Use This To Control Your Brain – Mel Robbins

there are so many people in the worldand and you may be watching this rightnow and you have these incredible ideasand what you think is missing ismotivation and that's not truebecause the way that our minds are wiredand the fact about human beings is thatwe are not designed to do things thatare uncomfortable or scary or difficultour brains are designed to protect usfrom those things because our brains aretrying to keep us alive and in order tochange in order to build a business inorder to be the best parent of a spouseto do all those things that you know youwant to do with your life with your workwith your dreams you're gonna have to dothings that are difficult uncertain orscary which sets up this problem for allof us you're never gonna feel like itwhat do you think that is oh I knowexactly why that is because I've studiedthis so much because for me one of thehardest things to figure out was why isit so hard to do the little things thatwould improve my life and what I've cometo realize is that the way that ourminds are designed is our minds aredesigned to stop you at all costs fromdoing anything that might hurt you theway that that that that this all happensis it all starts with something supersubtle that none of us ever catch andthat is with this habit that all of ushave that nobody's talking about we allhave a habit of hesitating we have anidea you're sitting in a meeting youhave this incredible idea and instead ofjust you know saying it you stop and youhesitate now what none of us realize isthat when you hesitate just that momentthat micro moment that's smallhesitation it sends a stress signal toyour brain it wakes your brain up andyour brain all of a sudden goes oh waita minute wait why is he hesitating hedidn't hesitate when he put on hiskiller spiky sneakers he didn't hesitatewith the really cool track pants hedidn't hesitate with the NASA tee shirtnow he's hesitating to talk somethingmust be up then your brain goes to workto protect you it has a milliondifferent ways to protect youone of them is called the spotlighteffect it's a known phenomenon whereyour brain magnifies risk Y to pull youaway from something that it perceives tobe a problem and so you can truly traceevery single problem or complaint inyour life to silence and hesitationthose are decisions what I do and what'schanged my lifeis waking up and realizing that I'mnever gonna feel like doing the thingsthat are tough for difficult oruncertain or scary or no so I need tostop waiting until I feel like it andnumber two I am one decision away from atotally different marriage a totallydifferent life a totally different job atotally different income a totallydifferent relationship with my kidsnot like one decision I'm divorcing youin in the marriage example but onedecision on you know you could be havinga conversation with your spouse and youfeel your emotions rise up and within atiny window those emotions can take overand can impact how your marriage goes oryou can learn how to take control ofthat micro momentand make a decision to act in a way thatactually shifts your marriage your lifecomes down to your decisions and if youchange your decisions you will changeeverything in the scheme of life hittingthe snooze button is not that big of adeal but here's the thing about lifenone of us wake up and say today is theday I destroy my life what we do is wekind of check out because it feelsoverwhelming or we check out becausewe're afraid or we check out because westart listening to self-doubt and thenwe make these teeny tiny decisions allday long we don't even realize itdecision to not get up on time adecision to not eat the right thing adecision to snap at your kids a decisionto not speak in a meeting a decision tonot look for a job a decision to notdeal with your finances a decision tonot call your parent like whatever it isall day long these tiny decisions thattake you so far off track and then youwake up like I didn't and you you lookat your life and you think how the helldid I get here and more importantly howdo I get back over there and you have noidea and so I was so trapped and I knowfrom your story you felt the same waylike you knew that there was more instore for you but you couldn't figureout how you closed that gaphow do you find the power that's in youhow do you discover your greatness howdo you solve these problems it feels sooverwhelming when you can't I mean Iwould go to the grocery store and theitems would scan and I would be sittingthere reading my excuse because therewas no way that my check fur was gonnaclear I got in this struggle with myselfthat a lot of us find ourselves in andthat is you get trapped in what I callthe knowledge action gapyou know what to do but you can't seemto make yourself do it rightI mean every one of us is one Googlesearch away from a list of instructionsthat if you follow any of them one itwill change your lifebut how do you get out of your head andstop thinking about what you need to doand actually do it and in my case thisstuff was pretty easy get up on timemake breakfast for the kids get them onthe bus start looking for a job don'tdrink so much instead of isolatingyourself pick up the phone and call afriend get yourself out into the woodsand go for a walkstart running again it's like all theselittle things that I was capable of butI couldn't get out of here could not getout of here and if you're stuck that'sthe problem the problem is you're you'rein your head you're thinking when youset goals when you have an intention onsomething that you want to change aboutyour life your brain helps you what itdoes is it opens up a checklist and thenyour brain goes to work trying to remindyou of that intention that you set andit's really important to develop theskill and I say that word purposefullythe skill of knowing how to hear thatinner wisdom and that intention kickingin and leaning into it quickly so for memy brain saying that's it right theremove as fast as a rocket Mel I wanted tochange my life and I think most peoplethat are miserable or that are that arereally like dying to be great and dyingto have more we want to change we wantto live a better life we want to createmore for our families we want to behappierthe desire is there again it's about howdo you go from knowledge to action sothe first thing in the story that'simportant is realizing that the answerwas in me and my mind was telling me payattentionanyway the next morning the alarm goesoff and I pretended NASA was thereit's a stupidest story I literally went5 4 3 2 1 I counted out loud and then Istood up and I'll never forget standingthere in my bedroom it was dark it wascold it was winter in Boston and for thefirst time in 3 months I had beaten myhabit of hitting the snooze button Icouldn't believe it and I thought wait aminutecounting backwards said is the dumbestthing I've ever heard in my entire lifewell the next morning I used it againand it worked the next morning I used itagain and it worked the next morning Iused it again and it worked and then Istarted to notice something reallyinteresting there were moments all daylongall day long just like that five-secondmoment in bed where I knew knowledgewhat I should do and if I didn't movewithin 5 seconds my brain would step inand talk me out of it every human beinghas a five-second window might even beshorter for you you have about afive-second window in which you can movefrom idea to action before your brainkicks into full gear and sabotages anychange in behavior because remember yourbrain is wired to stop you from doingthings that are uncomfortable oruncertain or scary it's your job tolearn how to move from those ideas thatcould change everything into acting onthem when you understand the power of a5 second decision and you understandthat you always have a choice to go fromautopilot to decision-makereverything in your life will change youwill be a different negotiator you willbe different sales you will beunstoppable in the gym because you willrealize the amount of garbage that youput in the way of your hopes of yourdreams of your potential of yourconfidence of your courageeverything comes down to the decisionsthat you make we all know what to donone of us know how to make ourselves doit I started researching it why doessomething so stupid work why why doessomething so silly create such powerfuland profound change well here's why therule is a form of metacognitionmetacognition is a fancy-pants termsthat means something real simple you canoutsmart your own brain in furtheranceof goals they're tricks that you can usethat actually outsmart the tricks yourbrain plays on you in furtherance of ahigher purpose we all know thisyou can restrain yourself if you're in asituation that calls for ityou can jump into a raging river to saveyour dog or your kid you can directyourself in ways if it's important toyou and so the rule what it does is itdoes something really remarkable whenyou count backwards 5 4 3 2 1 whatyou're actually doing is you'reinterrupting what researchers call habitloops that get encoded as as closed looppatterns in your basal ganglia that'sthe part of the brain where yourfeelings or your emotions every habitthat you have which is nothing more thanbehavior that you repeat that you don'teven think of it and so when you go 5 43 2 1 it interrupts what's going on herethat's spinning without you thinking andit moves and awakens your prefrontalcortex so when you hit one your habithas been interrupted so you'veinterrupted self-doubt you'veinterruptedmaybe snapping at your kids you'veinterrupted the desire to grab for adrink you've interrupted procrastinationyou've also by counting backwards donean action it's awake and your prefrontalcortex that is the part of the brainthat you need that's awake when you'rechanging behavior when you're learningnew things when you hit one it's also aprompt so in the language of researchyou'll hear people talk about startingritualsthat is that is something that's provento help you learn a new habit thefive-second rule when you repeat itbecomes a starting ritual that triggersyou to act with confidence that triggersyou that this is a moment for couragethat triggers you to shift gears andbecause you've also done the manual workof awakening the part of the brain thatyou need to change you've set yourselfup for success it doesn't work if youcount up because you can keep going andalso counting up doesn't require focusif you count backwards 5 4 3 2 1 itagain awakens the prefrontal cortex andit prompts you to move when you start touse it and then you read about it you'llsee that that it's being used all overthe place they use it in the armedservices in order to align troops andget them to start an exercise they useit at elementary schools 5 4 3 2 1 a bigassemblies to get a huge room full ofkidsstop talking simple and interestingexample yeah because it requires you tofocus it's not a habit it will become ahabit that prompts you to haveconfidence courage but in the beginningit interrupts patterns of behavior thatyou do an autopilot it helps you assertcontrol and it teaches you how to becomethe kind of person that moves fromthinking about something to actuallydoing it I think we're all flawed andthat's the beauty of who you are andinstead of trying to make yourselfperfect in every area it's so mucheasier when you accept the things thatyou're terrible or at or that are yourweaknesses or that are the things aboutyour wiring look if I were diabetic Iwould take insulin I happen to besomebody that's wired for anxiety no bigdeal so figure out how to instead offighting those things actually trick itbecause the truth is that you're nevergonna feel ready to make these changesyou're never gonna feel like doing thembut you can always make a decisionthat's always in your control stayingwith somebody that treats you likegarbage is a decision it is staying at ajob that you hate is a decisionstaying in the body that you are notproud of is a decision is it going to beeasy no it's not gonna be easy to changeit's simple to a Google search and thenuse the five-second rule to forceyourself to do that stuff change comesdown to five second decisions and thisis why the five-second rule is importantfor everybody to know it's your job topush yourself and I don't care if you'redr. Martin Luther King jr. or yourMichelangelo or your lin-manuel Mirandawho wrote Hamilton you will strugglewith self-doubt and everybody that youadmire everybody and the list is thesame for every 200 Oprah Winfrey and Iwant to be like you know Tom and I wantto be like you know Branson and I wantto be like jay-z and I want likeeverybody's listed a Bill Gates and doyou know what those people do they donot have the habit of hesitating theytrust themselvesyou