The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
The 5 Second Rule has a way of getting real with you. How many times have you found yourself thinking about doing something, or seeing to do something, and pithing the span of a few seconds, you’ve talked yourself out of it and moved onto something else?
For me, one of my least favorite chores is doing the dishes. I could go the rest of my life without doing dishes, but I know that’s unrealistic. What is my reality is the fact that I can walk by the sink, see it full of dishes and think, “I can just do those later.”
The problem with this mindset is that I will put them off for days, thinking that same thought every time I walk past the sink because the problem just continues to stack up.
That’s the problem with dishes.
The reason the 5 Second Rule resonates with me is that Mel tells it like it is. Within 5 seconds you talk yourself down. You can become unmotivated in a snap. It’s that easy.
And we all do it!
She goes on to say that in just as much time, we can also make the decision to accomplish something. That is the power of five seconds.
When you are faced with a problem, she says the best way to motivate yourself is to turn it into a competition. For her, it started with the motivation to get out of bed and get her family ready and out the door to school on time. Through a series of disheartening life events, she found herself at rock bottom, unable to even get up to make her kids lunches for school.
She said she’d hit her alarm countless times each morning, simply ignoring it because she didn’t want to face the life she had.
She was unhappy, and I think we can all relate to feeling unmotivated to move forward when we are unhappy and dissatisfied with life.
Mel Robbins was inspired to utilize the 5 Second Rule in her own life just to get out of bed and it turned into something amazing that she eventually wrote a book about.
I love the idea of making big life moves with a count to five. It doesn’t give any time to think or second guess yourself, and I have been taking little leaps with it for nearly two years now.
And those little leaps have brought me far since I started.
So, the next time you’re faced with a decision that you may or may not feel motivated to do, take the time to count to five, then leap!
You never know what’s going to happen because of it.