Transcript of Mel Robbins: Get Unstuck, Ignite Your Motivation & Change Your Life Today! Your 1 Podcast Away! (RR) New

Get ready to get unstuck, ignite your motivation, break free of all the ways you drag yourself down, rewire old patterns in your life, and win the fight against negative self-talk in today's episode with my dear friend and yours, author of the global sensation, The Let Them Theory, and host of the Mel Robbins Podcast, Mel Robbins. This is an episode. You're gonna want to share with everyone you know today.

Every single human being on the planet is capable of changing their life, of creating a better life, of discovering something more inside themselves. You are capable of it. The question is, will you? I don't feel sorry for anybody. I don't feel sorry for myself. I don't feel sorry for you as you're listening to this, because if you feel sorry for yourself, yourself or you feel sorry for somebody else, you literally have the opinion that they are incapable of changing where they are, and that's just not true. And I struggled with anxiety for most of my life, Jamie. This sense that something was about to happen, that somebody was mad at me, this feeling of always being on edge, and it turned me into a person that I didn't like at all. I was I was insecure. I was super competitive in a really toxic, weird-ass way. And we don't talk about this ugly stuff. We all want to put out the best versions of ourselves online, and we want to talk about the things that are going right. But the truth is, in order to be happier, in order to discover who you really could be and what you could really do in your life, you got to confront the worst.

Mel Robbins is the host of one of the top-ranked podcasts in the world. Her books on finding motivation and success have sold millions of copies. One of the most trusted experts in the world on confidence. And she's written 3 bestselling books. New York Times bestselling author and host of the Mel Robbins Podcast.

Life coach and motivational speaker.

A dear friend who we are so proud of all you have built and done, Mel. You gotta stop complaining about everything that is not working in your life and you need to do something about it. You gotta stop sitting around and waiting for your partner to fix it, or your parents to fix it, or the politics in whatever country you live in to somehow change. You got to stop complaining about all this crap outside of you, and you got to say, okay, and what am I going to do? And what am I going to do in the next hour for myself? And for me, it became very simple what I needed to do. Number one, I got so sick of my own bullshit that I did something about it. And what I did— there was a lot that I was doing to make it worse, and that's what nobody wants to talk about, right? What happened for me is what's going to need to happen for you as you're listening, which is you got to look in the mirror. And so the way that I change my life every single day is that I don't let that part of me win.

That's why I don't feel sorry for you, because if I feel sorry for you, or if I feel sorry for myself, I will never discover who I'm actually meant to be.

And you say the fight of your life is actually you with you.

Yes. And you explain that, period, full stop. You realize your feelings don't have to dictate your whole life. Now, hi!

Hello!

You're unbelievable, dude. Unbelievable. I can't believe the garden. I was just telling them we saw— I, I— the roses. Yes, this rose right here. Do you know the name of it?

I don't know.

Smell that. Smelling the roses.

Mel Robbins.

That— what a day. Incredible. What a day. I was thinking about the fact, and we're even dressed like it, that you are good cop and I am bad cop.

Oh yeah?

Yes, because you have a message that is so empowering, and your delivery is a lot nicer than mine.

Good cop and bad cop. Angel and devil today. So you have your own sign with stars, with Stars. Yes, with stars. Welcome to the Jamie Kern Lima Show. Before we jump into this episode, I'd love to invite you to join this community to hear more interviews and one-on-one conversations with me and you to help you truly believe in yourself, trust yourself, and know you are enough so that you can become unstoppable in living your best life, all I want you to do is click on the subscribe button. I love your support. It's incredible to see your comments and how many of you are, you know, sharing these episodes with everyone else, and I'm just so grateful to be here for you, and I'm so excited to go on this journey with you. So thank you for subscribing. It means so much to me. Who you spend time around is So important as energy is contagious and so is self-belief. And I'd love to hang out with you even more, especially if you could use an extra dose of inspiration, which is exactly why I've created my free weekly newsletter that's also a love letter to you delivered straight to your inbox each and every Tuesday morning from me.

If you haven't signed up to make sure that you get it each week, just go to jamiekernlima.com to make sure you're on the list. And you'll get your One-on-One with Jamie weekly newsletter and get ready to believe in you. If you're tired of hearing the bad news every single day and need some inspiration, some tips, tools, joy, and love hitting your inbox, I'm your girl. Subscribe at jamiekernlima.com or in the link in the show notes. In life, you don't soar to the level of your hopes and dreams, you stay stuck at the level of your self-worth. When you build your self-worth, you change your entire life. And that's exactly why I wrote my new book, Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life for You. If you have some self-doubt to destroy and a destiny to fulfill, Worthy is for you. In Worthy, you'll learn proven tools and simple steps that bring life-changing results, like how to get unstuck from the things holding you back, build unshakeable self-love, unlearn the lies that lead to self-doubt and embrace the truths that wake up worthiness, overcome limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome, achieve your hopes and dreams by believing you are worthy of them, and so much more.

Are you ready to unleash your greatness and step into the person you were born to be? Imagine a life with zero self-doubt and unshakable self-worth. Get your copy of Worthy plus some amazing thank you bonus gifts for you at worthybook.com or the link in the show notes below. Imagine what you'd do if you fully believed in you? It's time to find out with Worthy.

Welcome to the Jamie Kern Lima Show.

Oprah, how have you defied the odds?

Her show is unlike any I've ever done. A revelation. When you listen, it feels like a hug, but your brain and your spirit and your heart is like, wow.

Melinda French gates.

When I look into Jamie's eyes, I feel like I am on some other cosmic level with her. I could see the light around her. She's infused with light.

Imagine overcoming self-doubt, learning to believe in yourself and trust yourself and know you are enough. Welcome to the Jamie Kern Lima Show.

Jamie Kern Lima's her name. Everybody needs Jamie Kern Lima in their life. Jaime Kern Lima. Jaime, you're so inspiring. Jaime Kern Lima.

Mel Robbins says you can change your life and she will show you how. Mel has one of the most popular podcasts in the world called The Mel Robbins Podcast. She's a New York Times bestselling author. She has 7 number 1 audiobooks on Audible, billions of views of her videos online, and is one of the most respected experts in the world of mindset, motivation, and behavior change thanks to her science-backed tools and relatable advice that has impacted the lives of millions of people who follow her across 194 countries. She lives in Vermont with her husband of 26 years, Chris. And their 3 kids. She's also my dear friend, a really great roommate on trips, one of my favorite people to have at slumber parties, and the best wedding singer I've ever had the privilege of hearing in person. Mel Robbins, welcome to The Jamie Kern Lima Show.

Jamie, if you ask me to sing, I'm going to kill you.

You are the best, hands down, that I have ever seen.

So what Jamie's talking about is we were at this friend's wedding And my husband, Christopher Robbins, and I have been married for over 26 years. And at our wedding, our cousins sang us this crazy, hilarious song they made up to the 12 Days of Christmas, only they put in wedding advice. And I have to preface this by saying I am the world's worst singer. If you are standing next to me in church when everybody grabs those, you know, those hymnals and stands up, people take a giant step to the left or the right when I start singing. So I have the gift of gab. I do not have the gift of song. And so Jamie, we stood up in front of hundreds of people, Chris and I did, most of whom we didn't know, and sang this song that goes on for quite a while. Horrible voices to the point where people laugh at you because of how you sound. But there's a lesson in this. And the lesson is don't wait to be good at something. Mm.

Amen.

Before you do it, do not hold yourself back from looking like an idiot in front of other people.

Yeah.

If what your intention is, is to show how much you care about somebody. Mm. Like oftentimes we think that giving somebody the best present, or giving somebody the most beautifully sung song is the single best thing that you could do. It's the best way to show somebody. The size of the gift, the beauty of the song, that is not what somebody actually feels. It's the heart that goes into it. And you forget that. And you also forget that in order to tap into that heart and that soul inside of you, it is going to require you to do things that you do not feel like doing. Mm. And I never feel like doing that singing toast when we were about to do it, cuz I'm like, oh God, here we go.

Well, as a person sitting there enjoying that full— what I loved so much, I always say this, that the best dancer on the dance floor is never the most technically trained. It's always the person who most fully commits, right? Like at any company party or any, like the person who most fully commits on the dance floor. And you and your husband Chris fully committed to the song. You had the entire venue just like in the palm of your hands along for the ride. It was so funny, so beautiful, and your whole heart was out there, uh, for our, our friend's wedding. It was beautiful. One of my favorite, it was like a highlight of the, the trip.

So can we stay on this theme for a second? Yeah. Let's stay on the dance floor. Yeah. Of course. Because I'll tell you something that really just, it's something that every human being has experienced. And it's that moment at a wedding right after the first dance where the band kicks up or the DJ starts just dropping the hits and there is this hesitation.

Yes.

And that is an incredible metaphor for life. That there are these moments that are available to you every single day. And there are people that are willing to jump out of their seats or wheel themselves in their wheelchair or grab their cane and just kind of wobble out there to jump into life. And then there are people that sit on the sidelines in the chairs and tell themselves a story that I'm not a good dancer, you know, I am— my back hurt, this, that, and they don't participate in their own life. And this is not about dancing, it's about whether or not you even allow yourself to jump into experiences where you might learn more about yourself, where you might discover more about who you are, where you might surprise yourself and actually enjoy something that you've never tried before. And these opportunities are absolutely everywhere, all day long. And so I often, as I'm one of the first ones on the dance floor, notice how many people are still sitting in their seats watching other people dance. Mm.

You know, you're so great about doing this. I've been on flights with you and you'll be the one that just will pause a conversation and say, "Look at this view. Just look out this window. Look at this view," right? And so many of us, we're sort of going through life on autopilot and the view could be just how great our coffee mug feels in our hands, but we're missing out on it. Right? Just from not kind of like feeling alive, that sense of aliveness.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I get really frustrated with people honestly, because, and maybe frustrated is the wrong word. I mean, I'm in an era of, I don't feel sorry for anybody. I don't feel sorry for myself. I don't feel sorry for you as you're listening to this because If you feel sorry for yourself or you feel sorry for somebody else, you literally have the opinion that they are incapable of changing where they are. And that's just not true. Mm. Every single human being on the planet is capable of changing their life, of creating a better life, of discovering something more inside themselves. You are capable of it. The question is, will you? And you use the example, you know, we were on a plane yesterday and we were flying, and as we were approaching California, there was this really interesting moment, 'cause if you looked out the window and the sun was setting in California, but we were still like 90 minutes away from California. So I don't know what the hell state that is, but there were a lot of mountains there. And at the very tippy, tippy, tippy top of the ridge, the sun, coming from the setting in the west, all the way, way, way, way, way, way, way over there.

The angle of it was only hitting the tip of the mountain and everything beneath it was dark and it was just magical. And if you are so caught up in your head and if you are so caught up in your own crap, you are missing these moments that happen every single day to drop into your life, to drop into your moment. The happiness that you're seeking is not out there on top of that mountaintop someday. There are ways for you to bring small amounts of grace and joy and movement and change into your life right now. And that's the message nobody wants to hear. Nobody wants to hear that there's no hack, there's no shortcut. And one of the reasons why I am constantly hammering this idea on Instagram and on social media and in my podcast every single day. Sure, there are things that you can do that, that, that help, but nobody wants to understand the truth, which is in order to discover what you're made of, in order to discover what you have to give, in order to discover the potential of your life, it is gonna suck. It is gonna be hard work.

You are gonna have to deal with the worst of yourself. Not just one day, but every day. Because change doesn't stick. Change starts to go away the second that you stop doing it. And people don't want that message. Like, everybody, gimme the pill, gimme the this, gimme the that, gimme the— No, no. In order to get more outta your life, You've got to confront the things about yourself and about where you are that you don't want to because it's painful. And I get it because that's what I had to do. And that's what everybody that you admire has had to do in their life. And that's what you're gonna have to do if you'd actually like to, to get better. Mm.

What are some of the things you've had to confront in your life?

Oh my gosh. Well, you know, for people that see me now, Mm-hmm. It may surprise you to hear that just like most people, I struggled day in and day out with a brain that drove me crazy because I had undiagnosed ADHD, with trauma from a past experience that I was unaware of. So that created this sense of hypervigilance in my nervous system. I had had anxiety for as long as I could remember, like as long as I could remember. But like the stories about Mel Robbins is, oh, well, you were just a nervous kid. Oh, you had a nervous stomach. Oh, you were always worried before tests. Oh, if you had to play a tennis match, you would chug a bottle of MelanTa to try to settle your stomach. And what none of us knew, and I certainly didn't know until more recently, is that I was dealing with what most people deal with at some point in their life. The adverse effects of things that go sideways in childhood that then create this feeling in your body that something's wrong. And I struggled with anxiety for most of my life, Jamie, this sense that something was about to happen, that somebody was mad at me, this feeling of always being on edge.

And it turned me into a person that I didn't like at all. I was jealous of everybody. I was insecure. I was super competitive in a really toxic, weird-ass way. Like if a friend of mine was getting her kitchen done at a time when I was struggling financially, I wasn't happy for her. I was pissed. And I also felt like somebody was getting what I deserved. And we don't talk about this ugly stuff. We all wanna put out the best versions of ourselves online and we wanna talk about the things that are going right. But the truth is, in order to be happier, in order to discover who you really could be and what you could really do in your life, you gotta confront the worst. Mm-hmm. And so what happened for me is what's gonna need to happen for you as you're listening, which is you gotta look in the mirror and you gotta take responsibility for where you are right now. You're not responsible for maybe what happened to you. Mm-hmm. But you are responsible for where you go next. And nobody wants to look in the mirror and go, and this was me, you are an insecure, anxious, really kind of just not a nice person.

And I got sick of feeling that way, Jamie. And I did something about it.

What'd you do?

Well, this all kind of came, the hell, the self-hatred, the anxiety, the just, I mean, when I, like, I just wanna break this down. So I'm 41 years old. My husband and I have 3 kids. They are under the age of 10. My husband has followed his dream. He is in the restaurant business with his best friend. On the outside things look like they are going dynamite, but on the inside everything's falling apart. And, you know, I can talk about the things that are data points like being in crushing financial debt. I can talk about the data points of the fear when you can't make payroll. I can talk about the data points of the fact that we were in the middle of a recession and the fact that I had just lost my job. So those are very real things, very scary things. But there was a lot that I was doing to make it worse. And that's what nobody wants to talk about, right? That what are you actually doing inside the horror show that you're dealing with or the day-to-day that you're dealing with that is either keeping it the same or making it worse?

And the sucky thing about this is that You kind of know that you're making it worst. You kind of know that when you're pouring a drink every night to just tune out the pain that you feel, that that's not a good idea, but you do it anyway. You kind of know that sleeping in and hitting the snooze button 4 times every single morning, which was me, and the kids missing the bus, and then you racing out of bed like a lunatic and screaming at your children as if it's their fault because you're all stressed out because you can't get your emotions under control. Not a good thing. You kind of know that the nonstop rhetoric in your mind that you're beating yourself up and tearing, that it's not helping, but you keep doing it. And I was trapped in that loop of negative behaviors that I knew were not good for me, but was doing nothing about. And that's what I say when I am here to say, you need to look in the mirror, and you need to confront the worst parts of you. You need to be able to say, yeah, I can't change the fact that there's a recession, so stop bitching about it.

I can't change the fact that my husband and his best friend, they are really struggling in their business and it's impacting everything and I'm scared. I can't change that. I can't change the fact that my friends seem like they are now kind of leaps and bounds ahead of me. Because their husbands are not struggling financially, their jobs are intact, they look like they're doing just fine. They're now joining the country club, or they're doing this, or they're able to take their kids on a vacation when I'm sitting here wondering how I am going to pay for groceries. I can't control what other people are doing, but I'll tell you what I could control: whether or not I put alcohol in my body, what time I get out of bed, the kind of garbage I'm going to listen to or not. And that's what happened in my life. I frankly got really lucky because I got so sick of my own bullshit that I did something about it. And what I did, and it's the dumbest thing, and this is what people don't wanna un— this is, this is what gets me like all hot and bothered is that it's actually simple.

Not easy. But what you need to do to discover what's inside you is simple. You gotta stop complaining about everything that is not working in your life, and you need to do something about it. You gotta stop sitting around and waiting for your partner to fix it, or your parents to fix it, or the politics in whatever country you live in to somehow change. You gotta stop complaining about all this crap outside of you, and you gotta say, okay, and What am I gonna do? And what am I gonna do in the next hour for myself? And for me, it became very simple what I needed to do. Number one, I needed to get my butt outta bed instead of laying there like some sad sack, feeling sorry for myself, staring at the ceiling, wishing my debt would magically go away or my husband would magically fix all this shit. I needed to do something. And since the only thing that I could do in that moment was to either lay there, right? Because you're sitting here, you know that laying here is not a good thing. You know that hitting the snooze button is gonna put you even further behind.

You know you're gonna be even more exhausted when the alarm goes back off, and now you're gonna be scrambling 'cause you've been doing this and doing this and doing this and doing this and doing this every morning. You know how this plays. You know how this story ends. And so in that moment, the simple truth is that as I'm laying at the ceiling, as I'm wanting to hit the snooze button, why? Because I'm $800,000 in debt. I hate my fucking husband. I think this is all his fault. I don't know how to get out of this mess. I am now in the cyclone going down the toilet mentally, and I have to take responsibility for something. The fact that I was going down the toilet wasn't Chris's fault. It wasn't the fault of the recession. It wasn't because of the debt. It was because I did that to myself. And a lot of you are gonna hear that and be like, but, but, but, but, but, but. Got it. Are all those buts helping you heal? No. And I'm gonna say this again. I don't feel sorry for you because I know you can change.

And if I feel sorry for you, that means there's no hope. And there's always hope. And so the thing that changed for me, Jamie, is I started to, 5 seconds at a time, confront the worst parts of me. And every morning, the worst part of Mel Robbins, and it is still true to this day, is that when that alarm rings, it is not the 55-year-old Mel Robbins that is laying in that bed. It is a version of me from the past that feels sorry for herself, that feels this anxiety in her body, that doesn't want to disappoint anybody. That's who's there. And so the way that I change my life every single day is that I don't let that part of me win. Mm. And so if we go back to a Tuesday morning in February in 2008 outside of Boston, Massachusetts, I'm $800 grand in debt. I am a sad, miserable, insecure, negative, frustrated piece of garbage. Like, that's the kind of person I was because I was not taking responsibility for my life. And I'm not calling you that as you listen to me. I'm calling myself that because I I don't respond well when I try to be soft with myself.

I'm the kind of person that's like, cut the crap, Mel, enough. Really? You wanna change your life? Prove it. Don't sit there and tell me, don't sit there and wish, don't sit there and like mainline all this crap, read all these books, prove it. And so February Tuesday morning, the alarm goes off. The insecure version of me is right there. The one that wants to blame Chris, the one that wants to feel sorry, the one that, oh, I regret the, oh, I don't feel like it, it's cold. I go to hit the snooze button. Why? Because that's the insecure part of me. I want to avoid dealing. I want to make it somebody else's problem. I want to be mad that this is the way things are instead of actually changing it. And that morning is what changed everything. I had seen a rocket launching the night before on the television, and it gave me this crazy idea. That maybe, just maybe, if I were to move, like physically move in those moments when the worst part of me shows up, maybe, just maybe, I could change. Maybe, just maybe. And it wasn't like I could go on and write books and I could be a millionaire.

No, it was literally like maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't feel so shitty every day. Maybe, just maybe, I could get a job. Maybe, just maybe, I could get those kids on the bus this morning. Maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't go through the day with crushing anxiety and then start drinking at 5 o'clock to make my mind slow down. That's the kind of combat I was in. And so I just, as I'm reaching for the snooze button, the worst part of me is taking control. I'm like, not today. And 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, just like NASA launches a rocket. That's what I saw the night before. That's what I did that morning. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I stood up and the worst part of me didn't win in that moment. And ever since then, I have become obsessed with this idea. That in life it is not about what you are thinking. It's not about even what you're feeling in the moment. It's really about what you do. Mm-hmm. When the worst part of you shows up and you start gossiping about somebody, or you feel triggered, because of some past experience, or you're reaching for the alcohol or the weed or the vape pen because you just, oh God, long dead.

Jesus Christ. You have a choice. Are you gonna let the worst parts of you show up, or are you gonna choose to do something different. And look, I'm not a frickin' robot. There are still those nights that I have a glass of wine. There are still those nights that I hit the snooze button. There are mornings, there are still those times that I choose to have the insecure or the traumatized or the whatever version of me override what I know I'm capable of. Why? Typically because I don't feel like it. Typically because I'm too tired. But when you start to realize, holy cow, like, just embrace what I'm saying. You are obsessed with what's going on outside of you, what other people are doing, what other people are saying, the things that have happened in your past, the stuff going on in the government, like what kind of money people have, what they don't have. Think about how much time you freaking spend on social media, just scrolling. Why? Well, because the worst parts of you have taken over. There is something so much more powerful. That's why I don't feel sorry for you. Because if I feel sorry for you or if I feel sorry for myself, I will never discover who I'm actually meant to be.

There is so much more coming up in this episode. You are not going to want to miss it. But first, I wanted to share this with you. In life, you don't soar to the level of your hopes and dreams. You stay stuck at the level of your self-worth. When you build your self-worth, you change your entire life. And that's exactly why I wrote my new book, Worthy: How to Believe You Are Enough and Transform Your Life for You. If you have some self-doubt to destroy and a destiny to fulfill, Worthy is for you. In Worthy, you'll learn proven tools and simple steps that bring life-changing results, like how to get unstuck from the things holding you back, build unshakable self-love, unlearn the lies that lead to self-doubt and embrace the truths that wake up worthiness, overcome limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome, achieve your hopes and dreams by believing you are worthy of them, and so much more. Are you ready to unleash your greatness and step into the person you were born to be? Imagine a life with zero self-doubt and unshakable self-worth. Get your copy of Worthy plus some amazing thank you bonus gifts for you at worthybook.com or the link in the show notes below.

Imagine what you'd do if you fully believed in you. It's time to find out with Worthy. Who you spend time around is so important as energy is contagious and so is self-belief. And I'd love to hang out with you even more, especially if you could use an extra dose of inspiration, which is exactly why I've created my free weekly newsletter that's also a love letter to you delivered straight to your inbox each and every Tuesday morning from me. If you haven't signed up to make sure that you get it each week, just go to jamiekernlima.com to make sure you're on the list and you'll get your One-on-One with Jamie weekly newsletter and get ready to believe in you. If you're tired of hearing the bad news every single day and need some inspiration, Some tips, tools, joy, and love hitting your inbox. I'm your girl. Subscribe at jamiekernlima.com or in the link in the show notes. And now more of this incredible conversation together. Two things. I want to talk about something you've shared with me over dinner about the fight of your life that we're all in and who it's not who we think it's with.

Uh-huh. I know there are gonna be a whole lot of people who maybe are hearing about the 5 Second Rule for the first time. And can you just explain, 'cause this is so powerful, right? You read the millions of people who now use the 5 Second Rule in their life, whether it's to decide to apply for the job or to go up to the person and say, "I wanna be more than just friends," or to get out of bed in the morning. Can you explain just for anyone where this concept's new or maybe they need a refresher.

Sure.

And they're gonna start today applying it to their life. How does it work in our brains? And then what are the ways right now that everyone listening and watching can start using it?

Sure. So first let me tell you how to use it.

Yeah.

And then I will explain why it works. And then I will give you something that you can do tomorrow morning to experiment with it. So it's very simple. In moments where you know you should do something or could do something that is probably aligned with your better self. And I'll give you an example. You know, you're sitting there and you're scrolling on your phone and you realize, oh my God, I just spent 30 minutes looking at Instagram. It's stupid. What do most of us do? We keep scrolling.

Yeah.

You have the thought pop in your head, "Oh, I really should get my steps in." What do you do? You sit on the couch. Yeah. And so the 5 Second Rule is for those moments where you are thinking or you have this moment of inspiration, you're sitting in a meeting at work and you have something to contribute. Something you wanna say in a meeting, and then you stop and you hesitate and you're like, uh, and you say nothing. And here's what you do in that moment. Just silently count to yourself, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, and then do it. And here's why this works. The reason why it works is because If you think about something for longer than 5 seconds, your brain moves from the conscious thinking into the subconscious and automatic parts of your brain. And so you are no longer, if you just are sort of thinking about something, in control and present. You are now in the region of the brain where all of your habit loops and patterns are. This is where procrastination, where anxiety, where self-doubt, all that stuff lives in there. And I'm gonna explain this in a way that I think absolutely everybody will really get.

So I think Nike probably has the most famous tagline in the world, right? Mm-hmm.

Just do it.

Just do it. And if I asked you, just do it, what is the most powerful word of those three words? What do you think the most powerful word is? Just.

Just.

And I'm gonna tell you why. Imagine if Nike's tagline had been, "Do it." Mm-hmm. Is that empowering? Not really. Mm-hmm. It's kind of like an order or a command.

Mm-hmm.

Just do it acknowledges the universal moment of hesitation. That is there for everybody, whether it's that moment at a wedding where that song plays and you're either going to get on the dance floor or you're going to sit in a chair. There's a moment where you sit and think if you're an athlete standing on the sidelines, if you're at the free throw line and you're hesitating, There is a moment for all of us. You're sitting in a meeting and you're wondering, you see somebody that is kind of interesting and you wanna go talk to 'em. And what do we do as human? We hesitate. Mm-hmm. Nike understands that what is stopping you is not fear, it's hesitation. Because the second you hesitate, you are now thinking about it, which is where the fear comes in. And so by saying, "Just do it," they're saying, "I know you're sitting there on the sidelines, freaking let's go." And when they acknowledge the hesitation, they acknowledge your humanity. And they're saying, "Come, come on to the dance floor, get your butt out of bed, say something in that meeting. I know you're sitting there wanting to do it, and that's why I don't feel sorry for you because I know you are." And I want you to, but I can't do that for you.

And that's why every single day I show up and I confront the worst parts of me. I do that for me, but it's also why I'm constantly talking about it when I'm on the podcast or in the books or meeting people in real life. And so how can you use the 5 Second Rule? Because what I'm doing is I am handing you a tool. We now know why it works. I invented it by accident. I invented it outta desperation. I'm just as shocked that this thing got me outta bed as anybody else is when they first try it. But what we now know is that counting in itself is an action. So when you're sitting there and you are, let's just use the example, getting outta bed, you're laying in bed. We've all had those mornings where the alarm goes off, you know you need to get outta bed and you lay there and you think about it, right? Mm-hmm. Thinking about it, like you're losing power. And the longer you think about it, the less likely you're going to do it.

Mm-hmm.

And so when you start counting 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you have to count backwards. It does not work if you count up. And I'll explain the science in a minute. When you start counting backwards, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, first of all, it's an action. Second, you made a decision to use it, which means you actually don't wanna stay in bed. And third, by the time you get to 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, you have moved your brain from the subconscious thinking state into the conscious state and you get to choose what happens next. So it's like the very first domino that tips and it's a super easy one. So it also taps into the power of momentum. That's why it works. And if you wanna try it out in your life, the easiest way to do it is set your alarm tomorrow morning, And if you're the kind of person that just springs out of bed, set it for half an hour earlier. And when that alarm goes off, you are gonna notice something. You would rather be in bed. You don't feel like getting up. And all you're gonna do is go 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, throw the sheets off and stand up.

And you're probably gonna hate every minute of it. Mm-hmm.

And it works.

Absolutely, it works. Absolutely, it works. The only reason why it wouldn't work is because you don't use it. Mm-hmm.

The number of people who have shared their stories on how this one tool has impacted their life, the moment— there's been many moments, but this one moment, the first time I saw it, I literally, like, it's hard to even hold back tears seeing it, where a woman walks into an elevator and shares with you What about the 5 Second Rule? Well, you've had many moments, but there's one in particular where she had just lost her dad.

Yeah. So I had just gotten off stage in Atlanta and I was speaking for Compass, which is a big real estate company. And we were back in the kind of back of the house of a big hotel convention center. And we're getting into a freight elevator and I'm with a couple people from my team and a couple people from the client, and we're gonna head down. And all of a sudden, this woman comes running onto the elevator and she's crying, and she runs up to me, and she had somehow, in an audience of thousands and thousands of people, figured out how to get herself backstage, back into the back of this convention hall, back to the elevator where we were. And that's why I'm like, I don't feel sorry. If there is a will, there is a way. And what you're probably missing is the will. And we'll get to that in a minute. But she gets into the elevator and she's crying and comes right up to me and she's like, I just wanna thank you. I just wanna thank you. You saved my life. And I'm like, what do you mean I saved your life?

And she explained that her father had been killed in this horrific terrorist attack on a mosque. And she was sobbing and sobbing and sobbing and said, I couldn't save him. And she said that she, you know, kept saying, I wanted to die, I wanted to die, and I watched your videos and I used the 5-4-3-2-1 to get myself out of bed, to get myself help. And then she said, I just wanted to die. And I grabbed her shoulders and I said, you didn't want to die. You just didn't want to feel the way that you were feeling. And that is true for all of us. You don't want to be addicted to alcohol. You don't want to be an insecure, jealous bitch. You don't want to feel like a bad friend because you're not happy for your friends because you're not happy where you are in your life. You don't wanna feel like you are missing out on something bigger and your own potential. And yet we don't realize that those feelings that you feel are temporary and there are things you can do in order to make yourself feel better instead of reaching for the alcohol or gossiping with friends or wasting your life looking at social media.

Or maniacally focusing on what everybody else is doing. You have to, if you really wanna change, you gotta tune that out. You gotta look yourself in the mirror and you've got to say, I am sick of this, I am sick of you, and I am gonna do something about it. And what she did about that, because she was in so much pain, and you may be in so much pain right now as you're listening to us, but you still have to look yourself in the mirror and you gotta find somewhere inside you to go, I am sick of this. I'm gonna do something about it because I don't wanna feel this way.

And in her case, I just remember her rushing into the elevator and sobbing. I remember you saying those words to her.

Yeah.

And then she talked about applying that 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and literally getting outta bed.

And, and, And you hear that and you're like, "Okay, so how did getting out of bed help her?" Because she accessed something inside of her that was bigger than the pain she was feeling. And on those mornings, because I have been there, and on those mornings when you are in so much pain or you're so scared or you're so beaten down or life is just so hard that you don't even know who you are anymore. Or maybe you feel fine, but you're just not getting the results that you want, and it's freaking frustrating. In those moments, you can't let the worst part of you win. And when you drag yourself out of bed when you don't feel like it, here's what happens. You realize your feelings don't have to dictate your whole life, that you can be in pain and you can still get up. You can put one foot in front of your other. You can take care of your body. You can eat something that will give you energy instead of something that's just sweet and gonna weigh heavily and make you tired. You can walk into work, you can ask for help, you can get outside and take a walk.

There is so much you can do when you don't feel like it. And it's in the doing and the proving to yourself that you are bigger than those feelings in the moment. That your life is not gonna be dictated by the worst moments, that your life is not going to be limited by the things that have happened to you that really suck, but that your life is going to be determined By the things you do every single day to confront the worst sides of you, which are those feelings and those insecurities and the anxiety that you feel. And for anybody that struggles even with something like depression, depression's lying to you. I know it's hard. I know it's like living with a dark cloud. I live with somebody who has long-term treatment-resistant depression. And I'll tell you, one of the things I'm the most proud of, of Chris, is that day in and day out, that, that man rolls out of bed at 5:15. He does his meditation. He goes for that walk outside. He does not drink. He eats his clean foods. He works on himself. Does he feel like it? No. But that is what he's doing every single day.

Because you wanna know what? Change doesn't stick. Does not stick. We all want it to stick. It does not stick because the second you stop doing those things every single day, guess who comes back? The worst side of you.

I wanna ask you about that. This, this is gonna go deep for everyone listening, even deeper, even deeper. But this is such a powerful thing that you've said that I think is really gonna hit home for a lot of people. 'Cause sometimes people think, you know, they're in a fight with someone else or that they're competing with their future potential. And you say the fight of your life is actually you with you.

Yes.

Can you explain that?

Yeah. So for a long time, I personally was the kind of person that was very up everybody else's business. What are they doing? What are they doing? What do they have? What kind of— oh, they got that car. Oh, this, that, the other. And I was measuring my life against all the things happening on the outside, and that wasn't helping. And so when I say it's you against you, it is not you against the future you, because that person's not here right now. All you got is where you're at right now. The future you and your goals and your dreams and what is possible gives you a sense of direction, but that is not who you're at war with. You're at war with all the crap from the past. And I'll give you an example that is happening in my life right now. So, um, Chris and I have 3 kids. Our oldest is 24, then we have another one who's 23, and a son who's 18. And so our 2 oldest are daughters, and our Daughter Kendall, who is 23, has always known who the future Kendall Robbins is. Like, she came out of me and into this world with a mission that was hardwired into her DNA.

We all have that, by the way, but some of us come out and it is louder and clearer. And for her, it is singing. Like, she literally, Jamie, came out into this world, ba da da da da, and that poor kid All she heard from us growing up was, "Stop singing, keep it down." Like constantly singing. And so she has gone on and she has navigated her life to a point where she went to USC, she went to the pop music program there, she graduated, and she just dropped her first single that she wrote, that she produced with a friend, Michael, from her program. It is so freaking good. As a mom, I cannot hear it without crying. Because that song took 23 years to write, and it is an outward expression of the work she's had to do on herself to get there. And we're having this conversation the other day because as she was getting closer and closer to this song coming out, I noticed she was not promoting it on social media. I'm like, you know, girl, you got something coming. We might want to tell people. And we got into this whole conversation about how she was worried that her friends would think she was being all braggy or this, like she was worried about what people would think of her promoting some good part of her life.

Now just stop and consider this in your own life, because we all do this, right? Mm-hmm. You can't accept compliments. You've got a new real estate business and you don't tell anybody about it cuz you're worried that they're gonna unfollow you on social media. You wanna become a coach. And you don't tell your friends you're doing it because you're worried what they're gonna think. And it's kind of surprising because if they're your friends, you would think that they would cheer for you, but it's not about them, it's about you. And that's where this goes deeper. So let's take the example of my daughter. When she goes to post about this new song, who is keeping her from posting? She is. Let's go a layer deeper. What version of her? See, there are always two yous. There's the person that you used to be, and there's the person that you are supposed to be. And the person that you're supposed to be, your greatest expression of yourself, is here right now. And the only thing on this planet that is keeping the greatest expression of you in this moment, whatever that means— and on some mornings it means just getting your ass out of bed, The only thing, the only person that is keeping that version of you from showing up today is the old you.

And so I said to Ken, let's identify who that is. Like, where are you stuck? Think about the emotions that you're feeling right now and the fears that you're managing right now and all of the crap that is in your way. When in your life did you feel that, like, day to day, like it was really prominent? She's like, oh, sophomore year in college. Hands down, sophomore year in college. Because sophomore year in college, this guy broke up with me. I was chasing the wrong crowd of friends. I really felt insecure. I felt lost, and I just lost myself. And I'm like, bingo, here's the war you are going to fight every damn day of your entire life. Every single day. It is you against the sophomore in college version of you. Period, full stop. And when she saw it that way, she kind of laughed and she's like, you're right, I'm being totally ridiculous. And I'm like, exactly, exactly. And so when you can, think about yourself and you think about the worst parts of you that always show up when you don't want it to show up, that's gonna happen every day. It's always gonna be there chirping in your ear.

I don't think it ever goes away cuz it's been in your DNA and in your brain for so long. That is gonna come back like some dumb voicemail that you saved. It's gonna be right here. And that's what you're fighting. And you know, I've got a couple worse versions of me. I've got the version for me when I woke up, when I was in, I was 10 years old, I woke up in the 4th grade, big family kind of ski trip, other, lots of other families. And I woke up with another kid on top of me in the middle of the night. And that next morning, you know, just 10-year-old brain, I woke up in a full trauma response, like panic-stricken. And here's the screwed up thing about the way that the human body and brain and nervous system is designed. When we are little, we do not have what psychiatrists and neuroscientists call the ability to attribute something to other people. And so I woke up, Jamie, 10 years old, having just had this terrifying experience. And it wasn't even that serious what this kid did to me, like on the scope of things that happened to human beings.

But for my body, it was life-threatening. And so I had this experience of waking up at the age of 10 and immediately thinking that I had done something wrong. Immediately thinking danger and immediately wanting— the only thing I wanted to do was to take those covers and pull 'em up over my head because I didn't wanna go downstairs to the kitchen where that fucker, you know, that guy was. And I certainly didn't wanna go down and see my mom and like cause a ruckus if I told her, even though I knew that she would hit that kid into next week. You know, like you do not tell a farm gal that somebody hurt your kid because they will like go off, right? And so I just wanted to hide. And I have been fighting that version of me ever since, and I didn't even know it. That is who is there. That was the person that was there when I woke up this morning. I don't wanna get outta bed. Somebody's gonna be mad at me. Did I sleep in too late? It's just so hardwired. And so how do I show up in that moment?

5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I don't let her win. And then there are the versions of me, Jamie, that show up where I was, lost and insecure. And when I get insecure, I think this is what was modeled with my, uh, upbringing in terms of my caregivers. A lot of jealousy of people, a lot of snarkiness, a lot of people over there versus us. And I of course absorbed it because that's what you do. That's— human beings are designed to learn patterns. It's not good or bad, it is what is. And so when I say it's you against you and it's not you against the future you, it's you against the worst part of you, an old you that's not going anywhere. But for whatever reason, this is how you came into the world. This is the programming that you were given. And there's a reason, because your destiny in this life is to confront it and to outwork it. That is what you're doing.

That is gonna be a huge aha moment for so many people right now. 'Cause a lot of times we're in moments in the day like you're describing, you don't wanna get outta bed or you're, you know, you wanna pull the covers up over your head and you are realizing, oh wow, that is, the 10-year-old response and waking up thinking someone's mad at me, something's wrong, I'm gonna get, you know, all of that. And I'm just thinking about, um, everyone asking themselves this right now: what is the version, the old version of them?

Yeah.

That they're fighting every day.

Yeah.

And being aware of that, even thinking or considering that, just considering that is huge.

Well, it's a way to become self-aware of the patterns that you're now responsible for changing. Somebody else likely taught you these patterns, or they were coping mechanisms that kept you safe, or they were just things that you defaulted to. But once you start to see them and you take responsibility for the fact that you're either going to continue doing this shit or you gotta wake the hell up and change it. That's your responsibility. And look, if you're super happy in your life and everything's amazing and you're really like, don't change anything. But for most people, you have no clue what you're capable of. You have no clue what is available to you in your life. You have no clue who you even are because you are allowing these old versions of you to run the show and there is something else available to you.

So with your daughter Kendall and you, how are you helping her identify, oh, that's the sophomore in college version of you. And then what does she do at that point when she realizes, oh, that's what this is.

Yeah. Now you get to choose.

Yeah.

Am I going to let the sophomore in college in me not post on social media because I'm nervous about what people are going to say? Or are you going to let the version of you that actually wants to do stadium tours?

Yeah.

Who? Who? Who? You tell me who's posting today.

Yeah.

And look, you want the sophomore version of you to show up? And like, take the reins, have at it. It's your life.

Yeah.

But I don't feel sorry for you. You can feel sorry for you. That would be an awful waste of your life. Mm-hmm. Woo!

Mel Robbins, I love you. I am grateful for our friendship.

I am so proud to call you my friend. I love you. I love you. Thank you.

I have one more thing to share with you, but before I do, if you got value out of this episode, my only ask is that you please share it. Share it with another person in your life who could benefit from it. Post it and share it with others online or in your community who just might need the words and tools and lessons in this episode today. You never know whose life you're meant to change today by sharing this episode. And thank you so much for joining me today. And before you go, I wanna share some words with you that couldn't be more true. You, right now, exactly as you are, are enough and fully worthy. You're worthy of your greatest hopes, your wildest dreams, and all the unconditional love in the world. It is an honor to welcome you to each episode of The Jamie Kern Lima Show. Here, I hope you'll come as you are, heal where you need, blossom what you choose, journey toward your calling, and stay as long as you'd like because you belong here. You are worthy, you are loved, you are love, and I love you. And I cannot wait to join you on the next episode This is the Jamie Kern Lima Show.

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And please note, I'm not a licensed therapist and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional.