EP 055 Vision Boards Exposed | Goal Setting Science That Rewires Your Success Habits

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Vision boards are the most
popular lie in self-help.

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You spend three hours
cutting magazine clippings.

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You arrange them on a foam board or
a corkboard or just on your wall, and

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you stood back and you looked at your
dream house, your dream car, your dream

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body, your dream job, your dream side
hustle or whatever it might be, and

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you felt something shift inside you.

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Calm, relief, like you had already won.

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That feeling right there, that's the trap.

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Most people think vision boards
fail because they don't work.

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Wrong.

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Big red X. They work too well,
just not in the way you think.

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Your nervous system does not care
if you're actually holding the

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keys to that car or to that house.

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It cares if your brain feels like you're
holding them, and that feeling, you

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know that rush of premature completion?

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That's why ninety percent of
people who make vision boards end

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up exactly where they started.

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DNA podcast

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What is up, what is up, what the hell
is up, my fellow success seekers?

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Welcome back to another episode of Your
Success DNA, that podcast for my aspiring

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entrepreneurs and nine-to-five escapees.

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Heck, it's really for anyone who wants
to level up their game because each

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episode delivers some mindset shifts,
some habit upgrades, and a little dose

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of rebellion coming from yours truly,
all designed to help you break free of

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convention so that you can build not
just a business, but perhaps a life

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aligned with your version of success.

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So if you know someone who's dreaming of
ditching the grind but still makes time

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for a little personal development and
sprinkling some self-help in there, go

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ahead and forward this episode to them.

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Okay, so let's get stuck
right in, shall we?

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The mechanism is neurological.

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When you visualize something with
enough sensory detail, when you see

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the texture of the steering wheel, when
you can smell the leather and feel your

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hands at ten and two of that car you're
dreaming about, your brain's reward

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system lights up identically to how
it would if you had actually acquired

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the thing Your dopamine spikes, your
cortisol drops, your body goes into

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a state of homeostatic satisfaction.

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You have effectively tricked your
nervous system into thinking the

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work is finished before you've
done a single day of that work.

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There's even a structure deep
inside the brain stem called

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the reticular activating system.

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You've heard Tony Robbins
talking about this.

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If you've followed Tony Robbins as
long as I have, it's called the RAS.

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That filters what your
brain pays attention to.

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That's what it does.

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Vision board advocates like Dr.
Tara Swart, neurologist and author

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of The Source, argue the RAS is
exactly why vision boards work.

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You prime your brain to notice
opportunities aligned with your goals,

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and she's not wrong about the mechanism.

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What she's wrong about is
what the mechanism actually

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does to your motivation.

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An NYU psychology researcher named
Gabriele Oettingen spent decades

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studying exactly this thing.

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Her findings, which you can find
detailed in her book Rethinking Positive

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Thinking, are some of the most replicated
results in motivational science.

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In study after study, she found that
people who engage in vivid, positive

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fantasies about their desired futures,
you know, things like imagining success

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in detail and feeling it and smelling
it and making it real in their minds,

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consistently exerted less effort,
performed worse, and achieved less

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than the people who did not visualize.

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Let that sink in for a minute, will you?

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The brain processes vivid
imagination and sensory memory in

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nearly identical neural patterns.

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Positive fantasy triggers what
researchers call mental contrasting

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or rather the failure to do.

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When you only visualize the outcome
without mentally contrasting against

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all the obstacles that are there between
you and the outcome, your nervous

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system treats the fantasy as reality.

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The work, in neurological terms, is
already done This is compounded by

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what Kari Moorhead and colleagues
published in a landmark 2010

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study in the Science Journal.

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They called it Thought for Food.

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What they showed was that imagining
consuming something in detail

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actually reduces your desire
to consume it in real life.

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Imagined consumption reduces
actual consumption, right?

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Stick with me here.

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Now let's apply this to your goals.

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Imagining achieving something
in detail reduces your drive to

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actually want to achieve it, huh?

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Oettingen's research on positive
fantasy and Moorhead's work on

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imagined consumption point to the same
mechanism, what researchers now call

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satiation through mental stimulation.

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You satisfy the craving within
your head so that your body

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has no signal to move on it.

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This is why vision boards feel
so good but work so poorly.

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The irony cuts deeper when you understand
what your body is actually designed to do.

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Humans aren't motivated
by clarity of vision.

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No, they're motivated by dissatisfaction,
by a gap, by a feeling that something

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is wrong, something is missing, or
something is just freaking incomplete.

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That discomfort is your motivational fuel.

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That is why the dentist chair
makes your, your teeth hurt more.

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Not because your teeth got worse the
moment you sat in a chair, but because

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your attention sharpened on that feeling.

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Pain and unmet desire are the
same neurochemical pattern.

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They're both signals that demand movement.

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Get up and do something about it is what
your brain and your body is telling you.

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So when you create a vision board,
you're essentially trying to hold the

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desire and the image simultaneously.

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You want to feel motivated and you wanna
feel good, but you can't have both.

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Those states are neurologically
opposed to one another.

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Motivation lives inside
of dissatisfaction.

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Satisfaction is the end of motivation.

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The moment you feel like you've
already achieved something, your drive

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to actually achieve it collapses.

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It just folds in on itself
like a house of cards.

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Yeah.

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Here's what I want you to know.

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I want you to watch what happens
in the first two weeks after

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someone makes a vision board.

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Think about it.

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M- maybe it was you if
you did a vision board.

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They feel energized.

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They go to the gym once or twice
or three or four times maybe.

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They might research that business
idea they're, they're dreaming about.

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But the actions, they're gonna be
sparse, and they're gonna be scattered.

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They're just that residual motivation
from the making of the board, not

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from the vision itself that that
board is supposed to represent.

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By week three, the action stops.

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The board's still up on
the wall looking beautiful.

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They glance at it from time to
time, and each time they glance,

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they feel that same dopamine hit.

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The brain just got fed one more time.

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Their nervous system is once
again satisfied, so no emergency

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signal goes off, no bat signal in
the air saying, "Come help me."

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There's nothing demanding your body
to get up off its ass and move.

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That creates the false finish line.

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The vision board has created the feeling
of being close to the goal without any

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of the discomfort that actually moves you
towards the actual goal, the real goal.

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There's a shareable mechanism hiding here.

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Your brain processes vivid
imagination and sensory memory in

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nearly identical neural patterns.

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This is why therapists use
visualization for trauma recovery.

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But it's also why visualization
fails when it comes to motivation.

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The same tool that heals your old wounds
by completing traumatic narratives

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also halts your forward movement by
pre-completing your desired future.

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Your brain doesn't distinguish
between the two damn things.

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Both feel like you have already arrived.

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The people who actually build
the things they want understand

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this maybe instinctively.

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They don't just visualize the finish
line, they visualize the work.

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They don't just imagine owning the
business, they imagine those freaking

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4:00 AM mornings that they have to get up.

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They imagine the failed pitches and
the spreadsheets and the rejection.

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What Oetgen calls mental contrasting,
holding your desired outcome

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against the specific obstacles
standing between you and it.

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That is the psychological technique
that actually predicts follow-through.

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A critical mental contrasting only
works when paired with what researchers

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call implementation intentions.

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These are specific if-then
plans that you create.

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If I hit this obstacle that I imagined,
then I will do this specific thing.

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That, my friends, is not a vision board.

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That is a strategy, and we've
talked about that specific

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example in previous podcasts.

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They lean into the discomfort.

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They keep that gap alive, and they
keep it alive deliberately because

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the gap is what is going to move you.

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Yeah, and this is where
it gets a little darker.

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Vision boards don't just fail you, they
can actually harm your motivation in

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ways that are h- that is hard to reverse.

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Yeah, so come along with me on this one.

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Once you've gotten that dopamine
hit from your visualization,

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your brain has a reference point.

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It knows what future success feels
like, and now every day you…

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that you don't actually have
that thing, you're not just

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missing something abstract.

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You're missing something that your
nervous system has already tasted.

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Your brain has been to the future, right?

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It got onto the DeLorean,
and it flew into the future.

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Your body knows what it's like to sit in
that car, and the fact that you're sitting

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in a different chair or a different car or
no car at all creates a micro-frustration

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every single time you think about it.

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Some people call this
cognitive dissidence.

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Researchers call it the expectancy gap.

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You've raised your internal
expectation of where you should be.

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You've painted it in fine detail.

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You've felt it.

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You've smelt it.

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You've experienced it, and
now reality, which hasn't

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changed, feels like a failure.

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This is why vision board enthusiasts
often end up more depressed than

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when they started their vision board.

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It's not that they failed.

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It's not that they didn't create
this amazing vision board.

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It's that they succeeded too
early in their heads, and now

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the gap between imagination and
reality feels impossibly wide.

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The board becomes a monument to
inadequacy rather than a map to

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what's possible, to their possibility.

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And here's the cruelest part.

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The people who made you feel bad
about not having a vision board, you

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know, those motivational speakers and
the life coaches and the Instagram

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accounts showing their vision board
transformations, they are partially right.

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Vision boards do work.

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They work at one thing, making you
feel motivated for two to three weeks.

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They work at tricking your nervous
system into a neurochemical satisfaction.

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They work at creating the illusion
of progress, and that's profitable

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if you're selling the next course,
the next book, and the next

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advanced visualization technique.

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There is a reason the vision
board industry exploded the

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moment social media exploded.

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Because sharing your vision board,
taking photos of it, getting

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likes and validations on it, that
provides additional dopamine hits.

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You're not just getting the neurochemical
satisfaction of imagining the future,

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you are getting real-time social
validation for having the right dreams.

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You are on the right path,
and that's even more addictive

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than the visualization itself.

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You're not being motivated.

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You're being domesticated.

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You're being trained to confuse
enthusiasm with momentum, visualization

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with action, dreams with arrival.

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And it's working on you so thoroughly that
you do not even question the framework.

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The bitter truth that arrives at
the end of all of this is this.

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The people who achieve their
visions rarely talk about

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their vision boards afterward.

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They n- y- y- you never hear a
self-made millionaire say, "The

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thing that changed my life was that
picture of the mansion that I cut

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out of Architectural Digest back in
2010." No, that's not what you hear.

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You hear them talk about sacrifice
and timing and grinding through

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impossible doubt and the moment
they stopped caring about what other

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people believed in them or not.

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You hear them talk about the
specific micro habits that they

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had when no one was watching.

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You hear them talking about months
where nothing worked and they

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wanted to quit, but they didn't.

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The vision board isn't a map, it's a
sedative So here's the trap and the thing

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that is going to destroy the comment
section, probably your comment section,

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because there's no clean answer to it.

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Some people do benefit from vision boards,
the rare few who make a vision board

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and then almost immediately destroy it.

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Follow me on this.

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You look at it once, and you let it
sink in, and then you take it down.

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Yeah.

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Tho- those are the ones who use it
not as a permanent fixture to glance

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at every single day, but in a single
moment of clarity before they return

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to the uncomfortable work of actually
closing the gap between where they

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are and where they want to get.

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Those people report that the board
actually helped them clarify what

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it is they wanted, separate it from
what they thought they should want.

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Interestingly, Oteghan herself
doesn't say never visualize.

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She says never only
visualize the positive.

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Her WOOP method, W-O-O-P, wish,
outcome, obstacle, plan, is built around

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the positive vision at the starting
point, then immediately contrasting

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it against the obstacles and then
installing implementation intentions.

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This is the version that works.

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That's the version that no one is
out there selling you right now.

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But those people aren't the ones posting
vision board photos on Instagram.

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They're not the ones telling
their friends about it.

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The people who talk about vision
boards constantly are the same ones

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still using them as neurochemical
substitution for their own motion.

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Yeah, you can choose, my friend.

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Do you want to feel like you're
on your way, or do you want

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to actually be on your way?

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Because your nervous system is
begging you to pick the first one.

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It's so much easier.

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And at this moment, listening
to these words, you already know

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which one you're going to pick.

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The vision you see is only
real if the person who's

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looking at it is still hungry.

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A- and if you're tired of feeling
motivated without moving forward,

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and you're ready to break free from
the fantasy trap and start building

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some real momentum, then you're
going to come on over and join the

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Unleash Your Success DNA newsletter.

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00:13:37,591 --> 00:13:40,399
This isn't about another feel-good
weekly dose of inspiration.

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This is a weekly reality check for
my aspiring, aspiring entrepreneurs

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and nine-to-five escapees and
anyone who just wants to level up.

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Each issue delivers more mindset shifts,
more habit upgrades, all sprinkled

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with a dose of rebellion, helping you
break free from convention to build

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not just maybe a business, but a life
aligned with your version of success.

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No vision boards required,
just uncomfortable truth that

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actually moves you forward.

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Go on over to yoursuccessdna.com
to become an insider now.

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So- Here's why this matters
beyond vision boards.

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We're living in an era of
stimulation satisfaction.

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Yeah, some of you are nodding,
oh my God, that is so true.

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Social media feeds us endless highlight
reels that trigger some neurochemical

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response as actual achievement.

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Online courses promise transformation
through informational consumption.

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Motivational content gives us the
feeling of progress without the

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friction of actually progressing.

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Yeah.

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Here's the bigger paradigm.

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We've created a culture that profits from
keeping you in perpetual preparation mode.

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Raise your hand if you've
felt like that at times.

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My hand is up, just so you know.

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The self-help industrial complex
doesn't want you to succeed.

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It wants you to feel like you are about to
succeed because that feeling is renewable.

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That feeling keeps you buying.

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00:14:52,159 --> 00:14:55,725
Actual success, on the other hand,
that my friend, is a one-time purchase.

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The vision board is just one symptom
of a much larger disease, the

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commodification of your dissatisfaction,
your restlessness, your hunger for more.

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That's not a problem to be solved.

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That's a fuel to be used, but only
if you stop feeding it fantasies

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and start feeding it action.

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So all that said, here's your
whiskered wisdom for this week.

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Motivation lives in the
gap, not in the goal.

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The specific action you need to
take right after you're finished

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listening to this episode, heck,
you could take it right now, if you

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have a vision board, take it down.

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Not because vision boards are evil
and they don't work, but because

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you need to feel the discomfort
of not having what it is you want.

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You need to remember
what hunger feels like.

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Sit with that restlessness for a
full day, and don't try to fix it.

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Don't try to visualize it away or don't
try to meditate yourself through it.

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Just feel it.

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That discomfort that you're trying to
escape, that, my friends, is your engine.

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So please stop sedating
it and start using it.

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Look, you already know
what it is you need to do.

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You've always known.

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00:15:55,359 --> 00:15:57,559
Anybody who's taking the time
to listen to this episode this

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far in, you've always known.

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00:15:59,316 --> 00:16:02,933
The vision board, the courses,
the podcasts, including this one,

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they're really all just sophisticated
ways of avoiding the one thing

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that actually changes your life,
starting before you feel ready.

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Your dreams don't need
another damn vision board.

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They need a builder, and that builder
is sitting right there listening

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00:16:16,212 --> 00:16:20,316
to these words right now, knowing
exactly what your next move is.

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00:16:20,394 --> 00:16:25,168
Stop dreaming your way out of doing
and start doing your way into becoming.

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Think successfully and take action.