If you ever find yourself feeling stuck when you're manifesting, feeling like you can't visualize the steps that lead you to what you want is an extraordinarily common obstacle when you're manifesting. Because remember, manifesting is the practice of preparing your mind, body, and spirit to do the work to achieve the things that you want. And as you probably know, manifesting has four different parts to it. First of all, you got to give yourself permission to really have what you want, because you got to have the thing that you're visualizing be something that is authentically something that you want. Number two, you must see yourself taking the steps, the tiny actions, and doing the work that will lead you to creating or having what you want. Third, you got to feel in your body what it feels like to do the work, and you also have to feel pride as you see yourself doing the work because that amplifies your mind, body, and spirit really imprinting and training and preparing for it. And fourth, obviously, you got to take the actions. And all of that manifesting and preparing inspires you to take the actions. But one place where so many folks get stuck when they start trying to make manifesting a daily habit is you go and you know what you want, but then you sit down and you try to imagine what the steps are that you need to take to get there, and you don't have a clue.

Your mind goes blank. If this is you, I'm so excited that you're watching this because the simple trick based in science is called the power of objectivity. All you got to do is stop visualizing yourself and insert your friend Mel Robbins, or insert somebody else that you love and admire. And the power of objectivity is going to immediately switch you from a blocked mind to one that is bolder and more creative and able to visualize the steps. Now, I'm not just making this up. There's extraordinary research that was just written about in the Harvard Business School review. They did eight different studies at the University of Wisconsin, where they were studying the power of objectivity. And with thousands of participants, here's what they found. When participants tried to visualize themselves doing hard things. Immediately, the participants, when they thought about themselves doing something hard, let's just say asking for a raise, okay? I want you to imagine yourself asking for a raise or applying for that dream job. When you visualize yourself doing it, you immediately focus in on minutia. You start imagining all kinds of things that could go wrong. You start arguing against yourself, and doubt comes flooding in.

You have a very cautious mindset when you place yourself yourself in those scenarios. However, if you were to visualize me, Mel Robbins, asking for that raise, immediately your mindset switches to being very bold, being creative, seeing all kinds of opportunities. And in fact, when you not only visualize me, your friend Mel Robbins, asking for that raise that you want, when you give me advice, you're super enthusiastic. You're like, Mel, you should go for it. And I bet in your life, you have probably told friends or loved ones, you should ask for more money. And you mean it because you're visualizing them. But you yourself won't visualize yourself doing that. You talk yourself out of it. We've all had this experience. You yourself are probably sitting there going, You're right, Mel. I constantly tell my friends, You deserve more. You should break up with that jerk. You should go for it. But when it comes to yourself, you see the excuses in-depth. So I want you to leverage not only this not this common sense, but this research to your advantage when it comes to manifesting. Pick what you want, and then if your mind goes blank when it comes to seeing yourself do the work, literally just insert your friend Mel Robbins or insert anybody that you love.

In fact, I got a story about this. Years and years ago, this would have been, God, 20 years ago. At the time, I was a life coach, and I had a really small, low practice here in Boston. And I went to a seminar that Oprah Winfrey we had here at the Boston Convention Center. It was part of her Live Your Best Life tour. And I went to the seminar because I thought, well, this would be a great place to land life coaching clients, right? You got thousands of women at the Convention Center who all want to improve your life so I can go and I can network. And who knows? I might meet some amazing women and meet some amazing business partners and land some clients. So I'm sitting in the audience and the DJ starts playing the music, and everybody gets out of their chairs, and we all We start dancing around with our name tags on. And then all of a sudden, the DJ dies down the music, and we all settle down, and this woman walks on the stage. Now, I didn't recognize this woman. I didn't have my program on my hands, so I had no idea who it was.

I had never I had never seen her before. I had never heard her before. When they announced her name, not a clue. All I knew was when she started talking, something inside me was energetically, something shifted. I bet you've had those moments where you're like, boom, you know that something is meant for you. You just feel pulled toward. You can have this experience with a piece of clothing, with a house, with a puppy, with a person, with an experience, with a place. Well, this woman walks on stage and I have this energetic shift that was like, and I immediately felt my body go, You need to be doing that. But what I saw All was, she's on a stage. She's clearly an author. She's making people laugh. She's inspiring. Oh, my gosh, she's a life coach? Well, this person I'm talking about is none other than Martha Beck. I didn't know her at the time, but she's an international best-selling author. She writes for O magazine. She was clearly speaking on a stage. And guess what? She was Oprah's designated life coach. And so I have this energetic shift where I'm like, I want to be doing that.

I I want to go from just coaching individual clients to having an impact on a much bigger scale. Now, keep in mind, at the time, I have only been coaching people for two or three years. I've never given a speech. I had never written an article in a magazine. I didn't have a book.

I didn't know how to do any of those things.

But I went home from that seminar, and I sat down and I cracked open my journal, and I'm like, I want to speak on stages. I want to write things for magazines. I want to write a book. I want to impact millions of people. I want to do what Martha Beck is doing. I didn't know how to do any of it. And so I developed this simple tool. Now, little did I know, I was just instinctively leveraging the power of objectivity. Since I didn't know what to do, and I also didn't know who to ask, because 20 years ago, I didn't know a single person that had published a book. I didn't know anybody that wrote for magazines. I didn't I didn't know anybody that spoke on stages for a living, and I certainly didn't know anybody that knew Oprah.

So I didn't even have anybody that I could ask.

There weren't as many articles online, so it's not like I could blog. Youtube was not really a thing, so it's not like I could watch videos. I mean, do you know how lucky you are to be able to research all this stuff? I was just me, Mel Robbins, with a handful of clients here in Boston, now inspired to do what Martha's Beck doing with no clue how to go from here to there. I didn't know the steps. So I came up with this little tool. It's so funny when I think about it now. You want to know what the tool was?

What would Martha Beck do?

What would Martha Beck do? Because I figured Mel Robbins had never done any of those things. But Martha Beck had. So in any moment where I didn't know what I should do, I just figured I would ask myself, Well, what would Martha Beck do? And I thought that maybe if I acted like she acted, maybe I would eventually start to to steer my life in the direction that her life was headed in, in terms of writing books and standing on stages, 20 years ago. So I was leveraging the power of objectivity. So this is what happened. A couple of weeks go by, and nothing miraculous happens in my life, and I get an email. And I'm up late, and I'm working on something, and this email comes in. And the email is from a friend of mine who works in New York. Hadn't seen her in a while, but she knew that I was a life coach. And I noticed that she was forwarding a PR request from Ink magazine. And Kate wrote to me, Hey, Mel, not sure if you're still life coaching, but see below. Someone is writing an article about life coaching for Ink magazine.

Thought you may be interested in applying. So I scroll down and I immediately start to read the email. Now, there were a couple of things that jumped out immediately, right? Number one, the PR request was over a month old. Number two, the deadline had already passed for submissions to be featured in the article. Number three, I had none of the credentials that they were looking for for life coaches. Number four, I had none of the types of clients that they were looking for. Now, thinking about it from Mel Robin's point of view, my mind got very cautious, and I started to focus on all the minutia. I'm too late. I'm not qualified. I've missed the deadline. They're never going to pick me. Self doubt started to creep in. Just Just like it's happening for you when you manifest right now. Your mind is going blank, you're full of doubt, which is why you can't see the steps. I, in that moment, asked myself, Well, I know what Mel Robbins would do. Mel Robbins would hit delete and go on with the reading. But what would Martha Beck do? The second I leveraged the power of objectivity and I imagined her in the situation that I was in, my mind got more creative, it got bolder, it got more energized.

I saw a possibility. I literally said to myself, Well, what have I got to lose? Martha Beck would probably just respond. And so I did. I just freeformed the thing. I wrote this long email and then hit send. Do you know the very next morning, the person that had sent the inquiry out, wrote me back and said, I've already finished the article. I was about to submit it, but I was so taken with your email that I'd love to come up to Boston and follow you around for a day and include you in the article. And it was that article, which published about five months later, that caught the attention of a bunch of people in the media business in New York. And that's what caused this major pivot that happened in my career. Honest to God, it was the power of objectivity and simply asking myself, what would Martha Beck do? So super common to feel super stuck when you know what you want, but you can't visualize yourself taking those steps because you're thinking cautious, you're self That is consuming you. You are insecure in your ability to actually do those things so you can't even embrace the visualization of yourself doing it.

Simple. Insert someone else. And you can always pick your friend Mel Robbins. Let's just say that you are really inspired to get into home renovations and buying and flipping houses. And let's just say you've always dreamt of doing this and you watch the Home Improvement Networks like it's your job, and you just I love everything about real estate and flipping houses, but you've never done it. And so when you go to visualize it, you don't even know where to start. Just insert Mel Robbins. What would Mel Robbins do? I guarantee you, the second you visualize me in there, you're going to be like, Oh, well, Mel Robbins would Mel Robbins would start studying it. Mel Robbins would take a course on it. Mel Robbins would ask people about it. Mel Robbins would start going to open houses. Mel Robbins would take a class about it. Mel Robbins would talk to people who are doing it. You will immediately be able to see all of the things that I would do because your mind, when you leverage the power of objectivity, gets bold, gets creative, gets enthusiastic. Now what you're going to do is you see me doing the work, right?

You're now going to insert yourself next to me, and you're going to see me going, Oh, hey, I'm so glad you're here because I could use your help. I want you to take this class with me. And you know what we're going to do this weekend? You and I are going to go to open houses. And you know what we're going to do next weekend? You and I are going to sit down and watch YouTube tutorials on how you get started in this business. And you know what we're going to do the following weekend? You and I are going to read blogs about how you can get financing for doing this. And you know how we're going to do this weekend? And I will walk you step by step in your visualization in doing it. And you visualizing yourself next to me will jumpstart your mind into being bolder, more enthusiastic, more creative. And that, my friend, is the simple trick that you can use in order to leverage the power of objectivity to get unstuck and unblocked when you start manifesting and get yourself moving toward your dreams.

I want to talk about a buzzword that's big in the personal development space now, and that's manifestation. And I know you talk a lot about it. But I think a lot of people get manifesting wrong in that they think that, Oh, I'm just going to write something down. I'm going to say a prayer, and then things are going to come to me. To me, I think that's total BS. I think you have to take action. What's your opinion on manifesting, and how can somebody do it the right way?

Manifesting is an incredibly important tool in your toolkit for a fulfilling and happy life, and most of us are doing it wrong. So manifesting done properly is the process by which you train your mind, body, and spirit to help you get what you want. Manifesting is not, based on the research, thinking about something, and then it suddenly magically happens. Since so many of your listeners are people who are very spiritual and faithful, I'm sure you've had an experience where you've prayed and prayed and prayed for something. It's not coming, it's not coming, it's not coming. You go through the worst experience or breakdown of your life. I bet jail and getting arrested was probably this for you. And then it's 10 years later that you look back and go, Oh, my God, my prayers were answered, just not in the manner in which I had been praying they would be answered. And so what I want you to understand is that if you want to use manifesting, here's how you're going to do it. Don't think about the end. Don't think about the mansion you want to buy. Don't think about the soulmate that you're going to meet.

Don't think about the finish line on the marathon, because thinking about the end doesn't help your mind, body, and spirit prepare you to do the work to get it. There are no get out of jail free cards in life. There just aren't. You're going to have to put in the work to get the real results that you want. And so what you do when you manifest properly is you're going to visualize the bridge or the path in between where you are today and where you want to go. So why don't you pick something that you want, Doug? What's a goal of yours for this year?

Let's see. A goal of mine for this year is I want to get my podcast to a point where it's helping tens of thousands of people.

Okay. So you just said that I want to get my podcast to a point that it's helping tens of thousands of people. Now that you have identified what your goal is, let's back up to the present moment and let's do step two. Step two is, now I want you to close your eyes and I want you to visualize what are all of the tedious, annoying, Boring, hard things that you need to do that you're either not doing now or you need to do more of. Start to list them out.

Being more consistent on social media, engaging with other podcasters, just being consistent and practicing patience, getting more creative, and not being scared to invest money.

That's the big one. Right. That's the big one. You just said that you needed to be more patient. You needed to stop being afraid to invest money. You needed to connect with more podcasters. You needed to be on social media more. Now, what you do Now that you have a list of all the things that you need to be doing that you're not doing or you're not doing enough of. For a lot of people, they don't know. Okay, well, I don't know. I know what I want, but I don't know what the work is. Just find somebody on social media or out in the world who has the thing that you want, study what they did, and write all those things down as an action. But generally, there are videos you can watch, there are events you can go to, there are webinars that you can take, there are books that you can read. The information of what to do is out there. So how do you use visualization now that you know what you want and you know some of the actions that you need to take that will take you in a path leading toward what you want?

Well, now what you do is every single morning, you're going to add to your morning routine, writing down five things that you want. And one of those things is going to be, I want whatever it is that the goal is. In your case, it is, I want my podcast to reach tens of thousands of people, right? Then the why, why you want to do that. Why do you want to reach tens of thousands of people, Doug?

Because I feel that I have a strong message, and I want people to use hard times to grow and make themselves better and not use it as an excuse to make their situation worse.

Okay, now let's make it about you. How do you feel when the stuff that you're putting out impacts people?

I feel amazing because it continues to reinforce that there was purpose in a lot of the pain that I went through when I was younger.

There's your why. You feel fulfilled turning the tremendous pain that you felt into a sense of purpose. And that purpose is acknowledged when you hear from people who listen to your podcast. That's your why. That's the intrinsic source of motivation for you. It's not about them. Anybody who wants to make a difference in the world, the reason why you're motivated to do that is because it feels so good for you. I'm dead serious about this, and there's nothing You're selfish about it. That's why it feels so good to volunteer. It's why it feels so good to give back, because you get something. You get affirmed as a human being that your time, your energy, your pain matters. And that's so important. So now that you feel that feeling inside your body of why you want this thing, because it makes you feel like you matter, it makes you come alive, whatever the reason is, now you're going to close your eyes And you said the hardest thing for you is going to be to invest money in growing this podcast. So I want you to close your eyes and I want you to describe for me an image of how much money and what you're actually investing in.

Okay, so describe that scene for me. Put me at the scene.

So I'm investing in production. I'm investing in somebody to help me do some of the tedious tasks that I'm staying up super, super late that can be overwhelming at times because I still do have a training business. I'm investing in travel to network with other podcasters and meet different people at conferences.

And as you see the money going out the door, what are you feeling that's negative in your body?

It's uncertainty.

Where do you feel it in your body?

In my legs.

You feel it in your legs? Okay.

I don't know why. I think it's because I hold a lot of stress in my hips.

You know what that is, by the way? Is that's your nervous system feeling uncertainty. That's where you feel it.

Right.

This is how you manifest properly, by the way.

Right here.

You have to visualize In your mind, writing the check and feeling the pain in your legs of uncertainty. You have to visualize in your mind sitting in that plane seat, flying to a conference, feeling the pit in your stomach, being worried about whether or not anyone's going to take you seriously because there's all these big podcasters there. You need to feel your chest contract and squeeze in as you walk up to somebody that deeply admire and you start a conversation or you walk up to an event organizer and say, I'd like to apply to be on a panel next year. How do I do that? And your chest gets really tight because you feel like you don't belong there because you don't have the numbers yet or whatever your stupid story is. When you picture that in your mind and you feel the negative sensation in your body, you are doing resistance training. This is how you align your mind, body, and spirit to not resist the hard stuff. Here's a cool fact about your brain. Your brain doesn't know the difference between you actually spending the money buying the plane ticket, getting on the plane and flying to that event, or you imagining it in your mind.

And when you run through the hard things that you're avoiding in your mind and you allow yourself to feel feel the negative sensation in your body. You are training and mentally rehearsing the exact same way Olympic athletes do with the nine sports psychologists that the US Olympic team has to help our athletes prepare. You are mentally rehearsing before the actual event so that your mind and your body are trained to anticipate and push right on through through all the stuff that's scary because you've already rehearsed it.

That's how you use manifesting to help you do the work to get what you want.

Wow. I'm so grateful that we brought that up and that you helped walk me through this.

What did you get out of that?

Well, I definitely, one, I became aware of not only what I need to do, but what's the fear that's attached to it.

What is the fear?

Well, the fear is always going to be uncertainty or scarcity, because I think the one thing that's been beneficial to me in my life is that I've always had my back against the wall from being somebody who is a convicted felon in jail, not growing up with a ton of money, that thing, where I've always been forced to just hustle, hustle, hustle, work, work, work, where I'm used to this situation. But on the flip side, the negative is I'm so used to being stressed because I grew up in a stressful environment. I put myself in a stressful environment from selling drugs and doing drugs for a majority of my life when I was younger, so that a lot of times now I've had to become aware of when I'm creating more stress around something that's a good thing instead of something that I would have seen back in the day as something that was bad or whatever.

So step one of manifesting properly, according to research and science. First, you have to tell the truth. You have to declare what you want, period. This does not work if you're lying to yourself. This does not work if you're fuzzy about what you want. And so Megan already did step one. She said, I want to move. She even told us that she'd been wanting to do this for a while. And the only thing that's been holding her back is all that negative programming in her mind. So now let's turn to you. Tell me the truth. What's something that you want? And don't be scared to say it out loud. Don't worry, I'm not moving in with you. But you have to tell the truth. That thing that you have an itch to do. That's what I'm talking about. And if you are so shut down that you don't even know what you would want to manifest, let's do the exercise that I have shared multiple times on the Mel Robbins podcast. Every single morning, as part of your morning routine, I want you to just take out a piece of paper and write down five things It's what you want.

Every morning, as you do this, as you give yourself permission to want things, you're training your mind. You're getting in touch with your dreams and your goals. And if you're having trouble connecting with this, I have a free cheat sheet for you. Just go to melrobbins. Com/ Dream Big. I walk you through it. You can download it for free, and you can also listen to the episode we just did on dreams. It's the one we released right before this one. But you have to be honest. You want to know why? Because you're training your brain, and your brain knows when you're bullshitting, especially when you're bullshitting yourself. You cannot half-ask this stuff. Just listen to this question from Rochelle.

My name is Rochelle. I am from Ontario, Canada, a small town north of Toronto. So for 25 years, I've had a head full of ideas. I've had half-ask projects and lots of plans. I chose always wishing, overdoing. Many of my blocks were due to fear, many just basic survival. The idea of goal setting, it really fires me up. The idea of remembering to revisit those goals, that freaks me out. I just think of all the things that I should have done and want to do still that, again, I've thought about over the last 25 years. What do you have a vision board for? That seems like, what are you? A child?

I love you guys so much. What do you have a vision board for? What are you? A child?

Rochelle.

Okay, so first of all, we love Rochelle. We love everybody. And what I love about her is she's admitting to you that she's been thinking about things that she's wanted for 25 years. And she's never getting past the thinking part. Why? Well, because, again, the overwhelm, the self doubt, all of the disorganization, it's stopping her. That's where manifesting comes in. And she asked the question, vision boards, what the hell am I, a child? Let me tell you why vision boards can be important with one huge caveat based on science. Boards. Vision boards are important because when you take the time to create a vision board, which is basically bringing your dream or your goal to life by creating a collage of images, what you're doing is you are grabbing that dream or that goal that typically we bounce around in the back of our minds in private, you're pulling it out of your mind, and you are grounding it in reality. One of the reasons why this can be so powerful is because it signals to your brain that this is really important to you. We've talked in previous episodes about the Zeigarnic effect. It creates this to-do list in your mind.

The other reason why it's important is because when you put a vision board in a place where you can see it, it keeps these goals and dreams front and center, which is really important. But here's the problem. Everybody puts the wrong shit on their vision boards. You've been sold a bill of goods. You have been told that if you simply create a collage of some beach house or your dream body or a million dollars in the bank or a Maserati, that suddenly the universe is going to hand you those things. That's not how that works. What research shows is exactly what Rochelle is talking about. If all you ever do is think about the big thing, you think about the end goal, the beach house, the Maserati, the thing that's 10 years from now, and then you create this beautiful collage of this amazing thing that you want. That's a huge mistake. And see, everybody makes this mistake. If you look at anybody's vision board, you know what's on it? It's beach houses, and a million dollars, and a Maserati, and the finishing line at the New York City Marathon, and all the things that you hope and dream for.

And the reason why that's a huge mistake is that if the only thing that is on your vision board is the thing that's going to take you 10 years to get done, as you sit here in your studio apartment or Or in the spare bedroom of your parents house, at a desk in the corner, and you stare at a $10 million beach house. Oh my God, that is going to feel so far away. It's going to feel like you might as well move to Mars for crying out loud. Instead of that vision board keeping your dreams front and center, that vision board is rubbing them in your face. It's not motivating at all. Why? Because you start to become present day in and day out to how far away you are from that dream of yours. And that starts to make you feel less motivated. It doesn't surprise me at all that Rochelle has been thinking about all kinds of things for 25 years, and yet she can't get started. And the reason why is because she is making the mistake of visualizing the end. Manifesting is not just hoping and wishing, remember, for that beach house?

Manifesting is training your mind, body, and spirit to do the work to make that beach house a reality. Step two to manifesting according to neuroscience. Visualize the steps along the way. This is research from UCLA. In order to make manifesting work for you according to science, don't visualize the end. Visualize the steps and the actions that you're going to take. To get there. So what does that mean? That means all that hard and annoying and tedious stuff that you got to do that you don't feel like doing in order to make that thing a reality. That's what you're going to put on the vision board. That's what you're going to visualize. You see, according to the research from UCLA, brain scans show that when you visualize yourself performing an action, you stimulate the same brain region that you're using when you actually actually perform that action. So manifesting properly, according to science, means you are socializing your mind to take action. Now, what does socializing your mind mean? Because that's the language they used in the study. It means you're training your mind to take the action. By sitting there and mentally rehearsing this, you are telling your mind, you're stimulating the part of the brain that actually is going to take the action.

This taps into something called procedural memory, and it helps you lock in the actions you need to take as a new habit. See, procedural memory is part of your long-term memory. It's like writing with your hands or pouring a glass of water. All those actions and habits, they're all stored in your procedural memory. Your procedural memory has all the information that you need in order to perform things like brushing your teeth or walking and talking. When those Those things get rehearsed over and over and over again, guess what? They become encoded. They become automatic. The more you think about the steps you need to take and you start to visualize them, the stronger the connections become. This isn't just common sense. What happens when you visualize this way is that connections are being made between gaps and neurons. They're passing signals back and forth. And so before you even take the actions, you are now socializing your brain to get ready to do it. You're preparing. It's super cool. So let's just start with step one, manifesting according to science. You got to claim what you want and tell the truth. So let's say that step one I want to train for and I want to complete the New York City Marathon.

That is a bucket list item for me. In fact, that was a bucket list item for me, and it's something that I've done. You should do it, too. It's amazing. So, yes, you are You're going to wake up every day and you're going to write that dream down. But to achieve it, please do not spend any time visualizing crossing the finish line. Please do not spend any time thinking about the roaring applause of the crowd as your name gets announced. Instead, what are you going to do? You're going to use science because you're smart. You're going to visualize yourself lacing up your running shoes when it's 10 degrees outside. You're going to close your eyes and you're going to picture what it feels like to be out there on a training run alone. It's Mile 13. You're on your own, and your freaking ear buds just ran out of batteries, and you're 6 miles from your house. And as you Close your eyes and you picture that annoying and irritating moment. I want you to feel in your body the sensation of that moment. And I want you to feel in your body another one.

How about this moment? It's 5:00 AM. Your alarm goes off. You're exhausted. You look out the window and you see it's pouring rain, and it's a Saturday, and you said you do a training run. And I want you to see yourself, dragging yourself out of bed, and pulling on your jacket, even though you don't feel like it, and walking out that door. And I want you to feel yourself starting to run in the rain, and it's 5:10 in the morning. Warning. That's how you manifest. Because here's the thing. That's what you're going to have to do in order to achieve your goal. And more importantly, Five months from now, when you've registered for that race, and that alarm goes off at 5:00 AM, and you roll over in real life, and you look out the window and it's pouring, you will have rehearsed this moment. So your brain and your nervous system and your body is going to be ready for it. You're going to roll out of bed because you've already been in this moment. You already have seen yourself there. You've already felt the resistance. You not only know exactly how this goes, you've rehearsed it in your mind, and you've now rewired your brain to be ready for it.

That's why you can't half-ass this. You got to be dead serious about visualizing the steps you need to take. And so now that you got step one, which is tell the truth about what you want. Get very clear about it. Step two is stop focusing on the end and start focusing on the irritating crap you're going to have to do day in, day out to march toward it. Now we're going to go from the kindergarten manifesting, according to neuroscience, to Olympic-level manifesting. Are you ready? I'm ready. Because step three to properly manifest according to science, you got to feel that stuff in your body. I mean, really feel it. You got to feel what it's like to work for that dream. Now, this isn't just Mel Robbins, and this is not even neuroscientists anymore. We're now bringing in the Olympic athletes and all of their team of psychologists because they take manifesting to an even deeper level. When you're on the Olympic team, you call this imagery because it goes way beyond the visualization. An Olympic aerial skier said, You You have to smell it. You have to hear it. You have to feel it.

You have to feel everything. And so that means as you are closing your eyes and as you are visualizing yourself doing the work, and for an Olympic skier, that means before you even get on that slope, you are imagining every twist, every turn, every bump, every jump. You are going over and over and over and over again, every twist and every turn learn. Because remember, according to the research at UCLA, your brain doesn't know the difference between something that happened to you for real and the things that you imagine happening to you. So you're warming yourself up to exactly what you'll feel as you're taking action. There's a huge article about this in the New York Times, and in it, Bob Sletter, Lyndon Rush, who's an Olympic medalist, said, I've tried to keep the track in my mind throughout the year, he said. I'll be in the shower brushing my teeth. It just takes a minute. So I do the whole track or sometimes just the corners that are more technical. You try to keep it fresh in your head so when you do get there, you're not just starting at square one. And it's amazing how much you can do in your own mind.

And in fact, one of the things that psychologists use this for with our Olympic team is helping athletes deal with the anxiety and resistance that comes up when they're about to go back into racing after an injury. And so this imagery, this deep manifesting where you feel it. So what does that mean? You got to smell the air. You got to feel the wind. You got to really put yourself at the scene. When I was a young trial lawyer, I used to work for the Legal Aid Society as a criminal defense attorney. When I was being trained to do trial work, they used to say, When you're talking to a jury, you have to put people at the scene. You've got to describe something in a way that they could almost see, taste, or smell it. And that's what you need to do. And so here's what I want to do. I want to do this with you right now. And so we're going to use our friend Megan. Remember, she's the one that wants to move from Tampa. And I want to play a part of her clip where she talks about her fears.

And as you're listening to our friend Megan, I want you to see what sensations come up in your body as you are listening to her describe all the resistance and fears that she has about this thing that she wants to do.

My biggest fear is just getting there and then being like, Why did I do this? I'm alone. I have no family or friends here. Who knows when my family or friends are going to visit me, even if they will? Is this going to cost me a lot of money? And now I put myself in a bad financial situation. What if I lose my job and I'm in a new city? What if I hate it?

You want to know what Megan's doing? She's manifesting. She is letting her fears, rehearse the worst-case scenario. She has trained her brain and her nervous system to be terrified of this move. She has a visualizational right that it's not going to work, that her parents are going to mad, that it's a huge mistake, that she's going to lose her job, that no wonder she's not doing it. She's using manifesting in the exact opposite way. She's literally See, she is systematically, through her excuses and her fears and her parents' stuff, she is training her own mind to work against her. I'm afraid of this. I'm afraid of that. It's going to be like this. It's going to be like that. You could feel Well, couldn't you? When she said, What if I get there and I'm alone? What if I get there and it's the worst decision? I bet you felt your chest seize a little bit. When she said, What if I regret it? I bet you felt yourself shrink a little bit. See, her excuses have trained her mind and body to resist taking the action. You do the same thing. Every time you look at the thing that you want, that itch that you have, the dream that you have, goal that you have, and you're like, But this, but that, but what about the other person?

You're visualizing all the negative. And this is why you're stopped. And so instead of mentally rehearsing your deepest fears, let's just flip this. Try visualizing it being great. I mean, instead of going, What if it doesn't work? What if it all works out? What if this is the best decision I've ever made in my entire life? Visualize saying goodbye to your parents. And packing the U-haul. Visualize yourself alone in the apartment. Go to that really scary moment where you're there alone and you feel yourself getting anxious. But then visualize yourself putting your shoes on, leaving the house, Going to that event you signed up, even though you didn't feel like it, and bumping into somebody, and making a new friend. Visualize your mom calling and saying, I miss you. I wish you had it. And as you look out at the mountains or the oceans or this whole new city that you live in, Feel the pride inside yourself that you took the risk and that you're going to see her next month when you go home. And in a weird way, visualize and feel how this distance and you growing up has made your relationship stronger.

Visualize that moment where you lose your job and going, But that's okay. I didn't like that job anyway. And I've met so many people here that now I'm networking and I've just landed something new. Visualize yourself winning. So I think you're getting this. I know you're getting this. Let me just recap because you know nobody gets left behind on the Mel Robbins podcast. Step one, tell the truth. Your brain knows BS, and we need the truth from you. What do you actually want? Step two, you're going to use neuroscience, which means you're going to visualize and feel in your body all the little things you have to do, the annoying, the irritating. I want you to see it, to smell it. I want you to see yourself falling down or being scared and then picking yourself back up and feel the pride. Push through the resistance. There you are doing it. Rehearse it in your mind over and over and over. And what you're really doing is you are decoding all the resistance that your fear's put in. And you are encoding and rewiring a whole new track, a tape in your mind that shows you doing the work and making it happen.

And this is what Olympic athletes do. This is what Mel Robbins does. This is what successful people in business do. And this is what you're going to be doing Now, I want to teach you something else, because I think what's going to happen is that you're going to get all excited, and you're going to identify and tell the truth about what you want, and you're going to sit down and you're going to go to start visualizing the steps, and then something interesting is going to happen. You might find that something weird happens because this is what happened to Mara, and it's extremely commonly common. So listen to this question. Hey, Mel.

My name's Mara. I'm from Chicago, Illinois. I have a question for you. I was just curious, how does one tackle overcoming imposter syndrome while manifesting? So how can I take the steps to work on a business that I'm passionate about, interior design with absolutely no experience other than my own home and planning my own parties and gifting during the seasons and birthdays. When I see these types of businesses online, they really inspire me to create. But the thought of me doing it myself is so scary.

Okay. I love this question. This is so juicy. Lucy and great. I just am so happy, Mara, that you asked this. First of all, let's just stop saying imposter syndrome, okay, everybody? Because when you're new to something, you're a student. That's it. You're a beginner. That's it. You're not imposter. You're not faking anything. You're actually figuring it out. It's part of the process. And so stop saying you have imposter syndrome, because all you do is you have a dream, and you're going to begin to chip away at it. That's what we're doing here. So that's number one. Number two, this is really common. And the reason why it's really common is because your fear is so big, and your self-doubt is so big, and you've never done this thing before. And you can tell based on the fact that Mara was laughing. She's like, Oh, my God, I love this thing. She's diminishing how big of a dream this is. A lot of us do that. We make a little bit of a joke or downplay it a little bit, or we're nervous about it. We don't even admit it. So first of all, I'm proud of you for admitting it, Maura.

That's step one, you told the truth. Step two, the things you need to do, you can figure out because you're a student, you're a beginner, you love this, you're smart, and there's Google, and there's YouTube, and that's going to give you the steps. And those are the things that you need to visualize. So when you sit down and you start to visualize and mentally rehearse, remember, you're an Olympic athlete, you're a winner. We're using neuroscience here. We're going to decode all those fears and all those bullshit excuses, and we're going to reencode some confidence, and we're going to see you doing it, you might experience not being able to picture yourself in the visualization. This is super common. So here's what you're going to use. You're going to use the power of objectivity. That's it. What does that mean? That means if you can't picture yourself doing the work, pick somebody that you admire who you could visualize doing the work. There's a catch here. For example, you could pick me. You could pick an interior designer that you absolutely love. There's so many of them online that you could pick from, that you can follow on Instagram, and you can imagine them in there, taking the certifications, asking their friends if they could stage their apartment for an Instagram photo shoot, networking with realtors, trying to get a job in a design firm, or heck, in an amazing furniture retail location, so you start to build up the acumen.

There's all kinds of things you can do. If you can't picture yourself doing those small steps, put in me or somebody that you deeply admire who's already in the interior design business. Your mind will allow you, through the power of objectivity, to imagine someone else. Now, here's the catch. Here's the catch, because remember, I'm the O-line. I'm your offensive lineman. I'm clear in the path. So I'm not doing this on my own. I'm doing this, and I'm in your visualization so you can score with the ball. So at some point in that visualization, Let's just say you get a job at one of your favorite retail stores that sells furniture and is in the design business. And let's just say you put me in there, and I'm the one that's managing the store. At some point in that visualization, I want you to visualize me turning around and extending my hand and saying, Come on, Maura, it's your turn. Come here and help me. Let me invite you to join my side in your visualization. Visualize us doing the work together. It's a super awesome hack. Using the power of objectivity, we can work around that blind spot in your brain until you're ready to fire Mel Robbins from that job.

And now you can start visualizing yourself, doing all the steps yourself scared to take now. Super cool. Now, let's get to step four, because this is probably the most important part of manifesting according to neuroscience. And I think absolutely everybody forgets to tell you this part. Let's play Cynthia's question.

Hi, my name is Cynthia. I'm from Temecula, California. My question was to Mel, how do you go about manifesting without feeling a sense of selfishness. I was raised in a very strict household. And when you asked for things, it was like you had to do something in return. So I feel like when I'm asking the universe or God, whatever you believe in, for my things that I'm manifesting, I feel like I owe somebody something or something is going to get taken away. So it makes me a little nervous to ask or manifest.

Cynthia, I got to tell you, you're right. You're right. When you manifest, it's not selfish at all, by the way. It's an act of self-love. When you train your mind to help you get what you You're not going to want. But when you manifest, you are going to owe somebody something. And you know what you owe them? Fucking work. That's right. You have to do the thing you're visualizing. When you sit there and you intentionally mentally, mentally, rehearse the steps you need to take, there is something that you owe the universe and you owe yourself, and that is to take the action. You're not just going to sit there and train. At some point, that Olympic athlete has to do the race. At some point, you've got to make the cold call. At some point, you got to quit the job or pack the U-haul trailer or get off your ass and do the training run at 5:00 AM. So you better believe there is going to be something that is asked of you in return. And that's where the magic comes in. Because the magic is in your actions and manifesting, according to neuroscience, just gets your own fears and people's judgments and your childhood wiring out of the way so that you can take those actions.

True science-backed manification. It's not as sexy as the secret makes it seem, and it's actually not as complicated as a huge PhD study makes it seem. You just have to do it. That's it. You have to take the actions. You do owe the universe and yourself something. You owe yourself the actions, the effort, the work that's required. That's what your dreams demand. I talk about this all the time. We all want to believe that somehow you're going to close your eyes and imagine what you want, and it's going to magically happen. I'm sorry, that may happen on TikTok or in Disney, but that is not how the real world works. The way that you are going to make something a reality is you are going to declare that you want it, and then you are going to tediously, annoyingly, wake up every single day and push yourself to lay one brick in a path with one action every day. It's not going to be easy, but day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year, action by action, as you visualize yourself taking the steps, and then you actually push yourself to the steps, you will wake up and realize you have paved a brick path to your dreams.

And you are now, 10 years later, five years later, sitting on the porch of your ocean house. You are crossing the finish line of the New York City Marathon. You are making the final turn in that giant slalom race. That is how this works. So you do owe something. You got to put your skin in the game and your ass on the line. And you do that by waking up every day and taking one of those small steps forward that you visualized and practiced and rehearsed by manifesting properly, according to neuroscience. Now, let me say the final mistake. You ready for the final mistake? This is mistake number four. You get impatient. I cannot tell you how many people You literally give up on their dreams, and they are one audition away from making it. Or how many people stop working on their business, and they were one hour away from the breakthrough that they needed in the financial model, or you give up on that novel or cookbook you wanted to write because you got frustrated by the creative process. You make the mistake of thinking, just because this is getting hard, or it's boring, or it's tedious, it's not working.

Here's the thing I need you to understand. When it comes to achieving your goals and your dreams, there is no timeline involved. You have to give up the when, and you got to stay focused on the why and the how. And you now know the how. The how is using neuroscience to remove the resistance in your mind, in your nervous system, in your body, and then pushing yourself, pushing yourself to do the work, because manifesting Manifesting is not magically making something appear. Manifesting is preparing your mind, body, and spirit to do the work to make it a reality. Overnight success does not exist, period. Yes, there are a lot of people that have gotten lucky. Yes, privilege is real. Bias is a fact. And it is really easy to get jealous. But what you aren't seeing when you focus on the end result is the years and years and years that went into this moment. A lot of people are looking at me right now and they're like, Holy cow. This is one of the most successful podcast launches in history. How the hell did that happen overnight? It didn't. This has been in the works for 10 years.

I have been chipping away at it, doing the work behind the scenes before I even launched this thing. You have to ask yourself, I think, when it comes to the big stuff, are you willing to work 10 years for it? Are you willing to work 10 years for that beach house? Are you willing to work 10 years for that million dollars in the bank? Are you willing to work 10 years to get that PhD, to heal your trauma, to be happy? Because that's how long it might take. If we're being really honest here, if it's a really big thing, it could take even longer, and that's okay. Because you know what? There's nothing more fulfilling in life than chipping away at your dreams and your goals. That's what gives your life meaning. Achieving your goals doesn't give your life meaning. Working on them, working towards something bigger than where you're at right now, That is where the real secret sauce is. If you want to be successful in business, you got to get ready to make 100 hours of cold calls about your product or about the thing you're selling before you get one person that doesn't hang up on you.

I'm not even talking about a yes. And that's where visualization comes in. You got to visualize the nos. If you want to be a writer, how about getting ready to write for five years? Five years of draughts, five years of what Anne LeMont calls your shitty first draft. Days and days and days of sitting down every single day, because this is what a writer does. They sit down and they write no matter what. They days where you sit there and you stare at a blank piece of paper. Visualize that. And visualize yourself, keep going. Visualize publishers saying no, and no, and no. And then finally, somebody says, yes, or you self-publish. See, the time and the effort that you have to put in. It's not glamorous, everybody. It's not easy. There are going to be times that you're going to feel like giving up. This is what separates the people who achieve their goals from the people who don't, in my opinion. It's this quitting day. It's this moment where you throw in the towel. If you can go one more day, you can make it happen because then you can go another. See, the benefit of waking up every day and using manifesting, according to neuroscience, to visualize yourself yourself continuing to go forward, is that when the going gets tough, you will have trained your brain and your nervous system that you're the person that keeps going.

And when your body and your brain knows that about you, when the going gets tough, You will keep going. So please, once you're honest with yourself about what you want, put in the time. Bring a lot of patience. And I promise, if you're willing to put in the work and the effort, and you're willing to Continue to train your mind to believe that, yes, in fact, you are going to cross that finish line. You are going to have that million dollars in the bank. You are going to have the happiness and the love and the health that you deserve. You're going to have the family you've always dreamt of. You will eventually make it happen. I believe that. Honestly, I just love this shit because manifesting according to neuroscience, is one of my superpowers. If I'm not talking, I'm probably manifesting something that I want. I currently do not have a beach house. Let me tell you, I have two or three particular homes in mind that are currently occupied. I have all kinds of manifesting according to neuroscience, going on. I'm in no hurry. I know this takes time. I keep seeing myself chipping away at it.

I see the letter I'm going to write, and I'm going to stick it in the note box. I see myself working to make the money. I also have done this with this podcast, you guys. This was two years in the making before we recorded our first episode. You know what I was doing? I was busy manifesting all the hard and tedious stuff that would lead me here and actually doing it. Another thing I'm manifesting, we are getting this incredible studio space in Boston. And so I keep having these visions of making the drive down from Southern Vermont. I have this vision of one of our team members, Charlotte, standing out front of the building with a clipboard, and she has this little, one of those her headset walkie-talkie things on, and she's greeting this SUV that comes up. I am upstairs having stress diarrhea because the Dalai Lama is stepping out of the SUV and is coming up to be on the Mel Robbins podcast. I am managing through my stomach ache as Charlotte is walking the Dalai Lama through our lobby and up the elevator to our brand new, insanely cool... This is what I do, everybody, because it's a superpower.

I am training my mind to help me make my big dreams and visions a reality. I'm even doing this for our daughters. I'm manifesting what it looks like for our daughter to... I I'm waiting for her to do it next fall. I'm visualizing her halfway around the world and working her way around the world. I'm visualizing our other daughter spending late nights in a session writing her music. I can feel what it's going to feel like when she calls crying and saying that something happened. And so I'm doing this for me. I do it for you. I do it for the people that I love. This stuff is awesome because in some way, when you really get good at this, it is true what the research at UCLA says. You do trick your own brain. When we started this podcast, finally, after years of thinking about it and two years of properly manifesting according to neuroscience, I was so rehearsed. I had a Mageread, or whatever the hell the word is that the Olympians use, that when I stepped in to record our first episode, it felt like I had been doing this for 10 years because in my mind, I've been preparing that long.

So I promised you an exercise because step one is you have to get honest with yourself and claim what you want. That's step one. I'm going to tell you that, and I want you to think about your dream. I want you to think about what that's calling you. I want you to think about the thing that would be so magical if you could make it happen. But you've been arguing against yourself, and I want you to allow yourself to claim it. And as you sit there and think about the dream in your own life, let's go back to Los Angeles. Let's go back to that stage, and let's check in with Barbara, because I'm going to ask her to start getting honest. And what I want you to pay attention to, is I want you to pay attention to how much she starts to joke and make excuses and dismiss how serious I am about dreams.

Maybe you needed to move to South Florida to actually feel and understand in your soul who you are and what you want. It's a scary thing to admit what you want because it's true. It might not happen. Right.

I've come so close to it happening so many times.

It hurts so much.

It's all so scary.

There's part of me that's like, No, don't do that.

But why is it scary?

Because I don't want to go into debt, and I want to be at least somewhere.

So I thought, Well, I have this...

But here's what I want you to understand. You have not gotten honest with yourself about what you actually want. You're putting all the energy into, But I don't want to go into debt. But I don't want to do this, but I don't want to do that.

So then you do that anyway.

Yes.

That's the first step, honesty. It's very sobering when you get honest. Because for many of us, I mean, look at me. I spent 11 years making excuses for why I couldn't start a podcast. And all those excuses and the dancing around and, Oh, brushing it off, and the, I'm not really that serious about it. It's painful. Your dream isn't painful. She's talking about how scared she is that the dream is not going to turn out. What's actually painful is how much energy you're putting into avoiding what you want and what you deserve. And the three big ways that we extinguish that flame inside of us and we put distance between ourselves and the dreams that are meant for us is number one, we literally downplay them. Anytime you make a joke about your dream, anytime you're like, I'm not that serious about it, you're putting distance between you and your dream. You're taking a bucket of water and you're trying to extinguish the flame inside you. Anytime you make excuses, I don't have the money, I can't do it, I don't have the time. Same thing. Cold bucket of water on that flame. Stop doing it.

And the third thing, when she really gets honest. When you have that moment of reckoning with yourself and you can claim what you want. It's terrifying. It really is because you allow yourself to feel desire. You allow your sofa just a second to feel possibility. Just imagine how incredible it would be to do a stadium tour and sing your own songs. And when you allow yourself to entertain the fact that that's the dream that's meant for you, you allow yourself to stand close to that flame, you allow it to burn a little brighter, and then we get scared. What if it doesn't happen? And you convince yourself that your dream is scary. And your dream isn't scary at all. Your excuses and your fear of it and your joking is what's scary. And so how do you keep this dream alive? And this is a really important exercise, particularly for those of you who say, I don't know what I want, Mel. I don't know what my dream is. I have a very simple exercise that I've taught to hundreds of thousands of people. It's backed by science, and this is an exercise that is going to help you get back in touch with dreaming.

See, I think part of the problem is that we've all gotten into this mode where we don't want to get our expectations up. So we put a lid on our own desires. We don't allow ourselves to want what we want. We don't allow ourselves to be in touch with the things that we really long for. And it's the fact that you won't even give yourself permission to dream. That's also making you feel unworthy. And so how are we going to tap back into this dream inside you? How are we going to get your desires flowing freely? How are you going to get you to start to believe that you're worthy of the things that you long for. I'll tell you how. It's very simple. Every single morning, you are going to make a cup of coffee or tea, and as part of your morning routine, you are simply going to write down down five dreams a day. That's it. Five dreams a day. You are going to make it a habit to claim what you want, if only by writing it on a piece of paper. And having taught this to hundreds of thousands of people, I already know what your questions are going to be.

Are they the same things I write down? Are they big things? Are they little things? Are they things that can happen? What are they, Mel? Here's how you're going to do this. Do not overthink it. Sit down, you have a blank piece of paper, and just write down five things you want. It could be, I want that new Gucci handbag, and you might not be able to pay for groceries right now. It might be, I want my puppy to stop pooping on the living room rug. It might be, I want to be the number one podcast host in the world. It might be, I want to do a stadium tour. I want to write a song that helps heal the world. I want to have a wonderful relationship with my mom, who I currently hate. Your dreams are yours. Do not judge them. Do not shrink them. This exercise is about clearing out the blockage and the gunk that has blocked the highway between your heart and your soul and what you will give yourself permission mission to want and desire in your life. Your self-doubt, your feeling that you're not worthy, your excuses, your people-pleasing, it's all blocking your access to this longing, to this dream within you.

And so we got to just get the gears turning. We got to get these, I don't even know what you call it, but this is a way to grease the gears and get you free flowing. Why shouldn't you do a stadium tour? Why shouldn't you have that new Gucci handbag, if that's what you want? You can certainly do the work to get it. Why shouldn't you be happy or healthy or heal your cancer? These dreams are there for a reason. We got to get them out of your head where you bury them with excuses, and we got to get them into the world in real time, where you can see them on a piece of paper. Now, reason number one why you're going to do this, five dreams a day. They can be the same dreams, they can be different dreams. They can be big dreams. They can be little dreams. They can be thematic. They can be specific stuff. They can be anything you want. We just need to get your dreams and your desires flowing freely without you putting the lid on, invalidating or arguing against them. There's a second reason why this exercise is so effective, and it has to do with something called the Zeigarnik effect.

Now, the Zeigarnik effect is a extraordinarily well-documented effect in your brain that was first discovered by a Lithuanian psychologist named Bluma Zygarnik. She had her first study published about psychology and this theory in 1927. This has been around for a long time. And what is the Zygarnik effect? Well, the Zeigarnik effect is this: inside of your brain, there is a mental checklist function. And whenever something is important to you, your brain is like, Oh, ding, ding, ding. I guess she wants to do a stadium tour. Oh, ding, ding, ding. I guess she wants to get her cholesterol down. Whenever something's important to you, your brain takes notice, it opens up a mental checklist, and then your brain has this really interesting function where it will now work with you to help remind you of this thing that's important to do. It's like a little to-do list in your brain. The Zeigarnic effect is once your brain knows something is important, and it's important if you keep writing it down, your Your brain is going to go to work trying to help you get it done. The Zeigarnic effect is so pronounced that it is used, everybody, in software design.

You know how they talk about gamification? You know how you got to film out a form and then all of a sudden, a little reminder pops up that's like, you're 64% complete. Well, that's a Zeigarnik effect. That's this mental checklist thing saying, you're not done yet. You got a little bit more to go. And so this is so effective. And so, again, I'm going to summarize this, and I'm also I'm going to help you. If you go to melrobinds. Com/dreambig, melrobinds. Com/dreambig, I got a free download for you. Not only are we going to give you some of the key takeaways from this episode, but we're going to give you prompts so that you can print out this free sheet and use it every single morning to write down your five dreams, to tap into the Zeigarnik effect inside your brain to help you keep those dreams alive and to help you start letting your desires and your worthiness flow freely through you. Okay, so we've covered a couple of key topics so far. Your dreams are not a joke. They matter. You got to claim them. This exercise of writing down five things you want every single morning is going to tap into that superhighway, and it's going to help you build the neuropathways to give yourself permission to want things.

It's going to help you tap into this flame inside you that is burning, and it is begging for you to let it help you.

Hey, it's Mel. Thank you so much for checking this video out. If you like this one, I have a feeling you're going to like this one, too. I'll see you there.