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Stop Saying You're Fine

The No-BS Guide to Getting What You Want

Author Mel Robbins
Ebook
Harmony/Rodale/Convergent | Harmony
On sale May 10, 2011 | 272 Pages | 9780307716743
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This hands-on guide from Mel Robbins, one of America’s top relationship experts and radio/tv personalities, addresses why over 100 million Americans secretly feel frustrated and bored with their lives and reveals what you can do about it.
 
Mel Robbins has spent her career teaching people how to push past their self-imposed limits to get what they truly desire. She has an in-depth understanding of the psychological and social factors that repeatedly hold you back, and more important, a unique set of tools for getting you where you want to be. In Stop Saying You’re Fine, she draws on neuroscientific research, interviews with countless everyday people, and ideas she’s tested in her own life to show what works and what doesn’t. The key, she explains, is understanding how your own brain works against you. Because evolution has biased your mental gears against taking action, what you need are techniques to outsmart yourself.
 
That may sound impossible, but Mel has created a remarkably effective method to help you do just that--and some of her discoveries will astonish you. By ignoring how you feel and seizing small moments of rich possibility--a process she calls “leaning in”--you can make tiny course directions add up to huge change. Among this book’s other topics: how everything can depend on not hitting the “snooze” button; the science of connecting with other people, what children can teach us about getting things done; and why five seconds is the maximum time you should wait before acting on a great idea.
 
Blending warmth, humor and unflinching honesty with up-to-the-minute science and hard-earned wisdom, Stop Saying You’re Fine moves beyond the platitudes and easy fixes offered in many self-help books. Mel’s insights will actually help vault you to a better life, ensuring that the next time someone asks how you’re doing, you can truthfully answer, “Absolutely great.”
CHAPTER ONE

Stop Hitting the Snooze Button

Gain Power by Taking Action

There are some days when you just feel more powerful. You force yourself to get up early and break a sweat before everyone else wakes up. That sets the tone for the rest of your day. Your coffee tastes especially good, and the commute doesn't suck. At work, you go the extra mile on a project and come off looking like a hero. Afterward, you meet some friends whom you haven't seen in months, and have a couple of drinks on an outdoor deck in the cool summertime air. Someone hands you tickets he couldn't use. You embrace spontaneity and go see a great show. Afterward, you drive home by moonlight, have great sex, and drift off to sleep on a cloud.

We've all had days when we feel excited about our lives. We feel young, confident, and alive. Everything clicks. We feel like we're going somewhere, like we have momentum. We become more powerful versions of ourselves.

The powerful you is always there waiting and you can tap it anytime you want, if you know how. It's the part of you that loves discovery, curiosity, challenges, exercise, connecting with other people, checking off goals, taking action, heading somewhere, and talking out loud. It is a force inside you that wants to grow, move, and expand.

At the same time, there's an equal and opposite force that works inside you to hold you back. You were born with resistance. It's an inner, evolutionary bias to take the safe bet, the sure thing, the known path. Whenever you're feeling bored, bummed, or broken, resistance is winning in your life. Resistance loves surfing the Web, vegging out in front of the TV, sticking to routine, not picking up the phone, hitting snooze, avoiding confrontation, making excuses, rumination, and isolation.

Resistance will keep you in place; the powerful you will push you ahead. You will always feel tension between these two forces, between your current life and your desire for more. The direction you choose is entirely up to you. Every single day of your life, you have the choice to stay where you are or move your life in new directions. The question is, Will the powerful you awaken and start taking action, or will you wait just a little longer and delay the joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment you deserve?
Copyright © 2011 by Mel Robbins. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Mel Robbins is a best-selling author, award-winning CNN commentator, and motivational speaker. Her TEDx Talk, “How To Stop Screwing Yourself Over,” has been viewed more than 10 million times, and her book, Stop Saying You’re Fine, is a business bestseller. A Dartmouth-educated lawyer-turned-life coach, she’s also a blogger, relationship expert and working mom. She currently lives with her family in Sherborn, Massachusetts. View titles by Mel Robbins

About

This hands-on guide from Mel Robbins, one of America’s top relationship experts and radio/tv personalities, addresses why over 100 million Americans secretly feel frustrated and bored with their lives and reveals what you can do about it.
 
Mel Robbins has spent her career teaching people how to push past their self-imposed limits to get what they truly desire. She has an in-depth understanding of the psychological and social factors that repeatedly hold you back, and more important, a unique set of tools for getting you where you want to be. In Stop Saying You’re Fine, she draws on neuroscientific research, interviews with countless everyday people, and ideas she’s tested in her own life to show what works and what doesn’t. The key, she explains, is understanding how your own brain works against you. Because evolution has biased your mental gears against taking action, what you need are techniques to outsmart yourself.
 
That may sound impossible, but Mel has created a remarkably effective method to help you do just that--and some of her discoveries will astonish you. By ignoring how you feel and seizing small moments of rich possibility--a process she calls “leaning in”--you can make tiny course directions add up to huge change. Among this book’s other topics: how everything can depend on not hitting the “snooze” button; the science of connecting with other people, what children can teach us about getting things done; and why five seconds is the maximum time you should wait before acting on a great idea.
 
Blending warmth, humor and unflinching honesty with up-to-the-minute science and hard-earned wisdom, Stop Saying You’re Fine moves beyond the platitudes and easy fixes offered in many self-help books. Mel’s insights will actually help vault you to a better life, ensuring that the next time someone asks how you’re doing, you can truthfully answer, “Absolutely great.”

Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE

Stop Hitting the Snooze Button

Gain Power by Taking Action

There are some days when you just feel more powerful. You force yourself to get up early and break a sweat before everyone else wakes up. That sets the tone for the rest of your day. Your coffee tastes especially good, and the commute doesn't suck. At work, you go the extra mile on a project and come off looking like a hero. Afterward, you meet some friends whom you haven't seen in months, and have a couple of drinks on an outdoor deck in the cool summertime air. Someone hands you tickets he couldn't use. You embrace spontaneity and go see a great show. Afterward, you drive home by moonlight, have great sex, and drift off to sleep on a cloud.

We've all had days when we feel excited about our lives. We feel young, confident, and alive. Everything clicks. We feel like we're going somewhere, like we have momentum. We become more powerful versions of ourselves.

The powerful you is always there waiting and you can tap it anytime you want, if you know how. It's the part of you that loves discovery, curiosity, challenges, exercise, connecting with other people, checking off goals, taking action, heading somewhere, and talking out loud. It is a force inside you that wants to grow, move, and expand.

At the same time, there's an equal and opposite force that works inside you to hold you back. You were born with resistance. It's an inner, evolutionary bias to take the safe bet, the sure thing, the known path. Whenever you're feeling bored, bummed, or broken, resistance is winning in your life. Resistance loves surfing the Web, vegging out in front of the TV, sticking to routine, not picking up the phone, hitting snooze, avoiding confrontation, making excuses, rumination, and isolation.

Resistance will keep you in place; the powerful you will push you ahead. You will always feel tension between these two forces, between your current life and your desire for more. The direction you choose is entirely up to you. Every single day of your life, you have the choice to stay where you are or move your life in new directions. The question is, Will the powerful you awaken and start taking action, or will you wait just a little longer and delay the joy, satisfaction, and fulfillment you deserve?
Copyright © 2011 by Mel Robbins. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author

Mel Robbins is a best-selling author, award-winning CNN commentator, and motivational speaker. Her TEDx Talk, “How To Stop Screwing Yourself Over,” has been viewed more than 10 million times, and her book, Stop Saying You’re Fine, is a business bestseller. A Dartmouth-educated lawyer-turned-life coach, she’s also a blogger, relationship expert and working mom. She currently lives with her family in Sherborn, Massachusetts. View titles by Mel Robbins

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