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441. The Neuroscience behind determination · Do You F*cking Mind?

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