How to stop screwing yourself over | Mel Robbins | TEDxSF (1)

Transcriber: Judith Matz Reviewer: Tatjana Jevdjic

Bigger welcome! Hello, San Francisco!

TEDx – oh my God, blinding light!

Hi, everybody! How are you?

(Audience cheering) Fine?! Oh my gosh! Okay, so...

My name is Mel Robbins, and for the last seventeen years,

I have done nothing but help people get everything that they want.

Within reason! My husband's here.

So, I've done it in the courtroom, in the boardroom, in the bedroom,

in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in,

if I'm there, I will help you get whatever you want by any means necessary.

For the last three years – I host a syndicated radio show.

Five days a week, I go live in forty cities

and I talk to men and women across America who feel stuck.

Do you know that a third of Americans feel dissatisfied with their lives right now?

That is a hundred million people!

That's insane!

And I've come face to face with it in this new show that I'm doing,

which is also insane, it's called "In-laws".

I move in with families across America – (Laughter)

You guessed it!

– who are at war with their in-laws.

We move them into the same house, I verbally assassinate everybody,

we open up Pandora's box,

and I get people to stop arguing about the donuts

and who is hosting Thanksgiving dinner,

and talk about the real stuff.

And that's what I want to talk to you about.

I'm here for you.

I'm going to tell you everything I know in less than eighteen minutes

about how to get what you want.

So I want you to take a millisecond right now

and think about what you want.

You!

And I want you to be selfish.

Screw Simon and the "We" thing. This is about me, right now!

(Laughter) (Applause) Sorry, Simon.

What do you want? And here's the deal.

I don't want it to sound good to other people.

Being healthy will not get your ass on a treadmill.

Losing your manboobs, so you can hook up with somebody,

now that's motivation. (Laughter)

So, I want to know: What do you want?

Do you want to lose weight? Do you want to triple your income?

Do you want to start a nonprofit? Do you want to find love?

What is it? Get it, right here.

You know what it is, don't analyze it to death, just pick something.

That's part of the problem. You won't pick.

So, we're going to be talking about how you get what you want.

And frankly, getting what you want is simple.

But notice I didn't say it was easy.

It's very simple.

In fact, if you think about it,

we live in the most amazing moment in time.

So that thing that you have up here, whatever it may be,

you want to use healthy eating to cure your diabetes,

you want to figure out how to take care of the elders

and start a new hospice center,

you want to move to Africa and build a school... Guess what?

You can walk into a book store – right now! –

and buy at least ten books written by credentialed experts

on how the hell you do it.

You could Google it.

And you could probably find at least, I don't know - a thousand blogs

documenting the step, by step, by step transformation

that somebody else is already doing.

You can find anybody online and cyber-stalk them!

(Laughter)

You can just walk in their footsteps – just use the science of drafting.

Follow what everyone else has done, because somebody is already doing it!

So why don't you have what you want,

when you have all the information that you need,

you have the contacts that you need,

there are probably free tools online that allow you to start a business,

or join a group, or do whatever the heck you want!?

It all comes down to one word:

F*©#.

Shut the front door, you know what I'm talking about?

The f-bomb. It's everywhere!

You hear it all the time!

I honestly don't understand what the appeal is of the word.

I mean, you don't sound smart when you say it.

And it's really not expressing how you really feel.

It's sort of a cheap shot to take.

And of course you know I'm talking about the word "fine".

"How you doing?" "Oh, I'm fine."

Oh, really? You are?

Dragging around those extra forty pounds, you're fine?

Feeling like roommates with your spouse, and you're fine?

You haven't had sex in four months, you're fine?

Really?!

I don't think so!

But see, here's the deal with saying that you're fine: It's actually genius.

Because if you're fine, you don't have to do anything about it.

But when you think about this word "fine", it just makes me so angry.

Here we are at a conference about being alive

and you're going to describe the experience of being alive as "fine"?!

What a flimsy and feeble word!

If you're crappy, say you're crappy!

If you're amazing say you're amazing!

Tell the truth!

And this not only goes for the social construct:

"Oh, I don't want to burden you with the fact that I hate my life",

or: "Hey, I'm amazing! But that would make you feel terrible."

The bigger issue –

The bigger issue with "fine" is that you say it to yourself.

That thing that you want, I guarantee you,

you've convinced yourself that you're fine not having it.

That's why you're not pushing yourself.

It's the areas in your life where you've given up.

Where you've said,

"Oh, I'm fine. My mom's never going to change,

so I just can't have that conversation."

"I'm fine. We've got to wait until the kids graduate, before we get divorced,

so we'll just sleep in separate bedrooms."

"I'm fine. I lost my job, I can barely pay my bills,

but whatever – It's hard to get a job."

One of the reasons why this word also just annoys me so much is,

scientists have calculated –

Oh yeah, I'm coming down! (Laughter)

Scientists have calculated

the odds

of you

being born.

That's right. They've crunched the numbers. I see you up there.

They've crunched the numbers on you –

Yeah, you guys standing up, you want to sit down for this.

They've crunched the numbers on you being born.

And they took into account all of the wars,

and the natural disasters, and the dinosaurs,

and everything else.

And do you realize that the odds, the odds of you,

yeah, right here, put your computer away,

stand up for me, Doug! (Laughter)

So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say "hi" to everybody –

the odds of Doug being born

at the moment in time he was born,

to the parents you were born to, with the DNA structure that you have,

one in four hundred trillion!

Isn't that amazing? Doug: I'm so lucky!

Mel: Yes! You're not fine, you're fantastic!

You have life-changing ideas for a reason, and it's not to torture yourself.

Thank you. Thank you, Doug. (Applause)

Christine was right when she said all of you could be on stage.

Because all of you – we're all in this category.

One in four hundred trillion.

All day long you have ideas that could change your life,

that could change the world, that could change the way that you feel,

and what do you do with them? Nothing!

(Grunts) Hopefully I won't moon you. (Laughter)

You didn't pay for that. (Laughter)

And I want you to just think for a minute, because we all have –

I love to use the analogy "the inner snooze button" –

you have these amazing ideas that bubble up.

You've been watching people all day

and I guarantee you, like ping pong balls – bam-bam-bam

and everytime you have an idea, what do you do? – Hit the snooze!

What's the first decision you made this morning?

I bet it was to go back to bed.

"Yeah, first decision today, I'm one in four hundred trillion,

I'm going to go back to sleep."

And I get it! Your bed is comfortable! It's cosy, it's warm!

If you're lucky, you've got somebody that you love next to you,

or in my case, I've got my husband and my two kids and possibly the dog.

And the reason why I'm bringing up this first decision that you made today,

and the inner snooze alarm, is because

in any area of your life that you want to change,

any – there's one fact that you need to know.

This one:

You are never going to feel like it.

Ever.

No one's coming, motivation isn't happening,

you're never going to feel like it.

Scientists call it activation energy.

That's what they call the force required

to get you to change from what you're doing

on autopilot to do something new.

So try this test tomorrow.

You think you're so fancy, I know, you're attending TED.

(Laughter) Try this.

Tomorrow morning, set your alarm for thirty minutes earlier.

And then when it goes off, take those sheets,

throw them off, and stand up and start your day.

No snooze, no delay,

no, "I'll just wait here for five seconds because Mel's not standing here" –

Do it.

And the reason why I want you to do it is because you will come face to face

with the physical, and I mean physical force

that's required to change your behavior.

Do you think that somebody who needs to lose weight

ever feels like going on a diet?

Of course not!

You think they ever feel like eating boiled chicken and peas

instead of a croissant?

I don't think so!

The activation energy

required to get your ass away from your computer and out the front door,

to go on the walk, you said that you were going to go on,

is the exact same amount of force that it takes you

to push yourself out of a warm bed and into a cold room.

What's interesting about being an adult

is that when you become eighteen,

nobody tells you that it's now going to be your job to parent yourself.

And by "parent yourself",

I mean it's your job to make yourself do the crap you don't want to do,

so you can be everything that you're supposed to be.

And you're so damn busy waiting to feel like it.

And you're never going to!

My son never feels like getting off his DS. That's my job!

Get off the damn DS!

Kendall, clean up the Barbies!

If you're going to have a nude party in my bathroom, at least clean it up!

(Laughter)

God, chew with your mouth closed! We're not a barn, for crying out loud!

Alright, dinner is coming, get out of the pantry.

As parents, and you were a kid,

your parents make you do the things you don't feel like doing.

Because you won't. Ever.

Not now, not then, not ever!

And even when you get good at something,

you'll figure out something else you don't want to do.

And then you'll plateau out, get bored, "I hate this job. Blah blah boring."

But will you look for a new one? No! You'll just bitch about that one.

It's very, very simple to get what you want.

But it's not easy.

You have to force yourself.

And I mean force.

And the reason why I use the word "force" –

when Roz was up here and talking about the emotion tracking,

and she had the picture of two sides of the brain –

I look at the brain the exact same way.

Only I describe one side of your brain as autopilot

and the other side as emergency brake.

That's the only two speeds you get: autopilot, emergency brake.

And guess which one your brain likes better: autopilot.

You've had the experience where you've driven to work and you get there