The Expansion Versus Shrinking Test
Get quiet, drop in, and ask whether the decision grows you or constrains you
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 91%
Robbins' body-based method for telling a scary-but-right decision from a wrong one. Both feel like nerves from the outside, so the discriminator is not the intensity of the fear but the shape of it. A decision aligned with who you are produces a sense of expansion — something growing, possibility opening — even while you are nervous and unsure where it leads. A wrong decision produces shrinking: constraint, depletion of energy. She describes it as a tool she has used over and over in her life, and it answers only 'what', never 'how' or 'when'.
Origin
Robbins developed it to solve the confusion between intuition and the ordinary fear response that fires any time you do something new or vulnerable.
Core principles
- 01Every new or courageous decision triggers a fear response, so fear alone tells you nothing.
- 02Expansion means possibility and growth despite nerves; shrinking means constraint and depletion.
- 03You have to get quiet and drop into the body — the answer is not available at the thinking layer.
- 04The test answers what to do, not how or when to do it.
How to run it
- 1
Get quiet and drop in
Before deciding, stop and go internal rather than running the decision through analysis or other people's opinions.
- 2
Run the decision as a felt scenario
Imagine actually doing it — going to the pub tonight, quitting the job, saying no — and notice what the body does.
Pro tip Robbins' own phrasing: 'if I were to go to the bar tonight does that feel like something expansive or does that feel like something that's shrinking me a little bit'.
- 3
Read expansion or shrinking, not fear
Classify the sensation: growth and possibility even while nervous means aligned; constraint, depletion, feeling smaller means misaligned.
Watch out Do not disqualify a decision just because it is scary — scary and expansive is the signature of the right call.
- 4
Expect blowback and decide anyway
Aligned decisions usually break a pattern others rely on, so anticipate resistance from people used to the old you.
Watch out The rise you feel when about to say no is habit protesting, not the compass objecting.
In the wild
You have committed to getting serious about your finances and skills, and on Friday night your friends call about the pub. As you go to say no, something rises up because you have always gone.
→ Getting quiet and asking whether the pub feels expansive or shrinking gives you the right answer for you, and you accept the blowback.
Nervousness before quitting feels identical whether the move is right or wrong.
→ The expansion/shrinking read separates a growth-shaped nervousness from a constricting one, without needing to know how it will work out.
Common mistakes
Treating nervousness as a veto
The fear response is the natural reaction to any change, so reading it as 'my intuition says no' rules out every aligned decision you will ever face.
Demanding the how before you move
The test only answers what; waiting until the route is clear stalls the decision indefinitely.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone facing a fork — a job, a relationship, a move — who cannot separate genuine misgiving from ordinary fear of change.
Not ideal for
Decisions that turn on hard external constraints such as finances or legal risk, where a felt sense cannot substitute for analysis.
From the transcript
“even if it's scary you will feel a sense of expansion you will feel like something is growing that there is possibility”
“if the decision is wrong when you get quiet and you drop in you will feel a sense of shrinking you'll feel constrained you'll feel…”
“that's a tool that I have used over and over and over again in my life to know what to do it doesn't answer how…”
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