Today, I heard on the Sheroic podcast about an intriguing and life-altering approach to developing habits. Of course, as a keen habit developing geek, I just had to share this.
Cassey and Lisa featured Mel Robbins – CNN TV host/ commentor, life coach, and author, to come and discuss about her story and the creation of The 5 Second Rule.
Basically, Mel’s explanation of the rule is simple. You basically countdown 5-4-3-2-1 (either inside your head or out loud), before making a decision to perform that action.
All of the habits and choices we make in life are based on 5 second decision intervals. In between those 5 seconds, we decide whether to get up out of the bed in the morning or not, we decide if we should raise our hand to speak in public or not, we decide whether if we should put on our workout clothes to head to the gym or not.
When someone asks you to go onto the stage to dance, your first intuition is to jump up because you love dancing, but within those 5 seconds, your “conscious” brain pulls the emergency brake and you stop because you don’t want to embarrass yourself in front of others.
How to Develop Habits in 5 Seconds
With Mel’s 5 Second Rule – you count down 5-4-3-2-1 – bam, you perform the action of whatever you want to do. This method eliminates a buffer time for your brain to do a “reality-check” and pulls the emergency brake, since you are already performing the action and getting yourself ready as you’re counting down – you already started the momentum and started moving even before making that decision.
This is such a powerful tool to developing habits, or just making those daily decisions that we want to do to step out of our comfort zones.
I have always been guilty of not being able to make decisions and having my brain stop me at certain moments in life, and I ended up missing opportunities that would have benefit me in the long run.
If you think about it, our lives are really all based on multiple series of 5-second intervals when we decide to do certain things or not. Isn’t that crazy?! Hence, it’s so important to just be present at those moments and follow your gut and make decisions that you will not regret.
> Related: The Power of Keystone Habits
Cheers,
Shir 🙂
–
P.S. Also check out Cassey (from Blogilates) and Lisa’s (CO-Founder of Quest Nutrition) podcast The Sheroic, where they invite different guests to cover topics on women empowerment, entrepreneurship, and how to stay happy and live a healthy life.
If you’re interested in listening to other personal development podcasts, check out my Top 5 Podcasts Here.
Also check out and learn more about Mel Robbin’s 5 Second Rule
She also has a TEDx Talk below. Also one of my favourite talks.
Shirley Huang is a Certified Life Coach, Podcast Host, and online educator. She provides weekly resources to help people become leaders in their life, while loving themselves and having fun a long the way. Check out her Life Coaching Programs here.