How to Achieve Your Dreams (and Keep Going When It's Hard!)

In this motivational video, Brendon Burchard addresses the challenge of maintaining belief in one’s dreams when faced with hardship, doubt, and lack of support. He shares his personal history of struggling with self‑doubt despite a public image of confidence, and frames struggle as a valuable, character‑building force rather than something to avoid. Burchard outlines four concrete practices to sustain belief and progress: (1) highly engaged visualization that includes both the triumph and the painful moments of the journey, encouraging the viewer to mentally rehearse the struggle (e.g., visualizing the difficult mile 13 of a marathon); (2) rigorous, multi‑source research, emphasizing reading multiple books, interviewing experts, and avoiding superficial consumption; (3) daily incremental action, insisting on taking at least one concrete step each day toward the dream, because intention without execution is dead; and (4) cultivating a feedback‑rich community or coach, where constructive criticism and accountability keep the dream grounded in reality. He reinforces these points with anecdotes of personal setbacks (bankruptcy, rejection) and stresses that the only person who can give up on a dream is oneself. The video concludes with calls to subscribe, obtain his free book, and join his newsletter, urging viewers to live fully and make a difference every day.
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Hey, guys, it's Brendan. In this episode, we're going to talk about. How do you keep believing in your dreams? When the struggle gets too hard, when it's challenging, when you don't know what to do, when you're at that corner of it could go good or bad, you're scared, or you're just not getting the support around you that would make you feel like maybe this is something you could actually accomplish, or maybe you come from a circumstance where it just doesn't seem likely at all. How do you believe in what you're doing? And I get that because, you know, my whole career has been, in some way or another, a struggle against my own doubts all along the way. As much as people say, gosh, you're so confident and, you know, you're the high performance guy and everything else, I'm like, yeah, but it doesn't mean I don't struggle. Matter of fact, I probably put myself in situations where I must be challenged and I must struggle more than any normal sane person. You know, I'm constantly pushing myself all the time because I evaluate struggle as something to be honored. You know, it used to be struggle, struggle was something that was truly honored by people. They thought that was something that built character. They thought that that was something that was good. And now we've got to be such a convenient, driven society that's into ease and so much just, I think, an unbelievable level of engage. I'm sorry, entitlement, where people don't think they have to earn it. And I'm always like, wait, you know, so if you have a dream, never forget, if you knock on the door of opportunity, that it is work who answers. You know, it takes a lot of work to achieve your bigger dreams, to become the best you who you can be, to serve more, to create more, to contribute at that highest level. Man, it's a lot of work. And I know I'm preaching to the choir. I know you get this. So what can I share with you about this struggle? You know, it's been for me at 20 years, learning about personal development and teaching about personal development. It's been, you know, my effort and everything I do. And I'm so passionate about helping people reach that next level. I had to go out and figure out how to do it for myself and believe in myself. So here's what I did along the way and what I advise our Olympic clients to do. Our Fortune 50 CEO clients and our entrepreneurs or our start, those who are starting and struggling or stay at home. Moms doesn't matter. The advice is the same thing. Four things to keep believing in the dream and advancing toward the dreams. Number one, and I know you've heard this, but my question is, how much do you do it? And that is visually visualization, and we call it highly engaged visualization. Visualization where you're seeing yourself doing something and you're emotively there. You're literally closing your eyes and meditating on the experience. You're seeing it, feeling it, see, sensing it. And it's not the kind of visualization you've probably been taught to do, which is just all the buoyant. Victory, everything's great, Victory. Hey, hey, hey. Everything's awesome, perfect. It's the visualization where you also imagine, see and feel the struggle on purpose. Let me give you an example. Lots of people, when they're new to, you know, performance training and haven't had a lot of experience, they would say, oh, you know, if you're gonna run a marathon, imagine yourself crossing that finish line, you know, your arms up in victory. Everything is great. You cross that finish line, there's your family and they give you big hugs and you feel great, still vital, energized, ready to kick some butt. You know, you could run another 20 miles. You're the strongest, most powerful you ever. Now I'm like, oh, wow. You know, that's just a person who hasn't done a lot of training or actual high performance coaching in their life. Because the better thing to imagine is what happens at mile 13. To imagine yourself running, to starting, running, running strong, but also seeing and sensing and feeling yourself at mile 13 when that decision point comes to want to quit, that's where I want you to also enter the scene and visualize seeing yourself struggle. Like seeing the perspiration, seeing the heartache, seeing the hurt, the pain that, like, I can't run anymore, dude. Seeing yourself make a decision at that point to be resilient, to keep at it, to see the charge come back on your face, to see yourself working through the struggle is the most important visualization you can do. What would you say to yourself when it sucks? Not just see yourself validated. It's about, look, the real truth of achieving any dream is that struggle, that effort, that push. And I know you know this. So my question is, when is the last time you just gave yourself a few moments free away from, you know, playing on the phone, free away from the Internet, to just sit down by yourself to visualize and daydream about your dreams, about the activities involved in that about how you would struggle through, about what it would feel like to be victorious. All of it, the whole thing, the messy part, the ugly part. What would you say to yourself when it gets hard? That's what you need to do to truly actualize a dream. We got to begin with seeing it and sensing it. The good, the bad, the easy, the difficult, and the victory. I would say the second thing that we have to do to believe in a dream. Not to just see it and sense and feel it. But we got to do research. And unfortunately, our society has gotten so lazy in their research. It's unfortunate, especially where I'm here in the United States. Our educational system has gotten so bad and people are so lazy. And I don't mean to mean speak to everybody, but you know, there's a very big lazy culture right now where people won't take the time. They won't even read a book on their topic. They're like, oh, a whole book. You know, they'll read a blog article and pretend it's enough. It's like, no, you know what? The highest performers, they're always researching and they're doing real research. I mean, they don't read one book on the topic. They read seven. You know, they don't interview one person. They interview a person a week. They don't read one blog post. They read them, print them out, highlight them, create binders. I mean, if you want to become world class, you got to know what else is out there, what other lessons people have learned. You can't keep inventing the wheel. Someone else has already figured this out. Research them, stand on their shoulders. You know, what a lot of people don't understand is Einstein. While he was a genius, he also was prolific in the amount of research he did on theories that have already been proven and where their holes might be. He was constantly researching everything, not just putting new ideas into play. He was busting up on old ideas and standing on the shoulders of giants who'd already made major breakthroughs that now he could apply in new areas with new insights, new metaphor, new discovery. You got to get back into reading and understanding and paying attention. But you cannot just get into analysis paralysis either. And that's why you also have to, on a daily basis, actualize your dreams. What do I mean by that? Well, I'm sure you, I hope you've read some Abraham Maslow and this concept of self actualization becoming our best, but you have to actually show up every day and inch yourself forward toward these dreams and not only show up every day and once in a while, inch yourself. I mean, every day you have to actually take an action that moves you forward. Not just research, not just thinking. Look, the power of intention is great, but without any initiative, it's dead, right? A dream is great, but without any movement, it's dead. You have to be moving towards every day. You can send an email every day, you can make a call every day, you can write something every day, you can create something every day, you can contribute something every day. But it has to be daily, otherwise it will never become actualized. The highest performers in the world didn't get there because they were lucky. They worked at it longer than everyone else. They had a better work ethic. And it's not that they necessarily always worked harder. They worked smarter because they were doing the research. They were taking the time to visualize how they would be distinct, different, how they would survive the tough times. They really kept at it. Keep every single day momentum going. And if you don't do that, there's no chance. Last piece. So easy. Fourth piece here. Community. You need to get in a community where you can get feedback. You need either a coach who can give you some direct one to one feedback or. Or community of friends who you just go out with, maybe you go to lunch with them once a month, you share everything you're doing, they give you some feedback, or you shoot a video. You send that video out to everybody, get some feedback on it, you create a PowerPoint, practice it with five people before the big meeting, like get back in the game, where you have a community of people who are giving you advanced feedback before you release it, feedback before you do it. So that you get smarter at all of this. Because, you know, nothing makes a dream come more into life than when you start getting feedback from other people about your movement toward the dreams. You know, before I shoot a big sales video for one of my online courses, I'll send it out to 15, 20 people and get feedback. And then I'll often go reshoot it again, you know, or I'll put it out into my community and I'll see the clicks, the conversions, and say, it's not, let's do it again. And it's that willingness to get feedback that will keep your dream alive. Because look, if it's just in your mind and you're just doing it by yourself, but you never actually get a positive community giving you constructive feedback towards it, it will never be that, that it will never be in the social realm. And when it is in the social realm, it feels More real, you know, when people are actually comment. I mean, it's one thing to be in an artist and in your studio painting for yourself all day, that's great. But once you get some feedback on it and constructive feedback, you become, you get that self awareness and that social awareness to contribute and create at another level. Now along with that, you know, watch my other videos online about how to deal with rejection or how to deal with haters. Look, you gotta listen to what I'm saying. You need a positive community of people to get feedback and coaching from. But you don't have to take feedback and read all the comments from everybody who has no idea who you are, are what you contribute, what your aspirations and your ambitions are, who aren't on your path. A tennis star doesn't take, you know, performance feedback from anybody who's screaming at him as he walks through the tunnel to perform, right? You don't need to either. Get people who are qualified to give you good feedback, who have your best growth, intention and love in mind, and then you'll start to do better. Put all these things into play. Always keep your dreams on the dashboard of your mind. Always, every single day, be working towards that. Always get some feedback and community development to make it better. Always, always, always realize that the only one who's ever going to give up on your dream is you. And once you realize that, you get to make a decision and a stand. Am I going to stay for my dreams and keep going at it or am I going to quit? I'm here today getting to share my message with you because I never quit. Even when I went bankrupt, even when they made fun of me, even when they turned me down, even when they rejected me, even when they insulted me, we're still here together, doing this important work, talking about life, talking about living a different quality of life that's more energized, more engaged, more enthusiastic. Because I refuse to give up on my dream. My prayer for you is that you will refuse to give up on your dream. And then you'll start to experience what we call the charged one. Hey guys, it's Brendan. Did you like this episode? If you did, you can do three things right now to continue your journey. First, you can subscribe right here to my channel, which I hope you will, so I can keep sending you videos on a weekly basis to change your life. Second, you can get my brand new book for free by clicking the link right here. And third, you can also go to my website, sign up for my newsletter so I can send you free free offers, free products, free programs, updates on my events, new podcasts, and everything else that we don't do on this channel here. If you like to do that, just go ahead and click any of these buttons you see right here. Look forward to seeing you on the next video. Until then, go out there every single day of your life. Live fully, love openly, and make your difference today.
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