Mel would say she has found how to win at life through this life hack. It is simple. It can be done anywhere. It can change your life for the better. The hack is:
Start by counting backwards to yourself: 5- 4- 3- 2- 1. The counting will help you focus on the goal or commitment and distract you from the worries, thoughts, and fears in your mind. As soon as you reach “1,” move. That’s it.
...Counting backwards does a few important things simultaneously: It distracts you from your worries, it focuses your attention on what you need to do, it prompts you to act, and it interrupts the habits of hesitating, overthinking, and holding yourself back.
...The Rule works because it is so simple.
Now just because it is simple, doesn't mean it is easy. The problem with people is that we choose easy over the hard all the time. We seek short-term gains and not long-term gains, Mel puts this down to us acting over feelings than logic.
Study after study shows that we opt for what feels good now or feels easier rather than doing the things that we know in our hearts will make us better in the long run.
...You feel before you think. You feel before you act.
...If you don’t feel like attacking the to-do list on your desk, you won’t, but 5- 4- 3- 2- 1-GO, and you can force yourself to start working on it.
This countdown is the secret source of getting things done, especially things you don't want to do. Essentially you distract your brain from coming up with reasons for not doing the thing and just do the thing. It is sort of like Jacko Willink's advice for those who don't want to do hard things on "those days", which is basically to do the hard things anyway, except this strategy involves counting.
This 5 second rule can change your life, it can give you courage, it can stop your procrastination and even cure your anxiety. In the area of procrastination I was in most agreement, she said:
Procrastination is not a form of laziness at all. It’s a coping mechanism for stress.
...research proves that when you can picture the “Future You,” it gives you the objectivity to push yourself in the present moment.
...unless you beat the feelings that trigger your bad habits, and you push yourself to just get started, you’ll never change.
I find that I put off email and phone conversations that I don't want to deal with as they will involve either a hard conversation or more tedious work for me to do. Everyone knows that putting off things isn't great, but still, I find myself there some days. I find setting little rewards afterwards as a motivator, which is a reactionary way, whereas this method might be more proactive in happening before the task.
I was interested in how this method could help with anxiety. Essentially the goal is to reframe emotions to be more positive, when your body is feeling something, you can tell it what it is feeling.
When your mind has an explanation for why your body just freaked out, it won’t escalate the anxiety. Your mind will allow your body to calm down because it knows the “danger” has passed.
...I started telling myself that I was getting excited; instead of calling it nervousness.
I liked this idea, but I don't know if this will really work for some extreme cases of anxiety. I am not sure how I reframe my thinking when I have cut myself and I see my own blood, no matter how small a nick I get. It's not blood, it's tomato source? I already tell myself, "It's just a small cut you're not going to bleed to death" and still I sometimes can't cope.
The idea speaking to yourself and reframing things in your own mind reminded me of something Martyn Lloyd-Jones said about how we should stop listening to ourselves and start talking to ourselves (he meant speaking scripture and God's promises back to ourselves). This method is sort of like that, in that it seeks to break in, or interrupt that voice in your head, so you can just get on and do things.
On courage, we need to build up a habit of doing things, of taking control of our life, to plan where we want to go, and taking those opportunities when we think of them. We think of many reasons not to apply for that job, or talk to that attractive person, or tell someone what we honestly think, or say "yes" to something we should say "no" to. Before we overthink anything, we should just cut our thoughts and do it.
it seems implausible that by simply waking up on time every morning, you can create a chain reaction that impacts your confidence. However, this is exactly how you do it. Stop focusing on the big things
daily courageous actions of getting out of bed, making tough decisions, being able to say no, giving back every chance you get, and focusing on priorities create a ripple effect that change your life. These are little steps but the payoff is everything that you seek: confidence, control, and a sense of pride that feels damn good.
This book could have probably been 50% shorter if it took out all the anecdotes of randoms from Facebook, Twitter and emails that Mel has received telling her that this system worked. This method of personal stories reminded me of a book by a cult (Sūkyō Mahikari) that I once read. Its persuasion for its effectiveness was all from loads of personal stories. The idea is that lots of people who have the same story, gives a cumulative effect on how good this religion/system is. Of course, this doesn't include all those who did try the system and found it wanting. It only comes for advocates of it.
Unlike that cult book, this also references some studies, and I didn't feel like the buy-in was as high as joining a cult, so I wasn't so cynical about it all, I just thought it made the book unnecessary longer. I didn't really care much about Hank's experience in starting a new job or asking a girl out, or how he went to the gym more... but I do know that lots of others like personal stories, they can be more effective to see examples of the system working.
So does this 5 Second Rule work? To be honest I didn't use this much at all. I didn't start counting down constantly all day. I probably use this system maybe twice, before I had to make some phone calls - I did the calls, I didn't put them off. Other times I didn't do the counting, but I did remind myself of something from this book like "it's better to do the thing now".
I think for getting your to-do list done and avoiding procrastination, this could be a good system, but I don't think it will work in all of life. The problem is that life isn't that simple. People are wired differently. It is good to get control over your life and plan things, but disasters happen, things you can not see, things you can not plan for. Like that Wear Sunscreen song that says:
Don't worry about the future, or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4 PM on some idle Tuesday
We can't control everything, we are human so we can't. The other issue I have with the book is there is little bit of: if you just put your mind to it, if you just believe in your heart, the universe will respond to your dreams. Mel says:
I believe you can make anything happen as long as you listen to your heart, do the work, and give up your timeline.
While this book has some good advice in helping to get things done, the idea that you can do anything if you set your mind to it, can bring some disappointment if you don't have a good grasp of reality. Not everyone can compete in the Olympics, not everyone gets HD's even if they want them really hard and study. We have limits, and people have chronic issues, and relationships can be messy.
To live in a world where no one is coming to help us can mean we need to face our responsibilities and do them, but it also may lead to despair, because we are all in need of help (but not all realise it), and thank God that He has come to do so, in a whole bunch of areas that we are responsible for and can no longer control.
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