About Mel Robbins
Mel Robbins is a motivational speaker, life coach, and author who is best known for her “5 Second Rule” technique that is designed to help people overcome procrastination and take action toward their goals. Robbins has written several books, including The High 5 Habit and The 5 Second Rule. She’s also a CNN commentator, works as a contributing editor to Success Magazine, co-founded Inspire52, a news and entertainment website, and hosts The Mel Robbins Podcast, which launched in 2022.
About The Book
“You are about to learn something remarkable – it takes just five seconds to change your life. Sounds like a gimmick, doesn’t it? It’s not. It’s science. I’ll prove it to you. You change your life one five-second decision at a time. In fact, it’s the only way you change.
This is the true story of the 5 Second Rule: what it is, why it works, and how it has transformed the lives of people around the world. The Rule is easy to learn and its impact is profound. It’s the secret to changing anything. Once you learn the Rule, you can start using it immediately. The Rule will help you live, love, work, and speak with greater confidence and courage every day. Use it once and it’ll be there for you whenever you need it.”
Mel Robbins is a legend. Not only she’s the most booked female speaker, but a host of one of the most popular podcasts and a best selling author of 3 books. Her TED talk – that currently has over 35 million views – started the whole movement (and launched Robbin’s media empire):
I’ve got this book on Audible and had a lot of fun listening to it. I personally absolutely loved the 5 second rule tool for it’s simplicity and potential power to help you reach your biggest goals. I realised I’ve actually been using my own version of this tool for quite a long time now (since I had kids to be precise), but it’s the 5 second rule is a perfect framework for the moments when you get stuck.
In the book Mel shares a few other ideas that resonated a lot with me and I can’t wait sharing them with you.
Let’s jump in.
Key Insights
The 5 Second Rule
“That’s one of the things I’ve learned using the #5SecondRule. When it comes to goals, dreams, and changing your life, your inner wisdom is a genius. Your goal-related impulses, urges, and instincts are there to guide you. You need to learn to bet on them. Because, as history proves, you’ll never know when your greatest inspiration will strike and where that discovery will lead you if you trust yourself enough to act on it. […]
When it comes to change, goals, and dreams, you have to bet on yourself. That bet starts with hearing the instinct to change and honoring that instinct with action. I feel so thankful that I listened to that dumb idea about launching myself out of bed like a rocket because everything in my life changed as a result of it.
Here’s what happened:
The next morning the alarm clock rang at 6 a.m. and the first thing I felt was dread. It was dark. It was cold. It was winter in Boston and I did not want to wake up. I thought about the rocket launch and I immediately felt like it was stupid. Then, I did something I had never done before—I ignored how I felt. I didn’t think. I did what needed to be done.
Instead of hitting the snooze button, I started counting.
Backwards.
5..4..3..2..1..
And then I stood up.
That was the moment I discovered the #5SecondRule.”
That’s a brief introduction to the 5 Second Rule.
If you’ve ever talked yourself out of doing something that would actually improve your life, congratulations – you’re human. Our brains are wired to avoid discomfort, even when discomfort is exactly what would move us forward.
Mel Robbins learned this the hard way. Here is a little story of how it all started for her.
At 41, Mel’s life felt like a chaotic mess: her marriage was rocky, her finances were slipping, and she couldn’t even get herself out of bed in the morning. She hit snooze so many times her kids sometimes missed the school bus. Things weren’t “bad” in a dramatic Hollywood way. They were bad in the slow, suffocating everyday way many of us can relate to.
Then one night, half-asleep, she saw a rocket launch on TV.
The countdown stuck with her:
5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
And she thought, “What if I launched myself out of bed like that tomorrow? Before I have time to think… or talk myself out of it?”
It was a tiny instinct, the kind most of us ignore. She didn’t.
That one decision became the seed of the 5 Second Rule, which she defines as:
“The moment you have an instinct to act on a goal you must 5-4-3-2-1 and physically move or your brain will stop you.”
The countdown interrupts the mental chatter, stops hesitation, and pushes you into action before fear, doubt, or laziness sneak in.
Think of it as a psychological “pattern break.” A micro-moment where you choose who you want to be instead of who you’ve been by default.
Next time you feel a nudge to do something good for yourself – get up, speak up, start, stop, try – don’t overthink it.
Just count backwards.
5-4-3-2-1.
And go.
It’s not magic.
But it might as well be.
Courage + Perseverance = Win
“To play any game, you have to start. To win, you’ll need to keep going. If you want to make your dreams come true, get ready for the long game.
Life is not a one-and-done sort of deal. You’ve got to work for what you want. Do you know the game Angry Birds? Rovio, the brand that created the game, launched 51 unsuccessful games before they developed Angry Birds. How about The Avengers star Mark Ruffalo? Do you know how many auditions he did before he landed his first role? Almost 600! Even Babe Ruth struck out 1,330 times. My favorite vacuum cleaner is Dyson. And there’s no wonder why it doesn’t suck at sucking up the dirt. James Dyson created 5,127 prototypes! What? And this last one will blow your mind. Picasso created nearly 100 masterpieces in his lifetime. But what most people don’t know is that he created a total of more than 50,000 works of art.
Did you see that last number? 50,000. That’s two pieces of art a day. Success is a numbers game. And you’re not going to win it if you keep telling yourself to wait. The more often that you choose courage, the more likely you’ll succeed.”
Mel talks a lot about courage in the book. Why? Because that’s the number one virtue that will help you own your life and achieve your biggest dreams.
Her main point – courage is not reserved for epic heroes slaying monsters. We need courage every day to do things that are outside of our comfort zone. A courage to be vulnerable, judged, disliked; a courage to fail and try again; a courage to have difficult but important conversations.
Look at the numbers above – these amazing humans had loads of courage and perseverance to achieve their dreams. They had grit. They were up for a long game.
And it resonates A LOT with Brene Brown’s wisdom – in Dare to Lead she sums it up beautifully:
“When we have the courage to walk into our story and own it, we get to write the ending. And when we don’t own our stories of failure, setbacks, and hurt – they own us.”
The 5 second rules helps you gain the courage to make good choices every day that later compound into radical difference. Which reminded me of The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy:
“The Compound Effect is the principle of reaping huge rewards from a series of small, smart choices. What’s most interesting about this process to me is that, even though the results are massive, the steps, in the moment, don’t feel significant. Whether you’re using this strategy for improving your health, relationships, finances, or anything else for that matter, the changes are so subtle, they’re almost imperceptible. These small changes offer little or no immediate result, no big win, no obvious I-told-you-so payoff.”
Now your turn – need a boost of courage to ask for a raise at work? 5-4-3-2-1-GO! Courage to start a successful business? 5-4-3-2-1-GO! Have an important conversation with your spouse? 5-4-3-2-1-GO!
You Make Decisions Based On How You Feel
“We like to think that we use logic or consider our goals when we make decisions but that’s not the case. According to neuroscientist Antonio Damasio, it’s our feelings that decide for us 95% of the time. You feel before you think. You feel before you act. As Damasio puts it, human beings are “feeling machines that think” not “thinking machines that feel.” And that’s how you ultimately make decisions – based on how you feel.
Damasio studied people who had damage to their brains and couldn’t feel any emotions at all and he discovered something fascinating—none of his research subjects could make a decision. They could describe logically what they should do and the pros and cons of the choice, but they couldn’t actually make a choice. The simplest decisions like “what do I want to eat?” were paralyzing.
What Damasio discovered is paramount for you to understand. Every time we have a decision to make, we subconsciously tally all the pros and cons of our choices and then make a gut call, based on how we feel. This happens in a nanosecond. That’s why none of us catches it.
For example, when you ask yourself the question, “What do I want to eat?” you are actually asking yourself,
“What do I feel like eating?” Similarly, I wasn’t asking, “Should I get up?” Subconsciously, I was asking, “Do I feel like getting up?” Tom wasn’t asking, “Do I want to walk over to her?” Subconsciously he was asking,
“Do I feel like walking over to her?” Christine was doing the same thing at work. She wasn’t asking, “Should I share my idea?” Subconsciously, she was asking, “Do I feel like sharing my idea?”
Huge difference. And that explains why change is hard. Logically, we know what we should do, but our feelings about doing it make our decision for us. Your feelings will make the decision before you even realize what happened. How you feel in the moment is almost never aligned with your goals and your dreams. If you only act when you feel like it, you will never get what you want.
You must learn how to separate what you feel from the actions that you take. The #5SecondRule is a remarkable tool in this regard.”
I love this idea. Separating feelings from actions is one of the best cheat codes for a great life and a powerful tool for making better choices in parenting.
Susan David explores a very similar concept in her brilliant book Emotional Agility, and it strongly echoes the wisdom of Tony Robbins in his bestseller Awaken the Giant Within.
Because the 5 Second Rule is action-focused, it also pairs beautifully with Trevor Moawad’s concept of neutral thinking and his insight into the illusion of choice, explored in his excellent book It Takes What It Takes.
“A lot of times we feel as if we have choices to make about where we want to go and WHAT IT TAKES to get there. The REALITY is that what it takes to succeed is not REALLY a choice. WE GET tired of talking about it. […] There is no choice. It takes what it takes.”
Success will not wait for you to FEEL like taking the next right step. Take action – whether you feel like it or not.
Stop Worrying
“More than any other change, ending your habit of worrying will create the single biggest positive impact in your life. Believe it or not, you were taught how to worry. As a kid, you heard your parents worrying constantly “Be careful,” “Wear a hat or you’ll catch a cold,” and “Don’t sit so close to the TV.” As adults, we spend way too much time and energy worrying about things that we can’t control or that could go wrong. When you get to be near the end of your life, you’ll wish you hadn’t. […]
When your mind takes you somewhere sad, dark, doubtful, or negative, you don’t have to go with it. […]When you find your inner voice becoming an “enemy,” […] it’s important to “stop worrying” and recognize that in those 5 seconds, you can reclaim control.”
Yes! Your worries and anxieties are your major hurdles in life. They rob you of the opportunity to enjoy the present moment.
So next time you feel your worries start bubbling up, take a deep breath and 5-4-3-2-1. Then ask two questions:
“What am I grateful for in this moment? What do I want to remember?”
So you literally refocusing on gratitude, rather than on worry. If you ask me, it’s my favorite takeaway from this book – I’m a chronical worrier and a simple trick of replacing my worries with gratitude made a huge difference for me. Try it!
Reframe Your Anxiety
“I first used this ‘reframing strategy’ as a public speaker. I get a lot of questions about public speaking and specifically how did I get over my fears and nerves about public speaking. My answer always surprises people: I have never gotten over my fears and nerves; I just use them to my advantage.I speak for a living. A lot. In 2016, I was named the most-booked female speaker in America—98 keynotes in one year. Amazing. Do I get nervous? Absolutely. Every single time. But here’s the trick: I don’t call it ‘nerves.’ I call it ‘excitement’ because physiologically anxiety and excitement are exactly the same thing. Let me say that again. Fear and excitement are the exact same thing in your body. The only difference between excitement and anxiety is what your mind calls it.”
That’s from a chapter in which Mel walks us through the fascinating research by Harvard Business School’s Alison Wood Brooks, that demonstrates the power of simply reframing all that energy we feel as EXCITEMENT via the very simple phrase “I’m excited!”
I firstly came across this research on a podcast years ago and used it quite often since then. I also teach my kids to use this reframing in the situations when their anxiety and stress response may get in the way of their peak performance (e.g. tests, school shows, swimming competitions).
One of my favourite tools. Ever.
Action Steps For You
- Use the 5 Second Rule once a day: Pick one moment you usually hesitate – getting up, starting work, speaking up. When it comes: 5-4-3-2-1. Move. No thinking.
- Stop letting feelings decide: For the next week, notice how often you say: “I don’t feel like it,” “I’ll do it later,” “I’m too tired.” Then remind yourself: Feelings are data, not instructions. Count down and take action.
- Replace worry with gratitude: When your mind spirals, count down and ask: What am I grateful for right now? Refocus. Continue.
Quotes From The Book
“If you’re searching for that one person who will change your life – look in the mirror.”
“Knowing what you need to do to improve your life takes wisdom. Pushing yourself to do it takes courage.”
“If you have the courage to start, you have the courage to succeed.”
“Everyday life is full of moments that are scary, uncertain, and difficult. Facing these moments and unlocking the opportunity, magic, and joy in your life requires tremendous courage.”
“The fact is that thinking about being healthier won’t make you healthier. Even meditation, which is a mental exercise, still requires that you DO IT. There is no getting around this. You must take action.”
“If you don’t learn how to untangle your feelings from your actions, you’ll never unlock your true potential.“
“Here’s how feelings keep you from changing. When you stop to consider how you feel, you stop moving toward your goal. Once you hesitate, you’ll start thinking about what you need to do, you’ll weigh the pros and cons, you’ll consider how you feel about what you need to do, and you’ll talk yourself out of doing it.“
