The Science of Self Control: Find Motivation, Build Willpower, and Increase Your Focus
episodePreviously titled “How to Get Motivated: #1 Dopamine Expert’s Protocol to Build Willpower & Get Things Done” — renamed by the publisher on Aug 3, 2026
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Let me ask you something. Why is it so hard to do the things you know you need to do? Why can't you just get motivated to work out, eat better, stop scrolling, write the email, go to bed, clean the garage, whatever it is. You want to do it. You keep telling yourself, ah, you'll start tomorrow, but somehow you don't. You stay stuck. You keep scrolling. You order the takeout. You waste another hour on your phone, and then you feel like crap about it. Sound familiar?
Why is it so hard to get motivated?
I hear this all the time from friends, from listeners emailing in, from my own kids, and I've lived it too. But the problem isn't you. The problem is your brain. It's been hijacked and it continues to be hijacked. You're not unmotivated. You're overstimulated. You've been trained by modern life to chase easy dopamine. that feel-good chemical in your brain all day long. Food, social media, porn, gaming, constant multitasking, and that's rewired your brain to avoid anything that feels hard, even when you want to do it. But here's the good news. you can take your brain back. You can rebuild motivation, focus, and energy. That's why today, we're talking about how to get motivated even when you don't feel like it with the world's number one expert on dopamine.
And the shift doesn't take a six-month cleanse. You just need this episode.
Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am so excited that you're here. I'm fired up for today's conversation. It's such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. And if you're a new listener or you're here because somebody shared this with you, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today's guest is the world's foremost expert on dopamine and its effect on your brain and your habits. I'm talking, of course, about Dr. Anna Lembke. Today, you're gonna get her protocol for motivation, happiness, and getting things done. Dr. Anna Lembke is a professor and the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine.
And she's chief of Stanford's Dual Diagnosis Clinic, where she treats people dealing with addiction and mental health issues. She's trained hundreds of physicians through the Stanford Addiction Medicine Fellowship, where she serves as program director. She's double board certified in both psychiatry and addiction medicine. She is the New York Times bestselling author of two books that have been translated into over 30 languages, Dopamine Nation and Drug Dealer MD. She's testified in courtrooms, advised national policy, and she's published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers. Put simply, she is the greatest dopamine mind in the world. And today, she's going to teach you her protocol for motivation, happiness, and getting
things done. So without further ado, please help me welcome Dr. Anna Lemke to the Mel Robbins podcast.
Thank you for inviting me. I'm absolutely delighted to be here.
Dr. Lemke, could you tell me if I take everything to heart that you're about to teach me today, and I truly apply all this research about dopamine and motivation and happiness and pain and pleasure centers, and I apply it to my life, how could my life change?
If you're like me and you're like many of my patients, you are probably unconsciously organizing your entire life around reward and little dopamine hits. From the moment we wake up in the morning, we reach for our phones. We scroll, we go get our coffee with our caffeine. We get in the car, we're listening to our music. It's not interesting. We're flipping the stations. Then we get to work and all of a sudden we have to let go of those instantaneous pleasures. Now we're like bored, we're frustrated, we're restless, we're anxious, we can't concentrate. So then we're interrupting ourselves and saying, oh, I better check my phone or maybe I should look at that video. And we're doing that through the entirety of the day.
until we get to the end of the day where we go home, we can't wait till we get there to have a glass of wine, watch our shows, eat a cupcake, and then have difficulty falling asleep at night because we're so wound up and restless.
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Chapters
4 chaptersSpeakers
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