8 Things To Tell Yourself Every Morning

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Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. It's always such an honor to be together and to get to spend this time with you. And if you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this episode with you, well, first of all, I just wanted to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. I'm so glad that you're here and that you chose to listen to this episode because today I am going to share the eight things you should tell yourself every morning.

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And I promise you, even when you're going through a challenging time, starting your day by saying, well, today is going to be a great day. I'm going to make it a great day today. I promise you that when you start your day with this first sentence, today is going to be a great day, that there will be something great that can happen. And I wanted to start with this one as the first one because just this morning for example, we were getting ready to tape this episode and to talk to you today. And the team was going back and forth in text because we were figuring out what kind of coffee you were going to get. And I of course had to text Ben and say, oh Ben, when you pick up my coffee, could you get a ham and cheese croissant for me too because I really love the ham and cheese croissants at the place that you're going.

 

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And Ben texted back, yeah, absolutely. I'll pick up that ham and cheese croissant with you melon. I'm going to be to the studio in about a half an hour. And then he ended the text with, and it's going to be a great day, just reading that. I was like, you're right Ben, it's going to be a great day. You want to know why? Because you said it's going to be a great day and now I'm feeling that it's going to be a great day and we're going to make it a great day. And by the way, this isn't just like some empty platitude, this has so much research and we're going to unpack it throughout our conversation today. For example, I'm going to start with Dr. Daniel a amen. So Dr. A Amen has been a guest on the Mel Robbins podcast. He's made a big difference in my life.

 

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He is a psychiatrist. He runs the A Amen Clinics. He is a world renowned expert on the brain. In fact, he has scanned nearly 300,000 brains. And you want to know what the first thing Dr. Daniel a Amen says to himself every single morning? Can you guess what is the sentence you think Dr. A Amen says to himself? You're right. He wakes up every day and says, today is going to be a great day. Now, why does Dr. A Amen say that? I'll tell you why. Because Dr. A Amen says you have to program your brain and one way you can do it is by repeating simple sentences to yourself. And so that's how I want you to start your day. In fact, he even takes it a step further. Once he says, today's going to be a great day, he will often add in, huh, well, why do you think today's going to be a great day for you?

 

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And the reason why he kind of prompts himself that way with that simple sentence is because you're doing something that Dr. Amen calls directing your mind. See, your mind only knows what you put into it. Your mind will seek what you tell it to seek. Directing your mind with that sentence today is going to be a great day. Why might today be a great day? It puts your brain in a positive state and it makes your brain start to look for reasons why it could be a great day. And so we're starting these eight simple sentences with the sentence that Dr. Amon starts with. Boy, I want to say the sentence that the world's leading expert on the brain says every morning, don't you? And lemme just address something because the conversation we're having today is not this sort of throwaway positive advice. There's deep science here, and I want to acknowledge something.

 

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You may be going through a really challenging moment in your life right now. You may be waking up and you've got a really difficult thing that you've got to do today. Maybe you're going to a funeral. And so when you wake up in a challenging moment, when you wake up in a day where you've got something really hard to do and you say, today is going to be a great day, that's not denying what's happening. It's you taking a positive step to direct your mind so that your mind can help you have a good day even though you're going to go through something hard. So if you wake up and you're going to a funeral today and you say, today is going to be a great day, even though I have to go to this funeral. And then you ask yourself, well, why is today going to be a great day?

 

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You'll be surprised because you'll be able to answer that question. I mean, you could hug everyone a little tighter at the funeral to make it a great day. You could make a point to talk about all of the positive memories that you love about that person to bring their spirit to the moment as you're talking to their loved ones. And that could make it a great day. You could go for a hike afterwards or go spend some time with your dog or go sit in your favorite spot and have a amazing cup of tea, and that could make it a great day. So you might be wondering, why does this work, Mel, and why does it work in the morning? Why does it matter to do this in the morning? I do think that these meaningful simple sentences that you're going to say in the morning, it really does matter that you do it first thing.

 

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Here's what I want to ask you. When was the last time that you expected something good to happen? I want you to be honest with yourself. I mean, aren't you always bracing for the worst? Don't you wake up and you are just bracing for what's going to happen at work or you're worried about how things are going to go at school or you're thinking about something that happened yesterday? It's almost like your brain is always looking for a disaster. And the problem is, is if your brain is always bracing and your brain is always looking for reasons to worry, and if your brain is always thinking that today's going to be a bad day, or how is this thing going to go? You're going to walk right past all of the good stuff that's actually there and your brain will find exactly what you've been bracing for, which is the bad things, the disaster, the hard stuff, because if you're not looking for the ways to make your day great, you're going to miss them.

 

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I've talked to so many experts who have done research for their entire careers to back this up. I've already mentioned Dr. Daniel Amon, the board certified psychiatrist and award-winning researcher, a New York Times bestselling author. He calls this directing your mind on purpose. But I also want to bring into this conversation the late and marvelous Stanford neuroscientist and neurosurgeon, Dr. Jim Doty, who says, you can literally change your brain when you use simple sentences like these. And the next seven, I'm going to give to you to change your brain and change the way you experience about life. And before I tell you sentence number two, I really want you to think about something at a common sense level, okay? If you're not programming your brain on purpose, it's still getting programmed. I'm going to say that again. If you're not programming your brain on purpose, it's still getting programmed. And if you're sitting and you go, well by what? Mel? I'll tell you what, by the headlines, by your past, by everything you're worried about, by your to-do list, by that mean voice that's in your head, that was probably the voice of your parents or somebody else from your past, that stuff has been going on repeat since you could talk. So your brain doesn't care where the programming comes from, it just runs the programming. If you ever heard that coding term in engineering with computers, garbage in, garbage out, well, you've had a lot of garbage in your brain that's been running on repeat, and it's time to get that garbage out of your brain. And the only way that we're going to do that is if you wake up and take control of the programming in your mind.

 

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That's what these eight sentences are about, and I want you to say these eight sentences every morning because it's going to be the first thing your brain hears. Because when you have beauty in, you have beauty out. When you have positivity in, you get positivity out. When you have optimism and hope and excitement in, that's what comes out. So we've already said, today's going to be a great day. Good job.

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You know what I love about this? We have gone from now lifting ourselves up and really putting positivity in our brain. This second sentence, it creates anticipation. When you have something cool that's in your calendar, you know something cool is going to happen, but what if you said the sentence, something cool is going to happen for me today? It's almost like you turn the day into an adventure and you're not doing that right now, are you? Oh, no, no, no, no. You are turning your day into a nightmare because what are you doing? You're waking up and you're bracing for bad news. You're probably assuming that something bad's going to happen. No, no, no. Let's do the opposite. Let's assume something cool is going to happen to you today and you don't even know what it has to be because this is like a surprise.

 

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The sentence, something cool is going to happen for me today creates this mental scavenger hunt for good things in your life. And here's a really relatable example. What if you just bumped into an old friend at the grocery store who tells you about a job opening? You've been looking for a job. I mean, that's a cool thing that happened to you today. What if a college roommate that you haven't talked to in a while suddenly texts you something funny? This actually happened to me the other day. My college roommate, whose daughter is getting married, was visiting her mother. I know this is like a long-winded story. I'm going to make it short. I swear to God, she lives in New York. She was visiting her mother in Chicago and she texted me and all of her bridesmaids from 30 years ago out of the blue wearing this silk thing.

 

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It was like this thing that she made us wear where we had to wear this garter necklace that had this big silk flower on it on our neck like a giant tumor, and it became this hilarious joke among us for the last 30 years. Now, her daughter's getting married, so she finds this thing, texts all of her old bride spades this thing, and then it created this hilarious string of photos where I made one out of paper from a notebook and held it in place with my shoulder texted. That was a really cool thing that happened. I wasn't expecting that to happen, but I believe when you say something cool is going to happen to me today, when cool things happen, you actually notice them and enjoy them more because you primed your brain to look for them. And here's one other thing that I want to just unpack.

 

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If we go a little deeper into these eight sentences, one of the single best skills that you need to develop in life is to have a good attitude for no reason. I want you to stop and really consider that it is a skill in life to have a good attitude or to be in a good mood for no reason. I mean, most people are pretty good at being in a bad mood and having a bad attitude for no reason, and we give people with a bad attitude a pass. I mean, it's almost like, okay, well, they're in a bad attitude. They're always in a bad mood. I want you to flip that. What if you could train yourself to be in a good mood and to have a good attitude for no reason at all? That is the single best skill that you can develop because it helps you go through life.

 

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I think we've trained ourselves to have a bad attitude or to be negative for no reason at all. We kind of expect it to happen even though we might not have evidence that it's going to happen. I want you to learn how to do the opposite. Wake up and train yourself to be in a good mood and to have a good attitude for no reason. Just assume that good things are going to happen. And I fundamentally believe that when you assume good things are going to happen and you have a good attitude, good things do happen because based on all this research you are training your brain to believe and to look for good things so you see more good things which mean you experience good things. This is a skill just stop and ask yourself honestly, do I default to kind of a negative attitude?

 

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Do I easily slip into a bad mood? Is it super easy for me to scan the world and find tons of reasons to be in a bad mood and to have a bad attitude? Well, if you're like 99.9% of human beings, the answer is yes, that the default is to just slip into a bad attitude, to slip into negativity. And I'm here to tell you it is a skill to train yourself and to train your brain to default to having a good attitude and to being in a good mood for no reason. You deserve to be in a good mood for no reason. I want that to be your natural setting. I am tired of defaulting to negativity. I'm tired of being in a bad or negative mood, aren't you? And the reason why I'm saying this is because some of the most accomplished scientists and researchers in the world have come on the Mel Robbins podcast and talked extensively about how your brain has been programmed by your past.

 

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Your brain can seek negativity by default. If you're not careful and you and I got to wake up and recognize that you can learn how to be in a good mood and have a good attitude as a skill that could be your need default. Wouldn't that be awesome? In fact, a lot of this comes from Dr. Paul Conti, who is a renowned psychiatrist, trained at Stanford and Harvard. He gave us a masterclass on the Mel Robbins podcast on how you talk to yourself matters. And I want to read a quote from him that really illuminates how your negative self-talk. So the negative sentences that you say to yourself on repeat that it is programming yourself to default to a bad mood, to default to a bad attitude, negative sentences, negative self-talk. Dr. Paul Conti says, so just an example of negative self-talk can be what do you say to yourself in the quiet moments?

 

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What do you say to yourself if you do something wrong? What do you say to yourself If you drop something, what do you say to yourself? If you approach a new social situation or a new challenge, you probably are like, I'm an idiot. I never do anything right? I'm not good enough. Why do I always screw things up? Oh God, this is going to be terrible. On repeat, you are defaulting to a negative attitude and negative sentences. We've all been trained to do this, and I'm here to tell you it is a skill to train yourself to have a good attitude and be in a good mood for just no reason at all, because this is just what you've programmed into your mind and that's why these eight sentences matter. That's why I believe the single best skill that you can develop is to be in a good attitude in the absence of a reason to have one.

 

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I mean, you can be in a bad mood in the absence of a reason to be in one. We all know people like that. We don't want to be near 'em. So today, we're using these eight sentences every single morning so that you can train your brain to have a good attitude and be in a good mood for no reason at all, and to have a good attitude even when challenging things are happening. Why? Because it helps you to rise to these moments in your life. That's why this matters. When you train your mind to be in a good state, it changes the way you filter the world. It changes what you see. It changes how you handle stress. And I'm not making this up literally, expert after expert on this podcast has told you and me that when you change the words you feed into your mind, you change your entire life.

 

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And so that's what these eight sentences are about. These are the same things that I tell myself in the morning. This is how I've developed the skill of being in a good attitude and a good mood no matter what's happening in my life, because why do I need to let the outside world change the programming in my mind? The answer is you don't. And I actually wrote extensively about this in my bestselling book, the High Five Habit I actually want to read to you from it. Chapter seven is all about how you can use what I call meaningful mantras, which are basically these eight sentences to your mind. But here's the truth, I'm reading to you from page 75, chapter six. Everyone has a negative mantra or belief about themselves. I screw everything up. I'm a bad person, I'm ugly, I'm a failure, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And look, maybe you have failed. Maybe you have royally screwed things up right now. Maybe your life is a mess. Maybe you aren't winning any beauty pageants. Maybe you are the shortest one of all your friends. Maybe you did lose your job. Maybe all of that is true, but here's the question I want to ask you.

 

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Is thinking these negative things helping you, you know the answer, don't you? Of course it's not. Isn't it time to feel better about yourself? Of course, it's do you think that feeling better about yourself is going to happen by mistake? No, it happens on purpose. It happens when you program your mind. And that brings me to this statement, this fact, this truth. This is the single best skill that I have in life. I have trained myself to have a good attitude for no reason. I'm teaching you how to develop the skill for yourself to learn how to have a good attitude and be in a good mood for no reason at all. You're training yourself that this is just who you are. You are the kind of person that is in arresting state where you have a good attitude no matter what is happening. And these eight sentences help.

 

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And if you are a worrier, oh my gosh, you're going to love this third sentence. No matter what happens today, I can handle it.

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So now you start worrying about it. What is the worrying? The worrying is anchored in this belief that you can't handle seeing your ex, and you want to know what it's complete garbage because you're going to tell yourself, Hey, look, no matter what happens today, I can handle it. No matter what happens at that party tonight, I can handle it no matter if this ex of mine brings in the most fabulous new person that there, I can handle it. I can handle it because you are now challenging the core belief of somebody who worries and who is anxious. The subconscious belief that you cannot handle it and you are hitting it. It's like a hand to hand combat with your own brain. You're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I am not going to believe that lie, that I can't handle this stuff.

 

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I'm not going to allow myself to get anxious because here's the deal. No matter what happens today, I can handle it. And if you begin the day with this sentence every single day, no matter what happens at work today, I can handle it. No matter what happens at family dinner tonight, I can handle it no matter what happens when I open up my bank account and I see that it's really a lot lower than I thought I can handle it. When you say that you are summoning up resilience, you are telling your brain, look, I'm not worrying. I'm not going to let you take me down the anxiety train like you have for 57 years, because no matter what happens today, I can handle it. And here's a relatable example. Let's say you wake up and you get an email from your boss that says, I need to talk to you today. No specifics.

 

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What did your brain just do? Your brain just went, that's what your brain did. Your brain was like, it just immediately jumps to the negative. No, no, no, no, no. That's the old you. That's the you that raced ahead and your brain now because garbage in negativity breeds garbage out. Now you're thinking out into the future and oh my gosh, this is a disaster. I'm going to get fired. This is the worst. No, no, no, no, no. No matter what happens today, I can handle it. I don't know what the conversation's about. So why would I torture myself and assume it's going to be bad for no reason? Because you don't have the reason yet, do you? And if you're going to assume, why not assume that no matter what happens, you can handle it? Why not assume that maybe something good can happen? This is what I'm talking about when I say you can train yourself to be in a good mood and to have a good attitude even when it feels like something bad might happen.

 

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And that good mood and that good attitude, it not only changes how you experience life up to that meeting, but it also ensures that you're not going to hijack yourself by worrying and being anxious because the meeting's going to be the meeting. Whatever's going to happen is going to happen. And if you have a good attitude, you are going to be able to weather that meeting better. Why? Well, sentence number three, no matter what happens today, I can handle it. And I want to dig a little deeper into the research as to why I keep recommending that these eight sentences are things you say first thing in the morning. If you're a warrior, if you're anxious or if you have somebody in your life that you love that is a warrior or anxious and they're always bracing for the worst and they're always doubting their ability to handle something, and you look at them and you're like, why are you worried about that?

 

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You're so much stronger than you think. Stop. And they just can't get it. Send them this conversation because they need these eight sentences, because here's some research about mourning anxiety. Morning anxiety is this feeling when you open your eyes in the morning and your heart is already pounding, your mind is already spinning, and maybe that was this morning for you, it happens a lot. And here's the reason why anxiety can be worse in the morning for a lot of people, and maybe it's worse for you or it's worse for somebody that you love. It comes from the fact that your brain is scanning for threats and negativity before you even get out of bed. And some common symptoms of morning anxiety are racing heart tight, chest tense, muscles, headaches. Now I'm explaining this because I struggled with morning anxiety for decades. I would literally wake up and feel like I was pinned to that bed with this sense of dread.

 

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Why? Well, because I was pretty used to being in a bad mood and being pretty negative and doubting my capacity to handle things for a long time. And so I would just think it and think it. I basically trained my brain to do this. And the research also says that there's several factors that contribute to morning anxiety. It might be your circadian rhythm, it might be the amount of stress that you've got. It might have to do with sleep problems or your diet. It might have to do with past trauma. It might have to do with the fact that you went on a bender last night and now you're waking up hungover, and one of the biggest symptoms of a hangover is anxiety because as you're processing alcohol overnight, all of the hormones and sugar levels and everything else in your body goes all haywire and it screws with your cortisol, and that is why you're starting to experience anxiety.

 

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It's not because you're supposed to brace for something, it's because your body is trying to process all the alcohol that you drink. I didn't know this by the way until I was about 50, which explains a lot of my twenties, thirties and forties. And so even the way you start your day really matters, and I found something very interesting when I was researching this. There's something called the cortisol awakening response, and this is when the body's stress hormone cortisol, it rises sharply within the first 30 to 45 minutes of waking up. Again, the word, if you want to Google it, cortisol awakening response or the CAR, this is a normal process in your body that's designed to increase alertness and create energy for the day. But here's how this can backfire. The cortisol awakening response is supposed to organize the hormone cortisol to get your butt out of bed. But here's the problem. If you're somebody that's prone to worrying, if you're somebody who doubts your capability of handling things for no reason, it's just kind of your natural state that was Mel Robbins for a long time, that cortisol surge can feel like real panic. It can feel like a real threat. It can truly feel as you have an elevated heart rate or racing thoughts or this sense of dread that something actually is about to happen. And then of course, what do you do? You doubt your ability to handle it.

 

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That was me. I never said, no matter what happens, I can handle it. I said, I need to sleep all day because I can't handle this. I can't handle school. I can't handle the conversation. I can't handle seeing so-and-so. I can't handle the texts that I sent last night that I now regret I can't handle anything. And if that sounds familiar, I do have good news because without understanding this, you're going to feel like you don't have power. You do have power because when you start to understand, oh, wait a minute. First thing in the morning, I've got this cortisol awakening response. I've got these racing thoughts because I've literally trained myself to have a bad attitude or to feel anxious for no reason or to train my brain to just search out into the future and find a bazillion reasons to convince myself that I'm not capable of getting through the day. But your friend Mel Robbins is here to tell you that you are capable of facing no matter what happens, and you are capable of doing simple things like grounding yourself in the morning and reminding yourself intentionally that today's going to be a great day because I'm going to make it a great day and something cool is going to happen to me. And by the way, no matter what happens, I can handle it.

 

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You are telling your brain to look for the good. You're telling your brain that get excited because something cool is going to happen, and you're telling your brain that all that stuff that I normally freak out about despite the cortisol awakening response, uhuh, no matter what happens, I can handle it. You're signaling to your brain, stop looking for all the crap that's going to go wrong and start reminding me that no matter what happens, I can handle it. That is game changing. If you double down on what you're capable of doing, you are so much more capable than you're so much more capable than you believe, and it's time to start training your brain to help you believe that. I mean, that's why you're here, isn't it? You want to look for what's possible. That's why you listen to this podcast instead of listening to something mindless. You want more out of your life. You don't want to just go through life with a bad attitude or being in a bad mood or bracing for the worst. You want to feel capable. You want to wake up and feel empowered, and I want that for you as your friend.

 

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I want you to feel like you can handle it because you can, and that's where these sentences come in.

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Oh boy, we are ready for what's next. I'm ready for change. I'm ready for a fresh start. And you might find yourself if you say an exciting new chapter in my life, it's starting today. When you tell your brain that today's the day we're going to sign up for the class I've been thinking about for months. Today's the day I'm going to update the resume. Why? Because an exciting new chapter is starting today. Today's the day I'm going to call that friend that I've been meaning to reconnect with. Today's the day that I'm going to go home from work a different way. I'm going to commute home differently. I'm going to start a new chapter in my life. Today's the day I'm going to go for that walk. I'm not going to have a drink tonight after work. Holy cow. And next thing you know, you see a new chapter starting.

 

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You see yourself journaling. You have different ideas. You look at yourself differently. You find a new coffee shop where all of a sudden you're talking to somebody next to you instead of sitting there alone feeling like a loser and thinking negative thoughts. Oh, no, no, no, because you are not the kind of person that just is in a bad mood and has negative thoughts for no reason. You are the kind of person who is waking up today saying, today, an exciting new chapter is starting. Let me ask you a question. Why do you only think about starting a new chapter once something horrible has happened? Why do you have to wait for something to end? You can create a new beginning anytime you want. Wouldn't today be the perfect day to create a new beginning? I mean, your brain would love one. I want you to stop for a minute and see how actually waiting, waiting for something to slow down, waiting for this chapter to end, waiting for this relationship to be over, waiting for the semester to be over.

 

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How that delays the good stuff. You get to start a new chapter any day you decide to. So why not do it today? And here's the thing I want you to understand. Your brain looks for whatever you tell it to expect and look for it does. This is simply what the research says, that your brain is neutral. Your brain has to be programmed by what you tell it to do. So if you expect an exciting new chapter to start today, if you expect things to be good, you're training your brain to find it. There's so much research around this. In fact, I write about it extensively in the high five habit. There is something called in your brain. There's this filtering system in your brain called the reticular activating system. I like to call it the RAS, the RASS, the reticular activating system. It's a filter.

 

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I want you to think about it. It's almost like a hairnet that sits over your head. It's a network of neurons in the brains that acts as a filter, and this sucker has a big job. The RAS has to filter all the information in the world, and they have to decide what is the tiny fraction of information, the headlines, the emails, the cars passing by, the music playing in the background, the 15 pastries in front of you at the cafe that you're at right now. There's so much insane information coming at you. You don't even realize it. If all that information got into your conscious mind, you know what would happen? Your head would explode into a million pieces right off your shoulder. You'd be dead. I swear to God. It'd be like a car engine burning up. So the RAS is protecting you from information overload, and so it only allows a tiny fraction of information to come in to reach your conscious awareness.

 

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In fact, there's only four things that it allows into your mind. You ready? What it is? Your name. Have you ever been in a crowded area and you're like, wait, did somebody just call my name and you turn around? That was your RAS saying, oh, come on in. Let's make sure you hear that. Another one. Any threat to your safety. Haven't you ever noticed that you are literally a first responder? If somebody's like, and you're like, that's the RAS, letting all of that information in so you don't die. Another one. Ooh, when you think somebody is interested in you, you pick up on those signals pretty quickly, don't you? And we just like the rest of the bar just disappears. You could be at a party and all of a sudden you think somebody else is interested in you. There's nobody else in that room.

 

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That's your RAS that laser focusing on that, and here's the holy grail. You ready? This is why these eight sentences work, the RAS, this filter in your brain allows in anything that your brain believes is important to you, and here's why. This is a gold man. I'm going to give you an example that will really illustrate what I'm talking about in terms of how powerful this is and why it is essential that you stop just allowing your brain to be a negative space, and you get serious about programming it with what's important to you. That's positive. This filter, the RAS, it is working in real time 24 7. It never takes a break and it updates in real time based on what you focus on and based on what you think is important. I want to give you an example of how this works, so you really understand how powerful this is.

 

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Have you ever been interested in buying a new car? Let's say that you're interested in buying, I don't know, a green pickup truck. What's interesting is the second that you're interested in buying a green pickup truck, and I just noticed Ben looked at our senior producer, Amy, because I have a feeling that he's been thinking about buying. Are you thinking about buying a green? No. Shit, really? Yesterday I went to a dealership. Oh, are you kidding? What? Freaking out. Okay. It's freaking me out too, but we are brain melding, Ben. See, this is what happens everybody, when you have positive programming in your mind, all kinds of wacky stuff starts to happen because your thoughts are energy. They are. There's physics around this. I must've just picked up on that, Ben. I don't know what he is. RAS, by the way. So let me tell you this.

 

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So let's say you are like Ben. You're like, I want a green pickup truck. Okay? What's interesting is before you get interested in green pickup trucks, you never see them. You see all kinds of cars. You never think about green pickup trucks. You don't see green pickup trucks, and then you start thinking, maybe I'm going to get a green pickup truck because that's a unique color, and I don't think there's a lot of green pickup trucks. Green pickup trucks just got important to you. Your brain is paying attention, and the second you said, I think I'm interested in green pickup truck, guess what your brain did? Oh, the filter changes and is like, Ben is interested in green pickup trucks. Let's let the green pickup trucks in. Next thing you know, Ben is driving other. He is like, does everybody have green pickup truck? Because now he sees him everywhere when he walks into the dealership to go test drive one.

 

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Guess what? The brain is now getting programming. Oh, he's really serious about this because he's now taking steps to do this. Ben is going to see even more green pickup trucks. So much so he might now question whether or not he wants the color green. Now he's laughing because it's true. Now, here's the really interesting thing. Those green pickup trucks were always there. You just hadn't told your brain they were important to you, so you in the past, because you didn't tell your brain this was important to you, your brain just blocked them out because your brain only lets these four things in to the conscious mind. When you tell your brain that something is important to you, what are you doing? You're deliberately programming it. That's what you're doing. You're telling that filter in your mind. This matters to me, and one of the ways that you program your mind is that you repeat your interest in something, which is why these sentences are so important.

 

(00:38:12):

If you start waking up every day and you say, today's going to be a great day, your brain and your RES start going, oh, okay. This is important. I got to now change the filter and look for reasons for this to be a great day. If you wake up and you tell yourself, something cool's going to happen to me today, your brain's like, oh, this is important. I got to look for something cool to happen. If you wake up every day and you say to yourself, no matter what happens today, I can handle it. Oh, okay. Doubling down on your capacity to handle things. Really important to keep reminding you and showing you examples of that. I got it. I got it. This is important, and if you tell yourself, an exciting new chapter is beginning today, your brain is like, new beginnings. Let's go.

 

(00:38:53):

Let's try some new things just like the car. All of a sudden, because of the science that I'm explaining to you and the reticular activating system, I know I call it the hairnet. That's not that sexy, but then you can see it, right? It's sort of like you work in fast food and you got to wear that ugly hairnet thing. I hated that when I worked in a restaurant that RES is like that. It's like only four things are getting in here. That's why this works, and repeating it is how you program it because the repetition is telling your brain, this is important. It's important to me to see green pickup trucks. It is important to me to see reasons to have a great day. It is important to me to expect something cool to happen. It is important to me to remind myself that no matter what happens, I can handle it.

 

(00:39:43):

Isn't that cool that there's hard, amazing science that explains why these sentences work? This is the kind of sentence that I would say to you as your friend. I'm telling you right now, and this is why you need to say this to yourself here,

(00:40:31):

You're trying to take care of yourself, trying to stay connected to people. You're trying to have fun. You're trying to make more money. Like my God, do you know how hard you're working, how hard you're trying? You need to give yourself more credit for how hard you're trying it instead of constantly scanning the world for the one thing you didn't do. I mean, isn't it kind of amazing that you can get through your entire to-do list except for one thing and that one thing that you didn't get to is the thing that you're going to focus on. You can do 115 things correct at work today, but you know what you're going to focus on. You're going to focus on the one thing that you said in that meeting that nobody chimed in about. That's what you're going to focus on. Why? Because you've trained yourself to have a bad attitude and to be in a bad mood for no reason.

 

(00:41:21):

You've trained yourself to see the things you're not doing. Instead of giving yourself credit for all the things you are doing, it's time to stop that. If your inner critic is louder than that inner cheerleader or coach or friend, the sentence is what you need to say. See, effort counts. Even when the results aren't coming as fast as you would like them to, it's important that you double down and give yourself credit for how hard you're trying. Otherwise, you're going to stop. Why would you continue to push through the hard periods of your life if you're constantly bashing yourself and pointing out the one thing you didn't do? Well, sometimes the hardest work you're doing is invisible. It's invisible to the people around you. Do not make it invisible to yourself. Your own acknowledgement matters the most. If there's one thing that I do other than developing the skill of being in a good mood and having a good attitude for really no reason, it's like my resting default.

 

(00:42:18):

I have consciously programmed myself to think this way. One other thing that I have done is I've trained myself to stop constantly criticizing myself and to triple down on the things that I'm doing. Well, not out of arrogance, but because it creates this flywheel. If you are your own cheerleader, that's what the entire book, the Hi-Fi of habit is all about. It's all about the science of programming yourself for celebration and for positivity, and for really cheering yourself on because you need that in life. Life is hard enough without you dragging yourself down. If you only feel proud of yourself when somebody else notices, then you're going to spend your entire life waiting for validation from other people and it might never come. You got to give yourself a gold star right now because you've deserved it. You're the one that's putting in the late nights.

 

(00:43:08):

You're the one that makes the hard choices. You're the one who is plowing through the emails and the to-do list. You're the one who keeps going when no one's watching. You're the one who may have a bad week, but then, oh, you pick yourself back up and you get back to the gym and you restart the morning routine. That's worth acknowledging. I mean, I'm always here acknowledging you, but you got to pick up the slack, man. You got to help me out with this. You got to recognize your own effort and fill your own tank up so you can keep going. It's easy to see the big wins, but oh wow. You want to start truly winning. You got to start clapping for the little things every single day you got to bed. Good job. Excellent. Nice. I love that you answered some emails today.

 

(00:43:48):

You're winning. I see you. You did that. You spoke up at work today, even though you were a little nervous. Oh, yes. All right. You can handle it. I love that you did school drop off. You held it together through back to back meetings. You checked in on your mom and dad who are aging. You still manage to shove some food in your mouth and have dinner and be present with your family. Holy cow. As far as I'm concerned, you're winning at life, period, and here's one of the other reasons why this sentence matters. I got to give myself more credit for how hard I'm trying. I want you to stop looking outside yourself for validation because when you do that, you give other people power over you. If other people aren't acknowledging what you're doing, let them, we got to focus on the let me part. Let me give credit for everything I do do. I'm good. I'm working hard. I know my intentions are good. I know I'm a good person, so repeat after me. I need to give myself more credit for how hard I'm trying.

 

(00:44:43):

You start repeating that every single morning, and guess what? You're going to feel like you're giving yourself credit for how hard you're trying, and that feels really good, and it also fuels your desire to keep going. That's the secret. I love that. Alright, I bet you're sitting there going, okay, Mel, couple questions. Couple questions for you, Mel. Do I have to sayem out loud? Do I have to truly wake up and be like, today's going to be a great day? Yes. Yes, because it engages more of your brain, and if you're a little shy or you're next to somebody or you feel a little embarrassed, I got you. It's okay. Let's just start by thinking them. Here's another way you can boost it. Write it down. Writing it down is even more effective. Why? Because when you grab that pen and you start to write these down, today's going to be a great day.

 

(00:45:37):

Something cool is going to happen for me today. No matter what happens, I'm capable of handling it. Today's the beginning of an exciting new chapter. I deserve more credit for how hard I'm trying. When you write that down, you grab the pen, it engages your senses, and the more senses you involve, guess what your brain's like, oh shoot. She's really serious about this right now because she got the pen. I'm feeling her write this thing. I'm like, she's sitting down. She's putting pen to paper. She means business. I better pay attention. This is important. Let's add this to the list. It's not just the green pickup truck that we got to let in. We got to let in credit for how hard you're working. You may also be wondering, Mel, how long do I have to do this?

 

(00:46:27):

How long before I'm going to actually feel different? Well, I research that too. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to do this for 30 to 60 days. Did you notice they just went 30 to 60 days? That's too long. You know what that is? That kind of reaction. That is a example of the fact that you've programmed your mind to have a bad attitude for no reason. You got 30 to 60 days. You're going to live 30 to 60 days regardless of what you do. So how about we develop the skill together of being in a good mood and having a good attitude for no reason, and we're going to do that by programming your brain. See, when you rewire your brain, rewiring takes repetition. You know how many times you got to think about a green truck before you see 'em everywhere, probably 30 to 60 times, and then all of a sudden they're everywhere.

 

(00:47:17):

You're kind of thinking about it and noticing. Then boom, it's like it's everywhere. How long did it take you to learn how to worry as your default your whole life? How long did it take? You learn to be anxious your whole life? How long did it take you to learn how to doubt yourself at every turn? Oh, you've been doing that your whole life. So if you've been programming negativity and self-doubt for years and years and years, I think you should give me a lousy 30 to 60 days, don't you? I think a positive reprogramming is worth a little experiment for 30 to 60 days. How about you stop doubting your capacity to have the programming take hold and doubting your capacity to do this for 30, 60 days, and you start saying, no matter what happens, I'm capable of handling this for 30 to 60 days.

 

(00:48:07):

Ever. Think about that? I mean, you do have to override the programming. So if you keep saying it out loud in the morning until you don't have to remember to say it out loud, guess what? Your brain just automatically does it. So does my family. Everyone's like, Hey, it's going to be a great day. Have a great day, everybody. Yeah, you know what? Come to think of it. I might just have a great day. Thank you for reminding my brain that I get to choose whether or not I'm going to have a great attitude or I'm going to have a great day, or I'm going to look for reasons to have a great day. So you wake up in a highly suggestible state. That's why I also want you to tell yourself these things in the morning. We've talked about a lot of this. Your cortisol is high, your prefrontal cortex is clear, your subconscious wide open, whatever you put into your brain, first thing is going to echo all day.

 

(00:48:51):

I'm going to give you an example. Ever wake up and make the horrible mistake of checking texts or email? First thing you know what you just did, programmed your brain, whatever is in the text messages, programmed your brain, whatever is in email, programmed your brain. Do not do that. I want the first thing in your mind to be that first sentence. Today's going to be a great day. Something cool is going to happen. You're getting the drift, aren't you? Alright, let's get to the next sentence. This is the sixth one.