The Science of Achieving Goals: How to Change Your Life in 5 Simple Steps

25:48Mel Robbins:You're going to volunteer for hospice. You're going to write that book. You're going to put yourself back out there and meet the love of your life. You're going to do the dead arm hang for a minute. Then you visualize. And when you visualize yourself doing it, I want you to not just visualize, okay, it's been a minute. Now you drop, you visualize this and you ask how you can get certified to volunteer. And then you visualize yourself going to the meeting. And then you visualize yourself driving the meals or sitting bedside with somebody and see what you want in your imagination. And as you do this, your brain builds the circuitry to make it easier in real life.

26:34Mel Robbins:And it's not just neuroscientists that can explain this. This is a technique that Olympians use. They visualize their routines before they do them because basically it's a way to do the mental reps to get your brain to anticipate what's going to happen. This is why pilots train in simulators. Your brain loves rehearsal. And so when you combine all three, naming it, writing it down, visualizing it works so well, every sensory channel you activate lights up different parts of your brain. And when these systems fire up together around the same thing that you want, you create deeper, stronger neural pathways.

27:09Mel Robbins:And it allows the goal to really become part of your subconscious. You're not just thinking about it anymore. You have encoded it into your brain. And now your brain's like, oh yeah, we're doing this. I can visualize doing this. You see how powerful this is? And this is particularly important if you're constantly talking yourself out of everything. Dr. Jim Doty says all of that nastiness, all the ways you say no, I'm too late, I'm too this, I can't do this, that's a part of your brain called the default mode network that is just in overdrive. Why? Well, he's already taught you this because repetition causes your brain to remember things.

27:50Mel Robbins:You know how long you've been saying this garbage to yourself? And that's why you can use this process that Dr. Doty taught us on this podcast and I'm simplifying for you right now. You gotta get clear about what you want and you got to write it down because we are going to override that loop of negativity that's been in there probably your whole life. If you don't declare what's important to you, if you don't get clear about what you want, the things that are meaningful, everybody else's stuff is going to fall right in the frontal line. So do not skip this step, okay? Now, once you know, what do you want?

28:29Mel Robbins:What is it that's important to you? Let's talk about rule number two. Okay, and I'm going to warn you, you're not going to like this rule. But when it comes to your goals and the things that matter to you, fire your family. You heard me right. Fire your family. This is a huge mistake that people make. See, you think that when you set a goal, your family is supposed to become your biggest cheering squad. That is the biggest mistake that you could possibly make. And the reason why is that these goals that you have, they're not goals for your family, they're goals for you. Most of the time, your family is not gonna be your biggest cheerleader.

29:12Mel Robbins:Your family is gonna be like, wait a minute, what are you doing? How are you doing that? Why do you wanna do that? See, if your family doesn't share the goals that you have, if your family has never done the thing that you want to do, they're not gonna understand why you wanna do it and they're not gonna know how to get it done. So they can't support you in doing something that they don't care about. They can't support you in doing something they don't understand. And this brings me to a bigger point. Your goals and the things that bring meaning to your life are your responsibility. They're not your family's responsibility.

29:48Mel Robbins:Like there are so many instances in my life where I can think of one right now. My daughter Sawyer. My daughter had always had this huge goal. This is an amazingly enormous goal. She had always wanted to travel solo through Asia, backpacking for like five months. That was her dream. Do you know what that sounds like to me, her mother? My biggest nightmare. I argued against it. I didn't understand it. I was scared. I was the least supportive person in the family. Well, luckily for Sawyer, she had fired me a long time ago. She didn't care what I had to say because she knew it would haunt her for the rest of her life if she didn't pursue this thing that was meaningful to her.

30:31Mel Robbins:And that's why you got to fire your family. I'll give you another example. My husband, Chris, he is working on his first ever book. I am so proud of him. I mean, this has been a goal of Chris's for probably five years. And he didn't start by writing out a book. You know what he started by doing? Getting clear that he wanted to do more writing. and that led to him joining a writing group online where it sounds kind of boring but you basically just go on zoom and everybody writes and then you talk about it and then there's assignments where you all write about certain things and read about your writing and it was this beautiful thing that he did and then that led him after a couple years of just being in a writing class to say, hey, I'm very clear I want to write a book.

31:21Mel Robbins:I don't even know what it's about. I just want to write a book. And he's been writing a book for two and a half years. Now, here's what I got to tell you. I haven't read a single word of his manuscript. And that's not because I don't care. It's because he hasn't asked me to. I don't really know what the book is about. I kind of have a general idea, but it's changed. I don't know the title. I don't know what he's thinking about for the cover design. I just know that every single day the man writes. And I also know he fired his family. There is not one cell in Christopher Robin's body that is saying, your family's not supportive because he's not even expecting us to be.

32:08Mel Robbins:He's doing it for him. And I want you to just stop and really think about how powerful that is. How powerful is it to realize that you can do something just for yourself? That you can insert something into your life that's meaningful to you without having to seek validation and support from everybody else around you? because you're doing it for you. That's why this research is so important that when you got clear about what you wanted, what you want is for you. And that's incredible. And that's available to you. Now, here's the nuance. You're going to fire your family, but I didn't say you had to do it alone.

33:06Mel Robbins:What does that mean? It means don't make your family the support team. If there's something in your life that you want to do, first you got to get clear about what it is. You got to understand you're doing it for you because it makes you feel more like you and it brings something into your life. And then ask yourself, well, if I were to do this with a team, what could that look like? And let me give you an example of what that looks like. So I have been hosting the Mel Robbins podcast for three and a half years. But two years before I recorded my first episode, first followed rule number one, I got very clear about what I wanted.

33:50Mel Robbins:And what I wanted was to start a podcast because I really wanted to have longer conversations with you. And I also wanted to learn more. I wanted to have a podcast where we could sit down, you and me, with some of the world's most renowned experts and interesting people and learn and gain from their wisdom and feel encouraged and inspired and just have our minds expand and our lives expand. But that was two years getting clear before I recorded my first episode. Now, second, I fired my family. I didn't even think about getting them to work on this because they'd never hosted a podcast before. So what did I do?

34:30Mel Robbins:Who was my team? Well, you know, I called my buddy Jay Shetty. I knew Jay from the speaking world, not from the podcast world. And I asked him for advice. I started following people online like Stephen Bartlett, Diary of a CEO, and Alex Cooper from Caller Daddy, and Rich Roll from the Rich Roll podcast, and really becoming a student. So you can create a team by following people that you've never met. you can create a team, not just by following the greats, but anything that you want to do, whether it's becoming a better gardener. One of our senior producers, Amy, who's helping me on this podcast, she took an online master gardening course from the University of Vermont online.

35:15Mel Robbins:Isn't that the coolest thing ever? She recruited a team. And oftentimes there are small groups, professional groups that organize around the thing that you want, whether it's gardening, or it's knitting, or it's hospice, or it's yoga, or it's starting a YouTube channel, or it's getting out of debt. That's your team. Because you don't have to know everything. You just have to be clear about what you want. Then you fire your family after you've written it down and you start visualizing it. And then you start to look around for who might be able to inspire you? What team could you join online or in your community of people who have done this thing or trying to do this thing?

35:59Mel Robbins:What professional society is full of people? What events are out there that are talking about this? That's how you get the support that you need. And one more reason why this is important. When you fire your family, you have to take full responsibility for the things that you want in your life instead of outsourcing them to your family. Like a lot of the mistakes that people make when it comes to goals is you start saying you want things that you think you should want. And oftentimes it's because of the pressure coming from your family that you think you should change your job. You think you should move to a different city.

36:40Mel Robbins:You think you should be interested in baseball or knitting or football or something else. And so firing your family also cuts this umbilical cord to the people you're related to and forces you to truly own what's important to you and why it's important to you. All right, that's rule number two. Stop outsourcing your motivation to your family. Fire your family. And I hope you're starting to feel a little relief. Because once you stop outsourcing your goal to the wrong people and you start taking ownership, change becomes possible and your goals don't feel so out of reach. And so here's what we're going to do though.

37:20Mel Robbins:We're going to take a quick pause for a minute because I want to give our amazing sponsors a chance to share a few words. And while we do, don't go anywhere because up next, we're talking about rule number three, incredible research about the two requirements of every goal. And once you hear it, you're going to realize, oh my gosh, that's the reason why I haven't made my goals stick. Stay with me.

37:48Mel Robbins:You know that feeling when your brain is fried? You have like 12 irritating tasks you don't care about, but you have to do them anyway? That's where I've been lately. The administrative stuff was eating up half my day. So I've been using Microsoft Copilot as my extra set of hands. It's like having your own personal assistant. That's why Microsoft Copilot is my favorite AI tool. Last week, I had to send this long, overly complicated email about scheduling and travel, the kind of thing that takes up way too much energy for what it is. I opened Copilot, talked to it out loud while I was walking around my kitchen, and Copilot turned it into a clean, professional draft.

38:31Mel Robbins:It was amazing. And because my brain wasn't fried, I had the energy to sit down and eat dinner with Chris without feeling mentally wiped. That's the whole point for me. Microsoft Copilot clears the clutter so I can be more present for the moments that matter. That's why I'm using it. If you want to try it for yourself, visit Microsoft.com backslash Mel Robbins to download the Copilot app. Get started with Copilot today for free and see how handing off the small stuff gives you more energy for the moments that matter. That's Microsoft.com backslash Mel Robbins. You have a lot going on. Between work, family, everything else that you got on your plate, life gets so busy.

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39:52Mel Robbins:Prioritize yourself. Head to drinkag1.com slash mel. Right now, my friends will get a free AG1 flavor sampler with a bottle of vitamin D3 plus K2 for free in your welcome kit with your first AG1 subscription. That's a$72 value. Again, that's drinkag1.com slash mel to check it out. Dell PCs with Intel inside are built for the moments you plan and the ones you don't. There for those all-night study sessions, the moment you're working from a cafe and realize every outlet's taken, the times when you're deep in flow and can't be interrupted by an auto-update. That's why Dell builds tech that adapts to you.

40:36Mel Robbins:Built with long-lasting batteries so you're not scrambling for an outlet. Find technology built for the way you work at dell.com slash dellpcs. Built for you.

40:57Mel Robbins:Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. Today, you are learning how to set and achieve your most important goals. And that brings me to the third rule. And the third rule is another critical thing that most people don't understand. I know I certainly didn't. And once I learned rule number three, which comes from groundbreaking research on goals, I understood why I had had a hard time keeping and sticking to my goals. And it had to do with the fact that I didn't understand that there are two requirements that are necessary for you to achieve a goal. And this research, it's going to change the way you think about goals for the rest of your life.

41:44Mel Robbins:It comes out of the University of Oregon, and it was conducted by professor and psychologist, Dr. Elliot Berkman. Dr. Elliot Berkman is also the co-director of the Center for Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oregon. And his research explains exactly why you may have not been able to meet goals in the past, or you haven't been able to kind of like create the changes that you're looking to see in your life. And what I love about his research is it's super specific. It gives you a template and it's empowering because he says there's two requirements for any goal, any project, any change you want to make.

42:23The two requirements are the will and the way.

42:28Mel Robbins:So let's unpack these according to the research. Think about the thing that's important to you or the problem that you want to solve, the goal that you're going to insert into your life right now, okay? And so the first component that we got to have based on the research is what Dr. Berkman calls your will. That's why. I'm going to call it as your friend. You got to have the why and the way. Why does this goal matter to me? And think about the example that I gave you with my husband, Chris. Why did he want to start a meditation circle? It wasn't to meditate. The why was for community. And that's critical because when you get clear about why you want something, it taps into this thing that psychologists and researchers call intrinsic motivation.

43:18That is the truest, purest form of motivation because it is coming from an internal source

43:24Mel Robbins:that is personal to you. So let me ask you, if you want to go back to school, Why do you want to get your master's? Why? Is it because you think you should? Because that's not a good why. Why do you want to get your master's? Is it because it's going to make you proud of yourself? Is it because you feel like you've stopped learning and it's going to expand the satisfaction you have to be a student again? Is the why because you want to make a career pivot and the master's would help you? you be able to get a job in this new field? Why do you want this thing? Why do you want to run a marathon? You know, when I was in my 30s, I ran four marathons.

44:15Mel Robbins:And the reason why I wanted to run the first marathon is because I just always had it on a bucket list. I just knew I would be proud of myself if I completed something like that. Because I always felt like I was the kind a person that as a race was finishing, I'm the person that slows down. You know how a lot of people speed up and lean forward? I ran track in high school and I would see the finish line coming. I'm like, oh, thank you. My God, this thing's over. And I'd kind of limp across the finish line. I know, not great. But what happened is I finished my first one and I had so much fun training with a friend of mine that was also running it that my why changed.

44:57Mel Robbins:Why do I want to run a marathon? I'll tell you why. Because it became the perfect excuse to be able to disappear for three or four hours every week with my girlfriends and train and talk. The why wasn't about running at all. It was about time with friends. That's what motivated me. Do you see why this is so important? Why do you want to write a book? Is it because you think you're going to be a bestseller or is because you have a story to tell or there's just something about how it would feel to know that you are the kind of person that writes every day. You got to dig deep to find this why. Why are you doing it?

45:46Mel Robbins:And this is so important because the why why is what will get you through those annoying, inconvenient, I don't feel like it. If you're the kind of person that's like, I have no discipline and I have no willpower, it's because you don't understand the why for what you're doing. And it can be anything. This is where goal setting gets so personal because it's got to tie back into your values, your identity, the way you see yourself. Let me give you another one. Let's say that you want to just become a better cook. Now, the why could be that in the next three to five years, you want to buy a house or you want to buy a condo.

46:32Mel Robbins:And if you keep burning through all your money on stupid things like delivery, you're not able to save money. So do you see how the why might also surprise you? It might not have to do with cooking at all. It might have to do with something way deeper. And the research is very clear that without having a deeper connection, you're going to quit because this why is the reason that you keep showing up. The why is what fuels willpower. It's like putting gas in the tank. I'll give you another person example because I know so many people have their health and losing weight and being stronger and longevity as a goal.

47:15Mel Robbins:So I've already shared a lot that health is my number one goal this year. And that's why I am super focused on protein. It's why I'm doing so much more resistance training. I used to be a yoga and a Pilates gal. I am now heavy, heavy weights. Now here's where it gets interesting. I've had health-related goals my whole life. And I've been really spotty in terms of my ability to stick to them. And I now understand why. I never figured out the will part, my why that gave me the willpower. There were years where I was trying to lose weight because I thought I should. There were years where I was trying to get in shape because I wanted to have six-pack abs, but the truth is I really didn't want to.

47:59Mel Robbins:I didn't care. I just felt like I should, right? There's so much pressure from the media to look a certain way. And that explains why I was never really that motivated or consistent about it, because the reason I was doing it wasn't authentic or personal to me. Now, lately, I'm so proud of myself. I have gotten so consistent about exercising. And the reason is because of these rules I'm telling you. And I also got very clear about the why. It's not so that I look good in a bathing suit. That's a benefit. The real reason is I don't want to be frail when I get older. And I'm 57 and I've gone through such a major transformation of my body with all these hormone changes thanks to menopause that that was scary enough.

48:47Mel Robbins:But the truth is, as I look out over the next 10 years, if Chris and I are lucky our kids are falling in love and they're getting married, I want to dance at all their weddings. If they start having kids and we're lucky enough to have grandkids, I want to be in the pool, and on the mountains and going for walks and lifting them up. And I am tired of everything else from work, worrying about the headlines and taking care of everybody else coming first. And my health happens only when I'm feeling motivated. And so I am committed to becoming the kind of person who works out every day, who takes care of their health, where it's just part of my daily life.

49:35Mel Robbins:And so now that I understand my why, that I am the kind of person that takes care of myself because I am the kind of person who is going to do everything I can to live a strong, long, vibrant, healthy life, that has changed everything. So think about your why. Why do you want to drink more water? Why is it important that you finalize the divorce? Why do you want to volunteer? Why does cleaning out the back bedroom and turning it into a proper office, why does that matter to you? That is the first critical component of your goal, and that is what's going to fuel you. All right, this feels like a great moment to hit the pause because one of my goals, honestly, is to be a gracious and great partner to the incredible sponsors of the Mel Robbins podcast.

50:29Mel Robbins:They're the ones that allow me to do this and make it free for all of us and millions of people around the world. So take a listen. And while you do, share this episode with someone that you love. Text it to the friend that either has a big goal that they're working on, or even better, text it to that person in your life that hasn't made time for themselves in a decade. Let me inspire them with these rules. When we come back, we have so much more research and more of these incredible rules for you to learn that are going to help you achieve your most important goals. Stay with me.

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51:46Mel Robbins:And especially when you've gotten to that point in your job where you're like, huh, I feel like I want more, but I'm not sure what more is. That's why LinkedIn exists. It is there so you can get ideas and insights from experts in your field, make professional connections, grow your network, and access tools designed to help you discover what's next. Because LinkedIn is the network that works for you. Visit linkedin.com slash Mel Robbins to learn more. Looking to buy or sell a home or property? Look for the trademark R to know that you've found a realtor or agent, someone with the ethical expertise to guide you through the process.

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52:52Mel Robbins:Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins today. You and I are talking about getting clear about what you want and achieving your most important goals. And I'm sharing five research-backed rules that will help you create more meaning and take back your time in a way that really improves your life where you are right now. I'm so excited for us to jump right back in. Now let's talk about the second component. And this is the way. You got the why and you got the way. Thank you, Dr. Berkman. And what does that mean? That just means how the heck are you going to do this thing? So let me give you a very obvious visual for the way that I think about this piece of the research, the way.

53:31Mel Robbins:Where you are right now, imagine that there is a beautiful brick path that is in front of you that leads you to the thing that you want to insert into your life, this important goal that you have, whether it's writing the book or it's doing the dead hang or it's volunteering for hospice or it's going back to graduate school, this brick path leads you from where you are to the thing that you really want that's important. Every single brick just represents one action that you're going to take, whether you take it once a day, whether you take it once a week, whether you do something once a month, because the way that you do anything, the way that you lay a path is just brick by brick by brick.

54:15Mel Robbins:And we're going to get into how you're going to insert action now into a crazy busy life. Don't worry about that at all. But there's a couple things I'm going to share with you based on research that will help you start to think about, okay, well, how do I start doing this thing? Okay. And the first one I want to share with you is really fun. This research comes from Professor Katie Milkman. She's one of the world's leading behavioral scientists, an endowed professor at Wharton School of Business, and she has this incredible trick to make your goals stick. Okay, you ready? Now that you understand what you want and why you want it, we've fired your family, how do we make this fun?

54:58Mel Robbins:It sounds obvious, but I think so many of us go through life with the wrong mindset. You're like, okay, I got to get healthy. Or, oh, I got to become financially free. And if it feels hard, you're not going to want to do it. If it feels hard, it almost feels like you've been doing something wrong. What if we flip that? What if you don't need to make this hard? What if the thing that you want to do could be like super fun? You already know why you want to do it. So how about we make it easier for you to do it, right? Professor Milkman says, stop making everything a grind and build instant gratification into this path wherever you can.

55:50Mel Robbins:And look, it's not always possible. You know, as I'm hanging there with my sweaty palms, feeling like my arms are going to rip out from their sockets and I'm only 23 seconds into this, it's not that fun, okay? But there's way more ways than you think to make something more enjoyable, and we rarely even stop to try to do it. And here's what this looks like for me. I'm going to give you a bunch of suggestions. I love listening to fantasy audiobooks. It's my total guilty pleasure. So I only allow myself to listen to fantasy audiobooks when I'm working out. And I don't allow myself to listen to an audiobook in the car or while I'm doing housework.

56:32Mel Robbins:Nope, I save it for working out, whether I'm on the treadmill or I'm lifting heavy weights or I'm doing that dead arm hang. It makes it fun. That's how you make it consistent. Nobody said it had to be hard. I mean, you could set up, if writing is your thing, maybe you clear out a space and you put some like cool things on your desk or you have beautiful flowers there and you burn an incense and you lock the door so nobody can come in the room and you got 30 minutes to yourself. That's kind of fun, right? And if you're still scratching your head and you're like, okay, I can envision the brick smell, but I'm just, the YouTube, how do I do this thing?

57:10Mel Robbins:You know, I don't know how to start really working on the business plan. I don't know how, I know my why, but I've never done something like this before. Here's one of the best tricks on the planet. Are you ready? Because we really live in a moment where you don't have excuses anymore. If you don't know how to start, if you don't know how to break down this goal that you have into individual bricks, which are just all the little actions that you're going to take, Microsoft Copilot is a sponsor of this podcast and a sponsor of our tour. It is the AI platform that I use because I've been using Microsoft products since 1990 when Windows came out.

57:52Mel Robbins:And it's incredible how much time it can save you so you can focus on the things that matter. Just tell it about your goal. Tell it you need to break it down into the smallest things. Give me a list of 30 actions I could take. So one every day for 30 days. And by the way, could you make the actions, infuse it with a little bit of fun? it can help you find the way. It can help you infuse it with fun. And here's one final thing about the way you're going to do it. You know why you want to do this thing. I think you're really starting to understand the power of owning it for yourself and how making the time makes you feel like you're in control of your time.

58:34Mel Robbins:But another trick from James Clear is really attach what you're doing not to the outcome. It's not about writing the book. It's not about being able to do 10 pull-ups. It's not about the better relationship with your adult kids. It's not about the number on the scale. The research is very clear that when you attach this important goal to your identity, it's who you're becoming. That changes everything. Like who's the kind of person who achieves the goal that you just set? Maybe you're just the kind of person that prioritizes your health. It's not about six-pack abs. It's not about losing 50 pounds.

59:26Mel Robbins:You're the kind of person that respects yourself enough that you just prioritize your health. You don't miss workouts because you know how you feel. It's a non-negotiable. You're the kind of person who keeps promises to themselves. I'll tell you, I'm the kind of person that makes my bed every morning. I'm the kind of person that walks my dogs every day. I'm the kind of person that drinks a lot of water. I'm the kind of person who plans my meals instead of winging it. Same thing with meditating. The goal isn't to meditate. If the why is, I want to feel more peace in my life. I want to meditate because I want to be grounded.

1:00:01Mel Robbins:I want to meditate because I want to train my mind and body to be able to respond to life instead of constantly reacting to life. Then how you apply this is you say, I'm the kind of person who chooses peace. I'm the kind of person who meditates every day because of how it settles me and makes me feel more powerful. Do you see how that slight difference changes the way you're approaching something? It's become who you are instead of what I do. It's not a box you're checking. It's a way of being. So now that we have declared what we want, we have fired our family and taken full accountability for the thing that we want to put into our life.

1:00:53Mel Robbins:Now that we've understood and dug deep and figured out the deeply personal why this matters to me, and we started really getting strategic about the ways in which we can start working on this now, rule number four it changes the game. It's called the hot 15. Find 15 minutes to work on this. That's it. I call it the hot 15. You can lay a brick on this path in just 15 minutes a day. In fact, you can lay a brick on this path in just 15 minutes a week. That's it. Hot 15. Now imagine if your meditation practice, the first couple bricks that you lay down this week is just you walking to your most comfortable chair with a cup of tea in your hand and sitting down.

1:01:47Mel Robbins:You don't even have to meditate because you just got yourself there. And you did that for seven days. you've just laid seven bricks. Imagine if your goal is to be the kind of person who walks every day because it's a way to reset your circadian rhythm. It's a way to get outside and bring your senses alive. Imagine if the first 10 times you do it, your hot 15 is just putting on your sneakers, walking to the end of your driveway, turning around, and walking back inside. Because now what you're doing is you're just using the hot 15, those hot 15 minutes to build up the routine of starting. Because you're the kind of person that gets outside every day.

1:02:42And what I've found with this hot 15 is that you can find 15 minutes even on the busiest days.

1:02:49Mel Robbins:Like you can find 15 minutes in a waiting room at a doctor's office. You can find 15 minutes while you're riding the subway. You can find 15 minutes first thing in the morning. You know, if you can find time to doom scroll, you can find 15 minutes. And really, it works. That's how I've written every single book I've ever written. I start with the first bricks of just the hot 15. 15 minutes every morning. I get up the stairs, I'm doing my hot 15, and then I stare at the screen and I don't know what to write. And then I'm done. I didn't write anything. Guess what? I show up the next day, we're laying another brick on this path because I'm the kind of person that writes.

1:03:34Mel Robbins:That's what I do, even when I got nothing to say. And so I sit at my desk and then I think, okay, well, maybe I won't type. Maybe today I'll open up a book and I'll handwrite. And then I'll write a sentence. And the sentence is literally like this. I don't know what to write. so I'm just writing, I don't know what to write. Why am I brain dead? Why can't I think of anything? And I start to write out what I'm thinking for 15 minutes and then I'm done. That's another brick. Don't you see that this is cool? Like if you wanna make more money, you can spend 15 minutes a day starting to learn how to get out of debt.

1:04:07Mel Robbins:You can spend 15 minutes looking at your current bank account and seeing all the subscriptions that are sucking money out of your account. And that's one brick. And then tomorrow, your hot 15 is starting to unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe. And that's like, dig, dig, dig, money back in your account. There's another brick. So if you want more money, if you want to hit a big goal, if you want to make progress toward this thing that's important to becoming a person that you really are proud of, start with 15 minutes a day. Those 15 minutes is where you say, Y 'all can wait because this is what matters to me.

1:04:51Mel Robbins:It's a way to really come back to yourself. And for me personally, I like to do this in the morning. And I don't really consider myself a morning person. I've trained myself to love my mornings because it's the one shot I have all day before the rest of the world comes in and steals my attention and I'm in reaction mode. It's the one moment I have clean to be able to focus on what matters to me. And there's a lot of research behind this. There's this biologist, Dr. Christoph Randler, and his research was featured in Harvard Business Review, and it found that people who anchor their intention in the morning, this is so cool, are dramatically more likely to follow through on personal goals.

1:05:39Mel Robbins:So what does this mean? This means if you wake up before you look at your phone and you remind yourself, okay, let's do the Dr. Doty exercise. Imagine waking up and you're like, okay, I want to write a book. This is what matters to me. Then you write it down. Then you read it. Then you visualize yourself doing it. You just anchored that intention in the morning. You are going to be dramatically more likely to follow through on that hot 15 and lay that brick today. That's the hot 15 because nobody said this had to be hard. In fact, how do you lay a path from where you are to where you want to go?

1:06:16Brick by brick by brick by brick.

1:06:19Mel Robbins:And that brings me to rule number five. You will never lose if you don't quit. That's it. That's it. And I get it. Like life gets busy. You get tired. You get discouraged. You're sick. The flu hits you. Somebody in your family is struggling. You got to travel for work. You know, maybe something blindsides you, the headlines, they just like take you down for a couple days or a week. You just don't feel like it. And then what do you do? Well, you beat yourself up. You're like, okay, well, I only laid 14 bricks. I guess I better end this path. You know, I guess I screwed up again. I blew it again.

1:06:58Mel Robbins:Let's just stop and think about the visual. If you did 14 actions, Those bricks are still there. Like we just throw our hands in the air and say it doesn't count. It does count. Because you can keep coming back to it anytime you want to. All of the bricks are there. You've started laying the path. And the only way you lose is if you don't come back and lay another brick. It's that simple. and I love this rule. I love this rule so much because it's true. There's some really interesting research about this. Angela Duckworth, who's a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She's also the founder and CEO of Character Lab and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance.

1:07:56Mel Robbins:She studies willpower discipline and she told me something incredible when she was on the podcast. She said, you know, Mel, people with willpower and grit and discipline, that doesn't look like intensity. It looks like consistency. That slow, methodical, laying a brick, then laying another brick. She used the example of Michael Phelps, who has won 23 gold medals as an Olympic swimmer. And his coach said that Phelps doesn't give a 10 out of 10 at every practice. In terms of intensity, he does like a seven or an eight. But what does he do? He lays a brick every day. He swims every day. That's consistency.

1:08:47Mel Robbins:And when Dr. Duckworth says consistency, she doesn't mean never missing a day. She means if you get sick, if you have an injury, if you fall off the horse, you come back. Elite performers, oh my God, when they lose or they have doubt or they have a really bad day or they're going through a breakup or they didn't get what they wanted or they get injured, they come back. And that's why understanding this research from Dr. Berkman, the will, which I call the why, why do you want this thing and the way you're going to achieve it? It's so critical. Because if you wanted to start meditating consistently, because you want to be the kind of person that meditates, and you also want more peace in your life.

1:09:40Mel Robbins:Let's say life intervenes. You lose somebody you love. You're grieving for six months, and you haven't meditated in six months. You're still the kind of person who meditates. You still want peace in your life. And I want you to turn around and look behind you because every single day that you have meditated in your life, that's a brick on the path. It's still there. So what would a person who meditates and who wants more peace and power in their life do if they haven't meditated in six months and they're starting to miss it? Well, they would start meditating again, just like a person who exercises because they're the kind of person that prioritizes their health.

1:10:33If they had an injury and they couldn't exercise or they just had a three-year stretch of stress

1:10:39Mel Robbins:and train wreck and like, oh my God, what does that kind of person do when all of a sudden they slow down for a second and say, what do I want? What's important to me? And why do I want that? And no, it's not anybody else's response. Well, they would start exercising again. What does a writer do if they haven't written anything in years, they would start writing again. That's the power of what you learned today. And now you have all five of these rules and all of this amazing research, and it's time. It's time for you to take the things that you learned and insert something meaningful into your life now.

1:11:30Mel Robbins:Now, just decide what you want and then write it down. Read it, say it out loud, and really imagine yourself laying that brick. Imagine yourself doing it because that's a way that you not only get clear about what you want, but you train your mind to help you get it. Second, you're going to fire your family. Stop looking to them for support. And if you want to find a team, just look for people who are already doing it. Look for people that are trying to do this because they understand why this matters and they're going to be the best support. Rule number three is this great research. You got to know why you're doing it.

1:12:12Mel Robbins:And this is deeply personal and it can change over time and your way. And there are lots of ways that we discussed and tools that you can use to brainstorm about all these little bricks that help you pave the way day after day, week after week over time. You're going to use your hot 15. 15 minutes is all it takes. Let's make this easy and fun. 15. I like to do it first thing in the morning, but you can do it at night if you didn't get it done. And finally, don't quit because this isn't a race. There is no deadline. The reason why you're doing this is because you recognize that you deserve to have something that's worth getting out of bed for.

1:12:48Mel Robbins:You deserve to have something every week that you look forward to. You deserve to have something that matters to you, that is bringing meaning to your life, that's important to you because that's what makes life fulfilling. And I also want to acknowledge you. You did something enormous today. Now, it might not feel enormous to you, but it is. You didn't just think about making your life better. You didn't just think about your goals. You chose to make time to be here with me. You listened or you watched and you really took this in. And I want you to remember this moment. The next time you're lying in bed and you're staring at the ceiling, you think, can I really do this?

1:13:37Mel Robbins:Yes, you can. Of course you can. Because now you know how. And it's not just me telling you this. It's the research that proves that this will work. And more importantly, I'm really proud of you because I think this is the first brick. I think this is the first brick, the first action on a path that's leading you somewhere new. You deserve to have a more meaningful life. And by figuring out what you want and putting it into your life right now, you're not only going to feel more control of your time, you will feel your life getting better right now. And in case no one else tells you this, I wanted to be sure to say, I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life.

1:14:26Mel Robbins:Follow these five rules, start working on something that's important to you, and your life is going to start feeling better right now. All righty. I'll see you in the very next episode. I'll be there to welcome you in the moment you hit play.

1:14:45You ready?

1:14:46Mel Robbins:Jessie, great. Should we clap you in? Yes. Here we go. This is like the old days. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Sorry. I shouldn't eat before. Is it sounding all right? Can you hear them? We're good, do you think? Yeah. Okay, great. All right, great. Great job.

1:15:12Mel Robbins:Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Sirius XM Podcasts.

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