“I’ll start trying in year 12 when it really matters” and other delusional thoughts: Debunking 3 ideas that stop you from achieving your personal best


I’ve just finished reading a book called ‘You are not so smart: Why your memory is mostly fiction, why you have too many friends on Facebook and 46 other ways you’re deluding yourself’.

It’s got me thinking about thinking. In particular, it’s got me thinking about cognitive distortions.

What’s a cognitive distortion?

A cognitive distortion is an inaccurate thought that affects your perception of reality. Your mind convinces you of something that isn’t exactly the case.

A simple example of a cognitive distortion is thinking that you’re dumb when in actual fact you’re quite bright.

I like to call these cognitive distortions ‘crazy talk’.

The problem with ‘crazy talk’ or delusional thinking is that it can set you on a destructive path of self-sabotage. ‘Crazy talk’ can make you miserable. It often leads to poor or at best, mediocre grades.

Bottom line is: ‘Crazy talk’ influences your mood, behavior, and motivation at a fundamental level. And this is why ‘crazy talk’ can be so dangerous.

How do you deal with ‘crazy talk’?

You need to rip it to shreds. You need to pull these crazy ideas apart so you can see them for what they are: deeply flawed and out of touch with reality. So let’s dive right in and do just that.

Here are 3 common delusional thoughts students often have:

1. “I’ll just wing it [test or exam]”

If you’re winging a test that means you haven’t studied for it. You’ve done the bare minimum (you’ve attended your classes) and you’re just going to hope for the best. Maybe you’ve said a little prayer to the test gods.

But imagine if Katy Perry, Adele, or Lady Gaga didn’t practice before a big show. Imagine if they just said, “Forget the dress rehearsal! Forget warming up my vocal cords. Forget practicing the songs…I’m just going to wing it!” What would you think? You’d probably think, “That’s a bit crazy…”.

The same thing applies with taking tests and exams: you need to do some preparation. You need to study and revise.

Whether it is taking out your notes and creating some flashcards or making a summary mind map, you need to do something! A little bit of revision can make a big difference.

But winging it? Don’t expect to do well. Expect to fail or at best, just scrape through.

2. “If only I was smarter, things would be easier…I’d do better at school”

So you think you were born average or dumb, eh? And you think this is why you find school so challenging. But in actual fact, it doesn’t work like this.

“But Johnny finds maths so easy!”, you’re thinking. “It’s a breeze for him!” But here’s the thing: you don’t know if Johnny has a private math’s tutor or if Johnny’s mother is a math’s professor. Johnny may have been exposed to mathematical ideas from a very young age.

There’s no denying the fact that some students pick things up quicker than others. I know from experience how easy it is to get fixated on people who look like they’re hardly doing any work yet achieve great results. But these students are a distraction from your studies.

The bottom line is: just because it takes you a bit longer to learn information that doesn’t mean you’re stupid. Far from it.

Your subjects are designed to be challenging. They are designed to stretch you. Don’t jump to the conclusion that because you’re struggling with a subject that this means you’re not very smart and/or not particularly good at the subject.

Professor Angela Duckworth’s research has found that effort counts twice as much as talent. She says:

“Without effort, your talent is nothing more than your unmet potential. Without effort, your skills is nothing more than what you could have done but didn’t”.

In short, doing well at school isn’t about being smart.

Success at school comes down to putting in effort. It’s about getting stuck into your studies (even when you don’t feel like it) and pushing through the discomfort when things get tough. That’s what will make you ‘smart’ like Johnny.

3. “I’ll start trying in year 12 when it really matters”

Students hope that once they get to year 12 suddenly effective study skills and habits will kick in. They think the motivation fairy will suddenly pay them a visit. Again, this is crazy talk. Here’s why:

Establishing good habits and new skills is a messy process. Change usually involves 5 steps forward and 3 (or 10 steps back).

Do you think you’re suddenly going to wake up feeling super motivated to work hard when you’ve been slacking off up until year 12? Maybe. But most likely, no. You’ll feel exactly the same as every other year.

The fact is that it takes time to acquire effective study strategies and make them part of your everyday routine. You may also have some deeply ingrained (and ineffective) study habits that aren’t so easy to break.

Here’s my advice…

Start putting in the effort and experimenting with different study strategies today. Don’t wait until year 12. Choose a strategy and apply it immediately. Don’t expect to feel comfortable as you do this. It will feel strange at first. Just know that that’s completely normal.

Then once you’ve mastered that strategy, build on it with another strategy. Keep adding to your study arsenal.

To sum up

Just to be clear, if you have any of these distorted thoughts from time to time, you should know that you’re not actually crazy. It’s just that you’re thoughts aren’t always right.

But thought can be changed and corrected through challenging them. Alternatively, you can choose to ignore each distorted thought (“Yeah yeah, talk to the hand…”) and simply carry on with doing your work.

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We all have days when we don’t feel like doing our work.

On these days, the temptation to procrastinate and distract oneself can be strong.

I recently spent a few days with my family in the countryside, where I enjoyed reading by a crackling fire. But when I found myself back home in my office, I struggled to get back into the swing of things.

I was experiencing a full-blown holiday comedown.

For some context, I had printed out the slides for an upcoming presentation that I needed to practise, but I felt resistance every time I looked at the slides.

My mind screamed, “Nooo! I don’t want to practise!”. Without even thinking, I kept pushing the slides away like a toddler smooshing their vegetables around on their plate.

But at some point, I caught myself in the act. Without berating myself, I managed to turn things around and ease into my practice.

In this blog, I’ll share a couple of simple strategies I use to get a better handle on my procrastination and overcome resistance.

 

Strategy 1: Get curious about the resistance

According to Procrastination scholar Tim Pychyl, procrastination isn’t a time management issue. It’s an emotion management issue. If you can get a better handle on your emotions, you’ll have a better handle on procrastination.

Let’s unpack this…

Often, when we procrastinate, it’s because we’re trying to avoid experiencing negative emotions. The task we need to do brings up feelings of discomfort (e.g., boredom, fear, guilt, anxiety, and stress), so we avoid the task to make ourselves feel better.

But avoidance makes no sense when you think about it.

Oliver Burkeman explains the problems associated with avoidance in his book Meditations for Mortals. He writes:

“The more you organise your life around not addressing the things that make you anxious, the more likely they are to develop into serious problems – and even if they don’t, the longer you fail to confront them, the more unhappy time you spend being scared of what might be lurking in the places you don’t want to go. It’s ironic that this is known, in self-help circles, as ‘remaining in your comfort zone’, because there’s nothing comfortable about it. In fact, it entails accepting a constant background tug of discomfort – an undertow of worry that can sometimes feel useful or virtuous, though it isn’t – as the price you pay to avoid a more acute spike of anxiety.”

Dutch Zen Monk Paul Loomans labels the tasks we avoid as ‘gnawing rats’. He says these tasks “eat away at you under the surface”.

Have you noticed that whenever you try to avoid a task, it’s usually still on your mind, using up your precious mental resources?

That’s what Loomans means by the task eating away at you under the surface.

Why does he use the peculiar term ‘gnawing rat’? Looman’s daughter used to have pet rats that would eat loudly under his bed, keeping him awake at night.

Loomans explains that if you can befriend your gnawing rats, you can transform them into white sheep. Just like a white sheep follows you around passively, once you transform a task into a white sheep, it’s a lot easier to make a start.

The question is, how do you transform a ‘gnawing rat’ (a task you are avoiding) into a white sheep?

The key is to approach procrastination from a place of curiosity.

Loomans suggests creating a positive, open relationship with the task you’ve been avoiding. You need to sit with it or visualise the task. Instead of giving yourself a hard time, get curious about why you have such a strained relationship with this task.

Loomans advises:

“… you’re not being asked to immediately do whatever it is that’s gnawing at you. The assignment is only to establish a relationship with it. You let all the various facets sink in and then let them go again.

The rat no longer gnaws at you, and it has settled down. It’s no longer trying to get your attention, but follows quietly behind. It now has white legs and curly fleece – it’s turned into a white sheep.”

I decided to follow Looman’s advice with this presentation I had been avoiding. To begin with, I pulled out my slides and I just sat with them.

I closed my eyes, tuned into my body and asked myself:

“Why am I feeling resistance towards practising this presentation? What’s going on?”

Within 30 seconds, the answer came to me. The resistance came from how I thought I’d feel after doing my speech practice: exhausted and emotionally depleted.

You see, when I practice a presentation, I typically go into turbocharge mode. It’s like I’m delivering the real thing: I gesticulate, project my voice, pace around the room, and rely on my memory and the pictures on my slides to remember the content (I don’t refer to my notes).

All of this takes a lot of mental and physical effort.

So, naturally, when I looked at my slides for this one-hour presentation, I felt flat and heavy.

I equated one hour of presentation practice with having a fried brain by the end.

But then I had a brilliant idea. I thought, “What if this practice session didn’t have to feel like a hard slog? What if it could be fun, light and easy but still effective? What would that look like?”

It immediately occurred to me that I had to shorten my practice session, which brings me to the next strategy . . .

Strategy 2: Go Tiny

To keep my practice session fun, light and easy, I settled on doing just five minutes of speech practice.

Instead of pacing around my office and practising in turbocharge mode for an hour, I sat myself down with a hot chocolate. I set a timer for five minutes, pulled out a mini whiteboard and started recalling the content (scribbling out and drawing pictures of what I needed to say).

When the timer went off, I checked my notes to see how I went (What did I remember? What did I forget to say?).

Then, I checked in with myself – “How am I feeling after that mini practice session?”. Instead of feeling depleted, I was feeling good! I felt less overwhelmed by this presentation. The resistance had subsided. As Paul Loomans would say, the presentation had transformed from a gnawing rat into a white sheep!

I felt excited, even a little inspired.

I could have easily kept practising for another 10-20 minutes, but I decided to give myself a break to re-energise (I got up and walked on the treadmill for 2 minutes).

This gave me insight into the need to vary the intensity and mode of each study session, depending on my energy levels and what I have planned for the rest of the day. Sometimes it’s good to go into turbocharge mode, but not always.

Not every study/work session has to be hardcore. Work sessions that leave you feeling completely drained by the end can be counterproductive. As Professor BJ Fogg says, “Tiny is mighty”.

Why are tiny study sessions powerful?

Firstly, tiny study sessions are less scary for your brain. Five minutes of speech practice and flashcard practice feels easy. You think, “I can do 5 minutes!”.

In contrast, one hour of study feels scary for your brain, which means you’re more likely to procrastinate.

When you go tiny, it’s also easier to give your full focus to the task at hand. Here’s the thing about focus: focusing your mind takes a lot of your brainpower. And you have a limited supply of brainpower!

As you sit there and study, your brainpower gets depleted. But research shows one way to boost your attentional resources (i.e. your brainpower) is by taking regular breaks. If you study in short focused bursts and then take a break, you can stay refreshed and ensure your study sessions are effective.

But most importantly, tiny study sessions help to create momentum, and they leave you feeling good!

I tend to push myself to the point of exhaustion when I practise my talks. But I can see now that this makes it hard for me to want to practise in the future.

By dedicating just 5–10 minutes to the task and enjoying it, I’m more likely to do another 5 minutes (or more) of practice tomorrow. Doing five minutes of practice every day is infinitely better than doing no practice or cramming a long practice session in the day before.

To sum up

You’re not going to go from good to great in one tiny study session. But you can make meaningful progress and create the momentum you need to keep going.

So, don’t turn your nose up at five minutes of flashcard practice or 10 minutes of doing a practice test. If done with focus and intention, that’s a solid study session that can set you on the path to success.

 

Image credit:

Toddler (featured in image 2): “Skeptical” by quinn.anya is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Rat: “Fancy rat blaze” by AlexK100 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

Make study easier

It’s the start of a new school year.

This usually comes with shiny new pens, fresh notebooks and renewed hope and optimism. But I recently heard someone say:

“I can’t believe it’s already the end of January . . . so much has happened. I feel tired.”

Can you relate?

A lot has been happening in the world. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the news, let alone the tsunami of information we’re bombarded with online.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed and tired (like many people are), let’s try to make life a little easier for ourselves. In this article, I share a strategy you can use to make difficult things feel easier to do. I also share how you can apply the strategy to studying challenging subjects.

Don’t waste your precious energy worrying

I remember having a brief conversation with a year 11 student at the start of the pandemic. It went something like this . . .

Me: How are you feeling given the situation (i.e., COVID-19)?

Year 11 Student: Some of us are stressed but not because of COVID. It’s because of what our teachers have just said to us.

Me: What have your teachers been saying to you?

Year 11 Student: They keep saying this year is going to be really hard. The subjects are going to be much, much harder.

Driving home from the talk, I couldn’t stop thinking about what this student had said as well as the worried look in her eyes.

This conversation reminded me of an awkward experience I once had in a school.

Here’s what happened . . .

I was booked to deliver a presentation to 150 year 10 students. My talk was scheduled for the last period of the school day.

In case you’re not aware, the last period of the school day is not an ideal time slot for a guest speaker. It’s usually a tough gig, as students are tired and they just want to go home.

Students don’t hide how they feel at the end of the school day.

When I arrived at the venue to set up my gear, I spotted two teachers. I approached them and introduced myself to them as the guest presenter. One of them said in an alarmed, panicky tone:

“Oh! You’re the guest speaker? I need to warn you that these students are a horrible group. They do not warm to guest speakers!”

She continued. . .

“Does your talk have a structure to it? Do you know what you’re talking about? These year 10s are a really hard group to work with!”

I felt my stress levels begin to rise, and by accident, I knocked my glass of water off the stage, and it broke. Glass shattered everywhere. Instead of helping me pick up the glass, the teacher said:

“Look! It’s a sign of things to come!”

At this point, the young IT guy arrived to help connect my laptop to the AV system. He overheard this teacher talking about what a bunch of ratbags these students were. His expression was a combination of shock and horror. He said to her:

“Why are you saying this to our guest presenter? I don’t think it’s helpful.”

The teacher reacted defensively. She blurted out, “She needs to know! It’s important we tell her!” and then she left in a hurry.

I took some deep breaths and continued setting up my stuff.

What happened next may surprise you . . .

The students arrived.
I delivered the talk.
The talk went really well. Phew!

It turns out these students weren’t horrible at all. They were a normal group of students who happened to be a bit tired and over it (it didn’t help that it was a boiling hot day).

That day, I learnt an important lesson: Worrying about how difficult something might be doesn’t help. It just uses up your precious brainpower and energy, which you could have spent doing something else (i.e., something more productive).

Whenever I fixate on how hard something will be, I’m filled with fear. Imposter syndrome and self doubt kick in (“Will I be able to do this? What if I fail and it turns out to be a total flop?”). This usually leads to a bad case of avoidance and procrastination.

Imposter syndrome

In the book Make It Stick, Peter Brown explains:

A fear of failure can poison learning by creating aversions to the kinds of experimentation and risk taking that characterize striving, or by diminishing performance under pressure, as in a test setting.”

If you feel worried that you’re not going to be able to perform well in a subject, this is going to use up a big part of your working memory capacity. Instead of thinking about the content, you’ll be thinking, “Am I going to be able to do this? What if I can’t? Should I drop the subject?”.

In short, you’ll have dramatically less brainpower available for learning.

What makes a difference?

There’s a simple question I ask myself when something feels hard. And it’s this . . .

How can I make this behaviour easier to do?

Professor BJ Fogg calls this the Breakthrough Question. According to Fogg, there are three ways you can make any behaviour easier to do:

  1. You can increase your skills
  2. You can invest in tools and resources
  3. You can make the behaviour tiny

Tiny Habits by BJ Fogg

In his book Tiny Habits, Fogg explains:

“Regardless of what your aspiration is, increasing your skills, getting tools and resources, and making the behaviour tiny are what makes things easier to do. . .

Sometimes all you’ll need is the right tool to make a new habit easier to do, like using skinny floss [for flossing teeth], and other times all you have to do is scale the behaviour back to its tiniest version, such as flossing just one tooth. Think of making something easy to do as a pond with three different ways to enter the water. Whether you jump off the dock, wade in at the beach, or drop in from a rope swing, you’ll soon be swimming in the same water.”

In other words, you have options!

There are many things you can do to make studying those ‘hard’ subjects a little easier.

With that in mind, here is a short list of behaviours and ideas that will help you get a better handle on your challenging subjects:

1. Put your phone away from your body in another room

If you can focus better, you can learn and retain more information. If you constantly check your phone, put it on silent and away from your body before you sit down to study. My phone lives in pocket number 1 of a vertical wall hangar in my dining room (well away from my workspace).

2. Upgrade your study skills

Study strategies such as active recall (e.g., flashcards) and dual coding (e.g., mind mapping) are more effective than rereading and highlighting your notes. Like any new skill, they take a little time to get used to, but they’ll save you a lot of time in the long run.

3. Try a different textbook

Some textbooks explain ideas better than others. The textbook on your school booklist is not the only one or necessarily the best one out there. You don’t need to feel wedded to it. Check out other study guides and resources.

4. Build good sleep habits

A good night’s sleep allows you to focus better in class, retain more information and feel better. Make sleep your top priority. Here are some behaviours I engage in to get more and better sleep:

In the evening, I put my phone away in another room to charge (and I don’t touch it until the next day)
I don’t look at any screens at least one hour before bed
I go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time everyday

5. Keep chaos at bay

Create a system to organise your notes, past exam papers and handout sheets. Over time, you may need to tweak and refine your system, but that’s okay. I’ve been tweaking and refining my system for years.

For example, I used to store all my mind maps in an A3 flip file (in no particular order). But when things started to get out of control, I switched to cataloguing them alphabetically.My mind map organisation system

6. Ask questions

If you’re confused, don’t suffer in silence. Ask your teacher for help. That’s their job. If you feel shy asking a question in front of the class, approach your teacher after class.

7. Take notes in class

Make life easier for your future self by jotting down key ideas in class. If something is confusing, make a note (you can focus on that in a study session at home). Your memory has limits, and if you don’t write it down, chances are you won’t be able to remember it.

8. Make your study sessions tiny

Make the task tiny

If you feel overwhelmed by the idea of doing several hours of study each day, start with just five minutes. Five minutes of study is infinitely better than doing nothing!

Once you’ve developed the habit of sitting down and studying for 5 minutes, you can ramp it up. But start small.

9. Celebrate the little wins

When you manage to sit down and do a little study, congratulate yourself. Say to yourself, “Good job!” This positive reinforcement makes us feel good, which helps us establish a study habit.

To sum up

When your teachers say, “This subject is going to be really hard”, I think they’re trying to communicate to you, “You need to sit down and study. You can no longer wing it.” They may be afraid that you’re not taking things seriously.

Instead of worrying, be in action. Pick up some flashcards and start testing yourself. Tidy your desk. File away your notes from today. You’ll feel better and do better if you focus on doing the things that make studying that subject a little bit easier.

Control your dopamine

Do you know someone who is super motivated?

About 10 years ago I met the beloved Australian celebrity Costa Georgiardis from the television show Gardening Australia.

I was blown away by Costa’s energy and enthusiasm.

He was exactly like he appeared on TV. But he wasn’t hamming it up for the camera. Costa was the real deal.

He was high on life.

Costa

I’ve heard that people often ask Costa “Why are you so energetic?”, “Why are you so up?”, and “Don’t you get tired?”

Some people feel tired just being around Costa (check out this video to get a sense of Costa’s energy).

This got me thinking . . .

What’s the difference between motivated and energised people and less motivated people who struggle to get off the couch?

According to Stanford professor Dr Andrew Huberman the difference has everything to do with dopamine.

In this blog post, I want to explore how dopamine works and how you can adjust your dopamine levels to experience more motivation, focus, and energy in a safe and healthy way. Let’s go!

What is dopamine? And why does it matter?

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is involved in reward processing. Your brain releases this molecule whenever it anticipates a reward.

In a healthy brain and environment, dopamine plays an important role in keeping you motivated, focused, and on track with your goals.

Unfortunately, this natural feedback system can be hijacked by big tech companies and fast food corporations.

There are two types of dopamine: tonic and phasic

Tonic dopamine is your baseline level of dopamine that circulates through your system. People who are generally enthusiastic and motivated have a high baseline dopamine. But if you struggle with motivation and often feel lethargic, chances are you have a low baseline dopamine.

But then there’s phasic dopamine. This is where you experience peaks in dopamine above your baseline level. These peaks occur as a result of engaging in certain behaviours and/or consuming certain substances.

For example, social media companies train users to seek out quick, easy, and frequent hits of dopamine. Fast food companies engineer foods that have just the right amount of salt, fat and/or sugar to release big spikes in dopamine. This make you want to eat more of the food product and keep going back for more.

What goes up must come down

It’s important to understand that these peaks in dopamine don’t last.

After engaging in a dopamine-rich activity, you will experience an inevitable drop in dopamine. And this drop will be below your baseline level.

It should come as no surprise that when you’re in a dopamine deficit state you don’t feel very good. You experience pain and discomfort.

What is this pain and discomfort all about?

According to Psychiatrist Dr Anna Lembke this is our brain’s way of trying to bring everything back into balance and establish homeostasis.

In the book Dopamine Nation Dr Lembke talks about how pleasure and pain are experienced in overlapping regions of the brain. She states:

“Pleasure and pain work like a balance”.

If you tip to the side of pleasure or pain, self regulatory mechanisms kick in to bring everything back into balance.

But you never want to tip to one side for too long. Dr Lembke states:

“With repeated exposure to the same or similar pleasure stimulus, the initial deviation to the side of pleasure gets weaker and shorter and the after-response to the side of pain gets stronger and longer, a process scientists call neuroadaptation . . . we need more of the drug of choice to get the same effect.”

In other words, consuming more of a dopamine-rich substance or behaviour is bad for your brain. It will leave you in a dopamine-deficit-state.

And when you’re in this state, it’s much harder to do your school work.

How you can better manage your dopamine

There are a number of simple things you can do to regenerate your dopamine receptors and increase your baseline dopamine. I’ve listed several strategies below.

1. Avoid pre-rewards and extrinsic rewards

Before you start your work or study, you want to avoid engaging in activities that will cause spikes in dopamine. If you watch TikTok videos or play video games before sitting down to do your homework, this is going to make your work feel a lot more painful and boring.

Here’s why . . .

Dr Huberman states that how motivated you feel to do a task depends on your current dopamine levels and what previous peaks in dopamine you have experienced. This is important to understand because with this knowledge, you can create routines and habits to conserve your dopamine and motivation for pursuing your goals.

With this in mind, I’ve recently simplified my morning routine in the following ways:

• I don’t start the day by looking at my phone or computer
• I exercise without listening to music
• I have a healthy breakfast of overnight oats and berries rather than a super sweet smoothie
• I have a cold shower (more on why I do this below)

Whilst this may sound boring, it’s had a dramatic impact on how easy it is for me to get stuck into doing my work.

2. Take a dopamine detox

The term ‘Dopamine Detox’ is a little misleading since it’s technically not possible to detox from dopamine. Nevertheless, the idea is a good one.

When you engage in a dopamine detox, you’re taking a break from engaging in dopamine-rich activities (e.g., consuming junk food, going on social media, and watching Netflix). This will give your dopamine receptors a chance to regenerate.

After taking a dopamine detox, you’ll probably notice that simple things like eating basic wholefoods or going for a walk are much more pleasurable. As Dr Huberman points out:

“Our perception for dopamine is heightened when our dopamine receptors haven’t seen much dopamine lately.”

3. Embrace the pain of a cold shower

Research shows that cold water therapy (i.e., being submerged in cold water) can increase your dopamine by 250% above your baseline level.

Let’s put that in context:

Chocolate increases dopamine by 150% above baseline
Alcohol increases dopamine by 200% above baseline
Nicotine increases dopamine by 225% above baseline
Cocaine increases dopamine by 350% above baseline
Amphetamines increases dopamine by 1100%

You need to remember that these peaks in dopamine are followed by a sudden crash below your baseline level. Let’s not overlook the fact that chronic substance abuse causes brain damage and can be fatal.

Unlike other addictive substances, cold showers create peaks in dopamine that can last for several hours. You also don’t experience the subsequent dramatic crash below your baseline level.

Word of warning: Before you turn on the cold shower tap or start running an ice-bath, it’s important to be aware that people can go into shock when plunging themselves into cold water. Please be careful!

4. Get high from exercise

If cold showers aren’t really your thing, try increasing your dopamine with exercise. Exercise has been found to increase dopamine by 130% above your baseline level.

In the book Move The Body, Heal The Mind, neuroscientist Dr Jennifer Heisz says:

“Exercise increases dopamine and repopulates dopamine receptors to help the brain heal faster during recovery [from addiction]. Although all forms of exercise can do this, runner’s high may do it best.”

5. Create friction points

Look for ways to make it harder to engage in the dopamine-rich activities. Create barriers and/or friction points to stop you from mindlessly seeking quick shots of dopamine.

For example, I recently noticed I had a problem with compulsively checking my phone. Whenever I felt bored or lonely, I’d check my phone to see if I’d received any messages. I didn’t like the fact I was doing this but I found it hard to stop. What could I do?

I could use a dumb phone.

I found a ‘seniors’ flip phone that allowed me to do basic things like make calls and send texts. But sending texts is not easy! I have to type in each letter and change from upper to lower case. It really puts you off wanting to text your friends.

Since switching to a dumb phone, the number of times I touch my phone each day has significantly decreased.

6. Praise effort

As you do your work, praise yourself for the effort you’re putting in. Doing this can increase the dopamine you have for the activity.

Dr Huberman suggests saying the following while you’re doing painful work:

“I know this is painful. But you need to keep at it. Because it’s painful, it’s going to increase my dopamine later and I’m doing this by choice.”

To sum up

We live in a dopamine-rich world. It’s so easy to flood your brain with quick hits of dopamine that feel good in the moment but leave you feeling flat and irritable shortly after. These peaks in dopamine make it harder for us to pursue our goals by undermining our motivation.

No matter what your current dopamine baseline is, just remember this: you have the ability to increase your dopamine in a healthy and sustainable way. Kick-start the process today!