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The Neuroscience of Determination - How to harness different brain regions to get the most out of your goals · Do You F*cking Mind?

0:13
Speaker 1: Hello, beautiful beans, and welcome to the episode of today.
0:17
Speaker 1: So today we are talking about determination. I want to
0:21
Speaker 1: talk about determination kind of from like a neuroscience psychologist standpoint, obviously,
0:28
Speaker 1: because this is what the fucking podcast is about. And
0:31
Speaker 1: I want you to understand the brain regions that are
0:33
Speaker 1: involved in determination. And the reason I want you to
0:37
Speaker 1: understand that is because we know that the brain is plastic,
0:41
Speaker 1: it's moldable. With the correct behaviors and patterns, we can
0:45
Speaker 1: to an extent mold our brains and train our brain
0:49
Speaker 1: like a muscle. So by understanding the brain regions and
0:53
Speaker 1: the neurochemicals slash transmitters involved in determination, you can train
0:58
Speaker 1: your brain to become more determined. And with determination, that's
1:03
Speaker 1: your grit, that's your tenacity, that's your sticking it out,
1:06
Speaker 1: that's your staying power. That is the difference between wanting
1:10
Speaker 1: something so badly but feeling like you always make a statement,
1:15
Speaker 1: I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to get
1:17
Speaker 1: this thing, It's going to happen, and then one, two,
1:22
Speaker 1: three weeks later you've fallen off the bandwagon. It's the
1:25
Speaker 1: you kind of feel like, I'm so sick of my shit,
1:27
Speaker 1: I'm sick of my shit telling people that I'm going
1:30
Speaker 1: to start on this journey, this thirty day challenge, this
1:33
Speaker 1: fucking whatever it is that I'm saying, and I can't
1:36
Speaker 1: see it through. I want it. I have all the
1:41
Speaker 1: you know, like I've got all the reasons for it.
1:43
Speaker 1: I feel like my reasons are good enough, but when
1:45
Speaker 1: it comes to actually doing it, I don't have staying power.
1:49
Speaker 1: That's determination, which is different to motivation. Okay, Motivation I
1:56
Speaker 1: think is very useful, but it's it's not the tool
1:59
Speaker 1: that you need all the time. Motivation is useful, I
2:02
Speaker 1: believe to get you excited about then entering into something.
2:07
Speaker 1: I think you start with motivation and then it's a
2:10
Speaker 1: determination that gets you through. Okay, I'm motivated to do
2:13
Speaker 1: this thing for these reasons, but I'm now determined that
2:16
Speaker 1: in the highs and lows, I'm going to see this
2:18
Speaker 1: thing through. Okay. Now, another thing that I want to
2:21
Speaker 1: talk about when it comes to determination is and I'm
2:24
Speaker 1: kind of going to brush onto it because this is
2:27
Speaker 1: I planned a lot here, So I just want to
2:28
Speaker 1: make sure that I'm not sure if I've mentioned this,
2:31
Speaker 1: but is consistency and when it talks to consistency. When
2:35
Speaker 1: we talk about consistency, I want you to think about
2:38
Speaker 1: consistency more as more often than not, I don't want
2:43
Speaker 1: you to look at consistencies. I have to be doing
2:45
Speaker 1: this every single day, fair enough. If you've chosen to
2:48
Speaker 1: do like a challenge like I'm doing a seventy five
2:50
Speaker 1: hard or I'm doing a thirty day challenge, in which
2:53
Speaker 1: case the point of the challenge is to do something
2:55
Speaker 1: every day that's different because those are the parameters of
2:58
Speaker 1: that challenge. But if you're looking at more like a
3:00
Speaker 1: lifestyle change, like I want to I want to be
3:05
Speaker 1: a gym person. That's who I want to be. I
3:07
Speaker 1: want that to be part of my life, and I
3:08
Speaker 1: want it to be a six month thing. I want
3:10
Speaker 1: to for the rest of my life be a gym person.
3:12
Speaker 1: So then if you then say I have to go
3:14
Speaker 1: to the gym every day Monday to Friday, then it's
3:17
Speaker 1: going to kind of be a little bit difficult to
3:18
Speaker 1: stick to for a lot of people because it's something
3:22
Speaker 1: that's probably not they're not really used to, they're trying
3:25
Speaker 1: to get into. So when I say more often than not,
3:27
Speaker 1: my favorite one is no two days off in a row,
3:29
Speaker 1: you just say to yourself, as long as my hit
3:32
Speaker 1: rate is above fifty percent, the changes that I'm going
3:35
Speaker 1: to see are astronomical because listen to this. If I
3:39
Speaker 1: say I'm going to be a gym person, Okay, i
3:40
Speaker 1: want to start working out at the gym, I want
3:42
Speaker 1: to start doing weights, I want to build some muscle,
3:45
Speaker 1: and I say, I'm going to go every fucking day, Right,
3:47
Speaker 1: every fucking day, I'm going to go to the gym.
3:49
Speaker 1: So we start Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'm really tired, Thursday,
3:52
Speaker 1: Fuck this shit, I'm not going Friday, Oh my god.
3:54
Speaker 1: I'll start to get on Monday, Mondays start Tuesday, Oh
3:56
Speaker 1: my god, I still haven't recovered yet. Now now I'm
3:59
Speaker 1: going to start next month. I'm actually going to start
4:00
Speaker 1: a thirty day chin ruh. And then before you know,
4:02
Speaker 1: it's been a few weeks, you've dropped off the bad wagon.
4:04
Speaker 1: Then you start again Monday, let's fucking go Tuesday or
4:07
Speaker 1: something came up Wednesday. Now I'll just wait to our
4:09
Speaker 1: next week. Right, So we have stopped started, stop, started,
4:14
Speaker 1: stop stop stop, start, stop start, and then by the
4:17
Speaker 1: end of the year you're like, I feel like I've
4:18
Speaker 1: really got absolutely nowhere let's start again. But our flaw
4:22
Speaker 1: is that we attempt the same goals in the same way.
4:25
Speaker 1: You're not a failure, you're not flawed, but your strategy
4:31
Speaker 1: is flawed a lot of the time. So we just
4:33
Speaker 1: need to tweak our strategy. Because you're probably fine and
4:36
Speaker 1: you're probably capable. It's just a shit strategy. Okay. So
4:41
Speaker 1: that's what we're talking about today. And with this no
4:43
Speaker 1: two days off in a row, I'm gonna quickly say
4:45
Speaker 1: this before I go into the brain regions involved in determination.
4:48
Speaker 1: When you do know twodays is in a row. The
4:50
Speaker 1: difference is as long as I have no two days
4:53
Speaker 1: off in a row, putting aside actually being sick or
4:56
Speaker 1: actually going around, you know, on holidays or something where
4:58
Speaker 1: it's not realistic, then I'm going to keep going. Monday,
5:03
Speaker 1: go to the gym. Tuesday. That was actually a harder
5:05
Speaker 1: session that I thought. I'm actually going to take a
5:07
Speaker 1: chill day Wednesday. I'm feeling better. I'm going to the
5:09
Speaker 1: gym Thursday. I go Friday, I don't go weekends. Maybe
5:12
Speaker 1: don't count Monday again. I go to Before you know it,
5:15
Speaker 1: it's the end of the year, and more than fifty
5:19
Speaker 1: percent off the time, even excluding weekends Monday to Friday,
5:23
Speaker 1: you've got a higher than fifty percent hit rate. And
5:26
Speaker 1: that is like hundreds of visits, well over one hundred
5:30
Speaker 1: visits to the gym. When had you done it the
5:32
Speaker 1: other way, thinking I've got to do it every single day,
5:34
Speaker 1: you probably would have dropped off the bandwagon and taken
5:36
Speaker 1: weeks off at a time. Okay. So the beauty of
5:39
Speaker 1: doing that is that you start to become actually consistent.
5:41
Speaker 1: Consistency doesn't mean every single day. It means a relatively
5:46
Speaker 1: consistent pattern, okay, and you have to decide what that
5:49
Speaker 1: pattern is. But yeah, no, two days off in a
5:51
Speaker 1: row is one of my favorite ones. Okay. So basically
5:55
Speaker 1: I want you to think about number one when we
5:57
Speaker 1: talk about determination and how we're going to become really
6:00
Speaker 1: fucking determined moving forward, is what is actually holding us back? Okay. Obviously,
6:05
Speaker 1: inconsistency is the first one. Lack of clarity is a
6:09
Speaker 1: big one for a lot of people. Some people are
6:11
Speaker 1: really clear and then they still struggle. We're going to
6:13
Speaker 1: cover that, but lack of clarity for a lot of people.
6:16
Speaker 1: I find with me the times that I find myself
6:20
Speaker 1: really lacking in kind of determination is when I can
6:24
Speaker 1: identify I actually haven't really clarified what exactly I want
6:29
Speaker 1: to be doing with this thing, and once I get clarity,
6:32
Speaker 1: it really does help me. It goes a long way.
6:34
Speaker 1: So lack of clarity, having too many options or too
6:38
Speaker 1: many balls in the air, that's a big one. Because
6:41
Speaker 1: we're trying to juggle too much. It's really difficult to
6:43
Speaker 1: have that heightened focus and heightened attention on this one thing. Okay,
6:48
Speaker 1: distractions overall, life distractions are going to get in the way.
6:51
Speaker 1: So how do we handle life distractions? Because we can't
6:55
Speaker 1: wait till we're not distracted because life happens all the time.
6:58
Speaker 1: There's always going to be something. There's always going to
7:00
Speaker 1: be a fire that we need to put out, or
7:02
Speaker 1: an exciting thing that we need to entertain, or you know,
7:07
Speaker 1: fucking you know, relationships that cause us to you know
7:11
Speaker 1: that you know, require our energy more so than other times.
7:16
Speaker 1: So there's always going to be things in the world.
7:17
Speaker 1: So you don't want to be like, I'm going to
7:18
Speaker 1: wait till this has died down and this is died down,
7:20
Speaker 1: because it's never gonna happen. There's always going to be
7:22
Speaker 1: shit going on. Good and bad that's going to be
7:24
Speaker 1: distracting us. And then of course the other one is pacifiers,
7:28
Speaker 1: and a pacifier is things where we choose to distract
7:31
Speaker 1: ourselves actively. That's where so one is a distractor of like,
7:34
Speaker 1: I've got shit going on, I have to divide my time.
7:36
Speaker 1: The other one is where I'm choosing to I could
7:39
Speaker 1: be doing this, but I'm going to pacify myself instead
7:42
Speaker 1: and do something else. That's where we're kind of obviously
7:45
Speaker 1: the social media scrolling, the you know, it's the kind
7:49
Speaker 1: of stuff where we look back and say, oh, I
7:50
Speaker 1: feel like I've wasted my time. You know. It's it's
7:53
Speaker 1: watching ten episodes in a row or five episodes in
7:55
Speaker 1: a row when I could have just traded myself with
7:57
Speaker 1: one nice episode. Things like that. Okay, sofiers. So that's
8:03
Speaker 1: what's holding us back now. The neuroscience of determination involves
8:07
Speaker 1: a lot of brain regions. Okay, there's cognitive processes that
8:10
Speaker 1: drive persistence, goal directed behavior, resilience in the face of challenges.
8:16
Speaker 1: Determination is obviously heavily linked to motivation, will power. Executive
8:20
Speaker 1: function is a really big one, and it involves conscious effort,
8:24
Speaker 1: but massively it involves subconscious processing. If you make determination
8:29
Speaker 1: purely conscious effort, it's going to feel like a lot
8:31
Speaker 1: of effort. And that is where people burn out. That
8:34
Speaker 1: is where people think, fuck this shit, fuck this shit.
8:39
Speaker 1: I'm just going to enjoy my life, you know. And
8:40
Speaker 1: then we excuse ourselves. We almost like make an excuse
8:43
Speaker 1: for ourselves. We kind of say, I'm going to really
8:47
Speaker 1: really try hard at this, and then we do it,
8:49
Speaker 1: and we think this is so unpleasant. Why am I
8:51
Speaker 1: torturing myself? I deserve to rest. I deserve So we
8:54
Speaker 1: kind of spin it in a way where we feel
8:56
Speaker 1: less guilty for giving up, and then we decide, oh,
8:58
Speaker 1: fuck it, I'm just going to have to give up
9:00
Speaker 1: on this thing. Instead of saying, right now, it's a
9:04
Speaker 1: conscious effort, it's requiring a lot of conscious effort. But
9:07
Speaker 1: if I do it properly, I can turn this into
9:09
Speaker 1: a subconscious process. That's what we're going to learn today.
9:11
Speaker 1: When something becomes a subconscious process, it doesn't require no
9:14
Speaker 1: way near as much effort. So let's talk about the
9:22
Speaker 1: brain regions that are involved in determination. So we've got
9:24
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex. I've spoken about this brain region a
9:27
Speaker 1: fucking billion times. It is the frontal part of the
9:31
Speaker 1: brain there sitting in the frontal globe just behind your forehead,
9:35
Speaker 1: and that's kind of where executive function takes place. So
9:40
Speaker 1: this is planning, problem solving, self discipline, detection of errors
9:48
Speaker 1: and being able to correct from an error, pushing past
9:52
Speaker 1: things despite setbacks. It's that kind of executive function where
9:58
Speaker 1: you're able to weigh up reward and versus consequences. It
10:03
Speaker 1: basically helps It's this part, especially this orbitofrontal cortex, this
10:08
Speaker 1: particular region within the prefrontal cortex. It's what helps us,
10:12
Speaker 1: you know, make decisions that align with our long term
10:15
Speaker 1: goals and not our short term goals. So this whole
10:18
Speaker 1: region of the brain is a newer, quoite like, relatively
10:21
Speaker 1: newer part of the brain. It's what kind of makes
10:24
Speaker 1: the human brain relatively superior because of this forward planning,
10:28
Speaker 1: because of our ability to you know, see way into
10:31
Speaker 1: the future and you know, plan for our goals. And
10:34
Speaker 1: you know, when when people have massive problems with addictions,
10:37
Speaker 1: for example, they have a lot of shutdown going on
10:40
Speaker 1: in that part of the brain because even though they
10:42
Speaker 1: know deep down that doing a certain thing long term
10:45
Speaker 1: is going to be terrible, they just don't have the
10:47
Speaker 1: strong enough executive function to override other regions of the brain. Okay,
10:51
Speaker 1: then we've got the basil ganglia. So this is kind
10:54
Speaker 1: of known as like the persistence engine within the brain.
10:57
Speaker 1: So this works very closely with the prefrontal call, and
11:00
Speaker 1: it reinforces habits and it reinforces sustained efforts. Okay, so
11:08
Speaker 1: it also plays a role in motor planning, action, execution,
11:13
Speaker 1: but it also makes it a lot easier to stay
11:15
Speaker 1: on course. We've got the amig deala we all know
11:18
Speaker 1: as kind of the emotional center, the fear based center.
11:22
Speaker 1: We we know it as fear and stress, the amigdala,
11:25
Speaker 1: but it also contributes to determination by generating this emotional intensity. Okay,
11:33
Speaker 1: so all brain regions serve a very good purpose. I
11:36
Speaker 1: don't want people thinking I need to shut off my
11:38
Speaker 1: amigdala because I don't want fear and no, no, no,
11:40
Speaker 1: no no. We need the brain working cohesively. We need
11:43
Speaker 1: working as you know, all the parts working together as
11:46
Speaker 1: a team. So the amigdala plays a very significant role
11:49
Speaker 1: and it helps us generate. Because you don't want to
11:52
Speaker 1: be purely logical with no emotion whatsoever. We are emotional beings.
11:57
Speaker 1: We just don't want our emotions to completely take over
11:59
Speaker 1: to this extent where we feel paralyzed and unable to
12:02
Speaker 1: do shit right. We need the emotion as the driver
12:05
Speaker 1: as kind of what's going to generate that intensity. And
12:08
Speaker 1: then we use the prefrontal cortex as like, now let's
12:11
Speaker 1: put a fucking strategy in place and let's stick to it. Okay,
12:16
Speaker 1: And this is really good to help us become emotionally
12:19
Speaker 1: invested in goals. So that emotional center of the brain
12:23
Speaker 1: is what is going to make us stay invested in
12:27
Speaker 1: something emotionally, like why it's so important to us based
12:30
Speaker 1: on our morals and our values. Then we've got the straatum,
12:33
Speaker 1: which is kind of the reward anticipation part of the brain.
12:38
Speaker 1: It is within the basal ganglia of the brain, which
12:40
Speaker 1: is like a whole like section. I feel like I
12:42
Speaker 1: need to do a whole anatomy of the brain mini course,
12:46
Speaker 1: but that's for another day. But this part of the
12:49
Speaker 1: brain is really being in processing, like in reward processing
12:53
Speaker 1: and prediction and dopamine driven motivation. Okay. It's also really
12:59
Speaker 1: good at sustain motivation by reinforcing kind of small victories
13:02
Speaker 1: along the way. Then we've got the hypothalamus, which is
13:04
Speaker 1: the stress and energy regulated within the brain. Among doing
13:07
Speaker 1: many other things. A hypothalamus is in charge of a
13:09
Speaker 1: lot of fucking things in the brain, but this regulates
13:12
Speaker 1: stress hormones quite a bit, so it regulates cortisol, adrenaline,
13:17
Speaker 1: and energy levels needed for persistence as well. So we're
13:20
Speaker 1: balancing kind of effort with psychological needs. So we're not
13:23
Speaker 1: burning out, but we're understanding that the right amount of
13:26
Speaker 1: effort involved. Now let's go into the neurochemicals. We've got dopamine,
13:30
Speaker 1: which is the driving force. So this is what gives
13:33
Speaker 1: you the initial boost of motivation, pleasure. It's kind of
13:37
Speaker 1: the you know, it's linked to addiction, but it's kind
13:40
Speaker 1: of the willingness to do something. That's how I like
13:43
Speaker 1: to look at it. It's reward anticipation. Okay, this is
13:46
Speaker 1: released in many areas of the brain, so I'm not
13:49
Speaker 1: going to go into exactly that, but it is it's
13:51
Speaker 1: very being in reinforcing goal directed behavior as well. So
13:54
Speaker 1: dopamine is phenomenal when we can use it for goal
13:57
Speaker 1: directed behavior and not just like addictive things. I want
14:00
Speaker 1: dopamine earned. Dopamint brilliant because it makes you stay on task.
14:04
Speaker 1: It makes you more willing to do something quick hits
14:07
Speaker 1: of dopamine like addictive style dopamine like social media, smoking, gambling,
14:12
Speaker 1: that kind of thing that's going to deplete your dopamine
14:15
Speaker 1: because you're getting a spike and then a dip thelo
14:16
Speaker 1: on your baseline, and then you're less likely to have
14:19
Speaker 1: that dopamine sitting there ready to push you to do
14:21
Speaker 1: that next thing. We've got serotonin, which yes, we know
14:24
Speaker 1: is a happy chemical, but it's also a mood stabilizer.
14:27
Speaker 1: So this is like emotional regulation patience preventing discouragement. If
14:33
Speaker 1: we're feeling serotonin is kind of like I like to
14:35
Speaker 1: also call it like when we're feeling grateful, When you
14:38
Speaker 1: feel gratitude, that's serotonin, not dopamin dope. Mean's more like,
14:41
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm like I have to have that thing,
14:43
Speaker 1: I want that thing I feel pleasure. Serotonin is more like,
14:47
Speaker 1: I link it more to that feeling of like peace
14:50
Speaker 1: and gratitude kind of thing. It also plays a role
14:54
Speaker 1: in long term goal persistence because of that emotional balance
14:59
Speaker 1: that it maintains. Then we've got nora pinephrine, which is alertness.
15:03
Speaker 1: So this is focus energy when you're in a challenging situation.
15:07
Speaker 1: So if I'm like, oh, I've got to go to
15:09
Speaker 1: the gym, by the time I get to the gym,
15:10
Speaker 1: that's when I want that like surge of light. Right,
15:12
Speaker 1: let's fucking go. Or if I'm you know, doing a course,
15:15
Speaker 1: when I get to the actual exam, that's what we want. Okay.
15:18
Speaker 1: Then we've got endorphins, which are the natural painkillers, and
15:22
Speaker 1: dolphins reduced discomfort, and by reducing discomfort, they're going to
15:25
Speaker 1: increase resilience to physical or mental stress. So anden dolphins
15:28
Speaker 1: are endogenously produced morphine. So this is a natural painkiller
15:32
Speaker 1: for your physical pain but also emotional pain. So that's
15:36
Speaker 1: really interesting because if you suffer from heartbreak, for example,
15:42
Speaker 1: working out actually helps soothe in the short term, at
15:46
Speaker 1: least at the very least, we know for a fact
15:48
Speaker 1: that working out or doing something that's going to release
15:51
Speaker 1: and dolphins, you know, naturally produced morphine, it is actually
15:56
Speaker 1: going to soothe your emotional pain for that time period.
15:59
Speaker 1: Like I remember when I was going through like all
16:01
Speaker 1: my heartbreaks, I would run like a fucking demon because
16:04
Speaker 1: it felt I felt so emotionally good. Afterwards, I would
16:07
Speaker 1: have like a period of time where I felt so
16:09
Speaker 1: soothed and so calm and level headed, and I was
16:11
Speaker 1: able to make very rational decisions in the timeframe after
16:14
Speaker 1: running because of all the endorphins that would get released.
16:16
Speaker 1: So that was a really good tool for me. And
16:19
Speaker 1: then cortisol, which is a stress regulator. I think people
16:22
Speaker 1: think it's a cortisol as like you're going it's going
16:25
Speaker 1: to make you stressed. It actually helps regulate when you
16:28
Speaker 1: need to be. When you're under stress, it's going to
16:30
Speaker 1: release cortisol to help you perform. It enhances your focus,
16:36
Speaker 1: it enhances urgency. But chronic stress, which is chronically higher
16:42
Speaker 1: levels of cortisol all the time, can deplant motivation. So
16:45
Speaker 1: balanced cortisol is obviously key. And I've got two entire
16:48
Speaker 1: episodes on cortisol, so check that out if you're interested.
16:51
Speaker 1: One's about just cortisol in general, and one's caffeine and cortisol.
16:56
Speaker 1: So let's talk about ways of strengthening your determined Okay,
17:00
Speaker 1: because this is so important. So with when it comes
17:06
Speaker 1: to neuroplasticity and habit formation, one thing that we do
17:10
Speaker 1: know is that repeated effort is going to help begin
17:14
Speaker 1: to rewire the brain. So repetition is key repetition. Repetition
17:18
Speaker 1: repetition and the reason for this is sells the fire together,
17:21
Speaker 1: wire together. We know this, Okay, So for example, a
17:26
Speaker 1: really basic way of starting this is, if I want
17:32
Speaker 1: to change something about myself, trying to do everything in
17:36
Speaker 1: one day is probably going to feel really difficult because
17:38
Speaker 1: I'm trying to force my brain into doing something a
17:41
Speaker 1: certain way. But everything requires effort because these these pathways
17:46
Speaker 1: haven't been formed yet as like subconscious pathways within my brain.
17:49
Speaker 1: But if I can this is where people talk about
17:51
Speaker 1: habit stacking. But if I can, like, let's say I
17:53
Speaker 1: wake up and I don't always have a glass of water.
17:55
Speaker 1: Next to my glass of water are my trainers. I
17:58
Speaker 1: can put my trainers on every fucking day. Now, whether
18:01
Speaker 1: I then go for that walk or whether I don't,
18:03
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. But that's a habit formation, and now
18:06
Speaker 1: I'm in the habit of doing that. Now, after I
18:07
Speaker 1: do that, maybe I can start just getting out of
18:09
Speaker 1: the door. Most of the times I'm like, well, I'm
18:11
Speaker 1: fucking already out of the door. I might as well
18:13
Speaker 1: walk around the block and then I'm back. Little things
18:15
Speaker 1: like that. Okay, say you're like I never can take
18:18
Speaker 1: my fucking vitamins. Put your vitamins next to your toothbrush.
18:20
Speaker 1: You're gonna brush your teeth unless you're dirty, can't. But
18:22
Speaker 1: everyone's brushing their teeth, right, So we put our vitamins
18:25
Speaker 1: next to our toothbrush. It's right there. Okay. Things like
18:29
Speaker 1: that are going to start to create neuroplastic changes, we say,
18:33
Speaker 1: and then before you know it, even if you won't
18:35
Speaker 1: even thinking about brushing your teeth, you're going for the vitamins. Okay.
18:38
Speaker 1: The more we engage in determined behavior, like actively determined behavior,
18:44
Speaker 1: the stronger these neural pathways become. And when that neural
18:47
Speaker 1: pathway becomes stronger, it becomes easier to execute that task.
18:51
Speaker 1: So when you look at people out there doing seemingly
18:54
Speaker 1: difficult things on a regular basis, it's not to say
18:58
Speaker 1: that it's an absolute sinch and them it's nothing, and
19:00
Speaker 1: for you it's hard. That's why they're able to do it,
19:02
Speaker 1: and that's why you can't know. I'm not saying that,
19:04
Speaker 1: But what I am saying is that these people, at
19:07
Speaker 1: one point it was a lot harder than what it
19:09
Speaker 1: is now, and now they've created these strong neural pathways
19:13
Speaker 1: that allow them that you know, that ease of even
19:17
Speaker 1: though it still requires effort, even though there's still days
19:19
Speaker 1: where I'm not in the mood to do this thing,
19:21
Speaker 1: it is a lot easier for my brain to get
19:23
Speaker 1: me up and just follow through with that task. Because
19:25
Speaker 1: I've strengthened these neural pathways. You go from one flimsy,
19:28
Speaker 1: little week as fuck, little weak chicken nub of a
19:35
Speaker 1: thing for like network to a fully fledged fucking highway
19:40
Speaker 1: where it is you know, you've got so many brain
19:44
Speaker 1: regions feeding that highway, You've got all these glile cells
19:47
Speaker 1: feeding that highway where there's so many connections firing in
19:50
Speaker 1: the same direction because you have reinforced that behavior again
19:54
Speaker 1: and again and again and again and again. And this
19:56
Speaker 1: goes from negative behaviors as well. If you're like, why
19:58
Speaker 1: is it so hard to break a habit, it's because
20:00
Speaker 1: unintentionally we have reforced we have reinforced this into a
20:04
Speaker 1: fucking highway. But when you start doing something less and
20:07
Speaker 1: less and less, that highway gets weaker. And the reason
20:10
Speaker 1: for this is the brain is very energy efficient, very
20:13
Speaker 1: energy efficient. If we're not using a pathway, the brain
20:16
Speaker 1: is going to stop serving it with resources. It will
20:19
Speaker 1: be less glile cells there to keep this pathway at.
20:23
Speaker 1: Glial cells are basically the scaffolding the supporting cells to neurons.
20:27
Speaker 1: There's ten glial cells to every neuron within the brain,
20:30
Speaker 1: so very important. But the brain's going to move these
20:33
Speaker 1: glio cells over to other parts of the brain that
20:34
Speaker 1: need it more. So then you start to see kind
20:36
Speaker 1: of this atrophy in these certain pathways because they're not
20:41
Speaker 1: being used. So it's not to say that you can't
20:43
Speaker 1: then use that pathway later, but to revert back to
20:46
Speaker 1: it ends up later on once it's trunk, it's like, oh,
20:50
Speaker 1: this isn't as easy as it used to be good
20:52
Speaker 1: because purposely shrunk that thing. Okay, so what you're doing
20:57
Speaker 1: is you are starting to create these learnt behaviors and
21:01
Speaker 1: it does make persistency easier over time. Okay, So there's
21:05
Speaker 1: many brain regions where it's kind of like the will
21:08
Speaker 1: power muscle, and it's kind of where the more you
21:11
Speaker 1: do it, the easier it actually becomes to do that
21:14
Speaker 1: hard thing because those brain regions are strengthened and they grow.
21:17
Speaker 1: It's not people with bigger brain regions like that are
21:20
Speaker 1: able to do harder things. We know this through scans.
21:23
Speaker 1: It is as you do harder things, that brain region
21:27
Speaker 1: grows like a muscle, it grows in mass, and then
21:31
Speaker 1: you're able to do harder things. So epaically, the point
21:33
Speaker 1: of understanding all of this is that you know that
21:35
Speaker 1: when something is really hard, you know it's not going
21:39
Speaker 1: to be that hard in the future. You know it's
21:40
Speaker 1: going to get easier for you. It is not going
21:42
Speaker 1: to be like this forever. I just have to strengthen
21:45
Speaker 1: that muscle within the quote unquote not a muscle, but
21:47
Speaker 1: I have to strengthen that section of the brain as
21:50
Speaker 1: if it were a muscle. Okay. Other things that we
21:53
Speaker 1: can be doing is breaking big goals into small winds
21:58
Speaker 1: is a really big one because this is what activating
22:00
Speaker 1: that dopemin release, which is really helping us along the way. Okay,
22:04
Speaker 1: so if you can have small reward points along the way,
22:07
Speaker 1: Let's say you say I'm going to do if you
22:09
Speaker 1: have my brain journal. By the way, this is something
22:12
Speaker 1: that works very effectively in my brain Journal. Go check
22:15
Speaker 1: it out dearyfmpod dot com. You can purchase it there
22:17
Speaker 1: if you're interested. But basically I talk about where you
22:21
Speaker 1: color in these little squares and you're able to track
22:24
Speaker 1: over the week and over the month. At the end
22:27
Speaker 1: of the month, you're able to track the percentage of
22:30
Speaker 1: your hit rate when you did things. It's not about
22:32
Speaker 1: doing it every single day. It's like, oh, I actually
22:35
Speaker 1: did meditate over fifty percent, and if I can. And
22:38
Speaker 1: there's a mood track underneath each one, and they correlate, right,
22:41
Speaker 1: So you're able to track everything, and you're able to
22:43
Speaker 1: be like, wow, I'm able to see my actions and
22:47
Speaker 1: how it actually plays out in my mood after the fact.
22:50
Speaker 1: You know, when I look back a week, three weeks,
22:52
Speaker 1: five weeks, whatever, I'm able to see you know, it charted,
22:56
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. So you don't have to buy
22:59
Speaker 1: my brain Journal for that. You can just chart it yourself.
23:01
Speaker 1: You can just draw up little squares and say no
23:03
Speaker 1: two days off in a row. And you could say
23:05
Speaker 1: to yourself, if I do a week where it's no
23:07
Speaker 1: two days off in a row, I get a special
23:09
Speaker 1: little treat. Whatever that treat is. You know, it doesn't
23:12
Speaker 1: have to be anything major, it doesn't have to be
23:14
Speaker 1: food related, it could be whatever it is. You give
23:16
Speaker 1: yourself a little reward. And I would also encourage you
23:20
Speaker 1: to withhold certain quote unquote rewards that we give ourselves
23:24
Speaker 1: and use them as rewards for behavior that we've wanted
23:28
Speaker 1: to get done. Like, if you're obsessed with a series
23:31
Speaker 1: on Netflix, don't just watch it whenever the fuck you
23:34
Speaker 1: want to watch it, use it as a mini reward.
23:37
Speaker 1: If I can do you know, X amount of times
23:41
Speaker 1: this week, three times this week, then I get to
23:43
Speaker 1: watch two episodes in a row. Okay, if I can
23:46
Speaker 1: do and it's it seems like, oh but now I'm
23:48
Speaker 1: being so restrictive, I'm being So what do you want change?
23:50
Speaker 1: Do you not want change? That's the question, because if
23:53
Speaker 1: you're gonna sit here being a victim that you can't
23:54
Speaker 1: watch two Netflix episodes in a row, then who's the
23:56
Speaker 1: problem here? Then that can't help you. You need to
23:59
Speaker 1: think of what everyday joys that I can just use
24:02
Speaker 1: as delayed gratification. It's not that hard, you know. I
24:05
Speaker 1: think so often we get into this pattern of for like,
24:07
Speaker 1: oh I deserve this, I deserve this. No, can't you
24:10
Speaker 1: deserve to be happy? Giving yourself these instant joys are
24:13
Speaker 1: not gonna make you happy, right, So what do you
24:16
Speaker 1: actually deserve? Do you deserve long term happiness where you've
24:19
Speaker 1: got balance in your life where you're disciplined and following
24:21
Speaker 1: things through and you feel like you've got purpose and
24:23
Speaker 1: you're on purpose and it feels good. It's like this
24:26
Speaker 1: good effort. Or am I going to fool myself and say,
24:31
Speaker 1: oh I deserve this and keep giving myself all these
24:32
Speaker 1: quick hits, these quick wins, and then always putting off
24:35
Speaker 1: what's actually important to me and never actually getting it done.
24:38
Speaker 1: So don't fool yourself at the end of the day
24:40
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, I really deserve this fucking thing
24:42
Speaker 1: when you're like, I've been banging on about the same
24:45
Speaker 1: fucking ship for the last three years and I've never
24:47
Speaker 1: made a change. You deserve to make a change. That's
24:48
Speaker 1: what you deserve, Okay, So yes, I think you should
24:52
Speaker 1: withhold on little things that could be used as delayed
24:56
Speaker 1: gratification because that is a massive driver for you to
24:59
Speaker 1: get things done. I will have I'll use a coffee
25:03
Speaker 1: as delayed gratification. I'm not allowed to have my coffee
25:05
Speaker 1: until the dishwasher is empty and that there's nothing on
25:07
Speaker 1: the kitchen bench top. It takes me seven minutes to
25:10
Speaker 1: do that shit, and then I get a coffee. Everybody
25:12
Speaker 1: wins Okay, so that's the kind of mindset that you
25:15
Speaker 1: want to have. Since since now, visualization is another huge one. Okay,
25:29
Speaker 1: Visualization helps strengthen certain neural pathways associated with goal achievement. Okay,
25:36
Speaker 1: because visualization, especially if we know how to execute that task,
25:40
Speaker 1: visualization really helps your brain put yourself in the shoes
25:44
Speaker 1: of having already done that thing. And when your brain
25:46
Speaker 1: believes that you've already done that thing, it becomes easier
25:48
Speaker 1: to do that thing again, quote unquote again you're probably
25:52
Speaker 1: doing it for the first time. Whatever. But so if
25:54
Speaker 1: I visualize I'm going to wake up in the morning,
25:56
Speaker 1: and I visualize myself going through the motions, it's actually easy, yeah,
26:00
Speaker 1: for my brain to execute that the next day. And
26:02
Speaker 1: if I do that regularly enough, then it's just autopilot
26:06
Speaker 1: basically of me going through that because I'm strengthening these
26:09
Speaker 1: neural pathways. Because you can strengthen the neural pathways obviously
26:12
Speaker 1: by doing like we said earlier, but by visualizing. So
26:15
Speaker 1: you're just fast tracking that process. But you've got to
26:18
Speaker 1: visualize it as if you are actually doing it. Don't
26:20
Speaker 1: get distracted, don't make it too long and complicated. Think
26:23
Speaker 1: of something that you want to be doing and visualize it.
26:25
Speaker 1: If you want to post on Instagram every day for
26:29
Speaker 1: thirty days, that's the challenge you want to do because
26:30
Speaker 1: you're trying to grow your business account. Visualize what that
26:33
Speaker 1: looks like. Visualize k I've got to put in put aside,
26:35
Speaker 1: you know, maybe ten minutes in the morning to film
26:37
Speaker 1: the thing. Then I've got to edit it at sometimes
26:39
Speaker 1: and visualize you going through the motions of how that
26:41
Speaker 1: slots into the morning, and then when you're actually doing it,
26:43
Speaker 1: it's so much easier to execute because you've already created
26:46
Speaker 1: parameters of what that would look like in your head. Okay.
26:49
Speaker 1: Another one is the importance of stress management so we
26:53
Speaker 1: can have our quarters all work for us. I don't
26:55
Speaker 1: want to go crazy in depth with this one because
26:58
Speaker 1: that is, like I said, cortisol is huge topic on
27:02
Speaker 1: two episodes that I did back to back earlier this year.
27:05
Speaker 1: But and I'll link it in the show notes that
27:07
Speaker 1: the two quartersol episodes. But cortisol is so fucking helpful,
27:13
Speaker 1: and we want our cortisol to be the highest in
27:14
Speaker 1: the morning. So when you hear those people saying low quartersol,
27:16
Speaker 1: morning can't if you're trying to have low cordsol in
27:20
Speaker 1: the morning. That's your first problem in life. Okay. Cortisol
27:24
Speaker 1: is what wakes you up. If you don't have high
27:26
Speaker 1: cortisol in the morning, you're not waking up, okay, So
27:30
Speaker 1: or at least you're a zombie at the very least.
27:33
Speaker 1: So you want cortisol high in the morning. The sun
27:35
Speaker 1: bigger source of blue light, huge source of cortisol. For
27:38
Speaker 1: the better exercising is going to release cortisol. But all
27:41
Speaker 1: these things of cortisol are giving you a nice like
27:43
Speaker 1: exercise gives you a nice spike of cortisol and then
27:46
Speaker 1: a nice tapering off of the cortisol. So caffeine gives
27:50
Speaker 1: you a little bit of a spike of cortisol. There's
27:55
Speaker 1: many things. Eating, especially carbohydrates, reduces your cortisolt. That's why
27:59
Speaker 1: a lot of people stress eat, and when they stress eat,
28:02
Speaker 1: they often lean to carbs because the body knows that
28:05
Speaker 1: carbs reduce cortisos significantly. But if you if you are
28:09
Speaker 1: needing to take action on something, you want to have
28:12
Speaker 1: nice cortisol levels in the morning, beautiful, beautiful, and then
28:16
Speaker 1: as the day goes on, you want to be tapering
28:18
Speaker 1: off those quarterisol levels. That's why we're not exposing ourselves
28:20
Speaker 1: to crazy lights late at night. That's why you know
28:24
Speaker 1: we're not having coffee. But coffee is on top of
28:26
Speaker 1: the cordsole. It's actually binds to other parts of the
28:29
Speaker 1: brain that keep you awake with that's a whole nother story,
28:31
Speaker 1: and then you know you don't want to be disrupting
28:33
Speaker 1: your sleep. So when we're talking about, you know, managing
28:36
Speaker 1: stress and keeping cortisols at optimal levels for performance, go
28:38
Speaker 1: check out my cortisol episodes to know more about that,
28:41
Speaker 1: more in depth about that. But where we're trying to
28:43
Speaker 1: come up with healthy releases of cordisols, exercise, sun lights,
28:48
Speaker 1: you know, fucking coffee within an hour waking up in
28:52
Speaker 1: the morning, that's going to give you good energy and
28:54
Speaker 1: you're going to be primed and ready for the day. Okay,
28:57
Speaker 1: Exercising regularly obviously is going to help with your determination.
29:01
Speaker 1: So let's say you're the thing you want to be
29:03
Speaker 1: determined on is to exercise. You're like, well, how the fuck, Like,
29:07
Speaker 1: I'm trying to be determined to exercise and you're telling
29:09
Speaker 1: me just exercise to increase your determination to exercise. So
29:13
Speaker 1: what you could actually do instead for that is I'm
29:15
Speaker 1: going to get up in the morning, do what I
29:17
Speaker 1: have to do, and then I'm just going to do
29:20
Speaker 1: like twenty squats up and down twenty twenty, twenty twenty.
29:23
Speaker 1: What we're trying to do is we're trying to start
29:25
Speaker 1: releasing these chemicals that we release what we exercise. The
29:28
Speaker 1: more you do that, the more inclined you are to
29:30
Speaker 1: then move your body even more. Okay, so this is
29:33
Speaker 1: what's going to obviously release dopamine, serotonin, and endoorphins. Obviously
29:37
Speaker 1: with endorphins, you're not going to be releasing many endorphins
29:40
Speaker 1: if you're just doing twenty squats in the air, and
29:41
Speaker 1: dolphins are primarily released after sustained you know, energy output
29:45
Speaker 1: and putting yourself under you know, this certain level of
29:49
Speaker 1: quote unquote discomfort for an extended period of time. That's
29:51
Speaker 1: where the run is high comes in and they say
29:53
Speaker 1: that the runner is high is bigger than just a
29:55
Speaker 1: weights work out because often running is for a longer
29:58
Speaker 1: period of time, so you're getting more of a sustained
30:01
Speaker 1: release of these endorphins that gives you that high that
30:03
Speaker 1: people report. I definitely get that beautiful run as high
30:07
Speaker 1: exercising regularly is going to be huge. If you're someone
30:10
Speaker 1: that already enjoys exercising, pick the exercise you like the
30:13
Speaker 1: most and do more of it. If you're someone that's like, oh,
30:15
Speaker 1: I don't know, start walking, walk walk walk, walk, walk,
30:18
Speaker 1: walk walk, Pick good podcasts, good music, whatever it is,
30:21
Speaker 1: just get out power walk like fucking go hard, because
30:24
Speaker 1: this is going to be huge for your determination as
30:26
Speaker 1: far as how you are wiring and rewiring the brain.
30:29
Speaker 1: Another one which is really important is positive self talk. Okay,
30:33
Speaker 1: I don't often talk about positive self talk, but it
30:36
Speaker 1: is very important because it increases activation off your prefrontal cortex,
30:41
Speaker 1: which is the executive function part of the brain. Okay,
30:44
Speaker 1: So you can do this looking in the mirror, You
30:46
Speaker 1: could do it silently, you could do it out loud,
30:48
Speaker 1: whatever works best for you. But it is positive self
30:52
Speaker 1: talk most most importantly that is believable to you. So
30:56
Speaker 1: you don't you know, like it's you know, those affirmations
30:58
Speaker 1: like I'm a millionaire, I'm a millionairem mins when you're
31:00
Speaker 1: struggling to pay your fucking rent for the week. That's
31:03
Speaker 1: not ideal, but it is saying certain things like I'm
31:07
Speaker 1: capable of doing of working through much to do list today,
31:09
Speaker 1: I am capable off XYZ, or today is going to
31:14
Speaker 1: be a great day, or good things can come my
31:16
Speaker 1: way today, or I'm in a great mood. Nothing's going
31:19
Speaker 1: to get in my way today. Things like that, things
31:21
Speaker 1: that make you feel good. Or I'm really proud of
31:24
Speaker 1: myself for what I did yesterday. Let's see what we
31:26
Speaker 1: can do today. Or I'm feeling really optimistic about my
31:29
Speaker 1: abilities today. Whatever it is, anything that's going to feel
31:32
Speaker 1: good to say to you, but it also feels real.
31:35
Speaker 1: That's what you're going to be talking about. Then mindfulness
31:39
Speaker 1: and meditation is really good to strengthen your focus but
31:42
Speaker 1: also regulate your emotions. Like I said, the brain's got
31:44
Speaker 1: to work cohesively together, So if our emotions are really
31:48
Speaker 1: heightened all the time, it's going to be really hard
31:49
Speaker 1: for it to communicate with your prefrontal cortex, which is
31:52
Speaker 1: more logical reasoning processing and things like that. So mindfulness
31:56
Speaker 1: is really good to kind of talk us down off
31:58
Speaker 1: that ledge and just regulates. We want to feel them,
32:01
Speaker 1: we just don't want them taking over. Okay, So when
32:04
Speaker 1: we talk about mindfulness, another really good thing that we
32:06
Speaker 1: can be doing is, you know, breathing deeply the intentional sigh,
32:10
Speaker 1: which I've spoken about about that big side, and release
32:14
Speaker 1: it out doing it like four to six times. You
32:16
Speaker 1: see animals doing it when they're trying to change their
32:18
Speaker 1: physical state. Use the intentional size often as you need to,
32:21
Speaker 1: and it's actually going to calm your nervous system down.
32:23
Speaker 1: It regulates your emotion instantly. It's unbelievable. It's such an
32:27
Speaker 1: easy tool. And if there's one tool that you're going
32:30
Speaker 1: to take away from this episode, it's that one, and
32:32
Speaker 1: it helps you like reframe your challenges in that moment
32:36
Speaker 1: you instantly calm calm down. Another thing is pay attention
32:40
Speaker 1: to your excuses, your mindset around excuses, because determination is
32:44
Speaker 1: a bit of a mental habit. Okay, so you don't
32:48
Speaker 1: want to lean on your excuses. Now I'm not saying
32:53
Speaker 1: there's no excuse, You have no excuse. Cut, there's many
32:56
Speaker 1: reasons that things get in the way, But I want
32:59
Speaker 1: you to really be critical critique your reasons as to
33:03
Speaker 1: why things get in the way. Because you could say,
33:06
Speaker 1: oh my god, my day got out of hand because
33:08
Speaker 1: all of these things happened to me. Very true. You
33:10
Speaker 1: know that's a fact, and that's you know, an excuse
33:14
Speaker 1: or a reason why you weren't able to do certain things.
33:16
Speaker 1: But then instead I want you to ask yourself, Okay,
33:18
Speaker 1: how much of that was in my control and how
33:20
Speaker 1: much was not in my control? So moving forward, would
33:23
Speaker 1: the outcome be the same or is there something I
33:25
Speaker 1: could have done? And then you start to take back power,
33:27
Speaker 1: because there are going to be days where you say, no, no,
33:29
Speaker 1: it was all out of my control. The day was
33:31
Speaker 1: literally fucked, and I can acknowledge that and I can
33:35
Speaker 1: move on. But then there'll be other times where you're like,
33:37
Speaker 1: you know what, I noticed that things started getting out
33:40
Speaker 1: of hand in the beginning of the day, and then
33:41
Speaker 1: I kind of threw in the towel halfway through the day.
33:43
Speaker 1: In future, when that happens, maybe instead of throwing in
33:46
Speaker 1: the towel, I don't necessarily have to go to the gym,
33:48
Speaker 1: but I could have just done something light at home.
33:51
Speaker 1: Another thing that you could say to yourself is was
33:53
Speaker 1: I doing the more difficult things first at the start
33:56
Speaker 1: of the day, Like was I choosing to do the
33:58
Speaker 1: harder things first? Or was I trying to do the
34:00
Speaker 1: easy thing first? And then my day got out of
34:01
Speaker 1: the way, and then all the hard things went out
34:03
Speaker 1: the window, so you could say, next time, before I
34:06
Speaker 1: have the chance of my day getting out of control,
34:08
Speaker 1: I could have done one or two of those harder
34:10
Speaker 1: things earlier. On that way, then the only thing that
34:15
Speaker 1: you know ends up dropping off the bandwagon are the easier, smaller,
34:19
Speaker 1: less important tasks. And then talk about becoming a person
34:23
Speaker 1: of your word. If you're like, every single day I'm
34:26
Speaker 1: not getting it done, limit the things that you're telling
34:30
Speaker 1: yourself that you have to get done. Become a person
34:32
Speaker 1: of your word. I'd rather say, you know what, I'm
34:35
Speaker 1: going to get these two things done today, no matter what,
34:37
Speaker 1: I'm fucking getting these two fucking things done. Then have
34:41
Speaker 1: a list of twenty things to do this and get
34:43
Speaker 1: nothing done. Okay, become a person your word. Cut it down,
34:46
Speaker 1: cut it down, make it simple, make it sharp, make
34:48
Speaker 1: it intentional, but get it done. And then you can
34:52
Speaker 1: start saying, I'm someone that finishes what I start. I'm
34:54
Speaker 1: someone that follows through with my word. And then when
34:58
Speaker 1: things do crop up in life, you don't feel like
35:00
Speaker 1: you're making excuses because it's a once off. It's just
35:03
Speaker 1: here and there that you weren't able to do things.
35:05
Speaker 1: But you've created enough consistency that you're not leaning on
35:08
Speaker 1: your excuses. You look at those as like genuine reasons
35:11
Speaker 1: why something didn't get done, But make sure you're not
35:13
Speaker 1: creating a pattern of excuses where you probably had more
35:16
Speaker 1: control than you give yourself credit for. Now. Strengthening your
35:20
Speaker 1: emotional resilience is another thing that we can do. So
35:22
Speaker 1: this is boosted by a level of self compassion. So
35:26
Speaker 1: what I was saying kind of before, it's this idea
35:29
Speaker 1: of like, be real with yourself. You know, if you
35:32
Speaker 1: actually couldn't have gotten anything done, I acknowledge that being like,
35:36
Speaker 1: is this excuse real or not? And that actually helps
35:39
Speaker 1: with self compassion because it's not saying, you know, fuck it,
35:42
Speaker 1: I should have done it anyway, it's ridiculous, it's being
35:45
Speaker 1: it's just being logical. Okay, So it's like do I
35:48
Speaker 1: need to pull myself up or do I need to
35:50
Speaker 1: acknowledge that it just wasn't possible. And when you just
35:53
Speaker 1: stick to facts, then it makes you feel like you're
35:56
Speaker 1: in control of your life because I don't feel like
35:58
Speaker 1: I'm putting myself down if I can look at it
36:00
Speaker 1: day and say, yeah, come on, can't like you could
36:02
Speaker 1: have I could have done at least one of those things,
36:05
Speaker 1: but I kind of threw the towel in halfway through
36:07
Speaker 1: the day. Versus if I can say, you know what,
36:10
Speaker 1: I feel shit because I've got nothing done today. But
36:12
Speaker 1: then I look at my day and I really break
36:13
Speaker 1: it down and I say, well, realistically, would it have
36:15
Speaker 1: been possible? No, Like here, I am fighting an uphill
36:18
Speaker 1: battle because today was not to those days where it
36:20
Speaker 1: genuinely wasn't in my control. That's being self compassionate. No,
36:24
Speaker 1: like pick your fucking battles. Okay, pull yourself up, Yes,
36:28
Speaker 1: but pulling yourself up also allows you to identify when
36:32
Speaker 1: was it really in my control? When was it not? Okay,
36:36
Speaker 1: Positive self talk is really good. Reframing I can't do
36:39
Speaker 1: this to I can't wait till I can figure out
36:42
Speaker 1: how to do this, or I can't wait till the
36:44
Speaker 1: day that I will be able to do this. One
36:46
Speaker 1: becomes more you're looking at it as a as a
36:48
Speaker 1: you know something in the future long term. It's definitely
36:50
Speaker 1: a Possibility's just a matter if when. And the other
36:52
Speaker 1: one you're saying, shut it down, shut it fucking down,
36:54
Speaker 1: I'm done. This isn't happening. Okay, And then, of course,
36:58
Speaker 1: surround yourself with conversations that are going to reflect how
37:00
Speaker 1: you feel about this thing. If there are people that
37:03
Speaker 1: are always, you know, talking about they can't do this,
37:05
Speaker 1: they can't do that, and telling you, oh my god,
37:08
Speaker 1: you've got this or don't do that, all true, just
37:11
Speaker 1: limit those conversations whenever possible, to keep a bit of
37:13
Speaker 1: a safe space around yourself when you're trying to strengthen
37:16
Speaker 1: this emotional resilience. Now, determination is delayed gratification. Okay, so
37:24
Speaker 1: we want to be doing you know, it's kind of
37:27
Speaker 1: like work before play is what you want to be
37:31
Speaker 1: thinking about it. Do the hard thing now so it's
37:33
Speaker 1: easier later. Because, as I've said, you're always going to
37:38
Speaker 1: have discomfort in your life. Discomfort is inevitable. Pain is inevitable.
37:42
Speaker 1: You cannot avoid it. You either have the discomfort of
37:44
Speaker 1: having to do the thing now then you get to
37:47
Speaker 1: have fun later, or doing whatever the fuck you want now,
37:50
Speaker 1: and then living with the dissatisfaction of your life not
37:52
Speaker 1: being where you want it to be. What discomfort would
37:55
Speaker 1: you rather? I have to get up and do this
37:57
Speaker 1: thing now, I have to write this essay, I have
37:59
Speaker 1: to fucking go to that I have to go to
38:00
Speaker 1: the gym, I have to fucking cook this fucking thing.
38:04
Speaker 1: Or at the end of the you're going to look
38:06
Speaker 1: back being like, oh, wasted a year I have I'm capable,
38:09
Speaker 1: I have the resources, I have the intelligence, and I
38:12
Speaker 1: just didn't do it and now I feel dissatisfied with
38:15
Speaker 1: my life. Okay, so you pick, you pick. I'm not
38:18
Speaker 1: gonna judge you. It's your decision. But pain is inevitable,
38:23
Speaker 1: discomfort is inevitable. You cannot live a discomfort free life.
38:27
Speaker 1: That's not possible. It's not possible. So pick, and you've
38:31
Speaker 1: got to think about determination and pay attention to this
38:33
Speaker 1: comfort zone. Okay. The reason a lot of people fail
38:36
Speaker 1: with determination is because their comfort zone is good enough. Okay,
38:41
Speaker 1: this is what I'm talking about, Like this this, you know,
38:44
Speaker 1: discomfort is inevitable. It's uncomfortable, but it's not killing me,
38:48
Speaker 1: so I can put stick at it a bit longer.
38:51
Speaker 1: The problem is that if you were to do this
38:53
Speaker 1: for ten years, you'd be like, oh, I missed out
38:55
Speaker 1: on all these things I could have done with my life.
38:57
Speaker 1: I missed out on all these experiences I could have experienced.
39:00
Speaker 1: Or this this, you know, physical strength I could have
39:03
Speaker 1: attained and seen what it was like, and I just
39:05
Speaker 1: never maximized it. I never maximized my potential, And sitting
39:08
Speaker 1: in untapped potential is just sad, Okay, sad for everyone.
39:12
Speaker 1: There's so many people that you look at and being
39:13
Speaker 1: like you are wasted potential because you just never tapped
39:16
Speaker 1: into it. And potential is fuck all if you don't
39:19
Speaker 1: actually do something about it. Okay, So we've got to
39:23
Speaker 1: think about it, like, is my comfort zone just too
39:27
Speaker 1: comfortable at the moment, And if that's the case, how
39:30
Speaker 1: do I emotionally frame it so I can snap out
39:34
Speaker 1: of it? Because what I spoke about earlier about you know,
39:37
Speaker 1: serotonin and the emotional center and the amigdalen all of that.
39:40
Speaker 1: This is where it's important to frame things for you
39:42
Speaker 1: to be more likely to take action on something. You know,
39:45
Speaker 1: if your comfort zone is too comfortable, You've got to
39:47
Speaker 1: remind yourself, I'm going to be very pissed off if
39:49
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in this fucking comfort zone in five years time,
39:52
Speaker 1: all right, So determination, to wrap it up, Determination is
39:56
Speaker 1: a mix of biological, emotional, and cognitive process within the brain.
40:01
Speaker 1: We want to be looking at this as a holistic approach.
40:03
Speaker 1: We want to realize that when something is difficult, it's
40:06
Speaker 1: not going to be that hard forever. It's actually going
40:08
Speaker 1: to get easier to do that thing, not just because
40:10
Speaker 1: we're physically getting better at it, but it's going to
40:13
Speaker 1: become easier because we're actually strengthening those pathways and those
40:15
Speaker 1: regions within the brain that the brain then takes this
40:18
Speaker 1: on as a subconscious process. You are you're using those
40:24
Speaker 1: resources instead of loading too much on your conscious processing,
40:28
Speaker 1: which is what drains you so quickly, what exhausts you
40:31
Speaker 1: and what makes you throw in the towel. You are
40:32
Speaker 1: subcontracting that job to your subconscious mind and getting a
40:36
Speaker 1: lot fucking done. Okay, so this is all of these
40:39
Speaker 1: things are going to help you stay focused, push through
40:43
Speaker 1: obstacles big and small. It helps you be more self
40:45
Speaker 1: compassionate as well, so you can actually like pick your
40:48
Speaker 1: battles properly and not like take the piss, And it's
40:52
Speaker 1: going to help you get through things even when things
40:54
Speaker 1: aren't that great and when things are pretty tough. Okay.
40:57
Speaker 1: Determination is rooted in every thing I just spoke about.
41:01
Speaker 1: It's the neuroscience, it's the psychology, and it's how we
41:04
Speaker 1: start to rewire our brain for kind of progress in
41:08
Speaker 1: whichever area that you want. Okay, So hopefully this made
41:14
Speaker 1: you kind of, I don't know, look at determination as
41:17
Speaker 1: something that's malleable and changeable. And when we put these
41:20
Speaker 1: tiny little behaviors, we start to strengthen those brain regions,
41:23
Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex with the basil ganglia, with the amigdala.
41:26
Speaker 1: And when those regions start talking to each other better,
41:29
Speaker 1: they get strengthened, and then what seemed difficult once becomes
41:33
Speaker 1: kind of almost automatic or autopilot later on in life. Okay.
41:38
Speaker 1: So yeah, I just hope that this gave you a
41:40
Speaker 1: little nudge that you needed, made you feel a little
41:43
Speaker 1: bit more motivated, made you feel a little bit more
41:45
Speaker 1: in control and excited for what's to come next week,
41:49
Speaker 1: next month, next year. If you are interested in the
41:51
Speaker 1: Brain Journal, just go to www dot dyfmpod dot com
41:56
Speaker 1: and you can purchase the Brain Journal there. And if not,
42:00
Speaker 1: you can just track do you could just write on
42:02
Speaker 1: a piece of paper and track your you know, like
42:05
Speaker 1: no two days off in a row kind of goals
42:07
Speaker 1: as well. But I will link my website in the
42:10
Speaker 1: Shine Notes and I will link the cortsold episodes in
42:12
Speaker 1: the show notes as well, Guys, thank you so much
42:15
Speaker 1: for listening to today's episode. Love you guys so much.
42:18
Speaker 1: As always, remember be kind to yourself, be kind to
42:20
Speaker 1: your brain, don't take shit from anyone, and especially don't
42:23
Speaker 1: take shit from yourself. Especially don't ca