Your Personal Guide to Overcoming Hidden Trauma Patterns | Mel Robbins

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0:33Mel Robbins:you 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 how to leverage the power of your decisions and you've 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.

1:12Mel Robbins:Tomorrow, 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 going to cold call Cox media and you're going to, 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. 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.

1:40Mel Robbins:Now, why was I hitting the snooze when I knew it wasn't the right decision? I'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 of feelings. 95 % of our decisions are made by how you feel in the moment.

2:13Mel Robbins: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. because when I was lying in bed, I wasn't saying to myself, I should get up because that's going to help me start my day right. I was saying, do I feel like getting up? No, you don't. No. 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.

2:51Mel Robbins:And if you, 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. What 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, 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.

3:25Mel Robbins: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. I see this commercial. And, you know, I also was drinking too much. I mean, I probably had a couple 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.

4:04You'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. Yes. And then you'll start moving the second weight.

4:14Mel Robbins: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? What? That is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

4:52Mel Robbins:The next morning I used it again, it worked. The next morning I used it again, 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, it's action. 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.

5:27Mel Robbins:And if you count backwards, five, four, three, two, one, 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 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.

6:03Mel Robbins: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. Are 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?

6:27I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is gonna help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. We have some big guests and content coming up. Make sure you're following and stay tuned to this episode of The Daily Motivation Show.

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7:58Again, have an amazing day and I'll see you tomorrow with another episode of the Daily Motivation Show.

8:23We'll be right back.