Maximize Your Motivation: Dopamine, Discipline, and Accepting Our Nature

Being Well with Forrest Hanson and Dr. Rick Hanson

Being Well

Education, Self-improvement, Health & Fitness, Mental Health

4.8 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 2 May 2022

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We all have things we want to accomplish in life, but having goals or knowing we should be doing something is often not nearly enough to get us to actually sustain our efforts in getting where we want to go. Today on Being Well, Dr. Rick and Forrest Hanson explore how to optimize our motivation. They discuss the brain's dopamine system, and distinguish motivation from discipline and liking from wanting. They then explore how we can align the brain's underlying biological circuitry with our desires, so we can stay relaxed and engaged while achieving our goals. Watch the Episode: Prefer watching video? You can watch this episode on YouTube. Key Topics: 0:00: Introduction 2:05: Motivation vs. Discipline 5:30: Why don't we just want the things we know are good for us? 11:00: Creating unity between our biology and cognitive processing 15:50: Dopamine: An Overview 21:30: Distinguishing liking from wanting 25:35: Natural variations in dopamine metabolism 28:55: How people with lower levels of dopamine can stay motivated 33:35: Updating the reward value of your experiences 37:20: Being, doing, and having 43:05: What has helped Rick stay diligent and let go of resistance 46:40: Practical how-tos for interacting with the dopaminergic system 50:35: Letting fish be fish 52:30: Recap Support the Podcast: We're now on Patreon! If you'd like to support the podcast, follow this link. Sponsors: Join over a million people using BetterHelp, the world’s largest online counseling platform. Visit betterhelp.com/beingwell for 10% off your first month! Want to sleep better? Try the Calm app! Visit calm.com/beingwell for 40% off a premium subscription. Try Splendid Spoon today and take meal-planning off your plate. Just go to SplendidSpoon.com/BEINGWELL for $50 off your first box Connect with the show: Subscribe on iTunes Follow Forrest on YouTube Follow us on Instagram Follow Forrest on Instagram Follow Rick on Facebook Follow Forrest on Facebook Visit Forrest's website Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and welcome to Being Well, I'm Forest Hanson.
0:10.2	If you're new to the podcast, thanks for joining us today, and if you've listened before,
0:14.2	welcome back.
0:15.4	We all have things we'd like to accomplish in life, but just having goals or knowing
0:19.3	that we should be doing something is often not even nearly enough to get us to actually
0:25.5	sustain the effort required to get where we want to go.
0:29.8	And I speak from considerable personal experience there.
0:33.5	So what can we do to get the brain's motivational machinery on our side and build the habit of
0:38.3	discipline over time?
0:40.2	That's what we're going to be exploring today.
0:42.4	To help us do that, I'm joined as usual by Dr. Rick Hanson, Rick is a clinical psychologist,
0:47.2	he's a best-selling author, and he's also my dad.
0:49.9	So dad, how are you doing today?
0:51.5	I'm really good for us and one thing that I kind of hope we can explore is how you can
0:58.7	feel both relaxed and spacious and mellow while being continually called to do greater
1:09.0	good for yourself and for other people, how to find that sweet spot.
1:13.5	Maybe I'm giving away too much that we're going to be getting into here, but I have to tell
1:17.2	you not at all.
1:18.2	It's a great preview.
1:19.5	There's a kind of a line.
1:20.6	There are old climbers and there are bold climbers.
1:24.4	There are very few old bold climbers.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Being Well, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Being Well and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.