4 Important Life Lessons I Learned the Hard Way (So That You Don’t Have To)

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Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I love this time of year and I love it because I just am automatically in a reflective mood and I have been thinking a lot about the last 12 months and reflecting on the highlights and the hard parts and all the various things that happened over the course of the year. And I just wanted to take a minute and share four important life lessons that are top of mind for me right now after all this reflecting. And I don't know what it is about me, but why do I have to learn everything the hard way? Literally every lesson that I learn in life for some reason causes me to have to suffer. But I'm willing to do that if it means that you and I can take these lessons and use them to create a better life moving forward.

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And so that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to share these four lessons with you that I learned over one of the craziest years of my life. And here's my mission. I really hope that you not only have fun with me today, but I hope that I can save you the hassle and the heartache of having to learn these lessons the hard way too. So just try to embrace and consider what I'm saying as a simple truth about life. I'm not only going to share them, but I'm going to take the time to unpack every lesson, and I'm going to do that because I really truly do not want you to have to torture yourself the way that I always torture myself. And before I jump into the four lessons, I thought a little context might be helpful. So if you've been listening to the last couple episodes of the Mel Robbins podcast, you know that lately your friend Mel, well, she's been forcing both you and me to slow down. And you know that does not come easily for me. It does not come easily for me to get into a very self-reflective mood. I'm not the kind of person to make a cup of tea and sit in a comfy chair and just lounge around. And I have to laugh because as I'm talking to you right now, I realize that it's not four lessons, but that I'm about to share what is probably a fifth life lesson with you that I learned the hard way this year. And it's this, you have to slow down.

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You just have to slow down. It is so easy and so tempting to move fast, isn't it? To just blow through your life, to blow through your days, but you don't change your life when you're moving a million miles an hour. And a lot of times, at least for me, you don't enjoy your life either. You need to slow down in order to enjoy your life, and you need to slow down if you want to make it better, because the most meaningful changes have you ever noticed they happen when you're still, and when I say the most meaningful changes, here's what I mean. I'm talking about the kind of changes that you force upon yourself. I'm not talking about what life does to you. I'm talking about the kind of changes that come from insight or inspiration that take a little bit of courage, those changes where you've been mulling it over for a while and all of a sudden, I don't know what it is, but you just go, I got to do this.

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And you might feel a little inspired by what you're thinking about. You might feel a little afraid at the same time. And one of the reasons why I have been encouraging you and me to slow down is because it works. I mean, have you ever noticed that it's usually when you're either out for a long walk or you've been lucky enough to be out for a hike in the mountains or you're walking on a beach, or maybe you're taking a really long awesome road trip by yourself, or heck, you're just standing in a hot shower at the end of the day. Have you ever noticed that it's in these quiet moments that somehow you gain clarity? Well, there's a little research for why slowing down creates these moments. It's because slowing down and kind of losing yourself in a walk or in a shower or on a road trip, you know what happens.

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It allows your mind to wander. And it's in that moment of slowing down that creativity, new ideas, inspiration for some big change. It just bubbles up from your subconscious, from your heart, from your soul, all the way to your conscious mind. And that's what I've been trying to make you and me do for the past few days, the last two episodes that I've released, they're designed to get you to slow down, to let your mind wander. And my favorite way to do this, to force myself to slow down is by taking a deep breath, grabbing a mug of coffee, grabbing my journal, and just letting it all out. And I see that a lot of you have been doing this over the past week too, because just two episodes ago, don't worry if you haven't listened to it, it's there for you if you want to listen to it.

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I gave you six questions, six questions that I wanted you to ask yourself. Questions that create this kind of slowdown moment where your mind starts to wander six questions that bring inspiration for big changes to the surface. And if you haven't listened to that episode, I want to remind you that that episode is also where I told you about this free gift that I have for you right now. It is a workbook. I have it right here. I want to tell you, this thing is so gorgeous. It is blue, it is yellow, it is bright, it is happy, it is encouraging, it is thick, it is premium, and it contains those six questions and it contains room for you to reflect. And that's not all that it contains. It also has a ton of material about setting and achieving goals according to the science. And if you haven't downloaded this, you can get this for free.

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It's zero cost. Just like the Mel Robbins podcast, just go to mel robbins.com/best year. And I want you to slow down and I want you to download this and I want you to pour yourself into the pages of this workbook that I created for you because it acts as a companion to the episodes that I have released over the last couple days. It also acts as a companion to the episodes that I'm releasing over the coming weeks. And again, zero cost, totally free. It's just my way to say thank you and it's also my way to support you in slowing down. I do want you to take the time to let your mind wander. I do want you to go a little deeper within yourself and within your heart. And I want to create an opportunity for you to figure out what you truly want in this next year of your life.

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This is how I do this. So if you've ever wondered how is Mel Robin successful? How did she get where she is? This annual audit is a huge process of it. And what happens when you take the time to really reflect on the last 12 months of your life is you'll realize there is a theme there, and it will also have these lessons for you personally that bubble up to the surface. And what I've noticed is that I love figuring out the lessons of my year because those lessons help me leapfrog from this past year that I just audited into the next year in an incredibly powerful way. And the workbook, it's an important tool that will help you do that. And so last year, I want to tell you what, last year when I audited my year, so last year, 12 months ago, I did this exact same audit.

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I did not share a workbook with you. I just did the audit privately with my husband, Chris, and our kids. And it was very clear when I audited my year last year that there were three main lessons that emerged. Those lessons were from one of the hardest years of my life, and they became the foundation upon which I could do the work to become happier and more fulfilled this year. And the truth is that they're going to be years in your life where things are amazing and you're going to coast along and you're going to just hope that nothing changes. And then there are going to be years in your life where it is challenging and you are going through a period of major growth and you're exhausted. 

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And I'm also going to give you specific examples about how you can use them in your own life. And I really hope that you embrace these. Okay, so lesson number one. Lesson number one is about happiness. And the lesson is this. Drop the sword, Mel, what the hell does that mean? I'll tell you what it means. Drop the sword means stop fighting against your own happiness. And 

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And I started to explore this concept with my therapist over the last 12 months, and that's where this term drop the sword came from. When I looked honestly at my life, I could see I always brought a sword to the fight. I could see that I was blocking my ability to allow happiness in. 

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You block it with your energy, you block it with your attitude, you block it based on the stories you tell yourself. That's what I was doing. So that's the lesson I'm sharing with you. And here's what I want you to do for just the next 24 hours. Just notice in any situation, do you have a sword? Are you bracing for what's about to happen next? And when you notice that you're in that stance, when you're in that energy, when you're in that mindset, just drop the sword. Don't be on the hunt for what's wrong. Stop assuming that things aren't going to work out. Stop complaining. Stop bracing. When you see the phone ringing and it's your mother or it's your boss, what if you just allowed yourself to enjoy life? What if you softened in to this moment, into this day, into this year? Drop the sword.

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Because here's the thing, if you need it, you can pick it up if you need to fight, if you need to brace. But the truth is, the majority of the time, you don't need the sword bracing. When you walk into work blocks, happiness, bracing. When you're standing in line and you want to order a coffee and it's taken a little longer because the person in front of you is buying six cups, bracing blocks, happiness. You don't need to be tense because somebody hasn't texted you back. And when you stop bracing and you stop showing up to life, like everything's a fight, when you stop being so mad at everything you open up, you soften up and you create room to let the good stuff in and to enjoy yourself. So that's lesson number one. Drop the sword. Now, when we back, I've got three more incredible lessons that I want you to hear from one of the craziest years of my life.

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So don't go anywhere because they're up next. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and do not skip this because I have something to give you four free. No kidding. Say goodbye to 2023. Let's say hello to 2024. Make it the best year ever. I have a free 29 page workbook. I made this for you to thank you for being here on YouTube, watching all of our videos, supporting our work. I'm going to help you answer what you want in 2024, and then more importantly, you're going to create a plan to go get it. Then I'll be here on YouTube motivating you every step of the way, you and me baby. Let's create the best year ever. Just click the link, boom, I'll take you to the page. You'll have this puppy in your hands in less than a minute, and be right back here with YouTube for me to motivate you.

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I love you. Let's do this. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel, I'm so thrilled that you were here. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here with me. I'm so glad I get to teach this to you. I'm sharing the four lessons that I learned after auditing what has been one of the craziest years of my life, and I just shared the first lesson, which is drop the sword has to do with happiness. Now let's talk about the second lesson. The second lesson is this. Forget about balance. Focus on boundaries. Like you, I have always been in the pursuit of trying to balance work life time for myself. And I'll tell you, last year was the year that I finally realized, Mel, screw balance. You need boundaries. See, here's the thing about balance, especially if you want to be happier, you think, oh, I need balance.

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I need balance. Well, balance is something you wish for. Boundaries are what you need to create. And another insight that I had about balance is that if you're busy seeking balance, you know what ends up happening. You literally put every part of your life in competition with every other part of your life because the word balance presumes that everything in your life has equal weight, otherwise it won't balance, right? Well, that's just not true. And here's what I've discovered, that seeking balance as a way to be happier or a way to have everything, it actually creates resentment in your life. For example, if work is really demanding, let's say you love your job, but it's been really demanding, and then you start to feel like your life is out of balance, what happens? You start to resent work. Or if you come home from work and even though you're seeking balance, you're exhausted and your kids just want to do something that you don't want to do, what do you do?

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You resent your kids. And here's why I love boundaries, because boundaries requires you to be responsible for how everything in your life will fit together. And boundaries get created based on, well, what is my top priority and what are my needs in the moment? See, boundaries are an active choice. Boundaries require you to be self-aware. They require you to get in touch with what you value. And here's my biggest insight about really focusing on boundaries this year. Your boundaries are not for other people. They're not for anybody else. You create boundaries for you. I want to say this again, your boundaries are for you because boundaries are where you are saying yes, and where you say no boundaries, highlight what's important to you and what's not important to you. And here's the other big takeaway I learned about boundaries. People are not mind readers. Boundaries only work if you're willing to communicate them.

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When you're home or you're with your family, your phone is not on your body. That was my boundary. So if we were out as a family, my phone is in my bag. If I'm at home, do you know where my phone is? It's either in my bathroom plugged in or it is in the kitchen plugged in. And look, if you've listened to this podcast or you've followed me on social media for a long time, or you've seen me speak at a big corporate event, you know that I have really good boundaries already with my phone because I don't sleep with it. I don't have it near me. I keep it in a different room and I have that boundary in place so that I can get up in the morning and put myself first and have a great morning routine. But this year I took boundaries with my phone up an entirely new notch.

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I just don't have it on me when I'm with my family. And you want to know what it works. I feel like I spent a lot of time with my family and you want to know the truth. I didn't spend any more time or less time with my family than I did the year before. I was just present during the time I was with them because of the boundary. And there's a lot of powerful research here. In fact, I think we need to do an entire episode on this. There's this thing that everybody's talking about, and there's a big New York Times article about it. It's called Fobbing AKA Phone Snubbing. So just combine the word phone with snubbing for fobbing, okay? It basically means you are snubbing the people that are sitting there right around you in real life when you are standing next to them and you're looking your phone.

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And here's the interesting thing about the research. Studies show that phone snubbing makes the people around you feel like they're being ostracized by you and they also start to distrust you. Another study shows that if you start fobbing or snubbing people with your phone, it can lead to this ripple effect when you're with your family or your friends. I bet you've experienced this. Let's just say that Chris is on his phone and I'm kind of waiting to talk to him and I start to feel like, oh my God, he's ignoring me. He's standing next to me and he's busy scrolling through social media. So what do you end up doing? You just pick up your phone and you start scrolling too. Well, this year I did not do that, at least not as much as I used to. And I'll tell you, this boundary was so cool because it made me realize how great it is to be more present with the people that you love and how often it's just the damn phone that keeps you from doing it. And the truth is, it would never have happened without a boundary. If I had just said I need balance between work and home, it wouldn't have happened. I'm going to give you another example because boundaries are so powerful. I set another boundary with my health. So I am really committed to improving my gut health and balancing my hormone health.

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And you may already know this, but in case you don't, I am in the throes of menopause and I feel like my body is changing because it is changing. And all the things that I used to do in terms of my habits and what I eat and how I exercise, they're just not working. And I am freaking frustrated by it. And like you, every single time we have a great expert on the Mel Robbins podcast, I learned so much. And I want to give a shout out to Dr. Amy Shaw because I learned so many amazing things about gut health from her. She appeared three different times on the Mel Robbins podcast, and one of the favorite things that she taught me was the research around caffeine, adenosine, and the brain, and also the research about how your estrogen like absorption for hormone health has a ton to do with your gut health.

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And when I learned all this, it inspired me to create a boundary with coffee in the morning. I know sounds weird, just hear me out. But I used to be the kind of person that when I would wake up, I would drag myself like army, crawl my way to the coffee maker. I would slam a cup of coffee before anything else hit my lips. I don't do that anymore because of science. Now I wake up, I drink 16 ounces of water first thing in the morning, and I have a boundary. I do not have coffee until at least 90 minutes into the day, oftentimes later. And I usually only have coffee with breakfast, not on an empty stomach on most days. That's the only cup of coffee I have. I got to tell you, this is a huge positive change for me. I used to drink four to five cups of coffee a day.

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With these changes, I do feel healthier, I do feel less bloated. And the crazy part is I feel more energized and focused with just one cup of coffee because of the science and because adenosine. Now, if you want to learn more about this research and you missed the one where she was talking about it, just follow this podcast because the very next episode that I'm releasing is about the eight small habits that I learned from experts on the Mel Robbins podcast over the past 12 months. And we share that amazing research from Dr. Amy Shaw in the episode that's coming next. Alright, speaking of coming next, let's hit the pause button. I want you to hear a word from our sponsors because they allow me to bring you not only this podcast, but all the things that we do at zero cost. I love our sponsors. So take a listen and when we come back, I'm going to be waiting for you and I'm going to be ready to tell you the final two lessons that I learned the hard way.

(24:27):

So you don't have to, don't go anywhere. Welcome back. It's your friend, Mel. I'm so glad you're here. I got two more lessons to teach you from one of the craziest years of my life. So just to quickly recap, the first one was about happiness, dropping the sword and allowing more happiness. In the second lesson that we just covered was forget balance, focus on boundaries. Okay, third lesson. Ooh, I love this one. You ready? Frustration is a very good thing. Yep, I said it. Frustration. This is a lesson, a big lesson I learned this year. Frustration is not a sign that things are terrible. Frustration is a sign that you're growing. And I have to kind of laugh as I share this lesson with you because I mean, if you think about what I was saying in the beginning, I told you that I always have to learn things the hard way.

(25:32):

And one of the reasons why these lessons feel so hard to me is because I always feel so frustrated about some aspect of my life right? Before I get it. And what I'm realizing is, of course you do, Mel. It's hard to learn life lessons because you feel frustrated and you're frustrated because you're growing. You hadn't gotten the lesson yet. And so here's the takeaway that I just want to hand to you like a gigantic gift. Frustration is a good thing because it just means you've outgrown some aspect of your life and you're not meant to stay in a place or a situation or in a system that no longer suits you. That's why you're frustrated. And before the break, remember that I said I was frustrated with my body because all the habits that I had in my forties were no longer working. Now that I'm in menopause, well, frustration is just a sign that I've outgrown the habits that I had in my forties.

(26:28):

And now that I'm in my fifties, I need to uplevel my habits. That's all that it means. This lesson is critical. I want you to think about the five main areas of your life, health and wellness, career, money and school relationships, love and fun and happiness, purpose, spirituality and meaning. Anytime you feel frustrated with your health or work or school or money or with any relationship or even with the sense of just that something's missing, that sense of not having purpose, let me tell you that frustration that you're feeling is good. You're not going to stay stuck there. You only have frustration because you've outgrown something. That's it. So stop making it so personal. Stop telling yourself you're broken. You're not broken. You've just outgrown something. And when you make frustration personal, like something's wrong, something's wrong. No, something's got to change. Stop aiming at it yourself.

(27:32):

Frustration is just a signal that something isn't working. And boy, I have felt frustrated most of this year. And looking back, I now know why. And it's kind of ironic that I felt frustrated on the year I was working on healing and happiness, but it is what it is. Here's why I felt frustrated, because this was a year of hyper, hyper-growth for me, especially at work. And so let's apply the lesson. If you think about frustration as a good thing, that's kind of step one.