The Neuroscience of Achieving Your Goals

Imagine The Worst In order to take consistent action and stay motivated with your goals over the long run, it might be useful to experiment with going somewhere slightly darker. Dr. Huberman explains that it’s actually very motivating to think about what it will be like if you fail.

Basal Ganglia -  One job is to generate “GO” actions: Get out of bed. Go for a run. Say hello to the cute stranger. Start writing. Go, do, act. Job #2 is about “NO GO.” Most goals also require you to NOT do certain things—to resist or suppress action. Stop eating the cookies. Do not open TikTok. Resist calling your colleague a moron.

Controlling Action -  When your brain is controlling action it is determining which actions you’ll need to take in order to accomplish your goals and which actions you need to avoid or resist.

Amygdala -  Like all brain regions, the amygdala does many things, but you’ll usually hear it associated with fear and negative emotion. When it comes to goal pursuit, the amygdala appears to act as an emotional calculator—predicting how rewarding or unpleasant the outcome of different goals and tasks might be.

Make A Plan A specific goal is better than a vague goal. But in the quest to set the perfect goal, we often miss one crucial detail—all goals are surprisingly useless without a certain type of plan. 

Assessing Value -  When your brain is assessing value it is calculating the rewards and punishments associated with taking or avoiding a specific course of action and ultimately decides which actions are worth pursuing.

PART II - GOAL PURSUIT

In other words, you should be failing about 15% of the time despite your best efforts. Why? Because it’s at this level of difficulty that you unleash peak motivation, focus, and growth.

Orbitofrontal Cortex -  The ability to understand the link between actions and outcomes is vital for identifying effective strategies, and to flexibly update and refine your strategy as you learn and get closer to your goal.