Transcript of Why You NEED To Change Things Up In Your Life | Mel Robbins

Based on the research, simply putting a plan in place to explore your own backyard will bring more excitement into your day to day life. Just making the list because you and I get so stuck in the day to day slump. I know I do. Oh, my God. Don't you get sick of your own routine at times?

I mean, it's like, my God, when did I become so boring? It feels like you're just kind of sleepwalking through your life. You're going through the motions. You're kind of on autopilot. You know, some days you barely taste the coffee because you make it the same way every day.

Or you order it the same way every day. That's why everybody loves when it's pumpkin latte season, because we're shaking things up. But when you're in that sort of, like, ho hum, nothing new, everything's kind of. There's nothing going on here. You don't notice a beautiful view.

You don't hear the birds chirping. You don't stop and smell the roses or check out the flowers bloomingdez. This is why we crave a vacation. We want to escape. You think, I got to go to Bali.

I got to go on a retreat. I got to get on a vacation. Yeah, you do need to get away. And what I'm going to tell you is simply shaking up your routine is all that research says you need to do. Because when you get into that slump of the ho hums, you're experiencing a phenomenon that researchers called habituation.

Now, this research is so powerful that I've dedicated an upcoming episode to the topic of habituation. The research around habituation, which basically means your routine is slowly killing you, and you're going to learn firsthand from an MIT neuroscientist that habituation, which basically means you've gotten so used to your routine, the same three restaurants, the same same commute, the same stores that you go into, the same stuff you buy at the grocery store, the same five meals that you cook at home. This is why something that can seem awesome on a Monday is suddenly boring on a Friday. This is why if you go to your favorite restaurant and you order the same dish over and over and over again, by the 20th time you've had the homemade bolognese, it doesn't taste as great as it did the first time. Routines are great for locking in a habit.

But when your life becomes too routine, it loses its sparkle. And you know that this is true. It's why the person that you were madly in love with not so sparkly after a couple of years, your beautiful backyard, not so sparkly. Those breathtaking work of art. If you stare at it for five years, not so sparkly.

Why? Because you're used to it. Habituation just means you're so used to your life, you stop noticing the most wonderful and beautiful things about your life. It's a way for you to shake things up and regain a sense of wonder about all the great things in your life that are right under your nose. This isn't just another Saturday.

This is a Saturday where you're shaking things up. Where you're exploring and based on decades of psychological, biological sciences, it's the key to seeing, feeling, and noticing things again. And that key is change by changing your environment, changing up the rules, changing the people you interact with, changing your routine, changing your commute, or even just stepping back and imagining the changes that you're going to make. By creating this list and doing all these things that you've never done before, you're shaking things up instinctively. You know you need to shake things up.

You know when you crave an escape from your life. But based on the research, you don't have to go halfway around the world. You can do it in your own backyard. You and I don't need to find the time and the money to leave our life and go halfway around the world. All you need to do, create this list.

Create this list with me, create this list with me. And then one by one, week by week, just check them off. Because it's so vital to have meaning, adventure and wonder in your life. And you can do it starting today. So are you ready to begin?

You're never been there, never done that adventure. Great. Go to a new store. It's as easy as that. This is one of the easiest ways to explore your hometown, your city, neighboring towns.

Like just walk down the main street of wherever you live and pop into a store you have never been in before. And I want you to really stop and think about this for a second. There are stores in your town you've never walked into. You know, I was referring to the fact that my husband and I lived in the Boston area for 26 years. I lived near this town called Natick.

I was in Natick all the time. I was driving through Natick all the time. And Natick is this awesome town and has this great old downtown area that's just two and a half blocks long. I bet I never even walked into half those stores in 26 years. In fact, fun fact that I'm just remembering right now.

My husband and I have never talked about this on the podcast. We used to have a little retail store. It was a paint your own pottery studio, you know, where you would go in with your kids and sit down and paint mugs and bowls, and then we would fire them in a Kilna. You'd pick them up a week later. Everybody loved it.

It didn't make any money at all. And it was our first kind of dip our toe in the water of being entrepreneurs together. And this would have been. I mean, our kids were little. This would have been 20 years ago.

And even though I was a store owner on the main street that's two and a half blocks long, I still didn't go into every one of the neighboring stores. How insane is that? But it's true. You're the same way. You know?

And if you think about your town or the neighboring town, maybe it's a thrift store or a clothing store, or, heck, maybe there's a small grocery store you've never checked out, or it's a store that you don't even know what the heck it is or what they sell, but you just drive by it. You've always kind of thought, oh, you know, I should stop in there. We all have a store like that. Maybe it's somebody who resells old cars, and you drive by, and you're like, oh, I need to stop by and check that out. You've never stopped in and walked the lot.

Or maybe it's a neighboring town, and they've got a farmer's market, but their farmer's market is on Thursdays and yours is on Saturdays, and you always go to the Saturday. Why not go to the one on Thursday? Maybe there are different farms there. Maybe they have live music. Maybe there's something really cool that's gonna happen when you shake things up.

Maybe it's just about mixing up your routine. And if you really opened up every door in your town, you have no idea what would happen when you walk through that open door. And here's the other thing. Like, in the modern world, you know what we do all day? We online shop.

That's what we default to. But what about going in person? I mean, it's so much more fun. It's so fun to just, like, tap into that instinct to hunt and to gather and to check things out and to talk to the local shop owners and turn things over and take it all in, you know? In fact, when I was driving down here this morning from Vermont to get to our studios here in Boston, we were on route two, which runs from, you know, west to east in Massachusetts.

And we were in western Massachusetts. And as we were driving down route two, I pointed out to my colleague Jesse, who was in the car with me, hey, if you ever need an incredible wooden salad bowl, that place right there makes the most extraordinary bowls. And so we're flying down route two at 50. Jesse's like, how the hell did you know that that place sells salad bowls? And I was like, well, because I used to drive up to Vermont for 26 years, and I would always pass this place, and when the stores open, they always have these big wooden bowls sitting out on the front lawn, and they've got a hand painted sign that says handmade wooden bowls.

And one year after passing it for almost two decades, I pulled in. I walked in, and wouldn't you know it, they don't just make wooden salad bowls. I mean, this place has been on Oprah's favorite list for wooden salad bowls for several years. I mean, who freaking knew? The place looks like a shack from the road.

And now it's become my go to wedding gift. So you're starting to catch on, right? That it's all around you, just waiting for you to slow down and discover it. And all you got to do to begin to tap into all that juicy research is add it to the list. Never been there.

Never done that. This week I'm going now we're going to talk about the second way to add to your never been there, done that list. And that's drive, walk, or bike down a new street. And I just love this. I stole this idea from my colleague Amy, who has the best tradition ever.

Whenever Amy and her daughter drive by a street that they've never been down before. Check this out. They just turn down it. I mean, imagine that. Simply turning down a street.

They let's just go this way. Your gps will reroute. But simply doing it, they've found incredible farms, beautiful gardens, fresh vegetable and fruit stands. And more importantly, she and her daughter have a blast exploring new places together. And you don't need a car to make this work.

If you live in a city. Instead of walking the same route to work, take a new one. Instead of going the same way to your workout class or grocery store or even to your friend's house, take a detour, drive, bike, or walk a different way. You know, one way that I do this in a rural area is that there's all these walking trails. You know, that I take my dogs Yolo and homie on, and every once in a while, if I'll have a little bit of extra time, I'll just follow a different marker and go on a different loop.

And sometimes it's absolutely amazing. Sometimes it's sort of meh. But the most important thing, according to the research, is that changing things up, shaken things up, is an essential requirement to experiencing joy and happiness in your life. And I also want to bring in another example. If you've ever traveled to a new city for work or for vacation, and you've got a chance to explore it, what do you do?

You wander. You are constantly walking down streets you've never been before. I recently went on a mother daughter trip, took my girls to Paris. We walked 20,000 steps a day. And when we got tired of walking, you know what we did?

We hopped on those electric bikes that are all over every major city, and we just rode bikes all over the place. We had no idea where we were. We were just exploring. I'm here to tell you that is available to you, that sense of adventure to the area that you live. And all you gotta do the next time you drive, walk, or bike, is just turn down a new street, take a detour.

You never know what you might see, but I can guarantee what you will feel. You will feel that boost to your mood and that energy that research says will happen from that little burst of adventure. Oh, my God. Don't you get sick of your own routine at times? When did I become so boring?

Feels like you're just kind of sleepwalking through your life. You're going through the motions. You're kind of on autopilot. Based on the research, simply putting a plan in place to explore your own backyard will bring more excitement into your day to day life.