What is your lofty goal – that thing you really want to do but can never seem to get to? Maybe you want to write a book, learn a foreign language, or start your own business. You have the best of intentions, but when you look back on your day, you didn’t take a single step toward that goal. Sound familiar?
We are all prone to procrastinate at times. But, there is a big difference between the goal-setters and the goal-getters. And the good news is that there are some very simple science-based strategies to change the neurochemistry in your brain to turn dreamers into doers.
The secret is dopamine. Dopamine is commonly associated with addiction as the “pleasure and reward” drug; we release it when we get something satisfying. Often called the “seeking” chemical, it’s what makes us seek out sex, drugs, chocolate, shopping – whatever the vice.
But, the latest scientific evidences hows that dopamine is actually released in anticipation of the pleasure rather than as a result of it. We remember “that good thing” and, in anticipation, dopamine encourages us to act to achieve something good or to avoid something bad. In fact, dopamine has more to do with motivation and cost/benefit analyses than pleasure itself. As complex as the brain is, it’s amazingly simple to get the dopamine flowing.
