Dolly Chugh

Chugh's closing recommendation is that listeners become lifelong unlearners as well as lifelong learners.

“What would it mean to be a lifelong learner and a lifelong unlearner?”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 1:04:42

Chugh argues people demand grace for their own learning curve while demanding accountability from everyone else.

“We want grace for our own mistakes and learning curve, and we want accountability for everyone else's”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 17:30

Chugh says the Stroop test works because the participant is being asked to unlearn reading, which is what change feels like.

“Unlearning is a two-step process because first I've got to let go of the thing I already know how to do. And then I've got to learn the new thing”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 16:53

Chugh says good feedback states the expectation, the observed behavior and the impact, and that the adjective is the least useful part.

“So you stated the expectation. You gave what you observed in the behavior. And then you described the impact it had”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 51:43

Chugh argues that feedback framed in adjectives invites defensiveness while behavior-based feedback is hard to dispute.

“when we give feedback that's in adjectives, It's really easy for other people to become defensive because it's easy for them to argue with it”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 46:34

Chugh advises depriving someone who makes cutting remarks of oxygen rather than arguing back.

“rather than giving them more oxygen by going back and forth, we can take some of the oxygen out”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 44:00

Chugh says that when she asks the four-option question, about 90% of people say they want to be heard.

“I think 90% of the time the answer I receive is heard”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 41:46

Chugh recommends asking whether someone wants to be heard, hugged, helped or high-fived before offering advice.

“Do you want to be heard, hugged, or helped? And then my addition to that rule is, or high-fived”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 39:26

Chugh explains the WAIT rule as a reminder that talking about someone else's problem removes their agency.

“The weight rule reminds us that when we're talking... especially if we're talking about someone else's problem, we're almost always talking at them, which means that agency, that sense of I am my own boss, we're taking it away”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 38:38

Chugh states there are only three things you can do to help someone change and that you cannot make anyone change.

“You can model change. You can invite change. You can reward change. But you cannot make anyone change”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 32:39

Chugh recommends ending each day by asking what you learned and whether you tried your best rather than whether you succeeded.

“Not did I get it right or wrong? It's what did I learn and did I try my best?”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 26:57

Chugh says most mental activity is small automatic thoughts rather than conscious ones, citing a study of roughly 11 million thoughts in a finger snap.

“in that snap of the fingers, 11 million... little tea thoughts. They say maybe like 40 big tea thoughts, actual thoughts”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 8:15

Chugh argues that helping to relieve one's own distress centers one's own needs and obscures what the other person needs.

“by me doing the things that make me feel better, it's a little harder for me to see what they need”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 58:25

Chugh says watching a loved one suffer while powerless is her definition of hell on earth and that acting to relieve that feeling may make things worse.

“My definition of hell on earth is watching someone I love suffer and not being able to do anything about it”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 56:25

Chugh says she and her husband let the higher number win when both are between one and seven and only discuss issues rated eight or above.

“if both of us are between one and seven, then whoever's the higher number wins. And like, why are we even talking about this?”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 55:28

Chugh describes the 1 to 10 rule she teaches MBA students and uses in her marriage to gauge how important a disagreement really is.

“on a scale of 1 to 10, how important is this? 10 is the most important”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 52:51

Chugh contrasts the static label of a good person with the continual improvement of a good-ish person.

“Being a good person is a static. You either are or you're not. A good-ish person is someone who's always trying to get better”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 22:21

Chugh argues that deciding you are a good person leads to proving rather than improving.

“as soon as we decide we're a good person, we're trying to prove it instead of trying to improve towards it”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 19:41

Chugh uses the Gandhi sugar fable to argue that modeling a change yourself must precede asking it of others.

“And he said, because two weeks ago, I was still eating sugar”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 33:26

Chugh says feeling like a failure is exhausting and can produce learned helplessness.

“what's particularly exhausting is feeling like a failure. It leads to what psychologists call learned helplessness”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 25:33

Chugh identifies the desire not to be told what to do as agency, a fundamental human need.

“And that's called agency. It's a fundamental human need that I'm my own person. Don't tell me what to do”

The Mel Robbins Podcast: Stop Wasting Your Time: How to Deal With People Who Won’t Change & What to Do Instead (Aug 27, 2026) · Listen from 12:13