We are talking about probably one of the most important topics you and I could have a conversation about. We haven't talked about this in-depth on this podcast. I got to give credit to a dear friend of mine, Pete Sheehan, who I have mentioned on the podcast. About three years ago, I was complaining about something, as I was often doing, and he looked at me and he said, You know what, Mel? You know what I've noticed about you? Is that the more successful you've become, the more miserable you are. I know you. You're a positive part. You're fine, you're smiling, you're this and that. But I can tell there is a storm inside of you. And he was right. He was absolutely right. And that brings me to this statement, that happiness is an inside job. It does not matter what you see on the outside of someone. It doesn't matter how smiley you are. It doesn't matter what your life looks like, how nice your car is, how long you've been in a relationship, how long you haven't been. All that stuff on the outside has nothing to do with how you feel on the inside.

And that statement, that happiness is an inside job, it honestly used to piss me off. Because I didn't know what it meant. But I do now. Because I have spent the last three years asking the really hard questions, Mel, what is all this frustration and agitation inside you about? And here's what I realized. I realized in my day-to-day life, I personally was actively blocking happiness from flowing into my life. There was plenty of reasons for me to be happy, plenty of reasons for you to be happy. I was blocking it from getting into me. And so when people say, happiness is an inside Job. Here's what they mean. They mean you have to let it in. I'm going to say that again. The secret to being happier is realizing you have to let it in. And I want you to stop and just think about that. Do you allow happiness in? I didn't. I didn't even know how to let happiness in. You know, in the episode where I really dug into this, I referred to the lesson that I learned the hard way in 2023, is something I called dropping the sword. Let me explain what that means, because it relates to letting happiness in.

If you want to be a happier person, and I really want that for you, you have to end your personal campaign of misery. What does that mean? What that What it means is you're not only blocking happiness, I'm going to prove to you today, you are actively fighting against it. And dropping the sword is the way that I started to cue myself to this new skill, which is you got to let it flow in. And so I'm going to explain and unpack for you three different ways that I realized over the last three years that I was engaged in this campaign of misery. I literally was fighting to stay miserable. I was blocking the happiness. And if you listen with a very critical ear, and if you are honest with yourself, and if you are willing to call yourself out on your own bullshit, I think you will realize, Oh, my gosh, I'm blocking happiness, too. And my mission today is to inspire you to take on a project to become happier, to inspire you, to drop the sword wherever it is that you are currently fighting against your own happiness, where you are currently engaged, you are campaigning for misery.

I want you to stop it. And I'm going to tell you something, this is very normal. And it's normal because life can be really hard. Maybe you're afraid to be happy. Maybe you don't know how to be happy. Or perhaps You used to be really happy. You were really content. You were the person that was present in your life and content, and okay. And then something horrible happened, or somebody that you love died, or there was some awful tragedy. And now you are so scared to drop the sword. You are so scared to allow yourself to feel good again, because what if you lose it again? There are so many reasons and ways that we fight against our own happiness. And you know that I love my metaphors. I've already brought in this idea of the hurricane, and whether or not you're the one that's able to be okay, or whether or not you're able to stand in the center of chaos and connect to that power inside you. And so let me bring in a second one, because this visual really helps me understand that saying that happiness is an inside job. I want you to visualize a door, right?

Because if you're going to to go inside, you're going to pass through a doorway, right? There's only two different types of doors when we're talking about happiness. The first one is the kind that I used to have, which is basically the massive steel impenetrable door that you see on a bank vault. You know those big, thick, they got a wheel on them, big code that you got to do. If you finally crack it open, that door is literally like three feet wide. Nobody has the code, nobody can get in. That Excuse me. That is not the door that you want, because that means you are blocking it. But there is a second door, and this is what I want you to start to visualize. I want you to visualize swinging galley doors. If you've ever worked in a restaurant, I've worked in lots of different restaurants, if you go from the front of the house where all the tables are to the back of the house where the kitchen is, there's typically these swinging doors, right? And in the restaurant that I used to work in, the Red Rooster Tavern, there were these double little doors that used to swing in and out to the kitchen.

This is the door that you need between yourself and the outside world. Because when it comes to happiness, it has to flow both ways. Of course, you have to give happiness out into the world. You have to send it out as a signal. You have to give it to other people. But the door has to swing in. And what I've discovered is that a Allowing the doors to swing in was nearly impossible for me. And I think that this has a lot to do with your experiences growing up and what the adults were like when you were growing up. Were they warm Were they breezy and easy? Did they let the love flow in and out? Were they welcoming? Or were they like a big, cold, steely, closed-off bank vault? That's where this probably comes from. And today, You and I are going to talk about how you can allow more of it in, how you can go from being closed off to being breesier, to letting it flow in and flow out. So with that metaphor, I want to talk about the first of the three ways that I was engaged in a campaign of misery, because it relates to this bank vault door.

The first way is, I was so trapped in my head, like behind the door or in a vault called my mind, that I wasn't even present in my life. How can you possibly allow happiness in if you're not even there? And this is something I'm still working on. I can give you an example from just a couple of days ago. So over the holidays, we were on a vacation celebrating my mom's 75th birthday. And so we were all together for four days, and my brother's family was there, and my parents were there, and Chris and I and our three kids were there, and it was the last full day of vacations. We have all day together. We have a big dinner that night celebrating my mom. We're going to play cards because our family loves cards that evening, and then everybody's going to leave the next morning. And this is the last time that Chris and I and our three kids are going to be together until our son, Oakley's graduation in June, which means this is the last time we're going to be together for about six months. Now, do you think on that last day, I was that breezy, easy, warm and present, eye of the storm, happiness person, allowing it to swing back and forth.

That would have been wonderful. But not me. Old habits die hard. And on that last day of the vacation, boom, I shut the bank door. I closed myself off in my mind because all I could think about is, Oh, my God, the kids are leaving tomorrow, and our daughter, Kendall, lives in Los Angeles, and she lived so far away. And then I was like, What if she marries somebody in Los Angeles, and then all of a sudden, she's going to settle out there, and they're going to have kids out there, and they're going to be spending more time with that. Talk about a hurricane. For crying out loud, I got myself so worked up. I was not only not present during the day, and I basically was closed off in my own mind that I not only didn't let the happiness in, the hurricane inside me started spinning so much that once I went to bed, I woke up every single hour on the hour until 5:45 AM when my alarm went off, which It was the time that I needed to meet Kendall in the lobby to make sure that she had her passport and could get into the cab and get to the airport.

I wasted the entire last 24 hours of the time that I had with the five of us. I I did myself miserable. And you know what? I actively did that to myself. And I'm sharing this with you, and I'm sure you can hear the intensity in my voice. It doesn't sound like a happy Mel. Why am I intense? I'll tell you why I'm intense, because I can see Now, engaging in a campaign of misery, blocking happiness, not being present in my life, robs me of those moments. And these are skills that you're going to have to practice. And clearly, I'm still working on it. I'm giving you an example from just a couple of days ago because you got to watch us like a Hawk. It is so easy to just slam the bank vault, go up in your head, start worrying about stuff, get trapped up there in your emotions. Next thing you know, You're spinning around like a hurricane that you have personally created for yourself. You're no longer present. You can't possibly let any love in, and you're no longer the centered, okay, happy eye of the storm. You yourself are the freaking hurricane.

And I did it to myself. And I'm sure you do it to yourself time and time and time again. And that's just the first one. There are two more ways that I have been actively fighting my happiness. I guarantee you're going to relate to them, so don't you dare go anywhere. You'll be happy you didn't, because I'm going to be back after a short break. Stay with us. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today, you and I are digging into the truth about happiness, the fact that it's an inside job, and that you need to learn how to let it in, that there are things that you are doing, just like there are lots of things I've been doing, that block happiness. We've already covered the first one, which is when you yourself lock yourself in your head and you're no longer present. When you're up in your mind, and you're worried, and you're distracted, you're not in your life. So of course, you're not allowing happiness in. The second way that I personally was blocking my own happiness is what This is what I call picking up a sword. This is where you go through life and you feel like you're constantly bracing for a fight.

Now, if you're the person where you're constantly on the go, you're hyper vigilant, you're on edge, you can see around corners, you're anticipating the next move, I want you to be honest with yourself. What does it feel like when your baseline day-to-day existence is that you got to be ready for a fight? That you literally wake up and it's like, boom, the Avengers. You dropped into the day and you're bracing for the fight, and everything's going to be a struggle. When you walk into work and what your boss says, and that text that you didn't get to, that was me. That That was me. That there's this way of moving through your life where you convince yourself that somebody's mad at you, or that something's going to be hard, or that you're annoyed with something or disgruntled with it. The first time that somebody really called me out on this, again, because I, on the outside, am a very positive person. I'm great with other people. It's how I relate to myself that is the real problem. It's the energy that I create internally that is robbing me of happiness. I had no problem spreading it.

It's that, boom, I would shut the door and block it from me experiencing it. So here I am. This was a couple of years ago. I was hosting a This is a lifetime talk show. I'm standing at CBS Broadcast Center here in New York, and my executive producer casually turns to me, and she's like, Why are you always so mad at Sony Pictures, your production company? It's like, you have to You have somebody that you're against. You have this energy, Mel, where you're like, It's like our team against Sony. And she was right. And when I look in the mirror and I see the human being look back at me, that's been in my DNA for as long as I can remember, that there is someone out to get me, that there is someone that I'm against. And so if you're You're the person who seems to always be mad at somebody, whether it's your boss, or you're annoyed with your spouse, or you're mad at the school because the school is doing this thing, or you get all fired up about politics, or the news, or you're in line at the airport. You're all agitated because the line next to you is moving faster than the line that you're in, and the agent is...

This is an example of having a sword in your hand. I was the same way. I want you to just stop and think about that. What does that feel like in your day-to-day life? You're walking into the grocery store. Are you breezy-easy with the swing and doors? Or are you walking in there steely, bank I'm in your fault. Sword in your hand. I was the person that moved through life with a smile on my face and a fight in my belly. And if you're nodding along going, Yeah, that's me. I brace a lot. I'm prepared for the worst. I'm waiting for the next shoe to drop. I'm angry at people. I don't get it. Drop the sword. There is no fight. And if you've been bracing for one your whole life, trust me, if there's a fight, you'll be ready. You got that handled. What you don't know how to do is to be at peace. What you don't know how to do is to not let the things outside of you create a storm inside of you. That is so unnecessary and unhealthy, and it is a learned behavior that you can unlear. And what I love about this visual of the sword is you can feel it in your body, can't you?

If you're not driving a car, I want you to take your two hands like you're gripping a sword, right? And your elbows automatically come up, and you brace. And that is what it felt like for me. The bills would arrive in the mailbox, bracing. I'm trying to pick a line in the grocery store, bracing. I'm going to pick the wrong line. There's something that's going to go. Tell me, does that internal energy, does that feel like a bank door that's closed off? Or does that feel like this swinging thing? You know the answer. Because in some area of your life, you've picked up the sword. You've got to fight. You're bracing for something. And that is a way in which you're blocking happiness. It's a way in which you are engaged in a campaign, which is a fight for misery. And you have the power to stop that, to drop the sword. Now, the third thing that I was doing that was really blocking happiness, and this is a mindset thing. We have talked about this a lot on the podcast. I always thought about mindset more from the standpoint of success and focus and productivity and training my mind to help me get what I want.

I had never quite connected the dots between this and this deeper level of okayness, this breeziness that I want you to be able to create in your life, where goodness flows in and flows out, that you allow it in. And it's this: being focused on what's wrong. Yep, this is a thing. This is a thing. And in fact, because you listen to this show, that there is something called the negativity bias. Their minds are wired to magnify the negative. So you're fighting against some of your own wiring. But you can take this to a whole terrible level, okay? If you're the person that is constantly hyper-focused on the one If you're the person who hasn't texted you back, that's a problem. If you're the person who is chasing somebody that is not interested in you, that's a problem. And when you are so focused on what's not working, you know what happens? You miss the fact You miss the fact that there are so many things that are working. You miss the fact that there are a lot of people that are saying amazing things behind your back. It's not all people who are gossiping.

There are a lot of people that say great things about you, but you don't let that in, do you? There are a lot of people that show up for you in your life and that love you, but you don't let that in, do you? No, you're complaining about the people that aren't inviting you here. That is an example of how you actively engage in a campaign of misery. You focus on that. You're intentional about that. You are You're so steely about it. You're right about it. You have shut off any other possibility in your life. The doors are not swinging in and out because you have got your sword. You are focused on what is wrong, and you are willing to fight to the death about this thing. Here's another example of how you focus on what's wrong. So when I was on the Today Show a couple of days ago, they had these questions that people had submitted on video, and there was this one awesome woman who said that Mel, it's my goal to spend 15 minutes a day and exercise as a mom, do some yoga, do something for myself, put myself first 15 minutes a day.

I got a young toddler, and here's the question. I've only been 50% effective. How can I be better at this? Let me just say something here. If you have a toddler and you're still able to find 15 minutes for yourself 50% of the time, that's amazing. Do not bash your sofa that. 50% positive is awesome. But when you are engaged in a campaign of misery, what do you do? You don't see the good. You don't see 50 %, I'm doing it right, I'm going to call that thing out. No, you focus on the fact that, I'm only doing 50 %. That's a way that you're not letting the good flow in. How many times do you do that? How many times do you discount what you are doing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did great. I met my quota, but I didn't do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've done all this great stuff on our house, but we had to do it ourselves. That you don't allow the good in. Those are the three biggest ways that I was actively blocking happiness. And I want to summarize them again. That number one, you're not present. You are so closed off, you're so locked up in your mind, you're so worried about everything else and everyone else and worrying about this, that you're not even present.

And if you're not even present, of course, you can't let things in. Number two, that you pick up the sword. You are bracing for a fight. Everything is a fight. The customer service rep, the line that's moving too slowly, everything has to have a sword to it. Just drop it. That energy blows, and you don't have to go through your life like that. And the third way that you block happiness, I'm sure, is you're not focused on what's working. You are so focused on what's wrong, what's not working, that you're not allowing the good to flow in. Now that you're like, Oh, God. Okay. Yeah. I'm a miserable, you know what? And now I don't know what to do because I've just listened to a podcast on happiness, and now I feel horrible. So thanks a lot, Mel Robbins, for making me realize that I am actively engaged in ruining my life and not allowing happiness in. Well, here's the good news. Now that you know that you're doing this, you can actually choose to do something different. And there are simple ways you can practice this. If I can go from being a miserable wench internally to a very happy, content person that is not hijacked by other people or the storms around me, you can, too.

So here are two things that I want you to do. First of all, visualize the swinging doors. This has helped me so much. I do this almost every day of my life. Notice your energy. Are Are you going through your day-to-day life and you are allowing the doors to swing in and out? Are you allowing the good to flow in? Because that was the hardest part for me, and I'm sure it is the hardest part for you. When something good happens, acknowledge it. Let the good come in. Second thing, when somebody gives you a compliment, don't brush it off. Look the person in the eyes and say, Thank you. When somebody says, Do you need some help with that? Can I help Don't say no. That's your bank vault door, shutting out happiness, not allowing it to flow into you. Let someone help you. I can give you an example. This is something I'm working on. I am so used to traveling that when I pull up to a hotel in my Uber, and I jump out of the car, and somebody is awesome outside of the hotel. It's like, Hey, can I help you with your bag?

I'm like, Oh, no. I've dragged it all the way from Boston. I can get it. No, let them help you. Let it in. That's the way that you can practice this. And here's a third simple way that you can practice this. Do you tell people that you love them? I'm not telling them, Hey, I love you, bro. That's not what I'm talking about. The fact is, most people do not tell people that they love them. I am constantly shocked and sad by how many of you write in and say that your parents never told you that they love you. I mean, this is a big deal. It's just three words, and this is a way that you can be the swinging doors. I was having this conversation with Oakley and one of his really good buddies, and his friend shared something really cool with Oakley. He basically said to Oak, I wrote one of my college essays for the college applications about you. Oakley was like, Really? What was it about? He said, Well, I wrote about the fact that you always tell me that you love me. Every time we're hanging out as a group of friends, you just say, Hey, you guys, I love you.

I'll see you later. And you just do it. And it's had a real impact on me. And now we all do it as friends. And it made me realize how closed off everyone in my family is, that nobody actually says it. And so I've started doing it. Now, that's a small example of somebody who didn't even know that this was possible. He was around somebody who was freely letting that flow in and out. Lots of hugs. I love you all the time, when he's hanging up the phone, when he's saying goodbye at the end of school. And now, guess what? This friend of his is now saying it to his family. And his brothers and sister and his parents are saying it back. It's an example of what I'm talking about and how much we all want it. And finally, the exercise. I want you to borrow this exercise that my friend Pete taught me. You know how I told you that he said, Mel, the more successful you become, the more miserable you are? And I'm like, You're right, you're right, you're right. Well, this is what he told me to do, because I was like, I don't know how to change it.

I am miserable. I don't know what to do. So he said, Luckily, I know what to do. Take out a piece of paper, and I want you to just go through a week in your life, and I want you to list out all of the things that happen during a typical week in your life where you feel friction. All of them. And by friction, I mean it's the energy of your picking up the sword, your bracing, you close off, you're just like, uuh. Whether it's your bills, or it's your health, or your commute, or feeling lonely, that you don't have a lot of friends, and it really just makes you frustrated. Whatever in your life is causing friction. That's what I want you to write down. Don't worry, it gets good. For me, when I did this three years ago, absolutely everything that I wrote down had to do with the fact that I was never home. I was working too much. I was always on a plane. I hated my life. I didn't have any friends. Why? Because I was always on a plane. I miss Chris. Why? Because I was always on a plane.

I didn't see Oakley as much or my daughter's as much. Why? Because I was always traveling for work. And I'll tell you what else. I had a lot of excuses about it, but I can't, but this, but that, but the other thing. Again, the excuses and me complaining about it is part of this campaign, and I'm going to get into that in just a minute. Now, if I were to do this exercise right now with you, you know what would be on the list? Probably all of the things that I gripe about related to menopause. I actually did a whole episode about this, bitching about how bloated I was. Remember the red pants episode? And just feeling frustrated, and there's nothing that I can do, and these excuses about and feeling closed off about it, and feeling shut off about it, which what? Anything on that list that creates friction, what does that feel like? It feels like a freaking hurricane, doesn't it? It feels like you're intense. It feels like you're out of control. It feels like every excuse in the book for why you can't change that thing. So list absolutely everything. It causes friction that you're the one that has to walk the dogs, and you didn't even want the dogs.

It was your family that wanted the dogs, and now you got the dogs. So list it all out, and now I want you to lean into it. Why is this creating this agita inside you? Why is this the hurricane that is spinning inside you? What is this list about? And let me tell you why it is so important to write this down. It's so important because you and I stay so trapped up here in our heads. We are behind that bank vault door, closed off, thinking about all these things that are making us miserable. And here's the thing: you are not stuck with this list. When you write this list down, when you get this out of the bank vault, out of the hurricane of your mind, and into the physical space, the real world, on a piece of paper, staring you in your face, now you can work on it. Let me tell you what's going to happen when you do this exercise. First of all, there's going to be a lot of stuff on it because there's a lot of stuff that you're complaining about that you don't even realize you're complaining about it.

You just live with it. You sit with it in your head. But when you complain about something, you are actively engaged in your own campaign for misery, period. You are fighting for it. When you sit there and go, Oh, but I can't do this, but I'm stuck with this job, but my this will never change. And why do we do this? I'll tell you why, because it's easier to complain about something than to change it. It is easier to feel frustrated and disappointed and stay stuck in this cycle of misery because you're used to it. Here's the thing that you're going to realize when you get all of this down on paper, and you say, This is the hurricane. This is the stuff that's stirring up stuff inside me. This is where I'm putting my energy. I put so much energy into keeping this alive and in place because I'm constantly explaining all the reasons why I can't do anything about it. I'm constantly talking to myself about it. This is what the campaign of misery is, and that's why I want it on paper, because I'm here to tell you, you have way more power than you think you do.

You can change absolutely anything on that list. Anything that you are willing to identify, that you are able to write down. If you are able to look in the mirror and go, You know what? I see that I have a sword in my hand. I see that I feel the friction in this area of my life, and I fight with it. I have excuses around it. And here's what I want you to do. I want you to realize that anything that you put down on that list, you can make a decision to change it over the course of the next year. You are not stuck in a relationship or a marriage that does not work. You are not stuck in a job that makes you miserable. For my entrepreneurs and small business owners out there, you're not stuck with a business model or a business that is making you unhappier that's not working. Here is the harsh truth, and this is what I had to say to myself, Mel, you are more committed to your excuses about why you can't do these things, than you are about fixing it. And so if you're somebody that has on that list your weight or your health, I guarantee you, you have spent years telling yourself why it's never going to work for you, why you can't go to graduate school, why you can't get back out into the dating world, why you can't change your career now that you're in your 50s.

It is complete and utter bullshit. And you have to start to own your participation in your own unhappiness, just like I did. Because the fact is this: you can change your life by making a choice to change it. Instead of staying locked in that bank vault of your mind, spinning yourself into a hurricane, do something different. Instead of waking up every single morning and complaining to yourself, making yourself feel wrong, Oh, I drank too much again last night, choose to stop drinking. Like enough. Instead of complaining about how your friends are annoying you, choose to stop hanging out with people who are insecure or petty, or small-minded. Instead of complaining about your way, do something about it. Instead of constantly focusing on what's wrong, start focusing on what's right. Instead of being up in your head, catch yourself. Come back down to where you're your feet are. Open up the vault and let your presence flow. Be here so you can start to let the good in because you're missing out on your life. And the more time you spend up in your head complaining about it, or fighting against it, or arguing for your excuses, the more miserable you're going to be.

That is what the campaign of misery is. And whenever you feel that closeness rising up in you, drop the sword. Drop the sword. You don't need it right now. What you need to do is you need to visualize those swinging doors. You need to start spending your energy seeing what's going right, the 50% of it that's going in your direction, and then allow it to flow in. What Tina is asking is, how the hell do I change my mindset? How do I stop trying to find it outside of me? I don't even know how to begin to find it inside of me. In fact, you mentioned that you were depressed, and I was reading an article where you were interviewed, and you said that you were writing in a journal during this period, and the first entry you wrote was, I don't remember being happy, and I don't think I'll ever be happy again. And now you're like the world's guru of happiness. So in that moment, though, Sean, you had an experience that I think everybody has at some point. I'm not happy, and I don't think I'll ever be happy again. And so what What's the first thing that you would want somebody to know if that's where you are right now?

I think the very first thing I'd want is actually the recognition, because I wish I had known that earlier, that whole thing we're talking about. I think you're right. I think we all have that moment where you realize, I thought I'd be happy when, and it didn't work. But then if you ask somebody why they're not happy, they'll tell you about one of their externals, right? I'm not happy right now because I don't have a boyfriend. I'm not happy right now because I've got this guy at work. I'm not happy right now because I don't have enough money. So I think the very first step might be acknowledging it, that the human brain is designed to foil any attempt that success will guarantee happiness. Because every time you hit one of those targets, we change what we think would create happiness. I think the best example of that is actually the pandemic, because I think at the beginning of it, in the middle of it, everyone thought, think how happy we're going to be when the pandemic wanes. That's true. And the pandemic is waning, and we don't have that guarantee levels of happiness. And what we forgot was, there wasn't 100% levels of happiness before the pandemic.

I think the first is a recognition that this isn't working. From there, I think that it requires a mindset shift and a behavioral shift. In that article and in the work that I do, I research what we can do to create happiness when the world doesn't look like it should. And I think one important caveat to that is that while I'm talking about what we can do internally, that doesn't negate the need for external changes. We have systemic reasons while there's inequality, discrimination, racism that we should fight. Absolutely. I believe what gives us the power to fight that is the internal changes. And then everyone needs to do it, not just the people seeking happiness, right? The people who are being discriminatory need to do it, too.

So let's start with the mindset. What is one step, one simple step, that somebody who is sitting alone, like Sean, unhappy Sean, back in the mid 2010s writing, I don't remember being happy, and I don't think I'll ever be happy again. How the hell do you change your mindset? Because if you keep saying that to yourself, you're not going to be able to access happiness within.

Right. Well, I think there's something unique in that moment because I was attempting to do something about it because I'm trying to write in a journal to be happier. I'm just like, I don't think this is going to work, which we know from research, that's not a great mentality. You can predict the course of treatment based on whether or not you believe the doctor can heal you. So that was not an auspicious place to start.

Okay. So, Sean, are you telling us that what you're about to tell us to do is going to work. And we should believe in our ability to change our mindset and to take actions and to access happiness.

Yes. I would actually, I would wholeheartedly say that, not only because I've experienced myself, but then we've researched it ever since. I mean, what I've learned in this research is the depression was not the end of the story at all, and that even in the midst of a broken world, in fact, only in the midst of a broken world, have we ever been able to create happiness. So the question is, how do we do so? I think the starting point is realizing not only that our strategy wasn't working, but acknowledging that there are multiple realities in this moment. And one of them is, I don't have a boyfriend or girlfriend, or I don't have this money, or I don't have this job that I want, or I'm frustrated about whatever it is. I think when you acknowledge that that's true, you could say that's one reality, but there's also some other realities as well. Last week, I went to the hospital because I was having chest pain.

You were?

Yeah. I was in the ER. I missed my very first talk in two decades. And I realized in that moment, when they strip you of everything, and the doctor is going to knock on the door. When the doctor knocked on the door, I was like, this could change my life. It didn't. I was completely fine. But in that moment, my whole life changed. My whole life could have changed, and was completely disrupted within those moments. I think when we realized that there's multiple realities in that moment. One of them is, I missed a talk. I'm not with my family. I'm in a hospital I don't want to be in. That's true. On the other hand, I'm going home today. I'm going home to two kids that I love, and a wife that I love. Those are equally true, but in the same reality. And because my brain has a limited amount of resources, I need to choose, and I need to choose what I'm going to be focusing my brain on. There is so much negative in this world that I could spend the entire rest of my life focusing upon that and upon my fear, but that that doesn't serve me at all.

It's not a valuable reality for me. That in the midst of these multiple and true realities, I'm going to look at the ones and focus on the ones that are going to allow me to fix the negative parts of my life, or that are at least going to give me the optimism, the happiness, and joy to take the next step and the next step. In depression, I just needed a step forward. I felt like I just stopped moving. So I started doing these habits. And these are the habits that we know work. These are all the things you know about as well. Gratitude, for example. And I think that this would be my answer to someone sitting there and to that 26-year-old boy who is feeling this was in those moments, I needed to scan. I need to stop scanning for all the deficits in my life, and I need to use some of those finite resources to scan the world for the things that I was grateful for. And it was hard because my brain kept being like, yes, but what about this? What about this thing you don't have? So I had to literally train my brain, and we train it exactly like we've seen anything else with the human body, is I had to keep doing it.

I can't build a bicep if I only lift a weight once, then I'm done. I had to do it every day, and I had to create a pattern out of it, even when I wasn't sure it was going to work, and even when I could see no change in my life. I'd say, easily for the first two weeks, I saw no change in my life. I'm just sitting there trying to- Well, I wanted- Oh, go ahead.

You, sorry.

I'm just sitting there writing down things I'm grateful for, and my life still feels terrible. I remember breathing hurt when I was depressed because everything hurt. Everything didn't seem like it was worthwhile.

What kept you kept going?

So that's the thing. I don't get to talk about this much in any of the interviews, so I'd love to talk about this, too, because I think you're going deeper than some of the surface questions we normally get. I think that the habits are what pulled me out of depression. I write my gratitudes. I journal, I do exercise. I I write a two-minute kind note almost every day. I'd say 90 plus % days since my mid-20s. I know that when I don't do those things, it's like when I don't brush my teeth, I get this film in my mouth. That's what I feel like my world looks like when I don't do those habits. Those habits are the way the building blocks for creating happiness. But the turning point for me, which I never get to talk about, the turning point for me in all this was actually not me. My job was to make sure other people didn't get depressed. So I kept trying to be there for other I was just supposed to be this paragon of knowing what you were supposed to do in optimism. I kept going deeper and deeper in depression because I knew that there is a dissonance between what I was feeling and what I was showing to the world.

The turning point for me, and what actually got me to try to do those habits, was at the bottom of the depression for me, I turned to my eight closest friends and family and told them that I was going through depression. A A couple of these people were my competitors there at Harvard or my peers. I told them I was going through depression. I said, It's genetic. There's nothing you can do. My grandmother, grandparents, it's genetic. I just wanted to tell somebody. But immediately, the groundswell of support was phenomenal. They kept calling me. They emailed me. They met up with me, one of them brought me cupcakes. It's not what I did it, to get cupcakes. But as soon as I did that, everything changed. The reason for it was actually a study I found way later in my life. It was a study by these two researchers in Virginia, and they found that if you look at a hill, you need to climb in front of you. If you look at that hill by yourself, your brain shows you a picture of a hill that looks 20 to 30 % steeper when you're alone, compared to that hill that you look at of the same height while standing next to someone who you're told is going to climb the hill with you.

So I said that in a convoluted way. When you're alone, hills actually look 20 to 30 % steeper to the visual cortex, which is amazing because I I thought, we have this objective view of the world. That's bad. This is good. This is how tall that mountain is. And what we realized was, it was one of those matrix moments where I realized that the world is not objective, it's subjective. And that hill, those challenges are collapsing and expanding based upon whether or not you think you're radically alone going through this and trying to get out of this, or whether you're with other people. As soon as I did that, as soon as I opened up to other people, that was the turning point, because it was the move from happiness as a self-help idea to this recognition that happiness was not an individual sport at all. And suddenly that hill of overcoming depression in front of me dropped by 20 to 30 %. And they opened up about things they were dealing with. None of them was depression, but it was just challenges they were experiencing. And we started creating these meaningful narratives and social bonds that made me want to do the habits because there was something worth doing the habits for.

So it was a combination of habits and social connection and a mindset shift That allowed in that moment to break from this idea that nothing matters and that there's nothing that I can do that matters, and I have to just wait for the world to change.

Well, it makes perfect sense. And it reminds me of the fact that the surgeon general just had that op-ed piece that went viral yesterday about the epidemic of loneliness. And in his op-ed piece in the New York Times, he talked about his own struggle with it and how the turning point was him admitting, just like you did, to his college to his family, friends, and to a few colleagues that he was really struggling with this. And it was there checking in on him and them sharing back that they felt disconnected from social groups and from themselves as well after the last three years. That really was the turning point. But I love that you added that research because it is true. When you are down and sad and you feel like a sad sack that nobody wants to hang out with, that's the story you tell yourself. And that story then and the emotions that feel low make you keep isolating. And it's when you reach out that you change the behavior and you change the narrative. And then that provides a little bit of that intrinsic lift that you need, that maybe there is something I can do.

Maybe there is hope. I want to go a little bit deeper on this because you've been there, and I've been there, and lots of people listening have been there and are there right now. And so when somebody like you come in or I'm sitting here on the mic, it's so easy to be resigned and push everybody away and be like, Well, that's great for you, Sean, but you don't know what I'm going through. And I think this question, Andrew, it's actually number three. It's Sharmaine. Let's play Sharmaine's question because I think it's going to help us even go a little bit deeper to provide some hope, Sean, For somebody who's really feeling like, I've tried everything. Since my teen years, I've been asking myself, why am I here? What's my purpose? How do I create happiness within myself? I've made so much progress, yet right now I feel lost. I feel like a failure. I feel not good enough. I feel like I'm not a good girl. I feel like I'm not a good enough mom to my daughters. I feel selfish, I feel off course, and like I'm not living up to my potential.

I've done the work. I know this is coming from my limiting beliefs, trauma projections that I have taken on as truth. Yet, here I am, feeling lost, alone, and frankly stupid. I do understand the privilege I possess. I practice gratitude. I know I am blessed, and I do a lot of things right. I don't think I'm depressed. I'm not completely unhappy. So what the fuck am I? I'm in some goddamn vortex of nirvana and hell. Sean, what pops out of you?

So many things. First of all, how self-aware this person is, right? To be able, in the midst of this, to be able to identify the stages that they've been through, where they are currently, the recognition of the good, but also feeling like that they don't feel good enough, and that there's more potential. What I kept hearing in my head over and over again is, this sounds like me. This sounds so human. I think we fluctuate all the time between this, I've got things going, and then, wow, I certainly don't. If I have a really productive Monday, I get everything done, and I'm super cleaning the house. Tuesday and Wednesday are terrible. I'm exhausted. I don't want to do I feel like I waste every Tuesday and Wednesday whenever I have an amazing Monday. I think that that's because we swing, right? And I think what our hunger for is... If our hunger is for a mountaintop experience all the time, that we always know that we're loved, that we're always amazing, that we're always beautiful and the smartest person in the room. I think that that's an illusion and a false desire, because I think it's an accurate reflection that we are not We're not living up to our potential.

I think that that's true all the time. I think that I could be doing better as a dad. I could be doing better as a husband. I know that when I work really hard at being a great dad, I know I immediately look around at all the people, where they're doing amazing things at work, and I'm like, whoa, I'm so behind. Then when I do a ton of stuff for work or travel ever, then I'm like, oh, I should be a better dad. I swing back and forth between this. And I think what we need are those anchor points in the midst of it. And where are those anchor points come from? You had me on the show to join you because I research this, but I also went to the divinity school before getting into this. So what motivated my beliefs in why positive psychology mattered came from this belief that the story we tell ourselves and the lens to which we view the world changes how we act in it and where we find our meaning, and where we find that value. I think that those narratives, those belief systems, can answer some of those questions about how can I feel loved even when I'm not achieving my highest or my potential?

I think in the world, that's very difficult, because then we get on Instagram and we know exactly who's doing great, based upon likes, or based upon some quantification, or money can tell you who's doing great and who's not. None of those fill that void. So where those anchor points could come from? I think that they have to come from other people as well. There was a study that came out of Stanford that found that loneliness had nothing to do with actually the number of people within your life. Loneliness was simply the absence of meaning you felt in the relationships with other people, and their meaningful impact upon you. That if you weren't doing anything meaningful for other people's lives, then you didn't feel social connection for the people that are around you all the time. And vice versa. So if that's the case, if meaning is what's driving our levels of happiness, then I think we actually... My grandmother said it. She's like, If you want to be a friend, if you want a friend, you have to be a friend. And I was like, Okay, that's overly simplistic.

Not really, actually.

That's not working out for me. I can't be the girlfriend, right? In that moment, I didn't understand. Now I get it. What we're finding is that when people are experiencing that fluctuation back and forth, I think we're searching for meaning, and people search it in different ways. Religion, and philosophy, and psychology. I think that a lot of the things that we search for don't work out for us, which is why we get to the point where she's talking about where we feel this vortex of, I've got it, I don't have it. Got it, I don't have it. Because we're reaching on to things oftentimes, or illusory, while we're grabbing on to things that are true. My mentor, Talbind Shahar, said that, You're never as great as you think you are, and you're never as bad as you think you are. What I loved about that is that meant that there was a middle path in the midst of it. That sometimes when I think I'm a great speaker or whatever it is, then I get humbled very quickly by anything. Or if I think that I'm not doing great, then occasionally I'll get an email and it's like, Hey, this was really important to me.

That middle path was actually the one that I wanted to be in. It's this recognition and being okay with, I am not at my full potential, but that's okay. The reason that's okay is because I'm having a meaningful impact upon other people. That habit that I mentioned of writing a two-minute pause of email, praising or thanking someone else, I found that one to be probably the most helpful of any of the things I've research because you can take someone in a socially isolated state with high levels of introversion. If every day they scan for one new person to write a two-minute pause of email to, they stop on day eight unless we pay them $15. On day eight, that's when they realize fully that they're not a crazy extrovert with all these friends they could write to. They're like, I wrote to everyone my favorites list in my mom twice. That's everyone. And then they scan and they remember, who's that mentor who got me into this job? Or who's that high school teacher that seemed to have some answer to some of those questions that that person was just asking? Or what about my kid's first grade teacher who transformed my son's life, but I don't talk to them anymore because my kids are in second grade.

And you start to see all All these people that are in our lives that we're not connecting with. And a two-minute email thanking them or praising them or saying, I've seen how you've been going through breast cancer, and it inspires me that you're able to find happiness in low health when... I struggled to find happiness when I seemed to have higher health. That those moments, that just brief meaningful act using technology for two minutes, we found that if you do it for 21 days in a row, your social connection score rises up to the top 15% of people worldwide. That's including experts. What we found was that you were lighting up these nodes of meaningful connections on your mental map of social connection. That, I think if you look at the philosophers, I think if you look at religion, I think if you look at psychology, they keep breaking down this idea that you can achieve happiness alone, that you could just figure out your thoughts enough, and then you did it. You could just maintain your happiness. That happiness and meaning only We come from this interplay with the ecosystem with others around us.

I love that. Go ahead. If you're about to talk another study, go for it.

I just could tell one quick study. It's a beautiful one. It's not about humans. You probably heard this one. This was also in the New York Times as well. There was a study where they found all these fireflies. Fireflies everywhere light up individually and randomly in the dark, and that's how they attract them eight. And their success rate per night per bug is 3%, which I'm told is good. But these researchers found on opposite sides of the globe, these two species, one in Southeast Indonesia and one in the smoky mountains of Tennessee that you can take busses out to go see. These fireflies have these neurotransmitters that allow them to all light up and all go dark at the same time, which is beautiful, but not that smart, because we live in a survival of the fittest world. We're told be the fastest, smartest, brightest light shining, otherwise you'll never be successful. At MIT, they studied these fireflies, and they realized, we just understand how systems work. That when they lit up together seemingly with their competition, the success rate doesn't drop. The success rate goes from 3% to 82% per bug. It's not like one bug does better.

The whole system was doing orders the magnitude better than we thought was possible because as they lit up together, their light became brighter, and it was attracting more and more potential mates than a single light would have been able to do and create these virtuous cycles. We kept seeing the same thing when we looked at humans. We found that the greatest predictor of long term levels of happiness, as you know, one of the greatest predictors is social connection. It's the breadth of the meaning in your social relationships. So it's not something you could figure out in your head, and then you did it, and then you can hold happiness forever. It's about finding a way of lighting up with other people and getting them to light up as well.

So, Sean, what I love about what you just said, especially in response to that question from Charmaine, is that I was listening to her just tick off one negative, nasty critical thought after another. I could feel this heaviness, and then all of a sudden it occurred to me, wait a minute. I bet happiness is broken into two things. It is from the neck up, and it's the things that you tell yourself. But it is also, and probably way more important, that you think about the things that you're doing from the neck And that's where these habits come in, that if it's all doom and gloom from the neck up, you're not going to feel any motivation, hope, or interest in lighting up with everybody else. But if you can force yourself to start ticking off these simple habits that you recommend, that you practice, that you've researched, and you just highlighted the one of taking and making a two-minute note, just a two-minute note every single day for 21 days, it will have an impact in how you feel, which, of course, will start to shift all that shit you've been saying to yourself, which probably is stuff that you heard your parents say to themselves.

And so what I love about your research is that you're also making it actionable, because I think that's part of the problem, that when we feel shitty and we say shitty things to ourselves, we don't take the actions that actually change it.

Yeah. I heard one time I was on a plane, and the woman sitting, I I don't know, kiddy corner behind me and to the back, she said she was talking to somebody else, Lali, that she had just met about all these psychological understandings about herself. Like, literally a litany of all the psychological problems that she had. I realized, and she said she had been going to therapy for years, she had this incredible knowledge about herself and understanding where she was. At no point did she ever mention anything she was doing about it. She was talking to a about it, which was more trauma dumping than actually trying to move forward. But I think there's this moment where I really thought that if I read enough books, that I'd find happiness. I thought that if I read enough books, I'd be smart, and then people would like me. That was completely not true. I think that we take these paths, and I love what you're saying there, is that there's this interplay between the beliefs and the actions that we do. You see the same thing with religion, between between this faith and works. It's the things you believe, but if you say you believe those, but you're not doing any of those, I'm not sure you actually believe these things.

That there's got to be a connection between those. And what I would say is, in addition to that, is don't try to do it alone. I think that we treat happiness like self-help. I know our books are in self-help sections sometimes, right? But as soon as we do this on our own, without that friend, without that mentor, without those people that we're doing meaningful acts for, then we get frustrated very quickly and think we're doing something wrong. And what's wrong is actually the formula. Like, happiness never works out if it's an individual pursuit. And that's one of those other mindset shifts I think was crucial to find, that you can't Can you enough yoga to force yourself into happiness unless that yoga caused you to be more peaceful with that interaction with your mother-in-law?

That's like happiness applied. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I am so thrilled that you are here. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being here with me. Me. I'm so glad I get to teach this to you. I'm sharing the four lessons that I learned after auditing what has been one of the craziest years of my life. And I just shared the first lesson, which is drop the sword. It has to do with happiness. Now, let's talk about the second lesson. The second lesson is this. Forget about balance. Focus on boundaries. Like you, I have always been in the pursuit of trying to balance work, life, time for myself. And I'll tell you, last year was the year that I finally realized, Mel, screw balance. You need boundaries. See, here's the thing about balance. Especially if you want to be happier, you think, Oh, I need balance. I need balance. Well, balance is something you wish for. Boundaries are what you need to create. Another insight that I had about balance is that if you're busy seeking balance, you know what ends up happening? You literally put every part of your life in competition with every other part of in your life.

Because the word balance presumes that everything in your life has equal weight, otherwise it won't balance, right? Well, that's just not true. Here's what I've discovered, that seeking balance as a way to be happier or a way to have everything, it actually creates resentment in your life. For example, if work is really demanding, let's say you love your job, but it's been really demanding, and then you start to feel like your life is out of balance, what happens? You start to resent work. Or if you come home from work, and even Even though you're seeking balance, you're exhausted, and your kids just want to do something that you don't want to do, what do you do? You resent your kids. And here's why I love boundaries, because boundaries requires you to be responsible for how everything in your life will fit together. And boundaries I just get created based on, Well, what is my top priority and what are my needs in the moment? See, boundaries are an active choice. Boundaries require you to be self-aware. They require you to get in touch with what you value. Here's my biggest insight about Really focusing on boundaries this year.

Your boundaries are not for other people. They're not for anybody else. You create boundaries for you. I want to say this again. Your boundaries are for you because boundaries are where you are saying yes and where you say no. Boundaries highlight what's important to you and what's not important to you. Here's the other big takeaway I learned about boundaries. People are not mind readers. Boundaries only work if you're willing to communicate them. I'm going to give you two examples of how I just started forgetting about balance, and I started focusing on boundaries, and how that helped me create a better life and achieve goals during this year, where there's so many things going on. It was so crazy. Balance was a freaking joke, and trying to pursue it made me miserable. And by the way, great boundaries, this is what's crazy, make your life feel as though it's more in balance, because with boundaries, absolutely everything can fit in in a way that it's supposed to fit in, based on what's important to you. Let me give you an example. One of my goals for this past year was to be more present with my family.

Why? Because this was a year about healing and happiness. So I created a boundary with myself, and here it is. Mel, when you're home or you're with your family, your phone is not on your body. That was my boundary. So if we were out as a family, my phone is in my bag. If I'm at home, Do you know where my phone is? It's either in my bathroom, plugged in, or it is in the kitchen, plugged in. And look, if you've listened to this podcast or you've followed me on social media for a long time, or you've seen me speak at a big corporate event, you know that I have really good boundaries already with my phone because I don't sleep with it. I don't have it near me. I keep it in a different room, and I have that boundary in place so that I can get up in the morning and put myself first and have a great morning routine. But this year, I took boundaries with my I'm on the phone up an entirely new notch. I just don't have it on me when I'm with my family. And you want to know what?

It works. I feel like I spent a lot of time with my family. And you want to know the truth? I didn't spend any more time or less time with my family. Than I did the year before. I was just present during the time I was with them because of the boundary. And there's a lot of powerful research here. In fact, I think we need to do an entire episode on this. There's this thing that everybody's talking about, and there's a big New York Times article about it. It's called Fubbing, a. K. A. Phone snubbing. Just combine the word phone with snubbing for fubbing. It basically means you are snubbing the people that are sitting there right around you in real life when you are standing next to them and you're looking your phone. Here's the interesting thing about the research. Studies show that phone snubbing makes the people around you feel like they're being ostracized by you, and they also start to distrust you. Another study shows that if you start fubbing or snubbing people with your phone, it can lead to this ripple effect when you're with your family or your friends. I bet you've experienced this.

Let's just say that Chris is on his phone, and I'm waiting to talk to him, and I start to feel like, Oh, my God, he's ignoring me. He's standing next to me, and he's busy scrolling through social media. So what do you end up doing? You just pick up your phone and you start scrolling, too. Well, this year I did not do that, at least not as much as I used to. And I'll tell you, this boundary was so cool because it made me realize how great it is to be more present with the people that you love, and how often it's just the damn phone that keeps you from doing it. And the truth is, it would never have happened without a boundary. If I had just said, I need balance between work and home, it wouldn't have happened. I'm going to give you another example because boundaries are so powerful. I set another boundary with my health. So I I am really committed to improving my gut health and balancing my hormone health. You may already know this, but in case you don't, I am in the throes of menopause, and I feel like my body is changing because it is changing.

All the things that I used to do in terms of my habits and what I eat and how I exercise, they're just not working. I'm freaking frustrated by it. Like you, every single time we have a great expert on the Mel Robbins podcast, I learn so much. I want to give a shout out to Amy Shaw because I learned so many amazing things about gut health from her. She appeared three different times on the Mel Robbins podcast. And one of the favorite things that she taught me was the research around caffeine, adenosine, and the brain, and also the research about how your estrogen, like absorption for hormone health, has a ton to do with your gut health. And when I learned all this, it inspired me to create a boundary with coffee in in the morning. I know, sounds weird. Just hear me out. But I used to be the person that when I would wake up, I would drag myself, like army crawl, my way to the coffee maker. I would slam a cup of coffee before anything else hit my lips. I don't do that anymore. Because of science. Now, I wake up, I drink 16 ounces of water first thing in the morning, and I have a boundary.

I do not have coffee until at least 90 minutes into the day, oftentimes later. I usually I usually only have coffee with breakfast, not on an empty stomach. And on most days, that's the only cup of coffee I have. And I got to tell you, this is a huge positive change for me. I used to drink 4-5 cups of coffee a day. And with these changes, I do feel healthier. I do feel less bloated. And the crazy part is, I feel more energized and focused with just one cup of coffee because of the science and because of adenosine. Now, if you want to learn more about this research, and you missed the one where she was talking about it, just follow this podcast, because the very next episode that I'm releasing is about the 8 Small Habits that I learned from experts on the Mel Robbins podcast over the past 12 months. And we share that amazing research from Dr. Amy Shaw in the episode that's coming next. All right. Speaking of coming next, let's hit the pause button. I want you to hear a word from our sponsors because they allow me to bring you not only this podcast, but all the things that we do at cost.

I love our sponsors, so take a listen. When we come back, I'm going to be waiting for you, and I'm going to be ready to tell you the final two lessons that I learned the hard way so you don't have to. Don't go anywhere. Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. I'm so glad you're here because I got two more lessons to teach you from one of the craziest years of my life. So just to quickly recap, the first one was about happiness, dropping the sword and allowing more happiness in. The second lesson that we just covered was, Forget balance, focus on boundaries. Third lesson. I love this one. You ready? Frustration is a very good thing. Yep, I said it. Frustration. This is a big lesson I learned this year. Frustration is not a sign that things are terrible. Frustration is a sign that you're growing. I have to laugh as I share this lesson with you because if you think about what I was saying in the beginning, I told you that I always have to learn things the hard way. One of the reasons why these lessons feel so hard to me is because I always feel so frustrated about some aspect of my life right before I get it.

What I'm realizing is, of course you do, Mel. It's hard to learn life lessons because you feel frustrated, and you're frustrated because you're growing. You hadn't gotten the lesson yet. Here's the takeaway that I just want to hand to you like a gigantic gift. Frustration is a good thing because It just means you've outgrown some aspect of your life, and you're not meant to stay in a place or a situation or in a system that no longer suits you. That's why you're frustrated. And before the break, remember that I said I was frustrated with my body because all the habits that I had in my 40s were no longer working now that I'm in menopause? Well, frustration is just a sign that I've outgrown the habits that I had in my 40s. And now that I'm in my 50s, I need to up-level my habits. That's all know what it means. This lesson is critical. I want you to think about the five main areas of your life: health and wellness, career money in school, relationships, love and friendship, fun and happiness, purpose, spirituality, and meaning. Any time you feel frustrated with your health, or work, or school, or money, or with any relationship, or even with the sense of just that something's missing, that sense of not having purpose.

Let me tell you, that frustration that you're feeling is good. You're not going to stay stuck there. You only have frustration because you've outgrown something. That's it. So stop making it so personal. Stop telling yourself you're broken. You're not broken, you've just outgrown something. And when you make frustration personal, like something's wrong, something's wrong. No, something's got to change. Stop aiming at it yourself. Frustration is just a signal that something isn't working. And boy, I have felt frustrated most of this year. And looking back, I now know why. And it's ironic that I felt frustrated on the year I was working healing and happiness, but it is what it is. Here's why I felt frustrated, because this was a year of hyper, hyper, hyper growth for me, especially at work. And so let's apply the lesson. If you think about frustration as a good thing, that's step one. Now what you can do is you can look for what is the opportunity to grow. I want you to follow a method that I use. I created this. I call it the three P's. You ready? The three P's stand for Project, Process, People. So in any area of your life where you're frustrated, number one, turn this into a project.

Do not make this personal. Frustration is a sign. You've outgrown something, so you're going to turn it into a project, okay? Number two, you're going to ask yourself, Okay, what process is broken? A process is the way in which you're doing something. It could be the way you communicate. It could be the way that you organize yourself at work. It could be the way that you operate in It could be a meeting. It could be any process that you're in. There is a process when you're frustrated, that you have been following that just no longer works for you. It doesn't match where you're going. That's why you feel frustrated because the process is stunting something about your growth. The third P, I want you to look around at the people that you're around. Here's the catch. The most important person in the equation when you're frustrated is you. You're going to ask yourself, Am I frustrated because of Am I outgrown the people that I'm around? Or am I frustrated because I've outgrown the dynamic? Let me give you a personal example. Our daughter, Kendall, just flew home from Los Angeles literally yesterday, and she's 23, and she and I are so similar.

If you listen to any of the family episodes, particularly the one where we shared four secrets of a successful relationship, what I learned from a fight with my daughter, that's the one where we were laughing at each other, you're like, Fighting like this and whispering so that we didn't remember. Well, sure enough, she was here for about an hour, and we were already at each other. I am so frustrated by her dynamic. It has been this way for years. Here's what it means. It just means that there's something that I need to shift in the process of how the two of us interact with one another. And guess what? If I focus on myself, there are so many things that I can do. I can drop the sword, so I can stop bracing, which shifts the energy, which softens me. I can use the let them theory. That's a great way not to get pulled into the dynamic and to create space for something else. Here's another example of an area that I've been frustrated with: work. I worked way too much this year. I talked a lot about this, but let me just share a little bit.

I never expected the podcast to be this successful out of the gate. I mean, it was not the big goal. My goal this past year It was like happiness and healing. I was not like, I'm going to work like crazy and dominate and pop. That's not what happened. The truth is, I even feel bad feeling frustrated about it because I love this podcast. I love working with my team on this podcast. I love talking to you twice a week. I hate that it has been very frustrating. And before I tell you why it was frustrating, I want to make sure I thank you because all of this runaway My success is because of you and because of our team, but it's mostly because of you. You made the Mel Robbins podcast, the number five most followed podcast of the entire year on all of Apple podcasts. It's your shares, your listens, the amount of time that you have spent with me. I mean, this doesn't happen. What you did, this is unheard of because this is not a celebrity show. They're not famous people stopping by here promoting their stuff. And I'm not a famous sports figure dating the world's biggest pop superstar talking to my brother.

I love those guys. But I'm like a 55-year-old mother of three, and I'm not trying to undersell myself. I know I've done amazing things, but I never launched my own podcast. I didn't expect this level of success. And I'll tell you, there have been times this year where it has been exhilarating. It is so exhilarating to be 55 years old and trying things you've never done. It is so exhilarating to be this creative. It is so exhilarating to make an impact in your life. And you know what else it's been? Freaking frustrating. Crazy, frustrating, and overwhelming to work like 90 hours a week for an entire year, especially when I had made a commitment to heal and be happy. It's crazy frustrating to feel like you're always behind, to feel like you're always reinventing the wheel, to constantly be trying to figure things out because you've actually never done this before. And what I know is that any place that you're frustrated, this is a A huge lesson this year. Over and over and over again, I would say to myself, It's not you. Stop aiming this. I'm not frustrated with myself. I am frustrated with the feeling like, I know I need to upgrade how I'm working.

Remember what I said at the top? You have to slow down. If you're in a moment in your life where you're frustrated about something, you feel like you're getting run over by your marriage or the situation with your parents or work or school, you have to slow Slow down. Because when you slow down and you stop making this personal and you stop punishing yourself, what you will realize is exactly what we have realized, that our small but mighty amazing team has completely outgrown all the processes and systems that we use to launch the podcast. Recognizing frustration as a sign of growth allows you to step back, allows you to be strategic instead of emotional. It allows you to We have a problem. That's what we've done. It's why we've opened these new studios in Boston. In fact, you might have even heard a little while ago, some of the construction that's happening outside, because we haven't even soundproof the room yet. I thought it'd be so cool to be in this really cool area of Boston, and I forgot. Mel, Boston is not exactly Vermont, where our studio is in a place above my garage, where I only need to worry about when Mike, the UPS driver, pulls in and our dog, Yolo, goes bananas.

Here? Holy cow. There There are buildings going up everywhere. But whatever. And knowing that I don't have to see frustration as a sign that we're failing. I can see frustration as a sign that we're growing. And this is a really important lesson for you to embrace, particularly at work and when you're learning something new. Because when you're learning something new or you're in a hyper-growth period in work or with your side hustle, you will feel like you're out over the tips of your skis. And it can make you feel like, I'm not good at this. I'm screwing this up. I do not want you to think about it that way. Instead, here's the lesson. The next time you're frustrated, think, Oh, wait a minute. Okay, I'm frustrated because I don't have the support and assistance that I need to get me where I'm going. So how do I take a step back and slow down and create the systems and support that will represent where I want to get to, not where I am right now. And by the way, exact same lesson in your life. Think about habits. What are habits? Habits are just systems and processes in your life that you repeat.

So if, for example, you're frustrated with your health and you're frustrated with your inability to stick to things that you want to do to make yourself healthier, instead of aiming that at yourself, You're like you're some loser that's never going to get this right, forget that. You just have outgrown the systems and processes that you use. That's it. It's not about you. It's about the systems. Maybe you need a different process for how you buy groceries, How do you stock the fridge? Maybe you need different foods in there. Maybe you need to adopt one of my favorite all-time processes when it comes to making a new habit stick. Write it on a Post-it note, stick it on your mirror. Maybe you need a new morning routine. That's a process, by the way. It's a process you follow every single morning. If yours no longer supports you, don't worry about it. In fact, in a few episodes, I'm going to hammer you about what you need to do every morning, and I'm going to help you make it easier. Here's the bottom line. When you feel frustrated, good, good. It's a sign that you're growing. It's a sign that you need to update systems.

It's a sign that you need to either change the people you're around or change the way you're around the other people. Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.