Transcript of Take These Steps To Get ANYTHING You Want | Mel Robbins Clips

These are the six simple steps that will help you achieve any goal. I don't care what the goal is. These are the steps that you need to follow. These are the steps that work. The first step to achieving any goal is going to sound super obvious, but what I find is that everybody skips the thing that's obvious, and you don't realize how important it is. I'm taking a decade of life and business experience, and I'm jamming it into this conversation so that you don't have to learn this stuff the hard way. You're going to realize, Oh, yeah, this is how you achieve anything. This makes so much sense. Thanks, Mel. You're welcome. All right, let's jump into it. I brought so many notes. If you can see me on YouTube, you see that I have all of these highlighted pages. You're going to hear me rustling pages as you're listening. That's because I brought a lot of research, and I have questions from your fellow listeners around the world related to some of these steps. But the first step, you have to what you want. I'll say that again. You have to take the time and decide what you want.

Most people don't take the time to even do that, to define the goal, and to determine whether or not the thing that you want even is a goal. That brings me to one of the first nuances of step one, decide what you want. You got to understand the difference between a dream and a goal. Critical distinction. A dream is something that if you close your eyes and you imagine this dream of yours, right? And let's just take something that is on a lot of people's bucket lists, that you dream of being an author, you dream of publishing a book, you dream of writing a book, whether it's a memoir or a cookbook of your family's recipes or the next fantasy fantasy trilogy novel that deep in your heart, you have this dream that you have written a book, you're a published author. Let me talk about what it feels like to dream. If you close your eyes and you imagine the dream of being a published author, of a dream of writing a book, you can feel it, can't you? You can also imagine it. If I were to walk you through an exercise where I guide you through your senses and I say, Okay, your dream has come true.

You've written the book, you're a published author, you've sold the movie rights. I mean, how amazing. If I were to walk through your day, what are the sounds that you hear? What does your life look like? You can imagine it in your mind. That's the key difference between a dream and a goal. See, a dream is something you can imagine. A goal is something you achieve. Big difference. Because one is in the thinking, that's the dreaming and the feeling. A goal is in the doing. I want you to just consider the difference between these two sentences. I dream of writing a book versus I have a goal of writing a book this year. Do you feel the difference between those two things? See, a dream is infinite. A A dream only exists in your heart and your mind. A dream is trapped inside your soul and your brain. But a goal, a goal is something you do. More importantly, when would you know that a dream is realized? I don't know. I mean, it's like a dream is realized when you close your eyes and you imagine it. You dream of being healthier. You dream of someday being healthy enough to run a 5K or a marathon Versus, I have a goal this year of getting in shape and training and running a 5K or a marathon.

Do you feel how different they are? It's because one exists in your mind and the other exists in the world. This is critical. You have to have step one. You have to decide what you want. When you do this, I want you to think Think about this as I'm asking you this question for step one, decide what you want. It could be anything. I want to drink more water. Another goal could be, I want to start a YouTube channel this year. Another goal might be, I want to go back and earn my degree in nursing. Another goal might be, I want to get out of debt and create financial freedom. Great. That's you deciding what you want and speaking it in the language a goal. Now, I'm going to take it a step further. Here's a question I want you to ask yourself, because we're not moving to step two of achieving your goals until we get step one on lock. Here's the question I want you to ask yourself. How are you going to know that you've achieved it? How are you going to know? Let's take the example of financial freedom. You'll know you're out of debt because your credit cards are paid off.

Great goal. How am I going to know you're financially free? What's the number in the bank? How are you going to know it? How are you going to measure it? This is critically important because if you can't measure it, it's not a goal. It's just a wish, a want, or a dream. We got to get specific because you got to not only step one, decide what you want, you got to be able to answer the question, how are you going to know you actually achieved it? Because goals are not things you think about. Goals are things you do. When I think about the goals that I've achieved, I've gotten myself out of financial freefall. I mean, many of you know I was 800 grand in debt just 15 years ago and facing bankruptcy. I have gotten myself into a healthier place and have a consistent exercise routine, and That was a goal because my hormones went all over the place, and then I started to gain weight, and so I made it a goal. What do I want? I want to understand my hormones and I want to develop an exercise routine that makes me feel healthy again, which means I can fit into a size 28 pair of pants.

That was my goal. I can measure it. I can measure that. That's a goal. What's another one? I want to drink more water. For me, that means I want to drink two, I think these are quart size. I drink two quart size You can hear the ice, Mason jars every day. That's my goal. That's how I know that I've achieved it. What's another one? I want to be a published author. How do I know that I'm a published author? The only way that I know is I got a book in my hands. That's I know I'm a published author. I can dream about it all day long, but I know I've achieved it if I can define the terms and conditions under which I'm going to check the box and say, I did that. In everything that I do, whether it's launching a podcast or it's getting out of debt, or it's getting healthy and in shape in the middle of big hormone shifts. Every single one of these things is just defining a goal, deciding what I want, determining how I'm going to that I've actually achieved the thing. That's step one. Step two, write it down.

I know you're thinking, Okay, Mel, this is pretty basic stuff here. I know. And I bet you haven't even written down your goals. This is a major mistake, and it's a major mistake for two reasons. One has to do with the physical act of taking your goal out of your brain, which is basically a dream or a wish or a want, and grounding it in the real world on physical paper. This is an extremely important act for you to do. It's almost like an act of defiance. If you're somebody that struggled with your weight and you're going to stop dreaming about being healthier and you're going to create a goal and exactly what you want. I want to lose 50 pounds. Write it on a piece of paper. Write down the weight. Write down how you know you're going to achieve it. If you've been struggling for a while and you have the audacity and the courage and the clarity to write down what you want in the face of where you've been, you, my friend, are on your way to achieving it. I pulled some of the research on this, and there's two benefits, okay?

It has to do with something called external storage. I know it's like a fancy word for something really simple and obvious once I explain it to you. But when you write it down on a piece of paper, and let's just take the thing I'm going to keep talking about. You want to be a published author. I want to write a book, okay? When you say, I want to write a book, that's what I'm doing this year. I'm going to know that I have written a book when it's actually physically printed. When you write that down on a piece of paper, that's step two, write it down. That piece of paper is something researchers call external storage. Now, this is where it gets cool. That paper and the fact that you've written it down reminds you of the goal. Then you're going to tack it up somewhere. Why? Because you're going to see it every day, and it's going to remind you that this is something that's important to you. Then what starts to happen is what researchers call encoding. Encoding is when your brain sees something, something as basic as the goal and the thing that you want written down on a piece of paper with clarity.

When your brain sees it, the information, check this out, gets transferred to the hippocampus for analysis. This part of the brain is where the brain decides, well, what's important to store in the long term memory and what can we throw out? This is the process of your brain encoding the goal. Why? Because you're telling your brain every day through this piece of paper that this matters to you. Now, why is that important, Mel? I'll tell you why writing it down, step two, is so important. Because when you encode your brain with the thing that matters to you, whether it's getting healthy or it's being in a loving relationship, or it's making $100,000 this year, or it's getting into nursing school. When you see that every day, here's what's going on. See, your brain all day long has to filter all kinds of information from social media to stuff at work, to things going on with your family, to text messages, to emails. But guess what? If you've written this down, this goal that you have, and your brain sees it every day, as your Your brain is busy going through the day and it's filtering out information, guess what you've done?

You've encoded this little checklist in your brain. So suddenly you're going to start to notice, Oh, wow, there's an article about writing a book. Oh, wow. There's an exercise routine that can be done in 15 minutes. Interesting. Why am I starting to see things related to my goal? I'll tell you why. This is so well-researched. I'm not even going to take the time to explain all of the studies and research that explains this. You're basically telling your brain what matters to you. You're telling your brain, this is important, and I want you to remember it, brain, because as you're looking around the world, if you see something that I've encoded, like writing a book or losing weight, then I want you to bring it to my attention. I can explain how this works with a simple example. Have you ever bought a car or just been interested in a car? Then all of a sudden, you're interested in the new Ford Bronco, they're everywhere. Why? Because when you saw the Bronco and you said yourself, Oh, my God, I love the Bronco, and then you look at it in the marketing materials, Oh, my gosh, I love the Bronco, and then you see it on social media, Oh, my gosh, I love the Bronco, and then you see your neighbor has one, Oh, my gosh, I'm jealous because I like the Bronco.

You're telling your brain it's important to you. You are encoding this interest in your mind. So now your brain is going to go to work. And what do you see everywhere? Broncos. That's just the basic way that your brain works to take what's important or what your brain thinks is important to you and to filter the world in a way to help you see more of it. Isn't that cool? These are the six simple steps that will help you achieve any goal. I don't care what the goal is. These are the steps that you need to follow. These are the steps that work. I'm taking a decade of life and business experience, and I'm jamming it into this conversation. Any goal, there is somebody who's already done it. There is a formula.