CRUSH Indecision in 5 SECONDS | Mel Robbins EP 470

0:00Hi, my name is Lewis Howes and welcome to the Daily Motivation Show.

0:11You think that you need to feel confident or courageous in order to get started. You don't. You actually just have to start, and that's the riddle of life. That lying in bed, hoping that you wake up some morning, motivated to change, that's not the answer. You actually have to learn how to push yourself. You have to learn how to leverage the power of your decisions, and you've got to learn how to take action when you don't feel like it. Because every morning when I woke up, I did not feel confident. I felt like a loser. Every night I would lie in bed and I would say to myself, tomorrow, it's the new you.

0:50Tomorrow, you're going to wake up and be motivated. You're going to get up. You're going to exercise like everybody says you should. You're going to meditate. You're going to get those kids on the bus. You're going to screw Fox. You're going to look for a job. You're You're going to do auditions. Come on, girl. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. You're going to take a cold shower. Woo! You know, here we go. And I meant it when I was saying it, but then I would wake up and I didn't feel any of those things. So I would hit the snooze and I would hit the snooze. Now, why was I hitting the snooze when I knew it wasn't the right decision?

1:21I'm going to tell you why. And this is something that I was blown away by when I discovered it. You don't make decisions with your goals. You don't make decisions with your prefrontal cortex. you don't make decisions with logic. Do you know how we make decisions? I didn't invent this. A neuroscientist by the name of Damasio who does his research in Brazil who gave an incredible TED talk and wrote about this forever and ever and ever. We make decisions with feelings. 95 % of our decisions are made by how you feel in the moment. And that is the problem. You need to take control of the moment and leverage the power of your decisions and make them up here.

1:59Because when I was lying in bed I wasn't saying to myself I should get up because that's gonna help me start my day right I was saying do I feel like getting up no you don't know do you feel like making that cold call No, you don't do you feel like doing that third set of reps? No, you don't we make decisions based on our feelings And that is robbing you of joy and opportunity How you change your life is one five-second decision at a time one push at a time And if you accept the fact that you may never feel ready and you may never feel motivated and you may never feel confident, you may never feel courageous, and that's okay, but you can still push yourself forward.

2:41What happens over time is as you start to see yourself becoming the person that takes action, that you start to see yourself becoming the kind of person that speaks even though your voice is shaking. You're the kind of person that has a bias toward moving instead of a bias toward thinking. Guess what happens? You build the skill of confidence and courage. Lewis, I mean, I was so stuck. I was on, I mean, we were heading straight for divorce. We were heading for bankruptcy. I knew I wanted to change things. And so one night I see this commercial. This is the stupidest story on the planet, but this is what happened.

3:14I see this commercial and, you know, I also was drinking too much. I mean, I probably had a couple of Manhattans in me and there was a rocket ship launching. On a commercial? Yeah. And I had this instinct, this innovation, this disruptive idea, right? Oh, my God, Mel. That's the answer. Tomorrow morning, you're going to launch your ass out of bed like a rocket ship. You're going to move so fast, you can't even think about your problems. You've got to get moving first. Yes. That's the thing. You've just got to wake up at 6 a.m. or wherever it is and go into the gym. And when you're in the gym, you're going to start moving the first weight.

3:50And then you'll start moving the second weight. Actually, people use the five-second rule at the gym because you know how much time people waste at the gym standing around thinking about the next thing? Probably 70 % of the time. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So the next morning, the alarm goes off, and nothing had changed in my life. I woke up to the lean on the house, the fighting with Chris, the unemployment, the lack of confidence, the lack of courage, like the whole thing. But I did something I had never done before. I went 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, just like NASA. I actually counted. and then I stood up and I was like what the hell just happened?

4:26What? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard. The next morning I used it again and it worked. The next morning I used it again and it worked. There's a five second window between the instincts the shoulds the urges the inner wisdom the things that can change your life if you listen to it. Got a five second window from the moment you feel that instinct to move And if you don't, your brain is actually designed to kill it. Five seconds is all you have. The second you hesitate and you feel yourself hesitating, that is a moment of huge power because what's happened is you've just started to pull back from something that you need to lean into.

5:05And if you count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and this is the neuroscience behind why this stupid little trick works, counting is an action. Counting backwards requires focus. It's also not a habit for you yet. so when you feel yourself hesitate you're you're triggering your mind that something's up your mind now goes into a cognitive bias called the spotlight effect it magnifies whatever it was that you hesitated doing and your mind is doing it because your mind's trying to protect you hesitation signals a red flag to your mind that something's up just that small hesitation it's a habit that we all have so it's actually this habit of hesitating you start catching yourself it's a huge moment of power because you have a decision to make and you got to make it in the next five seconds.

5:47Are you going to go on autopilot and get trapped in your mind? Or are you going to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and awaken your prefrontal cortex and drive forward?

6:08Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of The Daily Motivation, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to click the link in the description that will take you to the full episode of our main podcast on the School of Greatness. And if you are loving the daily motivation, please follow us over on Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review over on Apple Podcasts right now. And if you want more exclusive content and ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast right now. And if you want to get even more inspiration from our world-class guests and learn how to improve your life and take it to the next level, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com slash newsletter.

6:58Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.