‘Making Space With Hoda Kotb’: Mel Robbins

foreign [Music] if you don't know Mel Robbins your mind and soul are in for a treat she spent decades helping other people get what they want in life Mel's a best-selling author she runs a female lead Media company and the Mel Robbins podcast is not to be missed she's also a motivational speaker with one of the most watched Ted X talks in the world I'm talking 29 million views Mel knows a thing or two about how to get unstuck and her five-second rule it is a game changer this is a woman whose life work is to make your life better lighter and to help you and me make space I have to say I'm very excited to be talking to you today you are like a motivational pill like I want to swallow it did motivational speaking kind of just come through you quickly how did that come to be oh um no it was a huge accident I believe my story is one that is evidence that something Greater is at work because all of My Success in the personal development space came from personal crisis I always joke that I am a life tested expert because everything that I share requires me to First screw up my own life and um you know I invented this thing called the five second rule out of desperation to help me get out of bed when I had crushing anxiety and we were 800 Grand in debt with three kids under the age of 10. and I was unemployed and I shared it uh on a stage in 2011. your mind can process a facial expression in 33 milliseconds it can move pretty damn quick the other thing that it does very quickly is if you have one of those little impulses that are pulling you if you don't marry it with an action within five seconds you pull the emergency brake and kill the idea it was the first speech I had ever given in my entire life on a stage so if you've ever seen my tedx talk I saw it that's a 21 minute long panic attack Oda are you kidding no no I was so I didn't mean to share the five second rule I forgot how to end the speech and you just threw it in I threw it at the end so we're going to unpack everything people are thinking about changing their life but people feel stuck so I know I've felt stuck many many times and some people say well this is just me this is like the space that I'm in right now I can't get out I'm trapped but you believe like change can happen it's just has to be like a deliberate kind of action yes any human being can change yeah period and stuck does not mean you have stopped oh stuck as a signal yeah stock is a signal wired into your soul and your DNA and that signal is trying to tell you something very simple it's trying to tell you Hoda that you have stopped growing you as a human being are designed to grow and change and evolve through your whole life and so we think stuck means a huge existential crisis and that's why we become paralyzed when I tell people the fastest way to get unstuck is to sign up for a class or to volunteer to pursue a hobby how does that work like how does that unstick you what it does is it gets you out of the Trap of thinking about being stuck yeah and it puts you in motion you're not gonna fix anything by thinking about it you actually solve problems and change your life by taking action and most of us are stuck in our thoughts instead of pushing ourselves forward to take action when you make a decision Are you a gut person are you a pro con let me write it down and I'm going to write my pros and cons or are you kind of spirit driven let me just see what this feels like from a from a much higher place than where we are so so if I have to make a really important decision the way that I read my gut is this way so I think about the decision I'm going to make decision a decision B if the decision feels expansive yeah doesn't mean I want to do it doesn't mean it's easy but if it feels energizing like I might grow and like there's something inside you that opens Your Heart A little it's a yes yes if I start to feel depleted if I start to feel like I'm shrinking if I feel the energy shift it is an absolute no and see the thing that I have learned over and over and over again is that everybody's gut is correct people's issue Hoda is they don't listen to it so you think everyone's gut is correct I do I do I because ask anybody that has been in a string a terrible relationship yeah and what you ask them is when did you know that this was not the right relationship with you and they knew months years and before they ever ended it they knew in their gut that it wasn't right but they stayed trapped in their head instead of taking action what is the action step you take first step is actually paying attention that you do want to change it and being miserable is the perfect reason to change something okay and if you don't know what you want all you need to know to change Hoda is I don't want this so does it have to be because a lot of people are looking for a purpose like I'm working this job on the assembly line but I know this is not my purpose so you think that your purpose is a big lofty thing so you don't want to leave that thing for something that isn't what you believe your calling is so let me talk about passion and purpose because people collapse these two yeah so passion is another word for energy okay that's all that it is if you think about the things that you're passionate about you're passionate about them because they make you feel energized yeah that's it so passion is for you purpose is what you give to the world and I think everybody's purpose is exactly the same which is to share your authentic self to share your story to share Your Love with other people and we are so trapped in our self-doubt and our thoughts that beat us down that we are not fulfilling our purpose because we are not allowing ourselves to show up as who we truly are all of us come with heavy baggage um that we carry you carried a lot to be a child who was sexually abused and who was kind of voiceless yes when did you find it um I found a voice with myself when I discovered the five second rule because I discovered a simple tool that shut down the critic tell us that because that this is this is big so it's really a simple idea and the simple idea is this let's let's use the five second rule with food as an example so the theory is if you drop food on the floor the floor contaminates the food in five seconds it's junk science it depends what's on the floor but nevertheless this brain trick works this way if you think about something for more than five seconds your brain contaminates your motivation to act we all have a habit of hesitating Hoda it's this subtle moment where you know exactly what you need to do you need to go outside for a walk you need to turn off the TV and go to the gym you need to get up from the couch and have the hard conversation and instead of just doing what we need to do this is what psychologists call having a biased toward action all of us hesitate for just a second inside this five second window of hesitation you go from conscious thought to subconscious this part of your brain that puts you in autopilot this part of the brain where all your self-doubt where your patterns of worrying of procrastinating of being perfect it all takes over we've all had that experience so if you have a moment where you feel inspired and isn't it interesting that five seconds later self-doubt Creeps in and so the five second rule all you do is in a moment where you feel yourself hesitating procrastinating beating yourself up whatever the old pattern is just count backwards and five four three two one the backwards part is critical this does not work if you count up does not work if you go one two three four five and this has to do with the science so the five second rule when you count backwards five four three two one it's what habit researchers call a starting ritual it's a little hack that you can use a positive trigger and by the time you get to one you now have the part of the brain that helps you change that helps you learn new behavior that helps you act with courage and confidence engaged and then you move you talked about there's like of the very very first decision you make when you when you open your eyes like there's one decision you make right away and you realize that your day is made or broken by what happens there's one habit that will change your life just one and it is do not sleep with your phone because the one decision everybody makes that kills your productivity kills your focus tanks your mental health is before you get yourself right you grab your phone and check in with the world and that means you gave your most important commodity your time and your attention to things that don't matter what should you do with that 10 minutes do you think use a five second rule five four three two one get out of bed do not lay there like a human pot roast marinating in fear staring at the ceiling get out of bed second thing I want you to do make your bed wait don't it snooze though can you no you shouldn't and there's a there's actually a neurological reason why oh so people who hit the snooze button based on the research when you drift back into sleep it triggers your brain to go into a sleep cycle that typically lasts between 75 and 90 minutes and when the alarm goes back off in five minutes five minutes you're in what they call a state of sleep inertia oh so you're all oh it impacts your productivity for four hours okay so don't do that okay then make your bed make your bed because it is a way to keep a small promise to yourself it's also a way to have a nice place to come back to like a gift tonight it's a simple way to build a little discipline the third thing I want you to do when you go to the bathroom is I want you to look in the mirror and I want you to add a high five in the mirror to your morning routine high five to yourself yes okay there's a reason why okay we did this massive study 50 of men and women cannot look at themselves in the mirror in the morning and the rest of us glance at ourselves in the mirror and focus on what we hate if you physically raise your hand without saying a word and you raise your hand to the mirror something crazy happens a lifetime of positive neurological programming that has been attached to the act of giving a high five to other people gets aimed back at you wow the next thing I want you to do is simply take five minutes the remaining five minutes they have and do some kind of mindset practice and as the close of the practice before you look at your phone I want you to decide what is one thing that matters to me today that I'm going to make progress on that's it if you simply select one thing that matters to you it could be I'm going to read the paper this morning it could be I'm gonna I'm gonna spend some time with Hoda this morning that's what I'm going to do right I like that if you set that intention and you simply make a little progress I'm not even asking you to get it done you just roll it Forward anything the studies show it creates a deeper sense of fulfillment and meaning in your life because you feel a sense of control because you're actually seeing yourself take the actions that are proving to you that yes in fact you do come first yes in fact you matter yes in fact I believe in myself and yes the things that are important to me are a priority and then when you look at your phone we know what happens everything else rushes to the front of the line and you won't feel so resentful because you took that time for yourself that's brilliant by the way and it's so easily done because I do a morning practice too and I keep my phone away from me because I wanna I get up by using old-fashioned alarm clock I take my shower I do some meditation and prayer and scribble a little bit just a few things here and there but if I don't do it if I wake up later my kids get up at night or something I am so off and it just it just throws me how do you deal with a phone during the day so that it doesn't become the the thing between you and everybody you see you know I think that you gotta first get honest with yourself that it's a tool but we've become the tool and you also have to recognize that it is an addiction and so for me recognizing those two things and understanding that reclaiming my happiness and my sense of fulfillment in life means I've got to reclaim those spaces of time where I'm not giving my attention to something that doesn't really matter and so there are a couple quick tips I plug my phone into the bathroom at night okay because I can't trust myself so I gotta kind of Set It trap yeah for my bad behavior this is what I call make change easier yeah don't rely on Willpower right like set yourself up to win so I plug it in in the bathroom at night and then for those of you that are a single parent or you have a job like Hoda where people might need to reach in the middle night great tell people to call you if there's an emergency the interesting thing is people will text you all night long nobody calls unless that's true that's true the second thing you have is have a basket in your kitchen so that if you are not using your phone for work in the basket yeah because if it's on your body it will be in your hands and in your face yeah the other thing is is that um for Sleep an hour before I go to bed you can have your phone literally set a reminder time to put the phone down you deserve a good night's sleep but again not in a shaming way yeah like remind yourself that you deserve to have this time to yourself your dreams deserve a little bit that's a good framing you're met your happiness your family deserves this deserves yes that's a good framing yes because I feel like we see it as taking something away like no no you deserve this yeah and this is the heart of my work the heart of my work is we know what to do we don't know how to do it because we're letting our feelings about things and our habits control our Behavior yeah and when you start to realize that number one of course you can change and that of course you can make anything happen if you're willing to do the little things every day right that ends you there if you're willing to give up your timeline if you're willing to just keep at it and keep a positive attitude eventually you end up where you're meant to be yeah like and we get so paralyzed Hoda about these big things in life right the big problems the big opportunities that we miss the simple truth your life is the little things your life is not winning the Oscar your life is what you do first thing in the morning yeah it's how you greet your kids when you walk in the door and we forget that there's a beauty and a Grace to bringing a level of intention to these little things that you're doing every day I was on the subway yesterday with my daughter and I'm looking around and every person on that Subway was looking at somebody's beach pictures and stuff and as I was sitting I was like look at us I was like look what we're doing everyone is running away but nobody but nobody had any interaction not even an eye contact like hey you know nothing wow and I feel like that's well there's two things that that I'm going to invite people to do as you're going about your life to make eye contact with somebody and then like do a big cheesy style and try to hold the eye contact because it takes about three to four seconds if somebody's staring at you for their mirror neurons to kick in and they literally shoot a smile back you can't not do it look at how you're laughing exactly I love it but I feel like we have the opportunity right to spread positive energy so that's number one that's one thing that I want you to do a second amazing habit that you could add to that 10 minute morning routine because how you set your day up is how the day ends up okay at the end of it after you've set your priority you've done your meditation you've given the high five I want you to text one person in your life or work and tell them hey I was just thinking about you receiving a text from a friend strengthens your friendship because it feels good to know that somebody that you're not seeing is thinking about you and what happens is you get a return of positive energy and so that the micro connection begins with a daily habit of just one text that's it I liked in your Ted Talk how you hated the f word and your f word is fine yes now I was puzzled by this I'll be honest because we see a lot of people how you doing fine fine how you doing you're fine but you say that is a word that you don't love no because fine means bad find means bad yeah it's like like who wants to read meh and most of us say fine because we're too embarrassed to say honestly I'm actually struggling yeah and you know what else we're also really bad about saying things are great oh because we don't because we're embarrassed that maybe it's not great for the other person or we're not used to celebrating ourselves oh right so we downplay it and you know you want to pay attention in friendships who do you actually share good news with that's more telling about who's a really good friend and who's not who do you share good news with you're right because that tells you who you know supports you in your success right that's a good one they I was trying this practice the other night that was you were supposed to say three things before you go to bed that you appreciate about yourself about yourself so you'd sit there sometimes you're like myself what did I and because you when you say something it's bragging so you don't say it out loud because it would seem like what but as you sit there I've been trying to do that each night it's a funny little thing what did you say last night well yesterday I took my daughter to dinner because we have a date she's three and when we go out we pick somebody in the restaurant who we're gonna buy their their meal and the kid my daughter gets to pick I said we don't say a word nobody ever knows that's how we do it okay so she goes okay how about are you sitting by yourself I said so we do our thing and we leave and she always says can we say something I said no we like it's like a magic trick so so I wrote down where I said to myself that because it was and it was shared with hope and she loved it too but whatever that now can I just say something yep I want everybody watching and listening to notice that Hoda who is a human being that you absolutely love feels self-conscious as she's telling us a story and the reason why I'm pointing this out is that this gets to the heart of what we're all struggling with this inability to really care for love and celebrate ourselves that is a beautiful thing that you do beautiful and yet there was this discomfort well I think it's because I tell my daughter that sometimes we just do things to help yes you're not looking for Wow or an Atta girl yeah but I think I was trying to show her and I'm not look you're showing all of us but I was trying to say how to have magic yeah and also to realize like sometimes it's not like I feel like there's a lot of in life reflected Glory let me get close to that person and now I feel the light look at me right I'm next to them I'm with them so I want them to know like your lights inside like you don't need to be next to someone who has it you have it yes so you know you asked me earlier about purpose yeah and so I want to add this to it yeah so I also think that everybody's purpose when I said everyone's purpose is the same to share their story but at the end of the day all of our stories are about love because love the way that I think about love is love is simply caring about something this podcast is an act of love the way that you do the dinner is an act of love because you care about another person the fact that you tell your daughter no we don't share that because it's about the magic is caring for her and this is all expressions of love the hardest place to actually show that same love is for yourself yeah that's true that's true it's hard to say out loud like I'm proud of myself because of this or I deserve these 10 minutes worthy yeah I'm worthy of this yes or yeah here's what I want everyone to hear this can and should be the best year of your life because you deserve that and if you take the time to get quiet and to truly imagine what you want your life to look like a year from now yep it's not going to happen overnight it happens over time you know there's a simple practice start continue okay tell me about that you're gonna just write on one page stop on one page start on one page continue okay if this is going to be the best year of your life whatever best means for you the happiest the most fulfilling the most connected what do you need to stop doing all of the things it could be the way you think it could be who you hang out with it could be the stuff you put in your body it could be uh the way you spend your time what are you gonna stop doing okay second what are you gonna start doing and if you don't know here's a simple trick um look around and see who in the world are you inspired or jealous of because inspiration and jealousy are the same thing basically okay inspiration is what you feel when you allow yourself to get in touch with what you want jealousy is what you feel when you let yourself doubt and your lack of worth not let you imagine what you want and so if you can reframe jealousy it's just like literally blocked desire use that as a tool to look around at the world and we live in this amazing moment of time where if you're inspired by somebody whatever it is that they're doing or that they have that inspires or that you're jealous of great that means you'd like that too so reverse engineer it and then you have kind of a path so the things to start are actions that align with where you're going and with the person you imagine yourself to be not with where you are now oh and so that's the start column and the continue is anything in your life that's working anything in your life that brings you energy anything in your life that aligns with where you're going and the person you want to become you're going to continue doing that and there's your map and then when you don't feel like it five four three two one use the five second rule to push through that garbage and take the action yeah and nobody you make a good point it's hard to get moving and do things let me tell you the truth about motivation it's complete garbage you have been told a lie Oda because we have been made to believe that we have to be motivated in order to change it's the opposite you have to act before you feel like it motivation is what you feel after you get done with the workout I want you to understand a simple fact and the fact is you're never ever ever gonna feel like doing the things you don't want to do if you sit around waiting to feel ready you will wait until you're dead and when you stop listening to your feelings and you align your actions with the kind of person you want to be right and where you want to go you will get there man I'm motivated thank you thank you hey thanks for watching don't miss the Today show every weekday at 11 A.M Eastern 8 Pacific on our streaming Channel today all day to watch head to today.com all day or click the link right here

Channel: TODAY

Views: 54,348

Keywords: Today, Today Show, Savannah Guthrie, Al Roker, Natalie Morales, domestic news, international news, weather, interviews, politics, money, media, entertainment, sports, breaking news, food, health, home, parents, style, concerts, pets, shopping, Hoda Kotb

Id: 0iSnTtk-TS4

Length: 25min 14sec (1514 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 03 2023