Transcript
Mel Robbins (0:00)
Hey, it's your friend Mel. And welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited you're here with me because once a year, I go through the process of auditing the last 12 months. It is the most powerful thing ever. And today, you and I are going to do this together. Now, this is a process my husband and I have done every year for the past 20 years. We now do it with our kids now that they're young adults. You're gonna fricking. Because here's the truth. There are seven questions that you need to answer that are gonna unlock all of the wisdom and lessons and amazing things that have happened to you in the last 12 months, all of which you've probably forgotten. And you need to do an audit. Because the single biggest mistake that everybody makes at this moment when they go and think about next year is they jump right into thinking about what they want, and you miss the biggest opportunity in the world, which is to actually figure out where you are, what are the lessons you've learned, what it that you truly want? And I'm going to tell you something. These seven questions, they're going to unlock it. They're going to teach you all the lessons and all the wisdom and all the things that you need to know to create the plan to make next year one of the best years of your life. So you're ready to audit the last 12 months with me? Of course you are. Let's do this.
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Mel Robbins (2:31)
Hey, it's your friend Mel Robbins. And welcome. Welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am thrilled that you picked this particular episode to listen to, because you and I are about to do a process that I call the yearly audit. It is something that my husband and I have done for 20 years. We now do it with our kids. It is a game changer. And I first talked about this a year ago on the podcast. More than a million of you did an annual audit. You loved it. You loved how empowered you feel. We are gonna do it again. And if you're brand new and this is episode that you've ever listened to of the Mel Robbins Podcast, let me tell you something. You have picked a winner. I want to welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. I love that you're here for this. Because you know what this tells me? It tells me you're the kind of person that not only values your time, but you want to make next year one of the best years of your life. And what we're gonna do today is I'm gonna walk you through seven questions that will help you audit the last 12 months of your life. Because one of the things that I've noticed over the years is that everybody makes the same mistake, whether they're making New Year's resolutions or they're setting goals for the next year, or they're doing business planning. We're so obsessed with, like, looking ahead and manifesting and setting goals and wiping the slate clean that we jump over one of the most powerful and important and critical parts of planning. And what is that thing that is critical? It's understanding where you are right now. See, if you just simply look ahead, you're gonna be like, oh, I wanna do this and I wanna do that and I wanna do the other thing. But you're missing all the wisdom from the last 12 months. In fact, I guarantee you. Cause I'm gonna prove it to you when I ask you these seven questions. You don't even remember 95% of the things that happened in the last 12 months. Me either. This process is going to help you review what happened and all the experiences, the highs, the lows, the lessons, the wins, the losses. And we're gonna pull it all together and you're gonna go, oh, my gosh. Wow. And from that place, you're gonna be able to create a set of directions for how you make your next year the single best year of your life. And this is important because it's personal. It's personal what's gonna make your next year one of the best years of your life. And I'm not gonn that mistake of not taking a beat and tapping the brakes and spending the time digging into what your own life has to teach you. About what will make for the best year of your life. Because you don't know right now. In fact, you don't even know where you are because you're not present to everything that's happened to you in the past 12 months. And it's important to know where you are. In fact, I always think about planning and goal setting in this time of year, like creating a set of directions. Have you ever had the experience where you're trying to find a friend's house, right? And maybe you've never been there before and you're a little lost, and so you call your friend and you're like, I know I'm close, but how do I get to your house? Can you help me? Can you help me get there? What's the first thing they ask you? Can you tell me where you are? The reason why somebody asks you where are you? Is because, mathematically speaking, it's impossible to give somebody directions unless we know two things. Where are you? And where do you want to go? I'm going to walk you through this process that helps you understand exactly where you are. Because when you're really present to everything you've learned and experienced these last 12 months of your life, you not only know exactly who you are and where you are, you're going to be very clear about what you want and what you don't want. And I know things are a little crazy right now. I know there's a lot of you that feel uncertain based on where you may be living in the world. I know that there's a lot in the news that can feel a little overwhelming. But I'm going to remind you over and over and over again, when you focus on yourself and when you focus on your actions and when you focus on your own life, what's within your control, your life is going to get better. You will feel more in control, and you will start to feel yourself truly moving your life and your career and your relationships in the right direction. And that's exactly what we're going to be doing today. Before we jump into this, I just want to tell you a little bit about how this is going to roll. If you're listening to me as you're walking right now, or you're driving a car, you're not going to be able to write anything down. And that's okay. All I want you to do is just listen and think about your answers to these seven questions. Because once you listen through this process, you're going to want to come back with a piece of paper or Perhaps your laptop. And you're definitely going to want to come back and have your camera roll with you on your phone. And you're going to understand why in a minute. And you also, as you're listening, might go, oh, I want to do this with spouse, or I want to do this with my family. Which means you can listen through the whole thing and then share it with everybody and then come back and do it as a group. See, I want to have you go through this process and actually get your answers to these seven questions down on paper or in your computer. Why? Well, because to me, if you just keep them trapped in your mind, they're not real. I need you to pull this wisdom and clarity out of your brain and put them either in your computer or in your notes app or on a piece of paper in the real world. And you're also going to need your phone. And the reason why you're going to need your phone is because you have a camera roll on your phone. And we're going to be using your calendar and all of the photos from the last year to jog your memory, because having done this for 20 years in a row, I can tell you with 100% certainty you have forgotten 95% of what's happened this year. Are you ready? Good. So am I. I'm so excited. So let's just jump in with question number one. Describe the highlights from the past year of your life. What were the highlights? Now, if you stop and think, you're like, okay, what were the highlights? Where the. You don't remember them all. And this is where your camera roll comes in. Okay, so if I take out my camera roll and I'm going to do it right now. I have resisted the urge to look through my camera roll because I wanted to actually do this with you. And I'm going to put into my search right now. Let's see. Let's go to January. Oh, my gosh. Like, already. Wow. I started the year visiting my daughter in California. I completely for. Oh, there I am with my best friend from elementary school, Jodi. There's a photo of us. We're in Santa. I completely forgot about that. Oh, whoa, there's Jamie Kern Lima. I'm visiting my pal. Oh, my gosh. Oakley was still in high school, and there he is at a ski race. Completely forgot that ski season was a year ago, and I actually made it to a couple of them. Oh, there I am. I'm getting my hair dyed. Oh, I went out to dinner with friends. Oh, there's my Friend's new puppy. There's a lot that I forgot. I forgot that, oh, my gosh, my friend got a new puppy named Honey. She's now, like, the size of a horse. I completely forgot that that happened this year. And this is just January. Oh, I forgot about this. Here's another one. I did a yoga class with flamingos walking around. I mean, talk about a crazy experience. And there was this one particular moment where I was standing up and you're supposed to be all still, and honest to God, a flamingo came up and put his be over my shoulder. I mean, that was crazy. I completely forgot about that. And, guys, I am only on January 15, and look at how much I forgot about already. And you want to know what this shows me? It shows me that time with Family Matters. Do you see how excited I got as I was talking about these celebrations and these memories? And you want to know what else that shows me? It shows me how excited I got about all the new things that I did. Like the flamingo yoga thing, that was one class that lasted 50 minutes. And it's still something that when I see the photos, it brings me a lot of joy. That's pretty cool. I want you to really embrace what I'm saying, because now what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to my camera roll and I'm just gonna put in this year 7,000 photos. Actually, there's 6,000, 927 photos when I put in 2024. And as I scroll through this and I start to jog my memory of all of the things that happened this year, what becomes so apparent? And you're going to absolutely love doing this ritual every year of taking an audit, which is really the process of taking your life in, like, allowing yourself to relive it week by week, month by month, photo by photo. You're going to see just all the ups and downs and the places that you went and the people that you saw. And you might see that you didn't go anywhere. That, in and of itself is a really important piece of data. Maybe your life is too. Same old, same old, and that's part of the reason why you feel stuck. And it's going to be staring back at you in your photos. Maybe you're going to pull out your camera roll and realize you only have 100 photos for the whole year, which probably means you haven't been that present. You know, one of the things that's really cool about doing this podcast is the number of people that I get to Meet. And my life wasn't like that two years ago. My life, I felt, like, very isolated in my work. I felt like I was constantly traveling. I felt like I wasn't learning as much as I wanted to learn. And when I did my audit with Chris two years ago, I'm like, I need to change this. Holy cow, I'm seeing another highlight. So our daughter Kendall played at Carnegie hall, and here she is with her buddy Phil Cooke, who accompanied her at this big folk music thing. And just this week, she was down in Durham doing sessions with Phil and a bunch of his musician friends in Durham, based on the relationship that they created in January. Like, it just kind of opens up possibility for you and what you're going to notice. Again, the question is, what are the highlights? And I'm seeing a lot of highlights. What happens is it reminds you of what brings you joy. And if you don't see a lot of highlights, that's okay. That's okay. Because that's data, and it's something you can change. And there have been plenty of years, over the 20 years that Chris and I have gone through this audit where I've said, this has been all work, no play. I don't see any friends here. I didn't go anywhere. I didn't see my family as much. I'm not smiling in photos. I gotta change something. But I just really wanted to give you a sense of what it feels like to sit down and give yourself this gift of just spending time with yourself and the life that you've lived this last year. So what were the highlights? Well, there were an awful lot of photos about the process of writing the Let Them Theory book. I have been head down on that puppy for the entire year. And so a huge highlight is that I actually got that thing done that two days ago it was published, that the COVID is sensational, that the content is incredible, and that more importantly, all those late nights, all of the times I broke down crying, all of the photos of me where I look bloated and my mascara is running and I'm exhausted and the gray hairs are coming in, and I've been living in the same pair of sweatpants for three days, that all of that hard work paid off. And then another huge highlight. Our family climbed Mount Katahdin, which is the mountain that is the end of the Appalachian Trail. It was an extraordinary experience. And so that just kind of gives you a sense of what does it sound like and what are the highlights? And I'm gonna give you one other highlight on my Phone. There were a tremendous number of flowers that I stopped and took photos of. And a highlight for me is that I had, for the first time in my life, I had planted a cutting garden, which basically means I had taken the time to plant a ton of tulip bulbs last spring. And this year they bloomed. And there were so many photos. Like, I'm literally obsessed with flowers. And what does that tell me? Well, the reason why highlights are important is the things that make you smile, the things that make you look back with fondness. It's not just the accomplishments, it's the things that make your heart warm. And that's important data because you want more of that in your life. If you look at the last 12 months and you can see the things that made you smile or made you happy or that brought you more peace, then you're going to want to bring more of that to your life in the next 12 months. That's an example of how you use your own life as data to help you create a set of directions to what living the best life for you in the next year looks like. And that's personal to you. You may be listening to me going, flowers, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. Well, then that means it shouldn't be part of your set of directions. But don't you think it'd be stupid if I don't include it as part of mine? Of course it would be. And that's why we're doing this audit. And that brings me to the second question that you're going to ask yourself. And you're going to be able to answer this very quickly because you're going to have just scrolled through all of your photos and through your calendar. And that second question is, what were some of the hardest parts this year? Now, last year, the hardest parts for me is that I was in full blown menopause. I felt like I was a Twinkie on two legs in terms of my waist was gone. My pants didn't fit. I had like a fanny pack around my front. Only it wasn't a fanny pack. It was actually my stomach filling out my pants. And I just felt completely disempowered. The other low point, other than my health, and this is also part of my health, I spent way too much time working. Like there were just when I looked at the low points of 2023, oh my God, like, I didn't see my friends at all. Every single photo was work. I didn't spend a lot of time with my parents, with My family, there weren't a lot of celebrations, and it was depressing. And when you ask yourself what were the hardest parts of your year, it's okay that it makes you sad. It's okay to feel the feelings. You know, for me, one of the things that made me really sad is becoming an empty nester. Like, I don't even like that term. I like. I prefer the term bird launcher, because the fact is, once they fly away, they tend to fly back, and they need more money and they have problems they need help with. And I love that it's a sign that they need you and that they trust you. But it is kind of sad. It's sad to not have the energy in the house. It's sad to not have all the kids coming over after school and to have to be kind of quiet. Another really hard part, my dad had to have surgery. It was very unexpected. And it's also been hard to see that in the wake of the surgery, which was just a back surgery, it went well. I know you're gonna ask, so I'm just gonna tell you. It went really well. But the recovery, it's kind of a long road, and he can't do a lot of the things that brings him joy. So he's grumpy. My mom's kind of grumpy about it. You know, it's not the easies to see your parents getting a little bit older. And so that was a really hard part. Another hard part. Not going to lie to you, right? In the let them theory, it is a very difficult thing to take on a project that size. And it chewed up most of my weekends, a lot of late nights. It was a lot of hard work. And so as much as it was a high, it was also kind of a low in terms of just the hard part. And I'm pointing that out because there are things in your life that are gonna make you really proud and are gonna be really big accomplishments, and they're also very hard, and that's okay. And kind of understanding that just because something is successful doesn't mean it wasn't a low point. Just because something was amazing in the end doesn't mean it wasn't a project that sucked you dry. And so it made both lists for me. The other thing that was very difficult for me is our daughter Sawyer went through the most painful and devastating breakup of her life, and she was profoundly depressed and heartbroken. And it is extremely difficult to watch somebody that you love process something like that because you can't fix it for Him. The hardest thing about grief and heartbreak is you gotta go through it. It was also very hard to watch our son Oak apply to a bunch of colleges and just get no, no, no from the three top schools he was interested in. And again, you can't fix it. And it's a really important thing in life to not get what you want, honestly, because it makes you realize what's worth working for. It makes you realize what's important, makes you realize nothing's guaranteed. And Kendall had a very hard year, too, at points where she was just very down on herself and questioning whether or not being in the music industry was something she was ever going to be successful at. And yet again, do you see the lesson life is teaching me that I can't rescue someone from their challenges? In fact, when you try to. And this is what I learned, and it was kind of a gift, now that I think about it, because as all this was going on, I'm writing the let them theory, and it led to an entire section about how when people in your life are struggling, you have to let them because they're capable of facing these challenges in life. And when you try to rescue people from the natural consequences of life and their decisions, and when you try to rescue people from what life is trying to teach, you tend to drown. So it was very hard for me to go, okay, let them. And let me just focus on providing the support and believing in their ability to face this and to get through it. You know what? It works. The people in your life are a lot stronger than you believe. So you gotta let em and trust that they are capable with your support of figuring it out and meeting these moments in life. And, you know, I'm sharing all this with you because what's gonna be on your list is personal. And what it teaches you is personal, but it's also powerful. It's so powerful. I can't wait to hear what you find when you look back and you ask these questions. This is so cool, isn't it? I love this. I'm so glad I get to share this process with you. And let's take a quick pause so that we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. I also want to give you a chance to share. Share this with people that you love, because for the past 20 years, I've been doing this with Chris, but we now do this with our kids. Like, this is the coolest thing to do with your family and with your friends and with your significant other, because you not only learn about one another, but you kind of remind each other of the things that have happened over the last 12 years and it really brings you together and I just love that for you. So share this with people that you love and don't you dare go anywhere because we've got more questions that I need to ask you. We got more to do in this audit. We're just getting started. Oh my God, I love this. And I'll be waiting for you after a short break. Stay with me.