Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | How to Take Control of Your Life with One Simple Habit | Mel Robbins #309

Starting point is 00:00:00 Today's Bite Size episode is brought to you by AG1, a science-driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It includes vitamin C and zinc, which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. It's really tasty and has been in my own life for over five years. Until the end of January, AG1 are giving a limited time offer. Usually they offer my listeners a one-year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with their first order. But until the end of January, they are doubling the five free travel

Starting point is 00:00:51 packs to 10. And these packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office, or car. If you want to take advantage of this limited time offer, all you have to do is go to drinkag1.com forward slash live more. Welcome to Feel Better Live More Bite Size, your weekly dose of positivity and optimism to get you ready for the weekend. Today's clip is from episode 220 of the podcast with the wonderful Mel Robbins. Mel is one of the most sought-after motivational speakers in the world. And in this clip, she explains how to take control of your life with one simple habit. I'm on a mission to get every human being in the world to add one simple thing to their morning routine.

Starting point is 00:01:50 I know that this takes five days to work. Five days before you have an enormous breakthrough in how you see and relate to yourself. Five days before the chemical, physiological, neurological, physical, and psychological change starts to go, holy cow, this is crazy this works like this. And it is called the high five habit. And here's what it is. Every morning after you brush your teeth, I want you to take a moment, put your toothbrush down and look at the human being in the mirror. That's not your reflection. That is a human being who needs you. A human being who's beaten down, who feels forgotten, who is so sick and tired of your

Starting point is 00:02:36 criticism. And I want you to just stand there and look at them and take a moment because the rest of your day is going to be about everybody else. And then I don't want you to say a thing. From my research, 50% of men and women do not or cannot look at themselves in the mirror because they are either disgusted by the person they see or they are disappointed by them. And for those of us that can look in the mirror, we're still rejecting ourselves because we focus on what we don't like, or we start to mindlessly think about all the things that we haven't done right, or that we didn't do yet. You know, on this particular morning, April 2020, I'm overwhelmed

Starting point is 00:03:22 by my life. I drag myself into the bathroom. I immediately see my reflection and I'm like, oh God, you look like hell. I start ticking off all the things, the saggy neck, one boob lower than the other, like, you know, how exhausted I look, the gray hair coming in, how old I'm starting to seem. And then the mind, once it goes negative, keeps going in that direction. So my mind's like going down the drain. I'm like, why'd And then the mind, once it goes negative, keeps going in that direction. So my mind's like going down the drain. I'm like, why'd I get up so late? I got a Zoom call in eight minutes. God, he didn't even text him back yet. And the dog still needs to be... And I'm like, the beat down, boom, boom, boom. Because I hadn't had the biggest breakthrough of my entire life yet.

Starting point is 00:04:03 And I had it that morning standing there. And I don't know what came over me. For whatever reason, I literally just raised my hand and I high-fived the woman that I saw in the mirror because she looked like she needed a high-five. She looked like she needed somebody to say, it's going to be okay. You can do this. Get out there. And from that very first one, it wasn't like lightning came crashing through the ceiling and stuck me in the head. That's not what happened. But there's definitely a switch inside each and every one of us. So think about the walls here. Even when the lights are off, there's electricity in these walls. Even during your worst moments, there is vitality ripping through your veins.

Starting point is 00:04:53 There is an electrical life force within you. And life can turn that switch off, but it's still there. There was something about this high five action that felt like a flip, like the switch flipped on and all of a sudden the energy could connect back and something inside me turned on. Now, that first morning I didn't go, yeah, like that's not what happened. I just felt this sort of shift from to, all right, you got a roof over your head, your family's healthy, you've saved money, it's not that bad. Get out there. I didn't even think those things. It was more like the electricity, the energy in me, this vitality kind of kicked in. But it was the second morning

Starting point is 00:05:38 where the profound nature of what I was stepping into really kicked in. So I wake up, anxiety, ankles right up the legs, feel like the rush of, oh God, something's wrong. I start walking to the bathroom and it's as I'm walking to the bathroom, I'm not even in there yet, that I feel something I have never felt in my entire adult life. And it's this. You know, when you're about to go to a cafe and you're going to meet somebody you're really excited to meet, right? Or somebody you really love, you know, you're going to see them. What do you feel, right? As you're about to walk in the cafe? You're excited. You're upbeat. You know, you're You're excited, you're upbeat, you're anticipating something good happening. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:06:27 I actually realized I was feeling that way about seeing myself. Now I'm 53 this year. I don't think until that morning in April 2020, I had ever had an experience as an adult of being excited to see the human being Mel Robbins. I've been excited to see an outfit or a haircut or the way a new eyeshadow might look, but the human being? The way our kids, when they're really, really little, just love the sight of themselves. This unconditional support and celebration that's hardwired in your DNA when you're born. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:07:12 And so as I rounded the corner that second morning, that's when the profound nature of this started to really hit me. And I stood there and I stared at the woman in the mirror and I realized, I don't think I've ever asked myself the question, what does she need for me today? I've never joined in partnership with myself. people like me, trying to make sure the bills are paid, trying to make sure everybody else is okay, trying to do all this stuff that is the stuff of our lives that I have forgotten about the most important person, and that is myself. We all know that we're supposed to love ourselves. We all know that we're supposed to be kind to ourselves. You can read a quote on Instagram, you should talk to yourself like your best friend. The problem is how, right? How do you do that? I don't know. I've been beating the shit out of myself for years. How do I stop doing it? I don't know. And here's the thing,

Starting point is 00:08:16 like logically we know it's stupid because if beating yourself up, being hard on yourself, rejecting yourself, trashing yourself. If it actually worked, we'd all be millionaires. We'd have rockstar bodies. We'd have the best marriages on the planet. We'd never have to work a day in our life. We'd be on a beach. It would work. Yeah. But instead we have these patterns of thinking and small patterns of behavior, like not looking in the mirror at yourself is a form of rejecting yourself. Picking yourself apart is a habit of rejecting yourself. And so when you start your day like that, which you do, and then you go out into the world having rejected your very being, this is the reason why you are so thirsty for everybody else's validation. This is the reason why you are

Starting point is 00:09:07 seeking your worth in the money that you make, in the car that you drive, in the downloads that you get, in the likes that you have, in the neighborhood that you live in. You think your worth is outside of you. And I'm here to tell you the secret is grab that worth and bring it back home. Start practicing a physical habit, an action that demonstrates to your brain that you respect yourself, that you believe that you're worthy, that you deserve forgiveness, that you deserve encouragement, that you believe in you. And as you start to practice the physical action, the universal symbol for I got you, I love you, I celebrate you, I see you, I believe in you. When you practice this physical action, the neuro association that is

Starting point is 00:10:01 already in your brain with the high five to yourself in the mirror takes over. It's insane how this works. The science is mind-blowing. The high five habit goes all the way down to the core of who you are and how you treat yourself. And when you become a human being who has compassion for yourself, who likes you, it won't matter what happens out there. Because everything in here is healed and taken care of. And so like, you know, somebody can say to me, I don't love you anymore. I don't like you. It'll sting, but it doesn't change the fact that I still like myself because I practice and demonstrate it. That's the difference. Yeah. And that's, I think, the hidden magic in the high five habits. And I think it's what you

Starting point is 00:10:50 say, it's the action. You don't have to say anything if you're not in the mood to say anything. I don't want you to say anything, actually. And the reason why is the neuro association. What do you mean by that? Well, here's what I mean by that. So when you high five someone else, what is the action of a high five communicate? It's just a universal symbol of you, of love, of celebration. And the neuro association, whether you live in a culture where you've been high-fived or not, the neuro association is still there because you have seen them in sport. You've seen them in marathons.

Starting point is 00:11:39 You've seen teachers give them to kids. So your brain has a lifetime of programming in your subconscious that is triggered by this action. It is neurologically impossible to high five yourself and think you're a loser. You failed. I don't like your face. Your brain will not allow you to do it because the neuro association is so entrenched. It has only ever meant, I celebrate you. I see you. I got you. Keep going. You got this. I'm behind you. As you say that, Mel, it makes me think of gratitude because when we are feeling grateful, we can't feel down. We can't feel anxious. We can't feel annoyed with ourselves. And in some ways, this is kind of gratitude for ourselves.

Starting point is 00:12:34 Correct. Because the thing about gratitude, which obviously has tremendous demonstrated, proven benefits in your life, most of us are grateful for things outside of us. Yeah. What I'm teaching the world to do is to unlock neuroassociation in your mind and in your nervous system and aim it back at yourself. So Dr. Amen told me, who's one of the leading experts in the brain, that one of the reasons why you feel better when you do it, no matter how terrible of a morning it is, is because your brain has always given you dopamine when somebody else high fives you. So these sorts of gestures are rewarded in

Starting point is 00:13:17 the brain. So when you simply high five yourself, your brain doesn't distinguish between me high fiving me and me high fiving you. It just sees, oh, I know what that is. Drip, dopamine. Oh, I believe in that person. And so you send yourself into the game of life with that sort of optimism, with that resilience, with that compassion. And look, some days you're going to laugh. Some days you might cry. People report some days you're going to just feel a little bit better. And some days you're going to high five yourself and laugh out loud from the dopamine and walk into your boss's office and ask for that raise or quit. Because you're going to remember that no matter what, you're going to be okay. You're going to remember that no matter what,

Starting point is 00:13:59 you got your own back. You're going to remember that it doesn't matter if nobody says great job at that presentation that you worked on because you can walk into the bathroom as people have written to us, having practices, hey, I did a presentation at work. Nobody said a damn word. The old me would have walked into my cube and cried and thought I was getting fired. I knew I did a good job. I walked into the bathroom and high five myself. Your kids can stick this in their back pocket. I did a good job. I walked into the bathroom and high-fived myself." Your kids can stick this in their back pocket. It's a way to reset yourself when you start going down that negative road. Why is this important? It's important because the high-five is not going to remove poverty. It's not going to remove discrimination. It's not going to remove diabetes. It's not

Starting point is 00:14:41 going to remove the fact that somebody just said they want to divorce you. It's not going to remove the fact that somebody just said they want to divorce you. It's not going to remove all of the trauma. It doesn't change those things. It changes you. And it changes your relationship with yourself and your ability to believe that through your actions and your attitude, you can move the needle on those things. Hope you enjoyed that bite-sized clip. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I'll be back next week with my long-form conversation on Wednesday and the latest episode of Bite Science next Friday.

Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee - BITESIZE | How to Take Control of Your Life with One Simple Habit | Mel Robbins #309

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