At the age of 41, I found myself $800,000 in debt, unemployed, and
watching my husband’s restaurant business crumble. It felt like we
had failed at life with no hope of ever escaping the debt.
To deal with the anxiety and self-doubt, my main strategy became
avoidance. Avoid getting up by hitting the snooze button. Avoid the
pain with alcohol. Avoid responsibility by blaming my husband. Avoid
looking for a job by procrastinating however I could.
I enviously watched as my friends found success after success in
their careers while we struggled to get groceries on the table. I had
just been laid off and had no idea what to do with my life: I’d
already tried being a public defender for the Legal Aid Society in
New York City, being a lawyer in a large firm in Boston, working for a
few start-ups, doing business development at an advertising agency,
becoming a life coach, hosting a call-in radio show, and even
opening a small paint-your-own-pottery-studio. I felt completely lost,
like nothing I did would ever be enough to dig us out of the hole we
were in.
If
you’ve ever been in this situation, you understand how
monumental even the simplest tasks seem: getting out of bed,
opening your bills, being fully present with your family, cooking a
nice meal, applying for a job, going for a walk, canceling that
subscription, or even just being honest about the extent to which
you’re struggling. . . Everything feels impossible. Every morning
when I woke up, the anxiety was coursing through my veins, and I
thought, Is this really what it’s going to look like for the rest of my
life?
But you want to know the funny thing about being stuck? I knew
exactly what I needed to do: get up, tackle the dreaded pile of bills,
get the kids ready for school, make myself go on walks, reach out to
my friends for support, make a budget, find a job. And yet, I
couldn’t seem to do any of it.
How I Changed My Life
I’ll never forget the morning when everything changed for me.
The alarm went off, and there I was, lying in bed, completely
overwhelmed by our problems. Like so many of us, I was paralyzed
by my own thoughts, and the last thing I wanted to do was get up
and face another day.
But then, something strange happened. A thought popped into my
head that would ultimately change my life. It was so simple, almost
silly. I remembered watching a rocket launch and the way NASA
counted down to blast off: 5-4-3-2-1. I thought, What if I just
counted backward like that and launched myself out of bed?
It seemed ridiculous, but I was desperate, so I gave it a shot. I
counted backward: 5-4-3-2-1—and I got out of bed. Just like that. I
didn’t think about how tired I was or how much I didn’t want to face
my problems. I simply moved before my brain had the chance to talk
me out of it. It’s like launching a rocket: Once you start the
countdown, 5-4-3-2-1, there’s no turning back.
At that point in my life, I was so used to letting my thoughts
paralyze me and fear and stress consume me that the concept felt
completely foreign. I remember what a revelation it was when I
thought to myself, Wait a minute, I can feel horrible and still do what
I need to do? Yes, Mel, you can. And it worked.
In those five seconds, I had interrupted the cycle of overthinking.
It felt like a small victory, but it was also a revelation. If I could push
through those five seconds of fear, maybe I could push through
anything.
So, I began counting backward, 5-4-3-2-1 anytime there was
something I needed to do. . . but I didn’t feel motivated to do it.
5-4-3-2-1 Get up when the alarm rings.
5-4-3-2-1 Pick up the phone and start networking to find a job.
5-4-3-2-1 Open the bills that had been piling up on the counter for
months.
I started calling this countdown technique the “5 Second Rule.”
It’s so simple: The moment you have an instinct to act, you have
to physically move within five seconds, or your brain will talk you out
of it. Just start counting backward—5-4-3-2-1 and move. Take action
before hesitation kicks in.
Here’s why it works: Counting backward requires focus and snaps
you out of autopilot, giving you just enough of a push to get going.
It helps you power through fear, doubt, or procrastination. Every
time you count 5-4-3-2-1 it is like tipping the first domino,
momentum kicks in, and BOOM, you are no longer thinking about
what you need to do, you are already doing it. And the best part?
Once you start moving, it’s way easier to keep going.
One 5-second move at a time, I forced myself to put one foot in
front of the other and slowly step back into my life. I won’t lie to
you. It wasn’t easy. The next couple of years were among the
hardest of my life.
It’s not easy to claw your way out of debt or face the painful
issues in your marriage. It’s not easy to quiet the anxiety or push
through the self-doubt. It’s hard to update your résumé and look for
a job when you question the value you bring. It’s a grind to force
yourself to get back in shape and create healthier habits after you’ve
let yourself go.
And it’s definitely not glamorous to work all day, then come home,
take care of three kids, spend a few minutes with my husband, and
then stay up late every night, trying to figure out ways I can make
more money.
But that’s what I did.
The 5 Second Rule taught me that action is the answer. Thinking
about your problems will never solve them. Waiting around to feel
like doing something means you’ll never do it. It taught me that no
one is coming to save you. You must save yourself from yourself.
You have to force yourself to make little moves forward, all day,
every day, especially when you don’t feel like it.
Using 5-4-3-2-1, I pushed through the excuses, the anxiety, the
overwhelm, and the fear. And step by step, day by day, week by
week, I slowly took the actions that put my life and career back on
track. My husband started using it to push himself to face the issues
in his business head-on, and it worked for him too. But it would be
another three years before I told anyone else about the 5 Second
Rule. I had been reluctant to share it with anyone because, first, I
didn’t know why it worked. And second, I didn’t feel like I was in a
position to give anybody advice.
But that all changed one fateful day when an old roommate
recommended me as the “perfect person” to give advice on career
change at a small event. I suppose she thought of me because I had
changed my career so many times, even I had lost count. The event
offered to fly me and my husband to San Francisco and put us up in
a hotel. When you’re struggling financially, that sounds like a free
vacation, so I said yes. This was the first time I had ever given a
speech on a stage at an event. The only public-speaking class I had
ever taken was in high school, and as soon as I boarded the plane,
that’s when the panic started to sink in: What on earth have I gotten
myself into?
When I walked on stage and saw 700 people in the audience
staring back at me, my mind went blank, and I could feel my chest
and neck turning red.
I
then proceeded to have a 21-minute-long anxiety attack
onstage. About 19 minutes in, I forgot how to end my talk on career
change, so I blurted out the 5 Second Rule and how I use it,
because I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I must have blacked
out, because I also don’t remember the part where I gave everyone
in the audience my email address. And as I walked off that stage, I
thought that was the worst experience of my life. Thank God it’s
over.
It turns out that small event was one of the first TEDx conferences
ever held. They filmed it, and a year later, posted the video online.
Not only did it go viral—it’s become one of the most watched TEDx
talks of all time. The 5 Second Rule and its 5-4-3-2-1 countdown
spread by word of mouth around the world. As it spread, people
started to write to me at that email address, sharing stories about
how the Rule was changing their lives. I was so moved by people’s
stories that I would sit up late at night, after I had put our three kids
to bed, answering their emails one by one.
When I had been drowning in my problems, I felt like I was the
only one who had trouble doing the things I needed to do. It’s not
true. We all struggle with motivation. It’s a universal problem, and
the 5 Second Rule seems to be a solution that not only works for me
but also works for people all over the world.
The stories were amazing: People had used 5-4-3-2-1 to push
through fear, procrastination, and excuses to change jobs; lose 100
pounds; get sober; launch and sell businesses; improve their health
and marriages. The medical and clinical uses blew me away. Doctors
and psychologists were using it to treat PTSD, OCD, and depression.
Even as I’m writing this Introduction, we have heard from over a
thousand people who have used the 5 Second Rule to stop
themselves from attempting suicide and to ask for help.
As that TEDx talk became more and more popular online, I started
getting invited to speak at other small events. I remember being
asked to talk to a group of Realtors at a bar. It was embarrassing
standing there with a beer in my hand, trying to talk over the music
and people gabbing in the next room. But I survived. I spoke in
church basements, a high school classroom, then a friend’s brown
bag lunch at work, and it just grew from there.
I would break out in hives as I held the microphone, and I wasn’t
getting paid. But the more I talked about the Rule and saw how
powerful it was for everyone who tried it, the more I became
obsessed with understanding why such a simple hack could lead to
such profound results.
So, I put my lawyer hat on and started researching habits, human
behavior, and the science of motivation. I needed to make a case:
Why does counting 5-4-3-2-1 work? I gathered evidence from the
experiences of ordinary people who had been using it. I found
compelling precedent from the accounts of therapists, addiction
specialists, and medical doctors who had begun recommending it to
their patients, and all the evidence pointed to a simple explanation:
Small, Consistent Action Changes Everything
Meanwhile, my friends and extended family had no idea what I
was doing because I was too scared to tell them. Mel? Giving
advice? Give me a break. She nearly destroyed her own life.
At this point in my story, my husband had left the restaurant
business and was struggling with depression. We were still drowning
in debt, so I was working a full-time job trying to keep our family of
five afloat while dedicating nights and weekends to speaking at
small events and basically writing a dissertation on the science of
motivation on the side.
I
knew I wanted to teach the 5 Second Rule full-time and
somehow make this my career, but I didn’t know how. Looking back,
I can see how paralyzed I was with imposter syndrome. What right
did I have to call myself an expert in anything? I suppose I was just
waiting for some kind of permission to put myself out there.
Maybe you’re doing that right now. Waiting for the right time.
Waiting to feel ready or a little less afraid. Waiting for someone to
come along and tell you that today is the day to start. The problem
with waiting is no one is coming. The only permission you need is
your own.
Deciding to get serious about trying to make money as a
motivational speaker was one of the best decisions I have made in
my life. I’ll share more with you about what led to this breakthrough
in the pages of this book.
Once I started getting paid, I put every dollar toward chipping
away at our debt. That first year I gave 17 paid speeches. The next
year, it was 47, and I was able to quit my day job. I couldn’t believe
what was happening. By the third year, it was 99 speeches plus a
24-city tour with JPMorganChase. I had become the most-booked
female speaker in the world. I was being hired by companies I
admired.
How did this happen? By forcing myself out of bed on those
mornings I didn’t feel like it. Learning how to push yourself to take
action when you are afraid or full of self-doubt or overwhelmed with
excuses is a life skill you can learn. Once you master it, you’ll
understand that you can achieve anything through small, consistent
moves forward.
I found myself on the road 150 days a year, standing on stages
teaching the 5 Second Rule and the science of motivation while my
husband stayed home and took care of our three kids. Word about
the Rule and my skill onstage grew and grew. One event had 27,000
people in the audience. CEOs from the world’s top brands,
professional
athletes,
medical doctors, neuroscientists, and
bestselling authors had begun recommending my work to others. I
started a newsletter because I no longer had time to respond to
people’s emails personally. I eventually wrote to the team at TEDx
and asked if they could remove my email from the video online.
When people would ask if I had a Ph.D. or if I was a therapist, I
would say, “No, I learned everything the hard way—by screwing up
my own life and then having to fix it.”
Armed with years of experience, evidence, testimony, and
research, I was finally ready to make my case in the form of a book.
In 2017, I self-published The 5 Second Rule.
The 5 Second Rule went on to become the most successful self
published audiobook in history, and the sixth most read book of the
year on Amazon. That book has now been read by millions of people
and translated into 41 languages.
Over the years of traveling across the country speaking on stages,
I learned three important things: First, most of us are just trying to
do our best to get ahead, pay our bills, raise a family, fall in love,
have more fun, and reach the potential of our lives. We’re just
looking for simple ways to be a little happier and make our lives a
little better. And we’re not only looking for those resources for
ourselves—we are looking for the people in our lives who need them
too.
Second, I’ve been told over and over again that I have this
amazing ability to distill complex ideas and scientific research into
simple, actionable advice that anyone can use to improve their life.
And third, nothing brings me more joy than sharing what I am
learning with people like you.
So I have made it my mission to find and share many simple tools
to help anyone create a better life. And the “simple” part is key,
because if you remember it, you’ll use it. For example, did you know
that high-fiving yourself in the mirror is one of the fastest ways to
rewire your mindset for self-confidence? Me either, and once I
learned about it, I dug into the research and it became the topic of
my New York Times bestselling book The High 5 Habit.
The more results people achieved using the 5 Second Rule and
the High 5 Habit, the more organizations, media companies, and
corporate brands asked me to create programming for their teams
and audiences.
So in 2019 I launched 143 Studios, a Boston-based media
production company that produces award-winning content, events,
audio series, online courses, journals, books, and professional
development education for partners like Starbucks, Audible, Ulta
Beauty, JPMorganChase, LinkedIn, and Headspace.
In 2022, we launched and started producing The Mel Robbins
Podcast, which airs in 194 countries and is one of the top-ranked
podcasts in the entire world. We’ve created free online courses that
more than a million students have completed. And that little
newsletter I created way back when is now read twice a week by a
million and a half people. You can learn more about my media
production company, the podcast, my newsletter, and our courses at
www.melrobbins.com.
For everything I have accomplished, I had no prior experience or
the “proper” credentials to pursue. I just made myself do it.
I was 41 when I hit rock bottom and created the 5 Second Rule to
help me get out of bed. I was 44 when I had that anxiety attack on
the TEDx stage. I was 46 when I got my first speaking paycheck. I
was 49 when I self-published my first book, The 5 Second Rule. I
was 50 when I started my media production company. And I was 54
when I launched The Mel Robbins podcast, one of the most popular
and fastest-growing podcasts in the world.
My life didn’t change because of one thing that I did; it changed
because of the thousands of mornings where I woke up and didn’t
feel like getting out of bed, but I 5-4-3-2-1 made myself do it.
Changing My Life Wasn’t Glamorous; It Was
Grueling.
I
didn’t achieve success or financial freedom because of some
secret. I did it because I was willing to do what most people won’t: I
woke up every day, and regardless of how I felt, I kept slowly
chipping away at my goals for over a decade, a painstakingly slow
process.
Some days, all I focused on was just trying to be a little better
than I was the day before. Often that’s all you need to do. I am not
special, or different, or gifted, or lucky; I just found the tools that
worked for me and I used them. Today, my entire career and life’s
purpose is sharing those tools with you.
I don’t say any of this to brag. I say this to tell you that you have
no idea what you’re capable of, and neither did I. Through action, I
have achieved some extraordinary things, and so can you.
You’ll never feel ready to change your life. One day, you just get
tired of your own excuses and force yourself to do it. You’re never
going to feel like going to the gym. One day you just make yourself
go. You’re never going to feel like having that hard conversation.
One day you just get sick of avoiding it, and you force yourself to
have it. You’ll never feel like looking for a better job. One day you
just push yourself to start looking.
The 5 Second Rule will help you push through your own internal
obstacles and take action when you don’t feel motivated to do so.
And if you use it for long enough, you’ll be shocked by what you can
achieve.
The 5 Second Rule works because it helps you win the internal
battle you have with yourself. But here’s what it can’t do: It can’t
remove the external battles you have to fight every day. No matter
how many times you count 5-4-3-2-1, it won’t stop the traffic jams,
or inconsiderate strangers, or a micromanaging boss, or your
family’s endless judgment, guilt trips, passive comments, and
demands. And one thing I know for sure, the more you say 5-4-3-2
1 and push yourself to change, the more you’ll wish other people
would change too.
That brings us to this book.
For the past decade, I’ve been so focused on discovering,
creating, teaching, and sharing simple ways you and I can improve
ourselves. But in all this time, I have never tackled the number one
factor (based on research) that determines whether you and I live a
healthy and happy life: relationships. That’s where the Let Them
Theory comes into play.
Two years ago, I stumbled upon these two words: Let Them, and
it was like flipping a switch in my life. The 5 Second Rule changed
my relationship with myself. The Let Them Theory changed my
relationship with other people.
Let me explain.
The 5 Second Rule is about SELF-improvement. It will help you
get YOURSELF out of bed on tough days, get to the gym, sit down
and start writing, open your mountain of bills, take the risk, sign up
for the class, finally look at your bank statement, do the last two
weeks of laundry, or take the AI coding class you know you need to
take.
Every time you count 5-4-3-2-1, you will push YOURSELF through
hesitation, procrastination, overthinking, and doubt. You’ll teach
YOURSELF how to take action no matter how you feel. That’s why it
works.
But over the years I have wondered, Why do I need to constantly
force myself to move forward? Why am I so afraid of failing? Why
am I so nervous about taking a risk? Why do I have a hard time
asking for what I need? What exactly is in my way?
Have you ever truly stopped and considered these questions for
yourself: Why do you hesitate? What is it that is causing you to
procrastinate? Or feel so tired? Or overthink every decision? What’s
underneath all that doubt? What is stopping you from doing what
you need to do or living your life the way you want to live it? What
are you afraid of?
I was shocked when I discovered the answer for myself: It was
other people. Or rather, how I was letting other people impact me. I
was spending too much time and energy managing or worrying
about other people. What they do, what they say, what they think,
how they feel, and what they expect from me. The reality is, no
matter how hard you try or what you do, you cannot control other
people. And yet, you live your life as if you can.
You live as though, if you say the right things, people will like you.
If you keep taking on more work, your boss will respect you. If you
act in the right way, and cater to what your mom wants, and also
keep your friends happy, somehow you’ll find peace. You won’t.
In this book, you’ll learn how two words—Let Them—can set you
free. Free from the opinions, drama, and judgment of others. Free
from the exhausting cycle of trying to manage everything and
everyone around you.
There is a better way to live.
The Let Them Theory is a proven method that teaches you how to
protect your time and energy, and focus on what matters to you.
You’ve spent too long chasing approval, managing other people’s
happiness, and letting their opinions hold you back. Learn how to
stop giving your power away and start creating a life where you
come first—your dreams, your goals, your happiness. But the best
part? The Let Them Theory doesn’t just change your life for the
better—it transforms the lives of everyone around you too.
How This Book Will Benefit You
This book covers the Let Them Theory, what it is, why it works,
and how to use it in eight key areas of your life where you’ve been
trying to control things that you simply cannot control. It is packed
with research, evidence, and stories of how you can apply the Let
Them Theory—and you’ll learn that this approach is supported by
ancient philosophies, therapeutic modalities, and the core teachings
of the world’s major religions, Stoicism, and spiritual practices.
While much of what you’re about to learn is supported by scientific
research, this is not a textbook or an academic paper. This book is
meant to be a guide to applying the Let Them Theory and these
principles in the most important areas of your life. That’s why it is
written in a way that’s easy to understand, fun to read, and filled
with relatable stories and specific takeaways. Plus, you’ll find
summaries at the end of each section so the key takeaways are at
your fingertips, and you can immediately put to use what you’re
learning.
I cannot wait for you to read this book and apply everything you
learn. You’ll quickly see how you’ve tied your happiness to other
people’s behavior, opinions, and feelings. The result? You’ve
unknowingly sabotaged your ability to be happier, healthier, and get
what you want.
That ends with this book.
If you can promise yourself that you’ll stick with me through this
book, read, absorb, and immediately start implementing what you
learn, I guarantee you: Your life will get a little easier and your
relationships will get so much better