Mel Robbins wants you to “catch yourself” and say the six-word mantra that she says changed her life, next time you feel swept up in the “doom and gloom”.
Speaking with singer and podcaster Kaitlyn Bristowe on her show, the Off The Vine Podcast, Mel shared a simple “prompt” to break what she calls the “habit” of negative thinking.
It’s yet another simple but incredibly useful piece of insight from Mel, who has shared super helpful knowledge like the six lessons that changed her life and her ‘five-second’ motivation hack that’s helping up us get up and go in the mornings – and there are her seven ‘tiny habits’ to make your life better that we’re loving too.
Explaining what that spiralling thinking looks like for her, Kaitlyn said she often finds herself worrying that she’ll fall down the stairs she’s walking down, or that her career will go sideways.
Mel says it’s very “common”, but it’s also super easy to break the cycle.
“It’s only because it’s a habit,” Mel said. “This is super common. Because thinking patterns are a lot like sunglasses. If you put on a darker pair of sunglasses, it just tints everything. If you put on rose [coloured glasses], it tints everything rose. And so think about your mindset or your thinking patterns as a lens through which everything is viewed.”
So, she says, whenever you next fall into a negative thinking pattern, “I want you to catch yourself – and that’s the hard part.”
Then, “We’ve got to interrupt that negative thinking pattern because the nature of patterns is this: patterns repeat. And you can’t just break a pattern. You have to replace it with something else.
“What we’re going to replace the doom and gloom with is this. You’re just going to say these words. It has changed my life to say, what if it all works out?”
It’s so simple, just like her iconic phrase, “let them.” And that’s the whole point. All you need is a simple prompt to kick your brain into action and stop it spiralling down a negative path.
“Saying ‘what if it all works out?’ is something you can put in the place of the spiral. Because the truth is you don’t know,” Mel explains. “And if you can start to convince yourself ‘what if it all works out?’ then you’re starting to train yourself for a mindset called realistic optimism.”
She added, “All that realistic optimism is, is this belief that through my attitude and through my behaviour, I can create a positive impact on anything. And the fact is, you can.”
