As you might have suspected by now the whole theory behind the laws of attraction fall back on our ability to focus and filter undesired information. This means we owe it to our RAS. When we want something such as a better car, lose weight, more money or to be happier we are priming our brains with these ideas. By visualizing the things we desire, we are telling our brain to stay alert so when our senses (visual, olfactory, auditory, etc.) come in contact with anything related to what we want, our RAS will filter it out and bring it to our attention.
Let me give you an example that will help you visualize what I am saying here. Suppose you are at a conference and there are hundreds of people mingling around you. You are having a conversation with a colleague about your family life. There are also hundreds of conversations happening at the same time but although you hear them, you can’t really listen to what they are saying. Your brain is filtering them because you are focused on your own conversation.
Now let’s assume that you are interested in financial investments and how the stock market works. While you are having your conversation, another group of people twenty feet away from you switch their conversation and start talking about a particular stock that is doing great. Without event thinking about it you will now tune in their conversation because your RAS noticed that there is a piece of information that might pertain to your particular goals and all of a sudden, out of hundreds of conversations happening at once, you were able to pick the one conversation that has a personal interest. As if the forces of the universe were pulling you towards those people to get you closer to your goal.
Short term goals are better
in the long run!
By now I am sure you have a good understanding of how our brain works and can understand that achieving goals is not just about discipline and doing, it has almost everything to do with how our brain works. I have mentioned earlier that long term goals are harder to attain because they can be discouraging, and that we should focus on creating as many shorter goals as possible in order to achieve that main goal.
By setting small goals you are priming your brain to succeed. This in turn allows your brain to store all that information that primed you to succeed and it all results in a burst of dopamine release from activating our reward pathway (see my march article 2014 for more information about dopamine effects.) The effect of a dopamine release not only allows us to concentrate better but it makes us crave for more, thus pushing us to achieve a new goal so that we can get that effect
Achieving small goals can turn into a great and positive vicious cycle pushing us to do more and more with very little effort. As a result, accumulation of smaller successes can help you achieve great dreams. In contrast, a large goal can set us up for failure. We will be overwhelmed and not focused, this in turn will deprive us from a dopamine influx which will decrease our concentration and unfortunately for all of us, it is a lot harder to learn from what went wrong because our brain does not like storing that kind of information. I am not saying we can’t learn from mistakes, we always do, I am saying that physiologically it is harder for our brains to gather information from mistakes. Research has shown that brains who experience success show more plasticity than brains that experience failure.
Another key factor about setting your goals is to try setting enjoyable goals. I know, and believe me, that is not always the case. But this is crucial, especially at the beginning. The more achievable and enjoyable a goal is, the faster you will be on that dopamine roller coaster getting you quicker where you need to be. If you start setting goals that you do not enjoy, your brain will have a harder time focusing and activating your pleasure pathways.
Tips on setting goals:
1 - Set up short goals - no longer than 2-3 month to achieve them.
2- Make sure those goals are actually achievable and specific to what you are trying to accomplish.
3- Visualize: make sure you constantly visualize what you want to achieve. It will make your journey smoother.
4- Write down your goals and read them as often as you can.
5- Modify your goals accordingly.
Happy goal setting!
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