World Leading Therapist: Why You Feel Stuck in Life & How to Get Unstuck
Lori Gottlieb (guest), Mel Robbins (host)
In this episode of The Mel Robbins Podcast, featuring Lori Gottlieb and Mel Robbins, World Leading Therapist: Why You Feel Stuck in Life & How to Get Unstuck explores rewrite Your Story: Therapy Tools To Get Unstuck And Empowered Mel Robbins interviews therapist and author Lori Gottlieb about how the stories we tell ourselves keep us stuck in painful patterns at work, in love, and with family. Gottlieb explains that most people want change but try to change others instead of examining their own role in the “dance” of relationships. She introduces practical tools for identifying and editing your core narratives—like “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t trust anyone”—so you can respond differently and create better outcomes. Throughout, she emphasizes that you are the sole author of your life, and even small edits to your inner story can dramatically shift how you feel and how others respond to you.
Rewrite Your Story: Therapy Tools To Get Unstuck And Empowered
Mel Robbins interviews therapist and author Lori Gottlieb about how the stories we tell ourselves keep us stuck in painful patterns at work, in love, and with family. Gottlieb explains that most people want change but try to change others instead of examining their own role in the “dance” of relationships. She introduces practical tools for identifying and editing your core narratives—like “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t trust anyone”—so you can respond differently and create better outcomes. Throughout, she emphasizes that you are the sole author of your life, and even small edits to your inner story can dramatically shift how you feel and how others respond to you.
Key Takeaways
Notice where your reaction is bigger than the situation: “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”
Overreactions usually signal an old story is being triggered; ask, “What about this feels familiar? ...
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Map your story by listing beliefs about yourself, then hunt for counterexamples.
Write down core beliefs like “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t trust anyone,” then force yourself to find even 1–3 concrete times when the opposite was true; this weakens rigid, absolute narratives.
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Clean up your self-talk using the ‘kind, true, useful’ test.
Because you talk to yourself more than to anyone else, any thought that isn’t kind, factually true, and practically useful doesn’t belong in your story—and you should consciously reject it.
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Use curiosity and “wise compassion,” not agreement, when supporting others.
Instead of “idiot compassion” (automatically siding with someone’s story), ask gentle reality-check questions like, “What do you think wasn’t working for them? ...
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Set boundaries as promises to yourself, enforced 100% of the time.
A real boundary is, “If you do X, I will do Y,” followed by calm, consistent action—ending the call, leaving the room, or pausing the conversation—rather than demanding that the other person change.
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Expect grief and loss whenever you make meaningful change.
Even positive shifts (moving, marriage, leaving a bad relationship) mean losing the familiar; explicitly acknowledging and ‘talking to’ the part of you that’s grieving reduces sabotage and helps you keep going.
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Edit just the next paragraph of your life story, not the whole book.
Instead of trying to overhaul everything, identify one unhelpful story that isn’t serving you and decide what you want the very next “paragraph” to look like—then take one concrete action that aligns with that new version.
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Notable Quotes
“You can't change another person, but you can influence another person by doing something different.”
— Lori Gottlieb
“The way that we narrate our lives determines the quality of our lives.”
— Lori Gottlieb
“If it’s hysterical, it’s historical.”
— Lori Gottlieb
“There is a story that is going to be written about every single one of us, and that is an obituary… You are the sole author of your life.”
— Lori Gottlieb
“Why would you want to support a story that makes you feel bad?”
— Lori Gottlieb
Questions Answered in This Episode
What is one core story I keep telling about myself or others that clearly isn’t serving me, and what would a more accurate, kinder version look like?
Mel Robbins interviews therapist and author Lori Gottlieb about how the stories we tell ourselves keep us stuck in painful patterns at work, in love, and with family. ...
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In my most difficult relationship, what ‘dance steps’ do I keep repeating, and what is one different step I could try this week?
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Where in my life am I choosing ‘the certainty of misery’ over ‘the misery of uncertainty,’ and what loss am I secretly afraid to face if I change?
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If I applied the ‘kind, true, useful’ test to my daily self-talk, which recurring thoughts would immediately have to be edited out of my story?
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What would it look like to practice wise compassion instead of idiot compassion with a close friend—what honest, loving question am I afraid to ask them?
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Transcript Preview
(instrumental music plays) I think what people are dealing with, and it's very human, is that they want to feel better, they want something to change. But what they want to change is someone else. (laughs) Right? You can't change another person, but you can influence another person by doing something different.
Today on the Mel Robbins podcast, we have world-leading therapist Lori Gottlieb here on how changing your story changes your life.
You know, I'm not saying there aren't difficult people, but I am saying that we have a role in what is keeping us stuck, and that's what I call our story.
What does it mean that you have a story?
The way that we narrate our lives determines the quality of our lives and how we're going to live our lives. I think it's really important that we ask ourselves, is it kind, is it true, is it useful? And once we start talking to ourselves in a different way, we are changing our story immediately, which will change what happens on the next page. We get to write the story. We get to do something different. You could have all the insight in the world, but if you don't take action out in the world, the insight is useless.
What's one question therapists secretly wish that people would ask themselves more often?
Is there something about what I'm experiencing right now that feels familiar? And I want you to ask yourself...
Hey. It's your friend, Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Lori Gottlieb, I have been waiting to meet you and to talk to you for a very long time. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here.
Well, thank you so much for having me. I'm s- I'm such a fan of the show.
Oh. Well, thanks for saying that. So I want to start off by basically having you talk to the person-
Mm-hmm.
... that is here with us right now. They have no time, but they have made the time to be here to learn from you today. And the first question that I have for you is, how is my life going to be different if I take to heart everything that you're about to share with it and I really put it to use in my own life?
Right. Well, I- I love this question because I think that after listening to this episode, you will experience a profound change in the way that you move through the world and in the way that you relate to others, whether it's family member, friends, romantic relationships, people you work with, and most important, you will pr- experience a profound shift in the way that you relate to yourself. And what's interesting about this is these aren't things that you can do later. These are things that you can put into practice right now.
I'm gonna feel differently about myself?
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