After completing my second Happiness Project, I spent some time listening to Mel Robbins. Mel Robbins is a motivational speaker, who recently started her own talk show. When I found her, she was being interviewed on one of my favorite podcasts. A lot of what she says resonates with me and put some things about my life into perspective.

When I thought about what I wanted my life to look like two or three years ahead as she suggests, I saw the following:

Pursue a job that had meaning and purpose

Surround myself with positive, uplifting friends

Be active without pain

Be free of money worries

Become an activist

Substantially increase my reading

Become mindful and optimistic

These were BIG picture goals. If I’ve learned nothing else it’s that ACTION is key to every single change you want to make in your life. Period. The end. You can put up slogans and quotes all day but there is NO MEANING behind them without the work. I see the difference. I would read quotes like “be yourself”. And think “that’s nice, yes, be yourself”. But now it screams at me! Be authentic! Fill your life with what makes you happy! When you are actually feeling the affects of taking action, something like “be yourself” becomes extremely powerful and a huge motivator. These were my new eyes looking at the world.

Mel also talks about using our problems to not take responsibility. Whoa. Guilty, guilty, guilty. I could just hear all the “I can’t’s” coming out of my mouth over the years. She suggests naming the old chapter in your life and then naming your new chapter in your life. So, I decided my old chapter would be called “Fearful, Self-Centered Mona” and my new chapter would be called “Giving, Loving, Brave Mona”. That pretty much sums it up nicely! And a really CLEAR way to see how I was behaving and how I wanted to live going forward.

I had decided to live in a “growth mindset” from now on. I had a past full of bad experiences that brought me to where I was and in a lot of ways I’m thankful for all the trauma I’d been through recently, because if I hadn’t gone through this I would not have tackled all these other areas in my life. Even if I had resolved my pain issue, I still would have been eating all the wrong foods, drinking, living stressed out, throwing money away, etc. My “why” was abundantly clear. I would have continued with things happening to me, instead of taking control. Mel explains that our mindset is fixed in childhood. I’ve already talked about some of the issues of my childhood and the remnants left on me, but here she wakes me up to the fact that I could be repeating negative self talk all the way back to childhood. Looking back on how much I survived, it’s possible there’s a little post traumatic stress disorder there. I never thought about these episodes carrying over to my adult life, but they certainly do. How many adults are part of the walking wounded? Without any resolution? A lot of us is my guess.

If you want to learn more about Mel Robbins you can find her at http://melrobbins.com. Do you have a name for an old chapter of your life? How about your new chapter? Share them below! And thanks for being here!