How to Achieve Any Goal You Have in 6 Simple Steps

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 kind of goal there is somebody who's already done it there is a Formula the reason why there are formulas is because they work and I want you to steal it you're going to realize oh yeah this is how you achieve anything thing thanks Mel you're welcome

let's jump into it hey it's your friend Mel and welcome to the Mel Robins podcast I am so thrilled to be here with you today I cannot wait to share everything that we're going to talk about today regarding the research around goals and achieving goals and the six simple steps that I followed this is a Formula that I have developed over the course of a decade of business and health and Life Changes 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 want to tell you it is always such an honor to be able to spend some time together with you but I am particularly excited because what I'm about to teach you today it works and these are simple steps and if you follow them I don't care how ambitious your goals are you can achieve your goals and I know that this is going to be an episode that so many of you share with the people in your life that you deeply care about you share

with your colleagues at work you share with your adult kids you share with your siblings everybody everybody needs to know these six simple steps so I also want to take a minute before we jump in and I unpack each one of these six steps to welcome you if you're brand new if this is the first episode you've ever listened to on the Mel Robbins podcast welcome to the Mel Robins podcast family this is a winner of an episode because 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 can go straight to the front of the line you are going to have the cheat code and the proven shortcut to achieving your goals in six simple steps so I want to thank you for pressing play on an episode and taking the time to listen to something that will truly help you change your life and this is one of those episodes you want to bookmark because you're going to want to come back to this over and over and over again and as I unpack

each one of these six simple steps to achieving your goals 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 so 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 and I brought so many notes I like 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 and 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 decide what you want I say that again you have to take the time and decide what you want and 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 AAL and 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 so 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 list 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 Trilogy novel that deep in your heart you have this dream that you have

written a book you're a published author and let me talk about what it feels like to dream right 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 and 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 wrs 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 and 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 and 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 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 and more importantly when would you know that a dream is realized I don't know I mean it's kind of like a dream is realized when you close your eyes and you imagine it right 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 and this is critical and so you have to have step one you have to decide what you want and when you do this I want you to think about this as I'm asking you this question for step one decide what you want and it could be anything I want to drink more water another goal could be uh 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 of a gold 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 un lock okay and here's the question I want you to ask yourself how are

you going to know that you've achieved it how you going to know so let's take the example of financial Freedom like 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 and this is critically important because if you can't measure it it's not a goal it's just a wish a want or 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 uh what's another one I want to drink more water and 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 uh 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 how 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 and say I did that and so 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 measure that I've actually achieved the thing and that's step one and so whatever it is that you have you do step one and now we're going to move to step two you ready good step two write it down write it down I know you're thinking okay Mel this is some pretty basic stuff here

I know and I bet you haven't even written down your goals and 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 want and grounding it in the real world on physical paper and this is an extremely important act for you to do it's almost like an act of defiance like if you're somebody that's 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 and I pulled some of the research on this and there's two benefits okay and 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 and 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 and 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 and 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 and 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 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 uh $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 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 and I can explain how this works with a simple example have you ever bought a car or just been interested in a car and then all of a sudden like you're interested in the new Ford Bronco they're everywhere why because when you saw the Bronco and you said to yourself

oh my 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 kind of 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 see more of it isn't that kind of cool so that's one reason why you have to write your goal down I'm going to publish a book by the end of the year that's my goal you're going to be shocked at what you start to see because if you see this thing written down by your computer every single day or on the home screen of your phone you're going to start

to notice oh my gosh this thing that I'm interested in it's everywhere and that's going to help you it's going to help you a lot now there's a second reason why I want you to write the goal down and be brave and be specific and claim that thing that you want and this is research that shows that when you write things down you're actually more likely to achieve it and there's a number of reasons why one of the reasons why has to do with what I just explained to you about how your brain now knows

its import so it's going to filter the world in a way to help you see more opportunities to advance the goal the second reason why this matters is because it's going to help you remember to do it and it's going to remind you on those days where you're not motivated or you feel a little down oh yeah this thing is important to me and that's going to make it a little easier which we're going to get to in some of the later steps and the third reason why is because it will help you tremendously when

it comes to you pushing yourself on the days that you don't feel like doing it and so we're going to come back to step two and writing it down because I'm going to help you find Motivation by writing something down a little bit later so I promise you we're going to come back to it step number three is find the formula mm find the formula you've decided what you want you've made it very specific so you know what it's going to take you have answered the question how am I going to know I've achieved it

so you've got this level as specificity you've written it down and now here's your assignment go find the formula for whatever it is that you've written down the goal that you want to achieve could be getting into a loving relationship after heartbreak or divorce or losing someone you love it might be creating a new chapter of your life it could be writing a book it could be starting a business it could be getting in shape it might be learning a new language in five weeks flat it could be mastering giving a toast at somebody's wedding

any kind of goal that you can State and write down for yourself there is somebody who's already done it and for everything that somebody's already done there is a formula for example there is a formula for how you build a successful real estate business there just is there is a formula for how you become a motivational speaker there's a formula for how you write and publish a book whether you do it with a publisher or you self-publish or you use hybrid publishing there's a formula there's a formula for how to launch a podcast in fact

before I started the Mel Robins podcast you know what I was doing for the two years before I started this podcast I was researching the podcast industry and I was looking for the formulas do people publish episodes once a week or twice a week or three times a week or five times a week or once a month and what's the difference what are people saying about the equipment what do people say about how long the episode should be what do people say about advertisers there's a formula and one of the things that I've noticed over

the years is that most people screw this up because you want to do it your way you think you're copying you think that if you do it the same way everybody else did it then somehow you're stealing somebody else's idea do you want to know some the reason why there are formulas is because they work and the six step that I'm teaching you today to achieve your goals it's a formula for achieving your goals and I want you to steal it because formulas work and I have seen too many people waste years of their lives

saying I'm not going to try keto because my sister-in-law is doing it and I don't want her to think that I'm copying her and I like I need to do it my way screw that are you kidding me if you know what you want and you know what it's going to look like if you've achieved it and you have the bravery and the clarity to write it down I want you to find every formula you can and then I want you to use it and I say this because I screwed myself over I robbed myself

of the opportunity to achieve a goal at a time when I desperately needed to achieve a goal and so I want you to go out and find the formula for whatever it is whether it's weight loss or putting yourself out there or gaining confidence or making a million dollars or learning how to be an affiliate marketer online or learning how people are making so much money as influencers there's a formula find it and follow it because every day that you don't you're wasting time you're wasting energy and you're the one that's standing in the way

of you achieving your goals because the formula is how you do it and here's the other thing I'm going to say about it you're a unique human being so even if you do exactly what everybody else does and you follow the formula and you follow the formula for getting into the real estate business or launching that skin care company you're still going to do it your own way because you're your own person you still have to prep the meals even though you're going to follow the recipes that somebody else is telling you worked for them

to balance their hormones you're still going to put your own spin on it because you can't do anything in life without making it your own because you're going to put your own personal touch on it and I feel so passionate about this because I see too many of you w wasting years of your lives sitting around knowing exactly what you need to be doing or knowing what other people did and telling yourself you can't let them think you copied them because you did let them think you followed the formula because you did let them say

you're not that original so what you got the goal achieved who cares let them say oh well she just did great yes I did let them say whatever the heck they want because you have big amazing awesome goals that you're trying to achieve here so find the formula you know I've got a question here from Elise who says Mel I'm so excited to start my new business and the business is giving singing lessons to teenage kids who want to be on Broadway now let me ask you a question because you probably don't have a goal

like Elise does of launching a business to give singing lessons to teenage kids who want to be on Broadway but between you and me do you think there's somebody on the planet who has launched a business teaching kids how to break into Broadway I'd venture to Guess that there's a bunch of them and I'd also venture to Guess that these businesses are also have Instagram channels and they've done podcast episodes where they've talked about their business or somebody's written a Blog article about it there might even be a book about this like how to break

into Broadway right so even though you and I don't want to do this business can you see that if we had to if our life depended upon it we could find the formula that other people followed we could see what we needed to be doing on Instagram and social media we could see like how you Market this kind of business and what kind of services you need to offer because you can just look at everybody else's website that's what I'm talking about when I say a formula and that's why there's nothing stopping you in fact

the road map is right there and so Elise continues to WR but as soon as I think about think about my big amazing goal I get paralyzed I have no idea where to start and I've been stalled for years so she's making a couple mistakes that all get solved by steps one two and three so she has decided what she wants she wants to start a business that helps kids break into Broadway okay clear how will you know that you've achieved that goal well Alis is going to have to answer and you're going to have

to answer for yourself but I would say that I have achieved that goal if I have five paying clients and I have gotten at least one of my clients an audition for an actual show that is on Broadway or Off Broadway I would count that that's how I would know I officially in the business of doing this and I have achieved my goal now why would I Define it that way well because then I know I've done it I've got paying clients so money's coming in sounds like I'm running a business and if I'm getting

my clients to be able to have an audition sounds like I'm pretty good at my job great then I've achieved it now I'm going to write it down and I'm going to write that down and this is what a lease needs to do it's five clients one person has an audition this is what the business is great so now she's got it in front of her right because one of the reasons why you get paralyzed is if it's a dream it stays in your head if it's a goal it goes down on paper if it's

a dream it stays locked in your soul as a wish if it is a goal it is on paper in front of your face as something to do now we know step three which is find the formula Alise is paralyzed because a it's not on paper and B she's looking at everybody else around her as people that have already done it she's too late I don't know what to do uhuh uh-uh no no other people do not block your way they lead the way find the formula I feel so adamant about this because I didn't

follow this advice this is how I figured out that find the formula is step three in achieving any goal because I didn't do this for a long time and I literally screwed myself over what was my goal at the time well 10 years ago I was miserably in debt I desperately needed to pay bills I needed to put groceries on the table I need to fill up my gas tank with gas I needed to pay for the town Town soccer fee so my kids could play Town soccer like I was very motivated and my goal

was to figure out how I could become a person that was paid to give motivational speeches and I had started giving speeches it all kind of just happened organically I'll tell you that story at at a different time but as people started to ask me more and more to come to small events or speak in church basements or go to companies and talk at Brown Bag lunches I started to think how can I make money doing this I didn't know anybody who made money doing this and this was 10 years ago and so I didn't

know who to ask but one day I went to an event and there were some other speakers there that looked way more professional than me like they had really fancy PowerPoint presentations and they were on the big stages I was just in like the back rooms on the panels and so I went up to one of them and I asked for advice and this is something you can do because this is how you find a formula you can either research and stalk people legally online and figure it out for yourself and listen to podcast episodes

and do your research or heck put it into Ai and ask them what are the 10 steps to doing this goal that I have and you'll be shocked because you'll get the formula so I go up to somebody and I write about this in my new book The let them theory in fact I write about it on page 82 and I want to read to you about this okay so I asked these experienced speakers at this event what do I do and they told me there are three things to do and it's the same three

things everybody does okay everybody who launches a real estate business same three things everybody that tries to get into nursing school same three things everybody that launches a YouTube channel same three things everybody that becomes an influencer or loses same same things everyone there's no mystery here there's just a formula so here's what they told me to do they said Mel build a simple website with photos of you on a stage plus a description of your keynote and the main takeaways second they said Mel get testimonials from a few event planners at past events that

you've spoken at put them on the website easy and then they said the third and most important part of the formula if you want to be paid to give a speech mail you better start posting about speaking online you have to turn your social media into your marketing post photos from events post content related to your speech post photos with the event planners that hire you social media is how people find you social media demonstrates that you're a player in this industry and social media is what will lead people to that one-page website where you

have testimonials from event planners so they can book you that's the formula follow it and you'll start getting paid as a motivational speaker so armed with that advice this was 10 years ago I knew exactly what I needed to do plus plus the stakes were really high I needed the money to get my family out of debt so I was very clear about what I needed to do now here's what's interesting about goals I knew what I wanted I was highly motivated and I even knew what I needed to do I had the formula did

I follow the formula not [Laughter] really and if you're honest with yourself I bet you're kind of where I am right there you kind of know what you need to do to lose the weight or to put yourself out there or to convert the bedroom that's been empty for a number of years into an office or a craft studio you know you're just not doing it I hear you we're going to get to those other three steps in a minute yes I created a website yes I asked for testimonials and I put them on the

website but did I post on social media nope you sitting there going guilty Mel I really want to Market my business but I just don't do it online I really want to make money but I'm not taking that course that teaches me how see at the time my social media was personal it was filled with photos of my kids pictures from family trips and selfies with friends all of my followers were my friends my former classmates and family members I'd never posted anything about my desire to become a motivational speaker or the fact that I've

been doing speeches for free for over a year and if you've ever wanted to use social media to launch a business or promote some new aspect of your life or share your art you know what I'm talking about you know how hard it is to look at that account that only has photos of your personal life and then make a decision that you're going to turn this into a marketing channel now I'm reading on page 83 of the let them Theory Book right now it took me two years to start posting about my business on

social media why because I was afraid of what people would think and if you're sitting there going who are you afraid of Mel simple I was afraid of my friends I was worried that if I stopped posting photos of my kids and pictures from barbecues and get togethers with extended family and I started posting photos of me speaking at conferences that people would judge me who does she think she is I mean who the heck is hiring her to speak what does she possibly have to say I mean do you know what a train wreck

her life is do you know that her husband's restaurants Are CL what the phony now look I tried to post but I would thumb through my photos from the event and select one or two and then what would happen the fear would kick in and as I would draft the caption I'd start to feel worried about people's opinions and I'd start to talk to myself do you ever do this as you're about to post something does this sound too arrogant how's this photo is this is this caption professional enough if I post this are people

going to unfollow me are my friends going to think I'm full of myself should I just start a separate account from scratch I mean I went around and around and around and around I had the formula I would then convince myself oh it's not worth it to post and you want to know why because I'd burn through so much energy trying to craft the perfect most compelling marketable image and caption something that would promote me but it would also ensure that nobody would have a negative thought or unfollow or think that I'm being too self-centered

that I was literally exhausting myself and if you have a goal of actually trying to lose weight you probably do this before you go to the gym and then you have no motivation to go to the gym if your goal is to get out of debt I bet you work yourself up as you look at the pile of bills and you think about the budget you need to create and you get so worked up in your mind with all of the stress and drama that oh I'll just do it tomorrow you have the formula you're

not following it I literally cre ated hundreds of draft posts and they just sat there in my drafts for two years and you know what would happen when I did get the jolt of confidence to post oh my gosh I would put it up and then I'd be like and then I would check it obsessively and if in five minutes it didn't have enough hearts or enough comments or you know I felt like uhoh uhoh uh oh I would just delete it and I really want you to embrace this because if you know the formula

that you could could be following you're the one holding yourself back just like I did this stupid fear kept me from marketing my business and this is something I wanted to make my full-time career I was giving other people's opinions more weight and importance than my own ability to get out of debt to achieve a goal to get ahead in my life I mean talk about giving your power away and when I look back at my s now and I think my God I knew exactly what I wanted I knew how I would measure it

CU I felt that I would achieve that goal if I received a single paycheck one paycheck means I'm getting paid to give a speech and now I'm Legit I had the formula I stopped myself from following it and you will never achieve your goals if you only get to step three ever what is it that you want because there is no doubt in my mind you follow these six steps you will achieve it may not happen this year but you will achieve it if you follow these six steps whether your goal is to launch a

successful business or sell your art or publish your music or go on tour or have your videos get a million views or just post a photo of yourself in a bathing suit because it means you accept yourself as you are if if you're censoring yourself in any way it's because you're afraid of other people's opinions me too I mean that's why we do it and that's why the tool for following the formula is my let them Theory you have to say let them let them think say and feel however they're going to feel because my

life is my responsibility and I got to focus on what I can control and I got to say the second part of the let them Theory which is let me let me do the things that I need to do to achieve that goal let me put myself out there let me act in a way that makes me feel proud of myself because when you start to feel proud of yourself you're not going to care what anybody thinks because you know the facts you know the truth you know who you are and you know most advice

on this topic I'm just going to come right out and say it it sucks it sucks because most people are going to tell you just stop caring about whatever people think but nobody tells you how I'm telling you how I'm telling you give people the freedom to think whatever they want let them let them judge let them have negative thoughts let them unfollow you let them do and feel and think whatever they want to do because you have goals and if you want to achieve your goals you have to let other people have their opinions

about it because you got to take your time and energy back and stop managing that and worrying about it and holding yourself back because you need that time and energy to do step four so let's move on to step four because step four is the really irritating boring and unglamorous part of achieving your goals and I call it doing the Reps it took me a long time to figure out this formula and I want you to feel my conviction about it and I've tried to make it as simple and as unboringed about achieving your goals

nothing nothing and the faster you get that into your brain the more successful you're going to be achieving your goals full stop so what is doing the rep so this comes from my buddy best-selling author Jeff Walker look him up fantastic guy phenomenal business coach and Jeff said in a meeting that I was in once he said you know I've been asked over the years what is the secret to success and he said it's doing the Reps and the reps are the boring tedious annoying actions that you take every day just like going to the

gym you want a bigger bicep you got to do the Reps is doing reps fun nope is walking into the gym with your headphones on and picking up a 45 pound weight that's not what I pick up I pick out like the three to five to eight pounder depending upon the exercise but is that like exciting no it's tedious and that's how you achieve a goal there are no big leaps there's small gains that's it and I'm going to come back to this over and over and over again and I'm going to keep saying the

reps are boring because I want you to expect it to be boring and what separates people who achieve their goals from people who do not is simple people who achieve their goals understand the power of showing up every day and just doing the boring tedious stuff that's where greatness is made it's in the things that aren't fun it's in the stuff that nobody wants to do because let's face it if it were easy and fun and thrilling to get yourself out of financial debt everybody would do it everybody would have a million dollars in the

bank if it were easy and fun and thrilling to have six-pack abs everybody would have them no like that's the thing most people don't talk about goals are boring goals are tedious goals are like super annoying you know how awful it is to write a book like truly awful like you you literally have to sit your butt in a chair and especially on the days where you got nothing to say and you feel stupid and you think your book idea is dumb you got to sit there and write does that sound fun to you no

that's why most of us don't do it you know how hard it is to lose a 100 pounds or to lower your cholesterol like that's no joke that is a very important goal like you being healthy and vibrant and having a long and amazing life and your health is a huge part of that that is a enormously worthy and important goal but step four don't you dare like Gaslight yourself into thinking it's going to be fun there is nothing easy or exciting about achieving a goal it's a giant pain in the ass honestly and that's

why I'm saying step four is the it is you showing up on the days that you don't feel like it and I want to come back to step two remember where I said write it down because I'm going to give you a couple small things that are going to help you show up and do the tedious thing that you need to do so you can achieve your goal and the first thing is you can use this written exercise that's been researched a lot researchers call this an implementation intention okay very fancy term implementation intention it's

just a simple sentence that you can write down and you're ready it literally is a formula and you can put it right underneath the the goal that you've written down here's what I want here's how I know I will have achieved it and now you're going to write down this statement of intention I will what and then insert whatever the rep is I will exercise at and then you do the time and then you do the place that's it and for me writing the book I will write for 30 minutes at 9:00 a.m. in my

office I will do a Pilates mat class at 7 a.m. in my bedroom I will drink a mason jar of water at 6: a.m. standing in front of the coffee maker so writing down this statement I will do the rep at a certain time in a certain place God it sounds so Dreadful doesn't it no wonder you and I have not achieved our goals we've been thinking was supposed to be fun and sexy we went out and bought all the new sneakers and you know kind of got all excited about this thing and got a

new planner and bought the books wait we have to write a boring sentence about Our intention Noel I to make a plan for my reps well you might want to because research shows that when you actually make a plan 91% of people do the plan I'm I'm I'm going to say that again I'm going to get my research out so I get this right because this is no joke they did this study with people that wanted to exercise as a goal okay so you've written down you know what you want you've written it down and

they've asked people group one had to track if they exercised so that group is just tracking exercise in their brain the second group read a little motivational thing about why exercising matters like it's important for your body so now you know why and now you're going to track whether or not you do it the third group had to write down a plan meaning I will exercise at 10 o'clock in the morning uh in my neighborhood by walking around the block 91% of the people that wrote down the plan I will do the rep at a

certain time in a certain place did it that's double the amount of people that completed the goal than the people who just thought about it or knew why they should do it so writing down a plan matters because it helps you do the rep because I am going to tell you right now you're not going to want to you're not going to want to exercise you're not going to want to drink your water you're not going to want to uh have the mocktail instead of the alcohol you're not going to want to make a budget

you're not going to want to clean out your closet you're not going to want to eat the kale instead of the macaroni and cheese I don't either I don't either you're not going to want to spend time filming videos of yourself and uh seeing yourself on camera and then you're not going to want to post it online that's coming that's step four and we got to see what you're made of are you willing to do the boring tedious stuff see I don't think there's any special about people that achieve the things that you want they're

just willing to do what you won't do they get up on the days they don't feel like it and they literally go do the thing no matter what they feel like and so first things first write down the plan I'm going to do the rep at a certain time and in a certain place and stick it in front of your face because based on the research it's going to make you more likely to do it second thing that you can do use my 5-second rule in those moments where you don't feel like doing it so

the motiv A's not there of course it's not there why reps are boring tedious dumb we hate them you're not going to see progress right away which means you're going to hate it even more why am I even doing this stupid exercise stuff I don't even still in the same pants for crying out loud I still can't do a pull-up I'm working on trying to do a pull-up you know what stage I'm in for two weeks I've been working on hanging hanging I can't even like pop my shoulders a quarter inch like I'm working on

hanging this is awful but this brings me to the 5-c r 54 3 2 1 count backwards move it's a little brain hack tested by research and proven to work for millions of people around the world that will help you push through that feeling of not doing it and I'm going to give you one more this comes from Dr K who is a fantastic psychiatrist that has appeared on this podcast a number of times I'll link to his episode so you can listen to him explain this but the basic Neuroscience around motivation is we are

hardwired to move away from things that feel painful which is a problem when it comes to step four for achieving your goals because doing the Reps every day is very painful it's tedious it's boring it's annoying you're not going to see results it's going to feel pointless that doesn't feel like fun so when you're presented with two options should I sit on the couch and shove these chips in my mouth or should I drag myself out the door and go for a run you're naturally hardwired to resist the thing that feels hard which means what

you're going to resist the Reps this is why you don't do the formula do you see how this all this is building right this is where so many of you get stuck it's where I got stuck I know what I want I know why I want it I know how to measure if I'm doing it I even know the formula but I'm not doing it well let's break that and here's Dr Kay's research when it's time to do that boring thing that you don't want to do because it's 10:00 in the morning and now you're

sitting in your kitchen and you said that you were going to pay your bills at this time H you're just going to say this is going to sound so dumb but it works I know I don't want to do this but I'm doing it anyway I know it's going to be hard to go hang from the pull-up bar Mel for 60 seconds but you're going to go do it anyway and when you acknowledge that you don't want to do it and you acknowledge that it's going to suck and you acknowledge that it's going to be

hard something interesting happens your resistance to it lowers see your brain wiring is trying to move you away from the thing that's hard and that's why you're losing the battle of willpower you don't need willpower you can use these little hacks 54 3 2 1 go you can also say I know it's going to be difficult I've expected this the fact that it's tedious and boring and annoying means it's working and I'm going to go do it and then you're going to see the resistance disappears that's step number four do the Reps over and over

and over and over again that's the game you want to achieve goals do the Reps all those people you admire that have what you want you know what they're doing they're doing the Reps and if you've ever looked at somebody who becomes an overnight sensation I want you to look at their actual story because they were doing the Reps in the dark for a decade while nobody was paying attention it's all those mornings where you get up and you don't feel like it that help you achieve your goals that's how you do it there is

no other way and so if you can't get past step four you might as well cross that goal off your list because this is how it's done and there is no shortcut here period no shortcut at all you do not get to pass any of these steps and that brings me to step number five and this is an important one because I know I'm like only because I want you to achieve your goals I don't want to just fluff you up and send you out there and then set you up to fail I want you

to understand that you're in for it and you're capable of doing this and maybe nobody's told you that that you know you can do this but you got to accept this is going to suck for a while and I'm willing to do the things that are difficult because I really want my life to be easy and amazing in the long run and that's what happens do the hard things now things are easier later when you constantly opt for what's easy now your life gets harder and harder hard and harder so that brings me to step

number five and I love this so once you start doing the Reps and you're like all right this is going to blow but I'm going to do it anyway this is tedious and I'm not seeing results and I'm still hanging here and I can't even do the shoulder crunch God forbid a pull-up doesn't even seem like it's ever going to be in my future but I'm just going to keep doing the Reps how can you make it fun and easy that's step number five step number five is once you are starting to just show up

and you keep showing up and you keep taking the walk or you keep drinking your water you keep sitting down and writing even though what you're writing is just complete garbage that you wouldn't even you don't even want to read it that's how bad it is so this is where you take a step back and you ask yourself well how could this be easier and more fun because I've accepted the reality and the truth that it's going to be kind of tedious and boring for a long time and I'm not going to see results for

a long time and I just got to keep my head down and I got to keep focusing on the Reps and even on the days where I don't do it I got to get back to the Reps the next day which is why I love this tip from my buddy Jeff Walker I say just do the Reps all the time my team will tell you that my kids will tell you that I know Mom got to do the Reps we even have in our family group chat occasionally one of the kids will say something like

yep just putting in the Reps today on something that they're working on which is code for doing the hard work and it's kind of cool but at some point and I'd say about a week into consistently doing this now you get to step above this and say how can I make this fun and easy and there's three different categories I want you to think about number one is I love visual reminders so how can you take any of the decision making or any of the effort out by having visual reminders so for example I love

setting alarms in my phone that go off and say reminder you got to go for your walk in 10 minutes we're having a Post-It note where I work that reminds me of the the thing that I said that I was going to do because now I don't have to remember it here's another way that I do this I lay out my exercise clothes first thing in the morning why well because when I step into my closet they're laying there like a giant middle finger telling me that it's time to get dressed and go to the

gym which I don't want to do I don't have to think about it I don't have to wrestle with a decision I don't have to overcome my feelings in the closet I've made it easier because it's right there here's another way I've made exercise easier for me because it's a goal of mine to move my body every day and this is going to sound like the dumbest thing but I'm telling you this has changed my life I figure out the exercise workouts I'm going to watch cuz I I like to have an exercise class on

Sunday nights so I know what I'm going to watch on Monday I know what class I'm going to take on Tuesday I know what class I'm going to take on Wednesday because have you ever gone to the gym and you're like what am I supposed to do here I guess I'll just walk on the treadmill for a little bit maybe I'll do the arm thing maybe I'll I was going to do the leg rotation but there's guys talking over there by the quad machine so I guess I'll just go get a latte like that's kind

of how it used to work for me and so I've made it fun and easy by planning ahead and removing decisions here's another way that I make things fun and easy instead of having to remember to drink water I fill up the water the night before and it's sitting in front of the coffee maker so that when I roll out of bed in the morning I army crawl to the coffee maker and if this uh Mason jar were not sitting in front of the coffee maker I would start making coffee but because the Mason jar

is out there I've made it easy to do the thing what are some other ways you can make it fun you can make playlists you can get somebody to do it with you you can join an online community you can take a class like there are so many ways and this is a fun way for you to go okay how can I set myself up for success to make this easier and one of the things that I love about uh a particular habit researcher I'm sure you know him his name is James CLE he wrote

Atomic habits it's the book that synthesizes everybody's research on habits and one of the things that I love about his philosophy is that you will rise or fall to the level of your systems and if you're having trouble staying with the Reps you either have an issue where you don't realize it's boring and hard and tedious and you're not going to see results and that's the game so you can resolve it by saying this is going to be hard 54321 I'm doing it anyway the fact that it's hard means it's working I'm going and the

second thing that you can do and this comes from James Clear is how can I set up my environment or what systems can I create to make this something that's easier or more obvious to do and so again I've covered a bunch you can put up visual reminders you can plan the night before so things are laid out if you want to write have your notebook there or your laptop right by where the coffee maker is and plan to write first thing in the morning you can ask a friend to do it with you you

can sign up for a class or an online community that helps you stay accountable these are all things that make it easier and why wouldn't you make it easier on yourself right because achieving your goals is hard and tedious and boring but you can do it and that brings me to the final the sixth step and the sixth step don't quit don't quit you already know because step one required you to answer the question how do I know if I've achieved this goal and for me I W to publish a book this year I got

to have the physical book in my hands I'm holding the let them Theory Book right now that's how I knew I would achieve the goal so step one you already know what success looks like because you've defined it and you've gone through and written it down and you have found the formula and you've been busy doing the boring tedious work you've taken steps to make it easy and now the only thing you need to do is don't quit and I'm just going to say something because now that I have this puppy in my hands and

I've actually achieved the goal do you want to know how many times I've wanted to stop oh my gosh when I first sat down to write this and was like wait a minute why is this simple idea let them let me so hard to write a book about when I was on uh version number two version number three version number five version number seven version number nine version number 11 of the manuscript I wanted to stop when the publisher came back and was like ah well I think this I'm like oh my God I don't

have the en I wanted to stop then and over and over and over again you're also going to want to stop and if I had quit at any of those moments I wouldn't be holding this book and you wouldn't be able to walk into a bookstore and grab it and read it and feel it and learn from it it and understand why the let them theory is something that literally creates instant freedom and power in your life and there were so many times where I was sitting here above my garage in Sun Vermont just piles

and piles and piles of manuscripts and papers around me thinking I'm never going to get this done and that's why you have to remind yourself just don't quit see I I've come to believe that the secret to success is just not giving up that life is constantly testing you that there are going to be days where you don't do the Reps there are going to be weeks where you don't do the Reps there might even be months that you don't do the Reps that's okay because what defines your success is not the days where you

do it I actually think it's the days where you come back after you didn't do it so the day that was really hard at work or the week that you were really sick and you couldn't do the Reps every day the small tedious stuff you couldn't get out for your you couldn't sit down and write you started drinking again whatever it is it's the day that you return that defines success because it means you didn't quit it means that even though things got hard or life derailed you or you just stopped following this system and

you let life take over you're human as okay it's kind of to happen happens to me too absolutely happens to me too you can always come back to this formula like if it is day 37 you have not eaten the way you said you would you have spent a ridiculous amount of money even though your goal is to get out of debt you just didn't do what you said you were going to do you didn't write you didn't make a video you didn't work on the budget you didn't meditate 37 days how about seven months

have gone by and you see that little note where you wrote down your goal it's okay it's still there you going and doing the rep defines your success and that's always in your power and the reason why I say don't quit is because if you look at anybody's story it's almost always one of perseverance you know whether you want to talk about Michael Jordan who got cut from his high school team or anybody honestly everybody who is successful has a story of rejection and almost quitting and the one thing they didn't do is they didn't

quit and if you're on the verge of quitting I've got a a question here from Polar Mel I've been pouring my heart into starting my online Bakery but nothing's going the way I hoped orders are slow I'm exhausted I feel like maybe I'm not cut out for this I'm at such a low point I just want to give up how do I keep going when it feels like everything is falling apart I so relate to this question and what's so amazing about these six steps to achieving your goals is you just go back to step

one so if you're at a point where you're questioning whether or not something is working the answer is actually in the formula I just gave you which is go back and ask yourself the question decide what I want what do I really want do I want this to be successful or do I want to cut my losses and learn from this and move on you have to answer that question because you have to define a new goal and that's what I love about these six steps it's for any goal and the goal might be closing

down this business and moving on and the goal might be no no no no no I'm not giving up okay great so if you're not giving up write it down how are you going to know that you're successful and then find the formula because I'm going to tell you something do you think there's a bakery somewhere that was on the verge of closing and then figured something out and all of a sudden had a breakthrough of course there is in fact I'd be willing to bet there's probably about 2,000 of them and they've put their

story online and there was a moment where they thought their bakery business was going under and then they figured out something unbelievable and it changed everything and if it's a formula it's out there CU it works and you can find it and then what do you do you just do the Reps and then what do you do you just make it easy however you can and then what do you do you don't quit and you just keep coming back over and over and over and over again see you should Define what you want and you

need to Define how you're going to know that you've achieved it but you have to throw the timeline out the window you have to because you only have in your control what you're willing to show up and do every day your attitude your feelings the actions the Reps you not quitting that's all within your control how long it takes to achieve this thing I actually think that's up to forces that are Way Beyond you and me but all you need to do is to keep trusting that if you keep showing up if you keep doing

the Reps if you keep this front and center that one of these days you're going to wake up and realize you not only achieved your goal it turned out so much more extraordinary than you could have even dreamt it would be that is what happens when you do this and I want to read one final thing to you from the let them Theory Book because anything that you want to change in your life just turn it into a goal and then follow these six steps and keep in mind that it's not going to be fun

and this is page 10 of the let them Theory Book Changing my life wasn't glamorous it was grueling I didn't achieve success or Financial Freedom because of some secret I did it because I was willing to do what most people won't I woke woke up every day and regardless of how I felt I kept slowly chipping away at my goals for over a decade it is a painstakingly slow process some days all I focused on was just trying to be a little better than I was the day before and often that's all you need to

do I'm not special or different or gifted or lucky I just found the tools that work for me and I use them and today my entire career in life's purpose is sharing those tool with you and the six steps that I just walked you through this is my formula for Success this is how I achieve absolutely every single goal whether it's personal whether it's something with a relationship whether it is creating new friendships whether it's making more money whether it's launching a new business anything this is my formula and I want you to steal it

the 5-second rule is going to help you push through all of these internal obstacles and take action when you don't feel motivated to do so you're never going to feel ready to change your life one day you just get tired of your own BS and you force yourself to do it you're never going to feel like going to the gym one day you just make yourself go and you're never going to feel like having that hard conversation one day you just get sick of avoiding it and you force yourself to have it and you're never

going to feel like looking for a better job one day you just push yourself to start looking every single change that you want to make in your life comes down to defining it as a goal and using the six steps that I just laid out to help you achieve it and I'm telling you this and I'm so excited for you because you have no idea what you're capable of and neither did I but I promise you this you follow these six steps over and over and over again and through these simple actions you will achieve

some extraordinary things in your life and I can say that because I just gave you the formula for doing it you define what you want you write it down you find the formula you do the Reps you find simple ways to try to make it more fun and easy and you just don't quit until you achieve it you do that over and over and over again and you will be astonished by the things that you accomplish in your life Al righty I'll be waiting for you in the very next episode as soon as you hit

play and for you thank you thank you thank you for watching all the way to the end thank you for sharing this with people that you care about and you're going to want to save this video because this is the formula this works you're going to want to come back to it over and over and over again and I can't wait to hear what you achieve using it and one more thing it is a goal of mine to have 50% of the people who watch this YouTube channel be subscribers and I'm like 7% away from

achieving that goal so if you could just hit subscribe it would mean the world to me it's free it means you'll never miss a video and it also means that you're telling us that you really appreciate the content that we're putting out and the worldclass experts that we bring you for free every day all righty I know you're hot on goals and you got some big audacious goals and so you're probably thinking Mel Mel Mel what can I watch next well I'll tell you I would head straight to this video and I'll be waiting for

you in it as soon as you hit play I'll see you there