Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals

00:00:00.000 | [upbeat music]

00:00:00.840 | Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.280 | where we discuss science and science-based tools

00:00:04.880 | for everyday life.

00:00:05.900 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.320 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.320 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.200 | Today, we are talking about goal setting

00:00:17.360 | and achieving goals.

00:00:19.360 | Now, we've done three full episodes

00:00:21.600 | about this topic previously.

00:00:23.120 | I did a solo episode about this topic

00:00:25.360 | where I described the neuroscience of the circuitry

00:00:29.240 | in the brain and body

00:00:30.080 | that underlies goal setting and pursuit.

00:00:32.400 | I also hosted two expert guests

00:00:34.760 | who have done extensive research on these topics.

00:00:37.560 | Those guests were Dr. Emily Balchetes

00:00:40.280 | from New York University and Dr. Maya Shankar.

00:00:43.520 | So today's episode is going to focus on the key takeaways

00:00:46.840 | from those three previous episodes,

00:00:49.280 | as well as incorporate new information

00:00:52.020 | that has been published in the scientific literature

00:00:54.600 | since those episodes aired,

00:00:56.560 | so that by the end of today's episode,

00:00:58.720 | you will have a potent toolkit

00:01:00.720 | for setting and pursuing goals.

00:01:03.060 | We will talk about how to select

00:01:05.260 | which goals to pursue and when.

00:01:07.400 | We will talk about how to measure your progress.

00:01:10.240 | We will talk about how to initiate and sustain motivation

00:01:14.440 | as you pursue your goals.

00:01:15.800 | We are also going to dispel some prominent myths

00:01:18.620 | about goal setting and pursuit.

00:01:20.400 | Given that this is a toolkit episode,

00:01:22.680 | I will talk about some of the underlying

00:01:24.520 | biological mechanisms for the protocols that I describe,

00:01:27.720 | but most of what I will cover are the protocols themselves,

00:01:30.800 | the how to identify a goal,

00:01:32.600 | select the best goal for you to pursue,

00:01:35.220 | how to initiate goal pursuit,

00:01:36.880 | how to maintain goal pursuit,

00:01:38.520 | how to evaluate progress,

00:01:40.240 | and how to do the post hoc analysis after you achieve a goal

00:01:43.800 | or as the case may be, not achieve a goal.

00:01:46.900 | Although I am confident that if you implement

00:01:48.960 | even a subset of the protocols that we cover today,

00:01:51.660 | that you stand the greatest possible chance

00:01:54.160 | of both setting the proper goal

00:01:56.460 | and achieving that goal.

00:01:58.340 | And I can say that both with confidence and humility

00:02:01.160 | because the protocols I describe were not created by me.

00:02:04.800 | They are gleaned from the scientific peer reviewed literature

00:02:07.780 | and they have been shown to work.

00:02:10.020 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast

00:02:12.700 | is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford.

00:02:15.360 | It is however, part of my desire and effort

00:02:17.580 | to bring zero cost to consumer information about science

00:02:20.240 | and science related tools to the general public.

00:02:22.820 | In keeping with that theme,

00:02:23.900 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

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00:04:44.060 | Okay, let's talk about goal setting and pursuit.

00:04:46.540 | And as I mentioned a few minutes ago,

00:04:47.860 | this is a toolkit episode.

00:04:49.020 | So I'm not going to talk too much

00:04:50.480 | about the mechanistic underpinnings of the protocols

00:04:53.420 | for goal setting and pursuit.

00:04:54.600 | I'm mostly just going to give you those protocols.

00:04:56.480 | But before I do that, I want to take just three minutes,

00:04:59.660 | I promise just three minutes or less,

00:05:01.820 | and describe the neural circuitry involved

00:05:04.340 | in goal setting and pursuit.

00:05:05.780 | And there are two reasons to do that.

00:05:07.020 | First of all, the biology of goal setting and pursuit

00:05:09.640 | is absolutely beautiful.

00:05:10.740 | It's incredible that we and many other animals, in fact,

00:05:13.820 | have this neural circuitry

00:05:15.620 | and that it works in the way that it does.

00:05:17.660 | But equally important is that when we have

00:05:19.280 | a mechanistic understanding or framework

00:05:21.620 | for how a protocol or set of protocols work,

00:05:24.220 | it makes it much easier to tweak those protocols

00:05:26.940 | and customize them to our unique needs.

00:05:29.860 | Okay, so with that said,

00:05:31.620 | the goal setting and pursuit circuitry

00:05:33.540 | essentially consists of four major stations in the brain.

00:05:37.020 | Although it's important to point out

00:05:39.060 | that each of those stations

00:05:40.420 | has a number of other connections that are important

00:05:43.180 | for the whole goal setting and pursuit process.

00:05:45.460 | But we can distill things down to four major hubs

00:05:48.960 | or stations within the brain.

00:05:50.940 | And those are the basal ganglia,

00:05:53.720 | the lateral prefrontal cortex,

00:05:55.380 | and the orbital frontal cortex.

00:05:57.720 | So going through those one by one,

00:05:59.780 | the amygdala is a structure within the brain,

00:06:01.480 | you actually have two of them,

00:06:02.320 | one on each side of the brain,

00:06:03.860 | that is involved in circuits associated with arousal

00:06:07.780 | in driving levels of alertness.

00:06:09.900 | It's also involved in fear,

00:06:11.020 | you've probably heard that many times before,

00:06:12.400 | but also things like anxiety.

00:06:13.900 | And actually the amygdala can be involved

00:06:15.680 | in what we call positive valence experiences,

00:06:17.740 | not just the bad stuff like fear and anxiety,

00:06:19.800 | but also positive forms of arousal and even learning.

00:06:23.320 | The basal ganglia include a lot

00:06:25.560 | of different brain structures,

00:06:27.100 | but for sake of today's discussion,

00:06:28.580 | what you need to know is that the basal ganglia

00:06:30.740 | includes two major pathways.

00:06:32.500 | One is the so-called go pathway,

00:06:34.300 | which is the pathway involved in generating actions.

00:06:36.860 | And the other is the so-called no-go pathway,

00:06:39.200 | or the pathway involved in withholding or ceasing action.

00:06:42.780 | And this is really important to understand

00:06:44.300 | because with all goals, we have to ask ourselves,

00:06:47.520 | are we trying to learn how to do something new,

00:06:50.040 | or are we trying to withhold a certain set of actions?

00:06:52.820 | And of course, anytime we learn anything,

00:06:55.100 | it's a process of both generating

00:06:57.640 | and withholding certain actions.

00:06:59.840 | So we've got the amygdala and we have the basal ganglia,

00:07:02.260 | which has this go action initiating

00:07:05.100 | and no-go action withholding circuitry within it.

00:07:07.980 | And then there's the lateral prefrontal cortex,

00:07:10.140 | which is involved in immediate and long-term planning.

00:07:12.500 | And this is going to be a key component

00:07:14.120 | of today's discussion because we aren't going to be talking

00:07:17.380 | about lateral prefrontal cortex per se,

00:07:19.320 | but we are going to be talking about time perception

00:07:22.560 | in the context of setting and achieving our goals,

00:07:24.900 | because setting and achieving our goals

00:07:27.180 | is all about being able to orient both in space,

00:07:30.240 | knowing where we are and what we're doing,

00:07:31.500 | but also in time, know where we are in that road of progress

00:07:36.060 | toward achieving our goal or crossing that finish line

00:07:38.500 | and repeatedly updating those finish lines in many cases.

00:07:41.620 | And the fourth structure is the orbital frontal cortex,

00:07:45.460 | which like all brain areas tends to be a multitasker,

00:07:48.460 | does a bunch of different things.

00:07:50.060 | But for sake of today's discussion,

00:07:51.380 | it's important to understand

00:07:52.460 | that the orbital frontal cortex is involved in evaluation

00:07:56.660 | of our current emotional state and arousal state

00:07:59.840 | as it relates to our goal pursuit.

00:08:01.460 | For instance, are we happy because we are sensing progress

00:08:05.580 | or are we unhappy and feeling frustrated or sad or angry

00:08:09.460 | because we are feeling that we are not achieving progress

00:08:12.200 | or that somehow we can't get into the sorts of actions

00:08:15.000 | that are going to allow us to eventually reach our goals?

00:08:18.100 | Okay, so I described four major structures,

00:08:20.420 | all of which communicate with each other

00:08:21.860 | and of course, a lot of other brain areas.

00:08:24.340 | And those four structures were the amygdala,

00:08:26.660 | the basal ganglia, the go and no-go circuitry,

00:08:29.460 | the lateral prefrontal cortex

00:08:30.960 | and the orbital frontal cortex.

00:08:32.340 | And those represent the core components

00:08:34.680 | of the neural circuitry involved in goal setting and pursuit.

00:08:38.540 | Now I realized I didn't time that section,

00:08:40.180 | so I don't know whether or not it was three minutes or less,

00:08:42.780 | but if it was shorter than three minutes, great.

00:08:45.520 | And if it was longer than three minutes,

00:08:47.260 | well, I promised to shave a couple of minutes

00:08:49.140 | off the end of this episode.

00:08:50.660 | Okay, so now you have the understanding

00:08:52.060 | that we all have the same neural circuitry

00:08:54.680 | for goal setting and pursuit.

00:08:55.980 | I find that amazing regardless of whether or not

00:08:58.080 | you want to achieve a fitness goal or an academic goal

00:09:00.820 | or a work goal, monetary goal, relationship goal,

00:09:03.280 | maybe you want to just get better at relaxing.

00:09:05.460 | I've been told I should perhaps pursue that goal.

00:09:08.140 | Well, you're going to use the same neural circuits

00:09:11.500 | for each and any of those.

00:09:13.680 | I find that incredible.

00:09:14.900 | I also find that very reassuring because what it means

00:09:17.460 | is that if we can focus on the tools and protocols

00:09:20.820 | that are anchored in the biology of goal setting and pursuit

00:09:24.640 | as we understand them to exist in all humans

00:09:27.440 | and indeed in other animals as well,

00:09:29.620 | well, then we should have the greatest possible confidence

00:09:32.180 | that we will in fact achieve our goals.

00:09:34.380 | So how do we go about doing that?

00:09:35.860 | Well, the first question you need to ask yourself

00:09:37.860 | is what goal do I want to pursue?

00:09:40.640 | And the first protocol for deciding what goal

00:09:44.460 | you want to pursue is actually a quite simple one

00:09:47.220 | in terms of how it's stated,

00:09:48.720 | but it's fairly complex for a lot of people to answer.

00:09:51.900 | And that is which specific goal

00:09:54.240 | are you going to try and pursue?

00:09:56.060 | Because guess what, folks?

00:09:58.340 | Most people who trying to achieve many goals simultaneously

00:10:02.220 | fail at all of them.

00:10:04.200 | This is what I call the overhaul approach

00:10:06.420 | when people think, okay, you know, on January 1

00:10:09.280 | or next month or next week, or perhaps even today,

00:10:12.300 | I'm going to start exercising, I'm going to start meditating,

00:10:15.500 | I'm going to learn a language, I'm going to learn to dance,

00:10:17.780 | I'm going to do all these different things.

00:10:20.020 | And that's just too many goals.

00:10:21.940 | I think here is an appropriate place

00:10:23.900 | to highlight the word priority.

00:10:26.500 | A priority literally means one thing

00:10:29.300 | that you place ahead of all others.

00:10:30.980 | These days we hear a lot about priorities, plural,

00:10:33.940 | but we really should be thinking about priority

00:10:36.760 | and defining our priority for learning in a given phase.

00:10:40.620 | So if you are somebody who wants to get more physically fit

00:10:43.380 | or you want to learn something cognitively, that's terrific.

00:10:45.680 | You are allowed to have multiple goals,

00:10:47.640 | but I highly recommend that you first select just one goal.

00:10:52.640 | Of course, you don't let go of other aspects

00:10:54.840 | of your mental health and physical health,

00:10:56.540 | that you don't throw your life away

00:10:58.060 | in service to this one goal.

00:10:59.500 | We've all seen how that goes and it's not a pretty picture,

00:11:02.700 | but rather that you continue to engage in healthy ways

00:11:06.300 | with the other aspects of your life

00:11:07.980 | that you're proficient at or mostly proficient at,

00:11:10.640 | but that you select one goal

00:11:12.980 | that you're going to try and attain.

00:11:14.740 | How you select that one goal, of course,

00:11:16.700 | is going to reflect your values,

00:11:18.160 | your motivation, your resources,

00:11:19.980 | but it's very important that you spend some serious time

00:11:23.420 | defining that one priority, that one goal

00:11:26.340 | for this initial goal setting and pursuit period.

00:11:30.620 | And in a moment, I'll tell you how long that goal

00:11:32.980 | pursuit period ought to be.

00:11:34.820 | But for some people, the best way to define

00:11:37.500 | which goal they're going to pursue

00:11:39.340 | is to write out the different things that they want

00:11:41.300 | and then essentially cross off the various things

00:11:44.200 | that they're willing to put on hold for the time being

00:11:46.560 | and circle the thing that they're really going to focus on

00:11:49.300 | and only that thing.

00:11:50.880 | And again, this is highly individual.

00:11:52.200 | It's going to depend on you, your past, your present,

00:11:54.320 | your future, your resources, all of that.

00:11:56.860 | But having that one priority

00:11:58.920 | is going to really increase the probability

00:12:01.680 | that you're going to achieve your goal.

00:12:03.700 | Now, we also know from the scientific literature

00:12:05.960 | that how lofty that goal is will impact

00:12:08.940 | whether or not you're able to achieve it.

00:12:11.060 | And I think most people mistakenly believe

00:12:13.960 | that if a goal is easy to achieve,

00:12:15.820 | it's more likely that they will achieve that goal,

00:12:17.720 | sort of a duh.

00:12:18.860 | But in fact, the opposite has been shown to be true.

00:12:22.120 | If a goal is too easy to achieve,

00:12:24.840 | it seems that it doesn't recruit sufficient amounts

00:12:27.440 | of the arousal network that involves the amygdala,

00:12:30.160 | but a bunch of other brain structures as well

00:12:32.600 | that get people into the necessary actions

00:12:35.900 | to continually pursue that goal.

00:12:37.980 | This perhaps should not be surprising.

00:12:40.160 | In order to learn something,

00:12:41.840 | we have to shift our nervous system into states

00:12:44.880 | that are somewhat uncomfortable.

00:12:46.660 | They should be safely uncomfortable states,

00:12:49.080 | but they should be uncomfortable states.

00:12:50.840 | And we're going to talk more about this

00:12:52.120 | as the episode continues,

00:12:53.700 | but any kind of successful learning or goal pursuit

00:12:57.220 | is going to involve errors.

00:12:58.800 | It's going to involve failures.

00:13:00.440 | It's going to involve frustration.

00:13:01.880 | It's going to involve anxiety.

00:13:04.120 | All of those states of mind and body, in fact,

00:13:07.520 | shift the brain into modes of so-called neuroplasticity.

00:13:11.240 | They give it the ability to change.

00:13:13.360 | And that should make perfect sense

00:13:14.920 | because if you can complete what you need to do easily,

00:13:17.640 | there's absolutely no reason for the neural circuitry

00:13:20.360 | in your brain or body to shift in any way.

00:13:22.620 | Why would it?

00:13:23.760 | Rather, those states of discomfort, frustration,

00:13:27.300 | anxiety, et cetera,

00:13:29.660 | represent shifts in neurochemical states

00:13:32.200 | that literally open the opportunity

00:13:34.880 | for neuroplasticity to occur.

00:13:36.340 | The changes between neurons that allow those neurons

00:13:39.740 | and their associated neural circuits

00:13:40.940 | to perform differently in the future

00:13:43.080 | when we learn something.

00:13:44.540 | So the key here is twofold.

00:13:47.020 | First, define the specific priority goal

00:13:49.420 | that you're going to pursue

00:13:50.700 | and set aside all other goal pursuits.

00:13:53.860 | And in doing that,

00:13:55.060 | it makes sense to pursue a somewhat loftier goal

00:13:58.480 | than perhaps a more mundane goal.

00:14:00.540 | Or if you know exactly what goal you're going to prioritize,

00:14:04.840 | that you try and achieve perhaps more

00:14:07.580 | than you think you ought to be able to achieve

00:14:09.960 | within that given goal.

00:14:11.640 | And within the goal that you decide to prioritize,

00:14:13.640 | you want to set a level of progress,

00:14:15.840 | a level of performance that you're striving to attain

00:14:18.520 | that's a bit above what you actually believe

00:14:21.080 | at this time you can accomplish.

00:14:23.800 | Now, in doing so, you are inevitably going to encounter

00:14:26.440 | some frustration and anxiety,

00:14:28.320 | but remember the component of the neural circuitry

00:14:30.280 | that we talked about at the beginning of the episode,

00:14:32.440 | the orbital frontal cortex.

00:14:34.080 | That orbital frontal cortex

00:14:35.600 | is not just part of a neural circuitry

00:14:37.200 | that assesses how we feel in a given moment

00:14:39.580 | as we are trying to pursue a goal,

00:14:41.640 | but it also understands context.

00:14:44.480 | It has the capacity to, for instance,

00:14:47.520 | see that you are experiencing anxiety,

00:14:50.800 | know that you are frustrated,

00:14:52.680 | but now that you understand that anxiety and frustration

00:14:56.680 | that comes with making errors is actually the gateway,

00:14:59.880 | it's a necessary gateway

00:15:01.200 | to achieving neural circuit changes,

00:15:03.000 | so-called neuroplasticity.

00:15:04.840 | Well, the orbital frontal cortex understands that context.

00:15:07.920 | It literally can take information about neuroplasticity,

00:15:10.720 | it can take information about frustration,

00:15:13.040 | which you now have, and it can combine those

00:15:15.380 | such that when you experience that frustration,

00:15:17.660 | you experience those errors

00:15:19.100 | and you previously would have wanted to quit,

00:15:22.380 | now you know that you are literally making progress.

00:15:25.020 | You're literally shifting those neural circuits

00:15:27.180 | in the direction of improved learning.

00:15:30.040 | Now, it's also important to remind that neuroplasticity,

00:15:33.140 | the changes in neural circuits

00:15:34.460 | that allow for improved performance in the future

00:15:37.140 | does not occur instantaneously.

00:15:39.500 | That frustration that occurs during our attempts to learn

00:15:42.100 | or to pursue a goal is the trigger for neuroplasticity,

00:15:44.780 | the actual rewiring of neural circuits

00:15:46.660 | that allows for proficient, correct performance

00:15:50.860 | occurs during deep sleep and other forms of deep rest.

00:15:54.400 | This is something I've covered extensively

00:15:56.000 | in episodes on neuroplasticity and learning,

00:15:58.340 | and if you'd like to learn more about neuroplasticity,

00:16:00.220 | in fact, if you'd like a zero-cost toolkit

00:16:02.660 | that defines the so-called super protocol

00:16:04.780 | for neuroplasticity and learning

00:16:06.860 | that is not just nested

00:16:08.540 | within the context of goal pursuit and learning,

00:16:10.220 | we have that, you can go to hubermanlab.com,

00:16:12.300 | you go to the menu, you scroll down to newsletter,

00:16:14.680 | and you can sign up, it's completely zero cost,

00:16:16.780 | and you'll get that as a brief,

00:16:18.780 | I believe it's a two or maybe three page PDF.

00:16:21.280 | Okay, so returning to goal setting and pursuit,

00:16:23.980 | first, you need to set your goal.

00:16:25.460 | You really should take the time required

00:16:27.660 | to define your priority.

00:16:29.340 | What are you going to try and learn?

00:16:30.840 | And then you're going to pick a goal

00:16:32.660 | that really feels challenging,

00:16:34.300 | that feels like it might even be out of reach,

00:16:36.840 | because that will recruit the neural circuits

00:16:39.700 | associated with arousal,

00:16:41.140 | they're motivating enough to get you into action.

00:16:44.960 | Now, I want to be very clear,

00:16:46.000 | I'm not suggesting that you pick a goal

00:16:47.820 | that's impossible to achieve

00:16:49.080 | or that you believe is impossible to achieve,

00:16:50.680 | that's not going to serve you well.

00:16:52.220 | Rather, I'm saying pick a goal

00:16:53.840 | that feels just a bit out of reach,

00:16:55.780 | and don't obsess too much about whether or not

00:16:57.760 | it's a lot out of reach or a little bit out of reach,

00:17:00.200 | pick something you're excited to pursue

00:17:01.760 | that you would really like to accomplish,

00:17:03.940 | set that goal, and then just set aside all other goals.

00:17:07.400 | Still, of course, maintain or improve

00:17:09.760 | other aspects of your life that are necessary

00:17:11.960 | for daily living, for mental health,

00:17:13.340 | physical health, et cetera,

00:17:14.840 | but really just focus on one goal.

00:17:17.800 | I promise that you will be far more satisfied

00:17:20.340 | with the results if you can truly set a priority.

00:17:23.800 | So once you've defined the specific goal

00:17:25.620 | that you are going to prioritize,

00:17:27.500 | there are two more things that you need to do

00:17:29.860 | before you start to pursue that goal.

00:17:32.100 | The first one is that you need to define the specific verbs,

00:17:36.660 | the actions that are involved in pursuing that goal.

00:17:39.940 | This is absolutely critical.

00:17:41.260 | A lot of people will set a sort of title goal

00:17:44.780 | or a goal state.

00:17:46.280 | They'll say, "Oh, you know, I want to be rich,"

00:17:48.680 | or, "I want to be smart,"

00:17:50.680 | or they will say, "I want to be fit or proficient

00:17:53.380 | in a given language."

00:17:54.800 | It's really important that you put additional specificity

00:17:58.600 | on your goal.

00:17:59.440 | In fact, it's important that you put a lot of specificity

00:18:02.160 | on your goal and that you focus mainly on verbs

00:18:05.280 | when defining that specificity.

00:18:07.480 | Now, there are a lot of reasons for this

00:18:08.880 | that have to do both with increasing the probability

00:18:12.080 | that you will achieve your goal,

00:18:13.760 | as well as maintaining motivation as you pursue that goal.

00:18:18.000 | So for instance, rather than saying you want to be fit

00:18:21.080 | or you want to be a better runner or swimmer,

00:18:23.860 | you would want to get very specific about the verb

00:18:27.260 | that you're going to engage in in order to achieve that goal.

00:18:30.360 | Now, it's somewhat obvious in the case of running

00:18:32.680 | or swimming.

00:18:33.520 | I think everyone understands

00:18:34.600 | that if you want to be a better runner,

00:18:36.200 | there is going to be some running involved.

00:18:37.800 | If you want to be a better swimmer,

00:18:38.880 | there's going to be some swimming involved, of course,

00:18:41.600 | but presumably there'll be some other behaviors as well,

00:18:45.260 | everything from driving to the pool or lacing up your shoes.

00:18:48.940 | I mean, there's an essentially near infinite number

00:18:51.520 | of verbs involved in any type of goal pursuit.

00:18:54.200 | So what we are talking about here

00:18:56.160 | is really defining the goal on a piece of paper,

00:18:58.920 | and I do think that's important.

00:18:59.960 | You should write this down.

00:19:01.400 | And I think the process of selecting your goal,

00:19:04.220 | that priority, as well as defining the specificity

00:19:07.160 | of the verb action that you're going to pursue

00:19:09.500 | should be done on paper.

00:19:10.660 | You of course are going to think,

00:19:11.560 | but then you should write it out.

00:19:12.600 | Seeing things on paper and writing them out by hand

00:19:15.140 | with pen or pencil really has been shown

00:19:17.840 | to engage neural circuitry in a way that is different

00:19:20.480 | than typing with your thumbs into your phone,

00:19:23.120 | which by the way is a new feature of human evolution.

00:19:25.640 | I do believe this is the first time in human evolution

00:19:28.480 | that we have written with our thumbs.

00:19:30.900 | I don't know, I don't have a time machine.

00:19:32.360 | I can't go back and check,

00:19:33.280 | but I'm willing to place a bet

00:19:35.880 | that that statement is correct.

00:19:38.020 | So the point is that writing things out

00:19:39.800 | is not only important,

00:19:40.760 | it's also the most effective way to embed knowledge

00:19:44.020 | in our nervous system.

00:19:45.620 | And so I highly recommend that you write things out

00:19:47.540 | on a piece of paper in your process of goal setting.

00:19:50.800 | So when we are talking about generating verb specificity

00:19:53.940 | about your goal, it would look like the following.

00:19:57.300 | So let's say I want to quote, unquote, get more fit

00:20:00.540 | or learn conversational French

00:20:03.280 | or anything for that matter, gardening.

00:20:05.960 | Maybe I want to build a gazebo in the backyard

00:20:08.240 | or a deck in the backyard.

00:20:10.220 | The key thing to answer is what is the major block of action

00:20:14.000 | that's going to be involved in pursuing that goal?

00:20:16.680 | So for instance, if you want to get more fit

00:20:18.760 | and you're going to do that primarily

00:20:20.120 | through running and weight training

00:20:21.440 | or swimming and weight training,

00:20:22.840 | you would want to get very specific

00:20:24.360 | in defining that priority goal

00:20:26.000 | as I'm going to run X number of miles per week

00:20:30.740 | or I'm going to go to the gym three times per week

00:20:34.540 | to lift weights.

00:20:35.380 | Although I would recommend

00:20:36.580 | getting even more specific than that.

00:20:38.860 | I would recommend that you literally write down,

00:20:41.060 | I'm going to go to the gym three times per week

00:20:43.740 | for a minimum of 60 minutes where 50 minutes of that

00:20:48.040 | are carrying out hard work, okay?

00:20:50.740 | With of course rest between sets, et cetera.

00:20:52.660 | Or I'm going to attend three classes per week

00:20:56.360 | or perhaps even just one class per week

00:20:58.940 | of learning conversational French.

00:21:01.640 | Plus I'm going to spend two hours per week

00:21:05.060 | of practicing say word problems or mathematical problems.

00:21:09.280 | Whatever it is, you want to define first the priority,

00:21:12.280 | then you want to define the verb action

00:21:14.000 | that represents the bulk of effort towards that priority.

00:21:17.040 | So running in the case of the person

00:21:19.300 | who wants to get fit by running, weightlifting,

00:21:21.740 | in the case of the person that wants to get fit

00:21:23.460 | by weightlifting, though of course I highly recommend

00:21:26.220 | people do both resistance training

00:21:27.660 | and cardiovascular training

00:21:29.520 | if indeed they want to be truly fit.

00:21:31.580 | Or in the case of language learning

00:21:33.160 | or learning how to code or gardening

00:21:34.860 | or something of that sort,

00:21:35.980 | to really define the verb actions involved

00:21:38.340 | and then to place specificity in terms of the amount of time

00:21:42.740 | that one is going to try to achieve each week

00:21:45.820 | in pursuit of that specific priority goal.

00:21:49.540 | Now I realize that that process itself

00:21:51.340 | takes a bit of time,

00:21:52.540 | but when you look back on the 100 year plus

00:21:55.180 | scientific literature of what leads to successful

00:21:58.620 | goal setting and pursuit,

00:22:00.420 | you find over and over again

00:22:02.280 | that those two components we've been talking about,

00:22:04.100 | specificity and measurability are paramount.

00:22:07.660 | You just simply cannot discard those from the process

00:22:10.420 | if you expect yourself to achieve your goals.

00:22:13.460 | So whether or not it's the ABC method

00:22:15.280 | or it's the SMART method or the SMARTER method,

00:22:17.180 | again, all acronyms coined not by me but by others

00:22:20.060 | previous to this conversation,

00:22:21.980 | you're going to find elements of specificity

00:22:24.120 | and measurability showing up again and again.

00:22:26.900 | So these are key features of any protocol

00:22:29.780 | that you are going to use

00:22:31.220 | in order to try and set and achieve your goals.

00:22:34.540 | And I should mention that setting specific goals

00:22:36.800 | and clearly defining the verbs

00:22:39.660 | that you're going to engage in to pursue those goals

00:22:42.060 | and defining how long you are going to try

00:22:44.260 | and engage in those verbs each week to achieve those goals

00:22:47.780 | has significant impact on the probability of success.

00:22:52.300 | We're not talking about a minor effect.

00:22:53.900 | In fact, in the original episode I did

00:22:55.860 | about goal setting and pursuit,

00:22:57.300 | I talked about the so-called recycling study.

00:22:59.720 | I'm not going to describe it in a lot of detail right now,

00:23:02.220 | but essentially this study looked at motivating people

00:23:04.900 | to recycle more recyclable products in the workplace.

00:23:08.120 | And what they found was that when people were told

00:23:11.840 | what the specific goal was

00:23:13.500 | and what specific actions they needed to engage in were

00:23:17.500 | and how much of a given batch of refuse,

00:23:20.100 | so say, you know, after lunch, there's some boxes,

00:23:22.180 | there's some forks, et cetera, some napkins,

00:23:24.500 | how much of that refuse they were going to try

00:23:27.480 | to put into the recycle versus the trash,

00:23:30.260 | it led to a greater than doubling

00:23:33.180 | of successful achievement of that goal.

00:23:35.780 | Now that's a perhaps trivial goal to some of you,

00:23:37.900 | although let's face it, recycling is important,

00:23:40.380 | but that result has been shown again and again and again

00:23:44.540 | for different domains of goal setting and pursuit.

00:23:46.700 | So this thing of setting specificity,

00:23:48.820 | really spending time with it on paper,

00:23:51.120 | setting specificity of actions, which specific actions,

00:23:53.980 | and then setting specificity of how long you are going

00:23:56.500 | to engage in each of those actions each week

00:23:59.340 | greatly increases the probability that you will achieve

00:24:02.460 | that what previously seemed to be a all too lofty goal.

00:24:06.880 | Earlier I mentioned that during the course

00:24:08.500 | of today's episode, we were going to dispel

00:24:10.480 | some common myths about goal setting and pursuit.

00:24:13.900 | So now I'd like to mention two popular myths

00:24:17.660 | about goal setting and pursuit.

00:24:19.780 | The first one is that if we set a post-it,

00:24:23.300 | you know, a little post-it sticky,

00:24:24.720 | where you write down what you're trying to achieve

00:24:26.820 | and you put that on the refrigerator,

00:24:28.520 | you put that on your mirror,

00:24:30.120 | that it increases the probability

00:24:32.040 | that you are going to stick to your goal.

00:24:35.180 | It turns out that is not the case.

00:24:37.100 | And the reason for that is that your visual system adapts

00:24:39.540 | to whatever is regular in your environment.

00:24:42.180 | Doesn't matter whether or not that environment is sparse,

00:24:45.980 | so it only has a few things in it,

00:24:48.360 | or whether or not it is dense, like a forest.

00:24:51.740 | Anything that shows up regularly in our visual environment

00:24:54.280 | gets canceled out.

00:24:56.020 | This is actually a basic feature

00:24:57.820 | of the way your visual system is wired.

00:24:59.740 | So for those of you that are taking a sticky note

00:25:02.780 | or a magnet or a sign and putting it on your mirror

00:25:05.920 | and leaving it there from day to day,

00:25:08.020 | maybe that says, you know, run 60 minutes today

00:25:10.980 | or study French 20 minutes

00:25:12.860 | or whatever the goal happens to be.

00:25:15.220 | If you leave it there day to day to day,

00:25:18.700 | it actually diminishes the likelihood of progress.

00:25:22.400 | I know that seems kind of hard to believe, but it's true.

00:25:26.140 | Instead, a better approach is to continually

00:25:29.340 | write that thing out each day and put up a new sticky,

00:25:32.080 | put it in a new place, perhaps on the refrigerator,

00:25:34.680 | sometimes in the kitchen, maybe on the windshield

00:25:36.920 | of your car, although of course,

00:25:37.980 | remove that while you're driving, et cetera.

00:25:40.300 | If you are going to incorporate visual reminders

00:25:42.800 | in your goal setting and goal pursuit process,

00:25:45.120 | you want to change those each and every day.

00:25:47.620 | This is actually something that perhaps app developers

00:25:50.500 | will start to incorporate because I think the notifications

00:25:53.020 | that come through on various apps designed to remind us

00:25:56.040 | to do certain things can be helpful,

00:25:57.900 | but there too, we tend to attenuate to them

00:26:01.460 | and we simply either do not notice them

00:26:03.820 | or we start to swipe them away over time.

00:26:06.020 | So visual reminders can be very effective.

00:26:08.260 | If you want to use them, great.

00:26:09.540 | You certainly don't have to, but if you're going to use them,

00:26:12.460 | you want to update them every single day.

00:26:14.420 | Otherwise your visual system and certainly the areas

00:26:17.180 | of your brain that are associated with assessing novelty

00:26:19.600 | and emotionality will simply start to cancel those away.

00:26:23.240 | So the first common myth that we're dispelling

00:26:25.400 | is what I call the post-it fallacy.

00:26:27.580 | The idea that if you write something down on a post-it

00:26:29.540 | and you post it in an area that you frequent every morning

00:26:32.280 | or every day or every night,

00:26:33.700 | that you stand a higher probability of adhering

00:26:36.060 | to what is on that post-it, that is simply not true.

00:26:38.500 | You would want to replace it every day

00:26:39.960 | and you would also be wise to move that post-it

00:26:42.740 | to different locations.

00:26:44.640 | The second myth is that if you want to increase

00:26:48.060 | your motivation toward pursuing a goal

00:26:50.480 | and you want to increase the probability

00:26:52.000 | that you will achieve that goal,

00:26:53.860 | that you should engage in so-called accountability,

00:26:57.320 | meaning that you should tell people

00:26:58.900 | you are going to achieve that goal.

00:27:02.140 | Now, I realize that there are some prominent examples

00:27:05.340 | in pop culture of people posting something on social media

00:27:08.620 | and saying, in three years,

00:27:10.940 | I'm going to be playing in Wembley Stadium

00:27:12.920 | or in two years, watch,

00:27:14.620 | I'm going to be at the top level of my game,

00:27:17.160 | whatever that game happens to be.

00:27:18.480 | Sure, there are examples of that.

00:27:21.260 | And those are beautiful and inspiring examples.

00:27:23.540 | However, the scientific data tell us

00:27:26.180 | that if we inform people around us,

00:27:29.340 | that for instance, we are going to write a book

00:27:31.280 | or that we're going to start a podcast

00:27:33.220 | or that we are going to run a marathon

00:27:34.980 | or whatever it happens to be,

00:27:37.420 | more often than not, we get feedback

00:27:40.420 | that is generally positive in form.

00:27:43.140 | I think that's good and to be expected, frankly.

00:27:46.220 | If a friend tells us, "Hey, I'm going to write a book

00:27:47.780 | or I'm going to pursue a new fitness goal

00:27:49.900 | or I'm going to learn a language,"

00:27:50.780 | we say, "Great, go for it.

00:27:51.940 | You can totally do it.

00:27:52.860 | You're very likely to succeed.

00:27:55.340 | Go for it.

00:27:56.300 | How do you want me to support you?

00:27:57.420 | Is there anything I can do to support you?"

00:27:58.940 | Those all are frankly healthy exchanges.

00:28:02.380 | And yet the data tell us that the positive feedback

00:28:06.220 | that we get from others

00:28:07.940 | when we announce that we're going after a goal,

00:28:11.020 | activate certain reward systems

00:28:12.860 | and motivation systems within our brain

00:28:15.440 | that then quickly dissipate

00:28:17.420 | and then diminish the probability

00:28:18.860 | that we will engage in the type of behaviors

00:28:20.920 | that actually lead us to achieve that goal.

00:28:23.500 | So we have the post-it fallacy

00:28:25.420 | and we have the myth of accountability fallacy

00:28:28.700 | within the context of goal pursuit.

00:28:30.860 | I, of course, am not saying that accountability is bad.

00:28:33.780 | To the contrary, accountability is a great thing,

00:28:36.060 | both to ourselves and to others.

00:28:37.540 | It's something that we should all cultivate throughout life.

00:28:40.900 | I'm merely talking about the myth of accountability

00:28:42.820 | in the context of goal pursuit

00:28:44.140 | and I'm actually being more specific than that.

00:28:46.260 | I'm saying don't tell people

00:28:48.060 | that you're going to go out and achieve something

00:28:50.820 | prior to initiating action toward that goal

00:28:53.660 | because in fact, the positive feedback that we get

00:28:56.780 | will diminish the probability

00:28:58.460 | that we will continually pursue that goal

00:29:00.840 | in a way that allows us to achieve it.

00:29:03.520 | So you could interpret the information I just gave you

00:29:06.080 | as meaning that perhaps it's better to tell someone

00:29:09.180 | who doubts us that we are going to achieve a goal

00:29:11.740 | and then, of course,

00:29:12.940 | they're not going to give us the positive feedback.

00:29:14.560 | We're not going to get all that reward circuitry activated.

00:29:16.780 | Rather, we're going to get the friction circuitry activated

00:29:21.140 | of us wanting to prove ourselves and overcome the,

00:29:25.360 | let's just say, the lack of faith

00:29:26.740 | in our ability to achieve a goal.

00:29:28.660 | And indeed, that can work.

00:29:30.300 | There is evidence that can work.

00:29:31.740 | But then, of course,

00:29:33.020 | you have to find someone who doesn't believe in you.

00:29:35.080 | You have to get them to tell you they don't believe in you.

00:29:37.320 | And that could have all sorts

00:29:38.620 | of deleterious psychological effects

00:29:40.360 | that might undermine the goal pursuit process

00:29:42.320 | and other things as well.

00:29:43.640 | So if you are lucky enough to know somebody who doubts you,

00:29:46.780 | go ahead, tell them that you want to pursue

00:29:48.500 | your specific priority goal.

00:29:50.280 | But more likely than not,

00:29:52.380 | the best thing to do is to simply keep that goal to yourself.

00:29:56.060 | You may need to inform a family member or others

00:29:58.100 | of where you will be between the hours of,

00:30:00.700 | say, 8 a.m. and 9 a.m.,

00:30:01.900 | if you're going to be exercising or learning language

00:30:03.860 | or meditating, whatever it is, during that period of time.

00:30:06.520 | But what I'm referring to here is what I will call

00:30:08.540 | the don't tell the world rule.

00:30:10.160 | Don't tell the world that you're going to achieve X, Y, or Z.

00:30:13.660 | Just simply tell yourself.

00:30:15.940 | In fact, I would suggest that the more time you can spend

00:30:18.440 | with that one or two or three sheets of paper

00:30:20.980 | where you defined the goal,

00:30:22.740 | the specific actions that you're going to take,

00:30:24.860 | how you're going to measure progress,

00:30:26.580 | which we'll talk about a bit more later,

00:30:29.180 | the more time that you can spend with that goal in your mind

00:30:32.740 | and on that paper, the higher the probability

00:30:35.220 | that you will achieve that goal.

00:30:36.820 | That stands in stark contrast to telling everyone around you

00:30:39.500 | that you're going to achieve a certain goal,

00:30:40.900 | the so-called accountability myth

00:30:42.380 | or the myth of accountability

00:30:43.780 | within the context of goal pursuit

00:30:45.380 | would be the more specific way to describe that myth.

00:30:48.380 | Now, it turns out there is some utility

00:30:50.540 | to having one person that is a so-called accountability buddy

00:30:55.100 | if that person is really

00:30:56.780 | just strictly addressing accountability.

00:30:59.500 | They are reminding you to do what you need to do

00:31:02.080 | or they are asking you,

00:31:03.840 | did you do what you said you were going to do?

00:31:05.540 | But that's a bit more of a tough love accountability model.

00:31:08.480 | What the don't tell the world rule is really about

00:31:10.940 | is not getting the kind of dopamine

00:31:13.900 | and other forms of neurochemical reward

00:31:15.620 | that come from just simply saying

00:31:16.900 | that you're going to pursue a goal

00:31:18.000 | because as you'll soon learn,

00:31:19.860 | that dopamine and other molecules too, of course,

00:31:23.300 | are going to be critically important,

00:31:24.660 | not just for initiating the sorts of actions

00:31:27.060 | required to achieve your goals,

00:31:29.160 | but for re-engaging and constantly updating your strategy

00:31:33.520 | to ensure that you reach your goals.

00:31:35.780 | It's worth mentioning that the friction model

00:31:38.420 | of achieving your goals does work.

00:31:39.940 | I mean, I, for instance, am somebody that,

00:31:41.820 | if I were to say to a family member or friend,

00:31:44.780 | hey, I'm going to achieve a particular goal,

00:31:46.700 | and they said, no, there's no way you can do it,

00:31:48.480 | that would recruit a certain set of neural circuits

00:31:51.360 | and hormones and neurochemicals in me

00:31:53.600 | that would make me much more likely

00:31:56.020 | to lean into the required set of efforts

00:31:58.420 | to achieve that goal.

00:31:59.700 | But there's a danger in approaching a given goal that way,

00:32:03.340 | especially if the goal is something

00:32:04.180 | that you already want to pursue,

00:32:05.900 | which is that then a lot of your effort

00:32:08.960 | becomes framed in the context of making someone else wrong

00:32:13.380 | as opposed to achieving the goal.

00:32:14.620 | And of course you can do two things in parallel.

00:32:16.300 | You can achieve your goal and prove somebody else wrong.

00:32:19.160 | But as we've talked about in various episodes

00:32:21.940 | on motivation and pursuit and the dopamine system,

00:32:24.660 | and as we'll talk about a bit more in a few minutes,

00:32:27.060 | there's something tremendously powerful

00:32:29.440 | about learning how to derive pleasure

00:32:32.200 | from the effort process itself.

00:32:34.820 | That is learning to enjoy the process of pursuing a goal

00:32:38.340 | for sake of that goal for yourself,

00:32:41.140 | rather than trying to pursue a goal

00:32:43.160 | simply to prove somebody else wrong.

00:32:45.100 | I'll just tell you right now that intrinsic motivation,

00:32:48.640 | motivation that is directly attached

00:32:50.980 | to the thing that you are doing and route to a goal

00:32:54.140 | is the most powerful and sustainable source of motivation.

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00:33:54.780 | The final protocol related to goal setting,

00:33:56.780 | because really up until now,

00:33:58.020 | we've been talking only about goal setting,

00:34:00.240 | we haven't yet talked about goal pursuit,

00:34:02.380 | is that you want your goal to be measurable.

00:34:06.040 | And when we say measurable,

00:34:07.960 | you really have to define two things.

00:34:09.860 | First of all, you are going to have to define

00:34:11.880 | how long you are going to pursue this goal overall.

00:34:15.300 | In other words, how long you think it will take

00:34:17.340 | before you achieve your goal.

00:34:19.500 | And in addition to that,

00:34:20.600 | you are going to have to define

00:34:22.220 | how much time you are going to spend

00:34:24.380 | pursuing that goal each week or each day.

00:34:27.740 | Now, there are an infinite number of time blocks

00:34:29.980 | that one could use to answer these questions.

00:34:32.460 | So for instance, you could set an overall yearly goal

00:34:35.020 | and you could break it down into monthly goals,

00:34:37.220 | where you spend X amount of time on that goal each week

00:34:40.840 | and X amount of time on that goal each day,

00:34:43.460 | and essentially ladder up from the shortest timeframe

00:34:47.260 | to the longest timeframe required to achieve that goal.

00:34:49.900 | And certainly all of that is doable,

00:34:52.220 | but that I believe is going to be

00:34:53.560 | an overwhelming amount of work

00:34:55.880 | and indeed is going to be counterproductive

00:34:57.940 | toward achieving your goal.

00:34:59.640 | What I recommend,

00:35:00.860 | which of course is gleaned from the scientific literature,

00:35:02.980 | or at least the consistencies or the center of mass,

00:35:06.120 | that is the major findings that show up again and again

00:35:09.780 | in the scientific literature on goal setting and pursuit,

00:35:12.580 | is that you establish a roughly 12-week period of time

00:35:17.580 | to focus on your specific goal.

00:35:19.660 | Now, of course, achieving the entire goal

00:35:21.780 | might take longer than 12 weeks,

00:35:23.820 | but chances are it's not going to take shorter than 12 weeks,

00:35:27.340 | although if it does,

00:35:28.540 | you could simply close out that goal pursuit

00:35:31.080 | and then pursue another goal.

00:35:32.700 | There's no reason you couldn't do that.

00:35:34.240 | But there's nothing magical about this 12-week period,

00:35:37.620 | but it seems to adhere to a number of things

00:35:40.460 | in society and culture and work schedules, in seasonality,

00:35:44.700 | meaning the holidays and the shifts in the overall seasons,

00:35:48.020 | that works for most goals and most people.

00:35:51.060 | So a 12-week cycle or roughly a three-month cycle,

00:35:55.140 | sometimes called the quarterly cycle,

00:35:56.980 | of goal pursuit toward your particular goal,

00:35:59.540 | I think is a good macro time to focus on.

00:36:03.780 | And then within that 12-week cycle,

00:36:06.600 | to define very clearly how many hours each week

00:36:09.980 | end each day and on which days you will pursue that goal.

00:36:14.260 | Okay, so it's 12-week cycle to pursue your goal.

00:36:17.300 | That goal might be achieved by the end of that 12 weeks

00:36:19.860 | or even prior, it might not be.

00:36:21.920 | But you set a 12-week cycle or quarterly cycle,

00:36:24.660 | or if you prefer to think about it, a three-month cycle,

00:36:27.980 | and then you define how many hours per week

00:36:30.440 | you are going to spend pursuing that goal.

00:36:32.620 | And then you define how many hours per day

00:36:35.280 | you are going to spend pursuing that goal.

00:36:38.100 | And then you define which days of the week

00:36:40.860 | you are going to pursue that particular goal.

00:36:43.600 | I think those three numbers, the 12-week quarterly,

00:36:47.020 | AKA three-month cycle, the number of hours per week,

00:36:50.620 | and the number of hours per day and particular days

00:36:53.940 | that you're going to spend working on a goal

00:36:56.180 | is going to be effective for 90%, if not more,

00:36:59.940 | of different types of goals out there.

00:37:01.860 | And as with defining the specific goal itself,

00:37:04.320 | I highly recommend that you write this down

00:37:06.480 | with a pen or pencil.

00:37:08.440 | There's just oh so much data to support the fact

00:37:10.800 | that writing things down, ideally in complete sentences,

00:37:13.080 | on a piece of paper with a pen or pencil

00:37:14.920 | serves to reinforce the goal setting and pursuit process,

00:37:18.240 | greatly increasing the probability

00:37:19.960 | that you will achieve those goals.

00:37:22.100 | So what you're really defining in that process

00:37:25.000 | are the specific verb actions that you are going to take

00:37:28.200 | and the specific quantifiable amount of time

00:37:32.100 | that you are engaging in those verb actions

00:37:34.380 | in order to achieve your goal.

00:37:36.200 | What we haven't discussed yet, however,

00:37:38.100 | is how to define or quantify the goal itself.

00:37:42.660 | Now, of course, in different endeavors,

00:37:44.200 | you're going to have the opportunity to quantify

00:37:46.840 | and define goal achievement in different ways.

00:37:49.720 | So for instance, if you want to be able to run

00:37:52.880 | a sub six-minute mile or a sub five-minute mile,

00:37:57.280 | or if you're really impressive, a sub four-minute mile,

00:38:00.000 | well, that's a highly quantifiable goal

00:38:02.040 | that you can break down into a series of training steps

00:38:05.240 | or milestones, meaning that you could quantify

00:38:07.680 | at the beginning of your goal pursuit,

00:38:09.340 | how long it takes you to run a mile.

00:38:11.720 | You could then set out to achieve a faster time

00:38:16.200 | within two weeks or three weeks,

00:38:17.640 | and then do the appropriate training

00:38:18.960 | to achieve those numbers and simply keep updating that

00:38:21.800 | in order to eventually reach your quantifiable goal

00:38:25.340 | at 12 weeks.

00:38:26.920 | Again, you might not complete your goal

00:38:29.160 | of running a sub five-minute mile or sub six-minute mile

00:38:31.880 | at the end of 12 weeks,

00:38:32.880 | but perhaps if your goal is to be able to run

00:38:35.600 | a sub five-minute mile by the end of the calendar year,

00:38:38.700 | and you're initiating this whole goal pursuit thing

00:38:41.200 | on the first of the year, well, then you have 12 months

00:38:43.400 | broken into four, three-month cycles,

00:38:46.160 | and you would essentially set the quantifiable goal

00:38:48.300 | at the end of the year, December 31st,

00:38:50.280 | perhaps is when you actually do that run

00:38:52.280 | where you hopefully would achieve that sub six-minute

00:38:56.880 | or five-minute mile, or maybe even four-minute mile,

00:38:59.200 | and then you backtrack from that date

00:39:01.540 | and you set milestones of goals

00:39:04.020 | that you're trying to achieve.

00:39:04.860 | That's a highly quantifiable set of goals

00:39:07.660 | because it is literally distance over time.

00:39:10.600 | However, in a lot of pursuits, in fact,

00:39:12.860 | I would argue in most pursuits,

00:39:15.420 | you don't have that very clear quantifiable result.

00:39:19.600 | You might have, for instance,

00:39:20.940 | the achievement of a doctoral degree or a bachelor's degree

00:39:24.260 | or an AA degree or a professional degree of some sort,

00:39:27.360 | which represents a finish line.

00:39:29.520 | You could perhaps even attach a grade point average

00:39:32.380 | or a publication goal to that.

00:39:35.080 | But in most endeavors that aren't athletic

00:39:38.040 | or aren't within the realm of finance,

00:39:40.020 | it becomes much harder to very clearly define your goal

00:39:44.500 | in purely quantitative terms.

00:39:46.760 | So that is the reason why we spend so much time

00:39:50.080 | talking about the measurability

00:39:52.080 | of the specific amount of time

00:39:54.020 | that you're going to engage in the verb actions

00:39:56.760 | that each day, which days, each week,

00:40:00.080 | over the course of these 12-week cycles,

00:40:02.640 | because ultimately what's going to allow you

00:40:05.660 | to arrive at successful achievement of your goal,

00:40:07.900 | regardless of whether or not

00:40:09.700 | that goal is highly quantifiable, X number of dollars,

00:40:13.460 | X number of minutes to complete a mile run or swim, et cetera,

00:40:18.460 | or it's something that's a bit more nebulous

00:40:22.180 | in terms of quantifiability like conversational French.

00:40:25.640 | There's conversational French that you can learn.

00:40:27.900 | There's also conversational French that incorporates humor

00:40:30.940 | or that incorporates good humor,

00:40:32.880 | or perhaps you want to get better at writing poetry

00:40:36.240 | or simply spend time writing poetry.

00:40:38.320 | Can you quantify the quality of that poetry?

00:40:40.480 | Well, perhaps you could win a particular prize for poetry,

00:40:44.520 | but I think for most endeavors,

00:40:46.320 | they are more loosely defined

00:40:48.560 | in terms of their quantifiability.

00:40:50.600 | Now, we can always attach quantifiability

00:40:53.340 | to the ultimate end goal if we choose.

00:40:55.780 | So for instance, I could decide

00:40:58.140 | that I'm going to learn conversational French,

00:41:00.220 | and I could decide that the ultimate goal

00:41:02.800 | at the end of this 12-week period

00:41:04.300 | is to be able to have a 10-minute conversation

00:41:07.700 | with somebody who is fluent in French,

00:41:09.580 | they're native born in France,

00:41:11.440 | and that I'm going to make zero mistakes.

00:41:13.740 | And that's a pretty lofty goal.

00:41:15.400 | But the point being that if you are picking a goal

00:41:19.340 | that is not easily quantifiable,

00:41:21.660 | you want to be exceptionally precise

00:41:23.780 | about the amount of time that you are going to spend

00:41:26.180 | engaging in the specific verb actions

00:41:28.640 | that are going to allow you

00:41:29.920 | to make progress toward your goal.

00:41:31.140 | Because ultimately, whether or not

00:41:32.600 | it's a highly quantifiable goal

00:41:34.060 | or it's a more loosely quantifiable goal

00:41:36.180 | in terms of the end goal,

00:41:38.180 | the process of achieving goals

00:41:40.140 | is always going to be in the form of actions.

00:41:42.620 | And actions themselves are always quantifiable.

00:41:45.540 | It's number of hours of dedicated work

00:41:48.100 | toward that particular goal.

00:41:49.940 | A common example of an end goal that's very hard to quantify

00:41:53.020 | in terms of the end goal itself

00:41:55.260 | is the writing of a book, for instance.

00:41:57.140 | Now, you could set out to write an 800-page book,

00:42:00.040 | but most people agree that the length of the book

00:42:01.740 | should have something more or less to do with the content

00:42:04.660 | and not the other way around.

00:42:05.720 | In other words, that you don't just want to add words

00:42:07.720 | in order to achieve a certain number of pages.

00:42:09.900 | That said, most all experienced writers

00:42:13.420 | will tell you at least two things.

00:42:15.160 | They'll tell you, first, don't wait for inspiration,

00:42:18.040 | simply set a period of time each day

00:42:21.080 | that you're going to write and write X number of words

00:42:24.120 | or for X amount of time each day,

00:42:26.900 | or perhaps even just three days a week.

00:42:28.240 | But most of the experienced writers that I've spoken to

00:42:30.860 | write every single day and they write 800 words per day

00:42:34.220 | or 2,000 words per day or 500 words per day,

00:42:36.440 | whatever they can do consistently.

00:42:39.220 | They may do it for time, they may do it for words,

00:42:41.200 | but they are writing during that time.

00:42:42.960 | They're not waiting for inspiration to land on them.

00:42:45.840 | They're not trying to get optimally caffeinated

00:42:48.180 | and perhaps they didn't even sleep that well

00:42:49.800 | the night before.

00:42:50.640 | In other words, they are dedicated to engaging

00:42:52.580 | in a particular number of hours of word generating action,

00:42:57.580 | rather than trying to focus on getting

00:42:59.520 | the number one bestseller at the end

00:43:02.080 | after the book is published.

00:43:03.200 | Of course, they can wish for that number one position

00:43:05.540 | on the bestseller chart, but ultimately,

00:43:08.240 | the greatest probability of achieving that goal

00:43:10.680 | is going to come from engaging in a particular number

00:43:14.200 | of hours generating a particular number of words each day.

00:43:17.400 | So again, the highest probability of achieving our goals,

00:43:19.960 | of achieving any kind of goal is going to be

00:43:23.200 | by understanding the specific verb actions

00:43:25.720 | that we need to engage in and then quantifying

00:43:27.980 | the amount of time that we engage

00:43:29.840 | in those specific word actions

00:43:31.880 | and then simply doing those verbs.

00:43:35.000 | So up until now, we've been talking about goal setting

00:43:37.520 | and we really haven't talked about goal pursuit itself.

00:43:40.400 | So now I'd like to talk about what the scientific literature

00:43:43.280 | says is the best protocol for initiating our goal pursuit,

00:43:47.780 | for starting toward our goal.

00:43:49.800 | And to do so, we have to address a set of key questions.

00:43:53.440 | The questions you have to ask yourself are,

00:43:55.960 | do I want to pursue this goal?

00:43:57.480 | Meaning, am I highly motivated to pursue this goal

00:43:59.880 | or even mildly motivated to pursue this goal?

00:44:02.440 | Do I want to do the things involved to get this thing,

00:44:05.860 | to accomplish this thing?

00:44:07.480 | Or am I feeling resistance?

00:44:09.400 | Do I not want to pursue this goal?

00:44:11.780 | Or perhaps this is a day-to-day shift that occurs

00:44:15.500 | where some days you're really motivated

00:44:17.540 | and other days you are not.

00:44:19.280 | Now, the reason to ask yourself this set of questions

00:44:21.260 | is that the data say that there are two different strategies,

00:44:24.720 | in fact, two markedly different strategies

00:44:27.260 | that you'll want to incorporate,

00:44:28.680 | depending on whether or not you're motivated

00:44:30.380 | or you are unmotivated to pursue that particular goal,

00:44:33.440 | for whatever reason.

00:44:34.480 | And of course, there's an entire psychology to motivation

00:44:37.540 | and you could get a therapist or a coach to work with

00:44:40.280 | in order to address that underlying psychology.

00:44:42.360 | Yes, it might ladder back to childhood issues.

00:44:44.740 | It might ladder back to esteem things.

00:44:47.360 | None of that can be covered here

00:44:48.920 | in any sort of meaningful depth,

00:44:50.360 | because frankly, we each have different circumstances,

00:44:53.460 | different pasts, different psychologies.

00:44:56.280 | There are, however, some universals that we can all apply

00:44:59.120 | in order to help us get started toward our goal.

00:45:02.580 | And this is nested in this whole concept

00:45:05.860 | of whether or not we should visualize the end

00:45:08.600 | and successful completion of our goal.

00:45:10.380 | So keep the end in mind as we start off toward a goal,

00:45:13.880 | or whether or not we should incorporate a different strategy.

00:45:16.600 | Here's how it goes.

00:45:17.760 | So if you ask yourself, do I want to achieve this goal?

00:45:22.760 | And I would hope the answer is yes,

00:45:24.820 | because the overall goal should be something

00:45:26.560 | that you want to pursue.

00:45:27.400 | It should be something that you are

00:45:28.600 | deeply desiring to accomplish.

00:45:31.920 | Then you have to ask yourself next,

00:45:34.780 | do I want to do the things required to achieve that goal?

00:45:38.520 | Now, maybe you don't want to do all of them.

00:45:39.920 | You only want to do some of them,

00:45:41.580 | but given that you've now carefully quantified

00:45:44.100 | which specific actions you're going to be doing

00:45:45.860 | on which days and for how many hours

00:45:47.440 | and how many weeks for these 12-week blocks,

00:45:50.140 | you could simply ask yourself,

00:45:51.660 | do I want to do this thing today?

00:45:53.920 | And if the answer is yes, well,

00:45:56.640 | then it turns out that spending just one to three,

00:46:00.160 | maybe five minutes, but even just one minute,

00:46:03.760 | visualizing the outcome, the positive outcome, of course,

00:46:07.580 | and the feeling state that you may have,

00:46:10.100 | because of course you don't know,

00:46:11.200 | you don't have a time machine,

00:46:13.520 | you can't feel yourself into the future,

00:46:15.540 | but you can make a good guess as to how you might feel

00:46:18.600 | in the future if you accomplish that goal.

00:46:20.280 | Spending one to three, maybe five minutes

00:46:23.420 | in a sort of meditation, although sort of a visualization

00:46:26.400 | is perhaps the better way to describe it.

00:46:28.360 | Thinking about that feeling state and the outcome

00:46:30.640 | and some of the things that are going to be associated

00:46:32.800 | with that outcome turns out to be a great practice

00:46:35.320 | to engage in just prior to initiating that day's work

00:46:39.040 | toward that goal.

00:46:39.880 | However, if you arrive to your practice,

00:46:42.420 | meaning you show up to the piano, to learn piano,

00:46:44.900 | or you're sitting down to the table,

00:46:46.060 | or maybe you haven't even gotten enough motivation

00:46:48.760 | to go toward the piano or toward your notebook or computer

00:46:52.280 | or whatever landscape it is

00:46:53.700 | that you are going to be pursuing your goal within,

00:46:56.420 | and you are having, quote unquote,

00:46:57.900 | a hard time getting motivated toward that goal,

00:47:01.240 | well, then it turns out,

00:47:02.900 | what the scientific literature tells us,

00:47:04.400 | is that visualizing the end, keeping the end in mind,

00:47:08.440 | positive visualization of all the good things

00:47:11.400 | that you'll experience when you achieve that goal

00:47:13.760 | is not going to be an effective strategy to motivate you.

00:47:17.660 | Rather, if you are not feeling motivated,

00:47:20.520 | then what the scientific literature tells us

00:47:22.600 | is that you actually want to spend one to three,

00:47:25.520 | maybe five minutes visualizing failure,

00:47:29.000 | visualizing how terrible you will feel

00:47:31.240 | if you did not achieve your goal,

00:47:32.660 | visualizing severe consequences,

00:47:35.100 | perhaps mostly of the sort like telling yourself,

00:47:37.960 | gosh, I set a goal, I've set a 12-week block,

00:47:41.180 | I quantify it, I know I want to do this,

00:47:43.540 | here I have the time to do it,

00:47:44.740 | and I'm simply just not doing it.

00:47:47.060 | And in that case, you would think, okay,

00:47:49.420 | well, you should kind of build yourself up,

00:47:51.300 | maybe call a friend, text a friend, get some encouragement.

00:47:54.060 | No, the scientific literature tells us

00:47:56.340 | that when we are not motivated,

00:47:57.800 | and it is a goal that we actually want to pursue,

00:47:59.880 | and of course, here I'm talking about

00:48:01.520 | adaptive goal pursuit,

00:48:02.720 | meaning things that are going to enrich your mental health,

00:48:04.740 | physical health, et cetera,

00:48:06.280 | not things that are going to be detrimental to us.

00:48:09.320 | Well then, if you're not feeling motivated,

00:48:11.600 | you want to spend one to three, perhaps five minutes

00:48:14.900 | meditating, concentrating on

00:48:17.580 | what it's going to feel like to fail,

00:48:20.000 | and the fact that you are not succeeding,

00:48:23.120 | but indeed that you are failing.

00:48:25.440 | And I know this sounds like rather harsh advice,

00:48:28.080 | that this protocol sounds like

00:48:29.840 | kind of a self-flagellating protocol.

00:48:32.080 | It's not intended to be self-flagellation.

00:48:33.960 | In fact, it should not be self-flagellation,

00:48:36.720 | but rather what you want to do when you are not motivated

00:48:39.600 | is to think about failure and what that failure

00:48:43.080 | at the end of 12 weeks will feel like.

00:48:45.200 | And the reason for that is that the data tell us

00:48:48.520 | that when we visualize positive outcomes,

00:48:51.520 | yes, it deploys certain neurochemicals in our brain and body

00:48:54.240 | that make us feel good.

00:48:56.120 | Although frankly, if you've heard that

00:48:58.480 | imagining something creates the same neurochemical

00:49:01.580 | and neural circuit states in the brain

00:49:03.540 | as actually experiencing that thing,

00:49:04.960 | that is simply not true.

00:49:05.900 | That's a myth.

00:49:06.740 | We've talked about this in previous episodes.

00:49:07.920 | That's simply not true.

00:49:09.760 | But if you are having a hard time getting motivated

00:49:13.600 | toward a goal that you actually want to achieve,

00:49:16.760 | then spending that short amount of time

00:49:19.100 | thinking about how lousy you'll feel

00:49:21.200 | when you don't achieve it

00:49:22.560 | recruits certain elements

00:49:24.280 | of your so-called autonomic nervous system.

00:49:25.880 | It creates shifts in the release of

00:49:27.800 | things like epinephrine, norepinephrine,

00:49:30.200 | even release of the so-called reward molecule, dopamine,

00:49:34.280 | which in fact is not the molecule of reward.

00:49:36.720 | It is the molecule of motivation.

00:49:38.720 | And it's associated with pain.

00:49:40.860 | It's associated with negative thoughts.

00:49:42.880 | And of course it's associated

00:49:44.360 | with positive thoughts and outcomes.

00:49:45.920 | But basically what I'm saying is

00:49:48.080 | if you are highly motivated to do something,

00:49:49.840 | you're ready to go,

00:49:50.760 | spend one to three minutes, maybe five,

00:49:52.880 | visualizing the positive outcomes

00:49:54.520 | that you're going to experience

00:49:56.480 | when you ultimately finish out that 12-week cycle

00:49:59.640 | as a consequence of all the great work that you've done.

00:50:01.940 | If, however, you are not motivated,

00:50:04.160 | you're feeling like, I don't want to do this thing.

00:50:05.440 | I'm procrastinating.

00:50:06.360 | I'm just not feeling like doing it.

00:50:07.580 | Yes, I want to achieve the goal,

00:50:08.580 | but I just don't feel like doing it.

00:50:09.800 | Well, then your task is to take one to three,

00:50:13.080 | maybe five minutes,

00:50:14.040 | and think about how much more lousy you will feel

00:50:18.460 | when you do not achieve that goal at the end of 12 weeks.

00:50:21.100 | And that, the data tell us,

00:50:23.160 | recruits certain elements of your nervous system,

00:50:25.720 | your hormonal system that are more successful

00:50:28.840 | in getting you into action,

00:50:30.060 | into starting toward your goal

00:50:31.740 | than were you to try and build yourself up

00:50:33.560 | towards all that positivity.

00:50:35.060 | So yes, indeed, there is a place for negative thinking.

00:50:38.720 | I'd like to take a quick break

00:50:39.840 | and acknowledge our sponsor, InsideTracker.

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00:50:53.120 | for the simple reason that many of the factors

00:50:55.460 | that impact your immediate and long-term health

00:50:57.680 | can only be analyzed from a quality blood test.

00:51:00.260 | However, with a lot of blood tests out there,

00:51:02.300 | you get information back about blood lipids,

00:51:04.180 | about hormones, and so on,

00:51:05.320 | but you don't know what to do with that information.

00:51:07.320 | With InsideTracker, they have a personalized platform

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00:51:16.300 | and behavioral, supplement, nutrition,

00:51:18.600 | and other protocols to adjust those numbers

00:51:20.600 | to bring them into the ranges that are ideal

00:51:22.840 | for your immediate and long-term health.

00:51:24.540 | InsideTracker's ultimate plan now includes measures

00:51:26.840 | of both ApoB and of insulin,

00:51:29.040 | which are key indicators of cardiovascular health

00:51:31.700 | and energy regulation.

00:51:33.280 | If you'd like to try InsideTracker,

00:51:34.720 | you can visit insidetracker.com/huberman

00:51:37.520 | to get 20% off any of InsideTracker's plans.

00:51:40.280 | Again, that's insidetracker.com/huberman to get 20% off.

00:51:44.880 | Now, in terms of tools or protocols

00:51:46.680 | to both initiate and to sustain effort

00:51:49.880 | during your goal pursuit process,

00:51:51.540 | we need to think about the specific time domain

00:51:53.960 | or the amount of time that we're trying to do that within.

00:51:56.800 | So for instance, there are tools that you can use

00:52:00.240 | to stay motivated within the one-hour learning block

00:52:03.100 | that you happen to be doing on Monday morning, for instance,

00:52:05.840 | and there are other tools and protocols

00:52:07.540 | that you can incorporate towards staying motivated

00:52:09.920 | from one day to the next or from one week to the next.

00:52:12.560 | But I think the most useful of those tools

00:52:14.560 | are going to be the tools that you incorporate

00:52:16.160 | to stay motivated within a given training block

00:52:20.680 | or practice block toward your goal,

00:52:22.480 | because what I just described a few minutes ago

00:52:24.500 | was the process of how to initiate your daily work, right?

00:52:27.880 | You ask yourself that question, am I motivated?

00:52:31.140 | The answer could be yes, could be no.

00:52:32.540 | If you really want to get quantitative about it,

00:52:35.860 | you could give yourself a one to 10 score,

00:52:37.440 | 10 being the most motivated.

00:52:38.920 | Frankly, I'm not that quantitative about that sort of thing.

00:52:41.720 | I'm more subjective about it,

00:52:42.840 | but I know some of you are real number junkies

00:52:45.520 | and you really like to quantify everything,

00:52:46.900 | keep a journal and look back,

00:52:48.400 | see how that relates to your sleep.

00:52:49.680 | Some people are of that orientation.

00:52:51.000 | Other people like myself are simply going to sit down

00:52:54.660 | and say, okay, it's time.

00:52:55.640 | It's time to train or it's time to practice,

00:52:57.220 | whatever the thing may be.

00:52:58.440 | How motivated am I?

00:52:59.480 | Am I, I don't know, like a six out of 10 or a seven out of 10?

00:53:02.520 | Okay, I'm ready to go.

00:53:03.880 | I'm going to visualize the end in mind in a positive way.

00:53:07.680 | Or if I'm a two out of 10

00:53:09.200 | or anything less than a four out of 10,

00:53:11.280 | I'm thinking I'm not that motivated.

00:53:12.920 | So then I'm going to basically scare myself

00:53:14.960 | into doing the work that day.

00:53:15.900 | So that's how you initiate the work each day.

00:53:18.080 | And I just gave you a couple of quick examples

00:53:19.880 | of how you could quantify that.

00:53:21.380 | Took me about 30 seconds to do that example out loud.

00:53:24.680 | Take you about 30 seconds to do.

00:53:26.600 | But again, if you want to quantify it in more detail

00:53:28.680 | and write it down and relate it to other things,

00:53:30.240 | be my guest.

00:53:31.620 | So now you already have a science-based protocol

00:53:34.280 | for how to get started each day toward your goal.

00:53:37.140 | Now, what about within the one or two hour block

00:53:40.860 | or perhaps 90 minute block that you're going to use

00:53:43.560 | to pursue your goal?

00:53:45.560 | And here, it's very important

00:53:47.920 | that you have a number of tools that will allow you

00:53:50.000 | to both set the optimal amount of focus

00:53:52.880 | so that you're really concentrating on pursuing that goal.

00:53:56.580 | You're concentrated on the verb actions

00:53:58.960 | that will deliver you to that goal

00:54:00.540 | is perhaps the best way to state that.

00:54:03.020 | And that you can constantly update

00:54:05.920 | or renew your level of focus should it start to dissipate.

00:54:10.300 | Now, I want to be clear.

00:54:11.160 | I've done entire episodes about focus

00:54:13.600 | and how to increase focus with behavioral tools,

00:54:16.800 | everything related to meditation,

00:54:18.740 | which indeed can increase your ability to focus.

00:54:21.200 | I've talked about nutritional tools, supplementation tools,

00:54:23.540 | prescription drug-related tools.

00:54:25.440 | There's a lot of information on that.

00:54:26.680 | You can simply go to Hubermanlab.com,

00:54:28.880 | put focus into the search function,

00:54:30.800 | and it will take you to not only those episodes

00:54:33.240 | and the toolkit for that,

00:54:34.880 | but the specific timestamps for that.

00:54:37.480 | But what we are going to talk about now

00:54:38.680 | is not about how to increase focus per se.

00:54:41.800 | Rather, it's about how to use focus,

00:54:43.960 | in particular, visual focus,

00:54:45.720 | in order to increase your

00:54:47.840 | or maintain your level of motivation

00:54:50.000 | within a given learning block,

00:54:52.000 | within a given batch of time on a given day

00:54:54.520 | where you are pursuing your goal.

00:54:55.880 | You're engaging in that practice,

00:54:57.460 | which of course will include frustration, anxiety.

00:55:00.560 | It has to, if you're going to get any better.

00:55:03.540 | And how to set that motivation

00:55:04.960 | and keep that motivation throughout that hour

00:55:06.920 | or 90 minutes or two hours is critical.

00:55:09.160 | So how do you do that?

00:55:10.080 | Well, it turns out it's fairly straightforward.

00:55:12.040 | So it's anchored in the fact that your cognitive focus,

00:55:15.280 | your ability to maintain a narrow cone of attention,

00:55:18.920 | as well as your bodily state of readiness

00:55:21.600 | and your mental state of readiness to perform work

00:55:24.640 | is powerfully anchored to your visual system.

00:55:27.920 | As many of you have heard me say before,

00:55:30.000 | your eyes are actually two pieces of brain.

00:55:32.960 | I mean, to be more specific,

00:55:34.160 | the neural retinas that line the back of your eyes,

00:55:36.040 | like pie crusts, are literally two pieces

00:55:39.760 | of your central nervous system of your brain

00:55:42.000 | that were extruded from the cranial vault during development.

00:55:44.820 | So yes, these two bits, and for those listening,

00:55:47.340 | I'm just pointing to my eyes.

00:55:49.160 | Your eyes are two pieces of brain outside of your skull

00:55:53.060 | and your eyes can view things broadly.

00:55:54.960 | So you can so-called soften your gaze

00:55:57.000 | and view the entire horizon.

00:55:58.420 | You can see the periphery of the room by relaxing your eyes.

00:56:01.280 | You can actually do this now.

00:56:02.500 | In fact, when you drive, most of the time you're doing this.

00:56:04.660 | You're not looking at a particular focal point.

00:56:06.640 | You're viewing things in so-called panoramic vision.

00:56:09.200 | And of course you can draw your visual focus

00:56:11.340 | to a particular location,

00:56:12.360 | what we call a vergence eye movement.

00:56:14.640 | That is you're bringing your eyes in toward the center,

00:56:17.160 | toward your nose a little bit,

00:56:18.200 | and you're focusing them in a more narrow cone

00:56:20.720 | of visual attention.

00:56:21.620 | This is something you can do

00:56:23.040 | almost imperceptibly to others.

00:56:24.960 | Although if we were to measure your eye movements,

00:56:27.400 | what we would see is that your eyes are actually moving

00:56:30.240 | inward a little bit toward your nose

00:56:31.960 | when you do this vergence eye movement

00:56:33.400 | and narrowing that cone of visual attention.

00:56:35.340 | And then they're relaxing into a state

00:56:38.200 | of being slightly further out from your nose,

00:56:42.880 | not the eyes themselves, of course,

00:56:44.080 | they can't move within the sockets,

00:56:45.320 | but the pupils of your eyes are moving out a bit

00:56:48.860 | from your nose and you're in so-called panoramic vision.

00:56:51.720 | So essentially what I'm saying is that you can narrow

00:56:54.280 | or broaden your visual attention.

00:56:57.240 | And that's something that can take a little bit of practice.

00:56:59.100 | I highly recommend that you try this

00:57:00.480 | and that you practice it a little bit,

00:57:01.760 | but indeed everyone has the neural machinery

00:57:03.820 | to do this from birth.

00:57:05.480 | This is not something that requires neuroplasticity

00:57:07.600 | to be able to do.

00:57:08.500 | You can do this right now.

00:57:10.520 | You can narrow your visual attention.

00:57:12.160 | You can expand or relax your visual attention

00:57:14.640 | and thereby narrow or relax your visual field

00:57:18.040 | from being smaller or larger.

00:57:20.560 | There are data that show

00:57:22.000 | that when we narrow our visual attention

00:57:25.080 | and we hold that narrow visual attention on a spot,

00:57:29.000 | several things happen.

00:57:29.840 | First of all, there's recruitment of circuitry

00:57:32.480 | within the so-called brainstem

00:57:34.440 | that then deploys neurochemicals

00:57:36.640 | that increase our level of alertness and arousal.

00:57:40.120 | That's right, when you focus your visual attention

00:57:42.440 | on a more narrow location or one location in front of you,

00:57:46.260 | and you hold that focus,

00:57:48.220 | you are causing the release of neurochemicals

00:57:51.560 | that increase your overall level of alertness

00:57:54.440 | in the brain and body.

00:57:56.360 | Conversely, when you relax your visual focus,

00:57:59.160 | so-called panoramic vision,

00:58:00.740 | you are turning off that recruitment.

00:58:04.820 | You're not actively recruiting molecules

00:58:06.720 | for relaxation within the brain,

00:58:08.400 | but you are turning off this release

00:58:10.940 | of the neurochemicals associated

00:58:12.600 | with increasing focus and arousal.

00:58:14.980 | So why am I talking about this

00:58:16.200 | in the context of goal pursuit?

00:58:17.680 | Well, if you are feeling lack of motivation at any point

00:58:22.200 | within a given training block or bout as I'm calling it,

00:58:26.080 | this could be at the beginning,

00:58:26.960 | this could be five minutes in,

00:58:28.300 | this could be half an hour in,

00:58:30.160 | you would be wise to pick a visual target,

00:58:33.160 | ideally a visual target that is within the general range

00:58:36.660 | of the work that you're trying to perform.

00:58:38.160 | In other words, if you're doing desk work

00:58:39.680 | or the piece of paper,

00:58:40.660 | you would draw that visual target on a piece of paper

00:58:43.480 | approximately the same distance that you were reading

00:58:46.560 | or that you were looking at music.

00:58:49.280 | You can tell how little playing a piano

00:58:51.200 | I've done in my life,

00:58:52.040 | but the point being that you set the visual target

00:58:54.160 | at approximately the same distance

00:58:56.440 | that you would be performing your particular work.

00:58:58.520 | So if you're doing a sport,

00:59:00.260 | the distance might be some many meters off in the distance,

00:59:05.260 | whereas if you're doing desk work of some kind,

00:59:07.920 | then it might be much closer.

00:59:09.340 | And then you focus your eyes on that location

00:59:11.660 | and you actively work to maintain that focus

00:59:14.660 | just like I'm doing now into the camera

00:59:16.580 | for a given period of time.

00:59:18.200 | And I recommend that you set a timer

00:59:20.220 | and that you of course allow yourself to blink

00:59:22.720 | like I just did there,

00:59:24.080 | and that you try and achieve at least 30 seconds,

00:59:27.680 | but even better would be 60 seconds,

00:59:29.920 | even better would be 90 seconds

00:59:31.880 | of that focused vergence eye movement

00:59:34.320 | during which several things happen,

00:59:35.760 | including the deployment of those neurochemicals

00:59:38.480 | from the brainstem that I talked about before,

00:59:40.100 | which are going to increase your level of autonomic arousal

00:59:43.600 | and also increase your level of focus further.

00:59:46.840 | And there, I'm not just talking about visual focus,

00:59:48.620 | I'm talking about cognitive focus.

00:59:50.960 | It has also been shown that when we focus

00:59:53.800 | on a particular point in the way that I'm describing here,

00:59:56.660 | that it increases our so-called systolic blood pressure.

00:59:59.920 | As many of you know,

01:00:00.760 | blood pressure is always described to us

01:00:02.940 | as a given number over another number.

01:00:05.240 | And the first number is the so-called systole

01:00:07.540 | or systolic pressure,

01:00:08.640 | which is the amount of pressure in your vascular system

01:00:11.440 | when the heart beats as the fluid of your blood

01:00:14.880 | is pumping through the arteries, veins,

01:00:17.520 | and capillaries of your system.

01:00:19.440 | And then the bottom number is the amount of pressure

01:00:22.280 | within those arteries, veins, and capillaries

01:00:25.180 | in between heartbeat.

01:00:26.240 | So it's the systolic over the diastolic.

01:00:29.160 | And what we know is that visual focus,

01:00:31.640 | and here I'm still holding mine now on the camera,

01:00:34.120 | so for those of you listening,

01:00:35.360 | I probably blinked once or twice,

01:00:36.680 | but I'm really trying hard to maintain my focus

01:00:38.700 | directly within the camera.

01:00:40.320 | This visual focus increases the systolic blood pressure,

01:00:44.200 | it increases the deployment of those neurochemicals

01:00:47.120 | from the brainstem,

01:00:47.960 | and we know it also can recruit the liberation of molecules

01:00:52.840 | such as dopamine and some associated molecules

01:00:56.300 | elsewhere in the brain that together act in a synergistic

01:01:00.140 | way to increase our level of focus and motivation.

01:01:03.720 | This is based, again, on work describing the neural circuitry

01:01:07.220 | of what I'm describing here,

01:01:08.620 | and work from Emily Balchetes' lab,

01:01:11.020 | which has shown that if people focus on a target,

01:01:13.520 | on a goal line,

01:01:14.360 | literally a physical location within their environment,

01:01:17.040 | and then they initiate some work,

01:01:19.240 | it could be physical work or cognitive work,

01:01:21.760 | not only do they experience significantly decreased levels

01:01:25.160 | of perceived effort while engaging in that work,

01:01:28.000 | but they also complete that work

01:01:29.680 | in a significantly reduced amount of time,

01:01:32.920 | meaning that within a given training bout or training block,

01:01:35.800 | you are able to get significantly more work done,

01:01:38.520 | and you perceive that as less effortful

01:01:41.180 | or requiring less effort

01:01:42.720 | than had you not done this visual focus.

01:01:45.720 | Now, I've been doing this for quite some time now

01:01:47.520 | into the camera.

01:01:48.500 | This is actually a practice that I've been doing

01:01:50.140 | for well over a decade,

01:01:51.640 | and it's actually a practice that I use when I podcast

01:01:54.060 | or when I post on social media,

01:01:55.240 | it's part of the reason why I'm accused of being

01:01:56.960 | a non-blinker quite often,

01:01:58.400 | but I want to remind people that you are allowed to blink,

01:02:01.160 | don't let your eyes dry out,

01:02:02.320 | it's perfectly fine to blink,

01:02:03.800 | it's not going to inhibit the effectiveness of this protocol.

01:02:06.780 | But I don't think I can really overstate how valuable

01:02:10.280 | this sort of protocol is.

01:02:11.560 | First of all, it's completely behavioral,

01:02:13.040 | it costs nothing, it's completely safe,

01:02:15.400 | as long as you remember to blink,

01:02:16.800 | and it allows you to increase your level of focus,

01:02:20.480 | your level of motivation,

01:02:22.060 | and the sustainability of your focus and motivation

01:02:25.600 | while in goal pursuit.

01:02:26.760 | So it's a quite valuable protocol to incorporate,

01:02:29.740 | and it's something that you can do once for 30 seconds

01:02:32.380 | and then lean into whatever it is,

01:02:33.580 | your writing process, your running process.

01:02:35.540 | It's something that you could do repeatedly

01:02:37.460 | throughout that learning bout,

01:02:38.780 | and it's something that you can practice offline

01:02:40.700 | a little bit away from that training bout

01:02:43.340 | as a means to sort of learn and get familiar with

01:02:45.900 | so that then you can incorporate it very quickly

01:02:48.180 | and repeatedly and with much more effectiveness

01:02:50.780 | during these different learning bouts.

01:02:52.360 | Again, it's a highly valuable tool

01:02:53.940 | that's grounded in neural circuitry,

01:02:55.780 | grounded in neurochemistry,

01:02:57.840 | and that Emily Balchetis' lab has shown

01:03:00.520 | in numerous domains, physical pursuits,

01:03:02.920 | cognitive pursuits can really help people

01:03:04.800 | achieve their goals and to achieve them more easily,

01:03:08.080 | or at least with less perceived effort and more quickly.

01:03:11.240 | Now, we can get a bit more granular

01:03:12.800 | about the incorporation of this tool, this protocol,

01:03:15.900 | but before we do, we should acknowledge

01:03:17.900 | that all of the things that lend themselves

01:03:20.020 | to improved cognitive focus and physical ability

01:03:23.700 | still hold true, right?

01:03:24.900 | You still need to get good sleep

01:03:26.700 | as many nights of your life as you possibly can.

01:03:28.940 | You still need to eat properly.

01:03:30.760 | You still need to try and limit your stress.

01:03:33.000 | We have podcast episodes related to all of those topics.

01:03:35.940 | We have toolkits available at zero cost

01:03:37.780 | related to all of those topics.

01:03:39.880 | I'm not saying that this visual focus

01:03:41.860 | or visual target training is the only tool

01:03:44.520 | that you should incorporate.

01:03:45.580 | It's a tool that you want to superimpose

01:03:47.680 | on the foundation of all the things

01:03:49.640 | that bring you to your practice

01:03:51.120 | with the best possible cognition,

01:03:52.860 | the best possible physical readiness,

01:03:55.240 | and that when added to that foundation of excellent sleep,

01:03:59.740 | excellent nutrition, social connection,

01:04:01.840 | sunlight in the morning, et cetera,

01:04:03.320 | is going to increase the probability

01:04:04.980 | that you're going to make those learning bouts

01:04:06.700 | as effective as possible.

01:04:08.260 | Now, some of you may be thinking,

01:04:10.220 | elevating your blood pressure is bad.

01:04:12.040 | Why would I want to elevate my blood pressure?

01:04:14.380 | Ah, well, it turns out that the increases

01:04:16.420 | in systolic blood pressure achieved

01:04:18.020 | with this visual target training

01:04:19.340 | or focusing on a finish line for some period of time

01:04:22.220 | are transient and they are perfectly safe.

01:04:25.100 | So essentially what it does is it boosts

01:04:27.060 | or bolsters the activity of the autonomic nervous system.

01:04:30.460 | It kick-starts the deployment of those chemicals

01:04:32.500 | and those neural circuits that then allow you

01:04:34.100 | to be motivated for some period of time.

01:04:36.400 | But then that is a transient increase in autonomic arousal,

01:04:40.260 | which is why perhaps every 20 minutes

01:04:42.740 | or perhaps on the hour, you might stop,

01:04:45.140 | do a 30-second or 60-second visual target training,

01:04:48.840 | then lean back into your process

01:04:50.980 | of however it is that you are pursuing your goal.

01:04:54.280 | I should also mention that if your eyes are getting tired

01:04:56.880 | doing whatever goal pursuit you happen to be engaged in,

01:05:00.100 | it's also a good idea to go into that panoramic vision mode.

01:05:03.340 | The easiest way to do that is to go outside

01:05:05.400 | or to be outside and to view a horizon

01:05:07.560 | and not look at any one particular point on the horizon.

01:05:09.760 | But if you're indoors, as I am now,

01:05:11.580 | you can also just relax your eyes,

01:05:13.360 | you know, sort of blinking a few times

01:05:14.980 | and getting rid of that vergence eye movement

01:05:17.160 | and try and visualize the corners of the room

01:05:20.100 | or the sides of the room, rather,

01:05:21.240 | the floor and the ceiling all at once.

01:05:22.860 | That's a good way to explain

01:05:24.340 | how to so-called relax your eyes

01:05:25.980 | and take you out of that vergence eye movement.

01:05:27.740 | And I say this because a lot of people will feel

01:05:30.040 | when they're pursuing their goal that it's kind of fatiguing

01:05:32.140 | so you have to remember to breathe, right?

01:05:33.660 | You still want to breathe as you're pursuing your goal

01:05:36.400 | and you certainly want to be visually focused on your goal

01:05:38.980 | so you're cognitively focused on your goal

01:05:40.460 | and you're motivated, but that from time to time,

01:05:42.420 | you also relax, take a moment, shake things off,

01:05:45.460 | look into your panoramic vision mode

01:05:48.340 | and then go back to your mode of goal pursuit.

01:05:50.780 | Now, there are a few other protocols

01:05:52.140 | that might seem oh so simple,

01:05:54.540 | but frankly are oh so effective

01:05:57.220 | that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention them.

01:05:59.720 | The first of those is actually something

01:06:02.080 | that I'm borrowing from Tim Ferriss

01:06:04.660 | who did a post on Instagram, which we will link to,

01:06:07.220 | which I think is just spectacular,

01:06:08.960 | which is 30 things that he wished he had known

01:06:11.980 | when he was 20.

01:06:12.820 | And while the internet is chock-a-block full of such lists,

01:06:15.660 | that particular list is truly impressive.

01:06:18.340 | Those are things that I too wish I had known when I was 20,

01:06:21.220 | but also when I was 30 and 40 and so on.

01:06:23.940 | But one particular thing on that list of 30

01:06:26.820 | is particularly relevant now,

01:06:28.900 | which is that the best productivity app

01:06:32.180 | is already on your phone,

01:06:33.820 | which is to put your phone into airplane mode

01:06:36.060 | or more ideally,

01:06:37.820 | and this is the one that I try my best to incorporate,

01:06:40.600 | to simply turn the phone off and remove it from my workouts

01:06:45.020 | or my attempts to learn language

01:06:46.840 | or my attempts to learn anything.

01:06:48.380 | I realize that some people need to keep their phone with them

01:06:50.360 | for reasons related to communicating with family

01:06:52.340 | or coworkers, et cetera.

01:06:54.320 | That's fine if you need your phone,

01:06:56.060 | but to the extent that you can remove yourself

01:06:57.880 | from distractions,

01:06:58.940 | that's certainly going to enhance your ability

01:07:01.520 | to focus on what you need to focus on

01:07:03.540 | in pursuing your goals.

01:07:05.340 | That sort of stands without saying, it's kind of a duh.

01:07:07.260 | And yet I think a lot of people are searching far and wide

01:07:10.660 | for the productivity app, for the secret hack,

01:07:12.740 | for the thing that's going to allow them to be productive.

01:07:15.140 | And oftentimes there are do's, actions that we can take

01:07:18.540 | in order to become more productive.

01:07:19.800 | We're talking about some of those today.

01:07:21.320 | We've talked about those in other episodes,

01:07:22.940 | but there are of course important don'ts.

01:07:25.300 | So don't have your phone facing up

01:07:28.920 | with wifi and cellular service on

01:07:31.340 | if you want to be productive at something

01:07:32.980 | that doesn't evolve your phone.

01:07:34.040 | Ideally, you'll turn it over, you'll turn it off,

01:07:36.540 | you'll get rid of it, you'll put it in the next room.

01:07:38.420 | If you're like me, you'll sometimes lock it in the car.

01:07:40.500 | I think the most extreme that I've ever gone

01:07:42.620 | to ensure that I didn't engage with my phone

01:07:44.920 | during goal pursuit was during the early days

01:07:47.700 | of having my laboratory

01:07:48.880 | and I was writing multiple grants in parallel,

01:07:51.100 | which is an immense amount of work.

01:07:52.900 | I would walk into the laboratory in the morning

01:07:54.760 | and I would hand a student or postdoc my phone

01:07:57.220 | and I'd say, don't give this back to me until 5 p.m.

01:08:00.000 | And if I ask for it back, if I even ask for it once,

01:08:03.140 | everyone in the lab gets $500.

01:08:05.980 | There were quite a few people in my lab

01:08:07.340 | and so it's a significant cost to that.

01:08:09.060 | And I must tell you there were numerous times

01:08:10.560 | throughout the day when I impulsively just thought,

01:08:12.680 | okay, I'm going to need my phone.

01:08:13.980 | Damn it, I don't want to have to do it.

01:08:15.060 | And I also wanted to demonstrate to them

01:08:17.000 | that I could create an incentive system

01:08:19.180 | whereby I could basically scruff myself

01:08:21.420 | into getting the work done.

01:08:22.340 | And indeed, much to their dismay,

01:08:24.340 | I never once had to pay them out.

01:08:26.300 | Although when we got the grants

01:08:27.780 | and indeed even when we didn't get the grants,

01:08:30.180 | I did take them all to dinner.

01:08:31.700 | Now, another key protocol for maintaining motivation

01:08:34.020 | while pursuing your goals stems from our understanding

01:08:38.260 | of the dopamine reward and motivation pathways,

01:08:41.680 | topics for which I have done multiple,

01:08:44.060 | indeed, three podcast episodes previously,

01:08:47.220 | and we can provide a link to all three of those

01:08:48.900 | as well as the toolkit that we've published

01:08:51.720 | and that's available to you at zero cost on our website

01:08:54.560 | about how to regulate dopamine,

01:08:56.420 | both baseline dopamine stores and peaks in dopamine.

01:08:59.320 | There's a lot there to be understood and incorporated

01:09:01.820 | because it has to do with various things,

01:09:04.040 | not just in the realm of goal pursuit,

01:09:06.080 | but also feelings of wellbeing,

01:09:08.560 | staving off depression, things of that sort.

01:09:11.000 | The dopamine system is linked to,

01:09:12.440 | oh, so many important aspects of life,

01:09:14.540 | far too many than we could discuss right now.

01:09:17.300 | And we have those previous episodes

01:09:19.260 | in which we do discuss all of that material.

01:09:22.160 | Nonetheless, it is important to understand

01:09:24.760 | that dopamine is the molecule of motivation

01:09:27.240 | and to some extent reward, but really motivation.

01:09:30.200 | And that if you want to maintain consistent motivation

01:09:35.020 | during say your individual bouts of work toward your goals

01:09:40.680 | and from one bout to the next, so not just within a session,

01:09:44.780 | but from day to day across sessions and from week to week,

01:09:49.780 | and indeed from 12-week cycle to 12-week cycle,

01:09:52.900 | if that's required, and from one goal that you set

01:09:55.640 | to the next goal that you define and decide to pursue,

01:09:58.980 | you want to understand this particular feature of dopamine,

01:10:02.840 | which is that yes, dopamine and its release

01:10:07.040 | is highly valuable toward getting more motivated

01:10:11.440 | and feeling more motivated,

01:10:13.300 | but that it has certain properties related to things

01:10:16.760 | like dopamine reward prediction error,

01:10:18.480 | baselines of dopamine, et cetera,

01:10:20.280 | that make it the case that if you reward yourself

01:10:25.540 | every time you reach a milestone,

01:10:27.580 | say you finish out an hour or two hours of work,

01:10:30.080 | so you treat yourself to something, you reward yourself,

01:10:33.140 | that you are going to diminish both the potency

01:10:36.020 | of that reward and you're going to reduce

01:10:38.640 | your motivation over time.

01:10:40.560 | That might be surprising to you,

01:10:41.840 | but if you were to watch those episodes,

01:10:43.640 | it would all become clear as to why that is the case.

01:10:46.360 | It is also true that if you were to only reward yourself

01:10:50.560 | when you accomplish your goal, or perhaps more commonly,

01:10:55.560 | if you look at the accomplishment of your goal

01:10:58.040 | as the only reward in the whole process of goal pursuit

01:11:02.580 | and achievement, that is going to undermine

01:11:05.500 | your probability of success as well.

01:11:07.700 | Rather, the best way to incorporate the mechanics

01:11:10.040 | of the dopamine system such that you can achieve

01:11:12.880 | not just immediate motivation, but ongoing motivation

01:11:16.120 | is to incorporate what is referred to as

01:11:18.940 | random intermittent reinforcement,

01:11:20.800 | which is what the casinos use to keep people playing.

01:11:23.440 | And it simply means randomly reward yourself

01:11:27.820 | and randomly don't reward yourself

01:11:29.800 | for successful completion of milestones.

01:11:32.840 | Those milestones could be within a bout of effort

01:11:36.320 | or it could be a cross bouts of effort.

01:11:38.280 | So let's say you set out at the beginning

01:11:40.180 | on your piece of paper to basically, let's say run

01:11:43.860 | or practice at some cognitive endeavor,

01:11:45.900 | four hours total per week, and you're going to do that

01:11:49.340 | Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday.

01:11:51.760 | Should you reward yourself at the end of each session?

01:11:54.200 | Should you reward yourself at the end of each week?

01:11:56.940 | The answer is it depends.

01:11:58.580 | And it should depend in a random intermittent way.

01:12:01.220 | So the simplest way to do this

01:12:02.900 | is whenever you complete a milestone,

01:12:05.180 | could be at the end of a day, you did your one hour,

01:12:09.100 | whatever it was that you designated you were going to do

01:12:11.900 | on that particular day, should you reward yourself

01:12:14.860 | cognitively or with some physical thing?

01:12:17.700 | I don't know what that physical thing might be,

01:12:19.860 | but I don't know, it could be a meal, could be a movie,

01:12:22.100 | it could be something that you enjoy.

01:12:24.000 | Well, the answer is you should flip a coin

01:12:26.220 | and if it's heads, yes, reward yourself.

01:12:28.460 | And if it's tails, don't, it's that simple.

01:12:31.980 | It is that simple.

01:12:33.140 | It should be 50/50 probability.

01:12:35.860 | And it's random as to whether or not you reward yourself.

01:12:38.380 | Now, with physical rewards like monetary rewards

01:12:41.720 | or food rewards or a movie or participating

01:12:44.040 | in something else that you enjoy,

01:12:46.340 | it's a bit easier to define.

01:12:47.620 | The cognitive rewarding of one's own efforts

01:12:50.860 | is something that people really struggle to comprehend.

01:12:53.260 | But what I'm not referring to when I say cognitive rewards

01:12:57.460 | is I'm not referring to saying, yes, I'm the best

01:12:59.960 | and really trying to shower yourself with internal praise

01:13:02.460 | and tell yourself that you're the greatest thing

01:13:04.180 | that ever happened simply

01:13:05.300 | because you performed this learning bout.

01:13:07.460 | What I'm simply referring to

01:13:09.140 | is the kind of internal dopamine reward

01:13:12.540 | that comes from telling yourself like,

01:13:14.100 | yes, I'm making progress, I'm making progress,

01:13:16.660 | I'm on the path, I'm able to set a goal and achieve a goal,

01:13:19.460 | which might seem like a healthy thing to do psychologically

01:13:21.580 | and in fact, it is.

01:13:22.460 | It's great and I think it's really important

01:13:24.660 | that people be able to self-reward themselves,

01:13:26.860 | especially self-reward for verbs

01:13:29.220 | that put them in a more adaptive stance in life

01:13:32.100 | that enhance their mental health,

01:13:33.360 | physical health and performance.

01:13:34.460 | And that of course also includes relationships.

01:13:36.500 | We're not just talking about solitary pursuits here.

01:13:38.840 | We're talking about pursuits that bring us into the world,

01:13:41.220 | that allow us to lean into life with more vigor

01:13:43.860 | and with more effectiveness,

01:13:45.060 | not just to help ourselves, but to help others.

01:13:47.140 | So what I'm referring to is completing something

01:13:49.740 | and internally patting yourself on the back

01:13:51.860 | for having completed that thing.

01:13:53.780 | That is a good thing to do,

01:13:55.460 | but if you want to maintain ongoing motivation,

01:13:58.180 | you're not going to do that every time.

01:13:59.760 | You're not going to punish yourself,

01:14:01.660 | but rather you finish out a bout of learning,

01:14:04.540 | you flip the coin, let's say it lands tails on that day,

01:14:07.900 | you simply shift into the next thing you need to do that day.

01:14:10.820 | Now, it is not easy to suppress thoughts.

01:14:13.940 | We know this, it's very hard to suppress negative thoughts,

01:14:17.200 | but it's still hard to suppress positive thoughts.

01:14:19.420 | So internally, if you're glowing

01:14:21.100 | from the fact that you performed well,

01:14:22.280 | don't try and suppress that, that's okay.

01:14:24.220 | But if you flip a tails,

01:14:25.860 | then you don't want to actively engage

01:14:27.420 | in a self-reward process.

01:14:28.860 | However, if you flip the coin and its heads,

01:14:32.220 | well, then you should absolutely engage

01:14:34.700 | in a self-reward process.

01:14:35.940 | And that process should consist of 30 to 60 seconds

01:14:39.100 | of closing your eyes, well, you don't have to,

01:14:41.420 | it works better if you close your eyes,

01:14:42.620 | and simply thinking about the fact that,

01:14:44.500 | yes, you can set a goal,

01:14:46.380 | you can engage in the specific set of questions.

01:14:49.140 | Do I want to do this practice today?

01:14:50.860 | Do I not want to do this practice today?

01:14:52.380 | And then the specific set of actions,

01:14:54.500 | maybe they involve visual focus,

01:14:55.700 | and the other tools we talked about,

01:14:56.780 | turning off of your phone, et cetera,

01:14:58.540 | you are somebody who can get things done.

01:15:01.500 | You are somebody that is moving forward

01:15:03.500 | toward your particular goal.

01:15:04.580 | And so you just sort of create a little bit

01:15:06.380 | of a positive cognitive loop around that ability

01:15:09.420 | that you are in fact building up.

01:15:11.220 | And that's something that people often overlook,

01:15:12.760 | which is that not only is moving toward a goal great

01:15:17.300 | because it establishes more robustness

01:15:20.660 | in the neural circuits that allow us to perform that thing,

01:15:23.100 | right, I mean, after all, that's what learning is,

01:15:24.920 | eventually you don't achieve the same frustration

01:15:27.780 | and errors that you do when trying to perform that thing.

01:15:30.460 | Eventually you learn how to play the piano,

01:15:32.220 | you learn how to speak conversational French,

01:15:33.820 | you run that sub six minute mile,

01:15:36.740 | but also the neural circuits associated

01:15:38.860 | with self-generated motivation,

01:15:41.460 | and with the tools that we're talking about,

01:15:42.860 | themselves are subject to neuroplasticity,

01:15:45.160 | so those become more robust, and that's fantastic

01:15:47.840 | because when you eventually reach one goal,

01:15:51.000 | I would hope that you would then update

01:15:52.800 | and set out to achieve another goal,

01:15:54.940 | and you will find that over time,

01:15:56.580 | you will be more effective in achieving other goals

01:16:00.400 | by virtue of the work that you did

01:16:02.380 | in pursuing a previous goal,

01:16:03.920 | because ultimately it's really about defining goals

01:16:06.640 | and then learning how to quantify the actions required

01:16:09.240 | and then engaging in those actions.

01:16:11.760 | So there's the specific circuits involved

01:16:14.120 | in generating those actions, which are very goal specific,

01:16:18.000 | and then there are the circuits,

01:16:20.080 | which circuits are we talking about?

01:16:21.380 | We're talking about that amygdala,

01:16:22.500 | the lateral prefrontal cortex, the orbital frontal cortex,

01:16:25.280 | and the basal ganglia that we talked about earlier

01:16:27.580 | that had been built up, that had been reinforced,

01:16:29.760 | because as I mentioned, there is one universal circuit

01:16:33.300 | for goal pursuit and achievement.

01:16:35.540 | So random intermittent reinforcement is the key,

01:16:38.460 | and while I spent a good amount of time

01:16:39.980 | talking about self-generated cognitive reinforcement,

01:16:43.040 | this also applies to any kind of physical rewards,

01:16:45.600 | the movie that you're going to reward yourself with,

01:16:47.900 | the ice cream cone, the whatever

01:16:50.240 | that you're going to reward yourself with,

01:16:52.860 | perhaps it's monetary, perhaps it's food,

01:16:54.680 | perhaps it's social, random intermittent rewards

01:16:58.560 | are the ones that are going to keep you motivated

01:17:00.960 | and are going to best increase the probability of success,

01:17:04.560 | not just within a given bout of learning,

01:17:06.840 | not just day-to-day, not just week-to-week,

01:17:08.720 | not just quarter-to-quarter, but across the lifetime.

01:17:11.920 | An important protocol to incorporate in your goal pursuits

01:17:16.160 | is one that I learned from Dr. Maya Shankar

01:17:18.400 | when she was a guest on the Huberman Lab Podcast,

01:17:21.480 | and she talked about the so-called middle problem.

01:17:24.000 | The middle problem is the fact that people tend to have

01:17:27.080 | a lot of motivation at the outset of pursuing a goal,

01:17:30.840 | although you now know that sometimes,

01:17:33.880 | or some people don't have a lot of motivation

01:17:36.280 | when pursuing their goal at the start,

01:17:37.760 | so they need to think about failures

01:17:39.700 | and how terrible everything will be,

01:17:40.820 | and then they will certainly have motivation,

01:17:42.380 | it's going to be a fear-based motivation,

01:17:43.800 | but in general, people tend to have more motivation

01:17:46.740 | at the start of pursuing a goal,

01:17:49.660 | and at the end, when they get close to

01:17:52.500 | or they start to perceive the finish line,

01:17:55.720 | but that most people experience the so-called middle problem

01:17:59.180 | where in the middle of a learning bout

01:18:02.240 | or in the middle of the week

01:18:03.980 | or in the middle of a 12-week cycle,

01:18:07.460 | they are less motivated,

01:18:09.140 | and this has actually been quantified in numerous studies,

01:18:11.840 | and there are several ways to overcome the middle problem.

01:18:14.160 | The simplest one is to acknowledge it,

01:18:16.820 | to recognize that it's coming,

01:18:18.700 | and so when it does come

01:18:19.960 | and you're experiencing lower levels of motivation,

01:18:22.460 | perhaps even increased failure rates

01:18:25.720 | and you're not performing as well,

01:18:27.300 | you're getting frustrated,

01:18:28.440 | to know that that's a natural process

01:18:30.940 | that everybody experiences,

01:18:32.640 | and just knowing that can sometimes allow people

01:18:35.160 | to move through that to the place

01:18:37.520 | where then they can sense the end of the learning bout

01:18:40.060 | or they can sense that they're making some progress,

01:18:41.940 | the finish line is there,

01:18:42.860 | and then they get that increase in motivation again.

01:18:46.260 | However, sometimes the middle problem is such a problem

01:18:50.320 | that people need some tools to move through it,

01:18:52.880 | and the best way to move through the middle problem

01:18:55.120 | or in fact to eliminate it

01:18:56.620 | is actually to make the middle of a learning bout

01:18:59.140 | its own separate thing

01:19:01.180 | that you acknowledge the presence of

01:19:02.860 | and that you break up into three separate bouts.

01:19:05.860 | So here we're talking about carving up

01:19:08.120 | the one-hour learning bout or the two-hour learning bout

01:19:10.920 | into an initial phase

01:19:12.300 | where you either have naturally occurring motivation

01:19:15.460 | or you use fear-based visualization

01:19:17.380 | to increase your motivation, you lean into that,

01:19:19.900 | and then let's assume it's a one-hour learning bout,

01:19:22.260 | and then at about the 25-minute mark,

01:19:24.700 | you start to experience lower levels of focus,

01:19:27.320 | perhaps then you use the visual target protocol,

01:19:29.480 | but then you go back into your bout of learning

01:19:32.100 | and you're not feeling very motivated, it's hard,

01:19:34.860 | your mind is drifting, you want to pick up your phone,

01:19:36.840 | you want to do other things,

01:19:37.940 | you find yourself doing other things,

01:19:39.460 | that's the period of time to take, say,

01:19:41.660 | the 25-minute to 45-minute period within the session

01:19:46.220 | and divide it into perhaps three

01:19:48.480 | or even four smaller chunks of time,

01:19:51.460 | and you perhaps have heard of chunking before,

01:19:53.680 | chunking is simply breaking something down

01:19:55.560 | into smaller chunks that are more achievable,

01:19:57.680 | that's simply what we're talking about here,

01:19:59.420 | but really chunking up that middle section

01:20:02.140 | of a learning bout can be very effective

01:20:04.060 | at essentially eliminating the middle problem.

01:20:06.820 | Now, for those of you that are going to be really nitpicky,

01:20:08.740 | you'll say, "Wait, you take that 20 minutes

01:20:10.440 | from the 25-minute mark to the 45-minute mark

01:20:12.920 | within your hour learning bout,

01:20:14.420 | and you divide it up into four little chunks,

01:20:17.960 | and in those two middle chunks,

01:20:19.300 | I'm going to feel the middle problem

01:20:20.580 | for those two middle chunks, ah."

01:20:22.060 | Well, that's not actually the way it pans out,

01:20:24.740 | fortunately, when you break things down

01:20:26.540 | into small enough chunks, you eliminate the middle problem

01:20:29.840 | and you experience sustained motivation.

01:20:32.820 | Now, the extreme interpretation of that

01:20:34.560 | would have you measuring every minute

01:20:36.220 | or even every second of a learning bout

01:20:38.420 | and having consistent motivation throughout that,

01:20:40.680 | because for instance, if you can concentrate for 10 seconds,

01:20:43.240 | why wouldn't you simply be able

01:20:44.420 | to just mark off 10-second increments?

01:20:46.500 | Well, at some point, the marking off

01:20:48.460 | or the monitoring of those increments

01:20:51.060 | is going to be distracting toward the thing

01:20:53.260 | that you actually want to do.

01:20:54.820 | So the simple thing to do

01:20:57.580 | is to acknowledge the middle problem, right?

01:21:00.220 | The fact that we have more motivation to start,

01:21:02.500 | and at the end of our goal pursuit sessions,

01:21:04.840 | than we do within the middle,

01:21:05.860 | and then to simply chunk that middle section

01:21:08.820 | into three, maybe four smaller chunks,

01:21:11.420 | and if you need to incorporate things

01:21:12.600 | like the visual target protocol,

01:21:14.420 | one or three or perhaps even eight times

01:21:16.780 | within that middle section, so be it.

01:21:19.540 | It's going to help you move through

01:21:20.580 | with better focus and better motivation.

01:21:22.900 | And what I just described can, of course,

01:21:24.620 | be applied to the longer bouts of effort

01:21:27.140 | that don't occur just during one learning bout,

01:21:29.620 | but perhaps across the week.

01:21:31.020 | So for instance, if you are doing four days a week

01:21:33.420 | of language learning or fitness training,

01:21:35.300 | so maybe it's a Monday, Wednesday,

01:21:36.460 | Friday, Saturday type of schedule,

01:21:38.460 | you may notice that in the middle of the week,

01:21:41.100 | the Wednesday training session tends to be the one

01:21:43.140 | that you're less motivated to do for whatever reason.

01:21:45.340 | There could be any reason at all

01:21:46.620 | for which the motivation is lower in the middle of the week.

01:21:49.380 | It doesn't matter.

01:21:50.420 | Well, in that case, you would want to first acknowledge

01:21:53.460 | the presence of the middle problem.

01:21:54.580 | So you would want to acknowledge

01:21:55.940 | that that Wednesday training bout

01:21:57.500 | is prone to the middle problem because it is indeed.

01:22:00.820 | The middle problem, it's in the middle of the Monday

01:22:02.820 | and the Friday training bouts.

01:22:04.620 | So then you would want to approach it

01:22:05.780 | with the understanding that it's going to be there

01:22:07.560 | and that you are going to need tools and protocols

01:22:09.860 | that will allow you to overcome it by, for instance,

01:22:12.900 | taking that one or two hour session on Wednesdays

01:22:16.140 | and putting a bit more time toward a visual target protocol

01:22:19.820 | at the beginning to increase your focus,

01:22:22.220 | a bit more visualizing failure.

01:22:24.260 | If you are feeling a motivated,

01:22:26.420 | that means not motivated in nerd speak,

01:22:28.540 | a motivated toward doing that Wednesday session.

01:22:31.920 | And you would want to break up that Wednesday session

01:22:34.780 | into smaller chunks.

01:22:35.900 | So instead of looking at that two hour session,

01:22:39.360 | you might break it up into a series of 15 minutes,

01:22:41.700 | smaller learning bouts done consecutively back to back.

01:22:44.900 | And then in doing so,

01:22:46.940 | you have essentially taken that Wednesday session

01:22:48.940 | and I'll bet that it becomes

01:22:50.420 | at least among your most motivated sessions.

01:22:53.140 | So the middle problem exists.

01:22:54.860 | It's important to acknowledge,

01:22:56.060 | and there are tools to overcome the middle problem

01:22:58.300 | on any timescale.

01:22:59.860 | You simply have to chunk up the middle

01:23:01.800 | and approach things with deliberate increased vigor,

01:23:05.020 | just as you would, you know,

01:23:06.100 | if you're running and there's always a tough hill,

01:23:08.100 | you have to really gear up for attacking that hill.

01:23:11.440 | And then to do that repeatedly in those smaller chunks

01:23:14.620 | until you've completed that session.

01:23:16.420 | So today I've been talking about

01:23:17.420 | how to approach goal setting and pursuit

01:23:19.480 | at and in and around the specific times

01:23:21.700 | that one is engaging in goal setting and pursuit,

01:23:24.340 | the writing down of goals, defining of goals, the timing,

01:23:26.980 | and then the actual training sessions

01:23:29.660 | or the practice sessions toward achieving that goal.

01:23:33.380 | What I haven't talked about is how to show up to all of that

01:23:35.780 | in the best possible state of mind and body

01:23:38.620 | in order to achieve the best possible results.

01:23:41.260 | And of course, there are numerous things that we need to do

01:23:43.440 | in order to quote unquote show up at our best,

01:23:46.540 | where we would stand the best possibility

01:23:48.600 | of performing our best and learning the best

01:23:50.720 | in those learning bouts.

01:23:52.300 | Things like getting adequate sleep,

01:23:53.820 | getting sunlight in our eyes early in the day,

01:23:56.580 | adequate and proper nutrition, social connection, and so on.

01:23:59.820 | We talked about all of that in previous podcast episodes,

01:24:02.100 | so I'm not going to talk about those again now,

01:24:04.420 | but it is important to recognize

01:24:05.940 | that the backdrop of our lives, how well we've slept,

01:24:08.180 | what's going on in our personal lives

01:24:09.880 | will all impact things like motivation

01:24:12.260 | and frankly, our ability to even identify what's important

01:24:16.080 | because if we're dealing with a health crisis

01:24:18.800 | or someone close to us is dealing with a health crisis,

01:24:20.800 | we tend to have our attention diverted toward that.

01:24:23.520 | But I do want to acknowledge all of that

01:24:24.940 | because it is critically important

01:24:27.100 | in defining how you're going to show up to these endeavors

01:24:29.420 | and for that matter, all endeavors.

01:24:31.820 | Now, with that said, there are a few things that you can do

01:24:34.900 | in order to try and optimize your ability to focus

01:24:38.300 | and your level of motivation during your goal pursuits.

01:24:41.860 | And there are some really interesting data and protocols

01:24:45.080 | that I haven't talked so much about on this podcast ever

01:24:47.940 | that are relevant to today's discussion.

01:24:49.860 | And this relates to our so-called

01:24:51.760 | circadian rhythms in attention.

01:24:54.300 | We have robust rhythms in our ability to focus

01:24:57.940 | and our level of motivation that vary across the 24 hour,

01:25:01.820 | AKA circadian cycle with a regular rhythmicity

01:25:05.660 | that is independent of how badly we want a goal

01:25:09.140 | or how afraid we are of failure, right?

01:25:11.620 | All the stuff about motivation and fear of failure

01:25:14.340 | and desire, et cetera, all of that is still true

01:25:17.180 | but we all have a naturally occurring rhythm

01:25:19.620 | of rise and fall and return to rise and fall

01:25:24.380 | of our levels of attention and motivation.

01:25:26.360 | And this is something that's been described beautifully

01:25:29.020 | in the scientific literature.

01:25:30.140 | In fact, I'll provide a link

01:25:31.100 | to what I consider a really nice review on this topic.

01:25:33.260 | This is a review that was published by Pablo Valdez

01:25:35.940 | in the Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine in 2019

01:25:39.660 | entitled Circadian Rhythms in Attention.

01:25:42.220 | And there's a lot of information within this review

01:25:44.540 | but we can distill out a couple of useful gems from it.

01:25:47.860 | So if you are somebody who is embarking

01:25:50.940 | on the pursuit of a goal, which is particularly hard,

01:25:53.740 | that's going to require a really high level

01:25:56.380 | of motivation and focus,

01:25:58.180 | know that there are three times during the day

01:26:01.040 | when you stand to have the greatest level

01:26:03.380 | of focus and attention.

01:26:05.620 | And of course, this will vary

01:26:06.540 | depending on when you went to sleep at night

01:26:07.940 | and when you wake up,

01:26:08.980 | there's natural variation in circadian rhythms

01:26:11.140 | but it's worth knowing that most people find

01:26:13.180 | that their level of attention and motivation

01:26:14.980 | is going to be highest 30 minutes,

01:26:17.580 | three hours and 11 hours after waking up, okay?

01:26:21.500 | So 30 minutes, three hours and 11 hours after waking up.

01:26:25.400 | And this relates to a number

01:26:26.740 | of important biological principles related

01:26:29.040 | to circadian shifts in body temperature,

01:26:32.380 | which are also related to circadian shifts.

01:26:34.960 | That means changes around the 24 hour cycle

01:26:38.100 | in the release of particular neurochemical.

01:26:40.860 | So the amount of dopamine available to be released

01:26:44.520 | by any sort of goal pursuit or reward,

01:26:46.860 | the amount of serotonin available,

01:26:48.740 | lots of neurochemistry in there,

01:26:49.940 | lots of neural circuitry,

01:26:51.380 | but these heightened levels of focus and motivation

01:26:53.360 | that just occur naturally,

01:26:54.880 | regardless of what goal one is trying to pursue.

01:26:57.340 | In fact, regardless of whether or not

01:26:58.620 | you're trying to pursue any goal,

01:27:00.480 | 30 minutes, three hours and 11 hours after waking,

01:27:02.900 | your focus and motivation are going to be their greatest

01:27:05.700 | relative to other times in that 24 hour cycle.

01:27:09.400 | Now, as I tell you this,

01:27:11.220 | I can imagine that some of you are thinking,

01:27:12.620 | "Great, I'm going to schedule one bout of goal pursuit,

01:27:16.940 | three hours after waking and another one,

01:27:18.740 | 11 hours after waking."

01:27:20.300 | Great, if you can do that and that fits with your work

01:27:22.620 | and other demands of life, your relationships, et cetera,

01:27:26.060 | terrific.

01:27:27.020 | However, I don't want this 30 minute,

01:27:29.660 | three hour and 11 hour protocol to be considered a rule.

01:27:34.340 | And here's why.

01:27:35.420 | Most people don't have a tremendous degree of control

01:27:38.540 | over their schedule.

01:27:39.500 | Things like work and family and other demands

01:27:41.980 | constrain them in terms of when they can get the work in.

01:27:44.900 | And while I do think it's extremely valuable

01:27:47.500 | to schedule the specific time or roughly the specific time,

01:27:51.980 | even though that's an oxymoron,

01:27:53.500 | meaning a period of time during the day,

01:27:55.780 | say before 9 AM or between nine and noon

01:27:58.340 | that you are going to carry out your goal pursuit endeavors.

01:28:01.140 | I've talked about this in previous podcasts.

01:28:02.700 | Some people do very well by scheduling an exact time

01:28:05.300 | from noon to two, I'm writing.

01:28:07.880 | Other people like myself do a little better

01:28:10.420 | if I set a constraint, but it's a little bit broader,

01:28:13.820 | such as I'm going to exercise before 9 AM.

01:28:16.380 | That could be anytime before 9 AM.

01:28:17.940 | Or I'm going to engage in language learning

01:28:21.820 | sometime between say 6 PM and 9 PM

01:28:25.180 | as opposed to setting a specific time.

01:28:27.340 | That's just what works best for me.

01:28:28.620 | People vary in terms of whether or not they respond best

01:28:31.040 | to setting a specific time or a time block

01:28:33.100 | and setting up these kinds of barriers

01:28:34.420 | after which you are essentially telling yourself

01:28:37.040 | you won't do it.

01:28:38.100 | But, and this is a very important but,

01:28:40.740 | it is most important that you actually engage

01:28:45.580 | in the goal pursuit.

01:28:46.540 | And I experienced this recently.

01:28:47.780 | I'm trying to run more these days.

01:28:49.780 | I still enjoy doing resistance training.

01:28:51.700 | I still run three days a week,

01:28:53.340 | but I'm trying to run a little bit longer

01:28:54.820 | as opposed to just doing the one long run per week

01:28:57.340 | and then two shorter runs later in the week.

01:28:59.380 | I've talked about this

01:29:00.220 | in my optimal fitness protocol episode.

01:29:01.860 | If you want to check that out or check out the PDF

01:29:03.960 | where it's all distilled down to one or two pages,

01:29:05.980 | if you like.

01:29:07.220 | But in any event, these days,

01:29:08.900 | I'm trying to extend the amount of time that I'm running.

01:29:12.300 | I'm just enjoying that.

01:29:13.460 | It's kind of a throwback for me

01:29:14.700 | to when I ran across country as a senior in high school.

01:29:16.780 | And this was the time of year

01:29:18.260 | when I would start getting ready for the fall season.

01:29:20.280 | So I'm enjoying running more.

01:29:21.980 | And just this last week,

01:29:23.220 | I had the experience of having a very full Sunday.

01:29:27.500 | And that's usually the day when I run in the morning

01:29:30.100 | or hike during the middle of the day.

01:29:31.960 | And I simply did not get around to it

01:29:34.060 | because I had a lot of other important things to do.

01:29:36.100 | And what I found was 9 p.m. rolled around,

01:29:39.380 | 10 p.m. rolled around.

01:29:40.580 | And I started thinking like, I wish I had gone running.

01:29:43.320 | My Monday was going to be busy.

01:29:44.820 | So what did I do?

01:29:45.780 | I laced up my shoes and I went for a run at 10 p.m.

01:29:48.200 | Something I haven't done since college

01:29:50.180 | or maybe even high school.

01:29:51.020 | And I ended up running for 90 minutes

01:29:53.420 | from 10 p.m. until 1130 p.m.

01:29:56.080 | Definitely not the optimal time for me to go running.

01:29:58.980 | In fact, I was thinking, oh, this might disrupt my sleep.

01:30:01.020 | But in fact, it didn't.

01:30:01.860 | I came back, I showered, had a little bit of food,

01:30:04.080 | which normally I don't eat that late.

01:30:05.420 | And I slept like a baby.

01:30:06.660 | And I felt great the next day waking up at my normal time,

01:30:09.800 | which cues me to another important scientific fact

01:30:13.020 | that relates to protocol and protocol flexibility,

01:30:15.580 | which is something that I gleaned from a colleague of mine

01:30:17.740 | at Stanford School of Medicine

01:30:18.840 | who works in the sleep laboratory.

01:30:21.020 | And I intend to have him as a guest on this podcast,

01:30:23.060 | which is that much of our subjective feelings of energy

01:30:27.220 | and wellbeing during the day have to do not just

01:30:30.300 | with how well and how much we slept the night before,

01:30:33.600 | but how positively we view our previous day's experiences

01:30:38.600 | and how positively we view our next day,

01:30:42.600 | and in fact, that same day, pursuits and experiences.

01:30:46.400 | So in other words,

01:30:47.380 | how we feel about our previous day performance

01:30:50.000 | and how we feel about what we're about to embark on

01:30:52.600 | during our day can increase our energy.

01:30:55.140 | And that might seem obvious to a number of you,

01:30:56.820 | but these days, as I and many others out there

01:30:59.100 | are talking so much about the importance of sleep,

01:31:01.040 | which is, of course, essential,

01:31:03.220 | you do want to get great sleep as many nights of your life

01:31:06.560 | as you possibly can.

01:31:07.480 | And if you don't sleep much for a given night,

01:31:09.480 | hopefully it's for reasons that you enjoy

01:31:11.180 | and positive things like a party or a wedding

01:31:13.140 | or use your imagination.

01:31:14.880 | But it's also the case

01:31:15.760 | that when we successfully complete something

01:31:17.560 | that we told ourselves that we are going to do,

01:31:19.140 | we feel great about it.

01:31:21.060 | And that if it means that we sleep a little bit less

01:31:23.100 | or that we have to do our practice bout at 3 p.m. or 2 p.m.,

01:31:28.100 | a time of day when we're really ordinarily

01:31:30.880 | in the trough of attention

01:31:32.800 | and we have to use 20 different tools

01:31:34.620 | or one tool 20 different times

01:31:36.040 | in order to get through that bout of learning,

01:31:37.920 | the fact that we complete it

01:31:39.600 | leaves us with a feeling of accomplishment.

01:31:41.540 | And I'm certain, although I don't know exactly which,

01:31:44.000 | that there are neurochemicals and hormones that reflect that.

01:31:46.240 | It's almost with certainty going to involve dopamine

01:31:49.360 | and other neurochemicals.

01:31:51.040 | But the point is not to get reductionist about it.

01:31:53.640 | The point is that, yes,

01:31:55.120 | heightened attention and focus occur naturally 30 minutes,

01:31:58.300 | three hours, and 11 hours after waking.

01:32:00.160 | But the really important thing about all of this goal setting

01:32:03.600 | and pursuit is to do it, to get it done,

01:32:05.780 | to set the goal, to do it specifically,

01:32:07.560 | make it quantifiable when you're going to do it,

01:32:09.680 | make it about verb states, and then simply do it.

01:32:13.480 | Thank you for joining me for today's discussion,

01:32:15.700 | all about science-based protocols

01:32:18.080 | for how to set and pursue your goals.

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01:34:15.900 | Thank you for joining me today for our discussion

01:34:18.120 | about science-based protocols for how to best set

01:34:21.340 | and pursue and achieve your goals.

01:34:23.800 | And I do want to wish you all the best of luck

01:34:26.040 | in setting, pursuing, and achieving your goals.

01:34:28.360 | And last, but certainly not least,

01:34:30.560 | thank you for your interest in science.

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Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals | Huberman Lab Podcast

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