Stop Procrastinating and Take Action with Mel Robbins

we bought into this complete falsehood that at some point you're going to have the courage at some point you're going to have the confidence and it's total it's it's complete garbage and so there are so many people in the world and you know you may be watching this right now and you have these incredible ideas and what you think is missing is motivation and that's not true because the way that our minds are wired and the fact about human beings is that we are not not designed to do things that are uncomfortable or scary or difficult our brains are designed to protect us from those things cuz our brains are trying to Keep Us Alive and in order to change in order to build a business in order to be the best parent the best spouse to do all those things that you know you want to do with your life with your work with your dreams you're going to have to do things that are difficult uncertain or scary which sets up this problem for all of us you're never going to feel like it you you only feel motivated to do the things that are easy right for me one of the hardest things to figure out was why is it so hard to do the little things that would improve my life and what I've come to realize and what we'll talk a lot about today is that the way that our minds are designed is our minds are designed to stop you at all costs from doing anything that might hurt you and the way that this all happens is it all starts with something super subtle that none of us ever catch and that is with this habit that all of us have that nobody's talking about we all have a habit of hesitating we have an idea you're sitting in a meeting you have this incredible idea and instead of just saying it you stop and you hesitate now what none of us realize is that when you hesitate just that moment that micro moment that small hesitation it sends a stress signal to your brain it wakes your brain up and your brain all of a sudden goes oh oh wait a minute why is he hesitating he didn't hesitate when he put on his killer spiky sneakers he didn't hesitate with the uh really cool track pants he didn't hesitate with the NASA t-shirt now he's hesitating to talk something must be up so then your brain goes to work to protect you it has a million different ways to protect you one of them is called the spotlight effect it's a known phenomenon where your brain magnifies risk why to pull you away from something that it perceives to be a problem and so you can truly Trace every single problem or complaint in your life to silence and hesitation those are decisions and what I do and what's changed my life is waking up and realizing that I'm never going to feel like doing the things that are tough or difficult or uncertain or scary or new so I need to stop waiting until I feel feel like it and number two I am one decision away from a totally different marriage a totally different life a totally different job a totally different income a totally different relationship with my kids not like one decision I'm divorcing you in the marriage example but one decision on you know you could be having a conversation with your spouse and you feel your emotions rise up and within a tiny window those emotions can take over and can impact how your marriage goes or you can learn how to take control of that micro moment and make a decision to act in a way that actually shifts your marriage your life comes down to your decisions and if you change your decisions you will change everything when you set goals when you have an intention on something that you want to change about your life your brain helps you what it does is it opens up a checklist and then your brain goes to work trying to remind you of that intention that you set and it's really important to develop the skill and I I say that word purposefully the skill of knowing how to hear that inner wisdom and that intention kicking in and leaning into it quickly so for me my brain's saying that's it right there move as fast as a rocket Mel I wanted to change my life and I think most people that are miserable or that are that are really like dying to be great and dying to have more we want to change we want to live a better life we want to create more for our families we want to be happier the the desire is there again it's about how do you go from knowledge to action so the first thing in this story that's important is realizing that the answer was in me and my mind was telling me pay attention I mean when I was 22 right after I graduated from darmouth I was so focused on making everyone happy that I almost chose the worst possible career for my personality it's not a bad career it just would have been horrendous for me I was interested in the environment so I decided oh you know I'll go get a law degree and then I'll go work in Washington and I think maybe I'll work on environmental policy and I'd probably end up in some Cube farm and everyone was thrilled with the plan everyone it turns out but me so here I am I'm driving a U-Haul across country to go to law school and to get a degree in environmental law and something started to gnaw at me and with every single mile that I drove my thoughts were getting louder and doubts were starting to pour in my gut was telling me Mel turn the damn U-Haul around but the problem was that everything was already in place right I mean I'm already in the U-Haul the thing is already packed I'm already 10 miles into my drive um the tuition had been paid for the first semester I had signed a lease I mean I could not undo these things isn't that why it's so difficult for you to make changes in your life because you think that things can't be undone the fact is any excuse that you come up with you can undo tuition can be reimbursed Apartments can be leased Plan B can be invented so I got up I repacked that U-Haul and I drove out of town I let my myself make a U-turn in life if you ever find your gut battling your head save yourself the drama I guarantee you your gut is Right guarantee you your excuses can be undone and I guarantee you you can make a U-turn in your life right now if you want to every single morning Monday through Fridays at 9:00 a.m. I host a live call-in Radio Show on serus satellite radio it's called make it happen with Mel Robbins and thing that's been so crazy about that show is every single person that calls me on that show they call in because they're feeling stuck in their lives and they're resigned about their ability to change their lives and I'm not talking about people that are nuts I'm talking about successful people like you and me that just somehow got stuck in their lives and I'm not talking about people that are looking for cheesy self-help I'm talking about people that really want to figure out how to move themselves forward and you know I find that so many of us think that our dreams are unreachable or unrealistic and it's just so sad I mean people think that their dreams disappear and if that's what you think congratulations