This article is written by David Haworth, our tutor in Malta & Gozo and author of many of our online personal development courses. You can find out more about the courses he teaches here, and about his online personal development courses here.
Human brains are funny things, aren’t they? Sometimes they do exactly what we want, like write an email or phone a friend, and other times we can’t seem to persuade them to do anything!! Sometimes our brains just simply refuse to get started on that idea or important goal that would improve our life.
Why does this happen? Well, it seems to me that the answer is beautifully counterintuitive.
It has to do with a simple distinction between up and down
Look down… what do you see? Your hands, maybe your phone or keyboard? Things that are within arm’s reach are what scientists call your peri-personal space.
Now look up … what do you see? Well, of course, you see the world beyond your arm’s reach. This is what scientists call your extra-personal space.
Getting things that are beyond arm’s reach, requires effort. It could be a small amount of effort, for example, to walk across your room to get your wallet, or it could be more, like going outside to run a few miles en route to achieving your fitness goal.
The problem is that interacting with things that don’t yet exist (like our goals) takes place in the future. These are things that haven’t happened yet, whether we want them to or not. We literally have to go inside our mind to imagine them; to see what it will be like and to find the motivation to go for it. We build the future in our own heads.
The problem is that most of us have lost the knowledge of how to do this. We’ve never been taught how to do it effectively, so we literally can’t generate enough desire to act. Does that sound familiar to you? I imagine it does, at least in some circumstances.
There are some circumstances, of course, where our future actions have an instant reward, and it’s fairly easy to motivate ourselves to go for it. I know the local shop sells my favourite chocolate, for example, and I have no problem motivating myself to go!!
But – and here’s where we let ourselves off the hook – the problem isn’t you! It turns out that things that are within arm’s reach, are regulated by what scientists call the ‘here & now’ chemicals in our brain.
But, when we look out into extrapersonal space, into the future, the imaginary and our thoughts are coordinated by one single chemical. That chemical is dopamine. Dopamine, in the right quantity, creates the desire, the compulsion to act.
So what does this mean for our get-up-and-go, when the goal isn’t immediate, or chocolate? It means that motivation is all about learning to modulate dopamine. It means that when you learn how to build the future right – so that it is enticing, desirable, compelling – it triggers a gorgeous neurochemical cascade so you can’t help but feel the desire to act.
If you’re good at visualising, you are one step ahead already. If you can see your future goal, in all its glory. If you can hear it, smell it, touch it, taste it…. If you can make it real for you, right now…. and most importantly, if you can connect with the way you will feel, you’re almost all the way there.
Goal setting techniques are one amazing application of NLP coaching that can help you to create the life you want, the way you want it, not only by learning the personal and emotional skills you need to achieve your goals but by bringing them to life, in the here and now.
There’s a wonderful phrase that I use often, and it applies as much to chocolate as it does to our larger, more ambitious life goals….. “Energy flows where focus goes.” Where is your focus today?
