How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self Transformation

What do you do when it feels like your mind has actually turned against you? And there's two reasons why I want to talk to you about this today. First of all, it feels awful when you talk to yourself in a way that just brings you down. And second, your brain is a super computer. Your brain can help you get what you want if you know how to use it correctly, and nobody teaches you this stuff, at least nobody taught me, so that's why you and I are going to talk about this today. I'm going to teach you the five simple things that helped me and that are going to help you let go of the negative thoughts, five simple things that create a more positive way of looking at yourself, and, by the way, these are also the exact same five things that will train your brain to help you get what you want in life. So, whether you're excited to learn this because you're just so sick and tired of beating yourself up and dragging yourself down, or maybe you've got big goals and you're like, "Mel, tell me how to get my mind to work for me so that I can get what I want," well, I'm gonna, 'cause that's exactly what we're talking about today, five simple things that will redirect all your mental energy toward happiness, success, and self-transformation. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I love what we're gonna talk about today. I am so excited that you're here. It's always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together, and if you're a new listener, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I am so glad that you're here, and I also want to point out something. If you're listening to this particular episode because someone shared this with you, that's really cool. It means you have people in your life that care about you, and I just want to take a moment and point that out. And I know that so many of you are going to be sharing this episode with people that you care about, so I also want to thank you for taking the time to listen to something that's not only gonna help you create a more positive mindset and it's gonna teach you five simple things that you can do to let go of the negative thoughts and train your mind to work for you. I'm so excited that you're listening to that for yourself and also that you're gonna be able to share this resource with people that you care about, because I know you're the type of person who values your time and you made the time to listen to this. And so, if you're sick of beating yourself up, if you're sick of living in a negative place, or if you're just curious, like, "How do I use simple, research-backed methods to actually make my mind work for me?" holy cow are you in the right place, because that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today: five simple things that you can do to take control of your mind, let go of negative thoughts, and redirect all your mental energy toward happiness, success, and self-transformation. And so, you know, I always am very intentional about why I want to talk to you about certain things, and what inspired this conversation today is the conversation I had with my daughters. I mean, we always get on FaceTime, the three of us do, typically when one of us is getting ready or we're waking up in the morning, and we were on FaceTime the other day, and, as I shared earlier, one of our daughters is 24, the other one is 25. One lives in New York, one lives in LA. I live in southern Vermont, and so, just like you do with the people you care about, we get on FaceTime all the time and we're yapping away, and all of a sudden one of my daughters is like, "I'm just in this negative place right now. It's like nothing I do is enough. Everything that I put on my body doesn't look good. No matter how hard I'm working, I just am constantly trashing myself." And then my other daughter chimed in, and I was horrified to hear that they were both kind of in this place where they're focused on the negative, where their thoughts are kind of turned back against them, and as we're having this conversation it reminded me of a story that I've shared on this podcast and I've shared in some interviews that I've done, you know, I've been talking about The Let Them Theory book, and so you may have heard this story but it's such an important and compelling story that it bears repeating. And so here's what happened. My 25-year-old daughter Sawyer and I wrote The Let Them Theory book together, and on the press tour a ton of people have asked me, "What was it like to work on a project of that magnitude, writing and researching a book with one of your kids?" And it was incredible. I mean, it was absolutely incredible for a number of reasons, to not only get to know her in a completely different way because I'm her mother and she's my daughter and so we have the mother-daughter dynamic, and we're very close but we've always kind of had this friction. But having this project that we could both focus on and organize ourselves around was super cool because I got to experience her in a completely different way. And here's what happened. So when we first started working together, I asked her if she would simply just do this research project about The Let Them Theory because we had done a podcast episode on it and there were all of these comments, it had gone crazy viral and really resonated with people around the world, so I was like, "Hey, Sawyer, would you just dig into the comments on this podcast episode and the things that you're seeing that people are saying online about the things that I've been sharing, and then come back to me in a couple of weeks with an analysis of what, you know, you're seeing?" And I expected this to take, like, two weeks. Now, mind you, I'm very different than my daughter Sawyer. I mean, I've got, like, this crazy, artistic ADHD brain and Sawyer thinks in Excel spreadsheets. Before working for me and working with me, she worked at a huge cyber security firm that is in 44 countries and was in, like, the digital marketing and marketing tech side of that business. And so here she is taking on this research project for me on the side.And I'm expecting this thing to take two or three weeks. I'm expecting the result to be, like, a briefing that is gonna be a couple pages long. She hands me, f- 36 hours later, a 27 page, like, I don't even know how to describe the way this thing was organized. It was, like, columns with color-coded tabs and links to the source material, and she had a two-page synopsis of her analysis of all of the sentiment online, and she had identified all these things that needed further re- I mean, it was jaw-dropping. My brain just doesn't work like that. My brain is like letting a box full of mice loose in your kitchen. Everything scatters in different directions. This was a level of organization and mental horsepower that I actually didn't know she had. I just didn't understand that this was how her brain worked. And when I saw this work product from her, generated in 36 hours, I was not only dumbfounded at just how intelligent she is and how differently her brain works, I had this heartbreaking realization. As I looked at the 27 pages, I thought to myself, "Oh my God, I now know why she's so hard on herself." Because if she doesn't have a project to aim this supercomputer at, she aims it at herself. And I just want that to sit in with you for a minute, that if you have this supercomputer, and you do, you have a supercomputer between your ears. It is designed to solve problems. It is designed to spot patterns. It is designed to learn new things. It is designed to keep you safe. It is designed to analyze things. It is designed to create and to connect and to constantly be growing. That's what your brain is doing. It's doing an incredible job, 'cause if you're listening to this and you're able to hear these words and absorb this information or you're watching me on YouTube right now, your supercomputer is engaged. It is processing information. It is filing it away in your brain. There are neural pathways connecting and firing and wiring together. Like, it is doing its thing. It's keeping you breathing. It's keeping you, your body temperature in a certain place, all while you're doing this. And that's just, like, a, a, a scratch of the surface of what that supercomputer is doing. But I want you to really stop and consider what I'm saying. If you have this massive horsepower between your ears, which you do, and you're not aiming it at something, like a big project or something that's important or something that's positive, it's true, isn't it, that your brain aims itself back at you? And when this happened with my daughter and I had this realization, it was as if I was meeting her for the first time. I finally understood her at a level that I had never understood her as her mother. And it even revealed a little bit about why I'm hard on myself. I mean, I just described, my brain is working like taking a box of mice and letting it loose in your kitchen and everything scatters everywhere, but I have absolutely had those moments, and I know you have too, where you are so focused on something that you're enjoying, like it might be something like gardening, it might be that you're a great video gamer and so you get lost in the moment. It might be when you've played sports or you're playing a instrument or it might be when you're out on a hike and you're just so hyper-present. Why? You can get lost in the flow of focus because you're in the present moment because your supercomputer in your mind is aimed at something outside of you. But isn't it true that in those moments where you feel consumed with negativity or you're beating yourself up or you're constantly telling yourself it's never enough or you're seeing nothing but the negative when you look in the mirror, you've just taken all that horsepower that is designed to create and laugh and grow and solve problems and you just aimed it right at you? And so it got me thinking, if you have a brain that is designed to do all these incredible things, solve problems, grow, learn, laugh, create, be present, build, like, all these amazing things, how is it that you and I can take that truth, because I think you're with me, I can kind of feel you with me, like, "Oh my God, I've never thought about it that way. It's true, Mel. Like, if I'm engaged in something, I'm not beating myself up. If I'm working on a project that I'm truly focused on, I don't have time to trash my appearance. Huh. Never thought about it that way, that this supercomputer can be used for good, and if I'm not using it for good, holy cow, it feels kind of bad 'cause it just aims it right back at me." And just in case, before I move on to these five simple things, 'cause what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna teach you today, took me far too long to learn this, I wish they taught this in schools, I wish they taught this in elementary school. That's how simple I'm gonna make the science today. There are five simple things that you can do, and you can start doing them as I'm explaining them to you. You can do these things as soon as this episode is over. These are so simple that you can make them part of your day-to-day life. These are ways for you to take control of your mind, that supercomputer in your brain. These are ways for you to let go of the negative thoughts, which is really what happens when your brain directs itself back at you, right? And third, we're gonna talk about, how do you redirect...... that power of your mind and aim it at something that energizes you? How do you take all that mental energy and instead of aiming it at yourself, you actually aim it at something that creates happiness, and success, and more positivity, and self-transformation? That's what's available to you. And I didn't understand any of this until several years ago. And so, the second I'm done recording this, I'm sharing this with my two daughters. And before we jump into the first skill, okay? And I've already, kind of, alluded to it, but before we jump into the first skill, I want to bring in one more visual example, because I personally find that whenever you talk about the mind, or thinking, or mindset, it so quickly becomes fuzzy, and too intellectual, and, like, too conceptual that I lose interest and I don't know what the hell people are talking about. So, I like things that are visual because it helps my brain, the little mice that are running around, to just anchor on something. So, we've already talked about the supercomputer and the fact that you've got this brain between your ears that is designed to learn patterns, it's designed to grow, it's designed to fire and wire information together and program it in your mind. It's designed to filter the world. It's actually designed to help you get more of what you want, and we're gonna talk more about that in a little bit. And that's a cool thing. Have you ever, in your life, had the chance to spend time with, like, a Golden Retriever or a Labrador? You know, one of these dogs that from the moment they come into this world as a puppy, there is something hardwired in their DNA to just fetch. You throw a ball and you don't even have to train a Labrador or a Golden Retriever or some of these other, kind of, hunting breeds, I guess they call them. They will just, whoosh, go right after that ball that you throw, whoosh, bring it right back. You throw it again, they bring it right back. It's like they are programmed to chase down a ball that you throw. They are programmed to chase it down and to retrieve. Guess what? Your brain is designed to do the exact same thing. I'm gonna say that again. Your brain is like a Labrador Retriever or a Golden Retriever. It is hardwired to actually chase down something that you direct it at. And so, I love this visual because the first thing that I'm going to talk about today, of the five things that I'm going to teach you, is one of the things that helps you get out of that negative rut where your brain is aimed at you and you start trashing yourself down, right, is to actually give your brain something to chase down and focus on. Think about it like you need a project or think about, like, the project as the ball. So, with a dog that loves to chase a ball, you take that ball, you throw it in whatever direction, that dog forgets that you exist. That dog is maniacally focused on that ball. That dog will literally run over a child in order to get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, because it's hardwired to focus on that and then it brings it back. Your brain does the same thing. Your brain is just sitting around like a bored Labrador, waiting for you to pick up a ball and put it in motion, waiting for you to throw something out into the future and say, "Go get it." Your brain loves projects. You know this. It wants something to gnaw on. It is bored. Like, have you ever noticed too, like, if you got a dog that needs a job, if it doesn't have a job, what does it do? It chews your slippers, it starts gnawing on the corners of your cabinets. Next thing you know, it's naughty and it's peeing in the corner. Why? Because it's got all this mental energy and this desire to have a project and to chase down a ball, and you're not feeding that desire. Your brain's the same way. It needs a job. And that brings me to skill number one. One of the best things that you can do is understand that giving yourself a project, or a goal, or some sort of ball that you can put in play in your life, it is one of the best ways to direct your brain at something other than you. It's one of the best ways to start to leverage the natural capacity that your mind has to solve problems and to actually chase something down. And this isn't just my suggestion. This comes from not only research that I'm gonna walk you through, but it comes from something that world-renowned PhD, New York Times best-selling author Martha Beck has been talking about, and you may have seen her talking about this. It's the basis of her new book, and there's so much research that I'm also gonna share with you after you hear this clip, but you're gonna hear Martha Beck talking about the fact that, you know, when you're in an anxious state or you're ruminating, we now know in the way that you and I are talking about this, the supercomputer is now aimed at you, you're up in your head. Instead of, like, being focused on the world and solving problems, you're now tearing yourself down. You've made yourself a problem, right? The other way you can think about this is that Labrador Retriever is chewing on the slipper and being self-destructive because he's got nothing to do. She had this thesis in this book, well, if you're in that state, being anxious and negative, it shuts down your ability to problem solve. We know this based on the research. We also know it based on common sense. It shuts down your ability to be creative. Well, she thought, "Well, wait a minute. Does creativity and problem solving actually shut down anxiety, and rumination, and being negative?" Turns out it does. And so here's Martha Beck sharing this idea on The Today Show, and the idea is so exciting and it's also so simple and obvious to understand that you're gonna hear Martha talking first and then you're gonna hear The Today Show anchors jump in because they totally get it, and then what we're gonna do after you listen to this is you and I are gonna unpack what she said so that you can apply this first skill. Take a listen.