This Is The ONE Thing You Should Do This Week | The Mel Robbins Podcast

(ticking clock) (upbeat music) Today, you and I are going to have a conversation about the one thing that you need to do this week. Just one thing. This is a message you need to hear. It's a message I need to hear. It's a message everybody needs to hear, because there's only one thing I want you to do this week. Nothing. (upbeat music) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Today, you and I are going to have a conversation about the one thing that you need to do this week. Just one thing. And there's a reason why you and I are going to talk about this today, because I know you need to hear this. There is only one thing that you and I are going to be doing this week, and I'm thinking about this right now during the holidays, because right now in my life, it's a vacation week. There are kids home. It's between Christmas and New Year's, and I have downtime. But look, there's always chaos in your life, and I say that because regardless of when you're listening to this, but especially during the holidays, this is a message you need to hear. It's a message I need to hear. It's a message everybody needs to hear, because there's only one thing I want you to do this week. Nothing. Do nothing. Wait a minute. Mel Robbins, are you smoking something over there? Did you just say, "Do nothing?" And here's the funny part about this. I bet you might be doing something right now, 'cause you're a multitasker, and so am I. You're listening to me while you're doing the dishes, while you're walking the dogs. Heck, you and I might be at the point in our relationship where you are actually sitting on the toilet and I'm in the bathroom stall with you as you're listening to this. Don't tell me that you have not taken me into the bathroom, 'cause I can even feel it over here. And I say this because we gotta talk about the art of doing nothing. And look, I'm not stupid enough to think that you can actually do nothing. I mean, obviously not. This is like a metaphorical conversation, because you probably have to work. I personally love working between the week of Christmas and New Year, because nobody's there, so you can kind of like work half a day and you get the full-time pay, and it's way more stress-free, and you can get more done because you aren't in a million meetings. But if you do have the time off, let me guess. What are you doing with the time off? You're rearranging your cupboards. You're probably trying to learn Spanish. You're doing a million things on your to-do list. You are, like, just keeping busy. This week, just stop. Please. I want to explain this concept, this metaphor of doing nothing. Being able to do nothing, whether it's just for a minute, or it's for a day, or it's for a week, this is so important, and I'm having the conversation not only with you, I am talking to myself right now too. I have a hard time doing nothing. Why? Well, because I'm just like you. I'm addicted to being busy. I'm addicted to my to-do list, writing them out, crossing them off, throwing them away, losing them, writing another one, especially in the world today. The world has glamorized being productive, being busy, go, go, go, hustles, hustle culture, having a side hustle. I mean, there's so much to hustle around some days, I literally have no idea what I'm doing. You may always be on the go, like I am, but are you actually getting anywhere? That's why I want to talk about the importance, the art, the science of learning how to do nothing on purpose. And before we jump into it, I- I don't want you to worry, because this is not another podcast episode about meditation. That's not what I'm going to jam down your throat right now. And I also want to say something else. Doing nothing sounds like a luxury, doesn't it? Because when somebody tells me, "Mel, just do nothing this week," you know what I say? "Uh, how about you go F yourself? Because I got a company to run and I got bills to pay, and I don't know, uh, if this is like something that trust funders do or people that don't have to work, but, uh, I got kids home, I got stuff to do." And so, I want you to know that if you have young kids, or you're taking care of aging parents, or you're working two, three, four jobs, or the night shift, I'm talking to you too, because the art of doing nothing is something that we all need in our lives. We have to figure out how to create moments when we're thinking about nothing, when we're doing nothing, because these moments help you refuel. I think one of the reasons why you and I are constantly so stressed and our minds are like a flywheel, always going, and we're not that present, is because we are never not doing something. And so this week, the only thing that I want you and I to do is nothing. And I'm going to break this down, don't worry, because doing nothing might just mean that you're going to learn this week how to find five minutes to do nothing, to think about nothing. It could mean pushing off your to-do list....to next week and committing to doing nothing on it this week, and I need this as much as you do. I mean, when I landed at the airport this week in Albany, Chris picked me up and I had been gone on a business trip for almost a week, and I had also managed to loop in spending some time with our daughter in Los Angeles. And so here I land. I haven't been home in a week. I jump into the front seat of his pickup truck, and I turn to him, I'm like, "How about we stop at the grocery store on the way home?" He's like, "But I've already gone twice this week." And I'm like, "Well, we probably need something," and then I caught myself and I'm like, "What am I doing? Why, why am I filling the time with something? Why can't I just sit in this pickup truck and do nothing? Why can't I just go home and put my bags in the closet and just enjoy time with our son and with our dogs? Like, why do I have to do something?" And, and, you know, here's another one. So last night, Chris builds a fire and we're sitting there in front of the fire. It's absolutely beautiful. We have a nice quiet evening. We love to play cribbage and backgammon, and so we played a round of cribbage and, um, he beat me. I know what you're thinking. Normally, I beat him, but it was one of those nights where he just had all the hands. I hate that. And so as the game was wrapping up, Chris got up, walked into the bedroom, went to bed. Do you know what I did? I sat and scrolled through my fricking phone. I don't even know why I did it. I, I literally sat there and I started scrolling through Instagram, and next thing you know, 35 minutes have gone by. My husband has gone off to bed. He's sound asleep, snoring, you know, sawing logs, like he's already like in la-la land, in his deep dream state. I have wasted 35 minutes getting all jacked up about everybody else's life and what people are doing in their businesses and the stuff that I'm not doing and the things I need to buy, and all that kind of stuff. I was so busy. I could have enjoyed myself if I had put the phone down. Instead, I picked it up 'cause I gotta be doing something. I gotta be thinking thoughts. I gotta be doing the thing. I gotta be scrolling through the thing. La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. I could have just gone to bed like Chris did. Had a nice night sleep. No, no, not me. I gotta always be doing something. Here's the irony of the topic today, everybody. I have no idea how to do nothing. (laughs) This is like, this is something I don't know a lot about and I need more of it in my life. I know you feel the same way, and I wanna talk to you about this because of the number of questions that are pouring in from you at MelRobbins.com. Questions about busyness, about stress, about burnout, about never having time for yourself. About anxiety, about stress, about feeling like you're last on your list. And so this week, you and I are gonna focus on the art of doing nothing. If you are lucky enough to be off of work this week, I want you to stop and think, what would that mean for you? If you are somebody who has to work this week, I want you to think, what would a moment of doing nothing look like for you? If you're somebody that has a ton going on, like, you know, you kind of have that feeling like, but I can't, but, but, but, well, what? Nothing? Nothing? What, what have I not... Take a breath. What would nothing look like if you could spend an hour doing nothing? Not really thinking about anything. Not any agenda, but just doing nothing. What comes to mind for me immediately is running a hot bath. That's what comes to mind to me, just run on a hot bath. I'm not even gonna bring a book 'cause I don't wanna do anything, you know? That'd be pretty awesome. And so I'm gonna jump into some questions and I think through these questions, you and I are gonna figure out what it means to do nothing, 'cause I am no expert at this and I have a feeling that this is gonna be one of those conversations that you and I have where you're gonna write to me and be like, "Woman, you got a lot to learn. Let me give you this advice about doing nothing, because I do a better job of doing nothing than you do, Mel Robbins." So our first question, I love this question, comes from a listener named Jenny, and she said, "Mel, I'm a new listener to the podcast. I love your energetic voice and find that it energizes me too. I'm a single parent of two kids and I find it difficult to listen to episodes that tell me I'm never too busy, never too tired to XYZ. I've deflected a lot of this from fitness influencers and efficiency experts, but from a self-help standpoint, I find that doing everything and dreaming big can't be shoehorned into a life that already has very little wiggle room for even day-to-day stuff." Can you relate to that? I can certainly relate to that. I'm gonna say that again 'cause I think that is so relatable. "I've deflected a lot of this type of advice from fitness influencers and efficiency experts, and from a health- self-help standpoint, I find that doing everything and dreaming big can't be shoehorned into a life that already has very little wiggle room for even day-to-day stuff. This is all leading up to my question, which is how do you remain hopeful in the trenches when surrounded by achievers? How do you make time for rest when it feels like a guilty pleasure to sit down every once in a while?"Whoa. So first, let's talk about something. Let's talk about this part of your question. How do you remain hopeful in the trenches when surrounded by achievers? So first things first, let's just call it what it is, okay? That most of the crap that you're seeing online is not actually true. People are not as efficient as they look, and I love the home edit, but I guarantee you, the second that they leave the television show or the Instagram shoot, that color-coordinated bookcase and that beautiful pantry in the gorgeous plastic see-through things and the spinny things that look like you're not supposed to touch anything there, that pantry does not look like that in 24 hours. Give me a fricking break. Experts stylize that thing. Production assistants bought all that crap. They put it in there. There is no normal human being that can keep a pantry looking that way. So let's just say number one, stop torturing yourself with the impossible standards that you see on social media. Rule number one. Rule number two, I agree with you. I personally believe one of the reasons why so many of you relate to me and you constantly write and say, "Mel, you are so relatable." I'll tell you why. Because I have three children. I have two dogs. I have aging parents. I have a lot of stuff going on. I have ADHD, and there's absolutely nothing about my life that is perfect, and I notice that there are a lot of people in the self-help, in the influencer space that are either single or they are male and they have a full-time partner at home, or they have no children, and advice from a single 30-something who has nine hours a day to exercise is not advice that's going to work for my life. It's just not. If you are 30 years old and you have eight hours to exercise, that advice will work for you. If you are a guy and you have a partner at home that takes care of everything, yes, you can have 15 side hustles because you don't have to do shit when you get home. Let's call it for what it is. In a normal person's life, the advice often doesn't work. I don't know about you, but I don't have three fucking hours every morning for my morning routine. I'm lucky if I have 30 minutes, and hell, half of the mornings when I wake up, my dogs are already standing there right by the bed waiting for me to take them out. And I say this because it frustrates me that you and I look at the incredible advice that's out there and we don't flex it to actually work in our life. And so when you are listening to somebody, whether they are an efficiency expert, which sounds like a nightmare frankly, or they're a fitness influencer, or they're somebody that's telling you how to eat right, I personally take everything with a grain of salt, and I take it with a grain of salt because I know that in order for advice to work for me, I got to flex it in a way so that it'll fit into my life. And so, we've already learned two things. If you are in the doldrums and you're constantly comparing yourself or beating yourself up because you think everybody else is out achieving you, you're wrong. People are putting up fake achievements and perfection online to sell you something. The second thing is, the only advice that's going to work is vi- is advice that you flex to work in your life. And so one of the reasons why I'm constantly sharing these really simple things to do is because that's the only things that I can fit into my life. My life is very complicated, just like yours, and so I can't fit in two hours of exercise, but I can fit in 15 minutes. I can't fit in training for a marathon right now, but I can get a walk in three days a week. And so what you're going to find is that if you hold yourself to an impossible standard, you're going to feel like that standard is impossible. If you become not only realistic about the demands of your life, but you also become very rigorous about what you demand of yourself in terms of, you know, "I'm not going to force myself to some ridiculous standard. I got two toddlers. I'm a single parent. I- It's not safe for me to walk alone outside and leave them. I just can't do it. So what can I do?" And so when you say, so that's, so that's just hopefully getting rid of like the, the kind of comparison thing, because I do it too. You know, I often have this conversation with Christine, who's our chief operating officer of 143 Studios, which is our production company, and she's also my sister-in-law, and I love her because I'm like the flighty creative ball dropper genius type person, right? I call myself a genius, like in jest, but I'm creatively (makes sounds) fruity all over the place, just flying high. She is a CFO Excel spreadsheet, get everything in the columns kind of lady. Mel says yes, Christine says no. That's basically the joke inside the company. Mel said yes, but Christine said no. So anyway, I was complaining to her the other day because, um, of course, like you, I bash myself when I see other people out achieving me because I've got to win some imaginary competition here in life, and I see a friend of mine who is going on a book tour, and he is going on a book tour that is lasting three months, and I turned to Christine, I'm like, "This is unbelievable. This is so cool." Da da da da da. And she turned to me and she goes, "He doesn't have children. You can't be on the road that long, Mel. Like, it's not going to work for you."And I'm like, "Oh, that's right." She's like, "You gotta stop comparing yourself to people whose lives don't look like yours. You will never be able to achieve what somebody who is a single male can achieve, because you've got other demands on your time right now. You will never be able to achieve what a 23-year-old can do right now because you've got aging parents and three kids and a business to run. And so, please, please stop making yourself feel like shit because you are looking at somebody who has totally different life circumstances than you." And by the way, this does not mean that there's something wrong with a 23-year-old fitness influencer. I think that's freaking fantastic that somebody's doing that with their life. There's nothing wrong with somebody who is going on a book tour for three months. I think that's fantastic, and there's clearly a part of me that wants to do more of that. But at the moment, (clears throat) I gotta face reality. And the reality is, based on my values, based on what life looks like right now, I'm not going to do that. But what I can do is figure out what advice I respond to, what changes I wanna make, and then I can fit that into my life. Okay, now let's address the actual question she asked. "How do you make time for rest when it feels like a guilty pleasure to sit down every once in a while?" Can we just take a moment? It feels like a guilty pleasure to just sit down? That is fucked up. I mean, and I feel it. I feel it too, I feel like there's something wrong with me if I'm not doing something. And maybe it comes from my immigrant grandparents who came from Austria, and my grandmother was a, uh, grew up in a coal mining town in Ohio. And she moved East, uh, because her family answered an ad for a rich family looking for a maid, and they shipped my grandmother to New Jersey to be a maid for somebody, and that's where she met my grandfather, who immigrated here from Austria and he was in the Navy and they had a bakery when he got out of the Navy. And so, they worked seven days a week, basically 24 hours, my grandmother in the front of the shop, my grandfather in the back. Uh, my other side of the family are cattle farmers. I don't know about you, but there's not a lot of, um, kind of, uh, freelancers that you can find to work on a big (laughs) cattle farm. They also had a produce stand. So I come from a long line of people who have a hard time sitting down because there was no time to sit down, or they just never did. And it's just in my DNA, so I get this. And so, one thing that I want you to know is stop calling it guilt. We gotta stop calling it guilt because it's just a pattern. You have a pattern of always staying busy. And I don't think we feel guilty. You know what I think you and I feel when we sit down and do nothing? We feel weird. We don't know what to do with our hands, we don't know what to think about, we don't know how to relax. Like, unless I'm on a v- on a vacation on a beach chair with a piña colada in my hand, I don't know how to relax. It's true, it's a sickness. And I, I'm gonna go on the record and blame, uh, Eileen and Warren Bippert, and Betty and Frank Schneberger, my DNA, my grandparents, you're to blame for this, but now I'm stuck with it, so what am I gonna do with it? First of all, we're not gonna feel guilty, everybody. We're gonna call it what it is. It's freaking weird. It's weird to do nothing. You are ambitious, that's why you listen to this. You're up to something, that's why you listen to this. You're constantly looking to improve something, that's why you listen to this and you hang out with me. You and I are busy, but we have to learn how to have moments where we do nothing. When was the last time you did nothing? I, I don't even know. Funny, my mind's blank. I can't think of nothing. I be, I be like, I don't even know. D- Can you think of when you did nothing last? I'm always doing something. And it's true, I don't... It's not that I feel guilty, I just don't know how to do nothing. I don't know how to rest. I don't know how to just give myself a break. I'm not wired this way and neither are you, and here's the other thing. I believe that we live in a world that has trained us to always be on. Between the phone and a bazillion things to watch on TV, and constantly emails to answer, there's always somebody who needs you, there's always something that needs to be done, and feeling needed is a way to feel connected and important. And so, I don't think any of us feel guilty. I think we just don't know what to do. We don't know how to do nothing, and that's why I, I, I'm gonna come back. I want... This week, this is the theme. Let's practice the art of doing nothing, even if it's just for a minute. So, here's what I'm gonna commit to today and then I'm gonna go to the next question. I am gonna take a bath. Now, I love taking baths, but normally, this is, like, embarrassing to admit this to you, (laughs) I'm on my phone (laughs) in my bath. (laughs) I am literally a sicko. I sit on my phone in my bath, and I relax in my bath by answering emails. This is, like, literally awful that I do this. Why? Because I don't know how to do nothing. Oh my God. Aren't we funny? I bet even if you go and treat yourself to getting your nails done, which I have not done in a month, my feet literally look like I've been farming all day, and I'm a bird with talons. Like, I'm so embarrassed. Thank God it's not flip-flop season. Um, but even when I go get my nails done, the, the poor gal will be literally looking and trying to get me to keep my hands still, and what am I busy doing? I'm doing the same thing you're doing, I got my phone over there, and with wet fingernails, I am trying to scroll through my phone 'cause I can't sit there and do nothing. So, I want you to think right now about one moment of doing nothing and what that looks like for you. And now, we're gonna move to the next question. The next question is from Paige. "Hi Mel, can you please talk about how to get out of your own head in order to start living your life? When I'm thrown into social situations or new experiences, I tend to get so wrapped up in my own head that my anxiety skyrockets. It can sometimes feel like I have a spotlight on me with a panel of judges grading my every move or every sentence that comes out of my mouth. My head just can't seem to realize that no one is paying that much attention, and it's preventing me from just enjoying myself. Your podcast has been a life-changer. Can you please help me?" Okay, this is an excellent question, because there are two aspects to the art of doing nothing, everyone. One is the doing, and I'm even gonna throw into a category. You ready? I'm even gonna say doing nothing for me includes laying on the couch and just zoning out to, like, some TV show. As long as I don't have my phone in my hand or I don't have, like, sometimes I'll have a to-do list next to me. I know it's sickening, but I carry this spiral notebook around just to jot down things that pop into my mind. But if I were to just sit on the couch and not have a to-do list and not have my phone and just zone out in front of the, that's kind of doing nothing. That, that, that counts. We're gonna let that count, okay? But there's a second part to doing nothing that is really a game-changer, and that's, how do you think about nothing? How do you quiet your mind? 'Cause for me, that's the part that makes the physical doing nothing hard, because the second I sit down... Let's just say that what you are gonna do tonight is you are gonna make a fire and you're gonna sit down in front of the fire. Or let's just say that you've got this awesome comfy bed in your studio apartment, and you're just gonna sit on your bed. Just gonna sit there for five minutes, just really do nothing. You know what'll happen? Your thoughts are gonna race. Your thoughts are gonna be like, "What am I doing? Why, wh- why am I sitting here? I should be doing something. Okay, what's going on? Oh, that wall needs paint. Oh, look at the rug, I should probably do something about that rug. Uh, I haven't washed these sheets in a w-" You're literally gonna be like, "Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba." You know, in our house in Sherburne, we had mice or squirrels, I don't even know what the hell they were. Th- They lived in the walls. It's an old farmhouse, what are you gonna do? Like, you can't get rid of them. I mean, they just kind of come in. And so, honest to God, every night when I would turn off the lights, do you know what would happen? It was like a mouse parade. (mouse running noises) That's what you would hear in the walls of my house. It's like they turn on the second the lights go off. Then you turn on the lights, and then they stop, and you're like, "What is happening?" That's your thoughts. Try it. Try to just sit there and think of nothing. You can't. You can't. And don't worry, I'm not about to tell you to meditate. So, she wants to know, "How do I get out of my own head? How do I think about nothing?" Here's how you do it. First of all, you cannot trust yourself, okay? So, I am not gonna sit there and say, "Just try to think about nothing," 'cause it's impossible. You are a complete novice at this. I am also not going to say that you should try meditating on your own, because unlike my husband, Chris, I'm not a meditation instructor, and I do not sit criss-cross applesauce and meditate every day. I practice more of a mindfulness moving meditation, which I'll talk about in a second. But if you're a novice to this and you can't sit still or your thoughts are always racing, you need freaking help. And lucky for you and me, there is free help everywhere. Download the Calm app, download Headspace, listen on Audible, listen on Spotify, listen on iTunes, listen on Amazon Music, listen on YouTube. Do you know how many free playlists there are with guided meditations or with that SMMR st- I don't even know what it's called. ASMR. ASMR. ASMR? MSMR. I don't know what it is, but it's that sound where it's like (whistling sounds) ... And it, you just listen to it and it calms your mind. What I'm trying to tell you is, do not try to calm your racing thoughts on your own. Get freaking help. Get a free app, find a playlist you like, create a playlist of music that just makes your mind go quiet. Get help with this. Here's a couple other things you can do. You can put an alarm on your phone that goes off randomly. Let's just pick a time. How about 2:13? 2:13 PM every single day, write a little alarm that just says, "Take a breath."...do nothing for one minute. That's it. Now, why would you want to do that? Why do you want to do this? I'll tell you why, and it's common sense. If you're always on, and your thoughts are always racing, is that a good thing for you? Of course not. Like, think about your computer or your phone. You know how when it overheats or it's been on for three or four days in a row because you haven't turned it off, and then all of a sudden it starts rainbow wheeling, or glitching, or it's slower, what do you do? You unplug the computer or you turn off the phone. The art of doing nothing is so important because it's an intentional moment to unplug from life. It's an intentional moment where you restore your energy, where you interrupt the chaos, where you bring your power back inside, where you regroup, and you need that, and so do I. Stress levels are so high because you're always on, you're always running from one thing to the next. You're like your phone. Like it, it occurred to me the other day, 'cause my phone was getting glitchy, and I thought to myself, "When's the last time I turned this thing off? I bet this phone has been on for, like, three weeks in a row just going, going, going." It needs a moment to do nothing. It needs a moment to reset. And so, the reason why the one thing I want you and I to do this week is nothing is because we need it. And for those of us, like you and me, who have a lot going on, and you got other people you gotta take care of, and you got a lot on your plate, and you got demands at work, and you can't just take a week off and do nothing. You can't go to an ashram. You can't go to a yoga retreat. Wouldn't that be nice? That would be just freaking fantastic. I would love to go to one of those retreats, you know, where you pay a ridiculous amount of money and they take your phone away, and then you're forced to hike or just lay arou-... That would be amazing. I would love to go do something silent, but that's not my life right now. But I can figure out how to insert the art of doing nothing every day for a minute, and if you're lucky enough, again, to be off work this week, you can take this as the theme of the week. How do you do less? How do you find moments of nothing? How do you sit with the discomfort of not doing your to-do list, not racing to the grocery store, not trying to get something else done? What if you just let yourself be for a minute? That is exactly what you need. It's exactly what I need. And this will be interesting, 'cause the truth is I have no fricking clue how to do this. I'm just as novice at this as you are. I'm gonna set the reminder, 2:13, stop, take a breath, do nothing for a minute, and I'm also gonna have a song ready, 'cause songs really help me. In fact, I found a really good one. Hold on. Let me see. I heard this song the other day. Let me see if I can find it, 'cause ooh, this was so good, I put this in my family group chat. You know it's a good song when it's in your family group chat because it's going to be enjoyed by all the generations. Although, um, I'll admit that nobody actually wrote back and said that's a great song, but I think it's a great song. Let me find this thing for you. Stand by, please. Did I text this on my phone? Oh, there it is. Hold on. No, it's not. Oh, gosh darn it. Where is it? Hold on. Stand by. Oh, I know where it is. Okay, hold on (laughs) . But anyhoo, okay, so let me play the song for you. So I found this song, and I, I, you know, this is a good technique for me. This song is very old. It's called Genesis, and it's one of those trippy songs, you know, like you might expect in a yoga class. Here we go.