Why Our Brains Like Short-Term Goals

Achieving your goals isn’t just about hard work and discipline. It’s about physiology. By understanding how the brain processes success and failure, you can jump-start your productivity to create a winning streak and put an end to failed New Year's resolutions.

The more times you succeed at something, the longer your brain stores the information that allowed you to do so well in the first place. That’s because with each success, our brain releases a chemical called dopamine. When dopamine flows into the brain's reward pathway (the part responsible for pleasure, learning and motivation), we not only feel greater concentration but are inspired to re-experience the activity that caused the chemical release in the first place.

This is why the cultivation of small wins can propel you to bigger success, and you should focus on setting just a few small achievable goals. While your ambitions can remain grand, setting the bar too high with goals can actually be counterproductive. Each time we fail, the brain is drained of dopamine making it not only hard to concentrate but also difficult to learn from what went wrong.

Why We Learn More From Success Than Failure

Ever find yourself destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over again? According to a study completed by researchers at MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, that is exactly how our brains are wired to work. Their findings determined that our brain cells only learn from experience when we do things right and failure doesn’t register the same way.

In the experiment, monkeys viewed two images on a computer screen, one that presented a reward if the subject reacted by looking right, another when it looked left. The study showed that the brain response when a monkey received an award for looking the right way improved its chances of performing well on the next trial.

The study makes important discoveries not only about the way we learn but the brain’s neural plasticity or ability to change in response to experiences. When behavior is successful our cells become finely tuned to what the animal was learning at the time while a failure shows little change in the brain or improvement in the monkey’s behavior.

Related: How to Stick to Your New Year's Resolutions

Set Goals Your Brain Likes

Collecting wins, no matter how small, can chemically wire you to move mountains by causing a repeated release of dopamine. But to get going you have to land those first few successes. The key to creating your own cycle of productivity is to set a grand vision and work your way there with a few, achievable goals that increase your likelihood of experiencing a positive outcome.

“Your vision is your destination, and small, manageable goals are the motor that will get you there,” says Dr. Frank Murtha, a New York-based counseling psychologist with a focus on investor psychology, behavioral finance and financial risk taking. “Without the vision you’re on a road to nowhere. Without the goals, you have a destination but no motor. They work in tandem, and you need both.”

Create a Road Map for Your Subconscious Mind

Kick off goal setting by preparing a short vision statement of where you want to go. “Vision creates a picture for the subconscious mind. Our subconscious is what makes us such good problem solvers compared to a computer,” says Dr. Richard Peterson, a psychiatrist and neuroeconomics researcher who has written two books on financial risk taking. “We can see 1,000 dimensions of a problem and sort it down to the most important very quickly.”

The subconscious is not only responsible for 90 percent of the decisions we make in day-to-day life, but is also the part of the brain that is largely in charge when we are performing creative tasks or charting unknown territory. The very act of giving your emotional brain a detailed portrait of your end goal also ensures that, even inadvertently, you will take the steps needed to steer yourself toward it.

Articulate your vision with words and a picture or two; the more detailed the better. Post this where you can see it regularly.

Related: New Year's Resolution Tips for Busy People

Work Your Way There With Short-Term Goals

To rack up those first few wins, you’ve got to set only a few short-term goals at a time. Each should ideally take no more than three months to achieve. The goals should be realistic and specific, and incorporate your strengths. Writing them down, ideally in a place where you will see them every day, will help you stay focused.

If success releases the production of dopamine, failure can do the opposite. Setting over-reaching goals, or too many goals at once, can be counterproductive for those seeking to harness the power of the brain’s reward center. If you set four goals and achieve only two of them, it’s human nature to focus on what went wrong; even the successes you were able to accomplish fail to drum out what you weren’t able to achieve.

Remember, success begets success.
 

7 Science-Backed Strategies for Building Powerful Habits

 Achieving a goal often involves developing a new routine and sticking to it. Whether you want to network more, take on more consulting work, wake up earlier or exercise regularly, you’ll have to cement your intention by making it a habit.

Switching up your schedule can be unsettling and inconvenient. Life gets in the way, and it can be tempting to make excuses about why you have to break your habit.

That’s why some scientists dedicate their careers to figuring out what influences human behavior. If we know how we’re hardwired to respond to our own actions, we can set ourselves up for continued success.

Read on for some scientifically proven tips for developing habits that last.

1. Discover what triggers you.

In his book The Power of Habit, author Charles Duhigg describes a simple neurological loop at the core of every habit, a revelation MIT researchers originally discovered. The three steps in the loop are “cue,” “routine” and “reward.”

To carry out a specific action regularly, you’ll need a reliable reminder (cue). If you aim to stick to a certain time of day, set an alarm. A consistent location also helps. Also, places you already frequent will likely trigger your existing habits (e.g., sitting on the couch triggers you to want to watch TV).

Other people are some of your biggest behavioral influences and can be cues, too. Try to surround yourself with individuals who already behave how you aspire to.

If you perform on cue over and over, you’ll develop your routine. And once you’re immersed in your routine, you’ll start to reap the reward that comes from following through with your intentions.

Read more: 5 Triggers That Make New Habits Stick

2. View your goal as an obligation rather than a desire.

Sometimes we’re motivated more by the negative repercussions of not doing something than we are by the possible benefits of doing it.

Tory Higgins, a professor of psychology and business at Columbia University, has spent more than 20 years studying what makes people reach their goals. He is also the director of Columbia’s Motivation Science Center. He describes two categories of goals: promotional goals and prevention goals. Promotional goals are ones we hope to achieve, while prevention goals are ones we are afraid not to achieve.

You can look at the same goal and frame it in a promotional manner or a prevention manner. Prevention is more effective, Higgins has said. So, tell yourself, “I have to achieve my goal because otherwise I won’t X.” The first time you carry out the activity necessary for your habit and goal, it will become your new status quo. You will feel worried that slipping up at any point in the future will disrupt that status quo.

Conversely, framing it in a promotion way, such as “I have to achieve my goal because X good thing will happen if I do,” doesn’t hold you accountable. If you have an off day, you’ll become discouraged that the “X good thing” you’re working toward will never materialize.

Read more: 8 Ways You Can Use Science to Make Your New Year's Resolutions Stick

3. Work on one habit at a time.

Even if you’ve determined your triggers, or a schedule for carrying out your new habit, you will be far less likely to keep it up if you try to make more than one big routine change at a time.

If you’re trying to master more than one habit at a time, studies have shown that you’ll be far more likely to fail than if you were just working on one. Know that you don’t need to revamp your entire life all at once, and you probably won’t be able to, anyway.

Read more: The Scientific Argument for Mastering One Thing at a Time

4. Stack one habit on top of another.

Keep in mind that you already have a lot of habits. But don’t worry: They don’t have to get in the way of the new ones you’re trying to establish.

In fact, your existing habits can serve as the basis for your future habits. Certain actions are already second nature to you -- from showering to brewing a pot of coffee -- because you have developed neural pathways in your brain that take you through the steps.

Experts suggest that you “stack” your habits. For example, if your goal is to practice gratitude regularly, when you go to the kitchen to make your coffee in the mornings, you might think of one thing you’re grateful for. Why try to carve a new path when you can follow a well-worn one?

Read more: How to Build New Habits by Taking Advantage of Old Ones

5. Don’t confuse your habit with your goal.

In other words, don’t dwell on what you’re working toward in the long term. If you successfully perform your habitual task, consider that a win in and of itself.

This is the “routine” part of the neurological habit loop. You can’t expect to see dramatic fitness results after only going to the gym a handful of times, and the same goes for any other type of goal and habit. Focus on the ritual, rather than the result. Over time, the process will become second nature, and your desired outcome will follow.

Read more: 5 Common Mistakes That Cause New Habits to Fail

6. Minimize decision-making.

Making choices is tiresome. There’s even a term for the exhaustion you feel after making too many: Decision fatigue.

One study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that participants demonstrated reduced self-control -- less physical stamina, reduced persistence in the face of failure and more procrastination -- after making several decisions about what types of goods to buy.

If your goal is to read more, for instance, create a short list of books or articles you’re interested in, then rank them in order of which you want to read first. Simply wandering over to your bookshelf every time you’re ready to crack open a book will make you feel overwhelmed.

Streamlining your routine and narrowing your choices -- in as many aspects of your life as possible -- will save you the mental energy you’ll need for the activity you’re trying to turn into a habit.

Read more: The Surprising Strategy One Man Used to Eliminate Procrastination

7. Reward yourself.

This doesn’t mean you need to provide yourself with external rewards such as small personal gifts (although you might find that effective). Your brain chemistry has its own reward system.

Every time you check off a task on your to-do list, your brain secretes the hormone dopamine, which corresponds with pleasure, learning and motivation. This is what makes you feel good about yourself when you do something you intended to do.

In pursuit of more dopamine, you’ll be driven to perform that same task again. Success begets success.

But keep in mind that little successes build up to big ones, as Stanford researcher B.J. Fogg has found. For instance, if your goal is better time management, commit to working on a project for just 10 minutes a day at first. If you set the bar at a height you can consistently clear, you’ll be more likely to succeed, get that dopamine rush again and keep your momentum going.

Read more: Why Our Brains Like Short-Term Goals