Use This One Trick To Take Control Of Your Brain Mel Robbins

there are so many people in the world

and and you know you may be watching

this right now

and you have these incredible ideas and

what you think is missing is motivation

and that’s not true

because the way that our minds are wired

and the fact about human beings is that

we are not designed to do things that

are uncomfortable or scary or difficult

our brains are designed to protect us

from those things because our brains are

trying to keep us alive and in order to

change in order to build a business in

order to be the best parent the best

spouse to do all those things that you

know you want to do with your life with

your work with your dreams you’re going

to have to do things that are difficult

uncertain or scary which sets up this

problem for all of us

you’re never going to feel like it

for me one of the hardest things to

figure out was why is it so

hard

to do the little things

that would improve my life

and what i’ve come to realize and what

we’ll talk a lot about today is that the

way that our minds are designed

is our minds are designed to stop you

at all costs from doing anything

that might

hurt you

and the way that that that that this all

happens is it all starts with something

super subtle

that none of us ever catch

and that is with this habit that all of

us have that nobody’s talking about

we all have a habit

of hesitating

we have an idea

you’re sitting in a meeting

you have this incredible idea and

instead of just

you know saying it

you stop and you hesitate

now what none of us realize is that when

you hesitate just that moment that micro

moment that small hesitation it sends a

stress signal to your brain

it wakes your brain up and your brain

all of a sudden goes oh wait a minute

wait why is he hesitating he didn’t

hesitate when he put on his killer spiky

sneakers he didn’t hesitate with the uh

really cool track pants he didn’t

hesitate with the nasa t-shirt now he’s

hesitating to talk something must be up

so then your brain goes to work to

protect you

it has a million different ways to

protect you one of them is called the

spotlight effect it’s a known phenomenon

where your brain magnifies risk why to

pull you away from something that it

perceives to be a problem

and so

you can truly

trace every single problem or complaint

in your life to silence and hesitation

those are decisions and what i do and

what’s changed my life is waking up and

realizing that i’m never going to feel

like doing the things that are tough for

difficult or uncertain or scary or new

so i need to stop waiting until i feel

like it and number two

i am one decision away from a totally

different marriage

a totally different life a totally

different job a totally different income

a totally different

uh relationship with my kids

your life comes down to your decisions

and if you change your decisions you

will change everything

in the scheme of life hitting the snooze

button is not that big of a deal but

here’s the thing about life none of us

wake up and say today is the day i

destroy my life

what we do is we

kind of check out because

it feels overwhelming

or we check out because we’re afraid or

we check out because we start listening

to self-doubt and then we make these

teeny tiny decisions

all day long and we don’t even realize

it

decision to not get up on time a

decision to not eat the right thing a

decision to snap at your kids a decision

to

not speak in a meeting a decision to not

look for a job a decision to not deal

with your finances a decision to not

call your parent like whatever it is

all day long these tiny decisions that

take you so far off track

and then you wake up like i did and you

you look at your life and you think how

the hell did i get here

and more importantly how do you get back

over there

and you have no idea

you get trapped in what i call the

knowledge action gap you know what to do

but you can’t seem to make yourself do

it right

i mean every one of us is one google

search away from a list of instructions

that if you follow any of them

it will change your life

but how do you get out of your head

and stop thinking about what you need to

do and actually do it

instead of isolating yourself pick up

the phone and call a friend

get yourself out into the woods and go

for a walk start running again like all

these little things that i was capable

of but i couldn’t get out of here

could not get out of here and if if

you’re stuck that’s the problem the

problem is you’re you’re in your head

you’re thinking

when you set goals when you have an

intention on something that you want to

change about your life

your brain helps you what it does is it

opens up a checklist

and then your brain goes to work trying

to remind you

of that intention that you set and it’s

really important to develop the skill

and i say that word purposefully the

skill

of knowing how to hear that inner wisdom

and that intention kicking in

and leaning into it quickly

and i think most people that are

miserable

or that are that are really like dying

to be great and dying to have more we

want to change we want to

live a better life we want to create

more for our families we want to be

happier

the the desire is there

again it’s about how do you go from

knowledge to action so the first thing

in the story that’s important is

realizing that the answer was in me

every human being has a five second

window might even be shorter

for you

you have about a five second window in

which you can move from idea to action

before your brain kicks into full gear

and sabotages

any change in behavior

because remember your brain is wired to

stop you from doing things that are

uncomfortable or uncertain or scary

it’s your job to learn how to move from

those ideas that could change everything

into acting on them

because when you understand the power of

a five-second decision and you

understand that you always have a choice

to go from autopilot to decision maker

everything in your life will change you

will be a different negotiator you will

be different in sales you will be

unstoppable in the gym because you will

realize the amount of garbage that you

put in the way of your hopes of your

dreams of your potential of your

confidence of your courage

everything comes down to the decisions

that you make

we all know what to do

none of us know how to make ourselves do

it

so um

i started researching it why does

something so stupid work

why why does something so silly create

such powerful and profound change well

here’s why

the rule is a form of metacognition

metacognition is a fancy pants terms

that means something real simple

you can outsmart your own brain

in furtherance of goals

there are tricks that you can use that

actually outsmart the tricks your brain

plays on you

in furtherance of a higher purpose we

all know this you can you can

restrain yourself

if uh

you’re in a situation that calls for it

you can jump into a raging river to save

your dog or your kid

you can direct yourself in ways

if it’s important to you

and so the rule what it does is it does

something really remarkable

when you count backwards five four three

two one

what you’re actually doing

is you’re interrupting what researchers

call habit loops

that get encoded as as closed-loop

patterns in your basal ganglia that’s

the part of the brain where your

feelings where your emotions every habit

that you have which is nothing more than

behavior that you repeat that you don’t

even think about and so when you go five

four three two one it interrupts what’s

going on here that’s spinning without

you thinking and it moves and awakens

your prefrontal cortex

so when you hit one

your habit has been interrupted so

you’ve interrupted self-doubt you’ve

interrupted maybe snapping at your kids

you’ve interrupted the desire to grab

for a drink you’ve also by counting

backwards

done in action

it’s awakened your prefrontal cortex

that is the part of the brain that you

need that’s awake

when you’re changing behavior when

you’re learning new things when you hit

one it’s also a prompt

so in the language of research uh you’ll

hear people talk about um starting

rituals

that is that is something that’s proven

to help you learn a new habit the five

second rule when you repeat it becomes a

starting ritual that triggers you to act

with confidence it triggers you that

this is a moment for courage that

triggers you to shift gears and because

you’ve also done the manual work of

awakening the part of the brain that you

need to change

you’ve set yourself up for success it

doesn’t work if you count up because you

can keep going and also counting up

doesn’t require focus

if you count backwards five four three

two one

it again awakens the prefrontal cortex

and it prompts you to move

when you start to use it and then you

read about it you’ll see that that it’s

being used all over the place they use

it in the armed services in order to

align troops and get them to start an

exercise they use it at elementary

schools five four three two one at big

assemblies to get a huge room full of

kids stop talking simple and interesting

example yeah because it requires you to

focus

it’s not a habit it will become a habit

that prompts you to have confidence and

courage but in the beginning it

interrupts patterns of behavior that you

do on autopilot it helps you assert

control and it teaches you how to become

the kind of person that moves from

thinking about something to actually

doing it

change comes down to five second

decisions and this is why the five

second rule is is important for

everybody to know

it’s your job to push yourself

and i don’t care if you’re dr martin

luther king jr or your michelangelo or

your lin-manuel miranda who wrote

hamilton you will struggle with

self-doubt

and everybody that you admire everybody

and the list is the same prairie oh

oprah winfrey and i want to be like you

know tom and i want to be like uh you

know

branson and i want to be like jay-z and

i want like everybody’s listeners bill

gates and do you know what those people

do

they do not have the habit of hesitating

they trust themselves

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