Today I want to share 5 big ideas from Kick Ass with Mel Robbins with you. Kick Ass is an audio production of 8 very different live coaching sessions with Mel that each of them with their unique lessons. At the end of each session, Mel reflects on these key learnings, which can universally apply to everyone no matter your background.
This is not something that you can summarize easily as the raw form of these therapy sessions is what makes this Audible production so special. Yet I’ll try to share with you what I’ve learned from listening to these unique stories.
So who are these people? Mel’s team did a global casting of people who wanted to be coached by Mel for the Audible recording. Mel also made a workbook based on the coaching sessions, which you can do for yourself after you’ve listened to all the sessions. You can find the workbook here.
BIG IDEA 1: Habits
The first big idea is about changing HABITS and finding your TRIGGERS. What I’ve learned from Kim’s story, which is the first coaching session, is that in order to quit any destructive habit that we have, we have to identify what’s triggering us in the first place. In Kim’s case, she wanted to quit smoking, but what she didn’t realize was that smoking was a coping mechanism for STRESS. A form of procrastination, to avoid uncomfortable situations by having just one more cigarette before taking action. After Mel pointed that out, her whole paradigm shifted and she was able to quit and do the things she wanted to do.
What is your DESTRUCTIVE HABIT and what triggers it?
In my case, snacking is definitely triggered by stress and/or boredom. But once you’ve identified your habits there’s one more thing you can do. For me, the most helpful tool from all the sessions was this one:
Identify your OLD and NEW CHAPTER.
Creating an old and a new you helps you separate old and new behavior patterns. For example, my old chapter is the shy kindergartener, while the new chapter is the badass amazon/warrior. That will help me to 5,4,3,2,1… and act on my goals instead of reaching for a snack to avoid an uncomfortable situation. What are yours? I’d love to hear it in the comments below.
In Kim’s case she was either Kim possibility or Kim the rebel, acting like a baby. Another way you can use this technique is to
turn the negative things you say into a character.
In session 5, Steven developed a pattern of victimizing himself as an adult due to his difficult upbringing. But you can take control over your thoughts by using this technique. For example, Steven named the character for the negative voice in his head Sharon. As a result, whenever he started judging himself he just said “Shut up Sharon” to silence his destructive thoughts.
BIG IDEA 2: Addiction
What’s interesting is that any kind of addiction that you have is called by researchers a HABIT DYSFUNCTION. The tricky part is that there are so many emotions that come with those addictions that it feels almost impossible to break those habits. There is a strategy that helps though. All habits have TRIGGERS AND BEHAVIORAL PATTERNS that they repeat.
If you’re able to identify these triggers such as time a day/ people/ smell/ stress you’re also able to do something that is called If-then-planning. In other words, you can make a plan to exchange your behaviors with more positive habits when you get triggered. For example, in my case when I sit down to watch an episode of my favorite TV show, instead of grabbing something to snack on I just make myself a tea to replace my snacking habit.
BIG IDEA 3: Manipulation
This next takeaway might be hard to digest. Ask yourself:
Do you use a VICTIMHOOD MENTALITY to manipulate others?
According to Mel:
“If you have a problem that you have been trying to fix forever and you’re not making any progress, I guarantee you don’t have any interest in fixing it. And, in fact, you might be using that problem as a way to GET OUT OF TAKING RESPONSIBILITY.”
– Mel Robbins
I know this sounds harsh and if nothing comes to mind, great! I’m really happy that you don’t do this. But if something comes to mind it is totally okay! Identifying it is the first step and you might significantly improve your relationship if you realize that you’re victimizing yourself. Mel argues that:
“If you don’t want to change, then stop complaining about the problem and realize that changing doesn’t matter to you. If you do want to change, you need to get to the real root of why you have that problem. “
– Mel Robbins
Another revelation from Mel that blew my mind was this:
“When you’re afraid to upset other people, and you use that fear to justify not being yourself, it’s a form of manipulation.”
– Mel Robbins
This is something that I do myself and realizing it was in a weird way an uplifting feeling. And the question you should ask yourself to figure out if you’re doing this yourself is this:
“What things do you do to avoid upsetting people, hurting people’s feelings, or confrontation – and in order to do that you lie or keep quiet about who you are?”
– Mel Robbins
BIG IDEA 4: Achieving Your Goals
Time traveling -as Mel calls it- is a good technique for reaching a major leap. This is how it works: envision your life 2 years from now. Be as specific as possible. Having seen your future make a list of all the habits and behaviors you need to perfect in order to reach that future vision. And the only thing to do now is to follow your own advice. Take the list seriously! After all, it’s your future vision.
This doesn’t have to be business related. For example, I’m getting married in September and I imagine myself as the best partner my future husband could ever wish for. So I made a list to achieve that personal goal by making sure that we do some activity together every week which we do just for us, etc. Another advice Mel gave to Marques is this: If you have a clear goal of what you want to achieve, find 3 people who do what you want to do and ask them for advice/ learn from them.
BIG IDEA 5: Childhood Strategies
The last takeaway from Kim’s story is that we all develop patterns as a child, which we take with us into adulthood. In Kim’s case, quitting baton twirling when she was in 4th grade to avoid performing in front of everybody and being laughed at was the moment when she developed a strategy to quit every situation that’s uncomfortable to protect herself.
Mel’s advice is this:
Stop focusing on what’s wrong with you and start focusing on what happened to you?
Doing so helps you understand yourself and your behaviors better, which allows you to change. So, ask yourself the question:
What happened to you that made you develop your destructive habit? When did you start?
Final Thoughts
Alright, these were my 5 BIG IDEAS from Kick Ass with Mel Robbins. I hope you can take something away from this. If you liked this post or my video, you should definitely get the full audiobook. And if you haven’t signed up to Audible yet, you can actually get her book for free by using my link on the side on this page.
Listen to it on Audible
