you need to start to cheer for support and validate yourself. I realize now that I'm high-fiving myself that I have spent the first 40 years of my life either criticizing my reflection or ignoring it. How sad is that? It's incredibly heartbreaking and yet it's extremely familiar to me. Yeah, and I think a lot of women, yeah, and believe it or not, a lot of men. There's a lot of men that don't want to look themselves in the eye in a mirror and be with themselves because they're so focused on the things that they haven't achieved or the things that they failed at, and so they're ignoring themselves. They're not being with themselves. So first things first, when you take a moment in the morning to just stand in front of the mirror and be with yourself, and then you raise your hand in a gesture that you have always associated with celebration, support, belief, and empowerment with other people. There's a number of things that happen that can be proven by research. First things first, this is research out of Harvard. It's

recently they've shown in studies that simply taking a minute in the morning to get intentional about who you're going to be today and how you're going to show up changes your productivity. It changes your level of confidence. It changes how impactful you are as a leader at work and in life. So this moment in the mirror is not to be diminished. This is a moment for you to be able to take a moment and intentionally align yourself with who you're going to be. Second piece of research is from a field of study called neurobics. It basically means when you marry a physical action with something a thought that's unexpected, you accelerate the development of new neural pathways. And there's famous studies that have proven that if you brush with like your non-dominant hand while you're thinking something, it sticks in your mind because you have to focus. Well, the same is true when you raise your hand and high five your own reflection. You see, you've been doing this for your entire lifetime so there's already

subconscious programming here lisa. The second that you raise your hand like this, it is so programmed in your mind to associate belief, cheering, empowerment, celebration, you know, with the high five itself, that it's impossible to go god, i hate my neck, boy is that cellulite ugly. You can't do it because this part of the mind immediately takes over and does all the positive stuff with a high five. It's crazy. Try it tomorrow morning. You will not be able to criticize yourself. Now, there's another piece of research around this, which is, you know, when you do a high five. We did one, the first one we did, right? We didn't quite hit each other in the right, like good smack. So what did we do? We did it correct because a good high five requires you to be present and intentional. Isn't that cool? Yeah. Oh, high five. And so what I started to notice was that I was in real time shifting my relationship to myself. Instead of criticizing the woman I saw in the mirror or ignoring her, I was

developing a partnership, a trust, a sense of self-validation. I have my own back. I see you, Mel Robbins. We're gonna have a great day today. We got this. No matter what it is that life is gonna throw at us, you got this. That's how it all started. And then, of course, I put it on my story. After a couple weeks of doing it, people around the world started to post their pictures of themselves doing it. And then all of their stories started rolling in about the difference that it was making. There was one woman that said that she's been struggling with this body dysmorphia for 20 years, cannot look in the mirror, and after five days of doing this, can stare at herself in the eyes with a grin. Five days. Five days. And the reason why is because of the lifetime association that you have with doing this for other people. So when you try this tomorrow, here's what I want you to do: stand in front of your bathroom mirror and take a moment and just be with

yourself for a second, and then if there's resistance to raising your hand and high-fiving your own reflection, what is that resistance? Here's some of the sad things that people are saying that I think ring true for all of us. I think most women can relate to this. I think guys tend to have a reaction that's more in the I must be weak if I need this when the fact is, if you've played team sports, you know damn well that there's nothing more motivating, and there's no inspirational force that's more empowering than being cheered for by your teammates. That belief that they have in you transfers to a belief that you have in you, and so we know instinctively how powerful this is, and yet we have been trained to deny it to ourselves. That somehow if you have to empower yourself, you're weak. If you empower yourself, you're strong, you're smart. So, with women, and you know, with men too, but I found this to be the case with a lot of women, and this is super sad.

that there is this belief that if i've done nothing that's worth celebrating. i don't deserve celebration. that i don't deserve celebration until i lose the weight and get to that number on the sale. i don't deserve celebration until i get that job until i'm dating somebody until i buy that house until i get through. and that's the opposite of what you actually need. you need celebration and support so that you can do those things that you deserve and you want in your life. and so here you are withholding the very thing that you need support celebration love. you're waiting for somebody else to come waltzing in and give it to you. which they're not going to. and the secret to life is learning how to give yourself the support the celebration the validation that you as a human being need. so that's one thing that women feel. the second thing is this idea that if you are somebody that celebrates herself you're a [ __ ] right. that there's something wrong with you if you call attention to you

that may be because your mom, uh, you know, kind of didn't call attention to herself and was uncomfortable being the center of attention. Maybe you got the messaging that you needed to be seen and not heard. Maybe it got reinforced in your family that you're supposed to be the good one or the quiet one or the, you know, nice one or the conscientious student or the this or that, that there was a role for you to play and that if you stand there and validate yourself that somehow it means that you're not all those things that other people need from you. It's complete and utter [ __ ] and let me tell you why. When you were born, validation, all of that stuff, was hardwired in you, literally. When you were learning to crawl, you saw a mirror, you would crawl up to that. Have you ever seen a baby go to a mirror, they like put their hands on it, they're looking at it, they love it, it's amazing, love their face, that's in your DNA, that's what you are born, you're born to.

love the sight of yourself. Your life trained you that you're not supposed to do that. And so, I'm on a mission to make everybody on the planet understand because this is both for men and women. It doesn't matter where you are in terms of gender and what or all genders that you identify with. Every human being has three fundamental emotional needs: to be seen, to be heard, and to be celebrated for the unique person that you are. We all love watching these videos go viral of caregivers coaching little kids to be like, I'm brave, I'm awesome, I'm this, and yet as an adult, somehow we think it's stupid to stand in front of a mirror and tell that to yourself. You [ __ ] need to hear it, and you're sad because nobody in your life is telling you. It starts with you. The other thing that goes viral all the time are teachers standing outside of classrooms, right, giving every kid an individual handshake. Why? Because that handshake alone makes somebody feel seen and acknowledged and supported. And I'm here to tell you if

you want that, and you do want that. You need it. It is the most powerful source of motivation on the planet. To feel those things, it starts with you, and it can start every single morning with a simple high five in the mirror.

You Deserve to be Seen, Loved, and Acknowledged... But It Starts With You | Mel Robbins

NY Times Best Selling Author + Award Winning Podcast Host with 5x #1 best selling audiobooks on Audible.