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HOW TO BECOME THE MOST PRODUCTIVE PERSON YOU KNOW

I like to say that the five second rule is change agnostic. Agnostic is a fancy word that basically means it doesn’t really prefer anything. It’ll work with anything. It’s neutral. And the five second rule is very neutral that way. It’s gonna work with any kind of behavior change that you’re trying to make happen. The applications of the five second rule are truly only limited by your imagination. If you want to adopt any positive new habit, all you have to do, I’m not kidding, is use the rule to 54321 and push yourself to do whatever you need to do to adopt that positive new habit.

Here’s the other cool thing about the rule and I’ve alluded to this already in the book. You can use the rule to pull yourself away from destructive behavior like gambling, drinking, drugs, or impulsive behavior like micromanaging your team, snapping in frustration and binge watching too many TV shows. All you need to do is 54321, in order to assert control, shift your focus away from the destructive or impulsive behavior, and then turn and walk away from it. Like all change, it is simple, but is not gonna be easy. But the rule will help you get it done. There are three behavior changes that I receive emails about constantly. And by the way, if you ever want to email me, the emails very simple hello@melrobbins.com. But the three topics I receive emails about all the time, are health, productivity and procrastination. In this section, part 3 of the book, I’m get address each one of these. You’re gonna learn the step-by-step approach to how you can use the five second rule in combination with some of the recent research-based strategies to help you improve these three major areas of your life.

First, we’re gonna dive into the secrets to improving your health. You’re not gonna like it but it works. You’re also gonna hear about people all around the globe who are using the five second rule to do some pretty remarkable things for themselves in the area of health. Second you’re gonna learn how to increase your productivity using the five second rule and you’re also to learn the latest research on focus, productivity and your brain. There is a particular fact in this chapter about the snooze button and how it impacts your productivity. This is something that I learned about for the first time as I was researching and writing this book. And I think it’s gonna really surprise you and answer a lot of questions about why you often feel so damn tired as you start your day. Third, you’re gonna dive into a subject that plagues every single one of us, me too, procrastination. I’m gonna talk about the two forms of procrastination. Yes, there are two forms of procrastination. And we’re also gonna dig into the step-by-step method for how you can use the five second rule in combination with 19 years of research that will help you beat procrastination once and for all.

Everything you’re about to learn, you can implement immediately and it’s backed by science. To reach your full potential, you’re going to have to push yourself. There’s simply is no other way.

Chapter 9

Improve your health

Almost half the messages I receive from people around the world are just like you and me. They wanna improve their health in some way, whether it’s a slimmed-down pump up drop weight, lower their cholesterol, heal themselves from illness, eat healthier or improve strength and flexibility. Whatever it is, I got some good news for you. You can use the five second rule to get it done. And here’s the, the truth about improving your health: Thinking about being healthier, not gonna make you healthier. Even meditation, think about this for a minute, even meditation, which is basically a mental and a breathing exercise; it requires that you do it. There’s no getting around this. When it comes to improving your health, you are going to have to take action. And here’s the irony, in no other area of our lives is there more information, support, research, opinions, or free content that on the subject of health and wellness. You could Google diet. If you’re gonna Google the word diet and then just it search, you would get tens of millions of pages of information. You could take the top 20 search results. You could click out the top 20 diets that Google tells you that you should follow. And you could put them all up on the wall and throw a dart at them. Whatever diet that dart hits if you were to actually follow it, it would work, seriously. Every single diet works. The problem is we do like dieting. I mean, I don’t know about you but I don’t wanna eat salad for a 170 days. That sounds like it would suck.

See the problem is, not the diet. And you and I, I know what you do because you probably do the same thing that I do which is to spend all kinds of time analyzing diets and trying to pick the perfect diet and thinking about the diet and planning for the perfect diet. The problem isn’t the diet. The problem is that when you start to diet, you’re going to have feelings about the diet and that’s what the problem is going to be. And the same is true about exercising. You know, Anna wrote to us, and she said, that she “never feels like working out”. Well, feelings are what are going to get in the way of your desires to become healthier. We just talked about this in the last few chapters, over and over and over again. And like Anna, you can use the five second rule. Anna started using the five second rule to 54321 in order to get herself out of bed, out of her apartment and back into the gym, into a spin class. You know she said it was really funny that she felt like she had to apologize to the person next to her because she was hyperventilating the entire time during the class. But here’s the deal., you may hyperventilate when you go to that first spin class but who cares? It sure as hell sounds better than making excuses to yourself at home for why you shouldn’t go.

So I’m gonna keep saying this. Every single diet, every exercise program, every gym circuit, every workout class, every physical therapy regimen, every cross training routine, every meditation program and yoga flow, every one of those will improve your health. But you gotta do it. And believe me I get it. I hate exercising, especially if it’s cold or if it’s raining outside. I hate it is much as I hate getting out of bed. And here’s another confession, if I didn’t know the five second rule, I would not be in shape. And I’m not in that greater shape, I just get myself to the gym. But I wouldn’t even make it there if it wasn’t for this rule. So you might be wondering why is it that getting healthy is so hard. Why? I mean why are so many of us out of weight and out of shape and we know what we should do but we don’t do it. You already know the answer. Why are things hard? Why is change hard? What is the answer?

The answer is simple, it’s your feelings. If you feel deprived, right? Let’s say that you want to go gluten-free but if you start to feel deprived of bread, are you gonaa stick to the diet? No, the second you consider how you feel about eating healthy for the next 113 days, you’re gonna convince yourself not to do it. The moment that you scan today’s CrossFit workout and you consider how you feel about doing 3 sets of 45 burpees with a bunch of people in a parking lot while it’s raining outside, you’re gonna feel like walking out the door, of course not. And here’s the rub. We know, we know in our heads that sticking to a diet will make you happy. We also know that if you were to push yourself out the door and get yourself to CrossFit, we know that you would absolutely love the fact that you did it. I mean just asked Melanie. Melanie had a lot of trouble “getting off the damn couch” before she found the rule. She writes, I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you for saying in a language I can relate, for making me get off the damn couch and out of my head, for experiencing momentum just be my awesome self, relief, freedom and breakthroughs. You once Melanie did get moving, she experienced what you’re gonna experience. I want to repeat those words, freedom and breakthroughs. That’s something that we all want.

The moment that you accept the fact that you just want to do the things that feel easy, you’re gonna realize something, getting healthy, staying in shape it’s simple. Here’s the rule, you’re never gonna feel like it. You have to do it anyway, 54321. Look, blowing off the gym, hitting the in and out Burger Drive through, wasting time on Facebook, I do it too. It’s a hell of a lot easier than hyperventilating in a spin class or cutting out sugar from your diet. That’s why we do it, it’s easier. But if you want to lose weight, follow a diet and regularly exercise, there’s only one thing you must do. You have to stop considering how you feel this. Cause the truth is, your feelings don’t matter. I don’t give a shitt how you feel. The only thing that matters is what you do. Erica wrote to me because she realized this, let me read her email to you. She said, hey Mel, I saw you on CNN last night and I was intrigued. I’ve been following you on Twitter for about a year now and your inspirational tweets help so much. What has really helped is your five second rule. I finally got my butt in gear this year and started to lose weight that I tacked on over the last couple of years. I’ve lost 30 pounds this year, and despite that, I found myself losing all motivation to get my workouts in. I always had an excuse. I worked out lay, didn’t have enough time, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Sound familiar, right? I watched your video about weight loss on your blog a few weeks ago and you were spot on about every damn thing. I’m never going to feel like working out, but if I want to see the results I need to get those workouts in. I’ve been using the five second rule and today marks day seven of not missing a workout. Some days I still don’t want to work out but I have goals and if I convince myself to get that worked out in within the first five seconds it gets done.

Now that is cool. That is super cool and it makes me so happy. And I’m so glad that she realized she’s never going to feel like working out. That’s how you and I are wired. You need to get this in your brain. Human beings, you, me, everyone you know, we are all wired the same way. We’re wired to do things that feel easy. We are wired to avoid things that feel hard. Erica was able to find five second windows of opportunity and then push herself to act on them. Exercise, we think it’s physical. It’s 100% mental. If you stay in your head and you consider how you feel about it, you’re never going to get out the door and do it. But if you push yourself, your body will go first and then your mind will fall in line. That’s why the five second rule is game changing for your health. Here’s how you’re gonna use it. 54321 go. Stop complaining. Go to the gym. 54321 go. Put down the doughnut and eat grilled chicken breast. 54321 go. Walk away from the bakery. Look, I know, you walk past a bakery if there’re busy bakery, baking croissant, some bread or something, it smells like mermaids are singing to you in there. It’s amazingly tantalizing. I feel it, too. If you made a promise to yourself that you are not gonna eat that stuff, 54321, despite how much you want to walk in there and push forward, move away from it. That is the only way you stick to it. You may feel sorry for yourself. You may feel defeated, but there are people all over the world who are fatter, lazier and way more out of shape than you are right now and they 54321 and change themselves into a totally different human being.

There’s this guy Charlie Bruno. Now when he first wrote to me, he weighed 383 pounds. The dude’s waste was 54 inches. If you want to see photos of him, just go to Melrobins.com and in the 31 sessions of mentoring, we will be doing a video about Charlie and you will see for yourself the transformation. 54 inches, unbelievable. Can you imagine how horrible he felt? 383 pounds. Now, here’s the thing. How did he do it? In a year, for 529 days straight, this guy made it his goal to lose weight. How did he do it? He picked something that does not appeal to me. I’m gonna just put it right out there. He picked something that appealed to him, it does not appeal to me. He basically drinks drinks the taste like grass. Yuck. I know. Who wants to drink that garbage? Not me, but Charlie, Charlie decided that’s it, 383 pounds, 54 inch waste, I am taking this on. Not only did he lose weight, he now runs a business called juicing strong that helps other people do the same thing. 529 straight days, he pushed himself to keep a promise that he made to himself to drink these awful drinks. Why, why would he do that? I’m gonna tell you something. Not because he felt like doing it. You think on day 331, he felt like drinking one of those disgusting drinks again? I don’t think so. He pushed himself because he said he would. Imagine, imagine if instead of pushing himself 54321, drink the drink, Charlie spent 529 days thinking about losing 176 pounds. What would have happened then? Nothing, absolutely nothing. Goes back to the chapter, when we talked about what you waiting for? We’re all waiting for the right time to start. How much time have you already wasted thinking about getting into shape, into the body that would make you proud?

Alexandra also found a way to a healthier lifestyle by juicing. She wrote to me, so every day at 5:30 PM, I am looking at a full email box with marketing plans and reports to send out and… And then I almost go… Maybe I’ll skip the juice today but no, no way. I breathe and I think. The emails are not going anywhere and nobody’s gonna get injured if I delay the report for two hours so it’s all about 54321 go. It works, every single day. It really does because you are interrupting your feelings. You’re interrupting your bad habits and you are pushing yourself to make the change. Charlie and Alexandera both found that when you follow your instincts, you know, your instincts that are tied to the goals, that are important to you; if leading a healthier life is important to you, the way you’re going to do that is you’re going to be doing it by taking courageous actions every single day. That’s the only way the change happens. It takes courage to start something. It takes courage to stick with it. And it definitly takes courage to share it with the world.

That’s what Pakinam described to me: courage is what it required to lose weight because sometimes, as she writes the gap between where you are and where you want to be can seem so large that you can’t even face how much work you have to do. Here she writes, Hi Mel, for my entire life I’ve been overweight. Now I’m trying to diet for the first time in my life. I feel lost and trapped but I keep going. I have a massive feeling of insecurity and vulnerability. Can you please explain this? Yes I can. The reason why you often feel that thing, you know, when you set a goal and you get all super jacked and inspired and you can’t wait to take this on, and then what happens right after. This could happen so quickly is, suddenly all this regret just swoops right in. Because you just set this huge, huge goal for yourself. You get excited and then as you come back down to earth, you realize, oh my God, I got a lot to do. This is gonna be a lot of work and you start to realize where you really are. And the gap between the person you are right now in this moment, setting goals for yourself and the person you want to become, it can seem so big that it feels impossible to bridge that gap.

I want you to know something, feeling this way, it’s normal. But it becomes a form of self abuse if you allow those feelings to take over your mind and your actions. You know that’s why I love Charlie. Charlie who lost, you know, over 170 pounds and you see the photos of him, you will in the mentoring sessions. Anyone can bridge the gap between the numbers on a scale with a push. And I’m telling you Charlie’s story, because I want that to inspire you. It is little actions every single day that will lead to massive changes over time. You know, I have somebody else I want you to meet. His name is Mark and he’s using his Instagram account to hold himself accountable. He hass posted publicly. Here’s what he wrote: I’m deciding to take my fitness to another level by announcing my Facebook nation that I will do 5000 push-ups, 2000 pull-ups and run 200 km in the month of July. Holy smokes! All of this while vacationing with my kids, half of the month and trying to finish my book on increasing business value and selling a business which by the way, I started because of the five second rule. I’m living proof that this brilliant advice works. Wow, that guy is on fire. The discipline of daily exercise, by the way, you now how Mark just wrote about how he’s gonna take this all in the month of July; it’s also going to help them with other personal and professional goals of trying to finish the book on increasing business value and selling. Every day that Mark exercises, he’s not only going to have proven to himself that he’s the kind of guy that follows through on what he says but is also a prime his brain, and that’s gonna help him finish writing the book. I hope he keeps us posted on when that’s available.

Now look, I read 5000 push-ups in a month and I basically have a heart attack. It’s a little overwhelming. I mean, it might literally kill you if you try something like that. No problem. You have to use the five second rule to go out for American ninja warrior. Not a problem. I’m not expecting you to do an obstacle course or Spartan race unless that’s something that you want to do. Maybe it’s just about taking on a fitness challenge. Check out Anouk. She wrote to me and she’s on week three of hers. She was telling me the simple truth about exercise, I really really really really don’t feel like it, but I do it anyway. Boom, bomb, bomb. You rock girl and you rock, too. Seriously, you’re listening to this because you bought this and you’ve decided to put the time into learning a simple tool that can help you change absolutely everything.

Look, if you feel overwhelmed by the thought of taking this on for real, I want you to meet Alice. Alice is a 19-year-old girl from the UK and she wrote to me because she had been a really bad place. I’m gonna let her describe it to you. Here’s the email that she wrote. I suffer with anxiety and agoraphobia and they really took their toll on me. I gained about 30 pounds, which made me even more miserable and I stayed indoors even more. Additionally, I felt pressured by my parents to do a certain degree at a certain University and convince myself I was fine doing this in order to please them. I watched your video and it really made me think. Is this really what I want? Am I really fine with being the size I am? Do I deserve to get what I want? I won’t lie. It took some time but I watched her talk about once a week and then I had the impulse. That’s right, she had the impulse to get real with herself. Because the truth is she did have the desire to take control of her life. She didn’t want to be the size that she was. She had the urge to change. And not only did she talk to her parents but she changed her major. And something else happened, too when she started to use the rule. I was accepted to the University of my choice, in the course of my choice and I am due to go this October. As for my weight since December I’ve lost 28 pounds, from eating healthy, getting into a good exercise routine and it’s all down to the five second rule. I hope I didn’t take up too much your time, but I really wanted to tell you how much your talk impacted me. I have still got a long way to go but whenever I feel myself slipping, I watch her talk again.

You know whenever you do feel yourself slipping, whenever you do feel yourself giving up on yourself, the five second rule is always there. At any moment in time, you can take control. All you gotta do is 54321 and push yourself forward in a direction that empowers you. That’s what it takes. It takes courage to do what Alice did. It takes courage to be honest with yourself about what you want. And it takes courage to start. And I’ll tell you what, it takes an act of bravery to start again after you fallen off the wagon and you start to feel like you’ve given up on yourself. And often times, it’s that very first step that’s the hardest. You know if you slip up, if you fall off the wagon you can get back on track. Slipping up is normal. Having a cheat day is normal. Blowing off the alarm and hitting the snooze button that’s normal. There’re gonna be days when you just don’t feel like it. There’re gonna be days when you’re sick. There’re gonna be days when things happen. That’s life. But always remember that you are five seconds away from taking control again. Just ask Kristin. She says something really important in this Instagram post. It’s a photograph of her sitting in her bedroom and she’s on a stationary bicycle. She writes “the first step getting out of bed is the hardest but it is so worth it when the paddle start to spin”. No matter how many times you’ve exercised, now look, I’m no professional athlete; my husband happens to do, he just did his first half Ironman triathlon; it is still a struggle, every day, for him to find the time and find the will to push himself out the door to go train. Even people that are in incredible shape struggle. Getting started is the hardest part.

Remember when I told you that I want you to start experimenting with the rule by doing the wake up challenge? And that the reason why I wanted you to do that was so that you can experience this, this concept called activation energy. Remember it’s the force that’s required to start something? That’s what Kristin is referring to. And she’s right. It’s the hardest part to push yourself to start because that’s when you need to muster up and find activation energy and it’s so worth doing. In fact, there’s nothing more worth it than learning to push yourself right past your excuses so you take one step closer to the life, to the body or the future that you deserve. You know, maybe your health challenge is about getting to the gym. Maybe for you it’s something scarier, like fighting an illness. You aren’t alone. We receive a tremendous amount of email and social media posts about folks that are looking to build the courage that they need every day to heal, to live and to stay strong. A lot of people have written about struggling with cancer and setbacks in health and wondering how you can reclaim your courage and your strength to fight. The five second rule is a tool that you can use to find your inner strength to face serious illness.

Greg Cheek is one heck of an inspiring guy to follow on social media. All you have to do is is Google his name, Greg Cheek, you know like the cheeks on the side of your face, that’s how he spells it. He was diagnosed with stage III cancer. He was very shocked when he was first diagnosed. But what did he decide to do? 54321, he decided that he was going to not only fight cancer and kick it’s ass but he was gonna run marathons while he did it. How many he’s run since his diagnosis? 10. How incredible is that? Maybe it’s not about running marathons. Maybe health for you means being brave enough to get your annual mammogram screening done. When Amy Robach who’s one of the hosts of good morning America was asked to have her first-ever mammogram live on air during breast cancer awareness month, you known what her initial reaction was? It was no way. Absolutely not. No way, no how. She didn’t have any connections to the disease and she also felt really self-conscious about making herself, like the spectacle in the story when it’s such an important topic. So Amy turned to Robin Roberts and Robin Roberts, I don’t know if you know this, obviously she is the anchor of good morning America, but she’s also a fellow breast cancer survivor. And so Amy turned to her for advice and after Amy told Robin that she had never had a mammogram, you know what Robin said? This was what Robin said to her: Amy, that’s the whole point. Listen, nobody knows better than I do how uncomfortable it can be having people watching you go through something medical. But the power of saving even one life is so remarkable. You’ll never regret it and I can pretty much guarantee that it will save a life. Just by you walking into that mammogram and demystifying this test someone will find out that they have cancer. Who wouldn’t have otherwise. Amy 80% of women who have breast cancer have no family history. Amy made up her mind right there, right there in Robin’s dressing room. She decided to have the mammogram. It was a five second decision right there. That’s the power of a decision. She went back on air, weeks later to reveal something. You know whose life she saved? Her own. The screening that she had done on live television, that she almost didn’t have done; it resulted in her being diagnosed with breast cancer. Isn’t that unbelievable? Imagine if she hadn’t made that five second decision. Imagine if she hadn’t gone to talk to Robin. Imagine Amy went through a double mastectomy. I mean this was no joke around cancer, breast cancer. Eight rounds of chemotherapy; today she’s cancer free.

Now while Amy didn’t use the five second rule in her decision, she got a push from Robin and she made a five second decision. Thank goodness she did. Look, you may not be lucky enough to have a work colleague there to push you. But you can always 54321 and push yourself. Improving your health is all about action. You might not lose as much weight as Charlie or run 10 marathons like Greg did, but you can push yourself to get to the dentist, to exercise or go to the doctor for a test like a mammogram or a prostate screening. When you push yourself just like so many of the people you’ve just heard about, the life that you change will be your own. Life is about choices. It’s about decisions. And I said over and over in this book as we’ve been talking that you can always choose how you act. You can’t choose how you feel. You can’t count on feeling motivated. You can’t count on feeling excited. You can’t count on feeling brave enough to walk in and get a cancer screening. But you can always choose how you act. If you have goals to get healthier, what you need to do is very straightforward. Pick a plan. Seriously, don’t overthink it. Pick a plan. Anything will do. And then it’s about getting started, 54321. And after that every single day, it’s about continuing to go forward, 54321. The only thing that you will need to choose after that is choosing each and every day to do it, even though as Anouk said, you’re really really really don’t feel like it. I said that what you need to do is simple. I didn’t say it would be easy. I promise you, it will be worth it. Exercise and health comes down to one simple rule. You don’t have to feel like it. You just have to do it