Discussion regarding why the 5 second rule didn’t help to improve my self-confidence, and what did.
Stress has a unique way of hijacking our brains. In survival mode, the brain prioritizes immediate threats over intricate thinking. We can’t solve a puzzle while being chased by a lion, for good reason to.
Mel Robbins 5 Second Rule
Hey there friend. If you are reading this, I am going to assume that you, like me, are committed to personal growth and enjoy learning new skills and tricks to achieve your goals. In the world of self-help, you have probably come across Mel Robbins, an amazing influential speaker and motivator. Among her recommended tool kit is the 5-Second Rule. Simply count down from 5 and tackle the task at hand, no matter how you feel. If there’s a task standing between you and your goals, one you’d rather avoid because its scary, try the 5-4-3-2-1 countdown and just do it. This approach is thought to distance you from the feelings associated with the tasks, to allow you to make progress through taking action, even if you feel fearful of the task. Though promising, this tactic has a limitation that meant I struggled to implement it and therefore receive it’s benefits. Let’s explore why the 5 second Rule didn’t work for me, and what I discovered that did.
Why stress makes us forget things
Here lies the issue with the 5 second rule that I experienced. Imagine being stressed, needing to make decisions, and attempting to remember the 5-Second Rule. Spoiler: it almost never happened. In the middle of stress, when my problem-solving skills are offline and my heart is racing, recalling the countdown felt nearly impossible. Despite it being a very simple and easy to implement solution, I could never remember it when I needed it. Forgetting a strategy precisely when it was needed meant it couldn’t benefit from it.
Stress has a unique way of hijacking our brains. In survival mode, the brain prioritizes immediate threats over intricate thinking. We can’t solve a puzzle while being chased by a lion, for good reason to. In such stress, trying to remember a rule becomes a near-impossible feat. We really need the strategy to be automatic, to have it programmed into our brains so we can access it in times of need, without conscious thought.
Embracing a Growth Mindset
You may have also heard of Growth Mindset – a belief that talent can be developed through hard work, effective strategies, openness to learning and positive responses to challenges. Growth mindset allows individuals to be open to learning new skills, receiving feedback and collaborating with others. In other words, growth mindset allows us to see the potential in an experience, even if it may terrify us. An example that comes to mind is public speaking. Fear may limit our eagerness to address an audience, to stand up and be seen. However, approaching this with a growth mindset, allows speaking in front of an audience to be a valuable learning experience, reducing the fear associated with it.
In theory, it’s easy to see how approaching challenges with a growth mindset can help us overcome our self-doubt, indecision and fear of failure.
Automate your thoughts
However, once again, we have an issue. We have to be able to think or remember to think with this approach. It requires conscious effort, until such a time that the brain has undergone neuroplasticity and reprogrammed our thinking towards a growth mindset. And this my friend, is the answer to the conundrum – we need to reprogramme our habitual thoughts, with new, more beneficial thoughts. Thoughts that allow us to approach life and its challenges with a growth mindset. It’s all about creating new habitual thoughts.
Enter coding… my solution to this problem. Coding is more than instructing a computer. Coding is a platform that allows adventure, without fear. Challenges become opportunities for learning and resilience. Patience and perseverance become allies, and with every piece of code grasped, we can internalize the message that we can tackle challenges and grow through them. We can reprogramme a growth mindset through learning to code.
Growing Confidence Beyond Coding
The beauty of the growth mindset extends beyond coding. As I applied this mindset to coding, it seeped into other areas of my life. Difficulties became more manageable, mistakes transformed into valuable lessons, and I developed a newfound eagerness to explore new possibilities. This is the exact recipe I had read about in all the self-help books, but had struggled to implement. Coding was the tool I needed to craft and automate the pattern of thinking that would help me achieve my goals. It can be yours too.
Conclusion: Feeling Better by Learning
While the 5-Second Rule posed challenges for me, coding evolved beyond a technical skill. It became a tool for instilling the belief that continuous learning and perseverance lead to improvement. This transformative journey not only enhanced my confidence in the realm of technology but also revolutionized how I approach life’s obstacles. Sometimes, trying something different leads to profound changes. Through coding and embracing a gradual learning process, I discovered the self-confidence I sought, demonstrating that unconventional paths can spark remarkable transformations.