How to Control Your Mind & Redirect Your Energy to Self Transformation

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Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I love what we're going to talk about today. I am so excited that you're here. It's always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together. And if you're a new listener, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. I am so glad that you're here. And I also want to point out something. If you're listening to this particular episode because someone shared this with you, that's really cool. It means you have people in your life that care about you. And I just want to take a moment and point that out. And I know that so many of you're going to be sharing this episode with people that you care about. So I also want to thank you for taking the time to listen to something that's not only going to help you create a more positive mindset, and it's going to teach you five simple things that you can do to let go of the negative thoughts and train your mind to work for you.

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I'm so excited that you're listening to that for yourself and also that you're going to be able to share this resource with people that you care about because I know you're the type of person who values your time and you made the time to listen to this. And so if you're sick of beating yourself up, if you're sick of living in a negative place, or if you're just curious, how do I use simple research back methods to actually make my mind work for me? Holy cow, are you in the right place? Because that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. Five simple things that you can do to take control of your mind, let go of negative thoughts and redirect all your mental energy toward happiness, success, and self transformation. And so I always am very intentional about why I want to talk to you about certain things.

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And what inspired this conversation today is the conversation I had with my daughters. I mean, we always get on FaceTime. The three of us do typically when one of us is getting ready or we're waking up in the morning, and we were on FaceTime the other day, and as I shared earlier, one of our daughters is 24, the other one is 25. One lives in New York, one lives in la. I live in southern Vermont. And so just like you do with the people you care about, we get on FaceTime all the time and we're yapping away. And all of a sudden, one of my daughters is like, I'm just in this negative place right now. It's like nothing I do is enough. Everything that I put on my body doesn't look good. No matter how hard I'm working. I just am constantly trashing myself. And then my other daughter chimed in and I was horrified to hear that they were both kind of in this place where they're focused on the negative, where their thoughts are kind of turned back against them.

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And as we're having this conversation, it reminded me of a story that I've shared on this podcast and I've shared in some interviews that I've done, I've been talking about the Let Them Theory book. And so you may have heard this story, but it's such an important and compelling story that it bears repeating. And so here's what happened. My 25-year-old daughter Sawyer and I wrote the Let Them Theory book together. And on the press tour, a ton of people have asked me what was it like to work on a project of that magnitude writing and researching a book with one of your kids? And it was incredible. I mean, it was absolutely incredible for a number of reasons to not only get to know her in a completely different way because I'm her mother and she's my daughter. And so we have the mother-daughter dynamic and we're very close, but we've always kind of had this friction.

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But having this project that we could both focus on and organize ourselves around was super cool because I got to experience her in a completely different way. And here's what happened. So when we first started working together, I asked her if she would simply just do this research project about the Let Them Theory because we had done a podcast episode on it and there were all of these comments. It had gone crazy viral and really resonated with people around the world. So I was like, Hey, Sawyer, would you just dig into the comments on this podcast episode and the things that you're seeing that people are saying online about the things that I've been sharing? And then come back to me in a couple of weeks with an analysis of what you're seeing. And I expected this to take two weeks. Now, mind you, I'm very different than my daughter Sawyer.

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I mean, I've got this crazy artistic A DHD brain and Sawyer thinks in Excel spreadsheets before working for me and working with me. She worked at a huge cybersecurity firm that is in 44 countries and was in the digital marketing and marketing tech side of that business. And here she is taking on this research project for me on the side, and I'm expecting this thing to take two or three weeks. I'm expecting the result to be a briefing that is going to be a couple pages long. She hands me 36 hours later, a 27 page, I don't even know how to describe the way this thing was organized. It was like columns with color coded tabs and links to the source material. And she had a two page synopsis of her analysis of all of the sentiment on online. And she had identified all these things that needed further research.

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I mean, it was jaw dropping. My brain just doesn't work like that. My brain is letting a box full of mice loose in your kitchen, everything scatters in different directions. This was a level of organization and mental horsepower that I actually didn't know she had. I just didn't understand that this was how her brain worked. And when I saw this work product from her generated in 36 hours, I was not only dumbfounded at just how intelligent she is and how differently her brain works. I had this heartbreaking realization as I looked at the 27 pages. I thought to myself, oh my God, I now know why she's so hard on herself. Because if she doesn't have a project to aim this supercomputer at, she aims it at herself.

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And I just want that to sit in with you for a minute that if you have this supercomputer and you do, you have a supercomputer between your ears. It is designed to solve problems. It is designed to spot patterns. It is designed to learn new things. It is designed to keep you safe. It is designed to analyze things. It is designed to create and to connect and to constantly be growing. That's what your brain is doing. It's doing an incredible job. If you're listening to this and you're able to hear these words and absorb this information, or you're watching me on YouTube right now, your supercomputer is engaged. It is processing information. It is filing it away in your brain. There are neuro pathways connecting and firing and wiring together like it is doing its thing. It's keeping you breathing, it's keeping your body temperature in a certain place all while you're doing this.

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And that's just like a scratch of the surface of what that supercomputer is doing. But I want you to really stop and consider what I'm saying. If you have this massive horsepower between your ears, which you do, and you're not aiming it at something like a big project or something that's important or something that's positive, it's true, isn't it? That your brain aims itself back at you. And when this happened with my daughter and I had this realization, it was as if I was meeting her for the first time. I finally understood her at a level that I had never understood her as her mother. And it even revealed a little bit about why I'm hard on myself. I mean, I just described my brain is working like taking a box of mice and letting it loose in your kitchen and everything scatters everywhere. But I have absolutely had those moments and I know you have too, where you are so focused on something that you're enjoying.

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It might be something like gardening. It might be that you're a great video gamer, and so you get lost in the moment. It might be when you've played sports or you're playing an instrument, or it might be when you're out on a hike and you're just so hyper present, why you can get lost in the flow of focus because you're in the present moment because your supercomputer in your mind is aimed at something outside of you. But isn't it true that in those moments where you feel consumed with negativity or you're beating yourself up or you're constantly telling yourself it's never enough or you're seeing nothing but the negative when you look in the mirror, you've just taken all that horsepower that is designed to create and laugh and grow and solve problems, and you just aimed it right at you. And so it got me thinking, if you have a brain that is designed to do all these incredible things, solve problems, grow, learn, laugh, create, be present, build all these amazing things, how is it that you and I can take that truth because I think you're with me.

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I can kind of feel you with me like, oh my God, I've never thought about it that way. It's true, Mel, if I'm engaged in something, I'm not beating myself up. If I'm working on a project that I'm truly focused on, I don't have time to trash my appearance, huh? Never thought about it that way, that this supercomputer can be used for good. And if I'm not using it for good, holy cow, it feels kind of bad because it just aims it right back at me. And just in case before I move on to these five simple things, because what I'm going to do is I'm going to teach you today, it took me far too long to learn this. I wish they taught this in schools. I wish they taught this in elementary school. That's how simple I'm going to make the science today.

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There are five simple things that you can do and you can start doing them as I'm explaining them to you, you can do these things as soon as this episode is over. These are so simple that you can make them part of your day-to-day life. These are ways for you to take control of your mind, that supercomputer in your brain. These are ways for you to let go of the negative thoughts, which is really what happens when your brain directs itself back at you, right? And third, we're going to talk about how do you redirect that power of your mind and aim it at something that energizes you? How do you take all that mental energy and instead of aiming it at yourself, you actually aim it at something that creates happiness and success and more positivity and self-transformation that's available to you. And I didn't understand any of this until several years ago.

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And so the second I'm done recording this, I'm sharing this with my two daughters. And before we jump into the first skill, and I've already kind of alluded to it, but before we jump into the first skill, I want to bring in one more visual example because I personally find that whenever you talk about the mind or thinking or mindset, it so quickly becomes fuzzy and too intellectual and too conceptual that I lose interest and I don't know what the hell people are talking about. So I like things that are visual because it helps my brain, the little mice that are running around to just anchor on something. So 

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Your brain is designed to do the exact same thing. I'm going to say that again. Your brain is like a Labrador retriever or a golden retriever. It is hardwired to actually chase down something that you direct it at. And so I love this visual because the first thing that I'm going to talk about today of the five things that I'm going to teach you is one of the things that helps you get out of that negative rut where your brain is aimed at you and you start trashing yourself down, is to actually give your brain something to chase down and focus on. Think about it like you need a project or think about like the project is the ball. So with a dog that loves to chase a ball, you take that ball, you throw it in whatever direction that dog forgets that you exist, that dog is maniacally focused on that ball.

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That dog will literally run over a child in order to get the ball, get the ball, get the ball, because it's hardwired to focus on that. And then it brings it back. Your brain does the same thing. Your brain is just sitting around like a board laboratory, waiting for you to pick up a ball and put it in motion waiting for you to throw something out into the future and say, go get it. Your brain loves projects this, it wants something to GNA on. It is bored. If you ever noticed too, if you got a dog that needs a job, if it doesn't have a job, what does it do? It chews your slippers. It starts gnawing on the corners of your cabinets. Next thing you know, it's naughty and it's peeing in the corner. Why? Because it's got all this mental energy and this desire to have a project and to chase down a ball, and you're not feeding that desire your brain's the same way it needs a job.

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And that brings me to skill number. One of the best things that you can do is understand that giving yourself a project or a goal or some sort of ball that you can put in play in your life, it is one of the best ways to direct your brain at something other than you. It's one of the best ways to start to leverage the natural capacity that your mind has to solve problems and to actually chase something down. And this isn't just my suggestion. This comes from not only research that I'm going to walk you through, but it comes from something that world renowned PhD, New York Times bestselling author Martha Beck has been talking about, and you may have seen her talking about this. It's the basis of her new book. And there's so much research that I'm also going to share with you after you hear this clip.

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But you're going to hear Martha Beck talking about the fact that when you're in an anxious state or you're ruminating, we now know in the way that you and I are talking about this, the supercomputer is now aimed at you. You're up in your head. Instead of being focused on the world and solving problems, you're now tearing yourself down. You've made yourself a problem. The other way you can think about this is that Labrador retriever is chewing on the slipper and being self-destructive because it's got nothing to do. She had this thesis in this book, well, if you're in that state being anxious and negative, it shuts down your ability to problem solve. We know this based on the research. We also know it based on common sense. It shuts down your ability to be creative. Well, she thought, well, wait a minute. Does creativity and problem solving actually shut down anxiety and rumination and being negative? Turns out it does. And so here's Martha Beck sharing this idea on the Today Show. And the idea is so exciting, and it's also so simple and obvious to understand that you're going to hear Martha talking first and then you're going to hear the Today Show Anchors jump in because they totally get it. And then what we're going to do after you listen to this is you and I are going to unpack what she said so that you can apply this first skill, take a listen.

Martha Beck (00:18:17):

And when we've known forever, that anxiety shuts down creativity. So I started thinking, what if it works the other way too? Creativity of creativity shuts down anxiety. Oh, that's interesting. So if I take a client and I do something very simple like plan a meal for tomorrow, so say you're having a dinner party, start planning right now,

Carson Daly (00:18:36):

Let your brain start to think of, I'm going to do steak on the Trager grill and I'm going to serve it with this, and what would go good with that? Now I'm thinking in a different pattern

Martha Beck (00:18:43):

And you're connecting things

Carson Daly (00:18:44):

And the anxiety is quiet

Hoda Kotb (00:18:45):

and it does Shut.

Martha Beck (00:18:45):

Did that work just now?

Carson Daly (00:18:46):

Yes, it does work.

Martha Beck (00:18:47):

It works like that.

Carson Daly (00:18:48):

Yeah. Same thing with knitting or with your hands or where you're figuring something out.

Martha Beck (00:18:51):

Absolutely.

Hoda Kotb (00:18:52):

So it's anything creative that you should start doing.

Martha Beck (00:18:55):

Yeah, and people say, I'm not creative. I can't work.

Hoda Kotb (00:18:57):

I'm not creative, right?

Martha Beck (00:18:58):

That's still in the anxiety part. Just make something you love. Try using your hands, your senses, cook garden if you like to draw or paint or do that, do whatever.

Mel Robbins (00:19:09):

Just stop and consider what she's saying. It's true, isn't it that when you're idle, your thoughts turn negative When you've got nothing that you're focused on, the supercomputer focuses on you. And because it's a problem solving machine, it typically is looking for problems and then it turns you into one. And so I love what Martha Beck is saying because she's basically saying, anytime you're worried, anytime you're negative, it's a sign that your mind is now turning you into a problem. And we can change this by picking up a ball and in her language, by doing something creative with your hands. She talked about how just start planning the meal for tonight, open up a cookbook and start flipping through it. And now what you're doing, you've thrown a ball. Your mind is now focused on solving the problem. The problem is no longer you. The problem is what are we going to create for dinner?

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It's a simple idea that has so much research in it. In fact, I want you to hear this research because it's not just about creativity, it's about the power of having a project that you can aim your mind at. This is this revelation that I had about my daughter that, oh my God, she's got so much horsepower upstairs. And so do you that if you're not aiming it at something, it's going to come back at you. And I want to share some of this research with you because it's actually very exciting about simply having a project. And it could be a project like I've got a project this weekend that I know that I'm going to get lost in, and that is now that my husband and I are empty nesters, it's time for me to go through the closets in the bedroom upstairs and donate what is just being used as long-term storage by our adult children. Just reclaim the space. That's a project that will keep my mind occupied, which will keep me from turning it against myself and ruminating. And the research bears this out. Check this out. Simply having a project according to research done at the University of Exeter turns down negative.

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So interesting about this is that they found in this research study that when you have a project and you start chipping away at it, I walk upstairs, I open up the closet, I start sorting through what's in there that the small steps literally rewire your brain away from rumination. It makes so much sense when you realize, well, that's because I am focusing my brain on something. I'm putting a ball in play instead of having it aim it at me. And when you don't have a project, you feel like you're not making progress towards anything, which means you have more negative emotions. So it works in the positive and the negative, and I think you can kind of see that when you're not really working on anything, you got an idle mind and that's not going to come to a lot of good. Here's another research study from the University of Michigan and the University of Oxford.

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This one was published in a journal called Neuron. Having a project also boosts happiness because having something to focus on actually increases dopamine, which we know is kind of this neurochemical that gets released in your mind that is all about drive and it helps you focus and your brain is going to release dopamine, not when you clean out the closet, not when you finish writing the song, not when you finish paying your bills, not when dinner is finished cooking, but rather as you're working toward it. How cool is that? And it kind of makes sense because if you take as fact that your brain's a supercomputer that wants to solve problems, that wants to engage in something, that wants to build and design and create and have a project to focus on, when you provide that to the supercomputer between your ears, your supercomputer is a little happier because it's able to chase a ball.

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It's able to do what it's designed to do. Here's another study from Pennsylvania University that having a project to focus your brainpower on strengthens your overall mental health goals, give you direction and purpose goals, help you navigate challenges because it actually gives you mind something to focus on, which helps you build resilience against stress and emotional struggles. And what's interesting about that is that I know based on what I'm seeing in the inbox, as your fellow listeners are writing in from around the world, that you're experiencing just unprecedented levels of stress. And we know that based on the medical experts that we talked to on this show all the time, that the levels of chronic stress that people are experiencing are at unprecedented levels. And it would've never occurred to me that one of the ways for you to not allow the stress to put you in an even more negative state would be to have a project, something like a painting to do or a closet to clean out or some sort of something that you're working on because that means that even in a stressed out state, you have something that you can aim your brain at so that your tired, stressed out brain doesn't start turning you into an even bigger problem.

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I just love this research. So number one, what you're learning is that in order to take control of your mind, in order to let go of negative thoughts in order to redirect your energy toward happiness, success and self transformation, skill number one is put a ball in play. Find a project. And if you can make it creative, if you can use your hands even better, because when you focus that supercomputer in your brain on something outside of you, it is happy and it's excited and it's now engaged, and that's going to leave you with space that is going to feel better for you. So that's skill number one. 

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This is hard science. I actually wrote about this in my New York Times bestselling book, the High Five Habit. And so you may have heard about this before, but even so, it's a fabulous reminder. So what is skill number two? Skill number two, my daily habit is look for hearts. I know what you're thinking. What does that mean? Mel? Look for hearts is a very simple game that you're going to play that helps you train your brain and it's very simple today as you're going about your life, I want you to look for a naturally occurring heart shape, somewhere around you. That's it. You are going to tell your brain, as stupid as it sounds brain today somewhere in the world, I want you to show me a shape of a heart. It could be a leaf on a tree, it could be a stain on a sidewalk.

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It could be the shape of the foam on your coffee today. It might be a spot on a dog at the dog park. In fact, you can do it right now as long as you're not driving a car, I want you to just look around the environment that you're in. I mean, I'm so trained to do this now that I see them everywhere, and I want you to just scan the environment and see if somewhere around you, I've already spotted two where I am right now. I'm going to describe 'em in just a second. See if you can see a heart shape. Is there a shadow on the wall? Is there some discoloration in the brick? Right now, as I'm looking straight around the room that I am in, above the garage here in southern Vermont, I can see that on the whiteboard over on the other side of the room, we have a series of magnets and they're all clustered at the bottom of the whiteboard and a bunch of the magnets are together and they're actually in the shape of a heart.

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I'm looking down on the carpet and I see that there's a stain on the carpet a little like, I don't know what, maybe it's cat hair. I can't quite tell what that is, but it's also in the shape of a heart. Every time I go on a walk in the woods, I see rocks, I see tree stumps, I see them everywhere. So you're probably thinking, why on earth is this important? Well, let me explain the science. In order to explain the science. I want to teach you about a part of your brain, the supercomputer between your ears that has a specific name and that part of your brain is called the reticular activating system, okay? Reticular activating system. I like to call it the RAS for short because reticular activating system is a mouthful and you don't need to know that. You just need to know that there is this filter in your brain.

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I think about it almost like there's a hairnet that's over my brain. It's like the bouncer for your brain. And what is this reticular activating system doing? Well, it is deciding all day long what information gets into your conscious mind and what information is being filtered out of your conscious mind. That is what it is doing, and there's a reason why you need this filter. So we had a amazing neuroscientist and neurosurgeon from Stanford that appeared on the Mel Robbins Podcast by the name of Dr. Jim Doty. So he is not only somebody who is a neuroscientist, he is a neurosurgeon, meaning he actually operates on people's brain and he is a world renowned expert in the neuroscience of manifestation. And he told me when I was talking to him about the science, check this out. Do you know that there are six to 10 million bits of information coming at your MINDBODY and spirit every single second, six to 10 million?

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Your brain can't handle that, neither can your body. Dr. Doty says that your conscious brain can only handle between 50 and a hundred bits, and 99% of that that it can handle is all stuff that's about how your body operates. So we're talking teeny amounts of information is actually getting to your conscious brain. What's super interesting about this is that means that a massive amount, a bazillion amounts of bits of information are bombarding you. You're just not aware of it. And the reason why you're not aware of it is because of this hairnet on your brain. The bouncer, the reticular activating system its job is to decide, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Of the six to 10 million bits coming at me a million miles an hour, what's actually important? Now, here's where this gets interesting. What's important is what you tell your reticular activating system is important.

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This is so cool. This is a treasure trove. This is how you take control of your mind. If you're interested in achieving your goals and making more money and having a positive mindset, understanding that your brain is trying to help you. And if you are not helping your brain by telling your brain what's important to it, it's going to filter out things that could be helping you. And that brings me back to this daily habit that I have. Anytime I'm on a walk, I'm looking for hearts because it's a way for me to prove to myself that the filter's actually working. And you're going to be startled when you see this. You are literally going to go out for a walk today or you're going to be out and about in your life and maybe you've already seen something. Maybe you've already seen a heart as you've been listening to me or watching on YouTube right now that you've seen this heart and the reason why you saw it is because you and I are talking about it.

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It's sort of like another example I can give you about how this works is you know how social media is dynamically filtering things based on what it either watches you watching on social or it hears you talking to somebody about something and you're talking about maybe bird feeders. And next thing you know there's freaking ads for bird feeders all over your social media. Well, that's because social media has a filter and it's dynamic. Your brain has the same thing. And so this is a habit looking for hearts that you can do all day every day to strengthen this filter every time you see a heart. Here's what I want you to do. I want you to stop and just take it in. I want you for a minute in a very calm way, to see this heart that you see as a sign from the universe or God or goddesses or whatever you believe in that the world is actually trying to help you, that there are signs all around you and you just like I used to, you're just so up in your head and your computer is aimed against you that you're not programming it correctly to see the positive signs that are around you.

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If you can tell your brain to look for a heart, you can actually learn to use this habit to look for other things too. I mean, one of the reasons why I'm so successful in business and why it appears from the outside that I'm a super lucky person is because I understand all of the things I'm teaching you today. 

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Because I've told my brain to, if you've read the High Five Habit, chapter seven of the book is about this programming. And one of the things that I love since introducing the world to the High Five habit in writing this book is that every day on social media, people post hearts that they find. This is on page 91 of the book. It's just plastered with hearts that people have found and it's evidence that your mind can be trained. Now, here's something I want to read to you, okay? Because you may be thinking, look, I got huge problems, Mel. The negativity is justified because there's a lot of things going on in my life. And so I want to say something right now, looking for hearts is not going to make your problems go away. Not at all. What looking for hearts does is it actually leverages the power of your mind to problem solve and to start to work for you.

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And I got to start with baby steps here. If you can't find a heart as you're taking a walk outside tomorrow, you're not going to believe that your brain and the filter in it is there for you to use to your advantage. As I write in this book, the point of this exercise is to train your mind to spot things you currently block out and prove to yourself that you can make your brain work for you by telling it what is important to you. And if you want to make a lot of money, you better train your mind to see opportunities and deals that other people walk right by, just like the stupid heart rock on the ground. Because if you miss the heart rock because you're not looking for it, then you're going to miss the opportunities and deals that are right there that you currently aren't seeing because you're not looking for it either.

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And the only reason why you're not looking for it is because you haven't made this a project. And the way you can start doing this is by looking for hearts. It's my way to prove to you that this filter is there and it is waiting for you to program it. And it's a simple thing. You can do this with your kids, you can do it anywhere that you live in the world. You can do this as a way to start to understand that, wow, my mind is very flexible. Wow, there are things that I see now that I've never seen, nothing changed in the outside world. What changed is the filter on the supercomputer because you programmed it and you can train yourself in how you program it by simply looking for hearts. How fricking cool is that? 

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That's what this is. Manifesting isn't magic and woo woo and fairy dust manifesting is programming your brain so that it helps you get what you want in life. And there is so much amazing hard science here, and I'm going to bring Dr. Doty into the conversation because Dr. Doty is not only going to explain this at a scientific level for you, and he is going to talk about the parts of the brain that you use when you want to intentionally program your brain to work for you. But he is also going to walk you through the five simple steps that he uses. I'm talking Stanford's neuroscientist and neurosurgeon. The guy who wrote the book on the science of Manifesting is going to walk you through the five things he does every morning in his manifesting practice so that you can learn how to do this too. And the way that he describes it, it just makes so much sense.