036 - The Science of Goal Achievement: How to Use Neuroscience to Succeed

In this episode of De-Escalation Conversations, we delve into the fascinating world of neuroscience and its powerful connection to goal setting. 

Kerry explores how setting clear, actionable goals not only directs our efforts effectively but also triggers changes in the way our brains operate.

By breaking down the science behind goal achievement and the role of dopamine in reinforcing positive behavior, Kerry will provide practical tips for aligning our goals with our brain's natural processes.

Drawing from real-world examples, Kerry will show you how to combat procrastination and achieve success by leveraging our brain's capabilities.

Tune in to discover how setting and achieving goals is a conversation with our brains, empowering us to reach new heights.

QUOTES:
Setting Specific Goals:
"Vague goals aren't helpful. Being specific as possible with what you want to achieve allows your brain to really set the parameters for what you're going to do. This clarity helps your brain focus on exactly what needs to be done."

— [00:06:10 → 00:06:26]

The Power of the Brain's Filter System:
"When you activate the Raz, which is what you're doing with everything that we just talked about, your brain begins to focus on that and it begins to look for that information because you've just told your brain that that's important information before that it was not important to your survival."

— [00:13:49 → 00:14:04]

Understanding the Impact of Fear on Decision Making:
"When we are in Survival State, what happens is our PFC, our Pre-Frontal Cortex, shuts off electrically. It powers down and we operate from our Hind Brain, our Reptilian Brain, our Lizard Brain, and we don't make good decisions during that time."

— [00:17:12 → 00:17:27]

neuroscience, dopamine, feel good neurotransmitter, pleasure, reward, goal setting, motivation, positive reinforcement, progress, achievements, neuroscience and goal achievement, neural pathways, myelination, goal specificity, visualization, feedback, procrastination, survival state, executive state, prefrontal cortex, creativity, problem solving, fear center, dopamine boost, clear and specific goals, manageable tasks, regular feedback, celebrating milestones, setting goals, brain's power

IDEA - the International De-Escalation Association, is dedicated to Saving Lives, Reputations, & Relationships through Conflict De-Escalation & Communication Training for Teachers, Parents, and Public Safety Providers.

Find more about
How to Calm an Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less
Come visit us at the IDEA website (International De-Escalation Association):
https://TheIdea.World

Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to stay up to date on the latest news and blogs about Schools, Police, Fire, Medical Services and Flight Attendants.

Do you or your organization need Communication Skills and De-Escalation Training? You can reach us directly at: Team@TheIdea.World or by filling out a contact form at https://www.TheIdea.World/contact

Transcript

Kerry Mensior: 0:07

You've heard me talk about dose chemicals a lot d o s e, the D and dose is dopamine and it plays a central role in this process. Process it's often called the feel good neurotransmitter because it's associated with feelings of pleasure reward. When we make progress toward a goal, even if it's just a small step, our brain releases dopamine. This not only makes us feel good, but also reinforces behavior that led to that success motivating us to keep going. It's a natural cycle of positive reinforcement, we set a goal work toward it, achieve a milestone feel good about it, and then feel motivated to continue. To come right away there's a man with a gun getting emergency signal from the paramedics are available units will code that way. Hello, and welcome to the de escalation conversations podcast today. It's the place where science meets success. I'm Kerry Mensior. And I'm thrilled to have you with us here today, we're embarking on a fascinating journey into the world of neuroscience, which we do a lot here today in particular, and we're gonna be looking at exactly how it can empower us to set and achieve our goals like never before, whether you're looking to climb the career ladder, enhance your personal life, or just get more organized. Today's episode is tailored to help you harness the power of your brain to reach those milestones. So sit back, relax, and let's dive into the science of success. First thing I want to talk about is understanding goal setting. So let's start at the beginning. What is goal setting? And why is it so crucial for our success? You see, goal setting isn't just about having dreams or aspirations is about creating a clear and actionable plan to turn those dreams into reality. Because hope is not a plan. Hope is is not a path to success. So when we talk about setting goals, it's about giving direction to our lives and channeling our efforts effectively. Neuroscience tells us that clear well defined goals actually change the way our brain operates. When we set a goal our brain starts to work on it even when we're not consciously thinking about it is like planting a seed in the garden with the right conditions, it'll grow often without us needing to attend to it every single moment. That's the power of goal setting. It aligns our brain's natural processes, with our personal ambition setting the stage for real and tangible achievements. So how does neuroscience and Goal Achievement go together? Well, let's also talk about how does our brain respond to the goals that we set. It's really quite fascinating when you dive into it, our brains are incredible machines are constantly processing, they're learning, they're adapting. When we set a goal, we essentially program our brain to focus on achieving it. This involves creating new neural pathways. The routes are our thoughts travel along like little highways and roads and you know that sometimes you're on a dirt road and sometimes you're on a paved road and sometimes you're on a superhighway a like a Tollway that super smooth and everybody just flies right along like the German autobahn. And the more we focus on a goal, the stronger these pathways become, the smoother they become. It's called My elimination. myelination is essentially wrapping insulation around these neural pathways. And if you think about a wire with very thin insulation that can't carry a lot of electricity, you put thicker insulation on it like grow Romex in home wiring, you can carry more electricity, and the amperage can be higher so you can power stronger things like a air conditioning unit versus an Apple iPhone charger. So the more we focus on a goal the stronger the pathways become an it makes it easier for us to think about and work toward our goal. So it's a spiral on this process. Now, you've heard me talk about dose chemicals a lot d o s e, the D and dose is dopamine and it plays a central role in this process. Process it's often called the feel good neurotransmitter because it's associated with feelings of pleasure reward when we make progress toward a goal. Even if it's just a small step, our brain releases dopamine. This not only makes us feel good, but also reinforces behavior that led to that success motivating us to keep going. It's a natural cycle of positive reinforcement, we set a goal, work toward it, achieve a milestone, feel good about it, and then feel motivated to continue. And this is the brains way of rewarding us for pursuing and achieving what we set out to do. So I want to give you some practical tips for goal setting. Because when you understand the science, that's great, but how do we apply this to our everyday lives? What does it look like? What? What actions do we take? How do we set goals in a way that leverages our brain's natural functioning? So here's some practical tips. First of all, break down big goals. Large goals can feel overwhelming. They when we break them down into smaller, more manageable tasks. Each small task you complete gives you a sense of achievement, and a little dopamine boost, keeps you motivated and keeps you on track. You want to be specific, vague goals aren't helpful. being as specific as possible with what you want to achieve, allows your brain to really set the parameters for what you're going to do. This clarity helps your brain focus on exactly what needs to be done. And I want to talk about this in the specified specificity, specificity I just can't talk today, specificity about these goals. Neuroscience tells us that as an example, if I say I'm going to work out more, that's a vague and nonspecific goal. If you say, I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to go Monday through Friday, I'm going to go to the 5am class, that class lasts one hour and out of that hour, I'm going to be working out doing whatever the instructor tells me to do. And then my, my time at the gym has done for that day. Now, I would highly recommend if you do do that, which is a great way to do it, there's some other things you can do to help boost your effectiveness. And if you're not going to go to a class where someone is helping you and guiding you and kind of being your cheerleader, if you're just going to go to the gym and workout yourself, then that goal is a little bit different. I'm going to go to the gym at this time, I'm going to stay for an hour, whatever the timeframe is, in that hour, 50 minutes of that time is going to be hard work keeping my heart rate above this minimum amount. I'm a standard level one or among being level two or level three, level four, you decide what your workout intensity is going to be be decide that in advance. Now I'll in the next podcast, I'm going to be talking about a morning and an evening routine that will lead you to success. It it goes right along with the goals. In this episode, I wanted to talk about the goals in the next episode, I'm gonna talk about being able to take the goals that you've set, and really being able to put them into action. So I want you to know this, this focus on how to put this stuff into action. It's going to continue in the next episode. And in fact, even the episode after that when I talk with this amazing doctor about courage, but for now we're focusing on goals. So I just gave you two tips. For your goals. I want to give you a couple more visualization. Visualize not only the end goal, but the process of getting there if all you do is focus on what the end is going to be like. You're likely going to get discouraged along the way especially if it's a friend of mine, Todd Durkin amazing man. He he calls them B hags, B H ag Big Hairy ass goals. So whatever. Or you can call a big, hairy, amazing goal, but a B hag. If I'm you know, if you set a goal, I'm gonna lose 40 pounds and I'm gonna do it in a year. Well, if all you do is concentrate on the end of the year and you don't reverse engineer the year and set these little goals in between that you want to achieve, you're gonna get I guarantee you you're gonna get sidetracked. You're not You're you're not going to be able to stay up with that goal, because it's too far away. The process of getting You know, the journey also has to be enjoyable. That's how you get those little dopamine hits that keep motivating you to keep following that path. And it also strengthens the neural pathways associated with your goal and makes the goal feel more real, it makes it feel more attainable. The other thing that you should do is regular feedback, check in with yourself regularly assess your progress. Next episode, when I talk about the routines, the morning and the evening routines, I'm gonna give you a way to be able to do that. But you need to be able to assess your progress, you need to be able to to celebrate your wins, adjust your approach if it's needed. This keeps your brain engaged and focused. Again, you're think of it as adding a little bit of fertilizer, a little bit of water, a little bit of sunshine to that seed in the garden. The fifth thing is positive reinforcement, you got to reward yourself for reaching milestones, it doesn't have to be anything big, if you're looking at losing weight is not a cheat day might be a cheat meal, but not a cheat day, not a cheat week. And again, it doesn't have to be anything big. You know what you can just simply acknowledge your progress. And that is a reward in itself. So by following these tips, you're aligning your goal setting process with your brains, natural tendencies, and it makes achieving your goals not just a possibility, but a probability. Let me give you a another thing that fits right along with all these tips I just gave you, and I want you to do a little experiment with you, or do a little experiment with me, what I want you to do is this, you know, you probably have socks on right now, an indoor shoes, what I'd like you to do, is I'd like you to wiggle your toes of both feet. And I want you to feel the socks around your feet, I want you to feel the shoes, if you have shoes or boots on, whatever, whatever type of footwear you have on, I want you to be able to feel that. And I just want you to stop for a moment. And you'll notice that you're still feeling it. See a few moments ago before we started this little experiment, this little mind mess that I do with you. You weren't thinking about socks on your feet. But now you're very very aware of what happened was I reached inside your brain I flipped a little switch and I activated your RAS your R A 's reticular activating system. And what that means is this you suddenly become aware of something that your brain filtered out because you have so much information coming in from all your six senses in Yeah, I said six because you got the five there but knows about he got the six because of the jobs that you do. And the fact that your parents and they're around other people and your your sense things you don't you can't put your finger on why it is at the hair standing up on the back your neck, but it is you can't you can't put your finger on why when you're getting up close to the road. And all of a sudden you put your hand out in front of your kid and stopped them in a cargo zooming by and you didn't even see the car before that. to razz at work. It's like if you're thinking about buying a car, I'm thinking about getting. I don't know, I'm going to pick us just a Dodge Viper. Because it's such a rare car, you'll start noticing dodge Vipers everywhere you go, you know, I never knew there's I mean dodge vipers, right? It's your razz at work because before dodge Vipers weren't important. And so when you when you when you activate the razz, which is what you're doing with everything that we just talked about it be your brain begins to focus on that. And it begins to look for that information, because you just told your brain that that's important information. Before that, it was not important to your survival. And so your brain filtered it out. I don't know if you knew this or not, when I was talking a moment before about all the information comes in your body, your brain cannot handle all of the information that's coming in from one eye, much less to one eye, much less all of your other senses. So the fact is that your brain has to filter that information out just to be able to know what's important to process, because it can't process everything on the conscious level on the subconscious on the unconscious and the non conscious levels. It is processing all that. But not on the conscious level when you're like doodle doo doo doo doo doo aware of it. And yes, your brain does make that noise inside. Let's talk about some real world examples. To bring this to life. I want to I want to give you some real world examples of of people that I've personally helped as they break out goals, and in this house do a lot with procrastination as well. Let me give you this example. I have a client, high end client who works in and lives in Arizona, not far outside Phoenix. And what I did with him on one of our coaching calls was, I said to him, name, just a couple of things, I want you to think of a couple of things. And you can do the same exercise with me right now, as I describe what I did with him. What I want you to do is think of three things, jot them down on a piece of paper that have been lingering, that you just haven't gotten to. You've wanted to get to, but you haven't. And he used the example, he had been asked by his niece, to write a letter of recommendation for her to go to college. And I said, Okay, how long has this been lingering? He's like, several months. I said, huh, okay, so let me take a guess here. You don't know how long it's gonna take. You don't know what the format of the letter is. You don't want to make it too long and screw things up. You don't want to make it too short and have it not be worthwhile, if you're not really sure of what you should say in it that the college would find valuable. To get her in to get her accepted is that some of the things have been going on? He goes, Yeah, that some of the things there's actually more than that, too. And I Okay, so here's what's happening. And I've already in prior podcasts broken this down for you guys. But just in case, this is one of your first episodes, I'll keep it super short and simple. Your brain can only be in one or two states and give me an executive state where hopefully it is right now. Or it can be in survival state fight flight or freeze, executive, state rest and digest. executive state positive emotional state survival state a negative emotional state. When we are in survival state what happens is our pfc our prefrontal cortex shuts off electrically, it powers down. And we operate from our hindbrain, our reptilian brain, our lizard brain. And we don't make good decisions during that time. So what happens is when we feel overwhelmed, the fear center of our brain does not know that this is not a real threat. When I say a real threat, it affects us, but it's not going to kill us. But our fear center of our brain doesn't know the difference between a physical threat, an emotional threat, or a mental threat. So what happens is, it does the same thing to our brain shuts off our Pfc. And the PFC is where we get it our executive functions hence, executive state. It's where we are creative, we do good problem solving, we can have empathy for other people, which means we can connect with them we can ever poor, we can actually communicate well and negotiate and, and work our way through problems and come to solutions. All that shut off. So what happened was, when he thought about this letter that he had to write for his knees, he went into survival state. And so literally, he could not think of what to write, and he couldn't think of a good way to attack this problem. So this is what we did. I asked him, I said, How long do you think this will take? And he said, well, it shouldn't take more than an hour. And I said, Great. So here's what we're going to do in the next two days. Do you have 20 minutes free anytime in the next few days and preferably, before noon, some time in the morning time, because regardless of whether you're an early riser or late riser doesn't matter, our brains, it's been proven through neuroscience research, our brains are fresher in the morning. So we were just more efficient. Even if you get a second wind in the afternoon or in the late evening. That's what happens with me. Sometimes I get second and third wins, but I'm still fresher in the morning. I know I'm more productive and more efficient. I just think better. I'm more clear, I get. I'm not slogging through mud in like I am. And sometimes in the early to mid afternoon. You said I got 20 minutes, I said, Okay, here's what you're going to do on your calendar. And this kind of is what we're going to be talking about next week as well, but it's gonna give you a little teaser. So on your calendar, I want you to put your niece's name, recommendation letter, and then in the notes, we're going to do something else. I said I want you to set that appointment up for 20 minutes. I'll explain why in just just a moment. He said okay, so he opens up his outlook sets up the appointment. I said don't save it yet. In the notes section. Here's what I want you to do. Can you List three qualities about your nice eye once you stop and just think about it for 30 seconds, I'll time it for you. You don't have to do it for you, you can just turn on the stopwatch, just kind of keep an eye on the time. 30 seconds once you think of three personality traits that you just admire about your knees 30 seconds later said, Okay, time's up. So you got three years. Yeah. And I was having them write it down. He said, You know, he said things like, you know, it doesn't matter what she does. But she if she sets her mind to it, she achieves it. She like powers through and she does whatever is necessary to achieve her goals. That's pretty important for college recommendation. He named off a few other things. So I said, Okay, write those type those out into the description box box on the appointment that other extra details. I said, because two days from now, during this 20 minute appointment, you may not remember that stuff, but you've got it captured. Now, here's the really cool thing. You can stand on your head for 20 minutes. So 20 minutes does not feel overwhelming an hour can feel overwhelming 20 minutes will never feel overwhelming. Second thing, you have got the basics of what you're going to start with. And that's an example of how he got working on this letter. And so he went on to finish the letter. And this thing had been lingering for three months, we solved the problem in five minutes. And then a 20 minute calendar appointment. He started out with a clear, specific goal. He broke it down into a manageable task. Each task completed gave him a small dopamine boost, keeping him motivated. He visualized not only the ultimate goal, which was having that letter done, but each step needed to get there which wasn't many. But what it did is it opened up his brain because the fear center of his brain called down he's like 20 minutes. Yeah, I can do anything in 20 minutes, not a big deal. He had a framework for it, he knew exactly what he was going to talk about. And that told his brain Hey, you're not in danger anymore. You're safe. Therefore his PFC came back on lines, prefrontal cortex came back online. Now you could think be creative, write that letter. Now. regular feedback can help you stay on task when it's a longer goal and celebrating those milestones keeps your motivation high. Your journey is a testament to the power of aligning your goals with your brains natural processes. You've already experienced this somewhere in your life, when you've achieved great things. You need to stay on that same framework and follow that because now you know exactly what you did. It's not guesswork anymore. It's not speculation anymore, you know exactly what you did to be able to achieve those goals. Now, as we close up today's episode, please remember that setting goals is more than a mere exercise. It's a conversation with our brain as a way to align our deepest aspirations with the incredible capabilities of our minds. Use the insights and strategies we've talked about today to guide your journey towards success. And remember, the power to achieve your goals lies within the intricate workings of your brain. So thanks for tuning in today. I hope today's discussion has inspired you to set your goals with a new perspective with new tools with a new framework. Don't forget to subscribe and unlike on this podcast, follow us for more insights on neuroscience for the de escalation for conflict resolution for being able to communicate and negotiate in times of stress and crisis. Until next time, keep setting those goals. Let your brains power and lead you to success. And above all, stay safe. I hope you found a lot of great value in this episode of The de escalation conversations podcast, please be sure to go to our website the idea dot world th e ID e a dot world on that website. Just click on the link that resonates with you most if you're K through 12 educator if you're a firefighter, medical services, law enforcement, flight attendants, whatever industry you're in, we have specialized training for you. So check that training out because literally it can save your life. It can save your relationship it can save your career. So check out the idea that world and I look forward to seeing you soon. Take care