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

what do you do when it feels like your mind has actually turned against you and there's two reasons why I want to talk to you about this today first of all it feels awful when you talk to yourself in a way that just brings you down and second your brain is a super computer your brain can help you get what you want if you know how to use it correctly and nobody teaches you this stuff at least nobody taught me so that's why you and I are going to talk about this today I'm going to

teach you the five simple things that help me and that are going to help you let go of the negative thoughts five simple things that create a more positive way of looking at yourself and by the way these are also the exact same five things that will train your brain to help you get what you want in life so whether you're excited to learn this because you're just so sick and tired of beating yourself up and dragging yourself down or maybe you've got big goals and you're like Mel tell me how to get my mind

to work for me so that I can get what I want well well I'm going to cuz that's exactly what we're talking about today five simple things that will redirect all your mental energy toward happiness success and self [Music] transformation 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 are 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 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 like 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 you know I always am very intentional about why I want to talk to you about certain things 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 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 and as we're having this conversation it reminded me of a story that I've shared on this podcast

and I shared in some interviews that I've done you know 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

is 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 motherdaughter dynamic and we're very close but we've always kind of had this friction 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 weeks with an analysis of what you know you're seeing and I expected this to take like two weeks now mind you I'm very

different than my daughter Sawyer I mean I've got like this crazy artistic ADHD brain and Sawyer thinks in Excel spreadsheets before working for me and working with me she worked at a huge cyber security firm that is in 44 countries and was in like the digital marketing and marketing Tech side of that business and so here she is taking on This research search project for me on the side and I'm expecting this thing to take two or 3 weeks I'm expecting the result to be like a briefing that is going to be a couple pages

long she hands me 36 hours later a 207 page like I don't even know how to describe the way this thing was organized it was like columns with colorcoded tabs and links to the source material and she had a two-page synopsis of her analysis of all of the sentiment online and she had identified all these things that needed further re I mean it was jaw-dropping my brain just doesn't work like that my brain is like 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 super computer at she aims it at herself 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 because 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 neurop pathways connecting and firing and wiring together like it is doing its thing it's keeping you breathing it's keeping you your body temperature in a certain place all while you're doing this and that's just like a a scratch to 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 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 as 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 like 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 a instrument or it might be when you're out on a hike and you're just so hyper presentes 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 like all these amazing things how is it that you and I can take that truth because I think you're with me I can kind of feel you with me like oh my god I've never thought about it that way it's true Mel like 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 at 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 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 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 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 what's available to you and I didn't understand any of this until several years ago 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 okay 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 like 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 we've already talked about the supercomputer and the fact that you've got this brain between your ears that is designed to learn patterns it's designed to grow it's designed to Fire and wire information together and program it in your

mind it's designed to filter the world it's actually designed to help help you get more of what you want and we're going to talk more about that in a little bit and that's a cool thing have you ever in your life had the chance to spend time with like a golden retriever or a labrador you know one of these dogs that from the moment they come into this world as a puppy there is something hardwired in their DNA to just fetch you throw a ball and you don't even have to train a Labrador or a

golden retriever or some of these other kind of hunting breeds I guess call them they will just go right after that ball that you throw bring it right back you throw it again they bring it right back it's like they are programmed to chase down a ball that you throw they are programmed to chase it down and to retrieve guess what your brain is designed to do the exact same thing I'm G say that again your brain is like a Labrador Retriever or a golden retriever it is hardwired to actually chase down something that you

directed 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 right is to actually give your brain something to chase down and focus on think about it like you need a 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 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 laborator 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 you know this it wants something to gnaw on it is Bored like have you ever noticed too like 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 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 and that brings me to skill number one 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 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 best-selling 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 but you're going to hear Martha Beck talking about the fact that you know 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 like being focused on the world and solving problems you're now tearing yourself down you've made yourself a problem right 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 and when we've known forever that anxiety shuts down creativity so I started thinking what if it works the other way too cre creat creativity shut down anx interesting so if you like if I take a client and I do something very simple like plan a meal for tomorrow right so say you're having a dinner party start planning right now your brain start to think I'm going to do steak on theer 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 and anxiety is quet and it does shut did that work just now it it does work it works like that yeah same thing with knitting or with your hands or where you're figuring something absolutely and anything creative that you you should be a you should start doing yeah and people say I'm not creative I'm not creative right 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 whatever 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 super computer focuses on you and because it's a problemsolving machine it typically is looking for problem 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 like just start planning the meal for tonight open up a cookbook and start flipping through it and now what are you 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 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 like she's got so much horsepower up stairs and so to 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 right and just kind of reclaim the space 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 exer turns down negative selft talk what's 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 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 super computer is a little happier because

it's able to chase a ball 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 brain power on strengthens your overall mental health goals give you Direction and purp purpose goals help you navigate challenges because it actually gives your mind something to focus on which helps you build resilience against stress and emotional struggles and you know 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 un precedented levels of stress and we know that based on the medical experts that we talk to on this show all the time that the levels of chronic stress that people are experiencing are at unprecedented levels and it would have 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 like 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 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 super computer 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 skill number two is something that you may have heard me talk about before this is a habit of mine I use it every single day in my life I am not kidding it is a habit that has helped me wire my brain for Success because it is a way that I

train my mind to see what I want to see and seeing what you want to see in the world it's not some woo woo stupid like nonsense this is hard science I actually wrote about this in my New York Times best-selling 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 number two skill number two my daily habit is look for hearts I know what you're thinking what does that mean M 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 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 I want you to just kind of scan the environment and see if somewhere around you I've already spotted two where I am right now I'm going to describe them 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 like 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 uh magnets and they're all clust at the bottom of the Whiteboard and a bunch of the magnets are together and they're actually in the shape of a heart uh 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

oh 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 r 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 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 re 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 neurosur from Stanford that appeared on the Mel Robbins podcast by the name of Dr Jim Dodie 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 6 to 10 million bits of information come at your mind body and spirit every single second

6 to 10 million your brain can't handle that neither can your body Dr Dodie says that your conscious brain can only handle between 50 and 100 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

hair net 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 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're 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 filters 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 it's sort of like you know 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 know 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 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 I have learned how to take that supercomputer between my head and stop aiming it at myself and aim it out and to program it to help me spot coincidences and to help me spot things that are going my way because when you start to spot things that are going way you start to spot more things that are going your way just like you're going to notice that oh my gosh Mel now that I saw one heart I see them

everywhere same here why because I've told my brain to you know 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 is it actually leverages the power of your mind to problem solve and to start to work for you and I got to start with baby steps here like 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 you know as I write in this book you know 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 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 freaking cool is that and that brings me to Tool number three and Tool number three is all about manifesting and again

just like looking for hearts this is not fairy dust and woooo this is hard science and I mentioned a Stanford neurosurgeon and neuroscientist by the name of Dr Jim Dodie well I'm going to bring Dr Jim doie into this part of our brain training session because as I said earlier he's not only a professor a New York Times bestselling author he's a world-renowned expert on the Neuroscience of manifestation he also is a neurosurgeon who operates on the brain I mean this guy understands the science and he has this extraordinary way of explaining what manifestation is

and manifestation in the words of Dr Dodie is just quote the ability to take an intention and embed it into your subconscious in a manner such that it has the greatest likelihood to occur in other words words Dr Dodie teaches people around the world and he's about to teach you this that you can through intentional actions fire and wire your neurop Pathways together to make your supercomputer in your brain help you that's what this is manifesting isn't Magic and woowoo 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 Dodie into the conversation because Dr Dodie is not only going to explain this at a scientific level for you and he's 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 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 so it is my absolute honor to be able to introduce you to Dr Jim Dodie and have you spend a little bit of time learning from him check this out if you have an intention you take a pencil you write it down you actually doing something physical tactile then you read it silently then you read it aloud then you visualize that

and you do that over and over and over again what that will do is then embed that into your subconscious and then these different cognitive brain networks get activated now can we unpack that just a minute sure because everyone that listens to this loves to make sure that they just got the instructions from you Dr Dodie cuz I'm like hanging on every word and so there were a couple steps to that because you had the physical pencil you had the act of writing you had this moment where if you're watching on YouTube you saw it

but if you're listening let me describe it he he sat back in his chair he put his hands kind of in prayer at his chest closed his eyes and he started talking about repeating the thought is that the chain of events and that you do to encode it in your mind yes absolutely so we so what is will you walk us through it one more time yes so again what you want to do is to use all of your sensory organs as much as possible to embed that intention so by writing it down by reading

it aloud by visualizing it that creates the process where this gets embedded and into your subconscious and what happens is once you get this embedded it activates Ates different parts of your brain and without getting too technical one is something called the default mode network is that the same thing as the reticular activating system no okay but they're related okay so the default mode Network yes so this is what happens when your mind wonders uh or you're daydreaming and it's self-referential because it's internally focused but it's where you create The Narrative of Who You Are

or what you want so if you have negative selft talk if you ruminate if you are like I'm never good enough uh nothing works out for me things like that don't happen to a person like me I can never get it right that is in the default mod absolutely and that gets really activated and results in rumination for some people can I ask you another question because one of the things that you said at the very very beginning is you painted this gorgeous picture of the ability to Leverage The remarkable power of your brain to

help you get what you truly desire in life to help you live in heart mode and you said it's just about believing it and part of the reason why we have trouble believing it is because of the default mode Network and all of these stories you've repeated over and over and over again is that is that fair to say no that's exactly uh correct and and can we can reprogram or we can lay down a new track oh absolutely and it's available uh 247 and it doesn't matter what's happened to you before you know so

many people get fixated well I don't deserve this because of we all deserve it so once this gets embedded and you create The Narrative of who you want to be or how you see yourself what you're doing is you're creating salience okay what's that word mean it means making it important okay once something is important this activates what we call our task positive Network and the task positive network has three parts it has the salience network it has the attention Network and then it has the executive control Network and once something is Salient what you're

basically saying is this deserves my attention and by doing it in a very specific way then that becomes important to you that gets embedded into your subconscious as something to pay attention to once that is defined as something important to you then that activates your attention Network so that then you cognitively focus your attention on whatever that intention is okay once those are activated and uh I use the analogy in the book it's as if you've have a file cabinet and you put this file into the file cabinet that says important stuff and once that

is there then the attention network is activated which is as an example a blood hound that is says okay now there's something there I need to track this down and figure out what's going on here then you activate the blood hound and then that gets released and then once that attention is focused then it starts looking around through all the possibilities in your environment and as soon as it identifies one then your executive control network is activated which in some ways is the thing that chases down what is in your subconscious and uh uh this

is how it works there is no magic here this is fundamentally basic neuroscience and it's something that we all have the ability to master by just doing these techniques whereby you are able to embed your intention you do it over and over and it's not as if one and done and what I mean by that is some people wake up and this is like a New Year's resolution I'm going to do this uh January 1 and then January 1 comes and you already fail the first day you have to not have excessive expectations at first

what I mean by that is these are based on habit what what happens with habit you start small you don't sit there and say I'm going to lose 100 pounds in the next month you say I'm going to try to modify my diet where I'm not drinking sodas that's the first little one and each of these little winds strengthens you to actually then do the big thing ultimately so you don't start by running a marathon on day one you start by getting up out of bed and walking around the block don't you just love Dr

Jim Dodie I freaking love him I I always feel smarter when I listen to him and he just shared so much that I want to unpack it all with you and I want to put it in the language that you and I have been using since we started this conversation because what Dr Jim Dodie just did as a neuroscientist and a neurosurgeon is he broke down absolutely every aspect of what I've been talking to you about did you catch that but he put it in terms of the different networks and the functioning of your brain

and so I want to just highlight and repeat a couple things okay so as he explained the way that your mind worked and he went through the mechanics of manifesting which as he said the same thing I said this is not woowoo it's not fairy dust this is hard science this is intentionally embedding information in your brain and by intentionally embedding information in your brain you are activating certain aspects of your brain to work for you and I'm going to unpack all of this because he basically just explained why having projects is super important because

it activates the task positive Network in your brain he referred to it as a blood hound I called it a golden retriever it's that instinct that executive functioning that focusing of your attention on something outside of you that's a good thing and you can train your brain using the method he just talked to us to be able to do it which is how you're going to train your brain to work for you you're going to get that blood hound or that golden retriever to chase down what you want instead of turning itself at you and

he went through this process and I'm going to repeat it for you whereby you can intentionally through repetition and by being intentional you can encode a default way of thinking and it could be anything I'm going to give you an example from my own life so I used to be a person that struggled a lot with anxiety I used to see the negative I used to be constantly worried what if this happens what if that happens what if the other thing happens and I don't think like that anymore I have used the tools that we've

been talking about to reprogram my brain to have a different default thinking which is I always think either well what if this all works out because I don't know in a moment of worry whether it works out or not so why not consider as your default what if this works out I also as a default have programmed into my mind I believe that this moment is leading me somewhere that I'm meant to go it's either teaching me something or it's giving me a skill or a lesson that I need and I don't know why I

need this but at some point in the future I believe that I'll look back on this moment and I'll know why this happened it's a way to kind of have faith and this kind of trust and Assurance in myself to be able to face life's challenges I have intentionally programmed that into my mind how do you do it you do it exactly as Dr Dodie just walked you through he said you take out a pencil you write down what you want to believe I believe I'm capable of success I believe I am worthy of love

I believe that the love of my life is around the corner I believe believe that this moment is temporary and the future is brighter I believe that I'm stronger than I think you can write down anything you want to believe about yourself you can write down that I'm beautiful you could write down that I'm working very hard and my hard work is going to pay off and all I need to do is just keep my head down and keep being a kind person and working hard and things are going to work out and Dr Dodie

says take out a pencil write down the statement that you want to believe about yourself after you write it down you're going to read it to yourself then you're going to say it out loud and what did he just teach us that if you do this over and over you wake up every day and you pick up the pencil and you write it down and you read it to yourself and then you read it out loud through repetition you are intentionally embedding this belief about yourself and he then explained to you and me and I

think this is so exciting the different parts of your brain networks that are activated number one by writing it down you're making it important number two through the repetition you're actually embedding the intention in your subconscious right what does that do well remember when we talked about looking for hearts it's the same thing by telling yourself that you want to see a heart you're making it Salient you're making it important you're telling the reticular activity system that seeing Hearts is important to you same thing with a positive attitude same thing with believing that things are

going to work out for you isn't that kind of cool so now the filter changes because you're embedding this and then what happens he talked about the focus and attention Network that's this filter that's you directing the super computer in your mind to filter out anything that is unrelated to this thing you want to believe and for me it's literally what if it all works out it's this belief that if I just show up every day and I do my best and I'm a kind person and I just do the Reps and put in the

work eventually things work out and I do believe that because I have used this process to embed that belief and then what happens is when you use the process you make it important through repetition you embed it in your mind you then are changing the RAS which is all about focus and attention now you're triggering what he called the task positive Network that's the blood out in your mind I call it the golden rot rever boom it's now actively chasing down anything that is related to this thing that you want that's how it works based

on the science and that also covers all of the things we've talked about so far having a project and the research about how that aims your brain at something rather than having your problem solving aimed at you number two we talked about looking for hearts and this is exactly what Dr Dodie is talking about when he's talking about embedding a belief and changing the filter and activating this task Network to find things for you third we've just talked about the neuroscience and the mechanics of manifesting and how you cement in new thinking and you program

your brain to work for you fourth let's jump into this one because this is a simple suggestion for how you can put it all together and this suggestion is called how you direct your thinking with one sentence and what I love about this skill is this comes from another world-renowned medical doctor and one of the world's leading experts on the brain itself I'm talking about none other than Dr Daniel aan he has scanned 225,000 brains including mine he has scanned brains of patients from 155 countries not only that but he's written 12 New York Times

bestselling books on the brain and brain health he is a psychiatrist for 40 years he is the founder and chief executive officer of the aiman brain clinics and he's also the founder of change your brain Foundation brain MD and the amiman university this is a busy guy which means he knows not only about brain health he knows how to Leverage The Power of your brain and so I wanted you to get to learn from him this is something that he shared with me when he was on the Mel Robbins podcast and it's the four skill

I want you to start practicing it is one sentence that you can say in the morning and one sentence that you can say at night that leverages everything that you have just learned from Dr Jim Dodie to embed a positive mindset so let's take a listen and learn together from Dr Daniel aan check this out so I start every day with today is going to be a great day because once you get the physical fun functioning of your brain healthy you then have to program it and so I knew I was going to talk to

you it's first thing it came up in my mind so I start every day and if you have children it's really good to do this at breakfast which is if you have breakfast is so why is today going to be a great day for you directing your mind which for many people because of evolution um they wake up in a negative state it puts your brain in a positive State and then my favorite of all the habits I do is when I go to bed at night I say a prayer and then I go what

went well today and I go on a treasure hunt and I actually start from the very moment I woke up looking for what was right about the day and I've done this now seven or eight years and even the night my dad died about two and a half years ago and it was an awful awful day uh I did it because it was my habit right the brain is lazy it does what you nudge it to do and so it really helped me even in a really hard time but it's almost my favorite time of

the day because like you I'm busy busy and great things will happen and I'll just not really focus on it but it's that treasure hunt that is is just so good here's what I love about what Dr Daniel aan just shared with us this is so simple I'm just going to repeat it every morning I got to look ahead at the day I got to activate the blood hound and I got to look for things that are going to make it a great day and guess what happens with your brain your brain is so smart

that it'll find whatever you're asking for and so when you give it that project to look ahead and you unleash the blood hound and the golden retriever it's going to find reasons that today is going to be a great day and then at night as you lay your head down on the pillow and you say to your brain well what went well today you just did the same thing again and what I love about this simple sentence in the morning and at night is that it's not only a way to program your subconscious to reflect

on the positive it's a way to train your brain to direct it to activate that task Network that Dr Dodie was talking about that blood hound and the golden retriever in there to go find it and the more that you prompt yourself to see what went well or what's going to go great the more you're going to see the good things that are happening that you currently don't and I have found that this works beautifully in my life because there's a ton of great things that happen and there's small things but we don't look for

them and when you don't look for them you don't see them and when you don't see them you miss what's actually happening in your life and there's a lot of good even when things are terrible there's a lot of good that's happening in your life if you ask your brain to help you see it and that's a simple way that you can do it all right that brings us to the final fifth thing and this fifth thing is literally just quieting your mind you I think one of my biggest problems is at the end of

the day my brain has been so busy working or just running or thinking that if you really stop and think about it how do you shut your brain down well if you're a normal person you probably either start watching TV or you pick up in you doom scroll with your phone or next thing you know you might be pouring a drink to try to turn your brain off I've certainly done that in the past but what if there was a different option what if you could just use something like the let them Theory and understand

that your thoughts kind of come and go they rise and they fall and what if you could just let the thoughts rise and not grip onto them what if part of your windown routine at the end of the day before your head hits the pillow and you say what went well today is you just let your mind slowly quiet like I just want you to really take this in for me because there's a lot of research around how mindfulness which is not quieting of the mind but it's really just kind of observing your thoughts without

attaching yourself to them oh interesting I'm still thinking about work oh interesting that news headline just popped in my mind oh interesting now I'm thinking about picking up my phone you just let the thoughts rise without giving them any weight you know one of my favorite meditations I don't know who told me this so I don't know who to credit and it's it involves littering so now I'm of course going to make myself wrong for doing this but this is just visual we're not actually doing this is thinking about your thoughts as they rise up

especially negative ones something Rises up oh I wish I would have said that oh that went well that went bad whatever as if you were casting them on a piece of paper into a raging River and you just watch them float Downstream and I find that to be super effective because I'm just letting the thoughts rise without giving them weight and I'm watching them float away and what's interesting is there's a brand new study about how effective this is mindfulness just being mindful of the thoughts as they rise without attaching yourself to it and this

study was just published in the Journal of mindfulness its research that comes out of Lawrence University and Goucher College that basically found that being present and practicing techniques where you just let your thoughts rise and fall they help you steer clear of negative thought loops and that leads to a brighter and more positive outlook they've actually found that you know if you're somebody that ruminates a lot which is where you dwell on negative feelings and you dwell on what's going wrong it can worsen symptoms of depression and you can stay stuck there it's almost like

when the dog you know goes number two don't step in it notice it and walk past it you can do the same things with your thoughts and I find that the let them theory is super helpful when I just say to myself just let the thoughts come don't attach and then let me remind myself I'm not my thoughts and now you've got another let me part because you now understand that supercomputer in your brain you understand that you also have the ability to give yourself a project especially something creative if you just occupy your hands

and you occupy your mind with something that is creative or a project or some ball that you can chase down as we've been discussing over and over that's going to help another thing that you can do is you can remind yourself to look for hearts which activates that filter in your brain and reminds you that your mind is trying to help you see the the things that are important to you you have to remind your mind what's important to you how do you do that remember the third skill manifesting Dr Jim Dodie walked us through

how it works and how you can do it through repetition just write it down read it say it out loud repeat it that's the process you also learned about this trick from Dr Daniel aan one sentence in the morning why is today going to be a great day your mind is like a blood hound or golden retriever if you direct it like throwing a ball why is today going to be a great day your mind will chase down an answer for you it's pretty cool when you start to really Embrace what I'm telling you and

finally let the thoughts rise let the thoughts fall because you have more power than you believe it has been so liberating and empowering and exciting when I finally took all these tools and started to use them in my life and I'm so excited to see what happens to you when you Embrace these five simple skills and you start using them in your day-to-day life and I'm certain here's what you're going to find and here's what the people that you share this episode are going to find that this is how you can take control of your

mind this is also how you let go of negative thoughts and you program in more positive default thoughts and this is also how you redirect all of your mental energy to happiness positivity success and self transformation and one more thing I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I am so excited for you because absolutely everything that you learn today it works it's simple to understand it's simple to use and I think you're going to start feeling different and seeing the world and yourself differently really

quickly like your brain is a super cool thing because it has the ability to change and you now know simple ways you can program it every single day to work for you and I can't wait to see what happens in your life when you do all righty I'll be waiting for you in the very next episode in fact I'm going to be waiting to welcome you into it the moment you hit play I'll see you there and I want to thank you for being here with me on YouTube for watching all the way to the

end I think it's so cool that you're spending time watching something that can help you live a better life help you have a better mindset help you be a more positive person and to learn how to make your brain work for you and so thank you for investing in yourself and thank you for being here and thank you for sharing this and being generous with this information with the people that you care about and one more thing because I know that you support people who support you one of my goals is that 50% of the

people that watch this channel are subscribers it is free to subscribe subcribe and it really supports me and my team and when you subscribe it tells me oh my God I love this kind of content Mel bring me more of it and that helps us bring you new videos every single day and access to world renowned experts for free how cool is that so thanks for doing that and I know you're thinking okay this was amazing what do I want to watch next well you're going to want to check out this video you're going to

love it and I'm going to be waiting to welcome you into it the moment you hit play I'll see you there