429 - Turn Your Life Around with Mel Robbins’ One Weird Habit

26:58That's when I invented the five-second rule. So now I'm having these flashbacks feeling like, is this how this goes? But 10 years later, after working my ass off and paying down that debt, and I am now going to have to reinvent myself again? Are you kidding me? Why are you doing this to me? And then I would feel guilty. I would use what I call the gratitude sledgehammer where you're now pounding yourself because you should be grateful that at least, you know, you're healthy. And so I'm not even allowing myself to feel what I need to feel. And one morning in early April, I wake up and I just feel the weight of the world.

27:39I feel overwhelmed, exhausted. My to-do list feels impossibly long. I've hung over. I am just, I don't know how I'm going to face everything that I need to face. And so I use the five second rule, five, four, three, two, one, and I get out of bed. And this is an important note in the story. Because, you know, I invented the five second rule to help me get out of bed when my anxiety was so crushing, it would pin me to the bed like a gravity blanket. I know that the last place that I should be is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling when life is challenging. I want you to hear this. I use that thing every single morning, even 13 years later, because I believe that, yes, if you repeat a behavior, it can become a habit.

28:29But if you don't like it, it may never become a habit. Like I still have to force myself out of bed. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, I force myself out of bed. I make my bed. I always make my bed. On this morning, I made it so I wouldn't crawl back into it. And so I drag myself into the bathroom. I'm standing there in my underwear. And I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. And I think, oh, my God. you look like hell. I honestly felt sad for the woman I saw in the mirror because she looked beaten up. She looked depleted. The life force was just drained from her. Yes. And then I started to pick her apart.

29:19I'm like the dark circles under her eyes and the saggy neck and one breast is hanging lower than the other. And then all of a sudden, once your thoughts go negative, it's just going to take you down the spiral. And so then I start the pile driving and I'm like, why'd you get up so late? And you got a Zoom call in eight minutes and the dog's sitting there at my feet. Why haven't I, and I didn't text Marie back and I'm just, just pounding myself into the ground. Now, here's the interesting thing. If you had walked into the bathroom that morning, I could have spun on the dime. I would have been like, Marie, I get it.

29:50I get it. This is hard. I know. I know. It's not fair. We've worked too hard. Here's the thing though, honey, if anybody can handle it, it's you. I got faith in you. You pick your chin up. You get your ass back out there. Come on, girl. This is going to make you strong. Like I could give you what you needed, but standing there in my underwear, feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders, I could not think of a thing to say. And I don't think I would believed it anyway, because it didn't match how I felt. Now, I don't know why I did it. I actually think it's divine intervention. I think it's the universe.

30:26I think this was the moment. Without even thinking, I just raised my hand and I high-fived that exhausted woman I saw in the mirror because I knew she needed it. And here's the thing. It's not like lightning struck. It's like the heavens opened and like, oh, the angels are here. That's not what happened. No, no. But I'll tell you what did happen. There was this little switch that flipped. In fact, Jay Shetty, I talked to him the other day about this. He's the one that pointed out. He's like, it's like you flipped a switch. He's right. And that first morning, it wasn't even like electrical. It was just a small flip and I felt my shoulders drop, you know, and I felt this sort of shakeup in my energy.

31:12I didn't even think anything, but what the energy felt like was a little bit like sarcastic Mel Robbins. It was like, oh, come on, you're, you're fine. Do you get out there? You can figure this out. It's fit. You know what I mean? Like, come on, stop, stop feeling sorry for yourself. It was kind of that energy, but it was the second morning Marie where everything changed. So the second morning I wake up still same problem, same overwhelm, same stress, same anxiety, same exhaustion, same fatigue, same defeated feeling. Five, four, three, two, one, I'm out of bed. I make the bed. I start walking to the bathroom and I realize before I even get to the bathroom, I am experiencing something I have never felt in my entire adult life.

32:03And it was this, you know how, when you're about to go see a friend at a cafe who you really like. Yes. And you're about to walk in the door. What do you feel in that moment? Excited. I actually felt excited to see the human being, Mel Robbins.

32:28I don't ever recall having had that feeling as an adult. I've been excited to see an outfit I'm wearing. Yep. I've been excited to see what a haircut looks like, but to see the human being, Mel Robbins, I've never felt that before. And so I round the corner and the profound nature of this is starting to hit me. And it's in that moment as I'm standing there brushing my teeth that I realize there are two human beings in the bathroom with you every morning. There's you and there's a human being in the mirror. And I've never realized it, that there's a human being that is staring back at you who needs you, who has been waiting for you to wake up and realize that they need your support and your love and your acceptance and your encouragement and your forgiveness, that they're trying so hard that they feel alone.

33:34They feel beaten up. And I put my toothbrush down. And what's interesting is the day before I had been doing some research because like you, my team's distributed and I'm trying desperately to figure out how do I need to show up right now? How do I inspire everybody? How do I encourage them in this like unprecedented moment in time when I don't even feel inspired or certain or motivated? And I stumbled onto this new piece of research out of Harvard that was about leadership. And basically they have done this research that shows that if you just take less than a minute to think about how you're going to show up today as a leader, that's it.

34:17Just less than a minute. How am I going to show up today? What's the impact I'm going to make? It changes your level of focus. It changes your productivity. It changes how you show up. It changes the impact that you can make. There's this like emotional contagion research about how the emotion that you bring, the intention that you bring is contagious to the people that you're leading or your family members or your loved ones. And so I had just looked at this and for whatever reason that morning, I decided, well, what if instead of using that for my employees, what if I used it for myself? And I thought, okay, well, how am I going to show up for her today?

34:58What does she need? And I immediately just thought, well, she needs me to be really optimistic. That's what she needs. And she needs me to be kind. And she needs me to bring some confidence today because that's what she needs. She needs to know that this is figureoutable, that she's going to get us through this. And so I thought about that. And then I raised my hand and I sealed it with a high five. And that morning I felt the jolt. I laughed out loud because it's so absurd to do this the first couple of times. But I did notice that as I left the bathroom, I felt a completely different level of energy.

35:45And I now understand why. And so let me unpack, because what happened is I just kept doing it in secret for about three or four weeks. And then I all of a sudden snap a photo of myself. And had I known this was going to be the photo, I probably would have done it a different morning because I my retainer in and crazy bedhead. And I posted online and within an hour, more than a hundred people without even a prompt or a, Hey, try this. Right. We're posting photos and tagging me of themselves with their kids alone, all ages, all over the world, high-fiving themselves. And that's when I was like, Oh, maybe I'm not the only one who actually needs this.

36:31And that's when I dug into the research. And the research is life-changing. So a couple things that I want to explain when you do this, because we've already taught you how to do it. I want you to understand what you can expect. First of all, you know it's going to feel weird. Great. So what? Do it anyway. I need you to do this for five days. That's how long it takes to push through the weirdness and the resistance that you're going to feel. And there's only two reactions that people have to this when they first start doing it. You're either going to have a really positive reaction where you're going to laugh and you're going to smile and it's going to be funny and corny and all this stuff, or you will burst into tears in a very positive way.

37:13This is a very, very common thing that's happening for people. And the tears are a positive release because you are realizing emotionally how much you've longed for this from yourself. How long it's been since you have done this for yourself. And that's the positive thing. What did you feel when you first started doing it? Well, the first thing, because I am such a frigging neat freak, and I love that you actually said this in the book, was like, I don't want fingerprints all over my damn mirror. Mama don't need one more thing to clean. But then of course, I got wise to the fact that it wasn't necessarily about touching the goddamn mirror.

37:56It was about the gesture and that moment of connection, which could happen even if I didn't touch the mirror. And then I think you and I, again, you from Boston, me from Jersey, we have, I'll speak for myself, this intrinsic little, there's like a little cynicism, there's a little attitude, there's a little something in there, right? But I also, the bigger, wiser, the real Marie is so game for everything. Do you know what I mean? So I had that little, that same inner, it was the fingerprints and also like, could this really work? And then it was just awesome because so much of my life, not only just looking in the mirror was about like, what can I fix?

38:43What do I have to fix about me. But this was just, it was so fun because like, even, you know, you and I have become friends and so many people I just, I received, I'm like teary about this. I received a text this morning from someone like, Hey, I want to help you. You know, what can we do with time genius? Right. And I could, the immediate thing was like, I don't need help. I'm the one who helps everyone. Yes. I don't do it was, but it's this, but it's, it's another iteration of that same notion of she takes care of everyone else. She doesn't need anything. Yeah, totally. And you're so used to not getting that kind of support and not getting that kind of outreach that you don't even know what to do with it.

39:32So let's talk about the resistance and then I'll explain the science that is super exciting that I didn't even include this latest stuff in the book because I just learned it. But the resistance is really sad. And this is what most people feel. So the resistance comes from a number of places. Because what happens when you step into the bathroom and you are with that human being in the mirror, is you drag your entire past into that bathroom with you subconsciously. And that past stands between you and the human being in the mirror. So if you have a past where there's things that have been done to you, whether it's abuse or trauma or discrimination or poverty or heartbreak or abandonment or neglect or all kinds of things that happen to human beings.

40:29So many of you bring that into the bathroom subconsciously and you see that as evidence that the human being in the mirror does not deserve, isn't worthy of, is damaged, is unlovable. And so you see a person who does not deserve a high five because of those things. The other reason why people resist this, Marie, is because, you know, if you're human, you've done shit you've regretted. You know, whether you've lied or cheated or you hurt people or you were addicted to something or you squandered opportunity or you hurt yourself, like all of that stuff, by the way, that you would forgive Marie or Mel Robbins for, but you drag it subconsciously into the bathroom every single morning and you wear it like a yoke and you see a person who has done things that you regret or that you can't forgive.

41:27And that means that you are unworthy of celebration. You're unworthy of that high five. The other piece that we do is we say, well, I only deserve that high five if I've done something worthy of it. So if I don't have the number on the scale, if my pants aren't the size, if I don't have that bank account or that person doesn't love me or I haven't launched that business or I didn't do the thing, if you haven't exercised today, well, then I've screwed up. I don't deserve the high five. And I'm here to tell you that because you've survived those things, because you can drag yourself out of bed, because you are still standing here breathing, you are still trying, you not only deserve a high five, you need one.

42:19Because what a high five says isn't, I'm amazing because I'm failed. A high five says, I see you and I see that you're struggling and I still love you and I still support you. That's what a high five says in those moments. I know you're not at the number on the scale, but guess what? I'm still going to remind you that you deserve to feel good about yourself. You deserve support. Today's another day. You can keep going. You know, we don't stand at a marathon at mile seven as spectators and cross our arms and go, oh, I'm not fucking clapping for you. Did you see how slow you're running? Girl, look at that outfit you're wearing.

42:57We don't do that. No, we clap and celebrate runners every step of the way because we know that's what keeps them going. And if you've ever done a walk-a-thon or a marathon, you know the single best part of those 26.2 miles is the fact that people are encouraging you. And you're sitting there waiting for your boss or your spouse or your friends or your family to do the thing, to encourage you, to love you, to validate you. I'm here to tell you, you need to make it a habit to start every fucking day validating yourself, cheering for yourself, because life is a marathon. And this might be a challenging leg where you're like, I'm just going to throw in the towel.

43:41I'm not going to do that thing. Hell no. If you're standing in front of that mirror, you deserve to feel the support and empowerment and encouragement that you need. And so stop waiting for everybody else to do it. Stop waiting for the fact that you got to get to the gym or do this. You are doing so much every single day that you don't give yourself credit for. And you know, I also was thinking about this. Why do we celebrate birthdays? We celebrate birthdays because you're alive. Totally. This is a moment every single morning to bring that celebratory energy that you need into your life. And let me tell you why this is going to work.

44:22It's going to work. And this comes from our friend, Dr. Daniel Amen, one of the world's leading experts on the brain. So I was talking to him two weeks ago. This stuff is not even in the book. So this is hot off the research presses, people. So Dr. Amen goes, so you know how you feel a little bit better, Mel, after you do that high five to yourself? I'm like, yeah. He He goes, do you want to know the reason why you feel better? I'm like, yes. He said, well, when somebody else high fives you, your brain gives you a drip of dopamine. When you high five yourself, your brain recognizes the gesture.

44:55So it automatically gives you a drip of dopamine. So even on your lowest mornings, somebody you love says, I don't love you anymore and breaks up with you. You get fired from your dream job. You feel like the world's worst parent. You didn't finish module two of Marie's course, like, you know, and you're beating yourself up. whatever it is that you're doing to just pile drive yourself. When you raise your hand and you high five yourself, even when you feel low, you don't have to say a thing because your brain has all the positive programming and you're going to feel a little bit better because your brain just gave you some dopamine.

45:28Yeah. That little spritz is everything. Yes. It's everything. And there's a second reason why he said, you want to know why you're going to leave the bathroom feeling a little kind of corny pep in your step? And I said, yes, I do. He said, that's your nervous system, Mel. I said, well, what is my nervous system doing when I high five myself? He said, well, he said, a high five is what we call a celebratory gesture. Dancing, you put your arms up. Hugging somebody, you put your arms up. When you cross a finish line, you put your arms up. When your favorite team scores, you put your arms up. When you wave hello, you put your arms up.

46:02When Marie fist pumps the air. She puts her arms up. These are all celebratory gestures that your nervous system knows. When you start to high five yourself over and over, your nervous system gives you a jolt of celebratory energy. That's the vitality, the life force that you feel, even just this little pep. That's your nervous system helping you. That's the science behind why this is working. It's so good. It's so, so good. Gosh, you know, what's awesome is I love how organically, like, you know, I did all my prep work and did all my questions and we really, we drove around all the neighborhoods where I wanted to go.

46:41I think that there's a couple more, there's two things that I want to go for. Sure. Chapter 14 talks about the right and wrong way to manifest. And I thought this was really awesome because, again, for folks like you and I who tend to then attract folks like you and I, meaning very hard workers, people who put their nose to the grindstone, we get it done no matter what, right? Even if you don't like the word manifesting, just this notion of having more ease in your life, of bringing things into your life that you don't necessarily pound your face against the ground for every single day until your eyeballs fall out.

47:22So talk to me about a little bit of the wrong way and the right way to manifest for those who may want a little more ease. Yeah, great question. So let me draw a distinction between the importance of dreaming and the power of manifesting. So dreaming in terms of not what you're doing at night, but dreaming and giving yourself permission to desire things, to have incredible magical things occur in your life, giving yourself permission to let your mind, body, and spirit wander into the future and to imagine a life that really lights you up. that's so important because those dreams are deeply connected to your soul.

48:12Like you, you won't dream about something that's not meant for you. I'm not dreaming right now about a penthouse apartment in New York city. I don't want to live there right now. So that's not going to come to me, but you know, when you allow yourself and your mind and spirit to wander forward and just allow yourself and give yourself permission to imagine what's amazing is you plant a beacon out into the future. and that beacon, whether it's a beach house or it's a loving relationship or it's healing past trauma or it's launching your dream business or it's just waking up and being happier and healthier and surrounded by all these amazing people, whatever that dream is, you got to allow yourself to dream it because it acts as a mechanism that starts to pull you toward it and it will pull you through your fear.

49:01It will create tension in your life because it's going to make you start to wake up and pay attention to it. That's where a vision board comes in. And a vision board, yeah, most of us make a vision board and we put up the beach house or the Range Rover or the amazing log cabin or the trip to Disney World or the dream business that we want, whatever it is the things are that we want, the loving relationship. But then this is where we make the biggest mistake because manifesting isn't the dream. Manifesting is the bridge between where you are and where you want to go. Manifesting is the bricks that form the pathway that connect you there.

49:44And most of us have been led to believe that we need to sit quietly and with vibrational force, feel ourselves sitting on the deck of that beach house and how it's going to feel when the wind is in our hair. And what happens when you do it that way is that you socialize your mind and body to the end. When the fact is it's going to be a bazillion little irritating steps that get you there. Yes. And we skip that part. So I love this. I just want to underscore this because when we were doing the everything is Figureoutable book tour. And I did this event and I had people close their eyes and visualize themselves figuring it out, whatever their dream was.

50:27We actually did that. I was like, I want you to see yourself taking those steps. And I loved how you broke this down in the book. I thought it was so great because yeah, it's one thing to go, yay, we crossed the finish line and there's the house or the relationship or the health or the trip or whatever. To rehearse in your mind's eye, emotionally, visually, intellectually, seeing yourself doing the steps. So if it's writing a book, sitting at your table and maybe sweating a little because you don't think you're a very good writer, but showing up anyway, or getting up when the alarm goes off and putting your sneakers on and all of those different little micro actions, even if it's a healthy relationship.

51:15For me, there's been times where if what I want to shift and change is a reaction that I've had to something, seeing myself with the same situation that could trigger me in the past and visualizing myself behaving differently, feeling differently, watching it. Those are the steps that help me create that shift where it actually happens. So I just want to praise you, acknowledge you and underscore how awesome this is because your mind is so powerful. Our brains are so incredibly miraculous, but we're not given the instruction kits on how to use them. Yes, exactly. So, you know, you want to launch a business, visualize yourself telling your friends you can't come out tonight because you're going to work on something.

52:03Visualize yourself hitting that post and then feeling the fear that people are going to judge you when you start posting about something different than your kids or your dream vacations and you start posting about your business. Visualize yourself spending a Saturday while the kids are playing soccer, working on something. Visualize yourself hearing no and feeling discouraged and then picking up the phone and making the next phone call. There's something called the Zygarnik effect in your brain. It's like a little to-do list, a checklist that your brain keeps intact in your mind and your brain once you start to socialize your mind, body, and spirit to all these little irritating steps, like you want to run a marathon, don't visualize a finish, visualize yourself at mile 11 on a training run and it starts to rain and your earbud batteries die and you keep going.

52:57When you do that, what you're doing is you're smoothing out your resistance to all this work that it's going to require to make this stuff happen because you are capable, you can figure it out. And you can use simple tools backed by science to lower the resistance in your body and mind to actually doing the things that you've never done before. I love this. So Mel, I want to wrap us up before we wrap us up. Is there anything else that you want to say about the power of self-acceptance? Although I feel like we really, we went there and it was excellent, but what I want to have you do is actually read a final section of your book for us.

53:37I can. I, you know, I think that one of the things that people really resonate with is there's this one study where they look at NBA teams and you can predict or researchers can predict who are going to be the most successful teams at the championship round at the end of the season based on how people, how the teams treat each other during preseason. and the behavior that researchers noticed indicates whether or not a team goes on to be successful or a team is in the bottom of the league is very simple. How many backpats or fist bumps or high fives do team members give each other in the beginning of a season?

54:19And if the team does that a lot in the beginning of a season, they typically go on based on research to be the highest ranking teams at the end of the season, the most winning ones. And the question is why? And the reason is very simple. These are more than gestures. A pat on the back, a fist bump, a high five. That is a fulfillment of a fundamental emotional need that you have to be seen, to be supported, to be celebrated, to be encouraged. And when you do that with a team member, it creates support, it creates partnership, it creates trust. And I'm here to tell you, if you start doing that to yourself in the mirror, the coolest thing on the planet happens.

54:59you rebuild trust with yourself. If you struggle with people pleasing, you literally have not a problem with other people. You have a problem with trusting yourself and who you are. And so if you really want to be fulfilled and happy, start by improving the most important relationship that you have. And it's with the human being that you spend your whole life with, the one who's staring back at you every morning in the mirror.

55:32Oh, I barely got through this in the audio book. I mean, when I read this chapter in the audio book, I was literally almost as I read it. And I said to my team afterwards, we need to rerecord that. They were like, are you kidding me? So let's see if I can get through this. dreams don't disappear you were born with them and they are i can say i can't even get through this dreams don't disappear you were born with them and they are meant for you that means you take them with you wherever you go in whatever version of yourself you create so you might as well stop running and start leaning into them you might as well see and hear and feel all the clues of your life that it's trying to give you about who you're destined to be.

56:22We are called in different ways to be the best and highest versions of ourselves. We want to high-five marriage. We want to be high-five parents. We want to high-five friendships and a high-five career. Wherever there is a dream in your life, trust that you can high-five your way to it and know that I'm still right here beside you and so is Marie, raising our hand in celebration with you. High five, my friend. We see you. We believe in you. Now it's your turn to believe in yourself and go make your dreams come true.

56:58I love you so much. Thank you so much. I know you are in the middle of this launch. I am so excited for you. I'm so excited for millions more people to get in on the high five habit with us because it works. And I just, I just want you to know how loved and appreciated you are in this world. Thank you for this. Thank you. I feel the exact same way about you, Marie. High five, baby. I love that you got both hands. I can't. I'm from Jersey. I double up. I'm like, here we go. Here we go.

57:36wasn't that amazing i just adore mel robbins and i'm sure you do too and now we both love to know what is the number one insight that you're taking away from this conversation and most important how can you turn that insight into action right now as always the best conversations happen over the magical land of marieforleo.com so head on over there and leave a comment now and if you're not already be sure to subscribe to our email list and become an mf insider why would you want to do that because every single Tuesday I send inspiring, action-oriented, motivating emails that will help keep you on track.

58:11You're going to love them. Now, until next time, stay on your game and keep going for your big dreams because the world really does need that very special gift that only you have. Thank you so much for tuning in and I'll catch you next time on the Marie Forleo podcast and MarieTV.

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