Goal Setting and Learning

New year is a time for #goalsetting. What makes some of us succeed with our goals and some of us quit mid-way? 

Our brain is wired to make us learn new things & automate what we learn, so that we don’t have to spend resources on repeating the skill for the rest of our lives. Example, we walk/drive/eat etc without thinking. When we learn new things, we spend resources as it is new & often, feels uncomfortable. 

I am learning wood carving, it feels awkward & frustrating like I am just not cut out for it. Neuroscientists tell us that this “stress” in the beginning is good stress & we should keep at it. I, also, need to really focus on the task to learn it. To be able to focus consistently, I have to keep going even with the stress that wants me to quit. When I have met a milestone of carving the outer edges of a flower, it gives me motivation to keep going. 

Dopamine is what gives us motivation to act/learn, and it is not released when the reward is met, but, it is released when we are in the pursuit of the reward. This is why external motivators fail as they are tied to factors that we can’t control. Dopamine circuit can be self-regulated by focusing on internal motivation. 

Dr.Andrew Huberman, a leading Neuroscientist at Stanford University, says that the brain is always trying to assess duration (how long will it take), path (what path to take ), outcome (what will happen when we get there). By setting own goals, slicing the goals to milestones & rewarding the brain with dopamine when milestones are met, focusing intensely on the task, we can learn new habits & skills.

A friend & I discussed about what makes some have “willpower” to learn/overcome things whereas some others quit. The key difference is that people that seem to have higher “willpower” are convinced that they learn for themselves & even when they fail, they feel that they have made progress with the learning from the failure. In their case, dopamine is not dependent on external things & they feedback to brain (cue for dopamine) with what progress they have made even when the outcome is fully not met. They, also, seem to have an inherent capacity to push own boundaries and display high levels of self-regulation. This quality drives inner resilience & hence, ability to overcome any hardship in the way. Social media is not going to motivate us to learn/overcome adversities by likes & comments.

Understanding our behaviour & adjusting our behaviour can help us achieve brain plasticity to change something or learn something new. This ability is within all of us. A #coach focused on helping you achieve behavioural changes can help you achieve your goals. Sign up for #ExecutiveCoaching programs with AntarYan at www.antaryan.com