Mel Robbins Reveals How the 5 Second Rule Changed Her Life: ‘It Felt Like a Victory’

Mel Robbins is reflecting on one of the ways she took control over her life.

The podcast host, 57, sat down for an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press last month, sharing the origin story behind her famous 5 Second Rule and explaining how it helped pull her out of a dark place.

“I was watching TV and I saw this rocketship launch across the TV screen, and it gave me this, at the time, stupid idea,” she recalled. “Ok, I know what I’m gonna do. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to launch myself out of bed like a rocket.

“And my thinking was I’ll move fast enough so I won’t be in the bed when the anxiety, and the depression, and the overwhelm pins me there,” she continued.

The New York Times bestselling author — whose kids were previously waking her up after missing the school bus — said that the next morning, she finally opted not to hit the snooze button.

“For whatever reason, I just started counting backwards 5,4,3,2,1, and I stood up, and it worked,” she recounted. “It felt like a victory, and it was.”

“It was the first time in six months that the procrastination, the anxiety, the fear, the shame didn’t win,” the public speaker admitted. “I did. The better part of me, the knowing part of me, did.”

“This is the important thing: fear kills action, but action kills fear,” Robbins added.