Use This One Trick To Take Control Of Your Brain – Mel Robbins

there are so many people in the world and 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 designed to do things that are uncomfortable or scary or difficult our brains are designed to protect us from those things because 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 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 that that 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 you know 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 wait a minute wait 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 for difficult or uncertain or scary or new so i need to stop waiting until i 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 uh relationship with my kids your life comes down to your decisions and if you change your decisions you will change everything in the scheme of life hitting the snooze button is not that big of a deal but here's the thing about life none of us wake up and say today is the day i destroy my life what we do is we kind of check out because it feels overwhelming or we check out because we're afraid or we check out because we start listening to self-doubt and then we make these teeny tiny decisions all day long and we don't even realize it decision to not get up on time a decision to not eat the right thing a decision to snap at your kids a decision to not speak in a meeting a decision to not look for a job a decision to not deal with your finances a decision to not call your parent like whatever it is all day long these tiny decisions that take you so far off track and then you wake up like i did and you you look at your life and you think how the hell did i get here and more importantly how do you get back over there and you have no idea you get trapped in what i call the knowledge action gap you know what to do but you can't seem to make yourself do it right i mean every one of us is one google search away from a list of instructions that if you follow any of them it will change your life but how do you get out of your head and stop thinking about what you need to do and actually do it instead of isolating yourself pick up the phone and call a friend get yourself out into the woods and go for a walk start running again like all these little things that i was capable of but i couldn't get out of here could not get out of here and if if you're stuck that's the problem the problem is you're you're in your head you're thinking 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 say that word purposefully the skill of knowing how to hear that inner wisdom and that intention kicking in and leaning into it quickly 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 the story that's important is realizing that the answer was in me every human being has a five second window might even be shorter for you you have about a five second window in which you can move from idea to action before your brain kicks into full gear and sabotages any change in behavior because remember your brain is wired to stop you from doing things that are uncomfortable or uncertain or scary it's your job to learn how to move from those ideas that could change everything into acting on them because when you understand the power of a five-second decision and you understand that you always have a choice to go from autopilot to decision maker everything in your life will change you will be a different negotiator you will be different in sales you will be unstoppable in the gym because you will realize the amount of garbage that you put in the way of your hopes of your dreams of your potential of your confidence of your courage everything comes down to the decisions that you make we all know what to do none of us know how to make ourselves do it so um i started researching it why does something so stupid work why why does something so silly create such powerful and profound change well here's why the rule is a form of metacognition metacognition is a fancy pants terms that means something real simple you can outsmart your own brain in furtherance of goals there are tricks that you can use that actually outsmart the tricks your brain plays on you in furtherance of a higher purpose we all know this you can you can restrain yourself if uh you're in a situation that calls for it you can jump into a raging river to save your dog or your kid you can direct yourself in ways if it's important to you and so the rule what it does is 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