The Ultimate Guide to Making New Habits STICK | The Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Mel is testing these tools on herself in 75 Hard, after quitting it once

  For 75 days: no alcohol, a healthy diet (for her, no gluten or dairy), two workouts a day with one outdoors, a gallon of water, a daily progress photo and 10 pages of nonfiction. Miss anything and you restart at day one. Last year she bailed within a week. This time she's six days in, doing it alongside her husband Chris, her daughter and her daughter's boyfriend, and her brother.

• 02

  Missing a day doesn't erase your progress, whatever 75 Hard's rules say

  Mel stresses that the challenge's restart rule contradicts habit research. Citing Dr. Phillippa Lally at University College London, she says a missed day is just a missed day and the new neural pathways remain. The real danger is the 'what-the-hell effect' Dan Ariely writes about, whose own example is: 'I just had one slice of cake when my goal was no sugar, so what the hell, I'll have a couple more.'

• 03

  If you break a promise within hours, check your why

  To listener Zoe, who ate birthday cake by noon on New Year's Day after vowing no sweets, Mel says a chronic pattern of quitting fast usually means the goal lacks 'the will.' It isn't personally meaningful, which is about intrinsic motivation, not willpower. Mel's own why: to 'play a bigger game' and break through on personal discipline, test whether dairy or gluten is behind her sinus congestion, and join family members doing it. She hasn't gone 75 days without alcohol since she was 16.

• 04

  Stuck? Sign up for something hard

  After a breakup, firing, divorce or weight gain, Mel suggests a challenge that pushes you out of your comfort zone: a marathon, an adult beginner swim class at the Y, tango lessons. You can't finish it without changing your habits and systems, and doing so reminds you that you're more powerful than you think.

• 05

  Be an 'outie' organizer, not an 'innie'

  Her friend Amy's terms: 'innie' organizers keep everything in their heads, while 'outie' organizers put cues out in the world. Since a habit runs on a cue, a behavior and a reward, the trick is to place the cue outside your head. Mel tells listener Ann, who can't stay consistent, that she isn't the problem. Relying on memory and willpower is.

• 06

  System 1: make it visible, deciding for your future self

  Mel cites Harvard Business School research that we make better decisions when deciding for our future selves. Setting things up the night before also reduces decision fatigue and lowers activation energy, the effort needed to start. Labeled phone alarms count too. She cites research in which twice as many people who received quit-smoking messages quit over six months.

• 07

  System 2: get temptations out of sight

  Put alcohol in the basement, don't stock the cheese, keep the phone out of the bedroom. Mel argues you wouldn't leave cocaine on the nightstand of someone recovering from addiction, and claims phone dependence is comparable. If kids or roommates need the milk or alcohol, push it to the back or into a cupboard. Making something just slightly less convenient is enough.

• 08

  System 3: you can only know you're on track if you track

  Mel cites Dr. Benjamin Harkin of the University of Sheffield, whose meta-analysis of 138 studies with nearly 200,000 people, published in Psychological Bulletin, found that monitoring progress increases goal success. Recording it physically or reporting it publicly helps even more. Streaks, like Snapchat or BeReal, tap the same urge not to break a chain.

• 09

  System 4: plan, including 'if-then' backups

  Mel cites UT Austin research that specific implementation plans make behavior change more likely, and work by Columbia's Heidi Grant Halvorson showing if-then planning raised exercise success from 39% to 91%. Look at your schedule, weather and fridge. 'If it rains, then…', 'If I'm invited to dinner, then I'll offer to bring something gluten-free.'

• 10

  System 5: do it in the morning

  Mel calls morning action 'the keys to the kingdom': willpower, processing speed and focus are highest in roughly the first four hours, and it's the time you control before kids and work take over. Parents of toddlers may need to wake, and so sleep, half an hour earlier. Getting the phone out of the bedroom, a puppy or an early-rising partner can help.