Goals Toolkit: How to Set & Achieve Your Goals

Huberman Lab

Scicomm Media

Science, Health & Fitness, Life Sciences

4.8 • 26.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2023

⏱️ 95 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this episode, I describe science-based protocols to set and achieve your goals in a way that maximizes the likelihood of reaching them. I explain how to define a priority and reach a specific goal by systematically assessing the challenge level, measurability, milestones, and action states needed to make progress from start to finish. I also explain research-supported tools to improve your performance during cognitive or physical goal work — including directed visualization, variable reward timing, and optimizing your physical environment. I also dispel common myths about goal setting and achievement. This episode provides a science-supported toolkit of zero-cost strategies for goal-setting, goal-pursuit, and goal-completion that can be applied to any physical or cognitive endeavor. For the full show notes, including articles, books, and other resources, visit hubermanlab.com. Thank you to our sponsors AG1: https://drinkag1.com/huberman Eight Sleep: https://eightsleep.com/huberman Maui Nui Venison: https://mauinuivenison.com/huberman InsideTracker: https://insidetracker.com/huberman Supplements from Momentous https://www.livemomentous.com/huberman Timestamps (00:00:00) Goal Setting Toolkit (00:02:09) Sponsors: Eight Sleep & Maui Nui (00:04:43) Biology of Goal Setting & Pursuit (00:08:50) Tool 1: Choose a Priority Goal (00:12:04) Tool 2: Pursue Lofty Goals (00:17:23) Tool 3: Define Verb Actions, Measurability & Specificity; Writing vs. Typing (00:24:06) Tool 4: Visual Reminder Myth; “Post-It Fallacy” (00:26:44) Tool 5: Accountability Myth, “Don’t Tell the World” Rule (00:31:35) Intrinsic Motivation & Goal Achievement (00:32:58) Sponsor: AG1 (00:33:54) Tool 6: Measurable Goal; Quarterly Cycle (00:37:35) Tool 7: Quantifiable Goals; Book Writing (00:43:34) Tool 8: Visualization of End; Motivation & Negative Thinking (00:50:38) Sponsor: InsideTracker (00:51:44) Tool 9: Visual Target/Finish Line Training & Perceived Effort (01:05:50) Tool 10: Distance from Phone (01:08:31) Tool 11: Random, Intermittent Reinforcement; Cognitive Rewards (01:17:11) Tool 12: “Middle Problem”; Time Chunking (01:23:16) Tool 13: Circadian Rhythm & Attention (01:30:09) Tool 14: Protocol Flexibility, Subjective Feelings (01:32:13) Zero-Cost Support, YouTube Feedback, Spotify & Apple Reviews, Sponsors, Momentous, Neural Network Newsletter, Social Media Title Card Photo Credit: Mike Blabac Disclaimer

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
0:08.8	I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor of neurobiology and
0:12.4	Ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, we are talking about goal setting and achieving goals.
0:18.9	Now, we've done three full episodes about this topic previously. I did a solo episode about this topic where I described
0:26.3	the neuroscience of the circuitry in the brain and body that underlies goal setting and pursuit.
0:31.8	I also hosted two expert guests who have done extensive research on these topics.
0:37.2	Those guests were Dr. Emily Belchettis from New York University and Dr. Maya Shankar.
0:43.2	So today's episode is going to focus on the key takeaways from those three previous episodes, as well as incorporate
0:50.6	new information that has been published in the scientific literature since those episodes aired.
0:56.4	So that by the end of today's episode, you will have a potent tool kit for setting and pursuing goals.
1:02.9	We will talk about how to select which goals to pursue and when. We will talk about how to measure your progress.
1:10.0	We will talk about how to initiate and sustain motivation as you pursue your goals.
1:15.5	We are also going to dispel some prominent myths about goal setting and pursuit.
1:20.3	Given that this is a toolkit episode, I will talk about some of the underlying biological mechanisms for the protocols that I
1:26.7	describe, but most of what I will cover are the protocols themselves.
1:30.6	The how to identify a goal, select the best goal for you to pursue, how to initiate goal pursuit,
1:36.8	how to maintain goal pursuit, how to evaluate progress and how to do the post hoc analysis after you
1:43.0	achieve a goal or as the case may be, not achieve a goal. Although I am confident that if you implement
1:48.8	even a subset of the protocols that we cover today, that you stand the greatest possible chance
1:54.0	of both setting the proper goal and achieving that goal. And I can say that both with confidence and
2:00.2	humility, because the protocols I describe were not created by me. They are gleaned from the scientific
2:06.3	peer-reviewed literature and they have been shown to work. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that
	...

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