Of course, that resolve quickly faded, but when I was strolling through Kinokuniya at the Suria mall in Kuala Lumpur I saw a big pile of the book and I grabbed a copy. I then spent the next few days absolutely enthralled. I couldn't put the book down, and spent 4 days at a beach resort in Langkawi poring over its pages and taking copious notes. I am still working with the book, and though it has managed to make me feel enormously guilty (I will never look at the "Snooze" button in the same way again!), it has also caused me to assess some of my goals and life situations much more realistically.
The premise of the book is really a very old fashioned kind of tough-love - stop telling yourself that everything is hunky-dory. Your life is crap and the sooner you come to terms with the fact, the better suituated you will be to improve things. I must admit that it was a message I probably needed to hear just about now, when I have a whole pile of obligations but have been taking a very cavalier attitude towards them.
Robbins asks her readers to assess the excuses they use to stop themselves doing things. She is also expressing an idea I am beginning to encounter more and more in the newer self-help literature - don't trust your feelings. In fact, an almost guaranteed recipe for success is to act contrary to your feelings, because for must of us our feelings will always want us to give up and stop doing unpleasant things. Robbins says that his is exactly the point at which we should snap into action - the moment we don't want to do it should be the very moment we start. Only that way will we get done the things in life that need getting done to make sure we are successful.
Mel Robbins is in some ways negating the standard arguents of New Thought that permeate most self-help, making this book somewhat counter-cultural. She says that unless we are being completely realistic about our faults, shortcomings and failures, we are doomed to keep repeating them. Positive thinking and hoping for the best do not get things done - the only people who ever succeed in changing their lives for the better are those who frankly examine the areas in which they are failing and set about doing something about them.
Part of the charm - and the wisdom - of the book is that it's not about being perfect. Instead it is about being brave enough to have a go and resilient enough to deal with mistakes, messes and unexpected defeats. She gives the example of yoga clases - kids love them because the poses make them fall over and flop sideways and just generally lose their decorum. Adults fear them for precisely the same reasons, and approach the exercises with a grim-faced quest for perfection. If we are to truly enjoy ur lives and stretch ourselves (metaphorically) as much as we possibly can, then we need to be prepared to look like idiots in the name of experimentation.
Just as we are trapped by material conditions, we are perhaps even more trapped by the mental conditions that have emerged over a lifetime. We are caught in habits and routines which, while sometimes helpful and soothing, can also be destructive and suffocating. Robbins' ultimate call is for us to break free of the shackles of familiarity and try to live differently and see just what exactly we might become:
"Breaking out of a routine creates a "butterfly effect" in your life. You change one little thing about your day and it can set off an entire chain reaction. Every new element that you introduce into your life becomes a clue to help you create a new direction. Every new direction is a pivot poin in your life and a lever against inertia. Breaking out of a routine is not a brute-force exercise. You just need to wake up and notice."
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