And so it's like, you don't have to really scrutinize every sentence. You can drift in and out. And so what ends up happening is I drift, and then I'm gone. And I'll wake up, and let's say I started on chapter 2, I wake up and it's like, chapter nine. So I'm like, okay, I know to go back to chapter two, and then I fall asleep again. And then I wake up again, I go back to usually chapter two, and then I'll sleep. So when I wake up, I've got the book still playing. So then I'm like, well, I'm interested. I'll turn off the AC so it starts warming up. I stay under the blankets And I'll even pull another blanket over me, so I start getting too warm. Then I'm like, cool. My nine minutes and 42 seconds are up. Because I have a rule. I have to be standing up before the 10th minute hits.

Okay.

And so I'm up out of bed before the 10th minute hits. But that has worked like a charm for me.

Wow. This is very complicated. I'm just sitting here about the management that you have to do around this. But I think that's the most important thing about advice is everybody's looking for the silver bullet when in fact, It's got to work for you. That would never work for me. I'm already starting to think about why I sleep on this here, and what about the headphones, and I'd forget to charge them, and then I'd be awake, and I'm just staring at the ceiling. That's fascinating. One of the things that I also got from what you were saying is that because of the cortisol, like flying through my system, and because I am somebody that has had a very dysregulated nervous system, meaning I have lived life with the accelerator on, on edge. That when I would wake up and I would feel that wave of being on edge, it had a very weird effect of not motivating me to get out of bed, but pinning me there. Ironically, intellectually, I know, and this is one of the reasons why it's important to get up, because if you can get up, you can start moving. If you start moving, you can keep moving.

And as you move, the chemistry changes and your mood shifts, and within five minutes, you feel different, even if it's just a little incremental bit of difference. Even though I know that, the feeling in the body was so heavy that I thought, I'll just lay here, and hopefully it'll go away, and it just gets worse. And that's why I asked you what you do in those 10 minutes, because one of the reasons why I say, get out of bed, is because most people reach for their phone. And most people win the battle for success, for dreams, for mental health, for happiness, for confidence in the first 30 seconds of being awake, because they reach for the phone and they immediately direct their attention at other people's lives. Yeah, that's so crazy. And so that's why I say, I know nobody will... When I tell people, Don't look at your phone, leave your phone out of the hand. Everyone's like, and then they go and do it. But if you just get out of bed immediately. You got a fighting chance to be awake enough to not do that. And so I think most people, if they're struggling with being successful or happy or whatever, I guarantee you, you give your attention to social media or your phone before you've done the second thing.

And so now we're on to the second thing, which is set a freaking intention for the day. Set a mark for what's one thing that matters to you. What the one thing that you're going to make progress on today? And that one thing could be how you're going to show up with your family. It could be, today I'm getting to that gym, or it could be some project at work that you're going to move the needle on, or it could be some habit that you've learned on impact theory, that today is the day I'm going to do that thing that I learned from Tom, and you're going to do it. And it's so important for you to direct your mind that this matters to me because your mind is paying attention. And if you set a little habit in place and successfully successful people do this, you have something that matters to you. Because the other thing about successful people is we're all fucking busy, and we have a million things going on. And the second that we look at our phone, or we walk through the front door of our business, or we step into the kitchen, other people will now need you.

And you will most likely spend the rest of your day, unless you have a huge staff and you've got amazing boundaries and you got a lot of white space in your calendar, and that is not me, you will spend the rest of your day, Tom, reacting to everybody else's stuff. And so if you can get into the habit of going today, the most important thing for me to make progress on is X. You have directed to your mind that this thing matters. Now, if you can actually inch it forward before you look at your phone, before you start your workday, before you start responding to everybody else, you will start to develop a superpower because you will see yourself prioritizing what matters to you. And that's critical. So for anybody with a side hustle, do not be working on that thing just at night when you get home. Your dreams, your business, it deserves the first 10 minutes of the morning. And if you literally just lay like one brick on that path between where you are and where you want to go, that one 10 minute of effort every single day on the thing that matters most to you, that changes everything over time.

Because I think most people are struggling with the fact that you have all these things that you want to do, but your life is organized in the exact opposite of what is important to you, that you've let everybody else dictate how you spend your time. You've let everybody else take over your day, and you haven't done the basics of waking up, get moving, think about what matters to you, and if you can, just inch it forward. There's even research about this. I know you've talked about this, too, the progress principle, which they studied extensively at Harvard Business School, that when they look at very successful people and they ask them, Okay, what makes for a fulfilling week? They were specific to work, but I think this applies more generally. What made for a fulfilling week for most people that are successful is I made progress on something that matters to me. I felt a sense of control and progress over the things that I care about. If you really are someone and this used to be me for sure, where you feel like you're last on the list, you never have time to get to what's important, that everybody else's needs come first, that years keep going by and you're not seeing yourself make the changes that you want to make or not make the money you want to make or not launch that business or start that thing, take a look at the first three or four things you do in the morning and see where you put your attention, because I guarantee you It is not aligned with what you actually care about.

And so if you can grab that back, you can do the third thing. And the third thing for me is it's this combination. I call it aligned action. And that is That is that successful people act before they feel ready. They act like the person they want to be instead of the person that they feel like today. And you talk about this, too. This is the philosophy that you believe in, which is behavioral activation therapy. Act like the person you want to become.

Can you give me an example of that?

Oh, yeah. So I'm launching a podcast. I've been thinking... Talk about not taking your own advice, okay? Most people don't know this, but I got my start in the media business. This was my first taste of the media business in 2008 by hosting a local call-in radio show on Saturday mornings in Boston, Massachusetts. I did not know that. Yes. I paid for my kids' braces by reading Invisalign ads for a dentist in Boston that I still go to. Shout out to Dr. Ronken. He did not pay me to say that. That was a long time ago. I loved that show, Tom. I freaking loved it. Why did I have a radio show? I'll tell you why. Because for those of you that have seen my first appearance here with Tom, this was the period in my life where Chris's restaurant was going off the rails. We were nearly a million dollars in debt There were liens on our house. I had lost my job. I needed money. That's why I had that job. It paid $25 an hour for 2 hours every Saturday. I felt like the world's worst mom because every other parent was at town soccer.

Somebody else, thank you, thank you, thank you to the Graces for driving our kids. They were taking our kids to soccer for us while I could go host this radio show and Chris was doing whatever he could to save the business. That show was a lifeline. I would talk to real people every every single day. It made me feel connected to people. It gave me a sense of purpose. I loved the intimacy of it. And so Evers, and that show eventually grew, and it became syndicated. And then I won something called the Gracie Award for my coverage of Trayvon's murder, and that got CNN's attention. And they called me and said, Hey, we would love to have you be a legal analyst here. And so that then got me on CNN. And Ever since I left radio, I have missed it, and I've been wanting to get back to it. In the back of my mind, especially after I wrote the five-second roll, I kept thinking, I need to launch a podcast. I need to launch a podcast. I love podcast. I need to do this. It mattered so much to me. I was so drawn to it, Tom, that I think that oftentimes when the dream is such a call, the excuses match the desire for it, right?

It was never the right time. I just talked myself out of it over and over and over and over and over again. And so finally, 18 months ago, I literally woke up one morning. I had my own wake-up call, and I'm like, That's it. You're going to let another 10 years go by unless you make a fucking decision to get started.

How did you get started? So you decide you're going to do it and take people into the weeds a bit. Yeah, okay. This is where I think people go off the rails. They're sitting at home thinking, Yeah, Yeah, I want to start a podcast as well. And I want to hear because I know that you end up doing it on a way more professional stage. But walk people through who'd you call? Was it a relationship that you built 20 years ago? I want people to follow that. Yeah.

So first things first. I went to my friend Google. Honest to God, even though I know Tom and I know Lisa, I was too embarrassed to ask you because you guys are out here with all these millions of subs, and you've been the show for a while. Same thing with Louis. You and I have some amazing friends, and oftentimes, I find that going to people that already seem like they're at the top of the top, that's intimidating because it magnifies, at least for somebody who's got a lot of insecurity like me, it magnifies the distance between where you are starting and where somebody is years down the road. Because part of your genius genius, Tom, is that it's easy to look at what Tom's built and forget the fact that this dude has been studying film since he went to USC for Film Skull. This guy is an insanely successful entrepreneur that's bringing all of that sweat equity and learning to the table. This is somebody that's dedicated himself to years of figuring this out and sampling and editing. And so I personally find that when you go to somebody that's already there, it can be a little discouraging.

So I went to Google and I'm like, How do you start a podcast? Honest to God, because I'm smart enough to know it's different than radio. I didn't even know what equipment people have. I didn't know anything about, Okay, how do you put a podcast up? Do you put it everywhere? I don't know. Is there a form that you put the title on and the captions? Then do you send it somewhere? I know how to upload a video to YouTube, but I don't know anything about this market. I went to Google. You're going to laugh at me, but I bought a course about podcasting.Not laughing at all. I studied a bunch of videos about the type of equipment that people bought. I then just started stalking people that are doing it. I started to say to myself, Okay, What does somebody that already has a podcast, what do they do that I'm not currently doing? And so the first step is obviously learn about it, identify a group of people that serve as what I call your lights on the path. And so lights on the path are people that are anywhere from one step ahead of you to 10 years ahead of you.

And these are all people that can guide you forward if you study what they did. And most of them By the way, we live in the most magical period of time. You have no fucking excuse for not walking toward what you want. I realize it may be harder for some of us with mental health issues. I realize that not everybody starts at the same starting bottom line because of bias and all kinds of things that can happen to people. But the bottom line is, through your actions and attitude, you can create anything you fucking want. And look, I'm sitting here saying, I've been wanting to do a podcast for eight years, and for six years, I was nothing but excuses. For why I couldn't get started. And then finally, I'm like, Fuck it. I got to start. And so you start by Google the topic. Number one, become a student of what you want to be first. That's the mindset. What can I learn? What are people doing that is calling to me? What are people doing that I don't like? And so as I started being a student of this, really important, that's why I say, Google.

Google is a search engine. Become a student of what you want to learn about or launch in your life. And there's a bazillion books. There's master classes, there's free videos, there's workshops. And what's so cool, people like Tom are unpacking this shit for with people. And so you can also hear people's stories. And so I probably just immerse myself in it, Tom. And I'd say the first person that I called was Rich Roll. And Rich Roll is a really good friend of mine. Amazing human. Amazing human being. And he was really cute. I called and said, Okay, I'm going to do this thing. What would you tell me knowing everything you know, having been doing the podcast for seven years? And interesting about Rich, that guy is an artist, incredible storyteller, amazing personal story. His hands are in every aspect of that podcast. That is Rich's gift to the world. And what he said to me is he said, Turn on a mic. That's good advice. Turn on a mic. Start recording shit. But I'm not ready. But I don't have the equipment. But I haven't done this. But Mel, if you want to do this thing, turn on the mic and start taping episodes and then listen to it.

And they're going to sound like shit. And you're going to realize it's a hell of a lot harder than you think it is. And so here's the second thing. So number one, become a student, right, of what you want. And even if you don't know people or you don't have a network that is like the one that you and I have built over time, you can still learn from people that you haven't met, full stop.

Especially with YouTube.

It's crazy. It's incredible. And then you just reverse engineer it. And so what you'll do is if you were to simply We're going to do this exercise. We're just going to stick with the podcast episode, but you could insert anything. How do I start a dry cleaning business? You could Google. I don't know how to do that, but I bet there's a video about it. How do I start a catering business? Do I need a commercial kitchen to do that? Like all All these things somebody has figured out, and they have put a video out, or they've written a blog post, or they've written a book, or they're doing a course right now in it. As you're a student, here's your assignment from Mel Robbins. Write down all the actions that you're learning about that people do. Oh, for podcasting, I got to learn how to edit audio. Oh, I got to learn about equipment. Oh, I got to understand all these platforms. Oh, I've got to listen to a ton of podcasts to understand what I like and what I don't like. Oh, I've got to record some. Oh, I've got to under... There's a bazillion things, right?

And so keep that list handy, because every day you can wake up and look at that list, and there is your roadmap to what you want to create in your life. And what happens What happens next is there will be something on that list that is the starting line for real, like when Chick gets real. For me, that was turning on a microphone, which I started doing about six months ago.

How did you deal with being bad if you were bad in the beginning?

I was terrible. Well, because I yammer on and on and on, and I have a very dyslexic ADHD brain, and so I'm all over the freaking place. It was interesting because I just assumed having done six audio projects with Audible and these two self-published audiobooks that, Okay, we got a lot to talk about. Well, one of the big takeaways for me in being a student of this is that the podcast is not about me. About what my intention is that I wanted to have the listener experience. If you are going to create something that has an intention, it has a very different level of artistry and discipline and purpose to it. I figured out very quickly that, yes, I personally want a podcast to sound like two friends having a conversation. And without a certain level of prep and intention, on my part, it was not going to turn out that way. It was going to be Mel meandering all over the place. I mean, even just here, you and I sit down and we're 20 minutes into a conversation and we're already time out. And so I needed to, in my student mindset, I needed to be honest with myself that there are things that I have as natural talents and skills, just like everybody does.

But I also have major weaknesses that I got to get under control so that I don't derail possible success and fulfillment with this project based on my weaknesses.

That's the part I want to understand, though. You have these weaknesses, they're rearing their head, you're having some emotional response. How do you soothe yourself through that? Is it just a belief that, Hey, I can learn. I'll get to the other side, that the awkwardness is a natural part of the progression? Or what do you do to keep that emotional demon from consuming you?

It's an excellent question. It brings us to number three, right? Because we've talked about get up. We've talked about set an attention. We've talked about aligned action. And part of aligned action is about your attitude. So I think I am proud of this unwavering faith and optimism that I have programmed into my noggin over the past several years, that I believe that whatever it is that I'm doing is leading me somewhere else. That every experience, especially the shitty stuff that you can-In the universes guiding me somewhere way? No, I just feel like... It It could be mystical and spiritual, but for me, it's more of an internal grounded faith. I think you and I talked about this, but I had this wake-up call moment where I realized, Oh, my God, you and I are sitting here today, Tom. And if you and I look back at our lives, you can see how everything that happened led you right here. And that even the hardest moments had a deep purpose in shaping who you are, your skills, your expertise, your heart, your soul, your habits, your perspective, and knowing that that's always been true. And do you believe that that's true, that everything that's happened to you has somehow prepared you for what's happening now?

I don't believe that it's prepared me. I think that it shapes you for sure. I think most people live by the law of accident, though, and I'm terrified to live by the law of accident.

What is the law of accident?

That things happen and I just go with them. I don't believe in that. Yes. I don't think everything happens for... Well, so one of my favorite quotes, Everything happens for a reason, but sometimes the reason is that you're dumb and unprepared or whatever. You think you're stupid.

You make dumb decisions.

That I will agree with. But I think that we make meaning and purpose out of things. I don't think they intrinsically have meaning and purpose. I think the second law of thermodynamics is true. That everything leads towards entropy, aka chaos. And the only way to get it back on track is what you're walking us through, which is you inject energy back into the system. And so this idea of aligned action makes a lot of sense to me. You have to figure out, okay, I got out of bed, I set my intention, and now I'm going to do things that align with my intention. Yes. But that's going to be hard. They're going to be things that are knocking me off course. So it's interesting that you have a deep faith that I guess you've made sense of everything.

No. Let me see if I I can explain it this way. I know, I guess it makes me feel grounded, confident, and assured that all the shit that's happened back there, stuff I would not want to repeat, But if it brought me to here, I would, that it has shaped me, prepared me. It has had a purpose.

Do you think things sometimes shape you for the worst, though?

I think things shape you for the worst until you get the lesson or the wake-up call or the frustrated rock-bottom moment.

Is Mel Robin just unusually good at making use of that? I actually think you are.

I think that I hate the fact that I have to hit a fucking wall to change direction.

As your audience, though, it's really interesting. For the audience, one of the first things you said when you got here was, I'm actually doing really well right now. I've learned to reject all the self-hatred beating myself up and all that. And my reaction was, that's amazing. But you've made such extraordinarily good use out of all your struggle. You are uniquely able to take that mess of life and turn it into this really simple idea that people can deploy immediately.

I literally find it comforting knowing that somehow every experience of my life is going to be connected to something in the future.

Because you're good at learning lessons. I have to put that caveat. Yes.

When I believe that the shit that's going on is going to somehow connect to something in the future, it allows me to be more resilient. It allows me to be a little bit more... Is it objective? Yeah. Objective when things are going wrong or when I'm in a really low point or when I listen to my first couple episodes that I... Okay, Rich Roll, I'm going to do a podcast episode now, and I listen, I'm like, Holy shit, this sucks. And I just took on an advertising part. This really sucks. I got a lot of work to do. I go, Yeah. And thank God you had that call with Rich. And thank God you're listening to it because you're right, Mel. If you want this to really make a difference in people's lives, if you want to really do something awesome here, you're going to have to fucking learn It was nothing new.

Walk me through that process. So what are you doing now? The first or what did you do? The first few episodes were not what you wanted.

Oh my God, dude. Before I came here, so we have taped about 17 versions of episode one, not because I'm trying to be perfect, but because I have a certain standard for what I want to put out there. And I literally, as we've gotten closer and closer and closer and closer and closer to launch, I just knew that what we had put out was not what I was supposed to put out. And I kept standing, though, not in a place like, we're fucked. We're literally launching four days from this interview, Tom. Two hours ago, I was in the corner of my hotel room in LA. My team had built a... Remember when you were kids, you make those little forts out of sofa cushions? I am in a fortress of sofa cushions on the floor of the hotel room a mile from here. There is a fucking truck outside the window going... That sounds about right. We've got a deadline to get this to our sound engineer so it can get mixed in everything. I know that this is all leading somewhere else. So there's no reason to actually get stressed out about it. There's no reason to get nervous about it.

And so being able to be in a moment that's high pressure and know that somehow it's going to work out, and somehow this lesson is going to connect me to something in the future, and somehow this all leads somewhere. It allows me to show up when shit's going sideways in my life and still maintain this centered, focused level of confidence. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.