The 7-Day Reset for More Time, Energy & Happiness (Backed by Science)

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I'm going to teach you how to take your energy and your focus and your joy back from a world that is designed to rob you of it. That's right. You heard me, right? I mean, have you stopped to think about how you are now living in a moment in history where everything about the world today, it is purposefully stealing your time? You've heard the phrase time is money. Well, so is your energy, your focus, your joy. I mean the headlines make you feel helpless. Work is endless. Social media, oh my gosh, doom, scrolling, stealing joy, stealing time, stealing energy. Your friend Mel Robbins, I'm going to tell you something, you have to wake up and take your power back if somebody forwarded this episode to you and recommended that you listen to it, I want to remind you of something you have people in your life that care about you.

 

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You have people in your life that believe that your time and energy is valuable. That is a very cool thing, and you're now with your friend Mel, and I believe your time and energy is valuable, and so thank you for making the time to listen to this because the seven things on the checklist that I'm about to share with you, these are the secret, the foundational building blocks to you taking your power back from a world that is trying to steal it and purposefully, purposefully putting in place the seven things that will help you create a great week, and when I go through the seven things on this checklist, I'm going to warn you this is not like some super fancy intellectual, crazy complicated thing on the surface. Every one of the seven things is going to be like, oh, well, that's a low bar, but they're so deep and so profound.

 

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The research you're about to hear is going to not only make every one of the seven things feel urgent, it's going to make you know why they matter, and you're also going to go, oh, well, I'm not currently doing these things. No wonder I feel powerless. No wonder I have no time. No wonder my energy is drained and I can't wait to share this with you because you can do every single thing on this checklist, and the checklist is what makes this research that you're about to hear from Harvard Medical School, Harvard Business School, all of these incredible studies that have been done around the world, it makes all of this knowledge actionable and doable, and before I jump in and I cannot wait to jump in because I can't wait for you to take your power back and start having great weeks again, I know you're going to be going, oh my gosh, slow down.

 

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Mel, do I need to write these down? I want to make this so easy for you. I want you to have a great week every week, so I have a one page download for you that you can print out. You can hang it on your fridge, you can put it on your desk, you can put it on your dresser, it's free. Just go to mel robbins.com/week. That's it. Mel robbins.com/week. Put in your email. I'll email you. Download, boom. Now you got the checklist for every week, and I want you to have the checklist because when you see it, it will remind you, oh, these are the seven things I need to check off and if I check off these things then I can plan to have a great week, but here's what we're going to do regardless of the day of the week that you're listening, regardless of it's a good week or it's a lame week or it's a hell week or it's a amazing week, I want you to listen to the entire conversation right now with me.

 

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I want you to learn and absorb everything. I want you to truly embrace the truth, the simplicity and the brilliance of what I'm about to say to you that having a great week isn't what you think it's having a great week is a of seven simple things and I'm going to unpack all of them, but I want to make sure that you understand before you try to implement it, the whole process, the research, the step-by-step stuff, you're going to be nodding along. You're going to be thinking of a million people you need to send this to, so be generous with it and listen and then you can go to mel robbins.com/week and get the one page download so that you're reminded of everything we talked about and then you can implement it. I'm going to do all the heavy lifting. I want to set you up for success because you chose to hit play.

 

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You chose to make the time for this, and so by God, I'm not only going to make this fun to listen to, you are going to feel so excited about the week ahead of you because you're going to have the seven item checklist that's going to make it great. Alright, you're ready to jump in. Me too. 

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I have done this for years and for years. The way that I have used a brain dump is anytime I feel overwhelmed or I start to feel like I'm starting to ruminate, or if you get a case of the Sunday scaries and you're starting to dread the week ahead or you feel like you've got a lot to do and you didn't get it done over the weekend, you need a brain dump and here's what you do. You take out a piece of paper and you just start writing down everything that is in your head and it's going to be random stuff. It is fascinating how much you actually carry upstairs in your mind and you're probably not even aware of it because you're going to start writing things like I got to pick up the dry cleaning. I got to make lasagna. I got to call my mother.

 

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I've got to finish that presentation at work. I need to finish reading that chapter. I got to clean out the drawer in my bathroom and it's going to go blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You might have to put down, I got to stop crying. It's going to be unbelievable. I got to buy the birthday present for that friend of mine. I got to call that friend back. It is incredible. Once you rip that seal open, how much is going to come pouring out of your mind and onto a piece of paper and one of the reasons why a brain dump is so liberating is because first of all, every time you write something down, you feel a little space in your mind free up. It's really cool. The second thing that you're going to notice is, holy cow, I actually carry a lot around and you're going to be kind of impressed with your mental capacity and it's also going to show you, no wonder I can't focus on anything because I've been walking around up here with clean out the back closet and don't forget to call your and you got to pick up that thing.

 

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One thing that's on my brain dump is we went on a family trip for my dad's 80th birthday and one of the things that I've been carrying around ever since is I got to get the photo album done. I got to get that photo album done. You know how you do one of those family photo albums with an online print photo thing? I got to get that done, got to get that laid out, got to get everybody to contribute their photos to the family album. I am carrying that around, and so you're just going to brain dump it out. In fact, I did one yesterday and I used an entirely new approach, so I want to show it to you. Normally what I do is I dump it on one piece of paper. That's step one. Just get it out, get it out, get it out, get it out.

 

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It might take you 15 minutes and then what you'll notice is 30 minutes from now you're going to see that thing and be like, oh, there's that thing that I forgot. I forgot that I needed to do that thing at work, and so let me put that down. Oh, I forgot that I needed to send that email. Let me put that down. Oh, I forgot that I need to pull my sweater out of the washing machine and hang it up so that my roommate doesn't throw it in the dryer and then shrink my sweater into a Barbie size thing, and so you've got all of this upstairs. Yesterday I did one of these because a brain dump is always number one on the checklist for how I set myself up to have a great week. We don't want to carry that with us. We want to get all that out so we can have a clear head and we're also have a sense of what's actually important on paper.

 

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So yesterday, check this out. Yesterday I was so overwhelmed because I'm about to go on a business trip to Los Angeles, so that means I got a pack, which always throws me into a complete frenzy. So yesterday I decided, here's what I'm going to do. Instead of putting it on one sheet, I got three big post-it notes out. I'm going to show you them. Actually, I'm going to show you one of them right now because normally what I do is I'll put the brain dump. I know you're going to ask, I'm holding up if you're listening, I'm holding up just a garden variety notebook and I keep this by my desk. I'm not going to show you this. I do not want you to actually zoom in on the insanity that is my mind that I write in here, but I'll often be at a meeting and work and I'll draw a line down the right hand side of the paper and literally start a little brain dump there.

 

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It's not a to-do list. Very important, not a to-do list. I have no intention of getting any of this stuff done. I'm just dumping it down on paper to get it out of my brain because I'm starting to notice that I'm swirling and I'm getting overwhelmed. So again, very important to understand that a brain dump, not a to-do list. Here's another notebook. This one's prettier I know even has my name on it, Mel. This one is the notebook that I use for my therapy notes and important things, but occasionally there's, there's a brain dump there. There's sketching of something that I want to redesign at my house. Oh, here's another brain dump right here. Here's another, wow, I got a lot of brain dumps in this fancy notebook, but again, it's not a to-do list and that's what's so liberating about this. You're actually just creating space in your mind, but that brings me to how did I do it yesterday?

 

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This is a level up on the Mel Robbins brain dump. Let me tell you what I did is I have these kind of big post-it notes. I literally put three post-it notes out on the island right here, check this out, and I put work at the top of one and then I put personal and then I put home, so it was work, personal and home, and I put 'em on the counter in the kitchen and all day long, it was the most liberating thing Over the weekend, I would just walk past and be like, oh, yeah, I got to get ready for the speech I'm giving for Microsoft. Oh, yeah, I got to remember to pack three microphones for la. Oh, yeah, I got to make sure to do this thing. That's not going to make any sense to you, but the code is map and the blueprint and map it to the marketing ops job, which means absolutely nothing, but it means something to me and more importantly, now that it's on this little post-it note, it is not in my brain.

 

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That's what you need. Whether you start this checklist by just taking out a piece of paper that is from your printer paper or a spiral bound notebook or your journal or you use this three post-it notes note system, work, home and personal, and you just keep it out, keep it out, and you just are dumping it out, that's what you're doing, and one of the things that you're going to notice, and this is where things get liberating, is especially the things that were on my list for home, 99% of the stuff on my list is not happening this week, and yet I'm carrying it around in my head. I'm not going to organize my bathroom drawers right now. That's not what I'm going to do. I am not going to go through the pantry and find everything that's expired and actually don't get rid of it.

 

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That's not what I'm going to do. In fact, you want to know what's come up on my to-do list for home over and over and over and over again. I'm almost embarrassed to tell you this because I've talked about this on social media. I think I've talked about this on the podcast before, but what comes up every single time I do a brain dump every weekend, literally, I have lived in this house in southern Vermont for four years. We don't have a single photo of anyone in our family hanging on any wall, not one, not one four years. I have lived here four years and not a single photo of our family hanging on any of the walls, and so every single time I do a brain dump, do you want to know the two that ends up on that single piece of paper or this weekend in my elevated home brain dump list, picture wall.

 

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I know you have something like this. In fact, as we were talking as a team about this, our executive producer, Tracy was like, oh my God, I can't believe you just said that. My husband and I have lived in this apartment for almost a year. I am sitting next to a shelf that still has baggies on it. It is on my to-do list to organize the shelf. I'm not going to get this done this week, and I'm like, exactly, and you still need to dump it on the brain dump list because this is not a to-do list. The whole purpose of this is to get you to get everything out of your mind so that you do not succumb to the Sunday scaries. Get everything out of your mind so you don't start the week in a state of overwhelm. Get everything out of your mind so you're not dragging all of this stuff that's knocking around in your brain like a pinball machine into this week.

 

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We're not doing that, so if you start with the checklist item number one and you just do a brain dump and just write everything down and just keep coming back to the list, here's for work. Here's for personal, here's for home, here's for work, here's for personal, here's for home, here's for work, here's for personal, here's for home. Boom, you're done and you're going to feel lighter. It's sort of like a mental spray tan. I got one of my first spray tans ever. My 25-year-old daughter was like, mom, you got to have a spray tan. You're looking really zombie-like lately in the videos, and so I try to spray tan. I swear to God. I'm like, I need to own a spray tan machine. I feel like I'm 10 years younger and five pounds lighter. You are going to feel the same way after you do a brain dump.

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You are going to cross things off. There is so much on that list that you have zero intention of doing this week. Just put a cross right there. Just take a sharpie, wipe it right off the list. You're going to free yourself of the burden of carrying this around. My friend Tracy, our executive producer, she's not organizing her bookcase. Cross it off the list. I'm going to tell you about another thing that I crossed off the list, so I have this box right here. I'm going to show it to you if you're watching YouTube, but you can hear it as you're listening to me. This is a FedEx box, okay? This big priority mailbox. It is full of photos, full of photos. These are all photos. These are now photos in baggies that are photos that I sent to I believe the Today Show like four or five years ago so that they could scan some photos and show some photos when they're introducing somebody, they have been sitting in a box next to my desk.

 

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This is like a tractor trailer that I drag around mentally with me because they sit next to my desk and I look at it and I think I got to go through that. I got to get those back in the photo album things. I got to do something with it ugly. You can hear this as you're listening to me. I pulled out, I pulled out some of them and look at this right here. I have a photo right here of me getting dropped off freshman year of college. This is a photograph from 1986. Why is this in my brain right now? Here's another photograph from December, 1981 of me and Jody and my brother, an exchange student whose name I've now forgotten ice skating on the lake by my, this is in my brain. I do not need to carry it into the week. I guarantee you whether it's a bookcase or it's photos that you need to organize or it's the junk drawer in the kitchen or it's the bag of clothes that you keep meaning to drop off and donate, there are things on that brain dump list that are staring you in the face and now that they are out of your mind.

 

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Dear Lord. Checklist item number two, set yourself free. You're not doing it this week. Cross it off. Zero guilt. You are just claiming space. You are saying, you're not going into my brain, not this week. No thank you. Nope, we're not doing it. Doesn't this feel good? You already feel like, man, I'm going to have a great week. I am not doing the family photo album for Peru this week. Just not happening. Cross it off the list because without doing this, you know what I would've done? I would've been on the plane to Los Angeles going, I should probably work on that per photo album. I should probably do this, and then I would spend a bunch of time sitting there thinking about the things I needed to do. No, no, and neither are you because you're going to start this week with checklist item number two, after you do your brain dump, you're going to set yourself free, free of all these things that you carry around and you're going to cross it off and you are not going to have any guilt about it.

 

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You are going to claim your time because as I said to you at the beginning, we live in a world that is now programmed and designed to steal your joy, to steal your energy, to steal your time. You and I, we are taking it back. That's what you're doing. You are making room in your brain and in your body and with your energy to not carry this stuff around with you. You're setting yourself free. Isn't this fricking awesome? Don't you already feel like it's going to be a great week? Of course you do. That's why you're going to love this checklist that you're going to print out and you're going to have it right by your desk or sitting on your fridge to remind you Saturday or Sunday, this is what I do. This is how I create a great week. I don't even care if it's a Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday.

 

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If you've had a terrible week, get the checklist out. Start right now. You can reclaim this. Step one brain dump. Step two, set yourself free. Cross off absolutely everything that you're not doing this week. See that you are in control. I love this. 

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It is bold. If you're going to mark something up with this thing, you mean it, and so you're going to take whatever is that version of it for you. It can be a pencil for all I care. You can write it with a thing of lipstick you can take if you're a spray paint person, you can use spray paint. I don't care because the third thing on the list is you're going to choose one thing. You're going to circle that sucker of all the things that you've written down. I want you to stand in front of that brain dump. I want you to look at all the things that you've been like, Nope, nope, not the bookcase, not the box of photographs, not the bathroom door, not the kitchen junk drawer. I'm not going to get to the donation pile. I'm not going to cut the lawn this week.

 

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Nope, I'm not cleaning out the garage. These projects are not getting done. You're going to see that there are things there that you're sort of like can't quite cress it off, can't quite set myself free. So as you stand in front of the things that are left, I want you to take a deep breath and I want you to look at those things and I want you to say to of all the things that are left on this list, what's the one thing on this list that if you were to fast forward to next weekend and you look back on this week that you're about to live, you fast forward seven days from now. If you actually got a little progress done on that, if you actually moved the ball down the field that you personally would feel better, what is that one thing? Is it picking up the guitar and playing for a half an hour?

 

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Is it cleaning out the junk drawer? Is it taking 30 minutes and spending that time sorting through some health insurance claims? Is it fixing lunch and driving it over to a friend of yours that isn't feeling well? Is it the bookcase? Really look at that list because there's something on there that is meaningful to you and if you were to just move the ball down the field, spend 15 lousy minutes on the thing, it would make you feel better because it matters to you. This is so important. That's why I've got the chisel tip marker out here because this is not about work. It's not about your family, it's not about what your friends want you to do. It's not about what your parents need. This is something that matters to you and as I'm going to keep on reminding you, we live in a moment in history where the world is engineered and deliberately programmed to steal your joy, to steal your time, to steal your energy and to steal your attention, and if you're not careful, and this is step three of this checklist, the world will steal meaning from you as well, and so whatever that thing is for you, this is where you get to be selfish.

 

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This is where you get to say, this is something that I really would like to find a little time on. Can you take a guess what it is that I circled this week after four years of putting it on the list? That's right. The damn picture wall. I circled the picture wall. Honest to God, that's what I've circled. I have been wanting to do this for four years. I have been carting around these photos that I keep next to my desk. Some of the photos in there are things that I would like on the wall. I literally said, I am going to move from talking and thinking about this, which I've been doing for four years and it is continued to be on my brain dump for four years and you're going to have things like that too. This was the week. This was the week that I'm like, I'm doing it.

 

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I'm doing it, and so I want you to do the same thing. I want you to circle it. When you circle this thing, you're not committing to getting it done. This is a really important nuance here and there's a lot of research that explains why I'm telling you I'm not expecting you to complete it. If you were to circle the bookcase, you don't have to get the bookcase organized. All you got to do in circling it is find 15 minutes. I call this your hot 15. This is 15 minutes where you are going to schedule time to just work on it and make progress because you and I both know in 15 minutes I can't even find half the photos I need. I mean, I can't get much done in 15 minutes, but here's what I can do. I can actually move the ball down the field.

 

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Now here's the reason why it's critical for step three of the checklist for you to put it in the calendar. The reason why is it's not real until it's scheduled. If it's not in your calendar, it's not happening. This can't be an accident. Now is where you get serious now is where you move from having plans to planning and there's this famous quote, maybe you've heard it, plans are nothing. Planning is everything, and so what I am committing to doing, and I've now already done it, I did it this morning, is I did a Google search picture wall services.

 

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Turns out there's a lot of places online that can help you organize a wall of photos on your wall. I had no idea this was a thing. I guess I'm not the only idiot that's struggling with this. I also found a retail store in Boston that provides a service. I'm not going to name them because they're not a sponsor of the show, but I found it and in 15 minutes flat, I also was able to look in my calendar and find a Sunday, which is normally the day that I traveled down from our home in Vermont down to Boston ahead of the weeks where we tape our expert interviews for the show. So I found this Sunday and I figured out a Sunday where I could come in earlier than I normally drive in and I made an appointment. Oh my God, I actually made an appointment.

 

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This is going down in three weeks from now. How fricking cool is it? I actually have an appointment. I've actually planned it in my calendar. I not only made the appointment, I was smart enough to, I'm probably going to be there for four hours because I'm going to show up with this box that's been by my desk for four years and my folders that I've got of all my favorite photos online and I'm going to get started. Do you know how liberated I feel You now get to decide what matters to you. This is like the theme of the week for you and what's super cool is you don't have to do it right Then just flip open your calendar and say, where's a 15 minute block that I could work on this? If you just get that block in, I'm going to pick up the guitar and I'm going to schedule it right here and I'm going to schedule it for this period.

 

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My classes get out at three o'clock. I'm going to walk back to my dorm room and by three 30 I'm going to be sitting there with my guitar in my hand and make sure to put it in your calendar and make sure to put an alarm on it because again, the world is designed and is trying to steal your joy, your time, your energy and your focus. This checklist and these simple little tools help you take it back. When you get those things done, you do feel liberated. You do feel more in control and there's a lot of research around this and it taps into something called the progress principle, and if you and I have been hanging out for a while or you've read either the five second Rule or the High five Habit or you've been listening to the podcast, you've probably heard me talk about this, but I want to unpack this because the progress principle is one of the key principles that is foundational to my success.

 

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It's foundational to the way that I approach productivity and this will change your life, and I want to tell you about how this comes from amazing research that has been done at Harvard Business School series. There was a study at Harvard Business School where they found that one of the most important things that you can do every single week is to have this sense that you're moving forward on things that matter to you. Now, it's important to say they didn't say that one of the most important things you can do is to get a ton of things done on your checklist. Did they? No, they didn't say that. They said based on the research, the most important thing is simply to feel like you made progress, and this is a critical difference because you're probably so focused on getting things done that you're missing where the real juice is, so you don't know what to squeeze.

 

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See, the researchers at Harvard Business School, they looked at 12,000 accounts. What they did is they had people who were working across seven different companies in different industries. They had them keep these journals about what they were focusing on during the week and when they crunched all the data on 12,000 people across seven different companies, do you want to know what they found that the most common event that triggered someone saying, boy, I just had the best day, was that they made progress in some important work either personally or with the team progress. The best day was not when they got the project done. The best day was feeling like, oh, I was actually able to make some progress on something that's important. This makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, just think about have you ever had to paint a room? I mean, hasn't everybody, I feel like I've painted my entire house, every apartment I've ever lived in.

 

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My poor parents, every time Chris and I moved, I'd be like, come visit and they'd show up and be like, okay, let's go to Home Depot and get some paint brushes. We're going to paint. Doesn't it feel good to just cut out the edges? It almost feels better to make progress and get the edges cut than getting the whole thing done. See, here's the thing that they found based on the research, simply moving the ball forward, simply spending 15 minutes simply making a small amount of progress. I'm talking, you made the phone call, you made the appointment, you watched the video, you picked up the guitar, you actually sat on hold and had one more conversation that is going to help you eventually solve the healthcare claim. Progress creates more positive emotions in you see, you're in a more upbeat mood in general, and you also feel this sense of joy and warmth and pride when you know you're actually moving things forward.

 

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You also kind of have this sense of motivation. You feel more naturally motivated and interested in what you're doing when you make progress. It's almost like a little bit of forward motion keeps you feeling like you want to keep it in motion, and that's what you're going to also find. I guarantee you if you find 15 minutes to start working on that bookcase, you'll probably do it for 30 or 40 minutes because it's not the actual project that is difficult. It's carving out the time and getting yourself started and moving a little bit forward in a world that is constantly screaming at you for your attention. 

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I'm only going to ask you to plan one. Let me unpack this. I'm not trying to get you on a diet or have you lose weight. That's not what this is about. This is about having a great week and one of the things that I've learned, and one of the things that the expert after expert after expert comes on to this podcast and says is that food is medicine and what you put in your body fuels your body and fuels your mindset, and one of the mistakes that I used to make is I used to let this happen by accident. Literally, I would not plan out the week. I would go to the grocery store with the rest of the planet every Saturday I would be hungry, which basically means you're buying everything that looks good to eat right now, I do not have a plan.

 

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I'm just filling up the cart. Half of the stuff that I buy is probably going to spoil because I don't know what I'm going to do with it, and if you're kind of nodding your head or you're in that rut where you DoorDash every meal, you never cook, you don't have anything in your fridge, you get to work, you work till lunch, then you go, what am I eating? How about we stop that? Because one way to have a great week is to actually put on the checklist. Meal prep and meal prep in the Mel Robbins world is not meal prep on Instagram, okay? You do not have to make 75 meals. You do not have to prep high protein stuff. I'm talking about planning in one simple way so that you have a great week and here's what this looks like. You're going to have your calendar out, just scan the week and then say to yourself, what could I actually plan ahead?

 

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And there's so many ways that this could look. It's incredible. You might have the kind of week that is so nuts so that the only thing that you can do is make a brunch reservation for Saturday. After you army crawl your way through this week, you're good. If you've planned that meal and it makes you happy, you're good. This could look like looking at the week and if you have a roommate or you live with a significant other or you're married like I am, or you have kids that are living at home that can actually cook or are adults that are living back at home, it might look like going, oh, check this out on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. We're all here. Why don't we figure out what we're going to have for dinner that night and actually look and say, okay, I'm going to make spaghetti on Monday night.

 

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I'm going to roast a chicken on Wednesday. I'm going to try this new recipe on Thursday and then write out the ingredients that you need so that when you go to the grocery store, it's not like a traumatic experience. You're literally, you got a plan. You got your list Monday, Wednesday, Thursday. Another tip that I loved is that whenever I do cook or whenever my husband and I get together and we say, okay, you're going to take Monday. You're take Wednesday. What I love about it is we double the recipe and then that means we got dinner or lunch covered for the next day, and when you do this, you feel more in control of the week. I mean, this has been a big thing for me and my husband because we are now officially, what's the term? Empty nesters. I prefer bird launchers because they always fly back, but right now it's just Chris and I, the two dogs and the cat and what has happened, because I kind of slacked off on my checklist and I didn't think about the meal planning is night after night.

 

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Chris and I literally emerge in the kitchen at like 6 45 after a day of both sitting separately, I'm above the garage working on the podcast and the Let them theory, he's down in his office working on his men's retreat soul degree. We're basically busy all day and then we wander into the kitchen at 6 45 and because life has stolen our time, our energy, our joy and our focus, we both look at each other and we're like, what are we having for dinner? I know, I don't know, you playing around, I don't know. And now it's 6 45 at night. We don't live in a part of the world where restaurants are open past 8:00 PM so that's out the window. Now we're opening up the pantry and I'm like breakfast for dinner again. I guess it's breakfast for dinner again, and I'll be honest, I'm kind of annoyed because we don't have anything planned and who's responsibility is it to plan?

 

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Both of ours, if you want a great week, you don't want to walk into the kitchen and feel like when you open the fridge, the only thing that you see in there is a mirage in a desert because you haven't gone to the grocery store and you haven't planned this, so that's what you're going to do as part of the checklist. This is item number four, and it could also look like this. So last week I was in Boston all week and I don't know what it was that got me all excited. Oh, I know what it was. It was this checklist. I pulled out this checklist and I was going to be traveling to Boston, and as I looked at the calendar and I'm thinking, I am going to be living in a hotel five days a week, every day we bring lunch into the studio and I know that the team's going to ask me, what do you want to eat?

 

(00:40:36):

And I'm going to be like, Hmm. I thought, well, why don't I just make something? Why don't I make a soup that I love and just load it up into Tupperware and then eat it every day for lunch? Why not just meal prep for this big work week? I'll tell you what, I made my favorite thing to make. Our daughter Kendall found it online. It is fantastic. It's like chicken and spinach and jalapenos and scallions and ginger and garlic, and it's like health in a bowl and you put rice in there and chicken broth and it's so fantastic. And so I make this thing and then I put it in a huge Tupperware edition. This is a funny thing. I literally put it on the floor of the passenger side of my car. Thank God I have rubber mats. I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I am so organized.

 

(00:41:26):

I'm so productive. I'm going to be so healthy. I'm driving down to Boston for a big production week to interview all the experts, and as I'm driving down and talking to friends and catching up with people, I get to the parking lot at the studio and I park the car and I walk around and open up the passenger side. The freaking thing had leaked all over the front of the car. Thank God I didn't put it on the seat. Thank God it was on the rubber mat, but literally an inch of the soup was now on the rubber mat, bright green. I'm like, oh my gosh, anywho, that doesn't matter because I got it upstairs, washed it off because of forested was all sloppy and I didn't want to put it in the fridge, and I had it all week, and everybody, you would've thought that I had shown up at the studio having lost a hundred pounds and having six pack abs.

 

(00:42:20):

Everyone was like, what did you do? Oh my gosh, that looks so good. You're eating that. That looks amazing. Everybody wanted the recipe. It truly changed my life and I'm kind of making a joke of it. But here's the other thing that happened for me because I had taken the time to go through the checklist and I had decided that one way I was going to take care of meals this week and my food and food as medicine and food is fuel was to make this soup and just take care of my lunches is that it's a really healthy soup and it's a really filling thing. And not only did I feel less stressed and I felt more focused, but the team kind of noticed it. My executive producer, Tracy, the one who still needs to organize her bookshelf literally was like, you need to make that soup every single week because your body clearly runs well on it and you're just dialed in.

 

(00:43:10):

You would come out of one interview, now you're eating your soup that you prepared, now you're ready to do the next thing. It was like boom, boom, boom, boom. Because I'm taking away the decisions and I've actually set myself up to be fueled by something that tastes great and is going to help me perform. And so now that I've done it, I don't know that I'm ever going to go a week without trying to prep something that sets me up for success, and that's why I want you to do it too because based on the research and the research is really interesting around this, people who take the time to prep their meals, and again, the bar is low for you and me. If you just prep one meal this week, you're winning people who plan their meals. The research says you have better nutrition, you maintain a healthier weight, you save money, and it's better for your mental health.

 

(00:43:56):

No joke. The research has shown that people who take the time to prep meals for the week have lower stress. Why? Because they have it covered. It makes sense, doesn't it? And again, this is one of those things, and every one of the things on the checklist is clear and obvious and sort of a duh. But because you have so much going on and because of the state of the world, I think we have forgotten the basics that actually made life good and so do this. I mean, one pot of soup versus four takeout meals, way less money, better mental health because you got no decision fatigue. And you know that in doing this, you're taking care of yourself and check this out, people who prep their meals have lower stress because they've covered something that can be a source of stress. And don't you also notice that if you wander into the kitchen at seven o'clock at night and it's takeout yet again, it's kind of stressful and if it's takeout, it's not going to be done healthy.