Shadowing Mel Robbins

How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over — Robbins discusses getting out of familiar routines and taking action. The captions move from questions about what you want to concrete instructions involving an alarm clock and getting out of bed. Original video on YouTube: Mel Robbins — How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over.

Summary

Mel Robbins argues that people often remain stuck because they wait to feel ready before acting on what they want. She asks the audience to identify a concrete desire and challenges the habit of calling an unsatisfying situation fine. Using the metaphors of an internal snooze button, autopilot, and an emergency brake, she describes how familiar routines can override new intentions. Her proposed response is to accept the discomfort of starting and connect an impulse with a small physical action.

Key points, in order

Robbins distinguishes knowing how to make a change from actually beginning it. Information and examples may already be available, while reluctance and self-reassurance keep a person in the same position.
Getting out of bed earlier becomes her experiment in overcoming immediate resistance. She compares that effort with initiating other changes that are worthwhile but uncomfortable.
She presents dissatisfaction as a possible signal that exploration and growth are missing. Repeating a stable routine, in her account, can leave little room for the experiences people say they want.
Her five-second rule asks listeners to act promptly on a useful impulse: stand up, write a note, approach someone, or make a request. The talk ends by asking the audience to try it immediately.

Five useful phrases to practise

Choose a caption line to open Repeat mode. Listen, then say it after the speaker.

Based on the video’s captions. Original video: How to stop screwing yourself over | Mel Robbins | TEDxSF · TEDx Talks.

Everyday phrases from this video

Mel Robbins — How to Stop Screwing Yourself OverStart from the beginning

Level: B1
Accent: American
Length: 22 min · 283 lines to practise
Speed: about 146 words a minute (an average pace)
Words: about 3,140; the talk asks 20 questions
Timing: Sada measures how far behind the speaker you are on every line

What to focus on in this talk

Practise the alarm-clock instructions to work on imperative verbs and sequences of actions.

What this talk trains

Mel Robbins speaks for about 22 minutes: roughly 3,140 words in 283 caption lines. The pace stays fairly even, about 144 words a minute in the first quarter and 145 in the last. Overall it is faster than 16 of the other 66 talks on Sada. Its sentences average 11.1 words, no longer than the middle of the library (14.3), and 11.3% of its words fall outside the 3,000 most common English words (library middle: 12.9%). It asks 20 questions, so there is plenty of question intonation to copy. Phrases that fast speech often shortens come up again and again: “going to” (17 times) and “want to” (16 times).

Lines from across the talk, and what each one trains

One line from each quarter of the talk. Press a line to open it in Sada, ready to record. “Linking” marks words that run together: a word ending in a consonant sound joins the vowel that starts the next one.

0:44 in people's living room, whatever room you want to be in,
“want to”: fast speech often shortens it to “wanna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Several commas: say it in short chunks first, then as one line.
7:47 So the odds of Doug here, turn around, say "hi" to everybody –
Linking: say “odds of”, “turn around” without a break between the words. Several commas: say it in short chunks first, then as one line.
11:27 You think they ever feel like eating boiled chicken and peas instead of a croissant?
A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it. Linking: say “chicken and”, “peas instead”, “instead of” without a break between the words.
20:17 And it's not going to happen in your head.
“going to”: fast speech often shortens it to “gonna” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Linking: say “And it's”, “happen in” without a break between the words.

Words that keep coming up

Words outside the 3,000 most common English words that Mel Robbins uses more than once. The number is how often each is said. Look up any you don’t know, then press it to practise the line where it first comes up.

How the pace changes through the talk

Part of the talk	Words a minute
First quarter	144
Second quarter	138
Third quarter	159
Last quarter	145

The fastest minute starts at 14:54 (about 201 words a minute): practise that minute once the rest feels easy. The slowest starts at 9:52 (about 112): a good minute to warm up with.

Measured from the caption timing, so the numbers are close, not exact.

How the talk opens: press any line to practise it

How to practise this talk

Warm up on the slowest minute (from 9:52) or on the opening lines above.
Then take the chosen lines above one at a time: a shortened phrase, a line said in chunks, linked words, a question.
On each line, press Record and say it after Mel Robbins (Repeat) or along with them (Shadow), then open Compare and go again until every word is green.
Save the fastest minute (from 14:54, about 201 words a minute) for last.
At one minute a day you finish the whole talk in about 22 days, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

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