Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals

welcome to the huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science and

science-based tools for everyday

[Music]

life I'm Andrew huberman and I'm a

professor of neurobiology and

Opthalmology at Stanford school of

medicine today we are talking about goal

setting and achieving goals now we've

done three full episodes about this

topic previously I did a solo episode

about this topic where I described the

Neuroscience of the circuitry in the

brain and body that underlies goal

setting and pursuit I also hosted two

expert guests who have done extensive

research on these topics those guests

were Dr Emily baltis from New York

University and Dr MAA Shankar so today's

episode is going to focus on the key

takeaways from those three previous

episodes as well as incorporate new

information that has been published in

the scientific literature since those

episodes aired so that by the end of

today's episode you will have a potent

tool kit for setting and pursuing goals

we will talk about how to select which

goals to pursue and when we will talk

about how to measure your progress we

will talk about how to initiate and

sustain motivation as you pursue your

goals we are also going to dispel some

prominent myths about goal setting in

Pursuit given that this is a toolkit

episode I will talk about some of the

underlying biological mechanisms for the

protocols that I describe but most of

what I will cover are the protocols

themselves the how to identify a goal

select the best goal for you to pursue

how to initiate goal Pursuit how to

maintain goal Pursuit how to evaluate

progress and how to do the post Hawk

analysis after you achieve a goal or as

the case may be not achieve a goal

although I'm confident that if you

implement even a subset of the protocols

that we cover today that you stand the

greatest possible chance of both setting

the proper goal and achieving that goal

and I can say that both with confidence

Ence and humility because the protocols

I describe were not created by me they

are gleaned from the scientific

peer-reviewed literature and they have

been shown to work before we begin I'd

like to emphasize that this podcast is

separate from my teaching and research

roles at Stanford it is however part of

my desire and effort to bring zero cost

to Consumer information about science

and science related tools to the general

public in keeping with that theme I'd

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about goal setting and pursuit and as I

mentioned a few minutes ago this is a

toolkit episode so I'm not going to talk

too much about the mechanistic

underpinnings of the protocols for goal

setting and pursuit I'm mostly just

going to give you those protocols but

before I do that I want to take just

three minutes I promise just 3 minutes

or less and describe the neural

circuitry involved in goal setting and

pursuit and there are two reasons to do

that first of all the biology of goal

setting and pursuit is absolutely

beautiful it's incredible that we and

many other animals in fact have this

neural circuitry and that it works in

the way that it does but equally

important is that when we have a

mechanistic understanding or framework

for how a protocol or set of protocols

work it makes it much easier to tweak

those protocols and customize them to

our unique needs okay so with that said

the goal setting and pursuit circuitry

essentially consists of four major

stations in the brain although it's

important to point out that each of

those stations has a number of other

connections that are important for the

whole goal setting and pursuit process

but we can distill things down to four

major hubs or stations within the brain

and those are the basil ganglia the

lateral prefrontal cortex and the

orbital frontal cortex so going through

those one by one the amydala is a

structure within the brain you actually

have two of them one on each side of the

brain that is involved in circuits

associated with arousal in driving

levels of alertness it's also involved

in fear you've probably heard that many

times before but also things like

anxiety and actually the amydala can be

involved in what we call positive

veilance experiences not just the bad

stuff like fear and anxiety but also

positive forms of arousal and even

learning the basil ganglia include a lot

of different brain structures but for

sake of today's discussion what you need

to know is that the basil ganglia

includes two major Pathways one is the

so-called go pathway which is the

pathway involved in generating actions

and the other is the so-called no-go

pathway or the pathway involved in

withholding or ceasing action and this

is really important to understand

because with all goals we have to ask

ourselves are we trying to learn how to

do something new or are we trying to

withhold a certain set of actions and of

course any time we learn anything it's a

process of both generating and

withholding certain actions so we've got

the amydala and we have the basil

ganglia which has this go action

initiating and no go action withholding

circuitry within it and then there's the

lateral prefrontal cortex which is

involved in immediate and long-term

planning and this is going to be a key

component of today's discussion because

we aren't going to be talking about

lateral prefrontal cortex per se but we

are going to be talking about time

perception in the context of setting and

achieving our goals because setting and

achieving our goals is all about being

able to orient both in space knowing

where we are and what we're doing but

also in time know where we are in that

road of progress toward achieving our

goal or crossing that finish line and

repeatedly updating those Finish Lines

in many cases and the fourth structure

is the orbital frontal cortex which like

all brain areas tends to be a

multitasker it does a bunch of different

things but for sake of today's

discussion it's important to understand

that the orbital frontal cortex is

involved in evaluation of our current

emotional state and arousal state

as it relates to our goal Pursuit for

instance are we happy because we are

sensing progress or are we unhappy and

feeling frustrated or sad or angry

because we are feeling that we are not

achieving progress or that somehow we

can't get into the sorts of actions that

are going to allow us to eventually

reach our goals okay so I described four

major structures all of which

communicate with each other and of

course a lot of other brain areas and

those four structures were the amydala

the basil ganglia the go and no-o

circuitry the lateral prefrontal cortex

and the orbital frontal cortex and those

represent the core components of the

neural circuitry involved in goal

setting and pursuit now I realize I

didn't time that section so I don't know

whether or not it was 3 minutes or less

but if it was shorter than 3 minutes

great and if it was longer than 3

minutes well I promise to shave a couple

minutes off the end of this episode okay

so now you have the understanding that

we all have the same neural circuitry

for goal setting and pursuit I find that

amazing regardless of whether or not you

want to achieve a fit Fitness goal or an

academic goal or a work goal monetary

goal relationship goal maybe you want to

just get better at relaxing I've been

told I should perhaps pursue that goal

well you're going to use the same neural

circuits for each and any of those I

find that incredible I also find that

very reassuring because what it means is

that if we can focus on the tools and

protocols that are anchored in the

biology of goal setting and pursuit as

we understand them to exist in all

humans and indeed in other animals as

well well then we should have the

greatest possible confidence that we

will in fact achieve our goals so how do

we go about doing that well the first

question you need to ask yourself is

what goal do I want to pursue and the

first protocol for deciding what goal

you want to pursue is actually a quite

simple one in terms of How It's stated

but it's fairly complex for a lot of

people to answer and that is which

specific goal are you going to try and

pursue because guess what folks most

people who trying to achieve many goals

simultaneously fail at all of them this

is what I call the overhaul approach

when people think okay you know in

January 1 or next month or next week or

perhaps even today I'm going to start

exercising I'm going to start meditating

I'm going to learn a language I'm going

to learn to dance I'm going to do all

these different things and that's just

too many goals I think here is an

appropriate place to highlight the word

priority a priority literally means one

thing that you place ahead of all others

these days we hear a lot about

priorities plural but we really should

be thinking about priority and defining

our priority for learning in a given

phase so if you are somebody who wants

to get more physically fit or you want

to learn something cognitively that's

terrific you are allowed to have

multiple goals but I highly recommend

that you first select just one goal of

course you don't let go of other aspects

of your mental health and physical

health that you don't throw your life

away in service to this one goal goal

we've all seen how that goes and it's

not a britty picture but rather that you

continue to engage in healthy ways with

the other aspects of your life that

you're proficient at or mostly

proficient at but that you select one

goal that you're going to try and attain

how you select that one goal of course

it's going to reflect your values your

motivation your resources but it's very

important that you spend some serious

time defining that one priority that one

goal for this initial goal setting and

Pursuit period and in a moment I'll tell

you how long that goal Pursuit period

ought to be but for some people the best

way to define which goal they're going

to pursue is to write out the different

things that they want and then

essentially cross off the various things

that they're willing to put on hold for

the time being and circle the thing that

they're really going to focus on and

only that thing and again this is highly

individual it's going to depend on you

your past your present your future your

resources all of that but having that

one priority is is going to really

increase the probability that you're

going to achieve your goal now we also

know from the scientific literature that

how lofty that goal is will impact

whether or not you are able to achieve

it and I think most people mistakenly

believe that if a goal is easy to

achieve it's more likely that they will

achieve that goal sort of a duh but in

fact the opposite has been shown to be

true if a goal is too easy to achieve it

seems that it doesn't recruit sufficient

amounts of the arousal Network that

involves the amydala but a bunch of

other brain structures as well that get

people into the necessary actions to

continually pursue that goal this

perhaps should not be surprising in

order to learn something we have to

shift our nervous system into states

that are somewhat uncomfortable these

should be safely uncomfortable States

but they should be uncomfortable States

and we're going to talk more about this

as the episode continues but any kind of

successful learning or goal Pursuit is

going to involve errors it's it's going

to involve failures it's going to

involve frustration it's going to

involve anxiety all of those states of

Mind and Body in fact shift the brain

into modes of so-called neuroplasticity

they give it the ability to change and

that should make perfect sense because

if you can complete what you need to do

easily there's absolutely no reason for

the neural circuitry in your brain or

body to shift in any way why would it

rather those states of discomfort

frustration anxiety Etc

represent shifts in neurochemical states

that literally open the opportunity for

neuroplasticity to occur the changes

between neurons that allow those neurons

and their Associated neural circuits to

perform differently in the future when

we learn something so the key here is

twofold first Define the specific

priority goal that you're going to

pursue and set aside all other goal

Pursuits and in doing that it makes

sense to pursue a somewhat loftier goal

than perhaps a more mundane goal or if

you know exactly what goal you're going

to prioritize that you try and Achieve

perhaps more than you think you ought to

be able to achieve within that given

goal and within the goal that you decide

to prioritize you want to set a level of

progress a level of performance that

you're striving to attain that's a bit

above what you actually believe at this

time you can accomplish now in doing so

you are inevitably going to encounter

some frustration and anxiety but

remember the component of the neural

circuitry that we talked about at the

beginning of the episode the orbital

frontal cortex that orbital frontal

cortex is not just part of a neural

circuitry that assesses how we feel in a

given moment as we are trying to pursue

a goal but it also understands context

it has the capacity to for instance see

that you are experiencing anxiety know

that you are frustrated but now that you

understand that anxiety and frustration

that comes with making errors is

actually the Gateway it's a necessary

gateway to achieving neural circuit

changes so-call

neuroplasticity well the orbital frontal

cortex understands that context it

literally can take information about

neuroplasticity it can take information

about frustration which you now have and

it can combine those such that when you

experience that frustration you

experience those errors and you

previously would have wanted to quit now

you know that you are literally making

progress you're literally shifting those

neural circuits in the direction of

improved learning now it's also

important to remind that neuroplasticity

the changes in neural circuits that

allow for improved performance in the

future does not occur instantaneously

that frustration that occurs during our

attempts to learn or to pursue a goal is

the trigger for neuroplasticity the

actual rewiring of neural circuits that

allows for proficient correct

performance occurs during deep sleep and

other forms of deep rest this is

something I've covered extensively in

episodes on neuroplasticity and learning

and if you you'd like to learn more

about neuroplasticity in fact if you'd

like a zeroc cost toolkit that defines

the so-called super protocol for

neuroplasticity and learning that is not

just nested within the context of goal

Pursuit and learning we have that you

can go to hubman lab.com you go to the

menu go scroll down to newsletter and

you can sign up it's completely zero

cost and you'll get that as a brief I

believe it's a two or maybe three page

PDF okay so returning to goal setting

and pursuit first you need to set your

goal you really should take the time

required to Define your priority what

are you going to try and learn and then

you're going to pick a goal that really

feels challenging that feels like it

might even be Out Of Reach because that

will recruit the neural circuits

associated with arousal they're

motivating enough to get you into action

now I want to be very clear I'm not

suggesting that you pick a goal that's

impossible to achieve or that you

believe is impossible to achieve that's

not going to serve you well rather I'm

saying pick a goal that feels just a bit

Out Of Reach and don't obsess too much

about whether or not it's a lot out of

reach or a little bit Out Of Reach pick

something you're excited to pursue that

you would really like to accomplish set

that goal and then just set aside all

other goals still of course maintain or

improve other aspects of your life that

are necessary for daily living for

mental health physical health Etc but

really just focus on one goal I promise

that you will be far more satisfied with

the results if you can truly set a

priority so once you've defined the

specific goal that you are going to

prioritize there are two more things

things that you need to do before you

start to pursue that goal the first one

is that you need to define the specific

verbs the actions that are involved in

pursuing that goal this is absolutely

critical a lot of people will set a sort

of title goal or a goal State they'll

say oh you know I want to be rich or I

want to be smart or they will say I want

to be fit or proficient in a given

language it's really important that you

put additional specificity on your goal

in fact it's important that you put a

lot of specificity on your goal and that

you focus mainly on verbs when defining

that specificity now there are a lot of

reasons for this that have to do both

with increasing the probability that you

will achieve your goal as well as

maintaining motivation as you pursue

that goal so for instance rather than

saying you want to be fit or you want to

be a better Runner or swimmer you would

want to get very specific about the verb

that you're going to engage in order to

achieve that goal now it's somewhat

obvious in the case of running or

swimming I think everyone understands

that if you want to be a better Runner

there is going to be some running

involved if you want to be a better

swimmer there's going to be some

swimming involved of course but

presumably there will be some other

behaviors as well everything from

driving to the pool or lacing up your

shoes I mean there's an essentially near

infinite number of verbs involved in any

type of goal Pursuit so what we are

talking about here is really defining

the goal on a piece of paper and I do

think that's important you should write

this down and I think the process of

selecting your goal that priority as

well as defining the specificity of the

verb action that you're going to pursue

should be done on paper you of course

are going to think but then you should

write it out seeing things on paper and

writing them out by hand with pen or

pencil really has been shown to engage

neural circuitry in a way that is

different than typing with your thumbs

into your phone which by the way is a

new feature of human evolution I do

believe this is the first time in human

evolution that we have written with our

thumbs I don't know I don't have a time

machine I can't go back and check but

I'm willing to place a bet that that

statement is correct so the point is

that writing things out is not only

important it's also the most effective

way to embed knowledge in our nervous

system so I highly recommend that you

write things out on a piece of paper in

your process of goal setting so when we

are talking about generating verb

specificity about your goal it would

look like the following so let's say I

want to to quote unquote get more fit or

learn conversational French or anything

for that matter gardening maybe I want

to build a gazebo in the backyard or a

deck in the backyard the key thing to

answer is what is the major block of

action that's going to be involved in

pursuing that goal so for instance if

you want to get more fit and you're

going to do that primarily through

running and weight training or swimming

and weight training you would want to

get very specific in defining that

priority goal as I'm going to run X

number of miles per week or I'm going to

go to the gym three times per week to

lift weights although I would recommend

getting even more specific than that I

would recommend that you literally write

down I'm going to go to the gym three

times per week for a minimum of 60

minutes where 50 minutes of that are

carrying out hard work okay with of

course rest between sets Etc or I'm

going to attend three classes per week

or perhaps even just one class per week

of learning conversational French plus

I'm going to spend two hours per week of

practicing say word problems or

mathematical problems whatever it is you

want to Define first the priority then

you want to define the verb action that

represents the bulk of effort towards

that priority so running in the case of

the person who wants to get fit by

running weightlifting in the case of the

person that wants to get fit by

weightlifting though of course I highly

recommend people do both resistance

training and uh cardiovascular training

if indeed they want to be truly fit or

in the case of language learning or

learning how to code or gardening or

something of that sort to really Define

the verb actions involved and then to

place specificity in terms of the amount

of time that one is going to try to

achieve each week in pursuit of that

specific priority goal now I realize

that that process itself takes a bit of

time but when you look back on the

100-year plus scientific literature of

what leads to success uccessful goal

setting and pursuit you find over and

over again that those two components

we've been talking about specificity and

measurability are Paramount you just

simply cannot discard those from the

process if you expect yourself to

achieve your goals so whether or not

it's the ABC method or it's the smart

method or the smarter method again all

acronyms coined not by me but by others

previous to this conversation you're

going to find elements of specificity

and measurability showing up again and

again so these are key features of any

protocol that you are going to use in

order to try and set and achieve your

goals and I should mention that setting

specific goals and clearly defining the

verbs that you're are going to engage in

to pursue those goals and defining how

long you are going to try and engage in

those verbs each week to achieve those

goals has significant impact on the

probability of success we're not talking

about a minor effect in fact in the

original episode I did about goal

setting and pursuit I talked about the

so-called recycling study I'm not going

to describe it in a lot of detail right

now but essentially this study looked at

motivating people to recycle more

recyclable products in the workplace and

what they found was that when people

were told what the specific goal was and

what specific actions they needed to

engage in were and how much of a given

batch of refu so say you know after

lunch there's some boxes or some Forks

Etc some napkins how much of that refu

they were going to try to put into the

recycle versus the trash it led to a

greater than doubling of successful

achievement of that goal now that's a

perhaps trivial goal to some of you

although let's face it recycling is

important but that result has been shown

again and again and again for different

domains of goal setting and pursuit so

this thing of setting specificity really

spending time with it on paper setting

specificity of actions of which specific

actions and then setting specificity of

how long you are going to engage in each

of those actions each week greatly

increases the probability that you will

achieve that what previously seemed to

be a all too lofty goal earlier I

mentioned that during the course of

today's episode we were going to dispel

some common myths about goal setting and

pursuit so now I'd like to mention two

popular myths about goal setting and

pursuit the first one is that if we set

a Post-It you know a little Post-it

sticky where you write down what you're

trying to achieve and you put that on

the refrigerator or you put that on your

mirror that it increases the probability

that you are going to stick to your goal

turns out that is not the case and the

reason for that is that your visual

system adapts to whatever is regular in

your environment doesn't matter whether

or not that environment is sparse so it

only has a few things in it or whether

or not it is dense like a forest

anything that shows up regularly in our

visual environment gets canceled out

this is actually a basic feature of the

way your visual system is wired so for

those of you that are taking a sticky

note or a magnet or a sign and putting

it on your mirror and leaving it there

from day to day maybe that says you know

run 60 minutes today or study French 20

minutes or whatever the goal happens to

be if you leave it there day today today

it actually diminishes the likelihood of

progress I know that seems kind of hard

to believe but it's true instead a

better approach is is to continually

write that thing out each day and put up

a new sticky put it in a new place

perhaps on the refrigerator sometimes in

the kitchen maybe on the windshield of

your car although of course remove that

while you're driving Etc if you are

going to incorporate visual reminders in

your goal setting and goal Pursuit

process you want to change those each

and every day this is actually something

that uh perhaps app developers will

start to incorporate because I think the

notifications that come through on

various apps designed to remind us to do

certain things can be helpful but there

too we tend to attenuate to them and we

simply either do not notice them or we

start to swipe them away over time so

visual reminders can be very effective

if you want to use them great you

certainly don't have to but if you're

going to use them you want to update

them every single day otherwise your

visual system and certainly the areas of

your brain that are associated with

assessing novelty and emotionality will

simply start to cancel those away so the

first common myth that we're dispelling

is what I call the poit fallacy the the

idea that if you write something down on

a Post-It and you post it in an area

that you frequent every morning or every

day or every night that you stand a

higher probability of adhering to what

is on that Post-it that is simply not

true you would want to replace it every

day and you would also be wise to move

that Post-it to different locations the

second myth is that if you want to

increase your motivation toward pursuing

a goal and you want to increase the

probability that you will achieve that

goal that you should engage in so-called

accountability meaning that you should

tell people you are going to achieve

that goal now I realize that there are

some prominent examples in pop culture

of people posting something on social

media and saying you know in three years

I'm going to be you know playing in

Wembley Stadium or in two years watch

I'm going to be at the top level of my

game whatever that game happens to be

sure there are examples of that and

those are beautiful and inspiring

examples however the scientific data

tell us that if we inform people around

us that for instance we are going to

write a book or that we're going to

start a podcast or that we are going to

run a marathon or whatever it happens to

be more often than not we get feedback

that is generally positive inform I

think that's good and to be expected

frankly you know if a friend tells us

hey I'm going to write a book or I'm

going to pursue a new fitness goal or

I'm going to learn a language we say

great go for it you can totally do it

you're very likely to succeed go for it

how do you want me to support you as a

there anything I can do to support you

those all are frankly healthy exchanges

and yet the data tell us that the

positive feedback that we get from

others when we announce that we're going

after a goal activate certain reward

systems and motivation systems within

our brain that then quickly dissipate

and then diminish the probability that

we'll engage in the type of behaviors

that actually lead us to achieve that

goal so we have the posit fallacy and we

have the myth of accountability fallacy

within the context of goal Pursuit I of

course am not saying that accountability

is bad to the contrary accountability is

a great thing both to ourselves and to

others it's something that we should all

cultivate throughout life I'm merely

talking about the myth of accountability

in the context of goal Pursuit and I'm

actually being more specific than that

I'm saying don't tell people that you're

going to go out and Achieve something

prior to initiating action toward that

goal because in fact the positive

feedback that we get will diminish the

probability that we will continually

pursue that goal in a way that allows us

to achieve it so you could interpret the

information I just gave you as meaning

that perhaps it's better to tell someone

who doubts us that we are going to

achieve a goal and then of course

they're not going to give us the

positive feedback we're not going to get

all that reward circuitry activated

rather we're going to get the uh

friction circuitry activated of us

wanting to prove ourselves and overcome

the uh let's just say the lack of faith

in our ability to achieve a goal and

indeed that can work there is evidence

that can work but then of course you

have to find someone who doesn't believe

in you you have to get them to tell you

they don't believe in you and that could

have all sorts of delerious

psychological effects that might

undermine the goal Pursuit process and

other things as well so if you are lucky

enough to know somebody who doubts you

go ahead tell them that you want to

pursue your specific priority goal but

more likely than not the best thing to

do is to Simply keep that goal to

yourself you may need to inform a family

member or others of you know where you

will be between the hours of say 8:00

a.m. and 9:00 a.m. if you're going to be

exercising or learning language or

meditating whatever it is during that

period of time but what I'm referring to

here is what I will call the don't tell

the world rule don't tell the world that

you're going to achieve X Y or Z just

simply tell yourself in fact I would

suggest that the more time you can spend

with that one or two or three sheets of

paper where you defined the goal the

specific actions that you're going to

take how you're going to measure

progress which we'll talk about bit more

later the more time that you can spend

with that goal in your mind and on that

paper the higher the probability that

you will achieve that goal that stands

in start contrast to telling everyone

around you that you're going to achieve

a certain goal the so-called

accountability myth or the myth of

accountability within the context of

goal Pursuit would be the more specific

way uh to describe that myth now it

turns out there is some utility to

having one person that is a so-called

accountability buddy if that person is

really just L addressing accountability

they are reminding you to do what you

need to do or they are asking you did

you do what you said you were going to

do but that's a bit more of a tough love

accountability model what the don't tell

the world rule is really about is not

getting the kind of dopamine and other

forms of neurochemical reward that come

from just simply saying that you're

going to pursue a goal because as you'll

soon learn that dopamine and other

molecules too of course are going to be

critically important not just for

initiating the sorts of actions re IR

ired to achieve your goals but for

re-engaging and constantly updating your

strategy to ensure that you reach your

goals it's worth mentioning that the

friction model of achieving your goals

does work I mean I for instance am

somebody that if you know I were to say

to a family member or friend hey I'm

going to achieve a particular goal and

they said no there's no way you can do

it that would recruit a certain set of

neural circuits and uh hormones and

neurochemicals in me that would make me

much more likely to lean into the

required set of efforts to achieve that

goal but there's a danger in approaching

a given goal that way especially if the

goal is something that you already want

to pursue which is that then a lot of

your effort becomes framed in the

context of making someone else wrong as

opposed to achieving the goal and of

course you can do two things in parallel

you can achieve your goal and prove

somebody else wrong but as we've talked

about in various episodes on motivation

and pursuit and the dopamine system and

as we'll talk about a bit more in a few

minutes the there something tremendously

powerful about learning how to derive

pleasure from the effort process itself

that is learning to enjoy the process of

pursuing a goal for sake of that goal

for yourself rather than trying to

pursue a goal simply to prove somebody

else wrong I'll just tell you right now

that intrinsic motivation motivation

that is directly attached to the thing

that you are doing and root to a goal is

the most powerful and sustainable source

of motivation

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goal setting because because really up

until now we've been talking only about

goal setting we haven't yet talked about

goal Pursuit is that you want your goal

to be measurable and when we say

measurable you really have to Define two

things first of all you are going to

have to Define how long you are going to

pursue this goal overall in other words

how long you think it will take before

you achieve your goal and in addition to

that you are going to have to Define how

much time you are going to spend

pursuing that goal each week or each day

now there are an infinite number of time

blocks that one could use to answer

these questions so for instance you

could set an overall yearly goal and you

could break it down into monthly goals

where you spend x amount of time on that

goal each week and x amount of time on

that goal each day and essentially

ladder up from the shortest time frame

to the longest time frame required to

achieve that goal and certainly all of

that is doable but that I believe is

going to be an overwhelming amount of

work and indeed is going to be

counterproductive toward achieving your

goal what I recommend which of course is

gleaned from the scientific literature

at least the consistencies or the center

of mass that is the major findings that

show up again and again in the

scientific literature on goal setting a

Pursuit is that you establish a roughly

12 week period of time to focus on your

specific goal now of course achieving

the entire goal might take longer than

12 weeks but chances are it's not going

to take shorter than 12 weeks although

if it does you could simply close out

that goal Pursuit and then pursue

another goal there's no reason you

couldn't do that but there's nothing

magical about this 12-week period but it

seems to adhere to a number of things in

society and culture in work schedules in

seasonality meaning the holidays and the

shifts in the overall Seasons that works

for most goals and most people so a

12-week cycle or roughly a thre month

cycle sometimes called the quarterly

cycle of goal Pursuit toward your

particular goal I think is a good macro

time to focus on and then within that

12we cycle to Define very clearly how

many hours each week and each day and on

which days you will pursue that goal

okay so it's 12-week cycle to pursue

your goal that goal might be achieved by

the end of that 12 weeks or even prior

it might not be but you said a 12we

cycle or quarterly cycle or if you

prefer to think about it a 3 month cycle

and then you define how many hours per

week you are going to spend pursuing

that goal and then you define how many

hours per day you are going to spend

pursuing that goal and then you define

which days of the week you are going to

pursue that particular goal I think

those three numbers the 12-week

quarterly AKA 3-mth cycle the number of

hours per week and the number of hours

per day and particular days that you're

going to spend working on a goal is

going to be effective for 90% if not

more of different types of goals out

there and as with defining the specific

goal itself I highly recommend that you

write this down with a pen or pencil

there's just oh so much data to support

the fact that writing things down

ideally in complete sentences on a piece

of paper with a pen or pencil serves to

reinforce the goal setting and pursuit

process greatly increasing the

probability that you will achieve those

goals so what you're really defining in

that process are the specific verb

action that you are going to take and

the specific quantifiable amount of time

that you are engaging in those verb

actions in order to achieve your goal

what we haven't discussed yet however is

how to define or quantify the goal

itself now of course in different

Endeavors you're going to have the

opportunity to quantify and Define goal

achievement in different ways so for

instance if you want to be able to run a

sub six-minute mile or a sub five minute

mile

or if you're really impressive a sub

four minute mile well that's a highly

quantifiable goal that you can break

down into a series of training steps or

Milestones meaning that you could

quantify at the beginning of your goal

Pursuit how long it takes you to run a

mile you could then set out to achieve a

faster time within two weeks or three

weeks and then do the appropriate

training to achieve those numbers and

simply keep updating that in order to

eventually reach your quantifiable goal

at 12 weeks again you might not complete

your goal of running a sub five minute

mile or sub six minute mile at the end

of 12 weeks but perhaps if your goal is

to be able to run a sub five minute mile

by the end of the calendar year and

you're initiating this whole goal

Pursuit thing on the first of the year

well then you have 12 months broken into

four 3month cycles and you would

essentially set the quantifiable goal at

the end of the year December 31st

perhaps is when you actually do that run

um where you hopefully would achieve

that sub 6 minute or 5 minute mile or

maybe even 4 minute mile and then you

backtrack from that date and you set

Milestones of goals that you're trying

to achieve that's a highly quantifiable

set of goals because it is literally

distance Over time however in a lot of

Pursuits in fact I would argue in most

Pursuits you don't have that very clear

quantifiable result you might have for

instance the achievement of a doctoral

degree or a bachelor's degree or an AA

degree or a professional degree of some

sort which represents a Finish Line um

you could perhaps even attach a gray

point average or a publication goal to

that but in most Endeavors that aren't

athletic or aren't within the realm of

Finance it becomes much harder to very

clearly Define your goal in purely

quantitative terms so that is the reason

why we spent so much time talking about

the measurability of the specific amount

of time that you're going to engage in

the verb actions that each day which

days each week over the course of these

12we Cycles because ultimately what's

going to allow you to arrive at

successful achievement of your goal

regardless of whether or not that goal

is highly quantifiable X number of

dollars X number of minutes to complete

a mile run or Swim

Etc or it's something that's a bit more

nebulous in terms of quantifiability

like conversational French right there's

conversational French that you can learn

there's also conversational French that

incorporates humor or that incorporates

Good Humor or um perhaps you want to get

better at writing poetry or simply spend

time writing poetry can you quantify the

quality of that poetry well perhaps uh

you know if you could win a particular

prize for poetry but I think for most

Endeavors they are more Loosely defined

in terms of their quantifiability now we

can always attach quantifiability to the

ultimate end goal if we choose so for

instance

I could decide that I'm going to learn

conversational French and I could decide

that the ultimate goal at the end of

this 12we period is to be able to have a

10-minute conversation with somebody who

is fluent in French they're native born

in France and that I'm going to make

zero mistakes that's a pretty lofty goal

but the point being that if you are

picking a goal that is not easily

quantifiable you want to be

exceptionally precise about the amount

of time that you are going to spend in

engaging in the specific verb actions

that are going to allow you to make

progress toward your goal because

ultimately whether or not it's a highly

quantifiable goal or it's a more Loosely

quantifiable goal in terms of the end

goal the process of achieving goals is

always going to be in the form of

actions and actions themselves are

always quantifiable it's number of hours

of dedicated work toward that particular

goal a common example of an end goal

that's very hard to quantify in terms of

the end goal itself is the writing of a

book book for instance now you could set

out to write an 800 page book but most

people agree that the length of the book

should have something more or less to do

with the content and not the other way

around in other words that you don't

just want to add words in order to

achieve a certain number of pages that

said most all experienced writers will

tell you at least two things they'll

tell you first don't wait for

inspiration simply set a period of time

each day that you're going to write and

write X number of words or for x amount

of time each each day or perhaps even

just three days a week but most of the

experienced writers that I've spoken to

write every single day and they write

800 words per day or 2,000 words per day

or 500 words per day whatever they can

do consistently they may do it for time

they may do it for words but they are

writing during that time they are not

waiting for inspiration to land on them

they're not trying to get optimally

caffeinated and perhaps they didn't even

sleep that well the night before in

other words they are dedicated to

engaging in a particular number of hours

of word generating action rather than

trying to focus on getting the number

one best seller at the end after the

book is published of course they can

wish for that number one position on the

bestseller chart But ultimately the

greatest probability of achieving that

goal is going to come from engaging in a

particular number of hours generating a

particular number of words each day so

again the highest probability of

achieving our goals of achieving any

kind of goal is going to be by

understanding the specific verb actions

that we need to engage in and then

quantifying the amount of time that we

engage in those specific word actions

and then simply doing those verbs so up

until now we've been talking about goal

setting and we really haven't talked

about goal Pursuit itself so now I'd

like to talk about what the scientific

literature says is the best protocol for

initiating our goal Pursuit for starting

toward our goal and to do so we have to

address a set of key questions the

questions you have to ask yourself are

do I do I want to pursue this goal

meaning am I highly motivated to pursue

this goal or even mildly motivated to

pursue this goal do I want to do the

things involved to get this thing to

accomplish this thing or am I feeling

resistance do I not want to pursue this

goal or perhaps this is a daytoday shift

that occurs where some days you're

really motivated and other days you are

not now the reason to ask yourself the

set of questions is that the data say

that there are two different strategies

in fact two markedly different

strategies that you'll want to

incorporate depending on whether or not

you're motivated or you are unmotivated

to pursue that particular goal for

whatever reason and of course there's an

entire psychology to motivation and you

could get a therapist or a coach to work

with in order to address that underlying

psychology yes it might ladder back to

Childhood issues it might ladder back to

esteem things none of that can be

covered here in any sort of meaningful

depth because frankly we each have

different circumstances different pasts

different psychologies there are however

some universals that we can all apply in

order to help us get started toward our

goal and this is nested in this whole

concept of whether or not we should

visualize the end and successful

completion of our goal so keep the end

in mind as we start off toward a goal or

whether or not we should incorporate a

different strategy here's how it goes so

if you ask

yourself do I want to achieve this goal

and I would hope the answer is yes

because the overall goal should be

something that you want to pursue it

should be something that you are deeply

Desiring to accomplish then you have to

ask yourself next do I want to do the

things required to achieve that goal now

maybe you don't want to do all of them

you only want to do some of them but

given that you've now carefully

Quantified which specific actions you're

going to be doing on which days and for

how many hours and how many weeks for

these 12we blocks you could simply ask

yourself you do I want to do this thing

today and if the answer is yes well then

it turns out that spending just one to

three maybe five minutes but even just

one minute visualizing the outcome the

positive outcome of course and the

feeling state that you may have because

of course you don't know you don't have

a uh time machine you can't feel

yourself into the future but you can

make a good guess as to how you might

feel in the future if you accomplish

that goal spending one to three maybe

five minutes in a sort of meditation

although sort of a visualiz a is perhaps

the better way to describe it thinking

about that feeling State and the outcome

and some of the things that are going to

be associated with that outcome turns

out to be a great practice to engage in

just prior to initiating that day's work

toward that goal however if you arrive

to your practice meaning you show up to

the piano to learn piano or you're

sitting down to the table or maybe you

haven't even gotten enough motivation to

go toward the piano or toward your

notebook or computer or whatever

landscape it is that you are going to be

uh pursuing your goal with in and you

are having quote unquote a hard time

getting motivated toward that goal well

then it turns out what the scientific

literature tells us is that visualizing

the end keeping the end in mind positive

visualization of all the good things

that you'll experience when you achieve

that goal is not going to be an

effective strategy to motivate you

rather if you are not feeling motivated

then what the scientific literature

tells us is that you actually want to

spend one to three maybe 5 minutes

visualizing failure visualizing how

terrible you will feel if you do not

achieve your goal visualizing severe

consequences perhaps mostly of the sort

like telling yourself gosh I set a goal

I set a 12we block I quantify it I know

I want to do this here I have the time

to do it and I'm simply just not doing

it and in that case you would think okay

well you should kind of build yourself

up maybe call a friend text a friend get

some encouragement no the scientific

literat tells us that when we are not

motivated and it is a goal that we

actually want to pursue and of course

here I'm talking about adaptive goal

Pursuit meaning things that are going to

enrich your mental health physical

health Etc not things that are going to

be detrimental to us well then if you're

not feeling motivated you want to spend

one to three perhaps five minutes

meditating concentrating on what it's

going to feel like to fail and the fact

that you are not succeeding but indeed

that you are failing and I I know this

sounds like rather harsh advice that

this protocol uh sounds like kind of a

self- flatulating protocol it's not

intended to be self flatulation in fact

it should not be self flatulation but

rather what you want to do when you are

not motivated is to think about failure

and what that failure at the end of 12

weeks will feel like and the reason for

that is that the data tell us that when

we visualize positive outcomes yes it

deploys certain neurochemicals in our

brain and body that make us feel good

although frankly if you've heard that

imagining something creates the same

neurochemical and neuros circuit states

in the brain as actually experiencing

that thing that is simply not true

that's a myth we've talked about this in

previous episodes that's simply not true

but if you are having a hard time

getting motivated toward a goal that you

actually want to achieve then spending

that short amount of time thinking about

how lousy you'll feel when you don't

achieve it recruits certain elements of

your so-called autonomic nervous system

it creates shifts in the release of

things like epinephrine norepinephrine

even release of the so-called reward

molecule dopamine which in fact is not

the molecule of reward it is the

molecule of motivation and it's

associated with pain It's associated

with negative thoughts and of course

it's associated with positive thoughts

and outcomes but basically what I'm

saying is if you're highly motivated to

do something you're ready to go spend

one to three minutes maybe five

visualizing the positive outcomes that

you're going to EXP experience when you

ultimately finish out that 12 we cycle

as a consequence of all the great work

that you've done if however you are not

motivated you're feeling like I don't

want to do this thing I'm

procrastinating I'm just not feeling

like doing it yes I want to achieve the

goal but I just don't feel like doing it

well then your task is to take one to

three maybe five minutes and think about

how much more lousy you will feel when

you do not achieve that goal at the end

of 12 weeks and that the data tell us

recruit certain elements of your nervous

system your hormonal system that are

more successful in getting you into

action into starting toward your goal

than were you to try and build yourself

up towards all that positivity so yes

indeed there is a place for negative

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in terms of tools or protocols to both

initiate and to sustain effort during

your goal Pursuit process we need to

think about the specific time domain or

the amount of time that we're trying to

do that within so for instance there are

tools that you can use to stay motivated

within the 1hour learning block that you

happen to be doing on Monday morning for

instance and there are other tools and

protocols that you can incorporate

towards staying motivated from one day

to the next or from one week to the next

but I think the most useful of those

tools are going to be the tools that you

incorporate to stay motivated within a

given training block or practice block

toward your goal because what I just

described a few minutes ago was the

process of how to initiate your daily

work right you ask yourself that

question am I motivated the answer could

be yes could be no if you really want to

get you know uh quantitative about it

you could give yourself a 1 to 10 score

10 being the most motivated frankly I'm

not that quantitative about that sort of

thing I'm more subjective about it but I

know some of you are real um number

junkies and you really like to quantify

everything keep a journal and look back

see how that relates to your sleep you

know some people are of that orientation

other people like myself are simply

going to you know sit down and say okay

it's time it's time to train or it's

time to practice whatever the thing may

be how motivated am I am I a I don't

know like a six out of 10 or a seven out

of 10 okay I'm ready to go I'm going to

visualize the end in mind in a positive

way or if I'm a two out of 10 or

anything less than a four out of 10 I'm

thinking I'm not that motivated so then

I'm going to basically scare myself into

doing the work that day so that's how

you initiate the work each day and I

just gave you a couple of quick examples

of how you could quantify that took me

about 30 seconds to do that example out

loud take you about 30 seconds to do but

again if you want to quantify it in more

detail and write it down and relate it

to other things be my guest so now you

already have a science based protocol

for how to get started each day toward

your goal now what about within the one

or twoh hour block or perhaps 90-minute

block that you're going to use to pursue

your goal and here it's very important

that you have a number of tools that

will allow you to both set the optimal

amount of focus so that you're really

concentrating on pursuing that goal

you're concentrated on the verb actions

that will deliver you to that goal is

perhaps the best way to state that and

that you can constantly update or renew

your level of focus should it start to

dissipate now I want to be clear I've

done entire episodes about focus and how

to increase focus with behavioral tools

everything related to meditation which

indeed can increase your ability to

focus I've talked about nutritional

tools supplementation tools prescription

drug related tools there's a lot of

information on that you can simply go to

hubman lab.com put focus into the search

function and it will take you to not

only those episodes and the toolkit for

that but the specific timestamps for

that but what we are going to talk about

now is not about how to increase Focus

per se rather it's about how to use

focus in particular visual focus in

order to increase your or maintain your

level of motivation within a given

learning block within a given batch of

time on a given day where you are

pursuing your goal you're engaging in

that practice which of course will

include frustration anxiety it has to if

you're going to get any better and how

to set that motivation and keep that

motivation throughout that hour or 90

minutes or two hours is critical so how

do you do that well it turns out it's

fairly straightforward so it's anchored

in the fact that your cognitive Focus

your ability to maintain a narrow cone

of attention as well as your bodily

state of Readiness and your mental state

of Readiness to perform work is

powerfully anchored to your visual

system as many of you have heard me say

before your eyes are actually two pieces

of brain I mean to be more specific the

neural retinas that line the back of

your eyes like py crust are literally

two pieces of your central nervous

system of your brain that were extruded

from the cranial Vault during

development so yes these two bits and

for those listening I'm just pointing to

my eyes your eyes are two pieces of

brain outside of your skull and your

eyes can view things broadly so so you

can uh so-called soften your gaze and

view the entire Horizon you can see the

periphery of the room by relaxing your

eyes you can actually do this now in

fact when you drive most of the time

you're doing this you're not looking at

a particular focal point you're viewing

things in so-call panoramic vision and

of course you can draw your visual Focus

to a particular location what we call a

virgin eye movement that is you're

bringing your eyes in toward the center

toward your nose a little bit and you're

focusing them in a more narrow cone of

visual attention this is something you

can do almost imperceptibly to others

although if we were to measure your eye

movements what we would see is that your

eyes are actually moving inward a little

bit toward your nose when you do this

virgin eye movement and narrowing that

cone of visual attention and then

they're you relaxing into a state of um

being slightly further out from your

nose not the eyes themselves of course

they can't move within the sockets but

you know the pupils of your eyes are

moving out a bit from your nose and

you're in so-called panoramic Vision so

essentially what I'm saying is that you

can narrow or broaden your visual

attention and that's something that can

take a little bit of practice I highly

recommend that you try this and that you

practice it a little bit but indeed

everyone has the neural Machinery to do

this from birth this is not something

that requires neuroplasticity to be able

to do you can do this right now you can

narrow your visual attention you can

expand or relax your visual attention

and thereby narrow or relax your visual

field from being smaller or larger there

are data that show that when we narrow

our visual attention and we hold that

narrow visual tension on a spot several

things happen first of all there's

recruitment of circuitry within the

so-called brain stem that then deploys

neurochemicals that increase our level

of alertness and arousal that's right

when you focus your visual attension on

a more narrow location or one location

in front of you and you hold that

Focus you are causing the release of

neurochemicals that increase your

overall level of alertness in the brain

brain and body conversely when you relax

your visual Focus so-called panoramic

Vision you are turning off that

recruitment you're not actively

recruiting molecules for relaxation

within the brain but you are turning off

this release of the neurochemicals

associated with increasing focus and

arousal so why am I talking about this

in the context of goal Pursuit well if

you are feeling lack of motivation at

any point within a given training block

or bism calling it this could be at the

beginning this could be 5 minutes in

this could be half an hour in you would

be wise to pick a visual Target ideally

a visual Target that is within the

general range of the work that you're

trying to perform in other words if

you're doing desk work with a piece of

paper you would draw that visual Target

on a piece of paper approximately the

same distance that you were reading or

that you were looking at music um you

can tell how little uh playing of piano

I've done in my life but the point being

that you set the visual Target at a

approximately the same distance that you

would be performing your particular work

so if you're doing a sport the distance

might be some many meters off in the

distance whereas if you're doing desk

work of some kind then it might be much

closer and then you focus your eyes on

that location and you actively work to

maintain that Focus just like I'm doing

now into the camera for a given period

of time and I recommend that you set a

timer and that you of course allow

yourself to Blink like I just did there

and that you try and Achieve at least 30

seconds but even better would be 60

seconds even better would be 90 seconds

of that Focus virgin eye movement during

which several things happen including

the deployment of those neurochemicals

from the brain stem that I talked about

before which are going to increase your

level of autonomic arousal and also

increase your level of focus further and

there I'm not just talking about visual

Focus I'm talking about cognitive focus

it has also been shown that when we

focus on a particular point in the way

that I'm describing here that it

increases our so-called systolic blood

pressure as many of you know blood

pressure is always described to us as a

given number over another number and the

first number is the so-called systo or

systolic pressure which is the amount of

pressure your vascular system when the

heart beats as the fluid of your blood

is pumping through the arteries veins

and capillaries of your system and then

the bottom number is the amount of

pressure within those arteries veins and

capillar iies in between heartbeat so

it's the systolic over the diastolic and

what we know is that visual focus and

here I'm still holding mine now on the

camera so for those of you listening I

probably blinked once or twice but I'm

really trying hard to maintain my focus

directly within the camera this visual

Focus increases the systolic blood

pressure it increases the deployment of

those neurochemicals from the brain stem

and we know it also can recruit The

Liberation of molecules such as dopamine

and some Associated molecules elsewhere

in the brain that together act in a

synergistic way to increase our level of

focus and motivation this is based again

on work describing the neural circuitry

of what I'm describing here and work

from Emily bis's lab which has shown

that if people focus on a Target on a

goal line literally a physical location

within their environment and then they

initiate some work it could be physical

work or cognitive work not only do they

experience significantly decreased

levels of perceived effort while

engaging in that work but they also

complete that work in a significantly

reduced amount of time meaning that

within a given training bout or training

block you are able to get significantly

more work done and you perceive that as

less effortful or requiring less effort

than had you not done this visual Focus

now I've been doing this for quite some

time now into the camera this is

actually a practice that I've been doing

for well over a decade and it's actually

a practice that I use when I podcast or

when I post on social media it's part of

the reason why I'm accused of being a

non- blinker quite often but I want to

remind people that you are allowed to

Blink don't let your eyes dry out it's

perfectly fine to Blink it's not going

to inhibit the effectiveness of this

protocol but I don't think I can really

overstate how valuable this sort of

protocol is first of all it's completely

behavioral it costs nothing it's

completely safe as long as you remember

to Blink and it allows you to increase

your level of focus your level of

motivation and the sustainability of

your focus and motivation while in goal

Pursuit so it's a quite valuable

protocol to incorporate and it's

something that you can do once for 30

seconds and then lean into whatever it

is your writing process your running

process it's something that you could do

repeatedly throughout that learning bout

and it's something that you can practice

offline a little bit away from that

training bout as a means to sort of

learn and get familiar with so that then

you can incorporate it very quickly and

repeatedly and with much more

Effectiveness during these different

learning doubts again it's a highly

valuable tool that's ground grounded in

neural circuitry grounded in

neurochemistry and that Emily bis's lab

has shown in numerous domains physical

Pursuits cognitive Pursuits can really

help people achieve their goals and to

achieve them more easily or at least

with less perceived effort and more

quickly now we can get a bit more

granular about the incorporation of this

tool this protocol but before we do we

should acknowledge that all of the

things that lend themselves to improved

cognitive focus and physical ability

still hold true right you still need to

get good sleep as many nights of your

life as you possibly can you still need

to eat properly you still need to try

and limit your stress we have podcast

episodes related to all of those topics

we have toolkits available at zero cost

related to all of those topics I'm not

saying that this visual Focus or visual

Target Training is the only tool that

you should incorporate it's a tool that

you want to superimpose on the

foundation of all the things that bring

you to your practice with the best

possible cognition the best possible

physical Readiness and that when added

to that Foundation of excellent sleep

excellent nutrition social connection

sunlight in the morning Etc is going to

increase the probability that you're

going to make those learning bouts as

effective as possible now some of you

may be thinking elevating your blood

pressure is bad why would I want to

elevate my blood pressure ah well it

turns out that these increases in

systolic blood pressure achieved with

this visual Target Training or focusing

on a Finish Line for some period of time

are transient and they are perfect ly

safe so essentially what it does is it

boosts or bolsters the activity of the

autonomic nervous system it kickstarts

the deployment of those chemicals and

those neural circuits that then allow

you to be motivated for some period of

time but then that is a transient

increase in autonomic rousel which is

why perhaps every 20 minutes or perhaps

on the hour you might stop do a 30

second or 60-second visual Target

Training and then lean back into your

process of however you it is that you

are pursuing your goal I should also

mention that if your eyes are getting

tired doing whatever goal Pursuit you

happen to be engaged in it's also a good

idea to go into that panoramic Vision

mode the easiest way to do that is to go

outside or to be outside and to view a

horizon and not look at any one

particular point on the horizon but if

you're indoors as I am now you can also

just relax your eyes you know you know

blinking a few times and getting rid of

that virgin's eye movement and try and

visualize the corners of the room or the

sides of the room rather the floor and

the ceiling all at once that's a good

way to expl expl how to so-call relax

your eyes and take you out of that

virgin's eye movement and I say this

because a lot of people will feel when

they're pursuing their goal that it's

kind of fatiguing so you have to

remember to Breathe Right you still want

to breathe as you're pursuing your goal

and you certainly want to be visually

focused on your goal so you're

cognitively focused on your goal and

you're motivated but that from time to

time you also relax take a moment shake

things off look into your panoramic

Vision mode and then go back to your

mode of goal Pursuit now there are a few

other protocols that might seem Oho

simple but frankly are oh so effective

that I'd be remiss if I didn't mention

them the first of those is actually

something that I'm borrowing from Tim

Ferris who did a post on Instagram which

we will link to which I think is just

spectacular which is 30 things that he

wished he had known when he was 20 and

while the internet is choca block full

of such lists that particular list is

truly impressive those are things that I

too wish I had known when I was 20 but

also when I was 30 and 40 and so on but

one particular thing on that list of 30

is particularly relevant now which is

that the best productivity app is

already on your phone which is to put

your phone into airplane mode or more

ideally and this is the one that I try

my best to incorporate to Simply turn

the phone off and remove it from my

workouts or my attempts to learn

language or my attempts to learn

anything I realize that some people need

to keep their phone with them for

reasons related to communicating with

family or uh co-workers Etc that's fine

if you need your phone but to the extent

that you can remove yourself from

distractions that's certainly going to

en enhance your ability to focus on what

you need to focus on in pursuing your

goals that sort of stands without saying

it's kind of a duh and yet I think a lot

of people are searching far and wide for

the productivity app for the secret hack

for the thing that's going to allow them

to be Pro productive and oftentimes

there are DOs actions that we can take

in order to become more productive we're

talking about some of those today we've

talked about those in other episodes but

there are of course important don't so

don't have your phone facing up with

Wi-Fi and Celler service on if you want

to be productive at something that

doesn't evolve your phone ideally you'll

turn it over you'll turn it off you'll

get rid of it you'll put it in the Next

Room if you're like me you'll sometimes

lock it in the car I think the most

extreme that I've ever gone to ensure

that I didn't um engage with my phone

during goal Pursuit was during the early

days of having my laboratory and I was

writing multiple grants in parallel

which is an immense amount of work I

would walk into the lab labatory in the

morning and I would hand a student or

postto my phone and I'd say don't give

this back to me until 5:00 p.m. and if I

ask for it back if I even ask for it

once everyone in the lab gets

$500 there were quite a few people in my

lab and so it's a significant cost to

that and I must tell you there were

numerous times throughout the day when I

impulsively just thought okay I'm going

need my phone damn it I don't want to

have to do it and I also wanted to

demonstrate to them that I could create

an incentive system whereby I could

basically Scruff myself into getting the

work done and indeed um much to their

dismay I never once had to pay them out

although when we got the grants and

indeed even when we didn't get the

grants I did take them all to dinner now

another key protocol for maintaining

motivation while pursuing your goals

stems from our understanding of the

dopamine reward and motivation Pathways

topics for which I have done multiple

indeed three podcast episodes previously

and we can provide a link to all three

of those as well as the toolkit that

we've published and that's available to

you at zero cost on our website about

how to regulate dopamine both Baseline

dopamine stores and peaks in dopamine

there's a lot there to be understood and

Incorporated because it has to do with

various things not just in the realm of

goal Pursuit but also feelings of

well-being um staving off depression

things of that sort the dopamine system

is linked to oh so many important

aspects of Life far too many than we

could discuss right now and we have

those previous episodes in which we do

discuss all of that material nonetheless

it is important to understand that

dopamine is the molecule of motivation

and to some extent reward but really

motivation and that if you want to

maintain consistent motivation during

say your individual bouts of work toward

your goals and from one bout to the next

so not just within a session but from

day to day across sessions and from week

to week and indeed from 12we cycle to

12we cycle if that's required and from

one goal that you set to the next goal

that you define and decide to pursue you

want to understand this particular

feature of dopamine which is that yes

dopamine and its release is highly

valuable toward getting more motivated

and feeling more motivated but that it

has certain properties related to things

like dopamine reward prediction error

baselines of dopamine

Etc that make it the case that if you

reward yourself every time you reach a

milestone say you finish out an hour or

two hours of work so you treat yourself

to something you reward yourself that

you are going to diminish both the

potency of that reward and you are going

to reduce your motivation over time that

might be surprising to you but if you

were to watch those episodes it would

all become clear as to why that is the

case it is also true that if you were to

only reward yourself when you accomplish

your goal or perhaps more commonly if

you look at the accomplishment of your

goal as the only reward in the whole

process of goal Pursuit and achievement

that is going to undermine your

probability of success as well rather

the best way to incorporate the

mechanics of the dopamine system such

that you can achieve not just immediate

motivation but ongoing motivation is to

incorporate what is referred to as

random intermittent reinforcement which

is what the casinos use to keep people

playing it simply

means randomly reward yourself and

randomly don't reward yourself for

successful completion of Milestones

those Milestones could be within a bout

of effort or it could be across bouts of

effort so let's say you set out at the

beginning on your piece of paper to

basically let's say run or practice at

some cognitive Endeavor four hours total

per week and you're going to do that

Monday Wednesday Friday and Saturday

should you reward yourself at the end of

each session should you reward yourself

at the end of each week the answer is it

depends and it should depend in a random

intermittent way so the simplest way to

do this is whenever you complete a

milestone could be at the end of a day

you did your one hour whatever it was

that you designated you were going to do

on that particular day should you reward

yourself cognitively or with some

physical thing I don't know what that

physical thing might be but it I don't

know could be a meal could be a movie

could be something that you enjoy well

the answer is you should flip a coin and

if it's heads yes reward yourself and if

it's Tails don't it's that simple it is

that simple it should be 50/50

probability and it's random as to

whether or not you reward yourself now

with physical rewards like monetary

Rewards or food rewards or a movie or

participating in something else that you

enjoy it's a bit easier to define the

cognitive rewarding of One's Own efforts

is something that people really struggle

to comprehend but what I'm not referring

to when I say cognitive rewards is I'm

not referring to saying yes I'm the best

and really trying to shower yourself

with internal praise and tell yourself

that you're the greatest thing that ever

happened simply because you performed

this learning bout what I'm simply

referring to is the kind of

internal dopamine reward that comes from

telling yourself like yes I'm making

progress I'm making progress I'm on the

path I'm able to set a goal and achieve

a goal which might seem like a healthy

thing to do psychologically and in fact

it is it's great I think it's really

important that people be able to

self-reward themselves especially

self-reward for verbs that put them in a

more adaptive stance in life that

enhance their mental health physical

health and performance and that of

course also includes relationships we're

not just talking about solitary Pursuits

here we're talking about Pursuits that

bring us into the world that allow us to

lean into life with more Vigor and with

more Effectiveness not just to help

ourselves but to help others so what I'm

referring to is completing something and

internally patting yourself on the back

for having completed that thing thing

that is a good thing to do but if you

want to maintain ongoing motivation

you're not going to do that every time

you're not going to punish yourself but

rather you finish out a bout of learning

you flip the coin let's say it lands

tails on that day you simply shift into

the next thing you need to do that day

now it is not easy to suppress thoughts

we know this it's very hard to suppress

negative thoughts but it's still hard to

suppress positive thoughts so internally

if you're glowing from the fact that you

performed well don't try and suppress

that that's okay but if you flip a Tails

then you don't want to actively engage

in a self-reward process however if you

flip the coin and it's heads well then

you should absolutely engage in a

self-reward process and that process

should consist of 30 to 60 seconds of

closing your eyes well you don't have to

it works better if you close your eyes

and simply thinking about the fact that

yes you can set a goal you can engage in

the specific set of questions do I want

to do this practice today do I not want

to do this practice today and then the

specific set of actions maybe they

involve visual focus and the other tools

we talked about turning off of your

phone Etc and you are somebody who can

get things done you are somebody that is

moving forward toward your particular

goal and so you just sort of create a

little bit of a positive cognitive loop

around that ability that you are in fact

building up and that's something that

people often Overlook which is that not

only is moving toward a goal great

because it establishes more robustness

in the neural circuits that allow us to

perform that thing right I mean after

all that's what learning is eventually

you don't achieve the same frustration

and errors that you do when trying to

perform that thing eventually you learn

how to play the piano you learn how to

speak conversational French you run that

sub six-minute mile but also the neural

circuits associated with self-generated

motivation and with the tools that we're

talking about themselves are subject to

neuroplasticity so those become more

robust and that's fantastic because when

you eventually reach one goal I would

hope that you would then update and set

out to achieve another goal and you will

find that over time you will be more

effective in achieving other goals by

virtue of the work that you did in

pursuing a previous goal because

ultimately it's really about defining

goals and then learning how to quantify

the actions required and then engaging

in those actions so there's the specific

circuits involved in generating those

actions which are very goal specific and

then there are the circuits which

circuits are we talking about we're

talking about that amydala the lateral

prefrontal cortex the orbital frontal

cortex and the basil ganglia we talked

about earlier that have been built up

that have been reinforced because as I

mentioned there is one universal circuit

for goal Pursuit and achievement So

Random intermittent reinforcement is the

key and while I spent a good amount of

time talking about self-generated

cognitive reinforcement this also

applies to any kind of physical rewards

the movie that you're going to reward

yourself with the ice cream cone the

whatever that you're going to reward

yourself with perhaps it's monetary

perhaps it's food perhaps it's social

random intermittent rewards are the ones

that are going to keep you motivated and

are going to best increase the

probability of success not just within a

given bout of learning not just dayto

day not just week to week not just

quarter to quarter but across the

lifetime an important protocol to

incorporate in your goal Pursuits is one

that I learned from Dr Maya Shankar when

she was a guest on the huban Lab podcast

and she talked about the so-called

middle problem the middle problem is the

fact that people tend to have a lot of

motivation at the outset of pursuing a

goal although you now know that

sometimes or some people don't have a

lot of motivation when pursuing their

goal at the start so they need to think

about failures and how terrible

everything will be and then they will

certainly have motivation it's going to

be a fear-based motivation but in

general people tend to have more

motivation at the start of pursuing a

goal and at the end when they get close

to or they start start to perceive the

finish line but that most people

experience the so-called middle problem

where in the middle of a learning bout

or in the middle of the week or in the

middle of a 12-week cycle they are less

motivated and this has actually been

Quantified in numerous studies and there

are several ways to overcome the middle

problem the simplest one is to

acknowledge it to recognize that it's

coming and so when it does come and

you're experiencing lower levels of

motivation perhaps

even increased failure rates and you're

not performing as well you're getting

frustrated to know that that's a natural

process that everybody experiences and

just knowing that can sometimes allow

people to move through that to the place

where then they can sense the end of the

learning bout or they can sense that

they're making some progress the finish

line is there and then they get that

increase in motivation again however

sometimes the middle problem is such a

problem that people need some tools to

move through it and and the best way to

move through the middle problem or in

fact to eliminate it is actually to make

the middle of a learning bout its own

separate thing that you acknowledge the

presence of and that you break up into

three separate bouts so here we're

talking about carving up the 1 hour

learning bout or the two-hour learning

bout into an initial phase where you

either have naturally occurring

motivation or you use fear-based

visualization to increase your

motivation you lean into that and then

let's assume it's a 1H hour learning

bout and then at about the 25 minute

Mark you start to experience lower

levels of focus perhaps then you use the

visual Target protocol but then you go

back into your bout of learning and

you're not feeling very motivated it's

hard your mind is drifting you want to

pick up your phone you want to do other

things you find yourself doing other

things that's the period of time to take

Say the 25 minute to 45 minute period

within the session and divide it into

perhaps three or even four smaller

chunks of time and you perhaps have

heard of chunking before chunking is

simply breaking something down into

smaller chunks that are more achievable

that's simply what we're talking about

here but really chunking up that middle

section of a learning bout can be very

effective at essentially eliminating the

middle problem now for those of you that

are going to be really nitpicky you'll

say wait you take that 20 minutes from

the 25 minute Mark to the 45 minute Mark

within your hour learning bout and you

divide it up into four little uh chunks

and in those two middle chunks I'm going

to feel the middle problem for those two

middle chunks ah well that's not not

actually the way it pans out fortunately

when you break things down into small

enough chunks you eliminate the middle

problem and you experience sustained

motivation now the extreme

interpretation of that would have you

measuring every minute or even every

second of a learning bout and having

consistent motivation throughout that

because for instance if you can

concentrate for 10 seconds why wouldn't

you simply be able to just mark off

10-second increments well at some point

the marking off or the monitoring of

those increments is going to be

distracting to toward the thing that you

actually want to do so the simple thing

to do is to acknowledge the middle

problem right the fact that we have more

motivation at the start and at the end

of our goal Pursuit sessions than we do

within the middle and then to Simply

chunk that middle section into three

maybe four smaller chunks and if you

need to incorporate things like the

visual Target protocol one or three or

perhaps even eight times within that

middle section so be it it's going to

help you move through with better focus

and better motivation and what I just

described can of course be applied to

the longer bouts of effort that don't

occur just during one learning bout but

perhaps across the week so for instance

if you are doing four days a week of

language learning or Fitness training so

maybe it's a Monday Wednesday Friday

Saturday type of Schedule H you may

notice that in the middle of the week

the Wednesday training session tends to

be the one that you're less motivated to

do for whatever reason there could be

any reason at all for which the

motivation is lower in the middle of the

week it doesn't matter well in that case

you would want to First acknowledge the

presence of the middle problem so you

would want to acknowledge that that

Wednesday training bout is prone to the

middle problem because it is indeed the

middle problem it's in the middle of the

Monday and the Friday training bouts so

then you would want to approach it with

the understanding that it's going to be

there and that you are going to need

tools and protocols that will allow you

to overcome it by for instance taking

that one or two hour session on

Wednesdays and putting a bit more time

toward a visual Target protocol at the

beginning to increase your focus a bit

more more visualizing failure if you are

feeling amotivated that means not

motivated in nerd speak amotivated

toward doing that Wednesday session and

you would want to break up that

Wednesday session into smaller chunks so

instead of looking at that 2hour session

you might break it up into a series of

15 minute smaller learning bouts done

consecutively back toback and then in

doing so you have essentially taken that

Wednesday session and I'll bet that it

becomes at least among your most

motivated sessions so the middle problem

exists it's important to acknowledge and

there are tools to overcome the middle

problem on any time scale you simply

have to Chunk Up the middle and approach

things with deliberate increased Vigor

just as you would you know if you're

running and there's always a tough Hill

you have to really or gear up for

attacking that hill and then to do that

repeatedly in those smaller chunks until

you've completed that session so today

I've been talking about how to approach

goal setting and pursuit at and in

around the specific times that one is

engaged in goal setting and pursuit the

writing down of goals defining of goals

the timing and then the actual training

sessions or the practice sessions toward

achieving that goal what I haven't

talked about is how to show up to all of

that in the best possible State of Mind

and Body in order to achieve the best

possible results and of course there are

numerous things that we need to do in

order to quote unquote show up at our

best where we would stand the best

possibility of Performing our best and

learning the best in those learning

bouts things like getting adequate sleep

getting sunlight in our eyes early in

the day adequate and proper nutrition

social connection and so on we talked

about all of that on previous podcast

episodes so I'm not going to talk about

those again now but it is important to

recognize that the backdrop of Our Lives

how well we've slept what's going on in

our personal lives will all Impact

things like motivation and frankly our

ability to even identify what's

important because you know if we're

dealing with a Health crisis or someone

close to us is dealing with a Health

crisis we tend to have our attention

diverted toward that but I do want to

acknowledge all of that because it is

critically important in defining how

you're going to show up to these

Endeavors and for that matter all

Endeavors now with that said there are a

few things that you can do in order to

try and optimize your ability to focus

and your level of motivation during your

goal Pursuits and there are some really

interesting data and protocols that I

haven't talked so much about on this

podcast ever that are relevant to

today's discussion and this relates to

our so-called circadian rhythms in

attention we have robust rhythms in our

ability to focus and our level of

motivation that vary across the 24-hour

AKA circadian cycle with a regular

rhythmicity that is independent of how

badly we want a goal or how afraid we

are of failure right all the stuff about

motivation and fear of failure and

desire Etc all of that is still true but

we all have a naturally occurring rhythm

of rise and fall and return to rise and

fall of our levels of attention and

motivation and this is something that's

been described beautifully in the

scientific literature in fact I'll

provide a link to what I consider a

really nice review on this topic this is

a review that was published by Pablo

Valdes in the Yale Journal biology and

Medicine in 2019 entitled circadian

rhythms in attention and there's a lot

of information within this review but we

can distill out of a couple of useful

gems from it so if you are somebody who

is embarking on the pursuit of a goal

which is particularly hard that's going

to require a really high level of

motivation and focus know that there are

three times during the day when you

stand to have the greatest level of

focus and attention and of course this

will vary depending on when you went to

sleep at night and when you wake up

there's natural variation in circadian

rhythms but it's worth knowing that most

people find that their level of

attention and motivation is going to be

highest 30 minutes 3 hours and 11 hours

after waking up okay so 30 minutes 3

hours and 11 hours after waking up and

this relates to a number of important

biological principles related to

circadian shifts in body temperature

which are also related to circadian

shifts that means changes around the

24-hour cycle in the release of

particular neurochemicals so the amount

of dopamine available to be released by

any sort of goal pursuit or reward the

amount of Serotonin available lots of

neurochemistry in there lots of neural

circuitry but these heighten levels of

focus and motivation that just occur

naturally regardless of what goal one is

trying to pursue in fact regardless of

whether or not you're trying to pursue

any goal 30 minutes 3 hours and 11 hours

after waking your focus and motivation

are going to be their greatest relative

to other times in that 24-hour cycle now

as I tell you this I can imagine that

some of you are thinking great I'm going

to schedule one bout of goal Pursuits 3

hours after waking and another one 11

hours after waking great if you can do

that and that fits with your work and

other demands of Life your relationships

Etc terrific however I don't want this

30 minute 3-hour and 11-hour protocol to

be considered a rule and here's why most

people don't have a tremendous degree of

control over their schedule things like

work and family and other demands

constrain them in terms of when they can

get the work in and while I do think

it's extremely valuable to schedule the

specific time or roughly the specific

time even though know that's an oxymoron

meaning a period of time during the day

say before 9:00 a.m. or between 9:00 and

noon that you are going to carry out

your goal Pursuit Endeavors I've talked

about this in previous podcasts some

people do very well by scheduling an

exact time from noon to 2 I'm writing

other people like myself do a little

better if I set a constraint but it's a

little bit broader such as I'm going to

exercise before 9 a.m. that could be

anytime before 9:00 a.m. or I'm going to

engage in language learning some time

between say 6:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. as

opposed to setting a specific time

that's just what works best for me

people vary in terms of whether or not

they respond best to setting a specific

time or a Time block and setting up

these kind of barriers after which you

are essentially telling yourself you

won't do it but and this is a very

important

but it is most important that you

actually engage in the goal Pursuit and

I experienced this recently I'm trying

to run more these days uh I still enjoy

doing resistance training I still run

three days a week but I'm trying to run

a little bit longer as opposed to just

doing the one long run per week and then

two shorter runs later in the week I've

talked about this in my optimal Fitness

protocol episode if you want to check

that out or check out the PDF where it's

all distilled down to one or two pages

if you like but in any event these days

I'm trying to extend the amount of time

that I'm running I'm just enjoying that

it's kind of a throwback for me to when

I ran across country as a senior in high

school and this was the time of year

when I would start getting ready for the

fall season so I'm enjoying running more

and just this last week I had the

experience of having a very full Sunday

and that's usually the day when I run in

the morning or hike during the middle of

the day and I simply did not get around

to it because I had a lot of other

important things to do and what I found

was 9 p.m. rolled around 10 p.m. rolled

around and I started thinking ah like I

wish I had gone running my Monday was

going to be busy so what did I do I

laced up my shoes and I went for a run

at 1000 p.m. something I haven't done

since college or maybe even high school

and I ended up running for 90 minutes

from 10: p.m. until 11:30 p.m.

definitely not the optimal time for me

to go running in fact I was thinking oh

this might disrupt my sleep but in fact

it didn't I came back I showered had a

little bit of food which normally I

don't eat that late and I slept like a

baby and I felt great the next day

waking up at my normal time which cues

me to another important scientific fact

that relates to protocol and protocol

flexibility which is something that I

gleaned from a colleague of mine at

Stanford School of Medicine who works in

the Sleep laboratory and I intend to

have him as a guest on this podcast

which is that much of our subjective

feelings of energy and well-being during

the day have to do not just with how

well and how much we slept the night

before but how positively we view our

previous days experiences and how

positively we view our next day and in

fact that same day Pursuits and

experiences so in other words how we

feel about our previous day performance

and how we feel about what we're about

to embark on during our day can increase

our energy and that might seem obvious

to a number of you but these days as I

and many others out there are talking so

much about the importance of sleep which

is of course essential you do want to

get great sleep as many nights of your

life as you possibly can and if you

don't sleep much for a given night

hopefully it's for reasons that you

enjoy and positive things like a party

or a wedding or you know use your

imagination but it's also the case that

when we successfully complete something

that we told ourselves that we are going

to do we feel great about it and that if

it means that we sleep a little bit less

or that we have to do our practice bout

you know at 3: p.m. or 2 p.m. a time of

day when we're really ordinarily in the

trough of attention and we have to use

20 different tools or one tool 20

different times in order to get through

that bout of learning the fact that we

complete it leaves us with a feeling of

accomplishment and I'm certain although

I don't know exactly which that there

are neurochemicals and hormones that

reflect that it's almost with certainty

going to involve dopamine and other

neurochemicals but the point is not to

get reductionist about it the point is

that yes heightened attention and focus

occur naturally 30 minutes 3 hours and

11 hours after waking but the really

important thing about all of this goal

setting and pursuit is to do it to get

it done to set the goal to do it

specifically make it quantifiable when

you're going to do it make it about verb

States and then simply do it thank you

for joining me for today's discussion

all about science-based protocols for

how to set and pursue your goals if

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lab on all social media platforms thank

you for joining me today for our

discussion about science-based protocols

for how to best set and pursue and

achieve your goals and I do want to wish

you all the best of luck in setting

pursuing and achieving your goals and

last but certainly not least thank you

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