Do This for 1 Week to Manifest the Future You Want with Shonda Rhimes
Shonda Rhimes (guest), Mel Robbins (host), Narrator
In this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, featuring Shonda Rhimes and Mel Robbins, Do This for 1 Week to Manifest the Future You Want with Shonda Rhimes explores say Yes For One Week: Shonda Rhimes’ Blueprint For Reinvention Mel Robbins interviews Shonda Rhimes about how her ‘Year of Yes’—a commitment to say yes to everything that scared her—transformed a wildly successful but emotionally small and fear-driven life into one that feels expansive, joyful, and self-directed.
Say Yes For One Week: Shonda Rhimes’ Blueprint For Reinvention
Mel Robbins interviews Shonda Rhimes about how her ‘Year of Yes’—a commitment to say yes to everything that scared her—transformed a wildly successful but emotionally small and fear-driven life into one that feels expansive, joyful, and self-directed.
Rhimes explains how chronic fear, people-pleasing, and living in her imagination kept her hiding from real-life experiences, relationships, health, and even her own definition of happiness, despite massive career success.
By practicing small, consistent yeses—to public speaking, her health, her body, difficult conversations, ending an engagement, moving across the country, and finding hobbies—she built the confidence and clarity to also powerfully say no.
The conversation positions ‘yes’ as a practical mental tool: a way to confront fear, stop self-cruelty, exit misaligned lives and expectations, and deliberately author a life that feels like home to you, not to everyone else.
Key Takeaways
Use ‘yes’ as a tool to move through fear, not to please others.
Commit (even just for a week) to say yes to things that scare you—public speaking, going alone to an event, applying for school—and treat each ‘yes’ as an experiment to build courage and data about what you actually like, not as a way to impress people.
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Start with very small yeses to yourself to rebuild agency.
You don’t need a dramatic life overhaul; begin with tiny, specific yeses like drinking more water, making one doctor’s appointment, accepting a compliment, or spending one evening on something you enjoy to prove to yourself that change is possible.
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Recognize that your ‘nos’ quietly accumulate into a life you don’t want.
Repeatedly saying no to exercise, applications, social invitations, or honest conversations feels minor in the moment, but over time it compacts into poor health, isolation, stalled careers, and relationships that don’t fit you.
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Say yes to difficult conversations to stop silently betraying yourself and others.
Avoiding breakups, feedback, or firing conversations drains more energy than having them; leading with the hard truth (“This isn’t working and here’s why”) is kinder long-term than staying in situations that are wrong for both sides.
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Differentiate between saying yes to growth and yes to performance.
Rhimes learned to tell when she was saying yes to expand her life versus saying yes to prove something or avoid being disliked; that discernment lets you say a strong no to trips, projects, or roles that deplete you, even if they look impressive.
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Treat your self-talk like a spell you’re casting on your future.
The phrases you repeat (“I’m scared,” “I can’t,” “I’m not that kind of person”) eventually feel like truth; deliberately replacing them with kinder, more capable narratives (“I’m learning,” “I can try”) gradually changes how you act and what you believe about yourself.
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Redefine success to include joy, embodiment, and a life that fits you.
Rhimes realized owning ‘all of Thursday night’ on TV meant little if her life felt tiny, work-obsessed, and disconnected from her kids and home; moving, finding hobbies like golf, and refusing a traditional marriage were yeses to a version of success that actually felt good.
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Notable Quotes
“Saying no has gotten me here. Here sucks. Saying yes might be my way to someplace better.”
— Shonda Rhimes
“Why do you like them and want them to be happier than you like yourself and want yourself to be happy?”
— Shonda Rhimes
“The words you say to yourself are like casting a spell.”
— Shonda Rhimes
“Doing the thing that you’ve been so afraid of generally undoes the fear.”
— Shonda Rhimes
“The only person who can change your life is you, and the only person who’s going to be disappointed if you don’t change your life is you.”
— Shonda Rhimes
Questions Answered in This Episode
If I committed to one week of saying yes to things that scare me, what exactly would I choose, and what small rules would I set to keep myself honest?
Mel Robbins interviews Shonda Rhimes about how her ‘Year of Yes’—a commitment to say yes to everything that scared her—transformed a wildly successful but emotionally small and fear-driven life into one that feels expansive, joyful, and self-directed.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Where in my life am I saying yes to others but clearly saying no to my own health, joy, or truth?
Rhimes explains how chronic fear, people-pleasing, and living in her imagination kept her hiding from real-life experiences, relationships, health, and even her own definition of happiness, despite massive career success.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What difficult conversation have I been avoiding that, if I had it, might immediately relieve a deep internal tension?
By practicing small, consistent yeses—to public speaking, her health, her body, difficult conversations, ending an engagement, moving across the country, and finding hobbies—she built the confidence and clarity to also powerfully say no.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
How would my definition of success change if I removed other people’s expectations and based it only on what makes me feel alive and at home in my own life?
The conversation positions ‘yes’ as a practical mental tool: a way to confront fear, stop self-cruelty, exit misaligned lives and expectations, and deliberately author a life that feels like home to you, not to everyone else.
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
What stories am I telling myself about who I am (introverted, unathletic, unlovable, not ready) that might simply be fear in disguise—and how could I begin to rewrite them?
Get the full analysis with uListen AI
Transcript Preview
... and didn't really have a life that I was living that I found happy. I mean, I am a person who loves weddings, I really am. And I love love, obviously. I write about it all the time. And it's not that I don't love dating and l- I, I just got engaged and felt suffocated in a way that terrified me.
Wow.
Yeah.
If I take everything to heart that you're about to share with us and teach us today, what could change about my life?
It's to believe that you have the possibility of changing your own life. I mean, I think that we lose that sometimes. We think, "I'm stuck here. There's no way out." The reality of it is, is the only person who can change your life is you.
Shonda Rhimes is an award-winning television creator, producer, author, and CEO of the global media company Shondaland.
The rule was, is that I was gonna say yes to everything that scared me for one year. And that seemed very terrifying.
Did everyone think you were crazy?
Everyone thought I was insane. Why do you like them and want them to be happier than you like yourself and want yourself to be happy? Like, that's the thing. You are literally choosing another person over your own happiness and contentment for reasons that make no sense. It's not gonna be a friendship-ender, and if it is, that person's the wrong friend anyway. That person's not your friend if this is gonna ruin your friendship because you won't do what they want you to do. That's a problem. So many things could change about your life. Just start with the idea of yes to talking to yourself like you matter. You know, the words that we say to ourselves is like casting a spell. After a while, you say them enough, you know, they start to really mean something to you. You know, we are far more capable than we give ourselves credit for. Doing the thing that you've been so afraid of generally undoes the fear, so you might as well change, or at least make the attempt.
Shonda Rhimes, welcome to The Mel Robbins Podcast.
Thank you for having me.
Well, thank you for making the trip. I'm so excited to meet you. I've admired your work for a very long time, and I'm excited to have the chance to learn from you, and I'm excited for the person that's with us right now-
Mm-hmm.
... to be inspired by, and motivated by, and transformed by the things you're about to share. And that's where I wanna start. If I take everything to heart-
Mm-hmm.
... that you're about to share with us and teach us today, what could change about my life?
So many things could change about your life. I think the point is for you to figure out where the problems are in your life-
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