In today’s Podcast Note, we will look at the science behind setting goals. You can watch the full episode at Huberman Lab Podcast. I just want to remind you that these are my notes from this podcast and by no means do they replace the original content.
In our brain, there is only one neural circuit that is responsible for setting and pursuing goals. In this episode, Andrew Huberman explains how to set goals and goal execution in the context of neuroscience.
How Mistakes Can Help You Pursue Your Goals
We can read in almost every self-growth book or article about how mistakes and failures make us learn and makes us grow. But how does this work scientifically?
Whenever we make an error, that triggers a brain area that helps us to be more alert and help us to be more focused to learn a new skill. Errors are the entry points to make the brain more plastic, therefore it will be in a position to adapt and change to circumstances. So, when you make errors, it puts your brain in a better position to learn.
85% Rule for optimal learning
According to research (85% Rule for Optimal Learning), when you are trying to learn something new, you should get the things 85% of the time right. Anything more or less than that can put you off to pursuing that goal. If it is too easy, we will get bored, if it is too difficult, we will get frustrated. So you need to set moderate goals that are not too easy or too hard.
The psychology behind setting goals
There are three main steps to setting goals. First, we decide on what goals we want to achieve. Second, we assess the goals. Third, goal execution. But, if we want to be good at setting goals, we need to have a clear understanding of our peripersonal space (what is available to us at this immediate time and space) and extrapersonal space (beyond the confine of our reach and beyond our current space and time).
If we need to be good at goal setting and assessing goals, we have to be able to toggle back and forth between a clear understanding of peripersonal and extrapersonal space. That means what we have and how we feel in the immediate present and our ability to understand what is out there.
How to Achieve Your Goals?
Again thanks to tons of personal-growth information, we know that to be able to achieve our goals, we need to do the hard work and we need to do lots of sacrifices. But in this podcast, Andrew Huberman explains the science to achieve your goals effectively and he introduces some useful tools to do that.
Role for Multitasking
Although multitasking can reduce productivity, it has a role in achieving goals. When we multitask, there is an increase in epinephrine (which is adrenaline). Multitasking right before doing focused work is helping you focus more, because of the adrenalin release, which puts you into action. However, continuous multitasking to achieve your goals on the other hand is not good.
Visual Focusing to improve performance
According to research (Keeping the Goal in Sight), visual focusing on a goal-line improves your performance. It increases your chance to achieve your goals. It improves performance and increases your cognitive attention and focus. And this is how you do it;
- Focus your visual attention on one point beyond your peripersonal space. It could be on the wall, horizon, etc.
- Hold your visual attention for 30 to 60 seconds on that point.
- Start the work that needs to be done
This can be effective for people who have attention issues and ADHD.
Visualizing the correct way
The reward system doesn’t work well for long-term goals. Hence the reason we struggle with long-term savings and any other long-term goals. But seeing ourselves in the future achieving the long-term goal can help us get motivated. Also seeing not achieving that goal can help us.
But, how effective visualising is?
It can help if you know when to use it and is ineffective if you are not using it correctly. Visualization helps get the goal pursuing process started. But it is counterproductive to maintain the pursuit of that goal. Research shows that during visualization, blood pressure goes up, but it drops very quickly. Over time, the visualization of a long-term goal becomes poor to rely on in order to generate actions to reach that goal.
Visualizing failure is a lot more effective than visualizing success. According to research, your success rate to reach your goal nearly doubles if you visualize routinely foreshadowing failure. In this process, you visualize what you could fail on.
For example, how could things fail if you don’t get up and run each morning or if you don’t work on your project each day? You should be very clear about what those failures will look or feel like.
Limit your options to achieve your goals
We have to be careful not to get distracted by other goals. Avoid goal distraction and focus on 1 or 2 major goals per week.
Ensure that your goals are specific
Have concrete statements and action steps that would help you achieve your goal. Also, reassess and update those action steps regularly.
Assess progress regularly
This can help a lot with long-term goals. Because with short-term goals, we can see an immediate result and the reward. But the reward system doesn’t work well for long-term goals. Hence the reason we struggle with goals like savings, weight loss, etc.
Our subjective understanding of why we are doing something is fundamentally important for the effects that we will get from that behavior. Therefore it is important to pick an interval to assess progress. If you have been making progress, then you reward yourself cognitively by saying “Yes, I’m on the right track”. This will release dopamine. Do this at an interval (daily or weekly) that you can maintain consistency to stick with your long-term goals.
Dopamine and Motivation
Dopamine is the currency that we assess our progress and it is a molecule that plays a major part in goal setting. It is not a molecule of reward, it is a molecule of motivation. It is the main reason we pursue goals. It is released in great amounts when something positive and novel happens.
High Dopamine Release – when something positive happens unexpectedly (a good surprise).
Moderate Dopamine Release – If we expect something to happen, we experience dopamine as part of the anticipation. So, dopamine increases, before we receive the reward.
Reduce in Dopamine – when we expect something positive to happen, then that thing doesn’t happen, there will be a huge drop in dopamine that is below our initial baseline (disappointment).
Controlling dopamine release
Space-time bridging
This is a powerful tool to set yourself to accomplish goals.
It could be done indoors or outdoors, but where you can see the horizon is an ideal place to do it.
- Close your eyes and focus and visualize your inner landscape (your interoception). You could focus on your breathing, heart rate, and the surface of your skin. Take 3 slow breaths.
- Open your eyes and focus your visual attention on some area on the surface of your body. This could be the palm of your hand. Do 3 breaths again, but split your attention 90% internal and 10% external.
- Move your attention outside your body, 5 to 15 feet away to some location in the room. This could be a spot on the wall or an object. Give 90% attention to that external object and take 3 deep slow breaths and focus on those breaths.
- Move visual attention further away (horizon or something far off in distance as you can possibly see). Take 3 deep breaths. Try to give most (near to 100%) of your attention to that location.
- Try and expand both vision and your cognition to a much broader sphere. Instead of focusing on one particular spot in the distance, you will try to expand your field of view and see much of the visual landscape. Take 3 deep breaths.
- Immediately return to your internal landscape by closing your eyes and taking 3 deep breaths by giving 100% of your attention to your inner landscape.
- Repeat the steps 3 to 4 times daily.
Final Say
I hope you found this podcast note useful. Please check the Podcast and find out more about How to set and achieve goals?