Your Dreams Are NO Joke: It’s Time to DREAM BIG Again & 3 Ways to Get Started | Mel Robbins Podcast

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Your dreams are serious business

  Mel opens with unusual urgency: your dreams are not 'fluff' and not 'self-help.' She believes you were born with dreams wired into your curiosity, imagination and creativity, and that what you're drawn to or repelled by is a clue. She says the flame inside you can't burn out while you're alive. Your job is to fan it.

• 02

  Your dreams are your responsibility

  Mel says it's on you to claim your dreams, argue for them, believe in them and work for them. She describes years when she smothered her own flame with excuses, fear and self-doubt, which only made her miserable. Accepting responsibility for your dreams, she says, is how you take responsibility for creating meaning, momentum and purpose.

• 03

  Comfortable is fine, but small isn't

  Mel's central line to Barbara: 'It's okay to be comfortable if that's what you want. It's not okay to be small.' After teaching her science-of-dreaming course to more than 200,000 people, she says the most common problem is putting a lid on your own potential and telling yourself 'meh is okay.' She argues that being the loudest voice against your own dreams is a major source of feeling lost and unhappy.

• 04

  Jealousy and longing show your dream is still alive

  Mel says the pull you feel when you see someone else doing your thing can feel like jealousy, longing or even inferiority, and sometimes you push the dream away to protect yourself. She felt it for 11 years every time Howard Stern came on or another podcast launched. She reads those feelings as evidence the dream is still alive, not proof that it's too late.

• 05

  Three ways people put out their own flame

  First, downplaying: joking about your dream or saying 'I'm not that serious about it.' Second, excuses: no money, no time. Third, fear that shows up the moment you honestly let yourself want it: what if it doesn't happen? Mel's reframe is that the dream isn't what hurts. What hurts is the energy you spend avoiding it.

• 06

  Step 1: get honest and claim what you want

  Mel says that if you 'don't know what you want,' it's usually because you're too afraid to let yourself know. Honesty comes first and can be sobering. She points to her own 11 years of brushing off a podcast as an example of how much those excuses can cost.

• 07

  Step 2: decide every day whether you're for or against your dream

  Each morning, ask 'Am I for or against my dream today?' Mel says there's no middle ground, because neutral counts as against. Being for your dream means staying in touch with it and treating other people who are doing it as 'lights on the path' rather than proof your flame is out. She says dreams matter even more during hard times, because they remind you the struggle is temporary.

• 08

  Dreams are a direction, not a destination

  Mel argues you're not necessarily supposed to 'achieve' your dreams. She calls them an inner GPS or lighthouse that pulls you through fear and self-doubt and helps you grow. She also says not to seek validation from people who aren't pursuing their own dreams, since they can't cheer you on.

• 09

  There's no deadline

  The sunk-cost thinking of 'I've been an accountant too long,' 'seven years with this person' or 'I'm too old' is what Mel calls a major mistake. Her list of possibilities: start a business at 18, go to nursing school at 42 after raising kids, adopt a child single at 39, launch a podcast at 54, marry for the first time at 63, skydive at 71, run a first marathon at 82.