This Month’s Featured Article

Marking a time for new beginnings, the new year is always a good time to start over. It’s a great time to follow through on ideas and plans. Now is the time to channel some time and energy into your goals, learn a new skill, or perfect a hobby or sport. It’s also a good time for self-reflection and taking control of your life.

While the weather is still cold and you’re spending more time indoors at home, take some time to reflect on yourself. This can include taking note of your reactions (why do I get so frustrated when my technology doesn’t work?), dropping in on your thoughts through practicing mindfulness (why do I always make a mistake with this? When am I ever going to get it right?), or breaking patterns (why is it that I must check two more things off my to-do list right before I walk out the door for work or an important appointment?). 

The new year is also an apropos time to prioritize your own happiness and protect your peace. It’s a time to take your power back. Those who are interested in this concept should tune in – via books, podcasts, or videos – to the teachings of Mel Robbins, The New York Times number one bestselling author and creator, and host of the award-winning The Mel Robbins Podcast. 

Robbins has amassed more than 40 million followers online. A renowned expert on mindset, life improvement, and behavior change, her books have been translated into 63 languages.

She is also number one on Amazon and Audible. Her bestselling books include The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking About – a top selling book of 2025 according to Publisher’s Weekly, with seven million copies sold within nine months of its release. Robbins is also the author of The 5 Second Rule, The High 5 Habit, and several top audiobook releases on Audible.

Tune in

The Mel Robbins Podcast has won an array of prestigious awards including Webby, Signal Awards, and the iHeart Podcast Award. It was also recognized as one of Apple Podcasts’ Top Share and Followed Shows of 2024 and 2023 and a Spotify Top Global Shows of 2024. 

Wait, there’s more. Robbins was named one of Time’s 100 Most Influential Digital Voices of 2025, a Forbes 50 Over 50 Honoree, USA Today’s Top 5 Mindset & Performance Coaches in the World, and one of The 50 Most Influential Influencers on The Hollywood Reporter’s Creator A-List in 2024. She also offers courses, which include Make It Happen and Take Control.

One decade ago, Robbins wasn’t in this successful space. At age 41, she was unemployed, drowning in debt, and so overwhelmed that she could barely get out of bed. Everything changed with one simple tool: The 5 Second Rule, a simple tool to stop overthinking and start taking action by counting backward 5-4-3-2-1 the moment you have an impulse to do something important. “It got me moving, one small step at a time, and led me here,” said Mel Robbins. 

Let’s explore … The Let Them Theory

One of her more recent concepts is The Let Them Theory. It is a step-by-step guide on how to stop letting other people’s opinions, drama, and judgement impact your life. Two simple words, “Let Them” will set you free from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and everyone around you. It’s time to build a life where you come first: your dreams, your goals, your happiness. 

The book will help you manage stress, stop fearing other people’s opinion, deal with someone’s negative reactions, overcome chronic comparison, master adult friendships, motivate other people to change, help someone who is struggling, and choose the love you deserve.

Four Let Them’s in Mel’s Words

Robbins believes that you will never prioritize your own happiness until you learn how to learn how to let other people be unhappy. The Let Them Theory offers four specific ways to protect your peace, take your power back, and enjoy freedom. 

1. You are not responsible for other people’s happiness. You are only responsible for your own happiness. That doesn’t make you selfish. It helps you make better choices. It helps you own what you’re doing, and it helps you prioritize yourself. Let them be unhappy. 

Your attempt to constantly try to make other people happy is making you miserable. In life, there’s one thing that you will never be able to control ever, and that’s other people – what other people do, what they say, what they believe and expect, and whether they’re happy or satisfied. 

Robbins has the research to prove that the more you make it your responsibility to be sure everyone around you is happy, the worse you’re going to feel. 

Instead, focus on doing things that make you happy. You must learn how to let others be unhappy or disappointed. If their happiness always comes before yours, you never have the time and energy to make yourself happy or to make better decisions. Let them be unhappy. 

Research proves when you do that you anchor down into what makes you happy and truly choose it and happiness becomes more contagious throughout your whole life. 

Stop wasting your life on things you can’t control. 

2. You are not responsible for rescuing people from their problems. Let them learn from life. Trying to solve everyone else’s problems is creating major problems for you and you are important too. There’s a different way to approach these very difficult situations.

This one hits hard especially if you’re a parent, partner, or a friend. If you care about somebody else, it’s hard to accept that this is true. You are not responsible for rescuing people from their problems. 

Who hasn’t tried to clear all the obstacles out of the way to help somebody they love. You can support someone, you can offer advice, you can pay for things, and throw down a dozen lifelines, but at the end of the day, people only change when they are ready to do the work to change for themselves. 

If you’re not careful, your love, concern, and worry will turn into enabling people who are struggling; that happens when you assume responsibility for solving their problems.

There are two reasons why it is important for you to understand that you are not responsible for solving someone’s problems or rescuing them from their problems. Every single expert says that rescuing people doesn’t work and that attempting to do so backfires and makes situations worse. Trying to solve everyone else’s problems is creating major problems for you. You’re important too. 

Robbins dedicates an entire section of the book to using The Let Them Theory when somebody is struggling. Stop assuming responsibility for everybody’s problems and solving them. Keep yourself in a role of supporting them from the sidelines. 

Watching someone you love struggle with their mental health, crippling grief, or an addiction is one of the hardest experiences you will face in life. An even harder truth is that not everyone is ready to get better, be sober, do the work, use their tools, or face their issues. Not everybody can.

I learned that truth from clinical psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera. She’s known online as The Holistic Psychologist and has millions of followers. Every day her work reminds me that healing is a deeply personal journey. As much as you may love someone, believe in them, and would do everything in the world to make their pain go away, you cannot want someone else’s sobriety, healing, or health more than they do. 

The more you try to rescue someone from their problems, the more likely they will continue to drown in them. Allowing someone to face the natural consequences of their actions is a necessary part of healing, growing, and getting better. At some point the person must step up and do the work. If you step up to help, you are making the situation worse. The more you rescue, the more they sink. Don’t shield them from the consequences they choose. Check out the book for more details. 

3. You are not responsible for making people understand your choices. Harvard University’s Dr. Nicholas Epley did research on how people understand each other. His findings: They don’t. Stop seeking validation from people who don’t even understand what you’re trying to do. Stop overexplaining yourself and let them misunderstand.

Learn how to let people think what they think and misunderstand you. In her podcast, Robbins shares a story about witnessing somebody riding a unicycle on the side of a highway. She wondered why but then realized that she didn’t need to understand. That person was doing what they felt like doing. Robbins says, “Let them.” The only person your decisions need to make sense to is you. Your dreams are for you. 

Think about something that you want to do right now. Robbins said she bets you’re not doing it because you are afraid other people won’t understand or support your decision. Let them misunderstand you. Let them be confused. You’re responsible for knowing what’s right for you and making decisions that you can live with. You’re responsible for trusting that someone’s confusion won’t shake your clarity. No one will ever fully get you. 

Robbins also believes that when you’re changing in life, it’s the people closest to you who are often the least supportive. She says that people understand you from their own experiences. Let them question you. Stop explaining yourself

4. You are not responsible for proving your worth. Let them underestimate you. Self-worth doesn’t come from everyone else liking you but from liking who you already are. That is the real success in life. Liking yourself. Understand that you are not responsible for other people seeing your value or liking you. 

Finally, one of her chapters is: Let them think bad thoughts about you. When you allow your fear of what other people think stop you from doing what you want to do, you become a prisoner to other people’s opinions. This fear impacts every aspect of your life. It makes you procrastinate, doubt yourself, and question your worth. It can paralyze you with perfectionism. It’s the reason you overthink. This is where it ends. Stop giving people power. •

The books written by Robbins are available at bookshops throughout the Hudson Valley area. Specifically, Oblong Books in Millerton and Rhinebeck has The Let Them Theory available. Visit them in store or at oblongbooks.com for more books by Mel Robbins. Oblong Millerton is located at 26 Main St., (518) 789-3797 and the Rhinebeck shop is at 6422 Montgomery St., Suite 6, (845) 876-0500.