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Mel Robbin's 3-Step Routine To Target Negative Self-Talk & Experience More Joy

Author:

Alexandra Engler

September 25, 2023

mbg Beauty Director

By Alexandra Engler

mbg Beauty Director

Alexandra Engler is the beauty director at mindbodygreen and host of the beauty podcast Clean Beauty School. Previously, she's held beauty roles at Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire, SELF, and Cosmopolitan; her byline has appeared in Esquire, Sports Illustrated, and Allure.com.

September 25, 2023

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Time and again, research shows that wide swaths of people are struggling to find connection and joy in their lives. A report from Harvard found that 36% of all Americans—including 61% of young adults—feel "serious loneliness." It gets worse: 43% of young adults said that they felt increases in loneliness due to the pandemic.

Certainly, the pandemic and its ever-present wake have a lot to do with it. But it's more than that. Technology-induced isolation has spurred changes in the quality of our connections. (Reports show that young people aged 15 to 24 reported having 70% less social interaction with their friends, which they credit to social media 1). And the general uptick in movement—from homes and workplaces—has only made us feel further apart from those we love.

"It's a very complex confluence of things that have basically wiped people's feet out from underneath them," says author, speaker, podcaster, and researcher Mel Robbins. Robbins is best known for her work around habits and motivation. "There's been so much social change and displacement that was either thrust on you or that you put into your own life that nobody has quite absorbed it. It feels like we just can't get our footing, and there's a massive amplification of loneliness."

Understanding how we got here and what it means for our mental health is important. But it can't stop there. And so many folks, like Robbins, have now started asking the urgent question of: What do we do about it?

I was able to chat about just that with Robbins recently. In our conversation, she explained how we can rewire our brains toward joy and connection—using scientifically backed methods. Certainly, it's something I know I need a bit more of.

We're experiencing a widespread joy problem—and it's creating space for our inner critics to thrive.

At mindbodygreen, we've recently started to think critically about joy—what it means to live a joyful life, how you inspire joy daily, and how joy can improve your overall health. (Our founders wrote a whole book on it, called The Joy of Well-Being: A Practical Guide to a Happy, Healthy, and Long Life.) Part of the reason is because in many ways, it serves as the antidote for loneliness.

"Joy is connected to this issue of isolation, loneliness, and this feeling of being disconnected from the way that you thought things would feel. Because joy is the ability to be really present in your life. It's the ability to stay connected to something deeper in your life," says Robbins. Isolation leaches joy from our lives, removes us from the present moment, and allows the inner critic inside our head to grow and grow.

She recently partnered with ULTA Beauty to help establish The Joy Project, an industry-first program aimed to create more joy within the beauty industry, starting with the brand's associate training. In fact, the program came about because ULTA associates noted an alarming number of shoppers voicing criticisms of the way they looked and felt.

"There is something changing about the way people talk about themselves," says Robbins—and a study conducted by the brand showed just how prevalent it was. The Joy Study, which is a third-party research report commissioned by Ulta Beauty, examined a sample of how 5,000 adults and teens experience joy and the common barriers to experiencing it on a daily basis. One of the most prevalent was negative self-talk. In fact, 91% of people (93% of teens) rate the effect of negative self-talk on their ability to experience joy to be impactful.

"The majority of us are completely unaware of how often we criticize ourselves," noted Robbins. "And, that isn't all that groundbreaking, but the No. 1 critique people have of themselves has to do with appearance, such as a basic physical attribute."

How to silence your inner critic: 3 simple, science-backed steps

Next time you look in the mirror, and your first thought goes to picking yourself apart—utilize this protocol.

"Use these three steps that sound really simple and dumb when you hear them, but the science behind them is very profound. The three steps to silencing your inner critic is you have to identify it, interrupt it, and replace it," she says. "And the more that you deploy these three steps, the faster you start to override the critical voice into a more encouraging, joyful, compassionate, and kind voice. Through that more compassionate and kind voice you then open the doors to be more present in your life, and experience more joy."

Identify

"You first have to identify what you're doing—and this is often the hardest part for people," says Robbins. "People are really good at identifying when other people are being negative toward themselves but have a hard time when they do it to themselves."

The study found that 67% of people say they don't recognize when they're actively engaging in negative self-talk because it's so common. Young people are the most unaware: 74% of Gen Z don't realize when they're engaging in negative self-talk.

So the first step is to simply be more mindful of what is happening. Pay attention to how you think about yourself when you look in the mirror, go shopping, or scroll through social media. What tone do you take when you're evaluating yourself, and what common criticism do you engage in?

Interrupt

Once you identify the self-talk, you need to interrupt it when it's happening.

"This is all about the research around habits," notes Robbins. "You don't break a habit. That's actually technically not accurate, even though we all talk about that. Rather, you have to replace it."

Replace

Replacing negative self-talk is the most important step to help rewire your brain and lessen the burden of critical self-talk.

"So part of the problem with our inner critics is when we make a bold statement—such as, I love myself, I look fabulous, or I'm beautiful—if we've been criticizing ourselves, we don't believe it," says Robbins. "It's why most of us can't accept a compliment. When somebody compliments you, your inner critic is right there to go, that's not true. And so you have to be sneakier and stickier."

The solution is to find a mantra that's not surface level—but rather about who you are. "Stay in the lane that 'You deserve to feel good.' You can't argue with that," she says.

The takeaway

On some level, negative self-talk is an unavoidable part of life. However, for many of us, that inner critic has become so large and looming, it's getting in the way of us feeling joy. But with a three-step protocol, you can start to silence the voice—and create space for a kinder, more joyful one. "You do it over and over and over—the good news about your brain is your brain loves patterns," she says.