The key ideas

The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage

Mel Robbins, 2017

Forty-one, unemployed, with bankruptcy threatening the family, and unable to get out of bed in the morning. One evening, Mel Robbins sees a rocket launch on television and the next morning counts down to one for the first time. That countdown became a rule taken up by a great many people, and a book about why we hesitate and how to take a first step before doubt stops us.

Who it is for

For anyone who hesitates for a long time before an important step, postpones things until the “right mood,” or feels very nervous before presentations and conversations.

As soon as you feel an impulse to act toward a goal, count 5-4-3-2-1 and move physically, or your brain will stop you.

What the book is about

It is 2009. Mel Robbins is forty-one. The alarm rings; she presses snooze, again and again, until her children miss the school bus. She has no job, her husband’s restaurant business is sinking, and the family faces bankruptcy.

She found her way out in a television advertisement ending with a rocket launch. This book is about how five seconds and counting backward can get someone out of bed, and why so many people later took up the technique.

One qualification from the start. The 5 Second Rule is the author’s method, developed from her experience and readers’ stories. Robbins explains it through psychologists’ work, but the rule itself remains her practical technique, not a scientific discovery.

Idea 1. A rocket instead of an alarm

That evening’s television advertisement showed a rocket with a countdown: five, four, three, two, one, launch. Robbins wondered whether she could “launch” herself out of bed the same way tomorrow. Move so quickly she would have no time to talk herself out of it.

The alarm rings in the morning. Her hand reaches toward the button out of habit. Instead, she counts backward from five to one and gets up. She says it felt like a small victory.

She was surprised it worked. So she began trying the same countdown in other situations where she had previously hesitated.

A Livria example: you lie under the covers knowing it is time for a run. Every second of deliberation adds another reason to stay: it is cold, it is late, tomorrow would be better.

A decision sometimes loses during negotiations with yourself. Counting down may simply leave less time for those negotiations.

Read in Livria

About the author

Mel Robbins is an American writer, former lawyer, television presenter, and speaker, and host of the popular Mel Robbins Podcast. A 2011 TEDx talk brought her wide recognition. She later wrote The Let Them Theory.

All books by this author: Mel Robbins

Terms from the book

  • Habit loop
  • Starting ritual
  • 5 Second Rule: Mel Robbins’s technique: when you feel an impulse to act, count 5-4-3-2-1 and begin moving when the countdown reaches one. The author’s method, not a scientifically tested technique.
  • Activation energy: A chemical term for the push needed to start a reaction. Robbins uses it as an image for the effort required to begin, not a psychological metric.
  • Locus of control: Psychologist Julian Rotter’s concept for how much someone believes events in their life depend on their own actions.
  • Anchor thought: The author’s term, not a scientific concept: a pleasant image of the future chosen in advance to focus on when anxious.

All terms

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