Shadowing Practice: WATCH THIS EVERY DAY - Motivational Speech By Mel Robbins [YOU NEED TO WATCH THIS] - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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My mind can be my worst enemy.
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My mind can be my worst enemy.
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I was laying in bed last night,
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and I had fallen asleep,
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and I kept waking up.
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And you know what I was thinking about?
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I was waking up because I could hear people in the hallway,
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kind of coming in from a late night of partying.
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And you know what the first thing that my mind defaulted to?
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There being a fire in the hotel.
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And I started having these visions of my daughter and I going down the stairwell and getting trapped.
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And then I had visions of us being on the balcony on this room and fire kind of engulfing.
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And what are we doing?
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Are we tying a rope?
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I mean, it's just insanity, absolute insanity.
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And I use the techniques that I teach you.
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I went five, four, three, two, one.
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I am not thinking about this.
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And the thought disappeared because I constantly reset my mindset.
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And, you know, one of the reasons why I'm telling you this is if you are tired of feeling negative,
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if you feel often that your own thoughts are the things that trip you up in life,
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that you wish that your mind were more positive,
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I'm telling you that I'm the same way.
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Just because I teach this stuff,
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just because I study this,
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just because I do what I do for a living doesn't make me immune to what it means to be human.
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And what it means to be human is that your brain and your body want you to survive.
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Your brain and your body remember situations that scare the daylights out of you.
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Your brain and your body try to talk you out of anything that makes you feel risky.
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And your brain, given that it has been trained by situations in the past
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and given that you allow it to worry all the time,
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you have a habit of doing it.
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If you're not careful and you're not deliberate,
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your brain will default to scary crap like mine was last night.
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That doesn't mean you're broken.
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It means that your brain is thinking something that's broken
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and it's time for you to reset your mindset and pull it back.
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If you're somebody that suffers from anxiety,
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first of all, here's what you need to know.
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It's not a disease.
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Period.
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It's not a disease.
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So here's what you need to understand.
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Anxiety always begins with a worry.
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Always.
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It begins with a thought that is triggered by something.
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So if you suffer from anxiety,
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you wake up in the morning and your mind spins,
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you lay in bed at night and your mind spins,
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you walk into work and you feel anxious in your body.
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I want you to write down all the things that trigger you to feel anxious.
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Interestingly, another major trigger is being home or going home and that moment right before your partner walks in the door.
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If you feel anxious when your partner's about to walk in or you're about to walk into your own home,
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that is a major signal that you're in the wrong relationship.
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That there is something incredibly off and you either need to get into counseling,
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but that is one that we hear a lot about because you're walking into a situation that feels uncertain.
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A lot of people, by the way,
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had parents that were abusive or parents that were yellers.
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So they also are experiencing ghosts from the childhood of it's five o'clock,
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dad's about to come home and pour drink and everybody's on edge.
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Yeah.
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So write down the triggers, okay?
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Because having kind of the triggers ahead of time will help
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you come up with a plan for how you're going to catch yourself
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when your mind defaults to the automatic ways that it thinks.
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Then what I want you to write down next to the trigger is what exactly are you worried about?
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So having the trigger and then the what do I worry about?
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I worry that my boss is going to yell.
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I worry that my partner's going to yell.
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I worry that I'm going to get in trouble.
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I worry that, you know,
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my friends are going to laugh at me.
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I worry that I'm going to be a whatever it may be.
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Then what you're going to do is you're going to write down what I call an anchor thought.
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An anchor thought is something that weighs you down and it makes you excited.
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And so here's how the strategy works with the five second rule.
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The next time you're in a situation,
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and let's just use the example of pulling into your own driveway or your own apartment,
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and maybe you've got issues with your boyfriend or girlfriend or your roommate and that makes you unsettled.
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The second you pull in and you feel the trigger,
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you're going to go five,
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four, three, two, one, because I want to interrupt your mind from going into,
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kind of like, what if I did this?
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Then you're going to drop in the anchor thought of the last time that you and your roommate really got along well,
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or the last time that you stood up for yourself and it went fine.
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Or your puppy.
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Yeah, or a puppy or whatever.
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You're going to say, I'm so excited to deal with this.
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Yeah.
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And then you're going to get out of your car,
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even though your body is going to feel a little unsettled and your mind's going to raise.
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Go five, four, three, two, one.
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If you start to like be like, but what?
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And then walk in the door.
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And what I'm teaching you to do is to not let your mind hijack you.
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And it's very important because there's a very tight nexus between your habit of worrying
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and spiraling your thoughts and the way your body starts to amp up.
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And so we want to settle your mind so we don't agitate your body.
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You got it?
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Yeah.
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And so if you start to practice that over and over and over and over and over and over and over again,
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and for you 18-year-olds that are watching this,
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use this with the nerves that you have about what you're going to do with your life.
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Use this when you catch yourself worrying about college applications because worrying about the applications won't get them done.
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Worrying about what your friends are doing won't make it happen.
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Worrying about what you're gonna be doing when you're 25 or how you're gonna make money,
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it's not gonna help you make money right now.
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It's only gonna make you miserable.
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So five, four, three, two,
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one, cut off that habit.
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That'll stabilize your body and then go to a vision of you at the age of 25,
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driving a car that you think is cool and hanging out with a friend that's cool and saying to yourself,
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I'm so excited because I know I'm gonna figure it out.
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because you don't need to worry about that right now.
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But it becomes a habit that destroys your year this year.
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Just because you identify, and for me as a kid,
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for whatever reason, I have my own version of feeling invisible and feeling like I'm not good enough.
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And so my way of coping both with my anxiety and being a survivor of sexual abuse and wanting love,
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which we all need, is I was like an overachiever.
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And so I'm the kind of person that's super busy and a go-getter because it got me attention.
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And if I was the one that was super busy and achieving,
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I not only got praise,
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but it also insulates you from other people not picking you because you're the one in a leadership role doing the picking.
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And so there's a part of me at the age of 51 that is realizing that,
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you know, these feelings of feeling unworthy and this hyper drive to try to achieve shit,
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it's all coming from a place of feeling inadequate or like what I'm doing is not enough.
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And so that's- Still, at 50,
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having a talk show, having a best-selling book,
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having the Audible originals, having the platform everywhere,
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having the impact is still don't feel,
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being the most booked female speaker in the world,
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Like you still don't feel stupid.
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It's annoying.
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And human beings are annoying.
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We are stuck with this wiring.
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Like if you think about it,
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like all of the crap you believe is probably a hangover from age zero to 10.
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that as adults, we walk around thinking the same stuff we thought as kids.
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And I can't stand that I feel that way.
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But knowing it, it allows me to catch it before it has me,
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before it stops me from having an event or writing that next book or taking a risk.
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There's a lot of you that are running from things instead of running to things.
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And that's a huge difference,
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running from something versus running to something.
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And so I want you to think about that for a minute
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because you don't have to move across country to change your life.
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And you don't have to do something drastic to experience drastic positive change.
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And here's the thing about running away from your problems,
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running away from your past.
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Have you ever noticed that when you run away,
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it tends to follow you?
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You know, I used to have this problem in relationships.
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And the reason why I had this problem is because I was a very unhappy person.
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I didn't like myself truly as a person until probably four or five years ago.
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I spent, as sad as this is,
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I spent the first 46 years of my life really not liking myself,
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really feeling like I wasn't a good person,
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really questioning the sanity of people that that were in love with me
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or that were friends of mine because I had such a low opinion of myself.
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And it didn't matter.
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You know, I was guilty not of moving from one city to another,
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but I was guilty of moving from one person to another.
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That I would literally get in a relationship,
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I would be in a relationship for a year,
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and then I would start to feel that unsettled feeling.
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Because what happens after a year of being in a relationship?
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Well, you got to start working on it.
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It's no longer the thrill and the delight and it's new and you're dating.
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Now it's just you and the person in your life.
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There's nothing new about it.
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And so all your old crap starts to show up.
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And that's when you got to start to do the work.
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And so it was about the year or the year
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and a half mark in almost every single relationship that I would start getting that itchy feeling.
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And the reason why I was getting that itchy feeling is because my past was now there.
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This new relationship was no longer new and
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so I was no longer distracted by it
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and I was going to have to Deal with myself in order to be happy
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And so what did I do for years not even just years decades everybody?
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I'm not I'm not proud to admit this
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But I would literally jump out of one relationship
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and into another new one Because another new one would distract me from the fact that I was an unhappy person
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True story
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And I think a lot of you who are unhappy with yourselves are looking to move jobs
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or looking to move the city that you live in or you're looking to change your relationship.
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And the problem isn't where you live.
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The problem isn't your job.
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The problem isn't the person that you're with.
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The problem is how you feel about yourself.
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Thank you.
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Why practice speaking with this video?
Engaging with Mel Robbins’ motivational speech offers a unique opportunity to enhance your English speaking practice. This video not only fuels your motivation but also provides rich content for practicing various speaking techniques. Listening to Robbins' powerful words encourages active participation; your mind can shift from passive listening to dynamic speaking. By mimicking her tone and expression, you can greatly improve your pronunciation and fluency. This method aligns perfectly with the shadowing technique, where you repeat what you hear immediately after the speaker, helping to build your confidence and expressive skills. In addition, motivational speeches often include a variety of vocabulary and real-life scenarios, making them ideal for IELTS speaking practice and enhancing your ability to discuss personal experiences and emotions.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
In her speech, Mel Robbins effectively uses several grammatical structures that can provide learners with valuable insights:
- Present Perfect Tense: "I have fallen asleep." This tense denotes an experience relevant to the present and can help express past actions smoothly.
- Conditional Sentences: "If you are tired of feeling negative..." these sentences help convey hypothetical situations, which are crucial in conversational English.
- Imperative Verbs: "I want you to write down..." Imperatives are used for giving instructions and can be practiced in various contexts, especially when giving advice or encouragement.
- Direct Speech: “I went five, four, three, two, one.” Using direct speech helps illustrate personal experiences and makes statements more relatable, perfect for engaging speaking responses.
Common Pronunciation Traps
When practicing with this video, pay attention to some potential pronunciation challenges:
- “thinking” and “thing”: These words can be tricky because they require careful articulation of the "th" sound, which may not exist in other languages.
- “anxiety”: Many learners may struggle with the vowel sounds in this word. Practice the syllable structure: an-xi-e-ty, emphasizing the middle syllable.
- “trapped”: The ending “-pt” can be difficult; focus on closing both consonants clearly.
Incorporate the shadow speech method into your learning routine by paying close attention to Robbins' pronunciation and intonation. This will not only enhance your English speaking practice but also refine your listening skills and fluency.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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