the editor talks with you

I’ll bet you didn’t know that the odds of you being you are 1 in 400 trillion. It would be easier to bet on who will win the World Series than to bet on the baby your parents would produce. Feeling special already? You should. Mel (that’s short for Melissa) Robbins taught me this. You can watch her TED Talk at www.youtube.com . Mel says, “If you are reading this, then you know exactly what you need to be doing to get what you want. “There is nothing that I could tell you about how to get what you want that you don’t already know, or that you couldn’t easily get from a quick online search. “You already know that the opportunity for growth and expansion lies in your ability to step out of your comfort zone, but you still won’t do it. Here’s why:

It’s not as simple as “Just do it.” Because of the way our brains are wired, when our thoughts and feelings are at war over what we know we should do and what we feel like doing, our feelings will win. If you don’t feel like it, you won’t do it. That’s why you need the 5 Second Rule. This is a tool for taking action in moments of tremendous opportunity and joy. Mel says she discovered the 5 Second Rule 7 years ago in what was probably the worst moment of her life. Her husband’s restaurant went from success to failure due to a few risky decisions. “We were at risk of losing everything we had spent our lives building,” she said. When her alarm clock would go off, she knew she was supposed to get up and get their kids off to school. Instead, she kept hitting snooze. Over and over again. She needed to get a job to pay the bills. She needed to start being nicer to her family, to be a mother who could deal with crippling fear, but she couldn’t do it.

She adopted the 5 Second Rule to make herself act when she didn’t want to. “If you don’t struggle with getting out of bed in the morning then your issue is somewhere else,” Mel said. Trust me. We all struggle with SOMETHING.” Do you make to-do lists but fail to following through on them? Or think, “What is wrong with me? I know what I’m supposed to be doing. Why can’t I just do it?” Knowing what to do will never be enough. Knowing why you need to do it will never be enough.

What we need is the 5 Second Rule to make us act. If you don’t start doing the things you don’t feel like doing, you will wake up a year from now and be in exactly the same rotten place. If you need to act, do it in 5 seconds or your brain will kill the idea. If your goal is to lose weight, take action right now by researching healthy meal options and set daily reminders on your phone to prompt you to go to the gym. Whatever your goals are, show the world, and yourself, that you’re serious. When you act, your brain starts to build new habits. When you do something you’re not used to doing, you are building new habits and erasing existing ones. That you read this shows you are already taking time to change your life.

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