Gone are the days when you spent hours searching for answers to questions, had to leave the house to meet new people, or had to get up to change the temperature in your home.
But the convenience afforded by technology comes at a price, says Anna Lembke, a psychiatrist at Stanford University. Most people now dislike activities that require effort more than they used to. Working out or learning a new skill from scratch can feel more like a chore than fun. But you can train your brain to take on and like these types of challenges, Lembke said on Monday’s episode of the CEO Diary podcast.
Her advice is to have a detailed and intentional plan for approaching an activity before you actually do it.
“If you wait until the moment you decide whether to do something difficult, you almost always end up choosing not to do it,” said Lembke, author of the New York Times bestseller “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.” “But if you plan ahead, say the day before, ‘I’m going to wake up at this time tomorrow. I’m going to pack up and go to the gym,’ you’re much more likely to engage in that activity.”
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You may already be doing this in other aspects of your life, like planning dinner a week in advance or choosing your work clothes the night before to avoid being late. Preparation can help you “put the brakes on short-term aspirations and project yourself into the future to achieve long-term aspirations,” Lembke says.
It helps to have a buddy to hold you accountable. People tend to accomplish more when they have a partner or group of partners who are on the same path. A 2015 study by researchers at University College London found that in couples, when one partner makes healthier changes, the other partner is more likely to make similar positive changes.
By tying friendships and interactions to a goal, such as attending a training class or study group, Lembke says, “these difficult things become much easier to do.”
Financial psychologist Charles Chaffin, co-founder of the Financial Psychology Institute and professor at Iowa State University, told CNBC Make It on Dec. 23 that he agrees with the buddy system approach.
“Dry January is a good example,” Chaffin said. “If you go through a dry month of January with the people you go out drinking with, your chances of success actually go up a lot because you’re going through it with someone else. You’re keeping an eye on each other and encouraging each other. Those are all really, really good things.”
“Moderation Goals”
Lembke points out that the journey to accomplishing something difficult, no matter what it is for you, is likely not to be fun at first. She used the analogy of a scale, with joy on one side and pain on the other. For example, by waking up early and dedicating two hours to an uninterrupted study session, you are intentionally increasing the weight on the “pain” side of the scale.
She says that a short break from social media temporarily puts more emphasis on pleasure, but sticking to your goals and pushing through the discomfort will give you a longer-lasting dopamine boost.
Don’t be too hard on yourself if you fail on your way to achieving your goals, Lembke added. At the beginning of the year, people tend to set specific, unattainable goals and feel very embarrassed if they do not strictly adhere to them.
For example, I may not have been able to completely cut out sugar like I had hoped, but at least I ate more whole foods and increased my water intake. Progress is progress, even if it’s not perfect.
“For some people, a better approach is some kind of self-compassion and a goal of moderation,” Lembke says.
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