Why You Care So Much About These 5 Things (and How to Stop)

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Hey, it's your friend. Mel, I am so glad that you're here with me today because we are going to jump into five things that are kind of surprising and they are taking up a lot of your mental and emotional energy and ain't nobody got time for that. You know what I'm saying? You need to know how are you going to get your time and energy back, and that's what we're going to talk about today. 

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The truth is, I'm so moved by your support of this podcast and what I'm doing that I am constantly racking my brain trying to figure out ways that I can take this beyond just you listening and watching, and I just want to do whatever I can to empower you to take risks and to make the changes that will make your life better because you mean the world to me and I want to prove it to you. I know I already show up here twice a week with new podcast episodes and every day on YouTube with a new video, but I want to give you more structured support as a true thank you, which brings me to this exciting gift that I have for you. It's a free two-part video training called Make It Happen. Now, I first announced this training and this gift on last week's podcast, and more than a hundred thousand of you have already signed up and received this gift and are in the training.

 

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And just to be clear, this is zero Cost You, which means it's free. All you got to do is go to mel robbins.com/make it happen. The link is in the show notes. It is right in the YouTube description. You can be in this training and get this gift in less than a minute. Let me tell you a little bit about it. It is a two hour video training and the curriculum is all backed by science and it is designed with a singular mission to support you in taking confident, consistent action in your life because that's how you make things happen. And the training also comes with a workbook. Now, this workbook, I'm holding my hand on YouTube so you can see it. It's bright green, it's gorgeous, it's filled with exercises. It is over 25 pages long and it's designed with the latest research to help you take what you're going to learn in the Make It Happen workshop and apply it to your life.

 

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How cool is that? I love doing these free trainings because they change lives, and this one is going to change yours now for the a hundred thousand of you that have already signed up for Make It Happen. I just want to give you a huge shout out. I'm so thrilled to be your coach and your instructor in this workshop, and I also want to give a shout out to almost a million of you who took advantage of the training that I created and gave to you the beginning of the year called Best Year. In my opinion, make it Happen. This one, it's even better. Why wouldn't you take this opportunity to let me support and coach and teach you so you can make your life better? All you got to do is go to mel robbins.com/make it Happen, and it's yours. And you know how I'm always reminding you that these episodes are free resources that you can share with your friends and your family?

 

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Well, so is this training, you're going to want to share this because when you're surrounded by friends and family who are taking consistent, confident action and making big things happen, guess what? It helps you make big things happen in your life too. Cool. Awesome. Here's that link again, mel robbins.com/make it happen. Can't wait to see you in the training. Alrighty, now let's talk about those five things that are taken up way too much of your mental and emotional energy. Because here's the thing, when you're trying to control everything, you can't focus on anything that's truly important. And the first thing that I want you to stop wasting mental stress and energy on is the weather. You can't control the weather, but you can control whether or not it bothers you. Lemme give you an example. So I live in southern Vermont and it's April technically supposed to be spring up here.

 

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My daffodils and tulips are starting to poke through and come up and I'm so excited. I'm so excited. I put our winter coats awake. Well, guess what happened A few days ago? I woke up and there was freaking snow outside. Oh, here's the thing. Why would you waste any mental energy on that? Why cause stress? Why get frustrated? You can't control the weather. I mean, it would've been easy for me to pull open the shades and look outside and see my beautiful flower beds all covered with snow and then to start stressing out about whether or not the bulbs are all trashed and oh my gosh, I spent all those money in those bulbs now that they're not going to. But here's the thing, does stressing about it change anything? No. So why on earth do you and I let it affect us? Now, I know it can feel obvious hearing me say you can't control the weather because you can't.

 

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But if it's so obvious, why do we cause ourself mental distress? Why do we complain about it? Why do we spend time working ourselves up? I'm thinking right now about how much energy a bride or a groom burns through and an entire year as they think ahead and they worry about what the weather is going to be on their wedding day. Why do that? You can't control it. Once you have your plan A and your plan B, you're all set. So why even think about it? If it rains, it rains, but common sense isn't so common and the weather does control you. 

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Yeah, the dog can let itself out. I'm not going out in that stuff. Or heaven forbid, when it's super humid that you leave the air conditioning in your house, you'll cancel plans like that unless you work for the weather channel, you waste way too much time thinking about it and being impacted by the weather. Here's what I want you to remember. A passing shower isn't going to kill you, so don't let it kill your plans. And it also passes when there's a cloudy or stormy day, and my friend Josh says this all the time, what's still up there above those stormy clouds, a bright, beautiful blue sky. Think about that moment on an airplane where you go through the clouds and then you get up above the clouds. What's always up there? A bright blue sky. Bad weather is actually an opportunity. It's an opportunity if you look at it the right way and you don't let it control you for you to practice discipline.

 

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In fact, there's a lot of science here that I want to share with you. Did you know that when you do things that you didn't want to do, like going outside for that walk even though it's raining the part of your brain that's called the anterior mid cingulate cortex gets bigger? And when researchers look at this part of your brain, they see it as the seat of willpower and not just willpower, but the actual will to live. And this is the only part of your brain that grows by doing things that you don't want to do. And so the weather isn't something for you to control and it's not something that should control what you're doing. The weather is an opportunity for you to grow. So the next time it rains, don't complain. Just do what you planned on doing. Go out on that run, take that hike, go work in the yard, go walk the dog.

 

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It's going to help you. It's actually an opportunity to take control of yourself, of your life, of your discipline, and for all you brides and grooms out there who are worried about the weather, the single best wedding that I was ever at was hit with this epic rain and hailstorm literally came out of nowhere. It was so big of a storm, one of those storms that comes across the Great Lakes in the Midwest that one of the tents flooded. Literally the top of it ripped open and waterfalled onto the dance floor. And to this day, Emily Glasser and Billy Sussman's wedding 30 years later is the single best wedding I have ever been to, the most memorable, the most fun. You want to know why? Not only because of the bride in the groom, but because of the storm. Maybe what your wedding needs is a good old fashioned rainstorm and maybe what you need is to learn how to run in the rain because you're bigger than the weather.

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You may be sitting in traffic right now as you listen to me and as you're in traffic, you start to get frustrated. You kind of grip the wheel and then you hem and you haw and you tense up and you kind of hit the GPS and you I should. Why do you do that? By the time that you get to work, you're so exhausted because you worked yourself up. You just burned through so much energy in the car being angry that traffic was backed up and delayed. Did any of that anger and stress help you get to work faster? Of course not. Did it move the traffic? No. Did it free up a lane? No. This is why it's so dumb to allow things that you can't control to impact you. Or let's take another example. You're waiting in line at the post office. You got your arms full of packages that you need to return.

 

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It's two 15. The line is so long you are out there on your lunch break. You're like, oh, should I stay? Should I not? So now you've committed to staying in line and all of a sudden there's somebody at the front and they're taking so long. Do you want insurance with this package, honey? And you're like, oh my God, are you kidding me with this? And you're now starting to get irritated. Do you need some stamps while you're here? Oh my God, are they really going to buy stamps right now? We've all had these moments. Oh, and then all of a sudden you get close and what does the clerk do? Oh, I got to go on my lunch break. Let me get somebody to fill in. And you're like, oh. And these feelings of irritation and frustration, they rise up. Why? Because you feel like you're losing control of your time.

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A truck of course. And so you're winding and you're going slower. And in that moment, can you control what's happening? No. 

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And if it's at nighttime and this happens, just imagine that this truck is running point for you lighting up the way. Isn't that a beautiful way to take control? Because you can't control the times where life slows you down, but you can control what you do with that time. And when you look at it like a gift, you take the control back and there's so many things you could do. You could turn on Rosetta Stone, one of the sponsors of this podcast and listen to that French lesson that you started, but you haven't had time to finish or you could call a friend. This is one of my favorite things to do when I'm driving hands free and just talk to somebody while you're driving behind that guardian angel truck. You could start to see this as not lost time, but time that's been given back to you as an opportunity.

 

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You can even do this at the post office. So let's go back to the line at the post office instead of standing there getting frustrated and flustered, which only makes you feel like you're losing control, it only makes the time go by faster. What if you use this found time and you take a moment to text someone that you've been thinking about just to say Hi. One goal of mine this year is to be more closely connected to my family so I could use that time waiting in line as a sign from the universe that I just gained a moment to reach out to my nephews. They were in a water polo tournament all weekend long and I want to congratulate them on their wins. How cool is that? Or have an audio book or a podcast like this one queued up so that you got something that is your go-to in those moments because you can't control the time when you're going to be forced to slow down or to wait, but you can control what you do with your time while you're waiting.

 

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So make something important happen. That's what you can control, even if what you make happen in those moments is just practice staying calm or being in the moment or practicing gratitude. And the more that you do that, the more you'll realize how much time and energy you do have at your disposal to use in small and big ways, and you know what else you have in your control, whether or not it bothers you. When I take a quick pause to go to break and give a little air time to our sponsors who bring this podcast you at zero costs. So don't you go anywhere. I know you want to know these three other things that you can't control and trust me, the next one is a real doozy. Stay with me. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and I've been thinking it's time that you and I take our relationship to the next level.

 

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This may be a little bit forward of me, but I've got a gift that I want to give you. I've been working on this for a little while. It's a brand new free two-part video training that I created for you using principles of physics and neuroscience and all kinds of research to help you go from thinking about what you want to actually making it happen. See, I want you to not only be inspired here on social media, I want you and I to take it to the next level and get off social media and let me coach you and teach you on how you yes, you can make the next six months of your life the best six months of your life. It's not going to happen by accident, it'll happen on purpose. Homey wants you to do it too. There he is. Hi. You've got a gift for them too. Oh, my gift is better because it's a free training that'll help you change your life. All you got to do is go into the comments and type free FREE. I'll DM you a link to the training. That's how easy you can make this training happen. Last time I did this last year, more than half a million people accepted this free gift. I hope this year you'll take our relationship to the next level and let me coach you on making the next six months of your life extraordinary. Let's make it happen together.

 

(17:31):

Welcome back. It's your friend Mel, and we're talking about five surprising things that waste a lot of your time and energy and how to take your control back. And so I now want to talk about the third thing that you cannot control that is taking up a lot of your mental and emotional energy. You cannot control the headlines, but you can control your headspace. Mel, what are you talking about? Well, let me tell you, there's a big difference between being informed about what's going on and getting inundated with things that are beyond your control, that stress you out and freak you out. And I'll tell you something. I used to be really stupid when it came to social media because I was passive and I'm going to explain what that means. Whatever it was, the social media or the mass media platform was serving up, I was just taking it in.