How to Design Your Life (A Full Step-by-Step Process)

Order your copy of The Let Them Theory 👉 https://melrob.co/let-them-theory 👈 The #1 Best Selling Book of 2025 🔥 Discover how much power you truly have. It all begins with two simple words. Let Them. — This episode comes with a free companion workbook to help you design your life. Get it here → http://melrobbins.com/designyourlife Today, you’re getting a step-by-step process for designing the life you want. Right now, you might think that “designing your life” sounds impossible, or that it’s something reserved for people with more time, money, or resources. But what if it wasn’t just a nice idea? What if it was a simple, concrete, and clear process you could start right now? Here’s the truth: You have the power to design the exact life you’ve always wanted and today you’re getting the blueprint to make it happen. In this episode, Mel sits down with Debbie Millman. Debbie is “one of the most creative people in business” according to Fast Company, and is a professor who has been teaching a course on designing your life for over a decade at the School of Visual Arts. Graphic Design USA calls her “one of the most influential designers working today,” and today she is here to teach you the lessons from her renowned course on life design. Debbie will show you that no matter where you are right now, no matter how stuck, lost, or uncertain you feel, you can start creating a more intentional, meaningful future. In this episode, you’ll learn: -The exact questions to ask yourself to create your dream life -The most important choices that can change your life -How to stop focusing on what’s probable and start thinking about what’s possible -The exact steps that allow you to create your dream reality -The one mistake that will sabotage your vision, and how to avoid it Plus, Mel and Debbie have created a free workbook to walk you through the step-by-step process of designing your own remarkable life, and you can download it here: http://melrobbins.com/designyourlife For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page: https://www.melrobbins.com/episode/episode-323/ Follow The Mel Robbins Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themelrobbinspodcast I’m just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is NOT intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I’ll see you in the next episode. 00:00 Meet the Guest 1:39 Introduction 05:14 Why Possibility Matters More Than Probability 08:09 The 10-Year Exercise That Changes Lives 14:37 How to Start Designing the Life You Want 26:13 How to Take Up Space in Your Own Life 30:36 The Truth About “Not Knowing What You Want” 37:13 This Is What Self-Sabotage Really Looks Like 48:23 The Most Crucial Step: Admit What You Really Want 54:56 Why It’s So Hard to Imagine a Better Future 01:02:51 Don’t Fake It Till You Make It — Make It Till You Make It — Follow Mel: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/melrobbins/ TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@melrobbins Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/melrobbins LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melrobbins Website: http://melrobbins.com​ — Sign up for Mel’s newsletter: https://melrob.co/sign-up-newsletter A note from Mel to you, twice a week, sharing simple, practical ways to build the life you want. — Subscribe to Mel’s channel here: https://www.youtube.com/melrobbins​?sub_confirmation=1 — Listen to The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎧 New episodes drop every Monday & Thursday! https://melrob.co/spotify https://melrob.co/applepodcasts https://melrob.co/amazonmusic — Looking for Mel’s books on Amazon? Find them here: The Let Them Theory: https://amzn.to/3IQ21Oe The Let Them Theory Audiobook: https://amzn.to/413SObp The High 5 Habit: https://amzn.to/3fMvfPQ The 5 Second Rule: https://amzn.to/4l54fah

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 0:09Mel Robbins?

  When was the last time you sat down and really thought about what you want your life to look like? Now, I'm not talking about your to-do list, or what's for dinner, or what are you dreaming about going on your next vacation? I'm talking about your life, the big picture. You know, when you look out to the future, what do you want it to be? Where do you want to live? What do you want to do for work? Who do you hang out with? What does it feel like to be you out in the future? Now, if you don't intentionally design your life, you're going to end up living a life you never wanted. But I have really great news. There is a proven three-step method to designing your life at any age.

• 0:52Mel Robbins?

  A professor who's been teaching a course all about this process for 15 years is here to walk you and me through it today. And we're going to go through this life design process together. I'm so excited to do this with you. And I'm going to take this one step further. Our expert and I created an exclusive free workbook. This workbook is going to walk you step by step through the process, and it will serve as a free companion for you and all the people that you love. And it works with this episode so that you can design the life that you want. And today, you and I are not only going to learn how, we're going to do it together.

• 1:39Mel Robbins?

  Hey, it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. It is always an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. And if you're a new listener, or you're here because somebody shared this with you, I just wanted to personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today, Professor Debbie Millman is here. For 15 years, she has taught a course on life design at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She is the author of seven bestselling books. Fast Company calls her "one of the most creative people in business and one of the most influential..." Designers in the United States. And she not only teaches people how to design their life, but she is also a legendary designer of physical products. If you walk into a grocery store right now,

• 2:22Mel Robbins?

  Debbie has had a hand in designing about 20% of the packaging you see on the shelves, which means she's a visionary. Her expertise is that she can create something from nothing. And that's what you and I are going to do when you go through this three-step process today to design the life that you want. You're going to learn how to stand in the present and envision something out in the future that really excites you. How cool is that? And even better, Professor Millman and I have created an exclusive workbook that she designed just for you and everybody that you care about. And it's free. It's right in the show notes if you're listening, or you can just go to melrobbins.com/DesignYourLife and download it for free.

• 3:07Mel Robbins?

  So please help me welcome Professor Debbie Millman to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Professor Debbie Millman, thank you for being here. I'm so excited you are here on the Mel Robbins Podcast.

• 3:18Speaker 01

  Thank you. It's just incredible to be here.

• 3:22Mel Robbins?

  Well, I love this topic of designing the life that you want. I love your work. You are somebody that I've been wanting to have here in our Boston studios from the very beginning. So thank you for making the trip. And I'd love to have you start by speaking directly to the person who's with us right now. They want to design a life that they love. And so Debbie, what does it mean to design your life?

• 3:48Speaker 01

  Designing your life is about intention. It's not about furniture. It's not about clothes. It's about intention. It's about making decisions about what you want your life to look like and feel like and embody, and then creating a plan to try and make that happen.

• 4:10Mel Robbins?

  I absolutely love that because you do have a process that you have been teaching to students and graduate students for almost two decades. And you're going to walk us step by step through that process. And one of the things, though, in case the person listening isn't familiar with your work, or they're not a graphic designer or a business owner, or somebody that thinks about design, an artist, a creative.

• 4:40Mel Robbins?

  Can you just explain, you know, how you use design principles in relation to creating the life that you want?

• 4:49Speaker 01

  Design, in its essence, is about very deliberate decisions about how you want anything to exist. It could be a product, it could be a logo, it could be a room, it could be a meal. Everything that we do intentionally is something that we can design. We design how we look, we design how we live. We can even begin to learn how to design some of the things that are more unconscious. And that's what this roadmap for growth really allows you to do. It allows you to sort of wake up some of the things that you hope and dream for,

• 5:33Speaker 01

  but might have been too afraid to look at or see or design.

• 5:40Mel Robbins?

  Well, what I love about the just topic of design is that even though I don't consider myself a talented designer, if I step in the shoes of somebody, whether they're designing fashion or they're designing products or they're creating art, it's the ability to create something that doesn't exist right now.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely. And that's the design in its highest power.

• 6:07Mel Robbins?

  Is it possible to design your life? Like, like, because I think that anybody, so many, so many of us have had the experience where I'm like completely stuck. I don't know what I want. And you're about to walk us through this incredible process where you can design your life. Is it really possible?

• 6:27Speaker 01

  Well, Mel, look what you've done.

• 6:31Mel Robbins?

  No.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Look what you've done. There is...

• 6:37Speaker 01

  A way in which you can create a pathway to be able to make decisions about what you want, even if those things change. Because it's not about determining what is probable. It's about determining what is possible. And being able to have possibilities for your life allow you to be able to start to experiment with what those possibilities might feel like.

• 7:11Mel Robbins?

  I love what you just said. I want to make sure that as you were listening to Debbie, that you really got that. It's not about what's probable. It's about what's possible.

• 7:22Speaker 01

  Yes. And a lot of people make decisions based on what they think is going to be the most likely successful outcome. And they make those decisions primarily because they're afraid to fail or be rejected or be humiliated or ashamed for trying to do something that they might not think that they have any right to want. And I'm speaking from experience. I'm not just speaking theoretically. I'm not talking about this because I learned this in college. Actually, most of what I've experienced comes from failing or being rejected or feeling ashamed of what I wanted or who I am.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  And trying to work through that to understand that we have this one life that you can move forward and create something with creativity, with clarity, with spirituality, with honesty.

• 8:25Mel Robbins?

  And you're going to teach us through this process. That you have been teaching people for almost two decades, how to create a vision from your life that doesn't exist right now. And might even be something that you can't even comprehend, that you could possibly create for yourself. And you're here to say, no, no, no. Through this process of thinking like a designer, you can intentionally design the life you want.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 8:53Mel Robbins?

  I want to start by having you tell me how you came up with this exercise in the first place.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  Well, it's something that I learned from someone else. I didn't plant these seeds. These seeds were planted for me. In 2005, I took a class with the late, great Milton Glaser. Milton Glaser is one of the great, great designers of the 20th century. He created the I Heart New York logo. He created that magnificent, memorable Dylan poster where he's in silhouette, but his hair is all flying colors. And the last exercise of the class of this program was writing an essay to yourself about what you wanted your life to look like five years in the future. If you could have and get and be anything that you wanted, anything.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  And he asked us to take it very seriously. He said he'd been teaching this class for 50 years.

• 9:54Mel Robbins?

  Five, zero, 50 years.

• 9:55Speaker 01

  Five, zero, yep. And he asked us to write an essay, five years in the future, if we could have exactly the life that we wanted. So he wanted us to write it from the moment we woke up

• 10:10Speaker 01

  on a day, five years in the future, till the moment we closed our eyes to go to sleep. Even though he was one of the most famous, if not the most famous graphic designer in the United States, maybe the world.

• 10:25Speaker 01

  He said that this class was the most important thing he was doing with his life.

• 10:29Mel Robbins?

  Wow.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  He also said, for some mysterious reason...

• 10:36Speaker 01

  This was an exercise that changed people's lives, that he had been doing it for so long that virtually not a week went by when a former student wrote him and said, everything came true. I don't know how or why, but everything came true. So not only did I write a 12-page essay, I also made a list of 20 things that I would be doing in 2010. And then Mel, I forgot about it. It was in a journal that I was keeping, that I had a lot of other notes in. And about a year later, I was trying to remember where I had written an address down

• 11:20Speaker 01

  of something that was important to me. And I was like, oh, I think I wrote it in that red journal. And I went back to my journals and I took out the red journal, which I had finished. And I came across the essay. I was like, oh, wow. Because everything that I had written, I was aspiring to. The things that I was doing, that I loved doing, I was doing more of. But there were so many things. Like what? Like teaching at the School of Visual Arts, like being a member, a leader in the American Institute of Graphic Arts, writing a book of curating an art exhibit. By 2006, I had started teaching at the School of Visual Arts.

• 12:04Speaker 01

  I had forgotten that I'd even put that on the list. I had gotten my first book deal. I had been invited to be a board member of the New York chapter of AIGA. And I was like, whoa. How did that happen? Because I didn't remember that I had written any of that. I had completely put it out of my mind. Now, one thing that Milton asked us to do was to read it out loud to the class. So everyone got up and shared. And I do think that that declaration Was really, really important. It's one thing to write something and sort of hide it.

• 12:47Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  It's another thing to almost admit.

• 12:50Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 12:50Speaker 01

  That these are things that you want. And once you admit it out loud, I think that there's a way that it somehow integrates into your own intentions.

• 13:01Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 13:01Speaker 01

  Which is what design is. It's decisions that you make intentionally. So you can make a decision about how you want to live. You can make a decision about who you want to love. These things are very much determined by what we believe we're entitled to, what we believe we're worthy of, and what we think we have enough talent to be able to achieve. But a lot of those are so self-determined. And often they're determined at a very young age before we're really even conscious of making those decisions that then impact the rest of our lives.

• 13:39Mel Robbins?

  How did this exercise change your life?

• 13:41Speaker 01

  Well, it changed my life in every possible way. It changed how I work, who I work with, what I do, how I do it. So what happened was Milton stopped teaching.

• 13:52Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 13:53Speaker 01

  And I started teaching. Milton's on the Board of Directors at the School of Visual Arts. I also asked him if it would be okay, since he wasn't teaching it anymore, to use that exercise in my classes. But because I was teaching much younger people than mid-level designers looking to rebuild their life, I wanted to give them a bit more runway. I wanted to give them more of an opportunity to have their lives unfurl with a little bit more patience.

• 14:24Mel Robbins?

  So you took the exercise that was transformative to you, that Milton had taught you when you were in your 40s taking this class, and you made it your own because you were thinking about the fact that a lot of your students are in their 20s.

• 14:39Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 14:39Mel Robbins?

  Can you walk us step by step through this process?

• 14:42Speaker 01

  Yes, absolutely.

• 14:43Mel Robbins?

  Okay, great, because it's me and this person somewhere around the world that's taken the time to listen. How do we start?

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Well, you start by starting.

• 14:51Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 14:52Speaker 01

  You just decide, I'm going to start this for me. And I'm going to experience a lot of different emotions. Not all of them are going to be pleasant. But they're all real emotions and those emotions are really important to look at because some people do have stress doing these types of exercises. They have stress for any number of reasons. One, because they might not think that they can achieve it. They might not think they're worthy. They might have a lot of fear about wanting things. What does it mean to want something? To really want something and to admit that you want something?

• 15:28Mel Robbins?

  You've got this incredible deck of cards called the Remarkable Life Deck.

• 15:34Speaker 01

  This is a deck of cards that I've, I've created. I, I designed and wrote the, the questions. It is a, a deck that includes instructions. It includes a little journal so that you can write in it if you want. And it includes 30 cards that have two different ways you can approach this exercise. The first is very prescriptive, the way I like things with very clear questions. How do you define happiness? What are your career goals? What are you telling yourself you can't do that you can? Those are the kinds of questions I like, very clear. But other people are maybe a little bit more abstract, want a little bit more freedom

• 16:17Speaker 01

  to go in lots of different directions that they aren't planning for. And so the other side of the cards are prompts. Imagine immensities. Make the impossible possible. Took a long time too. So it gives you a little bit more freedom if you prefer being more abstract and it gives you a little bit more clarity if you like a protocol.

• 16:39Mel Robbins?

  And one thing I want to say about you is that you were adamant that we made sure that the process that we're going to go through isn't something that you have to necessarily buy the deck of cards for.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Correct.

• 16:53Mel Robbins?

  And so I want to just acknowledge you, Professor Millman, for making a download available for free.

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:00Mel Robbins?

  So wherever you're watching this or you're listening, you can go to melrobbins.com/designyourlife and Professor Millman has designed something for you that you can download that will act as a companion to everything that we're talking about for free. And so I want to thank you upfront for that.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Oh, my pleasure. I, I. I wanted, when I was asked to create something around this exercise, I was very specific about it at the time being cards

• 17:30Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  that people can play with.

• 17:31Mel Robbins?

  Yep.

• 17:32Speaker 01

  They can answer some of the questions, they can answer all of the questions, they can go in any order they want to, or they can go in the order that they came out of the box. And so for people to have this access to this exercise is the most important thing to me.

• 17:47Mel Robbins?

  So one quick question is, how specifically should we do this exercise? Because, you know, I know the person that's with us right now, listening or watching, is probably a lot like I am, like, Professor Millman, how do I do this, Debbie? Tell me what to do. Am I writing it down? Can I listen to this podcast if I'm on a walk and then come back and write it down? Like, what's the actual steps before you walk us through the prompts and questions?

• 18:11Speaker 01

  I would suggest that you write however you like to write.

• 18:17Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 18:17Speaker 01

  If you like to write on your phone, write it on your phone. If you want to write it on your iPad, you can write it on your iPad. If you want to write it on paper, awesome. If you want to write it in a journal, beautiful. However you feel comfortable, that's the most important thing. There's no prescription to how it's done. And I would wait for an opportunity or carve out an opportunity for you to be in a place where you feel peaceful, where you feel free, where you'll have some space just for you. And then start to work on beginning to envision

• 18:59Speaker 01

  what your life could be like if you could have anything that you wanted and you were unafraid to pursue your dreams.

• 19:07Mel Robbins?

  I love that. And so if you're listening or watching right now, I'm going to invite you to just listen or watch this entire conversation because I know your work and I know simply experiencing the conversation right now will actually crack something open so that when you find time to sit with a journal or be in a place where you can write this stuff out, you're going to have already taken the first step and be really ready to just jump into that cold pool on a warm summer day. And it's going to be incredible. So, awesome.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  And again, the first sentence I ask them all to start with, it is, October 29th, 2035. I open my eyes and...

• 19:56Speaker 01

  Where are you? What are you doing? Who are you with? Are you sleeping next to someone? Do you have pets? Do you have children? What are your sheets like? What does your bedroom look like? What is your day start with? How do you exercise? Do you have a spiritual practice? What are you eating? Where do you go to work? Do you have meetings? What kind of money do you need? And so on. What, do you have a bicycle? Do you have a car? Do you have a skateboard? Whatever it is that you imagine you could have, if anything that you wanted could be manifested, without fear, without worrying about the ways in which it could happen, just, this is your life 10 years from now.

• 20:41Mel Robbins?

  That's the opening invitation. So whatever date and wherever you are and however old or young you may be, the invitation is to time travel ahead 10 years from today.

• 20:55Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 20:55Mel Robbins?

  And that is how we begin this exercise of designing the life that you want. Why is 10 years an important timeframe to help you not think about probability, but to imagine what might be possible?

• 21:11Speaker 01

  This is really amending the original exercise that Milton created. He gave us a timeframe of five years. I don't think that's realistic at all. And I don't want people to feel they have to be realistic. One of the other reasons that this can be distressing for people is that they are thinking about, what is realistic? I don't want you to think about realistic. I want you to think the opposite of realistic. They also get very caught up in the process. This is not an exercise about process. I don't even want you to think about the process. I want you to think about the outcome. If you start thinking about, how am I going to do this? It defeats the whole purpose.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Make it your dream. This is my fantasy about what my life could be if I could get everything that I wanted. And it doesn't mean you're gonna get everything you want, but it's certainly gonna get you more than what you have.

• 22:09Mel Robbins?

  That's true.

• 22:09Speaker 01

  And that I can guarantee.

• 22:10Mel Robbins?

  So we're gonna think 10 years ahead. I'm 56 years old. So I'm now going to think 10 years ahead. I am 66 years old. You may be in your twenties and now you're thinking about being in your thirties. You may be a teenager and now you're thinking about your twenties. You may be in your thirties, you're thinking about your forties. And so this is an invitation to go one decade ahead, 10 years in your life. And then the next question you ask yourself is,

• 22:38Speaker 01

  10 years from now, where do you live? Describe your surroundings.

• 22:43Mel Robbins?

  So I'm waking up, I'm 60, I cannot believe I'm 66 years old.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Wait until you're my age. Then you're in your seventies.

• 22:53Mel Robbins?

  And so you think about yourself 10 years older.

• 23:00Mel Robbins?

  And you imagine waking up and opening your eyes. And the first thing that you ask yourself is, where do you live?

• 23:09Speaker 01

  Where are you?

• 23:10Mel Robbins?

  Well, for me, I see the ocean. And I don't live near the ocean right now.

• 23:16Speaker 01

  Well, I think that's a cue.

• 23:19Mel Robbins?

  What happens if the thing that you immediately see makes no sense? Or you, do people ever open their eyes and imagine themselves 10 years from now? And they can't see where they live?

• 23:36Speaker 01

  Well, one question that I would ask you is, why doesn't it make sense, Mel? If it's something that you're envisioning for yourself, this ocean, why doesn't it make sense? You're already telling yourself that something maybe isn't possible or doesn't compute before it's possible and before it could even maybe remotely compute. You've already said process. You've already said, I wanna understand why I want this or how I want this or how I'm gonna get it, without just allowing yourself to envision being in that environment. And that's what holds us back from ever getting that,

• 24:20Speaker 01

  because we're thinking process, we're thinking probability, we're thinking realistic.

• 24:26Mel Robbins?

  So if you ask yourself the question, it's 10 years from now.

• 24:32Mel Robbins?

  I open my eyes. Where am I living? And you have a vision, Paris. Oh, I live on the mountains. Oh, I live in Esquita. Oh, I live in a beach. Oh, I live in a high-rise, a penthouse. This is a spectacular home. What?

• 24:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:47Mel Robbins?

  If it doesn't make sense, you immediately go, uh-uh.

• 24:51Speaker 01

  Process, realism, probability.

• 24:53Mel Robbins?

  But this exercise isn't about process, probability, and realism. The exercise you're teaching us is how to design the life you actually want.

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Right.

• 25:04Mel Robbins?

  And these questions help us imagine possibilities that we don't even realize are within our reach over time.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  Yes. And/or we might hope that they're within our reach, but we don't have what I guess people would say is confidence to go out and make it happen. But I really think that confidence is not only a myth, but it's really overrated in terms of being able to depend on it to help us make things happen.

• 25:41Mel Robbins?

  Debbie, I am so grateful for this conversation. And I know that the people in your life are going to love this, too. We're gonna take a quick break so we can hear a word from our amazing sponsors. And here's what I want you to do over the break. Send this episode to somebody who has a dream for a bigger life, somebody that you care about and that you want to empower and inspire with the tools they need to create that life. And don't forget, Debbie and I are giving you a free workbook that she designed just for you, that walks you through the step-by-step tools and process that we're talking about right now so you can design the life you've always wanted. You can just go to the show notes or go to melrobbins.com/DesignYourLife, download it for free.

• 26:25Mel Robbins?

  And please share it with everybody because everybody deserves to design a life that they love, particularly if they don't know what they want. And stick with us because we'll be right back. And Debbie and I will be waiting for you after the break. Stay with me.

• 26:50Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. And today you and I are learning from Professor Debbie Millman, all about taking the steps and using the tools to create your dream life. So what is the next question you need to ask? You should ask yourself in this process of designing the life that you want. You've now opened your eyes. You imagine where you live. It doesn't have to make sense. Just keep going with it. What's the next question we ask ourselves?

• 27:14Speaker 01

  What does your home look like?

• 27:17Mel Robbins?

  Huh. Home. Interesting, because it's somewhat modern and very beachy, I guess.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  Well, it's interesting because I-

• 27:29Mel Robbins?

  It doesn't look like where I live now.

• 27:30Speaker 01

  And I can envision you in that. Like, when you say it, it makes sense to me.

• 27:34Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  It feels like home.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  And a lot of the questions here that I pulled out aren't necessarily in order now, but they're just some of the questions that I love most. What kind of love do you need?

• 27:51Mel Robbins?

  I need constant.

• 27:52Speaker 01

  Same.

• 27:52Mel Robbins?

  I need the dog running around. I need the coffee brought to me in bed. I need grandchildren running around everywhere.

• 27:59Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 27:59Mel Robbins?

  Constant love. That's what I need.

• 28:01Speaker 01

  Yep. Are you in a relationship? Describe who you love most, what they're like, and why you love them. Describe your physical self. How is your health? How do you take care of yourself? I have hope on the other side because I hope that I stay healthy. I hope we all stay healthy.

• 28:22Speaker 01

  This is one that sometimes gives people pause. How do you take up space?

• 28:31Mel Robbins?

  What does that mean?

• 28:32Speaker 01

  That means, do you allow yourself to be fully present? Do you try to make yourself smaller so other people can be present?

• 28:45Speaker 01

  I think that a lot of people are afraid of taking up space because they might feel like they're literally and figuratively too big, that they're somehow more than they should be, that they're too much, that they want more than they should. Do you have a spiritual practice? If so, what does that entail? Outline your relationship with money. How much do you need? How much do you want? What do you want to do with it?

• 29:17Speaker 01

  10 years from now, what have you developed mastery of? And on the back, it says it took a long time, too, because I think it takes a long time to gain mastery of anything. And I think that in today's speed of technology, with today's speed of technology, there's an expectation that as soon as you graduate college, you are a master of whatever it is you want to be a master of, that you are expected to be successful out of the gate. And I think that's heartbreaking because I think it takes a long time. It takes a long time to do anything worthwhile because you have to practice at it.

• 29:59Mel Robbins?

  That mastery question is really interesting. What if you don't know what you want to do? So I'm thinking about the number of people that are going to share this with 20-somethings in their life, or people in their 30s who have spent time doing a certain career and now they're like, I don't like this. I need to reinvent myself. I need to change. What if, when you ask yourself, what was the question again? What have you developed mastery of? What if you don't know?

• 30:26Speaker 01

  Chances are you are harboring some love of something. I don't know anybody that doesn't have dreams.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  What I did when I first wrote my five-year plan, which turned into a 12-year plan, was have a lot of meetings. I had meetings with gallery. I had meetings with a publisher. I had meetings with corporations that I might be working with. I was doing a podcast. I was writing. So I just had a very busy day.

• 31:00Mel Robbins?

  That's what you imagined.

• 31:01Speaker 01

  And that's what I imagined. I was just going from thing to thing. I had a lunch date. I had a dinner date. And I just had a very full day of doing all the things that I wanted to do. Now, if you want to do a lot of things, do a lot of things. The one thing that I can tell you is when you do a lot of things, it takes a longer time to develop mastery of those things. Because you don't develop mastery until you practice a lot. If you're doing five or 10 different things, like I've always done my whole life, it's not a surprise that I didn't get good at them until I was in my 40s, 50s, and now my 60s. Do I wish that I had spent more time doing any of those one or two or three things? No. Because I like a full life.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  And I like, I still love learning new things. And so if I was only doing one or two things, I think I'd have limited my own creativity in ways that wouldn't have been healthy for me. Now, there are some people that are like, I want to do that. I want to be a professional athlete. I want to be an ice skater. I want to be a teacher. I want to be a doctor. Then focus on that one thing. But if you don't know what that one thing is, play with as many things as you want to.

• 32:18Mel Robbins?

  Do you think a lot of us get stuck because we're not clear what we want?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Well, I don't know if it's that we're not clear. It's that we're afraid to allow ourselves to imagine immensities. We're afraid to want things because we're afraid that if we want things and we don't get them, that we are failing or that we'll be humiliated. I once asked a student, well, what would be the worst thing that happened if you didn't get this thing that you wanted? And he said, I would die of heartbreak.

• 32:57Speaker 01

  And I said, no, no, you won't. You'll metabolize that heartbreak and you'll be able to understand what it taught you. People determine what is impossible before they even try what is possible.

• 33:16Mel Robbins?

  Say more about that. Can you give me an example?

• 33:19Speaker 01

  You want to be an artist with a capital A. You don't think you could be successful at it. You don't think that anyone will appreciate your work. You don't think that you'll be able to make a living at it. Therefore, you don't pursue it.

• 33:36Mel Robbins?

  And that's looking at what the impossible. It is impossible for me.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  But it's all self determined. There's no, you haven't tested it. You haven't tried it. You've just assumed it because of your own feelings of self worth or what you're entitled to or what your life can be. So you're determining, I'm not going to do this because I don't think I'm going to be successful at it. And therefore you are determining what is impossible before you even try. And so many people do that. I teach both undergraduate students and graduate students. And 21 year olds are already deciding that something is not possible for their lives. And that breaks my heart.

• 34:20Speaker 01

  And because I experienced that exact same emotion and that same feeling, I try to help them move through feeling that something isn't possible just because they don't think that they're good enough.

• 34:36Mel Robbins?

  Wow. What's the next question?

• 34:39Speaker 01

  What are five things you would do if you knew you would not fail?

• 34:44Mel Robbins?

  So 10 years from now?

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 34:45Mel Robbins?

  What are five things? Is it that you would do or that you've done? Like, how do you do this? Just anything?

• 34:51Speaker 01

  What are five things you would do if you knew you would not fail? If you're doing them now, chances are you probably think you're not going to fail. If you have things as future ideas, chances are you would put those on the list.

• 35:09Mel Robbins?

  Well, I'll give you a couple of answers because as you asked me about the things that I want to master, or what are five things I would do that I wouldn't fail, well, one is, and I'm even laughing at myself, like, I would imagine that that's kind of a normal response, that you feel almost embarrassed that you're about to say this out loud. And I don't know why I am laughing at myself. But one of them is, I really want to write a fantasy novel. It seems stupid, but I, but I don't know why.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  Why does it seem stupid?

• 35:44Mel Robbins?

  I don't know.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  But you're already living a fantasy. Why wouldn't you want to write a fantasy book?

• 35:50Mel Robbins?

  I don't know. I like, I guess there's something in it, like, maybe it wouldn't be that good. Maybe that's the

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Process, probability, realistic.

• 35:58Mel Robbins?

  Yes, I'm actually trashing what's possible. What are some of the things that your students say in response to that question? Will you read the question again?

• 36:10Speaker 01

  What are five things you would do if you knew you would not fail?

• 36:14Mel Robbins?

  So let's kind of take it by decade, since you've been teaching this process to people of all ages. What do people in their twenties tend to say?

• 36:23Speaker 01

  A good job.

• 36:24Mel Robbins?

  A good job?

• 36:25Speaker 01

  A good job. They want a job that they feel proud of. They want a dream job, and I encourage them to go after what they want. That first job can really set you up for a path of either realism or possibility. And so often, they'll take the very first job that comes their way, not because they want that job, but because they have security in getting a job. And I'm not suggesting that they turn a job down, but I am suggesting that they could keep looking for something that does fill their heart and soul with more joy than what they might be taking because they have to pay

• 37:10Speaker 01

  their student loan back.

• 37:11Mel Robbins?

  Right. And so you take the job, but you keep looking.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Not only do you keep looking, but you keep making things. You know, my students are very creative people. And so they often find that they're working for somebody that the work that they're doing might not be what they would consider portfolio material, something that they'd want to show other people. There's nothing stopping, young people especially, from creating whatever they want to create and posting it wherever they want to post it. There's never been a time in our history as a species where people could share their dreams, their hopes, their creativity with as many people as they want to. That's an extraordinary thing. And so I encourage all of my students undertake

• 37:58Speaker 01

  a 100-day project wherein they have to make something every single day for 100 days. And that gives them a body of work that they can then make as they wish without parameters, without a client, without worrying that they're not going to satisfy someone. But it also allows them to understand some of what they tell themselves about finishing something. Just because you're not in the mood to do something doesn't mean you have a permission slip to not do it. What matters more to you, completing this assignment, fulfilling your own personal obligation, your accountability to yourself, or watching the new season of The Bear?

• 38:44Speaker 01

  What's the next question? What are you telling yourself you can't do that you can? How do people answer that one? Oh, my God. Usually with breathtaking self-sabotage. They tell themselves that they aren't ever going to meet the person of their dreams. They tell themselves that they're never going to get the house with the ocean. They tell themselves that they never can have their own business. This is all of the circling restrictions that keep us from actually trying. These are the things that are all about, again, the probability, the realism, and the process.

• 39:28Speaker 01

  You don't know that you can't do something until you try to do it. And just because you're afraid doesn't mean that, again, that gives you a permission slip to not do it. When you're afraid of something, you have to decide, do I have more hope for this possibility happening than I do fear? Or do I have more fear than I have hope? That's a really important question. If you're holding yourself back, it means that you have more faith in the fear than you do in your hope. And then you have to really examine,

• 40:05Speaker 01

  why? Why am I so afraid of it not working out? What if it does? And I encourage my students, who are all young, and I tell them, you're never going to be younger, you're never going to be more beautiful than you are right now. And I can say that about pretty much anybody. You're never going to be younger, you're never going to be more beautiful. What are you waiting for?

• 40:30Mel Robbins?

  Waiting for the fear to go away. But it doesn't-

• 40:32Speaker 01

  Until you actually do it.

• 40:34Mel Robbins?

  Yeah. What's the next question?

• 40:36Speaker 01

  How do you define happiness?

• 40:38Mel Robbins?

  How do you define happiness?

• 40:42Speaker 01

  I've thought about this one a lot. When am I happiest? And Mel, I'm happiest when I'm making things. That's when I'm happiest. Making these cards, drawing them, writing them, gave me a great deal of joy. Writing my most recent book, it's a visual book, so I drew and wrote at the same time, My Love Letter to a Garden. When I was doing that, I realized, I could do this for the rest of my life.

• 41:14Speaker 01

  That's happiness. Happiness is being with my wife. I feel an enormous amount of peace and contentment when I'm with her. You know, Seth Godin is another dear friend of mine and my other mentor, and he talks about happiness as contentment. Happiness isn't searching for happy. Happy is in the moment and your content. Nothing's going to make you happy if you are content with what you have. That's happiness.

• 41:46Mel Robbins?

  I agree. That's how I would have answered it. Like, just, I'm present, I'm in the moment, there's something about what I'm doing that-

• 41:57Mel Robbins?

  I'm satisfied with, it's not some like, and creating is a space when I'm making something, when I'm hanging out with Chris, it's all the same, I think a lot of us have the same thing.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  It's true. Very few people write their 10-year plan and write on it, "I'm going to find the cure for cancer. I am going to go to Mars." Those, I don't know that they've ever come up. It's always about, "How can I create, create, construct a life of meaning, being content?"

• 42:30Mel Robbins?

  When you ask the question, time travel 10 years, wake up and you're 10 years older, where do you live? Imagine your day from the moment your eyes open, the way that the sheets feel, the room that you're in, what you're doing, who is there? What you see, what you do with your time? Imagine it all the way through to the meals that you eat, the people that you see, the way that you spend your time, where you fall asleep, how the whole thing feels. When I visualize that, it's painfully simple. It really is.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:10Mel Robbins?

  It's a beautiful day. I'm surrounded by family.

• 43:13Speaker 01

  And love.

• 43:14Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, and love. I see a couple of close friends. I'm outside.

• 43:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:18Mel Robbins?

  In nature. I'm working on something.

• 43:21Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 43:22Mel Robbins?

  That fantasy novel that I'm interested in creating.

• 43:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:27Mel Robbins?

  And there's not a whole lot of complexity to what I'm doing, but I'm content.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  You feel a sense of peace.

• 43:34Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 43:35Speaker 01

  At home.

• 43:36Mel Robbins?

  Yes.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Recognition. This is me.

• 43:39Mel Robbins?

  Debbie, I am so grateful for this conversation and for the clarity and the inspiration and the encouragement that you are bringing to me and to the person listening. Let's hear a word from our sponsors. Take a moment, share this with everybody in your life. Maybe they're at a crossroads, maybe they don't know what they want to do next, maybe they're feeling really stuck. This is a gift for free that you can give to them that will help them get back on track and see a bigger vision for their life. All righty, and stick with us, because I'll be right back with more from the extraordinary Professor Debbie Millman. Stay with me.

• 44:25Mel Robbins?

  Welcome back. It's your friend Mel. And today you and I are learning from Professor Debbie Millman, all about taking the steps and using the tools to create your dream life. Before we jump in, I want to let you know that Professor Debbie Millman and I have created an exclusive free workbook to help you design your life. Get it at melrobbins.com/DesignYourLife, or write in the show notes or in the description in YouTube that goes with this episode. So when you do this exercise with people in their 20s, or 30s, or 40s, or 50s, or 60s, do you see a difference based on decades in terms of what people visualize?

• 45:01Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 45:01Mel Robbins?

  What do you see when you're teaching this to 20-year-olds? What are the big themes that people imagine when they look ahead 10 years?

• 45:10Speaker 01

  Usually, the 20s include job, relationship, apartment, home.

• 45:18Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 45:19Speaker 01

  30s is a lot about family, children, mastery of a professional discipline. 40s, people start to want to create more, to make more, to have more time, to have more balance. They start thinking about their health more. They start thinking about physical fitness and what they're going to be like as they get older. Money is all the way across. There's not a decade that people don't write about money. There's also not a decade that people don't write about pets. Isn't that interesting?

• 45:55Mel Robbins?

  Well, it's love.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, unconditional love.

• 45:58Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:58Speaker 01

  50s and 60s, it's more about time. How am I going to use this time that I have? How am I going to create more meaning? What is my legacy? What am I leaving my family, my children? Sometimes it's about a second home.

• 46:19Mel Robbins?

  If somebody's listening right now and they're like, "Okay, well, this sounds incredible. I do want to design a life that I want. I do want to dwell in possibility." But that kind of sounds like for people with like money, privilege, like I don't have the luxury of that. How does traveling 10 years ahead and imagining yourself in a different place actually help you address the very real problems and stuckness you may feel right now?

• 46:49Speaker 01

  I don't know that it's really about luxury as much as it is about permission.

• 46:56Speaker 01

  And yes, if you are able to imagine a life of freedom, there is an assumption there that you can be free.

• 47:06Mel Robbins?

  We gotta highlight that. I want to just take that. If you can design a life that makes you feel more freedom, it means that there is a belief in that assumption that it's possible. That that changes you now because that's what anchors and gives you hope.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 47:29Mel Robbins?

  Seeing a brighter future helps you shore yourself up now. And that makes you better equipped and more resilient to move through where you're at now, knowing that there's something coming in the future.

• 47:44Speaker 01

  Yes. And if we are all privileged enough to be free,

• 47:51Speaker 01

  then let's be more intentional with that freedom. I'm actually working with an organization where I'm going to go and work with incarcerated people to imagine what their lives can be. And that really showed me how privileged we are when we have our freedom and to take it very, very seriously. I think that hope is one of the most extraordinary things humans have.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  When we lose hope, we lose our lives. We lose our spirit. And even if you don't have the kind of freedom that we have, there is still hope at creating meaning. And I'm very curious to see what people that might not have the same type of freedom that we enjoy.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Feel about what they can still make and hope for in their lives. And that will be a great privilege to me to be able to see how people do that.

• 49:02Mel Robbins?

  What are some of the common mistakes that you see your students and the people that you've taught this exercise to making when they try to design the life that they want?

• 49:14Speaker 01

  Most people get caught up in the process.

• 49:16Mel Robbins?

  Okay.

• 49:17Speaker 01

  How, how dare I think I can do this without this type of education, or this type of money, or this type of confidence, or this type of partner, or this type of body? And they begin to curtail the possibilities because they can't envision having these things.

• 49:41Speaker 01

  Again, they will think that they want something because they're comparing their lives to others. And I think that's a lot to do with social media, that if this person is doing this, I should be doing it too. And they might not even really want to do it, but they think that they should, thinking what your family expects of you.

• 50:05Speaker 01

  And if you, especially I have a lot of foreign students. And in certain Asian cultures, what the parents want for the children, or what the children do. And that is respect for the family and for elders and for parents. And they really struggle with, how much do I owe my family versus how much do I owe myself?

• 50:25Mel Robbins?

  So what is the balance between I may have a value as a person of kind of being loyal or respectful to elders and my family, and yet it's coming right up against, like, maybe I don't want kids?

• 50:40Speaker 01

  Hmm.

• 50:41Mel Robbins?

  Maybe I don't want to live in the town where my family is.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, maybe I'm gay.

• 50:45Mel Robbins?

  Maybe I'm gay. Maybe, you know, whatever. I don't want to do the profession that they want me to do.

• 50:51Speaker 01

  Yeah. I think one of the most powerful things about this exercise is the declaration. So when I do these in my class, when the students have completed, they have a week to do the exercise. They come back the next week and we share them.

• 51:12Speaker 01

  And that's terrifying to people.

• 51:13Mel Robbins?

  If I share them, you mean read it out loud?

• 51:15Speaker 01

  Read them out loud. That's what Milton did with us. We had to read it out loud. Some people are really excited. They like, charge up to the front of the room and they're like, ready to share. And then other people are super scared and very shaky and afraid to admit this to folks, afraid to share their desires, their needs, their hopes, their dreams. And when people hear other people share their dreams and hopes and ideas about their future, it empowers them. This is a wonderful exercise to do with other people because you can share. And also, the people that love you most can also encourage you

• 52:00Speaker 01

  to go further. And so what happens in the classroom is suddenly, people hear other people imagining immensities. You know, one of my favorite, favorite cards is, is this one. Imagine immensities.

• 52:16Mel Robbins?

  What's the question that helps you do that?

• 52:18Speaker 01

  Well, in this case, it's, this is, what are your career goals? What is your job title? How do you get to work? Do you travel for your job? How many people do you work with? What is the best part of your job? But this imagine immensities is in consideration of everything here. Imagine immensities. And when people hear other people, nobody responds with, really? How do you ever think you can do that? It's more, people cry because they're so thrilled at hearing somebody share and declare. And that part of this, I think, is,

• 52:59Speaker 01

  allows people to go a little bit further. So after that first week, and when, and when we share, I ask people to go back one time and add anything you think you might have missed.

• 53:10Mel Robbins?

  Ooh, so after you read it, you get to add more?

• 53:14Speaker 01

  And that's something I did, not Milton.

• 53:16Mel Robbins?

  I love that. We get to supersize our own possibilities?

• 53:21Speaker 01

  When you hear how much other people can expand their possibilities, expand their ideas about their lives, if you have been consumed with process or probability or realism, opens up a door.

• 53:39Speaker 01

  I see that somebody else, and that's kind of comparison in the best possible way, where, oh, my God, this person is giving me permission to expect a little bit more for myself, hope for a little bit more for myself, manifest a little bit more for myself, and then they do that, and then it's done, and then it's done.

• 53:56Mel Robbins?

  You know, I just want to share this because for you as you're listening, the Mel Robbins podcast was completely born out of speaking it as a possibility. This notion, I'm realizing, what would imagine immensities, I literally would turn to Tracy, who's the executive producer and my business partner, Christine, and go, could you imagine, like, imagine if there was a podcast, and we had it in Boston. Boston is like the home of higher education globally. Think about all of the research done here and the universities, like 52 second, like, two-year schools and trade schools and colleges and universities in the greater

• 54:39Mel Robbins?

  Boston area. There's all these labs and biotech and research and number one research hospitals in the world. Like, imagine if there was a podcast, it felt like a walk with a friend. It wasn't like scientists talking to each other. It was like friends talking, but we were inviting these world-class experts and thinkers and researchers to just hop on over to our studios and then we get to share this for free with the world. Wouldn't that be cool? That's how it began.

• 55:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:08Mel Robbins?

  And a lot of people are like, well, there are no podcasts in Boston. Like, it's really Austin and LA and New York where the big shows are. And

• 55:18Speaker 01

  Don't you love to prove that you can do whatever you want to do?

• 55:21Mel Robbins?

  Well, I, you know, I, I think that it's an important note because, especially if you're a new listener and you're discovering it because it's one of the most successful podcasts in the world. You don't realize that it began, like everything, with a imagine if. Imagine if. And without opening up your mind to that question and without giving yourself permission to dwell in possibility.

• 55:56Speaker 01

  Love that, dwell in possibility. That's beautiful.

• 55:59Mel Robbins?

  It will never be.

• 56:00Speaker 01

  I love that.

• 56:02Mel Robbins?

  It's just, it's just a want or a desire that you're keeping trapped.

• 56:05Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:06Mel Robbins?

  And it's in there. And so I only say that just because without allowing that possibility to exist, even as just an idea among friends.

• 56:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 56:21Mel Robbins?

  There is no change that you're gonna make.

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Well, I think people sometimes wait for opportunity as opposed to creating opportunity. And

• 56:32Mel Robbins?

  Say more about that. What's the difference between waiting for opportunity versus just becoming the kind of person that can create opportunity?

• 56:40Speaker 01

  When you're waiting for opportunity, you are passively waiting for things to come your way and hoping that things will come my way. I'm hoping that this will happen. I'm praying for that to happen. I'm desperate for that to happen. But you can also look at it from another perspective. I want this so much, I'm going to create this opportunity for me to try to make it happen. Now, there's no guarantee, ever. But if you try, you have more chances of being able to manifest that than if you are waiting.

• 57:14Mel Robbins?

  It's true. A bunch of our producers on the podcast tried the exercise and a lot of them, especially the producers who are in their mid to late twenties, found it extremely stressful.

• 57:28Mel Robbins?

  To even ask themselves the question, imagine waking up and you're 10 years older. What does your life look and feel like? Where do you live? What do you see? What does it feel like? Why do you think it's so stressful to imagine your ideal future?

• 57:44Speaker 01

  I think it's particularly stressful now for people in their 20s because the world is so uncertain. And it's very hard in today's world where we are constantly being bombarded with the performative aspects of success, where success is made to look effortless and easily attainable. And that breaks my heart because I know very few people that have become successful easily. There's always the prodigy, but most people have to work really hard to get what they really want.

• 58:26Mel Robbins?

  Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  And it takes as much work to get the work.

• 58:31Mel Robbins?

  That's a lot. How do you cut through that and find that space of possibility? Because your dreams are still there. It's almost like what you're saying is the acute amount of pressure and overwhelm and uncertainty and options that are before you make you question the possibility even more?

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. And that's when you have to double down on what you think you can create in your life. And I say that word create very intentionally because you are making it up as you go. And this is an opportunity to give yourself permission to assume that you could have a life of contentment and peace.

• 59:17Mel Robbins?

  And beauty and love and all those things. What about somebody who feels this conflict? That, well, shouldn't I care more about the environment? Shouldn't I care more about the issues of the world? Like, why should I be thinking about the kind of life or house or all that stuff? Like, why does it matter to design a life that makes you content and that allows you to dwell in what's possible in a world that feels like it's spinning out of control?

• 59:50Speaker 01

  This isn't about designing a life of extravagance.

• 59:56Speaker 01

  This isn't about, at least from my perspective, designing a life of consumerism, of rampant consumerism. I actually think that that's sort of the opposite of what I want to be able to encourage people to do with this. This is about how do I want to feel in 10 years? And the more content you are, the more of service you can be to others. And for me, being of service to others and being able to help people avoid some of the mistakes that I made, or at least giving them a sense of perspective

• 1:00:40Speaker 01

  about what it means to live a life with meaning, then I've done my job.

• 1:00:49Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, I'm sure you've had so many students go through this exercise and they just don't know what they want. They know they're unhappy, but they're not sure what they want. Is there any prompt or anything that really allows somebody to start to move themselves forward with the exercise and visualizing it?

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  Often I'll ask somebody, what are you jealous of? Who do you admire? What can you learn from those people? What is that jealousy telling you you want to do? And that's sometimes hard for people to understand. Nobody wants to admit to being jealous. But in the privacy of their own essay, if they think about what it is that somebody else has that they really want, it might give them some clues about what they think they can try for.

• 1:01:44Mel Robbins?

  So let's say that we've done the exercise. You've written this out. You have read it out loud. You know, I'd love to hear how, once you do that, because it does work. Absolutely, my life, the things that I've created in my life in the last 15 years are a function of that. Now, you still have to show up every day and do the grueling, boring things of walking toward it.

• 1:02:14Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:14Mel Robbins?

  As the small things start to appear in your life. How do you balance kind of that dreaming big and imagining possibility? And being realistic? Or should we not even think about it in those terms?

• 1:02:30Speaker 01

  I don't balance that at all. Realism has to go away. Has to go away. If your dream is to win Lotto, that is where I think the line in the sand is in terms of realism. That then becomes magical thinking. Because it's an external thing. You can't make that happen. You can't create that. It's not a process of making. Other than that, I think dream big, dream wild.

• 1:03:00Mel Robbins?

  I love that. I absolutely love that. So no realism?

• 1:03:04Speaker 01

  No realism, no probability, no process.

• 1:03:08Mel Robbins?

  What do you think the most important thing that you can do after you write it down? Is to actually make it happen?

• 1:03:15Speaker 01

  Read it and put it away.

• 1:03:17Mel Robbins?

  Put it away?

• 1:03:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, put it away. Read it again in a year.

• 1:03:20Mel Robbins?

  And when things start to happen? Is it important to acknowledge that it's happening? Is it important to claim that these small signs are happening?

• 1:03:35Speaker 01

  I wouldn't necessarily claim it in a public way. I think it's a lovely way to reassure yourself. That you've done something meaningful for yourself and you can appreciate that in yourself. But I think it's also a very...

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  Private, soulful experience in a lot of ways. Because it's not about humble brag, or brag, or comparison. It's really about a manifestation. And I think there's something really quietly powerful in that.

• 1:04:10Mel Robbins?

  Yeah, I'm thinking a lot even about my mother-in-law, who's 86. Because what she says all the time is she wants to make it to everybody's wedding. And when she says everybody, she's talking, if they choose to get married. But she would like to make it to all nine of her grandkids' wedding.

• 1:04:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:29Mel Robbins?

  And it's one of the reasons why she walks like five miles a day.

• 1:04:32Speaker 01

  Good for her. Wow.

• 1:04:33Mel Robbins?

  But there is a encoding and an imagining what's possible versus dismissing it by saying, well, the youngest is 20, you don't know. Or they got, you know what I'm saying?

• 1:04:45Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:04:46Mel Robbins?

  And so the invitation here is to dwell in possibility, is to allow yourself to imagine. And if somebody is listening right now, and they're kind of still in that camp of, does this really work? Is this for me? Like, is this really for anybody of any age?

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  I don't see any restrictions to hope. One thing that I do want to share with you is that there's a common statement that people make when they're trying to do something. And people say, well, fake it till you make it. And I don't believe in that. I feel that that's very inauthentic. I say, make it until you make it. If you fake it until you make it, you're pretending. If you're working at making it until you make it, you're part of the process. You're intentional. You're designing your life when you're making it until you make it.

• 1:05:48Speaker 01

  And that, for me, between making it until you make it and being happiest making things feels like where the threads of my life dovetail.

• 1:05:59Mel Robbins?

  And where this process actually helps you.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:02Mel Robbins?

  To start today.

• 1:06:04Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Mel Robbins?

  Making what you want. You know, you've been teaching this process for years. What if some of the students that you've taught this design your life process to, written to you years later to say?

• 1:06:19Speaker 01

  So I've been doing this now with, for about forty-five, fifty classes, with an average of eighteen to twenty-five students per class. And I get emails, notes, I sometimes get cards in the mail, where they share how this exercise created their lives.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  Because they designed this essay and wrote this essay with their hearts open. And five, eight, ten, twelve, fifteen years later, they've manifested either the most important things, or everything, or it gave them a sense of what they didn't want and then what they could redesign. Because redesigning is as much fun as designing in a lot of ways. And makes my heart sing.

• 1:07:15Mel Robbins?

  It's beautiful. It's so beautiful.

• 1:07:18Speaker 01

  And then those people can help other people do it. And so on, and so on, and so on.

• 1:07:24Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's why I'm so excited that you're here. Because I see this conversation as an invitation to not only allow you to dream and dwell in possibility and take the invitation to intentionally design the life that you want seriously.

• 1:07:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:48Mel Robbins?

  But I'm also super excited because, you know, as you've been, as you watch this, or as you listen to this, you're not only going to do it for yourself, but every person that you care about, that you share it with.

• 1:07:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:07:58Mel Robbins?

  You are sharing that invitation to be able to do that same process for somebody else.

• 1:08:05Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 1:08:07Mel Robbins?

  And what an incredible gift that is. Incredible. So Debbie, if the person with us does just one thing.

• 1:08:19Mel Robbins?

  After hearing everything that you've shared with us, what do you think the most important thing to do after listening or watching this is?

• 1:08:27Speaker 01

  I would say just give it a shot. Give it a shot. You'll learn something about yourself. And isn't that the greatest gift we can give ourselves?

• 1:08:37Mel Robbins?

  Well, thank you for giving us a process and a very specific thing that we can do to help us do that.

• 1:08:46Speaker 01

  My pleasure.

• 1:08:47Mel Robbins?

  Debbie Millman, what are your parting words?

• 1:08:50Speaker 01

  Well, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to ask a question I ask of myself almost every day. If not now, when? If not now, when?

• 1:09:04Mel Robbins?

  You're incredible.

• 1:09:06Speaker 01

  Thank you. You bring out the best in people, Mel, I have to tell you. You really do. You give people an opportunity to shine. Thank you.

• 1:09:15Mel Robbins?

  Well, that's all I wanted you to do. I've admired your work for years. You have been on the list of guests

• 1:09:22Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:09:22Mel Robbins?

  since the beginning. And so I'm glad that we could get you here to Boston and have you teach this life-changing method and to learn from the lessons of your life and from what you've been teaching students. And so I just, from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of the person that's been listening or watching and spending time with us together, I just thank you. Thank you for the work that you do. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing this process with us because I think everybody deserves to design the life that they want.

• 1:09:59Speaker 01

  I really, really hope so.

• 1:10:02Mel Robbins?

  Well, we now know how to do it. And so I want to make sure to tell you, if not now, when? And as your friend, I'm going to tell you, today. Today is the day that I want you to crack open the book and answer these questions for yourself. Because there is no doubt in my mind, if you do, you will actually be creating the life that you want. And in case nobody else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you as your friend that I love you and I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better life. And because of everything that Professor Debbie Millian taught you today, you now have the roadmap to do so. So go do it. And I will be waiting to welcome you in to the very next episode. I'll see you there.

• 1:10:47Mel Robbins?

  Did that bump down at all? There you go. That's a little better. Yep. Here we go. Hold that thought. Because we had a ca- there was a camera that I think went off.

• 1:10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:10:56Mel Robbins?

  But you did great continuing to just go.

• 1:10:59Speaker 01

  I don't know. I don't think I'm doing the right.

• 1:11:00Mel Robbins?

  It's on the right hand.

• 1:11:02Speaker 01

  Oh, I was doing left side. Okay.

• 1:11:05Mel Robbins?

  They designed it wrong. That's why.

• 1:11:06Speaker 01

  I'm a left.

• 1:11:06Mel Robbins?

  There we go. Try that.

• 1:11:07Speaker 01

  There you go. The hair, is it frizzed up? Do I look like Monica on Friends when she gets her?

• 1:11:13Mel Robbins?

  I'm gonna tell you what. My art content does better the worse I look.

• 1:11:18Mel Robbins?

  We look like this is the grocery store, so.

• 1:11:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely. This is how I look when I'm walking my dogs.

• 1:11:24Mel Robbins?

  Yes. My daughters literally will call me and be like, "Why did you post that video?" I'm like, "I just went to the store looking like that." Wow.

• 1:11:32Speaker 01

  Thank you.

• 1:11:33Mel Robbins?

  You're so good.

• 1:11:38Mel Robbins?

  Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode.