3 Things You Actually Need To Make Your Dreams Come True

Science shows that one of the best ways to stop yourself from achieving your goals is to try to figure everything out before you even start. I have seen this keep so many people that I coach from achieving their goals or making progress toward making their dreams come true. So in this video, I'm going to tell you the science behind why this happens and give you the 3 things that you actually need to make your dreams come true. And if you're new here, hi, I'm Emily, also known as Em on the Brain. I'm a trained neuroscientist. I've got 2 degrees degrees in it, as well as many years of research experience in the lab. And I now coach people all over the world, helping them to rewire their brains, level up, and manifest a life that they actually want to live. Now, I hear this all the time: you'll start when you know the plan, when you have the time, when you feel ready, when you know how it's going to work, when you finally feel prepared. Now, the problem, scientifically speaking, is that when you plan and you get into this state of planning and looking into things, you get dopamine from that. And so your brain gives you this illusion of progress. You feel like you're making progress because you're online and you're researching and you're, you're learning and, and you're finding out new information, or maybe you're laying out the steps. But the, the thing is, is that you're not actually making any progress. And it's this illusion of progress. And you get the satisfaction because your brain gives you dopamine from looking into all of this and learning all these new things. But the problem is that you're getting dopamine from planning, and then your brain never actually motivates you to actually go and start, and you get stuck there in this planning phase. And the longer that you stay stuck in this planning phase, the longer that you plan, the longer that you look over your list of all of the different steps and all the different things that you could do, now you give your brain the opportunity to kick into over-analyzation mode. Because now it's like analysis paralysis. Like, I have all these options, I have all of these different choices of different things that I could do, and I don't know which one is working the best. I don't know which is the right choice. Is this plan actually gonna work? Is this plan really Is this really the thing that's gonna help me make my dream come true? And your brain then shifts into this mode where you start overanalyzing, right? And you get stuck. I have a process that I give to all my clients that get into this position. I remember I had one client that came to me and she had been look— she wanted to start a business and she had been, she had got the LLC, she had set up the website, she had done all these things and she was just sitting here contemplating over a logo for weeks. She was trying to figure out the perfect logo for her business. And it was keeping her from actually just launching the business, from getting her first client. And I told her, I said, pick a logo and you don't have to like it. Like, choose a bad one. Just pick a damn logo and start. Launch your business. Get your first client. Because the truth of the matter is that you might end up hating the logo that you choose 6 weeks from now. You might actually further develop your business after you start to get clients and realize, oh hey, actually this is really the angle. This is my ideal client. I actually have a better logo idea now. And the fact of the matter is, is that in business, in life, we evolve as we go. And so when we sit and we try to perfect everything before we even start, you're working against your natural way of living, which is to evolve. And so what I always tell my clients that are in this position is do it badly first. Let it be bad. When you're first starting out with something, like, let it be bad before you try to make it good. When I decided that I wanted to go get my PhD in neuroscience, so many people told me like, oh, how are you going to do that? How are you going to make that happen? Don't you need your master's first before you go get your PhD? Because I was an undergrad. Don't you need your master's before? I didn't even have a bachelor's degree. I'm applying for PhD programs. People, oh, don't you need this, that, whatever? And I was just like, I don't care. I'm gonna go make this dream come true. I'm gonna make it happen. I don't know exactly how You get a— I don't know the process honestly, but I'm gonna learn as I go. I'm gonna take the first step. Attended a graduate PhD application seminar thing, started filling out applications. Lo and behold, I ended up in a PhD program studying neuroscience, investigating new ways to prevent and treat relapse to drug addiction. Exactly the thing that I wanted to research. And then when I was halfway through my PhD program, I had started making content, started sharing things online, started helping people in real life. And I started to realize, oh hey, I think this path is actually more aligned with who I am. This path is more exciting to me. This is actually really what I wanna do. Again, people questioned me. People said, how are you gonna make that work? One of, like, one of the first things that I heard when I first started making content was, how are you gonna make money doing that? How are you gonna monetize that? How is that ever gonna be your job? How are you gonna do that? Every single step along the way of me getting to where I am today has been people asking me, How are you gonna do that? How are you gonna make that work? And if I'm being completely honest, I didn't know how. When I packed up my car to drive across the country to try to make my dream come true of being a full-time creator and coach and consultant and speaker and author, I had no idea at all how I was going to make this happen. Now here I am sitting here with almost 3 million followers across platforms and going on the top podcasts in the world and publishing a book and speaking at huge events. Like, I had no idea how I was going to get here. I did not know. And so there is this huge misconception that so many, like, realistic people have that, oh, like, how are you going to do that? You need to know how something is going to work before you go and do it. But that actually goes kind of against the process of manifestation when we step out and look at it from the spiritual perspective as well. Because the process of manifestation requires that you, one, believe and trust, move like it's already yours, embody the version of you that already has it, and surrender the how, surrender the when, and believe. Which actually leads me to number one, which is belief. When I was in my PhD and I was getting ready to go off to start a business and do what I'm doing now, I actually got on a call with someone out in Silicon Valley. He's this businessman out in Silicon Valley, had raised millions of dollars for his business, and I talked to him about my ideas and he said to me, you know, I don't really know much about you, but I know you're gonna be successful because of your belief in yourself. And it's been so interesting because when I was living in Miami a couple of years ago, I ran into someone that I had known when I was an undergrad, and he said to me, I always knew you were going to be successful. And I'm just like, why? Why is that? And he was like, you just had this, like, belief in yourself. Belief in yourself will take you so far. It will take you anywhere you want to go. Belief in yourself and belief in whatever higher power you believe in, whether that be the universe, whether that be believing in God, whether that be in your angels, the divine, whatever it is, or it could just be in your highest self or just belief in yourself, whatever it is. Belief will take you places that are just beyond imagination, like beyond anything that you could have ever even imagined for yourself. Like, I am currently living a life that I could not even have imagined for myself. Yes, the life in my visualizations came true. Like, yes, uh, that though, like, the things in my visualizations absolutely happened, but also Things in my life have happened that I couldn't have even asked for, things that I couldn't have even dreamt up. And that is because of my belief and because of the energy that I commit to living in every single day. Belief will take you places. All right? And I mean, like, delusional level of belief. Belief when you have no reason to believe. And a lot of people will tell you, like, oh, like, you know, I'll believe it when I see it. I kind of grew up hearing that, like, oh, I'll believe it when I see it. Or, you know, like, just around a lot of realistic people. And maybe that's not you. Maybe you're surrounded by other people that just have like the woo-woo kind of mentality. But I grew up just around such realistic mindsets. And for me, it really did feel delusional to believe in something, believe that I could do something without reason. Like when I decided to graduate with my master's in neuroscience, to go across the country, start my business, I had no reason to believe that I was going to be able to now have like 2 million followers just a couple years later. To give you context, I had 30,000 followers when I, when I left. 30,000 followers when I decided I was going to full send this dream. But I believed in myself. Belief in yourself is the prerequisite, okay, for anything that you're going to do. The second thing that you absolutely need when it comes to making your goals and dreams come true is a why. Why? Why do you want this thing? Now, there are hundreds of research studies out there on how having a why or feeling a sense of purpose behind whatever it is that you're going to do improves performance. It improves resiliency. Okay, it'll keep you going when times get hard. If you don't have a clear why for why you want something, whether it be money, a relationship, a job, a house, whatever it is, what is your why? Like Why do you want that thing? What is the feeling that you believe that thing is going to bring you? Or, or what, what is the real underlying reason? I remember for me, when it came to creating content at first, it really was about just like, I want to elevate the vibration of the planet. Like, I want, like, I feel so much better within myself because of all of this work that I've done, because of the, like, education that I got, but also the way the information that I collected from outside of school and just all of the healing that I did on myself. I'm literally a changed person. I'm not the same person that I was even 5 years ago. And I just feeling this positive change within myself, like I wanted to give that to others. And that was my why. I want to uplift other people. I want to raise the vibration of the planet because we, like, you know, there's this saying that a team is only as strong as its weakest link. That was my why for a long time. Like, that is why I do it. It still is, guys. Still, that is why. I have many other whys now. I have many other reasons for why I do what I do, but I find that going back to your why, having it written down somewhere and going back to it is extremely helpful when you are feeling unmotivated, when you're feeling unmotivated, when you're feeling tired. Okay, going back to your why. And I call this process sort of committing to your goals, like writing down why you want to achieve this thing. And then every time again, you are questioning, you can go back to your why and it'll allow you to recommit. The third thing that you absolutely need to make any goal or dream come true. Now, this is going to be applicable in many different ways, so I'm going to share with you lots of different examples and different stories from my own life for how to apply this. But number 3 is to start small and send it. When I first moved across the country to Miami Beach to make my dream come true, I was subleasing this apartment and I had this giant whiteboard full of ideas, okay? Different ways to make my dream work of, you know, starting a business, growing a platform, and basically just making money because I did not have any sort of stable income at the time. And so I had a list of all of the different ways, all of the different things that I could do to make money. My problem was that I was looking at this list and I just didn't know which one was gonna work the best. And I was actually consulting for this woman at the time. Shout out Mary Lou. I was consulting for her and I actually started consulting for her before I even graduated. She was like my first consulting job and And she said to me something that completely changed my life and continues to change my life. Stop thinking and worrying about which one is gonna work the best and focus on which one excites you the most, because that's the thing that you're gonna make work the best. And she was completely right. And I also had a phone call with another friend of mine who has a very entrepreneurial spirit, and he said to me something else. He said, you are in a period of experimentation. You are in a trial and error period of your life. Like, we are here to try things and see how it goes. And like, literally, like, just the fact that someone else could lay out to you exactly how they met their soulmate, exactly how they made their first million dollars, and you could follow this thing step by step by step, and it would not work for you. Because we are all here to be on our own journey. We are all here to be on our own individual path. Like, we are here to experiment and, and experience life for ourselves. And so it is this illusion that we wait for certainty to know exactly what we should do, to have the perfect plan. I had no idea if it was gonna be good enough, but when I first built this framework, I actually had a phone call with my brother and I walked him through the framework and I asked him, I said, Do you think that's good enough? I said, do you think that's good enough? And he said, Em, you're not going to know whether or not it's good enough until you launch it, get some clients, get some people to go through it, and get their feedback and see how it works and see if it's good enough. Like, you're not going to know. I never deleted the OG videos, by the way, and I do this on purpose for clients, for people like you, if you're watching and you want to be a content creator, like, I don't delete my videos. On purpose, like go down to the beginning of my page and look at where I started. Like, look at what my videos used to be like. Okay. And what you will find is that I used to talk like this and I, I did not trim any of the empty space. I would do one take. I would talk for like a minute and a half. And it was actually someone I had done that for months. And then someone, an acquaintance that I knew that just happened to work for Meta at the time reached out and he was like, hey, Let me help you. Like, let me give you some advice to make your videos better because you're, you know, the value is there, but you're not, you're, you're, you need help. And anyway, I had like a 2-hour FaceTime with this person and literally my video started going off after that. And it really is true. And this is why I love the saying, start small and send it. Like start small and send it. And I'm gonna give you a practical tool for this in a second. But this is why it's so powerful too, because that person that offered me to help with my content for free, that advice, the opportunity, the, you know, experiences, they couldn't have come to me if I didn't just start and do it badly first. If I didn't allow myself to just do it badly first. Taking the action shifts energy and opens up your brain, right? Like you, you prime your brain to now filter your reality for experiences, people, opportunities to help you continue to make this goal or dream come true. And the content is just one example. Like I have so many people that I've coached where they finally take that one first small step. They finally take that first step of action. And now all of a sudden, all these opportunities are flowing in. Literally one of my clients, I was just talking to. She wants to, uh, have— start coaching people on sobriety and helping people stay sober. And she went through my program. She's literally— she told me like her life has completely changed, and she now wants to start working with people. She took one step, now she's got people reaching out to her. Taking action shifts your energy. It opens the door to opportunities. Sometimes that first step really is all you need for the manifestation. Or the luck to meet you. I always say you need to let luck meet your preparation. If you want the opportunity, the blessing, you need to be prepared for it. So let me give you a super practical tool for starting small and sending it, because I really, really want you to have just like a super solid takeaway from this video. What I want you to do is think about a goal, a dream, whatever it is that you have. There are no rules. It can be as big or as small as you want. There are no rules to this. Okay? That's the first step is to identify whatever it is that you want. Second step is to write a list, maybe 5 things, maybe 10 things, don't get too long, that you could do to make progress today. Again, there are no rules to this, but when you think about whatever goal or dream that you have, what are some things that you could do today? What are some small things that you could do to actually start making progress on this goal? And then I want you to look at that list and choose one and do it. Don't worry about which one is going to work the best. Don't worry about which one is, you know, gonna make you the most successful or give you the best return on your investment. Like, don't worry about any of that. Look at your list and ask yourself, which one excites me the most? And then do that. You don't need to know how to get to the top of the mountain from the bottom. All you need to know is the next right step. All you need to know is what you want, why you want it, and to take that first step. So go and take it. I'm sending you so much love. I'll see you in the next video, and don't forget to drink your water. Bye!