Your Summer Reset for More Energy, Fun, & Happiness (Backed by Science)
Mel Robbins returns from a 56-day, 15-city international tour to reconnect with her podcast audience through a mid-year reset exercise built around two reflective questions: what are you proud of so far this year, and what do you have to look forward to? She shares personal stories from the tour, discusses the neuroscience of anticipation and habituation, and encourages listeners to acknowledge their progress and intentionally plan something exciting for the remainder of the year.
Summary
Mel Robbins opens the episode by welcoming listeners back after completing a grueling 56-day tour across 15 cities and four countries, performing 21 sold-out shows for nearly 100,000 attendees. She frames the episode as an intimate catch-up between two friends going on a walk, structured around two reset questions designed to help listeners pause, reflect, and reorient for the second half of the year.
The first question — 'What are you proud of this year?' — is introduced as a counterweight to the tendency people have to fixate on what they haven't accomplished. Mel shares that her proudest achievement from the tour wasn't the tour itself, but the emotional regulation she maintained throughout it. Her therapist, Ann Davin, warned her before departure that unmanaged stress would cause her to miss the entire experience. Taking that warning seriously, Mel overhauled her self-care routine: prioritizing sleep, eating well, exercising daily, drastically reducing alcohol, and consciously managing her emotional responses using her 'let them' and 'let me' framework. She credits this discipline with allowing her to stay calm and present despite daily logistical crises.
She illustrates the tour's chaos through several humorous anecdotes. Teammate Lynn boarded a 16-hour flight to New Zealand in a full shark onesie due to her fear of dying in a crash and being eaten by sharks. Videographer David Faxon packed three hardcover Harry Potter books and multiple journals for a tour that left no free time, resulting in him having to carry books, jackets, and an airport-purchased nightgown through Australian airports due to strict luggage weight limits. In Sydney — the tour's biggest show with 9,000 attendees — the elaborate confetti cannon finale produced only a single silent puff from one of six cannons, barely reaching the front row. Mel reflects that in the past, each of these situations would have triggered significant stress, but her emotional management allowed her to find humor and maintain presence throughout.
She also shares the emotional highlight of the tour: at the Orpheum in Vancouver on Mother's Day, Sam (dressed as drag queen alter ego 'Melodrama') asked the pre-show crowd to rally behind an audience member named Colleen, whose birthday wish was to beat cancer. Nearly 3,000 strangers leapt to their feet in celebration, moving Colleen to tears. Mel notes she was only able to witness and appreciate this moment because she wasn't distracted by backstage stress.
The second question — 'What are you looking forward to?' — is grounded in research from neuroscientist Dr. Tali Sharot, director of the Affective Brain Lab at University College London. Mel explains Sharot's concept of habituation: as the brain becomes familiar with routines, it reacts less to both negative and positive stimuli, causing life to feel flat even when circumstances are objectively good. Novelty and anticipation serve as neurological resets, giving the brain 'somewhere good to go' and breaking the monotony of autopilot living.
Mel shares several things she personally looks forward to: a nine-day whitewater rafting and camping trip through the Grand Canyon with her family and two close friend-families (a trip three years in planning), five friend-gathering weekends to celebrate her 30th wedding anniversary, her niece's fall wedding, and throwing the opening pitch at a Red Sox game at Fenway Park on August 21st — designated 'Let Them Night' — where her daughter Kendall will sing the national anthem. She invites listeners to attend.
She also revisits a story about forgetting her hiking boots on a trip to climb Mount Katahdin in Maine, being forced to hike in brand-new, stiff farm-supply-store boots, and choosing to frame them as 'magic boots' — completing the 12-hour climb blister-free. She uses this as evidence that mindset settings directly influence outcomes.
Mel closes by urging listeners who have nothing to look forward to to treat that absence as a signal, not a failure, and to immediately create one thing — however small — to anticipate. She emphasizes that the future experiences people desire begin with a concrete action today: picking a date, sending a text, buying a ticket.
About this episode
This episode will help you hit reset on the rest of your year and make your life feel like yours again. In today’s personal solo episode, Mel will help you pause, reconnect with yourself, and ask you two powerful questions that can change how you experience the rest of the year. Because somehow, the year is already almost halfway over. And if you’re like most people, you’ve been moving so fast that you haven’t stopped to recognize the hard things you’ve gotten through and the progress you’ve made. If you’ve felt like: …your life feels like one long to-do list …you’re tired, flat, or stuck in the same routine …you need something to look forward to, but don’t even know what that is anymore This episode is your mid-year reset. It’s also a hilarious and intimate catch-up with Mel after 56 days on tour. She answers these questions alongside you and shares never-before-heard, behind-the-scenes stories from the road. Then Mel walks you through two simple questions that will help you pause, take stock of your life, and reconnect with parts of yourself you may have forgotten: These questions force you to stop and give yourself credit for the hard things you got through and the ways you keep showing up even when nobody sees it. They also remind you that life is not just about work, bills, errands, caregiving, laundry, and getting through the day. Life is meant to be lived. In this episode, you’ll learn how to: - Stop measuring your life only by what you haven’t done - Give yourself credit for the progress you keep overlooking - Recognize the hard things you’ve already made it through - Break out of autopilot and the same old routine - Understand why having something to look forward to matters so much - Create more energy, novelty, anticipation, and joy - Put something on the calendar that gives your mind somewhere good to go This episode will help you stop, take a breath, give yourself credit, and create something to look forward to - because if you change nothing, nothing changes. For more resources related to today’s episode, click here for the podcast episode page. If you liked the episode, check out this one next with Dr. Tali Sharot: How To Make Your Life Exciting Again Connect with Mel: Order Mel’s new product, Pure Genius Protein Get Mel’s newsletter, packed with tools, coaching, and inspiration. Get Mel’s #1 bestselling book, The Let Them Theory Watch the episodes on YouTube Follow Mel on Instagram The Mel Robbins Podcast Instagram Mel's TikTok Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes ad-free Disclaimer
Key Insights
- Mel's therapist warned her that entering the tour in a stressed state would cause her to miss the entire experience, framing stress mismanagement as a form of self-deprivation rather than just a health issue.
- Mel argues that emotional regulation was more valuable to her tour experience than any logistical preparation — she credits staying calm for her ability to actually remember and enjoy what happened.
- She uses the 'let them / let me' framework as a real-time cognitive tool: accepting what cannot be controlled (let them) and then consciously choosing a response (let me), which she applied to daily tour crises.
- The Sydney confetti failure — where a six-cannon finale produced a single silent puff in front of 9,000 people — is presented as evidence that non-reaction to failure is possible and preserves the ability to celebrate what went right.
- Mel references neuroscientist Dr. Tali Sharot's concept of 'habituation' to explain why people feel flat even in objectively good lives: the brain stops reacting to familiar stimuli, suppressing appreciation for both good and bad experiences equally.
- Mel argues that putting something on a calendar is not a trivial scheduling act but a neurological intervention — novelty and anticipation physically reactivate the brain's engagement with life.
- She claims that people systematically undercount their own achievements because they are too focused on forward momentum to pause and inventory what they've already accomplished, citing her producer's brother who forgot he had been accepted into a PhD program.
- Mel contends that the things people look back on as life highlights are often the hardest and most grueling experiences, suggesting that difficulty and meaningfulness are frequently correlated rather than opposed.
- She argues that mindset functions as a self-fulfilling prophecy: her decision to call brand-new, ill-fitting hiking boots 'magic boots' before a 12-hour climb she completed blister-free is presented as evidence that belief settings alter physical outcomes.
- Mel observes that the activities that made people feel most alive in earlier life stages quietly disappear not because people stop loving them, but because they stop making structural room for them amid accumulating responsibilities.
- She distinguishes between hosting a party and genuinely connecting with friends, arguing that the host role prevents real conversation, which led her to design five intimate friend-gathering weekends instead of one large anniversary party.
- Mel frames the absence of anything to look forward to not as a neutral state but as a direct causal factor in why life feels hard, monotonous, and like survival mode — making anticipation a mental health variable, not a luxury.
Topics
Transcript
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Oh my gosh, I am so excited that you're here. I have been dying to get on this microphone and to catch up with you. I feel like we have not had the kind of episode where it's just been you and I talking for months. And look, I just got back from being on tour, holy cow, 56 days, 15 cities, 21 sold out shows, almost 100,000 of you came who are fans of this podcast. And now I'm back at home in Vermont. I've slept for like a week to try to recover from being on tour. I'm back above the garage. I'm back on this…
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