Blog Archive

26 October 2019

How a 5 second decision can change your life



The Significance of Five Seconds:

It's estimated that Americans make about 35,000 decisions a day. And most of the time, those decisions are made unconsciously.

"We like to think we make decisions based on logic, based on what's best for our businesses," Robbins said. 
"The fact is that 95 percent of the decisions we make are based on the way we feel in the moment."

What's worse, negative emotions like fear, anger, and uncertainty seem to have a strong influence over our decisions.

Research shows there's a roughly five-second window of time between a thought, an idea, or intuition, and the brain's move to support it — or kill it.
"It turns out that inside that five-second window, your entire life and business, everything changes if you wake up and take control of that moment right before you're about to make a decision,"

The Science Behind the Hack
So how does a deceptively simple hack create such drastic change?

Here's how: Rather than defaulting to familiar defense mechanisms, counting backward from five (5-4-3-2-1) forces your brain to stop, focus, and occupy itself with something else. Your brain's no longer being hijacked by fear, doubt, anger, or any other powerful emotion that can lead to bad, knee-jerk decisions.
It also stimulates the the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that's active when you're changing behavior, when you're learning something new, or when you're directing your thoughts.

"So instead of letting your brain sabotage you, you're using a meta-cognition technique to switch the gears in our mind and make changing easy," Robbins said.

Not Just for Work

The five-second rule is useful whenever you're faced with decisions that don't serve you.
Should I hit the snooze button? 
Should I stay home and watch TV? 
Should I eat that extra donut?
 Should I skip that work meeting?
"In life, there is going to be stuff that happens to you. And in business, for sure," Robbins said.

"The game and the skill and the magic in life is making sure that your emotion and your feelings aren't dictating what you do."
"In life, there is going to be stuff that happens to you. And in business, for sure," Robbins said.

"The game and the skill and the magic in life is making sure that your emotion and your feelings aren't dictating what you do."

   ======================

Advertisement from -  Inc.’s daily newsletter



More from Inc.

Steve Jobs Used the 30 Percent Rule to Bring Apple Back From the Dead
 (It'll Work for You, Too) = 770 Saves

What Goal-Setting Does to Your Brain and Why It's Spectacularly Effective

= 365 Saves

Want to Raise Mentally Strong, Successful Children? Child Psychiatry Experts Say Teach Them These 4 Traits = 399 Saves


***  Advertisement
This article was originally published on May 2, 2017, by Inc., and is republished here with permission.
Get Inc.’s daily newsletter

No comments:

Post a Comment

Featured Post

The most powerful message ever preached in past 50 years !

 AWMI.com  **  The most powerful message ever preached in past 50 years !  10 Reasons It's Better to Have the Holy Spirit ...

Popular