One of my Bookbub deals today was "The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage" for $1.99 (reg. 9.99). The top comments on Amazon are that the idea of "The 5 Second Rule" can be explained in one well-written blog post, or gleaned from the pertinent TEDx Talk (starting ~19:00), so don't waste your money.

Here's the tl;dr version: As soon as you have an impulse to do something, start counting down mentally from 5, because you have 5 seconds to take action. If you don't start within 5 seconds, if you don't make the connection, schedule a startup session, even just text yourself a reminder, you will talk yourself out of it.

Robbins's "just do it" talk is great, because while poor impulse control is a real problem, most people socialized enough to sit down and watch a TEDx talk on their own initiative are more likely suffering from morbidly overdeveloped impulse control. It would be easy to hear Robbins's presentation and come away feeling even more frustration and self-loathing when we CAN'T "just do it". I think she missed a valuable opportunity to confirm the balancing act: yeah, you need to do more things you don't "feel like" doing, but also respect intuitions that put the brakes on genuinely foolish impulses. I'd still like to learn to play drums, sure. But realistically I know I can't do that in my neighborhood, and I know the 10,000 hours practice could be better spent elsewhere.