If You Only Listen to One Podcast This Week, Make It This Episode

(00:43):

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. Today, you and I are going to have a conversation about the one thing that you need to do this week, just one thing. And there's a reason why you and I are going to talk about this today because I know you need to hear this. Hey, it's Mel and thank you, thank you, thank you for being here watching the Mel Robbins podcast on YouTube. I have a quick ask. Please, please, please make sure that you hit subscribe. Do you know that literally only 35% of the people that watch this YouTube channel actually subscribe? It is free. It's a way to support the show. I would love you even more than I already love you. If you would just boom, hit the subscribe. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Alright, are you ready to learn the one thing that you need to do this week?

 

(01:30):

I thought so. Let's go. There is only one thing that you and I are going to be doing this week, and I'm thinking about this right now during the holidays because right now in my life, it's a vacation week. There are kids home and I have downtime. But look, there's always chaos in your life. And I say that because regardless of when you're listening to this, but especially during the holidays, this is a message you need to hear. It's a message I need to hear. It's a message everybody needs to hear because there's only one thing I want you to do this week. Nothing, do nothing.

 

(02:14):

Wait a minute, Mel Robins, are you smoking something over there? Did you just say do nothing? And here's the funny part about this. I bet you might be doing something right now because you're a multitasker and so am I. You're listening to me while you're doing the dishes, while you're walking the dogs. Heck, you and I might be at the point in our relationship where you are actually sitting on the toilet and I'm in the bathroom stall with you as you're listening to this. Don't tell me that you have not taken me into the bathroom. I can even feel it over here. And I say this because we got to talk about the art of doing nothing. And look, I'm not stupid enough to think that you can actually do nothing. I mean obviously not. This is like a metaphorical conversation because you probably have to work.

 

(03:07):

I personally love working between the week of Christmas and New Year because nobody's there. So you can work half a day and you get the full-time pay and it's way more stress free and you can get more done because you aren't in a million meetings. But if you do have the time off, lemme guess, what are you doing with the time off? You're rearranging your cupboards. You're probably trying to learn Spanish. You're doing a million things on your to-do list. You are like just keeping busy this week. Just stop. Please. I want to explain this concept, this metaphor of doing nothing, being able to do nothing, whether it's just for a minute or it's for a day or it's for a week. This is so important and I'm having the conversation not only with you, I am talking to myself right now too. I have a hard time doing nothing.

 

(04:06):

Why? Well, because I'm just like you. I'm addicted to being busy. I'm addicted to my to-do list, writing them out, crossing 'em off, throwing them away, losing them, writing another one. Especially in the world today, the world has glamorized, being productive, being busy, go hustles, hustle, culture, having a side hustle. I mean there's so much to hustle around. Some days I literally have no idea what I'm doing. You may always be on the go like I am, but are you actually getting anywhere? That's why I want to talk about the importance, the art, the science of learning, how to do nothing on purpose. Before we jump into it, I don't want you to worry because this is not another podcast episode about meditation. That's not what I'm going to jam down your throat right now. And I also want to say something else. Doing nothing sounds like a luxury, doesn't it?

 

(05:08):

Because when somebody tells me, Mel, just do nothing this week. You know what I say? How about you go F yourself because I got a company to run and I got bills to pay. And I don't know if this is something that trust funders do or people that don't have to work, but I got kids home. I got stuff to do. And so I want you to know that if you have young kids or you're taking care of aging parents or you're working 2, 3, 4 jobs or the night shift, I'm talking to you too because the art of doing nothing is something that we all need in our lives. We have to figure out how to create moments when we're thinking about nothing, when we're doing nothing because these moments help you refuel. I think one of the reasons why you and I are constantly so stressed and our minds are like a flywheel always going, and we're not that present is because we are never not doing something.

 

(06:13):

And so this week the only thing that I want you and I to do is nothing. And I'm going to break this down, don't worry, because doing nothing might just mean that you're going to learn this week how to find five minutes to do nothing, to think about nothing. It could mean pushing off your to-do list to next week and committing to doing nothing on it this week. And I need this as much as you do. I mean, when I landed at the airport this week in Albany, Chris picked me up and I had been gone on a business trip for almost a week and I had also managed to loop in spending some time with our daughter in Los Angeles. And so here I land, I haven't been home in a week. I jump into the front seat of his pickup truck and I turned around.

 

(07:06):

I'm like, how about we stop at the grocery store on the way home? He's like, but I've already gone twice this week. And I'm like, well, we probably need something. And then I caught myself and I'm like, what am I doing? Why am I filling the time with something? Why can't I just sit in this pickup truck and do nothing? Why can't I just go home and put my bags in the closet and just enjoy time with our son and with our dogs? Why do I have to do something? And here's another one. So last night, Chris builds a fire and we're sitting there in front of the fire. It's absolutely beautiful. We have a nice quiet evening. We love to play cribbage and backgammon. And so we played around a cribbage and he beat me. I know you're thinking normally I beat him, but it was one of those nights where he just had all the hands.

 

(07:55):

I hate that. And so as the game was wrapping up, Chris got up, walked into the bedroom, went to bed. Do you know what I did? I sat and scrolled through my freaking phone. I don't even know why I did it. I literally sat there and I started scrolling through Instagram and next thing you know, 35 minutes have gone by. My husband has gone off to bed, he's sound asleep, snoring, sawing, logs. He's already in la la land, in his deep dream state. I have wasted 35 minutes getting all jacked up about everybody else's life and what people are doing in their businesses and the stuff that I'm not doing and the things I need to buy and all that kind of stuff. I was so busy. I could have enjoyed myself if I had put the phone down. Instead, I picked it up. I got to be doing something. I got to be thinking thoughts. I got to be doing the thing. I got to be twirling through the thing. I could have just gone to bed like Chris did, had a nice, nice sleep. No, no, not me. I got to always be doing something. Here's the irony of the topic today, everybody. I have no idea how to do nothing.

(10:04):

If you're somebody that has a ton going on, you have that feeling like, but I can't. Nothing. Nothing. What if I take a breath? What would nothing look like if you could spend an hour doing nothing, not really thinking about anything, not any agenda, but just doing nothing. What comes to mind for me immediately is running a hot bath. That's what comes to mind to me. Just run on a hot bath. I'm not even going to bring a book. I don't want to do anything. That'd be pretty awesome. And so I'm going to jump into some questions and I think through these questions, you and I are going to figure out what it means to do nothing. I am no expert at this and I have a feeling that this is going to be one of those conversations that you and I have where you're going to write to me and be like, woman, you got a lot to learn.

 

(11:16):

Lemme give you this advice about doing nothing because I do a better job of doing nothing than you do Mel Robbins. So our first question I love this question comes from a listener named Jenny and she said, Mel, I'm a new listener to the podcast. I love your energetic voice and find that it energizes me too. I'm a single parent of two kids. I find it difficult to listen to episodes that tell me I'm never too busy, never too tired to XY, z. I've deflected a lot of this from fitness influencers and efficiency experts, but from a self-help standpoint, I find that doing everything and dreaming big can't be shoehorned into a life that already has very little wiggle room for even day-to-day stuff. Can you relate to that? I can certainly relate to that. I'm going to say that again. I think that is so relatable. I've deflected a lot of this type of advice from fitness influencers and efficiency experts, and from a self-help standpoint, I find that doing everything and dreaming big can't be shoehorned into a life that already has very little wiggle room for even day-to-day stuff. This is all leading up to my question, which is how do you remain hopeful in the trenches when surrounded by achievers? How do you make time for rest when it feels like a guilty pleasure to sit down every once in a while?

 

(12:44):

Whoa. So first, let's talk about something. Let's talk about this part of her question. How do you remain hopeful in the trenches when surrounded by achievers? So first things first, let's just call it what it is that most of the crap that you're seeing online is not actually true. People are not as efficient as they look, and I love the home edit, but I guarantee you the second that they leave the television show or the Instagram shoot, that color coordinated bookcase and that beautiful pantry in the gorgeous plastic see-through things and the spinny things that look like you're not supposed to touch anything there. That pantry does not look like that in 24 hours. Give me a fricking break. Experts stylize that thing. Production assistance bought all that crap. They put it in there. There is no normal human being that can keep a pantry looking that way.

 

(13:47):

So let's just say number one, stop torturing yourself with the impossible standards that you see on social media. Rule number one. Rule number two, I agree with you. I personally believe one of the reasons why so many of you relate to me and you constantly write and say, Mel, you are so relatable. I'll tell you why. Because I have three children. I have two dogs, I have aging parents, I have a lot of stuff going on. I have a DHD, and there's absolutely nothing about my life that is perfect. And I notice that there are a lot of people in the in influencer space that are either single or they are male and they have a full-time partner at home or they have no children and advice from a single 30 something who has nine hours a day to exercise is not advice that's going to work for my life.

 

(14:43):

It's just not. If you are 30 years old and you have eight hours to exercise, that advice will work for you. If you are a guy and you have a partner at home that takes care of everything, yes, you can have 15 side hustles because you don't have to do shit when you get home, let's call it for what it is. In a normal person's life, the advice often doesn't work. I don't know about you, but I don't have three fucking hours every morning for my morning routine. I'm lucky if I have 30 minutes and hell, half of the mornings when I wake up, my dogs are already standing there right by the bed waiting for me to take them out. And I say this because it frustrates me that you and I look at the incredible advice that's out there and we don't flex it to actually work in our life.

 

(15:33):

And so when you are listening to somebody, whether they are an efficiency expert, which sounds like a nightmare frankly, or they're a fitness influencer or they're somebody that's telling you how to eat right? I personally take everything with a grain of salt and I take it with a grain of salt because I know that in order for advice to work for me, I got to flex it in a way so that it'll fit into my life. And so we've already learned two things. If you are in the doldrums and you're constantly comparing yourself or beating yourself up because you think everybody else is out achieving you, you're wrong. People are putting up fake achievements and perfection online to sell you something. The second thing is the only advice that's going to work is advice that you flex to work in your life. And so one of the reasons why I'm constantly sharing these really simple things to do is because that's the only things that I can fit into my life.

 

(16:37):

My life is very complicated just like yours. And so I can't fit in two hours of exercise, but I can fit in 15 minutes. I can't fit in training for a marathon right now, but I can get a walk in three days a week. And so what you're going to find is that if you hold yourself to an impossible standard, you're going to feel like that standard is impossible if you become not only realistic about the demands of your life, but you also become very rigorous about what you demand of yourself in terms of I'm not going to force myself to some ridiculous standard. I got two toddlers. I'm a single parent. It's not safe for me to walk alone outside and leave them alone. I just can't do it. So what can I do when you say so that's just hopefully getting rid of the kind of comparison thing.

 

(17:37):

I do it too. I often have this conversation with Christine who's our chief operating officer of 1 4 3 studios, which is our production company, and she's also my sister-in-law. And I love her because I am like the flighty creative ball dropper genius type person. I call myself a genius like ingest, but I am creatively fruity all over the place, just flying high. She is a CFO Excel spreadsheet, get everything in the columns kind of lady. Mel says, yes, Christine says, no. That's basically the joke inside the company. Mel said yes, but Christine said no. So anyway, I was complaining to her the other day because of course, like you, I bash myself when I see other people out achieving me because I've got to win some imaginary competition here in life. And I see a friend of mine who is going on a book tour and he is going on a book tour that is lasting three months.

 

(18:34):

And I turned to Christine. I'm like, this is unbelievable. It's so cool. And she turned to me and she goes, he doesn't have children. You can't be on the road that long, Mel, it's not going to work for you. And I'm like, oh, that's right. She's like, you got to stop comparing yourself to people whose lives don't look like yours. You will never be able to achieve what somebody who is a single male can achieve because you've got other demands on your time right now. You will never be able to achieve what a 23-year-old can do right now because you've got aging parents and three kids and a business to run. And so please, please stop making yourself feel like shit because you are looking at somebody who has totally different life circumstances in you. And by the way, this does not mean that there's something wrong with a 23-year-old fitness influencer. I think that's freaking fantastic that somebody's doing that with their life.

(20:18):

I made this for you to thank you for being here on YouTube, watching all of our videos, supporting our work. I'm going to help you answer what you want in 2024, and then more importantly, you're going to create a plan to go get it. Then I'll be here on YouTube motivating you every step of the way. You and me baby. Let's create the best year ever. Just click the link, boom, I'll take you to the page. You'll have this puppy in your hands in less than a minute, and be right back here with YouTube for me to motivate you. I love you. Let's do this. How do you make time for rest when it feels like a guilty pleasure to sit down every once in a while? Can we just take a moment? It feels like a guilty pleasure to just sit down. That is fucked up. I and I feel it. I feel it too. I feel like there's something wrong with me if I'm not doing something. So I get this. And so one thing that I want you to know is stop calling it guilt.

 

(21:24):

We got to stop calling it guilt because it's just a pattern. You have a pattern of always staying busy, and I don't think we feel guilty. You know what? I think you and I feel when we sit down and do nothing, we feel weird. We don't know what to do with our hands. We don't know what to think about. We don't know how to relax. Unless I'm on a vacation on a beach chair with a pina colada in my hand. I don't know how to relax. It's true. It's a sickness. So what am I going to do with it? First of all, we're not going to feel guilty. Everybody. We're going to call it what it is. It's freaking weird. It's weird to do nothing. You are ambitious. That's why you listen to this. You're up to something. That's why you listen to this. You're constantly looking to improve something. That's why you listen to this and you hang out with me. You and I are busy, but we have to learn how to have moments where we do nothing. When was the last time you did nothing?

 

(22:42):

I don't even know. Funny. My mind's blank. I can't think of nothing. I'd be like, I don't even know. Can you think of when you did nothing last? I'm always doing something. And it's true. It's not that I feel guilty. I just don't know how to do nothing. I don't know how to rest. I don't know how to just give myself a break. I'm not wired this way and neither are you. And here's the other thing. I believe that we live in a world that has trained us to always be on between the phone and a bazillion things to watch on TV and constantly emails to answer. There's always somebody who needs you. There's always something that needs to be done. And feeling needed is a way to feel connected and important. And so I don't think any of us feel guilty. I think we just don't know what to do. We don't know how to do nothing. And that's why I am going to come back. I want this week, this is the theme. Let's practice the art of doing nothing, even if it's just for a minute. So here's what I'm going to commit to today, and then I'm going to go to the next question. I am going to take a bath.

 

(23:51):

Now, I love taking baths, but normally this is embarrassing to admit this to you. I'm on my phone in my, I am literally a sicko. I sit on my phone in my bath and I relax in my bath by answering emails. This is literally awful that I do this. Why? Because I don't know how to do nothing. Oh my God. Aren't we funny? I bet even if you go and treat yourself to getting your nails done, which I have not done in a month, my feet literally look like I've been farming all day and I'm a bird with talons. I'm so embarrassed. Thank God it's not flip-flop season. But even when I go get my nails done, the poor gal will be literally looking and trying to get me to keep my hands still. And what am I busy doing? I'm doing the same thing you're doing. I got my phone over there and with wet fingernails, I am trying to scroll through my phone. I can't sit there and do nothing.

 

(25:00):

So I want you to think right now about one moment of doing nothing and what that looks like for you. And now we're going to move to the next question. The next question is from Paige. Hi Mel. Can you please talk about how to get out of your own head in order to start living your life? When I'm thrown into social situations or new experiences, 

(26:17):

For me, that's the part that makes the physical doing nothing hard because the second I sit down, let's just say that what you are going to do tonight is you are going to make a fire and you're going to sit down in front of the fire. Or let's just say that you've got this awesome comfy bed in your studio apartment, and you're just going to sit on your bed, just going to sit there for five minutes, just really do nothing. What'll happen? Your thoughts are going to race. Your thoughts are going to be like, what am I doing? Why am I sitting here? I should be doing something. Okay, what's going on? Oh, that wall needs paint. Oh, look at the rug. I should probably do something about that rug. I haven't washed these sheets. And you're going to literally be like in our house in Sherburne, we had mice or squirrels.

 

(27:10):

I don't even know what the hell they were. They lived in the walls. It's an old farmhouse. What are you going to do? You can't get rid of them. I mean, they just kind of come in. And so honest to God, every night when I would turn off the lights, do you know what would happen? It was like a mouse parade. That's what you would hear in the walls of my house. It's like they turn on the second the lights go off, and then you turn on the lights and then they stop and you're like, what is happening? That's your thoughts. Try it. Try to just sit there and think of nothing. You can't. You can't. And don't worry, I'm not about to tell you to meditate. So she wants to know, how do I get out of my own head? How do I think about nothing?

 

(27:52):

Here's how you do it. First of all, you cannot trust yourself, okay? So I'm not going to sit there and say, just try to think about nothing because it's impossible. You are a complete novice at this. If you're a novice to this and you can't sit still or your thoughts are always racing, you need fricking help. And lucky for you and me there is free help everywhere. Download the calm app, download Headspace, listen on Audible, listen on Spotify, listen on iTunes, listen on Amazon music. Listen on YouTube. Do you know how many free playlists there are with guided meditations or with that SMMR? I don't even know what it's called. A-S-M-R-A-S-M-R-M-S-M-R. I don't know what it is, but it's that sound where it's like, and you just listen to it and it calms your mind. What I'm trying to tell you is do not try to calm your racing thoughts on your own. Get fricking help. Get a free app. Find a playlist you like. Create a playlist of music that just makes your mind go quiet. Get help with this. Here's a couple other things you can do. You can put an alarm in your phone that goes off randomly. Let's just pick a time. How about 2 13, 2 13:00 PM every single day, write a little alarm that just says, take a breath, do nothing for one minute.

 

(29:24):

That's it. Now, why would you want to do that? Why do you want to do this? I'll tell you why. And it's common sense. If you're always on and your thoughts are always racing, is that a good thing for you? Of course not. Think about your computer or your phone. You know how when it overheats or it's been on for three or four days in a row because you haven't turned it off, and then all of a sudden it starts rainbow wheeling or glitching or it's slower, what do you do? You 

(31:03):

Just going, going, going. It needs a moment to do nothing. It needs a moment to reset. And so the reason why, the one thing I want you and I to do this week is nothing is because we need it. And for those of us, like you and me who have a lot going on, and you got other people you got to take care of and you got to a lot on your plate and you got demands at work, and you can't just take a week off and do nothing, you can't go to an ashram, you can't go to a yoga retreat. Wouldn't that be nice? That would be just fricking fantastic. I would love to go to one of those retreats where you pay a ridiculous amount of money and they take your phone away and then you're forced to hike or just lay around.

 

(31:56):

That would be amazing. I would love to go do something silent, but that's not my life right now. But I can figure out how to insert the art of doing nothing every day for a minute. And if you're lucky enough, again to be off work this week, you can take this as the theme of the week. How do you do less? How do you find moments of nothing? How do you sit with the discomfort of not doing your to-do list, not racing to the grocery store, not trying to get something else done? What if you just let yourself be for a minute?

 

(32:41):

That is exactly what you need. It's exactly what I need. And this will be interesting because the truth is I have no fricking clue how to do this. I'm just as novice at this as you are. I'm going to set the reminder two 13, stop. Take a breath, do nothing for a minute. And I'm also going to have a song ready because songs really help me. In fact, I found a really good one. Hold on, lemme see if I can find my phone. I heard this song the other day. Lemme see if I can find it. Ooh, this was so good. I put this in my family group chat. It's a good song when it's in your family group chat because it's going to be enjoyed by all the generations. Although I'll admit that nobody actually wrote back and said, that's a great song, but I think it's a great song. Let me find this thing for you. So I found this song, and this is a good technique for me. This song is very old. It's called Genesis, and it's one of those trippy songs like you might expect in a yoga class. Here we go.

 

(34:16):

There's a theme here. I like trippy music that sort of has a George Winston meets yoga, meets psychedelic medication sort of vibe to it, I think. And when I hear music like that, I just pay attention to the music and I notice my thoughts melt away. And so for me, my little thing that I'm going to do, two 13 goes off, do nothing for a minute, take a breath, and I'm going to put that song on because that will focus my mind on something other than all the crap that's normally spinning. That's what I'm going to do. I know what you're probably thinking right now because I get this question a lot, Mel, what's the difference between being lazy, being procrastinator, having excuses and doing nothing? So let me attack those one by one. Being lazy is fine. If you know you're lazy, more power to you, that's great.

 

(35:22):

What's great about lazy people is they don't make themselves wrong. You're an overachiever. If you beat yourself up when you're not doing everything that you need to be doing, people who are truly lazy do not give a damn about the fact that they're not doing anything. People like this, they're not motivated. They don't care. They're not looking to change the world. They don't care. And here's the thing that I feel about human beings. If it works for you, do it because it's your life. Nobody said that. You have to go change the world. If you enjoy your life and you consider yourself to be a lazy person, you are winning at life because you enjoy it. And so we could all learn something from lazy people because people that are truly lazy have no problem being lazy. So that's number one. Number two, procrastination. Procrastination is a habit that is triggered by stress.

 

(36:22):

Let's say that again. Procrastination is a habit of avoiding what you need to do because you're stressed out. And there's a lot of research around this. So I'll explain it very, very quickly and we'll do a much bigger episode around it. The third piece that you said was excuses. So e

(37:35):

That's what doing nothing is. It's not being lazy, it's not procrastinating, it's not an excuse. It's literally just allowing yourself to take a break for a second because you deserve that. And one of the things that I'm going to ask you to do again, you can join me 2:13 PM baby boom. Let's do nothing. Mel Robbins is putting the alarm on. I'm going to have a little note. You can customize it to take a breath and do nothing for a minute. And then I'm going to play my little music and I'm going to do nothing. And I'm going to see what happens because this week there's only one thing I want you and me to do, and that's nothing. Alright, well I got one more thing I want to say in case nobody else tells you. I want to tell you that I love you. I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to do this.

 

(38:33):

I'm still questioning whether or not I can do this, but I'm going to try. I'm going to give you that. I am going to try this with you. I am so addicted. I'm probably more addicted to being busy than even you are. And it feels very weird for me to do this, but I know I need to start somewhere because my life is probably a lot like your life in that there's no way I can just take a break for a week. And I don't know that I'd feel comfortable doing that, but I do need to start somewhere. And I suppose one lousy frigging minute is a good enough place to start. Alright, I'll talk to you in a couple days. I love you.

 

(39:19):

Is this thing on, you've come to expect bloopers right now, but I don't think I need to do bloopers because I think I was pretty damn funny. Don't you? Seriously, I have something for you. That's why I'm not doing bloopers. This is not a joke. I want to give you something and I want to give you something that's pretty serious. It is something that is a gift from me to you, and it's going to help you tap into your dreams and create a plan to make those dreams happen in the next 12 months. And the reason why I want to help you do that is because I personally believe you are worthy of your dreams. And I want to help you commit to working on them this year. So if you go to mel robbins.com/best year, we're going to find a free workbook that walks you through powerful research backed exercises that are going to help you answer the question, what do I want this year and why do I want it?

 

(40:10):

And this workbook and this exercise is so cool. It's something that I've done for the last 20 years. And plus, if you're like I am and you can't get your nails done without looking at your phone, you might as well have this workbook with you instead of your phone so you can think about how exactly you're going to make this next year, the best year of your life. I mean, just imagine if you took the time to plan for that. In fact, that would be really something and that might just be the one thing you do this week. Thank you so much for watching the Mel Robbins podcast. Thank you for sharing these episodes. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for hitting subscribe. It really supports the show. And since you're going to be busy doing nothing, you could contemplate six questions as you're sitting around doing nothing. And that's the topic of this next episode that I want you to watch.