بخش دوم

Slow down your thoughts so you can focus on the one Lego brick that you’re working on adding right now in this moment. It’s going to be critical for you. So let’s do it right now. Tell me, what is your dream?

My dream right now, I feel like my dream would be to open up some type of.

Don’t laugh. I want to teach about wine. It doesn’t have to be a big corporation thing. It’s just a little quaint close in town. Wine bar where I can air it out and teach people about enjoying wine and have that social aspect. What do you like about that? I guess what I’d like about it is not only the wine. I like being the person to come to for the wine experience. I like to expose people to what I’m passionate about.

And it does not revolve around I’m gonna make money to make money. It revolves around looking forward. Right to that every day. Well, so this is easy. You know, I’m saying that. I don’t let what’s easy about it. What’s easy and what’s hard about it? Let’s start there. What do you think hard about this? What’s hard is I know I’ve never done it before and I’ve called for a lease price and then I get into my head.

Well, once I get this, then I’m gonna need. I’ve never done that. How do I get this? How do I get that kind of fear?

Makes you start thinking too big. Too big. Because, again, the fear that’s triggering you is this real existential one about mortality. And you’re turning your life into a race with a ticking time clock. And that’s why your heart gets like a knot, because it’s seizing up under the pressure that you’re putting on yourself to run the race. It’s not a race. We all end up at the same finish line at different times. And the mastery around life is about being able to be present in your day to day life.

Being able to be mostly satisfied with what you’re doing while you’re pivoting, while you’re exploring it doesn’t surprise me that you’re the happiest when you’re teaching, when you’re learning, when you’re investigating things, because you’re the kind of person that thrives off of growth. And that’s cool. And so you already have the clue, which is if you’re not doing one thing in your life that’s expanding what you know or testing growing you. You’re not going to feel fulfilled, but your fear is making you think way too big and way too fast about the things that you’re interested in.

And so here’s what I want you to do, because the fear is speeding things up and making it too big. I want you to combat it by recognizing when the knot starts to happen. Again, it’s about for you when your heart starts to cease and your mind starts to spin going up. I’m thinking too big. I’m trying to be perfect. I need to do one thing. I want you to start to shrink things because fear expands things.

Is that common to think too big? Is that something that end the paralysis? Super common. All triggered by this fear that you’re never gonna figure it out. Or the fear that you’re going to miss your opportunity. And again, this all goes down to his fundamental thing of am I gonna amount to anything? Am I gonna look up at 87 and regret my fucking life? The answer is no, you won’t. If you still have good friendships, if you remain close to your family, and if you have spent a lifetime where you’re learning new things by pivoting and by exploring.

You’re unveiling things. It’s not like it was secretive, but it’s making sense. What are you thinking about? What’s making sense? Why? I feel a certain way after or before something that I’m about to do occurs, why that feeling’s happening, how I have to perceive that event. And now that building bought, the Legos are sticking and it’s just little nicks in your in your goal are going to eventually amount to something.

And it may not be originally what you thought. It’s going to be ever is never is never never is never planned. A is never going to end with Plan A.. You know, it ends with like plan W, plan W, and you just have to understand that I want plan.

Well I think a lot of times people, instead of thinking about Lego blocks, they think about big leaps. One of the things that’s been very helpful for me and not letting big fears stop me from doing little things is realizing that every little Lego block that you add, you actually needed that you’re building a bridge somewhere, you’re not taking a leap, and that until you take those little steps and you take the class and then the next step is have a conversation with the instructor and the next step is go talk to five different distributors.

And the next step is then go talk to a wine specialty liquor store. You don’t realize that it was never about the wine bar. It was about something else entirely. Because along that journey, you met somebody who wasn’t opening a wine store. They were opening something else and that ignited something in you. And the art around creating pivots in the art about finding meaning is in managing those big fears and recognizing when they’re starting to paralyze you and being able to settle your body, settle your mind and just grab the next Lego block and understand that by doing that all the time, you will get to where you’re supposed to go.

But so many people, it’s really sad. So many people waste their entire lives thinking and feeling intensity in their heart and that paralyzes them. So they do wake up at eighty seven and say, Jesus, they did a study at Cornell called the Legacy Project, where the number one thing that people said near the end of their life, you know, you hear the thing about regrets, but what everybody said was that if they could change one thing about their lives, they wish they could have gone back.

And stopped worrying. That worrying rob them of so much joy and so much opportunity, because when you worry, you’re worrying because you’re afraid of something. Mm hmm. And we often worry about things beyond our control and we worry about things that don’t matter. And we worry about stuff that is never going to happen. And the worry causes us to go nowhere and do nothing but think. And when you worry, you’re thinking about something that could go wrong in the future.

And that takes you out of the present moment.

I really believe if you’re present and if you’re great to people and you tune in and read the signs in your body and you pay attention to what naturally expands you, that there’s a language that your soul is speaking. That most of us tune out because we’re so distracted by fear and are so in our heads. Mm hmm. All right. You know, you asked me earlier a question about don’t we all have the need to grow? And the answer is it’s a fundamental need that most of us don’t ever talk about.

So remember, as somewhere in high school, people talk about Mars loves hierarchy of needs. So there’s this like pyramid of needs that we have. And at the most bottom, fundamental level, are the things that we all need to actually live. We need water. We need oxygen. We need sleep. We need food. We need shelter. Right. You don’t have those five things. Your ass is dead. Right. OK. Then you go up the ladder and the next needs are about your needs to be connected to other human beings.

It’s about your need for love. Your need for sexual pleasure. Those sort of physical needs. Right. In terms of your mind, body, spirit. At the very highest level. And it’s the smallest little pyramid on the top. And most of us don’t talk about this. But this is the crisis that everybody starts to hit in their 30s, 40s and 50s when you become aware of your mortality. And that is the need to grow. Why don’t we talk about it?

I don’t know. I don’t know. And here’s my theory about it. Our bodies are wired. As a alarm system to tell you when your fundamental needs are not being met. So if you are in need of food, what do you feel in your body? You’re hungry? Yeah. If you’re in need of sleep, what, are you tired? If you’re in need of water, you’re thirsty. Yes. If you’re in need of shelter, find a place.

Yeah. You’re cold or you’re. You’re scared.

Nervous. You’re on edge because the lightning is happening in your body. You get goose bumps. You’re like, I got to find cover. Right. If you are in need of physical connection, how do you feel? Lonely. Yeah, totally. If you are in need of growth. How do you feel like you need to go? I feel stuck. Yeah. Yes. That thing in your heart.

So I want you to reframe that. Not when you feel that knot in your chest or you feel your thoughts start to spiral. That’s the physical signal that what’s missing is growth. And the only way to get it is not to look out a hundred years and think, what am I gonna be have done in my 90s?

It’s to think, what’s a Lego block that I can add right now that will satiate my need to learn to grow, to do something, that expands my experience of being alive.

And right now, that crumb, that little piece there is helping me say, hey, Dan, you don’t right now. You don’t have to get to the wine bar in three months. Pick something a little bit more advanced than the wine class right now and just. Work for a little bit in that realm. See where it takes or not, or take an online course or throw a dinner party every month. That’s about wine. I said I wanted to run like a teacher wine club to start, you know, like I didn’t know what I wanted to do.

Why not? That’s what I said.

That’s something that’s doable. Let’s see. Here’s why I think this is so important. Because just like your body wisdom tells you that you’re thirsty. So you need water. It’s giving you accurate signals. I think that the signals that you’re getting about being stuck and the instincts and impulses that come up, they’re the exact thing that you need to pay attention to, because if you keep thinking, you know, maybe the next Lego pieces, a wine club with the teachers at school, I guarantee you there is one person that’s gonna show up at that.

And there’s gonna be one conversation that leads to the next Lego block. And it’s only in having the clarity to tune into those instincts and to actually just inched forward a little bit and pay attention to it that you get the clue that you need in order to go to the next thing that you needed to do. And so I don’t know if you’re going to open a wine bar. I don’t know if you’re going to work in the wine distribution business.

But what I do know for sure is that if you continue to read the signals in your body, the tightness in your chest, the spiraling thoughts, if you ask yourself, OK, I’m thinking too big what I’m afraid of. And then you say, what could I do next? That would add a little fun, a little Lego. What’s that one thing you pay attention to that it will lead you to places beyond your wildest dreams?

I can’t wait. I can’t wait. Really? After I’m done with you, I’m going to email my wine instructor and say, do you have any distributors you could go?

I would also ask your wine instructor, would you be willing to spend an hour with me? This class has really opened up something for me. And I would love your advice about how to continue my learning and possibly do something on the side related to wine.

And I would love to hear your thoughts. Yeah, I’m ready to go. That’s simple. Like, even just if every other week you had a conversation scheduled with somebody in that business, you would be feeling progress. And who knows where it’s leading? It doesn’t matter where it’s leading, because what we know when you’re exploring something is you’re expanding and you’re growing. And that means fear isn’t stopping you.

That heart not thing feeling that you get in your body and the spiraling of the thoughts, that is a absolute lee accurate, dead accurate sign that fear is paralyzing you right now. And so when that happens to you in the future, I want you to basically take a deep breath and I want you to go, OK, what am I afraid of? And what’s one small move that I can do to move forward? Because if you think about the fear and you let it settle in your body, you’re going to stay stuck and you’re going to feel agitated.

And when you feel stuck in that not comes up, you’re like, oh, I’m thinking too big. I’m not gonna be stuck here forever. I’m not stuck at all. What’s the next move that I can make? Do you see how this works? Yes. Feels a lot more doable than what the thought process that I initially had before today. And I’m going to start working on that. The moment I walk back to my hotel. Also, seriously.

So how do you feel? I feel completely. I don’t take this the wrong way. I feel almost gutted.

But in a in a good way, I feel cleansed. I feel invigorated.

I feel ready to adapt to my life plan. I feel more confident in what I can do moving forward. And I just am so thankful for the opportunity that I just had. Awesome. That’s great. Oh, I’m so thankful. I’m thankful that you got a chance to meet Dan and to listen to him. I can’t wait also to give you the update on how he’s doing since that coaching session because he’s doing dynamite. And isn’t he so awesome?

Personally, I wish he was my kid’s PE teacher. Now, the place where Dan felt out of control is the big question we all struggle to answer. Is there more to life than this? And if so, what is it? If you relate to Dan in this way, as I do, if you obsess over your future and you get stuck thinking about it, one of the major things I want you to get out of my coaching session with Dan is to recognize that overthinking is a trap.

It’s triggered by fear. And you’re gonna have to stop yourself from doing it if you want to get control of your life. Because when you become a control freak about thinking and making plans, what happens is you start to convince yourself that by thinking about your future, like Dan does, somehow it will give you control of it. And it’s actually the opposite. The only thing that will give you control is the thing that you’re scared to do, and that’s taking action.

Action is a physical commitment to something. Action is movement, action is where you literally take ownership over your own existence. You see, when you’re thinking you’re just spinning in place in order to move forward, you’re gonna have to step out of the trap of thinking. Get control of yourself and actually move. Now, as I say this, if you’re sitting there and your thoughts are starting to spin and you’re going, well, what action should I take and how do I know what action?

When do I do it? And what if I fail? And what about this? And what about that? But now you don’t know. But this happened.

But that BOEM if you’re already doing it, you’re falling into the exact same trap that Danna’s and in order to move yourself from thinking to action. I’m going to walk you through the five main takeaways from Dan session so that you can use everything that I just discussed with Dan to take control of your life. And as I go through these takeaways, I want you to think about something you’ve been interested in pursuing. I want you to think about something that calls to you something that tugs at your heart, an idea that you’ve always wanted to dip your toe in the water of.

Or maybe it’s an area of your life where you feel like something’s off track and you’re afraid to start moving forward. I want you to use Dan’s story and these takeaways to inspire you to think smaller, to start inching forward brick by brick and get control of your life. And I want you to re listen to a moment in my conversation with Dan, because if you listen closely, you’re going to hear him explain all of the pieces that I’m talking about and why it starts with fear when you’re about to make a change, when you’re about to take control of your life and start taking action, it’s going to feel hard.

You’re gonna feel afraid because you’ve never done it before. And as soon as that fear kicks in, you’re going to want to quiet it. And what does Dan do when he feels afraid, when he feels like it’s already starts thinking and thinking and thinking? Just listen to how he described it. What’s hard is I’ve never done it before and I’ve called for a lease price and then I get into my head. Well, once I get this, then I’m gonna need.

I’ve never done that. How do I learn about this part of the. How do I get this? How do I get that kind of fear?

Makes you start thinking too big. I love that moment because once you start thinking too big, now it becomes even scarier and you’ll do nothing. And that’s the trap. The moment you’re about to take control of your life, it’s a moment of change, you’re moving from thinking to action. You will feel afraid, it will feel hard. You may have never done it before. So in order to quiet that fear that you have, you’re going to reach for a way to control it.

And once you start over thinking to quiet the fear, it’s a fake form of control. Now you’re gonna spin out of control and go nowhere. And the secret to getting actual real control of your life to getting out of this trap is breaking the cycle because thinking about something is very different than doing it and thinking gives you a false sense of control. It’s an illusion that you’re working on something. And look, when you listen to Dan, I’m sure you picked up on this fact that all this thinking is what’s keeping him trapped.

It’s super easy when you see somebody else doing it. It’s a whole nother can of worms, though, open when you have to figure it out for yourself. If you struggle staying present to what’s happening around you, for example, or you find yourself ruminating over the same thoughts, you’re an over thinker. And when that happens, you become trapped by your thoughts, because once you’re removed from the present moment, your ability to problem solve is blown.

It feels like you’re in control because thinking feels like you’re doing something about it. Whatever it is that you’re thinking about. But it’s a complete illusion. And in fact, overthinking actually makes you less likely to even act. And research shows that fantasizing about your goals actually saps your energy and leads to decrease motivation in achieving them.

I had this aha moment because I realized, holy cow, that explains my entire college and law school career.

Whenever I had a paper assigned or a test that I needed to study for, I would get caught in this thinking trap. I would think about my papers. I would think about my assignments. I would think about studying obsessively. And the more I thought about what I needed to do, the more overwhelmed I became. And I actually turned myself into a chronic all night queen.

I literally duped myself into feeling like I was in control of the situation because I would think and think and think and think and think about what I needed to do. And then all of a sudden, it would be the night before and reality could no longer be denied because the paper was due in twelve hours. And all that thinking about the paper never actually got it typed because thinking about something is very different than doing it. And there was an even bigger problem once I sat down to type and I had an all nighter in front of me.

I had been doing so much thinking that I felt like I was actually done with the paper and I was so gassed mentally because I felt like I had already written the paper in my head that I rarely had anything left in the tank to put forward a solid effort. I hadn’t kept control. I done the opposite. I had spun the situation out of control by doing too much thinking.

Now, if I trace it back to the fear of why why didn’t I just write the darn paper when it was assigned? I mean, it’s obvious what you should do, right? I mean, I’m sure you’re listening there thinking in e-mail. You’re pretty smart. This one’s pretty easy than sound like a smart guy. Should be pretty easy. This is the power of the thinking trap. It’s really hard when you’re the one stuck in it.

Now, if I traced back to the fear of why didn’t just start writing it, it’s because the moment I was assigned a big project, whether it’s a paper or an exam to study for or breaking up a long relationship or jumping off the track you’re on in your career and starting a new one. The enormity of it scared me in the moment of getting that assignment, in the moment of having a realization that you need to change. There’s always a small panic.

It fills you with a sense of uncertainty or even dread. And that makes you want to quiet it and reach for control, anything that feels hard. That’s the word that Dan said. Anything that feels hard. I’ve never done this before. It’s gonna trigger fear. And your instincts are going to make you want to quiet that fear. Every single day there are small moments like that where you feel triggered, overwhelmed, uncertain, where something feels hard or new and you reach for control because you hate feeling that agitation and discomfort and the control that you reach for first quiets the fear in the moment that keeps you stuck.

Ignoring the paper didn’t actually give me real control. It gave me fake control and it stressed me out. What I needed was self-control. Self-control is when you know that you’re getting triggered and then you have the self-control to slow yourself down, take control of the situation and not get trapped. You see, Dan’s doing the exact same thing here. Dan, someone who thinks too big in almost every area and paralyzes him in terms of his life is preoccupied by the big questions.

Well, my life amount to something. What is the meaning of all this? Most of us are just like Dan were stuck thinking in our heads and thinking is the trap, because when you’re in your head, you see the obstacles, not the opportunity.

And as you think and think, you make things more complex than they need to be rather than seeing the simple way forward. Thinking too big. Also magnifies the gap between where you are and where you want to be in the future. And that’s going to paralyze you. In fact, if you’re so obsessed with amounting to something that all you do is think about it, you’ll do nothing, nothing, because it’s going to feel bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger the more that you think.

And Dan’s so obsessed with what is life is going to look like at the age of 90 that he’s not taking any action right now. And that’s what he needs to do. And this doesn’t just plague people in their 30s and 40s and 50s. It plagues everybody, teenagers not being able to pick a college or pick a major people in their 20s, not being able to pick a job or career track or people in their 30s trying to figure out what they want their life to look like now that they’ve been in the real world.

We put such high stakes on our decisions and that’s what keeps us paralyzed. So how do you stop letting your overthinking spin your life out of control? Here’s what you’re gonna do any time you catch yourself over thinking we’re gonna follow the fear. What am I afraid of? What was I afraid of confronting in college was the fear that I wasn’t smart enough to do well on the test or the fear that I wasn’t ready to write the paper. I felt exposed.

And instead of digging in and putting in the work the way I gave myself a false sense of controls by thinking about what I needed to do rather than doing it. As soon as you’re afraid, it triggers your body to want to fine control and you’ll reach for fate control. You’ll do anything to quiet and avoid that fear. That’s why none of us ever want to take action. It’s safer to just think about it, even though it makes you miserable in the long run.

And that takes us now to the next four takeaways. If you are somebody who overthinks, if you relate to everything that Dan and I struggle with, how do you get real control of your life and stop thinking and start doing? Well, here are some specific things that will help you. First, when you feel afraid or out of control, don’t speed up. Slow down. You take real control of your life by slowing down first. Now, Dan, he’s Alterra productive.

He’s up early. He’s out about he’s hitting the gym. He’s getting to work. He’s going. He’s no problem. I mean, he’s got this pace about him. Right. But here’s the thing. It’s really important for you to slow down and take a look at what’s driving you to do so much. Are you being driven and pulled by your dreams or are you being driven by your fears? Dan is not being pulled by his dreams. He’s being pushed by his anxiety, his urgency of not getting it all done, not figuring it out.

And it’s driving him crazy. So just for a second, in the area of your life, for your overthinking, where you feel a little stock, where you feel off. Is it the tug of your dreams or is that the push of your fears? If you’re an ultra productive or busy person, I want you to look at this. This is really important because if you’re the kind of person that’s always busy, it’s probably a form of distraction.

And I want you to slow down long enough so that we can start to have you pulled forward by your dreams and not pushed into a panic by your fears. You see, there are people who are called forward by a dream and they’re building a path forward and they’re inspired by their vision and they’re in control of their life. And that’s not what Dan was doing. And it’s certainly not how I was. There’s an urgency. There’s a panic, there’s a pace.

And to feeling like you’re spinning. And, you know, believe it or not, busyness gives you a false sense of control, but it’s not going to get you the results that you want. And I want to take you back into the coaching session with Dan, because I want you to feel the intensity. I want you to be reminded of the busyness.

And as you listen to him, I want you to think of areas in your life where it’s fear and urgency, an anxiety that’s pushing you and how important it’s going to be for you to be able to slow down in order to get control. I’ve been teaching for 15 years and I said, you know what? I like teaching. There’s still some more out there. There’s still stuff I want to do. I just don’t know how to do it.

I don’t know where to start. And it’s scary. And I do a lot of things. Everything else.

Boom, boom, boom. All throughout the day, I’m doing things, doing things and accomplishing things, trying things. But this is just that portion is tough for me.

There’s an intensity. And the thing that I think you’d benefit from is slowing down.

Help me slow down. I get to get the leash out of a movie. Help me slow down.

I’m revving up like, oh, my God, I’m up. I’m ready to go. Dan is ready to go, but he’s going nowhere. This was a humongous revelation for me personally when I’m fueled by fear. Everything seems urgent. The small stuff that doesn’t matter suddenly bothers me. I start to question myself. The pace of things pick up. I am exactly like Dan. Busyness is something I hide behind when I’m afraid of facing things, because if I’m busy, I don’t have time to face the thing that scares me.

Does that sound familiar? I bet you do this in some area of your life. You’re so busy that you don’t have time to change. In this case, what’s the secret to control? It’s slowing down and slowing down can be terrifying for some of us. We do everything we can to fill up our entire days with stuff and schedules and noise that we never have to get quiet.

Why is that? I think it’s because we’re afraid that if we slow down, we might learn something about ourselves in the quiet that we don’t want to know. Maybe something painful. You know, as I thought about this, it reminded me of a fact, every single major change that has happened in my life where I made a decision to do something different. Either occurred during a long walk on the beach or in the woods. Chris and I made a decision to move out of New York City and up to Boston when we were in the national forests in New Mexico camping for a weekend.

One of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had in my marriage with Chris was when we were walking the dog and our local state park. Just recently, Chris and I were celebrating my fiftieth birthday and we had a long, long walk on the beach where I told him I didn’t think he was happy doing what he was currently doing in his career and that he needed to take a look in the mayor. I think there’s something about slowing down and tuning in that brings the truth to the surface.

And when you’re super busy and when there’s an urgency about everything that you’re doing that’s driven by fear, you’re never going to get to the truth. You know, Glennon Doyle has a great analogy for this. She’s the bestselling author of Love Warrior, and she explains that we live our lives like a snow globe, always shaking it up so that the snow is forever flying and covering what’s inside. If we were to just stop and spend time looking in, we might find something about ourselves we didn’t know.

I think we find more than that. I think we find the answers that we want. And I am so guilty of letting fear trigger me to start shaking the globe, getting so busy and caught up in the little things going on that I don’t slow down long enough to really face the truth. You take control when you slow down. So if your life feels like it’s too fast. If there’s an urgency or a fear or a level of anxiety at the service.

If you’re busy, it tells me you’re out of control. It tells me that there is fear that’s triggering you and the fear is speeding things up. And I’m here to tell you, you must slow down. So how can you slow down? Well, there’s a ton of strategies you can use which are outlined in the workbook from taking a walk in the woods and how the science of getting outside helps your nervous system. There’s actually science, which explains why I’m having breakthroughs on long walks.

It has to do with what happens in your nervous system and how your brain can focus or how even taking five deep breaths can change. Your nervous system can pull you into the present. Now, I could explain all the things we list in the workbook, but it’s kind of boring to listen to. And I know you’re driving a car, so I don’t want you to zone off. But I do want to highlight the most powerful way to slow down.

And it’s through meditation. Don’t roll your eyes at me, especially if you’re busy. OK, I know busy people hate to meditate. I know people are telling you to meditate all the time. I’m not a meditation coach. I’m just telling you that meditation, if you’re a busy person, is the fastest way to slow down because what you’re doing when you take on a form of meditation, whatever form you want, is your training your brain to slow down and to tune in so you can take control.

Now, you don’t have to do it any certain way. There’s no wrong way to meditate. You could sit in a chair, you could sit on a couch, you could stand on your head. You could sit at a stoplight and just tune in. There are so many different apps that can guide you through meditation. I’m not here to tell you which one to use, but if you were to just try not talking for five minutes every morning and tune into your body and not your head as the snow globe settles, you’ll be surprised what you find in there.

And it’s going to be the truth. And if he can’t sit still, I tend to be sort of a bounce around kind of person and go for a walk, go outside in the woods, if that’s a possibility for you.

Go walk in the park. Any practice that gets you out of the business of your life and into paying attention to what’s going around you and what’s happening inside of you for just a few minutes a day. It’s going to engage the part of your body that helps you keep your cool. Now, there’s something that I do. I call it take five. I just take five deep breaths. If I ever find myself starting to get really agitated or I’m getting way too far ahead or I’m on a plane that’s got a lot of turbulence, something that’s really triggering fear in me.

And I start to notice myself getting agitated or getting too busy or starting to feel off track or whatever it may be, or spend big ideas. I just take five deep breaths and that’s all that it takes to slow down and to get control of the moment. And, you know, here’s the funny thing. If you hate this idea and if you’re sitting there saying to me, you know, Mel, I have five extra minutes a day for crying out loud.

You know what that tells me? It tells me you need this more than anybody else and you probably need more like 20 or 30 minutes of meditation. You got way too much agita. That’s impacting your ability to get clarity on what you really want and what you have to do to go get it. And most likely, if you’re running on fear, you’re gonna hate this advice. You’re not gonna want to slow down because busyness and racing around is a defense mechanism.

Now, the next takeaway is that in order to create what you want. You’ve got to first be able to state what you want. And in this regard, I find that there’s something really interesting that we do. We don’t like to tell people what we’re dreaming about. We don’t like to talk about the future or the vision that we have for herself. We don’t like to state the change that we want. And, you know, when I was asking Dan what he really wanted, he said something that really stood out to me.

And I want to play this moment from our coaching session. And I want you to listen closely. And he has a qualifier before he tells me what his dream is. And this is a major red flag. And I bet you do the exact same thing. Listen in. My dream right now, I feel like my dream would be to open up some type of. Don’t laugh like a wine bar.

I don’t want to be I want to teach about wine. Have a little bit. It doesn’t have to be a big corporation thing. It’s just a little quaint close in town.

Wine bar where I can air it out and teach people about enjoying wine and have that social aspect.

Did you hear what he said before he told me his dream? He paused and he said, don’t laugh now. Why would you say that? Why would you say don’t laugh when you’re about to tell somebody your dream that you’ve always dreamt of having a wine bar? Why? Why would you say that? I’ll tell you why. Fear. He said, don’t laugh, because the moment that you admit the thing that you want. You expose yourself. You lose control.

Fear is right there. And so he’s saying, don’t laugh as a way to try to control that fear. That fear that he has that I might judge and the fear that he has, that maybe it sounds stupid, the fear that he has, that maybe he’s not worthy of having that dream. It’s all triggered by the fear that he has. Can I even make this come true? And we’re all guilty of diminishing our dreams in this way.

You’re embarrassed to say them out loud because life right now feels so far away from that dream that even uttering it sounds laughable.

Don’t laugh if you struggle with self-worth. You’re going to question whether or not you even deserve it. And you know, that’s not hard enough. The minute you tell somebody, then you feel dumb saying it because now it’s public. Oh, I won’t open a wine bar. Oh, you know, I’d like to have kids. I know I’m forty five, but I’d still like to have kids. And that creates pressure and guilt about achieving it. And when you start to get honest with yourself about what you dream about doing, your dream is gonna feel so big that you’re not going to feel in control anymore.

So it seems too crazy to even say it to other people. That’s why we don’t tell anybody what we’re dream about.

And then in order to gain this control over your fear, to quiet it, you’re going to actually diminish your own dream, just like Dan did. Don’t laugh, but this is what I want. Here’s the thing. If you’re embarrassed. All it means is that you’re stretching out of your comfort zone and it’s normal to be embarrassed by your dreams. The problem is when you let that embarrassment stop you. The problem is when you downplay your dreams to other people and then all of a sudden you’re part of the crowd that’s convincing you that you can’t do it.

If you want to see your dreams come true, it starts with the courage to state it. You have to be able to state it in order to create it as your own. If you’re unwilling to do that, I’m sorry, you don’t even deserve it. And I’m here to tell you, you do deserve your dreams. You do have to find the courage to do this. You do have to stop overthinking. And you do have to have the courage to state them.

I need you to stop diminishing the things that you want. Stop hiding from them and start telling people what you dream about doing. And this works no matter how small the dream is. If you’re over thinking about writing a paper, as I used to, instead of just thinking about it, all I had to do is create a deadline and state that I was going to finish it. Had I stated that I wanted to finish it and created a deadline before it was due, I would’ve made a plan that would’ve been a start.

And you can do the exact same thing. Dan’s never going to advance. If he can’t talk about what he wants and neither can you. And that brings us to our next takeaway. So once you’ve got the courage to actually state the dream that you won, doesn’t matter what it is, any dream, it’s your dream. You deserve to have it.

Tell me what it is. State that dream. That’s right. The next take away is the fact that now that you’ve stated it, you’re going to create it brick by brick. Now, Dan and I talked a lot about this in the coaching session, but I want to really drive this home because it is such a liberating visual, particularly if you’re an over thinker. It’s very physical. It’s very concrete. It’s very actionable. And the other thing that I love about it, it’s very forgiving because there’s no right.

Brick, there’s just a ton of, um, you need to assemble. And one of the other reasons why I love the brick analogy is because I need you to stop thinking about the big stuff. I need you to stop thinking about the dream that you have or the change that you need to make as a big leap. And I want you to start to think in a different way. I want you to start to think about the small moves forward.

You see, you take action by breaking things down into the smallest component, because when you think about the small moves, a couple of cool things are going to happen. First of all, you’re going to realize you have plenty of time. One of the problems with thinking too big is you’re going to start to feel afraid and that’s going to make you spin out of control and you’re going to start to think, holy cow. I don’t know if I have enough time to do that.

I don’t know if I’m capable of doing that. I don’t know. I don’t know. And that’s exactly what happened today. And just listen to him describe it.

I would hate to go on 30 or 40 years and. Look back when I’m 60 or 70 and say, I didn’t try this, I didn’t do this, I wish I did my feet into this. I’m 36. And when I was 26, I said, I don’t have time. I have time. I have time. Now I’m 36. And that gap from 26 to 36 doesn’t seem like it was that far. I don’t want to be 66 or 76 saying I wish I did this.

I wish I did that. I should have done this.

Why didn’t I do that? Can you hear? I’m spending, spending, spending, spending to stop spinning. First you’ve got to slow down. And then we got to break it down into small little bricks because he’s thinking way too big. And that’s the problem. And so are you. So how do you build a new house to live in? How do you lay a new path to walk down? You do it brick by brick. That’s how you start.

It’s how you make a change in your life. It’s how you start a business or do whatever it is that you want to do. You change your life inch by inch, brick by brick, not mile by mile, brick by brick helps you think about steps rather than focusing on the huge picture. Because as you compile bricks, you don’t have to know the right way how to use them. You know, in college, if I just started writing paragraphs and brainstorming an outline that would have given me control and it would have broken me free from the trap of overthinking.

Now, remember I told Dan about the Lego blocks? Well, when Legos come out of the box, they require you to patiently piece the bricks together one at a time. But Dan was stuck on the image of the finished product. So we lost sight of all the pieces. If you’re stuck because you’ve been focusing on the final product, tear down that vision and start by picking up just one brick today. Instead of getting bogged down by the big picture, just take the smallest move forward.

The first little block in building the Lego set. That’s all you need to do. It’s so much easier than thinking big. I want you to think small. I want you to not do big things. I want you to start shrinking it down to the little things. It’s so important that you understand that changing anything is a process. Having your dreams come true is a process. And that’s why you’re capable of making it happen, because you’re capable of moving forward.

One little brick at a time. And the other thing that’s cool that I love about the brick analogy is that it’s flexible and you need to understand that you’re going to need to be flexible as you make these passionate, small pivots, because in the process of moving one little Lego block at a time in the direction of what you want, you’ll be headed exactly where you need to go. And here’s the other thing. You’re going to find that you’re gonna have to pivot in a new direction.

And because you’re thinking in the form of bricks, you’re going to be able to be flexible. Because remember what I said to Dan. Yes. You’re going to begin with Plan A.. Yep. You’re going to think you’re gonna do one thing. Yep. You’re gonna think that your dream is to write your first novel and get published and do all this. And, yes, you should go for it. But what always happens when you start brick by brick and you start laying down the path to your dreams is plan A.

becomes plan B, becomes plan C, becomes plan D, becomes plan E, and ultimately you end up with plan W, which is plan W for the win. And let me remind you of this, because I explained it to Dan now that building bought the Legos are sticking. When he mentioned that, it’s sticking with me and.

It’s just just little nicks in your in your goal are going to eventually amount to something and it may not be originally what you thought. It’s it’s going to be never is. Never is, never, never is. Never a plan. A is never gonna end with Plan A.. You know, it ends with like plan W, plan W, and you just have to understand that. Now, why is it important to understand that you start with Plan A.

. But it’s going to end with Plan W for the win. The reason why it’s important is because that’s how life works. And if you’re focused only on thinking big, if you’re focused on overthinking, you’re gonna be focused on doing it just one way. And the second one thing doesn’t work out. Fear is going to kick back in. You’re gonna fall right back into the trap of overthinking. That’s why it’s essential for you to understand that you only change things by slowing down and making small moves and you’re capable of doing it.

Now, when I told Dan that he needed to take the bigness out of what he was trying to mentally manage, he immediately found the focus and the confidence that he needed to look forward. For Dan, his first Lego block isn’t about opening up a wine store. That’s a leap. That’s hard. That has a million steps to it. And he doesn’t even know if he’s going to like it. Instead, the first block is taking a wine class.

And then after you take the wine class, then you do another brick and then you talk to a distributor and then you get a part time job at a wine store and then you figure out if you even like that. And then you bump into more people and you do things one tiny step at a time by shrinking the idea of figuring out what to do with your life or how to make a change, you make yourself capable of doing it. You know, I want to share a story with you about this plan, A leads to plan W thing.

So remember I told you I hated my job as a lawyer? Well, I couldn’t figure out what I wanted to do. And so I just kind of tuned in and started paying attention to things that I was passionate about. And one thing that I was super passionate about, small town coffee shops. I love walking in to a coffee shop in a small town. I love the way they feel. I love the way they smell. I love the way that the owners are there working.

I love the way that they know everybody that comes in who’s from the neighborhood. It had always been my dream, or so I thought, to own a coffee shop and a bakery just like that. So when I was really stuck as a lawyer and I was trying to figure out how to make a pivot, I pulled out that first Lego block and I started work in brick by brick. And I got a job part time working in a local coffee shop on the weekends.

And you know what? I hated it. I hated every aspect of it. I hated smelling like a carrot muffin when I left my shift. I hated restocking the napkins 100 times an hour. I hated refilling the milk jugs. I hated refilling the sugar. I hated taking out the trash and having it leak all over because everybody pours their coffee in the door. I hated every single aspect of owning a small town bakery. And you know what I discovered?

I discovered something interesting about myself. I discovered that what I actually loved about Small-Town coffee shops is I love the community. I loved the flexibility of having a lifestyle or a job or a career where you could swing into one every morning and sit for a half an hour.

I liked the idea of having the economic freedom to be able to afford to buy a cup of coffee out every morning if I wanted to. So it wasn’t that my dream of owning a coffee shop was Plan A.. And that’s what I was supposed to do with my life.

What I actually learned from doing that part time job, which lasted about a week, was that there are aspects to how I wanted my life to look, that I needed to pay attention to, that I wanted to be part of a community that I wanted to have as part of my daily routine, walking into a local coffee shop and knowing the owners that I wanted the flexibility in my schedule to have a half an hour in the morning, to be able to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee and see my neighbors and talk about the news or the weather or whatever, and that I wanted the financial freedom to be able to afford a cup of coffee out everyday if I wanted one.

Even though every single financial adviser tells you that you shouldn’t have one.

So in laying that brick, I learned something insanely valuable about myself and it helped me pivot the path away from a maniacal obsession of owning a coffee shop to actually learning something about myself, slowing down my life long enough to learn something so I could pivot in a different direction. So here’s what I want you to understand. Every move that you make forward is going to be something valuable, because when you slow down your life and you push yourself to make a small move, you’re taking control of your life and you’re going to learn something about yourself that’s going to help you take the next step.

And here’s the other thing that I need you to understand. We’re obsessed with thinking about the big stuff. But you can only control the small things. Smaller is better. The bigger it is, the less control you have. So while it’s great to have big dreams and vision boards. It’s dangerous if you focus on the bigness of them because you’ll never move forward. The bigness of it is gonna make you feel afraid. To answer the big questions, start small.

If you feel out of control, start small to figure out your future, start small. If you think big, you’re going to go nuts.

So obviously I am hammering the point home, particularly if you’re an over thinker, that we got to slow down. We’ve got to get Adio head and we got to go brick by brick. So how do you ground yourself and taking small steps when you find yourself giving into the negative self talk in particular? There are going to be some things I want you to try. So what is negative self talk that stops you in taking steps forward? Oh, I’m not expecting it’s actually going to work.

I’m probably going to fail. This is impossible for me to achieve. I don’t deserve it. I’m not worthy. Oh, they said no.

Like all the little things that take you off track. I want you to think. Let’s do a little exercise. What is one teeny tiny little Lego block, one little brick that you could lay? I want you to think about just one step forward that you could make. And I want to remind you, that’s all you have to focus on right now is just the one little thing you’re going to do. Maybe it’s phone call. Maybe you’re going to sign up for class.

Maybe you’re going to get a job at your local coffee shop on the weekends. Maybe you’re going to sign up at the gym. Maybe you’re going to have a conversation with the person that you’re in a relationship with. Whatever it is, one tiny little move forward. And the reason why I want you to focus on one thing is because there’s incredible research from Columbia University about how to create these tiny Lego block actions.

So the first one is in order to understand whether or not you got a tiny enough move forward. Luck. Look, I’m going small here. I’m not asking for big moves. I’m asking for small number one. Just ask yourself, how will I know if I completed it? I wanted to be very specific. How will I know if I completed this task? We weren’t defined bricks. So how will you know if you signed up for the gym?

Well, if you signed up, how will you know if you applied for a job? If you completed the application, how will you know if you have started therapy? Well, you’ve not only hired a therapist, but you have an appointment. How will you know if you’ve had the conversation? You’ve sat down and had the conversation. So you want to define blocks that aren’t vague. I’m going to get healthy. That’s not a block. That’s a goal.

Signing up for the gym is a block. Exercising for ten minutes. Today at three p.m. is a block. We want specificity so that you know that it’s done. The second piece of research is ask yourself, what’s the biggest obstacle to doing this? And if the obstacle starts to feel overwhelming, the block is too big. Break it down. So, for example, let’s say that you’re interested in going and talking to a therapist. What’s the biggest obstacle?

I don’t know any therapists. And another big obstacle is I don’t know if my health insurance covers it. I don’t know if I can afford it. So if that obstacle feels too big, you can’t afford it. We’re going to break down the block. I’m going to call my health care company today and find out what they cover. That is a defined brick that you can do today. You will know when it’s completed. And there is no obstacle to you getting that done bone.

There you go. Also, I just want to point out that we have a lot of other strategies that you can use listed in the workbook. So if you’re an over thinker and if you’ve got a lot of negative self talk that drives you into your head. These are little things that are way boring to talk about things like writing things down on your calendar and the research about why it makes you more effective, keeping a list of things you’ve already done every day and why that makes you more motivated.

These are things that you can start to engage with to train yourself, to take action. But they’re really boring to talk about analyst, which is why I’m gonna tell you to go to Mel Robbins dot com slash take control.

Because the biggest takeaway, honestly, and I know I’ve just been really repeating this, but you’ve got to understand that if you overthink everything. Fear is winning. Period. That thinking gives you a false sense of control, it’s triggered by fear. And the only way to truly take control of your life is to start getting things done instead of thinking about what you need to get done. Now, the last piece I want to talk about from Dan Session is passion, because you may be listening to this and you may still be wondering.

All right, Mel, look, I get it. Brick by brick, stop overthinking. Got it. Psyched to dig into the workbook.

But woman, I don’t you know, my passion is, well, how do I even know what the brick is? I know I don’t want to go work in a coffee shop. Great. That worked for you. But what the hell do I do? This takeaway is for you. OK, calm down. Slow down. Well, we tell you. Don’t speed things up. That’s your fear. So you’re already getting jacked up and overthinking about it.

Just calm down. Slow down. Too many of you make the mistake of convincing yourself that your passion is about finding some treasure. And we believe that finding passion will give you control over your life. But here’s the problem. You have the wrong definition of passion and it’s not your fault. By the way, because you were told you gotta go find your passion. You got to pursue your passion. You got to make your life, your passion and the way it’s been defined by society.

It’s making you feel out of control because you don’t know what it is. What is it that I’m supposed to find? What is it that I’m supposed to pursue? But here’s the punch line. You’re ready for the big reveal.

There is no it’s the process of finding your passion and quote, The meaning of your life isn’t a treasure hunt because there’s no treasure at the end. If you’re looking to find it or the thing that you’re meant to do, please stop looking. Stop looking right now. You see, passion isn’t a person, place or thing. Passion doesn’t exist outside of you. You’re not gonna find it outside of you. You’re not going to find it in a job.

You’re not going to find it in a coffee shop. You’re not going to find it in a relationship. And I know you might be thinking, well, know what? But I’m passionate. I want to do what you’re talking about. No, no, no, no, no. Passion is just energy. That’s all the passion is. Passion is energy. I’m going to unpack this for you. Passion is energy. It’s not a destiny. When somebody says, I’m so passionate about my job, you know what they’re saying?

This is what they’re actually saying. You know what? I feel energized when I get up in the morning because I’m excited. Go do what I do at work.

That’s it. I’m so passionate about my new relationship. Well, that’s because you’re energized by it. Trust me, in a matter of a year,