The five-second rule. I know it's hard to do. You do this in a 60-minute speech. Do you have a nutshell version of the famous Mel Robbins five-second rule?

Yeah. If you drop food on the floor, you've got five seconds to pick it up.

Mel thought of that. I'm just kidding. Back in the day.

It was more like the 200-second rule in my house, actually, with food coming from a long agriculture family. You don't waste anything. I don't care what's on the floor. No, the five-second rule. It's funny that your My story is about the same thing. It was something I invented 10 years ago to beat my habit of hitting the snooze button and actually force myself to wake up on time. And it was just this epiphany that I had one day that, boy, instead of lying in bed like a loser and thinking negative thoughts, what if I launched myself out of bed like a rocket? Maybe if I move fast enough, I might be able to beat that window when all the self-doubt and all all of the excuses come in. And so literally, as dumb as it sounds, one morning, 10 years ago, I went 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 when the alarm rang, and suddenly I was standing up. And then using it to get out of bed every morning, I noticed this window this gap in time between the things you know you need to do and the excuses that stop you. And that window is about five seconds.

And so the five-second rule is a tool that you can use as simple as it sounds, it's a tool you can use to beat any single excuse that stops you. Because you'll be in a situation all day long where stuff is happening to you. You're at work and you're sitting in a meeting and you have an idea and you know that you should speak up, but then you'll start thinking about speaking up. And within five seconds, you will have talked yourself out of it. Oh, the meeting's been going on too long. This idea now sounds dumb. What if they roll their eyes? They never listen to me anyway. What if it sounds stupid? Boom, you're not talking. And so there's this window of time for all of us between the instincts that change our lives, that make us show up, that prompt us to act with courage and confidence, and you talking yourself out of it. And so you can use the countdown technique, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, to actually close the gap and push yourself to change, to show up, to act with confidence, to take a risk, to be more visible, to do the stuff that's irritating, that normally you wouldn't.

It's super, super, super cool.

Where were you in your life when you came up with this?

Disaster, circling the drain. I was a bitchy drunk. Can I use that word on this podcast? It's a grown up podcast. Okay, bleep it out, okay? No, I was 41, and I was in a spot that I never thought I would be in at 41. And that is, I had a drinking problem. My husband's restaurant business was going under. I was unemployed, and we were losing everything. And I was also losing my mind, truly. I had no confidence. I was convinced that there was nothing I could I could do to save my marriage, nothing I could do to save our financial situation. My train wreck of a life began every morning when the alarm would go off, and I would lay there and think about all the problems that Chris and I were facing. I would literally hit the snooze button three or four times in a row. I think when you're successful, because I had been successful in previous years, it really crushes you when you hit that wall many of us hit and you have a major failure. You start to convince yourself that things aren't fair and that this shouldn't be happening.

Just when you need motivation, it's not there. When you need the confidence to push yourself beyond your excuses, it's not there. And that's the space that I was in. And had I not discovered the five-second rule and the ability to actually make five-second decisions and not listen to my excuses, I'd probably I'd be divorced and bankrupt and bitter and who knows what I'd be doing for a living.

And how did that apply as you were moving on from there? I know you've talked a little bit about how applications for that, what did you decide to do from that point on.

Well, so I first stumbled upon this thing by accident, right? To beat the snooze button habit and to get up on time. But there's something interesting about the alarm clock. So let's use the alarm clock as a metaphor for something that happens all day long to all of us. And the alarm clock ringing is a great metaphor for those moments during the day when you know you should do something, whether it's make a cold call or have a tough conversation or send that email or get to the gym or put down the drink or adjust your tone and be a little kinder, or not speak in a meeting because you dominate the meeting, whatever it may be. All day long, there's these alarms ringing inside of you that signal you this is a moment to act. You got five seconds to move, or you will literally talk yourself out of it. So this little technique that I created to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, push myself through my excuses and get out of bed, is the exact same tool I use to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, speak up in a meeting. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, say no to a deal that makes no sense.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, adjust my business in directions that energize me, even though it's a risk. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, adjust my tone. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, stop at one Manhattan, which is actually difficult to do. I started using it for everything because here's the deal. Changing anything is the same process. You have to make a different decision than what you normally make. You have to interrupt your automatic behavior And so nine years later, I still 5, 4, 3, 1 to get out of bed because I hate getting out of bed. I still use 5, 4, 3, 1 to get to the gym because I hate to exercise. I still use 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to stop ordering a drink because I'm great on one Manhattan, a second or a third one, and we're careening into not a good zone. And the other thing that's super cool is as an entrepreneur, as my business grows, it always requires me to level up. And whenever you level up any habit, any behavior, you're going to be outside your comfort zone. I'm constantly using it to push myself to level up, to push myself to tweak my habits, to push myself to do things that I I don't feel comfortable doing because of the goals that I have and the values that I have.

Now, you just spoke for us a few minutes ago here at Premiere, which is amazing to hear that have our whole staff here. One of the things you talked about is how this and some other things work for people that have a lot of fear and anxiety, what advice would you have for someone saying, Okay, how do I deal with this?

So if you're somebody that suffers from anxiety, and I know that battle well because I struggled with anxiety for 20, five years of my life. I was on Zoloft, which was a miracle drug for me. The thing to understand about anxiety is that there's a deep connection between your worries, your body state, and anxiety and panic. So let me explain. Worrying is nothing more than the habit of thinking negative thoughts. That's all the worrying is. You're thinking, what if? And you're typically thinking what if in a way that is negative. That's what a worry is. And believe it or not, it's a habit. We were all trained to worry by our parents. We are triggered to worry when there's uncertainty. It is a habit that we all have, and it is the baby to anxiety. Anxiety is the big sister. So anxiety is nothing more than when your body is agitated. That's it. That's all that anxiety is. Your heart races, your stomach twists up in knots, your armpit sweat. And so worrying is the mental negative state. Anxiety is an agitated physical state. When you get into an agitated physical state and you allow yourself to worry, your worries actually increase the physical agitation.

It starts with worrying. Then as you worry, your body starts to get a little nervous because your worrying is making your body tune in and get alert. It's coming agitated to pay attention because your thoughts have made it trigger to think that something might be wrong. So now we're going to go in a state where we got to pay attention. And then as your body starts to get agitated, guess what happens to your mind? Your mind goes, Uh-oh, my body's agitated, and I caused it. Uh-oh. And then your thoughts start to spiral. And as your thoughts start to spiral, what will happen is the agitation rises. And when the agitation in your body rises to such a state that your brain gets worried, your brain will then have a panic attack. And the panic attack is designed to get you out of whatever room you're in. Because you have now gotten yourself so worked up that you've convinced your own mind that you're in physical trouble. So if you ever see somebody having a panic attack, they're either saying, I got to get out of here. Oh my God. And they're darting around like some weirdo deer in the headlights, or they're saying, I think I'm having a heart attack.

That is your brain alarmed that you've worked yourself up into such a state. So for people that struggle with anxiety, it is real. You should see a therapist and a licensed professional. Here's the other thing, it's not a disease. It's a habit dysfunction that you can treat and you can get better. It starts with policing your worries. You want to win in life. Life is about a positive attitude and execution. A positive attitude only comes when you are unwilling to let your thoughts drift to something that doesn't serve you. You can use 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 to start the process of retraining your mind. No Hope, we don't think about that because it's not serving me, not going to do it. And so if you can break the habit of worrying and get control of your thoughts, you will completely transform how much you're afraid. You will cut off anxiety at its knees. It all starts with the habit of worrying.

A lot of people listening to this, too, are parents or coaches. So I've got four kids. I coach kids softball. Oh, awesome. And you talk also about how we as parents or coaches or leaders for younger people can apply this. What advice would you have for people in that position?

So if you're noticing as a parent or a coach or a teacher, or just you've got kids that you mentor, an uptick in the level of anxiety and nervousness that kids have, you're right. It is documented that anxiety is on the rides. Social media certainly isn't helping. Neither is the pressure that we put on our kids. But anxiety is on the rise in kids. And so there's a couple of things to understand. First of all, don't ever tell a kid that's anxious to calm down because it actually makes it worse. The reason why it makes it worse is because if somebody's anxious or worried, their body's typically already agitated. It's next to impossible to go from 100 miles an hour to zero. When you tell a kid, Calm down, calm down. As a parent, you're doing two things. You're saying, What you're worried about doesn't matter to me. You just invalidated them. Now they're like, Screw you. I'm not going to talk to you anymore, mom or dad, because you don't get it. The second thing is you've just actually made the anxiety worse because they can't calm down. The best thing to do if your kid's already worried about whatever is just pepper them with questions like a defense attorney.

What's going on in your body? What are you worried about? Now what's going on in your body? Tell me about your stomach. Tell me about your heart rate. Why are you worried about that? Great, great, great. What else? What else are you concerned about? Anything else? Anything else? Anything else? Anything else? And by talking to you, they will get the focus off of being scared about why they're worried, and they'll put their focus on talking and their body state will slowly come down. Another really important thing to teach your kids is that when they're nervous about something that's normal, right? So being nervous as you're coaching and you're in a game and the stakes are high, That's normal. And in fact, the reason why you're nervous is your body knows you're about to go do a sport and it knows it needs to be paying attention. So that stomach, the reason why our stomachs twist up before we speak, do you know the reason Sort of a defense mechanism to get you ready to move? Yes. In fact, what's happening is if you're about to give a speech, if you're about to play sports and you're about to move, all the blood goes away from your digestive system and pulls to your primary organs so that you can be ready to go.

And that's why your stomach churns, because we've changed the chemistry of it. It has nothing to do with whether or not you're going to perform well. It's literally your body getting ready to pay attention. That's all that it is. And it's perfectly normal. If you tell kids before a standardized test, before a sporting event, before anything that they're getting a sleepover, anything that they're getting wigged out, asking somebody to prom, you got to have these big promposals, whatever. Oh, we've got kids that are college-age. I mean, going through the process of applying to college and facing that rejection and all of that uncertainty about what's about to happen to you. Teach your kids to say when they're nervous, I'm I'm excited. I'm excited to take this test. I just did this with my 17-year-old in ACTs. I'm excited to take this test. I'm excited to take this test. What happens is the nervousness is normal, but if you don't give your kids the ability to control what they're thinking about, their worrying will escalate the nerves into anxiety, and that will send cortisol to the brain, and it will impact their ability to focus. If you tell your kid, I'm excited to take the ACTs.

Look, I know you're not excited. But just trust me and say this stupid thing, okay? I'm excited to take the ACTs. I'm excited. No, I'm not. Yes, you are. I'm excited to take the ACTs. I'm excited to take the ACTs. Your thoughts stay positive so your body state doesn't escalate and no cortisol floods to your brain. Cortisol interferes with your prefrontal cortex's ability to focus and process information. It's not nerves that screw you up on a test. It's the fact that you escalated it and you sent cortisol to your brain, and that's what actually was the problem. So when you teach kids, and this is research from the Harvard Medical School, to say, I'm excited before they're about to do something that makes them nervous, in study after study, they perform better. Works for adults, too. So the five-second rule is a self-coaching tool. That's all that it is. And it's something that I invented literally 20 feet from here in my bedroom, although that bedroom wasn't built back then. We're in the new section of the house. Love it. The old section did not look like this. It was something that I invented to beat my habit of hitting the snooze button.

And the way that it works is very simple. The moment that you need to do something, and you can feel yourself hesitating, and you can feel the excuses rolling in, count backwards to yourself. Five, four, three, two, one. And something weird will happen. The moment you get to one, you'll actually move. And I invented it by mistake. I invented it during, I think, the worst moment of my life, which was 2008. Chris and I, my husband of 22 years, we were about to lose everything. His restaurant business was going under. I had just been fired from a job, my first job in the media business. So I was just wallowing in self doubt because I thought, boy, have I really I had really screwed up? I had changed my career, taken a risk, gone into the media business. It didn't work out. I felt like a total loser. I felt like I made a big mistake. We had three children, mortgage to pay. The entire house had been used to leverage the business. So had our life savings. So had the kids' college savings. Just on the verge of losing it all, Chris was sleeping on the couch, and I just couldn't get out of bed.

And so I invented this thing, the five-second roll, one night when I saw a rocket ship fly across a television screen at the end of a commercial, and it gave me this idea. And the idea was, I wonder if I launched myself out of bed so fast, I wonder if I could move fast enough that I could beat the self-doubt and anxiety that I felt every single morning when I would wake up. And it was really that dumb and that simple of an idea. And For whatever reason, when the alarm went off that next morning, what happened is what happens to all of us all day long. Inspiration strikes, so the alarm goes off. And use the alarm clock as a metaphor for those moments when you know you should do something. And the alarm goes off. And what's interesting is most of us don't have a problem with what we need to do. It's how we make ourselves do the shit that's hard. So the alarm went off, and immediately my mind woke up, and my mind started spinning, as our minds do. And I started immediately thinking, like most of us do, when the alarm goes off, fuck, I don't want to get up.

It's cold. I don't want to get in the face of the day. I'm unemployed. And then the body starts to get a little tense when anxiety comes in or you start to feel overwhelmed about the shit you got to deal with. And I felt myself reaching for the snooze alarm like I always did. But that morning, I went 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 1. And by the time I hit one, I was standing up, and I was freaking out because why would something so simple work? But I went on with my day. And I used it the next morning, and the next morning, and the next morning. And then I started to wonder, God, I see that it works as a cheat for the alarm clock, but I wonder if it could work for other things. So I started to use it for every moment in my life where I knew what to do, but I didn't feel like it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 literally just decimates any excuse that you have. And as I started to use it in my life to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, not be an asshole to Chris.

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, turn and walk away from the bourbon and not have a drink. 5, 4, 3, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, pick up the phone and network. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, walk out the door and go to the gym. Everything changed because my decisions changed. And the thing that was interesting about that period of my life is that there were a couple of things that is true for all of us that got revealed to me in that moment. And here's what's true for all of us. Number one, our life is defined by our decisions. Number two, most of us know what we should be doing. Right. Number three, if you're in a situation where you should do something and the excuses roll in, you only have five fucking seconds before the excuses when. That's it. And it has to do with how your brain is designed. And so I started seeing this five-second window everywhere, everywhere. You walk into a networking meeting and the five-second window is right there because you look around and you see all these people you should talk to and you feel yourself freeze. Five, four, three, two, one, and you can start walking.

If you're trying to sell something, the five-second window is always there because you either have a phone you need to pick up and make a phone call, or you have a person you need to talk to. But instead of doing it, that five-second window is right there and the excuses roll in, and then you're not doing it. It's almost like we talk ourselves out of it. After five seconds, why not to do it? All these excuses. Then it's even more sophisticated than that, which is what I discovered. What's more sophisticated about it is that you have two modes to your brain. You have the prefrontal cortex, which is the mode of your brain. It's the front part of your brain that does all your strategic planning, your decision making. Not all your decision making, that's wrong. It does your intentional decision making, conscious decision making. It's what you're using when you're acting with courage. It's what you're using when you are learning anything new. If you've ever taken a standardized test, when you walk out of a standardized test, what do you have? You have a freaking headache because you've been using this part of your brain.

That's the one part. The other part is the interior part of your brain, which It automates everything. It's where self-doubts are. It's where habits are. It's where automated decision-making is. It's where every negative bullshit shit that we do, it's stuck right here. So what the five-second rule is actually doing on a very sophisticated level is it's switching off this part and awakening the part that gives you control. And so the problem with our excuses, if you want to get into the brain science, is that if you start to think, and you start to think, I feel tired, or I don't want to, or I'm too stressed out, or now is not the right time, that becomes automatic, and it gets encoded right here. So part of the problem with our excuses is that when you stop and think and hesitate, you trigger your brain to automatically talk you out of it. That's the problem. It's not the excuses. It's that your brain has done it over and over, and now it takes over. So I invented the world's most powerful cheat code for the brain. One night when I sitting in my living room watching television.

That's the story. I never intended to tell anybody. Never. Because it sounds dumb, and I didn't know why it worked. But I started using it. Chris started using it. One decision at a time, my life turned around. One decision at a time, his life in restaurant business turned around. We started Inspire 52 and sold it. I cold-called my way into a radio audition, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, landed that. It became a syndicated show, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Landed that. It became a syndicated show. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I'm doing the work to become better at radio, which requires you to listen to what you're doing, which sucks. Having to hear yourself. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Cnn starts calling because I'm winning all these awards. My life was cranking. I had my drinking-5 seconds at a time.5 seconds at a time. If you shrink it down to the 5-second decision that you need to make right now, and you don't get all worked up about what's going to happen a year from now, you can change your life.

If you think about the five-second decision you need to make right now to go to the gym, you can change your body. If you think about the five-second decision about whether or not you're going to drink your face off with your friends tonight and blow $200 at the bar, or whether or not you're going to work on this dream that you have tonight, your whole life changes because of one decision. So the short version is I shared it in a TEDx Talk. That talk went viral. It was 14 million views.15 million.15? Yeah. Oh. That was the first time I'd ever been on stage.Wow, really?Yup. That was a 21-minute long panic attack. If you look closely at the footage, I have a huge neck rash, and I've got all those raspberries on my neck. And by the way, you want to know something really crazy? The five-second rule was not something I planned on sharing. I forgot how to end the speech. I was in such an acute state of panic that I forgot how I was supposed to end that talk. Wow, and your confidence, like you jumped off stage, you're walking through the crowd.

I was like-I was trying to escape. Oh, wow. I literally was like, by the way, there's this thing I do. That is what launched my business because that talk went viral. People started to call about speaking. I didn't even know there was a speaking industry. Yeah. I spoke for free for two years before even realizing I could get paid to do it. I mean, by this point, I was on CNN. I wasn't even thinking about doing a speaking thing. And then people started to write. A quarter of a million of them in 90 countries have written to us. Those are the people that emailed, by the way. That's not all the social media stuff. And so it became so overwhelming because I, of course, was answering all these emails. Because if you were going to take the time to write to me-I think when you try to create something, that's when it doesn't work. But then when you think, Oh, this isn't going to be the thing anyone cares about. This is stupid. It always ends up being that thing that we think is not going to be the one that relates it. That's why you got to follow what energizes you.

People can smell a phony a million miles away. And what will make you successful is following the thing that naturally energizes you because it's unique to you. And when your energy is expansive, you will naturally attract people that want that same feeling. It's really that simple. It doesn't feel that simple when you're stuck. I get that. I can sit here and say it's that simple, but I'm 20-some years into the trajectory of figuring it out. But, hell, I wish I had known this shit when I was 18. I would have saved myself a world of hurt. Okay, I know what you're probably thinking as you digest this whole story. How the hell does something so simple work, Mel? I mean, come on, for real? 5, 4, 3, 2, 1? Well, let me get you into action, okay? Because when you try this thing, you're going to experience the change yourself. One of the reasons why this is so powerful is because your brain has one job, and that is to keep you alive. Which means your brain will resist any new change you want to make. And the thing I'm going to have you do is going to make you feel this resistance.

And it's important for you to realize that this is part of your wiring. You're never going to not have to push yourself to do things when you don't feel like it. This is just a fact of life. In fact, one of the hardest things for us all to do is to start something new. And there's a scientific reason why. The reason why is because pushing yourself to do something, whether it's pushing yourself to get to the gym, or pushing yourself to change a habit, or pushing yourself to stay sober, or pushing yourself to speak up more, or pushing yourself to express your boundaries, or make the cold calls that are going to make you more money. All of that requires you to go from doing one thing, like scrolling on your phone or sitting on the couch, to doing something different. You have to summon something called activation energy. You have to activate the movement inside of you. One of the coolest things about why the five-second rule works is the counting itself is an action. So it's almost like the little Trojan horse. So you're sitting there on the couch. You know you need to go for a run, but it's raining, and it's cold, and you don't feel like it.

You it off this morning. You've already made yourself wrong. It's now three o'clock in the afternoon. You can think of a million things that you would rather do than going for a run. You now know the secret. The secret is motivation is garbage. No one's coming to push your ass off that couch. This is up to you. The second you're sitting there marinating in your excuses and your sad, sac, whatever, feeling No energy. I get it. I'm there every day at three o'clock right there with you, not feeling like it. The second you start counting backwards, five, four, three, two, one, you've made the decision to get off that couch and go exercise, even though you don't feel like it. The second you hit one, get up off the couch. Start walking toward your closet. Change into your running shoes. Change into your tights, whatever. And five, four, three, two, one, walk out the door. That is how you sermon the activation energy to start. And starting is the hardest part, right? So that's why this works. In addition to the physiology, in addition to the brain science, in addition to everything else, from a real common sense point of view, you are starting with the counting.

And so I want to I'll leave you in motion. I don't want you to just learn about this thing because it doesn't work if you think about it. You got to use the tool. And once you use it, you're going to be able to teach it to anybody in your life that's struggling because they're waiting to feel motivated. You can give it to anybody once you try it. And so what's the best way to get you moving? I want you to do a five-day wake-up challenge with me. Okay? I know you're already groaning. I can I don't really hear it through my earphones over there. I don't want to wake up. Good. Okay? And for those of you that can just spring out of bed, first of all, you're a weirdo. And the way that we're going to make this work for you is set your alarm. If you're the person that just, Oh, I just naturally wake up. Oh, I just spring out of bed. You're going to set your alarm 30 minutes earlier because I want to manufacture the resistance that you are going to push through with the five-second rule. For the rest of us who just hate getting out of bed, here's what you're going to do.

Tonight, set your alarm, okay? Tomorrow morning, when the alarm goes off, you're immediately going to feel yourself thinking You're not getting out of bed. You're immediately going to want to stay in bed. We all do. I mean, who wants to get out of bed? It's cozy, it's warm, it's yummy in there. You know? Especially if you're sleeping with your loved one or your fur babies. Okay? I get it. That is me every single morning. When that alarm goes off, you're going to notice this moment of hesitation because you're not going to want to use the five-second rule. Good. That's that resistance. That's the fact that activation energy is now required. That's your brain going, But I don't want to change. And then you're going to count. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Throw those sheets off. Stand up. You're going to hate this. Start walking towards the bathroom. By the time you get to the bathroom, you're good. It's all right. That's what you're going to do for five mornings in a row. Alarm goes off. Count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The second you hit one, the sheets are off, and you stand up and start walking toward the bathroom.

You're going to hate it. You're not going to feel like doing it. If you can push through the resistance that you feel every morning about getting up when the alarm rings, you can push through the resistance everywhere in your life. You are building a muscle, a muscle of courage, of confidence, of action. You are building the skill of being able to take action when you don't feel like it. And that skill will pay you dividends for the rest of your life. Now, I'd like to support you in this Wake Up challenge. And let me support you. And here's how you can let me support you. Go to melrobbins. Com/wakeup. W-a-k-e-u-p. One word, wake up. I don't think it's one word in real life, or maybe it is, but on the website, it's melrobbins. Com/wakeup. If I'll give you the instructions for the Wakeup challenge will be there in case you want to share them with somebody else. And more importantly, if you share your email with me, don't worry, I'm not going to put you in some... I'm not going to sell your name to anybody. I just want to support you. I will send you a really fun, encouraging email every single day that you're in this challenge for five days, because I really want you to try this.

And I want you to try this because the five-second rule, I'm so passionate about it, not because of my experience. I'm passionate about it because of the experience of millions of people around the world who have used the five-second rule first to get out of bed and then to go on to make a amazing, courageous, incredible changes in their life. The same is going to be true for you. But it's only true if you're willing to push yourself. Here's the interesting thing about this challenge. Notice you don't feel like doing the wake up challenge. What Are you waiting to feel motivated to do it? I mean, isn't that the whole point of what we've been talking about? In order to get what you want, you got to push yourself to act before you're ready, before you feel like it. I mean, what's the worst thing that could happen? That you try it for five days and then you go back to hitting the snooze button? I think something incredible will happen when you place a bet on yourself, when you allow me to support you by sending you these emails. I believe that if you were to practice pushing through the resistance five mornings in a row, and it sounds simple, it is not easy.

I think you would be surprised by how good you feel about yourself and the ripple effect that it creates in your life. That's what I believe is going to happen, and I can't wait to support you in it. You are one decision away from a different life, a better life. And yes, it's not going to change overnight. It changes through those decisions that you're making that add up over time. I hope you find the courage to make the decision that's going to change your life today. I'm asking you to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, sign up for that wakeup challenge, melrobbins. Com/wakeup, and let me support you. When you start making courageous decisions, when you start pushing yourself forward, when you start going for bigger things, when you stop thinking and you start doing, are you going to fail? Probably. Will you mess up? I sure do. That's okay. I want you to just keep waking up every single morning, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and show up for yourself again. Because it's what you do after you fail. It's what you do in those moments when you don't feel like it. It's those moments when you push yourself that matters most.

Do not waste another day of your life waiting, wishing, or hoping motivation comes. All the things you desire are right in front of you. They're waiting for you, waiting for you to push through all of that resistance and self doubt and walk toward what you want. No matter how old you are or what's happened in your life, you can achieve the life you want. I'm sorry, you don't have to believe it. I've got enough confidence in this fact to believe for you until you catch up. I have way too much evidence, having seen the lives of millions of people change through these small decisions, to know that, yes, you can change your life, too. You have dreams to fulfill. You've got a world to change. You've got a life to live. So I want you to get your butt out there and 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go, do it. I will see you in the Wake Up Challenge. I will see you in the next episode. And I am so excited to be kicking off this whole new chapter of my life with you. Thank you for being here. And more importantly, thank you for trying this.

Because thinking about this tool is not going to change your life. Motivation is garbage. No one's coming. In, but you got everything inside you that you need. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Go do it. In this video, I am going to teach you not one, but two research-back science-supported tools you can use in order in order to get out of bed when the alarm rings, in order to beat the anxiety, dread, or depression that pins you down, because I'm sure you know that the second you get out of bed and you get moving and you start your day, you start to feel better. Oftentimes, laying in bed thinking about your problems is the worst place that you can be. And so the other reason why I wanted to make this video is because a little while ago, I posted this video of me online, a short little video demonstrating how I slither out of bed. And slithering out of bed is a brand new technique that a therapist that I'm working with taught me how to do because the anxiety that I was feeling in my life was so overwhelming. I was having a hard time getting out of bed.

So what are we going to cover in this video? Well, I'm going to cover two things that you can do to help you push through any anxiety, overwhelmed depression, whatever is keeping you pinned in bed. We're going to talk about the five-second rule, which is what I would call a neck-up tool. It's a tool that works on your mind and gives you control over your thinking so that you can take control and force yourself out of bed. Then I'm going to demonstrate what slithering out of bed looks like, which is what my therapist refers to as a neck down embodied tool that will help you on those days that you just can't force yourself to do it. Okay, so let me demonstrate both ways. So first we're going to talk about the five second rule. And I've got a bunch of questions here because boy, oh, boy, did you guys love that slithering video? So you're in bed. And for me, the bed is my favorite place to be. I just love being a bed. And this isn't even my bed. This is a bed in a rental. We're here at the beach for a little bit, and this is the bed in the rental.

So it's not even my bed. I still love this bed. So you're sleeping, right? And so for me, I'm somebody who has struggled with anxiety, boy, for probably four decades. I think if you can be... I should probably just sit up and talk to you. I think if you should be... I mean, we only just I shouldn't be laying down as I'm sharing this with you. If you could come out of the womb having a panic attack, that was me. I was the kid who was always nervous, had a worried stomach. I got sent home from every camp I went to because I was homesick. And I also experienced sexual abuse when I was nine years old. In the middle of the night at a sleepover, an older kid climbed on top of me, and I disassociated. I literally left my body. And the next morning, after it happened, I woke up and I just felt this overwhelming sense of dread. I knew something bad had happened. I was scared. I was overwhelmed by it. And I have to tell you, and I share this because it's such a common experience, there are very few mornings in the last 44 years since that initial morning where I have woken up and felt like okay and calm.

Most mornings, I wake up and my body still has that stored sense of dread in it. Now, about 13 years ago, when my anxiety was really bad, as you can tell, it's not very bad right now, I invented something I call the five-second rule. And The five-second rule is very simple. The moment you hear that alarm ring and you feel the resistance or the hesitation pinning you down, you're just going to count backwards. Five, four, three, two, one. And then you're going to move. I started counting, five, four, three, two, one. I had to launch myself out of bed every morning. We call this a neck up approach because you're using your thinking and your mental power to create the strength and discipline to push through the resistance you feel to getting out of bed. Now, you're not going to want to do this. I get it because you're cozy. You also wake up in the morning and your cortisol levels are their highest. If you have any stored trauma in your body from abuse or from growing up in a chaotic household, you probably feel a sense of overwhelm every morning. That's normal. It's okay.

You can still get out of bed. If you're not a morning person and you just hate getting up because you're cranky, you can still get out of bed, and the five-second rule will help you. Here's how you do it. So the alarm goes off, right? I technically sleep like this. I burrow. The second you hear the alarm go off, you're going to count backwards. Five, four, three, two, one. And then you're going to throw the sheets off, put your feet on the ground, and start your day walking to the bathroom. Okay, that's what you're going to do. You're going to start moving. So you count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. That moves you from the subconscious part of your brain, where your habit of overthinking and hitting the snooze button and feeling heavy and laying in bed and thinking about all the things that are wrong in your life and dreading your day, which only makes you want to go, I don't want to get off. When you go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you cut off those thinking loops. You activate your prefrontal cortex. It draws your focus to this part of your brain, and it gives you a moment where you can choose.

The So the movement's critical. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, put your feet on the floor, start moving, and you will feel in control. You'll feel that resistance leave your body. And what's super cool about practicing the five-second rule in the morning is that resistance that you feel going from a comfortable, safe, just cozy place in your bed and learning how to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 push yourself to choose a different harder behavior, namely getting When you build the muscle of being able to push through the resistance and the dread, you can do it anywhere in your life. So if you're in a meeting at work and you feel nervous about speaking up, if you've been practicing the five-second rule in the morning by pushing yourself out of bed and getting your day started, that little skill of courage in the morning is a skill you can now tap into to have courage at work to speak up in meetings. You can use that same skill pushing yourself out of bed to push yourself off the couch and out the door to go for a walk. You can use that same skill in the morning of pushing yourself out of bed to push yourself out the door and force yourself to go hang out with friends, even though you feel like you'd rather stay in because you're feeling a little nervous about it.

So that skill of recognizing those moments where you start to give to resistance and doubt and overwhelming anxiety, and practicing this little countdown that switches gears in your brain and then moving, that is a skill that will pay dividends far beyond helping you start your day and set your day up, which is so important because you know on those days that you actually get out of bed and you do a few simple habits in the morning to set yourself up for success, your whole day is better. Okay, so that's the five-second rule. If you want to learn more about that, you should listen Listen to the five-second rule audiobook on Audible. But now let me teach you this second technique. The second technique is called slithering. I was introduced to slithering out of bed very recently. I've only been practicing slithering out of bed for about six weeks. What had happened in my life is I had a bunch of major life changes go down. My husband and I had sold a family home of 26 years, and we're moving to a very rural area, which is a huge change. I was making major changes in my business, which were very, very confronting.

I had one of our kids have a bit of a mental breakdown, and as a parent, that was terrifying. All these things happened literally within about a five-day window, and I just felt knocked over by life. The other fact is that I think that for me personally, trying to navigate my business and my family and my mental health and so many changes through the pandemic and running a company, it's just beat the heck out of me. And after two years, I was paper-thin in terms of my emotional resilience. And so when our house sold and I freaked out and our son started having panic attacks, and I freaked out, and then all kinds of changes happened in my business, and I freaked out in a four-day window. I had an empty tank in terms of emotional resilience to be able to handle it. I started experiencing these massive waves of anxiety. I hadn't experienced anything this terrifying in 23 years. That's the truth. I would wake up every morning and I would feel I'd feel the anxiety start here, and it would just go all the way up my body and up my neck, and I would feel pinned down with terror.

What have I done? Why did we sell the house? I'm not going to be happy. I'll never see my kids. How are we going to help our son? I'm really scared. He's not going to be okay. What do I do if something happens to him? How am I going to handle it? Like, just the churn of angst and worry and concern and fear. And I was trying to count backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. But the depression and the changes and the overwhelm were too much. I couldn't push through the heaviness that I felt. I felt like there was like a semi-truck parked on me every single morning, the weight of the world. And so my therapist said, You know Mel, Well, between all these changes and the anxiety it's provoking and the depression that you're feeling and the grief that you're feeling, closing such a big chapter by selling your family home, and the fact that you're in menopause, this is a tsunami that's going on in your body and your spirit and your emotions. And she said, The five-second rule is wildly effective, but it's a neck-up approach. You need a neck-down body approach to this.

And it had never occurred to me that there was a tool that would embody your strength. Instead of mustering through something, which is what the five-second rule is so effective in doing, giving you that push, that moment of courage, that moment of motivation, there is a more embodied approach that you can take in these moments where you don't have the energy, and so you surrender to what's happening. Wait to see this. It's really weird and it's really cool. I believe that this is called somatic therapy. There's lots of types of somatic therapy, from meditation to people shake and they tap. But this is an embodied approach to those mornings where the depression, the problems in your life, the sadness that you feel, the grief, the anxiety, it just is too heavy to bear. You are You're going to give into it. You're going to surrender to it. You're going to slither and fall out of bed. Because if you think about it, slithering to the ground is succumbing to the heaviness, isn't it? You're moving with the resistance. I'm going to demonstrate it in a minute. You're going to move with the resistance, and then you're going to roll around on the floor in any shape that feels to you like the resistance and heaviness of your body.

So you might roll around in a ball, you might stretch out, you might wrive. And then as you're rolling around, at some point, you will feel ready to roll onto your hands and knees and then get this. Then you're going to crawl. And you're going to start to crawl across the floor toward the bathroom. And then at some point, you're just going to be ready to stand up. It is the strangest, most amazing thing. And so I've been practicing this for about six weeks, and I'm now at the point where I don't really feel that anxiety in the morning anymore. The slithering has really worked. I don't dread the feeling because I know what to do if counting backwards isn't enough. So let me show you slithering this embodied approach to getting out of it. When you wake up and you feel that heaviness, what I would do is the first thing I would do is I would high five my heart, which I taught you in the high five habit. I put a hand here and a hand here, and I just say, I'm okay, I'm safe, I'm loved. And that hand right here and right here, it just really grounds me and it tones the vagus nerve, which helps to flip from a state of fight or flight, dread, fleeing into a calmer place.

And then I think about the fact that I'm about to slither out of this bed. I don't want to slither out of this bed. I don't feel ready to slither out of this bed. This is not something that makes me happy. This is not something that I want to do. Slithering out of bed in a moment where I'm depressed or grieving or anxious because I know that I'll feel better once I get moving, slithering out of bed is what I need to do. And so there would be mornings that I would use the five-second rule to initiate it. So you can count backwards. Five, four, three, two, one. You're under your covers. Five, four, three, two, one. And then, I mean, you literally move in in the side of it, the direction of the floor. You just succumb to the resistance, and then you're going to move around. And there are a few mornings, honestly, in the past six weeks that I would get to this point and I want to crawl in a fetal position like this, and I'd lay there for a minute, and then the dog would come over and lick me, and then I'd move like this.

And then the more that I did it, the less I would lay on the ground, I I just roll around and stretch. And then eventually, when you're ready, whatever shape you want, because it's the resistance that you're feeling, you get on all fours and you just start to crawl. And you're staying low to the ground because You're giving into the heaviness, but you're not throwing in the towel. You're moving with it. You're moving through it. And at some point, as you're crawling, you will feel ready to just stand up. It's almost like that physical moving moves all that resistance out of you and through you in a way that is organic, it's doable, it feels like in a weird way, it acknowledges and honors the depression and the grief or anxiety or sadness or overwhelm that you're feeling. It's super empowering because you don't have to feel energized or motivated. There's a lot of mornings where I don't. Knowing that I can use this technique to embody and move with the heaviness inside me as a way to move through it and get my power back, it's absolutely incredible. I want you to try it.

I want you to try slithering. I'm going to answer some of your questions It's because you guys blew up my DMs and my comments when I posted that video. How long you've been practicing the slither, and why did you start? Well, I've been practicing for six weeks, and I started because my therapist recommended it as a way as a way to feel empowered while I was facing so many changes in my life that felt too big to bear. That even though life is overwhelming, you still have power inside you to move through the things that are scaring the hell out of you right now. Sometimes you don't have to muster up a ton of strength. Sometimes all you got to do is slither. Seriously. When would I use this technique? Well, you would use this technique, I think, any moment where it's just too much to bear. I kept saying to my therapist, Intellectually, I know that I I need to get up. Intellectually, I know that this period from 5:30 AM until 10:30 AM, that it's going to get better with time. But physically, I can't push through it, and I'm starting to get scared of it.

And so that's when she said, I think you need to lean into it. I think you need to take an embodied approach. And so I think any time you feel that way, whether you're on the couch or maybe for you, it's not getting up in the morning, maybe you spend so much time at night unwinding from the day that you have a really hard time getting from the couch to your bed. So maybe for you, it's like an end-of-the-day transition from one place that you're sunk into into your bedroom. Have I noticed a difference? Absolutely. Absolutely. I've noticed a huge difference because I now have another tool in my toolbox. I mean, I've been using the five-second rule for 14 years to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, push myself out of bed, force myself out of bed. This feels like something gentle and just powerful in its own way. I love having two different things I can do. What if I have a dog who will jump a lot over me? It's actually great because the dog is worried about you? Because the dog can sense all that heaviness in you. The dog also will probably bring some playful energy, which is probably going to make it easier and faster for you to stand up because their energy will transfer to you.

What if my bed is high up or I have a wood floor and I don't have the mobility to fall out of bed? That's a great question. If you have a high bed, roll the foot out first, and then you can slide down. Like and do that. I think if you sleep on the floor, maybe just roll around on the floor. If you're on a futon on the floor, you sleep on a thermo rest or whatever, just roll off the thermo rest or roll away from where you are so that you get moving. That's probably a great way to start. And so whatever the slither or the slide or the embodiment of moving through the heaviness means to you, that's what you want to do. Let's see. Can you teach this technique to your kids? Yes, absolutely. I think it's great for kids, actually, because you're honoring how they feel. You're not trying to correct them or coerce them, you're actually creating a deeper connection with them because you're honoring that they don't want to get out of bed. And so, oh, it's a morning and you're going to slither, you're going to slide out of bed.

So you can have fun with it. What if you have a hard time feeling stuff in your body? I actually think this would help. Maybe it's hard to get out of bed because you are disconnected from your body. I was surprised. I was scared to try this because if I already felt so scared in my body, it's going to It's not weird, but if I already felt so scared in my body, hiding under the covers gave me a false sense of safety, right? I'm hiding from the world, even though I hate the feelings of my body. So there was something scary about allowing myself to slither out of that safe cocoon where I'm hiding from the world into the floor where you're open and all this stuff. And so I get that. But I've been empowered by how quickly that heaviness that pinned me to the bed leaves as I roll and move and start crawling and walking. And the more you do it, the more you'll notice, the faster you go from crawling to actually standing up. I'll do it with the questions. Oh, we got one more. Can I use somatic therapy in other areas of my life?

Absolutely. Somatic therapy, I believe, is just using your body as a way to move through things, whether it's meditation or it's deep breathing, or I would imagine that the cold exposure therapy and the ice baths that I do are a form of somatic therapy, yoga, regardless of what form you practice, Tai chi, even going outside, hiking, spending time in nature, deeper breathing, those are all forms forms of somatic therapy that we all need to integrate more into our day-to-day life. Oh, my God.

I'm going to cry. I'm going to let myself feel it. You have changed my life so much now. I am such good news for you. I'm so excited. Guess what? Tell me. I did what you said, and I'm scared shitless, and I love it. I got the job offer today. You did? Oh my God. Oh my God. I did it! You're only the second person. No, third person I've told. I told My husband first, and I told Melinda where's Melinda. She's right behind you. I told Melinda second, and you're the third person I've told. And I have another interview on June eighth. What?

I know. That's fantastic. You're going to the other interview, right? Yeah. Okay, good.

I'm just freaking, wow. I couldn't even talk. I was drinking the water, and I got the email. I'm like, No, I have to right now. Then I opened the email and it said, We would love to have you part of our team.

I'm like, Oh, my God, Mel. You did it. I did it. You did it. I was scared to death. You did it.

I honest to God used your 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. The first interview I did for this one company, it was on video, and I'm not a techy person at all. I was the only one home, and I was talking myself out of it, getting my mic, No, five, four, three, two, one, do it, and I did it. When I was doing the interview on the video, it said, You can do replay. I thought, Well, thank God I can it over because I got emotional during the interview.

That's great.

Well, no, I'm thinking, No, that's not okay to share an interview. And I submitted it, and instead of beating myself off, I said, I did this. Oh my God, I was so excited. Then I I didn't beat myself up like you said not to. So I let it go. I'm like, okay, drink the water, do the wins. You could have knocked me over with a feather. A couple of days later, I got a second interview. I am just so excited I met you. And thankThank you so much for the welcome I got.

Oh, well, I'm so excited. That I met you. You are a woman on fire. Oh my God. I can feel the power vibrating through you. You have set yourself free by seeing that you can 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 do the interview. You can 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, get on, go. You can 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, cry. You can 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, do it over. I did. It's all okay.

You made it okay. I'm a counselor, and I'm just like, I don't know If your books are going on fire, but I'm telling everyone, it's a female Mel Robbins because they think a guy. Yeah, it's all right. I'm sorry. But anyway, I just want to thank you so much.

Thank you. I'm really proud of you. I am, too. Because I know, having read your posts, how You are feeling full of doubt, and you're scared to put yourself out there. Oh, my God. Here's what I want you to understand. Do you know why that struggle is so important? Because as a counselor, you have lived what the people you're trying to help are feeling.

Yes, I can feel it coming through the telemed.

And so you are not only helping people clinically as a professional, but you are helping people because you understand it. I do. At a soul and a lived experience level. I do. I 100% do. Now, hear me. Yes. This is why forcing yourself to show up in even bigger and bolder ways is so critical. It is. You have to keep pushing yourself to the next level and to be seen and to risk crying or looking stupid or whatever. I did. Because I know you did. A hundred %. This is just an amazing beginning. Because you're doing it for yourself, that lived experience is going to create so much passion and conviction in the way that you counsel others to do the same.

It is. I'm so excited. I'm so excited for you. I'm so excited. Thank you. I just want to go. I love you. I love you too.

So proud of you. Thank you so much.

So proud of you. I just don't want to cry in public too much. Keep it at home. Why?

I cry all the time. You'll make more money. Well, I am now. It's amazing. I love you. Can I get a picture? Of course, you can. We'll get it with your phone. Don't take the phone. Okay. It's so exciting.

I don't have a book. I have a book on Kindle. Can you just have a wrap for that?

That's of course I can do whatever you need me to do. In fact, you know what I'm going to do? This beautiful woman gave me one of these five-second rule bracelets, and I'm going to give you one. Okay, where these are five-second beads. Oh. And then you count to it, and then this little guy is like a fire that makes you go. Which one's a fire? The clear one. Here's the little thing about... You can even see the flame in it. Look at that. That's incredible. You can see flames in the fire. There you go. See, now you're on fire, woman.

That's so exciting. I don't know where to look. We're going to...

Right here first. And then we're going to do... Let's make sure we're looking at the... Got it. Awesome. All right, thank you. Awesome. Do you want to go live in the launch group and say, Hi to everybody? I would love that. Okay, let's do it. Let's hear from your account. Now? Yes. Okay. Let's hear from your account real quick. I don't know what to do. I do. Okay, let's go to your Facebook page, and we're going to get into the launch with Mel group.

I don't know what to say, soI do.All.

Good.we got this, woman. We're going to do... Okay, there you are. Let's Let's see. Okay, there I am. Oh, my gosh. Okay. Here we go. Okay, let me see. Can we go live video? Okay. Go live. Okay,okay, are we live? Okay, here we go. Okay. Hey, everyone. Hi. It's Mel. And Dorine. And guess what? This is Dorine's first video, right? It is. Yes. Yes. So we're in Fargo, and Dorine wanted to introduce herself, and she She also wants to make sure you are the fourth person who hears about her huge breakthrough because of this community and everything she's learned and launched. Tell her really what happened.

I got a job offer today. I'm so excited. I did it because of Mel's launch. I'm an emotional wreck, and I don't even care if her I'm so excited. My husband, Mike, thank you. I love you. He was the first person I called. He's on the way from California with our oldest daughter. And then the second person was Melinda. Second person was Melinda. There's Melinda. And then Mel.

And now you. And now you. So thank you. Everybody, Give yourself a huge pat on the back. You cheered her on. You created a space for her to have an enormous breakthrough and fear. And now here she is on video, basically killing it. I think you have a career in video here.

Can I tell them about the other interview? Of Oh, and I'm so excited. I have another interview next week, and I'm so excited about it. And thank you guys because you guys helped me through everything. You were the people. I literally didn't know how to process it. So I posted a really big thing on our launch group and you guys literally saw me through it. I cried the hoi through it, and it gave me the strength to go forward. Thank you for the bottom of my heart.Thank.

You.we love you.Bye.So proud of you. So proud of you. All right, bye, everybody. Finish. There we go. You just did it.Thank you.Oh, my God.Oh, my God. You just did it. You just did it.

You That's it. Got it. This is like a dream. Okay.

You're a dream. Wait, what do I do? You're right next?I have no idea.I have no idea what I do next. I don't know.

I've never known that before.

Post for 30 days? Yeah, okay. Post for 30 days. There we go. There we go. We just did a post.

Okay. I've never known that before. There you All right. Thank you.

Will you just look at this and make sure I did that right? Maddie, since I'm worse at technology than you are. You can't be. Maybe. Maybe, just maybe. We'll see. I'm proud of you.Thank you.So proud of you.I.

Am, too. I am, too.

Happy I got to meet you.Oh, my God. We have a 21-year-old daughter who is a junior at the University of Southern California, and she's at the Thornton School of Music, and she's an artist. She's a vocalist, and a singer-songwriter, and a pop musician. And she texted me the other day, and she said, Are you getting excited about your book? I can't wait to read it. I've been high-fiving myself in the mirror. And I said to her, How's the high-five working? And she said, Well, I don't know what to say when I do it, because sometimes I still look in the mirror and think, You're not as pretty as the rest of the girls. And I write, Well, you don't need to say anything. The high five communicates it for you. And then she said, But what if I didn't accomplish anything? Like, I didn't work out or I didn't write a song today. Should I still high five myself after my shower? And I said, yes, you got to keep showing up every day, trying to do a little better. And that alone makes you worthy of support and celebration. You see, we have the secret to life and happiness and motivation all backwards.

You think you need to accomplish something to be worthy of a high five? She writes, Wait, you mean the fact that I exist? Does deserves a high five? I said, Yes. And when you high five your sofa just standing there in front of the mirror, you are demonstrating that you see you and all your potential. You support you And you believe in you. And that no matter what happens today, you have got your own back. And then I said, What do you think about what I just wrote? And she said, I love it. It makes me feel great. And I said, Can you explain why it makes you feel great? Because it might help me explain this to everybody else. And she wrote, Well, what the high five shows you is that you don't actually know how much you're always doing. And I think that once you start high-fiving yourself every single morning, it almost allows you to be more present to everything you are doing. And it helps you recognize all those small victories. And when you compile those small victories, you can recognize all your accomplishments, big and small, and eventually come to believe that not only are you worth it, but you could do anything.

For those of you listening, can you believe that somebody has Mel Robbins as a mother? A few somebody?

I mean, what an unbelievable thing that this is just us texting.

This is just a Tuesday. It is gorgeous. And I just am in awe. I mean, yeah, that's what would happen, is you would start to take a better look. A better look is the right way to say it. What really is the state of affairs? Well, can I say one thing, though, too, though. Thank you for the compliment. But the truth is, both of my kids have a therapist. And one of the things they struggle with is they look in the mirror and they say, how will I ever have the success that my mother has? And so even on the outside, looking at somebody else's life, we all look in the mirror and flip everything to the negative, to an obstacle, to Instead of saying what you said, which is, thank God I have my mom, and they feel that way. They do feel that way. But when we have insecurities, Kathy, we are masterful at seeing the world around us in a way that twists things so that it makes your insecurities feel bigger. We write extensively about this in the high five habit about your brain and how to start making your brain work for you.

But you asked about the five second rule. So the five second rule It's really simple. It's a brain hack that is backed by science. You simply use it this way. The moment you feel yourself hesitating, you know you need to do something, whether it's get to the gym, put down a glass of wine, stop snapping at your kids, get out of bed, get off the couch, speak up at work, have the hard conversation, quit the job, whatever it is the action that you're avoiding. The second you feel that hesitation kick in, you need to start counting to yourself backwards. Five, four, three, two, one. That's it. That's all that it is. When you start counting backwards, it requires you to focus when you first start doing it. So your prefrontal cortex engages, which means by counting backwards, you interrupt the self-sabotaging habits of overth, of worrying, of procrastination, of self-sabotage, fear, anxiety, all of it. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you cut through it. And when you hit one, your prefrontal cortex is engaged and you have a moment of control, and you need to move. Walk away from the booze, pick up the phone, walk out the door, get up off the couch, start the conversation.

And the second you move, you're now in control. And so I invented this to get out of bed. That's the best way to start experimenting with it. Set your alarm a half an hour early tomorrow, because that way it's going to feel painful because you want to resist this a little bit. You want to be like, oh, my God. Because the resistance you feel anywhere is the resistance that you feel everywhere. So when the alarm goes off early and you're like, and you start talking yourself out of it, I don't feel like this is stupid. I don't want to. That's all self-tabitaging patterns. Just count backwards, five, 3, 2, 1. It shuts it up. It switches gears in your brain. And now you have immediate control over what you think and do next. And that's the window in which you can change anything in your life. And so the five-second rule, think about it as a tool in your back pocket to give Give yourself a push. The high five habit is a part of your ritual every morning to change and improve the relationship you have with yourself, to forge a trusted partnership with the person you see in the mirror, to silence the self-loathing and the judgment that is contained in the resistance that you feel, and to literally program a whole new story about yourself that you are somebody worth cheering for and believing in and forgiving.

And I'll tell you, one of the things that's interesting is that I've been practicing this now as part of my morning routine every morning for more than a year, and something crazy has happened. I don't actually need to high five myself anymore. Do you want to know why? Why? I don't ever criticize myself. I don't even see my body or my face. I literally, Kathy, have erased, literally deleted a lifetime of self-criticism and self-hatred. And I have programmed in an entirely new way of relating to myself. Does that mean I'm perfect? No. I have compassion for myself. Does that mean I get everything right? Absolutely not. But I can I forgive myself. Does that mean my life is easy? Definitely not. But I can ground myself in optimism and faith and know that even the hardest fucking things that happen, and this has been one of the hardest years of my life, that I know that something amazing is coming. I like to say this because I think it's true, and I think it's really encouraging, that you and I can look back and we can look at the hardest moments in our lives. And whether I'm thinking about a best friend that was killed in a drunk driving accident or being molested at the age of four or the guys that I cheated on that I hate myself for doing and made myself wrong or the anxiety, or the terrible career decision.

I could just look at all of them, the bad friend that I was, the jealousy that consumed me. I can see every single thing, especially the bad stuff, is like a dot on the map of my life that has led me to this moment. And I can now, sitting here, look back and see the lesson or the wisdom or the person or the experience that that challenge in my life or that thing that I used to regret has given me. I think the real gift that you could give yourself is being able to stand in this moment and know that this moment, no matter how hard it is, no matter how challenging it is, no matter how exhilarating it is, that it, too, is a dot on the map of your life that connects you forward to something extraordinary that's coming. And if you could only stop resisting That. And if you could only wake up every day, no matter what's going on in the ups and downs, and look in the mirror and see a human being that's there to help you and cheer for you and support you. And if you could only give give that person the support and reinsurance and belief that they so desperately need back, you will be shocked at how much more fulfilling your life is, how much easier things come, how much more quickly your resilience rises up as you get tested and terrible things happen and your heart breaks and life challenges you.

Because it is true, absolutely everything that you have faced in your life has prepared you and made you a better person. Right now, it's going to be no different. The confidence and the energy and the resilience and the courage that we all want in life, you don't build that when things are amazing. They're like steel. They're forged in fire. And when you realize even the stuff that you don't ever want to live through again or the most painful things in the world, they're all teaching you something, whether you like it or not. And And having this high five attitude has made me less stubborn, because what I can see now is my life has been trying to teach me the same fucking lessons. I just was pretty stubborn. And so life just kept coming with bigger and bigger sledge hammers. And when you're open to the lesson that your life is trying to teach you, it's pretty miraculous how quickly new chapters open up in your life.

There are so many people that I think are sitting there. And I have a personal friend who is struggling right now. Why? She doesn't listen to my financial struggles, lost her house, some poor financial decisions. There was job loss. There's over eating. She's overweight. Drinking is not an issue. But just a lot of... There's a lot of really good in her life, too, where I keep trying to remind her. But she's really, let's go for a walk. Let's do things, let's start taking some positive action. And I'm sitting here listening to what you're saying and this downward spiral that you were in. And it's when you're not But I keep thinking, she just feels helpless. That's the word that keeps coming up. And I think there's probably a lot of people out there that might be listening and say, I can relate to that feeling of I'm on this downward spiral in X, Y, and Z part of my life. And I just don't know what to do. So it's easier to wait, not easier, but to wave the white flag and just stay in that is like the devil you know versus the devil you don't, because you don't know what's on the other side.

Or maybe I don't. Then you start to say, maybe I don't deserve happiness, or maybe I don't deserve this. You start telling yourself these narratives. So you had this epiphany, if you will. I don't know if that's the right word. You did this, and it changed your life. Can you walk us through a little bit about that? And then I just want people that might be feeling going, it can't be that simple.

I can't be- Well, it's not easy. It is simple.

Yes.

It is not easy. And the reason why change is not easy is because your brain loves patterns. And so if you get caught in a pattern where you are hitting the snooze button five times a morning and waking up late and stressed and overwhelmed, as much as you may hate that feeling, you are locked in a pattern. And the problem that Everybody faces is instead of hating the pattern, you hate yourself. And it is critical that you understand in any area of your life where you are stuck. All that's happening is you have patterns of behavior and patterns of thinking that are keeping you stuck. And what you must do, rule number one, is you must stop labeling yourself. You must stop saying, I'm a bad person. I'm a loser. I'm a failure. I'm not worthy. I'm not good enough. You must stop labeling yourself, and you must start labeling the behavior you don't like. Waking up late is making me feel bad. Drinking an entire bottle of wine and waking up hungover makes me feel like a failure. Snapping at my kids is a behavior that makes me feel like I'm not good enough or that I'm failing as a mom.

Do you see the difference between saying, I'm a failure because I keep snapping at my kids. I'm not good enough because I drank a bottle of wine last night. There I go again. I'm a bad person because I keep hitting the snooze button and I can't get out of bed. When you can separate yourself from the behavior you want to change, you now are free to change the behavior without indicting, sentencing, and locking yourself in a jail of self-criticism. Under the weight of that self-criticism, I am a bad person. I screw everything up. I'm a failure. That weight of self-criticism is the reason why you don't feel inspired to change. This opinion became a belief. And as you repeat it and keep saying it and saying it, saying it, see, I didn't pay my bills. I'm a bad person. See, See, I didn't do this. I'm a bad person. See, I didn't do that. I'm screwing up my life. See, see, see. And you keep labeling yourself. It becomes your identity. And then all sorts of stuff kicks in in your brain in terms of the filter of your brain. And so step number one, in in changing your life, stop labeling yourself and start identifying and labeling the patterns of behavior and patterns of thinking that make you feel bad.

And And then go to work and fucking change them.

I love it because so much of what I do when I talk to people is talking to people about whether it's their physical clutter, their emotional clutter, or what I call calendar clutter, being overscheduled and running all the places.

Oh, I have that.

I have that. And that's my dominant type of clutter. But we talk about, clutter is just the symptom. It's just the symptom of the bigger issue that's going on. So a lot of the work that I do, because I like to pretend like I'm a psychologist, I play one on TV, is about understanding that these are behavior changes that we do to take those actionable steps in our life, specifically relating to something simple, like we're going to open the mail, so we're not going to have late fees. We're going to pay our bills on time because we're going to start with a little changing our behavior of opening the mail.

As you know, opening bills is one of the most confronting things in the world for somebody who feels that they have made bad financial decisions. It is not a little thing. It's everything.

I couldn't agree more. And when I have people that talk to me about their clutter, and they say, well, I have a lot of physical clutter, and it's specifically paper and mail, and I unpack that with them. I explain to them that really paper clutter is nine times out of 10 emotional clutter. It stems from guilt or fear or overwhelm. And we procrastinate because we don't know what to do. And so it is so much more emotional than it is. It manifestsests itself in piles of paper and physical stuff. But at the end of the day, when I walk into somebody's house and I see bags of unopen mail, that's an emotional issue. That This is not, I'm a busy mom running a million different directions, and I've got toys everywhere, and I just need a better system to put them away. That's a different type of situation that you need to address. And so your strategy is going to be So a lot of the work, obviously, that you do is about helping people be the best versions of themselves, which I believe when you feel good about yourself, and I was just having this conversation with a girlfriend yesterday.

When I walk into somebody's house and I see chaos and clutter. I don't judge anybody because who am I? But I look at it as what is chaotic in your life that it's manifesting like this? This is a symptom of something else crazy going on in your world. Something's out of alignment in your world.

Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for being here. If you enjoyed that video, by God, please subscribe because I don't want you to miss a thing. Thank you so much for being here. We've got so much amazing stuff coming. Thank you so much for sending this stuff to your friends and your family. I love you. We create these videos for you, so make sure you subscribe.